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Archives 2021 -2025
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w/o April 2 to 8, 2021
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Happy Easter weekend to those who celebrate!I'm still plucking away at The Queen's Gambit and Return of the Trickster, although I am nearly done with both. Next up, Untamed for book club.
Happy Friday!This week I finished A Lucky Man and also read Dear Mr. M. Both of these were just okay. I was surprised that I didn't care for Dear Mr. M all that much after really enjoying Koch's The Dinner. Oh well.
I'm currently reading Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story, which I'm enjoying but which is making me yearn to travel to Europe. I've also started For Today I Am a Boy for our April group read.
Oh how I love getting updates from this group! I have just finished The Good German by Dennis Bock, which I throughly enjoyed and know it would make a good book club book. It’s one I wouldn’t mind reading again. There is a lot to unpack-but it was not a difficult read. Lots of twists that I did not see coming.
I have just started Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Judith on many recommendations and am interested in where the opening is going to take me. I have read her This Must be the Place and consider it a favourite.
We are about to read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante-for book club.
Happy Friday and Easter!This week I finished 2 audiobooks, Know My Name (2nd time for my virtual book club), and The Beauty of Living Twice.
Hoping to finish The Poet today.
Mod
I somehow missed posting last week so will chat about the books during the last 2 weeks:
Greenlights was an enjoyable memoir... his early family life was shocking and his parents had a tumultuous relationship including 2 divorces and 3 marriages...to each other! there was spousal and child abuse yet McConaughey loved his parents. it was interesting to learn more about him and how he tried to branch out from the rom com movies.
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know was an interesting read, sharing the importance and power of making mistakes and relearning.
A Perfect Likeness: Two Novellas - as one of many in this group, I love the writing of Richard Wagamese. Published post-humously, these read like YA. I enjoyed the first one better yet both had similarities of if it is too good to be true, it likely is!
Love in the Time of Cholera - this was a Nobel prize winning book but it did not feel like it. It felt like a tale of obsession as an unrequited lover waited 51 years for his "love's" husband to die, keeping busy with 622 affairs which took advantage of women, leaving a trail of hurt and trauma. it was beautifully written prose, dense and thought-provoking but hard to read what it was like for women (and still is) in many situations.
Today, I have started The Push and am enjoying the quick paragraphs and suspense that is building.
Mod
I cannot wait to start Hamnet and Judith, I’ve heard great reviews. Currently, I am listening to Isabel Allende’s The Soul of a Woman, a 4hr audio book, and really enjoying it. I should be done tomorrow, the I’ll start How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. I am halfway through The Shape of Family and am really engaged, such a sorrowful tale (so far).
Canadian author Budge Wilson died in March. So, I read two children's books she had written - A Fiddle for Angus, and The Cat That Barked. The other books were not written by Canadian authors.
I read Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner as a Buddy Read, and enjoyed the quiet beautiful prose and our discussions about the book.
I listened to Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. This was extensively researched and well-written. I also listened to The Survivors by Jane Harper. Stephen Shanahan was an excellent narrator and I enjoyed the character-driven, slow moving mystery.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig was an interesting quick read.
I have started Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present by Canadian Robyn Maynard.
@Sarah ~ I am interested in your thoughts on How to Stop Time after you read it. Hope that you enjoy it. Thanks to a previous Secret Sender, (I think Kim), I own How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, but haven't read it yet. I need to stop putting Holds on books at the library, so that I can read those that I own.
@Kathleen listened to The Midnight Library and absolutely loved it! How to Stop Time is engaging so far; I'm also listening to this one, a great narrator too.
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Books mentioned in this topic
How to Stop Time (other topics)The Midnight Library (other topics)
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know (other topics)
Love in the Time of Cholera (other topics)
Greenlights (other topics)
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The sun is shining, vaccines are being provided to health care workers and the. most vulnerable and a few brave crocuses are breaking through as we hope for a more "normal" summer. I know it has been challenging but hope everyone is safe and well!
What have you finished this week? What are you reading? What is next?
wishing you all a relaxing weekend and hope everyone gets a chance to recharge even though you may not be able to see family (in Ontario at least where we start a 4 week lock down at midnight).
Stay safe and keep reading!!!