2022 What Are You Reading?

[Nafisa]

Maybe Now

[PattyMacDotComma]

I often think about boys like Paul, the ones with such strong desires but no idea of what it takes to fulfill them. Willa Cather's short story, Paul's Case, is unforgettable.

5★ My review with a link to the story online

[Angela]

The lost apothecary and The poison garden

[Alice]

I finished Murder on Waverly Place by Victoria Thompson 4 stars our 5. One of my favorite historical mystery series. All of our favorite characters are back. This book is focus on murder at a séance. Lots of good discussion around spiritualist around the turn of 1900s, and how they used to dupe their clients. Very good detail. I enjoyed it very much.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

I finished Twelve Sharp and starting The Midnight Library

[Peggyzbooksnmusic]

Alice wrote: "I finished Murder on Waverly Place by Victoria Thompson 4 stars our 5. One of my favorite historical mystery series. All of our favorite characters are back. This book is focus on mu..."

Also really like this series! I'm so far behind :)

[Alice]

I finished The War Nurse by Tracey Enerson Wood. Most of the book is set in WWI France. I enjoyed learning about how American Nurse and medical crews helped out the war effort, but the story lagged at times. The last part dealing with Spanish Flu was interesting.

[Sarah-Hope]

Really enjoyed Lavender House, a P.I. mystery set in the 1950s with a primarily queer cast.

My **** review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Peggyzbooksnmusic]

Sarah-Hope wrote: "Really enjoyed Lavender House, a P.I. mystery set in the 1950s with a primarily queer cast.

My **** review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Excellent review! Hope our library purchases this.

[PattyMacDotComma]

John Boyne finally wrote an adult sequel to his much-loved The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and it is terrific! All the Broken Places is older sister Gretel's 'autobiography' from when she was the 12-year-old daughter of a Nazi officer, then passing as French in Australia, and finally to the age of 92 in London. What a story!
5★ My review of All the Broken Places

[Sarah-Hope]

Absolutely loved Dear Little Corpses the latest Josephine Tey mystery by Nicola Upson. Solid plotting, rich characters, interesting historical setting (the transportation of children out of London at the start of WWII), and a lesbian central character!

My **** review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

Finished reading The Midnight Library and started reading Size 12 Is Not Fat

[PattyMacDotComma]

Hands is a moving short story from Sherwood Anderson's highly regarded collection, Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Wing Biddlebaum doesn't understand what is wrong with his hands, but it's obvious to the rest of us.
4★ My review of Hands with a link to where you can download the story

[PattyMacDotComma]

Elizabeth Strout's Lucy Barton returns in her new book, Lucy by the Sea, where ex-husband William takes her to Maine to escape the pandemic which has brought New York City to its knees. It's American, real and current, but the relationship strengths and strains go beyond geographical boundaries and times. Families are families. Neighbours are neighbours.
5★ My review of Lucy by the Sea

[Carolyn]

I really enjoyed this second novel in Karen Odden's historical mystery series set in Victorian London. It centres around an actual event, the sinking of the pleasure cruiser the Princess Alice after colliding with a collier on the Thames, causing the death of over 600 people from drowning. Both the historical detail and the mystery were excellent.

Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden

review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kathryn]

Haven, the new one by Emma Donoghue. Starts pretty slow, hoping it improves.

[Peggyzbooksnmusic]

Finished Why Kill the Innocent #13 Sebastian St. Cyr by C.S. Harris. Rated 4 stars. Regency historical mystery. Entertaining, "dark" series.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

Finished Arrows of the Queen and starting Shopaholic Takes Manhattan

[PattyMacDotComma]

Pre-teen (ALMOST 13!) Ricky Bird is struggling with parents' split, sick little brother, and moving to a different estate in another part of London. Aussie author Diane Connell's The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird deals with many difficult subjects. I think it would be a good YA read.
3★ My review

[PattyMacDotComma]

One should always pay attention to what the animals are doing. Jack London is well-known for his tales of the frozen north, and his short story, To Build a Fire, is colder and more desperate than most.
4★ My review of To Build a Fire

[PattyMacDotComma]

How I could have missed C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in my childhood is beyond me. Surely someone should have directed me to it! It's still fun, of course. Better late, etc. 😊
5★ My review

[PattyMacDotComma]

On a completely different note, No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy is only for seasoned readers. Simple, direct, and violent, but thought-provokingly tender in places. Phenomenal writer.
5★ My review

[Leona]

PattyMacDotComma wrote: "How I could have missed C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in my childhood is beyond me. Surely someone should have directed me to it! It's still fun, ..."

I found the book at my local thrift store. I plan to re-read. Great review from you.

[Abigail]

Fie on Goodreads for dumping me off this list! Climbing back on with a recommendation for The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich, set in Minnesota in the 1950s. Beautiful writing, based on efforts by the U.S. government to terminate the special status of Native tribes.

[Carolyn]

I've never read much about Queen Victoria's children so found this historical novel focused on her strong willed daughter Princess Louise quite fascinating.

In the Shadow of a Queen by Heather B. Moore

review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Dem]

Just finished All the Broken Places .
My review www.Goodreads.com/review/show/4991212218

[PattyMacDotComma]

Leona wrote: "PattyMacDotComma wrote: "How I could have missed C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in my childhood is beyond me. Surely someone should have directed m..."

Thanks, Leona - I would have loved that whole world many decades ago.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I've been reading some James Joyce stories and finding them easy to read, entertaining and thought-provoking. You don't need to be some kind of literary critic to enjoy them, although goodness knows they have been extensively studied (not by me 😊).

Araby is about a tongue-tied young boy's crush on his friend's sister. Delightful and bittersweet.
5★ My review of Araby

[PattyMacDotComma]

Another, longer James Joyce story is The Dead which takes place during Christmas/New Year's festivities in the early 1900s. Thought-provoking ending.
5★ My review of The Dead

[Kathryn]

Reading the fourth (and final) book in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, The Story of the Lost Child. This series is quite a commitment, because the books are pretty long and the style is naturalistic to a fault: lots and lots of detail of daily lives. But, as I end each book, I'm always glad I read it. And I am hoping that this last one is going to resolve some of my questions.

[Margaret]

I’m reading Chocolate wars by Deborah Cadbury. It’s very interesting

[Bruce]

I finished reading by

[Nicola]

I'm reading The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner. I really enjoyed the first few chapters. I've got a bit bogged down in the middle, probably because I'm not a thriller reader. But will continue because of the great reviews.

[PattyMacDotComma]

Why would a nurse who is highly sought-after by an attentive, handsome, wealthy doctor ask to Make Me Disappear? This is Jessica Payne's debut thriller, and I think many thriller readers will enjoy it.
3★ My review of Make Me Disappear

[PattyMacDotComma]

Wilma Mankiller was some woman! Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara picked a remarkable Cherokee woman who rose from 'dirt-poor' to represent her Nation. It's another excellent addition to the Little People BIG DREAMS collection. I'm so glad I met her in this little book.
5★ My review of Wilma Mankiller with a few illustrations

[Alice]

I just finished a wonderful new book Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. Excellent story of retired female assasins.

[Dem]

Finished The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

My Review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/5004031835

[Rachel]

When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea is the story of Jersey during the German invasion in 1940. A great read, here is my review

[Rachel]

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa follows the lives of a family in Palestine starting with their idyllic village life in the 1940s to a time of hardship and invasion when they are forcibly removed to a refugee camp in Jenin. The story covers events in Palestine from the 1940s to 2000s. Here is my review

[Rachel]

Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa is a powerful book covering the lives of the Kurdish people in Iran from the 1970s onwards. An important read particularly in the wake of the tragic death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini. Here is my review

[Rachel]

When the Ground Is Hard by Malla Nunn is an engaging story set in 1960s Eswatini (Swaziland) about a girl at a mixed race boarding school. Here is my review

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

I am reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

[PattyMacDotComma]

Outstanding. Thirty years after she won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Annie Proulx turned her passion for the natural world into an essay project that became Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.

She means it, and she's right: “In the end all humans will be ‘haunted by waters.’”
5★ My review of Fen, Bog and Swamp

[Kathryn]

Parable of the Talents. Amazing how Butler foresaw the internet and the breakdown of society in this book written in 1998.

[Martin]

I have started to read Cranford
Already struck by how the tv adaptation altered the narrative structure of the book.

[Abigail]

It’s not too surprising that they did change the narrative structure—the book itself is a reconstruction from, if I recall, three different Crawford-related stories that she wrote. They pretty much had to rejigger things in order to make a linear story. Warning, though, they changed some outcomes for some characters too!

I recently finished a reread of one of my favorite books, Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Now reading The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart, and then it will be on to Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark. Witches, gothic, and horror—an October trifecta!

[Nicola]

I've just finished The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meisner.

I actually listened on audible and found the readers voice a little irritating. She emphasised odd words in a sentence. So I'd take what I say with a pinch of salt. .

I enjoyed the opening of the book, but didn't find myself that interested in what happened to the women as the book went on. It became a bit soupy in the middle. I am from the UK. I think maybe, to know the area and the nature of the city would enhance the read.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

Finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and starting Arrow's Flight

[PattyMacDotComma]

Aussie author Peggy Frew is noted for her wonderful writing. The Wildflowers here are three sisters, each wild in her own way, and the writing is as beautiful as ever, but...
3.5★ My review of Wildflowers

[PattyMacDotComma]

Preparing to read Rachel Joyce's lastest book, I thought I'd better see if The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was as good as I remembered. I'm delighted to say I still loved it! I updated my review a bit.
5★ My review of ...Harold Fry