Comfort Reads discussion
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What are you reading right now? (SEE NEW THREAD)
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I've finished The Devil's Star, a good thriller, but I think that would have been better read the previous books.Now I started Wings, the last book of bromeliad cicle. A completely different kind of book.
Many are talking about Snow Hunters. Yup, I liked it! My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
On to Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. I have to check out this author and I prefer books over poetry. This is part of a series but each are stand-alones.
Yesterday I've finished Wings. I like Terry Pratchett and I would read more of his Novels. Now I'm reading Tau Zero.
I just started The Cuckoo's Calling. She writes well, very well. I can't tell yet how much I'm going to like it, though I think I will.
Lisa wrote: "I just started The Cuckoo's Calling. She writes well, very well. I can't tell yet how much I'm going to like it, though I think I will."I just don't think I like modern, traditional mysteries enough to consider this book. Now, if Rowling were to create a historical mystery series or even a modern mystery series featuring one or more of the HP characters as either professional or amateur sleuths, that I would likely try.
The People in Between: A Cyprus Odyssey is informative historical fiction about what has been happening in Cyprus since the 50s. Yeah, I liked it. It gave me in a simple fashion the history I was looking for, but the writing is unexceptional and the fictional tale was too sweet and oh so predictable. I did complement with more info at Wiki!My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
I am so proud of myself. I am reaching the end of all the paper books I have purchased but have not yet read. I bought Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette because I loved the author's Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer..... which my dear mother lost! Grrr. Maybe I loved that b/c I think Nantucket is one of the best places in the whole world. Will "Abundance" be as good?
Chrissie wrote: "Now, if Rowling were to create a historical mystery series or even a modern mystery series featuring one or more of the HP characters as either professional or amateur sleuths, that I would likely try."Ooh, I'd love both of those, especially the latter, but it looks as though this is a first book in a series, so I'm assuming that even though I know she's working on another children's book (NOT HP) this series will keep her fairly busy. I'm not sure yet either whether I'll like The Cuckoo's Calling but what I've read so far (not much) is very well written.
I both loved and hated Jayber Crow.My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Now I will listen to Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival, because it is exciting. Or so I have been told.
I'm reading
this rate I should be done the series by Wednesday.
Lisa wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "Now, if Rowling were to create a historical mystery series or even a modern mystery series featuring one or more of the HP characters as either professional or amateur sleuths, tha..."Umm, I didn't say anything about Rowling...... Gundula said that.
Chrissie wrote: "Lisa wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "Now, if Rowling were to create a historical mystery series or even a modern mystery series featuring one or more of the HP characters as either professional or amateur..."I thought so as well :-)
Hi, Gundula. Lisa, it is easy to make such a mistake.
Chrissie wrote: "Hi, Gundula. Lisa, it is easy to make such a mistake."And we do often think alike and have similar reading tastes etc.
Yeah! But Rowling is not an author I have read.
Completed Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous SurvivalMy review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Started Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Just started "Sweet Salt Air" by Barbara Delinsky in hardcover
Yesterday I Finished The Great Gatsby and today I started I re di sabbia, a collection of George R. R. Martin's novels
I started Devil's Valley by André Brink. I'm interested in reading a writer from South Africa since we'll be going there in December, and I just found this at the library.
Phew, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West was not easy, due to its difficult subject matter. Excellently written. Excellent narration, just difficult to stomach. You think you know what has been done to Native Americans. I thought I knew, but this book really clarifies. Very glad I read this. Everybody thinks it is obligatory to know of the horrors of the Holocaust. Well this is obligatory reading too. My very short review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...I have moved on to a survival story, which in comparison offers pure relief: We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance. The setting is northern Norway.
Well, once I started listening to We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance, I could do nothing but listen. Do you need to be cheered up? You must read it......immediately. My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
So now I am on a binge of epic survival stories. How will Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster compare? Could it possible be as good as that I just finished?
I finished Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
I know I ought to now read The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest but I don't want to.
Have started the beginning of A Century of Wisdom: Lessons from the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, the World's Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor and am enjoying it so far. I like what I am learning about Kafka, a friend of the Sommer family. Probably I will have to pick up a biography on him after this! Already I am looking at his books with different eyes!
Having read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West I decided to read The Native Americans: An Illustrated History. I want to know more about Native American culture, art and history.....before it was destroyed. Both North and South American tribes are covered and it goes back 20.000 years. Published in 1993. Very comprehensive and great art work.I finished Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, which I really enjoyed. This is how I like historical fiction to be written. I like to get into the heads of historical people and see how they saw the world and events that happened around them. I like how this author writes - intelligently, beautifully and with empathy for the characters.
My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Having finished A Century of Wisdom: Lessons from the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, the World's Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor,(My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...)
I will soon start Goodbye Sarajevo: A True Story of Courage, Love and Survival. Atka Reid & Hana Schofield. These are both audiobooks.
For my paper book I am reading The Old Capital, but I am not terribly thrilled with J. Martin Holman's translation, and it is his second of the same book!
Becky wrote: "Just started "Sweet Salt Air" by Barbara Delinsky in hardcover "how are you liking it?
The Funeral Dress: A Novel Red Chert Holler, in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee is a tough place for a young girl to grow up, and Emmalee Bullard has it harder than most. Besides relentless poverty, and harsh living conditions; her father, Nolan, is a mean drunk who won’t accept help from anyone even if it means his daughter has to go without. When Emmalee is sixteen she drops out of high school and goes to work at the towns dress factory, where she is paired with Leona, who is one of the best seamstresses in the county. Leona takes her under her tutelage and within 3 years Emmalee is showing as much talent as her teacher. Around that time a naive Emmalee finds out she is pregnant and gives birth to a little girl. Living with her father in their shack, with no husband, and no mother to help her she is overwhelmed with motherhood: then just as she is about to get some help and start over; she finds out that Leona has died in an accident. Emmalee wants to make her funeral dress, but the church and too many people around town think that it’s not proper for an unmarried woman to make Leona’s dress: especially since she can’t even take care of her own baby. This is a haunting story about the strength and companionship of women. There are so many threads to this novel and each one tugs at your heart. The characters and back stories captured me. Having just read the memoir The Glass Castle helped make these people and this place so real that I keep thinking about them and wondering what if?
Definitely a 5 star read and up to my favorites list.
Mod
Lee, I loved it too and it was also a comfort read for me. I think it was me who added it to our shelves???
I finished The Old Capital. This is one of the three books for which Kawabata received a Nobel, not that I see this as an adequate reason to pick up a book. I am so often disappointed by prize winners, but in this case it is a really good choice. This is my favorite so far by the author.My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Now reading The Big Sky. I might be mistaken, but I think he got a Pulitzer for this. It takes place in the 1830s and is about the first pioneers that traveled West, the Oregon Trail and the settlement of Montana. It is like one of the very first Westerns. Others of his books continue where this ends in 1846. Published about 60 years ago it is early historical fiction! The introduction discusses the author's view on what historical fiction can achieve that non-fiction cannot.
The Way West is the second book, and Fair Land, Fair Land the third.
Started The Husband's Secret....fast paced...a little jumpy and a little confusing at the beginning...will keep you posted on it...
Ooooh, I just started Burial Rites on my Ipod and it is marvelous. Finished listening to Goodbye Sarajevo: A True Story of Courage, Love and Survival. Atka Reid & Hana Schofield and it was creepy b/c it felt so close both in place and time, but the writing felt very ordinary.
My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Listening to Burial Rites was a fantastic experience. You are transported to another time and place. Fantastic writing and fantastic narration of the audiobook narrated by Morven Christie.My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
From Iceland to......
Sri Lanka! Now I have begun:
Anil's Ghost. I so like Michael Ondaatje's writing.
Both are books of fiction based on real events.
BTW, I gave up on The Big Sky. It just plain bored me. I switched to Forever. I am not good with pure fantasy, but through this book you learn about the history of NY. An Irish immigrant saves the life of a magician and for this he is allowed to live forever as long as he stays in New York.
This thread has become too long and unwieldy, and is causing minor problems, so I am closing it.I've opened a new thread to continue this one:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
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Comfort Reads
Books mentioned in this topic
Forever (other topics)The Big Sky (other topics)
Anil's Ghost (other topics)
Burial Rites (other topics)
Goodbye Sarajevo: A True Story of Courage, Love and Survival (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Michael Ondaatje (other topics)Wendell Berry (other topics)
Robert K. Massie (other topics)
Edmund Morris (other topics)
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer (other topics)
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Speak, Memory was fantastic, for how it is written. But it will not be every one's cup of tea.
My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Reading The Surrendered after To the End of the Land was not a good choice. A comparison made it totally impossible to appreciate "The Surrendered".
My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Both present multiple love relationships within a historical background. In one you empathize with the characters and in the other they remain at a distance. Grossman's is fantastic.
I have begun Snow Hunters and am thoroughly enjoying it. For me HOW an author strings together his words is VERY important. This is an audiobook narrated by he author and it really works well, at least so far.
On kindle I am reading The People in Between: A Cyprus Odyssey for the history of the Cypriot conflict. The writing isn't exceptional, but the historical facts are well woven into the fictional tale. I have just begun.