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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 17, 2020 6:53:02 GMT -5
36. Nine Lives to Murder, Marian Babson. An odd book, but quite fun. A man collides head to head with a cat, and they switch personalities. A sort of cross between fantasy and cozy mystery amongst a group of British theatre types.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 17, 2020 23:41:45 GMT -5
The War that Saved my Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Excellent YA fiction. Set in England during the early days of WW2 about a brother and sister who leave their very horrible lower class London life when evacuation starts. Ada is the main character and a great protagonist.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 18, 2020 4:43:10 GMT -5
37. The Girl of his dreams, Donna Leon.
Shorter and less complex than other Brunetti books I’ve read, but equally well thought out and well written. Interesting outcomes in both the murder and the other mystery he investigated. An interesting expose of class and race in both civic and catholic Italy. This was a great audiobook on my long road trip this week.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jun 19, 2020 5:42:30 GMT -5
The War that Saved my Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Excellent YA fiction. Set in England during the early days of WW2 about a brother and sister who leave their very horrible lower class London life when evacuation starts. Ada is the main character and a great protagonist. Great series. Read the second book.  |
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 19, 2020 5:56:09 GMT -5
29) Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light
And so ends the three-volume saga of Thomas Cromwell. He enabled the king to do such terrible things - the list of dead bodies by the end is pretty amazing - but you can't help but like him, and want him to do well. It's a cautionary tale about working for powerful, unscrupulous rulers, I guess. The last part of the book of course is kind of depressing since you know it's not going to end well for him (sorry if that's a spoiler to anyone who isn't familiar with 16th century British history [or didn't sneak a look at Wikipedia after the first one like me]). But she handles that bit in a thoughtful, non-grisly fashion.
Good book! Obviously if you enjoyed the first two, you're going to want to read this one too.
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Post by tucano on Jun 19, 2020 6:18:12 GMT -5
I've been dipping in and out of Around the World in 80 Trains for months but not very motivated to finish it.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 19, 2020 15:32:36 GMT -5
Dancing Girls and other stories, by Margaret Atwood.
A pretty good collection of short stories. Although her writing style changes from book to book, these ones all seemed very typical of her.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 19, 2020 22:12:25 GMT -5
Heh. I just started reading a book that someone here recommended a few years ago. I couldn't remember a thing about it, so I went to read about it on Goodreads - just to remind myself what it's about. Here's the blurb on the main page for the book:
Used Book in good condition. May have some markings and writings. Note: The above used product classification has been solely undertaken by the seller. Amazon shall neither be liable nor responsible for any used product classification undertaken by the seller. A-to-Z Guarantee not applicable on used products.
I should point out that this book was nominated for the Booker prize.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 20, 2020 4:54:09 GMT -5
That's kind of an avant-garde plot there, scrubb |
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jun 21, 2020 0:28:59 GMT -5
42. When It All Went to Custard - Danielle Hawkins
Kiwi rural chick lit. I enjoy Danielle Hawkins - have read a few of her novels. Comfort reading that is fun.
43. Coming up Roses - Staci Hart.
Appallingly bad chick lit that had a tag line saying it was inspired by Pride and Prejudice. The inspiration seemed to come from using the same names (or initials, when the genders were swapped). A waste of time.
44. The Bubble Boy - Stewart Foster
Middle grade fiction. Joe is 11 and has spent nearly all his life in a special hospital room due to his severe immune deficiency. This is a day by day look at his life, and how one nurse trys to help Joe to get outside. Sweet and sad.
45. The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted - Connor Grennan.
Early YA adventure book that has elements of Harry Potter, Hunger Games and every other big YA 'the special kids will save us' series.
46. 90 Days Different - Eric Walters
Another really bad YA book. After her boyfriend dumps her for being too mature and boring Sophie's 'friend' Ella convinces her to do something different every day of the summer holidays. There were so many issues with the really toxic way Ella treated her friend. Some of the events she planned for Sophie were downright cruel. And none of that was addressed in the book at all. Huge fail for me - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 21, 2020 1:15:32 GMT -5
35. The Clothes on their Backs by Linda Grant. Someone on here recommended this a long time ago. It's about a girl whose parents are Hungarian refugees in London. Most of it is set in about 1978, with flashbacks and flashforwards. It's about family, and about how one chooses to live, and about trying to figure out what to do with your life when you're young.
Lots of it is very good, but the ending was a little flat. Felt a bit like the author didn't know where to go with things so just threw in a big event (that didn't make much sense) and then fast forwarded. Well worth reading, though.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 22, 2020 12:25:09 GMT -5
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson. I'm sure everyone else has already read this classic of the horror genre, but I hadn't.
It was creepy, but less creepy than I expected. I think i found "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" creepier.
The interesting part is that although the implication is that the house is evil itself, the story focuses around a person and makes you wonder whether it's really the house at all.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 22, 2020 16:57:03 GMT -5
A Woman of No Importance
The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
By SONIA PURNELL
Virginia Hall tried in the 1930s to be hired by the State Department as a diplomat but due to her gender she was only allowed to be a clerk. She spent several years doing this in posts around Europe and resigned in disgust when they wouldn't promote her. She refused her families attempts for her to marry and settle down.
Once WWII started she signed on to drive ambulances until the Nazis overran France. Then she was hired by the SOE, the UK's newly formed secret counter intel group and was sent to LYon France where she organized the local resistance to the Nazi's. She was one of the most successful SOE agents and she escaped France when her cover was burned by a double agent. Her escape was by hiking out and over the Pyrenees into Spain.
She then worked as an agent for the OSS, again in France, disguised most of the time as an elderly woman. She ran her own band of guerillas and overall was a badass woman. And she did it all with only one leg, as she'd had a hunting accident in Turkey years before and they'd amputated below the knee.
THe narrative can be tedious at times, but taken together her story is overall amazing. She fought misogony her entire career and always produced results. And her story has only recently come to light, and many of the records are still classified.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 23, 2020 22:24:32 GMT -5
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder.
I don't know why, but I always thought this book had something to do with the military. Maybe I mixed it up with The Bridge over the River Kwai, or something. Anyway, it was NOT what I was expecting. About a bridge in Peru that collapses as 5 people are crossing it, the story traces the lives of those who died and the people who loved them. He won the Pulitzer for it. It was very good.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 24, 2020 0:26:27 GMT -5
scrubb I read The Clothes on their Backs a long time ago; don't remember much about it or if I was the one who recommended it to you! More recently I read The Dark Circle, which I also enjoyed. That Thornton Wilder sounds very interesting. Velma Wallis, Two Old Women - a very short book by a native American writer about a group of people living in a remote area of northern Alaska. Apparently a lot of people find this really inspirational; for me it felt rather flat. Andrea Camilleri, Der Kavalier der späten Stunde - another gentle crime story set on Sicily by Camilleri. Actually I wasn't too into this one and then it surprised me by actually getting a bit tense towards the end.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 24, 2020 4:51:48 GMT -5
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder. I don't know why, but I always thought this book had something to do with the military. Maybe I mixed it up with The Bridge over the River Kwai, or something. Anyway, it was NOT what I was expecting. About a bridge in Peru that collapses as 5 people are crossing it, the story traces the lives of those who died and the people who loved them. He won the Pulitzer for it. It was very good. I read that for school in like 9th grade or something. I should reread it - I have zero memory of it, other than what the cover looked like - it was kind of pale yellow and green. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 24, 2020 6:00:12 GMT -5
38. The Last Hours, Minette Walters. A virtual book club choice from our local library. Topical, as it is about the Black Plague, and a community who coped using social distancing instead of superstition. However, I found this book tedious. Well written, and with an interesting plot, particularly in the time of COVID, but it dragged for me in the middle. I was also disappointed that it didn’t finish, but led into another book.
It may appeal to those of you who like sweeping historical novels, but at present, I’m looking for something lighter.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 24, 2020 19:15:52 GMT -5
That Thornton Wilder sounds very interesting. I'm not sure I'd call it great, but it was very good. And it did NOT feel like it was written by an American - i'd have thought it was by someone from South America. Or maybe Mexico. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 24, 2020 21:21:46 GMT -5
I also read The Bridge of San Luis Rey in high school.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 27, 2020 16:47:30 GMT -5
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey
A British policeman laid up in the hospital uses his time to investigate Richard III and uncovers that the widely accepted story that he killed the princes in the tower is almost definitely completely untrue, and that it's much more likely Henry VII (who followed Richard III to the throne) was the murderer. It's quite interesting overall. At least according to this book, Richard III was far from the evil monster that Shakespeare and common knowledge made him, but was actually a just and decent man and ruler.
A short way into it, I realized that I read it once before, many years ago. The book was in my high school library and I remember noticing it over and over again. The picture on the cover was a historical portrait which didn't interest me at the time at all, but the book danced on the periphery of my consciousness for years. So, i finally picked it up sometime, maybe in my 20s, but had forgotten.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 27, 2020 18:22:01 GMT -5
30) José Saramago, Death with Interruptions
I love Saramago, I know some people don't really like his writing style, where there are hardly any paragraphs and there all all these long long sentences where dialog is intercut in the middle of a statement, just with lots of commas, but once you get 10 pages in or so you just can't stop reading since his ideas and the way he expresses them are just so original, and this one is no exception, in which death is personified and things happen that are very surprising, and the ending is nothing you might have predicted, and I just loved it,
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 28, 2020 3:59:16 GMT -5
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey A British policeman laid up in the hospital uses his time to investigate Richard III and uncovers that the widely accepted story that he killed the princes in the tower is almost definitely completely untrue, and that it's much more likely Henry VII (who followed Richard III to the throne) was the murderer. It's quite interesting overall. At least according to this book, Richard III was far from the evil monster that Shakespeare and common knowledge made him, but was actually a just and decent man and ruler. A short way into it, I realized that I read it once before, many years ago. The book was in my high school library and I remember noticing it over and over again. The picture on the cover was a historical portrait which didn't interest me at the time at all, but the book danced on the periphery of my consciousness for years. So, i finally picked it up sometime, maybe in my 20s, but had forgotten. I read this decades ago. Interestingly, there was something on tv here recently about finding his body while excavating a car park. I had been aware if that, but not the suggestion that Shakespeare gave him a bad rap, and that he didn’t kill the princes in the tower. |
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Post by riverhorse on Jun 28, 2020 5:14:54 GMT -5
I've just finished reading "The Lost Vintage" by Ann Mah, the story of an American young woman with French roots returning to her family's vineyard and discovering all sorts of secrets about what went on in her family in the war. The modern day story is interspersed with the diary entries of a mysterious girl who turns out to be the main character's great-aunt, who it appears was a Nazi collaborator. Or was she in fact really in the Résistance ? Plus lots of stuff to do with the famous wines of Burgundy and the French enjoyment of fine food!
The chick-lit romantic entanglements were thankfully not the main focus of the story, and it was good that a lot of the less important characters were still well-rounded.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 28, 2020 23:42:53 GMT -5
Just read The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling) for the first time. It was in an ebook with other stories by Kipling too. I'm not actually sure it was the whole Jungle Book, but I think it was.
I did enjoy the title story, and some of the other ones that focused on animals like Riki Tikki Tavi, and the one about the seal.
The ones with humans in them were full of colonial, patronizing at best, racist at worst, language and storylines. Even the animal stories were kind of irritating, though, in that he seems to have an arbitrary hierarchy of good and bad animals.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 28, 2020 23:48:58 GMT -5
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey A British policeman laid up in the hospital uses his time to investigate Richard III and uncovers that the widely accepted story that he killed the princes in the tower is almost definitely completely untrue, and that it's much more likely Henry VII (who followed Richard III to the throne) was the murderer. It's quite interesting overall. At least according to this book, Richard III was far from the evil monster that Shakespeare and common knowledge made him, but was actually a just and decent man and ruler. A short way into it, I realized that I read it once before, many years ago. The book was in my high school library and I remember noticing it over and over again. The picture on the cover was a historical portrait which didn't interest me at the time at all, but the book danced on the periphery of my consciousness for years. So, i finally picked it up sometime, maybe in my 20s, but had forgotten. I read this decades ago. Interestingly, there was something on tv here recently about finding his body while excavating a car park. I had been aware if that, but not the suggestion that Shakespeare gave him a bad rap, and that he didn’t kill the princes in the tower. I'm confused - if you read this book, how were you not aware of the suggestion that Shakespeare gave him a bad rap and that he didn't kill the princes in the tower? That's what this whole book is about. Do you mean that you'd forgotten, since you read the book so long ago? (I'd kind of forgotten, definitely all the details, but have had a vague recollection/knowledge that his reputation was disputed - just didn't remember where I got that recollection from.) |
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Post by riverhorse on Jun 29, 2020 1:57:29 GMT -5
And still on the Resistance during the Second World War theme, I've just started reading Jackdaws by Ken Follett. I love his epic historical dramas, and PG had just finished reading this in German, but I found the English version online and downloaded it. A few pages in, it reminds me very much of the real life story of Nancy Wake, whose autobiography I read many years ago.
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Post by riverhorse on Jun 29, 2020 3:03:45 GMT -5
Just read The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling) for the first time. It was in an ebook with other stories by Kipling too. I'm not actually sure it was the whole Jungle Book, but I think it was. I did enjoy the title story, and some of the other ones that focused on animals like Riki Tikki Tavi, and the one about the seal. The ones with humans in them were full of colonial, patronizing at best, racist at worst, language and storylines. Even the animal stories were kind of irritating, though, in that he seems to have an arbitrary hierarchy of good and bad animals. A very interesting read about racial coding in the film, too: sites.williams.edu/f18-engl117-01/uncategorized/i-wanna-be-like-you-racial-coding-in-disneys-the-jungle-book/Perhaps the animal hierarchy wasn't so "arbitrary" after all. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 29, 2020 5:08:16 GMT -5
Scrubb, exactly that. I remember the title and the author, but not the story. The recent tv program reminded me of the issue. I remember liking the book, and reading others by the same author, but it was a long time ago.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 29, 2020 11:03:46 GMT -5
The War that Saved my Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Excellent YA fiction. Set in England during the early days of WW2 about a brother and sister who leave their very horrible lower class London life when evacuation starts. Ada is the main character and a great protagonist. Great series. Read the second book. I just did. The War I Finalky Won, by Kimberly Brubaket Bradley. More excellent YA fiction set during WW2. I think I preferred the first book, but it was great to follow the characters and see them develop. |
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Post by sprite on Jun 30, 2020 15:30:00 GMT -5
Thornton Wilder, Bridge of San Luis Rey
What a lovely, wonderfully crafted little book.
Set in 17th centry Peru, the author relates the investigation of a monk, after 5 people die when a rope bridge collapses. he's seeking the pattern of God's plan in their deaths, and uncovers their lives.
the book is so compelling, that I actually googled the event, i was convinced it was real.
The first chapter is about an old woman rejected by her social climbing daughter, and it's pointedly funny. the mother is no saint, but becomes famous for the letters she has written her daughter.
the chapters slowly become more serious, and by the end, it's quite sad.
at less than 200 pages, it's a fast read, and very easy, despite being written in 1927. I'd read more of his books, i'd only known that he wrote plays.
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