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Post by Q-pee on Jul 21, 2023 16:05:20 GMT -5
Yes, it's a good holiday read!
Very curious to hear what you (and potentially Lillie?) think of it.
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Post by sophie on Jul 21, 2023 16:15:16 GMT -5
I really enjoyed it!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 21, 2023 19:06:21 GMT -5
That one sounds good. I’ve just added it to my audible wish list. I already have too big a pile of TBR real books!
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 22, 2023 1:52:31 GMT -5
Yes am not supposed to be buying too many books as I have quite a few waiting for me... but you never know!
As always, I will be particularly focusing on women in translation in August.
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Post by Q-pee on Jul 23, 2023 5:38:22 GMT -5
A Distant Echo
Val McDermid
I finished reading this within 40 hours, I figured out who the murderer was quite early - I can't explain how without giving a gigantic spoiler - let's just say they said something that belied their supposed good character and I began to have suspicions.
But boy what a ride. I kept reading to find out whether I was right, and then who was responsible for new murders... and then the climax - slightly over-engineered but high suspense.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 23, 2023 6:32:47 GMT -5
54) Dorothy Dunnett, A Game of Kings
Scottish historical fiction from the early 1960s, recommended to me while we were in Scotland by our absent megs. The protagonist starts off like an evil pirate romance novel type (I was calling it "the Scottish potboiler"), but things become more complicated and interesting eventually.
At first I was a little baffled by the plot, but mid-16th-century Scottish history Wikipedia helped me figure out what was going on. The pacing is leisurely at the start but eventually speeds up, and ends like a detective novel - everything comes together in a suspenseful trial in the last handful of pages. It's the first of a series, which I'm sure I'll follow up on since the protagonist is a compelling fellow.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 23, 2023 8:00:51 GMT -5
54) Dorothy Dunnett, A Game of Kings Scottish historical fiction from the early 1960s, recommended to me while we were in Scotland by our absent megs. The protagonist starts off like an evil pirate romance novel type (I was calling it "the Scottish potboiler"), but things become more complicated and interesting eventually. At first I was a little baffled by the plot, but mid-16th-century Scottish history Wikipedia helped me figure out what was going on. The pacing is leisurely at the start but eventually speeds up, and ends like a detective novel - everything comes together in a suspenseful trial in the last handful of pages. It's the first of a series, which I'm sure I'll follow up on since the protagonist is a compelling fellow. Oof, Dunnett. I have a friend who is a fan, and her fans are FANS. She bought me one as a gift and I struggled somewhat. But apparently if you get into her work, you'll have to read it all and you'll never be the same again! My friend is a translator herself so she read them in English, but apparently the German publisher gave up on translating them part way through the series because they were so difficult, it wasn't financially viable, leaving German readers bereft! |
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 23, 2023 11:27:20 GMT -5
There are a LOT of poetry quotations and Latin quotations and such, and that makes it slow going unless you take the Tolkien approach and just ignore them.
I must admit that I now have a bit of a crush on Francis Crawford of Lymond (the evil-pirate-but-no-actually-really-nice protagonist). Probably won't read the rest of the series anytime soon, just because I have so many things on my tbr list that I don't tend to binge authors or series.
Next I'm reading a happy book about climate change-related flooding that my mom read for a nonfiction reading group. Opening it up I see her annotations -- it looks like she learned a lot from it (stuff that I take for granted knowing from taking environmental policy classes, but maybe I shouldn't assume that everyone knows that stuff).
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Post by sophie on Jul 23, 2023 21:26:41 GMT -5
The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre by Natasha Lester. Chick lit set in (mostly) in Paris’s Fashion world post WW2. It was just what I needed for a lazy summer read. A bit of romance, espionage, glamour.. reasonably interesting plot. Not great literature but what my lazy brain could handle.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 24, 2023 19:27:46 GMT -5
55) Gunnhild Øyehaug, Evil Flowers (transl. Kari Dickson)
A group of short, strange, often very funny short stories from this Danish author. You know how you sometimes get a strange idea and then think "no, that's too strange?" Well she probably never thinks that, she just sets them down and lets them go anyway.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 24, 2023 23:53:57 GMT -5
The HAnging Tree, by Ben Aaranovich - the 6th in the Rivers of London series. I enjoyed it quite a lot.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 25, 2023 5:03:40 GMT -5
49. Poisoned Primrose, Dahlia Donovan. A cozy mystery featuring a young woman with autism, whose real given name is Pineapple!
I think the author tried too hard to include issues around neurodiversity, sexuality and multicultural families in one relatively short book. The main character was well drawn, and the mystery was interesting, but the other issues tended to distract from the plot.
Another one originally sourced through Bookbub, and read to fit a Goodreads Cozy Mystery corner challenge.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 27, 2023 22:24:38 GMT -5
Finished two more in the middle of this week.
50. A Vow of Devotion. Veronica Black. Another very good mystery set in a convent on the outskirts of a Cornish town.
51. The Tea Ladies, Amanda Hampson. Loved this, and hope there’s a sequel. I was a teenager in Sydney in 1965, when it is set, and it has a sense of familiarity.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 28, 2023 20:37:57 GMT -5
56) Elizabeth Rush, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
This was an amazing book about the human and ecological effects of climate change in threatened coastal communities in places like Staten Island (NYC), Louisiana, and San Francisco Bay. She weaves the science with stories of people's experiences, summarizing some but also including many stories in people's own voices. Some were heartbreaking. It was very good. I am already very familiar with the topic - I saw several mentions of books and articles that I've already read, for example - but still, I'm going to count it among my favorites of the year.
I borrowed this book from my 90-year-old mom, who'd read it for a book club, and I loved seeing her annotations, seeing how much she'd learned from it.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 31, 2023 6:05:46 GMT -5
52. Ghostly Paws, LeighAnn Dobbs. Paranormal cozy for a Goodreads challenge. Not my thing, but better than expected.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 31, 2023 11:14:28 GMT -5
Agatha Christie, Poirot Investigates
A short story collection featuring the great Belgian detective and narrated by Hastings. And call me immature, but the first time Hastings records himself speaking in the book is as follows: "'That's queer!', I ejaculated" - and I snorted.
James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain
My first James Baldwin and I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it hasn't been for book club, but I'm glad I did. This is a coming-of-age novel, I suppose, about an African American teenager called John and the various members of his family in the first half of the 20th century. The timeline jumps around to reveal the background of his parents. Religion is a major theme of the book and there are a lot of Bible references - and I don't really mean individual references you can skip, but rather the whole language of the book is steeped in it. It really has a lot about their relationship with the Church, their faith, the consequences of sin, etc. There's a bubbling anger underneath at the constraints of their society but at the same time an understanding of their reliance of it. It's sad and moving and I will keep thinking about it.
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Post by scrubb on Aug 1, 2023 10:26:16 GMT -5
FInished a book last night so it squeezed into July - A Very Typical Family, by Sierra Godfrey. When I was putting another book on hold, it was highlighted as a VPL book which I don't know what that means, but it's about libraries having unlimited copies so that everyone can read it at the same time and then maybe there are discussion groups or something, I'm not sure about that part.
It was pretty crappy. I can't imagine why libraries want people to read it. Chick lit with an implausible plot, an annoying heroine, poorly fleshed out characters, a cheesy romance, and less than stellar writing. The only redeeming feature was that the writing wasn't awkward/grammatically questionable.
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