what are you reading?

I'm still slogging through Unacknowledged by Stephen M Greer, about UFOs.
And, The Fighting Soul by Ari Rabin-Havt, about Bernie Sanders.
Just finished with The Game Is Afoot, about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, forgot the author's name.
I'm a very slow reader, maybe 3 books a year. I fall asleep reading, a lot.
As soon as I finish these, I'm gonna look for banned books. They must be good.
 
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Romance novel. I’m not a huge reader, but I recently found the book while cleaning and I heard the movie was good, so… we’ll see! ☺️
 
I just finished Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben. This was my second of Coben's books and it didn't disappoint. There were story twists that certainly fooled me, I had no idea they were coming and I like that. I already have three more of his books in my "to read" pile and what a pile it is! I can't seem to help myself when it comes to cheap books at Goodwill or other thrift stores. My current pile is about 50 books!
 
Nickie said:
I'm still slogging through Unacknowledged by Stephen M Greer, about UFOs.
And, The Fighting Soul by Ari Rabin-Havt, about Bernie Sanders.
Just finished with The Game Is Afoot, about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, forgot the author's name.
I'm a very slow reader, maybe 3 books a year. I fall asleep reading, a lot.
As soon as I finish these, I'm gonna look for banned books. They must be good.
Click to expand...

Ha ha ha... If it's banned books you desire, you might want to check out Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. It had the "honor" of #1 most banned book of 2021... It's a graphic novel and eir* memoir... a window into a different reality that causes a big stink in conservative America... Where it is judged to be "pornography".

It is good... but seeing as I am one of the characters in it I might be a bit biased... Available at most libraries... or not, depending on where you live.

You are from Florida, right? Might be a bit tough to find, especially at any school library... Check the bonfire out behind of the building itself...

I just finished another of Barbara Tuchman's books called The March of Folly. You know, it just didn't have the same punch as Guns of August or A Distant Mirror. The idea is amazing, a study of how folly and willful ignorance, as symbolized by the Trojans pulling the Greek gift of a horse statute into their city, and how these choices bring on the downfall of some of history's greatest power structures. Solid writing, but the story arc just doesn't hold together as well. I gave up during the Vietnam section.

Right now I'm skimming through The Travels of Marco Polo as I prepare to make the case that it was the publishing of this book that marked the end of the Renaissance to my Seventh Graders next week. I've read it a couple of times already... a simply astounding tale... and the book that convinced Christopher Columbus to seek a passage to China by going west. What a story! It it probably actually happened... check out the section on what happens during their 40 day long crossing of the Gobi desert...

*Spoiler alert> E, em, and eir are an alternate, non-gendered pronoun system
 
I just finished Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald. Moving and funny and I didn’t want to leave the characters at the end. I might just start over tonight, there’s a lot more to its construction than at first appears. It’s about Broadcasting House (BBC) during WWII and I was delighted when a character (presumably) modeled after Edward R. Murrow appeared.
 
I recently finished A Better Man by Michael Ian Black. It’s a long letter written to his son who was on his way to college about parenthood, expectations, and the idea of what makes a man a man.

It was a good book, but it’s critical to go in paying attention to the part of the title that it’s a “mostly serious,” book. I’ve read books from comedians that were serious without knowing it and didn’t enjoy the experience because I kept waiting for jokes that never came.

Thankfully, Black puts it right there in the subtitle and I had a good time reading it. You can tell he put a lot of time into thinking out his positions and I appreciated the nuance.

Next up is a mystery called Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and then it’s probably back to romances for a bit. I’m having a lot of fun with those at the moment.
 
bbkobabe said:
Ha ha ha... If it's banned books you desire, you might want to check out Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. It had the "honor" of #1 most banned book of 2021... It's a graphic novel and eir* memoir... a window into a different reality that causes a big stink in conservative America... Where it is judged to be "pornography".

It is good... but seeing as I am one of the characters in it I might be a bit biased... Available at most libraries... or not, depending on where you live.

You are from Florida, right? Might be a bit tough to find, especially at any school library... Check the bonfire out behind of the building itself...

I just finished another of Barbara Tuchman's books called The March of Folly. You know, it just didn't have the same punch as Guns of August or A Distant Mirror. The idea is amazing, a study of how folly and willful ignorance, as symbolized by the Trojans pulling the Greek gift of a horse statute into their city, and how these choices bring on the downfall of some of history's greatest power structures. Solid writing, but the story arc just doesn't hold together as well. I gave up during the Vietnam section.

Right now I'm skimming through The Travels of Marco Polo as I prepare to make the case that it was the publishing of this book that marked the end of the Renaissance to my Seventh Graders next week. I've read it a couple of times already... a simply astounding tale... and the book that convinced Christopher Columbus to seek a passage to China by going west. What a story! It it probably actually happened... check out the section on what happens during their 40 day long crossing of the Gobi desert...

*Spoiler alert> E, em, and eir are an alternate, non-gendered pronoun system
Click to expand...
Our public library doesn't have Gender Queer. But at least the librarian knows about it. Congrats on being in it. (psst, I'm trans, GQ). My favorite Sci-Fi book is Left Hand of Darkness, by Angela LeGuin. It's probably gonna be banned too.
 
I just finished a VERY British mystery called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. My favorite part was that the protagonist, though dismissed by inspectors (as female characters almost always are in mysteries) had zero love interests (which is WAY too common in mysteries) because she’s 11.

I liked that a lot. She was also smart - an aspiring chemist with a specialty in poison. Pretty cool.

Now I’m on to Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner. It seems wicked interesting.

I’m also reading Gender Explorers which is a book of interviews with trans kids. It’s a good read.
 
Nickie said:
Our public library doesn't have Gender Queer. But at least the librarian knows about it. Congrats on being in it. (psst, I'm trans, GQ). My favorite Sci-Fi book is Left Hand of Darkness, by Angela LeGuin. It's probably gonna be banned too.
Click to expand...
Ursula K. LeGuin and yes, it is a fabulous story. That was my first introduction to the concept of non-binary gender (I was probably in my teens when I read it, and I had a very boring upbringing, little exposure to anything "atypical", as it were). I thought I had a copy but seem not to, I keep looking for it, because I want my daughter to read it. Thankfully, our library does have Gender Queer and I've got it on order.
 
LukuleleStrings said:
I just finished a VERY British mystery called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
Click to expand...
My daughter loves the Wells & Wong Detective Society (Murder Most Unladylike etc.) books by Robin Stevens. I'll order this for us both to read, thanks!

A rather off-beat kind of mystery series that I've enjoyed is Alexander McCall Smith's Detective Varg "Department of Sensitive Crimes" series.
 
ploverwing said:
My daughter loves the Wells & Wong Detective Society (Murder Most Unladylike etc.) books by Robin Stevens. I'll order this for us both to read, thanks!

A rather off-beat kind of mystery series that I've enjoyed is Alexander McCall Smith's Detective Varg "Department of Sensitive Crimes" series.
Click to expand...
You’ll have to let me know how you two like it! Mysteries are fun, but I’m getting more into romance at the moment (and re-reading Stephen Kings as they become available at my library). I’m really new to romance so it’s a lot of fun, though very hit or miss without much middle ground. ;-)
 
I have a couple on the go: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (it won the Women's Prize for Fiction but I'm struggling to get into it) and Allegorizings by Jan Morris.
 
Ziret said:
OMG i tried Hamnet and hated it so much that I quit. I give you permission to quit too.
Click to expand...
I think I'll have to, it's really beginning to grate on me. As one Goodreads reviewer put it: 'The prose is so purple that even Prince at the peak of his career would have stayed away from it'.
 
janeray1940 said:
I "threatened" to start this thread a while back when a discussion between coolkayaker1 and myself went waaaaaaay off topic into a couple of works by Haruki Murakami, whose latest was just released last week.

So - me first! Currently:

Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
H.G. Wells - War of the Worlds
Joan Didion - After Henry

Looking forward to hearing from others who somehow, miraculously, manage from time to time to set down their ukes long enough to read something.
Click to expand...
Nearing the end of The Source by James Michener, and re-reading Acts, NKJV.
 
I just finished Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths by Bruce Feiler, the author's search for Abraham, the shared ancestor of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Had this book been longer than 225 pages I'm not sure I would have finished it but since it was so short, I pushed through it. I can't say that I agree with many of the author's assertions and I don't think that that the balance of what was presented was very objective. It makes for an interesting trichotomy. The three faiths all have the commonality of claiming Abraham as a very important character if not the father of their religion yet each has such different and non-compatible beliefs. The author wants to seek unity between the three religions yet unity is not possible if adherents practice and believe the tenets of each respective faith. (Perhaps the best we can hope for is tolerance/coexistence.) The presentation was well intentioned and easy to read but hardly scholarly. I couldn't/wouldn't recommend this book.
 
aquadan said:
I'm still slogging through Hawaii, it's not the story I was hoping for, and I agree with one of the other posters, I don't really care for the characters. However, I don't like to quit on books and am close to the end now, so I'll be able to say I read it.

Up next for me will be non-fiction, either The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough, The Mind of the Raven, or Genius a biography about Richard Feynman. I'll have to see what strikes my fancy.



The Red/Blue/Green Mars books by Kim Stanley Robinson were great loooong read on science and society. Interesting characters and incredibly well researched in many different areas. His book Antarctica is very similar but in a much scaled down story.

The Terror by Simmons is an enjoyable cross between historical fiction and horror. I liked it a lot, but it wasn't an easy read for me for some reason, and it took a long time for me to finish it.



Blood Meridian is one of my favorite books. I loved the imagery in it. Really liked The Road too but haven't seen the movie because I'm afraid it would spoil the book.
Click to expand...
Aquadan- Path Between The Seas is one of my favorites. Loved all the McCullough books except “The Settlers”. My all time favorite read is a tossup between “Nothing Like It In The World” by Stephen Ambrose and “Cache Lake Country” by Stephen Rowlands which has been out of print for decades. The pen and ink drawings of primitive tools and gadgets that begin each new chapter are phenomenal. For pure escapist pleasure, I enjoy everything written by the brothers who wrote under the pen names Lee Child and Lincoln Child.
 
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