What Fiction are you reading this week, November 17, 2019?

[hermetic]

The NYPL boasts a collection of 15 million items, including medieval manuscripts, ancient Japanese scrolls and contemporary works.

I am reading the exciting conclusion of Laurie R. King’s The Game.
I’m really excited that tomorrow I will be picking up Mycroft and Sherlock : the empty birdcage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which I’ve been waiting on for several months.

Now listening to Boundary Waters by William Kent Krueger. Really enjoying these Cork O'Connor tales from the wilds of Minnesota.

Anything exciting on your reading list this week?

[dawg day]

1. Kareem likes Holmes? Cool!

I'm reading The Long Call by Ann Cleves. It's just an okay mystery. But it's set in beautiful North Devon (England), where I spent a summer, so I'm reading along with my map and photos, and remembering how wonderful it is. (It's the Atlantic coast... next stop, Newfoundland.)

[hermetic]

3. Lucky you! (Devon)

I'm currently watching the BBC series Vera which is based on Cleeves' novels and am absolutely loving it. The scenery is spectacular and the stories wildly entertaining. I get these DVDs at my library.

[Srkdqltr]

2. Twisted Twenty Six by Janet Evanovich

I know formula stuff but they are cute.
Also, Alexander McCall Smith, The Color of All The Cattle.
I have been picking my way through I Heard You Paint Houses.

[hermetic]

4. Yeah, they are cute.

I always enjoy them.

Ah, and the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, also enjoyable.

[Aquaria]

7. Gave up on the series after 14.

It was both stupid and disgusting.

Lost my patience with the series for good with that one. Almost gave up after the hot mess that was #6, but gave it another chance, against my better judgement. The other book really worth sticking with the series after that was #12, which is the best mystery of the series, and the most wrenching in its emotional and moral dilemmas.

Made me realize that Evanovich needs to stop putting Morello through the hell of Stephanie’s refusal to grow up. They will never be happy together, and dragging out a triangle making everyone miserable (especially the readers) is both cruel and unnecessary.

Enough, already. Pair Steph up with Ranger, once and for all. She will never be happy with the boring working class Trenton life that Morelli wants. Ranger has the money and the promise of risk-taking, adventure and danger she craves above all else. Evanovich needs to face the fact that her idiot heroine is that shallow and ridiculous.

[consider_this]

5. The Overstory, by Richard Powers

I love this author, and he mixes in plenty of non-fiction/science throughout his books, bringing the impact of such things to life. I'm only partway through, but already it is clear that this has an important message about the much larger natural world around us and our dependence upon its wellbeing.

[hermetic]

6. That is a wonderful book

And everything you said there is quite true.

[japple]

22. I loved The Overstory. Richard Powers' writing is sublime and the messages he

delivered in that book are so important to our survival.

[Aquaria]

8. The Good Twin

Just finished The Good Twin, a pedestrian mystery/thriller by Marti Green. Plot is obvious from the title. There were no surprises, really.

Now taking another dive into the poetry of Emily Bronte.

Got North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell on board. After that will probably be The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. I keep meaning to get to it, but somehow never do.

[hermetic]

12. Welcome to DU

Always nice to have a new voice here in the reading room.

This sounds good: One of literature's greatest romances, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell is both an incisive social commentary and an electric portrayal of all-conquering love.

And this: "Electrifying and ambitious, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Weight of Ink is a sophisticated work of historical fiction about women separated by centuries, and the choices and sacrifices they must make in order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind."

[murielm99]

9. I am reading The Testaments,

by Margaret Atwood. It is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale.

It is a fast read and very good.

You mentioned a couple of my other favorites: Laurie R. King and William Kent Krueger.

[hermetic]

10. Yep,

and I do so appreciate your mentioning them here, which sent me in their direction.

[murielm99]

13. I guess I am still a librarian,

even though I am retired.

[honeylady]

11. Children of the Gods series - 34 books

Total guilty pleasure. Written by a woman for women. Here's another one. Knights of the Black Swan - 13 books. Well written. Great stories. Again woman writing for women.

If you have a Kindle and sign up for a monthly fee of $10 you can get them all for free from their lending library.

[hermetic]

14. That shoudl keep you busy

for a good while. Thanks for the info.

[SonofDonald]

15. Patrick Lee's Travis Chase trilogy

The Breach, Ghost Country, Deep Sky.

Up next are his Sam Dryden novels

Runner and Signal.

They are a cross between Sci-Fi and Mystery

Like Michael Crichton but better

Excellent stuff

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Octavia Gone

by Jack McDevitt. The most recent of his Alex Benedict series. Some ten thousand years from now humans have interstellar travel and have colonized lots of worlds. Only one other still living intelligent species has ever been found. In this book they are trying to figure out just what caused the disappearance of a research station that was studying a black hole. Basically it's a Whodunnit with a science fiction angle.

I like almost everything he's written.

[hermetic]

17. Sounds good

Think I'll give Thunderbird a look.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Do not read THUNDERBIRD

if you haven't already read Ancient Shores.

It may not be obvious to you that while written some years apart, it's really one novel in two parts. More or less like Connie Willis's Blackout and All Clear.

[dameatball]

18. "The Gray Man" by Mark Greaney

[hermetic]

24. Interesting

Greaney was Tom Clancy's co-author on his final 3 books and continued the Jack Ryan series for several more years. Plus he's won many awards for his own creations. Must be some good reading.

BTW, I really liked your "My Treasons" joke in the Humor Group. I'd never heard it before and had a good

[dameatball]

30. Ha! Probably many don't remember it....:) The show I mean. I had nbever heard the joke either.

Last edited Thu Nov 21, 2019, 06:01 PM - Edit history (1)

[Number9Dream]

19. Finished "The Charlemagne Pursuit" by Steve Berry

Another enjoyable action, page-turner. It mixes history with imagination, similar to Dan Brown, James Rollins, Clive Cussler.

[hermetic]

25. That sounds intriguing

Cryptic journals penned in "the language of heaven," conundrums posed by an ancient historian, and an ill-fated voyage are all tied to a revelation of immense consequence for humankind.

Good to see you. Hope you didn't think I was ignoring you. It's been a pretty wild and crazy week here which all began when my home heating unit quit working. All better now, though. whew

[The King of Prussia]

21. Corpse Way by Susan Parry

First in a series of mysteries set near to where I live. At the moment I can tell you no more.
Also read The Santa Klaus Mystery by Mavis Doriel Hay - a country house mystery from the 30s. Really NOT recommended.
On the non-fiction front completed The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson - loved it. Lastly read the autobiography of Martin Peters - one of the boys of '66. I enjoyed it - but probably not of much interest to Americans.

[hermetic]

27. Hmmm,

A quiet summer holiday was just what Millie needed. No excitement, fresh air and huge helpings of home cooking. But Millie is drawn into an intriguing mystery that surrounds the isolated shooting lodge on the moor, the Dutchman who rents it and the sudden death of two residents in the village.

I've long loved mysteries on the moors.

[The King of Prussia]

29. I'm about half way through now

Tentatively recommending it

[japple]

23. I finished Mary Doria Russell's book, The Women of Copper Country and recommend it anyone

who might be drawn to read about the labor movement and copper mining in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in early 1900s. The ending was a crusher, but I won't give anything away in case anyone else decides to read it.

Started reading Brett Cogburn's book, Panhandle and am already caught up in the cowboy way of life in Texas in the late 1800s.

fm amazon: Brett Cogburn is a two-time Spur Award-winning author and the great-grandson of the man who inspired True Grit, Rooster Cogburn. He was reared in Texas and the mountains of Southeastern Oklahoma, where his grandfather taught him to ride a bucking horse and his father taught him to hunt. He lives with his family on a little ranch in Oklahoma, where the West is still teaching him how to write.

[hermetic]

26. Yee haw!

Sounds fun. Loved True Grit.

Good to see you. Hope all is well.

[farmbo]

28. "Submergence" by J. M. Ledgard (Coffee House Press 2013)

A British intelligence officer (James) serving in Somalia is captured by al-Qaeda jihadists fighters under a sadistic warlord. As he faces months of forced marches, beatings, and mock executions, he retains his sanity through recollections of his fleeting relationship with Danielle, a biomathematician and undersea explorer, who during those very months is on an a seafaring expedition to explore the lowest reaches of the Atlantic off Greenland, where she and her colleagues are studying the origins of ocean life, and the capacity of human life to survive on our warming planet.
His memory of their chance meeting two years earlier at a luxury, sea-side French hotel over a snowy Christmas holiday and their subsequent romance, will provide James with the only comfort he will ever know.