Book Club

[kitty45]

I have a very long list for August.

Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Murder on Memory Lake by J.D Griffo (audio)

Murder in Tranquility Park by J.D Griffo (audio)

There comes the Bride by M.C Beaton (audio)

The Wise and the Wicked by Rebecca Podos

Twist and Turn by Tim Tigner

Vita Nostra by Marina Diachenko

Dark Ages by Pierce Brown (Red Rising series)

Recipes for Love by Sally Andrew (audio)

[smoky22]

I finished The Burglar by Thomas Perry and really enjoyed it.  It's a fast paced thriller with a likeable, unconventional heroine and a good plot.  I never knew where it was going and I love that (too many predictable thrillers out there).  

Thanks to @dawg lover   for recommending it.

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Spell check didn't like "likeable" and wanted it spelled "likable."  I guess likeable is old school, but I've spelled it that way my entire life and I'm not changing now.  Take that spellcheck.

[Catty2]

I just finished Welcome to Moonlight Harbor by Sheila Roberts.  A newly divorced woman with a 14 year old daughter gets an offer from her Great Aunt to help renovate a family run motel in a little beach town not far from Seattle.  She agrees that they need a new start so she and her daughter move there.  Turns out the motel needs a lot more work than they have money for.  The story goes into meeting new people, the trials of having an unhappy teenager who didn't want to move.  She finds more money in a very unique way but turns out it wasn't as much as they hoped for.  I enjoyed this story and it's the first book I've read by this author. 

[dawg lover]

@smoky22 - I'm so glad you liked "THE BURGLAR" by Thomas Perry.  I really could not put it down, while reading it.  I recommend it to all the thriller lovers on the Book Forum!

I read Alexander McCall Smith's new book, "THE SECOND WORST RESTAURANT IN FRANCE."  I thought the beginning and end were good, but the middle was a bit slow and chatty.  Overall, the first book, "MY ITALIAN BULLDOZER" was much better, IMO.  I have not yet received the new Bertie book.  There have been many delays and now it is being sent from England, rather than the States.  It's supposed to be here on Wednesday.

[LoriLori]

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@sunala wrote:

I'm almost done reading Where the Crawdads Sing.

I'm reading it slowly because I don't want it to end. Loving it so much!

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Yay!  That's why after all this time it's still on the NY Times bestseller list and Amazon Charts.  I love that people are still discovering this joyous book.

It happened with other books too. I remember I had to be talked into reading All the Light We Cannot See, that one was on the NYT besteller list IIRC for a few years.

[LoriLori]

@pateacher wrote:

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@LoriLori wrote:

@pateacher   @Lilysmom 

I did read "Defending Jacob" and I wouldn't have but people here were raving about it.  I loved it.  Ironically I never guess the ending of anything but I guess this one.  It didn't detract from my pleasure and it wasn't confirmed til the end anyway,  It's an easy read and I flew through it.

I wouldn't compare it to "We Need to Talk About Kevin," which is a literary masterpiece as opposed to a terrific read.  Shriver is writes complex literary prose at which she's a master and it's not an easy read -- it's actually a tough read, do you agree? -- but fascinating, remarkable and a must-read because of the relevance.

Two fantastic books, top of their genres, just IMO very different.   

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@LoriLori 

I am confused about your comments here.  I merely posted that I was affected by Defending Jacob. I did not comment on We Need to Talk About Kevin, nor did I compare the two books.  

When I think of a tough read, I think of authors in the line Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Eliot. When I think of masterpieces, I think of the literary works  by these authors that retained their relevance over the years through universal themes and conflicts. Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald also wrote masterpieces. These authors would not fall into your category of tough reads. Their writing is direct and precise. Still, their works have withstood the test of time

I do respect your opinion of Shriver's book. I just don't think your post had any relevance to my comment on Defending Jacob.

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Well, I'm confused about your confusion.  There were three in the conversation, I won't call the other person out but her name is there.  She's the one who brought up the connections and I totally get why.  My mistake was @ 'ing you.  So soirry.

As far as the rest of what you're talking about, I don't know what you're talking about.  What on earth does what YOU think is a tough read have to do with MY opinion of a tough read? 

(By the way Dickens was a popular author of his time, never considered a tough read, printed in magazines).

The more polite and sensible way would have been to ask me why I consider it a tough read, not lecture me on your idea of literary masterpieces.

Someone else nailed it and I will quote her separately too.

Fifty-nine forty-six? (who knows yet) people were shot today in a mall.  Gun violence with assault weapons is as relevant now as it was when Shriver wrote the book.

School shootings are happening over and over and over.

"We Need to Talk About Kevin" is an intense and detailed look at someone who went to school to kill his classmates in a planned attack.  It follows him from birth and his mother.  He's in prison at the beginning.  She's a pariah in her hometown.  He's...well, the reader can decide whether he's sick or evil or both.  

The mother blames herself as mothers do.  She's not like the Colombine mothers.  She feels responsible.  She spends her free time going over every single thing in his life she might have done wrong.

There are nonfiction books about each separate school shooting but this novel is a very deep dive only possible in fiction.  If there are humans in school here in 100 years in my opinion they will be assigned to read it to understand the history of school violence in America because hopefully it will have been eradicated.

So besides her literary talent the incredible treatment of a vital subject matter make it a masterpiece.  

Dickens was a court reporter which caused him to see quite a bit and he was naturally very observant.  He was a popular writer, wriitingf simple prose which was serialized in magazines.  He captured a snapshot of a time period and that's why you call his work masterpieces.  I was never taught Dickens in Honors English or college.  

Shriver is an extraordinary literary talent, closer to Proust than Dickens (not his equal, no one is, but then he's not taught either except in grad courses in college; he's too complex).  She has taken on important social issues and school shootings is right up there and she did it in a way that makes it very tough to read (see next post) and also because of her incredible, careful prose and plotting, a masterpiece.  

She has also taken on obesity, the consequences of world debt, cjhildhod hunger and other issues that if there are humans in a hundred years it's not a stretch to think will be studied in schools as a snapshot of what life was like in our lifetimes.

[LoriLori]

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@Judaline wrote:

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This is none of my business as I haven't read either book but when someone says 'it's a tough read' I always think of maybe child abuse, or death of a child or something equally hard to take. Not tough in regards to reading a classic which can be difficult to read because of the intelligence of the authors. Some are way over my head. I don't call that a tough read. There's a word on the tip of my tongue but I can't bring it up. So, just thought I'd throw that in and if I'm way off base you can tell me.

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Ah, Jud the Wise, this is absolutely your business, everything on here is  everyone's business, and you nailed it of course.  This is about one child planning, preparing and carrying out a plan to execute his classmates.  And the fallout on his mother, who didn't want to get pregnant in the first place and blames herself though she did nothing wrong whatsoever.  Evil or psychopathic, take your pick, but this kid was born bad and we see from a very young age how he was cruel to his familly and how it worked out and we're there in the room when he's killing classmates in as cruel a way as possible.  Maybe a teacher or two, can't remember.  It's the kids that stick out. 

So yes, that is what makes it a tough read, a very very very tough read made moreso because it's written in first person from the mother's viewpoint.

I recommend it to everybody.  But it's not for everybody and I get that.  I've never been able to shake it off and never will becaise everu time it happens again it puts us all back to the other shootings (Parkland to Sandy Hook to Colombine, etc.) and for those who have read Shriver's book, it puts us in that horrible place with her mother who, while being shunned, was another victim, a living one.

[LoriLori]

So five stars for "The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes" by Ruth Hogan...

...with the warning that while I did not find it depressing it is about a woman who lost a child and other things some people found depressing, and some of it takes place in a (beautiful Victorian) cemetery.

[LoriLori]

Tomorrow I start "The Hotel Neversink" by Allen O'Fallon Price...

...about a Jewish family which owns a hotel in the Catskills.  Multi-generational story which includes some mystery that happened years ago.  Told by different narrators including family members, and others including a comedian who entertained there.

[SXMGirl]

I am reading the Cape Bay Mystery series by Harper Lin.  This is a really nice series, good mysteries, and I am working my way through it, currently on book 3 of 9.  I like the series so much that I have already ordered the next two books, which have recipes in them.

The premise:  Francesca returns to Cape Bay from NYC after the death of her mother and takes over the family coffee shop.  Cape Bay is a small town, where everyone knows everyone and most went to school together.   The reader gets to know the people who live in the town, along with the murder mystery basis of the series.  

This series is an easy and enjoyable read if you are looking for something that is not too involved but does usually surprise at the end.