Book Club

[smoky22]

@Alter Ego  I have both The Lost City of the Monkey God and The Dry on hold at the moment.  I read that the Monkey God was pretty technical and not an easy read.  I'm still going to try it, and I  appreciate your review.  There are quite a few people ahead of me on The Dry.  It sounds good.  

[pateacher]

I just started Mischling by Affinity Konar.

It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood.

As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to others, and they find themselves changed, stripped of the personalities they once shared, their identities altered by the burdens of guilt and pain.

That winter, at a concert orchestrated by Mengele, Pearl disappears. Stasha grieves for her twin, but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her companion Feliks--a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin--travel through Poland's devastation. Undeterred by injury, starvation, or the chaos around them, motivated by equal parts danger and hope, they encounter hostile villagers, Jewish resistance fighters, and fellow refugees, their quest enabled by the notion that Mengele may be captured and brought to justice within the ruins of the Warsaw Zoo. As the young survivors discover what has become of the world, they must try to imagine a future within it.

[Alter Ego]

---

@smoky22 wrote:

@Alter Ego  I have both The Lost City of the Monkey God and The Dry on hold at the moment.  I read that the Monkey God was pretty technical and not an easy read.  I'm still going to try it, and I  appreciate your review.  There are quite a few people ahead of me on The Dry.  It sounds good.  

---

Part of my problem with Monkey God is that I listen rather than read and, because it is more technical and because I'm driving, I can't give it 100% of my attention.  I don't want to imply that it is bad (some parts I found very interesting), just that I couldn't concentrate as much as is required.

I am really enjoying The Dry; seems like a really well written book (but I'm not done yet!)  However, for anyone interested in listening, it goes back and forth in the middle of a chapter - I'm guessing something is done in the written book to differentiate, but can be a little confusing when simply listening the first time it happens.  I got used to it.

[sunala]

---

@pateacher wrote:

I just started Mischling by Affinity Konar.

It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood.

As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to others, and they find themselves changed, stripped of the personalities they once shared, their identities altered by the burdens of guilt and pain.

That winter, at a concert orchestrated by Mengele, Pearl disappears. Stasha grieves for her twin, but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her companion Feliks--a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin--travel through Poland's devastation. Undeterred by injury, starvation, or the chaos around them, motivated by equal parts danger and hope, they encounter hostile villagers, Jewish resistance fighters, and fellow refugees, their quest enabled by the notion that Mengele may be captured and brought to justice within the ruins of the Warsaw Zoo. As the young survivors discover what has become of the world, they must try to imagine a future within it.

---

@pateacherI am going to have to try reading this book again. I read a few pages and realized I didn't want to read a book like this after reading Lilac Girls, which was also about mengele and his research on twins in the camp. But maybe I'll try it again. Please let us know when you're done, and what you think of it. Thanks.

[mcbet]

I read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty and enjoyed it. It had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while, thank you to who ever mentioned it otherwise it might not have made it to the top of the pile. Then I read The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins. Not bad, but that poor girl must have drunk enough wine to fill a tub. Right now I am reading Summer Of The Dead by Julia Keller. I like this writer and her stories of Bell Elkins, a West Virginia prosecutor, but like to read something different between each of her books.

[dmod nj]

I read Made from Scratch: A Memoir, by Sandra Lee.

I am currently reading A Hero To Come Home To, by Marilyn Pappano.  It is the first book in the Tallgrass Series. 

[pateacher]

---

@sunala wrote:
 

@pateacherI am going to have to try reading this book again. I read a few pages and realized I didn't want to read a book like this after reading Lilac Girls, which was also about mengele and his research on twins in the camp. But maybe I'll try it again. Please let us know when you're done, and what you think of it. Thanks.

---

@sunala  Uh-oh! I have Lilac Girls on my Kindle, too  Hope they aren't too similar!

[rustee]

Enjoyed listening to
the BBC play featuring Brave New World by Huxley
and
Say No More by Ryan

starting
Girl Before by J.P. Delaney
(features two different women and one app-controlled house which comes with 200 unusual rental agreement stipulations and a very long questionnaire/library CDs/multiple narrators)

[CareBears]

Currently I am reading "My Grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry" by Fredrik Backman, what a charming, heartwarming story, I will be reading and I find tears just rolling down my cheeks, the stories behind the tenants that live together in this house (apartment building) and how they came to live together just warms my heart!

Fredrik Backman is such a wonderful author, he just understands what it feels like to be labeled as "Different" in a world that cannot see the magic in that title, as being labed "Different" almost my entire life I just resonate with at least one character in each of his books, and I always shed more than a few tears!

I am editing this post as I just finished, OMG, I loved this book so much, I laughed, cried and cried some more, I love all of Fredrik Backman books, but this is my new favorite, it was just beautifully written, and gave me "Warm Fuzzy Feelings" from beginning to end!

[DiAnne]

I just finished reading The Widower's Wife by Cate Holahan.  It is a mystery that I just could not stop reading.  I am afraid if I say anymore I will give it away.  If you like good thriller you will like this book.