Reply
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,928
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

What are You Reading? January 2020

Happy JANUARY to all our readers and a very happy New Year 2020!

 

Please post what you're reading, what you liked and what you didn't, and share them with us so we can enjoy them too.

 

Happy Reading and a happy and a bright 2020 to all!

 

Sunny

"That's a great first pancake."
Lady Gaga, to Tony Bennett
Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,128
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

Happy New Year.  I will delete my comment from December's post since there January's wasn't up yet!

 

Just finished Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid.  I really liked it.

 

Onto Christina McDonald's Behind Every Lie.  I hope I like it better than her last one which I couldn't finish.

Frequent Contributor
Posts: 117
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

Stephen Hanks' 1619 Twenty Slaves

Honored Contributor
Posts: 16,193
Registered: ‎06-09-2014

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

I am about to start The Beautiful One by Prince and a coauthor.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 13,453
Registered: ‎07-15-2016

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

[ Edited ]

I get daily email from a bunch of ebook sources with suggested reading. I can find one or two almost everyday to download.  And, if I'm not sure - I can download a sample.  Just love the "instant gratification" of buying Kindle books!  Press buy it and in 20 seconds, I have the book.

 

Lately, I've been hitting the jackpot.  I am concentrating on the literary fiction genre and have cme across quite a few great reads.

 

My latest:  I just started reading "The Ten Thousand Doors of January."    Author Alix E. Harrow.

 

Kind of a quirky nove.

 

From Amazon's blurb:

 

Often it’s not the ingredients that make the difference in the final product but the storyteller who wields them. Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January includes book ingredients we’ve seen many times before: a girl discovering her true identity, a faithful animal companion, a missing parent, a Very Evil Person, and a book of power. But Harrow takes this basic recipe for a coming-of-age adventure and bakes in an emotional and heroic resonance that thrums deep in the reader’s belly. January Scaller is left with her father’s patron on an expansive Vermont estate, while her father travels the world searching for interesting relics in the early 1900s. One such relic is a book titled The Ten Thousand Doors, which tells of Doors between worlds

 

--------------------------------------

For months now - it seems like everything I'm attracted to has to do with books, book stores, lost/found manuscripts, letters .... everything to do with the wrtten word.

-------------------------------------

 

For escape .... I'm also reading the second volume of the Peculiar Children series.  It's a fun read.

 

 Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs,

 

The blurb on  Amazon re Riggs is amusing ....


Ransom Riggs grew up in Florida but now makes his home in the land of peculiar children -- Los Angeles. He was raised on a steady diet of ghost stories and British comedy, which probably explains the novels he writes. There's a nonzero chance he's in your house right now, watching you from underneath the bed. (Go ahead and check. We'll wait.) If not, you can find him on Twitter @ransomriggs.

 

 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,652
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

@sunala , thanks for starting us off in the New Year!

 

I am about half way through Jonathan Kellerman's The Wedding Guest.  It ok, not great.  Hoping it gets better.  LM

Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,977
Registered: ‎05-30-2010

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

I'm reading one of my favorite authors to start the new year, Michael Connelly.  The book is The Wrong Side of Goodbye.  I'm almost to the end of the Bosch series but I have the Bosch/Ballard series to look forward to. 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,366
Registered: ‎02-22-2015

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

[ Edited ]

A Small Town by Thomas Perry 

Twelve inmates meticulously plan to break out of a prison near a small CO town leaving the rest of the inmates freedom as well. The small town is left with theft, rapes, murders, and emotional devestation for those left behind.

Then, the book becomes absolutely unbelievable every step of the way. Yet, I kept reading because the story was full of information on how a detective thinks and does his/her job. That was interesting.

 

A female cop turned detective has been "hired" with funds provided by a grant to find the 12 prisoners who have vanished two years later. In extraordinary ways, with the right equipment handy, she always encounters the prisoner in the most dangerous situation(s) possible and, of course, leave him/them dead without any signs of her being in the area. Superman could not hold a candle to her skills! 

 

The end did not fit the personality of the main character or the feel in the novel. It was too much "icing on the cake" and could have been deleted by the editor without loss. This was a good, easy read for January 1, 2020.

Money screams; wealth whispers.
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,374
Registered: ‎03-12-2010

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

I finished listening to The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow and feel like I finally know what The Starless Sea was about! LOL

 

It's similar (in fact, I think some of the characters could arguably be lifted right out of the Sea) but just found it so much easier to follow.  I really liked it and am happy @smoky22  commented on it.

 

Have just started Such a Fun Age and, so far, it's good!

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,565
Registered: ‎03-11-2010

Re: What are You Reading? January 2020

:Viking: The Green land by Katie Aiken Ritter. It's an historical saga based on the travels of Erik the Red and his discovery of Greenland. The book is fiction, but is well researched and gives the reader a view into how the Vikings lived. 

 

It's beautifully written, and highly recommended for readers interested in everything Vikings. 

"The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog."

Mark Twain