Community Chat

[RINGER]

On 6/11/2014 SAgal said:

On 6/3/2014 SWEET said:

Finished The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard. Loved this book. Read it in 3 days. I'm a sucker for family stories and this one hit the spot. I won't spoil it, but it surprised me the way it "turned out."

Onto Scratched (nf) by Allen Salkin which is about the Food Network. I love the channel and my niece works there so have to read it.

Hi Sweet, so glad you loved The Mourning Hours - one of my favorite books from last year!

Read The Mourning Hours a while back and also The Kitchen House--both very good. Will keep eyes open for her new book in November that you blogged about but sounds familiar even though it is going to be a new book (Paula DeBoard's book) so will see what reviews say to help me decide or at the least get on the library waiting list.

[skyblue]

On 6/14/2014 sfparrthd said:

Just finished Lisa See's CHINA DOLLS. I enjoyed it especially as it took place in San Francisco and I was familiar with the setting and places. It starts in the 1930's and follows 3 Asian girls who perform in the Asian nightclubs that were popular back then.

Now reading SPY FOR HIRE by Dan Mayland. I read his first book THE COLONEL'S MISTAKE and enjoyed it. This is book #2 in the series.

I am glad to hear you liked Lisa See's new book! I can't wait to read it!

[SWEET]

Finished Nora Roberts Red Lily. Glad I read them in order since this one was just bad and the other 2 were better. No wonder I had this on my shelf for so long -- avoidance. LOL.

Going to read Elin Hilderbrand's The Matchmaker next.

[LoriLori]

I'm reading "Summer House with Swimming Pool" by Herman Koch, who wrote "The Dinner." So far I'm loving it, it's even funnier than "The Dinner." The narrator this go-round is a sociopathic, narcissistic primary care physician who is anything but caring about his patients.

For everyone who didn't like "The Dinner", and I think that was almost everyone here who read it!, you were probably going to skip this one anyway but I'll say the obvious, skip this one; it's got the same twisted irony that you couldn't stand in the first book.

[smoky22]

On 6/15/2014 LoriLori said:

I'm reading "Summer House with Swimming Pool" by Herman Koch, who wrote "The Dinner." So far I'm loving it, it's even funnier than "The Dinner." The narrator this go-round is a sociopathic, narcissistic primary care physician who is anything but caring about his patients.

For everyone who didn't like "The Dinner", and I think that was almost everyone here who read it!, you were probably going to skip this one anyway but I'll say the obvious, skip this one; it's got the same twisted irony that you couldn't stand in the first book.

Lori, thanks for the review. Now you have my curiosity up. I certainly didn't think The Dinner was funny (twisted maybe). I'll probably check this one out at some point.

[esmerelda]

On 6/15/2014 LoriLori said:

I'm reading "Summer House with Swimming Pool" by Herman Koch, who wrote "The Dinner." So far I'm loving it, it's even funnier than "The Dinner." The narrator this go-round is a sociopathic, narcissistic primary care physician who is anything but caring about his patients.

For everyone who didn't like "The Dinner", and I think that was almost everyone here who read it!, you were probably going to skip this one anyway but I'll say the obvious, skip this one; it's got the same twisted irony that you couldn't stand in the first book.

I enjoyed the earlier book...though I don't recall it being funny. I'll be looking for this new one.

[LoriLori]

When I say "The Dinner" is funny, I mean sentence by sentence, the unreliable narrator makes me laugh. On a meta level it's horrifying social satire but with lots of funny stuff that I think makes the overall plot points that much more effective, grab-you-by-the-throat effective. In my review at Amazon I said "The Dinner" was as if Nabokov and Alfred Hitchcock collaborated on a book.

The unreliable narrator of "Summer House with Swimming Pool" is even funnier than that of "The Dinner", and clearly he's a sociopath or psychopath and while I don't know what's coming, I know something eventually is. But as awful a person as he is, his observations IMO are funny, and I find myself laughing out loud even though I know Koch is going to deliver a punch to the gut at some point.

Anyone reading this not familar might think it's similar to "Gone Girl" but it's not IMO, because Herman Koch writes devastating social satire while "Gone Girl" to me was slightly entertaining but pointless. Koch to me is in the same genre as Chuck Palahniuk, writing at times funny, twisted but pointed and believable social satire. And speaking of punches to the gut and of Palahniuk, some people actually believe there's such a thing as Fight Club! It's that kind of vibe, IMO.

Hope that clarifies.

[Sagal]

On 6/14/2014 esmerelda said:

On 6/12/2014 SWEET said:

On 6/11/2014 SAgal said:

On 6/3/2014 SWEET said:

Finished The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard. Loved this book. Read it in 3 days. I'm a sucker for family stories and this one hit the spot. I won't spoil it, but it surprised me the way it "turned out."

Onto Scratched (nf) by Allen Salkin which is about the Food Network. I love the channel and my niece works there so have to read it.

Hi Sweet, so glad you loved The Mourning Hours - one of my favorite books from last year!

She has a new one coming out in November. See below.

From the author of publishing sensation The Mourning Hours comes a powerful new novel that explores every parent's worst nightmare…

THE FRAGILE WORLD

The Kaufmans have always considered themselves a normal, happy family. Curtis is a physics teacher at a local high school. His wife, Kathleen, restores furniture for upscale boutiques. Daniel is away at college on a prestigious music scholarship, and twelve-year-old Olivia is a happy-go-lucky kid whose biggest concern is passing her next math test.

And then comes the middle-of-the-night phone call that changes everything. Daniel has been killed in what the police are calling a "freak" road accident, and the remaining Kaufmans are left to flounder in their grief.

The anguish of Daniel's death is isolating, and it's not long before this once-perfect family finds itself falling apart. As time passes and the wound refuses to heal, Curtis becomes obsessed with the idea of revenge, a growing mania that leads him to pack up his life and his anxious teenage daughter and set out on a collision course to right a wrong.

An emotionally charged novel, The Fragile World is a journey through America's heartland and a family's brightest and darkest moments, exploring the devastating pain of losing a child and the beauty of finding healing in unexpected ways.

It sounds a lot like her earlier book. And another one I've read by someone else. If I think of the name I'll post it here for those who like this kind of story.

I enjoyed The Mourning Hours.

ETA...Found it. Some may have already read it. We Were the Mulvaneys (Joyce Carol Oates):

Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.

I read We Were The MULVANEYS and really loved it!

[Sagal]

I'm in the middle of The Vacationers and it is great - more when I finish it!

[Judaline]

On 6/14/2014 lovescats said:

I listened to the audio of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. this is a classic story that I had never heard of and is worth reading. It's free on kindle

This was on PBS once.Masterpiece Theater. It was pretty chilling to me. One you can't forget because it was quite a while ago that it came on. I wouldn't care to read it~if you remember the old radio show, Suspense, it was also on there, starring Agnes Moorehead. I know this because I get the program every night on radio. This was first broadcast in the year 1948! Not a new story by a long shot. But a classic.