An open discussion on what everyone is currently reading. Make recommendations to others, discuss what is new, hot, bestsellers, anything and everything related to books and the authors.
Books I read recently and loved: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - Gothic thriller for anyone who loves Jane Eyre, writing and twins. Dead Calm by Louise Penny - a cut above a lot of crime fiction I've read recently. Intriguing mystery in small town Canada; unforgettable characters. Highly recommended.
I was so impressed with Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," that I have started to read "No Country for Old Men." I have heard rumor that McCarthy is on the short list for the Nobel Prize for Literature. "The Road" won the National Book Club Award ... or something equally as big. I rarely read back to back books by the same author -- Well, I fit a couple of pieces of non-fiction between McCarthy's "No Country."
I have 20 pages left in GODS AND LEGIONS, one of Michael Curtis Ford's powerful historicals. This one is about the 4th century Roman Emperor Julian, told from the viewpoint of his Christian physician. The dour, narrowminded viewpoint of the doc gives a sour twist to the story of a fascinating life.
Because of Jane's mention of mystery in small town Canada, I went looking for a small town cozy to start next. The closest to the top of the tbr stacks is Lilian Jackson Braun's THE CAT WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE HOUSE. I have four or five of that series yet unread -- presumably all set in Canada. ? :-)
Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who" series is set for the greatest part in an amalgam of Michigan locations, not surprising when one considers that she lived and worked in Michigan for much of her life. The names and characteristics vary. The location of Pickax City (name similar to Bad Axe, MI) seems more like Marquette, MI, in the upper peninsula near the shores of Lake Superior (the deepest and coldest of the Great Lakes), also "400 miles north of anything." "Breakfast Island" is a virtual duplicate of Mackinaw Island, and so on. I understand that Ms. Braun has had a home in "The Thumb" where Bad Axe is located and I've been told that there is a barn in that area that is the inspiration for the "Apple Barn." I now live "down below" (another characteristic Michigan reference) on the I-75 corridor in the area north of Detroit and hope to get back up to the Thumb to locate that barn at some point.
Just finished SOUL PATCH last night. Highly recommended. IMHO better than THE JAMES DEANS, if that's possible. Maybe it's because the core of the book is based upon police corruption, but it has a more noir sensibility to it than TJD.
I am reading Solomon vs. Lord by Paul Levine. Not a bad book, but not a great one either. I am listening to The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey. Now this is a great book!
LINCOLN by Gore Vidal
A MOVEABLE FEAST by Ernest Hemingway
Different styles, same great characterization. Friday I went out and bought more of each author. Specifically, Vidal's BURR and Hemingway's THE DANGEROUS SUMMER.
This is one of my all-time favorite types of thread. Let's keep it alive.