Constant Reader discussion

The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan – 3***
This is the first in a mystery series featuring Charlie Howard, successful author and part-time professional burglar. I thought it was highly entertaining, with a fast pace, interesting characters, and a great setting. I was charmed by Charlie and I’ll definitely read more of this series.
Full Review HERE

Gina wrote: "Karen wrote: "I just finished My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout and really enjoyed reading it.

I am currently reading Little Bee by [author:C..."

Gina, I am really invested in the story so far. The alternating narrators work well for this novel. I have no idea where the story is going to go...and I like that. Solid writing, too.

I seem to be into a space of "it's raining, so I'll spend the morning reading a novel instead of getting up." I read My Name Is Lucy Barton today in one sitting. I enjoyed it, but don't really know what I think of it. It's making me think about societal judgments of poverty, and about mothers. I loved the kind doctor. As I get older, I'm becoming more sensitive about how much judgment there is in our society, in people's minds, and feeling like it gets so much in the way of people extracting all the joy they can from life (but that is more about what I brought to the book than the book itself).

I just finished The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. A beautiful book with wonderful characters and a spellbinding plot. Spoiler Alert. To those who have read this, does the garden Yun Ling recreated cover the abandoned and destroyed labor camp? Or am I reading too much into the ending?

Continued my reading marathon yesterday with Open House, an easily readable book that lingers with a bit of sweetness and warmth.

Gina wrote: "I just finished The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. A beautiful book with wonderful characters and a spellbinding plot. Spoiler Alert. To those who have r..."

I agree, this is a wonderful book. I didn't think the garden was in the same place as the camp.

Tango wrote: "Gina wrote: "I just finished The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. A beautiful book with wonderful characters and a spellbinding plot. Spoiler Alert. To tho..."

Thanks Tango. I don't know what put that in my head!

I'm reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. It's redefining what I think I am.

Reading A J Cronin's The Citadel for my in person book group. The audible version has some stutters so is not a great recording, shame its editing could not have been better, but the reader's tone is OK. In my early teens Dr Finlay's Casebook was one of the BBC drama highlights for viewing each week, the story of a young doctor coming to an old man's practice in the Scottish Higlands in the late 1920s. Ashamedly I'd never read anything else by this Scottish writer.
Now I am about half way through The Citadel, the story of a newly qualifed doctor taking up a post of medical assistant to a mining community on South Wales. It won the National Book Award in 1937 .
Already I can see some of the themes and personality characteristics that are familiar to me from Dr Finlay. Today it is an interesting read from the point of view of the development of our National Health Service, how the role of General Practioner doctors has changed from then till now from dealing with sickness and injuries, from combating contagion - scarlet fever, measles, chickenpox etc - performing operations in what we would consider primitive field conditions - kitchen tables, mineheads, with chloroform - to the firefighting triage of lifestyle ill health without time for wellness work to stem this tsunami of the unhealthy.
It is an engaging read, much better than I was expecting.

Mary Anne wrote: "I'm going to hear Emily St. John Mandel speak tomorrow night. I'll be interested to hear what she has to say."
What was she like?

I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak in about two days - just couldn't put it down. Great story.

Yesterday I finished In Between Days and enjoyed it a lot. I found it to be an exceptionally well written story about a highly dysfunctional family.

I was lucky enough to borrow both the audiobook and Kindle versions from our local library. I listened to most of it, it was narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Mark Bramhall. I used the Kindle version to fill in gaps when I sometimes fell asleep. Audiobooks are my favorite way to read myself to sleep.

Sheila wrote: "Mary Anne wrote: "I'm going to hear Emily St. John Mandel speak tomorrow night. I'll be interested to hear what she has to say."
What was she like?"

I got sick at the last minute, Sheila, and was not able to attend.

Mary Anne wrote: "I got sick at the last minute, S..."

Aw MAP what a shame! Better now I trust

Gina wrote: "Karen wrote: "...I am currently reading Little Bee by [author:C..."

Karen, like Gina I thought it was a great read.
Gina, Have you read anything else by him?

Ellis Peters' A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first in the Brother Cadfael stories. I've wanted to read this series for years. I've finally begun. It met my expectations for a light, interesting, fun read.

Sheila wrote: "Gina wrote: "Karen wrote: "...I am currently reading Little Bee by [author:C..."

Karen, like Gina I thought it was a great read.
Gina, Have you read anything else by him?"

No, I haven't. But I looked at all the books he has written. I think I would enjoy Everyone Brave is Forgiven. It received over 4 stars. Another book for my TBR list. Isn't it fun to have books for the next 20 years lined up?

Finished Girl at War by Sara Nović today. When the book was taking place in Croatia, I thought it was great. When it switched to life in the US, the book seemed to bog down a bit.

I just read two nonfiction books.

With Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, the very best part about the book is its title, and the rest is interesting only in an extremely mild sense.

Even though I'm vegetarian going on vegan and have read a lot about the subject of nutrition in the past few years, I really enjoyed "How Not To Die (Prematurely)", by Dr. Michael Greger, which advocates a whole food plant based diet generally but has lots of other good info organized into sections on how to avoid or treat most major diseases.

Just finished up Elizabeth Taylor's A View of the Harbour and am beginning Giorgio Bassani's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. I have been wanting to read it for quite some time.

I started our April reading list book, AN UNNECESSARY WOMAN, by Rabih Alameddine, and I absolutely love it. The main character is definitely a Constant Reader.

i read We Are Not Ourselves for an in-person book group. It was quite readable and semi-engaging, but I disliked the main character, Eileen, as she consistently sought happiness throughout her life in material things. I wondered why an author would make someone like that a main character.

I LOVED An Unnecessary Woman, which had a main character of inner substance who was incredibly interesting. I really enjoyed the literature references sprinkled liberally throughout the book.

I am just starting the Trollope.

time flies catherine coulter

I recently listened to My Name Is Lucy Barton and loved it. Next up for me is Gloria Steinem's new book My Life on the Road, which is the next selection for my in-person book group.

Gina wrote: "I just finished The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. A beautiful book with wonderful characters and a spellbinding plot. Spoiler Alert. To those who have r..."

Gina and Sheila, I read "The Gift of Rain" by Tan Twan Eng: I didn't care for it as much as "Garden of Evening Mists," but still got a lot out of it. I'lll have to discuss with others what how the garden layout and tattoo relate to the prisoner camp site.

A Steven Berry binge: The Lincoln Myth and The Patriot Threat. Both were a pleasant diversion although far from riveting. I've also been reading Evan Thomas's Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World, which us very interesting. And I'm about to start reading George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, which is the second on the list from The Great Courses' lecture series A Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books.

I finished The Way We Live Now. Okay, kind of interesting, but the word that comes most readily to mind is "Tedious." Now that I've slogged through it, am interested in what the content of the discussion will be.

Next, read a mild thriller that was pretty decent for what it was, The Guest Room.

Finished Ike's Bluff. This was a very interesting book and easy to read. The author also co-authored with Isaacson The Wise Men, which I also enjoyed reading.

Finished Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, #2 from The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books. Enjoyed it very much. It reads more like a chronicle than a novel. It is an evocative account of the narrator's experience with poverty in Paris and than London in the early 20th century and is probably largely autobiographical.

Listening to a absolutely fantastic narration by Christopher Lee of Frankenstein I can't praise it enought, the man's delivery, his voice and its emotional content, is excellent - unfortunately abridged but by far the best audio rendering I found. I found it on Scribd.

I am enjoying Rose Tremain's Music and Silence.

I just finished The Green Road - a little late for our discussion, but I enjoyed all the group insights after the fact.

Previously I read Death in Brittany by Jean-Luc Bannalec. A very pedestrian police procedural featuring a prickly and not-very-engaging inspector, exiled to Brittany from Paris. I did not find it as enjoyable as other mystery series, such as Donna Leon's Brunetti. Perhaps the series gets better as it goes along.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng – 4****
“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Ng explores the nuances of family dynamics – how a parent’s own disappointments may translate into dreams for a child’s future, how a child may feel burdened by those dreams, how siblings may compete for or retreat from parental attention. Cassandra Campbell does a fine job narrating the audio version. She has good pacing, and I felt connected to the characters by her performance.
Full Review HERE

Monday, Monday by Elizabeth Crook – 4****
In August 1966 Charles Whitman shot and killed or wounded dozens of students, faculty and first responders from the clock tower on the University of Texas campus in Austin. This novel explores the effects of that event on the lives of three fictitious characters. What a wonderfully complex character-driven story. As the story follows them through the decades we come to know their strengths, weaknesses, dreams, and fears.
Full Review HERE

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie.

It took a long time to read this book. I raced through her life up to the throne, then it seemed to be too detailed for my taste, but I'm really glad I finished it. She was an amazing woman.

Gina, I read a bio of Catherine the Great many years ago. I agree: she was a totally fascinating and strong woman.

Be Frank With Me was a light read, but fairly pleasant.

The 2nd in Ellis's Cadfael series, One Corpse Too Many. Enjoyed it a lot.

I just finished The Fleet Street Murders, the second book I've read of a series by Charles Finch featuring amateur detective and second-son-without-title Charles Lenox. Very pleasant and pretty cozy for a book that has someone stabbed in the back within the first 15 pages. Perfect book to read while slogging through a cold, as I was - I, in bed with my cup of tea, reading about the many, many cups of tea (and coffee, and pints of ale) imbibed by Lenox & Co.!

I'm working my way through Anna Karenina. It's a slog but it's worth it.

Tango wrote: "I'm working my way through Anna Karenina. It's a slog but it's worth it."

Whose translation are you reading?

I started The Masters, a pre-ISBN penguin which I inherited last year when one of the campus libraries did some pruning. It turns out to be very good, which is excellent news, as it's also part of a long series of novels by C.P. Snow. Between these and Trollope, I should have plenty to keep me occupied.

Sherry wrote: "Tango wrote: "I'm working my way through Anna Karenina. It's a slog but it's worth it."

Whose translation are you reading?"

Sherry the translator is Constance Garnett. I bought it about ten years ago at a second hand book store but have only just got around to reading it. I'm enjoying it although the names were confusing at first.

In the book I've just finished for the Reading List, An Unnecessary Woman, the main character gives Constance Garnett a lot of grief. She evidently took a lot of liberties. Some say if she didn't know a word, Garnett would make something up. When I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation a few years ago, it was never a slog. I recommend any of their translations highly.

Nicole wrote: "I started The Masters, a pre-ISBN penguin which I inherited last year when one of the campus libraries did some pruning. It turns out to be very good, which is excellent news, as it's..."

I've never read Snow. Are you reading more Trollope right now?

Sherry wrote: "In the book I've just finished for the Reading List, An Unnecessary Woman, the main character gives Constance Garnett a lot of grief. She evidently took a lot of liberties. Some say..."

Thanks for the advice. I'm almost halfway now and will continue but I might look for another translation if I give any of his other books a go.

Sue wrote: "Nicole wrote: "I started The Masters, a pre-ISBN penguin which I inherited last year when one of the campus libraries did some pruning. It turns out to be very good, which is excellen..."

I think Snow has sort of been forgotten, which is sad. On the other hand, it gives reading him an additional layer of delicious discovery, which I enjoy.

I'm not yet reading more Trollope, but in the library last week Barchester Towers accidentally jumped into my possession and got checked out, so probably quite soon...

Nicole wrote: "Sue wrote: "Nicole wrote: "I started The Masters, a pre-ISBN penguin which I inherited last year when one of the campus libraries did some pruning. It turns out to be very good, which..."

Library books are quite insidious, aren't they!

Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley – 4****
Haley’s blockbuster history of his ancestors begins with the birth of a baby boy – Kunta Kinte – in a small African village in the Spring of 1750, and ends two centuries later in Arkansas. It’s a gripping tale and Haley is a great story teller. I was engaged from page one and found myself very interested in all aspects of the book. Haley’s narrative focuses on three of his male ancestors: Kunta Kinte, Chicken George, and Tom (Haley’s great-grandfather). Avery Brooks does a magnificent job narrating the audio book. He is an accomplished actor and really brings the characters to life. (5***** for his audio performance)
Full Review HERE

Finished a couple of books: When the Moon is Low, an engaging Afghani refugee story, and Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, an interesting story of the author's own life journey.