Book Nook Cafe discussion

Share with us what you read in September 2016!


Please provide:

~ A GoodReads link
~ A few sentences telling us how you felt about the book.
~ How would you rate the book

What I read in September.

A Man Called Ove~~~Fredrik Backman
Fiction
Rate: 4+/5
I really enjoyed this read. I understand it is being made into a movie.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper~~Phaedra Patrick
Fiction
Rate 2/5
This book tried to be the next, A Man Called Ova or The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.
Sorry to say it missed the mark. It's an ok read but fell short of my expectations.

Not much to show for August. I need to step up my reading.

Two similar books, aren't they? That sort seems to be a trend but it is getting old for me. I'll have to post my Very Short list later...when i find it.

madrano wrote: "Two similar books, aren't they? That sort seems to be a trend but it is getting old for me. I'll have to post my Very Short list later...when i find it."

For some reason I love the curmudgeon old British men books. One of my very favorite British sitcoms was One Foot In the Grave.
Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Foo...

You can see it on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXBmK...

Alias Reader wrote: "What I read in September.

A Man Called Ove~~~Fredrik Backman
Fiction
Rate: 4+/5
I really enjoyed this read. I understand it is..."

I think the movie's out now Alias. Just opened.

Alias, I really liked A Man Called Ove. I'd watch the movie, too. Ove is a wonderful character.

In September, I read:
Hemingway in Love: His Own Story - (1-star) This was full on name-dropping. It really read like someone trying to cash in on their relationship with a famous person.

Girl Runner - (2-star) Saw this in the library stacks and.....well, since I run, I thought it would be interesting. It's an old story told many times already. Still, it would have been a decent read if not for the heavy and obvious foreshadowing.

A Red Herring Without Mustard and I Am Half-Sick of Shadows - (3-star each) (audio) The narrator of the Flavia de Luce series is wonderful. She brings Flavia's character to life. I enjoy listening to these on my commutes.

Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus - (3-star) (graphic novel) An interesting look at women and prostitution in the bible. This is the first graphic novel I've read where there are 100 pages of notes & explanations. Although the notes were really interesting, I think having to explain the graphic portion of the book takes away from the concept of the graphic novel.

Between Shades of Gray - (2-star) I felt that this story was dumbed down.

Frog Music - (1-star) (audio) This is the story of an obnoxious, self-pitying, self-centered woman. I will read more of Emma's books (really liked Room) but this one is a sad miss for me.

The Couple Next Door - (1-star) I found this story really predictable and not at all suspenseful.

Lots to show (many audios) but a lot of clunkers.....more than usual. Hopefully that means that the coming months will bring wonderful reads.

Just one again. I'll finish my in progress queue one of these days. ;)

On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep - 4/5
As with any parenting book, take the advice with a grain of salt and pick out the things that work for your baby and your family. All kids are different and everyone is a critic. This was an easy read and had some interesting ideas for sleep training.

Alias Reader wrote: "What I read in September.

A Man Called Ove~~~Fredrik Backman
Fiction
Rate: 4+/5
I really enjoyed this read. I understand it is..."

I hadn't heard of this one, looks interesting. Thanks for the review, one more on the TBR.

I feel like I've been reading all month, but somehow I didn't get very far!

This is the story of a woman coming to terms with her history. Her father was an immigrant never comfortable in his own skin, telling stories of longing for his salmon-colored home in Norway. He worked at a local chemical factory. She was a smart, but sheltered girl. Her parents and her boyfriend urged her to stay at home after high school, but she decides to accept a scholarship to a modern new university in a city near her Iowa home. She gets involved with some pretty psychopathic individuals at college, figures she needs to run, and so goes back home, marries her HS sweetheart, and has a child. One review I read said that you will like this if you like Jonathan Franzen. I don't like him, and I didn't like this one. 2 stars

Well, it was sort of that, but more an investigation of a particular Russian Jewish writer and celebrity who did things for the Russians that weren't so admirable and lost his reputation in the process. I didn't like it much and thought it was of very, very narrow interest. I will try her book about Putin, though. 2 stars

And that's it. I am in the middle of a very thorough reading of The Manor: Three Centuries on a Long Island Slave Plantation, which is a horror of a history book, but has interest for me because the slave owner in question was my seventh great grandfather. We visited the Manor a couple of weeks ago. So I'm going over this book with a microscope, and of course, I find it wanting. But there's lots of details about the world of the 17th C. that are fascinating.

I'm also just about finished with , which is the most complex and fascinating sci fi book I have ever read. It's a trilogy, and this is the last entry. I'm trying hard to understand all the science, and to tie up all the loose ends, but I fear this is a trilogy that has to be read multiple times if I have any hope of really mastering all of it. I love it and am resisting finishing!! Do you ever do that??

Michele wrote: One review I read said that you will like this if you like Jonathan Franzen. I don't like him, and I didn't like this one. 2 stars

The Nix seems to be the next must read book if the reviews are to be believed. I am a Franzen fan, so maybe I'll give it a shot. The synopsis didn't grab me so I hadn't put it on my TBR list. I think I will now. Who knows when I'll get to it. It seems like I barely can read a few books a month. I'll check it out from the library and read a bit and see if it's for me. Thanks for sharing.

Barbara wrote: I think the movie's out now Alias. Just opened..."

I seldom go to the movies. It's too expensive for me. Though I will catch this one when it comes out on DVD and get it from the library.

Petra wrote: "In September, I read:
Hemingway in Love: His Own Story - (1-star) This was full on name-dropping. It really read like someone trying to cash in on their relationship with a famous person.."

Sorry to hear this wasn't a winner. The synopsis online sounds interesting. I like that it also is around 200 Pages.
Since my library book club recently read The Sun Also Rises I was interested in reading a short bio of Hemingway.

I finally located my Books Read list. Scant September here.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham was a nice science fiction novel, written in the late '50s or so. A certain plant, which grows well, suddenly seems to move and most citizens go blind after an apparent comet passing. Most of the book is about surviving and different group's plans.

I have finally caught up on my Meg Langston mysteries by reading Die Like an Eagle by Donna Andrews. It was one of the weaker entries in the lot. It was about kid's baseball leagues, mostly.

I've been reading The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee. It has a good mystery and the Sand Hills of Nebraska is a nice setting. The problem is my own timing. Here's hoping i find time in October to read it.

Many so so books listed, i'm sorry to see. However, the good ones shine through, i think.

Petra, the graphic novel set in biblical times sounds good. Who would expect so many footnotes in a graphic novel?

Not a high-volume month for me, either. Between machine shop manuals and a slow-as-mollases Alexander Theroux novel, I don't have a lot of readable boks to share.

The Vivisector by Patrick White. A truly fantastic exploration of the creative process. This covers the life of a painter, from his early childhood through his old age. It starts off a bit slow, with that Southern Gothic sort of beginning, but soon the painter reaches his majority and strikes out on his own, and things get interesting as he tries to express what is inside of him. Five stars. Highly recommended.

Babel-17 by Samuel Delaney. I should really stop trying to read Delaney. Despite being known as an ideas guy, his work is rooted in the early 70s. Here, we have a main character who is somehow a genius poet, spaceship captain, strategist, hand-to-hand combatant, and telepath -- whatever serves the plot. Yet she talks and acts like she just fell off the turnip truck, without the mastery of world and career that comes with being successful. There's some hogwash about an invented language, Babel-17, which changes how its speakers think and so on, but that sort of thing was done much better twenty years before in The Languages Of Pao. Two stars.

The Centauri Device by M John Harrison. Maybe I should stop reading 70s sci-fi. This was better than the Delaney, but still has that sort of naive 70s bucking-the-establishment plot that ends with suit-clad businessmen getting dunked in a pool at the end. In this one, some junkie becomes king of the losers (his description, not mine) and raises an army of losers (again) in order to seize power from the rich and powerful. Three stars.

What If You Are a Horse in Human Form by Jason the Horse. I have no idea what the story is with this book. I'm not even sure how it got on my Kindle. It is the memoirs of a man who is convinced that he is a horse in human form, and how he is surrounded by enablers who encourage this belief, and how he encounters psychics which fleece him by agreeing with his preconceptions ("i sense you are missing a piece of your soul..." "i am a horse in human form" "that explains it exactly! the missing piece is shaped like a horse!"). This is either a brilliant send-up of the modern delusional mind, or a bona fide memoir of a rather dim-witted individual. Either way, I give it three stars.

Madrano, have you read John Wyndham before? I really like his books. Triffids was good (all his books are good) but my favorites are The Chrysalids and Chocky.
The Biblical graphic novel was good. I rated it lower because without the notes, the concept behind the graphic story could easily be missed (at least by myself). The notes were needed to expand the story, which I thought made it a weaker graphic novel than it could have been.

Mkfs, I've had "work reading" months as well. Hope this month gives you more "personal" reading time.
The Vivisector looks like an interesting read. Will look into it.

Mkfs wrote: "Not a high-volume month for me, either. Between machine shop manuals and a slow-as-mollases Alexander Theroux novel, I don't have a lot of readable boks to share.

[book:The Vivisect..."

The books don't sound like my cuppa but I really enjoyed reading your comments on them. Well done !

Mkfs, were you clearing shelves and decided to read these or was it a coincidence? I like reading novels from the '40s-50s but sometimes they get on my nerves along the way you mention. I'll keep reading them until i can't take any longer.

Here are three from last month that I particularly liked:

Miss Gomez and the Brethren, a novella about a Jamaican orphan who tries her luck in 60s/70s Britain, including a stint as a prostitute, followed by re-inventing herself as religious maniac house cleaner. Her employer, Mrs. Tuke, is a satire of middle class pretensciousness; their eventual clash becomes the turning point in the middle of the story, and so funny I couldn't stop laughing.

In Gratitude, memoir by a British author diagnosed with terminal cancer. I found the medical aspect the strongest part. Fans of writer Doris Lessing might be more interested in her time as Doris' ward, as when her parents divorced neither wanted custody!

I tried The Woman in Cabin 10 after disliking Ruth Ware's first book In a Dark, Dark Wood. This one was better, with suspense that kept me going until the end.

Thanks for sharing, John. I always look forward to this monthly thread. The more that participate the better.

I am going to check out, Miss Gomez and In Gratitude.
I've read Doris Lessings The Grass is Singing
The writing was excellent.

New titles to me, John. We thank you for sharing.

Madrano, Triffids is my favorite Wyndham. I go back every decade or so and reread. :). Love his other work though too.

I only finished two last month, both a bit disappointing. Both by Clifford D. Simak. Special Deliverance and Way Station.

Maybe too old fashioned. I think if I'd started out with them as a youth, I'd have appreciated them more. As it is I found them too simple, or plain. Innocent, perhaps. A little too hopefully naive for my taste.

Cateline wrote: I only finished two last month, both a bit disappointing. Both by Clifford D. Simak. Special Deliverance and Way Station.
l..."

Thanks for sharing, Cateline. Sorry they didn't meet your expectations. I hope October is better for you.

madrano wrote: "Mkfs, were you clearing shelves and decided to read these or was it a coincidence?"

I only wish I had such a good excuse!
No, the Delaney was one I saw a reference to and thought I had read, realized I hadn't, decided to rectify, then regretted.

The others were ones I had meant to get to over summer, but fell a bit behind. I'm still only 300 (of 900) pages into that Theroux. Slow slow slow.

Thanks for replying, Mkfs. Sorry about the Theroux, though.

Cateline, many a time i wonder if a book would have been better had i read it when it was first published, even when it was published before my birth. A fresh style in one decade can seem too simple even a decade later. Pity, that.