Reading with Style discussion

If you want to tell us about a book(s) you've read this season, we'd be happy to see your comments here.

I definitely recommend the Aaron Falk series by Jane Harper. I just finished #3, and can say I have enjoyed all of them equally (although, I found #1 The Dry amazingly atmospheric).

Anyhow, if you are looking for a contemporary mystery series, this is a good choice.

I just finished reading The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem. It's absolutely delightful. Though written in 1965, it felt completely timely in its math jokes and invention of fantastical machines.

Also, it's probably the best piece of translation ever. For details, here's my longer review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

If you are considering The Code of the Woosters of off The Gilmore Girls list, I would highly recommend the audiobook read by Nicolas Coster. I think his reading helped a very funny novel be even funnier!

In the complete tasks thread, Kathleen (itpdx) wrote: "
A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky"

Did you like this? Have you - or anyone else - read others in this series? I see the author has other series ... what about any of those?

This was the first book by the author that I have read. I picked it out because it won the Edgar.
Yes, I liked it it. Mostly because of the background of the various USSR agencies spying on each other and the information on Siberia and the natives.

Thanks, Kathleen. I think it is the sort of thing I'd like. I'm going to add the first in the series to my shelves!

I’m so glad chunwei selected Such a Fun Age for a groupread. It was high on my list last season but didn’t get to it. So msny good books out there!
But now I’m glad I didn’t miss it any longer. It gave me insights that this Southern White Girl Liberal had had questions about for some time. How to “help” by not helping it or making it your crusade when you really don’t own it

But my favorite character is the precocious Baby Briar. She says what she sees, wants to know everything and hasn’t learned how to couch her communications in socially approved way. It is what it is.

Elizabeth had mentioned that she would be interested to know what I thought about Parade's End, this was my review for the 1001 group:

A long, but worthwhile, novel. I did find the first part of the first book a bit of a chore to engage with (it took two tries), but after that it was very readable. The first book leads us into WW1, and we work our way through (the next three books) to sometime after Armistice. The overarching themes are the upheavals that the class systems in the UK faced due to WW1. The main characters are of the wealthy upper class and we see how they deal with these changes. Ford does use some stream of consciousness writing, but he is much more readable than Woolf. Ford wrote some very strong female characters, and this novel would definitely pass the Bechdel test. That said, one of the women – Sylvia – has to be one of the most repellant I’ve read about in….. maybe ever! I thought that Ford’s depiction of Christopher’s time in the trenches of WW1 in the third book: ‘A Man could Stand Up’ extremely effective in showing PTSD, and the general confusion of the circumstances. Ford fought in France in WW1, so he uses his firsthand knowledge well. 4*

Thanks, Valerie. I will bump this up my list, though it may still be some time yet. I'm currently working my way through The U.S.A. Trilogy. I suspect, however, that RwS will give me amply opportunity for Parade's End!

I have 3 books I have enjoyed I would like to share.
1. The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
The author challenges himself to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica A-Z . When he first announces his challenge, he doesn’t realize how time consuming it will be and how much it will take over his life. As a journalist, he is constantly seeking info and fact checking, a habit he has had since childhood. Coming from a family of intellectuals, he develops as a person as he journeys through world wide minutiae of history, trivia, facts, philosophy, and sciences, He deals with the infertility he and his wife are experiencing, his moments of freezing up when opportunities to shine are presented him. His conflict of thinking himself “the most intelligent boy in the world” teeters back and forth with angst of suspecting he truly is just average and will never measure up to the brainy family members, most especially his father. He even feels like a poser in the Mensa crowd. His descriptions of his big chance on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” to meeting Alex Trebek and mistaking him for a Hispanic gardener are among the anecdotes that are laugh out loud worthy.

2. Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
This book was published in 1964, written by a fresh, idealistic, young HS English teacher. Using scraps of paper with notes to self, notes passed by students, tardy excuses, memorandums from the admin, minutes of faculty meetings and student papers, she portrays how inner city schools fail students and how the institution itself becomes the primary focus rather than students and education. It is poignant but though it made quite a stir at the time of printing, unfortunately little has changed as now politics have become more important than the students and education,

3. Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo by Stephanie Storey
This is a very readable fiction about the Renaissance when four renown artists resided in the city of Florence. Although the book revolves around the rivalry of DaVinci, the older established painter, inventor dandy and genius versus the young unknown upstart, the slovenly obsessive sculptor Michealangelo, there are also cameos of the elder of the artistic group, Botticelli at the waning of his life and career and Raphael as he arrives from nowhere to study art.
If you enjoy reading about art history, the Renaissance or even about the artists themselves, I highly recommend this book

Rebekah wrote: "2. Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman"

I adored this book as a teenager! I think I read it three times. It was so very different to my English girls' school, it was jaw-dropping, and I loved the innovative format with the little notes and how the different characters were so memorably drawn in just a few sentences. There was one character - an administrator? - who made me laugh out loud, refusing everything the teacher asked for with "Let it be a challenge to you."

@Rebekah, I see you have The Memory Police 5 stars. I have this on my hopeful list for this season as I love all her other works. Glad you liked it so much.

I just finished Borkmann's Point by Håkan Nesser, for the sub-challenge. I really liked it, and am glad to have discovered another 'nordic noir' author. I would say this is lighter than other nordic noir, but has similar sensibilities. I plan on reading the others that have been translated.

If you are doing the mystery challenge and are looking for books from the mid to late 1990s this series is worth checking out.

I wasn't able to find a task that this book works for this season - Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. However, I wanted to mention because I recommend it - highly (with warnings!).

Sometimes graphic novels can give you a gut punch (like Clyde Fans or The Complete Maus), and this is one of those. I don't think there is any other format Beaton could have told this story effectively. It is a memoir of her time, as a young woman, in the oil sands (in Alberta). There isn't any white washing, at least that I could detect and that makes it a tough read - but oh so powerful.

I had wanted to talk it up here anyway, but I happened to notice it on at least one Listopia list I was looking at for the summer 15s. Now's the chance to read it without worrying about missing style points! ;)

Valerie wrote: "I wasn't able to find a task that this book works for this season - Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. However, I wanted to mention because I recomme..."

Valerie, you gave me an idea for CHAIN. I have been wanting to read manga and graphic novels. Now to see if I can make a chain! BTW, this one was already on my Friends Recommend shelf. Now to see if I can use it.

Bea wrote: "Valerie wrote: "I wasn't able to find a task that this book works for this season - Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. However, I wanted to mention b..."

Oh good! I hope you can make it work!

Valerie wrote: "Bea wrote: "Valerie wrote: "I wasn't able to find a task that this book works for this season - Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. However, I wanted ..."

I used it as the jumping off point of the list...and managed to plan nine more!

T J Klune knocks it out of the park again with In the Lives of Puppets.

My favorite character has to be Rambo - a roomba, who is hilarious, optimistic and brave (and Nurse Ratched's foil).

Valerie wrote: "T J Klune knocks it out of the park again with In the Lives of Puppets.

My favorite character has to be Rambo - a roomba, who is hilarious, optimistic and brave ..."

Oh, cool. I really liked The House in the Cerulean Sea and have been listening to Under the Whispering Door. I've been reading these with my eleven year old.