Finished The Violin Conspiracy, by Brendan Slocumb. A coming-of-age novel about a young African American violinist of very ordinary background (and very little encouragement to pursue music as a career or even as an avocation) who perseveres and becomes one of the top violinists in the world. He also acquires a Stradivarius, which is claimed by other people too and is stolen at the beginning of the novel. There’s a lot about what it is like to be a Black classical musician (the author is one and says that many of the main character’s tribulations are things that he experienced), and a lot about the classical music world, and a lot about what pushes people to succeed and what can happen if even a couple of people are in your corner, and I thought it was excellent.
Now reading Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code. I’m enjoying it so far.
Finished Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott, which was excellent, particularly its worldbuilding, characterization, and language. Strongly recommended.
Now I’m reading Good Blood: A Doctor, a Donor, and the Incredible Breakthrough that Saved Millions of Babies, by Julian Guthrie.
The devil’s element in this nicely-written, informative book is Phosphorus (atomic number 15, symbol P). It’s safe to say that humanity and phosphorus have a complicated relationship. On the one hand, it’s absolutely essential to life. In order to grow enough food for all 8 billion of us, we need to mine it and add it to fertilizer. On the other hand, we use it wastefully, and the excess pollutes our water and spurs toxic blooms of algae.
Finished Good Blood: A Doctor, a Donor, and the Incredible Breakthrough that Saved Millions of Babies, by Julian Guthrie, which was interesting. The “doctor” in the subtitle, John Gorman, also (among other things) invented a better version of a device to measure how fast a patient’s blood clots. He was working at Columbia University at the time, and used parts he found in their physics lab to build it. The “parts” were left over from scientists working the decade before on the Manhattan Project.
Just read Hopeland, by Ian McDonald. It’s very John Crowley, for better or worse: lyrical language, slow-moving for large sections, family saga-ish. It has some amazing images in it, including The Music. Overall I really enjoyed it.
Just started “The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich, 1933-1945” by Alfred Mierzejewski. A documentary of the Reichsbahn during the Nazi years. The book covers the minutia of transportation infrastructure that underpinned the Third Reich. Issues like the east west traffic of the two front war conflicting with the north south traffic required by industry, Or, the delivery of freight producing tens of thousands of empty boxcars that had to be redistributed throughout the system. This in a war environment with Nazi politics. Good read for history aficionados…
Just finished The Goblin Tower by L. Sprague de Camp. I’m surprised I missed this one. Pretty good fantasy, although I was annoyed at the end by a Wizard’s Conference (which is a ludicrous enough idea) that is clearly influenced by the Science Fiction Conventions that deCamp attended.
There are two sequels to it that I’ll have to look up.
Next, on to Stephanie Schorow’s Cat Dreaming, which I’ve “read” parts of for the two writing groups we’re in. Now I finally get to read the whole thing, and in proper order.
For bedside reading I’ve downloaded Heinleiun’s own novelization of Destination Moon, which I’ve somehow never read. (I have read the companion piece, “Filming Destination Moon”, which I’ve got in at least two anthologies)
No audio books until I get my audio system repaired.
My book club read that not long after it first came out, and I enjoyed it. It’s a quiet book which really packs an emotional punch. It stuck with me for a long time and made me think.
I also enjoyed that when our book club picked it. The movie got mixed reviews, as I recall.
You might like this book, about how the Nazis actually led and ran the government (with due attention paid to their monstrous racial and ethnic policies): https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Empire-Nazis-Ruled-Europe/dp/014311610X. As you might expect, often they were stupidly, self-defeatingly evil.
Great book, and a great movie (Jackie Brown), too!
I didn’t even realize there was a Wonder Boys movie! Heh. I’m having the same problem with this as the last book, where I’m so tired at night that I don’t read more than a few pages before falling asleep. Makes it hard to get into the story/characters. I’m hoping for some quality time with it this weekend. The movie seems to only be available via streaming as a rental (i.e., not free anywhere), so I’ll avoid it for now.
(According to IMDb, there’s an adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union in development…could be one of those “in development forever” things, but I’ll be keeping an eye out!)
I’m reading Paladin’s Strength by T. Kingfisher. I liked the first book; I think I like this one more. I can’t really give much of my opinion of it without significant spoilers, but it’s a good mix of humor and pathos with a heroine I can really get behind (and would, in a bind. She’d make a great meat shield.)
I got about three-fourths of the way through The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah when I gave up. The cliched romance-novel plot in a WWII drama that completely overshadowed the story of the French Resistance finally eradicated my last nerve. I stepped on an oil slick that had more depth than any of the characters. To say they were one-dimensional gives them too many dimensions. I just did not care about any of them or the plot or anything else going on in the what could be laughingly referred to as “story.”
Long story short (too late), I did not care for the book.
Then I finished The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. It’s a much better story (and shorter!) but the post-apocalyptic setting and the overly-religious colony put me in a dark place. So I’m taking refuge in the Benjamin January series. I’ve gotten to Days of the Dead, which I love because it has lots of Hannibal Sefton after he was absent for the previous book.
Finished The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, which I liked, although I’d already read about most of their examples in other places. My favorite experience that I hadn’t known about was a hotel with a red phone next to the outside swimming pool. If you picked it up, someone said, “Popsicle Hotline!” and you could order one of several flavors brought out to you by a server on a silver tray.
Now I’m reading Sole Sisters: Stories of Women and Running, by Jennifer Lin and Susan Warner.
Finished “The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich, 1933-1945”. Informative background for understanding WW2.
Most of the German effort was directed toward the east. The Reichsbahn carried troops, food, equipment and Jews to the front lines. Most of the extermination of Jews was done by troops just behind the front lines. The Reichsbahn provided unit trains of 20 3rd class passenger cars for 50 passengers each and 1 second class car, to carry a total of 1000 Jews and 50 guards. Late in 1944 the unit trains were made up of larger numbers of box cars and 2 third class cars for guards. Although this was a small part of Reichsbahn WW2 activity, and of the book, the author concludes: “The Reichsbahn was an operating organization that met the challenge of running trains but failed as a human institution.”
Sorry I missed this last month! I read audiobooks usually when I am doing something repetive, driving a long distance, yard/housework, but much of the time I just sit on my bed and do jigsaw puzzles on my computer.
