Forget the Tom Hanks version. Sweden made a great version in 2015. I very much recommend it.
Finished T. Kingfisher’s Bryony and Roses and liked it a lot. One of these days, I’ll need to go on a quest and round up all of her stuff that I haven’t gotten yet. It’s good to know it’s out there for me to look forward to!
Started this morning on Mona Awad’s novel Bunny. I don’t know what I think of it yet. It’s one of those books where the prose is very flashy and attention-grabbing…hard to say if there’s any story underneath it. However, it’s about a weird group of women in Providence. Witches? A cult?
Finished 12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon, by Jamie Holmes.
Still reading Callander Square, by Anne Perry.
Started The Rim of Space, by A Bertram Chandler.
Finished Clockwork Futures: The Science of Steampunk and the Reinvention of the Modern World, by Brandy Schillace, which isn’t a bad history of (mostly) 19th-century science. I would’ve liked it better, except that I’d read most of the information elsewhere.(Except the part where Sir Humphrey Davy is accused of trying to blind Michael Faraday. That was a surprise! The author cites Richard Holmes’ Age of Wonder for that one.)
Now I’m reading Kiln People by David Brin.
Reading Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven. The story is about a Disney World type amusement park in Florida getting hit by a Katrina level Hurricane (with a flaccid Katrina level Government response) which isolates it from the rest of the state for 35 days. The employees trapped inside end up going the Lord of the Flies route. It is told in the form of interviews with survivors and academics after the fact (similar to World War Z) and while I have only just started it, I like it so far.
Thanks, Siam_Sam.
Finished Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, a clever, touching sf novel about centuries-spanning time travel. Some great twists and turns. Highly recommended.
I’ve now begun Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule. The author is a Virginian, a U.S. Army colonel and a former West Point history prof who comes to grips with all the lies he was told from childhood about Gen. Lee, the Confederacy and the Lost Cause. Also good stuff.
I just read a synopsis about this book. Sounds intriguing. I will be interested in your review!
Did I, or someone else, mention LeVar Burton reading “Jackalope Wives” on his podcast LeVar Reads?
(All my social media runs together and I forget where I mention stuff)
Nope, that’s awesome!
He does such a good job with it too!
I just finished reading A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles and I definitely liked it better then Lincoln Highway. Again, I read the first and listened to the latter and I don’t think I’m too keen on listening to novels. With that said, I thought the story in Gentleman was fantastic and the ending was great (LH’s ending was a bit meh for me). The ending got me right in the feels! 
I just watched Once Upon a Time In Hollywood and I’m considering reading Helter Skelter. I don’t know a lot about that story, but I see it is available at my library in both print and ebook version (I like having both versions when I can so I can read and home, at work, and waiting in some office).
Only T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon would think up a semi sentient sourdough starter… and then write it into a story.
I’ve a bit to catch up, Dung Beetle but T. Kingfisher month is a go.
(Still happily, but carefully navigating the often disgusting pathways of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Falun Gong )
Finished The Rim of Space and read The Ship from Outside, both by A Bertram Chandler.
Still reading Callander Square, by Anne Perry.
Started Cocaine Blues, by Kerry Greenwood. (This is the book the first episode of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries was based on.)
I really loved the Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. So good. If you want more on the semi-sentient sourdough starter front, I also recommend Robin Sloan’s Sourdough. Very different, but I thought it was a fun read.
Glad you liked it, as I did. I also believe that it’s better than Highway. But would you agree with me that the ending, although heartwarming, isn’t all that plausible? How long can he hope to remain undiscovered by the KGB in rural Russia in the early Sixties, living near his old family estate?
I will look into it!
I meant to spend yesterday reading, but nope real life had other plans.
They thought he fled the country and his good buddy Osip wasn’t going to do anything. Sure he might get caught at some point, but no one was going to be actively searching for him. It was enough for me to think that if he led a simple life, which he would have to do since he gave away his gold, he might pull off.
Better than Emmett in Lincold Highway, who was a good person although he killed someone, intentionally killing Duchess. At least it appears to me that it was intentional.
Understood, and thanks, but all it takes is one informant - and Soviet society was riddled with them back then - to figure out who he is (which shouldn’t be too hard, given his family’s roots in the area) and give the local KGB office a call. He’d stand out like a sore thumb out in the sticks. How’s he going to eat, and pay his bills? Not worth the risk, I’d say. Even after Khrushchev’s reforms, the USSR was no paradise.
Well now you are ruining it for me 
I’m sure you are right though. Who is this dude with the willowy beauty on his arm?
Ah, so you’ve met my wife…?