May…flowers. If it keeps raining in North America we’re going to NEED Mayflowers or Arks. But as long as there’s a dry berth for our books, we’ll be fine! And get plenty of reading done as we float along.
So Whatcha Reading?
I have so many going that I’ve lost count…
Khadaji was one of the earlier members of the SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, and he started these monthly book threads. Sadly, he passed away in January 2013, and we decided to rename these monthly threads in his honor.
I’ve picked up again on Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon. I put it down a while back when I was halfway through to read other things. I’ve found it a bit of a slog compared to The Adventures of Cavalier and Klay or The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
Still on various reading kicks: Newbery winners, cozy mysteries, and romance, mostly.
Today I finished two Newbery winners that I doubt I would have ever voted for:
Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli. Odd book with some wildly shifting tones.
Last Stop on Market Street, by Matt de la Peña. Extremely short picture book with a nice story and beautiful illustrations.
I also recently finished:
The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley. Classic YA fantasy. A young woman travels to a far-flung colonized holding of her nation (there are definitely some Britain/India overtones) and things happen. It’s quite good, though I wasn’t as emotionally invested as expected.
Hold Me, a contemporary romance by Courtney Milan. A trans heroine and bi hero. Very well written, and Milan does great characters. It wasn’t the most convincing love story. I’m not sure these are the right characters to put together. It’s bad not to be convinced by the HEA.
Inside Out, a YA dystopian sf by Maria V Snyder. A young woman is a lower-class worker in a completely enclosed city society. It did absolutely nothing for me.
And two I gave up on (both of which were better novels than Inside Out):
The Clockwork Scarab, by Colleen Gleason. Steampunk mashup of Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker. It just didn’t click for me, though I see the appeal.
Vessel, by Sarah Beth Durst. Fantasy in a desert setting. A young woman has been training since she was a child to become the vessel of the local god, which would mean her death. Then the god doesn’t come. I just felt disconnected from the characters.
Reading with my 10 year old daughter, The Incident at Hawk’s Hill, by Allen W. Eckert. A fictionalized account of a true story about a 6 year old boy that went missing in 1870 near Winnipeg. It was a Newberry honor book when published in 1970.
Also reading We are Legion, We are Bob, by Dennis Taylor, the first in a planned SciFi series about a man who has his head cryogenically frozen upon his death, only to be reanimated a 100+ years later as a replicant conscience to be used by theocracy as its AI for planned space exploration.
I recently finished Joe Haldeman’s 1990 sf novel The Hemingway Hoax, about a con artist and a literary scholar teaming up to create fake, “long-lost” Hemingway stories to earn big bucks. Very good book, but not his best (Tool of the Trade, The Forever War and All My Sins Remembered still take top honors for me).
Now underway:
Noah Brooks’s Lincoln Observed, a collection of reminiscences by a reporter whom the President befriended and often socialized with.
D.M. Pulley’s The Dead Key, about a long-sealed safe deposit box in a defunct Cleveland bank, and the dangerous secrets it holds. A little amateurish but OK so far.
Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Papa’s posthumously-published memoir of life in Twenties Paris (although he rejected the label “the Lost Generation”). Interesting little vignettes about James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
As did I. Jefferson was a genius and a very talented wordsmith, but a sneak, liar, hypocrite and spendthrift. Secretly funding an opposition newspaper while serving in Washington’s Cabinet and lying about it for years, until exposed by the by-then-pissed-off editor? Dick move.
Great book! I even led a discussion of it at my church a few years back.
Finished Rip Foster Rides the Grey Planet, a YA sci-fi novel from the fifties. Rip has to bring a thorium asteroid back to Earth, with the usual complications. I was a trifle annoyed by constant references to the bitter cold of outer space. Vacuum has no temperature - if it were cold, Thermos bottles couldn’t keep anything hot. Apart from that, bubble gum for the mind.
Currently running thru The Railway Children, a children’s book I never read before. Almost charming, but the protagonists obviously never had the “stranger danger” lecture from anyone. I am trying to put aside my modern cynicism and enjoy it for what it is. At least the children aren’t perfect goody-two-shoes types, and there isn’t a lot of that saccharine “oh mumsy we love you so much and you are so noble”. They have just saved the train and reunited the Russian poet with his family. I am wondering when they will catch on that Daddums is in prison, and he will be heroically exonerated and return to the bosom of his family in time to prevent Bobbi from a life of prostitution.My daughter wants to loan me the first of the Hellboy graphic novels. That might be next - else The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton.
Just finished Clownfish Blues, by Tim Dorsey. It had its moments, but isn’t one of his best.
Also finished Wedding Girl, by Stacey Ballis. I knew exactly where every plot point was leading, but it was still a lot of fun.
Next up is a poetry collection by Nikki Grimes. (It’s a shame both of the books I just read were okay. Otherwise I could say I was going from bad to verse…)
I think it was one of those books that I started at the wrong time and then never found a groove with it. I didn’t hate it. And for once I’m not judging anyone for liking it when I didn’t!
So I finished Chalk. I think the occult stuff needed a bit more explanation, or maybe if you’re British you just already know the mythology. My main problem with the book is that I never understood why the characters acted as they did. One could be called a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but she wasn’t the only one being implausibly peculiar.
Started this morning on The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel, a non-fiction account of a man who lived alone for decades in the Maine woods.
