What are you reading right now?

Just finished The Italian Girl. An oldie by Iris Murdoch. As they say, there are only so many stories and we tend to repeat them. This one is the old-woman-surprises-heirs-by-leaving-her-wealth-to-the-maid-story. As you can imagine the maid quickly goes from invisible to "seen".

cw,

I want to read it soon. I know Abby, the author’s daughter. Abby has been to my house. I haven’t met her mom. My daughter knows Abby’s mom and likes her.

My daughter went to Louisiana State University and Abby went to Southeastern Louisiana University. They met leach other through mutual friends and have become friends.

My daughter told me that the book is fascinating.

I love to go to our local bookstores and read books written by local authors on various subjects.

I have read books from people that I know. It’s pretty cool to read what they write.

I looked up that book, it has some very good reviews. But it must be weird reading a memoir about someone you know.

My daughter told me about her friend, Abby’s mother who wrote a book.

I think I’m going to order her book to read or borrow it from my daughter. Occasionally, we exchange books with one another.

The author is Colleen Hildebrand. (Colleenhildebrand.com) The name of the book is, Into the Ether: A Memoir of Holding Space

George Orwell- 1984.

This book is so spot on with the current climate, it's actually disturbing to see how something written, as fiction, in 1949, can be so real in 2023 and beyond.

I highly recommend it for everyone.

My digital library allows you to "suggest" they get books that aren't in their catalogue, it's a weird kind of system though because it seems to act the same as placing a hold except you have no idea when or if the book will ever become available. So now I have two books by Elizabeth George at the same time, both of them over 500 pages.

I've been reading reviews for that book and they are very mixed, let us know what you think after you've finished it Beatty.

Finally got a copy of Never Simple by Liz Scheier from my local library!

I had put it on their suggestions to purchase list & they now have. I think I am the first borrower. 😊

In TN I have always been able to get just about any book I want - sometimes it takes a while though. All the state funded libraries are part of the lending program so even as a child I was able to request the Tarzan and Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys books my local library didn't have. Once I requested a biography of Robert E Lee that had recently been reprinted and was shocked when a first printing from 1881 showed up!

The ereads program has a lot of older popular novels but some publishing limitation on the number of newer books mean you may need to wait a couple of years to get them. Newer books are physically available from the library (and I get a few) but I'm more likely to purchase books I really want to read for my kindle if I want to read it now. Currently I have just over 3000 books and magazines (reader's digest is a favorite) for my kindle so occasionally I just read something again. And then there are the thousands of physical books from before kindle days - both my mother's readers digest condensed books and all the novels I read during my traveling days - used to need a new book for each plane ride (biggest reason I was an early kindle adopter). My storage barn has cartons of books "filed" by author or subject matter. I like being able to hand a kid a book that I read years ago for them to enjoy (or read it to them). The younger kids are astonished I have comic books my Dad purchased for me over 50 years ago - but they still love them. Reading material has always been my biggest vice - disposable income wise!

Just finished "The Heat Will Kill You First" by Jeff Goodell. IMO, he is very much spot on about extreme heat (see current high temps in Phoenix, southern/central California, China, some parts of Europe, etc.) and climate change. He certainly got my attention. My spouse and I undoubtedly will be long gone in 10-20 years, but I will try to be more aware of our (already comparatively low) carbon footprint while we're still here.

Yeah, the earliest Jack Reacher novel I can get is #15

What I don't get is why there don't seem to be any older books from popular series like this in the physical library either, did they throw them all out?

I recently started on Lee Child's Jack Reacher series - all 28 volumes. TN has an electronic library so I borrow a couple of volumes a week using the libby app and download them to my kindle. Long enough it takes me 3-4 days to read.

cw,

I see. I hope your book gets better. I catch myself reading books that I enjoyed a long time ago. Like you say, sometimes we don’t know what to select from newer books.

I mostly made the comment about my library to forestall any recs of series that start back in the 80's or 90's NHWM. Although I've been following many authors since then finding a complete series that old is nearly impossible, and I find jumping into a series with a long back story or just missing several volumes is less than satisfactory.

I've currently started a story that is well written but seems like it's going nowhere, A Prayer For Travellers by Ruchika Tomar. I'm 100 pages in and I finally sneaked a peak at some of the spoilers on Goodreads and despite the rave reviews it sounds like this book is a long winding tale with no satisfactory conclusion... I'm not sure if I can stomach another 200+ pages of that.

CWillie, I see exactly what you’re experiencing. Lately, I’ve stopped reading just a few chapters in on several books that just couldn’t get to any point. Seems lots of fiction writers start with introducing a situation and then just beat it to death for so many pages without any progression or much of anything other than rehashing it repeatedly. Get to the point and move forward already! Many books could be far shorter if the repetition could be edited out.
One book I recently enjoyed was “Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson. It had some of the rehashing too, but the author wrote in a sarcastic, snarky style, often directly speaking to the reader, that was unique and fun

cw,

Our library will order a book for us if they don’t have it. Have you asked your librarian if you can do this?

Do you have second hand bookstores in your area? You can find great bargains there. Thrift shops too!

I also like to listen to unabridged books on our local public radio station. wrbh.org

Lately I'm having a hard time finding books/authors that meet my expectations so I've been rereading a lot of books by my favourite authors: Laurie R King, Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Jacqueline Winspear, CJ Box, Charles Todd to name a few.

I want a plot that tells a story, not some rambling epic that never comes to any resolution.
I want an author who can invent a protagonist that I care about, what happens to them should leave me wanting more not feeling meh.
Romance is fine but I hate when it morphs into the central theme of a novel or series, especially when the women seem to lose all their brain cells whenever the object of their lust enters the page.
Some attention needs to be paid to reality - I can see an ex cop or a forensic pathologist or a detective etc solving crimes but not a chef or a dog sitter or a baker or the thousand of the other cozy mystery tropes.
I'm into mysteries, dystopian worlds, fantasy and SF as well as the occasional plain old literary genre.

Oh, and it's almost impossible to find library books or a complete series that are more than a decade old, so that limits things considerably. Any recommendations?

every day by David Levithan.
“Every day a different body, every day a different life, every day in love with the same girl.”

Interesting!

Lu,

There are definitely some dark images in children’s literature of long ago.

I have found interesting old books at the thrift shops from time to time.

What a neat park you have NHWM~
I bet you have lots of good memories there.
The illustrations in this old Mother Goose book are awesome but the poems are kind of dark.

Lu,

I imagine Grimm’s Fairy Tales would be too gruesome these days. We read Mother Goose and Grimm’s as children.

Our City Park has an entire play area that is dedicated to Mother Goose. My parents took us there and I took our children there to play.

At Halloween, they have the characters pass out candy, for example, Mother Goose passes out candy next to her shoe. Little Miss Muffet passes out candy by her tuffet. My kids loved it when they were young.

Iv'e been reading a Mother Goose book published in 1939.
I'm sure the book would be banned so that makes it more fun to read.

Just re-read Henry James The Portrait of a Lady. I have to say this is the second time I have no use whatsoever for Isabel Archer! I simply cannot identify at all with our heroine.

Too Many Eggs
Mimi Smith Dvorak

Send, I love the movie!
What am I reading.. something online about troubleshooting the ice maker sensor light. Probably have to replace it.

The Neverending Story
Novel by Michael Ende
The Neverending Story is a fantasy novel by German writer Michael Ende, published in 1979. The first English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was published in 1983. It was later adapted into a film series. 
Wikipedia

GMORK: Foolish boy. Don’t you know anything about Fantasia? It’s the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries.
ATREYU: But why is Fantasia dying, then?
GMORK: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.
ATREYU: What is the Nothing?
GMORK: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
ATREYU: But why?
GMORK: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control. And whoever has control has the power.

Rereading a book a UK cancer forum recommended - "With the End in Mind" Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix.

A Message from Ukraine....a collection of some of the speeches by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Inspiring.

Just finished the 1980 book by Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus. The lives of two sisters, 1940s to 1970s. For sheer knock-out beauty of the poetic writing I can't believe it and don't know how I missed it. This week magazine publishes yearly a list of author's favorite books of all time, and it was listed there. From their list to my library hold order, and this was a truly good one.

What am I reading right now? The ingredients in a little bottle of poison. Just kidding.

Can't stand my boss.