I skipped through a geezer-lit mystery and got quite annoyed at the constant self-denigration of the main character. Always calling himself names "fart" "poop" "old goat" etc. Most of the senior age men I know prefer to think of themselves as still quite young and rarely refer to their age or infirmities.
Should I write to the author and point this out? :-)

I am trying to keep part of my resolution to read books already on my shelves untouched, before I reach out to all the vast temptations elsewhere. Thus, I am now reading a superb NF work by Melissa Greene: "The Temple Bombing." The book was meticulously researched and is basically a history of the Civil Rights movement and anti-Semitism in Atlanta, where I grew up. The lovely old Temple was bombed by a White Hate group in 1958 and I have bitter memories of that event. I cannot say this is a book to be "enjoyed" but it is interesting and well written.

Being January, in miserable England, reading appears on the agenda even more than usual.....so rather thrilled to find the postie had delivered The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Not the most prolific of authors but able to draw you in with books which resonate for a long time in the memory. So, anyone else reading/read this one.
The second installment in the Wool/Shift/Dust trilogy arrived and I also did my usual thing of picking some unknown SF book......so unknown that I have forgotten what this is (unless I check with Paypal) so will have to wait till the postman delivers....but I expect to be engrossed in Tarttworld by then.

Listened to some of The Goldfinch on Radio 4's 'Book at Bedtime' but occasionally fell asleep so missed vital parts of the story. One minute in NYC, the next in Las Vegas and the characters a strange mixture of well-healed patricians and Russian mafia. All made extra enjoyable by the incidental music Tabula Rasa -Ludus by Arvo Part. Never heard it before, but it will stay with me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tabula Rasa

I have The Goldfinch on my kindle to read, I grabbed it when it was on a 24 hr Amazon mark down, but I haven't got around to reading it -yet.

After reading A Question of Guilt by Frances Fyfield which was the 1st book in the Helen West series, I was ready for a total change of pace. I am now reading an American political thriller...can't recall the title off the top as I have just started it.

Pat

I've started on the second of the Call the Midwife books, Shadows of the Workhouse. I just loved the first book; but this one, while quite as well written, has started off with the horrors of workhouses and is dread inducing.

Just finished Julian Barnes "The Sense of an Ending" which apparently won the Martin Booker Prize in 2011, I think. And yes, I refer to all Man Booker Prize books as Martin Bookers, simply because he was the one who introduced me to these years ago... I thought you might have a discussion on it, but couldnt find it if so, but the search engine doesnt work very well.

Anyway, this book was an afterthought, saw it as I was checking out other library books and it looked short and it WAS a Martin Booker winner so there you go.

I liked it, not rapturously, but enjoyed it a lot. Definitely not chick lit as its about adolescent boys and life. The book at one point uses a river as a metaphor...when the moon or gravitational pull or somesuch natural phenomenon occurs, the river goes backward. And this book is about memory, truth and history. How it all is recorded in our minds but when we go backward, sometimes we find things are not what we thought they were. Perspectives, viewpoints etc. I liked the way Barnes wrote and I think we can all relate to it....in his sixties he revisits a very important and disturbing point in his life during his university years. Short, easy read and one I will remember.

**playing around with the font color, just for fun *grin

This post was edited by janalyn on Sun, Jan 12, 14 at 3:01

Hmmm, backward running rivers - yep, the incessant worry of tidal surges pushing against the outward flow of riverine waters, meeting in a gigantic battle just on the oxbow where my woodland is situated. Those metaphors, hey....when they slap you hard in the face!.

I generally enjoy the unhurried genteel writings of Julian Barnes although they are never exactly riveting.

annpan - I'd never heard the term "geezer lit" until you mentioned it in your post above. It made me smile. I do occasionally get irritated when an author writing about an elderly character feels they must mention or joke about the character's age incessantly. Okay, we get it. Now get on with the story and the interesting insights of a character who has more experience than most.

I remember reading Donna Tartt's first book and not really caring for it too much. I had mentioned this to a patron at the FOL shop and she said I should read A Secret History which this gal said was quite good. Initially I liked it and do enjoy Tartt's writing, but I got bored with all the mention of drug-induced states, which, granted, plays a big part in the plot.

When I heard all the buzz about The Goldfinch, and I did enjoy her writing, I read it. I really did like the book and would say her writing gets better with each book, but still she manages to play the drug scenes up a bit too much for me. Nevertheless, I loved the book.

Looking for some insight into the minds of adolescent boys (mine is almost 15) I just finished Masterminds and Wingmen by Rosalind Wiseman. Subtitled, Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World it covered all the subjects promised and was interesting, and in some places a bit alarming. I'd devoured her earlier books, Queen Bees and Wannabes about adolescent girls and Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads about dealing with other parents, and found them both very helpful when my daughter was younger.

This one was just as comprehensive, but I finished it feeling a bit panicked about my lack of comprehension of "boy world" rather than comforted that yes, I understood things and was prepared to deal with whatever came our way, which was the feeling I took away from the prior two books. All boiling down to, I suppose, that yes, boys are different and I have a lot to learn!

Lemonhead, thanks for mentioning Gretchen Rubin's Happiness at Home, that's been on my TBR list for a while and I like her take on things very much.

15 yr old boys...I remember. That is about the period of time they turn into aliens. This will last for a few years then I guarantee they will revert to that sweet little boy you gave birth to. People say it's the hormones but I swear it was an alien. Good luck, mine is now 25, wouldn't change a thing about him! :)

Aliens .... yes, that would explain a LOT. Thanks, Janalyn :)

I've set aside The Observations in order to read the Call the Midwife trilogy. I find the stories Worth tells fascinating and the style and manner of storytelling reminds me of James Herriott.

I have started The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I haven't read Eat, Pray, Love but I know many people didn't like it. However one of my workmates rated this her favourite book of 2013, and we tend to like similar books, so I started it.
I am thrilled. Not only is the story the kind of history I like (set in the early 1800s) but the writing is wonderful. Much more literary than I expected and with lovely little turns of phrase that are drily funny.
I'll let you know when I finish :)

I finished the last of the Call the Midwife books and feel bereft.

Recently finished The Blue Flower for the Century of Books project, reviewed there. Also City and the City which I discussed under the SFF thread.

Going to look for some lighter books just for a reading change.

Carolyn......

I felt that way when I finished the last Maisie Dobb's book.
Always hoping that she has another one ready to publish!

What other books have you enjoy so much that you hated to see the book end?

Yvonne

Just finished a good read of a collection of short stories: The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories by Lavanya Sankaran (2005). Historically, I've not been such a big fan of short stories, but I enjoyed this collection very much. It's set in the Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore (in south India) and the short stories, although all separate and stand-alone, have a thread of characters and places that interlink them. Perhaps this was what made me like these short stores - the linked narratives made them not like short stories?

Who knows how the human mind works. It was a good read.

I finished Nailed by Joseph Flynn yesterday, he has written a lot of good thrillers and has fast become one of my favorite authors, especially since his books are available for the kindle at very reasonable prices.

I finally got a library book yesterday, the new Mark Billingham-From the Dead in his Insp Tom Thorne series. It has been so long since I read a 'real' book it felt strange to actually have to turn the page!

Pat

Yoyobon, I feel that way about a few books but not many. I really like Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott books and always want more about her family. I think Ms. Maron has southern family down pat--the best of anyone I've read--as far as conversation among the kinfolks and food on the table are concerned. It's like a visit home for me.

I wait impatiently for more of Simon Serrialler by Susan Hill, but I do wish she would let the poor man have a bit of happiness. Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' long, long Morland Dynasty series, which I understand has come to the end with the last book which isn't available here in paperback yet, has kept me enthralled with her take on English history. More, of course, that will come to me when I post this.

Carolyn, like you, I really got caught up in the Simon Serrialler series by Susan Hill. I've read all of them, some more than once. Do let me know when the next one comes out.

I also would like to see another of the Alexander McCall Smith set in Edinborough series forthcoming.

Abandoned The Goldfinch 2/3rds through - frankly tedious. I enjoyed The Secret History, less so The Little Friend but this is turgid drivel with a cast of unlikeable, implausible characters, going about their ridiculous non-lives.
Back to SF world with Alister Reynolds 'On the Steel Breeze' and dipping into Guns Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond) which I left for a while because the type was so tiny and I had broken my specs.

Mary, the Stop You're Killing Me site says that the next Simon S. book, The Soul of Discretion, is due May 1.

Speaking of Edinburgh, I can't remember if you like Ian Rankin, but he has a new Rebus book due out soon. He had Rebus retire a couple of years ago, and now he is to come back in another job working with the new character in investigating corruption in the police department.

I stayed up late last night reading Lexicon, a science fiction novel by Max Barry. It is about the immense power of words, literally. I was enthralled, which is a demonstration of that power!

Rosefolly

Woodnymph, do you mean the Scotland Street series? I have just caught up with a couple. He is getting a bit preposterous IMHO with the story lines!

Continuing my glut of mountaineering books with Robert Roper's Fatal Mountaineerwhich I am enjoying immensely. It is about Willi Unsoeld, the legendary mountaineer who took his daughter, named after the mountain, to climb Nanda Devi where she succumbed to illness. He died on Rainer less than three years later.

Carolyn, thanks for the info. I do not know Ian Rankin. Is he as interesting as Susan Hill's creations?

Annpan, I was referring to the series which has characters named Jamie and Isabel. The latter is a philosopher who was the lover of a younger man, Jamie. She has a child by him, and they belatedly married in the last novel. Is this the Scotland Street series, or is that separate?

I almost forgot: because I am presently taking a course on Gothic Art and Architecture, I am re-reading Cahill's wonderfully descriptive work " Mysteries of the Middle Ages."

I finished Me Before You by Jojo Moyes for my book group meeting tonight, and it was very good, far better than I expected as Moyes was an unknown quantity to me.

I'm half way through The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, and it's wonderful to be reading about Flavia's adventures again. I'm hoping many of the long-running mysteries regarding her mother are going to be cleared up in this story.

Just finished up "Happiness at Home" by Getchen Rubin. (She wrote a nonfiction book called "The Happiness Project" a few years ago that was a NYT bestseller.) Fun read, as always, with lots of good (old and new) suggestions to make little changes in your world for the better.

Sometimes these books can get a bit bossy - I don't get that feel from Rubin, and I really like her attitude towards life. (She's also very honest which I admire. Pretty brave if it's true.)

Sheri - you might like this. I haven't read her first book (THP) so I don't know if this one is repetitive or not. I enjoyed it, though, and I have cleaned out a few things in the house due to this read!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Happiness Project blog

Mary, the Inspector John Rebus books by Ian Rankin are focused on Rebus, with the point of view sometimes shifting to colleagues, petty criminals, or suspects. They are hardboiled police procedurals set in Edinburgh and involve murders, suspicious deaths, and disappearances, and depict a stark picture of Scotland characterized by corruption, poverty, and organised crime. Along the way, Rebus has to struggle with internal police politics and his troubles because of his tendency to bend the rules and ignore his superiors. He also has to deal with his own personal issues dealing with his daughter, his divorced wife, and his girlfriends.

The books are gritty and some are dark (e.g., Black and Blue), but I like him a lot.

I finished Johnny Cash, The Life yesterday. (I know, I know.) And last night began The Book Thief, which I must say is going faster than Johnny did, in spite of his amphetamines. I grew up on country music and did like JC's early songs. My brother-in-law who was a good singer said Johnny Cash was the only person he knew who could speak off key.

The biography is by Robert Hilburn, very thorough, and differs considerably from the movie I Walk the Line which I loved.

Carolyn I read The Book Thief a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. I read a review of the movie that said the film strayed from the book and didn't really show the real events, more a glamorized version.

I just started the new Lisa Black in her series about Theresa MacLean-this one is The Price of Innocence.

Pat

Woodnymph, that series is the Sunday Philosophy Club and is a different series from the Scotland Street one which mainly features Bertie, a small boy and various other characters.
I like the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and found he has also written a couple of junior books about Precious as a child.

My next mountaineering adventure as experienced through the written word is on the Eiger. The White Spider is a classic by Heinrich Harrer and I can hardly put it down.

Oooh, I'll have to put "The White Spider" on my TBR list! I see that it is not in my library system, and Amazon has no copies at the moment. Apparently it has been out of print for years.

I got the Margaret Atwood trilogy as a Christmas gift, and made short shrift of "Oryx and Crake," which was mesmerizing. The next in line, "The Year of the Flood," is a bit more work, jumping around in time, and the narrative is interrupted by "sermons" and "hymns." But, still, an amazing tale.

I'm on the waiting list at the library for "Someone" (McDermott) and "The Round House" (Erdrich), both for my book groups.

I will be interested to hear how your read of the 3rd Atwood book is - I'm up to that point as well, and looking forward to the experience as I've enjoyed the other two. I know that she's not everyone's cup of tea though...

I am reading Jon Krakauer's "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman" which is really interesting so far. Krakauer is such a good journalist.

And then pulled a book from my own TBR shelves (unheard of, I know): "Felicia's Journey" by William Trevor. Irish book about a young rural girl who gets pregnant by a no-good boy and who travels to England to see if she can track him down. She ends up mixed with someone who might not be who she thinks he is. Psychological thriller type of thing, and extremely well written. Trevor seems to have a large back list so if I enjoy this one, there's more to choose from.

(However, one problem I seem to never have: Lack of titles to read.)

Siobhan - I'm always interested to read your posts about mountaineering books. I have lots of questions. What got you started on this topic? Are you reading these exclusively now? How many have you read so far? Where do you get your titles? Are you keeping a journal or blog about them? I think it would be interesting to see a full list of them. -- Kathy

I finished The Book Thief, which I loved, and have begun Ruth Rendell's No Man's Nightingale. I have always liked the Inspector Wexford books best of Ms Rendell's writings. I dislike her darker books. Wexford is now retired and reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire but is glad to be of assistance when asked by the Police Department to go along to the scene of the murder of a female CoE priest (which several of the members don't approve of).

I am glad to say I'm having too much fun in retirement so far to think of reading Decline and Fall.

I've been on reading binge but had to stop because my eyes feel like there is sand in them. This is what happens when you have the house to yourself for a couple of weeks, and no schedules that you need to follow.
I have always been a fast reader but I was reading a book a night (some, I have already talked about here), often staying up to 3 am and really regretting it the next day. .Sorta, maybe, not really. I read some great books.
The Rose Garden book which I picked up after the dismal modern Jane Eyre was what you expected: light, fluff but enjoyable. I then read Kindred by Octavia Butler, a writer I respect a lot. It's technically SFF due to the time travel element, which also appeared in The Rose Garden btw. Kindred was on a much higher level though, thought-provoking, memorable and one of the best books I have read in a while. I'll review it on the SFF thread when I have time. I made an attempt at The Midwife of Venice but just couldn't get into it, so it went back to the library. Currently, I am reading The Dead Zone by Stephen King, just for a change of pace. Also, dipping into a novel of short stories by Alice Munro, when I am in the mood for something quick. Normally I don't read collections of short stories, but these are quite good.

I just finished Unaccustomed Earth and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. I started the Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed.

I am reading and loving Christiane Ritter's 1934 memoir A Woman in the Polar Night, about her year-long stay in a tiny hut in the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. By no means is it an arctic The Egg and I, as Ritter quickly learns how perilous human existence can be in the arctic. It must be something about this particularly brutal winter which makes me want to read about the arctic. I recommend it to readers interested in women explorers and adventurers of the past.
The book was a best seller in Germany, and apparently has never been out of print there. Ritter lived until 2000, dying at the remarkable age of 103.

Racing to finish The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down for my book club in three hours. I might make it. In any case, fascinating book, a vivid and balanced presentation of cultural misunderstanding.

...and finished it in time. It ended up being the most popular book we've read in a long time. The last time I liked a book our book club has read this much was Undaunted by Laura Hillenbrand.

Rosefolly

This post was edited by rosefolly on Wed, Jan 29, 14 at 1:01

I have almost finished Tragic by Robert Tanenbaum, I really enjoy the Butch Karp books, and I am behind in the series.

Next up the library came through with the new Sophie Hannah - The Orphan Choir. I have read most of her books and really enjoy her imagination and style-always keeps me guessing.

Pat

I finished Dominion by C J Sansom, he of the Matthew Shardlake Tudor mysteries.
This is, however, something completely different. It is an alternate history book, taking as its premise that the UK surrendered to Germany in 1940. Set before and during the Great London Fog of 1952, it has an England which is somewhat less than an ally and somewhat more than a province of Germany. There are German troops in England, but their army is mostly engaged in a long, blooody war with Russia. Hitler is still alive, and the Resistance in England is stirring up trouble.
In this setting Sansom gives us a story of a few people willing to fight the system, and it is very well written and engrossing. One I can recommend.

Felicia's Journey - William Trevor (1994)

A title that was picked rather randomly off the TBR shelf, this was a great surprise read for me. William Trevor, described by Wiki as âÂÂone of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world,â is famous for his short stories, but his back list is HUGE and so there are loads of different books to choose from. HeâÂÂs won loads of prestigious literary prizes (including the Whitbread Prize and five nominations for the Booker Prize.) Irreverent sidenote: He sounds a bit like the Snoop Dogg/Lion of the Booker World.*

So - to the plot of this fast-moving and short book: Felicia is an unmarried and naïve Irish girl who ends up getting pregnant by a visiting no-good lad from her village and who has moved away to England. In FeliciaâÂÂs impoverished family, there are few options for her to follow, so she leaves Ireland to go to the Midlands to chase down this boy who, she is certain, would like to know she is pregnant and would do the right thing. Her family is against this lad from the get-go as her father believes that the guy has run off to join the British Army, and as they are extremely wound up in Irish Independence activity and history, and so to them, this act means he has joined the enemy.

Along with this is the fact that the family is Roman Catholic and his father works at a convent in the garden, so options for her pregnancy are not available either. Poor thing - itâÂÂs no win for her all around, it seems, and so she visits England for the first time - a foreign country for her as she has not traveled much before.

Aside from the facts that Felicia has little money, no friends, no housing, and a fake address for this boy of hers, it doesnâÂÂt look very hopeful. Then she meets Mr. Hilditch (always used with that title) who is a quiet non-descript middle-aged catering manager for a local factory near where Felicia is staying. He presents himself as a kind and rescuing father figure for her, but in his thoughts, the reader can see that there is a history of something weird. He has âÂÂrescuedâ girls before, but what has come of them? And will he do the same with Felicia?

This is a taut psychological novel about the hunter and the hunted: Mr. Hildich is the predator and naïve girls âÂÂwho wonâÂÂt be missedâ are the prey. At the same time as this is happening, you also follow FeliciaâÂÂs thoughts as she is scared and confused. She lives on the street for a few days, gets in with a rather strange religious group who can give her a place to sleep, and she keeps being circled by Mr. Hildich, as a shark does bleeding seals. You just know that something is going to happenâ¦. But what?

The ending comes quite quickly and itâÂÂs not what I had thought it would do. (I love this unpredictability in a plot.) There are a few major twists and in the end, things are left hanging unsolved really....

I'm splitting my reading time between Call the Midwife (excellent so far) and Gretchen Rubin's Happiness at Home. Lemonhead, thanks for mentioning it, I'm enjoying this very much.

Rosefolly, I loved both Lexicon (quite an original, I thought) and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Anne Fadiman is an incredible writer and if you haven't already read her book of essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, I heartily recommend it.

I have Julia Spencer Fleming's latest, Through the Evil Days, waiting for me to get off the computer. Oh, fabjous day.

I am reading a reprint of The Mysterious Affair at Styles as there is an alternative ending in it as well, from AC's notebook.
I have been meaning to request the books about the notebooks by John Curran from the library. A mental TBR!

I went to the library a couple of days ago to find something new to read. None of the new fiction titles appealed to me at the time so I looked at the new non fiction and came home with 6 non-fic books instead of the 1 or 2 fiction one I wanted. So far I've finished two of them.

The first one was Big Daddy Rules by Steve Schirrupa (an actor from The Sopranos) who wrote about how he and his wife raised their daughters.

The next one I finished a few minutes ago. Wear Your Dreams by Ed Hardy is the story of how he came to be a tattoo artist and the path he took to try to bring tattooing as an art form more into the mainstream. At times I felt a little confused as he talked about all the different people he met who influenced him along the way but overall I found it to be an interesting story.

Now I have to decide what to read next as there are 4 more library books awaiting my attention.