Just finished The Book Thief from a recommendation here. I enjoyed it very much and bawled at the end(even though you mostly know what's to come). I need something light to follow that, so I'm starting Crazy Rich Asians today.

I think The Heart’s Invisible Furies will end up being one of my favorite books ever. Boyne is an amazing writer.

I finished The Library Book. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but as an avid reader and library patron, I appreciated learning the historical background of the Los Angeles library as well as just how important libraries are in a community and how their services go well beyond providing books. The day I finished the book, I happened to go into my own local library to pick up some reserved books and chuckled to myself when I heard a patron talking to someone on the library staff about some fishing rods she saw behind the checkout desk. Unbeknownst to the patron (and I also!), you can checkout fishing rods from my library! It was acknowledgement of one of themes in The Library Book.

I also finished How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. I enjoyed it but not sure it’s one I’d go out of my way to recommend. It was perfectly narrated which made it more pleasurable I think than if I had read it to myself.

I’m currently 25% through Educated by Tara Westover. It gets such great reviews and so far is a gripping story albeit hard to fathom. My mother did not like it but I’m not sure why. She’s read a lot of dysfunctional family memoirs so I’m surprised she didn’t care for this one. I’m planning to ask once I’ve finished it.

Just put Gentleman in Moscow on my to read list. I read Rules of Civility by the same author several years ago, and loved it.

Terriks, it's really great...I found it slow to get into. I almost gave up but because so many people loved it, I persisted and was I ever glad I did!

Rules of Civility is a book club choice this season; we read A Gentleman in Moscow and it was a universal pick for everyone's list of best books they've ever read.

I just started Sara Paretsky's newest VI Warshawski book, Shell Game. Since she is always a reliably wonderful writer I deliberately do not read the book jacket synopsis or reviews of her books. I love to be surprised as the story unfolds. If you haven't checked out this series, it is well worth it.

I've got the next Flavia de Luce waiting after that, then got to get started on Rules of Civility.

This morning I finished The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, who wrote Room. It was a great read for me. I didn't think a description by me could do it justice, so I copied this from my library website:

"Tourists flock to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, who is
said to be living without food, and a journalist is sent to cover the
sensation. Lib Wright, a veteran of Florence Nightingale's Crimean
campaign, is hired to keep watch over the girl. As Anna's life ebbs
away, Lib finds herself responsible not just for the care of a child but
for that child's very survival. Haunting and magnetic, The Wonder is a
searing examination of doubt, faith, and what nourishes us, body and
soul."

I'm on page 75 of The Heart's Invisible Furies. I consider a 560-page book to be a bit of a commitment. So, I need some encouragement to continue.

I liked the opening part about Cyril's mom arriving in Dublin, but I'm not enjoying the conversations with the outrageously precocious Julian and esp. not hearing from his (Cyril's) unlikable adoptive parents. It just feels careless and brittle to me.

Does it continue in this vein, or does it get better? For those who loved this book, can you compare it to other books you've enjoyed?

Bunny - I think you just have to go with the flow of the book. Sometimes totally serious, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes tongue in cheek. I thought Maude was a hoot!

Roses, thanks for weighing in. I think I may bail on this one.

Re-reading some old classics. Lolita. Then J.D. salinger’s short stories, which I’m just finishing.

Bunny, it can be tedious in parts but you have to keep in mind the time period, the country and the church in which Cyril had to navigate as a young man and adult. I don’t want to give anymore away but gosh the chance of survival or keeping all your limbs was low. And, not just in that country either, although, Ireland was particularly harsh. The book covers a bigger picture of how and why some of these men had to live a lie.

I’m not in the mood for tedious at this point. Maybe some other time.

Well Whiskey in a Teacup is definitely fluffy; not what I expected but it is ok. Lots of recipes and photos with not much narrative. Very light reading .

For my book club I just started The Girl With Seven Names The Girl With Seven Names (non fiction) which has hooked me in pretty quickly. Amazing story ( I am still at the beginning ) of growing up in North Korea.

I finished Children of Blood and Bone while on vacation. I think The Warmth of Other Suns will be next, but I need to finish The Underground Railroad.

Unfortunately, I thought Magpie Murders became increasingly tedious.

I listened to the extremely popular Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris this week. I’ve been on hold for the hard copy at the library for two months but got the audiobook fairly quickly. It has a 4.3 rating on Goodreads with over 100K ratings. Apparently I’m in the small percentage of people who disliked it. It probably didn’t help that the narration was horrible; the narrator read dialogue with a sort of breathless seductive sounding voice that was totally ridiculous. The novel is based on the real life experience of the main character who was sent to Auschwitz. Unfortunately he chose the wrong person to write a factionalized version of his life. Just mediocre writing skills, full of clichés. Fortunately it was a short book, so I didn’t waste too much time on it.

I’m about to start The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.

The Novel starts in New York 1939 and is about love, war, dreams, art and boy genius.

4.17 on Goodreads.

It seems to be a book that is either strongly hated or strongly loved. More loved though.

Hmmm...hope I strongly love.

artemis-I finished The Snow Gypsy the other week and found it just so so. I did learn some things historically, and the writing wasn't terrible, so it wasn't hard to read, but just a little too soap opera-ish (maybe) for me.

leela, I have The Snow Gypsy (still unread) as one of my free Amazon Prime books. I find those freebies hit and miss, but some are actually kinda good.

A friend gave me Circe by Madeline Miller. Mythology+feminism. It took about 4 chapters for me to enjoy it but now I'm hooked.

Finally, I broke out of a spell of several months of not being able to get motiviated to read on the Kindle, so I got some books from the library. Now I am on a roll. I am in the middle of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. I like the development of the characters through their letters and telling the story from their perspective. Irena's Children by Tilar Mazzeo, the story of Irena Sendler who saved 2500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto is inspiring. I thought The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay was just so so., but my well read friend liked it very much.

Salonva, please let us know how you like Girl with Seven Names. It has been on my reading list for a long time.

lisaam, I loved Circe. If you haven't already, try Song of Achilles also by Miller.

A friend gave me Circe by Madeline Miller. Mythology+feminism. It took about 4 chapters for me to enjoy it but now I'm hooked.

Same for me!

I really enjoyed Circe too.

I finished Elmet. I can't think of any way to describe it except the "atmospheric and unsettling" from the blurb. It was those things. I'm glad I read it.

While clearing out some stuff I ran across a book that I don't recall reading before. Since I'm between library books I decided to give it a shot. Growing Up Female in America: Ten Lives by Eve Merriam, published in 1971. The concept of the book, "redressing the the falsities of our textbooks" in regard to the dailiness of women's lives, may be a little dated. But I remember being told, at about that time, that I could not become a NYS Conservation Officer simply because women were not allowed. We've come a long way baby but we'd better not forget that the struggle was ours and that it continues to this day.

Coming back to let you know The Girl With Seven Names is definitely a good one. I had never heard of it and was not looking forward to it for book club, but let me tell you it is a very good read and fascinating story. I am only about 1/2 way through it but enjoying it a lot.!

salonva, Goodreads gives it a 4.45. Sounds fascinating.

I will pick up The Girl with Seven Names. Thanks

Book group is coming up so I had to put Two Family House aside and am reading Being Mortal.

I started reading 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret but after the first few chapters followed by skimming the rest I'm done. I don't mind nontraditional formats, in fact I often enjoy them, and I thought the idea of a series of vignettes showing some behind-the-music details on the life of a famous person would be entertaining.

However 2 things stopped me: one is that by every account in the book Margaret was a thoroughly obnoxious and unlikeable individual. At some point I realized I had no interest in spending any more time thinking about her via reading stories about the various ways she was obnoxious and unlikeable.

Then I came across the chapter that described her extramarital affair with and subsequent marriage to Pablo Picasso. Which of course was fictional. WTF?!?!? Sorry but a biography that includes chapters of made up imaginary life sequence material is a bridge too far even for nontraditional format loving runninginplace ;)

Finished Being Mortal...I liked it as it made me think about a very hard topic. I'd give it 4 stars. I'm not sure how it will go over with the book group, esp as we have one member who has been battling leukemia for 3 yrs now...may be helpful for her or too close to home. But he raises a lot of issues and makes some very good points about modern medicine providing treatments because they have them rather than focusing on improving the life of the patient and helping them best achieve their goals, whatever they are, within the constraints of their changing health conditions. He talks about nursing homes and hospice care and treatments and non-treatments for the terminally ill and how one goes about choosing what's best.

"We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same:

What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes?

What are your fears and what are your hopes?

What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make?

And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?"

By asking the tough questions and finding out what's important, it can help the doctor, the patient and the family care givers arrive at the best solution when having to make even tougher choices.

Wanted to add that we had our book group last night and the discussion it triggered was excellent. I was surprised, but people shared their stories and their experiences and we talked a lot about the tough questions around end of life.

Annie, it is a tough subject but it's a universal one--whenever I hear the phrase 'if I die' I always mentally think 'don't you mean WHEN you die' because regardless of what one does or doesn't do that is going to happen.

Then too, for those of us who are further along a lifetime pathway the nuances of this subject are of necessity coming into view more clearly. We deal with aging parents, with friends or family members dying slowly or suddenly, with health issues that can be or are life threatening.

Being Mortal has been our book club's short list for awhile; I'll have to remind the ladies again it is a worthwhile read.

Yes, running. One gal had read the book before, just before she was dealing with some issues in her family. She says she has a paperback version which she keeps as a reference knowing it will be needed again in the future.

I thought Being Mortal was excellent and thought provoking. As I read it, I kept texting my sisters things we should be thinking about regarding our 80+ yo mother. I don’t have my phone nearby to quote it exactly, but one of this questions he presents is - since time is short, what is most important to you? What a fabulous question. Focus on what the dying person wants, not what the family or medical provider wants.

I enjoyed Dissolution. I'm a sucker for anything set in Tudor England and this was a nice way to weave history into a murder mystery. It wasn't too hard to figure out, but that was okay. I will definitely try more from the series, esp. since I can't take Louise Penny/Three Pines anymore.

hhireno...I quoted the 4 questions above...

I finished Two Family House and it was good...went down easy, though I figured the plot twist very early on. I'd give it 4 stars.

Not sure what's up next for me... the book group book for April is An American Marriage.

Annie, I saw the questions above but I thought he also had the one that cut to the chase - what’s most important to you? Maybe I’m making it up or distilled his questions into one simple one. Either way, I was very moved by the book and ideas he presented.

Two more books finished.

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. A 1998 novel about girls coming of age in 1960s Rhodesia. Very good. Maddening because I felt so angry at what the girls, and the women in their lives, had to endure/fight against but good.

1947: Where Now Begins by Elisabeth Asbrink. A non-fiction, month by month, history of that year. Concentrated mostly on the fate of European Jews and the continuation of Fascism post World War II. It also includes bits about American jazz, the end of British rule in India, Simone de Beauvoir (quite a lot about her), and other topics. Some of the language seemed a bit off but that may be a problem with the translation from Swedish. It was okay. Would be a good introduction to the era for someone who doesn't know a lot about it.

Got me thinking. I don't recall ever reading anything by Simone de Beauvoir. Have any of you read the 2009 English translation of The Second Sex? (The earlier translation was apparently not very good and omitted a lot.)

Up next on my reading list is Aetherial Worlds by Tatyana Tolstaya. A book of short stories by the Russian author.

I am reading Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

I guess you could put it in the category of historical fiction combined with magical realism. Whatever it is, it is very quirky! I was a bit resistant to this writing style but I'm being pulled in. I'll wait to finish before giving it a thumbs up or down.

I think The Heart's Invisible Furies was the best novel I have read in ages -wish I could remember who recommended it to give proper thanks. Just loved it, and am now on a tear to read some of the author's other books.

I finally finished Magpie Murders and while I enjoyed the original who-dun-it, for me it got very tedious (as Diane mentioned above) with the mystery within a mystery. Enough! already. I skim read the last 1/3 at least just to get it over with. People who love that genre might have more patience with the story than I did.

Up next: Convenience Store Woman.

Mimou - Bowlaway has been on my list since, I think, I read an advance copy review of it on the NPR Books FB page. I didn't realize it had been released. Look forward to hearing how you like it. Will go add it to my library holds.

Rosesstink, I saw Bowlaway on NPR too. It was recommended by Nancy Pearl. I have not read anything by this author before. So far it's a crazy story but kinda fun and different.

Chipping away at the great American read list, I've picked up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and A Prayer for Owen Meany. I'm hoping together it'll be a good balance.

I loved both those books, Annie. I've probably said this here before, but there are some books that I loved SO much that I didn't want them to end....so I never finished them. Owen Meany is one of those. Someday I will.

I don't post here much because I haven't been reading much of interest. But, I noticed something about my reading. I like to read a book associated with something I've seen or heard. Like, the book the led to a movie or show, or a book about another book (Prairie Fires is on my stack, for example, also The Catalog of Lost Books).

So, recently I saw the show "Million Dollar Quartet". I enjoyed it so much I saw it again a week later! I hadn't realized it was based on an actual event, I thought is was just a "what if..." kind of story. Well, that got me looking for the actual recording of the day Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, gathered at Sun Records for a jam session that was recorded. The CD is so fun to listen to with lots of chatter, and there's a book -- also titled Million Dollar Quartet -- written after the show came out, with brief bios of the guys and the founder of Sun up to that day, then about the session, and then a little bit about each track on the recording. So fun! I'm having kind of a "multi-media" moment, a delightful distraction from life.

Well I haven't posted recently because I am supposed to be reading Catch 22 for a book club and I am shocked that I am finding it really tedious. I am going to give it another few tries as I know it is so highly regarded and whenever I mention it everyone seems to have loved it.

Annie, I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as a kid. It took me to a whole different world. I still have my mom’s copy from 1943. You have inspired me to read it again.

I enjoyed the Gentleman from Moscow -read it a while back. Have just started The Library Book I'm enjoying this thread and all the books that everyone is reading - many good selections here. bpath: I saw The Million Dollar Quartet a couple of summers ago and it was very good. There was a young man, J. P. Coletta who portrayed Jerry Lee Lewis who stole the show. If you get a chance to see him in some future musical performance, don't miss him.

(Have to bring the thread up to page one before the end of the month. ;-)) I have one story left to read in Aetherial Worlds By Tatyana Tolstaya. Overall delightfully sarcastic. I'll give it 4 stars.