I thought Ordinary Grace was a terrific book. I liked it better than This Tender Land, in fact.

Thanks for the feedback! And I hope to read a book or two from the bedside stack before it arrives.

Rosefolly,

Ordinary Grace was among my "Best Books of 2017". I hope to do not build up your expectations, though, as reading tastes are so individual.

BTW, another of my "best books" that year was The Garden of the Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, which you had recommended at some point.

Donnamira,

Another of my best books that year was Sound of Snow Falling by Maggie Umber, which I then recommended, and you (birdwatcher and art lover) "read" too, as I learned from your comment on the "Best Books Read in 2017" thread:

Reader-in-transit: so it must have been your comments about Maggie Umber's book that led me to it! I bought it, and enjoyed it so much that I sent it to another bird-watching friend as a Christmas present.

I write "read" with quotation marks because as Kathy pointed on that same thread, it was the best book I didn't "read": the book has not text at all.

BTW, yesterday, at the library, I saw George Takei's They Called Us Enemy, which I will read eventually, based on your recommendation above.

In case any of you want to reminisce a little, here is the link to the "Best Books Read in 2017":

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5021120/best-books-read-in-2017#n=28

All the books above are still highly recommended.

I'm re-reading "Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan. This is a well-written story of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's extra marital affair with a married mother of two. They run away to Europe together and the woman takes up translating the work of Swedish feminist Ellen Key. They return to the States and Wright builds a prairie house for his paramour in Wisconsin. I won't give away the ending -- only to say it is shocking. I had read this just after relocating a decade ago and found I had forgotten almost everything about the plot and characters. I suppose I was so distracted by the move that the details never sunk in....

Has anyone else here read this; if so, what did you think?

I haven't read that book but I saw a documentary on his life on Amazon Prime.

Pretty depressing for a man so gifted. I've always wanted to visit Falling Water ,his home in Pennsylvania.

I read Loving Frank about 10 years ago, and it depressed me, not only for the shocking ending (which of course is what actually did happen to Mamah), but for the impact of the scandal of her affair with Wright on the legacy of her own intellect and capabilities. I thought the author did a very credible job of recreating Mamah when so little is actually known about her.

I would love to visit Fallingwater some day as well. It's a 3.5hr drive from my home, close enough that I'm sure I'll get around to driving up there one day.

My reading this month went off track for a couple weeks: I'm about halfway through Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death, and there's so much about the protagonist's eventual death that I had to put it aside for a while. I have no idea whether the outcome will be as described, so I know I will pick it up eventually in the hopes that it will end better. Meanwhile, I devoured Cherryh's latest Foreigner novel, Resurgence, in a day.

I finished A Better Man and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s the most recent book by Louise Penny, which is good because I need a break from Three Pines. 🙂. I’ve read four or five LPs in the last several months.

Now I’m engrossed in Lethal White, the fourth Cormoran Strike novel by Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling).

Donna

I, too, would love to visit some of F.L. Wright's architectural stunners. As is so often with genius, it would seem there were certain sad personality defects within the man. I wonder what would have happened with the couple if Mamah and Frank were living in our post-modern times....

I adore FLW, although I only learned about his work about ten years ago or so. Since then, I've learned more about his architectural approach, although know little about him as a person. I love MCM interiors!

Back to reading, I'm enmeshed in the interconnected short stories of Bernadine Everisto's characters in Girl, Woman, Other, the 2019 Booker Prize winner. Crikey. This book is an excellent read and I'm quite certain it will make the Top Ten list at the end of the year.

(Another recent 2020 Top Ten potential was my read of Elton John's autobiography, Me. That guy (and/or his ghost writer) can write!!)

I'm not a fan of FLW - I find his houses grim and unappealing. I've visited several, including Fallingwater twice a couple of decades apart, one of his Usonian houses (intended for the professional class), and the buildings he designed for Florida Central University. Honestly, I think I'd rather live in a cave. Well, a nice cave, anyway.

Reading Loving Frank was interesting, but only served to confirm my opinions. Isn't that always the way? It is so satisfying to have one's preexisting opinions confirmed. I found him and Mamah both to be quite selfish people, and would not have enjoyed knowing them in real life.

On the other hand, I do rather like Prairie School architecture, a kind of offshoot of the Craftsman style. I just don't like his interpretation of it.

Woodnymph - I also read Loving Frank several years ago, and did not care for it. I was surprised that you are reading it a second time. Perhaps I'm not remembering what is good or enjoyable about it? I checked my reading journal and discovered that I failed to record my impressions there. (I hate it when I do that.)

I love the look and setting of Fallingwater myself, but I understand that there were structural failures in the design right from the beginning, and there's been a fairly continuous repair/modification effort to keep it intact. I think the only FLW structure I've been in is the Monona Terrace convention center in Madison, WI, and it seemed like any other convention center. It does have a beautiful view of the lake though. Perhaps it is really the setting, and the enhancement of the landscape that I admire in an FLW building, more than the buildings themselves? At Monona Terrace, what I liked the best was the gift shop - it had several signed David Macauley books for sale. :) (back to the picture book discussion! )

I've read a couple biographies where what I learned of the person was that I wouldn't have liked them at all! I remember putting down a well-regarded biography of Thomas More (or was it Martin Luther? maybe both!) because I decided I didn't like him as a person, and being a bit disappointed when I learned more of Garth Williams (the Little House illustrator).

I am reading Bright Hair About the Bone by Barbara Cleverly. This is the second book featuring a different character, Letitia Talbot. I've enjoyed reading her Joe Sandilands books for years.

I just finished The Confession Club by Elizabeth Berg. At first I thought, well this is just chick lit, and I didn't like the snide remarks made about men in the first chapter, but when one of the women fell in love with a homeless man, it kept me reading. That's a storyline you don't stumble on very often. I admit the man was presented in a rather idealized fashion, but it was still interesting.

Leonardo is done; I've moved on to the TBR stack; and now I am halfway through Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy. The premise of the book is that we should plant a generous portion of native plants in our gardens because exotic plants disrupt local food webs. Local insects can't eat them, which is partly why we have fewer insects, and local birds require insects to raise their young, which is partly why we have fewer birds. Very interesting. He just despises the popular Bradford (Callery) pear. It is becoming an invasive weed in many areas. Actually I've always disliked it too, but as a carrier of disease to plants I prefer.

Thank you for posting that Rosefolly. I think now that I've dismissed the whole idea about growing native plants a bit too soon and without much consideration. Somehow I missed the import of doing that despite that fact that I try to be open and thoughtful about such things. As a gardener and nature enthusiast I obviously need to read more about this. I appreciate you sharing your viewpoint. If you have any suggested reading about this topic I'd love to hear it. I'll certainly look for the Tallamy book you mention.

FYI......Louise Penny's latest book will be out in September 2020 !

She seems to write one every year. How can she have a life ? Either that or she has a very gift ghost writer !

Skibby, I recommend Doug Tallamy and also Rick Darke, with whom he co-wrote another book, The Living Landscape. I'd been hearing about using natives for some years before I ran into his work and it never fully caught my attention until then. He also has a number of YouTube presentations, some a few minutes long, some an hour or even longer.

Thank you Rosefolly. My Library doesn't have anything by either of those two authors. I'll look further. YouTube as well. I appreciate the referrals.

Yoyobon, a quiz question on a TV show mentioned that Dame Barbara Cartland has written over 700 books! She had a long life and wrote a lot of light romances with the aid of two secretaries apparently. She is not the only person with a prolific output either, I believe. Cartland did a lot of social work too and had a fascinating life!

Annpan today Barbara Cartland is possibly best remembered as the step Mother-in-Law of Diana P of Wales, as her daughter had married Earl Spencer, D's father.

An interesting obituary on B C below. She was quite a girl and I always 'see' her clad in clouds of pink with a lap-full of yappy pekinese dogs.

Dame Barbara Cartland

I went through a Barbara Cartland phase in high school and had several shelves of her paperbacks. They did seem to have the same plot, though - lower class girl comes to the attention of the local higher class man and sparks fly. She redeems him from his womanizing lifestyle and they live happily ever after.

Donna

"Loving Frank" is not a book one can deem "enjoyable". But it is well written. What I most liked about it was the time period it evoked, in the Europe before WW I, and the same time period in America. I envisioned the far reaches of the "prairies" before Wisconsin became such a populous state. As well, I had never heard of the early feminist "Woman Movement" in Scandinavia at the turn of the century. So it was interesting to me to read of feminist Ellen Key, who was influenced by Ibsen's play "The Doll's House" and whose work Mamah translated into English. The violent ending was evocative and prescient, re: the Jim Crow era in America.

Woodnymph - I admire your reading style!

I was interested to note that a republished edition of a 1969 mystery I have just read has a foreword from the Publishers mentioning that they wish to disassociate themselves from words and views that could be offensive today. I couldn't see what they were getting upset about unless it was a mention of a dead coloured chef as a "darkie"?

I get upset about the snobby attitudes of writers towards the lower and working classes in some Golden Age mysteries but have to ignore it. I remember a critic mentioning in a foreword to a reprint that the maidservants who screamed about finding a body in the Thirties were the ones who managed to hang on to their nerves and get on with things during the Blitz.

Jolly good show, girls!

Annpan, what has it come to when publishers have to apologise for the content of the books they produce?

Is this part of the 'snowflake' generation where folk who's sensibilities are so delicate they cannot deal with how things were 'back in the day'? We are seeing this all the time over here. One eg was of a young man from an African country who was studying at Oxford with the help of a Rhodes Scholarship, who insisted that a bust of Cecil Rhodes be removed from his college as he saw C R as an example of the evil that was Imperialism. Of course there is no doubt that Rhodes exploited the natural wealth of the continent and maybe one could argue that without 'white' exploration the peoples of Africa could have just gone on as they had been doing for millennia. Maybe that young man would have gained no advantage from obtaining a law degree, or even been better off never having the chance to read and write. I don't know the answer but don't think we should try and re-write history.

Don't you have the same problem in the US with many claiming that statues to Southern Civil War generals etc should be torn down?

Vee, I don't understand all the fracas about statues of Confederate generals, but then I'm a southern white girl from a southern white family. I don't see the statues as symbols of white dominance over other races, or aggression, or any of those things. To me they are memorials to men who gave their all defending what they believed in.

I am really enjoying Lethal White. I liked the first three Cormoran Strike books a lot (JK Rowling can really tell a story!) but they all had a really gruesome murder at the center of the story. This one didn't have a death until nearly halfway through, and maybe it's suicide... Anyway, I'm really enjoying it.

Donna

Unless a person has been born and raised in the South, it is difficult to understand their feelings about this issue.

If we all went around demanding the removal of everything that offended us I'd have to raise my hand in favor of eliminating all Hooter's and Waffle House establishments !

Donna and yoyo. My grandfather and all his extensive family came from VA and while visiting in the early '70's I was interested/surprised to see that several Great Aunts still went to meetings discussing the finer points of the Civil War. I never felt that it was a black v white issue . . . but then I was only a looker-on.

As a southerner, Donna, I understand your point of view.

Vee, it is tragic when these statues lead to violence as happened in Charlottesville, VA a couple of summers ago. An innocent young woman was killed and several bystanders hurt. The peaceful university town was invaded by outsiders, prepared for a fight. On MLK day, last Monday, a similar crowd threatened Richmond's capitol, in VA. This time, the fracas was over gun laws.

Here in Charleston, there is a statue to John Calhoun, former slave holder and defender of that way of life. However, in another park, there is a statue of Denmark Vesey, a Black who led a slave uprising, and there is also a slave museum, as well as a plantation that tells the southern way of life from the point of view of the slaves. Much of the older parts of downtown Charleston was built by slave labor. An African-American museum is now under construction also.

If all the statues in the 14 European countries I visited that offended many viewpoints were taken down, there might be little left to see.

Woodnymph/Mary the BBC TV showed the crowd in Richmond. Over here we find it impossible to understand why people feel it is their right to be armed with guns and are truly shocked that someone would carry a gun into church . . . as described by a participant in Richmond.

Of course we have plenty of baddies over here but as guns are virtually unobtainable they resort to stabbing each other . . . I should add this is among the communities of non-white males who join gangs for so-called protection; often drug related.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, was born in Kentucky, his family moved to Mississippi when he was three, and then his father sent him back to KY to school when he was seven. He later went to Transylvania College in Lexington, KY.

From 1896 until 2016, his statue stood outside the entrance to the University of Louisville, at which time it was moved to a town further down the Ohio River because of protests. KY was the birthplace of both Davis and Abraham Lincoln which seems reason enough to me to have memorials to both of them left in situ.

We have another controversy, not yet settled, of a statue of John B. Castleman astride his horse in one of the large city parks in Louisville. He was a young Confederate officer, later pardoned and served as a General in the U.S. Army and very active in the development of our beautiful city parks designed by the famous park developer, Frederick Law Olmstead. Poor old Castleman, who advocated for no segregation in the park system, wears a big splash of orange paint that has been removed several times and evidently given up to the hoodlums. The discussion of what to do with him continues because the "agitators" won't listen to the end of the story.

I prefer to see something useful like a fountain erected to a person rather than a statue. A memorial park is good too.

Annpan, I think the high-water mark of statue erecting must have been in the Victorian era with all those monuments put up in large industrial cities to commemorator local 'worthies', also in Westminster Abbey which seems over-run with marble/stone often of people, of whom, we as a Nation, have no memory.

Carolyn. We have the same problem over here in Bristol our neighbouring large city where a long-dead philanthropist Edward Colston's name is being reviled.

He was a wealthy merchant born in the late sixteen hundreds who's many ventures included the trading of slaves. At his death he left a huge fortune to the city which went to founding churches, schools, almshouses, hospitals etc and his name is on many street signs and so on. Today a very vocal group feel his name should be removed from the history of the city as though, for better or worse, he and the institutions he caused to be founded are of no relevance.

As a northern I think of it as a hunk of concrete/bronze/whatever.....if it offends you avert your eyes . People will always find "issues". I say choose your battles.

I have recently finished American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, and thought it was very good. I read the Power of the Dog trilogy by Don Winslow last year, and this book fits in with that as it tells the story of a woman and her young son running from a Mexican drug cartel. There has been some controversy as Latin writers have claimed she has no right to tell their story, and that their own books have been ignored while this has been lauded. It's also an Oprah pick, but don't let that put you off :)

I'm reading A Snapshot of Murder by Frances Brody. Have you read her books, Ann? They are cozies set post WWI.

Carolyn, I don't recall her but will check her out. I am still catching up on Campion books. Rigby has done a good job but perhaps Campion and Lugg are easier characters to copy than Poirot. I didn't like the books with his character development..

I finished Lethal White on Saturday. It's my favorite of the four Cormoran Strike stories, I think because there wasn't a really grisly murder at the center of it. It kept me guessing right up to the end. And there were still some unresolved issues so I suspect a fifth Strike book is in the works.

Donna

I'm reading Hidden Depths, the second Vera Stanhope mystery by Ann Cleeves. I read and very much enjoyed her Shetland books, but I'd never read any Vera's nor has the TV series run in my area. I am liking the books, of course.

Just finishing Margery Allingham's Tiger in the Smoke which has taken nearly a month to get through due to the very very small print making reading only a few pages at a time possible. Written in 1950 the language is, of course, very dated and there is quite a bit of 'psychological discussion' but when M A gets round to describing the scenes where something actually 'happens' she is excellent at upping the tension. It is almost possible to feel and smell the fog getting into the lungs.

I seem to be in a nonfiction mode these days. I've always read some but in the past it took a backseat to fiction. Recently it has been holding even. I read a novel, then a NF book, then another novel, and so on. I suspect this pattern is temporary, but I'm enjoying it right now.

Driving in my car I have been listening to Chernow's biography of Hamilton, as I mentioned previously. At home I have been reading The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte. Both are fascinating. My next planned novels are The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (for February book club) and Paragon Hotel by Lindsay Faye, which I started then set aside to finish off some library books I wanted to return. Paragon Hotel in particular intrigues me. It is set in the Great Depression. The main character is a gangster's moll who escaped New York to avoid being killed and ended up in a segregated hotel in Seattle. There her presence is a serious risk to the other inhabitants.

Lots of lovely reading awaits me!

I became an audiobook convert several years ago. They're great for my commute (roundtrip, it's around 1.5 to 2 hours per day during the work week), and also while doing housework on the weekends. Two that I listened to and really liked, both YA fantasies: Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson and Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim. Sorcery of Thorns is a stand-alone. Spin the Dawn is the first of a series (not sure if it's going to be a duology or a trilogy, but I think a duology).

Some eBooks that I've read this month:

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton, a fantasy retelling of King Lear. I had mixed feelings about this one.

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, a SF novella that I really enjoyed.

Just found a copy of The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley at the library book sale shelf......it goes to the TBR pile for sure.

I really like Susanna Kearsley's books.

I finished Hidden Depths and have started Saints of New York by R. J. Ellory. I'm not very far into it yet, but it is going to be a good book--in spite of the bad language. I have read two other books by him, Candlemoth and Ghostheart, and gave both of them four stars on Goodreads. I have a hard time remembering the plots of what I read, but I do remember those.

My husband is reading one of the Frances Brody books which someone gave him for Christmas. We are much amused because we have both a Frances and a Brody in our family.

I finished The Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman yesterday. One of her Pete Decker series. It was okay. I've read quite a few in this series and they're very similar.

I just started Chris Bohjalian's The Guest Room. It opens with a bachelor party being hosted by an investment banker at his home in the NYC suburbs.

Donna

I just finished reading Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, a comedian who appears on the TV network, Comedy Central. The book is a memoir of his childhood. He was born in South Africa under apartheid, which made the relationship between his black mother and white father a crime. His father did not live with them, and Noah is very light-skinned, which set him apart in the black society in which he lived. Trevor describes his family's life both during and after Apartheid, including descriptions of some of the unintended results of this change in South African society. The book is an eye-opener and is strangely entertaining while describing some tragic situations.

kathy-t, the Trevor Noah book has been sitting on Mt TBR for about a year (along with Brusatte's Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, mentioned above by Rosefolly, a John Crowley book, Donald Hall's last book of essays, a book of American Indian trickster stories, Gimbutas's book on Indo-European mythology... you get the idea). Someday I'll get to it, once I stop borrowing library books which take priority because of the due date (and yes, there are 2 unread library books waiting for me now). I just finished a library copy of Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death, and heavens, I need something light and fun after that! A powerful story, but so much violence and death. I was interested to see that Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a part of Okorafor's story - I'll have to re-read that now. :)

Donnamira - I know all about the opposing interplay of library books vs. the TBR stack! My incentive for reading Born a Crime is that my book club will be discussing it in February. Otherwise, I might not have picked it up, but I'm glad I did. It gave me a glimpse into a world I truly knew nothing about.