June: What are you reading?
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What are we reading in June?
Comments (49)"I have tried so hard to like Dickens but I just can't." I totally understand that, and feel a bit guilty about it, but life is too short, especially when you are a geezer, to force yourself to read something just because you "should". Just finished The Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin, a novel with many accurate details about Truman Capote and his collection of beautiful, fashionable, very wealthy women in Manhattan. I would only recommend this to someone interested in Truman and familiar with a few of the women - e.g. Babe Paley - because otherwise it is just a look at obscene wealth, endless gossip, and Truman's neuroses. Actually, it is a cautionary tale and a tragedy. Pretty good writing, though. Now, based on recommendations here, I've begun reading Memoirs of a Geisha, and it is very promising. Beautifully written, and am hoping that this little girl eventually finds her own true self....See MoreWhat are you reading in June 2020?
Comments (89)I am reading The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy, loaned to me by my daughter because she liked it so much. It is a present day/Paris during the Nazi occupation story of a young English woman whose mother died young and who never knew her grandmother. She discovered that her grandmother had worked in a high-fashion house during the war. She is herself interested in fashion and has obtained a job in that same firm and has met another young woman working there whose grandmother worked with her own. So far, it is a pretty predictable but good story of young love, the resistance, and the dreadful Nazis....See MoreWhat are we reading in June 2020?
Comments (124)I just finished the audio version of Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner, actually Lady Glenconner. It's a book that proves that truth is stranger than fiction. Glenconner is from an aristocratic family in England and as a child, played with contemporaries Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. When she was older, she was a Maid of Honor at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret for many years. Because as a female she wasn't going to inherit the family estate, she had to marry well and in fact married a very wealthy individual. He was extremely eccentric, having violent temper tantrums without regard to who was nearby. Once when they were in St. Petersburg, Russia, he became angry and lay down in the middle of the street in a fetal position. Their children, like most children of their "set," went to boarding school which they disliked intensely and would cry when being left there. Glenconner and her husband developed the island of Mustique which became a vacation destination for the rich and famous. The book describes their extravagant lives and a way of life that most of us (thankfully!) will never experience. I would give it a 5 out of 5 for its colorful events and characters but wouldn't recommend the audio version since the author narrates and her frequent smacking noises are distracting....See MoreWhat are we reading? June 2021 Edition
Comments (77)I just finished The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer. I found it to be a mixed bag of a compelling pre-WWII story, intense and beautiful, narrated in mediocre writing, juxtaposed with the challenges of current modern day descendant. The latter parts about the current day granddaughter and her family were subpar, pat, flat. Both in writing and content. The parts about Alina, the young Polish woman were far superior in quality, even with the relatively unskilled writing. Reminded me of Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, in the way the older generation’s childhood and youth felt like they were from a different book than the parts about the descendamts — so starkly different in authenticity, intensity and writing. 2.5 or 3 stars. (Could be higher.)...See Moreyoyobon_gw
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