What are you reading? November 2022 Edition
Annie Deighnaugh
3 months ago
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What are you reading? January 2022 Edition
Comments (121)I found with reading Cloud Cuckoo Land that it helped to "go with the flow" and take events as they happen in this non-linear read. Two books that I recently finished - The Promise by Damon Galgut, winner of the 2021 Booker Prize. I loved this book that is set in South Africa and involves a family of three grown children and their parents. As the book opens, the mother is dying and she causes consternation by not only asking that her Jewish roots be recognized at the end of her life, but also asking her husband to promise to give a small house to their long-time Black maid. Family and race issues abound. Challenges with this book are that there are no quotation marks around dialogue and sometimes topics slide into one another so that it's necessary to read carefully to detect a change in speaker, subject, etc. Excellent for a book club discussion; 5 out of 5 stars. Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols (non-fiction). This book is somewhat old fashioned but charming nonetheless. Mr. Nichols purchased a large house and property in England in 1947 since he was interested in gardening. When he located Merry Hall, the house and garden had been neglected for several years so it needed tlc. The author discusses what he found there and the changes he made to suit his tastes. It has some humor, partly because of his awe and timidity when dealing with the long-time gardener. They don't always see eye-to-eye in determining what is suitable or appropriate for the property. 3.5 to 4 stars out of 5, higher for anyone interested in gardening....See MoreFebruary 2022 - What are you reading?
Comments (84)I've been reading The Gulag Archipelago and have managed to get through Volumes I & II. However, before I tackle Volume III, I decided to take a break to read a couple of "Golden Age Mysteries." Ha! The book I chose first was written by an obscure-to-me author, Annie Haynes, and was first published in 1924. The Secret of Greylands thoroughly confused me! I thought I was reading a Victorian sensation novel along the lines of Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, maybe even Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Everyone was either walking or being transported around the north-country (Northumberland?) in farm wagons, dog carts, or carriages. Then out of the blue a 'motor' (motor car) appeared on a road. The King was mentioned, but the Great War was not. Women still wore long skirts and 'sunshades' (evidently some sort of bonnet, not a parasol or tinted spectacles). I worked out that the time setting must have been Edwardian or perhaps early in the reign of George V before the war. The story was melodramatic, the characters were usually histrionic, and the plot was almost transparent. Still, I kept reading because it was entertaining in its absurdity. The male love interest spent years traipsing Australia, South Africa and Central America on big game hunts and other manly activities. Was he hunting jaguars and iguanas in C. America? It was never revealed. This was a very creepy book, in its own way. I read the notes about the author and learned Haynes was born in 1865. She had some sort of degenerative disease that wheelchair bound her. She was an ardent feminist who lived in London but created her stories mostly from her imagination and remembrance of an earlier age. Her books are said to be a bridge between popular Victorian-Age books and ones of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. She died in 1929 and her reputation faded. Perhaps unjustly, but I really don't think she could ever have given Agatha Christie or Sayers much competition. But if a reader is in the right mood to read a 'real' throwback, Miss Haynes did a creditable job!...See MoreWhat are you reading? April 2022 Edition
Comments (89)I'm in a reading slump right now. I started The Old Woman with the Knife based on a recommendation here but it just isn't working for me. When I am reading it I'm interested, but the main character is quite off putting and the author hasn't pulled me into caring about her in any way, so I probably won't finish this one. I'm tepidly trying to read The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories which is a book club selection. Have finished a couple of the stories so far and the author's imagination is pretty impressive. Still, once again it isn't pulling me in...but short stories are a genre I simply don't read because as with this book, short snippets never interest me. I need to settle in for the long haul of a full book length experience with whoever/whatever it is I"m reading about. Another book club is doing The Lincoln Highway and I'm picking up a copy at the library today. Will give this one my 50 page tryout because I've been burned already by a lengthy post-sensational-previous-book tome that was a complete dud. Lookin at you *cough*Cloud Cuckoo Land*cough* Kicking myself because I got From Strength to Strengthas a library Kindle checkout before it became a bestseller but then let it expire without reading it--now I'm hearing about it everywhere and I'm back on the wait list but it's much longer. Darn my procrastination! Just started reading a recommended essay collection by Mary Laura Philpott that is promising so hopefully it will spark my reading mojo. And I have a new book The Sign for Home that also seems promising. Found that on Modern Mrs Darcy which occasionally tosses out a gem recommendation-hope this is one of those!...See MoreWhat are you reading? May 2022 Edition
Comments (75)I just finished While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart. 2.0 stars, and that's being generous. I only finished because a friend recommended it and I thought it was worth sticking it out, but it really wasn't. It's a story that goes back and forth between 1944 Paris and 1953 Santa Cruz, CA. A newborn Jewish infant is handed off to a kindly French railway worker as his parents are being herded into a train car headed for Auschwitz. Nine years later the Jewish parents, who survived, want him back. Coincidentally I lived in Santa Cruz at one time and it's not very accurately portrayed, other than being on the coast and having a boardwalk. At one point one of the characters takes a short taxi ride to the airport to fly to Paris and the nearest one at that time would have either been San Jose (only a municipal airport then), but more likely San Francisco, over 70 miles away. It's a lot of reading for not much story. The writer used "ironic" 8 times, enough to make the word go ding-ding. What was "ironic" about what a person said was never explained. The author used "play date" for two kids getting together in 1953. My daughter was born in 1976 and we didn't use that term. Google said it came into being in 1975, but I missed the boat. Anyway, I hate it when authors use anachronistic terms....See Morechinacatpeekin
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