epistrophy

Unfortunately???

(I only wish I had more time to read.)

alwaysamom

ebeee, have you read The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt?

ebeeeee

alwaysamom,
yes. I loved it. I say unfortunately because it is hard to find something to read sometimes. Also because I read a lot because DH works a lot. Right now he is working 7 days a week. It is 8pm on Sunday night and he is still at work...

Mr Payne

Den of Thieves by Stewart
I am Charlotte Simmons by Wolfe (should be mandatory reading for all high school seniors)

alwaysamom

ebee, I also read a lot and sometimes get to the point of reading books which wouldn't ordinarily be on my 'list'. Have you ever read any of Elizabeth Berg's books? When I'm in the mood for an easy, pleasurable read, she is one author who is often at the top of the pile. I'm currently reading one of her most recent, We Are All Welcome Here. It, like many of her books, is a character driven story populated with strong, interesting female characters. She 'writes' women extremely well. The first of hers I read was Talk Before Sleep, the story of a woman with cancer who is surrounded by a group of supportive friends. A close friend of mine who was then battling breast cancer chose it for our book club. We all enjoyed it so much that we read several more Elizabeth Berg books through the years, and have read most on our own ever since. One of my Ds is also a Berg fan and has also read most of them.

A few others I've enjoyed recently - Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, All That Matters by Wayson Choy (his The Jade Peony is also excellent), Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, The Iris Trilogy, A Memoir of Iris Murdoch by John Bayley, Until I Find You by John Irving, The March by E.L. Doctorow, Dorothy Parker by Marian Meade, and The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe.

One other fun series our family has enjoyed are the Bookman stories by John Dunning. I think there are four or five, you can search his name on Amazon and get the titles. Good mysteries with the added touch of the main character being a 'bookman', a collector of rare books. Very interesting.

Jolynne Smyth

Interesting books!!

alwaysamom--I've read Berendt's first novel, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which was fascinating & such an interesting evocation of (a certain type) of southern culture.

ebeeeee

alwaysamom,
I love Elizabeth Berg and Jodi P. I have read all of their books. Elizabeth Berg has a new one out and I am on the library waitlist for it when it gets released.
I'll try the Wayson Choy and Marian Meade...haven't read them. Thanks!

alwaysamom

Jolynne, I also loved Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. My mother knew Jim Williams so it made it even more interesting!

ebeee, I had a feeling that you might already know Elizabeth Berg. Most women who read a lot have found her. I just read an old one of Jodi P.'s that I hadn't seen before called Salem Falls. I enjoy how she structures her books stylistically, and I always admire the research that she does. Hope you enjoy the others I mentioned.

The next book I'm going to read is called The Alchemy of Loss by Abigail Carter. She is the widow of a man killed on 9/11 and it's the story of the transformation of her life since that day. She started writing to record memories for her young children about their father, and eventually it turned into a writing career for her. I'm looking forward to it.

shyparentalunit

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian is difficult to describe without giving away critical plot points. It is very psychological, a mystery, a thriller...and includes characters from The Great Gatsby. I've recommended this book to many people. A few have hated it, but the response of most upon finishing it is to immediately reread it and to seek out someone else who has read it so they can discuss it.

califa

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa Sww is a lovely novel of two women and their friendship 19th century China. She opens up that time and culture I haven't read her second novel, Peony in Love, yet but expect it to be just as good.

Currently working my way through Dark Age America by Morris Berman. His argument that the course of decline in the US cannot be reversed might not win any popularity contests, but imagine what Edward Gibbon would have written, had he lived in 3rd century Rome.

I should make a list of books to read someday based on this thread.

cottonwood513

'Snow Flower and the Secret Fan' That was good.

Now I'm reading 'The Painted Drum' by Louise Erdrich (?) and 'Windy City' by Scott Simon.

Jolynne Smyth

alwaysamom--that's so interesting that your mom knew Jim Williams! Such fascinating, colorful characters in that book---even moreso because they were real people (at least, based on actual folks).

I liked the character of the piano-playing, illicit, nightclub-running lawyer. I can picture him so clearly!

wbow

i loved The Double Bind....i give away almost all of the books i read, but i have kept that one.

epistrophy

I haven't had nearly enough time to read lately (as I've mentioned on another thread, I've been tied up with a federal criminal trial since February), but when I have been able to grab a few minutes here and there, here are a couple of short story collections that have given me great pleasure:

--William Maxwell, All the Days and Nights

A longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker, as well as a much esteemed novelist and short story writer in his own right, Maxwell writes about everyday characters in everyday situations in prose that is as graceful as it is haunting. In a blurb on the back cover, Reynolds Price gets it just right: Maxwell's stories "achieve their greatness invisibly." I can't think of anyone whose stories are any quieter, or more powerful, than Maxwell's. (Today, an off-day from my trial, I took in the big Edward Hopper exhibit that's been traveling the country - Hopper's paintings and Maxwell's stories have more than a little in common.)

Amazon.com: All The Days And Nights: The Collected Stories of William Maxwell: William Maxwell: Books

--Richard Ford (ed.), The New Granta Book of the American Short Story

If there's a collection of short stories that exhibits greater range than this one, I'm not familiar with it. Brilliantly edited by Richard Ford, it takes the reader from Flannery O'Connor to Junot Diaz, from John Cheever to Jhumpa Lahiri - not to mention, oh, Lorrie Moore, Richard Yates, Andre Dubus, Raymond Carver, Stuart Dybek, et al., along the way. Read one of these stories each night before you go to bed: your life won't get any easier, but it will become richer and more interesting.

Amazon.com: The New Granta Book of the American Short Story: Richard Ford: Books

binx

I haven't read this whole thread, but I did on search on the word Katherines and got no hits, so - I just finished reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I really enjoyed it. It's about a 17 year old child prodigy and his friend who go on a road trip, searching for significance. It's funny, laugh-out-loud, but also very insightful. I wish I'd read it when my kids were younger.