No, and I probably won’t ![]()
Last night I finished Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout. I enjoyed it a great deal as I have all her Maine novels. I have another already on my Kindle to start tonight.
I really liked this book, but then, I have liked everything she has written.
Now THAT was a well-written book.
I finished Tom Lake – I did enjoy it, and I thought the premise was good, but the storytelling did read as a lot of navel-gazing.
I’m now reading Katherine Center’s The Rom-Commers as a little palate cleanser. ![]()
Recently finished Night Boat to Tangier, by Irish author Kevin Barry. It is lyrical. Rhythmic. Vivid. Poetic. Grimy. Darkly comic. Irish folklore drowning in the frigid undertow. It is a study of two aging lowlifes from Cork, at a port in Spain, searching the daughter of one of them.
Probably not for everyone, but worth a read if that sounds at all interesting.
Oh…a friend recommended this to me ages ago and I never got round to reading it. Adding it to my list!
Just finished Ann Patchett’s Whistler. Absolutely loved it!
Reading Broken Country because of recs here - about a third of the way in and it’s gripping me so far. Will be joining my first CC book club discussion next month!
I just finished The Measure. Loved it!!!
I see not everyone loved Land (Maggie O’Farrell) but I did
Her sense of characters and the plotting always impress me. Book made me shout out loud at one point, that seems like a winner to me.
Otoh, I have yet to read a Patchett book that I genuinely liked. I know, I know, heresy. And I finally read Theo of Golden since everyone kept telling me I should, I was given a copy to read – one of this year’s first DNF books. I read the last 1/3, but I was skimming. The whole book struck me as overly precious and really predictable.
Reading Colm Toibin next. Maybe I am in a brooding Irish phase?
I’ve finished two books by Travis Baldree. Legends & Lattes kept getting recommended as a “cozy fantasy”. It’s about an orc who retires from the adventuring business to hang up her sword and open a coffee shop. Nothing much happens. Friends are made, there’s a very low key romance. The followup book Brigands & Breadknives is considerably less cozy about a ratkin bookseller who has a midlife crisis and ends up going off adventuring. I may have enjoyed it a little more than the first one. Definitely relaxing reads!
I also continue to read books for my spanish language book club. The most recent book was Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like water for chocolate). I’ve never read it in English, nor seen the movie or the TV version. I found it a lot of fun as poor Tita whose mother says she may never marry because the family tradition is that the youngest daughter must take care of her grandparents. Her would be fiance decides to marry her sister to be close to her. (You can imagine how that turns out!) Meanwhile Tita is the cook for the family and her emotions seem to end up in the food on a regular basis. Ghosts come and go, there are tornadoes, fires and other wild happenings. I really enjoyed it though most of the characters were pretty annoying.
@mathmom: I’m awestruck that you could read it in Spanish.
Just finished River is Waiting by Wally Lamb. Only saw one post about it here. I like his books and this is well written, but not sure I get all the 5 start reviews. The ending especially. Wonder what others thought.
I did not like it. It’s one of those things where one bad thing happened, and then more, and more, and more – like, for example, Nickel Boys, a book I found incredibly tragic and sad.
Thanks. I’ve been working hard on Spanish via Duolingo and Dreaming Spanish (a platform that provides videos at various levels) for almost 3.5 years now, plus three 3-week trips to Spain. Reading is still painfully slow. This particular book had lots of words I didn’t know which turned out to be the Mexican version of words I did know.
Yet, to me, the Nickel Boys was a better book although so sad. That ending did not feel like a cop out.
re: Whistler. I just finished it, as well. I enjoyed it, in that it was an easy read and I enjoyed the characters, but…I’m not sure I’m understanding all of the hype. What did you love about it?
I am now reading Lake Effect. I’m enjoying it, it is definitely a good beach read.
I love her writing style, feel like I got to understand all the main characters, and I love that there isn’t some major disturbing revelation. It’s an easy to ready before bed story.
To contrast, I’m struggling with the themes of Broken Country.
I want my books to be happy escapes!
I enjoyed The Bright Years enough to read her new book. I recommend NOT listening to it on Audible. The narration was terrible, which led me to disliking the book.