I really liked House of Silk when I read it last year. I think I read it in one or two sittings. I might reread that one this summer.
I started that Riverton house one now, I’m maybe a quarter way into it. So far I might like it more than Forgotten Garden but too early to tell. I was just reading the reviews for Forgotten Garden on goodreads and was surprised by the mixed reception, overall the book is well rated but there were so many 1 star reviews still… sometimes I think people just don’t really want to like a book and they waste their time by reading it anyway, and then get angry at the book. I’m always mystified by the way I can get through a book and find a character thoroughly believable and relatable even when someone else can read the book and react completely differently, it’s amazing the way different minds work.
I wish I knew how to find a “real life” book club I could join. There’s one at the library but it meets in the middle of the week at like 2pm, no way I could make it. Things like that make me miss college sometimes. I took lit classes just so I could sit around and talk about books with people.
Looking forward to seeing what I find to read next! I’ve been keeping a list from goodreads and posts here.. this thread can be so helpful.
Which reminds me . . . I have to chose the next book for my book club. I know this thread is brimming with ideas, and I’ll go through it now, but if anything comes to mind, chime in. I’m looking for well-written books, under 400 pages, enjoyable but not light weight, with much to discuss over glasses of wine. The last books I suggested, a while ago, which went over well was A Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Literary and compelling is best.
I thought the CC bookclub had a fabulous conversation about Alice Munro’s short stories. But part of the reason it worked so well is that we ended up discussing one story per day. (More or less.) I didn’t love the stories, but I got so much more out of them reading them with other people.
I just stumbled upon a great read…recommended by a friend. I almost put it at the end of the que due to the wonderful suggestions here, but it really jumped out at me: <a href=“The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd | Goodreads”>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18079776-the-invention-of-wings</a>
Pre-civil war south is the setting. The relationship between an 11year old plantation owners daughter and the slave she is given for her 11th birthday. This story has it all…love, adventure, adversity and history. Not finished quite yet, but it is a page turner. If you love historical fiction, this book will not disappoint.
hunger of memory: the education of richard rodriguez.
i read that book which is the one i’m saying is the best. it was just my introduction to him so it’s sentimental, plus some of my favorite passages of his are from that book. then i read 2 of his other books that he wrote later, and some articles and interviews. now i curate his wikiquotes page. he lives in my city so i’m considering trying to stalk him as well. i know what buses he takes because he wrote of that just last year. and i know the general area he lives in too, he described that in enough detail to allow me to narrow down his location to within a few blocks radius. it’s too much for me to canvas alone, but if i can spot him somewhere like at a cafe (i know he goes to those, he even mentioned in one article the name of a restaurant he visits a lot) then i should be able to track him back to his house.
here’s the wikiquotes page im trying to finish. i just need to read 1 last book and it will be complete. i didn’t add all the quotes to it, there were other editors but the vast majority of it is from me.
anyways i really like him if that isn’t apparent enough, his writing is brilliant and i love all his ideas, i like his angle on things, i don’t know, im just super impressed by him and impressed upon by his writing. it says he’s a noted prose stylist in his wikipedia so maybe that explains why i think he’s so brilliant. it’s not really him but it’s the way he’s styled his writing that makes me think he’s super genius, i mean he may very well be, but he’s developed a way to really overwhelm the reader with his sentences and paragraphs, that’s true power and why he seems so defiant and invincible and all the things i like about him. im not saying i hang onto his every word, but when he writes about the thins i really like to hear about or in the way i like to hear him write, then i really do.
I ended up liking Riverton House as much or more than the Forgotten Garden. It got better as it went, for me. I am really loving The Thirteenth Tale, and as I said before, it reminds me so much of Morton’s books. Many people complain about these types of books being too long or too detailed. I love the details. The settings are characters themselves but if you want a book to move along briskly, they are not for you. They really help transport me to the place. This is particularly listening to the books. I can really “see” the locations, the people, the countryside.
Just finished Invention of Wings. Wow! Loved it. But the ending left me wanting more…but I guess that’s what makes for an engaging read. Now on to The Rosie a project. Or the new Amy Tan book, The Valley of Amazement.
I read a lot of complaints about the cycling through time periods and difficulty getting the female characters straight in The Forgotten Garden. I had a hard time with the male characters the first few chapters but caught on quickly.. as I mentioned I sometimes get frustrated with books that switch perspectives because I am always more interested in one than the others, but I didn’t have any trouble following which time period we were in and at some point I did become about as equally interested in all of the different parts which is unheard of for me. That there were so many overlapping layers of story was what really appealed to me. I kind of want to try some of her technique in my own writing and see how it feels. I almost wonder if some of the reason some people found Eliza’s character so unbelievable was because perhaps they didn’t feel they really got to know her with all the distraction of the other characters… but it also seems to me a lot of readers want the characters motivations spoonfed to them rather than looking at what they know about the characters history and connecting the dots themselves. I don’t know, I liked the book a lot.
For Riverton House, the split actually isn’t even bothering me. Either I am getting used to it, or the present day character is just more interesting to me than Cassandra and Lorelai were. I admit, showing my maturity level here, I had trouble with the fact that they called Lorelai “Lol” in The Secret Keeper because I kept reading it as LOL… you know… laugh out loud? I tripped over it every time I saw it, and then kicked myself for being stupid. I want to give that book a second read, too, maybe at the beach this summer.
I have The Husband’s Secret on my kindle, I got it in the last big batch of books I downloaded. Glad to hear it was good.
Maybe it’s cheating a bit because I am using audiobooks so the different voices make it much easier to quickly differentiate among characters. I very quickly get a mental image of what each character looks like so as soon as I hear the voice, I “see” the character. I suspect I would have an issue with reading “Lol” too but hearing it didn’t register. There is an Emmeline in The Thirteenth Tale and in Riverton House. I have become quite fond of the name.
The name caught my eye, because if we have any daughters my fiance wants to name one Emaline after his grandmother. I <em>mostly jokingly</em> told him that would be WEIRD because she would probably be Ema for short, and that’s ME! (But that’s only my name here. My username is a song title from a post-Twisted Sister Dee Snider band. So fiance doesn’t care for my objections. lol)
I assume Emmeline is pronounced differently and I like it better, though after googling there seems to be some debate over proper pronunciation. I have been wondering if I have the pronunciation right since I first saw it. How does your audio book pronounce it? Em-uh-leen? Em-uh-line? Em-meh-leen? My fiance pronounces Emaline like em-uh-line, by default I was saying Emmeline like em-meh-leen.
It is pronounced Em-meh-leen in both books. Sometimes, the narrator shortens it and it sounds more like Em-leen. I fininshed The Thirteenth Tale today and am sad it is done. Will start a new book tonight but haven’t decided which one yet.
One of my Ds has a friend named Emmeline. It’s pronounced like you do, Ema.
cartera, I hated when The Thirteenth Tale ended, too. I loved, loved, loved that book. I read it years ago and probably commented in this thread about it back then.
I am now reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I knew nothing about it except recommendations from others and had no idea that it is so witty. I see also that there will be a movie but it appears to be in a state of flux.
I can’t hear the name Emmeline without thinking of this AA Milne poem…
Before Tea
by A.A. Milne (from When We Were Very Young)
Emmeline
Has not been seen
For more than a week. She slipped between
The tow tall trees at the end of the green…
We all went after her. “Emmeline!”
“Emmeline,
I didn’t mean -
I only said that your hand weren’t clean.”
We went to the trees at the end of the green…
But Emmeline
Was not to be seen.
Emmeline
Came slipping between
The two tall trees at the end of the green.
We all ran to her. “Emmeline!
Where have you been?
Where have you been?
Why, it’s more than a week!” And Emmeline
Said, “Sillies, I went and saw the Queen.
She says my hands are purfickly clean!”
At least the British pronunciation… Just as it tells you how to pronounce “perfectly”.