Hey scout - the latest Lariat List has been released. Like you, I always enjoy looking through the selections. I’ve read more of the books this time than usual (*listed below) but there are a few that I’ve never heard of.
2015 Lariat List released: View the Lariat List Committee’s Top 25 Adult Fiction Titles
*After I'm Gone* ~ Lippman, Laura
*All the Light We Cannot See* ~ Doerr, Anthony
*Archetype* ~ Waters, M.D.
*The Book of Unknown Americans* ~ Henriquez, Cristina
*Everything I Never Told You* ~ Ng, Celeste
*The Girl with All the Gifts* ~ Carey, M.R
*A Guide for the Perplexed* ~ Horn, Dara
*The Husband's Secret* ~ Moriarty, Liane
*I Am Pilgrim* ~ Hayes, Terry
*The Invention of Wings* ~ Kidd, Sue Monk
*Life After Life* ~ Atkinson, Kate
*Lock In* ~ Scalzi, John
*The Martian* ~ Weir, Andy
*Neverhome* ~ Hunt, Laird
*Night Film* ~ Pessl, Marisha
*The Enchanted* ~ Denfeld, Rene
*The Pearl that Broke Its Shell* ~ Hashimi, Nadia
*The Queen of the Tearling* ~ Johansen, Erika
*The Sea of Tranquility* ~ Millay, Katja
*The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing* ~ Jacob, Mira
*Stars Go Blue* ~ Pritchett, Laura
*Station Eleven* ~ St. John Mandel, Emily
*The Steady Running of the Hour* ~ Go, Justin
*Terms & Conditions* ~ Glancy, Robert
*To Rise Again at a Decent Hour* ~ Ferris, Joshua
Okay - I’ve read: After I’m Gone
All the Light We Cannot See
The Book of Unknown Americans
The Husband’s Secret
The Invention of Wings
Lock In
The Martian
Night Film Station Eleven - well, actually I’m reading this last one now for the CC Book Club
@ignatius - You made my day! I haven’t seen the newest Lariat List, so now I have a whole slew of new books to put on my “must-read list.”
I’ve only read After I’m Gone, All the Light We Cannot See, The Invention of Wings, and Life After Life. I do have Everything I Never Told You checked out from my library, but it has to wait until I’m finished with The Black House. It’s so nice to have choices!
@cartera45 and @scout59, I haven’t read Robert Crais before. What would you say be the best book to get started with (I see that he has a few different lead characters)?
@scout59 - what did you think of Life After Life? I was totally addicted to that book from page 1, and wish more people would get past the off-putting premise which seems to keep a lot of readers from taking the plunge.
I’m not Scout59, but I’ll add my thoughts on Life After Life. I didn’t make it through the book. I was only reading bits of it at a time, and it restarts and restarts and restarts. I was like, No! Initially I was enjoying it, but then I was just finding this repeating with adjustments tiring. When I was pretty sure I didn’t want to continue anymore I skipped ahead to the last couple of pages of the book to see if there was anything there I found intriguing enough to make me want to go back and stick with it. Nope. Who knows, maybe I missed out.
Is this the thread with Dorothy Sayers?
Ive read all of her mysteries, several times, and I admit my favorites are the ones with Harriet, even the ones written by Jill Paton Walsh as a continuation of the series.
I also like Sarah Caudwell, although she only wrote three or four.
Right now, I am reading non fiction mostly.
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat Zinn as prep for a class Im taking, and books on hiking to keep me motivated to keep training.
@katliamom - I really, really wanted to like Life After Life, but I just couldn’t get into it. I forced myself to read the whole thing - mainly because all my other book friends loved it - but in the end, it left me…lukewarm. And I say this as a HUGE Kate Atkinson fan (I have all of her books in hardcover, which for a penny-pincher like myself is saying a lot.)
@acollegestudent - Robert Crais writes a series of books about a private detective (Elvis Cole) and his best friend and business partner, Joe Pike; he has also written a number of one-off, stand-alone books (i.e., Suspect, Hostage, Demolition Angel) whose characters routinely crop up in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike books. You don’t HAVE to read the Cole/Pike books in order, but it might help.
Personally, I prefer the Cole/Pike series over the stand-alone novels (…perhaps that’s because I have a literary crush on Joe Pike :">) If you wanted to start with one of the early Cole/Pike books, I thought Lullaby Town, The Monkey’s Raincoat, and Sunset Express were very good, but really - they’re all good. Crais writes in a breezy, conversational style that’s deceptive: you think it’s all just light and entertaining but there’s a lot under the surface.
Does anyone here like The Morning News’ Tournament of Books? It’s a bracket-based book “competition” modeled after March Madness (and takes place at the same time). The books are often quirky, under the radar, but uniformly interesting. The commentary by the guest judges (often authors) as well as the comments section (populated by knowledgeable readers) is always entertaining. The 2015 TOB shortlist is out. I’m going to try really hard to read all of them this year (I’ve already read four of them):
Agree with you on preferring the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series over Crais’ standalone novels. Have you read anything by George Pelecanos? You might enjoy his novels–crime fiction set in Washington, DC. Lots of action–couple of different main characters. Pelecanos was a writer for the tv series, The Wire.
Regarding Robert Crais - I would start with Monkey’s Raincoat and read them all. I can’t really recommend individual books. I do agree that I like the Cole/Pike books best but I enjoyed them all. Dog lovers may enjoy Suspect, about a police dog. I believe they are making a movie based on it. Crais has supposedly been asked numerous times about turning his work into movies and he finally relented on this one.
Thank you all. From your recommendations, I compiled a list for my city Bookclub. I need to skim, write a few sentences, and check how many copies our library has. If the book looks great, I have the Friends of Library buy some books. Hopefully, I’ll have many good suggestions for our next year.
@Bromfield2 - Totally agree about George Pelecanos. I read and enjoyed his early stuff (like King Suckerman and The Big Blowdown) but I really really loved the later books like The Way Home and The Night Gardener.
I haven’t read the latest series featuring Spero Lucas. Have you read any of these books?
I freely admit that my offspring are well past the college years now. I joined CC when I had a kid in law school.
But know when you really feel old?
When the YOUNGER brother of one of the kids involved in the same high school EC as your kid has written a book that shows up on a lot of these lists. Yep, I feel so incredibly old. Heck, it freaked out my kid-- that’s actually how I know. I mean she thinks it’s fantastic that he’s doing so well as a writer, but it’s just that she hasn’t seen him since high school and so still thinks of him as "so and so’s kid brother. " I don’t think that’s how people view him now!
Now, the older brother of a grade school and high school classmate is someone most of you have heard of. If you haven’t heard of him, I KNOW you’ve heard his music. But that’s his OLDER brother. When it’s the younger sibling, it really makes you feel strange.
I now know kind of how my mom felt when my oldest sibling qualfied for social security. She freaked out. It bothered her a lot more than her own birthdays did.
Anyway, carry on…I know this is a hijack. It’s just such a weird experience seeing the name of one of the “little kids” on these lists.
