I love Inspector Gamache! I couldn’t put the books down. I also want to live in Three Pines! 
^^^As long as it’s not Wayward Pines…
@zeebamom , did you see her at a reading?
I think this thread is how I got turned onto to Louise Penny. I try and ration out the books as I enjoy them so much. They also cause me to think about returning to Quebec. Such a beautiful province and such good food…
I was a greedy pig at the trough and ate my way through the Louise Penny buffet! I did the same thing with Maisie Dobbs, Game of Thrones and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series.
@alwaysamom, yes - she was in Seattle on Tuesday night.
There’s a show on the local PBS station called WellRead and one of the hosts interviewed her - it will be on tv this fall. Entertaining, smart, sharp, and funny. Really, really, funny. I saw her last year as well and didn’t think she could outdo it, but she did.
Saw the new Louise Penny book “The Nature of the Beast” on the 7 day hot pick shelf at my local library last evening.I believe it just came out! I’m already on page 63.
It looks like I did mention the Gamache books last year in this thread so I’m happy to see so many of you having read and enjoyed them, too! My H’s mother was from the Eastern Townships in Quebec and I always enjoyed visiting his grandparents there early in our marriage. It’s a beautiful area.
I just finished The Martian. I guess I’m an outlier, but I loved the science parts. Overall, though, the book left me feeling lukewarm. I thought it was too linear - he gets stranded, he overcomes obstacles, yadda yadda yadda. I could have predicted the whole thing before I read it.
I also read House of Echoes by Brendan Duffy. It’s about a family who leaves Manhattan for a spooky estate in upstate New York and the terrible things that happen to them. It’s well written and nicely spooky, but the ending is a disappointment (at least it was to me). It’s too bad, because the author has a way with language and the characters were convincing.
I loved all of the Jackson Brodie books. Kate Atkinson is fantastic. If you liked Life After Life you might want to read Behind the Scenes at the Museum, where she was seemingly playing around a bit with the themes of time, connections through time and space and object, etc.
The BBC(?) made a miniseries of the Jackson Brodie books, kind of smashing them all together. It was just okay, except that Jackson Brodie was played by Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter but without the wig) and he was wayyyyyyyyyy better than okay. With a Scottish accent.
Erik Larsen’s book “Dead Wake”. I thought I knew a lot about the story, turns out I didn’t, and besides the narrative of the sinking itself, it also gives a lot of context into the reasons why it was sank, and again the standard narrative failed to tell just how it happened (basically, a bunch of very, very timed coincidences had to happen for it to work…the sub was not supposed to be there, the Lusitania was delayed for several hours to allow passengers from another ship to take passage in NYC, the ship was only travelling at about 2/3rds its normal speed to save on coal, the sub commander actually misjudged the speed of the Lusitania, which was what allowed the torpedo to hit where it could sink the ship with a single torpedo in 18 minutes). Plus it also makes a very strong case that the British were using passenger ships as a way to get the US into WWI, there was an alternate route they could have told the Lusitania to take that was safer, and they refused to allow military ships docked not all that far away to escort the lusitania, yet they escorted one of their super dreadnoughts in the same area just before. The author almost outright says that Churchill wanted something like this to happen, and it is interesting that Churchill kept insisting it was the captain’s fault, when every piece of evidence showed that his actions were not the problem, long after WWI had passed, other author’s have suggested it was Churchill trying to shift the guilt to another person for his own doing.
If you like romantic books with historical time travel kind of twist, try “Mariana” by Susanna Kearsley, it is not an uncommon kind of story, but it is well written and I found it interesting, plus it does have some interesting twists to it, and some great characters as well, and yes, it is romantic. Also does give some historical perspective on the time period after the restoration of Charles II and the nature of England at the time.
Is anyone reading the new Franzen? Would love to hear reports. For some reason, I don’t feel motivated to pick it up.
@jaylynn, another Jackson Brodie fan here, and i can’t imagine better casting of the role than Jason Isaacs (who I adored in the sadly short-lived TV series Awake–did anyone watch it?)
I’ve loved every Kate Atkinson book except for Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which just didn’t do it for me. I think Life After Life is a phenomenal book (I recommend it to everyone and chose it for my book club). A God in Ruins was an interesting companion book, though not of the same caliber, and its twist is too similar to that of another very well-known book that I’ll leave nameless so as not to spoil the former.
Agree that The Martian became rather plodding as it went along–I think it will make a better movie than it was a book, because the visuals should add a lot of punch.
I’d feel better about the Martian movie it was anyone but Matt Damon in the part. He is just so, so, so wrong for it.
Regarding Dead Wake, I do intend to read it, but think Larson is a bit of a jerk. I heard him in a Q&A one time where a audience member prefaced her question by saying she had read “both his books and loved them”, and he rudely cut in and almost snarled that he had written more than 2 books. The poor woman was completely flustered and humiliated. It lowered my opinion of him quite a bit.
I for one can’t wait to see Damon in The Martian.
I liked Behind the Scenes at the Museum but felt like it was an experiment of a sort; I agree that Life After Life was masterful and I liked it better than A God in Ruins but feel it’s a bit unfair to compare them, in a way. I did learn so much about aviation in England in WWII. Fascinating.
I did watch Awake @MommaJ . Also, Dig, just because of Isaacs. But it was a bad show 
Me too, on Awake, just for Jason Isaacs! (and also couldn’t get past atrocious reviews to try Dig). Let’s hope he finds a worthy vehicle soon…or I would be thrilled with more Jackson Brodie adaptations!
The best book I have read in the last 6 months is The Boys in the Boat. I know that it has been out for a couple of years and has probably already been mentioned here. I wasn’t sure about reading a book about rowing, but I did find the rowing parts fascinating. I almost want to start rowing My husband is reading it now and is also loving it! I am recommending to everyone!
Anyone reading “A Little Life”? I’m riveted, can’t put it down, and would love to hear others’ insights.