@MommaJ I too loved Ove. I’m currently reading My Grandmother Told Me to Tell You She’s Sorry (needed something entirely different than the Ferrante books after trudging through them!) and I like it a lot but not as magical as Ove.
@techmom99 I just finished the new Moriarity book, Truly Madly Guilty, and enjoyed it. I’m circling back to the Maisie Dobbs books now and am glad I did. Saw Hell or HIgh Water tonight and two of the trailers were for movies based on books often mentioned here - Girl on a Train and Light Between the Oceans. Hell or High Water is excellent BTW.
I had a week off and enjoyed vicarious European travels through books - Murder on the Champs de Mars by Cara Black (Paris), Fatal Pursuit by Martin Walker (the Perigord), Montalbano’s First Case and other stories Andrea Camilleri (Sicily), and The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon (Venice). Heaven. Food, wine, scenery, crime. Sigh.
Next Louise Penny book coming out on Tuesday! 
techmom99: Re post 3939 - I forgot to include the link http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1801460-west-with-the-night-and-circling-the-sun-october-cc-book-club-selection-p1.html
Can’t wait for the new Louise Penny. I don’t know how she manages to make each one better than the last. I will read it too fast though and then another wait.
Translations are interesting. Eons ago I was captivated by Perfume by Patrick Susskind which I read in the original German. When it was translated into English, I read it to see if was good enough to give to my Mom for a Christmas present. I thought the translator did a fabulous job with the style of the book. I don’t know if it was literally every word what I would have chosen, but I had no hesitation about buying the translation.
My sister-in-law was at the pre-launch party event on Saturday in Knowlton, QC where Louise and Michael live now. She said it was great fun! Plus they all got the book in advance!
Just finished the latest Richard Russo–“Everybody’s Fool” a sort of sequel to “Nobody’s Fool”. Lots of great dialogue and good characters. Not sure it held together plotwise, but vintage Russo. (Still like “Straight Man” the best.)
so funny I just read Perfume and Everybody’s fool - Perfume is a very strange interesting tale. Everybody’s fool is not as good as his old ones (although I had read them so long ago I had forgotten the old characters.)
Whoops! That should have been Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Both some of the best books I’ve ever read.
Thanks, garland.
I found *Perfume *mesmerizing. And his use of language very evocative. But yes strange. Not the sort of thing I usually go for at all!
I’m still plugging away at A Suitable Boy. I like it, but I wish I were reading it faster. It’s making me realize how litte I know about India’s history and culture. I audited an art and religion course that covered all of Asia and we covered a fair amount of Indian art and religion (at least Buddhist and Hindu), but what I know about more modern Indian is mostly from British novels. And I’ve read all my son’s college papers about the Indian and Pakistani nuclear arms race.
For the sci fi fans out there, try Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.
Keep the SF recommendations coming…
The Return, a memoir by Hisham Matar, is exquisitely written and very touching. Highly recommended.
I gave The Perfume to my son to read, and he liked it. I can’t say it’s one of my favorite books - it has too much weird creepiness for that - but I remember being very impressed when I read it for the first time.
The Kraken by China Mieville - more fantasy than SF, but remarkably well written.
Just finished Lab Girl, the new memoir by paleobotanist Hope Jahren. It’s a wonderfully quirky read about the life of a scientist in the lab.
Also recently read Modern Lovers by Emma Straub. It’s an engaging-enough family drama about a group of friends and their children twenty years after college. Reminded me a lot of Meg Wolitzer. I was entertained while reading it, but then promptly forgot everything about it.
Speaking of light entertainment, I also tore through a couple of Liane Moriarty’s books. Definitely beach reads, but loads of fun.
Definitely need some more literary fare next!
For literary fiction fans, there are a slew of new novels by heavy-hitters coming out this fall: Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, George Saunders, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jonathan Lethem, just to name a few. I’m looking forward to these books.
ETA: Forgot to mention Ann Patchett! Looking forward to that one, too! Should be a good fall!
I just started Annie Proulx’s “Barkskin.” At 713 pages, it will take me awhile, but I love it so far. From the dust jacket: “an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests.” It begins in Canada in the late 17th century.