^^^ Great book, indeed. That’s the one that brought an overflow capacity crowd to my house for the monthly meeting of the Book Club I belong to.
Obviously an oldie but goodie, I’m reading Anna Karenina and really enjoying it.
I’m reading Anna Karenina too. S just read it for a class and wanted me to read it. He really spoke highly of it.
Psychmomma, DS also talked me into it. He read it and loved it.
I just finished Cutting for Stone, and can’t say I liked it. All through the book I felt was written with an eye on Hollywood…
You can’t go wrong with Anna Karenina…
I struggled with Cutting for Stone and still haven’t finished it. I just read Room and couldn’t put it down. I woke up at 2am and finished it…
Anna Karenina was one of my favorites in HS!
I also can’t stand books that you know the author was thinking “screenplay” and not literature. Not that there’s anything wrong with Die Hard as an action movie, but you know what I mean. I don’t recall the title of some book I gave up on recently, but they had two characters chasing each other around a fairground, one on the ferris wheel, trying to spot the other one on something else, then of course they ended up on the same equipment, up in the air, clinging to whatever. Right. Cue Bruce Willis.
I keep going back to anything by Lee Childs. His Jack Reacher character is so real, and his fight/action scenes are vividly described (maybe too vividly!) Some authors obviously have no idea what a real fight is like, or what weapons sound like/feel like/do…so they just tell you something happened and move on. Oh really? Cop out.
Lee Childs is my secret pleasure! 
“Native American Son” by Kate Buford is the biography of Jim Thorpe, voted best American Athlete of 1900-1950 over the likes of Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. I’m up to the part where he joins the NY Giants National League baseball club after being stripped of his decathlon and pentathlon gold medals in the 1912 Olympics. Thorpe was part-native american indian and was a college football legend. A well researched book that was long overdue.
*The ***-Up by Arthur Nersesian. It has a great beatnik feel to it.
Never Will We Forget: Oral Histories of World War II
By Marilyn Mayer Culpepper
I got it because ex-FIL’s interesting WWII story is in the book. But was completely sucked in by the whole book, and read it all. All the stories are short (most only a paragraph or two), but it is an absolutely compelling set of stories as a whole about all different aspects and players in the war. I got it from the library, but just ordered a copy online – partly so D’s will have this little rememberance of their grandpa, who died this year, but also because it is a really good book!
I have not read through the 80 pages of this threads, but I recently read Keith Richard’s memoir. Kind of an odd choice I know, but I thought it would be interesting. It was, he was more thoughtful than I thought he would be.
I could not get through Eat, Pray, Love for some reason. Guess I just couldn’t make it through Pray.
I also read Nora Ephrons recent book of short essays which was so underwhelming I forgot the name. I read Joan Dideon’s Year of Thinking Magically, didn’t like that either. As far as female authors, I am a Bronte fan.
Wow, what a different experience. I read it because of the book club thread, but too late to talk about it. Finished it and started it over again just to enjoy the play of characters. Never once did the idea of a movie intrude, for which I’m glad.
I just finished Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand (it’s currently number 1 on the NYT best seller list) and can’t recommend it highly enough. It was riveting.
For fantasy readers Patricia McKillip’s latest - The Bards of Bone Plain - is very good. Like many of her books the ending, while satisfying, leaves as many questions unanswered as it answers. I loved the little nod to steam punk.
Polio-An American Story, David Oshinsky — I know this sounds strange, but this was a riveting book.
and, Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in History!!! LOVED this one !
I’m reading Private Life by Jane Smiley, and really enjoying it.
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
The rave reviews are totally right on: this is a wonderfully moving & often funny book about reporters writing for an English-language newspaper based in Rome. On Amazon, you can read an account by Rachman of how he wrote it - hard not to root for this first-time novelist who hits the ball out of the park his first turn at the bat.
I just finished The Imperfectionists and agree - it’s an accomplished debut novel with interesting characters, very well-written. I enjoyed it immensely.