@PlantMom, since we’ve nixed The Nix, did you want a different 3rd choice, or are you just going with two?
I am trying not to like the recommendation of Paradise Sky, but maybe it’s exactly what I need! The reviews are good. Or, I’m okay with The Tsar of Love and Techno. Whatever works best for everyone else!
Okay, folks…
We didn’t have a lot of voters, but the results were a toss-up between Paradise Sky and Swimming Lessons. After sleeping on it, I’m going to select Paradise Sky. Here’s my logic behind that decision:
There aren’t many “real” reviews of Swimming Lessons as yet, mostly just blurbs by other authors. The descriptions of the novel as a family’s “poignant multi-layered tale of love and loss,” a “story of a woman’s failed marriage,” and a study of relationships “nursed on betrayal and regret and guilt,” sound like territory we’ve covered before, e.g., A Spool of Blue Thread.
Paradise Sky, on the other hand, has a number of mainstream reviews and they’re all excellent. It doesn’t really seem to have taken off with the public (only 90 reviews on Amazon), so that might indicate a risky choice, but we’ll see. Also, Joe Lansdale is considered a humorist, with a style that has been compared to Mark Twain. (In fact, a Twain quote opens Paradise Sky.) Humor isn’t an area we’ve spent much time in, so this is something a little different. Again, it could be a risk: With humor, “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” (or as the Urban Dictionary updates it, “One man’s LOL is another man’s W*F.”) But this group is always game to try something new, right?
And finally, it’s Black History month. In that respect, we timed The Underground Railroad and Underground Airlines well (purely by accident–I wasn’t thinking about that back in December). I find I’m not quite ready to leave black history behind, so Paradise Sky’s tale of a legendary black cowboy might be just the ticket.
I’ll start a new thread. Thanks for this month’s great discussion!
And yay for Mary who has the hard job of final choice!
Seems like a good time to ask: “What are your reading plans before you pick up the next CC Book Club book?”
I’m reading
The Rook - Daniel O’Malley Pure escapism and fun.
To Capture What We Cannot Keep - Beatrice Colin. A IRL book club picked this one. Honestly, I’m having trouble with it, and I’m over a third through it, which does not bode well. It has an emphasis on the romantic, which I didn’t expect, and since I’m not buying the romance - well, not a good sign, overall.
Holds that wait for me at the library:
And Only To Deceive - Tasha Alexander. According to Publishers Weekly: a “charming late Victorian romantic suspense novel …”
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis - J.D. Vance. Nonfiction
Best shorts: favorite short stories for sharing - selected by Avi. I’m thinking of gifting this to a seventh-grader I know. Thought I’d read it first to see if I think she’ll like it.
Your turn 
Haha love that Urban Dictionary quote!
Good choice, Mary! Thanks for a fine discussion.
I also am happy to continue the black history theme.
What I have been reading:
“The Gloaming” – I talked about this book upthread.
“The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri. This was a gift book. I wasn’t sure how much I liked her low-key style at first, but I ended up loving the book for its sensitive depiction of characters and its affectionate representation of locations.
“The Darkroom” by Susan Faludi – A nonfiction book by a gifted journalist about her father, a Hungarian photographer who had a sex change operation in his 70s. The book also examined questions of personal identity in general and the identity problems of the Hungarian people.
I will write about what I’m reading now and what I have lined up to read after I finish the books.
I’m in India (metaphorically). Still plugging away at A Suitable Boy (about half way through) - it’s set in 1950s India and I commented to my son’s girlfriend (PhD student in history) that I didn’t really know a lot about what led up to partition. She gave me two books for Christmas - one was Cracking India - I’m about half way through and a real history book called The Great Partition - The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan. I’m only a couple chapters in.
I’m really wanting to reread all of Lois McMasters Bujold’s books. Tor is doing a reread of the Vorkosigan Saga which is fun, but I’m also tempted to read the books in the Five Gods world as I just read three novellas set in that world.
@NJTheatreMOM I admired The Gloaming more than I enjoyed it. I loved the first part and then didn’t know what to think of the last part. It was a unique setting and voice, though… It resonated with me because some of the observations matched what my brother remembers about his time in Africa with the Peace Corps. I’ll be interested to see what you think.
Reading or finished Homegoing, All the Birds in the Sky, Moonglow (Chabon’s latest), The Mothers.
I can’t figure out how to do italics!!
I just finished The Boston Girl by Anita Diamont. Charming, and not terribly heavy.
Also just finished All the President’s Men by Woodward and Bernstein, and am in the middle of Breach of Faith by Theodore White. For some reason I’m interested in understanding Watergate right now, and how the investigation proceeded. I do not recommend Breach of Faith. Never have I read anything that is so overwritten and sexist. I’m trying to skim it so I can find the parts I’m interested in, but it’s difficult not to be annoyed.
Mathmom, I don’t know if you have ever read Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children.” It is his best book and is about Partition
I read it in the early 80s and was tremendously impressed by it.
Lol well done Mary 13 "With humor, “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” (or as the Urban Dictionary updates it, “One man’s LOL is another man’s W*F.”)
No I haven’t. All I’ve read of his is Haroun and the Sea of Stories. I wasn’t particularly impressed, but I also gather it’s not particularly typical. My problem with Rushdie is he seems like a pompous ass every time I hear him interviewed. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a good author.
@jaylynn - use square brackets instead of squiggly ones: {i}This is italics. -. {/i} → *This is italics. *
For others: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17152528/#Comment_17152528
Just left Russia ( metaphorically) with “a gentleman in Moscow” and now heading to Scandinavia- my escapism from US of A right now.
“The Almost Nearly Perfect people - behind the myth of the Scandinavian Utopia”
By Michael Booth (Bill Bryson type writer)
( I mistakenly wrote Michael Moore as the author - had to edit silly me see where my head is these days )
Mathmom, Rushdie IS kind of a pompous ass. I slogged through his autobiographical “Joseph Anton” and was not impressed by how he came across as a person.
However he is brilliant and capable of wonderful writing. I’ve read short stories and nonfiction pieces of his that were a delight.
Sorry about the hospital, NJTM! Are you back home now? I like the choice of the “funnest” title for our next book.
I finished Underground Railroad too late for the discussion, but I loved it, and I read all the comments and appreciate the links. (I never got to Underground Airlines, but I plan to.) I read the NPR interview transcript before I read Underground Railroad, and that was very helpful in understanding the structure of the book (the different states/societies), and that some things would be “real” and others not. I’m not a big fan of alternate history/magical realism, either, Mary, so the advance warning made it easier to just roll with it. And knowing sort of where it was going, I loved all the backstories (I like that kind of thing, in general).
A couple of links:
Photography by my friend’s son was featured the other day on Huffington Post–images of the underground railroad:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/underground-railroad-photo-series-powerfully-tracks-trail-of-runaway-slaves_us_5899f81ce4b0406131395c12
Thanks for mentioning Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Mary13. She’s buried near my house, in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, and today is her birthday! The Cemetery posted a photo on their Facebook page, but it might not work here; there’s a photo of the gravesite at the end of this article:
http://mountauburn.org/2013/aaht-jacobs/
Nice to hear from you, buenavista. I am still in the hospital but expect to be out soon.
Fortunately the wifi is working this time!
@buenavista great links - thanks for sharing
Thank you for this month’s selections and discussion. I’m so glad you are making decisions, Mary! Off to order Paradise Sky.
I’m currently reading The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing. I love her writing, although I feel like I’m plowing through it with the effort and pace of a little sailboat stuck on a sandbar (just saw that).
:-h to @buenavista - I wondered if you read the books.
[-O< for @NJTheatreMOM - get well; stay well
=D> for all who added their thoughts about the books
^:)^ to @Mary13 for making it work once again.
Till April 1 and Paradise Sky.
Plantmom, one of my favorite books ever is Lessing’s “African Stories.” However, I have never had the courage to try anything else by her!
In my twenties, I loved Doris Lessing. I read The Golden Notebook about a hundred times and even taught a class on it. Also read, and loved, The Four-Gated City and Martha Quest. The latter was particularly significant to me; it’s about a young girl and her miserable relationship with her mother.
Maybe I’ll reread them. I find re-reading things I know very well is an adventure in re-discovery.