As the Page Turns (the Book Thread)

I read 2 suspense/thriller novels back to back and enjoyed both of them enough to recommend them.

The first, One By One by Ruth Ware is based on the good old fashioned stuck in an isolated place with no one to rescue them and people getting murdered premise. The twist is that most of the people work in a start up (and one whose existence I could understand and believe in), so everyone is young and beautiful and ambitious.

The second, Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy is a variant of the currently in fashion unreliable narrator premise. You think you know everything that's going on and then whoops, you're completely wrong, and then whoops again, thus making it a book whose plot is hard to reveal without stepping into Spoilerland. I can say it's about a newly married couple who have moved out of New York City to the vicinity of Kingston, NY and the husband is a psychologist. After that, you're on your own.

Both authors are clearly smart and both understand up down and sideways the genre they're writing in (and gently making fun of). If you're attracted to short, both books are short (Goodnight Beautiful is real short). They're entertaining reads.
 
missing said:
The first, One By One by Ruth Ware is based on the good old fashioned stuck in an isolated place with no one to rescue them and people getting murdered premise. The twist is that most of the people work in a start up (and one whose existence I could understand and believe in), so everyone is young and beautiful and ambitious.
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I have that waiting for when it's snowy and I can curl up and read it in one sitting :)
 
ANyone read Obama's memoir yet? I usually avoid political memoirs like the plague but I might make an exception for Obama.
 
Geez, the other day one of my books said due on November 27 with no renewals. I just looked again to see which one it was to try to read this weekend and they all say 3 or 4 renewals.
 
I reserved the new David Rosenfelt Christmas book on September 20. I was the 26th person on the reserved list. It came in this week. Perfect timing. No renewals past the initial three weeks because it is new and has more reserves on it.
 

Ana on the Edge – A.J. Sass

sassinsf.com sassinsf.com

I saw a short article about this book, about a 12-year-old competitive skater discovering a nonbinary identity, in the October issue of Skating magazine. I ordered a copy and have just finished reading it.

The author is a skater and gets the skating details right throughout the book, albeit very specific to summer 2019 in terms of the US qualifying system.
Not to mention drawing on personal experience for the gender identity issues as well.

Is it worth a thread in Great Skate Debate?
 
I thought I would be reading a lot more over these past several weeks, since I’m not working, but apparently I’ve been a lot busier than expected. And/or spending more of my time watching skating from the 80s.

Anyway, here are a few things I did read/attempted to read:

Two books about female spies during WWII - Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein and The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff. Both were rather disappointing. I couldn't ever get into Code Name Verity and abandoned it not that far in. The writing style just did absolutely nothing for me. It seemed to get a lot of critical acclaim, so maybe I'll try it again if I can focus better on it. I was able to finish The Lost Girls of Paris, but I found the switching viewpoints made me feel like there were parts of the book that were just flat out missing, there was a ridiculous romance shoehorned in (arguably two ridiculous romances), and there was one completely unnecessary narrator. I have a non-fiction book on the topic on hold at the library and I'm hoping I like that one better.

The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz - this is the first book by the same author who wrote The Herd. It's the story of Lindsay, a recovering alcoholic who is looking into the presumed suicide of one of her best friends ten years ago, when Lindsay and her friends were into a lot of blackout drinking. It's not as good as The Herd. Lindsay is pretty unlikeable, which isn't fatal in and of itself, but it doesn't help. The resolution requires some pretty massive suspension of disbelief, which is probably the nail in the coffin. I would skip this one.

Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland - the source book for the Amazon movie Chemical Hearts. Teen romance about narrator Henry, aspiring writer, and Grace, mysterious new girl with a Big Secret. It started off pretty hokey, but at least was an easy read and then somehow by the end, I was totally sucked in and was crying while reading. So a qualified recommendation for anyone who can put up with the cheesy romance aspects of it.
 
Recent reads -

The Shadows by Alex North (who has previously written as Steve Mosby) - A creepy, graphic tale of ritualistic murder, not usually my thing, but the NY Times Book Review caught my eye because of the theme of learning to enter ones dreams and control them, inhabit them even. It was a page turner with several :eek:, well written with well drawn characters. I have his previous book in my pile.

The Sentinel (new Jack Reacher book) - I've read all of them, I'm a fan, and I thoroughly enjoyed this. Yes the plot was perhaps overly complicated, but I was just happy to have Reacher back. As we know, Lee Child has been open about wanting to retire, so has partnered with his brother (also a published author) who will now continue the series writing as Andrew Child, and I think our Reacher is in good hands. The last few books have shown a more vulnerable Reacher - older, more tired, physically feeling his age, and lonelier. In this book, he's back in good form, ready to continue fighting the good fight. As someone mentioned up thread, he talks more and there's more descriptive narration, and I'm fine with that. I think Lee was just running out of things to say at this point, and I'm just happy there's more to come.

Love and Theft by Stan Parish - What a ride that was! Another NY Times Book Review pick for me - who doesn't love a sexy story that starts with a jewel heist? At first it felt very Chris Pavone and I know there are a few fans of him here, and then it felt more like Don Winslow in terms of plot, I started to imagine the action on screen as a Bond movie only without Bond or a hokey adversary, and along the way the number of people who sound like regular people you might know or work with or be related to, but in fact freely do all kinds of things most of us wouldn't, well like I said, it was a ride. Definitely looking into what else this author has written, I'm in.

ETA: Just back from Amazon, where I found that the one previous book by Stan Parish appears to be the backstory of one of the minor characters from Love and Theft, who left me with more than one question about him (as did several other characters, I like that), so I can't wait to read this. I love it when an author creates a world of overlapping people and incidents, when the books can stand on their own but if you like the people and that world, you get more of it. Yay!
 
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I have 7 books but I am trying not to read all day like I would over Christmas because the library will be closed Thursday through Monday over both holiday weekends.
 
I read some books published in 2020 this year. Usually I'm reading stuff from a few years ago, but when you're putting every book you want on hold and having to wait anyway instead of grabbing available books off the library shelf, might as well put some of the new ones on hold, too. And I wasn't overly thrilled with most of them.

American Dirt by Jeaine Cummins: A story of a mother and son on a harrowing journey to escape cartel violence in Mexico and come to the United States as illegal immigrants. There's a lot of controversy about this book because the author is white, she made some questionable choices in her PR campaign, and because she made loads of money off of a story that Hispanic authors don't get paid much for while writing a "trauma porn" story. I had never heard of this author before and decided to try it. I thought it was just "meh," a fairly stereotypical portrayal of Mexicans and certainly not the book of the year.

Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan: This one I was really looking forward to as I've liked her past books. This one was a no. Apparently, mothers who become obsessively involved in their nanny's lives is a new trope? This book felt like it was trying too hard and was a pale imitation of Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, another book about a crazed mom who wants to direct her nanny's life. At least in that book there was more plot and a meaningful look at race.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: The plot for this book is absurd, featuring a wannabe bank robber who fails to get any money from the bank but does unintentionally end up taking a room full of people in a nearby apartment hostage. This book has Backman's trademark wit and sensitivity. He just gets human nature, and this was a humorous and thoughtful story.
 
Erin said:
Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland - the source book for the Amazon movie Chemical Hearts. Teen romance about narrator Henry, aspiring writer, and Grace, mysterious new girl with a Big Secret. It started off pretty hokey, but at least was an easy read and then somehow by the end, I was totally sucked in and was crying while reading. So a qualified recommendation for anyone who can put up with the cheesy romance aspects of it.
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Erin, this review simultaneously makes me want to read this book and repels me. :rofl:
 
So, as most of you know, any book dealing with East Germany jumps to the top of my list. So I was super excited to get The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures (I think this is also the title of my teaching contract :P ), and, uh, well. It was a book.

It's supposed to be a dark comedy, and other than one scene and the somewhat absurdist ending, I apparently missed it? The middle of the book was compelling, but that went nowhere and was left unresolved. In fact, most of the book is left unresolved. (It ends on the day the wall comes down, so it works to an extent, I guess, but was not particularly satisfying, nor did I care enough to come up with my own scenarios.)

I'm going to recommend you pass on this one, in spite of the awesome title.
 
I read about 110, give or take, but 50 or so were romance novels of no worth or substance whatsoever. The rest were more serious reads. I’m happy to read if it means ignoring the housework.
 
I am bummed because I only read 16 books this year. Usually I am closer to 20 or 25. My main problem was that I read a lot of nonfiction books that had good information but were not, IMO, very well-written. Some of those titles really dragged. Right now I'm reading a new Sylvia Plath biography (Red Comet) that is very good so far. Hopefully that will get me off to a better start for 2021.
 
I couldn't even count! I haven't read as many this year because I couldn't go to the library for almost 3 months. I had 11 books here and didn't read as much as I like to because I didn't know when they would open again. I've got 6 books here now because I haven't been reading every day because the library was closed Thursday through Monday last week, and I didn't want to run out. And also starting tomorrow. Of course, they called this morning to tell me one of my two holds is in. I was not going to go out in the pouring rain to get it, so it will have to wait there till Tuesday. One of my books out says overdue AND 2 renewals left. Make up your mind. I read it over the weekend and it is ready to go back anyway. It's not like they charge for overdue local books, but I hate having that "on my record". When I have interlibrary books, I read those first so they can go back soonest. I'll drop off the one that is "overdue" tomorrow. At least with the automatic return, it checks it in right then.
 
I give most of my books away as I don’t have the space to keep them all, so I take pictures 3-4 times a year of what I’ve read. It’s a great way to keep track of my year and to look back at previous years. I would have thought with the extra downtime this year I should have read more, but my life didn’t work out that way - depression issues, working for 3 months straight on the son’s house, and mom dying, really zapped my energy.
 
Here’s my 2020 list:
Ghost Tree - Barbara Erskine
Landower Legacy, Mask of the Enchantress, House of a Thousand Lanterns - Victoria Holt
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith (a re-read)
The Henna Artist - Alka Joshi
A Curious Beginning, A Perilous Undertaking - Deanna Raybourn
Sin Eater - Megan Campisi
Woman in the Green Dress - Tea Cooper
Arrowood and the Thames Corpses - Mick Finlay
The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death - Anthony Horowitz
Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet (a re-read)
Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean Auel (a re-read)
Second Sleep - Robert Harris
The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
The Confession of Frannie Langton - Sara Collins
Things in Jars - Jess Kidd
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek - Kim Michele Richardson
The Midnight Gang - David Walliams
Tidelands - Philippa Gregory
Affinity, Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
The Near Witch - VE Schwab
The Sea Gate - Jane Johnson
The Eyes of the Queen - Oliver Clements
When We Were Vikings - Andrew David MacDonald
The Exiles - Christina Baker Kline
The Orphan Collector, Coal River - Ellen Marie Wiseman
Miss Benson’s Beetle - Rachel Joyce
The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
Lost Roses - Martha Hall Kelly
Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon - James Lovegrove
 
What did you think of Affinity, @quartz ? I really like it, but not only is it one of her less well-known books, but it appears she herself struggled with the experience of writing it and found it sort of depressing. I think I like it in part b/c it is such a downer tbh, but it also creates a very thrilling atmosphere. The one criticism I would have is that the spiritualist element of the story was so effective atmospherically that she almost wasn't able to live up to it in the way she resolved the story for me. I don't know if you've read Fingersmith or not, bu that one is incredible. I should go back and finish The Little Stranger - when I started that, I'd read a few of her books in quick succession and I ended up needing a break and didn't finish, not because there was anything wrong with the book, it was just too much in a row.
 
I liked Affinity, it really built in intensity. The women’s prison setting was quite chilling.
I preferred Tipping the Velvet as I loved the whole the theatre scene, and Fingersmith was awesome, so many twists and turns. Have also read Little Stranger - I tend to love anything set in a crumbling old mansion, and The paying Guests was good too.
I think I have The Nightwatch on my shelf - l’ll get to that in the new year.
 
Tesla said:
I love Victoria Holt! I haven’t read her in years. 😍
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There’s a thrift store near me that sells hardcovers for a dollar - I can sometimes pickup 4 or 5 of her novels. They are my standby comfort books, I think I first read her when I was in my late teens.
 
I normally read about 50 books a year. This year I should have been able to read more than that, but felt like it was actually less. But I went back and counted, and it was 54 new books, plus 12 re-reads. I did notice that I had a very high number of books I didn’t finish or borrowed from the library without reading at all, so maybe that’s what contributed to that feeling that I read less. There were a lot of times I just couldn’t focus on what I was reading.

My two last books of the year (since I don’t expect to finish any books today) were Goodnight Beautiful and The Queen’s Gambit. Goodnight Beautiful started a bit slowly and took about a third of the book for me to get into but then once I did, it moved quickly. It was a fun diversion. I also enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit. Not a lot of surprises in there since the I watched the Netflix series, which is remarkably faithful to the book, with only a few exceptions I noticed. I liked how the book gave me more insight into Beth’s inner thoughts, as it helped me understand some things that I didn’t really get in the series.
 
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I didn’t read very much this year. Hope I can change that in 2021. I started the Bridgerton series after watching the show.

My list for the year:
  • Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley
  • Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
  • No Exit by Taylor Adams
  • The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware
  • Normal People by Sally Rooney
  • Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman
  • With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
  • The Cactus by Sarah Haywood
  • Precious Little Sleep by Alexis Dubief
  • American Royals by Katharine McGee
  • Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
  • My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
  • Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolkar

My favorites were Such A Fun Age, My Dark Vanessa and Hidden Valley Road. The Cactus was by far the worst and I almost didn’t finish it.
 
This was my 2020 list:

  • Lieberman, Daniel E. The Story of the Human Body.​
  • Guendelsberger, Emily. On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane.​
  • Snyder, Rachel Louise. No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us.​
  • Tolstoy, Leo. The Cossacks.​
  • Muhling, Jens. A Journey into Russia.​
  • Holland, Barbara, ed. Soviet Sisterhood.​
  • Feuchtwanger, Lion. The Oppermanns.​
  • Higginbotham, Adam. Midnight in Chernobyl.​
  • Chase-Riboud, Barbara. Sally Hemings. (re-read)​
  • Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.​
  • Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah.​
  • Dionne, E.J. Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite To Save Our Country.​
  • Tolstoy. Lev. Hadji Murad.​
  • Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.​
  • Banfield, Edward C. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society.​
  • Beckert, Sven. Empire of Cotton.​

As mentioned before, I was disappointed in a lot of the nonfiction titles, many of which, although worthy and with good information, were just not well-written or interesting IMO. Among these were prizewinners like Empire of Cotton and Stamped from the Beginning, as well as titles that have gotten a decent amount of attention, such as No Visible Bruises and Midnight in Chernobyl.

Best nonfiction I read was Jens Muhling's cultural travelogue A Journey Into Russia. Favorite fiction was The Oppermanns, about a wealthy German Jewish family in the mid-1930s.
 
Well, at 110+ books, my list is too long to write out, but here are some of the highlights and lowlights;

Top reads:

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
My Tender Matador, Pedro Lemebel
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (re-read?)
Circe, Madeleine Miller
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (re-read for sure)
The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim
Destiny's Conflict, Janny Wurts
The Bells of Old Tokyo, Anna Sherman

The bottom:

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell - a serious subject, but so badly written

Wallbanger and Mr. O - 2 erotic contemporary romances so boring that I didn't even finish them and don't care who wrote them

Hummus and Homicide, Tina Kashian - a very boring, very badly written cozy mystery that had no mystery to it at all - murderer was obvious the minute s/he appeared on the page

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens - book has a split personality and doesn't work on any level

Sex and Vanity, Kevin Kwan - fan fiction of the worst kind - read the original instead (A Room with a View, EM Forster)**

**Correction - what was I thinking? Evelyn Waugh didn't write A Room with a View, EM Forster did. My complaint about Sex and Vanity stands, however; it's dreadful fan fiction.
 
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I'm reading The End of October by Lawrence Wright who has a related nonfictional article in The New Yorker. It's about a pandemic and is freaking me out. The research he did for the novel is also the basis for his article in the magazine.

I read 2-3 books a week.
 
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