As the Page Turns (the Book Thread)

I got Deborah Harkness latest in the All Souls series, The Black Bird Oracle. No idea how I missed this coming out in July, but I got it on sale. Following quote: "The image that came to mind was that of a highly trained, magical figure skater willing to patiently inscribe modest school figures in the ice so that she could explode later into effortless quadruple spins." Interesting that she knew about school figures, but used spins instead of jumps. Maybe she thought her readers would know a spin and not a jump except a 4 revolution spin wouldn't be much explosion. :lol: She was describing magical power held in check.
 
I just finished "Passions in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel" by J.D. Robb. I have enjoyed a number of books from this "in Death" series but unfortunately not this one. IMO it has a weak story with a rather contrived motive for the murder.
 
puglover said:
I just finished "Passions in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel" by J.D. Robb. I have enjoyed a number of books from this "in Death" series but unfortunately not this one. IMO it has a weak story with a rather contrived motive for the murder.
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I call these the navel gathering books. This one could have been written by an AI (and maybe was). It just was a check mark of one page for character X, repeat dialogue, one page for character Y, repeat until you've got the minimum word count, send to publisher. Of her two books a year, one is weak and the other at least has somewhat of a plot.

I hadn't known that Deborah Harkness had had ovarian cancer two years ago. Extensive surgery and 6 months of chemo. She's planning 6 more books in the All Souls Series as well as teaching at U Southern Cal. I admire her ambition and wish her well.
 
Hillary Clinton's new book Something Lost, Something Gained just dropped in my library loan. I've only made it 4 pages and cried for her, me and the American people. It's good it's on my new tablet so I'll refrain from throwing it at the wall.
 
Tom Selleck’s book was interesting (if you’re a fan) though it ends as he’s leaving Magnum, PI. I hope he’s planning another book that covers his post-Magnum career.

A book I would recommend is Challenger by Adam Higginbotham. Those of us of a certain age can remember where we were when the Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. The book starts with the fire on Apollo 1 and the last section is about the Challenger disaster. Reading the book, one wonders why there haven’t been more fatalities as NASA doesn’t come off well at all.
 
I am part way through the Sweep series by Cate Tiernan. I think it is really YA and somewhat similar to Harry Potter in that it is young people and witchcraft. I am quite enjoying them.
 
I'm reading From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley's memoir written by her daughter Riley Keough. It's based on tapes recorded by Presley over the years as she'd planned to write the memoir, but never did. The tape excerpts are interspersed with recollections by Keough after she was an adult. It is just sad. Lisa Marie was doomed before she was ever born. She was at Graceland when Elvis died, started doing drugs at age 10, was in and out of multiple boarding schools before she was 17, was sexually abused by one of her mother's boyfriends starting at age 11 (Pricilla knew what was happening, but she wasn't much of a mother and had her own issues), manipulated her pregnancy (Riley) with Danny Keough. Although that relationship was damaged, he was with her when she died. Presley is very candid about her relationship with Michael Jackson. I think two tortured souls found each other for a while. Keough ends the book with the thought that her mother's life was a Greek tragedy which is what I thought as I read the book. It's not a happy story apart from the fact Lisa Marie seems to have been a much better mother to her children than her mother was to her or her grandmother to Pricilla. Keough opines at one point if "they" would have been better off if Elvis had never found fame and they'd just lived a life of the working poor in Mississippi. Except there wouldn't have been any they if Elvis had never met Pricilla.
 
I ordered "From Here to the Great Unknown" from audible and it has some actual audio from tapes in Lisa's voice, a lot read by Julia Roberts and Riley does her own recollections. I agree, it is a sad book. We normally think of generational disfunction passed down due to poverty, addiction, poor decisions, hopelessness that creates an almost unbreakable cycle. This three generation story of extreme wealth, addiction, poor decisions and hopelessness seems not all that different. Priscilla is certainly not painted in a good light. You can't help but think of Lisa, a child, running wild at Graceland and seeing all of the excesses of her father's lifestyle and constantly worrying about his well-being. He died when she was only 9 years old and long before that she had started feeling responsible for him. Although Lisa did find some purpose in life through her children and music, it seemed she just could not sustain it and inevitably her children were constantly worrying about her. Riley seems to be on a much better path than Ben was and hopefully the two youngest girls are as well. i think they are being cared for by their Dad. At one point Lisa describes the fact that no one (doctors, friends, anyone) could actually say "NO" to Elvis and that was his undoing but then Riley paints Lisa in her later years as being very similar.
 
rfisher said:
I'm reading From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley's memoir written by her daughter Riley Keough. It's based on tapes recorded by Presley over the years as she'd planned to write the memoir, but never did. The tape excerpts are interspersed with recollections by Keough after she was an adult. It is just sad. Lisa Marie was doomed before she was ever born. She was at Graceland when Elvis died, started doing drugs at age 10, was in and out of multiple boarding schools before she was 17, was sexually abused by one of her mother's boyfriends starting at age 11 (Pricilla knew what was happening, but she wasn't much of a mother and had her own issues), manipulated her pregnancy (Riley) with Danny Keough. Although that relationship was damaged, he was with her when she died. Presley is very candid about her relationship with Michael Jackson. I think two tortured souls found each other for a while. Keough ends the book with the thought that her mother's life was a Greek tragedy which is what I thought as I read the book. It's not a happy story apart from the fact Lisa Marie seems to have been a much better mother to her children than her mother was to her or her grandmother to Pricilla. Keough opines at one point if "they" would have been better off if Elvis had never found fame and they'd just lived a life of the working poor in Mississippi. Except there wouldn't have been any they if Elvis had never met Pricilla.
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There are just so many jaw dropping episodes in the book during all ages and stages of Lisa's life, it seems hard to really think of one or two as "spoilers". One that stood out to me was her retelling of a time she was on tour with Elvis and his entourage and they had rented the whole floor of a hotel as per usual. Someone came to warn her to hide and then Elvis commenced throwing items around including off the balcony resulting in the frightening noise of items shattering and absolute chaos. Eventually, things settled down and someone came to get Lisa to take her to her somewhat subdued father. She was told he had become so upset because his bottle of water usually by his bed had been missing. She quickly gathered up an armful of water bottles to take to him. She passes this off as semi-normal behaviour. Of course, Elvis was also a very kind, generous, loving person so one can't help but wonder if he would have been better off with at least a little less fame and fortune.
 
puglover said:
There are just so many jaw dropping episodes in the book during all ages and stages of Lisa's life, it seems hard to really think of one or two as "spoilers". One that stood out to me was her retelling of a time she was on tour with Elvis and his entourage and they had rented the whole floor of a hotel as per usual. Someone came to warn her to hide and then Elvis commenced throwing items around including off the balcony resulting in the frightening noise of items shattering and absolute chaos. Eventually, things settled down and someone came to get Lisa to take her to her somewhat subdued father. She was told he had become so upset because his bottle of water usually by his bed had been missing. She quickly gathered up an armful of water bottles to take to him. She passes this off as semi-normal behaviour. Of course, Elvis was also a very kind, generous, loving person so one can't help but wonder if he would have been better off with at least a little less fame and fortune.
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And, she was only a child. I felt so sorry for her the entire book. There have been books and movies about Elvis and Priscilla, but this told through the memories of a child was just sad. I did not know she'd been married to Nicolas Cage, but then I never followed tabloids about her. What struck me was how so many people want fame and those who have it put on them through no doing of their own, such as she, Michael Jackson and to some extent Elvis, struggle with it. When she described how she and Jackson just wanted to go out and do normal stuff without being recognized, I wanted to cry, and how hard she tried to find a "normal" and happy place for her children to live. Normal being surrounded be dozens of people that is.
 
pat c said:
I'm re-reading the Thursday Murder Club books by Richard Osmon. They're light, funny in places and an easy quick read.
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Bumping this up - I have had the books on my shelf for a long while (along with about thousand others waiting to be read..) but I took them on my vacation and planned to read as much as I could on the many flights and trains I had. I got through the first and then just finished #2, The Man Who Died Twice, today. I was laughing out loud on the planes so many times; people probably thought I was a maniac. So quirky, so well-written. The second book had a much superior storyline, IMO. I'll get around to the third eventually but I'm going to switch gears for my next book.

I've been reading Freida McFadden, too, since she's all over the top charts on both Amazon and Goodreads. The Teacher was very good, but I didn't like Never Lie as much. I just stocked up on the rest of her work because of the B2G1 sale Target has had this week [and note, yes I know all of her stuff remains free on Kindle Unlimited but I just cannot read off of a screen no matter how much I try].

Otherwise, I've been really into Japanese murder mystery writers and nothing has failed me yet. I can't remember if I mentioned it here yet or not, but Keigo Higashino is absolutely brilliant.
 
Working my way through the many tomes by Penny Vincenzi, many of which exceed 800 pages. I buy these second hand or much-reduced prices. Vincenzi writes extensively about Great Britain's involvement and home environment prior to or during WWII, as well as the impact of class distinction and how women were treated.

These are books in which you can immerse yourself.
 
Has anyone read Liane Moriarty’s newest book Here One Moment? Parts of it are very interesting but it’s sloooow. Does it ever speed up?
 
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I've read a ton of books lately, but I just finished The Colony Club yesterday and enjoyed it. Not heavy but a nice historical fiction read.
 
mattiecat13 said:
Has anyone read Liane Moriarty’s newest nook Here One Moment? Parts of it are very interesting but it’s sloooow. Does it ever speed up?
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I found it a bit draggy in places as well. I listened to it on audible and felt the number of characters and individual stories made it not really conducive to an audio book. Another book along the same vein is "The Measure"by Nikki Erlick which I preferred. Both examine the impact of knowing or thinking you know how and when you life will end.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
I just devoured "Devotion of Suspect X." What an amazing book! I now have the next two in the series on my tablet.
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It’s so, so good;I was totally sucked in. I’ve read several by this author and really, really enjoyed them. There’s been a great influx in the Western market of Japanese mysteries in the last few years.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
I just devoured "Devotion of Suspect X." What an amazing book! I now have the next two in the series on my tablet.
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So happy to hear it! I felt the same. Now you'll be sucked into the genre like I was ;)

Another one you may enjoy, not Higashino (but keep reading him) is The Decagon House Murders. It's an homage to And Then There Were None and it's even mentioned in the storyline, but great all the same on it's own. Hulu Japan turned it into a miniseries at the beginning of the year, and that was also brilliant.

As far as my own reading, I finished the series of four Thursday Murder Club books. 3 & 4 stayed funny, but I still think #2 was the best. I also read another Freida McFadden, One By One. And I found that one just alright.
 
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A Washington State yarn dyer offered a holiday box with a skein of their hand dyed yarn, a Seattle Chocolates candy bar, and a book. We could choose a book category. I chose “Banned Books,” and today, Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” arrived with yarn and chocolate. I haven’t read it since it first came out, although I did see the stream of the opera from San Francisco this Fall. I’m looking forward to a re-read.
 
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