As the Page Turns (the Book Thread)

[annie_mg]

I'm currently reading Queen Esther by John Irving. I'm about 2/3 in and while the pace has picked up, I don't find this book to be as good as his past ones. He is still one of my favourite authors ever though. The stories he makes up in his head never cease to amaze me. I can just picture all the characters in action. I love him.

 

[MacMadame]

The Guardian makes one of those lists.

The 100 best novels of all time

The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Wyliefan]

The Guardian makes one of those lists.

The 100 best novels of all time

The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

www.theguardian.com

And as always, everyone is miffed about it. I participated in some of the social media bellyaching.

 

[MacMadame]

All these lists cause a lot of discussion and disagreement, but this list is particularly weird IMO. Like whole genres ignored. And even within the genre of General Fiction, lots of good books left off in favor of things I've never even heard of let alone read.

Here are my complaints:
No 1984, Animal Farm, Farrenheight 541. All 3 of those books are better than Catch-22 which did make the list. (And isn't a bad book, just not as good as those other ones.)

Lots of Jane Austin (yay!) but Mansfield Park and Emma are on the list while Sense and Sensibility is not? Sure, Jan.

I also don't think Jane Eyre is that great a book. On the list, sure? But definitely not Top 10. I was pretty bored reading it and when I discovered my copy was missing the last 25+ pages, I just stopped and never bothered to find them somewhere else.

Anyway...

 

[Wyliefan]

One of my friends who hated Yesteryear keeps posting about it and posting about it. It's like an obsession. Meanwhile, I already posted my positive review of it (on the same platform), so now I'm just trying to keep my mouth shut and my head down. I did tell her right after I finished it that I liked it and I was so sorry, and she promised not to hate me for it , but now she's getting so intense about it that I don't think I want to engage further!

Anecdotally speaking, the book does seem to have that kind of effect on people who grew up in that sort of fundie environment. She did, and I didn't. Maybe that explains something, I don't know.

 

[Prancer]

First: "You With the Sad Eyes" (Christina Applegate) - my least favourite and one "sad" experience" after another.

I'm reading this right now; I don't care for her writing style.

 

[genevieve]

One of my friends who hated Yesteryear keeps posting about it and posting about it. It's like an obsession. Meanwhile, I already posted my positive review of it (on the same platform), so now I'm just trying to keep my mouth shut and my head down. I did tell her right after I finished it that I liked it and I was so sorry, and she promised not to hate me for it , but now she's getting so intense about it that I don't think I want to engage further!

Anecdotally speaking, the book does seem to have that kind of effect on people who grew up in that sort of fundie environment. She did, and I didn't. Maybe that explains something, I don't know.

I snagged a rare copy of Yesteryear on the library's peak picks shelf and just finished it. I need some time to digest it, but I almost stopped reading at the beginning, as it seemed like the author created a protagonist that she just really hated (which is how I felt about Yellowface, although that was a more nuanced and interesting book). I'm glad I stuck with it, as the book turned into something different and did gain some of the depth that was sorely lacking at the beginning. I'm still not sure that the story is successful - but it's definitely an absorbing read. I stayed up way too late last night to finish that last 100+ pages.

This is also the 2nd* recent read of books dealing with wildly successful 'influencers', and they both have the same problem of their main characters being pretty insufferable right out of the gate. Isn't there anyone out there who thinks social media stars have real jobs and provide something positive to write about them? (that's rhetorical )

*Other book was This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum. It's about podcasters and tries to be a thriller, a romance, and a cautionary tale. Not as well-written as Yesteryear but also seems to have a love-it-or-hate-it response from readers.

 

[Prancer]

I'm reading this right now; I don't care for her writing style.

I did like the book better as it went on, but if she hadn't told me multiple times that she had had a lot of therapy, I would still know that she had had a lot of therapy.

I snagged a rare copy of Yesteryear on the library's peak picks shelf and just finished it. I need some time to digest it,

Same. I finished it a few days ago and I still don't exactly what I think of it. The author clearly has no background in the kind of Christianity she's writing about, so there is that. But there were other things that I am still thinking about.

I saw a piece today from someone who said that the author hates all women who don't aspire to be girlbosses, which I didn't get from the book at all--but I can see why someone else might. I think that's a lot of the book's appeal--there is something there to trigger just about everyone.

 

[Allskate]

I'm still on the library waiting list for Yesteryear.

I read the other day that it's being made into a movie starring Anne Hathaway.

 

[kwanfan1818]

I was certain before opening The Guardian’s list that Ulysses was going to be #1 and was shocked to find that my favorite book, Middlemarch, was.

 

[Prancer]

I was certain before opening The Guardian’s list that Ulysses was going to be #1 and was shocked to find that my favorite book, Middlemarch, was.

Hathaway is interested, but she also contributed in some way to the book. The author thanks Hathaway for helping her figure out the (divisive) ending in the author notes at the end.

I do recommend not reading the spoiler if you haven't read the book because I don't want to poison anyone, but for those who have:

Spoiler

Your adult child is not going to just show up with a court order and take the younger kids away. Law enforcement and CCP would do that and Clementine would have to go through the process of becoming a legal guardian before she could just take custody. It's ridiculous to assert that no one would believe the older kids about what was going on; at bare minimum, a welfare check would have been standard procedure. And why would the courts finally believe the older kids IF THERE WAS NO INVESTIGATION? I'm willing to suspend belief to a point, but come on. Also, I thought the whole "Clementine confronts Natalie" section was really poorly written, with the most contrived dialogue. I don't have trouble with the twist itself, especially since there were plenty of clues, but everything around it seemed really rushed and not well thought through.

 

[her grace]

I recently read The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto about the colony of New Netherlands, which focuses on Manhattan and surrounding areas before the English took over. This was new information for me and it was interesting to learn about Dutch contributions to America including religious tolerance and the beginnings of a multi-ethnic society.

I also read The False Inspector Dew by Peter Lovesey. This mystery was written in the '80s, but reads like a golden age mystery. Set in the 1920s, there's a love triangle, a dentist masquerading as a detective, and death on the high seas. This was a fun, clever mystery. After I finished the book, I learned there was a real Inspector Dew (he and his most famous case are referenced in the book, but I thought the author had made all that up) and I went down the rabbit hole learning more about him, too!

 

[Finnice]

Thank you for mentioning Peter Lovesey! My friend translated some of his books in Finnish, si I had a pleasure to meet him a couple of times. He was a charming man indeed.

 

[kwanfan1818]

I read John of John (Douglas Stewart) on recommendation from someone who usually know what I like, but, in this case, wanted to toss most of the characters into the sea. I went to Good Reads to try to see what people, aside from Oprah, liked about it, and came across a low-star review that recommended John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies instead.

I know nothing of Boyne’s books, but I would never have expected the chapters that followed the narrator’s birth from the beginning narrative about his mother, although, in hindsight, the physical circumstances of his birth pointed in that direction. I found it hard to put down in long spurts, until I got to a point of needing to process the WTF-ery of it all until then. I’m glad I read that recommendation.

 

[Kasey]

So a friend loaned me a Freida McFadden book, “The Teacher”. It was pretty good and a fast read, although pretty easy to guess the twists, fairly satisfying. Does anyone here read her books regularly? Would you recommend more?

Starting “I will find you” by Harlan Coben now. Another loaned book.

 

[tony]

So a friend loaned me a Freida McFadden book, “The Teacher”. It was pretty good and a fast read, although pretty easy to guess the twists, fairly satisfying. Does anyone here read her books regularly? Would you recommend more?

Starting “I will find you” by Harlan Coben now. Another loaned book.

I’ve read quite a few of them and I think The Teacher was one of the better ones. Never Lie seems to be the big one now besides The Housemaid series, but I didn’t really like it.

 

[mattiecat13]

I just started Yesteryear. It seems people love it or hate it.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

I just finished Whistling in the Wind by Lesley Kagen. The story takes place during the summer of 1959 and is told through the voice of 10-year-old Sally. It was considered to be a more innocent time when children ran free with little supervision during the school break.

Sally and her younger sister Troo have even less supervision after their mother is hospitalized and their step father abandons them. She has secrets as do many of the other characters in the book. Two little girls have been murdered, and Sally is convinced that she knows who the murderer is. She is also convinced that she is next.

I hated finishing the book because I liked it so much.

 

[Cachoo]

If you have any quilters in your life this might be the story for them. Also the fact that it has been compared to Golden Girls and Schitt's Creek is a nice bonus:

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

[Cachoo]

NYT weighs in on this century's thrillers:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/books/best-thriller-books-21st-century.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3VA.B7Um.q62tczlQZKng&smid=url-share

 

[Jenny]

A little late to this particular party LOL but I just read The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. I actually started it when it was published in 1993 - my hardcover copy is inscribed from my husband as a Christmas gift that year - and typical of me, I was really into it then lost track among other distractions and didn't get back to it until now (my collection of partially read books is embarrassing).

Obviously the writing is outstanding and the characters very well drawn, but it was also a little odd. The "present day" is 1990-91, a time when I lived in the same city so lived through the events of the day and easily followed the geography of it, but what was crazy to me is how much it seems so dated it's almost quaint, when it was written very much in the here and now.

Anyone find that? You read something at the time it's written and it sits one way, then you read it again years later and the social/political landscape reads completely differently?

 

[Buzz]

Got a copy of Unknown by Riley Sager. A friend turned me on to his books. Looking forward to this one.