Outside of a Dog, a Book is Man's Best Friend (The Book Thread)

[Allskate]

We actually read Anne of Green Gables last summer (books adapted to television).

I recently started listening to audiobooks while I work out. Anne of Green Gables was really cheap, so I bought it. I have to say, I understand why adults got exasperated with Anne.

My first audiobook was Trevor Noah's "Born a Crime," which is a great book to listen to since he narrates it himself and does all the different accents. I realized the first time I saw and heard him on tv that he was a unique South African as it was very rare for someone born when he was born to have parents of different races in South Africa. And his family life definitely makes his story more compelling.

I'm currently reading a Reese Witherspoon pick -- "Next Year in Havana." I love historical fiction, but I'm at a point in the book where it's very heavy on the history and very light on the fiction.

 

[VGThuy]

@oleada @clairecloutier @Jenny @IceAlisa @Zemgirl @TygerLily

So, in anticipation for the upcoming movie, I decided to read the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. I read the first one years ago, but never bothered with the others. I just finished the second one China Rich Girl. I know you guys already read it so I figured you'd be interested in my thoughts. For the rest of you who actually are willing to read this, lots of spoilers below.

I have to agree with those who didn't like this one as much as the first one, by some way. I was excited to read this one to get a glimpse into the newly rich Chinese mainlanders and Hong Kong culture that the characters of the first book would look down upon, but I felt this one just wasn't compelling. This time around, it seems Kwan was only interested in telling thin stories that just were not interesting and just name dropping brands, designers, and such. I also found all the footnotes to become more tedious this time around. The first one certainly had all the footnotes explaining Singaporean, Hokkien, and Chinese slang and terms, lots of asides giving background to the characters or what they were saying, and certainly did not skimp on the crazy rich lifestyle descriptions. However, the first one also had a strong sense of direction and story with the three main stories (Rachel/Nick/Eleanor/Sun Yi; Astrid/Michael/Charie; and Eddie/Fiona).

This one had like no sense of direction and he was telling thin stories about characters I really did not care about. Like Kitty Pong was entertaining as a side character in book 1 but why make her a giant character here. I mean I get it's to show off exclusivity of Hong Kong socialite culture, but that wasn't really delved into. Kwan seems way more enamored with the elite Asian life in this one than I was or he was in the first book to the point where he thought giving these tidbits were impressive. I actually liked Collette because she was the only one in this book with a personality BUT that last scene was so melodramatic in a bad way and she's a poor substitute to the other women who were really savage to Rachel in book 1. I'll get into what I think influenced Kwan for that.

I also felt the first book had a strong sense of self but this one seemed like a weird fanfiction where he took the characters in strange and uninteresting directions just because he could. In the first one, I loved the character of Astrid and Michael and Charlie and found that to be a very unique and different dynamic for literature. This time around, Astrid was boring, Charlie read as seriously pathetic, and Michael took a turn into character assassination (sure there were red flags before but he felt human and three dimensional and now he's become Asian drama villain). I feel like Kevin Kwan watched too many Asian dramas dealing with love triangles of two men and one woman where on like episode 11 out of 16-20 the very nice but rejected guy takes a dark turn and becomes evil. I felt that was what also inspired the whole Collette arc and that final scene.

If I felt Nick and Rachel could have used more development in the first one (something it looks like the movie is going to do for us) then Kevin Kwan put them in the background even further with this one. There were opportunities for some great character and plot development (with Rachel reuniting with her long lost father, the reunion between them and Rachel's mother, etc.) but he just skipped that entirely and I still don't understand why he did that. I also had a slight problem in that for a supposed brilliant Economics professor working on her PhD, Rachel did not read as one. In this book, she was worse in that respect. She barely had anything to say and was still super impressed with all the decadence when I would have felt it would have just all started to look the same and become numb to it like anybody who really isn't THAT interested in that lifestyle would be. Her little discussion with Awkwafina (I mean Peik Lin) about exorbitant spending did not make her sound like an educated person, much less an academic and supposedly a brilliant economist. Nick just seemed so periphery here except during the ridiculous twist at the end.

I hope book 3 is better.

ETA:

If the movie becomes a big success and a sequel is greenlit, then the screenwriter(s) and director have their work cut out for them in adapting the second book.

 

[Jenny]

Thanks for your thoughts @VIETgrlTerifa Have to say I'm not following some of it as I read the book awhile back and don't recall the final scene. Is Colette the sort of sister of Nick, the fashion girl in Shanghai? I recall one scene around her that was hysterical - the blogger reporting in from the insider fashion show

I do remember though that the second book was disappointing, like it was rushed through to capitalize on the success of the first one, and the author had already put everything into his first book so this one was just a mish mash of scraps. Probably the reason Kitty was so big, because he hadn't really done anything with her before.

I've found this a few times with sudden success first authors. The second book is rushed and disappointing, so when they come back with the third book (as part of their initial three book or one plus option for two more deal), even if it's good, it's too late and then we don't hear from them again, or at least for awhile. Chris Pavone (The ExPats, The Accident, The Travellers) comes to mind.

I thought the third book was much better though, so please keep going and share your thoughts. My favourite character Eddie just got more and more outrageous in that one In some ways it's like a typical sitcom where the supporting characters are more fun. I mean it may be called something else, but it's really the Karen and Jack show, no?

As for the movie, I will definitely see it but as I said before, if they don't have a serious, really serious budget for costumes and sets, it won't work IMO.

 

[clairecloutier]

LOL @VIETgrlTerifa. I actually completely agree with your take on book 2! I think I tried to be a little restrained in my review of it here (not wanting to annoy people who really liked it), but I agree with all your points and thought it was pretty bad compared to book 1. I’m thinking maybe Kwan was on a deadline for book 2, because the publisher wanted to capitalize on the success of the first book, or maybe the publisher asked him to amp up the materialism even more for book 2? but yeah it was bad. I haven’t read book 3. Let us know if it’s any better.

 

[VGThuy]

Thanks for your thoughts @VIETgrlTerifa Have to say I'm not following some of it as I read the book awhile back and don't recall the final scene. Is Colette the sort of sister of Nick, the fashion girl in Shanghai? I recall one scene around her that was hysterical - the blogger reporting in from the insider fashion show

I do remember though that the second book was disappointing, like it was rushed through to capitalize on the success of the first one, and the author had already put everything into his first book so this one was just a mish mash of scraps. Probably the reason Kitty was so big, because he hadn't really done anything with her before.

I've found this a few times with sudden success first authors. The second book is rushed and disappointing, so when they come back with the third book (as part of their initial three book or one plus option for two more deal), even if it's good, it's too late and then we don't hear from them again, or at least for awhile. Chris Pavone (The ExPats, The Accident, The Travellers) comes to mind.

I thought the third book was much better though, so please keep going and share your thoughts. My favourite character Eddie just got more and more outrageous in that one In some ways it's like a typical sitcom where the supporting characters are more fun. I mean it may be called something else, but it's really the Karen and Jack show, no?

As for the movie, I will definitely see it but as I said before, if they don't have a serious, really serious budget for costumes and sets, it won't work IMO.

Absolutely. I think that was probably the issue. He probably didn't plan this to be a trilogy and did not really know how to continue the story, so he had to create new issues and problems.

Collette was Rachel's brother's not-official girlfriend who was the crazy fashion blogger who yells at Rachel in the end. Astrid is Nick's cousin who is more like a sister to Nick.

LOL @VIETgrlTerifa. I actually completely agree with your take on book 2! I think I tried to be a little restrained in my review of it here (not wanting to annoy people who really liked it), but I agree with all your points and thought it was pretty bad compared to book 1. I’m thinking maybe Kwan was on a deadline for book 2, because the publisher wanted to capitalize on the success of the first book, or maybe the publisher asked him to amp up the materialism even more for book 2? but yeah it was bad. I haven’t read book 3. Let us know if it’s any better.

I will continue on and let you know what I think.

 

[IceAlisa]

I am excited to watch in on the big screen! @VIETgrlTerifa et al!

 

[VGThuy]

I am excited to watch in on the big screen! @VIETgrlTerifa et al!

Me too! The reviews look really solid so far.

 

[oleada]

My brain is fried so my only reply to @VIETgrlTerifa is that I enjoyed book 3 so much more than book 2, so I would keep going. The feel of book 3 was a lot more like the first. I really want to see the movie.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

I just finished Munich by Robert Harris. The history class I just took presented a different spin on Chamberlain's "appeasement" of Hitler. While the move is vilified today, at the time it was celebrated, because no one wanted to go to war again and the UK wasn't ready for another war. This book supports that take, but also has a character that warns of coming trouble. I don't know how much is based on fact (though Harris does meticulous research), but I really enjoyed it, even though we already know how it's going to end.

 

[PDilemma]

I just finished Munich by Robert Harris. The history class I just took presented a different spin on Chamberlain's "appeasement" of Hitler. While the move is vilified today, at the time it was celebrated, because no one wanted to go to war again and the UK wasn't ready for another war. This book supports that take, but also has a character that warns of coming trouble. I don't know how much is based on fact (though Harris does meticulous research), but I really enjoyed it, even though we already know how it's going to end.

I feel bad for my profession that you had to live this long without that being presented to you in a history class. My 11th graders and I discussed that in depth every year that I taught high school American history.

 

[VGThuy]

So I finished the third book in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, Rich People People Problems, that one seemed like a much more proper follow-up to the first book than the second one. I enjoyed that one a lot as I think the storylines were a lot more interesting and actually lead somewhere. Kwan was able to get into the themes that he wanted (there were a lot of them) without sacrificing narrative, and all the footnotes and such didn’t seem too much this time around. Nice to see Nick be a real character again. Rachel wasn’t given much to do but it was nice to see her finally have a back bone and talk back. I think it’s clear Kwan only really created her as an introduction to this world, so he only writes her to react to certain things and since this is the third book, she’s sort of outlived her usefulness.

 

[oleada]

I tried to go see Crazy Rich Asians but the showings at times I could go in my neighborhood movie theater are all sold out. They have recliner chairs there and since they put those in, we can't go anywhere else Maybe next weekend!

My brain is still fried, so it's all lighter, summer reading for me: The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir, which is about a Duggar type family trying to cover up a pregnancy in one of the daughters. I read it very quickly and it was a good effort for a first novel; I had hard time putting it down. Overall, it was pretty predictable, though. I also read Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld which was a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice featuring a Bachelor type show. I thought it was witty and amusing, and I really enjoyed all the characters, though none of them are likable; they showed good development.

B&N is having a Nookbook sale with many bestsellers $10 and under, including Pachinko, The Nightingale, Crazy Rich Asians, etc.

 

[Susan1]

I started back at the first Alex Kava book, the Maggie O’Dell series, from 2000. They stop at 2013 and go into three more Ryder Creed series, who Maggie worked with in Stranded, the 2013 book, which I just started. He is a cadaver dog/search and rescue handler. I'm scared his dogs are going to get hurt by bad guys. Dead, chopped up, stabbed and shot people - o.k. Injured dogs - no! Should I just skip them and read her 2017 Maggie O'Dell book?

 

[genevieve]

I finished An Ocean of Minutes last night. It's classified as dystopian, and I can see why, but eh. A pandemic sweeps through the US in 1981, and a time-travel company offers to take people to the future to work as indentured servants. The main character, Polly, volunteers to go so her boyfriend Frank can be cured. They make a plan to meet in 1993.

Except she gets sent to 1998 and all manner of stuff goes wrong beyond that. A review I read said that the book made a "great statement" on race and social class, but I didn't see that. I think the author was trying to do so, but didn't quite make it.

The main character annoyed me. She showed little curiosity in how things had turned out in society the way they had. Her only focus is Frank, to the point where she does some incredibly stupid things, and it gets a bit tedious.

I find this to be SUCH an annoying trend when it comes to female protagonists. There's apparently some unspoken rule about female main characters being so single-focused on a relationship that the world could literally blow to bits around them and they barely notice. And usually this determination leads to incredibly poor decisions that further the plot along. Argh.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn: Focused on two timelines: spy network on WWI, and the aftermath of WWII. I liked it; it reminded me of The Nightingale a bit. This was for the "Celebrity Book Club" prompt in the Popsugar challenge as it was one of Reese Witherspoon's picks last year.

I just finished this (after a 2- month wait on my library list ). I'd call it the straight girl version of The Night Watch. I enjoyed it, although it included a little of the aforementioned single focus. At least in this book, the focus was not a romantic one.

I need a new book.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

I'm taking a dystopian lit class at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and tried to cram in some reading before I have to dive into that. (I've already read four of the seven books )

Anyway, I know there's some others in this thread that like books on North Korea and See You Again in Pyongyang by Travis Jeppersen does not disappoint. He studied Korean at one of the universities there for a month and so gets a more inside look at the country, places that western tourists usually don't see.

I'm also reading 1983: Reagan, Andropov and a World on the Brink by Taylor Downing. I'd seen a documentary about just how close we came to nuclear war because of how badly the Soviets and the US didn't understand each other. I'm about halfway through, and it's fascinating.

 

[Mozart]

I have recently read:

When breath becomes air- love it
The Late show- michael connelly- really like Renee a lot
The woman in cabin 10-not my favourite but not that bad

I see you- MacKinnon- I didn't really enjoy it that much
We are Here- Michael Marshall- just ok


Currently half way through Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.


My "problem" is that I have way too many books to read lol. Recently received more giftcards for indigo and the local SPCA had a fill a bag for $1 sale and I had to get 3 bags (35 books). Lots of good stuff and I probably could have gotten way more if I would have carried more lol.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

I am almost finished with Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson, and it's sort a whimsical look at the chaos in the Trump White House, though parts of it do get serious. Wilson is one of the original Never Trump Republicans, and Trump and Hannity sent their minions to harass his family.

I'm also reading Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for the dystopian lit class I'm taking at University of Nebraska-Omaha, and it's even weirder than I remember.

OH, and I'm also reading The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983 which covers the same incident as 1983 does. It's so weird to me that I was probably sitting around in my bedroom listening to Def Leppard albums and planning my marriage to Steve Clark, and we were about two minutes away from nuclear armageddon and had no freaking idea.

 

[Prancer]

I figured that Barnes and Noble would go bankrupt at some point and it looks that point will come soon.

I wonder what will happen to my 1000+ ebooks.

 

[quartz]

I figured that Barnes and Noble would go bankrupt at some point and it looks that point will come soon.

I wonder what will happen to my 1000+ ebooks.

Ha. Before I read the article I wondered if the company I work for might be interested in buying it. We’ve had quite the rebound in the past few years, although we now stock far more non-book product than we used to. The plan to move into the States has been underway for a long time, it will be interesting to see how we fare. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are looking into the Barnes and Noble situation, it would be a great way to expand.

 

[Mozart]

Finished Dark matter. I don't get the raves about this book but it's probably because I'm not a huge sci fi fan. Also I prefer shorter chapters. Oh well.

Next up:
The Dry by Jane Harper

 

[Wyliefan]

I am almost finished with Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson, and it's sort a whimsical look at the chaos in the Trump White House, though parts of it do get serious. Wilson is one of the original Never Trump Republicans, and Trump and Hannity sent their minions to harass his family.

I'm reading Wilson's book and really enjoying it. It's a refreshing blast of truth in the midst of all the Trump BS. (He's also a fun Twitter follow, btw.)

 

[MacMadame]

There was a time in my life when I had read everything Kurt Vonnegut had written.

 

[snowbird]

They Took My Father. It's an account of Finnish-Americans in Stalinist Russia. I found it memorable. If you have access to libraries other than your own local you might get it.















'They took

 

[Japanfan]

There was a time in my life when I had read everything Kurt Vonnegut had written.

Ah, dear, sweet Vonnegut. Though I confess I didn't read everything he wrote. Particularly all the short essays/commentaries he wrote later in life. I think I did buy most of them, but at some point lost interest.

I'm also reading Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for the dystopian lit class I'm taking at University of Nebraska-Omaha, and it's even weirder than I remember.

I should reread Cat's Cradle, but I think I prefer some of Vonnegut's later works.

My favorite is probably Dead Eye Dick (Vonnegut's anti-war treatise), about the boy whose life was ruined after he accidentally killed a pregnant woman with one of his father's guns. The child is so traumatized that he never has sex with anyone, and as an adult attends a 'neuters' parade' where people are carrying placards saying things like 'tried sex once, didn't like it'.

Galapagos is probably my second favorite, about the devolution of humankind into dolphin-like creatures (who don't need dentists and can't carry guns). The story is told very far in the future by a ghost who believes that the problem with humankind was that our brains were too big - killing brain cells with alcohol and drugs was a purely natural response to that problem.

And then there is Mary Hoobler (the meth addict who eventually commits suicide by drinking draino). In one of the books a man who has been released from prison and is doing community work knocks on her door and asks for a glass of water. And Vonnegut writes (slight paraphrase): The next thing she knew they were making out right there on the couch, and she was kissing his scars, and telling him how they were two of a kind, both of them lost, and so on.

Who else has ever elevated those three words 'and so on' into art?

IMO Vonnegut should be mandatory reading in high school because his social commentary remains so relevant today and because of his brilliant humor.

 

[Susan1]

Of course I would be walking past a library shelf and pick up a mystery called "Crime and Punctuation"! ha ha

It's a new "deadly edits" series by Kaitlyn Dunnett. It looks like she writes a bunch of Scottish and historical stuff. This is set in the Catskills though. It's a hardback, so I'm not classifying it as a "cozy". Her second book in the series comes out in 2019, so I added her to my list to look for.

How funny if I find typos and grammatical errors, huh? Oh, on the news they were talking about a job fair and they had a list of things to watch for on your resume. "Bad spelling and grammer" was the first thing!!!! It had a Career Builder logo at the top so I don't know if it was their fault or someone at the station typed it. I wanted to write and ask them if that was supposed to be ironic or something. The weather report had two misspellings this morning. Geez.

 

[Erin]

Lots of lighter summer reads for me:

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn: Focused on two timelines: spy network on WWI, and the aftermath of WWII. I liked it; it reminded me of The Nightingale a bit. This was for the "Celebrity Book Club" prompt in the Popsugar challenge as it was one of Reese Witherspoon's picks last year.

The Reese Witherspoon pick explains why I had to wait so long for it on hold at the library (nearly 3 months). Anyway, just read it on my vacation and thought it was very good. I see the comparison with The Nightingale (common thread of females contributing to the war effort in somewhat non-traditional roles although this one is WWI rather than WWII) but I preferred The Alice Network. I hadn’t realized when I read it that so many of the characters were based on real people so I appreciated the author’s afterword at the end highlighting that, and that she went to the trouble to explain what parts where real and what parts were fictional, condensed, etc. It saved me the trouble of trying to figure it all out for myself on Wikipedia after!

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

I have a stack of books I haven't read yet so I probably shouldn't be looking at the young adult literature book club's current list but I am anyway.

Have any of you read any of these and can give me a recommendation on adding to my stack? I'm trying to figure out if I even want to add to my current list.

The Hate You Give, Angie Thomas
The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic, Leigh Bardugo
Sparrow, Sarah Moon
Goodbye Days, Jeff Zentner
Piecing Me Together, Renee Watson
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzie Lee

 

[genevieve]

I recently picked up a bunch of books that I stopped reading almost immediately. One was The Immortalists - good idea, but it was a great (meaning: terrible) example of someone outside a group trying to write as if they really understand how that group thinks.

Next was All the King's Men, which is supposed to be a great book, but I could not get beyond the casual, and repeated, use of the n-word starting on page 1. I get that the book was written in the 1940s, but I can't with that.

I just found a book of essays by a PNW writer in a neighborhood little free library and I'm digging it. Uplake, by Ana Maria Spagna.

 

[Japanfan]

I have a stack of books I haven't read yet so I probably shouldn't be looking at the young adult literature book club's current list but I am anyway.

Have any of you read any of these and can give me a recommendation on adding to my stack? I'm trying to figure out if I even want to add to my current list.

The Hate You Give, Angie Thomas
The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic, Leigh Bardugo
Sparrow, Sarah Moon
Goodbye Days, Jeff Zentner
Piecing Me Together, Renee Watson
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzie Lee

I haven't read any of those but recently had a young adult fantasy passed on to me called "The Beast is an Animal', by Peternelle van Arsdale.

So far I'm really enjoying it.

 

[Erin]

I picked up Daisy Godwin’s Victoria from the library, thinking it was a biography. It turns out it’s historical fiction - Godwin is the writer of the ITV/PBS series and wrote this novel during the first season of the series. I watched a few episodes of the series and never got around to watching the rest, but I can’t say I was super impressed, as a lot of the historical inaccuracy irritated me. (This article is a good summary of the most irritating parts: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4628353/victoria-tv-show-pbs-masterpiece) Anyway, the book is pretty much the same plot as the series so if you liked the series, you probably like the book but if you want to actually learn anything about Queen Victoria, go for Julia Baird’s biography instead. I don’t think the inaccuracies would bother me so much if it weren’t for Godwin saying the book was based on Victoria’s diaries and leaving it at that, with no disclaimers about how much she changed for dramatic tension. That and a lot of the stuff she changed was just irritating, like how much time Victoria spends in love with Lord Melbourne. I was surprised the book got such positive views.