What are you reading the week of May 1, 2021?

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What are you reading the week of May 1, 2021?

1fredbacon
Apr. 30, 2021, 10:37 pm

I'm reading The Misty Harbor, the 16th Inspector Maigret mystery. Very atmospheric. You can almost feel the cold, damp fog.

2Shrike58
Mai 1, 2021, 8:27 am

Finished up The Battle for China, or at least as much as I'm going to for now, close to finishing The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, and am starting Empires of the Sky.

3Molly3028
Mai 1, 2021, 9:23 am

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

The Wife Upstairs: A Novel
by Rachel Hawkins

4PaperbackPirate
Mai 1, 2021, 11:23 am

I've got about 100 pages to go of Song of Susannah by Stephen King. I'm going to try to finish the last book of the series this month!

5seitherin
Mai 1, 2021, 12:52 pm

6hemlokgang
Bearbeitet: Mai 1, 2021, 1:31 pm

Finished listening to the 2nd Inspector Rebus novel, Hide and Seek.

Next up for listening is A Burning by Megha Majumdar.

7LyndaInOregon
Bearbeitet: Mai 2, 2021, 10:57 pm

April Round-Up - I read 15 books this month. Standouts included the delightful Ella Minnow Pea and the absolute sleeper Shaman's Daughter, which blew me away.

Start the LTER read of My Mother's Children, which is painfully working its way toward a conclusion that was recognizable in Chapter 1, thanks partly to the cover material. (Why do publishers do that? I once sent a book out for swap with a patch taped over the comments on the back cover and the warning to NOT remove the patch unless they wanted the book's Big Surprise revealed before they even started reading.)

8Molly3028
Mai 2, 2021, 9:27 am

Started this OverDrive Kindle book ~

The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship
by Beth Harbison

9boulder_a_t
Bearbeitet: Mai 2, 2021, 9:56 am

Diese Nachricht wurde vom Autor gelöscht.

10boulder_a_t
Bearbeitet: Mai 2, 2021, 9:55 am

I'm jumping all over the place with short fiction.
Finishing a good story and jumping to a different collection is so satisfying right now.

Best American Short Stories 2020

Best American Mystery Stories 2020
Best American Mystery Stories 2007
AND
Lot : stories - Bryan Washington
Love this one so I'm reading it slowly because the stories are very short and I don't want to finish it.
Also throw in some Alice Munro and Roald Dahl

11rocketjk
Mai 2, 2021, 2:43 pm

I finished the excellent The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee. McGhee runs down the racist, anti-Black roots (i.e. "history") of many of the major societal problems in America today, examining at the same time the ways in which these policies have also greatly harmed whites along the way. Her thesis, as per the title, is that working and middle class whites have been sold a "Zero Sum" philosophy: if Blacks "win," whites, by definition, "lose." So, for one easy example, welfare programs that would help many more whites than Blacks must be bad nevertheless, because Blacks are "takers" who don't deserve taxpayer help. Never mind the number of poor whites who would be lifted as well.

McGhee uses as her operating metaphor (as per the book's cover art) the history of public swimming pools. During the middle part of the 20th century, communities across the country, including across the South, had built public swimming pools. They were symbols in many cases of civic pride, gathering places for often thousands of people. However, when the law mandated that these pools be integrated, community after community closed the facilities, often filling the pools in and covering them over, rather than comply with that new law. So not only were Blacks kept out, but tens of thousands of white people lost their public swimming pools as well. I've written more on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Tonight I will start Pot of Trouble, another book from Don Tracy's rather obscure Giff Speer mystery series from the 1960s/70s.

Also, my stack of "between books" (anthologies, short story collections and other books of short entries I like to read one story/chapter at a time instead of plowing through them all at once) had dwindled down to just two or three, so I've now added a bunch. My current full list of "between books" is, in no particular order:

Sorry for Your Trouble a book of so far very good short stories by Richard Ford, his most recent collection, I believe.
Spring Sowing a collection of short stories by Irish author Liam O'Flaherty, published in 1926.
The Adventures of Captain David Grief, a collection of adventure stories by Jack London, originally published in 1912 as "A Son of the Sun."
The World's Greatest Romances (Black's Reader Services), another short story collection, this one published in 1929.
The 1619 Project: This is the NY Times Magazine Section from the Sunday Times of August 18, 2019. It includes articles and commentary written as part of the effort to highlight the history and subsequent societal effects of slavery, launched on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first African slaves at the Virginia Colony.
Good for a Laugh by Bennett Cerf, a book of humorous anecdotes first published in 1952.
The Atlantic Monthly - January 1959, Volume 203, Number 1. I always have an old magazine going.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. My wife is reading this for a discussion group. She enjoyed the first chapter so well that she suggested we read it "together," which is to say taking turns with the book one chapter at a time.

12dianelouise100
Mai 2, 2021, 5:25 pm

Finished Shirley Ann Grau’s beautifully written The House on Coliseum Street. This novel is depressing, but well worth reading. Dysfunctional family, lack of communication, loneliness, isolation, and revenge are themes that make the novel, written in the 1950’s, interesting and relevant today. 4 - 5 stars.

I am finishing “As Far as the I Can See” by Julie Heifitz and am enjoying it. I found the audiobook of Richard III England’s Most Controversial King too difficult to follow and have put it aside. And I’ve started Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan for upcoming book discussion.

13dianelouise100
Bearbeitet: Mai 2, 2021, 9:26 pm

Diese Nachricht wurde vom Autor gelöscht.

14LyndaInOregon
Mai 2, 2021, 11:00 pm

Finished My Mother's Children for LTER. There were a couple of minor twists, but it never really engaged me.

Starting Jeffery Deaver's The Burning Wire. I always enjoy his Lincoln Rhyme mysteries. Now THERE'S a writer who knows twisty!

15Molly3028
Mai 3, 2021, 7:44 am

Starting this OverDrive audiobook ~

In the Garden of Spite: A Novel of the Black Widow of La Porte
by Camilla Bruce

16snash
Mai 3, 2021, 10:34 am

I finished The Five Invitations, an inspiring invitation to embrace life at the moment, its beauty and ugliness without judgement. A book that will come back off the shelf to help guide me and give me courage when I feel too fearful, too disconnected, or too lonely.

17seitherin
Mai 3, 2021, 11:00 am

Finished The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Meh. Added Closed Circles by Viveca Sten to my rotation.

18hemlokgang
Mai 3, 2021, 11:07 am

Finished listening to the excellent book, A Burning by Megha Majumdar.

Next up for listening is A Measure of Darkness, the second Clay Edison book, by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman.

19aussieh
Mai 3, 2021, 9:08 pm

My latest is Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves enjoying so far, she is a fine writer.
BTW Vera Stanhope has just has just come into the story, her book description is nothing like the Vera from the TV series.

20seitherin
Mai 4, 2021, 10:21 am

Finished Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. liked it next up is the 3rd book, Ruin and Rising.

21hemlokgang
Bearbeitet: Mai 4, 2021, 4:18 pm

Finished disappointing A Measure of Darkness.

Next up for listening is a collection of short stories, Vampires In The Lemon Grove by Karen Russell.

22rocketjk
Bearbeitet: Mai 5, 2021, 11:27 am

I finished Pot of Trouble by Don Tracy. This is the fifth entry in Tracy's Giff Speer mystery series from the late 60s/early 70s. This novel finds our pal Giff having been booted from the super secret Army outfit he'd been solving crimes for because he'd cut some corners to keep a friend of his, a general who'd been a patsy for some counterfeiters in Saigon out of trouble when he'd busted the bad guys. Now this same friend, Lew Lokey, is in a bunch of trouble on his super glitzy spread in the Arizona desert and calls on Giff to come help him again, strictly as a private citizen now. This is, unfortunately, the least satisfying novel of the series so far. Here's hoping old Giff bounces back in the last four books of the series, which I will get to sooner or later.

Next up for me will be a classic I should have read years ago, Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington.

23AnaraGuard
Mai 5, 2021, 2:29 pm

Just finished The Empathy Diaries by Sherry Turkle. Loved the first half--well written account of her early life. The second half felt rushed and thrown together and wasn't nearly as interesting.
Now starting Big Girl, Small Town and it is delightful so far. I am enjoying the Irish dialect and characters.

24JulieLill
Mai 5, 2021, 6:50 pm

A Closed and Common Orbit
Becky Chambers
2.5/5 stars
This is the sequel to the The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which I enjoyed. In this book, the author focuses on Lovelace who was her old ship’s artificial intelligence. After leaving the ship, she had been taken out of the ship computer and wakes up in a new synthetic body but her memories had been scrubbed clean. Lovelace has to learn how to function again with the help of her friends. I really enjoyed the first story in the series but this one was just okay for me.

25seitherin
Mai 6, 2021, 2:20 pm

finished Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo and added Six of Crows to my rotation.

26LyndaInOregon
Mai 6, 2021, 2:24 pm

Just finished The Burning Wire, and Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series never fails to satisfy with its evil bad guys and twisty resolutions.

I will admit I fell for one of his red herrings.

Next up is Creatures, which is this month's F2F club selection. Need to get it read quickly, as I have house guests showing up on Saturday and will have one group or another here for almost two weeks.

27msemmag
Mai 7, 2021, 4:27 pm

I'm hoping to chug out Super Mutant Magic Academy in one sitting over the weekend, and if I'm super efficient with my free time (or just super INefficient at work), get a goodly chunk of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning out of the way (instead of actually tidying up for maximum irony)

28fredbacon
Mai 7, 2021, 11:21 pm

The new thread is up over here.