What are you Reading (Part 2)?

[violynn]

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore and re-reading Skin Game by Jim Butcher.

[Elvis Presby]

I track my books on Good Reads too.  Yesterday I finished The Hiding Place the Corrie ten Boom biography.  Now I am reading Brooklyn on Fire by Lawrence H. Levy.  

[Mary C Doates]

Just finished The road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. Very funny!

On January 31, 2016 at 11:31 PM, violynn said:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  I hum along to the song while I'm reading the book.

I read the book after I saw the show. Never would have thought to read it otherwise! 

[RabbitKM]

I'm reading I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, which is a memoir by a Yemeni girl who was married at a young age.  

Also, if anyone wants to connect with me on Goodreads (I love having more GR friends! ), my URL is: 

https://www.goodreads.com/rabbitkm

 

[violynn]

30 minutes ago, Mary C Doates said:

Just finished The road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. Very funny!

I read the book after I saw the show. Never would have thought to read it otherwise! 

You SAW the show!??!

I am beyond jealous!

.

[Mary C Doates]

1 hour ago, violynn said:

You SAW the show!??!

I am beyond jealous!

.

I did! Bought a ticket before all the madness started. Who knew Ron Chernow's book would inspire a Broadway show--I doubt Chernow ever imagined such a thing

[EyeQueue]

Re-reading the Harry Potter series, since I previously stalled out when the Half-Blood Prince came out. Since January, I've plowed through the first 4 and am now currently about 3/4 of the way through The Order of the Phoenix.

Unfortunately, I'm noticing things about Phoenix that didn't bug me as much the first read-through (like some pacing issues, and all the teen angst, but to be fair it *is* aimed at a YA audience).

[aquitana]

Friended you on Goodreads, next time you check in there.

[caszandra]

I have not long finished, Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind by Sean Longden.  It is the story of 40,000 soldiers who were left in France in June 1940 who were then captured by the Nazis and marched to POW camps where they stayed for the rest of WW2.

This book was personal for me as my Paternal Grandpa was one of the soldiers captured, his Battalion was in St Valery en Caux and were left to fight the rear guard while the rest of the British Army were rescued.

My Grandpa was sent to Stalag IX-C in Mahlhausen , Germany.  He never talked about his time as a POW so our family didn't know anything about it apart from he was a POW.  After both my Grandparents died we found  45 picture postcards that my Grandpa had sent home to his family from the camp.  He was in a few of them but most are other POWs who we don't know.  It breaks my heart to think about what he went through as he came back a changed man and I feel like I didn't really get to know who he really was. I have attached one of the pictures my Grandpa sent home, he is in the centre of the front row.

Edited February 18, 2016 by caszandra

[TShirtsLongSkirts]

I just finished a fantastic book called The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.  It's about a man who can remember all of his previous lives and keeps getting reborn over and over while retaining all his knowledge of what will happen in the future.  It's a really interesting thought experiment and gets really exciting with conspiracies and all sorts of stuff!

I'm now reading The Girl With All The Gifts by M R Carey.  It's incredibly gripping. It's one of those books where if you don't know the twist (well, not really a twist as such, but a mystery), you'll spend the first few chapters going "what the hell is going on?!" Unfortunately, I got the twist spoiled for me before I figured it out for myself ... It's a great book so far though!

[FloraKitty35]

Right now I am reading Chris Shelton's book:  Scientology: A to Xenu: An Insider's Guide to What Scientology is All About.  He is a former Sea Org member who also has a pod cast on You Tube, called Sensibly Speaking and he also has interviews with other defectors from Scientology.  I also read Leah Remini's book last week. IMO it is really worth reading (more for her early life in Scientology than for the Tom Cruise stories).

[PennySycamore]

@RabbitKM, you might enjoy reading Ann Rules' other true crime books.  I don't know which ones might be on audiobook though.   Ann's book Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors has a good section about the Susan Powell case.  Susan was a wife and mother that was supposed to have disappeared while she was out for her morning run before she went to work at the bank in a suburb of Salt Lake City.  No, she didn't vanish because of a stranger.  it's very relevant to our discussion here on FJ.  Her father-in-law was a Mormon polygamist as well as a sex offender. (Got busted for voyeurism, IIRC) Her husband was a psychopath. It's good and it's heartbreaking.  

[RabbitKM]

On February 20, 2016 at 11:42 PM, PennySycamore said:

@RabbitKM, you might enjoy reading Ann Rules' other true crime books.  I don't know which ones might be on audiobook though.   Ann's book Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors has a good section about the Susan Powell case.  Susan was a wife and mother that was supposed to have disappeared while she was out for her morning run before she went to work at the bank in a suburb of Salt Lake City.  No, she didn't vanish because of a stranger.  it's very relevant to our discussion here on FJ.  Her father-in-law was a Mormon polygamist as well as a sex offender. (Got busted for voyeurism, IIRC) Her husband was a psychopath. It's good and it's heartbreaking.  

Thanks for the rec! I noticed she had about three on audio, but I don't remember which ones. 

I'm currently reading Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, so apparently I'm on a crime theme right now. 

[twin2]

19 hours ago, RabbitKM said:

Thanks for the rec! I noticed she had about three on audio, but I don't remember which ones. 

I'm currently reading Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, so apparently I'm on a crime theme right now. 

I read sometime ago that they were going to make Dark Places into a movie also, with Charlize Theron in the main role, which makes 0 sense to me....

I basically get most of my books from the bargain bin at Barnes and Nobel, just pick out whatever sounds interesting from the summary.  Seems to work, 9 out of 10 times I really like what I get.  My most recent bargain bin find was Red Moon by Benjamin Percy.  Basically it is 9-11, with werewolves, which I never would have guessed from the description on the back.  Science fantasy usually isn't my thing, but I"m 1/3 of the way through it, and have to say, it's pretty darn good.

[RoseWilder]

On 1/5/2016 at 11:36 PM, RabbitKM said:

I'm reading Yes Please by Amy Poehler.

Did you enjoy it? I really wanted to like that book but I found it very disjointed. I was quite disappointed. 

[keen23]

10 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

Did you enjoy it? I really wanted to like that book but I found it very disjointed. I was quite disappointed. 

Yeah, it was pretty disjointed. Bossypants by Tina Fey was much better. I thought Amy Poehler came off as very real, which means she isn't always funny or nice- Celebrities! They're Real People Too!

I'm trying to read Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and I kind of hate it. Same with Man in the High Castle. Actually, it's a week of books I really don't like, because I've also started The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright- which seems to be yet another version of The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan.

[RoseWilder]

1 hour ago, keen23 said:

Yeah, it was pretty disjointed. Bossypants by Tina Fey was much better. I thought Amy Poehler came off as very real, which means she isn't always funny or nice- Celebrities! They're Real People Too!.

I really enjoyed Bossypants. My favorite part was that part about the Titanic lifeboat! 

[RabbitKM]

On February 22, 2016 at 8:11 PM, twin2 said:

I read sometime ago that they were going to make Dark Places into a movie also, with Charlize Theron in the main role, which makes 0 sense to me....

I basically get most of my books from the bargain bin at Barnes and Nobel, just pick out whatever sounds interesting from the summary.  Seems to work, 9 out of 10 times I really like what I get.  My most recent bargain bin find was Red Moon by Benjamin Percy.  Basically it is 9-11, with werewolves, which I never would have guessed from the description on the back.  Science fantasy usually isn't my thing, but I"m 1/3 of the way through it, and have to say, it's pretty darn good.

I think that movie already came out, I think I saw it being offered on Amazon instant video. I like your method of picking out books too hehe

12 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

Did you enjoy it? I really wanted to like that book but I found it very disjointed. I was quite disappointed. 

I liked it, but I can't say I loved it. I was expecting more out of it. 

[Elvis Presby]

I started The Scarlet Letter yesterday.  

[missegeno]

I'm currently in An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay. It's really good, just a different structure than I had expected from Ayiti and Bad Feminist (the two books of hers that I read previously and loved). For some reason, I plow through books of vignettes and short stories. But if the chapters all string together as one, I really need to push myself. This book is in the latter category, while the others were in the former.

[louisa05]

On 2/24/2016 at 11:01 AM, keen23 said:

Yeah, it was pretty disjointed. Bossypants by Tina Fey was much better. I thought Amy Poehler came off as very real, which means she isn't always funny or nice- Celebrities! They're Real People Too!

I'm trying to read Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and I kind of hate it. Same with Man in the High Castle. Actually, it's a week of books I really don't like, because I've also started The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright- which seems to be yet another version of The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan.

I kind of hate everything I've read by Rainbow Rowell, which does not surprise me as I hated her newspaper column 90% of the time. I did not just kind of hate Attachments, I rather wished I were reading it as a physical book rather than an e-book so I could have just actually burned it to put myself out of my misery. I mean, really, there was a creepy stalker element to it for starters. And beyond that, the character names made me want to drive to Omaha (which is very close to me) and slap her. This would not bother those of you not from her area. But when you have been to Scribner-Snyder High School, it is hard to control your eye rolling at a character having that as a last name. And every name in the book was a local place. 

I just read Trafficked by Sophie Hayes. She is a British woman who was forced into prostitution by a "boyfriend" for six months. It is a horrifying story, but not very well written (incredibly repetitive especially) and she was so naive that I was uncomfortable with it because I kept second guessing her which did not seem empathetic or fair. 

I have also been re-reading all of the Anne of Green Gables series and am finally on the last book, Rilla of Ingleside. That book is so different from much of Montgomery's work as it focuses on World War I. 

[CTRLZero]

I just finished one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" books about diamond hunting (worldwide, but ultimately focusing on northern Canada).  The author of Barren Lands, Kevin Krajick, is/was a geology professor, and his research seems accurate.  He interviewed a wide cast of characters--with emphasis on "characters."   The book also talks about the diamond fields in Arkansas (isn't that where the Duggars visited), but theorizes that the earth may be a tad older than 6000 years old, so be forewarned. 

Seriously interesting book, and you don't need much of a knowledge of geology to be entertained by all the shenanigans that go on in the claim-staking world of gem hunting.

 

[clueliss]

Finished Philippa Gregory's The White Princess yesterday.  I enjoy these novels but there are aspects that turns my reading into hate reading.  

[Pianokeeper]

I feel so silly for not having checked before -- there's a whole FJ reading thread?!

Of COURSE there is.  Silly me!

 

I tend to read a few different things at once.  I've been rereading lots of Madeleine L'Engle lately, even the books intended for younger children.  L'Engle is one of my favorites.  My goal is to eventually read EVERYTHING she published, but I'm also catching my memory up on the stuff I read decades ago.

Right now, I'm juggling: 

• Madeleine L'Engle -- Dragons in the Waters (one of the Polyhymnia O'Keefe books)
• Bill Bryson -- At Home
• Soheir Khashoggi -- Mosaic
• and a book about tarantula care, because... I have a soft spot for the beasties.  I'm not in a position to acquire one right now, but what can I say?  They fascinate me.  And no, I wouldn't make anybody touch or hold it.  I'd probably keep it in my bedroom or somewhere that the general public wouldn't know and be made to feel uncomfortable.*

* yes, Mr. Pianokeeper is a very tolerant human

[RabbitKM]

I'm reading A Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman.  It's a novel about a lighthouse-keeper and his wife, and what they decide to do when a baby washes up on shore with her dead father.  Interesting topic, but for some reason I am not loving the delivery.  It's supposed to be a very good book, so maybe my head is just in a weird place right now, or I'm distracted.  I am towards the middle of the book.

@OnceUponATime I almost joined the Reading with Style group.  It fascinates me.  But I decided to wait until Summer when I will have more time to plan and do it properly.