What Are You Reading Part 3

[Liberal Grandma]

I just started The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.  It takes place on a plantation in Virginia.  Pretty good so far.

[clueliss]

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (Audio book)

And Stalking Death - by Kate Flora (published in 2016 but turns out this mystery is timely to this year as it involves racist activities at a Private New England school.  (Thea Kozak series) (Kindle unlimited)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38107809-stalking-death

[CTRLZero]

On 6/6/2020 at 8:02 AM, byzant said:

Finally reading Jasper fforde Thursday next books. They are great funny, adventurous and for book geeks

 

I'm also reading Justinian flea- history about a Byzantine plague .

Thanks for reminding me about the Thursday Next books.  I checked out The Eyre Affair audiobook and am thoroughly enjoying listening to it in the summer sunshine.  I've read it several times over the years, and it hasn't gotten old.

About that Justinian Flea.  I am watching a Great Courses lecture series on the 1340's plague.  The plague of Justinian is mentioned several times, and if you watch this series, you will learn more about fleas than you ever imagined you wanted to know!  (Available on Amazon Prime, but only for a few more days.)

[LilMissMetaphor]

I've been reading the Penderwick series by Jeanne Birdsall, inspired by Little Women and reminiscent of the Melendy family quartet.  Though it's children's fiction, it's surprisingly funny, and super nostalgic. 

[Kailash]

I finished Educated by Tara Westover yesterday but I can’t stop thinking about it. It seems everywhere I turn something reminds me of a scene or sentiment. Great book. I’m reading another memoir called The Yellow House. It’s set in New Orleans which fascinates me. I read another book in the last fews days but can’t recall which. Definitely didn’t make the same impression as Educated. 

[neuroticcat]

Reading Margaret Coel’s Wind River mystery series set on Arapaho reservation. 
 

Also The Color of Compromise

[church_of_dog]

My reading (listening) since my last post on May 1:

 

Fiction mysteries:

Sue Grafton's Q, R, S, and T

Cleo Coyle's "Shot in the Dark"

 

Non-Fiction:  current-era history/politics/psychology/memoirs:

"The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog" by Bruce D. Perry

"Hidden Valley Road" by Robert Kolker

"Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man" by Mark Kurlansky

"Jell-O Girls" by Allie Rowbottom

"Small Fry" by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

"Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John Carreyrou

"The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness and Obsession" by David Grann

"Scratched: A Memoir of Perfectionism" by Elizabeth Tallent

"Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of an American Fortune" by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.

"Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail" by Ben Montgomery

"The Room Where It Happened" by John Bolton

 

Non-Fiction:  Gilded Age-era (and starting to move just a bit later) history:

"Conan Doyle for the Defense" by Margalit Fox

"Edison" by Edmund Morris

"The Murder of the Century" by Paul Collins

"The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century" by Scott Miller

"Isaac's Storm:  A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in American History" by Erik Larson

"Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917" by Sally M. Walker

"The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris

"Theodore Rex" by Edmund Morris

"The Romanovs: 1613 to 1918" by Simon Sebag Montefiore

"The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921" by Tim Madigan

"Up From Slavery" by Booker T. Washington

Edited July 16, 2020 by church_of_dog

[LacyMay]

On 6/26/2020 at 1:07 PM, Kailash said:

I finished Educated by Tara Westover yesterday but I can’t stop thinking about it.

Such an excellent book! I'm glad you enjoyed it. 

 

Just Finished 

What You Wish For- Katherine Center.... I love her books. She has this perfect mix of light hearted fun with seriousness that makes them perfect in my eyes. Also in this one there's a line about a "hostile kind of joy" that is really resonating with me. 

Outsider-Linda Castillo....her books are my not so guilty pleasure. This one did not disapoint. 

Of course my what next list is massive.

I have the Cold Vanish ordered and I'm hoping to read it while camping next week. I'm 2/3ds of the way through Lost, Found, Remembered (a collection of work by Lyra Mckee) and I just picked up the book of lost names (Kristen Harmel) and Out Of the Shadows (Timea Nagy) and will probably start one of those this afternoon. 

 

 

 

 

[Kailash]

I listened to The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie.  It was fairly entertaining but I really didn’t care for the ending. 
I haven’t been reading as much lately. I’m  still reading The Witch Elm by Tana French.  It’s long and I hope when I finish I won’t be disappointed. 

[clueliss]

I like The Witch Elm.

[Kailash]

@clueliss I finally made it halfway and now it’s getting good.

[WiseGirl]

Just finished Thunderstruck by Eric Larson, intersperses the story of Hawley Harvey Crippen with that of Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of radio.[5](description by Wikipedia) and Stamped which is the teen version of Ibram X Kendi's book Stamped from the Beginning and a pile of books set in the Tudor era.

On tap: The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd, White Fragility, Those Who Save Us by Jenna Glum, and Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni. Note this does not include the books in the book basket.  

Edited July 19, 2020 by WiseGirl
Attempting to underline the titles of the books.

[Kailash]

@WiseGirl I’m a huge Eric Larson fan, and Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum is one of my favorite books. She has some other good ones too. 
I hated the ending of The Witch Elm. The actions of the main character didn’t ring true to me and I thought the ending was bizarre. 

[clueliss]

Finished Open Book by Jessica Simpson (Audio) and started Kills of the FLower Moon (also audio)

[CTRLZero]

My on-line pandemics course is wrapping up with The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.  We also read excerpts from Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year.  Both deal with the bubonic plague outbreak of 1665-66.  Defoe's journal was written quite some time after the actual London plague, and was probably based on stories told by his older relatives, but it really points out that the more things change, the more they remain the same. 

I thought I'd share this article link and reading list (under spoiler), in case anyone here can't get enough of pandemic literature.

Article - reading list of pandemic literature (fiction and non-fiction)
 

Spoiler

 

Fiction

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Blindness by José Saramago

The Book of M by Peng Shepherd

The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Bring Out Your Dead by J.M. Powell

The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman

The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian

The Companion by Katie M. Flynn

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz

Find Me by Laura van den Berg

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

Journal of the Plague Years by Norman Spinrad

The Last Man by Mary Shelley

The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter

The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin

The Plague by Albert Camus

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Room by Emma Donoghue

Severance by Ling Ma

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The Stand by Stephen King

They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell

The Training Commission by Ingrid Burrington and Brendan Byrne

The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera

The White Plague by Frank Herbert

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

World War Z by Max Brooks

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

 

Nonfiction

The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

Flu: The Story Of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Kolata

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly

History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

The Hot Zone The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston

Networked Disease: Emerging Infections in the Global City by A. Harris Ali and Roger Keil

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney

Pox: An American History by Michael Willrich

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by CTRLZero
Wrong book title. Sheesh.

[CTRLZero]

I've read many of the books on the pandemic literature list above, but hadn't heard of Nicola Griffith's Ammonite, which is first on the list.  I checked out the audiobook from the library.  Ammonite has an interesting premise.  It reminded me in some aspects of Clan of the Cave Bear, but with space age technology thrown in.  It was an easy listen, if that makes sense.  I enjoyed it.

The basic scenario (light spoilers):

Spoiler

There is a planet where only women survive because of a virus.  Corporate types are searching for a vaccine because they want to exploit the planet's natural resources.  Corporate monitors the situation from far off in space, not letting anyone out of the orbit of the planet because of the virus. 

 

[Liberal Grandma]

I’m about 1/3 done with My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie.  Fascinating period of time.

[CTRLZero]

On 2/17/2020 at 6:09 PM, church_of_dog said:

The Institute, by Stephen King.  loved it!

I'm a few hours into this and find it really compelling.  Thanks for the recommendation.

When I went to my library's page, it said I would need to wait for the audiobook to become available.  But when I checked on the Libby app, it was immediately available.  Isn't it through the same library system?  I'm not sure how this works, but I'm glad I got my hands (or ears) on this book.

Other reads from my pandemic literature list a few posts above.  I listened to Bird Box by Josh Malerman.  I was too scared to watch the movie, but somehow the audio story wasn't as frightening.  It sets up well for a sequel, and I believe there is already a book out (yes, called Malorie), so I'll have to check that out eventually.

I also listened to Severance by Ling Ma.  It was like two stories in one.  It has a lot about the narrator's job in the publishing industry and not so much about the pandemic.  So, I'd recommend the book but it had a different emphasis than I was expecting.

 

[Seahorse Wrangler]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:15 PM, Seahorse Wrangler said:

I've nearly finished The Testaments. I was going to read the Wolf Hall trilogy next but decided to read The Sixth Wife by Jean Plaidy followed by The Last Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson instead.

I've fallen down a Katherine Parr rabbit hole. The Last Wife (Erickson) had KP happily committing adultery with Thomas Seymour during her marriage to John Neville, Baron Latimer and then into her marriage with the man who had ordered the death of his second wife for adultery and whose council signed the warrant for the beheading of his previous spouse for the same reason.

 

From reading Amazon samples, this act of pure folly seems to be a recent addition to the Tudor mythos.

[CyborgKin]

I recently started The Beekeeper's Apprentice by by Laurie R. King.  It's about a 15 year old girl who meets retired Sherlock Holmes.

also Artificial Jelly by Materia-Blade which is about a videogame creature, and these monsters called 'humans'.

[Kailash]

I’m reading The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister. Before that I read The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, which I really enjoyed. 

[CTRLZero]

In audiobooks, I'm up to #13 "Spider Bones" in Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan series, and it is really helping pass the time while I'm inside during some smoke-filled days here in the Pacific NW.

Audiobooks I've recently finished include:

"Fortuna" by Kristyn Merbeth.  This is a sci-fi novel about a collection of siblings manipulated by their mother.  Yikes!  Mom is really something.  I think this is part of a trilogy, but I'm not sure the other books are out yet.

"Bohemian Gospel" and "The Devil's Bible" by Dana Chamblee.  These are the first two in a trilogy.  I'll get to book three eventually.  These books were fun to me because of my Nashville connection.  The author, a professor at Vanderbilt (I think), includes references and settings in the Vanderbilt area.  The story is about an immortal woman and her supernatural escapades throughout medieval and modern history.  I don't normally pick up these sorts of books, but it's been an interesting read in a Da Vinci Code sort of way.

"Goldilocks" by Laura Lam.  This is a sci-fi novel that is written from a feminist viewpoint, if I am reading the litany of woes correctly.  Earth has been damaged, both environmentally and by political corruption.  Women are being steadily oppressed in a big way.  There is a plague, a stolen space ship, and quasi handmaids involved.  I stuck with it until the end, and it turned out to be not too bad a novel, but it was tough getting through the first few chapters.  Maybe because the Earth in the novel is too scarily close to the Earth today. 

[clueliss]

Recently started Mirror & Light my Hilary Mantell.  Picks up right after the last book in the Cromwell series (meaning Anne Boleyn is beheaded at the beginning of this)

[Kailash]

I read Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, a therapist writing about seeing her own therapist. I found it really funny, touching and interesting. I also read The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani , which I didn’t realize was based on true events, and had I known, the very first sentence would have deterred me. I’m currently reading And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander.

[Giraffe]

The Silo Trilogy by Hugh Howey. I’ve finished Wool and Shift and just started Dust. Dystopian/sci-fi