Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 742826 times)

MaryPage · « **Reply #5320 on:** March 03, 2014, 07:56:37 AM »

This is the place to talk about the works of fiction you are reading, whether they are new or old, and share your own opinions and reviews with interested readers.

Every week the new bestseller lists come out brimming with enticing looking books and rave reviews. How to choose?

Discussion Leader: Judy Laird

I'll just add my own enthusiastic YES for Sharyn McCrumb.

Steph · « **Reply #5321 on:** March 03, 2014, 08:38:13 AM »

That is a Spencer and Norah book of Sharons.They are variations of old mountain tales and absolutely incredible.

marjifay · « **Reply #5322 on:** March 03, 2014, 01:06:33 PM »

Steph wrote, "That is a Spencer and Norah book of Sharons."

What book are you talking about, Steph?

Marj

Steph · « **Reply #5323 on:** March 04, 2014, 08:38:23 AM »

Someone mentioned a Sharon McCrumb book that they had just acquired. I meant that. They call them "The Ballads" and they are variations on old folk lore and mountain stories. Spencer is the sheriff and Nora is the old mountain woman who keeps him straight as he solves problems.

ursamajor · « **Reply #5324 on:** March 04, 2014, 08:50:11 AM »

Nora is Norah Bonesteel, who has "the sight". The books that feature her are delightfully creepy. Spencer Arrowood is the sheriff who investigates various crimes and misdemenors.

CallieOK · « **Reply #5325 on:** March 04, 2014, 12:51:29 PM »

Norah is in "Devil Amongst The Lawyers"! However, I didn't think she was creepy in this one. A few other characters also have "the sight".
Since I wasn't familiar with McCrumb's books, I didn't realize Norah is an "ongoing" character or that having "the sight" is an ongoing plot line.

Aberlaine · « **Reply #5326 on:** March 04, 2014, 04:34:43 PM »

I belong to a f2f book club, but the members are women with whom I worked before I retired. Our friendship goes w-a-a-y back. And, yes, we discuss our lives more than we discuss the book. For the month of March, we're reading "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walters. And, in between, I'm reading "The Language of Flowers" which I'm not liking, and "City of Thieves" by David Benioff: a story of the siege of Leningrad during WWII.

Steph · « **Reply #5327 on:** March 05, 2014, 08:45:36 AM »

Nora is a continuing character. Not sure the sight is ongoing..She is simply a mountain woman who knows what is happening in the mountains an the old mountain tales. I don't think of her as creepy.. just unusual.

Octavia · « **Reply #5328 on:** March 06, 2014, 08:43:30 PM »

I feel like an alien sometimes You all talk about books and authors I've never come across.
This morning I read an article on re-reading. Some people despise it, others love it. I'm one of the latter, l re-read and re-read, then I re-read again. Every time I find little surprises and nuances I missed when I was devouring the plot and my eyes were on the finish line. Knowing the outcome frees you up, I think, to dally on the pages.
I've been watching The Jewel in the Crown on the ABC every afternoon. They seldom make programs like that anymore. Here it's My Kitchen Rules, The Block(revamping houses) and quiz shows ad nauseam. Much, much cheaper to make, I guess.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #5329 on:** March 07, 2014, 02:35:26 AM »

Octavia - I love The Jewel in the Crown so much - I remember watching every episode years ago with my mother (in the days when we only had 4 TV channels, no DVDs or recorders, so everyone was glued to the same programmes every night) and I recently bought the DVD and rewatched the whole thing, in raptures. I think I must have missed so much the first time, or maybe I just forgot some of it, but now some scenes stay with me as absolutely perfect. Daphne opening her window to feel the rain as the monsoon finally starts; Sarah and her mother and sister on the houseboat in Kashmir....plenty of others, but they might be spoilers so I'll keep quiet until you've finished watching. Two other wonderful TV series from that halcyon time are A Dance to the Music of Time and Brideshead Revisited.

So amazing to think that Judy Parfitt, the perfectly dreadful mother in Jewel, is now playing the elderly, confused nun in Call the Midwife: what an actress.

I don't re-read many books, but I do always return to my beloved Barbara Pyms for comfort, and I never fail to find new things to savour, especially in my favourites, Excellent Women and A Glass of Blessings.

Rosemary

JimNT · « **Reply #5330 on:** March 07, 2014, 08:11:10 AM »

I just completed John Grisham's latest, Sycamor Row and found it to be one his best. Anyone read this?

JimNT · « **Reply #5331 on:** March 07, 2014, 08:14:00 AM »

I've also recently completed The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and would love hear others opinions.

Steph · « **Reply #5332 on:** March 07, 2014, 09:05:44 AM »

I am not a Grisham fan at all, so no help there. The Donna Tartt is on my tbr file.. but just now I am reading a Terry Pratchett. This one is not a science fiction as such..The Dodger is very sly.. Dodger is a boy who works the sewers in London in Victorian times.. At the beginning, he meets two men while rescuing a mysterious girl.. One of the men is Charles Dickens?? starting to get what is happening. I love the perfectly straight forward story, while inside, you are wondering where he is going this time. Pratchett is a truly remarkable writer..

CallieOK · « **Reply #5333 on:** March 07, 2014, 11:51:45 AM »

JimNT, I really liked "Sycamore Row" - and I haven't ever been a Grisham fan, either.

salan · « **Reply #5334 on:** March 07, 2014, 12:01:10 PM »

I just checked out Ripper by Isabel Allende, and Morning Glory by Sarah Jio. Has anyone read either of these books?
Sally

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5335 on:** March 07, 2014, 03:21:07 PM »

Jim, i enjoyed the first half of The Goldfinch (i did not get it finished, i'll get it again to finish it, maybe ) but, as you can tell by my parentheses, it didn't grab me to devour it. I couldn't get a sense of it going anywhere, it just slowly dribbled out as the protagonist remembered his life. Altho interesting, it was not compelling. The closest thing to compelling was the prologue - how did he get to the hotel in Europe and what's his problem about being there?

JoanK · « **Reply #5336 on:** March 07, 2014, 05:27:20 PM »

I read "Morning Glory" by Jio, and talked about it in Mystery Corner (it was listed as a mystery in my library, and it is, though not a conventional one). I liked it: I liked the background of the houseboat community, though thought she could have made more of it. I read it as I read mysteries, not expecting a lot of profundity fr om it.

nlhome · « **Reply #5337 on:** March 07, 2014, 08:33:14 PM »

I have read several of Barbara Pym's books and I enjoyed them. Glass of Blessings is not available in our library, so I keep looking at used book stores. Someday.

Frybabe · « **Reply #5338 on:** March 08, 2014, 06:33:58 AM »

I've started on The Boy from Reactor 4. It is supposed to be about a boy from the Chernobyl area who is into ice skating and a woman who "discovered" him and a mystery to solve. I expected the story to at least start in the Ukraine, but it starts in NYC. The boy is already in the states and is playing hockey. The story switches to the journalist. The Russian and Ukrainian crime bosses are quickly involved. So far, there does not seem to be any tie-in between any of these elements. So far, only one chapter has been devoted to the boy. The story jumps around a little. Because of that, or more probably because the characters aren't that interesting to me, I may not get around to finishing it. I'll read a few more chapters, at least.

MaryPage · « **Reply #5339 on:** March 08, 2014, 07:49:58 AM »

Thrift Books offers Barbara Pym. I have found them to be totally reliable.

http://www.thriftbooks.com/searchresult.aspx?searchtext=barbara%20pym&searchby=author&intsortby=1&intsortorder=0

Steph · « **Reply #5340 on:** March 08, 2014, 08:36:27 AM »

I have Jio on my list to find, but have not thus far..I just finished a Fannie Flagg...Last Reunion of the all girl filling station. Not as good as most of them, but still interesting.

salan · « **Reply #5341 on:** March 08, 2014, 12:01:22 PM »

Steph, I love Fannie Flagg; and I agree that Reunion was not as good as her earlier ones, but still worth reading. So far, I am really enjoying Sarah Jio's Morning Glory.

On the other hand, I am struggling with The Son by Philip Meyer. It's a long book that skips back & forth between characters & times. I really don't like books that do that. To me it interrupts the flow of the book. I have read about half & if it wasn't a ftf book for this month I would not finish it. My problem is how I am going to review this book when we discuss it as the woman who recommended it is VERY sensitive about comments made about her books.

Sally

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5342 on:** March 08, 2014, 03:08:30 PM »

Barbara Delinsky's The Summer I Dared is in the fiction section of my library, but it is also a mystery. A 40-ish woman is in a boat accident in Maine where some people are killed. In true BD fashion, she begins to question the responses of her family and her own feelings about why she survived. The mystery is how the accident came about.

I found it very compelling and well-written. I like most, but not all of BD's books, they are very much about the psychology of the characters, but not overly so. Her protagonists are almost all middle-aged women.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #5343 on:** March 09, 2014, 09:57:12 AM »

I like some of Delinsky, although her solutions are always good feeling type.. Her women start out knowing nothing, but learn in each book. Interesting approach.

pedln · « **Reply #5344 on:** March 10, 2014, 11:34:53 PM »

Tomereader, you asked, several posts back, if anyone had read Trigliani's The Shoemaker's Wife. My f2f group read it last fall and it was well-received and provided good discussion. I've not read any other of her books, so can't help you out there.

I've read only a few McCrumbs. My f2f group read her Ballad of Tom Dooley and that was popular with the group also. It was based on a real situation -- the character was Tom Dula, charged with murder and defended by Senator Zebulon Vance.

Steph · « **Reply #5345 on:** March 11, 2014, 09:05:32 AM »

I have read maybe four
Trigiani books. all fun reads. She has a lot to say about independence and I like that. McCrumb.. Yes, I have been looking up the original Tom Dula, since my summers are spent in Franklin,NC and this took place all around that area.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5346 on:** March 11, 2014, 04:19:47 PM »

This seems to be the week for "wife" books. I'm reading The Saddlemaker's Wife by Earlene Fowler. I've read four of her books and like her stories. This is a typical "stranger appears in a Calif small town and reveals little about herself" story, altho she's actually related by marriage to several if them. I'm about a third if the way thru and am enjoying her writing.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #5347 on:** March 12, 2014, 08:31:51 AM »

I finished Dodger by Terry Pratchett. Such a fun variation on the Artful Dodger of Charles Dickens..

FlaJean · « **Reply #5348 on:** March 12, 2014, 03:55:51 PM »

Jean, I read The Saddlemaker's Wife several years years ago and really enjoyed it. Now Fowler has a follow up to it just recently published called The Road to Cardinal Valley. I haven't read it yet but am hoping the library has a copy. I had read all the Benni Harper series and was getting tired of that series.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5349 on:** March 12, 2014, 04:01:53 PM »

I'm also (see above comment on "wives week.") listening to a digital loan of "The Paris Wife". A fiction book by Paula McClain "narrarated by" Hemmingway's first wife. I think it would make for a good book discussion. McClain raises a lot of issues about men and women, and marriage, and self understanding, and the effects of the scenes of war on an individual and a family.

My goodness there is a LOT of drinking, every day and for every "reason/excuse."

McClain appears to have done thorough research, although i've never read anything in depth about E. Hemingway, so i can't guadge her accuracy. Her depiction of his PTSD, as we'd call it today, is interesting, and the effects on him as he returns to the place where he was wounded in WWI, and when as a journalist in Turkey where he feels he "must look at it all" even though he wants to leave. I've often wondered about Amanpour and the young man who seems to be at every upheaval for NBC, how do they keep any sense of optimism about humanity, let alone their own sanity, looking at all that violence?

I am enjoying it.

Jean

Octavia · « **Reply #5350 on:** March 13, 2014, 03:40:31 AM »

Rosemary, I don't remember Sarah and her family on a Houseboat. I missed a few episodes unfortunately, with doctor's appointments etc. I had hoped my nausea and pain was caused by the aneurism pressing against other organs, but obviously not. Back to the drawing board

Luckily I remembered Traude's painstaking work on The Raj Quartet. A labour of love. I've had a wonderful afternoon, reading and reading, and had so many of my questions answered. I was shocked by the ending, but it did show how a horrible and brutal act can be conveyed without graphic detail, as it is nowadays.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #5351 on:** March 13, 2014, 05:28:32 AM »

Oh dear, Octavia, I do hope your doctor can sort it out soon.

Yes, the ending of Jewel was so shocking, and so well done. I didn't want to mention that earlier in case you hadn't got up to it. All of the cast were so good - Susan Wooldridge, Geraldine James, Tim Piggot-Smith, Art Malik, Charles Dance - and of course Judy Parfitt - all of them brilliant. If only they still made TV series like this - but at least now, with the arrival of DVDs, we can enjoy them again.

Rosemary

Steph · « **Reply #5352 on:** March 13, 2014, 02:22:20 PM »

I loved reading The Raj Quartette, so maybe I will get the dvd's..

MaryPage · « **Reply #5353 on:** March 14, 2014, 09:39:14 AM »

The houseboat episode up in the mountains of Kashmir was my favorite of the entire series, and I think of it quite often. Lake Dal? Dal Lake?

Steph · « **Reply #5354 on:** March 14, 2014, 11:21:24 AM »

I am caught in the middle of a two side thing. I want to get my driveway painted ( common in KIngs Ridge) and got a quote. You must submit a bunch of stuff, so I did, but I am informed they must have a paint sample. So I am calling and calling the company and getting nowhere. Since I gave them a deposit, I am not a happy camper today.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5355 on:** March 14, 2014, 07:40:20 PM »

The Earlene Fowler book, The Saddlemaker's Wife, turned out to be a mystery as well as "fiction". I liked it very much. It had a surprising twist to the mystery at the end. I was compelled to read far into the night to finish it.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #5356 on:** March 15, 2014, 08:57:15 AM »

I honestly thought Fowler is a mystery writer. I like her Benny series.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5357 on:** March 15, 2014, 01:28:24 PM »

I can't figure out how my library decides what is "mystery" and what is just "fiction." James Patterson's and Lisa Scottolini's books are in the "fiction" section??? I use the card catalogue a lot!

jane · « **Reply #5358 on:** March 15, 2014, 05:16:15 PM »

Jean...In my experience, the librarians usually go by the Lib. of Congress cataloging/subject headings [or subject headings for whatever cataloging they use]. Those folks, however, have never been consistent in this sort of thing and then each Librarian may decide that it'll be shelved in "whatever genre" she thinks it belongs. I've noticed the same thing in our local library. It's for that reason that some librarians give up that battle and shelve totally by fiction (and author's last name usually) or nonfiction with the LC number. That drives other people crazy because they want "genre" shelving...westerns, mysteries, scifi, fantasy, adventure, and the more one adds, the more convoluted it becomes.

One of the many "headaches" for librarians trying to please their patrons.

jane

Octavia · « **Reply #5359 on:** March 15, 2014, 06:06:41 PM »

I'm intrigued now, I think I'll chase up that episode of the Houseboat online.
The Australian Guardian is having a discussion on what language to write in, British, Australian, or American English. It has a version of all three.
I don't notice too much difference on Seniorlearn, but spell check is constantly horrified by my spelling. I do find my writing gets a bit stilted, because I type so slowly.

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Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 742826 times)