Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 776198 times)

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #2440 on:** October 10, 2011, 10:07:47 PM »

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

Babi · « **Reply #2441 on:** October 11, 2011, 09:03:07 AM »

I read "Caleb's Crossing", SALLY, and thought it excellent. All Geraldine Brooks books
are so meticulously researched that they give you a very accurate picture of the times
of which she writes. And her characters are so real. Actually, one of them was real,
Caleb....and the book is based on his story. As I am sure you already know, since you've
begun reading.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #2442 on:** October 14, 2011, 02:12:09 PM »

A book I am currently reading, that was recommended by one of our f2f book group members, is "Shadow Divers" by Robert Curson. This is a book that will teach you "things you didn't know" about deep shipwreck diving (as totally opposed to regular scuba diving), and the divers that participate in this. Subtitled "The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II". They discovered a U-boat that was sunk off the coast of New Jersey. The book is 348 pages but is such an interesting read, it's not seeming that long. There are a few pictures/photographs in the book. For those who really like to discover a new world through reading, this is great. The person who recommended it (a woman) said all her reading friends had passed it around among them until it was threadbare! Another great sea-going book is "Might Fitz", which I may have mentioned here before. If you've heard the song about the Edmund Fitzgerald, you will know what this book is about. It is well written, and was an awesome read.

Judy Laird · « **Reply #2443 on:** October 15, 2011, 08:27:17 PM »

Long time since I have been here. I thought when I was old I would have more time. Guess not.

Speaking of Gospel music along with the Gaither, I literally loved Howard and Vestal Goodman.
I have most of the tapes, she could sing like an angel. I put an app on my I-Pod yesterday and it is
Pandora radio. You just type in who you want to hear and away you go. I am having the time of my lifelisting to this thing. Also added one that moniters your heart rate. You can see your heart beating just like at the dr,s and then they tell you the results.

I am enjjoying a book I found at my book store. Its by John Hart and is called the Last Child. Anybody read him???

jane · « **Reply #2444 on:** October 16, 2011, 10:56:46 AM »

I love Pandora, too, Judy. I have it on my Nook ereader and on my computer so I can hear the music I want, when I want it.

pedln · « **Reply #2445 on:** October 16, 2011, 10:24:44 PM »

Judy, my f2f group read Hart's Down River and liked it a lot. I have not read any of his others.

I'm just about finished with my first Alan Furst book -- Dark Voyage. He supposedly writes spy novels, but this one reads more like day-to-day-life-in-the-merchant-marine. About a Dutch cargo ship doing clandestine shipping for the Allies in early WWII. Good background about a little-known aspect of naval warfare.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #2446 on:** October 17, 2011, 01:53:37 PM »

Pandora! Oh yeah! I've been on it on my pc for about five years and i've rated enough songs that i hardly ever hear a song i don't like, even love. It's so good that sometimes when i'm on at night, i put off going to bed because the music selection is so good!

Jean

JoanK · « **Reply #2447 on:** October 17, 2011, 09:24:56 PM »

How is Pandora for classical music?

Judy Laird · « **Reply #2448 on:** October 17, 2011, 10:15:12 PM »

Joan it should be good you just pick out what you want.
Pedln I am glad you enjoyed Down River I sure did. Will give it to my friend at Fairwinds and then i MAY READ IT AGAGIN.
Jane can you put Pandora on your Kindle?

jane · « **Reply #2449 on:** October 18, 2011, 09:47:43 AM »

Judy...I don't have a Kindle. I have a NookColor and yes, it has Pandora, some apps like games, email and the ability to connect to any WiFi and do websurfing, etc. It's quite a nice little tablet for $250.00.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #2450 on:** October 18, 2011, 12:44:55 PM »

Yes, you can get classical music from pandora.you can set up " stations" w/ whatever kind of music you like and you name them whatever you like. I have about eight different "stations" w/ names of performers of the kind of music on the station......."Diane Krall" which has women jazz singers; "easy listening" which is mostly instrumental pop music, altho i have some classical on that and i like Sousa's marches, so there are some of those; "James Taylor,"which has folk music and others of his time; i like Christmas music all year round, so i have a "holiday station";" The Temptations" has a lot of the rock and roll groups of the 50s and 60s; "Shania Twain" has women country singers; "MJQ" has jazz music. But most of the time i play them as a shuffle, so they rotate thru all the "stations", giving me only music i like and i can add new artists or songs as i think about them. Pandora then adds music similar to that artist or song and i can "like" or "dislike" them.

When i want some quiet classical music behind my work, i generally listen to accurradio.com. They present you w/ genres to choose from. I generally choose "Mozart" on the "classical" channel. They have dozens of different "channels" of genres and then dozens more "subchannels" w/in each channel.

I can get both of these on my ipad.

Another one i listen to is Live365.com. It also has many different genres of "radio stations".

All of these are free, they have a few ads, but if you pay a fee -$30+ on most, you can get
ad-free music. I love them all, but don't pay the fee.

Jean

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #2451 on:** October 18, 2011, 01:46:16 PM »

So, explain "Pandora" to me. Is it a program you download, to your computer? How much space does it take up? Does it work on Any computer? Etc. etc.?

mabel1015j · « **Reply #2452 on:** October 18, 2011, 03:20:01 PM »

pandora is a website, pandora.com. They "hold" your preferences and music. When you go there the first time you start an account, which means nothing to do w/ money unless youopt for "no ads". You choose a password, etc and then they ask you to choose a song or performer that you like and they offer other suggestions that you can "like", or "dislike", etc, etc, etc. They also direct you how to set up your "stations".

There is an app for ipads, etc., otherwise, on a pc, you can set the site as a favorite or bookmark, like all your others and when you go there your stations come up.

As i mentioned, after a couple of months, i was getting almost ALL songs or performers i like and seldom have to pay any further attention to it when it's playing, altho, if you ignore them too long, they will stop playing music and ask " are you still there?"

I love it! Hope you will too........ Jean

JimNT · « **Reply #2453 on:** October 23, 2011, 08:54:30 AM »

I'm about 75% through The Art of Fielding and as this is Chad Harbach's first novel, I can hardly wait for the second. His characters truly live and I find myself experiencing the same feelings as they in their failures and accomplishments. I also find myself visualizing them physically and selecting who might play that role in a movie production. I wonder if there are any casting director openings?

Judy Laird · « **Reply #2454 on:** October 23, 2011, 02:41:27 PM »

I am glad you are enjoying the book Jim it is all over the place on best seller lists extI

I see Ginny didn't post here this morning but I am sure you all have seen her posts in the library.
Gumtree passed away you might all want to go to the library and read of her passing

Babi · « **Reply #2455 on:** October 24, 2011, 08:47:33 AM »

What is "The Art of Fielding" about, JIM? From the title I would suspect baseball, but I suppose
it could be 'fielding' most anythng.

salan · « **Reply #2456 on:** October 25, 2011, 05:59:43 AM »

I have just received Reading Group Choices 2012. Do any of you have access to this book? Every year they publish this book with suggestions for book discussions. They do a survey of favorite book club selections for the previous year, also.
Early in 2011 they asked thousands of book to share their favorite books. The following is a list of favorites of 2010.
1. The Help'
2. Cutting for Stone
3. Sarah's Key
4. Still Alice
5. The Book Thief
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
7. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
8. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
10. Little Bee

I have read all but Still Alice and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. How many have you read? What books would you add to this list? Do you agree or disagree with their choices. They are now taking a poll for book club favorites for 2011. What are your favorite reads for 2011.

I checked my list of books read in 2011. The following are my personal (not necessarily book club books) favorite for this year.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
House at Riverton
The Silent Girl
The Butterfly's Daughter
The Peach Keeper
Girl in Translation

Sally

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #2457 on:** October 25, 2011, 06:43:40 AM »

Sally, that's interesting. I've only read Major Pettigrew, The Book Thief, Little Bee and about half of the Guernsey Potato thing - couldn't bear it, but I know it was popular.

My reading this year has been a bit interrupted by all the house moves, but I think my favourites to date would be:Major Pettigrew, The Wouldbegoods, and Bury Your Dead.

Rosemary

JimNT · « **Reply #2458 on:** October 25, 2011, 07:27:40 AM »

Babi: The Art of Fielding is Chad Harbach's debut novel about a young man who attends a small Wisconsin college on a baseball scholarship. The backdrop is baseball but it is by no means about baseball; it concerns the emotional ups and downs of a myriad of relationships and how the charcaters deal with them. Character development is superb and you'll not want it to end. Some readers are bored with the game of baseball and might be misled by the title; don't make that mistake.

Babi · « **Reply #2459 on:** October 25, 2011, 09:10:25 AM »

I was pleased to see I had read five of those 'favorites' of 2010, SALLY. Does that make me
'in', I wonder?

Thanks for the description, JIM. I'll take a look at it if my library has it, but I confess I'm old
enough to find the 'up and down' emotions of the young people rather tiring.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #2460 on:** October 25, 2011, 09:48:02 AM »

of the 2010 list, I have read ALL of them, with the exception of Cutting for Stone.

Read Pettigrew and passed it on to several friends, and we all loved it.

MaryPage · « **Reply #2461 on:** October 25, 2011, 10:26:02 AM »

Very interesting, Sally.

I have read 3 of the 2010 books and 2 of the 2011 books thus far.

CallieOK · « **Reply #2462 on:** October 25, 2011, 12:58:59 PM »

I have read six of the 2011 books - liked two of them. "Cutting For Stone" is on my Book Swap Club list; my turn isn't until next May.

I've only read 2 of the 2010 selections so will make a note to reserve the others.

Oh,, how I do enjoy all the suggestions I find on here! You have all broadened my reading experiences so much. Thank you!

Octavia · « **Reply #2463 on:** October 25, 2011, 07:44:49 PM »

I've read 4 of the books. Still Alice was good but I had shivers up my spine all through it, as there's so much dementia in my family. I've not long read another book by the author, Lisa Genova?, I think it was called Losing The Left. A stressed out career woman with head injuries from a bad car accident .
When she woke up she had a condition where she couldn't see or recognize her left side. I'd never, ever heard of it. Her frantic life came to a screaming halt, and months of therapy and dependance became the norm. I thought it might have been depressing and cheesy, but it was surprisingly funny, upbeat and tender.
If I had to pick a favourite from my recent books, Nicci Gerrard's The Winter House would win hands down. I loved it. It's about memories and family, and as a reviewer said, nobody does poignancy like Nicci Gerrard.

pedln · « **Reply #2464 on:** October 26, 2011, 10:41:32 AM »

I've read 6 of the 2010s, which surprised me, and Pettigrew. Usually I've read none on those lists. Still Alice sounds good, Octavia, I'd never heard of it or its author, but my library has it, so I think I"ll check it out. It looks like the author, Genova, is writing about what she knows. She's a neuroscience Ph D, at Harvard, I think. Is Losing the Left non-fiction? I think Still Alice is her first novel.

As for the Nicci Gerrard (another new name for me), is The Winter House available in the US?

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #2465 on:** October 26, 2011, 11:15:33 AM »

I so enjoyed "Still Alice", and I think it is a good read, even for people of our age, who may be dreading what might happen, or for younger folks in their middle age. "Alice" was so very brilliant, and I wept as each tiny loss occurred.

Babi · « **Reply #2466 on:** October 26, 2011, 12:20:24 PM »

. "Cutting for Stone" is a remarkable book; I loved it. The author is a doctor
just like his protagoist, with a very similar background. He is a distinguished
physician, and as far as I know, he still practices here in the States.

Octavia · « **Reply #2467 on:** October 26, 2011, 06:18:34 PM »

Oh dear, the book is actually called Left Neglected,. Pedln. I don't know where I got the other title from. Gum would have gently but firmly pointed out my error

.
The Winter House is on Amazon, but there are no reviews, nor for the other books she's written as herself, and not co-written with SeanFrench under the name Nicci French.
Perhaps they haven't been published there for very long.

Steph · « **Reply #2468 on:** October 27, 2011, 07:11:45 AM »

I have fallen in love with Daniel Silva and am plowing through all of his novels, I can reach. No idea why I like him, generally spies are boring, but he is good.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #2469 on:** October 27, 2011, 11:11:29 AM »

I am "plowing through" Haruki Murakami's new book that arrived the other day 1Q84 - for those of us who admire his writing the man is a genius and we have plenty to absorb - this book is 825 pages!

jane · « **Reply #2470 on:** October 27, 2011, 12:41:40 PM »

Steph...my husband is a HUGE Daniel Silva fan as well. He also likes Vince Flynn and Joseph Finder. I think they all write in the same genre.

jane

JeanneP · « **Reply #2471 on:** October 27, 2011, 08:55:13 PM »

Have been trying out the Kindle and 2 others One was the colour Nook. They have them at my library. I don't think I could stand to read a book on either one of them. Just so use to holding a book in hand. Maybe they take getting use to. Just to small for me.

Now they also let me play around and did show me A Apple IPAD. Now that i may like. About nine inch screen. May be able to take place of my Lap Top which I never see to use. Don't like to carry it with me. To heavy.
On the PAD one can go into the Internet. do your E-Mails. lots of other things. Love some of the APPS. (They interest me). Would take time to learn but then the computers sort of scared us when we first started.

Not being able to type fast would be my problem. After years I can't look down at keys. Have that problem with my Laptop. My usual speed and my fingers hit wrong keys.

Going to spend some more time on a IPAD before I spend the money.

Steph · « **Reply #2472 on:** October 28, 2011, 07:07:44 AM »

Ido love my IPAD, but the typing is a bit tricky at best. I use one finger on each hand. makes it faster for me, but oh me, do I miss letters. But the IPAD,. cant remember what I did without it. I read just fine with it. I have seen a new cover that actually holds it up on a table..May get that one.

FlaJean · « **Reply #2473 on:** October 28, 2011, 12:24:28 PM »

I also love my iPad. When we traveled recently, I used it as I would a lap top. Kept track of our expenses on "Budget" and synced it with the computer when I got home. My husband and I both enjoy reading on it. He likes it better than a real book. However, I still frequent my local library. Hopefully, they will eventually get a loan program for the e-readers.

JeanneP · « **Reply #2474 on:** October 28, 2011, 07:07:59 PM »

Now our local library has gotten a Loan program just starting. Comes under the name. "My Media Mall" Not quite understanding how they work and so I will sit with them for awhile before I decide. Don't want to invest $499 if not what I want.
Looks like you still have to have a computer in order to use this service. My desktop I believe will be to slow as I only have Dial up on it.
I do have a laptop so will use it as can can WiFi at the library.
Friend just put name down to get the New Kindle Fire that will be out middle of November. It will do lot more than the orig. Kindle they say. Also coloured but still only a 7 inch screen. I like a 9 inch. This Kindle fire will be only $199.

Steph · « **Reply #2475 on:** October 29, 2011, 06:30:55 AM »

The Kindle Fire is supposed to be a rip off on the IPAD,, so check them together to see which might work better.
Our library does do ebook loans and it is enormously popular.
The childrens library is getting in the series that I donated in my husbands name. They showed me the book plates and the signage on the book shelves. It is an interesting take on how to read for kids.. The librarian loves it and says it is enormously popular. I am so glad. Hard for me to look at, still, but time will help that.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #2476 on:** October 29, 2011, 06:49:31 AM »

Steph, that is just wonderful that so many children will benefit from your husband's legacy - people will always think of him when they take those books out. I'm sure he would be so proud and pleased.

Rosemary

Babi · « **Reply #2477 on:** October 29, 2011, 08:28:39 AM »

$499. for a media program. I can't imagine anything being worth that, JEANNE.
Especially if you don't like watching movies on a computer screen, as I don't.

JeanneP · « **Reply #2478 on:** October 29, 2011, 09:10:01 PM »

Babi,

No, the media program at the library means that one can go in and put any book onto their IPad, Kindle, Nook or any other Electric reader they own. Also one will be able to borrow one from the library.

I will only be interested in the IPAD. I am amazed at one can do on it. Now I don't believe that movies can be run on them. I just have a lot to learn before I invest.

Steph · « **Reply #2479 on:** October 30, 2011, 06:38:08 AM »

Actually , yes you can download pretty much anything on an IPAD, that you can on a computer. I sat next to a mother and small son on a plane recently and he was content with the IPAD showing both Disney movies, but also games for him.. You can even plug it into a plug under the seat if you are running down your battery too fast. I watch ABC shows that I miss, since I dislike staying up past 10...

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Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 776198 times)