Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 775022 times)

JeanneP · « **Reply #4440 on:** February 14, 2013, 07:36:40 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

My Daughter married into a True Long time Texas Family. She has lived there so long she fits right in. Never argue with A Texas I found out. You can't win. They all seem to be really proud of State if born there. Don't get that in some States. Does seem to be a big Republican State.

MaryPage · « **Reply #4441 on:** February 14, 2013, 10:01:15 PM »

When my great, great grandfather, Silas Hare, represented Texas in the 50rh and 51st Congress of the United States, it was a Democrat state. In fact, for most of my lifetime it has been a democrat state. It turned Republican after the Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party because Lydon Johnson and the Democrats went for the Civil Rights Laws. It has always seemed so weird to me that the Republican Party, the party, after all, of Abraham Lincoln, wound up being the one that represented racial hatred of the African American. That deep seated hatred is what makes them so full of bile for President Obama. Pity.

Steph · « **Reply #4442 on:** February 15, 2013, 05:58:36 AM »

Molly Ivans... Ann Richards. Two heroines of mine.While putting away books for the book sale today, ran across "Shrub".. Mollys hysterical take on George Bush.. I just stood and laughed when I saw it.. Everyone just watched..Since I was in the room with way too many conservatives,, they were not amused, when I said why I was laughing. OH well.

MaryPage · « **Reply #4443 on:** February 15, 2013, 12:56:40 PM »

I guess it took a Texan to the bone to skewer another Texan. Actually, come to think on it, W. is not near the Texan she was. He was born in Connecticut and raised in the NorthEastern U.S. She was born in California and raised in Texas. Totally.
I have half a shelf of Ivin books. She is pure tonic, she is! Was.

CallieOK · « **Reply #4444 on:** February 15, 2013, 01:27:11 PM »

I liked the book "Molly Ivens Can't Say That, Can She?"....which, of course, she could - and did!

Frybabe · « **Reply #4445 on:** February 15, 2013, 03:04:22 PM »

Quote

It has always seemed so weird to me that the Republican Party, the party, after all, of Abraham Lincoln, wound up being the one that represented racial hatred of the African American. That deep seated hatred is what makes them so full of bile for President Obama. Pity.

MaryPage, you are certainly entitled to your opinion but I must respectfully disagree with the way Republican Party is portrayed as racist. I certainly am not and don't support anyone who is (qualify that with that I know of). I did not vote for Obama because he is black, but because I didn't and don't think he is qualified (BTW, I wasn't fond of McCain either, but for other reasons). I would not hesitate to vote for anyone who is black and/or a woman, if I think he or she is qualified. If Hilary had won the convention, I would have voted for her. This is about as much as you will get out of me on this subject as I don't generally discuss my political opinions unless someone wants to bring up a book or such about the history of how the Republican Party came to acquire such a link and should it apply to today's party, the Political Talk discussion group may like to discuss it. I will say that the Republican Party are such weenies when it comes to defending/countering themselves when accosted with such accusations.

maryz · « **Reply #4446 on:** February 15, 2013, 04:18:29 PM »

There are still a few liberals in Texas. Check out The Texas Observer. This newspaper has been around for a long time. My 50+ year-old niece was named for the wife of one of the early editors.

Steph · « **Reply #4447 on:** February 16, 2013, 05:49:36 AM »

I really cannot be proud of either of her major parties in the US and feel that the party system is now failing all of us. I would love to see Congress give up party designations and vote their consciences, but it is not going to happen. Easier to let your party leaders think for you, but sad..That is what is different about us and our ancestors..The founders of our country were original thinkers and would never have done this. Sad.

maryz · « **Reply #4448 on:** February 16, 2013, 08:36:38 AM »

Steph, did I understand you to say that Quakers don't vote? I didn't know that.

JeanneP · « **Reply #4449 on:** February 16, 2013, 04:11:09 PM »

I don't believe that the Amish Vote. I never see them mentioned in the election times. Use to be that the American Indians never got to vote either. Wonder if that is still the same.
I think it is past time for things to be being done for them. (All they do is give them a certain amount of money and nothing else.
As large as our Univ. of Ill. is I have only known as 2 Indians getting a grant to attend.

CubFan · « **Reply #4450 on:** February 16, 2013, 04:30:20 PM »

Technically, Native Americans received the right to vote in 1870 when the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, opening voting up to citizens regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." However, it wasn't until 1924, with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act-in which Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States-that Native Americans began exercising their right to vote. Even so, Native Americans participated at the polls on a very limited basis, since state law governed suffrage, and many states prohibited them from voting. In 1948, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down a provision of its state constitution that prohibited Indians from voting. Other states followed suit, and in 1962 New Mexico became the last state to fully enfranchise Native Americans. Like African Americans, Native Americans became the brunt of unfair voting mechanisms, such as poll taxes and literacy tests. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Native American voting rights were strengthened.

JeanneP · « **Reply #4451 on:** February 16, 2013, 08:21:13 PM »

For the ones living on the Reservations I can see them not even bothering about Politics. Things never change for them. I have seen it and feel it is awful they way they have been treated and still are. I think that the African Americans do much better.

Steph · « **Reply #4452 on:** February 17, 2013, 07:05:58 AM »

No, I meant quakers do not vote on church affairs. Generally they are good citizens and participate in elections. They are keenly interested in public affairs.. I hate to admit it, but Richard Nixon came from quaker stock.. Even though he certainly did not act like a quaker, ever.
Interesting about native americans, I did not realize about the voting.. Their reservations are so different from each other. Our large one in Florida is run by a man who uses it to dodge alimony,child support and any other law he does not feel like doing. Terrible person..
Our west they are very different from each other. New Mexico , they were very personal places and I suspect that local politics does not interest them.. I was appalled by the reservation by Custers Battlefield.. Expensive gas..a restaurant that served food that they should have been ashamed of themselves. Noone to wait on anyone.. An rv park that had bad water, no sanitation and obeyed no laws.. We did not even check in, but left.. Horrible..

CallieOK · « **Reply #4453 on:** February 17, 2013, 10:24:13 AM »

Members of the 39 Indian tribes that call Oklahoma home are active at ALL levels of civic and social actvities and should NOT be "painted with the same brush". Please don't stereotype.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #4454 on:** February 17, 2013, 12:48:48 PM »

I finished "Round Robin" by Jennifer Chiaverini, the second of the Elm Creek Quilters series. I think any quilter will enjoy this book.

There are many more comments about particular blocks/designs of patches in this book than the previous ones i've read in the series. I am not a quilter, but my mother was and i understand the descriptions, but readers not associated with quilting may get irritated with this. There are a lot of family relationship issues in the story which are interesting, but each chapter moves to another family, FIVE or more of them. It makes the story choppy, but i looked forward to their resolutions. Yes, the issues got resolved, but does EVERY family have estrangements? I think Chiaverini would have done better by delving into 3 or 4 issues instead of making every character's life a drama.) i will continue reading her.

Judy Laird · « **Reply #4455 on:** February 17, 2013, 06:26:09 PM »

My computer gave the ghost now I get to do new passwords, learn a new
system. complain complain, complain.
Have any of you read Roses? I did and loved it the second book is out now called Tumbleweeds and I can't put it down.
What are you reading today? I hope it is a New or Old Fiction book.

PatH · « **Reply #4456 on:** February 17, 2013, 07:31:52 PM »

This isn't a fiction book, but our March book selection is The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe, in which the author talks about a number of books that he and his mother read together when she was enduring treatments for pancreatic cancer. This sounds downbeat, but it isn't, and the book has a lot to say about a lot of books, which should make for a lively discussion.

If you want to join, it starts here:

http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=3730.0

Steph · « **Reply #4457 on:** February 18, 2013, 06:22:05 AM »

Callie, I was not stereotyping, simply commenting on what I know in Florida and saw on our travels.. Some tribes are better than others on managing their lives and do enter politics, etc. Others not so.. and the Florida tribe is simply a group of Indians, that decided to become one tribe..

ginny · « **Reply #4458 on:** February 18, 2013, 08:18:57 AM »

Mabel, (Jean), that's a good question you ask in your post on the quilting book: It makes the story choppy, but i looked forward to their resolutions. Yes, the issues got resolved, but does EVERY family have estrangements?

I wonder, too. I like talking about the IDEAS that you find in books. Some of them can be quite profound. I hit a veritable well of them in the Harold Fry book yesterday, that woman has a lot of profundity masked by the symbolic walk he's taking. I'm almost through with the book and even tho I've heard critisicm of the ending, she could have stopped it here and it would have been enough.

I wonder sometimes about what we demand IN a book, after we invest our time in it. I would say yes every family does have estrangements, there are plenty in Harold Fry, some of the everyday variety and some more serious. In fact it's a plot line in Harold Fry, and I really like the enlightenment everybody in the book is getting when they see old photos: maybe the way they thought WASN'T the right way. Particularly poignant as relations around an only son.

Does anybody know of any family anywhere without an estrangement somewhere along the line?

(However I have to say if I were reading a book which branched off without warning into 5 new characters a minute, I'd have to pause, I guess my short little attention span is not up to 5 new characters a page).

Still chafing over the PBS in the US deliberately shortening the first season of Downton Abbey in the US. Short little attention span my foot. hahahaa

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #4459 on:** February 18, 2013, 11:07:44 AM »

Jean, I enjoy those Jennifer Chiaverini books - I too am not a quilter but my mother is, and I have visited quilting exhibitions with her.

I think that,in the next of her books that I have, 'The Runaway Quilt', Chiaverini brings in stuff about the slaves in the South and the routes they had when escaping to the North - 'the Underground Railroad'; that looks interesting to me.

Rosemary

pedln · « **Reply #4460 on:** February 18, 2013, 11:56:00 AM »

Ginny asks ---

Quote

but does EVERY family have estrangements?

They sure do in the book I intend to finish today -- found on my TBR list --

Maine by Courtney Sullivan -- a multi-generational saga of a dysfunctional family in which many of the members do not like each other.

I don't know how it got on my TBR list -- maybe someone here, maybe a review. I'm enjoying the book, but doubt everything will get resolved in the few pages I have left.

Then it's on to more of The Shoemaker's Wife for my f2f group.

And I'll ditto PatH about The End of Your Life Book Club. It outshines anything else I've read in a long time.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #4461 on:** February 18, 2013, 03:04:08 PM »

Rachel has a facebook page devoted to her book and she sent these questions to another reading group that discussed the book - very different discussion - one day but the folks are from Norway, Vienna, Scotland, Britain, California, Italy, Virginia, India, Illinois, and Texas - here are the questions she sent for us to consider with the link to her facebook page.

Quote

Harold’s journey is both physical and metaphorical. He is not the only character in the novel to go on a journey and Rachel Joyce has said that writing the book was in itself a journey. What other literary journeys does this novel call to mind?

Harold says he is not a religious man but his journey is called a pilgrimage and it is undoubtedly a leap of faith. How much and how consciously do you feel Rachel Joyce draws on Christian tenets and/or other belief systems in the novel?

Harold is a man with many flaws. Despite, or perhaps because of this, do you see him as an archetypal Englishman? Or is he an Everyman?

When we first meet Harold and Maureen, at the breakfast table, they seem in different worlds. To what extent did you see Maureen as the cause of Harold’s departure?

The mental health of several characters is called into question in the novel. Depression, Alzheimer’s and addiction are all diseases that touch many of us and yet mental illness remains to a great extent taboo in our society. How is Rachel Joyce using this? Do you find it effective?

Harold and Maureen are married but both are lonely. The couple Harold meets at Buckfast Abbey travel together but have also lost sight of what holds them together. What makes a marriage happy? How much is romantic happiness about being a pair and how much about other people and interests?

At the start of the book both Harold and Maureen have allowed friends to fall by the wayside. This story is about how we all connect with one another. What makes someone a true friend and how does Rachel Joyce represent friendship?

Regret is an emotion that plays a key part in the novel. Do you think Rachel Joyce sees it as a positive or negative force?

Is Harold’s relationship with David the inevitable result of Harold’s own upbringing?

Rachel Joyce writes beautifully about the English countryside – but how crucial to the telling of her story is the actual landscape she describes? How would it change the novel if it was set in Scotland, perhaps, or France, or...?

The sea provides bookends for the novel and plays a vivid part in Harold’s memories. Is this significant?

How does Rachel Joyce use food and the sharing of food in the novel?

How much are Harold’s responses to his fellow pilgrims dictated by his past?

Was the ending of the novel a shock or the inevitable conclusion?

Who saves who in this novel?

Has The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry inspired you to do something out of the ordinary – take a journey? Renew contact with someone? Look at strangers with a new perspective? Do share your response at: www.facebook.com/unlikelypilgrimageofharoldfry

Judy Laird · « **Reply #4462 on:** February 18, 2013, 05:19:28 PM »

I read Gone Girl and I forget if it ws Pedlin or Steph saying they did not enjoy the book. I plain just didn't like it. I don't see anything that would put it on the best sellers list.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #4463 on:** February 18, 2013, 06:27:03 PM »

"Gone Girl" was a total "thumbs down" for me. I not only didn't like it, I hated it, and am still scratching my head about why it is still on the NYT best seller list, I think #3. Those folks at NYT book reviewers are something else!

Steph · « **Reply #4464 on:** February 19, 2013, 06:20:53 AM »

I am reading Gone Girl now and darned if I can figure the best sellers list either. Not a single redeeming character.. I am going to keep going, but just now I am not sure why.. Maybe that I really wonder if he ever tells the truth about anything and don't understand her at all..

ginny · « **Reply #4465 on:** February 19, 2013, 10:38:47 AM »

hahahaa I loved it! Absolutely loved it and may read it again. Shows you how different we are. I thought the writing was wonderful, so clever.

Barbara, thank you for that list of questions to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, another controversial book. They are interesting. I read them before I finished it and to me they seem to do a "Harold" on what to me are the most important issues in the book. I find that interesting. Mental illness, Alzheimers? I'm not sure I read the same book. (However as we can see that often happens to me. hahahaaa)

It's no wonder our book clubs are so famous, we discuss the heart of the matter, and it's perfectly OK to have an opinion, good or bad.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #4466 on:** February 19, 2013, 11:21:25 AM »

Rosemary - "The Runaway Quilt" is a good read. "Round Robin" was my 8th book of hers even though it is the second in the series. Maybe JC wanted to give us the story of each of the characters early in the series, thus all the stories of each character's family.

marjifay · « **Reply #4467 on:** February 19, 2013, 11:30:59 AM »

I really liked Gone Girl. I marvelled at the imagination of the author in creating the female character who disappeared on her wedding anniversary, leading everyone to believe her husband had killed her. I liked the way it was told in alternating chapters, first by the husband narrating his story, and then by the wife (from her diary), giving you just a hint of what really happened -- and frantically turning pages to find out what's going to happen. Fascinating read. I'll read more of her books.

Marj

JeanneP · « **Reply #4468 on:** February 19, 2013, 01:15:21 PM »

Maybe I just did not get into the book enough. It was just that I could not understand anyone walking to see a person who was dying. Not possible. One wants to get there fast. Bus,train, Maybe taking time and walking back would have made more sense to me. Could have done all his thinking about his life and where he wanted it to go after his friends passing.

ginny · « **Reply #4469 on:** February 19, 2013, 01:33:46 PM »

That's actually a good point, Jeanne. And one he was asked. I would be interested to hear what those of you who finished it think?

But I think that he truly believed that she would stay alive till he got there. Give her something to live for. He felt he owed her. No matter how long it took. And in that, it's a gift from him. If the author had stopped with this premise she'd have written the inspirational book of the year. But she didn't.

And he has to do penance. For reasons not known in the beginning. So to me it's like those who climb the stairs of Scala Santa in Rome on their knees. Except he's not a religious man. So he's walking instead in a pilgrimage. That's one take on it. The book has a lot of surprises in it, not all of them pleasant.

Makes you think of Canterbury Tales a little bit, or it did me.

MaryPage · « **Reply #4470 on:** February 19, 2013, 02:11:08 PM »

Now y'all have me really flummoxed!

I have had Gone Girl on my Wish List with Barnes & Noble, waiting for the paperback to come out this spring. With my badly knobbled hands full of arthritis, I find the hardbacks so difficult to hold to read, even though I prop them up on pillows. And I dare not put a hardback I am reading in my tote to take to medical appointments and other places I visit frequently; just too heavy to add to what I carry about in my handbag. So I find these days I always have the patience to wait for the paperback. And yes, for those who may ask, I find the paperback less weighty and easier to manipulate than my iPad or an electronic reader.

So it comes out in a couple of months. Should I buy it? Will I like it? Or will it be a complete bust for me?

Decisions! Decisions!

In the meantime, I have MORE than enough on hand to read. There are an overabundance of books in this house I want ever so much to read, and never will get to in this lifetime.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #4471 on:** February 19, 2013, 03:37:51 PM »

MaryPage, my vote would say, check it out at the library! I spent good money on it in hard cover, and was so disappointed! Read my previous comments. Some here said it was great, they loved it...I would use the supreme court wording, IMHO, "it has no redeeming social value"! But that's just me. How dare I go against the intellectually superior reviewers at NYT?

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #4472 on:** February 19, 2013, 03:39:49 PM »

As an aside, I loaned the book to a dear friend who is one of the most discerning readers I have ever known. She said she reached page 21, and wished to throw the book against the wall. Had it been her personal copy, I'm sure she would have. When it comes back to me, I shall donate it to my Library Friend Book Sale.

marjifay · « **Reply #4473 on:** February 19, 2013, 07:49:46 PM »

Tomereader wrote (re Gone Girl) "IMHO, "it has no redeeming social value"!

I don't read mysteries for their "redeeming social value" (LOL). I do like them to be well written (and I think Gone Girl was), but I read them mostly for the plot, interesting characters (even if unlikable), and to find out who dunnit, as an easy read between more demanding fiction and nonfiction.

Marj

ginny · « **Reply #4474 on:** February 19, 2013, 10:39:17 PM »

I agree, Marj.

I never argue with discerning readers, particularly those who want to throw a book against the wall by page 21. I can only think of one that I wanted to do that with (and did), but I finished it: The Liar's Club. And unlike Gone Girl it's not fiction, it's real. No I take that back, there were two. Mercifully I have forgotten the name of the second but not the subject.

It's amazing the buttons Gone Girl pushes. I thought, and still think, it was brilliant, I really do.

Steph · « **Reply #4475 on:** February 20, 2013, 06:09:32 AM »

Iwould guess that brilliant writing is not that appealing to me any more.. I truly find as I age, I want at least one character, even a minor one that I can identify with.. Gone Girls has two perfectly terrible humans, who seem to delight in punishing each other. How sad..
I got it free as a volunteer at the book sale since I found it finding it first. I have promised to hand it on to the next volunteer who wants to read it.We had four others sign up, so we will pass it on to each one.

ginny · « **Reply #4476 on:** February 20, 2013, 07:44:11 AM »

What DO you recommend, Steph? What's the best new book you've read this year?

Judy Laird · « **Reply #4477 on:** February 20, 2013, 03:53:01 PM »

Talk about different people Ginny and I totaly in disagrement hehehe

Steph · « **Reply #4478 on:** February 21, 2013, 02:31:59 PM »

Light reading: Patricia Briggs #4 in Alpha and Omega series..."Fair Play"
Most compelling: current book.... The Household Guide to Dying by Debra Adelaide.
She is a household hints writer... and is dying of cancer, fairly young.. This is the fictional story of the journey.. I am savoring her descriptions.. and thoughts.. The grief and love and how she is trying to set out a path for her husband and two young daughters, which of course you cannot do.

Steph · « **Reply #4479 on:** February 21, 2013, 02:32:26 PM »

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Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 775022 times)