Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 742011 times)

Judy Laird · « **Reply #5680 on:** December 21, 2014, 01:59:04 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

I LOVE MY PRIME SOO MUCH. eSPECIALLY LIKE ALL THE FREE PRIME BOOK

gOOFY WRITING MY EXCUSE IS I LEAVE FOR Alaska IN A FEW MINUTES YEA YEA YEA YEA YEA

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #5681 on:** December 21, 2014, 03:42:21 PM »

Have fun in Alaska! Happy Holidays to ya!

MaryPage · « **Reply #5682 on:** December 22, 2014, 07:21:39 AM »

Now Steph, THAT is just plain weird.

I like me creature comforts, I do. If I must be locked in for a weekend or whatever, I'll take my local Barnes & Noble. As I mentioned, they have a cafe right in there. And the bathrooms are lovely. Lots of carpeting and some really comfortable upholstered reading chairs down by the extensive magazine section that takes up much of one large wall. Huge amounts of outside light, as well and all. Yep, that'll do it for me. You're gonna get awfully hungry amongst your stacks of births, marriages and deaths.

Steph · « **Reply #5683 on:** December 22, 2014, 08:38:48 AM »

Oh but in the safe room, there are handwritten diaries.. long ago stories of birth and death and loneliness of the new settlers.. Gossip from the lady down the street who keeps track of everyone.. It was always one of my favorite places to be..All true stories and so interesting.

MaryPage · « **Reply #5684 on:** December 22, 2014, 11:25:06 AM »

Well, yeah; the stories I could go for.

But not at the cost of starving. Do they have a loo where you're gonna be locked in?

CallieOK · « **Reply #5685 on:** December 22, 2014, 03:53:48 PM »

I'm with Steph and/or Tome and, if there isn't an area with vending machines, I'd bet we could sneak in some sandwiches or cheese/crackers and a bottle of water (or figure out how to get into the employee Break Room.

)

Steph · « **Reply #5686 on:** December 23, 2014, 08:54:40 AM »

I used to sneak food and water in all the time in the 80's during the day.. The stacks are very tall and complicated. The lights work as you descend or walk through.. but oh the vault.. that is where you can take nothing but yourself, rubber gloves and paper and pencil.. That place is aladdins cave for me. I never got through my list of things to look at.
There is also a womans college in Massachusetts that got a bequest of diaries and letters from women who went west.. I am told they are quite fascinating, so there is another possibility for me. I always marvel at the bravery of the women.The men are the ones who wanted to go west..The women went,, pregnant, sometimes widowed on the trip.. knowing they would never see their loved ones again... How hard.

MaryPage · « **Reply #5687 on:** December 23, 2014, 09:59:54 AM »

Oh, I totally agree and empathize, Steph. In fact, my innards twist up into painful configurations just imagining the deprivations they went through.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #5688 on:** December 23, 2014, 12:39:14 PM »

There is a book out, and the movie has also just recently come out. "The Homesman" by Glendon Swarthout. It details the hardships of the women when they went with their spouses to the "West". It is a gritty, ultra-sad tale of what happens in many cases to the women, most who married young, and undertook this "great adventure". Then they began having children. They had no idea of what hardships would befall them..backbreaking labor, terrible winters, lack of food, Indians, claim jumpers. I think the movie is probably going to be Oscar fodder for the female lead, Hilary Swank, and possibly for Tommy Lee Jones. It is not a happy book by any means, but well written and details a "procedure" that I had never heard about (I use procedure because I can't think of the appropriate word right now!) It's more like a social or legal thing.

Steph · « **Reply #5689 on:** December 26, 2014, 01:33:21 PM »

Hmm Glendon Sworthhout?? Will check on it.. I am not a fan of Hilary Swank, but might try the movie. I went to the Night at the Museum, part 3 and did laugh and laugh. Nothing to think about, but funny and sweet and the last movie that Robin made.

Frybabe · « **Reply #5690 on:** January 04, 2015, 07:26:17 AM »

I've just started Hugh Howey's new book, The Shell Collector. Oh, my, what a powerful prologue. The man sure sucks me right into his books. To say anything at all about the content of the prolog might lessen the impact of it. So, my fingers are mum.

Steph · « **Reply #5691 on:** January 04, 2015, 09:37:46 AM »

Howie?? again not an author I know.. You guys are always making me look up new authors. My TBR is way out of hand.

pedln · « **Reply #5692 on:** January 04, 2015, 11:19:59 AM »

Tomereader, I haven't heard the name Glendon Swarthout for sometime, but do remember his book and film Bless the Beasts and Children. He died in 1992. It's interesting that someone has picked up on a lesser-known (?) title in 2014. The only other of his works that I"ve heard of is The Shootist. You are not alone in your thinking about The Homesman. Others have referred to it as very very bleak.

Steph · « **Reply #5693 on:** January 05, 2015, 08:54:31 AM »

Oh my, I do remember the Beasts and Children movie, not the book and don't think I ever knew the author.

Frybabe · « **Reply #5694 on:** January 06, 2015, 09:34:02 AM »

Finished The Shell Collector already. I was planning to do some knitting yesterday, but I just couldn't put the book down. I am not about to even try to critique or summarize the book before others have read it. Suffice to say that it was very good but with a few caveats.

Steph · « **Reply #5695 on:** January 07, 2015, 09:30:22 AM »

This has been a complicated week thus far. Just started a Sara Paretsky,, excellent as always , but physics?? oh me,, not my best subject in life.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5696 on:** January 07, 2015, 06:27:44 PM »

I'm reading "Private Life" by Jane Smiley. I'm about 100 pages into it. The first part of the book is set in Missouri at the beginning of the 20th century. The protagonist is a young woman who tends to be independent of social mores, but finally marries at age 27 and goes with her husband to Calif.

The husband is at least ten yrs older than she is and is an astronomer, but appears to be a guy who is interested in everything, and recalls everything he has read or done. He always talks about things, not about people or his, or other's, feelings. Margaret appears to be feeling reined in and bored by marriage.

It has possibilities, i hope it meets my expectations.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #5697 on:** January 08, 2015, 08:41:55 AM »

I like Jane Smiley and will pick that one up in a bit. She always has the ability to surprise me.
The Paretsky is too too intricate at this point..

marjifay · « **Reply #5698 on:** January 08, 2015, 01:38:53 PM »

If anyone here likes ghost stories, I just finished a good one: DARK MATTER, A GHOST STORY by Michelle Paver. It's about several young men from London who decide to travel to an uninhabited island in the remote arctic region of Norway to camp there for a year to study the area from their particuar scintific interests. They arrive just before the sun will disappear for several months leaving the area in total darkness. After they've been there only a short while, several of the group are forced to leave temporarily for one reason or another, and Jack the radio operator is left by himself with the huskie dogs they'd brought with them. He soon finds, however, that he is not alone on the little island. Something walks there in the darkness. Well written and left me chilled just as Jack describes his feelings. This is the first of the author's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. I will read more of them.

Marj

marjifay · « **Reply #5699 on:** January 08, 2015, 01:54:39 PM »

I've never been in a Barnes & Noble Bookstore, but they sound very nice as you describe them, MaryPage. Maybe that's why they are still open when so many others have been forced to close. Another bookstore that has remained open (I get their interesting newsletter) is the Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C. They sound like one I'd like to visit.

Marj

Steph · « **Reply #5700 on:** January 09, 2015, 08:31:48 AM »

There are nice both new and used bookstores all over the U.S., just not as many as there used to be. I love bookstores,, I love thrift shop book shelves. I just flat out cannot resist looking everywhere there is books.

MaryPage · « **Reply #5701 on:** January 09, 2015, 09:45:45 AM »

Me, too. My Achilles heel, as it were. Or my addiction, craving, besetting sin, whatever. My house is very neat and tidy and clean, but the books are taking over. My many, many bookshelves are way overcrowded, and stacks of books clutter tables. I am Bad News when it comes to books. The Ideal would be for you to come here and hold a big sale, Steph. On the other hand, I can't let them go, so forget That!

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #5702 on:** January 09, 2015, 02:20:20 PM »

Oh oh oh we could all be in the book cluttered house together and never see each other behind our piles of books and like you, MaryPage - getting rid of them is painful - no more get one sold to half price and I remember vaguely something that I can no longer look up because the book is gone. I had a huge pile to sell back to Amazon and as time goes by, since last September when I did the clean out - I have pulled back out one after the other - I do have a bunch of old movies though that I really want to get rid of and I do not seem to need to hang on to what I call my fluff reading - the almost inane light novel that I need to read to break up all the more serious reading - mostly I do save them to give to my daughter-in-law who likes to end her day sitting in her comfy chair in her bedroom with a light frothy novel rather than watching TV.

CallieOK · « **Reply #5703 on:** January 09, 2015, 02:26:48 PM »

I could surely use some suggestions for "light frothy novels" during this spell of bitterly cold weather - and also because, next week, I'll have to stay out of the way while several rooms are being painted.
Any recommendations appreciated.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #5704 on:** January 09, 2015, 05:42:39 PM »

Some that I have read this year - this one says Christmas but the author has another - cute - she writes a delightful story The French for Christmas by Fiona Valpy

Ah this one was a historical thing taking place in Holland that I am not sure was accurate but it was not heavy reading for sure - a bit dark The Miniaturist: A Novel by Jessie Burton

Of course the latest Agatha Raisin by Beaton - supposed to be a cozy mystery but she is such a hoot I laugh and laugh the entire read

Not so much fluff but a good read - The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Short - very short - reminded me of the Yellow Wallpaper however, she is touted as the best writer in Ireland today - The Visitor by Maeve Brennan

Fun - Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion: A Novel by Fannie Flagg - in fact ANYTHING by Fannie Flagg - always a delightful bit of fluff - you can hear the south dripping from her lips while reading.

Another easy and comforting is anything by Miss Read who only died recently. She had a series about Fairacre - British village stuff.

Calling Invisible Women: A Novel by Jeanne Ray was a hoot based on a so true premise

Another that hits the spot for any of us clearing out our home when we realize we are entering a new phase of life - with enough off the wall reactions, and an underlying young women's desire to tackle life, sorting through men as she does clutter that made me pull an all nighter - Objects of My Affection: A Novel by Jill Smolinski

If you are a foody as I am, this was fun - Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard

This one was FABULOUS - not fluff but very short and and and - talk about a lesson in realizing your value regardless your age and loss of physical strength - it is I think a myth but just wonderful reading - Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis

All the Patrick Taylor series about the Irish Doctor - the last I ordered for my daughter-in-law was - A Dublin Student Doctor: An Irish Country Novel (Irish Country Books)

This is a riot - The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

I just ordered - The 92-Year-Old Lady Who Made Me Steal a Dead Man's Car - A thrilling and seriously funny novel - sounds like fun.

OH yes, have to add - Second Thyme Around by Katie Fforde - she has a large number of books all light and frothy.

CallieOK · « **Reply #5705 on:** January 09, 2015, 06:06:43 PM »

Thank you, Barb.

"The Miniaturist" is on my TBR list for my Tablet.

I've read and reread all of the Miss Read books, as well as this one and others by Fannie Flagg. Would love to meet her at a book-signing for "The All Girl Filling Station..." because I'm positive that "Bea" is more or less based on a girl who was 3 years ahead of me in high school and grew up on a ranch near Wapanucka, Oklahoma. You would probably recognize her real name; she's the ex-wife of a prominent Texan nee an Oklahoman.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #5706 on:** January 09, 2015, 06:24:03 PM »

Let me know what you think of The Miniaturist - part of the premise sounds too much like our current divide in what some consider a choice of morality. After reading I must say the concept of magic became real for a bit. Don't you just love Fannie Flag - always a message that hits home but her books are so easy to read and identify with. Gotta pull out the book again and look at Bea - the one I liked was a year or so ago about a gal after divorce getting into Real Estate - lots of great quotes for me in that one.

Steph · « **Reply #5707 on:** January 10, 2015, 09:02:40 AM »

I love Fannie and have read everything of hers and every once in a while with her, I think she knew some of her characters..
Another very light but fun.. Donna Andrews. all of her mysteries use animal names in the title.. And I am currently reading Deborah Koonts, who writes about Las Vegas and they are very funny, abit too oh how handsome.. but still fun

pedln · « **Reply #5708 on:** January 10, 2015, 02:15:46 PM »

Barbara, your 100 year old man and your 92 year old lady would make a wonderful gift for someone who is having a "Big 0" birthday. In fact, one of my friends turns 90 in April and I think that would me a good gift.

Has anyone here read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore? I got it for Christmas and am trying to squeeze it in with two other book club books. It's kind of strange. Can't figure out if it's science fiction or not. A rather gentle book so far with nice people.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #5709 on:** January 10, 2015, 03:19:40 PM »

I had Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore on my Amazon list for several weeks and then other books became more important so I finally took it off - please, let us know what you think - if it stays slow and gentle or what...

Steph · « **Reply #5710 on:** January 11, 2015, 09:32:53 AM »

Such a nice title.. Must look at the reviews. I like certain types of science fiction. not the steam punk however

Frybabe · « **Reply #5711 on:** January 12, 2015, 11:16:48 AM »

I've just started Louis Shiner's Dark Tangos which, I suppose, you could call a drama or suspense, and romance. The comments in the reviews section let me know that it is going to be pretty graphic in some sequences. I'll read along as far as I can. It is set in present day Buenos Aires and delves into past events of the "Dirty War" of the 70's and those that disappeared. Shiner's writing is superb.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5712 on:** January 12, 2015, 03:04:26 PM »

Steph - i'm finding Jane Smiley's Private Live very slow going. Of course that is not unlike JSs other books, but this, ti me, is slowly going no where as a story. I keep reading with hopefulness....

......but i'm in the last 1/3 of the book, hope is declining........

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #5713 on:** January 13, 2015, 09:10:02 AM »

What a shame. I know that Smiley is a slow slow writer about her subjects though.
I looked up The Mr Penumbra's book. It is supposed to be a mystery. I have it on my wish list at the swap club.

CallieOK · « **Reply #5714 on:** January 23, 2015, 04:41:06 PM »

I sent Mr Penumbra back to the e-book library. Just couldn't get into it.

Now reading "Private Lives" and, like Jean, finding it slow going. However, I want to keep at it until I find out how "Margaret" gets from "old maid" status to the life she's apparently living in the introduction - 44 years from the point at which I'm reading.

If that sentence doesn't make sense...blame it on the book!

Steph · « **Reply #5715 on:** January 24, 2015, 01:31:04 PM »

The second book of the Smiley series is out in print. By the way, I did laugh. Just now on Netflix, I am watching Smileys People, an old but goodie thing from BBC.. Alec Guiness is a long time favorite of mine and he always made George Smiley into a wonderful closed human being

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #5716 on:** January 29, 2015, 04:35:32 PM »

I have been trying to find out what's happened to "RosemaryKaye" who used to post somewhere eitehr on Senior Learn, or Seniors & Friends. (they told me "Not"). Maybe it was Fiction, Old, New or perhaps "The Library".

Anyway, if Rosemary Kaye is lurking somewhere in the background, I would like very much to hear from her, and know she is all right.

jane · « **Reply #5717 on:** January 30, 2015, 09:49:24 AM »

Winchesterlady posted a link to a column by RosemaryKaye in the Library. It's a wonderful article on books, etc.

Steph · « **Reply #5718 on:** January 31, 2015, 08:58:57 AM »

yes, a good article. She has been busy changing her career path.. I suspect some day we will find a book by her on the shelves.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #5719 on:** February 03, 2015, 12:02:39 PM »

Finished Murder in Chinatown by Victoria Thompson, her usual entertaining story of a midwife in Victorian NYC, falling into a murder to be solved.

I'm about to finish The Captive Queen:a novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir. Weir is a good historian, but she has a little too much "romance" overlaid on this story. Every time Eleanor and Henry II are going to be in each other's presence, Eleanor muses about whether he still loves her and how she'd love to be in his arms and bed. When in each other's presence it's mostly sexual for their first twenty years. But i like their story. They are always Katherine Hepburn and, (his name escapes me) from the Lion in Winter movie. There is enough history in Weir's novels to keep me reading.

I have a Susan Issacs, Kate Jacobs (knitting series) and Catherine Coulter (FBI series) waiting for me. All light and entertaining.

Jean

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Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2 (Read 742011 times)