What Fiction are you reading this week, April 23, 2023?

[hermetic]

I'm still reading Those People by Louise Candlish. The bad guy in this story is so creepy awful it makes my skin crawl. If he lived in the U.S. someone would have shot him by now. Since it's in London, the neighbors have to use their heads instead of arms to get rid of him. But I know from reading her last book that the author likes to throw wild twists into her stories so I can't wait to see what she will do with this one.

Also still listening to the Fannie Flagg story about the women pilots. Taking care of those kittens took up a lot my time this week. But it was worth it.

This Tuesday I am super looking forward to attending a Zoom presentation with Ann Cleves. Should be awesome.

What fiction are you looking forward to this week?

[QED]

1. I just finished Artifacts by Mary Anna Evans

and look forward to the next in the series, Relics.

About Artifacts from Amazon:

"Faye Longchamp has lost nearly everything except her determination to hang onto Joyeuse, a moldering plantation hidden along the Florida coast. No one knows how Faye's great-great-grandmother Cally, a newly freed slave barely out of her teens, came to own Joyeuse in the aftermath of the Civil War or how her descendants hung onto it through Reconstruction, world wars, the Depression, and Jim Crow. But Faye has inherited the family tenacity. When the property taxes rise beyond her means, she sets out to save Joyeuse by digging for artifacts on her property and selling them on the black market.

But instead of pot shards and arrowheads, she uncovers a woman's shattered skull. If Faye reports the 40-year-old murder, she'll reveal her illegal livelihood, risk jail...and Joyeuse. So she probes into the dead woman's history, unaware that the past is rushing toward her like a hurricane across deceptively calm Gulf waters...."

I chose Artifacts because of another book by Evans, "The Physicists Daughter." It was very different but excellent. It is kind of a nerdy book about the purification of uranium-235 but that's never mentioned due to the secrecy about the project. The protagonist's father worked for JJ Thomson, the physicist who discovered the electron. Yeah, I'm that kind of nerd.

[hermetic]

4. Interesting stuff there

Thanks for sharing.

[Paper Roses]

2. I just finished the strangest book I have ever read. Be glad to pass it to the Free Library.

A Home At The End Of The World by Michael Cunningham. It was so different from any other book I have read. Too disjointed, to explicit.

Today I'll start to read Hour Game by David Baldacci. I know I'll read a good book.

[hermetic]

5. The description I just read

sounds pretty convoluted indeed. Cunningham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, though.

Baldacci is pretty reliable and readable. Hour Game sounds intriguing. "A woman is found murdered in the woods with a very special watch on her wrist-and what seemed a simple case soon escalates into a nightmare. The criminal methods of some of the most infamous killers of all time are being replicated by a new predator who stalks and strikes victims with a cunning brilliance. No one can understand the murderer's motives or who the next victim will be."
I put that one on my list.

[Backseat Driver]

3. I've just started Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese.

Per Goodreads: "Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic––leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible.

When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors,..." [snip].

So, the heroine of The Scarlet Letter meets the author of her story, and sparks of history fly...we'll see.

I gave up on The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar - it was more a didactic rant, a dry angry doctoral thesis, citing myths and international fairy tales I had never read--Beside taking a huge shot at Joseph Campbell's abject misogyny. I just wasn't enjoying her attempt to teach the feminist fervor, so I'll try a different, hopefully more entertaining, approach above. YEMV, of course.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/maria-tatar-heroine-1001-faces/619494/

[hermetic]

6. I like the sound of Hester

Being of Scottish ancestry, I'm always interested in reading books from there. Also, Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Historical Fiction (2022). Yep, going to be looking for this one.

[hippywife]

7. At the moment, I'm doing a re-read project.

Last edited Sun Apr 23, 2023, 04:02 PM - Edit history (1)

I've read Michener's, The Source probably at least half a dozen times over the past 30 years, and I'm over half way thru re-reading it again. I always find something new in its depth and span of history as my understanding of the region grows. This time I'm re-reading it in comparison to Uris's, Exodus, which I hadn't read since high school, and have also recently re-read to refresh my memory. I wanted to get a more accurate feel on how the two historical fiction writers handled the subject.

I also just read Piper Kerman's, Orange is the New Black. I haven't watched television in probably a dozen years or so, maybe fifteen (?), and was only very peripherally aware of the show. I didn't even know it was base on a book, so when I was floundering around for something to read and nothing felt satisfying, I came across it and thought, "why not?" It was a pretty good and interesting read.

[hermetic]

8. Like you, I quit TV

back in 2005 so only heard about that show here and there. I never knew it was based on a book that was a memoir.

Also, interesting how you are reading two great books to compare. Sounds enjoyable. I had read both way back when but years apart.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[yellowdogintexas]

12. I love The Source! Michener's books are kind of like

a collection of serial novellas. I can finish a section, put the book down and come back to it and read the next one without feeling I have lost anything. I think this one is my favorite!

Exodus is just wonderful. LOL my mom gave it to my uncle for Christmas when it first came out, and he was disappointed in it because he thought it was actually about the book of Exodus in the Bible!!! Suggestion: Find and read Mila 18 by Uris. It is a powerful book about the Warsaw Ghett. One of the characters (Dov) is also an important character in Exodus. This book is his backstory.

[hippywife]

13. I also read Mila 18 and QBVII while in HS.

When we covered the Holocaust in history class, I was flabbergasted and read as many books, non-fiction and historical fiction, as I could find.

Michener has long been one of my fav authors. I've read all of his historical fiction, with exception of the Asia-Pacific novels. I always feel like I've learned something when I'm done. The Covenant was another good one for that reason.

[Jilly_in_VA]

9. Last week

I read The Buffalo Cabin, by Kari August, which is about the conflict between small ranchers and large landowners in Wyoming at the last part of the 19th century. It's apparently one of several books based on experiences of her grandparents who settled the West and would have been a lot better if she'd had a good editor. The editing mistakes in it drove me nuts. There are similarities in it to the TV show 1923.
I'm currently reading Isabeau, by N. Gemini Masson (that has to be a nom de plume!), which is a fictionalized account of the life of the wife of Edward II of England from the time she is married to him at the age of 13 and her relationship with Sir Roger Mortimer, to some point when the two of them plot to bring him down. It's part of a duology and so far is very good.
Although it's not fiction, I wanted to mention the other book I read last week, The Liberation of Lomie, by Saloma Miller Furlong. It's the story of her Amish childhood until she left at the age of 20. It's not a happy story, although there are some happy moments in it. I realized, once I had gotten partway through it, that I had seen her on a PBS documentary. She is a very strong person and a good writer. I recommend the book, but you need a strong stomach to get through it.

[japple]

10. Just wanted to say that I'm alive and doing okay.

Haven't read any fiction this week. The rock and roll bio of Leon Russell I'm reading is almost 600 pages and I'm only about 3/4 of the way through. It is still very interesting, but becoming a bit of a slog to the end. Endurance!

My Friends of the Library group is having a used book sale this week, so I won't get much else done.

Happy reading to all.

[yellowdogintexas]

11. The Heist by Daniel Silva

Gabriel Allon, art restorer and occasional spy, searches for a stolen masterpiece by Caravaggio in #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva’s latest action-packed tale of high stakes international intrigue.

Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one . . .

Gabriel pulls together an ingenious plot to catch a collector of stolen art, using an intriguing team to pull it off.

I do enjoy this author and his wonderful characters. I am kind of annoyed at myself though: this is #14 in the Allon books and I did not remember that I had #13. I wish I had read it first!

While it isn't necessary to read the Gabriel Allon books in order, it really is helpful to do so. There is a lot of character growth and plot connections which make it worth the trouble to read them in order.

[RSherman]

14. I'm reading "The Lincoln Highway"

I love the part about Woolly, the dictionary, and the thesaurus. He loves the dictionary because he can look up a word and get its meaning. The thesaurus, however, just boggles his mind because it gives him 10 other words for the word he's looking up. He finds this very upsetting. He finally burns it on the football field, which then sets the goalpost on fire. At his disciplinary hearing, the Dean calls it a "fire"; the faculty rep. calls it a "blaze", and the football captain refers to it as a "conflagration".

"And Woolly knew right then and there that no matter what he had to say, they were all going to take the side of the thesaurus."

Love it!

I'm also reading "Our House" by Louise Candlish

[hermetic]

15. Good stuff

Let me know what you think of Our House, after you're done. I sure wanted to talk to someone about it, but didn't want to spoil anything...