Too bad I didn't spell they're correctly. Homophones trip me up.
I've finished 4 books and started a couple of others in the last month or so.
The most recent, finished yesterday, was The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. This is the first book I've read by him. I think I tried a few pages of another of his some years ago, but gave up on it.
This time I'll easily grant that he is a very able writer. The story is tough to start with and keeps being tough. I got impatient, but so did the characters, patience and continuing effort being a fair part of what the book is about. His writing, at least in this book, has a lot of rhythm to it. Sometimes I liked it for the rhythm, sometimes it wore me down. Some of the dialogue is repetitive on purpose, which makes sense with the story, but can also be wearing to the reader. I'll keep it on the bookshelves, at least for a while. I'm culling, trying to give away a bunch. It'll probably go, though, since I don't think I could read it again.
Dear Life, by Alice Munro: 14 short stories by the Nobel Prize winner.
I didn't like each of them equally, but I liked all of them.
The White Pearl, by Kate Furnivall, set in Malaya, 1941.
Interesting book, glad I read it, learned a lot about that time and place, but also found the characters interesting. Among the most interesting aspects were that some characters changed over time, so I found the book pretty lucid. I'd gladly read any of her books again.
I see I reported already about Tepper Isn't Going Out by Calvin Trillin. It's presently a shelf keeper, small book, smart book.
Now I'm on p. 55 of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I don't know yet.. I might enjoy it.
@ossobucotemp,
Finished
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick two days ago.
Finished today:
Y: The Last Man Book One by Brian K. Vaughan.
@D A T,
I might rather reread Hunter, but this
fear and loathing might be interesting. Did you dislike what you read of it?
@tsarstepan,
I've read most of Greene earlier in life than now. I wonder what I would think, reading him today.
@littlek,
Ann Rule's "Don't Look Behind You"
excellent read! I love books that have some historical background (I LOVE historical fiction) and mystery books, so true crime novels are perfect!
The book I'm reading today has me aggravated, easy enough to do with me and books:
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, where I'm on page 247. I'll post on that when I finish it. I may change my take in the meantime.
Right now, there has just been an amazing book theft, painful for at least me and lots of others to even read about -
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/12/thieves-steal-2m-of-rare-books-by-abseiling-into-warehouse
Just picked up some interesting books at the St. John the Compassionate Mission. They get better books than a lot of used book stores around here (for silly prices - last week paperbacks were $0.37 Cdn.)
Next up for me is
(link under cover 
)
@ehBeth,
Ive gotten a copy of the biography of John Steinbeck.
Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Found a pristine copy of
for Set. Looks fascinating.
Interesting website
http://paulgannonheritage.com/?page_id=789
even the review of the website is a good read
http://connemarajournal.ie/local-heritage-goes-global-on-free-interactive-website/
Quote:The project is the latest product of an interest in local heritage that first found expression in a series of radio interviews on Connemara Community Radio (CCR) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Paul recalls: ‘I got involved [with CCR] back in 1988, when it was still a pirate station. I volunteered and co-presented a programme with manager Pat Walsh and I decided to do my segment on local history.’
This coincided with a documentary Paul’s brother Michael made, interviewing their uncle about topics including local children’s burial grounds.
Paul, principal at Eagles Nest National School, in Renvyle, said: ‘I wrote up some of the stories that I recorded for the radio, along with my brother’s piece, for use in primary school.
‘I ended up with half a dozen pieces and it went from there.’
Paul proceeded to collect further stories on local topics in days gone by and, within a year, had written and published a social history called The Way It Was, which came out in 1999.
His most recent work, Pride in the Parish, is in four volumes and deals exclusively with the place of Gaelic games in Letterfrack-Ballinakill.
Gaelic games in Letterfrack-Ballinakill.
You just know you want to know more about that.
Joanne Fluke The Christmas Caramel Murder... she will have another one coming out soon...
@CalamityJane,
CalamityJane wrote:
Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Still my favorite Michael Chabon novel.（´・｀ ）♡
Right now, I'm bouncing between the audiobook of Moonglow, the semiautobiographical novel by Michael Chabon and a fantasy novella, The dream-quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson.
@ehBeth,
I think our old a2k friend Kara and her husband had a house in Connemara, besides a house in the US, I'm guessing in North Carolina. She sent me photos and I did a painting of the area. Sigh, years ago now.
I just finished the third of the three Somerset Maugham novels I chose for winter reading, Cakes and Ale, Of Human Bondage, and The Moon and Sixpence. I read The Razor's Edge years ago and always planned to read some more of his work. I really enjoy the clarity of his writing and those surprising insights into social customs, which, emerging from the Victorian era, British society just took for granted. You can almost sense modernism chipping away at the shell of tradition and ready to break through, the last vestiges of class and title still alive but limping.
@hightor,
If you're interested, the most recent Bernie Gunther novel by Phillip Kerr has Somerset Maugham as one of the characters. Kerr's books are always very thoroughly researched.
http://berniegunther.com/book/other_side_silence/
@izzythepush,
Hey thanks — I'll give it a read.
@hightor,
You're welcome. I'm a big Gunther fan, counting down the days to the next one. Kerr takes real events and characters and draws them into the narrative very convincingly, you get the feeling it could have happened that way although it definitely didn't.
I'm reading Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros. I think I'll make it through, but her writing is a little crazymaking for me. I get confused about what character she is talking about, off and on. She writes in fairly short units about a variety of different families that so far are related in some way. It is set mostly (again, so far) in Mexico. As I like Mexico, this interests me. At least one character is annoying to the max. The character will show up again and be more sympathetic, sort of like in real families. I'm on p. 125, of 430. The points of view in any given bit of the book vary from a child's to an elderly person, and back again, more than one child, more than one adult.
The book is in english, but she tosses in spanish words and phrases. I used to be able to manage to communicate in fairly rotten spanish, but that was in the 60's/early 70's. The words are sort of familiar, but I miss most of that, and I don't want to get up and google phrases.
I'll say that I like the book, somewhat guardedly.
@ossobucotemp,
I've just spent a fat wad of time wrestling with my computer (this is not rare, old mac doesn't like me to click too fast or keep windows on for too much time). I had gone on and on about how I liked a Village Voice article about writers. I'm in no mood to immediately do that again, so I'll just provide the link -
http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/for-three-decades-ian-rankin-has-been-the-crime-fiction-king-9695834
Just read We Stand On Guard, a Canadian scifi graffic novel in which the US invades Canada. Delightfully subversive.
