What Fiction are you reading this week, December 8, 2024?

[hermetic]

This discussion thread is pinned.

Reading The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves, DI Vera Stanhope and her team find a body near the Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside and superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. The dark secrets in the community may be far more dangerous than Vera could have ever believed possible.

Listened to a Christmas story, of sorts, All the Little Liars by Charlaine Harris. Good mystery. A bunch of kids go missing, all at the same time. It has a surprising but happy ending. Brought a tear to my eye. Now I've got Storm Front by Jim Butcher playing. "Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers." Magic: it can get a guy killed.

[Tetrachloride]

1. The Uplift Universe series by David Brin. Currently, The Uplift War and Infinity's Shore

[WestMichRad]

5. I recently read Earth by David Brin

Very challenging to figure out what was going on. Was halfway thru the book before the disparate plot lines began to get tied together. Made it hard for me to stay engaged with the book.

Are all of Brin’s novels like that?

[Tetrachloride]

8. The books by David Brin that I don't read include: Kiln People, Otherness and Earth.

Most have multiple threads. I find these books highly engaging:

StarTide Rising
The Uplift War
Brightness Reef
Infinity's Shore.
--------
Glory Season
Sundiver.
---------
Heaven's Reach

Yes, David Brin and I like the multiple threads. I find the 7 books optimistic.

The other 3: Earth, Otherness and Kiln People are not for me. No resonance or something.

His books are strong / loaded, but the 7 don't make me feel like I am swimming in grunge. By comparison, I gave up reading Moby Dick and A Tale of Two Cities.

[blue sky at night]

2. Dean Koontz

rediscovered him on YouTube...last few days "After Death". I love how technical he is and very up to date with the technology. Never have time to read but can listen in all the time...especially while we sleep.

[hermetic]

7. Wow! I had no idea

I have spent so much time trying to find decent audio books through my VERY underfunded library and there's bunches of them on YouTube. Thank you!

[LearnedHand]

21. Some libraries offer out-of-state library cards

Some for reasonable fees, and some for really high fees. Here's a decent list: https://bookriot.com/out-of-state-library-cards/

[recovering_democrat]

3. new book editing type book intention, just added by me sooo great!

Maria Hinojosa:
Once I was You.

Enjoying it: recommendation words:
story of immigration in America through her family’s experiences and decades of reporting, painting an unflinching portrait of a country in crisis in this memoir that is “quite simply beautiful, written in Maria Hinojosa’s honest, passionate voice” (Book Page).

Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning journalist who, for nearly thirty years, has reported on stories and communities in America that often go ignored by the mainstream media—from tales of hope in the South Bronx to the unseen victims of the War on Terror and the first detention camps in the US. Bestselling author Julia Álvarez has called her “one of the most important, respected, and beloved cultural leaders in the Latinx community.”

In Once I Was You, Maria shares her intimate experience growing up Mexican American on the South Side of Chicago. She offers a personal and illuminating account of how the rhetoric around immigration has not only long informed American attitudes toward outsiders, but also sanctioned willful negligence and profiteering at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable populations—charging us with the broken system we have today.
Also available in Spanish as Una vez fui tú.

[JoetheShow]

4. Noble House by James Clavell

Good read but this may take a while.

[hermetic]

12. A review

from a New York newspaper: "a book that you can get lost in for weeks . . . staggering complexity . . . not only is it as long as life, it’s also as rich with possibilities."

Sounds great.

[rsdsharp]

24. I reread that earlier this year. It's one of my favorite Clavells.

[Mz Pip]

6. Orbital

By Samantha Harvey. It won the 2024 Booker Prize for fiction.

[hermetic]

13. Ooooh yeah

Looking forward to reading that one. How are you liking it so far?

[Mz Pip]

20. So far so good

I like the writing.

[japple]

9. Thanks for the weekly thread, hermetic. I'm still meandering thru the Texas Hill Country

in Elizabeth Crook's, The Which Way Tree. It is my favorite kind of book--an adventure set in the 1800s West, populated with strange characters and tales of bravery with an undertone of humor. Kind of like Paulette Jiles' books or True Grit.

Next up, I am planning on re-reading Simon Van Booy's book, Sipsworth again as I'm in the mood for something warm and cozy.

[hermetic]

14. I want to read that one, too

Sipsworth :"a reminder that there is always reason for hope." Definitely going to be needing some of that.

[Beatlelvr]

10. Carl Hiaason

Bad Monkey. I was reading alot of political books, mainly anti Trump. Not enough people read them, and I'm kind of burned out. Hiaason is my guy for escapism.

[hermetic]

15. I have always enjoyed

his writing. Smart and funny.

[cbabe]

11. Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman/A Measure of Darkness

Pulled off the library shelf. Great detective read.

Not a fan of the Alex Delaware series so this father/son collaboration is a nice surprise.

Clay Edison, Bay Area coroner, smart, compassionate, ruthless. Think Vera, sort of.

A few inside jokes: Spencer’s psychiatrist girlfriend ‘talk off’ against protagonist Clay’s psychiatrist girlfriend. Well done.

[hermetic]

17. Sounds good

One more for the list.

[Easterncedar]

16. The Future by Naomi Alderman

I just finished it. Very very realistic portrayal of how the tech bros run the world, but with a twist I quite enjoyed.

[hermetic]

18. Brand new

And intriguing. "..a white-knuckle tour de force and dazzling exploration of the world we have made and where we are going."

[DetlefK]

19. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

In 1984 Tokyo in an alternate timeline, a female assassin is on the run after the contract-kill of an abusive cult-leader. Things get problematic when the man she secretly loves gets into business with the cult.

[LearnedHand]

22. I really liked that book!

Very clever and good writing.

[mentalsolstice]

23. Just finished The Price of Bread and Shoes by Lonormi Manuel

About a coal mining company town in the early 1920s. I highly recommend it. Now I’m reading Playing Nice by JP Delaney, about baby swapping, a mystery/thriller.

Have a look week.

[rsdsharp]

25. I just finished Conclave by Robert Harris.

The movie trailers look good, and I liked White Smoke by Father Andrew Greeley, so I thought I’d try it. The Pope dies unexpectedly, and the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who runs the conclave, learns some of the frontrunners for Pope have serious skeletons in their closets.

I must have liked it because I’m now reading his Pompeii.

[Polly Hennessey]

26. I read Conclave and enjoyed it so much I am now reading Imperium

about Cicero. Excellent, so far.

[rsdsharp]

27. I've read most of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome Series.

Great historical fiction, and I learned a lot.

[Number9Dream]

31. I'm on an inter-library loan list for "Conclave"

Thanks for the positive reviews.

[returnee]

28. Moby Dick. (nt)

[LogDog75]

29. Vitals by Greg Bear

Vitals is a book about two identical brothers, separately, who are trying to figure out how to make humans immortal. Shortly after Hal Cousins gets a call from his brother Ron, he learns Ron has been killed. Soon, other scientists around the country also studying longevity have been killed. Hal Cousins becomes targeted by those who've used similar research from 70 years ago to keep the secret to themselves.

I finished reading two books, No Time for Goodby and No Safe House by Linwood Barclay. No Time for Goodby is about a woman, Cynthia, when she was 14 years old was caught by her father beyond her curfew drinking with her older boyfriend. The next morning, when she wakes up her mother, father, and older brother are missing. Twenty-five years later she starts receiving messages about where they are. She is now married with an 8 year old daughter and the possibility of finding her family is causing her to act erratically.

No Safe House is a continuation of No Time for Goodbybut seven years later when Cynthia and her family get caught up in a scheme by a local mobster (her boyfriend from when she was 14 years old) who is using other people's houses to hide money, guns, and stolen property in people's attics.

Both novel are excellent reads and, unlike many novels, there are no loose ends or unexplained actions/behaviors.

[hermetic]

30. Those all sound really good

Thanks for sharing. And welcome to the group.

[Number9Dream]

32. About 1/3 way through "1356" by Bernard Cornwell... very good so far

I generally like Cornwell's historical fiction, and this one is very good so far. The English and mercenaries versus the French and Scottish., and the search for a holy icon.

[mike_c]

33. Hurry Sundown by K.B. Gilden

I haven't started it yet but hope to begin before week's end. It's a big'un.

[yellowdogintexas]

34. That was made into a great movie with Jane Fonda and Michael Caine

Otto Preminger directed it. I saw it when I was in college

[yellowdogintexas]

35. Almost finished with Murder in Williamstown - a Phryne Fisher mystery

Phryne is very close to solving the mystery, I enjoy the characters in these books a great deal. If you saw the series on PBS, you know that Phryn is a very liberated, smart woman with a fabulous wardrobe. Her fabulous clothes are vividly described in detail. There are over 30 of these books, so lots to look forward to!