Reading Books For Pleasure

[twister947]

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

 

[FurryFury]

The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1) by Katherine Arden 4/5 Will be reading more.

A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen 4/5 Liked this one added more of his books to my queue.

All the Stars in the Sky (Until the End of the World, #3) by Sarah Lyons Fleming 4/5 Finished the trilogy and still want more.

The Wanderers (Unicorn Western #2) by Sean Platt 4/5 Liked the first one better but still, something about it stuck and I think of it often. Bought the whole series.

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton 3/5 Liked. Want to read the next one.

The Bookshop on the Shore (Scottish Bookshop, #2) by Jenny Colgan 4/5 Will be reading the next one. Hated to see it end.

Firewalkers by Adrian Tchaikovsky 1/5 Didn't finish.

The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake 4/5 Cute and fun.

Christmas at the Cat Café by Melissa Daley 4/5 Enjoyed but wanted to shake all the characters and make them talk to each other for real!

 

[FurryFury]

So what did you think of it? How would you rate it?

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

 

[FurryFury]

Want to see!

A Russian friend told me about a documentary about Inuit there and a Russian who went to catalog the last speakers of their language. They sang childhood songs.
Turns out, their Inuit language was really Old Russian.

 

[FurryFury]

Will be looking up.

I’ve read six time travel books in the past couple of months, by a guy named Shawn Inmon. They aren’t groundbreaking, nor are they great literature, but this thread is about pleasure, and they are definitely that.

 

[twister947]

So what did you think of it? How would you rate it?

I'm halfway through, and I like it. 4/5 Recommended.

 

[FurryFury]

The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes 4/5 About Librarians on Horseback in Kentucky coal mineing communities.

Brush Back by Sara Paretsky 4/5 Love these mysteries! Three more to go.

The Gray Ship by Russell F. Moran 4/5 Time travel down well is so fun. This one however was in the civil war which I am sick of. I did like how things ended up in it though and may read the next one.

 

[seela]

Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness by David Casarett.

The best bit of the book to me was the comparison of the American culture and Thai culture. How they react when a loved one is in the hospital, how differently they view authorities, what hope means etc.

Other than that, it was a pleasant enough read, but not really my genre. The writing is okay, the story is light and moves at a decent pace. Very similar to the Mma Ramotswe series.

The reason I picked up this book was that for years I’ve had a project of trying to read a book taking place in every country of the world. I’m about half way through. This was a low hanging fruit for Thailand that I noticed in the library. Often my method for picking a book is sheer madness, but it pays off sometimes.

 

[wallstreetguy]

Books

Sort of haunted by a missed opportunity to share love of books with an extraordinary person.
Oh well, I have my list. Will be reading a ton of Tolkien in the days and weeks to come. Can never.get too much of Tolkien.

 

[soltiera]

American Dirt. I'm really mixed on what I think about it. Good story though.

 

[hulmule]

Never was much of a reader. Always a doer. Driven to work, so i feel guilty to sit and read, or watch TV. Never really good a English and grammar so it bothers me to read. Thoughts on starting a new year and taking time to read and not feel guilty?? Drop me a PM please, always trying to be a better person.

 

[seela]

Never was much of a reader. Always a doer. Driven to work, so i feel guilty to sit and read, or watch TV. Never really good a English and grammar so it bothers me to read. Thoughts on starting a new year and taking time to read and not feel guilty?? Drop me a PM please, always trying to be a better person.

First, it doesn't make you a bad person if you don't enjoy reading. And picking up reading doesn't necessarily make you any better a person. So if reading isn't your thing, that's perfectly fine and you shouldn't feel bad about it or try to force it.

But! If you want to give reading a try and think that it might make you feel guilty and like you're wasting time doing it, maybe pick up books about your interests. Like if you enjoy woodworking, cooking, photography, running... Pick books about those, and you are likely to learn new things and at the very least pick up new ideas for your own projects. Maybe that will make it feel like it's not time wasted.

Or simply try to look at it as broadening your horizons. You can learn a lot about culture, behavior, history, politics etc from books, both fiction and non-fiction. Reading can help you understand points of view that you wouldn't normally entertain at all.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with reading just for your own entertainment and I don't consider it time wasted at all, but if your reaction to reading is different, then maybe going down the route of picking a book that will be to your own benefit can help you not feel guilty.

Let us know what you picked and how it made you feel to read!

 

[twister947]

First, it doesn't make you a bad person if you don't enjoy reading. And picking up reading doesn't necessarily make you any better a person. So if reading isn't your thing, that's perfectly fine and you shouldn't feel bad about it or try to force it.

But! If you want to give reading a try and think that it might make you feel guilty and like you're wasting time doing it, maybe pick up books about your interests. Like if you enjoy woodworking, cooking, photography, running... Pick books about those, and you are likely to learn new things and at the very least pick up new ideas for your own projects. Maybe that will make it feel like it's not time wasted.

Or simply try to look at it as broadening your horizons. You can learn a lot about culture, behavior, history, politics etc from books, both fiction and non-fiction. Reading can help you understand points of view that you wouldn't normally entertain at all.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with reading just for your own entertainment and I don't consider it time wasted at all, but if your reaction to reading is different, then maybe going down the route of picking a book that will be to your own benefit can help you not feel guilty.

Let us know what you picked and how it made you feel to read!

This. So much, this.

 

[seela]

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis.

I really liked this and her writing, but at the same time the book was quite disjointed. If you look at it as a collection of short stories connected by the same background character, Hattie, it's a really good book. If you look at it as a novel, it's pretty disjointed and leaves room for improvement - the characters could have been fleshed out more and it spans such a long period of time that it's impossible to fill in all the gaps between the moments that are shared. But I want to look at it as a collection of great short stories, and as such I liked the book a lot.

The title character Hattie moved to Philadelphia as a girl with her mom and siblings. The book consists of chapters that are named after Hattie's 12 children. Each chapter pictures a moment of the life of one of the children. The themes are quite heavy; racism, losing a child, sexuality, war etc. Hattie is always in the background and you get to know her a little, but the focus is on the children and what they go through, how their past influences everything. The moments you share with each of the children are short, but tell a lot and I think Ayana Mathis has done a really good job at packing a lot of punch with those limited pages.

Especially one chapter, taking place in a bathroom, is so short and the setting is very restricted, but it feels incredibly long and exhausting, the atmosphere is so cold and burning hot at the same time, larger than life. It really stuck with me.

I liked her writing and I'd like to read more, but seems like this is the only book she's published.

 

[zali]

Currently working my way through some older books. On my bedside table are some John D. MacDonald novels featuring Travis McGee.

Crime novels, great reads, highly recommend.

 

[seela]

Sounds heavy. I like heavy, but I think I need light.

I just finished a book and I’m looking for a recommendation.

I still recommend All the beautiful girls. Sorry, I'm lazy.

That murder at the rooster place book I wrote about above was light too. It made me hungry, all the talk about yummy Thai food...

Baking cakes in Kigali and When hoopoes go to heaven by Gaile Parkin are really good, too. These handle real issues in Rwanda and Swaziland, such as NGOs, poverty, women's rights, inequality. But these themes are not very pronounced but rather handled on the level as people in general talk about the society around them. The general mood of the books is light (cakes!!!!) and in the second book a lot of the POV is a young child's.

Currently working my way through some older books. On my bedside table are some John D. MacDonald novels featuring Travis McGee.

Crime novels, great reads, highly recommend.

There are lots of great older books around!

 

[soltiera]

Sounds heavy. I like heavy, but I think I need light.

I just finished a book and I’m looking for a recommendation.

A few I can think of that are light, interesting, quirky and entertaining:
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Had Castle by Stuart Turton
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Mr. & Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel

 

[twister947]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

 

[seela]

The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed.

It's a story of two women and a girl living in Hargeisa right when the Somalian civil war breaks out in the 80s. One of the women is a soldier, the other one is a widow and the girl is an orphan who has to survive on the streets using her wits. Their stories intertwine, move apart, then come back together again. I loved how vividly the city was described, the whole country really. It almost became a character on its own and really made me wish I could have seen Somalia before the wars started.

The book was beautifully written, pretty rough, brutal and honest, but also had a glimmer of hope, belief, understanding and an undertone of forgiveness despite it all. Something so intimate and moving about the very ending of the book. I'd like to know how the story continues.

 

[IrisAlthea]

A few I can think of that are light, interesting, quirky and entertaining:
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Had Castle by Stuart Turton
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Mr. & Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel

I really liked Eleanor Hardcastle and find it amusing that she gets one more half murder in the US title than in Europe.

The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed.

It's a story of two women and a girl living in Hargeisa right when the Somalian civil war breaks out in the 80s. One of the women is a soldier, the other one is a widow and the girl is an orphan who has to survive on the streets using her wits. Their stories intertwine, move apart, then come back together again. I loved how vividly the city was described, the whole country really. It almost became a character on its own and really made me wish I could have seen Somalia before the wars started.

The book was beautifully written, pretty rough, brutal and honest, but also had a glimmer of hope, belief, understanding and an undertone of forgiveness despite it all. Something so intimate and moving about the very ending of the book. I'd like to know how the story continues.

It sounds interesting.
If I may be curious:
Were do you find ideas for book to read?
Do you read e-books or do you prefer paper?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Re-reading Sarah Gailey's "River of Teeth", first in their "American Hippo" series: alt-history based on a real plan to introduce hippos to the Mississippi.

It's a fun caper, but one part of the story just doesn't make sense. I can't tell whether I'm missing something important in the exposition, or if Gailey did.

 

[seela]

It sounds interesting.
If I may be curious:
Were do you find ideas for book to read?
Do you read e-books or do you prefer paper?

I read almost entirely paper books. I look at screens all day long, so sometimes it's good to look at something else.

I get most of my book ideas from the library. I like to wander between the shelves and just pick up a book and see if it's interesting. If the book is not interesting, it often sparks an idea of a topic I'd like to read about and then I can go look for something more specific. My library also has really nice special shelves for staff recommendations, books to fit specfic categories of the library's reading challenge and selections of books that fit a certain theme that's somehow topical.

Another way for me to find interesting books is to pick a country and read a book that takes place there or is written by an author from that country. For a long time I've had a spreadsheet with all the countries of the world and I write down when I read a book that fits a new country. My goal is to cover the globe, but it'll take a while.

I think it's so interesting to read books from different origins. The style can be so completely different than what I'm used to seeing in western literature. You can notice traces of the culture, history and story telling everywhere.

In general I try not to get too stuck in one genre and make a little effort to read writers of varied backgrounds. That keeps reading interesting to me.

Re-reading Sarah Gailey's "River of Teeth", first in their "American Hippo" series: alt-history based on a real plan to introduce hippos to the Mississippi.

It's a fun caper, but one part of the story just doesn't make sense. I can't tell whether I'm missing something important in the exposition, or if Gailey did.

I don't love the idea of ripping hippos off their roots to become cattle, but I love hippos and odd tidbits of history, so thank you for the article!

 

[IrisAlthea]

Re-reading Sarah Gailey's "River of Teeth", first in their "American Hippo" series: alt-history based on a real plan to introduce hippos to the Mississippi.

It's a fun caper, but one part of the story just doesn't make sense. I can't tell whether I'm missing something important in the exposition, or if Gailey did.

I sometimes wonder what will be written in the future about a lot of what we are doing and reading that article was interesting. Sounds like a cool book!

I read almost entirely paper books. I look at screens all day long, so sometimes it's good to look at something else.

I get most of my book ideas from the library. I like to wander between the shelves and just pick up a book and see if it's interesting. If the book is not interesting, it often sparks an idea of a topic I'd like to read about and then I can go look for something more specific. My library also has really nice special shelves for staff recommendations, books to fit specfic categories of the library's reading challenge and selections of books that fit a certain theme that's somehow

I used to do just the same with the library but it has been a long time since I did. Picking a country might be an idéa to try though.

I used to read books the oldschool way and be rabid about it.
Then I started reading some non fiction digitally on the phone or tablet, because it was easier to buy som books that way and to read away from home.

A friend vowed to corrupt me for putting down his reading habits.
He gave me his old kindle when he got a new one with a bunch of books we had talked about and that I wanted to read.
I stand eehh corrupted. :

I still really love reading real books, when I do that, but it’s just so much easier to buy and cart around and not buy more shelves.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I sometimes wonder what will be written in the future about a lot of what we are doing and reading that article was interesting. Sounds like a cool book!

Yeah, there's a plot hole a mile wide and that bugs me every time I read it, but I still enjoyed it.

One interesting storytelling choice - most of the crew are queer, but there's almost no homophobia despite this being set in 1890s USA. I guess the author decided it would be more fun not to be historically accurate on that point. Or maybe the hippos ate all the homophobes. I can live with that.

 

[IrisAlthea]

Yeah, there's a plot hole a mile wide and that bugs me every time I read it, but I still enjoyed it.

One interesting storytelling choice - most of the crew are queer, but there's almost no homophobia despite this being set in 1890s USA. I guess the author decided it would be more fun not to be historically accurate on that point. Or maybe the hippos ate all the homophobes. I can live with that.

Those would be some hefty hippos, I think.

I recently read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
It’s about a Southern Baptist Missionary family who leave the US in the late 50s for the Belgian Congo. The go without the full blessing of their organization and stay after the independence without any support.

I really liked it so I got Unsheltered by the same author. I do like it but I’m having trouble focusing on it right now, so I’ve put it aside for a while.