Outside of a Dog, a Book is Man's Best Friend (The Book Thread)

[Erin]

The other book I read was Prairie Fires, a new biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This is the best biography, by far, that I have yet read of Wilder or her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.

Wow - this is high praise! I'm a megafan of Wilder and have read several excellent biographies of her, so I can't wait to get my hands on this one.

 

[clairecloutier]

Wow - this is high praise! I'm a megafan of Wilder and have read several excellent biographies of her, so I can't wait to get my hands on this one.

I think you'll like it. One thing to note--I have found that Wilder biographies often seem to wind up "favoring" either Wilder or her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, usually one at the expense of the other. This book definitely "favors" Wilder and presents a somewhat negative view of Lane.

 

[Kasey]

Interesting that the discussion is about Laura Ingalls Wilder right now; I finished Alison Arngrim's "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" while on vacation and loved it! I think she's a great lady, and a nice "voice" to spend time with. The only thing I didn't like so much was the frequent harping on what a cold fish Melissa Sue Anderson apparently was/is; you've made your point, just ignore her for the rest of the book, instead of continuing to point it out.

 

[Susan1]

I happened upon a new standalone thriller novel by Kathy Reichs that is not a Bones book. The Bones books are so technically graphic, I get bored (even though I have read most of them - and seen every episode of Bones). I'll let you all know if the story is good.

 

[Habs]

I definitely will have to get a couple out of the library at some point and read them, because I'm getting the impression that the books are actually better quality than I remember. I'm curious if that impression will hold when I read them myself.

I reread a couple of them over the Christmas break. They hold up! From an adult perspective, I think they're surprisingly well-written.

 

[Erin]

One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus - YA Murder mystery. I found this to be the literary equivalent of the first season of something like Gossip Girl or Riverdale. Is it quality literature? No. Is it very entertaining and would I binge watch the hell out of it on Netflix? Absolutely. (Oh, and one of the characters is Colombian-American and I love that because she talks about her dad hates the cocaine stereotype so much, and I get it )

I read this all in one evening and loved it. Agree with the not quality literature but highly entertaining description. I actually had to go back and re-read it because I was wanted to find the clues that I had missed along the way. My only couple of mild criticisms were that 1) I could have done without the romance angle. This part is probably pretty predictable, but it deals with the end so I'll spoiler it just in case.

Spoiler

The break-up and getting back together at the end was especially annoying because it really dragged the book out longer than it needed to be and it seemed like there was no real reason for it.

and 2) This part does deal with the mystery angle, so probably more important to spoiler.

Spoiler

The character of Janae was introduced with no real explanation even though she ends up being pretty pivotal and I wondered if I had missed the description of who she was, but on my re-read, I only found that she was mentioned vaguely in Nate's discussion as "that goth girl that always followed Simon around" and then in Addy's she is brought up as Janae with no explanation and we are supposed to figure out who she is. It could have used a bit of exposition. Unless I missed it on the re-read also.

Anyway...still a fun, quick read that I'd recommend.

 

[Marta24]

I finished "A little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara and it`s one book, I`m not going to forget so easily. The author has a way of really getting under my skin and I can`t remember the last book that affected me that much as did this one. I don`t think I´ve ever read a 800 pages book as quickly as this one.

Sorry for the but this book really impressed me and I had to share

 

[Erin]

I read Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere over the past couple of days. It's basically the story of an the Richardsons, an upper class family in Shaker Heights, a Cleveland suburb, and their interactions with Mia and Pearl Warren, a mother-daughter who live in a rental house the family owns. There's also a custody battle subplot in the background involving family friends of the Richardsons and a coworker of Mia's. I thought this was generally very well done. I've read both of Ng's books and like her writing style. Both of them address race issues involving Asian-Americans, although only in the subplot in this book. The only thing I didn't really like had to do with how part of the ending was left rather ambiguous.

Spoiler

I would have liked things involving Izzy to have been resolved and to learn where she ended up. I'm just not a fan of ambiguous endings generally

 

[puglover]

I couldn't see anything on here about the new Douglas Preston/Lincoln Children book called CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHTS. It is a book in the Pendergast series and read by Rene Auberjenois. It is truly sublime. We had just arrived from cold Calgary to Palm Springs and I spent my first day just sitting in the sun and listening to this book! I Loved It!!

 

[Susan1]

In case you don't look at the t.v. threads, I'll put this here. I saw a special People magazine figure skating edition at the checkout at Kroger. I was in the express lane just buying paper towels, so I didn't get to look much, but I saw pictures of Dick Button, Peggy Fleming, Tara, Sasha, Sale and Pelletier (so it's not just USA). And then the later part is current skaters.

 

[oleada]

@Erin, I'm glad you enjoyed One of Us is Lying! It's a fun read. My MIL got me Little Fires Everywhere for Christmas, so it's on my to-read list.

I finished another good YA, Far From The Tree, which won the National Book Award. Ugh, I cried reading it. I really felt for all the characters, even Maya, who was my least favorite, because she was annoying in that way young teenagers often are. I really liked it.

Now I'm reading Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird since I recently binged on the ITV show.

 

[rfisher]

I couldn't see anything on here about the new Douglas Preston/Lincoln Children book called CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHTS. It is a book in the Pendergast series and read by Rene Auberjenois. It is truly sublime. We had just arrived from cold Calgary to Palm Springs and I spent my first day just sitting in the sun and listening to this book! I Loved It!!

Huh. This is the only Pendergast book I was totally bored by. Pendergast is really off his game being all angsty about Constance (who I can't stand). I got a third a way through the book and set it aside. I'll go back and pick it up later. Maybe.

 

[Erin]

Now I'm reading Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird since I recently binged on the ITV show.

Ooh, I need to add this one to my reading list.

 

[puglover]

Very interesting that we had such different reactions to the book. I guess I never really considered whether I liked Constance or not as she has been a very secondary character throughout the series, at least, that is how I have seen her. One thing that resonated with me about this particular book was the fact that Pendergast with his superior mind, abilities, and strength of character could be laid low by matters of the heart. I do agree that there were several points in the book where I would like to have given him a good shaking. That the greatest among us can be severely impacted by a love gone wrong or not fully recognized appeals to me.

Huh. This is the only Pendergast book I was totally bored by. Pendergast is really off his game being all angsty about Constance (who I can't stand). I got a third a way through the book and set it aside. I'll go back and pick it up later. Maybe.

 

[puglover]

I recently read "The Wife Between Us" by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Another book co-written but they apparently wrote it "together" as opposed to dividing up the chapters. They stated in an interview they needed to do it this way as the theme is complicated. I usually don't like books that jump back and forth but they did a good job of holding my interest. Kind of a "Gone Girl" style of book but I liked it.

I also read "The Woman in the Window" by A.J. Finn. Interesting concept of an agoraphobic who spies on her neighbors. It started out interesting to look at life from the eyes of someone unable to venture outside at all but soon became very repetitive and the mystery was a foregone conclusion. I didn't finish it.

 

[rfisher]

For those who read the JD Robb Eve Dallas books, the latest is really interesting. Not so much the murder(s), but the underlying theme in the book. Nora Roberts/Robb is really blasting readers all the way from crazy, over obsessed fans who act as if the characters are real, to those who think they have a personal relationship with authors, to plagiarism. I know she refuses to allow fan fiction of her characters on fan fiction sites. I've no doubt some of the fan letters she's woven into the plot were similar to some she's received. I was as I read the book last night. She clearly has had it with some of her fans.

 

[made_in_canada]

For Canadians, it's Canada Reads time

 

[missing]

I recently read "The Wife Between Us" by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Another book co-written but they apparently wrote it "together" as opposed to dividing up the chapters. They stated in an interview they needed to do it this way as the theme is complicated. I usually don't like books that jump back and forth but they did a good job of holding my interest. Kind of a "Gone Girl" style of book but I liked it.

I also read "The Woman in the Window" by A.J. Finn. Interesting concept of an agoraphobic who spies on her neighbors. It started out interesting to look at life from the eyes of someone unable to venture outside at all but soon became very repetitive and the mystery was a foregone conclusion. I didn't finish it.

I just finished reading The Wife Between Us. About midway through there was a description of an apartment and I thought, this feels very familiar.

Then I realized the apartment was similar to one in another recent book, The Second Mrs. Parrish, which I had read in December.

The further along I got in The Wife Between Us, the more alike the plots became.

I don't think there was any plagarism involved, since the books were published within months of each other. I think there are certain plot tropes that are currently very much in vogue, and both these books took the same basic concepts and twisted and turned them almost identically.

I preferred The Last Mrs. Parrish, which I thought was more clever. But that could simply be because I read it first.

 

[Prancer]

I don't think there was any plagarism involved, since the books were published within months of each other. I think there are certain plot tropes that are currently very much in vogue

I read The Last Mrs. Parrish a little while back and saw the big twist coming a mile off because there are so many books that are essentially the same. I blame Gone Girl.

I preferred The Last Mrs. Parrish, which I thought was more clever. But that could simply be because I read it first.

I liked the first section best and the end least. I thought Amber was diabolical and so the workings of her sociopathic mind were really interesting to me. I found the rest rather meh and the end is just too pat.

 

[Jenny]

Dear Will Shortz,

Must there be a Harry Potter crossword clue virtually every Sunday?

Signed,
Big fan of the New York Times magazine puzzle pages, zero interest in anything to do with a children's fantasy series

 

[PrincessLeppard]

For my class, I read Three Day Road by....Peter(?) Joseph! Boyden. Parts of it are excellent - particularly the scenes in the trenches of WWI. I mean, I knew that war was awful, but his depictions really brought the horror to life. When he switches to his female narrator, it's not as well done. And the graphic sex scenes are totally out of place. (I have nothing against graphic sex scenes. More books should have them. But not this book.)

Someone who does write a female lead well is David Young in Stasi Child. It takes place in East Germany in the mid-70s and I enjoyed it a great deal. And it's apparently going to be a series! I'm super excited.

 

[Mozart]

For my birthday I asked for, and received, 2 big bookcases from my parents (you know you are getting old when you ask for furniture). All my shelves were occupied with sheet music and my poor books have been mostly sitting in boxes. Now I have them all in the bookcases in alphabetical order by author. My brother sent me a $100 Indigo/chapters gift card so I have 11 new books coming Mostly light reading as I love murder mystery/crime type stuff. I don't think I ever mentioned this but when I was taking some online classes through Memorial University of Newfoundland I took a sociology course on serial killers.Since I have seen so many true crime tv programs/movies and read lots of true crime books I thought it would be a wise to get credit for it lol. It was actually a great class (only half was serial killers, the second half was about war) which was focused on the question."are serial killers made or are they born that way"?.

The books I ordered:


The Last Mile David Baldacci
Fool Me Once Harlan Coben
The Late Show Michael Connelly
The Woman in the Window AJ Finn
The Good Nurse Charles Graeber (true crime)
Almost dead Lisa Jackson
Last scream Lisa Jackson
Pretty Baby Mary Kubica (I have and liked The Good Girl)
Unraveling Oliver Liz Nugent
What She Knew Gilly McMillan
Keep Quiet Lisa Scottoline


I'm currently reading Deadline by John Sanford. I have read most of his Prey books so now I'm reading the Virgil Flowers books.

 

[puglover]

I got "Night Moves". It is the new Alex Delaware book from Jonathan Kellerman. I would not recommend it. He has an amazing vocabulary but that is about it. I found the characters boring, plot poor, and too many sub plots. I guess I would have to reread some of his earlier books to see if I haven't liked his characters in the past - except for Alex and Milo.

 

[Susan1]

The Last Mile David Baldacci
Fool Me Once Harlan Coben
The Late Show Michael Connelly
The Woman in the Window AJ Finn
The Good Nurse Charles Graeber (true crime)
Almost dead Lisa Jackson
Last scream Lisa Jackson
Pretty Baby Mary Kubica (I have and liked The Good Girl)
Unraveling Oliver Liz Nugent
What She Knew Gilly McMillan
Keep Quiet Lisa Scottoline

I'm currently reading Deadline by John Sanford. I have read most of his Prey books so now I'm reading the Virgil Flowers books.

I got "Night Moves". It is the new Alex Delaware book from Jonathan Kellerman.

Thanks for some new ideas for my list. I've been reading all of the Harlen Coben (I've only got one Mickey Bolitar left to read), Michael Connelly, Lisa Jackson, Mary Kubica and Lisa Scottoline books, either starting at the beginning or as the new Kubica books come out. I've never read any of the Baldacci books. He's been around for decades, hasn't he? Same with John Sanford. I haven't read an Alex Delaware book for years. Maybe I should start back with an old one. It took me all last week to read an old C. J. Box book. Now that the Olympics are winding down, I reserved three more books from the library yesterday.

 

[Mozart]

On my walk today I popped into library and they had a few carts of used books for sale for 25 cents so I bought a few. Some authors that I have read before and some other books I sounded interesting.



Trust your eyes Linwood Barclay
The Hit David Baldacci
Miracle cure Harlan Coben
No second chance Harlan Coben
Six Years Harlan Coben
The insider Stephen Frey
A traitor to memory Elizabeth George
The Racketeer John Grisham
Devious Lisa Jackson
Unspoken Lisa Jackson
The Husband Dean Koontz
Damned if you do Robert B Parker
Worst Case James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
Sly Fox Janine Pirro
What you see Hank Phillippi Ryan
Empty Promises Ann Rule

 

[Susan1]

On my walk today I popped into library and they had a few carts of used books for sale for 25 cents so I bought a few. Some authors that I have read before and some other books I sounded interesting.

Trust your eyes Linwood Barclay
Miracle cure Harlan Coben
No second chance Harlan Coben
Six Years Harlan Coben
The Racketeer John Grisham
Damned if you do Robert B Parker
Worst Case James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Of the Harlen Coben stand alone books on your list, I've only read Six Years. And Damned If You Do is in the Jesse Stone series. I read all of those in order. And I've seen all the movies with Tom Selleck as Jesse. I've read all Linwood Barclays - all good! Waiting for the next one!

We seem to have the same taste in murder mysteries. Have you read any David Rosenfelt? There are 16 Andy Carpenters that you'd have to read in order because the characters' stories continue. And 7 stand alones. Waiting for his next one too.

I read all the James Patterson books as they come out too.

The library branch that is closed for remodeling is the only one that ever had books for sale. And they weren't that cheap or had that many. If I ever saw any I wanted to read, I would have gone home and reserved them from another branch anyway.

My mom used to buy the same paperbacks at the grocery store that I got for free at the library. Or she'd get them at the half price book store and then return them for a discount on another one. She had one living room bookcase shelf of paperbacks with a row in the front and more stacked up all behind. 5 of the ones I put in the garage sale were John Grisham. I read two of them back in the day but they were too similar.

 

[Erin]

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez - now this one I LOVED. The main character is a teen who doesn't quite fit in with her culture, and who loses her "perfect" older sister. The main character is such a teen. She's not that likable but I related to her so much and I could see myself as a teen in her. Lots of very believable character development, too. I loved seeing all the descriptions of Mexican-American life, good and bad. It got nominated for a National Book Award, and I think it's well deserved.

Just finished a YA novel by Julie Buxbaum called “What to say next”. It had been a free sample on Kindle, but the story had me buying it quickly. Loved the two main character’s voices, and ended the book wanting to know what happens next with them (not something that happens often for me). I’d recommend, and I may try another of hers

I read both of these recently and would recommend both of them. Both quick reads, both got me pretty emotional in parts. The first one had me crying on an airplane over one scene, so ah be careful where you read it if you are prone to that kind of thing. And the second had a couple of sections that brought back some of my own painful high school memories. And that isn't even taking into account that both books have a main character lose a family member before the book opens.

So while I'm glad I read both, perhaps it's good that I'm moving on to reading Julia Baird's Victoria: The Queen. I'm about 25% through and it's already excellent. Lots of additional details I never knew (she had an older half sister she was close to) and well-written. The Lord Melbourne chapter alone is worth reading the book for.

 

[oleada]

I'm glad you liked both recs, @Erin

I was on vacation and read quite a bit:

Little Fires Everywhere by Celest Ng - This was interesting. I love her characterization of everyone; though I kind of hated most of the characters. But, I thought Everything I Never Told You was a stronger effort.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova - It's been on my Nook forever, waiting to be read. So sad. Very gripping and written well. Dementia is such a horrible disease. I want to watch the movie and compare now.

The Power by Naomi Alderman - I'm still processing this one. It's set in a future where women develop an electromagnetic power that causes great pain. I'm not sure if the premise really worked itself into a gripping book, but it was so fascinating and I'm still thinking about it. The way it's written reminds me of Handmaid's Tale - apparently, Margaret Atwood is Alderman's mentor.

I started The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, who wrote The Nightingale which was one of my favorite reads last year. It's quite promising so far.

 

[Prancer]

@Susan1, I thought you might be interested in this mystery-suspense book: Not That I Could Tell. It won't be out until March 27th, but from the blurb: Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs,

I am definitely going to have to read it. @genevieve might want to give it a shot, too.

 

[Susan1]

@Susan1, I thought you might be interested in this mystery-suspense book: Not That I Could Tell. It won't be out until March 27th, but from the blurb: Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs,

I am definitely going to have to read it. @genevieve might want to give it a shot, too.

Cool. I'm putting it on my list of books to look for!

Yellow Springs IS quirky. I wonder if they'll have a street fair or go to Ha-Ha Pizza. Our figure skating club used to do roller blading outings from there. I roller bladed 9 miles, YES 9 MILES, to Xenia three years in a row.

Years ago, I was reading these cozy mysteries by Sharon Short. The main character ran a laundromat in Ohio, and I always pictured the laundromat and the downtown area in Miamisburg when I was reading them. The town seemed more like it would be farther east and more in the boonies like near Chillicothe or something though. After about the third one, I looked at her biography on the back and she WAS from Miamisburg and then Centerville and was a columnist for the DDN.