Just finished By the Rivers of Babylon by Demille. Wow that was intense. Basically the whole story takes place over two days of an attempted hostage taking of Israelis by a Palestinian group.
So, next genre needs to be True Crime or Action & Adventure. I donāt believe I have any True Crime in the house. A&A is so broad, I am choosing Ben Hur, I think it fits.
Will be my beach book, but will be a while before I get there again anyway
Iāve been listening to āThe Midnight Libraryā by Matt Haig and Iām getting very close to bailing.
A woman has made a bunch of life decisions she regrets and decides to kill herself. She instead finds herself in a library where each of the infinite books is a possible alternative path for her life based on decisions sheās made. And she gets to try some alternatives. It should be obvious that each alternative life path she tries sucks even worse than the one thatās so bad sheās trying to end it. Starts as a downer and seems to have nowhere to go but down. Iām guessing in the end she figures her horrible life is ā¦ relatively good (as good as it gets)? Hmm. Maybe it gets more Itās A Wonderful Life and she gets to appreciate the old Bailey Building and Loan? Still itās been a downer so far.
Marc Burrowsā The Magic of Terry Pratchett ā itās a kind of literary biography, and of course has a lot of footnotes
I have KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: - David Grann; so I am good for a while. Had to google true crime books, to see if I had any I wasnāt aware of
Iāve been reading 1491 by Charles Mann which is all about the Americas just before Europeans started rapidly arriving. Pretty interesting stuff. For example the Pilgrims settled in the remains of a town that had just recently been wiped out by European disease.
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Iām not good at listening to books, but I found the short chapters really led to this book being a rapid page turner for me. I also really did like the conclusion, but yeah, there were bits in the middle that got a little repetitive.
That looks good. Iāll have to check my local liberryā¦
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Turns out it has it! Iāll go later today to get it.
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I felt like The Midnight Library did get better and even more interesting. However, I might not have stuck with it if it werenāt a book club read for me.
In the end, it provided much fodder for reflection.
Almost finished with Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink. I believe itās YA but itās not annoyingly YAājust has 16yo main characters.
I listened to some more and it dawns on me that a good part of my annoyance with the book is that she enters the alternate timeline without any knowledge of that timeline. It just seems like it doesnāt make any sense (what would be the point of moving to a timeline where you donāt have the background/skills/etc to thrive in that timeline? Iād think at the very least that you should inherit knowledge of that timeline). The whole thing of interacting with people on the timeline without having the foggiest idea who they are and what their relationships are is just cringy.
Just finished Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Hays translation, for those who care).
Probably next going to cycle back to The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett (for my 3rd read of a Pratchett this year). And also start Discourses and Enchiridion from Epictetus.
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Yes! I hated this aspect of the book as well.
I think Iām gonna start The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly. Unless one of my library holds becomes available in the next 8 hours.
Started The Brass Verdict yesterday. I decided Iāll listen to nonfiction on my morning commute and fiction in the afternoon.
This morning I got back into Caroās The Passage of Power. It was interesting to learn about JFKās assassination from LBJās vantage point.
Finished The Dragon Republic last week; 1/4 through Klara and the Sun, and halfway through Fugitive Telemetry (the latest Murderbot novella). Will finish The Poppy War trilogy after.
You guys read a lot more than I do.
I finished Stephen Kingās 1922. Itās pretty short but one of his more depressing stories.
Just picked up āA Little Hatredā by Joe Abercrombie.
I finished The Midnight Library and my overall view of it didnāt change too much. Iāve got another Matt Haig book on my list - The Humans - and Iām wondering if I should scratch it. Has anyone read it?
Finished this one ā the best part (to me) was following the business of publication, but there were all sorts of aspects covered in the bookā¦ and Burrows has a reasonable bibliography/sources that most could get into. Burrows is obviously a Pratchett fan, but takes a pretty fair journalistic approach.
Got one of my library holds and switched to Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid as my fiction title. Should finish this weekend. This author always seems to hold my interest.
Finally finished Caste bc I was getting tired of it. She presents some interesting ideas tho.
Spent a lot of time listening to podcasts this week which cut into my audiobook time.