Finally finishing some books. I’ve been in a reading slump. It doesn’t help that my daughter is going through a thing and has to interrupt me every 5 minutes.
About to finish Hummingbird Lane by Carolyn Brown. I’m giving it 2 stars. It starts out heavy and is ending too perfectly.
Not sure what is next. Maybe something by Stephen King.
I thought I had something by King in my Audible library but I didn’t. Instead went with a cozy mystery: A Killer Crop by Sheila Connolly, my first by this author. Chosen most likely bc it has a cute fall cover and was probably on sale at audible.
Cute story typical of this genre.
Since my brother and I are always asking each other what to read next, he got me a coffee table book of books for my birthday. I thought it was a great gift!
Also just started Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Suzanne Clarke.
Not a coffee table book about coffee tables, and which is also a coffee table?
I distinctly remember adding this to my list years ago, but I see it is not there. It must have been pre-goodreads and I lost it in the transition.
Finished a book for the first time in a month. Found out why this book felt denser than normal. It is. It’s over 520,000 words long, so 2x as dense as the average book in words per page.
Solid finish, though it did have one of my pet peeves regarding climax/denouement in standard epic fantasy.
Spoiler for this book and The Hobbit: the climactic battle feels rushed, then the main character is knocked out and later finds out who survived, etc. Think the end of The Hobbit
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Several books at the finish line now. Finished The Song of Roland last night. I should also finish The Kalevala, The Iliad, Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, and Starlight Enclave this week.
Once I wrap up my currently-reading list, I want to start The Odyssey. On my near-term horizon: Aeneid, The Metamorphoses, Orlando Innamorato, Orlando Furioso, the Decameron, Canterbury Tales, Divine Comedy, The Fairie Queene, Paradise Lost, Don Quixote. I also have a number of shorter standalone fantasy books staring at me.
Decided to read KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I. By David Grann before going to see the movie.
The book is written as a murder mystery so the killers are not revealed until late in the book. Along the way, the history of the Osage people is provided. Interesting insight also into the early days of the FBI.
I find Oklahoma history interesting as my mother-in-law had been born there in 1923 and had Cherokee ancestry. Undoubtedly her ancestors and the Osage clashed in the Oklahoma Territory. Both nations were subjected to harsh treatment historically by the US government but the Osage at least benefitted ultimately from the immense oil reserves that were discovered under the land they were assigned to.
I had not heard the story of the Osage murders before Grann’s book came out but I also had not heard about the Black Wall Street atrocities in Tulsa that also happened around 100 years ago. Some similarities in the two events as envy and greed resulted in the punishment of minority groups for their prosperity.
Just finished Tom Felton’s memoir Beyond the Wand
How is it?
I liked his documentary.
I liked it. It was fun hearing some of the behind the scenes stuff about the Harry Potter filming, but also I just thought he was a good story teller.
yeah, the audiobook version I listened to was great. Love the story - has me laughing my ass off, and I love Miss Trixie.
Henry V: The Warrior King of 1415
What’s interesting about this is it goes day-by-day through 1415, using various royal records, particularly looking at money spent, as Henry gets ready to invade France (I’m still only at March 25).
At the same time, the Council of Constance is going on, during which the Catholic Church is trying to clean up having 3 Popes at once (a bit of an embarrassment, especially as one of the three is particularly corrupt and takes a lot to get rid of.) Some pre-figuring of Protestant Reformation, 100 years before the event.
Don’t forget Burma Jones - Ooo Wee!
So, obviously, the character I identify with most is Mr. Levy Pants. (well, Mr. Levy) – Burma Jones is fairly reasonable, considering, but Mr. Levy is the only really sane person in the whole crew. The shit he puts up with from everybody is just too much, and his reaction is pretty level-headed.
The Ghost of Halloween Past by Bobbi Jones.
recently finished Rabbits by Terry Miles. “technothriller” mystery that incorporates multiple-universe theory etc. 3/5 stars, would not recommend.
also finished Self-Portrait with Ghost by Meng Jin. Literary short stories (nothing really happens or, if it does, the main character doesn’t have a lot of agency in the resolution) with female Chinese main characters set either in China or the Pacific Northwest. Enjoyable. 4/5 stars, good to get a different perspective on the world.
currently in the middle of a re-read of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Then I’ll add the rest of the series to my to-read list over the next few years.
I think the point wasn’t that all the other lives suck more, it’s that the decisions she made weren’t necessarily the wrong ones after all. They weren’t mistakes because the opposite decision wouldn’t necessarily have got her what she thinks she would have got. As she finds out when she tries doing that.
Her first discovery is that the cat she thought she killed by allowing him to go outside (and then when she discovered him dead she assumed he was hit by a car) actually died of heart disease, and actually had lived longer because of her, not shorter.
I found it funny that in all the alternate lives, and in the original, the place she was fired from, supposedly for scaring away customers by not looking perfectly cheerful, went out of business, regardless of whether she worked there or not. That was one of the sources of her initial depression, getting blamed and then fired. I wondered if the author at some point had to deal with getting blamed for something at work. It’s kind of a revenge to portray that workplace as just constantly going out of business, showing how delusional some blaming can get. Most of the alternate lives had extreme variations but this was the one constant.
The conclusions are kind of obvious to some, but it’s a good book to read if you’re beating yourself up over some mistake. It’s good to read something that reminds you that life isn’t completely determined by your choices, that even when something happens because of your choices, it’s not always what you expect.
On the other hand, if you find books about suicide depressing, and the conclusions above are ones you’ve always been confident of, it’s probably not the book for you.
I had mixed feelings about The Midnight Library.
Just finished News of the World by Paulette Jiles. Have not seen the movie.