What are you reading this week of January 7, 2018?

[hermetic]

I am delighted to be reading Reincarnation Blues, a captivating contemporary fantasy by Michael Poore. I like Jason Sheehan of NPR's description:

Reincarnation Blues is like Cloud Atlas written by Douglas Adams. Something that could've been so grim and sad turned bright and cheery (and also sad) by a mind just made for the appreciation of absurdity, dry humor, shark attacks, philosophical anarchy, and an acceptance of the hard fact that every life is a death sentence, made valuable only by what we choose to do between the first day and the last one.

Listening to The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz, a Sherlock Holmes story. It took me a little bit to warm up to this, I suspect because I have become spoiled by Benedict Cumberbatch, whom I adore as Holmes. This story is like Doyle's originals and Horowitz really does a great job and I am now totally into it. Wonderful stuff.

I finally got The Lincoln Lawyer (Michael Connelly) DVD from the library. I've watched it twice now. It's great.

So, besides Wolff's book, what are you reading this week.

[shenmue]

1. "Fire and Fury" on audiobook

It's awesome.

[avebury]

2. Ditto nt

[shenmue]

3. Squee!

I know it's not fiction, but it's what I'm reading at the moment.

[hermetic]

4. Yeah

I know it's pretty much what everyone is reading right now.

[PoorMonger]

5. Kieran Smith, boy by James Kelman

I had cousins at sea. One was in the Cadets. I was wanting to join. My maw did not want me to but my da said I could if I wanted, it was a good life and ye saved yer money, except if ye were daft and done silly things. He said it to me. I would just have to grow up first. James Kelman’s triumph in Kieron Smith, boy is to bring us completely inside the head of a child and remind us what strange and beautiful things happen in there. Here is the story of a boyhood in a large industrial city during a time of great social change. Kieron grows from age five to early adolescence amid the general trauma of everyday life—the death of a beloved grandparent, the move to a new home. A whole world is brilliantly realized: sectarian football matches; ferryboats on the river; the unfairness of being a younger brother; climbing drainpipes, trees, and roofs; dogs, cats, sex, and ghosts. This is a powerful, often hilarious, startlingly direct evocation of childhood.

[hermetic]

8. I just found

a really interesting review of this book. I won't quote from it as I don't wish to post any spoilers, but if you wish to read it:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/26/featuresreviews.guardianreview28

[PoorMonger]

19. Just finished,

I understand the reviewers criticism that for the most part the story can be considered dull; it isn’t full of adventure in the way many of these things are. Though maybe because I wasn’t used to the sort of dialect and language choices I found that endearing. It is undoubtedly the voice of Kieron that moves the novel and makes it worth reading. This was on the 1001 books you must read list and I think that is the most likely reason it has its merit to be there. Thanks by the way.

[murielm99]

6. I am reading

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman. The story is set in 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is featured prominently. Family loyalty is a strong theme.

I am enjoying this book.

I read The Red Garden by this author not long ago. I like Alice Hoffman.

[hermetic]

7. Yes, I remember

you mentioned this earlier. I noticed my library has just stocked her latest, The Rules of ­Mag­ic, which I plan to read soon.

[PJMcK]

9. "Fire And Fury" of course

Duh.

[japple]

10. Finally finished Ivy Pochoda's Visitation Street and recommend it. Am looking forward to reading

her book, Wonder Valley when it becomes available at the library.

I downloaded an oldie. Hans Fallada's book, Every Man Dies Alone. Here's a bit from a review I found online.

About the author: Before WWII, German writer Hans Fallada's novels were international bestsellers, on a par with those of his countrymen Thoman Mann and Herman Hesse. In America, Hollywood even turned his first big novel, Little Man, What Now? into a major motion picture

Learning the movie was made by a Jewish producer, however, the Nazis blocked Fallada's work from foreign rights sales, and began to pay him closer attention. When he refused to join the Nazi party he was arrested by the Gestapo--who eventually released him, but thereafter regularly summoned him for "discussions" of his work.

However, unlike Mann, Hesse, and others, Fallada refused to flee to safety, even when his British publisher, George Putnam, sent a private boat to rescue him. The pressure took its toll on Fallada, and he resorted increasingly to drugs and alcohol for relief. Not long after Goebbels ordered him to write an anti-Semitic novel he snapped and found himself imprisoned in an asylum for the "criminally insane"--considered a death sentence under Nazi rule. To forestall the inevitable, he pretended to write the assignment for Goebbels, while actually composing three encrypted books--including his tour de force novel The Drinker--in such dense code that they were not deciphered until long after his death.

Fallada outlasted the Reich and was freed at war's end. But he was a shattered man. To help him recover by putting him to work, Fallada's publisher gave him the Gestapo file of a simple, working-class couple who had resisted the Nazis. Inspired, Fallada completed Every Man Dies Alone in just twenty-four days.

He died in February 1947, just weeks before the book's publication.

Here's a link to the movie based on the book:
The movie: https://www.amazon.com/Alone-Berlin-Emma-Thompson/dp/B06XJ1QWCG/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1515365932&sr=1-1&keywords=alone+in+berlin+dvd

[hermetic]

13. Gosh, Fallada sounds like an amazing man

Little Man, What Now? seems like something we all need to read.
"...darkly enchanting novel tells the story of a young German couple trying to eke out a decent life amidst an economic crisis that is transforming their country into a place of anger and despair. Little Man, What Now? was an international bestseller upon its release."
I shall definitely be seeking out his writings and the movie. Thanks!

[japple]

14. Even though I do most of my reading on e-books, I was very happy to find that most of

Fallada's works are available in the GA PINES library system. I plan to read more of his books and am trying to find the movie.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

11. A Wrinkle in Time and The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch may be a slow read. Not sure. It's been staring at me from my shelf for some time, so I figured I should get to it.

My English Dept is doing Wrinkle in Time for our book club this month to get ready for the movie. It's been 40ish years since I've read it, so it's almost a new read for me.

[hermetic]

15. The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt has been on my 'must get' list for a while.
"Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity."
I'd love to hear what you think of it.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

18. Goldfinch is on back burner because I got a reserve copy of Underground Railroad

And it's a kindle version, so I only have a week. And I just got an email that my paper copy hold of Gentleman from Moscow has come in, so that will be next after Underground Railroad. THEN I'll get to Goldfinch (unless another hold comes in, I guess).

I will read that dang book, though.

[PennyK]

12. The Art of Detection by Laurie R. king

Her last Kate Martinelli book -- it brings Kate and Sherlock together!
I wrote a bit of a fan letter to Ms. King, and she very kindly responded today with a thoughtful note. I have another of hers, The Bones of Paris, up next.

[hermetic]

16. Nice

Gotta tell ya, I am absolutely loving The House of Silk.

[PennyK]

17. Wonderful

I enjoyed it and his second in that series, Moriarty, very much!

[PoorMonger]

20. Gone To Dust by Matt Goldman

Set in Minnesota, Gone to Dust is the debut private eye murder mystery from Emmy Award-winning Seinfeld writer Matt Goldman.

“Sharp wit, complex characters, and masterful plotting makes Goldman a writer to watch. Irreverent and insightful, private detective Nils Shapiro is sure to become a fan favorite.”―Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author

A brutal crime. The ultimate cover-up. How do you solve a murder with no useable evidence?

Private detective Nils Shapiro is focused on forgetting his ex-wife and keeping warm during another Minneapolis winter when a former colleague, neighboring Edina Police Detective Anders Ellegaard, calls with the impossible.

Suburban divorcee Maggie Somerville was found murdered in her bedroom, her body covered with the dust from hundreds of emptied vacuum cleaner bags, all potential DNA evidence obscured by the calculating killer.

Digging into Maggie’s cell phone records, Nils finds that the most frequently called number belongs to a mysterious young woman whose true identity could shatter the Somerville family--but could she be guilty of murder?

After the FBI demands that Nils drop the case, Nils and Ellegaard are forced to take their investigation underground, where the case grows as murky as the contents of the vacuum cleaner bags. Is this a strange case of domestic violence or something with far reaching, sinister implications?

[hermetic]

21. Cool!

Lived in Minnesota for 15 years so I love to read stories that take place there. It's fun to think, "Oh, I know where that is," or, "Yeah, I've been there!" Of course, I AM rather easily amused...