What are you reading the week of March 2, 2024?

I've got to face up to the fact that I'm in a reading slump. I just can't get motivated to read anything. *sigh* You guys enjoy yourselves!

I'm just about past the halfway mark in Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship by David Halberstam. It's enjoyable if you're a baseball fan, particularly if you're interested in baseball history. The book is a non-fiction account of the friendship between four members of the famed Boston Red Sox teams of the 1940s and 50s, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams.

>1 fredbacon: Hope your reading slump fades soon.

Having finished up Mao's Army Goes to Sea, I'm now switching back and forth between The Last Ships from Hamburg and Desert Armour. Sometime this week I also intend to start reading Constance Verity Destroys the Universe.

After seeing Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng on Hulu, I had to read the book. It follows the book pretty well, with a few differences.

Continuing to enjoy this audio via Libby ~

The First Ladies
by Marie Benedict

Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Gabriel García Márquez
4/5 stars
This is the story of a young woman, Angela Vicario who married but than was returned to her family because her new husband thought that she slept with another man. Her brothers want to kill the new husband for her dishonor. 27 years later, a man returns to look into the incident. Who is to blame? 1981

I'm reading Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. It's a terrific book; it's history with a deep sense of irony.

I'm listening to Milkman by Anna Burns - what an odd book. It won the Booker, which influenced my interest. It's about an 18 year old unnamed woman in 1970s Belfast, whose family is deeply mixed up with 'The Troubles'. I think I like the book; certainly I am intrigued enough to keep listening.

Next to my bed (reading before I sleep) is The Hobbit am rereading it. On my phone I've finally begun with Raymond Feist Magician as e-book. And downstairs I still have to chose what I'll read when having my tea or coffee, Pramoedya Ananta Toer Perburuan or old fashioned suspence, detective Poirot in Peril at end house by Agatha Christie

>1 fredbacon: I hope your reading slump fades away soon!

I'm finishing up The Book Lovers' Miscellany - a slim book full of interesting book trivia. Have gotten back to The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Easton Press The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written) and started Barabbas, both 1001 books - 1 very long and 1 very short. Have also started The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

ETA - also continuing with The 1619 Project.

The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood. It goes back and forth from 1938 when Hilter invaded Austria April 23,1938 to 2022. I was born April 22, 1938.

I just finished "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. There was more detail paid to the 1893 World's Fair but then again, the Murder Mansion burnt down before all of the evidence was collected for Holmes's Trials. The stories of what they DID find was gruesome enough without adding in the details. Not a long read. But very immersive, in my opinion. I would read this book again.

How Moon Fuentez Fell In Love With the Universe – Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
3***

From the book jacket: When her twin reached social media stardom, Moon Fuentez accepted her fate as the ugly, unwanted sister hidden in the background, destined to be nothing more than her sister’s camerawoman. But this summer, Moon also takes a job as the merch girl on a tour bus full of beautiful influencers, and her fate begins to shift in the best way possible.

My reactions:
This is a pretty typical enemies-to-friends-to-lovers scenario. It’s also a YA coming-of-age book that deals with bullying, body-image, and self-confidence. Moon and Star’s Mom is a religious fanatic who has always favored Star, the fair-skinned, blonde “good girl.” It takes a group of strangers, and one in particular, to get Moon to recognize her own gifts and talents, and to help her find her own path to success.

The up-and-down, on-and-off romance drove me a little crazy, but it’s part of the package for this genre. Although the sex scene was still unrealistic, I’m at least glad that Gilliland chose to have them get to know one another over several months before they acted on the attraction.

As for Star … I’m not sure I would have forgiven my sibling so easily for behaving the way she did.

>11 HalfPintReader: Larson is one of my favorite writers and I loved The Devil in the White City!

>1 fredbacon: I hope you find some suggestions here to get you out of your reading slump!

>11 HalfPintReader: and >13 JulieLill: Yes!! OMG this was such a great book. Quick read and very detailed about so many different aspects of these events.

Having finished Pan: The Great God's Modern Return I'm working on finishing Last Train from Atlanta. Also on Part 2 (the grisly part, and I'm skipping chapters in this section) of The Once and Future King. I also put on hold a Maggie Sefton murder mystery for some quick reading.

Oh, and I started The Niebelungenlied over the weekend. It's in prose translation, rather than poetic, and since the chapters are short I'm able to read several at a time.

Slowly reading The Comfort of Crows and The Overstory.

>1 fredbacon: Sending a rope to help you out of your slump!

I'm reading The Guest List by Lucy Foley with my sister. I love the setting - a remote Irish island.

The Children’s Blizzard – Melanie Benjamin
Book on CD read by Cassandra Campbell
3***

Benjamin is known for writing novelized “biographies” of historical figures (usually women) who have been under-represented (or completely ignored) by history. This time, she turns her attention of an historical event, the blizzard of 1888 that caught residents of the great plains completely unawares, and invents the characters to populate the story.

The novel focuses on two schoolteachers in different communities, sisters Gerda and Raina Olsen. Barely out of school themselves, they take positions as teachers, Gerda in the Dakota Territory, Raina nearer her family farm in Nebraska. When the blizzard hits, the two sisters take different approaches, and the outcomes are drastically different.

I felt that the romantic entanglements each sister experienced detracted from the basic storyline, especially in Raina’s case. I also thought that the storyline featuring the child Anette bordered on the melodramatic.

I had previously read David Laskin’s excellent NONfiction account of this event, also titled The Children’s Blizzard. So, the bar was set high for this work of fiction. And Benjamin didn’t quite make it.

Cassandra Campbell has become one of my favorite audio book narrators. She does a fine job with this work, though I did occasionally lose track of which sister’s story we were following (especially earlier in the novel).

A couple of days ago I finished The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship by David Halberstam. This one's really for baseball fans only. As the title lets on, The Teammates is a book about the friendship between Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio, four members of the famed Boston Red Sox teams of the late 1930s through the end of the 1940s. All in all this is a well-written and affection portrait the the four players and their friendship over the decades. It's also a fun look back at a bygone era in baseball. You can find my longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I've now started The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr., a novel that was shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2021.

On to Take Me with You by Catherine Ryan Hyde if you want a touching story she is a great author.

Ripley Under Ground – Patricia Highsmith
Digital audiobook performed by Kevin Kenerly
3***

This is book two in the series, featuring psychopath Tom Ripley. It’s six years after Tom murdered Dickie Greenleaf and inherited his money. He’s since married a pharmaceutical heiress and they live in a villa in France. Everything seems to be going swimmingly, until Tom gets a call from London. An art forgery scheme he set up a few years ago is threatened by a nosy American asking questions.

Highsmith was a talented writer, and she could craft a chilling psychological thriller. In the first Ripley book we met a charming, somewhat socially inept, closeted gay young man with ambition. He was clever, quick-thinking, and determined to get rich. Lies came easily and murder even more so. If it served his purpose, he did it. But THIS Ripley is a drudge. The whole art forgery scheme is kinda amateurish, and I didn’t see it has having the “Ripley stamp.” Beyond having originally set up the con, why is he even still involved? He doesn’t paint the forgeries, and he’s not exactly making a fortune off the scheme. But it seems he just can’t help himself; he has to lie and cheat and steal and kill because he just doesn’t know how else to act. As the bodies pile up and investigators get closer to the truth, Ripley’s ability to charm his way out of things is taxed to the max. He seems to be completely unraveling, and yet …

The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, which is one of my pet peeves. But I suspect Highsmith just ran out of steam and decided to stop.

Kevin Kenerly does a pretty good job of voicing the audiobook. He made the various characters sufficiently unique so I could easily tell who was speaking. Too bad he didn’t have better material to work with.

I finally finished The Egoist. It had a convoluted plot of betrothals and break ups but was primarily a psychological study of the various characters, most particularly the egotist. Well written but slow reading.

>20 BookConcierge: I'm just starting The Talented Mr. Ripley .... I guess I shouldn't have read this, lol.

After a great start, I was disappointed with The Overstory. I'm still reading the wonderful The Comfort of Crows and just started The Sparrow.

The Good Guy – Dean Koontz
Book on CD narrated by Rick Ferrone
4****

From the book jacket: Timothy Carrier, having a beer after work at his friend’s tavern, enjoys drawing customers into amusing conversations. But the jittery man who sits next to him tonight has mistaken Tim for someone very different – and passes to him a manila envelope full of cash, a photo of a pretty woman marked for death, and her address. Minutes later, another stranger sits next to Tim. This one is a cold-blooded killer who believes Tim is the man who has hired him. Tim tries to call off the deal, giving the man the money “to do nothing.” But when Tim secretly follows the killer out of the tavern, he gets a shock: the guy is a cop.

My Reactions
This thriller just grabbed me. I could not figure out why this woman was targeted, and why the killer was so relentless in his pursuit. Tim is the quintessential good guy. A gentleman, smart, determined, creative and principled. And I loved his mother! Several of the close calls stretch credulity (timelines just didn’t work), but Koontz kept me turning pages (or changing CDs) to see what would happen next.

This was written sixteen years ago, but the whole Deep State conspiracy at the end was so reminiscent of recent conspiracy theories floated by a certain former President and his minions that it made me uneasy. So far, # 45 and his crew aren’t anywhere near so smart as Koontz’s characters, so that’s some consolation.

Rick Ferrone does a great job of narrating the audiobook. He is a gifted voice artist and even does a reasonable job of bringing the women characters to life.

Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health
Anupam B. Jena
4/5 stars
The title pretty much explains it all. It was a fascinating look at healthcare and poses questions that the researchers worked on. One chapter focused on who is a better doctor, a seasoned veteran doctor or someone who just graduated. Is it ever a good time to have a heart attack? Another chapter was why kids with summer birthdays are more likely to get the flu. Non-Fiction Books

The new thread is up over here.