Whar are you reading now?: November 9, 2024

Just back from my vacation out west with my siblings and I've just started The Mercy of Gods. In God's Path and Dinomania will follow.

I hope you had fun!

I'm reading Strange Tricks by Syd Moore. I've really enjoyed this series and I'll be sad to finish this book.

I've finally finished The Guermantes Way, the third novel in Marcel Proust's famous In Search of Lost Time opus. I found it slow going, of course (as it's intended to be, I think) but enjoyable, though not as memorable as the series' second entry, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. But enjoyable or not, the feeling upon completing the book is that I've been set free! Anyway, anyone interested can find my review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I've now started Timbuktu by Paul Auster. I love his writing and, gloriously, this novel is only 180 pages!

I'm listening to Middlemarch by George Eliot, and I find it excellent. British actress Juliet Stevenson is narrating, and has just the right voice.

I'm reading The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen. It's very good. The crime is interesting, and I'm enjoying the character development.

Explosive Eighteen – Janet Evanovich
Book on CD performed by Lorelei King
3***

Ah, Stephanie Plum. So, this starts with a bang as Stephanie is on a plane coming BACK from Hawaii, alone. Grandma Mazur notices she has a tan line on her left ring finger and wants to know about the wedding. For that matter, so do Lula, Connie, and just about everyone else. Don’t expect ME to tell you…

The main plot focuses on a mysterious photograph Stephanie found in her messenger bag as she unpacked. She knows she didn’t put it in there. There is no identification on it and she figures she accidentally picked it up when she bought a magazine in the airport. So, she tosses it in the garbage. Then two guys who say they are FBI agents appear at her door asking for the photograph. And then two more guys also claiming to be FBI agents ask about the photo. And a crazy man accosts her with a knife, also wanting the photo. And a woman claiming to be engaged to the man who took the photo also wants it. What’s so special about this photo?

There are the usual stops at Cluck-in-a-Bucket, the usual “problems” with Stephanie’s car(s), the usual skips who refuse to be captured, the usual viewing at the funeral home and the usual push/pull between Stephanie, Morelli and Ranger. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve read one of these, and I’m sure that’s why I found it so entertaining.

Lorelei King does a great job performing the audiobook. She has a gift for voices, and I particularly enjoyed how she voiced Lula, Connie, Ranger and Grandma Mazure.

Started this audio via Libby ~

The Woman Who Lied: A Novel
by Claire Douglas

I just finished Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science. An interesting but deeply flawed book. The author failed to define a lot of concepts leaving me puzzled in several places. I still have no idea what Goal-Years, Lunar Fours and Lunar Sixes are.

>5 BookConcierge: I like that series! I read Game On: Tempting 28 this year.

The President’s Hat – Antoine Laurain
4****

A fable for adults. Can a hat make a difference in one’s life? Apparently.

It begins when a man, alone for the evening, has dinner at a restaurant and President Miterand and his party happen to sit next to him. After they leave and Daniel finishes his wine he reaches for his coat and realizes that the president has left his hat. Daniel, almost without thinking, puts it on and wears it home. The next day he impresses his boss with his analysis of a financial plan and gets a promotion. He feels it is due to the hat, which gives him great confidence.

But a few days later he leaves the hat on the train, and it is picked up by a woman who is on her way to meet her married lover. The hat works its magic once again and the woman is the better for it. And so it goes. The hat moves from one person to another, and each person who temporarily wears the hat has a significant improvement in their situation.

I found the entire story charming and fun. I loved roaming the streets of Paris along with each person who had possession of the hat. I liked learning about each one of them, what made them tick, why they felt “less than” and how they found their courage to move on and up. It left me feeling happy and optimistic. Just delightful.

The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
Sarah Weinman
4/5 stars
What a very interesting true-life book about Sally Horner who was kidnapped and killed at the age of eleven. Lolita, the movie was based on Sally's life. Non-Fiction

The Rose Code – Kate Quinn
Book on CD narrated by Saskia Maarleveld
3.5***

Quinn uses her talent for historical fiction to explore the women (and men) who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII, and who were credited with breaking the German Enigma code. The novel focuses on three women: Osla (a debutante who is dating Prince Phillip), Mab (self-made, rising out of poverty and intent on making an advantageous match), and Beth (a mouse of a girl living under her mother’s thumb, but with a head for ciphers). And, as had become almost mandatory in this genre, there is a dual timeline. Though at least here, both are historical: 1940 and 1947.

I was fascinated to learn more about the goings on at Bletchley Park. The secrecy required of workers there was paramount, even long past the end of the war. One result was that the workers became their own community, with sports teams, dances, dining and affairs helping to relieve the stress of their work. Still, the emotional toll resulted in several workers breaking down and some even being confined to high-security mental asylums, as the government could not risk the possibility that they would leak information. Quinn shows all these aspects in the novel.

She also highlights a strong friendship between three women who would never have met were it not for the war work they undertook. I really liked how Quinn showed how the friendship between these three developed. And how their loyalty to one another, though severely tested, became central to the conclusion of the story.

Saskia Maarleveld does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to handle, men and women, young and old, from different regions of England, and she is up to the task.

The Real Lolita The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
by Sarah Weinman
4/5 stars
What a very interesting true-life book about Sally Horner who was kidnapped and killed at the age of eleven. Lolita, the movie was based on Sally's life. Non-Fiction

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
by Ben Macintyre
4/5 stars
Interesting WWII book surrounding an operation about using a dead man to fool the Nazis into thinking that the Allied Forces were going to attack Greece or Sardinia instead of Sicily. Non-Fiction

The new thread is up over here.

I finished Wild Sargasso Sea. I can't say it was my favorite book. It was a psychological study of an arranged marriage that creates misery and insanity in both. It's meant to be the story of Heathcliff's wife.

Good Night, Irene
by Luis Alberto Urrea
4/5 stars
Based loosely on a true story which revolves around World War II in which females from the United States came to help set up food depots to serve the men during the war. Very fascinating! Miscellaneous Books

>14 snash:

It's meant to be the story of Heathcliff's wife.

Rochester's, surely.