What Fiction are you reading this week, June 4, 2023?

[hermetic]

I'm reading Deep Freeze by John Sandford, the 10th Virgil Flowers thriller. Virgil returns to the small, fictional town of Trippton, MN, to investigate the murder of a popular woman bank president whose body was found in a frozen river. Good story; full of suspense, and laughs.

Still listening to Kate Atkinson's Shrines of Gaiety. Quite enjoyable.

What books are you enjoying this lovely first week of June?

I have to leave for a bit; go pick up some tomato plants a friend is giving to me. I should be back in an hour or so. Carry on.

[Tanuki]

1. Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

I bought it in an airport because, in my rush to catch a flight, I'd left the book I meant to read in my car in the airport lot. I'm glad I did...it's really entertaining and well written!

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043187103/amor-towles-the-lincoln-highway-review

"The Lincoln Highway is a joyride. Amor Towles' new Great American Road Novel tails four boys — three 18-year-olds who met in a juvenile reformatory, plus a brainy 8-year-old — as they set out from Nebraska in June, 1954, in an old Studebaker in pursuit of a better future. If this book were set today, their constant detours and U-turns would send GPS into paroxysms of navigational recalculations. But hitch onto this delightful tour de force and you'll be pulled straight through to the end, helpless against the inventive exuberance of Towles' storytelling.
.....
Eagerness to discover what landed these three disparate musketeers in custody is one of many things that keeps us turning pages. Expectations are repeatedly upended. One takeaway is that a single wrong turn can set you off course for years — though not necessarily irrevocably.
....
There's so much to enjoy in this generous novel packed with fantastic characters — male and female, black and white, rich and poor — and filled with digressions, magic tricks, sorry sagas, retributions, and the messy business of balancing accounts. "How easily we forget — we in the business of storytelling — that life was the point all along," Towles' oldest character comments as he heads off on an unexpected adventure. It's something Towles never forgets."....(more)

[hermetic]

6. An amazing book

One that will stay with you for a long time.

[FloridaBlues]

9. I loved this book too a great read

[Magoo48]

2. Quantum Radio, A.G. Riddle, sci-fi fun with quantum entanglement.

Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge: Erica Gies.
Ways of better getting along with water past, present, and future. Good stories and pov’s from water masters and scientists…

[hermetic]

5. Oooh, this sounds good.

A scientist has just made an incredible discovery - a breakthrough that may answer the deepest questions about human existence. But what he's found is far more dangerous than he ever imagined. It looks like an organised data stream, being broadcast over what he calls a quantum radio.

This has only been out for a couple of months.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner.

Fascinating so far.

[hermetic]

4. "A stunning literary achievement"

This book won all kinds of awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award and The Chautauqua Prize. It is the biography of a real person, Mildred Harnack, written by her great-great-niece but contains a lot of family lore so could be considered historical fiction. Fascinating, indeed.

"As early as 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler's regime."

[mike_c]

7. Still reading Demon Copperhead

I've slowed to a crawl, partly because I have big pile of other books to read and partly because I'm finding Kingsolver's Appalachian recasting of Dickens somewhat tedious, keeping my attention on the novel's structure and ingenuity instead of the narrative. It's a small complaint, but still.

Ms K and I are going camping tomorrow, so I'm hoping some extended reading time in the woods will get me back in the groove.

[hermetic]

8. How nice for you

Hope you have a lovely time and can enjoy your book.

[FloridaBlues]

10. I just started the book by Tom Hanks. The making of a motion picture.

[hermetic]

15. Just released

Full title: THE MAKING OF ANOTHER MAJOR MOTION PICTURE MASTERPIECE

From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film . . . and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.

[japple]

11. Thank you for the weekly thread, hermetic, and the picture of that

amazing library.

I finished Jamie Ford's book, Love and Other Consolation Prizes which, sad to say, was boring, esp. since I liked his other books.

Just started reading Charles Frazier's book, The Trackers and it seems like this one will really hold my interest.

From amazon:

Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office.

A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations, but was once a WWI sniper—and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives.

Happy Sunday!!

[hermetic]

13. Check out post 3 above

All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner. Sounds amazing the things this woman did to fight Hitler.

Your newest one sounds quite good, too.

[japple]

16. All The Frequent Troubles...was a very good book. I am in awe of the

extraordinary people who fought against Hitler and fascism with courage and bravery. Not many people have ever heard of Mildred Harnack, but her contributions in defeating the third reich were as important as any military hero of that time.

[hermetic]

17. Cool

I was thinking you had read that one, but wasn't sure....

[yellowdogintexas]

20. Are any of the rest of you running into a LOT of WW2 fiction?

I know Amazon's algorithms are partially to blame but these great sounding books keep coming up in my Free and Cheap book vendors.

I can already tell I'm going to want to read this one at some point.

[hermetic]

21. Yes, I've noticed it too

It seems there are more of them being written now than there were 20 or more years ago. I suspect there are a number of good reasons why. I am going to be getting this one myself, for sure.

[Paper Roses]

12. The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens

Maybe it is just me but as I plow thru this book, I find it disjointed. Too much time on things of little consequence. Wish I could trim this down a little and maybe I'd enjoy it. I rarely leave a book unfinished but have been tempted many times on this one but I'm plodding along. Just my opinion.

[hermetic]

14. Sorry to hear that

I know I hate when I give so much time to a book but then it's just not doing anything for me except wishing it would end. At least your talking about it here might help someone else to not go down that road, too.

[northoftheborder]

18. The Cartographers

Just finished this - just finished - highly recommend. Has some mind bending fantasy, interesting characters and complicated plot.

[hermetic]

22. Lots of people

really like this one. Glad you did, too.

[yellowdogintexas]

19. just finished People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation.

I really liked this one. The storyline follows the history of the book. Each section gives a vivid portrait of the person/persons who are part of this history. There are also a couple of very cool plot twists toward the end.

Now I am heading back to Greece with Kat Makris and her Greek Mafia grandmother. These books are so much fun; the characters are so over the top.

This book is Outta Crime
t’s not easy being dead. Just ask Kat Makris. She’s stuck in an underground bunker, watching her own funeral, where more people are laughing than crying. Being dead has other consequences, too. Her face is in all the papers, her bank is convinced she’s an identity thief, and the sexy Detective Melas is under siege by his trampy ex-girlfriend, who happens to work for Greece’s version of the CIA.

The timing couldn’t be worse; she just figured out where her missing father might be.

Escaping Grandma’s cozy bunker is the only way find her dad—a feat that would be simpler if she could access her own bank account and ride something other than the local bus. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Marika’s unborn baby is sending her psychic messages—messages that send Kat all the way to Germany, where Grandma’s oldest nemesis is cooking up some payback …

If you need some laugh out loud reading, this series fits the bill. Highly recommend reading in order.

[lounge_jam]

23. There There

A friend suggested There There by Tommy Orange, which I borrowed at the beginning of this month. It is an earnest questioning of what it means to be a Native today. By extension, it's also an exploration of what it means to be a "modern," "urban" Native. The book thus problematizes identity as a category--the pressures it can exert and the benefits it can offer. Terrific read.

[hermetic]

24. I agree

Great book.