What Fiction are you reading this week, January 28, 2024?

[hermetic]

Catching Lives Charity Bookshop, located in the skewed 17th-century building called Crooked House, run entirely by volunteers in Canterbury, England.

Tonight I will start reading Peter Heller's The Guide, "A novel as gripping as it is lyrical, as frightening as it is moving." Really looking forward to this one.

Listening to Every Man A King by Walter Mosley. I love Mosley books. They're action packed, timely, and there's always a good bit of humor. Published in 2023, this "carefully plotted mystery is a classic caper, a family saga and an examination of fealty, pride and how deep debt can go."

What are you looking forward to reading this week?

[cbabe]

1. Peter James/Roy Grace mysteries

He wrote a ton of books about DI Roy Grace in today’s Brighton. Very uneven but good fillers waiting on library holds.

Reporting back on ‘How much of these hills is gold’. Not my cup of tea. I’m interested in hearing others opinions.

Also early Connelly/Bosch. They get better and better with age.

[mentalsolstice]

2. I'm nearly finished with "The Aviator's Wife" by Melanie Benjamin

It’s a fictional account about Anne Lindbergh and her marriage to Charles. It’s quite good. If any of y’all are into similar novels, I would also highly recommend Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.

I finished Wanting Radiance by Karen McElmurray earlier this week. It was a very lyrical read.

I’m not sure what to read next!? 🤔

[hermetic]

3. Such a dilemma

Myself, I just grab whatever is on top of the pile or at the top of my to-be-read list. Hope you choose something good.

[mentalsolstice]

10. I too look at my TBR list....

I keep one on GoodReads. I don’t really interact much there, I just use it as a way to keep up with my lists. I also use BookBub and Kindle Unlimited to look for deals. Every now and then I’ll treat myself to paying the full price for a book. Because I live in a touristy place, our libraries are woefully under stocked with offerings. Additionally, I’m not blessed with ears for audible offerings, ear buds are extremely uncomfortable. So I almost exclusively read ebooks. However, I’ve found a couple of interesting choices for this week….

[hermetic]

11. Sorry to hear

that your library doesn't have much to offer. I live in a very small, rural town and the library here is pretty sad. But I discovered the library in the closest city, 25 miles, is terrific. I do have to pay a yearly fee since I don't pay taxes in that city, but $30 is worth it for all the books they offer.
Hope you enjoy your new finds. Happy reading!

[japple]

4. Now reading Justin Cronin's book

The Summer Guest. Superb writing, great story. Even though I'm not finished, I will check out his other work as well.

[hermetic]

7. I'll be doing that, too

He's got several award winners and lots of high praise. Sounds like a great story-teller.

[mentalsolstice]

12. That novel sounds so good! Already on my TBR list! nt

[cbabe]

5. Library says it's fiction but it's really a memoir.

This book has stuck with me all week.

One of those mysteries, why it’s so powerful in such a quiet way.

(Cree Nation, the nomadic life. Catholic with a dozen kids. Fish. Sled dogs. Berry picking. Tree sap. Boarding school.)

Tomson Highway's memoir, Permanent Astonishment, is written as 'a symphony to life'

Permanent Astonishment won the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

When Tomson Highway says he was born in a snowbank, he means it literally. He arrived in December 1951, ahead of schedule, forcing his parents to stop their dogsled, pitch a tent in a snowbank in northern Manitoba and send their 12-year-old daughter out to fetch a midwife in the night.

Canadians know Highway as a world-renowned composer, pianist, playwright and author of the novel Kiss of the Fur Queen. He chronicles the first 15 years of his life in the memoir Permanent Astonishment.

…

https://www.cbc.ca/books/tomson-highway-s-memoir-permanent-astonishment-is-written-as-a-symphony-to-life-1.6199176

[hermetic]

6. That sounds lovely

Well, except for the Boarding School part, probably.

[LearnedHand]

8. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune

It's a bit of a retelling of the Pinocchio story and is breathlessly funny in places, especially dialogue involving the robot vacuum and the nurse machine.

From the publisher's description:

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

[hermetic]

9. That sure sounds like fun

Klune has almost 40 books published. Lots of award winners. A writer a lot of people here would enjoy, I do believe. I just put him on my list. Thanks.

[yellowdogintexas]

13. Bad Day at the Vulture Club....A Baby Ganesh Mystery by Vaseem Khan

In the gripping new Baby Ganesh Agency novel, Inspector Chopra and his elephant sidekick investigate the death of one of Mumbai's wealthiest citizens, a murder with ramifications for its poorest.

The Parsees are among the oldest, most secretive and most influential communities in the city: respected, envied and sometimes feared.

When prominent industrialist Cyrus Zorabian is murdered on holy ground, his body dumped inside a Tower of Silence - where the Parsee dead are consumed by vultures - the police dismiss it as a random killing. But his daughter is unconvinced.

Chopra, uneasy at entering this world of power and privilege, is soon plagued by doubts about the case.

But murder is murder. And in Mumbai, wealth and corruption go in hand in hand, inextricably linking the lives of both high and low...

I do enjoy these books! I was delighted when I discovered this one tucked away in my collections, since I had somehow not read it.

I finished Midnight at Malabar House a couple of days ago. It was really good. I am looking forward to the next one.

[Timeflyer]

14. It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis.

Oh, yes it can happen here. Scary book for scary times, classic I put off reading until now, when it feels too relevant.

[hermetic]

15. Wow, written in 1935

It was republished in 2016. Salon called it “The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump's authoritarian appeal.”

"Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
...a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today's news."

Glad to see it's available at my library. A must read.

[Timeflyer]

16. It is a fantastic book for these times. Dorothy Thompson, his wife at the time, interviewed Hitler

in 1933, and saw what was coming in Germany. She was an amazing journalist who was hugely influential in her time. Now I'm reading her biography, American Cassandra, forget the author.