Oct 2022 what are you reading today?

[ShinglesThinBonesWhiskersBunions]

I've just started reading The Blacktongue Thief.

I'm listening to Hold Back The Stars on Borrow Box.

I read 100% on Kindle. I am new to audio books. It is great to listen when carrying out mundane tasks, makes me feel productive.

What are you reading today?

@RampantIvy - sorry my post is not correct and I cannot blame jetleg as I don't take off until tomorrow!

What I should have said was ----

I have just downloaded the third one, The Bullet that Missed. The first one was not brilliant, but I found the second one much better (The Man who died Twice) and I hoping the third one will be very good. Apologies😊

I just finished Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley. I hadn't heard of it before I picked it up in the library but I really loved it. It's a really simple story about love and loss. It reminded me a lot of early Anne Tyler books.

I’ve just started The Lamplighters by Emma Stonax, it’s good so far.
My last completed book was an Ellie Griffith, The Locked Room’, which was good but too predictable. I do like her books but their getting a bit ‘samey’.

I'm a few chapters from the end of 'Hamnet'. I can't decide what to make of it - I haven't disliked it but it hasn't gripped me.

I'm quite enjoying The Twyford Code. I've seen it fairly panned on MN but I like it. Easy bedtime read at the end of the day.

Shall we continue this into November or do we need a new thread?

Currently reading The Secret Poisoner: A Century of Murder by Linda Stratmann and Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles - but not in conjunction with one another 🤣!

And I’m listening to The New Wilderness by Diane Cook which is really intriguing.

May I join you please?
Currently reading The Mirror and the Light as it’s been sitting on a shelf so long. Felt strong enough @Bideshi after a good holiday . I read Bring up the Bodies and Wolf Hall some time ago . I probably wouldn’t have bothered with The Mirror and the Light but someone bought it for me.
I have A village in the Third Reich waiting to pull me along. I loved Travellers in the Third Reich.
I only read actual books. Never got onto my kindle for reading at all.

I’m now reading “The night she disappeared” by Lisa Jewell. Nice easy reading.

It didn't grip me either. A lot of it felt like literary novel performance writing. Oh here's the passage on the death of the child. Pull out all stops and show them what I can do. Self-Consciously fine writing and well done, of course, but there's something off about it. Believing her own good reviews perhaps.

Countmeout. It's very long, isn't it? I feel I should but I don't really want to.

I'm reading a fantastic little book by George Saunders: he of the dreaded 'Lincoln in the Bardo'. It's just a little book that takes 5 Russian short stories and analyses in a very easy to read and witty way just why they work. It's called 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.' A great primer if you write short stories (I don't but I'm still loving it).

I've started Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney, I'm finding it hard to get into.

Just finished The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill. It was a good page turner , very grim subject matter, though a bit frustrating in places.
I feel like I want the female characters to be a bit more feisty. And a bit less doormatty.

@RampantIvy @ThreeKneeRepeater

How did you get on with Shuggie Bain? Just curious as well - are either of you Scottish?

I loved this, but I am from Glasgow and many parts of it felt very familiar to me, not directly related to my own experience of growing up in Glasgow, but definitely of my parents and extended family. Parts of it were quite dark but also very realistic, particularly the experience of growing up amongst people who have significant issues with alcohol (which does relate to my own personal experience).

Young Mungo is also very good!

I'm currently reading 1989 by Val McDermid and really enjoying it so far, also really enjoyed the first one - 1979.

Have actually just realised that my current kindle book is also Val McDermid - reading The Distant Echo which is the first in the Karen Pirie series, after watching the adaptation!

How did you get on with Shuggie Bain? Just curious as well - are either of you Scottish?

@mrstea301 I thought it was well written and an easy read but difficult due to the subject content. I read it with a horrible fascination and wouldn't have been able to watch it had it been dramatised. I felt that I couldn't identify with it at all as my life was nothing like that and I don't know anyone who lived like that either.

At the book group discussion we all said that we had to google some of the unfamiliar colloquialisms and vocabulary - scheme for council housing for instance.

One of our book club members is a nurse who trained in Glasgow and she said the book was a true representation of her experiences. We are in an ex mining area of Yorkshire and the retired health visitor said that she came across a lot of families similar to Shuggie's family as she covered the most deprived parts of our borough. She said it brought back a lot of memories.

I'm not Scottish, but have Scottish ancestry BTW.

@Featheryboa that is the only Simon Serailler book of Susan Hill’s that I have read, and I found it very disturbing too.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman. I loved it so much I started straight in the second one of the trilogy.

I liked A Man Called Ove and Anxious People too. I'm going to have to read them all.

I'm currently reading a book about Cystic Fibrosis: Breath from Salt: A Deadly Genetic Disease, a New Era in Science, and the Patients and Families Who Changed Medicine Forever by Bijal P. Trivedi.

And Cosa Nostra: A History of The Sicilian Mafia by John Dickie.

They're both Kindle books. I need to start a physical book soon, preferably fiction.

I'm still listening to American Dirt on audiobook. It is simply amazing. Can't recommend enough.

I've also started Murder before Evensong by Richard Coles. Anyone else giving it a go? I quite like him on Twitter. I like the way he uses language - a Stephen Fry-ish enjoyment of using words he knows some of us will have to look up. He's very good at writing observation but there's not much plot and I am struggling to keep track of a massive cast of village residents.

If you’re reading American Dirt, I recommend this documentary by Stacey Dooley, about Mexicans trying to get to America. It’s well worth watching.

documentary

@mamaduckbone
@Bideshi

It was one of our bookclub choices, and I’ve seen as highly recommended. I gave up on it fairly early.

If you like medical books, I can recommend ‘Vaxxers’, written by the women who developed one of the covid vaccines. Fascinating book about the trials and tribulations that went on, and a real insight into vaccine development in general.

Thé last 2 in a series by Willow Rose, set in Denmark. Rather weird.

I am just about to start American dirt, looking forward to it. Been waiting ages for it from the library, bigger than I thought it would be

I’m reading this, about a quarter way in and wondering whether to keep going. Finding it a bit of a chore at the moment rather than something I can’t wait to get back to.

Finished it this morning. Great book, I definitely recommend!