What I've Been Reading - March 2019


Quick Links-
My Favorites In March -
On Audio - 
We take a lot of mini road trips, often for geocaching adventures.  I find the driving less tedious with a good audiobook.  Because of this, I always have an audiobook "in progress" - that I only listen to with Dan, in the car.  It can take awhile to get through a book that way, depending on how much we are traveling that month.

 For the last month and a half we have listened to No Barriers by Eric Weihenmayer.

This is another one I struggled to start.  (That seems to be a theme for me this year..  a lot of books I almost didn't stick with, and then ended up loving.)

 For the first part of the book I kept yelling back at him.  WHY are you doing this?  This is so stupid!  Reckless!  Unnecessary!  And then one time, right after my tirade, another character in the book asked the same questions, and he answered.  And then the book took off.

 This was an amazing book.  Not just because Eric  who is blind, has kayaked the grand canyon AND climbed mount Everest.  He also adopted a child from Nepal, and later found that the child was not an orphaned, but rather kidnapped from his imprisoned mother.  All of that would have been enough for 3 books on its own, and it doesn't even scratch the surface of this story. 

 This was an amazing book because Eric has surrounded himself with amazing people, with stories as incredible as his own, and he shares glimpses of their lives here too. There were dozens of stories in this book.  Stories of merging non profits, of incredible inventions, of overcoming traumatic brain injuries, of the struggles of vets coming home after the war, and so, so much more, all woven into Eric's journey to kayak the grand canyon.

 It's an amazing book because Eric has chosen to live an amazing life.  And it's not kayaking the grand canyon, nor climbing mt Everest that has made his life amazing, that's just extra. 

 This is the book I will be telling everyone they should read this year.  Because you should.  I promise you, there's something in there that will inspire you, no matter where you are in life.

 Side Note - in this book, Eric references the Three Cups Of Deceit scandal with Greg Morgenson.  I'm still disappointed by that whole mess...  And of course it references Powell's journey down the Grand Canyon, and incredible memoir that I read last year before visiting the Grand Canyon.
https://amzn.to/2I2zNj1
Where The Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

 We had a trip to Montrose (2 hours each way) planned this month, to attend an event.  Dan worked 3rd shift the night before and would sleep while I drove, so I thought it would be a good time to tackle this book that the Great American Read book club couldn't stop talking about. We returned home before the audio finished, and I read the ebook version for the last 60 or so pages to finish it up once we were home.   Dan said this was a good audiobook to sleep to - it's a soft, almost poetic book, very soothing if you aren't paying attention to the plot line.

 This is not something I normally would have chosen.  It's very slow, very lyrical, and very implausible.  But it is also beautiful and gripping, and I ended up enjoying it very much.

   The entire book takes place in the swamps of the south, and the shells and birds and habitat are a large part of the focus.  This would really be a great beach read this summer.

 Some may bill it as a bit of a mystery, although it's really not.  It does involve a court trial, but even that is more about the reactions of the people than it is about solving the crime.  

 If you read Educated by Tara Westover (another incredible read!) this will be even more poignant I think.  Where it seems so implausible, compared to Tara's real life, not fiction, story, this fiction suddenly seems much less implausible.  



Northanger Abbey - BBC Audio Drama
When cleaning up my digital files last month, I came across an old collection of BBC Audio dramas of the Jane Austen books.  For fun, I've been reading the books, then listening to the audio drama.  Or that's the plan at least - so far I read Northanger Abbey in February and listened to the drama in March.  These are not actually audiobooks, they are audio dramas.  The BBC does a lot of these, and I've loved them.  I caught one last year, live stream, of an Agatha Raisin book, and it was hysterical!


https://amzn.to/2uKXTG1

 The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

This was a repeated recommendation on The Great American Read book club list.  I started it, and then walked away from it, twice.  But the group kept talking about the book...  so I came back to it the 3rd time, and got far enough to be hooked.  It's a unique book.  You kind of have to just give in to it, and not try to hard to figure it out, which can be hard for those of us who love mysteries.  The first few chapters are so hard to follow, that's why I gave up so frequently.  But hang in there, it's worth the read just for it's uniqueness.

 The premise is a twist on "groundhog day".  The same thing happens every single day.  At the end of the day, the same person is murdered.  The main character in our book relieves each day in a new body - seeing the day from 8 different perspectives, and investigating using the skills, and weaknesses, inherit in each of the bodies he inhabits.  

   At the end of the 8 days, he has to solve the mystery of the murder, or his memory is wiped and the loop begins again. It is an absolute mastery of plot mapping.  I cannot imagine the outlines it must have taken to sync all of this together so perfectly.  

 This isn't my favorite mystery, and it's not my favorite read, and yet it's so unique, and so well done, that I really did enjoy the experience of reading it, and it's a fantastic book for discussion!


European Travel For the Monstrous Gentlewoman


 Another unique read suggested by the Great American Read Book Club list.  This list definitely has me reading a greater variety of books than I would normally stumble upon on my own!  This is book two, and I wish I had read book 1 first, although it's certainly not essential to do so. 

 This line from an amazon review sums the books up best - "The female offspring of 19th century monster-makers get together and have adventures based on conflicts arising from their backgrounds."  

The cast of characters includes Mary Jekyll & Diana Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Justine Moritz (created by Vicktor Frankenstein to be a companion for his original creation), Beatrice Rappaccini (From Rappaccinis daughter, a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne) ,Catherine Moreau (from the Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells), and the group of women are friends with Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes, making it a continuation of a cast of characters I've loved from childhood.

 The writing is not in any of the classic old styles.  This is light, fun, reading that you can't take too seriously, and can easily become annoyed by, according to many others who have discussed these books.  I found it cute and fun and enjoyed it very much.   I haven't seen it mentioned, but I assumed these are YA books.  

A Fall Of Marigolds  by Susan Meissner

I technically have been reading this book for over a year now, but I finally finished it either the last week of february or early March... It was a book club pick that I just couldn't get into.  I missed that book club meeting, so finishing the book became less of a priority..  but I DID want to finish it.  Like so many others on my list this month, once I got into this book, I loved it.  I do wonder if some of my reticence was reading about 9/11 as history.  It doesn't feel like history to me, it is too fresh.   But the book was much more about 1911, then about 9/11.

 This is a "two time frames" book - flipping between the Traingle factory fire of 1911 (where many jumped to their deaths rather than die in the building), and the twin towers attack in 2001.  A good bit of the novel is told from the perspective of a nurse at Ellis Island in the year following the fire of 1911.  The history and background is wonderful, and I enjoyed it very much!  The two stories flowed together well, and everything wrapped up neatly.  It was a really good read, and I'm sorry I didn't finish it and make it to the book club discussion last year - it would have been a good one to discuss.


The Midnight Witness by Sara Blaedel


I read this by mistake.  :-)  Our daughter is living in Germany for 6 months.  I wanted to find some books that took place in Germany, but that were not war themed.  They are super hard to find, in case you are wondering!  This one came up in a search, and it looks like my kind of series - detective novel, murder mystery...  BUT, it takes place in Copenhagen.  Not Germany. I did enjoy the story.  It wasn't the best I've read, but I might pick up more in the series later...



The Book I Just Haven't Been Able To Finish
Code Verity by Elizabeth Wein
https://amzn.to/2IbY05l

 I tried it as an audiobook sample, as a possibility for Dan and my next road trip book - but we didn't love the audio.  So I've switched to the ebook, but I haven't really gotten far with that version either.  You may notice that I've had a theme of not loving books I started, but really liking them once I stuck with them, so that might just be where I am at this past month.  I don't know!  I know this book was recommended by a local woman that I love to hear speak.  She is fascinating and has great taste, and if she recommends something, I'm probably going to finish it.  I may not love it, but I'm sure I will get something out of it.  And it isn't that I don't like the book, I just keep getting sidetracked by books I would rather read right now.  

 Currently Reading:


Vinegar Girl By Anne Tyler


This is a book club pick for a local book discussion group.

And that's how I came to learn about Hogarth Shakespeare - something I had never heard of!  "The Hogarth Shakespeare project sees Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today."  Including authors Jeanette Winterson, Howard Jacobson, Tracy Chevalier, Gillian Flynn, Margaret Atwood, Jo Nesbo and Anne Tyler .

Vinegar Girl is a modern retelling of The Taming Of The Shrew.



The Silent Patient By Alex Michaelaides
This is a thriller I'm very much looking forward to reading.  I started it, then realized I have to read Vinegar Girl if I want to finish it in time for book club...  and even though I really want to read Vinegar Girl, I'm having trouble walking away from this one long enough to do so!

This is a complete return to my normal favorite genre, a mystery where you are pretty certain from the start that things are not quite what they seem. For an added bonus, this book is repeatedly being referred to as having a classic Agatha Christie ending!

Killing Jesus - By Bill O'Reilly , Audiobook

Did you roll your eyes at that choice?  Don't worry - I'm right there with you.
Or I was.
I do not read politics.  I don't discuss politics. I don't care if we believe the exact same things (that's unlikely - no matter which "side" you are on), I don't want to talk about it.  Politics are just not my thing.  And if it's controversial politics?  I would rather go for a  run. Or do my taxes.  I just have NO interest in political debates and rhetoric.
So imagine my surprise when I was reading a list of book recommendations (still searching for German themed books...) and an obviously liberal leaning blogger recommended a Bill O'Reilly book.  Huh? And then I read what he had to say, which paraphrased was "You do yourself a disservice if you ignore these books because you do not like the authors politics.  These are meticulously researched books of history and facts with no political leanings."

This particular book was not the one he was referencing, but this one was available to me, and is kind of Easter themed...  to be completely honest, we haven't actually started it yet - but it's loaded on my phone and ready to start on our next road trip.

 Looking Forward To In April - 
I missed that this book was being released in March - and I can't wait to read it!  I save Harlen Coben books, metering them out when I'm in a reading slump, knowing that every thing he writes is going to be one of my favorite reads.

  
Agatha Raisin Series
https://amzn.to/2IfNRF7
There are quite a few of these that I have not yet read.  These are light, fluff, reading that I thoroughly enjoy.  Agatha reminds me of an older, classier, British Stephanie Plum.
The Immortalists By Cloe Benjamin
https://amzn.to/2Ib9ztC
This is the book my book discussion groups are all talking about right now.  It's on my list with a bit of trepidation, with so much hype, I'm afraid it will be a disappointment...
From Amazon:
"Benjamin tells the story of four teenage siblings who, on a lark, ask a fortuneteller to reveal the dates of their deaths. Whether that fortuneteller is a con artist or is genuinely gifted with second sight doesn’t interest Benjamin so much as how one piece of possibly spurious information conspires with character and circumstance to warp the siblings’ choices as they grow into adulthood. Along the way, Benjamin poses intriguing questions about the value of longevity and whether we are victims, or perpetrators, of our own fates. "
Also On My To Read Pile:


 More To Watch For: 


Mystery & Thriller Week On Goodreads

Lets End With A Little Poetry....

 At the end of this weeks episode of the tv show The Village was a poem by Lucille Clifton - 

 won't you celebrate with me - by Lucille Clifton 

 won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

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Booknificent Thursdays
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1 comment:

  1. Tina at Mommynificent.comApril 30, 2019 at 9:52 PM

    Wow! You've been doing a LOT of reading! Thanks for sharing this at Booknificent Thursday at Mommynificent.com this month!
    Tina

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