All things Books and Reading thread - 2017

[Margret]

Science of Discworld, yes, I think so, but it's been quite a while. Good Omens I began but couldn't finish. Neil Gaiman's stuff is kind of iffy for me. Douglas Adams is the same way; I loved the Hitchhiker's Guide series, but can't stand Dirk Gently, which simply makes no sense.

I'm off for the day now, probably two days.

Margret

 

[Mamanyt1953]

My copy of "Cat Shining Bright (Joe Grey #20) arrived in the mail yesterday! I pre-ordered it from Amazon months ago, and have been VERY impatiently awaiting it since. I MUST finish "To Visit the Queen" first, though.

 

[Margret]

I happened to read an excellent story this morning after I fed Jasmine, and then when I thought about posting about it I couldn't remember where it was from! It wasn't in a book here in the bedroom, where I've been spending most of my time, and I couldn't find it on the Nook. I was beginning to get desperate, until I went into the living room where there had been enough daylight to read (the power is currently out in the half of my house that includes the living room), and there I found it.

The book is After the King, originally published in 1992 in honor of the 100th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's birth, and it contains stories by quite a few excellent authors (Sir Terry contributed a Cohen the Barbarian story named "Troll Bridge," for instance). The story I read this morning and liked so much was by Robert Silverberg: "A Long Night's Vigil at the Temple." What do you do when you've lost your faith, but you're a member of the church hierarchy and it's practically a hereditary position? If you're the Warder named Diriente (Silverberg's protagonist) you tell yourself that, while you may not actually believe your church's creed, well, it might be correct, so it's okay to do your job as if you believed. So far, so good. But then what do you do when the temple caretaker actually discovers proof that your church's most basic tenet is false? Ah, now that's a very good question. Fortunately, after his long night's vigil Diriente manages to come up with an answer that both allows him to minister to the needs of his flock and tell them the truth.

I won't say anything else for fear of spoilers, except that this is an excellent book and is highly recommended. Oh, yes. And, while it was originally published in 1992, my edition appears to be from 2001, so I would bet that it's still in print.

Margret

 

[Mia6]

That sounds really interesting, Margret. I'll see if I can get it as an eBook from the library or
a hard copy.

I just finished a really creepy eBook entitled Lurk. It is a horror book and I must say the
plot is unique. The author is Adam Vine.

I also just finished Into the Water by Paula Hawkins who wrote The Girl on the Train.
Really good.

 

[Winchester]

Has anybody been reading any of the free Kindle ebooks? Oh heavens, some of them are just terrible. I'm glad I got them for free because I would have never, ever paid for them. I've had quite a few that I can't finish; they are beyond boring. I get about halfway through the book and then realize that I just don't care how the books end. I don't care what happens. I've probably started to read about 20 of them now and they are really, really bad! They're from authors I've never heard of before and I don't know that I ever want to again.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

OH OH OH! I just put After the King on my to-read shelf at Goodreads, AND added it to my Wish List at Thriftbooks, where I am please to note that I can purchase it new very reasonably in hardcover, or used for under $5. Next month IT WILL BE MINE! BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA

 

[Margret]

Has anybody been reading any of the free Kindle ebooks? Oh heavens, some of them are just terrible. I'm glad I got them for free because I would have never, ever paid for them. I've had quite a few that I can't finish; they are beyond boring. I get about halfway through the book and then realize that I just don't care how the books end. I don't care what happens. I've probably started to read about 20 of them now and they are really, really bad! They're from authors I've never heard of before and I don't know that I ever want to again.

This is how new authors get their start nowadays. Unfortunately, Amazon basically offers them nothing in the way of editing or mentoring.

Some of them improve over time. This is more likely if they can get into a good writers' group, or simply if people email them (politely) about what does and does not work in their books. Most of them put their email address in the book itself, to encourage this behavior.

Margret

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I have finished the first book in the Cats in Trouble mystery series, "The Cat, the Quilt, and the Corpse." If you are, as I am, a fan of "cozy mysteries" and of cats, you'll get a kick out of this series. AND the heroine is a middle-aged woman, which always helps in my book!

 

[Mia6]

Has anybody been reading any of the free Kindle ebooks? Oh heavens, some of them are just terrible. I'm glad I got them for free because I would have never, ever paid for them. I've had quite a few that I can't finish; they are beyond boring. I get about halfway through the book and then realize that I just don't care how the books end. I don't care what happens. I've probably started to read about 20 of them now and they are really, really bad! They're from authors I've never heard of before and I don't know that I ever want to again.

I have been enjoying some of the free Kindle books. Although I must admit some are bad.

 

[rubysmama]

When I first got my e-reader, I read some free books from Kobo & BookBub, but then changed to borrowing from the library, because the free ones were either a) terrible or b) the first book in a series and if you wanted to read the rest you had to buy them. Since I almost never read a book a 2nd time, I don't need to have permanent copies of them.

I'm currently reading "Summer Secrets" by Barbara Freethy. It's ok, but I'm not in the reading mood these days, so it's slow going.

 

[foxxycat]

Ive read many of Barbara Freethy books in the early 2000s. I haven't read that one-I think I got that on my kindle fire for like $.99 if I remember correctly. I do love her older books. Daniel's Gift and Ask Mariah were ones I read years ago. She also wrote a couple of suspense ones I still have to read. I didn't get into the Callaway series-I have a hard time keeping track of all the books in the series so I tend to prefer books that stand alone.

 

[Margret]

In yesterday's BookBub (or perhaps Early Bird Books) email, there was an offer for the Camber of Culdi trilogy, by Katherine Kurtz, which is a subset of her Deryni books. I'm reminded that I have all of the Deryni series (at least, I think I do); I'm thinking maybe it's time to re-read them. Perhaps concurrently with Tolkien.

Am I the only person here who reads more than one book at a time, switching back and forth as the impulse takes me?

Margret

 

[Mamanyt1953]

LOL...sometimes I have as many as four going at once. One by the bed, one by the bathtub, one in the living room, and one tucked in my pocketbook!

 

[foxxycat]

I always have more than 1 book going at a time.. Right now one by John Grisham and another by Mary Alice Monroe and another smutty romance by another author-can't remember at the moment. I got 3 days off this weekend-plan on reading under my tree outside-which I have yet to do.

 

[artiemom]

Excited that my favorite series of books (3) is being made into a TV series by Bad Wolf studios in Wales, UK... They are usually teamed up with HBO (sigh--do not have).
Filming begins in September!!

Time magazine has it listed as a possible substitute for Game Of Thrones Fans!!

 

[Margret]

LOL...sometimes I have as many as four going at once. One by the bed, one by the bathtub, one in the living room, and one tucked in my pocketbook!

What, you don't keep a book next to the toilet?!

Excited that my favorite series of books (3) is being made into a TV series by Bad Wolf studios in Wales, UK... They are usually teamed up with HBO (sigh--do not have).
Filming begins in September!!

Time magazine has it listed as a possible substitute for Game Of Thrones Fans!!

What's the book series? And what's the television series?

Well, it turns out I was missing 5 of the Deryni books:

• The Quest for Saint Camber
• The King's Deryni
• King Kelson's Bride
• High Deryni
• In the King's Service

In the King's Service appears to be new; the blurb says it's the beginning of a new trilogy, set in the time of, um, King Donal?, something like that, and before King Kelson. Kobo is selling it for $2.99; I'll probably get it and then see whether I want to spend money on the second and third books when they come out.

The Quest for Saint Camber looks very interesting, and is the final book about King Kelson. It wasn't on sale, so I've used 4000 of my Kobo "Super Points" (accumulated by buying books) to buy it. The others are now bookmarked on BookBub.

I'm currently re-reading The Hobbit, re-reading There and Back Again, Pat Murphy's brilliant homage to The Hobbit, reading Indefensible: The Missing Truth about Steven Avery, Teresa Halbach, and Making a Murderer, by Michael Griesbach, and deciding which of the Deryni books to start with, probably the Camber trilogy, but maybe The Quest for Saint Camber.

Time for me to get busy. I really need to start moving things back where they belong, out of the bedroom and back bedroom. It was a job moving them there, and it's going to be at least as big a job moving them back. I will be so glad when this whole thing with the electrical power problems is behind us.

Margret

 

[artiemom]

Margret , I have mentioned the series before: All Souls Trilogy.
The first book is name: A Discovery of Witches, by Debra Harkness. The TV series will be titled the same as the first book.

Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer have been signed to portray the main characters.

Matthew Goode was on, Downton Abbey.
Teresa was most recently seen in, Hacksaw Ridge

One of the scriptwriters was recently involved with Mr Selfridge on PBS..

This is not a period drama. It takes place in the current time frame..

 

[artiemom]

I am currently reading, The Lilac Girls.. set pre WWII and during WWII.. I really like historical fiction.. for some reason, I have been reading a lot of things about WWII and the middle ages...

Wonder what that means???

 

[Mamanyt1953]

What, you don't keep a book next to the toilet?!

Margret

It's a small bathroom. "Next to the bath tub" is next to the toilet. Just as well, or I'd NEVER keep all of the plots straight!

 

[artiemom]

I am currently reading a book about the holocaust and 3 women... One from New York City, One from Poland and One from Germany....and a concentration camp...The only one which was exclusively for women, Ravensbruck..And it also includes a little bit about the Nuremberg Trials.. which I never really knew the intricacies of.....

Yes, there are photographs.

It was a NY times Best Seller: "The Lilac Girls"

The women are real people.. the events are real, there is a fictionalized account of conversations, but real.. such strong women, who never knew they were strong, until this disaster occurred.

It really shows how Hitler infused the German people with hatred for all others who were not Aryans. It shows how the attitudes began with the children, and morphed into the hatred and brutalism of the adults; disturbing and eye opening. How they had such disregard for human life, except that of their own kind. It is appalling..

It is heartbreaking to read; but the atrocities of Hitler and his cronies have to be remembered. If we forget history, we are bound to repeat it....

The book is very disturbing but compelling to read. I found myself reading over 150 pages last night. I could not put it down. Each chapter is devoted to one woman: A socialite from New York, who was volunteering, before the war, as a aide for French immigrants; A teenage Polish Girl, and a Young German Doctor. Each chapter ends with you wanting more and more..

I knew there were gruesome things happening in Concentration Camps, but never realized the depth of depravity. It is really mind boggling..

I think in the current political climate, it is so important to keep remembering what has happened, and not sweep it under the table..

And The United States isolationism at that time, allowed this to happen, until it effected us....Pearl Harbor. How England was in it from the beginning.. It had to take until the Germans were occupying 99% of Europe before the US would take action....

really makes you think..

I like historical fiction.. this is more fact than fiction...

A compelling read....