September Book Thread

[rosen]

Ok gang – it’s mid-month and no one’s started a book thread?! Let me begin…

Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A Novel by Maria Semple

Loved this!

Long story short – daughter Bee is promised whatever she wants for perfect grades – and she chooses a trip to Antarctica. Mom Bernadette is agoraphobic and hides that fact and more via a caustic hate of housework, the neighbors and anything having to do w/ living in Seattle. Husband is a big-wig at Microsoft and loves both his women to distraction – when he can focus on them.

This was a hoot! Loved the droll, wicked satire and I am going to shamelessly post a quote from Amazon:

"Comedy heaven.... This divinely funny, many-faceted novel...leaves convention behind. Instead, it plays to Ms. Semple's strengths as someone who can practice ventriloquism in many voices, skip over the mundane and utterly refute the notion that mixed-media fiction is bloggy, slack or lazy.... The tightly constructed Where'd You Go, Bernadette is written in many formats-e-mails, letters, F.B.I. documents, correspondence with a psychiatrist and even an emergency-room bill for a run-in between Bernadette and Audrey. Yet these pieces are strung together so wittily that Ms. Semple's storytelling is always front and center, in sharp focus. You could stop and pay attention to how apt each new format is, how rarely she repeats herself and how imaginatively she unveils every bit of information. But you would have to stop laughing first." (Janet Maslin, The New York Times )

[LakeMartinGal]

I read 2 books for various book clubs -- How to be an American Housewife, about a Japanese woman who marries a sailor, and comes to the US. and reread The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barberry.

Both worth reading, and very discussable. Unfortunately, Elegance is very hard to get into, and either makes you feel intelligent for understanding it, or stupid! Not a comfortable read, but a worth-while one!

Now, I'm reading a Baldacci book, Zero Day, at bedtime, and it's very good! But then, most of his are!

[RiverFarm]

Rosen, I just got Where'd You Go, Bernadette for my iPad; I'm stocking up for our upcoming trip to France. I also really liked The Elegance of the Hedgehog and have the movie as well. Right now I'm reading Mona Simpson's My Hollywood, a novel about being a parent and being a nanny from the two different perspectives. The writing is very nice and it's an interesting idea, although I'm not sure where it's going.

[Angelina]

I love my mystery novels. I just finished The Likeness by Tana French, and I am now working on Faithful Place. The story in The Likeness was good, but something about the writing irked me at times. Too much crystal in the air, too much shattering light ...if you have read it, you will know what I mean. She definitely toned it down inFaithful Place, at least so far.

One book that I really enjoyed was Syndrome E by Franck Thilliez, a French writer who has a good following in France (that's what the NY Daily News said) and this is his first English-translated book. A really good mystery which MUST have a part 2, considering how the first one ends.

Also, at DH's request, I have on my Kindle the books Iago (of Othello fame) by David Snodin, and The Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis, where Macchiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci team up to solve a mystery. I can't vouch for them as I have not read them personally yet, but my husband loved both.

[rosen]

On the recommendation of RiverFarm, I tracked down 3 novels by Alexandra Raife from a couple of my favorite used book stores. They were: Drumveyn, Wild Highland Home, Until The Spring. I took these, along w/ a bag of various other fiction treats on a recent vacation.

All 3 of these were sweet, romantic, tales of family strife and everyday happenings in small, Scottish towns. The characters all deal w/ romantic conflict, and there is always a happy ending. While I liked these enough to read and finish - I found them just a tad too sweet (for me). Just a tad though – which I found interesting considering some of the similar stories and authors I enjoy.

I will pass these along to a girlfriend who requires that anything she reads ends happily. Thank you, River, for introducing me to this author.

[madpots]

I jus finished [B]Sly Fox[B] by Judge Jeanine Pirro. I really enjoyed this. Its set in the early 70s about the only frmale assistant district attorney in Westchester County. You can imagine when it starts out she is not "one of the boys." It moves fast and I think she might be a new heroine.

I saw Judge Pirro when she was on the View and she is very attractive and most interesting and so is her book.

[RiverFarm]

Rosen, I'm glad you didn't find Alexandra Raife a total waste of time. Sometimes I like books that introduce me to a different environment, and one of the fun things about Raife is that the same characters who were major protagonists in other novels crop up in asides in many of her books, so you get a glimpse of what's been happening to them since you last saw them.

You would probably find Mary Sheepshanks a bit too sweet, too, but I enjoyed her Picking Up the Pieces and A Price for Everything; both deal with domestic issues among Yorkshire families.

[amarante]

A bit of trivia - the father of Maria Semple (authoress of Where'd You Go Bernadette) is Lorenzo Semple who created the original Batman television series and had a wacky wonderful sense of humor. It's loaded onto my iphone but I have a surfeit of books that I am tempted by - the new Michael Chabon, the second book in the Century Trilogy covering 1933 - 1949 by Ken Follett, The Chaperone, The Submission, Beautiful Ruins, Rules of Civility, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, The Language of Flowers, The Innocents, Cloud Atlas, The Boy In The Suitcase - I went a little wild.

I finished The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey which I enjoyed very much. It is the story of two sisters who are dancers at which is obviously the New York City Ballet Company. Great story and since it was written by an ex-professional dancer, the insight into the "life" was fascinating.

http://www.amazon.com/Cranes-Dance-V.../dp/0307949826

I threw my neck out in the middle of Swan Lake last night.

So begins the tale of Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company who is struggling to keep her place in a very demanding world. At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister, Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate’s, but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home.

Alone for the first time in her life, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about the role she may have played in her sister’s collapse. As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity. Funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, The Cranes Dance is a book that pulls back the curtains to reveal the private lives of dancers and explores the complicated bond between sisters.

[SDMomChef]

I'm currently reading book two in Ken Follet's latest trilogy, Winter of the World which takes place during WWII. I loved Fall of the Giants, the first book in the trilogy so hoping this one is good as well.

[RiverFarm]

I just finished Mona Simpson's My Hollywood, about the filmwriters' subculture there in parallel with the subculture of the Filipina nannies who care for their children. Beautifully written, it enables you to see how these two groups almost but don't quite mesh, and what pressures send the women to the States to make money for those at home. The main characters, Lola - the Filipina, and Claire - the musician/mother, come across as authentic and multidimensional. I thought it was really excellent.

[PAMMELA]

After reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, I read her two other novels (that's all she has, i was bummed!) Dark Places and Sharp Objects. I loved Gone Girl and Sharp Objects and really liked Dark Places. She has a very disturbing imagination!!

I'm currently starting the 4th and last book in the Fever series by Karen Moning (Blood Fever is the first installment. It's a dark fantasy, but also humorous. I'm really enjoying it and getting sad that i'm starting the last book! Here is an excerpt from the author's website:

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman.

Or so she thinks... until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae...

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless V'lane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands...

[nylucy4]

I recently read Age of Miracles. It's told from an 11 year old's perspective of what happens when the rotation of the earth slows down. Very light but entertaining reading.

Right now I'm reading Gold by same author as Little Bee. About 2 female cyclists competing for a spot in the 2012 London Olympics. I didn't care for Little Bee but am really enjoying Gold.

[Angelina]

For those of you who read Broken Harbour by Tana French...what did you think about the walls issue? Was he crazy or not?

[amarante]

I just finished Ship of Brides by Jo Jo Moyes. It's based a work of historical fiction based upon the true life voyage of the aircraft carrier Victorious carrying 600 war brides from Australia to England in 1946.

In many ways it's a fairly standard genre - 4 women from disparate backgrounds come together - here they share the same cabin.

But the writing is above average; the characters are not the usual cliches often found in this genre and the story and background are fascinating.

It's an easy read but not one that insults one's intelligence. If you like Penny Vincenzi (for example), you would probably enjoy this. Jo Jo Moyes is a popular British author.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ship-Bride.../dp/0340830115