What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

[John Galt III]

Halfway through "Last Night in Twisted River" by John Irving. Good so far.

[Nords]

Paula Span's "When the Time Comes", another eldercare/end-of-life book. This one has a much more positive outlook than Jane Gross' "Bittersweet Season". I'm hoping I can end this reading jag on the upbeat and leave it alone for a while.

Paula's another contributor to the NYT "New Old Age" blog, and she profiles a dozen elders & families as she talks about the various stages of care-- "aging in place", moving in with family, assisted living, full-care nursing homes, and hospice. Good info with much less drama & confusion. She claims that fewer than 5% of elders live in full-care facilities, and nursing home use has been declining for over two decades. Only about 20% of elders use paid home-care assistance, even among the most disabled.

She also demolishes another nuclear-family myth. When the federal govt started paying Social Security in the 1930s, seniors stopped moving in with their kids. Turns out Grandma & Grandpa didn't really want to spend their golden years with the family so much as they wanted to live their own lives. However in those last few years, family is still where the care most frequently happens.

I learned a lot about hospice in this book, too. Almost every family said that they wished they'd started the conversation months earlier. Unfortunately hospice is seen as an admission of defeat and so that option is considered only when it's literally almost too late.

My Dad's made his wishes fairly clear, and my brother's already thinking along the same lines as me. But this book is a big help in practicing the conversation.

Book review: “When The Time Comes” | Military Retirement & Financial Independence

[Meadbh]

Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone. It has kept my weekend very unproductive! A good yarn, even if somewhat improbable, about a medical family, set mostly in Ethiopia, where the author grew up. He is currently a professor of clinical medicine at Stanford. The physicians on the forum may enjoy this one.

[Ally]

Dr. Verghese taught at Texas Tech for a time. His first book was nonfiction and was about the very first cases of AIDs in the small town where he practiced. It was really good. It's called "My Own Country".

[Lagniappe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone. It has kept my weekend very unproductive! A good yarn, even if somewhat improbable, about a medical family, set mostly in Ethiopia, where the author grew up. He is currently a professor of clinical medicine at Stanford. The physicians on the forum may enjoy this one.

I read Cutting for Stone last year, and loved it until the end. I went to hear the author speak at the Commonwealth Club shortly after reading the book - he is a very good writer who brings real medical knowledge into his fiction, and is himself a fascinating story. He took time away from medicine to be a part of the Iowa Writers Workshop, then went back to medicine, and has somehow managed to excel at simultaneous careers. If you can willingly suspend disbelief at the beginning, it is an enjoyable book.

[Marita40]

I just finished To Sleep with the Angels, a book about the 1958 fire at Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago. Although I was only 2 when the fire occurred I grew up in a near-by suburb and often heard adults speak in hushed voices about the tremendous tragedy. It was a riveting book--well written and researched--and it encompassed not only the lives of those changed by the fire but the very different time in terms of fire safety and building codes, Catholic parochial culture, the immigrant neighborhood (largely Italian), etc. I couldn't put it down. On another note, I'm also reading Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop in advance of the forthcoming Masterpiece Theatre production. Little Nell is tedious--a wimpering waif--but the secondary characters, especially the evil ones, are vintage Dickens.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marita40 I just finished To Sleep with the Angels, a book about the 1958 fire at Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago. Although I was only 2 when the fire occurred I grew up in a near-by suburb and often heard adults speak in hushed voices about the tremendous tragedy. It was a riveting book--well written and researched--and it encompassed not only the lives of those changed by the fire but the very different time in terms of fire safety and building codes, Catholic parochial culture, the immigrant neighborhood (largely Italian), etc. I couldn't put it down.

I will have to read that one. I was ten at the time and I remember all the angst.

[Moemg]

Just finished "Defending Jacob " by Wiliam Landay . Lots of twists and turns . A can not put it down book .

[Moemg]

I just read an older book which has recently been re released " I 'm dancing as fast as I can ". Really interesting look into drug withdrawal and psychosis .

[braumeister]

Jerusalem: The Biography

Just halfway through this big book, and had to recommend it here.
The best written history book I've read in several years, and I'm learning so much from it. Things that were hazy in school are made crystal clear here.

Montefiore tells the story of this "universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths" from its beginnings many thousands of years ago up to the present day. The story is told in terms of the significant players in the city's life, and is just amazingly well done.


Amazon.com: Jerusalem: The Biography: Simon Sebag Montefiore

Amazon.com: Jerusalem: The Biography eBook: Simon Sebag Montefiore: Kindle Store

[okapi]

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon.I heard a while ago that they were gonna make it into a movie starring Robert Downey Jr.Still waiting.

[Nemo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marita40 IThe Old Curiosity Shop in advance of the forthcoming Masterpiece Theatre production. Little Nell is tedious--a wimpering waif--but the secondary characters, especially the evil ones, are vintage Dickens.

"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing."

Oscar Wilde.

[Marita40]

Great quote from the irrepressible Oscar Wilde, Nemo! Little Nell's death has to be the longest, most drawn out, sentimental death in Victorian history. I can't say I laughed, but I was pretty bored--it was just so tedious and predictable. I'm working on David Copperfield right now with much more enthusiasm.

[Sarah in SC]

Am working my way through the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly. He really is a standout in the crime/police thriller/mystery category. Very enjoyable-next up is Trunk Music, which is book 4.
Others in the series are Black Echo, Black Ice, Concrete Blonde, and The Last Coyote.

[Meadbh]

Last weekend I read Now you see her by Joy Fielding. It is a thriller set in my home town, and she knows all the landmarks! Even the street where I grew up features in the book. It was a quick and entertaining read and the first book I have ever read on my Blackberry Torch (free from the library). I was actually amazed at how easy it was to read.

I have started two new books: Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby on my Kindle and The ground beneath her feet by Salman Rushdie on my iPad. Both are quite enjoyable. Nicholas Nickleby has a good discussion of the stock market and the dangers of overestimating SWR after receiving an inheritance.....

[Midpack]

Just finished Coming Apart by Charles Murray. A very good read on what's led to the decline of our (US) culture. Lots of data, though more on what happened and less on how or why. Finishes with two potential futures, leaves the reader to speculate which way we'll go...

Quote:

In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. That divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

[donheff]

Finished a couple of new books:

Need You Now, by James Grippando, is a financial thriller featuring a Madoff like Ponzi scheme hijacked by the Feds to... Pretty good read and Grippando has several ePub novels available from the library for future reading.

Also, The Technologists, by Matthew Pearl, a historical thriller featuring the debut class of MIT saving Boston from bad guys and Harvard. I liked this book which featured a mix of real characters from MIT, Harvard and Boston and some fictional characters. But I have to say, it is pretty juvenile. I have never read a Harry Potter book but somehow this one feels like it must be a bit like what that series is like. Give it a try and see what you think

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff Finished a couple of new books: Need You Now, by James Grippando, is a financial thriller featuring a Madoff like Ponzi scheme hijacked by the Feds to... Pretty good read and Grippando has several ePub novels available from the library for future reading. ...

Don, do you convert ePub novels for a Kindle? If so, is the process easy?

I looked this one Need You Now and the reviews looked pretty good. BTW, he wrote one called Amazon.com: Money to Burn: A Novel of Suspense: James Grippando: Books

Quote:

At thirty-one, Michael Cantella is a rising star at Wall Street's premier investment bank, Saxton Silvers. Everything is going according to plan until Ivy Layton, the love of his life, vanishes on their honeymoon in the Bahamas. Fast-forward four years. It's the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday, and Michael is still on track: successful career, beautiful new wife, piles of money. Reveling in his good fortune, Michael logs in to his computer, enters his password, and pulls up his biggest investment account: Zero balance. He tries another, and another. All of them zero. Someone has wiped him out. His only clue is a new e-mail message: Just as planned. xo xo.

Sounds like one of my day-mares and it's in our library.

[MissMolly]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lsbcal Don, do you convert ePub novels for a Kindle? If so, is the process easy?

A great tool for converting ebooks to whatever format your reader uses (mobi, epub, etc) is Calibre.

calibre - E-book management

It's very easy. You can also maintain a copy of all your books on Claibre so they never become lost.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lsbcal Don, do you convert ePub novels for a Kindle? If so, is the process easy? I looked this one Need You Now and the reviews looked pretty good. BTW, he wrote one called Amazon.com: Money to Burn: A Novel of Suspense: James Grippando: Books Sounds like one of my day-mares and it's in our library.

My Library carries both ePub (for Nooks) and Kindle versions so you just download the version that works for your device. If your library has the ePub it may also have the Kindle version. I do have software that can convert one format to the other (Calibre recommended by T-Al) but it will not work with encrypted library downloads.

Decrypting to time shift your books is a whole different topic