What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

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I just finished "The Making of Donald Trump," by David Cay Johnston. Heckuva read.
 
On the final book of Rick Yancey's 5th Wave series, another good post apocalyptic read.

I did recently listen to Wastelands, which is a collection of shorter stories in this genre, but it wasn't good, on balance. A few of the stories were interesting, but not all, and some dragged on seemingly forever.
 
Bestwifeever said:
The Brunetti books have been on my to-read list for a long time. Thank you for the reminder!
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.....try and read them in order of publication so as to maintain continuity.

If you haven't already read them you might also enjoy Montalbano

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews...ector_Montalbano_Books_in_Chronological_Order


And Aurelio Zen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelio_Zen

Also and Grazia Negro by Carlo Lucarelli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Lucarelli
 
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Capwest28 said:
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Enjoyed it very much.
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hey it's been waiting on my shelf for quite a time already. hope it will not disappoint me too :)

currently reading "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen - very absorbing and really brilliant
 
What have you read recently?

juliadream said:
hey it's been waiting on my shelf for quite a time already. hope it will not disappoint me too :)

currently reading "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen - very absorbing and really brilliant
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Loved The Corrections ( as did many of my male friends, while most of the females to whom I recommended it did not like it at all)

Hated The Goldfinch- finished it, but sooooooooop over-rated.

Just finished A Gentleman in Moscow - the second book by the author of a book I loved, The Rules of Civility. His first book was thoroughly charming. Gentleman was diverting, but too cute for itself, trying too hard to be charming.




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I have been reading American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin. It's the story of the Patty Hearst kidnapping saga in 1974 along with its aftermath. Toobin has a far different take on it compared to Hearst's in her autobiography, "Every Secret Thing" she wrote in 1982 (which I read in the early 1990s).
 
Meadbh said:
I also favour nonfiction. The Gene is on my list. I also recommend Mukherjee's first book, The Emperor of All Maladies, a biography of Cancer.
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I finished The Emperor of All Maladies and liked it. I would recommend it to anyone "who wants to know about cancer". If I was diagnosed, I would reread it.
 
braumeister said:
Unlike most here, I mainly read nonfiction.
The latest is an extraordinarily well written account of how genes were discovered and understood (as far as they are currently understood).

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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I am finishing up The Gene now and I like it very much. I was wondering the best way to briefly summarize the book but Braumeister did an excellent job.

DNA The Secret of Life by Watson covers discoveries and the history of modern genetics and is a good read. However, Mukherjee goes further and explains how genes are understood so that you understand. To answer a question like: How do we know how far away from us the stars are? you must learn the explanation and history of each step that leads to the next step in understanding. Can't be covered in one paragraph. Mukherjee takes each discovery and explains all the steps of its conceptual and experimental history. Some how he makes all of this information flow chronologically in a way that is interesting.
 
Reading: Consequence: A Memoir by Eric Fair

My son had to get a book at the library and it was sort of a random pick. His teach said his essay was very good so I figured I should read the book.

Only on the 2nd chapter.
cd :O)
 
I just finished The Sex Lives of Cannibals - Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (2004) by Maarten Troost. This is a hilarious account of a young man who accompanied his wife to Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati (pronounced Ki ree bas), and spent two years on this atoll where his wife worked as a director for a non-profit organization.

You have not heard of Kiribati? Me neither, before reading this book. Tarawa is quite close to the equator, about half-way between Hawaii and the northeast corner of Australia and about 3000 miles from either. Few would want to spend 2 years on this atoll, but before booking a flight there for an idyllic vacation, you would do well to read this book.

Maarten used a facetious prose to describe a bleak life on this atoll. Not much food can grow on this atoll, nor is there land for farming. Landlubbers may talk lovingly of fresh seafood, but when one is faced day-in-day-out with three meals of boiled fish, boiled sea slugs, boiled moray eels, one quickly craves for something different. Why always boiled seafood, you ask? That's because there's no spice to do much else with it, nor wood to grill with. The author half-jokingly talked about looking at his adopted stray dog, and imagined it as a spit roast.

The book is 12-year old, and even back then the author wrote of refuse and human waste being thrown out to the sea because there's no land for any garbage dump. There's a perpetual shortage of fresh water, and whatever ground water there gets contaminated with human and animal waste. Yet, Tarawa is getting more crowded due to influx; other atolls of this country are slowly sinking into the ocean.

I went on the Web to look for some info to see if the author was exaggerating what he saw. What little I found shows that life is indeed harsh, and the beach is indeed littered with trash.

What is surprising on the Web are the numerous old B&W photos of the WWII battle waged on this atoll. It is not as well known as Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal, but on a small neighboring island of Betio of about 1 square mile, 6,400 American soldiers, and Japanese soldiers along with their conscripted Korean laborers died in the space of 3 days of fighting.

PS. What about the cannibals and their sex lives? Well, you have to read the book to find out. ;)
 
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I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb

At nearly 900 pages this may not be for everyone, but I found it engrossing. A sprawling story of one small family unfolds as one half of a pair of identical twins tries to figure out his life. I don't want to give away more than that. One of the best books I have read that I had never heard of.
(It was an Oprah book club selection, but I never followed her.)


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Gutenberg's Apprentice

A wonderful novel about the beginning of printing, in the mid 15th century.

The entire range of the events, both geographical and social, is remarkably well researched and the characters are well drawn.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and I will happily buy her next book.
 
"The Year of Voting Dangerously," by Maureen Dowd. It has a series of her columns, like a diary, from 2015 and 2016 about the 2016 presidential campaign.
 
Been on another WWII book reading kick lately. Just finished "Wine and War: The French, the Nazis and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure" by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup

It's older, so many of you may have read it, but if not, it's very interesting if you like wine or European history!
 
Do Audio Books count? If so, I am listening to 'Under the Dome'. It is far, far, far better than the TV show of the same name.
 
Another collection of American short stories. I'm kind of surprised at how much I like some stories as opposed to others.
 
I'm picking my way through John LeCarre: The Biography
On Amazon the Kindle version is only $2 (got my book at the library though): https://smile.amazon.com/John-Carre...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1482185281&sr=8-1

I rarely read biographies because they are so loooong. This one is 673 pages. I decided I'd skip a lot of the details and dive occasionally into whole paragraphs. David Cornwell had a real cad of a father: con artist, wife beater, philanderer. An all around bad guy. Interesting and probably served David well in his apparently brief intelligence career plus his writing.

I'm now tempted to re-read his book A Perfect Spy which has some autobiographical features apparently.
 
Nemo2 said:
Just finished The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo.....good read.

https://www.amazon.ca/Redeemer-Jo-Nesbo/dp/030735573X
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I looked this up and it looks interesting. Apparently this in #3 in a series of Harry Hole crime novels that might go together.

The recommendation by one reviewer suggested reading them in order. I think this is the order for 3 books considered part of a series:
The Redeemer
The Snowman
The Leopard

But there are other Harry Hole books too. Maybe these are standalones? This link seems to show some promise in uncovering the reading order if the Oslo sequence is the best: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nesbø’s-novels-order-featuring-Detective/lm/R1LA85C2RSMHTD

I'm confused as to the best order to read these and other Harry Hole books.
 
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Chuckanut said:
Do Audio Books count? If so, I am listening to 'Under the Dome'. It is far, far, far better than the TV show of the same name.
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DH loved that book so we watched the summer series, three summers in a row. The third and final season became the funniest thing ever, so obviously made up as the writers went along, gaping plot holes, storylines that went nowhere, characters acting out of character. It should have been a one-summer show.
 
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