JANUARY READS

[rapa]

HAPPY 2016 BOOKOHOLICS!!!!!!

Here is a toast, compliments of Cyril M. Drew


"A health to books!....
Your goblets all refill;
When all things mortel are decayed
May books be with us still!"

Happy reading to you this year. Please share your best and worst reads of 2015 in the discussion below.

[Flowergram]

That was really cute and I know how he feels, some books you just want to continue forever.  Thanks Lip Service.

[Eaglewoman]

I loved the Harold Fry book as did most of my book club, but don't think I will read the follow up book- I usually find them a disppointment.They are going to read it in my other book club also- different type of people- so will see how they react to it.

[Carci]

I did finish 'Harold Fry', Eaglewoman.  I liked the ending but don't think I'd plod through another of his books.

[Ioruach]

I just finished Benediction by Kent Haruf. Much of it was difficult to read, mostly concerning the death of Dad Lewis. But at the same time, as with all of Haruf's works, beautiful and compassionate. As I read, even an old fart like myself needed a box of Puffs nearby.

[Carci]

I started the Last Train To Paradise, Henry Flagler and the spectacular rise and fall of the railroad that crossed an ocean.

This is a non-fiction about the Key West Railroad that was destroyed in a massive hurricane in 1935.  DH read it last week and he thought I'd like it so trusting his judgement I picked it up.  So far it's quite interesting.  Catches your attention at the beginning with Ernest Hemmingway's life in Key West.

[Mandy Muffin]

I have added another reading tool to my life.  This week, my Apple iPhone arrived to which I quickly added the Kindle app. For years I have been juggling turning land lines on and off from by two homes located in Kentucky and Florida, so I decided to put an end to it and go strictly mobile.  All three of my children have dropped the use of land lines years ago and have been urging me to do so.  I guess I just liked the security of something to talk into that is attached to a wall and a wire.  Since the week involved quite a bit of sitting in doctor's offices, the phone was just the thing to pass the time away on my favorite hobby.  No more forgetting the Amazon Fire or a book at home. 

I finished a delightful modern retelling of the Trojan War called "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller.  I enjoyed a revisit (in story form) of my day exploring Troy a few years back. "Was this the face that launched a thousand ship and burnt the topless towers of Illium, sweet Helen make me immortal with a kiss" or something like that.  Then there was this horse...

I am now reading "Lines of Departure" by Marno Kloos, as sci-fi space story of Earth fighting for scarce land in the universe and fighting 80 foot tall creatures to gain more.  Strange!

[Carci]

I still have one land line altho we use the mobile at our summer home.  I recently was trying to connect with a friend whose phone number I didn't have in my file.  Alas, she is now on cell and there was no way to track her.

Now we can only call those who are close enough to give us their cell numbers... and don't lose it or you will have to send an email to get it back... if you have their email... or you could FB them... if they are on FB...  lol

What a strange world we live in these days...

 

[rapa]

I called ATT and they no longer print white pages! Pain in the whazoo trying to find addresses! Even that book is gone!!!!! :(

[Mandy Muffin]

It's a whole new world of communications out there where a lifetime of communicating customs are out the window. Who knew you could read on a phone, pay bills with it and use it find your way around the country.  Area codes mean absolutely nothing and the concept of calls being long distance is gone. And you have a personal assistant who speaks to you and finds out thingsfor you. Lucky for me I have been computer literate for a number of years and understand what is going on. I have had the personal assistant feature since I upgraded to windows 10.  But it still is going to take some getting used to to feel comfortable with the technology. 

[Slopok]

Just Finished, The Last crypt, by Fernando Gamboa.....Not a page turner but a good read, I looked forward to settling down for a read in the evenings, it has a "flow", for lack of a better word. 

Diver Ulysses Vidal finds a fourteenth-century bronze bell of Templar origin buried under a reef off the Honduras coast. It turns out it’s been lying there for more than one century, prior to Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. Driven by curiosity and a sense of adventure, he begins the search for the legendary treasure of the Order of The Temple. Together with a medieval history professor and a daring Mexican archeologist they travel through Spain, the Mali desert, the Caribbean Sea and the Mexican jungle. They face innumerable riddles and dangers, but in the end this search will uncover a much more important mystery. A secret, kept hidden for centuries, which could transform the history of humankind, and the way we understand the Universe.

[Carolyn Tewell]

Okay...I've not had any amazing books to share with the Team! Finishing up TAMARACK COUNTRY by William Kent Krueger. A Cork O'O'Conner novel...circa 2013. Very sappy (focus on his children) and hardly any tension relating to the mystery of a woman being killed. Not recommended.

I have a head's up that a few prime Audiobooks are in transit from other Libraries. So maybe I'll have something to share over the weekend.

FWIW.(for what it's worth)..I am recording a movie from one of my favorite books "The Lovely Bones." Can't imagine it could be as engrossing as the book.

TO BE CONTINUED

[rapa]

Tomorrow am picking up Elizabeth Strout's new release, MY NAME IS NANCY BARTON. As you may remember, Strout won the Pulitzer for her OLIVE KITTERIDGE.

Just finished Jacqueline Sheehan' latest THE CENTER of the WORLD. This is compelling novel about a mother and adopted daughter stemming from the civil war in Guatemala. Good read with historical significance.

64 and sunny here today. Wishing our northern members warmth and some good reading time! ☀️