February Reads

[rapa]

"Hello February!" Are you ready for Punxsutawney Phil, Cupid, Year of the Monkey, Abe and George's birthday and a Leap Year jump into March?
Hope you treat yourselves to some good reading as winter continues.

I just started CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER by Tom Franklin. This is a compelling, literary crime novel set in rural Mississippi. It begins in the late 1970's with a secret friendship between a young white boy and black boy which was broken via the white boy's father. Twenty years later the black boy returns to the town as a constable and must confront the past that they had buried to deal with a suspected crime. Good read! Whipped through 100 pages last night.

What are you reading?

[Lip Service]

Carci one suggestion for you is to download and install the following application

http://www.classicshell.net/downloads/

It will give you the Start button and a number of old features that you are probably missing

Let us know if it helped any

[Flowergram]

Thanks for a good tip Lip Service - will be upgrading to 10 and may need this. 

[Carci]

Lip Service... I looked at classicshell but decided I just have to learn 8.1 so I am beginning to get familiar with it...  My 8th grade grandson helped me download my Office docs to Google docs so now I can get my files for taxes. It's all a learning process.  :)

I started reading Winter Men on my IPad, a WWII novel from Amazon Prime but I am having trouble getting into it.  I much prefer a hand held book for reading. 

[Ioruach]

I finished Personal by Lee Child about a week ago, although I'm not sure how I managed to do so. It was pretty good until nearly half way through. Then the story became repetitious and even tedious, just going on and on seemingly going nowhere. The ending was even predictable, even though Child tossed in one little twist, trying to make it worth while. I have read and enjoyed most of the Jack Reacher novels, but this one was a big disappointment. 

This morning I finished The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian, (my first book of the year with a 2016 copyright date). Bohjalian has written some good thrillers, and this one is no exception. One of the main characters lets his brother hold a bachelor party, with strippers, at his home. The party gets out of hand and results in two killings. Another of the main characters is one of the strippers who was smuggled into the country by Russian mobsters. A lot of the novel explores her life in rather overwhelming detail, but I do recommend it, unlike the Lee Child book, which I do not.

[Mandy Muffin]

Finished Liane Moriarty's "The Last Anniversary" an absolutely delightfully written novel about postpartum depression.  This is the third novel I have read by the Sydney, Australia native.  All have been best sellers -- "The Husband's Secret" and "Big, Little Lies."  Yesterday, I noticed that Amazon had the book on a promotion for 99cents.  In the story, a 39 year old unmarried woman inherits a house on an island from her ex-boyfriend's aunt. There is a great back-story about baby who was found abandoned by her mother and father some 70 plus years earlier on that very island, were only six houses are located. Every year there is a Anniversary party on the island to relive the mystery, which attracts hundreds of people and makes money for the locals who live there.  Of course, the inheriting woman gets involved with the husband of neighbor whose wife has just given birth but is suffering with depression and is planning on exiting the marriage and passing on the child. 

[Slopok]

I've read 4 or 5 books since I last posted but nothing that great. I'm currently reading: The God Complex by Murray McDonald. It is a little odd, with lots of characters, but it's ok:

 When Cash Harris visits his father for the first time after a fifteen year estrangement, things don't go anywhere near as planned. By the end of the night, he finds himself embroiled in a plot to destabilize the government, his father has been assassinated and he discovers a shocking truth that would have fundamentally altered his life fifteen years earlier.

However, all of this pales into insignificance when, along with his best friend and ex-fiancee, he fights for his innocence and the chance to save a world they didn't even know needed saving. They uncover the truth that has been eluding mankind from its very inception. Life, the universe...everything...nothing is as it really seems.

I will definitely read, Crooked Letter.

Hard to concentrate when one is awash in gravity waves!

[Carolyn Tewell]

LORUACH...I am reading THE PLAYER by Brad Parks and enjoying it a lot!

Like Slopok I've been struggling with a few books. Started NYPD RED by Robert Parker and stopped in the middle to give The Player a shot and glad I did.

Sometimes I have a bunch of books checked out of the Library have some pressure to get the best ones read. NYPD RED has a long list of holds waiting so I'll start back on it by Sunday night.

10 degrees for the high...windchill about -15 below. I'm grounded...which is okay!

[Carci]

Just ordered the first 2 in the series... I see he won the Shamus for his first, Faces of the Gone. 

Here's a link to his page on fantastic fiction for anyone interested:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/brad-parks/

Thanks for the recommendation Carolyn. It's always a treat to find a new author.

[Carolyn Tewell]

CARCI...I can't believe how engrossing, humorous and suspenseful THE PLAYER was! I'll have to share any accolades with Loruach since he highlighted it couple weeks ago.

Also I didn't know he had another book out so props and kudos to you for bringing that to my attention.

I've ditched so many books....that NYPD RED is so unbelievable...I guess if one likes and BELIEVES that a woman could be SOOO thrilled to kill as many people as possible to make a movie? No spoiler as it is hammered over and over. The dang book is like Number one. Maybe I've become jaded?.... But, NO! After reading THE PLAYER my willingness to search out creative, entertaining and engaging stories has been rebooted!

[Eaglewoman]

Went to book club Tues. (Boston Girl- seemed to be one of those books that is either you love it or hate it- no middle ground. They gave us the Read Harder Challenge for 2016. Interesting.

Read a Harder book

Read a non fiction book about science

Read a collection of eassays

Read a book out load to some one else

Read a middle grade book

Read a biography(not amemior or autobiography)

Read s dystopian or post apocalyptic novel

Read a book originally published in the decade you were born

Listen to an aufio book that has won the Audie award

Read a book over 500 pages long

Read a book under 100 pages

Read bookby or about a person that identifies as a transgender

Read a book that is set in the diddle east

Read a book that is by an author from southeast Asia

REad a historical fiction set before 1900

Read the 1st book in a series by a person of color

Read a non-super hero comic that debuted in the last 3 years

Read a book that was made into a movie

Read a non-fiction book about feminism or dealing with feminist themes

Read abook about religiion(fiction or non fiction)

Read a book about politics, in your country or another- fiction or non fiction

Read aplay'Read a food memior'

Read a book bout a main character who has mental illness

this is to get you to read outside of your dos.Some will be way outside of my box, but our whole club ius going to try and do it.

[Mandy Muffin]

Now there's a challenge.  I did one for my local library a couple of years ago.  I will copy the list and give it a try, or at least fill in in from books I have read in the recent past.  I am continuing on my quest to real all of the books that are "A Girl From/Who/Did or Whatever Other Attribute"  I just finished "The Girl From Krakow," that is a history of  15 years of the struggles of three Polish Jews who are trapped inside the Nazi extermination machine, and do everything to disguise their identity and keep alive during the Holocaust. Terrific historical read of conditions in Europe during the 30-40 decades. Very, very graphic.  

 

[Ioruach]

Eaglewoman, that looks like a challenge that I think I will pass up.