January 2017 Reads

[Lip Service]

2016 has already left and 2017 has made its grand entrance

I hope it will be good one for all of us and that your wishes for the new year will be fulfilled

Winter is upon us, time for winter activities, hot wine toddy and a good book by the fire

Between extreme skiing, snow shoveling and dog sledding I hope you find enough time to read and to tell us about any books you have (or have not) enjoyed

[Carolyn Tewell]

BAIA...Back in the old days of EONS the Bookoholics members would jump on every new Jack Reacher books and chat about it. Think one time we set up a separate thread so no spoilers would be shared on the main forum. Very fun times!

I just started Jodi Picoult's SMALL GREAT THINGS...can't put it down! Some harsh narrative for sure and some medical language (gotta get grand-daughter to interpret)

Other than that listening to James Grippando and some older stories by Connally, James Lee Burke, Patterson and others. DEEP NUTRITION non-fiction which was enlightening. Glad all the XMAS candy is gone...lol

[Carci]

Hi Bookies...  Just realized it's been 6 weeks since I posted here and I've missed you all.  Busy holidays...

December found me catching up on some of my favorite series: Manitou Canyon by Wm. Kent Krueger, A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, The Last Mile by Baldacci & Off the Grid by CJ Box.  I also read the 2nd Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton but didn't care for the main character. 

I re-read one of my favorite books, Ordinary Grace by Wm. Kent Krueger, and it was just as good the second time.

I joined a f2f book club a couple of months ago and we read Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler this month. 89 yr old Isabelle asks her younger, black hairdresser to drive her on a mysterious trip to a funeral and a story of forbidden love and unexpected friendships develop along the way.

I am now re-reading All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  I read this 18 mo ago and suggested it to the f2f club so I thought I'd read it again since I will be leading the discussion in February.  It amazes me how much of the book I had forgotten and I am enjoying it all over again.

[Slopok]

Just finished, The Guilty by Baldacci. A good read:

Will Robie is the government's most professional, disciplined, and lethal assassin. He infiltrates the most hostile countries in the world, defeats our enemies' advanced security measures, and eliminates threats before they ever reach our shores.
But now, his skills have left him. Sent overseas on a critical assignment, he fails, unable to pull the trigger. Absent his talents, Robie is a man without a mission, and without a purpose.
To recover what he has lost, Robie must confront what he has tried to forget for over twenty years: his own past.

[rapa]

Any of you fans of the stories of Ivan Doig? I recently finished a terrific novel A BLOOM OF BONES by Allen Morris Jones that reminds me of Doig's writing. William Kittredge describes this story as "Two attractive but emotionally isolated people, a rancher on the starved-to-death plains of Montana who has written his way into nationally acclaimed poetry and a young woman who represents his New York literary agent. A progressing love story and an unsolved murder--A BLOOM OF BONES is articulate, occasionally heartbreaking, and all the way fascinating." I agree with Mr. Kittredge who thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Was disappointed in the latest Lee Child's Reacher adventure, NIGHT SCHOOL. It almost felt like he was using a ghost writer taking Reacher back in time.

Tonight will finish another wild, chilling novel by Joyce Carol Oates; MUDWOMAN. Her books are stand alones. Amazing how she comes up with such terrorizing stories!

Thursday am going to The Kimbell to view the traveling Monet exhibit for a second time. It's moving on at the end of the month.

What's going on with you?????

[CaliforniaNow]

Recommendation NOT to read:  Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays

You think it'll be funny (which it is, a little).  You think it'll be quick and easy, which it is.  You think it'll have photos which it does.  But if you don't want to end up in the corner full of nostalgia and mourning for dead relatives, don't read this book.

[Ioruach]

I just read The Runner by Christopher Reich. The story took place in Germany immediately following WWII. It was about the hunt for a Nazi who was intent on traveling to Potsdam to murder Truman, Stalin and Churchill during the Potsdam Conference. In addition to being a pretty good story, it interested me because I had been stationed in all the places where the events took place about ten years later while in the U.S. Air Force.

I am now about 100 pages into Hillbilly Elegy and thoroughly enjoying it. More about that later.

[rapa]

HILLBILLY ELEGY is the only book currently on my reserve list. Am now down to #9 of 19. Good to know you're enjoying it!

[Slopok]

Reading: The Red Knight of Germany: The Story of Baron von Richthofen, Germany's Great War Bird,
by Floyd Gibbons .....No mention of Snoopy so far

[Mandy Muffin]

I have been off the grid for about three weeks this month, as I have moved to my new retirement home in Lebanon, Ohio.  I have had to consolidate 50 years of living in three different houses into a two bedroom accommodation. Accordingly, my reading has gone way downhill, as all my books were in boxes and my electronic system shut down because of the absence of a wi-fi connection.  So I picked up an old classic.  "The Raj Quartet" by Paul Scott was sitting on top of a packing box and I finally started to read this tome on the final days of the British rule in India. Sometimes it's fun to read the classics and go back to another age where people read such novels instead of watching TV and surfing on their computers.  It certainly is a change from the "Girl who" novels of today that seem to attract the modern reader.  

 

[Ioruach]

I know the drill, Mandy. I moved into a senior living facility a year and a half ago. And, yes, you give up a lot of things. But I am satisfied, over all. You see, the facility where I live is only about a three minute walk from my library. A stone's throw, so to speak. I doubt if I would be content here if that were not the case.

[Ioruach]

Just ten minutes ago I finished the last page of Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance, where the author tells of his life from being born a poor hillbilly in rural Kentucky to graduating from Yale law school. There is not really a lot I can say about it, except to read it, because his story is certainly very inspiring. But beyond telling how someone born in the circumstances he was, he allows the reader to learn a great deal about a culture very different from his/her own. And it is, in many ways, a complex culture-a culture that is very much focused on extended family and relationships. But Vance also uses his life and experiences as observations on the many social and political issues of today. I certainly recommend the book for everyone in Bookoholics.