What are you reading the week of April 16, 2022?

I read Inspector Cadaver, another of the Inspector Maigret mysteries. This was not one of my favorites, in that Maigret makes some very questionable choices in this story.

I have about 75 pages remaining in The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest. I hope to finish it tomorrow.

I'm only 40 pages from the end of the gargantuan The Ministry for the Future. There's a lot that's admirable and thought provoking, here, but a lot of filler, as well.

Speaking of SF with no filler, I finished the economical The Employees yesterday, which achieved its impact in about 120 pages. Will switch back to Early Chinese Empires before starting Russia's Crony Capitalism.

Half-finished with this enjoyable hoopla audio ~

Front Page Murder (A Homefront News Mystery, #1) by Joyce St. Anthony
(WWII era/Irene is the wartime editor of the hometown newspaper/
a Nancy-Drew type character/includes interesting war news flashes)

Less than 100 pages to go in Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. For real I am going to finish before next weekend.

Still reading My Evil Mother and Memory's Legion.

I'm about halfway through Hench, a highly enjoyable laugh-out-loud novel by Canadian author Natalie Zina Walschots.

Listening to Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It's a long haul - 42 hours - but i've never managed to read the entire novel. Excellent narration.

Going between The Once and Future Witches and The Wandering Unicorn for the SFFKit. And dabbling a bit into a YA book, The Scholar, the Sphinx, and the Shades of Nyx.

Finished reading Normal People which I quite enjoyed. Various reviewers complained about the author's lack of quotation marks. I had not even noticed. Don't know what that says about me but it did mean that did not impact my reading of story.

My monthly reading group assignment this month was The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, speculative fiction set in the near future about the evolving and worsening issues surrounding global warming. I thought the novel did a pretty good job of providing a plausible look at how climate matters may well progress, and of individual components of the problem that many of us may not be specifically aware of, followed by a speculative and mostly hopeful view of how things might get turned around. Not all of the latter elements felt particularly likely to me, sad to say. The characters themselves are mostly razor thin, though Robinson does make some attempt to deepen the characterization of his main character somewhat, giving her a personal side issue that at first is quite interesting but which eventually becomes (or at least became for me) mostly extraneous. A lot of this novel is quite good, although Robinson's scattershot approach can become wearing. You can find my more in-depth (or at least longer) comments on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up for me will be the mystery Turning Angel, the second book in Greg Lies' Penn Cage series. It's been years since I read the first one, but I think I remember enough of the general gist to just dive back into the series now.

I didn't finish The Love Songs Of W.E.B Du Bois. Similar to too many other stories in this genre.

Next up for listening is Special Circumstances by Sheldon Siegel.

I'm starting Watercolor Summer.

Finished My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood. It was OK.

I just started Subtle Acts of Exclusion. My colleagues read this book together over the summer the week I was on vacation, so I'm playing catch up. It's a book about how to address microagressions (which the authors redefine as "subtle acts of exclusion") individually, in teams, and at the institutional level in the workplace.

Enjoying this OverDrive audio ~

The Butler: A Novel
by Danielle Steel

Added The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey to my rotation.

>10 rocketjk: can you ask your reading group if they can help me find a book that I can't remember the title of? It's about a sleeper cell spy that answers the phone and hears her code word and then kills her Husband I think. I think it starts with a g. The book is white covering with red letters. feel free to email me @texasbentangel@gmail.com Thanks!!

Save Me the Plums – Ruth Reichl
Digital audiobook read by the author.
4****

Subtitle: My Gourmet Memoir

Reichl has written before about her time as a food critic and about her mother, here she tackles the years she spent as editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine.

I love her writing. It is nothing short of delicious. She is open, honest and insightful. She writes about not just what happened but how she felt about what was happening. Her bafflement and near terror at realizing she really had no idea about running a magazine comes through. As does her sheer delight in creating something new and exciting, in finding the right business colleagues to push the magazine in new directions.

And, as usual, she really excels when writing about food, whether is a “yaffy” moment of testing sloppy joe mix or experiencing a truly gourmet-qualify meal in a tiny French restaurant or even making a quick Spicy Chinese noodles snack for her son late at night. I may have gained 10 pounds just reading about her food experiences.

Reichl narrates the audiobook herself. I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job of it.

>18 BookConcierge: I have to agree with you. I love Reichl's books!

Just finished Jasper Fforde's The Constant Rabbit. It hurts to type & my brain is full of pain-pills, so not much of a review.

Fforde's sly fantasy doesn't stray far from its Orwellian roots, despite the author's fondness for puns, implied puns, and drive-by literary references. In an England where an unspecified "event" has rendered some animals sentient -- and human-sized -- species-ism and racism blend into an uneasy alliance with genocidal implications.

Finished The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives, which was fun and a nice treat for my foggy brain. Diving into a Kindle book next, since I can manage them one-handed.

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls
Mary Downing Hahn
4/5 stars
Set in 1956, two young high school girls are killed in the woods causing great consternation in their community. Buddy, a young man is thought to have killed them but is let go. Will they ever find the killer(s)? This is based on a true story. This is also considered a Juvenile book but I really enjoyed it and wondered why it was in that section because I think adults would enjoy it. I have read Hahn’s other books and would like to read more of her.

Starting this OverDrive audio ~

The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post: A Novel
by Allison Pataki

Finished listening to Special Circumstances.

Next up for listening is Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles.

Once Upon a Time in Rio – Francisco Azevedo
4****

When Jose Custodio and Maria Romana marry in Lisbon in 1908, his sister Palma, retrieves all the rice thrown by well-wishers at the ceremony, and presents it to the couple as a gift, to symbolize future health and fertility. When the young couple, along with Palma, decide to emigrate to Brazil, the rice comes with them, tucked away among the linens. The novel follows the Custodios, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren through the decades and into the 21st century.

The original Portuguese title – O Arroz de Palma – translates as “Palma’s Rice” and the rice definitely has a role in this delightful multi-generational saga of love, adventure, joy, disappointment, fear, prosperity and all those ingredients that make up the delicious dish we know as family. The story is told by Antonio, son of Jose & Maria, who at the outset of the book is already a grandfather himself and planning a family celebration in honor of what would be his parents’ 100th wedding anniversary. As Antonio looks back, he is remembering the stories his beloved Aunt Palma told him about his parents and his own early childhood, and then his own recollections of his youth and the sibling rivalry between he and his brothers and sister as they grow to adulthood and leave the family home to seek their own fortunes.

It reminded me at times of the Spanish telenovelas my grandmother loved to listen to on the radio. Weddings, births, funerals, fights and making up. Such drama and histrionics! Such love and passion! I was engaged and interested from beginning to end.

Finished two reads this week: Savage Love from A to Z by my fave writer Dan Savage. And the novel Lockdown on London Lane, an easy, quick romcom-like read.

Just finished The Magician, by Kathleen Shoop, which turns out to have been a fictionalized biography of baseball great Stan Musial's early years. I'm not a particular fan of sports, but enjioyed this, largely because of the way it looked at the complex relationship between Musial's parents.

Back again with an aperitif imbibed while waiting for AAA. Picked up a copy of Robert B. Parker's The Professional. This was a re-read for me, but when you're waiting around for someone to come and unlock your car (only ONE of the many "interesting" things that hsppened to me today), and the available reading material is ... limited, to say the least ... you go for something that promises the most diversion for the least effort. (Incidentally, if you're wondering how long it took AAA to respond, the answer is 252 pages...)

The new thread is up over here.