What are you reading the week of July 9, 2022?

I finished Maigret and the Coroner by Georges Simenon. It was a fascinating look at post WWII America through the eyes of a Frenchman. It was a great read up until the point that I hit an incredibly racist comment by Maigret. That took a lot of luster off of the book for me.

I'm about halfway through Ivan Turgenev's A Sportsman's Notebook. Lovely scenes of rural life and outdoor living. It takes me back to hunting with my father forty years ago.

I'm about a quarter of the way through my reread of Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.

Starting this audio via OverDrive ~

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
(Netflix series)

I'm reading and loving The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune.

This week I finished listening to The Violent Bear it Away, which was a hard book to listen to. I think O'Connor's writing and her use of language are beautiful, but the story was anything but.

I also finished reading a Swedish crime novel - The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen.

Now I'm going to read The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman for some light relief after O'Connor, and am going to listen to a true crime audiobook - Unmasked by Paul Holes.

Still reading Diving into the Wreck and An Eye for an Eye.

Finished the LTER, He's No Angel, which was a 2 1/2 star disaster. Overlong, and apparently "proofread" completely by Spell-Check, or by someone who doesn't know the difference between "shuttered" and "shuddered", "naught" and "not", or (are you ready for this one?) "deprivation" and "depravity".

Ugh.

About halfway throughFinlay Donovan Is Killing It, which is way out there in terms of unlikely, but at least appears to have been competently edited.........

I finished the excellent book, My Sunshine Away which was well written with insightful and unique descriptions of places, situations, and characters. It's a coming of age story with mystery and suspense thrown in.

Barnum: An American Life
Robert Wilson
5/5 stars
This is the biography of the amazing PT Barnum, who ran a museum of oddities, brought life to the circus and introduced some of his most famous acts to the American public including Jenny Lind, the Swedish songstress, Jumbo, the elephant and General Tom Thumb. The author paints a wonderful picture of his life, his family, the people that surrounded him and mostly his drive to entertain people. Highly recommended!

Let's see; finished Wings for the Rising Sun, 70% done with The Atlas Six, starting Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present.

The Time of Contempt
Andrzej Sapkowski
4/5 stars
While war has commenced between the elves, other races and humans, Ciri returns in this novel along with Witcher and Yennefer. However, she is in grave danger because there are several who want to control her while her magic is still not under her complete control.

Taking a break from the heat and humidity and enjoying a little Christmas in July!

An Amish Christmas – Cynthia Keller
Digital audiobook narrated by Cassandra Campbell
2.5** rounded up

A family living the American dream in North Carolina discovers they’ve lost everything. With little more than the clothes on their backs, they head for a family’s home in Maine, only to crash their car in the midst of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Meg, the mom in this middle-class family, is a well-organized, suburban housewife, who loves to entertain, and is completely caught off guard when her husband, James, reveals he’s been out of work for four months. She’s upset by the family’s financial circumstances, of course, but more, she’s afraid she will never trust her husband again. And she is suddenly aware of how spoiled and bratty her kids are.

But the family’s enforced stay with an Amish family while their car is being repaired opens everyone’s eyes to what is really important in life: stability, family, teamwork, good neighbors, faith, kindness, good manners, and love.

It’s a sweet, and somewhat sappy, holiday story.

Finished Diving into the Wreck y Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Enjoyed it. Added Shadowed Souls edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes to my rotation.

I finished Remarkably Bright Creatures and loved it. Now I’m enjoying Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock.

Shifting around the reading schedule: Focke-wulf Ta 154 and Emory Upton are now what I'm concentrating on.

Finished Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, and started Eric Idle's The Greedy Bastard Diary, which of course has led to my dragging out my Monty Python DVDs and ordering a few more from Netflix... So I'm down that rabbit-hole for a while.

I finished I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. The writing style was grating because it was mostly one long, direct quote. It was also too long and so it started to get boring. And there were too many names of too many different people thrown around.

I have started and am enjoying Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.

I finished the wonderful modern classic, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. You'll find my short review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up for me will be a continuation of my gradual (two novels per year) read though the novels of Isaac B. Singer that I began in January. Singer's second novel was The Family Moskat, which I'll be starting soon.

I just finished The Winshaw Legacy by Jonathan Coe. I thought it was darkly funny, poignant and just the right book for me, at the moment. I'm looking forward to reading some of his other novels.

I'm almost finished with Caveat Emptor by Ruth Downie, another enjoyable break from the real world.

Finished An Eye for an Eye by Carol Wyer. Enjoyed it. Added The Man Burned by Winter by Pete Zacharias to my rotation.

Enjoying this 'Christmas in July' Kindle selection ~

Christmas to the Rescue! (Heartsprings Valley Winter Tale, Book 1)
by Anne Chase

The new thread is up over here.