What are you reading right now?

I am reading all the Christmas cozys I can find.. I need the good happy feels this year!

C, all of the SF libraries still have biography and memoir carefully filed as it should be.
We have a great system also for simply asking online for any book. They will get it for us and deliver it to whatever branch we care to get it from. I am walking distance to 4 library branches in my city, each one just lovely and two of them very historic. I am such a fan of how our city handles the library system, if of little else it handles (hee hee).

Barb it IS the Dewy Decimal System, but the part about where they file biographies/autobiographies was changed (modernized 🙄) some time ago and I've been mystified ever since.

I've just had a thought - I've never tried searching specifically for this in the online catalogues, since they separate all of the fiction by genre I wonder if they do the same with non fiction? That would be awesome!

CWillie, it’s interesting that OpShops always shelve autobiographies and biographies together, so people can find them. But then they actually want to SELL books, not just shelve them.

CW, I worked in libraries as my first career. And I worked in the School of Library Service library, where new librarians did their master's degrees.

A classification system (like Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress) is like an address book for the contents of a library. The call number on the spine is the "address" of the book. How on earth do the librarians find anything for patrons?

Barb I've never been able to figure it out. Things like the bio of Janis Joplin would be shelved with books on music, the amusing anecdotes of a couple who tried to live off the land might be found in the agriculture or gardening section or maybe even with comedy, people's struggles with anything health related are of course in the medical section. But there are many that I think would fit multiple genres or would be difficult to categorize so I have no idea how they decide where they belong.

CW, that's insane...and wrong. What classification system are they using? Or are they?

I read a lot of autobiographies and biographies when the library used to shelve all of them in the same place, I've rarely read any since they decided they should be placed among related non fiction books because I'm not trolling through the whole library in case I come across something interesting. I wish they would reverse this policy because I read some fascinating stories about many people.

Just finished Life Support: Surviving Guillain-Barre Syndrome by Holly Frances. This old nurse had NO IDEA the pain and trauma of getting GBS.

Then about wildlife rescue in Bolivia "The Puma Years". By Laura Coleman. Think Walnut size worm nesting in your kneecap sort of thing. Amazing book.

Now read by break into The Art Thief: a True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession. Michael Finkel wrote this one.

I've been working my way through Elizabeth George's mystery series for a few years now and I've got to say the latest instalment Just One Evil Act has my head spinning. When I read a book that makes me cringe I like to visit Goodreads to see if others agree with me or I'm the only one, but the number of people pointing out the same flaws that drove me crazy have validated me (plus the witty digs were good for a chuckle or two)🤣

"Killing Crazy House" by Bill O'Riley, although it's not really about just Crazy House's death; it's about how the US government broke every "treaty" it ever agreed to and actively practiced genocide. Phil Sheridan has a starring role, authorizing his field generals to kill women, children, and old men - in addition to warriors - much like his "war on civilians" was practiced on the people of Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and Georgia during the Civil War. I imagine if we could read the communications between Iran and Hamas they would turn your stomach as much as those between Sheridan and his field commanders. He apparently feels it's perfectly fine to surround a peaceful village with 200 troopers and kill every living thing - including the dogs, horses, and infants - but if the damn Indians come out of the camp and take out a battalion of calvery - now that treacherous...

As I tell the boys, if you think genocide is a unique failing of the mankind, just read about the Punic Wars, subjugation acts of the British Empire, our Civil War, the Indian Wars, WWI and WWII, Croatia, and the Middle East (both the "civilized" Europeans and the Infidels)...

Man's inhumanity to man... a universal theme across the ages. I wonder if the civilizd college kids who protest with such certainty of their views would have that same certainty if they lived in a land that had experienced a real war (I don't count WWII for many of these - our soliders kept the fighting out of our country, the war was mostly shortages and many living today do not appreciate what it is to kiss a solider good bye and never see him again). America gave her blood and treasure in WWII, our families (except in a few territories) never lived under the danger of bombs or an occupation.

Riverdale ,

Sounds interesting . I’m not the cruise type either . I like access to the beach everyday . My parents got very sick along with many others on a cruise years ago . It was their first and last .

I picked up "Cabin Fever" at the library yesterday. It is a fascinating read described as the harrowing journey of a cruise ship at the dawn of a Pandemic. It is certainly all that. I read alot preferring non fiction. This book was published last year. I had not heard about it.

As stated it is not lighthearted in the least but truly gives a perspective of certain front lines during that time. Lying on my couch eating too many ice cream bars ( really no such thing as low fat there ) seems incredibly mild in comparison.

I am not the cruise type and after reading this I know why I prefer boats framed on my walls.

I'm still struggling to find reading material that can hold my interest, I've been downloading a wide variety in the hope I can find an author or series that gives me a dependable go to choice because I've pretty much maxed out my previous favourites. I'm currently reading Lisa See's Shanghai Girls✅.

Im just getting started with Romney: A Reckoning. I hope to get a clear view of the goings on in the Trump admin that the RNC kept under wraps! I have found the last few years living with dementia in my home so discouraging compounded by the isolation of the pandemic and the stormy political atmosphere.

I am reading D.D. Black's mystery set that takes place in the Pacific NW. I visit my daughter there often, and love the area, so it is fun to have a mystery with a good sense of the locale. And there are TEN of then, and they are free with my kindle unlimited, so I am set for easy reading.

Reading is the best escape ever from the real world, so I often stick to fiction, but if anyone is interested in the Big Five MASS extinctions that have taken place on the earth with global weather changes I sure recommend Peter Brannen's The Ends of the World. It puts solidly in your mind how recent we are as compared to other species, what a teensy bit of time we have been here, and just why we won't last as long as the dinos were able to. There's a reason you are digging river rocks out of your desert back yard. And a reason that PNW I so enjoy visiting was a sea of lava for more than a few years. It kind of all makes me "know my place" and sets my sense of any importance reeling.

Way, I know of a sure fire way to stop or minimize gun violence.

Compulsory cannabalism - everyone has to eat anything they kill!

Both books are very interesting and prove there is nothing new under the sun.

1984 is on the high school curriculum here. So my kids read it (well timed) between 2016 and 2020.

Read it myself in 1983 to see what Orwell thought we were in for. I was so naive back then.

Isthisreallyreal,

I had to read “1984 “ in high school , I think it was 1981 when I read it

We also had to read “ A Clockwork Orange” also an early accurate prediction of how life is now , particularly the violence / gun culture.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. I have an idea brewing...

I’m (re)reading a Sherlock Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet”, and I thought some of us might be interested in the following:

“In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert. From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises capped and lofty mountains ….(etc on landscape)...They all preserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality and misery. There are no inhabitants of this land of despair”.

Do any of you live there? Despairing? Miserable? Yours, Margaret!

I’m reading ‘Children of the Ghetto’, about life in the London East End in the mid-1800s. Heavy going, but sometimes funny. Two women are having a loud argument along ‘normal’ lines, which involved insulting family members. ‘Your father was…’, ‘your mother didn’t…’, ‘your uncle went’… Laughter in the background, they stop – and remember that they are sisters!

Just finished The Italian Girl. An oldie by Iris Murdoch. As they say, there are only so many stories and we tend to repeat them. This one is the old-woman-surprises-heirs-by-leaving-her-wealth-to-the-maid-story. As you can imagine the maid quickly goes from invisible to "seen".

cw,

I want to read it soon. I know Abby, the author’s daughter. Abby has been to my house. I haven’t met her mom. My daughter knows Abby’s mom and likes her.

My daughter went to Louisiana State University and Abby went to Southeastern Louisiana University. They met leach other through mutual friends and have become friends.

My daughter told me that the book is fascinating.

I love to go to our local bookstores and read books written by local authors on various subjects.

I have read books from people that I know. It’s pretty cool to read what they write.

I looked up that book, it has some very good reviews. But it must be weird reading a memoir about someone you know.

My daughter told me about her friend, Abby’s mother who wrote a book.

I think I’m going to order her book to read or borrow it from my daughter. Occasionally, we exchange books with one another.

The author is Colleen Hildebrand. (Colleenhildebrand.com) The name of the book is, Into the Ether: A Memoir of Holding Space

George Orwell- 1984.

This book is so spot on with the current climate, it's actually disturbing to see how something written, as fiction, in 1949, can be so real in 2023 and beyond.

I highly recommend it for everyone.

My digital library allows you to "suggest" they get books that aren't in their catalogue, it's a weird kind of system though because it seems to act the same as placing a hold except you have no idea when or if the book will ever become available. So now I have two books by Elizabeth George at the same time, both of them over 500 pages.

I've been reading reviews for that book and they are very mixed, let us know what you think after you've finished it Beatty.

Finally got a copy of Never Simple by Liz Scheier from my local library!

I had put it on their suggestions to purchase list & they now have. I think I am the first borrower. 😊