What are you reading right now?

David Baldacci wrote "Wish You Well".
Loved it in the movie format. Beautiful scenery.
I am the type of reader who reads until done, and I cannot take that much time away from activities of daily living.

Yes, but I am groggy from lack of sleep most days. Nothing to do with reading. I don't seem to be able to sleep much more than 5 hours at a stretch and these day I am not going back to sleep to get the extra couple of hours in the am to make a good nights sleep. However, I usually get a good nap in the daytime. Whatever works, I guess. I've finished it now. As predicted the good guys are OK or will be, two bad guys will be locked up for life and the orphaned child will be adopted by a large loving lady. I wouldn't call it heart warming as a few not so bad guys got rather gruesomely killed along the way. but the two main characters are interesting. I have one more book in the series to read.

Better to reach that point at 9:30 am than later at night, I've been hung over from lack of sleep many mornings!

9:30 am and I am still in bed finishing a mystery and I think I'm going to stay here till I'm done. It's at that nail biting point. I know the bad guy will be brought down and the good guys will all likely survive, although possibly with injuries And the hero(ine) rides off into the sunset on his/her white horse. lol Love that predictability. It's not great literature for sure but it's good escapism for me.

BOOK BLURBS GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Enchanting.................................there's a dog in it
Heart-warming.........................a child and a dog
Moving ........................................child dies
Heart-rending............................dog dies
Thoughtful..................................mind-numbingly tedious
Haunting.....................................set in the past
Exotic...........................................set abroad
Audacious.................................. set in the future
Award winning........................ set in India
Perceptive............................... ..set in north London
Provocative............................... infuriating
Epic........................................... ..editor cowed by the author's reputation
From the pen of a master... same old same old
In the tradition of....................shamelessly derivative
Spare and taut.........................under researched
Richly detailed......................... over researched
Disturbing................................. author bonkers
Stellar ........................................author young and photogenic
Classic........................................author still hanging in there
Vintage .....................................author past it

The Cloisters, finished. It was very good, I recommend it. Basis of story, researchers trying to complete a deck of renaissance era tarot cards and write a paper on the significance of tarot.

Just finished an inspirational and heart warming book about broken trust, regained trust, survival against the odds and how one person can make a difference by being a caregiver.

The Elephant Whisperer
My life with the herd in the African wild

By Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence

It is a great read and all the things I described above.

Definitly keeping this in my library for future reading.

Have you seen illustrations of the Plague Doctors? Face mask, inc eye covers, gloves, leather coat, & a long stick to maintain distance. Amazingly similar to our modern PPE.

Wonder what future students will be reading The Covid..?

Got my book pack this afternoon for my next literature class. European literature. I've read several of the books in the past and a couple of the plays. No really big fat books. Starting with The Plague.

haha gershun :)

imagine someone says, “can you please, pleeeease, stop suggesting all these awesome books. remember i asked for BAD big fat books!”

I did say they have to be good big fat books. Trust me, I don't have the patience for a bad big fat book.

My problem with big fat books is they often seem to be slow moving and repetitive and I'm left thinking that the editor fell asleep on the job because the story would have lacked nothing important if they'd have cut out a few hundred pages. The only big fat book I can name that I liked and felt worth it is Tolkien's LOTR... and he had the courtesy to divide it into three.

Gershun, I just completed a Russian literature graduate class. Never again will I say I like a big fat book. I suffered through War and Peace. I like big fat books like The Thornbirds or Gone With the Wind.

Evanmar, im watching Avila on HBO Max. It’s HBO Latin America productions, so they own it. If you know how to bit torrent or have a kid who does (lol) they can download it for you.

fwiw sometime when I’m searching for something foreign language I know is on my streaming service and it flat will not come up, it’s because it’s on the search engine under its translation and not its original name or vice versa. Like “Umbre” the Romanian crime series, is “Shadows” in the search even tho it displays under Umbre. Had this happen with couple of seasons of “Spiral”, like they came up under Engrenages. Even tho all the others were Spiral S. 1, Sprial S. 2.

Depending on how funded of a library system you have, you might be able to download a lot of the foreign films for free. Like everything on Criterion Collection & Janus Films. If so, & you haven’t seen Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013) please watch it. Stunning.

Hey Willie,

I prefer the big, thick books. The longer the better...........if they're good that is. :)

I was reading a ‘Little Book of Excuses’, and I thought this one might come in handy for someone:

‘Of course I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. I never even thought about your feelings!’

I think the book I was dissing as too long was The Last Mrs Parrish, and no matter which review I check it's still well over 500 pages.
The Cloisters sounds intriguing but alas, it isn't available at my library.

CW, you are looking at the wrong The Cloisters. This is by Katy Hays and is quite intriguing. Only 312 pages on my kindle, about half way through. Set in The Met
Cloisters.

https://www.metmuseum.org/visit/plan-your-visit/met-cloisters

Interesting info Igloo. I always admired Michael Fox for how he has handled his Parkinson's and also raised money and awareness for Parkinson's research. A true hero in my eyes.

Just started the mystery by Ragnar Jonasson The Girl Who Died. Set in Iceland in the winter, off at the end of a quite deserted peninsula. Very atmospheric.

Igloo,
where are you watching the Mexican Sr. Avila
I am totally addicted to international series on Netflix, but, could not find that one.

igloo - thank you That's very interesting. You are such a fount of knowledge. We don't know what toxic substances/environments we are being exposed to wherever we are. The girl next door where I grew up developed a rare form of brain cancer in her 40s and died in a few years, Her younger brother followed her a few years after that. Many studies were done to try to detect the cause. Unfortunately, they were not successful.

Gershun & Golden, FWiW on the Michael Fox / Parkinson’s thread. The cluster from “Leo & Me” the last millennium series he was on as a child actor is likely due to anti-weed herbicides spraying (old school “weed” not cannabis “weed”). Specifically the use of dioxin MPP as a herbicide. MPP and it’s sister mixture - Agent Orange- was used big time to treat public property/ parks brush, along highways, along waterways & alongside homes adjacent to well traveled roads or highways in the BC 1960’s x 1970’s. Massive amounts sprayed especially along areas below power lines or by any state infrastructure, like a harbor or water treatment plant. It likely entered the water system. “Leo” had a lot of young actors and was filmed in Vancouver BC and it’s environs. Lots & lots of outdoorsy scenes, lots on on/in the water scenes. At the time BC was the big up & coming production hub & still is (but lesser so as b4 GA did their encased in state constitution film tax credit which has made GA the new Hollywood South but I digress….). Anyways there probably was exposure to the crew and actors to MPP. Some younger ones had same fate as those younger solders in Vietnam who were exposed to agent Orange as they started showing Parkinson’s symptoms in their 30 & & 40’s which is way unusual. It’s 1 in 300 for early onset Park but for this group it was 4 in 425. Plus higher incidence of other cancers.
The Parkinson’s & cancer cluster on the “Leo” cast & crew stood out & could be traced as so many who work on films are Union affiliated. Unions tend to keep production records forever as it can take a while to get your # of hours to be eligible. Epidemiologists could cull production records, do contract tracing and find info as to those with Parkinson’s.

That whole area of Canada has increased cancers & Parkinsons as dioxin was used for years as weed & brush killer as sprayed all over BC.

On the current reading, I mainly watch foreign series with closed captions as my “reading”. Just finished 2 seasons of “Teheran”. Currently doing “Blinded By the Lights” a Polish mafia series and “Sr. Avila” a Mexican series on an average appearing businessman who actually is a hit man.

Yes, Treasure State is new in the Cassie DeWell series. I get books from the library and put things on the Hold List. When the item is available they notify you to come get it. Our library has a New Book section that I always browse. We also have a Lucky Day selection with popular new books and DVDs. You might get lucky and find a popular item there, but only get to check it out for one week instead of the usual three. And by the way, we don't have late fees and every month you can print or copy up to $44 worth of papers for free. We can also fax for free and check out things like musical instruments, assistive devices for medical issues, and backpacks stocked with binoculars, bird field guide books and free passes to state parks (thank you Audubon Society). Progressive!

I'm currently reading The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14) by Elly Griffiths.
I'm having a lot of tongue in cheek moments reading about everyone coping with the early days of pandemic lock downs (Ruth juggles zooming with her university students while trying to keep her 11 yr old daughter occupied; queueing up at the shop and overbuying wine and loo roll... and of course her brother sends conspiracy info 🤣). So far the mystery is taking a back seat, but the pandemic stuff is priceless.

Ooo I like C.J. Box, is that a new one vegaslady? I have Shadows Reel (a Joe Picket mystery) on my wish list.

I just read Treasure State by C J Box. I like anything he does, and his books are the inspiration for several TV series, like Big Sky.

Just finished and really enjoyed “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt. It’s partially told from the perspective of an octopus, and that gives the story a really interesting twist. Also touches on the topics of aging and loss some, set in the NW coast

The book I'm reading right now made me cry, it's so good! It's called "The Office Of Historical Corrections," but it's not about history like I thought it would be, it's a bunch of different stories about different women. The one that really got me was about a lady who sort of accidentally kidnaps a baby and gets really attached to him. I don't want to spoil it but it's really good.

I've bookmarked that book Barb - usually my library doesn't have the books people here recommend but Pachinko showed up in the catalogue 😊