What are you reading?

Poisonwood Bible was sheer genius.

Since I can't find anything new that I want to read, I pulled Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune off the shelf. Summer is a good time to reread favorites, anyway.
 
Jennifer Johnston. I know I'm not always the most observant, but how had I never heard of her until a couple of years ago and only picked up one, and now two, of her books this summer to discover she died in April this year and, given the lack of coverage, seems much less celebrated than her much lesser contemporaries? How Many Miles to Babylon? is a very different take on the absurdity of WW1. This Is Not A Novel (spoiler: it is and a very good one), is even better.

Now reading The Book Thief, having started and not finished a couple of years ago.
 
Book Thief is one of my favorites. I appreciate the narrator.

I've spent the day reading two popcorn books, The Dancing Girls by M. M. Chouinard (gave it a single star on goodreads, ending was rushed, and I guessed the "twist" well before the reveal), and The Fear by Natasha Preston (gave it two stars, but the ending was unsatisfying for the buildup of the "thrilling" moments). I don't think I'm the kind of reader they wrote for, and I think there are several authors out and about who write to be on the booktoks or whatever it's called and I've come swiftly to the conclusion that those who can discuss books should not always write them. Especially if it's written for popularity reasons.

I've got bookmarks in two other books as well, both started over the weekend, and both will be read slower. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (one of my favorite authors, but I'm not sure I'm going to like this one) and No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (translated by Donald Keene). I'm reading one that's been on my TBR for years, and one that's been added recently, to keep things fresh, I guess.
 
Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca? by G M Ford. A friend loaned it to me. Written in 1995, it is the first in a series of twelve mysteries. It's good enough that I'll probably look for Book II.
 
Just started Uketsu's Strange Pictures. I'm enjoying the format -- text and picture clues -- though I am embarrassing myself by occasionally pressing my finger and thumb to the paper and trying to zoom in when I can't quite see something clearly 🤡
 
I finished Bridget Collins' "The Silence Factory" and although I was enthralled by the premises, the end left me deeply disappointed. Maybe it's an ego thing, but as a feminist I feel insulted whenever a book hits me with the good ol' "women = nature + good" and "men = capitalism + bad."
Ah well.
I still haven't exhausted the English section at the library ;)
 
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (a re-read), and various historical research articles.
 
Honestly......I have a book by the couch, a book in the car, a book at work, a book at the dining table, and a book on my night stand. I am reading....in various orders....

"Behind the Veil" by John Ringo & Lydia Sherrer, this is the 3rd book in the TransDimensional Hunter series and I really, really like the Lynn Raven character.

"Crimebits: 100 Opening Gambits for Great Thrillers & Linked Mystery Puzzles (writing prompts)" selected by Lee Child. This is quite out of the norm for me to read and I'm intrigued by the premise and reading it for inspiration.

"Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis" by Gregor Craigie. I really like the book and the international look at solutions - what works in Mexico? What works in Ireland? What works in Singapore? And so on, plus what can we do in Canada.

"A Winter's Murder: Can you catch the killer and survive England's deadliest county?" by Simon Brew. [This is an "official Midsomer Murders Interactive Novel: Could you survive Midsomer?"] The Midsomer Murders is a British television drama series that older members of my family absolutely love. I find the television program too slow paced for me but the book is really capturing my attention.

"Windfall, Viola MacMillan and her notorious mining scandal" by Tim Falconer. It's stock speculation and its influence on the reformation of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads and the making of Modern America" by Michael Hiltzik.

[Edit: "it's" to "its" in the description to Windfall.]
 
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Kiraann said:
I quite enjoyed Midsomer Murders when John Nettles was on there. Not so much with Neil Dudgeon.
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For me, it's the emphasis on the thinking out the solution to the murder. It's ALL they ever do - no gun fights, no car chases, no bloody brawls trying to take down the baddies! It's BORING!!!! to watch.

TV shows like FBI are always go, go, go, go!!!!!!! And the thinking part doesn't get a lot of attention, mainly when they have the command centre pulling footage from street cameras and examining documents, records and then following up.

I wish I could find a show that had a balance. Law & Order comes close but the thinking part is usually on the legal side when it goes to trial and not on the law side when they're trying to figure out the crime - who, what, where, why, when, how.

The original Law & Order series had two esipodes that stood out to me: One where they're interviewing witnesses and the descriptions are all over the place - he was short, he was fat, he was thin, he was white, he was dark, he was tall, etc, and the detectives are getting more and more frustrated and are about to dismiss the witnesses and then one of them on the way out the door says: ".....although...he was there too." and the detectives are just flabbergasted - there were TWO men there!!!!!!!!! They were getting descriptions of two separate men, not one!!! You'd think that would be one of the most basic things an investigator would start with....

The other one was where a body was discovered and they can't make head nor tails of the manner of death - he had water in his lungs. He drowned! They though he was stabbed. He had a gunshot wound. He was shot! And they're saying, "How'd this guy die???? He's been stabbed, shot, drowned.....???" and it turns out the victim was stabbed and then frozen, then he was dumped and thawed out 5 years after the death. So the manner of death took some detective work and then they had to work back to find out who he was.
 
I have just finished Sapiens. Unimpressed is an understatement. Riddled with errors, a lack of references, sensationalist conclusions and contradictory statements after a bright start, it simply doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Some would argue that it isn't meant to; it's meant to be a quick introduction to the worlds of anthropology, history, and philosophy. But by the end Sapiens is increasingly incoherent and flawed. As a philosophical polemic it works to a point, but beyond that everything it says should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
 
I drifted away from Sapiens after the first few chapters. It had its moments, but contained too many conjectures and flights of fancy presented as science.
 
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