Book Lovers Club

MinusTwo

Ruth - finally reading Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser - the details of the life of Laura Ingalls WIlder. It's marvelous. Thanks for recommending.

VR - if you're checking in - how are the lions? Thinking of your DH as one of my friends just discovered Lee Child. She borrowed the first 6 books from me last week and is roaring through them, one after another. (hmmm, pun not intended).

Really enjoyed The End of the Novel of Love by VIvian Gornick. ...("she examines various connections between love and literature..."..."one is reassured that the conversation between life and literature is mutually sustaining as well as mutually corrective...") Interesting and perceptive discussions/analysis/essays of lots of old authors (Kate Chopin, Jean Rhys, Willa Cather, John Cheever). Surprising how current many of the points are right now.

MinusTwo

Reading, reading, reading. I sure miss sharing books with everyone who used to post here.

MinusTwo

Interesting - my current post did not bump this to the top of my favorites. Trying again. I HATE what has happened to this previously wonderful site.

ruthbru

I just finished Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor. She tells the story of The Great Gatsby from the point of view of the women in the book. At the end of Fitzgerald's book, Jay Gatsby is shot dead in his swimming pool, seemingly the victim in a murder/suicide when the body of a local mechanic is found nearby. In this book, a diamond hairpin is discovered in the bushes by the pool, and three women who were involved in his life fall under suspicion. The story told in their alternating voices. It was so good that once I finished the book, I went back & reread Gatsby, watched the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Great Gatsby, and snippets of the Robert Redford Gatsby movie (from 1974). I definitely recommend it!

MinusTwo

Interesting recommendation Ruth. Thanks for posting. I really miss everyone's recommendations

ruthbru

Me too!

MinusTwo

I'm reading an oldie - Graham Green's Third Man. I'm going back & reading some of Louise Penny Inspector Gamache novels that I missed. The latest I finished was The Cruelest Month. Really liked Lauren Groff's "Matrix - fascinating although I do understand that not everyone will be enchanted with the lives & happenings of 12th century nuns. And I've been reading some compilations of essays/thoughts. I was captured by Madelaine L'Engle Herself - Reflections on a Writing Life - ."hundreds of this celebrated author's most illuminating statements about writing, creativity, and the artistic life.." Lots of yellow sticky notes. And an even older group of essays by Joan Didion "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" ..."an essential portrait of America during the sixties." And I'm still catching up with Vivian Gornick after discovering her a couple of years ago. I think my favorite was Fierce Attachments that I read last year about her relationship with her Mother. Just finished Approaching Eye Level a collection of personal essays that "finds a quintessentially contemporary woman - urban, single, feminist - trying to observe herself and the world without sentiment, cynicism or nostalgia". Probably next up just for pure escape - a C.J Box or a Harlen Coben novel.

So many books...so little time. Yeah, I know it's not original.

And I'm always so glad that I subscribe to The Atlantic magazine. I stop whatever else I'm reading when that arrives. I also enjoy my subscription to Harpers. I've been trying to keep track of how many "new" words I see - and even as a former English teacher & rabid reader, there are +/- 4 or 5 every month.