@Mary13 luckily I could delete the post- didn’t mean to put cards on table so soon -
Forgot we have new system
I’m so excited that I saw @Mary13’s message in time this month to vote! That’s a very cool site. My city (Cambridge, MA) has used a form of ranked choice voting in City elections since 1941.
4 Likes
Everyone please vote! We have fewer returns than usual at the moment. I’m headed to work, but will check back later in the day. 
It’s 7:08 pm, the polls have closed, and the winner is Fellowship Point. I’m looking forward to it – let’s see if the Best Books thread has found us another winner!
2 Likes
No votes – not even one!! – for The Ministry for the Future! I did kind of highlight its negative points, didn’t I. Don’t worry; my feelings aren’t hurt.
I did post that I stopped reading it and wouldn’t read it now - so don’t feel bad!
Kind of glad Homecoming didn’t win because I hope Thorn Birds ends up in the running for February and don’t think we’d want two Australia-centric books.
Now I’ve got Richard Chamberlain on my mind - is Shogun a romance?
1 Like
I bought mine on e-bay already.
1 Like
What is everybody reading in the interim? I just started The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer. My daughter brought it over and said it was a nice orange sorbet palate cleanser. 
2 Likes
I finally finished Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I think I wrote several months ago that I’d been trying to read it and kept getting stalled. That all changed when I got the audiobook, narrated by the actor Joe Morton. He made it come alive! Without being silly or contrived, he voiced such a diversity of characters – poor southern farmer, Harlem hipsters, NYC police, black matriarch, white tycoon …
I have a feeling of accomplishment from finishing this American classic at my ripe old age. Now on to some lighter brighter fare!
2 Likes
“Orange sorbet palette cleanser” ….I love that 
1 Like
I just finished Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career by Kristi Coulter. It’s nonfiction, about her 12 years at Amazon. I really enjoyed it – it’s a very fast read.
I also just finished Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder. Just about anything he writes is good. This one is about homeless people in Boston and the doctor – Jim McConnell – who spends his career trying to help them.
I also read Cassidy Hutchinson’s Enough. It’s very well-written (well, she had a ghost writer) and very interesting. It includes several new anecdotes that hadn’t come out before.
I get on nonfiction jags. Sorry I don’t have any fiction recommendations right now.
2 Likes
I’m reading Go As a River by Shelley Read, a IRL bookclub book. I’m not far enough into it to share an opinion.
I’ve got several books here that I can start when ready, most of which fall into next-in-a-series category:
Dirty Thirty - Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum series
Payback in Death - J.D. Robb - In Death series
Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child - Jack Reacher and, yes, I’m way behind in the series.
The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith - Cormoran Strike series. I’ve had this one waiting for a while but it’s 1000 pages so I keep putting it off.
Holly - Stephen King - Holly Gibney series
I also have two Halloween-scary-horror books ready to read:
Just Like Home - Sarah Gailey
Vampires of El Norte - Isabel Cañas - She wrote The Hacienda which I really liked, so I’m looking forward to seeing if her sophomore novel is as good. 
Anyway, I have more books than I can possibly read but it will be fun getting to pick and choose.
And before I leave
for @Mary13 for taking time to pull us together for another book + discussion. This book club is the best, as are you.
And another special thanks to @SouthJerseyChessMom for all you added to the discussion.
Looking forward to Fellowship Point.
5 Likes
Wow, I thank you, @ignatius for the lovely compliment. I will have to reread this thread, I didn’t think I participated very much.
But, I do appreciate your comment 
1 Like
I think that May/December romance might seem a little creepy these days! The Australia romance that I adore is A Town Like Alice by Nevil Chute. The TV mini series was very good too.
1 Like
Missed the voting! We are hiking Hadrian’s Wall and have been pretty tired in the evenings.
I just finished Loretta Chase’s A Duke in Shining Honor. It’s an extremely silly, rather sexy Regency Romance.
My husband gave me Outlive: the Science and Art of Longevity. It’s very long winded, but interesting.
Also recently finished The Jade Setter of Janloon, by Fonda Lee a novella set in her somewhat like Hong Kong, but jade can give some people certain superpowers. I really like the world she has created and we meet some of our favorite characters here.
And because of the Hadrian’s Wall trip I read The Island of Ghosts by Gillian Bradshaw. It’s about a Sarmatian soldier who ends up in the Roman army on Hadrian’s Wall. It’s fascinating. I learned a lot from it, but it was also really fun to read.
1 Like
Good point! And A Town Like Alice is a big favorite of mine. I’ve probably read it a dozen or more times over the years l!
1 Like
I loved A Town Like Alice. It’s been decades since I read it. Definitely one to put on the classic romances list.
1 Like
Better that than On the Beach!
1 Like
And let’s not forget Wuthering Heights. Sitting inside, reading, on a frosty January day and imagining the moors outside the window.
Seetha, my friend from India, loved A Town Like Alice. She wanted me to read it and I told her I would one of these days. Good to see it mentioned.
So many classics to read … so little time.
1 Like