I recently read Monica Wood’s latest, One in a Million Boy. It’s really good…all of her books are good…but it is also kind of slight. I loved the characters, and she conveyed a lot about them in a comparatively short while, but I kind of wish she had written a longer, meatier novel about the same people. More like Middlemarch. 
Okay, maybe not going that far.
Just finished Eleanor Oliphant. Highly recommend.
Just finished “The Dry,” which I read because of this thread. I really enjoyed it.
“The Face of a Body,” partly a memoir, partly about a criminal case.
Just finished American War. Wow. Best book I’ve read all year. It’s not perfect (I didn’t believe some of the plot twists - too coincidental) but those are minor quibbles. So gripping, so heartbreaking. And the writing!
I finished it in 24 hours. Now I need to buy my own copy so I can re-read it more slowly.
Oops, just realized that I made a typo in my previous post: The book’s title is “The Fact of a Body.” I highly recommend it.
Enjoyed “The Dry”. Thanks!
I’m on the 3rd audiobook of the Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, recommended on this thread.
These were just released on audio in May and my report is the narrator is good.
Each book, so far, has me underwhelmed in the beginning. Then, the story picks up speed, adds layers, and by the end of Book 1, and end of Book 2, I was soundly surprised by the turn of events, and ready to start the next book. Good summer listen. Thank you!
I listened to One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood, and although I enjoyed the story, I did not love the narration by Chris Ciulla. Specifically, I did not like the voice he used for one of the main characters & found it distracting. Funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it?
News of the World. Two thumbs up.
The Adversary, by Emmanuel Carrère.
Really enjoyed Americanah and just started The Sympathizer.
Loved News of the World.
Magpie Murders was fun.
Hunger (Roxane Gray’s collection of essays/memoir) was powerful.
Reading an odd one: The Summer That Melted Everything. The language is gorgeous.
Ready to start See What I Have Done.
So glad somebody else liked Magpie Murders (which I loved) - I was having my doubts after the one person I recommended it to hated it!
So glad somebody else liked Magpie Murders (which I loved) - I was having my doubts after the one person I recommended it to hated it!
Someone in my group didn’t like it, because she didn’t think it was a very good mystery. My point to her was that it isn’t exactly meant to be a mystery. It’s an affectionate poke/homage/gentle mockery of the English ‘cozy’ genre. It’s about mysteries more than a mystery. It’s also about books, authors, the publishing industry, TV, etc etc, and for that, I thought it was effective.
I just read Magpie Murders and enjoyed it very much.
I started The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, which I got at the Goodwill, but I’m not sure I want to continue. It’s alarmingly Anita Shreve-like so far. Any opinions?
Just checked my goodreads and I didn’t care for Memory Keeper’s Daughter - maybe you should move on.
About Magpie, I think that was my friend’s complaint also - it was too easy to figure out the killer. Horowitz was the screenwriter for many of the Hercule Poirot BBC productions so he is an expert on the “cozy” genre
And he was a writer for Midsomer Murders, which he mocks in the books I thought that was funny.
Really enjoyed Bear Town, by the author of A Man called Ove.
Just started this one but I’m already hooked after 60 pages – and it’s set during an eclipse in Cornwall in 1999, so it’s timely for August! It’s called He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly. I’d call it a thriller, I suppose. Main character (the “She”) witnessed what appeared to be a crime, so the book is told in flash-forwards and flashbacks.
I may end up in the other book thread “throwing it across the room” but for now, it’s entertaining.