@garland - aargh, I just realized that and came to correct it. Still a great book and in the style of Mr.Doerr’s book (which I also loved).
LOL. I will look for that book!
I looked it up and it looks good, on my TBR list now. 
Our book club just finished Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien and really enjoyed it. One of the women in our book club is a pilot and was able to get us an hour with the author on Skype!
@intparent “Overblown” was intended to apply to Elizabeth George only.
@Consolation - I’ve always wondered if Elizabeth George edits her own books. They have gotten waaaay too long. I could cut at least 50% out and the book would still be too much.
With regard to the Gamache series, I know two men who love them! I’m so glad I saw this thread. I didn’t know a new book was out!
Also, I’ve been meaning to read Kitchen Confidential for years, and picked it up in the airport the other day. I’m about halfway through and am enjoying it. Parts of it had me truly laughing out loud on the plane.
@suzy100 I’m with you on Kitchen Confidential. It made me laugh out loud too, and gave me lots to talk about at parties. I read it years ago when first released, and have also read a couple of Anthony Bourdain’s other books although I didn’t enjoy them quite as much.
Still bummed about his death and was not able to finish his Parts Unknown TV series.
I just read the YA novel The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. I don’t know precisely how I would have felt about it until I was diagnosed with and treated for cancer myself, and became a kind of resident of what the kids call Cancerville, but I think I would have said the same thing: this a a truly exceptional book.
The blurbs on the back, for once, are accurate. “…a love story, one of the most genuine and moving ones in recent American fiction, but it’s also an existential tragedy of tremendous intelligence and courage and sadness.” “This is a book that breaks your heart–not by wearing it down, but by making it bigger and bigger until it bursts.”
A complete absence of stereotypical characters, thoughts, and events. A female lead who has an intellectual life and idiosyncratic mind. Ugly and beautiful reality. Irreverence. Deep feeling.
Wow.
@Consolation, I love that book too.
@4Gulls, guess what: There is a new Jackson Brodie in the works. Stay tuned!
Anybody else read Kazuo Ishiguro’s THE BURIED GIANT? I’m not sure it’s one of the best I’ve read in the last six months (though sometimes I think so), but it’s certainly an interesting reflection on married love as we age.
I enjoyed the buried giant - something different
@kiddie @HarrietMWelsch
Buried Giant is so very unique, I am not sure I fully grasped the meaning of it, love, aging, death, and loss are such heavy subjects, I think I will need to go back to read it more carefully, one day!
I don’t know what has stopped me from reading Ishiguro’s other books since I loved the only one I’ve read (Remains of the Day). I definitely need to rectify that!
I recently finished Rules of Civility. I enjoyed it, but in the end I didn’t find the characters nearly as beguiling as those in A Gentleman in Moscow. For me the NYC setting and the evocation of an era was interesting, but I didn’t really care what happened to any of the people.
Oh, I loved Katy Kontent in particular!
I know I should care about her, but I really didn’t. I liked that she read. I liked that she sort of stumbled into a good life… But she always seemed a bit detached from the events.
That was part of her charm. B-)
Just finished An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. I would recommend.
Hardly new, but new to me, I just read Sense and Sensibility. Austen’s observations seem so scathing and affectionate at the same time.
I remember that I did NOT like The Buried Giant, though I can’t remember why. But I loved Never Let Me Go. Very thought-provoking, as was The Remains of the Day.
I just finished The Radium Girls. The true story of the girls who were exposed to radium while painting watch dials, and the appalling coverup by the companies who employed them. These brave women brought lawsuits which changed worker protection laws forever. A very interesting, enlightening (no pun intended!) and horrifying read.
Sense and Sensibility is my favorite Austen book.
I love this time of year with the all of the “best of” lists. A lot of great additions to my Christmas list.