I’ve been meaning to read Philbrick’s book. Thanks for the reminder. And I should add that I do plan to re-read Moby Dick. I don’t think that my 17-year-old self had the patience, experience, and education to appreciate it. 
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I love mysteries and am always looking for good series that are new to me. Over break, I started reading Paul Doiron’s Mike Bowditch series (about a Maine game warden), and I also started Stephen Mack Jones’ August Snow books (set in Mexicantown, Detroit). Both are really good at worldbuilding and are unusually well written for genre fiction.
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I just finished Ann Patchett’s newest, These Precious Days, a delightful book of essays. For me, it was a 5/5 on Goodreads. Partly because she is a wonderful writer, but also because she is just a little younger than me and so much of what she had to say resonates with this season of my life. I have The Dutch House on my Kindle and need to get to it soon. I have read Bel Canto and Commonwealth previously and appreciated both, but not as much as this latest book.
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Have you read Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight’s series? It’s set in Michigan and the protagonist Alex McKnight is a former Detroit police detective who’s left the force and lives in a small town in Michigan’s UP. He’s reluctantly brought back into solving crimes through a variety of circumstances. Hamilton won an Edgar Award for the best mystery fiction. The latest book in the series came out in 2020–I just bought it.
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I’m reading These Precious Days right now, but I’m just plodding through. I find I much prefer her novels.
The Dutch House is my favorite Ann Patchett!
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Just finished E. Nesbit’s The Lark. Unlike everything else I’ve read of hers it’s an adult book, not a children’s book. Like some of her kid’s books it involves formerly well-to-do people who are thrown into situations where they have to work for a living. In this case it’s two 19 year old girls whose guardian has embezzled almost all their money. It’s charming and sweet. A confection with enough of Nesbit’s voice observations and sense of humor to make it worth reading. It just hints at what England was like in the immediate aftermath of World War One.
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No, sounds like it’s right in my wheelhouse!
I have got to confess that I find Joyce’s Ulysses very tough going, and I am an English teacher. I enjoy Dubliners etc. but I don’t like stream-of-consciousness Modernism even though I have to teach it sometimes. I don’t care for Beckett or Woolf either. It’s not because they are “hard”; my specialty is 16th- and 17th -century English literature and it’s challenging. I just find that the juice is often not worth the squeeze (unlike my beloved Renaissance writers).
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One of my favorite classes was English 129 which was an advanced freshmen course in literature. We called it The Greatest Hits of Western Lit. We started with the Illiad in the fall semester, and journeyed through Greek tragedies, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Brecht, Beckett, Cervantes all the way to Ulysses as our last reading in the Spring. Enjoyed every reading, except the last.
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I have zero patience for modernism in literature - whereas I can appreciate all sorts of shenanigans in film. (Well except for Luis Buñuel even a boyfriend couldn’t get me to appreciate him!)
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So I finished These Precious Days, and it’s much, much better in the last third. The title essay near the end is the best.
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Occasionally I teach a general education literature survey which I dub “Homer to Hamlet.” I love it and it’s one of my favorite experiences.
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Saw this cartoon and instantly thought of this thread. I may have read Ulysses in a Great Books class in college.
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Hello all! I have a month until I’m stuck on a remote beach for a week. I plan much reading.
Things I really enjoy: The Passage trilogy (huge #1 fan, highly recommend if you haven’t read), all Stephen King, Outlander, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Carl Hiassen, Harlan Coban, Dean Koontz, S.L. Huang…
Mostly easy-reading books with scifi or thriller or dystopian angles (yes, read Station Eleven and liked it but didn’t go ga-ga). No Joyce!!! I was an English major!! PTSD!!!
Any suggestions come instantly to mind?
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Haven’t read dystopian recently but I liked Dark Matter and Recursion by Blake Crouch and I also like the authors you mentioned.
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I’ve been encourage by my DIL from Hong Kong to read some fantasy fiction with influences from other parts of the world.
Jade City (first of a trilogy) by Fonda Lee. Think The Godfather/The Sopranos/Kung Fu movies with jade as a substance that gives you various superpowers. Certain people are born being able to use it naturally, but drugs are being developed so others can use it as well. Wonderful world building. A little dark.
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho. First book is okay, loved the second one. She’s Malaysian and drags some Malaysian deities into a Regency Romance setting.
Murderbot by Martha Wells. Murderbot is an AI that is design to well, murder problems, but when she gets free of her programming what happens besides watching a lot of soap operas? Wonderful snarky series of novellas and one full length novel.
I also read Dracula recently and found it rather a fun romp.
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ooh, I read that, and also his Wayward Pines trilogy - good stuff!
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I received several books as holiday gifts and bought several more for myself. I’m slowly making my way through the stack. A few recent favorites are:
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende is a beautiful novel of hope and fidelity.
Not My Father’s Son: A Family Memoir by Alan Cumming was enlightening but at times difficult to read because of all he endured.
Silverview by John le Carré is a slim, taut thriller of a novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was sad when it ended.
This is one of my favorite CC threads. I get so much inspiration from my fellow readers!
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The Girl with All the Gifts and the sequel?
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