Read and enjoyed “Remarkably Bright Creatures” which I had avoided thinking it was not my cuppa. But it was very good.
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Just finished listening to Outlive, the Art and Science of Longevity, by Peter Attia. It’s eye-opening and certainly worth reading/listening to. Some of his insights are things we have been hearing for a long time, but others are new (to me, anyway), and gave me a fresh appreciation for the monumental task that is growing old.
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I just finished The River We Remember, William Kent Krueger’s latest. So wonderful. It’s a stand alone not part of his Cork O’Conner series. He writes so beautifully of land and humanity.
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I just finished You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, the poet (not the actress) who wrote Good Bones. It’s a memoir of sorts of her divorce told from her broken poet’s heart and written on some pages in stanzas which is not as off-putting as it might sound. It’s an easy, but deep and honest read. Though the subject is not fun, the writing is.
If you’ve never read her famous poem, which became the official poem of 2016, I’ll share it:
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real s-h-i-thole,* chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
(Not hyphenated in the poem, but I’m taking the liberty of making the word readable as literature, not profanity.)
I highly recommend the book as much for the delightful phrasing as for the telling.
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I have taught this poem in college comp classes so many times, and students always write about how much it means to them. One young woman wrote a long passage in her end of year reflection about how it helped her dealing with her mother’s death. I sent that to Maggie Smith (distant FB friend) and she was very moved by it.
I loved this book. She is just simply wonderful.
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Would love to take your class, @garland. 
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My husband is threatening to give Outlive to me for my birthday!
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I finally got around to reading “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande. Perhaps because I see the decline in my parents, I found his thoughts on agency at the end of life to be helpful and encouraging, especially given the topic of mortality.
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My IRL book club will be discussing Horse tomorrow. In preparation for the discussion, I have been listening to author interviews on Youtube. There are two from the Diane Rehm book discussions, one with Brooks and one with three other knowledgeable discussants. They do provide some useful context about the ending, as well as the motivation for the story and its construction.
I liked the book a lot, and actually listened to it and then read it. The second time I read through each of the main characters separately, which was very helpful in tracking the story line and relationships.
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@ChoatieMom - I also recently read You Could Make This Place Beautiful and loved it - love Maggie Smith’s poem Good Bones too. The poem has brutal truth and beauty together - so inspiring.
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I need some book “candy” recommendations. I just have no attention span. Either happy books, sweet rom cons, or super engaging thrillers/murder mysteries (no unreliable narrator please). I’ve liked Remarkably Bright Creatures, The House in the Cerulean Sea, Romantic Comedy, Book Lovers, Killers of a Certain Age, etc. Thank you.
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I liked all of those books too! Here are some that I’ve read this year that I’ve enjoyed: My Oxford Year, anything written by Taylor Jenkins Reid, The People we Keep, the Thursday Murder Club, Ms. Demeanor.
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another vote for the people we keep - everybody I know has liked that one
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Light-hearted…
Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer have a couple of new books out (they wrote Agnes and the Hitman together several years back). JC wrote a bunch of romance-y, fun books back in the day.
The Golden Spoon by Jesse Maxwell combines baking contests with a mystery
Karen White Tradd Street (Charleston) series ghosts and romance
If you liked Killers of a Certain Age, you should read her Victorian series about Veronica’s Speedwell
Sherry Thomas has a female Sherlock Holmes series that’s also enjoyable.
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People We Meet on Vacation was my favorite.
Did you read Wrong Place Wrong Time or The Last Thing He Told Me?
Thank You for Listening
How about something like The Great Alone?
And speaking of something you can’t put down, they just republished The Thorn Birds - picked it up at the airport during our summer trip. I haven’t gotten to it yet. Think it will be just as good?
The Fourth Wing was good (in the same terrible way that Divergent or Twilight etc was good, good nonetheless haha)
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My “junk food” authors are Janet Evanovich (the One for the Money series) and Joanna Fluke (the cookie baker who solves murders). Both series have about a thousand books now and they tend to run together, but whatever. A little less mind numbing but hilarious and fun - anything by Carl Hiaasen.
Oh and for “sweet rom coms” - I really enjoyed Red White and Royal Blue. It’s a movie now on streaming but I think I preferred the book.
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Note all my fiction reading is by audio book but some of these might fit what you’re looking for: The Flatshare or The Switch by Beth O’Leary, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by abbi waxman, Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (a little less candy like but still works for me), Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise, The Secret Service of Tea and Treason (disclosure my hold ran out before I finished and didn’t bother to put another hold on it) by India Holton, Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny, Pride by Ibi Zoboi, Unmarriageable by Sonia Kamal. Some of these are a bit older.
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Just saw that The Booklish Life of Nina Hill was added - had that one to add here too. Also, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt - A Memoir and so unique and would say it falls into a delightful read, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia is one I remember enjoying too.
For series besides several you have already read or mentioned here: I find the Vera Wong series by Jesse G Sutant - to be quite silly and light reading. Amy Stewart’s Lady Cop Sisters series set in New Jersey 1914+ based on true characters and the Perven Mistry Series by Sujata Massay - the 1st is The Widows of Malabar Hill and the series is set in Bombay and revolves around one of the 1st female lawyers in Bombay.
Happy reading.
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Lighter fiction - I recently liked the Finlay Donovan series, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise (I see mentioned above) and Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story.
Memoir - Through the Groves by Anne Hull about growing up in central Florida pre-Disney World.
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I used to like reading Maeve Binchy novels on vacation.
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