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The Great Influenza

just a little light reading that will make you want to go hide in a deep hole until this is all over
 
Beartown by Fredrik Backman. A novel about the junior hockey team in a small Swedish town. It is both about hockey and about all the things that make life fascinating and dangerous (friends, loyalty, status, being honest with oneself).

My daughter was reading it for her high school Lit class. She asked me to read it. I expected to be underwhelmed by a YA focus. If anything, I think it says more about parenthood and reflecting on one's own teenage years. All in all, a good book—and the hockey plot would appeal to most folks here.
 
42 jerks said:
Beartown by Fredrik Backman. A novel about the junior hockey team in a small Swedish town. It is both about hockey and about all the things that make life fascinating and dangerous (friends, loyalty, status, being honest with oneself).

My daughter was reading it for her high school Lit class. She asked me to read it. I expected to be underwhelmed by a YA focus. If anything, I think it says more about parenthood and reflecting on one's own teenage years. All in all, a good book—and the hockey plot would appeal to most folks here.
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The series based on it recently premiered on European HBO and will be released in US in 2021.

Beartown: HBO to Launch Swedish Drama Series in 2021 in the US – The Euro TV Place
 
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With the season starting, I will likely read a good deal less.

I have continued to try to get other perspectives on the world through fiction.

Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn really made me think about the foreigners who do much of the child and elderly care in the U.S. I often think they are "lucky" to have the opportunities, but that is of course a superficial view.

Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala also tells an immigrant story but through the perspective of the next generation who fully adopt American values. The dynamic between father and son will make you rethink you own family relationships.

There There by Tommy Orange. I really only had exposure to Native fiction through Sherman Alexie. This novel blew me away. Like all good stories this novel made me see the truth that can't be captured in even the best non-fiction history writing. I would put this at the top of a very strong list of books I have read in the past year.
 
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just finished the broken earth trilogy and it was fairly enjoyable. second book dragged a little bit, but the first book is pretty excellent and the build up and payoff of the finale in the final book is quite nice.
 
a book...









...in all seriousness, just started Timothy Zahn's new "Thrawn Trilogy"...just started but pretty good thus far. I'll always maintain that they could have reworked the original Thrawn Trilogy into a sequel trilogy much more unique than the one we got
 
Continuing on with my tour of the modern literature world:

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Aciche tells the story of the Nigerian civil war in the 1960s. While there is some violence and suffering, it is brilliantly told through the story of a young couple, her sister, their servant, and mid-way through their daughter. I found myself researching the events because I was so emotionally connected to the characters. Voted the best book by a female author in the past 25 years by the Women's Prize for Fiction. A difficult story that is all the more amazing because the reader (this reader anyway) doesn't want it to end.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Another award-winning book: the 2008 Man Booker prize. Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and heart-breaking, this novels follow a poor Indian who becomes a driver for a wealthy family. The main character, Balram Halwai, is not so much an unreliable narrator as a character telling a story that few middle-class Americans can believe or understand. Balram is writing a long letter written over several days from Balram to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Every page puts to rest the idea of the brave international entrepreneur. A movie based on the book was released this year, which I have not yet seen.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite is one of the slimmest novels you are likely to read. That doesn't mean it isn't full of ideas/questions. The novel is set in Lagos and at its heart asks two questions: 1) how can women break out of abusive relationships; 2) is sororal loyalty unbreakable. Reviewers have called it darkly comic, but I found it touching in several disturbing ways. Another winner of several literary prizes--all well-deserved.
 
Been on quite the reading kick lately. Making a run through Nobel winners. Recently finished:

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (on my third attempt, lol)

Snow, Orhan Pamuk

Children of the Alley, Naghib Mahfouz

Mario Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes

And now reading Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Llosa (which is amazing) and The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (which is a good reminder that even at our alleged "best", Americans have always been pretty rough on each other politically).

the halleJOKEL said:
just finished reading gideon the ninth, really quick and enjoyable read
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Mrs. Hank loved it. Have you read Harrow the Ninth?

MinJaBen said:
I’m reading “Salt” right now. Very interesting.
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I loved this book. So much political history wrapped up in it. Fun fact: any English city ending in "-wich" is named after a salt mine.
 
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I've been on a kick where I've been going through the true crime section of our library (it helps that my office is three blocks from the main branch, and that's where I go on lunch). I just finished Madoff's Other Secret, written by Bernie Madoff's mistress, who decided it would be wise to invest her and her husband's life savings and then lost it all. It's the second book about Madoff that I've read in the past few months; the last one was about the aftermath of that scandal and how it affected Madoff's kids.

You know, call me mean, heartless, or whatever you want, but I have a really hard time reading books about how these people were wined and dined, flown first class all over the world and used other people's money to live lavishly, and then boo hoo when they lose everything because daddy/loverboy was a scammer.
 
42 jerks said:
Beartown by Fredrik Backman. A novel about the junior hockey team in a small Swedish town. It is both about hockey and about all the things that make life fascinating and dangerous (friends, loyalty, status, being honest with oneself).

My daughter was reading it for her high school Lit class. She asked me to read it. I expected to be underwhelmed by a YA focus. If anything, I think it says more about parenthood and reflecting on one's own teenage years. All in all, a good book—and the hockey plot would appeal to most folks here.
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This book is amazing, Backman is an amazing writer. About so much more than hockey. The sequel is great too!
 
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Graveyard of the Atlantic

Book about shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast
 
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Reading (for lack of specific term) diverse speculative fiction lately.

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi presents the last 25 years of U.S. history as it appears to Ella--who has a gift that allows her to travel through both time and physical boundaries. She experiences all the trauma of the people she meets in those travels. Having the physical, emotional, and economic abuses layered generation upon generation provides a powerful lens that made me experience the anger that must come from being repeatedly oppressed in our world. While short, this book provokes more thought than 99% of novels.

Ring Shout by P. Djèli Clark is another slim volume that is full of erudition and moral observations. The structure fits more neatly into the science fiction genre. Maryse Boudreaux and her two partners in justice, Sadie and Chef, are black women in Macon, Georgia in 1922. They have supernatural powers that allow them to take on scores of Ku Klux Klan. Together they attempt to stop a re-issue of "Birth of a Nation," which represents a supernatural threat to African-Americans. While the action creates a true page-turner, the brilliance of this book is how it portrays hate as a force too big to be controlled by the human race.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones is the book I am currently reading. At its center is Native American life and legend. Lewis left the reservation and lives a modern multi-cultural life--if not always comfortably as his co-workers often refer to him as "Chief." He often writes headlines in his mind to describe his life: "Indian man has no roots. Thinks he's still an Indian if he talks like an Indian." There is one part of the reservation that Lewis can't escape--shortly before leaving he killed a young elk. Ten years later he is haunted and hunted by the animal's ghost. The book is described as "horror." I am about 1/3 through and there have been some graphic depictions, but the book is much more disturbing on an intellectual level than horrific. Thus far it is truly a fascinating twist on a novel about culture clash.
 
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Lempo said:
I like the bit where Hogfather gives Nobby the Mercedes-Benz of crossbows and he's thinking that they had to break the fingers of the reporter of Bows and Ammo magazine to make him give it back after testing.
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The whole thing is just wonderful. I think my favorite part so far is Death and Albert telling off the Good King Wenceslas stand-in.


I’ve actually been putting off finishing it because I don’t want it to end.
 
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First off, thank you for the direction to this Thread my friend @HisIceness.

Now, down to business.

I was looking for a richly written Adult books/Novels by an Author who wasn’t afraid to go dark. My local 2nd Hand Book Store suggested Joe Abercrombie & his First Law Series.

I've now rapidly chewed through 2/3 rds of the trilogy. I’m shovelling snow and listening to the Audiobook version of Book #3 today. The narrator is nothing short of amazing.

I won’t spoil the Series for anyone, other than to say that if anyone who isn’t familiar with this Author and enjoys George R.R. Martin, one could do worse than read Abercrombie. I’m a committed fan now and will be searching out & greedily consuming more of his work as the addictive reading bastard I am.

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Look forward to also reading many of the recommendations you folks have made in this Thread.
 
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