Book Club: What are you reading?

[agate]

I just read a short story I liked--it's by Thomas Pierce and appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of Granta. It's called "Visitors Welcome."

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I often read short stories as they come my way but hardly ever like one well enough to want to read more fiction by an author. I'll be looking up more fiction by Thomas Pierce though. He has a short story collection called Hall of Small Mammals as well as a novel, The Afterlives.

[Virginia]

I finished Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks and thought it was a really good book. The setting is in Martha's Vineyard in the 1660s. There a young girl meets a young Indian boy by accident and they become good friends. He is extremely smart and goes on to Harvard and becomes the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. They both have a thirst for knowledge and it was very hard for a girl to get any kind of education. Her Father taught her till the age of 9, but would not go beyond that. She was smart enough to pick up languages and other things as she listened to her Father instruct her older brother, while they were unaware that she was paying attention. She also did this when she went to work at Cambridge and listened to the scholars as they instructed the young men.

This is a work of fiction, but it is true that Caleb was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665.

Another good book.

[Lazarus]

I finished Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks and thought it was a really good book. The setting is in Martha's Vineyard in the 1660s. There a young girl meets a young Indian boy by accident and they become good friends. He is extremely smart and goes on to Harvard and becomes the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. They both have a thirst for knowledge and it was very hard for a girl to get any kind of education. Her Father taught her till the age of 9, but would not go beyond that. She was smart enough to pick up languages and other things as she listened to her Father instruct her older brother, while they were unaware that she was paying attention. She also did this when she went to work at Cambridge and listened to the scholars as they instructed the young men.

This is a work of fiction, but it is true that Caleb was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665.

Another good book.

Thanks for writing about this interesting book.

[Lazarus]

Listening to: “Then She Was Gone” by Lisa Jewell. A really good page turner.

Very good do not know how I stumbled on it but it is so damn good....I can not stop listening. All people living out lives with happiness, sadness, marriages, children...etc. but....I am feeling the drumbeat that something does not add up...one family did have a traumatic event and everything that happens seems to be tracing back to that.

Very good writing. Fun to have to listen to....I do not read reviews because I want to be able to read it without knowing what it will reveal. But I did read enough reviews on Amazon to know that people liked it ...and could not stop reading! but, trust me, you really won’t regret how this engages you.

[Virginia]

I just finished "Ladies From Havana". This was off Ann's list. It really was good. It was two love stories in one story, but there was also a lot of history about Cuba during the Batista years and even much more about the Fidel Castro years. The stories were good, but the history part was great. This was one of Ann's. Thanks Ann!

Edited this to add: I wrote the wrong title - that book was "Next Year in Havana", but it was from Ann's list.

[Sunshine]

I read Where the Crawdads sing today for 50 pages. Its the first book I have been able to read in a while. Due to focus problems and med induced short term memory issues.

[Virginia]

I hope you can read more of it Sunshine

[Lazarus]

I read Where the Crawdads sing today for 50 pages. Its the first book I have been able to read in a while. Due to focus problems and med induced short term memory issues.

Great! I read when my eyes are ‘working’...but use Audible more and more.

[Virginia]

This past Saturday I read a whole book. I couldn't get out since there was still ice from the snow we had. So anyway I read The Second Mrs. Hockaday. This was one of Ann's. I thought the title sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite remember and went ahead and got it. Sure enough I had read it already, but it still was really good. I had forgotten so much.

The book is about a very young girl in the 1800s, who marries a man who is in the Confederate Army. He has to leave her after two days and they do not see each other for two years. He comes back and has her arrested for having a child and killing it. I liked the way it was written. It is an enjoyable read.

[stillstANNding]

Virginia, I thought I bought that book for Mom on your recommendation. It is hard to remember. I can never be sure what I’ve read and especially Mom. She gets books from multiple sources. And covers change. Remember Agatha Christie? They even changed titles on her books!

ANN

[Virginia]

Ann, that is so funny. You bought it on my recommendation and I bought it on yours.

[stillstANNding]

A mutual admiration society?

ANN

[nuthatch]

Listening to the book, American Dirt. It's a heart wrenching story about about a woman and her 8 year old son trying to flee Mexico to find safety in the U.S., after her entire family was murdered by a drug cartel.

Sadly, so much of this is reality for so many trying to cross the border.

[Virginia]

I just finished reading Ordinary Grace. This was a book that Ann got for her Mom. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It centers a lot on two very precocious young brothers 13 and 11. Their Father is a minister and the 13 year old, when out of the earshot of his Father, loves to use words like hell and damn. The 11 year old is a sweeter more gentle young boy but follows his brother everywhere. It is a story of a family who is almost torn apart by the murder of the boy's older sister. I found it to be sweet and endearing.

[jingle]

I'm about half-way through The House Girl and it's very good.