What are you reading for November?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Currently Dancing on My Grave by Gelsey Kirkland. Next are The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan and The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow edited by Raul Hilberg.

I read Dancing on My Grave years (probably decades!) ago and still remember finding it to be so interesting. The ballet world fascinates me.

Same here! It's a good book.

[Anonymous]

ARC reader here. The November releases I read this past year.

My favorites...
Check & Mate (Ali Hazelwood) - Fantastic first foray into YA for this author. About a former chess prodigy getting pulled back into competition and falling in love with the top player in the world.

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord (Celeste Connally) - Regency-era mystery/suspense with a nice romantic subplot. Strong, smart female lead. Great ending.

Vengeance of the Pirate Queen (Tricia Levenseller) - Third in a YA series set in a world where there are pirates and sirens. Clever and heartfelt.

Not my favorites...
A Power Unbound (Freya Marske) - Third in a series that features queer characters set in the 1800s, but with magic. A series-long conflict between magicians is settled and the final couple gets together. This series is a little dark at times.

What the River Knows (Isabel Ibanez) - Marketed as The Mummy meets Death on the Nile. This is magical realism set during the Egyptology craze of the late 1800s. I don't think comparing it to The Mummy made sense because it was pretty dark. Ends on a cliffhanger. It wasn't a personal favorite, but there is a ton of buzz for this one and one of the special edition companies has picked it for next month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jade War by Fonda Lee. Ooh this series is good.

Word?

[Anonymous]

Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. So far really enjoying it - plus learning a bit of yiddish on the side.

[Anonymous]

Can I just say how much I enjoy these what are you reading threads? Thank you for starting them OP!

[Anonymous]

For November so far:

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers: Heavy on the cozy part of "cozy mystery." I did find it very enjoyable, though. Loved the characters and am craving a visit to a Chinese tea shop. Would recommend!

The Running Grave (latest in the Cormoran Strike series): Would have benefited so, so much from more editing. I did like it; regular readers should go ahead and pick it up. I'm weary of stories with sexual violence toward women and hope Rowling picks another topic next time around.

Gideon the Ninth - Was a recommendation from this forum. It's definitely in the spirit of other books I love, but I was on the fence about this one. It had a whiff of Atlas Six/Atlas Paradox which was offputting. By the end, I was feeling very uninspired to move on to the second book, and I think I'll skip it.

Mother-Daughter Murder Night: Not sure where I picked up this recommendation, but do not recommend. It's very poorly written. The bones of the story are good, though. If Rowling had picked up this storyline and limited herself to 600 pages (rather than the Running Grave) it probably would have been one of my best reads of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For November so far:

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers: Heavy on the cozy part of "cozy mystery." I did find it very enjoyable, though. Loved the characters and am craving a visit to a Chinese tea shop. Would recommend!

The Running Grave (latest in the Cormoran Strike series): Would have benefited so, so much from more editing. I did like it; regular readers should go ahead and pick it up. I'm weary of stories with sexual violence toward women and hope Rowling picks another topic next time around.

Gideon the Ninth - Was a recommendation from this forum. It's definitely in the spirit of other books I love, but I was on the fence about this one. It had a whiff of Atlas Six/Atlas Paradox which was offputting. By the end, I was feeling very uninspired to move on to the second book, and I think I'll skip it.

Mother-Daughter Murder Night: Not sure where I picked up this recommendation, but do not recommend. It's very poorly written. The bones of the story are good, though. If Rowling had picked up this storyline and limited herself to 600 pages (rather than the Running Grave) it probably would have been one of my best reads of the year.

I’ve never read the atlas books you mention but I will note that they came out very shortly after Gideon, so it’s very unlikely either author read the other’s work. If they’re in a similar vein perhaps I should give them a try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I just say how much I enjoy these what are you reading threads? Thank you for starting them OP!

Agree! It’s nice to shout about books into the void!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For November so far:

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers: Heavy on the cozy part of "cozy mystery." I did find it very enjoyable, though. Loved the characters and am craving a visit to a Chinese tea shop. Would recommend!

The Running Grave (latest in the Cormoran Strike series): Would have benefited so, so much from more editing. I did like it; regular readers should go ahead and pick it up. I'm weary of stories with sexual violence toward women and hope Rowling picks another topic next time around.

Gideon the Ninth - Was a recommendation from this forum. It's definitely in the spirit of other books I love, but I was on the fence about this one. It had a whiff of Atlas Six/Atlas Paradox which was offputting. By the end, I was feeling very uninspired to move on to the second book, and I think I'll skip it.

Mother-Daughter Murder Night: Not sure where I picked up this recommendation, but do not recommend. It's very poorly written. The bones of the story are good, though. If Rowling had picked up this storyline and limited herself to 600 pages (rather than the Running Grave) it probably would have been one of my best reads of the year.

I’ve never read the atlas books you mention but I will note that they came out very shortly after Gideon, so it’s very unlikely either author read the other’s work. If they’re in a similar vein perhaps I should give them a try.

Oh yes, I definitely don't think they actually influenced each other. The Atlas books are based on a group of chosen ones thrown together in a house for mysterious purposes with a mysterious teacher/leader and I grew to hate the whole thing by the time I finished the second one. There are echoes of that set up in Gideon and that may have influenced my reaction. In general, Gideon was much much better than the Atlas series.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just put a hold on that fungi book so fast.

I’m reading Big Swiss. It is a hilarious and so pointed book about a transcriptionist for a sex therapist. It’s set in Hudson, NY, and really skewers a certain type of New Yorker.

I came across Big Swiss recently too. It was a hoot. I loved Mary Jane too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I just say how much I enjoy these what are you reading threads? Thank you for starting them OP!

Agree! It’s nice to shout about books into the void!

I like it too. There seems to be many people on here with similar interests to what I like.

[Anonymous]

I just read The Lindbergh Nanny. It was good—an easy and interesting read.

[Anonymous]

I was one of the (many?) readers somewhat disappointed in the Fourth Wing last month... but finally found my escapist fix in different DCUM rec, City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty. It's some sort of fabulous mishmash of Middle Eastern mythology, family saga, political potboiler and magical coming of age story. I read the first two books in the trilogy and now am almost mourning the fact that the second one is already done...

(One warning is that the first book starts off a little uninspired: the main character begins as a plucky street thief tricking the gullible - who then meets a "genie". I was inwardly groaning and I thinking, hmmm, I've watched this story before in a ... Disney movie. But get another couple chapters in and you're a million miles away from "Aladdin"!)

[Anonymous]

Another one reading, or rather listening to, Tom Lake. Lovely.

I do wonder how much of the experience is just Meryl Streep's performance (and it really is a 15-hour "performance," a whole different way of doing an audio book) and how much is actually the writing. Still, somehow the book manages to both be cozy and elegant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another one reading, or rather listening to, Tom Lake. Lovely.

I do wonder how much of the experience is just Meryl Streep's performance (and it really is a 15-hour "performance," a whole different way of doing an audio book) and how much is actually the writing. Still, somehow the book manages to both be cozy and elegant.

I'm one of the other Tom Lake readers - and you know what's funny? I'm reading the book, not listening to it - but I can't help picturing the main character as Meryl Streep. Even though the physical description of the character doesn't match Streep/ It's just who I am picturing! I didn't know she was the audiobook reader.