What are you reading for November?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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"!)

Have you read The Adventures of Amina al Surafi by the same author? It's amazing. 40-something protagonist is a retired pirate who gets her old crew back together for a job. Epic quest, humor, great all around book!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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"!)

Have you read The Adventures of Amina al Surafi by the same author? It's amazing. 40-something protagonist is a retired pirate who gets her old crew back together for a job. Epic quest, humor, great all around book!

The entire trilogy is wonderful. And I wholeheartedly agree about The Adventures of Amina al Surafi. When do you get to see the main character of a fantasy adventure be a 40-something year old divorced woman with issues?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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"!)

Have you read The Adventures of Amina al Surafi by the same author? It's amazing. 40-something protagonist is a retired pirate who gets her old crew back together for a job. Epic quest, humor, great all around book!

The entire trilogy is wonderful. And I wholeheartedly agree about The Adventures of Amina al Surafi. When do you get to see the main character of a fantasy adventure be a 40-something year old divorced woman with issues?

T. Kingfisher has some older protagonists in a few books. Great writing, more humor, lots of epic quests!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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"!)

Have you read The Adventures of Amina al Surafi by the same author? It's amazing. 40-something protagonist is a retired pirate who gets her old crew back together for a job. Epic quest, humor, great all around book!

The entire trilogy is wonderful. And I wholeheartedly agree about The Adventures of Amina al Surafi. When do you get to see the main character of a fantasy adventure be a 40-something year old divorced woman with issues?

T. Kingfisher has some older protagonists in a few books. Great writing, more humor, lots of epic quests!

Thanks for all the recommendations (original City of Brass poster here)... As I said, I am already sort of pre-mourning the end of the trilogy so it is good to have some more recommendations ahead. I pretty much read all genres, but I particularly like having a fantasy or otherwise epic/ transporting/ world-building book in rotation. And they can be a bit tricky to find because while I am hardly insisting on high literature, I also want it to be well written & well done!

Is there a particularly good T. Kingfisher book to start with?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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"!)

Have you read The Adventures of Amina al Surafi by the same author? It's amazing. 40-something protagonist is a retired pirate who gets her old crew back together for a job. Epic quest, humor, great all around book!

The entire trilogy is wonderful. And I wholeheartedly agree about The Adventures of Amina al Surafi. When do you get to see the main character of a fantasy adventure be a 40-something year old divorced woman with issues?

T. Kingfisher has some older protagonists in a few books. Great writing, more humor, lots of epic quests!

Thanks for all the recommendations (original City of Brass poster here)... As I said, I am already sort of pre-mourning the end of the trilogy so it is good to have some more recommendations ahead. I pretty much read all genres, but I particularly like having a fantasy or otherwise epic/ transporting/ world-building book in rotation. And they can be a bit tricky to find because while I am hardly insisting on high literature, I also want it to be well written & well done!

Is there a particularly good T. Kingfisher book to start with?

Nettle & Bone is a fast read and it just won a Hugo!

Thornhedge and A House with Good Bones are standalones that are pretty fast reads.

There are a few books that all take place in the same universe, but some standalone. I read Swordheart first, not knowing there were books before it. I still loved the book. Here's the page for the group of books: https://www.goodreads.com/series/307546-the-world-of-the-white-rat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The October thread is locked, and I can't go back there to report that I read Mad Honey in Oct. for book club. I still don't like Jodi Piccoult and this book didn't change that for me. At least it was a fast read.

Lol! Same!

[Anonymous]

Killers of the Flower Moon - I actually enjoyed the movie more than the book, not usual for me. Just started Blue Marlin, Lee Smith.

[Anonymous]

Almost done with Lessons in Chemistry. I put it on hold at the library over the summer and it just came in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Almost done with Lessons in Chemistry. I put it on hold at the library over the summer and it just came in.

Is it worth the hype?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The same book I was reading in October... Demon Copperhead. Love it, but it's long!

Same with me!

Just finished it and I liked it much more than I expected to!

[Anonymous]

I just finished This Other Eden by Paul Harding, which was on the Booker prize list. I liked it. It's loosely inspired by a real place. In the novel, it's called Apple Island and is off the coast of Maine, settled in the late 1700s by a diverse group of people - former enslaved people, Penobscots, Irish - a real mishmash. Fast forward a century, and the people of the island, by modern standards, are living in squalor, hunger, and poverty. A well-meaning but highly prejudiced pastor comes to the island and tries to save them. You can probably guess what happens when the government takes an interest.

[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!

+1

And thanks to the DCUM moderator for creating this separate board for books. I really appreciate it!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just got done listening to "Send For Me" by Lauren Fox.
It is about a Jewish family who immigrated from Germany to Wisconsin in 1938. It was fiction, but the author based it on the actual letters she had found that her great grandmother, who stayed in Germany, wrote to them until the great grandmother died.
I liked it, but . . .
What I didn't care for was how the book kept jumping around in time between present day and the 1930's.
What I did like about it was the narrative about the years leading up to the holocaust. Things like Jewish and non-Jewish people being childhood playmates and friends in the 1920's, then not associating with each other any more. The slow insidiousness of hatred towards Jewish people. I had never thought about that before.

Thanks for sharing this. I'll add it to my list.

You might want to check out "Days of Awe" (also by Lauren Fox). I read it a few years ago and liked it a lot. Engaging and more thought-provoking than a lot of the other contemporary fiction I've read lately about friendship/marriage/motherhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Almost done with Lessons in Chemistry. I put it on hold at the library over the summer and it just came in.

Is it worth the hype?

PP back to report that I just finished it this weekend. I enjoyed it. Definitely worth reading. Not sure it's earth-shattering or anything and some of the social commentary was a bit heavy-handed, but not in a bad way, if that makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got done listening to "Send For Me" by Lauren Fox.
It is about a Jewish family who immigrated from Germany to Wisconsin in 1938. It was fiction, but the author based it on the actual letters she had found that her great grandmother, who stayed in Germany, wrote to them until the great grandmother died.
I liked it, but . . .
What I didn't care for was how the book kept jumping around in time between present day and the 1930's.
What I did like about it was the narrative about the years leading up to the holocaust. Things like Jewish and non-Jewish people being childhood playmates and friends in the 1920's, then not associating with each other any more. The slow insidiousness of hatred towards Jewish people. I had never thought about that before.

Thanks for sharing this. I'll add it to my list.

You might want to check out "Days of Awe" (also by Lauren Fox). I read it a few years ago and liked it a lot. Engaging and more thought-provoking than a lot of the other contemporary fiction I've read lately about friendship/marriage/motherhood.

I am the person who read the Send for Me book. Thanks for the recommendation. I see my library has that available on Libby so I may check it out soon.