Shogun

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Amazing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just finished Babel and it was a masterpiece. I didn't know ~530 pages could go that quickly.

I listened to it on audiobook. I enjoyed Yellowface by the same author and wanted to try something else of hers that wasn't all fantasy.

PP here. I read Yellowface first for a book club and really liked it and the author's writing style, so I picked up Babel. She has great range. I haven't been in the mood to start a series for a while but I may reconsider to read her Poppy War trilogy. Have you read it? How did it compare to Babel?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading Demon Copperhead. 600 hundred pages long and it is sagging. I want to quit! I can’t bare to read it anymore, I don’t care about Demon. Too much internal dialogue and not enough plot.

I fast forwarded and skipped a bunch. The ending was good. I just couldn't.

Bleak, dark, rambling. I sooo wanted it to end. Wouldn’t recommend. I think she took real license and painted a dramatized and overstated version of that part of the world.

No. The setting and story are very real. My book-loving friends who are also from Appalachia either couldn't read it or did so essentially feeling heartsick most of the time (I was the latter). We all know our own real-life Demons and Maggots and Aunt Junes and Emmys and Fast Forwards and Doris, often many times over. We all have some version of Devil's Bathtub and "dragging Main" in the Lariat. We know the poverty and the irreparably torn families and have seen most of the horrific things the book describes. Nothing in that book surprised me; nothing in it was something I haven't personally seen.

I do think it was a good book, though.

Pachinko and Circe were two of my favorite long reads. Half of a Yellow Sun was a rough but rewarding slog.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished Charm School by Nelson DeMille. Been meaning to read it forever and finally got around to it.

It's long but I'm glad I stuck it out.

Have you read The Gold Coast? I loved that book!

Person who recommended The Gold Coast, thank you! I read it and The Gate House after your recommendation and loved them both. DeMille's sense of humor is great.

Plum Island by Demille is quite good, too.

Anonymous wrote:I just finished Babel and it was a masterpiece. I didn't know ~530 pages could go that quickly.

I listened to it on audiobook. I enjoyed Yellowface by the same author and wanted to try something else of hers that wasn't all fantasy.

I just finished Babel and it was a masterpiece. I didn't know ~530 pages could go that quickly.

Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude

Especially if you like richly thematic fiction

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished Charm School by Nelson DeMille. Been meaning to read it forever and finally got around to it.

It's long but I'm glad I stuck it out.

Have you read The Gold Coast? I loved that book!

Person who recommended The Gold Coast, thank you! I read it and The Gate House after your recommendation and loved them both. DeMille's sense of humor is great.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Anonymous wrote:The Bee Sting is incredible. It's big, and I actually got it on Kindle and on Audible so I could carry it around and listen to it in the car. It's amazing.

I honestly could not have hated a book more. I've been thinking of starting a thread to discuss it so I could understand why it was so successful.

Pachinko, any Robert Galbraith mystery book (JK Rowling is writing under a pseudonym), pillars of the earth