Anonymous wrote:I absolutely loved North Woods and recommended it to several people. I love books like that where each story somehow connects to a previous one. The story about the twin sisters was so striking. It’s fascinating to me people don’t like that book!

Right now I’m reading Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie and I already have the final book in the series (The Romanovs The Final Chapter) waiting for when I finish. Rasputin just entered the picture and the author has done a really good job laying out how desperate Alexandra was about Alexei’s hemophilia to where it’s very understandable how she was duped by Rasputin.

Nicholas and Alexandra is one of the classic biographies of all time. The author has a unique perspective because his own son had severe hemophilia, growing up in an era where there was treatment (unlike for Alexei) but it wasn't very good. His son later acquired both HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products in the '80s--he has some rare genetic mutation that confers natural resistance to HIV and has never progressed to AIDS. And the treatment for hepatitis C was a liver transplant so he actually no longer has hemophilia either, since clotting factors are produced in the liver.

I read Nicholas and Alexandra when I was a teenager and was transfixed. It was like a slow motion train wreck, where you know it's all going to end horribly but the journey to get there is still an experience. I was probably around the same age Alexei was when he died, when I read the book--this was too young to fully grasp the complexity of the story but getting my head around the idea of life just stopping for a child at that age consumed me for awhile. I read it again as an adult and got more out of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All The Colors Of The Dark, quite a page turner. I have stayed up late some nights because I could not put it down.

Loved this one! Such unique characters, I loved the twists and turns in the story.

Just finished Wild Dark Shore (loved), now reading Harlan Coben's new book as a little palette cleanser before some nonfiction books I have on my list.

What was unique about them?

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Anonymous wrote:Halfway through Donna Tartt’s “The Little Friend.” I’m not sure if it’s a murder mystery as much as it is the tale of an unsupervised childhood summer in the 70s. I have a feeling a lot of people didn’t like this, but I’m enjoying it.

Oh I remember this book well. I really enjoyed it.

Finished it, and it’s one of the better books I’ve read in awhile. I actually liked it better than The Nightingale.

Anonymous wrote:All The Colors Of The Dark, quite a page turner. I have stayed up late some nights because I could not put it down.

Loved this one! Such unique characters, I loved the twists and turns in the story.

Just finished Wild Dark Shore (loved), now reading Harlan Coben's new book as a little palette cleanser before some nonfiction books I have on my list.

Anonymous wrote:Reading Orbital which won the Booker Prize. Beautiful prose.

Phenomenal book. Best I’ve read in a long time. I savored every word.

(But maybe not for folks who need a clear, briskly paced plot — it’s more a book of perspective than story per se)

Anonymous wrote:James, by Percival Everett. This is the reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved point of view of Jim.

I tried but couldn't get into it. Should I give it another shot?

I just read Yellowface; two years after everybody else and loved it. It was like watching a devastating car wreck in slow motion. Amazing. In fairness, I listened to it and the audio production was very good.

Preorder recommendation from a reader of advance copies: I just finished (in 2 evenings) We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship with Kate Spade by Elyce Arons. It is thankfully NOT a psychological postmortem. It is an account of a long and lovely friendship between two scrappy Midwestern women who together managed to build an internationally known fashion brand. Very well-written. I couldn't put it down.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin.

It is about a young woman who grew up in Ireland and then immigrated to Brooklyn as a young woman in the early 1950's.

I liked it. It seemed realistic. One bit in the book was about whether or not to buy a television or if TV was going to be a short-lived fad.
I actually listened to it as an audiobook and the narrator did an excellent job of narrating with an Irish accent.

Now I have started on "Long Island", which is the sequel to Brooklyn. Long Island picks up about 20 years later. In this one, the main character answers the door one day and a man tells her that her husband has impregnated his wife and when the baby comes he will be dropping it off on their doorstep.

I just finished "Long Island", which was the sequel to "Brooklyn". Both books were excellent, in my opinion. But to me, they were really just part one and part two of the same story.

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Anonymous wrote:Just finished North Woods. I liked it & thought the writing was beautiful and artful. I wanted to love it given all the hype, but I didn’t. Did you?

Reading The Little Liar by Mitch Albom. So far I’m invested in the story.

North Woods was a DNF for me.

Almost DNF but managed to finish it. The ending jumped the shark, like I was reading a different book. I cannot recommend this book.

I absolutely loved North Woods and recommended it to several people. I love books like that where each story somehow connects to a previous one. The story about the twin sisters was so striking. It’s fascinating to me people don’t like that book!

Right now I’m reading Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie and I already have the final book in the series (The Romanovs The Final Chapter) waiting for when I finish. Rasputin just entered the picture and the author has done a really good job laying out how desperate Alexandra was about Alexei’s hemophilia to where it’s very understandable how she was duped by Rasputin.

Anonymous wrote:Halfway through Donna Tartt’s “The Little Friend.” I’m not sure if it’s a murder mystery as much as it is the tale of an unsupervised childhood summer in the 70s. I have a feeling a lot of people didn’t like this, but I’m enjoying it.

Oh I remember this book well. I really enjoyed it.

Halfway through Donna Tartt’s “The Little Friend.” I’m not sure if it’s a murder mystery as much as it is the tale of an unsupervised childhood summer in the 70s. I have a feeling a lot of people didn’t like this, but I’m enjoying it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished North Woods. I liked it & thought the writing was beautiful and artful. I wanted to love it given all the hype, but I didn’t. Did you?

Reading The Little Liar by Mitch Albom. So far I’m invested in the story.

North Woods was a DNF for me.

North Woods captivated me in a way I haven’t been in a long time. But I’m the type of person who sees an abandoned house or the remnants of a wall and daydreams about who used to live there, how their lives would have been different than mine, what joys or hardships they experienced while in that place. So, North Woods was right up my alley. On the other hand, I’ve tried several times to get into sci-fi, and I just can’t. Thankfully there’s a genre for all of us.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished North Woods. I liked it & thought the writing was beautiful and artful. I wanted to love it given all the hype, but I didn’t. Did you?

Reading The Little Liar by Mitch Albom. So far I’m invested in the story.

North Woods was a DNF for me.