What have you read lately?

[apl68]

BTW, if you've never heard of Storm, that's not too surprising.  It was a critically-acclaimed bestseller in the 1940s.  There was a special Armed Services edition in World War II.  In the '50s it served as the basis for a Disney semi-documentary on TV entitled "A Storm Named Maria."  Then the book seems to have become almost forgotten (There was a reprint in the 1980s).  Stewart is mainly remembered today for an early post-apocalyptic novel called Earth Abides. 

An old copy of Storm caught my eye at an antique store some years ago.  It goes to show that some of those old, forgotten books can be well worth reading today.  I can't recommend it highly enough.  Looks like there's a new edition due out later this year.  Meanwhile old copies are still available at Amazon.

[mamselle]

It would be interesting to know what Stewart would have made of the recent infrastructure disaster in Texas.

He might have linked it to a grain elevator's being torn down 10 years earlier, from what you describe of his long-range interest in causality...

At first, though, my thought was, "Oh, Dick Francis' son Felix finally wrote the book they talked about in "Second Wind," which was the cover activity for a clandestine spy-like operation that pulled a couple meteorologists into flying through a couple of hurricanes...

M. 

[hmaria1609]

Finishing: The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England, From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes
It's a withdrawn library copy I got a few years ago.

Next up: Enola Holmes Mystery series by Nancy Springer
This children's series got attention (and new book covers) because of the Netflix movie. Since there's a lull in demand for now, I'm reading the series ahead of the new Enola Holmes novel that the author is releasing this summer.

[nebo113]

With the town shut down by snow all last week, it seemed like an appropriate time to re-read Storm, by George Stewart.  Storm is a day-by-day account of a fictitious winter storm,

Completely OT but I was caught by your use of fictitious and wondered how it is different from fictional. Checked dictionary and still can't figure it out.  Sooooo....why did you choose the former over the latter?  And I'm not being snarky.  Curious and a bit of a vocabulary nut.

[Parasaurolophus]

Angus Donald - Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones: A fun new Robin Hood adventure, although it has to be said that I'd forgotten how irritatingly stupid our protagonist, Alan Dale, is. Ugh. He's insufferable. I don't have much more to say, really: it did what it said on the tin, with a typo or two on every page (such are the perils of not having access to a copy editor, I guess). But I'm glad Donald has been able to crank out a few more of these, and that there's a market for them, even if his publisher didn't want them. He's pretty good at stitching these adventures together.

Robert J. Sawyer - Mindscan: The premise was pretty interesting to me (mind-upload technology has been developed. Some rich people do it, are sued by their children for their legacies.) The execution was OK--the trial is by far the most interesting part of the novel, and there's not really enough of it. Sending the shedskins to the moon also seems really backwards--they've developed this mindscan technology, fine, but they haven't done a good job of thinking through its applications. The philosophy of mind that was mixed in was OK (notwithstanding the philosopher who testifies at the trial, who doesn't acquit himself any better than an undergrad could). Also, while I'm all for CanCon, the CanCon here was kind of grating. President Pat Buchanan was a nice touch, though.

Robert J. Sawyer - Factoring Humanity: Sawyer seems like something of an r-selector scifi author to me: he has lots of neat little ideas, and he churns them out in the hopes that one will be a hit. This is another OK novel. It's more engaging than Mindscan, but I dunno about the central conflict, really. And his grasp of the academy, and of academic ranks, is not good. Also, I just couldn't really get past the idea that a Jungian psychologist is the one who ends up deciphering the aliens' message. Too much disbelief, not enough suspension.

Robert J. Sawyer - Starplex: This was the most fun of RJS's works which I've read (also, in some ways, the least ambitious. Coincidence?). I enjoyed it a fair bit. Put the scientists into space and turn it into a small-scale space opera, and he does just fine. There's still a lot of Basil exposition, but that's his way.

Robert J. Sawyer - Flashforward: The core here is a very good idea (for one minute, the LHC gives everyone on earth a vision of a minute 21 years in the future), and it's competently executed. I enjoyed it, although I have to say that his vision of the near future was just so, so far from the mark that it was grating. There's a philosophical discussion of free will (and quantum mechanics... sigh...) in the middle that's exasperatingly undergrad, too.

[Puget]

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin
New York comes alive, literarily. I enjoyed it-- some good characters, a fast moving plot, and interesting concept. If you don't like social commentary in your sci-fi it won't be your cup of tea however.

[nonsensical]

I've been trying to find a book or book series that I read as a child and can't remember the title or the author, and I was wondering if any of you might have ever read this or have a sense of how to search for it. My memory is that this was a series of stories about a girl growing up in the 1800s. I remember one story in particular where she was trying to memorize a Bible verse and took a Bible into the bath with her to practice, and then panicked because she didn't know how to get out of the bath without putting the Bible down on the floor, and clearly that was not a thing to do with such a sacred book. I think this same book or series also had a different story where this same girl wanted a new dresser for her bedroom, or something, and her brother made her one but she had to do his chores for him. The new dresser made her realize how drab her curtains were, so her brother fixed her curtains in exchange for her doing more chores. Then she noticed that the paint was faded, so her brother painted her room in exchange for her doing still more chores. Someone commented about what an expensive dresser she got and she said, no, the chores I'm doing now are for the paint, and the other person said that the paint would not have been an issue without all the other new stuff, so she was actually still paying for the original thing that started the whole chain. It's possible that either this main character or someone else in the stories was named Mabel.

That's about all that my memory is giving me, and some of it may be wrong or jumbled up with something else I read around the same time. I know this is a long shot but figured I'd post here in case anyone had any inkling of what book this might have been, or any suggestions for keywords that I could use or other ways to search for it ("girl who doesn't want to put a Bible on the floor" isn't really giving me very much...)

[ergative]

I've been trying to find a book or book series that I read as a child and can't remember the title or the author, and I was wondering if any of you might have ever read this or have a sense of how to search for it. My memory is that this was a series of stories about a girl growing up in the 1800s. I remember one story in particular where she was trying to memorize a Bible verse and took a Bible into the bath with her to practice, and then panicked because she didn't know how to get out of the bath without putting the Bible down on the floor, and clearly that was not a thing to do with such a sacred book. I think this same book or series also had a different story where this same girl wanted a new dresser for her bedroom, or something, and her brother made her one but she had to do his chores for him. The new dresser made her realize how drab her curtains were, so her brother fixed her curtains in exchange for her doing more chores. Then she noticed that the paint was faded, so her brother painted her room in exchange for her doing still more chores. Someone commented about what an expensive dresser she got and she said, no, the chores I'm doing now are for the paint, and the other person said that the paint would not have been an issue without all the other new stuff, so she was actually still paying for the original thing that started the whole chain. It's possible that either this main character or someone else in the stories was named Mabel.

That's about all that my memory is giving me, and some of it may be wrong or jumbled up with something else I read around the same time. I know this is a long shot but figured I'd post here in case anyone had any inkling of what book this might have been, or any suggestions for keywords that I could use or other ways to search for it ("girl who doesn't want to put a Bible on the floor" isn't really giving me very much...)

There is a goodreads community called 'What's the name of that book'? in which people post these sorts of questions. I have used it successfully myself, in the past. You might give it a try: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/list_group/185-what-s-the-name-of-that-book

(I'm already on goodreads, so if you want me to post it there for you and report back, I'm very happy to.)

[nonsensical]

There is a goodreads community called 'What's the name of that book'? in which people post these sorts of questions. I have used it successfully myself, in the past. You might give it a try: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/list_group/185-what-s-the-name-of-that-book

(I'm already on goodreads, so if you want me to post it there for you and report back, I'm very happy to.)

I did not know that! Thank you for pointing me in this direction. I don't have an account there, so if you really don't mind posting for me, I would really appreciate it.

[ergative]

There is a goodreads community called 'What's the name of that book'? in which people post these sorts of questions. I have used it successfully myself, in the past. You might give it a try: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/list_group/185-what-s-the-name-of-that-book

(I'm already on goodreads, so if you want me to post it there for you and report back, I'm very happy to.)

I did not know that! Thank you for pointing me in this direction. I don't have an account there, so if you really don't mind posting for me, I would really appreciate it.

Here it is: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21895160-children-s-book-1800s-little-girl-doesn-t-want-to-put-bible-down-on-wet

Let me know if you remember more and want me to update it.

[ab_grp]

Thanks for the reviews, Parasaurolophus! Some of the Sawyer books sound like promising reads (others not so much).

And it is neat that there's a forum like that on Goodreads for figuring out names of somewhat-recalled books! I hope that group can help.

[ergative]

There is a goodreads community called 'What's the name of that book'? in which people post these sorts of questions. I have used it successfully myself, in the past. You might give it a try: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/list_group/185-what-s-the-name-of-that-book

(I'm already on goodreads, so if you want me to post it there for you and report back, I'm very happy to.)

I did not know that! Thank you for pointing me in this direction. I don't have an account there, so if you really don't mind posting for me, I would really appreciate it.

Here it is: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21895160-children-s-book-1800s-little-girl-doesn-t-want-to-put-bible-down-on-wet

Let me know if you remember more and want me to update it.

Here's a suggestion: is this it?


The series Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson came up in a search.
The first book is In Grandma's Attic. The main character's name is Mabel and she was a child at the "turn of the century". The scene of the bible and the bath is in the book Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic (I did a search within the book using Google Books). The chapter about the piece of furniture that makes her think the rest of the bedroom looks shaby is in the book Treasures from Grandma; it's a bookcase, though, not a dresser, so not sure it's the same story you were looking for!
It looks like the 1st book was published in the mid 70s and the other books in the 80s and 90s!

[nonsensical]

Here's a suggestion: is this it?


The series Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson came up in a search.
The first book is In Grandma's Attic. The main character's name is Mabel and she was a child at the "turn of the century". The scene of the bible and the bath is in the book Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic (I did a search within the book using Google Books). The chapter about the piece of furniture that makes her think the rest of the bedroom looks shaby is in the book Treasures from Grandma; it's a bookcase, though, not a dresser, so not sure it's the same story you were looking for!
It looks like the 1st book was published in the mid 70s and the other books in the 80s and 90s!

Yes!! Thank you so much!

[ab_grp]

Hooray for the series being identified!

Just finished this one last night:

But we decided to move back into the Red Rising (Brown) universe with book two, Golden Son.  The immediate beginning was a bit annoying, because it seemed intended to recap a lot of the first book but felt a bit forced.  Now we're moving toward the main thrust of the story, so hopefully things will get more interesting.  This one had the highest Goodreads rating of those we considered reading next, but you never know what kind of sampling bias is going on there.  The first book was really pretty good, so I am optimistic.  We'll see if the main character has any greater self-awareness this go round.

It got a lot better once we moved past the beginning and got into the story.  It was a pretty similar story to the first book, sort of a Hunger Games feel, but took place in a different setting than the first.  I guess you could say the first was in a school setting, and the second was in a workplace setting.  The plot is still about the main character trying to undo society and the caste system that has been in place forever, with those at the lower levels having no idea of the reality of the world and basically kept in slavery.  Each color (red, blue, violet, pink, gold, etc.) has their roles to play in the society and are violently discouraged from expanding beyond those roles.  Similar to the first book, there's a lot of plotting and treachery.  Some very good characters from the previous book and new ones introduced in this one, some eye-rolling (at times) dialog, interesting plot reveals.  It's still hard to get behind the main character completely, because he just doesn't seem to get it half the time, though at least he has grown a bit less naive.  Overall, I really like this series so far.   It's advertised as a trilogy but seems to have five books.  I guess we'll have to see if three books should have been enough. 

Now we're reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green.  Seems like it's off to an interesting start, but we began it before bed last night, and I fell asleep not too far into it.  It appears to be about a bunch of statues that start appearing in different cities and the main character having to figure out what the purpose is.  I would post the blurb, but it's a bit long.  Supposed to be a humorous sci-fi with complex underlying ideas.

[hmaria1609]

A short list of books I read or soon will from the library:
Enola Holmes Mystery series by Nancy Springer
Quick reads--kids series about Enola Holmes, the 14 year old sister of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes. The 1st book, The Case of the Missing Marquess, was the basis of the hit Netflix movie. I recommend reading the books in order.  The author has a new and 7th installment releasing this summer!

Murder at Queen's Landing by Andrea Penrose
#4 in the "Wrexford & Sloane" mystery series.  The Duke and Charlotte Sloane investigate a murder at London's docks.

The Queen's Secret by Melissa de la Cruz (teen)
The sequel to The Queen's Assassin

The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander
New and #15 in the "Lady Emily Mystery" series