It's the end of July reading thread!

Lily Fairbairn

Lily Fairbairn

Half-elven
Only one more month of summer, only one more month of summer.... [:)]

I'm now listening to another Donna Leon Inspector Brunetti book, About Face. This one starts with Brunetti's father-in-law asking him to use his resources as a policeman to look up information on a possible business partner. At the same time, an officer of the carabinieri comes to Brunetti for help with the murder of the owner of a trucking company.

I've always enjoyed the Venetian setting of these stories. Being fortunate enough to actually visit Venice last month has added to my enjoyment. I've even bought a book, Brunetti's Venice, with walks through parts of the city mentioned in the stories.

The stories themselves are mild-mannered as mysteries go, grim in some respects but not utterly hopeless. Brunetti is a decent family man who goes home for lunch every day (imagine that [shocked]), not a horribly damaged protagonist in worse shape than the villain, a trope I've come to deeply dislike.

What puzzles me a bit about the audio book is that the reader gives all the Italian characters Italian accents, even though they're supposedly speaking Italian so wouldn't have accents, right?

Ah well, that's a very fine point indeed.

On paper I'm reading Christmas on the Island by British author Jenny Colgan, a book I picked up off the New Fiction shelf at the library because it takes place on a Scottish island and has large print. So far it's a quiet exploration of the people living on an imaginary island north of Scotland through the point of view of a young woman running the village café. There are contemporary issues: She finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, her brother's husband is dying of cancer, the town doctor is a Syrian refugee. Still, so far it seems very light. I hope it stays that way.

I'm not at all familiar with Colgan, but she has quite a long list of publications. It would be nice to find a "new" author, perhaps in audio as well---her style would work well in audio.

So what have you been reading?
 
Thank you entmaiden for putting me onto these books. This was definitely a 'just one more chapter before going to bed' book and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

These are the books that the TV show The Expanse is based on (although it's not screening in my part of the world). It's the in-between time of human expansion into the galaxy, with long-standing populations on Mars and within the asteroid belt. An executive officer of an ice-hauler stumbles across a crime in space, unaware that this is the opening action of a planned war with deep ramifications for the human species. I highly recommend it for those who want a story where the action never stops.

I've just started Recursion by Blake Crouch. It has an intriguing premise: a growing number of people are plagued with false memory syndrome where they remember an entire second life. About ten years beforehand, work began in a prviate laboratory to help people remember key moments in their lives, with the aim of helping those with Alzheimer's. These two plotlines will clearly collide at some point but the story has started off really well.
 
I'm going to try and read them in order instead of by series. I've got 6 blissful days on an island in the middle of the Great Lakes. No phone. No internet. No electricity. I need this break!
 
where no cars are allowed?

I'd love to bring a bunch of my backlog of books and join you! [cool]

Is the rest of the family with you?
 
so yeah, no cars. We had a few bikes for the kids when they were little.

No, not everyone. Oldest just started a new job - she's doing graphic design and typesetting for a printer that specializes in briefs for SCOTUS. SHe's moved in with her boyfriend so they're still unpacking. It's really exciting! And 2nd daughter can't get off work right now. She just moved to a new apartment. But 2 sons and youngest will be there. I've got a stack of 6 Discworld books. I can't wait!

And of course, the more the merrier!
[cool]
 
Empty Cradles, by British social worker Margaret Humphreys, is the true story of the forced deportation of British children to other countries, notably Canada and Australia, without the knowledge or consent of their parent(s); in fact, the parents were told they'd been adopted and the children were told their parents were dead. It is shocking and heartbreaking. Humphreys came upon this scheme quite by accident while researching a birth certificate for an individual; over the ensuing years she uncovered far more forcibly expatriated individuals who were emotionally traumatized by their experiences. Her work was made into a movie, Oranges and Sunshine," which stars Emily Watson and two of our beloved LOTR stars, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham.

The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah, is historical fiction about two sisters who, each in her own way, become resistance fighters during the German occupation of France. One is gung-ho and headstrong and the other is fearful and reluctant. It is a good read, albeit very difficult because of the descriptions of German brutality and atrocities, but I encountered too many sappy romance bits to give it more praise.

Currently reading Mostly Dead Things by Kristin Arnett. It's a bit bizarre so far but I'm barely into it so I'll hold my opinion until I've read more.
 
Perfectly relaxing. [cool]

And congrats to your eldest on landing a job that sounds perfect for her. [:)]
 
From Wikipedia:
In 1987, she investigated and brought to public attention the British government programme of Home Children. This involved forcibly relocating poor British children to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the former Rhodesia and other parts of the Commonwealth of Nations,[2] often without their parents' knowledge. Children were often told their parents had died, and parents were told their children had been placed for adoption elsewhere in the UK. According to Humphreys, up to 150,000 children are believed to have been resettled under the scheme,[3] some as young as three,[2] about 7,000 of whom were sent to Australia.[4]

Saving money was one of the motives behind this policy. The children were allegedly deported because it was cheaper to care for them overseas. It cost an estimated £5 per day to keep a child on welfare in a British institution, but only 10% of that, ten shillings, in an Australian one.[4]
Click to expand...
 
If you were to write a story that involved any kind of mystery or conspiracy theory or action--would you be able to NOT have a hacker as a character to get the needed information? I was just thinking that today, that every show of the genres I just mentioned must always have a hacker as a quick way to get information that's otherwise inaccessible or without hacking would take months/years to get.

I'm neutral on whether that's a good or bad thing. I just am wondering if it's a given story telling fixture now, like every hero needs a sidekick, or any romance needs obstacles in the way for the lovers to overcome. Because hackers, after all, are a fairly recent phenomenon in the scope of history.
 
...that there's so much material on the internet already, hacking skills would only be needed for, as you say, a conspiracy situation. I agree that just about any mystery these days involves the good guys researching and gathering evidence from cell phones, social media sites, CCTV footage, and so forth. Although I get tickled when someone uses a computer to zero in on a license plate or some other detail, and the picture is just as clear in the blow-up as in the original image! So there's always fudging for the sake of the plot, whether in cyberspace or otherwise.
 
Wow, it's quiet here on Off Topic. Is anyone out there?

I’m listening to Rebecca, the classic Daphne du Maurier novel about the young second wife of the wealthy estate-owning widower who finds herself competing with the memory of Rebecca, his vivid first wife. There's not that much internal evidence as to when the story takes place, so I'm assuming it's set in the 30s, when it was written.

I’m sure I’ve seen at least three dramatizations of this since I first read it, which means I’m a bit startled at the length of the opening scenes, before the narrator (who’s never named) and Maxim even arrive at Manderly. Knowing as I do how the story ends, I’m enjoying seeing how du Maurier is building her plot.

On paper I just finished Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan. It's the story of Leah, the wife of a Wisconsin author, who takes her daughters to Paris after he disappears. This is a literary novel, with the occasional nudge/wink to itself, and dragged just a bit, but then, there's not that much plot, just various incidents while Leah wonders if her husband is still alive and if so, is he also in Paris.

Oddly enough, despite their vastly different eras and writing styles, Paris by the Book and Rebecca have similar conceits, with a character vitally important to the story mostly existing off-screen. Also, the two female narrators are so dithery and uncertain about the situations in which they find themselves that I eventually get irritated with them.

So what have you been reading?
 
I have read several of his books and enjoyed all of them, but this one was the funniest yet. In this one he concentrates on small town America and had me in stitches for most of it. I read on a camping trip and had some people in our group wanted to borrow it after I was done. It was published in 1989, before 9/11 and the latest wars so I expect if it had been written after that the tone would have changed slightly. Highly recommended for those of you who haven't read it.
 
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