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[daytime drinking]

1- the devil in the white city- erik lawson. 

2- the wisdom of insecurity- alan watts- more unraveling of mysteries i didn't even think were mysteries.  i rarely feel depressed after or while reading alan, but now, i don't even know if i have the heart to complete my memoirs.  i'll probably still do it, but this time, with a fresh perspective! 

[c-lando]

1. "Near Enemy: A Spademan Novel" - Adam Sternbergh
2. "Commonwealth" - Ann Patchett - I could not have loved his more. LOVED TO THE MAX! My first time reading one of her novels and it will not be my last.
3. "Today Will Be Different" - Maria Semple - I totally thought this book was going to solely be about some woman's "first- world problems". But, it started taking all of these twists and turns and was much more than I thought it would be.

4. "A Gentleman in Moscow" - Amor Towles - Some moments were soooooooo slow, while I previously noted that I could live forever in the chapter from Book 2 titled, “1926: Adieu”.

[c-lando]

1. "Near Enemy: A Spademan Novel" - Adam Sternbergh
2. "Commonwealth" - Ann Patchett - I could not have loved his more. LOVED TO THE MAX! My first time reading one of her novels and it will not be my last.
3. "Today Will Be Different" - Maria Semple - I totally thought this book was going to solely be about some woman's "first- world problems". But, it started taking all of these twists and turns and was much more than I thought it would be.
4. "A Gentleman in Moscow" - Amor Towles - Some moments were soooooooo slow, while I previously noted that I could live forever in the chapter from Book 2 titled, “1926: Adieu”.

5. "State of Wonder" - Ann Patchett - This author can create the most amazing stories. So rich and emotional.

[trixi]

1.  The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust--Edith Hahn Beer
2.  Tragedy Girl--Christine Hurley Deriso
3.  Dear Amy--Helen Callaghan
4.  Highly Illogical Behavior--John Corey Whaley
5.  The Serpent King--Jeff Zentner

6.  The Bitter Side of Sweet--Tara Sullivan
7.  True Letters from a Fictional Life--Kenneth Logan
8.  The Wrecked Life: the war story of a physician--Jakub Herzig
9.  Nor the Moon by Night--Joy Packer
10.  Dash and Lily's Book of Dares--Rachel Cohn
11.  To the Stars--Molly McAdams
12.  A Guest at the Shooters' Banquet: My Grandfather's SS Past, My Jewish Family, A Search for the Truth--Rita Gabis
13.  March: Book 3--John Lewis
14.  A Season for Fireflies--Rebecca Maizel
15.  Humans, Bow Down--James Patterson
16.  Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents' Tailor--Martin Greenfield
17. Never Never--James Patterson

[daytime drinking]

1- the devil in the white city- erik lawson. 

2- the wisdom of insecurity- alan watts[/quote]

3- the gulag archipelago- aleksandr solzhenitsyn-  not sure how you do it trixi.  the brutality humans are capable of.  like orchestrated by a macabre kafka.  while the exploits of the soviets are well documented (at least now they are), the archipelago produced some stunning individuals and it's pretty remarkable what a person can get used to 

[Dan]

1. Jim Bouton - Ball Four
2. Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Pretty unique. I was mixed and contradictory in my opinions throughout this. Like, I enjoyed the style of writing and how slow and deliberate everything was, but then I'd be annoyed that everything was so slow and deliberate. So that's pretty good writing, I guess. Or, similarly, I really liked how my opinions of certain characters would change during the book - at first I liked someone, then I hated someone, then I liked them, etc. Very cool. The magic was fun, and the history written into the book was cute.

My first thoughts were that it could and should have been a lot shorter. Like, half as long. But then my wife was all, "I wished it was twice as long" and I could see her point, too. It didn't feel "important" enough for me to be listed as an all-time great book or anything but it does take a lot of the best parts of some all-time greats. I dunno.

So...in summary...pretty unique.

[MissKitty]

1. The People's House - David Pepper
2. Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking - Anya Von Bremzen
3-4. Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe - Inara Verzemnieks

5. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning - Timothy Snyder

Damn, Timothy Snyder does it again. His previous book, "Bloodlands" was a real eye-opener to events that happened to (primarily) Poland and Ukraine prior to and during WWII, and this book is a continuation, expanding on the theme while also looking at events of the past 20-25 years and how things are once again swinging to the right, and also how it isn't too far fetched to suspect another Holocaust is imminent.

[euro60]

MK, since you are interested in the Holocaust (as I am), you may wanna check out this book, which I found outstanding. "Why? Explaining the Holocaust"

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Explaining-Holocaust-Peter-Hayes/dp/0393254364/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

Fabulous book

[MissKitty]

Thanks for the recommendation - I will add it to my queue.

[c-lando]

1. "Near Enemy: A Spademan Novel" - Adam Sternbergh
2. "Commonwealth" - Ann Patchett - I could not have loved his more. LOVED TO THE MAX! My first time reading one of her novels and it will not be my last.
3. "Today Will Be Different" - Maria Semple - I totally thought this book was going to solely be about some woman's "first- world problems". But, it started taking all of these twists and turns and was much more than I thought it would be.
4. "A Gentleman in Moscow" - Amor Towles - Some moments were soooooooo slow, while I previously noted that I could live forever in the chapter from Book 2 titled, “1926: Adieu”.
5. "State of Wonder" - Ann Patchett - This author can create the most amazing stories. So rich and emotional.

6. "This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage" - Ann Patchett

[daytime drinking]

1- the devil in the white city- erik lawson. 
2- the wisdom of insecurity- alan watts[
3- the gulag archipelago- aleksandr solzhenitsyn

4- the mill creek: an unnatural history of an urban stream- stanley hedeen.  i would suggest that the mill creek's fate mirrored that of other urban streams making it's tragedy all the more natural.  unsurprisingly, lots of folks have no idea how terrible the way of water is and how much worse it used to be.  in the channelized portions of the creek which is what most have view of, it doesn't even appear to be a creek at all, sloping concrete for the benefit of man. 

[daytime drinking]

1- the devil in the white city- erik lawson. 
2- the wisdom of insecurity- alan watts[
3- the gulag archipelago- aleksandr solzhenitsyn
4- the mill creek: an unnatural history of an urban stream- stanley hedeen

5- honey for the bears- anthony burgess.  following this one up after gulag almost didn't seem right, as this was a comedy set in leningrad which picks up about where a. solzenitsyn left. the early 60's.  completely unintentional. the cover art drew me in.  never noticed it before.  artist by the name of wilson mclean. anyways,  i kept waiting for the hero to catch a bit of luck but towards the end i was prepared to wallow in his misery myself.  and the end man, it just occurred to me how brilliant it was. 

[MissKitty]

1. The People's House - David Pepper
2. Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking - Anya Von Bremzen
3-4. Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe - Inara Verzemnieks
5. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning - Timothy Snyder

6. Swing Time - Zadie Smith

This was our bookclub's choice for April. Loved her writing but all the characters in the book seemed quite stereotypical and one dimensional - and the narrator was unlikable. Maybe that was the intention.

Smith is going to be the featured speaker at The Mercantile in November, so it will be interesting to hear what she has to say about the work. This was the first of her books I have read (CR really liked her book "White Teeth") but based on this one, I wouldn't go in search of the others. Oh well.

[MissKitty]

Timothy Snyder is coming to the downtown library for a lecture and book signing for his most recent book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. It's May 13 at 7 p.m.

Among his points:
1. Do not obey in advance.
2. Defend institutions.
3. Beware the one-party state.
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world.
5. Remember professional ethics.
6. Be wary of paramilitaries.
7. Be reflective if you must be armed.
8. Stand out.
9. Be kind to our language.
10. Believe in truth.
11. Investigate.
12. Make eye contact and small talk.
13. Practice corporeal politics.
14. Establish a private life.
15. Contribute to good causes.
16. Learn from peers in other countries.
17. Listen for dangerous words.
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
19. Be a patriot.
20. Be as courageous as you can.


I am beyond excited to meet one of my favorite authors. Totally fangirling over here.

[luisterpaul]

For some reason this year I've started using Goodreads in earnest to track what I read. I'll try to do so here, as well. Predominantly, but not exclusively, science fiction.

1. Central Station - Lavie Tidhar - Short story collection all set around a space port located in the Middle East. 4/5
2. The Medusa Chronicles - Stephen Baxter & Alastair Reynolds - Inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke novella. 3/5
3. Stories Of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang - All good stories, but I walked away feeling like Chiang is a shitload smarter than I am. 4/5
4. Darwinia - Robert Charles Wilson - I discovered this author by trying his amazingly well written Spin, and while I love his writing, this wasn't his best book. Interesting take on alternate history, kind of. 4/5
5. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King - I haven't read anything of King's since high school, but damn he's one good writer. The whole thing just flowed like a Mark Twain river. 5/5
6. The Elements of Style - Strunk & White - Every grammar book needs this kind of humor. It was fascinating to read Strunk's rant-like diatribe about using "they" in the singular to avoid gender-specific pronouns. 5/5
7. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life - Anne Lamott - Not as engaging as King's book on the subject. 3/5
8. Speaker's Meaning - Owen Barfield - Dry series of lectures put to paper. Not what I was hoping for. 2/5
9. 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami - Sometimes fascinating, sometimes boring as hell. When I was 300 pages in -- roughly one quarter of the way through the book -- I realized not much had actually happened yet. 3/5
10. Revenger - Alastair Reynolds - Pirates in space. Maybe cheesy, but written for a YA audience, I think. I liked it. 4/5
11. Mars Prime - William C. Dietz - Complete garbage. The protagonist is a journalist who's had an eye replaced with a video camera. At one point the author, in trying to portray him as a bad-ass, describes him, without irony, as a one-eyed monster. 1/5 (because Goodreads doesn't allow zeroes)
12. Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew - Ursula K. Le Guin - The exercises were both fun and challenging. Her discussion on the various topics covered within were wonderful to read. 5/5
13. Astrophysics: A Very Short Introduction - James Binney - Not that helpful for a layperson like me, what with too much math and assumptions about knowledge of physics. The unusual amount of typos didn't help, either. 2/5
14. Coyote - Allen Steele - Short stories collected into a coherent novel of colonization. I picked it up thinking it was a standalone book. Turns out it's the first part of a trilogy. I'll happily read more, it was so well written. 4/5
15. The Telling - Ursula K. Le Guin - Not her best work. Seems to break the rule of "show, don't tell," ironically enough. Or is it intentional? 3/5
16. Gifts - Ursula K. Le Guin - YA fantasy about people with special powers and the rules for using them. 4/5
17. Voices - Ursula K. Le Guin - Follow-up to Gifts. It's hard to put my finger on why, but I couldn't put this down. Builds nicely on the previous one. Looking forward to starting the third book. 5/5