Off-Topic Summer Reading

[wendug]

I've been reading a book of short stories by Haruki Murakami Blind Willow Sleeping Woman and just picked up a novel by Howard Jacobson called J: A Novel. I'm enjoying the short stories as you can pick it up and put it down easily.

The Jacobson novel has comparisons to Orwell's 1984 so I'll see how it goes as I've never read the author before.

[Wanda]

I've got to back off my early praise for Two Steps Forward. It had a good start but it peaked near the middle and went downhill from there.

[toaster]

I've almost finished Beautiful Ruins. I enjoyed it, except for the frequent temporal shifts--why does virtually every novel have to employ that device these days? An occasional flashback maybe, but back and forth and then partway back and then to another time altogether--it just doesn't make any sense to me.

[BunnyHop]

Originally Posted by toaster

I've almost finished Beautiful Ruins. I enjoyed it, except for the frequent temporal shifts--why does virtually every novel have to employ that device these days? An occasional flashback maybe, but back and forth and then partway back and then to another time altogether--it just doesn't make any sense to me.

It's become such a predictable crutch that it's not very interesting any more.

Used well, I enjoy it, but otherwise it's just tiresome trying to follow the various plot and time lines. Probably not the effect the authors intended.

[Laura S.]

I'm reading Nora Roberts' Year One and Georgia Bockoven's The Beach House: Coming Home and Too Busy Not to Pray by Bill Hybels. So far, they are all good.

[toaster]

Originally Posted by BunnyHop

It's become such a predictable crutch that it's not very interesting any more.

Used well, I enjoy it, but otherwise it's just tiresome trying to follow the various plot and time lines. Probably not the effect the authors intended.

I actually just finished the novel, and the ending really made me love it even more...despite the timeline shifts. I still think it could have been written without, but I guess I liked it enough to hang in there.

Has anyone read anything else by the author, Jess Walter?

[bee]

I can't remember if I heard about The Chaperone here or somewhere else, but I recently finished the audio -- it was excellent! One of those books that makes me so sad to finish because I enjoyed it so much. I'm sure the book is a great read, but if you do audio books, definitely listen. Elizabeth McGovern is fantastic. Some of the reviews said the book started slowly but I did not find that at all -- I enjoyed every minute.

[Carol K]

I loved The Chaperone too, every page. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie on PBS.

[sherry7899]

I abandoned Marian Keyes' book "The Break." Talk about tedious! The main character's husband leaves to "find himself" for six months, and the book describes almost every day he is gone with her misery in excrutiating detail. Oh, well.

I picked up some reserves from the library. I will post the titles later.

Sherry

[glavtx]

I've been reading almost nothing but some free Hope Callaghan books. There was a set of 12 e-books on Kindle Unlimited, 6 Garden Girls, and 6 Cruise Ship mysteries, and I really like them. They aren't very mysterious, but they're cute and I like the characters.