I feel like I had rather a strange reading week last week. I did finish four of the books that I'd hope to finish: The Last Ranger, Take It Out in Trade, Death Writes, and Shutter. I even managed to finish another book not mentioned in last week's "look ahead" post, the 2023 Booker Prize shortlisted novel Western Lane. In addition, I decided to table for now the Tom Hanks novel The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece and to DNF one of the Booker Prize nominees I'm working my way through after reading about 50 pages of it, A Spell of Good Things.
That means that I will be starting this new week with only three books in progress:
I'm about 80 pages into Danielle Trussoni's The Puzzle Master right now and I'm very intrigued by the book's premise and its two main characters. Mike Brink is a puzzle savant whose ability to solve "impossible" puzzles only showed up after he suffered a traumatic brain injury. Jess Price is a convicted murderer who has refused to speak to anyone during her five years of incarceration. As it turns out she is also a huge fan of Mike Brink's puzzles and is not at all bad at creating puzzles herself. Now she wants Brink's help from prison.
And I'll be adding one or two of these:
I could still kick myself for turning down a review copy of When Books Went to War back in 2014 because it seems like such a natural for me now. But, as I recall, I was so overwhelmed at that moment that I just couldn't take on another book. And then it slipped my mind for a long time until I started to see it mentioned somewhere or other every few months. The latest reminder came from Cathy over at her Kittling: Books blog, and this time I immediately put it on hold at my library - only to end up holding on to it until the very last moment. So here goes.
The wild card this week is going to be my library. I already know of two books that need to be picked up either today or tomorrow or they'll go to the next person in line, and two new ones could be showing up there at any moment. The first two are both Booker Prize nominees with check-out time limited to two weeks...and one of those, The Bee Sting is over 640 pages long. Because The Bee Sting is the Booker nominee I most want to read, it will influence everything else that happens this week. I'm not at all surprised by any of this because it's the rule for me, not the exception. Y'all keep turning those pages...and tell me all about it.
I’m now curious about the family book on adoption. My guess is that the actress herself was adopted?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's it. The twist is even more unusual than that.
DeleteThe Bee Sting is the Booker nominee I'd most like to read, too, but it's unlikely to happen this year. I hope you do, so I can hear all about it! I have an earlier Laurie Frankel novel still waiting on my kindle and her new one also sounds good. And I'll definitely be looking for The Blues Brothers when it comes out in the spring. Good luck working your way through all the books this week!
ReplyDeleteI'm through the first 40 or so pages of The Bee Sting...and wow. It is so well written that the pages just fly by - at least so far. This first bit is spent introducing the main characters and their initial relationships. I won't finish it this week, probably more like 10 days because of the other four books I'm switching back and forth between this week.
DeleteI'm very intrigued by The Puzzle Master. And When Books Went to War looks really good, too. And I totally get how a trip to the library can throw a wrench into all your reading plans. ;D
ReplyDeleteThe Puzzle Master keeps changing on me...as it does on the main character. It's really an intriguing plot and getting more complicated with every chapter. The one on WWII books is really interesting, but for some reason reads very slow to me. Just something about the style that keeps slowing me down. I would love to buy a few of those old books but even though they are relatively cheap, they are kind of hard to find.
DeleteOh, I'd forgotten about When Books Went to War. I remember someone talking about it and going to look it up... years ago... perhaps it was you! Look forward to hearing what you think of that, Sam.
ReplyDeleteI've read two chapters, and both of those were used to "set the scene" and tell about what an effort it was for the government to set the whole book distribution process in place, Cath. I'm eager to learn more about the books themselves, so these first thirty pages have dragged a little to me.
ReplyDeleteYeah I want to know which books went to War. I gather some soldiers were really reading a lot then to pass the time. But they were mostly quick fast paced reads right? Does it talk about each war or mainly WWII? no Vietnam ? I have not seen that book.
ReplyDeleteI'm still struggling with the book for some reason, finding it very slow to get to what I want most to learn about. But there's an index of all the books published as Armed Services Editions, and it looks like they chose titles from just about every genre, including some that became modern classics, some that were already considered classics, short stories, poetry, mysteries, just about everything. So far it's only focused a little on WWI and a lot on WWII but the history is being told chronologically, so Korea and Viet Nam may get covered nearer the end of the book.
DeleteI read When Books Went to War in 2019, and loved it. I even kept my copy because I wanted to have the list, and I think I would enjoy rereading it. As I remember it, the book was mostly focused on the project in World War II, but I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think I would like The Blues Brothers. We have watched both films multiple times and like both actors so it seems like it would be very interesting.
I had not heard about The Lemon Man. I have had some problems with books / stories about hit men and women in the past, even though most of them are very good. Somehow I just cannot reconcile the person's job with their personality.
I don't know why I'm still struggling with When Books Went to War the way that I am. I almost returned it to the library unread, but then I remembered that list of titles at the back of the book. I want to explore the list and maybe scan them into a PDF file before I return the book - and hopefully will finish reading it soon.
DeleteThe Blues Brothers is very well researched, but the writing is a little dry. I've learned a lot about Belushi and Akroyd already and how they met and instantly bonded, but I'm most looking forward to the section of the book devoted to the movie itself. I'm only about 25% of the way through it now, and since it's not to be published until January, I probably won't be writing a review for a while yet. Just couldn't resist looking at it, and now I don't want to put it away.
The Lemon Man is one I gave up on, and that surprised me. I thought the premise was very clever, but I just can't get comfortable with the prose. It's written in first person, present tense, and it feels like I'm living with a guy who just can't shut up by himself. All the paragraphs that begin with the word "I" remind me that this is not an easy POV to pull off for a writer - and not a combination I take naturally to.