Welcome to my first WWW post of 2024, starting with this one, we’ll (very likely) be taking 52 looks at what books I’m reading and listening to throughout the year through the magic of this weekly meme. Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your WWW or just tell us what you’re reading. I enjoy reading these!
This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peak at this weeks answers:
What are you currently reading?
I’ve got two really entertaining Fantasy novels that couldn’t be more different here. I’m reading Book 3 of The Azure Archipelago by K.R.R. Lockhaven, and am listening to The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman on audiobook.
What did you recently finish reading?
I just finished Russell W. Johnson’s The Moonshine Messiah and Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison, Kristen Sieh (Narrator) on audio. One of those was great and the other was good enough.
What do you think you’ll read next?
My next book should be the ARC for The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, which looks great (and will finally cross Bennett off my “Authors I Should Try” list). My next audiobook should be Miles Morales Suspended by Jason Reynolds, Narrated by: Guy Lockard and Nile Bullock. Almost everything I know about Miles came from Reynolds’ first novel about him, I’m so glad to finally stumble onto this one.
How are you starting 2024?
Bob Germaux
Currently, I’m reading “In the Wind” by Connor Black. It’s a Jack Reacher-type book, mostly escapism stuff, but enjoyable on that level. I just finished (sort of, which I mentioned in an earlier WWW-Wednesday comment) “From Saturday Night to Sunday Night” by Dick Ebersole. I decided to take a break from it (good book, just felt like reading something different for a bit), so I started the above mystery. Next up will probably be returning to the Ebersole book, unless I decide to dive into the new Spenser by Mike Lupica.
HCNewton
The Black book looks like it could be a fun read. But I have to ask…why do you keep putting off Lupica? I admire the restraint, but I’m not sure I understand it. 🙂
Bob Germaux
It’s been sort of an approach-avoidance thing, H.C., because I knew that the sooner I started reading it, the sooner I’d be finished with it, and then there would be another year before the next one rolled around. That being said, the other night, I succumbed and read the first five chapters. Of course, I am thoroughly enjoying it. Lupica has hit the ground running with this series. Actually, he had me at Chapter 2, when a prospective client says, “So you’re Spenser,” and Spenser responds, “I am he,” and then tells her that while most people say, “I am him,” that’s ignoring the fact that the word “he” is correct, because a predicate nominative is needed in that sentence. I actually had a very similar scene in one of my Jeremy Barnes books. You probably recall that before becoming a private investigator, JB (like his creator) taught high school English. Thus, he and I enjoy scattering a few bits of “grammar humor” throughout his cases. At any rate, I’ll be trying to limit myself to just ten or so chapters a day of “Broken Trust” (but don’t hold me to that).
HCNewton
ahhh…I getcha now. I enjoyed that that conversation in Chap 2, too.
allyson johnson
I am forging ahead with “War and Peace”. Nikolai’s regiment, in retreat, has reached Prince Andrei’s estate. The peasants are threatening Andrei’s sister Princess Maria, but Nikolai comes to her aid. Nikolai is attracted to Maria, but he is committed to his cousin Sonia , so he rides on.
I’m also reading David McCullough’s “Brave Companions”, a collection of short essays about under-appreciated historical figures. A relative gave this to me for Christmas so I feel obliged to read it. So far I have learned about Baron von Humboldt., the adventurer who preceded Richard Halliburton in popular acclaim in the 18th century, (and for whom the Humboldt current and various American places are named) and Louis Agassiz, the great popularizer of natural science(who I had at least heard of before). Next up: Harriet Beecher Stowe. These are interesting profiles, with a textbook-y flavor, so one a night (like a homework assignment) is enough.
I just finished James McBride’s “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.” A convoluted but ultimately satisfying story about a Jewish family living in a mostly black neighborhood in southern Pennsylvania in the thirties, and the impact of white prejudice on their communities.
I also finished Richard Rosso’s “Nobody’s Fool”, this about white blue-collar families struggling to get along in a small rural community in upstate New York. Rosso made me laugh out loud sometimes, but I found the characters’ constant ragging of each other very wearing – is this the way guys normally interact to show their affection for fear of being thought queer?
These two books were also distinguished by having the worst opening prologues I have read in a while. I’ve been drilled over and over about how important the first lines of a book are in capturing the reader’s attention: “Nobody’s Fool” opens:
“Upper Main Street in the village of North Bath, just above the town’s two-block-long business district, was quietly residential for three more blocks, then became even more quietly rural along old Route 27A, a serpentine two-lane blacktop that snaked its way through the Adirondacks of New York, with their tiny, down-at-heels resort towns, all the way to Montreal and prosperity.”
Are you just panting to find out what happens next?
The opening of “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” tells of the discovery of a skeleton in a well, but the dialect is so thick and the allusions so impenetrable, it’s like fighting your way through the briars to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. Once I finished the book I went back and ok, now the opening makes sense, but what is the point of an opening that only makes sense after you’ve finished the book?
Oh, and I reread “The Secret Garden” by Francis Hodgson Burnett. I bought this for my granddaughter and discovered she already had a much-loved copy that had belonged to her mother, so I guess I’ll have to keep this for my comfort shelf. (Is this a recommendation for Grandpappy’s Corner?
Next I hope to again take up “Oscar and Lucinda”, a Booker Prize winner which was subsequently made into a movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett – so why is it that I have started it at least three times and not gotten past p. 46?
HCNewton
I’ve never been drawn enough to the figures McCullough writes his big biographies on to commit myself to them (although I frequently feel like I “should”). But both the concept and some of the figures of this collection sounds intriguing. But yeah, it seems like it would have a homework-y feel that would make it difficult to tackle outside of doing a chapter a day or two.
Good thoughts on those openings. I can only speculate but openings like the one you describe for the McBride book sometimes drive me to plunge in quickly so I can get used to the patois/POV (or, occasionally, they stop me in my tracks and I abandon the book). That Russo opening works solely if you’re coming back for the author or character. And even then…bah.
The Secret Garden is a bit too mature for the Grandpappy’s Corner right now, but as I clicked on Goodreads to verify that, I saw that a publisher was having a Giveaway for a new edition. So, who knows, you may see it talked about soon here, anyway 🙂 I don’t think I ever read that before–I do have a CD of the Broadway Cast recording for some reason, so I have some idea about it, though.
At this point, are you enjoying War and Peace, or are you keeping going out of persistence? (that’s not intended to be snarky, although it reads that way to me).
allyson johnson
Despite my very superficial summaries of “War and Peace” action as I read, I am enjoying it quite a bit. In between the plot points, Tolstoy has a lot to say about the way government, the military, the elite members of society, and the people who support them interact and think that is amazingly relevant to what is happening today. There is a fair amount of wry humor in the narrative, and the descriptions of people and places make me long for someone to make a really good TV series dramatization out of it. (MGM tried years ago in a 3.5 hour epic with Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, Mel Ferrer as Andre, and Henry Fonda as Pierre – I haven’t taken a look at this yet.)
HCNewton
That’s good. Understandable to keep those summaries superficial–would consume your life if you tried to go deeper.