What was the last book you read?
And would you recommend it to others?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
25 Answers
I’ve just finished Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty. It is the story of a very respectable lady with a high powered career and a family who has an affair with disastrous consequences. It is written in a way that makes you want to read on. It wasn’t my usual kind of book but it gripped me from start to finish.
I don’t know the English translation, but the title can be translated as “Unforgettable Collective Suicide”.
It’s a short, funny novel by Finnish writer Arto Paasilinna.
It’s an interesting work, do read it if you find the time.
A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym. Beautifully written, a nice touch of subtle tongue-in-cheek humor, a little gently done personal pathos.
The Art of Racing in the Rain….crazy good read.
What the butler saw by Roger Herrump
I recently finished “I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame” by Brene Brown. It was okay. I think it would have had more punch for me if the concepts were new to me.
I’m currently reading “I’m Right and You’re an Idiot” by James Hoggan and also “The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight” by Martha Ackmann. So far, I would recommend both.
The Steve Jobs bio that the film was based on.
“frog and toad are friends”.
It was a very difficult read.
@ANef_is_Enuf: I had to special order a copy of Mercury 13 a few years ago. I want to be Geri Cobb when I grow up!
@canidmajor it was really hard to find, my husband ended up buying a used library book.
The complete idiots guide to choosing a college major. I would recommend it.
It was a book on crochet techniques. Not a particularly good one.
Before that was a sci-fi book I got on the early reviewer program from Amazon. It was annoyingly cliche.
William Manchester’s Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. I like Manchester and have read a lot of his books. He writes history in a very interesting, precise way and has this great, surgically precise vocabulary. He can throw a word into a paragraph, a totally obscure word to most people, without seeming pretentious at all. And that one word is often so right, that it saves him writing another paragraph. It doesn’t do this very often, but when it does, you want to have dictionary access and it is always a pleasant surprise. It’s like a little extra treat you get when reading Manchester. His biographies are excellent as well.
He is most famous for his 1967 book, The Death of a President that also includes his intimate interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy soon after the assassination of her husband. The book traces the movements of both Oswald and Kennedy in detail in the weeks previous to the assassination and then he covers the post-assassination Washington machinations and the reactions of the Kennedy family and the nation. A pristine, first edition signed copy of that book sells for around $500 dollars today. Manchester is always well researched and his books are indexed. He was a prize winning historian and biographer.
For the past few nights I’ve been reading the Encyclopedia of Film Noir, by Meyer and McDonnell in order to get to sleep during bouts of insomnia. It doesn’t help much because the book is so interesting. The first 85 pages discuss what Film Noir is in detail, how it came to be, the look of a noir, etc. 496 pages, very thorough on American noir, but not much on foreign noir. You can pick up a film noir encyclopedia through Amazon for 35 bucks, or you can go here and get one like mine for free in pdf format. LOL. I love the net.
The English version of the 1990 novel by humorist and prolific novelist, Arto Paasilinna, referred to above by @Sneki95 is sold at Amazon under the title A Charming Mass Suicide. Review. “The Finns are apparently a melancholy folk…” Yeah, no shit. LOL. The English subtitled film version has been out since 2000 and is reviewed here.
Luna is my best book.it is written by Shiv Kumar Batalvi .
Response moderated
Response moderated (Spam)
@cinnamonk The last book I read was The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart. I am currently reading The Whistler by John Grisham. Both good.
@Cruiser I did SO enjoy The Art of Racing in the Rain!
Response moderated (Spam)
Answer this question 
