Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Renate]

Originally Posted by issybird

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, a contemporary novel about a Jew on the run in 1938 Berlin and all too prescient.

It's driving me batty because I know that I read that but can't seem to find it in any of my library lists. Der Reisende

I just downloaded the history in all my OverDrives as .csv file.
It's ~700 books, which makes me a slacker to some of the folks here.
I do read a lot of Project Gutenberg too.

[nana77]

Originally Posted by nana77

Now on "The Grocery", by Guillaume Singelin (paintings and colors) and Aurélien Ducoudray (story), on a translated version I couldn't be able not to buy, [...]

Nice, although the PEGI is like...plus 18: too many violence for nothing, get to annoy and bother.
By thinking the project started on 2011, within a mail send to Singelin while he was doing a stage work on Label 619, and the director saw the excerpt just as casually, and did decided to give it a try..
The whole volume is a one piece 400 pages, and it looks as sometimes the plot was missing (repleaced within shoots at kids, etc...), the characters are nice, ofc, the puppiest puppies, but though, them just gets shoots around all around the book.
Btw, in 2026 and thinking at the world around, them critic.

"The Starmen" by Brackett was great, as all the others from her.

I'm trying "The best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024", edited by Hugh Howey; so many thanks for the suggestion onto the bargains' sections; and also so glad that I feel I can read it (there are all short stories, and it feels nice starting to get easy to read it in english).

Frontiere, by Singelin, seems 150% cute and visually hearted.

Did also read the latest translation for "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", re-loved it again.

Edit: forgot to mention, Frontiere is a kind of those "perfect paperback", the pages' edges are also rounded cut:

[DiapDealer]

I recently finished Patricia Cornwell's first Scarpetta novel Postmortem. It may have been engaging in its day, but not so much today. It read (or listened actually) like several long infodumps on ancient technology occasionally interrupted by a bit of plot. Many of those ancient technologies were only tangentially related to forensic science. Utterly lacking in any of the psychological suspense that was attributed to the book in various descriptions.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I recently finished Patricia Cornwell's first Scarpetta novel Postmortem. It may have been engaging in its day, but not so much today. It read (or listened actually) like several long infodumps on ancient technology occasionally interrupted by a bit of plot. Many of those ancient technologies were only tangentially related to forensic science. Utterly lacking in any of the psychological suspense that was attributed to the book in various descriptions.

I think that with long series you can be better served by starting with the second or third book, in hope the author has found his/her feet. Especially with a popular series -- there has to be some reason people like them! It may not be to your taste at that, and some series don't age well, but at least you'd have given it a fair shot.

I can't tell you how many popular series I was one and done with after starting at the beginning. Bruno Chief of Police and Inspector Ganache come to mind but there were many more.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think that with long series you can be better served by starting with the second or third book, in hope the author has found his/her feet. Especially with a popular series -- there has to be some reason people like them! It may not be to your taste at that, and some series don't age well, but at least you'd have given it a fair shot.

I'm not sure I can do that. It's definitely a me problem, but if it's a series, I HAVE to start at book one and read it in published order. I've tried jumping in at later installments (with other series) and I always felt icky enough when doing it that I had to stop and go back.

I DID like the TV version of The Body Farm (had no idea it was based on a book, let alone part of Cornwell's Scarpetta series). So if I can manage to briefly quell the inner ickiness, maybe I'll give a book after that a shot.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It's definitely a me problem, but if it's a series, I HAVE to start at book one and read it in published order.

You are not alone. I cant start in the middle of a series. But I tend to read in storyline order if that is different from published order.

Have been too busy the last couple of months to read, but I did just finish Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger. I am a fan of Harry Potter (yea, don't laugh) and this series is promoted as "for Harry Potter fans". It is more of a direct rip-off of Harry Potter. Changed the character names, change wizards to elves, and there you have a new story.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...he-lost-cities
It seems her style is to take existing stories, twist them into a new rewrite and publish.

Now gone back to something familiar for a reset - Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton