April! What are you reading?

[Rowan]

Last night I started The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini. I'm probably in about 40 pages or so and will give up. Its just not grabbing me and there are a lot of references to African places, things, etc that I just don't follow.

I will start Mighty Queens of Freeville tonight as it is due back to the library this week.

[Blush]

I finished The Road today. I couldn't put it down but ultimately I was a bit disappointed. I was riveted but I wanted to know what HAPPENED to cause the world to be the way it was. I feel like I'm whining that I don't wanna use my imagination but geez.

I'm about to start "Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers" by Adriana Trigiani. It's a memoir. I like her novels so I thought I'd give it a shot.

[mellenhead]

I finished The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming. It's espionage/thriller, it was pretty decent, I liked all the twists and actually didn't figure out the ending.

I just picked up 3 news books at the library. I think I'm going to start Blind Sight by Meg Howrey tonight.

[Sílvia]

I just finished We need to talk about Kevin, which I'm sure will stay with me for a long time, and I think I'm gonna start The Post-birthday World by the same author. Anyone read it?

[Malanee]

**update**

My own country : a doctor's story / Abraham Verghese. - started, seems good.
Boneshaker / Cherie Priest.
Unbearable lightness : a story of loss and gain / Portia De Rossi. Finished - kind of depressing.
The monkey wrench gang / Edward Abbey.
The exile kiss / George Alec Effinger. - excellent.
Quicksilver / Neal Stephenson. - couldn't get into it

Added to the list:
Beatrice and Virgil : a novel / Yann Martel.
The elephant keeper / Christopher Nicholson. - good to start
The weird sisters / Eleanor Brown.
Better : a surgeon's notes on performance / Atul Gawande.
The hidden reality : parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos / Brian Greene.
The night watch / Sarah Waters.
Saving the world and other extreme sports / James Patterson.
Love you more : a novel / Lisa Gardner. - almost done, a nail biter!
Booky wook 2 : this time it's personal / Russell Brand. - just started

[Beverly]

I'm almost finished with The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. It's really good -- probably my favorite of her books.

[Blush]

I gave up on the Adriana Trigiani biography. I just wasn't that interested in what her grandmothers wore and there wasn't enough general history tied in to make it compelling.

Now I'm reading "Foursome" by Jane Fallon. I have read "Getting Rid of Matthew" and liked it. I didn't realize she is "the longtime partner" of Ricky Gervais.

[Spudd]

It kind of blows my mind that Ricky Gervais has a long-time partner. He seems like such an ass. Plus his teeth disgust me.

[Rowan]

Silvia, I really liked the Post-Birthday World. Hope you do too.

I've cut out all fun reading until July after I've (hopefully) passed my exam.

[mellenhead]

Rowan, what exam are you taking? Sorry if you've mentioned - I must have missed it.

I finished Blind Sight by Meg Howrey. Loved the book until the last 2 pages where they threw in this ridiculous twist.

I'm almost done with State of the Union by Douglas Kennedy. It's good! Kind of comparable to Jodi Piccoult. I hope there isn't some crazy ending because I hate those about her books and it's why it quit reading her.

I have Bossy Pants by Tina Fey to read next.

[Rowan]

mellen, I'm going for my Project Mgmt certification (PMP). The reading is just dreadful. I can't have any good fiction lying around or it will distract me.

I have Bossypants too -- that type of book I can read on the bike so its ok to have in my pile. I"m in a few chapters - its funny but not crazy funny so far.

[Sílvia]

Silvia, I really liked the Post-Birthday World. Hope you do too.

I've cut out all fun reading until July after I've (hopefully) passed my exam.

Rowan, I'm not very impressed so far, but I don't dislike it, so I'll keep reading. Some readers thought Kevin was a slow starter too (though I didn't), so maybe it's just her style.

And what's that about no fun reading?? What a tragedy! I'm sure you'll pass your exam, though.

[Beverly]

I've bought several books in the past week or so, and I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. Yesterday I read the first few pages of a Swedish book that got pretty good reviews (Om inte nu så när by Annika Thor -- it's not yet translated to any other languages), and I may go with that. It's about people living in Stockholm in the lead-up to WWII. The author is a Jewish Swede, of which there aren't many, so she has an unusual perspective for a Swedish writer.

[mellenhead]

Good luck on your exam Rowan, you will do great!

I finished State of the Union by Douglas Kennedy. There was Jodi Piccoult style ending so he's definitely staying on my author read again list. Really enjoyed the book.

I started reading Bossypants by Tina Fey last night. Eh.....I'm not overly impressed so far.

[Rowan]

Sil, I have to say I really skipped over all the snooker descriptions because frankly I don't know what that is and don't really care....hope it gets better for you. Funny, I couldn't get through We have to talk about Kevin.

[Sílvia]

Rowan, I just read the first snooker bit and I had no idea what she was talking about, so I skipped whole paragraphs too. But I was finding it slow BEFORE the snooker parts started! Ugh, we'll see.

[Malanee]

I can't remember who recommended The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, but it was excellent.

From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? --Tom Nissley

[Malanee]

Did I tell you guys about the Help by Kathryn Stockett? It is so good!

Starred Review. Four peerless actors render an array of sharply defined black and white characters in the nascent years of the civil rights movement. They each handle a variety of Southern accents with aplomb and draw out the daily humiliation and pain the maids are subject to, as well as their abiding affection for their white charges. The actors handle the narration and dialogue so well that no character is ever stereotyped, the humor is always delightful, and the listener is led through the multilayered stories of maids and mistresses. The novel is a superb intertwining of personal and political history in Jackson, Miss., in the early 1960s, but this reading gives it a deeper and fuller power.

[Spudd]

I just got "An Object of Beauty" from the library, and so far I'm loving it. Steve Martin is just way too talented, how is that fair?

[Blush]

Malanee, I loved The Help.

I'm still slogging through Foursome by Jane Fallon. It's not gripping but just interesting enough to keep me going.