Angie’s Comments (group member since Jun 30, 2011)

Angie’s comments from the Topeka & Shawnee Co. Public Library group.

Rosemary wrote: "I apologize ahead of time if I'm not supposed to create a new thread here, but I really wanted to share an experience that I had while reading this book. I also want to apologize for any misspelled..."

Rosemary, I guessed the first "twist" early on. I mostly liked the book, except for the end. I thought both characters' changed course too abruptly, even given their twisted motivations. I do like books with unreliable narrators, so I really liked the first half of the book especially when you had to guess which version of the marriage was more true. I was less enthusiastic about the second half of the book, and thought the quality of the writing went a little downhill, too.

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Rosemary wrote: "I'm reading "Insurgent" and "Gone Girl". I'm almost done with both. Ill be pretty sad when they are over."

I just finished Gone Girl. Did you like the ending? I really liked it up until that point, but didn't find the ending very plausible given what had happened before (trying to avoid spoilers).

Erin wrote: "I began reading Imagine by John Lehrer which is about how people are creativity. It opens with Proctor and Gamble's problem of needing a new type of mop, and after spending hours watching endless v..."

Erin, did you see that the author was accused of making up quotes for this book and they're now pulling it?

I recently finished the excellent The Beautiful Ruins. Jess Walter is quickly climbing the ranks of my favorite writers, and each book of his I read is quite different. This one concerns an American movie star who is shuttled off to a deserted Italian village by an overzealous movie publicist after an affair with Richard Burton. There she meets Pasquale, who runs his family's hotel. Fifty years later, he shows up at the door of the now producer in America in order to track her down. There are lots of side characters and stories that all come together nicely at the end.

Also, how have I gone this long without reading Graham Greene? I just read his The Quiet American and mostly loved it. I enjoyed the writing and Grahame is a great chronicler of internal struggle. I had a few issues that are probably a reflection of the time period in which he wrote.

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Deb wrote: "Let me know if you think One Day would be a good pick for the So Many Books group...It's in our BGIB collection so we could do it sometime.

Deb, I also read One Day and I think it might make a good book club pick because it has a lot of potential to be polarizing, which are books that I think make the best discussions. I fall on the didn't care for it side, but I can understand its appeal and some of the choices the characters make could lead to some meaty discussion.

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I recently finished the excellent memoir Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed. After the death of her mother, a painful divorce, and a short fling with heroin, Strayed decides the place to find herself is out in the wilderness. The book chronicles her 1100 mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, accompanied only by her overstuffed backpack she dubs Monster. It was a great story of grief and endurance.

I am also reading the new graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel,Are You My Mother?. Bechdel's Fun Home is my favorite graphic novel. While the earlier book is about her father and discovering his secrets after his death, Are You My Mother? tries to do the same for her still-living mother. Bechdel's experiences with psychoanalysis, and the work of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, frame the book, but Bechdel also draws upon the works of Dr. Seuss and Virginia Woolf among others. I still have a chapter to go, but so far I find most affecting how the writing of Fun Home, which tells her father's story, affects the relationship between her and her mother.

I am also just beginning the new 2012 O Henry Prize Stories. This year's collection includes stories from some of my favorite short story writers, including Yiyun Li, Kevin Wilson, Miroslav Penkov, and Anthony Doerr, and I'm eager to potentially discover some new-to-me writers and stories as well.

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I have not been reading YA dystopia (although I still very much want to get to the Hunger Games at some point before seeing the movie). Instead I have been reading the Israeli writer Etgar Keret's new collection of stories,Suddenly, a Knock at the Door. These stories are imaginative and funny, and sometimes absurdist: In Lieland, for example, people encounter their lies--such as ailing or dead relatives invented as excuses--in the real world. Most of these stories are super-short, at around 5 pages or so.

I've also been listening to the audiobook of Tony Horwitz's nonfiction book about John Brown, Midnight Rising and discovering how much I have forgotten from 7th grade Kansas History class.

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I am currently listening to the audiobook Defending Jacob by William Landay. In this mystery/thriller, the son of an assistant district attorney is accused of murdering one of his classmates. The reader is Grover Gardner, who does a respectable job, especially at capturing the teenager Jacob's annoyance at his parents and his predicament. Jacob is a hard read, though, to the reader and to his father, Andy, who must help his defense.

I just finished Nathan Englander's excellent short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.These stories strike an interesting balance between humor, often dark humor, and weightiness: most of the stories hinge on the choices people make when tested and how they live with the consequences of those choices.

My favorite stories were the title story, an update on the famous Raymond Carver story with its own twist; “Sister Hills”, about Jewish settlers in the West Bank and a bargain made between two mothers; “Free Fruit for Young Widows” a story I first heard on the Selected Shorts podcast about a father who slowly parcels out the history of a fruit stand customer to his son; and “The Reader” about an author who publishes a new book after a long silence. He finds himself on a book tour with no audience, except for one faithful reader who follows him around from bookstore to bookstore.

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Melanie wrote: "Lissa and Thad had both recommend Ready Player One by Ernest Cline in several of their Hush podcasts (discussions can be found in this Group). I wanted to third the recommendation. It is a fast p..."

I just finished this on audio last week. Wil Wheaton was the reader, an excellent choice given his geek credentials, and he's even name-checked in the book.

I am currently reading The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson, which takes place inside modern North Korea. About 2/3 through, I’ve followed the main character, Jun Pak Do, through his adventures as an orphan, tunnel fighter, kidnapper, radio transcriber on a fishing boat, translator on a diplomatic mission, and prisoner. So far, it has been an interesting glimpse into the closed-off world of North Korea.

I’ve also been reading Remedy and Reaction , a book about the history of health care reform in the U.S. up to and including the recent Affordable Care Act. I am finding this a good companion book to a book I read a couple of years ago, T. R. Reid’s The Healing of America , which looks at the pros and cons of health care systems in other countries, and how versions of those systems exist in the hodgepodge nature of our health care system here.

I also took a break from the heavier stuff I’m currently reading and gulped down a YA novel, The Future of Us , which I think I got from a recommendation here in the GoodReads group. It was a quick, fun read about what happens when two teenagers in 1996 get access to their future Facebook profiles through a free AOL CD. I particularly enjoyed the 90s pop culture references and look back to the early days of the Internet.

Melanie wrote: "I finished The Brief History of the Dead last night for the So Many Books, So Little Time discussion. I really liked the idea behind it and enjoy most of the book. I stayed up late to finish the ..."

I read and enjoyed Brockmeier's The Illumination last year, which is about a new phenomenon that suddenly appears where people's pain manifests itself as light radiating from their wounds. In a related subplot, a secret diary is passed around. I've been meaning to get to Brief History since.

I recently finished The Sharp Time the debut young adult novel by Lawrence writer Mary O'Connell. I loved the voice of the main character, Sandinista Jones, at times wickedly funny and achingly vulnerable. Living on her own after her mother's death, she walks out of high school and into a job at a hip vintage clothing store and its hodgepodge surrounding businesses. Meanwhile, she entertains violent revenge fantasies against one teacher while hoping to be saved by another. This is a beautifully written novel with a tough, sweet, and funny heroine. I also highly recommend her short story collection Living with Saints.

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Melanie wrote: "Kara - I didn't care for Forever. This series definitely did a down hill slide because I enjoyed Shiver. I got frustrated that Sam and Grace were just so smugly happy together and never had any do..."

Melanie, I read two fiction books last year that would be good companions to Dilemma. Vestments by John Reimringer and Faith by Jennifer Haigh. Vestments is a more direct comparison, told from the point of view of the priest character. Faith is the better-written version, told from multiple perspectives and also touching on issues of family secrets and the child sex abuse scandal, but with a subplot similar to Dilemma as well. Faith was one of my favorite reads of last year.

I just finished listening to the audiobook of Mindy Kaling's Is Everybody Hanging Out With Me?. Kaling plays Kelly on The Office and is one of the writers for the show. It was a short, fun book to listen to. The book is a compilation of biographical sketches and short humor pieces, interspersed with "listicles", funny annotated lists on topics like "the exact level of fame I want" and "non-traumatic things that make me cry". I'd recommend it to people who liked Bossypants.