Albany Public Library discussion

Hi everyone and welcome to Week 4 of the Albany Public Library Summer Reading Challenge!

This week we will have some intriguing royal reads! Comment below if you read any of these great books and be sure to let us know what you thought about them!

Fiction
How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole
Ten Things I Hate About the Duke by Loretta Chase
Ten Things I Hate About the Duke by Evie Dunmore
Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
Snapped by Alexa Martin
The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks
Meet Me in Monaco by Hazel Gaynor
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett
The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin
Island Queen by Vanessa Riley

Non-Fiction
Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family by Omid Scobie
Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters by Andrew Morton
Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words by Andrew Morton
Meghan: A Hollywood Princess by Andrew Morton
Prince Philip Revealed: A Man of His Century by Ingrid Seward

I just finishedHis & Hers

For this week, I will be reading Queen of the Conquered

Tangentially related to the ongoing Harry & Meghan conversation, this weekend I read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.

I also read Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy.

Great title selections! All books logged above.

What I have read since June 28th: Last Chance Texaco:Chronicles of an American Troubadour, Rickie Lee Jones; Before the End, After the Beginning, Dagoberto Gilb; When I Was You, Minka Kent; Take What You Can Carry, Gian Sardar. I rated the books by Gian Sardar and Rickie Lee Jones with four stars and the others with three stars. I rarely give five. I enjoyed them all, and would recommend them all.

I’ll give the Windsor Knot a try!

Diana, I loved that book.

I just finished Children of Blood and Bone and Mary Jane, both of which I really liked!

Abi wrote: "Diana, I loved that book.

I just finished Children of Blood and Bone and Mary Jane, both of which I really liked!"

Abi, I just got a copy Mary Jane. I will start it this weekend!

All books logged to this point!

Abi wrote: "Diana, I loved that book.

I just finished Children of Blood and Bone and Mary Jane, both of which I really liked!" - I am in the middle of reading Children of Blood and Bone for another book group, so good to hear you enjoyed it. Will get back to it this week now that I have finished my week 2 book.

This afternoon I finished In Defense of Ska, which was really fun. A deep dive into a music genre people love to hate... and published by a Troy indie press, Clash Books!

I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. It wasn't very good.

Just finished All Adults Here, which I also really enjoyed.

Logged all the books above!

Oops! sorry, I'm a bit behind.
Since the start of the summer reading challenge I have read these three books:

The Secret Life of Bees :
(This can actually count as our nature week challenge! =) )
A bit slow but beautifully written.

The Book of Lost Names :
Exhilarating start, slow middle, exciting ending

A Thousand Splendid Suns :
Ok, this book is magnificent. Khaled Hosseini's writing is so good.
I highly recommend this book especially during this period of uncertainty in Afghanistan and the Taliban's increasing threat towards women in the face of the U.S. troops' withdrawal from the country.

Now, I'm going to start our mystery and royalty challenges with these two:
The Thursday Murder Club
Island Queen

Cheers-

@ Farzin Don't worry there is still plenty of Summer Reading left! I have added your books.

I can’t for the life of me read along with the suggested themes, but I do love the suggestions. I read The Institute by Stephen King at the beach this week.

Jaybee wrote: "I can’t for the life of me read along with the suggested themes, but I do love the suggestions. I read The Institute by Stephen King at the beach this week."Every year I try, but I never do it.

This week I finished The Searcher by Tana French

I’ve finished
-Beach Read by Emily Henry and
-The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, which I adored and can’t stop thinking about. Thanks for recommending it in an earlier week!

I just finished The Rose Code. So good!

G'day. I did better this week on finishing what I had started. I finally finished Slow Ride : Bad Boy Autos and it was a great read from a NZ author. Next I finished another book by a NZ author, Tame Your Heart - Tracey Alvarez is one of my favorite NZ authors. I then finished Falling for the Boss. All fun reads that are not royals, shucks.

Hi everyone! All of the books from this week have been logged!

I’m not making progress with The Windsor Knot, but I just finished White Ivy.

I apologize in advance if the latter part of my list was submitted already (I think I meant to submit but did not).

How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole (for royals week - I also started but have not finished a book about the Borgias)

The Guncle by Steven Rowley - I liked this way more than I thought I would

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida (this was from the mystery suggestions)

Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres

Thank you!

I just read a brief review of The Guncle in the Christian Science Monitor, and it sounded funny, so I added it to my list. Good to hear you enjoyed it.

I have logged all the book up to this point.

Because I really don't care about royalty, I chose The Queen of Hearts for this week's theme. I finished it yesterday, and am still not sure how I feel about it. I read it really quickly, and it was an engaging story, but there were so many problems with some of the characters, especially Doctor X's behavior. I started listening it, but I quickly learned I am not cut out to be an ER doctor, so switched to the print version so I could skim the gory medical parts rather than have them read to me in all their glory.

I have added your book Susan!

I finished one of Haruki Murakami's works who is one of my favorite authors. He discusses his philosophy of life in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, offering anecdotes such as "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional" and "emotional hurt is the price of independence". Through his chosen exercise of running, he talks about his writing, and life. And, as usual, he doesn't disappoint.

I logged your book!