Open Thread: What Great Books Have You Read Recently?
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I feel like I've been in a reading slump lately, ladies — what great books have you read recently? What is the ONE book that you would hands down recommend to someone to read, whether or not it's recent publication or a recent read for you?
I continue to read my romance books, with a lot of 3.5-star reads that aren't really worth discussing. Also on my bedside table: various hobby-centric books (never thought I'd want to read about beneficial insects, but here we are) and future-Griffin-family stuff as well (some reading about colleges, travel books for a trip we're planning, etc.). I also continue to pick up and put down The Power Broker, mostly listening to the audiobook on Spotify. (And of course I read the NYT daily, the WSJ on Sundays, and the Atlantic and others when time permits.)
For my ONE book that I would recommend hands down, one that I think of often is a book of short stories from Margaret Atwood, although I'll admit I'm due for a reread: Good Bones and Simple Murders. I'd say they're peak Atwood, and I would call the whole book “fun” while also being dystopian and dark. (If you like the works of the artist Jenny Holzer and musician/storyteller Laurie Anderson, this is a definite must.)
Just read “This Book Made Me Think of You” by Libby Page and it was very good!
Has anyone here used a travel agent to book an all inclusive hotel in Mexico or the Caribbean and found that you could get a better deal or some additional freebies that way? It doesn’t seem to make sense, but I’m reading that travel agents can get a better deal. Any particular recommendations for a hotel in Mexico in particular?
TA here, just some general advice. There are different kinds of deals. If the travel agent can get you property perks like spa credits or room upgrades while booking directly with the resort, that’s great though not super common in my experience. For a lot of all-inclusive resorts, the main way TAs get discounts is by bundling airfare and the room via a third party package booking system. I would strongly recommend against doing that. Hotels love working with TAs and are very responsive to us if anything goes wrong. Airlines are the oppos1te – they want to deal directly with the ticketed passenger so booking via a TA can really complicate things. And with the package bundles there’s normally a third party intermediary, so your TA can’t even communicate directly with the airline. I did it once early in my career for some clients who really wanted a package deal and it was a disaster and I won’t do it anymore.
Non-fiction: “London Falling” by Patrick Radden Keefe — the true story of a family who tries to solve their son’s mysterious death and opens a crazy can of worms
Fiction: This year’s Pulitzer Prize novel, “Angel Down,” knocked my socks off. I inhaled it in a day. And that led me to “Whalefall,” also by Daniel Kraus, which also knocked my socks off.
If you like really gritty thrillers, I just finished “King of Ashes” by S.A. Crosby and wow! It was gritty! I also enjoyed “All the Sinners Bleed” by the same author.
I think I keep recommending this, but I am hooked on “On the Calculation of Volume” by Solvej Balle. It’s a much more philosophical twist on “Groundhog Day,” in nine volumes, of which four have been translated into English from Danish so far.
“The Wedding People” by Alison Espach was a good sorta-romance.
Currently reading “Her Body and Other Parties” by Carmen Maria Machado. It’s a book of short stories and it’s got everything — horror, sci-fi, magical realism, often all three at the same time. It’s riveting, if disturbing.
Finally, I am listening to the “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series on audio while driving and walking and it’s a hoot.
Oops, sorry. That’s more than one. If I have to pick one, I’m going with “The Wedding People” because it’s a crowd-pleaser.
Ha! I wrote only to express my love for the Dungeon Crawler Carl series!
+1 for On the Calculation of Volume. So good
Just finished reading Paris: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Huge fan.
My Libby hold came up for Yesteryear on Friday and I tore through it over the holiday weekend. I’d heard so much negative stuff (and did know about the big plot twist) and maybe it was low expectations but OMG I loved it. It’s been a long time since I read a book that gripped me the way that book did.
Otherwise +1 for London Falling. I also really enjoyed The Spy and the Traitor (about a KGB spy who spied for Britain and escaped to England in a James Bond-esque style caper when he was caught by the KGB), Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein and Kin by Tayari Jones (I was very lukewarm on American Marriage, but loved this one). If anyone is heading to Japan soon, Kakigori Summer is a really delightful novel set on the coast of Japan. I also enjoyed the author’s previous book Fault Lines set in Tokyo.
I’m halfway thru The Calamity Club. It’s super long (>600 pages) but I’m really enjoying it. Very engrossing.
+1 to the Calamity Club though I do think it ended a bit more abruptly than it should have.
Theo of Golden was fantastic, Dolly All the Time was a very fun ‘Pretty Woman’ retelling, ‘The Shippers’ was also a fun beach read. The Gulf of Lions was interesting but I found the characters pretty unlikeable and unsympathetic throughout. Into the Blue was very good, and fwiw I felt American Fantasy was overrated though I do enjoy Emma Straub’s other books.
I did not much care for American Fantasy either. Emma Straub’s books seem to be hit or miss for me. I LOVED This Time Tomorrow and really liked The Vacationers but have been pretty meh on the rest.
Plus one for Calamity Club. Agree it was engrossing and think it would make a great movie. It was written by the author who wrote The Help.
I adore the Cormoran Strike private detective series. The audiobook narration is amazing, so i can read and/or listen over and over. I think there are going to be 10 in the series, and #8 was published last Sept I think, so good time to get on board since you don’t have to wait a couple years between releases. Awesome main characters.