What are you reading, August - YouLookFab Forum

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What are you reading, August

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

I just finished How to Do Nothing, by Jenny Odell - highly recommended. It's about resisting the attention economy and choosing to be present - but not in a quick, self-helpy soundbite way. I also read Jenny Colgan's latest, 500 Miles From You - her usual romance with a touch of realistic 21c society, featuring quaint Scottish towns. I got through the second in the Ember in the Ashes series quickly but am waiting to read the third until later this fall, since the fourth and final installment is supposed to come out in December. I also read Love, Loss, and What We Ate, Padma Lakshmi's biography from a few years ago. As someone who's never watched Top Chef, some of it was lost on me, but she's an insightful writer with an interesting life story so it was still worth it.

Next is a manga about ballroom dancing, and Why Fish Don't Exist, a biography of David Starr Jordan. I'm also very slowly working through the new Frederick Douglass biography, which is good but meaty.

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26 replies

Latest reply was from Echo

MsMary

Veteran

Laura, Padma's Hulu TV show "Taste the Nation" is wonderful. Stories of immigrants told through food. Highly recommend!

I'm reading The City We Became by N.K. Jemison. Sci fi and very engrossing!

Also listening to the audiobook of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman on my (not quite) daily walks. It's a children's book but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Next up: The Daughters of Erietown by Connie Schultz, whom I adore.

kkards

Veteran

I’m heading to the beach at the end of the month, during which i sit on the beach for 10 days and do almost nothing but read. So far these are the books I’ve collected for the trip:

The Art Forger, by BA Shapiro
The Last Romantics, by Tara Conklin
Henry, Himself, by Stewart O‘Nan
Another Brooklyn, By Jacqueline Woodson
The Leavers, by Lisa Ko

Laurie

Veteran

Reading Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson. Powerful and important.

Tried, but did not finish and returned early, The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa. Could not get into it, not a fan of dystopian futures at the moment.

Coming up, Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Mentioned it last month after I read his mother's excellent memoir.

Anonymous

Currently reading Girl, Woman, Other (Bernadine Evaristo) and Fair Warning (Michael Connolly) .

Cardiff girl

Veteran

I’m currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman.l ve read the graveyard book too Ms Mary ,it’s what got me started on Mr Gaimans books.The other book of his I really enjoyed is Neverwhere,it helps if you have been to London to enjoy this book.l ve got The art of travel by Alain De Botton and Middlemarch by George Elliot in the pending pile by my bed!

MsMary

Veteran

Laurie, I actually finished The Memory Police although I admit it was a bit of a slog!

Cardiff girl, I adored American Gods. And the sort-of sequel, Anansi Boys, is great too.

Sal

Veteran

I just re read The Hobbit for about the fourth time!!

Just started Little Fires Everywhere (a couple of years late of course) which I am enjoying.

Peri

Veteran

MsMary, I'm also reading The City We Became. I'm just a few chapters in and couldn't describe this book for anything, but I'm loving it!

cindysmith

Veteran

Deray Mckesson's On the Other Side of Freedom

The Cat

Veteran

The "Awake!" magazine no. 2 2020. Main subject of this issue: "5 Questions About Suffering Answered." Warmly recommended! Here is the link: https://www.jw.org/en/library/.....0-jul-aug/

UmmLila (Lisa)

Veteran

I also highly recommend How to Do Nothing.
And I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman.

I forget who recommended The Weight of Ink last month but I read it and loved it, and my daughter is now really enjoying it.

I am currently reading Mexican Gothic and really enjoying the replay of all the gothic novel tropes (Rebecca, anyone?)

Other reads of the summer:
The Age of Consent - about New England prep school life in the 80s, which was my first introduction to life in the US. One of the characters in this book is based on a boy in my class and the school is very much based on Choate, which I attended

You Exist Too Much, about the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, who struggles with food, drugs and sexuality and the influence of her mother. I liked the concept but it felt a lot like the product of her MFA program.

Unconquerable Sun - first in a new sci-fi series by Kate Elliiot, who always has great characters.

Empire of Gold, third in the Daevabad triliogy, a series involving djinns and magic, set in a fantasy overlay of the Middle East and Africa. I recommend this series.

Sea Wife, what happens when a small family sets out on a sailboat and tries to repair a marriage at the same time.

various romances by Jasmine Guillory. I hadn't been reading romance for a while, but enjoy hers a lot.

Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking. Most of what I thought when I read this book -- I usually love hearing about people's experiences abroad -- was that the guy is an asshole for what he put his wife through while he was learning to be a chef.

The Talented Mr. Ripley. How did I never read this before? Are the sequels any goof?

Also, with regard to N.K. Jemisin, I had a hard time getting into The CIty We Became but really enjoyed her short stories in How Long 'Til Black Future Month

Anonymous

I just started Finding Mrs. Ford by Deborah Goodrich Royce. It's an excellent summer mystery if you're looking for one.

JAileen

Veteran

I enjoyed TheGraveyard Book. I read it a few years ago. I just read another Louise Penny (the fourth, I think), and reread The Lottery. I’m starting The Vanishing Half.

rachylou

Veteran

I started The City We Became but wandered away. Now I’ve started Caste. We’ll see if I finish - I mostly want to read about the anthropology work done in the 30s/40s.

MsMaven

Veteran

I just finished Too Much and Never Enough--goes pretty quickly. Not a lot we don't already know.

I made it through The Room Where it Happened--quite a tedious slog through Bolton's book. A few parts are interesting--such as when he's traveling to see world leaders alone, and how different government agencies interact.

Daniel Silva's new book, The Order, was pretty good, but not his best. I liked the one before better.

The Devil: A New Biography. Interesting--a history of beliefs about the devil through the ages. Kind of slow getting through the witchcraft era in the 15-1600s. By Philip Almond.

Fashion and Age by Julia Twigg, which someone here recommended. An academic book from the UK, interesting. Focused on UK magazines and interviews. It's more of a look back at past attitudes

And Breath by James Nestor. Fun to read. I'm working on getting over mouth breathing and his suggestions work! I've also gone off allergy medicines and doing better overall.

Big month for reading, but necessary. Now I'm reading diaries from the Gilded Age and Panic of 1893 and rereading parts of some of these books. Back to writing my own.

MrMaven is taking a class on memoir writing, so is reading quite a few assigned memoirs. I will be reading some of them soon myself.

Style Fan

Veteran

Sal, I have read The Hobbit a few times. Wonderful.
I am working my way through The Artist's Way. A friend recommended it several years ago after she used it to help her. I am enjoying it but I make adjustments to the exercises.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

I’m on a weird dystopian kick.

I found “The Memory Police” haunting and unsettling. Beautifully written but definitely not uplifting.

I finished “Severance” by Ling Ma, and now reading “The Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler. Some of it hits a little close to home right now...

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Helena

Veteran

I'm reading Any Known Blood ... A novel about a biracial Canadian journalist discovering himself as he researches several generations of family history and reconnects with family he didn't know.

annagybe

(website)

Veteran

Old graphic novel, rather serious and escapist at the same time (given the current reality) Persepolis

Helena

Veteran

Anna that was one of my favourite books!

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

I've bought the first Louise Penny but haven't started it yet. Also want to read Caste; The Warmth of Other Suns was excellent from what I recall.

I finished Why Fish Don't Exist - good if a little shallow in an NPR story about science sort of way - and The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Wang (did someone here recommend that?) Also a new m/m romance set in the 1920s by KJ Charles, Slippery Creatures. She always does such a great job evoking the period in a non-stereotypical way.

I've borrowed Too Much and Never Enough from work - probably will skim but I am somewhat interested in Mary Trump's take.

If you haven't read the March graphic novel series by John Lewis yet, I highly recommend it. With his recent passing it's been selling well.

I'm partway through Such a Fun Age - not enjoyable per se but very engaging and challenging.

Bonnie

Veteran

I'm currently reading "Primeval and Other Times" by Olga Tokarczuk. I just finished reading "This Tender Land" by William Kent Kruegar. Next on my list is "Angle of Repose" by Wallace Stegnar which I've read before. I really liked all of these books.

pil

Veteran

Just finished What You Wish For by Katherine Center. Predictable but a good quick weekend read.

This Tender Land is on hold for me- one of my library patrons recommended it.
Xtabay’s Finding Mrs. Ford is on my list now too.

Kat

Veteran

Love the Neil Gaiman love here, have always enjoyed his stuff.

so far this summer, I've finished 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 'which was excellent but not a "feel good" sort of tale, so next up I read 'Deacon King King Kong,' by James McBride, which I loved and highly recommend (a bit of a mystery, great poetic prose), so I'm adding several of his other books to my 'to read' list; then an audiobook by Stephen Fry 'Mythos' (which he fantastically narrates-- a great book for folks who enjoy greek myths but also language- so much etymology and alliteration in this one). Working now on Tommy Orange's 'There There' which i bought but didnt' get to last year...

I'm trying to make a conscious effort to get more diverse voices onto my bookshelves these days and finding some gems that I may not have found without making that effort to move beyond the familiar, because the world is full of great books. I'm really excited to read some new-to-me authors, enjoying everyone's lists.

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

I finished Such A Fun Age. Thought-provoking and well-crafted. A timely release too even though I'm sure the author has been working on it for a while.

I started the semester and my new career-change program so all of a sudden I'm doing a lot of reading and studying and have a lot less time or mental space for fun reading, especially the type that's more intellectually challenging.

Echo

Veteran

I have very little time between the texts I need to read for my classes, but I've mostly been reading political books right now. I won't mention what they are, although they are relatively recent releases, as I don't want to engage in unwelcome political discussion/division.

Laura, I heard a blurb about Why Fish Don't Exist on... NPR! Was it worth the read, even if a little shallow? I prefer nonfiction, and a little shallow is sometimes a good diversion from my studies!