Book Rec

[Catrin]

I'm another one who only reads for escape. However, I must be the only fantasy reader here. I fell in love with Tolkien at the age of 8 and I've been hooked on fantasy ever since.

Usually I have 2 or 3 books going at once. I'm currently reading F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series.

Fantasy is a reeealllly broad category. I absolutely refuse to read sword and sorcery stuff, but I love authors like Juliet Marillier and Jacqueline Carey.

I love Tolkien, and fantasy in general but as Irulan said, it is a huge genre. Have you read the short stories of Tolkien they published a few years back? One is "A Tolkien Miscellany" and another is "Unfinished Tales", there are a few gems in these two collections. Some sword and sorcery books I enjoy, especially when I need some down time. Irulan, I've not heard of Marillier or Carey before, will have to add them to my list, their books sound quite interesting!

I've not seen Stephen Lawhead mentioned in this thread, I like his work pretty well. I really enjoyed Byzantium, had mixed feelings on his Pendragan series.

[Catrin]

I am currently reading "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" by Erik Lawson (along with a couple of books on primal/paleo eating).

This is a well written book and quite captivating. It is on the Dobbs family, Dobb was sent to Germany as the US Ambassador soon after Hitler rose to power. He originally took the position hoping to have time to work on a history of the southern US he had been trying to work on for years, but of course events in German changed that. He was not the usual pick for such a position as he wasn't one of the American privileged class.

Dobbs invited his grown children to go with he and his wife, and the author uses diaries of the family to reconstruct that first year. As you read this book, you begin to understand in part why the true nature of Hitler wasn't believed by outsiders for so long. There were all of the horror stories that started coming out when he and his party rose to power, but for visitors to Germany it all appeared to be just exaggeration as everything "appeared" to be the same. His daughter Martha took longer to understand the true nature of the Nazis and was caught up in it all.

I am still reading the book but I highly recommend it if you like to read history. I could easily stay up too late reading this, but the alarm goes off much too early Larson is such a good writer that I am going to see what else he may have written.

[Dogmama]

Catrin, thanks! That's definitely on my reading list.

My grandmother was in Germany during Hitler and had to escape to America. She wasn't Jewish or any other minority - she just wasn't one of Hitler's chosen people. But, she still secretly believed that Hitler was right and carried many prejudices to her grave. Different times.

[Catrin]

Catrin, thanks! That's definitely on my reading list.

My grandmother was in Germany during Hitler and had to escape to America. She wasn't Jewish or any other minority - she just wasn't one of Hitler's chosen people. But, she still secretly believed that Hitler was right and carried many prejudices to her grave. Different times.

They were indeed very different times, and that is another thing that becomes clear in this book. We "know" that there was more antisemitism in this country at that point in the 20th century, but reading this really brings that home. The focus is on Germany, but of course there were his interactions with the "folks back home", and even Dobb himself was on the anti-Jewish side of things - but he didn't agree with the methods the Germans used. Different times indeed.

[OakLeaf]

Catrin, thanks! That's definitely on my reading list.

My grandmother was in Germany during Hitler and had to escape to America. She wasn't Jewish or any other minority - she just wasn't one of Hitler's chosen people. But, she still secretly believed that Hitler was right and carried many prejudices to her grave. Different times.

That does sound like a good book. As usual my reading list is stacked to the rafters and I've only got motivation for light fantasy (really enjoying Martha Wells' Raksura books right now, BTW) - but I'll keep an eye out for it.

My grandmother was in Germany during Hitler's ascendancy also. She had the right bloodlines (she used to tell a story about Mussolini hitting on her at an embassy party! ) but the wrong beliefs. She entered an interracial marriage and followed a circuitous international route to wind up in the US with her children. It's one of the reasons I cut my mom a lot of slack for a lot of things. I can't imagine growing up on three continents speaking four languages, in wildly different social and economic circumstances each time, before she was 12.

[malkin]

Sounds interesting. I am still on a "no Nazis diet" for all media.


Tana French has a new one Broken Harbor.
Who knew there'd be so many creepy murders in Dublin?!

[indysteel]

Sounds interesting. I am still on a "no Nazis diet" for all media.


Tana French has a new one Broken Harbor.
Who knew there'd be so many creepy murders in Dublin?!

I've never read any of her books. Are they good? They've caught my eye recently because I'm in one of my periodic mystery/thriller phases.

[malkin]

Highest recommendation for Tana French's books!!!

All the normal procedural crime stuff, with fleshed out characters and rich language.

[salsabike]

I've never read any of her books. Are they good? They've caught my eye recently because I'm in one of my periodic mystery/thriller phases.

She's great! Tana French and Denise Mina are my suspense discoveries of the year for sure.

[indigoiis]

I'm reading "Enemies: A History of the FBI" by Tim Weiner. I picked it up for a research paper for school and keep renewing it because I can't put it down.

I'm also reading in rotations on the bus commute:
Chi Marathon by Danny Dreyer
The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier
Eat & Run by Scott Jurek.

And I listened to "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor, a young adult novel that was really excellent for a long trip with my artist daughter down to North Carolina and back. We really, really enjoyed it.

[snapdragen]

I'm on an end of the world as we know it binge, just finished the Wool Omnibus, now I'm reading First Shift, which is like a prequel to Wool. If you are a science fiction lover, I highly recommend it.

My Goodreads bookshelf is an assortment of earth in the future stories..

Radioduranz
2184
Alice in Deadland (Zombies!!)
The Windup Girl

I also spent about a week reading the Hunger Games trilogy.

[jobob]

Highest recommendation for Tana French's books!!!

All the normal procedural crime stuff, with fleshed out characters and rich language.

Tana French and Denise Mina are my suspense discoveries of the year for sure.

I was able to check out the Kindle edition of Tana French's Faithful Place from my public library and I devoured it this weekend. I really enjoyed it, thanks for the recommendation!

I have Broken Harbor on reserve (no Kindle edition yet so no instant gratification, ratz).