What Books Are You Reading in 2023: Spring Edition

Just started The Brothers Karamazov

Echoing previous readers, loving THE NEW LIFE.

I wanted something comparatively light to read and asked in the former thread for opinions on Anthony Horowitz, Sara Ware and David Tropper. Most were on the less than enthusiastic side, but in the meantime, I started reading Horowitz's THE WORD IS MURDER, Ware's THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY and Tropper's EVERYTHING CHANGES.

First time I've ever juggled 3 novels at once but since none are especially deep, I'm enjoying the experience. A little more than 1/2 through all of them. none brilliant but each nicely satisfying in their way.

Has anyone read any of the Moscow Trilogy by Simon Sebag Montefiore? I just bought SASHENKA and I'm curious if it's any good.

SPRING EDITION? Half the world doesn’t live in the northern hemisphere, you cunt.

R5 ... but 93% of DL readers do.

And 90 percent of the population does.

I bought The New Life and Up With the Sun based on the recommendations here

The new book by what's her name...Makkai. I made it about 25% of the way, but neither the present or the past events at the character's prep school are holding my attention. So I switched to my next Daniel Silva/Gabriel Allon mystery instead of slogging on.

Maybe I'll finish it. Who can say?

I read "the Maidens" which is mindless but vaguely entertaining frau lit, written by a man. Easy to read - same guy who wrote "Silent Patient."

If you've never read Christopher Bollen's novels, you're missing out. In the middle of "The Lost Americans" and while it might be Bollen-Lite, it's still scary as hell. But the man who wrote "A Beautiful Crime" and "Orient" can do no wrong.

I like Anthony Horowitz but i mostly end up guessing the murderer, which is not very satisfying (and hardly happens to me).

The Silent Patient was entertaining but ultimately rather awful. Then i heard a oodcast with the author and he confesses to being very ‘inspired’ by Agatha Christie. Also, he doesnt say it but he is obviouly gay (cute though),

HATED "The Silent Patient".

R7 Close! But I think we need a big brained stats oriented person to look at literacy rates and crunch the numbers to get a true picture of possible participants.

A Beautiful Crime was one of the lite-est books I’ve tried to read in recent years. And I read a lot of junk.

Going to start the new Margaret Atwood short stories colllection. Anyone read it?

Lawrence Durrell's Justine, Irene Nemirov's Fire in the Blood, Sally Adee's We Are Electric (science), Alez Zwerdling's Virginia Woolf and the Real World (litcrit), and E.L. Doctorow's Loon Lake

For genre reading: Charles Todd's The Cliff's Edge

R16 Reading it now, one story a day.

R16 The only story collection from Atwood that i read was Murder in the dark which is weird but very satisfying.

My Atwood novel of the year will be The year of the flood (i read The testaments last year)

Christopher Bollen is a very sexy guy, and his books are enjoyable.

^^ Christopher Bollen.

Sexiness is not a quality I usually seek when looking for an author.

You're missing so much, r22.

I haven't enjoyed a Margaret Atwood book as much as The Robber Bride (1993).

I loved Robber Bride when it came out but found its white-woman feminism hasn’t aged very well.

Start the next thread with Part 3.

We literally went through this last year.

I'm often wary of re-reading favorite novels years later as they're often disappointing. I suppose some of that is because the surprise is no longer there in the same as in the first reading. And, of course, I'm in a very different place, mentally and emotionally.

R28 Yep, I have a feeling that some books that were so entertaining and transformational when I was a teen or young adult would just be silly now. Durrell's Alexandria Quartet; Fowles's The Magus; Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land; Hesse's Siddhartha - are examples.

Not exactly silly, r29, but i know what you mean, i read Like six Marguerite Duras books in one year, last ,onth I couldn’t finish The Lover.

I thought The Lover was considered her masterpiece?

I can't bring myself to reread The World According to Garp because I so loved it when I read it (inhaled it, really), and I'm afraid it won't hold the same thrall. That said, I have many books I've read multiple times and am always happy to read again. Off the top of my head, some of these include Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet, Jamie O'Neill's At Swim Two Boys, Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant trilogies, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, all of Jane Austen (except Northanger Abbey), and Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda. And I don't know how many times I've read Laurie Colwin's Happy All the Time, Family Happiness and Goodbye Without Leaving (at least one of them every year).

After reading over 200 books last year and not really rereading books because there were to many new ones to try out instead, I’ve decided to relent and started on a year where each month I reread an old favorite. I’ve been especially reluctant because my favorite all time book at 16 was East of Eden and I’ve been terrified it won’t live up to my memory of it. I did a dry run last year, and it and the other ones so far have all been just as good and I’m slowly working up to EoE. I’ve had to of read them originally prior to 2000.

I didn't like The Lover neither

I liked The Lover at the time and is supposed to be her best, i just didn’t have it in me somehow. I guess my younger self was more interesting.

On the subject of re-reading last year i decided to read again Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the more Famous Jack, which i had lpved. I was very disappointed, it felt contrived and twee.

I thought The Lover was good

Yes, The New Life was amazing. The book hat Symonds and Ellis collaborated on Sexual Inversion can be read on Openlibrary.org.

I'm reading a biography of Robespierre from 1935.

Laurie Colwin is a favorite of mine. Her fiction and her cookbooks. I specially loved “A Big Tree Knocked it Over.” It covers all of her obsessions or interests; class, marriage, women’s independence, emotional neediness.

Just finished UP WITH THE SUN,l which I have to say I absolutley devoured. It's both entertaining and an interesting social document. My training is in theatre...(yes, I'm a SHOW KAWEEN)..and his research on and his intertwining of theatre history is impeccable. Dolores Gray is one of the major characters in the book and from what my friends who knew her have to say, his portrayal of her is spot on. Two of the characters we meet in FELLOW TRAVELERS show up as very incidental characters in SUN. I recommend it, highly.

I just finished Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. It’s loosely based on the true story of two of the regicides on Charles I, who fled to America after the Restoration. I found the ending a little perfunctory (partly because the historical record fades away at a certain point), but the book is really fascinating, focusing on a period of history I don’t know much about. The story ranges between England and New England, and it made me think a lot about the period when Britain and America were linked, with the British presence in North America still seeming like a mere foothold. I want to read/learn more about this.

The book doesn’t really judge people on their actions (parliamentarians, puritans, slave owners, colonists, native Americans) or moralise about them. It just tells the story. I really admire the ambition of this book.

I loved The trees, it's not for everyone but Everett is really an amazing writer

r41, is that book fiction or non-fiction? Sounds fascinating either way but it wasn't clear to me through your post.

Not r41, but Harris writes historical fiction.

R43, it’s a novel based on a true story. One of the main characters is fictionalised (and therefore some of his actions are too), but the main events follow the historical record: the regicides did flee to New England, they were pursued by the restored monarchy. Most of the named characters and their actions occurrd in real-life.

It’s an interesting story told in a thought-provoking way. Few of the main characters are truly bad people, but there is no hero either. None of them behave particularly well when they have power.

I'm a big urban fantasy fan, and right now I'm anxiously awaiting "Cult Classic" the ninth book in Stephen Blackmoore's Eric Carter series. Eric Carter is sort of Harry Dresden if he were a Necromancer.

I really wish someone would write a great urban fantasy series with a gay male protagonist, but no werewolf/shifter type stuff.

R1 How are you doing with the Brothers Karamazov? I’m listening to an audiobook at night before bed and finding it a loathsome slog. I was fascinated by Crime and Punishment.

I'm tired of these novels where real and famous or semi-famous people are characters...cannibalizing the past...either make something up or write a non-fiction book on them. Or have the famous characters only present in passing.

That Which Makes Us Stronger. Gay kid. Drunk dad. Pretty extreme family. Funny. Set in the 70s and 80s which is fun. Enjoying it a lot. Came recommended in another book thread from last year.

R32, I shared, but faced your fear. Garp holds up. Owen Meany too. Love both those books.

Great thread. Thanks for the recommendations.

All the raves for Ann Napolitano's new book, HELLO BEAUTIFUL, has led me to her earlier book, A GOOD HARD LOOK. Flannery O'Connor is a major character, but it's mainly about the interior world of Milledgeville, Georgia. So far I'm very impressed.

[quote] I'm tired of these novels where real and famous or semi-famous people are characters..

I'm with you. It's probably an easier sell when you introduce a character people think they are familiar with. There is a new German book series, and now also crime show with a fictional Angela Merkel sleuthing through retirement. Title: Miss Merkel. I kid you not. Just bad.

Ugh, the Women Prize longlist book Memphis was complete crap, desperately trying to be literary fiction, but mainly melodrama and embarrassingly bad. I’m beyond shocked that this is one their entries, it makes me lose respect for the award which I usually have high regard of.