I, too, got the impression the Connelly was wrapping it up. He thanked several people for helping him get this finished, and it sounded like he'd been ill.

Right now I'm sad because I finished Covenant of Water, and am missing it! 5 Stars.

I tried really hard with The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but it was in vain. I will try it again--maybe it's just the heat!

I started Hedgehog and wasn't sure where it was going. So then the library got me The Power of the Dog and I started it...got through Chap 1 and the violence was so overwhelming I think I'm going to quit.

I need something more something of where I need to be right now... a pleasant and easy summer read or a really absorbing thriller ... and neither of those are fitting the bill.

ETA: Oh brother! re The Power of the Dog, I was reading the wrong book! I thought it was supposed to be a western about brothers on a ranch, and instead the one I picked up was about the Mexican drug cartels. Doh! I've got to try the right one!

My book club almost unanimously loved Hedgehog.…once we got passed the earlier stage that bored us with its passages on philosphy; the author was a professor of philosophy. Beyond that, it became quite wonderful, so maybe try again

Yes Annie- Power of the Dog is one of those where several books have that title. My book club read the one on the ranch and it was really a very good book. Kind of different. (the book you want is by Thomas Savage).

I’ve had a couple false starts lately. I started Crying In H-Mart.For some reason i thought it was fiction, only to discover its a memoir about a dying Korean mother by her half Korean daughter. it justis not the book i need right now and the description of going through chemo was disturbing. I bailed on it a little more than halfway through.

Now i need something to read. Considering Mad Honey by Jodi picoult and JenniferFinney Boylan. Im not usually aPicoult fan but this was on my friend’s book club list.

I also did not enjoy The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Want something quirky to pick up and read for five minutes? B. J. Novak has 60 chapters in 276 pages, some only a page and a half. It's One More Thing. Very amusing.

I finished Testimony and thought it was interesting overall. The beginning was a lot more interesting but I did stick with it and certainly learned from it.

I then read A Hundred Summers (not at all sure where I heard of it) which gets very nice ratings on goodreads. It did not bowl me over either, though it was a pretty easy read, maybe a good beach read?

Anyway, both books were a low 3 star for me.

I'm now reading Angle of Repose and am enjoying it, though haven't had much chance to get to it.

Colson Whitehead's new book, Crook Manifesto, just popped up on my Libby. I've been on the wait list for months. I am in the middle of The Narrows, by Ann Petry (wonderful!), so now I have to make a decision. I am probably going to have to abandon it and come back to it later. It belongs to DD, and she has very liberal return policies. Book stress.

I'm reading Dust Child by Que Mai Phan Nguyen

It is set in Viet Nam during the war and after the war. It is a story of the women servicing the American soldiers, the Amerasian children left behind and one soldier with PSTD who returns to Viet Nam with his wife in an attempt to heal. Once there, he becomes obsessed with trying to find the child that was born after he returned to the States and the mother of the child. His wife did not know that he had a child and finds out about it while they are there. Very well written. I'm not finished but at this point I'd give it 5 stars. Hard to put down

eta: taking back the 5 stars. It struggled a little at the end. Too unrealistic.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne, both incredibly sad but excellent. 4.5 stars I think I need to read something now that is not so depressing.

Trapped, that sounds like a variation on Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. I will look for it.

I just finished Ann Petry's The Narrows, and I was completely blown away. I don't want to tell the story, but the book is complex, poetic and enthralling. I hated for it to end.

Having bailed on Lessons in Chemistry, I decided to try it again. It is quite unlike anything I have ever read and I am undecided if I really like it or not so I will go the middle of the road here. 3 stars.

I read The Lost Apothecary in just a few days. It was a very engaging story line. It went back and forth between current day and 18th century, but all connected. It was pretty well done.

It was a page turner for me. I was not able to be at the book club meeting to discuss it, but I heard that it was widely liked.

I'd give it 4.5 stars.

Annie, how did you like Power of the Dog? and Angle of Repose?

( I really like POD though it wasn't always the most uplifting. Angle of Repose was so highly rated and recommended to me, and I just couldn't get it. I may revisit sometime.)

Recently finished Michael Connelly's Two Kinds of Truth (4.5 stars)and The Night Fire (3.75 stars). As well as Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (3.25 stars). The Big Sleep was a re-read. I bought a Raymond Chandler omnibus, hence the reread. Now reading Farewell My Lovely. I'm liking Farewell quite a lot more than TBS so far.

The new Colson Whitehead book (Crook Manifesto) just came my way. I had to take a step back and reread Harlem Shuffle, since it's been two years and I couldn't be sure I would remember all the details. I am glad I did!

I recently finished Homecoming by Kate Morton, and really enjoyed it. I find her a skillful storyteller. It tales place in Australia where a grandaughter returns to the home of her beloved grandmother who is ill, and who raised her. Old family secrets surface, and the granddaughter learns of things that happened 60 years previously. 4 stars

The Art Thief, Michael Finkel, is a true story about a young French man and his girlfriend who drove all over Europe stealing paintings, silver, musical instruments, ivory, and 'you-name it' from European museums at an incredible rate for a decade without being caught. It's as much a psychological study about why they did it as a recounting of how they did it. 4 Stars.

@sweetbetsy, fyi, I just read this about the Harry Bosch series which answers our question.

On November 7th, 2023, Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller are back in Resurrection Walk, the highly-anticipated new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly.

It appears Haller will feature more prominently than Ballard in this book.

@faftris, so do you recommend a re-read of Harlem Shuffle before reading Crook Manifesto? It’s been a while for me too.

Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur

I'm almost finished and love this book. It takes place on the Cape which is one of my old haunting grounds. I love the characters and the interweaving of the story. 4 stars.

Thank you, Outside.

Good news about more Bosch/Haller to come!

Just finished The Second Mrs. Astor and enjoyed it very much. Its the story of John Jacob Astor and his young second wife. . A bit timely with the recent event related to the Titanic, as Astor went down with the ship. Its told from the point of view of Mrs A., and reminded me how much i enjot historical fiction.

Hello Beautiful for August book club.

I just don't get the hype. It's an Oprah pick. To me, its nothing special.

eld, I think it's supposed to be the modern-day Little Women. It did nothing for me either.

A third 'meh' for Hello, Beautiful.

The third "meh" is the charm!

I finished Crook Manifesto, by Colson Whitehead. I think it will benefit from a second go-through. It has the same kind of fast paced story line as Harlem Shuffle, with lots of criminals. NYC in the seventies was a rough place. I remember it well.

NYC in the seventies was a rough place. I remember it well.

So do I. If someone talks about how dangerous the city is now, I think "You have no idea...."

But back to books: I liked Harlem Shuffle, so will definitely read his new one. I just finished The Border Trilogy and absolutely loved it, but it won't be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm frankly surprised it was mine. It wasn't written with me in mind, but then again neither was Infinite Jest, which I was also hypnotized by. Sometimes books take you by surprise.

I laugh because I went to college in Harlem in the 70's, and walked past many a druggie on my way from the subway to campus. Nowadays, I could not afford to live there. Same deal with the Lower East Side tenement my mother lived in when her family came to America. Who knew?

Hi all. For those of you that plan a trip to Iceland in the future. There is a book called Secrets of theSprakkar that our first lady Eliza Reid wrote. she happens to be Canadian and it is fascinating to hear her take on Iceland. Note it is long. I listened to it on Audible.

ps thank you all for the book lists.

I read The Yellow Wife for next month's book club. It was certainly a worthwhile read. It's historical fiction and I wondered about a few of the details, as to whether they were the fiction or the history.

To my surprise, it is mentioned by the author that those particular details were in fact based on actual named people. It takes place in Virginia, during slavery.

Some of it was a little too "neat" but overall I thought it was quite good. I'd give it 3.75 stars so rounding --- it's a 4.

I just started The Lincoln Highway. I had reserved it and it became available countless times, but I kept delaying the delivery. Somehow I expected ti to be good, obviously, but I thought it would take more work or effort and I need to be in the right mood for that. Anyway, I am at about 20 % and really loving it and finding it beautifully written, and not quite an easy read, but very readable so to speak.

My book club just read "The Personal Librarian". A historical fiction. The woman it's about, Belle is AMAZING and a real person in our history I knew nothing about, nor had I ever heard of her. For THIS reason I give the book 5 out of 5 stars...but...it wasn't really that interesting. Facts about the art she collected could have been explained in greater detail. Her love life was to put it mildly boring and her lover, not well liked. There ARE books about her that would have been only facts...I would have enjoyed that.

I gave up on Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult. I think i liked her first book but none after that. This one has a co-author so i gave it a try. i dont enjoy ” whodunnits” and some of the twists were outrageous.

Just started The Covenant of Water. I think this one will be a winner for me, but too soon to say.

I also just started The Covenant of Water. It's well written, and long. Everyone I know loved this book, but I'm waiting to be engaged by it.

nicole, for more information on Belle da Costa Greene you can visit the Morgan Library's website. They're going to be doing a major exhibit about her next year (and it's about time!) https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/belle-da-costa-greene

Make sure to click on the main page of the website, where you can see part of the library in all its glory.

@Bookwoman...Yes...we were teasing we should ALL fly to NY for the exhibit. She was an amazing WOMAN!

I'm only a short train ride away, so am definitely planning on going!

Bunny, If you can grab an audio version, I am told its brilliantly read by the author.

We should do a meet-up!

That would be great! The exhibit begins in late October.

I read his Cutting for Stone years ago and loved it. One of my favorites , so have high expectations for The Covenant of Water

Zalco, I wish I could. I have the Kindle version from the library. I wish they would make the audio available at the same time. Lately my reading has been slowing down as I have a new addiction to needlepoint. How perfect it would be to have audio books to listen to while needlepointing.

I gave 5 stars to both of Verhage's best sellers although one character does seem to have floated from Cutting to Covenant.

Has anyone read Time Shelter, Gospodinov?

I read Time Shelter. It was about creating a "safe" space for dementia patients. It was interesting, but as I age, I hate reading about stuff like that. Read it at your own risk if you are sensitive about stuff like that!

Thanks, faftris. The idea sounds similar to what I've read is the practice in Dutch memory care facilities and the concept of just going along with the resident's idea of reality without correcting him or her.

I just finished The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. The characters were so much richer in the book than in the Netflix series. I do think it might lose something in translation from Hebrew but I learned so much about Palestine, the Turks, the British Occupation and the Israeli fight for freedom. I recommend.

Link to August 2023 Edition