The Correspondent. A book with no chapters? I like the style. Not far enough into it to comment on the substance. See? It goes from page 3 to page 283?!

Lynn, I read Auel's series too and have been pondering my next read or listen. Thank you for that.

Alfred Paredes, At Home.....A decorating book, not a novel. :0) It's a style dependant on having a million dollar home with gorgeous architectual features, not decorating skill. Every object is "art"...or just "weird". I would describe his style as Hollywood Modern-shock. It is .....interesting....but not swoon worthy.

And...Tallgrass, by Sandra Dallas, for my bookclub. The author still lives in Colorado and is coming to the club to speak about her book. She lists her email on the back page & invites readers to contact her.

On Tyranny : Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. This nonfiction book is small, but packed with complex and important points. Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University, and the book is summarized: "The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience." Five stars.

Bookclub is reading Blacktop Wasteland, crime thriller and social commentary. High adreneline and urge to read fast is not our typical genre. There should be plenty to discuss from the colorful language (perhaps too many memorable similes) to the limited options available to people of color— or maybe for anyone— in small town rural area.

I read an article about John Irving, and I took The Hotel New Hampshire out of the library. Maybe I am missing something. It is all over the place, and I can;t figure out where it's going. I know it was a movie. I can see it that way, but as a novel, I am not so certain. I am going to finish it.

Finished This Is Happiness by Niall Williams. Not my kind of book. Irish writer with lots of description telling a long tale about when he was growing up in Ireland. I tend to be a plot-driven reader. But once I changed my mindset to just let him tell the story, it was better for me. I did enjoy the characters and the story line....just took soooo long to get there. I give it 3 stars, and while I wouldn't recommend it for book group, I would recommend it to some members who enjoy a book that's well-written over plot.

Have been re-reading a few books/authors for the experience as well as for things remaining to be gleaned from them. All of last week and this week, I re-read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, The Passenger, and Stella Maris. The Road turned up little to be discovered in the second reading, though it was still good. The other two had so much more to unearth and unpack the second time. Stella Maris, in particular, was so intriguing, with almost every sentence a kernel of thought worth infinite exploration in its own right.

”People prefer fate to chance” was one such. I had just finished re-reading The Stranger by Camus right before McCarthy, and this one sentence was like a bookend to the ”gentle indifference of the universe” that Camus muses over throughout The Stranger. Camus explores human will vs. randomness as the governing theory of human existence in The Stranger. Humans try to give meaning and purpose to what is arguably a senseless random existence through various notions such as human will, morality, religion, law, etc. These notions purport to give meaning to actions arguably within our control.

McCarthy’s sentence about humans’ preference for fate over chance speaks to the same dichotomy, but in the realm of what is not in our control. Even where we have no control, we still prefer to characterize it as fate rather than chance, because “fate” makes it seem meaningful — it‘s the act of a universe that cares enough about our existence to arrange our life events this way or that. Whereas chance is just senseless, random, where the “gentle indifference of the universe“ allows nothing more meaningful.

Anyway, Stella Maris , while not McCarthy’s best, still was so fascinating, more so in the second reading. I only wish I knew enough about theoretical mathematics to make sense of the main character’s conversations on the subject. Any mathematician in this group who cares to comment on Stella Maris?

Nuts, that is a truck load of heavy reading! I whined about The Road while I was reading it but felt positive once I’d finished it (pretty much how I felt about calculus).

I did Stella Maris as audio book and probably glossed over a lot.

The only Cormac McCarthy I read -- or at least started to -- was The Passenger. I, along with the majority of the book group DNF. There were a few brave ones who did, so we had a decent discussion, but for most of us it was undigestible.

Annie, I also felt like I might have missed something with This is Happiness. I liked it but did not love it. ( I am going to read it again). I did read Niall Williams' Time of the Child last month and thought it was absoluely wonderful.

I read Rainwater ( not sure how it got on my radar) by Sandra Brown. I really enjoyed it and thought it was a great story. It was published in 2009, and is rated over 4 on goodreads with over 22K ratings. I had never heard of it.

It could have easily veered to sappy or predictable but it was so nicely woven. It did have a bit of a twist which I absolutely did not see coming. I gave it 4.5 stars.

I seem to be a good roll now. I am reading Buckeye, a bit more than halfway and I expect it will be a 4 or 5 star read.

Editing to add, I don't think I am familiar with Cormac McCarthy so I have added him to my follow up list.

As someone with a graduate degree in Anthropology, specialty North American Archaeology, I detested Clan of the Cave Bear, which I read many, many years ago. Best I can remember, the main character seemed to have invented or discovered everything.

However, I can strongly recommend Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, a fine writer who as a teenager lived closely with !Kung speakers in the Kalahari desert when they were still nomads, an experience that shaped her entire life. Her mother was an anthropologist and Thomas knows and understands intimately the lives of people who live very simple lives in harsh environments. Reindeer Moon, set in Siberia some 20,000 years ago is the real deal, unlike Clan of the Cave Bear.

Actually, I recommend everything Thomas has written.

I also recommend The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone, set some 8,000 years ago in northern Scotland and based on a verifiable geologic event. Another writer who gets it right.

DD1 gave me The Lack of Light, by Nino Haratischwili, which she enjoyed, saying that it reminded her of the Elena Ferrante books. I have just started it, and DD1 was right! She usually is!

I just finished The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller. I loved it -- 5 stars. My mother used to tell me about them when I was a child. I thought I knew a lot about their story, but this was loaded with details new to me. Miller's style of writing made it seem almost like reading a novel. Each chapter was only a couple of pages and I could say that makes it easy to pick up and put down, but I couldn't put it down. I've always been fascinated multiples, especially when they are identical, and the book also included many pictures I hadn't seen before.