If your care giving duties allow you time to read.....................I'm interested in what book you are in the middle of or just finished or have waiting on your bedside table.
I'm reading "Total Control" by David Baldacci
It's a crime/thriller drama. Quite compelling.
If you can't find the time to read, you should try. It helps to escape from it all in a good book.
Novel by Michael Ende
The Neverending Story is a fantasy novel by German writer Michael Ende, published in 1979. The first English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was published in 1983. It was later adapted into a film series.
Wikipedia
GMORK: Foolish boy. Don’t you know anything about Fantasia? It’s the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries.
ATREYU: But why is Fantasia dying, then?
GMORK: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.
ATREYU: What is the Nothing?
GMORK: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
ATREYU: But why?
GMORK: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control. And whoever has control has the power.
What am I reading.. something online about troubleshooting the ice maker sensor light. Probably have to replace it.
Mimi Smith Dvorak
I'm sure the book would be banned so that makes it more fun to read.
I imagine Grimm’s Fairy Tales would be too gruesome these days. We read Mother Goose and Grimm’s as children.
Our City Park has an entire play area that is dedicated to Mother Goose. My parents took us there and I took our children there to play.
At Halloween, they have the characters pass out candy, for example, Mother Goose passes out candy next to her shoe. Little Miss Muffet passes out candy by her tuffet. My kids loved it when they were young.
I bet you have lots of good memories there.
The illustrations in this old Mother Goose book are awesome but the poems are kind of dark.
There are definitely some dark images in children’s literature of long ago.
I have found interesting old books at the thrift shops from time to time.
“Every day a different body, every day a different life, every day in love with the same girl.”
Interesting!
I want a plot that tells a story, not some rambling epic that never comes to any resolution.
I want an author who can invent a protagonist that I care about, what happens to them should leave me wanting more not feeling meh.
Romance is fine but I hate when it morphs into the central theme of a novel or series, especially when the women seem to lose all their brain cells whenever the object of their lust enters the page.
Some attention needs to be paid to reality - I can see an ex cop or a forensic pathologist or a detective etc solving crimes but not a chef or a dog sitter or a baker or the thousand of the other cozy mystery tropes.
I'm into mysteries, dystopian worlds, fantasy and SF as well as the occasional plain old literary genre.
Oh, and it's almost impossible to find library books or a complete series that are more than a decade old, so that limits things considerably. Any recommendations?
Our library will order a book for us if they don’t have it. Have you asked your librarian if you can do this?
Do you have second hand bookstores in your area? You can find great bargains there. Thrift shops too!
I also like to listen to unabridged books on our local public radio station. wrbh.org
One book I recently enjoyed was “Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson. It had some of the rehashing too, but the author wrote in a sarcastic, snarky style, often directly speaking to the reader, that was unique and fun
I've currently started a story that is well written but seems like it's going nowhere, A Prayer For Travellers by Ruchika Tomar. I'm 100 pages in and I finally sneaked a peak at some of the spoilers on Goodreads and despite the rave reviews it sounds like this book is a long winding tale with no satisfactory conclusion... I'm not sure if I can stomach another 200+ pages of that.
I see. I hope your book gets better. I catch myself reading books that I enjoyed a long time ago. Like you say, sometimes we don’t know what to select from newer books.
What I don't get is why there don't seem to be any older books from popular series like this in the physical library either, did they throw them all out?
The ereads program has a lot of older popular novels but some publishing limitation on the number of newer books mean you may need to wait a couple of years to get them. Newer books are physically available from the library (and I get a few) but I'm more likely to purchase books I really want to read for my kindle if I want to read it now. Currently I have just over 3000 books and magazines (reader's digest is a favorite) for my kindle so occasionally I just read something again. And then there are the thousands of physical books from before kindle days - both my mother's readers digest condensed books and all the novels I read during my traveling days - used to need a new book for each plane ride (biggest reason I was an early kindle adopter). My storage barn has cartons of books "filed" by author or subject matter. I like being able to hand a kid a book that I read years ago for them to enjoy (or read it to them). The younger kids are astonished I have comic books my Dad purchased for me over 50 years ago - but they still love them. Reading material has always been my biggest vice - disposable income wise!
I had put it on their suggestions to purchase list & they now have. I think I am the first borrower. 😊
This book is so spot on with the current climate, it's actually disturbing to see how something written, as fiction, in 1949, can be so real in 2023 and beyond.
I highly recommend it for everyone.
I think I’m going to order her book to read or borrow it from my daughter. Occasionally, we exchange books with one another.
The author is Colleen Hildebrand. (Colleenhildebrand.com) The name of the book is, Into the Ether: A Memoir of Holding Space
I want to read it soon. I know Abby, the author’s daughter. Abby has been to my house. I haven’t met her mom. My daughter knows Abby’s mom and likes her.
My daughter went to Louisiana State University and Abby went to Southeastern Louisiana University. They met leach other through mutual friends and have become friends.
My daughter told me that the book is fascinating.
I love to go to our local bookstores and read books written by local authors on various subjects.
I have read books from people that I know. It’s pretty cool to read what they write.
“In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert. From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises capped and lofty mountains ….(etc on landscape)...They all preserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality and misery. There are no inhabitants of this land of despair”.
Do any of you live there? Despairing? Miserable? Yours, Margaret!