beckyboo1

I just finished The Guncle and loved it! It's about 2 children who have just lost their mom and because their dad needs drug treatment (pill addiction), they go to live with their gay uncle. It's a good mix of funny, sad, and trying to figure out how to go on after the death of a loved one. Highly recommend.

Iceblossom

Even when we don['t discuss them, I like seeing when some of us are/have read the same books.

Looks like I have several coming off hold fin th next couple of weeks, sold old/some new. I did just finish the current Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs. I consider this series to be Urban Fantasy like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, that is dragons and magic set in the modern world. She has another related series (Alpha and Omega) that is more "romantacy" or fantasy/paranormalromance. Anyway, always enjoy them.

I really enjoyed my latest shipwreck story of Empire of Ice and Stone, by Buddy Levy. A non fiction that reads like an action thriller set in 1914. I am fascinated by tales of polar exploration in the age of wooden ships and low technology where the explorers were wearing wool and furs and canned food was new!

Also finished the latest Lucy Foley book, The Midnight Feast. It had some things going for it, more of a secret society thing than a locked door mystery. It was rather hard to follow in audio with switching time lines and viewpoints and partially told story leading up to a climatic finish. In print you can use white space/chapters or fonts to help keep things straight but none of that in audio. There seems to be a developing genre of particularly British Authors sort of related to the "unrelizable narrator" of Gone Girl where all the characters are unappealing to me and I'm sort of rooting to see them killed off...I've decided that I don't need to spend hours with disagreeable characters, and I can quit reading early but I kept going until the end for the various twists.

Before my next set of books come off hold, I have another Longmire and then a Chet and Bernie. They work well because I enjoy the characters/stories and they are typically under 10 hours.

QuiltingNinaSue

Hey, I am retired and cannot afford to read as many books I want (don't drive anymore) , so I signed up with two free services in the book world and you set up your own genes. The fuzzy Librarian and Freebooksy are my favorites and you can get audible books from them. I happen to have a Kindle and keep about 100 books on it, or you can read on many different readers or on your computer. I read an average of four to five books a day, used to spent about $300. or so on books. The best Christian reading is by Lars Muller, titled Rock of providence a Western Epic c1924, is one of the best books I have ever read.

ktbb

Check out books by David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fame). His main character is a journalist who inherits a boat from a family member, lives on the boat in Florida and does investigative journalism. Each book is a different crime to solve and interesting characters. Easy reads.

KalamaQuilts

NinaSue, if this a misprint? I'm a fast reader but only read about two a week I think. According to my Kindle app I've read 83 this year, but a couple of those were quilt books and cook books I speed read.

Mkotch

Thanks, ktbb, for the recommendation of David Crosby's series. The first in the series is $0.99 on Amazon Kindle.

Iceblossom, I enjoyed the new Chet & Bernie books (as always). I love the humor.

I just read an older novel, A Fireproof Home for the Bride, which started off slow and got really good by the middle. It's set in Fargo-Moorhead in the 1950s. I am plowing along with Too Close to the Falls, a memoir that gets more unbelievable the more I read. I think I'm going to skip to the end. I'm also reading the latest Mercy Carr mystery by Paula Munier which I always enjoy.

I enjoy the recommendations in this thread, so please keep them coming!

Iceblossom

It was fun to see this thread pop back up!

It was Kalama that first recommended the Chet and Bernie books. I am still really enjoying them. I think I am up to book 9? now (it is currently on hold).

I'm down to my last Longmire book, also on hold.

Don Quixote finally came off hold and has been listened to. Not bad for a 400 year old book. I did pick the translation with the narration by George Guidal who also read the Longmire books (among others).

Not sure if I mentioned them before, but I have really enjoyed the Barker and Llweellen books by Will Thomas. Lucky me found a couple books released since the last time I checked in the series. Set in a Sherlock Holmes time period, Barker is a Scottish "private inquiry agent" and Llewellyn his scrappy Welsh assistant.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bark...welyn+in+order

I've started the Murderbot Diaries which was another recommendation here. Short books but popular so I have quite a bit of hold/wait between books.

In judging books by their cover, I've started reading a series of stores set in British Columbia by Iona Whishaw. Have to admit it is one of the ways I do pick new to me authors.
https://www.amazon.com/Killer-Kings-.../dp/1771511982

I am currently up-to-date on a number of my favorite authors and series so as always -- keep those recommendations coming!

QuiltingNinaSue

Yes, it is not a misprint. I have read an average of five books a day for a long time. I have a college degree, librarian/education since 1966, and have worked in five states, putting together junior high, high school or all grades k-12, and closing one school library, also worked as children's librarian in my hometown for two and half years before I earned my degree. I was taught speed reading in sixth grade and now read about 2400 words a minute. We retired back in small town in the mid-west that is in the middle between Des Moines, Iowa, and Columbia, Mo. So I use Prime and read on my Kindle, keeping about a 100 books on my reading list. Free Fussy Librarian and Freebooksy are rated readings (incorporates Goodreads notations) of your own gene choosing, you don't have to run to the library to return them. I have totally enjoyed everyone's recommendations and the variety of answers. Since my recommended author Lars Muller is new on kindle selections, he may be hard to find, but worth the effort.

Onebyone

I was taught speed reading in fifth and sixth grade! Did we go to the same school? A small community country school with wonderful teachers who taught life along with studies. My sixth teacher pushed reading. He read the town's newspaper every day out loud even the obits! We discussed the oldest of the obits and what they would have witnessed in their years on earth and how grateful we should be to live to see the wonders coming in our lifetime. We had reading comprehension along with speed reading. We had to read out loud too using feeling in our voice. I loved grade school. The next year we had to go to the big high school. No middle school then.

Onebyone

I'm reading Drood by Dan Simmons. The novel is based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life.
If you are a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan don't read the biography of her life Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. it really changed my view of who she really was especially her daughter Rose. Still love the Little House book though.

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