Books Books Books
04-21-2026, 10:29 AM
#51
Super Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Peoria, IL -- Midwest Transplant
Posts: 7,293
On a long book now, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt which won a Pulitzer in 2014.
https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/donna-tartt
My usual audio book is about 12 hours long -- this is more like 32!
I found I was a couple books behind on the Gilded Age Mysteries by Rosemary Simpson. One more before I'm caught up again!
https://www.goodreads.com/series/204...ed-age-mystery
I read The Indigo Girl that was recommended in one of these threads. I had missed I think in the recommendation it was based on historical fact. It can be hard with modern sensibilities to have positive protagonists who also were slave owners. It is important to understand as well that women, regardless of color, had very few rights and opportunities and couldn't necessarily own any sort of property whether land or live.
Someone had mentioned T. Kingfisher, I enjoyed the fantasy novella Nine Goblins, and then What Moves the Dead, which is retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. There are a couple more books but I'm not sure I'm going to go on with them at this point. Not quite the horror experience I'm looking for, but I'll check out other works by the author.
https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/donna-tartt
My usual audio book is about 12 hours long -- this is more like 32!
I found I was a couple books behind on the Gilded Age Mysteries by Rosemary Simpson. One more before I'm caught up again!
https://www.goodreads.com/series/204...ed-age-mystery
I read The Indigo Girl that was recommended in one of these threads. I had missed I think in the recommendation it was based on historical fact. It can be hard with modern sensibilities to have positive protagonists who also were slave owners. It is important to understand as well that women, regardless of color, had very few rights and opportunities and couldn't necessarily own any sort of property whether land or live.
Someone had mentioned T. Kingfisher, I enjoyed the fantasy novella Nine Goblins, and then What Moves the Dead, which is retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. There are a couple more books but I'm not sure I'm going to go on with them at this point. Not quite the horror experience I'm looking for, but I'll check out other works by the author.
04-21-2026, 04:48 PM
#52
Super Member
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 3,392
I just read a book, My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeny. It's the first time I have read her and I am going to try to find all her books. It was a great mystery. Each chapter reveals just a little more of the story line from different characters in the story. I couldn't put it down until the story was over. I liked it so much I bought a copy to be able to reread and hand off to others. Five stars from me.
04-25-2026, 03:11 PM
#53
Super Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Peoria, IL -- Midwest Transplant
Posts: 7,293
I put My Husband's Wife on hold, it will take awhile to become available.
The Goldfinch was a huge novel and I can see why it was an award winner. It is long, reviews consider it a "hard read" and there is some jumping about in time points that are rather offsetting, yet I was drawn into the story. I don't really enjoy the "unreliable narrator" sort of story, plus there seems to be an entire genre of boring/appalling rich people doing nasty things to each other when I don't care if any one or all of them are killed off! I had some fears of that sort of thing in this book but they did not come to pass. The ending twist was a delightful surprise to me, somehow a happy ending of sorts was pulled off.
Hubby and I watched the movie which had really bad reviews and the author distanced herself from the project. It was pretty, but unable to tell the 32 hour book in 3 hours, especially as film does not lend itself to thinking/internal dialog.
Following that was a different book entirely, will recommend to the horror fans out there, but this is quiet horror, a world that becomes different. White Horse by Erika T Wurth. I think Stephen King fans will also appreciate it quite a bit.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/11342...eryday-horrors
The Goldfinch was a huge novel and I can see why it was an award winner. It is long, reviews consider it a "hard read" and there is some jumping about in time points that are rather offsetting, yet I was drawn into the story. I don't really enjoy the "unreliable narrator" sort of story, plus there seems to be an entire genre of boring/appalling rich people doing nasty things to each other when I don't care if any one or all of them are killed off! I had some fears of that sort of thing in this book but they did not come to pass. The ending twist was a delightful surprise to me, somehow a happy ending of sorts was pulled off.
Hubby and I watched the movie which had really bad reviews and the author distanced herself from the project. It was pretty, but unable to tell the 32 hour book in 3 hours, especially as film does not lend itself to thinking/internal dialog.
Following that was a different book entirely, will recommend to the horror fans out there, but this is quiet horror, a world that becomes different. White Horse by Erika T Wurth. I think Stephen King fans will also appreciate it quite a bit.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/11342...eryday-horrors
