It's Monday 8/5! What Are You Reading?

This will be a two-week update today because last Monday I was camping at Rickett's Glen State Park in the lovely, cool Pocono Mountains of PA with friends. It was a much-needed, relaxing getaway for a few days (you can see some photos here). I was not only not online, but we didn't even have basic cell service up there. Just hiking, kayaking, campfires, good food, great company, and - of course - books!

Here's what we've all been reading the past two weeks, with lots of progress in the Big Book Summer Challenge:

I finished reading the newly-released If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais in record time. Bianca is a two-time Booktopia author, and I absolutely loved her first novel, Hum If You Don't Know the Words, a contender for my favorite book of the year. As with that first novel, this new one is also set in South Africa, though just after apartheid in this case, in 1994, when Nelson Mandela has just been elected and AIDS is beginning to tear across the country. Three very different women narrate the novel. Seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in a squatter camp just outside of Johannesburg with her mother and is pregnant. Ruth, a wealthy white middle-aged woman has a breakdown and her husband leaves her. In Zaire, disgraced former nun Delilah gets some horrible news that leads her to leave the orphanage where she works and the children who need her to race back to South Africa. These three stories come together, and for fans of Hum, Beauty and Robin even make cameos here. It was wonderful, and it went by too fast! It counted for my Big Book Summer Challenge.

That was a hard act to follow, so I next picked up another Big Book (from my big pile!), a classic I have wanted to read for years, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It was first published in 1961 and is a satirical look at war, from the perspectives of a group of men serving overseas. I am just over half-way through this one, but...I'm not loving it. The much-touted humor is a bit too pie-in-the-face style for me; I tend to prefer a subtler, more clever humor. I am also irritated by the way the author characterizes the few women in the novel; they are all there for purely sexual purposes and are very one-dimensional. I understand this is satire, and certainly parts of it are clever, with shades of M*A*S*H, but I am finding it a bit repetitive and tedious. To be honest, I'm not really enjoying it. So, here's my big question - Should I finish reading Catch-22 or give up and move onto something more my style? I am really torn. It's a classic I've wanted to read for ages, but I think I've read enough to get the idea of it. On the other hand, I hate to give up after reading 250+ pages...but I don't really want to invest yet another week in it. What do you think?

On audio, I finished listening to another Big Book: The Book of M by Peng Shepherd, a novel that was released about a year ago that I have wanted to read ever since I heard about it. It's a post-apocalyptic tale about a mysterious condition that quickly spreads across the world. It causes people to lose their shadows, which oddly also causes them to gradually lose their memories. The author uses multiple narrators, all living in this strange post-apocalyptic world (with some flashbacks to how it all happened) and trying to escape its effects. This novel made it onto a bunch of Best of 2018 lists and has been compared to The Passage and Station Eleven, two books I loved. It was an original and gripping story with plenty of suspense and imagination. I enjoyed it very much, though I did get annoyed that the author got some facts about New Orleans wrong!


Now, I have moved onto another Big Book on audio, Vincent and Theo by Deborah Heiligman, a YA novel based on the real-life coming-of-age of Vincent Van Gogh and his beloved younger brother, Theo. This was a freebie from SYNC this summer. I have heard great things about this book, but I am enjoying it even more than I expected to. It's a fascinating biography of Van Gogh, but it is also an in-depth look at his family and his childhood and of the time (Europe in the 1860's-70's). It's so interesting to hear how his artistic talent and career began but also how his mental illness began to show small signs even from childhood. The novel is based on over 600 letters between the brothers and between them and other members of the family.

My husband, Ken, finished his massive third Big Book of the summer, The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund, which I picked out for him at Northshire Books (recommended by the booksellers there) at Booktopia this year. It's a Swedish thriller about a serial killer. On the cover, it says, "the most disturbing book you'll read this year," and he says that was absolutely true! He says it makes it sound as if most of Sweden's citizens are child abusers; I didn't realize this one dealt with kids or I might have chosen something different, but he stuck with it and says it was suspenseful and intriguing. He was puzzled when the mystery seemed to be solved less than halfway through, but he kept reading and was engrossed right up until the end. All in all, it seemed like a satisfying (though disturbing) read.

After that long, dark book, Ken needed something lighter - and shorter! He picked a thriller with a great sense of humor, August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones. I met Jones at Booktopia this year, and my husband and I both enjoyed his second novel in the series, Lives Laid Away, so I bought book one while I was there. Ken's on a short business trip this week, so this engaging mystery/thriller (and small paperback) was a perfect choice! I'm sure he's enjoying it - and I want to read it next.

 

Our son, Jamie, 24, read the first book in a new-to-him series, An Assassin's Blade trilogy by Justin DePaoli, described as a dark epic fantasy. He says the books are shorter than what he usually reads and not as well-written as his favorites, but he enjoyed it. He had a very busy and exhausting couple of weeks so not a lot of reading time.

Jamie is back home now and diving into a new book, Death's Merchant, book one in the Common Among Gods series by Justan Henner. He says it's a really original story about gods and humans, but not the familiar Greek or Roman gods. I see it's been described as an "epic fantasy" and "1200-page doorstopper full of captivating characters and humor." Yup, that sounds right up his alley! I hope he'll have more reading time this month.


Blog posts from the last two weeks:

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: Airborn by Kenneth Oppel - award-winning adventure & great on audio

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge - intriguing adventure set in a made-up world

Fiction Review: If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais - wonderful novel about three women in South Africa in 1994 whose very different lives come together

Saturday Snapshot: Rickett's Glen State Park, PA - beautiful park filled with waterfalls and a lake

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?

There's still time to sign up for the Big Book Summer Challenge! It's easy-going, like summer - you only have to read one book of 400 or more pages between now and September (though you can, of course, read more!) - a month left to go! It's lots of fun and a great way to add extra enjoyment to your summer! All the details are at the link - you can sign up there if you have a blog or, if not, just leave a comment on that page or sign up at the Goodreads group linked from that page. Join the fun!