I'm finishing The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. It's a 50 hour audio book and, aside from the 7ish hours of biblical so-and-so begat so-and-so of the Mayfair family history, it's been enjoyable.

I juggle multiple books, so also adding:

Knot So Perfect Omega by Maya Nicole
Victories Greater than Death by Charlie Jane Anders

Right now I am working on a James Patterson book titled: Three Women Disappear and a book by Mary Kubica titled: Local Woman Missing.

However, in another week My books will go to Finance, Economics, and Business Law - Fall semester is about to begin!

Verity
Book by Colleen Hoover

I am a little scared to start this book!

Entitled How male privilege hurts women. Kate Manne. She wrote another one call Girl Down. Excellent

Actually I have read this and it is a gift but I recommend

Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Breathnach

Part of the Drug Dangers series for youth – volumes speed and meth, steroids, heroin, inhalants

Part of the Incredibly Disgusting drug series for youth – volumes Cocaine and Your Nose, Crack and Your Circulatory System, Ecstasy and Your Heart, Tobacco and Your Mouth, Hallucinogens and Your Neurons, Barbiturates and Your Central Nervous System

How High Can We Climb? The Story of Women Explorers

Portion of the Health Watch series – Cerebral Palsy volume

Mortal Sins – Sex, Crime and the Era of Catholic Church Scandal

me and white supremacy – Combat racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

Volume Control – Hearing in a Deafening World

The Grifters

by Jim Thompson (1963).

____________________________________.

This is one of the best novels written about the art of the con game. I had no idea it was first published in 1963 but goodness sakes, even after all the ways we've seen grifting committed by T---p, this book is a must read.

There was a also a film made by Martin Scorcese & Stephen Frear based on this book, which won critical acclaim.

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I've got a pile of books going right now!

I just finished "Head Full of Ghosts" by Paul Tremblay. CREEPY.

I am also in the middle of "The Medusa Reader" and "Medusa" by David Leeming. I am doing a deep dive into the mythology of Medusa but also the proliferation of the Medusa archetype throughout movies, music, and art.

I also am making my way through "Magic for the Resistance" about incorporating your magical practices during tough political times and how to manifest political change.

Missing Molly (2018)


A novel by Natalie Barelli

An X-files fanfic I first read 25 years ago, which still happens to be on the internet. I woke up one morning last week and it was on my mind. I won't tell you the title, it's too embarrassing.

Current reading list
 

I am reading a few books at the moment:


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1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sh...cred_Contracts



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2. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-library


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3. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60279775-when-we-were-sisters

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
 

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I am not familiar with the author, but a close friend gave me this book. I'm going to read some of it tonight. Here is a GoodReads link to reviews by other readers.

The January 6th Committee Summary Report (LINK)

I'm gonna splurge on a reading treat for me and buy the January 6th's book which the forward is written by MSNBC's Ari Melber. Should be a good read and last me for a while (at least until summer).

Mad Honey: A Novel: Picoult, Jodi, Boylan, Jennifer Finney

My heart is hesitating between whimsical haven of Tiffany E Taylor and some humour of don camillo i loved the movies so the books must be great 🙂

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

I have just started it, and as with other Octavia Butler books, I find it a little hard to get into at the beginning. But I find her writing absorbing, a little while after I get going. Parable of the Sower is a post-apocalyptic novel, which is exactly what I'm in the mood for right now. It's very of-the-moment, as it's supposed to be taking place in 2024. It's about an empath who decides to follow a new religion that is very sci fi, rather than the traditional one her family follows.

The book has also been made into a graphic novel, but I decided to go for the written version with this book rather than the graphic one. I've gone with the graphic novel version for several of the books I've read lately, and I think it's time to get back to some words - and only words - and let my imagination do the visualizing.

I would just like to take the opportunity to thank all who contributed to this thread. You've given me many hours of reading pleasure with your suggestions.
Thank You!!

Isabel Wilkerson (2010)
 

The Warmth of Other Suns

--Synopsis--

The Warmth of Other Suns tells the story of the Great Migration, the movement of Black Americans out of the Southern United States to the Midwest, Northeast, and West from approximately 1915 to 1970. Throughout the twentieth century, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering cities, America and the American people.

With historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.

http://also.kottke.org/misc/images/w...suns-cover.jpg

~~>>> Personal note: I have read this book a few years ago and because of conversations I encounter on a daily basis, with clients, I find Wilkerson's book a historical significance in educating others whose own private knowledge is lacking in factual evidence. :blueheels:

The Unfortunate SideEffects Of Heartbreak & Magic
 

I’m only a few pages into this book, but I like the story already.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/b...eanne-randall/

I've only read the first three chapters of A Book of Life by Peter Kingsley. Honestly, I'm only reading it because it was recommended by Mayim Bialik as her favorite book this year. I haven't yet decided if it's deeply insightful or just sophomorically navel gazing. I'm going to give it at least a few more chapters before I decide if it's worth my time.

The Brothers Karamazov

Like The Jerry Springer Show set in late Tsarist Russia.

The story follows Fyodor Karazamov, his three (probably four) sons, and the women they get mixed up with.

Oldest son Dmitri is engaged but falls for Grushenka, who is also seeing his father.

Middle son Ivan is brilliant and has several key scenes in the book but starts falling for Dmitri's fiance and slips into madness as a result.

Alyosha, the youngest of the "definite" sons, is in a monastery and has the highest moral compass of the entire bunch. He oversees a scene where some boys are throwing rocks at another boy, an event that throws him into spiritual and moral distress for the rest of the book. So does the death of his beloved mentor fairly early on.

Smerdyakov is a servant but it's pretty much a given that he is Fyodor's son.

This is a Russian novel, so no one comes out right. The key event is a Perry Mason-like murder, where most of the characters had motive. Should you wade into this book, don't get attached to the boy whom the bullies were throwing rocks at.

All that said, I love it. Anna Karenina on deck.

I’m more in a comfort zone place so some royal romance of jenny frame and tokyo chaos by Anne rambach

“You’re only as strong as your weakest link” (Granovetter).
 

I’m actually spending time reading back on essays and study’s I wrote during the SOU years and the few short years I was in grad school.

One of the most interesting propositions we discussed in a sociology studies course was the proposition suggested by Sociologist Mark Granovetter who wondered about the strong and weak links he saw in social settings.

Mark Granovetter suggested that the health of any society can be measured in terms of how well a society took care of all its members. Granovetter once said that a society was only as strong as its weakest link.

Which… makes me appreciate the rationale offered by Ram Dass “We’re just walking each other home.

Developing compassion and empathy for others is something we all benefit from. I sure wish we saw this set of choices and behaviors throughout social settings.

The good stuff ☺️
 

I’m going to defer to my winter time reading classics by Charles Dickens:

1) A Tale of Two Cities
2) A Christmas Carol

And….

3) Oliver Twist.

Reading Now
 

The monthly magazine all about my birth place. Has great stories and gorgeous pictures plus things to buy, clothes and foodstuff. Makes me not miss home so much.

Oh, I’ve always been an avid reader. But I’ve noticed I really cut down sharply. Some of it was because of the Internet and social media. Some of it was because of my outdoor time in the gardens. But most of it was because of work. It consumed my day. And it drained me. I needed light stuff after work and the type of things I like to read are intense. Mostly serial killer and true crime stuff. But now that I’ve laid off, I found myself going to Barnes & Noble and picking up a few books on that genre. I’ve got a really good book going that talks about several serial, killers, and how they were caught. And I’ve got a great book on the mother of forensic science!

Well, I’ve finally decided to pick up and read this one book that I’ve been meaning to read for many years now….. Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove”.

It’s over 800 pages long and the movie version, with Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Tim Scott, Diane Lane and a host of more top names has always been one of my most favorite and treasured western movies. My mother had read the book years ago and she just raved about it and said that the book was unquestionably better than the movie. That’s usually the case but this book, especially so.

So, here I go, bookworms!! Wish me luck!!! 😉👍

~Theo~ :bouquet:

I read Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson and I loved it. I so much enjoy the way he explains things. He's so personable and easygoing.

Reading now.
 

The Tudors by G.J. Meyer is Meyers research into the famous period in Britian when France overthrew the British crown and ruled for 50 years during the 1400s until his son Henry V111 rose up and took all in his sight even downing the Catholic Church and seperating Englands power to The Church of England. If there is interest in this era it is quite exposure to the truth behind the throne.

Holly by Stephen King. My client let me borrow it. I forgot what a wonderfully descriptive writer King is…

I just finished listening to a wonderful 12-part PODCAST called "Ride of Passage". It's the story of a young man in his early 20s who rode his horse alone across America, from the west coast to the east coast. Actually, there were several horses and one mule, and it took him about three years to make the trip.

Of course, if you're a horse-loving person, you absolutely must listen to this podcast. If you're otherwise on the fence about listening to it, Matt's adventures are engrossing, from the physical hardships of the journey to the mental trials to emotional triumphs . We meet all kinds of people along the way, most helpful and kind (but a few not). We hear about Matt's solitude and lessons about life, horses, people and himself. I'm a little sad that the podcast is over, and I highly suggest listening to it.

It was produced by Michigan Public Radio, and you should be able to find "Ride of Passage" about Matt Parker wherever you usually find your podcasts.

I spent the afternoon reading a 92 page court document which documented the many ways that a particular person and members of their family defrauded the banking industry, real estate industry and made a mockery of the fine art of accounting. This court document may well become part of text book case law on the many ways con artists commit fraud by moving the goal posts and deliberately lying about all things those in the field of accounting consider cardinal sins worthy of being barred for a lifetime or more.

Three cheers for the judge, his staff, the state of New York and the Office of The Attorney General for their hard work in holding the orange weasel and his co-conspirators accountable.

Today, because as Americans we are experiencing horrific levels of Dis- and Mis-information and also because democracy is under attack by a once-revered political party (the GOP, Republican Party) — the political party that hates social order, they hate immigrants, they hate anybody who is not white, they’re in love with lining their pockets with ill gotten means of income, they hate paying taxes, they just plain hate anybody that does not swallow their load of toxic bullshit, I am reading a post made by a law professor from George Mason University, concerning the most worst dictators who have committed mass murders and starved people to death or just horrifically done brutal things to others, just so they can be “powerful.”

Here is Ilya Somin’s (George Mason Law Professor) post: https://fee.org/articles/who-was-the...er-in-history/


And soon, over on a major news outlet, I’m going to read how a federal court judge denied T——p’s latest request to delay his comeuppance for lying about his taxes and business dealings since the early 1980s (decades of intentional lying).

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trum...y?id=107433418

I need some bubble gum for my brain - something not taxing, something relaxing, something comforting. So I am re-reading an old favorite, Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey. Basically a fairy tale, which I have always loved.

I’m reading “The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah. It was given to me by a coworker who is also an avid reader.

I had complained the other day that I day that I don’t read enough fiction and she brought it in for me!

It’s a historical fiction based on 1930s Northern Texas just before the Dust Bowl. I’m loving it thus far.