WWW Wednesday Nov. 28, 2018

Boy, it’s been a bit – so I decided to jump in on WWW Wednesday this month and catch up with one of my favorite past times.

Reading!

The Three W’s for WWW Wednesday are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Right now, I am reading Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford.  To be honest, it is “the rebound book” so it has its work cut out for it.  I just finished a great book that was hard to leave – which always makes the next book carry the weight of the loss. But I have enjoyed some of Richard Ford’s work in the past, and thought this one looked on point as something that I would enjoy. It has the little award emblem I like, and it is less than 300 pages.  So far, so good – it has done a fine job keeping me entertained with its story and allowing me to literally move on.

What did you recently finish reading?

So what was the book that left me  proclaiming “Now this!  This right here is a good book!”

It was the The Alice Network by Kate Quinn.  I have an Achilles heel for books set in WWI and WWII war-time and tell the story of the heroes and heroines that rise above fear, putting their lives on the line to save others.  This book checked all the boxes.   From Goodreads:

“In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.”

Before this book I read Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum.  I also really enjoyed this book.  It followed the life of New Orleans and also the life of nine New Orleans who lived through the cities hurricanes.  From Goodreads:

After Hurricane Katrina, Dan Baum moved to New Orleans to write about the city’s response to the disaster for The New Yorker. He quickly realized that Katrina was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans, not by a long shot. The most interesting question, which struck him as he watched residents struggling to return, was this: Why are New Orleanians—along with people from all over the world who continue to flock there—so devoted to a place that was, even before the storm, the most corrupt, impoverished, and violent corner of America?

Here’s the answer. Nine Lives is a multivoiced biography of this dazzling, surreal, and imperiled city through the lives of nine characters over forty years and bracketed by two epic storms: Hurricane Betsy, which transformed the city in the 1960’s, and Katrina, which nearly destroyed it. These nine lives are windows into every strata of one of the most complex and fascinating cities in the world.

Before that, I read World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.  As much as I love a good post apocalyptic story, this one didn’t do it for me.  The problem I found (for me) was their was no protagonist.  There wasn’t a character I was rooting for.  The book was series of interviews (although harrowing accounts of the zombie war) I found it hard to become invested.  Overall, I liked the

book, but in that particular category, the book fell a little short for me.

Before THAT – I finished Pachinko by, Min Jin Lee.  I really loved the story – unfortunately with this book, life got in the way.  As much as I wanted to sit down and read, I was driving kids all over God’s green earth and it took me longer to finish.  But the book was thoroughly enjoyable and I would completely recommend this book

What do you think you’ll read next?

I THINK I will read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Here’s the deal with this bad boy.  This book has been sitting in my pile of “to read” books on my nightstand, turned OVER, for one reason.  I mean, c’mon…..Look at this cover!  This is a cover that screams “I AM GOING TO RIP YOUR HEART OUT!” I read books sight unseen and without reading the covers – I go by reviews only.  And it was highly reviewed.  So, I got the book, read the title saw the picture and turned the thing over with an “Uh-oh” look on my face.  I think it might be time to just move this one off the nightstand and barrel through!

Thank you guys at Taking on a World of Words for  WWW Wednesday – I really enjoy to share and to read what others are reading!