by Anthony Doerr.

Jury still out. Really liked his All the Light We Cannot See.

All the Light We Cannot See as one of my favorite books of all time. Highly recommend it!

I'm still reading "Watership Down" (slow reader, lol). But Friday I bought a hard cover copy of Origin by Dan Brown at a rummage sale for $1. So that one will be next!

is truly a remarkable and memorable book. About Grace is rather long, 400 p, so I'd like to hear what you thought of it after you've finished, should you feel so inclined.

This is only the second book by him that I have read, but I really enjoyed "Noir," so I picked this one up. Extremely funny in places. Characters range from fake Rasta's to other-worldly life forms. It's a hoot so far.

one of the funniest writers I've ever encountered. I highly recommend Secondhand Souls and hope to read every one of his books asap.

it is a story about the destruction of America as a world power.

Sorry for the highjack. I just couldn't help it.

History repeats itself but many don't seem to have learned from it.

I'm reading The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Someone recced it here a while back. It's very good. It feels true to the late Victorian time it evokes. It's wise book about important things like love and myth and science and the unexpected turning in human relationships Highly recommended.

Nice. I'm looking forward to reading her, too. The Essex Serpent got several nominations for best novel that year and was named Waterstones Book Of The Year 2016 (whoever they are ). She gets high praise for her Gothic stylings.

"We have proverb in Florida...You know why it's good to be on beach?"

Bill smiles, but says nothing. He wants the guy to keep talking.

"Because on beach you are surrounded by idiots on only three sides."

"And on the remaining side you have what?" asks Bill.

"Sharks..."

Paul Goldberg, the acclaimed author of The Yid, takes us behind the scenes of a Florida condo board election, delivering a wild spin on Miami Beach, petty crime, Jewish identity, and life in Trump's America.

It is January 2017 and Bill has hit rock bottom. Yesterday, he was William M. Katzenelenbogen, successful science reporter at The Washington Post. But things have taken a turn. Fired from his job, aimless, with exactly $1,219.37 in his checking account, he learns that his college roommate, a plastic surgeon known far and wide as the “Butt God of Miami Beach,” has fallen to his death under salacious circumstances. With nothing to lose, Bill boards a flight for Florida’s Gold Coast, ready to begin his own investigation―a last ditch attempt to revive his career.

There’s just one catch: Bill’s father, Melsor.

Melsor Yakovlevich Katzenelenbogen―poet, literary scholar, political dissident, small-time-crook―is angling for control of the condo board at the Château Sedan Neuve, a crumbling high-rise in Hollywood, Florida, populated mostly by Russian Jewish immigrants. The current board is filled with fraudsters levying “special assessments” on residents, and Melsor will use any means necessary to win the board election. And who better to help him than his estranged son?

As he did in The Yid, Paul Goldberg has taken something we think we know and turned it on its ear. Featuring a colorful cast of characters, The Château guarantees that you will never look at condo boards, crime, kleptocracy, vodka, Fascism, or Florida the same way again.

That sounds like a lot of fun!

https://m.

From The Beastie Boys - Ill Communication (1994)

Really liked it a lot.
And now - Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King! Very excited.

I think Ms. King wrote this as a commentary on what's going on with our politics (which is commendable), but it wasn't one of her vast, get-lost-in-another-world books. Hopefully she's working away at her next one.

In Gods of Howl Mountain, award-winning author Taylor Brown explores a world of folk healers, whiskey-runners, and dark family secrets in the high country of 1950s North Carolina.

Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood - a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted '40 Ford coupe. Between deliveries to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients, he lives with his formidable grandmother, evades federal agents, and stokes the wrath of a rival runner.

In the mill town at the foot of the mountains - a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing - Rory is bewitched by the mysterious daughter of a snake-handling preacher. His grandmother, Maybelline “Granny May” Docherty, opposes this match for her own reasons, believing that "some things are best left buried." A folk healer whose powers are rumored to rival those of a wood witch, she concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains while harboring an explosive secret about Rory’s mother - the truth behind her long confinement in a mental hospital, during which time she has not spoken one word. When Rory's life is threatened, Granny must decide whether to reveal what she knows...or protect her only grandson from the past.

With gritty and atmospheric prose, Taylor Brown brings to life a perilous mountain and the family who rules it.

Now that school is over, it's time to get caught up.

King's run on Batman is fantastic. Also very excited about the presence of Bendis, Aaron, Zadarsky, Snyder, and Young in new comic runs.

Let me know if you do too.

last night. And yes, I absolutely loved the ending and sure did not see THAT coming. It made struggling through those outlandish events worthwhile. (A robot "goes limp." Seriously?)