What are you reading?

Posted by alive @alive, Jan 9, 2022

What books do you want to read this year? I’ve just gotten on a waitlist at my local library to borrow Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. There are 7 copies available and I’m 42nd on the list, so I should be able to get this book by the end of the year. 😂

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Just Want to Talk Support Group.

Another unforgettable book is Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follet. Also a war story. Also amazingly good.

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@hopeful33250

For @contentandwell and others who like to read WWII novels, I'd highly recommend, The Light After the War, by Anita Abriel. While it is a novel, it is based on the true experiences of the author's mother and her mother's best friend. It chronicles how these two young women survived after thinking that their entire family had been lost at Auschwitz. It's hard to put down once you've started it. Here is an interview by the author which might help you understand the background of the book, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYj_AgTM00U

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Thanks, @hopeful33250 That definitely sounds like a future read for me.

A book that really touched me and that was about a topic I was totally unaware of is "Surviving the Forest".
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43906443

It is based on a true story and is really heart-wrenching to read what many Jewish people had to endure during WW2. I would highly recommend it.

There are a number of other WW2 books that I have found very worthwhile to read also but this one really struck me.
JK

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@chistiania

@pml

Thank you for your very interesting review. Little did I know that they even had "whites only" streets and grocery stores in Mississippi as late as the sixties!

What amazes me and scares me, is that many so-called reasonable people - in our time -seriously have suggested taking part of this history out of children's history books pretending ugly things never took place in this country.

Your book made me think of a beautiful film called: "The green book".
In it, the two main characters are an extremely talented black musician and an Italian immigrant to the United States. The movie is based on a true story. It shows us how two very different kinds of human beings can develop warm and lasting relationships. - And how this friendship between them is evolving and grows over the course of the years and how it lasts until the end of their lives.

It starts with the fact that the Italian guy needs a job, and the musician needs somebody to work for him – who can take care of his business, become his manager, assist him, and drive him around during his many concerts in the South.

The film is also an authentic description of all the terrible treatment this black musician gets (he is a famous musician, but I just can’t recall his name right now) gets from the whites who, on the one hand, come to his concerts to enjoy his music, but on the other, they discriminate terribly against him because he is black.

It is a well-played movie, and also a very sad, intense, and amazing (to me) piece of American history. In addition, it is an important but also funny, and encouraging contribution to breaking down prejudice and contrasting injustice.

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Christiania:
You are so right about how they shouldn't take "ugly issues" out of children's books or anyone's for that matter. Everyone needs to know what really happened whether it was good or bad and why it was good or bad. I like reading original manuals written by the person themself. Samuel Pepys Diary is a good example.

The Green Book sounds like an interesting movie! Was the black musician Louis Armstrong?

Keep reading! It's so much more fulfilling than today's TV shows!
PML

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@pml

Christiania:
You are so right about how they shouldn't take "ugly issues" out of children's books or anyone's for that matter. Everyone needs to know what really happened whether it was good or bad and why it was good or bad. I like reading original manuals written by the person themself. Samuel Pepys Diary is a good example.

The Green Book sounds like an interesting movie! Was the black musician Louis Armstrong?

Keep reading! It's so much more fulfilling than today's TV shows!
PML

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Dear @pml,
It was not Armstrong but an extremely talented black pianist, whose name I still can't recall :<

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@colleenyoung

Laurie, that's quite the line-up of great Canadian authors. I'm a fellow lover of all the authors you mention, however these are all titles I haven't yet read. Guess what I just added to my list?

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@colleenyoung Hey Colleen, it's so good to know you're another lover of Canadian authors!
There are so many outstanding Canadian writers. As I mentioned in my previous post, I particularly search out the winners of awards and/or best sellers, and can hardly ever go wrong. I do read works by many American and British authors but my preference is to find those gems written by some of our own brilliant wordsmiths.
And all these days later, I'm still slogging my way through Jane Urquhart 's "A Map of Glass" but intend to stay with it to the finish line. Not capturing my interest.

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I've found a book by Charles Dickens that I haven't read, "The Uncommercial Traveler", written in 1861. By reading the book, I discovered that "uncommercial" meant that he was not a traveling salesman. The main character of the book is a man who travels around England and surrounding areas to observe what life was really like from work houses for the poor, to tramps, (Their name for homeless.), nurses and doctors, average families etc. Of course being set in 1861 travel was by horse and buggy or carriage, train or foot which makes for a very interesting book.

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@adr

Another unforgettable book is Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follet. Also a war story. Also amazingly good.

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Great enjoyable book, would read to my seniors at assisted living facility. Great discussions facilitating communication from individuals who lived in Europe during WW II.

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@yani2023

Great enjoyable book, would read to my seniors at assisted living facility. Great discussions facilitating communication from individuals who lived in Europe during WW II.

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OOPS, my comment was meant for Book Surviving the Forrest, Sorry about this.'

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Here are some great book many of us seniors have read:

Woman of Substance/Barbara Taylor
Celestine Prophecy/ James Redfield
Any of Elizabeth Allende's Books. Magical Realism. Her father was cousin to Salvador Allende Chile

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I love reading books! I have a Nook Book program on my tablet but I really like reading real books! When life gets a little crazy and unpredictable like it has lately, I find a quiet time and read a book. I'm currently re-reading the Diary of Samuel Pepys written in 1659. It takes you back to a very different time from what we are living in now; no computers or TV, no radio and very few books or newspapers! More importantly, no inside toilets! People often had to kill dinner. (It was a normal thing to do then.) Also you ate what was in season; berries in July, apples in September and beef when it was grown. Everyone went hunting and often with only knives. Guns were very uncommon. Samuel Pepys was a clerk for the Queen's Navy. His escapades in London were very interesting; losing his new belt in an outhouse, suffering the rain because he forgot his hat and umbrellas hadn't been invented! Put that together with his pet lion, Growly who got so big he had to put him in the zoo, life was interesting in 1659 but not always fun.

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