NFR What Are You Reading

[Robert Engleheart]

Really like this thread from the old forum so I’m starting it here. Just finished A Storm Too Soon by Michael Tougias. A true story of disaster, survival and an incredible rescue. Turns out the heroic rescue swimmer is my buddies son in law.

True Rescue: A Storm Too Soon: A Remarkable True Survival Story in 80-Foot Seas (True Rescue Series): Tougias, Michael J., Geyer, Mark Edward: 9781250137579: Amazon.com: Books

True Rescue: A Storm Too Soon: A Remarkable True Survival Story in 80-Foot Seas (True Rescue Series) [Tougias, Michael J., Geyer, Mark Edward] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. True Rescue: A Storm Too Soon: A Remarkable True Survival Story in 80-Foot Seas (True Rescue Series)

www.amazon.com

 

[DoesItFloat]

I just started "West of Here" by Jonathan Evison. It's a historical novel set in and around the Olympic Peninsula. I'm 22 pages in, and it's pretty captivating so far.

West of Here

At the foot of the Elwha River, the muddy outpost of Port Bonita is about to boom, fueled by a ragtag band of dizzyingly disparate men an...

www.goodreads.com

 

[Old Man]

I got a book for Christmas, Called "Stampede''. It's a western, but I haven't even cracked it open yet.

 

[Big Tuna]

Finished A Gentleman in Moscow, now reading The Memory of Old Jack, by Wendell Berry.

 

[Xoxo]

I saw the AMAZON PRIME (Not Netflix as i previously posted) show “The Tender Bar” starring Ben Affleck. I don’t always love Affleck but he was so good in that movie. Then i remembered i had started reading the memoir by JR Moehringer when it came out but never finished it. So i checked it out of the library and read it within a couple of days. On Goodreads i assigned it five stars (which i don’t do unless i really really love a book.) After reading the book though i was sorry that George Clooney didn’t make it into a limited series instead because so much good stuff was left out.

I also just finished “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey” written by Walter Mosley. A limited series is starting March 11 starring Samuel L. Jackson who plays a 90 year old man who is getting dementia. I love just about everything SLJ has been in.

Mosley puts the reader in the addled mind of Ptolemy and it’s so well done that i imagine it must really be sort of like that for people who suffer from Alzheimer’s or dementia.

After his caretaker nephew is killed in a drive by shooting a 17 year old girl takes over his nephew’s role and a beautiful friendship is formed. Ptolemy decides to make a visit to the doctor that his nephew had tried to get him to earlier. The doctor offers an unorthodox treatment that will reverse his dementia for a few months and restore his memory, but the caveat is that at the end of those months he will certainly die. Against his young friend’s wishes he chooses the treatment. (Who wouldn’t?) The book has been compared to Flowers for Algernon, a book i loved in junior high.

 

[Xoxo]

Finished A Gentleman in Moscow, now reading The Memory of Old Jack, by Wendell Berry.

I bought A Gentleman in Moscow but haven’t read it yet because my library holds keep coming up. Did you love it? His new one The Lincoln Highway is supposed to be really good. I think i need to buy that one too. His books are so thick!

 

[Robert Engleheart]

@Jojo, I can’t see the Tender Bar on Netflix, maybe on another stream? Walter Mosley is a gem.

 

[Xoxo]

@Jojo, I can’t see the Tender Bar on Netflix, maybe on another stream? Walter Mosley is a gem.

@Robert Engleheart , what other Mosley books do you recommend? Though i had heard of Walter Mosley, that was my first book but after finishing Ptolemy i immediately placed a hold on “Down the River, Unto the Sea” .

 

[Robert Engleheart]

@Robert Engleheart , what other Mosley books do you recommend? Though i had heard of Walter Mosley, that was my first book but after finishing Ptolemy i immediately placed a hold on “Down the River, Unto the Sea” .

My favorite has to be Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into a movie with Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Jennifer Beals, etc. Post WWII private eye in LA. Prolific author

Walter Mosley - Book Series In Order

Complete order of Walter Mosley books in Publication Order and Chronological Order.

www.bookseriesinorder.com

 

[Mark Melton]

Jojo - You might try his Easy Rawlins series. A really good series with Easy Rawlins as a private eye from the 40s through the 60s. Another good one was Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned which is a series of short stories about a man getting out of prison and the problems he faces.

 

[Big Tuna]

I bought A Gentleman in Moscow but haven’t read it yet because my library holds keep coming up. Did you love it? His new one The Lincoln Highway is supposed to be really good. I think i need to buy that one too. His books are so thick!

I really enjoyed it. The timeline of the book is a little herky-jerky and sometimes it's a little hard to tell where the plot is going, but the main character is delightful. His observations on post-revolution communist Russia I found particularly interesting. His descriptions of food, memories, etc. are quite good. I think it's well worth the read.

 

[Griswald]

Deep River by Karl Marlantes, about Finnish immigrants who settle in PNW around the turn of the 20th century, so far, very good! He also wrote Matterhorn.

 

[Xoxo]

Thanks for the input on the Mosely books. I remember that movie Devil with the Blue Dress. Maybe I’ll try that one next. The Ptolemy book was so great because i just loved the character of the 91 year old man. .

I just checked on Overdrive for checking out his books and so many are readily available without a hold which i think is too bad because i feel like his books should be more widely read, though i am only discovering him myself.

Thanks @Robert Engleheart for the Mosley timeline. I have SO many books on library hold that an average of three a week come up for loan. And while i read a lot, i can’t read THAT fast. Such a great problem to have this time of year! @Griswald i bought Deep River but haven’t read it yet, but i have three friends who loved it. His book are thick! I did read Matterhorn. Bought it in paperback when it first came out and was loving it so much that i packed that very thick and heavy book in my suitcase on a trip to Sedona.

@Big Tuna, i started A Gentleman in Moscow but i got interrupted with another book and then didn’t get back to it. I think the plot of The Lincoln Highway sounds like more fun though so i might read that one first. And like Matterhorn and Deep River, it’s a big one, over 600 pages! I did read a review by someone who wrote it was so good they read it one weekend because it was compulsive reading.

 

[Xoxo]

@Jojo, I can’t see the Tender Bar on Netflix, maybe on another stream? Walter Mosley is a gem.

OOPS… @Robert Engleheart i get this wrong often. The Tender Bar is on Amazon Prime! Not Netflix. Also, thanks for starting this thread!

 

[Smalma]

"Panther" by Roderrick Haig-Brown. Had read any of his work in years and kind of forgotten how great a writer he was!

curt

 

[Buzzy]

Deep River by Karl Marlantes, about Finnish immigrants who settle in PNW around the turn of the 20th century, so far, very good! He also wrote Matterhorn.

I really enjoyed both of these books, he's a great writer.

 

[GLassguy2]

I am reading River Never Sleeps by Roderick Haig Brown.... started it years ago and put it down and forgot how great of a writer he is. Am only getting into it again ...but great. Also am reading Polly Rosborough .. Tying and Fishing the Fuzzy Nymphs. Have read of him in Dave Hughs books for some years as I have read Hughes Wet Flies book like 2 or more times.... and finally found Rosborough's book. Hard to try to translate the materials from that time to present though. Interesting how much cement he used in his nymphs. Only half way through this one though.

 

[Leland Miyawaki]

. . . and there’s a PNW connection.

Leland.

 

[wetline dave]

Just finished "The Devil is Waiting" by Jack Higgins and started "Festive in Death" By J. D. Robb.

Dave

 

[DFG]

Really like this thread from the old forum so I’m starting it here. Just finished A Storm Too Soon by Michael Tougias. A true story of disaster, survival and an incredible rescue. Turns out the heroic rescue swimmer is my buddies son in law.

True Rescue: A Storm Too Soon: A Remarkable True Survival Story in 80-Foot Seas (True Rescue Series): Tougias, Michael J., Geyer, Mark Edward: 9781250137579: Amazon.com: Books

True Rescue: A Storm Too Soon: A Remarkable True Survival Story in 80-Foot Seas (True Rescue Series) [Tougias, Michael J., Geyer, Mark Edward] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. True Rescue: A Storm Too Soon: A Remarkable True Survival Story in 80-Foot Seas (True Rescue Series)

www.amazon.com

If you enjoy this type of stories then check out The serpent's Coil by Farley Mowat. (Actually you can't go wrong with anything he wrote!)

Back when actual books and libraries were a thing my dad would go to the library and start at the beginning of the fiction section and work his way through it. His main criteria were male authors who wrote multiple books about ships, planes, WWII, etc. He read so much that he forgot what he had read, so he started circling the page number that corresponded to his birthday. Before he'd check out a book he'd look to see if he had circled that page number.

Eventually he discovered another reader who did something similar but on a different page number. Their taste seemed so alike that he started considering that other person's circle as a recommendation! I don't think they ever met, but this went on for some time. Eventually he got through the fiction section more than once. (And I thought I read a lot!)