It's June, what are you reading this month?

[Misfit]

[quote=""Madeleine""]Yes, with Parker Stevenson [/quote]

That's it.

Almost done with Daughter of Deceit by V. Holt. I was all excited over the pre WWI France setting promised in the blurb, but I have less than 100 pages to go and the only sabre rattling taking place is between Napoleon III and Bismark.

[Madeleine]

I've just started "Jeremy Poldark", number 3 in the series, by Winston Graham.

[Berengaria]

[quote=""Misfit""]Ouch! I remember watching The Partridge Family wen it was in prime time. David Cassidy and brother Shaun are the sons of actor Jack Cassidy. IIRC, Shirley Jones (The Music Man) was the second wife, and not their natural mother. David was quite the heart throb back in the day, along with Davy Jones (The Monkees), Bobby Sherman (TV show Here Come The Brides) and of course Leonard Whiting from Romeo and Juliet. Be still my heart [/quote]
I used to watch The Partridge Family. In fact, I named my elder daughter Kaitlin, because he had a daughter named thus. I also remember watching I Love Lucy as a girl. Now I've really dated myself, eh? lol

[Berengaria]

I have started reading The Outlander series. I had tried the first book before, but I couldn't get into it. But now, several years later, I'm more interested! I will see where this goes!

[Ludmilla]

Been reading mainly older books this summer. Finished Against All Frontiers by Emma Drummond and The Burning Lamp by Frances Murray over the weekend and have just started The Heroine's Sister, also by Murray.

[fljustice]

Started In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women, a collection by Alice Walker. I needed a break and literary short stories are a great way to clean the palate. I've been slogging through an Oscar Wilde bio by one of his contemporaries and trying to understand why it feels like a college reading assignment. I finally concluded it's the dated style, language choices, and emphasis on Wilde's trials and punishment for homosexual acts. Written over a century ago, the author's high minded discourses on art, genius, and the barbarity of the British legal system are the least interesting parts of Wilde's story for me. This book is interesting for it's historicity, but I'll be looking for another, more modern, bio to learn more about Wilde's life and talent.

[annis]

Loved Harry Sidebottom's Ballista series, but am finding his latest a real slog, which might yet end up on the DNF pile. Ballista is historical adventure, but the first in his new Iron & Rust series is more political thriller, with events surrounding the elevation to the purple of soldier-emperor Maximinus Thrax seen from the POV of multiple protagonists scattered throughout different parts of the Roman Empire. Historical political thrillers can work - Robert Harris' An Officer and a Spy is a great example - but Iron & Rust doesn't cut the mustard. And despite the regular appearances of sex, violence and treachery, it comes across more as old-fashioned narrative history than Game of Thrones.

I was impressed by the fluidity and pace of Ballista and thought, "Hooray, an academic historian who's cracked it as a historical fiction author." Unfortunately Sidebottom has reverted to academic type and not been able to resist the temptation to lecture his readers in Iron & Rust. "Yeah, nah" as we say in NZ. Bad idea, Harry.

[Misfit]

After wall-banging two western romances, I'm hoping for better luck with The World From Rough Stones by Malcom MacDonald. A book I've owned for a while, but the tiny font was very intimidating. Glad to see it digitalized and in the library.

[fljustice]

Finished Alice Walker's collection of short stories In Love and Trouble (published in 1973). Each story is distinct. A couple felt more like character sketches that Walker would develop later in her novels. Many characters reflected Walker's own experience in the sixties civil rights movement. A few will haunt me. Early on we get "Really, Doesn't Crime Pay?", a story of a pampered, suppressed black woman artist--a cautionary tale for anyone who aspires to be a writer. Walker ends with a particularly sweet story of love, family, and community called "To Hell with Dying." In between we have a desperate mother trying to save her dying child in "Strong Horse Tea," an old woman who meets Jesus in "The Welcome Table," an obsessive wife searching for the woman who stole "Her Sweet Jerome," and a "Diary of an African Nun" reflecting on the nun's choice to turn her back on the life-giving culture of people and turn to the sterile life of a bride of Christ. Altogether this was a short, but satisfying collection of stories about compelling characters.

[Madeleine]

I'm about to start The Shadow Collector by Kate Ellis.