Mysteries/Thrillers, Part 2

 Mysteries and thrillers are two popular genres, so I'm often asked for my recommendations for mystery and thriller books.  I’ve previously written about some of my favorite mysteries and thrillers, but it’s been a few years, and it’s definitely a genre I get asked about a lot, so it seemed like it was high time for an update!  Some of the authors I had just discovered in 2018 when I wrote those entries have become favorites, and I’ve discovered some new authors and books since then as well.  

GCBC - Fall Reading Roundup

As I've mentioned a few times previously, I am in a book club of sorts that consists of just me and my friend Sarah, which we call, GCBC, which stands for Grand Central Book Club (since we usually meet for lunch at Grand Central).  We used to just pick a book to read occasionally when we had plans to get together, but earlier this year we decided that since we like to read so many of the same books anyway, we might as well coordinate reading them together.  Plus we both seem to derive perhaps as much enjoyment from planning out what we are going to read as we do the actual reading itself!  And since life has been busy and thus conspiring against us getting together, most of the book discussion these days is done over e-mail, which makes it pretty easy to turn it into a blog post to share our views!  So, following is a discussion between us of 12 books we both read this fall.

GCBC - Summer Reading Roundup

As I've mentioned a few times previously on this blog, my friend Sarah and I have a book club that consists of just the two of us.  We call it GCBC, short for Grand Central Book Club, since ideally we meet in person to discuss the books, which we usually do over lunch at Grand Central Terminal.  We used to just pick a book to read together only when we planned to meet, but earlier this year we were discussing books we both wanted to read, and since we're both slightly crazy obsessive types, we compiled a list of books we both wanted to read and started aligning our reading so that we were reading more and more books at roughly the same time, as long as both of us either owned the book or could get it from the library!

So, from mid-June to the beginning of the September, we read a whopping 10 books together!  And unfortunately, various factors conspired against us so we were unable to get together for lunch to discuss.  So, we decided to do just a quick summary of our thoughts on each book, both to share with each other and for the edification of readers of this blog as well!

What I Read on My Weekend Away

This past weekend, thanks to the generosity of my parents who came to my house to stay with my kids, Dan and I had a lovely long weekend away without kids!  People seemed to enjoy my post about what I read on my winter vacation, so I thought you all might also be interested in hearing about what I read on this mini-vacation.  Amazingly, I read (most of) 3 books from Thursday-Sunday!  Luckily for me, I am married to someone who has a compatible idea of what vacation should entail - pretty much minimal activity and total chillaxing.  ;)  Sure, we also swam in the pool, did a little walking around the resort property, got massages, had some great meals, etc. - but we also spent lots of time just reading!

Just one bookshelf in the Library cottage at Winvian

All the rooms at the resort where we were staying are themed.  I'm sure it does not come as a surprise to you that we stayed in the Library cottage!  The picture here is the view from the living area to the bedroom - and that's just one of many bookcases in the room.  The books were certainly an odd assortment.  Most of them seemed to be quite old books, many from the 1930s and 40s - I'm assuming that they were sold/bought in giant lots just for the purpose of decorating.  Interspersed throughout were more recent books that were presumably left behind by previous guests.  I noticed several I have previously read myself  - "All the Missing Girls" by Megan Miranda (enjoyable thriller); "The Address" by Fiona Davis (enjoyable historical fiction); "Fates and Furies" by Lauren Groff (overrated literary fiction); "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith (even more overrated literary fiction).  There was also lots of old Agatha Christie which I had read back in my teenage years.  And a 1947 Bowdoin College yearbook, randomly enough!

What To Read This Summer

As the weather starts to warm up (intermittently, that is), I'm thinking about what I'm going to read this summer.  I'm going to highlight some books that either were recently published or will be published this summer (May through August), and which sound like they'll make good summer reading.   For the purposes of this post, summer reading excludes anything that sounds too heavy or overly literary, but includes books that are either set in the summer or that sound like fun, juicy, reads.   Below you'll find some books that hopefully will fit the bill - a few books I've recently read, and other recent/forthcoming books that I'm hoping/planning to check out this summer.  Dates in parentheses are publication dates.

Book club books

At Passover seder at my parents' house two weekends ago, my dear family friend Liz and I were discussing our respective book clubs and good book club books.  Conveniently, while this question was fresh on my mind, my book club met last week.  Since I happen to have a Goodreads shelf keeping track of all the books we've read as a book club, we also took some time to scroll through the list and talk about the books and discuss which ones were the best.

GCBC: Red Sparrow, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and the Assistants

My friend Sarah and I have a book club composed of just the two of us, which we call GCBC, short for Grand Central Book Club.  Since for various reasons we have had to reschedule our last few lunches and therefore were unable to discuss our books at the actual Grand Central in NYC, we bring to you once again our conversation on the books we have been reading, conducted by e-mail and then edited into this post!

Today, we're discussing 3 books we've read over the past few months:  (1) "Red Sparrow," by Jason Matthews, a spy thriller about a young male CIA agent and a young female Russian agent who end up being assigned to spy on/recruit each other; (2) "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli, a young adult novel about a gay teenage boy who is not yet out to his friends or family, only to an anonymous fellow high school student on the internet whose identity he does not know; and (3) "The Assistants" by Camille Perri,which is kind of a chick lit/satirical novel about the assistant to the CEO of a media empire, who somewhat accidentally ends up in a Robin Hood-esque expense account embezzlement scheme.

Thrillers

Thrillers are a genre I enjoy and often get asked to recommend.  And I can promise you this - I won't call any of these books the next "Gone Girl"!  "Gone Girl" definitely started a craze for a certain kind of thriller - the psychological thriller hinging in part on the question of whether the narrator(s) are reliable, and that is definitely one kind of thriller I'll discuss here - but there are also a number of other categories of thrillers as well.  (Though I'm not going to include legal thrillers, since it's not a sub-genre I usually read.)  As I usually do in my genre posts, I'll focus on books I've really enjoyed and would recommend.  I've read a lot of mediocre and even somewhat crappy thrillers, and while I sometimes enjoy them even when their quality is not fantastic, I'm not going to include them here.  And apparently I really like this genre because I had trouble narrowing this one down.  So if you enjoy this genre, be prepared to add a lot of books to your to-read list!

What I Read on Vacation

I returned home last night from a great week in Mexico with my husband and kids.  I've written before about recommended vacation reading, so I thought this time I'd tell you all about what I read on my vacation!

Yup, that's me reading on the beach!

5 Books That Have Stayed With You

If you had to name 5 books that you have read that have really stayed with you over the years, what would they be?  Not necessarily your top 5 favorite books of all time (I could never pick!), but just the first 5 books that come to mind that have really stuck in your mind for one reason or another.  Here's what came to mind for me today:

1.  The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Probably the reason this middle grade book has stayed with me over the years is because it is likely the book I have read the most times in my life!  I used to read it all the time as a kid, and have read it a few times as an adult.  Just a really great kids' book with an interesting mystery, quirky characters, and lots of surprises.  I volunteer in the school library at my son's elementary school, and I love recommending this book to the older kids.

2.  A Widow For One Year by John Irving

I don't think I can remember the last sentence of any other book, including the book I finished reading yesterday - but more than 18 years after reading "A Widow For One Year," I still vividly recall the last sentence of this book and just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. John Irving's books vary wildly in quality, and some of his more recent books seem almost like a parody of a John Irving book.  This one isn't his most famous, but is my favorite of his.  Somewhat less weirdness than his other books and just really indelible characters.

3.  The Passage by Justin Cronin

This book (and the subsequent 2 books in the trilogy) are among my favorites of all time.  I read it six and a half years ago and when my daughter read it earlier this year I could discuss it with her for the most part as if I had just read it - I can still name pretty much every character in the book and most of the plot points.  Long and totally crazy hard to describe plot that veers from government conspiracy to vampires to post-apocalyptic craziness, but written in a very literary style.  Just an amazing, can't put-it-down read.

4. Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Another middle grade book, but this one I read for the first time as an adult.  And it is one of the best books I have ever read, better than most adult fiction.  If you somehow never have heard of the book (or the movie adaptation currently in theaters), it's about a boy born with severe facial disfiguration who has been homeschooled and goes to school for the first time in fifth grade, and is just a beautiful story about compassion, friendship, and seeing beyond the surface.

5.  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn and Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

Ok, I'm cheating with this one by naming two books,
but they both fall into the same category - books which are good and well-written but which I wish I could forget because they're so disturbing!  "Dark Places" is about a woman whose family was murdered when she was a girl, and goes back and forth in time between her adult attempts to investigate what really happened, and flashbacks to the time just before - culminating in a description of the massacre of the family that was just so gory and upsetting.  I lent this one to my friend Sarah and when she tried to give it back to me, I refused because I didn't want to have the book in my house!  "Pretty Girls" was picked by my friend Laurie for our book club and while it was a good book, the rest of this in the book club still some times give her grief for picking such a creepy book.  It's a novel about torture porn and murder and still freaks me out every time I think about it.

So those are my 5 (well 6) that sprang to mind today, I'm sure I could easily come up with more!  What books stand out in your mind as those that have stayed with you?