What are you reading in 2025?

[Tradd]

I'm about 60% done with the Red Scare book. It is VERY appropriate to what we are currently going through.

[hana]

Finished A Murder to Die For by Russell Cooper. Cecil and Ambrose being creatures of habit peruse the Classifieds section of The Sunday Time as they used it in their careers as Mi-6 analysts, they see a coded message from a deceased Russian spy complete with a meeting in a posh London restaurant. Turns out Boris the spy is very much alive and asking for their help solving a twenty year old murder of a teenage girl in an all girls academy.

This time a teacher was tried and convicted of her murder. Boris claims the former teacher is innocent and has proof.

Fun witty banter, cold war intrigue, and the local bake off.

[catherine]

I'm almost done with the nonfiction book I mentioned--Against the Machine--but I'm simultaneously listening to Lessons in Chemistry on my daily walks. I've had it on Kindle for a long time, but never really got into it after only a chapter or two. At my annual gathering with my college friends, one of them raved about it, so I started listening to it. Midway through, and I really like it. I think a lot of women my age would appreciate how well the author characterizes what it was like to be a female in the 50s. Aside from that, the story is really compelling.

[rosarugosa]

I'm almost done with the nonfiction book I mentioned--Against the Machine--but I'm simultaneously listening to Lessons in Chemistry on my daily walks. I've had it on Kindle for a long time, but never really got into it after only a chapter or two. At my annual gathering with my college friends, one of them raved about it, so I started listening to it. Midway through, and I really like it. I think a lot of women my age would appreciate how well the author characterizes what it was like to be a female in the 50s. Aside from that, the story is really compelling.

It wasn't The Great American Novel or anything, but I thought it was a fun read.

[nswef]

Midnight on the Potomac not the kind of book I am drawn to. Non fiction Civil War...but I am finding it interesting and learning some things I didn't know. One is that Sherman's march to the sea dragged along thousands of newly emancipated families who ended up helping. It is written well for non history buffs.

[pinkytoe]

Hope by Jane Goodall and Place of Tides by James Rebanks.

[rosarugosa]

I tried to read The Goddess of Warsaw by Lisa Barr. It got so many rave reviews, like people commenting that they had read dozens and dozens of WWII books and this was the absolute best! It started out so badly that I had to look up those reviews again to reassure myself, but yup, that seemed to be the consensus, so I continued plodding along. I threw in the towel on page 45. She lost me at "... the want in his cold nipples -- erect like twin arrowheads against a smattering of golden chest hairs."
It was way too reminiscent of the steamy romances I read in junior high, like a bodice ripper with Nazis, like Kathleen Woodiwiss meets Kristin Hannah. I personally have nothing against nipples, but this is just bad writing!

[KayLR]

Omg, Rosa! LOL! Frankly I look askance at anything with "Goddess" in the title.

[early morning]

Just finished The Hallmarked Man (Galbraith/Rowling). I'm pretty much a fan of the series. Also read The Red Queen (Martha Grimes). While I have read and enjoyed all of her previous books, this one was terrible. I don't think she wrote it (she's 93, I think) - it certainly wasn't the voice I was expecting based on past novels. The story is bland and confusing at the same time, well-loved characters are flat, and the editing was atrocious.

[Tradd]

Just finished Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 50th anniversary of the sinking is next month this one has interviews with family members and former crew of the Fitz who worked years before she sank.