WWW Wednesday – February 23, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

I just started Mercy by David Baldacci (2021) about FBI agent, Atlee Pine, who has been searching through three previous books for her twin sister, Mercy, abducted at the age of six and never seen again. In previous books, Atlee solved FBI-related crime, as is required by her day job, but also pursued red herrings and learned that her family had lied to her about the circumstances around the abduction. She has finally found an actual trail she hopes will lead to her sister – if she is still alive after so many years.

Lusitania by Erik Larson (2010) was the kind of book that is so fascinating you want to talk about it the whole time you are reading.  Or afterward, as you may have noticed! There were many interesting vignettes but perhaps the most astonishing thing is how long it took the United States to join the war after the Lusitania was sunk, killing 128 Americans. Although there was outrage over the incident, President Wilson encouraged a policy of neutrality for another two years.

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey (2021), a debut crime novel that got a lot of review attention at the end of the year. Hazel, an unemployed aspiring writer in an unhappy marriage, is living in a Midwest city with the highest crime rate in the state and a rising suicide rate to match. When she gets a job transcribing police reports on the night shift, she gets a front-row seat to the violence and becomes obsessively interested in a police detective with a troubled past.  This wound up being too noir for me.

I also read Kate Hardy by D.E. Stevenson (1947), one of the Furrowed Middlebrow reprints I recently purchased. As sometimes happens with her books, I think I’ve never read it, then halfway through I realize I know exactly what’s going to happen. It was delightful regardless.

Over Presidents' Day, I also read The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly (2021), the fourth book about Harry Bosch and Renée Ballard. I am really enjoying their collaboration and while I am glad to report Renée got an apartment and stopped sleeping on the beach, the bad news is that she wakes up one night to find a killer in her bedroom. She has an eventful life and some of her worst enemies are those who work with her.

What do you think you’ll read next?

My Radcliffe Reading Group chose This Is Happiness by Niall Williams (2019) for March. It is a coming of age story set in a part of Ireland that is about to get electricity: “Williams has painted a lush, wandering portrait of Faha, a village back in time in County Clare, Ireland, a place also featured in his previous novel, ‘History of the Rain,’ which was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize.” There is always someone who wants to read a brand new book that has a thousand holds at the library, so sometimes it is prudent to agree to another option.

Last night my sister passed along Gone for Good by Joanna Schaffhausen, the first in a new series. I’d read an earlier book, All the Best Lies, a couple of years ago and shared it with her and she has continued with the author.

I have never read Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954), famously about a group of boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their attempt to govern themselves, but I picked up a copy last summer with an afterword by Lois Lowry. Maybe now is the time!
 
Have you read any of these?