WWW Wednesday – November 1

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

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

During my commute, I am listening to Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson (2023). Jackson is an editor at Knopf who wrote a contemporary novel set in Brooklyn about affluent New Yorkers and the middle-class woman from Providence who marries into a rich and very snooty family. So far it is very entertaining. The author went to high school with my coworker Katy so I have been trying to persuade her to read it so we can discuss all the over-the-top bits, specifically the mother-in-law who arrives to dinners with the food and wine she thinks her daughter-in-law should be serving, along with table decorations. There is nothing the publishing industry likes better than promoting one of its own, resulting in this book becoming a bestseller.

I am currently reading The Innocent by Harlen Coben (2006), which I picked up from a TBR pile to read while in line getting yet another Covid booster. Before I turned off the light last night, I had devoured half the book! It is about a young man who tried to break up a fight at a frat party while in college, and accidentally caused someone’s death. He spent four years in prison but, nine years later, thinks he has rebuilt his life with a job as a paralegal, a lovely wife, and a new home under agreement. Then he receives an email with compromising images of his wife and his hopeful world disintegrates.  I am enjoying this early book by Coben much more than some he has written recently.

Recently Finished

I reread The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart for the #1962 Club but decided to review some other books instead, although it is definitely a favorite. Like many of her books, it is about a young woman in a foreign country – here, Crete – who falls into adventure and romance.  My review.

Blackthorn Winter by Kathryn Reiss (2006) is a young adult mystery about teen Juliana who moves from California to England with her artist mother and two younger siblings. Soon after they arrive, their mother’s friend who arranged their visit is killed in their rented home. Juliana, who is adopted, starts having strange memory flashes as she tries to solve the mystery of Liza’s death and her own origins. I picked this up at a library book sale recently, having enjoyed Time Windows by this author years ago.

The Air Raid Book Club by Annie Elliott (2023) was a sappy, derivative story about a bookstore owner in London who takes in a German refugee and, together, they tame all their difficult neighbors. While it is possible that there were book discussions in air raid shelters, I doubt they were as systematic as this and I somehow doubt these stiff upper lip Brits were dashing about hugging and first-naming each other throughout the war. No mention of paper shortages, which I think a bookstore owner would notice (I noticed and I wasn’t even there!), and hardly any discussion of the prejudice that might have awaited the German teen, even if she was a Jewish refugee.

Next Up

Someone (please remind me who, if it was you!) recently told me she started reading children’s author Kate DiCamillo because of Ann Patchett’s recent essay collection, These Precious Days (2021), which devotes a whole chapter to her. Curious, I picked it up at the library for Nonfiction November.

I plan to read Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons, the Newbery winner in 1995, for the de Grummond book group. It is described as a heartwarming novel about one family's adventure-filled move from the city to rural Maine, and an unexpected bond between one girl and a very ornery cow. Creech was the first American to win the Carnegie Medal for British children's books (but why not keep it for British writers?) with Ruby Holler, a fantasy featuring orphaned twins.

What is on your TBR for November?  Anything that will take monumental effort?  Maybe something relaxing and fun?