Ink and Paper Blog discussion

Hello everyone! What are you going to be reading in March! I actually have not even decided what I am going to start the month with!! I am thinking of finally diving into Tin Man..... What do you all have planned.?

Hi, Russell!!! Happy March!!
I'm starting off the month with Tom Hanks' book Uncommon Type.
My local library is doing a "blind date with a book".......they had some books wrapped up and displayed on a table with a card attached with just a few words about the book. I selected one that was "captivating, brilliant, moving".... checked it out of the library, took it home and unwrapped it. The title is The Language of Flowers. I'm excited to read this.

Okay... have you all read My Name is Leon!! I’ve started and it’s breaking my heart!!

Yes, I have, it is very good, but as you say, heartbreaking.

I just picked up The Wife Between Us. Commercial thrillers and YA novels have so many holes in their stories, and they're not even gratifying reads all the time - BUT they're easy to polish off in a few hours and they keep the momentum going, so you don't feel this debilitating disconnect from the written word even when you can't absorb content at peak levels.

I really enjoyed my name is Leon. As with many readers, the book broke my heart.
For a debut novel, I found it exceptional.

Just finished White Houses
and now reading The Little Red Chairs
then on to The Green Mile, Part 2: The Mouse on the Mile for a GR book group
then The Unmade World: A Novel

Reading The Idiot by Elif Bautman and Siren of the Waters for a Slovakian fiction challenge by Michael Genelin

Finished and really enjoyed The Immortalists (but go into it expecting literary fiction and not speculative fiction). Listening to In Cold Blood. And DNFed Book of Joan.

I've just started Wonder by R J Palacio. I'm really liking it so far. I know there's movie with Julia Roberts in and I wanted to read the book first. I don't know what I'll be reading next, as I'm such a mood reader and can't stick to a tbr.

I just finished Thunderhead. I loved it but I'm planning to start I Regret Everything tomorrow. I'm also listening to Little Fires Everywhere. I think I'm about two hours in one that book.

I am planning to start the Tin Man too. Recently met Sarah Winman at a Writers Festival, her book sounds amazing. I have read When God was a Rabbit and it stayed with me for months!

Currently reading two very different books : The Cooking Gene by Micheal Twitty and I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. The first is about an African American man who is searching for his roots through DNA, oral history, and cooking. The second I just started but is a ghost story in Iceland so I am looking forward to that! I just finished Shoot to Kill by P.J. Tracy, which is part of the Monkeewrench series.

*Shoot to Thrill by P.J. Tracy, not Shoot to Kill 😣

Currently reading Frankenstein: The 1818 Text. This version has only just been published and is Mary Shelley's original version. I have never read Frankenstein and since 2018 is 200 years since it was published I thought I would give it a go. I am not very far in but am enjoying it so far.

@loralie The Cooking Gene was my first 5⭐️ read this year- so much in that book, not what I expected and I loved it!

Finishing The Idiot, Batuman and reading Beartown by Fredrick Backman translated from the swedish

@Rebecca it hasn’t been what I expected at all! I have learned so much about things that should have been painfully obvious to me and I always love that.

Jody wrote: "Hi, Russell!!! Happy March!!
I'm starting off the month with Tom Hanks' book Uncommon Type...."

Not sure if you have finished it yet or not-but did you like Hank's book?

I wish my library would do a "blind date book" thing. :-(

I am reading...
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma by Michelle Oberman

All Things Bright and Strange by James Markert

I just finished Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi and loved it! I’m still thinking about it as it is an unusual story and a stellar debut.
I’m trying to read We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby for the Squibbles Reads book club but I’m not sure I’m going to make it through this one. So far, (6 essays in) I kind of hate it. It may be a generational thing.

Trying to read We Are Never Meeting in Realy Life too, and kind of hating it too.

Otherwise I'm listening to It by Stephen King (it's more than 44h long so it should take me a while... Especially since I realised that listening to a horror book in bed just before I try to sleep is not the greatest idea. Somehow it's so much worse than just reading it).

And I'm almost done with The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (didn't think I'd be so enthused about this one).

Next I want to say that I'll be reading either the Miseducation of Cameron Post or Half of a Yellow Sun, but I'll probably chose something completely different at the last second.

Paula wrote: "Jody wrote: "Hi, Russell!!! Happy March!!
I'm starting off the month with Tom Hanks' book Uncommon Type...."

Not sure if you have finished it yet or not-but did you like Hank's book?

I wish my li..."

Hi, Paula:

I have not finished Tom Hanks' book yet. I've been very lax at reading this year. It's taking me forever to finish something that I should have completed a few weeks ago. The book is "ok" there are some stories that I enjoy more than others but I think that it needed a little more "oomph".
I heard that B&N were also doing the "blind date with a book", too. Maybe you could check with your library about doing the blind date.
Have a great day!

Ssnakeplissken1997 wrote: "Trying to read We Are Never Meeting in Realy Life too, and kind of hating it too..."
I'm also bogged in We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. I usually love snarky vignette sorta stuff but this one isn't connecting. At all.

Loved The Raven Boys. Also loved the Miseducation of Cameron Post.

Sarahanne wrote: "I'm also bogged in We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. I usually love snarky vignette ..."
For me it's because I feel that her snark stems from a deep-seated anger, and that makes me very uncomfortable. Outrage I understand, outrage I can get behind, because it makes people think, because it leads to action. Anger is just toxic and contagious. Angry people may have a legitimate reason for their anger at first, but I find soon enough they just become angry at everyone and everything. And I really don't need this kind of agressivity in my books...
I also think the "humour" tend to be too much. When the writing is more subdued it's fine, but then in some essays it's just SARCASM JOKE SARCASM SELF-DEPRECATION SARCASM JOOOOOKE.

Ha, I almost chose the Miseducation of Cameron Post. But then I got distracted by something (or nothing) and ended up picking up The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

"Ssnakeplissken1997 wrote: ended up picking up The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Never heard of that one. I'll have to look for it.

The setting, timing, and events in Cameron Post all match up with elements from my childhood. That made it especially intense. The author really capture a childhood in Montana. Some sensations & experiences that I'd long forgotten.

Russell wrote: "Okay... have you all read My Name is Leon!! I’ve started and it’s breaking my heart!!"

I was blissfully ignorant of this book's existence (or I just forgot about it after seeing it around booktube), but I gave it a read after seeing your post. It made me so sad that I felt like something was slowly poking away at my very ...collapsible heart. It was worth it, though. The insight is worth the pain.

I'm currently reading My Name is Leon and slowly working my way through The Underground Railroad. I'm finding The Underground Railroad to be slow but I think a lot of it is just trying to set the scene. I'm going to keep at it though. I'm finding My Name is Leon easier to read (if that's possible given the subject matter) and I hope to have it finished by the end of the weekend.