LHC #260: "Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels" by Katherine Anne Porter. I put this on my list because of my ongoing writing project about a pandemic, but that was two years ago and I've barely worked on that project in the last year to be honest. Question for myelf: Why am I so afraid of reading old things? I had trepidation about this, but in fact it was a delight. Not sure these would count as novels these days, as I read each one basically on a bus ride to/from dance class.
LHC #261: "Run, Hide, Repeat: A memoir of a fugitive childhood" by Pauline Dakin. eBook. I wanted something less stressful because Klara and the Sun was getting me down, and a whole lot of things had a waitlist, so I chose this. I spent most of the book wondering which character was going to wind up with what mental disorder, very satisfying. Good read.
LHC #262: "The Mountain in the Sea" by Ray Nayler. eBook. I wanted this one because it was the next longest on the list, but it had a two-week wait. However, in my experience, Two weeks means soon, and Soon means a couple of hours. This actually appeared in four hours. Anyway, I devoured it, really good book, totally all-in on its themes. The characters were all so alienated!
"Study for Obedience" by Sarah Bernstein. Office book club selection. Audio book. I think I need to not listen to some of these things on audiobook,, it's starting to get me down. Unfortunately they're a great way to get through all this fair isle knitting.
LHC #263: "The Silk Road" by Kathryn Davis. I read her The Walking Tour a very long time ago. I must have been able to follow it better than this, because I remember liking it. This had some outstanding sentences, paragraphs, chapters even, but I had no idea what was going on. I read some Amazon reviewers afterwards, and other than the people who were clearly reviewing a completely different book, I wasn't alone.
LHC #264: "Opium Fiend" by Steven Martin. eBook. Not as distressing as I expected, though I suppose to some extent most of the book is about dabbling and he's not really much of a fiend. This was on my list for the same reason as #260 above, and it didn't disappoint.
"Fire Weather" by John Vaillant. Recommended by my director at work, so we kind of made our own little team book club. I set it up as a race between the ebook and the audio book, and was pretty happy that the audio book won on Overdrive, because it's non-fiction. Pretty long, though. It didn't hurt that I think I'm pretty well politically aligned with the author. Totally glad I read it. Would recommend.