What Fiction are you reading this week, April 13, 2025?

[hermetic]

This discussion thread is pinned.

In memory of japple

She loved tuxedo cats, and books. She talked me into hosting this forum, maybe 10 years ago. She was here almost every Sunday since.

Reading Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow. 198, the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new tool for crime ever invented: the personal computer. An interesting mix of Suspense, Science Fiction, Thriller, Comedy, and Technology. Mostly technology. Maybe a bit too much technology. Yawn...

Listening to Muzzled by David Rosenfelt. This starts off with a bang, literally. Nothing boring here; suspense and comedy in equal measure. Andy Carpenter would like to quit practicing law, yet he can't help but come to the rescue of a man who'd risk everything, even his life, to reunite with his dog.
Next up: First Degree, another Andy Carpenter story by Rosenfelt. The love of his life is charged with a grisly murder and Andy must desperately try to save her.

[Jeebo]

1. "Way of the Pilgrim" by Gordon R. Dickson

Just started it. It grabbed me from the very first page. The Earth has been invaded, conquered and occupied by an extraterrestrial race that is so vastly superior to us, technologically and physically, that we are absolutely powerless against them. And yet, we resist ...

— Ron

[hermetic]

2. Isn't that

just like us?

[cbabe]

3. David Baldacci/The 6:20 Man series

Three titles. Comparable to Jack Reacher. Ex-ranger against the bad guys. But he works with one of those small shadow government agencies.

Books go well with cupcakes.

Ps I recommend skipping the boring gun description parts. Also tangled tech stuff. On to the plot.

[Polly Hennessey]

4. Another reason to be thankful for Japple. She convinced you to start this Forum.

I agree with Japple that having a Tuxedo makes life happier. I have my Rebecca.

[hermetic]

5. Thanks

I didn't actually start it, just took it over when the previous host couldn't do it anymore.

I have two Tuxies, Val and Kimmy. They are special.

[Number9Dream]

6. 3/4 through "Hungerstone" by Kat Dunn

Thanks for the thread, hermetic.

I too am trying to get my head around Japple / Judith being gone.

I picked "Hungerstone" off the new books shelf due to the reviews on the dust jacket. What a disappointment. It is depressing and a downer of a soapy vampire book. The female vampire can walk around during the day (?). It's very talky... little action. Even the couple of lesbian sex scenes are short and not graphic. Gross more than creepy horror. Can't win 'em all.

[hermetic]

7. That sounds awful

But thanks for sharing. It's always good to know books to ignore along with those to read. Better luck with your next choice.

[mentalsolstice]

8. Not reading anything special....

Just wanted to say thank you to japple and to you, for your love of books and kitties.

We have a tuxedo, named Tux (duh), and an orange kitty named Sweet.

RIP Japple!

[yellowdogintexas]

9. Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottleib

From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist’s world—where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of­fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev­olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per­sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal­ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them. I am almost finished and I am enjoying it
I was not sure I was going to like it but it was for book club so I gave it a shot.