It's Monday! What Are You Reading #5

Read this week:

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

I liked this book, escapist and romantic. But it got a bit too fanciful towards the end. Nice quick read which definitely gave me echo's of 84 Charing Cross Road - probably because it is the same era and written in a series of letters also. If you like sweet charming books then I'd say give this a read, for me it was a nice change of pace. I gave it 3/5.

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in America—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.

I loved this book, a neat dystopian thriller at heart. There's been some criticism that it isn't well researched on the technical (computing) side but I don't think it needs to be, after all it is fiction! It is a bit like a modern 1984 and actually a lot more scary because it doesn't feel that far off potentially happening. Really makes you think about the nature of modern life. I would mark this down on the actual writing which isn't always very accomplished but goodreads like's round numbers so I gave this a 5/5.

Wayne Weston is found dead in his Cleveland home, an apparent suicide & his wife & six-year-old daughter are missing. But Weston's father knows something is wrong with this scenario. He insists that P.I. Lincoln Perry & his partner Joe Pritchard take the case to exonerate his son & find his granddaughter & daughter-in-law.

This is the first in a PI detective series and I picked it up because I have read some of Koryta's suepernatural books before which had been good. Especially recommend The Ridge. This book suffers from being a first novel and has obviously been over worked and styled but there's a lot of potential however. I gave it a 2/5 because I struggled to keep interested.

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They're the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they're often labeled "quiet," it's to introverts like Gandhi, Einstein and Rosa Parks that we owe many of the great contributions to society. Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so. 

I had heard a lot about this book recently and with the start of Non-Fiction-November I put in a reservation at the library. It is conceptionally a very interesting book but for me the execution lacked a bit. The introduction and first chapter were the most engaging, beyond that point it got a bit repetitive and not much new material was added. Also the book was primarily based for an American audience, which is fair enough but it seemed to be done at the expense of anyone else reading. Overall I will take away the message that it's okay to be an introvert, I have definitely fallen into the trap of feeling guilty myself for some of my introverted traits. I have given this a 3/5.

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