It's Monday! What are you reading? - October 4

  

Okay so not much has changed from my last Monday post except that I finished one book. 

Currently Reading:

The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian
Date Started: September 8
Goodreads Summary: 
Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.

Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she's holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see in Ohio.

As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.

Little Thoughts: Started this for a book club and was a little slow to get into it, and then the book club date moved and I stopped so I could focus on the other book club book I had to read. But I'm liking it and I'm getting my friend's copy so I can finish it. 


The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
Date Started: September 13
Goodreads Summary: 
Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that 'The Devil in the White City' is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor.

Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison.

The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims.

Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. - John Moe

Little Thoughts: This is the other book club book for September and again, did not finish it in time for the meeting.  I'm enjoying the parts on Holmes, and kinda skimming the parts on Burnham and the Fair cause they are kind of boring to me. 

 
Currently Listening:

Arsene Lupin by Edgar Jepson
Date Started: September 19
Goodreads Summary: 
The suave adventures of a gentleman rogue-a French Thomas Crown Created by Maurice LeBlanc during the early twentieth century, Arsene Lupin is a witty confidence man and burglar, the Sherlock Holmes of crime. The poor and innocent have nothing to fear from him; often they profit from his spontaneous generosity. The rich and powerful, and the detective who tries to spoil his fun, however, must beware. They are the target of Arsene's mischief and tomfoolery. A masterful thief, his plans frequently evolve into elaborate capers, a precursor to such cinematic creations as Ocean's Eleven and The Sting. Sparkling with amusing banter, these stories-the best of the Lupin series-are outrageous, melodramatic, and literate.

Little Thoughts: This is the current season of Phoebe Reads a Mystery. 

Check out my Goodreads 2021 Challenge to see what I've read this year.