"The Hare with Amber Eyes" by Edmund de Waal. This is one of the most fascinating books I can recall. I'm almost at the end so am rationing myself to a chapter or so at night.

The author traces the history of a collection of Japanese netsuke, originally gathered by his great-grandfather's cousin, Charles Ephrussi. From beginnings in Odessa, the Ephrussi family became unimaginably wealthy, the descriptions of the family's life and artistic connections in Paris are wonderful.

I should never read this thread! I read what someone is enjoying , remember I meant to get that book and go and put another order in. Online booksellers make a bomb out of me! Thanks a lot Tobyone!
Then there is Oprah and her recommendations. I now have two books to enjoy, I hope.
The Corrections and Freedom by Jonathon Franzen.
Have you read these? Have I made good choices?

Last week I read "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson. It's a non-fictional account of Berlin in the early years of Hitler's rise to power. The story is mostly told from the perspective of the American ambassadors 20-something year old daughter, who was an aspiring writer and ran in social circles with both a young commander of the Storm Troopers and a Soviet spy working under deep cover in the pre-WWII Berlin. The Soviets attempted unsuccessfully to recruit her for espionage duties.

"In the Garden of the Beasts" is a good historical account but not nearly as good as Larson's riveting narrative of the 1900 catastrophic Galveston hurricane, "Issac's Storm", which is one of my favorite books. Larson also wrote "The Devil in White City", a chronicle of H.H. Holmes, the notorious and elusive serial killer who stalked his victims during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

This week I started a book that was quite different from what I expected it to be. "Pitch Dark" by Steven Sidor was advertised as a suspense thriller and I expected it to be more of a police procedural mystery. As it turns out "Pitch Dark" is more a novel within the horror genre. Sidor is a good story teller and this book gives Stephen King a good run for the money.

The basic storyline of "Pitch Dark" involves a young woman who falls into possession of a stone which is a powerful magic rune. The heroine is stalked by a blood thirsty cult of homicidal maniacs known as the Pitch & the inevitable confrontation between the forces of good and evil takes place on Christmas in one-horse Minnesota town during a sub-zero cold spell. It's been awhile since I've read a good book from the horror genre and "Pitch Dark" is an old school horror story. It's a much needed change of pace from ubiquitous Gothic romance vampire novels that have dominated the horror novel genre over the past decade.

Here's my thoughts on some of the books other forum members are reading:

"The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen A lot of people don't like Franzen because of his doggedly pessimistic view of the world. I have mixed feelings about Franzen but he has the potential to be the Phillip Roth of the current generation of novelists. I personally like his newer novel "Freedom" better than "The Corrections" because he's less cynical and he demonstrate quite a bit more empathy for the dysfunctional characters he's created.

"Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole Toole's only novel is brilliant and wickedly funny, but some of my peers didn't like the book nearly as much as I did. The idea of an obese, ill-tempered hot dog vendor as the hero of a novel is hard for some folks to swallow. Toole does a great job of creating a literary portrait of the city of New Orleans in the early Sixties, complete with a cast of quirky eccentrics, unapologetic non-conformists and beautiful losers. It's too bad Toole committed suicide before his acclaimed first novel was published.

"Black Echo" by Michael Connelly All of the books in the Harry Bosch mystery series are uniformly good. Connelly reminds be of the old school noir and pulp fiction writers like Ross McDonald, Raymond Chandler, Dash Hammett, Cornell Woolrich, James M. Cain and Jim Thompson.

"David Copperfield" by Dickens You can't go wrong with Dickens and "David Copperfield" is one of his masterworks. I also recommend "Bleak House" which is less acclaimed but the literary equal of Dickens' best known works like "Copperfield", "Tale of Two Cities" & "Oliver Twist."

"Turn of the Screw" by Henry James It's one of my favorite books and James leaves enough space for the reader to come up with wide variety of interpretations of the story. Literary critics and English professors love "Turn of the Screw" because of James' vivid language and complexity of characters. James was one of the first writers to use Freud's psychoanalytic method to explore the underlying motivations of his characters & he does so with great skill in "Turn of the Screw." The best part about "Turn of the Screw" is it's a novella and is short enough be read in a single sitting.

Thanks Gavin That's a really helpful post for me.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Come and join us on the Fun Trivia Book Club - June 6 thread, right here in the Bookworms forum.

Just finished "The Sisters Brothers" by Patrick deWitt, which is an odd one. One of the jacket blurbs reads "Honestly, I can’t recall ever being this fond of a pair of psychopaths.” " and I have to say that's about how I feel. It's a western, but nothing like Louis L'Amour, that's for sure. Very violent, but also very funny, and an original voice.

Also just read "The Hedge Knight" which is a little piece set in George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" world.

And an old Elizabeth Peters stand alone novel, "Devil May Care" - she's always fun, though I'll be heretical here and say I'm not really all that fond of Amelia Peabody.

The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly. It's the third in his Harry Bosch series.

This thread is now a bit long and unwieldy. I am locking it and starting a new one.