I’m about halfway (7.5 hours) into this amazing book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9712.Love_in_the_Time_of_Cholera

I always have one on the player.

Yours is a long one, from 1988, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

It has nothing to do with the Arthurian grail legends. Instead, it’s set in the mid 14th century. The first book ends with the Battle of Crécy in 1346.

When I finish, I’ll read the fourth book, 1356. Then I plan to reread For Us, The Living, Robert Heinlein’s first novel, which he was unable to publish in his lifetime, and actually thought he had destroyed very late in life.

It sounds absolutely fascinating.

There’s also a reason the octogenarian, Libertarian, Heinlein tried to destroy a book written in his thirties when he was a socialist.

My favorite series is the "Saxon series" which is set in the time of Alfred the Great.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saxon_Stories

Anthony Doerr – Cloud Cuckoo Land
The title is a famous description of living in a dream world that’s ridiculously optimistic. I’m expecting a heavy dose of magical realism, a difficult genre to get right when absurdity comes into play. The plot, such as it is, seems to be three impoverished/imperiled characters, from three separate timelines (past, present, future), with one book binding them together. I’ll see if Doerr has the chops to walk that super-fine razor’s edge to keep the fanciful from becoming farce.

Still Life by Sarah Winman
Normally, I avoid WWII books because they tend to be ghosts of each other. This one caught my interest because it’s doesn’t do the annoying dual timeline device, and because it’s not about recounting wartime heroics. Instead, it’s a straightforward story of a young British soldier who finds himself trapped in what he thought was a deserted Tuscan wine cellar…only to find an elderly art collector seeking abandoned paintings to save them. He goes home after the war to his old life of drinking and carousing with his mates…until the day he learns that he’s inherited a Tuscan home. Somehow we’ll meet a Shakespeare-quoting parrot. The parrot sealed it for me.

What you think of Cloud Cuckoo Land. I plan to read it someday. I tried listening to it but found it too confusing as an audible. It's sooo long, almost 700 pages.

Oddly, I found 9 different books with that title, dating back to 2002.

A parrot who quotes Shakespeare sounds intriguing.

Loved it. I do think you make a point about the audiobook format being too confusing. CCL needs to be a print read because the multiple POVs and even time periods are constantly weaving into and out of each other.

In the print version, though, the chapter titles use the names of the characters, and that allows the reader to 'orient' to the associated viewpoint without much fuss.

Despite the book's span of multiple time periods, it has a linear time structure...for each character,'s POV. Doerr also employs a thematic time structure as well, with the chronological sections of the ancient book acting as a sort of foreshadowing of the theme of that particular time section for all of the characters.

So it has complicated time and POV layers that take a bit of adjusting to, and I have a feeling that makes far more sense in print than audio. I can't imagine trying to keep all of that straight without 'seeing' it.

escaping, so I think you'll be pleased. I liked it so much I decided to go right to Virgil next. Lief is a great writer. I saw there was a Lin Enger but didn't know they were related. So thanks for that info. More to read.

First, I hate winter and love summer, so any books or movies that help transport me to warm, sunny days are good. "Dandelion Wine" transports me back to boyhood and summer, even though mine was in the '60's rather than 1928. The feelings and emotions in it are timeless. These words appear very early in the book, "Summer had gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer."

The chapters are episodic, but flow with the passing of the season. Typical Ray Bradbury, many of the episodes have qualities of fantasy and magic. "Dandelion Wine" reminds me that Mr. Bradbury could describe the ordinary as amazing and meaningful. A completely wonderful book which I'm sure I'll re-read again in a couple years.

That's lovely. Thank you.

Hope your summer is wonderful. Ever had dandelion wine? It kicks!

My brother described it as only being fit for cleaning grease stains on the garage floor.

It’s about Georgia Tann who bought poor children and sold them to wealthy families. I just started it, however, it has good ratings.

I wish everyone a calm and peaceful Memorial Day!

She will read anything about women surviving against the odds. I try to expand her horizons some, but she rarely enjoys much beyond that.

so I came home and hit the hay every night. Three or four pages was all I could manage before conking out.

Tomorrow is an Election Day and I will be working at the polls so will have some reading time. It is a run off and the turnout will be low, so not much to do. Can't take the Kindle so checked out a book from the library.

And thanks. Hope your day goes smoothly tomorrow and you get a chance to read. And I hope somebody good wins.