What Fiction are you reading this week, October 5, 2025?

[hermetic]

This discussion thread is pinned.

This is Banned Books Week. The theme is “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” If you can, buy a banned book and tuck it away.


I am reading Still Life With Crows by Douglas Preston; Lincoln Child. "A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground. Is it a serial killer, or a curse upon the land?" Creepy good Halloween fare.

Listening to Blackout by David Rosenfelt, "a propulsive and compelling thriller." A New Jersey state police officer is shot and in critical condition. When he awakens from his coma he has retrograde amnesia and cannot remember the past 10 years. But he really needs to remember who shot him and why. The fate of the city could depend on that.

[cbabe]

1. Small Rain/Garth Greenwell

Recommended on this site. I think.

Two books in one: serious medical condition, detailed hospitalization and treatments and also meditation on all of life’s love, poetry, family, and memories.

Lots of stars and awards. Made me uncomfortable because I didn’t know which book I was reading and couldn’t relax into the lengthy back and forth digressions.

Palate cleanser: a bunch of Mike Lawson /Joe DeMarco thrillers. Saving newest title, Untouchable, for dessert.

[hermetic]

6. Yeah,

Lawson sounds a lot less demanding. "Edge of your seat thrillers" sounds like what I want to read.

[rsdsharp]

2. I'm still reading Circle of Days by Ken Follett.

I’m a Follett fan. I’ve read virtually all of his books over the last 40 years or so, and I’ll admit he can be hit or miss. Pillars of the Earth is one of my favorite books, but a good friend of mine said it’s characters were cardboard cutouts, and the plot was flimsy.

I was gobsmacked by that critique, but it’s apt when applied to his latest book. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through a 700 page book ostensibly about Stonehenge, and a couple of the characters are just now starting to THINK about remaking “the Monument” in stone.

This book is about the interaction of three separate groups — the herders, the farmers and the woodland people — who live within walking distance of each other on “the Great Plain” (presumably Salisbury Plain), and yet they have wildly different customs and lifestyles, and one of the groups doesn’t speak the same language as the other two. Maybe that’s for the best, because the dialog is often stilted.

In short, this isn’t Follett’s best effort, at least in my opinion. Maybe the last third of the book will be better.

[hermetic]

5. Well, hang in there

Hope it ends well for you.

[mentalsolstice]

3. Not technically banned, I'm reading The Guncle by Steven Rowley.

I’m planning to follow it up with The Guncle Abroad.

[hermetic]

4. Had to look that up

Sounds great.
"..a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer."
"..a moving tribute to the power of love, patience, and family in even the most trying of times."

Thanks!

[txwhitedove]

8. I had to look that book up, too. Very popular, so I'm on a long waiting list at library. Thanks.

[txwhitedove]

7. In the cozy reading nook, I counted 5 cats and probably another hiding on the shelves.

Now reading Thomas Perry, The Butcher's Boy, first book in the series. Good read. "Murder has always been easy for the Butcher’s Boy—it’s what he was raised to do. But when he kills the senior senator from Colorado and arrives in Las Vegas to pick up his fee, he learns that he has become a liability to his shadowy employers. His actions attract the attention of police specialists who watch the world of organized crime, but though everyone knows that something big is going on, only Elizabeth Waring, a bright young analyst in the Justice Department, works her way closer to the truth, and to the frightening man behind it."

Lovely day to decorate for Halloween with pumpkins, mums, bats and little haunted houses, and then read. Enjoy.

[cbabe]

13. I really enjoy the Butcher Boy series. Clever and so well written. Perry is a master.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I've just started "Tiny Time Machine" by John Stith.

So far, so good.

[Number9Dream]

10. Read "Still Life With Crows" a few years ago... very creepy

Thanks for the thread, hermetic.

Still reading "Persona Non Grata" by Ruth Downie. More historical fiction in the Roman era. This one less action than "Medicus".

[hermetic]

11. It is

And gets moreso. Still got 100 pages left. And I prefer it to the creepy reality of our lives right now.

Good to see you. Hope everything is worlking out okay there.

[Bayard]

12. I liked, "Still Life With Crows"

But then, I've liked all of those 2 author's books I've read so far. Getting ready to order more.

I've been in Tony Hillerman mode lately. Finished, "The Wailing Wind," "The Shape Shifter," and, "Hunting Badger." Getting ready to start, "The Sinister Pig." I gobble them up like candy--fast reads.

[cbabe]

14. I'm a big Hillerman fan, too.