What are you reading the week of Sunday, January 18, 2015?
Late start today - but seeing as how no one else has started this week's reading thread, here it is.
Last Sunday I had started reading my second Velma Wallis book, Bird Girl and the Man who Followed the Sun, which was another fairly quick read. Interesting story, a retelling of a pair of very old Alaska Athabaskan legends which the writer wove together into one extended tale. It was a fascinating look into pre-European contact tribal culture in the far north boreal forest and tundra.
Then I read Ordinary Wolves, which I finished on Friday night. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it. It was a difficult book to get into, and it told a difficult story - at times I wanted to just give up and shut the book, unfinished. However, once I managed to get into the author's writing style, I was glad I stuck with it to the end. I have to say, it was a powerful book and not one that I will soon forget. I actually opened it back up yesterday morning and started re-reading it from the beginning, although now having made it back through more than the first third of the book, I feel like I've "gotten" what I didn't quite "get" the first time through, so I'm ready to set it aside and move on to something else. Wheew. An intense read, for sure.
Happily, I have four new special order books to choose from, that I picked up from my library last week:
Raising Ourselves, by the same Velma Wallis who wrote the two Athabaskan legend books I read last week. This one is autobiographical, not fiction. However, I'm not quite ready for more Alaskan village "real life" after Ordinary Wolves, so this is going on the bottom of the pile for now.
I also have two books set on the North Shore of Lake Superior written by a Norwegian author, Vidar Sundstøl: The Land of Dreams and Only the Dead. They are the first two books of a murder mystery trilogy, I have the third on order, but it's not due out until this April, so I can expect a wait.
The backstory on this trilogy is almost as interesting as I hope the stories themselves will be. Sundstøl is a Norwegian who ended up living in northern Minnesota for a couple years and got interested in the history of the Norwegian immigrants who had settled in that area in the late 19th century and decided to set some novels there. They were originally published in Norwegian only, then got popular in a number of other European countries and were translated into German, French, Danish, Icelandic, and Dutch. It wasn't until a Minnesotan with Norwegian heritage travelled to Norway and heard about these books that they finally got translated into English by the University of Minnesota Press. Naturally, myself being a Minnesotan of Norwegian heritage, who absolutely LOVES the North Shore, and is a diehard Nordic Noir fan, I have to read these! So these two are next.
The fourth book is something quite different again, The Long-Shining Waters by Danielle Sosin - although it's also set on the North Shore. It's a novel that traces the lives of three different women set in three different time periods, who all live beside the Great Water. It was a book that showed up as a recommendation on GoodReads because of some other book I had rated highly.
I have one more book ready to be picked up at the library this week, These Granite Islands by Sarah Stonich - another book set in Minnesota, including Lake Superior.
Happy reading to you all!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Have you read others? How are you liking this one?
Book #27 in his Alex Delaware series. It's just as good as the other 26 were.
I do love books where I can travel to and hang out in very different and unusual locations. The Shetland Islands are definitely fascinating - and as you've pointed out, Ann Cleeves' descriptions really give you an exquisite sense of place.
If you ever find yourself with an urge to travel the Scottish Highlands, I've got another author for you to put on your future "to-read" list. A.D. Scott and her Joanna Ross series. Just sayin'... 
anyone at DU has apologized for seeming judgemental.
I'm not into strife and arguments. It's just not fun.
Let us know what you think about that one, japple.
Is that your actual kitty?
At the time, I think I had other books come in at the library and decided to leave off reading more Sarah Stonich to a later date. So, here's that later date - although I'll be reading the other books in my stack first.
I've also come across another trilogy I'd like to read, this one is set in the Hebrides Islands off Scotland. It's called "The Lewis Trilogy" by Peter May. I think I'll be putting these on order next.
I cannot remember the exact relationship at the moment. However they are from the paternal side and not so far removed. My father's family were proud of their Scott heritage. My younger brother is even named Robert Bruce! 
I get the impression that a crofter's cottage would be cozy with a peat fire going in the hearth.
With the internet it seems we are all much closer than in the past.
I have not read Ian Rankin's Rebus books. Should I start from the first one? They sound good.
I came to know about author Ian Rankin in a very round-about way. Back in 2011, someone on DU did a wonderful post about some mysterious and amazingly intricate paper sculptures that had been showing up anonymously in various libraries and other cultural institutions in and around Edinburgh. I can't find the post, but here's a wikipedia article about them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_book_sculptures
Anyway, a couple of the sculptures involved references to Ian Rankin so I looked him up. I found out that he was a very big deal in the mystery genre in Scotland so I checked out the fiction shelf in my library and found one title by him. I read it and decided I wanted to read the entire series, which I did over the next two years - up to the very last book in the series which came out in 2013.
I am totally OCD about reading series in order, so of course I would recommend starting at the beginning and reading them in order. Rebus ages, he even retires and then comes back, and every single story is intriguing and entertaining. And if Rankin should ever write another Rebus book, I'll definitely rush to get my name on the library waiting list.
We're looking forward to Knots and Crosses.
