The Bibliophile Files - 8/4/20

Welcome to my monthly book report!!

Can you tell I went camping this month? 18 books in 4 weeks might be my personal best. Camping always provides a good boost to my reading list (I'm now 4 books ahead of schedule to finish 90 this year) but I've also been a good girl and cutback on my TV/DVD watching so I could do more reading/listening. The original plan was just through the end of July but here we are into August and I haven't watched but maybe one DVD a week since vacation.

FINISHED
     The 57 Bus - The true story of a cross dressing teen burned by another teen on the bus to school. One white, one black, one poor, one not.
     Twisted Tree - Written from the differing perspectives of various people who knew a murdered girl. Seemed a little disjointed with all the viewpoints that were not necessarily brought back to the center of the story but maybe that's just cuz I was multitasking while listening to the book.
     Three Cups of Tea - I found the book an interesting read about the culture of a part of the world I know little about, but could imagine all the events happening as described, while a man tried to build schools for girls. In reviewing goodreads.com comments, there are a lot that refer to fraud and exaggerations in the book. I guess I'll take the book as it was intended but be forewarned if anyone else wants to read it. I especially liked where the title came from and found it true no matter what the backstory of the book is.
     Sisters Maatsumoto
     A Christmas Carol: What if Scrooge were a Woman? - Once again, I was multitasking but I didn't notice enough differences from the original book to make this really worth one's time. Thankfully it was on the short side.
     Picture Us in the Light - A great YA story about family secrets and how they shape our future.
     Twelfth Night
     The Hundred Foot Journey
     Secret Soldiers - Interesting history of soldiers trained to deceive the Nazi's with inflatable tanks and recorded troop movements. I don't think I've ever even heard of these soldiers before.
     Judge & Jury - mob boss versus juror #11. Several nice twists at the end.
     Fake - a dramatization when I was looking for more details
     Gideon's Corpse
     The Murderer's Daughter
     Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mts - This needs to be my last Appalachian book for a long time. The 'woah is me' story has gotten old after several similar stories. It was probably a good book if I wasn't already tired of the theme.
     The Dry - Book 1 in the Aaron Falk series. I read #2 last month. The series takes place in Australia and this one is about a man accused of murder years ago who returns home for the funeral of his friend who supposedly killed his wife and son before himself. I've started the third book today and while the investigator is the same, the books appear independent.
     Bullseye
     The Deep
     A Land More Kind Than Home - The topic is hard to listen to (snakes in church worship, death, etc) but it's well written in that each chapter is written from a different character's viewpoint, pulling in a story from their past that guides their current lives.

IN PROGRESS
     on my iPhone: The Lost Man

And now it's your turn...What have you been reading? Anything counts, whether it's a novel, magazine, cookbook, quilt pattern or cereal box.