Let's get some more discussion going around here in 2020!  What are you reading to kick off the new year, and are you participating in one of the challenges going on here in the HF forum in 2020?  

Happy New Year!  A fresh new year, heck, DECADE, of reading is laid out before us.  How fun! 

I am still listening to Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.  With the holidays, I haven't had a ton of time to listen, but I'm hoping I can get this behemouth finished up this month. 

I'm reading Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland.  I'm currently learning to paint with watercolors, so I've been obsessed with all things art.  This book revolves around Renoir's painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party, which is a painting I really like.  Fortunately, Ms. Vreeland has a lot of books about artists, so I should be able to stay happinly immersed in tales from the art world from years past for a while!  

I am definitely taking part in this year's HF Challenge. I don't think I've missed a year since I joined PBS in 2008!  I don't read a lot of historical mysteries, but I may try to read a few more in 2020, so perhaps I will give that challenge a try as well. 

Wishing you all many happy hours spent reading in the new year/decade!  

Shelley,  I read Luncheon of the Boating Party in 2011, and was also fortunate to see the original painting at the Phillips Gallery in DC, where I bo't a poster of the painting.  It's now framed and hanging in my dining room.  Love the picture, loved the book, love everything Renoir.  Good luck on your artistic pursuits.  Currently I'm reading Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati. It's a follow-up to The Gilded Hour.  Donati's Into the Wilderness series is an all-time favorite.    I'm planning to participate in both challenges, looking forward to being more active on this forum.

Linda

I, too, read Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland and liked it very much.  Not into HF at the moment although I finished last year with an e-copy of The Count of Monte Cristo which took me a long time to read.  Good book, however.

Hi, ladies!  Thanks for joining me!  REK, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books of all time!  I listened to it on audio, which I think really made it come to life for me.  Such an epic book, so full of twists and turns.  I absolutely love it! 

Linda - Glad to know I'm not the only one into Renoir and his beautiful paintings! 

Ahhh, The Count of Monte Cristo!!! One of top 5 favorite books! I even memorized an entire passage because it was simply beautiful!

For the start of 2020, I've been delving into Karen Menhuin's Heathcliff Lennox series. Has anyone read these? If not, they're delightfully quick and humorous mysteries set in 1920-1921 (a good start on the HF challenge!). I'm already on the 3rd book, The Curse of Braeburn Castle, and it's the latest in the series.

So far HF I have read The Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler and Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabadon.  Getting ready for the next season of Outlander. One of my favorite shows.

Alice - How was The Home for Erring and Outcast Girls?  

Trying to finish Luncheon of the Boating Party so I can start one of the books I plan to reveal in the current HF game! I'd like to read it before I send it away.  LOL! 

Shelley

I thought The HOme for Erring and Outcast girls was okay. It was a split time book. The contemporary time I thought was boring. Enjoyed the historical part

I am reading Elizabeth Chadwick's The Irish Princess.   It is just wonderful. Love her books

Alice, I always feel that way about split time books.  Anything set in present day (or close to) immediately bores me.  LOL!  I rarely read books of that type.  

I finished Luncheon of the Boating Party last night.  Good read, although I never really liked the main character, Renoir.  He just seemed somewhat remote and self-centered, although I completely understand that that probably contributed to his art work.  Up next I think I'll dive into The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes.  

Just finished Dragonfly, by Leila Meacham.  Unlike previous novels I've read by her, this one I considered a true historical novel as opposed to romantic novels.  Five young Americans are recruited, trained, and sent to German-occupied Paris in 1942 as spies.  They are known to each other only by their code names and are loosely connected through their network known as Dragonfly.  I liked each of the five as well as the OSS handler.  Enjoyed the novel and recommend it others who enjoy WWII fiction.

Linda

Shelley,  I finished The Giver of Stars last night.  Of course the year has barely started, and I've only read three books so far, but at this point I would say it's the best one I've read, definitely a 4-star.  I love learning a tidbit of historical information, something previously unknown to me.  Had never heard of the WPA program of packhorse librarians of the Depression era.  What a neat, beneficial concept!

Linda

I have started Catch & Kill by Ronan Farrow, and it is wonderful; however not HF. My first HF read of the year was a Georgette Heyer! Such a fun read (Black Sheep).

Count me in for Count of Monte Cristo ... really anything written by Alexandre Dumas! I read The Three Musketeers during the summer before my senior year of high school and loved every page of it!

Kelly

Just finished reading Wilderness by Roger Zelazny and Gerald Hausman.  It's about two men who endured tragedies in the 1880s and managed to survive.  John Coulter ran, yes ran, 150 miles to escape capture by Blackfoot warriors.   Hugh Glass was mauled by a grizzly.  He was so damaged that his partner and another man left him for dead.  Glass crawled 100 miles, avoiding risky encounters with some Indian tribes until he reached the Sioux with whom he was friends.  He lived and found his partner who was ill and nursed him to health.  Fast moving and soo well written.

Linda, I'm about halfway through The Giver of Stars and I am enjoying it. I too had never heard of the packhorse librarians.  What a wonderful service! 

I finished The Giver of Stars yesterday.  Really enjoyed it! Last night I started The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch.  It's been awhile since I read the first book in the Hangman's Daughter's series, but I remember enjoying it.  

I read Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Excobar, different take on the Auschwitz experience.  Helene Hannemann was a real person who was asked by Dr. Mengele to organize a kindergarten for the children in the gypsy camp at Birkenau.  Helene was not a gypsy, did not have to go to Auschwitz but refused to stay behind in Germany when her Roma husband and five children were transported. Interesting but I didn't really enjoy reading this novel.

Linda

Began Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough which has been on my shelves for some time.  Love the author's work.

REK I also love Colleen McCullough's books. Sad she is not longer with us. Her Rome series is wonderful

Started A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick for the New To You category. A bit late to the party on this series ð

Still working on Antony and Cleopatra but as I often do, I found myself picking up another novel from my TBR:  A Dangerous Place (Maisie Dobbs, Bk 11) by Jacqueline Winspear, 4 stars.  It was one of the best in the series that I've read and it had been awhile since I returned the experiences of Maisie Dobbs.  Need to tell all of you that I was so happy to see the many comments about the books you all are reading.  I've added more to my TBR based on your comments.  Thanks a million for sharing.  This is what I like best about PBS.

Carolyn-ooooh A Place Beyond Courage....lemme just say it....William, William.....

Me?  In the last couple of months, I've "discovered" WW II fiction.  I want to read this time period from a woman's perspective-and I "thought" it was all battlefields, and men, and more men stuff.  Boy, was I wrong.

The Alice Network was my favorite; Hearts of Resistance by Lane(I think that's right) and just finished Pam Jenoff's "The Kommandant's Girl". I also found, I can't read this time period back-to back.  I cry like a baby thru parts and need something lighter for a bit.

Jan