{"id":3901,"date":"2015-01-11T08:07:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T13:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3901"},"modified":"2015-01-11T08:07:40","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T13:07:40","slug":"looking-for-something-good-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3901","title":{"rendered":"Looking for Something Good to Read?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3433\" style=\"width: 245px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3433\" class=\" wp-image-3433\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/11028014_6d0a69b26e_z.jpg?resize=235%2C178\" alt=\"reading\" width=\"235\" height=\"178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/11028014_6d0a69b26e_z.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/11028014_6d0a69b26e_z.jpg?resize=300%2C226&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/11028014_6d0a69b26e_z.jpg?resize=397%2C300&amp;ssl=1 397w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 235px) 100vw, 235px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3433\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(photo: Nico Cavallotto, Creative Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The stack of books I\u2019m excited to read in 2015 is already pretty high, and to make room, sorted the books of 2014\u2014keep, donate, donate, keep, keep. Handling them again and in writing last week\u2019s post on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=3860\">11 very best<\/a>, I couldn\u2019t help thinking how many more really good ones there were! All 22 **** books of the past year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Mysteries &amp; Thrillers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=3064\">Sandrine\u2019s Case<\/a> by Thomas H. Cook \u2013 originally I gave this 3 stars, but when I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about it, slapped on a fourth<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2883\">The Golden Hour<\/a> by Todd Moss\u2014believable political thriller, awesome first novel<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2951\">Standing in Another Man\u2019s Grave<\/a> by Ian Rankin\u2014an always-satisfying outing with Edinburgh\u2019s Inspector John Rebus<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2465\">Mystery Girl<\/a> by David Gordon\u2014a wacky Hollywood tale with oddball characters and LOL dialog<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2544\">The Cottoncrest Curse<\/a> by Michael H. Rubin\u2014I met Rubin, so bought his book about late-1800s murders on a Louisiana plantation. So glad I did!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2150\">Ordinary Grace<\/a> by William Kent Krueger\u2014won all the big mystery world prizes in 2013<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2121\">Spycraft<\/a> by Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton, and Henry Robert Schlesinger\u2014non-fiction, describing the technologies of espionage (and avoiding recent scandals entirely)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=1885\">The Reversal<\/a> by Michael Connelly\u2014Harry Bosch AND Mickey Haller<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=1717\">The Cold, Cold Ground<\/a> by Adrian McKinty\u2014really makes his Belfast-during-the-Troubles setting work for him<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Other Fiction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=3142\">Bastard Out of Carolina<\/a> by Dorothy Allison\u2014growing up in a dysfunctional Southern family<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2477\">All the Light We Cannot See<\/a> by Anthony Doerr\u2014on many 2014 \u201cbest of\u201d lists, charming<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2077\">Ordinary Heroes<\/a> by Scott Turow\u2014also WWII, a page-turner<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=1868\">Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil<\/a> by John Berendt\u2014late to this party, but had a good time, anyway!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=1613\">The Flamethrowers<\/a> by Rachel Kushner\u2014beautifully written, striking insights<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=1571\">The Luminaries<\/a> by Eleanor Catton\u2014surprisingly old-fashioned Man Booker Prize winner of last year (848 pages!!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Biography, History, Politics<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=3060\">Alice<\/a> by Stacy A. Cordery\u2014if you enjoyed <em>The Roosevelts<\/em> on tv, you\u2019ll like this biography of Teddy\u2019s daughter, Princess Alice<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=3773\">As Texas Goes<\/a> by Gail Collins\u2014how always-colorful Texas politicians have shaped the current American scene<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2309\">Catherine of Aragon: Henry\u2019s Spanish Queen<\/a> by Giles Tremlett\u2014worth checking the review if only to see the great matchup between the book cover and my lamp<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=1665\">Fighter Pilot: The Memoir of Legendary Ace Robin Olds<\/a> by Christina Olds, Ed Rasimus, and Robin Olds\u2014you don\u2019t have to agree with his politics to admire his derring-do!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Great Places<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=3797\">The White Rock<\/a> by Hugh Thomson\u2014adventurers still discovering lost Inca outposts<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2649\">The Danube<\/a> by Nick Thorpe\u2014from the Black Sea to the river\u2019s origins in Germany<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2007\">The New York Nobody Knows<\/a> by William B. Helmreich\u2014this sociologist walked more than 6000 miles of NYC streets and talked to everybody<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">\u00a0Stephen King<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=2233\">On Writing<\/a>\u2014how and why<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_3902\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3902\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3902\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/3772599521_d8ed6e00cf_z.jpg?resize=584%2C390\" alt=\"book, imagination\" width=\"584\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/3772599521_d8ed6e00cf_z.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/3772599521_d8ed6e00cf_z.jpg?resize=450%2C300&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3902\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Cinzia A. Rizzo, flickr.com, CC license)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The stack of books I\u2019m excited to read in 2015 is already pretty high, and to make room, sorted the books of 2014\u2014keep, donate, donate, keep, keep. Handling them again and in writing last week\u2019s post on the 11 very &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3901\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77,62,265,122,54,193,40,174,266,3,267,268,32,29],"tags":[31,128,137,412,91,30,89,415,129,414],"class_list":["post-3901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-authors","category-biography","category-book","category-detective","category-espionage","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-history","category-mystery","category-non-fiction","category-politics","category-thriller","category-writing","tag-author","tag-history","tag-man-booker-prize","tag-mystery","tag-new-york","tag-novel","tag-reading","tag-thriller","tag-wars-and-conflicts","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-10V","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3903,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions\/3903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}