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Tag Archives: book groups

Reading Recommendations from Just Desserts members – May 2023

Hey, mystery fans! Looking for something good to read?

At the May 2023 Just Desserts meeting, 17 group members and guests participated in our annual “Series Share” session.

Following the “assigned reading” portion of the meeting, we held our monthly round robin in which attendees shared recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading recently, with an emphasis on mysteries/suspense/thrillers. We continued a new policy this month that began in February, to make sure everyone got a turn in the Round Robin – everyone could share a single title during their verbal recommendations, but could share additional titles on a paper form – ALL titles recommended are shared below, however

Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense books recommended by Just Desserts members in May 2023:

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members also recommended in May 2023:

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

Join the discussion of Chris Bohjalian’s “The Red Lotus”

The Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group held its third monthly in-person meeting, following over a year on Zoom, on August 26th, 2021. Thirteen attendees discussed the stand-alone thriller The Red Lotus by author Chris Bohjalian. If you read The Red Lotus, and would like to contribute your comments about it, please do so as a reply comment to this blog post, below.

For reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings (once they resume) and/or other announcements of interest to mystery fans, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list. Or, now that in-person meetings are possible again, if you’re logged into your account on Facebook, you can visit the Events page for the Lincoln City Libraries, and mark whether or not you plan to attend upcoming sessions of Just Desserts – this is a great way for you to help us promote this engaging discussion group!

So…What did you think of The Red Lotus? Have you read others by Chris Bohjalian?

The following handout was prepared for the members of Just Desserts: The Works of Chris Bohjalian.

Now that we’ve returned to in-person public meetings again, we hope to see you at future gatherings of the Just Desserts group. Watch the libraries’ website and social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) for the latest updates! In the meantime, we hope Just Desserters will join us on September 30th, 2021, for a discussion of the entire “Gaslight Mysteries” series by Victoria Thompson.

Reading Recommendations in April from Just Desserts members

At the April 26th, 2018 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, following the discussion of the assigned topic of the month (the entire body of works by British mystery/suspense author Ruth Rendell), we held our monthly round robin in which all the attendees were able to share a few recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading recently.

First, here’s the list of Ruth Rendell mystery/suspense books discussed by Just Desserts members at our April 2018 meeting:

This meeting was audio-recorded, for eventual release through the libraries’ podcast series. This podcast episode finally became available in April 2020 — Click here to listen to the audio podcast recording of this meeting!

After our Rendell discussion, we had a few minutes for a general round robin. Here are the mystery and non-mystery titles recommended by Just Desserts members in April 2018:

Because we didn’t have as much time for our general “round robins” discussion, please feel free to respond here on the blog to the following question: What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

Reading List from Just Desserts “Anthology” meeting – January 2017

At the January 26th, 2017 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, the theme of the monthly meeting was “Mystery Anthologies and Short Story Collections”. First, we had a round robin in which each attendee shared comments about whichever Anthology or Collection they had read for the month, then we had a second round robin in which all 15 attendees were able to share recommendations of other books they’ve been reading recently.


Here were the Anthologies/Collections read by group members specifically for the January 2017 meeting:

Here’s the list of mystery books recommended by Just Desserts members in January 2017:

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members recommended in January 2017:

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

July 2014 Reading Recommendations from Just Desserts Members

Just Desserts Logo 225Hey, mystery fans! Looking for something good to read? At the July 31st 2014 Just Desserts meeting, after discussing our monthly “assigned” book, we did a round robin at the table, asking attendees to share what mysteries they’d been reading lately that they felt they could recommend.

Here’s a list of the novels that were hot last month with this mystery-savvy crowd:

MYSTERIES

  • Mystery Scene Magazine (not owned by the Lincoln City Libraries)
  • Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries – Season One based on the books by Kerry Greenwood
  • Mail Order Murder by Leslie Meier
  • The Night Searchers by Marcia Muller
  • NYPD Red by James Patterson
  • Power Play by Catherine Coulter
  • The Book Club at realsimple.com
  • The Hangman – an Inspector Gamache novella by Louise Penny
  • Supreme Justice by Max Allan Collins
  • City of Bones and A Darkness More Than Light both by Michael Connelly
  • Longmire the TV series and the Walt Longmire novels by Craig Johnson
  • Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan
  • A Catered Birthday Party by Isis Crawford
  • Black Echo, Black Ice and The Concrete Blonde, all by Michael Connelly
  • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spie, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Call for the Dead, all by John LeCarre
  • First Rule by Robert Crais
  • A Bullet for Cinderella by John D. MacDonald (not in the Lincoln City Libraries)
  • The Skin Collector by Jeffery Deaver
  • Secret Servant by Daniel Silva
  • Chasing the Dime by Michael Connelly
  • That Old Flame of Mine by J.J. Cook
  • The Farm by ???
  • The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley
  • The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
  • Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
  • Any Other Name by Craig Johnson
  • Unlucky 13 by James Patterson
  • Cheap Shot a Spenser novel by Ace Atkins
  • Penance by David Housewright
  • Slow Motion Riot by Peter Blauner (not in Lincoln City Libraries)
  • Death Among Strangers by Deidre Laiken
  • No Rest for the Dead by multiple authors
  • Missing Ink by Karen Olsen
  • Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas
  • Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
  • Murder Past Due by Miranda James
  • Shoot Him If He Runs and others by Stuart Woods

NON-MYSTERIES

  • David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
  • The National Parks companion book to the documentary by Ken Burns
  • Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
  • The Most Dangerous Animal of All by Gary L. Stewart
  • Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
  • The Most Dangerous Animal of All by Gary L. Stewart
  • Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith
  • Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
  • A Long Time Gone by Karen White
  • The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy
  • The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  • The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
  • The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
  • Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
  • The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

So, what mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?