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Post by sophie on Dec 25, 2023 17:47:42 GMT -5
Janet Evanovich, Dirty Thirty. A Stephanie Plum novel.. cheap entertainment when I am bored and/or incapable of doing anything but reading a mystery book. Not great writing, but witty and full of (not believable) action. It was okay.
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Post by scicaro on Dec 26, 2023 5:30:36 GMT -5
The problem with the Kindle is that you can't always tell when you're starting a new book in a series and when it's just an incredibly long chapter, hence a bundle of two here. I had to look at wikipedia to see if the next thing that had come bundled with the Kindle version was the fourth bit or if it was some extra thing, and it turned out to be the latter, so: 96, 97) Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor; The Citadel of the Autarch The third and fourth volumes of this strange, meandering, and incredibly intelligent sci-fi series; again with introduction by Ada Palmer. I will be thinking about this for quite a while and will likely read it again fairly soon. Huh! I apparently already own the first in this series on my kindle, probably due to a previous recommendation. Must try and remember when I finish the current read.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 26, 2023 7:27:25 GMT -5
It's confusing and seemingly endless but also amazing
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Post by scrubb on Dec 26, 2023 14:47:30 GMT -5
Jacqueline Winspear, Leaving Everything Most Loved. A Maisie Dobbs mystery. Something about the style of this series bugs me. But the setting (between the wars in London) and the mystery were appealing. Still, I cancelled my hold for a couple more of the series from the library as I just am not into it right now.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 26, 2023 16:09:55 GMT -5
Interesting, Scrubb. I’m really enjoying that series, and it’s not usually a period of history I’m drawn to.
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Post by scrubb on Dec 26, 2023 17:17:48 GMT -5
ozzieg, I've read probably a half a dozen of the series, including the first 3. I generally do enjoy them. But I still find something kind of, I don't know, stilted, maybe? in the writing, and sometimes (like right now) it bugs me more than other times.
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Post by sophie on Dec 26, 2023 23:51:07 GMT -5
Scrubb, I’ve read a number of her books and my theory is that she was trying to write in the style of that time.
Susan Juby, Mindful of Murder. A well written mystery by a local writer. Clever use of the main character: a woman who had been a Buddhist nun, left her convent to care for a sick mother and never went back. She worked at a spiritual type of retreat on one of the Gulf Islands and then went to Butler school. The benefactor who paid for the butler school was found dead and she has to find out what happened.
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Post by scrubb on Dec 27, 2023 0:50:06 GMT -5
Could be, Sophie.
This afternoon I wanted to go for a long run so decided to listen to an audiobook to keep myself distracted from the fact that I was running. I don't concentrate well with audiobooks, so I picked somehting really simple - a kids book by E. Nesbit, who I grew up reading. Hadn't read this one though, I don't think - The Enchanted Castle. I'm pretty sure I would have loved it had I read it as a kid.
There was one scene that was familiar so I guess I must have read it at some time in my life, but if so, it didn't make as much of an impression on me as most of her books.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 27, 2023 2:54:51 GMT -5
94. Speaking in Bones, Kathy Reichs. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read one of this series, and this has been sitting on my physical shelf for a while. I enjoyed it. Interesting theme of exorcism vs psychology.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 28, 2023 9:11:06 GMT -5
97) Isabella Hammad, Enter Ghost
A British actor whose father is Palestinian goes to Haifa to visit her sister and ends up in a performance of "Hamlet" done by a West Bank Palestinian acting troupe. This book gave such a personal, human view of the situation of Palestinian people in Israel and also was an interesting take on theater itself. Excellent; she was on the Granta best young British authors list, and I agree.
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Post by Q-pee on Dec 30, 2023 8:48:05 GMT -5
House of Doors Tan Twan Eng Amazing sense of place conveyed in the book, I could just about taste it. It's the back story to a short story by Somerset Maugham (which became a play) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_(play) And it's made me want to travel to Penang and to read some of his work. Great book to end the year on. (Don't worry I have others to read but probably won't finish anything else this year)
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 30, 2023 10:34:10 GMT -5
That ones already on my list! I loved his last one that I now don't remember the name of... something about Malaysia and tea
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Post by lillielangtry on Dec 30, 2023 10:41:14 GMT -5
Agatha Christie, The Big Four An early Poirot with all the best Poirot ingredients - Hastings narrating, Hastings being frightfully dim, bit of mild peril for the main characters, Poirot saves the day.
I have two more half-finished books. I might have to mark them as finished tomorrow just for statistics purposes, even if I actually continue them in the new year.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 30, 2023 10:49:41 GMT -5
I have another 140 pages to go in my Velvet Underground book - there's a chance I'll have it finished by sometime tomorrow, so I'm going to hold out
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Post by whothingie on Dec 30, 2023 16:18:41 GMT -5
I loved House of Doors and want to read the others however they aren't available on the e library site. May have to go into town to get a printed copy, or pay on Amazon, which I've been avoiding lately.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 30, 2023 20:28:47 GMT -5
I have less than 12 hours to finish an audiobook and an ebook. My paperback has too much left.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 30, 2023 21:12:09 GMT -5
This will be it for this year, since the next one is roughly 600 pages long. So, to cap off 2023:
98) Dylan Jones, Loaded
A book about the seminal New York rock band the Velvet Underground, done mainly as a long list of quotes from people who knew them or liked their records, interspersed with the author's narrative.
I enjoyed reading about the music, because I love the Velvets, but too much of it was endless gossip about Andy Warhol's crew and other famous people partying with this person or that person in New York and London and all the drugs they were taking and whatnot (through I guess that would be eye-opening for someone who wasn't around at the time). And it got repetitive, like he had to get an opinion about Lou Reed's being an asshole to journalists from every living journalist who'd ever met him.
I'd also warn people that the language is that of the time, since they're quotes, so while it's all very positive about gay and transgender folks, some terms are used that are not appropriate today. Plus the narrative was in italics, which is ok for a paragraph or two, but sometimes it went on for pages.
So - I'll give it a B+ since it's the Velvets, and I did learn some things.
On to 2024!
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Post by sophie on Dec 30, 2023 23:07:00 GMT -5
Killing Moon by Jo Nesbo. An excellent murder/ thriller with Nesbo’s main character in his other novels, Harry Hole, back in Oslo and using his unorthodox methods to solve yet another nasty set of murders.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 31, 2023 3:26:36 GMT -5
95. An Accidental Murder, J New. Quirky little mystery novella set in the 1930s 96. Miracles in Maggody, Joan Hess. Mystery by a very tongue in cheek author set in a redneck community visited by a charlatan tent preacher. Are small town Americans really that gullible?
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Dec 31, 2023 3:52:16 GMT -5
Enter Ghost is on my list, one of the libraries has at as an e-book, but I want a paper copy to read that one, I think,
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Post by riverhorse on Dec 31, 2023 7:05:17 GMT -5
I loved the Wattle Island Book Club! Thanks for the recommendation ozziegiraffe
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Post by lillielangtry on Dec 31, 2023 9:40:05 GMT -5
I had some cleaning and baking to do today so I decided to listen to a short audiobook and add a 20th new country for the year - Romania.
Herta Müller, Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt (the English translation is the totally different The Passport, apparently) A novella by Nobel prizewinner Müller about a German-speaking Romanian family trying to emigrate to Germany. Very short sentences, short chapters, a short book. It's fairly grim stuff - bureaucracy, bribery, superstition, memories of near-starvation during WWII. But I get the feeling Communist-era Romania was not exactly a fun place to be.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 31, 2023 10:36:20 GMT -5
Ooh I’ve read other Herta Müllers— not fun books, but worthwhile.
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Post by scrubb on Dec 31, 2023 15:06:54 GMT -5
Last night I finished a book that I think others here have read: by Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.
It started out great and I found it gripping and fascinating and infuriating throughout. It discusses what the title says - the data bias (towards men, excluding women) in many, many aspects of life. I knew a lot of the information provided, and had some vague recognition of even more of it - but I still learned a lot. And I appreciated the examples provided of solutions that DO address women's concerns, or incorporate input from women, and how they were implemented.
Unfortunately, it's not consistent throughout - a couple of sections don't present a really solid base and the discussion comes across as speculation. I think her style in those sections also became more sarcastic and made more assumptions, which - while understandable, given how frustrating the ubiquity of male bias is - doesn't do the the book any favours.
But overall, the big picture is clear and clearly shown - that there is built-in bias in virtually all aspects of life. And the summary reinforced the need to keep pushing, and how. Definitely worth reading.
I had to put it down sometimes and take a little break - not because it's super heavy or anything, but the big picture it was presenting would just start to feel overwhelmingly infuriating, or depressing.
ETA: I meant to point out that some of the sources she sited were newspaper articles that discussed studies, rather than original sources, which was part of what I meant when I said that some sections didn't present a really solid base.
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Post by sprite on Jan 2, 2024 20:02:50 GMT -5
I couldn't read the medical chapter before bed, it made me so angry.
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