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Post by scrubb on Mar 13, 2024 2:02:51 GMT -5
Victoria Lloyd-Barlow, All the Little Bird-Hearts
Liiiisa mentioned this book last month and it sounded really intriguing. The library hold said it would be months, but suddenly it came up a few days ago.
The protagonist is a neurodivergant woman with a teenage daughter. I think, though there is a somewhat disturbing plot, the book is really about looking at everything through the protagonist's eyes. Which is kind of fascinating, and poignant.
I read something that author said about it - which is that she wanted to set it in the '80s before autism became so very prominent, and the ways of talking about it became structured in a way that is for the benefit of mainstream society, not for neurodivergent people. I'd like to ask her more about that.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 13, 2024 5:13:13 GMT -5
Thanks for mentioning that comment of the author's, scrubb. That's interesting, I'd like to hear more too.
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Post by sophie on Mar 13, 2024 23:40:56 GMT -5
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. A mystery but also historical fiction set in the late 1700s in the NE United States. The main character, Martha Ballard, was a real person, a midwife, and the author used literary license to add details which where not known from various historical sources (including her own journals). She is called to examine a body (because she was a trained medical professional) determined it was a murder, and tries to figure out the what and who. I enjoyed this book. While I know life was tough in the early USA, this book spared no punches with the hardships faced by all, but especially the women.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 14, 2024 14:48:23 GMT -5
Western Lane, by Chetna Maroo - long listed for the Booker. It's a short book about pre-teen Gopi and her family after her mother dies, and her father gets her to throw herself into squash. It's about the family's grief, but also about community and identity - they are very much Indian, and Jain, and those things matter, especially to the parents' generation.
I appreciated that the character couldn't really identify/articulate what she felt much of the time, but her actions sometimes got it across. One of my main takeaways is how hard it is for a parent who is deep in grief themself to help their children navigate. And a recognition of how children also sacrifice for their parents.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 14, 2024 16:09:42 GMT -5
Thank you scrubb - I wasn't sure about that because of the squash angle, but now it sounds good.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 15, 2024 0:03:47 GMT -5
I didn't absolutely love it, but some bits were really evocative so that overall i liked it. And it's short enough that it's not a huge investment.
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Post by Q-pee on Mar 15, 2024 12:48:51 GMT -5
Save me the Waltz Zelda Fitzgerald
A very strange novel, it's driven by mood for much of the book rather than plot or character. The lead character Arabella is an odd mix of fey and wise. At the end of the book I thought it was about growing into middle age with some grace, but I suspect if I'd read it in my 20s I would have concluded something different.
It's semi-autobiographical which makes me curious about her life
At another book group when I said I was reading this someone recommended Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation so that's next.
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Post by Webs on Mar 15, 2024 13:44:46 GMT -5
8 lives of a centuries old trickster - Mirinae Lee
A complicated story about the life of a survivor of 2 wars and the abuses of communism. Told out of order, in many voices. Complicated but compelling.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 16, 2024 3:01:27 GMT -5
13. Purled and Poisoned by Tracey Drew. Fun cozy mystery with helpful (sometimes) cats, set in New Zealand.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 16, 2024 10:12:18 GMT -5
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ogawa I had seen a few mentions of this and bought and read it on impulse. It's a quiet Japanese novel about a young woman who becomes depressed following a relationship break-up. She goes to stay with her uncle, who runs a secondhand bookshop in an area of Tokyo that has a lot of them and gradually finds her way back to life and connecting with people (and books!). It's nice. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it more than the "before the coffee gets cold" book which somehow has a similar vibe.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 18, 2024 2:51:10 GMT -5
Nathan Thrall, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama This was on the best non-fiction lists of 2023, and deservedly so. It's an incredibly researched book but also a very tough read; every time I listened, I was absorbed, but every time I was reluctant to go back to it because the circumstances are just so awful. Thrall takes a bus crash outside Jerusalem in which several children died and uses it to pick apart the situation in Israel/Palestine - the families, the bus driver, the paramedics, the army officers, and so on, and how they all got to that place. The Palestinian parents desperate to find out if their children are alive or dead who can't get to the hospital because they don't have the right ID cards to get through the checkpoints. The poor state of the Palestinian education system, and the roads, and the hospitals. The inexcusable delay before any help was sent from the Israeli side. All the more brought home for me because I was talking to someone not long ago who was in a car accident in the West Bank and whose Palestinian interpreter died because he did not receive the same treatment as the foreigners. Recommended if you are interested in the subject.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 18, 2024 5:40:19 GMT -5
Oh yeah, that book is on my list. I think I won't read it right after "Prophet Song," but definitely sometime this year.
Oh, speaking of, I see I didn't post it here last night:
13) Paul Lynch, Prophet Song
About hypothetical fascism in Ireland, seen from the perspective of a woman who is a microbiologist with 4 children whose husband is a trade union leader and is arrested at the beginning, and you watch as everything gets worse and worse and she tries to protect the children and find her husband. SUCH an amazing book, but approach with care. It just never lets up, not until the last page, and even then not really.
Near the end, he says that the world ending is a local event that takes place here and there in different places that you take as a warning sign but never quite believe could happen to you, which really struck me.
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Post by tzarine on Mar 18, 2024 20:17:50 GMT -5
garden of the finzi continis a wealthy italian family in ferrara believes their affluence will protect them against the rising nazis saw the flick w dominique sanda & helmut berger www.imdb.com/title/tt0065777/
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 19, 2024 5:21:23 GMT -5
tzarine I remember "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" as a film, but didn't realize it was a novel. Put it on the list
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Post by tzarine on Mar 19, 2024 19:59:12 GMT -5
liisa
really enjoying it but will probably want to rewatch the flick, now
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 20, 2024 5:35:15 GMT -5
14) Premee Mohamed, The Butcher of the Forest
A brave and knowledgeable woman is sent into a magically dangerous forest to rescue the children of a bloodthirsty emperor. Great story, great imagery, and I loved the ending.
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Post by Q-pee on Mar 20, 2024 8:58:23 GMT -5
Small Things Like These Claire Keegan
Lovely and sad at the same time. In terms of plot almost nothing happens but the historical undercurrents are there and heart-twisting. Set in Ireland in 1985, Bill Furlong is a good man, raising a good family, working hard, going to church, doing all the right things, but he feels uneasy. His life collides with the Catholic laundry workhouses... and he does something very brave.
Busman's Honeymoon Dorothy L Sayers
The last Peter Wimsey mystery. The mystery is a bit lame. But the love story is interesting... and the thoughts the two very intellectual protagonists have about each other are rather beautiful
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Post by sophie on Mar 20, 2024 14:52:22 GMT -5
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. A novel about a bit of a magical bookshop in Dublin helping some characters discover their own stories. Meh.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 20, 2024 23:01:17 GMT -5
Thanks for mentioning that comment of the author's, scrubb. That's interesting, I'd like to hear more too. I found the interview. This is the specific comment I was thinking of: Interview is here
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 21, 2024 5:25:44 GMT -5
Ooh, thank you.
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Post by sprite on Mar 21, 2024 11:13:19 GMT -5
Before We Say Goodbye --Toshikazu Kawaguchi
A pleasant little book. It must have been a recommend from here. It's part of a series of stories about people who go to a cafe where it's possible to go back to the future, but only for the time it takes your coffee to go cold.
I enjoyed this. The stories got a bit samey after a while, but it was possible to read one before bed, and gave an interesting bite-sized window of ordinary Japanese culture.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 21, 2024 16:27:11 GMT -5
Oh, interesting that it has a different title! When I read it, it was called "Before the Coffee Gets Cold".
Although, I did hear there's a sequel so maybe that's what you read?
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 21, 2024 16:29:25 GMT -5
I took it as a sequel, since sprite says it's part of a series?
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Post by sprite on Mar 21, 2024 16:46:01 GMT -5
Yes, it's a whole series, apparently! As Lillie suggests above, it's not exactly great literature, but it's a pleasant read.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 22, 2024 1:19:19 GMT -5
Rashidah Ismaili, Autobiography of the Lower East Side Benin-born Ismaili has been living in New York since the 50s and, as regulars here will guess by now, I came across her while searching for women writers from her country of origin and sadly not finding many (a couple of poets have been translated into English). So I ended up reading this collection of connected short stories and was very pleasantly surprised. Each story features a different central character living in the Lower East Side in the early 1960s, many of whom know each other or come across each other in some way. They are musicians, writers, new immigrants, Muslims, people in interracial relationships, people struggling to get by, political activists, single mothers, students, etc. There's a gentle strength about the book and its characters that I really enjoyed.
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Post by Q-pee on Mar 22, 2024 3:37:46 GMT -5
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. A novel about a bit of a magical bookshop in Dublin helping some characters discover their own stories. Meh. Chocolat did it best, there have been a few with the same kind of "magic shop" since.
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Post by sprite on Mar 22, 2024 7:41:44 GMT -5
This Other Eden --Paul Harding
I've given up on this. It is beautifully written, and an important story (mixed race locals being evicted from their island for racist/classist reasons), but it moves very slowly and I'm just not in the mood and someone else on the Libby app wants to read it.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 23, 2024 1:29:38 GMT -5
14. Hanks and a Hitman, Tracey Drew. Good mystery but more description of the two men the MC is interested in than I need. I prefer mystery to romance.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 23, 2024 15:24:25 GMT -5
The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng. Longlisted for the Booker last year. It's set mostly in Penang, and a tiny bit in South Africa. Somerset Maugham is one of the main characters and it also brings in Sun Yat Sen. I loved it. Great writing - except I occasionally felt like I wasn't in the main character's head as much as I expected to be - she felt kind of flat some of the time. And I wonder if it might have been the male author writing a female character? But eventually she felt more "real", so maybe it had nothing to do with that.
It's a book with 3 different timelines. An older woman in the 1940s is looking back to events of 1921; and in the 1921 timeline she tells a story from 10 years earlier. But, it seems to me that she used information she received in 1921 (when she met Maugham) in her 1911 story. I should double check it, but I really think he told her something, in 1921, and then a couple chapters later, she passes that information along to someone in the 1911 story.
anyway, as already noted, I loved it. but I think I still like the first of his books that I read, the best - Garden of Evening Mists.
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Post by Webs on Mar 23, 2024 16:51:20 GMT -5
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. A novel about a bit of a magical bookshop in Dublin helping some characters discover their own stories. Meh. I read that, from a recommendation from Hal I think. I just finished the 8 lives of a Century Old Trickster. Wow. Confusing storyline but extremely complex. Covering everything from the Japanese Invasion of Asia through to the current century. Many stories of abuse and assault. But truly complex.
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