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Post by Liiisa on Apr 18, 2024 5:26:29 GMT -5
sophie my mom just read that and liked it too.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 18, 2024 14:24:56 GMT -5
It does sound like good subject matter, and I like the female perspective... but I hated the Kristin Hannah book I read SO MUCH, and thought it was so awful, that I just can't bring myself to read anything else by her.
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Post by sophie on Apr 18, 2024 18:03:22 GMT -5
Scrubb, I generally try to avoid her books but this time it was passed directly to me so I read it.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 20, 2024 14:27:26 GMT -5
Finished "Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone" by Benjamin Stevenson.
Meh. The style was kind of clever, but in the end it didn't make up for plot holes and iffy writing. IMO.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 20, 2024 22:24:17 GMT -5
20. Nine Lives, Bernice Rubens. Interesting “Whydunnit” told in 3 alternating voices, about a man who killed 9 psychotherapists, but claimed he was innocent.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 21, 2024 6:11:30 GMT -5
20) Yangsze Choo, The Fox Wife
In Chinese mythology, there are foxes that can appear as humans and are beautiful and mesmerizing, but can also be malevolent. This book, set in early 20th century China and Japan, was written from the perspective of one of these fox-people, a young woman seeking revenge for the killing of her cub. Loved
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Post by Q-pee on Apr 21, 2024 9:18:06 GMT -5
I've just finished my first Dorothy Sayers, Have your Carcase I've listened to radio adaptations of the Lord Peter Whimsey stories before, but never read a whole one. Sayers' style is very witty, a bit convoluted - I think it would start to grate on me if I read several back to back. Anyway, a fun detective story that I didn't have a hope of figuring out. I enjoy them a lot - but agree, small doses works best. There are BBC adaptations on YouTube as well, some with Ian Carmichael and some with Michael Simpson which I prefer - they also have Harriet Walters as the intelligent modern lady writer Harriet Vane. |
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Post by Q-pee on Apr 21, 2024 9:27:50 GMT -5
Before the Coffee Gets Cold; Tales from the Cafe
Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Sequel to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, which I gave four stars on goodreads.
Charming, but the surprise has worn off... there are more books in the series as well.
This one drifts into philosophy and meditations on happiness and I'm not completely convinced by the idea that you can decide to be happy in all circumstances.
Some things were tied up, and other mysteries were opened.
But the books involve time travel, but you can't change anything in the other time... but actually just existing in the other time can cause changes so the premise of the book is becoming a bit frail.
I enjoyed it, but not sure I enjoyed it enough to make me want to read the others in the series.
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Post by sophie on Apr 21, 2024 12:36:35 GMT -5
Nothing earth shattering but somewhat interesting and slightly steamy.. Nightwork by Nora Roberts. Main character started stealing to help pay his mother’s cancer bills.. and after she died, he just kept going it but within a strict set of guidelines! Falls in love but had to disappear as bad guy want him to be his stealing toy. Years later, encounters same woman and tell all. Bad guy is eventually vanquished. True love reigns supreme. Not recommended unless you are in need of a romantic fix.
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Post by Q-pee on Apr 22, 2024 8:58:18 GMT -5
Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation
Judith Mackrell
The dangerous women are
Diana Cooper
Nancy Cunard
Tallulah Bankhead
Zelda Fitzgerald
Josephine Baker
Tamara de Lempicka
They were all astonishing in their own way and other than Diana Cooper I knew little of them (she's immortalized in Nancy Mitford's book "Don't Tell Alfred" as the former Ambassador's wife who will not leave the embassy which isn't far off what she did... she remained in Paris and created more wonderful and beautiful parties that derailed what should have been the social whirl of the Embassy). They were all brave, clever, selfish and a little bit crazy. Josephine Baker stands out as having been the most amazing of them all. She was born so poor, her grandparents had been born into slavery, she dropped out of school at 12... during the early years of her famein Paris Colette came to see her show, and Mick Jagger saw her last show. The idea that she bridges Colette and Jagger is a bit mind blowing. She's the only American-born woman to receive full French military honours at her funeral as a consequence of her resistance and spy work in WW2.
Very interesting to see how these women found relative freedom and what it cost them.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 22, 2024 21:30:47 GMT -5
21. To Kill a Labrador, by Kassandra Lamb. Cozy mystery around training support dogs for veterans with PTSD.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 23, 2024 20:53:24 GMT -5
Haven, by Emma Donoghue.
A fanatical monk follows a vision of taking 2 other monks and settling on a barren island to escape the evils of mankind and temptation.
It's well written and has some good points as a survival story, but it's just not all that interesting overall. The characters are well drawn but the reader just doesn't get really drawn into their tale.
Note: the island they land on is the one used in Star Wars, where Luke lives.
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Post by Webs on Apr 24, 2024 20:09:32 GMT -5
Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation Judith Mackrell Nancy Cunard Wasn't she responsible for introducing Edward VIII to Wallis? I don't know who Diana Cooper or Tamara de Lempika are but may read just to find out. I'm reading "Clytemnestra" - Constanza Casati. I like it so far. It's ancient Greek mythology as if the mythology part never really happened. |
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Post by Q-pee on Apr 25, 2024 5:53:55 GMT -5
I don't know, and I kinda doubt it. She was an anti-fascist and anti-racist activist, and she'd moved to Paris long before Mrs Simpson moved to the UK. Wiki says Thelma was the one to introduce them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Furness,_Viscountess_Furness ) But Diana Cooper was married to Duff Cooper, who was ambassador in Paris for a bit... she had to receive the former king and his wife and resented it. She had known the Prince Wales in the UK and had met Wallis and not impressed...in the book she's quoted as saying 'he had become "sillier and duller" and his "Becky Sharp of a wife" had become "more common"' Which cracked me up - it's so massively insulting. (and before that she'd been a great beauty of her era, and then surprised everyone by going to work as a nurse in a hospital during WW1, and then going into movies. When she married husband had no money so she continued working in movies and funded his career) Tamara de Lempika was an artist and you might recognise her work... quintessentially art deco
All six women are fascinating, but Nancy Cunard and Josephine Baker were the MOST fascinating
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 25, 2024 12:07:44 GMT -5
I think that painting is on the cover of some record?
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Post by lillielangtry on Apr 25, 2024 12:59:21 GMT -5
I recognise it too but I would be thinking a book cover...
Rebecca Makkai, The Hundred-Year House
This was our book club book, although sadly I'm not well enough to attend :-(
It's a family saga told in reverse, ie the sections are 1999, 1955, 1929, and 1900. The first section, which is the longest, opens up a mystery and then the following sections shed light on the first one - but you have to read really attentively or even go back and reread the first part to confirm it to yourself once you've read the end.
It's a case of a mysterious death - maybe?! - and family history in a former artists' colony. I was sceptical at first as quite a few of the characters seemed annoying but it turned out to be very good. I think a good choice for discussion as well.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 25, 2024 16:23:00 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I can see that. Now which book....
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Post by sprite on Apr 26, 2024 8:15:23 GMT -5
Haven, by Emma Donoghue. Note: the island they land on is the one used in Star Wars, where Luke lives. I have been on a boat trip around that island. I have a lovely green "Skellig Wars" mug as a souvenir, but oddly, not from the gift shop where the tour left from. Opportunity missed! A Spell of Good Things, Ayobami Adebayo The story of two people in Nigeria; one, a junior doctor from a locally famous/wealthy family, the other the impoverished teenaged son of an unemployed teacher suffering from depression. The two storylines slowly and intermittently converge, but not everyone is aware of this, and that is part of the sadness of the book. It's also a commentary on how when bad things happen, everyone suffers, but recovery is far more achievable for some people than others. Confession; I read the first 1/3, then skipped to the last 20 pages. I just couldn't get into it, there was so much misery and no hope for the boy and his family. I just felt like I was watching one of those commercials that try to get you to donate money to a very worthy cause. I actually feel guilty for giving up on the book. The characters are very real, which ironically made it harder to read terrible stories about them. |
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Post by Q-pee on Apr 26, 2024 12:42:52 GMT -5
Siddhartha
Herman Hesse
Deceptively simple, I might read it again in five years, I suspect it might reveal different things at different ages.
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Post by riverhorse on Apr 26, 2024 13:01:48 GMT -5
This is one of my favourites of Hesse, who is my favourite author. I read Siddartha at last once every few years.
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Post by Q-pee on Apr 26, 2024 14:11:11 GMT -5
I've never read anything by him before - so please pile on the recommendations!
This counts as my "read a book in translation" book for the year. (I may read other books in translation but the goal is one)
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Post by riverhorse on Apr 27, 2024 7:34:16 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 27, 2024 16:20:05 GMT -5
Oh man, I read all of Hesse when I was 20 years old. Might be interesting as a reread (that and Alan Watts).
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Post by scrubb on Apr 28, 2024 19:26:41 GMT -5
Another Emma Donaghue that was on sale with Bookbub - Learned by Heart. It's historical fiction, but based on real characters and events.
People might have heard of Anne Lister - the woman known as Gentleman Jack, about which a TV show has been made. (I must look for it.) She was an openly lesbian woman in the early 1800s who dressed in men's clothing, was assertive and unwilling to live the ordinary life of a woman who in those days couldn't do anything but get married, and had several well-known affairs. I first heard about her last year in Wales, when I visited a house that the TV show was partly filmed in.
Anyway, this story is about her school days and her first girlfriend, Eliza Reine, who was real too - there are letters between them. It's told from Eliza's point of view, with some letters written from Eliza to Anne 10 years after their school days, when Eliza is in a mental institution, but the majority is flashbacks to the year they spent in school together.
It's well written and kept me reading, although there are some disappointing bits. Until their affair starts, it's pretty much a classic girls boarding school book that might bore some readers, although it is a great look at the times. And then, she doesn't really tell the story of what happens after they separate at school, and Eliza ends up in the hospital. It would have been nice to see the evolution of the main character. Still, certainly worth while.
I liked it quite a bit
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Post by lillielangtry on Apr 29, 2024 0:11:31 GMT -5
Another Emma Donaghue that was on sale with Bookbub - Learned by Heart. It's historical fiction, but based on real characters and events. People might have heard of Anne Lister - the woman known as Gentleman Jack, about which a TV show has been made. (I must look for it.) She was an openly lesbian woman in the early 1800s who dressed in men's clothing, was assertive and unwilling to live the ordinary life of a woman who in those days couldn't do anything but get married, and had several well-known affairs. I first heard about her last year in Wales, when I visited a house that the TV show was partly filmed in. Anyway, this story is about her school days and her first girlfriend, Eliza Reine, who was real too - there are letters between them. It's told from Eliza's point of view, with some letters written from Eliza to Anne 10 years after their school days, when Eliza is in a mental institution, but the majority is flashbacks to the year they spent in school together. It's well written and kept me reading, although there are some disappointing bits. Until their affair starts, it's pretty much a classic girls boarding school book that might bore some readers, although it is a great look at the times. And then, she doesn't really tell the story of what happens after they separate at school, and Eliza ends up in the hospital. It would have been nice to see the evolution of the main character. Still, certainly worth while. I liked it quite a bit Just as an aside, the church where Lister later had a blessing with her partner borders onto the school where I went in York. Apparently there's a plaque now, but there wasn't in the 90s. |
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Post by scrubb on Apr 29, 2024 11:46:21 GMT -5
Was that the school she attended?
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Post by lillielangtry on Apr 29, 2024 12:58:11 GMT -5
Was that the school she attended? No. The church is called Holy Trinity Goodramgate, it's about a 10 minute walk from King's Manor, where the school in the book is - it's a real place, although I wasn't aware there had been a girls' school there. The church they go to, St. Olave's, is right by the other school I went to, and the Assembly Rooms also still exist although now, sadly, a chain Italian restaurant occupies the space. York city centre is really not large ;-) Incidentally, King's Manor also features in C.J. Sansom's Sovereign. I was sorry to hear he died yesterday. I really like the Shardlake books. |
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 29, 2024 18:07:30 GMT -5
I just learned that one of the goofy pseudonymous DJs that we listen to on an obscure LA radio station on Sunday afternoons is: JONATHAN LETHEM.
pero just remarked on it offhand, not knowing that there was any significance to that name, and I didn't believe him, like "oh bullshit, no he's not"; it took several pieces of evidence to convince me. Whoa, he's one of my favorite authors; that is nuts. You can tell that they're both smart and very widely read, but he never mentions anything about what he does when he's not on the radio.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 29, 2024 22:27:55 GMT -5
His wiki page doesn't mention his radio gig!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 29, 2024 22:57:33 GMT -5
22. Cat to the Dogs, Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Cozy mystery with talking cats! Better than it sounds.
23. From shifting sands he lifted me, Arthur Stanley Jackson.You won’t find this one on Goodreads, as it’s a privately published autobiography of my uncle by marriage, a Salvation Army officer. My sister lent it to me when she was here.
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