|
Post by Liiisa on Nov 2, 2021 4:43:43 GMT -5
Oh lol oops! I somehow convinced myself that she'd said The Satanic Verses.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Nov 2, 2021 5:44:43 GMT -5
Deliberately didn't want to go for that one, and Midnight's Children won the Booker prize in 1981, the year of my birth, so I was interested in it. Anyway, I may go back to it.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Dec 16, 2021 17:50:37 GMT -5
"That Woman: The life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of York"
The first chapters of her childhood were kind of dull; then it launched into a bunch of speculation and theory that she was biologically androgynous or hermaphroditic, based on her having a "masculine jaw", playing sports in highschool, and getting married young. I briefly skimmed a few other bits but it was all tawdry, gossip-based speculation from what I saw so I put it down.
I'm still trying to figure out why I ever got the book. I do find the history of her husband's sympathy to Hitler and Mosely quite interesting and I guess I must have felt interested enough to pick up a cheap biography, but wow, it was awful.
Also, the electronic edition had soooo many glitches. Every few pages there'd be a smunched up bunch of nonsense words and the rest of the sentence wouldn't be releated to the first half. That was annoying.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Dec 16, 2021 18:37:23 GMT -5
Wow that sounds appalling in every possible way! Good choice to abandon it.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Dec 17, 2021 2:01:35 GMT -5
Some books are definitely not worth ploughing through.
|
|
|
Post by kneazle on Dec 17, 2021 16:27:03 GMT -5
A podcast I listen to did an episode on Wallice Simpson and Edward VIII and the guest historian said Edward would have been so catastrophically bad as a King there should be statues all over the UK of Wallice Simpson for saving yhe country from him.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Jan 10, 2022 3:18:08 GMT -5
I abandoned
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks The author used to have a column for the Guardian I liked a lot so I tried this even though it sounded a bit self-helpy, which is not a genre I like much. But nearly a third of the way in, I was bored. He seemed to be making the point that we have a finite time on Earth (well, yes) and that keeping this in mind leads to a richer life and trying to pack in work and experiences the way we are encouraged to do in our modern society is actually just a distraction from that fact. Fine, but he didn't seem to be moving on to discuss the alternatives, although possibly he was getting to that and I didn't give it enough of a chance. He started discussing the issue of people who've been seriously ill (it's always cancer in these examples, isn't it) being appreciative of their limited time. That irritated me because, while I AM very appreciative of my life and health after my own cancer, I don't find that my awareness is really beneficial. On the contrary, I'm really poor at planning for the future because I just don't trust that I'll be around for it and honestly, there are many more disadvantages than advantages to living that way.
Also, I marked this book as abandoned on Goodreads, which means that it is not on my "read" shelf, but it still counted it as a book for my reading challenge - surely that's a bug? I had to completely delete it from my books to get rid of it. #firstworldproblems
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Jan 11, 2022 6:36:32 GMT -5
Oooh lillie! I had that on my to-read list, but I think you've talked me out of it.
|
|
|
Post by fishface on Jan 16, 2022 5:22:44 GMT -5
I haven't abandoned it but i have to go back to it later - The Inheritance of Loss. I enjoyed it but it was at the place I was housesitting. I need to get the book out from the library to continue reading it and currently I just can't be bothered.
So I will start reading it again. It's temporarily abandoned rather than properly abandoned.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Jan 16, 2022 7:46:17 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I remember really liking "The Inheritance of Loss." I think I read her other book too ("Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard"), but she hasn't published anything since - I keep looking.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Jan 24, 2022 13:33:20 GMT -5
Sarah Gailey, River of Teeth I should have known better than to try reading a novel about an outlaw cowboy type who rides a hippo through the marshes of the 19th century Mississippi River delta. It would make a good comic book, but even that would need a different writer. I think she was trying to imitate the cliché writing of old pulp cowboy novels, but the effect was tedious rather than amusing. Avoid. Liiiiiisa - have you read other books by Sarah Gailey? A friend recommended her to me just this weekend. He thought there was some similarity to what China Mieville writes, and I recall that you're a big fan of his.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Jan 24, 2022 18:37:30 GMT -5
No, that's the only one I've read. And I know, everyone who loves stuff that I like loves her! I guess I should try something else by her before writing her off entirely. I just wasn't into the hippo cowboy book.
|
|
|
Post by tzarine on Jan 26, 2022 16:50:45 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I remember really liking "The Inheritance of Loss." I think I read her other book too ("Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard"), but she hasn't published anything since - I keep looking. tzar hosted her in cali for a reading & Q&A she's really lovely & was sweet to tzarevich liked inheritance of loss
|
|
|
Post by Q-pee on Feb 4, 2022 12:06:09 GMT -5
"That Woman: The life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of York" She was the Duchess of Windsor, not the Duchess of York. If that was the actual title you should have definitely stayed away.
|
|
|
Post by Q-pee on Feb 4, 2022 12:11:25 GMT -5
I don't understand high schools' obsession with 19th century literature. I really do think that you should start with well-written contemporary works and then let people really keen on Victoriana work their way back. And if you want Victoriana go for Trollope or Gaskell rather than endless bloody Dickens.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 4, 2022 17:24:46 GMT -5
I love Trollope!
|
|
|
Post by tzarine on Feb 6, 2022 16:03:51 GMT -5
victoriana is big business w all the film adaptations, so teachers get influenced as well.
tho in cali - in high school, some of the more progressive teachers assigned farewell to manzanar, jeanne houston's memoir of growing up in an internment camp
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Feb 15, 2022 22:31:13 GMT -5
Just abandoned "The Voyages of Captain Scott: A Retelling from "The Discovery" and "Scott's Last Expedition""
I've read quite a few books about Scott's expeditions, including his own journals and memoirs from people who were on the expeditions with him. It struck me fairly early on in this book that I'd rather read the 2 books it was based on than this retelling, which didn't seem to add anything.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Mar 28, 2022 17:18:21 GMT -5
Adam Mars-Jones, Box Hill
A little indie-press paperback which I acquired in some way, not noticing at the time that a lot of it is about a gay BDSM relationship from the perspective of the guy who was the sub. Nothing against doing what you want to do, gentlemen, but I'll leave you to your privacy; domination stuff kind of creeps me out.
Anyway, onward we go.
|
|
|
Post by lisamnz on Apr 5, 2022 21:43:06 GMT -5
"That Woman: The life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of York" She was the Duchess of Windsor, not the Duchess of York. If that was the actual title you should have definitely stayed away. it is actually called 'duchess of windsor'... assume a mis-remembering.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Apr 6, 2022 5:15:41 GMT -5
I would read "The life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of York" -- like I'd be curious why they called it that
|
|
|
Post by Q-pee on Apr 7, 2022 15:42:38 GMT -5
Might be about to abandon a book... it's got a group of people in a tech start up working on a secure file storage tool in 1999, they all go to a HUGE New Year's party. In 1999. Tech people. Programmers. Working on maintaining a secure service.
In 1999.
No mention of Y2K in case you didn't make the connection.
Other aspects are OK but I just don't know if I can go on.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Apr 7, 2022 16:33:53 GMT -5
Yeah no Q
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Apr 7, 2022 17:18:28 GMT -5
Hmmmmm. My husband is a programmer. He was convinced the fears associated with Y2K were overblown. He didn't think it was a huge deal, and a party of him and his co-workers at the end of 1999 would have mentioned Y2K only in the context of mocking those who thought planes would be falling out of the sky.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Apr 7, 2022 18:45:51 GMT -5
Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny
Seeing this book on the Booker International shortlist reminds me that I abandoned it last month. It's a set of short stories, and I didn't abandon it because it was badly written, but just that the first story was pretty gross and I thought "if this nasty toilet story is the first story in this collection, the rest of them could be even worse," and I just wasn't up for it.
I may pick it up again some day, because the gross toilet story was well written enough for me to continue reading it to the end, but for now maybe not.
|
|
|
Post by Q-pee on Apr 8, 2022 2:22:52 GMT -5
Hmmmmm. My husband is a programmer. He was convinced the fears associated with Y2K were overblown. He didn't think it was a huge deal, and a party of him and his co-workers at the end of 1999 would have mentioned Y2K only in the context of mocking those who thought planes would be falling out of the sky. It’s not just the party, it’s never mentioned in business meetings and these are people heading to IPO. The writer goes into some detail about the exciting technology but never mentions it, not even to mock those who worried. Even if you didn’t think it was an issue you would have discussed it as a risk or how to reassure investors. It was a big deal on legacy systems so maybe less for startups but it was always in the news! I was in a slightly tech role at the time, it was a thing… cousin who is programmer bought a yacht on what he earnt from it.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Apr 8, 2022 13:09:59 GMT -5
Fair point.
|
|
|
Post by Q-pee on Apr 9, 2022 10:42:00 GMT -5
hmmph
and now an older man is lusting after a young woman with elaborate fantasies (benign ones)
and his house is described in detail... he's kept it old style but has an aga as a "concession to modernity"
AGAS WERE INVENTED IN 1922
I suspect the book might be getting interesting soon but I'm on page 130.
ETA _ did not finish it.
Life is too short for bad books and this is on the bad pile. I think my mum thought the book theme and the geek themes would make it fun for me. Nope. Just terrible.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Apr 26, 2022 20:15:28 GMT -5
Lucy Ellman, Things are Against Us
But wait -- isn't Lucy Ellman the author of "Ducks, Newburyport," which was my favorite novel of whatever year that was? Yes. But this is a collection of essays about the modern world that read kind of like a transcription of banal Twitter threads from 2017. I kept skipping to the next essay in loyalty to "Ducks, Newburyport," but never did find one to settle on, so into the out pile this goes.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Apr 26, 2022 23:49:44 GMT -5
Your post made me check "Ducks, Newburyport" and it's on sale for kindle, for $10, so I had to buy it.
I have about 8 tabs open to books I want that are all full price, $13.99. I'll break down and buy them some day but I usually make myself wait till I have an excuse, like going on holiday, before buying full price books.
p.s. Yes, I could get some from the library, but I honestly have trouble reading paper books now. I read in bed a lot and need the light of the kindle, and I need the larger font, and I appreciate that I can slip my book into a pocket or purse no problem.
That said, need to look into getting ebooks from the library again. Last time I checked, there weren't many books I wanted available, but that was a couple years ago.
|
|