Put down that phone and read a book in January

[Liiisa]

Haven't started one of these in a while, so here's the current month's book thread! Last year I did a piss-poor job of book-reading because I was obsessing over the election on Twitter all the time; hopefully 2017 will be a little more productive, reading-wise.

I just started my current book, which is "The Orchard of Lost Souls" by Nadifa Mohamed - a story of Somalia which so far is very good.

Happy reading in the New Year!

Link to the December thread

[tucano]

I will try not to make this the last time I post in one of these threads this year.

Just started reading Elephant Complex by John Gimlette, which is about travels in Sri Lanka. Enjoying it so far.

[mei]

thanks Liisa! I just started reading The Luminaries so might not be back for a while... big book.

[ozziegiraffe]

Thank you, Liiisa. Incidentally, I read quite a few books on the kindle app on my phone.
My first completed for 2017 is Five Go on a Strategy Away Day, an Enid Blyton for grown-ups, by Bruno Vincent. I bought this one with some of my gift book voucher.
Not really as funny as I expected. I thought the concept was brilliant, and having been part of both leading and participating in this sort of event, I chose this one of the series to try. Somehow, it just didn't tickle my funny bone.

[Bastet]

55 books last year. Mainly fantasy and sci-fi, not as much horror as usual. Almost only reading series too it seems.

Will probably set my book challenge at 50 again for this year.

[HalcyonDaze]

Ha, I still haven't finished updating last year's books. I planned to do that between Christmas and New Year but ended up in New Zealand.

Took the kindle to New Zealand and read a few cozy mysteries that I'd bought with book bub over the past few months.

[scrubb]

Well, first book of the year is another Maisie Dobbs mystery - Birds of a Feather, second in the series. It was a reasonably well put together mystery, and the characters are pretty good.

[ozziegiraffe]

My second completed book of the year is Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil, by James Runcie. It was only when I went to review it on Goodreads that I realised the author was the son of an Archbishop of Canterbury. No wonder he presents clergy so well. An excellent depiction of the period and the characters. Sidney is a great developing character, and I love the references to some of my favourite authors of the period, including C S Lewis and Dorothy Sayers.
I'm looking forward to more in the series.
It is a series of four novellas, independent but related, which I have been reading for some months on my phone, while in waiting rooms, etc. The novella format is quite good for this.

[scrubb]

My second one is "Thud" by Terry Pratchett. It seemed a little bit simpler/less elegant than most of the Discworld books, but I still just really liked it.

[Liiisa]

1) Nadifa Mohamed, The Orchard of Lost Souls

This is a story of wartime 1980s Somalia. It begins with an encounter among a girl and two women: the girl an orphan from a refugee camp, the women a widow with ill-concealed contempt for the new regime and a young soldier. The book then follows the three in their disparate paths over a year or so as the town they are in becomes more ravaged by the fighting.

This is another one of those books that had been languishing on my to-read shelf because I was afraid it would be too miserable. However, it balances the horrors of war with the warmth of community and friendships, and is a fascinating immersion into the local culture and how it was affected by the events of the period. And the three women are really strong characters, who I was glad to have the opportunity to spend time with. I'm sure it will end up on my Best Books list for the year.

[scrubb]

Finished Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss", Booker prize winner in 2006. It was good, but I can't say I really enjoyed it. I've read many other books by/about India/ns that I preferred, actually. This one didn't have any characters for me to really care about.

[sprite]

How the Scots Invented the Modern World.
Arthur Herman

well, he ruined kilts for me. apparently most of the kit we see on a modern kilt is nothing more than romantic notions harking back to a non-existant past.
interesting premise; that scottish thinkers shaped the development of most of british culture/government, as well as most of the commonwealth nations, thus guiding international notions of how trade works and what citizens should do in their society, as well as the role of education within a society. it does grasp a bit at straws, as when he includes the Ulster Scots (those who lived in Ireland but were considered Scottish), or men whose parents were Scots. and it did seem a bit strange that aside from Flora MacDonald hiding Bonnie Prince Charlie, not a single scotswoman did anything of note. for 500 years.

it was very good for me, living in scotland. i can drop names now, and a lot of the places around me are more interesting because i can see where they came from. i also know that when my partner's colleague gave me an explanation of Edinburgh's New Town district, she was about as wrong as you could be without actually try to tell fibs. i won't bother correcting her--i suspect she was so drunk she got her city areas backwards.

[sprite]

also another cassandra clare: city of fallen angels.

book 4ish in the 'mortal instruments' series. basic premise is that among all the other supernatural beings, there are a group of humans who are actually descendants of angels, and spend all their lives fighting demons. there is, from time to time, cooperation amongst them and faeries, werewolves, vampires, warlocks, and an assortment of other oddities.

i really like this series. they are an easy read, but funny and the characters seem like real people, mostly set in new york city. they make real mistakes, fall in love, hate, bargain, cheat. currently, in amongst saving the world stuff, a jewish new vampire is trying to get his mother to accept him for who he is, while a gay demon-slayer struggles with the fact that he will age while his warlock lover will stay young forever.

however, i've just learned that there is a second series in the same world, where events all pre-date the series i'm reading, but some of what happens is referred to in the modern series. so i should have read book 1b before i read book 4a, and 2b before 5a... too late. i'm half way into 5a.

[lillielangtry]

Thanks, Liisa!

I really liked The Inheritance of Loss.

So.... 2017.

#1 Irmgard Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen (The Artificial Silk Girl)
A first-person account of a young woman in Berlin in the early '30s, trying to become a "star", seeing men, and living precariously against the backdrop of rising fascism and the depression. Doris lies, steals, sleeps with married men... but has her own charm. Not surprising the Nazis banned, and burned, this book. It's pretty good.

#2 Graeme Macrae Burnet, His Bloody Project
This book from a small press was unexpectedly longlisted for the Booker prize. It's about a triple murder, but not a classic murder mystery. Very readable, very good.

[Webs]

This is why I need bookstores. I can't get excited just looking at lists on line. I need to hold it in my hand and be able to read a bit of it.

I started the latest Dr. Siri book and put it down and now I can't find it. I've been Netflixing on the subway but I really need to get into a book store.

So I'm not reading anything right now.

[Liiisa]

Yeah, I prefer to be able to see what p. 56 is like before committing to a book, but I do make exceptions to that based on reviews, and books by authors whose work I've loved in the past. On which subject, the book I just finished:

2. Ann Patchett, The Magician’s Assistant

This is an older work by Patchett of "Bel Canto." A magician dies, and his assistant (also his wife, although he was gay) discovers things about his past that he'd kept hidden. Had a hard time putting it down - the characters and settings were wonderfully realized.

Now onto the next book on my to-read shelf, another weird little sci-fi paperback from the 1960's that I picked up in the distant past, which appears to be based on the Finnish myth cycle Kalevala.

[HalcyonDaze]

Ok, so I still haven't finished updating last year's books, but I'll start afresh for this year and try to keep on track.

1) Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law #1) - Jana Deleon

A Kindle read while we were on holidays. Light and slightly silly cozy mystery. Rather predictable in parts but perfect for being on holidays.

2) Not If I See You First - Eric Lindstrom

YA relationship book - the twist in this one is that the main character is blind and she is coping with the recent death of her father. OK, wouldn't rush out to read any other books by the author.

3) A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) - Becky Chambers

Loved this, the second book and sort of sequel set in the same universe. Excellent relationship based science fiction that also looks at the idea of gender roles, racial differences, slavery, implications of having sentient AI. Can't wait for the next book.

4)The Hanging Tree - Ben Aaronovitch.
The latest Rivers of London book. I'd say one of the stronger books in the series, you learn more about The Faceless Man and it moves the overall storyline along.

[scrubb]

Jan 12, 2017 13:06:57 GMT -5 lillielangtry said:

Thanks, Liisa!

I really liked The Inheritance of Loss.

I think my expectations were maybe too high. And I did like it, it just didn't suck me in and make me care enough.

Next book: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. Set in the late 1600s in Amsterdam, a young country girl with family name, but no money, marries a rich merchant in the city and goes to live with him and his spinster sister. He gives her a cabinet sized model of their house, like a doll house kind of, and she orders a few pieces to furnish it from a 'miniaturist'.

Anyway, it's full of interesting characters, scandal, a hint of mysticism, interesting social and geographical settings, and a good plot. There were a few weaknesses - the main character's maturation isn't always completely believable, for example - but overall I liked it a lot.

[lillielangtry]

I thought the premise of the Miniaturist was brilliant but was somehow rather disappointed by what she did with it. She has another book out now, called The Muse, I think, but I am not bothering with it.

Liisa, a Patchett I hadn't heard of, that's interesting.

[HalcyonDaze]

I couldn't finish The Miniaturist.

[Liiisa]

Jan 14, 2017 2:04:24 GMT -5 lillielangtry said:

Liisa, a Patchett I hadn't heard of, that's interesting.

Hooray for used bookstores, right?! It's a quiet little book - different in many ways from Bel Canto and the one about the woman who has adverse psychiatric effects from mefloquine in Brazil (the name of which escapes me). But I was really drawn into it.

[scrubb]

I agree that The Miniaturist wasn't perfectly executed/was flawed, but I still really liked it.

And I think maybe The Magician's Assistant was my second favourite Patchett after Bel Canto. Nothing else she's written has really hit me the way Bel Canto did, but TMA was very good. None of the others have done a lot for me (Run is easy to read but I can't remember anything that happens in it).

I want to read her new one - Oweena recommends it.

[Liiisa]

I forgot Patchett had a new one - will put that on the list, especially if it has the reco of both scrubb and Oweena! Agreed on the order of 1) Bel Canto; 2) TMA; 3) the mefloquine/Brazil one.

[scrubb]

NEw one is called "Commonwealth" and I just bought it. I have been buying FAR TOO MANY books lately because of Book Bub, and really didn't need to buy more, but I used the fact we're going on holidays soon as an excuse. I always buy things I've been really wanting to read for vacations.

[HalcyonDaze]

Yes, I've been buying more thanks to Book Bub, but with these super hot nights it has been good to break out the kindle and read without disturbing Clipper when it is too hot for me to sleep. And as it is hot and I'm tired all I want is the lighter stuff I put on the kindle, so the free or 99c book bub deals have been fantastic for that.

Which leads me to my next book.

5) The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman.
Buffy meets Georgette Heyer in a YA coming of age(and demon fighting powers) tale. Good fun, decent strong female lead and no glaring historical anachronisms. I have the second book on reserve at the library and if that is good will then have the annoyingly long wait til the final book is released next year.

[Phoenix]

But, but, but, I read almost everything on my phone!

[scrubb]

Finished another Maisie Dobbs mystery, "Pardonable Lies". Liked this one better than the last one. They're not the best written books ever, but enjoyable easy reading.

[sprite]

Jan 19, 2017 10:58:58 GMT -5 Phoenix said:

But, but, but, I read almost everything on my phone!

me too. i wish my library could get an agreement with kindle...

[Liiisa]

That thread title was mostly pointed at myself! Though I read books on my phone too.

[mei]

Finally finished #1 for the year: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. Pretty good. Very well crafted. Though I also feel I missed part of it, I didn't get all the references to the star signs etc. Still enjoyed it though :-)