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Post by scrubb on Jan 21, 2017 19:32:53 GMT -5
Another Book Bub special that was only barely worth it - "The Fire" by John A Heldt. He's written 4 books about time travelling portals, with characters that travel between today and the late 1800s, I think it is. This one is set in Montana and his hero travels back to 1910, the year of a huge fire that burned half the town.
The story is reasonable, and he's not a bad writer, but he's not a good writer, either. The good part is that you can tell the author did his research and knows the history of the area and the things that were going on at the historical times. The bad part is the ultra cheesy romances, lack of depth of character in the females, and the author's level of detail. He accounts for every minute during each scene.
Actually, I would have liked it more were the ending not ridiculous. I'll give a spoiler here, as I doubt anyone will read this. His fiance dies in 1910. He returns to modern Montana and realizes that he could go back in time again and save her - he could go to 1909 and meet her earlier and make sure she's not there on the day of the fire - and the only reason he doesn't try is that "it wouldn't be the same - that first glimpse of her, and the fun we had getting to know each other and the other friends who were there with us".
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Post by sprite on Jan 22, 2017 11:09:19 GMT -5
there's a radio reading of elena ferrante's second novel, which i'd love to listen to. but i haven't read it yet. time to hit the library. first of two episodes.
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Post by sophie on Jan 22, 2017 17:24:55 GMT -5
Read a whole whack of books while on my cruise, most forgettable. However, one truly outstanding book: His Whole Life by Elizabeth Hay. It is a sensitive, almost poetic novel about a family, a teenaged boy and in the background, past relationships and politics (particularly Canadian French- English issues). I like her writing, but I think this is her best novel. Another decent read was 'Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains' by Yasuko Thanh. It is a novel set in Vietnam during the French times, in the early 1900s. I heard the author interviewed a while back, and she is quite the character. Punk rocker and writer, interesting combination!
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Post by fishface on Jan 24, 2017 2:31:36 GMT -5
Read The Radium Girls by Kate Moore chronicling the story (and subsequent legal battles) of a group of girls/young women in New Jersey and Illinois who contracted radium poisoning as a result of their jobs painting military dials and watches in the late 1910s-1930s. Fascinating (I hadn't even heard of it), not just because of the research but also the writer's ability to bring the girls to life.
A couple of times I felt i was reading a description of someone waiting for the date of death to be announced. But otherwise, great book. Albeit terribly sad.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jan 25, 2017 2:50:47 GMT -5
#3. Wicked Autumn, GM Malliet. First in a series I'm enjoying; I'm currently reading the third. Good start to an interesting series. I like series that depict the clergy as interesting broad-minded human beings. Most of the clergy I know in person are just that. The village may be depicted as a little more remote than it could be, but the characters are believable and enjoyably fallible. The only thing that marred it in a minor way were a couple of Americanisms in a book set in England, by an author who was educated there.
I have several more to add that I read while in Solomon Islands.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jan 25, 2017 3:43:22 GMT -5
#4. Pacifica, Nadine Amadio. The book based on an SBS documentary series. Beautiful photos, interesting stories. My minor niggle: the Artificial Islands of the Lau Lagoon in Malaita, Solomon Islands, are no myth. They and their people are real. I've just been there, attending a traditional wedding, and observing people building an island, as they have done for centuries. I've left my copy of the book with them. #5. Apem Moa, Solomon Islands Leadership, Kabini Sanga and Keith D Walker. Definitely not listed on Good Reads. A handbook on leadership skills in the Solomon Islands context. I found this one in the bookshop at the university of the South Pacific, while I was in Fiji last year. Another book I've left behind. #6. Lonely Planet Pidgin phrase book. Very handy for anyone travelling to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and certain parts of Northern Australia. #7. The Naturalist and His Beautiful Islands, Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific, David Russell Lawrence. Another one not recognised by Goodreads, which I found on iBooks. Recently written, and published by Australian National University. An excellent history of the colonial era in Solomon Islands and some other parts of the Pacific, with the first resident commissioner in Solomon Islands as the focus. This book really reveals the racist attitudes of even the good people of the colonial era.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jan 25, 2017 3:59:17 GMT -5
#8. G M Malliet, A Fatal Winter. Another good read in this series, this time set in the local castle. I found it a bit odd that the vicar went to stay in the castle after the death of one of its residents, but the characters were suitably eccentric and the plot interesting. I love the character of Max, the attractive, single vicar, and ex MI 5 agent. His faith journey is one of the most attractive things about this series. #9. The Housewife Assassin's Deadly Dossier, Josie Brown. Definitely NOT a Cozy Mystery, though I found it through this genre. As the prequel, I read it first, which may have been a mistake. The first few chapters were quite graphic! I think the series may be fun, though.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 27, 2017 12:19:54 GMT -5
#3 Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse - this was book club's choice but then I couldn't make the meeting. I like Woolf's style but I bet it was a bit slow for some people.
#4 Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent - historical novel with really interesting characters. A young widow with an interest in science falls for a country vicar; but it's not a classic love story at all. Excellent.
#5 Carolin Emcke, Gegen den Hass - don't think this is available in English yet but some of Emcke's other work is. She won a major German award last year. This book is about the spread of "hate" in society, I generally liked it and agreed with her but felt it was a bit thin: it could have been a good essay, but as a book it felt rather stretched out.
#6 Claudia Salazar Jimenez, Blood of the Dawn - a tiny novel by a Peruvian woman writer about the conflict in Peru, told from the perspective of three different women. I loved it (but then, I am probably the ideal target audience for this kind of book!).
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Post by Bastet on Jan 28, 2017 6:14:15 GMT -5
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. I loved the first one and have the second lined up to read soon.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 28, 2017 8:26:57 GMT -5
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. A Canadian author's first, and best known, novel. It won several awards when it came out in the '90s. She's a poet most of the time, and her language in this book makes that obvious.
It's about a Polish boy in WW2 who escapes when the rest of his family is taken, and found by a Greek man who becomes his surrogate father. And it's about the damage the war did to people - and how that affected the next generation.
Beautifully written. Worthwhile.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 28, 2017 17:27:52 GMT -5
Also finished "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo. Very strong anti-war novel written in 1938.
Written from the point of view of a young man with horrific injuries - no arms or legs or face, deaf and blind. Horrible, as you would expect.
Worth reading but the ending was not up to the rest of it.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 30, 2017 22:41:11 GMT -5
Last night I finished "Garlic and Sapphires" by Ruth Reichl, about beong the restaurant critic for the NYT in the '90s. She had to disguise herself to avoid getting the royal treatment, and found that different elements of her personality came to the fore with different outfits. She also described a lot of mouthwatering meals and funny situations, and put in some recipes too.
I really enjoyed it.
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Post by sophie on Jan 30, 2017 22:55:49 GMT -5
Scrubb, her novel (Delicious) was a lot of fun to read.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jan 31, 2017 0:44:43 GMT -5
6. The Herring Seller's Apprentice - L.C Tyler.
Ozzie mentioned this and it was a decent enough hot night/can't sleep read.
7. Wabi Sabi - Francesc Miralles I read most of this book over one day in early December and then put it down and only finished the last chapter or so because it was due back at the library. So I sort of enjoyed it but it was forgettable and not compelling all at the same time.
One of those philosophising tales you have to be in the right mood to deal with all 'life lessons' the main character learns or it just ends up being trite. Some of the writing about Japan was wonderful.
8. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry
Wonderful. Go and read it.
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Post by sprite on Jan 31, 2017 5:42:59 GMT -5
i like the herring series, but i can't help feeling they could be just a little sharper than they are.
two more Cassandra Clark novels, the 'infernal devices' series. good reads, page turners. again, nice range of YA characters, very inclusive, very anti-fascist. a strong theme is the concept of 'family,' as several of the characters struggle with evil family members and the concept of building one's own family.
these books are 19th century prequels to the 'mortal instruments' series, so it's been fun to see things developing, knowing how they'll end up in the later books, or trying to predict which character will do an amazing thing referred to in the modern series.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jan 31, 2017 6:14:40 GMT -5
i like the herring series, but i can't help feeling they could be just a little sharper than they are. Ah, maybe it was you who mentioned the books! I know it was a while ago, and I just guessed Ozzie because she also reads the various cozy mysteries.
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Post by sprite on Jan 31, 2017 6:51:31 GMT -5
possibly! but i thought i got the recommend from here, too.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 31, 2017 10:21:28 GMT -5
Sophie - agreed - I read "Delicious" last year and enjoyed it.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 31, 2017 15:28:56 GMT -5
Final book of January (I assume): Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson. Another Book Bub special. Premise is a woman with amnesia - wakes up every day having forgotten the previous 22 or so years, due to a head injury.
Reasonably well done, it's mostly a mystery/thriller. A few plot holes and some of the red herrings are a bit annoying, but at least for the first half it certainly makes you think about what it would be like to be in that situation.
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Post by sprite on Jan 31, 2017 15:32:58 GMT -5
that sounds like a nicole kidman movie i saw recently. which was only slightly marred by hearing a doctor a few months ago explain that amnesiacs don't forget who they are, just parts of their life.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 1, 2017 13:18:09 GMT -5
#7 Anne Garreta, Sphinx (translated from the French by Emma Ramadan) I thought this would be an interesting curiosity, but actually it was a lot more than that. It's quite a simple love story told in the first person. The twist? Both the narrator and their lover are genderless (or, if you like, their gender is never revealed). When you consider that this book was written in French, a language where every adjective shows the gender of the person it's describing, it's quite a feat. Yet it doesn't read strangely at all and I was genuinely drawn in.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 1, 2017 13:44:56 GMT -5
Sprite - yes, they made a movie. In the book she doesn't forget who she is but she forgets the past 25 years of her life, Memento style.
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Post by Phar Lap on Feb 3, 2017 19:51:23 GMT -5
that sounds like a nicole kidman movie i saw recently. which was only slightly marred by hearing a doctor a few months ago explain that amnesiacs don't forget who they are, just parts of their life. I remember that movie, I'd forgotten about it until now. The movie itself is pretty hazy, but I do remember her waking up in the morning, dressed in white and the man telling her who she was and what happened to her. Was there also her father in it who was against trying to make her remember? Can't remember. ETA: And no, I don't have any amnesiac tendencies, I just can't remember.
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Post by sprite on Feb 5, 2017 16:28:07 GMT -5
i scored 'the bone clocks' by david mitchell for 50p this weekend, so if it isn't good, i'm blaming y'all. (yes, i did momentarily consider looking in these threads to see if that was the one people didn't like)
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 12, 2017 15:35:06 GMT -5
i like the herring series, but i can't help feeling they could be just a little sharper than they are. Ah, maybe it was you who mentioned the books! I know it was a while ago, and I just guessed Ozzie because she also reads the various cozy mysteries. Definitely wasn't me. I hadn't heard of them, but will have to look out for them.
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Post by Queen on Feb 14, 2017 15:56:03 GMT -5
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. There is pretty good evidence (but don't make me find a link) that the Scottish immigrants to NZ replicated the land dispossession methods they'd experienced in Scotland. I had a book about, but I can't find it anywhere.
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Post by sprite on Feb 15, 2017 13:41:26 GMT -5
it makes sense. people do tend to repeat their mistakes.
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