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Post by mei on Feb 19, 2017 3:17:51 GMT -5
it'll be a while before I can add it here, but just wanted to pop in and say something. loving part 3 of the Liu Cixin trilogy, now half way in Death's End.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 19, 2017 3:39:49 GMT -5
Scrubb, I read that Lurie a long time ago, recall enjoying it but nothing of the details.
#11 Margaret Atwood, Maddaddam - After rereading Year of the Flood I had to read this one again too. I don't like it as much as YotF but I do really like it. Had a little sniffle at the end. Atwood is amazing.
#12 Lina Meruane, Seeing Red - a slim autobiographical novel by a Chilean writer, based in New York. The narrator (who is also called Lina Meruane) suffers a stroke which causes her to go nearly blind. The book is about dealing with her illness, both for herself and those around her. It's amazingly written and beautifully translated - I kept wanting to write bits down. Some of it was quite painful to read. I loved this and it makes an incredibly strong trio of books so far this year published by the small press Deep Vellum; those of you in the US, in particular, should check them out.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 19, 2017 3:58:37 GMT -5
14. The Luckiest Woman Ever - Nell Goddin.
Second in a series of murder mysteries set in France. Not as good as the first one.
15. Murder Most Unladylike - Robin Stevens
This was wonderful - a children's series, but if you enjoy murder mysteries, feisty young female protagonists and English boarding school stories all set in the 30s go and get a copy to read. Pass them onto to small children you know - LC finished this in a few days and says it is his third favourite book. It is a great introduction to the whodunnit books of Agatha Christie for kids and an enjoyable escape for adults. Jolly good fun! Now I just have to wait to get hold of the next book as stupidly my library only has book 1 and then books 3 - 5 in the series.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 21, 2017 23:04:53 GMT -5
#19 Augustus by John Williams. The story of the Roman Emperor Augustus, told in letters and journals written by various mostly well-known persons of the time. It was very very good, although the very ending suddenly dropped off in quality. (It was the first letter written BY Augustus himself and it didn't work for me.) I'd had very very high expectations of the book and it mostly met them, though the weak ending was a let down.
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Post by sprite on Feb 24, 2017 15:02:07 GMT -5
sex and stravinsky, barbara trapido
i heard her interviewed on Woman's Hour a while ago, and found this book on my library's e-list. i really liked it. it was one of these 'lots of widely spread people somehow all closely connected' but it was still a great story.
also a human window into the injustice of the apartheid era in south africa, and the changes in society since then.
i'll be reading more of her stuff, but i think i'll space it out. i have a feeling her 'voice' is similar, and i don't want to get tired of it.
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Post by tzarine on Feb 24, 2017 20:39:59 GMT -5
lolita great fun
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Post by scrubb on Feb 24, 2017 21:43:17 GMT -5
Swann, by Carol Shields. A sort of comedy, but not entirely. Set in the world of academia - and I realized that I can't remember reading any book set in academia that is NOT a comedy for a long time. Is it possible to write about it without making fun of it?
Anyway, Swann is Mary Swann, a prairie woman who wrote 150 poems in the 1950s and '60s while living on a very poor farm, and the very day she took them to a publisher, her husband murdered her and chopped up her body. This book is about a few of the people involved in "discovering" her work. At first I thought it might be like Sarah Binks - a book I love about a poetess of the prairies, but which is pure satire. It's not, though - the poems aren't jokes like Sarah Binks'.
OVerall, not my favourite of her books, but quite fun and worth reading.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 27, 2017 7:13:46 GMT -5
14. Dragon's Fire, Anne and Todd McCaffrey. A good attempt to fill in some of the gaps in the history of Pern, but somehow not quite of the standard of most of the series. I loved the original series, and like the occasional revisit.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 28, 2017 2:21:19 GMT -5
16. Murder at Sissingham Hall - Clara Benson 17. The Mystery at Underwood House - Clara Benson 18. The Treasure at Poldarrow Point - Clara Benson. Easy to read historical mysteries set in the 20s. The original conceit was that Clara Benson was someone's maiden aunt who had written for pleasure and these lost manuscripts were found in a cupboard. In fact she is a current author who wanted to try to write a contemporary historical novel - so there isn't loads of detail of types of clothing and cars and hats and some of the etiquette as that would all be assumed knowledge of the day. An interesting idea and I didn't notice any glaring anachronisms when reading the books. 19. Saving Saffron Sweeting - Pauline Wiles. Chick lit - ok for when you want something light. Did find some of the comments about the Americans in an English village a bit repetitive. Apparently there are more books set in this village but I don't think I'll bother to hunt them down. 20 The Light Between the Oceans - M L Stedmen The first book club book. Harrowing, beautiful, moving, thought provoking. Also frustrating.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 28, 2017 14:44:08 GMT -5
Ooh, we're at the end of the month already, so I should update.
#13 Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding - I'd never tried any McCullers. She's good. It's a slow mover and atmospheric.
#14 Madelein Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing - a complex novel about two Chinese families spanning several decades. Took me about 50 pages to get into; at one point I considered abandoning it. But very glad I persevered, as it turns out to be absolutely beautiful. Had me sniffling at the end. Very subtle and delicately constructed.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Mar 1, 2017 0:43:29 GMT -5
Forgot to add this one from earlier in Feb
21: The Luckiest Woman Ever - Nell Goddin.
Rather bland mystery and not as enjoyable as the first in this series. Even the characters seemed wimpier.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 1, 2017 5:43:06 GMT -5
4. Lois Lee, Recognizing the Non-religious
Urk, this dense little sociology text was several levels above my pay grade, which is part of why it took me nearly a month to read, but it was interesting. I bought it after seeing it discussed in The New Humanist, I think.
It's really for sociologists - it's a discussion of recent sociological research on non-religious people. The author sees the categorization of religious vs. secular and thinks "what is this huge 'secular' category? Although that's seen as just "normal" and thus evades description, shouldn't it be studied as culture? Aren't these people also experiencing life in a deep way that just doesn't involve gods or liturgy, and is there a way to figure out what's happening there? So she discusses how we've been categorized in the literature, how we compare with religious people, how various research was done, and other things like that. It was both fun and kind of off-putting seeing my culture described in such an objective way, as though I'm a member of some exotic tribe - "They signify their non-religiousness via kitsch faux-religious fridge magnets" and such.
She interviewed a number of people about ritual and transcendent experience, and gained interesting insights about, in my opinion, human experience in general. I think she's aiming at a general discussion of how humanity addresses life inflection points/transcendence, and only part of that would involve discussion of any divinity at all.
OK that's as good as that description's going to get at 5:30 in the morning. Next I'm going to read some fiction.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 1, 2017 6:18:30 GMT -5
My 15th book this year is one I've been reading for a while on my phone, in waiting rooms, etc. it got to the point where I needed to finish it in a sitting or two. Never Haunt a Historian, Edie Claire. I'm still really enjoying this series and look forward to the new set ones. Leigh is back detecting after time off having children, this time helped or hindered by her children, her cousin's children, her neighbours and her aunts. Good plot and nicely developing characters.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 1, 2017 18:39:50 GMT -5
Need to add my final February book too -
"Hope Has Two Daughters" by Monia Mazigh. It was a give-away on goodreads.
The idea is good. It goes back and forth between 1984 and 2010 in Tunisia, telling the story of a woman during the "couscous riots" and then of her daughter during the Arab Spring. I learned a little bit about Tunisian history.
Unfortunately, the writing is just not very good.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Mar 2, 2017 17:46:00 GMT -5
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Post by Queen on Mar 3, 2017 12:12:38 GMT -5
#3 Em and the Big Hoom Jerry Pinto
Lovely, sad and funny about a family that centres around Em, who is bipolar.
The ups are flights of fancy and the downs are fearful, there's laughter and sadness throughout the book. It's a loving portrait of someone with mental illness. It doesn't pull any punches on the horror of the lows but it also shows how much love there can be for such a person.
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