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Post by HalcyonDaze on Mar 2, 2017 17:45:40 GMT -5
The book thread for March. Tell us about the books you are reading. Link to February's thread here |
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 2, 2017 19:05:06 GMT -5
Thank you Hal! Bookmarking.
Currently reading Tessa Hadley's "The Past," which I am having trouble putting down, so I may be back to review it shortly.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Mar 2, 2017 19:32:49 GMT -5
Like you, I'm really finding it hard to put down the current book (The Last Summer before the War) but at the same time I'm now close the end and so I'm slowing down as I don't want to say goodbye to the characters! So I may or may not be reviewing it soon.  |
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Post by scrubb on Mar 2, 2017 21:41:18 GMT -5
I'm slogging through Michael Pollen's "The Botany of Desire". Not enjoying it as much as another of his books, The Omnivore's Dilemma.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 3, 2017 0:19:10 GMT -5
Bookmarking. Thank you, Hal.
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Post by mei on Mar 3, 2017 5:59:37 GMT -5
Very happy to finally have a new book to add. Only #3, but in my defense this and #1 were huge books. Anyway:
Death's End by Liu Cixin. Third part of his Three Body Problem trilogy. Wow, so good. It's definitely the best of the series, loved the chronology, and fills in some gaps. But mostly it's really quite philosophical and contains some pretty complex concepts about the universe and humanity. Very good sci-fi.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 4, 2017 10:33:58 GMT -5
thanks Hal!
#15 Ian McEwan, Nutshell - god, what a pain in the ass. Pretentious twaddle. The narrator is an unborn foetus with a taste for Chardonnay and podcasts. Did I mention I didn't like it?!
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 4, 2017 14:24:48 GMT -5
Jesus lillie, that sounds unbearable. Thank you for saving us from that.
Anyway,
4. Tessa Hadley, The Past
As predicted above, I couldn't put this down and so now am done with it. I'd read a rave review when it came out last year but was feeling budgetarily minded and so waited for it to come out in paperback since it was never available at the library.
A group of siblings and their offspring are staying in an old house in the English countryside that their grandparents had lived in, and various small things happen that are told so wonderfully and truthfully that it is now on my best books of the year list.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 6, 2017 11:17:27 GMT -5
"The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World" by Michael Pollan.
The author examines 4 common plants and discusses their history from both a genetic/biological point of view, and a social point of view. At first he uses the device of looking at the relationship between humans and the plant inverted to how we usually do - that the plant was choosing to make people do what it wanted. It didn't really work all that well and he mostly gave it up for the last 2 plants - which may be why I enjoyed those discussions more?
It had some interesting history and the potato chapter, with discussion of genetic modification, was quite fascinating. While he maintained an overall objectivity and didn't report anything other than facts, he still put a bit of a negative slant on it. Since he did it without hyperbole, and with pointing out some of the positives, the overall negativity came across as very justified.
The final chapter, on the potato, was very much like his later book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" which I really liked a lot. More about modern farming practices and sustainability and threats to the food supply. This book felt like a warm up for that one. So, worth reading but if you are choosing which of his books to read, choose "The Omnivore's Dilemma".
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Post by Queen on Mar 7, 2017 10:33:57 GMT -5
#4 The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman Loved it, but it's a bit scary.  Fantasy, but less so, or less scarily so than American Gods - the only other book by Gaiman that I've read. Now reading Cranford which was published in 1853, that's a bit of a jolt! |
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 7, 2017 19:19:22 GMT -5
Yes Q - I quite liked that!
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Post by Queen on Mar 9, 2017 8:34:54 GMT -5
#5 Cranford
Elizabeth Gaskell
She was a contemporary of Dickens. She's more about social humour than social issues. Laughed out loud in places.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 9, 2017 13:45:00 GMT -5
She wrote the first biography of Charlotte Bronte, I think?
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Mar 10, 2017 20:32:57 GMT -5
22. The Summer before the War - Helen Simonson
A gentle story about people living in a village in Sussex in the lead up to WW1. It is slow paced but very moving with some subtle observations about the role of women in society, class roles, and bohemian lifestyles. I loved the book and was a bit heartbroken at the end.
23. Withering-by-Sea - Judith Rossell
Another delightful children's book. And yes, another murder mystery this time with a touch of the supernatural and of course a plucky young orphan who saves the day. Some cool little illustrations sprinkled through the book made me wish more adult novels included little sketches. There is a sequel and I have already reserved it from the library.
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Post by Oweena on Mar 12, 2017 9:13:36 GMT -5
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
A memoir of sorts. Most people today probably know her from Portlandia. I know her as one of the guitarists in Sleater-Kinney, a Seattle area rock group formed at the end of the Riot Grrrl era.
It was interesting to me as I've followed the band for years and she has a way of giving you an inside look at how she approaches her music, what drives her, and what she struggles with during performances.
Don't know there's a whole lot there for anyone who isn't a fan or interested in her.
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Post by Queen on Mar 12, 2017 11:17:11 GMT -5
She wrote the first biography of Charlotte Bronte, I think? Yes, and they were contemporaries. I think she deserves to be better known - she so clearly captures people. I'm now reading "North and South" which isn't quite so funny. More a standard romance. But the writing is fab. |
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 12, 2017 11:29:17 GMT -5
Yes, I've read that one too and enjoyed. Have you read M. E. Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret? Victorian melodrama along the lines of Wilkie Collins. Not as good a writer as the Brontes etc and rather more dated but surprisingly fun.
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Post by Queen on Mar 12, 2017 12:13:58 GMT -5
Haven't heard of it - but will see if I can find it. Thanks! Oh joy.... it's in the public domain so I can kindle it for free. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8954 |
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Post by scrubb on Mar 13, 2017 21:29:49 GMT -5
Feels like it took me ages, but I finally finished a PD James - "A Certain Justice". One of the Adam Dagleish series (he's a cop and a poet in England.) It was very good, for those who like that kind of thing.
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Post by sophie on Mar 13, 2017 23:52:15 GMT -5
Jeffery Archer's latest --This Was a Man--- it is in the category I call bathtub reading. Somewhat entertaining if you like his stuff, otherwise a so so time suck.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 14, 2017 17:26:42 GMT -5
6) Francine Prose, Gluttony
The New York Public Library commissioned a series of long essays from various authors on the subject of the Seven Deadly Sins: this is one of them, published in book form. Prose looked at gluttony from an historical perspective, contrasting the gluttony-as-sin concept from the Middle Ages with the current idea of overeating as stigmatized plague. If you find it on a stack at a used book store like I did, you could do worse than to read it.
Now I'm about to start the new Ali Smith, which is has been reviewed as being particularly current.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 16, 2017 11:50:43 GMT -5
"His Bloody Project: Documents relating to the case of Roderick Macrae" by Graeme Macrae Burnet. An historical mystery/thriller, sort of, it was nominated for the Booker a couple years ago. The story of a young Scottish highlander who commits some horrible murders, it's epistolery (?) with the first half of the book being the accused's self-written version of events; then reports from doctors, psychiatrists, and the newspaper report of the trial, sort of thing.
It was very well done, very engrossing. The most interesting thing was the setting - a village of 9 homes in the 1860s under the crofter system. Glimpses of "the big house" several towns away where the Lord lived; local politics, the way of life - that was all fascinating.
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Post by Oweena on Mar 17, 2017 7:36:27 GMT -5
"Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady" by Sally Quinn.
First half was interesting, 2nd half not so much. I can't recommend it due to there not really being a whole lot there.
No wonder it took me so long to finish.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 17, 2017 18:37:20 GMT -5
Just finished "Go Set a Watchman", by Harper Lee.
Due to the controversy around it, I wasn't sure what to expect and I wasn't sure I felt good about buying it and having the money go to potentially exploitive people... but it was on sale so I did.
It was nowhere near as good as TKAM but I didn't go into it expecting that it would be. It was still about the South, and race relations, and humanity - but in a different way.
It was hard to see Atticus portrayed as less than the person he was in TKAM but if I managed to not think about the other book and who he was in it, and just accept him as a character in THIS book, I could appreciate him.
It was worth reading, but it used a lot of arguments and words to get its points across. I think the strength of TKAM was that it showed its points through the actions of the characters, with just a few words to support it at the right time.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 17, 2017 18:52:50 GMT -5
Interesting. One of my students is reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I will have to borrow it from a library, as I've never read it.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 18, 2017 20:49:21 GMT -5
16. Imitation in Death, J.D.Robb.This series combines two of my favourite genres, mystery and science fiction. The imitation of serial killers, past and future creates an interesting twist.
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Post by sophie on Mar 20, 2017 0:18:03 GMT -5
Highly recommended non fiction: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It presents a very different way of looking at history. This is the kind of history teacher I wish I had rather than the 'dead white men' model!
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Post by Queen on Mar 21, 2017 11:58:34 GMT -5
#6 Hotel du Lac Anita Brookner Finished it but hated it.... very vague and insipid. I wanted to slap the protagonist (I also wanted to slap Anna Karenina so that might not say much about the book). #7 Lady Audley's Secret M. E. Braddon (as recommended by lillielangtry) Really good, properly melodramatic but so well written that you can be both amused by the characters and drawn into the mystery. Loved how the characters were always taking trains everywhere - that would have been a thing back then, new and exciting, but they're always taking the overnight "mail train" or the "five past nine to Dentford" etc. Funny to read in today's terms. I would have read this all in one day if I could have. |
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Post by Queen on Mar 21, 2017 12:00:09 GMT -5
Hmmmph, just updated Goodreads and I'm two books behind schedule for my annual challenge. Might have to up the reading rate or find some short books |
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Post by sophie on Mar 22, 2017 0:58:45 GMT -5
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons. A fun book, easy to enjoy and imagine with all sorts allusions to the London art world. The main character, Juliet, is a woman I would have enjoyed being. Worth the read.
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