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Post by Queen on Jul 2, 2017 9:30:03 GMT -5
I couldn't come up with a good pun, let alone a bad pun for the July thread so you're just getting this instead;  Here's the June thread. |
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Post by Queen on Jul 2, 2017 9:36:30 GMT -5
20) Persuasion Jane Austen technically a re-read but I don't remember how long ago I read it. I found it funnier than I ever have before for some reason. I picked it up because I heard an (audio only) performance of Austentatious (A Jane Austen inspired improv group) and then interview with some of the cast, who all thought of Persuasion as the most grown up of Austen's novels. Here's the podcast that led me back to Persuasion. |
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Post by scrubb on Jul 2, 2017 11:47:15 GMT -5
most excellent cartoon!
I'm reading "The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb" and enjoying it.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 2, 2017 12:30:26 GMT -5
Ha, thank you Q!
I'm in between books - just about to start "Glow" by Ned Beauman. I've read two of his other books and really liked them, so I'm really looking forward to this one; just haven't gotten to the point of picking it up yet.
Simultaneously I'm reading a giant pile of entomology references and "The New Neotropical Companion"
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Post by mei on Jul 2, 2017 12:37:55 GMT -5
I'm reading Teju Cole's Open City. which I had planned to read lots of this weekend, but House of Cards has pulled me in. ah well, next week!
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Post by sophie on Jul 2, 2017 22:10:14 GMT -5
Just starting Arundhati Roy's new book, 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'. 20 pages in and I am hooked..
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jul 3, 2017 2:04:23 GMT -5
Arghh, haven't got around to updating any books for June and we now have a July thread.
Better do it tonight or tomorrow.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 3, 2017 3:59:45 GMT -5
Love the cartoon. Thank you, Q.
My 38 for the year, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. For me, this was a brilliant book, combining my interests in social and biological sciences in equal measure. Highly recommended for those with an interest in the history of both scientific research and race relations. I've been wanting to read this for a while, and it's been a brilliant audiobook on my travels. So many bioethics questions raised.
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Post by Queen on Jul 3, 2017 9:03:56 GMT -5
Loved the Henrietta Lacks book.
20) A Good Place to Hide: How One French Village Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II
Alan Grose
Amazing story of how how one relatively small part of France hid thousands of refugees, about two thirds of them Jewish, and helped many of them cross into Switzerland in WW2.
He does a good job of untangling a whole lot of oral histories - since no records were kept obv. And the people are an amazing cast. Someone would just go to the bus stop and meet anyone who looked lost and get them into a safe place, there were teenagers helping people cross the border at night, and others sourcing safe places... in this area Huguenots had hidden while being persecuted so there were some safe caves etc.
There were also some funny moments - the local gendarmes contrived to be so inefficient that they only rounded up about half the Jewish people that were rounded up in other areas, and most of those were from a local internment camp in one area. Their common strategy was to stop off at a cafe and talk loudly about their plans to raid the local school giving time for the locals to warn the school and save the children.... very Allo Allo.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 8, 2017 11:26:02 GMT -5
Finished The Autobiograpy of Mrs. General Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin.
It was fairly entertaining and kind of interesting, but the whole concept kind of bemuses me. The author chooses an historical figure, and writes a fictional book as though it was real. In this case, she made the main character Lavinia - a "proportional dwarf" - into an extremely intelligent and driven woman who had a loveless marriage with Tom Thumb while actually being in love with PT Barnum.
The bemusing part is that the author bases her characterization on almost nothing. The only source material is that Lavinia wrote a bit about some of their travels, but the author says "it's just a list of the places they went, where they performed, and who they met". No discussion or personal insight at all. And in some historical documents, Tom Thumb is described as very innocent.
So she decided that Lavinia must have been very smart, and couldn't possibly have been happy with someone so simple.
It's just weird to me that she'd decide what a real person "must have" been like. I think that what all her books are about, and I don't think I'd read another one.
This one did have some interesting snippets of historical life in the 1800s, though.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 9, 2017 10:06:44 GMT -5
So we're more than a week into July already. Hi!
I think I'm going to read Persuasion as well, Q (possibly for the first time? I'm actually not sure. I'm not a big Austen fan, but I want to give her another try).
#44 Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen (currently being translated by Susan Bernofsky, out in September as Go, went, gone I think).
This novel is based on the true story of a group of African refugees in Berlin who set up a protest camp demanding to be allowed to stay and work in Germany.
I had some difficulties with this book. It is rather long, it has a lot of different characters so you don't just focus on one or two and there was a stretch in the middle where I felt it went on too long. It is a novel so I felt a few characters and about 50-100 pages could have been cut out. But having said that, it also moved me to tears and it is, of course, hugely current. If you are interested by the refugee crisis I'd recommend it.
#45 Martin Suter, Allmen und die Dahlien
Another light crime novel in the series by Suter. Very good.
#46 Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
A free download from the Gutenberg project. This is the first book featuring Poirot. The story is engaging, I read most of it in a day, and it really is pretty good. Christie's casual use of the n-word (just once in this book) and a couple of dubious remarks about Jews were pretty jarring. I know it was written in 1920 so it was different then but for this modern reader, it just totally brought me out of the story. I do wonder whether the one word could not have just been changed - it wouldn't have had any bearing on the plot - but at the same time I understand concerns about censoring/writing over the past. Anyway, that aside, it was fun.
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Post by mei on Jul 9, 2017 10:28:25 GMT -5
#... (Lost track) - Ikigai by Francesca Miralles and Hector Garcia.
A short, self help type of book about the so-called Japanese secret of living a long and happy life. It's quite nice, easy to read and I finished it in an afternoon. It's nothing earth shattering but it combines different western/eastern concepts of what contributes to being happy (having purpose in life, eating healthy, exercise etc) with stories of people who have lived more than a 100 years (mostly from a small island village in Japan)
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Post by Queen on Jul 9, 2017 11:05:37 GMT -5
23) Queen Lucia, E. F. Benson
another re-read to offset two non fiction works that are making my eyes cross a bit.
Funny satire on society... sort of Austen of the 1930s
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Post by Queen on Jul 9, 2017 11:07:38 GMT -5
I think I'm going to read Persuasion as well, Q (possibly for the first time? I'm actually not sure. I'm not a big Austen fan, but I want to give her another try). Try Love and Friendship - it's the most satirical of her books and possibly the funniest, plus it's short #46 Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles A free download from the Gutenberg project. This is the first book featuring Poirot. The story is engaging, I read most of it in a day, and it really is pretty good. Christie's casual use of the n-word (just once in this book) and a couple of dubious remarks about Jews were pretty jarring. I know it was written in 1920 so it was different then but for this modern reader, it just totally brought me out of the story. I do wonder whether the one word could not have just been changed - it wouldn't have had any bearing on the plot - but at the same time I understand concerns about censoring/writing over the past. Anyway, that aside, it was fun. What would be the impact of an edit on the free copyright status though? |
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 9, 2017 11:13:20 GMT -5
Good point, I have no idea. As I said, I don't even know if it would be the right thing to do.
I know the original title of "And then there were none" has been changed - it had to be, really, since I hardly think shops would stock something with the n-word on the cover!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 9, 2017 17:15:27 GMT -5
39. Murder of a Stacked Librarian, Denise Swanson. I love this series, as the main character has a similar job to mine. However, in this book she is on holidays and about to get married to the police chief when the town's relief librarian is murdered.
OK, I did pick the murderer before she did, but till a good read, with characters I've come to know and enjoy.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 9, 2017 17:56:53 GMT -5
Holy CRAP lillie & Q, I had NO idea that was the original title of that book... aaaaaaah. I would have been pretty offput by that as well.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 9, 2017 22:45:53 GMT -5
Yeah, and in the text of the book they changed the nursery rhyme from "10 little n------" to "10 little Indians". Which I grew up knowing, sort of. But which is now probably quite offensive too.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 9, 2017 23:26:57 GMT -5
I'm almost finished "Beyond Surviving: Cancer and your Spiritual Journey" by David Maginley. I only bought it because I used to be friends with the author, back in university 30 years ago. I have only seen him once since then, when he officiated at my ex-boyfriend's wedding in 2004. (I was Best Man.) I always really liked him, though.
So anyway, I didn't hate the first half of the book but then he started presenting "Therapeutic Touch" (which is the same as Reiki, basically) as a proven and accepted form of therapy. He goes on to use it, and near death experiences, to "prove" life after death, and makes the assumption that God is behind it all. There are angels, and spirits of all sorts...
He tries to argue against all the rational explanations for mystical experiences and he does do an ok job of pointing out the differences between hallucinations (and various other unusual states of mind that are often thrown up as possible explanations for people who have these "divine visitations") and the profoundness and clarity of those who believe they've met God or seen heaven or whatever. But he assumes that the only explanation is that they are "true" - that they did see the afterlife and meet god.
He also spews out a bunch of ridiculous examples of phenomena that he thinks prove something or other spiritual. One incomplete example was about an experiment with a bunch of random generators, and the day Princess Di died, there was a little blip where for a second they all randomly generated the same number. Then on 9/11 they all synchronized for 3 days. He didn't manage to explain why lots of people feeling emotional about something made random number generators synchronize, but seemed to think the fact that they synchronized proved something about the spirit. (He also didn't go into whether there were blips on days that nothing in particular happened, or no blips on days that something significant did happen. Or any discussion of how odds work.)
So anyway. Even though I only bought this book because it was by an old friend, I did have some hope of maybe finding something of value in it. I am feeling some discontentedness, and feel like my cancer diagnosis and experience should spur me to make my life better and more worthwhile. But, unfortunately this book is not going to be of any help in that.
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Post by tucano on Jul 10, 2017 2:21:03 GMT -5
'Miss-Adventures:Ignoring Life Advice While Backpacking Around South America' by Amy Baker.
Picked this up as a holiday read and it's perfect for that, easy to dip into. The premise is advice the author was given before she set off on a 6 mth backpacking trip through South America and the lessons she learned, which makes it sound dry but it's not at all. Made me laugh out loud a few times!
I met the author a couple of months ago and chatted to her a bit so I could hear her voice throughout.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 10, 2017 11:53:30 GMT -5
scrubb, as a fellow cancer survivor I couldn't have read that book, even knowing the author, I'm afraid!
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Post by sophie on Jul 10, 2017 17:22:35 GMT -5
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. True story of the search (and the finding of ) the lost white city in Honduras. I heard the author being interviewed, and wanted to read the book because of the interview. Excellent read, with good background info to the current search. Recommended.
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Post by Webs on Jul 11, 2017 12:04:26 GMT -5
The little old lady who broke all the rules - Author has a long name. 5 Swedish pensioners rebel against their thieving nursing home management and commit crimes to get sent to prison which seems better than the home their in.
Eh, not as well written as the Fredrik Bachman books or The Little old Man who climbed out the Window and Ran away.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 11, 2017 19:07:21 GMT -5
OMG scrubb. Sorry that it's written by your friend, but I absolutely wouldn't have been able to finish that book. I have zero tolerance for mystical bullshit right now.
Anyway, what I just finished reading was:
25) Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
I don't think I have to describe this because most of you have already read it, I think? YAAAAA it was creepy, and fantastic; couldn't put it down.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 11, 2017 22:14:03 GMT -5
Oops, I went on quite a rant there. Sorry!
liiiiiisa, I really have to read "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" too. Am I the last living human who hasn't?
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 11, 2017 23:27:39 GMT -5
No! I haven't either! I have been meaning to...
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Post by tucano on Jul 12, 2017 1:30:22 GMT -5
sophie that sounds good, I'll see if I can find it.
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Post by mei on Jul 12, 2017 4:09:29 GMT -5
euhm, I hadn't even heard of that book by Shirley Jackson before. Guess I'll need to add it to my list!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jul 12, 2017 5:22:33 GMT -5
40. Marigold's Luck by Helen Ellis. Probably not my favourite of Helen's books, but a fun light read none the less. Good, if improbable characters, lots of romance and scenery thrown in. As in many of Helen's books, her knowledge and love of Greece shines through.
Helen's books are great for the kindle app on my phone, so I can read them in waiting rooms, while eating in cafes when travelling, etc.
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Post by sophie on Jul 12, 2017 10:50:06 GMT -5
Just a heads up, Tucano...it may put you off jungle travel!
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