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Post by HalcyonDaze on Dec 31, 2017 22:07:15 GMT -5
So I sort of stopped recording books here at some stage. Have been busy today catching up good reads and have managed to record most of the good books I read. The free kindle ones that I read at night when I can't sleep I tend not to record.  So this year I will try to be more regular in my updates! Hope we all find some wonderful books this year. |
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Dec 31, 2017 22:09:01 GMT -5
1) A Murder of No Account - Julia Underwood.
This was actually a freebie kindle read but wasn't too bad - a short and lightweight murder mystery set in London during WW2. I think the era was what hooked me, more than the actual characters or crime.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 1, 2018 1:30:13 GMT -5
Bookmarking, thank you Hal! My reading resolution this year is to spend more time with books and less time on Twitter.  I'm about to start reading "Daisy Bates in the Desert" by Julia Blackburn, which seems to be a biography/historical fiction about an Irish woman who lived among the Australian Aborigines at the turn of the last century. The nonfiction I'm currently reading before bed is Dave Weigel's "The Show that Never Ends," which is a history of progressive rock, which is pretty entertaining. |
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Post by Queen on Jan 1, 2018 5:21:55 GMT -5
Yeah! My virtual bookclub is on for 2018. My reading resolutions; - read a book a week, using my 3hr train trips for a good purpose - review the work related ones on my blog - seek out diverse fiction writers First book of the year is "Power" by Mary Beard, which was a Christmas present to myself. Looking forward to starting. |
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Post by mei on Jan 2, 2018 7:03:40 GMT -5
I'm currently reading 2 books, one of which is 4321 by Paul Auster which is a 1000 pages :-| I'll be back in a few months... other one is non-fiction which I'm reading irregularly but is very good. hope to get that finished some time this month :-)
reading resolution would be to read more! same as always, I guess. and read more non-fiction, I have some great stuff on my shelves which I haven't read yet at all. it also seems I'm joining a book club so that should add some interesting titles to my reading list. First is 'Please look after mom' by a Korean writer, already a book I haven't heard of before!
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Post by scrubb on Jan 4, 2018 12:09:44 GMT -5
Finished the first of the year: The Bachelors by Muriel Spark. It was fairly typical of her books, but very much of its time and maybe doesn't quite hold up. It's got a bunch about spiritualism and mediums, which I've seen be the focus of many books written in the first half of this century and I'm sick of them. And the characters are all so very flawed and unlikeable, which is fairly typical of her stuff, but usually there's at least some poignancy somewhere and I didn't find any here.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 5, 2018 13:01:38 GMT -5
1) Dave Weigel, The Show that Never Ends
People who follow US political Twitter will recognize the author's name because he's a journalist. However, in this case he's written a short history of Prog Rock, the complex and rather overwrought music scene from the 1970s (e.g., Yes, King Crimson, etc).
He's a young guy who wasn't there at the time, so it's not perfect by any means, but it was a fun light read about a scene I was deeply invested in when I was in high school and college. It was amusing for me because he mentioned some shows I'd been at and records I used to love. I'll admit that I skimmed the last bit talking about new bands doing that same kind of music, since I had never heard of them and didn't really care. But definitely enjoyed it.
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Post by snowwhite on Jan 6, 2018 16:50:44 GMT -5
I've been reading some old-ish John Grishams (from the library) recently. Not sure if my taste has changed, or if the later ones just aren't as good as (say) The Pelican Brief, The Runaway Jury and a couple of the other ones I read way back... The Litigators was so-so, The Racketeer really not very good (and I found only lousy review online) and The Rogue Lawyer isn't really gripping me so far. I finished the first one at least in December, but didn't get around to posting until now and not convinced they deserve posts of their own.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 7, 2018 5:55:08 GMT -5
I kicked off the year with a reread of Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I remembered very little about it, just that I had liked it. The first 100 pages were rather slow and I wondered if I had been a mistake to pick it up again, but then I was suddenly gripped and reading hundreds of pages a day. I expect most people have read this: it's told from the point of view of an outsider who joins a group of friends studying Greek at a US university, and they commit a murder (as we know right from the beginning of the book). No one is very likeable and most of them are either drunk or on drugs or both most of the time. But it has flashes of humour and is totally absorbing. A good start to the reading year!
Scrubb, I've also got an audio book of Muriel Spark's short stories on the go. I wasn't particularly impressed by the first one, which I felt went on for far too long. I've been considering reading or listening to some more of her work for her centenary year (I've read Brodie a couple of times, but that's it), but if I don't like the rest of the stories any more than that one I might not bother.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 7, 2018 7:46:52 GMT -5
Oooh lillie I loved The Secret History! At the time I read it the first time I was involved with a strange group of people, one of whom really reminded me of Julian (and he was even also really interested in Greek tragedy). So that book has always really stuck with me.
Samanta Schweblin is sitting here on my table waiting for me to finish this sci-fi novel!
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 7, 2018 20:54:41 GMT -5
2) John Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades
I've been following sci-fi author Scalzi on Twitter, and he's smart and amusing so I figured I'd read one of his novels. This one is a sequel to something that wasn't at the library, but I decided not to worry about that and got it.
And I really liked it - it's definitely one of those sci-fi novels where things blow up and there are spaceships and such, but there's also a lot in it about the nature of consciousness and other interesting questions of existence. I'll read more by him in the future.
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Post by Queen on Jan 8, 2018 2:12:44 GMT -5
1) Women & Power
Mary Beard
Based on two essays she gave.
She is a scholar of ancient Rome, presents TV programmes on ancient Roman stuff and writes for the TLS (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/category/a-dons-life/).
Every time she appears on TV or even radio she gets abuse on twitter.
In this book she's comparing how women are viewed in ancient times to what happens now. It's no accident that Hillary was depicted as Medusa and the orange menace as Perseus by various right whingers. And no accident that Kathy Griffin lost a job for a similar depiction of herself holding the orange menace's head.
I found it fascinating, my only complaint is that it was too short.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 8, 2018 5:54:50 GMT -5
That one's on my list, Q!
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Post by snowwhite on Jan 8, 2018 9:43:16 GMT -5
...Scrubb, I've also got an audio book of Muriel Spark's short stories on the go. I wasn't particularly impressed by the first one, which I felt went on for far too long. I've been considering reading or listening to some more of her work for her centenary year (I've read Brodie a couple of times, but that's it), but if I don't like the rest of the stories any more than that one I might not bother. There's a whole Muriel Spark series / theme on R4 at the moment for some reason (anniversary of some sort?) I quite enjoyed a play I heard most of on Friday (afternoon drama just after the Archers) about her time working with the people broadcasting war-time propaganda to the Germans. |
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Post by sprite on Jan 8, 2018 11:14:19 GMT -5
I think that radio thing is called 'the Vital Spark.'
love mary beard. slowly working through a hardback of SPQR (rome), for which i've stopped reading Pompeii on my phone.
my favourite was a UKIP MEP trying to tell her what caused Rome to fall, based on his having studied history until he was 16, and also being a little interested in it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 8, 2018 14:18:46 GMT -5
I listened to the second Muriel Spark story and didn't like that one either, so I exchanged my audiobook for some Jane Austen radio plays (yes, Amazon is evil, but it's pretty cool that you can do that with Audible). Looking forward to those.
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Post by Queen on Jan 8, 2018 14:34:00 GMT -5
my favourite was a UKIP MEP trying to tell her what caused Rome to fall, based on his having studied history until he was 16, and also being a little interested in it. There's an oblique reference to this (or a similar) event. I have enjoyed her documentaries on TV, one day I'll read the books. Maybe. |
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Post by sprite on Jan 9, 2018 4:15:09 GMT -5
they are good, but a bit wordy. i'm reading one my father-in-law gave up on. (he reads a lot in winter, and will keep plugging through something he doesn't really like, but as soon as spring comes, he's on his motorbike, goodbye books until November.)
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Post by scrubb on Jan 10, 2018 19:58:03 GMT -5
My second one of the year is "The Bedlam Detective" by Stephen Gallagher. I didn't know it was the second in a series of historical mysteries, so I haven't read the first.
PRemise is that the main character rich people who are suspected of being insane, to determine whether they should be administering their own lands and estates or if they should be taken over by the government. I'm guessing that this really happened, 100 years ago. I got the impression he'd done a lot of research into both current events and historical London for the book. If he didn't, he did a good job of supplying convincing detail.
It was good, but not a perfect mystery. There was so much reference to the earlier life of the main character that it felt like I should have read the previous book in the series, even though it couldn't possibly have covered all the things that were referenced.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 10, 2018 21:34:26 GMT -5
3) Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream lillie what the HELL was that about?!! A disturbing, mesmerizing tiny novel. I can't really say what it was about, but I couldn't put it down. Partly because it was so mesmerizing, partly just out of the desire to be released from it. Yikes! Recommended if you like things like this. |
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jan 10, 2018 21:45:25 GMT -5
1) A Murder of No Account - Julia Underwood. This was actually a freebie kindle read but wasn't too bad - a short and lightweight murder mystery set in London during WW2. I think the era was what hooked me, more than the actual characters or crime. Ok, updating this. There were two more books in this series and I read them. They weren't worth reading - if it wasn't for not being able to sleep on the stupidly hot nights I wouldn't have read them. Basic errors in editing - in one part they are walking to the shops with the dog, on the next page the dog was left at home. In one chapter the main characters knows information about a person, three chapters on she is only just finding that out. So that was annoying. 2. Today will be different - Maria Semple. I enjoyed it while I read it (middle aged, middle class woman dealing with angst) but it was fairly forgettable. 3. Last Train To Instanbul - Ayşe Kulin Good in parts, in fact excellent in parts. During WW2, various Turkish diplomats worked to rescue both Turkish Jews who were living in Europe, and other European Jews from the Nazis. This story revolves around the one family where the upper class Muslim daughter married a Jewish man and after that marriage was not accepted by either family they moved to France. There was too much of the angst of the sister left in Turkey, but the story of the life of Turkish Jews in Occupied France, and the efforts of the diplomats to save them was fascinating. And the story of the train journey across Europe to return these people to Turkey was excellent - well researched with some real stories interspersed with the fictional tale. (though in actual fact after going down a google rabbit hole I discovered there were about 10 train trips made, not just the one depicted in this novel) Read it for the history and just give Sabiha a mental slap when she gets too annoying. 4. The Word is Murder - Anthony Horowitz. Another book that was mixed. A murder mystery where Horowitz was playing around with style and made himself the narrator of a supposed True Crime novel. That part was interesting and I liked the way he gently took the piss out of himself. (or at least, I read it that way, others have complained of his name-dropping and making himself a celebrity). The mystery part was good enough to keep reading, though I was able to work out the solution. But the chronology was out - one thing that was meant to have happened 10 years ago was apparently talked about by one character about 12 -15 years ago. Unless I got that bit wrong. 5. No Game For a Dame - M. Ruth Myers Easy to read mystery with a sassy female PI set in 1930's Ohio. |
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 11, 2018 2:09:16 GMT -5
3) Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream lillie what the HELL was that about?!! A disturbing, mesmerizing tiny novel. I can't really say what it was about, but I couldn't put it down. Partly because it was so mesmerizing, partly just out of the desire to be released from it. Yikes! Recommended if you like things like this. Lol! Yeah, it's all about the Feeling isn't it - the English title is well chosen, I think (it's Spanish it's called Distancia de rescate, the "rescue distance" the main character talks about a lot). I might read it again this year - it was only short, after all. |
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 11, 2018 6:18:43 GMT -5
I'll probably read it again, too.
What is it with these Argentinian authors and their tiny, weird novels? It reminded me a little of Aira - but it was much less vague than Aira. I had a sense of palpable menace from it throughout, whereas Aira feels more like a strange gallery show or something.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 11, 2018 8:06:13 GMT -5
Yeah, there are loads of 'em.
Carlos Gamerro writes great, funny capers like "The Islands" (the Islands in questions are, of course, the Falklands/Malvinas).
I read Mariana Enriquez' short Story collection Things we lost in the fire last year as well. Now, if you thought Schweblin was dark, this is if anything more so. My mum read a bit of it and was quite definite that she didn't want to carry on and I could understand that. It's got dead children, crime, dirt, pollution - and I don't think there's a healthy relationship in the book. Not exactly cheering. But compelling, yes. I don't generally read Horror and this could perhaps be classed as that (although it's more a sense of menace than explicit detail) but it certainly made an Impression.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 11, 2018 10:45:31 GMT -5
Yikes, noted.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 11, 2018 21:41:05 GMT -5
ON the other end of the spectrum from lillie and Liisa's darkness... I finished "A Traveller in Time" by Allison Uttley today. It's a kids' book, though a long one. A little girl travels back and forth in time from her aunt's farm in early 1900s England, to the late 1500s when the family that owned the estate back then supported Mary Queen of Scots. It's as much about daily life on the farm in the "present" (not sure exactly what year it's set in, but pre-automobile) as it is about the past.
I am not sure if I'd have liked it all that much as a kid. The people in the past don't seem to care that she disappears for weeks at a time without explanation and details like that always bothered me. Also, nothing much ever happens in the past. It's just about day to day life there too, more than anything. Usually books like this have some kind of plot - some big event where the main character plays a crucial role, or at least participates, in some heroic effort. There isn't enough of that to really keep a kid interested, IMO. Although it's apparently a "much loved classic".
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Post by Queen on Jan 12, 2018 0:11:58 GMT -5
3. Last Train To Instanbul - Ayşe Kulin Good in parts, in fact excellent in parts. During WW2, various Turkish diplomats worked to rescue both Turkish Jews who were living in Europe, and other European Jews from the Nazis. This story revolves around the one family where the upper class Muslim daughter married a Jewish man and after that marriage was not accepted by either family they moved to France. There was too much of the angst of the sister left in Turkey, but the story of the life of Turkish Jews in Occupied France, and the efforts of the diplomats to save them was fascinating. And the story of the train journey across Europe to return these people to Turkey was excellent - well researched with some real stories interspersed with the fictional tale. (though in actual fact after going down a google rabbit hole I discovered there were about 10 train trips made, not just the one depicted in this novel) Read it for the history and just give Sabiha a mental slap when she gets too annoying. I've picked this up and put it down a number of times, I might have another look. If you liked that you might enjoy A Thread of Grace A novel based on the lives of Italian Jews who were sheltered in a valley in Nouthern Italy. It's based on truth and although the characters are fiction I suspect it's quite close to real lives. A Good Place to Hide: How One French Village Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II by Peter Grose This is non-fiction, about a village near the Swiss border that colluded to rescue anyone who needed it. Some Jewish people stayed there but many more crossed the border. There are some really touching things in it, someone always meets the bus and just starts talking to anyone who looks lost and takes them to safety. And the gendarmes always go to the local cafe before a raid and discuss the plans for the raid (a little bit allo allo). It's an amazing tale of what happens when everyone does a little - but of course under the circumstances doing ANYTHING was putting your life at risk. |
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Post by scrubb on Jan 12, 2018 12:46:06 GMT -5
Read another BookBub special yesterday - "Ginny Moon" by Benjamin Ludwig. Written from the point of view of an autistic 13 year old girl with a background of abuse.
The author adopted an autistic teenager 8 years before this book was published. It seemed like an authentic voice, though I'm no judge. I was fairly impressed by the layers the author managed to write - the deep impacts of the abuse overwritten by the autism effects overwritten by the girl's intelligence. It sucked me in and kept me reading. I found it very engaging.
The ending seemed really rushed, though. And I wasn't convinced by the adoptive parents' switches in attitude and personality. So, a flawed but pretty good book.
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Post by Oweena on Jan 13, 2018 12:28:22 GMT -5
Reading what's been in my Kindle forever and that I've never gotten around to reading:
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier.
I liked it. But I loved Rebecca when I read it years ago.
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Post by sophie on Jan 15, 2018 0:38:59 GMT -5
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. Love, love, love this book.. subtitled ‘A story of trees, science and love’. Non fiction part biography, part botany lesson. Highly recommended.
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