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Post by sprite on Feb 11, 2018 12:28:10 GMT -5
I've just started 'American Gods' by Gaiman, after it appeared in the charity shop. really enjoying it, but discovered that my partner has no idea what Edgar Allen Poe wrote, so didn't get the Raven joke.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 11, 2018 16:50:23 GMT -5
"American Gods" was so much fun! I loved how he didn't necessarily tell you which gods they were at first, so you'd get to figure it out from context and name-puns.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 11, 2018 18:28:46 GMT -5
I really liked American Gods, but somehow feel really reluctant to tuck into Anansi Boys.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 11, 2018 21:37:28 GMT -5
I didn't like "Anansi Boys" quite as well, but I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading it.
Anyway,
10) China Miéville, The City and the City
The book blurb pronounced it a combination of Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick, and I won't argue with that. It's a police procedural sci-fi novel set in an Eastern European country where two cities are superimposed on each other with strict "border controls," creating interesting conundrums for citizens and police alike. I loved it.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 11, 2018 22:37:32 GMT -5
Liiisa, thats at the local library. I have been told before I would like his books, so I might go and borrow it finally!
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 12, 2018 6:10:05 GMT -5
Do it! I love China Miéville, and I think this is the best of all the books of his that I've read.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 12, 2018 12:02:47 GMT -5
I've had the day off today for a local bank holiday, so I read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop, which is only 150 pages long. I really enjoyed it - it's full of wry humour but then with such a sad ending. It's not really a book geekfest, it's more a portrait of small-town life.
Otherwise last week I've read Wallace Steger's Crossing to Safety. This was a tricky one. It certainly wasn't bad, but unfortunately overall I'd say, if you haven't read John Williams' Stoner, read that instead, and if you have read John Williams' Stoner, it will have spoilt you for this book. There's a direct comparison in that both of them follow a male academic/writer in the US through several decades. Crossing to Safety is also about a friendship between two couples. It's quite self-aware, the narrator makes little comments like "there's no suspense here, you know we all survive". It also has a female character whom I HATED, absolutely detested. So yes.
I was inspired by the centenary of partial women's suffrage in the UK to start reading E Sylvia Pankhurst's The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement 1905-1910, which was a free download from the Gutenberg project as it's out of copyright. I haven't finished it yet but it's readable. On the first page, she writes,
Indeed. I don't particularly need the blow-by-blow accounts of individual by-elections, but on the whole this is very interesting.
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Post by Oweena on Feb 12, 2018 13:58:29 GMT -5
lillie, Wallace Stegner is one of my favorite authors.
Crossing to Safety is a favorite but I know he's not for everyone and I suppose he's very U.S.-centric in his wriiting. Have you read Angle of Repose?
Based on what figjammers said about it, I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
Liked it, but it did drag for me at points.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 12, 2018 14:03:40 GMT -5
Yes, very American. But I don't mind that if I have a balance with other books! I can certainly appreciate his writing and I think if I hadn't loved Stoner so much I would have done a lot better with this one. I haven't read anything else of his; in fact I'd never heard of him until the book was suggested for book club.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 12, 2018 18:56:10 GMT -5
I remember reading "Crossing to Safety" but I don't remember too much about it, just that the characters go to Vermont a lot (?) and someone dies (?). I'm pretty sure I liked it, but I guess I need to read it again so that I can talk to you about this character... though it does seem familiar that one of them was irritating in some way but I can't remember why? I may be mixing it up in my head with some other novel.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 13, 2018 1:31:05 GMT -5
I remember reading "Crossing to Safety" but I don't remember too much about it, just that the characters go to Vermont a lot (?) and someone dies (?). I'm pretty sure I liked it, but I guess I need to read it again so that I can talk to you about this character... though it does seem familiar that one of them was irritating in some way but I can't remember why? I may be mixing it up in my head with some other novel. That's the one! It's about 2 couples basically. The narrator and his wife are poor to start with and they make friends with a couple who have inherited wealth. Their friends are hugely generous. But the wife of the other couple is totally dominant, she won't allow her husband to pursue his dream of writing poetry because she wants him to have a successful academic career. Even when dying, she totally controls the entire thing. She sounds like the kind of person I would detest. She "shushes" people to make them listen to music and forces them to have sing alongs at dinner parties for God's sake ;-) However I also keep wondering about the gender roles and how she has to live through her husband's career. The narrator's wife also gives up a degree in classics to stay home and look after the baby. |
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 13, 2018 5:49:10 GMT -5
Aaaah now I remember the shushing to make people listen to music at parties thing! But honestly portrayed - people do do that. (Irritating people.)
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Post by sophie on Feb 14, 2018 17:41:38 GMT -5
David Lagercrantz: The Girl Who Takes am Eye For an Eye. This came out a couple of years back, based on the novels by Stieg Larsson. Because of the controversy I resisted reading it at the time, but after a friend loaned to me, I caved. It is good. I liked the story line and the writing style.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 15, 2018 5:45:19 GMT -5
Yesterday on my way home I listened to an Audible interview with Miriam Margolyes, one of my favourite actresses, who narrates some of their books. At half an hour, it doesn't qualify as a book, but I enjoyed it.
Last night I finished book 20 for the year, Janet Evanovich, Hardcore Twenty Four. Another hilarious Stephanie Plum story, this time with zombies.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 16, 2018 21:17:50 GMT -5
"Elmet" by Fiona Mozley - thanks to Lillielangtry and Liisa for their glowing reviews that inspired me to read it. I'm not sure if I agree with Liisa that it should have ended before the last 2 chapters. They weren't necessary, but I didn't feel they were out of place, either.
It had amazing atmosphere throughout. Will definitely follow this new author.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 17, 2018 0:37:25 GMT -5
Glad you enjoyed it! I'm going to an event with her next month and I'm wondering if I should reread Elmet before then. I devoured it the first time and as tends to happen when I read really fast, I've largely forgotten it apart from the atmosphere.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 17, 2018 6:23:11 GMT -5
I'm glad you enjoyed it too, scrubb! And good to hear about those chapters... I'm afraid if I were a literary editor I'd always be telling people to cut out half of their book.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 17, 2018 16:07:38 GMT -5
11) John Hodgman, Vacationland OK, I thought this quasi-memoir was absolutely brilliant and hilarious, but then being from New England/New York and a consumer of the sort of media that I am makes me a direct target for it (i.e., others may find it merely amusing or maybe even irritating and pretentious, I don't know. But I really liked it). If you don't know him, he has done all of these things. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 17, 2018 22:10:54 GMT -5
Just found some discounted ebooks by Donna Leon on Amazon today. One even had a cheap audible version.
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Post by sprite on Feb 18, 2018 15:00:41 GMT -5
very much enjoyed American Gods, and can see how it would make a fascinating series--and one point i was thinking it would only go as far as a single series, but it makes sense now.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 18, 2018 21:18:58 GMT -5
"The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad" by Karl Pilkington. If you've watched the TV show, you have an idea how it was. Fairly amusing because I didn't have to listen to Ricky Gervais and Stephan Merchant, who I like sometimes but not in The Idiot Abroad shows.
I can't quite believe that Karl is "real" and not just a character the guy plays. Some of what he says MUST be for effect.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 19, 2018 2:09:10 GMT -5
very much enjoyed American Gods, and can see how it would make a fascinating series--and one point i was thinking it would only go as far as a single series, but it makes sense now. Have you watched any of it? I put the first Episode on (I haven't read the book), it was a hugely bloody start and I'm a total wimp with violence on Screen. About 20 minutes in, the phone rang and by the time I'd finished my conversation, I decided not to carry on watching. Which is a shame because I was genuinely interested in the Story. |
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 19, 2018 7:59:28 GMT -5
I can't stand violent (or gross) things on screen either, which is why even though I really loved Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, I'm kind of leery of seeing the film they've made of it ('Annihilation') because some of the imagery in the novel is really disturbing.
So anyway lillie, I relate! (I haven't seen 'American Gods' despite loving the novel because we can't be bothered to watch tv.)
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Post by sprite on Feb 20, 2018 8:25:22 GMT -5
i haven't watched it either, because i think here it's amazon prime. i might be wrong.
i'm not sure how the opening could be bloody, because in the book that all happens quite a long ways in.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 20, 2018 19:25:53 GMT -5
The Mother, by Pearl S. Buck. Follows a woman's life in rural China. It was very good, but not as great as The Good Earth. I've read 3 or 4 of her books now and I really like them all. The others have had slightly more sympathetic main characters who made me really care what happened to them - this one was less involving and more like just a typical life (not entirely, but more or less).
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Post by Oweena on Feb 21, 2018 14:23:29 GMT -5
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward.
It's a memoir, but while she's talking about her life growing up in rural Mississippi, it's framed around five young African American men, including her brother, she grew up with whose lives ended prematurely.
I recommend.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 23, 2018 13:12:00 GMT -5
THe Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.
Why this was a best seller is beyond me. I didn't hate it, but I sure didn't like it. The main character is stupid as toast and very unsympathetic, but ALL the characters are pretty awful. So it's hard to care what happens to any of them. Plus, it's touted as having a shocking twist - but the possibility that turned out to be the twist had occurred to me very early on. So overall, kind of a fail. It's written well enough that it's easy reading, which is probably the only reason I bothered to finish it.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 23, 2018 21:26:24 GMT -5
I felt much the same about The Girl on the Train, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Gone Girl, where I wanted to throttle both the very self-absorbed main characters.
That's problably why I read a lot of cozy mysteries. At least the characters are likeable!
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Post by scrubb on Feb 23, 2018 23:29:47 GMT -5
ozziegiraffe - I agree that the characters in Gone Girl were awful, but I thought that one at least had a compelling story that kept me really involved.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 24, 2018 13:24:29 GMT -5
lol, "stupid as toast." I haven't read "Girl on a Train" or "Gone Girl" because things I read about them made them sound exasperating!
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