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Post by sprite on Mar 26, 2018 10:58:54 GMT -5
argh. everytime one of you posts something i think i'd like, i search for it in my library app. the author or title pops up, i get all excited... and then they don't have it.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 26, 2018 20:35:50 GMT -5
15) Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
Oh, I really liked this book!
An aristocrat at the beginning of the Russian revolution is sentenced to lifetime house arrest in a hotel in Moscow, and this is the story of his life. He's a really appealing character; if I'm ever on some radio program where they ask you what characters from novels you'd like to have dinner with, I would definitely list Alexander Ilych Rostov (I hope he gets along with Woolf's Orlando, since she of course would have to come too.)
Most of the novel is very languid, as you'd expect house arrest in a hotel might be... but then the ending speeds up considerably.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 27, 2018 11:33:05 GMT -5
Last night I finished Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese. I wanted to love it, and there were lots of really good things about it, but it didn't quite do everything I hoped it would. A young native kid was brought up by an older, white, farmer but met his dad (an alcoholic low-life) a few times throughout his childhood. His dad always disappointed him. The premise of the book is that his father is dying and asks his son to take him to a remote ridge in the forest to bury him like a warrior in the Ojibway tradition. During their journey his father reveals his own life story, and his son's.
The kid was almost unbelievably mature for a 16 year old, most of the time, but with the occasional very childish reaction. I'm sure they were intentional, to remind us that he was still a kid; but his manner the rest of the time was, as I said, pretty much unbelievable.
The history was a very human, believable one. The setting was a believably small western town. The people were well drawn.
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Post by sophie on Mar 27, 2018 14:04:30 GMT -5
Bachelor Girl by Kim Van Alkemade. I read her first book (Orphan #8) last year and was curious how she has developed.. on the whole, for the better. Maybe she has a better editor this time. Interesting blend of real life characters with fictional ones set in New York between the two wars.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 29, 2018 11:45:22 GMT -5
WOW lillielangtry you are right about “Reservoir 13”! Just finished the first chapter and had to force myself to put it down and get back to work.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 29, 2018 12:04:12 GMT -5
WOW lillielangtry you are right about “Reservoir 13”! Just finished the first chapter and had to force myself to put it down and get back to work. Oh good!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 30, 2018 2:07:54 GMT -5
31. The Bletchley Girls, by Tessa Dunlop. A fascinating first hand account of life at England's top-secret code-breaking headquarters, by some of the women who lived and worked there.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 30, 2018 16:08:45 GMT -5
32. The Alpine Escape, Mary Daheim. One of my favourite cosy mystery authors. I like her sense of humour. A good cold case mystery, this time mostly set in another small town in Washington State.
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Post by sophie on Mar 30, 2018 16:46:25 GMT -5
Ozzie, one of my friend's mother was a Bletchely girl... she wasn't allowed to talk about any of that part of her life until recently. Needless to say, it surprised her daughter (and the rest of the family) when all of that was finally able to be talked about.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 30, 2018 17:32:55 GMT -5
That's pretty cool, Sophie!
Yesterday I finished Louise Erdich's "The Porcupine Year", which I hadn't know was a kids' book until I started reading it. It's pretty well done, and a good look at the Native way of life during the colonization years. They go through good and bad times, and "the white man" isn't pure villain, though certainly seen as bad news.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 31, 2018 3:34:06 GMT -5
My grandma's cousin worked at Bletchley. He was a man though, and a well-known academic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Briggs?wprov=sfla1)
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 31, 2018 5:22:50 GMT -5
33. Murderous Muffins, Lois Lavrisa. Not a very intelligent mystery, made even sillier by the accents affected by the narrator of the audiobook. It's my own fault for downloading some cheap books from audible!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 31, 2018 5:25:26 GMT -5
Lillie, Asa Briggs appears in the book. How exciting that two of our group have Bletchley connections.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 31, 2018 8:10:40 GMT -5
16) Jon McGregor, Reservoir 13 Aaaah this was so good! The characters were so real, and so lovingly described, even the not-so-good ones, that I feel I know them and am already missing them. Just incredible. I'm going to have to find all his other books and read them too now. (Also see what lillielangtry said about this book last week, of course, which was more coherently written and less just AAAAH GOOD BOOK WOW than this.)
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Post by shilgia on Mar 31, 2018 8:42:48 GMT -5
Glad you're finding it worthwhile. Last week was especially good (or bad, maybe?) - I think I bought 7 books. And thanks for the goodreads tip. ETA: just checked, and the goodreads deal is only available in the US right now. I'll try to remember to check it now and then as they say they're planning to expand it. I know what you mean. I just bought 4 books off today's BookBub list. Did I need 4 books? No. But they all looked interesting and were practically free. Hope the goodreads deals will come to Canada soon, too. (Though really, do we need this many books?)
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 31, 2018 8:43:05 GMT -5
Lillie, Asa Briggs appears in the book. How exciting that two of our group have Bletchley connections. That's cool! Maybe I'll read it too. He is the only member of my family even vaguely famous, I think. ;-)
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Post by scrubb on Mar 31, 2018 22:59:24 GMT -5
Glad you're finding it worthwhile. Last week was especially good (or bad, maybe?) - I think I bought 7 books. And thanks for the goodreads tip. ETA: just checked, and the goodreads deal is only available in the US right now. I'll try to remember to check it now and then as they say they're planning to expand it. I know what you mean. I just bought 4 books off today's BookBub list. Did I need 4 books? No. But they all looked interesting and were practically free. Hope the goodreads deals will come to Canada soon, too. (Though really, do we need this many books?) I only bought 1 today!
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 1, 2018 6:43:52 GMT -5
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Post by scrubb on Apr 1, 2018 15:33:00 GMT -5
I have one more book to add that I finished last night:
All the Names by Jose Saramago. I like his writing, although of course it's in translation which always makes me wonder how much of the style is his. But this one was kind of similar in style to "Blindness" so that consistency makes me think it is really how he writes.
The main character is a 50ish year old clerk at the Central Registry in an anonymous city. They record births, marriages, divorces, and deaths for everyone. It's a rigid beaurocracy with a strict heirarchy, and zero room for innovation or change. He's been there for years, living his rigid, ordinary life. And this book is about him breaking his life out of that rigid mold.
It's clearly an allegorical tale in an indeterminate location, with most people referred to by their attributes or titles, never by name (except the main character gets a name - the only name in the book). It's done well and I liked it a lot. But it won't be for everyone. And I think Blindness was better (I loved Blindness. If you didn't like it, you won't like this.)
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 1, 2018 19:21:28 GMT -5
I loved that book, scrubb, and yes - if what you're referring to is the tendency to just run dialogue into a descriptive paragraph, then I do think that's his style, since I've read a couple other things by him and they've all been like that.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 2, 2018 0:25:31 GMT -5
It was that (the dialogue thing) and also something else - word choices, maybe? Everything is very simple and clear to read (though of course that's just the surface). Overall, the book felt the same as Blindness did, so yes, I think it's him, not his translator.
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Post by lillielangtry on Apr 2, 2018 4:24:14 GMT -5
I read Saramago's The Cave and honestly, it wasn't for me. I didn't enjoy that style.
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