Book peeps: it's September

[Liiisa]

Since it's still as hot as the surface of Venus here I somehow missed the fact that it's no longer August until just now. So hey here's a new book thread!

Right now I'm just about a quarter of the way through "Spring Garden" by Tomoka Shibasaki (transl. Polly Barton), which is a little book set in Japan that so far kind of reminds me of Murakami in that it's set in an urban apartment block and there's this one character who's behaving kind of oddly in a Murakami-ish way. I'm interested so far.

And: here's the August thread

[Liiisa]

40. Tomoka Shibasaki, Spring Garden (transl. Polly Barton)

As noted above, this is a short, somewhat Murakami-esque novel that takes place in modern Japan. The ending took a turn that I didn't expect, which I enjoyed. I'll look by other things by her.

[scrubb]

THanks, Liiiiiisa!

On the 1st I read "Playing With Fire" by Theonen Fleury. Autobiography/memoirs of a hockey star who went through a terrible childhood, sexual abuse from his coach, and all kinds of addictions before he finally faced his demons. HE was the guest speaker at my company's "Safety Day", talking about mental health, earlier this year and he was gripping. I liked him better in person than in his book, TBH, but the book was still pretty ok.

And today I finished a re-read of a Discworld book - Equal Rites. It's still good!

I started "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" a few days ago but the first chapter is just a sort of splodge of history. Starting with Columbus and then galloping into the 1800s, now about a zillion tribes have been mentioned and I can't possibly keep them all straight. I hope it turns into some kind of a story style soon, as I can't manage ~500 pages of just historical facts.

[tucano]

I've been inspired to pick up a copy of Vanity Fair, as it's on TV at the moment.

[ozziegiraffe]

Thank you Liiisa. Bookmarking. I have my usual three on the go, one "real", one ebooks and one audio book.

[Liiisa]

41. Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

I'm really not one for binge-reading authors, but I enjoyed her "Circe" so much last month that I seized the first copy of this first novel of hers that I could find. Such an absorbing retelling of the Iliad, centered on the loving relationship of Achilles and his companion, Patroclus. The end is so sad, bawwwww. Five stars, now I hope she writes something else soon!

[HalcyonDaze]

Finished the new Jasper Fforde and really enjoyed it. It is wonderfully bonkers. Though, as with many of his books, you do need to have the time to read the first part in a huge chunk, so you can understand the ffordian world it is set in.

Now reading the lastest in the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers - excellent relationship based science fiction with a feminist bent.

[sophie]

Astrophysics for people in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Fabulous easy explanation of some big and very important concepts. His humour shines through. I must admit, even though I have always liked physics (when I was in high school I wanted to be a nuclear physicist) that this book may make some people’s eyes glaze over.

[ozziegiraffe]

68. Falling in Love, Donna Leon. Audio version, finished on today's road trip. Love this book, starring a Venetian Opera Singer, the Opera House in Venice and the city of Venice itself.
A very interesting outcome, too. And I just realised the play on words in the title.
69. Sire and Damn, Susan Conant. I've come back to this series after a break, and while it was good to catch up with Holly, Steve, Rita and the dogs this particular book seemed to have too many complicated relationships to keep track of.

[sprite]

The Great Crime of Grapplewick (Eric Sykes)
Sykes was a writer for 'The Goon Show' and worked with several other British comedy legends.

A thief is released from prison and goes looking for the ex-partner who ran off with the loot from the job that ended in con #1's capture. problem: con #2 comes from a town where his family name is really common. confusion ensues.

it was a nice light read, and also touched on the post-war changes to britain as people slowly stopped using horses and local small shops, moving into new housing developments and supermarkets.
it's decidedly anti-union, which, given the havoc wrought by big business leaders intent on making as much profit as possible, means it hasn't aged well.
it wasn't as funny as the author intended. con #1 fancies himself an actor and master of disguise, so it may have been Sykes secretly wanted Peter Sellers to play the role in a movie.

i now wonder if this is where Barnaby from Midsomer Murders (British murder series) got the name for his dog, Sykes.

[scrubb]

I don't know the Midsomer Murders, but I always assume any "Sykes" is named after Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist. That said, no idea why you'd name a dog after an evil man. Maybe I should be rethinking my assumption.

[Liiisa]

42. Catherine Lacey, Certain American States

A collection of short stories by the author of “The Answers,” a novel that I’d really enjoyed earlier this year. They range from slightly surreal to realistic, with lots of good observations & funny moments- enjoyed.

[lillielangtry]

Sykes the Midsomer Murders dog has his own Wikipedia page 😂 although it doesn't explain the name as far as I can see
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes_%28dog%29?wprov=sfla1

I'm away and reading quite a lot but I'll do an update when I'm back!

[ozziegiraffe]

70. Curious Minds, Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton. Another fun, light read from Janet Evanovich, with lots of fun and suspense, and a load of larger that life characters, both heroes and villains. And the start of a promising new collaboration.
71. The Drowning Spool, Monica Ferris. Another good read in a series I've enjoyed for some time. Less craft, and more issues relevant to people as they get older, which I can relate to, though some of the water exercises suggested did seem a bit much for seniors!
I did pick the murderer a little before the end.

[Liiisa]

43. Keith Laumer, The Great Time Machine Hoax

You know, I like picking up old weird sci-fi paperbacks because they often exceed expectations in terms of plot and writing quality. This one is an exception to that - it was just as bad as you might think a paperback with a picture on the cover of two men sitting in armchairs in a field with a naked woman and a Tyrannosaurus rex would be.

I enjoyed writing that sentence so much that I think I'll put it on Twitter. But anyway, uh, not really recommended.

[tzarine]

the dream keeper
poens by langston hughes who i have loved since i was little

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

[scrubb]

Another Discworld re=read - Guards! Guards! I really liked it all over again.

[sophie]

Circe by Madeline Miller. Well done, with just the right amount of ‘fill’ added to the original myth.

[ozziegiraffe]

72. Moon Signs, Helen Haught Fanick. I enjoyed this book. The characters were well-drawn and interesting, and the setting was attractive. The mystery was quite well done. However, the one issue that didn't seem to fit was the protagonist's occasional dragging of the phases of the moon into the story. Unnecessary, and silly, in my view.

[Liiisa]

44. Catherynne Valente, Silently and Very Fast

A novella in the sci-fi/fantasy tradition, describing how an AI develops consciousness.

Like some of her other books, sometimes you're not completely sure what's going on because it's so poetic, but her writing is always so beautiful that it doesn't really matter, just surf on to the next nice paragraph.

[lillielangtry]

We're over halfway through September already... OK, here goes with my Holiday reading:

Audiobooks:
The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How it's Broken, by The Secret Barrister
As you'll gather, the author remains anonymous because they are a practising barrister in England. This is a very interesting book about the criminal justice System in England and Wales and how it's chronic underfunding is affecting people's Access to justice. The author's Anger is palpable. Unfortunately there is a slight undercurrent of lawyer-itis (basically, if you're not a lawyer you can't possibly understand how difficult and complex it all is and you shouldn't have an opinion on anything legal). I know plenty of lawyers though, and frankly most of them have that.

Alexander McCall Smith, Morality for Beautiful Girls
Mma Ramotswe and co. charm me and grate on me in equal measure, I think.

Other books:
For light relief I got into the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch and devoured the first four ;-)
Really good fun urban Fantasy by a Doctor Who writer, lots of London Detail, the occasional bit of gruesomeness. I'm tempted to go on and read the next 2 that are already out, but I'm going to save them for a bit.

Take Six: Portuguese Women Writers (edited and partly translated by Margaret Jull Costa, probably the most important living Spanish/Portugese translator).

Non-fiction
Sexographies by Gabriela Wiener (translated by Jennifer Adcock and Lucy Greaves)
A really good collection of essays. Not all about sex, although there is a fair amount of sex-related stuff in there. Topics range from being an Immigrant, taking ayahuasca in the rainforest, visiting Lima's most notorious prison. Highly recommended.

[Queen]

Ace King Knave
Maria McCann

Good writing, she writes great dialogue.

It's set in 1800s London and it's full of body snatchers, whores, trickters and a few aristocrats skimming on the surface. There are two story lines each lead by a female protagonist, one in the underworld and one in fashionable circles... the two are destined to meet, and it doesn't go well.


But the book has a structural problem. It builds to a climax, but the climax comes at 92% of the way through the book and the resolution at 94% so it is a let down.

It would be smarter to have let the two stories combine earlier and scheme more. I think the book would have been more satisfying.

And I don't need a happy ending, or everything tied up neatly... but in this case there are too many major loose ends.

Apparently (according to goodreads reviewers) her other books are better so maybe I will have a free read and see if I try again.

[sophie]

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith. Good detective novel with the same main chart as in the previous two novels. Easy reading, a few twists but a bit long.

[Liiisa]

45. Ada Palmer, The Will to Battle

This is the third book in what I think is going to be a tetralogy? I talked about the first two when I read them earlier this year, I think. Basically this is several hundred years in the future, and world society has restructured itself extensively in the attempt to eliminate/control all the sources of conflict. But people are political, and things happen despite the best intentions. The author is a professor of history and ideas, so there are so many ideas in this book that it's almost hard to hold all the thoughts about what's going on at once. One thing I really liked was that everything isn't explained at once - it all soaks in eventually. (Though I'm planning to reread these all in a couple of years because while I really like them, I think it would benefit from a reread so I can figure out what the hell that was just about.)

[ozziegiraffe]

73. Revenge in the Cotswolds, Rebecca Tope. I started well into this series, as I found two of the books on sale, but I will probably look for more. A good, quite dense, cozy English mystery. Thankfully, no obvious americanisms, as seem to occur in many modern cozy mysteries set in England.

[sophie]

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. Fabulous book, wonderful writing. It deserves to be on the short list for the Mann Booker. It is a story about a slave, but also so much more. It is a story about hope, the human condition and all that which accompanies the journey of life. Highly recommended.

[lillielangtry]

Sophie, I read her previous book, Half-Blood Blues, some years ago and remember it being good.

[Liiisa]

Oh yeah sophie & lillie - I read the NYT review of "Washington Black" yesterday and that moved it up much higher in my to-read list. I'll have to read her other things too.

[Liiisa]

46. Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution

This is the giant doorstop of a nonfiction book that I've been reading bit by bit over the past 6 months and finally finished yesterday. The word "evolution" in the title refers to the sociological idea of the "axial age," or how roughly 2500 years ago, humans developed cultural/religious traditions that tried to establish theories on how to create a better society (e.g., the people who wrote the Hindu Upanishads, the Buddha, the Old Testament prophets, the Greek philosophers, etc).

It's very very long and occasionally I wished there had been an executive summary that I could read instead because it went into deep detail, but I got a lot out of it. The introductory sections are particularly interesting because he starts in deep time, talking about the idea that ritual comes from the animal instinct to play.

But one thing that stuck with me is: like surely this wasn't the first time people thought that if we weren't such assholes we'd have a healthier society? wouldn't anyone with a modern human brain be capable of thinking that, so maybe it's just that 2500 years ago was when cultural traditions that still remain with us to this day developed those ideas in the mainstream? But maybe the sociologists don't feel they need to say that, since it seems kind of obvious. Anyway, interesting but very long.

[tucano]

I'm reading Simon Reeve's autobiography: 'Step by Step: the life in my journeys'.

Fascinating read. He's best known as a travel (with a heavy current affairs slant) presenter but he had an interesting life before that too. Really engaging writer.