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Post by Webs on Oct 1, 2018 15:24:26 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 1, 2018 18:02:12 GMT -5
Woo thank you Webs! (And thanks for the Inktober reminder... time to draw something)
I'm currently reading a kind of depressing book called "The Moth Snowstorm," which has some beautiful language but is pretty much about the devastation of the natural areas of England over the past 60 years.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 2, 2018 0:48:00 GMT -5
Thank you webs!
Liiisa, it sounds like that would stop me sleeping :-(
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 2, 2018 7:07:14 GMT -5
Thank you webs! Liiisa, it sounds like that would stop me sleeping :-( I think now that maybe it was just that one chapter- the one I’m reading now is lovely. |
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Post by scrubb on Oct 2, 2018 19:36:40 GMT -5
Finished Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would be King", although the book turned out to be a collection of short stories with that as the first one. The others weren't by Kipling, but the collection were all set in "foreign countries", and they all carried a very heavy dollop of racism. The worst was the New Zealand one where the Maori woman "couldn't stop her savage/barbarian instincts".
The title story's whole background is that the silly natives will think these white men are gods, but before that there's a comment about how terrible train travel is in INdia because you might have to sit with natives if you can't get into first class.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 3, 2018 4:28:12 GMT -5
Oh no... not recommended then?! :-)
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Post by Queen on Oct 3, 2018 10:57:25 GMT -5
Appreciate the punny title Mrs Osmond John Banville It's a "sequel" to Portrait of a Lady, which I haven't read... so I think I missed a lot of what would make this enjoyable, Banville certainly evokes the period and writing style but it's still a vaguely unsatisfying. I got a bit bored with the detail but that's James' fault I think. I would have liked Mrs Osmond to extract a more devious revenge, I guess I'm meaner than Banville. |
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 3, 2018 18:37:44 GMT -5
Impressed with your clever spoiler tech there, Q.
I loved "Portrait of a Lady" but remember absolutely zero about it other than that there's an heiress named Isabel? (Or is that some other book?)
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Post by Queen on Oct 5, 2018 0:52:23 GMT -5
No, that's this book.
Isabel Archer marries Gilbert Osmond, and is the Mrs Osmond of this book.
(Type spoiler alert inside square brackets = clever tech)
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 5, 2018 19:23:10 GMT -5
[Clever technology. Click to reveal! Something!] Hmmm, didn't work?
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 5, 2018 19:27:21 GMT -5
Anyway:
49. Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm
This is a lovely book by an environmental writer. One or two chapters are depressing, as I noted above, about the devastation of the natural world... but most of it is really about how people feel joy at being in nature and experiencing certain things, and how that sense of joy needs to be tapped into in order to save what little is left. He's a really lovely writer; much enjoyed the parts that didn't make me want to fling myself under the wheels of the bus.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 5, 2018 21:04:14 GMT -5
this is just a test. Liiiiisa is a doofus! |
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 6, 2018 5:04:52 GMT -5
That works fine in the browser, but it's a bit silly that in the phone app, the preview shows the first few lines of the hidden text before you go into the thread.
However, it's no big deal for me since I'm not really much worried by "spoilers" - I don't read all that many new books or books where revealing a twist would spoil it.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 6, 2018 6:01:19 GMT -5
Pfff scrubb!!  I figured it out by "quote"-ing it, which revealed how it was tagged... scrubb is right, I am a doofus because I should have figured that out before. lillie, I agree about spoilers. I'm mostly about how something is written, so knowing how the plot turns out isn't going to kill a good book for me. Now a bad book -- wanting to "know how it turns out" is all I'm hanging on for, so that would probably make me say "aah, good, thanks" and put it down, which would be a favor, really. |
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Post by scrubb on Oct 6, 2018 22:37:11 GMT -5
Well, there are some very good books that have a secret waiting to be revealed, and even though I'll still enjoy reading it with knowing the ending in advance, I'd rather let it reveal itself as the author intended.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 7, 2018 2:54:34 GMT -5
I didn't mean to be snobby - I love a book with a good plot!
I sometimes feel that spoiler warnings can go too far though. I was raving about Kindred the other day (as you do) and I only revealed things that become clear in the first 25 pages and are largely explained in the blurb as well, but some people felt I'd said too much, I think. Apparently sometimes even explaining the premise of a book can be too much.
Having said that, if I know I have to read a book for book club, sometimes I do deliberately avoid all reviews and go into it cold. That can be good too.
Right now I'm rereading Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent and am really enjoying it, even though I know what's going to happen. She is such a beautiful writer.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 7, 2018 5:54:49 GMT -5
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply "if it hinges on plot then it's bad," just that I don't think that it would be absolutely ruined for me if I knew the ending.
I think expecting someone describing a book to not even reveal the premise is kind of crazy... how are you supposed to decide whether you want to read it or not? There are very few books that I go into without having seen a review, or at least read the blurb and page 56, unless it's an author I really like.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 7, 2018 13:06:47 GMT -5
That sounds a little crazy, lillie. Yeah, it's fine to discuss the premise and the conflicts that come up early in the book!
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 7, 2018 15:52:10 GMT -5
Discussion of spoilers reminds me that my favorite used bookstore has a copy of one of the Harry Potter books propped up by the register with a sign on it "Ron Dies," which cracks me up every time.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 8, 2018 2:13:02 GMT -5
Thanks Webs. My first two for the month, read on the high seas.
77. Norma Wainwright and Keith Wright, Kununurra, from dream to reality. A book about the Ord River scheme, which brought irrigation farming to north-west Australia. Many short articles and photos from the people involved. I'm still not sure of its ecological soundness, though, but the pioneering stories were fun, especially the road trips. (From the ship's library).
78. HY Hanna, All-Butter Short Dead. A cozy mystery set in Oxford, better than the silly title and cover would suggest.
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Post by Queen on Oct 8, 2018 13:17:50 GMT -5
The Memory Shop Ella Griffin I like the premise; which is that a young woman takes over sorting out her grandmother's possessions after her grandmother dies. She manages to get the right item into the lives of various characters to have a life changing impact... and the impact isn't always a traditional happy ever after.  It's a bit of a chicklit read, but well constructed, some good characters and a bit of a twist at the end (I kinda guessed it but still) I'd like to have heard more of the historical thread but hey ho. |
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Post by scrubb on Oct 8, 2018 14:03:51 GMT -5
I've been reading my first Orhan Pamuk recently - a short one - and finding it very, very uninspired. I really hope it's just a bad, bad translation. I'm plowing on because it's only 145 pages so it can't last forever but wow, it is NOT making me want to try any of his other books. (The White Castle, if anyone cares.)
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 8, 2018 15:55:17 GMT -5
Yeah, I LOVED "Snow" but otherwise am not a giant Pamuk fan. I've loved certain passages in those of his other books that I've read, but otherwise they've kind of put me to sleep. And by then end of "The Museum of Innocence" I was really suffering, so I've stopped with him, I think.
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Post by sophie on Oct 8, 2018 22:54:48 GMT -5
The Word For World is Forest by Ursula K. leGuin. Not my usual fare but my book club is exploring her work this month, so I thought I would read something of hers less known. This book proves how far ahead she was in her thinking, especially about environmental issues but also patriarchy and racism. A bit stereotypical in the characters but considering everything, an interesting read. Btw , it was originally published in 1972.
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Post by sophie on Oct 8, 2018 22:57:18 GMT -5
The Paris Seamstress by Natasha Lester. Chick lit, romantic book linking WW2, fashion design and blurred family trees with a dash of scandal. Easy and relatively mindless. Would be a good beach read.
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Post by sophie on Oct 8, 2018 23:00:56 GMT -5
Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis. The Greek gods give (in current times) human consciousness and language to a group of dogs and then watch what unfolds. Needs a clear head and being open to metaphysical questions. Not a beach read!
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 9, 2018 1:26:51 GMT -5
See, I gave up on Snow. Then we read My Name is Red for book Club and I really enjoyed it. I'd never have gone near him again if it hadn't been for someone else choosing that book though.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 9, 2018 5:03:53 GMT -5
See, I gave up on Snow. Then we read My Name is Red for book Club and I really enjoyed it. I'd never have gone near him again if it hadn't been for someone else choosing that book though. That's funny, I remember vinny calling that "My Name is Unread" for having abandoned it! That dogs book sounds interesting, sophie. |
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 9, 2018 17:10:48 GMT -5
50. Rachel Cusk, Kudos
Cusk is one of those authors whose work I'll pick up sight unseen, and this one was just as good as the others. She writes these quasiautobiographical things where she relates stories that people have told her as she's traveling or doing other things. This book is in the context of a literary festival in an unnamed southern European country, so it has some quite apt commentary on literary fiction.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 9, 2018 21:41:23 GMT -5
Finally finished Pamuk's 'The White Castle'. A relief more than anything. I don't think I understood it, truly. Again, I'd like to blame the translation but who knows?
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