|
Post by sophie on Nov 26, 2018 11:38:55 GMT -5
Ozzie, I really enjoyed her books. Her characters really develop over the course of all the books.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Nov 27, 2018 19:52:44 GMT -5
Just finished "Sarah's Key", a novel with a good concept, horribly executed. Goes back and forth between 1942 and a little Jewish girl in France, and 2002 and a 45 year old American living in Paris.
It wasn't just that I found the 2002 woman irritating and stupid; the book was all really bad writing.
The one redeeming feature of the book is that it taught me a bit more about some of the horrific, shameful ways that the French treated their Jewish population, in particular the Vel d'Hiv (the stadium where they held thousands of people prior to separating children from their parents, and then transporting them all).
|
|
|
Post by shilgia on Nov 27, 2018 21:22:53 GMT -5
As I mentioned in the other place, I attempted an audiobook two days ago. Well, day 3, book 3. This is pretty addictive. (I won't give up reading books, but I think it's complementary.) Anyway, if we are allowed to report on audiobooks here:
- Ta-Nehisi Coates - Between the World and Me. Finally read this and was more impressed than I thought I would be. It manages to be poetic and angry at the same time, and (of course) insightful. There was a lot to think about in this book.
- Paul Kalanithi - When Breath Becomes Air. As inspirational as everyone says, though to be 100% honest I found some parts of it a bit self-aggrandizing. I guess a neurosurgeon who dies of cancer at 37 should be allowed, though.
- (Currently listening) Neil Gaiman - American Gods. A classic that I've never read. Only about 10% in so far, and this is the extra-long anniversary edition.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Nov 27, 2018 21:46:22 GMT -5
I loved "Between the World and Me." Well, I've always loved his writing, from way back when he was writing music reviews for the local free newspaper. Even when I had no idea what he was talking about, I still enjoyed his writing.
What I just finished reading was very different:
62. John Burroughs, Wake-Robin
Burroughs wrote these essays about being out in nature in the DC area and Hudson Valley in the 1860s. I really enjoyed reading them; it was interesting seeing how similar and yet how very different his experience was from what it's like to do the same thing now. Same species (though some have different names now, so I spent some time trying to puzzle out what he was describing), but a different way of approaching them. People had to rely quite a bit on taking specimens then, so you have surprising passages like him saying he saw some warbler he couldn't i.d., so he shot it! The DC parts were particularly interesting to me, of course; things like how he goes out walking in farmland in what is now dense city after going to Lincoln's second inauguration.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Nov 28, 2018 1:05:51 GMT -5
Audiobooks 100% allowed!
It's certainly a different way of consuming books but I love both. In fact I'm happy today because I'll get my Audible credit do I can choose a new audiobook later (although I'm not quite done with the current one, Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything).
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 28, 2018 6:39:26 GMT -5
Audiobooks are a lifesaver on my long rural drives, and I’m definitely including them in my list.
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 28, 2018 8:12:50 GMT -5
89. Killer Cupcakes. LeighAnn Dobbs. This is a very light cozy mystery, with a heroine who is a bit too ditzy to be believable. The book is very short, with not much scope for character development, but I find it hard to believe anyone could run a bakery wearing stilettos. I also find it hard to believe a police detective could fall for someone silly enough to confront a murderer on her own with no backup.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Nov 30, 2018 15:48:05 GMT -5
Can't believe we're nearly at the end of the month already...
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping My first Robinson and I liked it a lot. I thought the first and last pages were masterful. I'm putting it in the Stoner/Wallace Stegner category.
Robin Sloan, Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore I mean, this was fun enough for relaxing, but for me had a couple of major flaws. 1) It's not really about books. I mean given the fact it's largely set in a bookstore, it doesn't really have much fun literary trivia or references or anything like that. 2) There's really only one female character, and she is so wooden that I spent the first half of the book convinced it was setting me up for a twist and she was going to turn out to be a villain or a robot. Or both. *SPOILER* she's not.
I'm now reading Dasa Drndic's Belladonna (which just won the Warwick Prize for literature by a woman in translation. And I think it's going to slow my reading down considerably. It's good but very dense. I've been plodding along with it all week and still only a third of the way through.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Nov 30, 2018 16:50:03 GMT -5
I need to reread Housekeeping as it's been decades. I still have very vivid recollections of the movie which kind of interfered with reading it. But I highly recommend Gilead, too - agree she's in the John Williams category.
I just finished Bernard Cornwell's "Fools and Mortals". Narrator is William Shakespeare's younger brother, a player in his theatre. Enjoyable.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Dec 1, 2018 7:22:15 GMT -5
It's been December in the US for 7 hours and 21 minutes, so time for a new thread! Here's the link: December Book Thread
|
|
|
Post by Queen on Dec 2, 2018 14:44:48 GMT -5
I'm reading a book that has all kinds of plaudits (is that the right word?) on-line and plenty of people rave about - The Light Between Oceans. It's about a lighthouse keeper. But a couple months ago I read "The Lightkeeper's Daughters" which was also about a lighthouse keeper. And I am sort of mixing them up while reading them - there's already a major plot point that is almost exactly the same... I think the Light Betweeen Oceans was published before the Lightkeeper's Daughters... by a few years.
|
|