|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 1, 2019 17:19:23 GMT -5
It's February! And I'm still only about a third of the way through "The Invention of Nature," which is really interesting but really REALLY long. So since this may well be the only post I make in the reading thread this month, I figure I'll just start it. And - welcome to February! Here's the January thread |
|
|
|
Post by shilgia on Feb 1, 2019 17:23:31 GMT -5
Yay February!
I'm still slogging my way through this statistical report snooze fest of a book. Good God. It will take a few more days, I think.
|
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 1, 2019 20:57:45 GMT -5
Bookmarking. Still slowly going through my Goodreads Cozy Mystery challenge book.
|
|
|
|
Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 1, 2019 21:16:02 GMT -5
Started Wimmera the other day - it is very Australian and has prompted thoughts that I may get round to posting.
|
|
|
|
Post by Oweena on Feb 2, 2019 8:48:20 GMT -5
I'm on activity restriction, so my reading time has increased.
I'm Just A Person by Tig Notaro. I love Tig, so had been wanting to read this. Her story has been out there quite a bit (deadly infection/mom dies unexpectedly/breast cancer diagnosis) but it was interesting to read how she processed all the bad stuff and how she's moved forward.
The White Darkness by David Grann. Compelling story of Henry Worsley, a South Pole explorer obsessed and encouraged by the life of Shackelton. The writing is great, and Worsley comes across as a truly decent man trying to reach his goals.
Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky. Read it because a few of you here had done so. I came away disliking the author, and I don't think his career of hotel work across 3 or 4 (?) hotels makes him an expert about the inner workings of hotels. There weren't any great revelations, glad I'd borrowed this for free from the library.
Stray City by Chelsey Johnson. Liked this one a lot. Set in the 1990s, tells the story of Andy, a lesbian fleeing Nebraska to find her family of choice in Portland Oregon. There was so much I related to in this story, and the characters were well-drawn. Recommended.
|
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Feb 2, 2019 8:55:53 GMT -5
Thanks Liisa! I enjoyed The Invention of Nature, I think it was one of the first books I listened to when I got my Audible subscription. Although I liked the South American bit best and that is over fairly early on.
|
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Feb 2, 2019 19:49:10 GMT -5
Oweena, there was a Worsley on Shackleton's expedition - Frank, I think. Is Henry his son or grandson?
|
|
|
|
Post by Oweena on Feb 2, 2019 22:21:11 GMT -5
Oweena, there was a Worsley on Shackleton's expedition - Frank, I think. Is Henry his son or grandson? Supposedly they're related, but not as close as son or grandson. |
|
|
|
Post by Queen on Feb 3, 2019 3:57:13 GMT -5
Progress update on Middlemarch = pg 192, I'm liking it but it took a while to get into.
Meanwhile...
book #3
The Diary of a Bookseller
Shaun Bythell
Hilarious. The book store is in Scotland and is run on shoestring. The book is a mix of town news, book industry info and bemoaning the rise of Amazon, random filing by mad staff, and customer anecdotes. There is also a book festival and a cat. It's a delight.
Customer: So what do you specialise in?
Shaun: Books.
Now, back to Middlemarch.
|
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 3, 2019 12:45:46 GMT -5
4. Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature
OK, so I was farther along with this than I thought I was when I created this thread -- it has lots of pages of notes at the end! Plus I got this cold, so I've been inside all weekend sleeping and reading.
Anyway, I loved it. I now feel like an intellectual heir of Humboldt, who of course I'd heard of but never read about in such detail. And all the follow-up chapters on people who had been inspired by him were lovely to read; it was like an all-star tribute concert or something.
It is long, and sometimes she goes into great detail about things that were only tangentially related to Humboldt and nature writing (you learn a lot about the Napoleonic wars and Prussian politics and Bolívar and the South American revolutions in this book), which I'll admit fatigued me a bit during those sections. But it was always interesting, and beautifully written.
Now back to reading fiction....
|
|
|
|
Post by snowwhite on Feb 3, 2019 15:17:47 GMT -5
I'm working my way through The Children Act (somehow I'm ntoticing how the writing screams 'Ian McEwan' as much as I'm noticing the plot etc, but that's OK), but my big discovery a couple of days ago has been a lovely FB group all about books and reading  |
|
|
|
Post by Oweena on Feb 3, 2019 21:18:56 GMT -5
Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg
Fictionalized take on the life of the real life Mazie Phillips, who lived and worked in NYC in the early 1900s. She was known as the "Queen of the Bowery" and this book was written after the author read a 1940 New Yorker profile of Mazie.
It took me a bit to get into the rhythm of the narrative as it's told via her diary along with interviews of those who knew her. But I did become invested in the story and how her life would turn out. There's no tidy, all questions answered ending if you need that.
|
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Feb 4, 2019 4:03:57 GMT -5
#9 Agatha Christie, 4.50 from Paddington
WYSIWYG with a Christie. Relaxing but nothing Special (as far as I'm concerned).
#10 Carla Maliandi, The German Room (translated by Frances Riddle)
A very short novel about a Young Argentine woman who returns to Heidelberg in Germany, the City where she spent some town as a child when her Family was in Exile. She soon discovers she is pregnant and spends the rest of the book aimlessly wandering about Heidelberg, encountering various more or less strange folk. Not quite sure what happened at the end. I wanted to really like this, but in fact it was just OK.
#11 Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie (Audio)
Ah, now this was really a case of seeing (or Hearing) something differently as an adult. I had heard about Ingalls' "controversial" Position nowadays due to her portrayal of the Native Americans - a prize named after her has been renamed, for example. And I thought I remembered some of the problematic bits - Ma saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian", for example. In fact, I personally thought that Statement was countered quite well within the book, as it is made perfectly clear that Pa disagrees with Ma and that he has respect for individual Indians (as they are called in the book). He also argues with neighbour settlers about the Indians and their intentions. However, what I had really forgotten was the Level of Detail in the book about where and why the Ingalls Family build the Little House, how the land has not been opened up to settlers yet, the Meetings of the tribes in the area that terrify the Family, and their ultimate decision to Abandon the Little House.
I also felt sorry about the puritanical attitudes that lead Ma, having slept on the ground for FSM knows how many weeks, to describe her new bed as "so comfortable it's almost sinful"!
I could do more Research about the historical Events described, but seeing as I'm going to read the Ingalls biography in the next few months, I won't as yet.
By the way, the Reader, Cherry Jones, is excellent - lively but without that irritating exaggeration you sometimes get with People reading primarily for children.
|
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 4, 2019 5:35:39 GMT -5
10. Nightmare in Shining Armour, Tamar Myers.
I’ve realised I can only take Tamar Myers’ humour in small doses. The one or two others of this series on my shelf will have to wait a while.
This series has less interest for me than her other, Amish/Mennonite series, as the South of the USA and antiques are not high on my list of hobbies, so the book took some getting into, but it did grow on me as it gathered pace towards the end.
|
|
|
|
Post by sprite on Feb 4, 2019 5:36:55 GMT -5
book #3 The Diary of a Bookseller Shaun Bythell Hilarious. The book store is in Scotland and is run on shoestring. The book is a mix of town news, book industry info and bemoaning the rise of Amazon, random filing by mad staff, and customer anecdotes. There is also a book festival and a cat. It's a delight. Customer: So what do you specialise in? Shaun: Books. we visited that bookshop--i'd highly recommend a visit to the area (Wigtown), especially with some form of transport as there are amazing gardens because of the microclimate. i haven't read his book yet, but did sneak a peek at some of it while in his store (where i did buy a couple of books without asking any inane questions). he wasn't in, shame. |
|
|
|
Post by sophie on Feb 4, 2019 13:29:49 GMT -5
I started ‘From the Ground Up’ by Howard Schultz yesterday on the plane home only because it was a give away on The View the day I attended. I am not sure I will finish it. Smaltzy and how much do I want to know about him anyways?
|
|
|
|
Post by Webs on Feb 4, 2019 13:56:19 GMT -5
A Gentleman in Moscow was a delight.
I'm audiobooking "Circe" and I have a list of all these mythological beings to look up.
|
|
|
|
Post by sprite on Feb 4, 2019 15:42:45 GMT -5
I enjoyed Circe a lot, and realized I'd forgotten a lot of mythology.
|
|
|
|
Post by Queen on Feb 4, 2019 16:10:02 GMT -5
I started ‘From the Ground Up’ by Howard Schultz yesterday on the plane home only because it was a give away on The View the day I attended. I am not sure I will finish it. Smaltzy and how much do I want to know about him anyways? you know enough... A Gentleman in Moscow was a delight. I'm audiobooking "Circe" and I have a list of all these mythological beings to look up. Loved "A Gentleman in Moscow" And loved the Achilles book by the same writer as the Circe book so will keep a look out for it. |
|
|
|
Post by Webs on Feb 4, 2019 16:37:18 GMT -5
I miss having a close book store that was big and wanderful. I feel like I don't know anything about what's new and good without all of you.
|
|
|
|
Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 5, 2019 4:50:16 GMT -5
Webs, I love the 'book trail' that a local bookshop owner does on his store's FB page. He tracks the books he reads and posts about them. Sometimes it is ARC, others are just released. It is a mix of adult, young adult and children's books. I have found some great books from his recommendations.
|
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 5, 2019 7:34:18 GMT -5
I get a lot of ideas here but also from the New York Times books section - especially that column "By the Book" where they interview a famous writer and ask what they're reading and what their influences are.
But yeah, a good store is irreplaceable. On the other hand, it might be good not to have one too close - when there was a good store in the neighborhood near my office I spent WAY too much money on books. Distance is a good form of impulse control, for me at least.
|
|
|
|
Post by sprite on Feb 5, 2019 12:24:15 GMT -5
Today I managed to get out of the bookstore where I volunteer with no books. Whole bunch of Christmas stuff, but no books!
|
|
|
|
Post by Oweena on Feb 6, 2019 10:27:25 GMT -5
Educated by Tara Westover
Her memoir is of growing up in Idaho, the youngest of seven, raised by Mormon parents who didn't believe in sending their kids to school, or modern medicine. She didn't attend school (BYU) until she was 17, and the book details the dysfunctional family life and her struggle to educate herself. She ended up with a PHD from Cambridge.
The book is well-written and was on lots of 'Best of 2018' books. I can't say I enjoyed it. Mostly I was frustrated by her parents and their beliefs. I also struggled with her continued attempts to have a relationship with them over the years as I can't relate to someone who values blood family over ones well-being.
|
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Feb 6, 2019 17:44:49 GMT -5
Finally finished Madeleine Thein's wonderful "Do Not Say We Have Nothing".
Usually when I become immersed in a really good book I just fly through it. This one was different. It felt very heavy sometimes and I needed to take little breaks when I felt like I didn't want to face the next tragedy. I think it was just my mood, but I think it is worth noting that it is not a happy book. Though there are times when some of the characters are happy.
Set in Vancouver between 1990 and 2016, and telling stories from China between the '50s and 1990. Musicians going through Mao's reforms and the Cultural Revolution, right up to Tiananmen Sq. Wonderfully written, with stories within stories, symbols upon symbols, great characters, and a lot of sadness.
|
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 6, 2019 19:43:43 GMT -5
5) Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
This took a little while to get into, but then it was hard to put down. The center of the story is about a woman who's in a prison in California and how she got there, but then it's also about other women in the prison and about a man who studied literature who's working there as a teacher. It's very very good; not sentimental at all, felt very true.
|
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Feb 7, 2019 1:53:44 GMT -5
Such a good book, scrubb. I'm not a Musical Person and thought that part might not work for me, but it did.
|
|
|
|
Post by shilgia on Feb 7, 2019 6:58:34 GMT -5
Educated is in my library hold queue, Oweena. But because it was on so many “best of” lists, that queue is very long. It will probably take a few more months before I reach the front of the line. I’ve heard others say that they found the book frustrating, but I think most people did like it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Oweena on Feb 7, 2019 9:28:44 GMT -5
5) Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room This took a little while to get into, but then it was hard to put down. The center of the story is about a woman who's in a prison in California and how she got there, but then it's also about other women in the prison and about a man who studied literature who's working there as a teacher. It's very very good; not sentimental at all, felt very true. Read it in late 2018 and I remember liking it more than her other novel I'd recently read. |
|
|
|
Post by Oweena on Feb 7, 2019 9:33:51 GMT -5
Educated is in my library hold queue, Oweena. But because it was on so many “best of” lists, that queue is very long. It will probably take a few more months before I reach the front of the line. I’ve heard others say that they found the book frustrating, but I think most people did like it. After I finished the book I made the mistake of watching a few videos of Westover doing press for the book. It seems she's still making excuses for the behavior of her family as well as keeping an open door to contact with them. Like I said earlier, it's hard for me to fathom why you would hold out hope of reconciliation when they've showed her for decades what kind of people they are. This may have colored my not embracing the book like so many of the critics. I should probably stop searching out more about authors after I read their work. |
|
