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Post by scrubb on Feb 23, 2019 20:07:46 GMT -5
Heh true, Sprite. I was convinced SPOILER ALERT that the astronaut "catching" him at the end was going to have to untether and there'd be yet another dramatic crisis, and surprised it dudn't happen.
Just finished "The Longings of Women" by Marge Piercy. I read it because I love her WW2 novel "Gone to Soldiers", and it was also very good, although not in the same league. It's the story of 3 very different women, all going through difficult times (one is getting divorced after 25 years; one is homeless but struggling to keep working and clean and respectable; one is accused of seducing a teenager and murdering her husband with him) and she makes each one very believable. The book traces how they all got to where they are without getting sentimental. She manages to make them all sympathetic, at least to some extent, by really showing things from their point of view so well that even if you don't agree with them, you understand them.
Her writing is enjoyable enough that I'll look for more by her.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 23, 2019 21:12:10 GMT -5
9) Samanta Schweblin, A Mouthful of Birds
This is a collection of short stories by the author of the disturbing short novel "Fever Dreams" that a couple of us read last year. These aren't all as successful as that book was, but a couple of them were really interesting. What is it about South American literature that makes it so strange? Or maybe it's just that I never read "normal" South American literature.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Feb 24, 2019 8:59:48 GMT -5
12. Alice K Boatwright, Under an English Heaven. A cozy mystery introducing the American second wife of an English vicar as the sleuth. Characters are well drawn and believable, and the author seems familiar with her setting. An interesting mystery, though I did pick the murderer before the end. More serious than many modern cozies.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 25, 2019 13:18:28 GMT -5
Lost in the Jungle, by Yossi Ghinsberg.
Story of a bunch of idiots. He was backpacking through South America and got himself and a couple guys he'd met along the way taken in by a con artist (who, as written, was an obvious bullshitter) and headed out for a trek through the remote jungle. Eventually they split up and a couple take a raft down a river, have an accident, and he's stuck alone in the jungle for nearly 3 weeks.
I just didn't like him much. So naive, but also a jerk to one of his friends - who is also a bit of a nut bar. He goes on about how they were such close friends taking the trip together, but he'd only known any of them for a couple weeks. And the decision to head ill-prepared into the jungle on the say so of one man, doing no checking at all of their own on the area, no talking to anyone who might know... hard to be at all sympathetic.
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Post by sprite on Feb 25, 2019 14:00:09 GMT -5
i'm losing my patience with that sort of dude, and there's a whole genre of literature i would call, "first world white men too priveleged to know what douchebags they actually are."
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Post by scrubb on Feb 25, 2019 15:15:36 GMT -5
He does admit to some not very admirable characteristics which I suppose should make him more sympathetic, but it didn't, for me.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 25, 2019 19:09:44 GMT -5
Nope, I'm completely over books like that.
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Post by scrubb on Feb 25, 2019 21:36:31 GMT -5
It was actually a lot like whichamacallit - the bus kid in Alaska - Chris McCandless - in that I just felt so little sympathy for the guys. Like "Into the Wild", maybe if a teenager reads the book he'll think it's wild and crazy and an amazing adventure and he'll understand it and be totally sympathetic. Not me.
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Post by lillielangtry on Feb 27, 2019 2:22:09 GMT -5
#13 Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking I've been dipping into this collection of essays since late last year. As usual with such collections, I enjoyed some of them more than others. #14 Sarah Perry, Melmoth The next book from the author of The Essex Serpent. I've just gone back and reminded myself that Liiisa preferred this to The Essex Serpent. I didn't, I have to say. I liked it and feel she really can write - one passage in particular moved me to tears, and that is so rare for me with fiction. But the book seemed flawed. For one Thing - and I really don't say this often - I thought it was slightly too short. The Frame Story needed to be fleshed out more. And the ending stretched my credibility even within the constructed world of the novel, although again, I felt like if the plot had taken more time, I could've been more prepared to go along with that ending. Anyway, totally don't regret reading this and will look Forward to Perry's next because I think she's a huge Talent, but it was a slight miss in my view. #15 Jeanne Marie Laskas, To Obama, with Love, Joy, Anger and Hope I received this book about Obama's correspondence with ordinary citizens for Christmas and I confess, I was not overjoyed. I am not American and I don't take more interest in US politics than you simply have to, living in this world! So it felt like a gift that had not really been Chosen with me in mind. But I thought I would just dip in and read a couple of letters before choosing my next novel. Looked up 100 pages later, tear-stained. Honestly reading the voices of the letter writers was incredibly moving, and sometimes hilarious. The intervening chapters are not all essential, I think, although I was interested in the workings of the mailroom. It got sadder and sadder towards the end, of course. Highly recommended.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 27, 2019 4:10:45 GMT -5
Lillie, I finished To Obama this month as well. I loved the letters. It was heart-breaking, uplifting, funny, frustrating and annoying all at the same time. It showed how much division there has been in the US for years, not just recently with the orange menace. I did feel some of the linking parts were not as strong as they could have been but it is still something worth reading
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 27, 2019 5:45:11 GMT -5
How is it that you guys know about this letters to Obama book and I don't? I'll have to go find that, though I'm sure I'll be crying too. We all (well ok, the sane people among us) miss him so much, it's like losing your Dad and then Mom marries some horrible person and this freak is now your new dad.
Anyway, interesting about Melmoth, lillie. Yeah, i loved it, but at the moment I don't remember very much about it!
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 27, 2019 5:49:01 GMT -5
Liiisa - I saw it on display at my favourite bookshop back in November. Reserved it from my library and am still on the waitlist there but luckily Clipper was able to get it from his work library.
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Post by Liiisa on Feb 27, 2019 6:21:20 GMT -5
Liiisa - I saw it on display at my favourite bookshop back in November. Reserved it from my library and am still on the waitlist there but luckily Clipper was able to get it from his work library. Woo! I've had a library hold on "The Overstory" since Christmas and I'm still 20th in line. Someday....
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 27, 2019 6:25:28 GMT -5
His library is good - he came home with "On the Come Up" yesterday and I had no idea it had even been published in Oz yet. My library probably still has it sitting in the back rooms waiting to be covered and put in the system
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Post by kneazle on Mar 1, 2019 0:06:03 GMT -5
3. Early Riser - Jasper Fforde I love Jasper Fforde - I've been reading his books for years (thanks to TTWT) and even caught a train to Swindon to take part in a weird activity day where had to answer public phones to find the fake Jasper Fforde and met the real Jasper Fforde. And that's why I finished this book. It turned out to be ok in the end but it this was a book by an author I didn't already like I would have given up.
4. Turtles all the Way down - John Green Teenage girl with severe OCD and anxiety issues and her life intersects with an old friend who's father is being investigated for fraud and has disappeared. It's a personal issue for the Author so it's treated sensitively. I thought he did a good job of how illogical anxiety is - something that is properly scary you can deal with but normal stuff causes anxiety.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 1, 2019 3:14:34 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 1, 2019 6:44:56 GMT -5
Thank you ozzie!
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Mar 1, 2019 21:25:54 GMT -5
Ok, the rest of the books I read in Feb
12. The Skylarks War - Hilary McKay. Middle grade historical fiction set around the early 1900s til the end of WW1. I almost abandoned this, it was in the pile half-read for a few weeks until a favourite book shop owner posted his love for the book. That prompted me to pick it up again and continue reading. And sure, others may love it and it may have won awards but it just didn't quite work for me.
13. To Obama, with Love, Joy, Anger and Hope -Jeanne Marie Laskas Talked about above - loved the letters, found the bits about the inner workings of the mail department in the White House fascinating.
14. Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow - Siobhan Curham
YA 'issues' novel.
Look, this was good but it could have been great. A teenage girl, struggling with life due to her mother's depression after the death of the girl's father meets a teenage boy who is a Syrian refugee. And in part that was my issue with the book - there was enough there for the story of Stevie, a strong girl who is just about coping with her mum's depression and their lives spiralling out of control and into poverty. Stevie is a gifted musician and has a love of music and her Dad's old vinyls. At times the story of Hafiz felt like it was just stuck into this other story. Sure, the friendship btw the two of them helped both of them and it was an uplifting ending. I suppose I just wanted more of Stevie's story and the look at what various policy changes have brought to the UK when dealing with long term disability and welfare benefits etc etc.
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