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Post by HalcyonDaze on Apr 30, 2019 21:41:38 GMT -5
Yes, it is time for the May book thread. Link to April's thread here |
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Post by Liiisa on May 1, 2019 4:37:22 GMT -5
Tra la! Bookmarking, thank you Hal.
I'm in the middle of reading the new Jonathan Lethem, which I love.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on May 1, 2019 4:43:01 GMT -5
Bookmarking. Thank you Hal!
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Post by scrubb on May 1, 2019 18:26:26 GMT -5
37. The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman, by Louis de Bernieres
I am generally a fan of de Bernieres, and I enjoyed this one a fair bit, but I think he's kind of a lazy writer. He made up a bunch of vignettes and puts them together and calls it a novel, but there really isn't much of a story arc. I dunno. The praise for the novel says it seals his title as the Gabriel Garcia Marquez of his generation, or something like that, and I am a bit skeptical.
He is very imaginative and I like the magic realism (the small town at the centre of the book has a 300 year old man who drops in now and then, various ghosts, and a spanish conquistador come back to life) but I get a bit tired of how the women are all very strong and domineering (and they are often whores, but of course, they LIKE being whores).
Anyway. I wasn't particularly in the mood for the book when I started it, but couldn't find anything else I felt more like reading, so I stuck with it. And I did enjoy it, but...
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Post by Oweena on May 1, 2019 18:56:00 GMT -5
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Engrossing tale that uses the 1972 Disappearance of Belfast mother of 10 Jean McConville as the backdrop. She was abducted from her apartment in front of several of her young children, never to be seen again.
The author takes that one incident and builds out a narrative that draws you in. It has twists and turns you don't see coming due to how often the IRA, the Loyalists, and the British military acted as agents and double agents.
Even if you have no interest in The Troubles or the partition of Ireland into two countries, I think a history lover or true crime aficionado will like this book. It also reinforces that war and hatred never stop until the generations stop passing down their grudges to their children.
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Post by scrubb on May 2, 2019 20:02:31 GMT -5
The Dragonfly by Kate Dunn. A bookbub special that I suspected would be kinda schlocky, and it was, but I enjoyed it up till the last couple chapters, which were ridiculously predictable and twee.
A man who had been alienated from his son for 10 years is unexpectedly thrown together with his 9 year old granddaughter, while his son is in jail for killing his wife. The characters are reasonably well done and it's a quick and easy read.
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Post by Liiisa on May 2, 2019 20:34:15 GMT -5
scrubb Are there any actual dragonflies in that book? Anyway, 18) Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective I love Lethem anyway, but when I looked at this book and realized it was set in "The Inland Empire," a weird area of desert and crappy suburbs out east of LA where I cumulatively spent about 2 years of my life during the 80's and 90's, I knew I had to read it. The other thing that's great about it is that the plot is set in the days before and after the Menace inauguration, and how she reacts to that period is absolutely spot on. Anyway, it worked for me about 100 different ways, but I would think that if you like strange quasi-detective novels you'd probably like it anyway, even if you haven't spent way too much time in Pomona, California.
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Post by scrubb on May 2, 2019 21:27:23 GMT -5
Heh - I wish, Lisa! I love dragonflies. No, there's a boat called Dragonfly. And a kitten named "dragonfly" but in French (libellule)
What is "the Menace inauguration"? Nov 2016, or something completely unrelated?
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Post by Liiisa on May 3, 2019 4:41:44 GMT -5
Heh - I wish, Lisa! I love dragonflies. No, there's a boat called Dragonfly. And a kitten named "dragonfly" but in French (libellule) What is "the Menace inauguration"? Nov 2016, or something completely unrelated? 1) OK, you've saved me from reading it, thank you. 2) Well, January 2017 (the inauguration). I know that the shitclown's name gets autocorrected to "orange menace" here, so I shortened it to "Menace." |
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Post by mei on May 4, 2019 14:46:16 GMT -5
this week was quite productive for reading, so finished a 700 page book: Here I am by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Hmm, I have mixed feelings. I really loved the first half. Then the plot twist became kind of bizarre. I sort of understand its purpose but it was pretty extreme, and the second half was much more mixed with parts of the book that seemed to drag on and other parts that were as good as the beginning.
The book follows a Jewish family in the US. It's a lot about identity, family, connection, but I also think I would have gotten much more out of the book with more background knowledge about Judaism which was a huge element of the book.
Did anyone else here read it? I don't remember it coming up in these threads.
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Post by Liiisa on May 4, 2019 17:01:17 GMT -5
No, the only book by him that I've read is Everything Is Illuminated. I have to be honest that I didn't realize he had a third book out!
I liked "Illuminated," but his other book, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," hasn't seemed appealing the couple times I've picked it up with the intention of getting it from the library.
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Post by Oweena on May 4, 2019 21:03:20 GMT -5
I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott
It's a series of personal essays, written in a breezy conversational tone. She discusses growing up, marriage, having kids, etc. There wasn't much I related to as she is an admitted Type A, perfectionist who stresses over much of everyday life.
Since I'm a go with the flow, refuse to stress over a less than perfect grade, or how I organized a fund raiser, I sped through it. There were two times I laughed out loud at her description of some incident, but other than that I was meh.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on May 4, 2019 22:53:15 GMT -5
38. The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane - Julia Nobel.
A middle grade boarding school mystery book. Quite well done - Emmy, 12 is sent to boarding school in the UK for America. Her mother is a parenting expert who will be busy working on a reality TV show. Her father disappeared on Emmy's 3rd birthday. At the boarding school Emmy learns about a secret society that may be involved in the disappearance of her father.
The only quibble I had with this was that Emmy and her friends all seemed so much older than 12. Even down to things like subject choices and exams, talking about doing 3rd year work. It did feel as if the book was originally written with an idea of the protangists being maybe 14 or 15, and then dropped back because the author didn't want to shovel in any romance. I could be wrong about that, and maybe it was just my perception. But they did read as older.
I would be happy enough to read the next book in the series.
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Post by scrubb on May 4, 2019 23:39:57 GMT -5
Did anyone else here read it? I don't remember it coming up in these threads. No, but it's on my list because I really, really liked "Everything is Illuminated". (I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close too, and didn't like it as much (though I didn't dislike it). Also his "Eating Animals" which was ok. (I stand on more or less the same line as he does, but didn't find his argument particularly well presented.) |
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Post by Liiisa on May 5, 2019 7:15:05 GMT -5
19. Leanne Shapton, Guest Book
A series of short chapters, often told by photos with captions, that speak of people who are there but not there - ghosts, breakups, disappearances, apparitions, imaginary friends. I think I'll keep this copy so I can read it again since in many ways it's really more poetry than prose.
Shapton is the author of the book I read a while back that was a collection of photos with captions, ostensibly from an auction, that told the story of a young couple's breakup. I loved that one, so I grabbed this from the bookstore the moment I saw it.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on May 5, 2019 7:19:12 GMT -5
Oh, I remember the break up book - it was done like an auction catalogue. I will see if my library has some more of her work.
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Post by Liiisa on May 5, 2019 7:27:05 GMT -5
Yes!
I have particularly fond memories of that book because of the way it described the couple's differing opinions about Radiohead, which made me think that I should probably be listening to Radiohead. So I must have read that quite a while ago, it would have been just before "In Rainbows" came out, which is like 2008 or something.
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Post by mei on May 5, 2019 10:37:42 GMT -5
Did anyone else here read it? I don't remember it coming up in these threads. No, but it's on my list because I really, really liked "Everything is Illuminated". (I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close too, and didn't like it as much (though I didn't dislike it). Also his "Eating Animals" which was ok. (I stand on more or less the same line as he does, but didn't find his argument particularly well presented.) Interesting. I actually liked Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close much more than Everything is Illuminated (which I read after Loud/Close). This had been on my bookshelf and wishlist for quite some time, so I'm happy I finally got around to it. Also still curious about Eating Animals. |
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Post by lillielangtry on May 6, 2019 7:45:20 GMT -5
THanks Hal!
Mei, I read Everything is Illuminated but I can't remember much about it. I have Eating Animals on my to-read shelf.
#27 George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
I've never seen a single episode of GoT, but various people had recommended the books to me and they were very cheap for Kindle, so I bought the first one. I don't think I'll be continuing with them though. It was 800 pages long and the first couple of hundred of those were just introducing a million characters. Fine, I expected that and could live with it. But I just wasn't excited by the storylines (plural) for ages. In fact halfway through I put it down and decided I was abandoning it. But then, after all, there was one story in particular that stuck in my mind so I went back and finished it and the last 200 pages were pretty exciting. But a loooot of build-up for that.
#28 Andy Miller, A Year of Reading Dangerously
A memoir/non-fiction book about Miller, who works in the publishing industry, deciding to read 50 classics or otherwise "important" books he hadn't read - particularly ones he may have claimed to have read in the past! This was hilarious, I kept forcing people to listen to me read bits out loud. Recommended for book fans. Also if you like literary podcasts, check out the one he co-hosts, Backlisted, it's very good.
#29 Laura Ingalls Wilder, By the Shores of Silver Lake
As previously discussed, so much of a different experience as an adult. This book opens with a 13-year-old girl getting married - although to be fair, Laura and her cousin express their horror at that. Also a lot of Ma saying things like "A lady should never draw attention to herself" and "Don't shout girls" and comments about women not laughing out loud. Still some beautiful descriptions.
#30 Andrea Levy, Small Island
Officially a reread, but I couldn't remember much about this. It's brilliant though. The story of Gilbert and his wife Hortense coming from Jamaica to the UK in 1948, the racism they experience and the backstory of their time in the war and the story of their landlady, Queenie, and her husband. Every character is so sensitively drawn and you sympathise for each one and rage on all their behalfs, including the white characters, even as you see how terribly they behave to the black characters.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on May 6, 2019 10:27:55 GMT -5
26. A Dead Red Oleander, R.P.Dahlke. This isn’t your typical cozy mystery. The situations and characters are a bit of the Wild West gone twenty-first century. The villain did not become apparent until near the end, and the characters were well drawn and interesting.
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Post by Liiisa on May 6, 2019 19:31:21 GMT -5
20) Mikhail Bulgakov, A Country Doctor’s Notebook
These are some short vignettes of life as a doctor in an isolated Russian village around the time of the Revolution. Bulgakov was trained as a doctor, and had these published in newspapers; they were based on his experience as a young man right out of medical school. There are some hints of Bulgakov's style as we know it from "The Master and Margarita," and it's also interesting (at least to me) to see the details of what doctors did in the days before modern pharmaceuticals.
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Post by mei on May 7, 2019 3:37:39 GMT -5
#30 Andrea Levy, Small Island Officially a reread, but I couldn't remember much about this. It's brilliant though. The story of Gilbert and his wife Hortense coming from Jamaica to the UK in 1948, the racism they experience and the backstory of their time in the war and the story of their landlady, Queenie, and her husband. Every character is so sensitively drawn and you sympathise for each one and rage on all their behalfs, including the white characters, even as you see how terribly they behave to the black characters. This sounds good lillie. Coincidentally, I just read a book on a similar theme about migration from Jamaica (and also a Hortense as a main character) just last month. And I saw this weekend that there's a screening of the play 'Small Island' (http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/73263-small-island) coming up, which could also be interesting. Also adding the reading-book to my already impossibly long to-read-list! |
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Post by Queen on May 7, 2019 13:58:15 GMT -5
Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Roger McNamee
However bad you thought it was, it's worse
The case he lays out is impressive and his call for regulation is spot on - and it needs to happen soon. I think the book was rushed to print and could have done with a tighter edit. Even so worth a read.
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Post by scrubb on May 7, 2019 16:46:57 GMT -5
Finished Pat Conroy's "Prince of Tides" this morning. I really enjoyed it, but it feels flawed. It's a sprawling, southern novel that traces the lives of a family in South Carolina. The 2 things that didn't seem quite right were: 1. The kids in the family, as adults, keep talking as though their childhood was the stuff of nightmares. Their parents were monsters. They were terribly damaged and are amazed they survived at all. But when episodes if their lives are recounted, their mother was consistently protective of them, and they had loving grandparents. Their father was violent and unpredictable and yes, that would have been very damaging. But the horror they keep talking about seemed somewhat hyperbolic.
I think what really made that seem the case was one episode where they were at dinner arguing and the father started threatening them, and they all talked back to him. I know from personal experience that when kids are afraid of their father, they shut up when he starts threatening them. I was never convinced that they were actually afraid of their father.
2. The other main flaw was that a fair few of the things they did were very unrealistic. Their grandfather water skies 40 miles while in his 70s... they rescue a porpoise from an aquarium and have no problem getting it out of its tank onto a stretcher, then driving it 6 hours in the back of a pickup. Just 3 teenagers. The get a Bengal tiger from a circus and keep it in a small rolling cage for several years, even though they are sometimes struggling to feed themselves. Etc.
Overall, I liked it, but it felt like a first book by someone with a lot if promise, more than a really accomplished novel.
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Post by scrubb on May 9, 2019 10:49:24 GMT -5
Well, I'm now reading something that makes Prince of Tides look like a work of great genius in comparison... not every bookbub purchase is a winner. PSA: Do not but things by Timothy Patrick. Or at least not the one called Teacups and Tiger Claws.
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Post by Liiisa on May 9, 2019 17:46:47 GMT -5
21) Julie Schumacher, The Shakespeare Requirement
This book was funny and endearing! The setting is a large US university, in which departmental funding is unequally distributed, and the English department is suffering. The protagonist is the newly installed chair of the English department.
At first I thought that some of the characters were kind of predictable and I wasn't sure where it was going, but by the end I loved them all and was cheering them on. Recommended!
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Post by HalcyonDaze on May 9, 2019 18:35:50 GMT -5
Ah, I have her first book on my 'want to read' list. I thought the name looked familiar.
Alas, the library does not have either book. Will have to keep searching.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on May 9, 2019 18:40:33 GMT -5
Woo hoo - has turned up at the next council's library. Will sign up next week and go and get it sent to the nearest library to me (only about a 10 minute drive away)
Also at Clipper's work library (another council) so I could get it sent to his work.
Love my libraries.
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Post by Oweena on May 10, 2019 14:53:29 GMT -5
In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace by Miranda Seymour.
Got this due to a recommendation I'd read somewhere. I need to give myself a break from these biographies. Especially as I doubt I've ever read a poem by Byron, and until this book knew nothing about him or his wife or daughter. I'd heard of Lovelace in relation to recent recognition of her work with early computing but was unaware she was Byron's daughter.
There were interesting aspects, but mostly I'm left with feeling grateful to not have been a woman in that time period. All the angst over societal norms, gawd I'd have been viewed as a total heathen.
I'm kind of glad I read it. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Post by Oweena on May 10, 2019 14:54:06 GMT -5
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