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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 21, 2019 4:24:35 GMT -5
67. A Symphony of Echoes, Jodi Taylor. Still one of my favourite road trip series. The narrator of the audiobook sounds right, and the action is fast paced. Lots of shenanigans and mayhem, and a bit of history on the side. This one includes the Hanging Gardens of ? and Mary Queen of Scots. History presented warts and all.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 22, 2019 5:05:58 GMT -5
57) Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls
This is the Iliad, told rather unflinchingly from the perspective of Briseis and the other Trojan women who were captive slaves of the Greek army. I found it hard to put down. I loved the bit at the end where she says something like "the people in the future will hear our story and will prefer to think of it as a love story rather than a rape camp."
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Post by Oweena on Oct 22, 2019 22:05:15 GMT -5
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
I read this based on it being mentioned here a few months back.
The story was good and it engaged me from the beginning. Set in 1746 New York it's definitely a departure from the settings of most of what I read. I give it an overall thumbs up for originality and not letting on to the protagonists mission until the end.
But I admit I skimmed over the scenes where the narrative digressed to the play they were putting on for their fellow citizens.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 23, 2019 4:55:44 GMT -5
I think "Golden Hill" was my fault, Oweena! I don't remember the play part, though (which tells me it wasn't very memorable).
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Post by Oweena on Oct 23, 2019 18:39:58 GMT -5
I think "Golden Hill" was my fault, Oweena! I don't remember the play part, though (which tells me it wasn't very memorable). The play was "Cato" which apparently held some fascination for the colonists of that era. In my mind as I read that part I heard "Julius Caesar...blah, blah, blah" until the plot moved back to the narrative I was interested in.
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Post by Oweena on Oct 26, 2019 18:11:14 GMT -5
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
Memoir of her upbringing navigating her dysfunctional family while trying to define herself as a trans woman. She's open and honest at every turn, and her ability to both explain and enlighten on gender and gender identity, and sex and sexuality makes me wish this book would reach more people.
If so, maybe some small sliver of ignorance could be overcome.
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Post by sprite on Oct 27, 2019 4:06:01 GMT -5
Tidelands, Phillipa Gregory
From the library app. I chose this based on an interview with the author, talking about the research she did into the era (1648, as Cromwell has just started his Parliament, but King Charles is still alive). The detail is superb, but I found I didn't want to read through a lot of the story. It was too tense, so I skipped to the last chapter to see how it ended.
A poor midwife, abandoned by her husband, secretly helps a royalist Catholic priest. They fall in love, but if course he is a priest,and she can't remarry until her husband has been missing for 7yrs. She is very beautiful, and the locals persist in believing she has magical connections--not a good rumour for that era.
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Post by Oweena on Oct 27, 2019 10:35:37 GMT -5
Tidelands, Phillipa Gregory The detail is superb, but I found I didn't want to read through a lot of the story. It was too tense, so I skipped to the last chapter to see how it ended. Ha! If I find a book too suspenseful, or soooo good that I am rushing through it to find out the ending, I'll read the last chapter so I can then calm down and read the book at an enjoyable pace. I realize that's sacrilege to many readers.
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Post by sprite on Oct 27, 2019 15:17:09 GMT -5
hey, whatever gets you through the night. it isn't helping that every time i open the bookshelf, there's a reminder of how many other people are waiting for the book. there should be a thing, like, if you return a certain number of books early, you get to jump the queue a little.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 29, 2019 1:11:30 GMT -5
68. A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia. Clara Benson. This is a vintage cozy by a modern writer, much in the style of the Bertie Wooster books. The characters could have been Bertie’s friends! The mystery was well done, and while the means was apparent fairly quickly, the murderer didn’t become apparent until near the end.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 29, 2019 8:18:39 GMT -5
69. Greenmantle, by John Buchanan. I needed a War book for a Goodreads challenge, so reread an old favourite I haven’t read for years. This is the third recently read book set in the early twentieth century. The difference between those actually written then, and those by modern authors seems, at least in part to do with language which was perfectly okay then, but now appears to be racist, even when the author and characters are very accepting of difference in their own way. This has for many years been my favourite of the Richard Hannay books, which is a bit strange, as I usually don’t like war books. Some of the language now appears racist to 21st century eyes, but it makes sense in the World War I context in which it was written. Altogether great spy story and adventure book.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 29, 2019 19:47:48 GMT -5
Finally finished "Wives and DAughters" by Elizabeth GAskell, all 800 pages. Much like Bronte or Austen - life in a small English town with a perfect heroine, and lots of good side characters. It was good enough to keep me interested, but very, very predictable. And the perfect heroine was, honestly, a bit insipid.
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Post by sophie on Oct 29, 2019 22:33:30 GMT -5
In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant. This book is the choice for my book club this month. It is a novel based on historical sources about the Borgia family and Machiavelli. I think the person who chose it was perhaps thinking of some of the current intrigue happening in politics but I found it slow going and an uninspired read. Historical novels are a tricky genre. Not recommended unless you really want to know more about the Borgia family.
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Post by Webs on Oct 30, 2019 9:10:18 GMT -5
"Good Riddance" by Elinor Lipman
I must be reading a different book than everyone else who reviewed it because this book was shit.
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Post by Oweena on Oct 30, 2019 12:53:42 GMT -5
Less by Andrew Sean Greer.
Apparently this won the 2018 Pulitzer fiction prize.
I found it both frustrating and wonderful. Frustrating due to the title character Arthur Less being so hapless, but I realize that is what the narrative supports to advance the story. The book documents his around the world travel to avoid having to attend the wedding of his longtime ex-boyfriend. Each chapter is set in a different country (Mexico, Germany, Italy, Japan, India, etc.) filled with new misadventures.
The wonderful parts were his way of describing things. For example "He rounds a corner and sees white tourist buses parked all in a row along the river, their great side mirrors like the horns of caterpillars" or "He kisses--how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you.”
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Post by tzarine on Oct 30, 2019 19:36:20 GMT -5
wise children angela carter's look @ a family w plenty of shakespeare & some magic realism
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Post by mei on Oct 31, 2019 8:04:29 GMT -5
I'm not sure what number I'm at (17?) but I read Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas over the last few weeks. Very interesting book about the history of the fashion industry, the rise of fast fashion but also a lot about innovations that are happening to make the industry a force for positive impact (instead of the negative impact it currently mostly has)
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Post by scrubb on Oct 31, 2019 13:23:53 GMT -5
Finished "Looking for Alaska" by John Green. He writes intelligent YA books. I think they made a movie of this one? It was very good, though I think the others of his that I've read were maybe slightly better.
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Post by Queen on Oct 31, 2019 15:56:33 GMT -5
Blowout - Rachel Maddow
Oh Boy perfect book for Halloween, scary as all get out.
The full title is "Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth,"
And she dishes, connecting up the dots between Exxon, the orange menace, Putin, earthquake swarms in Oklahoma and a Michal Jackson glove.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 1, 2019 4:48:15 GMT -5
Oooh, I love Rachel Maddow.
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