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Post by Queen on Dec 2, 2019 17:07:17 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 2, 2019 18:58:09 GMT -5
Thank you Q! Bookmarking.
I'm currently reading "Homesick for Another World," which is a collection of extremely unpleasant though well-written short stories by Ottessa Moshfegh. I thought the last one I read by her was great, but I'm trying to get this one over with quickly.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 3, 2019 6:09:53 GMT -5
Bookmarking. In the middle of two, as usual.
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Post by sprite on Dec 4, 2019 11:19:39 GMT -5
my book pile nearly crashed down on my water glass (which is next to my tablet) last night.
perhaps no more library books on the tablet until i've got through some of those...
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Post by Oweena on Dec 5, 2019 11:48:35 GMT -5
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.
I liked the setting, the characters, and writing style. You need to be able to suspend belief on a few points: the murder investigation, that an untrained naturalist would go on to publish several best sellers, etc. But much of the writing was in some strange way soothing to me.
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones
His memoir of growing up poor, black, and gay. Raised by a single mother. Much of what he recounts is brutal in its honesty. He's a poet, so he's able to write even those parts with grace. It's a quick read, and one of those that allows you to live inside someone else's reality (as much as that's ever possible).
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Read this! She's the survivor of what the media dubbed the Stanford Swimmer Rape case. For years she was known only as Emily Doe, and her beautifully written victim impact statement went viral when it was published in 2016.
Wonderfully written, it makes me want to read more from her. She recounts the story of her assault, the investigation, and the legal process that follows in an almost lyrical way.
And if you haven't seen the video of her reciting her poem, "I Don't Give a Damn" go Google it now and listen.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 5, 2019 19:26:52 GMT -5
that an untrained naturalist would go on to publish several best sellers Let's pretend that that's plausible for my sake (though that would mean my actually working on the novel) I have heard that that Chanel Miller book is great; it's on my list. |
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Post by Oweena on Dec 5, 2019 19:38:06 GMT -5
that an untrained naturalist would go on to publish several best sellers Let's pretend that that's plausible for my sake (though that would mean my actually working on the novel) More specifically, the character attends just one day of school (around age 6) and goes on to basically teach herself to read doctorate level books and then writes and illustrates several books that biologists and the like use to learn about the flora and fauna of her corner of a swamp. So I found it a bit of a stretch. |
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 5, 2019 19:53:15 GMT -5
lol ok I'm maybe a mite farther along than that
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Post by scrubb on Dec 6, 2019 3:00:04 GMT -5
Alice in Bed, by Judith Hooper. Alice James, sister of American novelist Henry James, spent most of her adult life an invalid. She wrote a diary, published years after her death, which showed that she was very clever and a great writer too. This is a novel, making many assumptions about what she felt, thought, and experienced, but all based on her published diary. She was diagnosed as hysterical most of her life, with serious depressions, anxiety, and the assumption of psychological illnesses but interestingly, she constantly pointed out that it was her body failing her. She was also frustrated by the place (or lack thereof) of women in society, particularly women who didn't have children. Anyway, overall I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I want to read her diary now.
Maid, by Stephanie Land. It had a subtitle I didn't write down. By a single mom in Washington state, detailing her journey through poverty. She worked as a house cleaner, finding the challenge of minimum wage paying jobs when needing to pay for childcare and maintain the car needed to get to work. She details the judgemental comments of her clients, and of people seeing her shop with foodstamps, etc. She definitely had a very hard go of it, with zero support from her family. It was bit repetitive and longer than necessary, but was a good eye opener about how much of a struggle life can be when it throws you a major curveball, and why it is soooooo difficult to get ahead when you're in that situation. As soon as you earn more than a certain amount, you lose your housing subsidy, or your childcare credit. There is no way to save anything.
The Evolutionist: the Strange Story of Alfred Russel Wallace by Avi Sirkin. I didn't realize this was a novel when I bought it, but it was ok anyway. I don't know how much of the portrayal of Wallace's character was fantasy - he was shown as an ultra-prude, and totally immersed in his interests to the point of being unable to communicate well with other people. I'm also not sure if the way his relationship with Darwin was shown was realistic, but I think it meshes with what I've read before. I think his forays into spiritualism later in life were also based on documented fact. Anyway, it traced his journeys well, and was good enough to finish, though I'd prefer a biography, or to just read his own writing, I think.
And, Changing Planes, by Ursula LeGuin. I think Liiiiiiisa might have mentioned this one once? Whimsically based on the assumption that people can travel interdimensionally due to the discomfort and anxiety of airplanes, with a maneuver someone figured out. She discussed several different worlds she's visited this way - the book is a description of a variety of alien civilizations, some obviously a satire of earthly foibles, some very different. Entertaining read.
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Post by lillielangtry on Dec 6, 2019 4:19:36 GMT -5
Thanks Q!
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Waking Lions (Israel; translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston)
This is about an Israeli doctor who is on his way home one night after a Long shift when he hits a man with his car and subsequently flees the Scene. It's about the web of deceit and blackmail he then gets drawn into. It's an interesting read, it was our book Club book for the month and many of us enjoyed it, but when we started discussing it, we became quite critical (of the realism, of the characters, of the structure, all sorts of things really). That happens sometimes.
Jung Chang, Wild Swans
A reread on Audio of the famous memoir of 3 Generations of Chinese women. I borrowed my mum's copy of this about 20 years ago but various bits had stuck in my mind. I think I found the immense suffering the women go through even worse this time around. Beautifully read by Malaysian-Chinese-British author, Pik Sen Lim.
Julia Boyd, Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People
I've been reading this for Ages but that's not a reflection on its Quality, it's just fairly large so I wasn't commuting with it. A non-fiction book about People - mostly, but not all, English-speaking - who travelled through Germany during the 1920s and 30s. It's really amazing, well-researched, and fascinating to read how People responded to the rise of Nazism without the benefit of hindsight. Obviously, some were interested, some were horrified, some were apathetic, some were supportive. It's incredible to think there were British fathers in 1938 who thought it was still a good idea to send their teenage daughters, fresh out of Boarding School, to Munich to polish their German - but there were! There were students cyling down the Rhine over the summer in the 20s too, there were gay authors discovering the brief freedom of Berlin, there was a middle-class pair of English sisters who smuggled out jewellery for emigrating Jews until right before war broke out! Highly recommended if you're into that sort of Thing.
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Post by mei on Dec 6, 2019 4:27:20 GMT -5
currently reading Milkman (after I took a break from it quite some months ago). Enjoying it, quite an intense read but very good.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 6, 2019 5:58:53 GMT -5
And, Changing Planes, by Ursula LeGuin. I think Liiiiiiisa might have mentioned this one once? Whimsically based on the assumption that people can travel interdimensionally due to the discomfort and anxiety of airplanes, with a maneuver someone figured out. She discussed several different worlds she's visited this way - the book is a description of a variety of alien civilizations, some obviously a satire of earthly foibles, some very different. Entertaining read. Wow no... but it's on my list now! |
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Post by scrubb on Dec 6, 2019 8:25:52 GMT -5
It's a light read, Liiiisa, but entertaining. There's a typo in my post - it's the discomfort of airports, not airplanes, that allows people to change dimensions. Gives them something nice to do while waiting for planes. (And time is different so they can spend a few days away while only an hour passes at home.)
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Post by Queen on Dec 8, 2019 12:16:18 GMT -5
Julia Boyd, Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People I've been reading this for Ages but that's not a reflection on its Quality, it's just fairly large so I wasn't commuting with it. A non-fiction book about People - mostly, but not all, English-speaking - who travelled through Germany during the 1920s and 30s. It's really amazing, well-researched, and fascinating to read how People responded to the rise of Nazism without the benefit of hindsight. Obviously, some were interested, some were horrified, some were apathetic, some were supportive. It's incredible to think there were British fathers in 1938 who thought it was still a good idea to send their teenage daughters, fresh out of Boarding School, to Munich to polish their German - but there were! There were students cyling down the Rhine over the summer in the 20s too, there were gay authors discovering the brief freedom of Berlin, there was a middle-class pair of English sisters who smuggled out jewellery for emigrating Jews until right before war broke out! Highly recommended if you're into that sort of Thing. That sounds fascinating, when I read Patrick Leigh Fermor's book A Time of Gifts it was his time going through Rotterdam (which was destroyed in WWII) and Germany where he met people who would have become Nazi supporters. He travelled as a very young man (I think he was 18 when he left UK) so his impressions are a bit naive... or maybe that's hindsight. |
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Post by Queen on Dec 8, 2019 12:23:57 GMT -5
The Bastard of Istanbul
Elif Shafak
I heard the author interviewed about this book - although it was published years ago, and it became a must read.
I liked it - I liked the historic thread better than the modern thread which seemed a bit far-fetched. It left a lot of questions and a few loose ends - which I quite like, and made me want to read more history.
It's the story of two young girls, one born in the US, one born in Turkey, one trying to discover her history and one hiding from it. There are family secrets twisting all sorts interactions, and a connection to the Armenian genocide - but that's a loose end that doesn't quite get tied up. One of the thing that's interesting is the exploration of modern attitudes to the history and how history is held on to by the losers in history but written out by victors.
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Post by mei on Dec 8, 2019 13:21:04 GMT -5
Meeting any reading goals? My main reading goal was probably to spend more time reading / finish more books than last year. Just finished #22 so goal achieved (12 only in 2018, though to be fair that included a couple of BIG books). #22 Milkman by Anna Burns Really good. I couldn't really get into it first time I picked it up but on second try now I raced through it. I thought the writing style was quite intense and really got under your skin a bit, which was well done. I wasn't too sure about the final chapter although I think it rounds up the story quite well after all. On to my next book, a small book by Kate Fletcher who I saw speak last week. She was amazing, the first of the two books I ordered by her arrived on Friday :-D |
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Post by Oweena on Dec 8, 2019 13:51:28 GMT -5
Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Set in Germany and NYC, it tells the story of two women who are childhood friends until the rise of Nazism pushes them apart. The narrative switches between the two of them from the 1930s through 1989. It also traces the story of the daughter of one of the women as she attempts to discover who her father is and the reason her mother has so many secrets.
I feel it's a narrative similar to other books, the secret of a Nazi past. And frankly, I don't give a shit about why you joined up, and I've no sympathy for you suffering the consequences of that later.
I really should keep better track of why I reserve a book at the library because by the time it becomes available I'm reading it wondering why I ever wanted to.
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Post by Queen on Dec 9, 2019 4:06:16 GMT -5
Meeting any reading goals? My main reading goal was probably to spend more time reading / finish more books than last year. Just finished #22 so goal achieved (12 only in 2018, though to be fair that included a couple of BIG books). Mine was to read 30 books this year.... I need to finish two I have on the go and find 3 very short books ;-) |
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Post by sprite on Dec 9, 2019 5:26:39 GMT -5
Daughter of the Desert: Gertrude Bell
A good biography of a fascinating woman, but I'm discovering that I'm not a biography person. We all know what happens in the end!
There was too much stuff about her family history and childhood for me, the whole point is that she was this amazing person with regards to Iraq and the Middle East, yet it was a couple of hundred pages before we got anywhere near that. I don't care much about the details of the alpine garden she designed at the family home.
Also, the writer kept hinting at the mystery of Bell's death, and then spent less than 2 pages describing/discussing it!
The author took great pains to emphasize that Bell wasn't a feminist, but didn't pick that apart. Bell spent a lifetime breaking out of the 'woman' box, yet spent little time with other women, and was a bit disparaging of them. She didn't support the suffragette/gist movement because she didn't believe that women were well-informed enough to vote, but doesn't address whether or not men were. She called the women in her class dull, but didn't seem to ponder if this was because they'd been forced to live a limited life and hadn't, like her, gone to university or been allowed to travel alone around Europe--and that perhaps their husbands would have been just as dull if they hadn't had that extra experience and education?
I would have liked to meet her.
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Post by sprite on Dec 9, 2019 5:28:48 GMT -5
My main reading goal was probably to spend more time reading / finish more books than last year. Just finished #22 so goal achieved (12 only in 2018, though to be fair that included a couple of BIG books). Mine was to read 30 books this year.... I need to finish two I have on the go and find 3 very short books ;-) have you read Mary Beard "Women and Power"? short, interesting look at the voice/place of european women in modern and ancient times. |
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Post by scrubb on Dec 9, 2019 14:35:39 GMT -5
The Good German, by Joseph Kanon. Mostly schlock, but also an interesting look at Berlin in the immediate aftermath of WW2. A reporter who lived there before the war goes back (to find the woman he loved) and sees what life is like for the Germans and for the occupying forces. It is partly about how people he knew then ended up doing terrible things and being Nazis, but he keeps refusing to believe it until it's shoved in his face and then he doesn't believe it about the next person... Also, some of them have excuses (like, the "greifer" - a JEwish woman who turned in other Jews - she was doing it to save her child that no one knew about).
It was trying to be a bit deeper than a normal action/romance and it semi-succeeded, but the pacing was a bit weird and the more important themes got a bit lost behind the intrigue of the "mystery" and action stuff.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 9, 2019 19:06:17 GMT -5
59) Ottessa Moshfegh, Homesick for Another World
A set of deeply unpleasant short stories, as I should have expected! She's SUCH a good writer, but ugh.
Maybe her novels are more bearable because you only have to meet a single unpleasant, unhappy person? Whereas this collection of short stories was PACKED with them. The one about the guy with the crush on the flea market woman was amusing, though.
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Post by Queen on Dec 11, 2019 14:43:03 GMT -5
have you read Mary Beard "Women and Power"? short, interesting look at the voice/place of european women in modern and ancient times. I read it last year, I did enjoy it. I'm close to finishing a work related one, I won't bore you with the details. And I've only got a few more days of work ... so it should be good. Also it's goal for me, no big deal if I don't hit it. |
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Post by sophie on Dec 12, 2019 0:46:05 GMT -5
Feeding My Mother by Jann Arden. Jann Arden is a successful singer and songwriter here in Canada. This book is a memoir of taking care of her mother during the mother’s descent into the abyss called Alzheimer’s. A quick read, it touches on many emotional issues when the child becomes the parent. A satisfying read, especially in the emotional sense.
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Post by mei on Dec 12, 2019 15:43:00 GMT -5
#23 Wild Dress by Kate Fletcher.
A beautiful tiny little book with personal reflections about the relationship between nature and the clothes we wear. All 3-4 page writings, really thoughtful bringing a really new perspective to looking at day-to-day clothing.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 13, 2019 5:49:39 GMT -5
74. Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny. A brilliant interweaving of three mysteries in three different places, while Inspector Gamache recovers from a traumatic incident, which is revealed in one of the three threads.
Masterful dealing with the relationships between the anglophones and francophones in Quebec.
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Post by sprite on Dec 13, 2019 6:09:44 GMT -5
Just One Damned Thing After Another - Chronicles of St. Mary's
Jodi Taylor
A fun book, with humour and excitement. A historical research institute actually uses time travel to collect facts, and have discovered that History is something of a force, like gravity or magnetism. Try to alter it, and it fights back.
A new historian joins, and the book is her journey from new applicant to senior member.
It's the first in a series, with hints of a difficult childhood to be revealed, and hints of future dangers.
I enjoyed it, although the foreshadowing was a bit heavy at times. And there are two sex scenes that seem dropped in from an erotic novel--the sex itself is a believable part of the story, but the heroine is represented as very uninterested in her appearance or being feminine, yet turns out to be wearing a skirt and stockings at just the right moment.
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Post by sprite on Dec 13, 2019 6:10:31 GMT -5
74. Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny. A brilliant interweaving of three mysteries in three different places, while Inspector Gamache recovers from a traumatic incident, which is revealed in one of the three threads. Masterful dealing with the relationships between the anglophones and francophones in Quebec. I have a feeling I've read this and enjoyed it--I'll have to look it up again. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 13, 2019 6:17:07 GMT -5
Sprite, it goes with the previous one in the series, The Brutal Telling, which should be read first, as Bury Your Dead resolves something that happened in The Brutal Telling. Both are complete in themselves, but probably better read in succession.
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Post by Oweena on Dec 13, 2019 12:30:17 GMT -5
Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer by Margalit Fox
First, I'm admitting that I've never read a Sherlock Holmes story (but like listening to the old radio plays of them) and I'm not sure how this book ended up on my reserved library list. Maybe someone here recommended it?
Anyway, it's an interesting, if frustrating tale of a 1908 homicide case where the Scottish police and prosecutors railroaded an innocent man, Oscar Slater. He spent 18 years in prison before Conan Doyle and others were able to get him released. It shows how the racism and classicism of the time allowed to happen. As a result of this case, the government changed how appeals were granted.
It also dives into Conan Doyle's background and his method of looking at a fact pattern and how this influenced his writings.
I liked it, and the author (who's apparently a well-known obit writer for the NY Times) writes in an engaging way.
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