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Post by scrubb on Apr 1, 2020 22:16:29 GMT -5
IN theory we should have lots of time to read this month, right? Discuss it here!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 2, 2020 4:39:04 GMT -5
Thank you Scrubb. I’m taking forever to finish a relatively short and quite enjoyable paperback, because I keep falling asleep.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 2, 2020 5:45:15 GMT -5
In theory! Thank you scrubb.
I just began reading a WONDERFUL book about urban nature, "Nature Obscura" by Kelly Brenner - it's mostly about the Pacific Northwest, but applies generally as well. Will highly recommend when I'm done, I'm sure.
The other book that I've been reading at night simultaneously is a long book about Americans living in Paris in the 19th century, which also is very good and hasn't been serving its purpose of putting me to sleep when I read it in bed because it's just too interesting ("let me just finish this one chapter about the Franco-Prussian war").
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Post by mei on Apr 2, 2020 6:59:42 GMT -5
very theoretical time, so far! hoping it'll get better in the next few weeks as the routine settles more. thanks for the thread :-)
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 2, 2020 13:16:10 GMT -5
lol exactly. "Extra time"! yeeeeeikes
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Apr 2, 2020 20:27:13 GMT -5
Book club meeting on Monday night. Which means I have to read 600 pages.
Ooops
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Post by lillielangtry on Apr 3, 2020 1:38:33 GMT -5
No one should worry if they are reading less than usual during this crazy time! I'm hearing from lots of people that this is the case.
I looked for a short book to follow on from the mammoth Mantel, so I picked up
#18 Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop (in a very nice Virago green spine edition, I bought it from a charity shop some time ago)
Very much a coming-of-age story about a young girl who ends up living with her horrendous uncle, her silent aunt and the aunt's two brothers. The uncle makes strange and wonderful toys and puppets and the main character is dealing with loss, her own sexual awakening and the secrets in the house. It's quite gripping and a bit disturbing. I finished it right before bed. This was not a good idea, as I then couldn't sleep for ages.
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Post by tucano on Apr 3, 2020 5:30:31 GMT -5
I joined the #travelbookclub on twitter. The book arrived last week but I haven't picked it up yet.
This free time is a myth, my job is busier than ever!
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 3, 2020 5:56:39 GMT -5
I'm going to have to work this weekend to catch up. Well, it's not like I've got a vibrant social life that will suffer from it. I'll have to look for that travel book club hashtag, tucano! |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 3, 2020 22:27:25 GMT -5
24. Death by Deep Dish Pie, Sharon Short. A fun read with lots of village secrets exposed and an interesting outcome to the murder. A nice light series good for bedtime reading.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Apr 4, 2020 1:12:34 GMT -5
26. The 24 hour Cafe - Libby Page.
I really enjoyed The Lido, so was happy to grab this from the library. It is written over 24 hours in a cafe in London, from the perspectives of two waitresses who are best friends. You also get the perspectives of some of the customers and a glimpse into the past events for key characters. I thought it was well done - for once both characters seemed to be well written and I didn't get sick of one side of the story. In the end the book is a love story celebrating female friendships.
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Post by sophie on Apr 4, 2020 9:19:47 GMT -5
I am part way through The Starless Sea (I think Webs liked it) and I love it so far. The language and the descriptions are so lush, so imaginative. Every time I put it down (with difficulty but one needs to sleep!) I look forward to returning to it. I am savouring it, not rushing through it.
Edited to add that I have now finished it. The language is still one of the best things about this book. The magic realism the author used seems a bit forced in a few places (doesn’t flow as easily or seamlessly as other writers using similar techniques) but overall it’s a good book.
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Post by tucano on Apr 4, 2020 10:40:02 GMT -5
I've started reading it now as the book club is on Thursday, but reading about travel made me sad.
Will try again tomorrow.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 4, 2020 16:36:06 GMT -5
Just finished " The Quintland Sisters" by Shelley Wood. It's about the Dionne quintuplets, born to a poor French Canadian couple, living in Ontario, in the early 1930s.
It's fiction (not the quints, they were real), told from the point of view of a (fictional) young girl who helped the midwife during the birth and then became the babies' nurse until they were 5.
I think it's fairly accurate about how the babies lived (on view to the public), and the tensions between their parents and their legal guardians, especially the infamous Dr. Dafoe who controlled things for the first several years.
The main character, Emma, is a really good character- her face is marked with a port wine birthmark, and she is extraordinarily shy and self conscious. Also an artist. The book is really about her, trying to find her way in life.
Overall I liked the book quite a lot. I've always been interested in the Quints - when I was little my grandma had a teaspoon with Marie, one of them, on it. We granddaughters all loved it and fought to use it at breakfast. (My cousins remember that too.) Also, my mom's maiden name was Dafoe and we are related to the doctor, though fairly distantly. I think he was my great grandfather's cousin's son. So, my grandfather's second cousin.
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Post by Oweena on Apr 9, 2020 18:33:29 GMT -5
scrubb my mom (Canadian) was of the generation (born 1924) where the Dionne quints were a huge cultural phenomenon.
I grew up hearing about them a lot.
My mom also had a quint souvenir, and she'd saved at least one magazine article about them that I remember reading.
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Post by Oweena on Apr 9, 2020 18:38:46 GMT -5
Amnesty by Aravind Adiga
A young Sri Lankan man has lived illegally in Australia for three years when he learns he has important information about a recent murder.
The narrative takes place over one day, and he goes about his day recounting the difficulties of being an illegal, why he fled Sri Lanka, and his moral quandry over what he knows.
It was not the book for me, although it has great reviews.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 9, 2020 20:21:56 GMT -5
16) Kelly Brenner, Nature Obscura: a City's Hidden Natural World
Well where do I start with this. Maybe start by saying I LOVED it... I mean, I knew I'd like it, because the author is one of favorite naturalists on Twitter, but I really really loved it. It's a collection of short chapters where she talks about how she learned about different animals, plants, fungi in urban Seattle. She weaves her stories of becoming acquainted with all this great stuff with stories of the scientists who study them and interesting stuff about biology and ecology, with beautiful descriptions of their habitat. And there's a chapter about dragonflies! And one about tardigrades! And lichens!! Definitely my favorite book so far this year, maybe decade.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Apr 10, 2020 1:18:03 GMT -5
27. The Opal Dragonfly - Julian Leatherdale.
The massive tome from book club. 600 pages of well researched Australian colonial history in the story of Isobel, the daughter of a wealthy family. The history stuff was good - it is a period I know a bit about it and his descriptions were great. But it could have done with a bit of editing and I ended up getting annoyed at the contrived way everything happened to Isobel. Still, I'd read some more of his books.
28. Half a World Away - Mike Gayle.
Decently written tale of two half siblings who have vastly different lives after being placed in care. One ended up in a care home, one was adopted by a wealthy family. Told in two narratives this goes over the months of their lives after they meet up again as adults.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 10, 2020 5:32:34 GMT -5
HalcyonDaze the real question is: are there actual dragonflies in that book, or is is one of those disappointing books that don't feature any insects at all?
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Apr 10, 2020 6:09:54 GMT -5
There is one dragonfly.
And there is an opal brooch in the shape of a dragonfly.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 10, 2020 11:31:15 GMT -5
Hmmm... dunno, I think I'd prefer a better ratio of dragonflies to page length.
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Post by scrubb on Apr 10, 2020 20:46:18 GMT -5
Ok, I think I"m going to have to buy it. Question - are there pictures or diagrams that mean it won't be good in kindle format? Hmmm... dunno, I think I'd prefer a better ratio of dragonflies to page length.  |
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 10, 2020 21:00:27 GMT -5
scrubb -- no, there are no illustrations! It should be fine in an e-reader format. I hope you like it.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 11, 2020 6:56:05 GMT -5
17) David McCullough, The Greater Journey
And I also finished this long nonfiction book that I've been reading at night, which is about American artists, writers, and medical students who'd gone to Paris in the mid to late 19th century. I'd had it on my shelf since my mom gave up on it maybe 5 years ago and finally decided to tackle it.
You might like it if you love Paris, or if you're into 19th century art history - you get to read about people like Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent when they were younger. And the chapters about the medical students, and medical schools in Paris in the mid-19th century, were really interesting to me. It was actually a little too interesting to read before bed, particularly the part about the 1870s, with the Franco-Prussian war and then the Paris Commune. But the last part was largely about the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, which to me was kind of boring; not sure why the author was so fascinated by every detail of his family life. Anyway, there you have it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Apr 13, 2020 1:59:04 GMT -5
I ended up with 4 books on the go at the start of the long weekend so I wanted to finish some of those, and I have finished 3 of them! The fourth is taking a long time because I'm not really in the mood for it.
#19 Ben Aaronovitch, False Value
The next Rivers of London installment, I had been saving this for my next trip to London, but now here we are. Aaronovitch is consistent, a good storyteller, plenty of humour and cultural references. I could quibble about the wider story arc, but I won't, I'll just say, escapist joy.
#20 Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere (audiobook read by the author)
AS we can see, I'm in the mood for a bit of urban fantasy. My first Gaiman as well. It's a classic journey structure with, I think, no big surprises but it is enjoyable.
#21 Samanta Schweblin, Little Eyes (translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell)
There was a lot of hype around Schweblin's Fever Dream a couple of years ago. Inbetween she also published a collection of short stories. Unfortunately I was disappointed by this new novel. The premise is interesting - it's about a new craze for a sort of tech gadget in the form of an animal, called a "kentuki" - one person has the kentuki in their home, while a user based somewhere else in the world controls it and effectively spies on them. But the story just didn't go anywhere much. If you want to try Schweblin, read Fever Dream instead.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 13, 2020 5:23:40 GMT -5
lillielangtry I'm glad you liked "Neverwhere"! It's a great movie, too. (And thanks for the warning about the Schweblin - I loved "Fever Dream" and the short stories... ah well, not everything can be equally fantastic.)
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Post by scrubb on Apr 13, 2020 18:00:02 GMT -5
I didn't know there was a Neverwhere movie! I really liked the book.
Haven't had a reading groove st all, and wasn't really into the memoir/food I've been reading, and my eye fell on Bridget Jones' Diary. So I picked it up (both my eye and the book) and enjoyed it a fair bit. I did read it once before several years ago. Think I appreciated the actually very clever writing more this time.
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Post by Oweena on Apr 13, 2020 20:15:36 GMT -5
Liiisa I read the Greater Journey last year, like you I found parts of it interesting but there wasn't an even focus on many of the characters discussed. But it was a good snapshot of an era I knew little about.
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Post by Liiisa on Apr 13, 2020 20:42:34 GMT -5
Aha Oweena; maybe that's what reminded me that my mom's copy of that book was buried somewhere here. Anyway, after reading all that nonfiction, I very quickly zipped through 18) Sue Burke, Semiosis Which is a sci-fi novel recommended by a couple of people in my nature writing group. It was interesting, and hard to put down! It's a multigenerational story of humans who settle another planet - kind of reminds me of one of the LeGuin stories I read last year. But in this one there is a native sentient creature on the planet that is surprising, and pivotal to the story. I won't give it away, but let's just say that the way that plants communicate via chemicals is an important part of the story. Interesting characters and good science... I'm now going to start right in on the sequel (it's a 2-parter). Recommended to folks who like this sort of thing. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 14, 2020 6:59:24 GMT -5
Our local library has started an online book club, I’ve joined. I’ll have to finish at least one of my 3 current books (audio, ebook and paperback) to start their first choice, though.
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