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Post by lillielangtry on Sept 2, 2020 1:52:56 GMT -5
And we read on through the year... August thread is here |
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 2, 2020 4:42:30 GMT -5
Thank you lillie! Bookmarking.
I'm about halfway through an interesting book about butterflies.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Sept 2, 2020 7:34:34 GMT -5
52. Dead Wrong, Leighann Dobbs. Quite a good plot for a short cozy mystery, but there were a couple of things I found unnecessary. Firstly, why is it billed as a paranormal mystery, when there is nothing much paranormal in it, except for a family of young women working in “alternative” health careers, and a cat who finds clues?
And second, why waste a significant amount of a relatively short book on a kiss scene? Too much information.
I’ve decided I need some different books to read.
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Post by scrubb on Sept 2, 2020 12:19:30 GMT -5
Boot Language by Vanya Erickson. Another Bookbub buy - not one of the good ones. It's a memoir of growing up with a Christian Scientist mother and an alcoholic, unloving father. It's just not well written. Not terrible or anything, but in the first half her examples of how messed up her dad was don't come across. And she focuses entirely on herself which gets tedious. It wasn't terrible, but not recommended.
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Post by scrubb on Sept 5, 2020 11:57:29 GMT -5
"The Story of a Marriage" by Andrew Sean Greer. His writing is beautiful. Unfortunately, I've decided his content isn't as profound as he thinks it is. It's told from the point of view of a woman, looking at her marriage, and her main theme is that no one knows anyone else, even husbands and wives; and no one understands the bonds of a marriage from the outside. Well, that latter one might be true and somewhat profound.
At one point the narrator says "I meant to tell the story of a marriage but I ended up telling the story of war" and maybe that is what the author is really saying, now that I think about it. The characters all lived through WWII and were profoundly affected by it. Maybe it was the war that made them un-knowable to each other. From the reader's point of view, though, I think it was more that they never ever ever talked to each other about anything deep or important, that stopped them from understanding each other.
But anyway, I'll keep my eyes open for the author's other books since he's clearly a talented writer, but I can't whole heartedly recommend this book, even though it was worth reading.
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Post by Oweena on Sept 6, 2020 12:08:08 GMT -5
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
riverhorse and sophie both liked it a lot.
Oweena did not.
I struggled through all of the philosophical musings and correspondence. I think I'm just too shallow for that kind of introspection. I liked a couple of the characters, mostly Rivka the housekeeper and would have read more about her.
I was frustrated by the male grad student, mostly because I felt like the things he struggled with should have been dealt with in high school. I'm impatient with indecisive people in real life, and he seemed so slow to respond to everything that comes his way.
Kadish's writing is good. When I read the author notes at the end I found it interesting that for the sections about the 17th century she did a lot of research on the words she used, and wouldn't use any word that wasn't in use during that time.
I liked the historical parts, learining more about the Inquisition and where the refugees from that ended up and their lives in these new to them countries.
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 6, 2020 15:02:09 GMT -5
42) Wendy Williams, The Language of Butterflies
if you're the sort who never looks at footnotes and just wants to read a nice story about butterflies, then it's an interesting read. She definitely did her research, and tells the story of a lot of people doing work with butterflies, and explains the important interactions between species and ecosystems well.
However, while I liked a lot of it and learned some interesting information, I came away from it feeling really irritated with the way it was presented. It was like "only weird nerds care about boring things like scientific jargon and details and stuff, so I'll spare you all that." Which means that there's no bibliography, just a list of notes, and those didn't supply the background I was looking for for some of the facts and studies she described. Plus she sprinkled it with comments like "the real name for that is really long, you're not going to want to know that" (uh, yes I am, please at least put it in a note). Things like that. So, I'll say it largely wasn't for me, but then I'm a little deeper into this insect thing than your average general audience person. (Still, come on: footnotes aren't scary!)
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Post by lillielangtry on Sept 11, 2020 0:49:52 GMT -5
FINALLY:
David Mitchell, Utopia Avenue
You guys...! I love David Mitchell, but I honestly can't say I think this is his best. Mind you, his love of the music and the era (the late 60s) shines through. For me, I wanted more of the fantasy element that crossed over from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, yet I can also imagine someone reading it as a straight novel and then being like, "huh, what's this fantasy stuff appearing in the middle?"! As a Mitchell fan, it's always enjoyable to spot the little references to and characters from his other books.
So yes, he remains one of my favourite authors, I enjoyed it and it made me want to reread some of his other books (I've already read several of them twice), but I think it was kind of flawed. That's life!
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Post by mei on Sept 11, 2020 3:50:44 GMT -5
yes, completely agree lillielangtry. had to read back what I wrote about it last month, but you put it much more eloquently! |
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 11, 2020 7:04:01 GMT -5
Now I feel guilty for raving about it so much! I know it had its flaws, but I guess I forgave them because I've always been a big music nerd, particularly for stuff like the Velvets and Pink Floyd, so all the name-dropping amused me.
PS thank you Mod for pinning this thread and unpinning July and August!
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Post by lillielangtry on Sept 11, 2020 7:17:48 GMT -5
Ha! Not at all Liiisa, I was always going to read it anyway. Do you have Spotify? There are various Utopia Avenue playlists on there!
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 11, 2020 7:52:26 GMT -5
I do have Spotify... but you know, I love that music but only in regulated doses - I don't think I could handle a full hour of nothing but 60s psychedelia; it needs to be interspersed with my Radiohead and my Mogwai and such.
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Post by mei on Sept 11, 2020 10:12:27 GMT -5
oooh good tip lillielangtry. am going to look up those playlists as well! |
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Post by Oweena on Sept 11, 2020 20:44:52 GMT -5
The World: A Brief Introduction by Rchard Haass
Probably not of interest to anyone who isn't a foreign policy nerd. It's a super accessible book that covers a huge swath of information in a not too long format.
It starts with chapters on world history from 1618-present and the 2nd part discusses all the regions of the world, followed by a discussion of the global era, and then the final part which discusses order and disorder.
If you have a burning desire to read about globalization, nuclear proliferation, climate change, migration, trade and investment, monetary policy, global health, etc. then this is the book for you.
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Post by scrubb on Sept 12, 2020 17:27:49 GMT -5
"To the Bright Edge of the World" by Eowyn Ivey. I loved her first book, "The Snow Child", and I think I enjoyed this one even more, maybe. It's the story of an expedition into Alaska in 1885, headed by a military Colonel, and of his wife back home in the Vancouver Barracks, near Portland, Oregon. It's epistolery or whatever that form is called - it consists of entries from both their journals, some official reports to the gov't, additional journal entries by a second member of the expedition, etc. Also, it's got current letters between an old man in Montana and a small museum's curator in Alaska. The old guy sent all the journals and materials, which were his great uncle's and aunts, to the museum because he felt they deserved a wider audience.
There's also some magic realism - some of the stories in the journal of the expedition are very otherworldly. The writer is a skeptic, but writes down what he saw and experienced.
The acknowledgements say that the author read the reports from a similar expedition that was real, and she is an Alaskan, so I'm guessing that a lot of the history and geography is accurate (though she made up a particular river and mountain pass to be the main setting).
The main thing I liked was the female character - she's a naturalist who loves birds, and while her husband is away she teaches herself photography, with the main goal of photographing birds. Their relationship is one of mutual respect and admiration.
One thing - and this is a SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER if anyone is interested, so STOP READING HERE IF YOU ARE - there were many points where the story could have become a tragedy, and I think that the author would have been able to do that very well; but it did not have a tragic ending, and that probably made it more enjoyable, if possibly less involving.
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Post by sophie on Sept 12, 2020 23:49:57 GMT -5
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. A powerful novel of friendship, love, family and what it means to be human .. a very well written and absorbing book. It tells the story of 4 men who meet at college and become life long friends. The main character is also the most private; he has suffered horrendous child abuse, doesn’t want anyone to know about it and yet his early life haunts and shapes him. It was a Man Booker prize finalist. Highly recommended if you have time. It’s over 800 pages. Also some disturbing abuse details.
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 13, 2020 5:23:29 GMT -5
That was an amazingly intense, absorbing book, sophie. I can't say I "loved" it because it was harrowing, but it was so good. |
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Post by mei on Sept 13, 2020 6:50:42 GMT -5
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. A powerful novel of friendship, love, family and what it means to be human .. a very well written and absorbing book. It tells the story of 4 men who meet at college and become life long friends. The main character is also the most private; he has suffered horrendous child abuse, doesn’t want anyone to know about it and yet his early life haunts and shapes him. It was a Man Booker prize finalist. Highly recommended if you have time. It’s over 800 pages. Also some disturbing abuse details. I finally made a start with this a few weeks ago, but got distracted by other books. will have to pick it up again, though I had been hesitant to start as you're not the first one to say it can be pretty horrid... |
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Post by mei on Sept 13, 2020 6:53:43 GMT -5
I just finished my #17 of the year: New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson. Felt like reading some future-stuff again and this didn't disappoint. Loved it. It's about a flooded New York City and then there's a big hurricane and a plot to change the world. It follows the main separate characters which all live in the same building and get connected as the story unfolds.
His work always feels very realistic. As if in 120 years this scenario will really play out. I felt the same reading his other books, which make them very interesting and not so much science-fictiony as I would expect them.
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 13, 2020 11:29:14 GMT -5
Yeah, I think Robinson's books are more like social science than science fiction. Such interesting stuff, so glad you liked that! It was one of my favorites that year.
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Post by mei on Sept 13, 2020 12:21:28 GMT -5
definitely. especially because of all the social issues & quite political themes he trows into the plot (especially in this one, but it's part of all his books). which is another reason why I like them. they're so well put together.
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Post by lillielangtry on Sept 14, 2020 4:30:31 GMT -5
I admit I was gripped by A Little Life but with hindsight, think it was emotionally manipulative and will not ever reread. It's a divisive book but I do understand why many people find it important. If you're bothered by descriptions of self-harm or abuse though, I would really recommend staying well away.
On Thursday I had just started a non-fiction book about Iran (which happens to be the new Mr L's country of origin, so there may be some more reading along these lines). Then I found an iPhone on the train. Amidst the excitement of trying to spot the owner, getting off the train and handing it in, I managed to leave my book on the train! So I've just had to buy it again! Fortunately I could get a fairly cheap Kindle edition without feeling too guilty, because after all I had bought it once full price already - that's what I'm telling myself anyway!
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Post by Liiisa on Sept 14, 2020 5:06:41 GMT -5
I wouldn't say it's important (a word I use to describe something that has key new insights about society), just really well written. I wouldn't reread it either (but then I wouldn't reread her other one about the island either, despite it also being well written... she's not an easy one to take).
Cool that there's a new Mr L from Iran, lillie! Our Iranian friends are the nicest people we know, pretty much.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Sept 14, 2020 6:50:53 GMT -5
53. Fighting Words, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I was asked to read this by a school librarian who received it in a box of books sent to the school on a standing order. I am a psychologist with forty years’ experience working with children and teenagers.
I definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND it as a book suitable for a middle or high school library.
Why? It contains a graphic description of a serious suicide attempt. All the advice from psychologists working in and with children and young people in Australia is to avoid openly discussing or even mentioning the means of taking one’s own life.
The book does not ring completely true, with a number of words and phrases put in the mouth of a twelve year old that no twelve year old I’ve ever met would use.
Yes, it is a story that could benefit those working with abused children and young people, and those such as police or teachers to whom abuse may be disclosed, but please keep it away from the young people, unless you are a parent reading it with them, and even then, read it yourself first, and be very, very careful.
What I can’t understand is the number of gushing five-star reviews on Goodreads.
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Post by mei on Sept 14, 2020 10:05:02 GMT -5
ok, lillie's description of A Little Life is not motivating me to pick it up again... (especially while I have a lot of other books waiting to be read). and good to hear about a new mrL!
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Post by lillielangtry on Sept 14, 2020 13:59:36 GMT -5
Impactful is perhaps a better word than important for ALL, it's true. And thanks guys ;-)
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Post by scrubb on Sept 14, 2020 14:22:44 GMT -5
Nice news, lillie!
Lady Sings the Blues - by Billie Holliday (and William Dufty). Her ghost written autobiography. I thought it was excellent - really got across her personality and character, and was a fascinating (and upsetting) look at the times she lived in.
The intro is by another ghost-writer. He discusses the argument that the facts in the book are not all facts - that she exaggerated, or reorganized events, or whatever. His answer is that it's true to her voice, true to who she is. I accept that answer; it shows the kind of childhood and adolescence she had, even if some of the details aren't exact.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Sept 14, 2020 19:10:45 GMT -5
Nice to hear about the new Mr L!
Ozzie - my son's primary school had a standing order and when I was helping in the school library last year I was fairly taken aback to see one of the books that had just arrived. Filled in a staff member of a few of the events displayed in the book and suggested it was for older teens, not Yr 6 kids.
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Post by Oweena on Sept 14, 2020 20:43:24 GMT -5
Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino
The narrator is getting married in a week and the story shifts between her present day struggles to vocalize her doubts about the wedding and her past. We learn about her less than supportive mother, her heroin addicted brother who she hasn't seen in years, and her struggle with PTSD resuting from an attack. The author can definitely write some beautiful descriptions of the ordinary, and her mentions of trauma is eye-opening in a non-voyeristic way.
For example, this line seemed on point: "The mean trick of trauma is that like a play it has no past tense. It is always happening."
It's not a downer of a book though, there are funny spots and while the first third moved a bit slow, the rest of the story went quickly once I'd bonded with the different characters.
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Post by Oweena on Sept 14, 2020 20:45:02 GMT -5
And lillielangtry, we find out about Mr L in the book thread?
Glad to hear about him!
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