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Post by scrubb on Oct 1, 2020 23:17:51 GMT -5
Just found this quotation: (John Sinor) September thread here |
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Post by scrubb on Oct 1, 2020 23:34:21 GMT -5
I needed to start this thread because I finished a book this evening - The Returned, by Jason Mott. It was a Bookbub special, and I've had a string of disappointing ones lately, but this one broke the trend. It was very well done.
The premise is that dead people are suddenly returning. The age they were when they died, so some are meeting parents, lovers, and children who are old. The main characters are Harold and Lucille, southerners in their 70s, whose 8 year old son who drowned reappears.
No one knows how to deal with the situation - are these really living people? Are they who they seem to be? Or are they some kind of shadow? Society is divided - there's a "True Living" movement that thinks their rights are being trod on. There's an International Bureau of the Returned, a militarized force that ends up rounding up the Returned and holding them in camps while they all try to figure out what to do.
I think I might not have found the social divisions so believable 7 years ago when it was written, but after the last few years, they ring true.
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Post by sophie on Oct 2, 2020 0:04:09 GMT -5
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel. Novel about a young Jewish woman who ends up being a counterfeiter in the French Underground during WW2 and some events set in modern times. A good enough read, but there were (for me at least) lots of holes in various places where I wanted to know more.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 2, 2020 7:05:46 GMT -5
Thank you Scrubb. Bookmarking.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 2, 2020 15:57:00 GMT -5
Thank you scrubb, bookmarking here too!
I only just started the wonderful Apeirogon so it'll be a while before I'm back in here to comment on it.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 6, 2020 10:52:39 GMT -5
55. Murder in Provence. Susan Kieran-Lewis. I’m not sure how this series got on anyone’s best seller list. The earlier parts of the story do not connect or follow any logical sequence, the sentences are at times very poorly constructed and the characters are either stereotypical, especially the French ones, or stupid, like the heroine, who makes idiotic decisions over and over again.
The conclusion of the story and the identity of the killer made no sense at all.
The only reason I finished it was because it was a Goodreads challenge.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 7, 2020 2:15:56 GMT -5
My binge of mysteries continues - A Banquet of Consequences, by Elizabeth George. One of the later DI Lynley series. Not bad. Didn't really draw me in that much, but a fairly interesting story line of family secrets.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 7, 2020 2:44:41 GMT -5
56. Six Minutes, Petronella McGovern. A mother leaves her child under the watch of the other playgroup mums for six minutes, but when she returns, her child is not there. A very good first novel. The setting, in Australia’s capital, Canberra, was well described and the characters and their motivations believable and well drawn.
The mystery was sustained until the last few chapters and the ending both surprised and made sense.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 7, 2020 22:17:30 GMT -5
57. Victorian Secrets: What a corset taught me about the past, the present and myself, by Sarah A. Chrisman.
A goodreads special which I chose because I’ve always been fascinated by corsets. The author lives in Seattle, where such an experiment might work. Here in the hotter parts of Australia, I’m not so sure. The author and her husband are history and costume buffs, and both love dressing up in historic costumes. Sarah finds the corset liberating rather than constraining.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 8, 2020 11:35:15 GMT -5
Zadie Smith, Intimations
A short volume of essays written during the pandemic. I like Zadie Smith a lot and there were good moments here, but it's pretty slight.
Shradha Ghale, The Wayward Daughter
I picked this book up from a free shelf (it's available on Kindle as well though), as I hadn't read a book from Nepal. It's a fun story of a teenage girl and her friends and family in middle-class Kathmandu. Not a lot of plot but I enjoyed the cultural details.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 8, 2020 21:37:16 GMT -5
74. Out of Istanbul: A Journey of Discovery Along the Silk Road, by Bernard Ollivier.
In 1999 or so, the author started walking the Silk Road. He planned to break it into a few years, walking for some months then flying home to Paris for the winter, then starting where he'd left off again the next year. This is the first volume of his walk, from Istanbul to Tehran (except he has to abort about 2/3 of the way along), just translated into English in 2019.
I enjoyed the book, although I suspect that I would find the man kind of annoying in person. He was extremely honest about his insecurities and fear of aging, which made him more sympathetic. (He was 61 at the time.)
He stayed off highways and tried to go through villages where he could have tea, or lunch, or dinner, or possibly spend the night if there were no hotels, with peasants or imams or village heads, or other friendly locals. He met the odd ruffian, and those few negative interactions really influenced him and made him wary and nervous. Understandably.
He was there during the trial of the PKK leader, Ocalan, and he walked through Kurdistan just after the guilty verdict and the death sentence were issued. Made me want to read more on the Kurds' history - of course it's been discussed during the recent events in that part of the world but I'd like more background.
I think the reason I liked it was that I've done enough walking/hiking, on my own sometimes, to understand the appeal and the point. I also have had some uncomfortable experiences in remote places on my own, so I understood those too. One thing that was very clear is that it would have been impossible for a woman to do the walk alone - or possibly even with a male.
I don't expect to run out and buy the other volumes of his walk, but I would like to read them sometime.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 12, 2020 12:06:02 GMT -5
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brian. Very much like something from the Theatre of the Absurd. The main character has a wooden leg and spent most of his 20s studying "de Selby", a fictional philosopher. Then he and his friend decide to murder a local man and steal all his money. Most of the book takes place in a sort of unexplainable place patrolled by 3 policemen, where every crime is a stolen bicycle or bicycle accessory, and they have a path to paradise nearby that they can enter and leave at will. Nothing makes sense.
One of those books that I appreciated but didn't enjoy.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 12, 2020 18:47:03 GMT -5
Hmmm. I am a huge David Sedaris fan, but he definitely had a run of weaker books for a while. Today I read "Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls" and although I knew I'd read it before, I thought it was several years ago. But I just realized I read it last April. I would be worried that it was my brain losing it, but really, it's just not a memorable book. I mean, it still has its moments, but nothing like his best stuff that leaves you laughing and crying at the same time.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Oct 12, 2020 19:17:13 GMT -5
No idea of numbers anymore.  I finiished two books during our holiday (we stopped off at a bookshop on the first day and loaded up on new books for both LC and myself). The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. There had been a lot of positive buzz about this and even though I've found celebrity authors to be a bit of a miss in the past, I decided to try it. Which ended up a good decision, this is on the hit list. A very enjoyable and light read about a group of senior citizens in an upmarket retirement village who meet once a week to talk over cold cases. Things get a bit more dramatic when there is a present day murder that appears to have some connections to their village to solve. Now sure, you could say this was all a bit far fetched but it was still a great book. I loved the retired spy character - Elizabeth. Will look out for the next book. Honeybee - Craig Silvey. I have been waiting for this all year, because Jasper Jones is one of my favourite books. A bookseller I follow on FB read an advanced copy and said he thought he loved the book more than Jasper Jones. I didn't think that was possible but I binged this in two days and was heartbroken when I finished (and also heartbroken during the books). Silvey does coming of age novels really well and has love and respect for his teen characters. The book starts with Sam, aged 14 and Vic, a much older man, meeting on a bridge in Perth where they both have gone to end their lives for different reasons. Vic saves Sam that night and they go on to form an unlikely friendship. There are moments of heartbreak in the book but also moments that make you laugh. Unlike Jasper Jones this one is a contemporary book and once again Silvey has nailed the tone perfectly. I want to sit down and read this again and again. |
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Post by snowwhite on Oct 13, 2020 7:12:37 GMT -5
Artemis by Andy Weir
I gather from Amazon reviews that it's not a patch on The Martian (his debut novel), but I really enjoyed it - SciFi with a young female protagonist (yes, written by a man), lots of plot, lots of science - he makes a point of keeping it accurate. Bit of a YA feel, but I don't mind that. I've now reserved The Martian at the library.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 14, 2020 16:22:03 GMT -5
The Home for Unwanted Girls, by Joanna Goodman.
It's about something I'd only vaguely heard of before - the "Duplessis Orphans". In Quebec in the 1950s they changed some church run orphanages (for children taken from their unwed mothers) into mental hospitals, classifying all the children as mental patients. The provincial government got more money from the federal government for care of mental patients than for care of orphans, so the change made the gov't money, and also made money for several Catholic institutions which became mental asylums. The children stopped having any schooling and began working in the hospitals, taking care of the actual patients. Many were subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
The author's mother was one of those orphans and her life the inspiration for the book. It's a horrific history. The book tells the story of the mother of one of the orphans and her (on and off) search for the baby she gave up, as well as the horrific life of the child.
It's not bad. It's competently written, but it's far from being art. The history could be the basis of a really great book, but this is not that book. Still, it was good to find out about the Duplessis orphans.
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Post by sophie on Oct 14, 2020 23:58:58 GMT -5
Thanks to Oweena, I used Apeirogon by Colum McCann as my book club selection.. and my fellow readers loved it. We had a great discussion about it. One of the things I hadn’t thought about (in context of this book) was brought up: effect of PTSD/trauma.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 15, 2020 5:13:14 GMT -5
Thanks to Oweena, I used Apeirogon by Colum McCann as my book club selection.. and my fellow readers loved it. We had a great discussion about it. One of the things I hadn’t thought about (in context of this book) was brought up: effect of PTSD/trauma. I'm reading that right now, and I need to get back to it because it's such a good book. Unfortunately this week I've been pretty fried from work so for some reason I keep reading the archives of the New York Times instead of picking up this great book that I've got here. |
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Post by scrubb on Oct 15, 2020 13:43:13 GMT -5
Another mystery - The Punishment She Deserves, by Elizabeth George. Another in the Inspector Lynley series. I thought it was better than the last one, which I read last week.
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Post by sophie on Oct 17, 2020 16:48:01 GMT -5
I always enjoy that series, Scrubb!
The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason. Surprisingly good. It’s not a book I would have bought but a friend passed it on to me and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. A well to do young man doing his medical studies in Vienna at the beginning of WW1 enlists in the Austrian army and then had to deal with the issues war brings. Along the way he meets and works with a nun. There is an interesting twist to the end, and it left me thinking about some big issues along with karma. Recommended.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 17, 2020 17:22:47 GMT -5
A Bridge to the Stars, by Henning Mankell. I didn't realize he wrote anything other than the Wallender detective series, but this was about a young boy in Sweden. Maybe it was YA fiction, not sure. It was well done, though. About an 11 year old whose mother left when he was tiny, and his life with his father, who can be very moody. He is looking for something - a friend, an adventure, a special experience - something special. He starts sneaking out at night to wander around town in the dark and look for a dog he saw one day. It feels kind of magical and special out at night.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 17, 2020 17:27:35 GMT -5
Also - we have an annual used book sale here as a fund raiser for the symphony. They have some fantastic deals - today I bought "The Gift of Rain" by Tan Twan Eng and "Lost Memory of Skin" by Russell Banks, both of which have been on my list for a few years, for $1.50 each. Woohoo!
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Post by sophie on Oct 17, 2020 19:31:16 GMT -5
Loved ‘The Gift of Rain’.. and liked the Russell Banks. Both will stay with you.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 19, 2020 2:07:31 GMT -5
Sasa Stanisic, Vor dem Fest (apparently this has been translated into English as Before the Feast)
I took weeks to finish this, but I think it was me and not the book. It's set in Brandenburg, one of the eastern German states, in a small village and it sort of meanders about describing a lot of different village characters.
Stanisic - who moved to Germany as a child from the former Yugoslavia - recently won one of the major German literary prizes for his latest novel.
Angie Cruz, Dominicana
This is the story of a 15-year-old girl from the Dominican Republic in the 60s who is married (actually not even legally married) to a much older man so she can emigrate to New York, where her family hopes she will be able to improve their prospects. She comes from extreme poverty, doesn't speak a word of English, her husband is abusive and she is completely isolated.
I don't know about this one. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize. If you're looking for a novel about a young woman finding her strength or interested in Dominican immigration to the US, it might be for you. It wasn't really what I need right now, but it is our book club pick.
Still, I read it over the weekend and it felt good to read a whole book in a couple of days, which I haven't been doing much recently.
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Post by mei on Oct 19, 2020 8:20:34 GMT -5
#22 - Autumn by Ali Smith
Set in post-Brexit UK, it's interesting how this book has that clearly as its background. I'm sure some of you have read it, and I had heard about it though didn't know before that it's part of a 'seasonal quartet'. I liked the imaginativeness (is that a word?) of it, and her amazing creativity with language. I guess the plot didn't really attract me so much, might read some of the others if I see them in a library but I'm not overwhelmed as it sounded like I would be before I started reading.
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Post by sophie on Oct 19, 2020 22:51:11 GMT -5
The Paris Secret by Natasha Lester. A chick lit book, set mostly during WW2 but some into modern times. Romance, fashion, a family secret and family puzzles.. a quick read. Not too deep, I classify it as good bathtub reading.
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Post by mei on Oct 20, 2020 10:17:20 GMT -5
#23 - A sustainable wardrobe by Stephanie van den Sigtenhorst. Non-fiction, a very accessible and informative book about how to create a sustainable wardrobe (obvs). Written by someone I follow online, it's very detailed with a lot of practical information such as a chapter on how to care for your clothes, which lists (among others) all kinds of ways for stain removal.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 20, 2020 23:07:40 GMT -5
Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee. Family saga set in Korea and Japan.
I enjoyed it quite a lot, but thought the first half was better than the last half. The glimpse of life in rural Korea in the early part of the 1900s was fascinating. Life for Koreans in Japan before and during WW2 was also interesting. Also, the first third or nearly 1/2 of the book mostly focused on one specific main character and her generation, with enough focus for the characters to be full and involving. The last half jumped through a couple of generations, with some side characters going in and out, but without enough time spent on them to get emotionally involved.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 21, 2020 1:02:43 GMT -5
I've heard good things about that one, scrubb
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Post by scrubb on Oct 21, 2020 1:15:39 GMT -5
I've heard good things about that one, scrubb Well worth reading, but the second half just wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped it would be. |
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