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Post by lillielangtry on Nov 1, 2020 9:51:44 GMT -5
So guys, let's go! Some of us are in lockdown, for some of us dark nights are drawing in - whatever, let's sink into a good book! October book thread
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Post by lillielangtry on Nov 1, 2020 9:54:56 GMT -5
First book of the month for me was a reread: Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London. Again, such great escapism. I love his wry tone and the story is gripping. Only downside is it made me want to visit London!
Now I'm wondering if I should carry right on with the rest of the series (I've read them all) or slot something else in first.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 1, 2020 11:05:30 GMT -5
Thank you lillie! Bookmarking.
I just started "Caste," a nonfiction book written with the aim of describing US racism as a caste system. Just about an eighth of the way through, so I'll be at it for a while. So far it's infuriating and very good.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 1, 2020 15:46:27 GMT -5
Started off the month with a Maeve Binchy that I picked up at a second hand book sale last month - A Week in Winter. It focuses on a hotel in western Ireland and has a (long) chapter about each of several people associated with it. It's light entertainment and ok. I think if it was the first Maeve Binchy I'd read, I'd not look for more, though. She's capable of drawing very complex characters, but didn't bother in this one.
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Post by tzarine on Nov 1, 2020 16:42:04 GMT -5
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Post by sophie on Nov 1, 2020 23:43:59 GMT -5
Tzarine, I was just talking about this series with my son today and if our grandson would like it!
I just finished a quick relatively brainless action book.. Lee Child’s newest, The Sentinel. Good for this type of genre. Definitely bathtub reading.and it will no doubt be turned into a movie at some point.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Nov 1, 2020 23:48:48 GMT -5
I finished The Midnight Library by Matt Haig the other day and don't know what to read next.
Tried Miss Austen by Gill Hornby and it is meh.
I do have the latest Jasper Fforde on loan from the library but Clipper is currently reading that.
Wah, nothing really grabs me right now.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 2, 2020 6:59:34 GMT -5
I’ve finished two books, one audio and one paperback, in the last two days. 59. Buttons and Bones, Monica Ferris. This time a cold case. A skeleton dating from World War II is found in the cellar of the cabin bought by Betsy’s friends. The local police identify it as a prisoner of war without any forensic examination. It turns out they jumped to the wrong conclusion. The investigation is complex and interesting, involving a number of people and false leads. This book also includes significant progress in the lives of several characters. An interesting addition to a very good series. 60. Them Bones, Carolyn Haines. I found four of this series on the book exchange shelf at our local restaurant, and swapped them for some books I’d read and didn’t need to keep. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Well-written and with interesting characters and a complex plot. It contains elements I don’t usually like in a cozy, such as Southern Belles and a ghost, but they were beautifully and sensitively dealt with, with tongue firmly in cheek and a very frank view of Southern traditions and social strata.
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Post by Oweena on Nov 2, 2020 8:24:53 GMT -5
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
The story of a relationship (and their marriage) told from both of their viewpoints as well as their children, parents, and a few others who come in contact with the man and woman. Everyone gets their own chapter (or chapters) and the chapters aren't in chronological order but shift around in order to give you backstory. The novel covers a lot of geography too. NYC, London, the Uyuni salt flats, Donegal, etc. I think it says something about the authors ability to write when I want to keep reading even though I can't relate at all to the characters and their interpersonal issues.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 2, 2020 12:36:34 GMT -5
Just finished "Reflections in a Golden Eye" by Carson McCullers. It was kind of disturbing, which I suppose gives it some power, but I didn't like it. I remember being quite gripped by her other books (Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Ballad of the Sad Cafe), which were also full of grotesque people, but somehow it was possible to care about some of them; in this one, no one was the least bit sympathetic.
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Post by tzarine on Nov 2, 2020 12:45:36 GMT -5
Tzarine, I was just talking about this series with my son today and if our grandson would like it! I just finished a quick relatively brainless action book.. Lee Child’s newest, The Sentinel. Good for this type of genre. Definitely bathtub reading.and it will no doubt be turned into a movie at some point. try reading it aloud & also serve some turkish delight & hot chocolate w it it always troubled me that you could betray your fam for turkish delight i love your bathtub reading i have dropped so many books in the tub.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 3, 2020 19:56:05 GMT -5
try reading it aloud & also serve some turkish delight & hot chocolate w it it always troubled me that you could betray your fam for turkish delight It didn't bother me until I had turkish delight for the first time, and found out how un-remarkable it is. I mean, a Mars bar, sure, that makes sense to betray your family - but turkish delight??
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Post by scrubb on Nov 3, 2020 20:00:01 GMT -5
Oh, and I just finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by HEather Morris. It's based on the true story of a Slovakian man who was sent to Auschwitz in 1942 and became the tattooist. It hints that the role was considered to be sort of collaborationist - he was working for the Nazis, and got lots of advantages as a result. He shared the extra food he got, though, with other inmates.
It's not a great book, but it was still fairly worthwhile. The author is normally a playwright, and that helps make sense of the book because it comes across more as observational than engaging (if that's the right term). It's kind of telling the story, more than letting you live the story with the characters. Which, given the horrors they were experiencing, is maybe ok.
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Post by tzarine on Nov 3, 2020 20:15:16 GMT -5
try reading it aloud & also serve some turkish delight & hot chocolate w it it always troubled me that you could betray your fam for turkish delight It didn't bother me until I had turkish delight for the first time, and found out how un-remarkable it is. I mean, a Mars bar, sure, that makes sense to betray your family - but turkish delight?? scrubb love mars bars how about these? www.sees.com/
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Post by scrubb on Nov 3, 2020 20:40:58 GMT -5
I once stole money from my brother to go buy a mars bar. (THey cost $0.15 and I only had a dime, so I stole a nickel from his drawer. Mom caught me eating it and asked where I got the money. When I admitted what I'd done, she made me give the rest of the bar to him. Even though I had eaten less than half, so he got more than his share. It didn't occur to me at the time I got off pretty lucky - I was just annoyed that I paid for 2/3 of it but only got 1/3.)
Anyway - not sure if I've ever had See's. That's not a familiar brand.
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Post by tinier_dragon on Nov 3, 2020 21:48:47 GMT -5
I am reading Pachinko because Scrubb suggested it.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 4, 2020 0:13:19 GMT -5
I hope you like it! (And I also hope you noticed that I said the second half isn't as good, so you're not disappointed when you get to it!|)
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 4, 2020 5:23:42 GMT -5
try reading it aloud & also serve some turkish delight & hot chocolate w it it always troubled me that you could betray your fam for turkish delight It didn't bother me until I had turkish delight for the first time, and found out how un-remarkable it is. I mean, a Mars bar, sure, that makes sense to betray your family - but turkish delight?? When the book was written, though, sugar was strictly rationed in England, so anything sweet would have been highly valued.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 4, 2020 15:41:47 GMT -5
That's a point I hadn't considered, ozzie. When I first read the book it certainly sounded exotic and delicious. If it was more common in England, that exoticism would have been missing but as you say, in rationing times any sweet is a good sweet!
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Post by mei on Nov 5, 2020 4:07:29 GMT -5
I finally finished a book I'd been reading off and on for the past two months. A German bestseller (apparently), read in Dutch. In English it translates to "Gut: The inside story of our body's most underrated organ". I got it from a friend after my surgery this summer which cut out part of my colon, so that has been a bit of a 'weak spot' in my body after that, so to speak.
The book is very interesting. It describes in very understandable and accessible language - and with humour and witty illustrations - how exactly the intestinal system works and the influence it has on almost everything else in your body. Very enlightening.
Next up is a book about Ted Bundy.... again something I would never have picked up myself if it weren't for my bookclub. I have mixed feelings, but the first couple of pages were already interesting and well written so I think it might be a good read.
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Post by snowwhite on Nov 6, 2020 5:45:08 GMT -5
Just finished The Martian yesterday - awesome read. I can see why people who loved it would be disappointed by Artemis, so read Artemis first, because it's still good fun.
Was the film adaptation any good, does anyone know?
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Post by scrubb on Nov 6, 2020 14:35:06 GMT -5
Just finished The Martian yesterday - awesome read. I can see why people who loved it would be disappointed by Artemis, so read Artemis first, because it's still good fun. Was the film adaptation any good, does anyone know? I'd say it's a decent adaptation. They took out some of the nerdiness to make it more broadly appealing, I guess, but I think it worked better as a film that way. And they added in a few extra dramatic moments which I think were unnecessary given how the ones already in the book were plenty dramatic enough. I saw the film first, and enjoyed it pretty well; then I read the book and probably liked it better.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 6, 2020 19:12:57 GMT -5
I missed the fact that tzarine mentioned See's chocolates back there a couple days ago. They're just in the American west, I think; I've only ever seen them in LA.
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Post by lillielangtry on Nov 9, 2020 11:58:20 GMT -5
Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier a Virago modern classic that I read in one sitting. It's about a man who returns from the First World War traumatised and having lost apparently 15 years of memory - so he doesn't recognise his wife but is still obsessed with his first love from when he was a teenager. However, it's really about the three women surrounding him - his wife, his cousin, and his former lover. Quite beautiful and, as you might imagine, very sad.
Ben Aaronovitsch, Moon over Soho (Rivers of London #2) I'm just going to go right through the series again with one or two other books inbetween each one, so no further comment here.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 9, 2020 17:04:48 GMT -5
Mountolive, by Lawrence Durrell - 3rd book in the Alexandria Quartet.
Sophie - you were so right! Each book brings soooooo much to the ones before, and the quartet is just getting better and better. This one really blew me away. It's an entirely different perspective on all the people and events in the first 2, and it also broadens the story. Now that I've read this one, it's clear that the "naval-gazing" intensity of the narrator in the first 2 was exactly that - the myopic view of that character and his focus on himself. Now there's so much more to it all.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 9, 2020 17:12:01 GMT -5
Oh, and today I read "Three STories" by JD Salinger - they are the manuscripts published after he died, if I'm remembering right.
They felt a bit unfinished/unpolished, but were recognizable as Salinger. I just read a review that thought the first one (a pre-quel to CAtcher in the Rye) was brilliant but the other 2 just sloppy sketches, and that probably they shouldn't have been published. I thought they were interesting, but he was right that neither one was really complete in itself.
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Post by sophie on Nov 10, 2020 0:19:43 GMT -5
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. A short but excellent novel tracing seven generations through slavery, colonialism, mental illness, addiction.. it’s all there. .. to a satisfying end. A fabulous first novel, and seeing that the author was 26 when this was published in 2016, I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
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Post by Oweena on Nov 10, 2020 8:21:59 GMT -5
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr
Liked this deep dive into the grocery industry. Among other things the author gets a job at a Whole Foods, travels the US riding around with an independent trucker, spends time in SE Asia investigating aquaculture with its attendant labor and environmental issues, and follows a woman trying to get her food product into grocery stores.
It will definitely make me look at the set up of my grocery store differently.
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Post by Webs on Nov 11, 2020 13:57:33 GMT -5
Did anyone mention "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue"?
Okay, this pulled me like "The Night Circus".
So complex to explain. Read it. You won't regret it.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 13, 2020 19:34:51 GMT -5
Storm Front, by Jack Butcher.
It's a hard-boiled detective novel, except the h-b detective is also a wizard and he's solving mysteries that include vampires, faeries, etc. I believe it's a series, and this is the first one.
It's very good at what it is. Amusing and fun.
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