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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 3, 2021 4:14:09 GMT -5
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 3, 2021 4:19:22 GMT -5
37. Really a novella, Chaos in Cambridge, by Alison Golden. Prequel to a very lighthearted cozy mystery series about a young woman vicar.
38. Murder and Mendelssohn, by Kerry Greenwood. Possibly the best Phryne Fisher book I’ve read so far.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 3, 2021 5:04:15 GMT -5
Thank you ozzie! Bookmarking.
What I'm reading right now is a book written by an emergency physician on how to train to work efficiently under pressure. I had heard an interview with the author and it sounded interesting. I'm about halfway through.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 3, 2021 10:12:42 GMT -5
Just finished a book called Pickle's Progress by Marcia Butler. A Bookbub special. Not great. Barely good enough to keep me reading, in fact.
A bunch of unlikable people who all treat each other badly, with weird inter-relationships
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 4, 2021 5:07:27 GMT -5
39. Hysteria, LJ Ross. I wouldn’t really call this a thriller, more a psychological mystery. An English forensic psychologist helping the police in Paris during fashion week.
My only complaint is the very quick resolution of what I know is a very difficult psychological illness.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 4, 2021 19:06:19 GMT -5
16) Dan Dworkis, The Emergency Mind: Wiring Your Brain for Performance Under Pressure
I heard an interview with the author, an emergency department physician, and thought I might gain some interesting insights from reading it, considering the past year of constant crises. I think I will find it useful - of course many of the examples are from actual medical emergencies rather than medical publishing emergencies, but that made it more interesting for me.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 5, 2021 4:06:45 GMT -5
(32) Sandra Uwiringiyimana, How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child
My read for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Uwiringiyimana survived a massacre in a refugee camp in Rwanda, losing her sister in the process, and was eventually given refuge in the US. This seems to be classed as a YA memoir, but I don't really see why, except for the fact that the writer is herself young.
I have to say that these memoirs are not my favourite genre, but it does what it sets out to do well. She brings to life her relatively happy childhood in the DRC, the horrors that followed and the difficulty of adjusting to life in the US.
(33) Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang)
This short novel has been getting some attention. It's an odd mixture of fiction and non-fiction (there are some footnotes). Essentially it's the story of Jiyoung, her childhood and adolescence and eventual marriage, and how the pervasive sexism in South Korea exhausts her and ultimately pretty much sends her into madness. If that sounds depressing, it is a bit. Interesting though.
(34) Calixthe Beyala, How to Cook your Husband the African Way (translated from the French by David Cohen)
A Kindle single, so it's short. Beyala is a Cameroonian writer now living in France, as is the protagonist of the book, who tries to attract a man in her building by cooking traditional recipes for him (some of which are included). Unfortunately I can't recommend this one. It was a mess, sometimes I didn't really know what was going on. The language was occasionally witty but more often just a weird mix of slang and floweriness - I haven't seen the original but I have my suspicions about the quality of the translation.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 5, 2021 21:13:21 GMT -5
41. Funeral Platter - by Greg Ames. A collection of short stories (and another bookbub special). They were bizarre, flights of fantasy. People in realistic situations who do weird, crazy things. They were pretty entertaining in the end, but not spectacular or anything.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 6, 2021 6:46:05 GMT -5
40. Bake, Battle and Roll, by Leighann Dobson. Light cozy mystery. I’ve been doing Goodreads cozy mystery challenges, for fun. Sometimes, I get really good ones, like Donna Leon or Kerry Greenwood. Others I get light fluffy ones like this.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 7, 2021 7:49:18 GMT -5
Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History by Richard Thompson Ford
Deep dive into how clothing styles have evolved over time, and how law and societal pressure has affected what we wear and who can tell us how to dress.
The author is a Stanford law professor and he moves between citing legal cases and vignettes of real life situations where fashion was political or newsworthy. He covers it from a gender, racial, and economic viewpoint which seems broad, but he made it work.
I found it interesting and I'm about as style/fashion ignorant as you can be.
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Post by mei on Jun 7, 2021 8:05:20 GMT -5
that sounds interesting oweena!
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 9, 2021 12:43:08 GMT -5
17) Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing
Literary nonfiction about the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
I found this book so gripping and interesting that I wanted to keep reading it on the train yesterday, but since I didn't want to schlep the big hardcover copy that I'd borrowed from my mom, I downloaded another copy on the Kindle. Definitely one of the best of the year.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 9, 2021 21:23:52 GMT -5
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller.
An excellent retelling of the Iliad (and some stuff from before the events of the Iliad) from the point of view of Patroclus, Achilles' constant companion. I studied the Iliad, but it was more than 30 years ago so I definitely didn't remember details, but this brought much of it back to me.
The only weakness, in my opinion, was that it didn't show the underlying quality of Patroclus for much of the book. That is, he wasn't particularly smart or strong or compassionate or capable and it wasn't at all clear what Achilles saw in him. The second half, after they were at Troy, was better. Overall, the writing was very good and it was very engaging and definitely recommended.
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Post by sophie on Jun 9, 2021 23:40:03 GMT -5
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar. A different sort of novel… quite disturbing and disruptive (in the literary sense) but also a rather damning indictment of what passes for the American way of life. Very thought provoking. It was our book club read for this month and we talked way longer about it than many other books.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 10, 2021 4:44:25 GMT -5
scrubb: Maybe Patroclus was just really hot sophie: Guess I need to put that on my list
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Post by sophie on Jun 10, 2021 7:41:31 GMT -5
Scrubb: I have that book on my ‘to read’ pile.
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Post by mei on Jun 10, 2021 8:59:58 GMT -5
I spent the past couple of weeks reading 'Revolusi' (#8 for the year?), a book by David van Reybrouck who is a Belgian (mostly) non-fiction writer. This book recounts the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Dutch. It's very very good. A big book, but I think for Dutch people especially it's a must read (it's interesting that we need a Belgian author to write such a comprehensive and also critical book of a big element of Dutch history). It's very detailed, he describes the various stages of this struggle (and before, the colonization) very clearly and well structured, and he also lifts the Indonesian independence out of a purely Dutch-Indonesian conflict to a global event that influenced so much more. Very well done.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 10, 2021 19:00:22 GMT -5
41. Wedded Blintz, Leigh Ann Dobbs. A cozy mystery so simple it has reinforced my resolve to read something a bit more challenging. I knew the answer halfway through the book.
I’ll keep this series for when my brain is overloaded.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 10, 2021 21:33:58 GMT -5
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. It's a YA book but it's very well done. I had an innate prejudice against it because of the "U" in the title, but there's actually a good reason for it.
16 year old girl from the ghetto who goes to a private school, lives two lives (one at home and one with her upper class schoolmates), and is in the car when the police shoot her unarmed friend who was driving.
It's very good.
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Post by Queen on Jun 11, 2021 3:49:03 GMT -5
Amber Fury
Natalie Haynes
Teenagers are cured by reading Greek tragedies, or are they?
It’s very good although a bit like “Dangerous Minds” but set in Edinburgh. You don’t need to know the Greek plays (I don’t) but I imagine you’ll enjoy it more if you do.
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Post by Queen on Jun 13, 2021 13:54:42 GMT -5
Confessions of a bookseller
Shaun Blythell
Very funny daily glimpses of life in a Scottish bookstore… second book.
Very similar to the first book and fun to read, a cast of eccentrics.
A Place Called Winter
Patrick Gale
Lovely writing but some problematic plot points… two rapes, his is described and hers is alluded to. I don’t think either was necessary, hers definitely wasn’t. Also some stuff about Cree people that was weird, don’t want to give away spoilers… I had a lot of sympathy for the protagonist but felt like the writer stretched to get the outcome he wanted.
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Post by sophie on Jun 13, 2021 18:46:43 GMT -5
China by Edward Rutherford. Another excellent novel backed up with lots of good research, well developed and historically accurate events, hood characters.. it’s all there. Highly recommended.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 13, 2021 21:34:58 GMT -5
Neil Gaiman - Anansi Boys. He's very good and this one is a fairly light, easy, funny read.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 14, 2021 5:28:31 GMT -5
17) Emilio Fraia, Sevastopol
A tiny book containing a couple of strange, absorbing short stories by this Brazilian author. The book cover tells me that they're inspired by Tolstoy's "Sevastopol," which I must admit I've never read.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 14, 2021 6:24:20 GMT -5
42. Arsenic in the Azaleas, Dale Mayer. A cozy mystery set in Kelowna, British Columbia, although it could be anywhere. I have now started to read one of Tim Flannery’s books.
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Post by Queen on Jun 15, 2021 9:52:35 GMT -5
The Last Day
Andrew Hunter Murray
Dystopian future where the earth has stopped spinning and there is a race to save the last habitable bit. Fascinating premise but the book goes on about details … and there are some wide plot holes… and a couple of scientific slip ups.
Movie rights have been sold and if you like brainy heroines saving the planet it might be worth seeing.
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Post by sophie on Jun 15, 2021 19:38:41 GMT -5
Ozzie, I will have to look for that book! I lived in that area for 30 years!
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Interesting retelling of the Ancient Greek tale. Easy read, well written.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 15, 2021 20:54:34 GMT -5
17) Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing Literary nonfiction about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I found this book so gripping and interesting that I wanted to keep reading it on the train yesterday, but since I didn't want to schlep the big hardcover copy that I'd borrowed from my mom, I downloaded another copy on the Kindle. Definitely one of the best of the year. I'm so happy you liked this book Liiisa, it was in my top reads of 2019 and the best I've ever read on the troubles, and I've read quite a few on the topic. He also just wrote a great book on the Sacklers and their role in the Oxycodone scandal. |
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Post by Oweena on Jun 15, 2021 20:59:30 GMT -5
I have not been good with reading the past couple weeks, but just finished this book of essays:
Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard
A few of the essays were so powerful and detailed I felt them in my gut.
The very last one about a friend who is terminally ill intertwined with a trip they took to India wasn't my style, but the rest were good.
She's one of those authors who has the ability to visualize the smallest details and describe them in mostly beautiful ways.
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Post by riverhorse on Jun 16, 2021 2:42:22 GMT -5
I've finally pulled my finger out and managed to get into some reading again. I'm always up for a historical drama, and so I checked out "Pacific" by Judy Nunn (aka. Ailsa from Home and Away) - she gave up her acting career to concentrate on her writing, the focus being historical Australian dramas. I wasn't expecting a whole lot from it, but was pleasantly surprised.
The book is set in two different eras, the current day, where a famous Australian actress is playing the lead role in a sweeping historical film based in Vanuatu (known then as New Hebrides) during WWII, and then the actual events the film is loosely based on. Lots of interesting and quite well-drawn characters, a quite complex plot-line, the hint of a supernatural thread binding the two timelines together, but which isn't over-egged. I got through the book in just a few days, it was easy to read but still satisfying, and now that I know Judy Nunn doesn't, in fact, write a bad novel, I have a whole heap of Australian-based historical dramas to dip into.
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