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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 16, 2021 6:46:47 GMT -5
Ozzie, I will have to look for that book! I lived in that area for 30 years! Sophie, you may find it disappointing, as it sounds like a generic small town. However, the references may mean more to you.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 16, 2021 6:49:46 GMT -5
Thank you for the recommendation River. I like to read Australian books, but some well known people become poor authors.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 17, 2021 12:19:20 GMT -5
A Tiger's Heart: The Story of a Modern Chinese Woman, by Aisling Juanjuan Shen.
A Bookbub special. It was interesting to see what life was like for a Chinese peasant in the 1970s-80s. She was the first peasant generation to go to school, and she did well enough to be accepted to college. They steered country peasants to vocational schools, though, where her only option was to become a teacher.
She was naive about men, and emotionally messed up by her upbringing, but also very ambitious and willing to do whatever was necessary to get ahead (mostly financially), including illegal businesses and sleeping with the right people. Of course, there truly weren't alternatives for a woman with her background in China in the '90s, who wanted to change their lives.
It wasn't great writing or anything, but it was interesting.
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Post by mei on Jun 19, 2021 8:17:03 GMT -5
#9 Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo (?). I've heard so many people who loved it, so my expectations were very high. It didn't quite get there but I enjoyed reading all the different life stories and how all of them connected. Recommended.
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Post by sophie on Jun 19, 2021 9:16:04 GMT -5
Letters across the Sea by Genevieve Graham. Historical fiction set in Toronto during the 30’s and 40’s dealing with anti Semitism prior to WW2 and the Canadian POWs of the Japanese in Hong Kong during WW2. Probably more of interest to Canadians but well researched and interesting.
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Post by sophie on Jun 20, 2021 11:56:41 GMT -5
I went out and bought a couple of books in a genre I seldom read. I read the first one of this 3 part series .. City of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty. Quite enjoyed it, with djinns and all sorts of interesting creatures weaving in and out with the the main character who is a feisty young woman from Cairo.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 20, 2021 20:56:14 GMT -5
The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir by Sherry Turkle
Weird memoir where the author spends a lot of time delving into her upbringing and how poor she felt and how she was an outsider. She went to Radcliffe on scholarship and describes not having the proper clothes or knowing how to do other society-type things in the 1960s. But then without missing a beat writes, "on the Eastern shuttle from Boston to New York for spring break" and I lost any sympathy for her woe is me story. You weren't poor, you just weren't as wealthy as the other students at your Ivy League university.
She spends a lot of time talking about Freud, psychoanalysis, studying to be an ethnographer, and working at MIT during the dawn of the computer era. Some of it interesting, some of it over my head, and some of it dull as dirt.
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Post by mei on Jun 21, 2021 7:04:32 GMT -5
#10 / Fundamentals ('De Fundamenten') by Ramsey Nasr, a Dutch actor, writer, director.
A collection of essays from the past year, starting in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic with the final essay written in March 2021 where he makes a very strong case for the need for change in the world. It's a very eloquent, strong, convincing description of today's world and really gets to the core of the issues and how these are connected.
A quick, but very good read.
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Post by sophie on Jun 22, 2021 20:15:10 GMT -5
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker. An excellent novel.. part mystery, part family drama, part psychological thriller.. an excellent novel. Highly recommended.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 24, 2021 9:05:47 GMT -5
43. Chaos in Little Leaf Creek, by Cindy Bell. I’ve liked another series of hers, but not sure I need to continue with this one. Last cozy until next month. None of my current books are cozies, and two are non-fiction.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 27, 2021 15:19:05 GMT -5
The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts
In 1954 63 year old Annie Wilkins had lost the family farm and been given two years to live. She had no family, no means of earning a living, and was flat broke. She found an old horse and she and her small dog took off from Minot Maine to ride the horse to California. Along the way she picked up a 2nd horse in Tennessee, and she paid for her travels by selling postcards of herself. Local newspapers picked up her story and she was welcomed into many towns along the way as a celebrity. The book delves into the changes that were happening in the US at the time as well as the many kind people she met along the way. It was interesting and well-researched and I won't ruin the story for anyone, you have to hand it to her for having the courage to embark on a trip based on little more than taking it one day at a time and pushing on across the country.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 27, 2021 21:22:12 GMT -5
Miss Burma, by Charmaine Craig. A fictionalized version of the author's mother's life, in Burma between WW2 and the 1960s, when there were nationalists fighting with minority ethnics.
It was very interesting - I learned a lot about the history of Burma, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't hit quite the right balance between being a story about people and being a story about the history. They could have melded very well in the hands of a more skillful writer, I think. I kept wishing it was just a bit better, even though it was still worth reading.
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Post by mei on Jun 28, 2021 5:09:46 GMT -5
finished #11: Tussenland (I guess you could translate the title as something like 'the space in between') by Jannie Oskam. It's a book talking about experiences of cancer patients who know they won't get better, and the question of how you can make your remaining time more meaningful. The book was a bit different than I had expected though. Interesting to read some experiences, but it was very clearly the personal endeavour of the author to do something meaningful with her remaining time (which is of course absolutely fine) and it didn't really have what I was looking for in terms of finding inspiration for this question.
I thought it might be good to read something lighter after all the heavy (but interesting!) non-fiction I've been reading, and picked up the latest Kim Stanley Robinson. A couple of pages in but I think my plan failed!
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 28, 2021 5:46:19 GMT -5
mei that sounds really interesting, but I suppose there are as many different experiences as there are people. I have rarely found myself able to empathise fully with other cancer patients - there might be areas of overlap but there are often big points of divergence. (35) Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing I think a number of people here have read this. The many recommendations I've seen for it are right - it's beautifully written, gripping, the nature descriptions are wonderful. A really, really good book. (36) Stephan Orth, Couchsurfing im Iran Not sure if this is available in English, but the title is pretty obvious I guess. Orth is a German journalist, he spent several months couchsurfing in Iran - which is strictly speaking illegal. Enjoyable descriptions of his travels and the people he meets with their legendary Persian hospitality. However it made me a little sad as the book is around 7 years old, I think, and he seems optimistic about Iran opening up, travel becoming easier for both Iranians and non-Iranians, etc. Well, the orange menace, sanctions, and Covid put paid to that and the new Iranian president is likely to make things even worse. (37) Jesmyn Ward, Men we Reaped Non-fiction about the 5 black men in Ward's life who died young for reasons connected to structural racism, poverty, etc. Stylistically beautiful, obviously tough subject matter that Ward doesn't shy away from. Very difficult to feel sympathy for her loser father who keeps going off and leaving her mother to struggle to raise 4 children working as a cleaner, despite the obvious fact that he, too, is a victim of circumstance. (38) Agatha Christie, Crooked House A standalone mystery, very entertaining. (39) Katja Perat, The Masochist (translated from the Slovenian by Michael Biggins) A short first-person novel told from the perspective of a young (fictional) woman who is the adopted daughter of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - the man whose name was the inspiration for the word "masochist". The book features other real characters such as Freud, Klimt, and Rilke. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. There's not much about sex at all, by the way, despite the title. The main character is engaging though. Happy to have this as my book from Slovenia, having tried another one from there that I couldn't get into. (40) Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland The story of two brothers and the woman they both marry. One brother is killed working for the Communists in 1960s India. His brother emigrates to the US with his widow. Anyone who knows Lahiri knows she can draw characters and descriptions superbly. You don't go to her for humour or light relief, really, but I do like her works very much.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 28, 2021 7:35:42 GMT -5
44. The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben. An audible freebie, and fascinating. The author is a German forester, and talks about the trees he knows, though the foreword was written by Australian zoologist Tim Flannery (I’m also reading one of his books). I’d love to see similar research in Australia.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 28, 2021 11:21:57 GMT -5
44. The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben. An audible freebie, and fascinating. The author is a German forester, and talks about the trees he knows, though the foreword was written by Australian zoologist Tim Flannery (I’m also reading one of his books). I’d love to see similar research in Australia. He makes the bestseller lists in Germany, Ozzie. I haven't read his books but I gave one to my uncle, who enjoyed it.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 29, 2021 10:07:44 GMT -5
lillie I thought The Men We Reaped was such a good book. Tough subject but I agree she writes beautifully.
ON the Crawdads book, I know lots of people loved it but I couldn't get past the totally unbelievable way the crime was investigated, especially the way it was "resolved". That's just a function of my former job though--I can't read mysteries or crime stories because they're always ridiculous IMO.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 29, 2021 10:29:11 GMT -5
Oh, I'm sure that's true Oweena, I guess I let myself think that because it was set in the 60s (70s? I've forgotten already!) things were different then.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 29, 2021 12:33:19 GMT -5
I have a friend who despised Crawdads so thoroughly that I haven't been able to bring myself to read it yet, so there's a point on your side, Oweena.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 30, 2021 0:11:56 GMT -5
That's interesting Liisa. I would've thought all the bird and other wildlife descriptions would've been right up your street.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 30, 2021 4:58:54 GMT -5
I agree, lillie! But Guy Who Hated It is a fellow nature person, which is why I became afraid of it. But then he has lots of strong opinions... he absolutely despised The Overstory, too, which I didn't love all of but I definitely thought some of it was great.
I'll give the crawdads a shot at some point....
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Post by riverhorse on Jun 30, 2021 7:05:21 GMT -5
I finished "A Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles last weekend. My mum had raved about how wonderful it was, so I was really looking forward to it, but I must say, I was a bit underwhelmed. Whilst the historical background of life in the Soviet Union from the early 1920s until the early 1960s was quite fascinating, the fact that the story was told by a former aristocrat spending his life under house arrest in a Moscow hotel really narrowed down the perspective on this. Some of the characters and their relationships with the protagonist were really lovely, but all in all, I couldn't really get into caring about this guy or his life. Towards the very end the story got a bit more exciting with the planning of a defection (with a twist at the end), but all in all, I probably wouldn't read anything else by this author.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 30, 2021 8:24:01 GMT -5
River I liked that book and if memory is correct it was sophie here who liked it too. I know it's had a huge following and stayed on the bestseller list in our area for a record-breaking time.
I remember thinking it was pretty amazing that the book was as interesting as it was considering it took place in the limited confines of the hotel.
I also read his Rules of Civility, didn't like it as much.
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Post by sophie on Jun 30, 2021 9:44:59 GMT -5
Yes, I was me..I loved it. But I can see how it’s not everyone’s taste. I still think it has some of the best writing I have ever encountered.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 30, 2021 17:45:54 GMT -5
I liked it too! Sometimes it's just down to the mood you're in, I think.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 1, 2021 12:23:22 GMT -5
Interesting! I've heard exactly the same conflicting opinions about all 3 of those books from lots of people. (I mean "The Overstory", "Where the Crawdads Sing" and "A Gentleman in Moscow".) People whose tastes often align with mine have both really liked, and really not liked, all 3 of them. I still want to read all of them to see for myself. mei that sounds really interesting, but I suppose there are as many different experiences as there are people. I have rarely found myself able to empathise fully with other cancer patients - there might be areas of overlap but there are often big points of divergence. Same here. Might find that interesting, but not necessarily feel any connection.
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Post by scrubb on Jul 1, 2021 12:24:03 GMT -5
And, July's thread is here
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 1, 2021 13:23:52 GMT -5
Thank you scrubb!
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 4, 2021 4:02:41 GMT -5
I have 2 books for June that I didn't get around to putting down before
(41) Diana Athill, Don't look at me like that Athill is best known for her non-fiction writing, in particular her account of working at the publisher Andre Deutsch, where she edited writers including V S Naipaul and Jean Rhys. This is her only novel, first published in 1967. I just love her writing style, so simple and stunning. There is no extraneous word anywhere. She is so witty and her descriptions are amazing. The book centres on a young woman from quite a stifling environment who moves to London and has a long affair with her friend's husband.
(42) Yu Yu Ni, Smile as they bow (translated by Michael Biggins) My book for Myanmar. This short novel takes places during a traditional festival and the main character is a dancer, who I think we would describe as trans, although the book sometimes describes her as gay and the pronouns move between male and female. I think perhaps if you have visited Myanmar you would really enjoy the atmosphere described. Sadly this book didn't really work for me, but it's probably largely that I found it inaccessible because I know very little about the culture - I did some Wikipediaing while reading, but it didn't change my feeling.
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