|
Post by Oweena on Aug 22, 2021 19:52:54 GMT -5
Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland I liked this one. It centers on what happens after Florence Adler drowns while training to swim the English Channel. That's not a spoiler, it happens at the very start of the book. The story takes place over 3 months in 1934 in Atlantic City. The plot of course deals with how Florence's death affects her parents, sister, niece, and others, but the sub plot is the rise of Nazism, and the struggle to get Jews out of Germany. Both due to the German government and the tough rules the US had at the time. The characters were well-written and believable.
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Aug 22, 2021 23:09:26 GMT -5
52. Camino to Love: Let Love Bloom, by Keith Slater. A romantic novella, in the Christian fiction genre. Quite well done for the genre, but I really only read it because the author is a friend I care about.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Aug 25, 2021 2:57:16 GMT -5
#51 (correcting the number) Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (US title: The Heart) translated from the French by Sam Taylor A short novel set in a 24-hour period that is the story of a heart transplant. Quite gripping. Fairly obviously given the subject matter, this book involves the death of a young person so if that makes you uncomfortable, probably not a great book for you. It's really interesting because the language is rather poetic but at the same time, there's a lot of medical detail.
#52 Andrew Cartmel, Written in Dead Wax (Vinyl Detective #1) A birthday present from someone who knows my liking for the Rivers of London series. It is indeed written in a very similar, fast-paced, amusing style and is a lot of fun. My friend tells me the rest of the series is sadly not as good. Massively improbable plot as well, but who cares? It's escapism.
#53 Patricia Engel, Infinite Country The story of a Colombian-American girl who escapes a centre for youth offenders in Colombia and travels across the country to catch a flight to join her family in the US. It's quite a short book but covers a lot of issues about immigration, the separation of families, documented/undocumented migrants, etc. Also does not use the cliche of the girl being attacked on her journey. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend.
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Aug 25, 2021 5:00:54 GMT -5
53. Working Class Boy, Jimmy Barnes. A freebie from Audible, with Jimmy reading it. A bit raw for me. This book convinced me once again that generational trauma isn’t just a problem in indigenous communities in this country. Many migrants came here to escape endemic trauma in their own countries. The book is part of Jimmy’s search for healing, so the detail is understandable.
|
|
|
Post by sophie on Aug 25, 2021 9:09:38 GMT -5
Masked Prey by John Sandford. Mystery, part of a series featuring Lucas Davenport. Predictably a decent book but I am not sure I like the direction the main character is going, becoming a one person avenging angel. A fast easy read.
A Week at the Shore by Barbara Delinsky. Chick lit, featuring a fractured family, a successful woman who happens to be a single parent, a romance from the past, questionable parentage… meh.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Aug 25, 2021 10:34:56 GMT -5
Apeirogon, by Colum McCann.
Already mentioned by others, but an excellent book. Two men, 1 Israeli and 1 Palestinian, who both lost a child to "the other side".
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Aug 26, 2021 8:49:29 GMT -5
Orsinian Tales, by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Short stories set in her imaginary central European country. Quite good.
|
|
|
Post by riverhorse on Aug 26, 2021 9:03:45 GMT -5
Some more to add to August:
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I know Webs hates this book, but I found the premise interesting, although in practice I think the story dragged out a bit too long. I found the idea of being able to explore alternative lives really fascinating, I guess because in my own life I have had so many twists and turns that I could easily look back and say "I wonder what would have happened if...." - not so much in a regretful way but in a curious one.
The Phone Box at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina - my mum recommended this and I really loved it. Based on a true story about a guy in Japan who sets up an old-fashioned style phone booth with a disconnected phone in it, for grieving people to come and "talk" to their loved ones. The real phone box is in an area that was badly affected by the 2011 tsunami. It was a really gentle story with lovely characters and development. Warmly recommended.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - I didn't really know what to make of this book. As a story it was reasonably enjoyable but I didn't really have a whole lot of connection to main character Eleanor and her quite sad life, although obviously I sympathised with the awful trauma she'd been through as a child. A reasonably satisfying read on the surface though. Once again, I kept thinking that this is certainly going to be turned into a movie (I think Reese Witherspoon has bought the rights) and what Hollywood might make of it.
|
|
|
Post by mei on Aug 26, 2021 10:36:45 GMT -5
The discomfort of evening (I think that's the English translated title) by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. The Dutch International Booker Prize winner of last year.
To be honest, I'm not sure what I think of it. The language is beautiful. The story is about a 11/12 year old girl growing up in a very religious family, and after one of her brothers dies she doesn't take off her coat anymore. The book feels quite violent, in a place where emotions aren't allowed to be shown but where emotions run extremely high in all manner of other ways. Not a happy read.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Aug 26, 2021 11:49:31 GMT -5
I know what you both mean, mei and river! (About Eleanor Oliphant and The Discomfort of Evening).
The Discomfort of Evening was... impressive but not pleasant, I'd say. I have no desire to pick it up again! It will be interesting to see what the author does next though.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Aug 26, 2021 19:54:26 GMT -5
27) Cal Flyn, Islands of Abandonment
Oooh another really interesting work of nonfiction. Flyn, a rather fearless woman who is a journalist, visits a number of places that have been abandoned by people for various reasons and tells stories about being there and about how local natural systems are regenerating. Really interesting stuff, and hopeful in its way. Some of it is really surprising, and now I really want to go to Scotland to see the Bings.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Aug 27, 2021 14:52:38 GMT -5
Asleep from Day, by Margarita Montimore.
A bookbub special from a few years back, I had no idea what it was about. Turned out to be chick lit with a bit of a paranormal bend. A woman wakes up after a car accident and eventually realizes she's lost a day of memory It starts coming back in pieces, and she remembers meeting a fantastic guy who she really hit it off with. But there's a psychic who keeps giving her mysterious clues, and who also is falling for her.
It was well done for what it was although longer and more drawn out than it should have been. And I'd have liked it more without the effort to be mysterious about whether she was imagining the whole thing or not. It could have just been decent chick lit instead of trying to be more.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Aug 30, 2021 19:00:24 GMT -5
28) Donald Stokes, Guide to Observing Insects
I've been reading this at night. It's an interesting book, divided into seasons, with what you can see of behavior of a handful of North American species. I'll refer to it often.
29) John Lawton, Then We Take Berlin
This crazy book is something my mom read and enjoyed so much that she had a copy shipped to me. It's about a brilliant but roguish young guy from a rough neighborhood in London who ends up doing spy work and a bit of smuggling in Berlin right after the war. The first chapter was so pulp-fiction-y that I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but after that I got sucked in. Very well described context with interesting characters. I liked it, and had a hard time putting it down.
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Aug 30, 2021 20:50:54 GMT -5
54. Buried Bones, Carolyn Haines. Quite an in-depth story for a “cozy” mystery, delving into incidents that happened in 1940 to solve a recent murder.
|
|
|
Post by mei on Aug 31, 2021 5:29:22 GMT -5
I know what you both mean, mei and river! (About Eleanor Oliphant and The Discomfort of Evening). The Discomfort of Evening was... impressive but not pleasant, I'd say. I have no desire to pick it up again! It will be interesting to see what the author does next though. Rijneveld published a new book at the end of 2020, which we have at home but I haven't read it yet. I don't know if it's been translated yet. Then there was a big controversy earlier this year, as they had been selected to translate Amanda Gorman's poetry in Dutch. Which caused quite a big uproar (not understood by everyone) as it didn't make sense to ask a white, non-binary fiction author (who admitted that their English isn't great) to translate this work at this time.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Aug 31, 2021 10:08:44 GMT -5
#54 Negar Djavadi, Disoriental (translated from the French by Tina Kover) A book by a French-Iranian author about a family leaving Iran for France and the main character's growth into her identity. I wasn't totally engaged but I think that was me; it is a good book.
Yes, mei, that was a big issue on the translator corner of Twitter, as you can imagine!
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Aug 31, 2021 20:55:22 GMT -5
Maps (Blood in the Sun #1) by Nuruddin Farah
Set in the Horn of Africa, in an area disputed between Ethiopia and Somalia, this is the story of Askar whose mother died just after giving birth to him, and whose father died in the Ethiopian war. An Ethiopian woman finds him and becomes his replacement mother. He's intense from the first moment. When he's ~8 he's sent to live in Mogadishu with his aunt and uncle, and they become a family. 10 years later his adopted mother comes to Mogadishu and looks him up.
There's a lot of talking about his mother's periods which I think is allegory - the blood of Somalia's independence. He wakes up with blood in his bed once too, no obvious source, and they decide he menstruated. I guess it was a hint of magic realism.
The first 1/3 or so I didn't really enjoy much. I found it so self conscious, a bit repetitive, and it sort of reminded me of "The Famished Road" which just didn't thrill me. The rest of it was a lot more readable although I am not sure I could say I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not going to search out anything else by Farah.
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Sept 3, 2021 5:33:25 GMT -5
|
|