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Post by scrubb on Oct 18, 2021 15:40:19 GMT -5
Bel Canto is in my top "however many" list of all time.
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Post by Oweena on Oct 18, 2021 15:45:21 GMT -5
Another Ann Patchett fan. I've liked everything by her except I found State of Wonder not up to her others. Her 1st novel, The Patron Saint of Liars is my fave of hers.
She writes great essays too. If you haven't read This is the Story of a Happy Marriage I highly recommend.
Scrubb your book isn't one I could read. Sounds like way too much violence for me.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 18, 2021 15:47:37 GMT -5
Oh yes, love Bel Canto. One thing I don't see mentioned that often is that the book was inspired by the Japanese embassy siege in Peru - not that it matters much to the reader if they're aware of that or not. As you say, the country isn't named.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 18, 2021 17:21:58 GMT -5
Thank you for the Ann Patchett recommendation. I don’t think I’ve read anything of hers.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 18, 2021 18:06:00 GMT -5
Oh I liked State of Wonder! But then I go to tropical jungles and know a lot about the adverse effects of mefloquine.
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Post by sprite on Oct 19, 2021 4:49:12 GMT -5
Oh yes, love Bel Canto. One thing I don't see mentioned that often is that the book was inspired by the Japanese embassy siege in Peru - not that it matters much to the reader if they're aware of that or not. As you say, the country isn't named. I was thinking of Peru, with all the Japanese ties and various rebel groups from the Quechua areas. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 19, 2021 6:16:20 GMT -5
Oh I liked State of Wonder! But then I go to tropical jungles and know a lot about the adverse effects of mefloquine. Sounds interesting. I just checked it out on Goodreads. I’ve never taken mefloquine, but I’ve had more experience with chloroquine than I’d wish on anyone. |
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 20, 2021 8:14:23 GMT -5
I’ve just discovered I have State of Wonder on Audible.
Meanwhile I’ve finished two more books.
66. Their Lost Daughters, Joy Ellis. A very good English Murder mystery involving various forms of abuse of women and children. The police team and the settings were very well drawn.
67. Midwife on the Orient Express, Fiona McArthur. Disappointing. Not recommended unless you like long boring descriptions of other people making love. Pity, as it is an Australian author. I wanted more of the train and the midwifery.
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Post by Queen on Oct 20, 2021 16:55:07 GMT -5
Bel Canto is a great read!
Wonder if I still have it - i could definitely read it again.
Holding - Graham Norton
Rather obvious crime fiction told without much wit or humour, lots of Irish girls mad for certain blokes for decades… meh. Should have listened to my gut when it told me to stay away from celeb authors.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 21, 2021 22:06:56 GMT -5
Night Shades -by HArlow Daiger and Marley Del Wood. A small collection of horror stories. I only read it because one of the authors used to work where I work so we ordered a copy for our library. I'd had no idea that the author was an avid reader or wanted to write when she was here. I wasn't expecting to particularly enjoy it - but I was wrong! I was impressed - it's well written and although not my preferred genre, most of the stories were very good and I really enjoyed reading it.
The author used a nom de plume. I have no idea why. (I suspect both of them are not their real names, but I only know "Harlow".)
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 22, 2021 5:14:54 GMT -5
scrubb it's SUCH a pleasant surprise to read something by a friend/acquaintance and have it actually be good... I have had the nasty experience of reading manuscripts written by friends that were excruciating, and having to come up with something to say to them. (I know in this case you didn't have to worry about that, at least)
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Post by scrubb on Oct 22, 2021 12:09:54 GMT -5
That's what I felt, Liiiisa. A good friend of the author's gave it to me to read and I was worrying about letting her know what I thought. Now it'll be a pleasant conversation!
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Post by scrubb on Oct 22, 2021 12:26:35 GMT -5
Just finished The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Won the Pulitzer, I think? Booker? Yeah, Pulitzer.
I'd been looking forward to reading it since it came out a few years ago. Unfortunately, it was disappointing. The writing just didn't really work for me. Probably the last third in particular. I liked the first part, though I didn't find it completely compelling, but the last 1/3 I almost couldn't be bothered.
It wasn't straight historical fiction - there was some fantasy, too. The underground railway was not the actual underground railway. Several states were shown with programs and policies that did not actually exist at the time the book was set.
It was trying to tell a bigger story than just this one runaway slave's. And it succeeded, I think, but it didn't draw me in to that one slave's story, so I couldn't really warm up to the bigger story, either.
ETA: I searched a bit, and found many of the readers on here loved it. So I guess it's just me.
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Post by Oweena on Oct 22, 2021 22:22:27 GMT -5
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner.
Well-written history of Mildred Harnack, an American who married a German she met while he was studying in the US. She moved with him to Germany in the 1930s and as the Nazis rose to power the couple were leaders of one of the resistance groups that worked for years to get the British and American governments to pay attention to what was happening.
One interesting sub plot was the US diplomat who allowed his 10 year old son to become a courier for the Nazi secrets the Harnacks were passing.
It's not a spoiler to let you know that Harnack was arrested, tried for treason, and sentenced to 6 years of hard labor in 1942. But Hitler himself reversed that sentence and she was guillotined in 1943.
The narrative moved fast (not chronologically) and there are interesting stories about the people moving in and out of the storyline. The author definitely did a lot of research which made for one of the better books I've read on the topic.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 23, 2021 6:06:39 GMT -5
Thank you Oweena - I'll have to pass that on to my WW2-obsessed mom.
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Post by wombatrois on Oct 24, 2021 3:23:43 GMT -5
Liiisa if you enjoyed The Day of the Triffids, try the Chrysalids - one of those books I read as a young adult that has stayed with me for years.
I've come here for inspiration but nothing is available on my borrowbox. Boo. Off to the September thread for more inspo.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 24, 2021 6:36:33 GMT -5
Liiisa, I liked The Midwich Cuckoos, too. 68. Twisted 26, Janet Evanovich. Fun escapism. I needed that today.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 24, 2021 13:13:15 GMT -5
39. Amor Towles, Rules of Civility
Took a short break from the apocalypse to read this earlier one by the author of "Gentleman in Moscow." Set mainly in the late thirties in Manhattan, this is one of those books that starts off in a later period with a vague hint about a group of characters and then starts the story from the beginning, so then you're compelled to turn the pages in order to figure out how that might have happened. And it's very compelling because the characters are interesting and I'm familiar with the territory.
The only thing I noticed as "off" was that there were mentions of shoes and coats and suits and dresses but no hats, and I'm sure men and women both still wore hats all the time in those days. Oh, and the descriptive sections use terminology for racial and ethnic groups that people during that period might have used, but I never would. So FYI in case that sort of thing might spoil your enjoyment of the book.
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 25, 2021 6:03:12 GMT -5
#64 Edda Ziegler, Verboten, verfemt, vertrieben: Schriftstellerinnen im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus
Right, I've been absent from this thread because reading German non-fiction is slooooow for me. But this somewhat niche book (out of print, only available in German) was very good, I wish I could recommend it to more people! It's about female writers in the 30s and 40s and their responses to Nazism. The majority of them emigrated/fled as refugees, although a few stayed in the country throughout the war and a very few of the women mentioned actually died in concentration camps. I had heard of some of the better known - Irmgard Keun and Vicki Baum, for example, both of whom are available in translation - but there were many more I didn't know.
There were a lot of interesting snippets about their lives. Many of the man were kind of losers... (Nobel-prize-winning) Elias Canetti considered it beneath him to learn how to type and got his wife, who was a writer herself, to type his manuscripts - despite the fact she was born with one arm! Bertolt Brecht is credited as the co-author of one of his lover's translations despite the fact he didn't even speak the language she was working from. She, on the other hand, is not credited as the co-author of several of his plays despite his acknowledging her involvement in the texts. Sigh.
Anyway, that was good, looking forward to some easier reads now though.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 26, 2021 5:15:35 GMT -5
69. The Square Root of Murder, Camille Minichino. Quite a good cozy mystery, set in a college, but the audible narrator was awful.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 26, 2021 21:48:07 GMT -5
The Dearly Beloved, by Cara Wall. A Bookbub special I bought a few years ago and finally got around to reading - and I really enjoyed it. It turned out to be about faith, which isn't usually all that interesting to me, but this was very readable.
It's about 2 couples in NYC in the 1960s, where the men are co-ministers at a church. One is married to an atheist. The book is about how their faith forms their lives - and where it doesn't (i.e., when one's wife has no faith). It shows how faith is different for each of them - that faith is a very individual thing and everyone has a different relationship with God - and how it helps and doesn't help each of them during hard times.
I checked it out on goodreads, and discovered a bunch of really critical Christians, bashing it for not talking about Jesus enough. They also all agreed it was totally unbelievable because a Christian would NEVER marry an atheist. And no minister ever, ever doubts their faith. And they should only preach about salvation, not about trying to be good people or do good in the world.
Bit of a peek into the bubble of fundamentalism. I now see who the audience for those smarmy televangicals is.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 27, 2021 7:21:55 GMT -5
Sounds interesting, Scrubb, and much more believable than much Christian fiction. A friend is an Anglican priest, who expressed doubts about her faith after her husband died young of a brain tumour. Our then idiot minister wouldn’t allow her to officiate (I think he may have been anti-women clergy, as well). Fortunately, the new one gets on very well with her, and is happy for her to preside.
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Post by scrubb on Oct 31, 2021 16:19:42 GMT -5
One last book this month - an Inspector Rebus mystery. Ian Rankin - Set in Darkness.
I hadn't read one of the Rebus books for several years. They really are good, and I enjoyed it, but it reminded me why I stopped reading them, too. Rebus' self-destruction is bleak.
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Post by Queen on Oct 31, 2021 18:55:31 GMT -5
Alchemy and Rose
Sarah Maine
Scottish ne’er do wells turn up in NZ’s gold rush.
A young woman is washed ashore - given her horrendously deprived background she’s improbably beautiful and has fine feelings and her rescuer falls In love with her. Everyone has a terrible past and is desperate for gold.
Despite a woman being in the title the only conversations she has with other women are the madam at the brothel at the beginning, and a few servants at the end. I have the feeling this was written with a view to selling the movie rights. Possibly after seeing the Revenant.
In theory I should have liked this book. I skimmed the last third of it, and the conclusion was unsatisfactory.
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Post by Queen on Nov 1, 2021 3:53:14 GMT -5
39. Amor Towles, Rules of Civility Oh, and the descriptive sections use terminology for racial and ethnic groups that people during that period might have used, but I never would. So FYI in case that sort of thing might spoil your enjoyment of the book. I liked the Moscow book and I'll probably give this a try. Re the terminology... I'm a bit torn, books written in that period that use the terms of the time I accept without a quibble. But if you're setting a book in that time do you update the terminology for modern ears? which risks us losing an understanding of the time... or do you use the terminology of the time - which risks the modern reader misreading the characters? |
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 1, 2021 4:53:50 GMT -5
Yes Q! In this case it did help thoroughly set one in the 30s. But it got my attention... it made it seem like it was not only set in the 30s, but also written in the 30s.
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Post by sprite on Nov 1, 2021 6:33:09 GMT -5
Alchemy and Rose Sarah Maine Scottish ne’er do wells turn up in NZ’s gold rush. A young woman is washed ashore - given her horrendously deprived background she’s improbably beautiful and has fine feelings and her rescuer falls In love with her. Everyone has a terrible past and is desperate for gold. Despite a woman being in the title the only conversations she has with other women are the madam at the brothel at the beginning, and a few servants at the end. I have the feeling this was written with a view to selling the movie rights. Possibly after seeing the Revenant. In theory I should have liked this book. I skimmed the last third of it, and the conclusion was unsatisfactory. This sounds very much like a series on BBC recently where all the lighting was dark so it was hard to tell people apart except for a couple of Maori or Chinese characters, and where all the dialogue was at the same frequency as the background so you could never hear what people were saying. |
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Post by Queen on Nov 1, 2021 6:40:00 GMT -5
Alchemy and Rose Sarah Maine Scottish ne’er do wells turn up in NZ’s gold rush. A young woman is washed ashore - given her horrendously deprived background she’s improbably beautiful and has fine feelings and her rescuer falls In love with her. Everyone has a terrible past and is desperate for gold. Despite a woman being in the title the only conversations she has with other women are the madam at the brothel at the beginning, and a few servants at the end. I have the feeling this was written with a view to selling the movie rights. Possibly after seeing the Revenant. In theory I should have liked this book. I skimmed the last third of it, and the conclusion was unsatisfactory. This sounds very much like a series on BBC recently where all the lighting was dark so it was hard to tell people apart except for a couple of Maori or Chinese characters, and where all the dialogue was at the same frequency as the background so you could never hear what people were saying. Could that be The Luminaries? Based on a Booker Prize winning book that I haven't read  |
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Post by sprite on Nov 1, 2021 6:53:09 GMT -5
Luminaries, yes. I think I'll enjoy the book more, when I get around to it. The only way to track the time shift was through the dress the heroine was wearing, but it was a third of the way through before I worked out that there was any timeshift at all.
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Post by Oweena on Nov 1, 2021 9:33:45 GMT -5
Amor Towles has a new book coming out, The Lincoln Highway.
I've got it in my e-book queue at the library.
Just finished:
Foundation: The History of England from its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors by Peter Ackroyd
Whoa--talk about a deep dive, this book starts in prehistory and ends in 1509. I don't know if UK education includes going through all of these kings and the machinations and wars and executions, but for the most part it was interesting and it emphasized how little I know of English history.
The chapters I found most interesting were on what the regular folk ate during the different centuries, what toys children played with, and the different styles of clothing and how it evolved.
I've got volume 2 on hold at the library--we'll see if I plow through all 6 books in the series. The author just finished the final volume which ends in present time.
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