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Post by sprite on Mar 13, 2022 17:32:15 GMT -5
Ooh! A new Lynley!
The Fine Art of Invisible Detection, Robert Goddard.
A Japanese detective is hired to find a British man who appears to have faked his own death in the early 70s. The detective's assistant, a middle-aged widow, is sent to the UK to interview people connected to the case. Much of her success is down to people not 'seeing' her. As a small, middle-aged woman, she's invisible.
A movie of this would be great; Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Cornwall, NYC, Iceland... The plot takes in the Japanese Yakuza, big corporations, war protesters, climate change... My only complaint is that it was really, really, long. I feel sure that he could have chopped about 100 pages.
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Post by sophie on Mar 14, 2022 0:46:10 GMT -5
Still life by Sarah Winman. Friend raved about it, neighbor raved about it.. got convinced to read it. Yes, it’s good. But my inner grammar nazi was growling at all the things which were grammatically incorrect! However, it is a beautifully poetic novel. Lyrical almost. Characters are sketched in any then defined by what they do / act. Reading is a partnership with the writer in this book, you have to earn your pleasures.
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Post by sprite on Mar 14, 2022 4:32:13 GMT -5
I also read 'Snow Crash' by Neil Stephenson and wrote a clever little review, but the internet ate it and now I can't be bothered to try and remember it.
Good very, very very long, lots of interesting ideas.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 14, 2022 5:08:11 GMT -5
Isn't "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson? But maybe there's another one?
I read that when it came out and it was good -- though all I remember is that the central character was named "Hiro Protagonist," which was funny, and he lived in a storage unit (?)
I found an unread copy of Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" when I was cleaning something out the other day, and thought I'd finally pick it up, but then I remembered that it's like 17,000 pages long and full of computer-y technical detail, which is probably why I never ended up reading it in the first place.
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Post by kneazle on Mar 14, 2022 16:41:29 GMT -5
Before I left my old job I got the book club book (the company paid for them) but hadn't got around to reading it.
I've just started - it's a non fiction book called Midnight in Chernobyl. I may have chosen a bad time to read it.
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Post by tucano on Mar 14, 2022 17:09:00 GMT -5
I pre-ordered a book which is being published tomorrow. Will it arrive before I go on holiday on Thursday?
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 14, 2022 17:19:02 GMT -5
Hope so!
I'm also going away on Thursday, but I solved that problem by downloading books to my Kindle (yes, even I buy things from Amazon occasionally).
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Post by sprite on Mar 15, 2022 6:31:26 GMT -5
I really wish it was easier to get non-amazon content on to a kindle.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 15, 2022 14:17:17 GMT -5
Fingers crossed tucano! I would think it should, if you're in the right country. There's not much point in pre-ordering if it's quicker to go into a shop and buy it (my pre-orders sometimes take time to reach Germany though).
Claudia Pineiro, Elena Knows (translated by Frances Riddles) Pineiro (sorry guys, I can't find the tilde) is known as a crime writer in Argentina, and this novel does contain a possible crime, but it's not really a crime novel. The main character is a woman with Parkinson's disease who is convinced her daugher has been murdered, although everyone else says it was suicide. This is really short and impactful. It really goes into detail about Elena's physical limitations and her determination to investigate her daughter's death.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 15, 2022 18:00:23 GMT -5
I really wish it was easier to get non-amazon content on to a kindle. Agreed. I deal with that by only using it for travel and the occasional 1200-page brick
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Post by tucano on Mar 16, 2022 11:00:02 GMT -5
No sign of the book. Guess I'll have to take something from my TBR pile.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 16, 2022 16:11:34 GMT -5
I really wish it was easier to get non-amazon content on to a kindle. Have you got Calibre? It's worked well for me.
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Post by sophie on Mar 17, 2022 0:48:43 GMT -5
The sultan of Sarawak by Ian Hamilton. Another one of his Ava Lee novels. Ava Lee (a forensic accountant with a knack for finding money which has vanished as part of a crime) is looking into a crime involving a high level official in Sarawak who thinks life and business should go as he says. She forces him to come to her turf of triads and financially powerful Hong Kong people. An easy read I enjoy as it has a group of enjoyable characters who can live with the grey areas to promote peace and justice.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 17, 2022 4:26:22 GMT -5
7) Judith Schalansky, An Inventory of Losses
Finally got back to this. It's a group of stories, each tangentially connected to a thing that no longer exists, like a building or an extinct animal. It was interesting, but not riveting, though one story about a walk through a natural area in coastal Germany was beautifully written.
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Post by Oweena on Mar 17, 2022 8:47:47 GMT -5
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
At just 118 pages it's a quick read. Set in 1985 in a small Irish town, it's told from a male viewpoint and takes place in the days leading up to Christmas. The narrator is the owner of a fuel store, and while making coal deliveries he's forced to confront what happens behind the walls of the Magdalene laundry at the convent in town. That viewpoint is colored by his upbringing as the illegitimate son of a domestic worker in this same town.
Her style is lyrical and while the topic is an ugly one, for some reason the adjective that pops into my head about the book is that it's a sweet little story. I liked it.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 17, 2022 12:58:30 GMT -5
Dina's Book, by by Herbjørg Wassmo, translated by Nadia M. Christensen
Set in Northern Norway in the mid 1800s. Dina accidentally causes her mother's horrific death when she is only 4 years old. She's consumed with guilt that no one helps her with and her father sends her away. She's haunted by her mother, and becomes quite feral, and mute. Eventually a tutor teaches her music and she starts speaking again. But at not quite 16 she's married to a 50 year old. His death a couple years later is the opening scene of the book.
Dina is a great character - strong, strong willed, intelligent, damaged, loyal, sensual, independent. She runs her dead husband's business, and her household, and turns into a strong leader, but is continually haunted by the dead, and controlled by her passions.
It turns out it's the first book in a series but it stands alone just fine. I might try to read book 2, but books 3 and 4 haven't been translated into English, from what I've found.
ETA: I really liked it a lot
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 17, 2022 14:21:39 GMT -5
8) Hervé Le Tellier, The Anomaly
I basically read this entire book on a long flight; never put it down, just read the whole thing — it’ll be on my best of the year list.
I don’t really want to discuss the plot since a lot of what I enjoyed about it was figuring out what the plot was about. It’s one of those stories that has different chapters for each character and you eventually figure out what they have in common, but it’s not nonlinear, just kind of interesting and strange, with a couple laugh out loud moments. I’d read a couple recommendations of it and put it on my to read list.
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Post by sophie on Mar 17, 2022 23:35:02 GMT -5
The Maid by Nita Prose. A good mystery with great characters and the central character being (unstated but probably) on the autism spectrum. A quick but engrossing read. Recommended.
And I bought The Love Songs of W,E.B. Du Bois today based on recommendations here!
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Post by mei on Mar 18, 2022 10:57:30 GMT -5
#4 - Een zinvol leven ("A meaningful life")- by Fokke Obbema
Okay, I didn't completely read this but it's not a regular book in the sense that it's linear and you need to read everything so I'm counting it anyway :-) It's a collection of interviews by the author with a range of people with all different backgrounds reflecting on the question of what makes for a meaningful life. I reserved it at the library months ago when I was much more thinking about this myself, but the book only came in recently and I think the timing was off. The interviews that I read (maybe half?) were interesting and well written, but I missed a connection to the shared stories.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 18, 2022 21:04:51 GMT -5
14. Away with the Fairies, Kerry Greenwood. 15. Murder in Montparnasse, Kerry Greenwood.
I read these two Phryne Fisher books at the same time, the first as an ebook and the second as an audiobook, as they were my March cozy mystery challenge. More in depth than what today meets cozy mystery criteria, with more violence and sex than the purists like, but those parts are so well written. I prefer this type of classic mystery to the very prissy cozies or the growing sub-genre of paranormal cozies.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 19, 2022 2:32:07 GMT -5
Michael Ondaatje, Warlight A story narrated by a boy/young man after the Second World War, whose mother first leaves him and then returns and it turns out there's a whole secret background to her disappearance. This one polarised our book club, but I think if you particularly enjoy beautiful writing you would enjoy it.
Sharon Dodua Otoo, Adas Raum (forthcoming in English as Ada's Realm) Otoo is a British author living in Berlin and this is her first full-length novel, written in German, which interests me right away. I find authors who start writing in a language they've learned as an adult (Jhumpa Lahiri is another) fascinating. This book moves around between 4 people - or is it one person reincarnated - called Ada. Two of them have connections with Ghana, as does the author. The book slides between times and has these little references, there's also a hint of one of Otoo's other works. In that sense it reminded me strongly of David Mitchell. Oh, I really, really wanted to love this book. I admire the author and it has so many elements I love in a book. But in the end, I just liked it. I enjoyed the first half more than the second and I wasn't rushing back to pick it up. Still, I will be very interested in the reception when it comes out in English.
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Post by tucano on Mar 20, 2022 15:41:02 GMT -5
At least two of the three protagonists in the travel book I'm reading are intolerable and sound like they would be a nightmare to travel anywhere with. I have more thoughts but will save them for when I've finished.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 20, 2022 18:42:49 GMT -5
Sounds unpleasant, tucano
9) Alan Warner, Tago Mago
This is one of those little “33 1/3” books that are about records; this is about the early 70s album “Tago Mago” by the avant-rock band Can.
My favorite part of it was the beginning, in which the author talks about what it was like to learn about weird music as a young person in Oban, Scotland. Later chapters are more about the recording and such, which are mainly interesting for people familiar with the album (and I think I’ll read that chapter again while listening to the record).
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Post by scrubb on Mar 20, 2022 23:18:18 GMT -5
The Pasha of Cuisine, by Saygin Ersin.
What do you call stories like Ali Baba and the 41 Thieves? Not exactly fairytales. Anyway, this was one of those, but longer. From the goodreads description:
A Pasha of Cuisine is a rare talent in Ottoman lore. Only two, maybe three are born with such a gift every few centuries. A natural master of gastronomy, he is the sovereign genius who reigns over aromas and flavors and can use them to influence the hearts and minds, even the health, of those who taste his creations.
The story of "the cook" unfolds, from his sad beginnings through his wanderings to learn his craft (cooking, but not just cooking, making dishes that influence what happens). He meets unusual people - it's like an Odyssey. It's pretty enjoyable and I loved the descriptions of food. The magic realism is well done - it seems quite reasonable in this almost mythical setting. Of course it's all about a beautiful woman, and true love.
It was enjoyable, worth reading, but not great.
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Post by sprite on Mar 22, 2022 14:55:14 GMT -5
Away with the Fairies, A Phryne Fisher mystery.
I enjoyed this. I've seen some of the TV series, but didn't know how the writing was. Phryne is just a little too perfect, but the other characters are enjoyable, and the two stories (a murder and the kidnapping by pirates of her lover) were well-balanced.
There was a vital clue that revolved around a chemical reaction, but I'm not so sure that it's correct. No matter, it was fun.
I have given up on the Agatha Raisin books, because Beaton is such a stilted writer. But I really enjoy the tv series, a shame it's not on one of the easy-catch up channels (it plays each week while I'm at orchestra).
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 22, 2022 18:58:11 GMT -5
10) Yoko Tawada, Scattered All Over the Earth
Another one of those strange little novels by Japanese authors that I've come to be very fond of. This one is in a future where it seems like Japan has sunk beneath the sea. There's a lot of interesting stuff there about language... it's strange and I enjoyed it.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 23, 2022 3:53:15 GMT -5
16. The Alpine Obituary, Mary Daheim. Mystery set in rural Washington state, and related to two historical events in the town’s history.
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Post by Oweena on Mar 23, 2022 18:47:26 GMT -5
Michael Ondaatje, Warlight A story narrated by a boy/young man after the Second World War, whose mother first leaves him and then returns and it turns out there's a whole secret background to her disappearance. This one polarised our book club, but I think if you particularly enjoy beautiful writing you would enjoy it. I remember liking Warlight a few years back, I seem to remember some original, but believable characters.
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Post by tucano on Mar 23, 2022 21:16:14 GMT -5
The Gringo Trail: A Darkly Comic Road Trip Through South America, Mark Mann.
Travelogue following the misadventures of three Brits travelling through South America in the early 90s. This book was published in 1994 and I think a few of the descriptions would not get past an editor these days.
As mentioned above, two of the main protagonists are very irritating. You have to be a good writer to make your own drug taking interesting reading, which is not the case here. Also some of the author's ideas on escaping the drone-like reality of working for a living smack of people who spent too much time studying philosophy at Oxford (which I believe one of them did).
I enjoyed reading some of this as it touched on places I'd been to, but could see the ending coming, if not exactly what happened.
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Post by tzarine on Mar 24, 2022 16:19:24 GMT -5
normally i dont read celeb bios but found high society onthe street dishy behind the scenes bio bout grace kelly w interviews from hitch, jimmy stewart, edith head
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