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Post by Liiisa on Jun 17, 2022 13:17:52 GMT -5
The Overstory alternately irritated and fascinated me too, but for different reasons
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Post by Oweena on Jun 18, 2022 9:56:51 GMT -5
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
An overall odd book. His stories are all a bit bizarre and take a bit to orient yourself to who the narrator is for each chapter. The stories are fantastical, funny, sad, emotional, absurd, and like I said before, odd.
He's the creator of the show BoJack Horseman which I've never watched. So if you like that show you may like his book.
Not sure what genre you'd put this in, but he definitely does have a different and surreal take on things.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 18, 2022 12:20:23 GMT -5
Just finished a quick reread of Sarah Perry's "The Essex Serpent". I might have liked it even more this time.
The reread happened because we just watched the series they made out of it, and somehow the show didn't feel right. I wanted to compare the book to it, but didn't remember it well enough. My conclusion is that the show really tried - it used lots of lines directly from the book, didn't veer very far from scenes in the book, etc., and got across much of the spirit of the books - but that it really didn't get the character of Cora across, and that was key. Discussing it with Mr_S, he agreed that it didn't get across that Cora was revelling in her freedom, that she spent all her time out walking and digging in the mud for fossils, that she dressed very carelessly most of the time and had mud under her nails. The show also shortened the timeline and had their sex scene much earlier, instead of just before the end. So the period of time between when she recognized the possibility of a romantic relationship and rejected it and ran away, just didn't exist in the show.
I think Clare Danes is talented enough that if they'd written it to get the character of Cora from the book across, she could have done it. A bit of a waste.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 18, 2022 13:38:58 GMT -5
Oh I really liked that book. And I like Claire Danes. Was just saying how frustrating it is that every streaming service has at least one thing you'd like to see, but you're never going to pay for them all.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 21, 2022 5:17:50 GMT -5
I loved "Essex Serpent" too.
24) Elizabeth Kolbert, Under a White Sky
Kolbert, the author of "The Sixth Extinction," does a similar thing where she interviews scientists and describes their projects. This time is a little more controversial because she's chosen people who are studying methods of artificially altering the environment in order to avert problems of extinction and climate change.
So it's a little depressing, since the impression you get is that these things aren't necessarily going to work, and they're not pleasant solutions, but they feel we need to try them in order to prevent everything from going completely haywire. Aussies will be pleased to know that someone may have an answer to the cane toad problem.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 21, 2022 7:15:55 GMT -5
33. Murder and Merino, Reagan Davis. Good cozy mystery set in small town Canada, but the author insists on writing in the present tense, which I find distracting.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 22, 2022 18:54:10 GMT -5
25) César Aira, Artforum
A very amusing little book of vaguely related stories, most of which involve the author's relation to and/or inability to procure a timely copy of the US art magazine Artforum.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 23, 2022 17:15:38 GMT -5
26) Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
In which a little girl acquires the talent for Wizarding in a place where only men can be wizards, and things of course spiral amusingly out of control.
I read this because after not finding anything appealing on the New Acquisitions shelf at the library yesterday, I wandered the stacks looking for authors I like. I think I've read this one before, but it was a while ago and too fun to put down.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 24, 2022 4:30:20 GMT -5
34. The Winter Garden Mystery, Carola Dunn. Another light cozy mystery set in the 1920s.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 24, 2022 11:40:49 GMT -5
43. Highliners, by William B. McCloskey - written in the '70s, set in the '60s and '70s, it's about the Alaska fishing industry. Although it's a novel, there are several chapters that just provide information on the fisheries, laws, stocks, geology, etc.
The story includes the devastating earthquake of Easter 1964 that destroyed Kodiak.
It's really interesting overall - a glimpse into the world of hard, hard work in terrible conditions, and how (some of) the people who do it just don't find anything else satisfying. It's a bit "of its time" with regards to women, but the main character's eventual wife is very independent and a good match for him. (One "of its time" part is where he's kind of surprised that he doesn't mind she's had other sexual partners before him - that he can still marry her.)
It's not great writing, and although the novel does have an ok story it would be pretty mediocre if it wasn't such an interesting setting with decent characters. But I found it worth reading just for the look into that world.
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Post by sophie on Jun 25, 2022 23:24:31 GMT -5
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. A fun, easy read novel which I really enjoyed. A brilliant woman (in the late 50’s) is trying to be a chemist and because of the role of women at the time, gets crap jobs and her research stolen by a man. However, she meets another brilliant chemist who is a man and they fall in love. Marriage is not on the table as she doesn’t see the need for it. They live together, then he dies. She discovers she’s pregnant. The resulting situations are sad, funny, realistic for the era and unexpected. This is one chick lit book I can recommend.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 26, 2022 5:21:04 GMT -5
35. Murder at the Fete, CT Mitchell. Not sure this one should even count. I needed a short book for a Goodreads challenge, and this was a Kindle freebie. This author makes small towns in my part of the world completely unbelievable. He’d be better using fictional names, because they bear no resemblance to the places he claims they are. And I resent his referring to the small city where I live as a village. Apart from that, there is no coherence to the narrative. Avoid anything by this author.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 27, 2022 20:56:35 GMT -5
27) Jennifer Egan, The Candy House
I really liked this, but then I've liked all her other stuff too. It's one of those novels that's a series of loosely connected stories with characters from one story who then ends up related to someone in another story, which is amusing. The "Candy House" of the title refers to the internet, and things about a future internet that the author bases a lot of the novel on.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 28, 2022 4:07:25 GMT -5
36. Traitorous Toys, Mildred Abbott. A cozy mystery with a corgi and a bookshop. What’s not to like?
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Post by mei on Jun 28, 2022 5:56:38 GMT -5
Finished book #11 - "I am an island" by Tamsin Calidas. I enjoyed reading it, it's been a while since I read a book that I picked up easily without getting too distracted by my phone. It's very raw and some parts were a bit too descriptive for my taste but overall it's quite a unique story of a woman making a life for herself on an isolated Scottish island.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 29, 2022 1:20:12 GMT -5
Siri Hustvedt, What I loved Our pick for book club. This was first published 20 years ago. It's a story, more or less, of two couples in New York and one of their sons. There's a lot - A LOT - of descriptions of modern art. I don't know what to say really, it reads very smoothly but I wasn't really invested in it. And then one of my book club members said it's actually based on Hustvedt's real family (some may know she's married to Paul Auster,who the book is dedicated to) and we were vaguely shocked because honestly, disclosing that stuff about living people seemed questionable.
Benjamin Myers, The Offing A book set during a summer in England just after WW2, when a teenage boy heads down from Durham to the North Yorkshire coast and strikes up a friendship with an old lady living alone. This had such a strong start, but then faded a bit. Still, it captures the beauty of the countryside and is a very pleasant read.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 29, 2022 6:52:42 GMT -5
37. Armed and Outrageous, Madison Johns. Completely ridiculous mystery with a couple of “senior sleuths”. The author claims to have taken up mystery writing after working in aged care, but her characters are absurd, and not at all believable. Not recommended.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 29, 2022 7:46:15 GMT -5
Read these three while on my trip:
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle Set in Positano over the course of a two week trip that the main character takes after the death of her mother. It was what I would consider as a step above a beach read.
The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian In 1964 during a photography safari in the Serengeti, everything falls apart. The 6 or so characters are well-written and I found it an intriguing plot with a story that pulled me in. Can recommend.
Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote A non-chronological memoir that has great writing. Coyote is a trans man who grew up in Whitehorse, in the far north of Canada. He writes descriptively about place and self, I can also recommend this book.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 29, 2022 12:29:32 GMT -5
Oweena, I hadn't heard of One Italian Summer but I see it's #1 on Goodreads' list of the most popular books so far this year.
Anyway, just popping back to say, we're practically halfway through the year and I've read 11 of the 39 books that have been hanging around my shelves/Kindle for a bit longer. The rest of the books I've read in 2022 were either audio or I bought and read them promptly (ie for book club).
I was hoping to have ticked a few more off my list than that, but still, it's not bad.
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Post by Oweena on Jun 29, 2022 14:00:16 GMT -5
lillie, ooh look at me reading a popular book! I more or less knew the type of book it was going to be when I downloaded it. It was definitely a good book to read while on a trip.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 29, 2022 15:26:49 GMT -5
Oweena, I hadn't heard of One Italian Summer but I see it's #1 on Goodreads' list of the most popular books so far this year. Anyway, just popping back to say, we're practically halfway through the year and I've read 11 of the 39 books that have been hanging around my shelves/Kindle for a bit longer. The rest of the books I've read in 2022 were either audio or I bought and read them promptly (ie for book club). I was hoping to have ticked a few more off my list than that, but still, it's not bad. That's pretty good! I just counted, and I think I've knocked off ~22 (including 1 paperback and the rest ebooks). I still have over 100 but I'm thinking that I will probably never read all of them - there are several that were free that I'm not really all that interested in. Maybe I need to list/store those ones separately so I can focus on the ones that I really do want to read. I also still have quite a few that are probably more than a year old now but that I still consider to be "new"... but I guess they should be added to the list of things I should finish reading before I buy anything else!
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Post by sophie on Jun 29, 2022 23:15:12 GMT -5
I finally read the one book which Liisa should read as it features naturalists as well as alien (!?) life … Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah. A naturalist, doing her field work for her PhD find a child who claims to have come to Earth from a distant galaxy. Despite not believing the child, the naturalist starts to look after her. The neighbor, who is a very handsome farmer, also gets to know this child. All sorts of events and relationships occur, some a bit too conveniently, but it’s a decent read. Good novel for a first try by the author.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 30, 2022 5:16:29 GMT -5
Yay naturalists! That sounds interesting, thank you sophie
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Post by scrubb on Jun 30, 2022 18:27:26 GMT -5
Just finished "The Last of Her Kind" by Sigrid Nunez. The first half or so is set in NYC during the '60s, when the narrator starts at Bernard College. Unfortunately, the writing is just a narrator saying "This happened. Then I did this. Then this happened." There's a little bit more than that, but not a lot. In spite of her dictating her whole life, I never really got much of a feel for her. The second half is more engagingly written, but jumps around a bunch and it feels a bit unbalanced.
Even the first half is reasonably interesting due to the setting and time. The central part of the book is that she meets a super idealistic girl in college, one who rejects her privileged upbringing and whiteness, and wants to spend her life fighting for the underdog. The narrator is good at making her somewhat complex and not just a caricature. But, although the narrator talks about how key this friendship was and how it affected her throughout her life, I can't say that it's apparent how it had a lasting influence.
Overall, I found it worth reading but I wouldn't blame anyone who gave up on it. It's one of those books where it seems to have something, and if the writer had been just a little more skillful, it could have been really good.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 30, 2022 19:54:43 GMT -5
28) Hiroko Oyamada, The Factory
I have a policy of always buying tiny novellas written by authors with Japanese names, which is how I ended up with this small pink book with a trash can on fire on the cover. Anyway it is a very strange little book about a factory that seems to be completely pointless, somewhat surreal, and incredibly huge. It's told from the perspective of three workers who aren't really sure what they're doing there.
I loved it
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 30, 2022 23:22:34 GMT -5
That's an interesting policy :-)
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 1, 2022 4:31:49 GMT -5
It hasn't failed me yet!
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 2, 2022 15:57:43 GMT -5
Oh no, it's already July? Well at least there's a new book thread: July book thread
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