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Post by sprite on Jan 11, 2023 13:30:17 GMT -5
So, after months of waiting, all the Booker nominees I had on library hold have been flooding my shelf, and I've had to delay several of them.
Maps of our Spectacular Bodies (Maddie Mortimer) Multiple storytellers and times as a woman re-enters chemotherapy for a cancer that was in remission. Very good, the 'voices' are all very very different. I read about 50 pages and then gave up--it was a lot of work to keep remember which voice was which, despite how distinctive they were.
Glory (NoViolet Bulawayo) Imagine "Animal Farm" happened in Africa, and it's now 40 years on from the revolution. this was another one I found to be a bit of work, so I'll admit that after about 200 pages, I skipped to the last 50. So, I'm not sure what the thing was with the crocodile and the children. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it had a very distinctive voice, with a lot of oral storytelling techniques that worked well but also made it harder to just read for relaxation. I sort of assume it was satire of recent Zimbabwean history, but I might be wrong.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 11, 2023 17:16:36 GMT -5
I read "Glory" last year sprite, and agree that it was totally a satire of Mugabe and all the terrible things going on with him.
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Post by Q-pee on Jan 11, 2023 17:36:58 GMT -5
The Island of Missing Trees Elif Shafak
Yes, do read it.
There's romance, there's heartache, there's war - but on a human scale, there's history, there's tradition, there's the hope of youth, there's healing.
The writing is exquisite, so much so that I read some pieces aloud to myself.
There's a lot that's troubling, but it's still hopeful.
My one quibble... the ends are a little too neatly tied up... I wouldn't have minded some frayed edges.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 11, 2023 20:04:52 GMT -5
4) Lydia Millet, Dinosaurs
A man who is very good but also very alone moves (walks, actually) from New York to Phoenix and finds community there - both the positives and negatives of it. I found the ending quite moving, how this person who didn't ask anyone for anything throughout the book, at the end accepts it.
The only part I didn't love was that there was this one character who was an extremely stereotypically dorky birdwatcher. I've met hundreds of these people now and honestly only one of them, this guy we met 20 years ago and was kind of unforgettable, really fits that bill. But anyway, birds are a big part of the book (hence the books's title) and this guy teaches the protagonist a lot about them, which is great, and made the book fun for me because I've seen all those birds in Arizona. Honestly this guy could have been improved, but it was a good book anyway.
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Post by sophie on Jan 11, 2023 20:22:27 GMT -5
Dead Man telling Tales by David Brierley. Good spy thriller set in the early 2000s with many twists. Good characters. I don’t usually read books in the spy genre, but since I ‘know’ this author (purely via the other forum) I wanted to read it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 12, 2023 16:03:09 GMT -5
I needed a break from fiction after the harrowing Shuggie Bain, so #4 was a tiny book - almost a pamphlet - by Tunisian activist Lina Ben Mhenni (German title Vernetzt Euch). It's a collection of writings about her involvement in what became known as the Arab Spring. It's just a snapshot of what was going on at the time I guess. Sadly, I learnt that the author died young a couple of years ago, as the result of a longstanding kidney disease.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 14, 2023 6:51:31 GMT -5
5) Jack Williamson, One Against the Legion
One of those fun tiny pulp sci-fi novels that I scoop up when I go to used bookstores. This one was written in 1939 (published in this format in 1950), and concerns a threatening entity called The Basilisk, an invisible creature that can kill people and make things and people disappear, and efforts of a planetary military outfit called The Legion to stop it. There's also an implausible little novella bundled into the paperback about a time/space anomaly. I bought it because of the amazing cover, three guys being confronted by a giant three-eyed wasp monster.
These "The Legion" books seem to have been a series - I recognized one character and wondered if I'd already read this one, but it turned out that he was in another Jack Williamson "Legion" book that I'd read a couple years ago.
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Post by sophie on Jan 14, 2023 10:05:50 GMT -5
Overkill by Sandra Brown. She’s a prolific writer of a certain type of thriller-romance which is I guess a chick-lit book. Decent plot and characters, quick read. This one deals with a famous retired athlete, his ex-wife on life support, and a legal issue about the man whose sexual actions put the woman in question on life support.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 14, 2023 11:58:33 GMT -5
The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion.
It took me a long time to get into this book. I started it a few months ago and struggled to make myself pick it up again. It starts by introducing a few young women who were in Zionist groups before the war and who worked as community leaders, smugglers, snd couriers in Poland through the war. But it jumped between them and introduced heaps of new names and places quickly and I soon had no idea who was who or where any of them lived.
Finally last week I gave it another shot and was able to get into it. I think it became more gripping, snd I also gave up on keeping characters straight and just read to learn about events.
Which were horrific. As you would expect, life in the ghettos was grueling and cruel. The majority of these young women had lost everyone in their family, so the rebel groups became their new family.
I knew little about the uprising(s) and this gave a ground eye view of it. It also got across why there weren't more of them.
And the last chapters tell the after-war stories of the surviving characters, and how their experiences shaped the rest of their lives.
Overall, worthwhile for someone interested in the subject, but the style and organization was not optimal, IMO.
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Post by sophie on Jan 14, 2023 15:39:03 GMT -5
I knew someone who was in one of those groups in Warsaw. She’s no longer alive but I heard some terrifying stuff about her work and how she survived
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Post by scrubb on Jan 14, 2023 17:56:36 GMT -5
Wow, Sophie. I can't even imagine how they dealt with it all.
I really wish this book had been better written because the stories are important.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jan 15, 2023 3:01:37 GMT -5
4. The World of J R R Tolkien, Dimitra Fini. A series of half hour lectures about Tolkien and his invented worlds, available on Audible. I’ve been a bit of a Tolkien nerd since I first read The Lord of the Rings in high school.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 15, 2023 17:52:26 GMT -5
6) Aimee Pokwatka, Self-portrait with Nothing
So this was nothing like what I thought it was going to be - I had it on my list but forgot why, and assumed it was something depressing about people in the former Soviet bloc but it ended up being interesting and strange, with memorable characters.
The story is about the reported disappearance of an artist who has a cult following for painting portraits that supposedly conjure versions of the subjects from parallel universes. The protagonist, a physical anthropologist who does forensics on the side, is pulled into the investigation, which gets stranger with every chapter. This character's struggle with avoidance mirrors the magical aspects of the plot (as a person who's kinda avoidant, I really related to that aspect).
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Post by sprite on Jan 16, 2023 10:01:08 GMT -5
The Colony-- Audrey Magee
The title works on many levels, but I was mildly disappointed to learn that it had absolutely nothing to do with the seal colony mentioned very early in the book. They get 3 sentences, and we never hear of them again. Maybe that's why it didn't win the Booker; failure to extend use of a metaphor.
An English painter martyrs himself for art, trying to find his vision on a remote island off the West coast of Ireland. A French linguist martyrs himself for academia. Neither of them is likable, nor are they liked by the locals as much as they imagine/desire. The local beauty makes sacrifices for immortality, her son swallows his pride for his future... But does anyone actually get what they want?
It was a slow read, but not difficult. I had a particular island in my mind, even though I know it wasn't the one in the book--it was the Star Wars one that Skywalker retires to.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 17, 2023 0:26:28 GMT -5
Elizabeth George - Something to Hide. One of the DI Lynley series, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's about FGM and the Nigerian community in London.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 18, 2023 21:23:56 GMT -5
7) Denise Mina, Confidence
Crime novel featuring some true crime podcasters investigating the disappearance of an urban-exploration YouTuber, which leads them into a convoluted plot involving art smuggling and various bad rich people.
At times implausible, but also impossible to put down. She writes great characters.
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Post by Q-pee on Jan 19, 2023 4:53:56 GMT -5
The Taming of the Queen Philippa Gregory
About Katherine Parr
An easy read, Gregory has always done her research and uses good sources, her end notes clarify anything she's made up or distorted.
Katherine was Henry VIII's last wife... that bit I knew... Henry became more tyrannical and paranoid as he aged... that bit I know and that he was concerned about his heir who was still a child.
What I didn't know is that Katherine was the first woman to publish something in English in her own name, and that she worked to get English bibles available - which reduces the priests power, and lets less educated people read the bible for themselves. And I didn't realise how much danger she was in the whole time she was married, as Henry in his madness looked for a new wife to provide a second son... back in the day when "an heir and a spare" really mattered, and when those wanting to re-establish the Roman Catholic faith worked against her.
Must re-read what Antonia Frazer had to say about her.
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Post by Webs on Jan 19, 2023 13:11:46 GMT -5
The Dark Queens - Shelly Puhak - historical non-fiction that reads like fiction about 2 Merovingian Queens who may have actually steered Dark Ages France through a few decades.
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Post by Webs on Jan 19, 2023 13:14:50 GMT -5
Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman. The second of his that I've read (after A Man Called Ove). Both charming and life affirming. Enjoyable, quick reads. I recommend "My Grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry" and then "Britt Marie was here". In that order. Britt Marie could stand on its own but "My Grandmother" gives context.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 19, 2023 14:15:39 GMT -5
My sister recommended "My Grandmother", too. unfortunately, I can't borrow it electronically (not in the library) and can't even find the ebook for sale without buying a set. So I may have to actually darken the door of a physical library if I want to read it.
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Post by Q-pee on Jan 19, 2023 16:24:40 GMT -5
The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion. It took me a long time to get into this book. I have this on kindle... I might give it another go.
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Post by sprite on Jan 20, 2023 11:11:27 GMT -5
It sounds like we need a dating service between people who write well but have no ideas, and people who have ideas but can't really write.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 20, 2023 12:26:39 GMT -5
R. F. Kuang, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
Oh, I let myself buy this on impulse because it's getting a bit of hype and, well, it's a fantasy book about translators ;-) FANTASTIC premise - in an alternate Victorian England, translators are revered and influential because they control magic via inscribing different languages on silver bars. Robin Swift, an orphan from Canton, is brought to England by a mysterious benefactor and put to studying languages, where he makes friends with his cohort at Oxford. But is Babel, the translators' tower, really a force for good, or merely maintaining the colonial order? And where do Robin's loyalties lie?
Loved the first third. Lots of nerdy language stuff, wonderful. And then...
But then... why did it have to be so heavy-handed? If a character experiences racism, why does the narrator then have to add "and that's because the whites did not think of him as a real person" (literally!) - is the reader not intelligent enough to see that? "why did white people get so very upset when anyone disagreed with them" - but you've just SHOWN me the character getting petty, why do you have to say this?
Also, I do not think a historical novel needs to necessarily be written in precisely the language of the age, but I also didn't quite understand the anachronistic parts. At some point there was "nowhere to take a shower" - showers didn't really become common in British homes til the 1960s, never mind the 1830s. "okay"; "it's psychological"; "I wasn't going to get tenure anyway" (British universities don't have a tenure system?!).
This is absolutely a 21st century discussion of decolonialisation pasted onto 19th century Oxford. And ended up grating on me. But I see from Goodreads that many people absolutely loved it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 20, 2023 12:29:41 GMT -5
I actually have more to say but that would be spoilers ;-)
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Post by Q-pee on Jan 20, 2023 13:49:40 GMT -5
"it's psychological"; "I wasn't going to get tenure anyway" (British universities don't have a tenure system?!). This sort of error pulls me right out of the book. There was one set in NZ in the 1800s that talked about dollars, NZ currency didn't decimalise until the 60s. Most annoying.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 20, 2023 18:00:03 GMT -5
Hmm ok thank you lillie. I'm actually reading her "The Poppy War" as we speak, and enjoying it (though the plot is kinda predictable). But the anachronistic language in this one you describe sounds off-putting.
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Post by sophie on Jan 20, 2023 18:43:17 GMT -5
Liisa, her Poppy War is the first of a trilogy! And maybe I will buy Babel Judy because I quite liked that trilogy. Not perfect, but good and engrossing.
I just finished An Old, Cold Grave by Iona Whishaw. This is the second of a series set in an area where I grew up so the book is a bit like a nice walk around my home town. It’s a mystery featuring a 27 year old British woman who had been a spy during WW2 and afterwards came to Canada to find a quiet life where her past won’t be haunting her. She starts a relationship with a local detective (they marry in about the 4th book)and helps solve local mysteries. I found this one particularly interesting as some of the characters had been brought over to Canada as ‘home children’ ..a few of my friends had family who had been brought over this way.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 20, 2023 21:17:51 GMT -5
Ah, a trilogy! I somehow missed that... will have to read the rest of them, obviously.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 20, 2023 23:18:54 GMT -5
The Poppy War did not speak to me. I enjoyed 1/2 of it. I finished it, but won't look for the sequels.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jan 21, 2023 3:12:32 GMT -5
If anyone else does read Babel there are things I'd like to discuss :-)))
I won't be seeking out her other books as I feel like I'm not the target audience. But I do think there are a lot of good things about her writing. Some of my minor quibbles should have been picked up by an editor, perhaps. The major quibbles were intrinsic to the point of the book.
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