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Post by Liiisa on Mar 10, 2023 6:17:42 GMT -5
I sorta feel like having lived through it, I don't really want to read about it, even in fictionalized form. Especially since we could end up living through Part 2 if he or DeSantis wins in 2024. Sooo I will pass
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Post by sprite on Mar 10, 2023 17:36:34 GMT -5
Well, if you're ever ill and don't want to think...
It wasn't bad, and there were moments of properly good story-telling, but yeah, it reminded me why this isn't really a genre I do.
The former president is never portrayed as evil, just self-obsessed and easily flattered.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 10, 2023 21:09:53 GMT -5
21) Hernan Diaz, Trust
This was another marvelous book. It begins with what seems like a fairly straightforward tale of a superstar Manhattan financier and his wife in the years leading up to the crash of 1929. Then the next part is what seems to be a draft of a retelling of the story of the same two people, but different, particularly in the characterization of his wife; then finally in the third part the true story evolves. Great writing.
ETA "particularly in the characterization of his wife" since that's really the important bit
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Post by sophie on Mar 10, 2023 23:46:46 GMT -5
The River of silver by S.A. Chakraborty. A series of short stories based on her Daevabad trilogy. If you didn’t read the trilogy, these short stories might not make much sense to you but I enjoyed them.
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Post by Webs on Mar 11, 2023 12:49:29 GMT -5
Reading the prequel to "The Priory of the Orange Tree" (which I read before) - "A Day of Fallen Night".
It's a very very long book.
Still listening to it. It's really long. Divided into 4 parts. Took me a whole part just to figure out who is whom.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 11, 2023 13:27:35 GMT -5
I finished another Elizabeth George mystery with Lynley, "Playing for the Ashes".
Although it was good, I found his refusal to discuss his strategy with his Sergeant annoying and contrived. He just kept being mysterious, when there was absolutely no reason not to tell Havers what he was thinking. It wasn't necessary to the plot, as it would have been possible for the writer to let him tell her without revealing it to the reader.
It irked me.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 13, 2023 7:23:18 GMT -5
22) Val McDermid, 1979
Q said it had an accompanying song list from 1979, so that was enough of a recommendation for me.
I’d never read any of her novels before because I’m generally not a big crime genre reader, but I couldn’t put it down. Young people breaking into journalism by being tabloid writers in the context of late 70s Scottish politics, and closeted gay characters because of the repressive laws of the time — fast-paced with a great lead character; thx for the reco, Q!
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 13, 2023 13:13:24 GMT -5
Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees I think Q read this recently and others also enjoyed it, and that spurred me on to actually take it off my shelf. Yes, I also found it a good read. I read it very fast, so I feel like I wasn't really savouring the language, but I liked the characters and the story. I think I'm going to pass it on my aunt, who lived on Cyprus for a while.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 14, 2023 11:52:43 GMT -5
10 Steps to Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby. Australian comedian who took the world by storm a few years ago. She's open about being a queer woman with ADHD and ASD and this autobiography tells of her journey of getting past the trauma of growing up always feeling like she was wrong/bad, plus molestation, and later on physical violence snd rape.
It's well written and good reading, for the most part. It felt slightly long - and she discusses her mental processes repeatedly and uses jargon repetitively, but overall it's a well told story. And sometimes very funny.
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Post by riverhorse on Mar 14, 2023 13:50:01 GMT -5
"The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post" by Allison Pataki. A fictionalised account of the long and interesting life of Marjorie Merriweather Post, who inherited the General Foods Company and was quite the pioneering businesswoman of her time. Of course the novel focuses more on her four marriages and other relationships, but it's an enjoyable read with interesting and well-rounded characters.
One interesting little titbit - in the 1920s, Palm Beach was the place all the rich and famous would flock to to escape the winters, Marjorie included. She commissioned the building of a magnificent mansion for herself. Because the huge grounds extended from the beach front to Lake Worth, she decided to call her magnificent mansion..... Mar-al-Lago!
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Post by Q-pee on Mar 14, 2023 16:34:54 GMT -5
22) Val McDermid, 1979 Q said it had an accompanying song list from 1979, so that was enough of a recommendation for me. I’d never read any of her novels before because I’m generally not a big crime genre reader, but I couldn’t put it down. Young people breaking into journalism by being tabloid writers in the context of late 70s Scottish politics, and closeted gay characters because of the repressive laws of the time — fast-paced with a great lead character; thx for the reco, Q! Glad you liked it - was fully aware it's not your normal book type! I'll read more by her I think. I've seen her interviewed a few times, and then she took a stand against a football team who hired a rapist - ending her sponsorship of the team www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/val-mcdermid-edinburgh-scottish-kirkcaldy-fife-b2004904.htmlMade me even more interested. PS she is a lesbian
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 14, 2023 16:38:35 GMT -5
Yes, I discovered later that her partner's name is "Jo" Definitely made me interested in reading more by her; I thought the Rona subplot was handled very well, and then I realized why. I was laughing because I realized that I only read crime novels by Scottish women (her and Denise Mina), but then I remembered I read Dorothy Sayers too, and I doubt she's Scottish.
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Post by Q-pee on Mar 15, 2023 2:58:03 GMT -5
Humble Pi Matt Parker
A romp through all the ways Maths can go wrong. (He's a Ozzie/Brit so it's definitely Maths)
From rounding errors, to limits on bits, to system failures to an intriguing error where emails would fail if they were sent more than 500 miles.
He's a good story teller who explains the technical stuff well and manages to do it without condescending too much. Lots of jokes to keep you going as well.
It's a fun read.
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Post by sprite on Mar 15, 2023 8:03:03 GMT -5
A Murder of Crows, Sarah Yarwood-Lovett An ecologist is doing a wildlife survey for a new housing development, at the same moment that the property owner is murdered--onsite. Of course our ecologist becomes a suspect. Can she convince the very attractive investigating officer of her innocence? And how can she tell her very attractive colleague that she's actually a wealthy member of the aristocracy?
The author is also an ecologist, so all the wildlife stuff is well done, and used as believable clues in the murder. I'm even more inclined to put up some bat houses in our garden.
This is the first in a series, and I think I'd read more. As mysteries go, it's well written and has a wide range of believable characters. There were several suspects, a few good red herrings, and although I was pretty sure I knew who the murderer was, I felt like I worked out the details only slightly before they became clear in the story. Fun read.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 15, 2023 16:49:40 GMT -5
Hmm ecological mystery; noted. Speaking of wildlife,
23) John Lymington, The Night Spiders
OK here's another mid-1960's sci-fi novel that I bought entirely for the cover art. It had a compelling plot - people in an English village having weird time-slip experiences and then a terrifying afternoon at home because of extraterrestrial spiders falling from the sky. But ugh the female characters were terrible; either screechy and terrified or a sexpot, or both. I kind of wanted the spiders to come after the author in revenge.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 16, 2023 2:09:26 GMT -5
Extraterrestrial spiders, that would be a hard no from me, sorry Liiisa! :-)))
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 16, 2023 4:56:05 GMT -5
Glad I could warn you then, lillie! Though the title is a good hint.
The funny thing is that most of the novel involves them waiting for the spiders to arrive. Strange little book.
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Post by riverhorse on Mar 16, 2023 10:16:43 GMT -5
"Maybe In Another Life" by Taylor Reid Jenkins. OMG this book! I binged it within a day (I guess it kinda helped that I'm bored on my sickbed). By the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (probably my read of the year last Year) and Daisy Jones & The Six (still on the library waiting list but bingeing the TV series).
It has a very Sliding Doors vibe in that the main character, after drifting from city to city in dead-end jobs decides to come back home to LA. On her first night out back home, she makes a split second decision as to whom she'll go home with, which splits her life into two parallel universes. The rest of the book alternates chapter by chapter as the parallel narratives develop, until they come to the same-yet-different situation at the end.
Fabulous characters, snappy dialogues, interesting philosophies. I couldn't put it down.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 18, 2023 20:52:05 GMT -5
24) Sarah Hall, Burntcoat
This is both the story of a woman who makes monumental sculptures in this Japanese wood-burning style and lives in a huge industrial building by a river somewhere in the north of England or maybe Scotland, but also of a pandemic that she lives through. You can see so much of the lockdowns in it-- future readers will say "oh yes, this came out in the early 2020s." But it's so much more than that; I really liked it, both the story and the writing itself.
(I actually took this out of the library thinking it was by someone else. So many UK Sarahs writing the sorts of novels that I like, and I get them all confused: Sarah Waters, Sarah Hall, Sarah Moss, Sarah Perry....)
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 19, 2023 3:11:53 GMT -5
Totally Liisa, I have that problem too. Although Sarah Hall is, I think, the one out of that list that I haven't read.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 19, 2023 6:24:42 GMT -5
I supposedly read her "How To Paint a Dead Man" in June 2013 (around which time you posted the Granta "20 under 40" list, which she was on). But I searched for my blurb on here and can't find it, so I can't tell you what I thought of it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 19, 2023 11:41:42 GMT -5
I supposedly read her "How To Paint a Dead Man" in June 2013 (around which time you posted the Granta "20 under 40" list, which she was on). But I searched for my blurb on here and can't find it, so I can't tell you what I thought of it. Wow, Liiisa, they do that list every 10 years, so it must be nearly time for another one! I checked it (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/15/granta-list-british-novelists) and it turns out that since then I've read 6 of them, and abandoned a seventh. But I also read a lot more internationally than I did a decade ago.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 19, 2023 12:06:07 GMT -5
I've read things by 6 or 7 of them too. This might be where I learned about Ned Beauman? whom I just love.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 19, 2023 18:10:46 GMT -5
14. The Shadow of the Rope, E W Hornung. A murder mystery written around the turn of the twentieth century. Interesting plot and characters, about a woman acquitted of her husband’s murder, and the subsequent search, by a rank amateur, for the actual murderer. It was written in such a ponderous manner that it was very hard to read, but I persisted because I wanted to know the outcome.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 20, 2023 21:27:16 GMT -5
I supposedly read her "How To Paint a Dead Man" in June 2013 (around which time you posted the Granta "20 under 40" list, which she was on). But I searched for my blurb on here and can't find it, so I can't tell you what I thought of it. Wow, Liiisa, they do that list every 10 years, so it must be nearly time for another one! I checked it (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/15/granta-list-british-novelists) and it turns out that since then I've read 6 of them, and abandoned a seventh. But I also read a lot more internationally than I did a decade ago. Zadie Smith is the only one I've read. I'll need to start looking for some of them.
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Post by Webs on Mar 21, 2023 8:16:01 GMT -5
"The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post" by Allison Pataki. A fictionalised account of the long and interesting life of Marjorie Merriweather Post, who inherited the General Foods Company and was quite the pioneering businesswoman of her time. Of course the novel focuses more on her four marriages and other relationships, but it's an enjoyable read with interesting and well-rounded characters. One interesting little titbit - in the 1920s, Palm Beach was the place all the rich and famous would flock to to escape the winters, Marjorie included. She commissioned the building of a magnificent mansion for herself. Because the huge grounds extended from the beach front to Lake Worth, she decided to call her magnificent mansion..... Mar-al-Lago! Yes, she designed and built it and left it to the US government as a retreat for presidents. The government, unable to maintain it returned it to the Post Foundation. They sold it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Mar 21, 2023 12:49:50 GMT -5
Coincidentally I heard today that the new Granta list is indeed coming out next month!
Kind of unintentionally, I read 2 books focused on first-generation immigrants.
The first was 33 Bogen und ein Teehaus, by Mehrnousch Zaeri-Esfahani, which unfortunately I don't think is available in English. It's a YA book about the author's family, who left Iran after the Revolution and eventually made it to Germany, and the difficulties they face as refugees.
The other was The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez. I'm counting this as my read from Panama because I have so far been unable to locate a novel by a Panamanian woman in translation, although in fact Henríquez is from the US and of partly Panamanian descent. The book focuses on two families, one from Mexico and one from Panama, and the other Latinos in their building in Delaware. The Mexican family has come to the US to seek special education for their brain-damaged daughter. I really liked the different voices in this beautifully written book. I was somewhat frustrated by the plot turning on a character - twice! - not saying something when they should so obviously have done so and I also wish the daughter had got a first-person section.
Both these books were so good on the multitude of daily challenges that face people in a new country with a new language.
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Post by Liiisa on Mar 23, 2023 21:13:06 GMT -5
25) Martin Riker, The Guest Lecture
A woman who is an economics professor is lying awake on the night before she's due to give a speech about the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. The entire novel is her meandering thoughts, alternating between thinking about the ideas in her speech and her anxious thoughts about lots of other things.
Not for people who require a book to have action and an actual plot, but it kept my attention. But I find alternative economic ideas and thoughts about how best to live very interesting.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Mar 24, 2023 5:46:38 GMT -5
15. The Nature of the Beast, Louise Penny. This one is almost entirely set in Three Pines, and very well done. An encounter with evil.
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Post by scrubb on Mar 25, 2023 13:26:55 GMT -5
The Man Who Loved Books too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession, by Allison Hoover Bartlett. A journalist gets interested in the rare book trade, and crime. Interviews a guy who's gone to jail for stealing valuable books, and the book dealer who tracked him down.
It's got some interesting bits and the thief is an interesting portrait - he seems to want people to see his library and understand that he has refined tastes, but he actually does read good literature and philosophy and have good taste. At the same time, he steals other stuff too, like scamming hotel rooms and so on. He seems to believe that he should be able to have the things he wants and the fact that he can't afford them is unfair, so he's just correcting that injustice by stealing them.
Anyway, I'm not sure there was really enough there for a book. Or, if it is enough, the writer wasn't really up to it. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that good, either.
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