March of the Wooden Book Shelves

[Liiisa]

26) Ling Ma, Severance

I saw this on the shelf at the library and thought "hey, this must be what that interesting-sounding TV show that I never watched was based on - now I can find out what that was all about without having to watch the TV show." But actually it had nothing to do with the TV show.

But anyway it was good - a young woman whose parents were Chinese immigrants lives in New York; then there's a hurricane and a pandemic, and things escalate from there. Amazingly it was written in 2018, but seems very familiar.

[ozziegiraffe]

16. Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Shamini Flint.
Interesting Murder mystery set in Kuala Lumpur, with a side visit to the forests of Borneo.

[sprite]

I think I've heard of Inspector Singh and have him on my mental list of 'books to read.' I like seeing how international authors do mystery,

[Liiisa]

27) George Saunders, Liberation Day

Short story collections don't always hold my attention, but these did - I love his imagination. Some of them are very dark once you realize what's going on (especially the title story), but still always with humorous touches.

[lillielangtry]

Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
This is tonight's book club book, so I'll see what the others think about this short, quiet story of a Japanese homeless man. I might have benefited from a better understanding of the history and society to appreciate it, but I did like it anyway.

Agatha Christie, Dumb Witness
A relaxing audiobook. I definitely read this Poirot story as a teen; I didn't remember the murderer until right before the reveal, but I did remember a few other things about the crime. It's a good one.

Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
I had perhaps been a little put off by the hype surrounding this book, but I do understand it now - it's really extremely readable. The story of Evelyn Hugo and her multifaceted (love) life just bowls along. Lots of fun, not sure how long it will stick with me.

[ozziegiraffe]

17. Murder before Evensong, Richard Coles. I loved this mystery, set in an English village in the 1980s, but I fear it would only appeal to people familiar with the vagaries of the Anglican Church. Other people may not get the subtle humour.

[scrubb]

Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land.

I think some of you have read it - I liked it a lot.

ETA: it took me ages to read, though. I was having trouble concentrating on reading, the last couple weeks, and this format with jumps between characters and through time did not help!

[lillielangtry]

I still have that one on my kindle, scrubb. I must get round to it.

[tucano]

I know this thread is mainly fiction reading, but I've had a recent interest sparked in psychology and would love some reading suggestions.

Books aimed at a lay person/everyday applications of academic research more than academic reading, if that makes sense. Anything at the intersection of psychology and communication would be great.

I don't know where to start though, so any recommendations welcome.

[Liiisa]

tucano, have you read Oliver Sacks? I guess he's not writing about communication per se, but I remember finding his stuff really interesting, like the one about music ("Musicophilia")

lillielangtry, I read "Tokyo Ueno Station" a couple years ago and found it really interesting, but yeah, not happy

[tucano]

Is he the one who wrote 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat'?

I haven't, but have always thought that's a great book title.

[Liiisa]

Yes! And I have to admit that I've never read that - should put that on my list.

[scrubb]

I read the wife - hat one. It was definitely very interesting!

[Liiisa]

28) James Bradley, Clade

Sneaking one last one into March.

I took this out of the library based on the title. It reminded me a lot of Kim Stanley Robinson's recent near-future climate books, except in this case it has a narrower focus, on an Australian family. It begins when one of the characters is a young biologist and then traces changes and disasters in the world and in his family over the years of the rest of his life. Weirdly once again there was a familiar-sounding respiratory pandemic in it, and this one was written in 2015.

At first I thought it had too much family soap opera and not enough interesting sciencey stuff, but it soon won me over.

[ozziegiraffe]

That sounds interesting, Liiisa. I’d never heard of it here, but it won several local awards. I just downloaded it on audible, as I have credits.

18. Secrets in Storyville, Parricia Gligor. A cozy mystery without anyone getting murdered, more about family secrets. I finished it yesterday.

[sophie]

The General of Tiananmen Square by Ian Hamilton. Another of his novels in the Ava Lee series. This one deals with a movie Ava is involved with funding and the lengths the Chinese Government will go to stop its distribution. A quick easy read.

[Liiisa]

I'm interested in hearing what you think of it, ozzie. There's one young character with autism and I wasn't always sure about how he was written, would an autistic person think they were represented respectfully by this character? But it wasn't terrible/stereotypical.

[riverhorse]

Finished "Again, Rachel" by Marian Keyes last night to just squeak into March still. The sequel 20 years later to the much-loved "Rachel's Holiday" that I've read many times over the years. It was just as enjoyable and it was interesting to find out what had been happening in the characters' lives (often quite tragic, often super funny).