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Post by scrubb on Jun 2, 2023 22:00:41 GMT -5
Ok, so the tag line doesn't actually make sense. Whatever! I needed a thread because I finished a book!
48. The Undertaker's Assistant by Amanda Skenandore. The main character is a freed slave who is an embalmer. the book starts about 11 years after the Civil War, when Effie moves to New Orleans from Chicago where she's lived since she was little.
The writing isn't particularly good and the plot is pretty stupid, but the setting during reconstruction, and the background events, are interesting to make it worth reading.
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Post by sophie on Jun 2, 2023 22:16:15 GMT -5
Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls. Set in hill billy counties where moonshine pays the bills after WW1 and as prohibition is coming into play, this book has a great main character. Sallie Kincaid is smart, savvy and the daughter of the county ‘boss’ by his second wife. She navigates family crisis, deaths, turf wars and all general life events as she grows up and matures. I wanted a different ending (too many lose ends left) but I liked the book overall.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 3, 2023 6:07:59 GMT -5
Thank you scrubb! Bookmarking - my next book was too poetic and complicated to penetrate my half-asleep state last night, so I haven't really started it yet.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 3, 2023 6:32:59 GMT -5
Thank you Scrubb. Bookmarking. I’ve just finished two, so may be a little while before I finish another.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jun 3, 2023 6:52:17 GMT -5
bookclub on Monday, I haven't started the book yet
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Post by Q-pee on Jun 4, 2023 8:48:23 GMT -5
The Power and the Glory Graham Greene
Excellent writing, about a real period - not saying the unnamed priest existed but the religious persecution did. Apparently witnessing it led Greene to be more into Christianity.
Terrific descriptions of place, you can feel the heat and the desolation
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Post by scrubb on Jun 4, 2023 15:02:43 GMT -5
49) All the Good Things, by Clare Fisher. This was a Bookbub special and when I started reading it reeled me in right away. The narrator, Beth, is in prison after doing A BAD THING and the book is her writing to her baby daughter, at the suggestion of her counselor. She's obviously had a very difficult life, going through foster families, etc.
Unfortunately, the promising start wasn't sustained. Although it kept me reading, the character's voice stopped feeling so authentic and the ending came together slightly too easily, kind of ignoring a bunch of the threads that had been pulled out.
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Post by snowwhite on Jun 6, 2023 7:14:08 GMT -5
I've recently read two books fairly quickly (can't now remember when I finished them exactly):
Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken (which has been promoted and discussed everywhere I seem to look - so some of those algorithms are working maybe), and
Someone Else's Shoes by JoJo Moyes (which is of similar quality to After You imo).
Both good reads in rather different ways. What's slightly annoying is that UPP is being quoted selectively in headlines etc and people are responding in ways that make it seem they haven't read the whole book, where the message at the end is everyone will choose how they want to eat based on their circumstances (and some people have more choice than others), but here is what the research says.
SES was fun and interesting and had a clever plot I think, with several likable characters, although it won't be everyone's thing.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 7, 2023 0:25:22 GMT -5
Sujata Massey, The Widows of Malabar Hill First in a series with an Indian woman lawyer in the 1920s. I really enjoyed this story, of course it has to gently stretch credulity in a few places but it was fun. I didn't know much about the Parsi community but it was interesting seeing the parallels to Iran, where they originally came from. Ozzie, in answer to your question, I thought the audiobook narrator was OK. I was initially a little disappointed that she's American and she often used an exaggerated "surprised" tone that annoyed me a bit. But I see the second in the series is a different reader. I will probably carry on with it sometime.
I have another book to update but will have to come back later.
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Post by sophie on Jun 7, 2023 0:26:35 GMT -5
Trust by Hernan Diaz. I picked this up at the library at a whim.. never heard of the author or the book. Interesting format: novel within a novel plus a journal plus a memoir, all searching for the truth about an certain tycoon and his wealth. Pulitzer winner and I think on the Booker long list. I liked it but at the same time I wanted more… more detail and more ‘meat’ to the story.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 7, 2023 5:01:16 GMT -5
I read that back in March, sophie. I liked it, but a mutual on Mastodon felt like you did, that it was kind of thin.
The New York Times did its "By the Book" interview with Hernan Diaz a couple weeks ago - it was an interesting one. He loves punk rock, which didn't pop up in this book, obviously, but could make other work by him interesting.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 7, 2023 7:20:38 GMT -5
Mithu Sanyal, Identitti I read this in German, but it has been translated into English. It's a book sort of imagining the Rachel Dolezal case in Germany. A young, mixed-race woman called Nivedita idolises her professor of postcolonial studies, Saraswati, until it is revealed that Saraswati is actually white and has been "passing" as an Indian woman. The whole book is discussions between Nivedita, Saraswati and other characters about why she did what she did. But the thing is, you never do really get to the bottom of it and the book is 400 pages long. It's highly contemporary and includes lightly fictionalised tweets from JK Rowling, a version of Jordan Peterson and many other real people including a certain orange former President of the USA - but it is fiction. I can imagine that if this novel had been out at the time I was reading postcolonial literature like Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, etc, I might have been hugely excited by it. 20 years on, I just find myself thinking: fine, but could it not have been half the length? And why do German novels contain so much talking and so little action?!
Oh, and it has endnotes and a bibliography - whether that counts in its favour or against very much depends on you as a reader, I suspect! I personally rather liked that bit...
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 7, 2023 9:01:29 GMT -5
Thank you lillie— I was pondering that one
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 7, 2023 9:32:14 GMT -5
And, have I put you off? :-)
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Post by scrubb on Jun 7, 2023 14:29:58 GMT -5
50) The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell.
Well written, and an interesting premise about the life of Lucrezia, a historical figure in medieval Italy who died a year after her marriage at 14, possibly murdered by her husband.
I love Maggie O'Farrell's writing and enjoyed the book - but don't feel it measured up to Hamnet at all, or the non-fiction of hers that I've read. A couple times I felt jarred, that something was out of place (like when there was an unexpected explanatory paragraph about how Lucrezia always was able to sense who in a group is the center of power and is the prime mover of events, when there has been absolutely no prior indication that she is good at reading people AT ALL. In fact, she's pretty clueless about that kind of thing). And there's something about the ending that is very disturbing, but I won't write any spoilers.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 7, 2023 16:17:07 GMT -5
And, have I put you off? :-) Yes... I spend enough time reading about idiots like Jordan Peterson in the news; I don't need him in my novels too!
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 7, 2023 23:00:35 GMT -5
Well I should be clear, the author evidently doesn't sympathise with him! But yeah, I found the whole thing a bit pretentious and ultimately unsatisfying.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 8, 2023 4:53:36 GMT -5
I agree about The Marriage Portrait, scrubb. It kept me reading, though.
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Post by sophie on Jun 9, 2023 18:26:53 GMT -5
The kind worth saving by Peter Swanson. A good whodunnit..plot twists and weird characters.. I enjoyed more than I thought I would. A random library pickup.. apparently he’s written a number of novels. Based on this one, I’d read more.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 9, 2023 23:10:12 GMT -5
35. The Lake District Murder, John Bude. Police procedural written in 1935. Great if you like detail and authenticity.
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Post by Q-pee on Jun 10, 2023 5:20:13 GMT -5
Agree with Scrubb and Liiisa about the Marriage Portrait. I liked the ending - although it wasn't quite as satisfying as it could have been because there was so much foreshadowing. I thought no-one was complex enough...
the Cat Who Saved Books Sosuke Natsukawa
It reads as a fable with magical things happening, and four quests, and a kid learning some truths.
It's heartwarming and philosophical.
There's quite a genre of Japanese fiction where there's a simple magical construct that allows the author to explore some deeper truths (Before the Coffee Gets Cold), and they have their charm.
It does talk about books having souls, and features a talking cat so I did feel at home in the book... For me it had touching moments but the quests weren't all that exciting, and the truths were a bit obvious... it's proven that people who read more fiction show more empathy.
Overall review - sweet, charming, gently philosophical, but not ultimately satisfying. A starter not a meal.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 10, 2023 9:34:44 GMT -5
Ah, my mum sent me The Cat who Saved Books, but I haven't read it yet. Sounds good for when I need something light.
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Post by Q-pee on Jun 10, 2023 11:11:40 GMT -5
Ah, my mum sent me The Cat who Saved Books, but I haven't read it yet. Sounds good for when I need something light. Yes! A good palate cleanser if you've read something tough!
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Post by scrubb on Jun 11, 2023 0:30:59 GMT -5
SPOILER POST. Do not read this if you haven't read The Marriage Portrait! SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSAgree with Scrubb and Liiisa about the Marriage Portrait. I liked the ending - although it wasn't quite as satisfying as it could have been because there was so much foreshadowing. What I disliked was that it felt like we were supposed to be pleased that Lucre escaped and it was just Emilia who died in her stead. Yay! How cool that she got away when everyone thought she died! And who cares about a stupid maid dying in her stead?
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Post by Q-pee on Jun 11, 2023 2:25:21 GMT -5
MORE SPOILERS - SCROLL ON BY
Yeah, forgot about that - although their physical similarity was one of the bits of foreshadowing that annoyed me.
I liked that the evidence that she did escape was the miniature paintings that contain secrets when all her thoughts had been secret.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 11, 2023 3:40:43 GMT -5
36. In This Grave Hour, Jacqueline Winspear. Excellent historical mystery set in England at the opening of World War II.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 11, 2023 5:28:43 GMT -5
DING DING DING SCRUBB agree
Also agree w Q about the tiny paintings, tho.
But: this is about The Marriage Portrait, not The Marriage Plot, which is a Jeffrey Eugenides novel that I read (checks notes) in 2014 and now remember nothing about
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Post by scrubb on Jun 11, 2023 19:16:54 GMT -5
I read the marriage plot and remember it - a girl marries her university sweetheart but it turns out he's mentally ill. Amazing when he's doing OK, but it's very, very bad, when not.
And it was presented like a counterpoint to academic research into how literature treats marriage, that one if them was doing (hence the title).
However, yes, I put the wrong title in that post and will now go edit it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 12, 2023 0:51:39 GMT -5
Lily King, Euphoria This month's book club pick, although I won't actually get to attend the meeting this time. I absolutely loved this novel, inspired by the anthropologist Margaret Mead and the few months she spent in Papua New Guinea in 1933. Here, the Mead character is called Nell Stone and is working with her husband Fen when they meet British anthropologist Andrew Bankson, who becomes fascinated with both of them. The book really captures the energy of Stone's work and the absorption of all three of them in the young discipline of anthropology, with its dark side - literally "carving up" the territory between them, you take that tribe, I'll take this one, etc. I raced through it in two days and was thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. It was particularly fitting that I coincidentally visited the ethnological museum in Cologne last week and its original donors had a special interest in the area now known as Papua New Guinea, so I really had a lot of the statues, weapons, etc in my mind while I was reading. I tried not to research the similarities with real life as I was reading so as not to spoil the story (King changes the actual fate of the three researchers anyway) but I did look up some of the cultural aspects I'd never heard of and discovered that they were true, although the names of the tribes have been changed. King did a lot of research but the book wears it very lightly, so there'll just be a mention of something that is very strange to us and it's up to the reader to find out about it or not. Highly recommended.
(tiny observation, not even a quibble really - I didn't believe Bankson's voice was authentically British even though his accent is frequently mentioned; there's one bit in particular where he says something about "being taken out of class" at school. We wouldn't say "class" like that; we'd say "lessons". He also says "mum" and while it's possible a 1930s man might have said that, I'd expect mummy or mother. That just as an aside!)
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 12, 2023 4:12:41 GMT -5
That sounds interesting, Lillie. I’ve read a fair bit of authentic anthropology from Solomon Islands, also Melanesian, including the definitive work from the 1930s about the islands where my Solomon family live.
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