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Post by Q-pee on Jun 28, 2023 1:28:01 GMT -5
The Great Gatsby
F Scott Fitzgerald
The story is a bit thin and odd, and it gets a bit pretentious wank at the end... but the atmosphere created is so intense.
I saw the movie a few weeks ago and it's a very very good adaptation. I wish I'd read the book first because I did imagine the places as I'd seen them in the movie rather than find them in my own imagination.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 29, 2023 17:44:03 GMT -5
54) Beartown, by Fredrik Bachman. About a shrinking, small town deep in the forests of Sweden, where everyone's hopes are on the junior hockey team winning the nationals, so that a new hockey academy will be built there and bring more people in. The book looks at both the good and bad of small town culture, Swedish culture, hockey culture, as well as some of the individual players, coaches, and their families.
His writing style gets old and I should have taken a longer break before reading another of his books, but it was still pretty good. A terrible event occurs and he writes about the people who did it and the people it happened to and manages to make all of them at least a little bit sympathetic.
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Post by sprite on Jun 30, 2023 3:43:04 GMT -5
The Big Chill (Doug Johnstone)
Second in a series featuring the Skelf family (Grandmother, mother, daughter), who run a funeral home and PI business. This one features a lot of little mysteries; finding the identity of a homeless man, tracking down an absentee father, trying to explain an elderly professor's suicide.
The backdrop is the upcoming murder/assault trial of the mother's ex husband, who is continuing to manipulate the women who are trying to leave him in the past, and also manipulting the justice process.
It's a good series, with development of the different women, and I enjoy trying to visualize their trips around Edinburgh. The 'Big Chill' refers to the mortuary and also the daughter's obsession with physics and the end of the universe.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 30, 2023 5:31:30 GMT -5
42. Mayhem in Christmas River, Meg Muldoon. Too heavy on the romance and too light on the mystery for me.
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Post by scrubb on Jun 30, 2023 18:17:28 GMT -5
55. Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators: The Secret of Terror Castle
This was a nostalgic reread of a childhood favourite. I loved Jupitor Jones and the 3 investigator books as a kid and found the first one of the series for kindle for a couple $. It was quite fun- I'd forgotten about all the secret entrances to their headquarters in the junk yard, and i'd forgotten why they get to ride around in a rolls royce, and what the association with Alfred Hitchcock is.
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Post by mei on Jul 1, 2023 6:44:44 GMT -5
#7 - All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
A book I picked up while travelling because I needed something lighter (both in weight and in topic) from what I had been reading (Ministry of the Future). I've heard the author's name pop up a few times as a new popular Japanese author so it was a nice surprise to find this. But overall, I don't think I liked it much. I've come to realize that I just don't like reading about unhappy people who don't do anything to be less unhappy.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 2, 2023 11:47:22 GMT -5
Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood
The much-anticipated new novel from the Booker Prize winner from New Zealand.
This is a good book, and I think it's partly my own mood that made it not, for me, a great book. The characters are well-drawn and the plot is interesting but didn't fully grip me. It's about a group of environmental activists - urban gardeners, in fact - who are offered some money from a billionaire but, as you might expect, not just for altruistic reasons.
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Post by sophie on Jul 2, 2023 13:31:05 GMT -5
^^^ I tried to get into that book and just couldn’t.. agree it may depend on one’s mood.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See. Really, really enjoyed this book. Novel based on a real woman doctor living during the Ming Dynasty and about whom very little is known. Good research and good story line. I’m going to see/hear this author later this month and she will be talking about this book as it is her newest. Recommended.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 4, 2023 5:06:19 GMT -5
Yeah mei "All the Lovers in the Night" was pretty depressing, though I kept going because I always find Japanese novels interesting for the descriptions and such. But I did nearly abandon it when that main character started drinking a lot. Anyway, I read the following in June on vacation, so I'm sneaking it in here: 50. Ray Nayler, Mountain Under the Sea A corporation has purchased a Vietnamese archipelago where possibly sentient octopuses* live in order to study them. But you learn as the plot goes on that the corporation has ulterior motives, as corporations so often do. It took me quite a while to get used to the fact that the lead character's name is "Ha" - I kept reading that as "He" and wondering why they were suddenly talking about this random guy instead of the lead character. * I was taught growing up that the plural was "octopi," but people nowadays do it like this instead, I think because "octopus" is a Greek word or something. I don't like it |
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Post by Q-pee on Jul 4, 2023 6:09:25 GMT -5
I've been reading a book about various explorers of the Nile in bed at night - and this author did NOT like Richard Burton. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to read Burton's writing after this - according to the author he was pretty awful and his books put down others while also being self aggrandizing. And yet Elizabeth Taylor married him more than once *runs** |
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Post by Q-pee on Jul 4, 2023 6:12:05 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 4, 2023 6:17:04 GMT -5
Thank you Q for that - exactly, it's about the Greek vs Latin vs English plural ending. I was going to explain it in more detail but didn't want to write a whole novel about it.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jul 4, 2023 7:17:57 GMT -5
Yeah, there is also a general tendency to make plurals more regular. Do you ever hear anyone talking about football stadia?
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Post by Q-pee on Jul 4, 2023 7:29:05 GMT -5
Yeah, there is also a general tendency to make plurals more regular. Do you ever hear anyone talking about football stadia? Yes, and they were MOCKED |
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 4, 2023 7:42:14 GMT -5
Just for that I think I'm going to start saying that (not that I'd ever use that word anyway, so never mind)
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Post by Webs on Jul 4, 2023 11:26:28 GMT -5
Sujata Massey, The Widows of Malabar Hill . Thanks for this, it's been on my list I just needed a push. |
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Post by scrubb on Jul 4, 2023 13:12:33 GMT -5
I've been reading a book about various explorers of the Nile in bed at night - and this author did NOT like Richard Burton. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to read Burton's writing after this - according to the author he was pretty awful and his books put down others while also being self aggrandizing. And yet Elizabeth Taylor married him more than once *runs** Ha! |
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Post by sophie on Jul 4, 2023 15:43:34 GMT -5
Just pointing out this was a different Burton….
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 4, 2023 16:55:31 GMT -5
I believe Q is aware, hence the running....
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Post by sophie on Jul 4, 2023 17:17:21 GMT -5
I believe Q is aware, hence the running.... I suspected she was… but for others ..  |
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Post by Q-pee on Jul 8, 2023 6:41:20 GMT -5
It amuses me that there are two eminent and famous Richard Burtons, and two eminent and famous Elizabeth Taylors. I like to mess with people on this. Even more fun is messing with people re John Snow.
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 8, 2023 8:10:59 GMT -5
Who's the other Elizabeth Taylor? I suppose I have to look it up.
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Post by Q-pee on Jul 8, 2023 8:53:42 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Jul 8, 2023 9:42:10 GMT -5
"Kingsley Amis described her as "one of the best English novelists born in this century" - Well! I guess I had ought to find one of her books, thank you
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Post by sprite on Jul 14, 2023 15:07:11 GMT -5
55. Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators: The Secret of Terror Castle This was a nostalgic reread of a childhood favourite. I loved Jupitor Jones and the 3 investigator books as a kid and found the first one of the series for kindle for a couple $. It was quite fun- I'd forgotten about all the secret entrances to their headquarters in the junk yard, and i'd forgotten why they get to ride around in a rolls royce, and what the association with Alfred Hitchcock is. Oh!! I remember these! What fun, I should look for those. |
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