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Post by mod on Nov 3, 2023 14:39:53 GMT -5
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 3, 2023 16:27:23 GMT -5
Blue-footed boobies! Thank you for that and for the thread, O Holy Mod.
I am currently about halfway through a book that is annoying me. It's short, so I should be done with it soon if I don't abandon it instead.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 3, 2023 17:24:35 GMT -5
The Last Chairlift, John Irving.
While it's overlong, rambling, repetitive, and doesn't seem to have a plot or core, I still ended up enjoying reading Irving's voice again.
It traces the life of the narrator and the members of his convoluted family. And throws in lots of ghosts. The theme is American politics and society since the 1970s, mostly focused on attitudes to LGTBQ issues.
It has plenty of familiar elements from his past books: wrestling, missing fathers, writers, very quirky characters, an old hotel, angry crazy people shooting people they disagree with...
Irving has said it will be his last long fiction, and that's for the best as it really wasn't well put together. But I still am glad I read it.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 3, 2023 21:19:32 GMT -5
82) Molly McGhee, Jonathan Abernathy, You Are Kind
I said this was annoying 4 hours ago, but I guess not so annoying as to not finish it because of my enjoyment of the underlying message.
Abernathy is a young man who has much stacked against him - debt, no job, terrible self-hatred. At the same time he has a dim, naive earnestness that puts him in this surreal job as a "dream auditor," and eventually finds out what that is really all about. I found him a little annoying, but the anti-"productivity" message of the book is solid.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 4, 2023 2:04:19 GMT -5
77. Pride, Prejudice and Poison, Elizabeth Blake. Cozy mystery in a Yorkshire village among members of a Jane Austen society. Quite a good mystery, but in my opinion, the narrator’s accent was too plummy.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Nov 4, 2023 2:07:41 GMT -5
I need to finish Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes for book club. I had to put it down for a while as his childhood was rather abusive in some ways and it was too much.
I also think I should have done this with audible and not read it, as it can be a meandering memoir. Will be interesting to discuss that at the meeting, as I know one person was going to get the audible version.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 4, 2023 2:25:01 GMT -5
I listened to Working Class Boy on audible. Interesting, but pretty full on. Generational trauma of a different kind to what I normally encounter.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Nov 4, 2023 2:30:14 GMT -5
Yes. The fact his kids seem to be ok, and he is now a very hands on and caring grandparent is amazing, and testament to the work he and Jane would have done.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 4, 2023 2:31:33 GMT -5
I was just thinking something similar. It takes a conscious effort to break the cycle.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 4, 2023 5:11:59 GMT -5
78. Die Noon, Elise Sax. Absurd, not so cozy mystery set in UFO territory, New Mexico.
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Post by lillielangtry on Nov 4, 2023 10:26:08 GMT -5
Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police I reread this because reading Time Shelter had made me think about it. It's about a young woman on an island where things keep "disappearing" and then are completely forgotten. A mysterious and sinister "memory police" enforce this forgetting and persecute the minority of people who do not forget the required things, and the narrator ends taking one such person in and hiding him. I think I actually enjoyed this more on a second reading. It's a strange book in which not everything is fully explained, but it's beautiful as well.
Zadie Smith, The Fraud The new, and first historical, novel by Zadie Smith. It's based around the life of real-life novelist William Ainsworth, who was a contemporary of Dickens but whose works have (rightly?!) fallen into obscurity, and his cousin/housekeeper Eliza Touchet. Their stories end up being complemented by the life of Andrew Bogle, a Jamaican former slave who ends up star witness in a long-running trial. This has all the Zadie elements - great characters, fantastically written, an interest in multicultural Britain and especially North London. Like her other works, I feel like plot is maybe not the strongest part. In other hands, this could have been a more tightly structured mystery. But listening to her talk at a literary event yesterday, I think I got a greater understanding of what she was doing with this book and the parallels she was drawing with modern populism.
She also mentioned how she likes historical novels that are written in a sort of language that are NOT the same as the language of the time they are set in but make you think they are, eg Hilary Mantel. I completely agree with her, and I think this is one of the things that put me off Babel, where R. F. Kwang simply did not do that at all.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 4, 2023 10:30:30 GMT -5
Ooh lillie - I hadn't made a solid decision about the new Zadie yet, but your review nails it.
(ha! I'm 301st on the library hold list, so I guess I'll be reading it sometime in 2024)
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 5, 2023 3:50:40 GMT -5
79. Seizure, Robin Cook. Thriller around bioethics. I enjoy his books, but hadn’t read one for ages.
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Post by lillielangtry on Nov 5, 2023 15:22:20 GMT -5
Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg An older volume of Atwood's short stories, from the 80s. Each one has a fleshed out story that could almost be a whole novel. Still, for some reason I did not rush to pick this book up again so it's taken me a while to get through it.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 6, 2023 6:28:46 GMT -5
Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg An older volume of Atwood's short stories, from the 80s. Each one has a fleshed out story that could almost be a whole novel. Still, for some reason I did not rush to pick this book up again so it's taken me a while to get through it. It wasn't memorable for me. One Corpse Too Many, by Ellis Peters. the second in the Brother Cadfael series, and i realky enjoyed the historical background in this one. Stephen and Maud are fighting for the monarchy, and i suspect that Stephen's taking the castle in Shrewsbury is historically accurate.
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Post by sophie on Nov 7, 2023 0:59:32 GMT -5
A New Season by Terry Fallis. I went to hear this author recently and bought his latest book. He is a very funny presenter and his books are witty as well as funny… but not this one. The main character is a 62 year old man, still reeling from the Covid related death of his wife 2 1/2 years earlier. The novel revolves around him and how his life has changed. I enjoyed this book but I miss the humour I have come to expect from this author. While it was witty, it was not the same.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 7, 2023 6:04:54 GMT -5
Kind of a hard topic to make funny! I wonder if it's semiautobiographical?
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Post by sophie on Nov 7, 2023 9:06:30 GMT -5
Liisa, that’s what it felt like, but not so according to what he said when I saw him. I suspect he knew someone really well in that situation. He also really got male friendship well in this book.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 10, 2023 8:32:47 GMT -5
83) Tom Comitta, The Nature Book
Comitta combed through several hundred works of fiction, extracted descriptions of nature, and then assembled them together into this amazing book: the forward begins with the statement "[t]his novel contains no words of my own." It's not collaged in a way that's intended to be jarring, the way some experimental novels can be; rather, he joins the passages together into a smooth, mesmerizing narrative.
The books he used are listed at the end, and I've read a great many of them! So the fact that I only recognized a handful of the passages says something about how we don't always pay as much attention to descriptions as to action in fiction.
(I picked this up because Jeff Tweedy from Wilco told the New York Times that he was reading it, and his comments about it grabbed my attention.)
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Post by scrubb on Nov 11, 2023 6:48:47 GMT -5
Haruki Murikami - Killing Commendature.
It was very reminiscent of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Which I liked a lot. But this time it was really glaring that he really can't write women/girls.
It will keep me thinking about it a bit. The storyline seemed a bit more straight forward than his stuff usually does, though of course there's still some mystical weirdness. But there is a progression of events in order. At first it seemed a little too easy - the narrator got instructions, followed them, and got the desired result. But after the fact I saw that there were other elements in play.
So, if you're a fan, this one has some good stuff. But it also is kind of repetitive if you've read the author before.
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Post by Q-pee on Nov 11, 2023 7:05:58 GMT -5
Ooh lillie - I hadn't made a solid decision about the new Zadie yet, but your review nails it. (ha! I'm 301st on the library hold list, so I guess I'll be reading it sometime in 2024) To (possibly) temper your enthusiasm, I've just abandoned it. I might come back to it at some point, the are some good things about the writing but I got frustrated by the lack of plot.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 11, 2023 7:12:28 GMT -5
Q-pee I've been following your journey of Fraud-abandonment with interest. Since I just greatly enjoyed a novel that consisted entirely of nature descriptions - literally NO action whatsoever - I am obviously not someone who needs a strong plot, but I'm still 287th in line for a copy at my library, so we shall see what my mood is whenever that day finally arrives. scrubb I thought I remembered not liking "Killing Commendatore," but I just found my blurb about it and I guess I did like it. I'm off him now for some reason, but that wasn't it... dunno
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Post by lillielangtry on Nov 11, 2023 8:12:15 GMT -5
Ooh lillie - I hadn't made a solid decision about the new Zadie yet, but your review nails it. (ha! I'm 301st on the library hold list, so I guess I'll be reading it sometime in 2024) To (possibly) temper your enthusiasm, I've just abandoned it. I might come back to it at some point, the are some good things about the writing but I got frustrated by the lack of plot. Sorry, I couldn't find my own post earlier and thought I must have imagined making it, I see it is there after all!
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Post by sophie on Nov 11, 2023 12:26:34 GMT -5
Lee child (and Andrew Child) …The Secret. A thriller in the Jack Reacher series, but while he is still in the military. A very fast, relatively brainless read which was marginally better than anything on TV last night.
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Post by Q-pee on Nov 11, 2023 13:01:41 GMT -5
To (possibly) temper your enthusiasm, I've just abandoned it. I might come back to it at some point, the are some good things about the writing but I got frustrated by the lack of plot. Sorry, I couldn't find my own post earlier and thought I must have imagined making it, I see it is there after all! all good - I might come back to it after the murder mystery, it might just be one of those books I should read intermittently.
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Post by scrubb on Nov 11, 2023 21:30:55 GMT -5
I'm With the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet. Editor: Mark Martin
Contributions from Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Kim Stanley Robinson, and others. About the dangers of climate change.
A couple of the stories were quite good but there was a lot of similar, Mad Max type stuff. Dystopian futures. Some predictable. KSR's was the best. Atwood's was very short (1 page?) and not innovative at all.
Not particularly recommended.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Nov 12, 2023 6:07:31 GMT -5
80. Mrs Pollifax and the second thief, Dorothy Gilman.
In which Mrs Pollifax romps around Sicily. Fun read.
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Post by Liiisa on Nov 12, 2023 8:27:35 GMT -5
84) C. Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey
During a global environmental crisis, a young chef in a desperate financial situation takes a job for a sketchy billionaire who is setting up a haven for the wealthy to give them access to luxury food resources. The plot was compelling, the main character and food descriptions were great, and it took down tech bros and their big ideas. I was very affected by the last couple of pages.
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Post by wombatrois on Nov 12, 2023 8:35:20 GMT -5
I need to finish Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes for book club. I had to put it down for a while as his childhood was rather abusive in some ways and it was too much. I also think I should have done this with audible and not read it, as it can be a meandering memoir. Will be interesting to discuss that at the meeting, as I know one person was going to get the audible version. I listened to this (and Working Class Man and his other book Killing Time). He narrates. I loved all of them and while there was a lot of trauma, I thought there was also a lot of love (hard love?). I'm actually a bit of a fan girl now - not so keen on his music, but love the life he shares with everyone - I'm certain this is him, not a fake Jimmy on show. I watched all his videos over lockdowns and he still has some sing a longs. He's currently writing a novel, so will look forward to reading that too.
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Post by sophie on Nov 13, 2023 0:31:37 GMT -5
The Exchange by John Grisham. I’ve typically really enjoyed his novels and have problems putting one down until it’s done. This one is not up to the same standard. It takes place during the end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya (Libya features in this book) and a character from one of his earlier novels is the main character. A sluggish beginning, some stock characters and not a very convincing plot with a few chapters here and there which served to reminded me of what his writing should be like. Oh well.. it too was better than anything on the TV today!!
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