High level Outgoing Gear Options

View Details

This topic is currently marked as "dormant"—the last message is more than 90 days old. You can revive it by posting a reply.

You will get efficient and thoughtful service from Hebei Etenal.

76laurenbufferd

Mar 14, 2019, 3:52 pm

Hi Lyddie!!!I finally finished Flight Portfolio and got a bit less sour about it as I moved toward the end. It is well researched and really earnest. I think it's a good 50-75 pages too long but it's a cool story. I'm backing off my initial criticisms and though I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend it, I do think it's an interesting subject and worth reading - here's a cool thing though - the youngest member of the network that helped Jewish artists and writers get out of France ended up teaching at my college. I think he was about 17 when he was in Vichy and worked as a courier and messenger . He eventually made it out of Europe himself and worked at the New School and then by the early 60s he was at Bard.I am currently reading You're on an Airplane which is ok and a little sad and revisiting some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House series which I never ever tire of and often find comfort in. Thinking about what to read next...………...

77LyddieO

Mar 17, 2019, 3:42 pm

Hi Lauren!
I've seen so many films about Truman Capote, and read fiction and non-fiction about him, but never read his writing, so now I'm reading The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Lives. When I first picked it up, I thought I might lose interest pretty quickly, but that's not happening.

78SPRankin

Edited: Mar 18, 2019, 10:32 am

My older daughter (and resident of Oklahoma City) gave me Boom Town for Christmas and I finally started reading it last night. It's kind of a little more, I dunno, macho than my usual read--the story is structured around the controversial acquisition of the city's NBA team from Seattle and the extremely high stakes drama of whether James Harden would stay with the team in 2012--but that's a good thing, right? I can always don my readerly velvet smoking jacket and monocle and organize my bibelots later.Anyway, there's lots of other stuff that is more my usual fare--like a famous 1903 fight between the guy who killed Ford (the guy who killed Jesse James) and a policeman that involved ear biting and clothes being set on fire from a gun firing at close range that roiled over several blocks that the author locates on present-day OKC landmarks, and an account of the city's six-month ordeal in the 1950s of daily multiple sonic booms to test supersonic flight, and of course, a lot about the Land Rush in 1889. And given my daughter's hair-raising tales about spring storms, I'm anticipating and dreading more about the city's famously freakish weather.Overall, it's a little bit like reading a podcast, but it's quite fun.

79laurenbufferd

Mar 19, 2019, 10:58 am

I started reading Tinkers and sheesh, where was I in 2009 because this shit is amazeballs!

84JulieCarter

Apr 2, 2019, 9:24 am

Started listening to My Oxford Year , which has the oh-so-likely premise that this Rhodes scholar at Oxford has also just been hired as the consultant for education for a US presidential candidate (who is of course going to win, because we all see how easy it is for women to get elected US president), and they don't mind that she'll be doing this job via phone and email while she's studying for her masters in literature at Oxford. Sure, seems legit.

85laurenbufferd

Apr 2, 2019, 10:03 am

Lisa P, that looks good.I am reading a lot of Al Anon lit because.. And Laure Ingalls Wilder because it's comforting. I read a crazy book about the Getty Museum and Trust Chasing Aphrodite which would make a great movie if anyone besides me would watch a movie about adults in positions of public trust in the arts behaving poorly. It is so full of bad behavior and mismanagement, it's kind of shocking that the actual looting of antiquities takes second place to the museum directors who swanned about using trust money to jet around the world on private vacations and do favors for their rich friends.But I have to get back to fiction.

86lisapeet

Edited: Apr 3, 2019, 7:05 am

87laurenbufferd

Edited: Apr 3, 2019, 4:58 pm

Lisa, which biography? And many thanks - belatedly but that's how life is right now- for the poster which is up in my office. I do like woody's advice for living.

I started reading Dominic Smith's The Electric Hotel. I really really loved The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos. Some historical fiction is so formulaic and so twee, but I found his work totally engaging.

89laurenbufferd

Apr 3, 2019, 4:59 pm

Oh, I'd totally read the book about Germaine. thanks!! And it's early days with the Dominic Smith but I'm really enjoying it so far. It hits a lot of sweet spots for me.

90Kat.Warren

Apr 3, 2019, 5:07 pm

Is anyone else bemused by having lived long enough that biographies are being written about notables of one's own generation?

91DG_Strong

Apr 4, 2019, 9:45 pm

About halfway through The Hunting Party and it's easily the most unsurprising thriller I've ever read, because I've read it as The Secret History and And Then There Were None and ten other books before. But I keep reading because I'm waiting to see if there's going to be a moment of originality in it; it's kind of fascinating that way. There's also something mean about the way the women are described, but I can't quite put my finger on it.You won't read any of that in the blurbs! One of which is by bestselling author and grifter AJ Finn.

92DG_Strong

Edited: Apr 4, 2019, 9:49 pm

This message has been deleted by its author.

93Nancy_Sirvent

Apr 4, 2019, 11:13 pm

Can't help but be intrigued by the author-deleted message.

But, in response to the message before, I'm curious about the meanness of the descriptions of women especially given that the author is female. That would be an interesting discussion in general. How much true disparagement of women is contained in classic literature authored by women? This could be a much-studied thing in academia, but it just occurred to me.

94laurenbufferd

Edited: Apr 12, 2019, 4:50 pm

I liked The Electric Hotel quite a bit. It gets a bit wooly in the last third and by golly, that writer has never met an adjective he didn't want to use. Twice over. But it has all the things - silent movies, New Jersey, Edison, organized crime, tuberculosis, Hollywood, WWI and a feel-good ending that drew a tear. So I'd recommend but also say you'll know in the first 30 pages if its your thing or not.I'm reading Educated which is truly horrifying.

95laurenbufferd

Apr 17, 2019, 3:39 pm

Did anyone read Educated? I wouldn't say I enjoyed it but I did find it interesting.But I wondered occasionally if this was going to be a James Frey thing and turn out to be completely untrue. Did anyone else feel this way?

96Nancy_Sirvent

Apr 17, 2019, 5:14 pm

I couldn't bring myself to read it. It sounded too much like The Glass Castle , which I loathed. It was SO popular and I disbelieved a lot of it.

98lisapeet

Apr 17, 2019, 8:40 pm

99cindydavid4

Apr 17, 2019, 8:55 pm

How much does the book touch on his relationship with women, esp his wife and his mistress?

100lisapeet

Apr 17, 2019, 9:41 pm

101Nancy_Sirvent

Apr 17, 2019, 9:44 pm

Lisa, the post of Lauren's is about EDUCATED? (I have trouble understanding the links to other's posts.)

And didn't that Frederick Douglass book just win the Pulitzer?

102lisapeet

Apr 17, 2019, 11:39 pm

Yes, and yes. (If you click on the link in a post after the ">" it'll take you to the post it references.)

103laurenbufferd

Apr 18, 2019, 10:29 am

There was something I read in Educated that just didn't seem true - a little tiny fact like how long it would take to drive from Cambridge to Palmyra NY that she was actually correct about (I looked it up) but the potential inaccuracy just stuck in my head and I couldn't shake it. I think I was relating more to what I perceived as missing or exaggerated or skipped over.The whole book made me a bit nervous, to be honest.I am reading On Earth We're briefly gorgeous - it took me two tries to get into it but I'm hooked now.

104lisapeet

Edited: Apr 19, 2019, 12:42 pm

This week I whizzed through Jen Beagin's Pretend I'm Dead —an oddball, prickly little book, but well done—it flirts with being what I call misery porn, but is saved by its utter unpredictability at every step.The narrator, Mona, is somewhat of an aimless hot mess in her early 20s, cleaning houses, taking photographs, collecting odds and ends (both human and inanimate), staying home alone a lot, and musing at length on everything that crosses her path, But she's not really a mope so much as dry and prickly, even as regards her neglected, abusive childhood. Beagin's decision to stick to the third person is a good one, I think, taking the sharpest edge of indulgence away from Mona's voice. But what kept me along for the ride was the fact that you never had any idea where it was going at any given moment—a refreshing place to be as a reader. Also, I'm always interested in personal takes on housecleaning, fictional or non-, and Mona's engagement with what she did was all about the act of cleaning itself, rather than any class or societal implications—so, obviously fictional, but kind of intriguing nonetheless.This read more like something I would have been into in my 20s, a disaffected Denis-Johnsonish type narrative, but young and female, and in parts I found myself annoyed by its haplessness. But overall the novel was just so weird that it stayed in my good graces. Even the format—four extremely loosely linked long chapters—made sense as a way to narrate a clearly very episodic life. I have the sequel and will definitely give it a whirl as well.I've just started a forthcoming book, James Poniewozik's Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America ... two things I really don't like there! (That would be Trump and television—I'm fine on America, at least in theory.) I'm doing another panel like I did last May, interviewing authors for Library Journal's Day of Dialog event, and this year the books are all current event/hard news themed. And regardless of the TV/Trump subject, the book is so far very interesting.

105lisapeet

Edited: Apr 24, 2019, 7:21 am

Turning their attention again to a notable naturalist in Darwin: An Exceptional Voyage (Nobrow), French author Fabien Groleau and illustrator Jérémie Royer (Audubon, On the Wings of the World) tell the story of Charles Darwin’s first expedition in graphic format. Highly eye-pleasing, accessible artwork and engaging writing bring to life Darwin’s five-year journey aboard the H.M.S. Beagle and the discoveries that would eventually drive his theory of evolution, focusing on the young man’s development as a naturalist. This retelling stays close to Darwin’s experience, with narrative drawn from his journals; a notable thread throughout is his horror of slavery, shown without glossing over his Victorian dismay at the lives of “savages.”

Groleau and Royer take full advantage of all the storytelling techniques in their graphic toolbox, letting the reader share Darwin’s wonder and delight through skilfully cinematic treatment: wide pans of lush land- and seascapes share spreads with closeups of birds and butterflies; flashbacks and shifts in narrative viewpoint through inventive layouts give this chapter in Darwin’s history a novelistic feel.

106DG_Strong

Edited: Apr 25, 2019, 3:27 pm

Nancy, I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier about the descriptions of the women in The Hunting Party -- I missed the comment. I actually think the fact that the author is a woman makes it worse, meaner somehow. The descriptions of the women are really specific and other than the vague "beautiful" or "a good cook" or whatever, none of them are complimentary. She's hard on the men too, but it's a book of shifting mostly women narrators so you notice it more.Anyway! I'm now reading Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer and it's flat-out beautiful.

107cindydavid4

Apr 26, 2019, 12:12 am

Oh I want to read that!

108laurenbufferd

Apr 26, 2019, 10:41 am

I liked The Electric Hotel and its a good book for the usual suspects here, esp if you are interested in early film. I wanted to like On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous but am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I thought it was a bit of a mess. This guy is a great poet - no argument. The novel is written as a letter from a young writer whose life closely parallels Vuong's to his non-literate mother. It is lyrical to the point of vagueness - for me - and the times when there is actually storytelling, it's great and you want more. And then it floats off again to quote Barthes or Fifty Cent. So I was both enthralled and exasperated and desired to get in there with a hatchet and carve out a different better book.I think he has a story to tell, I just don't think this tells it.I read The Victory Garden which was awful.I am reading Less which made me laugh aloud and that's good.

109mkunruh

May 1, 2019, 12:06 pm

Laughing out loud is good.Reading is working for me again. Kind of a surprise, actually, and also a relief. I prefer it to TV and mindless iPhone games, so I'm going with it.I read a bunch before this, but I just finished Hild , which despite Griffiths fictional additions and a really unbelievable (frustrating?) ending I was stupidly happy reading.Now I'm well into Overstory which is super fabulous. Bruce is being a sport about all the tree facts I insist on sharing. Like, did you know that each kind of fiscus has its own kind of wasp to pollinate it?

110southernbooklady

Edited: May 1, 2019, 2:15 pm

Because I have a fig tree in my yard, I actually did know this. In fact, the pollination cycle of a fig is so weirdly specific it beggars belief. You can't read about it without thinking "is what evolution came up with as a successful strategy?"

111JulieCarter

May 2, 2019, 12:41 pm

I didn't want to go to work yesterday, so I read a couple of books instead. Yay! I finished The Mars Room , which of course I really liked. Put a story in a prison, and I'm generally down with it. Then I read a book of stories by Etgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door . I don't normally read short stories, but Molly Ringwald mentioned this one in a thing in Entertainment Weekly, and once I'd read the Kindle sample, which of course cuts off in the middle of a good story, I just had to finish the whole thing while I laid in bed and didn't go to work. That's a good day!Next up is probably Beartown for my book club. Finally someone picked something that's not a dystopia or terrible horror novel. I really ought to start Theory of Bastards , since Kat recommended it a while back (and we all bought it, apparently) and it just won a Philip K. Dick award.

112Kat.Warren

Edited: May 2, 2019, 4:19 pm

Mir, I enjoyed "Hild," too. I've like most of Niccola Griffith's books.

113laurenbufferd

May 2, 2019, 4:45 pm

I love love love Etgar Keret, Julie. That's some good stuff.I thought that Less was sweet and funny and thoughtful and written like a dream but I wasn't wild about the end. I think I am too curmudgeonly right now for happy endings.About to start The Tenth Muse

114lisapeet

May 4, 2019, 6:39 pm

OK, I really need to read The Overstory . I've had it forever and ever, too.But right now I'm on a nonfiction roll for a current events nonfiction author panel I'm moderating at the end of the month. I just finished James Poniewozik's Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America , which was interesting for me because, in addition to looking at how Trump's career and political ascendance is interwoven with the ways that television has changed and also influenced American culture, it's also a sociological overview of TV itself. I haven't read much of that kind of thing, so I can't tell if it's going over old ground, but I found it absorbing—particularly as someone who stopped watching television regularly in the late '70s, other than a run of The Sopranos in its last few seasons. At the same time I knew OF everything he mentioned—living proof of the fact that even if you don't watch the stuff, it creeps into your general cultural consciousness—and it was neat to see it all put together in a timeline and appraised as a. I'm guessing if you're a Cultural Studies person this might be old hat, but I'm not so it was an interesting read. And it made me dislike Trump even more, which I didn't think was even possible.Now reading Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee . At least long drawn out delayed flights and missed connections and emergency overnight hotel stays are good for something.

116lisapeet

May 7, 2019, 6:23 am

117laurenbufferd

Edited: May 7, 2019, 11:26 am

I haven't even written thank you notes for the last two things (two more items for the Really, I'm really not an asshole category) so NO HURRY. And I don't mind carrying, I'll have a car.

118lisapeet

May 15, 2019, 8:33 am

Oh goodness, no thank-yous necessary. Although forgetful minds need to know: Did I send you the Germaine Greer book? Because if I didn't, someone lifted it off my desk, grrr.

121lisapeet

May 16, 2019, 10:06 pm

Finished Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You . And interesting blend of memoir, narrative, and rhetoric, this takes a hard look at the experience of refugees and the mythology around immigration. There are a lot of tools in Nayeri's toolbox here, and she makes use of them well. It's a little rough around the edges in parts, but this is also an early galley so I imagine there will be more editing before it pubs. And when she gets impassioned she really gets the job done beautifully.Now reading Moving Forward , by Karine Jean-Pierre, the chief public affairs officer for moveon.org—doesn't even have a touchstone here yet. She says this is aimed at younger folks who may be considering a career in politics, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Her personality really shines through, and I'm looking forward to doing this panel with her on it.

123LuRits

May 22, 2019, 6:31 am

Question: do Ali Smith’s seasonal books need to be read in order of publication or do they stand alone?Also just finishing up Nell Freudenberger’s Lost and Wanted which I enjoyed quite a lot.

124laurenbufferd

May 22, 2019, 4:59 pm

I seem to be missing the Ali Smith gene.I read the new Elinor Lipman which was enjoyable but not memorable. I am a huge fan of Then She Found Me , I wish she could find that combination of humour and thoughtfulness again.I am reading Red Clocks which I really like.

125LuRits

May 22, 2019, 5:20 pm

I’m with you on Lipman. But try her short story collection Into Love and Out Again . They have a bit more soul. She also put out a collection of essays that I remember liking quite a bit, though I remember little else about them.

126laurenbufferd

May 31, 2019, 11:14 am

128lisapeet

Edited: Jun 3, 2019, 1:21 pm

I read Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another in time for my author panel on Wednesday. The book is agreeably testy, basically focusing on the anxiety-industrial complex aspects of network and cable news, and how their main business model is to keep viewers in a state of high distress in order to make a 24-hour news cycle viable. The left comes off no better than the right here—the cover features Sean Hannity side-by-side with Rachel Maddow, which makes perfect sense if you think about it. Smart commentary, a little rambly in places—it's pulled from his online Substack newsletter—but the premise is good. I agree with it, anyway... this administration is anxiety-producing enough without feeding the cocaine rat of "Now This."The panel itself was a lot of fun. I love doing these author things, and my four panelists were excellent—right on the money with good answers to all my questions, and I think the audience enjoyed it. My new favorite person in the world is Karine Jean-Pierre, who is just insanely personable and nice.Also finished Jen Beagin's Vacuum in the Dark , which is a sequel to Pretend I'm Dead , which I also read. Interesting kind of push-me-pull-you thing going on there, and I imagine Beagin was aiming for a love/hate experience for her readers. The main character is equal parts alienating and relatable, as was the storyline(s) themselves. But I enjoyed it overall. I particularly like the two books' subtext of the ways we (especially women, I think, though it probably crosses gender lines) are defined by our relationship to cleaning. I spend... my god, a HUGE amount of my very limited free time just keeping my house from looking like shit, and I think about the whole time I'm vacuuming/mopping/dusting/putting crap where it goes—the unpaid labor aspect, the class aspect (because if I were more successful I'd have someone "come in" once a month), the woman's work aspect... so I particularly liked the books for their musings on that. (Then again maybe that’s a stealth win, because the time I spend cleaning my house I’m not watching the news.) Plus the cleaning tips, which were kind of awesome.Now reading Rebecca Solnit's Cinderella Liberator , which I got for my birthday.

129JulieCarter

Jun 3, 2019, 11:45 am

Karine Jean-Pierre also isn't afraid to get between a neckbeard manbun dude and Kamala Harris, from what I saw this morning!Finished Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. I'd heard so many things about it, but I wasn't blown away. For a similar subject matter, I thought The Hate U Give was far superior, though they are told in very, very different ways.Working on Beartown by Fredrik Backman. I've been wanting to read this (and a couple of his others) for a long time, and my friend picked it for our book club. Once you get into it (and I do think it helps if you're familiar with hockey, or at least what juniors' sports teams are like), it's intense. I've had to put it down because I just can't handle all of it at once. But it's really good so far, and so accurate. It keeps throwing me off to remember that it's set in Sweden, not in the northern US. Stories like this really do happen, and happened at a local high school near me. Just devastating to see how awful people can be just because it suits their own interests.I'm definitely looking forward to having more time to read, at least for a few weeks (or months) until I get another job. (If you're not on Facebook, I gave notice at my job and my last day is this Friday!) I have stacks of Europa Editions and NYRB Classics and other random paperbacks and remainders and gifts I've been meaning to get to for a long time. Not to mention all the Kindle books and the library! I'm also planning to watch a lot of tv shows, but I'll try to make sure I don't do that to the detriment of my TBR!

130Nancy_Sirvent

Jun 3, 2019, 1:22 pm

Congratulations on the resignation, Julie!! It's a stressful thing to do, but I think you did the right thing. You were not happy there.

131lisapeet

Jun 3, 2019, 10:33 pm

132cindydavid4

Jun 5, 2019, 11:20 am

Finally, this retched school year is over; starting with a new director who decided to turn every thing that worked upside down, led to the closure of my school which had made great strides in educating young children with special needs, and basically being a mini Trump. Decided this was a good time to retire, so I did (and I wasn't alone; among our 25 staff, only 5 are staying with the district, the rest moving or retiring. In the larger dept, the district is bleeding the most experienced personnel. ) Not sure what retiring is going to look like yet, but now, for the first time in a long time, I am able to pick up a book relax, not think about anything and just read. So I started Polio for a history book group, and have the new Pico Iyer memoir, the invisible library , and the sympathizer on tap. My reading has been abysmal the last half year, hoping to get back on track soon! My sis is getting me a much needed massage to celebrate my retirement, and then I should be as good as new!!!!

133laurenbufferd

Jun 5, 2019, 1:05 pm

Yay for Julie and Cindy. I hope you both find that next. great.thing.I am reading the new Obreht Inland

134lisapeet

Edited: Jun 5, 2019, 1:24 pm

I just got Inland. It looks cool. She was at the Day of Dialog event that I did on another panel and she talked it up really well. She also had on a fantastic long jacket with huge flowers that would have looked like upholstery on someone who couldn't pull it off, but she totally worked it.

And good for you, Cindy! Sorry about the shitty year, but sounds like you got out from under (not that you had a choice, I guess).

135JulieCarter

Jun 8, 2019, 8:43 am

I'm jealous of Cindy, because I still have to go back to work (probably for the rest of my life, because I have almost no retirement savings)! But can't wait to do a whole lot of loafing around for a few weeks or months! After I finish Beartown (meeting is tomorrow, so I'll have to finish it tomorrow), the biggest decision I have is what book to read first! It's amazing when I just sit on my bed and look around at all the books I have and they all look incredible. There are like 50 that I want to read RIGHT NOW.

136cindydavid4

Edited: Jun 10, 2019, 3:14 pm

Finished Polio; for those who enjoy well written historica/scientific book, this is among the best I have ever read He covers so much, and I could not put the book down! Will hav to look for a few of his othr books (Kat, I assume you know this one? Any comments?)

Thanks for the nice comments. I went down to tucson this weekend to visit with buds, and it was so nice to relax and not worry about Monday (julie, my sympathies; I hae been in that boat. But happyreading!)

137lisapeet

Edited: Jun 13, 2019, 7:19 am

I just read Ted Chiang's Exhalation , which I liked. He walks down the aisle between sf and philosophy and pulls in both sides for each story—so "What's Expected of Us" looks at the conundrum of free will through a sf/tech lens, and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" is a take on AI and tech obsolescence that turns it into a philosophical/moral issue, bringing in not just the expected Uncanny Valley musings but also thoughts about agency, animal rights, parenthood, and consent. The collection reminded me of reading sf as an early teen, when the good thoughtful stuff (hello, Dangerous Visions ) was new and sparked all sorts of deep thoughts... none of Chang's plots is particularly radical, but he approaches them in novel ways and writes well.Every time I said I was reading this, people would tell me that his last collection, Stories of Your Life and Others , was the real killer, so I'll probably be librarying that one up one of these days. But now for something completely different, and I'm packing Red Clocks for my commute, a donation to my TBR pile and recommendation from Lauren.(I'll join you in never getting to retire, Julie. But at least you're getting a break!)

138cindydavid4

Jun 13, 2019, 10:51 am

Ok so since January I have finished 10 books, about half my usual. Now in the last week finished two, and just started Overstory which I am happily very much into. The dam has finally broken and I think I can now start reading normally again, Wheeeee! Now just have to decide what I will bring to the beach with me.....

140laurenbufferd

Jun 14, 2019, 4:46 pm

Did you love Trust Exercise ? I did. It's just a wicked novel that upends anything you think about fiction. I know it didn't work for a lot of people but I am in awe of her. I shrieked when I got to Part III felt very underwhelmed by Inland , it feels like its 100 pages too long and even though the writing is good - very good in some places - the plot is a mess and it's way over researched.I have like 1000 books to read so I'm just going to pick something off the pile.

141DG_Strong

Jun 16, 2019, 11:32 am

Lauren, I did -- it really was quite a surprising book. I actually think it's a little tough to recommend -- well, to like regular people -- because it's hard to talk about BEFORE people read it.

142cindydavid4

Jun 18, 2019, 12:03 am

Well, gave up on Overstory. Loved the premise, thought the writing in the first two sections was second to none, related and cared about the multiple characters, then there comes a moment when all the hammering over the head was giving me a headache, the characters started sounding alike, and the whole thing was just so depressing. I'll be interested in what others think.

143lisapeet

Edited: Jun 19, 2019, 6:39 am

Thanks to Lauren's recommendation and handoff, I read Leni Zumas's Red Clocks . I'd stayed away from it when it first came out because it seemed like a bit of a Social Issue Flavor of the Week novel, but I'm so glad it was literally put in my hands because it was great. Really lively, solid writing, without the heavy-handed message I was dreading. That sounds like faint praise, and I don't mean it that way—rather that the story was interesting and nuanced and moral-free (other than the obvious thought that no one should legislate what women do with their bodies), and in fact a lot of fun to read.Now on to The Wolf and the Watchman , historical thriller that a few LibraryThing folks recommended and that's what I'm in the mood for.

144southernbooklady

Jun 19, 2019, 10:41 am

145Kat.Warren

Edited: Jun 20, 2019, 12:03 am

I'm about halfway through "Red Clocks" and not yet feeling the love, rather mildly entertained. Msybe the latter half will perk me up.

146laurenbufferd

Edited: Jun 20, 2019, 5:04 pm

I admit it took me two tries with Red Clocks and I really thought I knew where it was going so when it didn't, I was thrilled. And I did find all those names - The Healer, The Biographer a bit heavy handed. BUT. I still thought it was a great.dg, yes I know! Impossible to talk about. Try reviewing it. Rueful emoji face here.I am reading a Ntozake Shange book called if I can cook/you know god can which is a bit like spending a few afternoon with a nutty but wonderful friend who has a lot of opinions and take wonderful trips and meets incredible people while you just have a boring old life. It's super fun, short, and makes you hungry even though I can't cook or eat most of what's in the book. Its kind of a Black Arts movement cookbook/memoir.I am also reading a novel that came from one of the wonderful magical shelves at Lisa P's house Fame Gold Citrus about a eco-disaster that turns all of southern California into a RL desert. It's creepy but I like it.

148Kat.Warren

Jun 24, 2019, 8:18 pm

Hmmm, I have a strong stomach but likely not in the mood to test it just now.

149laurenbufferd

Jun 25, 2019, 1:00 pm

Fame Gold Citrus lost me about midway through. I really thought the premise was clever and I liked her writing but the plot just got so....plotty and when it took a turn toward abusive cult leaders and underground caverns, I just kinda lost interest.

Reading Florida the short stories by Lauren Groff.

150Limelite

Edited: Jul 3, 2019, 4:12 pm

Gawd I love the writing of Collette ! Just finished (in translation) La Vagabonde , orig. published 1910. The reading experience one has with her is like being seduced, enchanted, and transfixed. She completely inhabits the reader's mind such that one feels that one inhabits the heroine's own. Talk about spell-weaving.What a fabulous literary trick to have in one's bag!

151cindydavid4

Jul 4, 2019, 4:11 pm

152Limelite

Jul 4, 2019, 5:22 pm

Another Collette novel that impressed me is Cheri . Have you read it? Entirely different in effect produced -- brittle writing about brittle people. The subject is what happens in an affair between a "courtesan" of a certain age and her younger lover when his status changes from single to taken. Merciless.Definitely a later novel.Unfamiliar with movie you refer to. . .? Also ignorant of "The Good Wife." Another movie?

153DG_Strong

Edited: Jul 4, 2019, 6:32 pm

I gotta say my jaw dropped when I got to "juvenile," Cindy -- I think Colette is the very opposite of that! Knowing, sophisticated and devastatingly cruel and funny at times...I am grasping for even a hint of juvenile in any of it!

154cindydavid4

Edited: Jul 5, 2019, 12:08 am

sorry.....maybe that wasn't the right word. I know i was blown away by the movie;; I'd never heard about her, and so wanted to read her work. perhaps I needed to stick with it more. But I do want to read her; I'll try Cheri; what else do you recommend? https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/colette for movie informationThe Wife is a movie based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer. Book is great and movie is a decent adaptation. Anyway both movies tell a simillar tale about creative ownership.

155DG_Strong

Jul 5, 2019, 8:34 am

My most-worn Colette is The Complete Colette, which sounds like a cheat as a recommendation, but it isn't! I think that volume is out of print now, but I'd go for The Collected Stories of Colette first. There are also the famous Claudine novels and Cheri, among others -- I quite like The Vagabond.But you're probably more familiar with her than you think -- Gigi is based on a Colette story.

156laurenbufferd

Edited: Jul 5, 2019, 12:13 pm

Love love love love love love love Colette.I am reading a total bookballoon book- The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy - a gamechanger in the history of Canadian lit, perhaps the first book from the POV of working class urban French Canadians. It reminds me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn except its less coming of age and more slice of life - the young woman who works at the five and dime and supports her fmily, the beleaguered mother and ne'er do well father, her handsome on-again off- again suitor, the boys who are joining up to fight in Europe (it was published in the mid 1940s), all against the backdrop of the St Henri parish with the factories, churches, and poverty, looking up the mountain to the wealthier Scottish and English neighborhoods. It's a gem.I stumbled across a copy in the cheapie shelves of the local used book store but there are plenty out there and you all need to read it.I tried reading a Kathy Reichs thriller because it was set in Montreal but it had everything I don't like - animals getting hurt, serial killers, psychosexual hijinks, and pages and pages of forensic stuff. Not for me.

157Pat_D

Jul 5, 2019, 4:20 pm

I'm still trudging through The Mueller Report . It's slow going mostly because it's so dry. I thought I knew pretty much all there was to know about the 2016 election/transition/obstruction of justice, but it's truly mind-boggling, frightening, and infuriating.If you haven't watched the documentary about The Voter Suppression Playbook narrated by Jeffrey Wright, Rigged , you really should.

158southernbooklady

Jul 5, 2019, 6:17 pm

Click click click.A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is my personal gold standard coming-of-age story. I think I've read it at least fifty times.

159lisapeet

Jul 5, 2019, 8:46 pm

160Limelite

Jul 5, 2019, 10:28 pm

Wasn't posting here when I recently finished a new-ish novel by Canadian writer, Patrick deWitt who you may know as the author of the incomparable cowboynovel, The Sisters Brothers . The new novel is nothing like. It displays the wide ranging talents of the author because it's excellent in an entirely different way, being poignant, warm, and deeply understanding and tender of its characters.So, if you like quirky characters, odd lifestyles, unexpected behaviors, and novels that take a deep look at the human condition without sacrificing humor, give French Exit a try. The title is a pun in so many ways. . .you may wish to count them!

161lisapeet

Jul 6, 2019, 7:56 am

Lots of Patrick deWitt fans here, and many folks (myself included) liked French Exit . I don't usually love books that aim for quirky, but I thought deWitt pulled it off with real affection for his characters, and more depth than is apparent on first glance. And Little Frank is one of the best cat characters ever.

162DG_Strong

Jul 6, 2019, 9:33 am

French Exit came in first on the 2918 round up of Book Balloon's favorite books that Julie does. That list again:

French Exit - Patrick deWitt
The Library Book - Susan Orlean
Mean - Myriam Gurba
Circe - Madeline Miller
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - John Carreyrou
The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin
Heart Berries - Terese Marie Mailhot
Improvement - Joan Silber
Less - Andrew Sean Greer
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life - David Quammen

166cindydavid4

Jul 7, 2019, 12:33 pm

Story of a Marriage was excellent but my fave of his is The Confessions of Max Tivoli . So much better than Benjamin Button and should have been made into a movie. Think I may need to reread that >155 DG_Strong: But you're probably more familiar with her than you think -- Gigi is based on a Colette story.Oh right, I did know that (saw the movie and musical,never read the book) And I found Cheri and Vagabound, so I will try those.Another fan of French Exit.

167cindydavid4

Jul 7, 2019, 12:39 pm

168Limelite

Jul 8, 2019, 7:21 pm

Don't think Besson's novel will be read by me. Looked at several comments about it and it doesn't seem in any way original. But that doesn't mean I'm right, it just means I am easily swayed when people use the word "gray" in a book review; I hear polite euphemism for dull. My loss."Achilles" has been on my Kindle for years but haven't got around to reading it. Will have to shift my bones and get busy. As a YA, I loved the series of books by Mary Renault on Greek heroes/kings. They fired my imagination and probably inspired me to dip my toe into the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, a mini-hobby that has given me much delight through the years.To happier and lighter themes, in line with the surface of "Exit," and referencing French authors, may I suggest the Little Gems by Antoine Laurain ? His novella, The President's Hat is a superb humorous political satire, using the device of Miterand'straveling from one temporary owner to another and the strange endowments it confers on them while they possess it. It's a very French story in style and humor. He's also written(no Touchstone), which I have but haven't read yet.There's something about the French when it comes to writing succinct biting novels. Which reminds me of something else French! (I could go on and on!!!) Has anyone here seen the film? I love it! https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ridicule-1996

170Kat.Warren

Edited: Jul 10, 2019, 1:58 am

Peace to you, Lisa. That’s a whole lot of grief and aggravation. Sending love to your black kitty.

I am reading three books: Jill Ciment’s new one, “The Body in Question,” so far quite good. Adored her “Heroic Measures.” And, Marlantes’ “Deep River.” Also, Alison Light’s “Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury.”

172cindydavid4

Jul 13, 2019, 10:37 pm

So DG will be happy to know that I came across Earthly Paradise: Colette Autobiography from the Writings of a Lifetime which i am enjoying. and plate of shrimp I also got in the mail Patrick Leigh Fermoor a Life in Letters.

I love this idea, of using the letters (in his case) and writing (in hers) to not only explore their lives but their work as well. I know less about Colette so I am eager to learn more (and have couple of her books coming my way) And I like the Fermoor book much more than I liked the bio from a few years ago. I am back to liking the man again.e Anyway so I am alternating between the two this week.

173DG_Strong

Jul 14, 2019, 11:26 am

I CAN SLEEP AT NIGHT NOW!

175laurenbufferd

Jul 14, 2019, 12:51 pm

Sometimes I think it really matters where you start with a writer. I think you will enjoy Earthly Paradise, cindy.I spent most of the week reading Jacqueline Woodson for an upcoming review I'm doing. The new book felt a bit underbaked and I don't know, over determined - with boxes being ticked off rather than anything being fleshed out. But I thought Another Brooklyn was really great.Lisa P, have you read these?I started Smallbone, Deceased and it's just the kind of the light clever slightly tongue-in-cheek British mystery that can make a Saturday afternoon pass by very quickly.

176cindydavid4

Edited: Jul 14, 2019, 4:49 pm

The first section of Earthly Paradise, of her childhood is filled with vivid passages of her mothers love for life, and for her child; and how much love Colette had for her. Just lovely. Need to put my mothers house and sido on my list.

177DG_Strong

Jul 18, 2019, 7:25 pm

I knocked out The Falls of the Wyona over last night and this morning. It's very beautifully written -- its cover tricks you into thinking it might be a YA novel; it's not, but there's nothing in it that could keep it from it, other than some language and a few dick things. There are some anachronisms that drove me bats, though -- it's set just after WW2 and there's a specific "Atlanta Braves baseball cap" reference, and someone is called a "spaz," both of which are a couple of decades early. There are a few society/behavioral things riiiight on the edge of believability, especially since it's set in an isolated Appalachian town where electricity is still relatively recent and there's a whole big scene about the first TV in town. It's got a lot of good writing in it, though, and I'll look for his next book.Now I'm on to my next big self-test. After my year of Trollope a few years ago, I'm attempting the 20 volumes in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle. I'll never finish it, but it's fun to know what my next book SHOULD be for the next five or six years if I'm ever stuck on something else. So today I got a chunk of the way into The Fortune of the Rougons . We'll see how it goes.

179lynn_r

Jul 20, 2019, 3:56 pm

None of my links worked - I’ll try to edit.

180lisapeet

Edited: Jul 21, 2019, 8:09 am

Lynn! So good to see you (and looks like you fixed all your links). Hope things are well with you. I had been eyeing A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World (of course I was), and NYPL has the ebook, so I'll put it on my list—thanks!We're having an ugly heat wave and are all phenomenally uncomfortable—the 22-year-old ACs are not pulling their weight (imagine that), plus we've spent most of it downstairs with Dorrie, who can't even make it up to the nominally air conditioned bedrooms, giving her sponge baths and lots of water with ice cubes in it. Torrential rains plus jury duty tomorrow. Let's just say I'm very cranky, was supposed to get a bunch of work done this weekend (cf jury duty) and didn't because my brain has turned to mush in the heat. What I have been doing is goofing around in You Are a Kitten! , a crazy little hipster choose-your-own-adventure book that Lauren B sent me from Drawn + Quarterly in Montreal. That's about all I had the attention span for yesterday, but it was perfect (and yes, there are kittens in peril—that's thepart—but it's over the top and the kitten always bounces back!).Lauren, I haven't read any Jacqueline Woodson, though she's hugely popular among work folks, and I think may have spoken at an LJ event.

181laurenbufferd

Jul 21, 2019, 10:56 am

lisa, I think Brown Girl Dreaming and Another Brooklyn really worth reading. I didn't love this most recent but YMMV. And I knew that kitten book would be good for something!I was on lots of trains and planes this week and read My Ex-Life which was just right and Insidious Intent which did what it was supposed to do but without making me want to read another.

182cindydavid4

Jul 21, 2019, 2:34 pm

Finished PLF: A Life and Letters; once I got passed a certain point, the name dropping didn't bother me and I was hooked. I esp loved the letters that dealt with the actual writing of his books. Very well edited. At first I wished for more letters from his travels then realized that his books do that for me. Now rereading broken road , the final book in his series that was posthumously published, using what he had already written as well as with lettrs. Liked it before; now tho with more background how it was put together, liking it even moreFound anothre Colette book i think lots of you would love creatures great and small , full of all sorts of little conversations her animals have, along with some animal short stories. I found some of it a bit much but loved the stories

183cindydavid4

Jul 21, 2019, 2:41 pm

lynn how great to see you again! Hope all is well. I have lost track of Kaye the last few years so missed that one; Ill pick it up, thanks for the heads up

184laurenbufferd

Jul 21, 2019, 3:30 pm

cindy, I love thinking that you are well on your way to being Colette's #1 fan!

Hi Lynn!

185Kat.Warren

Jul 22, 2019, 6:21 pm

Thanks, Lynn. Good clicking there for me.

186laurenbufferd

Edited: Jul 25, 2019, 10:08 am

Reading and really really enjoying Crudo

187lisapeet

Jul 25, 2019, 8:51 pm

Casting around for a way to break up the 900-plus page Ninth Street Women to get a little fiction into my brain, I had the idea to finish up some of the short story collections I read part but not all of for last year's LJ Best Books. First on my list was my favorite of the unfinished, Mark Slouka's All That Is Left Is All That Matters . And the last few stories didn't disappoint. It's a very elegiac collection, often melancholy but never sentimental, even as the characters contend with losses both small and enormous. Slouka is strong on the form, with a deft control of language and, in particular, plotting—each of his people, even the youngest, meets some form of great change head-on and has to shift their own inner map, either subtly or on a grand scale, and it's to his credit that all are different and seismic in their own ways. A recurring young protagonist, the son of Czech immigrants (as is the author), is particularly engaging as he grapples with his emerging awareness of family dynamics during late-1960s lakeside summers.Notable stories for me were "Dominion," "The Hare's Mask," "August," and one, "Dog," was so deeply affecting and disturbing—yet beautiful, and really masterful—that it made me sob, and I can't remember the last time a short story did that (Read last fall, and I don't think I can ever read it again, either.) This is a lovely, very adult, body of work.

188Kat.Warren

Edited: Jul 26, 2019, 1:31 pm

“A Boy and His Dog st the End of the World” was a very good read for me.

189laurenbufferd

Jul 28, 2019, 12:39 pm

Lisa, did you read Crudo . I loved it. I was predisposed not to like it - I read the review and it sounded pretentious and stupid and for me, the jury is out on autofiction or whatever that's called when you are writing about yourself but as a novel. And I really wasn't sure about the Kathy Acker part. But I was pulled in immediately and fascinated, it's the closest I've come to reading about what it feels like to be alive right now - the distractions of social media, the fragmentary nature oftime, the difference between being alone and lonely, selfishness and empathy, what it means to be married, the feeling of low level depressive sledge that so many of us find themselves in since the Trump election, the rise of the new right. I just thought it was an EXTRAORDINARY piece of fiction and I'm eagerly wanting to read everything by her right now.I also read an interview with Laing in the Paris Review and found that very illuminating.I read Strange Shores and found it very satisfying.

190lisapeet

Jul 28, 2019, 5:11 pm

191Limelite

Jul 29, 2019, 9:08 pm

The rollicking adventures of genetics professor, Don Tillman, whose autistic compulsive self is hillariously flummoxed by his relationship with Rosie whose genius is affected by her own quirky personality as they struggle to move forward in a normal world full of normal people. Book two of three, The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

192lisapeet

Aug 2, 2019, 11:52 am

I figured I'd do the same as I did with the last short story collection, and pick up Lydia Millet's Fight No More where I left off last fall. But as soon as I started reading I a) remembered how much I had liked it and b) realized I didn't remember enough of the nuance of what I'd already read to do justice to it, so I started from the beginning. And I'm glad I did, because the linked short story format is really done justice here. While the stories center around the same general area of white, upper-middle-class (with some exceptions) Los Angeles, and are loosely gathered around the theme of home and family—the central character is a realtor—it's up to the reader to find deeper connections than what's apparent on the surface. Real estate/home is a bulwark against loss, and family is what you're born into but also what you build—also to shore against loss, not to mention against that family you're born into. Sometimes the characters can be a bit cut and dried—you pretty much know who you should root for and who are the bad guys from the beginning—but Millet's enormous compassion for the good ones buoys the book. The writing and dialogue are both terrific, and Millet does the hard-won release of dark humor very well. I'll be seeking out more of her work.I just started, for review. Rebecca Solnit edited this batch, so I'm guessing they're going to be more political than human interest, though I know the editors have a mandate to mix it up a bit. The type in this galley is sadly small, so I'm hoping an e-galley shows up before I'm done. But good lighting makes up for inadequate vision for the most part (and maybe this will inspire me to get decent reading glasses—the prescription I currently have is all wrong and only good for writing/drawing). And still reading Ninth Street Women

193laurenbufferd

Aug 3, 2019, 10:51 am

Lisa, did you read Heads of the Colored People ? A very strong collection of stories from a new writer - identity, blackness, academia, what it's like to be the only black body in a white space - like a yoga class, for example. I found a few of them too glib or with the kind of twist ending I don't care much for - I think she is still working out the right way to inject humour into her stories - but I thought some of them astoundingly good.

195laurenbufferd

Aug 3, 2019, 3:28 pm

Is that the Nez Perce book? If so, nope.

196lisapeet

Aug 3, 2019, 3:34 pm

No, it’s Lydia Millet linked short stories—my little review above.

197laurenbufferd

Edited: Aug 9, 2019, 12:36 pm

Still nope. But I would. :)I tried and tried to read Murmurs by Will Eaves but it just didn't take. I'm no dummy but I was baffled and aggravated at every turn. Was it beautiful? I don't even know. Disturbing, yes. A dreamy strange convoluted text about Alan Turing. Do sentences have to make sense? was the question I kept asking myself over and over.It's hard not to dislike a book that you makes you feel lacking.But Nancy, I am finally reading the Peggy Seeger memoir that you gave me at Christmas (two Christmases ago?) and it's fantastic. She has a wonderful funny engaging style and it's really like going to someone's house and they throw the door open wide because they are so glad to see you and sit you down with a good cup of coffee and start talking. Or bring you from room to room and let you know what they remember. It's awfully fun. First Time Ever I'm sub djing for someone's show this weekend - an hour of music by women and I'm using the memoir as my jumping off point - Peggy, her mother Ruth Crawford Seeger, her step daughter Kristy Maccoll. It's been super fun to put together.

198Nancy_Sirvent

Aug 9, 2019, 1:21 pm

Lauren, I'm so happy to hear that! I love a book-gifting victory!

201DG_Strong

Aug 9, 2019, 7:42 pm

So my ridiculously high-falutin' quest to read all 20 volumes of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle is 1/20th over; The Fortune of the Rougons is a whopper of a first volume. I mean! It ends with"But the strip of pink satin fastened to Pierre’s buttonhole was not the only splash of red that marked thet triumph of the Rougons. A shoe with a blood-stained heel lay forgotten under the bed in the next room. The candle burning at Monsieur Peirotte’s bedside, on the opposite side of the street, shone in the darkness with the lurid redness of an open wound. And far away, in the depths of the Aire Saint-Mittre, a pool of blood was congealing on a tombstone."and you just shiver at the promise of the next book.

203Limelite

Aug 11, 2019, 1:46 pm

I think your bullet found its mark. What an ending! Makes it sound like this might have been originally serialized in some Paris newspaper.

204Kat.Warren

Aug 11, 2019, 2:19 pm

Reading has not been easy for me of late, too many interruptions and distractions, but I enjoyed the hell out of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World.

205cindydavid4

Aug 12, 2019, 9:49 pm

I just read an essay in the NYT entited The Surfer's Secret to Happiness, how the author learns to, if not quite accept, perhaps discovers part of herself as she reflects on her illness and disability. Really beautifully written, apparentlly she died of cancer in February. Made me so sad that this wonderful voice is no more. Her name is Ellis Avery, and I just found out she has two novels , a book of poetry and a memoir. I plan to pick one up, just curious if anyone has read her before.

209Limelite

Edited: Aug 13, 2019, 7:52 pm

Thanks for the title. I'll ck it out.There are a considerable number of fiction works, especially in the last 5 years or so, that are stories built on people on the autism spectrum. For the most part they are feel-good tales. "Vikings" is interesting because it does not feel (in the first few chapters) like that.It bodes danger ahead, perhaps even tragedy, but Zelda is inspiring in that she's trying to be the heroine of her own legend that she is trying to create. Perhaps it's darker in mood because the disability in this book is fetal alcohol syndrome. There are moments in the novel that jar me because the author seems to forget his heroine's disability. But my impression could come from my experience of only being familiar with more acute or profound FAS patients than Zelda is supposed to be.It's interesting to speculate why autism, especially higher functioning same, is such a popular affliction so many authors seem to give their protagonists. Why the sudden fascination, like we saw 10 years ago and until recently, with vampire stories? (An "era in literature I am glad has past!)P.S. Would it be worthwhile to start a thread on the subject of fiction featuring mental disability? I enjoy thinking and chatting about it but don't want to hijack this thread.

210Nancy_Sirvent

Aug 13, 2019, 11:31 pm

That's an interesting idea, Limelite. I'd love to know what books come to mind for people.

211cindydavid4

Aug 14, 2019, 12:33 am

212cindydavid4

Aug 14, 2019, 12:56 am

213lisapeet

Edited: Aug 14, 2019, 6:36 am

Although I'd use "differently abled" rather than "disabled." I don't think Peter Dinklage would put himself in the latter category. And instead of "mental disability," call it "neuro-atypical." Don't forget there are many more people reading this than are participating, and it's a good thing to avoid being hurtful.

Not meaning to be a scold, but I'm an editor and those kinds of language issues are things I deal with all day. It really does matter to folks reading along.

214Nancy_Sirvent

Aug 14, 2019, 7:50 am

IMHO, if there's going to be a new thread, I think it should be about books only. Movies and TV shows have separate threads already.

215alans

Aug 14, 2019, 9:58 am

DG I've wanted to read the Zola series in chronological order for a long time! I've read a few of his book randomly and I really enjoyed them, although they are hugely depressing. One is about
a woman who has to live under a stairwell. Maybe I will pick up the book you just finished. I've also wanted to read all of Balzac in order but the first one sounds so boring I don't think I can
do it. I think it's a historical novel and I've tried and well......

216cindydavid4

Aug 14, 2019, 10:49 am

218Kat.Warren

Aug 15, 2019, 3:26 am

Another Zola fan here. Yes, read in order. I read them all in Penguin paperbacks, a feat my eyes no longer can do.

Neuro-atypical is useful in some cases. Yet, just as there is physical illness, so is there mental illness not to be confused or conflated with neuro-atypical.

219lisapeet

Aug 15, 2019, 6:52 am

220Limelite

Aug 15, 2019, 1:23 pm

OK! I've done it. New thread on literature and books about and by the differently abled is here:

221Kat.Warren

Aug 15, 2019, 2:39 pm

Lisa: Five years ago I would have snickered at a post like this and filed it under "PC," but in the course of my work I'm seeing how much words and categories mean to people.

Big yes to this, Lisa

222laurenbufferd

Aug 15, 2019, 5:06 pm

It is smugly, isn't it, Lisa. I'm not sure what to make of it. The writing is gorgeous, I mean DROP DEAD. But it's so miserable - about a woman deciding whether or not to start a family. Almost 200 pages of such. And she is just so immobilized by this - I don't know whether this is a really a novel about depression or what all,

In the passage I just read, she and her husband and first child are on a vacation. She is pregnant with their second child. They get to Florence and the husband and daughter go on to the rental flat to get it set up, leaving her in a hotel overnight, to follow after the rental place gets organized. AND she's complaining, unhappy, lonely, wrong time of year, bad weather. I'm like, lady, you are in mother$%^&*ing Italy, get over it.

So, that.

224cindydavid4

Edited: Aug 16, 2019, 10:39 pm

Now reading Electric Hotel and enjoying the heck out of it; Love the silent film era and am always seeking out books like this. His book about the Luminer Brothers The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerrea few years ago was also very good.

226laurenbufferd

Aug 17, 2019, 9:16 am

Isn't it fun? I really enjoyed it and reviewed it here. https://bookpage.com/reviews/24050-dominic-smith-electric-hotel-i-class-fa-fa-st... I also liked his earlier book The Last Painting of Sarah De Vos very very much.

227cindydavid4

Aug 17, 2019, 12:50 pm

I'll have to look for it, thanks! >225 lisapeet: lisa I am so jealous that you can live in a place that has everything that you can finishe a book and think of just popping over to a show.....sigh.

228lisapeet

Edited: Aug 17, 2019, 1:25 pm

229Limelite

Aug 17, 2019, 6:12 pm

230alans

Aug 19, 2019, 1:45 pm

Twenty pages from the end of Eleanor Oliphant is having a good day, and I can't remember when I last
detested a book as much as this one. I had never heard of it but a group of people in another forum said
it was their favorite of last year. ugh. The whole thing is so manipulative and dull, you feel like you're
in therapy with the main character and you just want to scream, let me out of this f----- nightmare.
I so badly wanted to throw this out the window-there was no point in continuing with it but I still find
it difficult to bail on books. Just a colossal waste of time. And the first half there is so much of this
back-shadowing-yes I suffer from trauma but I'm not going to go into that-I wanted to scream lady
either s--- or get off the pot! A most miserable experience. I think I need some Zola to clear my brain.

231cindydavid4

Aug 19, 2019, 3:45 pm

see, life is too short for me to do that. I used to give books 50 pages (tho would often check amazon to see if it might be worth going forward) but now, if there isn't something that catches me in the first few pages, I am libel to move on.

233laurenbufferd

Aug 20, 2019, 10:54 am

That's so cute! And you've got a choose-your-own adventure-kitten book under your belt too so you are doubly qualified.I also have reached that age where I don't feel like I HAVE to read anything. One page of the New Yorker story by Salman Rushdie and I listened to that little voice in my head declaiming SKIP IT. And so I did. Never had the gene for that guy and I never will.I am reading the 1619 issue of the NYT magazine cover to cover and it is a breathtaking piece of scholarship, politics, economics and arts.I am also reading Quicksand did I mention that the new Zadie Smith Collection Grand Union is excellent. There's a few snoozers or just downright odd ducks, but the stories that are good are so so good. And very very NYC. She does have an effortless breezy way with dialogue.

234lisapeet

Aug 20, 2019, 11:38 am

235cindydavid4

Aug 22, 2019, 9:55 pm

The book I just finished, Electric Hotel is about the history of cinema, then continues with photography during WWII. I found the history fascinatiing (long been a fan of silents) and loved how the author explained how movies were done without being a research hole Could have done without the modern characters , and felt that the characters seemed to lose steam in the second half..Finished Old Baggage Covers pre WII Liked the story of former suffergets who tries to influences the girls in the village in equallity. Apparently this is a sequel and I suspected needed to read it first. Lots of secrets, and lots of lectures The main character does something out of character kinda bothered me and colored how I read the rest.Started A Thousand Beginnings and Endings a collection of short stories based on folk tales of southeast asia. Love that each author explains how the folk tale influences her take on the story she wrote. Could have used a few pages to explain foreign words, otherwise really loving it.

236cindydavid4

Aug 25, 2019, 2:16 pm

Loved loved loved News of the World and cannot wait till the movie with Tom Hanks comes out (I admit that the plot sounds somewhat like paper moon,but there is enough different that its not)

237JulieCarter

Aug 26, 2019, 2:18 pm

What have I been reading...well, just finished The Left Hand of Darkness. Some other things I've read while at home: I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Good Omens, Evvie Drake Starts Over, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Luckiest Girl Alive, The Marriage of Opposites, City of Girls, Leviathan Wakes, NOrmal People, Norse Mythology, The Leftovers. Along with several audiobooks and some other less interesting stuff (lots of magazines, true crime, thrillers). See, it IS stupid work that was keeping me from reading! Jobs are dumb. We should all just be rich.

Next up, I'll be working on The Golem and the Jinni for my book club. I started TV (The Book) and read about half of it in one sitting, so I'll finish that up. And I don't know what else I'll be starting soon, but I love having the free time to choose and not feel pressured about it! Right now, I'm thinking I'll start looking for a job toward the end of the year (not the best time to look, but it'll get me started). I have a bazillion samples on my Kindle, but I'm trying not to buy any books and to read stuff I already have so I can get rid of some of these books.

(Sorry for the lack of links. Most of the books you probably already know about, but if you have any questions about any of them, let me know!)

238Nancy_Sirvent

Aug 26, 2019, 11:00 pm

I'm halfway through reading Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention by Carol Freitas. I've been lately (in years) reading lots of this stuff. Awkwardly put, but I'm blown away by the writing of so many women who've found a language to convey things that were not previously possible to convey. Does that make sense? It's fascinating and emotional and exactly right most of the time. This little book isn't art or journalism, but it's spot-on especially in the way that it drags and tortures the reader and nothing's happening but everything is happening. If you know what I mean, you'll love this memoir.

239Kat.Warren

Aug 27, 2019, 3:23 am

Living in the U.S. means we sometimes miss spectacular writers from the U.K. Herewith my wee effort to amend that loss with this Quintet of English Writers:Jane Gardam (1928 - )The “Old Filth” Trilogy starting with “Old Filth”“Queen of the Tambourine”Nina Bawden (1925 - 2012)“Family Money”“Afternoon of a Good Woman”“Walking Naked”Elizabeth Taylor (1912 - 1975)“Blaming”“Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont”“Angel”Mary Wesley (1912 - 2002)“Harnessing Peacocks”“Jumping the Queue”“Not that Sort of Girl”“The Vacillations of Poppy Carew”“The Chamomile Lawn”Alice Thomas Ellis (1932 - 2005)“The Inn at the Edge of the World”“The Summer House — A Trilogy”“The Sin Eater”

240lisapeet

Edited: Aug 27, 2019, 8:43 am

241laurenbufferd

Aug 27, 2019, 10:08 am

You had me at 'four young girls growing up in Boston'Kat, I like your list. I seem to be missing the gene for Wesley and Ellis - and believe me I have tried. But I will go to the mat for the other three, esp Elizabeth Taylor who is one of THE GREAT writers of the 20th century.I am reading Nina Stille's Reasons to be Cheerful . It's just right.

242cindydavid4

Aug 27, 2019, 11:38 am

lisa, I do understand; Ive been disappointed with Tom Hanks movies before (Im looking at you Gump!) but think it has possibilities

Ok I would like to offload a book I liked but think others would like better. If you are a pet lover AND a big fan of Colette, I have Creatures Great and Small available. Great writing, some of the bits are very funny, but for me there was a lot of repetition. You have to accept animals talking,which could be a problem for some. If you are interested let me know If too many,we'll do a drawing

243alans

Aug 27, 2019, 2:20 pm

Lisa you're my go to person for new short fiction releases. I've looked it up in the library but it's too early
to place a hold but will definitely check it out when it comes around in about a month or two. I love
the short fiction genre but I am so tired of this fantastic style that everyone is writing these days-man falls
in love with mermaid, woman turns into a flying duck-I just can't stand and I don't understand why all of
the young writers feel they have to write in this manner. Is it the Macsweeney's effect? Remember everyone wanted to write like Carver....it's just soooooo tiresome. I just can't read another collection where mothers fly, or cats start to speak in Esperanto. I think Stephen MIllhauser started this and it really
surprises me that even Larry Dark who I admire greatly, has fallen for this sort of stuff. Enough please authors, can we not move on already?! Why aren't people writing about the disenfranchised in Trump's
America. Enough of this silliness.

246DG_Strong

Aug 28, 2019, 4:34 pm

Oh, Alan, that's a good rant! Though I would read the cat/Esperanto one for sure.I'm on to Book 3 - The Belly of Paris -- in the Rougon/Macquart cycle. So far, the idea of reading all twenty seems like a breeze rather than a chore. Each one is so different, even in approach. The first was a sprawling family backstory thing, the second a very tight look at one member of that family (and his house! lots of gilded lamp descriptions and there's a lot of handrail detail) and now the third is something else. But they all fall together -- and Zola is really good at place details. We spent a lot of time in Book 1 leaning about the design of a particular well -- it was complicated! -- but it was very clearly done. I could sketch it if I had to. And all of that ended up mattering, but not in a Chekhov's gun way. I mean no one fell down the well or anything.Anyway, Zola, everyone!

248lisapeet

Sep 1, 2019, 8:35 am

There's a lot of Zola discussion going on in the Club Read 2019 group. >239 Kat.Warren: I meant to say that's a great list, Kat. I'm not sure I have the gene for British writers as a pack, though I do love Jane Gardam, and Old Filth is a lifetime favorite... I think maybe I just haven't dived deeply enough. I need to read a little more into Elizabeth Taylor, for one—you sent me one of hers that I haven't yet gotten to, so I think I'd start there. >243 alans: Glad to hear my random reading is useful! And that is a great rant... I'm not sure what drives me nuts stylistically lately, but that allegorical magic realism definitely qualifies when done with a heavy hand. There are some writers who can pull it off, but not many. And definitely when it turns into an MFA-grade trend it's time to put your energies elsewhere.I'm about halfway through Grand Union and liking it but not loving it. Though enjoying it more as I go just because she has such a fierce intelligence as a writer that pushes through (almost) all of it. Warmth, a little less so, but I think if you're going to Zadie Smith for warmth you may be barking up the wrong tree. I also just read a fabulous review of Robert Macfarlane's Underland in the summer books issue of NYRB that makes me want to drop everything and read it too.Still! reading Ninth Street Women , and I'm feeling very sad that Frank O'Hara died so young. I'm sorely wishing he was around as a handsome 93-year-old with age spots on his head, waxing lyrical from his wheelchair.

249alans

Sep 2, 2019, 12:29 am

Lisa did you see the total rave for Edwidge Danticats new collection on the NPR site? They pretty much thought it was perfect.

250lisapeet

Sep 2, 2019, 7:27 am

253Limelite

Sep 2, 2019, 3:38 pm

Finishing up John le Carré's The Looking-Glass War . When I'm approaching "the end" in books I love, my pace slows down to put off the inevitable as long as possible. I've slowed down this Cold War espionage novel for that reason. But for another reason, too -- I'm afraid of the ending.Beginning to get the feeling I know that the straight-forward agent-in-training story isn't really about what all those chapters were devoted to. I sense a betrayal coming, a manipulation by the Circus to meet their own ends, and I know it's going to be tragic.I've read too many later le Carré masterpieces not to recognize the pattern of love affair, "second vow," mission, betrayal, death. But for The Master's sake, I'll soldier on.

254lisapeet

Edited: Sep 7, 2019, 9:53 am

I finished the new Zadie Smith collection, Grand Union: Stories , and have mixed feelings about it. As I said above, she's so smart—and I think her work is best when she's showing off her brilliance as a creative writer and dialoguist (I'm sure there's an actual word for that but it escapes me at the moment), channeling other voices to weave strange and wonderful realities or provide a sharp, skewed commentary on the contemporary day. When the voice and characters are closer to her own I like the work less—there's an odd blurring of short story, memoir, and essay going on in a few of the pieces that didn't work for me, as much as I enjoy seeing the gears in her excellent brain turn. I have to review for LJ and that's going to be an interesting job... these are actual consumer reviews, not just "I liked it/I didn't" but "should you buy it for your library?" With some books, like the last one I reviewed for them ( Driving in Cars with Homeless Men ), there was very little distinction between the two. This will be more of a challenge because it's interesting and challenging and will appeal to Smith's fans (Lauren, what did you end up thinking?), and just because I didn't love it doesn't mean I want to push people away from it.Now I'm about to start another first collection, Rion Amilcar Scott's The World Doesn't Require You , which is getting super buzz so I have big hopes (as I always do when I start a book, honestly).

255laurenbufferd

Sep 7, 2019, 10:26 am

Lisa, I felt it was uneven but the good stories (Lazy River, Two Men Arrive in a Village, Kelso Deconstructed) are so good, they make up for the ones that are slightly amplified sketches or experiments that don't quite work. For me, I think she's an important enough voice TO include in a library collection and because the short story form seems relatively new to her, well, that's another strike in her favor. I think you'll have people who will want to read her because they loved White Teeth and On Beauty and younger folks who might stumble across it and feel like she's talking about a world that they know well. I agree- her ability with dialogue is just sparkling and she can effortlessly move from pop culture references to academia to gossip in a way that always leaves me a bit breathless. And she's political.Feel free to reach out to me if you want to talk through anything.I really was tickled by Reasons to be Cheerful and am reading the new Michael Crummy now The Innocents . I have a terrible feeling I know where the plot is going and I just hope to Jesus that I am wrong.

256DG_Strong

Edited: Sep 7, 2019, 5:49 pm

I can't seem to find where we put long quotations that caught our eye, so here it will go. Zola. Sorry to be boring everyone with Zola, but there are eighteen more of these books to go, SO GET USED TO IT. It's rather astonishing what he gets away with -- this is from The Kill (La Curée) , which is ostensibly about real estate speculation but then you run across this rather astonishing description of the main female character's bedroom and dressing chambers, and at some point during it, you realize that you are no longer quiiiiite reading about her, uh, bedchambers.-----"Renée's private suite of rooms was a nest of silk and lace, a marvel of coquettish luxury. A tiny boudoir preceded the bedroom. The two apartments formed but one, or rather the boudoir was scarcely more than the threshold of the bedroom, a large alcove, furnished with couches and having a pair of curtains instead of a door. The walls in both apartments were hung with flax-tinted silken stuff, embroidered with huge bouquets of roses, white lilac and buttercups. The curtains and door-hangings were of Venetian lace over a silken lining formed alternately of grey and pink bands. In the bedroom the white marble chimney piece, a real jewel, displayed like a flower bed its incrustations of lapis lazuli and precious mosaics repeating the roses, white lilac and buttercups of the hangings. A large grey and pink bed, the padded and upholstered woodwork of which was not seen, and the head of which stood against the wall, filled quite one-half of the room with its flow of drapery, lace and silk, brocaded with bouquets and falling from the ceiling to the carpet. You would have taken it for a woman'sdress, rounded, scalloped, decked with puffs, bows, and flounces; and the large curtain swelling out like a skirt made you dream of some tall love-sick wench, leaning back, fainting away, and almost sinking upon the pillows. Under the curtains it was quite a sanctuary--plaited cambric, a snowy mass of lace, all sorts of delicate transparent things, enveloped in a church-like dimness. Beside the bedstead, this monument the devout amplitude of which suggested a chapel adorned for some festival, the other articles of furniture, some low seats, a cheval glass six feet high, and chiffoniers provided with a multitude of drawers, subsided into nothingness. On the floor the bluish-grey carpet was studded with pale full-blown roses. And on either side of the bed lay two large black bearskins, edged with pink velvet, having silver claws, and with their heads turned towards the window, gazing fixedly at the empty sky through their glass eyes.Soft harmony, muffled silence reigned in this room. No high note, no metallic reflection or bright gilding broke into the dreamy scale of pink and grey. Even the chimney ornaments, the frame of the mirror, the clock, the little candelabra, were of old Sèvres, and their mountings of gilt copper were barely visible. These ornaments were marvels, the clock especially, with its circle of podgy cupids, who descended and leaned around the dial like a band of naked urchins careless to the rapid flight of time. This discreet luxury, these colours and objects which Renée's taste had chosen soft and smiling, lent a crepuscularappearance to the room, the dimness of an alcove with the curtains drawn. It seemed as if the bed stretched afar, as if the whole room, indeed, were one huge bed with its carpets, bearskins, stuffed seats and padded hangings, prolonging the softness of the floor up the walls to the ceiling. And, as in a bed, the young woman left the imprint, the warmth and the perfume of her body upon all the things. When one drew aside the double hangings screening the room from the boudoir it seemed as if one raised some silken counterpane, and entered some vast couch still warm and moist, where one found on the fine linen the adorable figure, the slumber and dreams of a Parisian woman of thirty.An adjoining spacious apartment, hung with old chintz, was simply furnished all round with lofty wardrobes containing Renée's army of dresses. Céleste, who was very methodical, classified the dresses according to their age, ticketed them and introduced arithmetic amid all her mistress's yellow or blue caprices, and kept the apartment in a state of vestry-like impressiveness and stable-like cleanliness. Beyond the wardrobes, there was not an article of furniture, and no finery was left lying about. The wardrobe doors shone cold and clean like the varnished panels of a brougham.The marvel of the suite, however, the apartment that all Paris talked about, was the dressing-room. Folks said: "Beautiful Madame Saccard's dressing room," as one says; "The Gallery of Mirrors at Versailles." This apartment was situated in one of the towers of the mansion, just over the little buttercup drawing-room. On entering it one fancied oneself in a large circular tent, a fairy-like tent, pitched in full phantasy by some love-sick amazone. In the centre of the ceiling a crown of chased silver held up the drapery of the tent, which extended cupola-like to the walls, and then fell straight to the floor. This drapery, these rich hangings, were formed of pink silk covered with a muslin of a very open texture, which was caught in plaits at intervals.A band of lace separated the plaits, and silver fillets descended from the crown and glided along the hangings on either side of each of these bands. Here the pinkish grey of the bedroom grew brighter, became a pinkish white, like naked flesh. And in this bower of lace, beneath these curtains which hid all the ceiling save a bluish cavity inside the small circle described by the crown, where Chaplin had painted a laughing cupid, looking down and preparing his dart, one could have fancied oneself at the bottom of a sweetmeat box, or in some precious jewel-case, enlarged and made to display the nudity of a woman insteadof the brilliancy of a diamond. The carpet of snowy whiteness stretched around without the least flowery design. A wardrobe with plate glass doors, and the two panels of which were mounted with silver; a couch, two arm-chairs, some white satin stools; a large toilet table, with a slab of pink marble, and the legs of which where screened by flounces of muslin and lace, furnished the room. The glasses, the vases, and the basin on the toilet table, were of old Bohemian crystal, streaked pinkand white. And there was yet another table, incrusted with silver like the wardrobe, and on which all the implements, the toilet utensils, were ranged; it was like a strange surgical case, displaying a large number of little instruments, the purpose of which was not readily guessed--back scrapers, shining brushes, files of every dimension and every shape, straight and curved scissors, every variety of pincers and pins. Each one of these objects in silver and ivory was marked with Renée's monogram.But the dressing-room had one delightful corner, and to that corner especially did it owe its fame. In front of the window the folds of the tent parted, and in a kind of alcove, of considerable length but limited breadth, one espied a bath, a tank of pink marble, embedded in the flooring and with its sides--chamfered like those of a large shell--rising to a level with the carpet. One descended into the bath by marble steps. Above the silver taps, shaped like swans' heads, a Venetian mirror, frameless, but with curved edges and a design ground in the crystal, filled the back of the alcove. Renée took a bath of a few minutes' duration every morning, and this bath filled the dressing-room with moisture, with a perfume of fresh, wet flesh for the whole day. At times an open scent bottle, a piece of soap left out of its dish, lent a dash of something stronger to this rather insipid smell. The young woman liked to remain there, almost in a state of nudity, until noon. The round tent itself was also naked. The pink bath, the pink tables and basins, the muslin of the ceiling and the walls, beneath which one seemed to see pink blood coursing, acquired the roundness of flesh, the curves of bare shoulders and bosoms; and, according to the hour of the day, one would liken the apartment to the snowy skin of a child or to the warm skin of a woman. It was one vast nudity. When Renée left her bath her fair form lent but a little more pink to all the rosy flesh of the room."--The very next paragraph is the sex scene, but I don't know why he bothered.

257laurenbufferd

Sep 7, 2019, 6:02 pm

Sheesh. I need a cigarette.

259Kat.Warren

Edited: Sep 8, 2019, 5:58 pm

I am loving this:A Summer with Montaigne by Antoine CompagnonPlus, French flaps!

260mkunruh

Sep 9, 2019, 10:01 pm

Heh. I was going to post what I'm reading, but it seems so banal after that excerpt. I'll post tomorrow.

262lisapeet

Sep 10, 2019, 7:39 am

263mkunruh

Sep 10, 2019, 2:05 pm

lol Kat.I'm reading Middlemarch for my RL book group. This is my 3rd or 4th read, but it's been at least 20 years since I last read it. The audio version, read by Juliet Stevenson, is super fabulous, so I've enjoyed reading and listening alternately. I'm almost done (everyone is currently dealing with the consequences of their actions) and I've enjoyed it a great deal, but Lydgate's money situation bothers me far more now than it did when I was in my 20s. Also, I thought I might feel differently about Rosamund, but I don't. Lots to process.In tandem, I'm reading Conversations with Friends by Rooney (in my ongoing march through the endless books I purchased on my Kindle last year) and I'm almost done The Calculating Stars which won the Hugo this year. It's an easy and largely pleasurable read, but doesn't come close to Jemisin's Stone Gate series. Someone on GGs described it as slide rule SF, and that's a good description. I like the slide rule stuff -- in the same way that I like how Ancillary series got into the making a garden work on a space colony -- but the book's reach is small and constrained, I think, by Robinette's attempt to present a 1950s world accurately.

264laurenbufferd

Sep 10, 2019, 3:02 pm

I am reading the new Michael Crummy and its pretty amazing. Its about a brother and sister living on the coast of Labrador and are orphaned by their parents very young. Their only other interaction with people is when a boat comes to pick up the cod that they trade for other supplies.It's kind of hard to describe because their relationship becomes very intense in all the ways you'd imagine but he's such a good craftsman that what would be icky in a less accomplished writer is very sensitively handled. Still, I am very relieved that some adults have shown up and proving to be very helpful.

265mkunruh

Sep 10, 2019, 3:37 pm

It's a relief when the adults are helpful rather than making a situation worse.

And thanks for the mid-read review. I'll definitely read it sooner than later.

266lisapeet

Edited: Sep 10, 2019, 8:48 pm

268DG_Strong

Edited: Sep 12, 2019, 6:04 pm

Lisa, the one consistent thing through three of them so far that has been the most surprising is how readable they are. I don't know why that surprised me, but you really do just turn the pages.

269Pat_D

Sep 13, 2019, 1:07 am

That Zola quote was quite the treat. Which translation is that, DG?

Lynn!

Sheesh. I'd forgotten how expensive it can be catching up here (and I know that's a terrible sentence).

270mkunruh

Sep 13, 2019, 11:52 am

Pat, I had the same thought! I realized that my urge to buy books goes up hugely when I read this thread. So I chant to myself, "library books are free(ish)", and go there instead.

Also, I realized I didn't also say, "Lynn!" so here's mine: Lynn! So nice to see your font. I was thinking about you a month or so ago and hoping you were doing ok.

271laurenbufferd

Sep 13, 2019, 12:03 pm

Lynn, I wish if loved the Voung more. I thought the middle section about the relationship with the neighboring kid was incredible - crystal clear, emotional, earned - every thing else was a bit too precious bordering on tedium for me - what is a country but a life sentence . blergh. But I'd read another novel by him in a heartbeat because that middle section was THAT good.

272lisapeet

Edited: Sep 17, 2019, 6:43 am

I read Rion Amilcar Scott's The World Doesn't Require You on a recent work trip that logged a good half as much travel time as time spent on the ground. It's a collection of short stories and one novella, set in Scott's invented town of Cross River, MD, site of the only successful slave uprising. The stories here are all deeply concerned with race and racism, and Scott pulls from an unusual toolbox to tell them—sf/fantasy, folklore, and some very dark social satire—to also take on religion, music hierarchies, sexism (particularly the idea of women's erasure by men), blackface/minstrelsy, and academia, which gets a whopping big twist of the knife. These aresmart, dark, and definitely challenging. They shift shape even within a single story—the novella is a bricolage of changing first-person narrative, email, essay drafts, and a syllabus—and while reading, they sometimes felt overly diffused. But there's no denying their power, and they've stuck in my head since I finished. This isn't an easy or outright entertaining book (though it certainly serves that purpose), but it's fascinating and worth reading and—though I hate making this distinction—probably importantNow reading Karen Russell's Orange World and Other Stories , a few of which I've already read elsewhere and enjoyed enough to reread this time around. Still fun stuff—she's smart and super accessible, an interesting change from my previous read.

273Pat_D

Sep 17, 2019, 9:35 am

I am a total fangirl of any read that meshes genre... well. That Amilcar Scott is right up my alley. Thanks, Lisa.

274laurenbufferd

Sep 17, 2019, 2:44 pm

Is it like Friday Black The new Michael Crummy is really powerful. It's about a brother and sisters, orphaned and eking out a subsistence existence on the north coast of Labrador. Their lives are determined by the seasons - the break-up of the ocean ice, the arrival of the cod which they catch and salt as trade, the over abundance of berries that grow in the woods and offer them some sweetness. When they hit puberty, their closeness and reliance on one another becomes more complicated and what's done in innocence becomes shameful when witnessed by their occasional visitors. Even when the novel went to exactly where I thought it would go - and frankly, dreaded, to be honest, I found it extraordinarily moving and wept at the end. I'm not sure how in the world he pulled it off but it's really good. Its really why we read fiction , I think, to understand something from a different angle, to learn, to become more compassionate.I have been jawing a lot about my lack of attention span so in the evening, I turn off my phone, go into a different room and read Villette

275Kat.Warren

Sep 17, 2019, 3:04 pm

I’m fairly panting for that Crummey.

276mkunruh

Sep 18, 2019, 1:51 pm

Kat, send me your address and I'll send you a copy.

277DG_Strong

Edited: Sep 18, 2019, 4:25 pm

"That Zola quote was quite the treat. Which translation is that, DG?"

Pat, it's Brian Nelson, the Oxford World Classics editions. Though they don't all have the same translators.

279Kat.Warren

Sep 18, 2019, 3:02 pm

Mir, that’s a lovely offer. I didn’t realize it already is out in Canada. Just ordered it, should be here in two weeks.

282mkunruh

Sep 20, 2019, 3:24 pm

I finished Middlemarch, which was fascinating. I can see why I used it to talk about Foucault's History of Sexuality eons ago. Dorothea is an important character, but it's Rosamund and Lydgate who really sit at the core of the book, I think. The final scene between Dorothea and Rosamund gave me lots to think about. No easy answers in this book.Now I'm re-reading/listening to Niccolo Rising because Audible as just released the whole series (woot) in audio (obviously). It hooked me fast, and now I'm looking for opportunities to drive long distances, laundry and even do the dishes happily. Her narrative choices are very smart and the structure of narrative forces you to listen/read very carefully (no gazing off into space for this one or you'll miss critical plot points), plus Nicollo is a fabulous character -- maybe because this was my first Dunnet, he beats out Lymond for me.I'm also reading Severance by Ling Ma, another good read (so far) for very different reasons.

283Nancy_Sirvent

Sep 20, 2019, 5:02 pm

Wow. Middlemarch. As we say in Boston, "Yous all ahh wicked smaht."

284lisapeet

Sep 20, 2019, 5:39 pm

285southernbooklady

Sep 20, 2019, 9:09 pm

287mkunruh

Sep 21, 2019, 8:10 am

Pat, I did, mainly because of you, and then I made my husband and mother read it as well! Niccolo is Rising is set around the same time, but in Bruges (mainly) and she touches on what is happening in England so Sunne was in my head, quite a bit yesterday. When I'm done my Dunnet run, because I'm going to finish this series, I think. I'll dig up the Welsh Prince series.

Niki, "crack" is a good description. She's just what I need right now -- engrossing, compulsive, and not pap.

288lisapeet

Edited: Sep 21, 2019, 6:50 pm

289laurenbufferd

Edited: Sep 22, 2019, 1:48 pm

I am re-reading Villette. Accordng to a note in teh book, I read it in 1986 and loved it. Then, tried again a few years ago and I just couldn't get through it. I blame my phone. I am now turning off phone and then taking book into another room in the house and have thus read 100 pages. Y'all, it is really really weird but so good. Talk about an unreliable narrator though. Who are you Lucy Snow and why are you adrift? Why don'
t we know anything about your early life? I suspect trauma. And who is the professor is this age of #metoo?

Fascinated and very happy.

Lisa, I am just seeing your note about Zadie Smith now and unfortunately, I worked all day yesterday and am out of pocket much of today. But if you have a specific questions, text me? Too sum up quickly, I'd say uneven but important. I think The Lazy River and Two Men Arrive in a Village manage to be classic and timeless and very specific to right now all at the same time.

290DG_Strong

Sep 24, 2019, 12:34 pm

I'm onto the fourth in the Rougon Macquart cycle, The Conquest of Plassans The third one, The Belly of Paris , was an almost pornographically descriptive three hundred pages about food. I need no more talk of sausages or gutted fish or black pudding, especially the black pudding. I'll maybe post a long quote from it later, but there's a bit about an all night sausage making (NOT THE DIRTY KIND) where Zola writes that there is so much fat in the air that it drips from the nails in the ceiling, and well, that was vivid. It's all so very, very vivid.I'm going to get through the first five -- so, one quarter! -- and then take a short one-non-Zola-book break.

291Pat_D

Edited: Sep 27, 2019, 1:35 am

So, according to Katharine Duckett, Prospero didn't give up his magical ways (actually, they got darker and darker). With Ariel's help, and after 12 yrs. on the island, Prospero and Miranda returned to Milan. Antonio's growing mad chained up in the tunnels under the palace. Ferdinand and Alonso returned to Naples to prepare for the wedding. Beatrice's sister, Miranda's spinster Aunt Agata, ran the palace housekeeping duties during their absences and is anything but welcoming. Miranda's forbidden outside of the royal boudoir without monitoring, and for some mysterious reason, without facial veiling. There's been no communication from Ferdinand. No one will answer her questions about her mother (the beautiful but long-dead Beatrice), and all the servants treat Miranda like a pariah. Except for the slave Dorothea, a feisty Moroccan witch. Miranda and Dorothea become BFF's and are determined to get to the bottom of all the palace intrigue. Meanwhile, Prospero spends more and more time down in the tunnels with his magic. Miranda in Milan is an odd duck. I thought it completely missed the boat on the best themes of "The Tempest," but the storyline kept me turning the pages. Plus, it's a very short, one-sitting read. Save your money, but consider it if you see it on a library shelf and need something while waiting at the DMV or for an oil change.

292cindydavid4

Edited: Sep 27, 2019, 12:20 pm

293lisapeet

Sep 30, 2019, 6:34 am

294cindydavid4

Edited: Sep 30, 2019, 11:25 pm

295lisapeet

Edited: Oct 1, 2019, 8:28 pm

All right, lovers of uncomfortable writing. Rag was really dark, visceral, often gruesome—all about the pull of blood and violence and how hard it can be to connect to another human being—but also kind of thrilling and very effectively written, without bells and whistles. I read straight through without blinking. Not for the faint of heart, but weirdly wonderful.

297lisapeet

Oct 4, 2019, 10:21 pm

298SPRankin

Oct 4, 2019, 10:30 pm

Oh, you should read it. There are a lot of fun things—the chapters that are in the collective voice of the CIA secretaries are good, and my favorite part.

300DG_Strong

Oct 5, 2019, 8:42 am

OK, well all of my Zola talk does not SEEM to have inspired a Zola revival (your loss!) so I'm just going to keep hollering about him into the abyss.Finishing up with #4 in the Rougon/Macquart series - The Conquest of Plassans - this morning. This is the first one with short chapters, so I suspect it was serialized in a way the previous three were not; their chapters were like fifty pages long, which made for tricky stopping places. Each book tackles a different, hmmm, moral?, question of the time (in some cases, they're more universal); this one is about religion and its hypocrisies, which sounds BO-RING but it isn't. There's a lot of comedy in it, mainly because Abbe Faujas really gets under peoples' skin and they just spin around dithering.The previous two were set in Paris; this one is back to Plassans, like the first. It's Zola's version of Aix-in-Provence; it's his Dorset, and it's not the first time a Hardy comparison has come to mind. I'm tempted to ALWAYS find a Hardy parallel but I think I'm right here.Next up: The Sin of Father Mouret , which just sounds like a Barbara Stanwyck movie. Amnesia is a plot point!

301SPRankin

Oct 5, 2019, 8:56 am

I can’t decide whether that should come before or after The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.

302cindydavid4

Edited: Oct 5, 2019, 9:29 pm

Took a break from Seuss to take up Pico Iyer's latest Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells I loved that this book is a sequel of sorts to Lady and the Monk; this one deals with loss and aging, but also about a marriage of two compassionate people who comfort and support each other. "Iyer offers us a singular view of Japan, in the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted"-

303alans

Oct 5, 2019, 11:03 pm

The Secrets We Kept has the most enticing cover.

Lisa-I live for your short fiction reviews. I think I said this before,you are my oracle,my Diana,for all that is coming out in new short fiction. Bless you!

304alans

Edited: Oct 5, 2019, 11:10 pm

I am having the time of my life with The Wife. It’s been so long since I’ve read such an engaging and moving novel that is so womanist. I feel like I’m reading Marilyn French all over again who terrified me in my early twenties. Wolitzers caustic wit and more power to women is just blowing me away. I’ve never read her before,never considered her before,haven’t seen the movie but this is such a great read. Anyone else have thoughts on her? I’m afraid her other books may be repeats of this one .

305cindydavid4

Oct 5, 2019, 11:24 pm

The book is one of my favs, Ive not read her others, but curious, if you liked this, why wouldn't you want the other books to be repeats of this one? Anyway, . Movie is not a bad adaptation; Also very interesting that the movie Colette came out around the same time; rather similar synopsis in real life.

306Pat_D

Oct 6, 2019, 8:56 am

Yes. Lisa's a treasure, Alan. Nice to see SP posting more.DG's Zola tour to Cindy's, "Took a break from Seuss..." Heh. Only here. Only here. Thanks for the chuckle.I'm loving Richard Holmes' This Long Pursuit . Could've sworn I'd read it, but maybe I'm just mixing up all his books in my head. It's been a very long time since I read his 2-vol. bio on Coleridge, but every page turned in TLP makes me want to reread that.

307alans

Oct 6, 2019, 9:43 am

I guess,Cindy if she repeats herself it would be too much of a good thing. But Isaac Bashevis Singer once said,even the greatest writers have only one story to tell.

308cindydavid4

Edited: Oct 8, 2019, 3:27 pm

edited because I was in a mood.....

310alans

Oct 6, 2019, 4:53 pm

Lisa:have you cracked open the latest BASS yet?

311alans

Oct 6, 2019, 4:55 pm

There is a line in the Wife..it just kills me,when the goyish mother finds out her golden princess has married a Jew. The narrator remarks, My mother probably thought my husband had a penis the size of a challah! That is hysterical!

312Pat_D

Oct 7, 2019, 5:27 am

No, no, Cindy. I just found the juxtaposition funny. No judgment from me on Dr. Seuss. When my son was a toddler, I'd have gone a little mad were it not for the Sleep Book

313cindydavid4

Oct 8, 2019, 3:28 pm

No worries, Pat, you were right it was funny, and I was being silly. Carry on (and I get you about the sleep book!)

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Etenal Hat.