Bragan's Tenth Thingaversary Reading, Part 1

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Bragan's Tenth Thingaversary Reading, Part 1

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1bragan
Modifié : Déc 29, 2016, 10:07 pm

Well, I'm not quite done with 2016 or 2016's reading yet, as I write this, but I figured now is as good a time as any to at least get my new thread started.

As indicated in the title, this year -- specifically, the last day of February -- marks my tenth Thingaversary. It's hard to believe it's been that long since I joined LT, although at the same time, it sort of feels like I've been here forever. I dunno, maybe one day I'll understand how that works.

Anyway, this being my 10th Thingaversary year, one of my goals will be to read at least a few of the (far, far, far too many) books that have been hanging around on my TBR shelves for the last decade or more. I've also got lots of series I'm intending to start, finish, or continue on with. Most notably, I'm planning on launching the second stage of my partial re-read of the Discworld series. Last year I made my way through the Death books. This time, it'll be the City Watch ones.

Other than that, I'm expecting my reading to be as free-wheeling as it always is, with a mixture of fiction and non-fiction covering a wide variety of subjects and genres.

And I think that's probably enough introduction. See you all in 2017, and happy reading!

2valkyrdeath
Déc 31, 2016, 10:04 pm

I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll be reading this year. Judging by 2016, I'm anticipating my "to read" list expanding quite a lot due to this thread!

3bragan
Jan 1, 2017, 4:24 am

>2 valkyrdeath: I'm looking forward to seeing what I'll be reading this year, too! I've got an amazing number of really interesting books sitting here begging me to get to them.

4OscarWilde87
Jan 1, 2017, 6:19 am

Just dropping my star here. I'm really looking forward to following your 2017 reads. Last year you made me put many books on my wishlist.

5ELiz_M
Jan 1, 2017, 9:04 am

Happy New Year! I love seeing the wonderful variety of books you read -- usually one or two make their way to my library wishlist -- and am especially interested in what decade-old books you read!

6dchaikin
Jan 1, 2017, 11:05 am

Happy New Year, Betty. Of course, I'm following. Wish you another great reading year.

7Simone2
Jan 1, 2017, 11:14 am

I have enjoyed your reviews last year so am looking forward to another year of them.

8NanaCC
Jan 1, 2017, 11:24 am

I may not post often, Betty, but I will be following along with interest.

9bragan
Jan 1, 2017, 1:44 pm

Hello, and Happy New Year to all! Glad to see all of your here! Wishing you all a great reading year, too, and I'll be equally interested to see what you all are reading. Maybe we can swell each other's wishlists. :)

10The_Hibernator
Jan 1, 2017, 9:09 pm

11bragan
Jan 1, 2017, 9:10 pm

>10 The_Hibernator: New Year's chicken! Hee!

And a very happy one to you, too.

12bragan
Jan 3, 2017, 6:15 am

And here we go, my first book of the new year:

1. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood



This is one of a series of books by prominent authors re-working the plays of Shakespeare. The play in this case is The Tempest, and the story centers on Felix Phillips, a very successful stage director known for his avant-garde Shakespeare productions. Felix's version of The Tempest was supposed to be both his great artistic triumph and his means of working out his grief over his dead daughter, but he never got to put it on, instead being ousted from his position by his treacherous business partner, Tony. Now, like The Tempest's Prospero, he's plotting revenge on those who wronged him, using the magic of the theater to do it.

It's an odd sort of adaptation, and the way the plot works out is kind of bonkers. But it's clever and inventive, and there's something about this rather meta approach that works remarkably well with The Tempest. I enjoyed it quite a bit, perhaps as much for its thoughts and insights on the original play as for the story itself, as entertaining and readable as it is.

Of course, it no doubt helped a lot that I just read The Tempest for the first time a few weeks ago and loved it. I can't imagine that anyone who isn't familiar with or doesn't care for the play is going to get a whole lot out of this one, but for those who are and do, it plays around with it in some pretty fun and thought-provoking ways.

Rating: 4/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers Book.)

13dchaikin
Jan 3, 2017, 8:43 am

Very nice first book. Wondering if you read The Tempest in prep for this, or read this as a follow up, or it was all just random chance. Anyway, cool that you read them together and could really sense how she works with the original.

14bragan
Jan 3, 2017, 9:19 am

>13 dchaikin: I admit, it was deliberate. I requested the book because I've liked what I've read so far of Atwood, and when I saw I'd actually won it, I figured it was definitely time to pull that dusty old Shakespeare volume off the TBR shelves where it'd been sitting for far, far too long and read it first. Which was an excellent call.

15mabith
Jan 3, 2017, 11:19 am

I'm still undecided on whether or not I want to read Hag-Seed. I'm not a huge fan of Atwood, but it's more that I'm deeply attached to The Tempest and don't manage to be very flexible in my thinking with regard to loved books. I think making it a play production within the book was certainly a wise approach though.

16AnnieMod
Jan 3, 2017, 12:01 pm

>12 bragan: Hm, you may convince me to give that one a chance. I read the first of the series (Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time and found it so badly re-imaged that I had been staying clear from the series...

17arubabookwoman
Jan 3, 2017, 1:07 pm

Hello Betty--I've enjoyed following your eclectic reading in past years, and hope to do the same this year. Last year I was mostly a lurker, but this year I hope to comment more. Best wishes for a great reading year.

18auntmarge64
Jan 3, 2017, 1:41 pm

Glad you liked Hag-Seed. I loved the way the plot both mirrored the play and went completely around the bend. All-in-all, the plot seemed very much something Shakespeare would have appreciated.

19AlisonY
Jan 3, 2017, 3:44 pm

Enjoyed your Hag-Seed review. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Atwood. Alias Grace I loved, but others not so much.

20bragan
Jan 3, 2017, 8:29 pm

>15 mabith: Hmm. Based on that, I'm honestly not sure whether I'd recommend Hag-Seed to you or not. I suppose it might depend on exactly what you're inclined to be inflexible about. Or how much slack you're willing to cut a character who does take a very flexible attitude towards staging the play.

>16 AnnieMod: I'd been wondering whether or not the other books in the series would be worth reading. Most of them seem to be based around plays I'm not familiar with, though, and, unlike The Tempest, don't have conveniently lurking on my TBR shelves.

>17 arubabookwoman: Hello! Best reading wishes right back atcha, and I'll be looking forward to hearing whatever you might have to say.

>18 auntmarge64: Saying that it "both mirrored the play and went completely around the bend" is the best description of the plot of that book I could possibly imagine. Which is kind of fun.

>19 AlisonY: I haven't read a whole lot of Atwood so far, myself. I read The Handmaid's Tale a couple of decades ago and remember thinking it was really well-written, but having a couple of problems with it, although I strongly suspect I'd feel differently about those today. The Penelopiad I liked OK, but appear to have found completely unmemorable. And I thought The Blind Assassin was absolutely terrific; it was that one that convinced me I really needed to read more of her.

21bragan
Jan 8, 2017, 8:35 am

2. The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman



A post-apocalyptic novel, set in a future America where nobody lives past the age of twenty-one and most die at nineteen of an incurable, inevitable disease known as "posies." It centers on a tough, smart fifteen-year-old girl named Ice Cream Star, who hears of a possible cure for the disease and desperately wants to find it in time to save her brother. From there, the story gets bigger and bigger, spiraling out into a full-scale war.

Probably the most notable feature of the novel is the dialect it's written in: an invented future version of English that appears to have grown out of modern African-American dialect, influenced, interestingly, by French. I'm not sure how linguistically plausible its details are, but it captures the feel of a familiar language altered by time and changed circumstances very well, and Newman pulls off an impressive balancing act in creating that feeling while still writing in a way that's perfectly readable and emotionally affecting. If anything, I think the way the strangeness of the dialect forced me to read more slowly and pay more attention to every sentence may have helped it be more affecting.

And I did find it affecting. The main character feels very real, the details of the world are imaginative and interesting, and the story, even as it rambled off in directions I wasn't expecting, kept me interested the whole way through. It's a very dark story, full of violence and war and tragedy and all kinds of awfulness that just get even more awful when you stop to think how very young the characters are. But there's a note of hope and strength in it that worked for me, too.

It's not a flawless book, by any means. It does ramble a bit, after all. Characters who seem as if they're going to be central to the narrative fall off onto the periphery in some slightly odd ways. And there are a lot of world-building details that, intellectually, I don't think are very believable. But it doesn't matter. It managed to hit the spot for me, anyway, in a deeply satisfying way. I think this is exactly the kind of nuanced, well-written, immersive post-apocalypse story that I wanted from The Passage, but didn't get.

Rating: 4.5/5

22mabith
Jan 8, 2017, 3:56 pm

Wow The Country of Ice Cream Star sounds wild. Glad it worked and was a great read for you. Not a book for me, but I'm happy to know about it.

23bragan
Jan 8, 2017, 5:42 pm

>22 mabith: Based on other reviews, it seems not to have worked equally well for everyone, which I totally understand. But for me, it was definitely the right book at the right time.

24valkyrdeath
Jan 8, 2017, 6:19 pm

>21 bragan: Glad to hear this is a good book. I was really interested in it a year or two ago but after looking at the first couple of pages I had to give up as I didn't understand any of it. I had the same problem with Clockwork Orange. Though knowing it's good does make it more frustrating that I just can't read it.

25bragan
Jan 8, 2017, 6:43 pm

>24 valkyrdeath: I found it surprisingly readable, although it did maybe take a little while to get completely used to it. But then, I didn't have a problem with A Clockwork Orange either, as far as I recall.

26kaylaraeintheway
Jan 9, 2017, 2:05 am

>21 bragan: Moving this book to the top of my TBR! Thanks for your review

27bragan
Jan 9, 2017, 3:21 am

>26 kaylaraeintheway: One thing I probably should have said in the review, by the way, because I think it helps to know it going in: this is apparently intended as the first in a series, so it ends a bit abruptly. It actually feels to me a little like how a season of a TV series will sometimes end if they're not certain it'll be renewed, like it's trying not to leave you hanging too much , but that also makes it clear there's a lot more story that could be told. So be aware of that, I guess! And I'll look forward to seeing what you think of it if and when you get to it. It does seem to me like there's room for a wide range of opinions about it.

28kaylaraeintheway
Jan 9, 2017, 1:27 pm

>27 bragan: Good to know!

29ursula
Jan 10, 2017, 7:50 am

>21 bragan: Not reading this review right now, because I'm a little less than halfway through the book. Did glance at the rating though. I'll come back when I finish it.

30bragan
Jan 10, 2017, 1:42 pm

>29 ursula: I'll be interested to see what you think, too!

31bragan
Jan 11, 2017, 6:31 pm

3. What Philosophy Can Tell You About Your Cat edited by Steven D. Hales



A collection of essays by philosophers, aimed at cat-lovers.

Unsurprisingly, most of the essays here, much as they might try to pretend otherwise, aren't specifically about cats at all, but rather use cats as an example to discuss topics that relate to animals in general, such as what the difference (if any) is between humans and other animals, what moral responsibility we to have to animals, and what the ethics of euthanasia are in humans vs. animals. All of which are big, complex, meaty topics, but most of the essays, it seems to me, don't really address them in a particularly deep fashion. The very best ones, I think, are the ones that prompt the reader to think about these questions without providing any easy answers.

I'd say that, of the 18 essays here, a handful of them are interesting, well-written, and interestingly provocative, whether I agree with their conclusions or not. Most are okay, but not terribly profound or insightful. A couple are painfully ill-advised attempts to be funny or cute. And two or three are just complete drivel.

Rating: A perhaps slightly generous 3.5/5

32mabith
Jan 12, 2017, 10:38 am

I think I'd be more tempted by a book about what cats can 'tell' us about philosophy, though it can perhaps be summed up with "when in doubt have a cuddle and take a nap."

33bragan
Jan 12, 2017, 2:40 pm

>32 mabith: Yes, the cat's philosophy of life is very simple, and very appealing.

34bragan
Modifié : Jan 14, 2017, 5:07 pm

4. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett



Here I go, launching myself into Phase Two of my intermittent, partial re-read of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Last year I made my way through the Death books, which were every bit as great as I remembered them. This year, I'm moving on to the City Watch books, and this first volume, if anything, is even better than I remembered. (Although the difference may be just because I remembered liking the Death books better in the first place.)

Guards! Guards! was the eighth Discworld book to be published, and it's clear that, by this point, Pratchett has thoroughly hit his stride. It has pretty much everything you expect from him: An engaging, interesting plot. Humor that, while it's not constantly laugh-out-loud funny (although it certainly has its moments), is clever and witty and does fun things with language. Good, vivid characters. A sense of narrative self-awareness that Pratchett does some very entertaining things with, and a willingness to play around with and subvert familiar tropes in some really nifty ways. (In this case, said tropes include both standard fantasy elements, such as dragons and heroes and the Return of the Rightful King, and gritty cop story elements, starting with a burned-out alcoholic police captain.) Also some sharp commentary on politics and human nature that manages to be both cynical (often in ways that really hit home right about now) and yet oddly uplifting.

In other words, it's great stuff, as usual, and well worth the re-read, especially as it'd probably been nearly 20 years since I'd last read it, so I'd forgotten most of the details. And even more especially because one of the details I'd forgotten was our first introduction to Sam Vimes, one of Pratchett's best and most iconic characters. Vimes is also the character who undergoes the most significant changes over the course of the series, and it was actually a bit of a shock to look back at where he started, knowing where he's going to end up. Heck, that alone probably would have made it worth revisiting. And if it weren't, seeing the first introduction of the redoubtable Sybil Ramkin probably would be, not least because it gave me the chance to marvel anew at Pratchett's wonderful, welcome decision to write a large, earthy, practical, unfeminine woman in a narrative role almost universally played by boring conventional beauties.

Rating: 4.5/5

35valkyrdeath
Jan 14, 2017, 5:26 pm

>32 mabith: Sounds like a great philosophy to me!

>34 bragan: That was the second Discworld book I read, after Small Gods, and pretty much ensured I became an instant fan. I love almost all the Discworld series but I think the Watch books are still my favourites.

36bragan
Jan 14, 2017, 5:34 pm

>35 valkyrdeath: I've often seen it recommended as a good place to start with the series, and I can certainly see how it's one that could hook you right in!

I'm really looking forward to getting to the rest of the Watch books.

37DieFledermaus
Jan 14, 2017, 5:59 pm

>31 bragan: - Too bad about the cat philosophy book. Sounds like it could have been a fun read but didn't live up to the title. Were the essays already written or were they commissioned for the book?

>34 bragan: - I read maybe the first 5 or 6 books and was thinking about doing a Death series only read. Do you think it would make sense to someone who hadn't read the whole series?

38dchaikin
Jan 14, 2017, 6:35 pm

Hmm, never read Guards! Guards!. I meant to. Great review.

39bragan
Jan 14, 2017, 7:04 pm

>37 DieFledermaus: I think they were commissioned for the book, although it's possible some of them might have already existed. And I will say that I at least ended up liking the book more than I thought I would after reading the first handful of essays. So that's something, I guess.

Starting the Discworld books by picking one of the subseries and just reading through that is a very common -- indeed, often recommended -- way of doing it, and I think doing that with the Death books should work just fine. It's possible you might miss a tiny reference here or there, and there are a couple of small appearances by characters from the other books, but nothing that'll be a problem. I do recommend reading the books within the Death series in order, but if you do that, everything should make perfect sense. (In its own crazy Discworld way.)

>38 dchaikin: I recommend it, but you probably could have guessed that. :)

40RidgewayGirl
Jan 14, 2017, 7:49 pm

I guess that when it comes to feline philosophy, one should stick with Henri.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M7ibPk37_U

41Narilka
Jan 14, 2017, 7:58 pm

>34 bragan: That's one of my favorite Discworlds. Your review makes me want to reread it :)

42bragan
Jan 14, 2017, 8:01 pm

>40 RidgewayGirl: LOL! I hadn't seen that before. Poor existentially depressed kitty.

43bragan
Jan 14, 2017, 8:04 pm

>41 Narilka: It is worth it!

44bragan
Jan 15, 2017, 9:04 pm

5. Good as Gone by Amy Gentry



Eight years ago, 13-year-old Julie was abducted from her home. Then, suddenly, she appears on her family's doorstep again, but it quickly becomes apparent that she's not exactly telling the truth about everything that happened to her. Or maybe about anything at all.

This isn't a bad novel. It's decently written and has a good premise, and I got more into it as I went along, which is definitely better than the reverse. But it didn't really grip me quite as thoroughly as I was hoping it would somehow. I'm thinking that might partly be the cover's fault. The words "a novel of suspense" scrawled across it made me expect something, well, suspenseful. But despite a few twisty plot revelations (the biggest of which didn't come as all that much of a surprise, though some of the smaller ones did), I didn't find this story particularly suspenseful. Mostly it's just sad, but sad mainly in that detached kind of way that reading newspaper stories about terrible things happening to strangers is sad, even if I did start feeling more genuine empathy for the characters by the end.

Rating: 3.5/5

45wandering_star
Jan 16, 2017, 10:13 am

The Death books were my favourite, too. Probably a couple of decades since I've read them, though...

46bragan
Jan 16, 2017, 10:20 am

6. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie



This small, slim volume contains one essay, based on a TED talk the author did in 2012. In it, she talks about the unfair assumptions about and expectations of women in her home country of Nigeria and in the US, why the gender-based attitudes we raise our kids with are harmful to both girls and boys, and why "feminist" is not and should not be a dirty word.

This is a topic whose discussion can and does fill a small library's worth of books, but Adiche pares the whole thing down to its essentials. The things she has to say are, at heart, pretty simple, but they're simple things that need saying, and she expresses them well. Definitely worth reading, whoever you are and whatever your thoughts about feminism.

Rating: 4/5

47bragan
Jan 16, 2017, 10:28 am

>45 wandering_star: Pratchett's Death is just such a great character. I have such a deep and genuine affection for him.

48bragan
Modifié : Jan 21, 2017, 4:24 pm

7. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi



Homegoing starts with the stories of two women on Africa's Gold Coast in the late 1700s -- half-sisters, although they have never met. The chance patterns of their lives leaves them on opposite sides of the African slave trade, one married to a white slaver, one captured to be his cargo. Subsequent chapters follow their descendants across the years and down to the present day.

This is a book that's gotten a lot of buzz and a lot of praise, and, unlike a lot of widely hyped books, I think it deserves it. It's very well-written and does an amazingly good job of making all of its characters and their lives feel utterly real and fully-realized, even though we only focus on any of them for about twenty pages each. And all of these chapters added together make up something much more than the sum of its parts: a story about humanity, injustice, pain, and love, about different kinds of freedom and captivity, and about men and women who are separated -- usually forcibly -- from their people and their pasts over and over again, but still remain connected to them in ways that we can see, even when they can't.

Rating: 4.5/5

49bragan
Modifié : Jan 30, 2017, 3:22 pm

8. The Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle



An omnibus volume containing Madeleine L'Engle's four novels feturing the Murry family. I'll comment on each of the novels here separately.

A Wrinkle in Time: The classic kids' story about a girl who -- along with her precocious baby brother and a newly acquired friend -- is called upon to save her father, who is lost somewhere in time and space.

This book was incredibly special to me as a kid. Heck, if there was one defining book of my childhood, this was unquestionably it. I first read it at the age of eight or so, then spent what seems like the rest of my childhood reading it over and over and over.

So, of course, I was more than a little trepidatious at going back to it as an adult. All too often, revisiting books that meant a lot to you in childhood is a sad lesson in "you can't go home again." So I'm pleased and relieved to report that it is, indeed, still special. Not in the same way or to the same degree that it was to me as a kid, of course. And I can see flaws in it now that were not apparent to me then, or would not have even struck kid me as flaws. The dialog has a weird, unrealistic quality even before the story itself gets weird, for instance. The physical appearance of the villain IT, which freaked me out immensely as a child, now strikes me as a cheesy SF cliche. Meg Murry, the main character, spends more time becoming distraught and asking the male characters to do something than I am entirely comfortable with. And the explicitly Christian metaphysics of the whole thing does not please adult, atheist me.

But it's still special. And I can so, so see how it resonated so strongly with me as a child. The cast of misfit characters whose misfit nature proves so valuable and so worth preserving. The science fantasy elements that seem to give us a glimpse of a universe full of profound wonders that we little humans can participate in, even if we do not fully understand them. The abstract ideas it throws around almost casually. Yes, it's no surprise this held the kind of appeal it did for the proto-geeky intellectual misfit kid that I was. (Even if there now seem to me to be an astonishing number of things that must surely have gone over my head at the time.) If anything, it's left me wondering to what extent this book meant as much to me as it did because of who I was, and how much it had a role in shaping who I was becoming.

So. Yeah. I still found it very much worth revisiting as an adult, both because I still enjoyed the story itself, and because it made me think some interesting thoughts about my past. But, man, the experience of re-reading it was weird. It'd been so long since I last visited it that I couldn't have even summarized everything that happens in it. There were entire scenes that I seemed to have mostly forgotten. And yet, there were so many moments where reading it felt less like reading words on a page and more like using the page as an aid to bring to the surface words that had been sitting buried in my brain for decades. It was like experiencing 133 pages of pure deja vu.

A Wind in the Door: This one's set a year or two after the first book, and features Meg and friends having to pass some tests or ordeals in order to save her little brother Charles Wallace's life, including going deep into a world that exists inside his cells.

My (extremely vague) memory of this one is that I read it only once, years after my initial fascination with A Wrinkle in Time, and was less impressed with it. The story was better than I was expecting based on that memory, though. If nothing else, I liked the way that it takes an extremely unlikable minor character from the first book and does something interesting and redemptive with him.

It did create some weird conflicts in my brain, though, because if anything it's even more thoroughly steeped in religious-mystical elements than the first book. L'Engle actually does a pretty amazing job of depicting a universe that, on every scale, is permeated by mind and morality, by a constant struggle between good and evil, and by love as an almost tangible force. She does this well and powerfully, and inner-kid me wants to just be swept up in the beauty and intensity of it all, while rational adult me holds back, insisting on pointing out the real-world religious viewpoints she's using as the starting point for her fantasy universe, and all the problems I have with those viewpoints. It makes for a slightly uncomfortable, cognitively dissonant read for me, but in an interesting kind of way.

Unfortunately, whatever its virtues or points of interest, it also suffers from some really terrible science. L'Engle throws a lot of astronomical and biological facts at us, and I think every single one of them, apart from the fact that mitochondria are a thing that exist in our cells, is wrong.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet: This one is set a full decade after the first book, when Charles Wallace is a teenager and Meg is an adult woman expecting a child of her own. The world is being menaced by the mad dictator of a fictional South American country, who is threatening a nuclear missile launch. Charles Wallace, with the help of a unicorn, has to travel back in time to witness the events, across the generations, that lead to this dictator's birth, and give things a little nudge at the right moment to make them happen differently.

I think I read this one at least twice as a kid, probably a few years after my first encounter with A Wrinkle in Time. My main memory seems to be that it was kind of intense, and made my brain buzz a little. Looking at it now, I'm pretty sure the feeling of intensity game from the way it played off of the Cold War terror that was always lurking in my mind at that age. The brain buzz, I suspect, may have come from difficulty in concentrating on following the story as it jumps around in time, focusing on various sets of people who all have very similar names to all the other sets.

Sadly, this one didn't evoke the same internal conflict as the previous two books, where my inner child is caught up with the wonder of the story and the emotions it evokes, while my rational adult self points out flaws and things it doesn't believe in. This time, we were both a little bit bored. That's not to say there wasn't any wonder. I mean, hey, time-traveling unicorn! And the basic concept seems like it should be pretty cool, that tracing through time to see how we got to now and how things might have gone differently. But none of the people from the past are particularly interesting, and the different time periods aren't exactly vividly brought to life.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in the way L'Engle writes the Native American tribe who play such an important part in this history. They're utterly generic Noble Savages who, as far as I can see, bear no resemblance to any historical culture. They also have a prophecy about how everything will be OK for them as long as there is evidence in every generation that they bear some Caucasian blood, which... Yeah, that's not uncomfortable at all. And, to be honest, I'm not much happier with the Cain-and-Abel narrative underpinning the whole thing, in which the lineages of good and evil brothers are forever tainted through the generations.

I'll admit, it probably really didn't do this novel any favors that I read it so soon after Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, which also traced the descendants of siblings down many generations and focused on the evil that human beings do to each other. It's horribly unfair to compare them, as they're very different books, of different times, intended for different audiences. But it's difficult not to notice which of the two gets the subject right.

All of which isn't to say that this book was awful. But, unlike the other two, it's definitely not one that's held on to much of its magic on adult re-reading. I will say, though, that, like A Wind in the Door, it does a somewhat pleasing job of taking an unlikeable, rather stereotypical minor character from the previous book and giving them an unexpected amount of depth and value.

Many Waters: In this one, twins Sandy and Dennys, the "normal" ones in the Murry family, get to have their own adventure, as they are accidentally (or perhaps not-so-accidentally) transported to what they initially assume must be an alien planet, which instead turns out to be the Biblical past.

My memory is that I read this one once, as a teenager, and didn't care for it. Which maybe isn't too surprising. At that age, I'd only just recently deconverted from the religious beliefs I'd been (admittedly rather loosely) raised with, and wanted nothing more to do with Bible stories, thank you very much. So I was, I think, quite miffed to find myself tricked into reading one. As an adult, though, I've gotten over myself a little bit and am quite capable of appreciating the Bible as a source of fascinating myth and history, if not as a basis for religious faith. And L'Engle does some moderately interesting things with the Bible story she's building on, including incorporating some of the weirder and more obscure bits of Christian mythology (Nephilim!) and taking just an eensy bit of a feminist perspective on things.

I can't say, however, that the novel itself contains a great story. Honestly, there's not really a whole lot of story here at all. So, ultimately, while I'm more forgiving of this installment than my younger self probably was, I doubt adult me is going to find it all that much more memorable than teen me did.

Rating: Geez, how do you even rate this kind of strange, nostalgic reading experience? I'm just going to give it an overall 4/5 and be done with it. If only because I'm not sure my inner child would stand for the idea of rating any volume with A Wrinkle in Time in it lower.

50bragan
Modifié : Jan 30, 2017, 3:27 pm

9. Undertale Art Book by Toby Fox, et al.



I am pretty much the exact opposite of a hardcore videogamer, but every so often I hear about a game that sounds so intriguing I have to give it a shot, and the indie game Undertale was definitely one of those. (The fact that it only cost ten bucks on Steam, and that it's got 8-bit graphics and was thus guaranteed to run even on my not exactly top-of-the-line computer helped a lot, too.) So I downloaded the game a few months ago, played it, fell utterly in love with it, and haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. Seriously, it's amazing. Great characters, great story, lots of humor, lots of emotion, some really clever meta stuff, gameplay choices that challenge you to stop and think about the assumptions behind games like this and how we usually play them... I could go on. I could go on about this game for so long, you have no idea.

So, when I saw that this book existed -- although, as far as I'm aware, it only seems to be available through Fangamer, who published it -- it was very much a case of "Shut up and take my money!"

And what did I get for my money? Well, it's an art book. There's lots of concept sketches from game developer Toby Fox (some of which are hilariously, adorably bad), as well as designs from various artists who worked on the game. Some of them feature early designs of characters, locations, etc. Other are stuff that never appeared in the finished game. There's also some very nice bits of art that were used for things like "trading cards" on Steam. There are a few cases where you get interesting glimpses at Toby's early ideas for things that got changed later. (E.g., everybody's favorite puzzle- and spaghetti-loving skeleton, Papyrus, was originally going to be a very different, and much less lovable character.)

Mostly, it's a lot of random stuff. Stuff that's probably only going to be interesting if you're a reeeeeeaaallly serious fan of the game, and capable of getting excited about any odd little snippets of material related to it. Fortunately, I am, so I enjoyed it. I mean, I was basically flipping through the pages going, "Awww, Undertale!" a lot. But it's certainly not a must-have for a full experience of the game or anything.

Rating: 3.5/5

51valkyrdeath
Jan 30, 2017, 1:29 pm

>49 bragan: I read A Wrinkle in Time last year for the first time, having never even heard of it as a kid. I liked it and feel like I would have loved it when I was younger, but I had the same issues with the Christian aspects of it. I have been considering reading the rest of the books but after seeing your reviews, I'm thinking it probably isn't worth it. That third book especially sounds like it has some disturbing connotations.

>50 bragan: Undertale was such a great game. I do play a lot of games but that one really stood out. Any game with meta aspects that say something about gaming in general and make me think always appeal to me. Those sorts of art books can be interesting to see part of the development process too.

52bragan
Jan 30, 2017, 3:17 pm

>51 valkyrdeath: I think A Wrinkle in Time itself is worth a read at any age, whether you share L'Engle's religious sensibilities or not, although I imagine it probably is best if first encountered when you're a kid. But, yeah, I'm not sure I'd recommend the sequels for an adult reader who doesn't share those sensibilities and doesn't have the childhood nostalgia factor.

I'm sure the Unfortunate Implications in A Swiftly Tilting Planet are unintentional, the product of slightly thoughtless writing, rather than active racism, and probably not even something that all readers are even going to think about or notice (and even fewer were likely to when it was originally published). I still look very much askance at it, though.

Pretty much everything about Undertale is just amazing. (Like the music! How did I forget to mention the music?!) But the thoughtful, subversive commentary it does on games in general, as well as the really clever and unexpectedly meta way it uses game conventions and game mechanics as part of the story, are what really make it stand out, I think. (And, fortunately, even if I'm not much of a gamer, I have played enough of them to understand what it's doing there, in much the same way, I think, as I had just enough experience with superheroes to appreciate Watchmen.)

And I do find that soft of art book interesting, even if it's only telling me a little bit about the development. Me being me, any time I fall in love with something, I immediately want a book about it.

53valkyrdeath
Jan 30, 2017, 6:05 pm

>52 bragan: You're probably right about it not being active racism. That sort of casual thoughtless attitude is so common in things from those eras and it's still easy to see people slipping into it these days too. It really depends on the quality of the rest of the book as to how easy it is to overlook it. When revisiting old science fiction novels now I often find myself annoyed at the attitudes towards women, where it's just casually assumed that woman = housewife, where authors can envision all sorts of amazing scientifically advanced futures but none where women actually have a life outside the kitchen.

I loved the music in Undertale, it's one of the rare games where I can happily just listen to the soundtrack. The moment where the nice friendly Flowey is taking you through the tutorial, only to then suddenly find he was lying to you and he's tricked you was the moment the game had me hooked. You've made me want to play the game again. Which I think I need to do anyway since I'm planning on making a series of videos at the moment looking at gaming as a storytelling medium and I'm definitely going to need some clips from Undertale. I'll happily take any excuse to return to it.

(Also, Watchmen, the way it set up the stereotypical superhero scenario at the end and then just completely subverted it was one of those moments where I had to put the book down for a moment to absorb what had just happened and made me reevaluate the possibilities of comics and graphic novels.)

Sorry, I'll stop rambling on your thread now!

54bragan
Jan 30, 2017, 6:47 pm

>53 valkyrdeath: That sort of casual thoughtless attitude is so common in things from those eras and it's still easy to see people slipping into it these days too.

I think people are a lot more likely to stop for a moment and think about such things now, if only for fear of being called on not doing it, and that is all to the good. But, yeah, it still happens kind of a lot.

And I've often had the same thought as you about a lot of older SF. It's amazing how imaginative people can be about things like possible future technological developments, while being utterly blind to the possibility that the social assumptions of their own times might be subject to change, too. Makes me wonder what people are going to look back and shake their heads at fifty years from now.

I loved the music in Undertale, it's one of the rare games where I can happily just listen to the soundtrack.

I confess, after playing the game, I went and bought the soundtrack. And then I bought an album of covers of the soundtrack! It's great stuff.

And that moment you mention is pretty great. It immediately challenges your assumptions, and then it never really stops.

since I'm planning on making a series of videos at the moment looking at gaming as a storytelling medium and I'm definitely going to need some clips from Undertale. I'll happily take any excuse to return to it.

Oh, that sounds interesting!

What's really funny is that I want to go back and play the game again, too, but I just can't. Emotionally, I just cannot bring myself to hit the "reset" button and start it over again, having once gotten the good ending. It feels like it would be some sort of horrible betrayal, and I can't make myself do it. Which in itself is a testament to how much the game affected me, and how immersive an experience it was. Plus, in a sense, I feel like, every minute of my life that I don't decide to hit the button and start over, I'm actually kind of still playing, which is a weirdly delightful thought.

So, when I've felt like revisiting it, or curious about what would happen if you did things differently, I've watched people playing it on YouTube instead. (Turns out, the game even expects you to do that, and calls you out for even watching someone systematically killing everything. Which I also think is hilarious and brilliant.)

Also, Watchmen, the way it set up the stereotypical superhero scenario at the end and then just completely subverted it was one of those moments where I had to put the book down for a moment to absorb what had just happened and made me reevaluate the possibilities of comics and graphic novels

Whereas I was unable to put it down for two seconds until I got to the end... at which point I just sat there for a very, very long time with my brain feeling very much blown

Sorry, I'll stop rambling on your thread now!

Not at all! That is some high-quality rambling!

55bragan
Modifié : Jan 31, 2017, 1:18 am

10. My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout



A short, low-key novel that consists mostly of a woman thinking back over the time when she was in the hospital for nine weeks and her mother, whom she hadn't spoken to in years, came and sat with her and gossiped about other people's marriages. There's a lot of stuff about family, about growing up in terrible poverty, about the tendency of people to look down on others, about marriage and relationships, about trauma... But it mostly we're just given little fragmented glimpses of all of these things, rather than being presented with any kind of cohesive narrative. Which isn't a bad thing, but it does make it a little hard to get hold of it all in my mind in order to know quite what to say about it. It is written in a style that seemed almost a little too delicate and careful, a little too self-aware, a little distancing. But since it's meant to be the main character writing it, and her writing is also part of what the novel is about, I think that style is itself part of her characterization, maybe even an effective and clever one.

Whatever it's doing, overall, it worked for me. I'm not sure it would have if the book were any longer, but for 200 quiet little pages, it worked.

Rating: 4/5

56RidgewayGirl
Jan 31, 2017, 5:56 pm

My Name is Lucy Barton seems to be a book people either love or shrug their shoulders and say "meh" to. I loved it. Strout has a new book coming out this year that is about some of the characters mentioned in Lucy Barton and I'm looking forward to it.

57bragan
Jan 31, 2017, 6:39 pm

>56 RidgewayGirl: I'd say I liked it pretty well, but in a somewhat bemused way. I'm definitely interested in seeing another book that does more with some of the characters.

58RidgewayGirl
Fév 1, 2017, 9:19 am

It felt to me like a writing exercise - and with the new book being about people mentioned in Lucy Barton, I'm keeping my theory. But Strout writes so well that I am there for all of her composition notebooks filled with random bits.

59bragan
Fév 1, 2017, 11:02 am

>58 RidgewayGirl: I think you're not wrong about it feeling like a writing exercise, but I agree, Strout is good enough that she makes it work. (And I really do think the fact that it's meant to be written my the main character, perhaps as a writing exercise, helps to justify it.)

60bragan
Modifié : Fév 3, 2017, 8:27 pm

11. The Health of Nations by Karen Bartlett



An account of humanity's attempts to wipe specific diseases from the surface of the Earth, including the historically successful eradication of smallpox, the almost-there-but-not-quite efforts at eradicating polio, the painfully unsuccessful fight against yellow fever, and the rocky but hopefully progressing campaign against malaria. There is a fair amount of focus on the key people who have been involved in combating these diseases, and a great deal of discussion of the obstacles these programs face, many of which are social, political, or geographical, rather than medical.

It's an important and interesting subject, and one that's not without its exciting features. But, I have to admit, I often found my attention wandering a little. There's some good information here, but Bartlett's writing, while not bad, isn't especially engaging. It's a bit dry, I suppose, and relies a little too much on quoting other writers. There's also less detail than I might have liked on certain subjects, and more than I really needed on others.

I would recommend this, I think, if you have a specific interest in the subject matter and are looking for a good overview of it. Maybe not quite so much if you're just looking for some gripping non-fiction to read.

Rating: 3.5/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

61valkyrdeath
Fév 3, 2017, 9:56 pm

>55 bragan: Interesting review. That book seems to cause such polarised opinions that I just can't decide whether I want to read it or not. I've got Olive Kitteridge on my list already so it will probably depend on how I find that I guess.

>54 bragan: In Undertale I actually never did a playthrough involving killing myself. If I'm offered a choice I can't bring myself to make one other than what I'd actually want to choose, and even if I do replay I end up making the same decisions. I'll have to try the video route. I can certainly understand wanting to preserve the experience by not replaying.

62bragan
Fév 3, 2017, 10:12 pm

>61 valkyrdeath: I can definitely see My Name Is Lucy Barton not being a book that's for everybody. Although it is quite short, so reading it and deciding you're one of the people it's not for at least doesn't eat up too much time. I do think I'd recommend Olive Kitteridge ahead of it, anyway, though, and that will certainly give you a good idea of whether you like Strout's writing.

I am very bad at video games, to be honest, and on my first play-through of Undertale I ended up killing a lot of people not because I was trying to, but mostly because I couldn't quite figure out how not to (or, in some cases, because I didn't have the patience to figure it out, which the game totally called me on). The resulting intense guilt I felt actually really enhanced the emotional experience of the game for me. For one thing, it made me feel much more forgiving of some of the things the characters in the game did...

63bragan
Fév 7, 2017, 8:20 pm

12. Version Control by Dexter Palmer



Version Control features a woman named Rebecca, who works for an online dating service; her husband, Philip, a brilliant physicist who has devoted his life to attempting to create a Causality Violation Device (which he would much prefer you didn't refer to as a "time machine," thanks); and their young son Sean, who, although he is gone by the time the story starts, remains an important presence. Also, to a lesser extent, various of their friends and co-workers.

It's an odd hybrid of a novel. It's partly literary fiction, complete with explorations of relationships and characters' interior lives, family tragedy, alcoholism, marital issues, and so on. And partly science fiction, featuring time travel, scientists doing science, and a near-future version of America in which the Dakotas are trying to secede from the union and everyone is constantly interrupted by personalized video chats from the President. There are also lots and lots of nerdy ramblings, about everything from religion, to Big Data, to scientific progress, to how dating sites work, to the social problems of Millennials, to the novels of Octavia Butler, to the music of Rush.

With all of that, it often feels like a weird grab bag of a book, but while it bemused me a little, and while I may have felt a tiny bit impatient with it here or there, mostly I found it reading it an enjoyable experience. But then, I think I may be just about the ideal audience for whatever this is. I like a good literary novel, am a science fiction fan from way back, and am capable of surprisingly high amounts of enthusiasm for nerdy ramblings. Also a Rush fan. Not to mention the fact that I've always found the whole idea of time travel fascinating, and this story does do some clever and creative things with the concept. Not things that necessarily make huge amounts of sense when you stop to think about them, admittedly, but they fail to make sense in ways that are interestingly different from the ways that time travel stories usually fail to make sense. And in the end, however shapeless it might sometimes feel when you're in the middle of it, the novel as a whole does take on a satisfying overall shape -- and not precisely the one I expected it to, either.

Rating: 4/5

64RidgewayGirl
Fév 7, 2017, 8:36 pm

You are pretty much the ideal reader for Version Control. Hmm, that means my husband would probably like it. I liked it much more than I expected to, it being well outside of my wheelhouse and with me usually disliking those self-indulgent "this is how time travel works" kind of discussions.

65bragan
Fév 7, 2017, 9:23 pm

>64 RidgewayGirl: I'm a little surprised by how many people who are not me seem to have liked it. :)

66bragan
Modifié : Fév 8, 2017, 6:14 am

13. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich



This is the second of the "between-the-numbers" books in Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, books that are part of the series, but shorter and weirder than the regular installments. As with the previous one, Visions of Sugar Plums, it starts with Stephanie getting a visit from Diesel, a guy with supernatural powers. (Who I think is actually a crossover character from a different series?) Where that one was Christmas-themed, though, this one features Valentine's Day, so Stephanie has to deal with various people's relationship issues and make sure everyone has a happy Valentine's Day. For... reasons.

I really do not like the introduction of weird supernatural crap into this series, not because I don't like weird supernatural crap -- I read a lot of fantasy -- but because it is entirely out of place in Evanovich's wacky but otherwise realistic version of Trenton, New Jersey. It annoyed me slightly less here than it did in the previous book, though. Maybe just because I've gotten used to it. Diesel still annoyed me, though. He's clearly meant to be sexy and amusing, but mostly he's just a giant sexist douche.

The plot is thin enough to be practically non-existent, and to the extent that it does exist, it's ridiculous, even by this series' usual standards. But there are some decent touches of humor, and it's an effortlessly quick read, at least.

Still, I'd probably really rather skip these ones, if only Evanovich didn't keep having important events in Stephanie's family's lives happening in them.

Rating: 2.5/5

67baswood
Fév 8, 2017, 5:53 pm

>63 bragan: Is Version Control one of those books that crosses over from science fiction into the mainstream mainstream.

>50 bragan: I couldn't possibly get back into video gaming - it just might take up the rest of my life.

68RidgewayGirl
Fév 8, 2017, 7:06 pm

Bas, it's an odd combination of literary and science fiction. It worked surprisingly well.

69valkyrdeath
Fév 8, 2017, 7:07 pm

>63 bragan: Good to see a second positive review of this one. Sounds like I'm right in that ideal audience too. (Aside from the fact that I don't really know much about Rush.)

70bragan
Fév 8, 2017, 8:10 pm

>67 baswood: Yes, it's definitely straddling the line between SF and mainstream literary fiction, possibly more thoroughly than any other example I've read. Most of them, in my experience, have the sensibilities of literary fiction while borrowing some of the tropes of SF. This one more combines the feel of the two genres, I think.

One reason why I play a very limited amount of video games is because the last thing I need in my life is another way to waste time. But it's nice when I give one a shot and discover that it's not remotely a waste of my time at all.

>68 RidgewayGirl: Yes, "odd" really is the word I keep wanting to use for it, too.

>69 valkyrdeath: That's OK, you don't need to know a thing about Rush. The fact that I did made one or two moments slightly more fun for me, is all.

71dchaikin
Fév 8, 2017, 9:37 pm

Loved your comments on A wrinkle in Time and the whole quartet. I love how passionate you are about them. I remember somewhat recently opening AWiT when my daughter was thinking about reading them, and I was really struck by the energy in the opening chapters...not to mention the appeals to science.

72bragan
Fév 8, 2017, 10:00 pm

>71 dchaikin: If there is one thing I have been capable of all my life, it's being passionate about works of fiction. :)

73bragan
Fév 10, 2017, 7:17 pm

14. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell



This is a historical look both at Lafayette in particular and at the French contributions to the American Revolution in general. As is usual for Vowell, it's sprinkled with amusing and sometimes slightly snarky commentary, and, as is usual for almost every popular history book I've ever read, it contains enough details about the fascinating little quirks of history to make me wonder just how the hell my high school history classes managed to make learning about this stuff so insufferably dull.

I do have one sort-of complaint, which is something I've noticed in all of Vowell's historical books: She tends to jump around a lot, going off on digressions, skipping over some events, and alluding to others out of chronological order. I've discovered that if I have a decent basic grounding in the subject she's talking about, I find this charming and pleasant, but if I don't, it can become a little difficult to follow. And, unfortunately, my entire previous knowledge of Lafayette, courtesy of aforementioned crappy high school history classes, can be summed up as, "He was some French guy who helped out in the Revolutionary War, and I guess he must have been useful somehow." Poor Lafayette. Sarah Vowell has convinced me he deserves better.

Rating: I debated over the rating for this, due to the sometimes-I-didn't-follow-it-so-well thing. But then I asked myself, would I recommend this book to someone interested in the subject matter? And the answer is yes. Yes, I certainly would. So I'm being very slightly generous and giving it a 4/5.

74Narilka
Fév 11, 2017, 7:53 pm

>73 bragan: "...it contains enough details about the fascinating little quirks of history to make me wonder just how the hell my high school history classes managed to make learning about this stuff so insufferably dull."

Well put and so true. It's exactly how I felt after rediscovering that I do enjoy reading about history when it's not in a boring text book. That sounds like an interesting one and a part of the American Revolution I either don't remember at all or never learned in my history classes.

75bragan
Fév 11, 2017, 10:42 pm

>74 Narilka: I find I carry some active resentment against my American history teachers for not only managing to suck all the life out of the subject, but for doing it so thoroughly that it came as a surprise to me to realize there was ever any life in it in the first place.

76bragan
Fév 12, 2017, 3:42 am

15. The Vegetarian by Han Kang



Kim Yeong-hye has always been an unobtrusive woman, quietly submitting to life with her callous, colorless husband. Until she has a terrible dream, becomes repulsed by the idea of eating meat, and begins to withdraw from life entirely, despite her family's appalling efforts to force her to behave as they expect her to.

This is a disturbing, deeply uncomfortable book. Not so much because terrible things happen in it, although they do, but because it does entirely too good a job of evoking a distressing, oppressive atmosphere, of crawling into your brain somehow and planting in there the sense that life itself is a stifling, inescapable trap. Or... something like that, anyway. I find it remarkably hard to describe, but the back cover copy calls it "Kafkaesque," and maybe that's the best word for it, because, now that I think about it, that is exactly what Kafka's writing also does.

I can't say I exactly liked or enjoyed reading it. But I definitely respect it.

Rating: 4/5

77NanaCC
Fév 12, 2017, 8:33 am

I think that I must have had teachers who made history interesting. It was always one of my favorite subjects... I even enjoyed the textbooks. Nerdy, I know...

78ursula
Fév 12, 2017, 10:51 am

I had good history teachers, too. I vividly remember my 8th grade history teacher getting volunteers to come up and lay on the desks to really demonstrate what it was like in a Civil War battlefield "hospital". Screaming, amputations (faux, of course!), biting on sticks ... it was great.

And in high school I had a great teacher who gave us so many different books to read and learn from (they were AP classes, so he treated them like they were college classes) that reading never got boring. And he always emphasized just knowing a few of the critical dates - Magna Carta, discovery of America, Revolutionary War, whatever ... and treating the rest like a story, which means the time period sort of takes care of itself once you have a grasp on how the story goes.

79RidgewayGirl
Fév 12, 2017, 11:19 am

>78 ursula: You win with the AP class, which my daughter calls Apush and hates - her teacher has the air of just waiting it out until retirement. And my Apush teacher was the football coach. We read the text and answered the questions at the end of each chapter. That's it. And then someone realized he wasn't reading the answers, and we could all just keep turning in chapter one.

In grade six, a group of actors came to our classroom and had us reenact some battle at Red River between Louis Riel and his fearless band of Métis and the Canadian government. We used chairs as the walls of our fort and mimed the rest. So awesome. I was never able to see history as anything other than a series of adventure stories after that.

80bragan
Fév 12, 2017, 2:31 pm

>77 NanaCC: It really depends so much on the teacher. My World History teachers weren't bad, and I had one who was just terrific: really fun and engaging to listen to, with lots of good ideas about how to get the students thinking and participating.

But my American History and American Civics teachers were terrible, giving very much the impression that they hated being in the class as much as the rest of us did, and presenting history as a lot of dull, meaningless names and dates and contextless facts to be memorized from the textbook. So I think I sort of grew up thinking the history of my own country was inherently dull.

>78 ursula: I think I envy you! That sounds like a great class.

81mabith
Fév 12, 2017, 7:09 pm

Trouble is, even with a great high school history teacher most students have already been turned off history before they get there. Most AP courses are focused almost solely on white dudes, and even if more interesting details are included that starts to pale for everyone else after a while (unless they're already a serious history nerd).

82bragan
Fév 12, 2017, 8:01 pm

>81 mabith: Speaking of good teachers, I am glad to have had one really good elementary school teacher who put a lot of emphasis on African-American history in our Social Studies lessons. It only occurred to me much, much later how unusual that must have been, considering that it was the 70s. After that, yeah, it pretty much was all white dudes all the time.

83dchaikin
Fév 19, 2017, 7:15 pm

These school teacher stories are fun. History for me opened up with my freshman high school teacher. He didn't do anything special other than cover history in structured manner I could take in and work with. I trace all my enthusiasm back to that. Later I had a great teacher for AP history, but I had become such a jaded student by then that I wasn't listening.

My daughter, in 6th grade, is having her own moment with a world cultures class. The teacher does it wrong - it's all unconsolidated, random, unexplained facts around the world. But it switched from her least liked class in the first weeks to her absolute favorite class now. Curious how that works. Anyway, the teach obviously isn't doing it all wrong.

Great review of Lafayette. I read Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes and was both impressed by how she managed to add original ideas to Hawaiian history, and stunned by how difficult it was to follow because she jumped around so much. Hawaiian history is complex and making it more confusing is not recommended. But there was a method to her madness (and, at the time, i had that history down well, so she didn't throw me). But Lafayette was structured enough for me to follow on audio. : )

Terrific review of The Vegetarian.

84bragan
Modifié : Fév 19, 2017, 8:40 pm

16. The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth DIckinson



Baru Cormorant is a child on the island nation of Taranoke when it comes under the rule of foreigners determined to exploit its resources and "civilize" its people. Educated in the invaders' schools, she is declared to be a savant and tapped for service to their Empire. She joins them, determined to free her people from within the power structures of their oppressors, and finds herself first quashing and then leading a rebellion in another of their conquered states.

This starts off with what feels a little too much like an Evils of Colonialism 101 lecture, but fortunately it gets much more complex and nuanced as it goes on. The world building is good, and I give it a lot of points for telling a story about war without focusing too much on tedious blow-by-blow battles, but rather taking in the big picture, including the oft-neglected economic factors. I will admit that, for much of the novel, I had a little difficulty fully immersing myself in it, but on reflection, I don't think that the story's fault at all. I think it's just that it features lots of political intrigue, and reality is giving me more of that than I can handle at the moment, which makes it harder for me to enjoy it in fiction. The moments that pack an emotional punch still really worked for me, regardless.

Rating: 4/5

85bragan
Fév 19, 2017, 8:35 pm

>83 dchaikin: Unfamiliar Fishes was definitely what I was thinking of when I said Vowell's histories can be hard for me to follow when it's a subject I don't know enough about. I found that book both fascinating, because Hawaiin history turns out to be fascinating, and a little frustrating. Lafeyette was easier than that for me, at least.

And thanks! I actually had a hard time knowing what to say about The Vegetarian at all.

86bragan
Modifié : Fév 22, 2017, 12:23 pm

17. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson



This is the second book by Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, following up on Let's Pretend This Never Happened. I'd maybe recommend reading that one first, although it's not really necessary, just because it introduces a lot of things about her life that are alluded to in this one, and also because it's freakin' awesome.

This volume, like the first one, contains some hilarious anecdotes from the author's life, often involving taxidermied animals and/or surreal arguments with her husband. It also contains some much more serious thoughts about her daily struggles with a host of mental and physical ailments, including chronic anxiety, bouts of depression, and an autoimmune disorder, and how she gets through through the dark times those things inevitably bring with them. More often than not, it's both of those things at at once, thus completely justifying the "funny book about horrible things" subtitle. I have no idea no how she manages that, but it's marvelous.

This book made me laugh out loud multiple times. It made me tear up a little once. And it gave me some actually really good advice about not judging yourself too hard. Mostly, through the whole thing, I just kept thinking that Jenny Lawson's brain may be a horrible jerk that keeps trying to kill her, but her mind is a goddamn delight.

Rating: 4.5/5

87bragan
Fév 27, 2017, 4:24 am

18. The Mothers by Brit Bennett



At age seventeen, Nadia Turner, still reeling from her mother's shocking suicide, has a secret relationship with Luke, the pastor's son. She gets pregnant. She has an abortion. And the two go on with their lives. But a connection remains between them, perhaps, and neither of them can entirely keep from thinking about what might have been.

This novel has gotten a lot of praise, and I think it's well-earned. The characters are well-drawn and believable, and situations that could easily have been melodramatic are instead handled with a light, deft touch. It also handles its touchy subject matter very well; there's no preachy authorial moralizing about abortion here, although the characters themselves are certainly allowed to have their own opinions. And I really like the writing. Bennett is capable of crafting a stunningly vivid and insightful turn of phrase when one is needed, and the rest of the time she just gives us beautifully clean prose that's smart enough to stay out of its own way. She also does some interesting things with POV that I wouldn't have expected to work anywhere near as smoothly as they do.

Rating: 4.5/5

88dchaikin
Fév 27, 2017, 11:24 am

Interesting about The Mothers. Lawson sounds like a fun audio option.

89Simone2
Fév 27, 2017, 2:38 pm

>87 bragan: Sounds like I should read this one. After The Nobodies Album I completely trust your judgment :-)

90bragan
Fév 27, 2017, 7:40 pm

>88 dchaikin: I believe Lawson reads the audio version herself, which probably is fun.

>89 Simone2: Ha! I'm not sure I completely trust my judgment, but I do recommend The Mothers anyway.

91bragan
Fév 28, 2017, 11:23 am

Here, have a celebratory crosspost from my thread in the ROOTs group:

Happy Thingaversary to me!!!

Yes, that's right, today is my 10th Thingaversary. Which is kind of crazy because it does not remotely seem that long. I think that's a sign that I'm getting old. Sigh.

But never mind that! It is a time to celebrate! The traditional celebration apparently involves buying books, specifically a number of books equal to your current Thingaversary number, plus one to grow on. I haven't actually observed this tradition before now, due to really not needing any more excuses to buy books. But since this is a big one, and since I made enough of a big deal about it to put it in my title thread, I figured, well, I had to. Right?

So today I went to Thriftbooks.com and placed an eleven-book Thingaversary order.

If you're curious which books I bought, they are:

The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe
Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt
The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston
This Census-Taker by China Miéville
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Halting State by Charles Stross
The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Evicted by Matthew Desmond

*throws confetti*

Now, I really need to get back to reading, because I don't actually think all of those are going to fit onto my already overburdened TBR shelves...

92RidgewayGirl
Fév 28, 2017, 11:48 am

Happy Thingaversary! Evicted is a book well worth owning. And I have Mr Splitfoot around here somewhere, so it will be fun to compare notes.

And I was impressed that The Mothers is a debut novel. I really liked that she managed to treat such a charged issue with a fair degree of nuance.

93bragan
Fév 28, 2017, 12:26 pm

>92 RidgewayGirl: Thank you! I mostly bought a semi-random collection of cheap used books from my wishlist, but Evicted is the exception. I've been really, really wanting to read that one, so I just went ahead and bought a new copy, since that's all they had.

And I think my first thought after reading The Mothers was, in fact, "Wait, was that really a first novel?!" It doesn't remotely read like it.

94dchaikin
Fév 28, 2017, 9:58 pm

Evicted is timely. and also really well done. Happy Tenth Betty!

95bragan
Mar 1, 2017, 12:13 am

>94 dchaikin: Yeah, I'm looking forward to reading it, even if it seems likely to be a rather painful read.

And thank you!

96Simone2
Mar 1, 2017, 11:47 am

>91 bragan: I don't know what the ROOTs group is nor what a Thingaversary is, but never mind: your presents to yourself are great! I am looking forward to your reviews of the Parkhurst and the Mieville, which are on my wishlist as well.
Maybe I need a Thingaversary as well!

97bragan
Mar 1, 2017, 11:58 am

>96 Simone2: ROOT stands for "Read Our Own Tomes," and it's a LibraryThing group dedicated to encouraging people with the same kind of buying-faster-than-you-read problem I have to read the books they already own. (It doesn't exactly help me get the number of books on the to-read shelves down, but it's fun.)

Your Thingaversary is the anniversary of the date you joined LibraryThing. So you already have one! You can find out when it is, I believe, by going to your home page and clicking on Folly. It should be there somewhere.

And your review of The Nobodies Album is what reminded me that I really wanted to read more Carolyn Parkhurt, hence the inclusion of The Dogs of Babel. I'm looking forward to it! (Although given aforementioned state of my TBR shelves, I have no idea when I'll actually read it, or the Mieville, or anything else. So many books, so little tiiiiiime!)

98Simone2
Mar 1, 2017, 12:04 pm

>97 bragan: Sounds like a group for me, ROOT, I have so many books calling me from their shelves...
But I can imagine it won't get the number of unread books down.

And I now know I'll have my seventh Thingaversary coming up, thank you for pointing that out!

99bragan
Mar 1, 2017, 12:50 pm

>98 Simone2: You can see my ROOT thread here, if you're curious about the group and how it works.

And seven years is a good run so far!

100bragan
Mar 3, 2017, 10:37 pm

19. Mostly Void, Partially Stars: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 1 by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor



I'm a big fan of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. Its combination of horror, comedy, existentialist philosophy, humanity, and sheer surrealism just punches all my buttons exactly the right way. So I was delighted when this companion volume was published (at the same time as volume 2, which I haven't read yet). Volume 1 collects the texts of the first year of episodes, along with a transcript of the first live Night Vale show, "Condos." (Although the inclusion of "Condos" in this volume feels a little odd, as it's set a bit later in the series' continuity, and is actually slightly jarring when read right after the episode "One Year Later," where it appears.) The book also features a short introduction to each episode, usually by one of the writers but occasionally by a performer, as well a smattering of illustrations, which I think do an excellent job of capturing the feeling of the show without actually trying to depict any of the people or situations that the audio format leaves to our imaginations.

So, it's a nice companion to the podcast. Although, I have to say, reading these stories in print just isn't remotely the same as listening to Cecil Baldwin's voice conveying them to us. To me, it definitely loses something in this form, although I've heard a few people say that they liked the idea of the show but, for one reason or another, were put off by the delivery, and I suppose those folks might find this a better experience.

Rating: I'm going to call the book 4/5, although the podcast itself is a definite 5/5.

101VivienneR
Mar 4, 2017, 3:23 pm

>91 bragan: Congratulations on your 10th Thingaversary - and the excellent book haul that goes with it!

102bragan
Mar 4, 2017, 4:04 pm

>101 VivienneR: Thank you! Now I just need to find somewhere to put all these books. :)

103valkyrdeath
Mar 6, 2017, 8:39 pm

>91 bragan: I just bought Stories of Your Life and Others recently too. I've enjoyed all the stories I've read before by Chiang so that book is one I'm particularly looking forward too.

>100 bragan: Those script books are so tempting. I love Night Vale and I feel it would be nice to have them, thought I know I don't really need them. I'm sure if I read the book I'd just hear the episodes in my head anyway, as I can't read a Night Vale quote without hearing Cecil's voice.

104ipsoivan
Mar 6, 2017, 9:16 pm

I've never heard of Night Vale, but have just downloaded a bunch to my ipad to listen to on my way to work.

105bragan
Mar 6, 2017, 10:36 pm

>103 valkyrdeath: Stories of Your Life and Others has been on my wishlist for ages as something I really wanted to get to, but I was finally prodded into doing so by the fact that I wanted to see the movie Arrival, which is based on one of the stories in the collection, and which is out on DVD soon. (I didn't get the chance to see it in the theater.) I may still watch the movie before I read the book, but I think it will at least makes me feel better, in some strange, irrational way, to have the book on hand when I do so.

And my brain certainly tried to render the NV scripts in Cecil's voice, but while I'm usually very good at that sort of thing, my mental re-creation didn't quite live up to the experience of actually hearing it. I admit, I probably didn't need the book versions, myself, but I'm glad to have them, anyway.

>104 ipsoivan: I think Night Vale is a bit love-it-or-hate-it, so I very much hope you will be firmly on the "love it" side with me! Whatever you think of it, though, it's certainly a unique listening experience. Be sure to start from the beginning; it's an ongoing series, and there's a surprising amount of continuity.

106bragan
Mar 6, 2017, 11:10 pm

20. Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser



Wendy Lesser talks about the art of literature and the satisfaction she finds in different aspects of it, from a well-crafted plot built around well-rendered characters, to a confident authorial voice, to the invisible but essential contributions of translators.

A lot of works of literary criticism, review, or appreciation strike me as annoyingly pretentious or snobby, as though they're written by people desperate to show off their own discerning tastes and erudition. Lesser, thankfully, is entirely free of this. She's smart, thoughtful, and reflective, and she enthusiastically owns her opinions about the books she discusses, but she never comes across as full of herself, or as if she's appointing herself the arbiter of literary taste. Quite the opposite, in fact, as she readily acknowledges that her readers will undoubtedly disagree with her on many points. Her writing is intelligent without ever being opaque or show-offy. And while she values quality writing, she is refreshingly free of snobbery, including the most annoying form of literary snobbery (at least to me), genre snobbery. She does mostly focus on literary fiction and books that are widely considered classics, but she actually takes a very broad view of what can be considered "literature," and she happily embraces the mystery and spy thriller genres, and even spends several surprising pages talking about Isaac Asimov.

I did find myself wishing her reading and mine overlapped a bit more, as a lot of the books she talks about are ones I'm not familiar with. In particular, she devotes a lot of words to Henry James and to 19th century Russian novels, neither of which I have read very widely. (In fact, I've read just enough Henry James to conclude that I don't get along with his prose style, which Lesser clearly adores.) But even when she's talking about books I'd never heard of, the things she has to say about them are so clearly expressed and so well-connected to the larger points she's making that I never felt confused or left out of the conversation. Instead, I felt a real connection with her, reader to reader, despite what very different readers we are. And I thoroughly enjoyed her sharing her thoughts as a reader with me.

Rating: 4/5

107bragan
Modifié : Mar 8, 2017, 10:47 pm

21. Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave



One week before Georgia Ford's wedding, she learns a secret about her fiancé that sends her fleeing back to the comfort of her parents' California vineyard home. But when she gets there, she discovers that her various family members all have drama of their own going on.

This book was a solid meh for me. It's not awful or anything, but I just never managed to care much about either the characters' winemaking business or their relationship issues, and I found too many of the details and events of the story a bit too contrived. Possibly I might have enjoyed it at least a little more if I had any actual interest in wine, but, honestly, I barely even drink the stuff, so all the loving details about organic grape-growing were pretty much lost on me.

Rating: an ungenerous 2.5/5

108RidgewayGirl
Mar 9, 2017, 7:39 am

I'm a sucker for books about reading, so I've added Why I Read to my wishlist. And it's likely that I would have picked up the grape book at some point, thanks for the warning of meh.

109bragan
Mar 9, 2017, 12:33 pm

>108 RidgewayGirl: I'm a sucker for books about reading, too. And Why I Read is a worthwhile one.

It's entirely possible you'd like Eight Hundred Grapes a lot more than I did, as it seems a lot of people do. But, yeah, I can't exactly recommend it.

110bragan
Modifié : Mar 13, 2017, 11:30 pm

22. A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales by Dean King, with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes



I've read the first four of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, and have enjoyed them for the characters and for their sense of humor. But I do have one major problem with them: my complete ignorance of anything to do with ships or sailing means that there are times when I can read entire chapters and have absolutely no idea what just happened. Oddly enough, this was never much of an issue for me with the Horatio Hornblower books. C. S. Forester was, I suppose, good at at least giving me the illusion of following his naval action, but O'Brian is not nearly as kind to us landlubbers. So, I thought this book might help.

It starts off with a couple of articles. One is on medicine during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. I found that quite interesting, and mildly horrifying. Once again, I am deeply grateful to live in the 21st century, where medicine is mostly not based on made-up craziness. The other article is about the British Navy of the time: its structure and functioning and the role it played in the war. This was pretty dry, but did contain some useful information.

Most of the book, though, is taken up by a dictionary. Entries include various nautical terms, of course, but also medical terms, contemporary vocabulary and slang, medical terms, historical terms, and names of various birds and other animals. There are also entries, some of them rather long, on specific ships, historical figures, and events. It seems fairly comprehensive, and was reasonably interesting to browse through -- enough so that I kept it around for months to occasionally pick it up and read or skim through it a few pages at a time. Whether I've actually retained anything useful from it in my memory, though, remains an open question. I suspect it hasn't actually done all that much for my understanding, but I'm hoping that keeping it handy when I finally get back to the series and using it to look up specific terms as I encounter them may be helpful.

Rating: It's hard to know how to rate this, and I'm probably not going to have a verdict on how useful it is until I tackle my next O'Brian book. But for now let's call it a 3.5/5.

111wandering_star
Mar 11, 2017, 9:54 pm

>110 bragan: That sounds rather fun. I am quite interested in naval medicine, and particularly in the way that the discipline of tropical medicine in the UK grew from the fact that ship's doctors would learn about the medicinal herbs, barks, etc. in the countries that they visited and then share that knowledge with other ship's doctors - so that they could replenish their stocks of drugs and treatments as they were sailing around the world. Was there anything about that?

112bragan
Mar 11, 2017, 10:19 pm

>111 wandering_star: As far as I remember, that's not really something that was addressed. It was mostly about the role that doctors played on board ships, and on the prevailing medical theories of the day.

113bragan
Mar 13, 2017, 8:09 pm

23. The Book of Taltos by Seven Brust



An omnibus volume featuring books four and five (by publication order) of Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series, about an assassin/crime boss living in a fantasy realm where humans are considered second-class citizens by the elflike Dragaerans.

Taltos: Although this was the fourth book in the series to be published, it's set before any of the previous ones. And, really, it's not one story, but two stories somewhat oddly interleaved. One gives us the details of an adventure alluded to in earlier volumes, in which Vlad goes on a mission to bring a soul back from the dead. The other gives some backstory on Vlad's life and the early days of his assassin's career. The two are told in strict alternation, scene-by-scene, even though they're not very strongly connected to each other, and to be honest I'm not sure this structure entirely works. The result feels to me a little like Brust kind of smooshed two novellas together because neither of them had enough substance to carry a novel. You would think a journey to the land of the dead would seem pretty epic, or that the dark stuff in Vlad's past would have a lot of weight, but, despite that it all feels very light. Feather-light, really, compared to the nuanced political themes of the previous installment, Teckla. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. As feather-light fantasy entertainment goes, it's entertaining enough, and I still enjoyed the world-building touches, as well as finding Vlad a fairly interesting and sometimes amusing character.

Phoenix: And now we're back to what we might call the series' present again. This one is set right after Teckla, plunging us back into the messy political situation that still prevailed at the end of that book, and following up on developments that happened in it. Which means that, like Teckla, it has a much more serious tone to it, and this one is definitely a proper novel. The plot, which involves Vlad being hired by a goddess to commit an assassination that turns out to have unforeseen consequences, was interesting, but for me, it's Vlad's character development that really shines here. Reading this immediately after Taltos nicely highlights the subtle yet significant changes Vlad has gone through over the course of his life, and he is very much continuing to change through this book. I found the place these changes take us in the end quite emotionally satisfying, even as it left me curious to see where life might take him next. This is easily my favorite of the series so far.

Rating: 4/5

114ursula
Mar 13, 2017, 9:38 pm

>110 bragan: I have this one, and have looked at it here and there (I'm due to read the 9th O'Brian this year). But mostly I realized that whatever I didn't understand in the books didn't end up mattering all that much in terms of my enjoyment. I don't know a mainsail from a topgallant from a ... whatever other sails there might be, but I end up getting the general idea of what's going on without that knowledge. But I've definitely been appreciative of the Latin translations and that sort of thing.

115bragan
Modifié : Mar 13, 2017, 11:29 pm

>114 ursula: Like I sort of said in the review, I found that to be absolutely the case for me with the Hornblower books, but I somehow end up feeling more lost with the O'Brian ones. So I figure every little bit of knowledge may help.

116bragan
Mar 15, 2017, 6:01 am

24. Gila Descending: A Southwestern Journey by M. H. Salmon



This is a 1986 account of the author's journey down New Mexico's Gila River accompanied by a dog and, bizarrely, a cat. Well, it's about half an account of his trip, I'd say, and half him sharing his slightly curmudgeonly opinions about hunting, fishing, conservationism, the history of the Southwest, and various other things he happens to think about, from country music to immigration. Said opinions are complicated and diverse enough that I suspect pretty much anyone is likely to find some things to agree with, and others to get annoyed over.

Salmon isn't the most poetic of travel or nature writers, and he's a little too fond of stories about killing various kinds of animals for my personal taste (or, frankly, comfort levels). But he's certainly readable enough, opinionated gruffness and all, and I found this a moderately interesting (if probably fairly forgettable) bit of local-interest writing. Well, local-ish, anyway. I live in a different part of New Mexico, but I have very fond memories of hiking and backpacking trips in the Gila Wilderness during my college days.

Rating: 3/5

117thorold
Mar 15, 2017, 9:11 am

>110 bragan: >112 bragan:

You're doing better than me - I didn't come across A sea of words until I'd read all the Aubrey/Maturin books. Interesting to speculate about why Forester seems so much less technical than O'Brian, especially since neither of them was a professional sailor. I have an idea that O'Brian must have approached Georgian naval English like a foreign language, immersing himself in period documents until he was completely fluent in it, whilst Forester worked more like a popular novelist, using just enough exotic language to give us a sense of strangeness without confusing us.

There is some stuff about Maturin picking up local medical knowledge later in the series, but a lot of it centres around the use of coca leaves.

118ursula
Mar 15, 2017, 9:21 am

>115 bragan:, >117 thorold: Interesting. I don't have a basis for comparison because I haven't read the Forester books yet, but I'm curious to see how I find them one day.

119bragan
Mar 15, 2017, 9:33 am

>117 thorold: I have an idea that O'Brian must have approached Georgian naval English like a foreign language, immersing himself in period documents until he was completely fluent in it,

You know, this is absolutely the sense that I have from his writing. Whether that's actually how he approached it or not, I couldn't say, but that's very much the feel it has, as if he is trying to speak that language fluently and authentically, above all else. So I think you may be on to something there.

120bragan
Mar 15, 2017, 9:34 am

>118 ursula: Forester's books are very similar in subject matter, but rather different in feel. I recommend them, though.

121bragan
Mar 17, 2017, 7:19 pm

25. Tender: Stories by Sofia Samatar



A collection of strange, delicately written stories which use elements of fantasy, science fiction, or fable to reflect on painful real-world issues, such as racism, injustice, and the migration of refugees. Although these are technically prose, reading them feels much more like reading poetry, including the feeling that most of the significance in them lies somewhere between the lines on the page. Some of them I thought were simply brilliant. Others struck me as only partially successful literary experiments, ones whose messages and meanings were a little too obvious or (more often) a little too obscure. But even those were beautifully written and interesting.

Rating: 4/5

Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.

122wandering_star
Mar 18, 2017, 3:36 am

>121 bragan: whoooosh! another book bullet

123bragan
Mar 18, 2017, 5:37 am

>122 wandering_star: It's an odd book, and I'm still not sure how I felt about some of the stories in it, but it was a really interesting reading experience.

124bragan
Mar 19, 2017, 6:50 am

26. Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett



I continue my intermittent re-reading of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series with the second of the City Watch books. And, man. One thing I'm noticing as I read through these as sub-series, rather than in publication order as I originally read them, is that I'll pick up the first one and find myself saying things like, "Well, this is still pretty early on, but you can tell Pratchett has already hit his stride, because it's great." And then I'll read the next one and realize that, of course, that wasn't remotely Pratchett at full stride, no matter how great it was, because he just gets better.

That's certainly the case for this one. The writing is just so sharp. And I find myself constantly in awe of how Pratchett can do so many very different things at once. He's funny, in ways that range from groan-worth puns to subtle satiric wit. He also spins a good story, in this case a murder mystery that starts with a dead clown, throws in an interesting twist or two, and ends with a climax that gave me all kinds of feelings. And his social commentary and insights on human nature are always so well-observed and such a surprising but satisfying combination of cynical and genuinely good-hearted. The themes in this one, somewhat depressingly, feel perhaps more relevant than ever, as they include racial prejudice and racial tension made worse by the actions of the police, the corrupting influence of too much power, and the dark side of progress. How Pratchett managed to write so forthrightly about those kinds of things and still make it all feel fun, I don't know, but I'll love him for it forever.

Rating: 4.5/5

125mabith
Mar 19, 2017, 8:07 am

Pratchett was simply a genius, and endlessly re-readable. I'm enjoying your Discworld reviews.

126bragan
Mar 19, 2017, 9:04 am

>125 mabith: Honestly, I feel like I should have started re-reading him sooner! It's a delight all over again.

127valkyrdeath
Mar 19, 2017, 7:15 pm

>124 bragan: I definitely know what you mean about thinking Pratchett has hit his stride and then realising the next one is even better. I think he just reached greatness fairly quickly but then just kept on improving, almost to the very end.

128bragan
Mar 19, 2017, 7:57 pm

>127 valkyrdeath: He really did, and I'm quite convinced his illness is the only reason it was "almost" to the very end and not right to the very end. It's downright unheard of for a series that long to maintain its level of quality throughout, let alone maintain that level of quality, let alone keep improving on it, and I will never cease to be impressed by Pratchett's ability to pull that off. He really was just unparalleled.

129bragan
Modifié : Mar 19, 2017, 8:22 pm

27. Religion: Ruining Everything Since 4004 B.C. by Zach Weinersmith



The intelligent, funny, deeply, deeply nerdy Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is one of my all-time favorite webcomics, right up there with xkcd. Heck, these days, I think it might have surpassed xkcd.

The previous collection of SMBC comics was science-themed, and this one follows up on it with a religious theme. Christianity is by far the dominant religion represented here, but there's also a fair amount of Buddhism and a smattering of others, including a couple of appearances by Zeus. Some of the comics riff on familiar tropes: there's lots of people getting surprises when they reach the Pearly Gates or slowly realizing they're actually in hell, lots of people asking God "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or "Why don't miracles happen anymore?" and getting complicated and exasperated answers, and lots of Jesus doing party tricks, but there's also lots of comics that defy ready summary. Some are just mild silliness, while others seemed shockingly blasphemous even to unrepentant atheist me. Some are only a little amusing, while others made me laugh loud and long. Actually, there are a lot of ones that did that last thing. It was great. I mean, clearly this is not for everybody. But for me? It was great.

Rating: 4.5/5

130valkyrdeath
Mar 19, 2017, 9:41 pm

>128 bragan: I definitely agree there. I think if it wasn't for his condition then there wouldn't have been anything like Raising Steam and I'd be reading his new 2017 release thinking it's as good or better than anything he's done before. I certainly can't think of any other series where I could say that the 33rd book is one of my favourites.

131bragan
Mar 19, 2017, 10:11 pm

>130 valkyrdeath: And I long for the universe where that happened. No matter how many excellent books he wrote, I'll always wish there could have been even more.

132dchaikin
Mar 19, 2017, 11:04 pm

such a delightful review of Pratchett. Well done.

I don't know SMBC...don't think I've ever seen it before...hmmm

133bragan
Mar 19, 2017, 11:44 pm

>132 dchaikin: Thanks!

SMBC may have a fairly niche appeal, I think, but I am very much in that niche.

134bragan
Mar 22, 2017, 9:50 pm

28. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath



Esther Greenwood is an intelligent, promising young woman who might seem to have everything going for her. But, overwhelmed by her choices for the future, stifled by the realities of her present, and trapped just on the wrong side of the sexual revolution, she finds herself becoming detached and suicidal.

It's maybe a little surprising I've gone this long without reading this one. I am glad to have done so now. It's well-written and the characterization feels deeply realistic. But I have to admit, I had to keep almost forcing myself to pick it up. It was just entirely too depressing for the current beautiful spring weather. I feel like I should have saved it for the depths of winter.

Rating: 4/5

135bragan
Modifié : Mar 26, 2017, 10:08 pm

29. Doctor Who: Sands of Time by Justin Richards



This is a Doctor Who novel featuring the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa. (Well, except for how it doesn't really feature Nyssa, since she spends pretty much the entire book unconscious and playing the part of a plot McGuffin.)

It's a sequel of sorts to the Fourth Doctor episode "The Pyramids of Mars." Or maybe a prequel? The question is a bit complicated, as the story hops back and forth in time from ancient Egypt, to the 1890s, to the 1990s, looking in on a few other times in-between. It also features some time travel shenanigans, with the Doctor and friends arriving somewhere their future selves have just been and learning about things they haven't done yet. Which is something that was unusual for Doctor Who back in 1996, when this was first published; for a show with time travel at its heart, the original series did very little with it as a concept. These days, of course, the show deals with that sort of thing a lot more, so the novelty value has pretty much worn off.

The story that remains when you subtract said novelty value is not bad (aside from a lot of stuff about "pyramid power" that's annoyingly pseudoscience-y even by Who standards), and there are some clever ideas in it, but it really didn't grip me very much, I'm afraid. It does capture the Classic Who feel pretty well, and I suspect I would have gotten a lot more into it if it had somehow been done as an episode of the TV series, with actors and sets bringing it to life. But I'm not sure this kind of story works nearly as well on the page, especially not decades later.

Rating: 3.5/5

136dchaikin
Mar 26, 2017, 10:03 pm

>134 bragan: no surprise it's depressing, but certainly one classic to check off your list... if you have that kind of list.

137bragan
Mar 26, 2017, 10:12 pm

>135 bragan: I don't keep an actual list, but there are certainly a large number of classic works I have it in the back of my head somewhere that I should read sometime.

138dchaikin
Mar 26, 2017, 10:25 pm

That's the kind of list I have this on - the back of the head kind. And I've had a copy for a while now.

139bragan
Modifié : Mar 28, 2017, 9:06 pm

30. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson



Steven Johnson looks at the history of six different kinds of technologies that have been instrumental in shaping the world we live in today: glassworking, refrigeration, sound transmission and recording, sewers and hygiene improvements, timekeeping, and artificial light. But he's not simply telling us the backstories of these technologies we've come to take for granted. He also talks a bit about how innovations happen, including what it means to be an idea whose time has come (although he doesn't use that particular phrase) and how inventions like the light bulb are almost always messy endeavors involving lots of people working independently, not the lone genius eureka moments we like to imagine. (This, by the way, is a subject he goes on about at much greater length in his earlier book, Where Good Ideas Come From.)

More than that, though, he shows how inventions designed solely to solve one particular limited problem can have direct but unexpected consequences that lead not just to the development of still further technological developments, but also to influences on society, history, and art. To me, this weird, tangled web of causality and influence Johnson illuminates is by far the most fascinating thing about the book, whether he's drawing a direct line from Clarence Birdseye ice-fishing with Inuits to the existence of sperm banks, or outlining how the invention of the laser led to the growth and expansion of big-box retail stores.

It reminds me a little of James Burke's TV show/ book Connections and its follow-up, The Pinball Effect, but where Burke is random and rambly, Johnson is more focused and concise. Each of the chapters here is short, and the entire book is only about 200 pages. Meaning this isn't the book you want if you're looking for a really detailed and in-depth history of any of the topics it covers. But Johnson does manage to pack a lot of worthwhile thought and information into such a small amount of space, and he does it in his usual zippy, highly readable style.

I'd actually already read a fair bit about most of these subjects, and wondered going in if I were going to find some of the chapters a bit boring since they were talking about things I already knew, but Johnson includes so many odd and interesting little details that I'd either forgotten or never heard of, and he provides so many new perspectives and draws so many surprising connections between things that I never felt the least bit bored.

Rating: 4.5/5. If only just for including so many little things that made me go, "Oh, neat!"

140mabith
Mar 30, 2017, 8:50 pm

Definitely putting How We Got to Now on my list!

141bragan
Mar 30, 2017, 9:36 pm

>140 mabith: I recommend it, if that sort of thing sounds at all interesting to you!

142dchaikin
Mar 31, 2017, 12:33 am

I enjoyed Burkes books and show. Steven Johnson sounds funn

143bragan
Mar 31, 2017, 12:47 am

>142 dchaikin: I think I actually enjoyed the TV versions of Burke's stuff better than the book versions, but they were all interesting. I definitely think How We Got to Now is a good choice for people who liked Burke.

144bragan
Mar 31, 2017, 3:43 pm

31. Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller



Ingrid Coleman goes out for a swim in the ocean one day and never comes back, leaving her famous author husband and their two children behind to wonder exactly what happened. Did she simply drown? Was it suicide? Or, since no body was ever found, might she still be alive somewhere? No one really knows for sure. But, it turns out, she left something else behind as well: long letters to her husband detailing her experience of their marriage and some of the events leading up to her disappearance, which she's left scattered around inside various books in his extensive library. It's not exactly a happy story.

This is one of those slightly frustrating books that I wanted to like a lot more than I actually did. It's not bad. The writing is fine, and it never felt like a slog to get through. There are a few poignant moments, and some good thematic stuff about how people can have different understandings, misunderstandings, and interpretations of what goes on in families, just as they can about what goes on in fiction. But it really never engaged me quite as much I wanted it to.

I think there are two reasons why. The first is the characters of Ingrid and her husband Gil. From the moment she describes their first meeting, it's crystal clear that the guy's an ass, and that she's an ass for even being interested in him. Which... is kind of off-putting. I'm not the sort of reader who insists that every character has to be sympathetic and likeable, but characters who aren't need to be compelling in other ways. And, while I did feel a bit of empathy for Ingrid, the disaster of their marriage felt to me less like a fascinating slow-motion train wreck and more like a novel-length case of "Well, duh."

The second problem is one I suspect wouldn't have bothered me much if I found the characters and their story more engrossing to begin with, but as it was, it definitely didn't help. And that's the whole conceit of the letters. I liked the idea going in, but while I was actually reading them, they invariably felt... contrived. I could just never quite believe in them as letters from one human being to another who had been there for most of the experiences she was writing about, even given that the letter-writer was herself a frustrated author. Instead, I was constantly aware of them as a gimmick, a supposedly clever way that the novelist had found to tell this story, and that had the effect of distancing me from the characters and their lives even more.

Like I said, it's kind of frustrating. Because there is good stuff here, but it just never fully came together for me.

Rating: I keep wavering on this. Let's be slightly generous and call it 3.5/5.

145bragan
Modifié : Avr 4, 2017, 8:50 pm

32. California by Edan Lepucki



This is something very much like a post-apocalyptic novel, except that there's no identifiable apocalytic event, just a slow, awful economic collapse that increasingly means that only the rich have access to basic things like fuel and doctors, until America, or what used to be America, is divided into the well-off trying desperately to recreate a supposedly idyllic version of the past inside their gated communities and a world of desperate have-nots everywhere else. So, a frighteningly plausible sort of "apocalypse," and a frightening reflection of our current society in a mirror that needs less distorting power than we might like. That setting, and the way Lepucki handles it, are definitely the best thing about this book.

The plot features a couple, Cal and Frida, who have retreated to the wilderness to live alone, but who go out looking for others once Frida discovers she is pregnant, only to find a surprising face from their past. It's not bad, but perhaps a little drawn out, and it turns over and over on characters not telling each other things, sometimes for bad reasons and sometimes for no obvious reason at all, which is not a favorite trope of mine, and which I often found kind of annoying. Still, it's funny. My main response to the last book I read was, "I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did." And for this one, it's the exact opposite. I liked it a lot more than I sometimes felt I should. Or, at least, it kept me engaged and interested in a way the last few novels I've read simply haven't.

Rating: 4/5.

146RidgewayGirl
Avr 4, 2017, 8:55 pm

Well, that's a coincidence. I was in my local B&N and picked up a copy of California based on how much I'm enjoying Woman No. 17. Glad to know the earlier novel is worthwhile.

147bragan
Modifié : Avr 4, 2017, 10:02 pm

>146 RidgewayGirl: It's not perfect, and I think for me, it was something of the right book at the right time. But I definitely found it worthwhile.

I don't think I even knew Lepucki had a new book out when I plucked this one off the TBR shelves, oddly enough, but I've certainly been hearing about it since.

148bragan
Avr 6, 2017, 3:40 am

And, whoops! I meant to start a new thread for the start of the second quarter, and completely forgot. Well, I've done it now, and it's here.