wandering_star's ninth year in Club Read - part 2

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wandering_star's ninth year in Club Read - part 2

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1wandering_star
Oct 1, 2017, 9:49 am

81. The Empress and the Cake by Linda Stift

An unsettling novella in which a young woman is gradually drawn under the influence of a mysterious woman who calls herself Frau Hohenembs, who is obsessed with - or could she perhaps somehow be? - Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

In a strangely plausible way, she is gradually roped into crazier and crazier stunts in which Frau Hohenembs tries to reclaim the true life story of the Empress. And as she is drawn into Frau Hohenembs' net, the young woman's eating disorder returns, after 15 years of tightly controlling what she ate.

There is quite a lot going on in this short book, published by Peirene Press. On the surface it is just a slightly odd story of obsessions and dependencies. But I think there is also something here about the shapes which women's lives are squeezed into - whether it's a narrative shape, the storyline which a woman's life should follow, or the physical shape of a desirably slender body. At one point we are told the story of a time when the Empress visited a lunatic asylum and met a woman who believed herself to be the Empress. The Empress said afterwards: ‘That poor woman, if only she knew! That I live in a prison just like her.’

The writing too walks a nice line between being everyday and being unsettling.

On the third I spread apricot jam, which had stood unopened in the fridge for two years, and the fourth I dipped into a jumbo mug of cold chocolate, which I had made myself. I cut the final piece into two and held a slice in each hand, both thickly buttered, then took alternate bites from them while squatting down to inspect the fridge. I took out everything that was more or less edible and ate it, rapidly and silently. I was abandoned by the day. A faint trance descended onto me like a silk cloth. I went into the bathroom and regurgitated the whole lot. The grotesque face of my abnormality, which had lain dormant within me, resurfaced. It was the first time in fifteen years. I had always known that there was no safety net. But I hadn’t suspected that it would arrive so unspectacularly, that it would not be preceded by a disaster such as heartbreak or dismissal or a death. It was as if I’d absent-mindedly taken the wrong path when out for a walk.

2wandering_star
Oct 1, 2017, 9:54 am

82. The Great Passage by Shion Miura

Another novella, this time about the production of a new dictionary in Japan. The underlying theme here is about the passion and perfectionism of an artist, although these artists are the type which often go unrecognised - whether the dictionary compiler searching for the ideal quote to represent a word, the publisher developing the perfect dictionary paper (thin and light, but easy to turn) or the cook working hard all hours to produce a delicious meal. Charming but insubstantial.

“A dictionary is a ship that crosses the sea of words,” said Araki, with a sense that he was laying bare his innermost soul. “People travel on it and gather the small points of light floating on the dark surface of the waves. They do this in order to tell someone their thoughts accurately, using the best possible words. Without dictionaries, all any of us could do is linger before the vastness of the deep.”

3avaland
Oct 3, 2017, 2:17 pm

My gawd, it really has been going 9 years, hasn't it?

4wandering_star
Oct 7, 2017, 9:28 pm

83. Bloodchild by Octavia E Butler

(NB: I think this was a Kindle Single or similar, as it's just the single story 'Bloodchild'; the touchstone goes to an edition with four other stories).

An unsettling story about a world where a small colony of humans has made a life on an alien planet - by developing a special relationship with the host creatures, who make use of their bodies to help them reproduce. "We were necessities, status symbols, and an independent people." In such a situation, can there be genuine love and affection between the colonists and their hosts?

5wandering_star
Oct 7, 2017, 9:49 pm

83. Falling Awake by Alice Oswald

Poetry, inflected with the natural world. Beautiful and arresting.



The final poem - about the dawn chorus - makes use of interesting typography, including having the letters fading away on the page as the poem comes to an end.

6wandering_star
Oct 7, 2017, 9:59 pm

85. The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

Thriller, set in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s, with the backdrop of the IRA prisoners' hunger strikes. The detective, Sean Duffy, is one of the few Catholics in the police force. The first murder in the story is not unusual - it seems like the standard killing of an informer - another man is killed, and now it seems that a serial killer is targeting gay men - but then Duffy starts to uncover information about the first victim and his role within the IRA, and it makes no sense that he could have been killed without vicious reprisals.

At first I wasn't too keen on this book - the writing felt overwrought - but I was drawn into it both for the story and for the interest of the setting.

I turned off the engine and sat in my little existential prison before going outside into the bigger existential prison of Northern Ireland. The car park was empty and I checked under the car just to be on the safe side. Nothing, of course.

7wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 3, 2017, 2:44 am

Oh dear - two months and ten books to catch up on. Better get going!

86. Sorceror to the Crown by Zen Cho

England's magic is dying away, and many people blame the new Sorcerer to the Crown, Zacharias Wythe. Zacharias was born a slave but freed and adopted by Sir Stephen Wythe, the former Sorceror to the Crown, who died in mysterious circumstance. Horrified by the fact that a young black man is in such an important role, many more traditional members of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers are plotting to oust him and put one of their own in his position. But Zacharias' outsider nature means that he is able to look further than they are for magical talent, and perhaps this is what will save him.

To summarise, similar concept to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, with a more diverse cast of characters (which is managed in a playful rather than a heavy way). I loved it! I was so disappointed to discover that the other two books in the trilogy haven't been published yet.

When Zacharias returned to his study there was a small brown leaf on his desk. It looked as though it had blown in through the window, but Zacharias knew it for what it was at once. A closer inspection proved it to be no ordinary leaf: its veins glittered with gold, and gold edged the blade. The Fairy King's signature was on the other side: an inky hoof-stamp, redolent of earth and smoke. His application for an audience had been accepted.

8wandering_star
Déc 2, 2017, 10:48 pm

87. What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

Short stories, set mainly in Nigeria with some elements in the US (the author is Nigerian, born in the UK and now lives in the US). Most of them are about women and their relationships with each other, and/or their parents. Some are naturalistic, others have a speculative fiction element. In "Who Will Greet You At Home", for example, it is possible for people to create children out of different forms of matter - withthe richest using the most long-lasting materials; the story focuses on a down-trodden hairdresser who makes her child out of offcuts from the salon.

The premises of the stories were really interesting, but I felt they were often wasted as the story developed in more conventional directions.

This starts another argument between husband and wife, mild at first, but then it peppers and there is this thing that distance does where it subtracts warmth and context and history and each finds that they're arguing with a stranger.

9wandering_star
Déc 2, 2017, 11:02 pm

88. The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland

This story focuses around a shy young woman working as a transcriptionist for a major newspaper, who becomes obsessed with a court reporter who is killed after she climbs into the lion's cage at the zoo. The theme of the novel is about the increasing difficulty of authentic experiences and interaction in an age where technology is replacing human contact. I enjoyed this while I was reading it, but six weeks on I can't say it has left much impression on me.

Katheryn Keel looks good on paper and television. She is a legend, the ex-wife of Ralph, the executive editor, and a foreign reporter who by all accounts was fearless until false bravado got in the way and hardened into self-certitude. It was true, she was unafraid of corrupt territory, be it a country or a source. She has made her way through both kinds.

10wandering_star
Déc 2, 2017, 11:11 pm

89. Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

A retelling of Snow White, set in a version of the Old West. Snow White's father is a silver-mine magnate, her mother a Crow woman named Gun That Sings. Rose Red is the name of Snow White's gun, and her name is bestowed on her ironically given her mixed-race background.

The prose is fabulous - a mix of hard-boiled and fairytale fantasy - but the story got a bit lost.

She put jasper and pearl combs in my hair and yanked them so tight I cried—there, now you’re a lady, she said, and I did not know if the comb or the tears did it. She put me in her own corsets like nooses strangling my waist til I was sick, my breath gone and my stomach shoved up into my ribs—there, now you’re civilized, she said, and I did not know if it was the corset or the sickness that did it. She forbade me to eat sweets or any good thing til I got thin as a dog and could hardly stand I was so damn hungry—there, now you’re beautiful, she said and I did not know if it was my dog-bones showing or my crawling in front of her begging for a miserable apple to stop my belly screaming that made me fair.

11wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 3, 2017, 3:25 am

90. We That Are Young by Preti Taneja

A retelling of King Lear set in modern India. Devraj (Lear) is the head of a massive conglomerate, feted all over India for his achievements. The novel is divided into six parts, each one focusing on a different character. In part one, Jivan (the bastard child of Devraj's close associate) returns to India from the US, to discover both the might of the Company and the cracks around its edges. Later we follow the stories of all three daughters, as well as Jivan's half-brother Jeet (Edgar). The storyline follows the play fairly closely, from Devraj's wild parties which impose on his daughters, to a wild scene in the storm, and works remarkably well in the new setting. I really enjoyed the writing too, although I lost my way a little bit in the last third of this 550-page book.

She pushes open the door. Though it is not yet dark outside, the red brocade curtains in the room have been drawn. Lamplight casts gold bangles carelessly around, leaving deep shadows. Diyas burn on the sideboards, the walls flicker with dying flames. Framed in gilt, Gargi's paternal grandfather glowers above the stone fireplace, dark skin offset by the crown on his head, blue silk robe falling open to show off his tweed three-piece, his Imperial sash, his sword at his belt.

12wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 3, 2017, 3:07 am

91. Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Short stories, each one focused on a real woman (or women) from history who hovered on the edge of fame, either because of their own life or because of their relationship with someone who was truly famous. A wide variety of story styles, and I enjoyed all of them.

She and Dolly had been friends for years now. They'd met over an opium pipe at Le Boeuf sur le Toit. "I love meeting people that way," Dolly had once confided in me. "Colliding into them. There's a strange intimacy that comes with intoxicated conversations. You discard barriers. You're interesting and filled with a peculiar energy, and you just want to share it." "I wouldn't know," I'd said. Dolly had nodded and patted my thigh in a way that was both insulting and compassionate.

13wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 3, 2017, 3:06 am

92. Gathering The Water by Robert Edric

An awkward young man is sent to a remote valley to oversee the last stages of the construction of a reservoir and the flooding of the valley. Resented by the locals and kept uninformed by his employers, he does develop a relationship with a woman who has also been ostracised by the local community.

I like Edric's writing, but I didn't think this was one of his best. The pairing of the setting (a town flooded by the creation of a reservoir) and the theme (long-hidden emotions and secrets) is something I've read before, and this didn't have enough originality to lift it above that.

The upper and the lower valley were now hidden by the falling snow, and nothing of the wider surroundings or of the sky above was visible. All I could see was the small, lost world beneath me. I tried to look beyond this, but saw only as far as its white, shrouded edges where the gulls still hovered disturbed and ghostlike above the water, fading and then magically reappearing as they came and went through the falling snow.

14wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 3, 2017, 3:06 am

93. Saints Of The Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

The second book which features the tension between rebellious, breaks-the-rules-but-gets-results ex-cop John Rebus, and by-the-book internal investigations Malcolm Fox. In this one, the subject of the internal investigation is Rebus' former team, who called themselves the Saints of the Shadow Bible of the title. Can Rebus keep on the right side of both the investigation and his old friends?

Clarke had risen to her feet. Fox asked if she wanted a lift, but she shook her head. ‘Almost quicker to walk,’ she told him. ‘Plus it’ll help clear all the fumes from my nose.’ ‘The fire?’ Fox enquired. ‘The testosterone,’ she corrected him.

15wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 3, 2017, 3:04 am

94. Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith

This book attempts to be both about cephalopods (especially octopi and squid) and about human consciousness. What's the connection? Well, unlike other animals that are perceived to be intelligent, you have to go back a long way to find our common ancestor - 600 million years ago. (Our common ancestor with chimps, in comparison, was a mere 6 million years ago.) And other invertebrates have pretty small nervous systems. Godfrey-Smith explains: "Because our most recent common ancestor was so simple and lies so far back, cephalopods are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over. This is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien."

I find octopi fascinating so I enjoyed this. The concept doesn't totally work but I learnt some interesting things from the book, both about octopus behaviour (although disappointingly, they are maybe not as smart as people think) and about the history of evolution.

This was my first experience with an aspect of these animals that has never stopped intriguing me: the sense of mutual engagement that one can have with them. They watch you closely, usually maintaining some distance, but often not very much. Occasionally, when I’ve been very close, a giant cuttlefish has reached an arm out, just a few inches, so it touches mine. It’s usually one touch, then no more. Octopuses show a stronger tactile interest. If you sit in front of their den and reach out a hand, they’ll often send out an arm or two, first to explore you, and then – absurdly – to try to haul you into their lair. Often, no doubt, this is an overambitious attempt to turn you into lunch. But it’s been shown that octopuses are also interested in objects that they pretty clearly know they can’t eat.

16wandering_star
Déc 3, 2017, 3:04 am

95. Let's Give It Up For Gimme Lao! by Sebastian Sim

Gimme Lao was the first child born in an independent Singapore (although he doesn't know it), and spent his early years surrounded by pickle-making. Sound familiar? Like Midnight's Children, Let's Give It Up For Gimme Lao uses one person's life to illustrate a nation, but this is more satirical than historical. Gimme is a conformist, prepared to do whatever it takes to get ahead, and to undermine anyone who challenges authority or sticks out in any way. Sim suggests that this makes him a true Singaporean.

There's a little bit too much 'message' in this, but I found it quite interesting.

"So what are your future plans?" Gimme Lao felt obligated to ask after the interview was over. "Go home," Pay Ming Kuang smiled warmly. "To where I belong." Gimme Lao had to pause for a second. "You mean London". "Yes, I mean London. Where everybody gets to breathe," Pay Ming Kuang said. "Here in Singapore, breathing space is almost entirely reserved for the mainstream. You are guaranteed breathing space only if you are straight, educated, career-centric, married or planning to, and willing to toe the line. Someone like you, Gimme."

17janeajones
Déc 5, 2017, 7:29 pm

Intrigued by the modern retellings -- Six-Gun Snow White and We That are Young

18avaland
Déc 5, 2017, 8:16 pm

>10 wandering_star: Hubby read the Valente, I think he might have reviewed in on our thread. He generally likes Valente's work.

19chlorine
Déc 8, 2017, 12:58 pm

>15 wandering_star: I had no idea that octopuses were intelligent. Thank for the review!

20dchaikin
Déc 8, 2017, 9:41 pm

My library just got Other Minds on audio. I’ve been thinking about it. Entertained by the idea behind Let’s Give it Up for Gimme Lao.

21tonikat
Déc 10, 2017, 4:51 pm

>5 wandering_star: I saw Alice Oswald read this year, she was amazing, a wonderful wonderful reader I felt, and poet, of course. She read Swan. I haven't read this book yet, I'm aim to work my way chronologically.

22wandering_star
Déc 13, 2017, 4:32 am

>21 tonikat: I would love to hear her read. Of her books I have also read Memorial and Dart, both of which I really enjoyed. The concept of Memorial sounds strange - a loose translation of all the death-laments in the Iliad, but I found it a very powerful read.

>17 janeajones: I actually bought We That Are Young without realising it was a retelling - I don't think it says so on the blurb, but before I started reading it I saw a mention somewhere that it was a retelling. I don't know if I would have worked it out just from reading it, even though the parallels are pretty strong.

23wandering_star
Déc 13, 2017, 5:09 am

Speaking of poetry:

96. Nineteen Ways of Looking At Wang Wei (with more ways by Eliot Weinberger

Wang Wei was a Chinese lyric poet who lived in the eight century. In this slim book, Eliot Weinberger brings together multiple translations of one of his four-line verses. (Originally 17 translations, plus the text of the poem and a transliteration. The last three words of the title are there because in this, the second edition, there is an annex with several more versions of the poem).

This could have been a really interesting way of looking at the challenges of translation, especially poetry, especially Chinese poetry. For example, in Chinese from this era, there are very few grammatical markers, so it's sometimes possible to interpret a particular word as a noun, an adjective or a verb. And Chinese poetry is very allusive - by selecting a particular word the poet might have been referencing another poem or an image which he would have expected his readers to know, which would bring an extra element to the poetry. So there are a lot of choices for the translator of Chinese poetry to make.

Unfortunately, Weinberger puts most of his energy into being incredibly superior and sarcastic about the translations, sometimes criticising both possible approaches to a translation problem. This was pretty annoying.

Instead of giving you a quote from Weinberger's superiority here are the versions of the poem translated by Burton Watson (1971):

Empty hills, no one in sight,
only the sound of someone talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again.


Gary Snyder (1978):

Empty mountains:
no one to be seen.
Yet - hear -
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods;
Again shining
on the green moss, above.


and Vikram Seth (1992):

Empty hills, no man in sight -
Just echoes of the voice of men.
In the deep wood reflected light
Shines on the blue-green moss again.

24wandering_star
Déc 13, 2017, 5:22 am

97. Redemption by Jussi Adler-Olsen

I was in the mood for a detective story about cold cases, so I found this one. Cold in two senses of the world as it is a Nordic noir!

The case almost couldn't be colder - an almost illegible help message is found, written in blood and tucked inside a bottle, although that bottle has taken years to reach Denmark's Department Q (cold case police unit). As the detectives gradually piece together the words of the letter and the story behind it, we learn about the murderer, a serial killer who has found his niche targeting closed religious communities.

I didn't really enjoy this, and ended up skimming it. For me, there was much too much about the killer's childhood - a short scene of his unhappy family life would have got the message across perfectly well - and a bit too much gore and pain.

25tonikat
Déc 14, 2017, 7:28 am

>22 wandering_star: I have Dart to read next. Her reading was wonderful, and to be accurate I felt she read beautifully. Hope you get a chance.

26wandering_star
Déc 15, 2017, 4:51 am

98. Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama

Still in quest of a good 'cold case' thriller... This book starts out in that vein (an unsolved murder/kidnapping on which the statute of limitations is about to run out) then slightly puzzlingly turns into a drama of office politics between different elements of the Japanese police, which gets grander and grander until it is full conspiracy. Then it remembers it's a thriller for a bit.

Not a bad read but I'm surprised it was so well received by such a wide range of readers - I would have thought it was a bit niche.

Mikami knew it well enough - he'd spent twenty-eight years working for other people. He understood that no one was unquestioning in their obedience, just as he realized that no leader could ever hope to understand the inner workings of their staff. Yet they still made themselves gods. Whever someone was newly appointed to them, they would tend to classify them as this or that kind of person, applying brightly coloured tabs to shoehorn them into the role they wanted performed.

27wandering_star
Déc 15, 2017, 5:00 am

99. Archangel by Andrea Barrett

Five short stories, interlinked by some of the characters who appear in them - science and faith, women and knowledge, metamorphosis and the difficulty of finding somewhere that you feel at home. These are themes in all Barrett's writing, and I always enjoy both the way that she brings in the scientific context, and the way she uses it to explore human interactions too (the way a relationship evolves, the way that forces act on a person). And her writing is always beautiful. That said, I do not think this is her strongest work: I would most recommend The Voyage of the Narwhal (novel) or Ship Fever (short stories).

How does a person end up like this? For much of her life she'd been listening, sometimes consciously, sometimes not, to her father play those suites. Until just that moment, with the triplets running steadily up and down, she would have told herself that the space between her and family wasn't empty at all but held light and music, feelings and thoughts, and a bond that could be stretched without breaking.

28chlorine
Déc 15, 2017, 2:45 pm

>26 wandering_star: I'm not sure what qualifies as thriller (as opposed to crime investigation), but have you read Silence of the grave, by Arnaldur Indridason ? (sorry, touchstones not working on my tablet).
It's about a body (or skeleton, rather) being found many years after the death. The book alternates between the current investigation and the story of what happened then. I really liked this book and it made a huge impression on me.

29wandering_star
Déc 19, 2017, 5:15 am

>28 chlorine: Thank you, I haven't heard of that but it sounds right up my street - I will look out for it. (I tend to use thriller, detective and crime novel fairly interchangeably, although I guess there are some cosy crime novels which I wouldn't describe as thrillers).

30wandering_star
Déc 19, 2017, 5:22 am

100. Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Speaking of niche... this is a memoir-cum-book-of-musings in the voice of the tortoise belonging to eighteenth-century naturalist Gilbert White. Timothy (who is a female, as later naturalists realised from examining the shell) talks about her daily life, her memories of living in a hotter climate, but especially she talks about human beings and their idiocies.

Mr. Gilbert White mocks his own fixedness. Rooted in Selbourne. Calls himself "a venerable vegetable, remaining like a cabbage on the same spot for months together". But if a cabbage were human, it would aspire to become a lettuce. Pull up roots and go up to town to see what's doing in the artichoke way. Such a restless tribe. Such a turbulent animal, as Mr. Gilbert White says of the hog.

Unexpected and charming.

31wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 19, 2017, 1:51 pm

101. Tea With Mr Rochester by Frances Towers

The short stories in this collection were written in the 1940s, and the collection was published in 1949, a year after the death of the author. They mostly deal with suppressed passions experienced by those who are not expected by society to have serious emotions at all - shy schoolgirls (the title story is about a girl who has a crush on a friend of her aunts', who she sees as Mr Rochester to her Jane Eyre), plain young women, spinsters, widows and maiden aunts. That sounds a bit sickly, perhaps - but there is something sparking and sharp in the way that Frances Towers writes, revealing not just the unexpected depths of emotion of the main characters, but also raising a sarcastic eyebrow at the careless assumptions of the more beautiful or younger women, which makes each story a delight.

Lisby said nothing. She had no poetic conception of herself to impose on the minds of others. However, she had her uses. She cut sandwiches and made coffee and threw herself into the breach when some unassuming guest seemed in danger of being neglected. And unassuming guests often were.

32wandering_star
Déc 24, 2017, 2:43 pm

102. Angels by Denis Johnson

This book has a blistering first paragraph:

In the Oakland Greyhound all the people were dwarfs, and they pushed and shoved to get on the bus, even cutting in ahead of the two nuns, who were there first. The two nuns smiled sweetly at Miranda and Baby Ellen and played I-see-you behind their fingers when they'd taken their seats. But Jamie could sense that they found her make-up too thick, her pants too tight. They knew she was leaving her husband, and figured she'd turn for a living to whoring. She wanted to tell them what was what, but you can't talk to a Catholic.

On the bus Jamie meets Bill Houston, they have a good time while there is money still in their pocket but gradually their lives spin out of control, in different directions.

This is Denis Johnson's first book, and it's a bit like reading a book-length version of one of the stories in his collection Jesus' Son. The writing is good, but the longer length reduces the impact a bit over the course of the novel, although it still packs a punch at the end.

33wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 25, 2017, 1:32 am

103. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

This book starts excellently, with a witch in Oxford's Bodleian library discovering a magical manuscript, while a vampire looks on from the shadows. Disappointingly it soon turns into a clichéd romance. And if there's one thing worse than a man who is handsome and charismatic but incredibly controlling, it's a writer who thinks it can all be made OK if the heroine responds perkily each time the man does something controlling ("you don't know me very well, do you") and yet just keeps putting up with it...

I had to skim large chunks in the middle, although I kept reading because I was curious about the magical manuscript. However it turns out that this is not just the first book in a trilogy but a story which doesn't really stand on its own, so the mystery of the manuscript was never fully revealed. Grump.

Suddenly two icy patches bloomed between my shoulder blades. I had been seen, and not by an ordinary human observer. When one witch studies another, the touch of their eyes tingles. Witches aren't the only creatures sharing the world with humans, however. There are also daemons - creative, artistic creatures who walk a tightrope between madness and genius. "Rock stars and serial killers" was how my aunt described these strange, perplexing beings. And there are vampires, ancient and beautiful, who feed on blood and will charm you utterly if they don't kill you first. When a daemon takes a look I feel the slight, unnerving pressure of a kiss. But when a vampire stares, it feels cold, focused and dangerous.

34SassyLassy
Déc 24, 2017, 3:05 pm

>32 wandering_star: I'm a big fan of Denis Johnson, but I would agree with you about the length of Angels. All his work packs that punch it seems.

I've been contemplating a reread for the nth time of Jane Eyre, so you Tea with Mr Rochester caught my eye as an interesting side read when I get there.

35dchaikin
Déc 26, 2017, 7:29 pm

Enjoyed your review of Johnson’s Angels a lot. Great opening paragraph.

36kidzdoc
Déc 27, 2017, 7:59 am

That is quite an opening paragraph! I'm sorry that the rest of Angels doesn't live up to that memorable beginning.

37wandering_star
Déc 30, 2017, 3:02 am

104. Autumn by Ali Smith

This has been described as the first novel to feature the Brexit referendum, which would have put me off it completely if it wasn't by Ali Smith. Not so much because of the result of the vote - what I have found really depressing is what the whole thing has done to public discourse and the relationships between people in this country. As it turns out, of course, I should have trusted Ali Smith and her perceptiveness and humanity, because that is precisely (one of the things) that this book is about.

The storyline which runs through the book is about the friendship, in fact platonic love, between Elisabeth and an elderly man Daniel Gluck, who was her next-door neighbour when she was growing up. In the present day, Daniel is dying in a nursing home, and Elisabeth visits him regularly to sit by his bed and read to his sleeping form. But this storyline is really a peg for Smith's themes, which as usual are handled in a light, allusive and playful way, but are very serious - the importance of treating others as people in their own right, of looking directly at the bad things that are happening rather than turning away from an awkward situation, of trying to see through the lies, of hope.

A quick read, but one that I think would give you more each time you re-read it.

I'll tell you what will happen, Daniel said. This. You and I will know I've lied, but your mother won't. You and I will know something that your mother doesn't. That will make us feel different towards not just your mother, but each other. A wedge will come between us all. You will stop trusting me, and quite right, because I'd be a liar. We'll all be lessened by the lie. So. Do you still choose the ballet? Or will I tell the sorrier truth?
I want the lie, Elisabeth said. She knows loads of things I don't. I want to know some things she doesn't.
The power of the lie, Daniel said. Always seductive to the powerless.

38wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 30, 2017, 3:13 am

106. Blue is the Warmest Colour by Julie Maroh

A graphic novel, in which woman (Emma) goes to her dead lover (Clementine)'s parents' house to read through Clem's teenage diaries - many of which are about Clem's first meetings with Emma, and her struggles with her own feelings for another woman.

To be honest I found the story rather thin and unnecessarily tragic - there didn't seem to be a good reason why Clem had to die after a period of depression during a break in the relationship - other than to give a framing story in which Emma would be reading through those diaries. I read another LT review which said that this felt like a very old-fashioned lesbian story in which the women had to be punished, pulp-style, which I kind of agree with.

I did like the drawing style - Clem's inner world is largely black and white, with only the blue of Emma's dyed hair standing out; but it was disappointing that the translation couldn't fit all the English words into the bubbles properly.

39wandering_star
Modifié : Déc 30, 2017, 3:25 am

107. The Salzburg Connection by Helen MacInnes

I picked this (and a couple of other Helen MacInnes books) up in a dusty second-hand bookshop because of the wonderful covers:



and picked it off the shelves because it fitted with a TIOLI challenge read for this month, being a NY Times bestseller from 1968.

It's a twisty spy thriller, set in the mid-sixties but harking back to the turmoil in Europe twenty years previously. At the end of WWII, Nazis sunk some of their most precious records in Austrian lakes, but have continued to keep watch over them to ensure that their secrets are not disturbed. However, an ex-British agent has an idea what is down there and manages to bring up a box and hide it, before he is caught and killed by the Nazis watching the lake. This sets off a whole chain of events with agents from more or less every power that existed in the 1960s being drawn to the small mountain village near the lake. A bit too long and complicated but an enjoyable story. The fact that it was written by a woman doesn't make it too different from the normal run of spy stories - there are still glamorous women who catch our heroes' eyes - but perhaps the author's gender shows in the fact that the women tend not to behave in a silly way and in fact that it's more likely to be a man who does something dumb because of a pretty woman.

It turns out that this and many other of MacInnes' books are still in print.

'Outside your hotel today, was that Miss Freytag standing with Mrs Conway in front of the Eden du Lac?'
Mathison nodded.
'So Elissa Eva Langenheim Lang saw them both? I wondered what prompted that quick good-bye of hers.'
'You believe Elissa --' The thought was so monstrous that Mathison didn't finish it aloud.
'She could have arranged for Freytag's disappearance if she thought Freytag would identify her. She has a mission in Salzburg as Elissa Lang; an important one, now that Yates is dead and she can finish what he began.'

40wandering_star
Jan 2, 2018, 3:38 pm

A couple of quick reviews to finish off the year:

108. Negroland by Margo Jefferson

A very interesting, cerebral family memoir/social history of the black bourgeoisie in America, and the way its members tried to navigate the challenging path between being seen as different from poorer and less cultured African-Americans, while neither appearing to want to be white nor behaving in such a way which would overly challenge white America. In Jefferson's teens, social changes and the Black Power movement led her to question many of the assumptions in her upbringing - but she also shows us how those tensions continue today.

In 1833, when Joseph was sixteen, Georgia marshaled its resources to pass laws that (1) fined any person that allowed a slave or free Negro access to a printing press or any other labor requiring a knowledge of reading and writing; (2) forbade any person to teach a slave or free Negro to read or write; and (3) allowed a free Negro convicted of "living an idle life" (which could mean walking down the street at a leisurely pace) to be sold into slavery. The familly relocated to Philadelphia, long known for its community of achieving Negros.

41wandering_star
Jan 2, 2018, 3:55 pm

105. Worse Things Happen at Sea by Kellie Strøm
109. Lost Property by Andy Poyiadgi
110. The New Ghost by Robert Hunter
111. Mean Girls Club by Ryan Heshka
112. Golemchik by Will Exley

A batch order from Nobrow Press, who produce illustration-led books for children and adults.

Worse Things Happen At Sea is a fold-out, wordless set of images of sea monsters:



The rest of the books on the list are described as 'graphic short stories'; my favourite was The New Ghost in which a ghost is trying to learn the tasks of his new role when he becomes distracted.



Lost Property is a fable about rediscovering what we have lost in our lives, both concrete and abstract (dreams, relationships, passions):



In Golemchik a young boy on his own for the summer finds an unexpected friend:



Mean Girls Club was basically a collection of pulpy images without a real story:

42wandering_star
Modifié : Jan 2, 2018, 4:16 pm

...And that's it for 2017. Looking back I feel I've had a very good reading year - lots of excellent books, particularly compared to 2016 which I remember as being overall rather disappointing.

As usual when I look back over the way I have rated books over the year, there are some which have improved in my memory and some which I must have enjoyed at the time, but which haven't made so much of a long-term impression on me.

The books I gave 5 stars to over the year were:

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman - a short story collection, reimagining the lives of real historical women who had some sort of brush with fame

Sorceror to the Crown by Zen Cho - magical alternate history fantasy set in roughly Napoleonic Britain, with magic, and a great cast of characters

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett - a scientist lives with indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest; some of the best writing of the year and an examination of questions about who has the right to make decisions about another person's life

NW by Zadie Smith - the lives of a group of friends in NW London, which say something about society in modern Britain. I was surprised to see that I had given this 5 stars, but thinking back I do remember enjoying it a lot

A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu - a graphic memoir/history of China over the last 100 years or so. Another one that I wouldn't have remembered as one of my best books of the year, but which when I think about it was both enjoyable and illuminating.

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers - absolutely bonkers fantasy featuring a magical Dickensian London, Egyptian gods, magical battles, and a complicated interlocking timeline which was a pleasure to figure out.

Hild by Nicola Griffith - exemplary historical fiction about Britain during the gradual shift from paganism to Christianity, inspired by the life of the seventh-century Saint Hilda, who was born a pagan and ended up as Abbess of Whitby and an influential political as well as religious figure. Incredibly well-imagined.

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford - more excellently imagined historical fiction, this time set in the early days of the settlement of New York, with a picaresque quality.

The top three from these were, in order:
1. Hild
2. State of Wonder
3. Golden Hill

I also gave 4.5 stars to:

The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks - disturbing but well-written story of a young girl in the aftermath of World War II

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman - mythological retellings with a quirky spin

All Clear by Connie Willis - time-travelling historians stuck in World War II, with themes about how ordinary people can display heroic behaviour in difficult circumstances

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay - blistering, thought-provoking essays about everything from feminism, privilege, representation in popular culture and Scrabble. Gave me a whole different way of thinking about some of the issues which really concern me.

The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross - detective novel, set in the Caribbean. I confess I don't remember it very well, but it must have been good!

There are also some 4 star books which are high up in my memory of the year:

Autumn
Tea with Mr Rochester
Tirra Lirra by the River
The Sunlight Pilgrims
The Vanishing Futurist
American Housewife
The Essex Serpent
Indonesia etc. - one of the few non-fiction on the list which both scored highly and has stayed in my memory. I think for some of the others, I found them well-written and full of interesting facts, but have forgotten much of what they told me.

43wandering_star
Jan 2, 2018, 4:21 pm

Please come and follow my 10th year of Club Read reading, here.

44valkyrdeath
Jan 3, 2018, 7:18 pm

>38 wandering_star: I've been considering whether to read Blue is the Warmest Colour. That lettering is very strange, clearly someone just typing replacement text over the speech bubbles rather than an actual letterer doing the job properly. I checked an Overdrive sample and it had that same horrible text, but then I had a look at a sample from the printed version of the book, and it has all the English text done perfectly well, so I'm not sure what's going on with that. Not sure it sounds worth bothering with anyway from your review.

45SassyLassy
Jan 7, 2018, 9:55 am

>41 wandering_star: I think I may have to find Worse Things Happen at Sea. I love the look of it. Somewhat surprised to find several books with that great title.

I'll certainly be following your reading in 2018.