What are you reading the week of June 25, 2022?

I'm about halfway through Russian Thinkers by Isaiah Berlin. It's a collection of essays on several 19th century Russian writers. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Herzen, others. Very relaxing read which I definitely need these days.

I also read the novella Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis. Could make a good Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. :-)

A Familiar Sight (Dr. Gretchen White Book 1) by Brianna Labuskes

When I last posted, I was reading Jaws by Peter Benchley; I finished it and it has not aged well. Then I read the novella I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, and the third volume in The Way of the House Husband manga series. Most recently I finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson which was really boring.

This week I finished The Girl with the Louding Voice, which was brilliant. It's about a 14-year old Nigerian girl who is married off for money to a cruel middle-aged man. It's not a true story but inspirational nonetheless - the main character is so determined to get an education, to teach others, and to better herself. 5/5 for this book.

I am down to the last four hours of the audiiobook of All the Light we Cannot See, which I'm liking very much.

Finished The Secret Witness by Victor Methos. Like his endings. Added Mother Dear by Nova Lee Maier to my rotation. (Maier is a pseudonym for Verhoef.}

>3 Tara1Reads: I just loved 84, Charing Cross Road!!! One of my all-time favourite reads!

Plan to wrap up the month with Dornier Do 17, Science under Fire, and N-4 Down.

>6 clamato: I actually think the movie format works better for the story. I’ve watched the movie 2.5 times over the last few days.

I finished the enchanting book, The Piano Tuner which was an immersion into another world of beauty, intrigue which both the main character and the reader finds intoxicating. A shy and sensitive man grows deeper grappling with the mysteries of this world.

I'm reading True Biz by Sara Nović as well as Storia sociale dell'antica Grecia by Fritz Gschnitzer

Starting this OverDrive audio ~

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

Greetings! I just got back from a glorious four days at the Kate Wolf Music Festival, where we camped with a group of friends and saw a whole bunch of great musicians: folk, rock, blues and world music mostly. I brought along Frederick Douglas' famous biography to read but, you'll not be surprised to learn, did exactly zero reading. However, after today's 1-day touchdown at home, we head off to Toronto for a few days to attend my wife's cousin's daughter's wedding. I'll have more reading time, on the flights back and forth from San Francisco if nowhere else, and so I'll most likely read the Douglas book as well as the next book in my two works per year Isaac B. Singer novels read-through, The Family Moskat.

>12 rocketjk: Total Derailing Post here.

Kate Wolf Music Festival -- what an amazing line-up! You must have had a ball. I don't know how I've missed out on this for 25 years, but I'm signed up now for updates.

We now return you to our regularly-scheduled programming.............

Wisecracker by William J. Mann, a biography of actor William Haines.

>13 LyndaInOregon: We did have a ball, especially because we camped in a group with about 10 friends in a cooperative we call Losers' Camp. We take turns providing meals for the group and going for ice and making smoothies and coffee in the morning and have lots of fun laughing and comparing notes on the music. Sadly, no updates regarding the festival will be forthcoming, as it was announced several months ago that this year's event will be the last Kate Wolf Festival.

Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger – Lisa Donovan
Digital audiobook read by the author
3.5***

Donovan is a chef and award-winning essayist who has worked in a number of celebrated restaurant kitchens throughout the South. This is her memoir.

Her passion and focus has been on desserts but she knows her way around the entire kitchen. Her journey from Army brat to single mother to just-another-restaurant-worker to pastry star is interesting, and she tells her story with insight and honesty. She recalls the hard work and the discouraging way she was treated by men who didn’t value her contributions because she was a woman (and yet, were quick to give credit to their own mothers, grandmothers, and aunts who nurtured their own love of food and cooking). And she relishes in the memories of her successful endeavors and reflects on the lessons learned.

One of the more telling events in her career is outlined on the book jacket: “…she had made the perfect dessert at a celebration for food-world goddess Diana Kennedy. When Kennedy sked why she had not heard of her, Donovan said she did not know. ‘I do,’ Kennedy said. ‘Stop letting men tell your story.’” I’m so glad that she listened to that advice.

Donovan narrates the audio book version herself. I cannot imagine that anyone else could have done a better job.

So far this week I've finished two books, Terror in the Trench: An Aquatic Horror Anthology by Jay Alexander, and The Institute by Stephen King, both good reading.

I'm halfway through Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, and my goal is to finish before the end of the month.

Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu
Digital audiobook performed by Joel de la Fuente
3***

From the book jacket: Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in production. He’s a bit player here, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy – the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by his mother. Who says to him: Be more..

My reactions:
Yu’s inventive novel won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020. I suspect this is because of the very unusual way in which it is written; he uses a second-person narrative voice and writes as if this were a screenplay. Also of note, Yu includes some serious social issues regarding racism, stereotyping in film/television, and personal goals vs family obligations.

Personally, I found the structure off-putting. This was probably exacerbated by my listening to it rather than reading the text. It seemed to me that Yu was trying too hard to be clever. And referencing the characters as “Generic Asian Man” or “Old Kung Fu Master” or “Young Asian Beauty” rather than by their names made it more difficult – for me at least – to connect to the characters and care about them. Be that as it may, he had a pretty good story to tell, and eventually I came to appreciate his message.

Joel de la Fuente does a very good job of the audio, but the structure of the writing really does not lend itself well to audio. I am also puzzled, given the underlying message re racism in the performing arts, why the narrator was not Asian.

I finished the biography, The Courage of Hoa Ngoc Pham. It was written by a friend and recounts an amazing life, from rural Vietnamese farmer, soldier, prisoner, US emigrant.

Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers
Deborah Cadbury
4/5 stars
Deborah Cadbury, a Quaker family relative of one of the famous chocolate makers relates the history of chocolate, the manufacturers who made the chocolate and the rivalries between the chocolate manufacturers including Cadbury, Milton Hershey, Nestle, Lindt and Forrest Mars. Very interesting!

Just finished the LTER, The Swords of Blood and Gold. and really enjoyed it. Kind of an Indiana Jones-meets-an-evil-Jackie-Chan-via-Yoda mixup.

Okay, I'm making it sound silly. It wasn't silly, it was a pretty good adventure with supernatural overtones. One of the better LTERs I've reviewed.

Currently devouring Jennifer Weiner's Big Summer. Two more LTERs on the horizon.

Enjoy the long weekend, everybody!

Nudge – Richard H Thaler & Cass R Sunstein
Digital audiobook read by Lloyd James.
3***

Subtitle: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Thaler and Sunstein are professors specializing in Behavioral Economics. This work explores the ways in which decision options are presented to achieve the result the designer hopes for … i.e. the nudges.

I found much of this very interesting and kept thinking of incidents in recent years that pointed out how such nudges were beneficial. Certainly, my parents nudged my saving habits, even though they never studied economics. But not all nudges are beneficial. The book also made me aware of the nudges that I need to be mindful of. (Extended warranties? Uh, no.)

I had to laugh when reading the updated section at the end, and they reported that the single example that got the most attention was the fly in the urinals at Schiphol airport! I’ve been thinking hard about how I might replicate their results to nudge my husband to put the dirty dishes IN the dishwasher vs just on the counter right above the dishwasher.

The digital audiobook I listened to most was read by Lloyd James. He does a fine job, but much of the material is rather dry, and of course, the listener misses the graphs and illustrations. My local library’s CD version was narrated by Sean Pratt. A fellow book club member listened to a version narrated by Richard Thaler.

The new thread is up over here.

Getting ready to read The Alienist. Has anyone read it?