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Post by Kimby on Jan 8, 2016 5:37:27 GMT
Nonfiction: Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway. About the fraud perpetrated upon the American people by the tobacco industry to use respected scientists to create doubt about scientific studies that showed tobacco was harmless to one's health.
This same method - and often the same "expert witnesses" - were used to create doubt about acid rain and global warming too. And the convinced the media that it had to report both sides of the story, even though one side was wrong. Shameful!
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Post by mossie on Jan 20, 2016 20:52:49 GMT
Thanks to others I have just finished Emile Zola's Belly of Paris. He has a very descriptive style and covers a period in the history of Paris which I am particularly interested in, so it kept me interested to the end. A rather sad story, but sums up the period nicely.
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Post by htmb on Jan 20, 2016 21:19:15 GMT
That's great, Mossie! I can imagine that was right up your alley.
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Post by whatagain on Jan 20, 2016 22:15:22 GMT
I just finished 'secret place' from Tana French. www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821043-the-secret-placeI liked it - took place in a scottish high end school for young girls. All think I know next to nothing about, inc the way teenagers speak ... english ... in Scotland. The plot was nice. All in all, quite different from a classical murder investigation, which was why I liked it.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2016 21:39:47 GMT
I'm reading a current bestseller " Histoire de la violence" by Edouard Louis, but I am not enthralled so far because it seems much too egocentric. His first book two years ago was so much better -- " En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule." It was about his adolescence in poverty stricken rural northern France and the abominations that were inflicted upon him. His real name is Eddy Bellegueule, which is absolutely too ridiculous and which is why he has changed it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Louis
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 24, 2016 5:39:29 GMT
I just started Mr. Timothy, which a friend lent me. It's by Louis Bayard, the first book I've read by him. Mr. Timothy of the title is the Tiny Tim of Dicken's A Christmas Carol, but grown into his 20s when the book begins. His father has just died and Timothy has started work in a whorehouse, but doing something quite respectable.
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Post by lola on Jan 25, 2016 15:25:58 GMT
I've had to catch up a bit here.
Thanks for the "best" lists, bixa.
One of my favorites in a long time was on two of those lists: A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin. Some of her short stories here blew me away, and all of them are very good. Together they add up to a brilliant self-portrait. It's refreshing for a writer to have worked as an actual cleaning woman, a clerk in an emergency room, other lowly jobs, and to discuss her marriages, children, and various lovers from many fictional angles. I think she finally got a university faculty job later in life.
Our local library has an adult reading incentive program where if you read so many from their list of 100 great books this month you are entered in a drawing for some prize or the other. I'd already read many on the list, and normally don't jump into such things, but I happened to pick up and really enjoy two from that shelf that I'd never heard of:
Loving, Living, Party Giving, Henry Green. Three novels written I think in the 20's and 30's. Stylistically original, so a little hard to get into, but moving, lyrical. Explores class differences through dialog mostly. Servants, factory workers, privileged respectively. I'm in the last short one now.
and
Mrs. Palfry at the Claremont, 1971, Elizabeth Taylor. An older woman comes to live in a hotel in London where there's another small group of elderly residents. Suffers various indignities and loneliness, passes off to the others as her grandson a young man met by chance. Not sentimental, touching.
Also have recently read Amsterdam, 1998, by Ian McEwan. Two friends, both former lovers of a married woman, end up poisoning each others' lives in an darkly amusing way.
About workplace realism: having worked in teaching hospitals, and liking Hugh Laurie a lot, I thought I'd like the TV show House. (is that considered a comedy?) I watched one episode in a hotel room and became intensely annoyed at their showing an entire medical team devoting days and outside legwork to one case. Never gave it another chance.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 25, 2016 18:06:08 GMT
Very interesting group there, Lola! It could be used as a syllabus for a course in class/workplace/marginalized groups.
I am grateful for the recommendation of A Manual for Cleaning Women in particular, as I consider great short stories to be pure gold.
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Post by lola on Feb 1, 2016 18:15:55 GMT
Ha, yes, bixa. Call me a bleeding' heart lefty.
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Post by bjd on Feb 1, 2016 19:19:40 GMT
If you like short stories, Bixa, then try Alice Munro. She's a Canadian writer who recently won the Nobel Literature Prize but she writes really well. (I say that because I find many Nobel winners completely unreadable.)
While I was away I read Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything about the fossil fuel industry, climate change and capitalism. This may sound daunting but it's very good and really makes you think about what is going on in the world and what we are doing to the Earth.
My son's neighbour brought over Paris -- The Novel by Edward Rutherford. I tried, I really did, but went back to Naomi Klein. I just couldn't get into his hopping from one century to the next and stopping to give little descriptions of various Paris areas, but can understand that it is a popular book.
I also read Los Informantes, a Colombian novel about real things that happened in Colombia during WW2 and how the past influences things and people in the future.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 1, 2016 19:36:41 GMT
Thanks, Bjd. I have read Alice Munro and agree that she's very good. I'm embarrassed to admit I've never read any of Naomi Klein's books even though I'm aware of her and her reputation for readable investigative writing. As far as Edward Rutherford, I appreciate all the research and his story lines can be absorbing, but London almost did me in with its overabundance of facts that don't quite manage to stick in the brain. I have not tried to scale any of his mountains since then.
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Post by mossie on Feb 2, 2016 8:34:51 GMT
Had to smile at the title "A manual for cleanibg women".
I pictured getting into the shower with someone and giving them a good rub down.
I'll get my coat......
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Post by mossie on Feb 2, 2016 8:36:46 GMT
To be seriuos have now just started a book called, what else "On the map, why the world looks the way it does". Ready made for a map addict like me.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2016 21:21:29 GMT
I am currently reading Le grand méchant renard (The Big Bad Fox) by Benjamin Renner. It is a graphic novel about a fox with no hunting skills. When he gets really hungry, he goes to the local farm to try to catch a chicken, but the dog with a gun and other animals always run him off. The friendly farm pig always gives him a basket of turnips when he leaves, but frankly he wants to eat something more to his liking. The local wolf, who has no problem chewing up birds and other little animals in the forest, advises him but won't share any of his bounty. They come up with the brilliant scheme of stealing some eggs instead. This nearly doesn't work, but the fox ends up with three eggs after all, which he has to sit on until they hatch and grow into suitable food. Then they hatch and are pretty insufferable, but he just can't bring himself to chew on them. I am on the edge of my seat and can't imagine how it will all end.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 2, 2016 21:35:28 GMT
Go have a hard boiled egg, then come back & tell us what happens.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2016 21:41:51 GMT
They think the fox is their mother.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 2, 2016 21:54:17 GMT
Are you reading this to a CHILD, K2?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2016 21:56:29 GMT
Not at all. This book won the annual prize by the biggest bookseller in France as the best graphic novel of the year.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 2, 2016 22:02:07 GMT
I'm waiting for the movie!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2016 22:32:26 GMT
I'm sure you'll get a chance to see it because one of the previous books was made into an Oscar nominated movie. Unfortunately, there is sort of a spoiler for my current reading material in the previous work, since the bear can't bring himself to eat the mouse.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 3, 2016 2:48:15 GMT
We saw Ernest & Celestine. Same author?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2016 5:59:18 GMT
Yes.
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Post by mossie on Feb 23, 2016 16:38:40 GMT
I am now reading 'The most Beautiful Walk in the World' by John Baxter. Or rather re-reading, I had taken it with me to the hospital last week as I knew a fair bit of waiting around would be required. As you may have guessed it is a series of essays with the common theme of Paris, so easy to take in small doses.
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Post by bjd on Feb 23, 2016 17:21:24 GMT
I'm halfway through Philip Kerr's latest Bernie Gunther novel, The Lady from Zagreb. And I recently read a bunch of Anne Perry's books set in Victorian England.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2016 18:52:24 GMT
I had to look up the Bernie Gunther novels, as I'm always on the hunt for good crime novelists. Are you enjoying the book, Bjd?
We talked about this before, I think, but it was before you started on Anne Perry. I like the Wm. Monk & Hester ones, but not the ones with the other husband & wife team. Your take?
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Post by bjd on Feb 23, 2016 19:39:11 GMT
Yes, Bixa. I really like Kerr's books, but then, I like history and that period around WW2 (one of the reasons I enjoyed many of the Alan Furst books). Kerr's style is quite different -- his hero is a Berlin policeman/detective who ends up in the SD during the war, but retains a sense of humanity and humour. Not that the books are funny, but I enjoy his cynical remarks. They are also well documented, I think. Here is an interview with Kerr from a few years ago: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9025756/Philip-Kerr-Interview.htmlIt's a good idea to start with the first books (Berlin trilogy) because although they can be read as stand-alones, there is an evolution over time. For the Perry books, I guess you mean the Thomas & Charlotte Pitt books that you don't like as well? I have only read 2 of the Monk/Hester books, but indeed, I think the characters are a bit more interesting, especially Hester. What I read of hers depends on what I find in the used books. At 20c/book, I don't quibble too much and just take them back when I finish. The only disadvantage is that I have to read them in French.
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Post by htmb on Feb 23, 2016 20:48:06 GMT
Alan Furst has a new book coming out. It will be released May 31 on US Amazon.
After watching all four episodes of Michael Pollan's Netflix series "Cooking," I realized I am a complete ignoramus when it comes to chocolate. I'm now reading Mort Rosenblum's book Chocolate to gain a little knowledge on the subject.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2016 21:44:54 GMT
Thanks, Bjd -- Kerr certainly gives a great interview and whetted my appetite to read the B.Gunther books. The fact that they're historical is a plus.
As far as the Anne Perry books, I can only admire you for reading them in French. Take heart from the fact that she's really not a very good writer in English, so the translations might actually be better.
Htmb -- research. Mexico! Belgium!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2016 17:24:55 GMT
While waiting for volume 3 of The Arab of the Future (I think volume 1 recently appeared in English), I read Riad Sattouf's Les Cahiers d'Esther (Esther's Notebooks), where he recreates the touching and tragic events of any little girl's life in middle school. www.thenation.com/article/the-future-of-the-arab/
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Post by whatagain on Mar 18, 2016 21:21:05 GMT
I'm nearing the end of first tome of 'war of the roses' by conn Iggulden. Started Battle of the bulge ? (coorect title ? by Anthony Beevor - I've read so many books on this that I'm disappointed.
I've bought the latest from Mark Billingham (love it) and 2 of Bernard Cornwell and ?? - was in Manchester - access to lots of english books.
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