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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 20, 2023 1:48:00 GMT
I just finished The Wedding Party, and what an entertaining eye opener that was! This is one of those novels that, after reading it, you can't remember what drew you to it in the first place, but are grateful for whatever it was. I've included two reviews below, neither of which manages to capture the richness of detail, nor the incisive but kind character studies which make this book so readable. It also must be mentioned that the various somewhat alarming heavings of 20th century Chinese history are treated in such a way that they manage to fall into place for the reader and make as much sense as such tumultuous events can in our western minds. I would agree with the average of four stars given by both Goodreads and Amazon readers, but that is not to say that this novel is in any way average or middle of the road. The action takes place on December 12, 1982 and the author inserts historical and sociological comments to help the reader to orient herself not only in time, but in the (often loony) Chinese Communism thought that informed that time. The docking of a final star is only because the book is not perfect -- rather too much exposition on how the clock tower worked, for instance -- but really, what is? This book should be read not only for the bouncy way it carries the reader along, but also for an exceptionally compassionate view of mankind in the whole and individually, and an excellent, painless grounding in 20th century Chinese history. asianreviewofbooks.com/content/the-wedding-party-by-liu-xinwu/www.complete-review.com/reviews/china/liu_xinwu.htm
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Post by lugg on Aug 20, 2023 20:14:57 GMT
Lots of recommendations here to explore , thank you. I love a psychological thriller and just (read) two books by CL Taylor, a new author to me . Easy reading / listening and I now have just bought a third, I like her books enough to read more ; not fantastic but entertaining www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58684151 - ok , made me want to read more www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/45895040 - really enjoyed this one
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Post by whatagain on Sept 13, 2023 16:31:07 GMT
I reorganised my collection of cartoons. bd as we say in French. I think this is typical for Belgians to buy so many ‘comics’ and to be proud of those. here the main part. I have 250 - 300 in the library downstairs too.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 13, 2023 21:26:08 GMT
This book was recommended to me by my 7th grade home room teacher who’s a Facebook Friend. He said it was one of his favorite books ever. I liked it too. I hear it’s going to be a TV or streaming series, too.
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Post by htmb on Sept 13, 2023 22:19:28 GMT
I plan to check it out. Thanks for mentioning it here. (I am FB friends with my 7th grade earth science teacher. He’s a real piece of work and hasn’t changed a bit).
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 13, 2023 23:55:05 GMT
My mother read Lessons in Chemistry (she got it from my baby sister) and enjoyed it thoroughly.
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Post by htmb on Sept 14, 2023 1:16:40 GMT
Our library has a ten week wait via Libby.
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Post by bjd on Sept 14, 2023 7:58:56 GMT
My son's neighbour gave me a book to read on the plane home: A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny. Looking for the title, it seems to have been reissued recently under a different title but the description matches.
The books are set in Quebec and are pretty good although I found some of the descriptions of the hero (Armand Gamache) a bit too much and the nasties were really too nasty to be credible.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 14, 2023 14:36:41 GMT
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Post by Kimby on Sept 15, 2023 2:00:00 GMT
I just read the first few chapters (free online) of a book written by the guy who just announced his candidacy to be Montana’s next governor. The current Governor is the guy who body/slammed a reporter who had the temerity to ask him a question at a campaign event when he was running for Congress. He also is a major donor to a Kentucky Noah’s Ark museum that espouses religious stories to visiting public schoolchildren. Ryan Busse is running as a Democrat, but he’s from deep red Kalispell AND he’s a retired VP of a company that sells guns. So how is HE a Democrat? Are they trying to stack the deck with TWO Republican candidates? I googled him and found a link to this book he wrote, coming out against the changed nature of the gun culture in America. Pretty riveting, if not Pulitzer Prize material. This link lets you read the first 41 pages of his book. It will help you understand what’s going on in America a little better, and if you live or travel in America, it may scare you more than a little. books.google.com/books/about/Gunfight.html?id=xwkvEAAAQBAJBixa, if there’s a more appropriate thread for this, I’m happy to move it.
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Post by bjd on Sept 24, 2023 5:36:51 GMT
A few months ago I found a book at the library, so in French, a translation from an Israeli book, "A Long Night in Paris" by Dov Alfon. I liked it and have looked unsuccessfully for others by him. Two weeks ago my son gave me a bookbox find in English, which turned out to be the same book. I reread it and it's lots of fun -- much criticism of Israeli politics (the PM's wife having her hair done in Monaco using public funds), the French police and politicians, Chinese mafia...
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 24, 2023 16:27:38 GMT
I am always on the lookout for modern novels that contain travel adventures, but sometimes they trick you. For example, I recently read Un vrai dépaysement about a young man trying to flee his bourgeois family in Bordeaux. He trains to be a teacher (against his family's will because they like professions that earn a lot of money) with innovative methods and to be as far away from the family as possible, he requests a posting in French Guiana in South America, which is a sure thing since the schools of Guiana never have enough teachers. But he is given a posting in Auvergne to his horror, a small town in the mountains. It is never confirmed, but probably his father pulled strings to make sure that he couldn't escape. The principal is a traditionalist who makes sure that his innovative ideas cannot be implemented. It's not a bad book but I was quite frustrated.
Then, not expecting much, I started reading Loin by Alexis Michalik. He is a huge celebrity in France because he is a writer, playwright, stage director and actor. Because of this, I was a bit suspicious of it just being a piece of fluff. But it is actually quite dense (and long) with the main characters going on a quest to find the father of one of them who disappeared 15 years ago. They have almost no clues except a postcard that was lost by the postal service and delivered years late. This came from Austria, but they also have to go to Berlin and then on to Turkey, Serbia, Armenia and Georgia as they hunt for clues, and I'm only halfway through the book. There is quite a bit of history of the Armenian genocide, the Russian revolution, Nazi atrocities... almost too much detail when I want things to move along, but still quite well written. I looked up the origins of Alexis Michalik and his father is a Polish artist and his mother is British. Reading the book, I would have thought that he was from Armenia/Turkey. One of the reviews of the book says "worthy of Alexandre Dumas."
I know that I rarely contribute to this thread and my reading tastes are clearly one of the reasons.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 24, 2023 17:41:13 GMT
I subscribe to a NYTimes newsletter called "Read Like the Wind", which has a variety of editors. bjd, you can well imagine that I thought of you when I read this part of the most recent edition. It's a review of Falling Star (Henry Tibbett, No. 5), by Patricia Moyes. The reviewer is Sadie Stein. For rather more conventional vacation (or rainy-day) reading, may I suggest a good series? I came across my first Inspector Henry Tibbett in a rental property some 10 years ago. I had finished my worthy biography of a scientific luminary; I was desperate. I raided the house’s spare bookshelf — mostly sailing manuals and a couple of children’s books, which I quickly dispatched — and found myself confronted with the unprepossessing cover of “Falling Star.” I started reading with low expectations, and was hooked. It was a perfect period piece: a murder on the set of an early-60s’ London “angry-young-man”-style kitchen sink drama, including a Pinteresque screenwriter, bohemian actors, a sleazy producer and a series of postwar apartments. It was taut and suspenseful and I had no idea whodunnit.
About a year later, I ran across my second Tibbett on the giveaway shelf at the laundromat. This time, I knew to pounce. The premise was equally fab: a ski chalet in the Swiss Alps involving some extremely groovy intellectuals, a Bardot-like starlet and a possible ring of Parisian call girls.
I resolved that I would only read Tibbetts that fell into my lap by chance. But another year went by, I didn’t go anywhere and I started to jones. I ordered five more online. There was a country house murder. There was a mysterious spinster. There were tropical resorts, a mod atelier, a dognapping. They’re not all great (the detective is something of a cypher, and I’d skip the dated fashion-house one, despite all the Carnaby-Street gear) but they are all stylish and reassuring as only a mystery can be, and the fact that there are so many left in the world is a great comfort. And “Angel Death,” No. 15, even involves a Caribbean beach.
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Post by lugg on Sept 24, 2023 19:51:53 GMT
I have just read " We Are Completely Beside Ourselves" I cannot really say much or post a link to a review as it gives too much away. I already knew the twist before starting it ....but it passed an hour or three away .
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 24, 2023 21:17:07 GMT
It was pretty engrossing, wasn't it, Lugg? A couple of people recommended it to me. I knew nothing about it, but started reading it based on their recommendations. I wasn't very far into it when this awful woman I know heard me say I was reading it and bellowed out, "Oh -- that's the one where ----------!"
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Post by lugg on Sept 25, 2023 19:30:11 GMT
I wasn't very far into it when this awful woman I know heard me say I was reading it and bellowed out, "Oh -- that's the one where ----------!" What a plonker ... stay away from her Bixa if you can
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 25, 2023 20:34:19 GMT
Thanks, Lugg. There are times when I wish I could carry around one small, fairly inoffensive taser for when the occasion demanded it.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 27, 2023 2:02:33 GMT
Reading a rare non-fiction, Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me by Ada Calhoun, the NYT bestselling author of Why We Can’t Sleep.
It’s a biography, sort of. Two biographies actually. She stumbles on boxes of cassette tapes of interviews that her literary critic father, Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted in the 1970’s while preparing to write a biography of poet Frank O’Hara. His book never happened because O’Hara’s sister Maureen, his “literary executor”, soured on the project, partly because of Peter’s maladroit interpersonal skills.
In the book, Ada goes about listening to the tapes (after digitizing them) and making attempts to change Maureen’s mind about allowing a biography of her brother to be written. Ada takes us along on the journey in real time, with flashbacks provided by the tapes to the edgy literary/art scene in NYC in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and the process provides Ada with insight into her own growing up years on the edge of that scene.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 27, 2023 17:21:57 GMT
Lessons in Chemistry was my favourite book of 2021/2 ..in fact I bought copies for my sisters, DiL and niece.
I just read the latest Richard Osman.The Last Devil to Die. I gave up on the first one a few years ago...but then in the past couple of months decided to give it another go..then gobbled up all of his Thursday Murder Club books one after the other! Not great literature but then it doesn't claim to be...jut a nice, gentle read.
A similar 'genteel whodunit' author is the Reverend Richard Coles..and I love his books too
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 28, 2023 16:02:16 GMT
I'm always in the market for genteel whodunits. Great literature often exhausts me even though I appreciate it too.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 1, 2023 2:08:38 GMT
I have just read " We Are Completely Beside Ourselves" I cannot really say much or post a link to a review as it gives too much away. I already knew the twist before starting it ....but it passed an hour or three away . Is this the book about a family with a chimpanzee? I want to reserve the right book at the library.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 1, 2023 2:12:27 GMT
Are there two books with that name?! Just be sure to reserve the one by Karen Joy Fowler.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 1, 2023 4:49:38 GMT
Thanks, Bixa. The title of the Fowler book actually has “All” in it. And from the description on the library site, I was not at all sure we were talking about the same book.
I’ve put it on hold.
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Post by lugg on Oct 1, 2023 19:27:16 GMT
Thanks, Bixa. The title of the Fowler book actually has “All” in it. And from the description on the library site, I was not at all sure we were talking about the same book. I’ve put it on hold. That is the one Kimby ...sorry I missed out the All
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Post by Kimby on Oct 1, 2023 19:55:40 GMT
No worries, Lugg. I’m always grateful for suggestions.
My new read is Through the Wilderness by Brad Orstad, about his journey from a drunken suicidal bereaved father to redemption after a chance encounter with a grizzly bear in Montana.
Just getting into it, but I like his writing.
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Post by whatagain on Nov 19, 2023 5:13:50 GMT
I am reading a book about lubricant written by a technology expert.
We can call it a book of science friction !
Waf waf waf roflol 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 11, 2023 0:49:57 GMT
*snork!*
Last night I started re-reading Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster. I'm a huge fan of his, and have re-read several of his books, but not this one.
As usual, he is totally satisfying, especially because going in you already know he has no intention of being totally fair or p.c. about everything.
His trip took place in the mid to late '80s & part of his goal was to get there without leaving the ground. Thus he left from London, where he was living, and went by train to Paris, thence to Germany, & on to eastern Europe, etc.
Part of what makes all this fascinating is that it takes place in a period of history that many of us well remember, but which simultaneously seems like so long ago.
I'm not very far in, but have thought of several of you as I read -- Kerouac because Theroux leaves from the Gare de l'Est and then travels through Berlin not that long before Kerouac went there to see the Wall come down; Mark because of the places in eastern Europe mentioned, our two anyport Polish girls: "... young Polish women are madly attractive, with clear skin and large limpid eyes, and lovely hair."
At any rate, I picked this book up because I remembered the pleasure it gave me the first time I read it, and it's delivering it all over again, in spades.
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Post by bjd on Dec 11, 2023 6:57:27 GMT
I recently reread one of Theroux's books about train travel too: The Great Railway Bazaar. I agree that his travel books are good, his novels less so.
As far as reading goes, I recently read three Andrea Camilleri novels about Inspector Montalbano. I found the book in English in a charity shop so it was the first time I had read Camilleri in English. Up till now, I had read him only in French translation which is much better in my opinion. Perhaps because of some similarities between Italian and French or perhaps because the French translator, Serge Quadruppani, puts in some Sicilian words where the words used by Camilleri sort of resemble the French ones or else are not direcly translatable. My feeling too is that the French version is less vulgar. For some reason, the English translation uses a lot of swearing and vulgarity, which is not something I ever noticed in the French books.
And on a bookshelf at home I found a book bought for $1 in Toronto years ago at an outdoor book sale. I had never read it but kept putting it off. Well, I'm glad I finally started to read it. It's called The Island of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston and it's a novel based on the life of Joe Smallwood, who was Premier of Newfoundland for years after Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. Before that it was an English colony. Not only am I enjoying the book but discovered that my hardcover copy has been signed by the author.
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Post by fumobici on Dec 11, 2023 15:16:03 GMT
I recently reread one of Theroux's books about train travel too: The Great Railway Bazaar. I agree that his travel books are good, his novels less so. As far as reading goes, I recently read three Andrea Camilleri novels about Inspector Montalbano. I found the book in English in a charity shop so it was the first time I had read Camilleri in English. Up till now, I had read him only in French translation which is much better in my opinion. Perhaps because of some similarities between Italian and French or perhaps because the French translator, Serge Quadruppani, puts in some Sicilian words where the words used by Camilleri sort of resemble the French ones or else are not direcly translatable. My feeling too is that the French version is less vulgar. For some reason, the English translation uses a lot of swearing and vulgarity, which is not something I ever noticed in the French books. I have trouble imagining reading the Montalbano series in translation. A lot of the "feel" of those books is the tension or contrast between the Italian language narration and the colloquial Sicilian dialogue.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 11, 2023 16:02:33 GMT
The Great Railway Bazaar is the book that introduced me to Theroux, probably in common with most people. It's been so long since I re-read that one that I can hit it again with pleasure one of these days. I agree with you, Bjd, about his novels vs. the travel books, although I do love The Family Arsenal. I read both On the Plain of Snakes and Deep South with great trepidation because both of those subjects are so much a part of me that I was afraid I'd be outraged and turned off Theroux forever. Exactly the opposite happened. Both were written with humility, empathy, great insight, and showing as ever his keen powers of observation, so I came away with even greater regard for him as a writer. Interesting comments about Camilleri and translations. I have a couple of his books (in English translation), but have not yet read them. I did a little looking up, though, and found some interesting things: This link is a thoughtful conversation following a question by an Italian about the translation of Camilleri's books. He says: I have always thought that the language used by Camilleri and Montalbano on their mystery was impossible to translate. In italian it's a kind of strange sicilian slang, a sort of brand new language ...A reader responds: [The books] ... sell well in France where the dialect was translated into a kind of mock Midi.Here is a quite interesting look at Camilleri's "invention": medium.com/@flawrite/on-the-writer-that-created-his-own-language-a08e7fb1952bIt turns out there is a whole website devoted to the language of Camilleri: www.camillerindex.it/(I found that information here.) Finally, getting back to Bjd's comment about the vulgarity in the English translation, here is a review on Amazon of one of his books by a reader: 2.0 out of 5 stars I am Italian but find it outrageously vulgar. Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2013 The language is really awful and not what I think is acceptable. It is very different from the usual Italian into English models. I find it really vulgar so I read only one.And on a bookshelf at home I found a book bought for $1 in Toronto years ago at an outdoor book sale. I had never read it but kept putting it off. Well, I'm glad I finally started to read it. It's called The Island of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston and it's a novel based on the life of Joe Smallwood, who was Premier of Newfoundland for years after Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. Before that it was an English colony. Not only am I enjoying the book but discovered that my hardcover copy has been signed by the author. Hey! I am very happy to have this recommendation. That book has been offered more than once by BookBub. Each time I look at it, read some reviews, but ultimately don't buy it. Next time I will!
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