wandering_star - reading my bookshelves in 2024
ForumClub Read 2024
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1wandering_star
Let me see if I remember how to do this! Last year feels like it went on for ever - I was surprised to look back on some of the books I read in January because I would have sworn that they were from much longer ago.
In 2023 I read fewer books than usual, mostly managed to keep up with my own Club Read thread but did quite badly at following others' reading - in 2024 I am aiming to do more of that, as well as to read more of the physical books I already own.
I would like to think I read quite a variety of things but looking at my top reads of the year they are all fiction, by women, and all but one from the twenty-first century.
Top reads from 2023:
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata (unsettling short stories with a theme of the absurdity of human existence)
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker (retelling of the end of the Trojan War)
The Employees by Olga Ravn (unsettling novella about strange objects on a spaceship)
The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai (multi-timeline story about a house where generations of artists have lived)
The Maiden Dinosaur by Janet McNeill (life of a 1960s spinster)
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan (interlinked short stories about a future where we have access to each other’s consciousnesses)
In 2023 I read fewer books than usual, mostly managed to keep up with my own Club Read thread but did quite badly at following others' reading - in 2024 I am aiming to do more of that, as well as to read more of the physical books I already own.
I would like to think I read quite a variety of things but looking at my top reads of the year they are all fiction, by women, and all but one from the twenty-first century.
Top reads from 2023:
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata (unsettling short stories with a theme of the absurdity of human existence)
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker (retelling of the end of the Trojan War)
The Employees by Olga Ravn (unsettling novella about strange objects on a spaceship)
The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai (multi-timeline story about a house where generations of artists have lived)
The Maiden Dinosaur by Janet McNeill (life of a 1960s spinster)
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan (interlinked short stories about a future where we have access to each other’s consciousnesses)
2labfs39
Welcome back, Margaret! I keep seeing Maiden Dinosaur mentioned on the threads, I should see if my library has a copy. I also have one of Pat Barker's retellings on my read-next bookcase, Silence of the Girls. Looking forward to that too, as I've only read Barker's Regeneration trilogy so far, but really liked it.
3kjuliff
>2 labfs39: I was hooked Pat Barker after the Regeneration trilogy but haven’t tried any of her recent works. I can never get into modern versions of the classics so haven’t tried Silence of the Girls. Maybe I should try it, though I recently gave up on Song of Achilles.
4rhian_of_oz
>1 wandering_star: The Silence Of The Girls will more than likely be in my (yet to be compiled) top 10 for 2023. I have The Women Of Troy on my TBR shelves and I expect I'll read it this year as part of one of the LT Challenges.
6dchaikin
Happy New Year. January 2023 does seem like a really long time ago to me too. I’m interested in The Candy House.
9lisapeet
I keep thinking The Maiden Dinosaur is something I should recommend to my book club, then forget. Maybe this year I'll remember...
Happy New Year to you!
Happy New Year to you!
11raton-liseur
Happy new year. I will follow your thread as usual, probably silently as usual.
Last december, I read After midnight, that I had bought following your review in March. It was an interesting read, so thanks for that§
Your top reads from 2023 in >1 wandering_star: shows interesting titles. You labelled two of those books as "unsettling", I like that!
Last december, I read After midnight, that I had bought following your review in March. It was an interesting read, so thanks for that§
Your top reads from 2023 in >1 wandering_star: shows interesting titles. You labelled two of those books as "unsettling", I like that!
12BLBera
Happy New Year. Great list of favorites from 2023. I loved The Candy House. I will look for the Makkai. I loved The Great Believers though I was disappointed by I Have Some Questions for You.
13SassyLassy
Slowly making the rounds of everyone's new threads. Will be following along here, as I always pick up some ideas for titles.
14wandering_star
Oh dear I am so behind already! Both on my reviews and on all the 100+ message threads that always seem to happen at the start of the year. Still, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step so let's start off with the first review of the year: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov.
The time is coming when more and more people will want to hide in the cave of the past, to turn back. And not for happy reasons, by the way. We need to be ready with the bomb shelter of the past. Call it the time shelter, if you will.
This is not so much a novel as a collection of thoughts about memory loosely hung on a story structure. The two (or are they?) main characters are the narrator and a mysterious friend of his named Gaustine, who is obsessed with the past and has the idea to set up homes for the elderly where the things around them will be familiar from their youth.
There are a lot of ideas here about individual memory, in particular (as Gospodinov is Bulgarian) what it means to lose your memory when your early life was lived in a Communist society so different from the one you live in today. There is a character whose memories of his obsession with the USA is stronger than any memories of his real life; another who tracks down the agent who used to spy on him, to remind him of the details of his youth.
There are also ideas about the quirks of memory (a dentist's drill makes the narrator think of the Bulgarian politburo because their photos were hung in his dentist's office when he was a child), and later on about the impact on the sense of self of the loss of memory.
Later on in the book, this examination of memory broadens out into political nostalgia, and the comment "The past is not just that which happened to you. Sometimes it is that which you just imagined" takes on a more sinister edge as one after another, countries across Europe vote in referenda to return to earlier times - times perceived as better/simpler by those who voted for them. I was reading this book when the news leaked out about the AfD's deportation plans, which made it feel horribly prescient.
The time is coming when more and more people will want to hide in the cave of the past, to turn back. And not for happy reasons, by the way. We need to be ready with the bomb shelter of the past. Call it the time shelter, if you will.
This is not so much a novel as a collection of thoughts about memory loosely hung on a story structure. The two (or are they?) main characters are the narrator and a mysterious friend of his named Gaustine, who is obsessed with the past and has the idea to set up homes for the elderly where the things around them will be familiar from their youth.
There are a lot of ideas here about individual memory, in particular (as Gospodinov is Bulgarian) what it means to lose your memory when your early life was lived in a Communist society so different from the one you live in today. There is a character whose memories of his obsession with the USA is stronger than any memories of his real life; another who tracks down the agent who used to spy on him, to remind him of the details of his youth.
There are also ideas about the quirks of memory (a dentist's drill makes the narrator think of the Bulgarian politburo because their photos were hung in his dentist's office when he was a child), and later on about the impact on the sense of self of the loss of memory.
Later on in the book, this examination of memory broadens out into political nostalgia, and the comment "The past is not just that which happened to you. Sometimes it is that which you just imagined" takes on a more sinister edge as one after another, countries across Europe vote in referenda to return to earlier times - times perceived as better/simpler by those who voted for them. I was reading this book when the news leaked out about the AfD's deportation plans, which made it feel horribly prescient.
15wandering_star
2. Statues in a Garden by Isabel Colegate
Set over the months of summer before the outbreak of WWI, Statues in a Garden is about a wealthy family in their country house, preparing for the wedding of their older daughter.
They are observed by a few outsiders - handsome governess Alice, who is half in love with their world but amazed by their obliviousness, and nephew Philip, adopted by the family as a child after his parents died, but full of bitterness at what he perceives as second class status within the family. His anger and frustrated striving are perceived but ignored by the family, in the same way they ignore the talk of possible war in Europe and in Ireland, but may be as dangerous for the family's future as historical events will be for their entire class.
This is the second book I have read by Isabel Colegate who seems to be an unjustly unknown writer. Her writing style is a bit like Penelope Fitzgerald in that you need to concentrate on what she says, to see the shapes of what is not said but lies between the lines - but her view of human nature is more complex even than Fitzgerald's, and in this book there is a lot of anger about the smugness of the British ruling class.
Statues in a Garden was originally published in 1964 and reprinted a couple of years ago in an edition which must have been machine-read from a hard copy source and not checked through, because it is full of typos and missing punctuation :-(
When you have had a quarrel with your husband, a quarrel known to both of you to have been caused by nothing more than tiredness - a mutual lapse - you try to make it up before you go to sleep that night. That is a rule. Of course. But if your husband looks at you from such a distance through his new reading glasses and smiles politely as to a stranger or perhaps a constituent - what do you do then?
Set over the months of summer before the outbreak of WWI, Statues in a Garden is about a wealthy family in their country house, preparing for the wedding of their older daughter.
They are observed by a few outsiders - handsome governess Alice, who is half in love with their world but amazed by their obliviousness, and nephew Philip, adopted by the family as a child after his parents died, but full of bitterness at what he perceives as second class status within the family. His anger and frustrated striving are perceived but ignored by the family, in the same way they ignore the talk of possible war in Europe and in Ireland, but may be as dangerous for the family's future as historical events will be for their entire class.
This is the second book I have read by Isabel Colegate who seems to be an unjustly unknown writer. Her writing style is a bit like Penelope Fitzgerald in that you need to concentrate on what she says, to see the shapes of what is not said but lies between the lines - but her view of human nature is more complex even than Fitzgerald's, and in this book there is a lot of anger about the smugness of the British ruling class.
Statues in a Garden was originally published in 1964 and reprinted a couple of years ago in an edition which must have been machine-read from a hard copy source and not checked through, because it is full of typos and missing punctuation :-(
When you have had a quarrel with your husband, a quarrel known to both of you to have been caused by nothing more than tiredness - a mutual lapse - you try to make it up before you go to sleep that night. That is a rule. Of course. But if your husband looks at you from such a distance through his new reading glasses and smiles politely as to a stranger or perhaps a constituent - what do you do then?
16rocketjk
>15 wandering_star: Wow, that last passage you quoted is really something. I'll have to look for that book. Thanks.
17labfs39
>14 wandering_star: I like your review of Time Shelter. I read it last year and was similarly interested in the memory aspects, but also the political implications.
18kjuliff
>14 wandering_star: Thank you for your comprehensive review. I’ve half-read Time Shelter and have the second half of it waiting for me to read. I haven’t dumped the book and really liked the first half. I’ve forgotten the structure; am I correct in thinking there are two distinct parts?
19wandering_star
>16 rocketjk:, >17 labfs39:, >18 kjuliff: hello! Thank you for dropping by!
>18 kjuliff: the structure does change quite a bit, but it's not quite as clear as having two distinct parts, I think
>18 kjuliff: the structure does change quite a bit, but it's not quite as clear as having two distinct parts, I think
20wandering_star
3. Water Shall Refuse Them by Lucie McKnight Hardy
A coming-of-age story x folk horror, set during the famously hot summer of 1976. Nif (short for Jennifer) and her younger brother are taken to a cottage in Wales by her parents - well, by her father really, as he hopes it will help her mother break out of the shell of grief she has been in since the accidental death of the younger daughter. The villagers though are not welcoming. The younger ones bully Nif and her brother, and the older ones conduct what seem to be strange purification ceremonies, particularly targeting the people who live next door to the cottage Nif and her family have borrowed - a single mother (who sunbathes in skimpy outfits and gets very close to both Nif's father and mother) and her troubled son, who exhibits every teenage psycho red flag in the book....
This story was good at creating a sense of threat, less good at knowing what to do with it.
When I walked past the door of the bedroom I could see a sliver of her through the crack, lying on the white sheets, mouth open, eyes blank. She wasn't my mother anymore. She was an impostor, a depiction of what she had been, with the inside, the important bit, missing. It was as though someone had taken her away and replaced her with a statue.
A coming-of-age story x folk horror, set during the famously hot summer of 1976. Nif (short for Jennifer) and her younger brother are taken to a cottage in Wales by her parents - well, by her father really, as he hopes it will help her mother break out of the shell of grief she has been in since the accidental death of the younger daughter. The villagers though are not welcoming. The younger ones bully Nif and her brother, and the older ones conduct what seem to be strange purification ceremonies, particularly targeting the people who live next door to the cottage Nif and her family have borrowed - a single mother (who sunbathes in skimpy outfits and gets very close to both Nif's father and mother) and her troubled son, who exhibits every teenage psycho red flag in the book....
This story was good at creating a sense of threat, less good at knowing what to do with it.
When I walked past the door of the bedroom I could see a sliver of her through the crack, lying on the white sheets, mouth open, eyes blank. She wasn't my mother anymore. She was an impostor, a depiction of what she had been, with the inside, the important bit, missing. It was as though someone had taken her away and replaced her with a statue.
21kjuliff
>20 wandering_star: Sounds interesting. A little similar to my last read, but I’m tempted. Thanks for the review.
22dchaikin
Enjoyed these three excellent reviews. Isabel Colgate sounds worth checking out. Of course, I was not aware of her before.
23wandering_star
>22 dchaikin: she is definitely worth trying!
24wandering_star
4. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
An almost microscopic look at family dynamics and how long a shadow certain events can cast, which reminded me of Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. It starts with a romance between two college students, William and Julia. William, whose parents have spent most of their lives frozen in grief after the death of his younger sister, is bowled over by the feeling of becoming part of Julia's expressive, loving family - meanwhile, Julia sees in his quietness a seriousness and dedication very different from her own father, and believes this will get her to the grown-up life to which she aspires.
Sylvie understood her sister’s laser focus. She knew that Julia had gone all in on William Waters; he would be her husband, the structural beam of her future. Julia was willful, and her formidable engine was powering her and William forward. “I know why you like him so much,” Cecelia had teased her older sister. “Because he does whatever you tell him to.” Sylvie didn’t know William as well as she knew her sister, of course, but she did sense some kind of fear in him, though he presented as steady and calm. He was holding on to Julia like a life raft, and Sylvie wondered why.
The story then follows William and the Padovano family over the next decades. It is particularly good on the meaningfulness of small details in the context of a family or a relationship, as well as the long-running impact of historical pain or injury. I don't think it's for everyone - it stays very close to each character's emotional state, in a way that some readers might find tiresomely detailed - but I loved it.
An almost microscopic look at family dynamics and how long a shadow certain events can cast, which reminded me of Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. It starts with a romance between two college students, William and Julia. William, whose parents have spent most of their lives frozen in grief after the death of his younger sister, is bowled over by the feeling of becoming part of Julia's expressive, loving family - meanwhile, Julia sees in his quietness a seriousness and dedication very different from her own father, and believes this will get her to the grown-up life to which she aspires.
Sylvie understood her sister’s laser focus. She knew that Julia had gone all in on William Waters; he would be her husband, the structural beam of her future. Julia was willful, and her formidable engine was powering her and William forward. “I know why you like him so much,” Cecelia had teased her older sister. “Because he does whatever you tell him to.” Sylvie didn’t know William as well as she knew her sister, of course, but she did sense some kind of fear in him, though he presented as steady and calm. He was holding on to Julia like a life raft, and Sylvie wondered why.
The story then follows William and the Padovano family over the next decades. It is particularly good on the meaningfulness of small details in the context of a family or a relationship, as well as the long-running impact of historical pain or injury. I don't think it's for everyone - it stays very close to each character's emotional state, in a way that some readers might find tiresomely detailed - but I loved it.
25dchaikin
>24 wandering_star: the second positive thoughtful review this week! I really enjoyed Commonwealth.
26kjuliff
>24 wandering_star: Interesting. I will add it to my list. I’ve just finished a book with a key event being a death of a child to am having a break, but I enjoyed your review.
27arubabookwoman
>24 wandering_star: I've had Anne Napolitano on my vague list of authors to ignore since reading and disliking Dear Edward. But maybe I should reconsider, as I've now read several glowing reviews of this book, aand I do usually like these types of family stories.
28BLBera
You've read some great books so far!
Time Shelter and Statues in the Garden both sound wonderful. I will look for books by Colegate; she sounds like an author I would like.
I already had Hello Beautiful on my WL.
Time Shelter and Statues in the Garden both sound wonderful. I will look for books by Colegate; she sounds like an author I would like.
I already had Hello Beautiful on my WL.
29wandering_star
Yes, it has been an interesting start to the year! Glad I am bringing Isabel Colegate to more people's attention :-)
5. Insignificance by James Clammer
Insignificance tells the story of a day in the life of a plumber - his first day back at work after an unspecified health-related absence. He arrives at the house of his wife's friend, who has offered him a job as a gentle way to restart working. He flirts with her a bit (amusingly we see these scenes from both people's point of view, and he is not making the impression he thinks he is). Then she goes off to start her day and he works on the plumbing; and starts to ruminate on the events which created the crisis in his life.
The writing has a slightly arch, removed-from-emotion tone, whether talking about Joe's inner thoughts or what he is doing. I don't think plumbing work has ever been described like this before!
Lying full length on his side he undertook a quest beyond the wooden support blocks upon which the cylinder was mounted in order to gain access to the drain-off cock and determine its operationality. A little valve with a square key head was what he was looking for, through well-established cobwebs his gloved hand sought, always they were in the most impossible places.
This tone also creates a numbing effect around the very shocking events that happened to Joe and his family which we gradually learn about through his ruminations. Perhaps this is deliberate - they are so painful that Joe can't look directly at them - but it gives the book quite a flat feeling. That said, it is a short novel and I think the ending does pay off, so I ended the book feeling more satisfied than I thought I would be.
5. Insignificance by James Clammer
Insignificance tells the story of a day in the life of a plumber - his first day back at work after an unspecified health-related absence. He arrives at the house of his wife's friend, who has offered him a job as a gentle way to restart working. He flirts with her a bit (amusingly we see these scenes from both people's point of view, and he is not making the impression he thinks he is). Then she goes off to start her day and he works on the plumbing; and starts to ruminate on the events which created the crisis in his life.
The writing has a slightly arch, removed-from-emotion tone, whether talking about Joe's inner thoughts or what he is doing. I don't think plumbing work has ever been described like this before!
Lying full length on his side he undertook a quest beyond the wooden support blocks upon which the cylinder was mounted in order to gain access to the drain-off cock and determine its operationality. A little valve with a square key head was what he was looking for, through well-established cobwebs his gloved hand sought, always they were in the most impossible places.
This tone also creates a numbing effect around the very shocking events that happened to Joe and his family which we gradually learn about through his ruminations. Perhaps this is deliberate - they are so painful that Joe can't look directly at them - but it gives the book quite a flat feeling. That said, it is a short novel and I think the ending does pay off, so I ended the book feeling more satisfied than I thought I would be.
30wandering_star
6. Darling by Rachel Edwards
A domestic noir, which deals with a struggle for the emotions of Thomas, a widowed architect, between his teenage daughter Lola (bratty but fragile) and his new girlfriend Darling, a black nurse with a terminally ill son. Lola is not impressed when she meets Darling, and what starts with accidentally-on-purpose locking Darling in the cellar, or leaving cigarettes in obvious places when she knows Darling is trying to give up - but Darling has plans of her own. We know from the beginning that one of them will not make it out alive - but which one?
And yet, despite knowing the PR Lola would be giving me, and despite knowing there was more to being Alpha than cultivating long straight hair and not eating a sandwich, I was supposed to smile and to not mind and to offer teas and healthy snacks and iced fruit-infused waters. (Lola made it quite clear: we were never to look like starch-addicted proles in front of these lovingly reared Lilies, these trained orchids.) I was tempted – just for bant – to slap a bowl of fried chicken on to their laps, along with some pineapple punch, in all their greasy, sugary, blackfood glory, but it would not have been worth the fallout. One girl, product of the perfume-spritziest mother and a platinum-card father I would never meet, blushed whenever she looked upon me – every goddamn time – and never even said hello, not once. I didn’t know whether that was a you’re-a-parent thing, a you’re-black thing, or a you’re-such-a-bitch-to-Lola-and-you’re-shagging-her-dad thing. To loathe me for all three might be overkill, but you just never knew with kids.
A domestic noir, which deals with a struggle for the emotions of Thomas, a widowed architect, between his teenage daughter Lola (bratty but fragile) and his new girlfriend Darling, a black nurse with a terminally ill son. Lola is not impressed when she meets Darling, and what starts with accidentally-on-purpose locking Darling in the cellar, or leaving cigarettes in obvious places when she knows Darling is trying to give up - but Darling has plans of her own. We know from the beginning that one of them will not make it out alive - but which one?
And yet, despite knowing the PR Lola would be giving me, and despite knowing there was more to being Alpha than cultivating long straight hair and not eating a sandwich, I was supposed to smile and to not mind and to offer teas and healthy snacks and iced fruit-infused waters. (Lola made it quite clear: we were never to look like starch-addicted proles in front of these lovingly reared Lilies, these trained orchids.) I was tempted – just for bant – to slap a bowl of fried chicken on to their laps, along with some pineapple punch, in all their greasy, sugary, blackfood glory, but it would not have been worth the fallout. One girl, product of the perfume-spritziest mother and a platinum-card father I would never meet, blushed whenever she looked upon me – every goddamn time – and never even said hello, not once. I didn’t know whether that was a you’re-a-parent thing, a you’re-black thing, or a you’re-such-a-bitch-to-Lola-and-you’re-shagging-her-dad thing. To loathe me for all three might be overkill, but you just never knew with kids.
31wandering_star
7. Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada
A novella or possibly three short stories about the same people, loosely connected by themes of parenthood and relationships, with slightly surreal overtones. I enjoyed this fine when I was reading it but I do feel I was missing something, in the symbolism or undertones. What do the weasels in the attic signify? Or the expensive tropical fish?
“We meet at school, or work, or maybe a store. Wherever it is, there’s just a random group of individuals, right? Within that group, you find your mate. If you were in a different group, you’d end up with a different mate, right? But we never dwell on that. We live our lives in the groups we have—in our cities, our countries, even though we didn’t choose them. Know what I mean? We like to tell ourselves it’s love, that we’re choosing our own partners. But in reality, we’re just playing the cards we’ve been dealt.”
A novella or possibly three short stories about the same people, loosely connected by themes of parenthood and relationships, with slightly surreal overtones. I enjoyed this fine when I was reading it but I do feel I was missing something, in the symbolism or undertones. What do the weasels in the attic signify? Or the expensive tropical fish?
“We meet at school, or work, or maybe a store. Wherever it is, there’s just a random group of individuals, right? Within that group, you find your mate. If you were in a different group, you’d end up with a different mate, right? But we never dwell on that. We live our lives in the groups we have—in our cities, our countries, even though we didn’t choose them. Know what I mean? We like to tell ourselves it’s love, that we’re choosing our own partners. But in reality, we’re just playing the cards we’ve been dealt.”
32wandering_star
8. Sheep's Clothing by Celia Dale
Another domestic noir, this time from the 1980s (although it could be a decade or two earlier - it's the last novel that Dale published, and most of her noirs are from the 60s and 70s).
Grace is a con artist - with her sidekick Janice, she poses as someone from the social services, talks her way into the house of elderly women, then drugs and robs them. It's almost the perfect crime as the women are generally so embarrassed to have been taken advantage of that they don't even both to report it. (The sympathy shown for these women was one of the best aspects of the book for me).
It was a livelihood which comprised skill, nerve, an understanding and manipulation of human nature, and risk. The risk made Grace Bradby’s cold blood run warmer and faster; deep out of sight behind her calm façade, the stalking, the hunt, the kill thrilled her. It was absolute power dependent on absolute skill. Besides, if all went well, it was roughly five thousand a year tax free.
But Janice has a new boyfriend and is getting moony, and Grace needs to find a new con that she can manage on her own. She identifies a man to target - but both he, and Janice's fellow, have some mystery in their past that the women cannot find out.
This book came with a lot of high recommendations, including from Ruth Rendell. I thought it was fine, but no more.
Another domestic noir, this time from the 1980s (although it could be a decade or two earlier - it's the last novel that Dale published, and most of her noirs are from the 60s and 70s).
Grace is a con artist - with her sidekick Janice, she poses as someone from the social services, talks her way into the house of elderly women, then drugs and robs them. It's almost the perfect crime as the women are generally so embarrassed to have been taken advantage of that they don't even both to report it. (The sympathy shown for these women was one of the best aspects of the book for me).
It was a livelihood which comprised skill, nerve, an understanding and manipulation of human nature, and risk. The risk made Grace Bradby’s cold blood run warmer and faster; deep out of sight behind her calm façade, the stalking, the hunt, the kill thrilled her. It was absolute power dependent on absolute skill. Besides, if all went well, it was roughly five thousand a year tax free.
But Janice has a new boyfriend and is getting moony, and Grace needs to find a new con that she can manage on her own. She identifies a man to target - but both he, and Janice's fellow, have some mystery in their past that the women cannot find out.
This book came with a lot of high recommendations, including from Ruth Rendell. I thought it was fine, but no more.
33SassyLassy
>27 arubabookwoman: Loved that vague list of authors to ignore. I suspect we all have those, but haven't seen it put so well before.
>29 wandering_star: Sounds interesting. When I think of stories featuring a skilled trade, I always think of 'The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher" from Mantel's book of the same name. This doesn't sound like that, however, but still noting.
>29 wandering_star: Sounds interesting. When I think of stories featuring a skilled trade, I always think of 'The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher" from Mantel's book of the same name. This doesn't sound like that, however, but still noting.
34kjuliff
>32 wandering_star: Ruth Rendelll wrote some great books. I think I read all of her early to mid books, but the quality drifted of a bit toward the end. Maybe that’s when she recommended Sheep’s Clothing .
After reading your top 10 books of 2023 I became interested in Murata and I decided to try her. Am now listening to Convenience Store Woman . Looks very promising.
After reading your top 10 books of 2023 I became interested in Murata and I decided to try her. Am now listening to Convenience Store Woman . Looks very promising.
35wandering_star
>34 kjuliff: How did you find the rest of Convenience Store Woman?
36wandering_star
9. Alison by Lizzy Stewart
I enjoyed this graphic novel about a young woman who is taken under the wing of an older artist - their relationship leads her to leave her husband and their quiet town and move to London, initially as the artist's muse and lover (of course) but later as she gains in confidence and ability to challenge the way that the art world work, as a artist in her own right. It reads like a memoir or a real life story, and there is a mix of text and images which I haven't come across before, and which has the effect of feeling like a flashback in a film - the reminiscences and the images that go with them. I loved the story of how Alison starts to challenge Patrick, and to start to navigate the prejudices of the art world. The novel also makes sure that it is not telling a simple story of an older man preying on a young, naive woman - later in life Alison often grapples with the question of how she sees Patrick, who ultimately enabled her to become the fulfilled artist that she ends up as, but whose outsize shadow means that she will be always thought of as "once Patrick Kerr's lover".
I enjoyed this graphic novel about a young woman who is taken under the wing of an older artist - their relationship leads her to leave her husband and their quiet town and move to London, initially as the artist's muse and lover (of course) but later as she gains in confidence and ability to challenge the way that the art world work, as a artist in her own right. It reads like a memoir or a real life story, and there is a mix of text and images which I haven't come across before, and which has the effect of feeling like a flashback in a film - the reminiscences and the images that go with them. I loved the story of how Alison starts to challenge Patrick, and to start to navigate the prejudices of the art world. The novel also makes sure that it is not telling a simple story of an older man preying on a young, naive woman - later in life Alison often grapples with the question of how she sees Patrick, who ultimately enabled her to become the fulfilled artist that she ends up as, but whose outsize shadow means that she will be always thought of as "once Patrick Kerr's lover".
37wandering_star
10. Weather by Jenny Offill
This woman is a shrink. Also a Buddhist. She likes to practice one or the other on me, I’ve noticed. “You seem to identify down, not up. Why do you think that is?”
Like Offill's Dept. of Speculation, which I enjoyed, this is a story told in fragments - each short paragraph is not necessarily related to the ones next to it, but they build up in a mosaic over time.
It’s church. I remember now how it went. “I thought you wanted community,” Ben says afterward. But not so much. Not like that. All that eye contact. “Not my tribe,” I tell him.
The theme of the book, I suppose, is how people deal with impending doom - climate change of course, given the title, but also during the course of the book, Trump is elected president (which made reading this in 2024 even more depressing than reading it at any other time).
Personal doom is present too - Lizzie, our main character, is struggling to look after her addict brother, as well as to cope with everything which is happening in the world (and creating the weather) around her, in a way which looks like it may undermine her marriage.
And then it is another day and another and another, but I will not go on about this because no doubt you too have experienced time.
I did enjoy Weather - there is such intelligence and wit in the writing. But perhaps I wouldn't recommend picking it up if you are already feeling a bit doomy about the world.
When we worked together years ago, she always told me I had no game. She said this because allegedly you are not supposed to cut to the chase and ask your fellow dater to tell you about the time he was most soul-crushingly lonely. Allegedly this is not a best practice. But it makes a date so much less boring. Do you, did you, will you? I just want to know.
This woman is a shrink. Also a Buddhist. She likes to practice one or the other on me, I’ve noticed. “You seem to identify down, not up. Why do you think that is?”
Like Offill's Dept. of Speculation, which I enjoyed, this is a story told in fragments - each short paragraph is not necessarily related to the ones next to it, but they build up in a mosaic over time.
It’s church. I remember now how it went. “I thought you wanted community,” Ben says afterward. But not so much. Not like that. All that eye contact. “Not my tribe,” I tell him.
The theme of the book, I suppose, is how people deal with impending doom - climate change of course, given the title, but also during the course of the book, Trump is elected president (which made reading this in 2024 even more depressing than reading it at any other time).
Personal doom is present too - Lizzie, our main character, is struggling to look after her addict brother, as well as to cope with everything which is happening in the world (and creating the weather) around her, in a way which looks like it may undermine her marriage.
And then it is another day and another and another, but I will not go on about this because no doubt you too have experienced time.
I did enjoy Weather - there is such intelligence and wit in the writing. But perhaps I wouldn't recommend picking it up if you are already feeling a bit doomy about the world.
When we worked together years ago, she always told me I had no game. She said this because allegedly you are not supposed to cut to the chase and ask your fellow dater to tell you about the time he was most soul-crushingly lonely. Allegedly this is not a best practice. But it makes a date so much less boring. Do you, did you, will you? I just want to know.
38wandering_star
11. The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin
The second in the Broken Earth trilogy, after The Fifth Season which I read in December. I am glad I did not leave a longer gap between the books, because I already struggled a little bit to pick up the story.
In The Fifth Season, although the narrative was complex, there was a relatively simple overarching theme - many of the sympathetic characters were "orogenes" (people born with special powers linked to the earth) and we saw them battling both prejudice from humans, and the mysterious system of "Guardians" who harness and control, often brutally, the powers of the orogenes. There is also a mysterious group of "stone-eaters" who seem to be the enemies of both Guardians and orogenes.
In The Obelisk Gate these assumptions are pulled from under our feet - we are given glimpses of a wider context of how the world has come to be the way it is, and maybe the moral dynamics between the orogenes, Guardians and stone-eaters are not as simple as we thought. Previously sympathetic characters are shown in a different light, which gives them an additional complexity. Quite mind-blowing! I can't think of another science fiction/fantasy series I have read which achieves an effect like this.
All this is going on in the background of the story, which is essential a fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, following two separate narrative strands - Essun and her daughter Nessun, both orogenes, who were separated at the beginning of The Fifth Season.
I am not sure if I would have persisted with this book if I had not enjoyed The Fifth Season so much - like the penultimate Harry Potter film, it has the feeling of a story which is filling in the gaps and getting everyone into the right position for the final act. I am planning to read the final book of the trilogy this month, so that I don't lose track of the story again.
Yes. His thoughts are clearer now. Easier to think around the whispers. He needs this boy, and others like him. He must go forth and find them, and with their help, he can make it to — to — well. Not everything is clearer. Some things will never come back. He’ll make do. The boy is searching his face. While Schaffa has been trying to put together the fragments of his identity, the boy has been wrestling with his future. They are made for each other. “I’ll go with you,” the boy says, having apparently spent the past minute thinking he has a choice. “Anywhere. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to die.”
The second in the Broken Earth trilogy, after The Fifth Season which I read in December. I am glad I did not leave a longer gap between the books, because I already struggled a little bit to pick up the story.
In The Fifth Season, although the narrative was complex, there was a relatively simple overarching theme - many of the sympathetic characters were "orogenes" (people born with special powers linked to the earth) and we saw them battling both prejudice from humans, and the mysterious system of "Guardians" who harness and control, often brutally, the powers of the orogenes. There is also a mysterious group of "stone-eaters" who seem to be the enemies of both Guardians and orogenes.
In The Obelisk Gate these assumptions are pulled from under our feet - we are given glimpses of a wider context of how the world has come to be the way it is, and maybe the moral dynamics between the orogenes, Guardians and stone-eaters are not as simple as we thought. Previously sympathetic characters are shown in a different light, which gives them an additional complexity. Quite mind-blowing! I can't think of another science fiction/fantasy series I have read which achieves an effect like this.
All this is going on in the background of the story, which is essential a fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, following two separate narrative strands - Essun and her daughter Nessun, both orogenes, who were separated at the beginning of The Fifth Season.
I am not sure if I would have persisted with this book if I had not enjoyed The Fifth Season so much - like the penultimate Harry Potter film, it has the feeling of a story which is filling in the gaps and getting everyone into the right position for the final act. I am planning to read the final book of the trilogy this month, so that I don't lose track of the story again.
Yes. His thoughts are clearer now. Easier to think around the whispers. He needs this boy, and others like him. He must go forth and find them, and with their help, he can make it to — to — well. Not everything is clearer. Some things will never come back. He’ll make do. The boy is searching his face. While Schaffa has been trying to put together the fragments of his identity, the boy has been wrestling with his future. They are made for each other. “I’ll go with you,” the boy says, having apparently spent the past minute thinking he has a choice. “Anywhere. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to die.”
39labfs39
>38 wandering_star: You've done some interesting reading since your last check-in. I think I'll hold off on Weather for now, I feel enough impending doom as it is.
41wandering_star
12. Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong by Louisa Lim
Probably another book to avoid >39 labfs39: if you don't want more impending doom!
Indelible City is a book about Hong Kong - although it starts with the earliest period of Hong Kong's history, it's really about the mid-1980s negotiations between the UK and China over the future of Hong Kong, and the last few years of China's increasing crackdown on expressions of Hong Kong identity. Along the way, Lim (who is half-Cantonese and grew up in Hong Kong) redefines her own identity from journalist to activist - symbolised in the first few pages of the book when she goes to cover a protest which involves writing enormous banners, and ends up picking up a calligraphy brush herself. Sobering, about both the casual dismissal by the British that Hong Kongers should have any right to decide their own future, and about the likely future of Hong Kong as a place with any independent spirit.
With their feet, Hong Kongers were stamping pilgrimage routes across the soil of their city to defend that identity and their values. Two slogans that I saw that day stood out: "You Can't Silence Us," on a banner hanging from a pedestrian walkway, and "We Stand For What We Stand On", emblazoned on T-shirts worn by members of Demosisto, a political party started by Joshua Wong. The foreknowledge of defeat added a painful poignancy to this extraordinary show of political imagination. The moral high ground would offer no refuge from police batons and tear gas.
Probably another book to avoid >39 labfs39: if you don't want more impending doom!
Indelible City is a book about Hong Kong - although it starts with the earliest period of Hong Kong's history, it's really about the mid-1980s negotiations between the UK and China over the future of Hong Kong, and the last few years of China's increasing crackdown on expressions of Hong Kong identity. Along the way, Lim (who is half-Cantonese and grew up in Hong Kong) redefines her own identity from journalist to activist - symbolised in the first few pages of the book when she goes to cover a protest which involves writing enormous banners, and ends up picking up a calligraphy brush herself. Sobering, about both the casual dismissal by the British that Hong Kongers should have any right to decide their own future, and about the likely future of Hong Kong as a place with any independent spirit.
With their feet, Hong Kongers were stamping pilgrimage routes across the soil of their city to defend that identity and their values. Two slogans that I saw that day stood out: "You Can't Silence Us," on a banner hanging from a pedestrian walkway, and "We Stand For What We Stand On", emblazoned on T-shirts worn by members of Demosisto, a political party started by Joshua Wong. The foreknowledge of defeat added a painful poignancy to this extraordinary show of political imagination. The moral high ground would offer no refuge from police batons and tear gas.
42wandering_star
13. Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Libertie is a young African-American woman growing up in 1860s Brooklyn. Her mother, a doctor, is a staging point on the underground railroad, and the novel starts with the arrival of an escapee, who had taken a sleeping draught and been smuggled away in a coffin. But Ben is unable to make the most of his freedom because he is obsessed with his lost love, who ran away a few weeks before he did (in the company of another man) and was caught and killed. He talks about her so much that the town's children nickname him "Ben Daisy", and he is trapped in his memories of her.
This symbolises the way the novel deals with its theme of freedom - not just legal freedom, or freedom of the body, but freedom from other's expectations, and from assumptions which keep a person from seeing things how they are. Libertie's mother is ostracised by the community when she starts to treat white women as well as Black ones, but she is doing it so that she can afford to send Libertie to a good college where she too can become a doctor - although it turns out that this too is an expectation that Libertie wants to escape from. To get away from her mother’s judgement, Libertie marries a fiery young man - believing him to be as committed to freedom as she is - but when she returns to Haiti with him she discovers that he has some blind spots when it comes to the freedom of others.
I thought this was an excellent book (with a setting that I don't think I have read about before) - with the exception of the sections set in Haiti, where the author's sure tone deserts her - she is good at writing about the Black Americans in Haiti but falters when it comes to the Haitians themselves. Still very worth reading.
I have never in my life felt anything as powerful as whatever force was in that room while those women talked, and I began to believe that it was the talking itself that did it, that perhaps women’s voices in harmony were like some sort of flintstone sparking, or like the hot burst of air that comes through a window, billowing the curtains, before rain, I imagined the whole room lifting up from their talk — lifting up and spinning out, into the future times to come, when everyone would be truly free.
Libertie is a young African-American woman growing up in 1860s Brooklyn. Her mother, a doctor, is a staging point on the underground railroad, and the novel starts with the arrival of an escapee, who had taken a sleeping draught and been smuggled away in a coffin. But Ben is unable to make the most of his freedom because he is obsessed with his lost love, who ran away a few weeks before he did (in the company of another man) and was caught and killed. He talks about her so much that the town's children nickname him "Ben Daisy", and he is trapped in his memories of her.
This symbolises the way the novel deals with its theme of freedom - not just legal freedom, or freedom of the body, but freedom from other's expectations, and from assumptions which keep a person from seeing things how they are. Libertie's mother is ostracised by the community when she starts to treat white women as well as Black ones, but she is doing it so that she can afford to send Libertie to a good college where she too can become a doctor - although it turns out that this too is an expectation that Libertie wants to escape from. To get away from her mother’s judgement, Libertie marries a fiery young man - believing him to be as committed to freedom as she is - but when she returns to Haiti with him she discovers that he has some blind spots when it comes to the freedom of others.
I thought this was an excellent book (with a setting that I don't think I have read about before) - with the exception of the sections set in Haiti, where the author's sure tone deserts her - she is good at writing about the Black Americans in Haiti but falters when it comes to the Haitians themselves. Still very worth reading.
I have never in my life felt anything as powerful as whatever force was in that room while those women talked, and I began to believe that it was the talking itself that did it, that perhaps women’s voices in harmony were like some sort of flintstone sparking, or like the hot burst of air that comes through a window, billowing the curtains, before rain, I imagined the whole room lifting up from their talk — lifting up and spinning out, into the future times to come, when everyone would be truly free.
43wandering_star
14. Fear for Miss Betony by Dorothy Bowers
A 1941 crime novel, which came particularly recommended by the Shedunnit podcast (which focuses on Golden Age crime fiction by women).
Miss Betony is a retired governess, who responds to a request by a former pupil to come and help her out in the school that she has recently established. When she gets there, she discovers that she has not been invited for her teaching skills, but because Grace wants some moral support in dealing with some strange happenings at the school, including the apparent attempts to poison one of the residents. Miss Betony is surprised at first, but gradually takes on the task with gusto. Things get complicated when a different member of the school is poisoned for real.
This was a mixed bag for me. The detection part is paced oddly and wraps up very suddenly - but I did enjoy the story as a whole, including Miss Betony's pluck and sharpness, and some points where it was genuinely thrilling.
Perhaps Emma Betony's greatest virtue was not after all kindness, nor tolerance, nor a practical sense of the brotherhood of man, but the grimmer one of being resolute to complete a job that has become imperative.
A 1941 crime novel, which came particularly recommended by the Shedunnit podcast (which focuses on Golden Age crime fiction by women).
Miss Betony is a retired governess, who responds to a request by a former pupil to come and help her out in the school that she has recently established. When she gets there, she discovers that she has not been invited for her teaching skills, but because Grace wants some moral support in dealing with some strange happenings at the school, including the apparent attempts to poison one of the residents. Miss Betony is surprised at first, but gradually takes on the task with gusto. Things get complicated when a different member of the school is poisoned for real.
This was a mixed bag for me. The detection part is paced oddly and wraps up very suddenly - but I did enjoy the story as a whole, including Miss Betony's pluck and sharpness, and some points where it was genuinely thrilling.
Perhaps Emma Betony's greatest virtue was not after all kindness, nor tolerance, nor a practical sense of the brotherhood of man, but the grimmer one of being resolute to complete a job that has become imperative.
44labfs39
>41 wandering_star: Sigh, true. Doom is all around. Sounds like a good book for me to read at some point, although at the moment I'm still in China's past.
>42 wandering_star: Although imperfect, this still sounds interesting. Noting.
>42 wandering_star: Although imperfect, this still sounds interesting. Noting.
45rv1988
>43 wandering_star: Just catching up on your thread after some time away from LT. You've done some very interesting reading. Taking particular note of the Louisa Lim book. Thanks for the great reviews.
46dchaikin
I love your reviews, so forgive if i admit your Indelible City review left me feeling sad. I spent a single confused say in Hong Kong in 1995.
48Nickelini
>15 wandering_star: late to the party here …. I read something else by Isobel Colegate that I remember liking. All her other books were out of print at the time. I’ll keep my eyes open for this one— love a country house novel
49wandering_star
15. Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg
A graphic novel which imagines Charlotte Bronte later in her life, looking back on the worlds and characters that she has created over her life, including the very first, Glass Town, which was invented by all four siblings, before Emily and Anne broke away to imagine Gondal, and Charlotte created her own Angria.
I liked the drawing style and it was kind of interesting to learn about the Bronte juvenilia, but there isn't a lot to the story.
A graphic novel which imagines Charlotte Bronte later in her life, looking back on the worlds and characters that she has created over her life, including the very first, Glass Town, which was invented by all four siblings, before Emily and Anne broke away to imagine Gondal, and Charlotte created her own Angria.
I liked the drawing style and it was kind of interesting to learn about the Bronte juvenilia, but there isn't a lot to the story.
50wandering_star
16. The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin
I don't know how to review this book, or the trilogy that it is the last volume of. I think that if I had been on a beach holiday, and read the three books back-to-back without having a lot of distractions, I would have liked it a lot more than I did. But reading them even slightly separated, in short bursts on my commute and with lots of other things on my mind, did not show them at their best - I couldn’t put all the pieces together as well as they are intended to fit.
That said, I think even then, I would have found this volume did too much tying up of loose ends that I had not been wondering about. For example, it reveals the origin stories of the different types of humanoids which exist in this world, and how the world became the way it is (prone to periodic calamities, "fifth seasons", which create mass extinctions). I had assumed that this was a nod to future environmental catastrophe because of the way that humans live now, so I didn’t need a separate explanation of how it happened.
Generally a bit unsatisfying, but at least I have completed the trilogy now!
My memories are like insects fossilized in amber. They are rarely intact, these frozen, long-lost lives. Usually there’s just a leg, some wing-scales, a bit of lower thorax – a whole that can only be inferred from fragments, and everything blurred together through jagged, dirty cracks.
I don't know how to review this book, or the trilogy that it is the last volume of. I think that if I had been on a beach holiday, and read the three books back-to-back without having a lot of distractions, I would have liked it a lot more than I did. But reading them even slightly separated, in short bursts on my commute and with lots of other things on my mind, did not show them at their best - I couldn’t put all the pieces together as well as they are intended to fit.
That said, I think even then, I would have found this volume did too much tying up of loose ends that I had not been wondering about. For example, it reveals the origin stories of the different types of humanoids which exist in this world, and how the world became the way it is (prone to periodic calamities, "fifth seasons", which create mass extinctions). I had assumed that this was a nod to future environmental catastrophe because of the way that humans live now, so I didn’t need a separate explanation of how it happened.
Generally a bit unsatisfying, but at least I have completed the trilogy now!
My memories are like insects fossilized in amber. They are rarely intact, these frozen, long-lost lives. Usually there’s just a leg, some wing-scales, a bit of lower thorax – a whole that can only be inferred from fragments, and everything blurred together through jagged, dirty cracks.
51wandering_star
17. White Houses by Amy Bloom
A historical novel, reimagining the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickock (which is sexual/romantic, in this telling - there is some dispute over whether it was actually more than a close friendship, although in my view it's hard to read the letters between them as purely platonic).
My editor liked the pieces and every once in a while he’d say, Your lady’s got some good lines. I liked her height and her energy. I liked her long, loose stride and her progressive principles. She insulted conservatives and cowards every time she opened her mouth and I wrote it all down. She smiled when she saw me coming and I did the same.
Themes of the story include secrets and imbalances - the two women come from very different backgrounds, but also Hicks knows that whatever she does, she cannot compete with Roosevelt's public life - not just the part about being married to the President, but also Roosevelt's commitment to her work.
I enjoyed reading this, but the whole story is told in a slightly sassy/humorous way which masks the very real emotions which are going on, and therefore made it all feel a bit too distanced.
A historical novel, reimagining the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickock (which is sexual/romantic, in this telling - there is some dispute over whether it was actually more than a close friendship, although in my view it's hard to read the letters between them as purely platonic).
My editor liked the pieces and every once in a while he’d say, Your lady’s got some good lines. I liked her height and her energy. I liked her long, loose stride and her progressive principles. She insulted conservatives and cowards every time she opened her mouth and I wrote it all down. She smiled when she saw me coming and I did the same.
Themes of the story include secrets and imbalances - the two women come from very different backgrounds, but also Hicks knows that whatever she does, she cannot compete with Roosevelt's public life - not just the part about being married to the President, but also Roosevelt's commitment to her work.
I enjoyed reading this, but the whole story is told in a slightly sassy/humorous way which masks the very real emotions which are going on, and therefore made it all feel a bit too distanced.
52wandering_star
18. Cosmic Detective by Jeff Lemire
Hardboiled detective comic crossed with urban fantasy (a god has been murdered). Great visual style, not much of a story.
Hardboiled detective comic crossed with urban fantasy (a god has been murdered). Great visual style, not much of a story.
53wandering_star
19. Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Fed up with being given all the crappy tasks at work, Shibata one day tells her boss that she can't clear up the dirty cups and cigarette butts from the meeting room because of her morning sickness. It works - someone else does the cleaning - and in fact things get even better at work, as she is not expected to do overtime or go out drinking with her colleagues. But since Shibata is not actually pregnant, things eventually get complicated. Shibata downloads a pregnancy app so she knows how she ought to be feeling, and starts hanging out with other expectant mothers. But surely this situation can't go on for ever...
I did not love the way that this story resolved itself, but I enjoyed the journey to get there, and all the pointed comments about the roles and expectations of women in Japan.
As a result of my new badge, people started getting up and giving me their seats on the train. No, please, I don’t need it, I’d say. But they’d insist, so I’d end up playing along. Part of me wanted to lift my blouse and show them my belly so they could see I really didn’t need it. But I decided against it. That would just make things awkward.
Fed up with being given all the crappy tasks at work, Shibata one day tells her boss that she can't clear up the dirty cups and cigarette butts from the meeting room because of her morning sickness. It works - someone else does the cleaning - and in fact things get even better at work, as she is not expected to do overtime or go out drinking with her colleagues. But since Shibata is not actually pregnant, things eventually get complicated. Shibata downloads a pregnancy app so she knows how she ought to be feeling, and starts hanging out with other expectant mothers. But surely this situation can't go on for ever...
I did not love the way that this story resolved itself, but I enjoyed the journey to get there, and all the pointed comments about the roles and expectations of women in Japan.
As a result of my new badge, people started getting up and giving me their seats on the train. No, please, I don’t need it, I’d say. But they’d insist, so I’d end up playing along. Part of me wanted to lift my blouse and show them my belly so they could see I really didn’t need it. But I decided against it. That would just make things awkward.
54wandering_star
20. The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey
A queue for the final performance of a popular theatre show. A man faints - but it turns out that he has actually been stabbed to death, and had been held in a standing position by the jostling of the people around him. There is an obvious suspect - but Inspector Grant is not confident that he has the right man.
This Golden Age murder mystery subverts itself cleverly at the end, making the reader question the assumptions that they have brought to the rest of the story (or perhaps making the reader of the period question the assumptions - the modern-day reader will I hope be more resistant to the idea of Latin backgrounds leading to the sort of passionate temperament that causes one to kill...)
When one came to think of it, even if one’s grandmother was an Italian, one doesn’t carry daggers about on the offchance of their being useful.
A queue for the final performance of a popular theatre show. A man faints - but it turns out that he has actually been stabbed to death, and had been held in a standing position by the jostling of the people around him. There is an obvious suspect - but Inspector Grant is not confident that he has the right man.
This Golden Age murder mystery subverts itself cleverly at the end, making the reader question the assumptions that they have brought to the rest of the story (or perhaps making the reader of the period question the assumptions - the modern-day reader will I hope be more resistant to the idea of Latin backgrounds leading to the sort of passionate temperament that causes one to kill...)
When one came to think of it, even if one’s grandmother was an Italian, one doesn’t carry daggers about on the offchance of their being useful.
55wandering_star
21. Khirbet Khizeh by S Yizhar
Khirbet Khizeh is a Palestinian village, and this novella is the story of how the village was cleared during the 1948 war - described in enough detail that you can't close your eyes to everything that the antiseptic word "clearing" means. S Yizhar was an intelligence officer during the war: his narrator is uneasily aware that what he is doing is wrong, but tries all sorts of things to distract himself from the feeling, keeping on moving instead of stopping with his own thoughts, sometimes throwing himself into the clearance operation even more strongly as a way to convince himself that what he is doing is right. A tough read, especially right now.
“What’s the matter with you!” grumbled Yehuda, scratching at the layers of solidified mud with his fingernails. “What are we doing to them? Are we killing them? We’re taking them to their side. Let them sit there and wait. It’s very decent of us. There’s no other place in the world where they’d have been treated as well as this. Anyway, no one asked them to start with us.”
Khirbet Khizeh is a Palestinian village, and this novella is the story of how the village was cleared during the 1948 war - described in enough detail that you can't close your eyes to everything that the antiseptic word "clearing" means. S Yizhar was an intelligence officer during the war: his narrator is uneasily aware that what he is doing is wrong, but tries all sorts of things to distract himself from the feeling, keeping on moving instead of stopping with his own thoughts, sometimes throwing himself into the clearance operation even more strongly as a way to convince himself that what he is doing is right. A tough read, especially right now.
“What’s the matter with you!” grumbled Yehuda, scratching at the layers of solidified mud with his fingernails. “What are we doing to them? Are we killing them? We’re taking them to their side. Let them sit there and wait. It’s very decent of us. There’s no other place in the world where they’d have been treated as well as this. Anyway, no one asked them to start with us.”
56wandering_star
22. Family History by Vita Sackville-West
This book is divided into four parts, the first two of which are "Portrait of the Jarrolds" and "Portrait of Miles Vane-Merrick". The Jarrolds are a wealthy family; old Mr Jarrold made his fortune from mining, and gave his children every advantage money could buy. At the start of the book we see him talking to his widowed daughter-in-law, Evelyn, who patiently lets him tell his old stories - she understands the role she needs to play in the family, and is happy to - at least until she meets the younger, fiery Miles Vane-Merrick, who shows her how things could be different. But this would mean flouting the social conventions that she is happy with and he frustrated by - something which ultimately threatens their relationship.
Interesting mostly as a portrait of social changes at the time, and for what we know of Sackville-West's own tendencies to ignore conventions.
She was dreadfully bored at Newlands; not only bored but irritated. The irritation was new, and had come upon her since she had known Miles. The total absence of ideas among the younger Jarrolds, their perpetual heavy banter which passed for wit, the limitation of their interests, their intolerance, their narrow-mindedness, all appeared insufferable to her now in contrast with Miles' alertness and gaiety. She almost preferred the drunken Evan, whose weakness made him into something more nearly resembling a human being, to the wooden and self-righteous Geoffrey or Geoffrey's virtuously British wife. Mrs. Geoffrey could talk of nothing but her servants.
This book is divided into four parts, the first two of which are "Portrait of the Jarrolds" and "Portrait of Miles Vane-Merrick". The Jarrolds are a wealthy family; old Mr Jarrold made his fortune from mining, and gave his children every advantage money could buy. At the start of the book we see him talking to his widowed daughter-in-law, Evelyn, who patiently lets him tell his old stories - she understands the role she needs to play in the family, and is happy to - at least until she meets the younger, fiery Miles Vane-Merrick, who shows her how things could be different. But this would mean flouting the social conventions that she is happy with and he frustrated by - something which ultimately threatens their relationship.
Interesting mostly as a portrait of social changes at the time, and for what we know of Sackville-West's own tendencies to ignore conventions.
She was dreadfully bored at Newlands; not only bored but irritated. The irritation was new, and had come upon her since she had known Miles. The total absence of ideas among the younger Jarrolds, their perpetual heavy banter which passed for wit, the limitation of their interests, their intolerance, their narrow-mindedness, all appeared insufferable to her now in contrast with Miles' alertness and gaiety. She almost preferred the drunken Evan, whose weakness made him into something more nearly resembling a human being, to the wooden and self-righteous Geoffrey or Geoffrey's virtuously British wife. Mrs. Geoffrey could talk of nothing but her servants.
57wandering_star
23. Theft by Rachel Ingalls
The other book I have read by Rachel Ingalls is Mrs Caliban, a satirically funny feminist piece about a woman who falls in love with a sea creature, so I was not very prepared for Theft, a dystopian novella narrated by a man in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, as riots and political oppression go on outside.
If Jake had been along he'd have known how to handle the situation. He says just never give your right name and you'll be all right. With the political atmosphere like it is they'll never bother to pick you up on the street again unless they recognize you. And that's unlikely, because they think we all look alike. Or if it's one of ours working for them, chances are he'll let it go unless it's for something so big that he'd get a recommendation out of it.
The other book I have read by Rachel Ingalls is Mrs Caliban, a satirically funny feminist piece about a woman who falls in love with a sea creature, so I was not very prepared for Theft, a dystopian novella narrated by a man in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, as riots and political oppression go on outside.
If Jake had been along he'd have known how to handle the situation. He says just never give your right name and you'll be all right. With the political atmosphere like it is they'll never bother to pick you up on the street again unless they recognize you. And that's unlikely, because they think we all look alike. Or if it's one of ours working for them, chances are he'll let it go unless it's for something so big that he'd get a recommendation out of it.
58wandering_star
Wow, that was a massive dump of reviews - happy to say that I am now caught up to the end of April (and that May started with some excellent reads - I realised as I was writing these reviews that April had not been the best reading month).
59SassyLassy
Congratulations on catching up!
>56 wandering_star: I always enjoy reading Vita Sackville West and this is a new title to me. Happy to see it.
>56 wandering_star: I always enjoy reading Vita Sackville West and this is a new title to me. Happy to see it.
60labfs39
Wow, an eclectic month of reading. I am interested in Khirbet Khizeh, but don't think I can read it right now. Diary of a Void looks interesting too.
61kidzdoc
Khirbet Khizeh seems like a timely and important read, given the unspeakable atrocities being committed by the IDF and militant settlers on innocent Palestinian civilians. I'll be on the lookout for it.
62rv1988
>58 wandering_star: So many great reviews here. I agree with your assessment of Jemisin. She begins well, but she usually can't stick the landing.
