What are you reading the week of July 17, 2021?

I finished The Dispossessed last night. It's an interesting novel by Ursula K. Le Guin where she attempted to imagine a society organized around anarchism with a strong communitarian philosophy. Everyone is meant to be completely free with no strong hierarchical government control. She doesn't take many easy outs in imagining her society. The book is often subtitled "An Ambiguous Utopia" because the society she imagines is neither a utopia nor a dystopia. It's complex and flawed. Behavior is regulated not by laws but rather by a kind of social shaming. While social hierarchies don't officially exist, some individuals still manage to exert undue influence over other people.

Now I'm starting a textbook on Earth System History as a followup to The Origin of Continents and Oceans.

Swapping back and forth between Thunder on Bataan and Hunter Liggett. Expect to be starting Metazoa during the coming week.

Considering that the local library seems to be running late in getting Metazoa to me, I've started reading Tower of Skulls again.

The Cellist: A Novel by Daniel Silva number 21 of the Gabriel Allon series. Series touchstone not working for me.

I'm reading Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by the journalist Barbara Demick. So far I'm fascinated. Demick's earlier book on North Korea was so good that I thought I'd read more of her work.

Read the tiny So Long a Letter by Cameroonian author Mariama Ba, but did not enjoy it. Written as a letter (hence the title), it attempts to look at the way women are treated in Cameroon, where polygamy is/was common.

Finished the LTER of The Lake House at Lenashee, which I found disorganized and without much suspense, though other reviewers seemed to like it better.

Just started The Far Corner by the sadly-neglected Stewart Holbrook. Holbrook came to the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s and spent the latter part of his career writing with great fondness about this perplexing, rowdy, contradictory region. First published in the 1950s, this collection is an amazing contemporary history of the area. (I may be a bit biased, since I live in the PNW, but I still think it's criminal that Holbrook has been largely forgotten.)

Finished Chaos Vector by Megan E. O'Keefe and started the 3rd book, Catalyst Gate. Still enjoying the story. Haven't made any significant progress on either The Mists of Avalon or Neuromancer this week.

I'm about 530 pages into Barack Obama's recent memoir, A Promised Land. I'm finding it very interesting and well written. Sadly, I'm having to rush through it somewhat, because I have the deadline of tomorrow's book group meeting discussion looming.

I finished The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman. The author noted at the end that it could be read forward or backward by section, so I think I'll save it for a backward reread some day.

Up next is The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley, as recommended by 2 friends from book club.

I finished reading The Salt Path this morning and will start reading Crow Planet this evening. Next up: Pop by Robert Gipe.

Finished reading the dark, yet powerful Eleven Sooty Dreams by Manuela Draeger.

Next up for reading is The Collector by John Fowles.

Where We Come From – Oscar Cásares
4.5****

The setting is Brownsville, Texas, a border town with a mean reputation as a haven for human traffickers and drug runners. Some of the reputation is based in fact. But it’s also a community of hard-working, middle-class people who want nothing but a safe home for their children, decent schools, good roads, a thriving business district and reliable city services. Cásares focuses on one such family.

Nina is the only daughter, and now in her early 60s finds herself living with her invalid mother, having been forced by her older brothers (who are all married with families of their own) to abandon her teaching career and her own house to “do her duty as the only girl.” When her maid asks for a favor, Nina agrees. A small pink house at the back of their property was to be a rental property, but it’s empty, and Rumalda wonders if her sister-in-law and niece could stay there for a day or two. Nina agrees and becomes ensnared in a group of human smugglers. When her 13-year-old godson comes for an extended visit, she’s in a panic lest he discover her secret.

I really enjoyed this exploration of a complex issue. There are multiple layers to the novel and much fodder for discussion, from the many instances of mother/child relationships in all their variety and nuance, to the vivid descriptions of a landscape that is very familiar to me, to the bursts of humor, to the fear of discovery, to the loneliness each of them suffers, and to the fanciful flight of parrots who cross the man-made border at will. (Yes, the river is natural, but it’s man who made it a border between nations.)

I had the pleasure of participating in an author event via Zoom courtesy of my local independent book store. That discussion made me appreciate the novel even more.

The abysmally slow pace of All The Water I've Seen Is Running turned me off.

Next up for listening is Four Winds by Kristin Hannah.

Started this OverDrive audiobook ~

The Thursday Murder Club: A Novel (A Thursday Murder Club Mystery)
by Richard Osman

I finished A Promised Land by Barack Obama. I found Obama's memoir of his early political career and, especially, the first term of his presidency to be interesting indeed, and quite well written. In particular, I found the memoir to be a useful trip back through the events and issues of those years (2009-2013). My somewhat more in-depth comments are on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up, I will finally be reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Trying to finish The Sound and the Fury this week. While I can appreciate, objectively, why the novel interested people when it first was published, the unique style, etc., I am struggling with the story itself and its (to me) detestable characters of the main family, the Compsons, and their casual racist treatment of their closest servant, Dilsey, and her family members. The Compsons aren't written in a sympathetic way, of course, and I understand the time period this novel came out, for context.

Still, not a fan of this effort from this writer. My copy is an old paperback that also includes the novella As I Lay Dying, which I will also read to give Faulkner another try. He is lauded as an important writer of the American South, and this is my first venture.

>14 rocketjk: I bought a copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God in a book-buying haul last month, and it's also on my TBR stack! Looking forward to it.

Cruised through the excellent novel, The Collector.

Next up for reading is The Invention Of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares.

Just finished reading the novel TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG by author PETER CAREY.

.

For my first vacation in (bleep)ing forever, I started the audiobook of Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by C. Doughty (narrated by the author), and the book Rosewater by T. Thompson.

I'm enjoying "Will My Cat ..." a lot more than I thought! It's a little casual (it's aimed at kids, and answers questions the author had gotten FROM children about death) and I think if I was actually reading the text instead of listening to it, it would annoy the holy heck out of me. But the conversational style is great when Doughty can inject the tone and joking asides as a one-sided dialogue with the reader. She is a YouTube personality and NPR regular, so the performance aspect of an audiobook is a good fit for her, I think.

I'm a bit slower going in "Rosewater" but what I have read is REALLY intriguing. Aliens, lesbians, mind heists, psychics all converge in future Nigeria in the town of Rosewater, where a mysterious dome houses an equally unknown alien lifeform.

The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
Daniel James Brown
3.5/5 stars
Daniel James Brown deals with the tragedy of the Donner party and their trek to make it to California. The book revolves around Sarah Graves and her family when her father, mother and 8 brother and sisters decide to try their luck in California. Disastrously, they take the advice of a Stephen Meek who told them a route which would be easier to take. However, this man never took this route but trusting him, the party followed his directions and so begins their harrowing trip followed by starvation, freezing temperatures, snow and death of several members of the party. Well written and thoroughly researched!

I finished The Death of Vivek Oji was a story of the tragedy of being gay in a repressive society, the secrets and pain of hiding and the difficulties of family coping with what they don't understand when they discover the truth. It was a sad tale but well written.

Enjoying this audiobook via hoopla ~

The Restaurant
by Pamela M. Kelley

I'm slowly working my way through Le Poème du Rhône by Frédéric Mistral. It's a very long poem... It's part of a reading bingo challenge through the Seattle Public Library.

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

Accidentally Engaged
by Farah Heron

Starting to read this OverDrive Kindle eBook ~

I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year
by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute
Zac Bissonnette
4/5 stars
This is the story of Ty Warner who created the buzz that fueled the need to own, sell and trade Beanie Babies and oh what an interesting tale the author Zac Bissonnette weaves. I remember that time period, the looking for and buying beanie babies for my daughter though we never sold or traded any. Anyone who remembers that time period would probably be interested in reading this book.

finished Catalyst Gate by Megan E. O'Keefe. really enjoyed the series. next up is Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear.

Finished listening to the excellent Four Winds by Kristin Hannah.

Next up for listening is What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad.

Just finished the LTER for Chickens Don't Wear Tutus, which is a fun children's book about finding creative solutions to your problems, and defending your choice.

Will probably spend a few days with The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue before moving on to the next LTER.

Currently reading:

1. The Body Keeps the Score
2. The Sun Also Rises

Just finished-
The Choice by Dr. Edith Eger: Outstanding, inspirational, emotional, deep, I highly recommend this book with caution to those sensitive to traumatic events (all types) including highly detailed accounts from the Holocaust and PTSD. Induces compassion, and hope.

Pride and Prejudice: I've read this a few times on my youth but wanted to give it a read now that I'm a bit wiser. Great read, flows well, illustrative, romantic, witty.

I finished the LTER book The Miners' Lament. This short book brings an event of history to life with its fictionalized story of a young Mexican girl involved in the 1951-2 strike against the Empire Zinc Mine. It is well done and would be particularly appropriate for a young girl.

Started Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell.

Finished reading the phenomenal novella, The Invention Of Morel.

Next up for reading is a collection of short stories, Some New Ambush by Carys Davies.

The rew thread is up over here.