I hated the lack of quotation marks in Wolf Hall and never read the sequels.
I admit I am about ready to give up 30% of the way through the third Wolf Hall book. Itās written in third person present tense in kind of a state of mind ramble. And the use of pronouns is so confusing that they periodically identify āheā as Cromwell in case you lost track. Thereās some beautiful language and interesting personalities but just too hard to follow what passes for conversation and plot.
I just finished The Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich on audio. I would say this is a fantastic beautiful book with slightly deranged but charming narration. If you imagine your uncle who like a tipple, read you a book aloud with no punctuation, it would be this. Some of it is amazing, but some parts are just like a 9 yr old reading aloud. The real story telling parts are terrific. If you try it, try and get past the beginning and it will be worth it, but as a book just to read, this would be one I would like on my bookshelf. I need to find other books by the author.
Iāve been reading Crime & Punishment. Before that I read The Stranger by Albert Camus and No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. I wonder if thereās a single archetype or trope that these booksā protagonists fall under, because they all seem somewhat similar to me. Itās this specific type of character that is the most interesting to me, and even a bit relatable(which kind of worries me tbh).
@Sybylla, the CC Book Club read The Round House in 2014. You might enjoy reading some of the comments: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1677197-the-round-house-october-cc-book-club-selection-p1.html
As I recall I did not like The Round House much at all!
@CathPalug the CC bookclub also read The Stranger and the response from Algerian author Kamel Daoud The Meursault Investigation. I really liked the newer book, but I think most of our group were not fans.
Just stumbled across this (maybe should put on the Good Buy thread)ā¦
World Book Dayā¦9 books to download for free for your Kindle on Amazon ā¦I think for only another day or twoā¦
https://smile.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2020?ref_=pe_170810_490069750_kdd_kc_WBD_KDD
When there was a world book day in the US, I was an official book giver. I gave out free copies of books to people. It was a lot of fun. It got stopped when the costs were too much and the publishers didnāt want to do it anymore (they were supplying thousands of free books). The international event (mostly in the UK) has continued. I guess they went for eBooks this year due to the pandemic.
@gosmom thanks for sharing that link. Somehow I always seem to miss those deals. I wonder how one āseesā them? Amazon doesnāt have it on their home page. I followed your link and saw a couple of books on the list that appealed to me. Thanks!
Thanks looked like some fun books, and the price is right!
@4kids4us Yes, I almost missed it, too. It was at the very bottom of an email (daily Amazon email Top deals $0.99 and up). I downloaded four of themā¦
I concur, Oona out of Order was terrible!
@gosmom , I guess that would explain it - I donāt get daily emails from Amazon. I guess I should sign up for those although my wallet is probably better off if I donāt see the daily deals! But free books are right up my alley!
I had that book on hold after seeing it on a recommended reading list but promptly deleted after seeing it panned here! Good to know Iām not missing anything.
@Marilyn I know what you mean about the pronoun confusion in The Mirror and the Light. āHeā is always Cromwell so once I accepted that, it was much easier. I am about 1/3 through the book and I am really enjoying it, but I am also familiar with all of the characters because my PhD is in English Renaissance literature. I have wondered on occasion whether I would be as into it if I had not absorbed the background as I have. I just finished reading a scene where Cromwell and others meet the baby Elizabeth and dismiss her as a teething little monster who probably wonāt amount to anything. Dramatic ironyāthe greatest ruler England ever had, and she out-survived them all. These are the little moments that keep me reading.
This book made a huge impression on me.
Hidden Valley Road, Inside the Mind of an American family, by Robert Kolker.
Brief description: The heartrending true story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became scienceās great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
Riveting. Itās a biography of a family, itās about the perception of mental illness, the nature vs. nurtue debate, the outsize blame mothers were straddled with for their ill children, and the slow hard work of science research.
Like the title of this thread - the best book Iāve read in the last 6 months.
1 Like
Speaking of reading slumps, I think itās fine to just enjoy what you want and not worry about self-improvement through reading. I love mystery series and the most delightful, high-calorie/low-nutrition series is Andrea Camilleriās Inspector Montalbano series set in Sicily.
I cannot enjoy terribly written genre fiction, but I really enjoy well-written (and translated) genre fiction, and this fits the bill. I want to make all of the recipes that the inspectorās housekeeper Adelina makes for him and leaves in the fridge. Inspector Montalbano is a flawed but very appealing character and his cronies and sidekicks are interesting. A plus is that the books are not that long. They are really novella length.
With libraries being closed, Amazon is getting too much of my business. If grocery stores are opened with social distancing and hygiene protocols, why not public libraries?
@NJSue do you know that the Montalbano books were made into a TV series? I got hooked on it years ago while staying with my parents and one of their cable channels carried it. I never got to finish it b/c I donāt get the same channel. I discovered back when this āstay at homeā started that it was available with an MHZ subscription on Amazon. Iām about halfway through but each episode is nearly two hours and with subtitles, I have to be very awake to watch them. I didnāt realize the series, which started in 1999, is still going strong. The actor who plays Montalbano is not conventionally handsome but definitely has some sex appeal IMO.
I actually tried to get the books through my library but my county doesnāt carry them. I have to request them from another county and just hadnāt ever gotten around to it before the libraries in my state closed.
I knew there was a series but I havenāt watched any. Iāll check it out. Usually I see the protagonists of my favorite book series completely differently from how they are rendered on TV. I tried to watch Bosch on Amazon and I just couldnāt do it because I had always imagined Michael Connollyās world-weary LA cop very differently based on the books. On the other hand, sometimes you can watch a series and start reading the books because of it. I watched Longmire long before I started reading the books. There are wonderful characters in the Longmire books that arenāt even in the series, and I wonder why they were excluded!
I have also started reading the C.J. Box Cassie Dewell books. I understand that they are going to make a TV show out of them called āThe Big Skyā on ABC. Cassie is a single mom/war widow who lives with her son and mother and works as a sheriffās deputy. Sheās an interesting character. The book Badlands was excellent (she takes a job in a Bakken shale town and is one of the few women around in positions of authority).
@NJSue , my local library system is one of the busiest in the nation. With the number of patrons to separate, staff support to those patrons (one on one), and the disinfecting of all those books, itās too difficult to open. The city libraries are closed as well.
Residents of the county are allowed to get an e-card for e-books, audiobooks, video, etc. After the shutdown it can be converted to a regular library card with proper id.
Iāve bought some HB and PB from a local bookstore and they shipped to me. I also have >100 books here that I havenāt read, plus whatever i can get online from the library. Overdrive/Libby is the best thing ever.
The Montalbano books are so enjoyable. The translations are first-rate, especially the glossary at the end givIng explanations of some of the words and terms. I read after the author passed away last year that heād written a final book a few years earlier that would be published after his death & wrap everything up. Iām a few books behind, but have everything other than that last book.
Iām not a reader of capital L Literature at the best of times. Iāve gone from about 75% mystery/crime/thriller and 25% popular fiction to the reverse. A happily-ever-after calms my soul right now.