janeajones looks for inspiration

DiskuteraClub Read 2018

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janeajones looks for inspiration

Denna diskussion är för närvarande "vilande"—det sista inlägget är mer än 90 dagar gammalt. Du kan återstarta det genom att svara på inlägget.

1janeajones
Redigerat: jan 16, 2018, 2:22 pm



2janeajones
Redigerat: nov 25, 2018, 3:57 pm

Books read in 2018:

1. Geraldine Brooks, March, historical novel, American, 2005:
2. Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury, non-fiction, politics, American, 2018
3. J.T. Glisson, The Creek, memoir, Florida, American, 1993: 1/2
4. Magda Szabo, Katalin Street, trans. Len Rix, novel, Hungarian, 1969/2017 1/2
5. Edna O'Brien, The Little Red Chairs, novel, Irish, 2015: 1/2
6. Margaret Drabble, The Dark Flood Rises, novel, British, 2016
7. Madeleine L'Engle A Wrinkle in Time, fantasy, American, Kindle, 1962:
8. Joseph Conrad, Freya of the Seven Seas, novella, British, 1912:
9. Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, fantasy, American, 2016: 1/2
10. Muriel Spark, The Comforters, novel, British, 1957: 1/2
11. Madeline Miller, Circe, novel, myth revisioned, American, 2018: 1/2
12. Rosamond Lehmann, The Ballad and the Source, novel, British, 1944:
13. Paul Harding, Tinkers, novel, American, 2009: 1/2
14. Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel: novel, Inuit, 1987; trans Bernard Saladin D'Anglure, 2002; trans. Peter Frost,2014:
15. Ismail Kadare, The Ghost Rider, novel, Albanian, 1980; trans, Jon Rothschild and David Bellos, 2010, Kindle:
16. Sofi Oksanen, Purge, novel, Estonian/Finnish, 2008; trans. Lola Rogers, 2010, Kindle: 1/2
17. Andrei Makine, Dreams of my Russian Summer, novel, French/Russian, 1995; trans. Geoffrey Strachan, 1997, Kindle : 1/2
18. Jonas Jonasson, The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, novel, Swedish, 2013; trans. Rachel Wilson-Broyles, 2017, Kindle: 1/2
19. Marianne Frederiksson, Hanna's Daughters, novel, Swedish, 1994; trans. Joan Tate, 1998, Kindle, re-read:
20. Ahmad Ardalen, The Gardener of Baghdad, novel, American?, 2014, Kindle: 1/2
21. Wendy Webb, Daughters of the Lake, novel, American, 2018, Kindle:

3janeajones
jan 5, 2018, 3:36 pm

2017 may have been the slowest/lowest reading year ever -- 23 books read.

20 by women
3 by men

7 British
7 American
2 Norwegian
2 Costa Rican
1 Croation
1 Japanese
1 Icelandic
1 Canadian
1 Brazilian

Stars:
5 : 2
4 1/2-4 : 15
3 1/2 -3 : 6

4arubabookwoman
jan 5, 2018, 4:36 pm

Hi Jane--I'm looking forward to following your reading adventures (and perhaps some travel adventures and some grandma adventures) this year.

I love the image in your opening message.

5janeajones
jan 5, 2018, 7:25 pm

Thanks -- it rather drew me in.

6dchaikin
jan 6, 2018, 6:59 pm

I feel a little hypnotized by the opening picture...

Wishing you a great year, Jane.

also, side note, if you're caught up on my 2017 thread, ignore this comment. But if you're not, go to my thread and skip everything until you get to The Creek by J.T. Glisson. (this one here) Do you know this book?

7janeajones
jan 6, 2018, 11:33 pm

Hi Dan -- did not know about this book, but just ordered it from Amazon -- definitely looks interesting. Hope you have a wonderful year too!

8avaland
jan 7, 2018, 9:45 am

Agree about the hypnotic affect of the picture at the top! Will be keeping an eye on your reading.

9fannyprice
jan 7, 2018, 4:25 pm

>1 janeajones:, TBR pile? ;)

10NanaCC
jan 7, 2018, 5:38 pm

>1 janeajones: I think that picture is mesmerizing.

11dchaikin
jan 8, 2018, 10:34 pm

>7 janeajones: ooh, quietly happy you have a copy coming.

12janeajones
jan 9, 2018, 11:42 am

9> I'm currently reading March by Geraldine Brooks -- I'm finding it slow going because of the Civil War horrors the protagonist is experiencing. My basic TBR is to pick up the books I have lying all over the house though I have ordered Margaret Drabble's The Dark Flood Rises and The Creek by J.T. Glisson on Dan's suggestion.

13avaland
jan 11, 2018, 12:21 pm

>12 janeajones: I started the Drabble last year and put it down at some point, not sure if I'll get back to it.

Re: March. Have read so much about the Alcotts, particularly Abby, Louisa's mother; that when I read March I tended to conflate the real person with the fictional Mrs. March. I suppose I read a lot more into Mr. March's treatment (or lack thereof) of his wife than was there. Still, it was enjoyable enough (it's always interesting to read books which expand another story -- surely there must be a name for this genre. Last year I read the John Banville sequel to Portrait of a Lady).

14NanaCC
jan 12, 2018, 1:25 pm

I think March was one of my first audiobook experiences. I do remember enjoying it. I’ll be looking to see your final thoughts.

15janeajones
jan 16, 2018, 2:53 pm


March by Gerldine Brooks

March is Brooks' Pulitzer Prize-winning reimagining of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women from the viewpoint of Mr. March who has gone off to serve in the Civil War as a chaplain. The book came highly recommended from my son, and I think he must have enjoyed it more than I, although I thought it was quite well done. As a child and young teen, I read and re-read Alcott's books over and over, and read more than one biography of her. Brooks' knowledge of Little Women as well as the Alcotts' life is readily apparent in the novel, and she acknowledges that she drew heavily from the accounts of Bronson Alcott's biographies and writings in her creation of the character of Mr. March.

There are decided differences between the two, however, in that March is a minister while Alcott was an educator. Alcott, 61, when the Civil War broke out, never joined the Union troops, so the major premise of the novel, March's involvement in the war and its effect on him, is Brooks' invention. She sets the Civil War sections of the novel in Virginia, beginning with the Battle of Bull's Bluff in 1862, near the author's home and in which many Massachusetts' soldiers participated.

The novel's strengths lie in its depictions of plantation life in Virginia before and during the Civil War -- the horrors of slavery even on plantations run by "good masters," and the racism and hypocrisy of Union forces trying to administer captured plantations during the war. All is seen through the naive eyes of a young March travelling as an itinerant peddler before the war and the shocked idealism of the more mature March during the war. The book also deals with complicated dynamics of the Marches' marital and domestic life.

I gave the book 4 stars -- much of the material was just too familiar to totally intrigue.

16avaland
jan 16, 2018, 3:01 pm

Excellent review. I agree it was well done, and I agree about its strengths, and I'm with you: "much of the material was just too familiar to totally intrigue."

17dchaikin
jan 16, 2018, 10:03 pm

I was wondering what you would think. I wonder if you had read it when it had just came out and it still felt new if your reaction would have been any different. Somehow I feel Brooks just didn't age well. Not sure. (Random trivia, this is what I was reading when I discovered LT in 2006, so it's the first book I entered.)

18mabith
Redigerat: jan 17, 2018, 2:28 am

I keep meaning to read March and failing at it. Maybe after a re-read of Little Women...

19janeajones
jan 17, 2018, 10:38 am

16> Thanks, Lois.
17> I dunno, Dan, maybe I would have appreciated it more then. Interesting that it's the first book you entered.
18> Meredith, I don't think you need to reread Little Women to appreciate this, if you remember it at all.

20mabith
jan 19, 2018, 7:23 pm

Oh I've been meaning to re-read Little Women anyway, so it would be a good excuse.

21janeajones
Redigerat: jan 19, 2018, 7:38 pm


Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

I really do hate posting the orange's picture. Ok, I succumbed and read this book. It's all about the feuds among the wannabe kingmakers -- Steve Bannon vs. Reince Priebus vs. Jarvanka (otherwise known as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump). Trump emerges as the ultimate wildcard, finally loyal only to family (maybe) and totally uncontrollable by his possible handlers. Although the book claims to cover the first year of the presidency, it is mainly focused on the first 6-7 months, though it does touch on the Richmond, VA debacle, Bannon's departure from the White House, and Kelly's ascendancy as chief of staff -- which certainly led to no more access for Wolff to White House information.

It's all personality and gossip. Much of the early information seems to have come from Katy Walsh, senior assistant to Priebus and a loyal Republican apparatchik, who was confounded and appalled by the infighting. Not sure where the information came from after her leaving the WH.

After I finished the book, I wanted to take a shower.

Perhaps the most interesting insight (and not that profound):

Perhaps never before in history -- not through world wars, the overthrow of empires, periods of extraordinary social transformations, or episodes of government-shaking scandal -- have real-life events unfolded with such emotional and plot-thickening impact. In the fashion of binge-watching a television show, one's real life became quite secondary to the public drama. It was not unreasonable to say Whoa, wait just a minute: public life doesn't happen like this. Public life life in fact lacks coherence and drama. (History by contrast, attains coherence and drama only in hindsight.

22baswood
jan 20, 2018, 5:15 am

Michael Wolff has certainly sold a lot of books

23dchaikin
jan 20, 2018, 9:34 am

Surreal crew. Will they just implode?

24janeajones
jan 20, 2018, 10:02 am

22> Barry, he has.
23> Dan, oh I wish.

25janeajones
Redigerat: feb 1, 2018, 10:28 am


The Creek by J.T. Glisson

Dan (dchaikin) has written a wonderful review of Glisson's memoir of his childhood in the 1930s and 40s at Cross Creek, FL, and it was at his recommendation that I ordered this thoroughly delightful book. I'm not going to repeat what Dan has written -- his review is on the book's main page.

Just a couple of observations. Whereas Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's The Yearling and Cross Creek are beautifully rendered "outsider" visions of Cracker life on the lakes of Central Florida, Glisson's The Creek gives us that life from the inside. Over the years, the small community at Cross Creek had become an extended family, respecting each others' boundaries and privacy -- Rawlings was extended the same respect, while still remaining somewhat aloof from the heartblood of the Cracker settlers.

"Today people ask me what Cross Creek was like back then....To tell them what they want to hear, I have to skip over the humid heat, the insects, and our occasional internal rows. The remaining description, though true, would sound like advertising for a south Florida subdivision.... I would have to tell them the Garden of Eden could not have been more beautiful. They would be uncomfortable with such an answer, and I would be embarrassed to give it. So I tell them, 'It sure was purty.'"

The Creek also brought to mind another Florida childhood memoir from the same period, though a different locale: Sweetgum Slough: A 1930s Florida Memoir by Claire Karssiens. Highly recommended to any who enjoy this one and Rawlings' writings.

26dchaikin
jan 31, 2018, 3:45 pm

So glad you enjoyed Glisson, Jane. I didn't know what to make of this book when a fb friend sent it my way and dreaded finding out how to politely not say how much I didn't like it. I tentatively opened it just to get a sense of what was there, and was immediately interested.

FYI, touchstones are wrong. Here is the correct link The Creek.

27NanaCC
jan 31, 2018, 5:08 pm

>25 janeajones: & >26 dchaikin: Thank you, Jane and Dan. I think this one is going onto my wishlist.

28janeajones
jan 31, 2018, 10:21 pm

Dan -- I'm having trouble changing the touchstones -- any advice? /

29dchaikin
jan 31, 2018, 10:33 pm

You have to force it with the work number. The code, in words, is (1) open bracket, (2) work number (3)two colons :: (4)title (5) closed bracket. No spaces, except in title. Not sure how easy my instructions are to follow.

The work number is in the web address, right after work/. In this case the web address is https://www.librarything.com/work/723570, so the work number is 723570.

30janeajones
feb 1, 2018, 1:00 pm

Thanks, Dan. It took me a few tries, but that finally worked.

31janeajones
Redigerat: feb 7, 2018, 11:13 am


Katalin Street by Magda Szabo, trans. Ken Rix

I read Katalin Street because it was well reviewed in another group, because it was set in Budapest, which I visited a few years ago, and because I like contemporary Eastern European literature. I wasn't disappointed -- I found it a beautiful read, but probably not for everyone. It's the tale of three families, particularly their children, who grow up in neighboring houses on Katalin Street in pre-WWII Budapest. Their childhoods are pretty idyllic, and none of them can escape the memories and lure of Katalin Street after the war. The narration is multi-vocal, and one of the narrators is dead, so there is a definite aspect of magical realism to the story.

In gorgeous prose, Szabo explores the effects of war on ordinary individuals and their relationships, the difficulties of communicating even with those who love each other, and how ties to the past make living in the present more difficult.

The process of growing old bears little resemblance to the way it is presented either in novels or in works of medical science.

No work of literature, and no doctor, had prepared the former residents of Katalin Stree for the fierce light that old age would bring to bear on the shadowy, barely sensed corridor down which they had walked in the earlier decades of their lives, or the way it would rearrange their memories and their fears, overturning their earlier moral judgements and system of values....no one had told them that the most frightening thing of all about the loss of youth is not what is taken away but what is granted in exchange. Not wisdom. Not serenity. Not sound judgement or tranquility. Only the awareness of universal disintegration.

32janemarieprice
feb 7, 2018, 7:36 pm

>31 janeajones: I read the first line of that quote 4 times before it hit me that it wasn't bears the animal. :)

33avaland
feb 10, 2018, 6:10 pm

>21 janeajones: So you succumbed. I do like the quote you pulled out. We still have a few in the store, but I have not been tempted to even crack it. To be honest, I think we may have sold more of Dan Brown's new book.

>31 janeajones: I also love the quote you pulled out of the Szabo novel. I'm am seriously tempted.

34janeajones
feb 10, 2018, 7:18 pm

33> Lois, I highly recommend Katalin Street.

35janeajones
Redigerat: feb 22, 2018, 3:12 pm



On the 6th of April 2012, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege or Sarjevo by Bosnian Serb forces, 11, 541 red chairs were laid out in rows along the eight hundred metres of the Sarajevo high street. One chair for every Sarajevan killed during the 1,425 days of siege. Six hundred and forty-three small chairs represented the children killed by snipers and the heavy artillery fired from the surrounding mountains.
epigraph to The Little Red Chairs

36janeajones
Redigerat: feb 24, 2018, 1:16 pm



The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

A wonderfully complex novel that begins in almost fairytale fashion when a mysterious stranger appears in a seemingly idyllic Irish village. Dr. Vladimir Dragan from Montenegro claims he was lured to Ireland by a pale-faced woman with tears streaming down her cheeks -- familiar in Ireland as Aisling, meaning dream. The stranger is a philosopher-poet-healer who captivates the villagers, especially the women, and most particularly Fidelma, with his charismatic charm. But O'Brien casts an evil spell over the encounter of the stranger and the village.

Vladimir Dragan is modelled upon Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian president of Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996, who masterminded the siege of Sarajevo and the ethnic genocide of Muslim and Croat civilians. This is not a historical novel in which real people appear as themselves in actual events, rather O'Brien is confronting the realities when the victims of violence flee to other countries as immigrants. And it is a novel about trying to find home in a world that violently thrusts people from the places they once considered home.

It isn't for readers who like neatly wrapped plots or straightforward narration. There are multiple narrators and viewpoints, and the horrific complexities of the conflicts of the contemporary world are center-stage.

37janemarieprice
feb 23, 2018, 8:36 am

>35 janeajones: That's lovely and an interesting project. Have you seen the Sarajevo Survival Map? It was created as a sort of tourist style map tackling what it means to be besieged. It's an interesting project.

>36 janeajones: Sounds good!

38janeajones
feb 23, 2018, 11:29 am

37> I hadn't seen that map -- intriguing, if terrifying.

39avaland
feb 23, 2018, 9:00 pm

>35 janeajones: Thanks for that photo, I hadn't see it and had meant to look it up.

>36 janeajones: Excellent book, a top book of the year I read it (whenever it came out).

40fannyprice
feb 24, 2018, 11:08 am

>36 janeajones:, The Little Red Chairs sounds fascinating. Such a strange, strange description.

41Tess_W
feb 24, 2018, 11:19 am

>36 janeajones: sounds like a BB for me!

42NanaCC
feb 24, 2018, 1:15 pm

I have The Little Red Chairs on my kindle. I need to get to that one sooner rather than later.

43baswood
feb 24, 2018, 6:37 pm

The Red Chairs is on my long list. glad you found it so good, I think I will too.

44rachbxl
feb 26, 2018, 9:06 am

>36 janeajones: nice review of one of my top books from last year.

45janeajones
feb 26, 2018, 11:56 am

Thanks all for stopping by.

janemarieprice, fanny price, tess_schoolmarm, NanaCC, and baswood -- I highly recommend the book.

Lois and rachbxl -- I think your reviews led me The Little Red Chairs; I hadn't read any O'Brien before.

46avaland
feb 27, 2018, 4:58 pm

>45 janeajones: Nor had I read any O'Brien before The Little Red Chairs!

47janeajones
mar 1, 2018, 4:07 pm


The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble

The Dark Flood Rises is a rather melancholic book although suffused with wit and sardonic social commentary. The reader senses that Drabble know that this may well be her last novel -- it has an air of finality about it. I started reading early Drabble in my late twenties when she was chronicling the difficulties of balancing career, marriage and children as was I. Now, in my retirement, I am reading about retired professionals coping with life in their seventies -- it's been a long journey.

Francesca Stubbs, divorced with two grown children, continues to consult with a senior housing authority, periodically driving around England.
This is her story along with that of her friends and others with one degree of separation. Her friend Jo, a retired literature lecturer who continues to teach one adult class per semester, lives in a comfortable retirement community in Cambridge, is also friendly with Owen, a retired professor researching the sublimity of clouds in literature. Owen, in turn, is friends with the renowned Italian art scholar, Bennett, and his companion Ivor, whom he has visited in their carefully chosen retirement home in the Canaries. Bennett and Ivor are also connected to Fran through her son Christopher, whom they aided when his companion Sarah became suddenly ill and subsequently died. Teresa, a childhood friend, is suffering from terminal cancer. Fran's ex-husband, Claude, a retired surgeon, has become housebound, and Fran supplies him with home-cooked meals.

There is not a plot, per se, in the novel, rather an accounting of their day-to-day lives over a period of about two months. The characters deal with problems of the day -- refugees from Africa, a minor earthquake, the effects of climate change, and, of course, the conundrum of dealing with a burgeoning aging population.

I enjoyed the revealing of the characters, and as always, Drabble's sharp observations. The oddest thing I found about the book is the total lack of direct dialogue. I do recommend it to anyone interested in the aging process.

48avaland
mar 2, 2018, 6:21 am

>47 janeajones: I started this book back when it first came out and while I certainly liked what I read, I set it down and did not pick it up again. Margaret Drabble is an author I have said I must read and I have a number of her novels, but it just seems not to happen. And well, there are more choices on any given day for me....

I enjoyed your review, though (perhaps i should send my copy to Jean for her oldester theme reading.

49baswood
mar 4, 2018, 6:44 pm

Well I suppose I am Interested in the ageing process

50RidgewayGirl
mar 5, 2018, 9:19 am

>49 baswood: I am not interested in the aging process. Unfortunately, it's interested in me.

51janeajones
Redigerat: mar 5, 2018, 11:09 am

49> and 50> It catches up with all of us!

52avaland
mar 5, 2018, 6:00 pm

>50 RidgewayGirl: hahahahahahahahahaha!

53rachbxl
mar 6, 2018, 11:11 am

54janeajones
mar 7, 2018, 3:27 pm


A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

I was in high school when this book was published, so I missed it. I was reading Hemingway, Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrence and Sigrid Undset then. Somehow it flew under the radar when my kids were growing up too -- I don't think they ever read it in school. However, with the much-touted film coming out soon, I thought I should take a look.

It's a charming book which I would recommend to elementary and middle school readers who enjoy fantasy. There's a strong emphasis on family ties and late bloomers. I'll be interested to see what the filmmakers do to it.

55janeajones
Redigerat: mar 12, 2018, 12:43 pm

We've started watching an intriguing, very literary, crime series on Netflix: The Frankenstein Chronicles. So far William Blake, Mary Shelley and Boz have appeared. Warning -- child murder is involved.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4206804/

56janeajones
Redigerat: apr 10, 2018, 11:30 am

I'm behind on my reviews, so three, rather brief, ones here:


Freya of the Seven Isles by Joseph Conrad

This short romance was first published in New York and London magazines in 1912. It is the tale of a star-crossed love between Freya, the daughter of an Indonesian planter and Jasper, a sea captain trading in the South Asian seas. Their plans are thwarted by Heemskirk, a Dutch officer jealous of Jasper's love for Freya and Freya's father, fearful of any run-ins with the colonial authorities. The observer narrator is sympathetic, but detached, in that the tale he tells happened in the not-so-distant past. The writing is, as usual with Conrad, gorgeous.

However that may be, she (Jasper's ship) was as sound as on the day she first took the water, sailed like a witch, steered like a little boat, and, like some fair women of adventurous life famous in history, seemed to have the secret o f perpetual youth; so that there was nothing in Jasper Allen treating her like a lover. And that treatment restored her lustrous beauty. He clothed her in many coats of the very best white paint so skillfully, carefully, artistically put on and kept clean by his badgered crew of picked Malays, that no costly enamel such as jewellers use for their work could have looked better and felt smoother to the touch. A narrow gilt moulding defined her elegant sheer as she sat on the water, eclipsing easily the professional good looks of any pleasure yacht that ever came to the East in those days....nothing less than the best gold-leaf would do, because no decoration could be gorgeous enough for the future abode of his Freya.


The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

This Newberry Award-winning fantasy is a coming-of-age tale of a young witch named Luna who has been raised in the forest by the ancient, good witch, Xan; a Swamp Monster, and a tiny dragon. As she comes into her powers, dangers loom from the kingdom of the Protectorate, from which she had been expelled and abandoned in the forest as an infant. Greed, evil and fear of the unknown drive the enemies of Xan to the brink of destruction.

I would have loved this book as a ten-year old, and enjoyed it as a 70-year old. Definitely one to gift the grandkids with.


The Comforters by Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark's first novel is witty, inventive and thoroughly delightful. The genre-bending tale, part mystery, part meta-fiction, part spiritual crisis is full of eccentric characters, succinctly described in thorold's review on the main page of the book. Enthralled, I read the book in one afternoon. It was my first experience with Spark (aside from the film of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). It won't be my last.

57avaland
apr 9, 2018, 6:22 pm

Oh, my, I keep saying I'm going to read Muriel Spark but I never quite get around to it (currently distracted being around all the shiny new books). Someday....

58thorold
apr 10, 2018, 2:10 am

>56 janeajones: >57 avaland: (Person who jumped on bandwagon 3 months ago waves patronisingly at those just joining) :-)

Glad you liked The comforters!

59baswood
apr 12, 2018, 6:35 pm

Interested in your review of Freya and the seven isles A Conrad story that I have not come across before.

60janeajones
Redigerat: apr 15, 2018, 11:37 am


Circe by Madeline Miller

Miller's mythic revisioning of the story of the witch Circe, best known for turning men into swine and for her affair with Odysseus, is substantial and engrossing. It begins with her childhood in the halls of her father, the Titan Helios, and follows through the hundreds of generations of her life. Miller incorporates all the well-known and lesser-known ancient stories in which she is mentioned -- those familiar with ancient Mediterranean mythology will have no trouble following the threads of her tale. For those less well-versed there is a handy glossary of Titans, Olympians, mortals and monsters at the end of the book. The major strength of the book is the full development of the major characters and some of the minor characters. I found character development to be somewhat lacking in her earlier novel The Song of Achilles. But here they come alive on the page: the immortals in all their capricious amorality and the humans with their flawed yet tenacious, vainglorious mortality.

The last third of the book is full of somewhat surprising twists and turns -- I was kept guessing as to how it would all turn out, and was ultimately satisfied. With all of her witchery, magic, power, and independence, Circe has always been one of my favorite mythic characters. Madeline Miller has done her proud.

61mabith
apr 15, 2018, 10:39 am

I just finished and loved Circe as well. I can't wait to see what else she writes.

62dchaikin
apr 15, 2018, 10:55 am

>60 janeajones: been eyeing this. So glad you (and Meredith) like it so much.

63markon
apr 16, 2018, 6:01 pm

>60 janeajones: I keep seeing this one mentioned favorably all over the place. Someday it's going to reach off the shelves and go home with me.

64wandering_star
apr 17, 2018, 8:51 pm

>60 janeajones: I loved The Song of Achilles and hadn't seen she'd got a new book out. This looks great! Thanks for letting me know about it.

65RidgewayGirl
apr 18, 2018, 2:05 pm

Glad to know Circe is good - I loved The Song of Achilles and have been waiting to see what is said about her new one.

66janeajones
apr 20, 2018, 7:31 pm

As all the 45 investigations seem to be heating up, I thought I would read some original materials. First the Steele dossier. It's 35 pages of investigation into sources of the links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. While there is nothing here that hasn't been reported on cable TV, there is certainly emphasis on campaign officials who had contact with the Russians, and Russian interference in the election and its reaction to unfolding events. If you haven't already read it, it's here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.h...

In the dossier, there much reference to the Hillary Clinton's emails, so I though I'd look into what exactly was in those in emails. Here's a BBC article on some of the most damning info. Certainly info about why many independents and demoralized Dems voted for independent candidates: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37639370

67janeajones
Redigerat: apr 25, 2018, 2:38 pm


Rosamond Lehmann, The Ballad and the Source

This a rather odd book. It's the tale of an English gentlewoman, Sybil Jardine, who left her husband and lost her daughter, Ianthe. She goes on to become rather notorious, not only because of her behavior, but also because of semi-autobiographical novels she wrote. The story is told to a young girl, Rebecca Landon, by three narrators: Tilly, an old nursemaid/retainer, and Sybil herself, when Rebecca is ten-years old, and four years later by Rebecca's friend and Sybil's granddaughter, Maisie.

Basically, it's a character study of a woman who lived by the strength of her own lights, regardless of how her behavior affected others. Set in the years prior to WWI, Sibyl cared little for the moral strictures that bound the lives of women. In some aspects of Sibyl's life the novel reminded me of the biography, Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy although Sibyl was a generation earlier. I found the book both fascinating and fervid.

68valkyrdeath
maj 19, 2018, 9:31 pm

Just catching up on threads since I've fallen so far behind. I've enjoyed catching up on your reviews. Good to see another positive review of Circe, it's one I'm really looking forward to getting to. I had The Comforters from the library a few years ago but it had to go back before I'd finished it, and I really need to give it another go at some point. I've enjoyed some of Spark's other work.

69janeajones
Redigerat: maj 24, 2018, 12:35 pm


Tinkers by Paul Harding

"George Washington Crosby began to hallucinate eight days before he died." Lying on a hospital bed in the middle of his living room, surrounded by family and friends, the dying man moves in and out of consciousness. Images of his adult life, building his house, repairing antique clocks alternate with images from his childhood and adolescence of his father, Howard Crosby, an itinerant peddler serving customers in the backwoods of Maine during the first third of the 20th Century. Tinkers is a wonderfully meditative book with its descriptions of nature, its delving into the experience of epileptic seizures, its digressions into the history of clock-making. The prose is mesmerizing and memorable. Highly recommended.

70janeajones
maj 24, 2018, 1:15 pm


Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, introduction and French translation by Bernard Saladin D'Anglure, English translation by Peter Frost

VivienneR's review of this book made is sound fascinating, so I ordered a copy of it. I finally got around to reading Sanaaq and recommend it to anyone interested in Inuit life during the 20th century, from their first encounters with the Qallunaat (white Canadians) to the time when pre-fab houses and motor boats arrive in their village.

Nappaluk, a highly respected member of the village, began writing episodes of Inuit daily life at the behest of Father Robert Lechat, who wanted to compile a French-Inuit dictionary. She created a female protagonist, Sanaaq, who undoubtedly reflects autobiographical elements. After more than a 50 year history of composition, well related in the introduction, the book was finally published in 1987 in the Inuit language. The French translation appeared in 2002, followed by an English translation in 2014.

Sanaaq's extended family is at the center of the village's activities -- childbirth and accidental death, building igloos to survive the winter, hunting, fishing, preparing food, eating, overseeing children, making garments. The close cooperation and mutual support among the villagers is key to their existence in a punishing environment.
The prose is straightforward and authentic, and the characters come to life.

It perhaps reads more as a memoir than a novel, and in that regard, I can compare it to The Creek by J.T. Glisson, mirroring a similar time period. Though the backdrops of central Florida and polar Canada couldn't be more different, the strong community ties, holding the people together, have a certain universality.

71avaland
Redigerat: maj 24, 2018, 3:15 pm

>69 janeajones: I loved Tinkers and yes, the prose.... I enjoyed his Enon also, which featured the grandson of the character in Tinkers. I gave it 5 stars, but apparently others did not see the book the way I did.

72lisapeet
Redigerat: maj 24, 2018, 3:55 pm

>69 janeajones: Oh I loved Tinkers. Haven't read Enon, though I have an old egalley floating around.

73janeajones
maj 26, 2018, 1:53 pm

71>,72> I'll have to check out Enon.

74dchaikin
maj 26, 2018, 4:07 pm

Sanaaq sounds terrific (maybe the Glisson reference got my attention too). Tinkers hangs around. I still think about it.

75wandering_star
maj 27, 2018, 10:16 am

>60 janeajones: On your tip-off, I put a library hold on Circe - am reading it now, and really enjoying it.

76kidzdoc
maj 28, 2018, 6:31 pm

Thanks for reminding me about Tinkers, Jane. I'm long overdue to read it, so I'll try to get to it later this year.

Nice review of Sanaaq; I'll be on the lookout for it.

77mabith
maj 31, 2018, 4:05 pm

Definitely keeping an eye out for Sanaaq.

78janeajones
jun 6, 2018, 2:46 pm


The Ghost Rider by Ismail Kadare, trans. Jon Rothschild and David Bellos

Originally published in Albanian in 1980 as Doruntine, Canongate published an English translation of Kadare's novel as The Ghost Rider in 2010. It is a revisioning of an old Albanian folk tale "The Ballad of Constantine and and Doruntine," about a dead brother who rises from the grave to fulfill a promise to his mother to bring his sister home from the distant land into which she has married. In his introduction, David Bellos explains that Kadare wrote the novel in the late 1970s under the isolated Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha. He suggests that the brother Kostandin is representative of resistance and dissidence, but in my lack of knowledge of Albanian culture and history, I found that connection difficult to make. The tale is told from the viewpoint of a detective tasked with figuring out who actually brought Doruntine home to her mother, presssured by a high church official to prove that Kostandin could not have risen from his grave. His rational approach is tested to the limits. Kadare is an intriguing and lyrical writer, but I found the ending of this novel rather unsettling and unsatisfying. Still -- an interesting look into Albanian culture.

79janemarieprice
jun 7, 2018, 6:51 pm

>70 janeajones: Sanaaq sounds quite interesting. I find myself attracted to cold locations for reading and this seems very atmospheric.

80SassyLassy
jun 9, 2018, 7:34 pm

>78 janeajones: Easily one of my favourite books this year. I hope you get to read more books by Kadare.

>69 janeajones: I'll have to try this one.

81janeajones
Redigerat: nov 25, 2018, 3:58 pm


Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb

An entertaining Gothic novel about a line of mothers and daughters who are descended from the spirit of Lake Superior. Kate is haunted in her dreams by a mysterious woman who was murdered in the early 20th c. When a perfectly preserved body of a young woman and her newborn wash up on the shore of the great lake, the mystery of who she is and how she was killed needs to be solved.

Note: I've not reviewed any of the books I read this summer and early autumn (see 16-20 above), but now I'm out of a total literary slump, maybe I'll get back to them. They were mostly read on airplanes on my Kindle as we were travelling.

82dchaikin
nov 25, 2018, 5:35 pm

Nice to see you posting again and so glad you're past the slump.

83avaland
dec 4, 2018, 2:36 pm

Yes, very nice to see you. I was about to send you a care package with the hopes of kick-starting your reading. The Kavanaugh hearing and the election affected my reading this fall, particularly in October, but I'm feeling better post-election (sorry about the way FL went).