Dukedom_Enough and Avaland's Thread, PART II

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Dukedom_Enough and Avaland's Thread, PART II

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

1avaland
Redigerat: maj 26, 2018, 5:58 am



We refer to this as the "wall of books." When we moved here four years ago we thought we'd like to integrate the books with the house a bit better. I'm sorry I could not make the photo large enough so that you can read the titles! If of any interest, the shelf at the peak has some odds & ends (sets, antique books...), the 2nd shelf from peak is all poetry. The 3rd shelf from the peak begins with a collection of Alcott-related books (just out of sight on the left), followed by a George Elliot shelf (also on the left) and then it's all Atwood & Oates all the way across. Below these, beginning on the left is a shelf of TBR Africa novels, then general fiction, alpha by author.

And, if you look at the top of the center opening in the wall, you will see another shelf in the distance. That shelf, set at about 7 ft up, runs the entire length of the hallway and two walls of our bedroom. It is entirely hardcover and trade paperback science fiction & fantasy. What you see there is roughly Joe Haldeman to Graham Joyce.

2avaland
Redigerat: dec 22, 2018, 7:03 am

HIS LIST

NOW READING:



TAKING THE BACK SEAT AT THE MOMENT:
Black Wings of Cthulhu 2 edited by S. T. Joshi (anthology, 2014)
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces by Michael Chabon (2018)
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu (2012)
It's Even Worse Than You Think:What the Trump Administration is Doing to America by David Cay Johnston (2018, nonfiction)
True Stories and Other Essays by Francis Spufford (2017, nonfiction)

...And Twitter

2018 BOOKS READ (√ denotes reviewed)



---------------------------------------Q4
Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson (2018)
Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard (1984)

---------------------------------------Q3
Dark State by Charles Stross
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea by Adam Roberts (2014)
The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valence (2018)

----------------------------------------Q2
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (2017, SF)
The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander (2018)
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts (2018)
Proof of Concept by Gwyneth Jones (2017)
Time Was by Ian McDonald (2018)
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer (2014)
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valence (2018)

-----------------------------------------Q1
Empire Games by Charles Stross (2017)
The Memory Bank by Wallace West (1962)
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (2014)
Authority by Jeff Vandermeer (2014)
Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds edited by Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois, eds.(2015)

3avaland
Redigerat: dec 28, 2018, 6:49 am

HER LIST

NOW READING



The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker (2017)
The White Card: A Play by Claudia Rankine (2019)
Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey by Alice Robb (nonfiction, 2018)
ON HOLD:
An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman: The Journal of Phebe Orvis, 1820-1830 by Susan M Ouellette (2017, nonfiction, setting/subject: Vermont)

2018 BOOKS READ



√ = reviewed.
-------------------------Q4
I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck (2017)
Deaf Republic: Poems by Ilya Kaminsky (2019, poetry)
√The Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates (2018, US)
Scandinavian Crime Fiction by Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (nonfiction, 2017)
Call Them By Their True Names: American Crisis (and Essays) by Rebecca Solnit (nonfiction, 2018)
The Fourth Man by K. O. Dahl (crime novel, Norway, 2005)
-------------------------Q3
Broken Ground by Val McDermid (2018)
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2018, T. from the Japanese)
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss (UK, 2015)
American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, edited by Tracy K. Smith (2018, Poetry)
When it Grows Dark by Jorn Lier Horst (crime novel, 2017, Norway)
Scribe by Alison Hagy (fiction, 2018)
Ordeal by Jorn Lier Horst (crime novel, 2016, Norway)
The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar (2018)
Vox by Christina Dacalcher (2018)
She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore (2018, US - setting/subject: Liberia)
The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware (2018, modern Gothic)
-------------------------Q2
Life is Good by Alex Capus (fiction, 2018)
Real-Town Murders by Adam Roberts (fiction, 2018)
Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel (2018, novel)
The Mother of All Questions: Further Reports from the Feminist Revolutions by Rebecca Solnit (2017, essays)
Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality by Brian R. Little (2018, nonfiction)
Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo by Zora Neale Hurston (2018, nonfiction)
Small Country: A Novel Gael Faye (2016, T 2018 from the French)
Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World by Jennifer Palimieri (2018, memoir/nonfiction)
Poems: New and Selected by Ron Rash (2017, US)
Little Beast by Julie Demers (2015, T from the French 2018, Canada)
The Solace of Islands by Ansie Beard (2016, poetry)
Out of Bounds by Val McDermid (2016, UK)
The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy (2012, 2017 reprint with adorable cover!, UK)
--------------------------Q1:
Women and Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (2017, nonfiction)
Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom: Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys and the American Revolution by Christopher S. Wren (2018, US, History)
Rupture by Ragnar Jonasson (2017, Iceland, crime novel #4, UK edition)
Instructions, Abject & Fuming by Julianna Baggott (2017, poetry)
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (2018, Canadian)
West by Carys Davies (2018)
vThe House of Fame by Oliver Harris (2017, UK, crime novel)
The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe by Elaine Showalter (2017, biography)
White Houses by Amy Bloom (2018, US)
The Mountain: Stories by Paul Yoon (2017, US)
Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction, Keith Oatley
Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah (4/2018, T French)
H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker (2017, UK, not presently out in the US)
It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America by David Cay Johnson (2017, US)
Deep Shelter by Oliver Harris (2014, UK, Crime Novel)

4auntmarge64
apr 15, 2018, 10:41 am

Love the bookshelves - especially the ladder!

5dchaikin
apr 15, 2018, 10:51 am

Great set up! Have you lost any guests wandering through your titles?

6avaland
apr 15, 2018, 11:37 am

>3 avaland: Thanks. That ladder was a splurge, for sure.

>4 auntmarge64: We don't entertain that much, Dan. We have had a few LTers here who couldn't resist.

7Caroline_McElwee
apr 15, 2018, 3:38 pm

Do love that photo Lois. Can't believe you've been there four years.

8avaland
apr 15, 2018, 8:20 pm

>7 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caro. Time is flying, isn’t it!

9shadrach_anki
apr 17, 2018, 10:07 am

Some day I hope to have a wall of books as lovely as yours! Right now I make do with a couple of full-size Billy bookcases and a few other smaller shelf units. And boxes. Lots and lots and lots of boxes.

10avaland
apr 19, 2018, 7:00 am

>9 shadrach_anki: We are quite a bit older than you, and "someday" really is a now or never thing. We do still have boxes but I am determined to find a way to get all the books out (still in boxes: SF anthologies and SF/F reference books...odds and ends). I have a plan!

11RidgewayGirl
apr 19, 2018, 8:55 am

I love the way you painted your hallway.

12OscarWilde87
apr 20, 2018, 3:50 pm

I simply love that picture and the way books are part of your home!

13avaland
apr 21, 2018, 9:26 am

>11 RidgewayGirl: Oh, you can see that, can you? Thanks. Here is what it looks like a bit further down the hall.



That's a stencil (http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/) done three times vertically.

14avaland
apr 21, 2018, 9:28 am

>12 OscarWilde87: Thanks, Oscar. It does leave free more floor space.

15dukedom_enough
Redigerat: apr 21, 2018, 7:26 pm



Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Eurovision! In!! SPACE!!!

Catherynne M. Valente's latest novel puts on stage an example of that rare genre, the funny science-fiction novel. A few decades hence, every person on Earth, all at once, is suddenly conversing with something like a seven-foot-tall cross between a flamingo and an anglerfish, ultramarine in color, who explains that the galaxy is full of spacefaring creatures, and Earth is invited - more, required - to join the crowd. First, though, we must prove that we are sentient. This test involves the participation of selected human musicians in a periodic, musical-artistic contest among all species. If homo sapiens manages to stay out of last place: yay!, we'll be officially sentient and part of the interstellar community. If not, we'll be exterminated. Can't be too careful with a new, warlike planet.

The stellar contest is very reminiscent of the Earthly Eurovision contest; this novel is Valente's homage to Eurovision.

The aliens present a list of the human acts they'll consider inviting. But, due to a bit of confusion about Time and the Earthly music biz, the only band on the list with still-living members is Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros, a glitterpunk/glamrock outfit whose fifteen minutes ended decades earlier. Two of its members still live: frontman/lead singer Decibel Jones himself, born Danesh Jalo, a Briton of Pakistani-Nigerian-Welsh-Swedish ancestry, and instrumentalist Oort St. Ultraviolet. Long dead is the band's muse, drummer Mira Wonderful Star, who checked out via one of the standard rockstar exits, a car accident. Can this washed-up twosome compete with the best artistic talent of numerous advanced, and by the way extremely weird, planets?

I've said before that Valente has a China Mieville-class imagination, and that's on display here, as she spins out a fantasmagorical, seemingly limitless list of the alien physiologies, cultures, planets, histories, musics, stardrives, and sexual practices that Decibel and Oort must contend with before the contest even begins. The structure here feels sort of fractal, with the too-muchness of the entire story echoed in shorter flights of prose. For example (Pallulle is a planet here, Lagom its star):

Pallulle is snugly encased in Old Ruutu's Bindle: a cross-hatched topiary of translucent solar rods designed by the classical poet-engineer Old Ruutu to catch Lagom's emotionally unavailable light, beef it up a bit, and direct it usefully to the most inhabited parts of the surface. The glaciated surface of Pallulle was suddenly polka-dotted with pools of Ruutu-blessed artificial alpine climate full of silver ferns, blue-gray orchards heavy with gin-fruit, and liquid oceans in which the neon-blooded suflet shark swims free. The name of Old Ruutu is, among the Smaragdi, spoken with an awe equivalent to Jesus Christ and Nikola Tesla borrowing Bhudda's tandem bicycle for a quick Sunday ride through Shakespeare's back garden. On Activation Day, every city on Pallulle scrambled to rename itself after him, which caused a great deal of confusion, upset feelings, cancelled family reunions, Ruutu absolutely forbidding anyone to do any such stupid thing as it was no big deal, I was up there anyway, might as well do a spot of DIY while I've still got my health, you know if you have someone in they'll only rip you off, and besides, you'd all do the same for me, anyway it's a bit rubbish, I was in a rush, two regional wars, and a small but feisty economic crisis until it was decided that everyone was pretty, they all loved the old man equally, and there was quite enough Ruutu to go around and the mapmakers would just have to seek out anxiety medication. Hence, on Pallulle, you will find no London, Paris, Vlimeux, or Alun, but only Blue Ruutu, White Ruutu, Little Ruutu, New Ruutu, Ruutu-by-the-Sea, Dirty Ruutu, Broke-down Ruutu, Backwoods Ruutu, and so on and so forth.

Everything including the kitchen sink, and the sink has a wormhole drain, so to speak. In an afterword, Valente thanks the late Douglas Adams for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Valente's from the US, but plainly, the principal (Earthly) characters and the narrative voice had to be British to salute Adams.

OK, did I laugh? I don't usually laugh aloud at humorous pieces - I did a few times here, e.g. on learning of the Entity Known as Monad. But I certainly enjoyed every sparkling bit of a novel I finished, unusually for me, less than a week after it was published.

Four Stars

16NanaCC
apr 22, 2018, 7:58 am

>13 avaland: very cool. :)

17arubabookwoman
apr 24, 2018, 1:50 am

>1 avaland: Your wall of books is fabulous! Every house needs one.

18RidgewayGirl
apr 24, 2018, 10:17 am

>15 dukedom_enough: Wonderful review of the Valente novel.

19avaland
apr 24, 2018, 7:03 pm

>17 arubabookwoman: Thanks! That's what we thought.

20dukedom_enough
apr 24, 2018, 7:21 pm

>18 RidgewayGirl: I'm not the only one who liked it; it's appearing on the genre best-seller lists.

21dukedom_enough
Redigerat: maj 4, 2018, 10:40 am



Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer

Acceptance is the last part of the Southern Reach trilogy. It serves both as coda and as overture; in chapters covering Area X's advent, we learn about Saul Evans, who will become the Crawler of Annihilation, and Gloria, eventually to be the Southern Reach's director, but just an adolescent girl at the beginning.

But the majority of the story concerns Control, who briefly supervised the Reach after Gloria's departure, and Ghost Bird, the doppelganger of Annihilation's biologist. They returned to Area X at the end of the middle book, and are now exploring parts of it we haven't seen before. They don't learn what may have happened to the outside world: perhaps Area X has swallowed it up. They do learn what became of the biologist. They find her journal, which tells of her decades of solitary existence in Area X after the events of Annihilation - which were only weeks ago to Control and Ghost Bird, time being yet another of the Earthly things that go haywire in the Area. This chapter is self-contained and moving, and seems to round off the biologist's tale.

But no stories are really ending here. The mystery of Area X won't allow that. Each character goes off to an unknown fate. Weird fiction generally withholds simple resolution; mere humans probably wouldn't understand the intrusion from beyond anyway. What we do understand are the feelings and drives of VanderMeer's vividly imagined protagonists.

Like the previous books, not an easy story, but one that's well done.

Four stars

22chlorine
Redigerat: maj 4, 2018, 2:53 pm

>21 dukedom_enough: I'm glad you liked Acceptance, but from your review it seems that it's not for me, so I'm glad I stopped after Annihilation.

23dukedom_enough
maj 4, 2018, 3:18 pm

>22 chlorine: It is nice to have stories that actually end, once in a while.

24auntmarge64
maj 4, 2018, 4:44 pm

>21 dukedom_enough: I like Acceptance too, but not nearly as much as that first volume. Still, VanderMeer has become a must-read for me. You too?

25avaland
maj 5, 2018, 6:32 am

>24 auntmarge64: I can't speak for the hubby but VanderMeer is usually a must read for me...ever since 2003's Veniss Underground, but I have not kept up. We hosted Ann & Jeff at the store in 2005, I think. As we stood there in the middle of the store in a large spacing facing the hardcover fiction section, they raved about Clare Dudman's 98 Reasons for Being which was just out in hardcover here. And they went on to rave about her previous, One Day the Ice Will Reveal Its Dead which had come out in paper. And and that's how I read both of those books, and can agree, both are excellent.

26avaland
Redigerat: maj 6, 2018, 7:04 am

Trying to catch up on my reviews.

I consider poetry a personal thing. I think, despite education or close study, we are drawn to specific poets or poems or style or form. Knowing this, I still try to stretch myself and explore a bit.

----------


The Solace of Islands by Ansie Baird (2016, poetry)

Baird is a nationally recognized poet out of the Buffalo, New York area. I picked this collection up browsing in the bookstore. It’s a solemn collection and I can’t say I connected well with it overall but there were some individual poems I really enjoyed. Here’s one:

CACOPHONY AT MOMA

You can’t get
away from much
with Kandinsky
right there looming
over your shoulder
insistent in all his
sash and fragments
sky and splashes
haggard or lavish
colors streaking &
muttering jaws
wide open turmoil
resolving itself into
winds of delicate
pause you’d prefer
to ignore but his
turbulence persists
refusing to indulge
your inclination
towards resolution
nudging you into
those gluts of space
jarring your day until
defeated you concede
Okay Okay and gaze
at him hard, exhausted.

27avaland
Redigerat: maj 6, 2018, 7:39 am



The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy (2011, this edition 2017, poetry)

I am a big fan of Duffy’s poetry; in fact, I have several collections of her work, and recently picked up a very thick compendium of her work. However, that did not stop me from picking up this adorable reprint of an earlier volume. What you can’t see in the image above, is the lovely matte gold background and little metallic gold bits in the flowers (it would make a nice gift for someone, hint, hint).

Duffy is the UK’s current poet laureate, appointed in 2009 (the first woman to hold the position). I love her poetry. LOVE. Her poetry is not pretentious, it’s accessible, often musical, moving and sometimes just plain fun. The overarching theme or symbol of this collection is the bee, precious and endangered, and there are many poems here about bees, but there are other poems that buzz around the same ideas: the precious and endangered. Here’s a short bee poem, the first of the collection:

BEES

Here are my bees,
brazen, blurs on paper
besotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps.

Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide,
gilded, glad, golden, thus—

wise — and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart
and honey is art.

————————
And here is one of my favorite poems from the collection:

THE WOMAN IN THE MOON

Darlings, I write to you from the moon
where I hide behind famous light.
How could you think it ever a man up here?
A cow jumped over. The dish ran away with

the spoon. What reached me were your joys, griefs,
here’s-the-craic, losses, longings, you lives
brief, mine long, a talented loneliness. I must have
a thousand names for the earth, my blue vocation.

Round I go, the moon a diet of light, sliver of peat,
wedge of lemon, slice of melon, half an orange,
silver onion; your human sound falling through space,
childbirth’s song, the lover’s song, the song of death.

Devoted as words to things, I gaze, gawp, deserts
where forests were, sick seas. When night comes,
I see you gaping back as through you hear my Darlings,
what have you done, what have you done to the world?

28avaland
Redigerat: maj 6, 2018, 9:17 am



Out of Bounds by Val McDermid (2016, crime novel, UK)

Still grieving the death of her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Prie throws herself into her work. She's working two cases; one informally: a young man's recent suicide has a link to an old case: in 1994 his mother and several others were killed when their airplane crashed due to a terrorist bomb blamed on the IRA. Karen doesn't believe in coincidences. Meanwhile, when a teenager crashes his car and is severely injured, a routine DNA test makes a link to unsolved rape-murder cold case.

After a five-hour, "nothing-gets-done-until-I-finish-this-book" stint, having been completely engrossed for 484 pages, I declared this book the nearest thing to a perfect police procedural as can be. And I have read a lot of police procedurals! Let me tell you why...

First, the cases are really, really interesting ones. They are complex and Prie (or McDermid) unravels them in an excruciatingly delicious way. The second reason is the compelling character of Detective Karen Prie: tough but vulnerable, a pain-in-the-ass for her superiors (her boss hates her), stubborn & doggedly relentless, ingenious, and bloody brilliant. And yet she is not devoid of empathy or concern for others. Third, McDermid brings the suspense up slowly as the investigation progresses over the story—no crazy chase scenes, no shoot-outs... (which isn't to say there isn't a bit action from time to time) just a tightening, a kind of breathlessness, as Prie gets closer to the answers. It's a real buzz for those of us who love the process, that tightening of the circle, that breathlessness.

This is the 4th book McDermid has done with this character. I've read all of McDermid except for her Tony Hill books, and I'm sure I've read the previous, but I can't remember them, which is all to say, that this can be read as a standalone.

I picked up my copy a while back from the UK via the Book Depository before it was out here in the states. It has just recently come out in paperback here (terrible US cover, but oh, what's inside....)

29avaland
maj 6, 2018, 10:06 am



Little Beast by Julie Demers (2015, Translated from the French 2018, Canadian)

Told in the first person, Little Beast is the story of a girl who at the age of eleven sports a full beard. Set in 1945 in rural village in Quebec, the story feels like a folk tale of some kind as the things mentioned that might link to the 1940s are rare. While her mother tried to hide and protect her, the father abandoned the family. Threatened, the girl is now on the run, traveling through the wilderness, narrating both her backstory and that of her travels.

The writing in the book at times is compelling, there is some creative formatting of text, and I found the descriptions of the wilderness especially vivid. However, while I found the girl’s story interesting, I could not help but think something about the story wasn't working well for me, perhaps I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the girl’s story was an anachronism of sorts, or perhaps that feeling in the reader is meant to mirror the girl’s feeling of not belonging….

30dukedom_enough
maj 6, 2018, 11:17 am

>24 auntmarge64: Not quite a must-read, but I do want to read more of him. I also have two big anthologies edited by him and spouse Ann VanderMeer, The Weird and The Big Book of Science Fiction that I want to read. Each is meant as a comprehensive overview of its field.

31chlorine
maj 6, 2018, 1:07 pm

>28 avaland: Wow, what a recommendation! I want to like crime novels but they usually don't work for me, with some exceptions. I'm wishlisting this one because it seems it could very well be one of the exceptions! I'm also quite fond of cold cases.

32janeajones
maj 6, 2018, 4:28 pm

27> gorgeous poems by Duffy.

33Caroline_McElwee
maj 6, 2018, 5:31 pm

>26 avaland: I like that poem Lois.

>27 avaland: I'm a Duffy fan too.

>28 avaland: your mention of this elsewhere made me drop it onto my Kindle.

34NanaCC
maj 6, 2018, 9:58 pm

>28 avaland: A book bullet for me, Lois. Surprise! :)

35shadrach_anki
maj 7, 2018, 2:37 pm

>28 avaland: This does sound fascinating, and I am adding it to my list. A question though; if this is the fourth book featuring this character, how necessary would you say it is for me to have read the previous books?

And yeah, the American cover for the book is...blah.

36avaland
maj 8, 2018, 8:56 am

>31 chlorine: I have loved a lot of crime novels, and I'm sure I've probably gushed over others, so perhaps this is just the latest.

>32 janeajones: Thanks, wish I could post them all!

>33 Caroline_McElwee: And I wonder if I would have connected with her if I had not met you here on LT some 11 years ago.

>34 NanaCC: LOL!

>35 shadrach_anki: It can be read as a standalone. I'm sure I read the previous at some point, but I didn't remember them, so it was more or less read as a standalone.

37avaland
Redigerat: maj 8, 2018, 5:17 pm

Still catching up....



Poems: {New and Selected} by Ron Rash (2016, US)

I am sometimes prone to exploring the poetry of the fiction writers I enjoy. Sometimes the poetry is excellent, other times less so. Being good at writing one form doesn’t necessarily assume one is good at writing the other. A few of the more modern authors, whose prose AND poetry I have enjoyed, include: Joyce Carol Oates, Julianna Baggott, Michael Crummy, Helen Dunmore, Margaret Atwood and Ron Rash.

Some of you might know Ron Rash by way of his fiction. I first became acquainted with him through his 2004 novel, his second, Saints by the River (HERE is a PW review of the book). He is also the author of several other novels, including the historical fiction, Serena which was adapted into a movie. Rash is often called a “regionalist” because of his focus on the rural Appalachian region of the Carolinas, his home turf. He writes well, with great authenticity, and his images and thoughts, so indigenous to the region, often exposes things we can all understand. A few of my favorites from this collection:

JUNK CAR IN SNOW

No shade tree surgery could
revive its engine, so rolled
into the pasture, left stalled
among cattle, soon rust-scabs
breaking out on blue paint, tires
sagging like leaky balloons,
yet when snow came, magical,
an Appalachian igloo
I huddled inside, cracked glass
my window as the snow smoothed
the pasture as though a quilt
for winter to rest upon,
and how quiet it was – the creek
muffled by ice, gray squirrels
curled in leaf beds, the crows mute
among stark lifts of branches,
only the sound of my own
white breath dimming the window.

SPILLCORN

The road is now a shadow
of a road, overgrown with
blackjack oak, scrub pine. Years back
one of my kinsmen logged here,
a man needing steady work
no hailstorm or August drought
could take away, so followed
Spillcorn Creek into the gorge,
brought with him a mule and sled,
a Colt revolver to kill
the rattlesnakes, and always
tucked in his lunch sack a book:
history, sometimes a novel
from the Marshall Library,
so come midday he might rest
his spine against bark and read
what had roughed his hands now smooth
as his fingertips turned
the leaves, each word whispered soft
as the wind reading the trees.

*I should note that I was born & raised in Maine, so Appalachia is not my home turf...and yet...

38RidgewayGirl
maj 8, 2018, 5:23 pm

I didn't know Ron Rash wrote poetry, but I'm not surprised. He's a local, used to teach not that far from Greenville, and he does a lovely, thoughtful job of book signings. He was visibly excited when I told him I liked his short stories and also quizzed me on what specifically I liked about the book I'd brought him to sign - he's still a teacher at heart.

Will try Val McDermid. I've listened to her being interviewed and she was wonderfully intelligent and engaged in the conversation.

39avaland
Redigerat: maj 9, 2018, 9:11 am



Dear Madame President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World by Jennifer Palmieri (2018, nonfiction)(no touchstone seems to come up...)

Jennifer Palimieri was White House communications director for President Obama; the director of communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. She also had prior positions in the 2004 John Edwards campaign and in 2002 with the Democratic party.

The idea of this book, as stated on the front flap was for Paliemiri to use her “hard-earned experiences and lessons from her days in politics… …to pen an open letter to the first woman president and all women seeking positions of power to forge a new model of leadership that fully embraces their feminine qualities and demonstrates that women can best serve by being themselves.”

This is a small-sized book (maybe 5x7 inches?) of under a 100 pages, and it has nine chapters, each with its own "lesson" to share. Examples include: "Chapter One: Chart Your Own Path" or "Chapter Six: Embrace Your Battle Scars". For some us—women who have been paying attention the last 30 year —some of her life lessons will be familiar. "…You, more than all the men who preceded you, will be judged on your appearance and how attractive you are" is one example.

In the early part of the book, I thought Palmieri was doing exactly what she set out to do, as noted above; but somewhere along the line, the book really became a bit more memoir than an "open letter." But still, her honest observations of where she’s been and what she has experienced are insightful and important (I especially enjoyed a bit she wrote about Elizabeth Edwards). And despite some of the painful lessons, there is an underlying hopefulness with an eye on the future that pervades the book. All of which makes this a worthy book to read.

Note: I thought the book a nice companion to Mary Beard’s Women & Power: A Manifesto which I had read just prior to reading this book.

40Caroline_McElwee
maj 9, 2018, 9:36 am

>39 avaland: I've been reading interviews with her last week Lois. Glad the book had some interesting thoughts.

41avaland
maj 10, 2018, 10:55 am

>40 Caroline_McElwee: At the bookstore we have one shelf at the front of the store for "little" hardcovers and I've found some gems there. Coates, Mary Beard, the Palimieri and one yesterday on personality by Brian R. Little...so many literary distractions!

42Caroline_McElwee
maj 11, 2018, 5:28 pm

Hi Both, my sister, who loves the book The City and the City just watched the four episode dramatisation, and has given it the thumbs up. Much impressed. I've still to watch it.

43dukedom_enough
Redigerat: maj 13, 2018, 10:42 am

>42 Caroline_McElwee: Looking forward to it.

44avaland
maj 13, 2018, 9:40 am

>42 Caroline_McElwee: So glad, we hadn't heard much.

45avaland
Redigerat: maj 15, 2018, 6:15 am



Who Are You, Really? The Surprising Puzzle of Personality by Brian R. Little (nonfiction, 2018)

It is generally thought that one's personality is the product of nature and nurture. The psychology field has pinned down five traits that are part of one’s inherent nature, referred to as one’s biogenic nature or first nature. Extraversion and or introversion is one such trait. The field has also noted the importance of “nurture” in shaping out personalties. One is "moulded by the nurturing and opportunities you are given" (where you live, how you were raised, perhaps birth order,…) These produce your sociogenic traits or our 2nd natures. Both nature and nurture influence each other (this is all a serious over-simplification, of course).

Many have believe that our personality is more or less fixed. But Brian R. Little argues that our personalities are far more malleable than than, that we are more than just nature and nurture; that our “identity is also shaped by your everyday personal projects. "Personal projects include endeavors small and large, from the intimate to the professional, from the mundane to the existential. Brian Little believes these “projects," which are expressions of our third or isogenic nature, affects our personalities much more than we could imagine. Perhaps our personalities are "flexible and ultimately" in our control?

Little’s theory absolutely fascinating. This is a scientist presenting his work to an interested audience. It’s not a "self-help" book but he brings his theory from the lofty heights of scientific research and results to a more general audience. He elaborates on the idea of personal projects and how you can shape them. He discusses the "myth of authenticity" (you know, the "just be yourself") and the "three ways to do authenticity." I was captivated enough to read it more or less in one sitting, and I plan to read it again on an upcoming flight.

This is a small, pocket-sized hardcover, a TED books ("small books, big ideas") and just under 100 pages.

46avaland
maj 15, 2018, 11:52 am



Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston.

In this previously unpublished book, Zora Neale Hurston has captured the first person narrative of Kossolo, a.k.a. Cudjo Lewis, who was born in Africa, captured in a raid by a neighboring tribe, and sold to slavers. He was transported on the Clotilde, thought to be the last known slave ship. The slave trade had long since been declared illegal, but it hadn’t stopped the slave trade. Cudjo’s story (Cudjo is around 87 when he is telling this story to Hurston), which begins in Africa is riveting and moving, impossible to put down. The African part of his story reminded me of some stories in Buchi Emecheta’s fiction, but of course, it was all real for Cudjo. He tells of his capture, his passage to America, the burning of the ship, who he worked for and doing what. He eventually marries, becomes free after the Civil War, helps build a church, has children, suffers the deaths of many of them and the death of his wife and so on. It’s really a story you will want to read for yourself. I was surprised to read how the African-Americans, those slave born in the US, treated the African newcomers (they made fun of them) and I was interested to hear how they tried to maintain some of their African traditions and language.

There is a preface, an introduction and notes in the back of the book, all of which enhance one’s understanding and provides context. Additionally, there are included folktales Cudjo has passed on. This is an important book, a worthy read, it presents a shameful part of our history we need to continually to confront, but it also is an inspiring story of one man’s survival under difficult circumstances.

47chlorine
maj 15, 2018, 3:44 pm

Very interesting reviews. I'm interested in the study of personality (but did mot go further than read a Psychology, 101 book two years ago, which was fascinating) so Who are you, really seems interesting. I'll probably go and watch the TED talk and decide if I want to read the book afterwards.

48avaland
maj 18, 2018, 7:40 pm

>47 chlorine: That’s a good idea.

49Caroline_McElwee
maj 19, 2018, 12:20 pm

>45 avaland: >46 avaland: ouch, bullet hit.

50dukedom_enough
maj 21, 2018, 10:32 am



Time Was by Ian McDonald

Generally I expect a love story to feature some impediment to the lovers' union. They can't have it too easy. In Ian McDonald's love story by and for bibliophiles, there are two such roadblocks. The first is not your usual crossing of stars: the lovers are subject to involuntary episodes of time travel, thanks to the secret work of one of them, a physicist, during World War II. These jumps part them in location - and in time. They communicate and reunite across the years via letters left in books, volumes stocked in certain bookstores. The story switches between the point of view of one of the lovers, and that of a book dealer who discovers one of the letters in an old book, and begins an investigation. Who were this couple, and why do their traces turn up from widely scattered sources, often associated with war?

The lovers' second problem: they're both men. They frequently find themselves in places where their relationship must be hidden. The stealthy nature of their communiques echoes the necessary, extreme discretion of their sexual bond.

McDonald's lucid prose, moving yet unsentimental, brings their romance alive with few words. The thread concerning the book dealer's life, his difficulty in making a living, and his gradual realization of just how strange is the story he's found, also convinces.

One could imagine a book that tells this story in 350 pages or more, and McDonald is known for big, complex science fiction novels. But here, he needs less than half that length. Tor.com publishers have given us yet another excellent novella.

Four stars

51janeajones
maj 21, 2018, 10:53 am

50> Sounds intriguing.

52chlorine
maj 21, 2018, 11:52 am

>50 dukedom_enough: This seems very good!

53avaland
Redigerat: maj 24, 2018, 3:05 pm

>49 Caroline_McElwee: Caro, I'm doing my best... (and I haven't been able to review Small Country yet, another one you would like).

54dukedom_enough
maj 22, 2018, 2:29 pm

>51 janeajones: >52 chlorine: I like many of these novellas from Tor.com.

55Caroline_McElwee
Redigerat: maj 23, 2018, 4:52 pm

>50 dukedom_enough: Now stop it Michael, don't you start hitting me with bullets as well!

>53 avaland: :-)

56dukedom_enough
maj 24, 2018, 4:49 pm

>55 Caroline_McElwee: Will try not to! ...But it is a rather short one.

57avaland
maj 26, 2018, 6:50 am

Sometimes a book comes along and one feels any review would be inadequate to the experience of reading it. This is one of those times.



Small Country by Gaël Faye (2016, translated from the French 2018)

Small Country tells the story of one family living in Burundi in the early 90s. Our narrator, 10 year old Gabriel, son of a French father and a Rwandan mother, lives happy days getting into mischief with his friends. Gabriel is an enchanting narrator, full of wonder and adventure, and he conveys a love and compassion for his family, friends and neighborhood. But as the tensions between ethnic groups rise and war looms, his idyllic world falls apart and Gabriel must navigate a this new reality.

This powerful coming-of-age story seduces the reader from the very first pages. Beautifully written and translated, this moving story says more in 182 pages than many books do in 400.

This book won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. I recently read Ondaatje’s Warlight and I would place this book certainly on par with that.

58avaland
maj 26, 2018, 7:28 am



Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel (2018)

Who can resist a tale that places Austen’s Mary Bennett with Shelley's Victor Frankstein in the same novel? I couldn’t.

Mary Bennett is now 31. She and Kitty are still unmarried living with their parents. Mary has moved away from her sermonizing days and, being the bookish lass that she is, has ventured into science. When we first meet her here in this book she is in Lyme Regis hunting for fossils in the company of an older gentleman, also a fossil enthusiast, and possibly her last chance at marriage (should he show interest in that way; he hasn’t yet and Mary is dubious he will). At a ball she and Kitty attend, Mary meets and dances with Victor Frankenstein, who is traveling with a close friend through England on his way north. They speak of science and, well, Mary is smitten. But Victor is being pursued on his trip by his monstrous creation who is still demanding that Victor produce a bride for him….

This novel is an expansion of a 2008 novelette that won both the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award in its category…and for good reason. John Kessel does a fabulous and respectful job of merging these two stories. His details are wonderful and his mature Mary Bennett is someone we can finally admire—and she is really the main character here. Mary’s interest in Victor and a family tragedy soon bring her in contact with the monster and the story accelerates and moves north. I don’t think the story (at least in this full novel form) is quite as suspenseful as some of its promotional blurbs suggest, but no matter, it is a well-written, great romp of a book perfect for anytime reading (like the plane ride I was on) and you may never look at Mary Bennett quite the same way again.

59lisapeet
maj 26, 2018, 6:45 pm

>57 avaland: I've heard such good things about that. Not in at the library yet, but on order... and hopefully the ebook is coming too.

60kidzdoc
maj 28, 2018, 1:40 pm

Small Country sounds very interesting, so I'll add it to my wish list.

61avaland
maj 28, 2018, 3:30 pm

>59 lisapeet:, >60 kidzdoc: I think you both will like it very much.

62Caroline_McElwee
maj 28, 2018, 4:19 pm

>57 avaland:. I'm turning my back. I already dropped >58 avaland: in my basket, from a comment elsewhere. Can't you fire some blanks please Lois.

63chlorine
Redigerat: jun 2, 2018, 3:18 am

I'm on a fence about Small Country as a friend of mine who shares my tastes said he was highly disappointed with it. He had read it soon after Ma part de gaulois by Magyd Cherfy, which has a similar theme, and found small country lacking in comparison. As I've read and liked Ma part de gaulois, I'm not sure I should engage in Small country. Unfortunately Ma part de gaulois apparently hasn't been translated to English.

64avaland
jun 2, 2018, 8:27 pm

>63 chlorine: It could just be different individuals’ responses. I don’t think I know your tastes well enough to predict.

65rachbxl
jun 5, 2018, 5:26 am

>57 avaland: I was looking forward to reading your thoughts on this one. Now even more than before, I plan to read it soon.

66chlorine
jun 10, 2018, 7:25 am

I finally got around to seeing Brian Little's Ted Talk and found it quite interesting, and unexpectedly moving.

I had the impression that you thought the book does not bring much more than the talk does, but I can't see how I got this idea when I read your review again. I understand the book is short, but from your review it seems that it brings much more insight than the talk. What do you think?

67avaland
jun 16, 2018, 6:25 am

>66 chlorine: I have not seen the TED talk, so I wouldn't know.

>65 rachbxl: Apologies. I'm still not sure I can articulate what it is that mesmerized me so. The way it is told, the character of the young Gabe, the style of the prose or the great compassion in it....just the right book at the right time?

68avaland
jun 16, 2018, 6:45 am

I (we) have been absent of late. It's been one thing or another. However, last week I took a solo trip north about 200 miles to Magalloway Plantation, Maine. population 45. A local man—the local historian—I met via the website Find-A-Grave (he was researching my great grandfather) offered to show me around, historically-speaking. It was great fun tromping through the woods to see old root cellars and cemeteries (2 small, old cemeteries mark the graves of 10 children—all cousins, as it happens—who died of diphtheria in 1861. On the way north I stopped in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire for lunch. The area was preparing for that weekend's lupine festival.



And while traveling around the Upton and Magalloway, Maine; and Wentworths Location, New Hampshire, I encountered four moose at different times and places. I don't think I've had a moose encounter since the 90s when I was driving home from a night job and a moose was trotting along the center line refusing to get out of the road.

For those who don't know. Bull moose lose their antlers each spring and grow a new pair. This older bull is about 6-7 ft tall at the shoulder.

69avaland
jun 16, 2018, 6:50 am

I will add that I have started more than 6 books of varying kinds (and probably set aside several more) but haven't settled into any! Too distracted, I think. Being pulled in two many directions. Hubby is still working on a review.

70NanaCC
jun 16, 2018, 7:19 am

The lupine look beautiful. I’ve only encountered a moose two or three times, and all were at a distance. You definitely wouldn’t want to hit, or be hit by, one of those big guys.

71avaland
jun 16, 2018, 7:28 am

>70 NanaCC: In my previous career I have dispatched for a fair number of accidents involving moose. The deadliest are always with those who are driving low, compact cars because the car hits the moose's legs and the body falls on the windshield or higher.

72laytonwoman3rd
Redigerat: jun 17, 2018, 12:25 pm

>46 avaland: I've been hearing a lot about Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo lately. (Even though LT is apparently unable to come up with a touchstone for it today.) Is there any explanation offered as to why it was not published previously?

73avaland
jun 17, 2018, 6:35 am

>72 laytonwoman3rd: Hurston wanted Cudjo's narrative to be published in his own distinct dialect so as to be as authentic as possible and it was thus rejected by publishers because of that. So it sat in the archives of Howard University until a new literary agent took over her estate and went looking for unpublished work.

74Caroline_McElwee
jun 17, 2018, 6:55 am

It's in my pile to be read.

75laytonwoman3rd
jun 17, 2018, 12:25 pm

>73 avaland: Ah. I should have known. But thank goodness it wasn't lost.

76dukedom_enough
jun 17, 2018, 5:18 pm



The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts

Long ago, Earth built and launched the interstellar spacecraft Eriophora, a sixty (or so) kilometer asteroid, threaded with tunnels and chambers, nestling a singularity at its heart. Flying at 1/5 the speed of light, it uses the singularity to create wormhole gates at the stars it visits, enabling instantaneous travel - to the previous port of call, and eventually to the next star in line. A sort of railroad of gates is contructed, so those who follow Eriophora may journey easily, even as the spacecraft itself crawls for decades between its gate builds.

The ship's controlling artificial intelligence is called the Chimp, because it is rather less smart than a human. The Chimp can run most builds by itself, but sometimes needs human imagination and creativity. So Eriophora has a crew: 30,000 people in frozen sleep, save for rare, brief periods when groups of 4 to 6 are needed. So human lifespans are stretched over geological ages, lived a few days per millennium - or more.

After 66 million years, the expedition has circled the galaxy 32 times, and their initial high hopes are gone. For most of that time, nothing human has emerged from the newly built gates receding in Eriophora's wake. Usually there's nothing; sometimes, incomprehensible or hostile things. Some of the crew think it's time to end the voyage. But the Chimp is programmed to continue, counting the project above the lives of the crew. How can the humans conspire to resist an entity with monitors everywhere, and endless years to survey Eriophora's internal spaces while everyone is frozen? Watts's story is of a rebellion fought stealthily, a few days at a time, over thousands of years, as seen by crewmember Sunday Ahzmundin.

The story's text itself embodies this stealth. Occasional characters are printed in red, not black. The reader naturally strings these together, discovering a secret message. Decoder rings, anyone? Great fun, though not central to the narrative. The Freeze-Frame Revolution is a prequel to Watt's "The Island", winner of the 2010 Hugo Award for novelette, so we know the rebellion will fail, while Sunday survives.

Peter Watts's great theme is on display here: the smallness and probable, eventual doom of merely human beings, crippled by our evolved limitations in an uncaring universe where faster, smarter, less blinkered minds exist. He's one of SF's best at connecting scientific realities to imagined worlds, which, for me, makes the grimness worthwhile. Well, actually I like the grimness for its own sake, too - science fiction noir. This short book is a good introduction to a superb, underappreciated writer.

Five Stars

77bragan
jun 17, 2018, 10:44 pm

>76 dukedom_enough: Well, that's going on my wishlist. I assume, since it's a prequel, it's fine to read that without having read the earlier novelette?

78dukedom_enough
jun 18, 2018, 6:57 am

>77 bragan: That's right. The previous is on his website: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_TheIsland.pdf

if you want to read it, before or after.

To reiterate: I love dark stories these days. Those are mostly fantasy, it seems, but Watts is very good at science-fictional ones.

79dukedom_enough
jun 18, 2018, 7:02 am

>77 bragan: Forgot to say: Watts has written a couple of other stories in this series. Go to his backlist page and look for the ones labelled "(Sunflowers)".

Most of his backlist is online, actually. He's not the best self-promoter.

80bragan
jun 19, 2018, 7:08 am

Thanks for the info!

81chlorine
jun 19, 2018, 3:44 pm

>76 dukedom_enough: I've read and liked the Island, and had no idea there was a novel set in the same universe. This is going straight to my wishlist!

82avaland
jun 20, 2018, 12:49 pm

Another distraction from books, a new grandson:



--------------------------------------
btw, National and local protests over the cruel and inhumane family separation policy being acted out by this administration are scheduled for Saturday, June 30th. I believe moveon.org has list of locations in every state. Please consider taking action against this policy to the extent that you can.
-----------------------------------

One more thing, I admit that I cringe every time someone uses the phrase "book bullet" here on LT. For those of us here in the states, our culture is rife with gun-related icons, idioms...etc. There is a whole chapter on just that in a "popular culture" textbook I read a number of years ago. We are a society that now clearly has a BIG problem around guns and gun culture. And I realize in this new digital age that we are often looking for, or latching on to, the most succinct (and often abbreviated) way of expressing things (i.e. the "like" button on FB, or the "thumbs up" that was big on LT a few years back...is it still?) Perhaps once idioms such as "a smoking gun," "holding a gun to someone's head," or "bite the bullet" were indeed innocuous, but it seems now they come with a lot of nasty baggage. The phrase bothers me, because—think about it—for you to receive a book "bullet" from me, I would have had to "shoot" you, right?

Okay, I'll get off the soapbox now.

83NanaCC
jun 20, 2018, 1:32 pm

Congratulations, Lois! Grandchildren add a great deal of joy to our lives, don’t they?!!!

84Caroline_McElwee
Redigerat: jun 20, 2018, 2:49 pm

Ooo, I do like someone on a soapbox Lois (or a soupbox, as autocorrect wanted to have it...

Hmmm

Bookkiss
Booksmile
Bookwink - I think I like that one

85chlorine
jun 20, 2018, 3:12 pm

Congrats on the birth of your grandson!

I hope the protests of Saturday have some impact on this terrible situation.

86avaland
jun 20, 2018, 5:26 pm

>83 NanaCC: Thank you. Indeed!

>84 Caroline_McElwee: I haven't a clue what to use. :-( litwink, litsmooch, book tag (you know, tag! you're it!), book drop, cart drop (that one in your honor).

>85 chlorine: Thank you. I'm a bit suspicious that the man in the White House has orchestrated this whole inhumane situation so that he can then turn around and play the hero.

87RidgewayGirl
jun 20, 2018, 6:50 pm

>86 avaland: They're not returning the children currently taken hostage by this Administration. And there's no end to the "zero tolerance policy" that criminalized asylum seekers and people desperate for a better life. I'm glad that eventually they'll stop taking children, but there's still a humanitarian crisis of our own making going on on our southern border.

Your new grandson is glorious. Enjoy his presence in your life.

88lilisin
jun 20, 2018, 7:36 pm

>82 avaland:

I also hate the word "book bullet" and not even for the reasons you mention. It just feels so unnatural to say and can be easily replaced with actual words.

That's a book bullet for me! --> That's going straight to my list!
Thanks for the book bullet! --> Thanks for the recommendation!
You've hit me with another book bullet! --> You just keep adding to my TBR pile!

89lisapeet
jun 21, 2018, 6:10 am

At the old Readerville literary forum, the phrase was "click"—both as in "that book clicked for me" and "I'm going to click on it to buy it online." That second used to rankle a bit when I was broke enough not to be able to buy a book when I wanted it, so I decided to interpret it as the first, and I still think that way in the back of my book brain.

90avaland
Redigerat: jun 22, 2018, 10:51 am

>87 RidgewayGirl: I wholeheartedly agree! (re: both humanitarian crisis and grandson).

>88 lilisin: Good point! Do you think these words that become popular has something to do with sharing a kind of common language?

>89 lisapeet: Interesting....

91VivienneR
jun 28, 2018, 4:04 pm

>82 avaland: Congratulations on your new grandson. What a little beauty!

And, I've often thought about your soapbox topic regarding "bookbullet". Well said! I have to admit I use the phrase in Talk topics (off limits from now on), although use "recommended by..." in comment columns, and my own notes. Thank you for speaking out.

>86 avaland: "I'm a bit suspicious that the man in the White House has orchestrated this whole inhumane situation so that he can then turn around and play the hero." That entered my mind too. It makes the actions even more cruel by using children for personal and political gain.

92lilisin
jun 28, 2018, 7:45 pm

>90 avaland:

I must admit I don't completely understand what your question is asking but I wonder if "book bullet" hasn't become a sort of catchphrase which, as is the purpose of a catchphrase, is eye-catching and makes you feel like you're part of a social circle. Almost like an inside joke.

93avaland
jun 30, 2018, 7:32 am

>91 VivienneR: Thank you!

>92 lilisin: It has, and yes, I agree.

94avaland
Redigerat: jul 6, 2018, 7:37 am



The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware (2018, UK)

Following the unexpected death of her mother, “Hal” Westaway is eeking out a living reading Tarot cards on the pier at Brighton, and she owes money to the local loan shark. When she receives a letter from a solicitor that her grandmother has died and that she is in the will, she is puzzled because she doesn’t have a grandmother in the Cornish countryside. The solicitor has made a mistake, but Hal (Harriet), desperate for money, decides she might show up anyway.

The suspenseful and emotional story that follows is a modernized form of the classic English Gothic novel. We have most the usual Gothic motifs: naïve young woman, an inheritance plot, bad weather, a crumbling mansion in the Cornish countryside; a bitter, elderly housekeeper; a screwed up family; madness, and lots of intense emotions. The supernatural element in most classic Gothics has been replaced with Tarot, the romantic element is suppressed and historical, and Hal Westway is her own hero, more or less.

Although a fan of the Gothic, I hadn't intended to read this book. I had brought the older advanced readers copy home to pass on to another, but one night, in literary desperation, I picked it up. I admit I laughed as the plot unfolded and all the Gothic boxes were being ticked off one by one. But I kept reading. Ware is a good storyteller and although I felt it was light, it's certainly a bit of fun, and there was enough of a plot puzzle to entertain me through one day of a long heat wave (as I cowered inside in the AC).

95avaland
jul 6, 2018, 8:49 am



The Real-Town Murders by Adam Roberts (2018, SF, UK)

It is sometime in the future and much of the populace spends their days in what today’s social media has evolved into: “The Shine,” a complete, full body immersive experience which is apparently far more interesting than “Real Life.” Their bodies are being exercised and maintained for them by the special suits they wear. Still, there are some who continue to operate in the Real-World and Alma, a young investigator, is one of these.

Alma been brought in to investigate the mysterious discovery of a (human!) body in the trunk of a car in a fully automated factory. The investigation quickly becomes something much more and Alma finds herself in the middle of a political coup. She’s hampered by the fact that her partner is gravely ill, and must be treated every four hours or she will die. Alma’s DNA has been maliciously configured into her partner’s treatment and therefore only she can apply the treatment.

While the cover suggests this crime novel is a mystery, it quickly moves away from the original mystery to become more a tongue-in-cheek thriller. My favorite part is the fight scene in the nose of Shakespeare, one of the many huge faces carved into the white cliffs of Dover (referred to as the “White Cliff Faces”) Adam Roberts, who by day is a professor of 19th Century English Literature, is a versatile writer who doesn’t take himself too seriously. He seems equally comfortable writing criticism, serious SF, even parodies, and I believe he once challenged himself to write an SF book in every sub-genre. Between my husband and I we have read most of his SF. This is a light, fun, fast-paced read, an amusing story with some interesting ideas thrown in (and we do eventually find out who killed the guy in the trunk of the car).

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry for Adam Roberts.

NOTE: Hubby would recommend Yellow Blue Tibia as his favorite, I am still hung up on Salt his first novel, but might also recommend Jack Glass. Believe it or not, we have never read the same Adam Roberts books.

96avaland
Redigerat: jul 6, 2018, 9:43 am



Life is Good by Alex Capus (2017, Translated 2018, Swiss)

Max’s wife has taken a job in Paris and she will be gone four of the seven days of the week. Their boys, all teenagers, are generally self-sufficient, so Max, who is an author and also runs a local pub, is left to himself and his own thoughts. We spend those first four days (of his wife’s new job) with Max as he tells us about his wife, his boys, and stories of the pub and its many patrons (quirky and otherwise) and life in general. No matter what he is talking about, there seems to be an underlying love of life itself, and a fondness for all manner of humanity with it being at all saccharine.

I’ve read all of Alex Capus’ fiction that is available in English and, while this novel will not unseat my favorite, which is still Leon and Louise , I enjoyed this book immensely. There is something about Capus’s stories—the way he sees people—I thought it might be empathy, and that’s there...but his translator, John Brownjohn,puts it this way: "…I think ‘humanity’ is a keyword in Capus’ writing. He always gives one a sympathetic insight into the essential humanity of his characters, from the homesick German shipbuilders in A Matter of Time to the young lovers in Léon and Louise to the youthful bank robbers in Almost Like Spring or the three protagonists in his latest novel A Price to Pay …."

Translating Alex Capus: An Interview with John Brownjohn by Daniel Hahn

97Caroline_McElwee
jul 6, 2018, 3:17 pm

Adding Capus to my list Lois.

98dukedom_enough
jul 7, 2018, 12:55 pm

Adventures in coupledom, episode 5,271,009:

Me:(looks into garden container I wrongly thought held dried cow manure):Is that still the manure?
Spouse:Did you say cinnamon roll?

99avaland
jul 7, 2018, 4:39 pm

>98 dukedom_enough: You know, that bit of dialogue could just as easily been reversed.

>97 Caroline_McElwee: I liked some of the others better than this one, and I expect you might also. Leon and Louise, Almost Like Spring, A Price to Pay.... And they are all short books.

100dukedom_enough
jul 7, 2018, 4:51 pm

>99 avaland: I'd probably have heard something like "sinecure."

101NanaCC
jul 7, 2018, 5:07 pm

>99 avaland:, >100 dukedom_enough: :)

My hubby doesn’t hear half of what I say. I could write a book.

102avaland
Redigerat: jul 7, 2018, 5:18 pm



She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore (Fiction, 2018, Liberia)

It would be difficult for any reader of great fiction to not be thoroughly enchanted, as I was, by Wayetu Moore’s brilliant telling of Liberia’s 19th century origins. Told through the lives of three, unforgettable characters: a red-headed Vai woman thought to be a witch, and who is left in the jungle to die, but miraculously survives; a young, English-speaking, mulatto man from Jamaica, who seems to be able to disappear and reappear at will; and a young male kitchen slave from a Virginia plantation, who seems to have superhuman strength. The riveting stories of each of these three very different people will eventually bring the three together in Africa—in the land destined to become Liberia.

Moore’s creative blend of fiction and history is electric and it sings to the reader. It carries us from beginning to end, reluctant to let us go at any time in between. This is great, entertaining and immersive storytelling.

***This book is due out Sept 11***
btw, Graywolf is also publishing this fall Tsitsi Dangarembga's sequel to Nervous Conditions.

103Caroline_McElwee
jul 7, 2018, 5:42 pm

>99 avaland: I ordered A Matter of Time and Léon and Louise Lois.

>102 avaland: Sounds tempting.

104avaland
Redigerat: jul 7, 2018, 6:18 pm



The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit (2017)

There are 11 essays included in Solnit’s latest collection, the largest of which, and certainly the centerpiece of the collection, is a brilliant essay on Silence, which brought to my mind Tillie Olsen’s now classic Silences (and Solnit does, of course, reference it). The essay is about all the way we (women and men) are silenced. All of the essays are well-worth reading. I recognized, “The 80 Books that Women Should Not Read” which was originally published on lithub.com and was written in response to Esquire’s list of 80 books men should read. It’s searingly pointed and also amusing, and I had no problems reading it a few more times (and those are the very reasons I don’t read Hemingway, Mailer…etc). Or, how about “Men Explain Lolita to Me” – that was interesting! There’s a 2014 essay “Feminism: The Men Arrive”…well, I could list them all here.

I think Solnit is bloody brillant and she speaks out, with honesty, intelligence and authority. And she oftentimes she can be very witty. I admire her very much.

----------------------

She has another collection, Call Them By Their True Names, coming out Sept. 1st.

*I'm really not that great at writing reviews for nonfiction....

105Caroline_McElwee
Redigerat: jul 7, 2018, 9:59 pm

Great to know there is a new Solnit volume soon Lois.

I too really enjoyed this volume.

You are perfectly fine at writing reviews for non-fiction.

Yes, it's 3am here, and too hot to sleep.

106avaland
Redigerat: jul 8, 2018, 7:03 am

>105 Caroline_McElwee: Thank you.

Oh dear, I hope you do not have the weather we had last week. What a long week that was!

107NanaCC
jul 8, 2018, 7:11 am

>106 avaland: Wasn’t the heat awful, Lois. Caroline I hope yours moves by quickly. I don’t tolerate that high heat very well. Yesterday was lovely, and it looks like the coming week may be more of the same. Nice for sitting outside to read.

108Caroline_McElwee
jul 8, 2018, 9:15 am

31c in my lounge by mid afternoon yesterday, and no AC here. 29c at the moment. Little fan on.

109avaland
jul 8, 2018, 3:01 pm

>108 Caroline_McElwee: My apologies if we sent that over to you. Seems we could've steered it southeast or something....

110avaland
Redigerat: jul 10, 2018, 7:57 am



Vox by Christina Dalcher (2018, this book is due out Sept 21st)

Set in the nearly-now future, Vox is a dystopian tale about the silencing of women and the oppression of others. In the suburbs of s Maryland, outside of DC, former scientist Dr. (now Mrs.) Jean McClellan is at home, forbidden to work and wearing a band around her wrist that allows her to speak only 100 words per day. This and other repressive and draconian measures instituted by the current government are meant to retrain women to function as submissive wives and mothers, as the Christian bible instructs. Silencing women and girls are a big part of that. All women must wear the wristbands and there are severe repercussions for the use of sign language and other attempts to communicate.

Jean is married to Patrick, a doctor, and has four children, three boys and a six-year old daughter, who has her own wristband. When the President’s brother has an accident from which he develops aphasia, suddenly the government needs the expertise that Jean has. She is offered a short reprieve and "asked" to return to her research to find the cure…

Jean narrates this story in a powerful, first person narrative. From the very beginning, it is her anger—an anger which will be familiar to some readers—that drives the narrative and carries the reader ahead with it like some unwitting debris caught in a flooded river current. What begins as a thought-provoking, somewhat terrifying story of the loss of language and oppression will become more thriller as the action ramps up.

The author has said this, “I wrote Vox as a cautionary tale, a warning call about gender politics and backlash and cultural shift, but also as an exploration of how much our humanity, our personhood, is tied to our ability to acquire and use language. I asked myself the terrible question ‘What if we took those abilities away?’ “

There are, of course, similarities to the Handmaid’s Tale (including the new television adaptation that expands Atwood’s book) and other dystopias which have come before, as one would expect. Like Atwood’s book there is something terribly immediate about the story (but then, all dystopias are about the “now,” aren’t they?) It will not be the end of this book that stays with you when you are finished with it, it will be the beginning.

--------------------

Personal note: What a follow-up to the Rebecca Solnit book of essays, particularly that essay on silence!!! I took Vox to bed with me the first night and consequently had some really weird dreams, so it became the daytime-only book thereafter.

I give the book 4 stars mostly because I thought the latter half of the novel seemed more television thriller.

**This book in LT seems to be mixed up with another book called The Alexandria Project. And the touchstone goes to yet another page.... anyone know how to fix that or who I should report it to?

111janeajones
jul 10, 2018, 10:44 pm

I'm impressed bu all the books you are reading and reviewing. In this dystopian era, I'm finding it difficult to pick up and engage --- not sure why.

112avaland
jul 11, 2018, 9:28 am

>111 janeajones: This latest spate of books is on the backside of a book funk where, like you, I had found it difficult to engage. I can't tell you how many perfectly good books I started and set aside. I suspect we both know why it been difficult.... I'm try to find ways to get around that difficulty. Sneak in a back or side door.

btw, are you interested in the book on Scandinavian Crime Fiction after I am done with it? It's taking me forever to get through it, but I find it enlightening.

113valkyrdeath
jul 23, 2018, 8:36 pm

Enjoyed catching up with your reviews after getting way behind as usual!

>95 avaland: I've been curious about Adam Roberts since I saw a copy of Adam Robots in the bookshop, but I've yet to get round to him. This one sounds like something I'd enjoy.

>102 avaland: You've got me interested in She Would Be King, and I'm pretty sure I haven't read any Liberian authors before. I'm going to keep an eye out for that when it's released.

114chlorine
jul 24, 2018, 3:07 pm

I had gotten behind on your thread and it was nice to catch up!
>104 avaland: I do not think you are bad at reviewing nonfiction, and your review made me want to read the book!

115avaland
jul 30, 2018, 4:18 pm

>113 valkyrdeath: Thanks for stopping by! Hubby and I have read different Roberts' novels, and our favorites differ because of that. I would chose his first Salt*, and perhaps Jack Glass as a 2nd. Michael would pick Yellow Blue Tibia.

*I loved Salt because it had two different (and non-cooperating) colonies with different political philosophies in the vicinity of each other and each had to tackle the various challenges of living on the planet Salt (and they came up with different solutions for the same problems). One was anarcist and the other was a dictatorship (the kind that poses as a democracy).

I had not read any Liberian authors either.

>114 chlorine: Aw, thanks.

We are back from a quick three day trip to the DC suburbs to see our newest grandson. We decided to take the train so we could read during the trip (7.5 hrs from Boston, one way). This is what the quiet car is for!

116RidgewayGirl
jul 30, 2018, 4:45 pm

I do like taking the train. It's an excellent reading environment. Unfortunately, it's also an excellent napping environment and, for me at least, an endless source of chatty seat-mates, whether I want them or not.

117avaland
jul 30, 2018, 5:05 pm

>116 RidgewayGirl: hint: go for the "quiet car." I admit to eavesdropping on the conversation behind us; a woman was chatting up a young man who was visiting for the first time from Switzerland. I remember he remarked about how BIG the US was. He said one can go 300 miles in any direction in Switzerland and be in another country. But not so here. He also liked NYC but said he would not want to live there (not enough trees/nature). Eventually, someone reminded them they were in the quiet car.

118valkyrdeath
aug 6, 2018, 5:40 pm

>115 avaland: You make Salt sound very appealing, and having looked up the other two they both sound great too. I've just got a copy of Salt which I'll hopefully read within the next couple of months, and the other two are going on my list!

119avaland
aug 7, 2018, 11:54 am

>118 valkyrdeath: I'll (we'll) be interested to hear what you think!

120dukedom_enough
aug 13, 2018, 4:58 pm



The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente, illustrated by Annie Wu

If you know the name Paige Embry, you know that Paige Embry died...the last things she probably saw was the astonishing lights in the sky, the lights of Doctor Nocturne's infernal machine igniting every piece of metal in the city, turning skyscrapers into liquid purple fire while Kid Mercury punched the bad guy...Paige Embry died watching her boyfried save New York City. When the fires went out in Manhattan, they went out in her eyes, too.

Valente's novel is a reply to the women-in-refrigerators trope in comics and popular culture. Gail Simone in 1999 pointed out that, in too many stories, the purpose of women characters is to provide motivation for the men - by being attacked, injured, raped, killed, or stripped of their own superpowers.

There's an entire universe of male superheroes and supervillains in this short book, but we see them only as background for the women. The good and studious scientist, the superwoman, the bad girl, the punk-rock princess of Atlantis, the pretty actress, the artist; despite their unique and varied talents and characters, the script says they all end up in the same place, condemned by their gender. Dead now, they hang out in the afterlife, calling themselves the Hell Hath Club, telling their stories and consoling new arrivals.

The author has great fun fleshing (ectoplasming?) out her concept. The only food in the underworld is extinct species - triceratops pies, thylacine steaks; there's no wine, because no one lets good grapes go extinct. Atlanteans live in their downscale city because "...Brooklyn is full." The dead are stuck wearing, for eternity, whatever clothing they were buried in. Superhero/villain names include Bruce Force, The Clock of Ages, Hal Cyon, and the Arachnochancellor. The Hell Hath Club mourn their losses, but tell their tales with plenty of attitude. Dying well is their best revenge. Annie Wu's illustrations (one per chapter) seem fine to this mostly non-comics fan. An Acknowledgments section at the end calls out Eve Ensler as another inspiration.

There's no solution offered here for the ladies of the Club, but many writers have taken Gail Simone's point. In numerous contemporary stories, a universe of women characters survive and thrive, and both women and men readers are better for it.

Four stars

121avaland
aug 14, 2018, 6:06 am

Another great review! (of course).

122baswood
aug 14, 2018, 6:41 am

>110 avaland: I seem to be avoiding Dystopian novels at the moment which might be in line with my thoughts that many countries in the world today seem to want to embrace a dystopia.

The Marciac jazz festival http://www.jazzinmarciac.com/spectacles/jazz-in-marciac has just finished this year and Santana were the last act. It was a good concert and there was an accompanying video presentation of posters from the 1960's. Throughout the festival this year there have been plenty of musicians preaching "peace love and understanding" and Santana did his bit, but I could not help feeling how out of step they were with conditions in our planet today. If global warming doesn't get us then this awful shower of politicians that govern us will.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic especially after our festival which was excellent as usual.

123valkyrdeath
aug 14, 2018, 6:52 pm

>120 dukedom_enough: Great review of the Valente. I've enjoyed some of her books before and you've made this one sounds like it's got a great concept. I'm definitely going to try and check that one out. (And I'd already added Space Opera to my list from your earlier review, though I don't think I commented at the time. I'm quite impressed by how varied all her books seem to be.)

124avaland
aug 19, 2018, 6:11 am

>122 baswood: I understand about the dystopia thing.

My memories of Santana include "Black Magic Woman" but jazz? Looks like quite a festival. I see Joan Baez was there also.

125dukedom_enough
aug 20, 2018, 10:34 am

>123 valkyrdeath: Thanks. My favorite of hers is Radiance, which is so good that I haven't been able to put together a review.

126dukedom_enough
aug 20, 2018, 10:36 am

The 2018 Hugo Awards were last night. The novel award went to The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin. This is her third consecutive win, one for each of the installments in her just-finished trilogy. This is the first time anyone has won in the novel category three times running. Jemisin, an African-American woman, has been targeted by vicious racism, so I am pleased to see this.

128RidgewayGirl
aug 20, 2018, 11:40 am

I'm glad Jemisin won.

129Caroline_McElwee
aug 20, 2018, 12:31 pm

>127 dukedom_enough: new writer to me, but I've noted her, thanks Michael. Fine speech, but a shame she had it on her phone and was distracted by texts though. Sign of the times I know, but it felt disrespectful.

130dukedom_enough
aug 20, 2018, 2:50 pm

>129 Caroline_McElwee:

Glad she got through anyway.

131chlorine
aug 20, 2018, 3:40 pm

Thanks for the link to Jemisin's speech! I found it terrific and very moving.
I'm really glad she won!

132rachbxl
aug 20, 2018, 3:54 pm

I’ve just been catching up, and have come away with several books I really want to read!

I’m reading Petit Pays (Small Country), but very, very slowly. I see what you mean about not knowing exactly what captivated you; I think that’s why I’m going this slowly with it. There’s something very special about it, and I don’t want to breathe in case I spoil it.

133avaland
aug 26, 2018, 3:44 pm

>132 rachbxl: That describes it! It's the innocence of childhood....

I am very behind on reviews. I think I owe 5 now :-(

134avaland
Redigerat: aug 27, 2018, 6:37 am

Alas! as noted above I am very behind in reviews. So many distractions. I will begin to remedy that with this first one:



The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar (2018).

The Secrets Between Us is technically a sequel to Umrigar’s 2006 novel, The Space Between Us, which, set in Mumbai, India, told the story about an upper middle class woman, Serabai, and her servant, Bhima. It is an engaging read, a window into another world, written with empathy and much perception. Perhaps you read the novel back then, as I did, or perhaps you didn’t, and one needs not have done so to read this new novel.

Bhima, now in her sixties, and having been abruptly dismissed some years earlier from Serabai’s household, is living with her granddaughter in a poorer section of city. She’s squeezing out a barely adequate living, working several jobs to support both them both while Maya is in school. When things start to fall apart and Bhima struggles, she meets an older, sick, grouchy woman (and unbeknownst to Bhima, a former prostitute) at the market and a odd friendship begins.

As with the earlier book, Umrigar has written another gem, a captivating story of women’s lives. Her descriptive storytelling, full of compassion and deep affection, brings both India and her characters vividly alive in one’s mind. Bhima and Pavarti are complex and intimately drawn. In this book the author explores the subject of poverty, particularly women and poverty, and how women’s friendships—the connection to others—can make all the difference.

135auntmarge64
Redigerat: aug 27, 2018, 8:34 am

Been looking for a new mystery writer to try - you've convinced me to borrow the first in the Val McDermid Prie series :). And that Freeze-Frame Revolution looks good if I can find a copy.

136avaland
aug 29, 2018, 9:15 am

>135 auntmarge64: I'm saving the new one for a September lakeside vacation coming up!

137avaland
aug 29, 2018, 11:57 am



Scribe by Alyson Hagy (2018, US)

Set in a dystopian Appalachia in the aftermath of a brutal war and raging contagions, this story seems a simple one. A woman lives alone in what had once been her family’s farmhouse and makes her meager living by writing letters for those who ask. She allows a community of ragged migrants to occupy some of her land. A man named Hendricks comes to her, and asks her to not only write a letter for him but to deliver it to the person it is intended for, and speak the words aloud to them—to correct some wrong he has done, a request for forgiveness . After some thought, she agrees, but the man’s appearance seems to haunt her and he also seems to be the catalyst for other events.

The man’s clothes were rust-rimmed and deflated. He wore a battered straw hat. Those who wanted something from her arrived at the brick house above the creek—the Doctor’s House they called it, a remnant from her father’s time—and waited for her, always alone. She didn’t care for ceremony, but ceremony was what they needed. Their silent arrival was part of a code they passed among themselves. It was the same for the Brubaker woman who prepared the bodies of the deal and the man from Jack’s Mountain who was known to hoard crystals of salt.

The storytelling in this spare book of 157 pages is mesmerizing. Sure, other factors play a role: well-drawn characters, evocative setting, and the folksy prose, but its the telling of this story— which by the way offers a bit of a temporal surprise at the end—that keeps you a captive and only lets you go when the last page is turned…if you are ready to go, that is.

Note: I love the cover but I have no idea how it relates to the book....

138SassyLassy
aug 29, 2018, 1:43 pm

>137 avaland: Sounds intriguing. I have always loved the idea of a scribe, from both sides of the equation.

139avaland
Redigerat: sep 19, 2018, 9:56 am



We were on vacation last week—the kind of laid back reading, swimming and watching sunsets and listening to the loons, sort of vacation. And we had the place to ourselves until others came in for the last weekend. While we did not escape the heat & humidity (it is more tolerable lakeside), we did escape the constant rain (only to get socked with the remnants of Florence, 2-3 inches, when we arrived home).

He read: Dark State by Charles Stross, some of the stories in Black Wings of Cthulhu 2 edited by S. T. Joshi, and began Lucius Shepard's first novel, Green Eyes (publisher 1984)

She read: Val McDermid's latest Karen Pririe installment, Broken Ground and about the first third of Rebecca Solnit's collection Call Them By Their True Names (both are so, so good!) Started Nicola Barker's The Cauliflower.

We have some catching up to do. Hope you are all reading great stuff (because life is too short not to).

140VivienneR
sep 25, 2018, 7:11 pm

I've added Broken Ground to my wishlist even though I haven't yet got to your last Val McDermid recommendation, Out of Bounds. Can't have too many on the wishlist!

141avaland
sep 27, 2018, 8:43 am

>140 VivienneR: I'm way behind in reviews, but the new one is also very good, not quite as excellent as Out of Bounds, that's not a complaint, just an observation:-).

142avaland
Redigerat: okt 23, 2018, 10:58 am

OMG, it's been a month!!!!! To be honest, I've barely touched a book since, well, the end of the Kavanaugh hearings. Which isn't to say I haven't read things, just not in book form. Of course, my book-reading funk has not affected my tendency to accumulate books, have recently purchased or acquired:

Good and Mad: How Women's Anger is Shaping America by Rebecca Traister
Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah (have read almost all of his oeuvre)
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (I had a copy of this but passed it on thinking I had read it, I hadn't!)
I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck (I looked at this in HC and passed it by)
Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society by Mary Beth Norton.
Founding Martyr of: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero by Christian Di Spinga (freebie arc from the bookstore, not sure I really want to read another book on the Revolution)

And we are both STILL behind in review posting.

Will try to catch up with everyone soon....

143RidgewayGirl
okt 23, 2018, 3:23 pm

I think that Rebecca Traister is exactly the right author to turn to after the Kavanaugh debacle. I've reacted by phone banking for the local Democratic candidates, something I do not enjoy but I feel like at least I am doing something, and therefore less hopeless.

144lisapeet
okt 23, 2018, 4:36 pm

I picked up Traister's book up the day the Judiciary Committee voted to advance Kavanaugh's nomination, because I was good and mad all right. I had to put it down again because of other deadlines, but I liked the introduction very much. Also, if you're podcastically inclined, a very good Longform podcast with Traister here.

145dchaikin
okt 23, 2018, 11:42 pm

It tough to watch all this going on in the US. But it's nice to see a list of books. Curious about that one by Lily Tuck.

>143 RidgewayGirl: nice, Kay. And, let's all vote too! : )

146avaland
Redigerat: okt 25, 2018, 10:27 am

>143 RidgewayGirl: Actually, Rebecca Solnit has some essays in her current collection that are quite timely even thought they were written two years ago! I haven't gotten to the Traister.

Michael is doing the phone-banking and canvassing; I'm baking cookies for the young employees running the regional office.

>144 lisapeet: Good to know about the podcast.

>145 dchaikin: Always nice to see a list of books! The Tuck novel caught my eye before the hardcover was released via this PW review: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8021-1991-9. I talked myself out of the HC but clearly couldn't resist the PB.

Speaking of PW, Dan, I noted down the particulars of an interesting book in this week's PW (that I'm going to have to get!) and wondered if it was something you might also be intrigued by. Here it is:

(starred review, due out in January, I've added touchstones) The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World
Patrick D. Nunn. Bloomsbury Sigma, $28 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4729-4328-6

Dunn (Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific), a geography professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, unites his interests in earth science and oral history in this intriguing work that seeks to discover how long humans can preserve memories of significant events in the planet’s past. He leads readers through a tour of 21 sites throughout Australia, all of them linked to a story from Aboriginal oral tradition describing some offshore feature of the site that was once accessible. For each, he provides an estimate of how far below the current sea level the waters must have been for the story to be true, and then follows with a discussion of sea level rises and falls over the last 150,000 years, concluding this section with a chart giving estimates (ranging from 7,450 to 13,310 years ago) of when the water depths he has calculated existed. This brief for the antiquity of aboriginal stories represents his strongest argument, with other sections on sea level change in other locales and on other geological events such as volcanic explosions being less fully considered. Still, Nunn’s hypothesis—that “human memories can remain alive for many millennia” through oral tradition—deserves consideration by earth scientists, folklore scholars, and interested nonspecialists. (Jan.)

147dukedom_enough
okt 25, 2018, 5:24 pm



Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard

We've been taught in recent years to think of mindless brain-eaters when we hear the word "zombies". In 1984, Shepard's first novel inverted the stereotype. A secret medical project, hidden in the Louisiana bayou, has discovered how to revive the recently dead, using a bacterial dose derived from graveyard dirt. Far from mindless, the revived are mentally more vivid and alert than they ever were before dying, and have actually become different people, remembering lives that they never really lived. Their eyes shine with green luminescence from the bacterial activity in their brains and optic nerves. Most expire again permanently after only a few hours; some, after a few months. The story mainly follows one of the latter, Donnell Harrison, as he learns how short his expected time may be, and fights to extend it. A carnival worker dead of alcohol poisoning in his former existence, his false memory is of a life as a poet - and he can actually write new poems having true artistic value. Aided by the young, woman psychologist managing his case, he escapes the project, only to become entangled with the last heir to a sinister Louisiana family long associated with voodoo and other dark practices.

One is struck by how completely Shepard as a writer had become himself, even at this early stage in his career. The heat and humidity of the bayou, the marginal protagonist moving through a series of lushly vegetated, eerie scenes, the liminal menace, the fine writing interspersed with passages of florid description: all present. He's best known for novella-length work, but here and in A Handbook of American Prayer, it's clear he could write novels just as well.

I bought this book in 1984, and just read it now for the first time - pays to hang on to books, no? The year 1984 was vintage for SF&F, seeing the first-novel debuts of William Gibson (Neuromancer) and Kim Stanley Robinson (The Wild Shore), both, like the Shepard, "Ace Science Fiction Specials." There's a skippable introduction by editor Terry Carr.

Not in the front rank of Shepard's fiction, but gripping and thoughtful.

Four Stars

148dchaikin
okt 25, 2018, 8:23 pm

>147 dukedom_enough: OK, as a non-scifi reader, that review was fun, and, but I'm really charmed you picked this up after waiting since 1984.

>146 avaland: Lois, you know how fickle my reading interests go. I'm fascinated by the title, the concept, the idea of getting some intimacy with Aboriginal oral traditions (currently warped in my head by the inaccuracies of Bruce Chatwin, although I forgive him). The Edge of Memory is noted. Thanks!

149dukedom_enough
okt 26, 2018, 10:46 am

>148 dchaikin: Oh, I have much older, unread books than that. Hmm, sort of a challenge - what's the oldest such book on my shelves? In the 1960s I tended to skim, so I have a lot of books that I sort of read, but not every page. Still, there are some completely unread. Stay tuned...

150baswood
okt 28, 2018, 8:42 pm

It is difficult to know how old those unread books are. Only the very seriously methodical (perhaps OCD) people will write down the date that they purchased books.

151NanaCC
okt 28, 2018, 9:31 pm

>150 baswood: I may not know the exact date, but I’m pretty sure that I have a few on my shelf that I bought in the 1970’s. I wonder if I would have an interest in them now. I’m guessing the answer will be no. I’ll have to look.

152SassyLassy
okt 29, 2018, 10:01 am

>150 baswood: Only the very seriously methodical (perhaps OCD) people will write down the date that they purchased books

Or the sentimentalists - I write the date and place of every book acquired inside the front, as well as the giver if it was a present. I love looking back at it later as books are so often linked to time and place and other people.
Unlike the more methodical people though, this method gives me no information as to what the oldest unread book on the shelves is. That might be too frightening to contemplate.

153avaland
Redigerat: nov 4, 2018, 10:24 am

I am very behind in my reviewing (as noted earlier) and I am now making an attempt to catch up. It is more difficult to properly review a book the further one gets from it, so I hope to keep these simple. I have 7 9 to review, probably more by the time I get these finished.

-------------------



Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2016, translated from the Japanese 2018)

Between the 163 pages of this small hardcover novel is the story of Keiko Furukura. Keiko is a thirty three year old single woman, who lives in Tokyo, and works part-time in a typical convenience store serving customers, arranging displays…etc. Keiko’s family and friends are constantly pressuring her to conform to norms; stop working, or pursue a career, or get married. Keiko, who has never been “normal,” approaches her job with enthusiasm, diligence, and well, love. She is content. Yet, the pressures from others are getting to her….

The book offers an interesting and amusing behind the scenes view of a convenience store (we've all got them) but it is the admirable and charming Keiko, our heroine, who lingers in one’s mind long after her story has finished. This is an irresistible story and a lovely parable about being genuine and true to oneself.

154avaland
Redigerat: nov 4, 2018, 10:17 am



Ordeal, Jorn Lier Horst (2015, Translated from the Norwegian 2016)
When It Grows Dark, Jorn Lier Horst (2016, Translated from the Norwegian 2017)

Keeping up with all of one’s favorite crime writers can be a daunting task, but I was happy to find that there were two Horst novels to catch up on. And it is certainly an endorsement of Horst’s work that I was willing to order them from the UK. Horst is a Norwegian author, one of the few crime novelists who has actual, serious law enforcement experience. That experience informs his spare, no-frills stories. He writes of complex investigations in carefully plotted, engrossing storylines with credible characters. He also includes at the beginning of the book a short summary of where we are in the overarching story of Chief Inspector William Wisting—which is terrific for those of us who read a lot of Nordic crime novels.

I have waited too long to review these books individually well. Suffice it to say that Ordeal is a wonderfully complex, multi-layered mystery that involves a dead taxi driver and his taxi, an old basement safe, and the seemingly ordinary accidental death of a notorious smuggler. And When It Grows Dark begins with the 1983 discovery of an old car—a mystery for the young policeman William Wisting. That mystery deliciously complicates and reaches from 1983, back to the 1920s, and forward to the present. And we the reader, enjoy the cerebral ride.

155avaland
nov 4, 2018, 11:45 am



The Fourth Man by K. O. Dahl (2005, translated from the Norwegian, 2007)

Detective Inspector Frank Frolich "saves" a woman from crossfire and later becomes intimately involved with her, clearly a femme fatale. This is not so great for him when it is discovered she is the sister of a notorious criminal. When she disappears, the lovesick Frank steps over boundaries that have been drawn, to get involved with a murder case where he is the most likely suspect.

I thought this crime novel a good one, maybe a very good one in places. I admit that my reading of it was not optimum as I chose to read in 6 or 7 page stints each night at bedtime over the course of about a month, and during an otherwise reading drought (due to current events). My beefs are thus: Lack of characters. Perhaps I like a more team approach, but Frank worked mostly with his friend and colleague Inspector Gunnarstranda. This could be just because of his precarious situation, but I was entirely dissatisfied with the two of them. Secondly, there is a lack of prominent female characters. Law enforcement is historically a heavily male field, yes, but this has been changing over recent decades and there is no sign of that change in this particular book. I didn’t find any women beyond a witness and our femme fatale. I didn’t expect to miss credible female characters but I did. Again, it could just be this particular book (and we shall see: I have several other installments of Dahl’s series in the TBR pile).

Otherwise, I found the crime mystery complex and interesting. The focus was around a larceny gang, which was something a bit different. So, a decent read with some reservations.

156avaland
Redigerat: nov 4, 2018, 12:36 pm



American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, edited by Tracy K. Smith. (2018, US)

"…This is why I love poems: they require me to sit still, listen deeply, and imagine putting myself in someone else’s unfamiliar shoes. The world I return to when the poem is over seems fuller and more comprehensible as a result." —- Tracy K. Smith in the introduction.

This small hardcover, a remarkable anthology, contains, as it says, fifty poems. For me, most—but certainly not all—of the poets names were unfamiliar. One might be tempted to read the volume cover to cover, but I’d not suggest that. Every time I open this little volume I see and hear something different. Some of the poems make instant connections while other require a bit sitting with it, if you know what I mean. And there is nothing like reading poetry during difficult times.

My favorite poem in the volume is a lengthy one by Layli Long Soldier titled “38”. It’s a strikingly clever, unusual and ultimately very moving poem. HERE’S a link to it on the web. Read it more than once.

157avaland
nov 11, 2018, 9:13 am



Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss (2014, UK)

A family story at its heart, Bodies of Light, focuses primarily on two sisters who grow up in an Victorian household with a religious and strict mother, and an artistic & more lenient father (an odd, but intriguing paring, don’t you think?) By day Elizabeth zealously saves fallen women and disciplines her daughters while her husband, Alfred, paints his somewhat immoderate paintings and designs their surroundings. Ally and May grow up under this roof, navigating life as best they can. Ally wants to be one of the first female doctors while May poses for her father and his friends. The story begins with the courtship and marriage of Elizabeth and Alfred and moves forward and covers about 25 years.

This a mesmerizing novel of family dynamics and their effects on the hopes and dreams of two young women in a time of women’s suffrage. It is a painful study at times, yet compassionate. Moss’s writing is lovely, and although the book was published in 2014, and the story set in the Victorian period, it has a niggling timely feel about it.

(still trying to catch up with reviews)

158avaland
nov 13, 2018, 6:51 am



Broken Ground by Val McDermid (2018, UK)

A perfectly preserved body is found in a bog in Scotland by a very surprised couple who were chasing “buried treasure” via a handmade map from the 1940s. DCI Karen Pririe of the Historic Crimes Unit arrives on the scene but, as it will turn out, the body is not ancient at all, nor does it correspond with the 1940s.

One may recall that I declared the previous Karen Pririe novel, “the nearest thing to a perfect police procedural as can be” and this installment falls not far from that same tree. And as with the previous novel, this one is complex, interesting, and is unraveled in the same delicious manner. Karen, who tends to wander from protocol, has a new, overbearing boss, who has been secretly nicknamed “Dog Biscuit”, and it’s possible a newly transferred officer is put on Karen’s team to keep an eye on her. The story moves back and forth from the 1940s to the present, until all the threads are first unraveled, and then woven together into something quite satisfying. While not quite as perfect as the previous novel, Out of Bounds, Broken Ground still gets top marks. And who doesn’t like a good bog body story?! It can be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading the previous book first, if possible.

159avaland
Redigerat: nov 14, 2018, 10:45 am



Scandinavian Crime Fiction by Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (2017)

Scandinavian Crime Fiction is a short, dense book that examines decades of regional crime fiction from the 1960s forward, through its relationship to the social, cultural and political landscape of the time. The author discusses a finite number of books/series in depth, and mentions many others, but is not exhaustive. He focuses on Showall & Wahloo’s Martin Beck series, Mankell’s Wallander series, Gunnar Staalesen’s Varg Veum series, Steig Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Peter Hoeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow Kerstin Ekman’s Blackwater and the television series "The Killing" and "The Bridge." He notes that "Nordic Noir" has only been understood as a distinct regional genre as a result of its international success, and while the countries of the region have social, political and cultural differences, they do share some things, one being the structures of their social welfare systems. Scandinavian crime writers—at least those discussed—have used the genre to explore the symptoms of the “ ‘shattered dream’ which in these small nations in the northern periphery of Europe meant the self-assured utopian certainty of living in the most progressive, egalitarian, and, not least, peaceful welfare societies.” The author notes that as the twenty first century approached and "unfolded" the states have had to contend with all manner of crises and conflicts.

I enjoy discussions of popular fiction as much as I do that of classic literature (and remember, some classic literature was popular literature), and this book did not disappoint. The perspective the author provides gives the the literature discussed a new depth as one considers the roots of various crimes, and the broader anxieties of those involved. One doesn’t have to have read all of the series and books discussed, although I felt I got more out of the discussions of those I had read. There are some fascinating tidbits, seemly small things I’d not considered before: the ending of Miss Smilla’s Feeling of Snow evokes that of Frankenstein, tthe detective in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is named after Astrid Lindgren’s boy detective (and thus suggests Lisbeth is playing the role of Pippi), that Wallander is more the Swedish “everyman” than I realized, and that Varg Veum’s name derives from the Old Norse 'varg i veum' meaning "the wolf in the sanctuary."

While the publisher calls the book "essential for readers, viewers and fans of contemporary crime writing," I would add the caveat that one must enjoy detailed analysis to get the most out of this work. I dog-eared pages, penciled in asterisks and underlines, and took copious notes in tiny writing on small pieces of paper (nearly impossible to read now), which is all to say, for the right reader, this book is fascinating and insightful, and a worthy read.

NOTE for US members: I bought this from the UK/Book Depository.

160Caroline_McElwee
nov 14, 2018, 8:25 am

>57 avaland: - I have this on my Kindle I think Lois.
>58 avaland: - I need to read more of McDermid.
>59 lisapeet: - I've not read masses of Scandi crime (Henkell, the first Larsson, and Miss Smilla), but I can see why this one is really up your alley Lois.

161avaland
nov 14, 2018, 9:28 am

>57 avaland: I see she has a new book coming out, which may already be out there. It had a starred review in the latest Publishers Weekly.

>58 avaland: I think you might like this one and the previous.

>59 lisapeet: Indeed! And I just hopped online to order some Kerstin Ekman from ABE books, no thanks to that book. The book is part of a series about genre lit. The other two volumes published are about "Crunch Lit" (gosh, who knew that there was a genre of lit about the 2008/9 financial crisis!) and Apocalyptic lit (which probably is somewhat different than books about Dystopian lit as the former is oft referred to as the "Awful Warning" novel...but then, I won't know unless I read it, will I? Oh, what a merry web we weave!

162RidgewayGirl
nov 14, 2018, 11:50 am

The Scandanavian Crime Fiction book sounds intriguing. I've made note of it. I agree that there should be more in-depth discussion of books outside of those labeled "literary fiction."

Small Country made the long longlist for the Tournament of Books, so there's another push to read it.

163Caroline_McElwee
nov 14, 2018, 3:34 pm

>161 avaland: I think may have quoted the wrong link Lois >58 avaland:, but you are right, I was planning to purchase that and had forgotten about it, now ordered and tagged in my catalogue as 'Lois's fault'! Xx

164avaland
Redigerat: nov 14, 2018, 3:49 pm

>162 RidgewayGirl: It can be tough to read a book about war, and I know some have not responded to it as I did. Thanks for stopping by!

>163 Caroline_McElwee: I’m A tag! I am so honored:-)

165baswood
nov 16, 2018, 6:27 pm

I think I would enjoy Scandinavian Crime fiction.

166avaland
nov 16, 2018, 8:52 pm

>165 baswood: Yes, I think perhaps you might, Barry.📚

167avaland
dec 4, 2018, 6:19 am

Oh, good grief! Has it been weeks since either of us have posted!? There has been the holiday and the snow and then the bookstore wheedled me out of self-declared retirement to work the holiday season....

Hoping to finish a couple of books before the end of the year.

168auntmarge64
dec 7, 2018, 10:57 am

>137 avaland: Scribe sounds interesting, and my library has it on Kindle. I love when that happens.

>146 avaland: I downloaded a sample of The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World. What an wonderful confluence of topics, all of which interest me, and it seems to written for the lay person. I'm reading the sample now and may just have to buy it.

>147 dukedom_enough: Oh, Lucius Shepard! I read a lot of his work years ago and especially remember The Jaguar Hunter as a title of note.

>154 avaland: - I've never heard of Jorn Lier Horst but I'm always on the lookout for Scandinavian/Arctic mysteries. My library has 4 of them so I'll download the earliest and report back. I guess that means I also need to seriously think of buying Scandinavian Crime Fiction.

169avaland
dec 7, 2018, 5:00 pm

>168 auntmarge64: You will have to tell me how your sample of “The Edge of Memory” is. I have the book on order. Good to see you out and about!

170kidzdoc
dec 8, 2018, 6:24 pm

Nice review of Bodies of Light, Lois. Rachael (FlossieT) gushingly recommended it to me when we met in Cambridge sometime in 2014, and since her knack for picking out books I'll love is nearly perfect, and because of its very interesting topic, I read it straightaway: I absolutely loved it! I own but haven't read the sequel, Signs for Lost Children, but I did read her 2016 novel The Tidal Zone, which was also outstanding. I wasn't as impressed with her latest novel, Ghost Wall, though, and neither was Rachael.

171auntmarge64
dec 9, 2018, 6:35 pm

>169 avaland: Good to see you out and about! Thanks! I'm doing better and reading a lot right now.

The sample of The Edge of Memory looked pretty interesting. I might wait till you get it to decide about buying the book - have to see what happens with other books I'm reading.

172dukedom_enough
dec 10, 2018, 10:43 am

>168 auntmarge64: I think of The Jaguar Hunter and The Ends of the Earth as the core Shepard collections. A bit sad, since they were so early, but then he didn't change that much from his earlier books.

173avaland
dec 11, 2018, 7:13 am

>170 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. I saw that you had read it. That;s the second of her novels I've read, and I've picked up a few more, including Tidal Zone. I had picked up Signs for Lost Children when I bought Bodies of Light.

174avaland
dec 11, 2018, 7:16 am



Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates (2018)

In a future New Jersey where behavior and thinking is tightly controlled, and people are labeled by their loyalty and skin color, an idealistic young woman, valedictorian of her class, writes a seemingly innocent graduation speech consisting only of questions. At rehearsal, Adrianne is very publicly arrested, subsequently tortured and “exiled” back in time to 1959 Wainscotia, Wisconsin. She is told that she has a chip in her brain to prevent further infractions, and that they are else wise monitoring her. She is allowed to go to university here; her name is now Mary Ellen, and she is forbidden to discuss her previous life.

Mary Ellen must adjust to the wonders and horrors of a pre-digital age (and here I can imagine the fun that JCO, who was born in ’38, had in recreating the 1959 university scene, complete with typewriters, paper books, and sweater sets). In her isolation and loneliness, she becomes romantically infatuated with a young assistant professor of psychology named Ira Wolfman and imagines he is also another exile from the future. It is this infatuation that drives much of the last half of the book.

This is the age of B. F. Skinner and his theories about human behavior, which he called “radical behaviorism.” There is much in the book about Skinner and the various “current” theories of human behavior. The reader can imagine perhaps how the alternate future might come about and how our heroine and others are being controlled (rats in a maze.…etc.) Wolfman probably gets his name from a famous patient of Freud’s (as has been noted to me) but first thoughts were of the wolf of fairytales (Angela Carter’s work came to mind).

I am both a fan of JCO’s work, and of dystopias—and have read much of both. And while I raced through this book I was ultimately disappointed. Where my expectations too high? Perhaps. The “exquisitely wrought love story” as the book’s jacket describes it, is a young woman’s over-hyped infatuation. In the end I thought the book didn’t know what it wanted to be, and I was unsure of its message — better to live in the “now” wherever that may be? There are far better JCO novels, and far better dystopian novels to read, but see what you think.

175dchaikin
dec 13, 2018, 12:00 am

>174 avaland: Interesting, both your summary with the idea of time travel/nostalgia, and your response. Probably shouldn’t be my first JCO.

176avaland
dec 13, 2018, 5:46 am

>175 dchaikin: Indeed, it should NOT be your first, although I would be hard-pressed to think of one of hers that you might like.

177dchaikin
dec 13, 2018, 7:15 am

That might discourage me a bit...

178dukedom_enough
Redigerat: dec 15, 2018, 8:23 pm



21429975::Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson's best-known work is probably his 1990s Mars series - 17666::Red Mars, 9614374::Green Mars, and 17623::Blue Mars - about the settlement and terraforming of Mars from the points of view of its first 100 settlers. Toward the end of the trilogy, someone says that the people of Mars have eliminated patriarchy and capitalism, over a couple of centuries. In this book, Robinson's latest, those goals appear much further off.

Earth's Moon is figuratively red in 2047 because China has built much the largest base there, at its South Pole. Lunar development by China and other nations is peaceful and collegial, but no place is free of politics. An American, Fred Fredericks, is tasked with delivering a quantum-entanglement communications device to the chief of the Chinese station; the gadget will permit untappable communication with the unknown person at the device's other end. The chief is assassinated and Fred is framed for the murder, setting off a series of captures, escapes, and chases both on the Moon and on Earth.

Fred's fate becomes linked to Chan Qi, a Chinese "princessling". Her father, the "tiger" who heads up the Finance Ministry, is one of China's most powerful men, and she could inherit his power. But Qi has radical, dangerous ideas about transferring power from the Chinese Communist Party to the people. She is pursued or aided by various factions within the country. The two are observed, and helped, by Ta Shu, an elderly poet and media personality whose popularity as a broadcaster gives him a small measure of political power. Ta Shu also counts another powerful "tiger" as a former student. Meanwhile, an anonymous, powerful intelligence operative is training an AI to be an agent among the world's networks. Everyone's personal story is connected to a worldwide economic and governmental crisis in both China and the United States; civil unrest is rising in both societies, and may be put down with military violence. The quantum entanglement devices and computers, where Fred's expertise lies, serve as metaphor for the social, economic, and political entanglements connecting every human being. Can friendship compete with panopticon social media, capitalism, and governmental structures in refiguring a great nation? Fred is on the Asperger's spectrum, giving him an outsider's viewpoint on society that serves as an entryway for the reader. The Moon's lifeless, deadly surface reminds us of the fragility of the human world - as does Qi's pregnancy, progressing throughout the course of the story.

This novel feels like the author's attempt to get a handle on modern China and its march toward becoming the next world hegemon. We see a lot of China, and a lot about how things work there three decades from now. The sleek technology of the Moon settlements is contrasted with Ta Shu's older, more poetic sensibility - yet he, too, is involved in the modern world. Robinson is a utopian writer, but also a realist about history, seeing its complexity and rejecting easy tales of renewal. His utopian hopes are still there, but more shaded than in his 1990s books. His imagined "carboncoin," a blockchain-based money minted by removing CO2 from the biosphere, is a fun idea. If money is a socially constructed illusion, can we substitute a better one? But in the end carboncoin is satirical, and not fleshed out in any way.

The book ends rather abruptly, with Fred and Qi on the run, aided by powerful allies but still in peril. I fear this may indicate an unannounced sequel to come; a publishing practice we need less of. The story as it stands reads perfectly well; no such sequel is needed. I think Red Moon doesn't give us a real understanding of China here, but then what novel could?

Three and a Half Stars

179auntmarge64
dec 16, 2018, 6:20 pm

Just to let you know, I've finished the earliest of the translated Jorn Lier Horst mysteries (Dregs) and loved it! Now I'm in the middle of Closed for Winter. I do believe I'll be reading these one after another. My library has 4 of them for Kindle, and I'll just buy the other one currently available. Excellent find!

I tried reading Robinson's new book (Red Moon) and decided not to finish it. I loved the Mars trilogy, more as a series than each book separately, and I still think of it. And I've read several of his others, but this one didn't grab me.

Hmmm - Hazards of Time Travel.... I've got it on my TBR pile but wonder if it'll be worth reading. Still, as with Robinson, sometimes the ideas are worth the pain of the reading.

180avaland
dec 17, 2018, 5:15 am

>178 dukedom_enough: Perhaps the abrupt ending was his publisher's idea?

181avaland
Redigerat: dec 17, 2018, 5:29 am

>179 auntmarge64: I have Horst's latest, The Katharina Code but I have yet to begin it. Stockpiling for the winter (what am I saying? it's been winter since before Thanksgiving!)

re: the Oates. As noted, there was a lot of 1959 psychology/human behavior woven into the story, much like there is quite a bit of memory science in her 2016 book The Man Without a Shadow (and that also had a love/obsession story in it). I thought the latter worked really well and was so interesting, whereas this latest seems less a bit ...off (?) Maybe it was the combo with a dystopia. If you get around to reading it, I would certainly be interested in your comments (who knows, maybe it was an off day for me).

182AsYouKnow_Bob
dec 22, 2018, 2:25 am

>178 dukedom_enough: I fear this may indicate an unannounced sequel to come

Just from the title, I would assume that "Green Moon" and "Blue Moon" were already in the pipeline...

183dukedom_enough
dec 22, 2018, 3:44 pm

I'm predicting "Blue Moon" and "Black Moon."

184Caroline_McElwee
dec 24, 2018, 11:51 am

To Lois and Michael, Merry Christmas. May the new year bring health, joy and new adventures.

Here is something for your Christmas tree.

185dukedom_enough
dec 25, 2018, 9:45 am

>184 Caroline_McElwee: And also to you. Thank you!

186avaland
dec 25, 2018, 12:11 pm

>185 dukedom_enough: That's adorable, Caro! Thanks (I may have to attempt to make some ornaments like that)

187avaland
Redigerat: dec 28, 2018, 6:45 am



I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck

Phillip has unexpectedly died, and Nina, his wife, sits by his bedside holding thoughtful vigil during this one night. In a kind of wandering, stream of consciousness sort of way, through random bits of memories, Nina processes their 40 years of love and marriage together. Philip was a mathematician, and Nina, an artist, and that sets up an interesting dynamic for the pair, who meet and fall in love in Paris. As Nina’s mind wanders, her thoughts are both honest and tender.

I have read Lily Tuck’s work before, but feared this spare novel would be a bit morbid, depressing, or perhaps too intense. I passed it by in hardcover, but the attraction eventually proved too great. It’s a believable narrative; a lovely, tender, completely absorbing story—very hard to pull away from once started. And I think, as the book blurb suggests, the reader is left wondering how much of our lives is ordered by intent... or chance?

NOTE: I fully admit this isn't one of my best reviews. The book is covered in blurbs and it's difficult to say anything that hasn't been said yet. Trust me, the book is better than my review of it.