The theme of my book purchases this month was apparently translated authors from eastern Europe. I bought two new books:
- Herscht 07769 by Lazlo Krasznahorkai - After Satantango and Seiobo There Below, I will read any Krasznahorkai that I come across. I wasn't aware of this book, but came across it in the bookstore, and now it's mine!
- The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk - I really enjoyed Flights and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, so here's another case where I bought this based on the author without much sense of what this book is about. Kind of cool to have a signed edition from a Nobel Prize winner, though.
My reading slowed down a bit in September, as classes kicked into high gear, but I did read Pnin and it rated very high on the "quiet chuckles to myself per chapter" metric. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even though reading Nabokov always gives me trust issues with every one of his narrators.
I also read The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, which won a couple of sci-fi/fantasy awards this year for debut novel. It was an interesting story, set in south Asia (but an alternate world overlaid on top of it). Having read this and Rakesfall from Chandrasekera, I find his projects interesting, and I could see him writing something in the future that really puts it all together and blows me away. These two books didn't quite get there for me, but still worth a look if like this kind of cultural sci-fi/fantasy hybrid genre.
How many z's are in the last name of the authors of the books you read or bought in the last month?
I just finished She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarsh. A quick (170pg) read that does a very good job using Dolly's life and career as a lens into the lives of poor, rural women and how their lives look vs. academic feminism.
has anyone read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August? Enjoying it so far, but it's a bit slow moving
I believe I listened to that as an audiobook. I can tell you that it was almost exactly 9 years ago and I thought it was "pretty good"
I don't remember much about the book at this point except a vague "busy plot, satisfying read" vibe that I associate with it.
After learning that Mickey 7 is getting movie, I then learned that it also has a sequel, so I just finished reading Antimatter Blues.
I'm a bit excited that several of sci fi books that I've liked are being turned into movies / series, including Mickey 7, the Murderbot Diaries series, Project Hail Mary, etc. What books do you like that are getting this treatment?
Although only a short story, I enjoyed Ambrose (A. Goodman) in the recent The New Yorker. Hints of Silent Snow, Secret Snow...
I'm up to 40 in 50 Chemistry Ideas you really need to know (H. Birch), picked off the shelf at a BNB by Hvolsvöllur. From a math/CSci background, I’m somewhat new to the life sciences, which are kind of hard to avoid in Iceland.
Just ordered Flowers for Algemon (D. Keyes) from the library.
Also watched the Japanese film Perfect Days (Tagasaki, Wenders) about cleaning toilets and some other stuff. We are planning to go to Japan in March for NBBW to run the Tokyo Marathon, and now she wants to visit all the public toilets in Shibuku. Hey, who doesn’t like a clean toilet?
Flowers for Algernon? Now you need to watch Charly.
September reads:
Truth of the Divine (Lindsay Ellis)
How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge (K. Eason)
The Stardust Grail (Yume Kitasei)
The Ellis continues to be good, not great. The central protagonist continues to be interesting but very uncomfortable. The aliens are the highlight. I have book 3 on order from the library.
Book 2 of the Thorne Chronicles was grittier than book 1. Still delightful. I wanted more, but understood how and why Eason wrapped it up. (I picked up Nightwatch on the Hinterlands for my trip. It is set several generations later)
The Stardust Grail was a romp. Mostly fun, but with tear-jerker moments. Hoping a sequel comes out soon.
A few books last month:
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips had a good payoff after a meandering, ponderous first 200 pages. It was a very unique story about folks whose lives were completely shattered by the Civil War, but it was just too moody for me.
I still can't write fully comprehend Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park, but I loved it. It might be my favorite book since Ducks, Newburyport. Just crazy layering of multiple, seemingly related stories dating back to the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula while somehow also tying in the assassination of William McKinley, the movie Friday the 13th, and Brett Hull. Just bonkers, yet it worked so well.
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig used some recently discovered sources for an updated biography of MLK. A good read, but not a lot new for me.
James McBride's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store was another fun read. I think it would have resonated even more if I hadn't picked up Same Bed just a week or two later.
Adding Same Bed Different Dreams to my TBR list.
We've been reading The Martian with little ghost each evening before bed. We've renamed the book "Sweary Science Man on Mars", but G is laughing at all of the dry humor and enjoying the adventure/engineering/problem-solving quite a bit.
Take the leap to Project Hail Mary if he's enjoying that, I think he'd like it.