May, 2019: Readings..."What potent blood hath modest May" (Emerson)

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May, 2019: Readings..."What potent blood hath modest May" (Emerson)

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1CliffBurns
mayo 1, 2019, 11:37 am

Starting off the month with a wonderful (so far) novel by Jon Hassler, GRAND OPENING.

A family moves to a small town in Minnesota in 1944 after buying a rundown grocery store. But their new life has many challenges and as outsiders they have trouble winning over the local populace. The cast is exemplary, the book well-written.

About halfway through and loving it.

2anna_in_pdx
mayo 1, 2019, 6:19 pm

Started Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage in preparation for a trip to Ireland next fall. Wonderful writing. Reminds me of David Rains Wallace or Aldo Leopold.

3BookConcierge
mayo 3, 2019, 11:47 pm


Pachinko– Min Jin Lee
Audible audio performed by Allison Hiroto
4****

This is an epic work of historical fiction that follows four generations of one Korean family living in Japan, beginning in 1910 and ending in 1989.

I was quickly drawn into the story and eagerly followed Sunja as she allied herself with Isak, the kind, tubercular minister who takes her from her homeland to Japan and raises her son as his own. I loved how the women created a business selling sweets to supplement the family’s earnings, and how they made practical decisions, that ensured their survival.

The men, however, were frequently frustratingly entrenched in their historic cultural roles of protector and/or head-of-household. I got the distinct feeling that Hansu went along with the secret not out of altruistic motives, but to save his own skin. He wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. Of course, secrets can’t remain secret forever and when they come out one can expect traumatic and dramatic results.

I did get a bit bored with the repetition, especially the co-dependent relationship between Solomon and Hana. I wanted to slap them both silly. It’s a very long book, and perhaps Lee was too ambitious in following the generations so far. Still, I was engaged and invested in these characters’ stories, and the setting and timeframe gave me some insight into a culture about which I know little.

Allison Hiroto goes a very good job narrating the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to deal with but was able to give them sufficiently unique voices so as I was not confused. I do wish the text version had a family tree, however.

4BookConcierge
mayo 8, 2019, 10:30 pm


The Alice Network– Kate Quinn
Book on CD narrated by Saskia Maarleveld
3.5***

Charlie St Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and heading to Europe with her mother to take care of “the little problem.” It’s 1947 and Charlie is reeling from the death of her brother and worried about her beloved cousin, Rose, who has not been heard from in a couple of years. She decides to find Eve Gardiner, the one name and only clue she has to Rose’s whereabouts. But Eve is an alcoholic recluse with her own demons. During WWI she had been recruited as a spy working with the French Resistance. Along with other women they formed The Alice Network.

Based on the real stories of women who served as spies during World War I, Quinn has crafted an interesting, engaging story of wartime heroines and the price they paid for their service. She uses a dual timeline, moving back and forth between Charlie’s search for Rose, and Eve’s remembered experiences thirty years earlier.

I found Charlie irritating. She was in turns stubborn, hysteric, weepy, lost and determined. I though she was mostly immature, and she got on my nerves almost as much as she got on Eve’s.

I was much more interested in Eve’s story. She’s a broken woman when we meet her, racked with survivor’s guilt and trying to numb her pain with alcohol. But as I learn more about her back story, how she came to be recruited for the spy network, her courage and bravery in the face of very real danger, I grew to admire her. Her story is was compelled me to keep reading / listening.

I found the ending rather rushed and implausible. I am referring mostly to the final confrontation between Eve, Charlie and Rene, but also to the Epilogue set in 1949. Lost half a star there.

The author’s note at the end expounds on the real people and events that inspired the novel. Additional historical information (letters and trial records) is also included.

Saskia Maarleveld did a marvelous job performing the audiobook. She sets a good pace and has the skill needed to differentiate a large cast of characters from a number of countries (Scotland, USA, France, England, and Germany). My only complaint about the audio is that is does NOT include the author notes and historical documents that the text.

5CliffBurns
mayo 9, 2019, 11:39 pm

Finished Bill McKibben's FALTER.

Utterly convincing and chilling book, a manifesto for a dying species. Thanks to environmental degradation, inequality and the rise of dangerous new technologies like A.I. and genetic engineering, homo sapiens are facing enormous challenges, some of them existential.

Will we rally as a united people or die like flies?

McKibben isn't optimistic and I don't blame him.

The term "essential reading" is over-used, but not in this case.

You MUST read this book. If only to grasp the scale of the problems confronting us.

6CliffBurns
mayo 11, 2019, 11:00 am

Bradford Morrow's THE FORGERS.

A book collector is gruesomely murdered, exposing a world of highly skilled forgers specializing in antiquarian books.

The "mystery" is pretty obvious and, despite the author's literary reputation, this book is only mediocre and occasionally just too far-fetched for my liking.

7BookConcierge
mayo 11, 2019, 10:25 pm


My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
Audible audiobook performed by Hillary Huber
3.5***

This is the first of four books in the “Neapolitan Series” by Ferrante. In it we meet Lila and Elena, two young girls growing up in 1950s Naples. They struggle to grow up in post-war Italy, with limited financial resources, but a strong relationship and a determination to succeed. Their paths diverge somewhat but their friendship remains true, and through their experiences the reader gets a glimpse of life, love, heartache and joy in 1950s-1960s Italy.

I loved the way this friendship was portrayed, and the strength of these two girls as they faced the challenges of growing up. Elena is the narrator, a good student and the child of a civil servant who values education. Lila’s father is a shoemaker and while she is obviously smart and capable of advanced study, he does not want her to continue and cannot (or will not) afford to send her to school. But she has her best friend, who shares books and concepts with her and encourages her. Also, Lila has the library, and her considerable intelligence.

I could not help but be reminded of my BFF when I was growing up, and the tightness of that bond. Like these central characters, we hardly breathed without consulting one another, and shared every secret, every joy, every heartache, every dream, every disappointment, and every triumph.

I also really appreciated how the landscape and culture were practically a character in the novel. I felt immersed in 1950s Naples. I could practically feel the heat on my skin, smell the leather in the shoe shop, hear the cacophony of a neighborhood filled with boisterous children.

The cast of characters is large, but no larger than any tightly knit community / neighborhood. Also, several of them are referred to by different names. Lila, whose real first name is Rafaela, is also called Lina. Elena is sometimes called Lenu. The text includes a cast of characters at the beginning, which I found helpful.

Hillary Huber does a great job of narrating the audiobook. She really brought these characters to life. I did refer to the text when I began writing this review, and I think that I would have enjoyed the book even more had I read it rather than listened. But that is my failing, not Huber’s.

8CliffBurns
mayo 17, 2019, 11:03 am

Wrapped up GHOSTS OF MY LIFE by Mark Fisher.

"Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures".

Fisher writes of a past that never happened and a future that is failing us. Essays on a variety of subjects like the continuing appeal of Joy Division and the ghosts haunting "The Shining".

Smart man, his books always crammed with original thoughts and insights.

9CliffBurns
Editado: mayo 19, 2019, 8:54 pm

Finished two books in the last couple of days: R. CRUMB'S KAFKA (illos by Robert Crumb and text by David Zane Mairowitz) and THE WILD BUNCH: SAM PECKINPAH, A REVOLUTION IN HOLLYWOOD AND THE MAKING OF A LEGENDARY FILM (there's a mouthful) by W.K. Stratton.

The former is a Kafka bio in the form of a graphic novel. Surprisingly in-depth and accurate (i'm not usually a fan of graphic novels).

The latter is an anecdote-filled account of the making of the greatest western movie ever. I've read a lot about the picture (and seen it about a dozen times), but this book still had material in it that was new to me.

Both are recommended.

10mejix
mayo 20, 2019, 12:24 am

Just finished The First Voyage Around the World by Antonio Pigafetta, an account by one of the few sailors that survived that voyage. It's an odd book because it really doesn't give a lot of detail about the crucial events but will make the point of telling you about the typical foods in the places they visit. Some interesting moments though.

Also read Germania by Tacitus. It's amusing to see the Romans talking about the Germans as underdeveloped people.

Currently reading Berlin by Jason Lutes. This is a graphic novel about the period just before the rise of Hitler in Germany. Very ambitious, well researched, and so far very entertaining.

11KatrinkaV
mayo 21, 2019, 9:11 am

Finished Claude Simon's Conducting Bodies. Meh (review here: https://wp.me/p4LPys-mA). Very generally, more than a narrative or other sort of exploration of place/story/situation whose content was trying to convey a meaning or feeling or idea (even purpose), it seemed more like a challenge to carry out a literary trick over the course of almost 200 pages. Not an insignificant feat, but it left me not feeling very strongly one way or the other about it.

12dypaloh
mayo 21, 2019, 10:21 am

>10 mejix: Not just the Romans, either. Aristotle, in a passage that plausibly includes the Germans, wrote in his Politics that “The peoples of cold countries generally, and particularly those of Europe, are full of spirit, but deficient in skill and intelligence.”

13gravitysbook
mayo 21, 2019, 1:06 pm

>9 CliffBurns: Cliff, you may be disappointed to learn that Mel Gibson is remaking that extraordinary film . . .

14CliffBurns
mayo 21, 2019, 2:00 pm

#13--A drag, but in these derivative times, hardly surprising.

Originality and invention are two words rarely uttered in the environs of Hollywood.

15bluepiano
mayo 21, 2019, 5:55 pm

>10 mejix:, >11 KatrinkaV: Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for the books by Pigafetta and Simon. ('Keep an eye out for' = 'if I come across that title in 2nd-hand shop I'll recognise it & excitedly pull it down from the shelf so as to browse it'--certainly closer to 'I'll order it immediately' than to 'My goodness, doesn't that sound nice' said whilst stifling a yawn.)

Just finished The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau. Shows better than a biographer could say the occasional light-hearted, sociable side of Thoreau (though I prefer the prickly & unyielding earnest side) & bolsters my opinion that at his most polished he is stylistically the best writer I've read.

16mejix
mayo 21, 2019, 8:08 pm

>12 dypaloh:
Yikes. That's harsh. :)

>15 bluepiano:
Good luck!

17CliffBurns
mayo 25, 2019, 5:58 pm

Finished MAGIC IS DEAD, Ian Frisch's entertaining look at contemporary magicians. There's quite a split between old and new guard and the personalities of magicians turn out to be, predictably, eccentric and unique.

Recommended.

18Sandydog1
mayo 25, 2019, 9:42 pm

Finished Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell, dated, but the guy can write. 'A very accessible collection of education theory, sociology, government and politics, with a smattering of his trademark philosophy.

19BookConcierge
mayo 28, 2019, 12:53 pm


Fascism: A Warning – Madeleine Albright
Book on CD read by the author
4****

From the book jacket: The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions of innocent people dead. Given the horrors of that experience, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. Albright draws on her own experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her career as a diplomat to question that very assumption.

My reactions:
It’s said that those who refuse to study history are doomed to repeat it. I’ve studied some history, and yet I found much new information in this relatively slim volume.

Albright clearly, methodically and logically lays out the foundations to bring understanding of Fascism. She cites numerous examples, using not only right-wing but left-wing and centrist ideologies to illustrate the concepts and realities. The great takeaway for me was the way in which small, incremental changes to policy which are easily tolerated (even when not fully agreed with), add up and result in citizens finding themselves in a society they hardly recognize and with limited ability to return to an earlier model.

Albright narrated the audiobook herself. Her diction is clear and she sets a nice pace, giving the listener time to absorb concepts. However, I did sometimes repeat a track to ensure that I had fully understood. I think this book is probably best absorbed in a text format.

20CliffBurns
mayo 31, 2019, 2:12 am

Mistakenly posted to the wrong thread.

Never post while you're running around, doing yard work, watering the lawn, etc.

LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: ACCORDING TO SPIKE MILLIGAN over the last couple of days, giggling my way through it.

A bawdy send-up of a bawdy book.

Gad, what a mind Milligan had.

21KatrinkaV
Jun 1, 2019, 6:09 pm

For the love of all that is amazing, please go check out Ada Limón's The Carrying. I finally finished it last night, and think I'm going to have to read it over and over to get a handle on it. I did try to review it here: https://wp.me/p4LPys-mZ.