Turtle Diary | 
#DynamicDs Day 8: #Diary - I think I read this as part of the NYRB Book club at one point.
Whoops! I never finished my Book Bracket!
Olga Dies Dreaming won top billing in November. Aside from Young Hawkes, the dreamboat of a vicar in The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Matteo was the first character I found in a long time worthy of the title of Book Boyfriend!
Margo swept the latter part of the board, possibly because I just finished it and the love is brand-new.
But nothing beats the offbeat & lonely charm of Turtle Diary. 🐢
I made a little graphic (one for fic & one for nonfic) to share my favorite books of the year with friends on Instagram.
Some titles are missing due to collage-making constraints (most notably the cozy fantasies, like Legends & Lattes and The Spellshop, which fell lower down on my list) — but I love seeing the covers all together like this, as if they‘re friends!
#SchoolSpirit Day 17: #Diary - I remember finding this book exceedingly odd - until I realized just how profoundly sad the characters are. Posting in advance since traveling once more. 💕
Seeing all of my favorite fiction reads of the year (so far) all together like this just makes me smile.
Making little monthly visuals this year to keep track of what I‘ve read. Definitely got the idea here. 😉
JANUARY
(8 books)
Turtle Diary 4.75 ⭐️
Our Missing Hearts 4.5 ⭐️
Legends & Lattes 4 ⭐️
Muppets in Moscow 3.75 ⭐️
The Beginning of Everything 3.75 ⭐️
All Systems Red 3.25 ⭐️
The Plot 3.5 ⭐️
Things We Never Got Over 2.75 ⭐️
I tried to put the covers in order by rating but it seems that I liked The Plot a little more than I remembered!
pick“Nothing was different or better and I didn't think I was either, but I didn't mind being alive at the moment.“
On the surface, this is a book about two strangers who come together to free the sea turtles from the London Zoo. But really, that is just a catalyst for a thoughtful story about lonely people discovering their loneliness and perhaps finding a way to be a little less so. A genuine, human, quiet look at connection.
cont'd in comments
“I'll never cease to be amazed by the fact that people uncomfortable in themselves can give comfort to other people.“
This book is so unendingly quotable.
Photo has nothing to do with the book, just the lovely semi-frozen lake out behind my library from today's lunch break
Maybe our constant fear is that a generation of children will come along and say: "This is not a world, this is nothing, there's no way to live at all."
"I don't know whether I can keep going. A turtle doesn't have to decide every morning whether to keep on bothering, it just carries on. Maybe that's why man kills everything: envy."
"Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it like Ahab with the White Whale. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone. Even in matriarchal societies, I doubt there were ever female Beowulfs. Women lie with gods and demons but they don't go looking for monsters to fight with."
Art: Nicola Durrant
I said I wasn‘t going to do a bracket this year but…now that there‘s an option for bonus books? That changes everything (?)!
I‘m comfortable calling January, even with a few days left. Our Missing Hearts might very well end up being my bonus book for the quarter (thanks, @BarbaraJean !) but there‘s just no beating Turtle Diary.
And thanks to @CSeydel for the bracket design this year! 🥳
#ReadingBracket2024
pickTurtle Diary is an exemplary bit of quirk *and* craft, which is an unstoppable pairing. Don‘t be fooled: it‘s also quite literary and full of complicated, twin emotions like despair and hope. Hoban uses a stream of consciousness style to follow two despondent 40-something strangers. They become simultaneously obsessed with freeing the turtles at the zoo, wondering if by doing so they might somehow find & free themselves.
A new favorite.* 🌟
This is the second book to make me care about spiders. The first was Neil Gaiman‘s Anansi Boys.
This is the first book to make me *actually consider* getting a spider tattoo. I‘m floored. I hardly recognize myself. The power of good writing, am I write/right?!
I love, love, love this book. 🥹
“She needs no recognition, can recognize herself and spin a web wherever she may be.”
“Ocean. When I think that word, I want to be immersed in it and at the same time contain it all. Great green deeps of ocean. A medium of motion and being. And of course the sharks. Walking on the ground is not comparable to that underwater flying, green water touching every part.“
📸: Alison Bounce
“A turtle doesn't have to decide every morning whether to keep on bothering, it just carries on. Maybe that's why man kills everything: envy.”
“Maybe I'm just one of those people so accustomed to being miserable that they use the material of any situation to fuel their misery.”
I rarely underline passages, but this book was so quotable! I‘ve added some here because they‘re just GOOD. I also never use the quote function here on litsy but this book made me do it 😆
They won't stop killing the whales. They make dog- and cat-food out of them, face creams, lipstick. They kill the whales to feed the dogs so the dogs can shit on the pavement and the people can walk in it. A kind of natural cycle. Whales can navigate, echo-locate, sing, talk to one another but they can't get away from the harpoon guns. The International Whaling Commission is meeting here in London right now but they won't stop the killing...
pickI wish I had a better photo of this lovely little gem but I read it on my phone so it‘s a screenshot. An excellent reading experience featuring 2 lonely souls wandering around London who connect over turtles in the zoo. Sounds like a romantic comedy waiting to happen? Think again! I love that this was rather anticlimactic (often a negative way to describe a book but I mean it positively!) So quotable, so unexpected! Started off 2023 with a winner!
#12booksof2022
I had several standout reads in March, I mean in the first week I read The Sentence & Subdivision back-to-back. Both 5 star reads. Yet, it is this slim book that is only superficially about the environment that has stuck with me all year. A #nyrbbookclub selection that really packed a punch & the discussion at the end of the month was fantastic.
@andrew65
Inspirational Quote of the day
pickA quiet novel about two middle-aged Londoners. William has been merely existing as a bookseller since his family left. Neaera is a spinster suffering from ennui and writer's block. It‘s told in alternating diary entries which mirror each other, providing momentum until their lives intersect. As they plot to free zoo turtles, the act gets them out of a rut and forces them, in different ways, to connect, open up their lives, and let go of the past.
So different from what I thought it would be, but so good. If I were an underliner, there's so much I would have underlined in this one! And so affirming. We're all walking around with rich interior lives. We're all fixated by the oddest notions. Our existence echoes others in ways we can't imagine. We all need to connect and be a part of something, although when we do it will be weird and awkward and unexpected. #nyrbbookclub
pickThis was a wonderful read. A sweet story that didn‘t quite go the way you might think. I loved the striking difference between the inner dialogue and what the characters actually say out loud. I know I‘ve seen this movie before but I can‘t remember how close the movie is to the book. While reading the book I felt Harold Pinter sure got the movie dialogue right! I want to watch it again but can‘t find it streaming; I‘ll have to find the DVD. 5⭐️
pick#NYRBBookClub A book like this reminds you that no matter what circumstances you live in , people have a vibrant inner life . When I see animals in the zoo I enjoy it , yet part of me is screaming, free them, free them all! I enjoyed spending time w/ William G. & Neaera H. and I‘m glad Hoban didn‘t veer towards cliché that might have ruined this deeply felt story.Did I mention how much I love it when a character works in a bookstore?!?
#NYRBBookclub Feeling a bit seen by the author right now!😂
pickThis book made me so happy. I loved living in the heads of William G. & Neaera H. I loved their quirky, strange, melancholic, specific, misguided & wise observations about being a human on this earth. I loved that the book is about freeing turtles from the zoo AND isn't about freeing turtles from the zoo. I love that like the turtles, William & Neara are going to keep on swimming. I loved this book!
@vivastory @readordierachel #nyrbbookclub
pickLondoners William and Neaera form an unlikely bond over a shared interest in the sea turtles at the London Zoo. Will a madcap plan to free them into the ocean also launch them into a new chapter of their lives, or will they continue adrift? After reading mixed reviews of Hoban's novel I was caught off guard by how much I enjoyed it. The first section has minimal dialogue, but is compensated by the observations from our two quirky characters.👇
If a novel has minimal dialogue then I need observations from the POV of a memorable or quirky character to keep me engaged. TD is pulling through on that front so far. @readordierachel #NYRBBookClub
I totally get what William G.thinks about the weekend.Especially Sunday.
pickAt the start, this book & I almost didn't make it. I began reading it when multiple things were taking up my attention & all I could manage was a few pages before bed at night before crashing. Nothing about it really stuck in those early pages. I thought I would bail. But then, turtles & people collide. There's a lot said about this book: it's about middle-age, it's about loneliness. But I think of that Weeknd song I have stuck in my head:
#BookReport 11/22
I am completely back into my reading mojo fortunately and have read some very good books so far in March.
This week‘s books were all really good!
Fridays are half-days here in the UAE (we have a two and a half day weekend for always, yay) - so mango strawberry mojito it is! Still persisting with our current #NYRBBookClub but it is not making it easy for me. Couldn‘t connect with the characters and the story as yet.
"Everyone is the source of his or her kind of soup." ?Just a few pages in and I already feel like I will love this book and it might break my heart a bit.
#nyrbookclub @readordierachel @vivastory
Reviews are starting to post & it seems like the general consensus is good. Join @readordierachel & I on Sun. 3/27 @11 PST as we discuss! @BarbaraBB @catebutler @daena @arubabookwoman @emilyhaldi @quietjenn @sprainedbrain @mklong @youneverarrived @LeahBergen @Leftcoastzen @Liz_M @merelybookish @GatheringBooks @sarahbarnes @Reviewsbylola @batsy @Tanisha_A @Theaelizabet @Billypar
pickTwo lonely middle-aged Londoners, Neaera and William, become connected by their mutual desire to free the turtles from London Zoo. In each chapter one of them takes the reader along in their days and thoughts. It all comes back to the turtles, to human connections and to finding a place in the world for yourself. The book is funny and poignant, and I could keep on quoting from it. A wonderful read.
#NYRBBookClub #pop22 #TwoPOVs #Doublespin
KarenUK, Megabooks, Cinfhen, Cortg, readordierachel, vivastory, Laughterhp, alisiakae, TheAromaofBooks, RaeLovesToRead
pickI really can‘t decide if I like this book or not. It‘s not that it was so-so, it‘s not that. The dialogue is fantastic. The way the author evokes a complex feeling or approach to life is brilliant. I laughed at some of the scenes. I just never felt like I knew the characters or cared about them, or even got a feeling for their voices. Maybe that‘s the point. The turtles are clearly not the point. I liked the last 40 pages the best. #nyrbbookclub
I forgave Polperro, loved it for what it had been and what it now was, for its happiness and sorrow by the sea. I forgave myself for not loving it before, loved myself for loving it now. I forgave everybody everything,
For a book I wasn‘t loving, I sure am loving it in bits and pieces.
In-between is really where I feel best. Neither here nor there.‘
‘There isn‘t any in-between,‘ I said. ‘Any place you pass through is this moment‘s here. In-between is an illusion.‘
‘Thanks very much,‘ he said. ‘You‘ve just invalidated most of my life.‘
‘Mine as well,‘ I said.
