Strange Beasts of China | 
pickThis was certainly strange, weird and terrifying, as one gets the extremely uncomfortable realisation that the world in the book is not at all far off from our own.
The repetition of certain scenarios and key phrases worked surprisingly well for me, I had to put the book down several times to think about the conclusion of each chapter.
A bit late but originally a pick for #foodandlit China 🇨🇳 😅😂
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
pickTrue to its title, this was a strange little book. I think I loved the idea more than the execution, but overall I did enjoy it. There were quite a few points where the word choice felt a little jarring, but that's probably more to do with it being a translated work than anything.
I listened to the first half of this while working on a puzzle tonight… it‘s definitely strange, but I think I like it?
pickEach chapter in this strange novel is like a separate story & introduces another strange “beast”—they might have gills or a green belly, but “otherwise they were no different from human beings.” The narrator, a writer of fiction for newspapers, has a wonderfully wry voice and, by the end of the novel, all of the stories come together. Allegorical, dark & funny. Translation by Jeremy Tiang; audiobook read by Emily Woo Zeller.
“It‘s natural selection. Survival of the fittest. Anyway, they‘re just beasts, not humans.”
“I know. But their faces are the same as ours.” This was my Achilles heel, the reason I hadn‘t been able to become a zoologist, and ended up in the laughable, shameful profession of writer instead.
The ironclad rule of a newspaper fiction writer: Never leave out the romance.
pickI went into this expecting simple fairy tales, because it‘s very much written that way; simplistic and straight forward. What I didn‘t realize was the wonderful integration of so much more: a discussion on humanity, society, joy and heartache. A seamless blending of fantasy and reality. This was a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity of, and walked away with so much more.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The June theme for my book club is a book from a country you‘ve never read before. My choice is China and this cover just drew me in!
First #audiowalk of March. Still incredibly snowy but at least the weather's getting milder (-7 C). Listening to tagged book... it's slow going, but I'm hoping it'll pick up soon 😕
#20in4 #readathon @Andrew65
Finished The Roommate yesterday.
After an hour on the mat (going to have sore muscles tomorrow), now listening to Strange Beasts of China.
Also, wondering whether I should re-arrange my shelves and furniture.
so-soI found it very readable, but also quite... opaque. Things that were quite confusing were handled in very few words, while the themes were hammered home at the end -- I needed help the opposite way round!
Didn't quite work for me in the end, but reminded me of Ursula Le Guin's Changing Planes, which is a compliment since I loved that book.
I feel like I need a diagram to fully understand the joyous beast story -- I didn't quite follow the narrator's reasoning, and had to read back a bit to 'get' it. Oops. Maybe my brain's just asleep, or maybe it's the fact that it's in translation... 🤔
“You can‘t be sure that beasts aren‘t people, or that people aren‘t just another type of beast”
An amateur cryptozoologist/journalist is tracking down every kind of beast in China, to write about them, the Sacrificial Beasts, who can‘t seem to stop dying, the Lovable Beasts, who were genetically engineered, and so on. On this journey she realizes there may be more in common between humans and beasts than she thought, including herself.
pick"There is a city in the south that is full of beasts— beasts who rage and love, gather and leave, just as humans do."
That's the last line of this book, but not really a spoiler. A fantastical creation of beasts in a Chinese city through the eyes of a writer working with a scientist. The beasts blend in with humans and come in a variety of types. ↘️
pickThis was such a strange, fascinating book! Definitely felt foreign and fantastical and I loved that, being lost in a world so completely unfamiliar. Worth a read, (or a listen!) especially if you‘re a fan of translated fiction. Plus that cover is beyond stunning.
pickI feel like this book went a bit over my head, like there's a deeper meaning that I can see but fail to interpret. Or it may just be what it is and I'm over thinking it. It's a bunch of loosely interwoven stories held together by the narrator. I love the cover, which I took a terrible picture of.
pickWith a beautiful cover, a solid performance and a unique premise, I enjoyed this #audiobook in #translation. Structured as a bestiary, across the information and personal stories, a unifying narrative develops about the author of the stories that ties more and more of this together. Definitely different, I think this will be a good discussion starter - particularly for groups who want to bring in more global authors!
#AudioColoring
Every story is someone else's myth. Life holds no pleasant surprises for us, only nasty shocks.
He claimed they were relying on the placid natures of the sorrowful beasts, otherwise there'd have been a revolt long ago!
The City of the Dead was a place that, accord ing to legend, lay beneath Yong'an City..... Every mother scared her child with this horror story: 'Don't spend too long reading in the toilet, because while you're distracted, a soul might rise up through the pipes and possess your body. This gave us all a healthy fear of lingering in the toilet, and it was only when we grew up that we realised we'd been tricked.
