NewDirections

Very stoked for this pile of library book holds that came in today!! 📚🎉🎁

Lesliereadsalot Read two of these already, two others ready to go! Looking forward to your thoughts! 1d

Suet624 Oh, I‘m excited for you. Two in that stack I really liked. 1d

TheKidUpstairs What a fab stack! You've got some wonderful reading ahead of you!!! I just got the tagged for jolabokaflod, and it sounds so good! Fault Lines is excellent, The Wilderness is great, and I enjoyed both the others (if that's Pt1, if it's a later part I haven't gotten to it yet). 1d

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Tamra Enjoy the Balle!! 19h

sarahbarnes @Lesliereadsalot which ones have you read? 18h

sarahbarnes @Suet624 that‘s great news. Which ones? 18h

sarahbarnes That‘s great to hear @TheKidUpstairs ! I loved Raven‘s other books. This is Pt 3 of Volume - I‘ve been waiting on it for awhile! 18h

sarahbarnes @Tamra I‘m so excited - I‘ve been waiting on it for awhile! 18h

BarbaraBB Great haul! I loved Fault Lines and On the Calculation of Volume! 16h

Suet624 Faultlines and the land in winter. 14h

Lesliereadsalot I‘ve read the first three of the On the Calculation of Volume series, can‘t tell which number you have there. And also The Land in Winter which I liked a lot. 12h

sarahbarnes @BarbaraBB I picked up Fault Lines because of you! 😘 9h

BarbaraBB 🤞🏽🤞🏽 9h

youneverarrived The last 4 all on my tbr. Enjoy 🤍 3h

26 likes14 comments

TheKidUpstairs

The Wax Child | Olga Ravn

Happy #jolabokaflod Everyone! 🎉 🥂

@StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego Thank you so much for this amazing jolabokaflod package! You have spoiled me with chocolate, and I am SO excited for this book. Ravn's The Employees was one of my favourites a couple years back, and this new one sounds so good.

lil1inblue 💚 ❤ 💚 1w

sarahbarnes I am so excited to read this book! Great gift! 7d

48 likes1 stack add2 comments

Graywacke

Chasing Homer | L�szl� Krasznahorkai

pick

I dipped my toe into our latest Nobel winner. Yeah, long sentences with no clear purpose until later. This is a short playful one on the anxiety of fleeing. Just fleeing. No cause, no identity other than Croatian ports. No explanation until the very end. I struggled a little. I was entertained. I‘m a little intimidated about reading more by him. This one is a collaboration with illustrator and a musician.

sarahbarnes I really enjoy his writing, even though it can be work to read it at times. You‘re always rewarded by wit and dark humor when the end of one of those sentences lands. 1mo

Graywacke @sarahbarnes that‘s encouraging and nice to know. What have you read? 1mo

sarahbarnes I‘ve read a few - I liked Satantango and Melancholy of Resistance. And I‘m hoping to finish this one before the end of the year:

Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming

1mo

Graywacke @sarahbarnes thanks! ❤️ 1mo

55 likes4 comments

Pinta

Sublunar | Harald Voetmann

so-so

Tycho Brahe: glutton, tyrant, star gazer, genius, friend to alchemists & fortune tellers. Private island. Prosthetic nose. Weather. Lots of weather. Trans. 2023

20 “the most illustrious noseless man of our time.”

43 “I have discerned the secrets of the universe from this soup tureen of a country during the brief and rare moments when the lid was raised and heaven could be espied.”

104 “We are created from the same fire as these distant lights.”

11 likes

Decalino

Spadework for a Palace | L�szl� Krasznahorkai

pick

This brief, surreal novella consists mostly of a few extraordinarily long run-on sentences, which makes for a strangely propulsive galloping pace. The narrator is a librarian named "herman melvill," obsessed with the author of the same name, as well as author Malcolm Lowry and architect Lebbeus Woods, and the idea of a Permanently Closed Library. His descent into madness is strangely compelling, although I couldn't tell you what it means.

19 likes

AnneCecilie

The Old Child & Other Stories | Jenny Erpenbeck

pick

My Norwegian edition contains only The Old Child so I don‘t know what stories are included in the English edition

This is Erpenbeck‘s debut story from 1999 and it‘s considerably shorter than the other books I‘ve read by her

A girl is found on the street and no one knows who she is, so she‘s placed at an orphanage. She‘s an outsider there, and she‘s trying to figure out how things work

The ending was a little weird, so if anyone has read this,

AnneCecilie I would love to discuss that 2mo

BarbaraBB I have to find this book. Have enjoyed Erpenbeck before. 2mo

39 likes1 stack add2 comments

Graywacke

A Leopard-Skin Hat | Anne Serre

pick

Anne Serre‘s novel is partly a response to her sister‘s death. This is a character study that plays games with the narrator… or The Narrator. It‘s wonderful in language, but a little lacking in reader drive. I enjoyed it enough and… it completes my read through the 2025 International #Booker Longlist! #IB2025

I will add my personal ranking of all 13 books in the comments. But leave off my quirky reasoning. Feel free to ask questions, though.

Graywacke Personal IB Longlist ranking

1. On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle
2. On a Woman‘s Madness by Astrid Roemer
3. Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu
4. Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
5. Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq
6. There‘s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem
7. Eurotrash by Christian Kracht 6mo

Graywacke 8. Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix
9. A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre
10. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
11. Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
12. The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem
13. Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda 6mo

Graywacke I liked the list and yet also didn't completely fall in love with anything. The closest I came to true love was with On the Calculation of Volume I. I liked that book because if I were a writer, it's the kind of free creative setting and atmosphere I can imagine trying to create and work with. And that is very meaningful to me. But every book on this list was very good. 👇 (edited) 6mo

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Graywacke Nothing felt overly simple, or offensively poorly thought-out, or pointlessly eccentric or affected. There were a lot of human elements, things I can mentally link into. The weakest book to me included some exceptionally strong elements. So, for me, a solid list, if without a wow. I didn‘t actually give everything four stars - but I think of it as a four star list top to bottom. 6mo

Graywacke @AnneCecilie @BarbaraBB @BookishTrish @Leniverse @Suet624 @TheKidUpstairs 6mo

Suet624 I‘m curious to read #2 and #5. I tried #1 and had to stop reading it. I wish I could have connected more with it. 6mo

Graywacke @Suet624 both are excellent. But #2 gets a lot of DNF comments. It‘s a little challenging to read. But it has so much energy. And i loved that aspect 6mo

Graywacke @vikaplus321 6mo

Suet624 Thanks. Congrats on making it through the whole list. 6mo

Graywacke @Suet624 it feels good 🙂 6mo

Leniverse Well done on completing the whole list! (And just in time for the regular Booker too 😂) 6mo

Graywacke @Leniverse i know! But I‘m excited for the main Booker. 6mo

sarahbarnes Congrats! I‘m still waiting on copies of a few from the library, including the winner. I loved Volume as well and also read the second in the series. I‘d probably put Big Bird and Perfection on the list to round out my top three of the ones I‘ve read. 6mo

Graywacke @sarahbarnes i think Big Bird might be to taste. Not sure. Perfection was really well written. 6mo

48 likes14 comments

Graywacke

A Leopard-Skin Hat | Anne Serre

Started this. And it will complete my reading through this year‘s International Booker longlist - the 1st i will have done this.

#booker #IB2025

BarbaraBB So good you read them all! 6mo

Graywacke @BarbaraBB I‘m really happy about this 6mo

BarbaraBB You should be! I loved this year‘s IB longlist. Now it‘s fingers crossed for the Booker one. Will you read that one as well? 6mo

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Graywacke @BarbaraBB definitely! And the options look amazing. I think they have an opportunity for an especially good longlist. Of course judges are weird. 😆 6mo

BarbaraBB I don‘t dare doing any predictions! Can‘t wait for the longlist! 6mo

Graywacke @BarbaraBB July 29 🥰 6mo

41 likes6 comments

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