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#hermanmelville
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shortsarahrose
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“Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville

“The Immortals” by Jorge Luis Borges

“Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway

And an honorable mention to “Super Human” by Nicola Yoon from the collection Fresh Ink that I recently read

dabbe #1: 🤩 “I would prefer not to.“
#'s 2 and 3: on the good ol' TBR! Thanks for sharing. 💚💙💚
7d
24 likes1 comment
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TracyReadsBooks
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I‘ve never been a huge fan of Melville‘s work BUT I‘ve never read any of his short stories which are supposed to be excellent. So, here goes. Let‘s see if these change my opinion…

#ReadingOnTheTrain #OutAndAbout

charl08 Gorgeous edition! 1mo
KCofKaysville @TracyReadsBooks My youngest sister hated Billy Budd which she had to read in HS. I really liked Bartleby and saw a short movie of it. Only made it half thru Moby Dick as a teen. Will try again! 1mo
TracyReadsBooks @KCofKaysville I really liked Bartleby a lot. Haven‘t gotten to Billy Budd yet. I‘m finding the stories surprisingly readable. Enjoying them perhaps even more than I expected! 4w
23 likes3 comments
review
merelybookish
Dayswork | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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Pickpick

Book 1 of 2024. I loved it. A book about Melville, yes. AND not a book about Melville. Also a book about Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, & "the biographer" of Melville. It's a book about making art, marriage, literary partnerships, literary reputations, literary scholarship. Oh, and the male ego. ? And about words, language, connection & why we read. No plot, weird, discursive, witty & self-aware. ☑️☑️☑️ So many of my ?

merelybookish boxes ticked. It has zero chance of winning the #tob24 but that's okay! So glad I read it. And it has made me eager to revisit Elizabeth Hardwick 3mo
kspenmoll This sounds intriguing! 3mo
Suet624 I thought I had stacked this already. Guess not. I‘m fascinated by those authors. 3mo
See All 13 Comments
batsy This sounds great. I haven't read Moby Dick and was wondering if that would make a difference in reading this. (I loved Sleepless Nights!) 3mo
squirrelbrain Great review! I really wasn‘t interested in this one, but you may have changed my mind…. 3mo
BarbaraBB Like @squirrelbrain I wasn‘t interested but you review is 🔥! And like @batsy I‘m curious if I should have read 3mo
merelybookish @kspenmoll It definitely is that! An odd book but I really enjoyed it. 3mo
merelybookish @Suet624 Then this is totally up your alley! 3mo
merelybookish @batsy @BarbaraBB I don't think you need to read Moby Dick to enjoy this. All his works (including ones I'd never heard of) are discussed and it didn't make me feel like I needed to read them. 😉 Quite the opposite actually. 🤪 3mo
merelybookish @squirrelbrain I can totally understand not wanting to read and/or enjoying this novel. But it's quite short and I found it quite amusing in places. I think it's worth a try. 3mo
batsy @merelybookish Lol! Thanks, that's good. I'm definitely likely to get around to this before Moby Dick 🐳 3mo
sarahbarnes That settles it, I‘m going to read this one. 😃 3mo
merelybookish @sarahbarnes Oh good! Curious if you will agree with the Ducks, Newburyport comparison. 3mo
65 likes7 stack adds13 comments
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breadnroses
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In the summer of 2022, I chanced upon a reference to CLR James‘ “Mariners” in Noel Ignatiev‘s posthumously released collection of essays. I was fascinated & so I resolved to read Moby Dick, which took me 4 months during that fall & winter. Almost exactly year after finishing Moby Dick, I‘ve finally read “Mariners” and I truly feel like I‘ve completed some sort of visionary quest. Full circle moment for sure!

batsy This actually sounds like a good book to read once I finally get around to Moby Dick. 3mo
breadnroses Moby Dick is my favorite novel, and I definitely recommend reading “Mariners” afterward! James‘s interpretation is very fresh, if not a bit stubborn, and the context in which he wrote it is fascinating. James penned this book while detained at Ellis Island, to protest his deportation & prove via his literary analysis of “the greatest American novel” that he was a worthy candidate for American citizenship 😯 @batsy 3mo
4 likes1 stack add2 comments
review
Jas16
Dayswork | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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Pickpick

I was oddly charmed by this book. I am not really a fan of Melville but I appreciated witnessing someone else‘s fanaticism for him. Set during the pandemic the narrator dives into various biographies and discusses his life, work, and different accountings of pivotal moments. As she contemplates Melville‘s marriage her own patient husband is the frequent recipient of her anecdotes and musings including late night texted pictures of moss. #tob24

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Addison_Reads
Dayswork: A Novel | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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Mehso-so

#tob24 long list

Moby Dick is one of my favorite books, so when I started this book about someone researching Melville, I was excited.

The good: I thought the story was unique and enjoyed the back and forth between Melville's life and the life of the main character. I was also a fan of how things became more blurred between what was real and what was research as the story unfolded.

The bad: For me, the big turn-off is not knowing what ⬇️⬇️

Addison_Reads information about Melville is actually true and what might have been sensationalized for the overall benefit of the story. 3mo
Graywacke Hmm. I might need a biography first. 🙂 3mo
Megabooks I felt like this was this year‘s ➡️ which frustrated me for the same reasons. 3mo
30 likes3 comments
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Megabooks
Dayswork: A Novel | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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If you are a fan of authors writing about the lives of other, more famous authors or you‘re a fan of Melville, Hawthorne, Robert Lowell, or Elizabeth Hardwick, you will love this #tob24 choice. I am not a fan of these authors, but I found the writing and approach witty and interesting. But in the end not my jam, so I gave it 3⭐️, but I can see why others are enjoying it more! I do want to pull out the Hardwick short stories I own now.

Hooked_on_books This is one that I don‘t plan to read unless it makes the shortlist. I could barely finish reading the description without my eyes crossing! 4mo
BarbaraBB I‘ll wait a bit too 😉 4mo
Megabooks @Hooked_on_books @BarbaraBB yeah, it was pretty dull if you don‘t love those authors. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 4mo
63 likes1 stack add3 comments
review
Deblovestoread
Dayswork: A Novel | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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Pickpick

I think maybe the universe is telling me I should read Moby Dick. Melville was featured in yesterday‘s read The Auburn Conference and is a main subject in today‘s. I listened to this one and that may have played a part in my low pick rating. It was kind of all over the place with research on Melville, commentary on the MC‘s life and marriage and random lists of info. Too scattered for my current attention span. #TOB24

squirrelbrain Great review, but another one I can‘t get hold of yet…. 4mo
51 likes1 comment
review
BkClubCare
Dayswork: A Novel | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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Pickpick

Immediately intense, provocative. Exquisite and daring! I really did enjoy this odd ODD list of stuff about Melville and other literary darlings, all somehow intoxicated with Melvillocity, in some way or another. Got a tad wearying, perhaps in the same way as some Melville scholar yapping too much, but that isn‘t right. Like bafflement and then awe and then,… what?! I learned a lot, I laughed quite a bit, and I am glad that I‘ve read Moby Dick.👇

BkClubCare (If you know “enough about” Moby Dick, should be sufficient.) 4mo
BkClubCare I am trying to tag everyone but I can‘t get the copy/paste to work?! This/thus we need hashtags… #TobFOLLOWERs (edited) 4mo
See All 17 Comments
BkClubCare @squirrelbrain - I can‘t seem to tag or copy/paste all the at-sign Litsians who might want to see this. How do you do it? 4mo
Megabooks Hey! I‘m just now listening to this, and as someone who has not read Moby Dick, I‘m not as enamored as you, but the writing is very good! 4mo
BkClubCare I heard that audio is NOT the best way to go with this - UNLESS, as the book is so evident— you want to share the interesting tidbits. Good luck. It‘s enough to know that Moby Dick is about chasing the whale and how much SO MANY (so many) people give it the GAN label. (GAN = Great American Novel) (edited) 4mo
Suet624 I always have trouble tagging these TOB postings. 4mo
Hooked_on_books This is one of a handful on the longlist that just didn‘t appeal to me at all. I‘ll give it a try if it makes the shortlist, but otherwise I don‘t plan to read it. It‘s great that it worked for you! 4mo
squirrelbrain I‘ve never read Moby Dick, and this is a difficult one to get hold of over here, so I may wait until the shortlist. 4mo
squirrelbrain I‘ve not add an issue with tagging anyone recently, although I know Litsy can be glitchy some (a lot!) of the time. Are you trying to tag on your main post - that‘s how I do it? Although when we do #camplitsy there are so many Littens to tag, we have a crib sheet and just copy and paste into the comments section. 4mo
BkClubCare @squirrelbrain TY, I am sure it is me 🤪 Thinking it should be easier makes it take twice as long. LOL 4mo
BkClubCare @Suet624 - soul sisters! 👯‍♀️ 4mo
BkClubCare @Hooked_on_books - 🥹 I didn‘t even look at what it was about. Nothin. If I get my hands on it, I try it. Crazy, huh? Tho, Bachelder as author gave me pause because I didn‘t really care for The Throwback Special, on the other hand, Haber is a poet so that intrigued me. ☺️ (edited) 4mo
BkClubCare @squirrelbrain - between the two of us, we might get them all sampled. (Probably not, I don‘t read that fast! But I was shocked to be the first to review this. 4mo
Hooked_on_books Quite frankly, I think that‘s a great way to be! 4mo
41 likes17 comments
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Megabooks
Dayswork: A Novel | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel
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Hey #tob24 readers! These books are both under $5 in the current sale on audible. 👍🏻 I didn‘t have another way to get them. It seems that all audible titles have some discount currently, but I haven‘t checked the whole #tob list because my library access is fairly good. There are three others I‘m considering in the $7 range. Sing Her Down, Bad Cree, and Brainwyrms. Any thoughts on whether those are worth it??

squirrelbrain I just bought Brainwyrms yesterday in a bookshop, but haven‘t got to it yet…. 4mo
Deblovestoread The Auburn Conference is free with membership and Monstrillo and The Red-Headed Pilgrim are also under $5. It‘s nice to have a few inexpensive audio choices. 💜 4mo
Megabooks @squirrelbrain very curious to read what you think! 4mo
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Megabooks @Deblovestoread just downloaded the Auburn conference!! Thank you. Fortunately my library has Monstrillo and TRHP is available on hoopla for those who have it. Hoopla has really come through on a lot of these picks! I‘m reading this on there now. 4mo
AlaMich I‘m bummed! I just checked this out and the sale is only available to Premium Plus members, as far as I can tell. I am on their Silver plan, which is a book every other month. 🙁 4mo
Megabooks @AlaMich boo!!! It‘s been different since they went to the tiered subscription model. 4mo
Megabooks FYI I‘ve decided just to get Bad Cree. The Brainwyrms narrator just didn‘t sound right to my ear, and I was really put off by the start of Sing. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 4mo
BarbaraBB You‘re so lucky with your libraries and those audio offers! 4mo
Megabooks @BarbaraBB yes, very lucky! I just finished this one on hoopla and I‘m not sure what to make of it. 4mo
BarbaraBB That‘s one I look forward to the most!! Still waiting for my copy 4mo
52 likes10 comments