Another book I‘ve been reading from the International #Booker longlist. Originally written in Kannadan, it‘s a muslim-Indian perspective. It‘s been terrific so far. #IB2025

My 8th from the #Booker longlist comes from a Mexican activist. She tells us, in her best and last story, that a woman is murdered in Mexico every two hours and twenty-five minutes. I liked the last story a lot. Most of the other stories - confident unreflective irreverent voices - sounded too much the same to me. But a good collection overall and an easy read. #IB2025

This is a library book i‘ve been working through. I won‘t make it to the end, at 780 pages. But I enjoyed the William Blake section, and I‘m now reading the William Wordsworth section. All new to me, other than Tyger Tyger, burning bright…

My current audiobook. I started this past week. The author, John Higgs, seems like a character, with many talents. He‘s really into and excited about the psychology of Blake, who was very much interested in his own vision and the visual world of his own mind. It‘s been fun. I read some Blake poetry along with this, and he has really added to my (still limited) understanding.

I‘m working through some Booker listed books i‘ve own. This is the 1999 winner, and probably Coetzee‘s most well-known work.

It‘s fantastic, unsettling, dark. Lit prof David Lurie sleeps around, and a maybe rape of a student ends his career in disgrace. His Dantean hell is to go to his daughter‘s farm. He loves his daughter. What happens there parallels his own crimes. Coetzee keeps it moving, keeps the reader glued and surprised. Fantastic.

This made the WP for Nonfiction shortlist. It‘s a half-story style journalist‘s narrative. I mean, she goes into detail on her four subjects, all born around 1990, but they can‘t be exactly representative. The are just some women she managed to meet who were successful, most coming from impoverished rural backgrounds and ending up successful urbanites. They‘re a window into this brief era of Chinese social mobility. Important, but incomplete.

I loved this book. It‘s a literary look at Surname around 1980. The main characters is a Jewish-African mixed-race. She leaves her black husband after nine days and goes to the capital to some wild affairs. The language captures the lush surroundings, but it leaves gaps the reader has to fill in. I loved that. Negative capability with intent. It works. #booker #IB2025

Starting this today. Feels like a big deal.

I spent 5.5 months working in this. Piers is important historically, both linguistically and politically. When the peasants revolted in 1381, this work, with its commoner plowman religious hero, was cited. It was popular amongst the underclasses (even if they were largely illiterate). Intellectually it‘s interesting in that it‘s inconclusive. Our author never resolves his issues. But, artistically it‘s only ok. It was work. I‘m glad I‘m done.

Phew. My 5th book from the International #Booker longlist took some time, and some perseverance. It flows, it‘s just keep going. A schoolteacher learns of the layout of electrical solenoids connecting through Bucharest, becomes a mite messiah, floats two feet over his bed loses his way in every building, and turns into something like a sperm. Dear reader, you're left to decide what to make of this.
#IB2025

Another translator of that Horace collection I recently read. Hine was a Canadian poet and kept his homosexuality in the closet for most of his life. coming out in the late 1980's. As a poet, he was the epitome of form. He‘s always clean and striking linguistically. It wasn't always emotionally understandable to me, but when I got in tune, it was really interesting to see how he did things. A quick, entertaining later collection of his.

I liked this book enough that it‘s tough to review here. There is just too much I want to talk about. Shakespeare, Richard II, king at 10, riding out amongst the mob of the Peasants Revolt in 1381, his disinterest in his country, and quest for absolute power. Henry IV, who usurped the throne, was his cousin, the same age, and loyal until he felt threatened. Also - Richard was never insane. An awesome book on the Women‘s Prize longlist.

This is part of an experiment for me. Kizer contributed to a translations of Horace's Odes that I recently read. This is a later collection of hers. The poetry is much more about story and its impact than form, which tends to be free. They‘re are narrative, meaningful, easy to read and satisfying. I enjoyed her quieter feminism. It was a nice introduction to Kizer.

This book from a Suriname-Dutch author was originally published in Dutch in 1982. It was 1st translated to English in 2023, and this year made the 2025 International #Booker longlist. I just started. The language is rich.
#IB2025

I read this today. Took 2 hours. My 6th from the International #Booker longlist. It‘s highly regarded.

A heavily disabled woman, with a muscular disorder, dependent on helpers and a ventilator, writes pornographic romances under a pen-name. This is about her looking at her life, and ableist biases, even on book reading, and at her own desires. Unsettling and provoking.
#IB2025

This 1976 poetry collection packs some punch up front. I just started this morning.

New audiobook, also my 3rd from the Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction longlist. I‘m enjoying it so far. A couple of these girls grew up on SW china in their rural villages with just their grandparents. Their parents were far from home trying to make a living. I saw villages like these in the mid 1990‘s - hordes of kids with some elderly farmers. No one of parent age.

Trying a second of my new poetry books. Hine was a late 20th century poet of form. He wrote a long poem of being gay in the 1970‘s, and didn‘t publish it for two decades. This is a 1991 collection, apparently an important later collection of his.

Tough one for Jewish me to review. The premise is that all the Arabs in Israel disappear. So we follow a Jewish reporter who breaks into his disappeared Palestinian friend‘s apartment, and finds and starts reading his diary about the Palestinian history in Jaffa. Reading a Palestinian diary through an uninvited Israeli reader echoes the colonialist theme brought up throughout the novel.

Lulu Miller, of NPR, is an excellent writer and reader. This book feels like a high energy NPR story. And I would like to tell you how wonderful it is, but it does have issues. It is entertaining throughout, and she touches on the meaning of life and the MAGA mentality, and her personal life, while providing a biography of pioneering American fish taxonomist and eugenicist (!) David Star Jordan. (Also, fish do exist)

Several contemporary (2002) poets translating Horace's Odes freely. All must have some knowledge of Latin. All were born from ~1920 to ~1965. So a bunch of older classically inclined poets. Each translation is a combination of Horace's and the poet's meanings. Overall it leaves an interesting impression, and I enjoyed that. I‘ve been working through this since Jan 13, a little bit each morning.

Next international #booker book. I‘m about 20% in - it‘s long. #IB2025

Dystopian feel, with pared down prose and a lot mystery. Eventually we figure out we're in some future with a much smaller population of humanity. And we're within an unnatural system where no one seems to understand the controls. [The Giver] was always on my mind. This is is a bit of a puzzle to put together.

I liked it. I liked the pared down prose and curiosity build-up.

#booker #IB2025 No. 3

I waited 14 years to read this not-difficult book. Sigh.

This tries to capture a transitional era in the sciences, ~1800, when science and the arts were closely linked and science was a wide-open field for adventure, but was also becoming formalized, and a far more stringent field. (The steampunk era? 🙂) But Holmes approach is pure biography (of people instead of ideas). I was entertained. This is an easy, wonderful listen.

My second from the 2025 #IB2025 longlist.

It's that funny-not-funny-but-still-funny serious-not-serious-very-serious sort of satire - here on the dark history of Europe from the heirs.

But it becomes a bonding road trip, and a series of conversations and a character study of senile mom. This not only works but was thoroughly entertaining, especially because of mom‘s occasional sharpness. Comically heartwarming? Maybe. I enjoyed it. #booker

My new audiobook - and my second from the 2025 Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction. Lots of Shakespeare in the introduction 🥰

Starting a newly acquired poetry book. It‘s signed, and I‘m clumsy, so I‘m trying to keep it protected. But i do remove the plastic to read it. 🙂

My next international booker read.
#booker #IB2025

Tara Selter is stuck in November 18. That is every day when she wakes up its 11/18 (or 18/11 🇬🇧) , and everything repeats itself - the rainy weather near Lille, France, the sky, and people who wake fresh to their first 11/18, with no memory of the previous 11/18s.

It‘s a very curious book, with terrific atmosphere and yet many unanswered questions. It‘s the kind of book that makes me want to try writing.

#booker #IB2025

Frank Reid and 1913 Moscow. Penny has a way. Frank is a curious character, tolerant of everything. When his wife leaves the country without warning, taking the three kids and then sending them back, however much it was killing him inside, he continues along independent, making terrible decisions, while remaining tolerant of all collapsing Russia‘s foibles. A fantastic little novel.

New audiobook I started today (it‘s on the Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction longlist)

Working ok this one. #booker #IB2025

I felt fascinated but confused the 1st time I read this. I had sympathy for narrator, but some serious doubts. I reread it to try to get some clarity, but found it equally opaque. Now i see a path of evil intent by our narrator. But i couldn‘t pin her down. She‘s hiding herself. In interviews the author says she wants readers to finish the book with questions, not answers. I have more questions upon rereading. The book is brilliant, by the way.

Starting this. Anyone else reading the International Booker longlist?

@rmaclean4 @squirrelbrain @Leniverse @JamieArc @BarbaraBB @jlhammar @AnnaCecilie @JenP @TheKidUpstairs @charl08 @BookishTrish @Suet624 ??

#booker #IB2025

Wharton never finished this, and she never reached the really dramatic parts she sketched out in her synopsis. The title refers to rich American young girls who in the 1870's raided the English nobility for marriages like pirates. We follow 5 girls rejected by NY society. One, Nan, has a special governess who advises they go to England. They all do and we get to a darker part of the story before the manuscript stops.
#whartonbuddyread

This was my first time reading Woolf's fiction. It's a famous one to start with. It was challenging, hard to maintain concentration because there is no plot drive, hard to make sense of. The prose is rhythmic, sometimes feels like a poem, and I read it best when I applied a rhythm to my reading. And, I've been thinking about it ever since I finished. She leaves a lot to think about.

Care of my library, I started this today (amongst everything else I‘m reading)

As the world collapses, I‘m getting my Penny fix. 1913 Moscow - so, not exactly a more hopeful time.

I don‘t know exactly why I‘m reading this. It‘s heavily religious (and anti-materialist). I‘m not religious in this kind of way at all. But it appeared. A selection of quotes for each day. So I‘ve been page through, trying to catch up to today.

The Buccaneers - the unwritten conclusion
- #whartonbuddyread

Wharton never finished this. Her manuscript ends with Book 3. She had written a synopsis and others have filled in completions.

I found my copy‘s completion unreadable. I read 8 pages and quit.

I think the synopsis changes and reveals themes. The book is no longer about a playful clash of cultures, but about love struggles, sacrifice and loneliness. Themes Wharton lived. Thoughts?

Starting this 1942 novel. Opening 21 pages are terrific.

My new audiobook, selected to carry me far away from the daily catastrophic news. Three hours there is a whole lot on 18th-century botanist Joseph Banks.

Hmm. Does it work? This novel is actually two separate stories in each in a kind of distinct contrast. Chapters alternate. One is a medical student who abandons his career to run off with a married woman. The other is a convict who gets lost during the 1927 Mississippi flood, and finds himself floating alone in a small boat with a woman in labor.

These stories are ok, but really only for Faulkner completists.

I love Deborah Levy. She's always a little absurd and it's always entertaining. This is her first of several memoirs, covering mainly her time in South Africa while her father was imprisoned for about five years for speaking against Apartheid, and then some of her time in England.

I want to read her other memoirs, but this will be the only one I listen to (free on audible). I didn‘t like the reader.

Hollinghurst, the gay author, is a beautiful, elegant, paced writer. And this audiobook is read perfectly. But, whoa, slow. David Winn has many layers of separation between his single mother home, half-Burmese appearance, gay sexuality, and those of wealthy, elite-school classmates. The book keeps going through his 1970‘s acting career, many relationships, and on to covid. A little too much too slowly for this listener. But I liked the style.

This was my January book. It‘s a chunk and it‘s slow, and has a massive amount of research (which Byatt said was rewarding). The book takes English children of the 1870‘s, born into the liberal artistic intellectual world of the Fabian Society, and carries us with them through WWI, after which they are clearly no longer children. I adored this massive thing and its vast spread across 50 characters. I read it with a Booker group on fb.

The Buccaneers - Book 3
#whartonbuddyread

Ok, 1st of all, I didn‘t see that marriage happening. What a devastating way to open book 3.

2nd - that‘s the end of Wharton‘s draft.

3rd - but she also left a synopsis. So we know what is going to happen. But that‘s looking ahead.

4th - so, Book 3 - thoughts on Longlands, Ushant, Dowager, Thwarte, Conchita, Testvalley, Lizzy Robinson?

5th - completion plan next week. See comments.

The ruins of Tintagel castle in Cornwall

The Buccaneers - Book 2
#whartonbuddyread

Scene switch: We‘re in England, and new American wealth collides with English heirs. Nan has romantic interludes. Lady Churt confronts Seadown and Virginia. Then, Tintagle confronts Testvalley. What would you have liked Testvalley to say?

Where are you all with this, within your Wharton mindset?

I‘ve been working through this as i‘ve had time. I might have finally gotten to the point of enjoying it. The first 150 pages were not all that fun.

Reading my first Woolf novel.

Here‘s an early quote:
Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests…