Starting my journey to the Tower.

#FantasyFebruary

I have finally gotten started on the #CosmereBuddyRead but as I read all of Part One in one evening, I should be able to catch up 😅 What can I say, I enjoy a good heist plot and I find the magic system refreshingly different. And it reads a lot faster than Dostoyevsky or my current non-fiction read 😆

😳 Yes, that seems like a good place to draw the line. In fact, it seems to me that the psychiatrists who performed that service, teaching torturers to suppress their feelings of guilt, were doing the exact opposite of what their mental health mandate ought to be!

"The very same people who had it constantly drummed into them that the only language they understood was that of force, now decided to express themselves with force . . . To the expression: 'All natives are the same, the colonized reply: 'All colonists are the same.'"
Given the brutality of colonization, expressions of explosive violence by the oppressed were, in his view, inevitable in the opening phase of a liberation war.

Don't you hate it when you read what you at first think is a four book series, but then it turns out it's supposed to be a seven book series and the last anyone heard book five was due last year? 😣 I binged so hard on this series, and while the romance was starting to feel rather formulaic, the overarching plot was just getting going, and it's rare that books make me LOL this much. I want book 5 damnit!

Starting another Dostoevsky.

My January #ReadYourKindle list comprised of 20 books I meant to read in 2024. Painstakingly put together with lots of fiddling and swearing in pic collage only to discover that the white background was meant for a photo and disappeared when I saved, so I ended up having to screenshot it instead. I need a different editing app. And a pair of glasses 🤦🏻‍♀️
@CBee

Why did I think this book would be dull and difficult? It is full of dark humour and melodrama. So many morally grey characters. Generous villains, women who have fallen morally or socially, fanatics, absurd conversations, drunkards, a hapless side-character hero, romance, obsession, paranoia, high creep factor, Poles & Germans, questions of nihilism and exceptionalism. And Raskolnikov is no Luigi, but aren't we still asking the ❓ from the pic?

Part Five - High drama in every chapter!
Raskolnikov is full of paranoid rage but also determined to confess, Luzhin is even more dastardly than expected, Katerina Ivanova is even madder than Raskolnikov, and Sonya is in a constant state of terror. We get the most overwrought death bed scene ever.

All of you slackers who were supposed to join in the #CAPbuddyread are missing out 😂

Crime & Punishment part 4
Dunya has way too many admirers, most of whom are creeps.
Raskolnikov decides that misery loves company and messes with the head of a woman who seriously has enough on her plate already. Then presents himself for the most absurd police interview.

#CaPBuddyRead

Since I'm doing the #CaPBuddyread (although it seems to have become a solo project) and Crime & Punishment should count as Crime In Translation, I figured I might as well join @RaeLovesToRead in her #ChristmasCrimeChallenge. I'm using the tagged book for Seasonal. (Murder takes place shortly after Hogmanay). I have an Agatha Christie and a Supernatural lined up, so if I can get a Recommendation I'll manage max no. of books without a Tic-Tac-Toe 😂

I'm having trouble getting into this book. I expected it to be about a mother trying to get to her baby after the Berlin Wall went up overnight and separated them. But the narrative not only jumps between the mother and her teenaged older child, it also keeps jumping back in time to the war as we get the mother's (increasingly traumatic) backstory. It might be a case of "not the right book for now", but I'm just not keen on the writing style.

#CAPBuddyRead update
Part 3.
Raskolnikov is still utterly unhinged, but now calm enough to fool people.
His sister is potentially in a budding triangle drama involving the tropes "age-gap" and "brother's best friend".
I keep mistaking Zamyotov for Zossimov.
Two new players make a mysterious appearance.
I'm at the 50% mark!

'Excited, afraid, homeless, fat, dying, but at least if we made that first step we had somewhere to go, we had a purpose. And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630-mile walk.'

'Although Pulcheria Alexandrova was already forty-three years old, her face still kept the remnants of its former beauty, and besides, she looked much younger than her age, as almost always happens with women who keep their clarity of spirit, the freshness of their impressions, and the honest, pure ardor of their hearts into old age.'

🙄 43. Old age. 🤨

#CAPBuddyRead

How are you all doing with the #CAPBuddyRead ?
I have read Part One, in which Raskolnikov is increasingly desperate and a thought experiment becomes a fixed idea. But the best laid plans etc
And Part Two, in which Raskolnikov suffers a nervous breakdown and delirium that would have had any English character of the era carted off to a private institution to die off page.
Now starting Part Three to discover if Raskolnikov gets a grip.

I did it!
As in, I finished this absolute tome of a history book and with it I reached my yearly goal of 12 non-fiction books. And there's even a month and a half left for me to add a couple more (much shorter and faster reads).
#NonFictionNovember #WomensPrize #NonFiction

I don't have the will or the energy to make a video, so here's my #Booker winner prediction and shortlist ranking:

Personal faves: James and Stone Yard Devotional
Quite liked: Orbital and The Safekeep
Don't think succeeded in what it set out to do: Creation Lake
Actively disliked: Held

Book I think will win: James or Held.
Sure hope it is James.

My #tbr this 24-hour #readathon
Plus the tagged book, which is on my kindle.
I'm halfway through 'Salem's Lot and would like to finish it this weekend, but I'll probably take breaks to read some of the other books.

'We imagine we would've been that person, the one who would've written the letter, who would've spoken out, would've hidden the Jews, would've provided the stop on the Underground Railroad.
We say this to ourselves as the world literally burns, as militarized police forces murder citizens, as children are held in camps at our own borders.'

I almost bailed 20 pages in. Glad I didn't. Is the prose excessively elaborate? Definitely. But once you settle into the narrative it works. The stories are so uncomfortable and brutal in content that plain language would render them too stark to bear. And the magical realism/SF combo allows for each idea to be followed to its extreme, but it also allows for hope. This book is female pain/love/rage/friendship/vengeance. But never despair.

And so, this politician of petulance and infant spite, this Grande Toddler King, had stamped his small feet until the whole world rippled around him. He closed all the borders to the country, and at first the algorithmic majority cheered, waving flags of tabloid front pages. It was too late by the time we realised that it meant we could not leave either.

"Gangs are a kind of grief. They begin as friendships and end as funerals. (...) Where there is poverty and cruelty, there will rise a gang. But they are chiefly cannibals, who target their own and eat their families, their girlfriends, their neighbours, their old classmates. They rarely attack those who are the cause of their sorrow."

So many people have raved about this book. I just started it and it is... Weird. Which normally I like, but this is both SF and magical realism, and it's not so much conceptually weird as poetically weird on a sentence level. On practically every sentence. I looked up the author bio and yes, she's a poet. Also a Spoken Word Artist. I don't know 😬 I don't tend to do well with poetic novels.

Found among the travelogues, this book from 1894: A Winter Jaunt to (that most exotic and daring destination, "hitherto (...) practically unknown to Englishmen") Norway in winter!

By Mrs Alec Tweedie (née Harley) - a woman without even a first name of her own, but possessed of wanderlust and a decent travel budget, (not to mention a brother already at her destination).

#Gladstones24

Every year at #GladstonesLibrary I come across at least one title that amuses me (or makes me cringe - I still haven't gotten over "Journeys Among the Gentle Japs")
This year I present to you: CHEAP TRACTS
Entertaining, moral and religious, (not to mention cheap) repository tracts - for the use of W. E. Gladstone's servants in 1833.

This is what happens when I spend a couple of days with fellow Littens. Suddenly I have seven new books and a pile of bookish swag 😂

#Gladstones24
#Bookhaul
#TBRimplosion
#INeedMoreBookshelves
#MyPretties

'At first I thought, to be a parent you have to be an idealist. Then I learnt that to be a parent is to be continually coming up against everything that is not ideal about you.'

This chapter about family dynamics, patriarchy, and women's (lack of) rights in India in the 20th century was both fascinating and horrifying. A reminder that for a really good chunk of history and a vast amount of human societies women have had a really effing rotten deal. Some of the case studies/examples were really difficult to read about. (But also, shout out to the OG Bandit Queen, Phoolan Devi. Badass to the max.)

I'm going in.
I aim to hopefully read at least a chapter per day. Actually started it last night, but only got through the Foreword and Translator's Note, then fell asleep. Hope that's not a sign 😅

I'm reading the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation. What's everyone else going with?
#CAPbuddyread

"Nobody wanted to be reminded of what was happening in other parts of the world. (...) To speak of the catastrophe was an offence under the new regulations. The rule was to choose not to know."

I liked this a lot more than I expected to! It had innovative storytelling and just the right amount of quirky and feral teen girl energy. Will it stand out in my mind a year from now? Probably not. But I really enjoyed my time with it. In all but the final match it was perhaps too easy to work out who would win based on how their story was told, but in the end that's not truly what the book is about.
(Personally I was #TeamWeirdHatEnergy)
#Booker

This book broke my heart. Brutal and beautiful. A drop of magical realism. Three lives separated in time and place, connected by a drop of water, the Tigris, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. I found it a bit hard to get into the present tense narration, but all three narratives gripped me. (Content warnings, but the most horrific events are off page and there's nothing gratuitous.) I fully expect to see this listed for the Women's Prize next year.

Entertaining political satire that juxtaposes cancel culture and laissez-faire capitalism and seems scarily not too far fetched. Does the end ever justify the means? To what extent would you sacrifice your principles if you could literally save the world? Does one bad deed erase your good? (And many other questions). Impressive debut; I look forward to his next book.

When you have the perfect bookmark for a book. 💙

The wording here! ?

"At the time of writing Sheikh Hasina is the prime minister of Bangladesh; but Mujib's death was followed by three military coups in quick succession."

Hasina was still PM at the time of publication, just, and the 5th coup in 50 years was more a student uprising (eventually) backed by the military. (And no assassination) Still, the way that sentence goes seems almost prescient.

I've still only read five, but I have to make a guess about the #Booker shortlist. 😅 I think the shortlist will be
James
My Friends
Stone Yard Devotional
This Strange Eventful History
The Safekeep
Orbital

But I've gone back and forth on this so many times 😂 The only ones I feel relatively sure about are James and My Friends.

My hold for My Friends finally came in. I've waited months! But I can't read it yet because the other two are due back. 😣

Actually, I'm sure both of them are great too, so what am I complaining about? 😂

#BookwormProblems

I have a theory that readers from continental Europe, unless they are quite young, clock the plot twist/part 3 reveal already in the first chapter. But I quite enjoyed it even though I spent the first half of the book frustrated with the MC. 😂 She was a thoroughly unlikeable character, and I loved getting to know why she was that way. Unlike some, I really liked the ending. I hope this gets shortlisted.
#Booker

This story of how war and loss reverberates through generations could have been powerful and poignant, but due to the choppy, episodic nature of the plot and the overwrought and pompous prose, it was mainly irritating, confusing, and dull. Those who click with the prose love it, so I guess it's a marmite book. The first #Booker 2024 that I actively dislike.

"Charming older men are 'silver foxes', but flirtatious middle-aged women are 'cougars'. Or, as my mother used to say, 'mutton dressed as lamb'. To be an older woman is to be fair game for ridicule. Your desire can be held against you, or worse, turned into a joke.

I am tired of being called a large cat or an old sheep or a female dog."

My latest crop of un-renewable library books. Two of them from the #Booker longlist. Breakdown is due back first, then the other three. Fortunately all are fairly short, but they are wildly different in font size and formatting. Are any of them really quick, fast paced reads? 😅 From what I've heard there seems a fair chance that I'll read 30 pages of Held and bail 🤪

I really enjoy this #Booker longlisted book about an Australian woman deciding to abandon everything to live amongst nuns. But even more than wondering why she's there, I've been wondering why does Richard Gittens keep hanging out with them as their self-appointed, unofficial handyman? 😆

My Booker reading is going nowhere this month, as I have to read books in the order that they are due back to the library. 😛
On the bright side, it pushed me to read these three books which are all excellent. I haven't finished The Coast Road yet, but unless the ending is terrible I predict five stars. I'm also pleasantly surprised at the skill and empathy with which the male author has written the female characters.

President Invective! ? No need to know in what year this is set in order to figure out who the President is.

"The sort of man whose unwavering assertions of his own genius competence had, to the American public, apparently overwhelmed all observable evidence to the contrary."

This was a good balance of funny and horrific, the narrator Lampo both a tragic hero and a bumbling fool. The tone was perhaps a bit too modern, Lampo sounded like an Irishman, but in a way it added to the sense of theatre. (Who knows what a potter in ancient Syracuse sounded like anyway?) And fortunately it is not (post-post-post?) modern in its ending. On the contrary, the final sentence makes you nod in agreement, fully satisfied with the story

Common sense is common, has no imagination, and it only works by precedent. It leaves the man who follows it poorer, if not in pocket, then in his heart. Fuck common sense.

1.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit
2The Island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.
3."I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?" said my brother's wife
4.Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square
5.When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake - not a very big one.

This was different, both in style and content. It made me quite emotional. A really quick read, easily done in one sitting.

I'm still reading Ducks, Newburyport (yes, still!) and decided I needed more mountain lion content. What better than the novella known as "the queer mountain lion book"? ? The Opening lines are promising.