Kate’s Reading Journal 2025

My reading has had a slow start this year, but better late than never.

This is my third year in CR but I’ve been an avid year for as long as I can remember. I’ve written a short blurb about myself in Introductions, and my last 2024 thread can be found at Kate Keeps on.
Since November 2024 I’ve struggled with my reading due to physical and emotional issues. But I’m back, with many unfinished books awaiting a return.

I am glad to be back with my old CR friends and will be updating my reading journey though probably not at the same pace as in 2024.

Stats

Gender
Male 5
Female 10
Non Binary

Country
Australia 2
Argentina 1
England 2
Ireland 1
Italy 1
America 1
Japan 1
Chile 1
Welsh 1
Switzerland
Canada
Denmark

Blank

I'm glad you decided to create a thread, Kate. Happy 2025!

I’m happy to see your thread. Welcome Kate

Yay Kate! So happy to see you back. Looking forward to your thread.

>6 rasdhar: Thanks Rasdhar. I’ve missed being able to post and it’s still difficult. But I’ve been following your thread and saw that you had a short trip to Australia. I hope you enjoyed your time there and didn’t come across too many bogans.

>5 dchaikin: Thanks Dan. I enjoy baiting you too much to stay away! 😉

>4 labfs39: Thanks Lisa. It’s good to be back.

This month I seem to have my reading mojo back. Two books did the trick in opposite ways.

The Passengers by John Mars was a light plot-driven read intended to keep me going to its end. It’s typical John Mars plot based on an interesting tech concept - in this case driverless cars - with a few twists and turns to keep the reader interested. He’s not a great writer but he does have some interesting ideas about how current tech could be applied to the future.

Recommended for people sunbathing at the beach, or convalescing. Oh I’m being a bit mean, but it is a pity Mars isn’t a better writer as his ideas are clever and his execution above average.

The other book is The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright. It’s beautifully written and almost plotless. The prose is so lyrical I keep putting it aside in order to appreciate what I just read. I intend to review it later - I haven’t quite finished it. It’s a book that while reading, you come to like the writer, to have an affinity with the person who created the gem of the book you have the privilege of reading.

>7 kjuliff: yay kate good to see you back

>7 kjuliff: I won't deny that academia has bogans - but I didn't meet any on this trip, which was just for several academic conferences back to back. Unfortunately, because of the compressed schedule I didn't manage to get to be a tourist and go see stuff, but I somehow managed to visit five bookshops (not counting the university bookshop) and came back with several kilos of books, so no complaints from me :) I hope that I can go back one day and actually spend time there.

>8 kjuliff: Making a note of John Marrs - I'm up for a reasonably written thriller anytime.

>9 cindydavid4: I haven't read any Anne Enright, you make it seem so tempting. Looking forward to your review as and when you get around to it - but no pressure!

I've really enjoyed the books by Anne Enright that I've read, enough so that I've picked up a few more.

Hi Kate! I'm just stopping in to wish you a wonderful 2025.

>7 kjuliff: lol

>8 kjuliff: lovely comment on The Wren, the Wren

Hi Kate! Great to see you up and reading (and posting!) again.

>14 rocketjk: I fear it may be short-lived. My eyesight is so bad and I can’t see what I type as I type. Voice to text needs too much editing, and saying my thoughts out-loud doesn’t make for a structured review or long post.

But thanks for the encouragement.!

Hi Kate, good to see you here. Just to say—despite those obstacles, your comments are always clear and well worded, and I like reading your take on things.

>16 lisapeet: Thanks Lisa. I really want to review next Elena Knows by Argentinean writer Claudia Piñeiro. It was recommended by a CR member last year but now I can’t remember who. So to that person, hopefully you’ll see this and get my big thank you.

Thank you again Lisa for your encouraging comments.

I'm sorry that your eyesight is so bad, but I second Lisa in saying that I enjoy reading your posts and reviews. You add a lot to this group.

>17 kjuliff: I know Simone2 really loved Elena Knows and Willoyd and dianeham also read it.

>18 Trifolia: Thanks for the encouragement. It really helps keep me motivated.
>19 ELiz_M: Yes I think you are correct I have Simone’s thread stared. She’s reviewed some very interesting books.

Trapped in a Body


Elena Knows
Claudia Piñeiro
Media 🎧

One would not normally find this book to be one that broke an “unable to concentrate” phase, but I was engrossed in Elena Knows from its very beginning.

Elena Knows. Knows what? At first I thought the title was a weird translation from Argentinian Spanish, but no, it’s spot on. Elena sabe.

Elena is severely physically disabled from Parkinson’s disease. She can barely walk and her whole body is disfigured. The most disabled for normal everyday functioning is the painful walking, difficulty in eating, the constant unattractive drooling, and the inability to raise her head which is forever tilted down. She can’t see faces, and people turn away from hers.

Elena needs 24 hour care. She can manage tasks like shopping but it’s a huge effort. She’s aware like all of us, of how people see her. She’s looked after by her daughter Rita who has assisted her in daily living. Rita is cold and we feel she’s doing the care from duty rather than love.

When the book starts we realize that Rita has died. She was the found hanging from a rope in the local church’s belfry and the police, her priest, and every one in her suburb of Buenos Aires assume suicide. But Elena knows otherwise.

Elena believes that Rita was murdered. There had been a thunderstorm that day and Rita had been suspicious of storms and would never go to church in the middle of one. Elenor begins to investigate the true cause of Rita’s death. Elena knows.

Throughout the book there are flashbacks to life before Rita’s death. We learn of an act of well-intended kindness to a young woman and of a fraught vacation of Elena and Rita, both years before Elena’s Parkinson’s had developed. We learn details of the two women’s domestic life coping with the debilitating effects of the disease.

Elena’s investigation is relentless. Despite her disabilities Elena is determined to find the real cause of her daughter’s death. It involves a grueling trip across the capital all alone, to a house she knows only by a single sighting decades ago. As Elena cannot see straight ahead or move with ease, we feel her pain as she struggles to use trains and taxis.

To go further into the plot would spoil the book for first-time readers. This is not a simple story of one woman’s struggle with Parkinson’s. Written before abortion was legalized in Argentina in 2020 , the issue of women’s bodies and their ownership, hover in the background as sub-text.

Claudia Piñeiro is known in Argentina as the Queen of Crime writers, but Elena Knows is not your typical crime novel. It’s confronting, disturbing and sheds light on western society’s treatment of the aged and disabled. We have to read to the very end to find the crime, or if there was one. Eleano knows. Or does she?

Highly recommended with 4.5 stars.

>21 kjuliff: That sounds fantastic.

>21 kjuliff: Great review of Elena Knows, Kate. I agree, it was an outstanding book, and I also gave it 4.5 stars.

>21 kjuliff: Wow that does sound excellent Another BB hit

Me fourth.

>21 kjuliff: If Elena Knows wasn't already on my wish list, it would be now.

Elena Knows sounds really good, Kate. Need to check the library for a copy.

Oh I'm delighted to find your thread, Kate. I feared you'd decided not to do one this year due to your eyesight. Great first review!

>28 AlisonY: Thanks for your comment Alison. I am going to try to review books but I’ll not be able to review in as much detail. For some like The Passengers I’ll just make notes as in >9 cindydavid4: .
I’ll try to review The Wren. The Wren soon. It didn’t turn out as well as I expected after a few pages. But its prose is outstanding and it’s well worth a review.

I could write more if there was a “save” function, but having to transcribe it in one go is exhausting and merely transcribing now takes between one to two hours. And of course I need be able to do other things in that time slice. My sight has declined a lot I the last six months.

>22 RidgewayGirl:, >23 kidzdoc:, >24 cindydavid4:, >25 LolaWalser:, >26 labfs39: thank for the encouragement. It’s important that I keep trying and knowing the reviews have been read is really helpfull.

>29 kjuliff: I think there's a thread somewhere in LT where you can request enhancements to go into the development roadmap. Your save function request sounds like a good one, as I think we've all lost in progress reviews at some point (but obviously much more impacting in your circumstances),

Good to see you active on here anyway.

>30 AlisonY: I already did that but Tim didn’t like for “Talk” posts. My request - link - Posting made easier did get a lot of comments though, mostly negative. Tim doesn’t like long posts and the vast majority did not support it, seeing no need. I remember Joe / @JoeB1934 and Cindy / @ cindydavid4 supported my suggestion but no one else from CR seemed to be involved.

It’s good to be back with my own thread anyway Alison.

>21 kjuliff: fantastic review of Elena Knows. I might have to check this out. (I thumbed your review)

>32 dchaikin: Thanks Dan. It’s a great book and I wish more of Claudia Piñeiro’s books were available in English and audio format. And thanks for thumbing my review, I think you may be my first.

I as I introduced to Elena Knows by @Simone2 and have enjoyed many a book she’s posted about. But I can’t seem to find her thread this year. Or does she have one?

Where are you @Simone2 ? I need you!

>33 kjuliff: I don't think she has one yet, Kate, or at least not on Club Read, although she's been posting.

>34 labfs39: Thanks, I’ll watch out for her posts.

>21 kjuliff: You hit me with a bullet here, Kate.

>29 kjuliff: I could write more if there was a “save” function

One thing that works in this case is to write it up in a Word document or equivalent. You can write at your leisure in Word, saving as you go, taking breaks, and then just copy it to your thread when you're finished. You're still only actually "writing" it out once.

>37 SassyLassy: Yep. I use Google Docs to compose my reviews or long messages, after one too many episodes when a long review disappeared.

>37 SassyLassy: >38 kidzdoc: i start here, and if takes time, i copy and paste into a savable document. Somehow i find writing in this space ties me a little better into the group sense. Mental games.

>17 kjuliff: You're very welcome, Kate. Maybe it was me saying good things about Elena Knows—I read it a couple of years ago and really liked it.

>39 dchaikin: Somehow i find writing in this space ties me a little better into the group sense. Mental games.
I really like that idea of being tied into the group sense as you write - not mental games at all. I wish I'd thought of that. At least I can adopt it now.

>39 dchaikin: >37 SassyLassy: >38 kidzdoc:
I like to be on LT when posting, whether review or a short response like this. It’s easier to respond/answer related posts and to use Touchstones accurately.

I don’t have Word or Google docs. Sure I can use iOS notes. But it’s hard for me to jump berwenn different applications. Also posting within CR is as Dan writes - Somehow i find writing in this space ties me a little better into the group sense.

I know being blind makes the whole experience of reading and writing it more. difficult for me. The ability to save as draft would be a huge help. I can’t be the only one here with vision loss. But perhaps others have left. I just can’t see any harm in having a save feature, except as Tim points out, to discourage long posts.

But I have no alternative to accept that LT is not interested in opening up to the disabled. Eventually a time will come that I will no longer be able to use it.

>36 Jim53: Thanks Jim! Always good to get feedback, especially positive .

My review of The Wren the Wren has been held up. Today I couldn’t concentrate for reasons obvious to those who know me. And sadly the book is disappearing from my memory. I’d bookmarked some of the more striking parts, but the book is due back in two days and I assume my bookmarks will disappear as it’s returned to its cyber shelf.

Still it’s on tomorrow’s agenda so maybe I will review this reviewable but not memorable book. At a bare minimum minimum I want to write about one of its main characters, Nell.

Like all of your LT friends, I too am very happy to see you back in the saddle! I have really missed your words a lot.

I've been busy and just discovered your new thread.

I have two medical appointments coming up - they are routine follow-ups - but I’m nervous about my retinal scan. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to read reviews and navigate the internet. Currently the only online newspaper that’s user friendly for people with vision loss is the Wall Street Journal. Not my cup of tea. But it’s the only way I can access current news except for NPR. I imagine The NY Times will catch up eventually, but sadly it will be an unsubscribe for me after 20 years of membership.

On the book side I got a fair way through East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" and have a third left to read of this important book. But I need some short stories to take a break. I tried Green Frog by Gina Chung which I have tried before but don’t seem to get it. Its je ne sais quoi eludes me. So I’m currently reading the newly translated Dead End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto. Hopefully I’ll be able to stick at this collection of short stories before returning to East West Street which is extremely good but a bit depressing .

I’m still reading threads on LT but limiting the reviews I read as I need to limit screen time. I’m also trying to educate my friends who continue to use those tiny emojis to acknowledge my texts. I don’t know any other was to explain that I can’t see the tiny emojis other than telling them. And even the normal sized yellow emoji are barely legible. Most of the yellow-face ones look the same. I can’t think of any other way to tell them except louder.

>48 kjuliff: i put off reading a review here, but it’s gone.

Im sorry about your eyesight. Glad you’re into East West Street

>51 dchaikin: I decided the review was not up to scratch. I need to work on it some more so decided against a huge edit and will post again later. What I’d posted wasn’t worth reading.

>52 kjuliff: look forward to whatever you come up with. I might not put it off next time (if I could use an emoji here, it would be blushing )

>53 dchaikin: Thanks Dan. One of my friends, apologizing for using one of those tiny emojis sent me a message ending with this 😎 , and then said she was so sorry for being so insensitive, she wasn’t thinking and signed of with yet another, which I think was a purple flower.

I hope you see the humor in that. Hugs.

>55 dchaikin: Of course- I’m Australian, as is my friend.

Hello, Kate, Once again I’m late in the month creating my own 2025 thread and reading friends’ postings, and I’ve been missing a lot. I’ve been flirting with Elena Knows for a good while now, and with your excellent review I can see that its interest level for me would be much higher than I had thought. Thanks for the enlightenment (it’s now on my list), and wishing you all the best in 2025.

>57 dianelouise100: I can appreciate that - I had been thinking maybe for a while - and once I started it I was hooked.

Thanks for the feedback Diane, and I hope to see your new thread soon.

The Wren, the Wren
By Anne Enright

Margaret Mead has been quoted as saying that grandchildren and their grandfathers have a common bond because they have in common an enemy - the mother. Like many quotes and stories attributed to Dr Mead it’s probably not quite what the anthropologist actually said, but I see some truth in it.

“The Wren, the Wren” is a love poem written by the fictional famed Irish poet Phil McDaragh to his grand daughter Nell when she was a child. The Wren the Wren is a short fictional book about three generations of an Irish family, starting with Phil and ending with Nell. Each chapter is titled with the names of the poet, the mother Carmel, and Nell. Nell is the “title” of the bookend chapters - it’s essentially her story. In between the bookends, there are chapters about each of the three main characters. They appear as if randomly, each character spanning several non-contiguous chapters, not necessarily chronologically. .

Phil is a rake, a cad, who treats his wife badly, leaving her while she’s healing from a double mastectomy. Nevertheless he’s famous in the family’s country, Ireland where he’s seen as a beloved though eccentric poet, his sins forgiven. Today he would be silenced.

But that was then, and this is now. Carmel has led an inward-looking life, it is Nell, a millennial who bursts from the pages of the book full of life and ideas.

She loves her grandfather though she hates how he lived. She sees herself as becoming like his victims - women abused by lustful unconscionable men. But she is a strong woman, a child of the new millennium.

Nell aspires to be a writer. She is surrounded by her grandfather’s heritage. His poetry is scattered throughout the book.

Nell is smart, empathetic and funny. She is the center and narrator of the book. She uses an ap to track her periods and hates her mothers seventies-colored gifts.

I tap symptoms. Acne, cramps and tender breasts. I’m having a ghost period. I log vaginal discharge as egg white as opposed to creamy. I don’t know what egg white means. I press three times turning it on and off. Egg white, egg white egg white. And then the mood icon angry angry, angry angry. The app sends me a message telling me that it cares about my well-being.

Nell stole my heart. I kept waiting in anticipation for one of her chapters to come up. Nell’s chapters kept me going, though every chapter is so well-written that at times the book reads almost like a collection of poems. This is especially so when Phil’s poems interrupt Enright’s delightful prose.

The Wren is more than your usual three generation novels that appear to be expanding as exponentially as the individuals that inhabit our planet. I’d love to write more, especially about the birds, especially about the one that looks like an upturned pine-cone. I’d like to write more on Nell. Her thoughts on life. Like this -

Down in the crappy kitchen I put a pan of water onto boil and crack an egg to poach. I think about picking some of the gloop up between thumb and four finger and don’t. The egg slops into a silicone cup, one of a poaching set in blue and green, which was a present from my mother. She also gifted me orange cooking tongs, one blue and green … {she} also gifted me an orange cooking mold for making quartet pasta, and four different color chopping boards. These tasteful objects fit in my smelly kitchen. How come I can afford a designer dress and not the house to hang it in? What happened there? We are the redundant generation.

Yes, I’d have like to have written more. But I had to return the book to the library and am writing this review from memory, wishing I had the book at hand to refer to and savor.

Lovely review kate

>59 kjuliff: You gave us plenty to go on!

>59 kjuliff: Great review, Kate. I've not read any Anne Enright novels. I tried one on holiday one year but it felt a bit more commercial fiction than I tend to enjoy so I binned it after about 30 pages. I probably should give her another go.

>62 AlisonY: Thanks. It’s the only Enright I’ve read. It kept popping up as recommended and in the end I thought I just had to read it. I came to The Wren, the Wren with low expectations, being a bit tired of the multi-generational-themed novels appearing this century, but it surprised me. It felt modern, and the allusions to tech stuff were done well. I think you might enjoy it.

>63 kjuliff: Ignore my earlier post - I mixed up my Anne's. I was thinking about Anne Tyler, not Anne Enright.

I've only read one Anne Enright book - The Gathering. I think I enjoyed it - I'll need to read through my review.

>64 AlisonY: Oh I know what you mean about Anne Tyler_ I think I read The Accidental Tourist. She’s not my cup of tea either. I suppose I’d describe her as middle of the road.

I’ll look out for The Gathering

>59 kjuliff: Another really teasing review, thanks Kate. My TBR grows daily.

>50 kjuliff: Good luck with the medical appointments!

Thanks to you, I've started (and nearly finished) Elena Knows and I'm enjoying it very much. I've also started East West Street. I usually prefer to not mix my books but it was the only one available on my ereader. The other ones had to be downloaded again but I had no wifi at that time and place (my hairdresser's). I'm looking forward to continue.

>59 kjuliff: Excellent review of The Wren, the Wren but I'm not a huge fan of this type of fiction so I'll pass.

I just posted on What Are You Reading :-
“I just finished Contempt which was a little like watching paint drying with one’s head in a vice. I kept thinking something was going to happen, and it did, the same thing, over and over and over.”

Then I felt I was a bit harsh so I looked at some LT reviews.. Here is a mashup:
Ayn Rand's writing is probably the only thing that I have read and found more annoying than Contempt.

An overbearing psychological first-person narrative where the protagonist's situation is compared obscurely to the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope

Not to mention the high-school-level Freudian interpretation of Ulysses presented as fracturing deep-brain-insight by one of Wager's operatic eponyms.

Thinly plotted as it is, I can't say I enjoyed Contempt. There is thinking, then some more thinking, then some thinking about thinking

My review should follow soon.

>68 kjuliff: The mash-up made me laugh. I'll skip the book.

>69 labfs39: I’m tempted to skip reviewing it!

>70 kjuliff: I'd say your work is done, there, all in all! :)

I’m starting to settle into the stereotype that society expects of me at my age. I have a few rather heavy (mentally) books in progress, but they’re going slowly. So I’m taking a break with LT AI recommended romance, You Are Here by Nicholls David . It’s about a hiking trip in England’s Lake District where a geologist and a copy-editor meet. Both are currently single.

Why was this book recommended? It must be my age. Yes, I’m seeing myself through other eyes, as a little old lady à la Agatha Christie, settling in under a crochet blanket sipping a cup of tea, wondering if words will cover rock or will it all turn out to be an avalanche. Or will the copy-editor turn out to have a heart of stone.

Not my usual territory, but it’s a bit of fun.

>72 kjuliff: David Nicholls' books are fun and well written. The Netflix production of One Day was the best thing I watched all year last year. Just enjoy You Are Here and consider that LT AI did you a favour!

The recommendations LT gives me are not at all the types of books I normally gravitate to. Whatever algorithm they're using to generate them isn't very sophisticated.

There is thinking, then some more thinking, then some thinking about thinking
My first laugh of the day!

>72 kjuliff: I feel the same conundrum. At my age, recognizing the limited number of books I will be able to get to in my life, should I be concentrating on the "serious" books by "serious" authors that I "should" read, or should I just read the crime/mystery novels I love and eagerly read whenever I pick one up?

>72 kjuliff: Nicholls is light fare, but he's also intelligent. I've enjoyed every book of his I've read, especially Starter for Ten. I have You are Here on my wishlist for when I want something light.

>75 arubabookwoman: To your point … recognizing the limited number of books I will be able to get to in my life,… YES!

I don’t feel I have the time to embark on “project” type reading. And I’m much more careful of what decide to read. So many writers whose new books I could rely on - including Javier Marias, Hilary Mantel and Paul Auster have left this world in the past few years. Others like Ian McEwan are not improving with age.

There is a wealth of young writers out there who have not had time to develop a consistent reputation. I’m finding myself turning to Italian and South American writers whose books are new to me and who are established in their own countries. But too few have been translated into English and even less have had their books rendered in audio.

>76 RidgewayGirl: I’m finding You are Here a bit light given my current mood but the other books I’m reading are a bit too heavy. See my answer to Deborah above. I’m to hard to please lately, jumping about everywhere.

>68 kjuliff: & >74 Fourpawz2: "There is thinking, then some more thinking, then some thinking about thinking"

Reminds me of our saying from the 60s, "Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit."

You Are Here
By David Nicholls
I am always confused by vertically posted tourist maps that tell me YouAre Here. I must be spatially dyslexic because I need to hold maps horizontally and oriented so that destination appears north of where I’m standing. It was because of this that when I was looking for something light to read, the title “You Are Here” caught my attention.

You Are Here held to its promise of a light read. It’s also meant to be humorous. It was both - for the most part. Its Jane Austen-ish plot of love and misunderstandings is well-crafted with stereotypical characters that nevertheless keep one interested. Cleo - an Emma-ish character - a matchmaker has planned a walking trip through the English Lakes District. She’s taken her son, and invited two men, Conrad and Michael, and two women, Tess and Marnie.

Cleo has paired Conrad with Tess and Michael with Marnie. Tess can’t make it so the party of five set off on a hike across the country, a hike meant to last several days.

Michael is a sad-sack. He’s a geography teacher, recently separated and suffering from depression. Marnie is a copy editor, a divorcee and a little bitter. She’s known for making jokes.

I found Marnie to be the most annoying character of the five. Worse even than handsome slick Audi-driving pharmacist Conrad. She constantly interrupts conversations with her “jokes”. Marnie is someone I wouldn’t invite to a dinner party. I’ve quoted the word jokes as they are clearly meant to be funny, though I didn’t find them so.

Michael is the character we are meant to like. He a bit disheveled in a way women are meant to like. He knows all about tres and stones and winds and the real meanings of words like “watershed”. He’s self-effacing and I think he’s meant to bring out to the maternal instinct in female readers.

As the hike progresses Michael and Marnie are thrown together. Will they fall in love? Or will Marnie fall for the superficial Audi man? She makes lots of jokes about pharmacists and chemists, so I didn’t like her chances from the get-go. Michael has something wrong with his sperm which exist but swim in circles. This may be why he’s so into maps and knowing where he is. Marnie owns a memory mattress and jokes that when she wakes up she doesn’t know who she is.

Will Michael and Marnie make it? That and the truly lovely descriptions of the English countryside keep one reading. That and the occasional bitingly humorous descriptions of the English in their natural state.

You Are Here was a light read, a little too light for me, but I read it to the end. If Marnie hadn’t talked so much I would have enjoyed it more.

>79 rocketjk: "Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit." Sounds like Pooh Bear,( the Milne one, not the Disney one), also Pogo, but whoever it was, it's a great quote.

>80 kjuliff: Interesting review, Kate.

>81 SassyLassy: The version that I remember, from at least 45 years ago, was the caption to a picture of a closed bathroom stall, with a person's pants visible around their ankles under the door.

>81 SassyLassy: I did a quick online search. A.A. Milne seems to be correct, at least as far as internet memes are concerned. Although there were one or two references to Satchel Page.

>83 Jim53: This is the poster I remember from my 1960s teen years:



Originally, I was thinking it was something from R. Crumb's "Mr. Natural" cartoons, but I was misremembering this:

>80 kjuliff: Sounds fun. I'm currently reading not one but two light and fluffy reads and I'm thoroughly enjoying them.

>85 AlisonY: Thanks, yes it was fun. I’m now reading a mystery on audio and I think you would like it. Interesting characters, plot or plots in there - I’m only a third of the way in. And the narrator is very good. After your Agatha Christie experience I think you will see how audio works with a more mature book. It’s The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

>86 kjuliff: I'm looking forward to your thoughts about The God of the Woods!

>86 kjuliff: It was one of my very best reads of 2024

>59 kjuliff: Fantastic review, thanks for sharing this. I also read You Are Here by David Nicholls last year and surprisingly enjoyed it, even though it is very light as you said. There's this trend right now in romance fiction of writing every main character as 'snarky' which tends to just come across as unlikeable and rude (like Marnie). I can't wait for this trend to end.

>89 rasdhar: Re You Are Here - the most unlikeable thing about Marnie was that she was just plain annoying. But yes, there’s is a trend in light literature of having “snarky” main characters.

There’s also a trend in audio books of having the narrator read in a sarcastic or sneering tone. An example - Julia Whelan who narrates Rebeca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You . I was turned off the book by her sneering voice.

>86 kjuliff: Thanks - noting that one. I've a few other audio books lined up but will bookmark it to get to at some point.

>91 AlisonY: The God of the Woods is proving to be eminently readable/listenable, but am interested in any audio books you’ve chosen to read. Being confined to audio makes it hard for me to choose books, as so often I’ll really want to read a particular book, only to find it’s not available on audio.

>92 kjuliff: These are what I've got tagged, Kate: The Innocent by Ian McEwan (also The Comfort of Strangers by him, but the reviews aren't great so I may bail on that one, although it's only 4 hours), A Bit on the Side by Wiliam Trevor (short stories), The Trees by Percival Everett, Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (short stories again), We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and Long Island by Colm Toibin.

My reserve list is another short story collection by William Trevor, The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway and a couple of Nick Hornby novels.

Oh - also got another novella out on loan and a Roald Dahl short story collection for adults, but I'm a bit undecided about those.

>93 AlisonY: Thanks Alison. I’ve read all except Long Island and the Shirley Jackson one. I liked all of the others. I thing Comfort of Stranges was one of the first McEwan I read. Or maybe The Cement Garden. I like his earlier books more than the latest ones.

Re the reserve list - I’ve read all of Trevor’s short stories but none of the others. Claire Keegan’s short stories come across well in audio

Passing this on from @qebo

5calls for those in the US who may wish to contact their Congressperson.

Still struggling to finish. The God of the Woods - a book I will not be recommending. It seems to be never ending, and it’s not doing anything for me.

True, now is not a good time for reading for me and for many others. I thought a mystery might pull me in. I’m still plodding through it. I’m determined; for my own self-respect I can’t afford to discard yet another book.

It’s not that The God of the Woods is really bad - it has the plot ingredients and the writing is accomplished, but there’s a limit to how many times a writer can hold a reader’s attention by saying the same thing over and over and over.

During one of the many conversations in the book, one of the characters claims Thoreau’s Walden is boring. I can only wonder what that character would think of his creator’s work.

Oh, Kate. Don’t read my Walden review!

>97 dchaikin: I have to now!

>97 dchaikin: I read your review. I liked it. Interesting - the maga reference. Now when I think of Walden, Kaczynski and RFK spring to mind.

Watched the movie Mrs Dalloway last night, based of course on the book by Virginia Woolf . It’s worth a watch and is free in the US on Amazon Prime. Watching it inspired me to read To the Lighthouse which I am not sure if I read already, but even so will be worth the time.

After that I watched A Handfuls of Dust, based on Evelyn Waugh’s book of the same name . Worth a watch - it’s also free on Prime - for the ending - which I’d forgotten. Judy Dench has a small part. I didn’t recognize her at first. It’s an old movie and she was so very young.

If I can’t read at least I can watch movies based on novels.

>100 kjuliff: Have you watched the film of The Hours, Kate? I loved it (and the book).

>101 AlisonY: Yes, I’ve read The Hours and seen the film - both very good though I enjoyed the book more. Maybe I’ll watch the film again if my next read doesn’t take off.

I am getting interested in Argentinian literature. The last books by Argentinian writers, The Woman from Uruguay and Elena Knows inspired me to look for more.

So I’m looking at Antonio Di Benedetto. According to Sam Sacks of the WSJ, Benedetto’s books are compact, existential allegories of estrangement and longing. They are about misanthropic yet disarmingly vulnerable men who are marooned on the periphery of society—“ready to go,” as one of them thinks, “and not going.”

Not that I’m into vulnerable men disarming or not, but I quite like reading about them.

>100 kjuliff: yay. That’s fantastic. To the Lighthouse has me thinking.

>99 kjuliff: here is a where my embarrassed face emoji belongs

>100 kjuliff: I read A Handful of Dust several years ago and disliked it, but not having written a review, I don't remember why. I liked Men at Arms more; it's the only other book by Waugh that I've read.

>105 labfs39: "I liked Men at Arms more"

The whole Sword of Honour trilogy, of which Men at Arms is the first book, is great.

>105 labfs39: You probably didn’t like the depiction of tribal Africans toward the end of the book, and the depiction of the upper crust Brits behaving badly in 1920s in the early chapters. It’s a while since I read A Handful of Dust and I don’t remember it well. I’m going on the film version. I think I probably saw the moral message diifferently .
.
>106 rocketjk: I haven’t read the Men at Arms Trilogy. I should do. I remember getting turned off Waugh after re-reading Brideshead Revisited though I liked it when I was much younger at university.

>107 kjuliff: "I haven’t read the Men at Arms Trilogy. I should do."

As you can tell by my post above, I highly recommend it. What starts out as an effectively satiric look at the British Army at the beginning of World War 2 morphs into something much darker by the third book.

>108 rocketjk: Sounds really good. Maybe my next read as Waugh is a consistently good writer. Sebastian carrying his teddy bear at Oxford in Brideshead was just a little too much even for me.

I finished The God of the Woods. I hope to be able to review it later though I fear I’ll be reviewing the genre - crime - rather than the book itself.

I am now reading Banana Yoshimoto’s Dead-End Memories, a collection of short stories. about five Japanese women who find sorrow and pain in their very common-place lives.

There’s something about Banana’s writing that draws me in. I read Kitchen a few years back and so was drawn to the short story collection. Two stories in, and I’m not disappointed.

The God of the Woods
Liz Moore
🎧
3.5 stars

The God of the Woods is a crime mystery set in a sumer camp in the Adirondacks during the 1960s through 1970s. The camp is on the large property of a white family that is the American equivalent of the English gentry.

The chapters, as is the case with many boks written in the last few decades, mover back and forth over time. However, unlike post-modern fiction, we are given the dates and the characters they represent in chapter headings. Such as “Alice: 1961” and “Judyta:1975: Day 6”. The reader could probable follow the story without the headings, though I was grateful for them.

The plot is about the separate disappearances and searches of two children, one, Bear in 1961 and the second, Barbara in 1975. As the plot and plots unfold we are given sub-stories about the families of the characters involved in the disappearances and the searches.

These side stories lend some interest to what is essentially two missing-in-the-woods crime stories. The difference between The God of the Woods and your standard crime mystery is the depiction of the female characters. These women are depicted in stereotypical fashion, with twists.

Other than that, the baddies are rich white and privileged, and the goodies are poor white and underprivileged. Moore sort of admits this in her NPR interview Moore: - Yeah, that's right. So this story functions kind of as a dual mystery with an upstairs-downstairs theme at the heart.

The only real problem I had with following the main plot was with the names of the characters Peter I, Peter I, Peter III Pete IV, Tracey, Jesse etc - most very American. Some of the camp women had very similar names beginning with the letter L, so similar that I mixed them up, and no longer remember them.

The detectives are mostly men, rough diamonds who tolerate Judy, a smart young second generation woman from an Eastern European family. Judy is rising up in the force despite her teal name being Judyta and her family having misogynistic views ... oh and her lack of education. All topped off by her obstacles of being “a girl”.

Another woman “TJ” is the camp director who dresses like a man, lives an off-the-grid lifestyle, loves punk music, and is revered by the girl campers. Then there’s Alice of the wealthy landowner family, who lives off prescription drugs and alcohol and is bullied by her husband, one of the Peters.

The rest is pretty standard stuff. It’s a competently written book and I’m pretty sure the AI engines will be lapping it up.

>21 kjuliff: I gave it 4.5 stars too.

>112 dianeham: I wish more of Claudia Piñeiro’s books were translated and available in audio. Elena Knows is easily my best read in the past few months.

Carpe Diem

Dead-end Memories
Banana Yoshimoto
🎧
That time had been a gift from fortune, like a blanket gently laid over me by the heavens. It had been suffused with a rare joy, like if you made a curry and thrown in some leftover yogurt and spices apples, and maybe some extra onion on a whim and ended up in a one in a million chance with a dish that was immeasurably delicious but which you had no chance of creating. It had been an interlude that had shone so brightly because I hadn’t expected anything from anyone; I hadn’t needed to accomplish anything. Realizing this only deepened my sadness and gratitude.
- From the title story of Dead-end Memories.

The six stories of optimism born of sorrow together with the gentle writings of Banana Yoshimoto make for a soothing read in troubled times.

They are very Japanese, very Zen, very gentle. The stories are based on every-day life events where there’s an interruption that leads to an overcoming. Darling buds of May inevitably trounce sorrow, and life goes on in any case.

Daily life centers upon life at work, eating in company restaurants, dating, marriage breakups, childhood - usual life experiences in a Japanese cultural context. But in each story there are disruptions that are overcome and individuals’ inner harmony is strengthened.

In one story there’s a rape and the young woman is able to overcome the trauma, and through her recovery becoming stronger. In another, a woman is poisoned by a disgruntled copy-editor who wanted the writer of the book he was editing, to include him as a co-author. The victim is seriously ill for months but is able to expunge the poison from her body, using the experience to purge herself of inner poison thus making her a better human being..

An adorable child who Budha-like sees beauty in people’s souls is kidnapped by his biological unmarried mother. She had sold him to a wealthy family where he was accepted as the son of the wealthy married man who had seduced her. Regretting her action the mother forcibly takes the boy back, bundling him into a car and speeding away, resulting in a crash where both are killed. But though he left behind sorrow, the child’s absence also left memories of his goodness.

Life goes on, and while reading I couldn’t help but thinking of MontyPython’s song, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. But there’s more to the book than that. Even I, a cynic was tempted by the optimism of the writer’s characters. Though optimism isn’t quite the word I’m looking for. It’s not that the characters take disruptions and attacks in their stride, nor is it submission, nor the British stiff-upper lip. It’s more about taking what life gives you and finding the goodness that may emerge from bad outcomes. It’s about one’s inner-life rather than external disruptions. It’s about an attitude to living that allows joy to enter one’s life and how happy memories sustain it.

>96 kjuliff: I abandoned that The God of the Woods halfway through as well. There's nothing particularly wrong about it, but as you said, it really does just plod on and on. I enjoyed reading your review, but I don't think I'll go back and finish it.

>114 kjuliff: Interesting, making a note of the Banana Yoshimoto book. I could use some optimism now and then!

Two interesting reviews, Kate.

>114 kjuliff: Great review. Sounds like one I need to tag.

>112 dianeham: Did you give it 4.5 stars, or 3.5 stars like @kjuilff? For me the book was truly 4.5 stars. I see what @kjulff is saying, mostly about how the book was written, while I was more interested in the mystery, and how the process to unveil the solution worked for me.

The quality of the writing is very important to me but it doesn't overwhelm my interest in the story.

It came to this book being one of my most memorable books of 2024

>118 JoeB1934: I think Diane was referring to Elena Sabe when she said she gave the book 4.5 stars. See >21 kjuliff: I’m not sure what book you are referring to, but I think it might be The God of the Woods and I didn’t see Diane’s comment on it.

>119 kjuliff: Yes, I should have seen that, and referenced my reply to >111 kjuliff:

I’m currently reading my first Joyce Carol Oates - a fictional story - The Man Without a Shadow. The central male character is an amnesiac who suffered memory loss due to a bout of encephalitis at the age of 37.

He is known by his initials “EH”. He can remember events that he experienced before his encephalitis attack, but after that he only retains memory of the last 70 seconds.

The book so far is a bit of a slog, but I’m determined to finish it as I’m intrigued by memory loss. I’m the opposite of EH, not being able to remember anything that occurred in the last 80 seconds.

>121 kjuliff: there was a movie a few years back that had a similar plot, I wonder if it was an adaptation

>122 cindydavid4: Memento? That film had a character with a similar memory loss but if that’s the one you are thinking of, no. The book is quite different. About relationships and from memory there was a murder in the movie. The book is reflective, not a thriller.

ok that makes sense thanks for the clarifiation

>121 kjuliff: Sorry to hear this is a slog - I generally like JCO. I wonder is her writing more enjoyable in print.

I have her book Butcher tagged on Libby to listen to at some point.

>125 AlisonY: Oh it’s probably me. I’ve not been well. I don’t feel like abandoning the book, it just doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

I’ve finished The Man Without a Shadow and was not over-impressed by it. Perhaps I chose unwisely for my first JCO book. I hope to review later.

I’m now reading Clean by Chilean writer Alia Trabucco Zerán. I’ve really taken to South American writers in the past couple of years and just a few pages in, I’m hooked on Clean.

Girl Meets Boy

The Man Without a Shadow
Joyce Carol Oates
🎧
Elihu Hoopes cannot remember anything that happened more than seventy seconds ago, the result of a devastating illness in 1964 when he was 35. Now it’s 1965 and Elihu is involved in a research study. He’s stuck in 1964. He remembers patches of his life before ‘65, but after seventy minutes he’s forgotten everything that took place after that.

Elihu is from a wealthy upstate New York family, and as a young man had taken an active part in the Civil Rights movement much to the chagrin of his conservative parents. When the book opens he’s living with an elderly aunt, not far from the memory research clinic where he is a subject.

In 1965 Dr Margot Sharpe is a young neuropsychologist research scientist from a middle class (US version) family, determined to rise up in her field - memory loss. She has a relationship with her supervisor, and while they are both rising up the academic ladder, it’s difficult to know who is using whom. Clearly they are both bright, and when the supervise wins the Nobel Prize for his work in memory-los many of the fellow researchers thought it should have been shared.

Margo Sharpe and Elihu Hoopes cross paths when Margot is still a young student. She’s interested in Elihu and eventually, largely neglected by her supervisor lover, falls for Elihu. She uses her “testing sessions” to get to know him, to eventually to bed him. She’s aware that she pushes the bounds of researcher-subject behavior but she feels relatively safe from being discovered. After all Elihu remembers nothing of his post 1964 life except for the last seventy seconds.

He takes his social cues from his memories of his father’s generation’s behavior. He has the annoying habit of greeting people as if it’s the first time with a hearty booming “Hellooow”. Ever the gentleman.

Eventually Margot tells Elihu that they are married, and when they are together they wear cheap rings provided by Margot.

The years go by and Elihu and Margot grow old. Eventually Elihu has to leave his home where he had ben living with his aunt. The aunt has died, and the rest of the family, a nasty lot, take Elihu away from his aunt’s house so that he can no longer “research” with love-strung Margot. By then Margot is in her late forties doing well professionally but miserable, parted from Elihu who is in his late sixties and still 35.

There's sub-stories going on. This is more than a one-way love story. Elihu has been drawing pictures of Lake George and its surrounds. There’s a recurring image of a drowned girl. When asked about it he’s evasive and seems upset.

Elihu writes in a note book. What’s in it? Will its contents reveal the mystery of the missing girl? Margot investigates Elihu’s past. She’s obsessed. Will their relationship die after Elihu is taken away to live, where to Margo doesn’t know, and the mean relatives are not about to tell her. She makes a fool of herself, begging to be put in touch with her lover, Elihu of course is oblivious. It’s only 1964 and he has no knowledge of Margot. She is however determined to find him.

What made me uneasy reading the book was the central theme, the relationship between Elihu an amnesiac and Margot a neuroscientist. At times I felt quite sick. Such when they had sexual intercourse in the woods. After all Elihu should only remember seventy seconds and surely the act takes longer than that. Did he wonder what he was doing seventy seconds in? Did he interrupt his climax with a hearty “Hellooow”?

Other parts seem unrealistic. Elihu enjoys crossword puzzles - how? How would he remember not only why he was doing the puzzle, but how some words were already filled in?

There’s a continuity - all be it short, during Margot and Elihu’s conversations that seemed at some times unbelievable.

Still, to book was well crafted, well structured and if you are interested in lab tests, interesting.
I gave it a 3.5.

>128 kjuliff: I haven’t read JCO yet, but this is an intriguing setup.

Eta, i “liked” your review, which i think is excellent. I was intrigued to see Avaland has a review on the work page, from 2016.

>129 dchaikin: avaland may just have read every JCO out there!

>128 kjuliff: JCO is such an interesting writer. I think she does best when she leans into that sense of unease that she is able to do so well, and her stories that center on girls growing up in terrible households. She writes so prolifically, that there really is something to suit everyone.

>130 SassyLassy: Lois (avaland) got me hooked on her writing.

>129 dchaikin: Thanks Dan! I appreciate your positive feedback. @arubabookwoman also reviewed this JCO book - in 2017. We both gave The Man Without a Shadow a 3.5 rating. Deborah gives us an indication of the person who the book was on. Known in clinical reports as H.M - his real name was Henry Gustav Molaison who died in 2008 at the age of 88.

After reading about H.M. and details of his inability to form memories after a surgery I more dissatisfied with JCO’s story.

>131 RidgewayGirl: >130 SassyLassy: I had heard of JCO but had never been inclined to read her books until reading reviews in CR.

Clean
🇨🇱 Alia Trabucco Zerán
🇪🇸 Sophie Hughes
🎧 Silvana Kane
Set against a background of civil unrest, Clean is a story about Estela who has traveled from her impoverished hometown in rural Chile to Santiago in order to work as a nanny for a wealthy family.

The reader knows the ending of the book from the opening pages. The child of the wealthy family will die within six years of the day the nanny starts work. Clean tells Estela’s story of those years related in monologue while sitting in a locked room alone talking to her silent interrogators through a one-way mirror.

She is explaining in a seemingly roundabout way how it came about that the child died, beginning with her arrival at her employers’ house just days before the child’s birth.

Throughout the book individual characters are addressed by their role or position in the house. We have the Child, the Signor, the Signora, the Nanny. Only Yany the dog and a local gas station attendant Carlos are consistently referred to by their names.

During the long monologue we learn about Estela and her mother’s hard life of work gutting seafood in a factory. But most of the book is about her own daily life cleaning, caring for the Child, shopping, cooking and cleaning. Perhaps the best scenes are those of Estela cleaning - such as Estela placing the Signor and Signora’s clothes into a washing basket, where the clothes intertwine, and together with their scent mingle as if in congress. So close to their inner lives is Estela that they despise her.

As she slaves in the kitchen chopping vegetables making slice scars in the wooden chopping-board, she sees those scars left by all the nannies that came before her.

The child is unlikable, troubled and intransigent. The dog is ugly and sad. Signor is a soulless fellow and the wife in America would be called the B-word.

In many ways I could not help but compare the book to Leila Slimani’s The Nanny set in Paris. Both concern wealthy families and poor nannies who have little life outside their employers’ house. Slimani’s nanny has occasional conversations with an immigrant in Paris; Trabucco Zerán’s occasionally talks to Carlos the local service station attendant. And both books end with the horror of childhood death.

But whereas the Parisian employers are bourgeois and well-meaning, Estels’s employers act like 19th century aristocrats. At several times in the story, the Santiago workers’ riots are displayed on the television - the screen blasting information into the room where Signora, the Nanny and the Child are talking. Signora hastily turns the screen off in disgust.

In the end it all comes together. The death of the recalcitrant child, Yani, Carlos and the riots. Despite the fact that we know the child will die, Trabucco Zerán manages to keep us in some suspense though out though there is a bit of a lag in the middle.

I hovered between a 3 and a 3.5 for this book. It was a satisfactory read but did not have the punch of Slimani’s The Nanny. Perhaps had I not read Slimani’s book first I would have enjoyed Clean more.

I meant to use the new feature for my readies of Clean (>133 kjuliff:) but messed it up. Hopefully next time.

I had intended to read To the Lighthouse next - I have so many books waiting to be picked up again. But decided to go back to my roots and am reading Tim Winton’s In the Winter Dark. He I’d forgotten what an excellent writer he is. I only wish he were more prolific.

>133 kjuliff: Great review. I also immediately thought of The Nanny when reading your thoughts on the book.

Oh how I love and miss the Australian bush. I can’t be there but thanks to Tim Winton’s prose I can experience it - from a distance.

I listened to In the Winter Dark - my second reading. I was vey impressed by the narrator. At first I thought there were several narrators as the four main characters speak quite differently. So I checked him out.

James Wright
Well spoken with deep natural voice. Excellent presenter.
An actor with over 40 years’ experience in theatre, radio, film & tv. Voice – baritone, educated – Australian/English. Wide range of character and regional accents. Prize-winning audio-book narrator.
From Australian Voice Management

Here is my review:

I’m really enjoying The Mission House by Carys Davies. A last laugh at the colonial British, Carys’s style is reminiscent of R K Naryan’s stories of Indian everyday life. Eighty yeas and two cultures lie between the two writers, but there’s a timeless quality in the descriptions of comings and goings of small-town Indian life, and of the inevitable culture clash that occurs when East meets West. A clash that continues unseen by foreigners to the country. I’m half way through The Mission House and am taking it slowly as I don’t want it to end.

I finished The Mission House and it turned out not as gentle as I expected when I posted above.

It’s a good read but I don’t get the cover. Can someone tell me what style the hat is on the book cover? That might explain it - the cover I mean.

If you do read it I recommend reading it in print. The audio narrator, James Langton, has an annoying downward inflection to his sentences - as annoying as the Australian upward inflection.

>133 kjuliff: Great review. I don't think I'll read it but I might try Slimani's book.

>136 kjuliff: another great review, and I'm adding this to my Australia pile!

>138 kjuliff: Perhaps someone else can confirm but it looks like a Panama hat to me: straw coloured with a dark ribbon.

>138 kjuliff: Excellent review of The Mission House, Kate.

>139 rasdhar: On Clean - yes I think you’d enjoy Lullaby more. Slimani’s characters have depth, but many have found the endings of both books unsatisfying. I’ve enjoyed several of Silmani’s books that are set in Morocco.

In the Winter Dark - I am a big fan of Tim Winton and enjoy his work more than I have Peter Carey’s I particularly liked this short novel.

Re the hat on the cover of The Mission House Thanks for the suggestion. Sounds right. I’m still unenlightened. The only hat with a role in the book was a Stetson and I knew it wasn’t that. Strange.

>140 kidzdoc: Thanks so much Darryl. I love compliments and really needed one today. I think you’d enjoy The Mission House. I liked it a lot but I’m a sucker for books set in India.

>136 kjuliff: I have had The Riders on my shelves forever, I really must get to it soonish.

>142 kjuliff: You're welcome, Kate. I also enjoy books set in India, so I've added The Mission House to my local library wish list.

On the Calculation of Volume, Book I

I’ve finished my first 2025 Booker long list. That’s right, it’s only volume 1. There are more to come and even more to be published. It’s not what I expected and I found the book difficult to review, knowing I’d not reached the end of the septology. Would I have reviewed it differently had I’d read volume II? The answer is as unknowable as the day after. Which will make sense if you read my review, or the book.

>145 kjuliff: I'm not sure that I want to read this, but I did enjoy your review a lot.

>146 RidgewayGirl: Oh I do hope you read it Kay; I’d love to read your review. Now I’m thinking I’ll read volume II but doubt I’ll go the full seven.

Really enjoying Eurotrash by Christian Kracht. Found it. from the International Booker long list. Engrossing.

I was about to read/listen to Solenoid until I realised it was 34 hours long. So I’ve put it off and am instead re-reading Eurotrash. I want to review it but there’s something about the book that makes it a difficult book to review. It’s dark, clever, too clever, funny, life-affirming and pessimistic all at once.

>145 kjuliff: Interesting review. I'm not sure I'd pick this one up. I was going to ask if you plan on reading the rest - but I see you're thinking of taking up vol 2 at some point. Looking forward to your review of Eurotrash.

Catching up. Enjoyed all your reviews. I’m intrigued by Clean and Chile. I just finished On the Calculation of Volume (Book 1) and enjoyed it, but haven’t a clue what to say about it, it what she was doing. Or where it’s going in Books 2-7.

I was also a little inspired by your posts between the reviews. Your reading state. Your in a thoughtful interesting place.

Oh, and i’m now reading Eurotrash.

Looking forward to your review of Eurotrash. No pressure!

>151 dchaikin: Thank you Dan. It was so nice to read your comments, so encouraging.
I am looking forward to reading what you say about On the Calculation of Volume, Book 1. I too found it a difficult book to review. But so is Eurotrash which I greatly preferred. In fact I think it needs to be somehow be reviewed in retrospect retrospectively, which of course is impossible.

>152 RidgewayGirl: I just finished Eurotrash for the second time. And I’m glad I did, as it was just as good an experience the second time around. There was more time to dwell on Switzerland on this reading, and I regret having rushed through that country when I was young, avoiding the German parts.

Today I wasn't well but was determined to write my review of Eurotrash. I didn’t get very far as I had family maters to attend to. But I did get some quotes together which normally get me started. Here is one from a story the adult son is telling his elderly mother.

And then they came for the vegans and the police were armed and treated as equal to the military, and suddenly they were wearing red arm-bands with the white Swiss cross. Armed cars were parked at intersections. It was all happening, quite stealthy, but still completely out in the open because it was the will of the people that these sorts of things were taking place.

I had a bit of a problem posting this with the new method. Either mine or LT’s connection went down just as I hit the Publish Review button. But all seems well now. Fingers crossed.

>155 kjuliff: I was looking forward to your review of Eurotrash. This sounds fascinating, and I will definitely be reading it. LT was a bit buggy yesterday for me as well.

>155 kjuliff: mmm I am intrigued by this I might just give it a try

>155 kjuliff: great stuff! I’m halfway through and skipped anything that i thought might give something away, but loved your review.

>155 kjuliff: Hmm, from your review it's clear that I will either love this or hate it.

>159 RidgewayGirl: Kay, I put my money on you loving it.
>158 dchaikin: Dan there’s no trick there, no clue to help.

An interesting thing.

I had made noted on -Eurotrash but when it came to the place in my review where I wanted to describe the mother’s daily life I couldn’t remember the magazine she read and had made no note.

So I went to DeeoSpeak, told it the name of the book (not the author or setting) and told it the rough plot. I asked it what magazine the woman read.

DeepsSpeak shows its reasoning. First it found the book and then the mother and her lifestyle. But it obviously had not read or have access to the book.

So it came up with the names of two magazines, each with descriptions . One was correct - Bunte. The other was a similar glossy magazine - German language, but more gossipy and more into the lives of celebrities, though Bunte is too, though not so much.

That’s fascinating. Yes, Bunte. 🙂

I’ve just finished Let it Destroy You by Harriet Alida Lye. It was an enjoyable enough read loosely based on the lives of physicist Leo Szilard (of atom bomb fame) and his wife Gertrud Weiss Szilard. I’ll review it later but I was a bit disappointed in how far it strayed from reality. I’ll review it shortly.

I really shouldn’t read fictional stories of real people as I’m invariably annoyed by them.

I had intended the latest novel by Caryl Phillips, Another Man in the Street to be my next read, but decided to read something Irish. I realize this sounds ridiculous, but there’s something warm and engaging about Irish misery, as opposed too bleak English ones.

So I intend to read The Coast Road by Alan Murrin .

>163 kjuliff: ...there’s something warm and engaging about Irish misery, as opposed too bleak English one

That's interesting. Do you think it's the Hollywood effect (or maybe the Angela's Ashes effect)?

>164 AlisonY: I’ve never seen Angela’s Ashes or any of those Irish films like Brooklyn. I think it’s the writing style.

I’m so ill now so haven’t posted much. and haven’t started The Coast Road. Haven’t been reading at all. I’m so tired all the time. I hope I get some relief soon.

>165 kjuliff: Sorry to hear that, Kate. Hope you have some good friends around to check in on you.

who is taking care of you? are you in a hospital?

>165 kjuliff: hope you feel better soon!

There are so many viruses and other illnesses going around currently. I know so many people suffering from the flu alone. Take care.

>165 kjuliff: I hope you feel better soon!

Stopping by in the middle of the night like in the old days.

It’s been almost a month since I last posted. I’ve been, and still am very ill. I have an ask: please no I hope you get better soon messages, as I can’t. Get better that is. I have a chronic incurable disease. I’m always sick, but at times there are exacerbations when I cannot do anything at all. I’m coming out of one now (touch wood) and in the past three weeks I started reading at my normal rate again. I hope to review the books I’ve read over the next few weeks, but it’s such a joy to be able to read again, it’ll take a while to catch up.

At first it was hard to finish a book. I did manage to read Eurotrash while I was recovering but the breakthrough of becoming a regular reader again came with me deciding to read some something Australian and something light-ish. Browsing around I discovered …. Liane Moriarty.

I'm glad you're reading again. Liane Moriarty is an excellent author to turn to for some light but engaging reading.

Liane Moriarty is an Australian writer. I’d never heard of her, but her name popped up somewhere in LT when I was browsing around. She writes mysteries and her strength is the way she brings her characters to life and the originality and internal consistencies of her often complicated plots.

Her books are very Australian, set in Australian cities and towns. What a relief to get out of the Outback. Hardly anyone lives in the Outback, and yes it is eerily beautiful and makes a great backdrop for an unnerving movie, but it’s not the Australia most Australians are familiar with.

Looking back I se that I had come across a Moriarty book some time back - Big Little Lies but was not interested in it for pathetic snobbish reasons. I did not associate Big Little Lies with Ms Moriarty and so when I picked up my first Moriarty book she was entirely new to me.

It was Here One Moment. I couldn’t put it down. It helped as it was excellently narrated by Caroline Lee whose Aussie accents are all pitch perfect. She brings the characters to life with accents matching their socioeconomic and ethnic groups.

I wil review Here One Moment but I’ve typed enough for one day.

I’m glad I’m back. The news is still distressing and affecting my mood, but at least I can read.

Good to see you back posting, Kate.

>174 kjuliff: Happy to see an update from you! I will check it out Liane Moriarty. When reading your post I realised that it is true, most of the Australian thrillers/mysteries that I've read have been outback-based (with one or two exceptions). It will be nice to try something situated in urban or suburban Australia too.

I've been lying low a bit myself. Today it's snowing like mad, so I hope to use the quiet time inside to find something appealing to read.

“I could care less.” - I’ve lived all my life in the US and every time I hear that phrase I grind my teeth in dislike. Why don’t people get what they are saying?

I also hate it when people say that a thing is very unique or a little unique. No it isn’t. There are no degrees of uniqueness. Unique stands all by itself - one of a kind.

I decided that I should try something deeper than Liane Moriarty wonderful but escapist literature. So … in for a penny in for a pound. I chose a book that I’ve thought of reading for some time, but I was worried about the horror of its subject matter.

The Painted Bird is an unforgettable book and I urge those who have concerns over its subject matter to read it. Here is my review.

>180 kjuliff: Great review, Kate. A difficult book, but I'm glad you found it worthwhile.

>181 labfs39: Thanks Lisa. I’m now trying to read The Lazarus Project but trying it a bit hard to get into. I think I’m going to like it but the main characters are somehow confusing to date.

>182 kjuliff: Hi, Kate. My wife and I both loved The Lazarus Project. She even chose it for her reading group. Hope you stick with it. I think ultimately you'll find it rewarding.

>182 kjuliff: I have that one on my to-read-soon pile thanks to a prompt from Jerry.

>184 labfs39: >183 rocketjk: yes I’m intending to persevere. I also see that Sayaka Murata’s Vanishing World has just been released in audio. Quite a different books but Murata intrigues me - as does the falling Japanese birth rate - and it’s short, so I might read it first.

ETA You can read more of Sayaka Murata in the New Yorker here:
Sayaka Murata’s Alien Eye

>180 kjuliff: Wonderful review. This sounds like a challenging read.

>185 kjuliff: I enjoyed the Sayaka Murata article, especially this bit: "In elementary school, Murata was introverted and quick to tears, sometimes hiding in the bathroom and crying until she threw up. Writing became her obsession around age ten. She called it a church, and still talks about the process as a holy world governed by a light-filled entity she calls “the god of novels.” When Murata was about twelve, her mother got her a word processor—a Fujitsu OASYS—which Murata believed was connected directly to the god of novels, who decided which novels got published. She would look for the novels she wrote in bookstores. “I thought they might have been chosen,” she said." Sounds about right, based on what I've read of her work.

Murata is certainly an interesting and creative writer. I was intrigued by her Convenience Store Woman and every consecutive book I’ve read has become stranger. She’s certainly outdone herself with Vanishing World

>183 rocketjk: I’ll certainly stick with it; I can tell its book l will like.

Jerry, I lost a FB DM you sent me - I meant to reply to your post on CR but can’t find that either. My vision is a lot worse this past moth and I’ll start a newFB DM thread. I apologize. I’m just really hopeless lately. Mea culpa.

>188 kjuliff: I am about to head out for a bit. When I return, I'll send you a private message here on LT.