dchaikin 2026 part 3: Woolf, Ariosto, and maybe finally Rabelais

Currently Reading


Currently Listening to

this year's reading

(these links go to the review in my part 1 thread)

1. ***** Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (read Jan 1-10)
2. ****½ Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood, read by the author (listened Nov 17, 2025 - Jan 17, 2026)
3. **** The Mind-Reader by Richard Wilbur (read Apr 20-26, 2025, and Jan 19-24, 2026)
4. **** Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, read by Kim Handysides (listened Jan 17-30)
5. **** The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie (read Jan 10-31)

(these links go to the review in my part 2 thread)

6. **** I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (read Feb 1-4)
7. *** The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories by Virginia Woolf (read Feb 5-10)
8. **** Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur (read Feb 28)
9. ***** Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee (read Jan 18 – Mar 6)
10. ****½ The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (read Feb 11 – Mar 7)
11. ***** America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin, read by Holter Graham (listened Jan 21 – Mar 8)
12. ***½ The Deserters by Mathias Énard (read Mar 7-11)
13. *** The Wax Child by Olga Ravn (read Mar 11-13)
14. **** On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia (read Mar 13-15)
15. **** We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezon Camara (read Mar 15-20
16. ***** The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, read by Simon Vance (listened Feb 3 – Mar 24)
17. ****½ The Director by Daniel Kehlmann (read Mar 21-26)
18. ***** Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory; A Norton Critical Edition
19.**** Small Comfort by Ia Genberg (read Mar 27 – Apr 3)
20. **** Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (read Apr 4-19)
21. **** The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, read by Jonathan Todd Ross (listened Mar 25 – Apr 21)

(these links go to the review in this thread)

22. **** The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre (read Apr 20-30)
23. **** Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf (May 1-3)
24. **** Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi, read by Rachel Babbage (listened Apr 22 – May 5)
25. **** Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi (read May 3-9)
26. **** The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar (read May 10-16)
27. **** The Witch by Marie NDiaye (read May 16)
28. **** She Who Remains by Rene Karabash (read May 17)
29. **** Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, read by the author (listened May 5-21)
30. **** TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker (read May 17-22)
31. **** Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge (read May 22-25)
32. **** Until August by Gabriel García Márquez (read May 25-26)

this year's reading sorted by date published - part 1 of 2
1470 Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory (pub 1485)
1908 The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories by Virginia Woolf (pub 2025)
1915 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
1919 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
1921 Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf
1925 Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
1972 Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
1976 The Mind-Reader by Richard Wilbur
1978 The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
1989 Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur (written in the 1970's)
1995
The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
1996 The Witch by Marie NDiaye
1998 Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
2007 Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee

this year's reading sorted by date published - part 2 of 2
2016 The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar
2017 On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia
2018
Small Comfort by Ia Genberg
She Who Remains by Rene Karabash
2019 The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje
2020 Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi
2021 Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi
2022 The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre
2023
The Deserters by Mathias Énard
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezon Camara
The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
2024 Until August by Gabriel García Márquez
2025
Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
TonyInterruptor: or blue cheese amphetamines by Nicola Barker

this year's canvas


Audiobook canvas

Some stats:

2026
Books read: 32
Pages: 7076 ( 324 hrs )
Audio time: 124 hrs
Formats: paperback 13; ebook 7; audio 7; hardcover 5;
Subjects in brief: Novels 23; Booker Prize listed 16; Classic 6; Non-fiction 4; Memoirs 3; On Literature and Books 2; Short Stories 2; Poetry 1; Science Fiction 1; Philosophy 1; Biography 1; History 1; Arthurian Romance 1;
Nationalities: England 9; Canada 2; United States 2; Germany 2; France 2; India 2; Belgium1; Iran 1; Denmark 1; Argentina 1; Ireland 1; Sweden 1; Netherlands 1; Italy 1; Albania 1; Taiwan 1; Bulgaria 1; Colombia 1;
Books in translation: 15
Genders, m/f: 8/24
Owner: books I own 26; library books 5; borrowed 1;
Re-reads: 0
Year Published: 2020’s 13; 2010’s 4; 2000’s 1; 1990’s 4; 1980’s 1; 1970’s 3; 1920’s 2; 1910’s 2; 1900’s 1; 1400’s 1;
TBR numbers: -1 (acquired 24, read from tbr 25)

All stats - since I started keeping track in December of 1990
Books read: 1512
Formats: Paperback 745; Hardcover 322; Audio 254; ebooks 152; Lit magazines 38
Subjects in brief: Novels 570; Non-fiction 548; Classics 249; Biographies/Memoirs 249; History 208; Booker Prize listed 181; Religion/Mythology/Philosophy 143; Poetry 115; Journalism 104; Science 103; On Literature and Books 81; Ancient 77; Speculative Fiction 73; Nature 71; Essay Collections 58; Short Story Collections 57; Drama 50; Anthologies 48; Graphic 46; Juvenile/YA 37; Visual Arts 29; Mystery/Thriller 18; Interviews 16
Nationalities: US 797; Other English-language countries: 372; Other: 336
Books in translation: 276
Genders, m/f: 896/511
Owner: Books I owned 116; Library books 309; Books I borrowed 77; Online 10;
Re-reads: 30
Year Published: 2020’s 148; 2010's 299; 2000's 301; 1990's 195; 1980's 134; 1970's 65; 1960's 59; 1950's 38; 1900-1949 114; 19th century 25; 16th-18th centuries 38; 13th-15th centuries 19; 0-1199 21; BCE 57
TBR: 669

Recent milestones: my 1500th book was Night and Day by Virginia Woolf. My 500th book by a woman was Small Comfort by Ia Genberg. My 250th audiobook was America, América by Greg Grandin. My 150th ebook was The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar

My themes through the years

2012 - old testament
2013 - old testament and Toni Morrison
2014 - old testament
2015 - old testament, Toni Morrison & Cormac McCarthy
2016 - Homer, Greek mythology, Greek drama, & Thomas Pynchon
2017 - Virgil, Ovid & Thomas Pynchon
2018 - Apocrypha, New Testament & Gabriel García Márquez
2019 - Rome to the Renaissance & James Baldwin & Willa Cather and Shakespeare
2020 – Dante, Nabokov, Willa Cather, Shakespeare
2021 - Petrarch, Nabokov, Willa Cather, Shakespeare, the Booker longlists - added Edith Wharton
2022 – Boccaccio, Robert Musil, Wharton, Shakespeare, Anniversaries, the Booker longlists
2023 – Chaucer, Richard Wright, Wharton, Booker longlists, Naturalisty
2024 – Chaucer and medieval stuff, Faulkner, Wharton, Booker longlists
2025 – Spenser*, Faulkner, Wharton, Booker (Spenser didn't happen. I went medieval)
2026 - Woolf, early Renaissance literature, Booker longlists

links to all my old threads:

2009 Part 1, 2009 Part 2, 2010 Part 1, 2010 Part 2, 2011 Part 1, 2011 Part 2, 2012 Part 1, 2012 Part 2, 2013 Part 1, 2013 Part 2, 2013 Part 3, 2014 Part 1, 2014 Part 2, 2014 Part 3, 2015 Part 1, 2015 Part 2, 2015 Part 3, 2016 Part 1, 2016 Part 2, 2016 Part 3, 2017 Part 1, 2017 Part 2, 2018 part 1, 2018 part 2, 2019 part 1, 2019 part 2, 2019 part 3, 2020 part 1, 2020 part 2, 2020 part 3, 2021 part 1, 2021 part 2, 2021 part 3, 2022 part 1, 2022 part 2, 2022 part 3, 2022 part 4, 2023 part 1, 2023 part 2, 2023 part 3, 2023 part 4, 2024 part 1, 2024 part 2, 2024 part 3, 2024 part 4, 2024 part 5, 2025 part 1, 2025 part 2, 2025 part 3, 2025 part 4, 2026 part 1, 2026 part 2

22. The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre
translation: from Italian by Antonella Lettieri (2025)
OPD: 2022
format: 450-page Foundry Editions paperback
acquired: March read: Apr 20-30 time reading: 15:54, 2.1 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: novel theme: Booker 2026
locations: Italian Dolomites
about the author: Italian author and historian born in 1981. He is associated with the Veneto region where he has worked as a researcher and director of the Museum Library and Historical Archive of Castelfranco Veneto

>8 dchaikin: Thank you! I was already thinking about reading this book, now it’s certain.

>9 VladysKovsky: yay! I hope you enjoy

Happy new thread!

>8 dchaikin: That's an intriguing review and book!

23. Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf
OPD: 1921
format: 41-pages in Virginia Woolf: The Complete Works, kindle edition
acquired: December read: May 1-3 time reading: 2:17, 3.3 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: classic short stories theme: Woolf
locations: England, London and elsewhere and sometimes nowhere.
about the author: 1882-1941, An English writer born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London. She later lived famously in Bloomsbury in the West End of London. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors, and a pioneer of stream of consciousness narrative.

touchstone: Jacob's Room

>11 raton-liseur: hey racoon! thank you!

>12 dchaikin: @edwinbcn has a review on Monday or Tuesday from 2012. He says, "Highly recommended, but difficult to read, and therefore I would suggest to read an annotated edition such as in the Penguin Classics series, rather than a free download. An additional advantage is that the Penguin Classics edition reprints the woodcut illustrations by Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell."

Advice I might have followed had I checked. I'm certainly tempted to get the penguin edition and read these again.

Happy new thread Dan. I am following your exciting discovery of Woolf

April

It's been a good year for my reading. At 61.5 hours of reading, April was my worst month. (add to that 24.5 hours of audiobook listening). April was beginning Ariosto (1532 - Italian renaissance epic poetry), and hacking away at Virginia Woolf's slow-slow second novel Night and Day. I also finished three from the International Booker longlist: Small Comfort, The Duke (which was a bit of chunkster at 450 pages), and, on audio, the 24.5-hour beautiful trek on memory and identity, The Remembered Soldier, which I had started in March.

May plans

More Ariosto. The tiniest Woolf, Monday or Tuesday, and a sprint to finish the International Booker longlist: Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, The Witch by Marie Ndiaye, and She Who Remains by Rene Karabash. The winner will be announced Tuesday, May 19. These aren't long books, but I think I'll still be reading them then.

>15 kjuliff: I'm always thinking of you as I'm reading Booker books! (reading them, for better or worse). Have you read any, or much Woolf?

>17 dchaikin: I’ve only read Mrs Dalloway and Night and Day, but you are inspiring me to read more of Virginia Woolf.

I’ve read just two of the Booker’s this year. The Nights are Quiet in Tehran - read before the current war. And The Director which I loved. I do hope it wins. I tried the Taiwan one but it doesn’t work in audio given that the two main characters have similar sounding names. I did try it but it became a DNF.

24. Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi
reader: Rachel Babbage
OPD: 2021
format: 9:08 audible audiobook (274 pages)
acquired: April 22 listened: Apr 22 – May 5
rating: 4
genre/style: memoir theme: none
locations: Tirana, Albania 1980’s & 1990’s
about the author: Albanian academic author who teaches at the London School of Economics. She was born in Tirana, Albania in 1979

>18 kjuliff: I didn't like the audible audio sample of Taiwan Travelogue. The reader overacted, as the main character is out there. It felt wrong to me. I'm sorry it was so difficult. For what it's worth, the book starts out as information overload, then fades a bit as the we finally think more about the characters and yet they don't do anything interesting for a long time. Halfway through the book opens up. It's an excellent novel. I'll start The Nights are Quiet in Tehran tonight.

And, I'm really happy that you might read more Woolf. I might re-read Mrs. Dalloway this summer. Not sure yet.

>19 dchaikin: P.S on Free, a google note: "The end of history" apparently means liberal democracy is the perfect state. !! I didn't know that. (The person who coined this weird idea has something to answer to today). This subtitle is not brought up in the book, but the implicated irony is.

Happy new thread, Dan. >5 dchaikin: This reminds me I want to read Atwood's memoir.

>22 BLBera: Atwood's memoir was super rewarding

>21 dchaikin: It’s usually linked to a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama The end of history and the last man.

25. Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi
translation: from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King (2024)
OPD: 2020
format: 304-page ebook
acquired: May 3 read: May 3-9 time reading: 10:36, 2.1 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary novel theme: Booker 2026
locations: 1938 Taiwan
about the author: Taiwanese author from Taichung, born in 1984

>24 thorold: yes! Thanks. That's it. I wonder if he has updated his take. Looks like his latest book is from 2014, predating maga.

>25 dchaikin: I imagine if I just waited a week or two, this review could have been much shorter. I just have a lot on my mind.

>20 dchaikin: Have you read Michael Cunningham’s The Hours? I think you’d enjoy it. It’s very good and clever. I might re-read Mrs Dalloway too.

Back to the Booker. I am interested in what you will think of The Nights are Quiet in Tehran.

Happy new thread, Dan. Lots of good reviews here.

>19 dchaikin: Glad this book worked for you too. It was a really interesting book, and a fascinating study of political socialization in the school setting. I read it last October, but it was the first book read after stopping reviewing, so I never did get anything down on it. I always meant to get back to the reviews, and did with Misinterpretation, a fictional Albanian woman read in November, and thought the pairing worked really well.

I hope to get to Ypi's book Indignity: A Life Reimagined this year.

>30 SassyLassy: I enjoyed Misinterpretation too. I can see they would make a good pairing. Hope you begin to post more about what you’re reading. I’m interested.

Catching up on threads and definitely taking a book bullet on the Lea Ypi memoir! Also more reminders I need to read some more Woolf.

>32 mabith: let me know how Ypi goes!

I've now finished the longlist. Reviews coming



26. The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar
translation: from German by Ruth Martin (2025)
OPD: 2016
format: 265-page paperback
acquired: March read: May 10-16time reading: 8:55, 2.0 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary novel theme: Booker 2026
locations: Iran and Germany 1979, 1989, 1999 & 2009
about the author: Iranian-German author born in 1988 in Hermeskeil, Germany to Iranian parents who were communist and fled Iran in 1987

>34 dchaikin: I gave this book only 3 1/2 stars. I read it before the outbreak of the current hostilities. I enjoyed it as I spent some pleasant months in Tehran before the Islamic revolution there. Tehran was described back then as the Paris of the Middle East. And back then I could see why.

The book didn’t do a lot for me. There was nothing special about it, except that it ended in the future. To me it was just an ordinary and enjoyable read.

I appreciated your review which came at the book from a difference stance.

>35 kjuliff: i think i gave every book on the longlist 4 stars. So not very meaningful. I actually felt this book was flat. But i didn’t want to overstate that in my review as i know it’s a not fair assessment. That i’m not perfect reader. And that different readers will find the life in it.

>36 dchaikin: While none of us are perfect readers, I find it helpful to know what YOU thought about a book, not what you think the perfect reader would think. To know that you felt the book was flat is much more helpful to me as a fellow reader than to give it a possibly inflated rating because you think someone out there would think it is good. But that's just me :)

>37 labfs39: thanks Lisa. I do try to be fair. Especially after reading Taiwan Travelogue which effectively questions our privilege to judge. 🙂

One character tells the narrator, Aoyama: “What I disapprove of is…. Aoyama-sensei’s tendency to judge things as you please according to your subjective and arbitrary criteria” and later, “…to claim that your personal preferences are proof…” … (this seems to me) “a sign of intellectual arrogance.”

Aoyama was having fun traveling through Taiwan and writing about it under Japanese rule. She hadn’t thought about this aspect. I was slightly humbled by that, myself.

>37 labfs39: I agree with you completely Lisa. Reading a book review for me is hopefully to get a feel of what that reviewer thought about the book. I find some reviews more on my wave-length than others. Sometimes I’ve taken that to extreme. For example, if the Los Angeles Times recommended a book, I wouldn’t read it. But on LT, I get to know the members who like the sorts of books I like, and I take that into an account when reading reviews. I don’t think writing a review is about “being fair”.

>39 kjuliff: I always prefer the review from you or someone whose reading i know than from a stranger, no matter how good a critic. Because our relationship provides us a context that we can’t get otherwise.

>40 dchaikin: Absolutely. There are people I know here that I trust to pick books for me, far more than lists or published reviews.

27. The Witch by Marie NDiaye
translation: from French by Jordan Stump (2026)
OPD: 1996
format: 131-page kindle ebook
acquired: May 16 read: May 16 time reading: 3:39, 1.7 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: novel theme: Booker 2026
locations: central France
about the author: a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter born in 1967 in Pithiviers, France, to a French mother and a Senegalese father

still in the glow of thinking about this book, having just written this review, optimism high, I look on the book page to see a review telling us, "It is the pathetic ramblings of a woman who sticks like superglue to her banal existence." 🙂

28. She Who Remains by Rene Karabash
translation: from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel (2026)
OPD: 2018
format: 152-page kindle ebook
acquired: May 16 read: May 17 time reading: 2:58, 1.2 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary novel theme: Booker 2026
locations: contemporary Albania and Sofia, Bulgaria
about the author: A Bulgarian writer and actor, born Irena Hristova Ivanova in 1989 in the village of Aleksandrovo, in the Lovech Municipality, Bulgaria.

>43 dchaikin: I read that in the review by @amanda4242 - who gave the book only half a star. This completely turned me off reading the book. There was only one other review of the book at the time, and that was written in Greek, but seemed much more complementary.

I enjoyed your review and will borrow the book if possible. I’m impressed that you you read all the Booker longlist this year! Such an accomplishment.

Dan, thank you for reviewing the entire list! These reviews will help me choose which ones I should eventually read

>38 dchaikin: Unlike you, being "fair" in an LT review is far down on my list of priorities. First, I want to tell enough of the plot to be a memory prompt for myself. Second, I want to share my personal impressions of the book so that my fellow LTers will either be enticed to read it or know why they shouldn't bother. I feel very little loyalty to the author to sell their books for them. Two exceptions are with debut authors (I tend to be a little gentler in the criticism) and reviews I used to publish with Belletrista (because they were reaching a wider audience than LT I felt more responsibility for my words). On LT I share my honest and direct opinions and let the chips fall where they may. :-)

I understand why people feel the need to write their reviews as balanced literary criticism and respect that, I just find those reviews less interesting for my purposes here on LT.

>47 labfs39: i like that about you. And i think here reviews tend to be honest. Where i get tied up is where I’m not sure I got the book correctly, or got the right mindset. I don’t want to be overconfident, or pretend to be more confident than i feel. But it fudges reviews. Certainly is cleaner but not always the right way. So, in that way there is a sort of honesty or integrity in my wavering… or, at least I hope so. Having said that, and having forced out my last three reviews to beat the prize announcement, my Tehran review feels less honest in hindsight.

Don’t tell the judges… my longlist order.

Tier one. I would be happy with any of these winning. Although only three have a chance
- The Director
- Women Without Men
- The Witch
- Taiwan Travelogue

Tier two. I liked these a lot but have some criticisms
- On Earth As It Is Beneath
- The Remembered Soldier
- The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre

Tier three. I appreciated more than liked these
- We Are Green and Trembling
- The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran
- She Who Remains

Tier four. I didn’t enjoy these and don’t like them for specific reasons.
- The Deserters
- The Wax Child

——-

Award is announced 10:05 GMT, 3:05 US EST.

>48 dchaikin: I am interested in your comment my Tehran review feels less honest in hindsight. In what way?

Regarding honesty in reviews, I also believe in honesty but my reviews reflect my own feelings and I’m more with Lisa on this. If I really don’t like a book and would not recommend it, I tend to not review it at all. So my reviews and my thoughts on the books, are much like Lisa’s approach. I only mention the plots in enough detail for my own use so that I remember what the book is about later.

I gave The Night is Quiet in Tehran a mediocre review and rated it only 3.5 stars. I rated The Director 5. I gave up on the Taiwanese book because it didn’t work well in audio. The Witch didn’t sound like my cup of tea. so I’m hoping that The Director wins. Other Bookers were not available for me.

>50 kjuliff: Taiwan Travelogue on audio does a weird thing I really don’t like. The book has its own introduction, a fictional one. And it sets up the main book tension. The audio apparently skips this introduction.

As far as The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran, i’m just not comfortable with what I wrote. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I forced a couple things. Decided it was time to let it go, be done, move on.

Interesting discussion on honesty in reviews. So far I have picked a trio of titles/characters to meet - The Director, The Witch and The Duke

>51 dchaikin: The audio edition of Taiwan Travelogues I read was from NLS for the Blind, and this version had a different narrator from the Audible one. This one included the original 10 minute introduction. I still found the book confusing in audio, especially with the different pronunciations of the main characters’ names.

The NLS has a more extensive range of books than Audible and other commercial outlets. Plus there is no limit on the number of borrowed books other than in megabytes, and no holds or limits on reading time. The NLS downside is that there are relatively few books by non-English speaking writers.

At times I will pay for a commercial audio book if it’s not on NLS, or if the NLS version isn’t a good fit. I’m currently reading a book by. Fiona McFarlane and chose to read the Audible copy. It is available on NLS but with an English narrator. In Audible it’s narrated by an Australian, and I’m home sick for the Australian accent.

>49 dchaikin: Taiwan Travelogue won

>54 dchaikin: Well so Taiwan Travelogue has won. And reading this prompted me to check my notes to see what exactly confused me in the NRL audio version.

The names: Chizuko, the fictional novelist, and Ō Chizuru nicknamed "Chi-chan", her fictional interpreter. It was actually in the introduction that the names Ō Chizuru and Chi-chan were referenced constantly. As a non-Mandarin-speaking listener I was confused from the start.

To top it off, the two women share the same kanji characters in their names - Chizuko and Chi-chan I was lost.

>55 kjuliff: yes. It’s intentional in the book to do that. But it’s confusing in text too.

>38 dchaikin: oh i just got that book and eager to read it we have a family from taiwan who are members of our international dance group will be interesting to get their comments

>40 dchaikin: what you all said. i rarely look at pro reviews, the people hear are much ore interesting and are probably better read

>57 cindydavid4: I'm curious what they might think!

>58 cindydavid4: we know each other. That helps a ton.

29. Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
reader: author
OPD: 2025
format: 11:29 audible audiobook (329 pages)
acquired: May 5 (I also have a paperback ARC that I got in October)
listened: May 5-21
rating: 4
genre/style: memoir theme: none
locations: India – mainly Kerala and Delhi
about the author: Indian author and activist, born in Shillong, in Undivided Assam (now in Meghalaya) in 1961, grew up in Kerala. She has lived as an adult mainly in Delhi.

@wandering_star has a lovely short review of Mother Mary Comes to Me here: https://www.librarything.com/work/33730986/reviews/311259760

>60 dchaikin: I’ve only read The God of Small Things by her and loved it, although it’s been so long I remember almost nothing about it. I’m not a memoir reader but I’d like to read more from her.

>60 dchaikin: >62 FlorenceArt: I am not a reader of memoirs either. But I was inspired by the reviews. I can’t remember The God of Small Things either. As an Indiaphilre Ian surprised Roy hasn’t drawn me in.

>62 FlorenceArt: I sampled The God of Small Things on audio and was overwhelmed how much was in those opening sentences. I'm not a careful audio reader. I'll need to get a text copy. I am going to try The Ministry of Utmost Happiness on audio. It seems a lot slower.

>63 kjuliff: could you make an exception? I'm just nudging you. And I'm biased as I love memoirs.

30. TonyInterruptor: or blue cheese amphetamines by Nicola Barker
OPD: 2025
format: 208-page hardcover
acquired: May 13 read: May 17-22 time reading: 5:03, 1.5 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: none
locations: England?
about the author: An English novelist and short story writer born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, in 1966. She grew up in South Africa.

Enjoyed your review of Mother Mary Comes to Me especially as The God Of Small Things is one of my favourite books.

>48 dchaikin: Interesting to read your thoughts and Lisa's about the writing of reviews. I think I might like TonyInterruptor but I will never get round to reading it

>64 dchaikin: I will certainly give it a try. I did enjoy. Garner’s diaries, How to End a Story.

>66 baswood: i didn’t know that about you and Roy’s 1st novel. I must get to it now.

>67 kjuliff: i would like to read garner. Should i begin with Yellow Notebook?

>68 dchaikin: it’s a little confusing, as Garner’s diaries are published differently in different countries.

I understand The Yellow Notebook is volume one of How to End a Story: Collected Diaries 1978–1998 which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. This is the book that I reviewed on LT. I haven’t seen The Yellow Notebook published separately and assume was contained in the book I read.

So my answer is yes. For a short read you might enjoy The First Stone.

>68 dchaikin: it’s a little confusing, as Garner’s diaries are published differently in different countries.

I understand The Yellow Notebook is in How to End a Story: Collected Diaries 1978–1998 which was published in England and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. I read How to End a Story: Diaries 1995-1998 which I reviewed on LT. I haven’t seen The Yellow Notebook published separately, nor have I been able to get the full set as published in England. It doesn’t even come up on LT.

So the answer is yes for any of the diaries. For a short read you might be interested in her The First Stone which was published well before the Me-too movement and has been derided by third-wave feminists.

>70 kjuliff: thanks Kate. I'll need to check the subtitle dates carefully.

31. Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
OPD: 1998
format: 212-page paperback
acquired: 2024 read: May 22-25 time reading: 6:31, 1.8 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: novel theme: Booker
locations: 1846 Liverpool, 1850 Istanbul, 1854 Crimean War
about the author: 1932-2010: She was an English writer primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She was born in Allerton and grew up in the nearby town of Formby, both suburbs of Liverpool.

>72 dchaikin: I think that Beryl Bainbridge maybe an acquired taste.

32. Until August by Gabriel García Márquez
translation: from Spanish by Anne McLean (2024), editor: ‘Cristóbal Pera (2024)
OPD: 2024
format: 134-page hardcoer
acquired: 2024 read: May 25-26 time reading: 2:24, 1.1 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: novella theme: Marquez
locations: Probably Caribbean coast of Colombia
about the author: (1927 –2014) A Colombian writer and journalist, considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born and grew up in the small town of Aracataca, in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

>73 kjuliff: maybe!

>74 dchaikin: I don't think I read that one. I am not as passionate with Gabriel Garcia Marquez as you are, but this sounds interesting.

>72 dchaikin: four stars seems like a lot for a book you mostly didn't like?

>76 raton-liseur: oh, yay. I hope you read it. It’s very short.

>77 ELiz_M: I’m having some kind of star freeze lately. Everything is getting four stars. Im not sure why. But the book does some really good stuff.

>78 dchaikin: It went on my "could be nice to borrow from the library" list... :)

>79 raton-liseur: This is a very meaningful list!

>79 raton-liseur: that’s a good place for it. It could be. 🙂

>80 VladysKovsky: yeah… that tends to be an overly optimistic list of unread and therefore also unverified books … but still, a good list