As the Page Turns (the Book Thread)

[MacMadame]

Monkey is short hand for Kings, Queens and Jacks in Blackjack.

What @Susan1 said.

But now I can say "Monkeys" and everyone will think I know what I am talking about.

 

[canbelto]

What @Susan1 said.

But now I can say "Monkeys" and everyone will think I know what I am talking about.

It's definitely casino lingo. I've heard people say "monkey!" a bunch of times watching my dad play.

 

[mjb52]

I'm reading a book of Kazuo Ishiguro stories, Nocturnes. He's an author I really like, but for some reason I can't get into the stories as much as I want to. I respect them but it feels like something is missing and I can't figure out what it is, it's bugging me.

 

[Susan1]

What @Susan1 said.

But now I can say "Monkeys" and everyone will think I know what I am talking about.

Everyone? Spend a lot of time in casinos? I've only been to the riverboat ones in Indiana and played the quarter slot machines. I sucked at blackjack on the computer. My cousin and I had a running rummy game for years, any time she was visiting. The dads played Tonk on Sundays at my aunt or grandma's or our house - for dimes. hee hee

 

[MacMadame]

Everyone?

Everyone who is in the know. (We need a touch finger to nose emoji)

 

[genevieve]

I stayed up late last night (er..."late" is now 12:15am ) finishing Parable of the Sower. It was an intense book to read during These Times. So much dystopian literature is far enough away from current times to feel like I can view it through a microscope, a cautionary tale. Or, if the book was written earlier and takes place in or around current times, enough is different to maintain that distance. I kept thinking back to The Handmaid's Tale, written in the 1980s, taking place I can't remember how far in the future - the book resonated with me and my peers in the late '80s, and clearly endures (see: TV series), but the ways it which the book ignores race (other than a very indirect insinuation that Marthas are women of color) and doesn't fully flesh out its class structure make it seem anachronistic now. I noticed those things at the time but from the lens of today, these holes make the book seem like peak white feminism.

POTS book takes place 2024-2027, and while we aren't there yet, the entire setting is believable, particularly given the last 4 years. I am glad I did not read this book before the election - actually, before the inauguration.
Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night, I think because I was so impacted by the book. And by middle of the night, I mean 1:45am. Today will be fun!

I did not like the thing that @PrincessLeppard mentions in her spoiler, although it did not take me out of the book. I put a hold on the sequel, Parable of the Talents, but based on reviews I have lowered expectations.

I got Ready Player Two from the library last week, but I'm not sure I can make that tonal shift right away.

 

[clairecloutier]

My daughter recently discovered an interesting book series for tweens called The Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel Jose Older. It takes place in an alternate-history version of Civil War America; everything is much the same as in real 1860s America, except that people ride around on dinosaurs, instead of horses! The heroine of the book is Magdalys. She is a black girl living in an orphanage for black children in Manhattan. A city official (who secretly dabbles in slave trading) launches an operation to kidnap the children and sell them into slavery in the Southern states. Magdalys escapes and, with some of the other orphans, finds refuge with black adult resistance fighters in Brooklyn who are trying to fight the slave trading scheme and rescue the kidnapped kids. Magdalys joins their team.

My daughter really loved this book and wanted me to read it, and I enjoyed it too. It's an interesting story with a lot of action, and the dinosaurs add a fun touch. It's the first children's book I've read that presents the Civil War from a black child's point of view. Magdalys is also a positive role model, as a strong female POC narrator who plays the critical role in the narrative. I would recommend this book as a way for kids to learn about Civil War/slavery from a perspective other than the usual white-dominated narrative. It's also just a good story, which makes it more effective in terms of awareness-raising.

 

[canbelto]

NYT has a great article about Glenn Burke, first openly gay baseball player. I already downloaded the book onto kindle:

‘No One Can Say I Didn’t Make It’ (Published 2021)

An excerpt from a new book that examines the vibrant life, and untimely death, of Glenn Burke, baseball’s first openly gay player.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Erin]

Two months into the year and I haven't read a single book It's been for a variety reasons, most of which are too boring to get into, but last night, I finally felt the urge to read, and figured I should start with something fluffy and not too heavy to ease my way back in. Of course, everything that was available at the library was heavy and all the fluffy stuff had a waitlist and by the time I spent an hour searching e-books for something suitable, I needed to go to bed. Anyway, I manage to get out Denise Mina's Every Seven Years, which is only 58 pages on the e-reader. Even my unfocused, pan-demic brain should be able to handle that. If I'm still not up to one of the heavier books I have out by the weekend, I'll do some re-reads from my bookshelf. I really should make some use of having moved my books so many times.

 

[mjb52]

I'm in the middle of a book and embarrassed to admit I haven't finished it, although it's short, because there is so much drama in Russian skating right now that I honestly haven't been able to buckle down and focus on it!

 

[nlloyd]

I have had a run of good luck in book choices recently, particularly considering I have quite narrow tastes and am fussy about the quality of the writing. Here is a list:

Thomas King, Indians of Vacation
Thomas King, Dreadfulwater Series
Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect, The Rosie Result - a trilogy
Heidi Jacobs, Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass and Purveyor of Fine Footwear
Mary Pauline Lowry, The Roxy Letters
Richard Russo, Chances Are
Dianne Hammond, Going to Bend
Katarina Bivald, Welcome to the Pineaway Motel and Cabins author of, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

@Erin, perhaps there is something in here that will be of interest to you?

 

[Erin]

@nlloyd Thanks! I will take a look at those recommendations. I did read and enjoy The Rosie Project a couple years ago, but didn't do the rest of the trilogy because I had also recently read Eleanor Olyphant is Completely Fine, which has a similar main character and tone, so I wanted to move on to something different. It would probably be fine to try the other two books now.

For the moment, I've actually settled for rereading some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a way to ease back into reading I figured The Long Winter was appropriate since it's about a bunch of people stuck inside.

And I didn't mean my last post to sound sad, but it appears it may have come across that way. I actually meant it as a positive that I want to read again now, even if I was a bit annoyed with myself that I spent a couple of months not reading.

 

[quartz]

So far this year: Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix Harrow
Station Eleven - Emily St.John Mandel
A Single Thread - Tracy Chevalier
Sweep - Jonathan Auxier
100 Year Old Man - Jonas Jonasson
The Lost Queen / The Forgotten Kingdom - Signe Pike
The Hazel Wood - Melissa Albert
A Treacherous Curse - Deanna Raybourn

Currently reading: Rules of Civility - Amor Towles, and am very, very sad that he has only written two books.

 

[genevieve]

I decided to return Ready Player Two without reading it - too many negative reviews that mentioned that RP2 was so bad it killed their love of RP1.

I'm back to finishing up Catfish and Mandala, and also picked up Mexican Gothic from the library. It's apparently really scary/creepy?

 

[nlloyd]

@nlloyd Thanks! I will take a look at those recommendations. I did read and enjoy The Rosie Project a couple years ago, but didn't do the rest of the trilogy because I had also recently read Eleanor Olyphant is Completely Fine, which has a similar main character and tone, so I wanted to move on to something different. It would probably be fine to try the other two books now.

For the moment, I've actually settled for rereading some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a way to ease back into reading I figured The Long Winter was appropriate since it's about a bunch of people stuck inside.

And I didn't mean my last post to sound sad, but it appears it may have come across that way. I actually meant it as a positive that I want to read again now, even if I was a bit annoyed with myself that I spent a couple of months not reading.

No problem. Reading is important to me, the most relaxing thing I do, and I have always enjoyed your reviews, so just thought I would take the opportunity to reciprocate. I agree about the Rosie trilogy: I didn't read the three books one after the other, but alternated them with the Thomas King series, which has a very different tone, but is also well written. I haven't read Eleanor Olyphant is Completely Fine, but will look into that one. Am currently reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, but finding the animal experimentation that has been a key thread, quite challenging. The account of a Ghanaian family's immigration to the US is moving, though.

 

[intheknow]

Amor Towles has a new book, scheduled to come out October 5. It is said to be entirely different from his previous two novels. Still, I am really looking forward to it.

 

[ryanj07]

I finished three books recently. They were...

Grown Ups by Marian Keyes. A family drama with a humongous cast of characters. The story focused on three brothers, each of their marriages/children, and how it all came together to affect the family as a whole. It took me well past the halfway point to get invested enough to where I could solidly keep track of the characters. I thought it was a lot going on for one book at times, two of the three couples could've had their own book to cover their issues. It wasn't bad but it was far from my favorite of Marian's.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. A single mother in the 1930s moves her children during the great depression from Texas to California in search of a better life. Once they arrive, they realize that life in California isn't so ideal and they'll have to work even harder to obtain the American dream. It was a beautiful (albeit heartbreaking at times) story and of course tugged at my heart strings like most of Kristin Hannah's work.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. In this story, a 79 year old Hollywood actress and academy award winner is looking back on her life and each of the seven husbands that preceded her in death. It was FABULOUS, definitely going on my all time favorites shelf. I just finished it and could read it again to devour all of the glamour and scandalous (in the best way!) tales of Evelyn's life. It reminded me a little of Elizabeth Gilbert's City of Girls with an older woman looking back on her very interesting life, which was a favorite of mine last year.

I read Amor Towles' Rules of Civility a few years ago and it was amazing, still one of my favorites! I can still vividly remember the characters and their story lines, which isn't always the case even with books that I really enjoy while reading. It's one of those that sticks with you.

 

[missing]

I just read The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. It's not especially well written and it's sloppily edited but the subject matter is powerful and painfully relevant.

However, and this is a very big however for me, there's an unnecessary emphasis put on the physical appearance of the two main characters. One is a girl and we are consistently told how beautiful she is, which would be fine if her looks had anything to do with the plot but they don't. The other is a woman who believes herself to be very plain but by the end of the book has been told by the two people who mean the most to her that she is actually beautiful and sexually desirable.

I recently read a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and the reality is you can be an amazing powerful brilliant beloved woman and not be good looking. It's a cliche to have characters' appearances define their personalities. Strong chins do not a strong person make and not all fat cats are fat. It's an insult to my intelligence to insist good people are good looking people, a lazy trope that should have been outgrown a long time ago.

 

[wickedwitch]

So for years I've had book series suggested to me as the next Harry Potter and they never lived up to the billing. The Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend (starting with Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow) stands up to the hype. My cat passed away in late February, and these books have been the only thing that can capture my attention and make me smile. I highly recommend them if you're looking for a fun read.

 

[her grace]

I . . . also picked up Mexican Gothic from the library. It's apparently really scary/creepy?

I'm interested to hear what you think of it. Despite this book having a panoply of content/trigger warnings, I thought it was creepy, but not terrifying. Very atmospheric and uses the Gothic tropes to good effect.

I recently read The Feather Thief by Kirk Johnson which is a nonfiction book about a natural history museum heist in Great Britain. You can divide the book into two parts. The first is a thorough history of how feathers were collected, studied, and used in the 1800's-Victorian times. The second is actually about the heist. I found the first section a bit tedious--I also wasn't expecting it so that didn't help--but the second part on the thief's background, the heist, and the investigation were pretty interesting. And all that history stuff did provide important context so I'm glad I kept going even though it started slowly.

 

[Wyliefan]

Kazuo Ishiguro's new one, Klara and the Sun, is really good. A nice return to form after The Buried Giant, which didn't do much for me. It's got a lot in common with Never Let Me Go, with the bleak futuristic setting and ethical dilemmas, but goes in some different directions.

 

[Prancer]

Not a book (although it could be one) but an article about Sara Gruen, the author of Water for Elephants.

I know a lot of people here liked that book. I don't know if anyone will like this pretty article. The subtitle sums it up: The Water for Elephants author’s six-year fight to free an incarcerated man left her absolutely broke and critically ill.

 

[mjb52]

This bit from that article (I'm not done yet) is absolutely out there:

"Once, a woman in her neighborhood banged on Sara’s door for help, saying that her dog had fallen down a steep hole nearby. The woman didn’t seem to know who the author was, which she found comforting, and they became casual friends. Two months later, the woman revealed that she had known who Sara was all along and wanted access to her publishing contacts."

People are something.

 

[genevieve]

I'm not sure what the motivation for writing that article was. Gruen is getting roasted in the comments, as is Kahler (to a lesser degree) for focusing on a wealthy writer's self-created nightmare instead of shining more light on Murdoch and how others could help his case. I get it - Kahlen has access to Gruen (and presumably permission to do this story?) - but the bits about Gruen taking on strays is incredibly offensive, as is the implication that Gruen's abandoning of her book is the biggest tragedy here.

If anything this is a cautionary tale about white savior complex gone horribly wrong.

 

[mjb52]

I haven't finished it yet; I wonder if this is the case of a person trying to help their friend and being way too close to see how it comes across to the wider world, who isn't invested in her personally, and is better able to see the problems with this story and how it is being told.

 

[clairecloutier]

We lost two great American authors today--Beverley Cleary (104) and Larry McMurtry (84). Below are their obituaries in The New York Times.

Beverly Cleary, Beloved Children’s Book Author, Dies at 104 (Published 2021)

Her funny stories about Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, the sisters Ramona and Beezus Quimby, and a motorcycling mouse named Ralph never talked down to readers.

www.nytimes.com

Larry McMurtry, Novelist of the American West, Dies at 84 (Published 2021)

In “Lonesome Dove,” “The Last Picture Show” and dozens more novels and screenplays, he offered unromantic depictions of a long mythologized region.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Erin]

I have finally been able to go on a reading binge.

Two very similar books - How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams and The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary (the latter I know has been read by a few people in this thread). Both chick-lit/rom-com style books, with a bit of a serious edge, as the female leads in both books have abusive exes and the books cover the aftermath of dealing with them. I enjoyed both books for what they were. Neither were great, classic literature, but they were the easy reads I needed right now, they did a good job of handling the tough topics of the abusive exes, and they managed to be mostly light and funny in spite of the inclusion of more serious topics. I also appreciated that both books featured actual smart, competent women, who are really good at their jobs. I get really annoyed at chick-lit trope of incompetent women who somehow manage to succeed at their jobs anyway (e.g. Confessions of a Shopaholic) or just plain old incompetent women.

I also read The Shell Seekers, which I enjoyed for the most part. I was a bit concerned when it was clear that there was absolutely no redeeming feature about Nancy (or Noel), but fortunately the book didn't spend much time with them. The book made me very sad that my trip to England where I would have been to the Cotswolds was cancelled this year, but I did enjoy the bits in Portsmouth, where I have been, and visualizing the walk along Southsea. Even though Penelope didn't really like her time in Portsmouth. Cornwall was also added to the must-visit list in England.

And I reread the last three official Laura Ingalls Wilder books (The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years). I knew there was problematic stuff in her books and I'd reread the books already as an adult, but I was still surprised to see just how much there was in there and how bad it was. It was a lot worse than I was expecting. I still love the books and I think that they can still be given to kids, as I think there can be value in using them as teaching tools and adding context...but still...yikes. I did laugh at how obvious some of the libertarian values Rose stuck in there were.

 

[her grace]

And I reread the last three official Laura Ingalls Wilder books (The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years). I knew there was problematic stuff in her books and I'd reread the books already as an adult, but I was still surprised to see just how much there was in there and how bad it was. It was a lot worse than I was expecting. I still love the books and I think that they can still be given to kids, as I think there can be value in using them as teaching tools and adding context...but still...yikes. I did laugh at how obvious some of the libertarian values Rose stuck in there were.

I probably should go back and re-read the series as I really enjoyed them as a kid. The only one I've re-read as an adult is The Long Winter, and while I thought it was slow and boring as a child, as an adult, it terrified me. So close to starvation.

I haven't introduced them to my kids, though. There's so much problematic content and too many other books that won't have to be interrupted by Mommy-lecture breaks, which no one seems to enjoy.

 

[clairecloutier]

@Erin @her grace

I am curious--what do you guys see as the most problematic content in the LH books? I mean, of course an obvious thing is some of the characterization of Native Americans. And then, some of Ma's admonitions to Laura about "proper" behavior for girls at that time. And Laura getting married so young. And, of course, the issues of guns/hunting. But what do you see as some of the other main issues? I have read the whole series aloud with my girls & there were a few things we talked about, but I'm wondering if I missed pointing out some things.

ETA: As an adult, I see the libertarian bent, particularly in the 4th of July chapters, and considered discussing it with the kids, but decided they are too young to really grasp the whole issue now (or care, LOL).

ETA#2: My girls really enjoyed the series, but they had an interesting take on Laura as a character. They felt that she was too conformist and too focused on "fitting in." Just as a character, they related more to Anne in the Anne of Green Gables series, because she was more high-spirited and independent.

 

[Erin]

@Erin @hergrace

I am curious--what do you guys see as the most problematic content in the LH books? I mean, of course an obvious thing is some of the characterization of Native Americans.

That's mainly what it is. There was just more of it than I was expecting. I thought the worst of it was in Little House on the Prairie, but there was some pretty bad stuff in The Long Winter, such as when a Native American warns the white people of the bad winter to come and Ma is really racist about it. It also attributes the thought to Ma that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." My memory of the books was that Ma was racist and Pa was more progressive. Which is sort of true, but Pa is weaker in his defence than I remembered. He says crappy things like "there are some good Indians." The language is just so much worse than I remembered.

Then there was also Pa participating in the minstrel show in Little Town on the Prairie. Which again, I knew was there, but reading the description still made me more uncomfortable than I was expecting.

And then, some of Ma's admonitions to Laura about "proper" behavior for girls at that time. And Laura getting married so young. But what do you see as some of the other main issues? I have read the whole series aloud with my girls & there were a few things we talked about, but I'm wondering if I missed pointing out some things.

ETA: As an adult, I see the libertarian bent, particularly in the 4th of July chapters, and considered discussing it with the kids, but decided they are too young to really grasp the whole issue now (or care, LOL).

The proper behaviour and libertarian bent stuff didn't really bother me that much. I actually remember reading that and siding with Laura the whole time even when I read it as a kid. And there are some good lessons in the books...like I love the part where Laura says she won't say "obey" in her vows to Almanzo. And some lessons like "least said, soonest mended" and "make hay while the sun shines" still hold up