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What have you just read? Opinions, recommendations, reviews Part 2
Greg wrote: "This book sounds wonderful Tamara!Have you ever read Cane by Jean Toomer (written in 1923 during the Harlem Renaissance)? I bought a copy but haven't read it yet. From what I've heard, it mixes poetry and fiction as well. I tend to enjoy books that do that.
Great review! ."
Thanks, Greg.
Cane looks really interesting. The library has a collection of Toomer's poems but not the novel. I just may have to buy it.
Finished Traveling with the Dead by Barbara Hambly and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1406034683.
Finished Finding Sisu: In Search of Courage, Strength, and Happiness the Finnish Wayhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I need to seriously catch up on my reviews but I just did a quick one of The Seven Dials Mystery which turns out to be my favourite Christie so far.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read Frances Hardinge's The Lie Tree and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1725519485.
I finished reading The Garden of Small Beginnings the other day. It was a really good story. At first, I thought it might be a romance but it steered away from being that.
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Mod
It was a really good story. At first, I thought it might be a romance but it steered away from being that.
My revie..."
Thanks for the review Petra - your description intrigues me. Love the title as well!
I have completed two by A.A. Milne:The House at Pooh Corner
My review:: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and
When We Were Very Young
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Phrynne wrote: "My review of The Crooked Staircase by Dean Koontz 
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."
Every time I see this title I think of Nancy Drew, and it's because when I was a kid I had The Crooked Banister and of course there is a staircase in the picture that shows the banister. Not at all the same kind of book!
Britany wrote: "Finished 
by Phaedra Patrick - 3 Stars.My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."
I liked this better than you did, even after reading some similar books and even though it wasn't deep. It could be I was just in the right mood
Cute, inspiring children's book showing how young Fern finds a way to give Joy to her sad, stay-at-home Nanna. Recommended for all families!
5★ Link to my review
Mod
Now I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.
The Giver is interesting - I feel like the same core ideas (individual conscience and freedom vs responsibility for the collective) were dealt with in a much more sophisticated fashion in other books such as The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. Despite that, it's an enjoyable read so far, though it's really too early to know my full reaction as I've only finished a quarter of the book!
I have just finished The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma. This book has been widely praised but I unfortunately found it to be style over substance. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Jess wrote: "I have just finished The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma. This book has been widely praised but I unfortunately found it to be style over substance. https://www.good..."
I do not see why the violence in that book had to be depicted in such a revolting manner. Once in a while there were beautiful lines but generally the writing was disjointed and unnecessarily confusing. I could give it three stars, but no more.
Two reviews The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom4 and a half stars
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...#
and
Our Precious Lulu by Anne Fine
1 and a half stars
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Another review upWillow Tree Bend by Kaye Dobbie
4 and a half stars
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
About to start
Blood on the Tracks: Railway Mysteries by Martin Edwards after finishing
Her Name Was Rose by Claire Allan which starts out as a slow burner that quickly becomes addictive. My spoiler free review can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Just read one of this month’s books, The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan, who has somehow managed to squeeze a bunch of stories together. I have to add that it’s one of the prettiest covers I’ve seen!
My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read volume 7 in the Flavia de Luce series As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1638817076.
Read volume 8 in the Flavia de Luce series Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1638817023.
Also read Nemesis, book 1 in a series by Louise Cooper, and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2448679413.
Read My Twenty-Five Years in Provence: Reflections on Then and Nowhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Both these books were like girl on train.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am thoroughly enjoying the Cazalet family saga. I just finished Confusion and immediately started the next book. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks, Laura, for introducing me to this family.
Just finished The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. I loved it. 5 shining stars!My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I loved this artistic picture book of a newspaper searching for its purpose in life in a beautifully illustrated olde-worlde society. I included some of the illustrations. Enjoy!A Page in the Wind by José Sanabria.
5★ https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Greg wrote: "I finished Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro (3.5 stars). I liked the tone of the stories, the quiet depth of feeling, though some touche..."I've only read his Remains of the Day, but Nocturnes sounds like something I need to check out. Thank you Greg!
Here's three I've read recently that probably won't have broad appeal, but just in case you're looking for something a little different:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor. Excellent insight into her ideas and great writing advice. Five stars. Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10 Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly. Shocking! Four stars Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And Djuna Barnes' Nightwood. This one's a real trip, and the writing is crazy good. Or just crazy. I'm not sure! Four stars. Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Mod
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by [auth..."
I do very much like O'Conner! Both her fiction and non-fiction are wonderful in different ways!!
Djuana Barnes though, I'm not sure - [book:Nightwood|53101] was a very difficult read for me - unlike other difficult reads that I feel certain did pay me rich rewards for their difficulty (like much Woolf for instance), I'm not sure about Barnes. Much as some books I've read by H.D., I feel on the fence as to whether it was too hazy and obscure to be worth it. Some fantastic passages but much confusion as well.
Muriel Rukeyser wrote that some poetry wasn't meant to be understood with the logical mind in the first pass, that some poems moved in waves which built to an effect and you had to be willing to be unmoored to be taken up by it. I think that's true, and I actually like poetry & writing like that, as long as after allowing myself to be unmoored and letting the effects occur that I can go back and with many subsequent re-readings come to some kind of cohesive understanding in the end. I guess I don't mind letting go, stumbling a bit, and following several loopbacks and leaps of intuition to get somewhere as long as at some point I feel a coherent understanding and can see it looking back.
With Barnes, I felt flashes of resonance and insight but never any fully coherent understanding. I guess it's like I found a scattered set of signposts, one by one on my hands in the dark, but never quite figured out a sense of direction or a map. Maybe though I was just too young to understand it? The first time I read Aimé Césaire I thought it was hopelessly obscure; then I came back to it years later and wondered what I had ever been confused about.
Greg wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Here's three I've read recently that probably won't have broad appeal, but just in case you're looking for something a little different:...."Wow, Greg. That was so well explained--very helpful! I'm not a big experimental writing fan. I tried some H.D. poetry and didn't like it much.
I generally love Woolf. A recent re-read of Mrs. Dalloway confirmed that for me. But I also re-read To the Lighthouse and didn't like it near as much as the first time. I had a hard time getting through the pages. That didn't happen with Nightwood. I agree it leaves you kind of empty of meaning, but I loved the sentences, and they kept me reading, for whatever that's worth.
I'm sure the age we read something matters, but it's hard to tell which way it will work. I'm pretty old now, so don't think I'll ever understand Djuna Barnes. :-)
Thanks so much for commenting. I hadn't heard of Aimé Césaire. Oh boy, something new to check out!
I have completed Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story.My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Two reviews up nowSweet Sanctuary by Kim Vogel Sawyer
3 stars
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and
Force of Nature by Jane Harper
4 and a half stars
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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It's an unusual book about a slave escaping from a plantation in Martinique. He is chased into the rain forest by his..."
This book sounds wonderful Tamara!
Have you ever read Cane by Jean Toomer (written in 1923 during the Harlem Renaissance)? I bought a copy but haven't read it yet. From what I've heard, it mixes poetry and fiction as well. I tend to enjoy books that do that.
Great review!