James - 100 Book Challenge - 2023

[John]

WOW ... talk about a coup!

[James]

John wrote: "WOW ... talk about a coup!"

Thanks, John! I haven't checked one book against too many prompts up until now in this challenge, but this kind of fit perfectly into several, and there are even a few more that also would have worked (29- biography, memoir or autobiography; 78 - book with maps or photographs in it; 79- set in a country you have never visited; etc.) but hey -- we are not even half-way through the year yet! Mostly, though, I enjoyed The First Lady of World War II so much that I wanted to highlight it in a few different categories.

[Alias Reader]

James wrote: "Even with the esteem that I have for Eleanor Roosevelt, I will admit that I had initially not intended to read this book -- but I had to at least pick it up and take a look, right? After the first twenty pages or so I was hooked.
.."

Congratulations on knocking off so many prompts, James !

As an Elenore fan, I'll have to check this book out. Thanks for the title and wonderful review.

[madrano]

Thank you for sharing your review with us, James. I will be adding this to my TBR. Particularly touching was Admiral Halsey’s about face, to the point of learning from her visits with the wounded.

What an accomplishment for you, five prompts for one good book. That is rewarding in itself. Again, thank you, James.

[John]

James wrote: "John wrote: "WOW ... talk about a coup!"

Thanks, John! I haven't checked one book against too many prompts up until now in this challenge, but this kind of fit perfectly into several, and there ar..."

I hear you on being less than a half year along, as well as leaving room for other books when one could qualify for more than the ones used.

[James]

✔️45- A Booker winner
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020 Booker Prize)

I have tried to write a synopsis of this book and my reaction to it in several different ways, and none of them have quite hit it, so I am going to just leave it at this: superbly written but relentlessly grim. I remember feeling about the same way after reading Last Exit to Brooklyn some years ago.

[Alias Reader]

Sometimes being succinct is the best review.

[Lindsey]

Ooh I have it on my list this year too!

[madrano]

James wrote: "✔️45- A Booker winner
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020 Booker Prize)

I have tried to write a synopsis of this book and my reaction to it in several different ..."

The synopsis alone sounds grim but the cover seems sweet. Curious.

Congratulations on this prompt, James.

[Michele]

I know what you mean, James. I read Shuggie Bain and it is hard going. Life is not all that for lots of people, born to the wrong parents and without a real chance. You deserved a pat on the back for looking all that right in the face and reading an emotionally difficult book.
Michele

[Bella (Kiki)]

Michele wrote: "I know what you mean, James. I read Shuggie Bain and it is hard going. Life is not all that for lots of people, born to the wrong parents and without a real chance. You deserved a pat on the back f..."

Oh, I read SHUGGIE BAIN last year, and I hated it. The writing is good enough, but the unrelieved grimness is just too much. The book also did not come alive for me. I found the characters pretty flat. Not enough texturing.

[madrano]

It sounds to me as though each of you who completed the book deserve a pat on the back. Good writing can overcome much, it seems.

[Julie]

James wrote: "✔️45- A Booker winner
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020 Booker Prize)

I have tried to write a synopsis of this book and my reaction to it in several different ..."

"superbly written but relentlessly grim" - what a great description for a book or movie!

[John]

I couldn't read such a grim story. Tokyo Ueno Station was enough of that for the year for me. It's important to recognize a well-written story, where it may not have worked for you specifically.

[Bella (Kiki)]

John wrote: "I couldn't read such a grim story. Tokyo Ueno Station was enough of that for the year for me. It's important to recognize a well-written story, where it may not have worked for you ..."

In addition to it being unrelieved grim, I also found it boring in many spots, John. Angela's Ashes set the bar very high for me regarding memoirs. Shuggie's life was grim, but not as grim as McCourt's, yet McCourt's book contained a good bit of humor.

[James]

✔️24 - Speculative Fiction or Dystopian novel
✔️72- Book about racism

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

While incarcerated in the wholly privatized prison system, there is one way to earn freedom; sign up to participate in livestreamed death matches with other prisoners, the most highly rated popular entertainment that there is. Placed on a corporate sponsored team ("Chain Gang") where one is as likely to be attacked by a team mate as by an opponent, the object is simple - kill before being killed. Survive enough of the matches and you are freed. But despite only one "High Freed" in the history of the circuit ("low freed" means death), for many, there is no other hope.

Loretta "The Hammer" Thurwar and Hamar "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are teammates, lovers, and the most popular gladiators on the circuit. Loretta is three matches away from freedom; but she has heard from a source in the growing anti-blood sport resistance that there will be a change in the rules that will upend everything.

OK, so that is the plot, but the book is not Rollerball ; it's about the corporate profit-driven carcarel system, and the (inherently racist) capitalist society that it thrives under. Adjei-Brenyah lightly and unobtrusively footnotes some of the passages in the novel with statistics, examples, and sources for some of the scenarios that he presents fictionally.

There is exceptional and unrelenting violence here, but the violence is not limited to the killing fields nor wielded solely by the combatants.

For one of the several academic non-fiction explorations of this topic, see Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang.

[John]

Absolutely no way I could read something this grim, so I admire your achievement!

[Lindsey]

Wow, thanks for your review! I have this on my TBR, but clearly need to move it up a few spots.

[Alias Reader]

James wrote: "OK, so that is the plot, but the book is not Rollerball ;.."

LOL.... I'm a James Caan fan, so I know that movie !

Well done on the prompts !

[madrano]

Outstanding selection, James. Your recap is a good look at the reading experience, too. And the fact you added another title to you review is delightful. Thank you.

[James]

✔️81- books about trauma or mental health issue- fiction or nonfiction
Shy by Max Porter

Over the course of a single evening, a very troubled young man recalls the trauma, anger, and pain in his life, and the havoc he has wrought by lashing out in reaction. The book takes place within the mind and and immediate present of Shy, sixteen, now in 1995 at the end of his road, slipping out at 3 in the morning from the English group home for troubled teenagers where he lives, carrying a heavy rucksack full of flints and heading for a nearby pond.

The book is thin (it's really a novella) but is at times challenging. The story is told as internal monologue coupled with the reliving of dreams, narration of immediate events, and the recall of episodes in Shy's life, and Shy is not always lucid in any of these modes. And, fair warning, some of the events that are remembered and thoughts revealed are humiliating, violent, and ugly.

Also, I recommend maybe waiting for the hardcover to be available from your library (or ponying up at the bookstore, if you've got the cash to spare) rather than getting the library e-reader version, unless your e-reader does better with non-standard fonts, special spacing, and unusual layouts than mine. After reading a comment about the book, I saw an analog copy and thought "ahhhh . . . " - and now I am curious about how the audio version of the book is presented as well.

[John]

Nice write-up, thanks for the information!

[Alias Reader]

James wrote: "The book is thin (it's really a novella) but is at times challenging"

I was going to say you can also check off novella. However, I see you already have that prompt.

Good review, James. Thanks for the heads-up about the eBook.

[Michele]

James wrote: "✔️81- books about trauma or mental health issue- fiction or nonfiction
Shy by Max Porter

Over the course of a single evening, a very troubled young man recalls th..."

You are selecting some depressing books, James. You and John are exploring the dark side. Good luck and I'll be here when you get back. Just kidding. Both Elizabeth Is Missing and Shy sound like books I would be glad to read. Not so much with the prisons, but I admire your commitment. Michele

[madrano]

What a fascinating but sad novella, James. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

And congratulations on completing a tough prompt.

[Bella (Kiki)]

James wrote: "✔️81- books about trauma or mental health issue- fiction or nonfiction
Shy by Max Porter

Over the course of a single evening, a very troubled young man recalls th..."

Nice review, James. I'm partial to dark literary novels, and I think I'd like this. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

[James]

✔️63- A book you knew nothing about beforehand. However something caught your attention. Cover, blurb, title. Tell us why.

Gone to the Wolves by John Wray

The cover looks like one of those hand-made 1990's show posters or zine covers. Curious, I read the GR blurb, and yes, that is exactly what it is about - three high school outsiders meet and bond over a shared love of heavy metal music in Venice, Florida, in the late 1980's. The second part of the book has them moving to LA together and becoming immersed in the glam x thrash scene of the early 1990's. In the third section, the trio has broken up; one has gone back to Venice, one is now a successful music writer in LA, but the third is gone, disappeared into the European metal scene - there are rumors of satanic terrorists, of Norwegian death cults. Two get back together to try to find their lost third, even if what they might be looking for is a body.

This was, to my surprise, a very well written and fun-to-read book. The author knows a LOT about metal, and is not afraid (in sometimes grating fashion) to name-check band after band after band - and then he makes some names up (or does he?) Overall, though, I thought it was a enjoyable read, even when we find the main characters in extreme danger as they trip on some sort of European hallucinogenic fungus and are menaced in a very creepy shack in the back woods of icebound Norway from what I might describe as a Viking version of Buffalo Bob.

You might not like metal, and the situations and characters may be more than a little off-putting to many, but I found this to be quite a fun read. I'll be looking to find another book by John Wray soon.

[madrano]

James wrote: "✔️63- A book you knew nothing about beforehand. However something caught your attention. Cover, blurb, title. Tell us why.

Gone to the Wolves..."

Very interesting, James. I was thinking i was unaware of Wray but see that I read his Lowboy, which i found entertaining. As i was spending a few month in my daughter’s NYC apartment, the subway topic appealed to me, as i recall.

I would probably pass on this one, but see another by him which sounds intriguing, as i like sci-fi—The Lost Time Accidents.

Well done on prompt #63. I like the randomness of your selection.

[Alias Reader]

James wrote: "✔️63- A book you knew nothing about beforehand. However something caught your attention. Cover, blurb, title. Tell us why.

Gone to the Wolves..."

That is a cool cover. I can see why it caught your eye.

[John]

James wrote: "✔️63- A book you knew nothing about beforehand. However something caught your attention. Cover, blurb, title. Tell us why.

Gone to the Wolves..."

Great that it worked out so well for you, and a solid choice for this prompt!

[Michele]

James wrote: "✔️63- A book you knew nothing about beforehand. However something caught your attention. Cover, blurb, title. Tell us why.

Gone to the Wolves..."

Glad you enjoyed it!! Thinking I will wait on this one till I've made more of a dent in my current backlog, but appreciate your insights.
Michele

[James]

✔️29-- biography, memoir or autobiography
Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem

This is fiction, but based on what I have read of Lethem's life and what I get from reading his body of work, it's a fiction that I think is deeply drawn from the memories of real events and situations that he experienced. It is largely set in the gentrifying "brownstoner" age of Brooklyn of the 1970's, and several of the themes here echo Lethem's 2003 book The Fortress of Solitude: A Novel in depictions of race, class, and culture.

I am tempted to blah-blah-blah away on how every work of fiction is in part a biography and every biography (and most particularly every autobiography) is a work of fiction, but I'll just stop that train right there.

I will say, based on other's reviews, that a lot of people don't finish this book or really hate for several reasons, not the least of which is the non-linear unfolding of events (I know that for several in this community that is a complete non-starter), the lack of actual names for many of the central characters, and the fractured narrative.

Personally, I really liked it, but caveat emptor as those old Romans purportedly said (or maybe de gustibus non est disputandum -- "there's no accounting for taste", loosely translated -- is the better phrase).

[Alias Reader]

James wrote: "✔️29-- biography, memoir or autobiography
Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem


Personally, I really liked it, but caveat emptor as those old Romans purportedly said (or maybe de gustibus non est disputandum -- "there's no accounting for taste", loosely translated -- is the better phrase). ..."

:)

Well done on the prompt, James !

I read one of his other books, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem I read it ages ago, so don't recall much of it. I do know I enjoyed it. I probably should give it a re-read or try one of his other books.

[John]

Alias Reader wrote: "James wrote: "✔️29-- biography, memoir or autobiography
Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem


Personally, I really liked it, but caveat emptor as those old Romans ..."

I loved Motherless Brooklyn!

[madrano]

James wrote: "I am tempted to blah-blah-blah away on how every work of fiction is in part a biography and every biography (and most particularly every autobiography) is a work of fiction, but I'll just stop that train right there. ..."

That is a fascinating topic, i must say. I'm glad you included it in your review, James.

Congratulations on completing the prompt. Like others here, i found Motherless Brooklyn good but haven't been tempted by any of his subsequent works. Thanks for sharing your opinion and thoughts on this one.