The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas Ahead of the Curve (non fiction) by Jenny Rushmore The Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan. I may not last much longer on this one unless her heroine gets a grip; I'm rapidly losing sympathy for her self-absorption. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Reading this aloud to my grandson at his request.
About to light up a re-read of Alta California, a non-fiction travel/history tale by Nick Neely. I heard an interview with the author on the local public radio station, and went to a book signing to pick up my copy, leading to a correspondence with the author as I read it. It's a history of the Portola Expedition, the first Europeans to explore California from San Diego to just short of San Francisco by land. (They turned around at what is now the campus of Stanford University.) Neely, who had studied detailed journals of the expedition scribe Juan Crespi, walked the route after arriving at the San Diego Airport, which is right across the road from Spanish Landing, where the expedition officially began. It is a travel log, with contemporaneous descriptions of the expedition's route, juxtaposed with historical notes on the various locations. Our common ground for the correspondence were his growing up near the northern terminus, and me the southern. We had grown up in towns that both had streets named El Camino Real, which today approximately follow the route. The route varies from three to about twenty miles inland. It is very informative about the natives that were encountered in 1769. Both of us had traveled some of the route over our lives. I learned things I never knew, and was able to fill in for him some details he didn't know. It has informed some of my non-fiction writing on environmental issues, in which I address global issues using local issues.
Shadowmarch by Tad Williams. I picked up the entire four book series at one of my go-to thrift stores sometime last year. The covers caught my eye, and I couldn't beat the price.
Finished another Pulitzer. "The Night Watchman." This one didn't deserve it. Not even close. "Deacon King Kong" would have been a better choice. Here's my official list of the best Pulitzers of recent years. 2020 The Nickel Boys (★★★★★) 2015 All the Light We Cannot See (★★★★★) 2007 The Road (★★★★★) 2008 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (★★★★★) 2011 A Visit from the Goon Squad (★★★★ 1/2) 2012 Swamplandia! (★★★★) 2009 Olive Kitteridge (★★★ 1/2) 2014 The Goldfinch (★★★ 1/2) 2016 The Sympathizer (★★★) 2021 The Night Watchman (★★) 2018 Less (★★) 2010 Tinkers (★ 1/2) 2017 The Underground Railroad (★) 2019 The Overstory (zero) Somehow I guess I've missed 2013's "The Orphan Master's Son." I think it's because of the title. It reminds of "The X's Daughter" in all its million permutations, and so I never picked up this book. I'll get to it eventually. Also, I award 2012's "no award given" to Karen Russell's "Swamplandia!" It's a travesty that nothing was recognized. What an insult to the finalists. If you can't decide, then take your final three books, present them to a subgroup of judges, and let them break the tie. Don't just throw your hands up and quit. The list should be top-heavy, with many 4+ scores because these are the best of the best. I'm very concerned that the quality of Pulitzers has gone downhill in recent years. Excluding one, they aren't too concerned with compelling characters or story. The majority of terrible winners are from these years. I can only imagine what 2021 holds (I mean the 2022 winner) . . . Anyway, "The Night Watchman" is about an Indian tribe in North Dakota who are fighting against being "un-recognized" by the government. You can assume this means this they'll lose their reservation. I can't really recommend this one. It meanders along. Many plot lines go nowhere. You could make the case that every plot line fizzled out. There is one character who is nuanced (Pixie), and the rest are strangely one note for lit-fic. Some of the setting descriptions are pretty good, which you would expect, but the plot lines jump around without any purpose. What was the purpose of the Mormon missionaries? They did nothing. What about the one teacher who was trying to find a girlfriend? Why did the missing daughter disappear? Why do you spend 400+ pages having the MC and her beau slowly (and not convincingly) fall in love, only to undo the effort with another woman appearing for 1 page? Why did I have to head-hop into a rutting horse? What exactly did that add? These aren't just background details. Scenes were dedicated to the POV of these characters, sometimes repeatedly. So many questions. The writing style doesn't work at all. It takes a particular voice to pull off certain tricks in the text, and it doesn't work here. Once again I can see the revisions, because they come and go in waves. The author would forget she was being fancy, lapse into her natural voice (that's fine), but would then come to with a jolt and fire off out-of-place tricks in clusters. Then she'd forget again and the style would go back to normal. It was jarring. With the best authors it's "listen and learn, fool," and there's not one word out of place. For instance, my 5-star choices are all in vastly different voices, but reading them, there isn't a slightest change I can make. They are perfect texts. If they do go outside of what I would do, it's because I have a lot to learn. I look at what they did and try to understand why they're right, because they clearly are skilled and I am not. I try to learn from them. With this book though, I'm just rolling my eyes at the effort. I'm not convinced it's written well, and with a Pulitzer, I really should be. Goodreads says that this book is "beautifully written." I don't agree with that at all. There are beautiful passages, but as a whole, I've read much, much better. As a matter of fact, I've started a different Native American book,"The Only Good Indians," by Stephen Graham Jones. Within a single page, he's proven himself a much stronger author. The characters are far more complicated and give you a broad understanding of what reservation life is like. It's funny, because he wrote this book the same year. It could have been in contention, but there's no chance of that. He writes the wrong genre.
I enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See. Hmm. I need something absorbing to read; maybe I'll reread that. Absolutely agree with your five star rating, which makes me think I should check out some of your others choices. I didn't make it more than a few chapter into The Orphan Master's Son before I tossed it in the Library Book Sale Pile. No doubt someone else thinks it is the Anthophila's tibiofemoral joints, though.
Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert. When I'm done, I'll go to the library and get another of his books.
The ending of that novel made me throw the book at the wall. Then I apologized to it and placed it in a prominent row on my shelf as it deserved.
I had an Agatha Christie novel that made me do that, of all things. It was her attempt at a gothic gypsy story. 1984 isn’t my favorite novel but it completely deserves its reputation on philosophical grounds. Incidentally I can’t think of another year that has one of the greatest novels and one of the greatest music albums named after it.
Not quite my favorite, but 1984 is in my top five novels. And it’s definitely the bleakest read of the five.
I was not happy with the ending. I am left with so many questions. Have you read "And then there were none"? Had to read that my previous English class, and liked it a lot
If you were happy with the ending, then you missed the point of the novel. You are meant to be angry and have bad taste left over. It's meant to use binary oppositions against you to exemplify the terror state of government over-reach. It does it beautifully.
I agree it was very well written. It was quite hard to keep up with, but I do like the book despite how angry it made me feel.
i just picked up Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies There have been a lot of threads on here about how to describe women in fiction and this book, though it looks at the female body through an art history lens, is a very VERY interesting read and i've only just read the preface! (the story of Griselda is infuriating! and so sad, as are most women depicted in art from the waaaaay back) its not often i find a book that i really want to talk about with others. this book makes me want to join a book club just so i can suggest it and have people to talk to about it.
I'm rereading Dorothy L. Sayers book of short stories entitled Lord Peter. "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will" is a favorite.
I am reading Milkman by Anna Burns. I got hooked by the first few pages--I promised myself to pick it up again and delight myself in it. So I finally came around and did just that...well, I thought I would. I got tired of the writing within the first fifty pages--at times it feels that it goes on and on for no real reason. And yet this book has won a national award. Now I am debating . . . maybe if I stop here I will be missing something ...? Has anyone read it?
