Bookworms 2020

Hobsons_Choice

Ruby: If you like Phillipa Gregory do try "Fallen Skies". Not one in her Tudor series but about the aftermath of WW1. Hardback published in 1993, paperback in 2006 so you should manage to find a copy in one of the charity shops, a real page turner.

ruby_eskimo

Hobsons_Choice said:

Ruby: If you like Phillipa Gregory do try "Fallen Skies". Not one in her Tudor series but about the aftermath of WW1. Hardback published in 1993, paperback in 2006 so you should manage to find a copy in one of the charity shops, a real page turner.

Thanks for the recommendation, will definitely keep an eye out.  I started off with Tidelands which was a Christmas present last year and it just made me think "why have I waited so long to read her books?".  Have pre-ordered the next one in that series (very rarely buy books brand new let alone pre-order them!) so will be diving into that come November.

lapis_lazuli

Self-made Man by journalist Norah Vincent.  The author presented as a man for over a year to find out what it was like in the kind of social spaces which are off-limits to women.  Lots of insightful observations and she’s actually quite kind to men throughout the book; she had no idea just how hard it can be for them and how many obstacles they face, especially when dating.  I last read this about four years ago but it completely changed my view and still haunts me today.

Gender Failure by Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote.  This book is autobiographical, covering both authors’ failed attempts to fit into the gender binary, either as cisgender people or transgender people, and how ultimately it hurts us all.  Among many highlights, Ivan writes an excellent chapter, speaking from their lived experience, covering the issues around transmasculine people in segregated female bathrooms.  Well worth a read, whatever your gender may be.

ruby_eskimo

Those sound like very interesting and thought provoking reads lapis_lazuli, will see if the library has them for me to check out.  

Finished The White Queen yesterday - really couldn't put it down, don't know what it is about these novels but I just get sucked in.  Started and finished Lauren Graham's autobiography Talking As Fast As I Can yesterday evening where I learnt a lot about her life I didn't know, as well as some behind the scenes things about Gilmore Girls (which I'm re-watching for the millionth time again).  Now I'm on to The Aquariums of Pyongyang which is a non-fiction book about a man who managed to escape from the gulags in North Korea and now advocates for reform in the country.  

Charly27

Ruby_eskimo I think I have a Philippa Gregory hardback on our bookcases somewhere. I may give it a go. I loved Jean Plaidy novels as a YA, after I’d exhausted Catherine Cookson. That feeling you describe of not being able to put down a book is not one I had with my last read ‘Connie’s Courage’ by Annie Groves. It scraped 2 stars for me, just. I think I’ll have to curate my donations from Mum. There are so many books, including recommendations from all of you, and not enough reading hours in a day (life) to waste on pap. There will be gems in there, I’m sure but I mustn’t feel obliged to read them all! Also reading Cozy, happy Hygge by Jo Kneale. I like her books, always take some good ideas from them and this one will be no exception. 

Lapiz_lazuli self-made man sounds like an interesting read. I think it must be more of a challenge to write authentically from the perspective of another gender and to reflect on how the gender you do, or don’t  identify with, influences every aspect of your life. Perhaps if you identify with the gender you were born to you don’t question and explore the impact it has forensically enough? I’m glad she’s kind to men. 

pollypenny

Ooh, I don't like Philippa Gregory at all. 

Recent reads:
Hamnet. by Maggie O'Farrell.   Wonderful
A Thousand Moons.  by Sebastian Barry   Another five star book 
The Sympathiser.      View Than Nguyen.    Bit of a slog, with lots of philosophy which I felt guilty about skimming. 

Hobsons_Choice

Has anyone read The Essex Serpent?  I aquired a copy from the CS yesterday and now don't know if I fancy it.

Ditzy_Mitzy

Hobsons_Choice said:

Has anyone read The Essex Serpent?  I aquired a copy from the CS yesterday and now don't know if I fancy it.

I have.  'Patchy' is the word that comes to mind.  It's very well written in places, certainly when it comes to descriptions of nature; and sporadically interesting, particularly in the bits related to Victorian medicine and surgery, and some of the details of London poverty.  It is not, however, completely successful: a curate's egg of a novel.  The main characters: Cora Seaborne and William something (a vicar) are only intermittently interesting, being sometimes dull and occasionally actively irritating.  Martha and her beau (forget his name), are better but end up as a sideshow.  The plot drifts like a sailing barge with a smashed rudder, before finally foundering on a soft mud bank and proceeding no further.  
'The Essex Serpent' engages its reader in a curious game of bait and switch.  It promises, through foreshadowing and innuendo, that various things are going to happen.  Tension builds and then said things don't actually happen.  They get explained away as misapprehensions on a character's part, turn out to have a rational explanations or simply disappear unresolved.  
It's a messy plot; a ragtag collection of different threads and concepts that never quite weave together.  One questions whether Perry actually knew what she wanted to write, or whether she had a series of good ideas: Victorian setting, women's rights, class conflict, black magic, weird places near water, monsters, social comment and simply threw them together and hoped for the best.  Alone, or in pairs or threes, the ideas are great: Dickens, the Brontes, Trollope, Austen (I know she was earlier), Conan Doyle, Shelley (Mary) and so on all used them in limited ways.  But trying to put them together and create the ultimate meta mish-mash of Victoriana, complete with a dash of Marxism and scenery by Turner, feels rather like being served the entirety of a four course meal on the same plate.  The bits are nice, but one will wish there isn't custard on the beef and herring in the steamed pudding.  
My opinion on the Victorians is that it's always better to read the real thing.  The writing is a dish best served old.  
Perry is talented and will, with a bit more time and willing, write a better novel than 'The Essex Serpent' one day.  
Oh and if you are looking for retro weirdness, Angela Carter did it much better.  

ruby_eskimo

I kind of felt the same about The Sympathiser, but found it a little easier the further I got into it @pollypenny and agree with you @Ditzy_Mitzy re: The Essex Serpent, there are better Victorian-era books out there.

Finished The Aquariums of Pyongyang over the weekend and it was...ok.  I know it's a harrowing tale but it did feel like it washed over a lot of details that would have helped to furnish the story a little more.  Much preferred Nothing to Envy as an insight to life in North Korea.  Now I'm reading The Art of Statistics by David Spiegelhalter which is for work more than anything but still very interesting, so much so that I'm reading the copy I got from the library but I've also ordered a copy to keep because I know I'll want to refer to it while I'm writing training materials.  It's a very good introduction into data and how we apply common statistical processes to it to come to either right or wrong conclusions.  Very timely with all the data floating around in the news recently.

pollypenny

Hobsons_Choice said:

Has anyone read The Essex Serpent?  I aquired a copy from the CS yesterday and now don't know if I fancy it.

Yes, loved it  I recommended it for our book group, so I've read it twice. Lots to discuss, very well-written with great characterisation and imagery. Apparently it's going to be a film.