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Shawneinfl

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Posts posted by Shawneinfl

    Book a Week 2020 - BW49: This is my Life - William Stanley Braithwaite

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    On 12/8/2020 at 10:44 AM, Seasider too said:

    Popping in for a few minutes to say THANK YOU to the one (or more?) who recommended Mrs Pollifax. I am on the third volume and finding her immensely enjoyable.

     

     

    Based on YOUR recommendation, I just hit the buy button for The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (Mrs. Pollifax Series Book 1). I bought the Kindle version along with the optional audible version. I've been looking for a good book to wrap up the year with.

    • Like 3

    Book a Week 2020 - BW48: Ladies of Fiction Bookology - Rumer Godden

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I finished Miracle Creek by Angie Kim this week which I waffled on somewhat. It had an interesting premise and I enjoy courtroom dramas however, somehow I actually felt the author worked way too hard to neatly tie up every character's story line (if that is even possible). She set it up so that she had a tangled knot of every character ending up a possible suspect. Untying this knotty situation bogged down the flow of the book with too many repetitive details.

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    • Like 3

    Book a Week 2020 - BW41: 41 Things

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    Finished reading Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson.

    Meticulously researched and vividly written, Isaac's Storm is based on Cline's own letters, telegrams, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the hows and whys of great storms. Ultimately, however, it is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets nature's last great uncontrollable force. As such, Isaac's Storm carries a warning for our time.

    • Like 9

    Book a Week 2020 - BW36: 52 Books Bingo - Antebellum

    in The Chat Board

    Posted · Edited by Shawneinfl

    I finished Sea Wife  on my Kindle this week. I gave it five stars but I understood how others could like it less. It was more of a story about marriage than a sea adventure and I think those married for more than a couple of decades could identify with the characters. I'd love to see what others in this group think. I'm listening to All the Light We Cannot See.  I know I owned this for a while but it has disappeared from my shelves. Oh well, I'm enjoying the audible version.

    "Sea Wife is a gripping tale of survival at sea—but that’s just the beginning.  Amity Gaige also manages, before she’s done, to probe the underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, literary ambition, political inclinations in the Trump age, parenthood, and finally, the nature of survival itself in our broken world.  Gaige is thrillingly talented, and her novel enchants."
    —Jennifer Egan

    Sea Wife: A novel by [Amity Gaige]

    • Like 7

    Book a Week 2020 - BW32: 52 Books Bingo - Noir

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

    Finally finished Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (audiobook) version.

    I am not a big biography or memoir fan and Trevor is too young to have one anyway in my opinion. One of the legacies of British colonization is cricket and that is how apartheid was introduced to me. Long before I was born the ICC (the International Cricket council) banned South Africa from playing matches and commentators of different nationalities would always talk about the various players. The ban ended right after Mandela was released. So when I heard about someone growing up in apartheid I was curious to read this book.

    I started a paper book version just before the world as we knew it ended suddenly in March. I set it aside for a while because I felt I could not handle a book that could make me think or emote. I needed comfort reading and I was sure this book would not be that. During my wanderings of audiobooks I somehow came across an interview with him where he talked about the audiobook version of it and how he was particular that he voice it as he was a spoken word person due to his craft and professional experience more than a written one.I returned the paper book and get the audio book version. Trevor's voice is really nice to listen to, he relives it rather than just reads and I would have missed it if I had just read the book I think. It is an entirely different experience. 

    What I never expected was to find so much in common. For instance when he talks about language and how even more than color it defines you to people I could absolute get what he meant. Trevor is a polygot and speaks a lot of the native languages, but his mother saw to it he was educated in English for as he says it is the language of money. You know English and it opens up the world to you in many places and gives you opportunities closed to so many even if they can speak multiple languages. People are treated differently and looked upon as more "educated" if you know English in many parts of the globe and it is a direct legacy of colonization. When he talks about using language to fit in and how his color did not matter then because he replied in the language the person was talking to him or money giving choices I absolutely get him because I have lived those. Even how Hitler in perceived in a place that was colonized made sense to me because in my native country's freedom struggle one of the leaders joined Hitler and the Japanese during WWII which itself was a catalyst to end colonization in many parts of the globe

    I could go on and on, but most of all I loved his stories about his grandmother and mother. In a gender based society, the women of the family raise the children and have a big hand in how they turn out. If a child dreams, it is because the mother especially nurtured that and taught them that.  It is an absolutely amazing book. I cried, smiled and savored my way through it. More than a book with stories of race, apartheid, colonization I loved it because it was so much about stories about a boy growing up with stories about him, his family and his people I could identify with which rarely happens to me.  

    I have had this book in my audible library for months but haven't started it yet. Your review has given me the kick-in-the-pants I need. I do love Trevor's voice and I believe that was the catalyst to my original purchase. I am a big fan of memoirs btw.

    • Like 8

    Book a Week 2020 - BW25: Happy Father's Day

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Negin said:

    I have nothing much to add, but ever since I saw your post, I have been quite concerned. I wish that I had hoarded more books. It's expensive and difficult to ship books here. Banning books is bad enough. The cancel culture is just another extreme example of a thirst for control over other people's lives and thoughts. It gives me scary thoughts of life in Iran. 

    Negin, I am happy to send you any books you like. I frequently grab up classics at the Goodwill Store that are in mint condition. I think it's time for me to make another book buying expedition soon, virus or no virus.

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 1

    Book a Week 2020 - BW25: Happy Father's Day

    in The Chat Board

    Posted · Edited by Shawneinfl

    4 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

    That's how I felt about The Hate U Give as I posted in the last thread. My book club avoids YA books so I'm not quite sure why the person chose this book (chosen before the George Floyd murder). I felt bad because the subject matter is important like you said, and I thought I *should* like the book. I just don't like the writing of YA books. I'm planning to read Just Mercy. I saw the movie but someone said if you don't read the book you miss out on a lot. I will make sure I pay attention and get the right version when I do read it.

    I felt similarly about my book club's very first book when we started many years ago - Man's Search for Meaning. I really really dislike philosophy but I read it anyway because the person who chose it said it was an important book. I felt bad about not liking a book written by a holocaust survivor. But he survived the holocaust! I should like his book! Nope. Hated it.

     

    I just watched "The Hate U Give" last night and I thought it was excellent. I am in the middle of watching "Just Mercy" today.  I may order both books.

    • Like 6

    Book a Week 2020 - BW25: Happy Father's Day

    in The Chat Board

    Posted · Edited by Shawneinfl

    11 minutes ago, Violet Crown said:

    Almost done with Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman. Also, sorry to say, abandoning Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Wee Girl and I were halfway through and bored to tears. WG couldn't take one more list of polysyllabic fish species that Mommy struggled to pronounce. I couldn't take one more list of pointless figures, measurements, and factoids. I'd started replacing (e.g.) "we were then at 154 degrees 15 minutes west longitude, 33 degrees 47 minutes south latitude" with "we were somewhere in the ocean." Even the promise of a giant squid to come wasn't enough to make us go on.

    Can we talk about "soft" book banning? Various Things (I say nebulously), which seem to be accelerating, have made me increasingly glad to have most of my books on paper and at home, and reluctant to let go of books that might not, shall we say, be in tune with the times, for fear they not be obtainable in the future. I was going to say that the most recent such Thing was an article in a prominent publication attempting to cancel Flannery O'Connor, which made me double-check that my copy of The Habit of Being was securely on the shelf. But instead the most recent Thing was chatting with a friend after church this morning, whom I haven't seen since start of lockdown. She works in a publishing-related industry, and the employees were all just told -- apparently on account of books seen on their home bookshelves in Zoom meetings -- that they needed to de-colonize their bookshelves. As an implied condition of their continued employment. They were sent extensive instructions, not just on adding Correct books, but on disposing of Incorrect books. She's looking for another job but they aren't exactly hanging from trees right now. I'm giving serious though to deleting my LibraryThing account, despite its usefulness and the time investment. There are things in my Charles Goodnight book -- bits of interviews the author had with Goodnight, excerpts from his letters -- that you would expect from a 19th-century Texan cattle baron, but which would definitely get his statue pulled down (if he has one). And I think about the electronic trail I've left behind by buying books on-line so much. Anyone else have similar paranoid thoughts? What about those of you whose books are electronically stored? Any worries?

     

    So, I should NOT be reducing my shelves as planned??? I hate the thought that someone else can try to control what I'm allowed to read or not. What's wrong with Flannery O'Connor, btw?

    • Like 6
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