Dystopian feel, with pared down prose and a lot mystery. Eventually we figure out we're in some future with a much smaller population of humanity. And we're within an unnatural system where no one seems to understand the controls. [The Giver] was always on my mind. This is is a bit of a puzzle to put together.

I liked it. I liked the pared down prose and curiosity build-up.

#booker #IB2025 No. 3

I waited 14 years to read this not-difficult book. Sigh.

This tries to capture a transitional era in the sciences, ~1800, when science and the arts were closely linked and science was a wide-open field for adventure, but was also becoming formalized, and a far more stringent field. (The steampunk era? 🙂) But Holmes approach is pure biography (of people instead of ideas). I was entertained. This is an easy, wonderful listen.

My second from the 2025 #IB2025 longlist.

It's that funny-not-funny-but-still-funny serious-not-serious-very-serious sort of satire - here on the dark history of Europe from the heirs.

But it becomes a bonding road trip, and a series of conversations and a character study of senile mom. This not only works but was thoroughly entertaining, especially because of mom‘s occasional sharpness. Comically heartwarming? Maybe. I enjoyed it. #booker

My new audiobook - and my second from the 2025 Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction. Lots of Shakespeare in the introduction 🥰

Starting a newly acquired poetry book. It‘s signed, and I‘m clumsy, so I‘m trying to keep it protected. But i do remove the plastic to read it. 🙂

My next international booker read.
#booker #IB2025

Tara Selter is stuck in November 18. That is every day when she wakes up its 11/18 (or 18/11 🇬🇧) , and everything repeats itself - the rainy weather near Lille, France, the sky, and people who wake fresh to their first 11/18, with no memory of the previous 11/18s.

It‘s a very curious book, with terrific atmosphere and yet many unanswered questions. It‘s the kind of book that makes me want to try writing.

#booker #IB2025

Frank Reid and 1913 Moscow. Penny has a way. Frank is a curious character, tolerant of everything. When his wife leaves the country without warning, taking the three kids and then sending them back, however much it was killing him inside, he continues along independent, making terrible decisions, while remaining tolerant of all collapsing Russia‘s foibles. A fantastic little novel.

New audiobook I started today (it‘s on the Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction longlist)

Working ok this one. #booker #IB2025

I felt fascinated but confused the 1st time I read this. I had sympathy for narrator, but some serious doubts. I reread it to try to get some clarity, but found it equally opaque. Now i see a path of evil intent by our narrator. But i couldn‘t pin her down. She‘s hiding herself. In interviews the author says she wants readers to finish the book with questions, not answers. I have more questions upon rereading. The book is brilliant, by the way.

Starting this. Anyone else reading the International Booker longlist?

@rmaclean4 @squirrelbrain @Leniverse @JamieArc @BarbaraBB @jlhammar @AnnaCecilie @JenP @TheKidUpstairs @charl08 @BookishTrish @Suet624 ??

#booker #IB2025

Wharton never finished this, and she never reached the really dramatic parts she sketched out in her synopsis. The title refers to rich American young girls who in the 1870's raided the English nobility for marriages like pirates. We follow 5 girls rejected by NY society. One, Nan, has a special governess who advises they go to England. They all do and we get to a darker part of the story before the manuscript stops.
#whartonbuddyread

This was my first time reading Woolf's fiction. It's a famous one to start with. It was challenging, hard to maintain concentration because there is no plot drive, hard to make sense of. The prose is rhythmic, sometimes feels like a poem, and I read it best when I applied a rhythm to my reading. And, I've been thinking about it ever since I finished. She leaves a lot to think about.

Care of my library, I started this today (amongst everything else I‘m reading)

As the world collapses, I‘m getting my Penny fix. 1913 Moscow - so, not exactly a more hopeful time.

I don‘t know exactly why I‘m reading this. It‘s heavily religious (and anti-materialist). I‘m not religious in this kind of way at all. But it appeared. A selection of quotes for each day. So I‘ve been page through, trying to catch up to today.

The Buccaneers - the unwritten conclusion
- #whartonbuddyread

Wharton never finished this. Her manuscript ends with Book 3. She had written a synopsis and others have filled in completions.

I found my copy‘s completion unreadable. I read 8 pages and quit.

I think the synopsis changes and reveals themes. The book is no longer about a playful clash of cultures, but about love struggles, sacrifice and loneliness. Themes Wharton lived. Thoughts?

Starting this 1942 novel. Opening 21 pages are terrific.

My new audiobook, selected to carry me far away from the daily catastrophic news. Three hours there is a whole lot on 18th-century botanist Joseph Banks.

Hmm. Does it work? This novel is actually two separate stories in each in a kind of distinct contrast. Chapters alternate. One is a medical student who abandons his career to run off with a married woman. The other is a convict who gets lost during the 1927 Mississippi flood, and finds himself floating alone in a small boat with a woman in labor.

These stories are ok, but really only for Faulkner completists.

I love Deborah Levy. She's always a little absurd and it's always entertaining. This is her first of several memoirs, covering mainly her time in South Africa while her father was imprisoned for about five years for speaking against Apartheid, and then some of her time in England.

I want to read her other memoirs, but this will be the only one I listen to (free on audible). I didn‘t like the reader.

Hollinghurst, the gay author, is a beautiful, elegant, paced writer. And this audiobook is read perfectly. But, whoa, slow. David Winn has many layers of separation between his single mother home, half-Burmese appearance, gay sexuality, and those of wealthy, elite-school classmates. The book keeps going through his 1970‘s acting career, many relationships, and on to covid. A little too much too slowly for this listener. But I liked the style.

This was my January book. It‘s a chunk and it‘s slow, and has a massive amount of research (which Byatt said was rewarding). The book takes English children of the 1870‘s, born into the liberal artistic intellectual world of the Fabian Society, and carries us with them through WWI, after which they are clearly no longer children. I adored this massive thing and its vast spread across 50 characters. I read it with a Booker group on fb.

The Buccaneers - Book 3
#whartonbuddyread

Ok, 1st of all, I didn‘t see that marriage happening. What a devastating way to open book 3.

2nd - that‘s the end of Wharton‘s draft.

3rd - but she also left a synopsis. So we know what is going to happen. But that‘s looking ahead.

4th - so, Book 3 - thoughts on Longlands, Ushant, Dowager, Thwarte, Conchita, Testvalley, Lizzy Robinson?

5th - completion plan next week. See comments.

The ruins of Tintagel castle in Cornwall

The Buccaneers - Book 2
#whartonbuddyread

Scene switch: We‘re in England, and new American wealth collides with English heirs. Nan has romantic interludes. Lady Churt confronts Seadown and Virginia. Then, Tintagle confronts Testvalley. What would you have liked Testvalley to say?

Where are you all with this, within your Wharton mindset?

I‘ve been working through this as i‘ve had time. I might have finally gotten to the point of enjoying it. The first 150 pages were not all that fun.

Reading my first Woolf novel.

Here‘s an early quote:
Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests…

My new audio. This is the 1st of several memoirs - and it‘s free on audible. Writing is fun. (Reader is crappy - but not so bad that I can‘t tolerate her. I think Juliette Stephenson reads an edition. Maybe find that)

Deborah Levy writes about growing up in South Africa, her father imprisoned for speaking against Apartheid.

The Buccaneers - Book 1

Five girls in NY in a world largely developed for us by the adults - Mrs. St. George, satirized shallow housewife and mother, and Ms. Testvalley, an out-of-style English Governess with Italian parents. We see several other characters and one interesting scene with all five girls welcoming the governess. We are back in time again, Age of Innocence era - which doesn‘t excuse the casual racism that closes Book 1. Thoughts?

Something I found used in California and have been paging through

Short listed for the #Booker in 1980, and something of a cult classic. The story of a wwi vet with PTSD from London who goes to York, hired to restore a whitewashed medieval mural in a tiny town. It‘s endearing and quietly wonderful.

I‘ve been picking away at this since Dec 27. I‘m sort of mostly done, but just wanted to share what I‘m actively listening to.

This is my first Hollinghurst, so I‘m just learning what an elegant prose writer he is. Everything is beautiful. It‘s also really long, patient and slow. The life a gay actor on an Oxford scholarship.

Getting started. #whartonbuddyread

Reminder - two weeks till next #whartonbuddyread 😍

A soft pick. A Native American history focused on the way the many different tribes responded to, and managed, European encroachment, each responding in their own way. The info is solid. The tone is strange. A lot to of pro-native bias - like way over the top.

Some sass, some absurdity, and a lot of Auld Lang Syne sung at night on the curb. Spark writes about a writer working in her first novel in 1950, in “modern times”. An autobiographical touch. But the story is ridiculous and fun, and, as it‘s Spark, hangs around. Everyone should read Muriel Spark.

My 13th Faulkner book, here a collection of linked stories, was also the easiest Faulkner to read. It was a nice break after Absalom. These stories cover the civil war from the perspective of two boys at home in Mississippi, one white and one a loyal slave. Told in 1st person, it reads like a document of an era, although it‘s not clear what Faulkner‘s sources were. Could have been his own imagination. Anyway, possibly a good intro to Faulkner.

A long look at the mixture of cultural elements in lawyer‘s family in some unspecified village outside Dehli. And then a depressing parallel in Massachusetts. The 1st hundred pages are vibrant and dynamic and I truly loved reading them. The fun fades and purpose is curious. But I enjoyed the book overall.

My current book. The first easy to read Faulkner… (this will be my 13th Faulkner)

#booker #booker2024 #longlist

My last longlist book. This is an interesting narrative style, a series of snapshots from each fighter‘s past, future, and rather violent present. The 8 girls fighting for the u-18 boxing championship in-front of 12 fans in a neglected arena. But the narrative is doing a lot more than just following our neglected lady gladiators.

My full longlist summary will go in the comments.

A lot of deep Faulkner readers say this is his best book. I found it hard - 4-min/pg hard. It propels itself. But it didn‘t leave me in awe. Just exhausted. My 12th Faulkner novel, and by far the most difficult to read.

- #whartonbuddyread
- Feb 1 - Book 1
- Feb 8 - Book 2
- Feb 15 - Book 3

An unfinished novel. We‘ll discuss book 1 in six weeks.

I‘m learning Penelope Fitzgerald was a special writer. Fell in love with The Blue Flower earlier this year, and have now read this one - a bad good marriage in 1950‘s Florence with a doctor too rational to acknowledge his emotions. Ok, that‘s humble. Now hand it over to Penelope and her backhanded, almost absurd, striking lines. 🥰

My current audiobook. This is the recent winner of the 2024 Cundill History Prize. The language is a little overkill in lifting up the native image and condemning the European one. But the info has been good.

My next book. I started this morning

Starting my last from the #Booker2024 #longlist. This is my first book after drowning in Faulkner‘s Absalom, Absalom! for 20 hours at 4-minutes a page. So, this one is so far crazy fast and clear

My 12th from the #Booker #longlist. One more to go.

A sensitive thriller? A low-level violent drug-deal abduction, that becomes very interested in the sensitive nature of its characters. The pacing is careful but controlled. When we want it to move on, it holds its course. Be patient dear reader. I enjoyed it.

#Booker2024

This eventually was terrific. She talks about Chinese universal surveillance, the apparent arbitrariness of law enforcement to prevent rebellion. And the problem of openness around AI. A known code is useful. But if hidden, it seems random and becomes dangerous. And she talks about the predictive nature of ChatGPT, how it predicts language patterns, and so makes things up, conjuring facts. I found the 1st 7 hrs dull, the last 2 fascinating.

This was a fantastic introduction to Keats. Miller takes a famous poem and writes a biographical essay around it. Then she moves on to another poem. So readers get to his most famous poems and then reads about them. Keats died of tuberculosis in 1821, age 26. Almost all his famous poems date from 1818-to-1820. Three magical years in a tragic life. This is recommended. I‘m left in love with Keats.