Since celaphods like octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish are about as far from us as you can get in the animal kingdom, Peter Godfrey-Smith uses the differences between them and us to explore the nature of sentience and consciousness and how far back in evolution they can be traced. ⬇

#coffeeandabook

Marcellus, an octopus exhibited in an aquarium, is bored, while Tova , the aquarium's night cleaner, is working as a form of grief therapy. Together they may be able to resolve each other's problems.

I didn't hate it. I thought it was too obvious too soon who Cameron was, and I wasn't convinced by Marcellus. An octopus POV should be a lot stranger than Marcellus's musings. The story was cute enough to keep me going but it didn't enthuse me.

#sunshinewellness #bookclubchoice

The unnamed narrator is a firefighter in a post-apocalyptic world. In the first chapter he and his crew are called out to a fire, but then change to a flashback for more than half the book.

Up until the big reveal about 2/3 of the way through, we followed some very, very funny detours but I don't think the actual story was enough to carry the reader on by itself, particularly as I kept losing track of who was who.

PICK with reservations.

@ShyBookOwl
#FirstLineFridays

too busy battling the Evangelist‘s blazing determination to ban on religious grounds several of the texts students are required to study that year. Gulliver‘s Travels survives the scissors, as does A Christmas Carol, but Modern Short Stories in English is consigned for ever to the forbidden zone. Sadly, it is so dull that not even this recommendation can make any of us read it more than once.

Building + Culture = Architecture.

The author takes some buildings he sees as iconic (emphasising this is a personal choice which would be different for somebody from a different cultural background) and how the cultural meanings they accumulate make them architecturally significant. An interesting book which could be improved with better pictures as the photos don't really illustrate the points the author is making.

#coffeeandabook

Finnish national epic telling the story of Väinämöinen, a shaman-type figure, Ilmarinen, a smith, and Lemminkäinen, whose defining feature is his promiscuity, and their trips to the Northland seeking wives and fighting wars.

Thank goodness for the Wikipedia summary of the story because I spent a lot of time trying to work out how the episodes all fitted together. It was interesting and I'm glad I've read it but I don't think I would do so again.

#storygraph #wrapup #February2025

#MarchReadingPlans

Honourable mentions to "Under The Whispering Door" and "The Masquerades of Spring"

Happy Kalevala/Finnish Culture Day.

“Kalevala Day (Finnish: Kalevalan päivä), also known as Finnish Culture Day (Finnish: suomalaisen kulttuurin päivä), is celebrated on 28 February in honor of Finnish culture and the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.“

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala_Day

In 1960s Oxford, Henry Lytten, a younger colleague of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, is amusing his friends with the worldbuilding for Anterwold, the setting for the Story. Then his cat sitter finds what looks like a portal in his cellar. Meanwhile in the 2220s a research station on Mull has made a discovery but is it a way to travel back in time or a way to travel to alternative universes?

⬇

#coffeeandabook

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepath. When a vampire comes to town she finds his company very restful because she can't hear his thoughts. A lot of not quite prostitutes are turning up dead and the police's main suspect is Sookie's brother. Somebody also seems to be stirring up anti-vampire prejudice so Sookie and Bill the Vampire team up to find the culprit.

The whole thing is quite ridiculous and I loved every trashy moment of it.

A biography of Marcus Aurelius interspersed with thoughts of a modern Stoic psychotherapist.

The historical parts were interesting, the self-help ideas of the author less so. The author REALLY doesn't like Hadrian and seems to read the Historia Augusta less critically than most historians.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

‘What about this man Oldmanter‘s natural tendency to violence?‘

‘He acts within the law.‘

‘That‘s easy if you write the law.‘

#coffeeandabook

Is this where we're headed?

Miss Marple's friend Elspeth McGillicuddy actually witnesses a man strangling a woman from her train window but despite her alerting the conductor and the railway authorities no corpse is found until Miss Marples hires her former home help to find the body. The woman is unidentified so who killed her and why?

Looking back I should have known who the murderer was but of course I didn't.

#coffeeandabook

Ariadne Oliver is planning a murder mystery game for a fete and feeling the situation is being manipulated calls on Poirot for help.

Despite the setting being based on Christie's own house and Ariadne Oliver being a self-insert, this story feels rather perfunctory and doesn't stand out.

While fleeing Paris, conman La Motte is forced to take under his wing Adeline, on the run from her father, who is trying to force her into becoming a nun.

Although the effects of scenery on people's moods are important all through the book, the author really goes overboard with the travelogue sections of vol. 3, apparently based on travel books of the time. This striving for geographical realism is odd given how unrealistic the people are.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

Another year passes in Thrush Green. The big changes I was expecting didn't happen but there were some surprises with old cast members returning and new cast members being added.

After Wallace Price's sudden death from a heart attack he is taken to a tea shop which also serves as a way station preparing ghosts to move on to their next existence.

I laughed. I cried. It didn't quite have the warm fuzzies factor of Cerulean Sea (though cerulean still seems to be one of the author's favourite words) but it was still a delight to read.

Life goes on as charmingly as ever in Thrush Green. Modern life inserts itself with the temporary presence of four members of a rock band, two of whom use drugs, but we only hear about it 2nd or 3rd hand. Major changes are ahead though, with two characters talking about retirement and another no longer able to take care of herself.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

I read the first chapter, describing Feyi's first sexual encounter since the death of her husband in an accident five years before. Didn't care enough to continue. DNF

#coffeeandabook

#queerbc
@PuddleJumper

The author says in the preface that the book should be accessible to anybody with a maths GCSE. Apparently a maths GCSE is more difficult than a maths O Level. I kept my head above water (I think) till Chapter 6 when we hit geometry, which was my downfall with school maths as well. I just skimmed Chapter 7 on estimates and approximations but re-surfaced with the FAQ in the final chapter, which was more about mathematicians than mathematics.

#coffeeandabook

Nightingale on a mission in 1920s New York seeks help from a Wooster-ish school chum.

Great fun. I would like to read the probably fictional books mentioned in the endpapers.

#lunchandabook

#coffeeandabook

#FebruaryReadingPlans

Apprentice gemmologist Murdoc Jern's master is killed as a sacrifice. Can Murdoc escape from Koonga and find out why?

A strange mixture of fantasy faux-mediaeval tropes (apprentices, arcane rituals, quests, rings of power) set in a science fiction world of spaceships, rockets, spacesuits, interstellar travel, and aliens. There were too many threads left hanging and unexplained. They may be explained later, but I'm not sure I will bother.

Lily's self-discovery as a Chinese-American lesbian in early 1950s San Francisco.

A map of SF would definitely have helped. Location obviously had an important effect on how Lily was feeling at various points in the story but the street names didn't really help me locate myself. But still an interesting and engaging story. I did spend quite some time unsure whether the title meant yesterday evening or the final appearance/performance.

When one January choice nods to another

@PuddleJumper
@RamsFan1963

#classiclsfbc
#queerbc

The Miss Chinatown contestants were clustered together behind a canvas screen near the stage.

#FirstLineFridays

#dinnerandabook
#queerbc
#gongxifacai

@PuddleJumper

Humanity has been confined to the Solar System and a few severely overcrowded space stations by the Quill. Rumour says there was a single survivor of a Quill attack.

Good world building with an intriguing and exciting story. 2 minor complaints: the way the story was slowed down by Aaron and Gail's romance. I wish the author had chosen a different name for the aliens - I kept imagining people being massacred with obsolete writing implements.

@ShyBookOwl
#FirstLineFridays

The novel about Tori Spring that inspired Heartstopper.

Is Tori suffering from general teenage angst or actual depression? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure how compatible the book is with Heartstopper, certainly not with the TV but even with the books.

I AM AWARE as I step into the common room that the majority of people here are almost dead, including me.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

Charlie's very bad Christmas after he gets home as told by him, Tori, and Oliver. As a novella, it was a very quick read, made even more so by the large spacing between lines. I enjoyed it, though.