what a remarkable book. i've never read a piece of writing that has managed to be both so brutally, awfully shocking and delicately, devastatingly heawhat a remarkable book. i've never read a piece of writing that has managed to be both so brutally, awfully shocking and delicately, devastatingly heartbreaking....more
short, eloquent and impactful. ideas and topics covered will be familiar to feminists, but it's still a joy to read them penned from adichie's hand. ishort, eloquent and impactful. ideas and topics covered will be familiar to feminists, but it's still a joy to read them penned from adichie's hand. it's also peppered with a few enlightening (and exasperating) insights into life and gender in contemporary nigeria....more
ugh this was such a disappointment. this series started with such promise. the first book was so great because the sheer novelty of reading a protagonugh this was such a disappointment. this series started with such promise. the first book was so great because the sheer novelty of reading a protagonist who was - literally - in several places at once never wore off, and i missed it tremendously in the latter books. the first also hinted at a huge world, spanning an entire empire and the aliens outside of it. but the second, and then the third, just didn't capitalise on that. it makes very little sense that we're stuck in a dull system on a dull station on a dull ship for 2/3 of the series.
that would be forgivable if anything interesting or exciting happens, but it rarely does. even when a few things do, everyone has to have a good sit down and talk about it afterwards with a cup of tea. and the people in it are so two-dimensional - apart from breq, the protagonist, (who has now been elevated to almost god-like levels of ability and omniscience and is beloved by all)....more
this was a difficult book to read. and i'm not saying that in the sense that it offended my delicate sensibilities - i mean in the sense that it was, this was a difficult book to read. and i'm not saying that in the sense that it offended my delicate sensibilities - i mean in the sense that it was, at times, very hard to care about 90% of the characters (apart from you, nina burgess!).
i felt that, often, the book places form above all else. for instance, you'll get a page like "oh my god he shot me he shot me in the arm i'm running don't look behind you how did he get in here i don't understand" which i'm okay with once, but three, four, five times? or a character voice who the author has decided should be in the form of an interview, only you don't hear the interviewer's questions: "you want to know the answer to [insert question the interviewer has asked]? " that, combined with the vast cast of characters, meant that only a few actually ended up feeling like real people.
but when it's good, it's good. it's meticulously researched and the setting is fascinating. nina burgess is worth the price of admission alone, and deserves her own book....more
i feel awful giving anything written by mary beard a low rating because she's great, but this was painfully dull and hard to follow. the structure, whi feel awful giving anything written by mary beard a low rating because she's great, but this was painfully dull and hard to follow. the structure, which kept yo-yoing from chronological to thematic back to chronological to narrate an event before snapping back a few hundred years to chart its development, made it exhausting reading.
perhaps my main gripe with this is that i never actually cared. apart from one fantastic chapter of social history which brings cicero to life through his letters, the many *many* names which grace these pages remained just that - names. she mentions very briefly the stuff i picked up this book for in the first place: nero, who may have tried to drown his mother in a boat, or domitian, who whittled away hours torturing flies to death, or the moving of the great mother goddess from her home in turkey to rome accompanied by self-flagellating eunuch priests. but only in passing, on her way to spend pages and pages on the structure of the roman army or senate or blahhh. i want to know more about these despotic imperial tyrants or the great mother and her self-flaggelating eunuch priests, goddamn it!...more
"but you see, my son, homosexuality isn't just a conflict that needs to be resolved" - his voice picked up those words as thought they were nasty bits"but you see, my son, homosexuality isn't just a conflict that needs to be resolved" - his voice picked up those words as thought they were nasty bits of refuse - "homosexuality is also a sin." i think he had no notion how little an effect the word sin had on me. he might just as well have said, "homosexuality is bad juju."
edmund white's (at least semi) autobiographical novel about growing up gay in 1950s america is discordant, ornate, heart-wrenching, and terribly unhappy. the style is poetic and ornate, embellished to such a degree the book feels almost porcelain, beautiful and fragile. while difficult to read in parts, the language is actually a perfect translation of the protagonist-narrator who spins it: edmund-in-the-book is vulnerable and cruel, self-loathing but driven by an inextinguishable desire to survive. he's on the cusp of some sort of self-revelation and acceptance, but - a prisoner of his time and the people within it - never quite manages to get there.
in short, kids are weird and odd and if we just let them know that they are allowed to be different and we don't expect anything else of them, we'd all be a lot happier for it....more
funny, offbeat and angst-ridden. as if the observations re: hellish self-doubt that is the millennial existence weren't good enough, the illustrationsfunny, offbeat and angst-ridden. as if the observations re: hellish self-doubt that is the millennial existence weren't good enough, the illustrations made me want to rip out every page and stick it in a frame to hang on my wall. that's a good thing, people!...more
"to the one in the skies, this city must look like a scintillating pattern of speckled glows in all directions, like a firecracker going off amid thic"to the one in the skies, this city must look like a scintillating pattern of speckled glows in all directions, like a firecracker going off amid thick darkness ... it is a configuration of sparkles, each dot a light lit by someone awake at this hour. from where the celestial gaze is situated, from that high above, all these sporadically lit bulbs must seem in perfect harmony, constantly flickering, as if coding a cryptic message to god."
what a beautiful, sparkling gem of a book. spanning decades, countries, and continents with breathless ease, the bastard of istanbul charts the sad, intertwined histories of a turkish istanbulite family and an american armenian one through a diverse cast of memorable, odd, lovable female family members.
it's examination of the past, how it's either a blanket to cloak oneself in or something to fear and hide from, how we yearn for the rootedness it brings, how multiple rich personal histories can be looped around a single, simple, every-day object - a cauldron, a pomegranate brooch, a pack of garbanzo beans - is especially moving.
and the city, istanbul, is almost a character in itself. its chaotic and charming, soaked by rain, blazed by sunshine, or raked by winds from the bosphorous. its streets are infused by the smells of turkish kitchens, the sonorous clinks of its tea glasses, and the cries of the street merchants. and you can hardly move without uncovering part of its almost endless (often painful) history.
this book has so much heart and was an absolute joy to read. now excuse me while i go read every single book elif shafak has ever written....more
what. did. i. just. read. i don't want to be mean, but this book was a hot mess.
okay, so let's start with something i enjoyed: it's treatment of gendwhat. did. i. just. read. i don't want to be mean, but this book was a hot mess.
okay, so let's start with something i enjoyed: it's treatment of gender, race, and sexuality. all three are refreshingly fluid and it's something to commend the fifth season for. there's a real confidence to how jemisin knocks down the stereotypes and biases often found in fantasy - hell, most books - without even breaking a sweat. more of that, please.
but the rest? it's all so confused. it's harry potter without the wonder, game of thrones without the power-plays or a world to get lost in, an adventure caper without excitement, a dystopia without any believable menace. it’s even, in one particularly cringey sequence, a clumsy erotic novel, which has left the horrifying sentence "cock on oily cock" burnt onto my brain.
the fifth season also relies heavily on two things i absolutely cannot abide in books. firstly, heavy amounts of talking exposition: "well, other character that i've just met, let me talk to you for five pages about how i got here". secondly, and worst of all, not trusting the reader enough to join the dots by themselves - there's nothing more aggravating than making a connection only for it to then be connected for you anyway. it's the literary equivalent of finding a joke funny, only to have the joke explained by the teller.
i think i’ll stop there, you get the picture....more
oh, frustrating read - i'm still puzzling out whether i liked mr norris or not. this is basically goodbye to berlin, only with a single focus - the sioh, frustrating read - i'm still puzzling out whether i liked mr norris or not. this is basically goodbye to berlin, only with a single focus - the sinister, odious, charming mr norris (and the very peculiar relationship he has with william bradshaw a.k.a christopher isherwood). he's a captivating character, equally lovable and detestable, and the book is fantastic as a character study. overall, alas, it didn't come alive for me, and i'm not sure why. possibly down to the william bradshaw character (who feels paper-thin and dull against the rounded, glittering arthur norris) and the strange tension from knowing that there's a *lot* here which isn't said, due both to its autobiographical nature and the fact that being gay was very much illegal in 1933....more
“i do love this physical world � and the air and the country. the backyard, the gravel in the back alley. the grass. the cool nights. lying in bed tal“i do love this physical world � and the air and the country. the backyard, the gravel in the back alley. the grass. the cool nights. lying in bed talking with you in the dark.�
old people get a tough time of it. just as young people are often reduced to smartphone-sexting zombies, old people are similarly made into adorable grandmas or unhinged racists. not so with our souls at night, who’s protagonists � addie and louis � are *actual* people, with personal histories, unrealised dreams, and things that keep them awake at night.
in the book, addie and louis decide to abandon what’s expected of them to fend off the loneliness of old age with each other. some of the most lump-in-throat moments come from their fierce determination to be happy, doing their best to protect their relationship from the scorn of their families and small-minded townfolk, who try to turn it into something dirty and shameful. the writing is absolutely pitch perfect, economical while taking in the textures of a moment, elegant and touching, and the book is even more moving for being author kent haruf’s final novel before he passed away. short, bittersweet, understated, and totally heartbreaking....more
so, i was pretty excited when i picked it up, and it started off okay. and it stayed okay. and it ended okay. and that was it. it was basically the book equivalent of a flatline. i think the language has been poorly translated because it's rather clumsy, and the plot is pretty dull - it got to a point where i was so bored with it that i often dreaded picking the book back up again.
"we have no need of other worlds. we need mirrors. we don't know what to do with other worlds. a single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't acce"we have no need of other worlds. we need mirrors. we don't know what to do with other worlds. a single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. we are searching for an ideal image of our own world � at the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to � we arrive [on solaris] as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us � that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence � then we don't like it anymore.�
so, this guy � with serious baggage � arrives on a research station hovering over a strange thinking ‘ocean� which humans have been trying to make contact with for ages but to no avail (who would want to talk to us, after all?). and things start getting pretty messed up very fast.
i love how creepy this book is. it really is skin-crawlingly unsettling. my absolute favourite thing about science fiction are the aliens, especially when they are really *alien* aliens, and this ‘ocean� takes the biscuit. it remains impenetrable throughout, and � at first, anyway � there’s a primordial horror about that. what is it? idk. why is it doing this weird shit? idk. does it want to kill us? idk. you get the picture.
yes, it's a good story, but it’s also darn smart. lem has some very interesting things to say about science, progress, and our need to dissect, reduce, and categorise things we don’t understand (and how we basically lose it if they still refuse to yield up their secrets). it makes a pertinent point about our tendency, as a species, to look outward and move forward before understanding/accepting who we truly are or where we’ve come from (see intro quote). and with the moon and mars 100% mapped, but only 5% of our earth’s ocean charted, it’s a point that rings uncomfortably true....more
"this is me having my extremely nuanced feelings / overwhelmed by pop music and kind of enjoying it"
funny, playful, curious poems for the selfie gener"this is me having my extremely nuanced feelings / overwhelmed by pop music and kind of enjoying it"
funny, playful, curious poems for the selfie generation, but a little hit-and-miss. can sometimes feel like the reading equivalent of overhearing an in-joke you're not privvy to. ...more
okay, so, i judged a book by it's cover. i saw this and it looked cool (i think i've seen that cover photo som"even a cracked pot has a lid that fits"
okay, so, i judged a book by it's cover. i saw this and it looked cool (i think i've seen that cover photo somewhere before? maybe in dazed&confused?) and an appealingly-obscure title. so i bought it.
it turned out to be slim, tightly-written and perfectly economical. no word here is superfluous, no sentence structure too long or grammar-laden. terse and to the point. like this. full stops. lots of them. and, you know, i quite like that.
the protagonist is a thirty-something lady who is incredibly lonely, and she meets this older guy who is also incredibly lonely and sometimes a bit of a judgemental dick to her. and they have this strange relationship which neither are particularly sure about, and which has spiky edges as well as soft, rounded corners. they also eat fantastic japanese food and drink an awful lot of sake/beer.
and that's sort of it. it's interesting because the characters basically remain strangers throughout the entire book, and i really enjoyed the descriptions of all the food because food is literally my everything. but, alas, there wasn't much here to make me pick it back up again....more
garrard conley's memoir about his time spent at a christian gay 'treatment' centre is harrowing. i'm an atheist, but even i understand the awful cruelgarrard conley's memoir about his time spent at a christian gay 'treatment' centre is harrowing. i'm an atheist, but even i understand the awful cruelty in twisting a person's faith onto themselves, turning it into a blunt scalpel to hack away parts of one's self. every lgtbq person at some point has to struggle with a horrible cocktail of fear and loneliness, and i can only imagine how much more damaging that is when you throw crucifixes and eternal hellfire into the mix.
what i didn't expect when i picked up conley's book, however, was the beautiful writing. he's adept at capturing the texture of a moment and the book is alive with highly-visual vignettes of his formative years - swirling dustmotes, piles of fresh cotton, frozen lakes.
desperately sad, oddly hopeful, and especially timely, this isn't easily forgotten....more
“all it takes is the elimination of one generation. one generation of anything. beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of french, whatever. br“all it takes is the elimination of one generation. one generation of anything. beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of french, whatever. break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.�
in a world of big pharma, cloning, rampant consumerism but dwindling resources, this is one of the most scarily plausible post-apocalypses i've read. oryx and crake is a compulsive page-turner of a thriller, but, as it slowly unfurls itself to you, the craftsmanship here is evident. the plot is fast and gripping, but multi-layered and complex - there's so much here to unpick and chew over. and goddamn, the ending! ...more
"i, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job god had done. nice going, god! nobody but you could have done it, god! i certainly couldn't have ... what memo"i, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job god had done. nice going, god! nobody but you could have done it, god! i certainly couldn't have ... what memories for mud to have! what interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud i met! i loved everything i saw! good night. i will go to heaven now."
vonnegut's books are always trying to tell you something about this cray world of ours, and this is no exception. a biting and tragic satire on religion, science, and politics, shot through with that trademark vonnegutian big-heartedness and levity. its depiction of religion, being both hilarious and oddly respectful, is especially excellent....more
and so concludes john julius norwich's excellent three-part history of the byzantine empire. this volume charts the decline of the fated empire as it'and so concludes john julius norwich's excellent three-part history of the byzantine empire. this volume charts the decline of the fated empire as it's savaged by foreign powers and fractured by internal squabbles, before the final blow is dealt by the ingenious and ferocious mehmed ii. fascinating reading...more
“somebody ... should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. but multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the“somebody ... should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. but multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the oddest places! - for the lack of it.�
this is the equivalent of the odd knot in your throat before you're about to cry. it's heart-wrenching. at the risk of sounding like a first-class douchebag, it's equally about (self)hate as well as love. love forced into hiding turns in on itself and gnaws away at the soul and turns it bitter, and this is exactly giovanni's room, is exactly the fate queer people are only just beginning to break away from. how awful to think of all those lives lost to loathing/self-loathing, spent in some horrible pantomime of self-deception. nowadays there are more giovannis and davids together than there are apart, but how many suffered the same fate as these two?
for this beautiful, immensely sad little gem of a book - james baldwin, i thank you....more
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