I'm Still Reading - This Was My October

 Despite (or maybe because of) my continuing struggle with the "blahs," reading continues to give me great pleasure when little else does. I may not have the energy right now to write formal reviews, but that's freed me up to wander rather serendipitously from book to book as things catch my eye. 

These are the ones I read in October:

• Beautifully written novel
• Longtime series fans will especially appreciate catching up with familiar characters such as Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, and Bob Burgess, among others.
• Explores the impact of Covid on the world, families, and friends
• 5 Stars

• Crime Fiction set in England
• Main character is a young teen girl with the instincts of a modern Sherlock Holmes
• Requires a committed suspension of disbelief
• Fun read and setting but a little too far over the top for me in the end
• 3 Stars

• Perhaps the worst 2024 Booker Prize nominee
• Pretentious and confusing style
• Who cares?
• 1 star

• Would make a perfect Tom Hanks movie
• Two strangers meet in a cemetery once a year to help each other cope with the grief of losing a loved one.
• Thoughtful but funny
• A little too predictable, but fun
• 3 Stars

• An explanation of and renouncement of Cancel Culture"
• Frank, brutal, and sometimes funny as hell
• Author's sense of humor is all over the map - from subtle irony to slapstick
• 4 Stars

• Very clever format and points-of-view
• Sometimes cartoonish characters that the reader still care about
• Somewhat predictable but does have a few fun twists
• My October Cover of the Month
• How to make the world a better place by "deleting" certain people
• 4 Stars

• Salman Rushdie memoir detailing the New York knife attack that he miraculously survived
• A chance to learn about Rushdie's post-fatwa life in his own words
• Even those who are not fans of Rushdie's fiction will appreciate this memoir.
• 5 Stars

• The kind of feel-good novel about books, bookstores, and booksellers that we all just need to read sometimes
• Two great characters: old bookseller and a little girl who sees right through him
• A bit of a German fairytale 
• 3.5 Stars

• Lots of theories about slowing down brain aging
• Debunks lots of things we've all been told about demential and Alzheimer's
• A suggested lifestyle approach that, at the least, can't hurt anything by trying it
• Who knows? Something else to consider
• 4 Stars

• Based on the Netflix series called Killing Eve
• Some characters are the same
• Some characters are the same but meet different fates
• Some main characters are created just for the series
• Some characters are of different gender
• Basic plot is the same
• One of those rare times I think the adaptation works better than the original novel it's based on
• 3 Stars

So that was my October. I've only read four books so far in November but I'm reading some nonfiction that slows me down a bit, so I'm not surprised by that. I hope you are all doing well. I hope to catch up on comments sometime soon and appreciate your patience. Hang in there, guys.

What I Most Miss About Bookstores - Part II

 

OK, so bear with me for a minute because at first glance this is likely to seem more than a little bit strange - and like a lot of work. But, in fact, I didn't even realize I was doing this for a while because it is just a steady progression of something I was already doing to a smaller degree. And over the last thirty days or so, it's been working beautifully for me.

I'm lucky enough to have access to the digital public libraries of my county, my city, several adjacent counties, and a rather remarkable community college system. The really beautiful thing about all of this access is that all of these libraries share assets among each other - and they can be simultaneously (completely in the background) browsed from a single software application. The same seems to be true for access to physical copies of books, but I'm pretty sure that I would have to collect those myself in some cases. 

Two or three times a week, I do a deep dive on the app to see what catches my eye. And now that I understand the app settings, I am often notified the moment some hot new book hits the digital shelves, meaning that I get to skip the hold lines completely, or at the very least, place myself near the top of any queue that develops. I grab whatever looks interesting, and sometimes that means six or seven books in one evening. Then, over the next several days, I "flip" through the books, maybe reading a chapter or two in the process before deciding that I do indeed want to read the whole book. Of course, I'm just as likely to learn that the style and content of something is not anything I want to waste my time on - and back it goes. 

So some books get returned almost immediately, some get a prompt reading, and when things really get out of hand, others are returned and placed on the hold list for a second look later on. 

The check-out and hold list limits are so generous that I haven't come near testing them yet: 50 total books on loan and 30 books on hold. Right now, for example, I have 25 books on loan from the library and another 23 on hold. Those on hold are estimated to be available to me anywhere from two weeks from now to six months from now, so they are sort of a TBR list that the library maintains for me. 

Something I've started doing more of lately is browsing by genre - and I've found the experience to be very much like it was in the bookstores, maybe even better in some ways. For instance, I browsed the history section and the historical fiction sections last night and caught up on the best of what's been published in the genres since Covid. I have a fair feel now, I hope, for the ones I don't want to miss, and I was even able to pair up some fiction and nonfiction titles the way I used to do. 

For the first time in a while, I feel like I'm fairly informed about the genres I enjoy reading the most. I see the hot titles, the backlist from authors I haven't heard from for a while, and discover new writers I would have missed by relying on chains like the infamous B&N. It works really well for me - and so far at least, my library system doesn't seem to have any problems with the larger than average turnover I've created. (I doubt they've even noticed, actually. And if they have, they may welcome the boost in usage statistics that results.)

I know this is not for everyone. But if you read e-books a lot, or if you don't have easy access to brick-and-mortar bookstores anymore but do have a library to tap, this might be something you want to consider.

Suggestion: If you try this, and you notice others stacking up behind you on a hold list for a book you have checked out, please don't keep the book for two weeks trying to decide whether you want to read it or not. Decide quickly whether you will be reading it anytime soon, if at all, and get it back into the system ASAP. I can't help but feel as if I'm gaming the system a little bit, so that is a high priority for me.

Anyway...let me know if this is something you might try - or if you think I've completely lost my mind now.

What I Most Miss About Bookstores - Part I

 

What I miss most about having half-a-dozen favorite bookstores to make regular visits to is the pleasure of shutting out the rest of the world for an hour or two while slowly making my way through shelf after shelf of books I'd never seen before. Whichever book caught my eye next was going to, at least for a few minutes, feel like a new gift to be opened. I couldn't wait to see what was inside "the box." 

Sadly, those days are long gone. In the Houston suburbs I now have relatively easy access to two Barnes & Noble big box bookstores, but except for their physical layout they are pretty much the same. And neither of them offers any real bargains anymore other than the same handful of discounted books I can find in any Target store in the country - or even in my local Kroger grocery store, for that matter. Knowing that I'm unlikely to be able to carry home for much under $30 any book I might fall in love with (even though I didn't even know I was looking for it when I came into the store) takes away most of the joy of exploring the shelves. Instead of walking away with four or five new books on each visit - some from the now non-existent remainders shelves - I might come home with one, or none, nowadays. Let's face it, all of us read a lot of books or we wouldn't be talking about them so much, but most of us can't afford to pay $100 for four or five new ones every couple of weeks. 

So I don't browse much anymore, and when I do I often (I know, I know...that's not the thing to do) come home and place an order with Amazon. And I always come home at least a little bit angry about what Barnes & Noble has turned itself into after so ruthlessly driving all the competition right out of business like it did.

But I've found a solution of sorts. And in Part II, I'll tell you what that is and how it's worked for me for the last thirty days. 

Wandering Stars and My Friends (Impressions)

 

"A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is finished, no matter how brave its warriors or how strong their weapons." 

Pros:

• Memorable Characters - especially, as indicated by the above quote, the women.
• Part One is solid historical fiction from the Native American perspective
• Tommy Orange writes very readable historical fiction.

Cons:

• Part Two (set in 2018), the aftermath of the tragedy that ended Orange's There There, makes for tedious reading well before it is over. 
• The novel offers little that hasn't already been said just as well in numerous other similar novels written by Native Americans.

"The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and, although nothing does, we continue to live in that dream."

Pros:

• Well developed, complex characters
• Seamlessly ties together Libyan history from the 1980s through the aftermath of the Arab Spring of 2011
• Excellent prose style
• Vividly captures the paranoia that Libyan exiles lived with for decades
• Satisfying and somewhat hopeful ending

Cons: None that are worth even mentioning

These are the seventh and eighth 2024 Booker Prize nominees that I've read. My Friends is one of my favorites so far, Wandering Stars one of my least favorites - with five still to go.

A Booker Prize Update and...

I've decided on a quick (probably rather mysterious) note to any of you who may have been wondering why I haven't posted in the last ten days or so. For a combination of reasons, I find myself so mentally fatigued at the moment that I cannot summon the energy to write even the shortest of book reviews. I don't know when, or even if, I'll resume doing so. No one thing is responsible for the way I feel right now; it's more of a perfect storm kind of thing.

In the meantime, I plan to "scribble" a note or two when I have a thought to share with you guys. I don't want to disappear, and I won't. The notes will be partially for my own record keeping / journalizing, but I hope you find them interesting enough to comment on every now and then. 

Booker Prize Update:

I've read eight of the thirteen Booker Prize nominees now, and I've decided that I like this year's list, taken as a whole, better than last year's. This is how I personally rank the eight I've read so far:

*The Safekeep - Yael Van Der Wouden - 5.00 stars

My Friends - Hisham Matar - 4.75 stars

*James - Percival Everett - 4.50 stars

Wild Houses - Colin Barrett - 3.75 stars

Headshot - Rita Bulwinkel - 3.50 stars

Wandering Stars - Tommy Orange - 2.75 stars

This Strange Eventful History - Claire Messoud - 2.50 stars

*Orbital - Samantha Harvey - 2.00 stars

* on shortlist

This leaves me with five of the thirteen nominees still to be read - and three of those five are on the shortlist. Next up is likely to be Held by Anne Michaels since I have a copy of that one on hand. 

Although, I'm not doing formal reviews of my reading right now, I will be happy to discuss the books via comments here on the blog. Please do holler at me. 

Wild Houses - Colin Barrett (2024 Booker Prize Nomi ee)

 Colin Barrett's Wild Houses is a solid example of psychological crime fiction, and I recommend it to anyone who, like me, enjoys this subgenre of crime fiction. But for this exercise, my rating scale is a little different from what I use when personally rating non-Booker Prize nominees. In this instance, I am doing as much of a forced ranking exercise as I am an awarding of "stars" to the book. And of the thirteen books nominated for this year's prize, I see Wild Houses fitting solidly in the upper half of the thirteen-book pack, producing a relative rating of something like 3.75 stars. Just something to keep in mind.

Dev lives alone on the outskirts of a small Irish town, seldom leaving his property other than to attend to his basic needs. He quit his job after his mother died, and now lives alone in the family home with his dead mother's old dog. And he likes it that way, so when his two cousins bang on the door late one night with a battered teenager they want to stash somewhere for a few days, Dev is not at all happy about it. But Dev, huge a man as he is, is not the type to put up much of a protest about anything, so he suddenly finds himself with three uninvited guests - two of whom he knows could explode into violence at any moment.

As Dev will learn, it's all part of a revenge plot his cousins have hatched against the teenager's older brother, a man who owes their boss a considerable amount of money. Dev is a simple enough man, but he is far from stupid, and he knows that the likelihood of his rather dim cousins pulling off something as complicated as a kidnapping for ransom and revenge is pretty low - and that he will go down the drain with them when it all blows up. 

So there they are. Three cousins, two of whom are brothers, and a teenager who desperately wants to escape the situation he mysteriously finds himself in. Dev's old house becomes a pressure cooker, and as the hours creep by, it becomes more and more likely that someone is going to explode. Dev and his cousins' prisoner can only hope they are not destroyed by the blast.

Barrett has written a character-driven crime novel here, but one in which he doesn't limit himself to exploring the past of only his four main characters and how each is reacting to what looks more and more like a life or death situation. Instead, Barrett alternates chapters set in the old farmhouse where the boy is being held with chapters showing what the teen hostage's mother and young girlfriend are going through as they reluctantly team up to find the missing boy before it is too late to save him. The best things about Wild Houses are the six or seven characters at its heart, each of them memorable and very real in their own way.

Wild Houses is likely to be one of the best crime fiction novels I read this year - but the Booker Prize competition is stiff this year. And everything is relative.

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Updated Personal Ratings of 2024 Booker Prize Nominees:

The Safekeep - Yael Van Der Wouden - 5.0 stars

James - Percival Everett - 4.5 stars

Wild Houses - Colin Barrett - 3.75 stars

Headshot - Rita Bulwinkel - 3.5 stars

This Strange Eventual History - Claire Messoud - 2.5 stars

Orbital - Samantha Harvey - 2.0 stars