November: what are you reading?
vee_new
8 years ago
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msmeow
8 years agocarolyn_ky
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Novem November: What are you reading?
Comments (113)Vee, most of my neighborhood consists of people too old to compete in the Christmas decorating frenzy, but, yes, we do have areas that must spend the other eleven months of the year paying off their light bill. One area even used to have live reindeer. I haven't been on a driving expedition to see the elaborate displays since the grandchildren were small. There do seem to be a lot of houses already done. I'm sure the reason is that people are taking advantage of our temperatures which have been very mild up to now. We did have a heavy frost a couple of mornings last week, but yesterday was 68 F. Cooler today and supposed to be dropping to a high in the 40s the rest of this week. And I'm done! All I have to do now is vacuum sometime before next Tuesday and bake a couple of goodies. I'm going to wow the ladies this year with Sticky Toffee Pudding....See MoreNovember is here: What are you reading this month?
Comments (100)Woodnymph, although I realize what Mangan was trying to do with her psychological thriller, Tangerine, I feel she was only partially successful. Like you, I enjoyed the setting and descriptions of Tangier especially. The part in Bennington, Vermont was not as interesting to me, but I suppose it was necessary to set up the dynamics of the relationship between Alice and Lucy and to a lesser extent the relationships of the women with John, Alice's husband. However, I think the characterizations were not well defined beyond Alice is weak and Lucy is bad; John seems barely drawn, in my opinion. That's the reason it is hard for readers (I'm one) to distinguish the women characters in the every-other chapter narration, which btw has become trite (it appears so often in today's novels that I'm tempted to impose a self-ban of reading any story told in that style). I've noticed in the past five years -- maybe as much as a decade -- crops of newer writers are trying to resurrect some of the older genres. Nothing wrong with that, because many of the old stories are fascinatingly atmospheric. Unfortunately, many of these writers don't have the skill to recapture the old style -- or even update it well. One example -- and Mangan is guilty, I think: Writers use opacity as a substitute for subtlety because they simply haven't worked out how to be subtle. Mangan's pastiche of Highsmith (I definitely see this influence) and maybe Tartt bear comparison. I don't know Gillian Flynn for anything but her Gone Girl which I didn't like, so I can't say about Flynn's and Mangan's styles being similar. As for a reviewer saying Mangan is a "literary descendant of Daphne du Maurier" - Ha! I've heard and read that as a lure for hopeful readers for going on sixty years now, and my mother says that particular come-on has been used since the 1930s. Hype is lazy, sometimes, and Mangan's Tangerine is as overhyped as any new thriller is nowadays....See MoreWhat are you reading? November 2021 Edition
Comments (107)Finished The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. Agree with chisue about the self-absorbed nature of the characters, but that’s precisely the essence of teens and 20+ year year-olds in the throngs of self-doubt and self-discovery, right? Loved — simply loved — the authenticity of grad students and post-grads doing pure research (i.e. anything remotely readily applicable to real life), their life of intellectualism, poverty and blissful impracticality. Before I went into law, I did my doctorate in what was the beginnings of AI at a time when AI wasn’t a household word. With those street--creds (for what they’re worth), I can tell you the book felt like a capsule of those impossibly heady years of high-octane interdisciplinary discussions and debates that lasted all night. Evolutionary biology, yes! Stephen Gould, yes! Theory of meaning, yes, yes, yes!! Anyway, you get the point, the author gets it, it’s the real deal. As chisue points out, the book also bears witness to the sad, slow and painful unraveling of the mind of a manic-depressive. (I recall Katherine Graham’s account of her brilliant husband’s descent into bipolar disorder in her memoir from the late 1990s, with uncannily similar details of a manic-depressive’s behavior.) The writing was quite good too. Overall, a great read if you’re into subjects of this kind. 3.5 to 4 stars....See MoreWhat are you reading? December 2021 Edition
Comments (115)Readers and AnnieD...posting this before this thread closes down at the end of the month. What would you think of when the January thread is posted (and all subsequent threads each month) of linking the previous month's thread in the new thread? The search function here is so abysmal that sometimes, when I want to look back at a previous month, I cannot find it. If the January thread contains a link to the December thread, that will make it easy to find. Eventually, after several months, we can just link through to previous threads simply by opening the January thread. We can click on the December link (and in the future) could then find the November link in the December thread, then find the October link in the November thread and on and on. Annie, since you usually start the reading threads, it would be another task for you, so don't know how you'd feel about it, but I think it would work best if the previous month was listed in your original post. Anyone else think this would be a good idea and if so, Annie would you mind doing it?...See Morereader_in_transit
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