I have #mecfs so I have a lot of time for reading, mostly #fantasy and #SciFi but I'm happy to dip into nearly anything.
Ratings: 1 star: I didn't like it 2 stars: it was okay 3 stars: I liked it 4 stars: I really liked it 5 stars: it was brilliant
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a story about what it’s like to travel …
(3 stars = I liked it)
Being an awkward teenager in the era of grunge and mix-tapes, when homosexuality & neurodiversity were still Untouchable.
Reading time 4 days, 58 pages/day
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a …
Spiders undergo enhanced evolution, building an extraordinary new civilisation. Meanwhile the last of humanity searches for a new home, bringing its destructive tendencies with it. Impressive & audacious vision, but lacks engaging characters.
Reading time 6 days, 100 pages/day
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the …
A neurodiverse female scientist skewers the unprepared patriachy of the 1950s with her forthright progressive values. Hilarious, infuriating and deeply serious.
Reading time 2 days, 193 pages/day
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission--and if he fails, humanity …
(3 stars = I liked it)
A series of (Earth-saving) problem-solutions starring an irksome overenthusiastic science teacher/xenobiologist. Some cool ideas but one-dimensional and the narrative style can be grating.
Reading time 4 days, 119 pages/day
Hetty "Handful" Grimke, an urban slave in early-19th-century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating …
(3 stars = I liked it)
A girl in the early 19th century American South gradually breaks away from the strictures of gender & society to become a pioneering abolitionist & feminist. Based in truth! Doesn't manage to capture the strength or source of her motivations.
Reading time 3 days, 141 pages/day
Foundation's Edge (1982) is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the fourth …
(2 stars = it was okay)
Too much Plato-esque dialogue, as usual. Dubious plot reliance on 'the vibe'. Tiresome portrayals of women. Enjoyable inclusion of Lovelock's Gaia concept.
Reading time 4 days, 112 pages/day
The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America is a 2018 book by Timothy Snyder. In …
Russia has been exporting its 'politics of eternity' to replace the West's 'politics of inevitability' via Trump and far-right 'sado-populism'. Putin's philosophical roots are confounding & disturbing. Written before the 2022 escalation in the Ukraine war - we've awoken to this project, but can we sustain the fight and embed a 'politics of responsibility'? Slow going.
Reading time 23 days, 12 pages/day
Annie Shearer lives in the country town of Upson Downs with her best friend, an …
Fun, silly & heart-warming. The (very pleasingly named) villains get their come-uppances, and everyone else lives happily ever after, having been thoroughly good people in the process.
Reading time 3 days, 114 pages/day
371 pages ; 24 cm
In rough-as-guts 1970s country Australia a girl suffers from abuse & neglect, her unrecognised dyslexia leaving her totally unequipped to understand what is being done to her. Casual victim blaming true to time but hard to swallow. One bright spot is her beautifully portrayed friendship with another outcast, a boy with cerebral palsy.
Reading time 4 days, 92 pages/day
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and …
Every page a mind-blowing revelation of the many incredible, and unimaginable, ways animals sense the world. Filled with awe, delight & respect for the natural world.
Reading time 16 days, 22 pages/day
Ruth lives in the heart of the city. Working, drinking, falling in love: the rhythm …
(2 stars = it was okay)
Apocalyterature spliced into before/after, with the self found only once the old world has been stripped away. Decent enough but not sure of its point.
Reading time 3 days, 114 pages/day
Wild Woila
boosted
Prison Time in Sana'a tells the story of Dr Abdulkader Al-Guneid's harrowing experience inside jail …
Prison Time in Sana'a is the very first Yemeni-authored book I have read so I appreciated most of all that Al-Guneid devotes one of its three sections to an explanation of Yemen's current political situation, especially its fluid mosaic of alliances and allegiances. Understanding all this is a bewildering prospect for an outsider so Al-Guneid's clarity greatly helped me. I would echo the advice given in Stephen Day's introduction to start with the second section before reading Al-Guneid's actual prison memoir.
The memoir itself consists of Al-Guneid giving an overview of the events that led to his shocking abduction, and then his impressions of some of the men he encountered during his ten months in jail. I loved the way in which he was able to capture their personalities, making each one truly individual, whilst also portraying the grim conditions within each of the spartan - and often overcrowded - …
Prison Time in Sana'a is the very first Yemeni-authored book I have read so I appreciated most of all that Al-Guneid devotes one of its three sections to an explanation of Yemen's current political situation, especially its fluid mosaic of alliances and allegiances. Understanding all this is a bewildering prospect for an outsider so Al-Guneid's clarity greatly helped me. I would echo the advice given in Stephen Day's introduction to start with the second section before reading Al-Guneid's actual prison memoir.
The memoir itself consists of Al-Guneid giving an overview of the events that led to his shocking abduction, and then his impressions of some of the men he encountered during his ten months in jail. I loved the way in which he was able to capture their personalities, making each one truly individual, whilst also portraying the grim conditions within each of the spartan - and often overcrowded - cells. Al-Guneid's ability to maintain his self-reliance and dignity is moving and it must have taken significant willpower for him to revisit the experience in order to write this insightful memoir. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read it and, through his words, to understand more about the grave situation in Yemen.
Wild Woila
boosted
Winner of the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize. Natasha Wimmer’s translation of The …
I really wanted to like The Savage Detectives. Apparently it is a Latin American classic and it would have been the fifth book for my Chilean WorldReads, but after 120 pages (of 577!) I am already so bored that I can't bear to read another word. There's no characterisation, no descriptions and nothing is happening. Now I don't always mind nothing happening, but I am getting no sense of the supposed 1970s Mexico setting and all the characters are just names without any degree of personality. In fact the women don't even warrant being more than abused sex objects if they are teenage, or mother figures if they're much older. I really can't understand how The Savage Detectives managed to garner such praise as is quoted on its cover. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone!
Wild Woila
boosted
WINNER of the French Voices Grand Prize, Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, and Grand Prix du Roman …
My first Senegalese novel and I was impressed by the way in which Sarr portrayed deeply philosophical conversations between his characters without losing the sense of real speech and style. I wish my French was good enough to have read Brotherhood in its original language, but I felt Alexia Trigo did a good job of the translation. Brotherhood has two linked narrative strands: one recounts the efforts of a group of seven dissidents to publish a journal decrying jihadist violence and oppression in their occupied city; the other is a series of letters between two bereaved, grieving mothers who, unable to leave their separate homes, attempt together to understand the loss of their children.
Brotherhood starts out with a scene of extreme, but dispassionate violence - a double execution - which reminded me of the opening of The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli. The eponymous Brotherhood imposes their vision of …
My first Senegalese novel and I was impressed by the way in which Sarr portrayed deeply philosophical conversations between his characters without losing the sense of real speech and style. I wish my French was good enough to have read Brotherhood in its original language, but I felt Alexia Trigo did a good job of the translation. Brotherhood has two linked narrative strands: one recounts the efforts of a group of seven dissidents to publish a journal decrying jihadist violence and oppression in their occupied city; the other is a series of letters between two bereaved, grieving mothers who, unable to leave their separate homes, attempt together to understand the loss of their children.
Brotherhood starts out with a scene of extreme, but dispassionate violence - a double execution - which reminded me of the opening of The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli. The eponymous Brotherhood imposes their vision of correct Islamic life onto the city through bloodshed and fear, and public demonstrations of their power are an integral part of their strategy. Behind the scenes though, the Brotherhood's foot soldiers are only too keen to indulge in the forbidden behaviours they publicly punish, much to the chagrin of their leader who was probably the most fascinating character in the whole novel for me. He absolutely believes in the purity of the Brotherhood's vision, even while he is also aware of his superiors' corruption of that vision for their own ends. Sarr managed to allow me understand this man.
Brotherhood is a novel that, as I guessed pretty early on, is never going to end with a happily ever after. I found the narrative structure satisfying, however, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the novel even though it doesn't have the kind of rich detail that usually appeals to me. For example, Sarr takes a whole chapter to introduce one character, an incredible chef, without ever identifying a single meal or ingredient more precisely than 'food'! That said, I liked how this work drew me in to this city and its people's lives.
Morrigane Crow est née le jour du Merveillon ce qui signifie qu'elle est maudite et …
Yet another kid-goes-to-magic-school book, but with enough creativity, humour & flair to compensate.
Reading time 3 days, 149 pages/day
