By The Sea by Nobel prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah - this is about as bad a book as I've ever read. A refugee from Zanzibar is seeking asylum in the UK. His sense of entitlement and contempt for Britain led my thoughts down the dark path of wondering if Suella Braverman is right. He meets with an old acquaintance from Zanzibar whom he screwed over.

The details of their enmity aren't terribly interesting and are boringly told. The writing gets progressively worse as the book goes on - colourless, humourless and pedagogical. It has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The lengthy dialogue bears no resemblance to human beings talking.

The worst aspect of the writing is that the first person perspective sometimes switches between the two main characters, but their voices are near identical. It took me a few moments to figure out who was narrating when a shift happened because I couldn't initially tell the difference. That lack of distinction is most glaringly obvious when the two men are talking to each other.

Took note to self after finishing - avoid books by Nobel prize winners. Checks diary.... realises made same note after reading Soul Mountain years ago by Nobel prize winner Gao Xinjiang, another staggeringly dull book. Resolves to pay attention to notes to self.

This. The Plague is OK. And some of Knut Hamsun's stuff.

Way Off the Road by Bill Geist. Geist is (Was? not sure) CBS' latter-day Charles Kuralt, traveling around, seeing small-town America and writing about what he finds. This is a series of his stories.

Occasionally interesting for those who enjoy that kind of travel writing. Nothing that made me think, "wow, I should really go there."

Space Chronicles by Neil deGrasse Tyson. A compilation of talks and speeches he's given, articles he's written, somewhat edited to be more current. Generally about the reasons why space exploration is good for humanity, and should be an ongoing goal. Rather liked this, as I'm prone to do. Recommend for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing.

Moon Witch Spider King is a wild ride. It's a dark fantasy novel set in an fantasy version of Africa. The language the author uses is bizarre and was hard to get into, but once I did it flowed in a unique way.

The story itself is dark, violent, and pulls no punches. It starts off with extreme child abuse and has sudden and extreme violence throughout. Definitely not for everyone, but for anyone who is into fantasy and feels like they know all of the European tropes, it's a worthwhile read. It is the second novel in a planned 3 part series, but runs alongside the first novel and (supposedly) not after the first. Since I was unable to find the first one in Asia, I went for it. The first 1/2 or 2/3 was fine, but I definitely found myself a little lost in the last third of the book and suspect it was due to not having read the first book. It should make reading the first one incredibly interesting.

Dennis Lehane's fiction was much talked about ITT a few years ago, but I never got around to his books until now. Last night I finished his newest, Small Mercies--overall quite a powerful tale. It's set in South Boston in the tense days just before the beginning of Supreme Court-mandated busing to integrate all-white Boston schools. And it's a sad reminder of how little has changed for American race relations in the subsequent 50 years.

There's a couple of things that are not resolved in the conclusion, which suggests that there's a sequel coming.

I like Lehane. He wrote a beautiful essay on Elmore Leonard and Get Shorty that is worth reading imo.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-dennis-lehane

Very much enjoyed the latest Lehane book and a quick read.


'A novel is a collection of opinions that don't add up to a coherent point of view.' ~ V.S. Naipaul.

He was a pretty good Nobel winner, I'd say.

As is K. Ishiguro, one of my alltime fave writers.

For my birthday, a couple friends gave me a membership to this library. It's the oldest library in continual use in the US.

https://redwoodlibrary.org/

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

Website bears checking out. Institution would appear to be right up your alley.

https://www.freelibrary.org/

The Philly Free Library has one of the most important Dickens collections in the world, along with his stuffed raven, Grip.

Also a big Poe collection.

Anyone who lives in PA can get a library card [online] and download ebooks from them, over 300,000 which ain't bad.

really fantastic read ty for sharing.

Knocked out Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills yesterday, it was good. Love me some short readable literary novels! This was strange of course, all his books are strange. I'm still thinking it through.

This morning I started his The Unconsoled book, which I can already tell is gonna take more effort, zomg 500 pages. But at least with a writer as good as Ishiguro, I know it'll be worth it.

Btw, I consider Never Let Me Go to be one of the very best novels written in the last 20-30 years or so. Just an extraordinary reading experience in every way.

Never Let Me Go was insanely great.

So, re-read Never Let Me Go.

Most devastating novels that I have read [all more than once]:
1) Lolita
2) Atonement
3) Never Let Me Go





ps
Blood Meridian is something else entirely to me, in a category of one.

For me it would be Sebastian Barry's new book, Old God’s Time.

Tip of the Iceberg by Mark Adam's.

In this, he more or less takes the route taken by E.H. Harriman's ( of the Union Pacific railroad)tour in 1898. The original was a steamship full of experts, including John Muir, to explore the coast of Alaska.

Adams recounts his experience contrasted with what the original group recorded all those years ago.

Pretty interesting for readers of travel books.

Have you ever thought of listing your 5 or 10 all-time favorite travel books? I don't know how many of us are addicted to the genre, but it might make a good thread, or sub-thread.

I’m admittedly a James Michener fanboy but have you read “Alaska” by him? More of a novel that still gives you a feel for 1800s Alaska

Every one of these books. So good. Ishiguro. Just does nothing but write amazing books.

I’ve got 3 going: two by Michael Lewis (Going Infinite and Has Anyone Seen the President, the latter is only an hour long audiobook) and Eighteen Days in October, a NF book about the Yom Kippur War and how it (and other events) shaped the modern Middle East.

I've had such good results with your recommendations in the past that I checked out the audio version of this and got into it a little but my imagination and concentration start failing me (I'm old now!) so I'm picking up a hardcopy at the library today to finish it.

What other Sebastian Barry books do you like? He's got a lot of em.

FWIW, Number Go Up by Zeke Faux [real name] is much better than the Lewis book.

Thank you.

I'm not sure what they'd be. Probably would suffer from recency anyway. Can't think of any I've read more than once.

Semi-agree with the quote. I've long said that travel is about turning experiences into stories. Sometimes, that story is, "holy ****, the lion walked right down the middle of the dirt road, not 2 meters from the truck I was in," and sometimes it's "So, Lufthansa decided to have a strike on the day I was due to return..."

I have not read any Michener.

I've pretty much read them all. And all that I've read are strong. But if I were to choose his best, it would be Days Without End.