Books Read 2021

[Jaymann]

I read that on kindle when it first came out. Great stuff. A mole of moles indeed.

[Jeff V]

Pretty sure that most people here are familiar with this book.

Reading it now, about half done. I believe it was an Amazon Prime give-away.

[hitbyambulance]

Olga Tokarczuk - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead : this originally came out in Poland in 2009 but received an English translation just a few years ago. it's going to be hard to describe this one as i really don't want to give any spoilers, but i usually enjoyed the reading experience of this (the translation from Polish is done well and feels like it was written in native English most of the time) and some of the subtle aspects that would contribute to a quality re-read. i'm still trying to figure out why William Blake's writings figure in so prominently here.

(i heard the audiobook was very good and the narrator, Beata Poźniak, also did the voice for Skarlet the Blood Queen in Mortal Kombat 11)

[El Guapo]

Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War (audiobook) by Paul Starobin.

Just finished this, in audiobook form. This was a great book - probably my favorite book so far this year. It runs through the secession movement in Charleston over the course of 1860 (with back story here and there) from the beginning of the year through the adoption of the secession ordinance in Dec. 1860 (with an aftermath on how it turned out poorly for Charleston in particular). It's pretty interesting stuff - the way I remember learning about secession in history class was essentially "people were upset about slavery, Lincoln got elected, and the South spontaneously decided to secede." But of course it's more complicated than that, and this gets at the history of people agitating for secession over many years, but culminating in the work of activists in Charleston in 1860. Particularly around the Democratic Convention, which was held in Charleston that year and which secessionist agitators managed to disrupt and break up, specifically in order to divide the Democratic Party in two, help ensure Lincoln's election, and then use the Republican victory to persuade people to leave the Union. Which worked, at least up until the Civil War turned out badly.

Anyway, I'd strongly recommend it.

[ImLawBoy]

Finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke on Kindle. This is the (much shorter) follow-up to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, but it's even more fantastical. The title character lives in "The House", which is also the world. There are rooms after rooms after rooms filled with statues. At some points, there are vast oceans where the tide can come in. The only other living person is The Other, who he meets with occasionally. There are also the remains of 13 other people that he tends to. The story is told via Piranesi's journal entries, as he meticulously details his world. I won't say much beyond that, because the great fun of the book (and it is great fun) is watching things unfold. I liked this a lot and recommend it.

Up next is The Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. It's super long, so I may put it to the side at points and pick up something else. I'm also still reading the paper copy of Wild Dog by Serge Joncour.

[Rumpy]

^ That kind of sounds a bit like The Starless Sea.

[Hipolito]

Steel Fear by Brandon Webb and John David Mann (ebook, LibraryThing Early Review). I'm taking a brief dip in the LibraryThing Early Review program after a brief hiatus from it. After a mishap in the Middle East, a Navy SEAL named Finn is put on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to be sent home. In addition to SEAL, he can be called an ODD DUCK. He has a murky past, blanks in his memory (he doesn't even remember the incident that got him sent home), and is incapable of feeling empathy. And when Lincoln crew start disappearing one by one, he becomes a prime suspect. Using his SEAL training and uncanny observational skills, he launches his own investigation while watching his own six in the labyrinthine floating city of 6,000 crew.

I enjoyed the distinct and intriguing POV characters; the portrayal of the military as deeply flawed people instead of heroes; the mounting tension from the suspicions and counter-suspicions; the analysis of how morale suffers when commanders embrace politics over duty; and the descriptions of life and work aboard an aircraft carrier without overuse of jargon.

I didn't like the reliance upon the amnesia trope and the clichéd Hollywood-style ending. I was also disappointed by the final reveal. A reveal ought to make me slap my head and say "Of course!" not shrug and say "OK, whatever." And while we eventually learn whodunit, we never really learn why.

A couple of what I perceive as plotholes:
- There is an over-the-top incident, let's call it the "poster scene," which would require magical logistics to happen. And the book mentions it very little afterward, which is surprising given how extravagant it is. It'll look great in the film adaptation, though.
- In one fairly crucial point in the story, the Captain of the Lincoln decides to change the Lincoln's destination. But since the carrier air group will escort the carrier wherever it goes, shouldn't that decision have been made by the admiral of the carrier air group instead?

Rating: 5 out of 8 reveille calls.

[Isgrimnur]

Bait: The Battle of Kham Duc

Just prior to the Paris Peace talks, the NVA attempted to overrun a SF camp near the Laotian border. It did not go well for them, as the weather they were counting on to prevent close air support did not develop.

[hitbyambulance]

Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot :

Spoiler:

[hitbyambulance]

Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the Sun : i am a sucker for speculative fiction stories about human and android / AI relations and i was very excited to see Ishiguro try his hand at it. as expected, it's a very Bradbury-by-way-of-genteel-British-sensibilities take, with the emphasis on human relations and the nature of the soul, religion, etc. it also does rather feel like a YA novel (if an exceptionally well-written one) - the didactic tone is intentional, as befits the AI narrator.

[Rumpy]

I've wanted to read that one, and I happened to be at a bookstore recently, but I decided to wait as the price was expensive. Books have a high markup rate in Canada.

[Scuzz]

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

This is the third Erik Larson book I have read, the others being Devil in a White City and In The Garden of the Beasts. This book reminded me of the former as Larson tells two stories that in the end connect, one about Marconi and the invention of wireless telegraphy and one about a notorious murder that occurs in London. While both stories are interesting I think Larson does take a long time to tell his story. And to be honest, the Marconi one seems to make Marconi seem more lucky than good. Maybe I have read to much Stephensen but I would have liked a little more explanation of what was involved rather that what Larson seems to say which is that Marconi just went by feel and intuition and that he had some good people around him in the end.

Of the three books In the Garden of the Beasts would have to be my favorite.

[Jeff V]

Of the three books In the Garden of the Beasts would have to be my favorite.

Huh, that one failed to resonate with me. Devil in the White City was all kinds of awesome though. I liked Thunderstruck well enough, but not nearly as much as Devil. Devil in the White City had local interest, though (I'm very familiar with the area the events took place), and HH Holmes was one of the country's first and most notorious serial killers long before it became a thing with Dahmer, Speck, Son of Sam, et. al. Found this interesting tidbit on Google:

Meghan Markle Is Related to H.H. Holmes, America's First Serial Killer, According to New Documentary. ... The claim comes from Holmes's great-great-grandson, American lawyer Jeff Mudgett, who recently discovered that he and Markle are eighth cousins.

[El Guapo]

Of the three books In the Garden of the Beasts would have to be my favorite.

Huh, that one failed to resonate with me. Devil in the White City was all kinds of awesome though. I liked Thunderstruck well enough, but not nearly as much as Devil. Devil in the White City had local interest, though (I'm very familiar with the area the events took place), and HH Holmes was one of the country's first and most notorious serial killers long before it became a thing with Dahmer, Speck, Son of Sam, et. al. Found this interesting tidbit on Google:

Meghan Markle Is Related to H.H. Holmes, America's First Serial Killer, According to New Documentary. ... The claim comes from Holmes's great-great-grandson, American lawyer Jeff Mudgett, who recently discovered that he and Markle are eighth cousins.

I'm partway through In the Garden of the Beasts. Thus far the major focus has been on how the daughter of the American ambassador was a huge slut.

[Scuzz]

I think the subject matter (the impending war) interested me more than the subject of the other books. Although the killer in White City has shown up as a character on a TV we were watching a year or two ago. The time travel show that came back for it's last season.

[Rumpy]

Tried and gave up on Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. Supposedly a dark comedy about a bank robbery gone wrong. I loved Beartown from him, as it ended up being one of my favourite novels from the last several years. The sequel, Us Against You disappointed me in a way that made me hesitate when picking up Anxious People, but I thought I'd give him another chance. I think comedy can be incredibly hard to do well as a novel. If not done well, it can come off feeling incredibly forced and repetitive, and that's how I felt about Cold Storage by David Koepp. It's also the way I feel about Anxious People. You get a story that's repetitive with irritating characters who all behave erratically. Supposedly, this is a charming novel about the human condition, but I'll never know because I gave up after 100 pages.

[hitbyambulance]

I think comedy can be incredibly hard to do well as a novel. If not done well, it can come off feeling incredibly forced and repetitive

and that's how i felt about Joseph Heller's Catch-22

[El Guapo]

I think comedy can be incredibly hard to do well as a novel. If not done well, it can come off feeling incredibly forced and repetitive

and that's how i felt about Joseph Heller's Catch-22

Your opinion is wrong. Catch-22 is great.

[hitbyambulance]

Your opinion is wrong. Catch-22 is great.

i intend to give it another chance. couldn't get past the first hundred pages due to the repetitiveness

[Hipolito]

Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller (audiobook): This book is about the author's trauma and recovery from being raped by Brock Turner at Stanford University.  Her case became known worldwide for the victim impact statement she read in court and the shockingly light sentence Turner was given. She narrates the audiobook, and you can hear the pain she still carries when she recites her impact statement in the last chapter.

Biggest surprises and takeaways:

1. Miller had a hard time telling her parents that the victim in the widely publicized rape case was her.  She didn't want them to suffer.
2. There is a huge backlog of rape kits awaiting analysis.  Some actually grow mold.
3. When the case against a rape suspect is strong, the suspect will do everything possible to make the act look consensual.  He will attack the victim ruthlessly and relentlessly to make her appear unreliable.  Turner's defense attorney asked Miller to confirm a distorted version of the record, dulled the truth by asking a litany of trivial questions, made clownish facial reactions to Miller's answers, and frequently objected and interrupted in order to discourage Miller from answering questions.  For Miller, it was like being assaulted a second time.  Nevertheless, in the end, the defense attorney gave a shoddy closing argument that the prosecutor effortlessly impeached.
4. The court and the media treated Turner's potential as more noteworthy than Miller's pain.
5. Why is the burden always placed on the woman to signal in every way imaginable that she's not interested, rather than on men to leave her alone?  What are all the things a woman must do throughout her life to ensure that if a man rapes her, then none of those things will be interpreted as proof that the act was consensual?  It is impossible for women to live under the level of self-scrutiny that society demands of them.
6. We all know it's wrong to say a victim shouldn't have drunk so much or dressed so revealingly. Not only is that victim-blaming, it also ignores that the rapist would have simply raped someone else.
7. When a victim appears "strong," that doesn't mean she wasn't badly hurt.  And if she appears enraged, that doesn't mean she's crazy; it means she's finally taking her own side and learning how to fight back.
8. Many people are victims when one person is raped.  On the victim's side, there are the family, friends, and friends of friends.  Same as on the rapist's side, including those who twistedly decide the rapist was the victim, becoming demented new advocates of rape culture.
9. As alone and hurt as a victim may feel, she needs to let her loved ones try to help her.  Conversely, her loved ones need to realize that the victim may need time alone and away from everyone.
10. The prosecutor asked for 6 years, but Turner only received 6 months, which were reduced to 3 for good behavior.  This sentence was so light that it felt like he was tossing out the jury's guilty verdict.  Judge Aaron Persky's reasons included drunkenness, youth, lack of weapons and priors (though Turner had run-ins with the law before), no monetary loss by the victim (ignoring the costs of therapy and missed work), no abuse of power, adverse collateral consequences to Turner's community that would be caused by a longer sentence, the media attention, the fact that Turner said "sorry" (though without actually accepting culpability), and the idea that a "20-minute" mistake should not ruin Turner's life (never mind the victim's years of coping, and suffering).
11. As paltry as the justice was here, it was a far deal more than the zero justice most victims get.
12. During the campaign to recall Judge Persky, his attorney, Jim McManis, said Miller had not been attacked and that her victim impact statement could not have been written by her because it was too eloquent.
13. The most healing words Miller heard were "It's OK to not to be OK.  It's OK to fall apart, because that's what happens when you are broken."

I see a parallel between this book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste. The author of Caste points out how rape was used to enforce caste divisions between whites and blacks. From Caste and Know My Name, I extrapolate that rape is also used to enforce superiority of the male caste over the female caste. The reason rape is so common, and so rarely punished, is because our society relies on rape to keep men in power over women.

This is one of the most important and affecting books I've ever read. I think it should be read by everyone, especially high schoolers. It's a good lesson on how to treat and respect people, how to help victims, and how to be resilient enough to turn a tragedy into a victory. It's a warning that our society does not treat men and women equally, and that if a woman gets drunk, a predator could take advantage of her and claim she was at fault. And our justice system may side with the predator.

Rating: 8 out of 8 Swedes.

[El Guapo]

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, by Erik Larsen (audiobook).

Just finished this audiobook this morning. It's focused on the American ambassador to Germany from 1933 - 1934, and tells his story alongside the early days of Nazi Germany. I was kind of bored with the first half of the book, which spent a lot of time on the social life of the ambassador's daughter (who was a big slut, including dating one or two Nazis). But as it got into 1934 and the accelerating consolidation of power by Hitler (climaxing in the Night of the Long Knives) it got pretty compelling. Learned a lot about the details of the Nazi consolidation of power after Hitler became chancellor. Hard not to get a little frustrated hearing about Hitler being aided in getting into power by establishment conservatives who thought that they could control him, followed by complicity, ineffectual and haphazard opposition, and gradual acquiescence to Nazi rule. Also a U.S. State Department that was also rife with anti-semites and which was focused almost exclusively on trying to get compensation for U.S. lenders to Germany while ignoring the growing threat of Nazi tyranny.

Overall I'd recommend it.

[hitbyambulance]

John Milton - Paradise Regained : New Testament fanfic sequel

[hitbyambulance]

Seattle Public Library Summer Book Bingo 2021 starts next week, which traditionally more or less dictates what i read for the next few months. two squares have been revealed ("Poetry or Essays" and "Asian American & Pacific Islander Author") and i already know what i'll be reading for those (technically, Paradise Regained could count for the Poetry square, but i have a Dover Thrift Edition haiku compilation that i'll use for the square write-in instead)

[Scuzz]

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, by Erik Larsen (audiobook).

Just finished this audiobook this morning. It's focused on the American ambassador to Germany from 1933 - 1934, and tells his story alongside the early days of Nazi Germany. I was kind of bored with the first half of the book, which spent a lot of time on the social life of the ambassador's daughter (who was a big slut, including dating one or two Nazis). But as it got into 1934 and the accelerating consolidation of power by Hitler (climaxing in the Night of the Long Knives) it got pretty compelling. Learned a lot about the details of the Nazi consolidation of power after Hitler became chancellor. Hard not to get a little frustrated hearing about Hitler being aided in getting into power by establishment conservatives who thought that they could control him, followed by complicity, ineffectual and haphazard opposition, and gradual acquiescence to Nazi rule. Also a U.S. State Department that was also rife with anti-semites and which was focused almost exclusively on trying to get compensation for U.S. lenders to Germany while ignoring the growing threat of Nazi tyranny.

Overall I'd recommend it.

I am glad you eventually came around on what I think is a very compelling story.

[hitbyambulance]

Philip Thody, Howard Read - Introducing Sartre : this, plus (other entries in the Introducing... series) Kant, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein down; Foucault to go

[hitbyambulance]

Haruki Murakami - First Person Singular: Stories : another mini short story collection - this, and Men Without Women, feel paltry compared to the first couple short story collections. most of these had been published previously. don't really have a lot to say about this one - you know what you're in for at this point.

[Jeff V]

Philip Thody, Howard Read - Introducing Sartre : this, plus (other entries in the Introducing... series) Kant, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein down; Foucault to go

Sartre died a pussy. The end.

[hitbyambulance]

temporary abandonment due to lack of patience:

Nicole Galland - Master of the Revels : the sequel to The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O which she and Neal Stephenson co-wrote. something feels off with this one, as in it just doesn't have the narrative pull that the first book had, imo. i feel like i'm just reading words with no real impact or care. it's also incredibly long and has to go back to the library (though there is no one is in queue for it - wonder how it's doing on the NYT list with Neal's name boldly printed on the cover and spine)

Morrissey - Autobiography : 'indulgent' doesn't even begin to cover it. and why is this on the Penguin Classics imprint ??? also the book itself looks huge, but the font is giant and the margins are immense. i compared it to a similarly-sized Penguin Classic i have (Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion, which actually IS a classic), and that one has small print and normal-sized margins. so the artificial puffery is annoying me.

[hitbyambulance]

Seattle Public Library summer book bingo 2021, now with 50% more activism (and wherein genre fiction is fully embraced): https://www.spl.org/programs-and-servic ... book-bingo

[Holman]

Morrissey - Autobiography : 'indulgent' doesn't even begin to cover it. and why is this on the Penguin Classics imprint ??? also the book itself looks huge, but the font is giant and the margins are immense. i compared it to a similarly-sized Penguin Classic i have (Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion, which actually IS a classic), and that one has small print and normal-sized margins. so the artificial puffery is annoying me.

The Penguin Classics choice (which rarely features living writers, let alone their first books) was controversial at the time. Morrissey seems to have insisted on it as part of the deal, and Penguin thought the book would be a blockbuster (because no one could get enough Morrissey in... 2013).

Most of the publishing world rolled their eyes at it, as did reviewers.

[Hipolito]

Sirgrus Blackmane Demihuman Gumshoe & The Dark-Elf by William Schlichter (ebook, LibraryThing Early Review): It's the Prohibition era, but besides humans there are various fantasy demihuman species like dwarves, fairies, and trolls. Sirgrus, a dwarven private eye, has to figure out the connection between his human partner's murder and rum-running mob bosses. As he deals with threats to his own life, and his PTSD from fighting orcs in World War I, his investigation repeatedly brings him to a nightclub named the Dark-Elf, popular with humans and demihumans alike.

The story didn't become interesting until a third of the way through, ultimately building to a satisfying conclusion. There is a good observation that those who went overseas to fight tyrants in WWI came home only to face the tyrants that rose from Prohibition. But the most interesting segments were Sirgrus's WWI flashbacks simply because of their brutality.

Sirgrus's inner monologue is muddy. Sometimes it has the clipped affect of old detective shows like Dragnet. Other times it's filled with snark. The writing is better when Sirgrus is interacting with his perky fairy secretary Rhoda and a gruff, magic-wielding federal agent named Edgeangel.

Despite facing lots of discrimination as a demihuman, Sirgrus harbors anti-Irish feelings. I would have liked to understand where these feelings came from. Was it just the times? And why does the author keep using the word "Irishmen" (plural) when he means "Irishman" (singular) ?

Other problems are distracting Briticisms and dumb chapter names. One chapter is titled "Ahoy-Hoy" simply because it's about a phone call.

This book was OK. I might read some of the author's other works, but probably not any sequels to this one.

Rating: 4 out of 8 Barcardi and Cokes.

[El Guapo]

Read book 1 and book 2 of the Max and the Midknights series at my son's request. It was really cute how excited he was to have me read it - "Have you gotten to the part with the dragon yet?" "have you met Conrad yet?" etc.

Books were solid well written kid graphic novels. Also was interesting to read an interview with the author (Lincoln Peirce) about the series. One early semi-twist is that Max is a girl. And apparently it was set up that way because the author and his friends (including Dev Pilkey of Dog Man and Stephan Pastis of Pearls Before Swine) realized that they've been pegged as "boy book authors", that only boys showed up to their book events, etc., so Lincoln wanted to write a book with a girl protagonist without it getting pigeonholed as a book only for girls.

Anyway, would recommend the books for people's kids.

[Hipolito]

Uzumaki by Junji Ito (hardcover): This cult classic horror manga is about a small town where people become obsessed with spirals. Over the 20 wildly imaginative and grotesque chapters, the obsession leads to body horror and weird phenomena.

A few of the chapters push the spiral theme to silly extremes; the characters don't always act realistically or consistently; and the conclusion, while staggering in scope, is a bit unsatisfying. But it left me thinking deeply about the conflicts and convergences between nature and human behavior, all threaded through by the inescapable, cyclic, and nihilistic curve of the spiral.

If you are a horror fan, you should read this.

Rating: 6 out of 8 fish cakes.

[Blackhawk]

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good post-noir (IE - relatively modern) mystery/detective novel that's not cop-based? I'm in the mood, and as far as I can recall, The Maltese Falcon is the only detective/mystery novel I've read.

[hitbyambulance]

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good post-noir (IE - relatively modern) mystery/detective novel that's not cop-based? I'm in the mood, and as far as I can recall, The Maltese Falcon is the only detective/mystery novel I've read.

this one i posted higher up on this page is certainly 'post-some-things' and may not be what you had in mind, but might be a suitable back-up selection.

[Blackhawk]

By 'post-noir' I just meant that I'm already familiar with the noir offerings - the Daschiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, etc - from the 1920s-40s (although some quick checking shows that those are technically the closely related 'hardboiled' genre.) Modern noir is fine. I'm just looking for a relatively modern real-world setting - maybe the 80s or later.

[ImLawBoy]

Depending on your tastes, you can check out Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. It's Pynchon's more modern take on the classic detective stories. (It ended up being a pretty good movie, too.) It can get out there - Pynchon uses lots of characters, gives most of them bizarre names, and the story elements can veer into the surreal at times. Pynchon took another crack at a detective story in the more recent Bleeding Edge, but that has less of a classic detective feel to it.

On the more noir side of things, you can try James Ellroy. His original LA Quartet is the place to start (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz). Pretty much every character is an irredeemable asshole, but the writing is electric.

[ImLawBoy]

By 'post-noir' I just meant that I'm already familiar with the noir offerings - the Daschiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, etc - from the 1920s-40s (although some quick checking shows that those are technically the closely related 'hardboiled' genre.) Modern noir is fine. I'm just looking for a relatively modern real-world setting - maybe the 80s or later.

I'm currently reading The Best American Noir of the Century, which is a compilation of noir stories published from ~1910-2010, and the forward goes into the distinction between "detective/hardboiled" and "noir". With the former, the protagonist may be an asshole, but he's ultimately a good person who is fighting for the right thing. He (and it's almost always a "he") is a hero, albeit flawed. With "noir", the characters are almost all bad and they're almost always doing bad things for bad reasons (and here we get a lot more women involved - take that for what you will). The hardboiled/detective stories tend to have positive endings, while the noir stories do not.

[El Guapo]

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, by Michael Lewis (audio book)

Basically everyone here should read this book. It's by Michael Lewis, about the COVID pandemic (with a lead up focused on the Swine Flu and the response to it, and about the development and thinking around social distancing measures). Lewis wrote a book in 2017 called The Fifth Risk, basically examining everything that the Federal government does and the various risks that could blow up now that we had con artists, ideologues, and idiots running it. In many ways this book is a sequel to it, focused on the big risk (pandemic risk) that did blow up. It's also getting at a lot of the stuff that Smoove has been talking about, regarding how broken the public health system is in the United States, and about the inherent impossibility of the decisions that public health officers have to make (because the data you have now basically tells you what things were like weeks or months ago, and because in order to be effective public health officers have to act dramatically at a time when everything looks fine to the general public).

Anyway, it's super topical, and Michael Lewis is one of the best writers around these days, so check it out.

Oh, the one complaint I had, since I listened to it as an audio book, is that it wasn't narrated by Michael Lewis. It was just weirdly jarring because I listen to Michael Lewis's podcast, and so the whole time there was a discordance between not Michael Lewis telling me a Michael Lewis story. Probably not a big deal for others.

[Scuzz]

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good post-noir (IE - relatively modern) mystery/detective novel that's not cop-based? I'm in the mood, and as far as I can recall, The Maltese Falcon is the only detective/mystery novel I've read.

Michael Connelly has a series that is based on a lawyer, Mickey Haller. They do tie into one of his other characters who is a cop but Haller remains the main character. They are set in LA.