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162 sats \ 3 replies \ @plebpoet 6 Jan \ on: What Did You Read in 2024? (v.2) BooksAndArticles

Fiction is schlepped off the list?? Not present in your life at all? Only in movies perhaps? :( that's okay

This is what I read: The Paris Winter, Imogen Robertson. A young artist barely scratching by in 1920's Paris gets used as bait in a family scandal. People die and there's art.

The Reunion, Guillaume Musso. A writer returns to his university after 20 years, finds that his old ghosts are still there to haunt him. Or are they? This was a murder mystery but told from a literature-lover, it had an undeniable beauty.

Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro. An "artificial friend" is selected as a companion for a bright, sick girl. Her mother is a little psychotic, but only because she lost her firstborn daughter and her husband left her. The AF tells the story, a manufactured and programmed entity with surprising depth of feeling.

The Kind of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany. An important find on my quest for early mythic influences. The most poetic lines that would put you right to sleep. A glorious tale, sometimes boring. No war happens. Just pretty things and goblins.

The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby, Ellery Lloyd. An untold story of another Paris artist pieced together by a pair of graduate students years later. It involves the emergence of surrealism, Egyptian death rituals, art commentary, and surprising twists.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins. Spirited, unusual, funny. Strange characters you can completely identify with. Story of the life of a girl with irregularly large thumbs, which she used to be the world's best hitchhiker. My first Tom Robbins read. That's a name that sticks out, for sure. This one was quite a bit gay and quite a bit politically whiny, however. That's okay.

Age of Myth + Age of Swords, Micheal J. Sullivan. Mythical epics, Books 1 and 2 of a fairly long series. Magic and brute force clash, and the belief of the people is fair game in the hands of the weapon wielders.

And Now We Have Everything, Meaghan O'Connell. A memoir birth story from a new mother, the kind of modern mother we see these days - a woman with no preparation for becoming a mother using Google to understand a baby's needs and her role.

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett. I've read much of Patchett's work. She has such a precise, strong voice that also offers comfort. She's someone that seems to know you. Anyway, this book blew me away. It centers on an opera singer who becomes one of a group of people taken hostage by an ill-equipped rebel party one evening during a senator's birthday celebration. Over the course of the next days and weeks, things fall apart.

Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney. Sally's much awaited, solipsistic novel of writer's woes. I liked it, she's great at what she does, but you wonder if she likes doing it? Pretty nihilistic, overall, but that's where she comes from.

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card. People know this book. I really liked it. Great read.

Mr. Rochester, Sarah Shoemaker. A spin-off of Jane Eyre. Tells the story from a differing point of view. Somber, like the Brontes.

The Pearl, John Steinbeck. Incredible short novella with a powerful message. I should write a review on this one.

Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan. A novella where nothing much happens but a landscape of emotional inner life is excavated, opened up for your viewing. You feel less alone.

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy. Hard. Beautiful. Difficult. Like no other book.

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. From the perspective of a woman looking back on her life as a clone, as a body needed for medical purposes. The presupposition is futuristic, that there is a class of people made to offer organs, and they are not treated as people. It's deep, man.

Okay there, I think I read enough fiction for all of us?

22 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 6 Jan

Great list. Way, way back when I was in college, "Even Cowgirls" was required reading for all of us. I'm glad people still read it. Tom Robbins seems to have disappeared. Blood Meridian is a bit different! Very good, dark book. I have to check out one or two of the others on this list.