reading here and there

-
It occurred to me, some time last October, that I used to really enjoy reading. That is, I hadn't read a book in a long time, and I did not really have an excuse. So I looked up how to read library books on my iPhone, installed Libby, got my library account re-activated (I had applied for one many years ago but it had expired from inactivity), and have been burning my way through books, my appetite much returned.
  • The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian. Still a classic to my heart, an excellent appetizer easing me back on the reading track. I don't think I could ever tire of this series. 5/5
  • Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Superbly written, I so enjoyed the film that I was pleased to find that the novel gave so much more. Sublime, thoughtful narrative. 5/5
  • Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro. I only made it through a 1/4 of the 1200+ pages before I had to return it but that was enough to convince me that this was a historical work worthy of its many accolades. An efficient, dense tome.
  • The Senate, William S. White, the body's most prominent chronicler, wrote in 1956, is "the South's unending revenge upon the North for Gettysburg." Not just revenge, unending revenge.
  • A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George. A great disappointment, how such dreck makes it to the best-seller's list is beyond me. While individually the characters are not so terrible, having them all together was simply too much to take. An unsatisfying mystery of shallow, absurd characters. 1/5
  • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick. I'd read this many years ago and remembered liking it. Certainly the world-building is a delight -- typical Dick stuff. What I didn't recall was the heavy sexism, and the main character being such an arse to everyone around him. 3/5
Becoming so enamored with reading on a device but tired of straining on a small screen, I asked my family to get me a Kobo Clara HD e-reader for Christmas*, which is now a constant companion.
  • The Outsider by Stephen King. Was King always this bad or did my tastes change so? While the build up to the mystery was intriguing, the beginning interviews were rather tedious and the ending anticlimactic. Also, he falls in love? Really? 2/5
  • Kill All Normies by Angela Nagle. Biting political commentary and eye-opening history lessons, relevant to a pre- and post-Trump world. 5/5
  • The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Riveting, plausible post-apocalyptic story set in Ontario. 4/5
  • The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso. I can't remember who suggested this one but I found it a bit too much of a child's story for my liking -- overly tidy, the love story uninspired. 3/5
  • The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. This did not age well. I couldn't finish it, saw no reason to do so.
  • 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. About half-way through and loving it. Every word finely crafted, every sentence manicured for maximum impact. Unforgettable.
I also, as many of you do I'm sure, have a stack of books that I am very slowly making my way through. Currently I'm on The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary by Andrew Westoll, a gift from my father-in-law. It's really quite decent, slowed only by the details of the atrocities those poor animals have suffered through at people's hands.

* Kindle doesn't directly support library loans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

fifty is the number

-
I turned fifty last month. We had a small party with old faces, lots of laughs, and, at least for me, a reminder of the life I had before the pandemic, before having a kid, before my colon surgery . That is to say, a good time, and I hope to have many more like it. I do feel older, in practical, daily ways. For one thing my eyes have gotten much worse over the past year, so bad that I find myself looking over my glasses to look at my phone. My skin is just ravaged by this dry winter air, well beyond anything I'd ever experienced. A lifetime of neglect and sun-exposure has finally caught up to me. While I'm not exactly getting heavy I have noticed a softness building up around my torso. So over the past few months I've taken to doing modified burpees as my daily exercise and have been pretty happy with the results. I do them in small bursts, HIIT-style, and that seems about the pace I can afford, both on a time and energy level. I do try to play video games but I definitely ...
Read more

Dying, up close

-
In media people are portrayed as alert and cognizant right up to the moment they pass, able to give a final message to a loved one. Not so with my father, and I feel his death is more typical of the experience — a disinterest in watching or reading anything, increasingly jumbled speech, a loss of any appetite or thirst, just long periods of sleep. Finally a day or more of near-constant sleep, his heart beating slower and slower, until we turned away for a moment and he was gone. Though really he had been dying in varying degrees for weeks, his bodily performance a far cry from even a couple months before. It’s been over a month since the funeral  but the events leading up to it are still fresh in my mind, a history where my dad still lives, still has advice for me, still has smiles for his friends and family. My grief comes and goes, gradually trending to a melancholy, a deep sigh in my day. In truth I have been grieving these past few years as signs of my father’s end would appear...
Read more

a return to the mood

-
Image
And yet life goes on. In June we had a short visit to Montreal, packing in the usual sights and flavours, tempered by the heat and our own waning energy levels. We took great advantage of the hotel's pool, swimming a joy I never tire of, encouraging Sora to get more comfortable in the water. I didn't have much opportunity to pick out my old haunts but I could see that the city has grown since my days there, shimmering halcyon days full of youth and opportunity. Indeed every moment on the streets would bring waves of memories, of friends faded or forgotten, my head lost and spinning and trying to breathe it all in again. Obviously very different now but seeing it anew through Sora's eyes gave some fresh pleasure. We made the trip to the recently updated Biosphere, probably the highlight of the trip, the biomes living up to their names. My heart shatters at the thought of our poor Ontario Science Centre being stripped of its wares, each precious exhibit cast out, the unique, ...
Read more