What are you reading the week of August 27, 2022?

I'm a third of the way through Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. It's...interesting. I'm not entirely sure that I like it, but it's worth continuing. It probably says something about me that my favorite part so far was a description of early X-ray equipment and a fluoroscope.

I'm just at the halfway mark of Jasper Fforde's political/social satire, The Constant Rabbit. Like all Fforde books, this one's a lot of fun.

I found Every Knee Shall Bow by Bryan Litfin on my bookshelf and realized I have not read it. I won from LT. It is about Constantine's Empire.

Four hours to go on

Gone With The Wind audio

I'm back to reading Gerald's Game by Stephen King. I'm only about halfway after all this time, but my goal is to finish by Wednesday night.

Let's see, just about done with Locklands, started The Wright Company, about half way through Rise and Reign of the Mammals, will start Under Fortunate Stars sometime in the coming week.

Still reading The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories by Agatha Christie and Into the Narrowdark by Tad Williams.

>1 fredbacon: That's been on my shelf for years...I need to get to it!

I finished Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize Winner and had high hopes--not realized.

I'm currently reading (tree book) Irretrievable by Theodor Fontane and it's great writing thus far and I feel the plot is forming. This was a rec. to me by another LT friend.

I'm on the lookout for my next audiobook read.........

Started Lost Horizon by James Hilton.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton– Sara Collins
Digital audiobook narrated by the author and Ray McMillan
4****

“I used to be called Frannie Langton before I was taken from Paradise to London and given by Langton as maid to Mr George Benham, who then gave me to his wife. It wasn’t my choice to be brought here, but very little in my life ever was. I was Langton’s creature. If I pleased him, I pleased myself. If he said something was to be, it was. But Langton was a man who’d named his own house Paradise despite all that went on there, and named every living thing in paradise too. What more do I need to tell you about him?”

This work of historical fiction looks at slavery, colonialism, drug addiction, medical experimentation and lesbianism in early 19th century England. Frannie is a slave / housemaid and narrates her story. Collins begins the novel in 1826, with Frannie writing her “confession” from prison in London. And then goes back to 1812 in Jamaica as Frannie remembers her youth as a slave on a sugar plantation, and her transformation and education as an assistant to her master. All this leads to her current situation: accused of murdering both Benham and his wife, Marguerite.

This is Collins’s debut novel and it’s an ambitious one. Frannie is a marvelous character – educated, observant, loving, strong and yet vulnerable. Her race dooms her to a life of servitude and a lack of opportunity, and yet she finds ways to feed her mind and her soul. I really can’t say more without giving away key plot points, but Collins drew me in and kept me in her grasp. The story was as addicting as the laudanum that Frannie and her mistress relied on .

The author narrates along with Ray McMilan. Collins does a fine job of bringing Frannie to life, while McMilan’s role is to narrate the official court transcripts that are sprinkled throughout the story.

I finished All Over Creation which had an interesting cast of characters and story. There were a few places where it wasn't clear whether the story was the focus or a lecture on the perils of GMO's. In the end, however, the story won out.

>10 BookConcierge: That looks really interesting. How's the quality of the writing?

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, And American Royalty In The Nation's Largest Home
Denise Kiernan
4/5 stars
This was quite an interesting story of George Vanderbilt, his wife and the building and history of the Biltmore House on 125,000 acres in North Carolina. The author takes us through the good and bad times of the family including what happened to them from both World Wars and the Depression. I have never been to the estate but I really enjoyed this book.

I finished The Constant Rabbit, Jasper Fforde's fun but thought-provoking satire about anti-immigrant fears and repression. My review is up on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up, I'll finally be reading Caste: The Original of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson.

The Library of Lost and Found – Phaedra Patrick
Digital audio performed by Imogen Church
3***

Martha Storm volunteers at the local library and would love to have a permanent paid position there. She has a degree in English literature and has applied several times, but the man in charge prefers “younger apprentices.” She’s clearly unappreciated, but soldiers on. And then one day a book of fairy tales is left for her, and she discovers that it is dedicated to HER by her late grandmother. As she tries to puzzle out where the book came from and how it came to be in her possession, she uncovers family secrets.

Patrick writes quirky characters with hidden secrets very well. These are nearly broken people who keep their heads down and try to exist without much support or joy in their lives. And yet …

My heart broke for Martha … especially for the Martha who was a child clearly on the outs with her parents and sister. When she finally uncovers the full truth behind the book of fairy tales, and her life, she gains a new sense of herself and the possibilities she’s longed for are finally in her reach.

This is the second book by Patrick that I’ve read. Both were heart-warming and enjoyable.

Imogen Church does a find job of voicing the audiobook. She sets a good pace and has clear diction that is easily understood even when listening at increased speed.

>12 rocketjk: I'm not really sure what you mean by "the quality of the writing." I judge books on both the writing and emotional impact of the story on me. A simply-written story can have a great emotional impact and get a high rating, while a well-crafted, complexly written book might bore me and get a lower rating. I listened to this one, so was less attentive to the actual writing style.

Finished The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories by Agatha Christie. Liked it well enough. Next up is A Quiet Life in the Countryby T. E. Kinsey.

Starting this OverDrive audio ~

Things We Do in the Dark: A Novel
by Jennifer Hillier
(novel by a Canadian author)

>16 BookConcierge: "A simply-written story can have a great emotional impact and get a high rating, while a well-crafted, complexly written book might bore me and get a lower rating."

Sure. Me, too. Writing quality is but one important aspect for me of whether I'll enjoy a book. Subject matter, plotting, believable characters and other factors go into whether a book will be pleasurable to me. But for me, both simply-written books and complexly-written books can be either well written or poorly written. What I was asking--and certainly I should have been more specific--was whether the prose pulled you along and made reading (or, in your case, listening) pleasurable, whether the writing seemed fresh or hackneyed and cliche-filled.

Sometimes if a book has an interesting enough premise and/or plot, I can enjoy it even if the writing style is not particularly fresh or interesting. In the case of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, it was clear from your review that you found the plot and characterizations interesting and absorbing. I was wondering what you thought of the writing style on a paragraph and/or sentence level. Whether the dialogue seemed realistic or stilted. That sort of thing. I hope that makes better sense. Cheers!

I am on my 3rd book of the week. I finished up As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson, a quick, light YA read. Then yesterday morning I finished reading The Forest of Vanishing Stars. Excellent historical fiction. Left me feeling a bit of a book hangover from the ending. Today I started reading Ink by Jonathan Maberry.

Finished from the library: The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield
Historical fantasy novel about Marie Antoinette and Caroline, sister Queens of France and Naples. The two discover an embroidery covered book belonging to their governess and learn magic from it. The story opens in 1767 and ends in 1798--it's a thick book!

Now: Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
YA fantasy novel

Finished A Quiet Life in the Countryby T. E. Kinsey. Mostly liked it. Added The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith to my rotation. Also added Trigonometry for Dummies by Mary Jane Sterling.

I finished two books earlier in the week, The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor, and The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor. Both were good.

Now I'm reading Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River by David Owen, and The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser.

Klara And the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
Audio performed by Sura Siu
4.5****

What does it mean to love? Can science duplicate that essentially human quality in an artificial intelligence being? Do we want scientists to even try?

Klara, the narrator of this extraordinary work, is an artificial friend (AF). She sits in the shop with other AFs watching the world go by the shop window, listening to the Manager about how to act / react among prospective buyers. She is a keen observer and learns her lessons well. And even though she is not of the latest generation of Afs it is Klara that one young girl, Josie, wants.

But there are things in Josie’s household that don’t compute. The Housekeeper seems extra watchful when The Mother is away at work. Josie is frail but has a special friend nearby, Rick. Klara gets drawn into Josie and Rick’s “plan” for their future, while also is learning that the plans of adults may not coincide. For all her intelligence and perceptiveness, Klara cannot quite understand emotion and she certainly doesn’t have feelings of her own. Her interpretations of what she observes are sometimes quite naïve, and I was reminded of comments my niece made when she was four or five years old.

This is a dystopian world, and there is significant pollution and there are hints of potential civil war. There are distinct differences between the haves and the have nots. Wealthier parents have the option to “lift” their children (via genetic engineering) to improve their intelligence and academic performance. And AFs are not always treated kindly.

I hope there will be a movie … I can just see the crane shot of that final scene.

Sura Siu does a marvelous job of voicing the audiobook. She really made Klara a believable AF, giving her an innocence to go with her intelligence. 5***** for the audio performance.

The new thread is up over here.