>. 1st in Palliser series
> my first Trollope
> Audiobook
> Setting: mid 1800s, England
> Characters: Alice Vaversall, her cousin, Kate (wants her to marry her brother, George), John Hay (Alice's perfect fiance who she breaks up with), Alice's aunt (widowed wife of elderly wealthy man, manipulates all sorts of men)
> marital maneuvering
> pressure on women to marry appropriately regardless of love
> Alice is going to spend time with Pallisers, a high ranking family into which her other cousin, Cora, married
> Midway through the book, the narrator breaks in to ask, "can you forgive her?"........Alice has now twice become engaged to men ...the first, John Gray....she wants independence and breaks it off.....the second, George Vavasor, she realizes she abhors.......now John Gray is trying to save her from her errors,......what is Trollope saying? Women are fools? Men are heroes and their guardians?
>. LibraryThing Review: Audiobook.......Phew....28 hours of audio! Why would someone stick with this? Because it was wonderful! Anthony Trollope wrote this novel which is set in England in the mid 1800s. His protagonists are all women with relationship dilemmas which are fiercely controlled by the social mores of the time. Do these women need forgiveness? Can they forgive one another? Can they forgive themselves? Does the reader think they need forgiveness? Can you forgive them? Read the book and judge as you will!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
"Then Came The Evening" by Brian Hart ***
> An Early Reviewer book for LibraryThing
> Debut novel
> Setting: Rural Idaho, a town in transition from rural to resort
> "Miner mansions".....cabins moved to various property from closed down mining areas
> p.17 "These new prisons were worse than the old ones, the raw light and plastic, the lack of history. Spaceman prisons, his cellmate called them. Lunar lockups.".....interesting
> p.28 "Tracy fit into an empty place in the couple's life like kindling in stacked cordwood.".....I like that
> p.34...."He thought they were of a breed, like dogs are of a breed: men who seep a low kind of terror at the corner of their eyes as they watch for weakness."........starts at a young age, in my opinion
> p.36..."He'd been getting stronger working all the time and he wondered if strength always came with a little vanity, wondered if it were possible to have one and not the other."...interesting insight
> p.175..."He understood why he was flawed but was helpless to change it: Rivers refused dams, wilderness refused roads. In the end you give up. You realize nothing can be avoided and nothing is.".....moral of the entire tale
> LibraryThing Review: I always enjoy reading debut novels, and this was no exception. I think Brian Hart has tremendous potential. Some of his phrasing was absolutely lovely. The plot, while very engaging, was a little choppy in an effort to cover large periods of time and then slow down for a while, then speed up again. This novel is a gritty, down-to-earth story of life, with all of its unpredictability, its unlikely pairings, and I really like that the ending is not fairy tale and not too dark.....just full of possibility. If the plot were less choppy, this would definitely be a 4 star read!
> Debut novel
> Setting: Rural Idaho, a town in transition from rural to resort
> "Miner mansions".....cabins moved to various property from closed down mining areas
> p.17 "These new prisons were worse than the old ones, the raw light and plastic, the lack of history. Spaceman prisons, his cellmate called them. Lunar lockups.".....interesting
> p.28 "Tracy fit into an empty place in the couple's life like kindling in stacked cordwood.".....I like that
> p.34...."He thought they were of a breed, like dogs are of a breed: men who seep a low kind of terror at the corner of their eyes as they watch for weakness."........starts at a young age, in my opinion
> p.36..."He'd been getting stronger working all the time and he wondered if strength always came with a little vanity, wondered if it were possible to have one and not the other."...interesting insight
> p.175..."He understood why he was flawed but was helpless to change it: Rivers refused dams, wilderness refused roads. In the end you give up. You realize nothing can be avoided and nothing is.".....moral of the entire tale
> LibraryThing Review: I always enjoy reading debut novels, and this was no exception. I think Brian Hart has tremendous potential. Some of his phrasing was absolutely lovely. The plot, while very engaging, was a little choppy in an effort to cover large periods of time and then slow down for a while, then speed up again. This novel is a gritty, down-to-earth story of life, with all of its unpredictability, its unlikely pairings, and I really like that the ending is not fairy tale and not too dark.....just full of possibility. If the plot were less choppy, this would definitely be a 4 star read!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
"Haroun and the Sea of Stories" by Salman Rushdie *****
>Allegory about the value of storytelling and its role in survival as a human being
> Opening line: "There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. it stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue."
>Characters: Rashid/Haroun's father, storyteller, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions......Haroun/Rashid's son....fears that there is no point to stories that are not true.....many other fantasy characters....they are great
> Rashid...."who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available".....I feel like a kindred spirit!
> Miss Oneeta....."Cause is located in his pussy-collar-jee"...meaning psychology, LOL
> p.26..."They drove past buses that dripped people the way a sponge drips water, and arrived at a thick forest of human beings, a crowd of people sprouting in all directions like leaves on jungle trees"
> I liked the "Moody Land" where the mood of the people determined the weather
> p.63..."To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it--well, that's a way of bringing the said thing into being."
> p.72..."...the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest libraryt in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up the other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead, but alive."
> UFOs are really folks from Kahani coming to Earth for "tasty and wicked luxury items"....snacks
> p.119.."But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedonm of Speech, declaimed Butt the Hoopoe, if you then say they must not utilize same? And is not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?".......spoken in defense of soldiers voicing the aspects of their leaders which they do not like..........most political statement of the book
> poison cooling down the Ocean of Stories...."No longer did the waters give off that soft, subtle steam that could fill a person with fantastic dreams; here they were cool to the touch and clammy to boot." p.122
> p.125..."...because the dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light."
> p.129...character babbles, "Gogogol" and "kafkafka"...LOL
> p.131..."He has become disgusted with the growing cruelty and fanaticism of the Cult of the tongueless..."
> p. 146..."The oldest stories ever made, and look at them now. We let them rot, we abandoned them, long before this poisoning. We lost touch with our beginnings, with our roots, our Wellspring, our Source. Boring, we said, not in demand, surplus to requirements. And now, look, just look! No colour, no life, no nothing. Spoilt!"...referring to loss of oral traditions?
> mother returns in the end....realization that there is usefulness to storytelling
> LibraryThing Review: What could possibly bring about the end of storytelling? Poisoning of the Ocean of the Streams of Stories would definitely do it. Who would save the day Haroun! Salman Rushdie created a rollicking, beautiful, witty allegory for those of us who appreciate the tremendous value that storytelling has in our lives and in the lives of all humanity! Just read this wonderful story......and watch out for Princess Batcheat's horrible singing and Miss Blabbermouth's courage!
> Opening line: "There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. it stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue."
>Characters: Rashid/Haroun's father, storyteller, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions......Haroun/Rashid's son....fears that there is no point to stories that are not true.....many other fantasy characters....they are great
> Rashid...."who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available".....I feel like a kindred spirit!
> Miss Oneeta....."Cause is located in his pussy-collar-jee"...meaning psychology, LOL
> p.26..."They drove past buses that dripped people the way a sponge drips water, and arrived at a thick forest of human beings, a crowd of people sprouting in all directions like leaves on jungle trees"
> I liked the "Moody Land" where the mood of the people determined the weather
> p.63..."To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it--well, that's a way of bringing the said thing into being."
> p.72..."...the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest libraryt in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up the other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead, but alive."
> UFOs are really folks from Kahani coming to Earth for "tasty and wicked luxury items"....snacks
> p.119.."But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedonm of Speech, declaimed Butt the Hoopoe, if you then say they must not utilize same? And is not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?".......spoken in defense of soldiers voicing the aspects of their leaders which they do not like..........most political statement of the book
> poison cooling down the Ocean of Stories...."No longer did the waters give off that soft, subtle steam that could fill a person with fantastic dreams; here they were cool to the touch and clammy to boot." p.122
> p.125..."...because the dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light."
> p.129...character babbles, "Gogogol" and "kafkafka"...LOL
> p.131..."He has become disgusted with the growing cruelty and fanaticism of the Cult of the tongueless..."
> p. 146..."The oldest stories ever made, and look at them now. We let them rot, we abandoned them, long before this poisoning. We lost touch with our beginnings, with our roots, our Wellspring, our Source. Boring, we said, not in demand, surplus to requirements. And now, look, just look! No colour, no life, no nothing. Spoilt!"...referring to loss of oral traditions?
> mother returns in the end....realization that there is usefulness to storytelling
> LibraryThing Review: What could possibly bring about the end of storytelling? Poisoning of the Ocean of the Streams of Stories would definitely do it. Who would save the day Haroun! Salman Rushdie created a rollicking, beautiful, witty allegory for those of us who appreciate the tremendous value that storytelling has in our lives and in the lives of all humanity! Just read this wonderful story......and watch out for Princess Batcheat's horrible singing and Miss Blabbermouth's courage!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
"The Snowman" by Jo Nesbo. ****
> Audiobook
>. Set in Oslo
>. Serial killer suspense novel
LibraryThing Review: This was a very satisfying thriller. The plot was complex, but not in a gratuitous sense. The pschological aspect was excellent! I look forward to reading more of Nesbo's books.
>. Set in Oslo
>. Serial killer suspense novel
LibraryThing Review: This was a very satisfying thriller. The plot was complex, but not in a gratuitous sense. The pschological aspect was excellent! I look forward to reading more of Nesbo's books.
Friday, August 5, 2011
"Nemesis" by Philip Roth. *****
> Audiobook
> 1944, fictional polio outbreak, in Newark modeled after outbreak of 1918
> highly congested areas of immigrants most hard hit
> theme of fear and what it brings
LibraryThing Review: I thought this historically imagined tale of a polio outbreak in Newark, New Jersey was outstanding. Polio and its insidious spread is the metaphor for things which make us fear and from which it is difficult to protect oneself. Roth's insight into the workings of the human mind and heart are brilliant. The ultimate questions are what kind of God would create such a disease, what kind of God would allow small children to suffer, die, or move into adulthood permanently maimed? Yet.......there is the beauty of the protahonist's javelin throw......go figure! Great read!
> 1944, fictional polio outbreak, in Newark modeled after outbreak of 1918
> highly congested areas of immigrants most hard hit
> theme of fear and what it brings
LibraryThing Review: I thought this historically imagined tale of a polio outbreak in Newark, New Jersey was outstanding. Polio and its insidious spread is the metaphor for things which make us fear and from which it is difficult to protect oneself. Roth's insight into the workings of the human mind and heart are brilliant. The ultimate questions are what kind of God would create such a disease, what kind of God would allow small children to suffer, die, or move into adulthood permanently maimed? Yet.......there is the beauty of the protahonist's javelin throw......go figure! Great read!
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