Welcome to Litsy!

This is the second novel by Richard Powers I've read, and probably the last. What he is trying to accomplish with his fiction is noble, to write urgent stories of climate crisis that operate on both the individual and planetary level. What he writes is heartbreaking, horrifying & beautiful. But his tone bugs me. It feels self-important & the characters feel idealized.
I understand why people love this book. Truly a case of just not right for me

I'm about halfway through this and . . . Something about it is bothering me, but I can't quite say what. Something about how the boy is written? Or the tone? I don't know. Anyone else struggle with this one?

Bewilderment is a good word for my general mindset.

Powers latest, on last year‘s Booker longlist, gets mixed responses. Starts out with tropy extremes - overwhelmed single widower father, extra-intelligent difficult son, a questionable new psycho-therapy. But he caught me. My anxiety peaked as I rushed through. We‘re all doomed, our planet is doomed and humanity is pathetically helpless. Now calming my anxiety with denial again.

There's also this work of art which was my April #BookSpinBingo board. I read a lot and didn't get even 1 bingo.

@TheAromaofBooks

May already?! Well, I always enjoy making a list of books. 📚 #BookSpinBINGO

“… ninety-eight percent by weight of animals left on earth were either Homo sapiens or their industrially harvested food.” - !! Really?

And a second book I just started, this time for the 2021 Book Longlist - I‘m still working my way through. No clue what to expect but the first 30 pages went by quick.

This book was beautiful but the Flowers for Algernon vibes were a bit overdone. Still gave it 5 🌟

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

The writing is nice and I agree with the environmental message, but honestly mad about the ending so I had to deduct some (metaphorical) points.0

I enjoyed Powers‘ previous novel The Overstory but that felt very complex. It‘s nice to read a story on a smaller scale with a lot of heart about a dad trying to help his son who appears to be on the spectrum.

“But we might never find them?”

#firstlinefridays
#currentlyreading

@ShyBookOwl

Well. That gutted me. Such a beautiful book!!

I finished this several days ago: it gave me a serious book hangover! While I thought it did tip into sentimentality, RP's fusing of the emotionally involving and intellectually stimulating takes some beating. This is only the second of his novels I've read (the other was The Overstory): now I want to read everything he's written! 😊

After reading Bewilderment by Richard Powers, I thought the book is deep and masterful. My first foray into the works of Powers, I can see why he won so many awards, including the Pulitzer for his opus The Overstory. Bewilderment is ingeniously structured with a hint of literary crossing over to science fiction. I don‘t think it matters but I guess what is remarkable is the astonishing force that Powers delivers his 👇

📚 Preach! 📚

It's a Venti morning after only a few hours of sleep last night. Stopped by Target for a pillow & figured I might as well grab the tagged book and the Yanagihara. Looking forward to both. Anyone else like the starbucks sweet potato chips?

If Richard Power‘s book “The Overstory” was destined to be an award winning bestseller, this book is more like the perfectly crafted masterpiece that the artist keeps for himself to hang in a place of honor and peek at from time to time. Lovely, slightly strange story of a father and son that explores life, death, astrophysics, autism, climate change, and human connection. Marvelous, sobering, and very personal.

😘

#12Booksof2021 Remarkable read from September. A slim novel packed with meaning. Emotional & compelling.

#12Booksof2021 #August

I would have liked this to win the Booker.

"Nobody's perfect. But, man, we all fall short so beautifully." ☄️

Wow this was intense.

I have to say if I could some way experience the emotional mind of a passed loved one, I would probably do it.

This left me with mixed feelings- I loved the interactions between father and son, and watching Robin‘s evolution. I relate so strongly to his wishes to protect endangered species and share his frustrations with most people‘s ignorance and disregard for the trajectory of human impact.

Truly a bittersweet read.

Belated Christmas #bookhaul !
I hope that all who celebrate had a fabulous Christmas: I woke to a migraine so had to spend much of the morning sleeping it off (and was thus late getting the dinner under way). Mercifully I felt well enough by the afternoon to enjoy my lovely presents!

I‘m an unstoppable Waterstones beast. I‘m trying to spend Christmas money on things that‘ll help me be healthy in the new year - so as well as leggings to help me feel a little confident returning to my yoga studio in January I replaced my lost and broken coffee cup and water bottle, got Bewilderment half price which I‘ve desperately wanted since it came out.

Aaand a couple things for @moll ‘s birthday which are secret since she got Litsy 🤐

I really loved the relationship between Theo & Robin; father & son. I think any parent can relate to that sometime frustrating feeling when dealing with a sensitive, intelligent child and the need to protect them. That arc of the story felt so intimate, raw & personal. It was the scientific dystopian arc I didn‘t really care for. At times I felt Powers was speaking down to his readers, a little too sanctimonious. Good narration.

Hi Littens ❤️ celebrating my first day of Christmas vacation/maternity leave with a little relaxation and reading. My belly and baby girl are getting bigger and bigger, but I still have around 10 weeks to go. I‘m feeling great, though, and plan on using the time, until she comes, on reading, relaxing and prepping all the baby-related stuff 😅

Hopefully, I‘ll get better at checking in once in a while in the new year 🤞

Happy holidays friends!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ “Holy Crow.” This book broke and mended my heart. I need to sit with my feelings for awhile and process what I just read. If you haven‘t yet read this book, get yourself a copy soon. Wow.

Everyone in my household is cuddled up & cozified in the living room, lulled to sleep by the wind outside…except for me because this book has me gripped in its pages.

Profoundly disturbing, yet beautiful. Anxiety levels will be up for a while, but I‘m not sorry I read it.
#ToBLonglist

Like The Overstory, I am finding it difficult to review this book. Did I love it? No. But Powers has such a way with language and presents environmental topics that are near and dear to me, so I am giving this a soft pick.

Some of the more emotional moments between Theo and Robin felt out of place to me. The story of love and grief is one I feel many people will relate to, but for me, at times everything just felt a little too precious.

There is an earnest quality to Powers‘ novels that irritates me. I agree with his message of conservation but have trouble with the medium. Single dad Theo is raising a 9 yr old son who has behavioral problems. Animal rights lawyer wife/mom died 2 years earlier. A cutting-edge neural feedback experiment may promise not only a cure for Robin but also bring his wife back to life (sorta). Meanwhile, 🌏 goes from bad to worse. #ToB22Longlist #20in4

Reading Envy Podcast Episode 233: Get Into Trouble with Ruth @Ruthiella

Jenny starts off the episode by announcing a big project for 2022! Ruth teaches her a new word and we discuss a recent Tournament of Favorites, plus as always, books we've read and liked lately.

Listen and subscribe:
https://tinyurl.com/ReadingEnvy233

I am not a grieving parent of a troubled child, so I have wrestled with my feelings on this book. But goodness did I mutter "Get that child a therapist" way too many times to enjoy this book. The core of the book is supposed to be this environmental pre-apocolypse idea, but it gets way overshadowed by Robins mental health issues and the father's parenting.
The book itself was overwritten and overall just not for me.

15 Oct-9 Nov 2021
Booker longlist 7
A novel of its time: infectious disease, a mad president refusing to concede the election, and the increasingly irreversible destruction of the environment.
Theo‘s work is to look for signs of life in the universe and parenting his son, Robbie, after the death of his activist wife. After receiving experimental neurofeedback treatment, Robbie seems to improve but the Flowers for Algernon has forbode a tragic end

We time change this weekend and I hate it so much, I have taken Monday and Tuesdays off, going to hibernate and clean and read and start fresh on Wednesday.
Weekend reading goals:
(Finish) Things We Lost In The Water - Eric Nguyen
Bewilderment - Richard Powers
City of Mist - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Trouble With White Women - Kyla Schuller

I finished Powers‘s The Overstory, then I picked this up because it is short-listed for the Booker Prize. Both novels are a plea to humans to wake up to environmental destruction. The story references Flowers for Algernon, and it is a retelling of that story with a twist. Instead of the large cast of The Overstory, this novel centered on Theo and his son after the death of Theo‘s wife. I was invested in this story about loss and grief.

^^Absent wife looms large, a ghost, a moving target for grief, a light of ecstasy.

P131 (animal rights activist Aly flashback):

They think we‘re neurotic, Theo. That we‘re a bunch of nutjobs.

I was not included in that disparaged WE. She meant her kind, the ones who could feel their way across the species line.

Why is it so hard for people to see what‘s happening? … What happens when they‘re gone? When it‘s just us? How is this going to end?

In the near future, widowed astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for evidence of life on other planets even as life on Earth is imperiled by drought, fire, disease. His sensitive 9-yr-old son is diagnosed on the autism spectrum & tries an experimental neurofeedback treatment that links him to his dead mother‘s brain activity. Familiar Powers themes: nature, empathy, family, science. Big universe, small relationships. Tender but too precious? 2021

Flowers for Algeron is explicitly referred throughout and the comparison is clear. As in The Overstory, Powers uses fiction to explore the very real ecological destruction being wreaked on the planet. Told from the point of view of Theo, astrobiologist widowed father of 9 year old Robin whose autism acts as the catalyst for the plot, the scientific terms and world creation passages sometimes distracted otherwise vivid writing. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

"But we might never find them?"
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

I did not enjoy this book. Theo was super pretentious / precious and I couldn‘t decide if Powers was being darkly comic or too earnest. One more description of their meals and I‘d have bailed. On the other hand Eduardo Ballerini‘s narration was excellent. #audiostitching

Anyone else get excited when a book mentions pangolins?

So I got the tears to finally stop. Stunning 😍. Richard Powers is a master storyteller. A father, a son, the universe and a what really matters… omg this was beautiful.

A father and son who are living on as their wife/ mother has died. Their love of nature drew me in and I loved the stories Theo tells Robin about the different planets.

Robin is acting out after his mother‘s death, and it‘s never explained if it‘s because of grief or because his autistic or something else. As Theo says, the therapists all says different things. But I loved his love for Robin and his fight to keep him away from medication.

Well this book really hurt my feelings. I‘ve tried to write a review for over a week, and I‘ve decided it‘s really too difficult to put my response in words. Richard Powers is an exceptional writer and this is an urgent call to arms to save our world.

I am looking forward to next Sunday when I will get to hear Richard Powers read from this along with the other authors from the Booker shortist.

New episode is up and out! We choose a new long seasonal book to read, and Peter reviews the new Richard Powers. (spoiler, he wasn't impressed). Enjoy!

https://anchor.fm/peter-murphy8