I struggled to think of a #GuiltyPleasure book for #TitlesAndTunes, then saw this book waiting for me to read, which I totally bought to salve my guilty conscience for enjoying the Fu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer. So, this book isn't my guilty pleasure, but I will read this deconstruction of Western popular culture's racist fascination with The Orient so that I can "ironically" read a Fu Manchu afterwards, when I will post a matching tune ? ⬇️

I felt like some quick old-school sci-fi as a pallet-cleanser after finishing a couple of volumes of early 19th century literature.
I like the cover of this 1965 Four Square edition: just the right shades of green-and-silver spindly architecture to give a retro-futuristic otherworldly feel 🛸

Da fuck was that! Someone care to explain to me why this is tagged as "Romance"? ??? I don't think so! ?

In the 6 months I've taken to read it, according to Mrs B I've done nothing but complain how horrendous all the characters are (other than Nellie Dean: Victoria Wood in my mental casting ?). I finished the last 20% in one go today, mainly while picnicking at Rufford Old Hall to finally get it over with, and thank goodness, it's done! ?⬇️

"Unda: Thou knowest, Ariel, that wicked souls
Are, for wise purposes, permitted oft
To enter the dead forms of other men,
Assume their speech, their habits, and their knowledge,
And thus roam o'er the earth; but subject still,
At stated periods, to a dreadful tribute.
Ariel: Ay, they must wed some fair and virtuous maiden,
Whom they do after kill, and from her veins
Drain eagerly the purple stream of life;
??‍♂️⬇️

I picked this up from the library yesterday and want to read it as soon as possible to get it back on the shelf, but feel I really need to finish at least one other book before starting a new one. Toss up between finishing Gothic Plays and Wuthering Heights, probably the former.
I got 99 #BookwormProblems ... 📚🐛

The first of the six plays is The Castle Spectre, which won't be troubling Shakespeare, but having sprung from the morbid imagination of no less a writer than Matthew "Monk" Lewis is a galloping gothic ride.
Set in Conwy Castle, which I've visited several times, & referencing Alnwick Castle, ditto, it's full of atmosphere.
Tropes: Jolly fat friar, sarcastic but loyal fool, fratricidal earl with dastardly designs on his niece, said niece-of-great-

Utterly ridiculous and preposterous, but... let go of any expectation of it making sense and strap in for the ride with the same willing suspension of disbelief that you might bring to the '80s Re-Animator films, and it's body-horror-tastic! 🧟‍♂️🖤

CW for suicide.

"Far from the haunts of men, of vice the foe,
The moon-struck child of genius and of woe,
Versed in each magic spell and dear to fame,
A fair enchantress dwells, Romance her name."

- The Castle Spectre: A Dramatic Romance by Matthew Lewis ???

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

"I must ask myself whether I am not colouring what I see with my own views."

Holm leaves enough space in the text that his narrator's self-query is relevant to the reader, also. It's a book of impressions, partially understood events & delirium, that, coloured by my own views, perhaps, seems like a metaphor for late stage capitalism. The rich provide themselves with a haven from social collapse, leave the poor to suffer, and start to splinter ⬇️

"- I do have some faith in democracy, but I don't think that this vote can be regarded as a matter of course as democratic. The voters knew too little about the alternatives.
- They are always Ill-informed.
- You are possibly right, but democracy does depend on certain principles of freedom and these are often more essential than demonstrations of freedom. That vote was a demonstration of freedom, but it went against the principles of freedom."

What? 🤨
Post-apocalypse? ☢️
Dystopian, you say? 👮
Luxury bunker complex in which the mega-wealthy shelter while the rest of the world descends into nightmarish chaos?🔥☠️🔥
Hmm 🤔
And you say this is science fiction rather than journalism? 🧐
Very well, you've piqued my interest, sir. Pass it over 📖

I stayed up 'til silly-o'clock to finish this last night, failed and had to wait until this evening to complete the last 15 pages - Torture!
Now, I'm no expert on 1950s French criminal law, but I still reckon Maigret could have done more to safely resolve the situation when he is visited at home by a man confessing to a murder he hasn't yet committed. Maigret's inability to prevent this slow-motion car crash of a situation developing is part of ⬇️

I devoured both my lunch & this Maigret in one sitting: both were satisfying 😋
When one of his inspectors is gunned down on a routine stakeout, Maigret takes advantage of his wife's temporary absence to move into the suspect's bedsit to get a feel for the human currents flowing through the down-at-heel suburban respectability of the crime scene. This one felt tense & claustrophobic, and Mlle Clément one of Simenon's more intriguing characters. 5⭐

I'm reading this to better understand asexual orientation. 22 pages in and I'm already getting enlightening perspectives. The reviews for this book are overwhelmingly positive, however I've found it helpful to read the 1⭐ reviews to fix in my mind that no book can express everybody's experience and that reading this will provide me with useful, not definitive, insight.

I read that Dazai is one of the most depressing and bleak writers there's been, however this book is acknowledged as uncharacteristically light for him and I found it amusing and witty, the translator having done a brilliant job.
The frame story is a semi-fictionalised Dazai stuck in a bomb shelter towards the end of WWII, distracting his 5 year old daughter from an air raid by reading a picture book he finds too abbreviated, so he creates his ⬇️

I picked up this nifty little 1965 anthology of Beat Poets for a quid today at a Cub Scout jumble sale.
The introduction says that the 'Beat' name comes from the meaning weary, worn out or raw. And here was me thinking it came from the rhythmic beat of the poetry! I think I watched too many musicals showing Parisian beat poetry clubs with turtle-necked serious young men smoking Gauloise and clicking their fingers 😄

"Once upon a time, long, long ago,
there lived an old man
With a great big wen on his cheek.

This old man, this Ojī-san, or "Grandfather," lived at the foot of Mount Tsurugi in Awa Province, on the island of Shikoku."

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Argentina 🇦🇷
Whoa! That was a brutal ride! A novel charting the life & death of Cristóbal Artola, set against the ultra-violent political events of mid 20th century Argentina.
Recruited by a Catholic priest into a death squad, Artola accepts this route out of poverty with little political conscience, as successive coups change governments but not their methods of disposing of the opposition. That Vásquez-Rial manages ⬇️

I donated blood this afternoon, then picked up these books I'd ordered. I'm now under strict nurse's orders to replenish fluids & not do anything strenuous, so sitting with a drink in the garden reading is actual medical advice!
Dazai is an author mentioned in The Cat Who Saved Books, & who seemed interesting when I looked him up. Tagged book is fairy tale retellings, the other a short story collection. But I need to finish Triste's History first!

#BookMail 😁
I attended a conference last week: Putting the Politics (Back) in Counselling: and as usual ended up ordering books. The conference topics were on developing awareness of the socio-political causes of psychological distress, decolonising therapy, and the existential threat caused by climate change. It was a fantastic day, which I was going to attend in person but they switched it to Zoom, so less immediate but also less hassle. ⬇️

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Argentina ?? #FirstLine
"on its northern, eastern and every flank except for the one that trails off into the pampa like a grubby, ragged strip of lace spattered with settlements and hamlets, the city looks out on the mighty, open river with its one discernable shore and its ominous yellow waters beyond which may lie the world or nothing; solitary, vast amid the vastness, Buenos Aires is the south, the meeting point ...

That was pretty good, though up to the point I've watched, I think the Netflix adaptation is better as it's taken more time to develop the back story, though that may well be addressed in later editions of the comic. Still, 4🦌, and I'll read the next volume if the library has it, but I'll cope ok if they haven't.

“This world throws all kinds of obstacles at us, we are forced to endure so much that is absurd. Our best weapon for fighting all the pain and trouble in the world isn't logic or violence. It's humour.”

This resonated for me today 😌😺 (though I'd throw compassion and empathy in there, too, even if (or especially because) they can sometimes be hard to hold onto).

This graphic novel contains the title story which, despite that title, bears only a nodding acquaintance with Lovecraft's original story, this being a sequel set in modern times, graced with striking artwork but a pedestrian plot, with a backup tale that sticks more faithfully to its source, "The Hound", with full-page panels of glorious, creepily-painted art, and a more literary narrative style, somewhat hampered by an overly-florid font that ⬇️

Ok, despite the title, this was precisely zero% use in helping advance my decades-long project of organising my books! 😡
On the other hand, it was thought-provoking, intelligent, emotional, funny, whimsical, serious, erudite and utterly bookish. I need more Perec!

"What is scandalous isn't the pit explosion, it's working in coalmines. 'Social problems' aren't 'a matter of concern' when there's a strike, they are intolerable twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, three hundred and sixty-five days a year."

"I write in order to live & I live in order to write, & I've come close to imagining that writing & living might merge completely: I would live in the company of dictionaries, deep in some provincial retreat, in the mornings I would go for a walk in the woods, in the afternoons I would blacken a few sheets of paper, in the evenings I would relax perhaps by listening to a bit of music."

He didn't mention cats, but obviously there must be cats!?‍⬛

I couldn't resist picking up this book simply because of the title, and I'm hoping the eponymous essay will provide the practical and actionable advice I so clearly need!
A selection of essays by Perec of which I'm on the first, dealing with Holocaust literature. Perec's mother died in Auschwitz, so a very personal connection to the subject.

Published in 2017, this piece of graphic-journalism by cartoonist Kate Evans of her experiences as a volunteer at the Calais Jungle refugee camp is hugely informative and humane. Sadly, the more difficulties the governments of Britain and France have gotten into since this was written, the harsher their anti-migrant rhetoric has become.
@arlenefinnigan As you've commented in your review, so many people I'd like to sit down with this book!
5⭐

The trawler "Océan" has nothing but bad luck from the moment it gets underway, and the crew are convinced it has the Evil Eye cast upon it, with sailors injured, lost overboard, and an increasingly erratic captain. Returning to port, superstitious tempers are high and when the captain's body is fished out of the harbour, Maigret is asked by an old friend to prove the innocence of the young wireless operator accused of his murder. ⬇️

Wells packed a lot of moral themes into what is ostensibly an adventure tale of a mad scientist on a desert island. His obvious target is vivisection, sniping at those who only object if they see and hear the pain and suffering caused. This, possibly, extends to squeamish meat-eaters, too, and he gives a kicking to organised religion and its role in social control and the maintaining of hierarchical class systems.
His implied criticism of ... ⬇️

"I have withdrawn myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spend my days surrounded by wise books, bright windows in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men.”

Moving on from Moore's earlier 2000AD stuff to the somewhat later and more developed storytelling of Tom Strong 💪🦸🏻‍♀️

“Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to eat Flesh nor Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to claw Bark of Tree; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”

- So, this is where Devo got the title of their first album from!
#BooksAndMusic

#TitlesAndTunes
The #IslandVibes tag reminded me I've had Doctor Moreau on my shelf since 1981, so an incentive to remove something from near the base of Mount TBR!
This edition is a 1975 film tie-in to the adaptation starring Burt Lancaster and Michael York, which I have seen and which was appropriately sweaty and claustrophobic. 🐯🐷🐺🐮

#TitlesAndTunes #IslandVibes @Cinfhen @BarbaraBB
Revisiting a favourite island in Tove Jansson's fictionalised childhood memoir of the close bond that develops between a grandmother & granddaughter during summer holidays on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland.
Song choice is "That Summer Feeling" from a favourite album, Jonathan Richman's "Jonathan Sings!" It's a record packed with whimsically yearning songs of love, nostalgia and joy. ?️??

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Guyana 🇬🇾
This was a fabulous second-hand find, which I certainly wouldn't have picked up if not for this challenge, so, thank you, @BarbaraBB and @Librarybelle 🙏
The story follows the Foster family and their friends and neighbours, living in a poor part of Georgetown, Guyana. Some dream of a quiet life, others of making their way in the world, and love is often betrayed and manipulated to these ends.
⬇️

"Goat shit small, but goat shit plenty." ????

Well, I guess the little annoyances of life can add up to a big pile of shit, can't they? ?

"Melda was a virgin - no doubt about that! It was not natural at her age. Christine reflected that she herself had eaten bread at fourteen."
Well, the meaning is clear, but "eating bread" isn't a euphemism for sex I'd heard before. However, turns out it's a Jewish idiom which seems to have gained more widespread usage (if you'll pardon the phrase): https://forward.com/food/400311/in-ancient-jewish-texts-bread-was-a-euphemism-fo...

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Guyana 🇬🇾
Ooh, this one's off to a good start! 10 pages and I'm already feeling engaged - there's hope for me yet! 😁
Bird Foster has done a total of four months' work in his life. When he hears that his brother in Canada is rich enough to buy a house, the envy and shame he feels motivates him to earn some easy money. I don't think it's going to turn out well for him 🫤
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Chile 🇨🇱
Well, I tried, though admittedly not very hard, to like this book, but my reading stamina seems to be at a low ebb, as I'm deciding within a score of pages whether I can persevere, which in this case I couldn't.
Despite being about a sci-fi-loving reader with whom I might reasonably be expected to find some connection, I'm getting nothing. Time to move on 😏📚
@BarbaraBB @Librarybelle

The reprint of Alan Moore's Future Shocks I just read was ok, but not as good as I remembered from my teen years. Fortunately, the Cursed Earth Saga of Judge Dredd's mercy mission to deliver a vaccine to Mega-City Two by crossing 1000 miles of radioactive wasteland, in the company of a law-breaking punk & a rock-eating alien, was still brilliant! Combining Mad Max, Damnation Alley & Jurassic Park in a wild badlands adventure! I AM THE LAW!! 4🛡️

“The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.”

And, a #LibraryHaul
Reliving my childhood with a couple of 2000AD graphic novels, a beautifully painted GN about the intersection of modern London with the Kingdoms of Faerie, and what is becoming the inevitable Maigret 😊

I went for the Saramago, I returned with a #BookHaul 😁📚
I haven't yet read the first of Ferrante's Neopolitan books, but when I do, I'll have the second ready.
Registration is a 1954 collection of contemporary Chinese short stories.
Triste's History is Argentinean author, Vázquez Rial's, story of death squads during his country's period of governmental terror.
⬇️

Difficult in parts, but well worth perseverance. The writing flows and the images Saramago conjures are by turns dark and magical.
The first story, "The Chair", I found hard to grasp initially, until I caught the allegory and it fell into place.
"Embargo" satirises our reliance on oil and motor vehicles in a disturbing Twilight Zone-esque way.
"Reflux" is about the futile denial of mortality, and inequality even in death (and probably other ⬇️

"The chair started to fall, to come crashing down, to topple, but not, strictly speaking, to come to bits."

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

Kae's newest poetry collection is raw and emotional, tapping their anguish and joy in self-deprecation, self-discovery, and a burgeoning self-acceptance and self-love. Personal and universal, as the best poetry is. 💖🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Alongside are my latest music purchases which provided my reading soundtrack 🎶📖🎶

Newly published - diving straight into this one!

Despite my previous flippant comment about the first story, "The Chair", it was actually really good, if you like things held at an odd angle. Undoubtedly, my enjoyment of the story was enhanced by spending twice as much time reading Wikipedia entries on President Salazar, Saramago, libertarian communism and the Carnation Revolution (mostly to be forgotten by tomorrow) than I spent on the story itself. I like those kind of stories ?