'Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states. Nobody imagined that autocracy and illiberalism would spread to the democratic world instead.'

Book 2 for the #ChristmasCrimeChallenge - a very convoluted classic Locked Room Mystery. Gets a bit meta in a surprising discussion of all the usual solutions to locked rooms, and warns the reader that detective fiction only has to be possible, not probable.
Also works for Set in Winter. Snow is an important element in the puzzle. Shows its age in the portrayal of the female characters, but is still enjoyable. @RaeLovesToRead @Ruthiella

Nope. Tried to read this for the #ChristmasCrimeChallenge
As a rule I don't like cosy anything, but I thought adding a fantasy element might help. It didn't. I could barely make it 20 pages. I think this one is probably bad even if you love cosy books. Would only take two hours or so to read, but life is still too short. I'd rather spend that time searching for a different book.
@RaeLovesToRead @Ruthiella

Finished my first book for the #ChristmasCrimeChallenge - Hardboiled/Noir. The grumpy dog was the closest I could get to a Grinch/Scrooge sticker 😂
I enjoyed this. I've read enough Noir that I had my suspicions early on, but there were still some surprises and a lot of tension. Will continue this series at some point.
@RaeLovesToRead @Ruthiella

Well. That was depressing.
Very effective writing style, but I have some reservations about the plot. Soft pick.
Can I see why it won the #Booker ? Yes, but I would still have gone with Audition 😂

#ChristmasCrimeChallenge by @RaeLovesToRead and partner in crime @Ruthiella
Starts tomorrow, 11/11 and ends when the year ends.
@julesG kindly set the challenge up on StoryGraph:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/fd91f879-ad2c-497e-8010-01554f9...

Come all ye faithful, read them and enjoy them!

I just started this, my fourth book from the #Booker shortlist. I like the writing style, but damn that first chapter was uncomfortable! 🫤

White US male has mild midlife crisis and takes a roadtrip whilst re-evaluating his life and thinking a LOT about basketball. Everything is so mundane and unexceptional, it is both realistic and dreary. Very readable and I enjoyed all but the technical basketball talk. This is so American I would expect it to be a Pulitzer candidate (except Greer already won with a funnier version), but I am surprised to see it on the #Booker shortlist. Soft pick.

@CrowCAH
It has arrived! I was going to take a picture, but the Waterstones cardboard wrapping is so solid I would have to destroy it to get the book out. I think it's best to just leave it and trust that they sent the right book 😅 I'll just wrap some parcel paper around the whole thing and send it off.

Very charmed with the audiobook version of this book. I have the song stuck in my mind now. It's not always a good idea when authors do their own narration, but here it could hardly have been otherwise. Readers of a text only version are missing out on both music and the sound of the ocean.

#BookerLonglist25 #Booker

I'm having some difficulty taking this book at all seriously after learning that the members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood are named Wrath, Rhage, Tohrment, Phury, Vishous, Zsadist, and... Darius. Like, what the actual hell is up with that? And I mean all of that. And do I care enough to find out if we find out?

Books multiply when you are with the #Gladstonerds
I went on the #ReadingRetreat with my Kindle, Endling, and a book for the Blind Date book swap. I return with my Kindle, Endling, and.... (see picture) 🤣 I should have brought a bigger bag. Might end up carrying The Books of Jacob under my arm.

Ah, 189__ when Norway was a "far-away land" from the perspective of England. ? (I was surprised at the indication that the trip would take two weeks, but no, it only took three days to make the crossing.)

#FirstLineFridays

This year's Victorian travelogue at Gladstone's. Another Norwegian one!
I grew up close by the stave church in the picture, and used to play in and around it. I was devastated when it was destroyed by arson in 1992. It was rebuilt, but it's not the same. You can tell that they timber is new, and not nearly a millennium old. It is also fenced off and you have to pay for admission.
#Gladstonerds

I'm thoroughly enjoying Katabasis, but I do on occasion wonder who R.F. Kuang's Oxbridge informant/researcher is. Wetherspoons is not really a student party spot, and considering Oxford's divide between "Town and Gown" I doubt a student would even set foot in one of them. Not to mention that in the 80s, when this book appears to be set, Wetherspoons was still confined to the London area.

Read in one sitting. Gorgeously expressive sparse prose. The story of two men secretly falling in love in a small Welsh town in the late 80s, told in short chapters and vignette-like paragraphs that somehow tells a full and rich story. Both sensual and melancholy. Almost made me cry.

A devastating gem from 1978. Jean doesn't know how to live without the structure of her job and decides to die. But her retirement gift is a 5 year diary, which she takes as an order to live. She makes herself subservient to the diary for the duration, writing her entries in the morning and then fulfilling the commands. It starts as simple orders of eating meals, but gradually becomes more daring. Failure = disobedience and is not an option!

#FirstLineFridays
Or more like First Paragraph Friday

"The funfair folk know better than anyone how it is to be an outsider in a world that would prefer they didn't exist. Each and every one of them - those born freaks and those freakish by inclination, those with freakishness thrust upon them, those with it in the blood - understands the acrobatic feat of being oneself while surviving in the opposite ecosystem. (...) Better freaks than them have perished under the weight."

Overall I enjoyed spending an evening with this book, but it did feel rather unresolved. It's hard to discuss this book without giving spoilers, so suffice to say that I enjoyed what I thought was a mildly satirical piece full of stereotypes, but from there it moved on to a sequence of unlikeable characters and several truths about the media that are no revelation. I'm not entirely sure what the author wanted me to take away from this story.

I think I might want to see how this saga about an ethnic Chinese family in Malaysia continues in the next book, but I'll be avoiding the audiobook. I kept zoning out during some landscape description and then realising I didn't know whose POV the narrator had switched to. He read everyone the same way, and occasionally there's a 1st person comment from the future self of the teenage son who is otherwise in 3rd person like the others. ⤵️

I wasn't sure about the first part of this book, but the second won me over with the sheer creepy discomfort I felt when I read it. I think I might have to let it percolate for a few days before I decide exactly how I feel about it, but it was really cleverly done and a good choice by the #Booker judges. I suspect this might make my personal shortlist.
#BookerLonglist

@CrowCAH Hopefully this will be sorted out before the Keira Knightly book comes out in October! It should be fine since I believe the new exemption is for packages under $100, but we need the postal service to be actually running! Neither The Royal Mail or DHL is currently accepting any packages for the US. If all else fails I guess I'll have to find some American tourist to act as courier 🤣 (because that doesn't sound dodgy at all)

I like books that have little or no plot if the writing is good and the characters interesting. Here the prose is good, but focussed on the minutae, the characters interesting but not allowed to shine. The pace is glacial. And the ending is 🤷🏻‍♀️🫤
I'm left feeling like I've been teased with bits and pieces of a good story, but instead of filling in the gaps Miller has given in to a Knausgardian impulse to describe how people brush their teeth.

I didn't get very far on my #ReadYourKindle selection in July. Trying again with these August books. (And might still try to catch up on July 😅)

@CBee

He was lying on a varnished wooden board, the top of a boxed-in radiator.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

Excellent and eerie. I loved it. That feeling of I'm not even sure what I'm reading right now, but I'm here for it. Dysfunctional family, generational trauma, mental illness, and a house that may or may not be haunted. 👌

Me reading Never Flinch: I am wise to your tricks now, Mr King. When this turns suddenly supernatural and horrific, I'll be ready. Just, please don't make 'Sista Bessie' be magical.
Me, currently at 270/410: Wth Stephen? Is this going to stay mundane? The villains, while definitely in need of therapy, seem mainly pitiful, and even Holly reads as mostly neurotypical here. 🤷🏻‍♀️
(Fully expecting to have to eat my words by the end)

I would not be at all surprised if this wins the Pulitzer next year. Clever, emotional, full of literary and pop culture references and quirky characters, it's the death of dreams and the endurance of friendship. It gave me a lump in my throat but also, at one point, made me laugh until I had tears in my eyes. It would have been a five star read except for the ending.

My #ReadYourKindle books for July. Two international Bookers and two crime novels! And both crime novels are the first in a very long series 😅 I think I'll aim for one crime one Booker and then see where the month is at. (Meanwhile I am also reading all those massive Cosmere books on my Kindle, so it is getting a workout 😂)

It's been a long time since a book brought this many tears to my eyes. I'm not sure I could have read it when my children were younger. But it was also a real eye opener with a lot of fascinating information about medical history and innovations. A remarkable story featuring a lot of ordinary people showing remarkable compassion.
The #WomensPrize for non-fiction list was really strong again this year, and this is a worthy winner.

#WomensPrizeNF

An Aeluon, an Akarak, and a Quelin walk into a long-haul short-stop and end up in lockdown for a few days. The Laru host and her kid try to cater to their needs. They all learn a few things about themselves and the universe. Unlikely friendships are forged. Nothing much happens, and I didn't need it to. Possibly my favourite of the series.

#ReadYourKindle

I love it when a book gives me really interesting information about something it had never occurred to me to think about. I am now officially a fan of hares. I really didn't think that a book about a woman's lockdown project of looking after a hare would be all that interesting, but it really was.

#WomensPrizeNF #WomensPrize
#14books14weeks book 1

#

Indeed!

DNF at 31%
I don't get the hype or why this even has a mainstream publisher. Was it popular on Booktok or something? You can find better self-published books on KU. Dark? Please, there's zero depth or emotional attachment so it doesn't feel dark. Romantic? The courtship is more painful than the torture scenes. Comedy? A light tone and irrational characters isn't enough to make it funny.

#HailTheBail

I picked only paper editions for the #14books14weeks so my summer reading challenge to myself is to actually read my #ReadYourKindle books in June, July, and August (yeah, we'll see how that goes 😅)
I think this is some good midsummer reading here; a mix of the cozy and the queer (or the cozy and the weird, but that has no alliteration 😆)

@CBee

It's frustrating, because this book has such potential for greatness and so many strong insights about a whole slew of important themes, but it focuses mainly on a toxic love affair. And I am so tired of books about barely adult women in unhealthy relationships with older men.

#WomensPrize #WomensPrize25

More regret for everyone!

Just days after picking my books for #14Books14Weeks I go book crawling with @Caroline2 and end up with this haul 😅 Now, of course, I want to read these instead 😂 (as well?)

When I started putting books together for #14books14weeks I realised that between Camp Litsy and other buddy reads I already have 14 books lined up for summer. And I'll be reading those anyway, so I decided to challenge myself to also read 14 books without a group schedule. Most of these keep getting pushed back because of those scheduled reads. Well, now these are scheduled too. Not shown in reading order. Banana for size.
@Liz_M

The #WomensPrize always picks one weird one that nobody likes. This year it's Crooked Seeds, and I actually did like it. In a future New South Africa water is rationed and the government is reclaiming private property. Compensation is not forthcoming because the economy has gone to shit. Deirdre is a middle aged alcoholic with a massive chip on her shoulder, and bases her whole identity around being an amputee. Something is found buried in the ⤵️

My current audiobook. I'm only 24% in, so not entirely sure where it's going, but it looks like nowhere good 😅 The MC is an utterly unlikable ball of narcissism and unresolved trauma. I can't help thinking that if the Women's Prize really had to have rich people immigrant problems , this is a better choice than the boring Persians. And if they wanted women being gross and transgressive, All Fours has nothing on this woman's skincare rituals.

Based on a real event where 27 migrants drowned in the Channel because the British couldn't get to them in time and the French wouldn't help, even while the boat was still in French waters. A semi-stream-of-consciousness narrative where the French navy emergency dispatcher tries to justify her actions and her words, refusing to bear the collective guilt and responsibility of society. Powerful and uncomfortable. #InternationalBooker #Booker

I thought Neneh Cherry's memoir sounded like a niche choice for the #WomensPrizeNF shortlist, but you don't need to be a fan to get a lot out of this book. It's a time capsule. It's the emerging music scene and countercultures of NYC in the 70s and London in the 80s. It's Jazz history. It's about being bi-racial and with family ties to three continents. It's about food, friendship, addiction, the AIDS epidemic, art, and an unconventional life.

Yes!

My #readyourkindle numbers for May. Christ on a Bike is a repeat from an earlier month, so I should really prioritise that 😬 Will I get to any of them? Maybe. I managed one in April 😅
@CBee

"I had been trying to be invisible - trying to blend in - when, of course, in Sweden I couldn't. And while being in the States would always be a relief because it was a place of colour, even there I still didn't entirely fit in because of being Swedish and from an unconventional background. I had always been aware of my in-between-ness.
But after that first time in London, I never felt compromised in the same way again."

This was great! I have little interest in the French Impressionists, and knew very little about Gauguin (most of which turned out to be inaccurate), but this was highly interesting and superbly entertaining as well as informative. What a character! What a life! The book also includes a lot of prints and photos of artwork, on high quality paper. I'm sad this didn't make the shortlist for the #WomensPrizeNF

Thing 2 likes to have a lot of options, including non-fiction and manga. He's currently reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

This is the 20th time we take part in the twice yearly #Deweys #24hourReadathon ! Ten years of family readathons.
#RaisingReaders

There will be no pic of Thing 1's #readathon stack, as he's audiobooking The Raven Cycle for the umpteenth time whilst working on his Final Project for his Art & Design course.