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    Am pondering re-reading Justin Cronin's The Passage trilogy. The second and third books never quite matched the bravura writing of The Passage. But they were still worth reading. It's been 10 years since I first read The Passage and it remains one of my favourite genre books. When the "the thing" happens to one of the central characters about a 1/3rd in, you wonder how is he gonna get around this...Then you turn the page and you go ahhh...that was clever...

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      Just finished Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, winner of the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction. Absolutely wonderful stuff, made all the more interesting for me personally by the fact I'm currently editing a weighty academic tome on Shakespeare. The chapter describing the spread of the Black Death is an astonishing piece of writing, and obviously grimly relevant at the moment.

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        Originally posted by gt3 View Post
        Am pondering re-reading Justin Cronin's The Passage trilogy. The second and third books never quite matched the bravura writing of The Passage. But they were still worth reading. It's been 10 years since I first read The Passage and it remains one of my favourite genre books. When the "the thing" happens to one of the central characters about a 1/3rd in, you wonder how is he gonna get around this...Then you turn the page and you go ahhh...that was clever...
        The Passage was such a buzz & trail blazer. Yet didnt get the follow up at all. It was like it written by a totally different author. So much so that have still to give the third one a read.

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          Originally posted by ale View Post

          The Passage was such a buzz & trail blazer. Yet didnt get the follow up at all. It was like it written by a totally different author. So much so that have still to give the third one a read.
          This, exactly.

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            Just finished Stephen Fry's Mythos - somewhat of a strange amalgam, in that on one hand you have the Classic Greek narratives, such as Eros and Psyche, Pyramus and Thisbe, etc, but on the other, you also have potted lists of the various triads and groupings, so no more excuses for mixing up your Fates and Furies, or indeed not knowing the roles of all nine Muses. Doubtless, real classicists will prefer a more high-brow treatment, but Fry is genuinely engaging here, and worthy of the investment of the general reader.

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              Finished Jazz at the weekend. Absolutely cracking stuff.

              I'm now reading Inferno by Catherine Cho. It's a memoir of postpartum psychosis (the title comes from her belief, during the initial episode, that she was trapped in Hell with her husband and, like Beatrice for Dante, had to lead him out). It's not very long – which I'm inclined to think is just as well because if it were, it'd be a bloody difficult read – but it's a real journey.

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                Originally posted by Jobi1 View Post
                Just finished Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, winner of the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction. Absolutely wonderful stuff, made all the more interesting for me personally by the fact I'm currently editing a weighty academic tome on Shakespeare. The chapter describing the spread of the Black Death is an astonishing piece of writing, and obviously grimly relevant at the moment.
                It's great, isn't it? I tore through the last fifty or so pages.

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                  Finished Inferno earlier, and having read an extract of it a week or so ago on the Guardian website, my girlfriend's now reading it. I'm just – and I mean just; I started reading the intro shortly before typing this post – starting Elizabeth McCracken's short story collection Thunderstruck & Other Stories. It's my thirteenth book of 2021, which is as many as I finished in the whole of 2020, but if I'm counting the dates right it'll be the twenty-fourth I've read in the last twelve months. Not coincidentally, those are the same twelve months in which I've had more work than ever before in my freelance life; I feel so much less guilty about just using my free time as free time now. It's so nice to have got back into a rhythm with my reading.

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                    Thunderstruck & Other Stories is very good. I particularly liked the title story. McCracken is an author I'd not heard of until recently, but I got this and her novel The Giant's House, which I gather is looked upon as a minor classic of recent decades, recently and look forward to reading the latter. This afternoon, though, I started In The Dream House by Carmen Mar?a Machado, who's one of my favourite writers even though the only whole book of hers I've read before this one is Her Body and Other Parties. This got absolutely raved about when it was published about a year and a half ago, and so far (about a fifth of the way in) I'm having no trouble at all seeing why.

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                      Recent reading:

                      At Night All Blood is Black, D Diop. Short and shocking, a novel about a Senegalese solder in World War I and the horrors that transform him.

                      Dreamland, R Rankin Gee. Enjoyable dystopian story of a girl growing up in Margate in a post-climate change, isolationist UK looking to remove poor people. Gripping.

                      A Master of Djinn, P Djeli Clark. Alt-history detective novel set in an early 1900s Egypt transformed into a liberal steampunk paradise by the re-emergence of djinns. Moderately interesting but nowhere near as propulsive as his previous book, Ring Shout (all-female gang of Cthulhu-busters versus monstrous KKK creatures).

                      Light Perpetual, F Spufford. I loved Golden Hill and his previous books, but while decent this didn't quite engage me to the same degree. Imagines the lives of five kids killed by a V2 in 1944, as a series of snapshots throughout lives they never got to live. Very David Mitchell-esque, but without the timey-wimey cabal plot arc.

                      Inventory, D Anderson. Really enjoyed his first book, Imaginary Cities, but this memoir of growing up in Northern Ireland told through a history of objects is one I'm struggling to finish.

                      The Only Good Indians, S Graham Jones. Supernatural thriller about Native Americans hunted down by the vengeful spirit of an animal they killed. Violent and compelling. Looking forward to his next book later this year (My Heart is a Chainsaw, I believe a pastiche of slasher movies).

                      Utopia Avenue, D Mitchell. Didn't get on with this. Just a bit prosaic compared to his best.

                      Summerwater, S Moss. Incredibly atmospheric semi-apocalyptic drama about troubled families holed up in waterlogged holiday homes in Scotland as the water keeps rising. Just a shame it fizzled out a lot towards the end.

                      The Living Dead, G Romero. Ghost-finished novel started by Romero, detailing the rise of the living dead. Fun, if silly, entertwined stories, especially those set in a news studio and aircraft carrier.

                      Devolution, M Brooks. His first decent book since World War Z. Rich tech eco community in the Pacific Northwest cut off by a volcanic eruption and hunted down by sasquatches. Fun.

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                        Originally posted by Crusoe View Post
                        a post-climate change, isolationist UK looking to remove poor people
                        So, a post-climate change UK?

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                          I finished In The Dream House on Tuesday. It's excellent, and the plot twist is wonderful. I'm now reading Sea People: In Search of the Ancient Navigators of the Pacific by Christina Thompson. It's about how Polynesia (and I think Micronesia and Melanesia, but I've not got to them yet) were settled, and what European explorers made of and how they interacted with the natives when they first found their own way into the Pacific. I'm just over a quarter in and so far I'd go so far as to say you don't need to be slightly obsessed with the history of exploration to find it utterly fascinating (although I can't say for certain whether that's true, because I am).
                          Last edited by Sam; 12-06-2021, 07:06.

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                            Originally posted by Sam View Post

                            So, a post-climate change UK?
                            Ha, indeed.

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                              Having been unable to read a full book properly for years, I'm now back on form and in the last two weeks have read:

                              An Unquiet Mind by Kay Radfield Jamieson: first person account of both suffering from bipolar disorder and being a psychologist / tenured professor specialising in mood disorders and their treatment.

                              Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman: readable, enjoyable, upsetting content at times, laudable for not relying on clichéd romantic tropes, a little predictable in places.

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                                Sam, I'd welcome your detailed thoughts on Jazz.

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                                  Blimey, it's been a while since I've been prompted for detailed thoughts on anything I've read! I'll get back to you in a day or two when I have more time.

                                  For now, recording that I finished Sea People last night – it's fascinating, and highly recommended for anyone with an interest in history, exploration or seafaring – and started The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

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                                    Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                    Sam, I'd welcome your detailed thoughts on Jazz.
                                    Satchmo, in light of the recent discussion on how we don't do enough threads in Books, I've done a new thread for my thoughts.

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                                      Finished The Midnight Library last night, and very good it is too. Have now started Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

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                                        I forgot to take my newspaper with me on Saturday on a short weekend trip to Cologne, so I bought The Weekend by Charlotte Wood at the station, which is about three quibbling old Australian female pensioners and an almost dead dog clearing out a dead friend's house. Devoured it in a couple of days - superb writing.

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                                          David Park-Travelling In A Strange Land. Slight literary meditative tale of narrator seeking redemption for family loss which held attention without offering anything but a predictable narrative or conclusion. The strange land is a reference to car journey from Belfast to Sunderland.With lots of snow.

                                          Lauren Oyler-Fake Accounts. A slog from start to finish. Somewhere in there is a story that piques interest. Facile media obsessed girl chances upon fact her boyfriend is running a conspiracy theory website. Contrary to everything she thinks she knows about him. Without spoilers this is never developed. Nor is the story or narrative. Guess it is a satire on 21 century mass media and need to engage every aspect of life through it. Being 59 years of age am probably not the target audience. Last couple of pages werent too bad but not enough to salvage it. But at least finished it.

                                          Rock Me On The Water-Ronald Brownstein. 12 calendar months in 1974 Los Angeles with central premise being a one off cultural domination of the city which bridges the failure of the 1960s ideals with the forthcoming shift in 1980s US society. So TV represented with Saturday night lineup of All In Family (Till Death Us Do Part imported) Mary Tyler Moore & MASH. Cinema with Chinatown & Shampoo. Music with Eagles Ronstadt & Jackson Browne. Politics with Jerry Brown & Jane Fonda. All of these are presented as massive radical shifts in US consensus of what was previously popular. Personally not a subject of which have contemporary familiarity so as work of history it was interesting. Even if never going to make me listen any more closely to the musical acts than have previously.

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                                            I am currently entranced by Eleanor Henderson's novel Twelve-Mile Straight.

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                                              Currently reading "Blood and Guts in High School" by Kathy Acker. I've always been aware of Kathy Acker, especially around the early 90s and actually hear her read at the Scala way back when. But I haven't read anything of hers, until today, when I got through half the book this afternoon (it's pretty short).

                                              It's alright, I can't understand how you are supposed to know the protagonist is 10 years old and that her father is her real father and not a sugar daddy type figure. I only found out after reading a bit more into it this evening. I've read she had a hard time getting it published. but I can't understand how it could possibly be published unless Acker was quite a name by the time of its publication, which I guess she probably was. How you could possibly read the first 20 pages and thing "this is a total post-modern classic, it's a feminist punk masterpiece" is beyond my comprehension. It's totally readable, far better than my dabble with William Burroughs last summer, but I struggle to find greatness in it.

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                                                Nearing the final act of Rebecca now, and I know this isn't the most earth-moving statement in the history of literary criticism but it really is a belting novel. A lot of the first third feels rather slow but then the first big revelation is made and you realise loads of what you've read until that point wasn't as it had seemed. Later, the 'mystery' is introduced almost in the same moment it's solved, in a way, but the tension doesn't ramp down at all once that's happened. Oh, and if you happen to read the pivotal couple of chapters by torchlight* in the middle of the night while there's a howling gale outside it really adds to it. Doubt I'll finish it tonight, given how late it now is, but then there's a good chance I'll just be unable to put it down and plough right through ...

                                                *OK, by the light of your phone screen. Same difference but sounds less romantic.

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                                                  I also love Rebecca, and just about everything else by Daphne du Maurier. It wasn't long ago that I read one of her short story collections, the one where The Birds is the title story. All the stories in it are superb, with Kiss Me Again, Stranger perhaps the best of all.

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                                                    Originally posted by steveeeeeeeee View Post
                                                    Currently reading "Blood and Guts in High School" by Kathy Acker. I've always been aware of Kathy Acker, especially around the early 90s and actually hear her read at the Scala way back when. But I haven't read anything of hers, until today, when I got through half the book this afternoon (it's pretty short).

                                                    It's alright, I can't understand how you are supposed to know the protagonist is 10 years old and that her father is her real father and not a sugar daddy type figure. I only found out after reading a bit more into it this evening. I've read she had a hard time getting it published. but I can't understand how it could possibly be published unless Acker was quite a name by the time of its publication, which I guess she probably was. How you could possibly read the first 20 pages and thing "this is a total post-modern classic, it's a feminist punk masterpiece" is beyond my comprehension. It's totally readable, far better than my dabble with William Burroughs last summer, but I struggle to find greatness in it.
                                                    I took this with me on a camping holiday in Scotland in 1985, famously the wettest Scottish summer since 1897. The longer the holiday went on, the wetter and more battered the book became, pretty much like me and the two mates I was with. This gave me a good excuse to chuck it out when I got home, half-read and under-appreciated. In short: unreadable shite. 20-year-old male was possibly the wrong market.

                                                    I remember it as being a pretty thick volume - it was a Picador edition. Maybe they put a proper editor on it and reduced the text and illustrations by three-quarters, which was the very least it needed.

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