*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends and bookworms who gather monthly in a virtual space calledSecond Life. Book notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
Our first gathering at the new reading room was lovely and cozy. We have just two book recommendations – but they’re really good ones!
Fourteen Days – edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
This unique book is a collaborative novel written by thirty-six American and Canadian authors. Many of the authors are considered eminent in their genres – Zoe immediately recognized names like Celeste Ng, R.L. Stine, Dave Eggers, Mira Jacob, John Grisham, Meg Wolitzer, and a few more. None of the authors are given a byline in the novel, though they are credited for their specific contributions in an appendix.
The book is set over fourteen days in 2020. Though it’s set during the pandemic, the focus isn’t on the pandemic per se. Rather, it’s about neighbors who make their way to the rooftop of their apartment building to get fresh air for a few hours – and end up swapping stories with one another about their lives. Zoe thought it felt hopeful and uplifting. She enjoyed reading about this gathering of New Yorkers – the novel is set in NYC – who ordinarily wouldn’t bother with each other but end up bonding because of their circumstances.
Half Life of a Secret by Emily Strasser
Veyot heard about this book in a Minnesota newspaper. The author interviews relatives and former neighbors trying to get a better understanding of her grandfather who was a chemist who worked in Tennessee at the Oakridge atomic laboratory in 1942. The employees and their families did not know know that the product they worked on would become the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The author’s grandfather suffers from depression all of his working career, because of it all.
It starts when the govt. buys the land to set the lab and continues until the govt. tries to reclaim the land from pollution. Veyot said that it’s an interesting story with politics, psychology, prejudice, and pollution. Although it’s non-fiction, it reads like a novel.
Our next gathering is July 14 at 1pm SLT. We’ll meet at our new location in Seogyeoshire. All are welcome – bring a friend!
*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends and bookworms who gather monthly in a virtual space calledSecond Life. Book notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
We received a haiku in our poetry mailbox, entitled, hyperreal mystikal:
Philosophers speak,
Baudrillard and McLuhan,
Truth in jest’s mystique.
Author: Chemikal Tripp
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
FireWoman read this censored classic that someone shared with her awhile back. The pages were like photocopies of a yellos-paged paperback, so she started looking into getting a copy. It turns out that there was a miraculous find about the book and how the missing pages were discovered. Sinclair censored his own writing so that the book would get published.
Sinclair’s novel starts out as a delightful read covering Lithuanians coming to America – then goes on to expose the horrid conditions of the meat industry in Chicago. The impact of this book helped change the laws on labor and health safety in slaughter houses.
Burn Book by Kara Swisher
Sierra has been reading this book that is mostly related to her reporting on the world of tech for the last couple of decades. It’s a fun read! Swisher is definitely opinionated in the book as she talks about her interactions with different founders over the years. Secondarily, it is somewhat autobiographical since it is very much written from her career perspective.
No Land in Sight and Scribbled in the Dark by Charles Simic
Sierra also picked up a couple of Charles Simic books. He’s a poet from the former Yugoslavia. She said that his poetry is often humorous, whimsical, but also having a certain edge to it…bit dark at times. She liked these collections but commented that her favorite collection of his poems is The World Doesn’t End. She thinks he does for poetry what Dali did for painting.
Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad – Austin Kleon
Veyot read this in two days, then read it backwards in one day. She enjoyed it in both directions. She called it a cheerful self-help book.
Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult
Veyot advises potential readers of this book to not read reviews! It will spoil your fun.
A Sotheby’s art historian and her boyfriend (a New York doctor) are planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands when the Covid epidemic hits. There is a wonderful plot twist in the middle of the book. Also, a great art history story about the provenance of a Henri Toulouse-LauTrec artwork.
Remember – do not read reviews of this book before you read it because you get too much information and that would spoil your fun! Veyot said it was the best book she’s read this year so far.
Our next gathering is June 9 at 1pm SLT. All are welcome – bring a friend!
*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends and bookworms who gather monthly in a virtual space calledSecond Life. Book notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
April’s gathering felt special for some reason – perhaps the coziness of the group encouraged each of us to share in ways that felt comfy and nourishing.
Some interesting reads emerged from our conversation as well…
Loving Eleanor – Susan Wittig Albert
Veyot decided to try another title by an author whose work she enjoyed last month. Loving Eleanor, told from the viewpoint of one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s young lady lovers, is well written and interesting to read – though Veyot asked herself, “Do I really want to know all this?”. It’s a question many of us have experienced with other titles and authors as well. Veyot shared that Wittig Albert writes stories well – from the angle of the lovers – and recommends them.
FireWoman mentioned that she’s read the China Bayless mysteries by this author and enjoyed them.
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
When FireWoman got this from her library, she couldn’t put it down. Set in 1908 Manchuria, murders and deaths are occuring and foxes are said to be the cause. Foxes who can change into human form.
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo
FireWoman also read this novel by Choo, set in Malay 1893, about dreams and entering people’s dreams. She said it’s eerie but not scary-scary.
Excession – Iain M. Banks
Sierra read this book that is part of Banks’ ‘Culture’ series of novels. It’s about a kind of mystery…a star purportedly older than the universe itself…but then disappears for a few centuries before reappearing.
The Culture is a kind of interstellar civilization (among other civilizations).
In the Culture there are these kind of AI Minds (capital -M) running things … so the book is about all the things going on around investigating that .. .and at some point there will no doubt be some conflict. There is a heavy bit of space opera in it. One of the things she’s really liking about this book is that it is also giving more insight into the Culture itself.
Abandoned Places by Henk Van Rensbergen
Sierra also read this book of photography by an airplane pilot who explores abandoned places and old ruins during this free time. She said that the photographs are spectacular!
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universeby Laura Lynne Jackson
Veyot also mentioned this book by a famous clairvoyant. Jackson suggests that we all look for something unusual that might be a sign to us. Veyot happened upon this book serendipitously – it was just facing outward on a shelf so she picked it up. And finds herself looking for signs all the time now.
Our next gathering is May 12 19 at 1pm SLT. All are welcome – bring a friend!
*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends and bookworms who gather monthly in a virtual space calledSecond Life. Book notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
Whoops. I was so caught up in our conversation, I plum forgot to take a photo.
Thank goodness for chat logs, right? Here are all of the intriguing reads shared by this month’s attendees:
Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya.
Written by an MIT philosophy professor, this book introduces some useful ways of thinking about a lot of pretty common ‘midlife’ sorts of quandaries — the kinds of things that might keep us up at night. Like lamenting the life you might have led if you made certain other choices. Sierra recommends this one. It’s probably the most practical philosophy book that she has read.
Someone Always Nearby – Susan Wittig Albert
Veyot recently read this book about Georgia O’Keeffe growing old. The title comes from O’Keeffe’s need to always have someone to be her slave. She always overworked her best friend or worker.
It’s a fictional account of the artist’s life in New Mexico but the main character is her long time friend, Marie Chabot. It’s a tale of friendships, hot tempers, and remodeling adobe houses. There’s lots of gossip but Veyot enjoyed the parts about remodeling the most. It’s based on letters from the collections of the Georgia O’Keeffe museum in Santa Fe and West Texas A&M University.
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
A great story on friendship and helping Jewish people escape from the Netherlands during World War II. FireWoman commented that this juvenile fiction was suspenseful and that several of Lowry’s other books are banned.
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
FireWoman also read this novel about mothers and sisters. She hasn’t seen the movie that was based on this book. She found some of it a bit hard to relate to since she doesn’t have any sisters.
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
FireWoman found this book fascinating. It also looks like it will be turned into a movie someday; Kingsolver is co-writing the screenplay for it.
A Year in Nature: A Memoir of Solace by Clare Walker Leslie
Zoe read this collection of 100+ pages taken from Leslie’s personal nature journal, beginning on a winter solstice and continuing through the year. The author lives in Massachusetts though some of the journal was written during her travels within the U.S. Most of the pages are meant for the reader to experience her local nature through her eyes – via her original sketches and notes in her handwriting.
Our next gathering is April 14 at 1pm SLT. All are welcome – bring a friend!
*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends and bookworms who gather monthly in a virtual space calledSecond Life. Book notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
February found us back in Annelie. In case you missed it, I ended up selling the Somdari Reading Room land to a neighbor who wanted to realize their dream of a GTFO in that area. I’m sure I’ll curate a second reading room once I’m beckoned by a new parcel. But until then….
The Words in My Hands by Asphyxia
FireWoman read this young adult title recommended by Zoe during a previous gathering. She really liked the book. She learned a lot about Deaf people who were never taught sign language and whose parents tried raising them like they had no challenges.
Warrior Girl Unearthed – Angeline Boulley
This is Boulley’s second book. The author is indigenous to North America. FireWoman mentioned that there’s lots to learn from this book about the plight of Indigenous women who go missing and murdered. Great suspense too.
The Face: A Time Code by Ruth Ozeki
Another book recommended by Zoe, FireWoman felt that this book really struck home for her due to their closeness in ages. A psychiatrist has her students stare in the mirror for 3 hours and record what they are thinking while they are looking. Ozeki does the same. And poses the question: what is your true face?
*A lovely string of commentary on the way we see our faces in our family members, and vice versa, ensued. FireWoman commented that she now sees herself in nearly all of the women in her family.
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Kal recently read this novel about a woman who is investigating the suicide of her sister, who has previously been treated by a (fictional) celebrity psychologist called Collins Braithwaite. He has some famously peculiar methods. So she signs up to become one of his patients herself, in an attempt to see if she can figure out her sister’s story. But it’s told via a series of ‘found’ notebooks that have been sent to a researcher and written in a way that makes you think Braithwaite, and his psychological movement, is real. It features cameos from quite a few real people too. Kal found himself googling names and ideas to see whether they really existed.
Overall, Kal found this to be quite an easy read. Plenty to think about and the style doesn’t distract from the plot by being too confusing.
The New Magdalen – Wilkie Collins
A favorite Victorian author of Kal’s, this particular book is typical of Collins. It contains subterfuge and mistaken identities, and romance…checkered personal histories, etc. Interesting for a completist, although Kal would recommend other of Collins’ novels before it.
If you read any of Collins’ stuff, Kal recommends going to The Moonstone or The Woman in White. But he says it’s generally all awesome and one can’t go far wrong picking up anything by Collins.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Originally recommended by Fleming, Veyot requested this from her local library. When it arrived, she noticed really long paragraphs which might have made her not want it…but it was really good! Mystery, ecology, saving the world and murder, too.
Como Flats by Mike Dougherty
Veyot also read a local book, available only in paperback. It’s about a neighborhood she knew. It had a group of older men that were friends and worried about one man that was unable to get care for himself. A character stepped into the book that was a college professor familiar with social agencies and even she couldn’t find a way to help the man. Those who know Como Flats would most enjoy this one.
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
Often written in the second person, the book is not telling just one story but a few. It starts off with you reading the book only to discover that at some point the book wasn’t printed right and got mixed with another book… so ‘you’ go back to the bookstore… and well things get more complicated from there. So … either a) it will be an infuriating read and you will want to throw it against the wall … or b) you will really enjoy the meandering ride through different layers of story. Sierra is enjoying it though… it is kinda a book about the experience of reading.
The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell
Sierra picked up this somewhat recent book that is very biographical but not quite a complete biography. It is almost more a sketch of aspect’s of Didion’s life and writing. Sierra thinks that McDonnell has been influenced by DIdion a lot — and she isn’t the only one. She’s enjoying it a lot both for learning more about Didion…and also just the writing.
Against a Dark Background by Iain M. Banks
A sci-fi novel, also read by Sierra. Banks is perhaps mostly known for his Culture novels — though he wrote both science fiction and ‘regular’ fiction. The story is a kind of ‘heist’ story where our protagonist has a price on her head by this cult that is going to be hunting her down. She is gathering a group of friends/colleagues to go after an ancient artifact that (hopefully) will satisfy the cult. The artifact is also a super potent weapon that is forbidden … so there are some complications in this.
Sierra commented that the world building in the story is pretty rich. Banks also writes ‘action’ sequences well (though sometimes they are complicated maybe and you kinda have to really focus on what is going on …). Overall, she’s enjoying it. She also mentioned Wasp Factory – which Kal has read and said is really good.
Our next gathering is March 10 at 1pm SLT. All are welcome – bring a friend!
The Reading Room 