I've had this book for like a year and still haven't read it gotta get around one of these days, love the cover

Please read it!!! Would love to discuss it with someone on here. You have a physical copy???

Yup nabbed the physical for like 10 bucks haha. Ordered it from some small book store in Iowa or Minnesota totally random find.

Ill definitely try and make some time soon, I know Simenon is a p prolific author.

Super proflici! His "Roman durs" are his best from what I heard ! But idk if starting with dirty snow wouldb good or bad in the sense it could skew your preconception of what he's like . But if it's what you have it makes sense to start w that tbh

Magers and Quinn?? They have every single one of those NYRB books for $10 or less, it's amazing

It's hard to even think of anything to say about this book. At times (a lot of times) it is a slog that feels as though it will never end. The prose is consistently engaging and beautiful, and at some points that was all that was keeping me reading the book. Multiple times over the two weeks reading this book I searched the internet for any clue as to what the book is about, not a plot summary but a point to the book (juvenile I know). I never found anything I can 100% agree with, although I think there are several that I can understand: the degradation of society into violence over the 1900s, the permissibility of crimes against women, the way a writer imagines their life in their books. For the record, I think that last one is probably the most believable.

I thought the 4th part of the book, The Part About the Crimes, would be the part that ties the book together and starts to reveal the larger purpose of the entire 900 pages, but in fact it was the final part wherein I first started to feel that things were making sense to me. In addition this part (The Part About Archimboldi) was the emotional crux of the book in my opinion, which makes for a great "rising action -> resolution" setup with the previous Part About the Crimes. I feel as though I have some better understanding of Roberto Bolaño after having read that final part, and may read it again in a standalone capacity in the future. The rest of the book I will likely never return to.

Wilt by Tom Sharpe

3/5

A lecturer stuck in a mundane life and marriage gets accused of murdering his wife, when he accidentally drops an inflatable s***doll down a hole in a construction zone.

It's a British comedy farce that toys with the sexual revolution of the 70s, and gets genuinely bonkers as you read on. There's a particularly amusing interrogation sequence but I didn't find the book as a whole to be that funny. Excellent prose from start to finish. The book itself was okay though.

4/5 I remember reading this in HS and falling in love with Davies’ style, and it still holds up in my memory today. Haven’t read the rest of the trilogy but it’s on my shelf next.

Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind by Peter Godfrey-Smith

This is a sequel to Other Minds. This is it. Finally a good book that explores the question, what makes us feel conscious, how did this system evolve and giving a scientific answer doing so which feels far more satisfying than some spiritual/religious/philosophical explanation because it is grounded on evidence. He is in charge of walking you through the evidence, the hints in nature from the past to the present. Examples of centralized, distributed intelligence, medical procedures/experiments on split brains, superorganisms, post-cellular communication, what is consciousness, what is subjectivity, what is experience you name it. Everything answered in a scientific way.

This book is filled to the rim with so much insightful information that he has gathered other years, no fillers or rambling. He has the tone of a college professor who gets a 5.0 on RateMyProfessor, just trying to instill as much useful information as he knows without wasting time, without making it overly difficult. But, just like a class this book comes with prerequisites, at least if you want to enjoy it. I think you will have a blast reading through this if you love reading about biology in your free time or better, you majored in biology, and have a good memory of taxonomy and earth periods because he will talk about phyla, clades and genuses more than referring to animals by their common names and I can see how someone might stop and google wth a Cnidarian is.

But, I honestly can't recommend this enough and I would say if you haven't read "Other Minds", don't bother, this book stands on its own and covers all animals including octopusses from the last book.

There should be no room in your life for regret. If in the moment of doing you felt clarity, you felt certainty, then why feel regret later?

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Absolutely epic in every way. A story about two half sisters born in 18th century Ghana, the path each of them take, and the effects of their journey seen from generation to generation. Each chapter centers around a new a character, a new generation, a new challenge. Marrying the black american experience to the african one. truly moving in every way. I highly recommend it. I, being a black american, with no real knowledge of my lineage was completely enraptured. I am now inspired more than ever to learn about my ancestors. Please read.

5/5

I forgot how much fun Star Wars books could be when they're written by a good author man. It's not gonna blow anyone away but this book is fun mostly in how it extrapolates details that are just briefly mentioned in the movies and invents new, believable details. Lots of realistic senate politics too. Unfortunately it's mostly just a build up to the second part of this duology, but it's a fun buildup.

Now this book was fantastic. One of few books I read where, ignoring everything else, even the prose was enough to make me stop and appreciate what I was reading. Asturias writes a poem towards the end of the book (that as far as I can tell is an original poem) that was probably the most beautiful poem I've read this year. The story is engaging, and you'll see the DNA of this book in any of the other Latin American "dictator novels" you read. Unlike Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Asturias has no interest in humanizing this dictator, but instead focuses on how the dictator's tenuous grasp on power destroys the lives of all his citizens. The third part was far and away the best thing I've read this year.

"White Noise by Don DeLillo

This was a fine book. I wanted to read it before watching the movie, and seeing trailers for the movie I somewhat already knew what was what, but the third act threw me for a loop as I thought the book in its entirety was about the second act. Overall would recommend. I can see where DFW gets his prose inspiration from as well. There were quite a few times reading this and I would be like "Hey this sounds/reads like DFW". I do wish he would have went through with killing the hotel doctor fella as there would have been some character development, but I guess if he would have done that, that would just be more white noise. :aziz:

"The Nun" by Denis Diderot

This was another fun book. I believe it takes a couple pages letters to get what's going on. I couldn't imagine reading this book when it came out though. Denis died in the late 1700's and I think the book was published posthumously. Probably had people clutching their pearls. I also think its funny that the book was done as a joke/just to get his friend to come hangout with him back in Paris. Not a lot of big themes/conceptuals going on in this book, more so is just "man f*** the church". Would recommend if you want a quick read about a gal going through the trials and tribulations of living in convents in the 1700's.

"Franny and Zooey" by J.D Salinger

This was a slower book imo compared to the last two. Felt like J.D. was somewhat in a philosophical/existential bag at this point. The way he writes is always beautiful. I was a bigger fan of "Nine Stories" as it had a whole lot more going on story wise. I don't know I don't have a whole lot to say about this book, it was an okay read, but didn't move me in any sense. I did think it was cool that "Franny" was published like two years prior to "Zooey", so imagining being a fan and reading "Franny" then two years later reading "Zooey" was probably pretty neat other then that I don't know if I would recommend. If you want to read it just to read all of Salinger's catalog, sure, but otherwise eh.

Next I am reading "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

just finished galapagos by vonnegut

picked this up on a whim when i was waiting to catch a flight cause i read slaughterhouse five recently and it quickly became one of my favourite books

but damn i thought this was a slog lol. i appreciate his scattered approach to storytelling but it feels like it just gives away the idea of what the book is about way too early.

I heard Breakfast of Champions is some good Vonnegut

will check it out

here's what I've read from Vonnegut ranked:

Slaughterhouse Five
The Sirens of Titan
Cat's Cradle
Welcome to the Monkeyhouse
Breakfast of Champions

still wanna read more too. I hear Mother Night is really good. definitely one of my favorite authors

My Vonnegut ranking:

Sirens of Titan
Slaughterhouse 5
Cat's Cradle
Mother Night

-large gap-

Galapagos
Breakfast of Champions

Those top 4 are all classics. Did anyone see the doc that came out last year?

Mother Night is great

I'll probably be thinking about this one for a while. It's crazy to write a book about an act of terrorism that the author would then go on to commit a few years later. What's even weirder is that the book seems to condemn the terrorism as childish, unfocused, and ultimately useless.

The book is fantastic. It's a good examination of the mind of a radicalized individual, and goes into detail about what drives a person to think that one spectacular act of violence is all that's necessary to change the fate of a nation. I think it does a good job of rooting itself in Japanese history too, and gives some precedent for Isao (the main character) for thinking violence can affect a change. This book benefited from shifting perspective between Isao and Honda, whereas Mishima's previous similar book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion tends to get lost in the mind of its radicalized right wing main character.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

masterpiece/5

After hitting a brick wall in terms of reading this year(read 4 books in January and not a page since), I randomly found myself in my local bookshop, and for some reason I was so drawn to this book even thought I didn't go in with the intention of buying it.

I have read the synopsis of the book a few months prior, found it interesting, but because I had some other books lined up, I didn't really pay any attention to this.
Anyways, I bought it, very hesitant because of the size of this thing(864 pages!!!), but it was probably the best decision to do that.

After finishing it, I found very conflicting opinions about the book, especially the loser book club over on Goodreads, but I can only praise it.

I don't want to give away any spoiler to someone who might read it, I will just encourage you to go for it.
Oh, and that ending?
I just laid down like that homer emoji whilst my brain was getting slowly cooked.

F***ing masterpiece man

I'm debating on which Donna Tartt I should give a shot first, between this and The Secret History

can't really go wrong with either tbh

I read The Secret History first and loved it then The Goldfinch and liked it a lot but not as much. both excellent books and page turners tho

she's released a book every 10 years so she's due for another one any time now

Honestly I wasn't familiar with her at all, but I'm def gonna check out her other two books

Okay, Secret History it is then. She's also got another book which is considered the dark horse of her three novels and I wonder why, but I'll check out Secret History first for sure.

Really liked this, a puzzle that explores how and why we read through a series of opening chapters of different books, interspersed with a narrative where you as the reader are desperately trying to finish these books. Super creatively structured and places you right at the heart of an increasingly bizarre plot. Loads of fun