Having seen both movie adaptations already, there were not a lot of surprises here plot wise. I read Charles Portis' first novel Norwood and am just proceeding in chronological fashion. It's a straight forward revenge odyssey, and Portis is above his station with the material. He found a strong voice for the protagonist and her being an old woman recounting her past with lots of runoff tangents is the most entertaining part. Painless read, page turner, funny. I would call it the hopeful, optimistic counterpart to Winter's Bone.

5/5

This one was a little frustrating at first. It starts with a lot of parlor conversations and the writer being a little too self-assured about everything. In the second half it settles into sweltering human drama and straight forward social commentary. It becomes more earnest. It's always writerly though. Historically speaking it's remembered for paving the way for smut, but it's so politically charged with its fetishes. There's so much talk of industrialization and post-industrialization and class antagonism and gender norms. A thoughtful if dated pace but it builds steam towards some real catharsis by the end.

4/5

what the other top 2?

probably James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

As for the Winters Bone film, this was one of the two great J Law roles and John Hawkes was

I don't think she was right for the part at all. Hawkes acts like meth is prozac. I don't think it's a good companion to the book at least. Would've probably worked better if I saw it instead

interesting its funny cause I loved the film since i've seen it but I guess the book has a completely different feel which isn't uncommon but still.. I gotta check it out !

The movie is kind of plainly shot and drab too. The locations and dress are right, but in the book Woodrell is like so painterly with his descriptions and there's hallucinations and fever dreams and a crazy car chase. Idk, it's so similar to the movie in plot but there's no magic to the movie. Really quick and painless read. I think it's worth it for sure.

Ive been reading a lot of Murakami but I'm keeping this one last

last book i finished...
the hunting wives by may cobb... 2/5 stars.

its one of those "mom beach read thriller" kinds of books. here's my goodreads review:

"this book pissed me off!!

too many stupid twists and turns. sophie was so dumb."

a very empty book about crazy alcoholics.

Oh man, this book is Bonkers McHonkers.

Two books for August.

The Tunnel - Ernesto Sabato

Taken as inspiration from someone earlier in this thread, I got round to picking up The Tunnel.

The premise, loosely, is about Castel, a painter, entering into an obsessive relationship with a young lady.

It’s certainly a spiritual successor to The Stranger — whilst Mersault is simply indifferent, Castel is actively unrepentant.

His pithy misantrophy reaches its peak when he realises that the achievement of physical intimacy with the character he is smitten with does nothing more than reiterate just how alone he is. Castel, like Mersault, is very lucid on his own existential crisis. His obsessive nature leads him further and further into his tunnel until ultimately the “black chasm yawning inside him” is too much.

As an aside: as someone who struggles a little with anxiety in relationships - particularly at the early stages - I found some of the machinations of Castel so visceral. The overthinking of where Maria was when she was delivering the package, why she didn’t call back etc. the same sort of inner bargaining I sometimes find myself doing.

From a stylistic viewpoint, I think the only thing holding this novel back is that the novel is entirely inside the mind of Castel.

4/5.

——

East of Eden — John Steinbeck

Now I must say that I seldomly indulge in Classic American Literature, as I find it a bit crap, and very samey — (no offence). But I was looking for a longer epic, with themes on human condition and thought provoking writing. As a result, I had to give Steinbeck’s self proclaimed magnum opus a go.

The prose is nice, and it flows well. The stories between Charles and Adam, and then Cal and Aron are extremely poignant. Steinbeck does well to get you so emotionally invested with all the heartbreak that occurs in this novel.

As expected, I think the novel largely lacks female voices — leading to what I can only assume is the largest unanimous gripe in the novel; the character of Cathy. She is so theatrically evil, to the point I found myself reading those chapters expecting Steinbeck to justify it in some way, but, it just never came…

As a whole, the novel is exceptionally well written and the core message of human condition coexisting with good and evil inside us all is perfectly met, but it’s not without its road bumps and teething problems. Timshel.

3.5/5

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

novel about a small town in Pennsylvania over the course of many years and demographical shifts. mainly focused on the stories of a jewish family and how they interact with the black community, McBride painted a captivating picture of small town post war America and the racism and prejudice people faced. there were some storylines I could've done without but this was a fun read with memorable characters

8.5/10

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

loved her recent book Caste so had to check this one out. it's a non-fiction book about The Great Migration of the 20th century told through the perspective of three people whose whole lives are covered. was an interesting book but I could've gone for more general information than anecdotes that weren't always related to the subject matter. still a recommended read, and I'll check out whatever Wilkerson writes

8/10

El Túnel by Ernesto Sabato

for the unofficial thread book club

read this one in Spanish and at first wasn't blown away but the second half really picked up and it was a short read. a lonely man obsessing over an unrequited love to the point of madness and murder seems like such a cliche nowadays but this was ahead of its time for 1948. the incessant paranoid monologues that led to a crescendo of violence by the end was very well done and tbh I liked this much more than The Stranger. could see it's influence on contemporary writers in Latin America like Fernanda Melchor too. as if you needed another positive review, read this s***

8.5/10

Hurricane Season by Fernanda was my tough read for this year

yea read that earlier this year too, s*** was harrowing. I found her book Paradais even darker

El Túnel isn't as violent as her books but it's a shorter novel with a frenetic pace and bloody finale so it definitely reminded me of Melchor

Been a few months since I read it and my memory is poor but I thought Cathy had to be cartoonishly horrible because she is just the human embodiment of all evil. In fact I think I think it's better that it is never justified, as the assumption that being evil is just inherent to her nature allows for the entire premise of whether or not her sons are destined to follow the same path

damn i need to read this "tunnel" you keep bringing up lately.
did you prefer grapes of wrath btw? i love steinbeck and i gave this easily a four stars but i keep thinkin how usually his female cast is weak and what you describe here in of mice and men is worse imo

I haven’t read Grapes of Wrath, no. I read Of Mice and Men at secondary (high) school — and I completely agree — one of the main criticisms of that novel is the complete lack of female voice.

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo by Ntozake Shange

This is my girl's favorite book and author so I decided to dive into it. The story is about 3 sisters and their lives as they come into their own. The book is brief but packs a punch. We get beautiful poetic prose, journal entries, actual legit recipes, song lyrics, books within books, even a dystopian dream sequence. lot of experimentation in the writing here but the core of the story is still very much on these three sisters although I will say that Cypress gets a bulk of the story dedicated to her which is actually my one gripe is that maybe we don't get enough time with each sister. Only Cypress felt fully put together while the other sisters didn't get that full attention. All in all it was an engaging read and I would definitely read it again. great for insight on black womanhood and coming of age.

just finished karen carpenter’s biography. i didn’t know much about her outside of her early death from anorexia and that she did the song “(they long to be) close to you”.

her mother was AWFUL. she was a real “boy mom”. constantly doted on her brother and left karen in the dust. really awful woman. her brother was an a****** too. no one in her family believed in her. and the guy she ended up marrying was an abusive d***.

very sad story. 4.5/5

fell into a big reading block these past few months, so I called on the master to save me:

"Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage"

My love for Murakami is pretty known at this point, and it might come as biased but this was, on a first read, really impressive and one of my favourite of his.
Don't want to go into too much detail, but if you are going through something in life, picking this up will definitely help.
Love that he cranked up the dreaminess in this to the max.
Also really enjoyed the sexual tension between the main character and that other guy(can't remember his name), really nice to see that from Murakami, gave a fresh twist to his writing.
Filled with his usual Murakami-isms, but damn if they are not good.

"Killing Commentadore"

This was a bit of a weird read. The story is disjointed, the character motivations are so unusual, and the book is way too long.
Despite all of this, he still manages to somehow make it work.
Initially, this didn't leave that big of an impression on me, but the more time has passed the more I keep coming back to this and thinking about how good it is and how much I enjoy thinking about it.

That whole part where he goes to the different world and the journey back to the pit is probably some of the most vivid and visceral Murakami writing ever.
Not even sure how to rate this, but it did leave a very big impression on me, and I would love to re-read it in the future to see how it will hold up and if it will have the same effect.

"Heaven" by Mieko Kawakami

Great little book but really really sad. Had to pause it a bunch of times just because of the graphic depictions of bullying.
Can't wait to explore more of Mieko's writing.

"Post Office" by Charles Bukowski

This being semi-autobiographical is insane, Bukowski was a psycho lol.
The novel itself isn't anything special in terms of writing but damn if it isn't entertaining as hell.
Bought a bunch of his poetry as well, can't wait to dive in.

im glad you enjoyed heaven and earth

Wow! This book sucks! Comparisons to 2666 are flat out insulting. This is simply an unbearable book, and no, not in the way the author wants it to be as they throw rape, murder, disembowelment, loss of sanity, and more at you for 450 pages. It's unbearable because it's so high on its own stupid metaphor-laden supply that it thinks it's the most insightful book about violence ever published. It's boring, and banal which is far more offensive than whatever skewering of American culture the author was intending.

What should have been an incredible setup and a fantastic way to examine America's complicated (uncomplicated?) love of violence instead becomes an entirely unintelligible, couched in 400 pages of metaphor (and the author reuses metaphors again and again), unsatisfying book that will probably put you to sleep every 15 pages instead of shocking you into insomnia.

A noir detective story that plays with time and identity in interesting ways. I never really fully bought into the central conceit of the story, that being that the main character finds himself subsuming the identity of the missing man. I'm not sure if I just wasn't reading deep enough or smart enough to catch the telegraphing of the ending, or if it just wasn't telegraphed enough. Though I didn't enjoy the ending, the book itself was well written and evocative, and a great noir. 3.5/5

A fairly interesting look at the 1995 Tokyo Subway Gas Attacks carried out by a doomsday cult. I consider myself a fan of Murakami's style (aka I like maybe 3 of his books), so I was interested in his non-fiction. This book is made up of interviews he conducted with survivors of the attack as well as members of the cult. I ended up skipping the last half of the survivors stories (by far the longest portion of the book) because they were largely similar and uninteresting after 100 pages of the same.

The most interesting part of the book comes in the middle, where Murakami examines what specifically about Japan could produce such a cult, and why was Japan specifically unable to respond to such an attack. It was certainly illuminating of Murakami's politics and thoughts, and gave new context to a lot of his fiction. Unfortunately the interviews themselves are largely uninteresting and unengaging. 3.5/5

Cosign. A third of the way through it. Don't want it to end.

@HrdBoildWndrlnd

Have you read Woman in the Dunes? Comparable at all to that Abe book? I'm on a noir kick but that one was kind of slow and moody

I have not, so I can't comment on their similarities but I imagine they probably share some themes. I wasn't the biggest fan of The Ruined Map. If you're looking for noir I was blown away by some of Jean-Patrick Manchette's work. Nada was probably the best I read last year, and The Mad and the Bad and The N'Gustro Affair were both pretty fun political-noirs