Yup. At least for physical books… and maybe that’s one reason I don’t work through them quickly. I have been reading this freaking book (Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, Birth to Age 5) for over 2 years already and I still have 2 more years of content left! The other books I have going right now are all non-fiction, so I am mostly able to pick them up where I left off.
I’m usually monogamous with audiobooks though and they are what I get through the most. Unless a hold with the library comes through and I’m already not much into the current book, then I might start cheating on the first book.
I do most of my reading on Kindle these days and will start a bunch of books and just go with whatever captures my attention most at the moment and then eventually circle around to the others. Except when I forget about them because they were forgettable. Which happens sometimes.
This book was about as different from the movie as Annihilation. It’s more like someone gave the same premise to two people and then gave them complete creative freedom to do whatever they wanted. You can see the core ideas are the same, but very little else is similar.
In the book, the child is not revealed until after the halfway mark, at which point the pacing picks up. Different people die than in the movie. Almost no one is given any moments of heroism. Theo is more than a bit of a bastard and never really finds any redemption. The ending is bleak as all hell.
This is one example where the movie is infinitely superior to the novel.
Started listening to Neal Stephensons new series, Polostan, pretty much blind. It popped up in Audible as available so I grabbed it. So far staying in 1930’s Russia following a young woman as she grows up.
Keep us posted. Neal Stephenson is a favorite but can’t think of another author as hit or miss as him. And in recent years there’s been a lot more misses.
A little slow to start, although this morning we’ve met George Patton at a polo match so that may be interesting. Stephenson is good at making historical times seem interesting, the 1930’s this time with Gangsters and various labor movements and now I assume the transition to a mechanized military. It is a series so who knows how long until we get to the sci-fi stuff? One of the lead characters is a Russian labor organizer, which is rubbing me the wrong way for some reason. Probably reading too many Trump tweets…
Finally had the courage to start “Some People Need Killing”
About the Philippines drug war. This one got a lot of press and was on Obama’s best of 23 list.
Pat is a friend of a friend. I’ve been putting it off because I know it’s gonna be brutal. I lived through the period she writes about as a privileged white person. I got a few “fun” stories out of going to police stations at 4am, but otherwise it was all at a distance.
From the prologue.
“This is a book about the dead, and the people who are left behind. It is also a personal story, written in my own voice, as a citizen of a nation I cannot recognize as my own. The thousands who died were killed with the permission of my people. I am writing this book because I refuse to offer mine.”
Edit: okay. 3 pages in and I need to put it down for a bit. Fucking hell.
In 2022, a new writer named Erin Cairns emailed me seeking advice about a well-known author who had exploited and deceived her. This author had evidently submitted one of Cairns’ stories under his own name to a magazine that specialized in “own-voice stories.” As a white woman born in South Africa, Cairns was adamant that her story absolutely didn’t qualify as an own-voice story. In addition, while she had written the main draft of the story, she’d expected the author to rewrite and expand on what she’d written and then list both of them as co-authors. Instead, he’d submitted it under his name with minimal changes.
Clarke knew she couldn’t undertake another complicated historical novel that required extensive research, so she abandoned the sequel to “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.” Instead, she began writing a surreal novel narrated by a man who has forgotten his real name and is trapped in a labyrinth, a series of endless rooms filled with strange statues and occasional ocean tides.
I found an 1801 edition of Samuel Johnson’s English dictionary in my parents’ house. It says 14th edition. It’s a “miniature” version. Not sure if this refers to the # of word entries, or the type size. The type size is some of the smallest I’ve ever seen, so maybe it’s the latter
I just read a bio of Johnson last year, and determined that he’s one of my heroes. I’m not a rare book collector but I certainly am keeping this one
This is an exceptional book and a strong recommendation. It’s extremely relevant to the trump era and popularism and why people vote for these guys.
You will understand America better if you read this book.
A quote. The author as a journalist was writing about Duterte a week before the election which put him into power.
"The final installment was published on May 2, seven days before the elections. It ended with a warning: “If Rodrigo Duterte wins,” we wrote, “his dictatorship will not be thrust upon us. It will be one we will have chosen for ourselves. Every progressive step society has made has been diminished by his presence. Duterte’s contempt for human rights, due process, and equal protection is legitimized by the applause at the end of every speech. We write this as a warning. The streets will run red if Rodrigo Duterte keeps his promise. Take him at his word—and know you could be next.”
I’m like 80% of the way through The Way of Kings and not sure if I’ll continue with the next one. The world-building is good and he’s accomplished at building a narrative and introducing information at a good pace. The characters are kind of boring though and the prose is pretty bad.
