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sarahmichiganBook No. 65 was "La Belle Sauvage" (The Book of Dust #1) by Philip Pullman, as an audiobook read by Michael Sheen. Fabulous! If you've read the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, it would add some depth and context to this book, but it also is perfectly possible to read it as a stand-alone book. Malcolm Polstead is a reliable and kindhearted boy who visits the local nuns and helps them with chores when he's not working in his parents tavern, The Trout. He sees everyone who comes and goes and is privy to many of the local secrets, and gets pulled into a conspiracy involving the Consistorial Court of Discipline and the opposing faction known as Oakley Street, a sinister man with an even more sinister daemon, and baby named Lyra.
Malcolm goes on many adventures with Lyra and the scullery maid, Alice, in his canoe, the Belle Sauvage, trying to keep the baby safe from those who would seek to kidnap her for their own shadowy motives. I absolutely loved this and recommend it, especially if you read and liked His Dark Materials.
Book No. 66 was "Lie With Me" by Philippe Besson, translated from the French by Molly Ringwald. This was a beautiful book, slim and a quick read. I enjoyed the story of a secret love affair between two teenage boys in 1980s France and the fallout of that brief affair many decades later. One thing that puzzles me is the gushing by those who write the book cover blurbs over Ringwald's translation and how "elegant" it is. I noticed the phrase "biting cold" repeated twice in 25 pages, and repetition of stock phrases doesn't fit my definition of "elegant." I wish I was able to read this in the original French to see how it compares. I think this novel suffers a bit from how heavily it's been hyped, because I was expecting more than I got, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot.
Book No. 67 was "Far From the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy. "Madding Crowd" is one of Hardy's earlier novels, originally published as a serial and heavily censored. The Penguin Classics text restores the manuscript to Hardy's original vision. The novel tells the story of Bathsheba Everdene, a young woman who inherits a large farm from her uncle and determines to run it herself, even though that isn't done by young ladies in her day and age. Her life is complicated by the love and attention of three different men, the earnest shepherd Gabriel Oak, the reserved gentleman farmer Boldwood, and the rakish soldier Francis Troy.
I guess I sort of understand why Hardy has a reputation as being slow and depressing, but I really enjoyed this novel. There's lots of comic relief from the shenanigans of the simple folk of the town, who form a sort of Greek Chorus and comment on what the landed gentry are doing. I also think Hardy's descriptions of nature are beautiful, especially the way he writes about animals. You learn a lot about keeping sheep, helping the young lambs survive when they are weak, herding dogs, horses, and more. There's an especially touching scene where a dog comes across an ailing woman and helps her find shelter.
I also really like that Hardy is so sympathetic to the position of women in his novels. He shines a light on some nasty attitudes about male/female relationships, and how a man can come out no worse for the wear after having an extra-marital affair, but a woman's life is most likely ruined, especially if she's poor. I have liked all three Hardy novels I've read (I've also read "Tess" and "Jude"), but I might recommend this as the first one to try if someone isn't sure they'll like Hardy since I found it pretty approachable as far as classic novels go.
Book No. 68, my final book of the year, was " The City, Not Long After" by Pat Murphy. Murphy likes to blend genres, and this is a mix of speculative fiction with a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of magical realism. It takes place in a future San Francisco after a plague has wiped out much of the human population. The people who remain are fragmented. SF is largely populated by peaceful artists and eccentrics, but outside, General "FourStar" Miles is taking other cities by force, and now he has his sights set on San Francisco. A group of longtime city residents are joined by an outsider, a woman with no name who was led by a burning angel into SF to search for her mother, and they must figure out a way to confound the general and his troops without resorting to killing.
I absolutely adore speculative fiction that offers nonviolent solutions to aggression, so this was right up my alley. I will say that the fact that the army is coming is the only thing that provides much tension early on in the book, and that slow start was one of my few criticisms of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed this and I'm likely to seek out more by Murphy, because I enjoyed this and "The Falling Woman" a lot.
My entire list of 68 books is below. The ones with an asterisk (*) are the ones that I gave 5 stars to on GoodReads.
Here are my reading stats by category:
Female authors: 36 (53 percent)
POC authors: 15 (22 percent)
LGBT authors: 10 (15 percent)
Disabled authors: 6 (9 percent)
Classics: 4 (6 percent)
Nonfiction: 22 (32 percent)
Audiobooks: 12 (17 percent)
*1. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang [fiction]- Kate Wilhelm
2. Dandelion Wine [fiction]- Ray Bradbury
*3. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness [nonfiction/memoir]- Elyn R. Saks
*4. The Underground Railroad [fiction]- Colson Whitehead (unabridged audiobook)
5. The Stranger's Child [fiction]- Alan Hollinghurst
6. Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How To Create A More Peaceful, Simpler Life From the Inside Out [non-fiction]- Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey
7. Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life [nonfiction/biography]- Philippe Girard
*8. All Our Wrong Todays [fiction]- Elan Mastai (unabridged audiobook)
9. The Bonesetter's Daughter [fiction]- Amy Tan
*10. Gather Her Round" (Tufa series #5) [fiction]- Alex Bledsoe
*11. I Was #87: A Deaf Woman's Ordeal of Misdiagnosis, Institutionalization, and Abuse [nonfiction/memoir]- Anne M. Bolander
12. We Were the Mulvaneys [fiction]- Joyce Carol Oates
13. The Unicorn [fiction]- Iris Murdoch
*14. Provenance [fiction]- Ann Leckie
15. The Moon and the Sun [fiction]- Vonda McIntyre (unabridged audiobook)
16. The Fairies of Sadieville [fiction]- Alex Bledsoe
17. Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out [nonfiction/fiction/poetry/anthology]- ed. Kenny Fries
18. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [fiction]- Anonymous (Penguin Classics edition)
*19. Autonomous [fiction]- Annalee Newitz
20. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race [nonfiction]- Margot Lee Shetterly (unabridged audiobook)
21. Cold Comfort (Officer Gunnhildur #2) [fiction]- Quentin Bates
*22. Invisible Man [fiction]- Ralph Ellison
23. The Witch Elm [fiction]- Tana French (unabridged audiobook)
24. Cloudsplitter [fiction]- Russell Banks
*25. Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo' [nonfiction]- Zora Neale Hurston (unabridged audiobook)
26. Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*27. The Story of My Life [nonfiction/memoir]- Helen Keller (unabridged audiobook)
*28. Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology [fiction/short stories]- ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
*29. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide [nonfiction]- Carol Anderson
*30. Lovecraft Country [fiction]- Matt Ruff
*31. Priestdaddy: A Memoir [nonfiction/memoir]- Patricia Lockwood
32. Heartsick (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell #1) [fiction]- Chelsea Cain (unabridged audiobook)
*33. A Door Into Ocean [fiction]- Joan Slonczewski
34. The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border [nonfiction/memoir]- Francisco Cantú
35. The Ballad of Black Tom [fiction]- Victor LaValle
36. Claire of the Sea Light [fiction]- Edwidge Danticat (unabridged audiobook)
37. Americanah [fiction]- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
*38. All the Birds in the Sky [fiction]- Charlie Jane Anders
*39. My Left Foot [nonfiction/memoir]- Christy Brown
40. Boy, Snow, Bird [fiction]- Helen Oyeyemi (unabridged audiobook)
41. Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads [nonfiction]- Paul Theroux
42. A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*43. Bettyville [nonfiction/memoir]- George Hodgman
44. Death Threat [non-fiction graphic book] - Vivek Shraya, ill. Ness Lee
45. The Little Friend [fiction]- Donna Tartt
46. The Falling Woman [fiction]- Pat Murphy
*47. Underfoot Menagerie: More Street Art by David Zinn [nonfiction/illustrated "coffee table" book]- David Zinn
48. The Fireman [fiction]- Joe Hill (unabridged audiobook)
49. For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer [nonfiction/biography]- Chana Kai Lee
50. Woken Furies (#3 in the Takeshi Kovacs series) [fiction]- Richard K. Morgan
51. Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family [nonfiction]- Amy Ellis Nutt
*52. The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #3) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*53. Semiosis [fiction]- Sue Burke
54. Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World [nonfiction]- Ann Shen
55. Alive (The Generations Trilogy #1) [fiction]- Scott Sigler
*56. The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers [nonfiction/biography]- Maxwell King (unabridged audiobook)
*57. Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life [nonfiction]- David Treuer
*58. My Brother's Husband, Volume 1 [graphic novel/fiction]- Gengoroh Tagame
*59. My Brother's Husband, Volume 2 [graphic novel/fiction]- Gengoroh Tagame
*60. Metamorphoses [epic poetry/fiction]- Ovid (translation & commentary by David Raeburn)
*61. Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia [nonfiction/memoir]- Gerda Saunders
*62. A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*63. Love and Other Futures: Poetry of Untold Stories of Liberation & Love [poetry]- anthology by various authors
64. The Speed Queen [fiction]- Stewart O'Nan
*65. La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1) [fiction]- Philip Pullman (unabridged audiobook)
66. Lie With Me [fiction]- Philippe Besson, transl. Molly Ringwald
67. Far From the Madding Crowd [fiction]- Thomas Hardy
*68. The City, Not Long Afte [fiction]- Pat Murphy
Malcolm goes on many adventures with Lyra and the scullery maid, Alice, in his canoe, the Belle Sauvage, trying to keep the baby safe from those who would seek to kidnap her for their own shadowy motives. I absolutely loved this and recommend it, especially if you read and liked His Dark Materials.
Book No. 66 was "Lie With Me" by Philippe Besson, translated from the French by Molly Ringwald. This was a beautiful book, slim and a quick read. I enjoyed the story of a secret love affair between two teenage boys in 1980s France and the fallout of that brief affair many decades later. One thing that puzzles me is the gushing by those who write the book cover blurbs over Ringwald's translation and how "elegant" it is. I noticed the phrase "biting cold" repeated twice in 25 pages, and repetition of stock phrases doesn't fit my definition of "elegant." I wish I was able to read this in the original French to see how it compares. I think this novel suffers a bit from how heavily it's been hyped, because I was expecting more than I got, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot.
Book No. 67 was "Far From the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy. "Madding Crowd" is one of Hardy's earlier novels, originally published as a serial and heavily censored. The Penguin Classics text restores the manuscript to Hardy's original vision. The novel tells the story of Bathsheba Everdene, a young woman who inherits a large farm from her uncle and determines to run it herself, even though that isn't done by young ladies in her day and age. Her life is complicated by the love and attention of three different men, the earnest shepherd Gabriel Oak, the reserved gentleman farmer Boldwood, and the rakish soldier Francis Troy.
I guess I sort of understand why Hardy has a reputation as being slow and depressing, but I really enjoyed this novel. There's lots of comic relief from the shenanigans of the simple folk of the town, who form a sort of Greek Chorus and comment on what the landed gentry are doing. I also think Hardy's descriptions of nature are beautiful, especially the way he writes about animals. You learn a lot about keeping sheep, helping the young lambs survive when they are weak, herding dogs, horses, and more. There's an especially touching scene where a dog comes across an ailing woman and helps her find shelter.
I also really like that Hardy is so sympathetic to the position of women in his novels. He shines a light on some nasty attitudes about male/female relationships, and how a man can come out no worse for the wear after having an extra-marital affair, but a woman's life is most likely ruined, especially if she's poor. I have liked all three Hardy novels I've read (I've also read "Tess" and "Jude"), but I might recommend this as the first one to try if someone isn't sure they'll like Hardy since I found it pretty approachable as far as classic novels go.
Book No. 68, my final book of the year, was " The City, Not Long After" by Pat Murphy. Murphy likes to blend genres, and this is a mix of speculative fiction with a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of magical realism. It takes place in a future San Francisco after a plague has wiped out much of the human population. The people who remain are fragmented. SF is largely populated by peaceful artists and eccentrics, but outside, General "FourStar" Miles is taking other cities by force, and now he has his sights set on San Francisco. A group of longtime city residents are joined by an outsider, a woman with no name who was led by a burning angel into SF to search for her mother, and they must figure out a way to confound the general and his troops without resorting to killing.
I absolutely adore speculative fiction that offers nonviolent solutions to aggression, so this was right up my alley. I will say that the fact that the army is coming is the only thing that provides much tension early on in the book, and that slow start was one of my few criticisms of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed this and I'm likely to seek out more by Murphy, because I enjoyed this and "The Falling Woman" a lot.
My entire list of 68 books is below. The ones with an asterisk (*) are the ones that I gave 5 stars to on GoodReads.
Here are my reading stats by category:
Female authors: 36 (53 percent)
POC authors: 15 (22 percent)
LGBT authors: 10 (15 percent)
Disabled authors: 6 (9 percent)
Classics: 4 (6 percent)
Nonfiction: 22 (32 percent)
Audiobooks: 12 (17 percent)
*1. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang [fiction]- Kate Wilhelm
2. Dandelion Wine [fiction]- Ray Bradbury
*3. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness [nonfiction/memoir]- Elyn R. Saks
*4. The Underground Railroad [fiction]- Colson Whitehead (unabridged audiobook)
5. The Stranger's Child [fiction]- Alan Hollinghurst
6. Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How To Create A More Peaceful, Simpler Life From the Inside Out [non-fiction]- Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey
7. Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life [nonfiction/biography]- Philippe Girard
*8. All Our Wrong Todays [fiction]- Elan Mastai (unabridged audiobook)
9. The Bonesetter's Daughter [fiction]- Amy Tan
*10. Gather Her Round" (Tufa series #5) [fiction]- Alex Bledsoe
*11. I Was #87: A Deaf Woman's Ordeal of Misdiagnosis, Institutionalization, and Abuse [nonfiction/memoir]- Anne M. Bolander
12. We Were the Mulvaneys [fiction]- Joyce Carol Oates
13. The Unicorn [fiction]- Iris Murdoch
*14. Provenance [fiction]- Ann Leckie
15. The Moon and the Sun [fiction]- Vonda McIntyre (unabridged audiobook)
16. The Fairies of Sadieville [fiction]- Alex Bledsoe
17. Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out [nonfiction/fiction/poetry/anthology]- ed. Kenny Fries
18. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [fiction]- Anonymous (Penguin Classics edition)
*19. Autonomous [fiction]- Annalee Newitz
20. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race [nonfiction]- Margot Lee Shetterly (unabridged audiobook)
21. Cold Comfort (Officer Gunnhildur #2) [fiction]- Quentin Bates
*22. Invisible Man [fiction]- Ralph Ellison
23. The Witch Elm [fiction]- Tana French (unabridged audiobook)
24. Cloudsplitter [fiction]- Russell Banks
*25. Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo' [nonfiction]- Zora Neale Hurston (unabridged audiobook)
26. Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*27. The Story of My Life [nonfiction/memoir]- Helen Keller (unabridged audiobook)
*28. Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology [fiction/short stories]- ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
*29. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide [nonfiction]- Carol Anderson
*30. Lovecraft Country [fiction]- Matt Ruff
*31. Priestdaddy: A Memoir [nonfiction/memoir]- Patricia Lockwood
32. Heartsick (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell #1) [fiction]- Chelsea Cain (unabridged audiobook)
*33. A Door Into Ocean [fiction]- Joan Slonczewski
34. The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border [nonfiction/memoir]- Francisco Cantú
35. The Ballad of Black Tom [fiction]- Victor LaValle
36. Claire of the Sea Light [fiction]- Edwidge Danticat (unabridged audiobook)
37. Americanah [fiction]- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
*38. All the Birds in the Sky [fiction]- Charlie Jane Anders
*39. My Left Foot [nonfiction/memoir]- Christy Brown
40. Boy, Snow, Bird [fiction]- Helen Oyeyemi (unabridged audiobook)
41. Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads [nonfiction]- Paul Theroux
42. A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*43. Bettyville [nonfiction/memoir]- George Hodgman
44. Death Threat [non-fiction graphic book] - Vivek Shraya, ill. Ness Lee
45. The Little Friend [fiction]- Donna Tartt
46. The Falling Woman [fiction]- Pat Murphy
*47. Underfoot Menagerie: More Street Art by David Zinn [nonfiction/illustrated "coffee table" book]- David Zinn
48. The Fireman [fiction]- Joe Hill (unabridged audiobook)
49. For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer [nonfiction/biography]- Chana Kai Lee
50. Woken Furies (#3 in the Takeshi Kovacs series) [fiction]- Richard K. Morgan
51. Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family [nonfiction]- Amy Ellis Nutt
*52. The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #3) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*53. Semiosis [fiction]- Sue Burke
54. Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World [nonfiction]- Ann Shen
55. Alive (The Generations Trilogy #1) [fiction]- Scott Sigler
*56. The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers [nonfiction/biography]- Maxwell King (unabridged audiobook)
*57. Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life [nonfiction]- David Treuer
*58. My Brother's Husband, Volume 1 [graphic novel/fiction]- Gengoroh Tagame
*59. My Brother's Husband, Volume 2 [graphic novel/fiction]- Gengoroh Tagame
*60. Metamorphoses [epic poetry/fiction]- Ovid (translation & commentary by David Raeburn)
*61. Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia [nonfiction/memoir]- Gerda Saunders
*62. A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4) [fiction]- Louise Penny
*63. Love and Other Futures: Poetry of Untold Stories of Liberation & Love [poetry]- anthology by various authors
64. The Speed Queen [fiction]- Stewart O'Nan
*65. La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1) [fiction]- Philip Pullman (unabridged audiobook)
66. Lie With Me [fiction]- Philippe Besson, transl. Molly Ringwald
67. Far From the Madding Crowd [fiction]- Thomas Hardy
*68. The City, Not Long Afte [fiction]- Pat Murphy
no subject
Date: 2020-01-02 12:16 pm (UTC)Good to hear that about the Hardy book. seems like he was very influential at the time. I wonder how the censored serial differs.