What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

Latest reads:

Wellness by Nathan Hill: One of those big Johnathan Franzen type novels about all kinds of everything and contemporary American life, as seen through the eyes of a couple, Jack & Elizabeth, struggling their way through their ostensibly successful upper middle-class life. We see their formative years, the flushes of first romance and idealism and the eventual bone crushing, vitality crushing realities of ordinary life: getting a job, finding somewhere to live, getting older, having a child, losing the spark. Tbh, the book is a bit of a downer, but it is also pretty good, borderline great even. It's particularly good at evoking the bewildered state we're all in currently - deluged by information and data, unable to know what's objective reality, the incessant demands of capital, how every last moment of our lives is being increasingly technologized and we're all so fcking estranged from each other: God help us! There's a thirty-page segment of the book dealing with Jack's father's descent into Internet addiction that's absolutely amazing in its plausibility and terrifying in its matter of factness about the cold logical mechanics behind the attention economy. One of the better contemporary novels I've read in a good long while.

Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan: A bit of a curious mix of a whodunnit and a kitchen sink type warts and portrayal of a damaged family in damaged circumstances. The heart of the novel about the fallout from a teenage pregnancy on a family in eighties Ireland is very well done and emotionally devastating. She's obviously a good writer - with nice poetic touches, a deep empathy for her characters and a healthy dose of realistic cynicism, but the framing narrative of a mystery that needs solving feels a bit tacked on and superfluous. The novel as a whole is a bit padded out, but pretty good as an exploration of warped family dynamics.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar - a suicidal alcoholic Iranian American poet decides to make something of his life by engaging on a project about the concept of Martyrdom, as an attempt to deal with the trauma of losing his mother in a plane crash at a young age… Some of this I liked. The descriptions of being completely down and out and at your wit’s end felt painfully real and the fact that the author is coming from a totally different frame of reference and historical background gives the novel a unique flavouring to what I'd usually read: he's a hyper literate culturally informed urbanite, but one whose head filled with the myths and legends of Iran and Islam. But, overall, the whole narrative was a bit half-baked and the central conceit of the thing wasn't fleshed out enough for me to sufficiently care enough.

The Years by Annie Ernaux - Annie Ernaux is fcking amazing. Like all of her stuff that I have read, this book - you couldn't really call it a memoir or a novel - is part biography, part social history. Basically, an account of growing up in France from the 1940's to roughly the modern day. It's at once highly subjective - focusing a lot on the direct sensory experience of things: the taste, the look, the smell of the times - and also at the same time purposely depersonalised - using the direct experience of one individual as representative of the wider social effects and changes of a given time on a society as whole. Ernaux is so amazing because she has this ability to be simultaneously inside and outside of things at once. She can describe how something felt with such unvarnished specificity that you'll wince reading it and yet she’ll always have this overall authorial position of seeing things from a sky-high perspective and how everything, no matter how individual and personal, fits into the wider maelstrom of social forces and change, that are usually inexplicable to those living through it all. And not one sentence that she writes doesn't ring true. I could go on, but these little reviews are already pretty indulgent as it is - I simply can't recommend her enough.

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes - I don't usually read sci-fi. But this had got some pretty alright reviews, so I thought I'd give it a go. Long story short - an exploration of what it means to be human etc, etc - based around a story about a trip to an asteroid that may or may not contain the secrets to the origin of life. This one is a rare one for me: a did not finish. I usually plod on, no matter what. But I got about halfway through this and I realised I was reading page after page and not remotely giving a shyte about the nitty gritty details about how to prepare for interstellar travel or the intricates of molecular life, written in pretty leaden prose - so I just gave up. Some sci-fi fans might love it, but it just wasn't for me.

@Arghus

Very appreciative of the effort put into these reviews. Thank you.

It takes guts and being truly awake (or awakening) to pull the plug on a book or a film. Thankfully another plus of getting older. Discernment increases.

Watched the Northman until 20 minutes from the end and realised it wasn't post midnight fatigue but boredom I was feeling. I líoned the bearnaí and caught some Zs.

Dune, it's easier to read than I thought but I can tell there is going to be a lot to digest.

Also re-read Starter for Ten by David Nicholls, In Cold Blood by Capote and Brighton Rock by Graham Greene because......well, why not. Nicholls just nails college life, feeling out of your depth and/or league and the big decisions in student life, like what albums, posters and books to have in your room to impress the girl you fancy. Hilarious.

86 years after publication and 20 years after first reading it, Pinkie in Brighton Rock still scares the **** out of me!

I'm about 75% into Year of the Locust - around 600 pages.
It started well but has descended into an absolute pile of unbelievable shite!
Did he have a stroke during the writing?

I couldn't see what the fuss was about with I am Pilgrim either. I wouldn't be that fussy but my God, that was poor writing.

Ran into bad guy, beat him up, onto next bad guy, killed him, rinse and repeat

The Farseer trilogy was my introduction to her. Picked up Assassin's Apprentice for something like 1 or 2 euro on Book Depository and was hooked. The Liveship Trilogy will be my second outing.

I'm currently reading Habitat by Caitriona Shine. It's reminding me a bit of Stephen King's original treatment for Under the Dome, only not as interesting. Taking too long to get going, imo.

After that it's The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Have very mixed feelings about this, I couldn't finish Skippy Dies so I'm really hoping his writing has improved since then.

For those who like collections, I can recommend the Ken Follett series that began with The Pillars of the Earth. I'm currently reading the latest in the series, The Armour of Light. I would state that they do become a little bit formulaic and predictable. The characters in the latest book are remarkably similar to characters in the earlier books (which are set 700 odd years earlier!). However with that said, he does know how to write a yarn and each book is very readable and enjoyable. What I love most about these is how he weaves historical fact into the fiction and informs the user along the way. The latest book is set around the turn of the 19th century and refers to Bonaparte's rise, the wars around Europe and also how laws in England were formed to protect the business owners and how the poor reacted.

Im reading nothing until I get proper reading glasses , but I’m after ordering an ‘acceptable’ copy of Karl Spindlers book , he was the captain of the SS Libeau ( disguised as the Aud in 1916 . He scuttled it in Cork harbour and moved to the US after wwi

You sell it better than GoodReads.

She's a pain, I'd love to give her slap and throw her father overboard Vivacia 🤣

During a chronic episode of hip pain that has been lasting forever, I was forced to stay in the leaba.

During that wonderful time, the only book within arm's length was The Year of the Locust.

By the time I finished it ( with neither mobility nor choice being an option) I am sure that my head hurt worse than my hip.

Exponentially worse than dire.

Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib. This was a disturbing book, for me, anyway. It was about a man, a teacher with a young son. He was bullied as a teenager in school, especially in his last year when a new boy joins the school. Then, one day, out of the blue, he turns up and makes himself at home. He says he has left his wife and has nowhere to go. The kid really likes him and he manipulates him against the father. In the meantime, Todd’s wife, who left after the baby was born , 7 years before, is back and wants custody of the boy. Naturally it all ends horribly. I finished it as I had to know how it ended, but I found it an uncomfortable read. Maybe that proves the writing was good.