Dan’s
Comments
(group member since Apr 11, 2020)
Dan’s
comments
from the Pelion Branch Library - Spine Crackers Book Club group.
Showing 1-14 of 14
I don't have much to say about this one other than I thought it was a dud. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I'm around page 330. It's more work than I thought it would be to read this, but I think I can be done by Thursday.
I am really looking forward to reading this book. It's written in a subgenre of both Climate Change Fiction, more often called Climate Fiction (or Cli-Fi), and Science Fiction known as Climate Science Fiction, a subgenre I am completely unfamiliar with though apparently I have read three of the top ten books in it. Kim Stanley Robinson, an author I've never read, has made his career out of writing this particular niche. In a list of books in this subgenre, he wrote nine of the voted top 100 books in it, far more than any other author! https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...
About 2/3 the way through. Having a hard time finishing though. This is so unremittingly bleak. (view spoiler)
"On this side, too, there are dreams." It's in the book apparently. I checked out a copy from the B-L library. Hope to start it soon.
También de este lado hay sueños.
I have heard about Mexican Gothic and as a result become interested in reading it too. One of my favorite weird fiction authors (Victor LaValle) was interviewed recently on the NPR show "The Takeaway" on the subject of historical weird author (H.P. Lovecraft) whose legacy is problematic. LaValle was joined by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The show was my introduction to her and her Mexican Gothic: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/...
Since we like to go local on occasion in our selections I recently came across Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron, which might be of interest. That's quite a cover, isn't it?
The setting made me want to go exploring the Thames country west of London myself. I loved it.
This is one of at least ten brilliant points the author makes on human nature in the book. I think all of the more enlightened characters in the novel would agree with Pival. It's the less enlightened ones who haven't that cause the conflict, or pain, such as Ram (Pival's dead husband), Rebecca's mother, and Satya, I consider Pival, Bhim, and Rebecca to be three of the wiser characters in the book, at least at the stages of life in which they are portrayed.I think another Franqui gem, among so many, is when Satya views the highly dysfunctional family portrayed in the Chekhov play The Three Sisters better than no family, or as normal (p. 183). The same as Rebecca, that's not a thought that ever occurred to me either. I still can't quite agree with Satya, but it does get me thinking. Maybe the dysfunctional relationship I had with my father until twelve years ago was preferable to the no-relationship I have had since then.
They didn't spend long there.
They stopped in Phoenix too.
You could place this book on the group's bookshelf as "currently reading" if you like. Ones we have read in the past can go on the bookshelf as "read." Ones we are going to read could also be placed on the bookshelf as "to-read" with the date of the meeting time with the book.There's a lot of potential for this GoodReads group. Members of the Pelion library community can be referred to it so they can know how to become involved with the group, know what we have done in the past, what we're going to do in the future, etc.
I moderate another group here at BookReads called "Weird Fiction." What this website is set up to do for any group, whether it meets live or not, is truly amazing.
