Geoffrey’s Comments (group member since May 21, 2017)

Geoffrey’s comments from the Discourse in a Digital Age group.

Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
Unfortunately, books like this can destroy your faith in mankind (and the settlers of the Western US).

Is anyone familiar with the area the book is set in?
(I've never been there, only know it by reputation).

Vera wrote:
"...It really brought to attention how women were treated then without anyone even thinking it was wrong...."

This(how women are treated) is a cultural problem, not something to be fixed with laws. Figure out what we need to teach kids (girls AND boys) so they see each other as equals. This is going to take 4+ generations to fix -- anytime kids see unequal treatment/roles, they are going to pick up on it.

Efforts to raise generations gender-bias-free will go a long way toward fixing discrimination in places like Afghanistan, because they will have an example to see the benefits of equality. They are dealing with a cultural problem that is much worse than ours, and that has been in place for thousands of years.

I enjoyed it, but it didn't live up to the Amazon (or publisher's) 'book blurb' -- I was expecting Constance Kopp to be deputized right at the beginning & then show us how a lady solved a crime. Instead, the whole book was about the Kopp Sisters shivering in their boots as the local mafia came after them.
Because my expectations were set wrong, I was confused a lot of the time as to why certain story threads were introduced; I really didn't see that the background on Constance and her daughter Fleurette added much to the story. Sheriff Heath was an important and sympathetic character in getting Henry Kaufman to jail, but having him offer Constance a job as deputy sheriff at the END of the book made the deputy sheriff position seem less important than it would have otherwise. Since this was historical fiction set in 1914 (before women had the right to vote), I didn't expect that women would be treated equally (to men). If one of the points the author wanted to make was that women could be considered the equals of men if they demonstrated ability through their own efforts and hard work, she could have done better by emphasizing the inferior ('barefoot and pregnant') positions women held at the time. It wouldn't need to be a feminist tract to get this point across, and it wouldn't have been a lesser story for it.

Thanks, Zach. Whatever works best for you/everyone else is fine by me.

Hi Zach,

Where is the best place to post my 'review' of a book that is up for discussion?
That's the main way I participate. I don't want to post my review in the middle of an unrelated thread.

Zach,

I'm not concerned with whether you keep the current group name, etc. -- only that it still be on Goodreads.
I live in Los Angeles, & try to get a variety of opinions & reading interests through participating in the group.
Jeff Nutting (Geoffrey)

I have read the January selection (Kindred by Octavia Butler). Well worth reading. I have met Butler (on a trip in Peru, where she was doing field research on an environment that looks something like what she wrote about in her Xenogenesis books). Amazing how a seemingly carefree person could write books with this depth.

My 'review' of Kindred:

Octavia Butler is best known for her SF writing: so much so that I was expecting Kindred to be SF. It is a cleverly structured book that uses 'time travel' to reveal the lives of slaves on a plantation in Maryland c. 1820. The black protagonist(Dana) is 'called back' to help a plantation child/owner(Rufus) whenever he is at risk of dying (how this happens is not mentioned, & wouldn't help the story if it were). She manages to patch him back together each time, and in each incident understands more about the lives of everyone (especially the black slaves).You get insight into what it means to be 'property', and how they coped with constant uncertainty (would they or their children be sold away from them tomorrow; who would be beaten next, & for what). The incidents in the book are reconstructions from extensive research Butler did on the period, as well as stories she heard from her ancestors about what it was like living as a slave
This was a much more understandable read for me (white) than Beloved (Toni Morrison) because I have no way of understanding why/how a situation such as Beloved's could ever arise in life.

If the list includes magical realism,you need get an example of a magical realism books. For example, The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake(Aimee Bender) and The House of Spirits (Isabel Allende are both considered magical realism

@Lucy: Toni Morrison's Beloved is one of the most unusual books I've ever read (I can't say I thought it was great). I understand your wanting to substitute there.

Reading lists:

Take a look at the books on this reading list:
Magical Realism Book List.

Many of the books on the list will fit into your 'Diversity' category -- the Magical Realism genre seems(to me) to be acategory publishers put books in when they don't 'get' the culture (a lot of Latin American magical realism seems that way to me). I can help you prune this list.

Zoe Brooks (the lady who put this list together) writes great reviews(anything in red has a review); she's also an author (I really didn't like her books).

This post may belong in a whole different thread, so feel free to move it.

I've read 36.

If 50 Shades of Grey was on the list, are we looking at a list of books people know from movies?

No, I haven't read anything by Ben Aaronovitch.
Sounds like a good reason to ck it out.

BTW. When I say 'Foundation', I am only talking about the 1st book in the series. The middle book (Foundation & Empire) is too slow for me.
1 short book (~300 -) is a lot easier than a 700-1000pg series at one read).

Good you liked the Foundation series.

No comments on Modern Tech, Graphic Novels: I'm looking to get better acquainted with these areas.

Other:
1. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende. Story of a family over about 3 generations, starting ~1920 and continuing through the start of Salvador Allende's regime (yes, the author is related to Salvador Allende: he's her (distant?) cousin.
Get a translation of the book by Margaret Sayers Peden(should be no problem-SLPL surely has several) if you can (original is in Spanish).
2. Endurance:Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - Alfred Lansing. Story of Ernest Shackleton's attempt to cross Antarctica (c. 1905). Shows you what makes a great leader, and something about expeditions during the Great Age of Exploration (~1880 -1920).

Diversity:
1. Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi. Set in West Africa. Also fits in your Bestseller category now. Movie due out sometime;
so well thought of that publishers were fighting each other to get the publishing/movie, etc. rights to it. I'm reading it now.
2. Anansi Boys - Neal Gaiman. Anansi is a god/spirit brought over from West Africa to the Carribean. Good read.

SF :
2. Ringworld - Larry Niven. Obviously, solar systems are composed of planets orbiting a central star... Well, what do you do when you find a star with a 'world' in the shape of a torus around it. What is it like?
This idea can be considered 'hard science-fiction' , but you can ignore this aspect of it and enjoy an imaginative story.

Recomendations:
Science Fiction:
1. Foundation (Foundation, #1) - Isaac Asimov. Psycho-history is a mathematical theory of history (like economics is for markets). The Empire has been running for about 6000 years, and seems on the decline, but won't just be pushed over (according to the Foundation, a group of scientists who advance psychohistory). Then a mutant (The Mule) comes out of nowhere and starts conquering the empire, even though an event of this type was never predicted by psychohistory. Has psychohistory failed? What is the fate of the interstellar Empire?
Written in ~1950, this book is the epitome of great science fiction. If you haven't read it, you've never read any SF.
Often sold as a trilogy today, it wasn't written that way.