carlin

appreciated this a lot, it's refreshing to read challenging fiction

Complicity was my fav, and it worked really well for me. Debbies, however, much less so, as I left it not really having a good sense of who Debbie is.

I think this is a neat introduction to New Narrative/cut up fiction

Every summer solstice for the past few years, I've attempted to read a book in its entirety during the day (as it is the longest day). The first year I read Battle Royale, and this year I was contemplating reading Much Ado About Nothing, but with the upcoming Nolan film, I decided that this was a more apt (and readable) classic option

Unfortunately to say, I found this to be underwhelming even accounting for this being a very old text with foreign modes of storytelling.

In terms of stuff I appreciated, Wilson's translation is really great: very readable while still preserving the beauty and the strangeness of the text. I also did really like how much emphasis there is on hunger being a burden and something we all have to fend off. And as such there is a lot of emphasis on meal times with washing hands, mixing wine, preparing food etc. Finally I loved how emotional all the guys are all the time, just openly sobbing.

However my main grudges with the text are that it is so repetitive (and yes, I know that it's an oral tradition, however how many times does it need to be explained that Penelope weaves and unravels the cloth every day for three years) and there is a lot which seems pointless/overly long winded. And while the former maybe is a benefit to it being spoken, I'm really surprised that all of it was preserved from generation to generation. I would skip whole books if I was the one orating it. To elaborate about the pointless/long winded sections, cunning Odysseus gives multiple extended false backstories to different people (pointless) and we spend 4 books with Telemachus asking people where his dad is (they don't know) and another 4 where Odysseus and Telemachus talk about killing the suitors but actually don't (long winded). And to be fair, I'm sure they all had more resonance to the people of the time when they were hearing the story, but it made the experience of reading the book drag.

In terms of the arc of the narrative, I had assumed that Odysseus would face all these labours on his way home, however his way home is actually very straight-forward. All the famous stories are things that he tells as a guest of honour to his hosts. Which means that there's not really much stakes, as all the stories are in the past tense, however maybe this is a false standard to hold it to given that we are dealing with the Gods and prophecies. Anyway, the mode of the story is not always conducive to the narrative, and I am pretty eager to see how Christopher Nolan navigates his adaptation.

As someone who loves both Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, and hasn't read Dykes to Watch Out For, this was underwhelming and not my thing.

For one, Bechdel is satirising her own life, and I don't care for it (I'm not a fan of docudramas and I don't see why autofiction would have me feeling otherwise) and for another this is much less intricate than FH/AYMM due to the different genre — maybe the closest comparison i can give is between comic books vs graphic novels. For example, in this the pacing would occasionally jank as a scene ran out of steam after three pages or we have an unannounced time skip. I think what made this more uncomfortable for me, is this is her first (afaik) book fully coloured and shaded and so it feels like it should have a higher value due to the greater resource investment.

I also side-eye her outlook as a lottt of these jokes are about non-binarity, leftism and vegans...

The best part of the book is when it focuses on the other couple navigating their new realtionship (with their child). This was fun, but again parts of it make me be like what is the joke here? (there is a lot of focus on his sexual fantasy which I feel like is meant to be self-evidently funny). Idk it just feels like if this came out 15 years ago there would be an attack helicopter joke.

I think there is a generational problem with my enjoyment of this, as I relate most strongly with the characters in the generation below instead of Bechdal's generation. A flip side version written by JR about their mom etc would probably work better for me (in the way it wouldn't if Bechdel was to read it).

Overall, not for me. I continue to hunger to read books by communists

I loved Pillion, and I became a lot more interested in reading the book when I heard that Colin is fat in it

I enjoyed the voice of Colin (our narrator) and of course the story itself. I feel like my enjoyment is a bit diminished by the subtitle "A Story of Low Self-esteem" as it is redundant and colours the way I feel the author intends the relationship (or Why of this story)

I think the movie is an overall major improvement on the book story-wise, as the relationships between the characters are richer (the parents in particular are a highlight of the movie for me, and here they just kinda are). I do of course prefer Colin being fat, but it doesn't do all that much here besides providing yet another thing for him to be self conscious about.

This is of course a Fitzcarraldo Edition and I must say they do a very enjoyable presentation for reading with nice type-setting and the over generous margins at the bottom and opposite spine. Want to read more, but will unfortunately have to read the blurbs for them to find ones I'm interested in ahaha

I read this impromptu by the river after impromptu sushi, I was in a japanese mood i guess

enjoyed the three pieces here, individually I would rate 4.5, 4, and 3.5. In a bamboo grove is very strong and I love the conceit. I feel it's better executed here than in the movie, however I feel that's maybe just because I found the movie much less intelligible.

I wish the penguin little black classics had a *note on the text* or something, it would've been nice to know beforehand that the latter two pieces are autobiographical.

--- 2nd review ---

probably less effective the second time around 😅

the second and third pieces are mostly interesting to him I fear ... I wonder why they didn't bundle more of his actual stories for this collection

unrated as DNF

I stopped reading as I felt myself having a grudge against the book which made my read critical and unpleasant

before reading I had heard a criticism that this is written for the tiktok generation with its short sentences and paragraphs, and they were not wrong. At first this was a salve after coming from Pride and Prejudice, but I came to dislike it. For example, I skipped ahead 100 pages and it was giving me enough context that I did not feel lost even though I missed the introduction of a couple main characters (including what the main plot is about).

It wasn't just the aforementioned issue that caused my grudge - I didn't know the book deals with alcoholism - but idk I might revisit if I hear even more heaped praise, and my grudge against it has lessened with time

for my record, I skipped ahead at p49 "...Ali drank gin at night..." and I stopped reading on p184 "...pull the plug..."

I enjoy having read Pride and Prejudice more than I enjoyed reading it

The book is well structured, there's lots going on, the chapters are short, it's unpredictable and so forth, however there is something about the style of writing which I found generally quite dry and unengaging. Given all it's qualities, it seems to lie mostly in the manner in which it is written due to it being over two centuries old.

However saying this, I found it very enlightening regarding the life and times of the period, and I would say that this really is a must-read for (British) people for that reason alone if you are unfamiliar with them.

As an example of both the difficulty and the enlightenment, the practice of referring to people exclusively as Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc is unfamiliar to me, such that I tend to pay attention more to the *name* than the *M.*, and so I frequently had to re-read which M. it was. However, at the same time, this is also revealing of what marriage is and its function (historically perhaps) which is not something which I had really thought much about.

Maybe surprising, but my favourite characters by far were Mr and Mrs Bennet! Also, there's that book The Other Bennet Sister and she really is the other one

--- spoilers ---

In terms of the plot/romance, I was really pleasantly surprised that the declaration of Darcy's love happens around halfway through! I was also surprised how much this isn't really about their romance though, but again was Jane Austen writing a "romance"? Maybe classically it is romantic but not what we would consider one to be nowadays. Anyways, I do ship them and they both feel very realistic. I especially loved "A man who had felt less, might"

I also must mention that I really was waiting for Darcy to profess his love in the rain. Which is also to say that I did read this fully spoiled, which I don't think is really possible to avoid

I very much see how suited this is for education as the title itself provides the breadcrumbs for you. It's almost distracting every time the words appear, but it was satisfying when I pieced together the foil of Wickham and Darcy in regards to prejudice (and to a lesser extent pride).

I went against my usual practice and around a fifth of the way through, I read the two appendices regarding Entail and Dancing. During the former, I got the idea that Mr Bennet dies during the book and so I read much of it trying to figure out when he would die 😅. Of course once Mr Collins is married, I knew that the clock was ticking, and when he kept living I was more curious. I decided though, once he had gone to town in search of Lydia that this would be the perfect moment! I imagined that roughly concurrently Darcy would propose to Lizzie and that Pemberly would be the life-raft for the Bennet's after they lose Longbourn. Alas Mr Bennet survives his trip to London in the end.

disappointing

I've previously read LJJ's debut, At Certain Points We Touch, and this book is really quite similar but less developed

Both books are seemingly obscured re-tellings of her life stories, but dressed up in a fanciful way that maintain a sense of glamour even under the duress of penurious precarity. The debut wasn't for me, but I appreciated its immersiveness and its ruminations on grief.

However in Lean Cat, Savage Cat (meaning of the title remains murky) the fictive narrative doesn't really go anywhere and remains quite shallow throughout. Additionally, I understood the crux around half way through and unfortunately the book became much less rewarding after that point.

I don't think LJJ is for me, but I am guaranteed to learn new words and they make for interesting discussions in our book club :)

my rating stands for this specific version of the book as my rating of the manifesto itself would be +.5.

I read the manifesto first (I think it should come first in the book) and I really enjoyed it. It's very funny and provocative and it's plain nice to read something not tempered by like 12 million imagined counter arguments. It not something that I feel I can seriously engage with as it's very literally radical feminist, in believing that gender is the pre-eminent issue, and as a communist I don't think this is productive. However it is super engaging and feels very nutritious for the brain in how it constantly folds in on itself.

The essay is good, but it's a lot more poetically/aesthetically involved than I would've expected. I thought it would be disentangling how serious Solanos is, and how best to interpret, but it appears that Ronell takes her at her word and we should interpret the manifesto without any irony, levity, etc. Personally I feel that part of Solanos is just having pure fun, and that this was her working out her frustrations in a productive way

sorry gay people but this was awful

hard to put into words how and why this was so bad. Maybe lets start with the characters, who are many but only of two dimensions. Elsie, our protagonist, feels almost completely passive. Her life falls apart seemingly just because, but not to worry as it will be rebuilt just as effortlessly. All of her friends and family are fonts of wisdom, brimming with therapy speak and good advice. People who are bad are evil and have no redeeming qualities.

Elsie is 29 and I think this story would've worked a lot better if everyone was at least 10 years younger. A lot of the sleeping around, crashing at friends places, doing poetry competitions, misunderstanding of feelings etc would've worked way better in a secondary school context, and the integration of the family into the story would've been a lot more natural.

Also, Elsie is a poet, and unfortunately the author is not (Edit: intended as a roast, but actually Little is not a poet, the poems were written by Kai-Isaiah Jamal). The poems in the book do get better, and rosewater is actually good thankfully, but the prose is either bad or plain and over-explained:

I’ve been writing poetry since I was eight years old and the consensus is that my writing bangs. I even won junior poet laureate a couple of years back and people printed one of my poems (about an imagined utopia in which straight things didn’t exist) on totes and T-shirts.

In terms of the LGBT/romance aspect, a couple of the sex scenes are at least well written, and I can imagine that Elsie could be relatable, but the actual romance is fairly weak and it makes sense that it sells itself as a "meditation" on romance rather than actually one

At least helpful for me for figuring out what I don't like in books, maybe in the future I can DNF something like this, if it's not for a book club

I loved this so much. I wish I could've had this around the house as a child, I would've read and re-read this endlessly.

I love how cohesive it is in its packaging, and I think this book would be great for all age levels to be honest. Like I think this would still be really interesting and engaging if you couldn't read the words, and as you return and return to the pictures and stories you'll gain more each time. I also love the pacing of the stories page-to-page, and you can really tell Tan has an incredible grasp over when and how to deploy his illustrations. Frequently I was delighted to turn the page and to find a beautiful spread that I hoped for but didn't expect.

My favourite story is probably Alert but not Alarmed, which is also my favourite sub 500 word story ever

actually pretty good!

I originally DNF'd this like a year ago as I found the first half very slow and overly detailed and it felt like it was not the genre that I thought it would be. When I was sick earlier this month, I wanted to read something that I didn't have to pay close attention to, so I started back where I left off, unsure whether I would re-commit or not.

I'm glad I did. For sure the pacing is not for me, and it made me wish that I was a faster reader (or instead reading the audiobook where I could speed it up) but after the 60% mark this really gets going and I was suitably hooked.

As with most, I am aware of this book as it was huge at the time, and I can say that it is not a timeless book. Some of the politics of it feel a little pat (almost) 10 years on and I feel like it probably wouldn't have seen the same success if it were released today.

Some parts of it, the extended flashback for example, are very five star material and it's a shame that Ng loses the deftness of these parts in the rest of the book. However, the construction of the plot and the characters do make up for it's weaknesses so I would still recommend this for people looking for a easy read

Definitely more good than bad here, but not an enjoyable read when it could've been

To focus on the good, the fundamental idea here is correct and worth writing a book about, and there are definitely things which I will take away from this and use in my future career. I'm not sure I can recommend as this is the first teaching book that I have read

However, this book is quite a mess and feels like something which has been written and redrafted, but needs an editor to sort it out. For example, there is no Index at the back. How is this supposed to be a useful reference manual? The structure of the chapters at the beginning is well thought out and feel like they build, but the second half of the book feels more like blog posts and even within chapters there are sections which are incongruous. Ideas like "Ready, Respectful, Safe" are assumed to be understood and not explained, and aren't tied in with previous chapters. The conclusion of the book feels slapped on and doesn't relate to the last chapter, which is strange given the conclusion is essentially a single paragraph.

As the book is not cohesive, it fails to meet its own bar. It is constantly suggesting "Your behaviour management policy should be trivially understood" but every chapter gives you a dozen different ideas for what good policies should be and what you should actually do. I feel like this book actually becomes rather overwhelming because of it's lack of refinement.

I also would have appreciated better sourcing, evidencing or at least engagement with the literature. I think he refers to a few recently published books (by his friends perhaps..) and at least one blog post. Unfortunately I cannot substantiate this easily as there is no bibliography. As such, this feels disconnected from the canon of pedagogy and relies a bit too much on you trusting him.

Less crucially for the aims of the book, I found I did not like many of the quirks of the text. He really likes to have a list of regular things and then the last one is like "nuclear war" or "picking a child up by their ankles", which clearly are jokes mean to liven the text, but I just found them to be inappropriate and distracting. Some of the more extended anecdotes also fall into the realm of unbelievable and left me rolling my eyes (the one regarding a mother with incomplete tattoos felt made up and that it was punching down). Lastly many of the anecdotes feel like they're flattering the author, which is a natural inclination and serve provide a reason for us to trust him (in lieu of sourcing...), but I feel you can do this in a way that's more upfront or perhaps grateful ("I had the honour to..." rather than "The Department of Education invited me...").

I also had a sense that Paul Dix kinda doesn't view children as people? A lot of the way he talks about them seem as if they are a different species with different aims than adults. This is perhaps a specific example which isn't quite the general tone I'm referring to, but for example he talks about children being addicted to being angry and how they want an excuse to unleash their anger. As a formerly angry child, I really hated being angry and I wanted it to stop. It was embarrassing for me and it was something I didn't have control over. If an adult had anger issues we would not assume them to be "addicted" to the feeling, we would consider what the material conditions they are facing which are leading to these emotions.

Additionally, I felt that the book suffered from not having a clear audience, or not signalling its audience well paragraph-to-paragraph. Some parts are aimed at primary school teachers, some at head teachers, some at teachers in general, and practically none aimed at people working with students with extra support needs. This is fine (especially if some are not part of the audience), but I think it weakens the reception of the book on the individual level as it's unclear if you are the audience of the advice. I think introducing some structure like For headteachers, etc would help this book have more impact with the respective audiences.

Finally, I think the book kinda feels unprincipled in a subtle way. There is clearly the principle that "Adults can effect the behaviour of students via a consistent attitude to behaviour management", but I think there also should have been something in regards to pedagogy (or children) such as "Our goal as teachers is to provide a Ready, Respectful, Safe environment for students so they can learn, and to do this we have to have a consistent attitude to behaviour management". As the book is not anchored in a cohesive principle in regards to pedagogy, I feel that it is subtly uncentered.

I think what I would've liked to have read instead, is a perspective on behaviour management from someone who has had a career working with additional support needs kids. I think that working in that context probably provides better insight into the crux of behaviour management that is useful universally. And for what it's worth, I think it would be pretty similar to Dix's proposal here regarding consistent and kind treatment, but I think it would be better foundationed as you have to reckon with more difficult circumstances.

was very appropriate to read this while trapped at home with illness

does what it says on the tin — this is literary fiction time loop ahaha. Lovely prose and imagery, and in a sense reminded me of Ishiguro

maybe it's just because books are so expensive here in switzerland (I paid £21.70 here), but feels a bit greedy for this to be released as 7 books. Like I feel like I have read part 1 of a larger volume. Will I read the rest? If there's acclaim or plaudits probably, but generally this is not really my sort of thing

--- spoilers ---

As with similar sci-fi adjacent things, it takes unreasonably long for her to have fun with it even a bit ahaha. Also she should learn to lie, like it's lovely that her husband always believes her but I feel like it would be easier if she just white lied more.

feel like this is about a lot of different things, but I most appreciated how restless it is.

first and last poems didn't really do it for me, I feel like learners would mostly just look at the pictures

Tom and Ted is really quite weird and twisted for what I expected! Like I really did not expect it at all, and I hope learners would be quite engaged with the story and want to re-read it

but the star of the show is clearly "Ten big fat men"!! It reads very nicely and the pictures are incredibly delightful. I also like that the story is not judgemental about the men being big and fat and it's not plot relevant

overall I got a couple laughs out of these poems which is really more than I could ask for!

really enjoyed reading this

You can tell it is written by a poet but it also has plot and something to say

think I'll probably re-read as it's for book club and it's so short (probably like 3hr max if you read in a sitting)

--- spoilers ---

unfortunately i didn't feel like Samsa was a real person. And I also can't really believe that this is meant to be subjectively how Boulder experiences her. Like from Samsa's perspective why would she put up w her

however I do still like Boulder, Tinna and their relationship so the book does overall work for me

so frustrating to read. and difficult to review as it is both true that the concepts and the story are compelling, and that it's the most misogynistic and sexist piece of media I have ever consumed.

For the good parts, there are like 5+ different hard sci-fi concepts that are new and memorable and comprise most of the "best" parts of this book. I loved wrapping my head around these and wrestling with the scale. Plus they're introduced effortlessly and often, and I was impressed with pacing of the chapters. Looking at the table of contents I know exactly what each chapter was and that is no small feat. Finally I was surprised at how satisfyingly this was concluded!

But... Larry Niven clearly wrote this with one hand down his pants and it threatens to completely ruin the book. Teela is so horribly written that I would've preferred if this book only had men in it. I really don't know if they could've made her character worse without actually making her a child (I say _actually_ as she's constantly infantilised and referred to in childish terms). It really is truly disgusting how she is treated/characterised, and how often the book reminds you that she is his property that he fucks. And I think Louis fucks every named woman in this and also jokes that if it weren't for the woman he would rape one of the aliens instead. KILL HIM!!

And to top it all off, Louis Wu is so obviously a self-insert and is continually insufferable

Anyway... very hard to recommend. It's nice to read it at some point, but maybe put it low on your TBR

DNF, no rating

I was really excited to read this from the title alone. However from reading the introduction I found this to be very surface level in terms of engaging with the material functions of the Internet but extremely high level in the type of language that is used. The introduction was mainly interested in giving a literature review of this field of academia and very little actually introduced new ideas to me about digital networks.

I had assumed that this would be an anthology and not singularly authored, and so when I realised that the whole (short) book would be from this voice, and that none of the table of contents really stuck out to me, I decided that I would not gain much from reading this.

From my experience, the book doesn't really seem to engage with what Post-Internet would look like, which is unfortunate.

it was bound to happen at some point, my reading club read a book that I did not enjoy to say the least

as for what i liked, i found the lesbian romance that takes up the middle portion of the book to be fairly compelling and there were a couple short stories that had interesting concepts

however I found the first third (90 pages) of this to be kinda eyerollingly edgy and sometimes confusing, then we get the lesbian novella which I enjoyed, then the last third was okay but too scattershot.

Overall i just found that it was doing Too Much and not enough was developed sufficiently for me to get much from it. There were a lot of characters that seemed to be similar archetypes (or had the same voice) and i wish we collapsed some of these into the same character so that we could get more depth rather than breadth.

For further reading, I really agree with the review linked 👇

another case of a classic actually being a classic

this really surprised me and totally got me hooked. The content is also quite adult which I didn't really expect, but I guess it is suitable for 15/16 year olds

I knew the ending but not how we get there, and really well done. Also works well when you know it as there is a pretty clear mirror

Really feels like a play with the way that scenes are structured with being single rooms where people appear at the door all the time. Would love to see a play version

Le Guin is such a master

Of course this book lives up to its reputation — I want to read more about it, I want to re-read several chapters, I want to read fan-fiction about it and I want to discuss it with my book club tomorrow!

Naturally this is front loaded with hard sci-fi concepts which make the first five or so chapters quite a steep undertaking. I chose to mostly be confused, and supplementing my knowledge with quick references to Wikipedia, which was largely successful, with great help from Le Guin who continually has helping hands to make sure that you have a well-formed view. And most importantly, it is worth it as she tells not only a good story, but an entertaining one in the world that she has created.

It goes without saying that the gender stuff is compelling, and I can't be the only one who wanted more details and dynamics. It is very thought provoking and I wonder if they've ever published this with female pronouns for the Gethians? I think non-binary pronouns are "correct" but I think it's an important choice to give them binary pronouns as we are seeing them via Genly's eyes (Ais?). As an aside this must hit soo hard if you're gender fluid

Conceptually I wasn't that interested in the Hainish cycle but it's pulling me in

P.S I love the term gichy-michy so much. It doesn't sound appealing but I want it. P.P.S I had to rewrite this review bc of a Hardcover bug >:( reported it on the discord

--- spoilers ---

ougghhhh :( that ending. I need a moment... In the grand scheme of things it is a happy ending, but on the personal level it's so bittersweet. Even regardless of my feeling that it's very well done in contrasting the two, I think that it is the better ending as we're already told the result of the Ekumen <-> Gethen relationship via the prophecy half way through

read on a recommendation from Bad Gays Huw Lemmy and Ben Miller, in which they said to read it blind, this was quite an experience

Feels like reading nutritious brain rot, and as such feels unadaptable — what's fun to read doesn't mean it would be fun to watch

I really loved how refreshing this felt. No pretense of being high brow or serious, this books revels in it's irreverence. However I'm really not sure what to make of the ending, which prevents me giving it a higher rating

Would happily read another book by Ess and it has opened my eyes to more alternative types of literature

wish i read this sooner!

honestly pretty genius. Can't really believe how good this is on so many levels

Feels like it's for a queer audience, but yet the door is open for allies in a way that is very hard to pull off

I've rated so many things 4.5 recently but taking the plunge here. Also both this and The Safekeep were nominated for the Women's Prize, and maybe that's where the good stuff is?

a book club read and so not something I would've picked nor read this quickly. But I'm glad to have had the urgency of reading it as it's been nice to do so instead of reading social media

I have mixed feelings. I think the chief word that comes to mind is "indulgent". This book is mining something pretty simple — in Part 3 Ch V Jonny summarises the whole story in a sentence — for a long time and for me I didn't really get much out of this particular story.

I think for me I find it hard to give the narrator (JJ) much grace as this is a story mourning a self-professed racist (among other fascist tendencies). And sure, these things can happen, you can love people who hold upsetting views, but for me I can only really understand it in a family context. When it's romance or friendship, I do have to question your character if you can look past that, and 10x moreso if that person becomes someone who is this important to you.

I also struggle to find much I can connect with otherwise: JJ lives to party and I am not a party girl. The story isn't concerned with family, health, hobbies, etc, and I find it curious how much reference there is to classic films when this doesn't seem to be an interest of hers during the parts of her life documented. Also personally I find her desire for living in the US a bit perverse, like it's just not something I can relate to at all.

I found the quality of the prose fairly decent, if a bit overly defensive, and I can see how this could mean a lot to people who resonate more with this experience.

On a side note, I'm trying to improve my vocabulary and this book was great for that effort; I gained about 50 words.

Regardless, I am interested to hear what people have to say at the book club and I don't think it was a waste of time or anything. I'm very glad I didn't read this over 2-3 months like I would've pre this reading era

i really loved all three of our main characters and the story we're told

for me it was only after 100+ pages that i was really engaged with the story, but once i was i really enjoyed it. Also Ive been having to read a lot of another book at the same time, which gave me the rare feeling of wanting to read more of this but not being able to

I found the concept quite compelling and definitely one which would be fun to tease out with a friend or a reading group - both the ethics and the mechanics. Personally i found my opinion changing as the story went on.

Really interesting to me that they made a movie about this. Feels very soft and pensive and not exactly dramatic. I wonder if it plays out the same or if it's like insipired by this setting

-- spoilers--

kazuo ishiguro recorded some tiktoks re his books and I really want to watch the one i saw where he answers the question "why don't they run" which seems unrelated to this story to me