Imi

This book is about the aftermath of a horrific crime, decades later. The two very different perspectives were incredibly powerful (although, Shawn, you just more in everything... Life, this book, the world...). I really don't want to say anything about the plot or give anything else away, so for now I'll just this a book that absolutely should be read today, in this present moment.

Historical fiction at its finest! I had never heard of Laura Bridgman or the Perkin's Deaf and Blind Institute, so this was a fantastic education in the history. I really appreciated Elkins' afterword in which she explains exactly what was historical fact and what she herself imagined to be possible. She did an incredible job and this must have required a huge amount of research. Every character is complex and multifaceted. The historical context is clearly demonstrated (good for me, because my knowledge of 19th century America is not particularly in depth) and the plot itself is well-paced and absorbing. Highly recommended!

Just as with [b:The Architect's Apprentice 22571629 The Architect's Apprentice Elif Shafak https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404484149l/22571629.SY75.jpg 27226028], I am so impressed by how Shafak masterfully captures a true sense of place in Istanbul. This novel is completely different, however, about minorities and misfit in (more) modern-day Istanbul. I loved Leila, the protagonist, as a character, how she dealt with what life threw at her, and how she interacted with other people she meets. Part One was much stronger (and unique) in my opinion than the rest of the book, which completely changes the tone and turns into a strange adventure romp. However, it was nice to get to know Leila's five friends better and their own interesting stories. Shafak is probably my favourite author that I've discovered this year and I cannot wait to return to her writing.

An enjoyable and clearly explained introduction this this fascinating topic. Aimed at both the lay- scientist/psychologist and musician, Levitin aims to explain how both this very technical topics are linked in a way anyone can follow. I have musical background, but am not hugely knowledgeable about the technicalities, and am most definitely not a scientist, despite having a keen interest in neuroscience. This book was really well done, and avoided being too complex, without being oversimplified.

I grew tired of this pretty quickly. The back-and-forth between myth, fantasy, and “reality” was tedious. It felt overly indulgent and chaotic; as if Haddon was trying to explore as much as possible in this fictional realm, which had been adapted from a Shakespeare play, which had been adapted from a Greek myth. So fiction within fiction within fiction. And the result. A mess. My biggest disappointment was in all the characters. If there had been one character that felt more than a blank slate, a caricature, then perhaps I could have enjoyed this more. But out of the many, many characters introduced, their thoughts were so scattered, their “deep” and profound emotions felt fake and overly explained, nothing about them felt true. It's feel like Haddon was trying to write something “different”. I can't help but feel what I've just read was more of a writing exercise, an experiment, than a complete work of fiction in its own right.

Fantastic! Follows two couples, one black and one mixed-race, in London, 2008. The sense of time was spot on, perfect, and the book explores many problems of modern-day life: romances that fade over time, parenthood, careers, and envy between friends. One chapter (without giving it away!), towards the end, turns this day-to-day drama on end, and is almost surreal. It was fantastic, and I think represents how easily the normal can start to feel wrong, unnatural. Not the most uplifting book; these are characters who are not happy with their lot in life. You know, it seems to me the longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction Winners in 2019 was a particularly strong one. I've enjoyed all of the ones I've read so far.

Rating and giving this a read date, because today I “finished” working through the whole book (woohoo!), but obviously I'm not really “done” with it and will continue to refer back to it.

Anyway, this was fantastic and I can highly recommend it to anyone else looking for a good beginner resource. I had already learnt Hanguel and a few basic phrases before picking this up, but the opening chapters on Hanguel and sound changing cleared up so much that had been confusing. Very well presented and easy to follow, and the audio for these chapters at least really helped.

After this, each chapter focuses on a conversation or 2, introducing a couple new grammatical structures. At first, I was a bit concerned about Billy's decision to start with the formal -니다/-니까 conjugation, but by the end of the book, it became clear why he'd made this decision, and now I wonder why more beginner resources don't do it this way. I was surprised how quickly Billy introduced many, many grammatical constructions. This book is fast paced, I'd say, but not overwhelming, thanks to the extremely clear examples and explanations. Having said, you should take Billy's initial advice to take your time and not blast through all the chapters. You should make sure each new concept is clear and fully understood before moving in, even if that means doing the chapters in bit. There's nothing wrong with taking it slower!

Each chapter is then followed by practice questions. It was the perfect amount to solidify what was covered, in my opinion, although now I'm very aware I need to get writing and practising what I've learnt!

My few very, very minor complaints:

1. The audio could be better. There's not a lot of it, and some of it sounds unnaturally slow. I know we, as beginners, can't be expected to follow natural Korean at full speed, but I wonder how helpful doing it quite this slow really is. I think the audio was more to demonstrate the grammar than anything else, and now I've finished this textbook, I plan to use other sources for beginner listening practice.

2. I hate, hate, long lists of vocabulary without context. Some of the vocab was used in the example sentences, but not a lot of it, honestly. Memorising long lists of words never works for me, and I'm more likely to confuse words if I try to do it this week. So like with the audio, I now plan to look elsewhere for sources on vocabulary plus reading practice.

In summary, for grammar this could not be any better! Super! Easy to follow explanations and I can't really criticise how the grammar was presented at all. Although the vocabulary and listening aspects could have been better, I think multiple sources are always better anyway. I've got some sources lined up for that now, and I'll be back for Book 2, when I'm ready for more grammar!

I really enjoyed this. The book is made by its heroine, Ana, and her fantastic voice.

Aged only 15 years old, Ana is married to a man over twice her age. As her home, the Dominican Republic, is thrown into chaos, she is moved to New York, where she is alone, cannot speak the language, and is unable to choose how she spends her days. It's a difficult, heavy read at times. But Ana is full of spark and easy to cheer for, which makes the read a whole lot more enjoyable. I had to remind myself just how young she was, so many times.

Our narrator has complicated family background. His family are from Vietnam, but he himself grows up in America, his childhood overshadowed by the consequences of war. Some parts feel over-written (I feel this is common for poets trying out prose), but on the whole it's fabulous, especially for those of us who love stream-of-consciousness novels. The first was stronger for me than the second. I'm not sure why it slightly lost its magic for me, as it's not a long book, but maybe it was just down to my mood.

A mesmerising, beautifully detailed and simply magical book! As Shafak herself admits in the author's notes, she clearly has taken liberties with the chronology of historical events, and what she creates is a story that is a marvelous mix of fact and fiction. Ottoman Istanbul is beautifully realised, and the endless adventures of Jahan the mahout, elephant tamer, and architect's apprentice, kept me guessing and wondering what was around the corner. All the characters are strong, even Chota the elephant, who is endearing beyond measure. I cried, smiled, laughed throughout, and wouldn't change a thing. Thank you, Shafak, for such a delightful historical novel!

3.5 stars. This wasn't quite what I had been expecting, and I think some of my disappointment stems from that. I was hoping for an exploration of Russian musical history. Roberts admits she is not musical herself and honestly her purpose, to find lost pianos in Siberia, is easy to forget about at times. Although there are a few interesting musical stories, I found Roberts' writing much more engaging when she was writing about nature. As a wildlife journalist, who's original reason for travelling to Russia was to find tigers, she perhaps would have been more comfortable with that as a topic? It was an entertaining travel memoir, just not as musical as I was hoping it would be.

[b:Reasons to Stay Alive 23363874 Reasons to Stay Alive Matt Haig https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1418674667l/23363874.SX50.jpg 42923140] was more a memoir, the story of Matt Haig's breakdown, while this follow up is more self-help, exploring what it means to be human in this modern world and to cope with the negative aspects of technological “progress”. It was interesting to read this book at this present time; I don't think I'm alone in being more reliant than ever on technology. On the one hand, boy, am I grateful we have it (imagine experiencing this pandemic even 10 or 20 years ago...), but there are still days where it just doesn't feel right, natural, and I have to fight the urge not to throw all my devices out the window.Back to the book. Haig's style is engaging as ever. He uses the same short, creative chapters as in Reasons to Stay Alive, so this is a quick and easy read. I hope he continues to write non-fiction, as well as fiction. I'll most definitely read it!

I could be a ghost, I thought. One of those lingering souls that people just live with and skirt around, as long as it doesn't do them any harm.

“Comfort women.” What an appalling, downright offensive way to describe what these women were put through during the Japanese occupation of Singapore in WWII. This book is brutal, endlessly sad, but Jing-Jing Lee handles both the horror and terror of the events, as well as the aftermath, very well indeed. Wang Di lives her life in silence, numbed by a culture of silence and shame. Her return home, to her family, is a continuation of her ordeal, rather than the end of it. Heartbreaking.

This is another novel, which a structure involving multiple perspectives and timelines. The war timeline is most definitely the heart of the novel, the most powerful, and also the most horrific, but honestly I appreciated the 2000 timeline, narrated by a young boy, even if just for the relief and time to breath. I also loved how these parts came together at the end. The silenced finally finding their words.

I'm pretty sure that everyone in the class must know about my dad too, but not one person has ever asked me about him, so I've never talked about him to anyone. As I'm walking with Tutti I start to feel like talking about all that, I don't know why. There doesn't feel like there's all that much to say, and yet I still want to say something about it. But what does talking about it mean exactly, and what should I start by asking, and would the conversation go something like you don't have a mum, right? and then that would be the end, so really it'd make no difference whether we talked about it or not, and this is what I'm thinking, and in the end I realize we've arrived at the vending machine with- out me ever managing to say anything.

This sweet, little novella completely stole my heart! It's a stream-of-conciousness of a young boy, mostly about his innocent crush on a woman who sells sandwiches as a counter of the local supermarket. There's also his thoughts on how he feels slightly neglected by his constantly-phone-facing, single mum, the worry that his ill grandmother will soon leave them, and what his school friends possibly think of him. His voice is incredibly strong, full of innocence and insecurity. Note perfect, loved every second of it.

I'm disappointed because this started so strongly! Unfortunately, it felt overly long and too descriptive for my tastes. I was interested in the moral dilemmas brought up and the insight a dark side of Israeli life, but it was very repetitive and over done in the middle... followed by a sudden increase in pace (and violence) at the very end.

I went into this with fairly low expectations, seeing as it's been so polarising among my GR friends and I really didn't think I was the target reader in any way. I'm not a huge fan of traditional romance books; even with books that aren't of that genre, if the plot drifts too far into romance, I'm often left feeling frustrated. So why would I enjoy reading a book about an on-off relationship, about two people who are incapable of communicating properly, who never take a moment to ask what the other is thinking? I think I liked that this wasn't a traditional “love story”. I found Marianne and Connell's relationship much more interesting than in a lot of romances I've read. Real life is messing, people are flawed, and I think Rooney did a great job of putting that across. I really liked Rooney's restrained writing style (although I could have done with the quotation marks...what's wrong with quotation marks?). Personally, I think the beginning and middle thirds were the strongest, and I was a bit disappointed in the dark turn in Marianne's story. Connell's story, though, made a lot of sense considering his circumstances and I sympathised with him deeply. I'm excited to watch the TV series now, which I've actually heard better things about than with the book. And of course, I must go back and read Rooney's debut.

Hmmm... My feelings about this book flipped-flopped so frequently that I'm left feeling rather confused. It took me until towards the very end of its 500+ pages to finally grasp what on earth was going on with the narrative structure. Very, very loosely linked stories, each with a different protagonist. And it just feels so unnecessary. I can say without a shadow of a doubt, every single reader will prefer some of the stories over the others, simply because they are all so different. The voice, style, and even genre shift for each one, and because each of them is (quite honestly) overly wordy and long, if you find yourself in the middle of a story that you evidently don't like as much, then the whole book becomes a drag. I personally loved Robert Frobisher and Sonmi~451's stories, followed by Luisa Rey's, but you know what? I'd have liked to have read a novel about Robert Frobisher and then a novel about Sonmi~451 and then a novel about Luisa Rey...not whatever this was meant to be with its vague, nonsensical linking. And the other 3 stories didn't grab me in at all the same way...which is half of the book! Fairly disappointed in this as my first David Mitchell.

"Dogs are emotionally and mentally wired to live in the eternal present with no sense of the future. So they experienced loss as a sustained forlorn waiting rather than a permanent absence. Basically, they never quite give up on the idea that the person might return."

The book I needed right now. I really didn't know what to expect when picking up, despite loving Emily's podcast (she interviews celebrities while on a dog walk...killer concept!), but my mum (who I share a Kindle library with but tears through books at a scarily fast rate...especially now, during lockdown!) insisted it was well worth reading. It's all there in the title, but how Emily honestly shares her family's dynamics and differences, then retells what she was put through in just a couple of years... My heart broke for her! And of course her observations about dogs are wise and 100% accurate, and I am not in any way biased. My dog definitely has “Shih Tzu Syndrome” and he's not even a Shih Tzu (he's a Lhasa Apso, basically the Tibetan variant of the Shih Tzu, so close enough!).

The power of nationalism is that it calls to the part of us that doesn't want to accept being ordinary. It tells people that they are descended from greatness, that they have been genetically endowed with something special, something passed down to them over the generations. It attaches them to origin stories that have existed for hundreds of years, soaking into their subconscious, obscuring truth...

Simply outstanding. [b:Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story|31869108|Inferior How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story|Angela Saini|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1483642947l/31869108.SY75.jpg|52540217] was also fantastic, but I think Saini has outdone herself here!

This is, above all, a journalist's exploration on what is happening right now. “Race science” never left, it was never gone, but it is having a resurgence today. Maybe most (some?) scientists have good intentions, but the language they use, the beliefs and biases they bring to their research, all of it has real-life consequences. This is what happens when researchers have already made their conclusions (through an upbringing full of society's social conditioning to believe that some races are inferior to others) before they have the evidence.

‘If you see the genetic markers today that are found in western Europe, people will see those in the past and continue referring to them as western European, even if they're then also found in Siberia.' It's another example of an ‘indexing problem', when the first available body of evidence influences subsequent thinking. Western researchers tend to have more access to European data because it's on their doorstep, so later discoveries elsewhere in the world are often interpreted relative to these.

...Americans cling to the idea of black exceptionalism when it comes to health may be that, in some way, the idea lets society off the hook. It places the blame for inequality at the foot of biology. If poor health today is intrinsic to black bodies and nothing to do with racism, it's no one's fault. ‘It says it's not our organisation of society that's somehow unfair or unjust or discriminatory. It's not that we treat people badly. It's not that we give people worse life chances,' he says. ‘It's just that these people have some genetic defect and it's just the way they are.'

This style of novel really doesn't work for me, personally. The disorganised, chaotic, and very and very short snatches of dialogue. It only makes me disconnected to both character and plot. This style reminded me of [b:Lincoln in the Bardo 29906980 Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492130850l/29906980.SX50.jpg 50281866], another novel many loved but I just couldn't.

I think I'm decided on 2.5 stars now, but this book is exceedingly difficult to rate. 

On the one hand, the science of neuroplasticity, the idea that the brain can change and adapt throughout its lifetime, is fascinating stuff. I really can't put into words how much this scientific theory thrills me. It also, in many ways, makes so much sense; the discussions on adult language learning, in particular, felt much closer to reality, than the conventional belief that the brain is only capable of fully adapting to an unfamiliar language as a child: 

Competitive plasticity in adults even explains some of our limitations. Think of the difficulty most adults have in learning a second language. The conventional view now is that the difficulty arises because the critical period for language learning has ended, leaving us with a brain too rigid to change its structure on a large scale. But the discovery of competitive plasticity suggests there is more to it. As we age, the more we use our native language, the more it comes to dominate our linguistic map space. Thus it is also because our brain is plastic—and because plasticity is competitive—that it is so hard to learn a new language and end the tyranny of the mother tongue. But why, if this is true, is it easier to learn a second language when we are young? Is there not competition then too? Not really. If two languages are learned at the same time, during the critical period, both get a foothold. Brain scans, says Merzenich, show that in a bilingual child all the sounds of its two languages share a single large map, a library of sounds from both languages.

But as phantoms show, we don't need a body part or even pain receptors to feel pain. We need only a body image, produced by our brain maps. People with actual limbs don't usually realize this, because the body images of our limbs are perfectly projected onto our actual limbs, making it impossible to distinguish our body image from our body. “Your own body is a phantom,” says Ramachandran, “one that your brain has constructed purely for convenience.”

The mystery aspects of this novel seemed so minor initially that I was really surprised by the ending. The final few chapters were a rollercoaster! More twists than the average crime thriller... What had befallen characters in the past (and how who was connected to who) were easy to work out, but what actually took place in the present of the plot... Yes, I didn't see that coming! And it was pretty nerve inducing, I'll say.

Before this dramatic conclusion, The Lie of the Land feels like a mostly character driven novel, with a fantastic cast of secondary characters, alongside the focus on the Bredins, a dysfunctional family unable to afford a divorce after the 2008 financial crash. The Bredins make the much disputed decision to move from London to middle-of-nowhere Devon. The book follows Lottie is easy to sympathise with, while her soon-to-be ex-husband Quentin is much harder to like. Lottie's eighteen year old son Xan is also very well realised and believable as a teenager.

The novel pivots on the urban/rural devide, issues of class, betrayal and cruelty. It feels very genuine as a work of fiction centered in contemporary Britain.

There are perhaps one to many subplots going, but I loved Sally, a health worker and visitor in this rural, deprived area. Her personal struggles and professional life were fascinating and heartbreaking, and I think she could have had a whole book to herself.

I loved Craig's acknowledgements at the end, especially the author's point that the fictional family in no way resemble her own real family! It's funny that she had to say that. It's also interesting that Craig apparently brings characters from past novels back in newer works. This is the first book I've read by her (and definitely won't be the last!) and so it'll be interesting to see who reappears as I read more. 

I listened to the abridged extracts from this book as broadcast on BBC Radio 4's ‘Book of the Week.' These were five 15 minute episodes, read by the authors themselves. After the first absolutely brilliant first episode, I found myself thinking that if the rest of episodes were this good, I'd probably have to buy the book and read it in full!

The first episode was created, apparently, from extracts from the essays ‘It's Always a Race Thing with Her', and ‘Lawyer, Doctor, Engineer'. This episode begins with a discussion on the double standards black women face today. They are told to “work twice as hard to be considered half as good.” The rest of this episode goes into more detail on how this manifests in education, and includes an interview with a researcher on the topic, as well as an account from Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock (a science TV presenter, for those who don't know), who I absolutely LOVE, so I have to admit I squealed with delight that she was included.

The next two episodes discuss the racist and discriminatory cultures that exists at universities, in the workplace, and in the media and popular culture. One example given is the discrimination and abuse faced by the first black female MP in the UK, Dianne Abbott, who anyone who follows British politics will know has been treated appallingly by the British media and beyond. Episode 4 explains how the internet has been a mixed blessing to minorities. On the one hand, the internet has made it easier find information and others like you, helping many to realise they are less alone than they grew up believing. However, the internet also allows racism and discrimination to flourish, largely unchallenged. In episode 5, Yomi Adegoke shares her own story of mental illness. She talks about the links between racism and sexism with mental illness due to the shame that is often left unspoken and internalised.

What I heard here was fantastic, and I am now convinced I need to track the book down and read it in full. I will leave it unrated and marked as DNF until then. Although, it appears the book has been written with a mainly black, British and female audience in mind, I (as a white, British woman) feel that this book should be read by many others than just this one group. If we want change, then we all need to take responsibility for it.

Higashino is apparently Japan's most-read crime mystery writer, and it is easy to see why. I was able to really lose myself in this mystery. It's a masterful howdunnit (rather than a whodunnit, as we already know who and why). This reminds me why I keep coming back to the genre, even when it can have so many duds. Recommended to crime thriller lovers!

So I buy so many (e-)books that quite frequently, by the time I finally get to an unread book, I'll have completely forgotten why I bought it and even what the book was about. Sometimes, when I can't decide what to read next, I'll look up a few blurbs here on Goodreads to be reminded. Sometimes, I don't. I'll just open up a book on my Kindle and start reading. I did that this time and eventually it clicked what this book is actually about (a virus epidemic in one small town)... Oh, I went, and very nearly catapulted my Kindle across the room. But I didn't, because the start of the book had intrigued me enough to keep going. I think I'm already at the “acceptance” stage of processing what's going on globally right now. If I started this book even a week earlier, I probably wouldn't have read it. But as it is, this fictional and still far-removed from reality did not send me into a spiral. Would I recommend anyone else pick it up right now? Probably not. Nonetheless, this was a good read, although maybe it had potential that wasn't fully realised. I was a bit disappointed that some intriguing glimpses into characters and their backgrounds were left unexplored and undeveloped. Some of the stories the author decided to focus on didn't seem as compelling. I also thought the ending was fairly abrupt (I could only wish events would end so abruptly in our own reality....) and (very slight spoiler without reference to any character names) Spoilerone character death had been foreshadowed so clumsily right from the start that I had roll my eyes...while trying to fight back tears as well. I also felt the town itself felt fairly unrealised and hazy. Maybe, that was put, as it was pulled under a “sleeping” epidemic along with its residents. I feel like I'm just picking more holes the more I write, but this was not a bad book, just one I felt a little underdeveloped in places.