Friday Read
March 24
Review
Count Zero by William Gibson is the second book in the Sprawl trilogy that begins with Neuromancer. As the second book, there can be a few words said about it without spoiling the first book.
A mercenary wakes up one day beside a woman. He has no memory of what has happened before. He takes on a job where he must retrieve a microchip from a corporation.
Marly has her own mission to accomplish. The story alternates between action, and quieter moments of enjoying time at home drinking coffee or out on a hike in the woods.
There are also the crowds of the city and the demands that a city has on its denizens to fulfill roles as just one in million souls packed together and connected together by gears and wires.
Cyberspace is the imagined frontier where the movie action takes place. It seems to be a brand new place, but it is powered by language, with the promise of the cloud to store them in addition to the dusty old libraries of Tibet.
Books on the Go
The Great Believers
by Rebecca Makkai
Mango & Peppercorns:
A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and The American Dream
by Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, and Lyn Nguyen with Elisa Ung
The Magician’s Daughter
by H.G. Parry
Friday Reads
March 17
Review
Lullabies for Little Children by Heather O’Neill is a powerful story that brings to light the struggles that members of the community can experience.
Baby is 13 years old. Her mother has passed away. She lives with her father Jules who has flights of fancy, and has a drug addiction. He acts like a child in many ways and will sometimes leave Baby on her own for days on end.
Baby is taken to juvenile detention even though she is really smart. She meets Alphonse who could be her downfall.
The story is a harrowing read, that seems to get worst as it goes. It is simply told, making the book easy to follow, as well as the story to stand out in the reader’s mind.
All throughout the book, the reader is constantly reminded that the protagonist is a child, which makes it particularly horrifying, with humour sprinkled in to soften the blow.
Trigger warnings for drug use, prostitution, and sex with a minor
Books on the Go
Flood of Fire
by Amitav Ghosh
Winter’s Orbit
by Everina Maxwell
The Great Believers
by Rebecca Makkai
Friday Reads
March 10
Review
In a dark, dark wood
by Ruth Ware
It will be spring in less than two weeks. Doesn’t seem like it with the snow and cold, which makes it still a season to appreciate In a dark, dark wood by Ruth Ware. Her debut novel from 2015, around 8 years have passed since the book launched her as a mystery writer.
The book follows Leonora who travels to the countryside to stay with old friends from college to have one last get-together before one of them gets married. Told in two timelines, Leonora has woken up at the hospital after the accident and must piece together what happened, and there is the timeline of the start of the trip when she arrives at the house and gets to know friends she had not seen for 10 years.
Along with the suspense of trying to figure out who the culprit could be, the story is also about friendship, growing up and growing apart, as well as individuals forming self-identity after college in their career or family life. It was interesting to read the individual stories from the group of friends, while the author maintained the fast pace of a mystery novel.
Books on the Go
These are a few titles I have been reading this week and would like to get done soon.
The Cine Star Salon
by Leah Ranada
Queen of Thieves
by Beezy Marsh
Count Zero
by William Gibson
Friday Reads
March 3, 2023
The days pass by. Another Friday is here. I have another post this week. For a few months there, I have neglected this website. I am trying to put more effort into it and with spring drawing nearer, this seems like a good time to do it.
I have read a few pages since my last post. Still not reading as fast as I would like. I am taking it easy these days, but I do want to give reading and writing about my reading a good effort.
Since last week, I have made progress in a few books. Here are a couple of early reviews. I will definitely have more thoughts once I have completed reading these.
Little Gods
by Meng Jin
Su Lan is a scientist. She is married and has a child. One day, she and her husband are caught up in student demonstrations. He disappears, and she is left to raise her daughter by herself. She holds her own with the male physicists in her department, and leaves for a post at an American university. Her daughter grows up in the U.S. and brings her ashes back to China for burial. There is more to the story. I have read only the first 50 pages, so there is more to go.
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens
A bit of meandering story, with satire and exaggeration, it is the look at a people as change is afoot. Charles Dickens writes about the French Revolution a century later during the Industrial Revolution. What the future holds is not known, but literacy reaches more people, even as so many struggle: “It was the best of time, it was the worst of time.” Ordinary people grasped onto the promises and ideals of revolution, even when the work ahead would take longer, and will go beyond what they had dreamt that would be brought about through technological and social change. I have read 100 pages of the book and plan to keep at it.
Books I want to start this weekend:
- Queen of Thieves
by Beezy Marsh - Cine Star Salon
by Leah Ranada - Flood of Fire
by Amitav Ghosh
A new month is on the horizon as I look forward to all the books I could read. With the passage of time, I might even learn something or not.
With spring approaching, there is hope that it will be a better year.
- The Fire Next Time
by James Baldwin - Emergency Contact
by Mary H.K. Choi - The Darkest Part of the Forest
by Holly Black - The Great Believers
by Rebecca Makkai - Song of Batoche
by Maia Caron - Murder on the Orient Express
by Agatha Christie - Queen of Thieves
by Beezy Marsh - The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri - Flood of Fire
by Amitav Ghosh - A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens