{"id":3918,"date":"2024-04-30T18:49:52","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T22:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/?p=3918"},"modified":"2024-05-26T17:25:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-26T21:25:05","slug":"april-2024-books-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/2024\/04\/april-2024-books-read\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2024 books read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Birnam Wood<\/em> &#8211; Eleanor Catton, 2023. I picked this up again, less than a year after I first read it, because I enjoyed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/04\/28\/books\/review\/eleanor-catton-on-birnam-wood.html\"><em>NYT Book Review<\/em> podcast interview<\/a>. It&#8217;s so good, and knowing the shocking ending helped make more sense of it this time. The thriller plot combined with psychological acuity is remarkable, and I find the New Zealand setting fascinating.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Quiet American<\/em> &#8211; Graham Greene, 1955. Second Monday choice &#8211; I missed the discussion but read it anyway. Quotes pulled, TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transformed New England<\/em> &#8211; Stephen Long, 2016. Nature and Environment; quotes pulled, TBD. This also counted for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.massbook.org\/readingchallenge\">Massachusetts Center for the Book challenge<\/a>, &#8220;A book about nature, the environment, or climate change.&#8221; I wrote &#8220;A wide-ranging investigation about the effect of the hurricane on forests and timber, with effects lasting to the present day.&#8221; <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Citizen of the Galaxy<\/em> &#8211; Robert Heinlein, 1957. I re-read this for the umpteenth time, prompted by something but I don&#8217;t remember what. The more I love a book, the more random incidents or thoughts will remind me of it and make me want to go back. My ability to re-read brings me a lot of pleasure! <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Nine Things I&#8217;ve Learned about Life<\/em> &#8211; Harold Kushner, 2015. We visited my mother-in-law for the eclipse and during our ample downtime on 4\/8 I read the whole thing. I&#8217;ve enjoyed the other Kushners I&#8217;ve read as well. He&#8217;s the exemplar of why I find Judaism attractive despite being an atheist.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading<\/em> &#8211; Francis Spufford, 2002. One of the best books-about-books I&#8217;ve ever read. I need to buy myself a copy and read it again. I added <em>Land under England<\/em> by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_O%27Neill_(writer,_born_1886)\">Joseph O&#8217;Neill<\/a> (Spufford credits it with part of the plot of Lewis&#8217; <em>The Silver Chair<\/em>), <em>Marianne Dreams<\/em> by Catherine Storr, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Into_a_Strange_Lost_World\"><em>The Perilous Descent<\/em><\/a> by Bruce Carter to my TBR-someday list.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Crime and Punishment<\/em> &#8211; Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866. Great Books group finally got me to read this! Kinda hated it. Quotes pulled, TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Elevation<\/em> &#8211; Stephen King, 2018. I like King&#8217;s short books and it features running, hurray! But it&#8217;s sloppy, like a lot of his work. For example, people look at the protagonist and say &#8220;<em>you&#8217;re<\/em> doing a 5K?&#8221; You really can&#8217;t tell by looking who&#8217;s a speed demon and who&#8217;s back of the pack like me; a 5K is not a big deal; so many folks run that it wouldn&#8217;t be that notable; and that was just one of the false notes. Did not love.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Girl with All the Gifts<\/em> &#8211; M.R. Carey, 2018. A wonderful exemplar of SF where you&#8217;re in the head of the protagonist and slowly realize things-are-not-as-they-seem (see <em>Under the Root<\/em>, <em>Never Let Me Go<\/em>). I very much enjoyed it and see there&#8217;s a sequel, <em>The Boy on the Bridge<\/em>. TBR!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Les sept boules de cristal<\/em> and <em>Le temple du soleil<\/em> &#8211; Herg\u00e9, 1948. I&#8217;ve read these multiple times &#8211; <em>Seven Crystal Balls<\/em> a few, <em>Temple of the Sun<\/em> many times &#8211; and they still hold up because the art is so striking. The eclipse prompted me to revisit <em>TotS<\/em> but <em>7 Balls<\/em> is the prequel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly-lists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4017,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions\/4017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}