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Dtr's 2014 Booklist


dtrpath27

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I just got back from a book sale and am quite happy with my finds!  Between the two of us, we got 13 books (several hardbacks) for only $19.00!

 

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

A Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - I was quite excited about this one as it was hardback, brand new, and one I've been wanting to read!

The Marioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki

The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons by Goli Taraghi - a collection of short stories by an Iranian author

Three different Alex Rider books by Anthony Horowitz

The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde

Three dystopian novels

One random German history book

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys - no relation to Fifty Shades...

 

Not bad for less than twenty dollars!

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Have you seen the movie on the beach? I saw it when I was young, left an impact on me at the time.

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We thought so!  :D I was even more pleased that we stayed within the limit we set for ourselves.  Charity book sales can be a dangerous thing!

 

Funny thing, though, while there we started chatting with the nicest woman over Jasper Fforde books.  She was Pontalba's doppelganger!  I couldn't believe how striking the similarity was.

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LOL, wish I could have been there!   You managed a great haul though, congratulations! :)

 

We didn't make it over there........ this is the second year in a row I've been sidelined for that darned sale! 

 

I saw the film of On the Beach many, many years ago and loved it.  I'm thinking of finding it again.  I'll try our library, but they have such a punk selection I don't have very high hopes.

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Thanks!  That's too bad you didn't make it; you would've gotten to meet your twin.  ;)  My dearest didn't get to go either; he was rather disappointed.  JPL is having a sale in a few weeks, so hopefully he'll get to go to that.

 

Eastbank doesn't have the movie, but it looks like Westbank does, so I'm going to request it.  Will your library do an inter-library loan for you, or is it too far?  (After I've watched it of course! :) )

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March 2014

Lexicon by Max Barry

 

Publishing Information:  ©2013 by Penguin Press

Pages:  387

Genre: Fictional thriller

Setting:  Very near future

 

Part of Amazon Synopsis:  At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren’t taught history, geography, or mathematics—they are taught to persuade. Students learn to use language to manipulate minds, wielding words as weapons. The very best graduate as “poets,” and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose...A brilliant thriller that traverses very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data-collection, connecting them to centuries-old ideas about the power of language and coercion, Lexicon is Max Barry’s most ambitious and spellbinding novel yet.

 

 

 

 

Impressions:  I tried to read this book before, but couldn't get past the first chapter.  I'm really glad I gave it a second chance and made it through this time.  The book was a bit grittier than I usually read, but I (surprisingly) rather liked that about it.  Definitely creative and more than a bit unsettling, I would definitely recommend it.  My dearest and I don't often agree on books, but this is one we both enjoyed.

Edited by dtrpath27
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Great review of 'On the Beach' dtrpath, its one book I have always wanted to read. :)

 

 

Oh, yeah, come on over, the thread's open!  :D

 

 

Thanks!  That's too bad you didn't make it; you would've gotten to meet your twin.   ;)  My dearest didn't get to go either; he was rather disappointed.  JPL is having a sale in a few weeks, so hopefully he'll get to go to that.

 

Eastbank doesn't have the movie, but it looks like Westbank does, so I'm going to request it.  Will your library do an inter-library loan for you, or is it too far?  (After I've watched it of course! :) )

 

Hey, thanks!  I don't know.  I'll ask if they'll do it.  Different Parish, but they might.  Today was my first day out.  :)  But didn't get to the library.  I'll check online. 

 

You know, it's really weird your saying that about my doppelganger.....many er, decades ago, several people told me that they saw a woman that looked like me Downtown.  I worked down there for many years, but never ran into her myself.  Man, that'd be 'stranger than fiction'.  :cat:

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When I tried to reply this morning, I must have hit a wonky key or something, my curser disappeared, and I had to power down...then we had to go out. 

Anyhow, was sayin'.....I'll pick up the DVD, but husband wants to finish the book first, so it will be a bit.

Plus, I forgot to stop at the library on the way home.  :blush2:

 

There are two versions, btw.  I'm getting the original, Gregory Peck  and Ava Gardner version. 

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April 2014

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

 

Publishing Information: ©2014 by Algonquin

Pages: 273

Genre:  Fiction

Setting:  Present day in a bookstore on Alice Island

 

Synopsis:  Biding his time in a failing business and a failing life, bookstore proprietor A.J. Fikry is far from living the life he had planned.  All of this changes one night when something unexpected is left in the aisle of his bookstore.

 

Impressions:  Okay, it sounds so clichéed, but really it wasn't.  I admit, I'm such a sucker for books about books, but this one was done in a different way.  I liked reading how books were the thing that sort of tied everyone together.  To quote the book,  "We read to know we're not alone, we read because we are alone, we read and we are not alone, we are not alone."

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April 2014 - Short Story

The Gentleman Thief by Goli Taraghi

 

Publishing Information: ©2010, anthology ©2013 by Norton

Pages: 32

Genre:  Fiction

Setting:  Iran

 

Synopsis:  The Gentleman Thief tells the tale of a once-wealthy family living in Iran during the early days of the revolution.  With lives already turned upside down by social and political upheaval, the family is sent into further confusion by the unwelcome visit of a surprisingly gentlemanly thief.  This one evening serves as the catalyst for a chain of events that will change the family forever.

 

Impressions:  Translated from Persian, this story offers a perspective I haven't really read much about -- that of an Iranian family.  It was amusing, poignant, thought-provoking -- in short, a very many things for a very little story to be!  It's part of a collection of her stories that I picked up at a book sale for $1.50.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

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This is the first I've read by her.  I'd like to try another.  Do you have any suggestions?

x

I've read Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (loved it), Elsewhere (loved it too) and Margarettown (liked it but not as much as the first two. So I would suggest one of the first two. I think perhaps you'd particularly like Elsewhere, there's a lot of thought to the themes of the book. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a Young-Adult book but is also very good (in my opinion).

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Thanks so much for taking the time to recommend things!  When I first saw her headshot, I thought she looked so young -- maybe late teens or early twenties.  I was surprised to read that she's 37.  Still young, but not quite as young as I'd thought.

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Current TBR

My TBR is constantly changing as I usually read several books at once, put some aside, forget about others...

 

In Progress

A Tale of Two Cities

A Town Like Alice

The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons

 

Waiting Patiently on My Nightstand

An Old Betrayal by Charles Finch

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichiro (have a nagging feeling that I read this in college, but it's not on my shelf...)

Snow Falling on Cedars (Also pretty sure I used to own this)

Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

 

Wishlist (Where did my Amazon budget go this month?)

Brilliance by Marcus Sakey

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevkin

 

That's not so bad, right?  I try to keep it reasonable or else the list will take on a life of its own.

Edited by dtrpath27
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