Eva
Amazed once again by Kim Stanley Robinson. The books in this trilogy are so long, I catch myself drifting in and out of focus while listening. But that even seems okay as the plot shifts in intensity, giving you a tapestry of the ecological and governmental developments over a next half century.
Yet again, this is deliciously equal parts science and sociology, the creation and controlled management of systems of atmospheres and people. While Mars undergoes a potential phase change so does its population as they argue, organise and revolutionise their way towards a Martian independence from Earth. Yet what independence to choose?
Very entertaining cheeky romp featuring time travel, Victorian gentlemen, found family, cross-century teasing, and the most charming English dialects from previous and future centuries. Could have done without some of the typical time travel tropes that come in at the end, but all in all this was fun!
A book about how we fit in with others, and how the facades we put up protect and yet also feed our anxieties. It's about how we never escape class differences or family histories. It's about the abilities or inabilities to read other people, and to communicate with each other. It's another tale about this new generation (the Sally Rooney generation?) that's too much in their own head while crippled by world anxieties. I liked how the story communicates a place and a culture. You can recognise Sweden and their people. I also liked how the characters changed locations and countries, in order to change themselves. I appreciated how it left a lot up for speculation. Leaves you with questions. Maybe too much so for Hugo though. I wonder if i would go back to the first part, the future, if I would find there some answers for his rather blank interior in the past. The writing also had a few sentences where it felt it was trying too hard.I loved that conversation in the end, about how when you enter a new culture, the people around you came up on different literature and don't even know those works considered classics in your own very small language corner. (I guess I have to check out [a:Cora Sandel 123374 Cora Sandel https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1337059183p2/123374.jpg]'s Alberta Trilogy!)
Une linguiste islandaise est en train de changer sa vie. Pour compenser son empreinte carbone, elle doit planter des milliers d'arbes. Elle trouve un terrain apparemment inhospitalier, elle l'achat a une ecrivaine de polar, et commence a planter ses rangees de bouleaux, suivant les conseils du meilleur ami de son pere qui est forestier. Elle quitte meme Reykjavik et son ancien travail et s'installe sur sa nouvelle terre. Elle rencontre les habitants de son nouvelle village, son voisin qui est eleveur de moutons, le gerant de la friperie, et un jeune immigre en train d'apprendre l'islandais. Pas a pas elle construit sa nouvelle vie, qui ressemble parfois a une evasion et parfois a un paradis paisible.
J'ai beaucoup aime, et je dois continuer a explorer davantage les oeuvres d'Olafsdottir.
Je suis toujours intrigue lorsque la traduction d'un livre apparait d'abord dans d'autres langues que l'anglais. Il parle d'une variete de popularite d'ecrivains dans differentes cultures, ce que je trouve fascinant.
Not denying that I was tempted by this novel after enjoying a rewatch of the Netflix show The Diplomat. And while this was not an as-high-stakes thriller, I was equally entertained and enjoyed it for its pragmatic view on the field and the writing's quiet humor. Not to say that there weren't stakes in this. It was very good at portraying the smaller yet equally devastating events at a very human scale, that fall to the hands of diplomats to smooth over in order to maintain the fine balance between nation states. And the imprints those can leave on even the most pragmatic souls. Fricke also did a great job in keeping certain character and plot points close, so you got to connect your own dots after the reveals.
This is not the book to read if you're worried about the power consumption of endless A.I., or fear that billions of people might lose their job to the new machine overlords. This is an excellent book to read if you want a pragmatic take on how A.I. can become a useful tool to support and improve work and education.
I absorbed this book pretty much in one sitting. It combines my love of chess and chess stories with my love of (female) stories of dedication to a skill. And it's masterfully written, and pulls you right along, like a thriller. Like a smart chess game, i felt the novel set plot traps along the way, that felt like the moves a typical story would take, yet like a smart player the novel parried them and confidentely headed towards the endgame.
Adding this to my favorites now.
A space opera about military and diplomatic complications, centered on two characters from opposing parties, who happen to be the sanest people in the room. This started out fun, lots of wry humor, and a general old-school feel to it (a yes, women! as captains! of spaceships!). But then the plot tapered off a bit in the second half.
An interesting and sometimes cheeky chamber play about war negotiations between two races that are nearly identical, with the exception of skin hair and cultural norms surrounding reproduction and sexuality. Despite each of them having achieved highly technological achievements, both seem to have a hard time understanding and accepting their differences.
Four decades of psychedelic science research in the US. This book has a lot of names and a lot of history. We all know how it ends, with Leary, Lilly, dolphins and a whole research branch falling out of grace. But what I was less familiar with was the beginning, and the involvement of two great anthropologists in it - Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Foremost Mead's vision of taking her insights from anthropology and using psychedelic drugs as a short cut for altering our consciousness and world views towards a more peaceful togetherness.
It feels a bit like society has come full circle, as we're again on the brink of probing the potentials of psychedelics. Maybe this time with fewer lofty goals, less tripping and more safeguards.
A double mystery story about two siblings who went missing, 15 years apart. This was a good yarn, told from multiple perspectives, keeping you on your toes. But the author made some choices towards the end that felt too manipulative, guiding your suspicions one way before snapping them 180 degrees right after. Still, pretty entertaining, even if a tad bit too long maybe.
Une autobiographie difficile dans laquelle l'autrice raconte comment elle a ete preparee et exploitee sexuellement pendant son adolescense par un auteur celebre de plusieurs decennies son aine. Le livre accuse evidemment G. Matzneff de ses delits, mais met egalement en examen l'establishment litteraire francaise pour son soutien continu aux exploits tres connus de l'auteur.
Cela etait tres bien fait et je suis heureux d'entendre que cela a provoque de nombreuses repercussions sur la scene literraire en France.
I thought I'd give it a try getting in at the ground floor for the next James S.A. Corey saga, considering I am a big fan of The Expanse show (and a slow reader of some of the novels). But I am not really into multi-novel scifi sagas, and reading The Mercy of Gods just made that clear to me. It reads like a long prologue. And it didn't hook me enough to be curious about the second. It clearly doesn't have the emotional stakes The Expanse saga had, with its closeness to Earth.
This one is more of a intergalactic zoo setup, and while I enjoyed the world building, the slowness with which some of the plot enfolded, made me rather nitpicky about the setup (It's normal for science results to be replicated in multiple labs, why did they all act like that was such a problem? How are they all able to breathe the same air? How can they perfectly replicate laboratory equipment, while failing to replicate shower and doors?).
And hey, guess what, at the end it's a ragtag team of ~4 guys and 1 girl. Sounds familiar?
I had to binge through this as I started dangerously close to the library's return date, but this was perfect entertainment, and such a blast to listen to. With Ellen Fanning voicing the audiobook, and the absolutely marketable content of a young woman discovering herself and her entrepreneurial spirit, amidst the worlds of young motherhood, onlyFans and wrestling, I can only imagine that this will be translated into the big or small screen (yup, just looked it up, of course it is!)
Such fun and perfect execution.
I mainly wanted this to end, but I was intrigued enough to stick around. And it did get interesting towards the action end of the plot, but there's something about Kushner's choice of heroine, or maybe her audio book narration voice, that just bugged me.
Who on goodreads decided to tag this as Science Fiction !?
Three different forms of consciousness meet on an island ...The fictional sequel to [b:Other Minds 28116739 Other Minds Peter Godfrey-Smith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1606353700l/28116739.SX50.jpg 48126419] tied up in a tech-futuristic climate fiction. I very much enjoyed this. I wished it could have been a tad nerdier and grittier, gotten us encounters and communication attempts earlier, because those were amazing. All praise the shapesinger!
This was an entertaining listen. Jealousy, cultural appropriation and capitalism in a (thriller) satire set in the literary world. There are a few of similarities with [b:Identitti 55754513 Identitti Mithu M. Sanyal https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603283779l/55754513.SY75.jpg 86952806], just this time we're in the head of the self-justifying and ruthless instigator.
Clearly this one belongs to the Macfarlane's Landscape and the Human Heart series as well. I really love his writing: lyrical but never soppy, mystical but scientific, hardy but always enchanting. It's about nature, about adventures, and always about humanity and humanity's fascination with the places at the edges. Here he goes cave spelunking, visits underground dark-matter observatories, explores the under city of Paris (so good!), dives into glacier abysses and explores hidden mushroom networks with [a:Merlin Sheldrake 19472946 Merlin Sheldrake https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1604091484p2/19472946.jpg]. to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmfulMy only complaint would be, that after spending such exciting and claustrophobic hours under ground in the Mendips, Paris and Slovenia's highland, there was potentially too much above-ground action in the last third of the book. First with [b:Mountains of the Mind 839157 Mountains of the Mind A History of a Fascination Robert Macfarlane https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332295436l/839157.SY75.jpg 824717] and now Underland, I am officially a Robert Macfarlane fan.
This was an exceptionally addictive and immersive read. It's rightfully racking up awards in the French-Canadian book scene right now, and I except it will be an easy hit elsewhere too as soon as it gets translated. The film deal is set already as well.
Sacha is living her punk escapist dream in the wild Canadian north in Dawson City. She and her best friend integrate into the very active local punk folk subculture. Work work work during the short summer tourist season, and then bum around and shoot the shit in the long hard winter months. Who needs electricity and running water, if you can survive on beers, jokes, and cuddles with your huskie. But, not everything's perfect. And the way Pierrot slowly turns the narrative around is masterful done and sneakily painful.
A lot of the features about Pierrot mention Kerouac and Beatnik comparisons, and I agree, it did remind me of this rush you experience the first time when ‘on the road' with the colorful cast of Kerouac's stories. But, this is a female voice. Unapologetic, faulty, loving and so good!
A fantastic graphic novel about an alternate world with an established and complicated wish economy. I thought the middle wish story - and how it integrated those mood-graphs - was a great depiction of depression. 5 stars for the entertainment, even though it could have been edited down a bit. So many words!