Eva
Ishiguro telling an emotional tale about belief, love and hope, in his subtle ways again. Artificial friends are meant to help children and people overcome their loneliness, in a futuristic world not far from ours. The better the artificial A.I.s understand their human companions, the better they can serve them. And Klara, our protagonist, is a keen observer. As she becomes the companion to a sick girl, she sets out to help the girl and those around them, by begging the only mystical source of power she knows: the sun.
I loved how the mix of naivete and analytical thinking brought forth religious experiences. And how even the humans around her wanted to believe in her quest, like grasping for straws when you don't want a loved one to die. Machines inventing their own religion surely will be the first proof that we're not that special after all ;)
J'admets que c'est peut-etre ma propre faute que je me laisse trompe par la photo sur la couverture de livre. J'ai anticipe la revue nostalgique d'une enfance, en petites histoires droles et tristes. Et il y a une partie de cela, mais il y a aussi beaucoup d'un monologue de memoire sur l'auteur decouvrant des livres, lisant des livres, ecrivant des livres et vendant des livres. Bon, mais cette partie est probablement plus destinee aux supporteurs de l'auteur et non a quelqu'un qui n'a jamais entendu parler du lui aupavarant. Je suis un peu decu.
Pomerantsev spent a decade immersed in the Russian TV industry, making documentaries about characters of the new Russia. Glitz, fairytales, scandals, corruption, money, money, money. There are the documentaries that make it to air as they are sure to keep the public and the government happy, and then there are the documentaries that won't get greenlit when sudden anti-government plotpoints turns up. He leads us into the Gold Digger academy, where young pretty Russian girls learn how to snatch themselves an oligarch. We go to Siberia to meet the Russian gangster who finances and films his own movies. There are the TV executives who fall in and out of favor with the Kremlin, and the company owner who suddenly is imprisoned and disowned when certain chemicals in cleaning products are suddenly declared ‘narcotics'. Everyone plays a part, and the better you playact, the richer you will get. As long as you pay all the bribes along the way. And all along, the state propaganda ramps up, feeds more and more anti-West sentiments, and keeps the public happy and occupied showing quacksalvers and hypnotists on TV. What a portrait of a nation (the part of the nation that's on TV and has all the money). His follow-up book feels like the logical progression: [b:This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality 41717504 This Is Not Propaganda Adventures in the War Against Reality Peter Pomerantsev https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545380013l/41717504.SY75.jpg 65073585].
Interesting how this feels like she's remixing the themes of [b:Station Eleven 20170404 Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451446835l/20170404.SX50_SY75.jpg 28098716]: there's a pandemic, there's a piece of art that connects across the timelines, there's a composer, there's a transportation hub... I can't even fault her writing, I enjoyed listening to it. But I'm mad at the book for choosing timetravel only to pick the most rehashed timetravel trope (Oh look, it's the timetraveller encountering himself, and now he has to go to close the loop.), which feels like lazy writing. And I'm also surprised how she set up quite interesting characters at the beginning of the book, only for them to basically be dropped and only pop up again as plot pawns in the story of the way less intriguing investigator. Not a fan of author self-inserts either, see [b:Beautiful World, Where Are You 56597885 Beautiful World, Where Are You Sally Rooney https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618329605l/56597885.SY75.jpg 88516904], or maybe that just felt like one straw too many. Another one of those low ratings that don't fully reflect upon the quality of the book, but rather on my disappointment about the book not fulfilling it's own potential.- Reading the synopsis of her previous book [b:The Glass Hotel 45754981 The Glass Hotel Emily St. John Mandel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1564199892l/45754981.SX50.jpg 57817644] now made me realize that she's reusing characters and basically building one giant interconnected story.
A process management technique in the form of a novel. The protagonist is an industrial plant manager who learns by doing and slowly transforms his factory's production line according to the principles of the Theory of Constraints. And you learn alongside him. A lot of this is very on the nose, the side plot with his wife is cringeworthy and aged terribly, but I still got a lot out of this. A basic understanding for the workings of an (oldschool) industrial plant, but mainly lots of thoughts about how to apply the model of bottlenecks, inventory and throughput to other domains. I found this because it was recommended by an electronics youtuber, who named [b:The Soul of a New Machine 7090 The Soul of a New Machine Tracy Kidder https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1627012239l/7090.SY75.jpg 882196] as one of his favorites (agreed). The other book I ordered based on his recommendations is [b:Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed 101438 Skunk Works A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed Ben R. Rich https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344267416l/101438.SY75.jpg 97803]. Totally different domain, but this also reminded me of [b:The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning 2674 The Wealthy Barber The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning David Chilton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387743550l/2674.SY75.jpg 1798835]. What's the name of this genre? Educational fiction? Low-quality-fiction-but-high-quality-education?
I debated stopping this early on because it didn't grip me, but then the narration hit a stride when it stuck with adult Lena and told her story with focus. Sadly for the rest of the book I regretted not having stopped earlier, and cranked up the playback speed. These are interesting characters with interesting stories, but everything felt so unbalanced. One of those where me being mad at it makes me rank it lower than it probably deserves.
Three stories each a century apart, tied together by themes of family, loyalty, belonging, nationhood and desire. I am a bit conflicted about how to feel about it, as Yanagihara's writing and storytelling is so skilled. But it felt like she was holding back on us, probably not wanting this to be another tearjerker like her predecessor. But the potential for grandeur was there, it was just more toned down, more clinical, more a very detailed drawing of constellations of ideas and emotions and personae, instead of the big emotions themselves. And still, very memorable (besides the majority of the second story, which turned into quite a slog I have to say). The triptych of stories tied together across time very much reminded me of [b:The Actual Star 56304414 The Actual Star Monica Byrne https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618279333l/56304414.SX50.jpg 86058464] .
Un siecle de tranformation pour les Innus de Quebec, vu a travers les yeux d'une jeune immigrant irlandaise qui a perdu ses parents et qui est tombe amoreux d'un gentil jeune autochtone.
Quel beaux roman, ou plutot recit biographic de famille, qui parle de region de lac Pekuakami autour d'ou la famille d'Innu a sa residence d'ete et le rivier Peribonka vers le nord ou ils passent leur l'hiver. La jeune Almanda est anime par le desir de voyager and d'aventure. Elle rencontre la beaute et la tranquilite de l'union d'Innu avec la nature, et elle decouvrit aussi les difficultes de l'hiver et des confrontations entre l'autouchtones et les colons.
Tandis que la plus grande partie du livre passe dans le passe, raconter une histoire nostalgique et romantique, la derniere partie d'histoire reussit a vous amener vers les terribles et tristes realities du destruction d'esprit et du domicile de population autouchtome aux mains du Canada.
J'aime que ce livre est tellement populaire parce qu'il reaconte une histoire importante. La colere legitime est present, mais c'est plutot l'histoire de la triste perte d'un monde. Et en vous emmenant d'abord dans ce beau monde, cela peut surement toucher beaucoup de gens.
The committees tasked with formulating the preliminary proposals to rid us of bullshit jobs, can't do their box ticking unless our world redefine the value of work, re-inverses the inverse relationship between social value and economic compensation and concedes that sometimes maybe we just don't need to work 40 hours a week.
Entertaining, and thought-provoking.
An academic in his thirties, not too ambitious and a bit lost in his career, returns to his country of origin - Russia - to take care of his aging grandmother. What we get is an outsider's perspective of what it must be like to live in Moscow. Everyone's suspicious of foreigners, the coffeshops are overpriced, the KGB building is just around the corner, the hockey games are omnipresent but hard to find, all political protest is immediately surpressed, and people dream of going to their dachas in the summer. Corruption, dissent and nostalgia coexist.
I quite liked this, it had a good flow and just about the right level of politics. And even though the main character was ultimately flawed, he still mostly did a good job taking care of his forgetful yet still rather active 90 year old grandma, and I enjoyed witnessing that.
When they finally had to move their grandma, they cried, and so did I.The plumbing episode was weirdly detailed.
Half biography of his father - famous Chinese poet Ai Qing - half memoir, Ai Weiwei presents us portraits of two men unwavering in their beliefs and therefore becoming enemies of the state in China. The father during Mao's Cultural Revolution, the son most recently as he chooses political activism as his art platform.
Pour ma lecture en francais je evidemment choisis des ecrivains francophones, la plupart de temps. L'exception ici c'est la nouvelle roman d'evricain italian Paolo Cognetti, qui a arrive dans la traduction francaise avant la version anglaise.
La sujet de Cognetti est encore la vie de montagnards. Ceux pour qui la vie montagnard est la seule chose ils connaissent, et ceux pour qui la montagne est l'appel de l'aventure. L'ecriture est tres beaux dans ses vingnettes qui decrire la simplicite et la durete de la vie la-haut.
Et il nous introduit aussi a des regardes tres poetiques sur la montagne, que montand un montagne c'est la meme chose que voyageant vers le pol nord. Le paysage subit le meme changement.
“President Lukashenko considers Filipenko his personal enemy; he faces more than twenty years in prison. Filipenko now lives in exile.” src
A novel banned in Belarus, depicting life over the last couple of decades under the authoritarian Lukashenko regime. Framed by real world tragedies - from the Nyamiha stampede to the 2011 Minsk Metro bombing - the novel is segmented into three parts. Life before the coma, introducing us to our freespirited young protagonist and family; Life during the coma, defined by a grandmother's stubborn dedication; and Life after the coma, which awakens the protagonist into a country that seemingly is going backwards.
A funny and occasionally sentimental read (the grandmother's goodbye letter caught me), written with bite and melancholy. Absolutely informative for people like me who didn't know much about Belarus's past and recent developments.
Similar to its predecessor, The Strangers follows several women of a Metis family throughout the years. Vermette is a good story teller. She expertely guides you through layers and layers of lived and inherited trauma, despair and addiction, violence and sorrow, only to give you a few cathartic moments to shed some happy tears. I almost felt slightly manipulated. Most of her characters are damaged, carry burdens that can be traced back to traumatic experiences. I found Vermette's choice of not discosing some of these triggering events really interesting, even though readers of [b:The Break 29220494 The Break Katherena Vermette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1472734124l/29220494.SY75.jpg 49455862] might recall them. As if to highlight, that we humans are not that easy to solve after all. One ends the book, mostly remembering the females characters, as they are the main focus. And it becomes easy to draw the cause and effect lines of neglect and damage between them. Forgetting entirely the male family members who are so entirely lacking, and therefore most responsible for the bad circumstances these girls and women found themselves in. I probably should be slightly worried that I felt most drawn to the one character that was simply raging at everyone else in the novel.
In a world that's full of ‘high conflict' - binary quarrels between ‘us' and ‘them', between right and wrong, where both parties are so radicalized neither can see reason - we must learn to listen, to mediate, to step-out of conflict, or to transform it into productive conflict.
Ripley presents to us a lineup of interesting characters who did just that. A professional mediator who lost himself in local politics, a gang leader who carries on a gang rivalry whose origin everyone has forgotten by now, a environmental activist who fights without listening to science, and a guerilla fighter who tries to escape the narrative that has captivated a whole country for decades. Some of them hit a natural turning point, that mentally enabled them to step out of their life and their rage. Other's were nudged by useful interventions from outside.
Following along with the characters was super engaging and insightful.
The dismantling of the Black September terrorist group by offering them marriage and monetary compensation for children ... wild! And it worked!!
Now, how do I activate that ‘balcony mode' it sounds useful :)
Ce roman semble etre deux. Une section qui parle d'une expedition scientifique au l'antarctique, l'atmosphere est sombre, froide, mysterieuse et meticuleux. Il a l'aire d'etre a l'exterieur de temps. L'autre section se lit comme un histoire science-fiction ecrit dans les annees soixante. Les femmes sont a peine habillees, les sciences sont fantastiques, et il y a des nuances rassistes. En effect, le roman etait ecrit dans les annees soixante.
A part de quelques petits choses je l'ai apprecie, c'est un roman avec un intrigue tres rapide et donc facile a suivre.
I haven't read a Richard Powers in a while, because I somewhat tired of his style despite always enjoying their geeky nature. But this one felt different, more sentimental and more cerebral.
A father, whose focus and dreams are the far-away stars, and a son, who is so emotionally connected to the fauna and flora of earth that each news of species extinction or climate change disasters triggers outbursts of anger and despair. Together they're griefing the loss of their wife/mother. A novel brainwave entrainment technique promises to help the boy focus his thoughts and emotions.
I enjoyed a lot about this, the outwards look towards the stars, the philosphical parts about life and humanity, the hope and despair it instills in you about the youth. And then there were also parts where I felt it wasn't necessary to tie it to the real-world just that much.
Pretty clear and well structured guide on how to get better at sticking to habits. A bunch of things you might have heard before, but that are definitely worth repeating. Design your environment for success. I should have maybe had an actual specific goal in mind while listening to this, but hey, it's still the start of the new year and so not bad timing.
At the beginning some of the stories felt too neat, too timid (after having just read the violent force that are Alice Bradley's [b:Her Smoke Rose Up Forever 27059 Her Smoke Rose Up Forever James Tiptree Jr. https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1395145994l/27059.SX50.jpg 27713] stories) but I warmed up to them. And then I especially appreciated how he used some stories to educate us (Unit 731).
Butler writes a good yarn so I enjoyed spending more time with Lauren Olamina and her cult of Earthseed. But while the first book was fresh and exciting in how it introduced us to the world and its characters, this one fell a bit flat to me. Too much time was spent on struggles of survival, yet I would have preferred to hear more about the psychological and philosophical reasoning on how cults/religions form. Lauren's daughter definitely brought an interesting outside perspective on her mother, the self-proclaimed messiah, but ultimately that came a little too late. Perhaps I just also had a hard time listening to their cult message over and over again, which seemingly follows the laws of nature and change, yet still chooses the language of theistic religions (‘god'). And obviously their ‘destiny' being the stars elicits some eyerolls nowadays.