"The Broken Hours [a Novel of H.P. Lovecraft]" by Jacqueline Baker

This was an interesting, slightly confusing piece of fiction which gave me some insight into the life of H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not sure if the point of the ending was that the book was inside the mind of Lovecraft during his final year of life or if Crandle really existed and was going mad. I would have to reread to be sure, but I have already returned the book. The author captured the mood of Lovecraft's writing very well.

“Origin” by Dan Brown

This book is more thoughtful and intellectual than I expected from a Dan Brown novel. I’m guessing that fundamentalist religious people did not like it one little bit....And I also enjoyed the Spanish setting and references to Gaudi and Blake.

“Ethan Frome and other stories” by Edith Wharton

To my intense surprise, I enjoyed Ethan Frome very much despite the depressing subject matter. Edith Wharton made the scenes absolutely come to life, and the sadly ironic ending was quite clever. The other stories, which were ghost stories, were also well written and original.

“Holidays on Ice” by David Sedaris

This was an amusing collection of short stories and essays. The fiction was surprisingly dark (my kind of story).

“A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles

A beautiful book. It’s amazing how well the count took charge of his destiny. Under permanent house arrest in Hotel Metropol, and yet he lived a full, meaningful and joyful life.

“The Corn Maiden and other Nightmares” by Joyce Carol Oates

Apart from the Corn Maiden, which I had already read, the other stories in this collection were not satisfying.  They were a bit too abstract for my taste. Some of them were very definitely unpleasant.

“Once Upon a Curse”

This is the last time I’m downloading a free book of short stories by unknown authors. Fantasy by would-be, wish-fulfillment writers.

"Bluebeard's Egg" by Margaret Atwood

Not a particularly cheery set of short stories by Margaret Atwood. It took me awhile to read them all, but from what I can remember, they're mostly from the point of view of sad women.

"The Safety of Objects" by A. M. Homes

This was quite an unpleasant short story collection told from the point of view of mentally "odd" people. One wonders how normal they appear to their family and friends.

“The Girl who was Saturday Night” by Heather O’Neill

I don’t understand the title but I enjoyed this book very much. O’Neill has a unique poetic voice, and she captures the spirit of Montreal so very well. Her heroine is amazing to acquire a high school diploma despite her living conditions. And I like the character of Misha very much... an overweight much older former boyfriend, who has true fatherly affection for the heroine. You never know where you will find true humanity.

“In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson

This was an enjoyable and informative book about the transformation of Germany by Hitler and his cronies in 1933-35. Human nature can indeed be a sorry thing. .. The point of view was primarily that of Dodd, the American ambassador and of his daughter.

“The Darkness” by Ragnar Jonasson

I always thought that a crime novel was good escapism because you can at least be sure that the protagonist will survive. Not anymore. The protagonist, Hulda, is murdered due to her dogged investigation of a last case before her retirement. But in fact, the mistakes she made during the last case, and her past history of murdering her husband whose pedophilia had led to the suicide of their daughter, left her nowhere else to go. The next novels in this series deal with a young Hulda’s investigations. I think I’ll pass.

"Flights" by Olga Tokarchuk

Please remind me to avoid modern European literature. This book is a Man Booker international prize winner and the first by a Polish author, which is the reason I read it. I can't say that I'll be reading anything else by this author.
Many of its 116 vignettes were interesting and the book does leave an overall impression. But I would rather read a novel with a concrete story of some sort than one which had preservation of human remains among its various connecting strings.

“Uprooted” by Naomi Novik

I found this fairytale fantasy book to be rather grim and unpleasant, even if it had Polish roots. There were definitely too many battle scenes of various kinds and not enough character development. I skimmed portions of the book. I suppose it works best as a fairy tale rather than a novel. It was definitely too long.

“The Disciple of Las Vegas” by Ian Hamilton

This is the 2nd book in the Ava Lee series and absolutely the last one I will ever read. These books, are to some extent torture porn, and deal with the worst aspects of human greed. The writing style is totally pedestrian and mechanical. Truly truly a bad taste in my mouth.

“Life after Life” by Kate Atkinson

This book had some very powerfully moving sections. In particular, I absolutely loved reading about Ursula’s experiences working during the London blitz. They were described so very realistically that I felt as if I were really there. On the other hand, I found that the numerous iterations of Ursula’s life became boring and even irritating. A good book, an intelligent book.

“The Water Rat of Wanchai” by Ian Hamilton

This is the first in a set of crime novels about Ava Lee, a forensic accountant. The writing style is a bit pedantic but I enjoyed the book. Who knew that high finance theft could be interesting and violent?

“Dune” by Frank Herbert

I reread this book because I have high hopes for the movie, which is coming out next year. I believe I enjoyed it more this time than I did 30 years ago.

"Rich People Problems" by Kevin Kwan

This was probably my least favorite of the 3 books because the level of ugly behaviour was higher than usual, I thought. Also, I skipped some parts because they seemed totally extraneous. Nevertheless, the ending was pleasantly satisfying.

“Anne of Windy Poplars” by Lucy Maud Montgomery

This was a pleasant enough read, but many of the occurrences are becoming cliches. Anne always prevails.

“The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories” by Penelope Lively

This was an amusingly cynical collection of short stories. I like the author’s dry wit.

“1Q84” by Haruki Murakami

This was 1000 pages of oddness. I suppose the message was that reality is not fixed. Murakami is a world famous author and the writing must have been decent enough to keep me going until the end. Two moons vs one moon. Little people. Etc etc This book was a great literary disappointment when it was published. I wonder how I would like his more successful novels.

“The Dark Half” by Stephen King

This was a very ugly, unpleasant and predictable book which I ended up skimming. I also did not like the fact that the book was self-referential. Its descriptions of the writing process were so detailed that they took me out of the story and made me think about King instead. Why do I keep going back to him? All his characters and locales have become the same. I can whiff his writing style immediately.

“Anne of the Island” by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was well written, and I, of course, was quite pleased when Anne and Gilbert found true love.

“How to Behave in a Crowd” by Camille Bordas

I enjoyed this book. It was a good light read for Antigua, but it was also clever and insightful about human nature. The narrator, a young teenage boy in a family of genius siblings, was appealing because he didn’t recognize his own worth until the end, when he read the last pages of his brother’s thesis. The black humour made me laugh a few times.

“Leonardo da Vinci” by Walter Isaacson

This was an interesting enough book that took me forever to finish. The author was so firm in some of his artistic opinions that he made me wonder whether or not he was qualified enough to have those opinions.

“The Last Crossing” by Guy Vanderhaeghe

I can’t honestly say that I enjoyed this book. It was much too wordy and descriptive and I actually had to skip some parts because they were so dense and meant so little to me. For example, I find detailed descriptions of battles quite boring. Nevertheless, I also have to admit that the ending was pleasantly bittersweet.

“The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery

This was a pleasant story about a supremely intelligent concierge of very poor origins, who hid her gifts because she was afraid of being punished for venturing outside her place in society.The book made me think of how we “don’t see” people beyond their role in society.

“China Rich Girlfriend” by Kevin Kwan

This was an amusing, light read at a time when I really needed one. Kevin Kwan is a very good story teller.

“Nightflyers” by George R. R. Martin

It had a slow, mechanical start, but I ended up enjoying this Novella. The romance between the clone and the enhanced human being was weirdly nice. However, I suddenly realized that the female (who was now imprinted on the spaceship)could not have produced a male clone. ...perhaps she was an XXY?

“Anne of Avonlea” by Lucy Maud Montgomery

For the first half or so, this book is very episodic, lacking flow. But it does eventually gel into an enjoyable read. It lacks the magic of the first novel, but nevertheless contains many emotionally pleasant moments.

“Carbide Tipped Pens”

I read about half of this collection of dystopian short stories. I got tired of the hard science fiction vibe.

“Lethal White” by Robert Galbraith

I enjoyed this book. It told a very good story. The only weakness was a few awkward “hit over the head with a hammer” moments between Strike and Robin. I do like their relationship though.

“The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster

A prescient, dystopian novella. Written in 1909, it describes humanity as living underground, and so dependent on The Machine that it becomes helpless and out of touch with reality. People no longer interact in person. Luckily, there are homeless people living in the outer world. Hopefully, they will preserve humanity after the machine stops working and destroys its civilization.

"The Drowned World" by J. G. Ballard

This book is very well written and teeming with atmosphere. But I would not inflict it on anyone. The excess of description dulls the mind, and the psychology is totally depressing. Regarding the pacing and the style, the book reminded me of Solaris, and of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".

In my estimation, Keran, the protagonist, is a total fool for succumbing to the influence of the drowned world and its jungle atmosphere. Rather than working to overcome the disaster, he integrates himself into it. In the end, I believe he hurts mankind more than Strangman did. And thanks to the book's for British and very descriptive style, I'm not even positive whether or not Strangman survived in the end. And I don't care enough to reread those parts to be sure of the answer. Though I'm pretty sure that Kerans drowned him when he exploded the dam.

“This Perfect Day” by Ira Levin

This book makes you think about what constitutes a perfect society. The writing style is quite wooden but the ideas were interesting.

"Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler

This was another short story from my Dystopian literature class. It is appropriately depressing, describing a world ravaged by an illness that either killed people or left them mentally disabled. It does have a glimmer of hope at the end, with the protagonist's discovery of 2 children who can talk.

"The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi

This is an excellent dystopian novel about a world that is running out of water. It is well done, but the ending initially disappointed me with its cynical realism. I would have preferred a return to the "good old days', but I realize that was impossible. The world really had changed permanently, and people had to learn to see that.

"The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey

Read this short story for my Carleton course on dystopian fiction. It was interesting enough. Someone in the class described it as a story inside an essay, which I definitely agree with. The story was too self aware for me to become involved with it emotionally.

"Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I read this book to compare it with the different tv versions I've seen. It did not ring any bells, so I don't think I ever read it before. And I ended up enjoying it much more than I expected. It is written from an adult perspective, but captures the joy of childhood amazingly well. I can see why this book is so popular in Japan. It is much more than a children's book.

“A Dedicated Man” by Peter Robinson

I enjoyed this second Alan Banks mystery. I find the mysteries to be intellectually stimulating and the police officers to be pleasantly normal. Some aspects of this series, the normal police wife, Sandra Banks, and the scattered British villages remind me of the Midsomer mysteries, which I watched on Netflix.