"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.