“The Anomaly” by Hervé LeTellier

 Remind me not to bother reading another super popular book from France with philosophical undertones. I did not find the ideas in this book to be exciting. They’re boring science fiction fare.

“Lewis Man” by Peter May

 Peter May makes scenery and people seem real. He showed great respect for Alzheimer’s patients and the elderly in this book. At first, I thought the book might be another cliched piece of writing about the mistreatment of children in schools/orphanages, but May made it better than that.

“The Elephant Vanishes - Stories” by Haruki Murakami

 I found this book of short stories oddly compelling, despite of or because of their surreal aesthetic. Some of the imagery reminded me strongly of David Lynch, particularly the story about the TV people. And strangely enough, speaking of David Lynch, there was even a story about a dancing dwarf.

“The Blackhouse” by Peter May

 This book was a page turner for me, which is rare. I certainly didn’t expect repressed memories of sexual abuse to be the key to the whole plot. The descriptions of the Hebrides Island and customs were vivid but overly long. Towards the end, I was skimming them.

“Ghostwritten” by David Mitchell

 This is my least favourite of the books I have read by Mitchell. It is overly long, overly wordy, and confusing. It may have helped a bit if I had read the electronic version, because that would have enabled me to hyperlink back to characters who appeared in different “stories” within the novel. I think everything was cleverly linked together, but I eventually lost interest. I skimmed over the last section, which involved a NY DJ, and perhaps I missed a bit of the novel’s structure and meaning because of it. But I don’t really care. That last section was too abstract.

"When You are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris

 As usual, this was an enjoyable set of essays by David Sedaris. I did have to look up his biography to understand the context of a few of the stories. In particular, I found out that he is gay, and lives with a partner who is from Africa.

“Night Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense” by Joyce Carol Oates

 Another set typical of this author. She certainly does have a “sick” imagination. I enjoy the weirdness of her stories.

“Return of the Trickster” by Eden Robinson

 I thought the third book was not very good. It was way out there in unbelievability, and the writing was not always clear. Very little actually happened.

“On Chesil Beach” by Ian McEwan

Much of the book reads like a clinical study of sexual problems on a honeymoon night. I found this to be a rather odd style and kept wondering why the author chose to write such a book. But the last section is beautiful. It describes the man’s life post annulment and his realization as to how much he had lost by being inflexible in his pride. He had failed to see how much the woman had offered him by describing her current dislike of sex and saying he could sleep with other women if he wanted. This offer was made in the 1960’s and was later described as being ahead of its time.

His lack of patience and empathy gave him an empty life. He did nothing after her speech to him, and he saw that it had been to his great loss. He never loved anyone that much again. And his wife had been merely waiting for him to acknowledge his love, and she would have run back into his arms.

“His Illegal Self” by Peter Carey

 Peter Carey is an Australian writer who has won 2 Booker prizes. People on the Goodreads site said that this was definitely not one of his better works and I agree. I hated most of the book because it was vaguely written from the point of view of an 8 year old, and the muddle was increased by the use of Australian idioms. The book was presumably about 1970’s radicals in the US, but quickly became a novel about a kidnapped boy in an Australian hippy colony. I very much enjoyed the few snippets of the boy’s life as an adult, but there were hardly any of these. It’s as if the author used this book to recall the magic of his own childhood, with the attendant cloudiness of memory.

Oriel.

“Death Interrupted” by Jose Saramago

 This was an odd book. The first half was a satire on society, by imagining what would happen if people stopped dying. In the second half, it dealt with death as a female entity and actually became a love story.

“The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman

 This was an enjoyable book. It was fun reading about competent senior citizens who accepted the reality of aging. There were, however, a few too many suicides due to enduring love and guilt.

“Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly

The book was quite boring because it was factual, and in fact, it had too many facts. The movie was much more human and alive and interesting. I skipped a lot of sections. Admittedly though, it was interesting and somewhat depressing to get the black perspective.

“Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths 1” by Stephen Fry

 This is a pleasantly modern retelling of the Greek myths. It gave me some new insights into the whole mythology thing. For example, the style of the tv show Lucifer is Greek mythology. The gods walk among us and have human foibles.

“Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller

 To my surprise, I ended up enjoying this book very much. Initially, I thought it was too focussed on a homosexual love affair, but eventually, the book drew me in. It made me feel that I understood the mindset of the Greeks, it was interesting to be given a broader understanding of a very well established story, and I grew to like Patroclus, the narrator, very much. At first, I had pegged him as a weak person, but he grew in confidence as the story progressed and truly became the best of the Greeks.

"The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov

 So, I have finally read these creaky, seminal science fiction books.

“An Irish Country Doctor” by Patrick Taylor

Despite a somewhat pedestrian writing style, I enjoyed this book enough to ask for volume 2 from the library. It immerses you very nicely in 1960’s Northern Ireland village life, and the characters are interesting enough. You can definitely tell that the writer is a medical doctor. His medical descriptions are somewhat too detailed for the ordinary writer/reader.

"The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton

This book seems like a good study of the era, especially of the society of the New York City rich. The rigid thinking of the New York tribe and their strict rules of behaviour remind my very much of my mother. My favorite part was actually the last chapter, where Wharton described the changes that had taken place in New York society after 30 years.

“Indians on Vacation” by Thomas King

This was a very readable book. I enjoyed hearing about Prague and other parts of Europe, and the jumps in time were well done. The idea looking for the family’s medicine bundle is appealing and I really liked the character of Mimi, the protagonist’s wife. Two seniors looking back on their life together.

But the underlying theme was our helplessness to change the big wrongs of the world. Writing articles, etc etc does not change anything. I think there was some optimistic message at the end but I missed it. This is not an existential concern that interests me. Sometimes the author took me out of the book by being too expository about the ills of the world. 

"The Guest List" by Lucy Foley

I could not finish this book despite its gorgeous setting on a wild Irish island near Connamara. The characters are all so unpleasant, either mean or whiney or sorry for themselves, that I could not stand it any longer. I gave up when yet another short "night of' chapter failed to divulge the murderer. The different points of view per chapter, slowly revealing the details of their lives and realtionships, was clever, but did not work for me because of the unpleasantness of the characters and their histories. I read a summary of the book, and the plot was even more ridiculous than I expected. It seems that through coincidence, the murdered groom had harmed absolutely everyone in the main party. I read a mystery book for the psychology, and not the plot. This book was very weak on psychology.

“Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut

This book was not quite as amazing as I expected this classic to be. The main themes were time travel and the fire bombing of Dresden. The writing style is very accessible.

“How to Pronounce Knife” by Souvankham Thammavongsa

 This was a very dreary collection of short stories and I have no idea why it’s being praised so much. For the most part, I found the writing style to be spare and pedestrian. And too often, the stories reminded me of the humiliations of my own immigrant child experiences.

“The Glass Hotel” by Emily St. John Mandel

This was a good book, but I actually enjoyed “Station Eleven” more. This one was too populated with sad sacks, but what do you expect, I guess, when you’re reading a book inspired by Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme. Also, there was less about the Madoff character than I expected, and too much about a half brother and sister pair, with the brother being the loser addict sad sac character. It’s nice that the book has ghosts and hallucinations; I like hints of the otherwordly.

“Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke

 I liked this book very much. Clarke created an amazingly gorgeous atmosphere and she has a very distinctive voice. Thus, I remembered her Jonathan Strange book when I was reading this one. This book is amazing, unique and beautiful. And also, it is quite nicely short.

“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel

Despite the subject matter, an apocalyptic pandemic, I enjoyed this book very much. It is cleverly structured and the author has a fresh voice.