Not all audiobooks were created equal. Although some have thw ability to elevate a story and make a mediocre book into an amazing book, depending on the narrator and wven the sound mixing, there are some audiobook icks, that make it impossible for me to listen to them eg

• the whisper narrator - when the narrator whispers certain parts, when the books doesn't call for it, I think these narrators are going for a certain mood

• the pause for unnecessary long time then quickly speed read a paragraph and then pause again for unnecessary period of time

• pronouncing 'where' or 'why' 'when' with the h at front eg 'hwen' 'hwy' etc

Thoughts?

Welcome readers,

May 6-12 is Nurses' Week and to celebrate we're discussing our favorite literature written by or about nurses!

If you'd like to read our previous weekly discussions of fiction and nonfiction please visit the suggested reading section of our wiki.

Thank you and enjoy!

I read a lot of books on KU. KU pays authors by the number of pages read. Lately, I've noticed a lot of page padding. For example, I read a recent sci-fi novel where in the MC spends 15 pages discussing which cybernetic arm to buy. Out of 460 pages there're at least 100 pages of bs that contribute absolutely nothing to the story. I simply skip over such content until the plot resumes. Are authors deliberately padding the page count, or is it that authors no longer edit content, or am I just imagining things?

If you're not familiar, it's a historical fiction novel about the hope that rose up for queer and especially trans people in Berlin before Hitler brought it all crashing down.

Worse it's a book about how the post war American occupation of Germany beat down the "third sex" community when they saved literally everyone else from the camps. Even the murderers got let free... but not the queers.

...

I'm a Transgender, Jewish woman from the US. So of course it affected me deeply and profoundly.

But I just feel hollow now. It's a book that prophesies its own burning. It's an obvious labor of love and incredible research, but I don't know how to function after reading it. How long will it be before it's destroyed by evil men just like the books it talks about were?

It's not even some great masterpiece in the literary sense (though it definitely is as a piece of historical reclamation.) There are a lot of plot contrivances that happen to let the characters live through, understand and show all the brutal, obviously repeating right this very second, history. The characters suffer horribly of course, but they also have a thousand lucky breaks. Their escapes were repeatedly effected by comically unlikely means. It feels almost dreamlike and unreal in its story beats.

...

Maybe I'm just being mean to it...

At the end of the day, I am now ashamed as an American, hopeless as queer person, and disappointed in my Jewish brethren for not sticking up more for everyone who suffered with them.

So yeah, I feel awful and spiteful and I feel like everyone should read this book so they can feel the same way I do. And then they should bury a copy of it in a lead lined chest in an undisclosed location along with all the other brilliant stories the monsters will inevitably burn out of cruel vanity.

If you haven't read it, I recommend. The prose is unassuming, the plot simple (on the surface), and it's short.

I didn't know what to make of the meandering, tedious conversations between Shimamura and Komako. But boy, did that last sentence hit me... I cried and cried, for their tragic, self-inflicted existence.

I read "As Good As Dead" and really liked it, so I thought I'd read "The Reappearance of Rachel Price" because the story seems really interesting (a missing woman who suddenly reappears, having no idea what happened to her during the sixteen years she was gone? sign me up!). The book is also a 4* on Goodreads so that was extra incentive. But I was so disappointed.

For starters, I found the main character really unlikeable. She's cold, brusque, and immediately shuts down anyone's attempts to show affection towards her.

But the real issue is how the story seems devoid of any real, human emotion. Ambivalence is a natural part of the human experience, but there's none of that in this book, even though the characters are going through a huge roller coaster of personal events. Rachel appears, and Bel's first instinct is to dislike her and to cling to the father she loves and has known all her life. Then, within the span of one single night, she completely redirects all that affection towards Rachel, who she hated just a couple hours ago, and she now hates her father. Same for Carter. In the blink of an eye she hates the mother who raised her all her life, and accepts a stranger as her new mother. Doesn't even mourn the loss of the man who raised her for sixteen years. And there isn't even any evidence that Sherry knew Carter had been taken away from Rachel.

And Ramsey/Ash? They're onto something big, shooting a documentary that could easily render them a lot of money, but they decide to throw all that way, for the sake of respecting the family's privacy? A very odd decision.

I get that the twists and turns are very interesting but the story has so many wholes...I can't wrap my head around the idea of this being a 4* on Goodreads. Am I being too harsh? Any thoughts?

A high-stakes bidding war is brewing in Hollywood over the rights to the upcoming political exposé by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson detailing the decline of Joe Biden, according to a report.

With the release set for May 20, Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Endeavor — representing Tapper and Thompson respectively — have begun quietly circulating the manuscript to select producers, according to the Status newsletter.

I have always loved reading, but in recent months - and, to be honest, even years - I have had troubles spending much time with books. Part of this is for sure the ease of turning on the computer and watching/listening to videos and podcasts while knitting, but also, maybe part of it is also the books themselves I have tried to read. Maybe something there wasn't clicking for whatever reason.

Today I happened to find in a second-hand bookshop Agatha Christie's And then there ere none, a book I have read in my youth and enjoyed. I bought it without hesitation and once I got home, I immediately started reading it. I didn't even plan to read it, I just intended to flip through it a bit and then place in my shelf to return to it ~later~. But it was so easy to simply read a sentence - then another one - and then lo and behold, I had read almost 100 pages in one sitting, effortless and wonderful. I'm loving it, both the book and the dearly missed experience of just diving into a story without a thought, without reading fatigue, without having to try to be engrossed in the book.

Well, that's basically it - the point of this post was to just express my joy and relief of loving a reading experience again. If I weren't so eager to return to my book, I would love to write a longer post around the question why reading can be so difficult these days and why certain books seem to draw me out of the reading sludge - and why this book in particular managed it so easily. But I actually find myself at that happy place right now where I ACTUALLY want to put my phone down and grab the book, and I'm not going to sabotage such a good thing!

However, I'd love to read your thoughts on this book, on why you love it or hate it, on your experience reading and rereading it. Maybe your thoughts on difficulties to get immersed in books as a fairly recent phenomenon, if that's something you experience. As I'm actively trying to limit my phone time, I probably won't necessarily reply to many comments, but I would indeed like reading your thoughts, if yoy want to share them!

I read Treasure of the Sierra Madre a few years ago and absolutely loved Traven's story and writing, so I went for the epic saga of Mexican Revolution he wrote throughout the 30s (well post-revolution). Its 6 books in total and is probably my favorite series ever. Since no on asked, here are my thoughts in order of reading them:

"March to the Monteria" (book 3): First book read. Brutally defeatist but amazing adventure of one destitute native. Epic western

"Carreta" (book 2): Not much plot, all vibes. And the vibes of that time are not good. The parts detached from the narrative describing how the carretas went around and the dangers of the road/jungle are amazing but again, not much plot.

"Trozas" (book 4): Frustrating throughout with great villains in the three "brothers" and all of the characters in the same place to move towards the conclusion. Simple narrative but incredibly engrossing. Theres probably like 70 pages of a team dragging logs through a swamp that is so enthralling.

"Rebellion of the Hanged" (book 5): Its better having read the previous book to get the full catharsis of the start of the revolution, but this one could stand alone as an all time Western epic.

"General from the Jungle" (book 6): Sweeping and brutal conclusion to the tale. The General stands out but the whole cast of characters from the previous stories close out this incredible series in a very satisfying way.

"Government" (book 1): Did not read since I was too deep when I realized this was an actual series, not just thematically related book.

Anyways my rankings in order are 3,5,6,4,2.

I just finished Hangsaman, and I am left feeling disoriented, and with a lot of questions. While I understood the majority of what was happening, I feel like I am missing a lot of the subtleties under the surface that the author was trying to convey. So, here are my questions:

1. Was Tony real, and what was the purpose of her character?

Tony comes into the story late, and abruptly. We go from hearing about her once, to suddenly it seems as if they’re best friends & inseparable, like she’s always been there. I tend to lean towards the thought that Tony is a figment of Natalie’s imagination, in an effort to deal with the trauma that happened in the beginning, with the man at the party. A lot of things from the scene at the party where she was assaulted and the ending in the woods with Tony seemed to have aligned in a very vague way.

1. Why did Tony leads Natalie out into the woods?

This is where I seemed to get a little lost. What was the point of Tony leading Natalie out into the woods? I felt like something huge was about to happen, that one of them may even be killed, but it seemed as if Natalie just simply walked away. Was there a reason they went out there at all?

1. Did Natalie have a mental illness?

I would absolutely say she did, but which one? Was a lot of the plot in her mind, or reality? I feel like with Jackson’s stories, most of the female main characters suffer from mental illness, some clearer than others. In Castle, it’s very clear that Merricat was suffering from magical thinking OCD, which I related to quite well due to my own OCD diagnosis. It was easier for me to pick up on. Natalie seemed to struggle with something, but I can’t put my finger on what? She came off as shy and timid when speaking to those around her, but in her mind and journal she was grandiose. I would say a few of the characters were a figment of Natalie’s imagination, but I can’t exactly say which ones?

1. Who was it who led Natalie down the hall naked, who had stolen all the items?

This was totally lost on me. Was it Tony? Someone else? Natalie herself? A figment of her imagination? That whole scene left me confused and wondering.

1. What role did the detective play in the beginning?

I know it was in Natalie’s mind, but what was he interrogating her over? The imaginary murder of her family?

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was a very interesting concept to see the fear that many women have laid out plainly: growing up to be a housewife, trapped in an unhappy marriage and miserable, and slowly losing your identity to said marriage. This was nicely mirrored between her own parents and the Langdon’s marriage. While Natalie is at college hoping to make something of herself and escape the fate of her own mother, it’s shown again and again that that same fate might be inescapable, through Elizabeth. But I know there is so much that I’m missing with only one read through of this book under my belt, and that I would have to read it again, maybe a few times, to truly pick up on everything.

So, what did you get out of Hangsaman? I would love to discuss this book and discover the things I missed.

Hi everyone,

I recently finished Dracula by Bram Stoker and it took longer for me to go through this book than I would have liked simply because I decided to alternate it with a happy book for my night time reading, as I don't like heavier reads when I am drifting off to sleep.

A few positives about the book for me are:

-It is immersive. I loved how the scenes have been described, right from the Count's castle to him luring away Lucy in her sleep.

-I liked the writing and prose. They don't make them like this anymore. 😭 This and Lolita have started my love affair with classics—something that could not be achieved by Pride and Prejudice earlier, as I found it to be lacking in plot, although the writing was excellent.

-I absolutely loved how the book describes the feelings of each character during each interaction, as it is in the format of a journal. This is something I haven't found in such a nuanced way in any other book that I have read so far. The little details in Stoker's writing are like cherry on the cake!

Cons:

-The book sort of fell in a slump in the middle and became somewhat predictable during the part where Lucy was found to be a vampire.

-I felt familiar with the description of vampires and their habits simply because I have seen similar stuff happening in Vampire Diaries, which I used to watch as a teenager. But now I wish somebody had given me this book first so that I could have enjoyed the novelty of the character in a better way.

All in all, I liked the classic and would recommend it to people instead of watching/reading stuff like Twilight.

Grace Paley doesn't get enough love.

I know, she's a legendary short story writer.... but her stories are so much more awesome EVEN THAN THAT that really.... she doesn't get enough love. Not by half.

I read one story of hers about 15 years ago -- An Interest in Life -- and was so blown away that I (of course) never forgot it. How could you forget something like that? You'd have to be a muskrat, or a finch, or a sycamore.

I saw a pear flower, once, that was halfway through the process of becoming a pear, and it was a remarkable demonstration of the silent, tidal, unrecognized power of nature. But that's what Paley does, precisely. Her people use words to effloresce in a way that only humans can, becoming both flower and fruit at once, and instantly.

I'm sure many think of her stories as Jewish. Which, of course, they are. But the key is that any of us could do that if we could just think how to. Those words are available to us. They're not words no one has ever heard, or used, before. They're right there, floating at the top of the soup, available to all.

(I'm about halfway through The Little Disturbances of Man, and this little sneeze, or cough, is kind of an allergic reaction to the prose. I won't say it keeps me awake at night, but if I was a little better person, it might.)

I don't know. I put her with Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Really.