Drama-Lovers Book Club

 JJChastity:

After not finishing even one book for three months, I come in September hoping I could finish this book: 

I hope it's good enough to pull me in.

I failed again to finish a book for September. I couldn't tell for October because it seems my workload is going to be the same. I don't know. 

But strangely I have no problem completing dramas I watch.

Hi, guys. October was a month of comfort reading, which for me means mystery/crime books. I finished Higashino Keigo's Naoko (which has a drama adaptation), Togawa Masako's The Master Key, and a book of short stories from leading Japanese post-war crime/mystery authors, Ellery Queen's Japanese Golden Dozen: The Detective Story World in Japan.

I'm currently struggling through a book about social history of Argentinian football (well, "soccer", since I'm reading the American edition ;p), Angels with Dirty Faces by Jonathan Wilson. It's actually a fun book to read when it's about football or society or politics in general, but when it's focusing on such and such players, it's hard to keep my concentration since I'm quite unfamiliar with Argentinian football pre-1980s.

I hope I manage to finish at least eight more books by this year's end.

A good month for book reading!

At the very start of the month I read Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao like I haven't read a book in years! Finished it in three days!!!! I was super surprised. For a while, I was beginning to think I'd lost the magic that comes with book reading. Luckily, this book proved me wrong. Also, I FINALLY finished reading New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color. Despite taking so long to read it (I started it last year!!), the anthology was pretty good. I definitely had a few favorites that I really enjoyed. 

I've also been reading a few random short stories in literary magazines online. It's an interesting way to read. I'm not completely sold on literary magazines, but I would say I'm curious. Anthologies and podcasts are the closest I get to reading short fiction collections.

Happy November, everyone!

Book Update for October-November:

I've almost finished reading Michael Connelly's book The Burning Room, the 17th book of Harry Bosch series which I started last month. 

Like @kura2ninja, November will most probably be a month of comfort reading, meaning I will keep on reading mystery/crime books, if I can squeeze some time between work related readings and drama watching XD

Happy reading, dear drama-book family!

hello, friends. I've just realized that I have to do double update because apparently I forgot to write about my book for September. So here are my thoughts about both books, one I liked a lot and the other was... something else.

 Szczepan Twardoch - Pokora (Humility). I love this guys writing, but sometimes it feels like he writes the same book over and over again. Same setting, same motifs, similar character archetypes. So when I read the first few pages and it was about yet another young Silesian man, caught between toxic relationship with famme fatale and difficult moment in history, I just closed the book and have not touched it until last month lol. On the surface it's the same as his previous novels, but despite familiar elements the whole story was definitely something with its own autonomy that delivers some bold statements about various socio-political issues (unfortunately, relevant even today). Humility is a perfect depiction of chaos and uncertainity that was the Inerwar Period. It was especially difficult for the main protagonist who struggled with his national identitiy, political stance and coming to terms with what he really wants from life and what the world could realistically offer him at this point. It's really historically accurate, some parts of Poland (risky statement, since Silesia lies in Poland, but Silesian don't consider themselves as Poles) were really diverse national/religion/cultural wise and at some crucial points in history it caused a lot of political disputes or conflicts. The hopelessnes, confusion and desperation of the main character who happened to be born during that era was on point. Good book.

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld - The discomfort of evening. This was truly an uncomfortable read. Too honest and dark, gut wrenching, miserable. Fascinating in a sense, but in the end it didn't left me with postivie impression and in all honesty I was angry at myself that I even read it. The horrible tragedy causes the disintegration of a family, young children are left on their own and they have to use their limited understanding of the world to try and understand the existence of death and everything that comes with it. Mix it with conservative, religious upbringing (because of course), first sexual awekenings and the direct contact with unpredictable nature (of course it's a farm in the middle of nowhere) and you got very naturalistic, raw, disturbing yet fascinating story. BUT. I honestly have never skipped entire paragraphs before, but I had to do this here because the incestous, VERY explicit, sexual scenes were too disgusting for me to read. It was too exploitative. I appreciate the commitment to make the readers feel real discomfort. It was very interesting psychological book, but it also negatively affected me and significantly worsened my mood.

Son Won Pyung and her Almond is my pick for November.

Cheers!

For the month of October I read two contemporary Chinese novels, the first one that I liked very much and the second much less, and I returned in the Victorian era with Elisabeth Gaskell.

Good night Rose (晚安玫瑰) by Chi Zijian (迟子建) tells the intertwined fate of two wounded women, an old Jewish lady of Russian origin and a young Chinese migrant from the countryside in the far north of China in Hairbin. The sensitive and poetic story surprises with this story of friendship between these two women that everything seems to oppose, the secrets, the revenge, the alliances are told with great subtlety, all this in the cold of the endless winters of Airbin with its famous ice sculpture park, its towers, its pollution ... Chi Zijian's melancholic and delicate writing has pleased me so much that I have already ordered another of his novels: the last quarter of the moon.

Kàn mài niáng (看麦娘, impossible to find the English name) by Chi Li (池莉) tells the story of Mingli who goes in search of her adopted daughter, of whom she has no news, in Beijing. Through this journey where Mingli finds the trace of a girl she doesn’t really know, she remembers her childhood with Mingli's biological mother and when they played in her father's very special wheat fields. I didn't manage to hang on to either the story or Chi Li's writing which I found quite arid. I couldn't really get interested in the heroine's quest, who nevertheless meets very special characters in an adventurous China, and I did not feel the melancholy of her childhood memories that she wanted to share. I found the whole narrative a little fast. I would like to try another of his novels set in Wuhan but I can see that her writing doesn’t really speaks to me.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, speaks about the confrontation between two Victorian Englands, one peaceful and rural in the South, the other energetic and industrial in the North. Ourheroin Margaret Hale is forced to leave her quiet life in a southern village to settle in a city inspired by the Manchester of the Industrial Revolution. The novel is a real social painting sketched through the friendship that Margaret will have with some of the laborers of the city and her interaction with a great factory owner. The city of Manchester is particularly vibrant and I was really hooked by the story, I read this long novel very quickly. Margaret Hale is an intelligent and generous woman, who doesn’t hesitate to face adversity, I really appreciated her determination. However I must admit that I was a little frustrated by the story of the strike, I don’t really know why but I spent my time comparing with Germinal (written 30 years later) that I had found so striking and relevant, there I found it a little short and not totally involved.

For the month of November I am thinking of reading  Ferdydurke by Gombrovitch. A Polish friend told me it's really great!