chlorine tries to read in 2024

I've been delaying starting my thread because the beginning of my reading year was not very inspiring, but I figure if I don't start my thread now I'll never find the will to start it, so here it goes!

Hi everyone, I'm Clémence, a 46 yo researcher in computer science living in Paris, France. I read a bit of everything, and have a strong interest in speculative fiction (science-fiction, fantasy and related genres) so that represents a large part of my reading (actually quantifying how large a part is something I'd like to achieve this year).

I have several goals/challenge that I do not feel too much pressure to achieve but that I see as a way to stretch my comfort zone.
This year I want to replace my goal in terms of total number of books read by a total number of pages read. I'm tentatively putting it at 17,500 pages, which represents 50 pages a day during 50 weeks. The reason I'm doing that is that I've read many short stories last year and would like to keep up with that trend in 2024. Also, this allows me to not finish a book without feeling any urge to finish it to count it towards my challenge. :)

I started the year with a TBR of 12 books, which may be laughable for many of you but that feels uncomfortable to me. I'd like to reduce it significantly and in particular read the 10 books that I've had for more than a few months (I've already read one as I'm writing this).

If left to my whims I read only novels and each year I try to challenge myself and read 10 nonfiction books.

I also try to broaden my horizons by reading books by authors from all over the world. I have a dedicated thread in the Global Challenge group here on LT and participate in a long-term challenge aiming at reading one book from each country of the world on the French-speaking site babelio.com.

Finally I have a life long challenge of reading all the short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels that have won either the Hugo or the Nebula challenge. I started this a long time ago and find myself more and more questioning the interest for me of this challenge as I find that many oder works do not fit my tastes, but I find it fun to try to at least not fall behind by reading two works of each category each year. We'll see how that goes in 2024.

And my first read of the year is a DNF, which explains my lack of enthusiasm.

I (tried to) read Timescape by Gregory Benford as part of my Hugo/Nebula challenge and this is really a book that makes me consider giving up on this challenge.
This is kind of a time travel story, which is a genre I usually adore, but this really didn't work out for me. I felt that the characters were very poorly portrayed, that the pacing of the story was terribly slow and at some point I realized I really did not care how the story ended.

>2 chlorine: I'm sure I've tried to read something by Benford in the past and couldn't get into it, but I really can't remember what it was.

A while ago I started intermittently reading through the Hugo and Nebula winners myself, though I decided I'm only going to read ones that sound at least vaguely interesting to me and not going to struggle through books that don't appeal for the sake of it.

Nice to see your thread Clémence. That’s a lot of pages. Doable, but I think more than i have read in any single year. Sorry your first book didn’t work. Enjoy that tbr pile.

I'm glad you started a thread, Clémence. I'm happy to follow you here as well as the Global Challenge, as I think the threads on Club Read are more chatty. I'm curious, what are the 10 books on your TBR?

Bonjour Clémence, welcome to your thread 😁

>3 valkyrdeath: The worst part is that Timescape did seem appealing to me, so I wouldn't have filtered it out based on topic. I think I might concentrate in the future on the more recent Hugo and Nebula winners which are appealing to me generally.
(and then there's the problem of series: some of the winners are second or third or thirteenth in a series that I'm not very enthusiastic about reading...)

>4 dchaikin: Hi Dan, thanks for stopping by! Actually according to GoodReads I have read more than my 17,500 pages goal consistently so this seems doable, but we'll see how that turns out! :)

>5 labfs39: The books currently in my TBR are (actually I forgot one ebook so there were 11 at the start of the year):
- Mourons (ensemble), Federico by Joaquín Gutiérrez from Costa Rica (this one is read, review to come)
- Palestine speaks - narritives of life under occupation: this is an ebook that was pointed out by LolaWalser last year if I'm not mistaken
- Pelle le Conquérent by Danish author Martin Andersen Nexø. I've been wanting to read this since I saw the movie by Bille August many, many years ago
- Lettres à Jules Vernes, pièce en un acte by Michel Laurent : this is a self published play by someone I know from the bookcrossing.com website
- El Llano en llamas by Juan Rulfo, a bilingual French/Spanish book that I picked up when I started learning Spanish
- Broadway by Fabrice Caro
- En finir avec les idées fausses propagées par l'extrême droite (how to be done with the false ideas propagated by the extreme right) by Pierre-Yves Bulteau: this one was left to read in the coffee room at work and I thought it might help me getting more cultivated on political matters
- Pourquoi sont-ils si pauvres? (why are they so poor) by Rudolf H. Strahm, about why some countries are and remain poorer than others. This is a bit dated (1985) but I hope some of the principles are still relevant today and this is a topic I've been interested in lately so I couldn't resist picking it up in a little free library
- Les orageuses by Marcia Burnier
- Le bleu entre le ciel et la mer by Susan Abulhawa: this is a book that takes place in Palestine
- Partie d'échecs by Letton author Jānis Ezerins

Many of these books were picked up at bookcrossing meetings where one participants is also interested in reading books from all around the world. :)

>6 FlorenceArt: Hi Florence, thanks for stopping by! :)

>7 chlorine: Thanks, it's always interesting to see what's on other people's bookshelves, and your TBR is manageable enough to share. An nice mix of books that seem able to fit any reading mood. I have only read one of these authors, Susan Abulhawa, and her Mornings in Jenin back when I read a string of Palestinian/Middle East novels.

I have heard of bookcrossings, but I didn't realize there were meetings. How did you become involved with them?

>8 labfs39: I registered on the bookcrossing website in 2003. There were many active people in Paris back then and there was a French speaking section of the forum and through the forum we arranged monthly meetings.
I became less and less active over time, essentially when I realised that going hunting for books is fun but this led me to accumulate a huge TBR pile, but I still go to the monthly meetings because the people who go have become friends over the years.

Glad you decided to start a thread again this year.

Hi, Clémence, glad to be here. Rulfo is wonderful. I'm snowed in under tasks but I'm tempted to fish him out to read along.

>10 SassyLassy: Thanks for the kind words and let's see if I can keep my thread updated for the whole year!

>11 LolaWalser: Good to know that Rulfo is great. I had never heard of him before buying this book. This book is very short, 110 pages in bilingual hence 60 pages max. and the font is large.
It consists of three short-stories:
- El hombre
- Talpa
- Macario
If you have any of these stories it would be fun indeed to read along one of them or all three!

Hello Clémence. So glad you started your own thread. I will follow, for sure.
12 (or 11) books in your TBR! This is impressively low! I think if I had only so much unread books at home, I would actually feel insecure! (I admit it is a privilege to be able to have a huge TBR)

As >11 LolaWalser: said, Juan Rulfo is great. I read El Llano en llamas back in 2012 and absolutely loved it. I did not have a bilingual edition, but own the book twice, both in Spanish and French. I remember I read one short story at a time, first in Spanish then in French.
I have some other books by Juan Rulfo on my shelves, I should try to read them at some point...

>12 chlorine:, >13 raton-liseur:

Lovely to see enthusiasm for Rulfo. My introduction was what I think is generally considered his masterpiece, Pedro Páramo. He's an author I'd hesitate to tackle as a beginner, not because he'd be difficult (his writing is layered but not deliberately opaque) but because it would be a pity, IMO, to "stutter" through such beautiful texts. Reading through in two languages, as raton-liseur says, may be the preferable strategy. But, whatever works best!

>13 raton-liseur: I have a low TBR but my wishlist contains more than 600 books. :) Having a TBR started bothering me more than 10 years ago when I counted the books that were on my to-read shelf and realised I had more than 60, which meant I needed more than a year to read them all, with the unrealistic assumption that I would not acquire new books in the meantime.
I have worked really hard at reducing it and have succeeded at some point to reach 0. The beauty of ebooks is that most of the time I can purchase the next book I want to read at the moment I want to read it, which helps a lot.
What made me guilty about having a TBR is that I realised that I was not interested anymore in some of the books I had bought a long time ago. But to each their own! :)

>13 raton-liseur: >12 chlorine: I'll try to read one story of Rulfo and see if the bilingual thing works for me or if I struggle too much.

>12 chlorine: >13 raton-liseur: >14 LolaWalser: I loved Pedro Paramo so much that I read it in one day, and when I finished I went back to the beginning and started reading it all over again. I also read The Burning Plain which I am not sure is the same as El Llano en Llamas, but think it is, although I remember it as having more than three stories.

>16 arubabookwoman: So much warm praise for Rulfo, and to think I picked up this book more or less at random, not knowing anything about him! This really makes me look forward to reading him!

Mourons (ensemble), Federico (Let's die, Federico) by Joaquín Gutiérrez

In Costa Rica, in the seventies, this book follows Federico, his encounter with his mistress and the impact this has on his marriages and his struggle against an all powerful agricultural company, financed by North Americans, which wants to buy his land.

All this is told in non chronological order, which adds some poetic aspect to the text. There is also a bit of magical realism, Federico's wife seeming to have psychic gifts. The book has some charm but I didn't really enjoy it, as it seemed too obscure at some points, and also the ending left me cold.

Bummer, but interesting. (And glad you translated the title, since I read it as morons)

>19 dchaikin: Actually I translated the Spanish title to English to the best of my abilities instead of the French title, because the French title seems weird to me. As far as I can tell the Spanish title translates to "let us die, Federico", while the French title translates to "let us die (together), Federico". I can understand the addition of the "together" because the Spanish form for "let us die" is unusual to me and might very well imply the "together", but why the parenthesis?

>18 chlorine: Strange book, strange cover. The idea seems interesting, but your review makes me think I'll pass. How did you come across that book by the way?
Parenthesis in the title seem to be king of trendy at the moment, I think I've seen a few of them recently.

I'm looking forward to following your reading this year.

>21 raton-liseur: It was passed to me at a bookcrossing meetup by a fellow bookcrosser who is also interested in reading books from all over the world, who regularly proposes such books to me. Lucky me! :)

>22 Julie_in_the_Library: Thanks!

I registered to Clarkesworld magazine, a magazine that publishes monthly speculative fiction stories. They run a poll to elect the reader's favorite stories from 2023. I didn't participate in the nomination phase because I didn't read enough of what was published in 2023, but now that the finalists have been announced I want to try and read them all and participate in the vote.
The deadline is February 15 and there are 6 short stories and 7 novelettes or novellas (I've read one of these already prior to the vote) so this seems doable but challenging. I'm excited to try it!
I've made a bundle of all the novelettes/novellas in an ebook and will start with these as this is the genre I like most and since they're longer reading them all will be the most difficult part.

Le septième jour (the seventh day) by Chinese authore Yu Hua (Hua being his last name if I understand correctly).

Yang Fei is dead. He discovers that he has to go to the crematorium to be cremated, but once he is there he abandons the idea: because he has no living family or close friend, nobody has purchased a resting place for him. Therefore he starts wandering the city, which makes him revisit some of places that were important to him and even run into over deceases persons who are also wandering.
Each of these places and encounters is the occasion for Yang Fei to reminisce about events or people in his former life. Life has been hard for him as well as the people around him and some critique of the Chinese government is present (this was written in the 2010's), such as demolitions of inhabited houses or people from the party leading a restaurant to its ruin by coming and eating for free.
Yang Fei evolves in some sort of fog that adds some distance between him and these memories, and gives a poetic aspect to the text, which is moreover very well written. All this contributed to a very pleasant reading experience.

Note: I couldn't decipher the meaning of the title, which seems to reference Christian mythology, whereas obviously the characters in this book are not Christian because they want to be cremated and cannot find rest if they don't (and no mention of Heaven is made).

Why I read this now: I'm exploring real life book clubs opportunities around me and one bookclub hosted a meeting which was centered around this author. As I had this book on my wishlist I decided to read it and participated and it was a very interesting meeting.

>25 chlorine: Sounds like an interesting group. Living in a rural area, I don't have a lot of choices when it comes to book clubs, but happened upon one that meets at a library half an hour drive from here, and so far it has turned out to be an interesting group of readers with decent reading choices.

ETA: Unfortunately it is constrained by the fact that the books chosen have to be available in large numbers through the Maine library system, which limits greatly the number of translated books we can choose.

>26 labfs39: Yes it is an interesting group. Unfortunately the next two meetings are about books that don't interest me that much and I don't know if I'm willing to schedule time for reading them when there are so many books I do want to read... I'll let some time pass and decide whether I want to allocate the time for it.

Your group sounds interesting as well, I hope the books that are chosen are interesting to you!

>25 chlorine: maybe there is a Chinese reference regarding seven, or the seventh day? Sounds interesting, and cool you read it for a book club and could discuss it.

>25 chlorine:, >28 dchaikin: The seventh day after death is also significant in The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

>29 ELiz_M: This is on my wishlist. :) Did you like it?

>29 ELiz_M: >28 dchaikin: This seems indeed to indicate that the seventh day after death is relevant for buddhism, which makes more sense than a link with christian faith. I _think_ I read somewhere that the link existed but I probably misunderstood.

>25 chlorine: I've read a couple of books by Yu, and this one sounds consistent with his style. I'll have to look for it based on your review.

>26 labfs39: That's exactly how my book club works too, which can be frustrating when choosing the year's books (Roy Jacobsen didn't make the cut because there was only one book of his in the system), but on the whole we read some good books, that in most cases I would not have read otherwise.

>31 SassyLassy: but on the whole we read some good books, that in most cases I would not have read otherwise Exactly.

Thank goodness for Club Read!

>31 SassyLassy: I do want to get to other books of Yu Hua in time, which one(s) would you recommend?

>33 chlorine: I really liked Brothers. The book opens with a long scene set in a latrine that was a bit gross, and I nearly abandoned the book. But once you get through that the book was quite engaging.

>34 arubabookwoman: It does seem very interesting! Unfortunately (and interestingly) it doesn't seem it has been translated to French.

>33 chlorine: I was going to suggest Brothers too. Checking titles in French, I found Le Vendeur de sang, which I've read and liked, as well as La Chine en dix mots, which I haven't read.
I also found a version of Brothers which amazon.ca says is a French version on their website, selecting French as the language. It seems to be translated into several languages, so it's strange if French isn't one of them.
To Live is another good one.

>36 SassyLassy: Which books are translated to which languages is really weird for me! Le vendeur de sang was one of the books that some people in the bookclub read and enjoyed.

This reminds me that there were common themes in the Yu Hua books that we discussed, including fatherhood and in particular adoptive fatherhood, as well as organ donation (or in the case of Le vendeur de sang, blood donation).

>35 chlorine: Brothers is translated into french, and is called... Brothers. I've not read it (and I've not read anything by Yu Hua) but I remember it because it won the first-awarded prize from Courrier International for a foreign novel.
It has been published by Actes Sud (same as for his other books), and there is a pocket version from Babel (see here).

>38 raton-liseur: Thanks! I should have recognised the Actes Sud logo when I was looking at Hua's books. :) I've added it to my wishlist. Le septième jour was available at the digital library but this one is not, unfortunately.

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

This is the 6th book in the Murderbot series and my favorite so far. This is an investigation story as there is a murder in the otherwise peaceful Preservation space station, and Murderbot will collaborate with the station security to solve the case (and see if it is part of a plan to attack Mensah, whose protection is its top 1 priority - besides watching media of course).
Though this takes place before the 5th book, Network Effect, I thought the character of Murderbot is really progressing and its interactions with everybody were both funny and touching.

I have been terrible at updating my thread and reading other people's thread. Part of the reason is that I read a little bit less, and read a lot of short fiction which I don't want to review individually. Also, other things do tend to get in the way.

Une page d'amour (an episode of love) by Emile Zola

This is not a very-well known book in the Rougon-Macquart series as far as I can tell. We follow Hélène and her daughter Jane. Hélène is a very serene woman. Although she is recently widowed she is rather content and tranquil and seems to enjoy the perspective of spending the rest of her life in her apartment in the Passy heights in Paris with her daughter Jeanne. Unfortunately Jeanne has a very nervous temperaments and is prone to severe attacks of a disease which is hard to diagnose. Hélène is very protective of her. Of course, as the title suggest, love will happen and disrupt her tranquil life.

I really enjoyed this book. As always with Zola it was very well written and the characters were quite interesting. I felt very bad for poor Jeanne which stayed indoors all the time and had no company except her mother and the servant, and basically no occupation. Though Hélène cared deeply about her and did this to protect her (also nobody seemed to think that Jeanne needed an education) this really feels close to child abuse by today's standards.
In each of his novels Zola provides lengthy descriptions of something that he has chosen to highlight. In this book this is Paris: Hélène's flat provides a wonderful view of Paris and the Seine river, and Zola describes it at different times of day or nights and different seasons and weathers, with the city resonating with what his happening for Hélène. I was particularly struck by the description of how the public lighting comes up at night: because it was gaslamps at the time, they were manually lit by people who would walk along a street and light them one by one, and Hélène can witness the progress of the lighting form her flats, with different streets being lit up at the same time by different people. The idea of having gas lighting scares me to death but this must really have been something to behold.

Why I read this now I have an ongoing project to read all the Rougon-Macquart books. I'm doing this at a very slow pace (two books in 2022, zero in 2023) to avoid having a Zola overdose (and because there are so many shiny books attracting my attention)

>41 chlorine: That sounds lovely. I have the first one in the series with vague intentions, but have still only read Germinal and Nana.

>42 labfs39: Is the first one La fortune des Rougon ? I actually wouldn't recommend reading it before having read a few others (if you intend to) because I thought it was much more fun to be exposed to the whole family tree while already knowing some of the characters from other books.
Germinal and Nana are very good, Nana was probably my favorite of those I read when I was in high school. If you liked Nana I would recommend L'assomoir which is about Nana's parents.

>43 chlorine: L'Assommoir is my favorite. I don’t know why. I’m reading it again in English.

>44 kjuliff: I don't know if L'assomoir is my favorite but it certainly is among my favorite ones. I will read again those I have read when I was in high school while I'm going through the series and I'm looking forwards to L'assomoir !

>43 chlorine: Where would you recommend beginning?

>46 labfs39: I'd mostly follow the recommended reading order which is on the wikipedia page but start with the 3d one, The Kill and then go from here, and go back to the first two if you feel the urge.
Or read them out of order in this case I would recommend L'assomoir or La bête humaine. The ladies' paradise is also a nice one that is much less bleak than the usual ones.

Partie d'échecs (chess game) by Jānis Ezerins

This is a collection of short-stories by Latvian author Janis Ezerins, taking place in the beginning of the twentieth century. I was excited at first because I thought the writing was very good but in the end this did not work for me as I felt the characters often acted in absurd ways or the description of action of dialogues was too short to make sense.

>48 chlorine: Too bad, I'm always looking for books by Baltic authors.

>41 chlorine: someday Zola. Enjoyed your review of Une page d'amour.

>49 labfs39: This Latvian book wasn't completely bad IMO, so still can be something to look for, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

>50 dchaikin: Zola is definitely an author to try out at some point IMO. Glad you enjoyed my review.

Au-delà de cette limite votre ticket n'est plus valable (beyond this limit your ticked is not valid) by Romain Gary.

I had read this book five years ago and really liked it, so I was glad for the occasion to reread it when a book club I participate in chose it for its February book. I didn't know it was possible to change one's opinion of a book so much in such a short time.

This book is about Jacques Rainier, a former resistant during WWII who is currently dating Laura, who is very much younger than him (she's 22 and he's 59). This makes you wonder how much is autobiographical in the book as Gary himself fought against the German occupation and was married to Jean Seberg who was also very young compared to him.
The book revolves around Jacques' aging and the implications this has on his love life, as the erectile function happens less often than when he was younger. The whole book revolves around this, with Jacques anguished by the fact that he cannot satisfy his lover.
What I strongly disliked is that, though Jacques presents himself as selfless and wanting to make her happy, he actually never talks to her about his problem (or only in roundabout ways that are totally unintelligible to her) and never asks her what she wants, even though he goes as far as to consider leaving her to make her happy. Also he never considers easy, alternative ways to satisfy her (but not him) in bed. This therefore felt like a completely egocentric monologue and the character was completely unlikeable to me. As this seems to be partly biographical it's hard to feel that Gary presents this character as a negative one, though, which induced my dislike of the book.

There are also parts of this novel that feel quite racist as Jacques consider hiring a man to make love to her (again, he considers this extreme solution beforetrying to, sorry to be a bit crude, use his fingers) and for some reason this man cannot be black or arab because this would seem racist to Jacques, but he must not be completely white either. Yuck.

Note that although two of us really disliked the book for the above mentioned reasons, the majority of the bookclub participants really liked it, and the discussions were interesting.

>52 chlorine:

I haven't read that but your impressions fit to a t what I thought about several of Gary's books. In short and as charitably as I can put it, his ideas about women and sex were woefully retro.

Les enchanteurs infuriated me so much I couldn't even bring myself to rant about it. :)

>52 chlorine: I didn't know it was possible to change one's opinion of a book so much in such a short time.

I too have had this experience though not which this book which I have not read. I think the reason is that we are more attuned to racism and sexism.i couldn’t finish re-reading Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. I couldn’t read it for what it was. I realise that it’s a judgement using retrovision but the stain once in one’s mind is not removable.

What I find interesting is that value judging applies more when the book is modern or later. We do not judge Dickens in the same way as we judge Faulkner. And somehow it’s OK that Jane Austen’s Mr. Knightley proposes to Emma. . I think it’s when we feel an identity in age and ethnicity with the author that the sexism and racism comes into play in our judgement.

I recently looked at reading Coetzee’s latest recent novel The Pole that involves a romance between an older man and a much younger woman. I couldn’t even think of reading that book.

* Edited for typos only

>53 LolaWalser: I hadn't even heard about Les enchanteurs but won't put it on my wishlist! :D

>54 kjuliff: Being more attuned to racism and sexism definitely is what caused me to change my mind on this book but I have been really attuned to sexism for a long time, so I was surprised to see such a change over a relatively small period of time: it was only 5 years ago that I had firs read this book.

I do quite feel the same way as you about older books and authors: while not judging the authors, I tend to judge the works. I am not a literature scholar so I read books for enjoyment and racist or sexist positions will lessen my enjoyment of a book as a modern reader.
When I was young I loved Lord of the Ring, but when I tried to read it when I was a bit older I was nauseated by the racism underlying the whole book (the heroes are good and noble because they come from noble races, yuck) and while I understand that this was more normal in Tolkien's time, I won't read it again. Same goes for the Sherlock Holmes books. I read only one or two but was really shocked by the racism and I won't go there again.

your change in perspective is interesting. I agree that five years ago we probably did not feel that much different (maybe 8 years ago...??). I always wonder, when something like this bothers me in a book from a few years ago, what's going on. Did we change so much?

>54 kjuliff: I try to read authors from their perspectives. I am struggling a bit with Faulkner's race obsession.

I'm not reading much at the moment because a personal project has occupied most of my attention and will probably keep on doing so for quite some time. I didn't want to talk about it while I was applying to not jinx it: I decided to change career paths and enter university again as a student to train to be a psychologist.
Thanks to my academic background I was lucky to be accepted for entrance directly in the third year of the Bachelor program, which means that I only have to study for three years to be a certified psychologist (if all goes well, obviously).

I am a French worker of the state (fonctionnaire) which has the great advantage that after quitting my job I have a couple of years during which I can get it back, no questions asked. So if psychologist does end up not being a job for me I can go back to being a researcher, therefore taking this leap is very safe for me.

I've spent the last weeks trying to start learning some psychology, because starting directly in the third year will require a large amount of work. I'm also applying for an internship during which I will have the opportunity to observe profesional work, one day each week.

I'm really excited!

I haven't been much here and I hope everyone is OK.

>57 chlorine: Wow, that is such an exciting next step! Congratulations and kudos for being willing to jump in with both feet. I hope you keep us posted. Good luck!

hi! Good luck with the career change!

>41 chlorine: This was a novel I enjoyed too (A Love Story in English translation). The descriptions of Paris from their flat were lovely.
While I would agree about Jeanne's treatment by adults being highly questionable, I came to dislike her as a child and find her highly manipulative.
I just reread my review, wondering if I wasn't remembering correctly, but it turns out I was. I wrote that in Jeanne, Zola has created perhaps the most diabolical child in literature, one who would stop at nothing to punish those whom she felt had crossed her. A strong reaction, but one I still remember.

>57 chlorine: How exciting - congratulations and all the best!

>57 chlorine: How exciting! Best of luck and bon courage for the studying!

>57 chlorine: Enjoy your second round of student life! I hope it all works out :-)

>57 chlorine: Congratulations on your new career path! That is exciting news.

Lots of luck with your studies and your new career. I did that a few times in my life and I know how invigorating it can be. Cheers!

>57 chlorine: Wow, a big step. Congratulations, and good luck for the studies ahead!

Thanks everyone for the kind words! :)

>64 rocketjk: Wow, you changed career paths more than once? I'm in awe. And invigorating is indeed the right word for how I'm feeling right now. :)

All right I have lots of catching up with my reading to do. I'll try to alternate the most recent books I've read which are still fresh in my memory and older ones.

Let's start with the most recently finished book: Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are? by Frans de Waal.

Frans de Waal names his field evolutive cognition. Cognition is how all animals, including humans, perceive their environment and other animals, and the mechanisms which allow them to interact with their environment, learn things, solve problems, use tools, recognize and communicate with each other, etc. The idea here is that learning and behaviours are rooted in the biology of a species and that species that are close to each other genetically should have close forms of learning and behaviours. Conversely, several unrelated species may develop similar capacities through convergent evolution.

This book not only gives an overview of the field of evolutionary cognition but also of its pitfalls. He warns about some tendancies to think that human intelligence is so unique that it cannot be compared at all to the intelligence of any other species. This bias may lead to experiments which are incorrectly conceived, such as experiments supposed to compare task solving for human children and apes which are performed in vastly different conditions for the children and the apes.

There's much more to this book than this and I highly recommend it.

The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

I really enjoy reading speculative fiction short stories and the field has such a high number of authors that I thought that reading a best of anthology would be a better way to find stories and authors I enjoy than reading randomly.
Unfortunately the editor's tastes do not correspond to mine. These stories are those he considers the best among 20 yearly best of anthologies he has published. Some were really good, but none was breathtaking, and most were barely OK (though TBH the book contains the novella Story of your life by Ted Chiang that I didn't read this time around because I've read it before and this one is excellent).

A random pick among the stories I liked would be The Undiscovered by William Sanders which was very good and a lot of fun.

System Collapse by Martha Wells

This is book 7 in the Murderbot series. I was apprehensive about because I had not liked the only other novel-length book in the series as much as the other. Fortunately this turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed watching the Murderbot character continue evolving in new ways.

I think there are at least two more books in the series to come and I'll look forward to them!

>66 chlorine: "Wow, you changed career paths more than once? "

Yes, but I didn't do anything as hard as you're doing, going back to school to study for three years so I can take on a whole new discipline. I started my professional career as a public radio host/producer. Then I did go back to school to get an MA in Creative Writing/English Lit* after getting some encouragement about my fiction writing. I got the degree, but didn't have the stick-to-it-ive-ness to pursue fiction writing strongly enough. I taught for four years: English comp, creative writing and English as a second language. Then in an odd twist of circumstances I went to work at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as a copy writer/editor/small project manager. After five years or so at that, I quit the Fed to start a freelance writing business. (It was the first dot.com boom and I was in San Francisco. Everybody who could spell DOS was going freelance.) My tech writing/marketing practice eventually morphed into my becoming a freelance jazz journalist. Then I did jazz-related PR for a few years. Then my wife and I moved from SF to rural Mendocino County and after trying to keep the writing business going in the new locale, my wife and I bought a used bookstore, which I ran for 8 years before retiring.

* Not to be compared in any way to the rigor of what you're now taking on. My MA program took work, especially the education courses I took outside of the MA curriculum to learn how to teach English comp, but the program was essentially reading books and talking about them, and writing short stories and talking about them. In other words, stuff I would have been doing anyway, but just with a bit more urgency. There was no math and no science.

>70 rocketjk: That's a very interesting career path, thanks for sharing!
Also it's so funny to see how different our views on what is difficult or not are: some of the things you've done, such as PR or teaching lit I would be completely clueless about. On the other hand, being scientifically oriented, I consider the three years of study to be the easy part of my project: it will require work but I really think that it will be work that I know how to do and that I will succeed and love this work. The more difficult part will come afterwards: building a network, finding patients if I decide to open my own practice: these are more daunting to me than the studying part. :)

Also I just got a really good news that makes this adventure even less risky than it was: my employer is interested in my project and is interested in having my expertise in psychology after my training. I wouldn't be interested in working for them full time on this topic but half time could be interesting and would be very interesting financially speaking, as I currently earn significantly more than twice the minimum wage. This is still hypothetical but more importantly they will be funding me be to pursue my studies, at least for the first year and probably for the three years.

I'm really glad of this but at the same time I wish that everybody could have this kind of opportunity.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

This is a fantastic dystopic book that I first read in 2017 and read again now because the second book in the series finally came out, almost 15 years after the first!
A friend of mine induced me to read it long after it came out. At that time she had given up hope that the second book would ever see the light of day but she said the the book could be read as a stand alone.

The worldbuilding in this book is incredible. We follow Edward moving to a new city with his Dad, who live in a society where the rank of people depend on the amount of colour they can see. It becomes quickly obvious that people are not exactly humans like us. Their sight is different (leading to a lack of colour perception), they can be healed by watching the right shade of colour, and other differences that appear throughout the book. They know that they replace "the Previous" who disappeared after the "Something that happened" but they know little else - and their society seems to be having less and less knowledge as some existing technologies are banned from time to time.

This is a very rigid society in which obeyance to the rules is brought to an extent rarely seen (extracts of the rules presented at the beginning of each chapter state for instance on which days of the week a tie has to be worn, and what type of knot it should have). The book however is very funny, as not only Edward but many characters express a lot of wit and sarcasm againts those rigid rules.

As in many dystopic books, Edward will try to investigate and question why the society is as it is, which will bring danger to him. As he progresses, we discover more and more of this strange world and society and I was amazed at the imagination that Fforde deployed in the worldbuilding. It is very rich and consistent, with many details integrating perfectly well with each other.
I couldn't stop reading at the end because I really wanted to learn more and more about this society and its workings.

Rating 8/10. Not a book that will change your life or your vision of things but one that will make you have a really good time.

>72 chlorine: I've been meaning to finally read this one since the sequel came out. I actually got it from the library when it was new, but it had to go back before I got very far in it and I never got round to it again. Your review is encouraging, sounds like it's worth going back to.

>72 chlorine: I didn't realize that the sequel to Shades of Grey had finally been published. I remember Shades of Grey as the darkest of Fforde's novels, particularly the ending. Like you, I guess I'll have to read it again before I read the sequel.

>73 valkyrdeath: >74 rocketjk: The sequel is called Red Side Story. I'll do a full review soon but I really liked it. There will be a third book but the second book, as the first, tough it bets for a sequel, proposes a satisfying ending to a story arc.

I only read one other Fforde book, The Eyre affair, and did not care that much for it. Shades of Grey does have a dark side that didn't get into my review, indeed, and these elements also appear in the second book.

>72 chlorine: Interesting! I tried to read The Eyre Affair and it didn’t feel like something for me, but since you mention that you also didn’t love it, I might give this one a try some day.

>72 chlorine: I really enjoyed Shades of Grey too, and am glad you liked it. Like you said, it isn't very deep, but it's a good, fun read. Looking forward to the sequel!

>76 FlorenceArt: The idea of the Eyre affair was so good, I was really disapointed to not like it more!

>78 chlorine: That was my sentiment too.

Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I've been meaning to read a book by Tchaikovsky for a very long time, as I am seeing him referenced everywhere I look, everybody seems to be loving his books, and he is a very prolific writer.
A friend on Goodreads suggested I start with this novella and I really liked it.

The chapters alternate between the POV of two characters, one who is the fourth princess in a somewhat medieval society on a planet that is not Earth, and the other being an anthropologist coming from the much more technologically advanced Earth to study this planet which was colonised in rough conditions and lost contact with Earth, which explains why it is medieval. The problem of the anthropologist is that contact with Earth has been lost again and he is marooned on this planet, skipping through the years by hibernating and trying to act in his role of anthropologist in case anyone from Earth comes to find him, which seems more and more unlikely each time he wakes up.

The story of these two characters who don't understand each other nor the issues the other is facing is really good. Tchaikovsky made his charcters really believable and endearing, and he brings other aspects to the story that really amazed me. It is hard IMO to make a story so original, after so many years of existence of the field of speculative fiction. The best part was that this originality was not for originality's sake but really allowed him to build interesting characters with interesting relationships.

I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I felt the main device of the plot resolution was unbelievable and came out of nowhere, but as the main point of this book is the characters, that did not disappoint me _too_ much.

Rating 8/10

Why I read this now I decided to give up on a psychology book I was reading that was IMO badly written and structured, and thought it would be time for a short book that I would really enjoy.

>80 chlorine: Tchaikovsky has also been popping up in my recommendation feeds. I guess I should try him too.

Samouraï by Fabrice Caro

Fabrice Caro is more known if France for his comics, that he writes under the name Fabcaro. This is the second novel of his I read, the first one being Le discours.

This is a short book about a guy who is depressed after his girlfriend left him, his best friend from childhood (who he had lost touch with) has committed suicide, and decides to write a novel to win the esteem of his ex back. However between deciding to write a great novel and actually sitting down to work, there's a world of difference. Meanwhile, his friends try to set him up with woman they know so he'll recover from his breakup. The character is at the same time full of himself, fantasising about what a great writer he is while not actually writing the book, and thinking he is a failure and amazed at how poorly he handles some situatuations. The author used this in a comedy setting and the character's exagerations in both directions led to several laughing out loud moments, which is rare for me.

There's a strong similarity with Le discours but I thought this one was better. I would'nt recommend reading them in a sequel because, though I thought the novel was the perfect length for the author's style, it seems to me that his style can become tiring after a while.

Rating: 8/10

Why I read this now My father lent it to me a while back. I don't read much fiction currently but wanted to scram in some, so a short novel felt like the perfect choice.

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

T. Kingfisher (or Ursula Vernon) is another author I've been wanting to read for some time. This short novel won the Hugo award in 2023.

This is part fantasy and part fairy tale. Mara is a princess, but an inept one. She fails at learning the subtelties of court politics and diplomacy, and ends up in a convent. The story alternates between past and present, and starts when Mara is on some fairy tale quest, the goal of which we will discover little by little, at the same time as we discover what happened to her and most of all what happened to her sisters.

Mara is a very interesting and endearing character, who fights to be an actor in her life story rather than being passive as everybody is urging her, actively or not, to be. This will lead her to engage on this heroic quest and meeting a very interesting cast of characters.
The books start somewhat dark but quickly lightens up. Though Mara and her friends face dangers and have to witness the darkness of human soul, the novel is uplifting on the whole.

The cast of characters and Mara's determination and ironic humour make a very pleasant novel. I have other books by T. Kingfisher in my wishlist and will certainly get to them at some point.

Babel by R. F. Kuang

This is an alternate history book set in the 19th century Oxford university. In this alternate world, words have power and translators can make something similar to magic by exploiting the differences between a word and its translation. The British empire uses the translators at Oxford to maintain and extend its power.
We follow a group of four young translator students, who are discriminated because they are not white and/or not males. They were brought to Oxford because their skills in languages from faraway places are needed for the translation institute, but they are made to feel like they don't really belong.
Little by little, they will start to question the whole system of dominations on which the British Empire was built.

I thought the magic system was really interesting and it was IMO the high point of this book. The daily discrimination and the fact that well-meaning people could be oblivious to it was also really interesting to me. However, the book was a bit spoilt for me by its last part, in which I thought the students were behaving in a completely unbelievable way.

Rating: 7/10

Why I read it now: I read it back in March with a discord group whose aim is to read all novels who won the Hugo and/or Nebula award.

There's many things I could be doing today but it turns out I'm quite stressed out by the ongoing French elections. So I decided to try and make progress in my Hugo/Nebula winning works by reading a novella.

The weight of the sunrise by Vylar Kaftan is a very short novella about an alternate history Incan empire which resisted Spanish invasion. The story takes place in the late 18th century and smallpox, brought by the Europeans, is a major concern for the empire which doesn't know how to fight it except through quarantine. Then come Americans claiming they have a vaccine and wanting to sell it to fund their war against England.

This is a nice tale about what can be owned and what should or shouldn't be owned: is it right for a man to sell so expensively what can save so many lives? How can a man say he wants to fight for freedom when he owns slaves? I thought this was nicely done, and the main character was endearing.

The author makes us look at two societies with deep flaws that we currently find abhorrent: slavery on one side and human sacrifice on the other. Characters from both worlds despise the others for their barbaric ways. Makes me wonder how we can be judged by others.

I have a long term goal to read all the Hugo and Nebula award winning works. I read They'd rather be right by Mark Clifton with a discord group for this reason.

This is one of the earliest winners of the Hugo awards (1955) and I did not enjoy it at all. IMO this is one of the earliest works of sci-fi for which all that was important was to have an idea: the writing is not good, the scientific parts are nonsensical, and the characters are stereotyped and not developed (and the idea is not that good).

I guess the advantage of having read this is that it shows where the bad rep of speculative fiction is coming from, and also how much the field has evolved and become so good.

I'm not going to read older winning works for a while, and will probably read a few recent winning short stories to make for a nice change. :)

>86 chlorine: Ouch, too bad!

The touchstone goes to The Forever Machine, which apparently is a later version that was edited to make it… slightly less bad, I guess. That’s impressive.

>87 FlorenceArt: I won't read the revised version to see how less bad it is! :p

>84 chlorine: This sounds like a good one. Language treatment is always fascinating, especially when it is used for political ends.

I hope your anxiety over the elections has been abated somewhat.

>89 SassyLassy: I'm completely relieved at how the elections turned out, thanks! With no clear majority in the Assembly things will be complicated and who knows what that'll entail for future years but at least the worst is avoided for now. :)

Concerning language, I was recommended Embassytown by China Miéville at the time I was reading Babel. It seems really interesting as well, perhaps even more so.

To be taught, if fortunate by Becky Chambers

This is a novella that do not belong to any of Chambers series, about space explorers who are sent (in torpor so they can withstand the long time flight) to explore extra-terrestrial life. As with all of her books, this exploration is done with utmost respect for the life they encounter.

The team of four and their relationships is an interesting cast, and the worlds they travel to and the events they face is very well thought of. This is an intimist novella that managed to place me in the main character's end, and with an original plot and plot resolution.

>90 chlorine: I am late in the conversation, but just wanted to add my voice on recommending China Méville. I have not read this one, but he is a great sci-fi/dyspotian author. He has great ideas, knows how to write and to flesh out an idea and characters (not like your >86 chlorine: 1955 Prize winner!); The City and the City was an incredible read!

(And as a side note, I agree with you on the elections, although as you said, the worst is avoided for now...)

>90 chlorine: Adding another vote for Embassytown!

>92 raton-liseur: I’ve put The City & the City on my tbr. Looks interesting.

>92 raton-liseur: I am familiar with China Miéville. In fact I discovered him throught The City & the City and it was an amazing read! The end of the first chapter was so thrilling!
I have read several books of his and the ones that stand out the most are The City & the City and Perdido Street Station.

Since I have last posted I also read Kraken which was quite good but not on par with these two IMO.

Just popping by to say hello and wish well to everyone!

I started reading psychology during the summer to prepare for my studies in psychology, which was very interesting but has reduced my non-technical reading to almost zero (except some short stories).

The semester has now started two weeks ago. The curriculum is fascinating but the work load is very intense, much more so than when I was a student the first time! I have a lot of reading to do of very interesting papers, but unfortunately no time to report about it here (unless someone is interested in a dump of my notes in French ;)

>95 chlorine: I just today extended my hold on The City & the City - I can’t remember why I tried to borrow it. I extended as I’m reading The Drowned and need to read The Family Moskat with dianelouise100 and cindydavid4 next. Now Im sorry now that I extended the hold as John Banville is annoying me.

Perdido Street Station was my first Miéville, and it floored me. Nothing ever came close to that for me, even The City & the City.

Congratulations on starting your new studies, and bon courage!

>99 Dilara86: Same for me: I discovered Miéville with Perdido Street Station, which bowled me over. Embassytown is my next favourite. I should read it again at some point (and hope the Suck Fairy doesn't strike!)

Good luck with your studies! I hope the workload isn't overwhelming.

>99 Dilara86: I haven’t read Embassytown though it’s on my wishlist. I will keep it in mind for my next Miéville!

So much enthusiasm for China Miéville. I have only read The City & The City, and now I feel I should add Perdido Street Station on my to-be-read list! M'sieur Raton has read various Miéville, I should ask him what are his favourites!

Congrats and good luck on your studies. Great that you enjoy it (despite the workload)!

Good luck with all the reading for your psych program. It sounds like it is keeping you busy. I have yet to read China Miéville, but I should add him to the list.

>95 chlorine:, >100 FlorenceArt:

I liked The last days of New Paris a whole lot, it's fun especially for a fan of Surrealism (or anyone aware of the early
20th century art). And it combines it with lefty motifs from French history, the revolution, the Commune, resistance...

>98 FlorenceArt: Agreed! Perdido Street Station is a great read. I loved Iron Council too: outlaws and steampunk, irresistible!