August and September Reading Chat

[@SupposedlyFun]

It has been fun following along on your Wolf Hall journey. I'm so glad you enjoyed them in the end!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I’m glad you’ve been able to join in on this long painful journey ☺️

[@joelharris4399]

It's the same with film: heavy-handed expositions (explanations) tend to ruin the enjoyment of stories because they often get in the way of linear, organic storytelling. Brings up interesting questions about the symbiotic relationship between the author and the reader in producing a text's meaning. Roland Barthes' Death of the Author territory

[@ameliabarlowbooks]

an immensely readable, compelling nonfic about the immediate aftermath of a hypothetical nuclear explosion in America?! say less!!! I need it thank you for really taking the time to talk about Wolf Hall, I’ve seen a few secondhand copies knocking around lately and I’ve not been sure in the past, but you’ve 100% sold me on the series now - I think I’ll stick it on my Winter TBR xxxxxx

[@marjoriedybec3450]

Glad to hear your spark has been lit once again! Braiding Sweetgrass was a book that rewarded me for accomplishing it. I found most of its individual stories to be sweet but not really that interesting. But there is a totality to the book that happens once you've read them all. RW Kimmerer's writing is excellent and her passion for the subject comes through. In the end, I enjoyed the book a lot but at least twice, I almost gave up on it. I've recently read a NF book that I really thought was stupendous, "The Slip: the NYC street that Changed American Art Forever," by Prudence Peiffer. It tells the story of Coenties Slip at the southern tip of Manhattan where several big name artists worked between 1956-1967 (E Kelly, J Youngerman, A Martin, J Rosenquist and more.) I read loads of art books like this, and honestly its one of the best I've ever read...definitely 5-stars.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Hurrah for finishing the Mantel trilogy. They brought me great joy.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I’m so glad I persevered with such wonderful books.

[@jillybeanh67]

Whilst you read bringing up the bodies and mirror and the light I've read about 30 pages of mirror and the light 🤦 for me and the for you. I got distracted with other books, library books that needed to go back mainly. I would like to get back to it from your glowing review but I have 2 library books I need to finish first (one of which is a recommendation from you - the water cure). I did the back to back for wolf hall and bringing up the bodies and starting mirror and the light as I was following the timeline for the crawlalong with footnotes and tangents but I never managed to follow the pace, always ahead or behind.hieever I think it's the best way to do it. The writing is amazing but also I found it hard to read quickly and get into initially so best to keep going with small gaps, not big ones. I know lots of people say too many Thomas's, but I tend to have slots of people with the same name in my life and having studied it at uni for my history degree (although only for reformation) I didn't find that too off-putting. I did start the Katherine Arden bear and the nightingale book, got about 20 pages in. I liked the writing style and the fact that it was so embedded in Russian myths and folklore but I realised it was the wrong story for that time. I do keep meaning to head back to it though!

[@judybrown1624]

Rushdie is very funny in person. I've seen him at several author events.

[@Michelelynnreads]

I haven't read any of Arden's adult novels. This one sounds so interesting! I've got The Bear and the Nightingale on my TBR for this month. I also have Mantel's trilogy on my TBR. (Laughs at how big my TBR has gotten!) I just pushed through A Prayer for Owen Meany, and I'm not sure it was worth it.

[@deborahwager5883]

Thank you for this discussion of the Wolf Hall trilogy! I watched the miniseries when it was on in the US (because, US, not British--I know the basic outline of Henry and his wives, but not much else). I really enjoyed it, but I had such a hard time figuring out who the characters all were. I have the books, all three, now, so soon I'll have a go at them. You give me hope!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I found that as long as you’re clear on the main characters, the minor ones can all blend into each other and you don’t miss much of the story or experience of reading them.

[@curatoriallyyours]

You’re making me want to pick up the Wolf Hall trilogy now! I too am not a big book reader most of the time, so it has to be a really special big book to tempt me!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

The only thing I usually like about big books is the sense of achievement when you’re done 😂

[@BookishAdventuresInWellbeing]

Yay for a good reading streak! Long may it last

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I have high hopes for the coming months. I don’t know why but autumn and winter always seem to be easier reading times.

[@BookishTexan]

I feel abandoned now that you have read and loved Wolf Hall… now there’s just me apparently. I’ll have to reread it I fear.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

So sorry to abandon you. You know how I hate to disagree with you, but they’re rather good books ☺️

[@Lokster71]

Oh, thanks for this. I, Julian is 99p on Kindle in the UK at the moment so I nabbed it on the spot. I find Julian of Norwich fascinating. I read Knife last month too. I was surprised about it too. I was moved by it, although I felt the scene with his fictionalised head-to-head with his potential killer didn't quite work but I think he gets a pass as I read the book as much as catharsis for him. I think he needed to write it. I was startled by the humour too. Which I was expecting. I think when you reach a level of fame like Rushdie name dropping can't be avoided. I thought he was lovely about his friends who were sick and dying too. Thanks again.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I’d love to know what you think of I, Julian when you do read it.

[@RPMarland]

I thought I had read Wolf Hall all the way through but having just checked my list of books I’ve read it turns out I dnf’ed it. I do remember it being a bit of a slog: one of those books where it feels like you’re looking at the action through misty glass and you’ve got to concentrate a little harder than is pleasurable to keep track of what’s happening at any one moment. I can sometimes put up with that if I’m getting something from a book on a sentence by sentence level, but I don’t suppose I did from Wolf Hall as I stopped. I do like Mark Rylance but I also dnf’ed the tv series because I had imagined Cromwell as Ray Winstone (possibly more due to the Holbein portrait than Mantel’s writing) and Rylance seemed wrong for the role both physically and emotionally (too glum, maybe). But I don’t feel as confident as I did previously that he was miscast now that I’ve reminded myself I didn’t finish the book! The first book I dnf’ed but later persevered with was Pride & Prejudice. Even as I was reading it and not enjoying it I was thinking that it was good but I was reading it at the wrong age for me (I was 18), and that I should give it another go later in life. I did finish it but only, to be honest, so I wouldn’t damage my self-esteem by having to label myself too dimwitted to read Austen. People say she’s funny but I don’t remember being amused, so sometimes I think about re-reading it to see if the humour will land 25+ years later.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I agree Mark Rylance is an odd choice for Cromwell, it’s only in a few scenes in the last episode that I thought he seemed as I’d imagined from Mantel’s description. I think I just ignored how much he didn’t suit the part because I love him so much 😂

[@jenniferlovesbooks]

Glad you've found some books you've enjoyed 😊

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

Finally 😅

[@jenniferlovesbooks]

@@JentheLibrarianreads 😂

[@sarah-roadworthy]

I enjoyed the Bear and the Nightingale. I think of it is a YA fantasy series. I read the first two and sort of lost patience. I dont tend to enjoy YA, so dont read too much into that. I thought the Warm Hands of Ghosts was her first adult novel and It was much better than I was expecting. I really that the "ghosts" were an interesting metaphor for trauma. I was surprised at how much I liked the fantastical elements.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

@@sarah-roadworthy I’m halfway through The Bear and the Nightingale now and I’d definitely agree that it’s a YA fantasy, completely different from her latest (I’m not sure I’ll be continuing, but we’ll see how I feel at the end of the first)

[@sarah-roadworthy]

@@JentheLibrarianreads I thought the second one was meh. After reading these two books I was extra pleasantly surprised by Warm hands. This may reflect my prejudice against YA writers more then anything else.

[@bookofdust]

You’ve given me hope about the Mantel trio, my tolerance for reading big fiction books has continued to wane over the years and I’m worried that I no longer have the capacity to read them. When I read only one book at a time, I think I could sustain that, but when it’s 7-9 books at a time like I do now, I can’t seem to integrate it into the the mix. I think I start to feel resentful that that one’s not finishing when I’ve moved through and beyond all the others. I should probably just map out a month and dedicate it to reading all three in succession, but while that sounds exhilarating it also sounds terrifying. I know it will be worth it in the end, I just don’t know how to get on that train. I did see the 2 part London production when it came to NYC and it made for some most excellent theater. But I think it was only the first two books.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I don’t know how you can read so many books at once, I couldn’t cope. Two is my limit before I start to get confused. 😵‍💫

[@bookofdust]

@@JentheLibrarianreads It’s really just like watching multiple serial TV shows, all the characters and story lines are different and don’t really run together. And it helps if it’s different genres and categories or books. You can switch up if you’re bored with one and there’s no worry of finishing something and hitting a lull of what to read next, you already have other things underway!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

@@bookofdust I can’t even watch multiple tv shows at once, never mind books 😂 I think perhaps the books I read are maybe just too similar, that’s why I would find it hard to get that kind of variety to read that many at once.

[@recentlyseenreading]

Arden's Warm Hands of Ghosts intrigues me. There's a WW1 memoir by Will Bird, a Nova Scotian writer, titled Ghosts Have Warm hands that was published in 1968 (a reworking of his 1930 memoir And We Go On.) I wonder if there's a bit of poetry they're both referring to?

[@xXbubbelXx]

Arden's story and the title were inspired by said memoir.

[@recentlyseenreading]

@@xXbubbelXx That's wild. And it bumps both Bird and Arden's books up my reading list.

[@jacquelinemcmenamin8204]

Hi Jen 👋Great to see you 🤗 Have you read Held by Ann Michaels? I listened on audio but it would have been better as a text& audio combo. It starts in WW1.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I started the audio of Held but couldn’t get on with it. Definitely something that I would prefer to physically read I think.