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HAF Book Club: December poll and discussion

Started by Sandra Craft, November 16, 2020, 01:49:10 AM

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Sandra Craft

Before we get on to the books, a bit of business -- I've taken both Monsters of God and Annals of the Former World off the nonfiction list because, at 500+ and 700+ pages respectively, I thought they were just too long for a monthly book club.  Now onto the books:


The Final Solution: a story of detection, by Michael Chabon.  Retired to the English countryside, an eighty-nine-year old man, rumored to be a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man.  Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot.  (131 pages)

Mrs. Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls.  In the quiet suburbs, while Dorothy is doing chores and waiting for her husband to come home from work, not in the least anticipating romance, she hears a strange radio announcement about a monster who has just escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research.  (111 pages)

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.  A boldly imagined future in which no hope remains, but in which a father and his young son are sustained by love.  (241 pages)

The Reporter, by Scott Sigler.  The Reporter follows Yolanda Davenport, a reporter for Galaxy Sports Magazine, as she searches for the truth about Ju Tweedy's involvement with the murder of Grace McDermott - the incident that drove Ju to join the Ionath Krakens. The Reporter takes place between week three and week six of the 2684 Galactic Football League season, the season that encompasses The All-Pro.  (138 pages)

The Year of Wonders: a novel of the plague, by Geraldine Brooks.  An historical novel based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village". In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carried bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinced the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, and the disintegration of her community.  (304 pages)
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Davin

Looks like it is: The Final Solution: a story of detection

Good thing it's a short book, because I'm reading a 1300+ book in December and I still want to have some free time.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Sandra Craft

From my FB review:

Altho he's never called anything but "the old man", the main character is clearly Sherlock Holmes.  Retired some 23 years now and living, as he's always intended, in the country raising bees he's confronted with one final mystery to solve -- a violent death connected somehow to a parrot stolen from a 9-yr old Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.

The investigation is complicated in that the traumatized boy never talks, and his written English is both infrequent and quirky to say the least.  Nevertheless the old man follows the scanty bread crumbs to a conclusion, catching both the killer and recovering the highly intelligent bird.  Depiction of Bruno the parrot during his time with the birdnapper is a real treat.

I also enjoyed Chabon's writing in this story, which seemed to me a successful attempt to echo Conan Doyle's style.  It kept me in a very Holmesian mood.  And I love this description of the elderly Holmes:

"Even on a sultry afternoon like this one, when cold and damp did not trouble the hinges of his skeleton, it could be a lengthy undertaking, done properly, to rise from his chair, negotiate the shifting piles of ancient-bachelor clutter -- newspapers both cheap and of quality, trousers, bottles of salve and liver pills, learned annals and quarterlies, plates of crumbs -- that made treacherous the crossing of his parlor, and open his front door to the world.  Indeed the daunting prospect of the journey from armchair to doorstep was among the reasons for his lack of commerce with the world . . .

Nine visitors out of ten he would sit, listening to the bemused mutterings and fumblings at the door, reminding himself that there were few now living for whom he would willingly risk catching the toe of his slipper in the hearth rug and spilling the scant remainder of his life across the cold stone floor."

Very much recommended for Holmes fans.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Davin

Chabon has a very distinct style of writing. To me it's very sweet and sugary so it's hard for me to read too much at one time without getting overloaded. Douglas Adams had a similar but less sweet style of painting pictures. So I read it at about one chapter a day even though the book was relatively short. It was a good read.

I liked the perspective switches between characters, got to see inside their heads a bit.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.