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August Reads | 52 Books 2016

09.29.2016 by Nicola Balkind //

What I Read in August

I had a great reading month in August: a new favourite book arose, I chose good novels, and we had a great book club pick which provided over an hour of intense discussion.

Want to know which books I’m talking about? Read on for my August Reads.

 

My Summer Recommendations

Since I didn’t do monthly reading wrap-ups on my YouTube channel this summer, I posted recommendations from my June, July, and August reads instead. Watch for more.

 

Capsule Reviews

As always, I’ve also written up capsule reviews of all the books I read in August – those I’d recommend and the others I read and will offer my opinions on.

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa
40. A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated by Daniel Hahn
★★★★★ – When the Angolan Civil War breaks out, an older woman named Ludo bricks herself into her apartment and fends for herself for 30 years, writing poetry on the walls until a young boy finds her and they strike up an unlikely friendship. That’s the synopsis you’re given – and there’s plenty going on besides, but it’s here where this novel’s heart lies. I’ve not much to say beyond that; it was just fine.
 
 

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss

41. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
★★★★★ – I’m a sucker for a well-written interior monologue, and this book really did it for me. It follows Adam, a part-time academic and stay-at-home dad whose daughter collapses at school one day. It rocks his life, bringing worries and helicopter parenting tendencies to the fore. Moss’s voices are utterly credible and she successfully brews up a potent blend of thoughts, actions, worries, and a personal intellectual life within Adam’s mind.
 
 

Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski

42. Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski
★★★★★ – This has to sit on the top shelf as one of my favourite books. Diski brings together travel and memoir with these stories of stranger’s lives and her own in a mode that’s circular but also gives a sense of forward momentum. Moments from her journeys across the US by train harken back to her teen years being treated for mental illness, making unlikely friendships, and reading on London’s Circle Line for as many hours as the days allowed. She confers her own story with the benefit of hindsight and of empathy and acceptance, and the shared tales of her fellow passengers with warmth, humour, and understanding. Just a gem.
 
 

Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion

43. Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion
★★★★★ – I’ve been describing this one as a great book that I didn’t enjoy reading. Didion captures the bleak aridity of the American West, the veneer of glitz that barely coneals the misery and shallowness beneath. Her characters are spiteful, self-serving, careless people, chipping the glamorous sheen away where your F Scott Fitzgeralds would lay it on thick. It reads like a movie, but kicks like a book. I hated it, but it’s excellent.
 
 

The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick

44. The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick
★★★★★ – Arranged around celestial events, this novel follows comet seekers and romantics Roisin and Francois. It’s structurally sound but often focuses its details in the wrong places. Who are these people, beyond believers in ghosts and watchers of celestial events? They’re full of interests but lack clear motivation, and fall frustratingly often into immature habits of failed decision-making and simple interpersonal understanding. The implication appears to be that conversation doesn’t drive relationships, and it takes a little too long for its subtle complexities to take hold. I was more often impressed by its mechanics than involved in its story though, overall, it is good for a debut.
 
 

What was the best book you read in August?

Categories // Books Tags // 52 books 2016, book reviews, capsule reviews, helen sedgwick, jenny diski, joan didion, maggie nelson

Reading Week #37

01.16.2015 by Nicola Balkind //

Good game.
Good game.

Happy Friday! How has your week been?

This week I started a new personal timetable, which as gone pretty well on the whole. However one item was to attend the gym at least once. I did, but the rest of the week is off now as the gym is shut for roof repairs. Scuppered by the wind.

What are your plans for the weekend? I hope they include getting stuck into some of these lovely links.

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

Yesterday I reviewed this week’s movie releases: Whiplash, Wild, American Sniper and Testament of Youth over on BBC Radio Scotland. Click here for the iPlayer catch-up link.

That’s all you got from me here this week, but I’ve a wee joint project launch in the works… stay posted.

On my business blog, though, I blogged some Tips for Content Curation.

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

While I haven’t been paying too close attention to the Charlie Hedebo story, some things about it concern me. Teju Cole and Anthony Lane elucidate them better than I ever could in their latest New Yorker piece: Unmournable Bodies.

This week in We’re Too Fucking Ironic For Our Own Good: an excellent piece on The Awl pleads that we Free Joan Didion. (Leave Joan Didion alone!)

This quote from Free Joan Didion also also relates to Unmournable Bodies:

The promise of perfection, of minimalism, of simplicity, is a promise that invites you to discourage with complexity because complexity is the place where you’ll have to decide something for yourself. “Keep it simple” is code for “don’t think about this too hard,” and not thinking too hard is a sedative as powerful as anything pharmaceutical.

Also from the New Yorker: a new David Sedaris story! What We Did at the Beach.

Reading Diversely? [OFFLINE] As being a conscientious reader is a real trend in the bookish internet at the moment, my fellow reader Didi has a problem with how many people are going about it.

Teju Cole again, on his favourite film.

 

 

–– DIGITAL ––

My favourite podcasts are getting so incestuous lately… not that I mind! This week, Alex Blumberg (former This American Life and Planet Money producer; star of his own podcast StartUp on his venture to start a podcast empire) is on the Longform Podcast talking about journalisty stuff. Well worth a listen.

The problem with social media ads is the social part. This is the same idea I’ve been struggling with as the social sphere changes, personally and professionally. Well elucidated by Mike at Velocity Digital.
 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

Do you journal? I enjoyed this – Famous Writers on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Journal – and was reminded that if anyone reads mine after I die I’ll seem like the most vile and angry person to walk the earth. So, err, please don’t. The ones in this list are pretty great, though.

I’ve started too many books again. Gah! I’m still reading This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (non-fiction) and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammet (fiction).

Added to the pile this week is The Known World by Edward P. Jones – a Pulitzer Prize winner and this month’s book club selection.

Read any good books lately? Hit reply and let me know.

 

 

–– &c. ––

12 Historical Women Who Gave No Fucks. I’m not usually one for listicles, but this one is a great primer about women in recent history, and my twitter followers seemed to like it!

The excellent Jessica Furseth (whose weekly reading list inspired this one) exposes some of her old single life eating habits and little addictions in Creature of Habit: Food, Marriage, and Ginger Beer on The Toast.

 

What have you been reading this week?

 

 

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Categories // Reading Week Tags // joan didion, link list, reading week

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