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Where to start with: Jane Austen
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/20/where-to-start-with-jane-austen

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here gave me goosebumps and legitimately freaked me out or made me feel unsettled.

Some stories are really great, others just okay, but none I felt were bad or wasted my time.

I saw a comment sometime saying this would be the perfect place to start with King, and I largely agree.

My favourite stories from this were:

- The Boogeyman
- Jerusalem's Lot
- One For The Road
- The Graveyard Shift
- Gray Matter

4⭐

---

CONCLUSION

And that brings us to the end of King in the 70's. I'm excited to see what the 80's will bring, especially since I see A LOT of big hitters coming up. I didn't expect to like King as much as I have, in fact, he's quickly become one of my favourite authors along with Sir Terry Pratchett (holy tonal whiplash Batman!)

My current SK ranking this is as follows:

1) Salem's Lot
2) The Stand
3) The Shining
4) Night Shift
5) The Dead Zone
6) Carrie

This list will be added to and the orders may change over time, especially as I digest the stories more. For example even though Night Shift was given 4.25 initially, I'd probably say now that it's my 3rd favourite King book.

EDIT: Sorry, also just to say, I started Carrie on Jan 1st and finished Night Watch Feb 25th, and listened to non SK books in-between to space them out a little. Every time I finished a book I added my thoughts to my notes.. I didn't intend for it to get this massive but here we are 😂

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Experiencing Stephen King - Part 1 - The 70's

Hey everyone, this is just me talking about experiencing Stephen King's books for the first time!

For context, I'm male, just turned 30 last year, and only started listening to audiobooks in 2023 at my manual, low brainpower job, and it's now one of my favourite hobbies ever and has truly enriched my life.

When I ramped up my listening in 2024, one of my goals was to listen to a lot of books that I missed out on when growing up, so this included Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, His Dark Materials, Discworld, The Lord of the Rings and more. I've now decided that King has had such an incredibly large impact on pop culture that I HAD to give him a listen.

My favourite books so far have been Oryx & Crake (Margaret Atwood), Downward to the Earth (Robert Silverberg), The Road (Cormac McCarthy), Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett), Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton), The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkein)

I'm not a horror guy, but my wife loves horror and King's book, so I thought I'd dip my toe for her, much to the shock of everyone around me. Although that being said, I've listened to MOST of Cormac McCarthy's books, and you can't get much more brutal than that right? I like some artsy horror films, but generally I try and avoid it.

Slight confession here, I'm not entirely a King virgin. The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favourite films & I listened to the short story last year (I bought the standalone audiobook but now have the collection it comes in too). The other is "The Shinning" from The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, which is more a take on the movie than the book (I'm assuming from now experiencing the book). I've also watched a couple of films, like the new versions of IT & Pet Sematary, but tbh I can really remember much about them as it was a few years ago.

DISCLAIMERS:
- These are all audiobooks that I've listened to & so I am limited to what is available to me through my audiobook providers. I'll use read/listened to interchangeably.
- I won't be listening to any of the Bachman books or his collaborations with other authors INITIALLY. I'm just wanting to keep it streamlined.
- I'm going in PUBLISHED order according to Wikipedia, however I'm saving short story collections and novellas to either the end of the decades or as marker points, whatever makes the most sense for myself.
- My rating system is a little wonky, but it works for me:

- 5⭐ - Favourite, Perfection
- 4⭐ - Really great!
- 3⭐ - Good book & enjoyed my time with it
- 2⭐ - Meh, didn't enjoy / was fine but didn't click
- 1⭐ - Disliked.
- 0⭐ - Wouldn't even use this book for toilet roll.

Within each star, ratings can range from .0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and this is just decided on what books I liked more / less in each category. I know it's confusing but, makes more sense when distinguishing what I like via StoryGraph.

--

CARRIE - 1974

This was such a hard story to engage with. Poor poor Carrie.

I loved the way it was written, weaving together a picture of what happened through the perspective of as it's happening and then through interviews, newspapers, books, etc about the event.

I thought through general osmosis I knew what happened at the end but was surprised by the actual events, which was good!

Whilst the overall events of the novel are really sad, the revenge plot is incredibly satisfying, so makes up for a lot of the anger and frustration I experienced throughout the book! The ending however was a little too insane for me in a kind of "good grief, settle down" way, just with the fate of the town and how it all spirals out with gas leaks and explosions etc.

3⭐

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SALEM'S LOT - 1975

I don't know where to start in how this book made me feel.

Carrie was good. This was brilliant.

At first I felt like there was a lot of "nothing" happening. Meet Ben, meet Mark, meet Mike, meet Susanne, "okay okay I get it" I thought. Little did I know at the time how hard hitting the scene in the woods with the brothers would be. I was SPOOKED.

By that point, I cared about the characters, I cared

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What Was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? Dave Eggers wrote a remarkable memoir, but its afterlife was even more extraordinary.
https://slate.com/culture/2025/02/dave-eggers-heartbreaking-work-staggering-genius-book-toph.html

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'Sandlot' star Patrick Renna on new book, why 'Smalls is still killing Ham' 30 years later
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2025/02/25/the-sandlot-patrick-renna-baseball-book/78180640007/

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Nothing puts me in a bigger reading slump than…

For me, it’s finishing a book I absolutely love.

A 5-star read is such a double edged sword. Because while I love it, it’s so hard to leave that world and story behind. Picking up another book feels impossible because nothing quite measures up right away, and starting something new feels hard because I just want more of the same feeling from whatever I just finished.

What puts you in a slump? What helps you out of it?

Sincerely,
A person who just finished (and loved) A Man Called Ove

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Tana French (The Hunter, The Tresspasser) is very good at making me uncomfortable SPOILERS

I've now read The Hunter and The Trespasser and i can't say whether i enjoyed them or not. French is so good at writing self-righteous scumbags and manipulative, bad-faith behaviors.

SPOILERS BELOW

The Hunter: deadbeat dad comes home four years after disappearing, expects to resume his role as head of the family, contributes nothing, uses them to posture as a "hardworking family man" in order to scam people, and recruits his kids as accomplices in his scams. The whole town enables him because they want in to his scam, and because he's lived our their midlife-crisis fantasy of ditching his family and leaving their small town. He's their hero.

The Trespasser: dirty cops collude to obstruct an investigation, all while mansplaining to the competent protagonist that they know better, blaming her for not making progress (thanks to their sabotage) then gaslighting her with "see, this is why we couldn't let you in on the truth. You'd overreact" (i.e. actually investigate the suspect even though he's a cop), not to mention personal harassment like giving her personal address to the press.

I'm not saying French is inaccurate in her depiction of abusers and their enablers, but damn I am creeped out. Am i just not cut out for small-town murder mysteries?

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Proposal for a weekly "Adamantly chose DNF on this one"

I want to stop reading the book I have, but I also really want people to know I am not finishing and the reasons I feel this way.

I think it could spark some good conversation. I also think it could possibly sway people to change their minds, or verify that they are making the right decision.

The book, btw, is Breasts and Eggs. Never have I ever wanted to just never know anything about a character more than this one.

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Bizarre/contradictory feeling of Zen at the closing stages of 1984 (Light Spoilers)

Let me be very clear, the ending of this book is deeply upsetting, and it's supposed to be. The methodically dehumanizing manipulation of everybody of lower class than the inner party is a brilliant and diabolical dystopian nightmare. This post is not an analysis of the entire novel and society as a whole, but simply a reflection upon one very specific unexpected response I had to one very specific passage.

The below passage from my copy's page 275 really caught me off guard relative to the rest of the emotions running through my body for the entire 3rd part of the novel.

>Even when he was awake he was completely torpid. Often he would lie from one meal to the next almost without stirring, sometimes asleep, sometimes waking into vague reveries in which it was too much trouble to open his eyes. He had long grown used to sleeping with a strong light on his face. It seemed to make no difference, except that one's dreams were more coherent. He dreamed a great deal all through this time, and they were always happy dreams. He was in the Golden Country, or he was sitting among enormous, glorious, sunlit ruins, with his mother, with Julia, with O'Brien--not doing anything, merely sitting in the sun, talking of peaceful things. Such thoughts as he had when he was awake were mostly about his dreams. He seemed to have lost the power of intellectual effort, now that the stimulus of pain had been removed. He was not bored; he had no desire for conversation or distraction. Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was completely satisfying.

This is the description of a broken human utterly ruined by a hellish oligarchy, and I make no effort to portray it otherwise. Because it was through villainous acts of torture which lead up to the above characterization of Winston's reality. While in custody, there was an unspecified period of time in his life where quite literally all he knew was deeply traumatic physical, mental, and emotional pain, all in the name of humiliation and degradation for the sake of Party compliance.

With that being said, I can't help but reflexively draw upon the Buddhist principle of dukkha, aka the principle which people often refer to when addressing how in Buddhism, existence itself is suffering (also translated to mean unsatisfactory, uneasy, or even just anything temporary etc). And that sense of suffering/unease/etc keeps us trapped in samsara, more or less an existential wandering and the antithesis of nirvana. (This is a very simplified take on Buddhism I know, it goes much deeper than this and I'm just trying not to ramble).

Obviously direct government-inflicted physical torture is not a pillar of Buddhism, and arriving at Winston's state by external forces such as that torture he endured is not the same as following the Buddhist Eightfold Path. But I can almost (heavy emphasis on almost) take solace in the position in life which Winston (and loosely extrapolated to all victims of the Thought Police/Party) finds himself in at the end of the book. The mechanism by which he arrived there is objectively horrifying and leaves me sick to my stomach, but for an individual person's sake (and maybe this is a personal coping mechanism for trauma on my part) I can kind of rest easy with the idea that his suffering sort of caused a forced cessation of dukkha, and for all intents and purposes has reached the absolute closest thing to nirvana which is possible in such a society.

At the end of the day, obviously Winston is reduced to nothing more than a simple cog in the machine, without a fleck of real humanity remaining within him. But in at least a couple of ways that state of being is one of significantly less suffering/anguish than that which he felt for the entirety of his life prior to being captured by the Thought Police. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

There is no hope for better. The Party is inevitable. And I feel defeated,

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Convenience Store Woman is one of the most interesting books I've read so far


I've been wanting to get into Japanese literature for some time so when I saw Convenience Store Woman at my university's library I didn't hesitate to get into it. Needless to say this won't be my last Japanese novel, nor my last book by Sayaka Murata.

From the very beginning, the book captured my interest. I was invested in Keiko and her lifestyle. Keiko is your average person, she is not famous, she works at a convenience store, she is not married and she doesn't have any ambitions. She feels content with her life but that changes when she feels the pressure from the expectations that are projected to her - the expectations to become normal.

Keiko finds herself struggling to fit in society's standards about women. She ought to get married, have kids, find a better job, be more sociable...She's torn between her own wants and the expectations from her close people. At times, I saw myself in her for I too have wondered whether I fit to the image for people around my age or not. But what is "normal"? Is there any specific way of living that we can deem "normal"? And how can we shape people according to our standards?

The book was fast paced and vivid. Following the narration through Keiko's inner thoughts added a more personal tone to the setting. There were many passages that provided food for thought and the writing was both charming and bittersweet.

The characters felt like real people and there were some standouts (for the better or worse). Keiko was really complex. She wanted to live up to their expectations, only to realize that her own desires clashed with society's norms. There is one male character whom I deeply disliked but even his characterisation was very interesting and I oddly found myself enjoying reading about him and Keiko (especially when she put him in his place).

I'm very happy for reading this book. It is very thought provoking and it reminds us that there's no "normal" lifestyle. Society loves putting us in boxes and labels but we should learn to prioritize ourselves instead of trying to fit in others' standards.

We are the employees in our own convenience stores.

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I'm finding reading to be a lot less fun than it used to be.

When I was little, I really treasured books. They were something that my parents didn't buy me often. And when someone gifted me a book, whether parents or friends or others, it really felt like a special moment. I would stay up reading the book, almost as if I had just found a world in a hole in the backyard. I had the same attitude once I was able to buy myself books as I got older.

But then years passed by and now when I go to a bookstore, I feel overwhelmed with choices. Too many books, too many options, bestsellers, classics, comics, and yet so little time. Now I have expectations. I want to be blown away. No time to read a book that takes its time or an author who is not established. I used to think it was a privilege to be given a chance to explore a world through another person's imagination. Now my attitude is, How entertaining and mindblowing can this book be and how quickly can it do that?

And I'm exposed to a lot of people also asking similar questions here and on other websites. They want to be amazed, blown away, Which is fine, except that our definitions of these things have become narrower and narrower. I was "blown away" when I read about a little girl and her grandfather. Now, well, that's boring as hell. Maybe this is what it means to grow up, things lose their magic...

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Would you or have you ever reread old favourites?

I’m in a bit of a reading dump so I decided to go back to reread one of my favourites. I’ve been waffling on it for a while, knowing there’s so many books I haven’t read that are probably good but not being able to give any of them time. I’m only chapter in but it’s comforting to read. What is your stance on rereading books?

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Two recent reads I’ve found especially relevant these days…

The first is: It Can’t Happen here by Sinclair Lewis. It follows an American politician who rises to power and becomes the country’s first outright dictator. Need I say more?
The second is: The One Percent by Rick Coulombe. Here, the tables are turned and an underground rebellion results in the poor and disadvantaged eating the rich. With all the billionaires getting their hands into politics and squeezing the hell out of regular people, maybe more of this is what we need.
Spotlighting these types of stories might help us weather the current storm!

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Booker Prize nominees are mostly under-200-page novels

There are an awful lot of novels that feel padded - "it's got to be 100,000 words or it isn't Serious Fiction; I'll cram in this uninteresting subplot" - so I guess this isn't a bad trend. Of course I'd hate to see the death of really long novels which can carry you away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/books/international-booker-prize-longlist.html

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The ‘tsundoku’ phenomenon, or how we’ve normalized collecting books we’ll never read
https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-02-22/the-tsundoku-phenomenon-or-how-weve-normalized-collecting-books-well-never-read.html

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New Witcher novel Crossroads of Ravens to release in English on September 30, 2025
https://winteriscoming.net/new-witcher-novel-crossroads-of-ravens-to-release-in-english-in-fall-2025

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about the town, I cared about what happened to them.

The horror in this was so deliciously written, not overly gory (In fact the gore was minimal) but instead full of tension, fear and dread.

Amazing book from start to finish.

I don't give out 5 stars a lot, put of the 170 books I listened to in 2024, I only gave out 10 5 star ratings. This was immediately given 5 stars and is one of my favourite books.

5⭐

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THE SHINING - 1977

Incredible book.

The only reason I've not given the full 5 stars is that the build up to the insane climax is perhaps just a bit too long which makes it a bit of a slog at parts.

Other than that, this book is Fantastic. I'm 3 books into Stephen King's bibliography now and I can completely see the hype.

The character work is excellent and the horror is disturbing and unsettling.

I think Salem's Lot JUST clinches it for me as the best SK book (so far.. out of the 3 I've read lol), as it balances the development of characters & build up to the finale a lot better, but wow, again, this is an absolute masterpiece.

4.75⭐

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THE STAND - 1978

M-O-O-N spells perfection.

I don't know where to begin with this book.

I love post-apocalyptic fiction, the "Fallout" games are my favourite series and "Oryx & Crake" and "The Road" are two of my favourite books.. and this has just skyrocketed right up there with them.

I'm always cautious when books UNANIMOUSLY have 5 star reviews, nothing can surely live up to the hype?

"The Stand" lives up to the hype.

King takes his time, sets up all characters and the setting absolutely beautifully. My anxiety soared at the beginning in the early stages of the pandemic, the characters getting to grips with the world around them falling apart. My blood boiled at the evil characters and their actions. I laughed hard at a couple of chapters and interactions (Nick, you LEGEND). I actually felt myself feeling heartache over the characters we lost along the way.

This is one of the best post-apocalyptic fiction stories ever. It takes its time, building a world from the ashes of a destroyed one, leaving you with the only thing left; its rich characters. This novel delivered in absolute spades.

10/10. Will revisit frequently. How the hell is this ANOTHER 5 stars two books later???

5⭐

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THE DEAD ZONE - 1979

This wasn't what I expected it was going to be! I was expecting an ESP led serial killer detective story, which I sorta got, at one point in the middle. But what this book is really about, is how crooked politicians can cheat the system, as well as mislead voters, for their own personal gains & dark ambitions. AS WELL as being an excellent character study into what would happen if you learnt you had powers but didn't want to use them.

"Free hotdogs for everybody! We'll send all our trash into space!" It's CRAZY to me seeing the parallels to today's political climate, even down to the details of the "America First" campaign mentioned in the novel. It's prophetic.

I enjoyed the books moral dilemma of "if you could go back, kill baby Hitler.. would you?" through the lense of "this politician will destroy the world, can you stop him before he does?" whilst nobody else knows this is going to happen.

This book may have seemed unreasonable or out-there in the late 70's/early 80's when it was first being published, but it's (unfortunately) very timely and relevant in 2025, 40/50 years later.

John's struggles with coming to terms with missing years of his life, having this power he doesn't want etc, were all very compelling and thoroughly sad, King does an excellent job of making you care about him and his journey to try and move on.

Should be read along with 1984, We, Brave New World, V for Vandetta and other novels of the same subject.

4⭐

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SHORT STORIES

NIGHT SHIFT: SELECTIONS - 1978

This is a great collection. There's something really cool about seeing his past ideas that made it into full novels (for example Jerusalem's Lot being reworked into Salem's Lot)

Also, THIS is what I originally thought King would be like, so many stories

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Best ebook service?

Hi readers! So, I know the obvious answer might be “your local library,” but, as much as I adore my local library, our ebook selection is… not the most ideal for me. I’m gonna hate myself for how snobby I sound right now, but I tend to want books that are either a little more obscure or popular new titles that have a 6 month+ waitlist. While I usually prefer physical books, I have this issue where my boyfriend falls asleep insanely fast and I take a lot longer to wind down, so I like to have a book on my phone to read before bed while I listen to him snore. Because of the lack of good selection on my library app, I end up doomscrolling, which is also bad for my sleeping lol

I looked into trying Everand, but the reviews are horrible. I’m willing to pay for a subscription or something if it means I can find the exact book I want. Which ebook service is actually the best? If I have to buy individual ebooks, I’m not opposed to that. I really would only read 2 ebooks a month max, since I do most of my reading with physical books. Thanks all!

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How far would you go for a book?

Many years ago, back in the 1970s, I was already a massive book nerd at the age of nine or ten.

Anyway, my mum and I regularly walked into town to do shopping, and this being England during a time of economic hardship, we used to look in the windows of a row of junk shops on our route. One of them had lots of aging books, gradually fading in the sun, and never seeming to change. And right in the middle was this glorious cartoon book about cats.

I wanted it, with a lust that all true book nerds can appreciate. Every time we went past, I would bug my mum, asking if I could get this book, which had a price of something like 50p on it. This was expensive at the time, so the response was always no.

So I plotted and saved, and after my birthday, I had enough saved up, so I put it in my pocket, and as we went past, I asked, and this time, said that I had money and could buy it myself.

My mum said “okay, go on then, I’ll wait here.”

The guy behind the counter was a little surprised, but was happy to take my money, for this fine treasure. Great times.

It only occurred to me many years later that it was actually a sex shop, with a mock book display in the window, and that my mum had sent me in because she didn’t want to be seen going in herself! Surprised I was allowed in. I guess the laws weren’t as strict back then.

This is the same street that I got into an argument with a shopkeeper (I was around the same age) who wouldn’t sell me a kids science book on Sunday because of the English Sunday trading laws!

The UK in the 1970s - kids could go into sex shops to buy stuff, but not buy a bible (or other books) on Sunday!

Nothing gets in the way of a good book!

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Demon Copperhead discussion

I just finished this book (years behind, I know), but WOW. I was born and raised in the exact area the book is about - I’m from the county his dad was buried at to be specific and I grew up going to the devil’s bathtub. The author lives in the town beside mine as well, she’s fantastic.

Many of my neighbors, classmates, friends, and family members went through/died from opioid addiction. This read was tough but rewarding and beautiful.

How did you like the book? Did it capture you as well, even if you have no connection to the area? I loved that it gave us hillbillies a voice and hopes and dreams, and gained nation attention/praise. 10/10 read for me.

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Poignant and Inspiring Books for Grief, Death, Loss

FICTION:

Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying by Ram Dass “If I’m going to die, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart. If I’m going to live, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart.”

Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O'Donohue:

>The dead are not distant or absent. They are alongside us. When we lose someone to death, we lose their physical image and presence, they slip out of visible form into invisible presence. This alteration of form is the reason we cannot see the dead. But because we cannot see them does not mean that they are not there. Transfigured into eternal form, the dead cannot reverse the journey and even for one second re-enter their old form to linger with us a while. Though they cannot reappear, they continue to be near us and part of the healing of grief is the refinement of our hearts whereby we come to sense their loving nearness. When we ourselves enter the eternal world and come to see our lives on earth in full view, we may be surprised at the immense assistance and support with which our departed loved ones have accompanied every moment of our lives. In their new, transfigured presence their compassion, understanding and love take on a divine depth, enabling them to become secret angels guiding and sheltering the unfolding of our destiny.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald is an extraordinary book on grief, though it's nonfiction—it reads with the emotional depth and poetic beauty of a novel. It’s a memoir that explores grief, death, solitude, and healing through the lens of falconry. After the sudden death of her father, Macdonald turns to training a goshawk named Mabel, immersing herself in the wildness and instinct-driven world of the bird. The writing is lyrical**,** erudite, and deeply atmospheric, weaving together personal loss, the history of falconry, and the legacy of T.H. White (author of The Once and Future King). I love this book—I fell right in at the first few lines.

FICTION

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell is one my favorites. I loved it right from the beginning. It’s deeply atmospheric, poetic, and emotionally devastating in its exploration of grief. The novel fictionalizes the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, and its impact on his family, especially his wife, Agnes (Anne Hathaway). The prose is lush and evocative, almost dreamlike at times, immersing you in the textures and rhythms of Elizabethan life. O’Farrell masterfully conveys the rawness of loss, the weight of absence, and the inexpressible ache of a mother’s grief. It’s also a meditation on the transformative power of art—how sorrow can be transmuted into something eternal.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a sweeping, deeply atmospheric novel about grief, fate, and art. It follows Theo Decker, a 13-year-old boy whose life is shattered when his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the chaos, Theo impulsively takes a small yet priceless painting—The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius—setting him on a journey of loss, self-destruction, and obsession that spans decades.

Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary séance of grief and transcendence—haunting, experimental, deeply poetic, and unlike anything else. Set over the course of a single night in 1862, it follows Abraham Lincoln mourning the death of his 11-year-old son, Willie, who has just been buried in a crypt. But Willie is not entirely gone—his spirit lingers in the bardo, a Tibetan Buddhist concept of the space between death and the afterlife. Here, he encounters a chorus of other ghosts, each trapped by their own unresolved regrets, illusions, and earthly attachments.

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Frankétienne, Father of Haitian Letters, Is Dead at 88
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/world/americas/franketienne-dead.html

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exhausted, and trampled upon, exactly as intended.

1984 is a masterpiece, and one I'm sure that I'll reread numerous times over the course of my life. I love pieces of work that make me feel such a broad spectrum of emotion, often simultaneously, even when those states are demoralizing, disgusting, and instilling of monumental portions of existential dread.

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Literature of Kuwait: February 2025

Marhaba readers,

To our monthly discussion of the literature of the world! Twice a month, we'll post a new country for you to recommend literature from with the caveat that it must have been written by someone from that country (i.e. Shogun by James Clavell is a great book but wouldn't be included in Japanese literature).

Today is the National Day of Kuwait and, to celebrate, we're discussing Kuwaiti literature! Please use this thread to discuss Kuwaiti literature and authors.

If you'd like to read our previous discussions of the literature of the world please visit the literature of the world section of our wiki.

Shukran and enjoy!

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Books you can't traditionally read

I've recently been working on Ursula K Le Guin's "Always Coming Home" and have never experienced a novel like this. Instead of a traditional narrative, Ursula has used an anthropological journal/ survey of a fictional, future tribe of humanity to drill in on her ongoing question/ theme of, "What kind of world do you want to live in?" Or at least, that's the question she always seems to be evoking in her literature.

So, have you read or come across this sort of novel before? Where traditional use of narrative is actively eschewed or presented via different means? I'm not looking for suggestions on what's similar to Always Coming Home, instead just if you've had a non-traditional novel cross your path, and what did you make of it?

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Any JG Ballard fans?

I’m interested in thoughts on Crash or his other books. When in my 20’s (I’m 60 now), I found Crash and was captivated. Several friends read it and I went on the read Atrocity Exhibit, Crystal World, Unlimited Dream company, Hello America and more. I loved the books and thought about & discussed the deeper meanings. My friends liked them also. Now almost 40 years on, I’m listening to the Audible version of Crash and just don’t get it. What’s the point? There is a good chance that electronic media has made me stupid. I also found reading Kingdom Come last year boring.
1) Can someone comment favorably about Crash?
2) Has anyone else lost the ability to read books as they’ve aged? Now I just listen to them as a drive or do chores.

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Check out r/bookclub's line up for March

#With approval from the mods

In March r/bookclub will be reading;

#- Last Argument of Kings
The First Law #3 by Joe Abercrombie - (Feb. 26 - Apr. 2)
#- The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan - (Feb. 27 - Mar. 13)
#- Merrick
The Vampire Chronicles # 7 by Anne Rice - (Mar. 2 - Mar. 30)
#- Why Do You Dance When You Walk?
by Abdourahman A. Waberi - (Mar. 4 - Mar. 11)
#- Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear
Sherlock Holmes #5 & 7 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - (Mar. 6 - Mar. 27)
#- We Used to Live Here
by Marcus Kliewer - (Mar. 7 - Mar. 21)
#- Emma
by Jane Austen - (Mar. 13 - Apr. 10)
#- The Huntchback of Notre-Dame
by Victor Hugo - (Mar. 14 - Apr. 25)
#- The Wedding People
by Alison Espach - (Mar. 16 - Apr. 6)
#- I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman - (Mar. 18 - Mar. 25)
#- The Impatient
by Djaïli Amadou Amal - (TBD)
#- These Letters End in Tears
by Musih Tedje Xaviere - (TBD)
#- The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien - (TBD)
#- Tales From the Cafe
Before the Coffee Gets Cold #2 by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - (TBD)
#- Ship of Magic
The Realm of Elderlings #4 by Robin Hobb - (TBD)

#We are also continuing with;

#- Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe - (Feb. 7 - Mar. 14)
#- Cibola Burn
Expanse #4 by James S. A. Corey - (Feb. 15 - Mar. 29)
#- James
by Percival Everett - (Feb. 23 - Mar. 9)

For the full list of discussion schedules, additional info and rules head to the MARCH Book Menu Post here
Come join us 📚

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The International Booker Prize 2025 Announcement
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2025

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Bebbington: 'Freedom to read' is crucial to a healthy society
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/bebbington-freedom-to-read-is-crucial-to-a-healthy-society

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An Autobiography that Surprised You With How Good It Was

I saw a thread earlier discussing the worst and most insufferable autobiographies that we've ever read. It got me to thinking that there were several autobiographies that I completely fell in love with, couldn't put down until I finished cover to cover, and made me a life-long fan of the writer.

The one that really comes to mind for me is "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch," by Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Olson on Little House on the Prairie. Her life has been interesting, to say the least, and she has a way of writing that is vivid and conversational, so it feels like you're sitting and chatting with her over drinks rather than reading.

What was your happy surprise of an autobiography?

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