Naomi > Recent Status Updates

So well written AND I've got completely side tracked by life. I haven't picked it up in a while due to work/study comittments but fully intend to come back to it.

So refreshing to read this book which interrogates the received wisdom on the nature of human kind. The title isn’t a lie. It truely is a hopeful history

I'm listening to this on audible. The narrator is excellent and mostly the information is not new to me but nevertheless well laid out. Can't say what page but currently discussing why the Barbarosa campaign failed.

I started this because I am familiar with the history of this important period in New Zealand history and was interested to see how Kidman handles it. To soon yet to judge.

Oh! I'm in love. Why have I never heard of Stegner? Head too much in the clouds to comment but only to gush.

So far so good. He challenges me with his schitzophrenk aphorisms and I have at several occasions put the book aside as I've pondered a man who can see with such love and compassion and yet so violent impulses on the same page. Yet somehow he convinces me to keep with him for now. Mumbai seems beautiful through his eyes.

what a well sculptured opening chapter. His writing is so stylish and colourful and I'm falling in love with Bombay... excuse me while I carry on.

Wow - this is absolutely riveting and electrifying. I'm not absolutely sure I concur with the philosophy but am applauding the vision of Ayn Rand. It captures the flip side philosophy of communism - and in that extreme it is probably equally dangerous. More to come when I finish and have time to digest.

Jane - you know how you described Barber's Adagio as melancholy but uplifting - this is the literary equivalent. Zusak's metaphors are tasty and visceral. I'm in love with Hans Hubermann and the fragile and complex human spirit Zusak manages to evoke. I wholeheartedly recommend this to you.

I've heard Ferdinand out - now I'm hearing a much more interesting account from Miranda. John Fowles does the slow reveal very well and while I am not loving this book, it has kept me turning the pages.

loving it so far.

Still reserving judgement. Certainly a contentious subject as well as revealing in terms of my own reaction.

The plot thickens. Enjoying Balzac's descriptive power and rather cynical insights into Parisian society.

What a compelling, almost fantastical story. Of course much of the major events were known to me but enjoying filling in the detail.

Enjoying both the history and the writing of Weir though have serious reservations as to the worthiness of Eleanor in the political sphere.

a book I have been taking to fill in those unexpected moments of waiting. Balzac's descriptive structuring of the story is wonderful.