Jean > Recent Status Updates

A readalong for the podcast 372 Pages We Won't Get Back. So far not bad.

Turns out to be a blog-project-book. She decided to read around the globe for a year. So far it's several chapters of meditations about what it means to read world literature. I keep thinking "Dude, *I* have a blog where I read world literature. What's she got that I haven't got? [Readers.] Howcome nobody offers ME a book deal? [She's an actual writer. I could not produce this.]" Still, though. Hmpf.

Ahahaha, 80s teen romance -- with a gimmick! Who could resist when it's right there on the table? Also, I'm pretty impressed that GR has even this, a ridiculous ancient title, in its database.

I don't know about this one. It's entirely memories of people who were children in WWII, in the USSR. I got a few pages in and had to take a break after the woman who was aged 7 and went to summer camp for two days and never saw her parents again.

It's torture to read, and also addictive. Kind of like circus peanuts? It doesn't taste good and you know it's bad for you, but there's something about the sugary chemical zing that keeps you coming back for more.

It's notable how every single moment is exhaustively described, and no moment goes undocumented.

This is really hard to read. They keep slashing budgets and decimating special collections and planning to move entire giant collections offsite! In theory the book has a fairly happy ending but the dread and suspense are giving me stomach pains.

Oh dear, this thing is huge and I got it on ILL so there's a deadline. I don't know if I can read THIS MUCH about eugenics.

Good stuff!

OK, my Oxford World's Classics edition has *28* chapters before the beginning of the story as it's usually printed. I guess because this is really the last part of a much longer work, and they divided it differently? But WHY. Nowhere can I find mention that by the way, there are 28 more chapters in this one, so it has a lot of incomprehensible scheming and money-lending before we get anywhere near the plot.

Might have to put this away for a while since I got an ILL on eugenics in the US...

I had finger surgery and then I got sick, so Anne has been good company for the last week....

What a neat story, about a little boy's life in Mongolia.

Halfway through Book VI!! The end is in sight!

I read 25 pages in one day and only fell asleep once!

I'm being so slow with this book, but it's a good mystery. Occupied Prague, the Nazis are losing, and the front is so near everybody can taste it.

Actually this is a really weird book. Everything is falling apart in Faerieland. Book V was all allegorical Elizabethan history, and now everybody's aimless and clueless.

Stay on target....

Wow, this is a fascinating story.