Bookbandit's Book Nook

Mel. she/her. 28. Reader. Writer. Grad Student. Main blog: right-up-to-the-moon

[backlogbooks]

A group of Italian teenagers cut in line in front of us and I stared down the leader of the little wolfpack as he stepped on my sneaker to get to his friends. I was just reaching for my knitting needles when Mary Alice gripped my arm.

“Play nice,” she murmured.

“I wasn't going to kill him,” I muttered back. “But a little light stabbing might teach him some manners.”

“Focus on the job. I’ll trip him when we get inside,” she promised.

“That’s real friendship,” I told her.

- Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn

[batrachised]

The Machine Stops - EM Forster.

A novella published in 1909 that was prescient about the role of technology in distancing humanity from...well, humanity. It almost felt personal; was personal, in how it detailed dislike for human interaction and a preference for screens, and man's rejection of nature, and willingness to sacrifice meaning for comfort.

Favorite moment: when societal collapse occurred because everyone's beds were taken away, relatable lmao

Favorite quote:

[backlogbooks]

“What are you doing here, Nat?”

“I'm communing with my girl Mary” she said, nodding towards the statue. “Two nice Jewish girls hanging out together. I like her skull.”

“Sure. I can see that,” I said. “Except that's St. Rosalia of Palermo. Pretty sure she was Catholic.”

“Well, shit." Natalie slumped in the pew. "I can't even get that right.”

- Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn

[bookbandit]

“It is like a piece of my soul had been lost, empty, and it is now filled with the light of a million stars.”

— Across the Universe by Beth Revis

[readingrobin]

Starting off this year's #tbrbusterchallenge on a high note with another great read from Kate DiCamillo. She knocks it out of the park again with this emotional, thoughtful tale of a toy rabbit thrust into a journey that lands him into the hands of several people, learning about love and loss throughout the way. At this point, having read a good amount of her books, I just have to accept the fact that I'm going to get extremely emotional one way or another. I think it's the genuine amount of feeling the author puts into her writing and the reflective qualities of her tone. The internal journeys are treated just as importantly as the external and I love that in a book. It feels like a classic fairy tale, one that feels timeless and has a good balance of wonder and tragedy.  Bagram Ibatoulline's artwork brings an extra charm to the story, with illustrations that carry the same amount of emotion as the text. Some of them gave me a Norman Rockwell kind of vibe, and the style overall fits so well with the tone of the book. There's not much I can else say about the book other than it's just good. I really don't have the words to explain it. If you like sweet, simple, but still emotionally impactful children's stories, then this book is right up your alley.

[storytime-reviews]

Just Finished: So You Think You Know What’s Good For You? by Dr Norman Swan

[appleinducedsleep]

help me pick the next book for the #tbrbusterchallenge2022

[ma-tsi]

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

[backlogbooks]

Meichi Ng is way too good at moments like these, which are both very funny and painfully real

[paperandwax]

50 books in 2022 #1: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

“If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.”

Rundown:

Read: January 1, 2022 - January 15, 2022 (15 days)

Reason: On my TBR for years and really meant to get to it in 2021

Source: book I own, purchased from university bookstore

Stats: fiction, translated from Japanese, published in 1987, 293 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

BookRiot Read Harder 2022 prompt #24, any challenge from previous years = non-European novel in translation (1/24 complete)

Reading Challenge for People Who Want Something Simple from @godzilla-reads​, January = a book under 300 pages (1/12 complete)

TBR Buster Challenge, January TBR read (1/12 complete)

Reflection:

It took me a while to get into the story, but character development really paid off in the second half. I was also delighted that although this is a Murakami novel firmly grounded in reality for 99% of it, the ending brought in that familiar yet unsettling disorientation that reminded me so much of Sputnik Sweetheart, which still remains my favorite of his books.

[backlogbooks]

Please read Barely Functional Adult by Meichi Ng

[backlogbooks]

note from Barely Functional Adult: leave recent graduates alone lmao

[leer-reading-lire]

First book of the year:

Title: Los niños de paja

Author: Bernardo Esquinca

Number of Pages: 131

Rating: ★★★☆☆

First published: July, 2008

Read: December 31, 2021 - January 2, 2022

Thoughts: I didn’t love all the stories in the anthology, however I still enjoyed Esquinca’s style of writing. My preferred short stories were La vida secreta de los insectos, El corazón marino and Pabellón 27. My favorite part of the book was the epilogue: the behind the scenes of each story!

[backlogbooks]

My review of Barely Functional Adult by Meichi Ng !

Ng wrote in the introduction to this book, “Here you will find the stories i needed to read at different points in my life—i didnt get to read them when i needed to, but i hope these stories will come to you at a time when you do.” And they definitely did for me—Ng captured the lost feeling of early 20s, post-grad life in the stories included in this memoir, as well as the feelings from later stages of life that i havent known but have been scared of. I want to shove this at everyone my age to be like, hey this isnt just us, and also at my friends who are much older than me to be like hey, this is where i’m at, were you here too?

This book was, as the blurb on the back promised, hilarious and poignant at the same time, and i highly, highly recommend it

[beautifulpaxielreads]

It begins!

Here are the first two books I will be reading for @bookbandit's Third Annual TBR Buster Challenge - The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin and You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson.

Wish me luck!

[ma-tsi]

“It never stopped. Come on. You were a slut if you let fellas put their tongues in your mouth and you were a tight bitch if you didn’t - but you could also be a slut if you didn’t. One or the other, sometimes both. There was no escape; that was you. Before I was a proper teenager, before I knew anything about sex, before I’d even left primary school - I was a slut.”

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle.

[sheila1957]

TBR Pile Challenge--book 2

On my TBR pile since August 2, 2015

JACK IN THE GREEN by Diane Capri

Gaspar and Otto, FBI agents, are sent to Tampa hunting for Jack Reacher.  They are to interview a former officer Thomas Weston about the murders of his first wife and three children and Reacher’s investigation of it.  Hoping to get a lead on Reacher, they instead become involved in murder.

I have to admit I have not yet read the Jack Reacher series but it is on my TBR pile.  I have not read the first books in this series but I was able to follow along very easily.  I thoroughly enjoyed this quick read.  I liked Gaspar and Otto.  I liked how they were able to get some people to talk.  I also liked the history of Reacher being told through others’ eyes.  I look forward to reading both series.