Reviews and Comments

A rare DNF but I'm just not feeling it. Not into snarky books. Keeping my bookmark in so I can pick up later if I get more in the mood. I've read a gajillion manga on this theme and a couple of anime but I expected this to be in like the upper two fifths at least given how many recos I got for it but so far it's like in the lower fifth. Near the top of lower fifth (it's a lot better than say Only I know this world is a game) but not as funny as say Uncle From Another World or Bofuri or as poignant as Frieren or Lodoss. When it doesn't even beat out the horrible Greed Island arc of Hunter × Hunter you know it's bad. But! That's me being less than 5% in! I can certainly see myself giving it more of a chance later.

Here's one time I've really regretted using Bookwyrm becaune I did not know, did not want to know the subtitle of this book. (My edition doesn't have it.) I like just starting reading on page one and see where the story takes me.

I embarked on a reread of this. No promises I'll finish

The "26 books" were really a wild mix of lengthn from long things like Grapes of Wrath and Remembrance to a bunch of these "one short story in one single tiny book" books. This was a good one.

I accidentally picked up a non-fiction book 😰 I usually read her novels but here is her true story.

my new audio book after Anne GG

Not sure why I'm counting audio dramas as books and maybe that needs to change when they're this significantly different (I think. Because I hadn't read this book before. The only book where I've both heard the drama and read the book is Pet Sematary and those were wildly different). But I enjoyed listening to this story.

I started reading a bunch of books; the "pile of 26" having been thoroughly comingled with my preëxisting to-read–pile at this point, the distinction only existing as a vague memory (and this particular France book is not from the 26); but no matter how many books I've started, my recent-ish policy is to only list them as "start read" on here once I'm a few chapters in and that's so far only true for this book. I'm reading Hjalmar Söderberg's 1905 translation from French to Swedish and my hardcover copy is from actual 1905?! I'm holding a 120 year old object in my hands! It's before the spelling reform which I didn't think I'd get used to as quickly as I did. Loving the book and writing style so far. Intense characters conveyed succintly.

Oh no I loved it and have a glowing review written in my techō but then I found out that not only was another writer's research snarfed in making this, Steinbeck also supported and advocated for the war in Karelia that took everything from my family in the thirties. (I mean I wouldn't've been born if that hadn't happened but it still stings in spite of that.) I was like this is such a good depiction of how the market behemoth wrecks lives with no human at the wheel, the tractor appropriations such an interesting parallel to the brutal Soviet communalizations etc etc and then he couldn't see that he was supporting the same thing. I wanted to give the book to some family members saying see how closely this matches up with our own oral history. But now I don't want to since Steinbeck IRL was a cheerleader of that particular "special operation". Also the translation was so good but then the translation notes had anti-Apache stereotypes. so tiresome

I'm gonna put a bookmark in where I'm at (the Woolf essay) and put it in storage because I don't feel like reading on right now. I don't know of the fault is with the author, the translator, or both. It's not a hard DNF, just an indefinite hiatus. Although I usually keep a bookmark in even with much harder DNF's like Gentlemen or Studie i mänskligt beteende; those books I more thoroughly disliked where this is a more mixed bag of mostly good.