Still Life by Sarah Winman

I rarely give up on a book, but my Kindle is packed with books I want to read, and this one is pissing me off. It received wonderful reviews, and the plot sounded great, but I can't read it. Who writes a novel full of dialogue with no quotation marks? It was an effort to read page after page not knowing if something was said out loud or thought by a character, and who was even in the scene? And then there were paragraphs like this one:

In the snug, a couple of coppers were lording it, keeping the language clean. Col was on the long pull, generous measures to encourage a lock-in, a ploy to shift the stack of liver sausage sandwiches stinking up the counter.

Huh?

Here's the basics. This is about a guy who comes home to London from WW2 and he inherits a house in Italy from a guy he met while there serving his country. He goes to Florence with some of his friends and lives happily ever after. At least that's what I think it's about. I only skimmed the last 3/4 of the book. - June

Demon Copperhead & Pineapple Street

And now about word from BT........

Speaking of books: Pineapple Street is one of those "guilty pleasures" that you're glad you read but hesitate to tell others because it seems like well-written fluff.  This is what Amazon says to sell the book and I agree...especially good for me with my less-than-healthy relationship with money and the monied classes. Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York’s one-percenters, Pineapple Street is a smart, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, loveable—if fallible—characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love—all wrapped in a story that is a sheer delight.

I was captured by Demon Copperhead and found myself describing it as "darkly intense" or "intensely dark."  Amazon says:   The mountains of southern Appalachia are the setting for this story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

-BT 

All This Could be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

I wanted to like this book. It's about a queer, young, Indian woman who moves to Milwaukee. It gets great reviews, so I was start listening to it. I feel like I'm pretty open minded for a geezer, but after listening to the language, racist comments and body shaming, I was out. I didn't get past the first hour or so. - June

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

This beautifully written novel is about so much more than just a horse. It's a wonderful book that follows several plot lines that are all magically connected. The main story takes place just prior to the Civil War in Kentucky where a Jarrett, an enslaved groomer, trains a thoroughbred named Darley (later became Lexington). Over Lexington's life, a painter named Thomas Scott creates several portraits of the horse, and these works of art move throughout the novel into different hands. 

There's also a more current storyline about Theo, a young Black PhD candidate at Georgetown who happens to pull an old painting out of a pile of trash. It just happens to be a portrait of a horse.

And there's an art dealer in the 50's who's cleaning woman brings her a painting of a horse. 

But the novel is also about race - how slaves were bought and sold, just like horses. And how today we still are plagued with racial issues and the mistreatment of minorities. This is a must read book. - June