Pride and Prejudice [Audible Studios] by Jane Austen
In high school, we had a menu of projects that we could work on. The "easiest" one was to watch the video of Pride and Prejudice and write our thoughts on it. I tried that, but could not stay awake long enough to figure out what was going on. I tried to "cheat" by reading the book instead. This put me to sleep also. I gave up and decided to produce a writing portfolio instead. Is now a good time to give Jane Austen a try again?
Alas, my experience has been only marginally better.
I did manage to stay awake.
I didn't grasp much of what is going on.
There is a family with a number of girls. They want to get married. Darcy is some rich guy that they like. However, he likes a different girl than the one that likes him. There are also conflicts about money and wealth. That is about all I got out of it.
Audible has versions of classic books available for free, but finding them can be a huge challenge. If you are lucky, they are in the top 100 free audiobooks list. Otherwise, you need to search it up on Audible. Searching is almost impossible, as everything will say "free with trial". And in the case of this one, it even showed a price for the free one.
I have trouble with Jane Austen. I listen to the book. I understand what is being said. I even grasp individual episodes. It just does not congeal together in my brain as a narrative. There are people. They talk about things. They have conversations about what it would be like to have a lot of money. They are concerned with what other people think of them. It ends.
Wikipedia states that the novel "follows the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate in Sussex and move to a modest cottage on the property of distant relative in Devon. There the two eldest girls experience love and heartbreak that tries the contrasting characters of both." That sounds good enough to me.
Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü
Mental illness as told by somebody experiencing it. Some periods all is going well. Other times, she is in a hospital and suffering. She sees there are problems. Yet, she dreads the treatment. She feels she has finally been "cured" via the treatment - not because it worked, but because she so dreaded going back.
She grew up in post-World War II Turkey. Things were not stable. Things were fairly westernized, yet still Islamic. There seemed to be a mixture of challenges from both sides. An upbringing in an Austrian convent school helped encourage some of the interesting experiences. Sexuality was explored, with marriage and friendship. There is a longing for something, though it is difficult to see what it is. The voice is very open and non-judgmental. Stylistically, words are placed on the page as needed to tell the story. There may bullet points or long run on paragraphs. It all works very well in this short "read in one setting" novel. It is like the "good part" of Hemingway. The seemingly autobiographical work paints an interesting picture of the "western" life in Turkey.
Go as a River by Shelley Read
Victoria Nash lives in the rural mountainous Iola, Colorado where her family has managed to produce peaches in the inhospitable climate. Her family is not without challenges. Her mother was killed in an accident. Her brother is an alcoholic with a temper. She lives a fairly isolated life on the farm. Then one day she meets a strange Native American who asks for directions. They sense an attraction, but don't act on it. Her brother (drunk) sees them and tries to "protect" his sister. The stranger ends up protecting her instead, this sewing the seeds of love. She ends up getting pregnant and the brother is involved in the death of her boyfriend. She is distraught and flees to the wilderness. She barely manages to live off the land and eventually gives birth on her own. She is on the brink of starvation. One day, she notices a young couple with picnicking with an infant. She secretly places her baby in the car. The couple end up adopting this baby as their own.
The novel then covers the travails as she returns to life. Her brother has been "cast out" of town due to her involvement with the murder. Her father is near the end of his life. She ends up with the orchard. The government plans on building a dam that will inundate Iola in the Blue Mesa reservoir. Victoria sells out (to the chagrin of her neighbors.) She also contacts a university to help relocating the peach trees. She eventually moves on to a new town with the trees and makes a friend. She has been reluctant to share her story with anyone. However, she does go to the place where she abandoned her child to place a rock there every year. One year she sees a "peach rock", and holds out hope of reuniting. Many years later, she sees a note there with a history of her son.
After much prodding and sharing by her friend, Victoria reaches out to the "adoptive" mother. They each had sad stories to share. (There seem to be an abundance of anger-impulsive male characters in this female-driven story.) We learn the other side of the story, and have a number of tear-jerkers before a reunion is arranged, the results of which are up to our imagination. Victoria is perhaps too strong-willed. She is ready to take everything upon herself without sharing with others. However, by finally opening up, she can achieve more than she otherwise could on her own.
Arya Khanna's Bollywood Moment by Arushi Avachat
Arya's older sister returns home to begin wedding preparations. Arya has a little resentment with this. She also is discouraged with the experiences in school. The student body president seems to put her in a lower position. Then a bunch of conflicts come up. Relationships get flipped around. Friends get mad at each other. They also have a goal to get a big school event planned. She eventually finds the boy that she like (who has been near her all this time.) The kids get into college and the family begins the process of reconciliation. The book was structured like a Bollywood movie. However, it would really need some music to keep the effect. Instead, it came across as a more typical teen romance, with the protagonistic and Indian in America.
The role of her Japanese ancestry is an important part of this book. However, it is more of a part of a life rather than the dominant role. Mika's story is that of people that have had situations thrust upon them. Even when bad things happen, people still have the ability to decide where to go from there. Sometimes, this leads to long detours in life. However, there is still the chance to come back on track.
The book deals with people (primarily youth) of various backgrounds. They are enjoying time together and trying to figure out how to get along socially. It ends with a girl finally trying to escape from her condition (with a very bizarre marriage proposal.) The way people react is borderline comedic. Something very serious is happening, yet they are concerned as much with the minor details.
The narrator has a mother who was an actress. The book begins with the death of the actress. Then the narrator flashes around to different times in her life as she explores her life, her sexuality and her family. Then the novel ends.
[plenty of spoilers] Romy Silvers is all alone in a space ship heading towards Earth 2. Her only human companionship comes from messages sent from a psychologist on earth. However, it takes a long time for the messages to travel back and forth, so she spends a lot of time in her own thoughts. She spends a lot of time writing "fan fiction" for one of her favorite shows. She learns that a new ship has been sent after hers. It moves much faster and will catch up with her in a year. It will then dock, and together the ships will arrive on earth two. She is excited to be able to arrive and meet other people before she is too old. She starts to communicate with the captain of the new ship (J). As they become closer and closer, they can almost begin to carry out a normal conversation. She feels she has a strong bond with him and eagerly anticipates meeting him. In her mind, she portrays him as a character in one of her favorite shows. However, as the ship gets closer, she learns that there was a war on earth and a new regime came to power. Her old psychologist no longer communicates with her. However, the new regime begins communications and starts to send proposed efficiency improvements. It does feel a little bit odd that they they would go down to super micro-level improvements from such a great distance away. (If it is taking them a year to get feedback, why would they gradually move to slightly reduce shower times?)
The author does a brilliant job of unfolding the novel. I had a strong desire to know how she ended up all alone in a space ship. The details gradually came out as we learn about her and the history. She had not been entirely truthful in her communications with earth regarding what had happened. The ship had a large number of astronauts in stasis. Her parents were supposed to be caretakers for some time before alternating with another couple. However, her mother became pregnant with her, resulting in them staying primary caretakers for longer. Then the stasis chambers failed and all the astronauts ended up dying. Her mother had gone mad in the process, and also tried to kill embryos and even killed her husband before putting herself in stasis. Romy was haunted by these fears.
The world seems to be coming to an end. Natural and man-made disasters are also spreading in epic proportions. What is a girl supposed to do? Go on a cross country road trip with her best friend and a boy she just met, of course. In doing this, she finds out more about herself and her family and finally meets her aunt and uncle and long-lost sister. Meanwhile, hoodlums reign in the world, doing things in the name of "the church of America". This church was started by Pastor Frick, who had predicted the apocalypse and a rapture event. The disasters bring people to the church, while the disappearance of many people on the rapture date drives the country into a frenzy. Alas, while Frick was genuine and his church "good", he was eventually manipulated by a big business to sell things. Eventually, the church cooperation came to dominate media, consumer goods and most of society. The mobs used the teachings of Frick to justify "elimination" of sinners. The rapture event was even an orchestrated killing at the hands of the business. Frick still believes that he is doing good, but internally, he is feeling the struggle.
I should know better than to pick up a book just because it has a bicycle on the front. A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar has almost nothing to do with bicycling. It also has very little to do with Kashgar (a Muslim, Western Chinese city.) What does that leave? "Lady Guide". Yep. This is a piece of chick-lit set in both the early 1900s and the current day. The old Lady was a "missionary" in Kashgar. However, the natives are just "extras" in this story about her coming to grips with herself and others. The modern girl eventually discovers that the old lady is her "ancestor". The generations of women all have the desire for exploration which in part leads to dysfunctional relationships with the other people in their life. It was not my type of story.
This is a collection of brief essays in the life of a modern, overweight woman. Well, food only really makes a prominent appearance in the first one. It is pretty much a book about nothing. I suppose some middle age women might find a lot of it interesting. For the rest of us? Uh, not so much.
