booktrovert – Page 24 – Cannonball Read 17

A life less ordinary

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

April 25, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

I was very interested in reading this book from the moment I heard about it. It was getting some really great reviews, and the topic was of high interest for me – as it is for all humans, in some way or another. The title refers to the average lifespan of a modern human – we have roughly 4,000 weeks to be alive, so to borrow a trite phase, how do we make the most of it? I’ve used up about half of that, and […]

“Open this to learn all that will amaze you.”

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

April 18, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

Everyone loves Cloud Cuckoo Land, and if you enjoy reading there’s quite a good chance you’ll enjoy this book, too. I think it’s about 7% overestimated, but the majority of book readers like this book for very good reasons – it’s really well written, the characters are engaging, the story is intricate and interwoven without ever feeling like you’ve totally lost the plot, and there’s a decent sense of mystery / coming to understand the purpose of a foreshadowed event or two. Do I think […]

“… until, like me, it disappeared.”

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

April 12, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

Ottessa Moshfegh is all about characters over plot. I cannot find the review I read that made me think I’d appreciate this book – but I think I picked it up based on the author and how much I enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I’m not mad that I gave this book a try – as it happens, I DO value characters as much as, if not over, plot – but it also was way less successful for me than MYoRaR. This is a dark […]

“.. nothing makes him tick. It just happens all by itself …”

Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle

April 3, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

I had a hard time getting into this book – it was a combination of the beginning being slow, because the world in this novel is so specific and frankly a bit difficult to get into, and also there was the matter of a book hangover after reading Notes on an Execution. I tried to read a charming fantasy novel (Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield) and stopped when I only read about 20 pages in a week, which is a good indication that I’m […]

“You’ll see. It’s good here.”

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

March 31, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

It has taken me a while to write this review, in part because I needed some space from reading the book before I felt I could begin (and also in part because spring break is over, but my new-found love of Breath of the Wild is just starting). In between searching for shrines and attempting to tame wild horses, I finished this haunting novel. Right after finishing this book, I watched Undercurrent, about the murder of journalist Kim Wallis. And here in my home state, […]

“I am a jug filled with water both magic and plain.”

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal

March 24, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

This was one of the books suggested within another book – the bookseller from The Sentence tried to convince her tough-to-please-book-loving customer to read this (or it was included in her list of perfect short books that they agreed on). This was a very short book – at 98 pages, this is less than an afternoon’s worth of reading. Unless you, like the protagonist, prefer to savor your books. Hanra reads his books one sentence at a time, the better to absorb him. Hanra has been […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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