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#Poetry by Larkin… Waste of my reading time

UPDATE: 25.11.2022

1. Here are 50+  POETRY READING SUGGESTIONS
2. …I hope you can find something better than Larkin!
3. I placed a LINK in right sidebar “#Poetry 50 Reading Suggestions”.
4. I hope you can find something there to read.
5. There are poets from USA, IRELAND, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND
6. Advice: don’t try to over analyse poetry.
7. I never read poetry b/c I had no idea how to review the poems.
8. I just read each poem as a “mini story”. When a poem plucks a heartstring
9. …or delivers a gut punch last few lines…I make note of it in my review.
10. I always tally the total number poems with the number I like
11. …and give the collection percentage score.

NOVEMBER

by Philip Larkin

Finish date: November 2022
Genre: poems (242)
Rating: F-
Review: Philip Larkin Collected Poems (ISBN: 0374522758)

Bad news: Just because P. Larkin had a miserable childhood, distant parents, unhappy marriage and an obsession with death…does not mean he has to drag me down into his dismal world!
This book has been on my bookshelf for years…and I decided it was time to confront this poet.

Good news: After reading these poems I am so excited that there are so many OTHER POETS to enjoy and I will throw Mr. Larkin’s book in the dust bin immediately!

Personal: This review will be super short because I have NOTHING good to say about Larkin’s poetry. He is a famous poet but I have no idea why. His vocabulary is filled with words like grief, scars, shame, suffering, slums, deplorable…and this just goes on and on…page after page. But to be fair…there was one nice poem (pg 11) that had the world happiness in it “Wedding-Wind”.

Please, if you don’t read much poetry…avoid Larkin at all costs. Look to some wonderful uplifting poets like Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Shane McCrae, Jericho Brown and James Levine just to name a few.
242 dark, dreary poems…read between World Cup 2022 Qatar matches…at least the soccer was exciting! If you asked me if I would ever read more poems by Philip Larkin…then I would say: ” I’d rather walk headfirst into a woodchipper.”

#NovNov22 Binti

by Nnedi Okorafor

Finish date: November 2022
Genre: novella (96 pg)
Rating: D
Review: Binti (ISBN: 9780765385253)

Good news: Important to understand …..what these things are when reading the book:
Otjize: the sacred (healing) clay ….The Himba in the novel cover their skin and hair in otjize (see book cover)
Edan: an electronic device that suddenly allows Binti to communicate with the Meduse (strange outer space folk). Once I had found this info…pieces of the story fell into place.

Good news: This is a highly-acclaimed novella winner of the Best Novella 2016 Hugo Award and Nebula Award 2015. That was the only reason I attempted this book.

Bad news: It is a quick read (2 hrs)…and unfortunately not “my cup of tea.” Too many jelly fish like Meduse with slimy tentacles. 95% of the book was the spaceship journey the university. No explanation of speed, gravity, layout…anything that would make you feel you were there! I’ll not be reading the following 2 books about Binti.

Personal: Not really a SF/fantasy fan but I really tried to stay open to this genre and read the novella. It is about Binti, member of Himba tribe on Earth who is accepted into a prestigious intergalactic university. In the end she succeeds in to stopping an interstellar war. No matter how I tried…this novella did nothing for me. Yes, there were themes of identity…the feeling of being an outsider which speak to many young readers…but that was not enough to impress me. Do not recommend for quality of writing or character depth…non-existant!

#NonFicNov week 4 “Jaw-Dropping” non-fiction

Week 4: (November 21-25) – Worldview Changers: One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is learning all kinds of things about our world which you never would have known without it. There’s the intriguing, the beautiful, the appalling, and the profound. What nonfiction book or books has impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Do you think there is one book that everyone needs to read for a better understanding of the world we live in? (Rebekah) 

UPDATE: 24.11.2022

The Guardian: 24.11.2022   READ 

• Police beat protesting iPhone workers as Covid cases hit record high in China

1. I don’ know how much news about China is a ABC news, MSNBC or CNN
2. …but this is a potential flashpoint for China now!
3. One of the most underreported
4. stories right now is China’s failing Zero-Covid policy.
5. Cases have surged to record-high levels (30 000 daily cases) &
6. 420 mln people are back in lockdown. Lockdown…that is a powder keg with a short fuse!
7. This violent protest is from the Foxconn iPhone factory in Zhengzhou
8. …APPLE is very worried their phones will not make be found under USA Christmas trees!
9. Xi Jinping can look very impressive at G20 ….but he has a lot of problems at home!

UPDATE: 21.11.2022 – Tweet from the author:

Thank you so much for your very close reading and detailed notes! A great primer / gateway into my book! Another book in the works, but may take a break from HK this time and try something new…

1. Books about China politics have impacted the way I see the world.
2. These books have opened my eyes to the geopolitical  importance of decisions
3. made by China and …countries who must deal with China.
4. This all makes my “JAW-DROP” because if you don’t feel it yourself
5. NEVER forget China…is a nation on a ‘long-term’ mission!!
6. The world must prepare for its influence on us all!
7. I wonder if anyone asks for Dapiran’s book in the bookstore or library?
8. There is NO BETTER to prepare than to read and educate yourself.
9. I  would recommend Anthony Dapiran’s book as the best place to start.
10. He is a journalist and he creates an impressive narrative to explain the
11. …flashpoint we know as Hong Kong.
12. REVIEW   City on Fire (2020)

1. The Red Zone – Peter Hartcher (2022) – is the second choice…
2. Read why Australia is in Xi Jinping’s cross-hairs!
3. REVIEW
   

#AusReadingMonth2022 The Lucky Laundry

by Nathan Lynch (no photo)

Genre: nonfiction (333 pg)
Rating: A
Review: The Lucky Laundry (ISBN: 9781460759912)

Good news: #AusReadingMonth2022 in November @bronasbooks coincides with my love of interesting non-fiction. Thanks to Nathan Lynch a dogged and intrepid financial investigator…we learn that not only are there brushfires in the Australian outback…but also at the most profitable bank in the country: CBA (CommBank). Corporate heads roll….and in 2018 CommBank agree to $700m to settle civil proceedings relating to breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. Who can you trust…if you can’t trust your bank!

Good news: Learned 3 easiest ways to launder money!
1. a legitimate business and declare the dirty money as revenue.
2. buy real estate using obfuscatory legal mechanisms.
3. But the easiest is through gambling.
Laundering money in a casino is surprisingly simple. Walk in with a bag of “dirty” cash. Convert it into chips. Play for a while – win a bit, lose a bit – then cash out. So… now you know!

Bad news: In the beginning the book does not “read like a novel” but don’t stop reading! Chapter 12 is when the human side is exposed…and sparks start to fly! Two first generation migrant men face-off at a Sydney boardroom table. One is the head of AUSTRAC responsible for preventing, detecting and responding to criminal abuse of the financial system and the other head of Australian’s most powerful bank. We learn how their migrant backrounds intertwine!

Good news: Lynch explains the nuts and bolts of the criminal network and who the winners and losers are in these schemes. Australia is known as one of the BEST multi-billion -dollar washhouses. A lucrative business “professional money launderer”…..but your life could be snuffed out very easily if you cross the line with the “big guys” in the business!
This book is very interesting because it tears the curtain away and we see what happens when the “criminal money wizards” are at work!

Personal: The ‘hook” is the first few chapters about Asian money laundering in Australia from China or Viet Nam. Fascinating info! But the book gets even better when a powerful bank is brought too its knees! 778,370 CommBank customer accounts were not properly monitored for three years and that some accounts were not even monitored after they were suspected of being used for money laundering. OUCH!
Strong point: Nathan Lynch has highlighted financial crime without making the narrative textbook dull. We learn about the high rollers who gamble rashly for high stakes (criminals)…or gamble for high profits for shareholders (bankers). #SuperInteresting

#NovNov22 De Profundis

NOVEMBER

by Oscar Wilde

Finish date: November 2022
Genre: novella (short non-fiction)
Rating: B
Review: De Profundis (ISBN: 9788494856174)

Good news: This novella has been sitting in the centre of my book Complete Works of Oscar Wilde for more than 20 years on the bookshelf. I was always more interested in Wilde’s plays (The Importance of Being Earnest) of novels (The Picture of Dorian Gray). But now…thanks to the yearly challenge #NovNov22  promoting the joy of reading novellas De Profundis is off my TBR.

Bad news: There was a section in which Wilde goes off on a subplot: “Christ is the precursor of the romantic movement in life”. For those interested in this…it was an enlightening look at art vs Christ. But I was looking purely for the human side of Wilde…how spending time in jail changed him.
Don’t give up on this novella/short nonfiction) Part 1: description of Wilde’s feeling entering jail (excellent) Part 2: Christ vs Art (…this felt out of place and I did skim some pages) Part 3: Wilde revealing how being in jail changed him (excellent)

Bad news: A short novella of non-fiction is not easy to find! John Hersey’s Hiroshima is one of the most well known…but Oscar Wilde is there too!

Personal: When Oscar Wilde concentrates on his feelings about sorrow, finding humanity even in jail, revealing the acts of kindness he was shown and how he has changed…that is when this book hit home for me. Breathtaking how Wilde can express what it is like in a prison cell.
“I wept every dat at the same hour…that is not such a tragic thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those who are in prison tears are a part of every day’s experience .”
After being locked up he says:
“…we all look at nature too much and live with her too little.”
De Profunids, 50.000 words, is well worth your reading time.

#NonFicNov Documentary – Nonfiction Book Pairing

Documentary – Nonfiction Book

1. I have decided to read/watch the book and documentary pairing suggestions that
2. …I found on on Rebekah’s  the blog She Seeks Nonfiction 
3. Rebekah has made some amazing pairings that we all should read/watch
4. …just to make sure we are informed what is happening in this world
5. …outside our respective bubbles

The 13th (IMDB: 8,2)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander – READ (2020)

Movie: (2016) – An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation’s history of racial inequality. Director: Ava DuVernay Academy Awards: Nominated for Best Documentary 2017 – WATCHED (2022)

Impressive: Scenes from movie “Birth of a Nation” (1915) – I’d never seen this before…just awful to think this was acceptable open terrorism! Later this terrorism was moved into the Jim Crow laws. 

Impressive: seeing the news film segments in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (civil rights, MLK, Regan, Nixon’s war on drugs, LBJ, Angela Davis and several iconic news anchors – Cronkite, Reasoner, Brinkley, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw)

Conclusion: After watching this documentary I learned  how the USA approves legislation that is very beneficial to corporations and the prison industrial complexes. OMG…it was so hard to watch the injustice towards blacks and latinos in the prison system and the killings of young people (see Google)  Freddy Gray, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery  just to mention a few…in America. Don’t look away…read this book and watch  Ava DuVernay’s Oscar nominated documentary from 2017

Conclusion:

1. This book was on my bookshelf for a few years.
2. But the cover was so confronting…I kept putting off reading this book.
3. Then the tragedy on 25 May 2020 in Minneapolis….happened.
4. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man,
5. …was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis
6. …by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer.
7. We all saw the video images…still haunting.

1. As I listened to many experts discussing this crisis…
2. David Simon was interviewed.
3. A Former Baltimore Sun crime reporter, David Simon is is also
4. …the creator of both the Baltimore-based show, The Wire (2002).
5. Simon was asked:
6. What is the first thing US must do to start improving the systemic racism in USA.?
7. He was the ONLY person who mentioned: “Stop the war on drugs”.

1. That was the trigger to finally learn more about this strategy.
2. This is the emergence of a new caste system—a system of social excommunication
3. that has denied millions of African Americans basic human dignity.
4. “The New Jim Crow” is an eye-opener….#MustRead.

#AusReadingMonth2022 Reading List

• Yes… it is that time of year again!
• I have waited 12 months  for this literary event.
• Hosting a reading challenge takes time
• …to organise and spread reading enthusiasm.
• This year Brona has chosen for a ‘Read-a-Long’ of the Australian classic VOSS (P. White)
• I read this book a few years ago for  #AusReadingMonth2016
• …so I have to find something else to do.

1. I’ve joined every single #AusReadingMonth since 2013…never missed a year!
2. Brona has introduced me to a complete new AUSSIE library of books.
3. My first book was Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach”….an impressive classic of the 20th C
4. I have always loved ….using a BINGO card for this challenge.
5. So I have finally found a book for each square!
6. NT and ACT are so difficult to fill….but I found my books!

1. You can join me reading  01 November – 30 November 2022
2. …all things Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
3. #AUSReadingMonth2022
4. @bronasbooks “This Reading Life”  blogpost
5. It is almost winter here in the Netherlands but in my thoughts
6. I will put Foster’s beer on ice…
7. …fire up the barbie and connect with  Australia!

My Reading list:

1. Dark as Last Night (Tony Birch) (VIC)  – READ
2. The Red Zone – Peter Hartcher – New South Wales (NSW) – READ
3. Lowitja  – (change of plans…) – selecting author from (VIC)– READ
4. The Carbon Club – Marian Wilkinson – Queensland (QLD) 
5. The Lucky Laundry – Nathan Lynch – Western Australia (WA) 
6. Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong  Louisa Lim – FREE 
7. Soil – M. Evans – (TAS)
8. Telling Tennant’s Story: Strange Career of the Great Australian Silence – D. Ashenden  (NT)
9. ?? –(SA) (change of plans…) – selecting author from (NSW) ...no SA. ?? still searching…

#AusReadingMonth2022 Tony Birch

by Tony Birch

Genre: short stories
Rating: A+++++
Review: Dark as Last Night (ISBN: 9780702263170)

Good news: Reading does not stop when you lay down the book.
…it leaves a weight upon our waking thoughts. I think that is the best
compliment I can give Tony Birch for this stunning collection of short stories!

Good news: These 16 stories are compact, have a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes. I finally have a short story collection with actual “short stories”! Sometimes I find authors like Isaac Bashevis Singer…who write a novella instead of a short story!

Personal: I’ve thought for a long time…but this must be one of the best short story collections I’ve read in a very long time. Yes William Trevor and John Updike have produced wonderful stories…but they also have many stories in their collections that just fizzle out.
Not Tony Birch! These stories had all great themes…family crisis/struggle (abusive father, estranged father) – discovery (bonds of brotherly love ) – transformation (librarian who the believes in her student) and of course humor (child who was not chosen to be in Nativity play at school).
This book won 2022 Queensland Literary Award for best short story collection….and Tony Birch deserves this prize…and then some!
#WorthYourReadingTime

#AusReadingMonth2022 Lowitja

NOVEMBER

by Stuart Rintoul (no photo)

Finish date: 07 November 2022
Genre: biography
Rating: A
Review: Lowitja (ISBN: 9781761065583)

Good news: This book is a complete “blind date” for me. I know nothing about Ms Lowitja O’Donoghue (1932)..let’s see where this leads. Lowitja is an Aboriginal woman of the ‘stolen generation’ who has risen from a domestic servant to become he greatest Aboriginal leader of the modern era.

Bad news: The book is arranged in the order of time: a chronological list of events. There will probably be sections with Australian politics blended into Lowitja’s narrative. Sometimes a few names resonate with me b/c of having read other Australian books …but don’t give up on this book. Lowitja’s story needs to be read…it is inspirational and we need to learn about her ground-breaking work.

Good news: A few names pop up and I say: I know him! Alfred Deakin (The Enigmatic Mr. Deakin) Bill Stanner (Telling Tennant’s Story). But I discovered Don Dunstan….PM of South Australia in the 1970s who tirelessly fought for reforms with respect to Indigenous Australians. Is there a biography about him?

Personal: Lowitja is arguably Australia’s most recognised Indigenous woman. 10 years ago I knew nothing about the Aboriginals. I’ve read a few books but this one lingers…the pain, suffering experienced by the “stolen generation” (Lowitja was taken from her mother when she was just 2 yrs old.) is horrific to read. Lowitja’s life is memorable b/c of her activism for Indigenous rights…but her she has lived years with a feeling of great loss.