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@readtheoddone

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Sometimes there's cat hair in my pictures.
MA in Contemporary Literature 📚
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And now, because I like to give myself the literary equivalent of whiplash, Rachel Ingalls' Mrs Caliban.

This was such a brilliantly weird book!

Essentially, Dorothy (our main character) harbours and falls in love with a giant frog man, named Larry, who is running away from the facility that he was being tested on. Meanwhile, we watch as her marriage and then friendship fall apart, and we see how two people either refuse to deal with or refuse to move past the grief of losing their children.

We've got some brilliant themes of isolation, womanhood, and societal expectations. If you're familiar with Shakespeare's The Tempest, we've got some interesting parallels and subversions happening here!

Some of the characters are not quite who they seem (goddamn it Estelle). Some of them are exactly who they seem (goddamn it Fred). There are some hints that Dorothy maybe wasn't all there in the first place (can we blame her though)?!

Absolutely recommend this one - it's short, it's clever, it's funny, and maybe the girls who read monster romance are onto something??

I've also included my notes for this one because whilst I enjoyed underlining and tabs for East of Eden, I'm maybe not quite there yet with doing it in every book!

#rachelingalls #mrscaliban #fabereditions #bookrecommendation #weirdlit by @readtheoddone

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20 hours ago

So, I have done what I can to try and bring all my thoughts and feelings about this book into some semblance of sense. I do want to preface this with a couple of things though. Firstly, I don't typically enjoy books like this - we're not rocking the boat with the language or formatting and we haven't really got any interesting things happening as far as narrative goes, which is not really my bag. Secondly, just because I have ✨thoughts and feelings✨ does not a personal attack make.

So for the good - it is incredibly readable. If you're feeling hesitant and/or intimidated by the size of this one, don't be. You won't struggle and the chapters are separated into parts in themselves, which means finding natural stopping points isn't difficult. It's incredibly accessible, I never once thought 'I'm not sure what this means or what this is a reference to' and Steinbeck's style is not difficult.

He clearly feels very comfortable in the landscape that he's writing in (it would make sense given that this is semi-autobiographical), and his description of places is wonderful.

#eastofeden #johnsteinbeck #honestbookreview #bookcritique #americanliterature

His male characters are given an incredible amount of depth (possibly more than he actually intended) because actually if you take these characters as who they are meant to represent then they are quite black and white, but when you consider them in relation to each other and the situations around them the examination of morality and how entirely tricky human complexity is, it is superb (how can Aron be the 'good brother' when he repeatedly allows his brother to believe he is inherently bad and refuses point blank to live in the real world and not the world that the people around him have to very carefully construct for him. Conversely, how can Cal be the 'bad brother' when he spends so much time maintaining the world he knows his brother needs to survive).

I think my favourite character is Lee, I love the consideration of code switching and I do enjoy how careful and thoughtful he seems. Again though if you chip the surface a little bit more, he doesn't have Samuel's confidence, and because of that Cal suffers a d by @readtheoddone

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3 days ago

I've realised that I hit 2000 followers recently and just didn't really register it! So thank you! I'm very happy with the little community I've managed to build up around me. I'm not the only one that reads odd books, and I LOVE seeing what everyone has been reading and being influenced by you all! I've had some brilliant bits of discussion with you, I've been inspired by your pictures, and challenged when my opinions don't necessarily align - and I've loved every second of it, don't ever change!

So have an incredibly self indulgent collection of pictures of my classic penguin collection to celebrate!

I have also finished East of Eden now, I have lots of ✨thoughts and feelings✨ that I will try to destill down into something that is a little bit more palatable and less like an actual essay 😂

#2000followers #orangepenguins #classicbooks #modernclassics #penguinbooks by @readtheoddone

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6 days ago

After a super busy week and a half, there's nothing better than a slow Saturday with my cats.

Part of me is thinking about starting the East of Eden show even though I'm just over half way through the book now, but I'm not sure. Have you started it?

Have you had a good Saturday?

#booksandcats #eastofeden #johnsteinbeck #slowsaturday #cosyreading by @readtheoddone

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10 days ago

September wrap up!

I'm afraid I once again forgot that Storygraph was a thing I was doing, which is why it looks like I read a ridiculous amount on one day! A fair few smaller books this time, but I'm finding that a lot of the time the shorter books pack one hell of a punch!

I'm also aware that I haven't posted reviews for a few of these, I just need a bit of space this month - it's been rather hectic!

So, in order of most to least enjoyed (although I didn't not enjoy any of these!)

Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño is a really interesting consideration of art and violence and its place in fascism.

Offences by Constance Debré is a brilliant bit of social commentary, with class identity built into the foundations of the story itself.

Box Hill by Adam Mars Jones is a dark and deeply uncomfortable examination of self worth and consent.

Twenty Minutes of Silence by Hélène Bessette is an experimental, polyphonic take on the murder mystery.

I Saw Satan at the 7-Eleven by Christopher Brett Bailey is an absolutely wild ride. I will not expand.

The Names by Florence Knapp is a deeply emotional consideration of how different a family life can be based on a single decision.

Have you read any of these? Any recommendations based on this list?

#septemberwrapup #catsandbooks #bookflatlay #septemberreading #storygraph by @readtheoddone

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12 days ago

I've spent most of this weekend in Brighton with my Sister (the younger ReadTheOddOne - who has promised to start Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night, since it is one of my absolute favourites)!

Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took of bookshops this weekend have been corrupted, which I didn't know could happen on a phone?

Anyway, we managed to get to a few bookshops (@billandbenbooks, @booksforamnestybrighton, one in Snoopers Paradise, and we did poke our heads in at Waterstones).

We did also manage to get to the pier, which is always a treat because I have always loved a 2p machine!

I've also realised that I've not posted a review in a while, despite having read a few books before starting East of Eden, so I'll get around to posting the reviews for those soon!

Books found were

Katherine Mansfield - In a German Pension
Leanora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet (influenced by @the_unknown_book_club)
Vincenzo Latronico - Perfection
Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Samantha Schweblin - Fever Dream
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
Carlos Roias - The Ingenious Gentleman and Poet Federico Garcia lorca Ascends to Hell
Ben Fountain - Rasputin Swims the Potomac

#bookhaul #secondhandbooks #secondhandbookshopping #newbooks #bookshoppinginbrighton by @readtheoddone

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15 days ago

Now, I'm not going to lie, I've got a very strained relationship with Steinbeck, but basically everyone has been reading this or has read this recently and I have FOMO about it!

I read Of Mice and Men when I was still at school, and I just didn't enjoy it at all. The writing style wasn't for me and I did struggle with the way Steinbeck characterised women and POC.

I'm not quite through Part 2 of this, so I will reserve full judgement, but so far I've found that the characterisation doesn't seem much better; however, it is very readable. He clearly loves the landscape he's talking about here because it does come through in the writing.

Perhaps by the end I'll have a different point of view - I have even gotten out my tabs and have been underlining as I go!

#eastofeden #johnsteinbeck #latetotheparty #bigbooks #annotatingbooks by @readtheoddone

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18 days ago

🤷🏻

(No books were harmed during the making of this video)

#bookishhumor #packingbooks #nosuchthingastoomanybooks #holidaybooks #readerproblems by @readtheoddone

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20 days ago

The last of the secondhand September hauls (maybe... Yeah, I actually can't promise it is 😅)

I feel a bit awful because I cannot remember who it was that wrote a very compelling review of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, but they did a fantastic job and I knew I had to pick it up!

@damlasbookshelf wrote a really fantastic review of Herta Müller's The Appointment a little while ago - and I was completely influenced, so I figured now was as good a time as any!

I'm a big fan of a short story and so Katherine Mansfield has been sitting on my list for a little while now. I'm especially looking forward to her short story Bliss.

I will say, as much as I struggle with the numbers game of Instagram and how the algorithm works, I rarely find myself with bad recommendations! I think Mr. ReadTheOddOne would prefer if you all stopped though 🤭

#secondhandseptember #worldofbooks #secondhandbooks #minibookhaul #translatedliterature by @readtheoddone

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21 days ago

Here are some books and poems I think you should read during the 🍂🍁autumn months🍁🍂 for no other reason than I said so and ✨vibes✨

Poems are Percy Shelley's Ode to the West Wind and John Keats' To Autumn

Books are (in no particular order)
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
Girls Against God - Jenny Hval
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Carmilla - Sheridan Le Fanu
The Woman on Black - Susan Hill
Selected Stories - Edgar Allen Poe
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Children of Paradise - Camilla Grudova
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Starless Sea and The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
Vita Nostra - Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
The Secret History - Donna Tartt

#autumnvibes #autumnreads #bookstack #proseandpoetry #autumnpoems by @readtheoddone

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23 days ago

Something fairly hefty came in the post today! And to show you just how hefty I thought I'd put it next to all the other huge books I've not yet read!

I have had Michael Lentz's Schattenfroh on several lists and I have been getting more and more jealous as I saw more and more pictures of it popping up. Between the review that @piccadillydanslapluie posted and the, honestly, very small amount of encouragement from @bigpoppareads - I had no choice!

The look on Tilly's face is one of absolute judgement because despite sleeping at her post (resident book sniffer and protector) it was clearly very rude of me to dump these on the daybed and inadvertently wake her up.

Other books pictured
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Possessions by A.S Byatt
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
1Q84 by Hauki Murakami

#schattenfroh #michaellentz #bigbooks #catsandbooks #ilikebigbooksandicannotlie by @readtheoddone

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25 days ago

🫪🫪🫪

Look, I know it's early, but in my defence, I thought it was a preorder!

#penguinrandomhouse #adventcalendar #bookadventcalendar #iknowitsnotchristmas #bookishthings by @readtheoddone

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a month ago