Bookbandit's Book Nook

“Play nice,” she murmured.

“I wasn't going to kill him,” I muttered back. “But a little light stabbing might teach him some manners.”

“Focus on the job. I’ll trip him when we get inside,” she promised.

“That’s real friendship,” I told her.

A novella published in 1909 that was prescient about the role of technology in distancing humanity from...well, humanity. It almost felt personal; was personal, in how it detailed dislike for human interaction and a preference for screens, and man's rejection of nature, and willingness to sacrifice meaning for comfort.

Favorite moment: when societal collapse occurred because everyone's beds were taken away, relatable lmao

Favorite quote:

“I'm communing with my girl Mary” she said, nodding towards the statue. “Two nice Jewish girls hanging out together. I like her skull.”

“Sure. I can see that,” I said. “Except that's St. Rosalia of Palermo. Pretty sure she was Catholic.”

“Well, shit." Natalie slumped in the pew. "I can't even get that right.”

50 books in 2022 #1: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

“If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.”

Rundown:

Read: January 1, 2022 - January 15, 2022 (15 days)

Reason: On my TBR for years and really meant to get to it in 2021

Source: book I own, purchased from university bookstore

Stats: fiction, translated from Japanese, published in 1987, 293 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

BookRiot Read Harder 2022 prompt #24, any challenge from previous years = non-European novel in translation (1/24 complete)

Reading Challenge for People Who Want Something Simple from @godzilla-reads​, January = a book under 300 pages (1/12 complete)

TBR Buster Challenge, January TBR read (1/12 complete)

Reflection:

First book of the year:

Title: Los niños de paja

Author: Bernardo Esquinca

Number of Pages: 131

Rating: ★★★☆☆

First published: July, 2008

Read: December 31, 2021 - January 2, 2022

My review of Barely Functional Adult by Meichi Ng !

Ng wrote in the introduction to this book, “Here you will find the stories i needed to read at different points in my life—i didnt get to read them when i needed to, but i hope these stories will come to you at a time when you do.” And they definitely did for me—Ng captured the lost feeling of early 20s, post-grad life in the stories included in this memoir, as well as the feelings from later stages of life that i havent known but have been scared of. I want to shove this at everyone my age to be like, hey this isnt just us, and also at my friends who are much older than me to be like hey, this is where i’m at, were you here too?

It begins!

Here are the first two books I will be reading for @bookbandit's Third Annual TBR Buster Challenge - The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin and You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson.

On my TBR pile since August 2, 2015

JACK IN THE GREEN by Diane Capri

Gaspar and Otto, FBI agents, are sent to Tampa hunting for Jack Reacher.  They are to interview a former officer Thomas Weston about the murders of his first wife and three children and Reacher’s investigation of it.  Hoping to get a lead on Reacher, they instead become involved in murder.