Wulf's Book Reviews

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus My rating: 5 of 5 stars “ Lessons in Chemistry ” by Bonnie Garmus was one of those rare reading delights that kept me glued to my Kindle for “just one more chapter”. Go read the blurb if you want to know what this novel is actually about. Meanwhile, maybe on the sixth attempt , I’ll find a way to express my joy about having read this book which hit all the right notes for me: As the father of a daughter with a razor-sharp mind, I was infuriated about the despicable treatment Elizabeth receives. »“We can learn more, we can go further, but to accomplish this, we must throw open the doors. Too many brilliant minds are kept from scientific research thanks to ignorant biases like gender and race. It infuriates me and it should infuriate you. Science has big problems to solve: famine, disease, extinction. And those who purposefully close the door to others using self-serving, outdated cultural notions are not only dishonest, they’re knowingly lazy...

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’ve long been a fan of Louise Penny ’s series about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache . Satisfyingly, Penny is more than capable of writing thrilling mysteries but additionally she has never been shy to address the major topics of our time (this book being no exception…). Then there is the almost mystical village of Three Pines in which most of the novels play out and which features some rather unique characters - from the gifted but struggling painter to the grumpy crazy poet, the “Asshole Saint” and everything in between. These factors still make me look forward to each new novel. Even after 16 prior books! » “And for your information,” she told Gabri when he’d shown up with gardening gloves and a trowel, “I like weed.” “Weeds, you mean,” he said. “Maybe,” said the old poet. « In this seventeenth instalment Gamache investigates the attempted murder of professor Abigail Robinson and the murder of Robinson’s assistant, D...

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller My rating: 2 of 5 stars “ IN THE DARKNESS, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun. ” (The last sentence of the book, almost the only good one.) I was expecting to re-learn my Greek classics, told with a modern voice in modern language. I expected tales of heroism, of the great Greek heroes like Odysseus, of the Trojan war. What I got was a pale romance, lots of pathos and characters I couldn’t care for at all. Achilles almost always submits to his mother’s wishes, Patroclus is annoying and whiny and both fall in love with each other for no discernible reason whatsoever - unless you count Achilles’s feet… “ His dusty feet scuffed against the flagstones as he ate. They were not cracked and callused as mine were, but pink and sweetly brown beneath the dirt. ” Or Achilles’s feet… Again… “ Up close, his feet looked almost unea...

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One Night on the Island by Josie Silver My rating: 2 of 5 stars I just wanted a nice little romance to reset my brain. What I got was a weird mix of hippie crap (self-coupling my arse), commitment issues (Susie, Cleo, the kids, Mack; all suffer, none win). Cleo, a writer for “Women Today”, writes a column about finding what she calls her “flamingo”, meaning her “soul mate”, “forever love”, you name it. In an act of defiance - orchestrated by her editor, though - because she keeps finding (and promptly losing) sparrows instead of flamingos, Cleo goes on a trip to (brace yourselves!) “Salvation Island” to “self-couple” for a while in isolation and to ultimately “marry herself”. By chance, fate or, more realistically, a careless mistake by the owner of the “Otter Lodge” which her magazine rented for her, hectic Londoner Cleo meets “inconvenient American” Mack who intended to recover from a painful separation from his wife in the loneliness of his ancestral island home: Mack’s grandm...

Foster by Claire Keegan My rating: 5 of 5 stars " Foster " by Claire Keegan is a short story about (parental) love. A girl from an economically-challenged family is sent to relatives, Mrs. and Mr. Kinsella (who have lost their only child), to be temporarily cared for. The Kinsellas seem to be slightly better off than the girl’s parents but certainly not much. The strength of this short story lies in what’s implied: From the very beginning the unnamed girl is treated with kindness. When she wets her bed, her foster mother scolds herself (and the mattress!) for putting the girl on an old “weeping” mattress and simply goes on to clean it with the girl's help. The girl’s foster father takes her on a walk and while talking to her, gives her all the room to respond or to remain silent (and explicitly tells her so) - whatever the girl needs. He simply takes her hand and guides her along her way. Letting her go and return, letting himself be carried by the girl’s quiet joy...

The Cabin in the Woods by Sarah Alderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Well, “ The Cabin in the Woods ” by Sarah Alderson was definitely a good read: Rose is on the run, currently hiding in the eponymous cabin in the woods. The book tells her story in (mostly) alternating chapters, jumping back into her past and again into Rose’s present in and around the cabin. “Cabin” is a suspenseful read during which you’ll keep guessing what’s going to happen (until a certain point…), you’ll have to suspend your disbelief a bit and the ending comes rather abruptly but it’s an entertaining read. And, at least for me, it had the wonderful “just one more chapter effect” which carries this book to a slightly generous four stars out of five. Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/the-cabin-in-the-woods-by-sarah-alderson/?feed_id=1190&_unique_id=637901c0eeb1b

Flawless by Elsie Silver My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m grateful to have read “ Flawless ” by Elsie Silver because now I know which kind of book does not really appeal to me: Rich daddy’s princess meets bull-riding cowboy in this steamy (borderline pornographic) rural romance and that’s pretty much it for the story. It’s all just a bit too much over the top for: Summer is our princess, whose sister is called Winter. Summer is nice and warm and a people-pleaser whereas Winter is cold as ice. Not to mention Summer's evil step-mother! Lots of manly cowboys, sports legends, and ranchers are around, every man is tough, every woman is swooning. Summer desires to be - brace yourself! - “marked” by her cowboy Rhett… Rhett in turn obligingly is of the possessive variety… » She better be naked. Naked and ready. « … and the resulting smut is, uh, verbose. (Even, though, that is, admittedly, the least of my complaints.) The entire picture that Silver paints of people is approaching painfu...

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden My rating: 2 of 5 stars “ That evening, the old lady sat in the best place for talking: in the kitchen, on the wooden bench beside the oven. ” In the street of the small village I grew up in, there lived (and lives to this day even though she is very, very old now!) a lady of sheer infinite kindness. During the 1980’ties she still used an old oven that burned wood in her wonderfully old-fashioned kitchen. I spent many days there doing my homework for school, warming up on a wooden bench next to said oven or just hanging around listening to her stories. Thus, when I read the introductory quote, I felt immediately reminded of those days during my childhood and I was hoping for being taken back into those simple times. Unfortunately, this was not really to be: Many of the slavic “demons” or rather familiar spirits appearing in this book were part of her stories as well so I did feel a slight connection. Nostalgia isn’t enough, ...

The Guest List by Lucy Foley My rating: 4 of 5 stars » The lights go out. In an instant, everything is in darkness. The band stop their playing. Inside the marquee the wedding guests squeal and clutch at one another. « These are the strong, foreshadowing first words of this guilty pleasure of a book… There’s a wedding on a deserted island, several dark (slightly convoluted) mysteries from the past and on this brightest of days, a severe storm is brewing… This, with a small omission maybe, could have been the blurb to this often-reviewed Goodreads Choice Awards winner of 2020. This slightly Agatha-Christie-inspired setting lent itself to some good whodunnit murder mystery and I fully expected one. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite what I got: What I got was an attempt at showing me the true characters of the bride, the groom, their families and friends, down to Hannah, the Plus-one. That attempt wasn’t even bad and rather entertaining. It was slightly marred by the fact that everyo...

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones My rating: 3 of 5 stars I set out to read - and hopefully love - this because it came with high praise by most of my GoodReads friends and my daughter (who loves the film , though). Thus prepared, I set out on this literary journey and quickly got confused: Sophie gets cursed by the Witch from the Waste? Whatever for? And she just gets up, moves out without thinking and stumbles upon the eponymous Howl’s Moving Castle ? Huh? She accepts any crap coming her way because » Sophie was a failure anyway. It came of being the eldest. «? Sorry, what? Every ridiculous and absurd situation that goes on to arise can be summarised as Howl does near the very end of this book: » “I’m the eldest!” Sophie shrieked. “I’m a failure!” “Garbage!” Howl shouted. “You just never stop to think!” « Some of you might think me too old for this - but for one thing, I still love the Moomins for example. Plus: I can tell you right here and now that as a child I would...

The Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker My rating: 3 of 5 stars Oh, Bruno, what did he do to you?! Bruno, you know I just love following your adventures around St. Denis. Unfortunately, just having finished the 12th outing – The Body in the Castle Well – I feel tired. Tired by the never-changing tides in St. Denis – there are even two love stories which are rehashed (again!) – and the complexity of the mystery. (And there's a third love interest to boot!) The Bruno mysteries always were a “place” you gladly came back to because while things were moving on, they didn’t change abruptly. Bruno would always be that local cop everyone liked and who did a good job not just enforcing the law but making it work for the people it was made for. Also, while the story always had some connection to current topics, it was never really forced but (mostly) believable. Bruno’s adventures with Isabelle, Pamela and, sometimes, others were mostly amusing and engaging and simp...

Der Arumbaya-Fetisch by Hergé My rating: 3 of 5 stars In diesem Band ist Tim auf der Suche nach dem namensgebenden Arumbaya-Fetisch und reist dafür nach Süd-Amerika, wo er zunächst auf dauer-putschende Militärs in zwei fiktiven Ländern stößt, um dann auf der Flucht auf die indigene Bevölkerung zu treffen. Immer gehetzt von zwei Kriminellen, die ebenfalls den Arumbaya-Fetisch an sich bringen wollen, findet er schlußendlich eine Werkstatt, in der der vermeintlich einzigartige Fetisch in großen Stückzahlen produziert wird. Eine eher langatmige Abenteuer-Geschichte mit sich wiederholenden Motiven. Wenigstens aber zumindest weniger rassistisch als die vorherigen Bände, obschon auch hier “black-facing” als Verkleidung genutzt wird und am Schluß buchstäblich ein paar “schwarze Teufel” einen kurzen “Auftritt” haben. Alles in allem: Vergleichsweise harmlos, aber eher langweilig. Drei von fünf Sternen. View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/der-arumbaya-fetisch-tim-und-strup...

Stranded by Sarah Goodwin My rating: 4 of 5 stars » Fortunately I have learned that there is no justice, aside from what we make for ourselves. There is only survival, and the victor tells the story. « My wife and I lay in bed, reading. When I noticed I had read the same paragraph for a third time, I decided to call it a night. Two hours later, I woke up. My wife was still reading. Another two hours later, she was still reading. When I woke up at 05:00 (a.m.), she was asleep. The next morning I asked her which book she had read because, obviously, I wanted that, too! Turns out, it was “ Stranded ” by Sarah Goodwin . I immediately got started. “Stranded” tells the story of a group of eight people who get shipped to an uninhabited island to live there for a year. They only have what they brought, can sometimes find caches of supplies but are mostly on their own. Everything they do gets recorded by cameras in the trees around them and by body cameras. With them on the island are tw...

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a tricky one… I loved the premise: Nora Seed is seriously depressed - at the age of 15 she quit professional swimming, severely disappointing her father. Her mother died. Her brother, she feels, is in a rough spot because she quit his band. Even her elderly neighbour doesn’t need her anymore and now her cat has died. She just doesn’t want to go on. » She imagined being a non-sentient life form sitting in a pot all day was probably an easier existence. « (Or wishing to be one’s cat, yours truly would like to add.) At this point, Nora tries to end it all (if YOU consider suicide, please google “suicide” in your native language and call one of the hotlines you’re going to find!) - only to find herself in the eponymous “ Midnight Library ”. The concept of the Midnight Library builds upon the hypothesis of the multiverse which basically states that there is a(n) (infinite) number of parallel universes just like ours. T...

Kummer aller Art by Mariana Leky My rating: 5 of 5 stars Stellt Euch doch mal ein zartes, luftiges Zitronen-Mousse vor. Ihr nehmt einen Löffel davon und es ist die perfekte Mischung aus feiner Süße und milder Säure. Die Mousse zergeht Euch förmlich auf der Zunge und viel zu schnell seht Ihr betroffen, das Schälchen leer und viel Genuß noch offen… » Sonjas Vater hatte in seiner Rede zu ihrer Hochzeit gesagt, er kenne niemanden, der so schwer Abschied nehmen könne wie Sonja – als Kind, erzählte er, habe sich Sonja manchmal sogar von Leergut nur unter Tränen trennen können. « So zumindest erging es mir bei der Lektüre von Mariana Lekys “ Kummer aller Art ”. Es handelt sich um eine Sammlung von Kolumnen der Autorin, die im Gegensatz zum Titel zwar auch voller großer und kleiner Kümmernisse stecken, häufig aber auch von Alltagsszenen berichten, die gar nicht notwendigerweise den Kummer in den Vordergrund rücken. » Zu unser aller Bestürzung hat sich Ulrich die Haare gefärbt. Er sieht ...

The Winners by Fredrik Backman My rating: 3 of 5 stars I hoped to love “ The Winners ” by Fredrik Backman as much as I love the original “ Beartown ”. The latter is the one book that I recommend to anyone who has time for just one more book. It was the book I gave my mother as a present for what would be her final birthday. She never got to read it. I already thought the second book wasn’t as good as the first one but, sadly, this third instalment is the weakest. It started out so well and felt a lot like “Beartown”… » To you who talk too much and sing too loud and cry too often and love something in life more than you should. « “The Winners” continues the story of Beartown, its rival Hed and both towns’ inhabitants. Backman takes time to paint a literary picture of life in those parts of the world but also writes very convincingly about the conditio humana in general. » There’s an immensity of love that bursts from your chest the first time you hear your child cry, every emoti...

Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage by Heather Havrilesky My rating: 5 of 5 stars » Forever is two immortal elves, sipping pink champagne by a burbling stream, then exploring the wild, gorgeous woods around them in everlasting harmony. Forever is set in New Zealand, not New Jersey. « It was around Christmas when I came across Heather Havrilesky ’s essay “ Marriage Requires Amnesia ” (which is an adaptation from this book) in the New York Times. In it, Havrileski poignantly describes her 15-year marriage to Bill Sandoval. While reading it, I laughed out loud and I cried and sometimes all of it at the same time. Being in the 23rd year of my marriage myself, I felt both understood and like gaining a better understanding of my wife. » But we weren’t married yet, so he still thought he could do whatever he wanted. « I couldn’t wait to see “ Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage ” released in early February because I was hoping for more of the same. And I got it - to ...

Hush Little Girl by Lisa Regan My rating: 4 of 5 stars An isolated, hidden house in the woods, half a family murdered, a cancelled wedding, lots of suspense, a major personal loss… “ Hush Little Girl ” is one more mystery/thriller from Regan’s production line - she writes three to four books in this series per year. Thus, it cannot really surprise anyone that while these books are fairly entertaining, they’re all derived from the same formula. If, by now, you like Josie Quinn and her team you won’t be disappointed by this instalment either. Apart from one rather disruptive (and overly drawn-out) change in Josie’s personal life nothing ever really changes in this series either, though. For the entertaining but utterly forgettable book it is: Four out of five stars. View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/hush-little-girl-detective-josie-quinn-11-by-lisa-regan/?feed_id=1097&_unique_id=63668ac97c51d

by  Daniel Jones Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption by Daniel Jones My rating: 5 of 5 stars » Because real love, once blossomed, never disappears. It may get lost with a piece of paper, or transform into art, books, or children, or trigger another couple’s union while failing to cement your own. But it’s always there, lying in wait for a ray of sun, pushing through thawing soil, insisting upon its rightful existence in our hearts and on earth. « I recently watched the series “Modern Love” and - quite aptly - loved it. Since it was based on the New York Times column of the same name, I had high hopes there might be a collection of this column and that’s how I found this book which comprises about 40 of the most memorable essays from the column. I laughed, I cried and sometimes I did both at the same time. Some of the stories hit close to home, others deeply impressed me. Even right now while writing this and recalling some of the...

Funkenmord: Kluftingers neuer Fall by Volker Klüpfel My rating: 2 of 5 stars Puh… Das also war Kluftinger 11 und einem von uns beiden geht langsam die Puste aus. Ich habe jetzt extra mal nachgeschaut: Klüpfel und Kobr sind jeweils Jahrgang 1971 und 1973. Weite Teile des Humors der beiden Autoren stammt aber eher aus dem miefigen Altherren-Umfeld: Angefangen von Vodka-saufenden Russinnen, über einen indisch-stämmigen Priester, dessen Darstellung zum “Fremdschämen” gereicht (» Goßer Gottowielow-ben-disch. Heah, wie peisen deine Starke … «) bis hin zu ganz peinlichen Klamottenkiste (“ But I do not want that he is the Führer. ”) - Klüpfel und Kobr ist kein Fettnäpfchen zu schade, kein Witz zu banal, um ihn nicht weidlich und nach den eigenen bescheidenen Künsten auszuschlachten. Auch über berechtigte Anliegen wird sich von diesem Duo der dümmlichen Peinlichkeit gern und ausschweifend mit solchen Schenkel-Klopfern lustig gemacht: “ Handel treibenden Menschinnen und Menschen (m / w / d...

Heroic Hearts by Jim Butcher My rating: 5 of 5 stars » “You came for me first,” she said. “Not the pizza.” « I’m exclusively referring to Jim Butcher’s short story “Little Things” from the “ Heroic Hearts ” anthology. This is simply because I only got it to read that one story - and it was worth it. Told from the viewpoint of “ Major General Toot-Toot Minimus, sprite in service to Sir Harry Dresden […] and captain of his personal guard ”, this is set pretty much immediately after the events of “ Battle Ground ”… An attempt on Harry’s life is made and Toot-Toot valiantly takes charge! I’ve like the little folk from the very beginning and now they finally and very much deservedly get their very own story. Five out of five stars for a highly amusing short story from the Dresden universe . Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/little-things-by-jim-butcher-from-heroic-hearts-by-jim-butcher/?feed_id=1076&_unique_id=636295edcd1aa

My rating: 0 von 5 Sternen Ich fühle mich angewidert und beschmutzt von diesem Buch. Der Autor, der offenbar das letzte Quäntchen Geld aus seinem Namen machen möchte, ist sich für kein rassistisches Klischee zu schade. Gleich zu Beginn lesen wir über Hitler, den der Autor verharmlosend-kumpelhaft als “Adolf” tituliert: » Was zum bis dato größten Krieg der Menschheitsgeschichte führte. Adolf verlor ihn und starb. « Eine der kenianischen Figuren (eigentlich sogar alle) wird als dummer, tölpelhafter, ungebildeter Wilder dargestellt: » Schlimm genug war es, dass einen der Strom beißen konnte, bloß weil man einen Nagel in ein Loch in der Wand steckte. Aber die Maschine zum Schreiben war ja regelrecht lebensgefährlich! « Noch ein Beispiel für den geradezu beiläufigen Rassismus in diesem Machwerk: » Denn über den typischen Kuh- oder Ziegenhirten der Savanne gab es prinzipiell viel Gutes zu sagen, aber wer tiefschürfende Einsichten in den Sinn des Lebens erwartete, suchte sich besser an...