Breathing Just a Little

This book could have been great, but was actually just kind of OK. I didn't hate it at all, but it was solidly meh for me. I think my reaction to it may be a function of me misunderstanding what it was going to be based on the premise. I thought it was going to do something potentially really interesting with the conceptualisation of octopus intelligence / sentience, but, spoiler alert , it does not. Marcellus the octopus, while certainly the most engaging of the three characters that share the POV (sadly, he has the least page time), is just an anthropomorphised smart guy in a tentacle suit, with really nothing alien or other about his mind at all. The plot itself was a protracted converging-stories farrago that has been done better (and in less pages!) by others. Set in the town of Sowell Bay, Washington, the action centres around the local aquarium, its staff, and their friends within the town. The arrival of a newcomer from California, ne'er-do-well Cameron Cassmore, leads ...

My secondborn daughter moved out of home to a rental flat yesterday - the first of my chicks to leave the nest. I have so many feelings about this, and, as always, poetry is my access point to emotion and reflection. This poem is an English Madrigal. Moving Day When you were small (which feels like yesterday) you used to curl against me as I read your green eyes soft with wonders in your head. The movers came and took your things away your room left blank, with just your bare-stripped bed. Once all we five lived here, til yesterday; now the page turns, to stories yet unread. The days will pass, and we will find our way and learn how, at remove, to hold the thread to draw from what's behind for what's ahead. Forever lit with stars, our yesterday: the greatest story my life ever read the lines in which I read the true godhead.

This book is enlightening and depressing, but also suffers from an excess of repetition, which contributes to it feeling over-long, and is less compelling in its conclusions that I think the author intended it to be. That said, I think it is an important text, and perhaps will become even more so in the coming years. Doctorow knows what he's talking about, and paints a compelling picture of why everything feels a little to a lot shittier than it used to do - the Internet, of course, but not just that, all the tech we use and have to use in all aspects of our lives.  He provides a forensically detailed and meticulous analysis of the stages of how all things with a tech component (which these days is many to most things) get worse as competition is degraded - first user interests are deprecated, then business customers are also victimised, and finally the only real winners in the game are the mega-middlemen that can, and do, monetise frantically at the expense of all of our privacy, ...

 As predicted, my churn of new book completions has dramatically slowed in February compared with January, now that I am back to work and to my regularly scheduled life. I have, nonetheless, completed two  more new-to-me novels after the month opener, Offshore (reviewed here ) and am close to finished a non-fiction book (which will be reviewed soon, it is giving me much food for thought). This was an enjoyable story, with many moments of what felt like genuine insight and pathos, somewhat weakened by its very predictable rom-com beats and further flawed by a too-neat ending. Phoebe, the main character, was an appealing person who I could engage with, and I thought most of the secondary characters were surprisingly vivid and well-drawn. I especially liked Marla, the caustic sister-in-law to be; Juice, the groom's 12 year old daughter; Jim, the best man; and above all, Lila, the spoilt, often bratty, but compellingly attractive (and I don't mean just beautiful, I mean as a perso...

I have entered a season of wanting to pull back socially and shelter in place, regularly engaging only with my family and my close friends. (Of course, I also engage daily with my colleagues; work life is separate from personal / social life!)  I have been through such seasons before, often coincident with periods of health difficulties, anxiety surges, or ongoing fatigue. (All three are in play at the moment, not surprisingly). I know it's coming up when I start being secretly thrilled whenever plans fall over, and feel absolutely no FOMO when seeing photos or posts about other people doing things / going places / socialising (if anything, the opposite - the Joy of Missing Out is strong). This doesn't mean I'm turning into a hermit. I work, and I have good relationships at all my client workplaces. I volunteer once a fortnight and will continue to do so. I'll do some (although more limited) social things out of the house with my husband, my adult kids, my family of ori...

As part of my self-imposed Read the Booker Winners for the First Decade of My Life project, I have just now finished the audiobook of the short but sweet novel that won in 1979 - Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore. Summary: I liked it very much, and rate it 8.5/10 .  Given that The Sea, The Sea also scored an 8.5 from me recently, and the two I had previously read (Midnight's Children and Schindler's Ark) are both easy 9s, so far, the decade of my birth is coming up trumps! I'm starting the Coetzee audiobook next, and reading the Gordimer as a library e-book because I couldn't find an audio version anywhere, so we shall see if this positive run holds. This is, simply put, a lovely little book. Quirky (but not in a bad, shallow way), frequently wryly funny, and very moving, it is the entwined stories of a collection of houseboat-dwellers living at Battersea Wharf in 1961, people with, literally (to misquote Shakespeare), one foot in water, one on shore. The characters ar...