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From Google Gemini: A precis of Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood:
Set in a near-future world ravaged by a man-made plague, the Waterless Flood, the novel follows two women who survive in different ways. Ren, a trapeze artist, is locked down in a luxurious health club called Scales, while Toby takes refuge in the MaddAddamites, a garden-based, religiously inclined group who foresaw the coming disaster.
Through flashbacks, the novel reveals how their lives intersected before the plague, primarily through their connection to the enigmatic and morally ambiguous scientist, Crake, and his genetically engineered "Crakers." As the world collapses, Ren and Toby navigate the chaos and loss, eventually finding each other and grappling with the aftermath of the pandemic and the emergence of the Crakers as the new inheritors of the Earth. The story explores themes of environmental destruction, genetic engineering, religious fanaticism, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of catastrophic change. It acts as both a chilling cautionary tale and a testament to the power of connection and adaptation.
PR: My feedback on the book, didn’t enjoy it at all. Got to 50% on kindle and still have little idea who the characters are or what’s going on. I don’t find it particularly well written either. Perhaps being the middle of a trilogy doesn’t help ! My score would be 3.
SC: I'm afraid 'the Flood' didn't grab my attention sufficiently to read it when I was away and I couldn't relate to the characters - the language was too raw at times. As P mentioned, it may have been easier to start with the first book. I'd struggle to rate it!
PM: A dystopian fiction about the world after a couple of apocalypses, probably man-made, and a couple of women from a peaceable sect called the gardeners. Sort of easy to read, except jumping around in time periods from the beginning to the current time, which made it difficult. Gave up about page 130 as I couldn't see where it was going. A poor 4 from me. I wouldn't read another of hers.
TC loved it, gave it an 8.
HB didn't get on with it and gave up.
So there were a variety of responses to the book.
This is a fictionalised biography of Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize winning author.
This is an article about him:
https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2024/11/thomas-mann-and-the-european-disease-of-nihilism
I found the book hard to get into as I was thinking of it as a novel and not a biography. In the early pages I think he concentrates too much on Thomas's thoughts of homosexuality. It is easy to read though.
As the book goes on I find it hard to relate the things that occur to place and time, especially as the family moves from one place to another. The declaration of war sets the time once.
The part about them settling in Princeton reminds me of the book about John Von Neumann which I enjoyed.'Turings Cathedral' which was as much about John Von Neumann as Turing, it describes how Von Neumann took Turings famous paper and used it to build the first computer from which all future computers were derived. Includes all the famous people from the era of the Manhattan Project, and a couple of others like Ulam and Bigelow who were great at helping get it going. Some good quotes and comparisons in here.
1948 in Los Angeles. This is the very essence of a dis-functional family. The ending was a bit weak. He died in Switzerland.
The aspects of German culture were interesting.
Does the book make you want to learn more about Mann, or should it tie ti all up. This is a general question about biographies.
The Hare with the Amber Eyes was another story about a family in Germany during this period, but a far better story.
Book 3 in the Shetland series.
We liked learning about Shetland Life and some of the history. From one of us who had visited, it was thought to be true to life, very family oriented, and somewhat narrow minded.
It was easy to read and not a literary book.
A nice enough story with a mildly disappointing end.
Marks in the 6's and 7's, about 6 1/2
A bit of a discussion about how we read books, T read hers immediately she got it and had forgotten a lot after a month, I read in short bursts and it takes me a month to get through it, Others are reading it in the last few days to find out how it ends before the meeting.
No meeting in December so two books to discuss in January.
Night Watch
Some of us tried it, two of us read it. three of us got to about 100 pages and couldn't see where it was going. It was in three parts going backwards in time and it was thought it would have been better being done in chronological order. Pointed out that as the publisher was Virago it was a feminist book. Lesbianism and Heterosexual relationships in it. No one could make out the young lad who was the centre of the book. Relationships weren't developed satisfactorily. Marks of 4,3,1.5
Violetta
Again, some people thought that the relationships weren't developed enough. Plenty of excitement in the life of Violetta from 1920 to 2020 - Time of the Flu epidemic to Covid. I wish that I had looked at the Wikipedia page for Salvador Allende while reading the book, I would have had a much better idea of the story.
Marks 4,5,6,7,8,8,8,8 =avg 7
This book is scary, especially seeing some of the current news articles. The state of the western worlds Submarine fleets, and also the Assisted Dying bill in Parliament at the moment. Contemporary topics written about in 1957.
Comments were that it was interesting, but stilted. It was a 'period piece' and showed the attitudes at that time. If it happened to us now, would we continue to live our lives as if it was not the end? Would we come to Book group? [Yes!]. The idea of continuing to carry on as always in a way was saying that we didn't want to accept the future.
The wife was a blank canvas, she wasn't developed enough. The love story between Moira and Dwight was one-sided, but of course Dwight still loved his wife. He bought gifts for his family. there wasn't any looting or going overboard, aside from Moira's father intent on not wasting any good wine.
NS was ahead of his time in writing this, written in 1957 about a situation in 1964. It reflected the mores of the time
P said that she could see Gregory Peck in the role of Captain Dwight. It was commented that most 'end of the world' films in the last thirty years included riots and destruction. There was no railing against the future, the book only once mentioned anger, other than the old mans anger that rabbits would outlast them. It was just acceptance of what was coming, no trying to find a way of existing for the time until the radiation settled down. That would be my stance - I would want to go down fighting.
MArks: 10, 9.5, 9, 9, 8, 8, 7. = 8.5
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/14/western-us-royal-navy-submarine-forces-serviceable-crisis/
Attack submarines are arguably the decisive weapons in high-intensity warfare between foes separated by oceans. Mobile, stealthy and heavily armed, they can sink invasion flotillas, bottle up enemy combat fleets, cut supply lines and strangle economies by throttling trade.
And that’s why the dire condition of the submarines in some of the most important free countries is so troubling. The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia are all struggling to maintain their attack boats at precisely the same moment they most need the boats to deter China.
The Australian sub fleet is the most recent to descend into crisis. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, just one of the Australian navy’s six Collins-class subs is fit for combat. The other three are “beset by problems” including corrosion, ABC reported.
Australia plans to replace the 1990s-vintage, diesel-electric Collins with second-hand nuclear-powered boats from the United States starting in the 2030s. New nuclear subs built under the auspices of the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States would later replace the used vessels.
Nuclear-powered subs present a hugely greater threat than conventional ones, as they can move fast and far while fully submerged. A diesel sub can only go fast and far fully surfaced, and needs to put up a “snort” air-intake mast for long periods at regular intervals to charge batteries when submerged. This places the sub in great danger when operating in an area covered by enemy radar, and a single maritime patrol plane can scan hundreds of miles of sea.
So the new nuclear boats will make the Australian navy a lot more dangerous. But the 3,500-ton Collins class are Australia’s only manned undersea capability for the next six years, if not longer. And while a new class of small robotic sub might complement the Collins, such vessels lack the heavy weaponry – Mark 48 torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles – that lend the manned subs their punch.
A 2023 war game organised by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC underscored what many observers have long assumed – that submarines could be the main line of defence between China and Taiwan in the event the Chinese Communist Party ever makes good on decades of threats and attacks the island democracy.
In that war game, US Navy nuclear attack boats sailing from Guam sank scores of Chinese transports and warships, ultimately defeating the invasion attempt – albeit at the cost of a fifth of the subs. If the US, Australian, British and Japanese fleets – and the Taiwanese fleet, of course – could muster most of their subs, they could present a powerful united front to the Chinese fleet. The nuclear boats could move in to attack Chinese vessels in the Taiwan Strait without worrying overmuch about Chinese air and missile power, and conventional ones might sneak in slowly and carefully
But at present, Taiwan’s friends by and large can’t muster most of their boats. As recently as a year ago, just 60 per cent of the US Navy’s roughly 50 attack subs were ready for combat – significantly short of the Americans’ 80 per cent readiness goal. The Royal Navy has six nuclear attack boats, and plans to base one of them in Australia from 2027. But more than once in recent years, there have been zero British boats at sea.
If there’s a silver lining in this maintenance storm, it’s that the powerful Japanese sub flotilla – 24 diesel-electric attack boats – is in good shape. The Taiwanese navy’s two 1980s-vintage diesel-electric attack boats are also in reasonably good condition. But they couldn’t make much of an impact on their own in wartime, and it could be more than a decade before Taipei acquires all eight new subs it has planned.
Overall, the Western allied undersea fleet is in trouble. There are lots of subs, but too many of them are too old or worn out. It might take scores of submarines to defeat China at sea. Can the allies sail enough subs on short notice – and keep them in action long enough to win a war?
It’s hard to say. But it’s telling that Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the US Navy’s top officer, has prioritised the maintenance of existing ships over the construction of new ones. “We will continue to prioritise readiness, capability and capacity – in that order,” she wrote, tacitly acknowledging that the US fleet has a maintenance problem, and needs to solve it immediately.
That’s easier said than done, and not just for the Americans. The industrial side effects of the Covid pandemic, challenges associated with maintaining any skilled workforce, budgetary constraints and the overall advanced age of Western submarines owing to the “peace dividend” of the 1990s – during which many democracies built very few new subs – represent huge hurdles to near-term readiness.
Allied navies need to get their attack boats in shape. Whether they can, and how quickly, could mean the difference between victory and defeat in any coming Pacific war.
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Because I never know where to find it on my computer:
ISHIGURO | KLARA AND THE SUN | 22/05/2024 |
FULLER | UNSETTLED GROUND | 19/06/2024 |
TOWNSEND | WOMAN WHO WENT TO BED FOR A YEAR | 23/07/2024 |
O'FARRELL | HAMNET | 27/08/2024 |
BROWNING-WROE | TERRIBLE KINDNESS | 24/09/2024 |
November SHUTE | ON THE BEACH | 29/10/2024 |
December WATERS | NIGHT WATCH | 26/11/2024 |
January ALLENDE | VIOLETA | 14/12/2024 |
February CLEEVES | RED BONES | 28/01/2025 |
March TOIBIN | MAGICIAN | 25/02/2025 |
April ATWOOD | YEAR OF THE FLOOD | 25/03/2025 |
May BACKMAN | MAN CALLED OVE | 22/04/2025 |
June GRANT | POCKETFUL OF HAPPINESS | 27/05/2025 |
The free world’s most potent weapons against China have been crippled