1/35 Middlemarch by George Eliot
2/35 Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts
3/35 The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
4/35 The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks & Masashi Matsuie
5/35 Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money by George Caffentzis
6/35 Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
7/35 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This is one where if I'd known more about it before I started I probably wouldn't have bothered, only read a very short recommendation and thought gothic, Mexico, it could be interesting. Well almost right away the Mexican setting is sidelined in favour of a predictably Victorian English mansion, the main relevance Mexico has in the plot is in the reactionary anti-colonial theme that runs through it of thieving parasitic and out of place European upper class v good harmonious and industrious Mexican upper class. Unintentionally funny in places though, to help establish the all around wonderfulness of the main character we're told that not only does she know the names of her family's servants but they're permitted to speak, wow! For me the biggest issue was in the lack of a strong sense of place, even leaving aside the boring choice of an English mansion, for gothic you need the strong atmosphere and personality of the setting and this just doesn't establish it enough relying too much on supernatural elements to provide it. Also far too many dream sequences. Everyone knows other people's dreams are dull in real life, even worse when they're fictional ones and can't really recreate the weirdness of dreams.
On the plus side there were some nice descriptive passages here and there, and it was entertaining enough that I didn't consider giving up on it at any point (to be fair it's pretty short). Wouldn't have missed out on anything if I hadn't read it, but not terrible.
2/35 Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts
3/35 The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
4/35 The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks & Masashi Matsuie
5/35 Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money by George Caffentzis
6/35 Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
7/35 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This is one where if I'd known more about it before I started I probably wouldn't have bothered, only read a very short recommendation and thought gothic, Mexico, it could be interesting. Well almost right away the Mexican setting is sidelined in favour of a predictably Victorian English mansion, the main relevance Mexico has in the plot is in the reactionary anti-colonial theme that runs through it of thieving parasitic and out of place European upper class v good harmonious and industrious Mexican upper class. Unintentionally funny in places though, to help establish the all around wonderfulness of the main character we're told that not only does she know the names of her family's servants but they're permitted to speak, wow! For me the biggest issue was in the lack of a strong sense of place, even leaving aside the boring choice of an English mansion, for gothic you need the strong atmosphere and personality of the setting and this just doesn't establish it enough relying too much on supernatural elements to provide it. Also far too many dream sequences. Everyone knows other people's dreams are dull in real life, even worse when they're fictional ones and can't really recreate the weirdness of dreams.
On the plus side there were some nice descriptive passages here and there, and it was entertaining enough that I didn't consider giving up on it at any point (to be fair it's pretty short). Wouldn't have missed out on anything if I hadn't read it, but not terrible.
