One odd book.

I can’t decide whether or not to recommend it.

Then We Came to the End (2007) is a satire of the American workplace.

It takes place in a Chicago advertising agency that is experiencing a downturn at the end of the 1990s Internet boom.

 

What ties the novel together is the canny formal choice Ferris has made: his decision to write the novel in the first-person plural.

There is no single “narrator.” Rather, a group of workers relates the story, reconceiving 19^th-century omniscience as a gossipy group consciousness …

MEGHAN O’ROURKE review –

Hell Is Other Cubicles

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

I made it half way through this long novel before finally giving up.

The (1996) novel takes place in late 19th and early 20th centuries and chronicles four generations of the complex Piper Family. It is a story of “inescapable family bonds, terrible secrets, and of miracles.”

Beginning in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia through the battlefields of World War I and ending in New York City, the troubled Piper sisters depend on one another for survival. …

The plot was promising.

But ultimately I agree with reviewer G. L. Fredrick:

There’s some brilliant writing in this book. Quite a bit actually, but not enough to justify the read.

The story is presented in a disjointed fashion that is hard to follow without frequent searches (glad I read the kindle version).

The characters are bleak, depressing, and also disjointed. They come and go in the story often having gone through some change that is not adequately explained.

By the end, you’re left with more questions and confusion than satisfaction.

It’s not worth your effort.

Another reviewer loved it. And read the book several times.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is the debut novel by Hank Green.

It’s an odd plot.

April May, a young queer woman, is launched into internet celebrity when she and her friend Andy post a silly video on the arrival of a mysterious sculpture in the heart of Manhattan.

As these statues pop up in dozens of major global cities, their video goes viral.

Are they art? Space aliens?

For some reason April is essential to the mystery.

The story deals with how she handles sudden celebrity.

It’s a parable too of Trump populism vs intelligence.

I enjoyed the book. It kept me going. 

The sequel, titled A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, will be published July 7, 2020.

Hank Green is a YouTuber and podcaster with a combined 2 billion plus views.

Writing a book was a side project.

Not recommended.

I tried book 1 in the Grail Quest series hoping it would be something like Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge series, which I loved.

Follett’s focus was evolving technologies (e.g. architecture) and how it effected history. Most edifying.

The Archer’s Tale (AKA Harlequin ) is mainly sex and violence in the middle of the fourteenth century. The start of the Hundred Years War.  I didn’t learn much.

I won’t continue.

I recommend this book.

Tales of city folk moving to farms are usually hilarious.

Think Driving Over Lemons.

When they are rich city folk — suddenly poor farmers, it’s even more entertaining.

Think Green Acres.

One middle class North Carolina family was doing well. Holidays in Paris. Three children in private school.

The George W. Bush recession hit. They got behind. Planned poorly. And lost their house.

They are forced to move to a one-hundred-year old, snake-and-mice-infested, half-rotted ramshackle cabin with no internet, no cable TV, spotty cell phone reception, and a boiler for making hot water.

Rent $250 / month. Cash … as they had no credit.

The couple eventually learn to love homesteading, their many animals. Especially their goats.

Amazon.

related review – ‘Flat Broke with Two Goats’ will leave you alarmed, breathless, charmed

Another reviewer didn’t enjoy the book.