This will hurt me...

Monster on Bathurst Street. West Hobart, February 2021. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Interesting enough, but I suspect that I am not Harari's core target audience. I was already familiar with a lot of the work referenced here. While he has managed to weave an interesting arc that runs through the interconnected research, there were points in which my confidence with the linkages made was stretched rather taut! For one, I'd treat his certainty in terms of biological determinism with a significant grain of salt. The book - in my opinion - frequently tends to underplay social determinants to the detriment of the overall thesis. That said, it is certainly worth exploring and makes a significant contribution to the mainstream understanding of the emergence of our species. Still, I'd ensure going to the primary source material if you were looking to make a substantial academic case. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2

Jen is in the water. Little Howrah Beach, February 2021. Last Night in Montreal   by Emily St. John Mandel This novel is another in a lone line of books - at least two authored by St. John Mandel - in which the 'fascinating and mysterious central character' is anything but. In much the same way that I struggled to connect with Anna in  The Lola Quartet , I failed to see the compelling reasons through which Lilia attracted the cast of characters into her orbit so thoroughly (to their own eventual destruction). As such, I found finishing this one a chore and the shifting narrative and dreamlike prose irritated rather than compelled. Perhaps a more patient or tolerant reader would have given themselves into the mystery, but this was a case of me forcing myself to finish against my own desire to toss it aside. I found the characters one-dimensional and insubstantial, so I am very much left to scratch my head at the many positive reviews. ⭐ ⭐

Insulation against power, Geilston Bay, February 2021. The Great World by David Malouf I am glad to have turned to David Malouf at this stage in life. Others I know recoil at his name, having suffered through dreary forced reading in high school. While I love how he vividly writes of physical spaces and their relationship with a character's inner journey, there is little more tiresome than being forced to decode and recite back the tricks of the authorial trade just before lunchtime in a broiling schoolroom. The Great World  is a fantastic read. As ever, Malouf writes in a lyrical and mesmerising tone. He beautifully ties together several markedly different stories across decades and continents. Moreover, he humanised the inhuman, and while there is a great deal of pain and trauma here, it's conveyed with such a lightness of touch and loving tone that you suspect some alchemy at play. Can you guess that I loved this book? Although utterly different in approach, tone and subjec...

Chimney on Molle Street. West Hobart, February 2021. The Charmed Life of Alex Moore by Molly Flatt I chose to read this one as a lighter diversion, and in this regard, it delivered. Despite an ambitious storyline that seeks to explore deeper philosophical questions around life, identity, happiness and so on, there's a superficiality and shallowness that I couldn't quite shake. Perhaps the grand reveal around the source of Alex/ Dororthy's fell flat (I had something far darker in mind). Still, I couldn't help that in striving for a wider audience, Flatt has chosen to avoid potentially tougher harsher elements. Don't get me wrong. It is a breezy and enjoyable read, but the 'chick-lit' elements and, in the choice of the central heroine and the vacuous middle-class world she resides in, the materials were not there to achieve the gravity I assume that she was aiming for. ⭐ ⭐ 1/2