aka @kingrat@sfba.social
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Success! Phil in SF has read 45 of 26 books.
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
Likewise, in the small wad of folded piastres I paid her with, there might or might not be a cartridge of film or a message of my own, written invisibly with with rice water on cement paper.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (57%)
new vocabulary: piastres
a monetary unit of several Middle Eastern countries, equal to one 100th of a pound
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
In this scene, a squad of suicidal guerrillas defiladed amid the tombs, whereupon Shamus would call down a white phosphorous strike on the sacred realm of the hamlet's ancestors, obliterating living and dead with 155 mm shells.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (44%)
new vocabulary: defilade
noun: the protection of forces against enemy, observation or gunfire.
verb: protect (forces) against enemy observation or gunfire
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
By the final take two hours later, James Yoon really was lachrymose with pain, his face bathed in sweat, mucus, vomit, and tears.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (42%)
new vocabulary: lachrymose
tearful or given to weeping
i remember encountering this word before, but cannot recall where, when, or what it meant.
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
His task: save the prelapsarian Montagnards of a bucolic hamlet perched on the border of wild Laos.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (32%)
new vocabulary: prelapsarian
( literary) of the time before the Fall of Man; innocent and unspoilt
Two “paleonerds” embark on a roadtrip across the West in search of fossils.
The new …
There's a fossil camel from the corner of 6th and Clermont, a group of Ice Age peccaries from excavation for the Colorado capitol building, chunks of mammoths from the stream valleys, a dinosaur rib from the home plate at Coors Field, and fossil palm trunks from all over town.
— Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway by Kirk Johnson, Ray Troll (Page 14)
new vocabulary: peccary
any of several largely nocturnal gregarious American mammals resembling the related pigs
Two “paleonerds” embark on a roadtrip across the West in search of fossils.
The new edition has been updated throughout, …
@graue@bookwyrm.social I've been creating Bookwyrm lists for various awards, including the Pulitzer Price for Fiction. This was the most intriguing title on the Pulitzer Fiction list that I hadn't already read. When @sanae@bookwyrm.social posted about it, I took it as a sign I should start it.
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
Content warning gross food and sex reference
There on my plate reclined my beloved, forlorn odalisque, marked by my hand, and when my mother said to help myself I seized it instantly with my chopsticks to forestall any chance of my mother doing so.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (20%)
new vocabulary: odalisque
A female slave or concubine in a harem, especially one in the seraglio of the sultan of Turkey
an exotic, sexually attractive woman
(i just got to the squid part. yeccchh.)
Two “paleonerds” embark on a roadtrip across the West in search of fossils.
The new …
I've been waiting for 2 years for this to come back in print, and I've just ordered the new edition from the artist's web site.
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
That sly old sybarite was well aware of the importance of the erotic to the political, wooing the ladies as much as the politicians in his bid for French assistance to the American revolution.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (20%)
new vocabulary: sybarite
A person who is self-indulgent in their fondness for sensuous luxury
I'm enjoying this book so much I missed my Muni stop and had to ride a stop in the opposite direction.
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
Thus my sacerdotal father believed; but thus I could not.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (14%)
new vocabulary: sacerdotal
relating to priests or the priesthood; priestly
relating to or denoting a doctrine which ascribes sacrificial functions and spiritual or supernatural powers to ordained priests
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
As we taxied along the runway, I caught glimpses of concrete revetments, giant cans, sliced in half lengthwise, and a desolate row of incinerated warbirds, demolished jets blown up in a strafing run earlier this evening, wings plucked and scattered like those of abused flies.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (12%)
new vocabulary: revetment
A retaining wall or facing of masonry or other material, supporting or protecting a rampart, wall, etc.
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
Noses to the wind, we inhaled a farrago of scents
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (9%)
new vocabulary: farrago
A confused mixture
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a …
The constant staff still stood at the proscenium atop the stairs.
— The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (7%)
new vocabulary: proscenium
The part of a theater stage in front of the curtain
Robin Hearns has been kidnapped. Or murdered. Or kidnapped and murdered.
He isn’t sure.
What …
Robin wakes up in a cabin in a pastoral compound. He's been kidnapped by a hitman (Buki) who claims to disappear his victims instead of kill them like he's been contracted, because he doesn't like killing.
I loved this story because Thompson lets the reader discover what's happening as his characters discover it. Things are weird enough to be intriguing but not so out there that I couldn't make any sense of it.
The description on the Subterranean Press web site (where this ebook can be downloaded for free) is a bit too spoilery for me, so I'm glad I didn't read it before downloading.
