Pickman's Model by H.P. Lovecraft

😱😱😱😰 One of the most well known short stories by Lovecraft. This is story number 48 for me. I'm reading the stories in order (H.P. Lovecraft Complete Fiction). Although I have enjoyed most of them, I remember only a few of them, maybe 10? (The Outsider, The Music of Eric Zann, Under the Pyramids, The Call of Cthulhu...) I'm happy Pickman's Model made a good impression on me and I think the story will stay with me for a while... or should I say the Model? 😱

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

This is a super-duper famous, best seller crime thriller novel which, like many well-known novels, has been adapted to film. Not my favourite crime novel but an unputdownable, enjoyable book. (My favourite crime books at the moment are: Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino, Alex by Pierre Lemaitre and the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.) 

The story follows a man, Nick Dunne, whose wife, Amy Elliot Dunne, disappears on their 5th wedding anniversary. Their house was found with obvious signs of struggle. The police gets involved and through their investigation they uncover clues which incriminate Nick. At the same time Nick is doing his own investigation by “playing” the treasure hunt his wife has left for him. Treasure hunt is a tradition for them but Nick thinks this one is different, kind of odd. The novel is structured as alternating chapters with Amy’s and Nick’s point of views, which worked well to keep me hooked to the story. The two or three twists through the first two thirds of the novel were fun but I found the ending anti-climactic and unsatisfying.

La Grande Bretèche by Honorè de Balzac

Short tale with an old creepy house which hasn't been touched in many years as per instructions of its last owner. We get a lost Spaniard, a dying woman and a crucifix. How are they connected to the house?

Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon

A First Contact story with one of the best protagonists I have read in recent years.💙 💜 💖 💗 

Ofelia was not allowed to have a proper education, she is old and thought useless. Despised by her family she is a burden. However she can teach anyone a thing or two about empathy and human culture. A lot of food for though here. At some point I thought who is more alien the "Aliens" or the other humans how treat Ofelia like she is useless. Themes: feminism, value of elderly people, education v life experience, slavery.

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

Beautiful prose, one that glues the reader to the book.🌟🌟🌟🌟 A kind of distorted coming of age story which follows a 15 year old boy. After they are orphaned, Jack, his sisters and younger brother decide to stay on their own, isolated from the world. The novel explores the protagonist’s feelings regarding his late parents, his relationship with his siblings and his sexual desires toward his older sister. There are some disturbing passages but I don’t think this is a horror story. It unveils the dark corners of a child’s mind who is trying to discover who he is amid the aftermath of the greatest loss in his life. Thought some of the actions by the kids may be seen as morally shocking I wonder how much of that shock is socially constructed (as opposed to innate). We, the readers, are bound by an intricate moral system which frames our assessment. Left to their own devices the kids are able to escape those boundaries and build their own, perhaps simpler, moral system....

The Eden Paradox Series by Barry Kirwan

This is a 4 book series. The Eden Paradox was great fun. 🚀🚀🚀🗼  I enjoyed it thoroughly despite some space mines I found on the way. Book One starts on earth in the near future. A mission has been sent to planet Eden to assess its condition as a future home world for humanity. After WWIII humans have only a few years to escape the devastated planet. Short story long… Eden isn’t uninhabited and humans are in danger of being annihilated. Book 1 then reveals a much bigger universe than only Earth and Eden. There are hundreds of species in the galaxy organized under a socio-political system called the grid which classifies species according to their level of intelligence, the highest being level 19.. and humans being level 3. As humans struggle to escape from the Q’Roth they have to face more dangers from the grid and beyond. It took me a bit more than 3 weeks to complete the 1474 pages but this was no problem as the books are super entertaining and gripping. However I should mention one of the problems I found in the narrative, and that was the depiction of interpersonal relationships. I thought they were lousy and clumsy. At a macro level, alliances and frictions within the grid seemed fine and were convincing. However, the micro level, love and family relationships felt awkward, some dialogues made me cringe. As I was enjoying the overall story I chose to ignore them.

Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain

E x c e l l e n t ! Guess what, I’m an introvert and my husband too. This book made me understand how some of my introvert traits work and how some of those traits aren’t bad at all. It has some theory on psychology and real life examples to complement. 

Cain says that our (western) society has been designed to favour extroverted personalities. That is why in many cases introverted people either feel they cannot fit in or have to pretend to be extroverted to blend in. This causes great mental and physical strain on them. Cain explains how long-term studies focusing on the brain’s Amygdala were able to identify babies and children who were high-reactive to external stimuli. Most of those children grew up to become introverts. 

Cain draws a line between Introversion and concepts such as shyness (fear of failure or rejection), social anxiety (chronic disabling form of shyness). Introversion is not a handicap it only means that people prefer to be on their own, have time to think or make decisions. Something I found very interesting is how Brainstorming, very popular in management for example and thought to be an efficient way to induce creative ideas, “doesn’t actually work.” Several studies show how performance “gets worse as group size increases” even if the groups are comprised mostly by extroverts. Another point against brainstorming (or any other group or collaboratively activities) is that the extroverts’s ideas are given more importance as they are the ones who speak the most but not necessarily the ones with the better ideas. Introverts could be more creative and come up with better ideas if they were allowed to work alone. 

There is more: introvert children, extrovert-introvert relationships (couples and parents-children) and introverts at work. Read the book!