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Shauna

shauna@books.theunseen.city

Joined 1 year, 11 months ago

Hello! I am trying out bookwyrm. I am also @shauna@social.coop on Mastodon.

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Shauna's books

Currently Reading

2024 Reading Goal

25% complete! Shauna has read 10 of 40 books.

Francis Spufford: Red Plenty (Paperback, 2011, Faber & Faber) 5 stars

Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. …

A well-written, experimental novel for the economically inclined

5 stars

This book had me at its premise: "a novel about the socialist calculation debate". If you are not interested in economic theory, you should skip it - the question of how best to run an economy is not just the main driver of the story and a topic of conversation among characters, there are several significant chunks of the book that are just straight-out lecture. I found the lecture-y bits to be very helpful context, so I will not dock stars for them, though I preferred the actual story (which is maybe 85-90% of the text).

The book follows many characters, real and some fictional, some we keep circling back to and some we never see again. Luckily Spufford has a knack for sketching interesting characters quickly. Still, this is not the kind of book that grips you hard and fast so you can't put it down. You can read …

Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day (Paperback, 1999, Faber and Faber) 4 stars

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a …

A deeply sad character study

5 stars

Content warning spoilers for the ending