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Meditative. Reminds me of Renata Adler. A bit too free form for me but the book’s overall project is interesting. I admire Offill’s intelligence and razor sharp wit which this book has in abundance.
I loved the narrator but found some of the other characters hard to keep up with. Specially as who they were and their role/job etc wasn’t always explicitly named. Maybe if it was read in one sitting then I wouldn’t have had this problem so much. I found it both witty and thought provoking and would recommend you give it a read. Offill turns everyday life into poetry
When one reads as many book as I do, the search for something different but good, is ongoing. This author seems to fill the bill. She takes the reader inside the thoughts of a young woman, Lizzie, who is juggling many of life's trials. She is a mother, a wife, tried to take care of her mother, and her brother who has had a problem with drugs. Additionally, the doomsday prediction with the climate and the unfriendly political situation, also preys on her mind. She works in a university library, s...
I don't think this is a bad book at all, I want to make that clear right away. I think Jenny Offill is a talented writer, and that she achieves everything she set out to achieve with this little book, a potent commentary on the impossibility of balancing every day domesticity with encroaching anxiety about the climate crisis.But with that said... I didn't particularly like it? I mostly found this book incredibly forgettable. It was a short, breezy read, but for whatever reason I didn't have t...
And now for something completely different…Strange little novel that had me in the palm of its hand. There’s not really a plot, but sometimes, who needs one? Plot lovers, please don’t be scared off. It’s full of insights that are accessible and fascinating, and there is a story thread, I promise.You probably want to know, what’s the thread? The thread is Librarian Lizzie’s life as a wife, mother, professional letter writer, and helper of her brother, who is trying to stay clean. Amid all of this...
“How do you know all this?” “I’m a fucking librarian.” Hell yeh! How could I not love a book with those words!Weather is an enjoyable and quick read, perfect for when you find it hard to concentrate. I know many of us are finding it difficult to get into books at the moment. I don't know how many books I've begun and set aside this past week. From page one of this book however, I was able to concentrate almost 100%. It reads sort of like a journal because our protagonist is sharing her though
Now Nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020Jenny Offill describes what it feels like to live in today's America, she writes about the political and social weather, the charged atmosphere that has enveloped the nation. Her protagonist Lizzie Benson works as a librarian without a traditional degree, thus administrating knowledge without being formally qualified - but, in the metaphorical sense, who really is? In the age of fragmented filter bubbles and the rise of hate, Lizzie also naviga...
Jenny Offill is amazing! So excited to read more of her stuff!
NOW AVAILABLE!!Can I ask you something, Will says one night and I sure, ask me something.“How do you know all this?”“I’m a fucking librarian.”fun fact about that line, beyond the “fuck, yeah!” of it in my heart: the verb between “I” and “sure” is missing in my ARC, so the quote is totes [sic], but i’m 2/3 convinced that the word was intentionally omitted. as the novel draws to its close (and that is on page 170 of the ARC's 201 pages), and as the sense of anxiety and fragmentation that is the mo...
Jenny Offill`s Weather is an entertaining and a thought-provoking read. The book, in many ways, represents the current uncertain times, particularly the climate, healthcare and political situation. It also points us to take these ambiguous states in our stride, and go forward.The narrator is Lizzie Benson is a University campus librarian who is creative, curious and `knows-it-all`. Weather covers a lot of topics, subjects, issues, concerns and ideas – but the overarching indication is that it is...
Loved it!!!Audiobook/ sync... with the physical book.The audio-narration is read by Cassandra Campbell....( a well known pro in the audiobook-world).This is not an easy book to review....My guess is that readers will either appreciate and enjoy it....Or....They won’t. I enjoyed “Dept. of Speculation”....so I had a pretty good idea of what I might be getting into — “Unconventional Unique beauty”....This book exceeded my expectations. I liked it even more! It really ‘is’ like poetry .... and/ or p...
Now shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize.I joined a Radio 4 Book Club virtual discussion of Jenny Offill’s 2014 second novel “Dept of Speculation” (shortlisted for the Folio Prize); and, this, her third novel “Weather” appeared on a number of 2020-preview lists.https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00...This book is very much in the style of Dept. of Speculation – which I described in my review of that book as an elliptical and aphoristic style.Offil said in many interviews around Dept. of Specul...
2.5 if we're getting specifici'm unsure how to feel about this one. it is an interesting portrayal of family and parenthood set against the turbulent backdrop of the 2016 election. the uncertainty, bordering on fear, that drives the narrator was palpable. yet, i struggle with this free form, experimental type of literary fiction. the fragmented writing combined with the loose plot threads that barely hold this narrative together are disengaging and i found it hard to connect with this story and
weather noun: the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and timeweather transitive verb: to come safely through a difficult period or experience “First they came for the coral, but I did not say anything because I was not a coral.” I loved every minute of Weather. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, thanks to the choppy style, specific brand of humour and refusal to deliver conventional narrative movement, but I thought it was brilliant. This novel is both sardonic and warm, reflective of...
Almost the BluesWhat the new world of literary America consists of perhaps: diary entries; the not quite aphorisms of a typical NYC life; the recording of trivia amidst cataclysmic events. There is obviously a selection of things to be noted/published. But there are no conclusions or points to be made. Whatever story there is is left to the reader’s imagination. Blanks are filled in and events connected by the same process that one unconsciously corrects errors and typos in print copy.Weather is...
I stayed up past midnight to finish, exhilarated by the prose, and excited about every exquisite perfect detail, and eager for the perceptions and the recognitions that came tumbling along on every page...and now I'm done, and I just don't know. I don't think I'm going to remember this in a year. The tiny paragraphs of insight, one after another, remind me a little too much of Twitter. "Good Twitter," but still. Reading this novel was like watching a gentle rain falling on a pond.
4 stars — so close to 5/stars!There’s something that seriously clicks between me and Jennifer Offill’s writing. I loved The Dept. of Speculation and, again, loved Weather. This is a very short novel, told through a series of first person vignettes. The narrator is a librarian, living in New York with her husband and young son, and eventually her addict brother. Each paragraph is a quick impressionistic reflection on the library’s patrons, parenthood, the state of her marriage, her “enmeshment” w...
Sometimes a book meets you exactly where you are, and Weather did that for me. My anxiety about climate change is now a constant hum in the background of my life. I think things like, “Why do I bother to cash checks or go to the dentist or consider switching from Honey Nut Cheerios to regular Cheerios—the world is literally on fire. You should be making an escape plan, not watching Netflix.” Offill’s humor really worked for me too, which I know is one of the most personal comments you can make a...
I first feel compelled to clear up some confusion on the part of the main character about academic librarians. As someone who has supervised students in an academic library, I have at times heard them refer to themselves as "librarians" but always correct them. Librarians do require a degree (MC does not have one) and do not spend their days checking out books, shelving books, or ordering random books based on whim. Many times, academic librarians are faculty members with the additional responsi...
Rather pedestrian observations about our current time. Weather did not hit me emotionally and felt as transient a reading experience as it's namesake This woman is a shrink. Also a Buddhist. She likes to practice on or the other on me, I’ve noticed.In Weather we are thrown into the stream of conscience of Lizzie, the very observant librarian of our age. She lives in New York with her husband Ben and her son Eli. They are Jewish, but more relevant to the story is the close relation Lizzie has wit...