Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 2022
Format:  Hardbook, Paperback, Audiobook and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
Genre:  Family Life and Literary Fiction

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF “DINOSAURS” BY LYDIA MILLET

I got the book from my local library and read with the audiobook which I really enjoyed. This book has been on my TBR list for years. I held it in my hands once or twice when buying books from B&N. I was glad when I saw it at the library.

This book was a great read. I really enjoyed the writing and how the pace was set. I honestly liked the way the chapters were named after birds. It has been one of the best ends I have read in a while. I had to read it multiple times. It was written with a tender, smart, hopeful voice that made the narrative easy to follow. Not all the characters were deeply developed, but I was okay with the main characters and their back stories. I really enjoyed Gill’s character. His back story, walking from NY to Phoenix, and his voluntary work made him different and intriguing. Even though he is rich, all of it made him intriguing.

I recommend this book if you want to have a light read rich in beautiful writing, moving characters, and realistic day-to-day plot. I truly enjoyed this book.

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

Over twelve novels and two collections Lydia Millet has emerged as a major American novelist. Hailed as “a writer without limits” (Karen Russell) and “a stone-cold genius” (Jenny Offill), Millet makes fiction that vividly evokes the ties between people and other animals and the crisis of extinction.

Her exquisite new novel is the story of a man named Gil who walks from New York to Arizona to recover from a failed love. After he arrives, new neighbors move into the glass-walled house next door and his life begins to mesh with theirs. In this warmly textured, drily funny, and philosophical account of Gil’s unexpected devotion to the family, Millet explores the uncanny territory where the self ends and community begins―what one person can do in a world beset by emergencies.

Dinosaurs is both sharp-edged and tender, an emotionally moving, intellectually resonant novel that asks: In the shadow of existential threat, where does hope live?

MY RATING:

My rating for this book is a solid 4.6

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bibliography:

Lydia Millet is the author of more than a dozen novels and story collections. Known for her dark humor, idiosyncratic characters and language, and strong interest in the relationship between humans and other animals, Millet was born in Boston and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She now lives outside Tucson, Arizona with her family, where she has worked as an editor and writer at the Center for Biological Diversity since 1999. Sometimes called a “novelist of ideas,” she won the PEN-USA award for fiction for her early novel My Happy Life (2002); in 2010, her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and another collection, Fight No More, received an award of merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019. Her recent novel A Children’s Bible, about the intergenerational traumas of climate change and extinction, was a National Book Award finalist and one of the New York Times Best 10 Books of 2020.

Other books by the author:

A Children’s Bible: a Novel

My Happy Life: a Novel

Sweet Lamb of Heaven: a Novel

Pills and Starships: a Novel

Mermaids in Paradise: a Novel

How the Dead Dreams: a Novel

Omnivores: a Novel