Anika’s
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(group member since Dec 25, 2011)
Anika’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 1,781-1,800 of 2,793
Land and Sea:Russia (A, B, and C): Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
Finland (A, B, and C): The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
Sweden (A, B--and C?): Estrid by Johanne Hildebrandt
Denmark (A, B, and C): The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well by Meik Wiking
Germany (A and B): The Lion's Courtship by Annelie Wendeberg
Switzerland (A and B): The Course of Love or The News: A User's Manual by Alain de Botton
France (A, B, and C): French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain
Spain (A, B, and C): Marina or The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
U.K. (A, B, and C): Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson
Iceland (A and B): The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson
Ireland (A, B, and C) A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
15.10 AbBY, Chronological 1925-1929Pronto by Elmore Leonard (born 1925)
+60 Task
Task total: 60
+100 Finisher
Season total: 2805
(and that completes my two MegaFinishes in one season...I don't imagine I'll ever do that again, but it was fun!)
20.10 Fall EquinoxLove and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman
I've had this on my shelf for ages. It was written by the wife of Michael Chabon, one of my all-time favorite authors, and was curious to see what she had to say.
I quite enjoyed the writing and several of the characters--sadly, though, the main character/narrator did not fit in this category. She felt false and hollow and not relatable in many ways--Emilia is married to Jack, step-mother to precocious William, and grieving mother to Isabel, who died when she was only a few days old. This book is a document of her grieving process. Mostly (oddly) though, this book mostly felt like a love letter to Central Park. So much of the action takes place in different parts of the park and the surrounding neighborhoods, it took me right back to the time I lived near that beloved place so I think I may have been swayed to give it a higher rating than I otherwise might have. ("Grace is when something is more beautiful than we deserve, more elegant and lovely than it should be. Grace is like Central Park. Carved from schist and swamp, boulders and undergrowth, by a vast construction project of thousands of surveyors, dirt carters, blasting teams, roadbuilders, stonemasons, blacksmiths, and bricklayers, Central Park is, in this city of steel and glass, marble and asphalt, brick and stone, 843 acres of grace.")
+20 Task ("lovE And Other Impossible pUrsuits")
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... ; 10.9--"impossible"=10 letters)
Task total: 40
Season total: 2645
15.9 AbBY, Chronological 1920-1924Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury (born 1920)
+45 Task
Task total: 45
Season total: 2605
15.8 AbBY, Chronological 1915-1919Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl (born 1916)
+45 Task
Task total: 45
Season total: 2560
15.7 AbBY, Chronological 1910-1914The Fur Person by May Sarton (born 1912)
+30 Task
Task total: 30
Season total: 2515
15.6 AbBY, Chronological 1905-1909Selected Poems by Theodore Roethke (born 1908)
+30 Task
Task total: 30
Season total: 2485
10.8 Cli FiVoices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich
I’m glad I read this one *after* having read The Unwomanly Face of War...it was interesting to see the overlap in the narratives. I love her style of writing—I know it’s her compiling and editing other’s words, but what she is able to extract from people is stunning.
“[We] always lived in terror, we know how to live in terror, it’s our natural habitat. In this our people have no peers.” Truer words were never spoken! The fear of your government and the Gulag, the fear of the German enemy in WWII, to the fear of contamination from the meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, those poor people never catch a break. I’m absolutely awed by the grace with which they talk about the horrific things they went through, the homes they lost, the family members they watched die unspeakable deaths, the poor pets who were hunted down and destroyed....and everything was so beautiful—the trees, flowers, everything seemed fine but no one understood that radiation was raining down on the land or what that even meant.
The part that was hardest for me to read was how much Moscow knew, yet they willfully and consistently lied to the people, saying everything was just fine...
I think I have a new favorite non-fiction writer...just wish more of her books were translated and available!
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Prizeworthy
+25 Combo (10.2; 10.3; 10.5–https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... ; 10.9–“Chernobyl”=9 letters; 20.2)
Task total: 65
Season total: 2455
(That completes my second RwS Finish! Yay! Goal completed....now to see if I can finish a second AbBY before the month is out.)
10.9 9, 10, 11The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
I quite enjoyed this inside look at the running of the White House—I especially liked the fact that it was (mostly) fair to both Democratic and Republican presidential families. It didn’t so much dish on the families as it shared amusing anecdotes which were mostly harmless (Johnson’s demanding a shower strong enough to knock him against the wall; JFK’s penchant for swimming naked; Chelsea Clinton learning to cook from the White House chef so she’d have the skills to feed herself when she went to college; Amy Carter roller skating around the residence). It also addressed situations that effected the entire nation—JFK’s assassination, Nixon’s resignation, the Clinton impeachment, and 9/11– from a very unique perspective. It was a quick, interesting read. 3 stars.
+10 Task (“residence”=9 letters)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.3–White House)
Task total: 25
Season total: 2390
Rebecca wrote:Anika wrote: "20.8 Autumn
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When I was in college, I read this and Candide in the same week for two different ..."
There is a city in Germany named Werther https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werther...
I love that you knew this, Rebecca! I never would have even thought to look it up as a possible place...
Mods: is that an acceptable combo, even though the "place" name isn't used as place in the title?
Also, Rebecca: WOW on your 80-point post! I don't think I have ever seen one book worth that many points...kudos :-)
20.5 Singled OutErotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Nikki has disappointed her family--not only has she dropped out of law school, she's moved into her own apartment--which happens to be above the bar that (unbeknownst to her parents) she works in--and she has no prospects for marriage. Her sister, on the other hand, is ready to get married and asks her sister to post her personal ad at a Sikh temple in the Punjabi neighborhood of Southall in London. After begrudgingly posting her sister's personal, she sees a listing for a teaching position--to teach writing to the Sikh women of the community. Nikki needs to increase her income (her father has recently and unexpectedly passed away and now her mother is struggling to make ends meet) and decides to apply.
What follows is a little bit romance, a little bit mystery, surprisingly erotic (I thought the title was being a little facetious--NOPE!), and a whole lot of fun. This was the perfect audiobook to listen to while painting my room (every time I see the new color, I'm going to think of this book and blush a little bit).
+20 Task (Nikki is the main character, single never married, head of household)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ; 10.7--author born in Singapore; 20.10--erotIc storiEs fOr pUnjAbi widows)
Task total: 45
Season total: 2365
15.5 AbBY, Chronological 1900-1904The Panther and the Lash by Langston Hughes (born 1902)
+30 Task
Task total: 30
Season total: 2350
20.8 AutumnThe Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When I was in college, I read this and Candide in the same week for two different courses so they will forever be inextricable in my mind--they're published within 15 years of each other, both slim volumes, both about a young man who is madly in love with someone he can't have. Since I recently re-read Candide, I figured it was time to revisit Werther as well.
THAT was a terrible idea! Candide was much as I'd remembered--a hopeful hero who has Job-level trials and still sees this as "the best of all possible worlds." Werther did not age as well. He's insufferable! Self-absorbed, narcissistic, and indefatigably pursing Charlotte who is TAKEN (engaged and then, halfway through the book, married to Albert). I hate the character. I hate the writing, especially in the first 2/3 of the book which is a compilation of letters from Werther to his friend, Wilhelm, whining about how much he wants to be with Lotte and how he can't stand to see Albert touch her and how insufferable everyone is yet everyone wants his company so much blah blah blah. The last third is an account of what happens after (view spoiler).
Perhaps I hated it because I read it in such small bursts, a few pages here a few pages there over several weeks. Perhaps it's because as a modern reader I don't find the Sturm und Drang style appealing in the slightest. Perhaps I missed the point entirely.
But that was the LONGEST 149 pages of my life.
+20 Task (German author, pub. 1774)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.3; 10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... ; 20.7)
+5 Prizeworthy
+15 Oldies
Task total: 65
Season total: 2320
10.7 Crazy Rich Asians...or Not!How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents by Jimmy O. Yang
I thought it fitting to read this book, written by one of the actors who was actually in the movie adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians :-)
Jimmy O. Yang first hit it big in his role of Jian Yang in HBO's "Silicon Valley" and while it was fun to hear about his experiences on the show, the story of how he got there was far more fun.
His family emigrated from Hong Kong when he was 13-years-old. He couldn't speak English beyond the basics he had learned in school. To improve his English skills, he turned to the tv--BET, to be precise. It was so fun to hear him read this book, the way he can switch up his accent for effect.
He went to UCSD with a major in Economics--which he never used. He went into stand-up instead, much to his father's horror. To pay the bills, he was a used-car salesman, a DJ at a strip club (where he almost ended up entrenched in the seedy mob underworld), an Uber driver, all while renting someone's couch for $300 a month to get by. If it weren't true, it would be too ridiculous to be believed.
I quite enjoyed his writing style--very funny and silly, and then he'll drop a profound idea with complete nonchalance then continue with the narrative as if nothing special was said. I quite enjoyed his take on the "immigrant experience."
There was a lot of cursing in this book, so if you're sensitive to that I'd definitely steer clear. It was definitely good for a laugh.
+10 Task (born in Hong Kong)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.9, "Immigrant's"=10 letters)
Task total: 25
Season total: 2255
20.4 BirdsongHistory of the Rain by Niall Williams
I'm always in the middle of at least three books--one on my Kindle that I read before bed (I'm looking at you, The Sorrows of Young Werther--you have the innate ability to shut my eyes after three pages!); an actual book of paper, cloth, and glue from the library; and, finally, an audiobook that I can listen to as I'm attempting to get the infernally long list of things done around the house and in the yard to prepare for winter. History of the Rain was my audiobook, read in a lovely Irish brogue, which so completely transported me into Faha (specifically into the Swain home) that I kept finding myself staring off into the distance so I could more completely let the river of words wash over me. Don't even get me started on the last seven chapters--I couldn't get a thing done because I was crying so hard I couldn't see straight!
This book is charming, lovely, powerful, infused with poetry and built on the bedrock of a library of dead authors, I want to buy several copies in order to give them out as Christmas presents to all of the readers I know.
This is my favorite kind of book: the kind that leaves me wrung out, yet incandescent...if you've seen Amelie, there's a part where she walks a blind man around the streets and describes everything she sees and once she leaves him, he looks to the sky and begins to glow--that's how I feel. I love a book that takes me in, hands me a cup of tea, and tells me a story so real that I felt I've lived it. This is such a book. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for bringing this one to our attention.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.10, 20.6)
Task total: 40
Season total: 2230
20.3 Birds without WingsThe Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin
This is the second in the Erast Fandorin series, but the first that I've read.
Set in 1877, Russia is at war with the Ottoman Empire. Independent and daring Varya has made her way to the front to be with her fiance. Upon her arrival, she finds out that he has made a fatal error which cost many lives and is now under arrest facing execution and her only hope of saving him is to work with a man she met on her journey to the front, Erast Fandorin. In another review, I saw him described as a Russian high-functioning autistic version of Sherlock Holmes and that sounds just about right.
I loved Erast--sadly, I felt like he was absent for much of this book. It mainly followed Varya as she was flirting with the men of the camp, with generals and journalists (and it seems giving very little thought to her fiance) to glean bits of information to help save her fiance. She was supposed to be a feminist Bolshevik, very cutting-edge for her day--I found her to be far more damsel-in-distress and she irked me big time. If I ever read another of these books, I certainly hope she won't be in it and that there is far more of the quirky Erast.
+20 Task (shelved 5 times as "turkey")
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2; 10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... "salamandra" has been okayed in help thread; 20.5--Varya is single throughout the book and lives on her own in the soldier's camp which is as close to "head of household" as you can get on the war front)
Task total: 45
Season total: 2190
15.4 AbBY, Chronological 1895-1899The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder (born 1897)
+20 Task
Task total: 20
Season total: 2145
15.3 AbBY, Chronological 1890-189450 Poems by E.E. Cummings (born 1894)
+20 Task
Task total: 20
Season total: 2125
15.2 AbBY, Chronological 1885-1889Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot (born 1888)
+20 Task
Task total: 20
Season total: 2105
Nov 03, 2018 01:02PM
The copy I have is paperback. Thank you! Hope the winter isn’t coming on too quickly up your way—we have snow in the mountains already, didn’t have much in the way of “fall” :-(
