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Spring 2013 Rws Completed Tasks - Spring 2013
10.5 - Global Youth Service DayI'll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates
+10 Task (Common Wealth Prize 2003)
+ 5 Combo (20.5 written and narrated by female)
Task total=15
Grand total=490
10.9 - Time for DinnerFrench Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano
Mireille Guiliano's un-system for getting thin is simple - look at what you eat, get rid of the worst offenders, cook your own food, take advantage of seasonal items, and enjoy indulgences while offsetting them elsewhere. All changes are to be made slowly over time so they don't feel like a burden.
I found it interesting that much of the advice given here lines up with what my (extremely fit and healthy) Japanese mother-in-law tells me: eat rice, just not too much. As you get older you must move more. How clothes fit and look is more important than a number on a scale. Some points differ (water vs green tea, for example) but when two completely different cultures hit on the same idea there must be something to it. I'm a fan.
+10 task (#36 on the non-fiction list)
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 500
10.3 The PlusThe Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
I liked the premise of this book - a librarian rescuing a troubled child; but, either my idea of the premise was not the same as the author's or the author changed her idea while writing. At times, this book was entertaining and smart. At times, dull with the angst of the librarian repeated over and over again.
Ms. Makkai created interesting supporting characters - the father, his friends, the musician who wanted to be boyfriend, the man who shadowed her. It was just the librarian's character that grew tedious to me.
The book attempts to raise several themes: Russian oppressive life and the need for escape, gay children and the religious attempts to convert them to heterosexual lifestyle, the choices one makes and consequences, and becoming who we are meant to be. These are real issues but the story minimalized them in a way to make them a characterization of life.
So why three stars? Because of the good intent to save the child, the basic storyline of the traveling and events, and because of the ending.
+10 task
+5 combo (20.5)
+10 review
Total Points: 25
10.5 Global Youth Service DayLove in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
I wanted to like this book. I had been wanting to read it for awhile and had heard good things about this author, or so I thought.
However, I found that Juvenal Urbino's love for Fermina Daza was just unbelievable to have lasted 50 years. I know that this book is an example of Magical Realism and perhaps that length of longing for one woman is the magical realism part of the story. Yet, the man's character did nothing to make me admire his yearning as he was a tom cat with other women during that time. So...how deep was his love?
Fermina Daza was a character that seemed more real to me. Her lifestyle and time seemed to fit the characterization of a sheltered and pampered daughter of a monied family.
I also found that I spent a lot of time trying to orient myself to the setting of the story. Places that Fermina visited were fluid in that sometimes Europe was close and othertimes places in the US (which should have been distant, like NYC) were close. Again this might be the Magical Realism aspect of the book, but I found it disorienting and distracting to the story.
I was not impressed with the romance. Perhaps, it was because I expected more modern romance language and action or perhaps it was because the long drawn out story of love felt tedious.
I had wanted to read One Hundred Years of Solitude by the same author, but this book will have to fade in my memory before I attempt another book by Gabriel García Márquez.
+10 task (CWA of Distinguished Service Award)
+10 non-western (Columbia)
+10 review
+5 oldies (published 1985)
Task Total: 35
Total Points: 60
10.7 Nurse ItMidwives by Chris Bohjalian
This was a book that I started several years ago and then lost interest. As it is a popular book, it remained on my TBR list, but somehow I just never found the motivation to pick it up again - at lest not until GR challenges came along for which it was an ideal choice.
This is the story of a young girl's family, particularly her mother and the singular event of her mother's life which helped to form hers.
Sibyl Danforth was a dedicated midwife who one horrible night had a mother to die giving birth. Sibyl saved the child by doing an emergency operation...and, there the story starts. What really happened? Was the patient really dead or did Sibyl's action kill her?
Connie is Sibyl's 14 year old daughter and the anrrator of the story and its events. The reader sees everything from Connie's re-telling and point of view, which is that of a young teen and not the adult that she later becomes.
I got thoroughly caught up in Connie's story of her mother and the trial and found that I believed the outsome of the trial was sure. But was it?
This is the first Chris Bohjalian book that I have read. Gave it 4* and will definitely look for another.
+10 task
+10 review
Task Total: 20
Total Points: 80
20.7 - In honor of PersuasionHouse of Earth by Woody Guthrie
When I taught elementary school music, I taught many of Woody Guthrie's songs as well as learning of his politics and union activities. I was excited to see a fiction book about lives in the dust bowl of the Texas Panhandle. His lyrical bent came through in the prose (often a bit too much) and his characterizations of the young couple were strong. It was structured as four chapters which were actually short stories of just a point in time in their lives. The description of their struggles and joys and the duties of lives in harsh conditions rung true. I didn't find it to be a great work of literature. It needed quite a bit more editing than it had as a posthumous publication, but I chose it for the pure enjoyment of reading a book by a great folk musician and it was worth it to me.
+20 Task: published 2013, Guthrie died in 1967
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 1265
20.10 - InitiallyThe Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
+20 Task
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2215842/?... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_B...)
+10 Oldies (1910)
Task total=
Grand total=
10.6 The Ides of MarchThe Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
+ 10 Task – murder 17 times
+ 10 Oldies published 1934
Task Total = 20
Grand Total = 585
10.6 the Ides of MarchThe Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
Shelved as “murder” 18 times but not located in ‘mystery’ section at BPL
+10 Task
+10 Oldies (pub. 1934)
Task Total = 20 points
Grand Total = 265 points
20.2 In honor of Sense and SensibilityLady Chatterley s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
IMDB mentioned BBC as producer but did not refer to it being adaptation of above novel however Wikipedia does.
+20 Task
+5 Combo (20.10 Initially)
+10 Oldies (pub. 1928)
Task Total = 35 points
Grand Total = 300 points
20.4 In honor of Mansfield ParkThe Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#1 – The Hardscrabble Life
+20 Task
+5 Oldies (pub. 1939)
Task Total = 25 points
Grand Total = 325 points
D wrote: "20.10 - InitiallyThe Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo 20.2 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2215842/?... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_B......"
Sorry, D, it appears this collection of short stories were not all adapted for the television show (this was established as a rule in the help thread here) and therefore does not qualify for combo points for 20.2.
Karen GHHS wrote: "20.7 - In honor of PersuasionHouse of Earth by Woody Guthrie
When I taught elementary school music, I taught many of Woody Guthrie's songs as well as learning of his politics and union activitie..."
I show an addition error here.
1255 (from post 547) + 30 (post 558)=1285.
From Post 540Norma wrote: "10.8 Spell It Out
RC Robert Crais
The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais
+10 task
Task total: 10
Grand total: 580"
+5 Oldies (first published 1988)
Kate S wrote: "Karen GHHS wrote: "20.7 - In honor of PersuasionHouse of Earth by Woody Guthrie
When I taught elementary school music, I taught many of Woody Guthrie's songs as well as learning of his politics ..."
Thank you, Kate, I missed something somewhere. I guess I should convert to a spreadsheet, but I like making a page on my blog and using a ticker, but I keep missing things!
20.5 EmmaHouse Rules by Chloe Neill
Review: This is the seventh book in an urban fantasy series that should definitely be read in order. In this one, the events of the previous few really come to a head, leaving room for future installments without making this one feel like a filler. Merit and her vampire house have made some decisions that have had consequences and will continue to have repercussions down the road. I also continue to love how much Neill cares about Chicago, making the Chicagoland Vampire series worthy of its name. With series that last as long as seven, I’m often afraid the author should have quit while she was ahead, but I’m still looking as much forward to the next one as I have for the earlier books.
+20 Task (Neill is a female author, Merit is the single female MC/narrator)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 105
20.10 InitiallyMandarin Plaid by S.J. Rozan
Review: S.J. Rozan’s Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery series is one I like to come back to every once in a while. I first got into it because the author is an architect and so am I, but I fell in love with the characters. Each one can be read separately, although to fully understand the characters’ personal interactions, it’s best to start at the beginning.
Lydia narrates this installment, which means we get a lot of the kind of double life she leads by both being a private investigator on the streets of New York City and living with her traditional mother in Chinatown. Bill is her partner and would-be-what-if boyfriend, ready to help her professionally while wanting to fit any way he can into her personal life.
Mandarin Plaid centers on a fashion designer’s first big break and a mystery surrounding the sabotage of her dreams. Lydia investigates everywhere from the upper crust Upper East Side to the sweatshops of Chinatown, with a convoluted story that never quite makes sense, but gets tied up in the end. It would have been more enjoyable with a clearer mystery, but as always it was fun to follow the characters through the streets of New York.
+20 Task (Rozan publishes under S.J.)
+5 Combo (20.5 - Rozan is female, Lydia is the single MC/narrator)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 140
20.5 EmmaSabrina by Candice F. Ransom
Review: I feel silly even claiming this, but it counts so I’m counting it ☺.
This book was one of my all-time favorites when I was a pre-teen. Part of a series of ‘Sunfire Romances’, young adult historical romance novels that each highlight a difficult time in American history with young female protagonists, the book is trite, clichéd, and predictable. But call me sentimental – I love it, as I love the entire series.
The premise is simple – a teenaged girl in Charleston, SC during the American Revolution is spunkier and more independent than her life allows. Add a love triangle that highlights the difference between her spirit and her life, then end with her choosing the path less traveled, and you’ve got the plot. But because of these books, I know all kinds of actual historical tidbits about all points in history, and I have since I was about 11. That’s success, even if it isn’t particularly original.
+20 Task (Ransom is a female author, Sabrina is the single female MC/narrator)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 170
20.2 Sense and SensibilityCase Histories by Kate Atkinson
Review: I’ve heard Kate Atkinson described as a kind of ‘literary’ crime writer, and while I don’t love grouping books as either literary or genre, I can kind of see where the comparison comes from. Case Histories isn’t a straight forward mystery or thriller – rather, it’s like a series of interconnected stories, tales of horrible things happening to children across multiple decades, woven together until a present-day detective solves the cases all together.
The crimes are awful, worse than average because of how children are involved in each one. In the 1960s, a toddler, the family favorite, disappears without a trace. Later, a woman slaughters her husband in front of her baby – and the child’s life is never the same. In the present day, a young girl who has just entered college is murdered gruesomely, but no one knows why. Jackson Brodie happens to run across all of these cases at the same time, and his story becomes tied up into theirs. By the end, I was in many ways glad the book was over since the cases were not pleasant, but there remained some hope, some love, some starting over, that was welcome and hopeful if not outwardly optimistic.
+20 Task (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748888/?...)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 200
10.8 Spell it OutIn Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
Review: I’d heard bits and pieces of Margaret Atwood’s relationship with science fiction: that she doesn’t like having her works called science fiction, that the SF community rejects her because of that, etc. And at a surface level, that’s true. This book is a collection of essays that she’s written about sci-fi, addressing this issue but also detailing her relationship with the field.
She prefers her works be called speculative fiction, and has elaborate definitions of what she thinks of as science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction. Genre definitions in general tend to make me a little nuts, and I’m not sure I bought her argument, but I think it comes from a good place. The essays in this book were not written by someone trying to separate herself from sci-fi because she feels higher than it. Instead, she obviously has a life-long love of the genre, and is much more knowledgeable than most people about all kinds of unreal fiction, whether science fiction, fantasy, or speculative fiction.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 220
10.3 The PlusThe Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates
+10 Task
+5 Combo (10.5 2003 Commonwealth Award)
+5 Jumbo (688 pages)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 690
20.10 InitiallyNo Dominion by C.E. Murphy
Review: The majority of Murphy’s Walker Papers books follow Joanne Walker’s perspective entirely, so we only view the wonderful side characters through her eyes. In this book of short stories, we get other perspectives, with the longest story told through cabby Gary Muldoon. Joanne met Gary in the first book in the series, and he’s had her back ever since. This takes place between the seventh and eighth books, and we get a lot of Gary’s backstory. He’s in his 80s by the time he meets Joanne, but this story shows him in his youth and through his life prior to meeting her – which may not have been just the luck of the draw after all.
+20 Task (Murphy publishes under C.E.)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 250
20th Century - Chronologician15.2 - Eleven Days by Donald Harstad (pub 1999)
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 275
20.5 EmmaMidnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire
Review: Another book in a series – although this one is only the second. Seanan McGuire may be my favorite urban fantasy authors, and while I still prefer her Toby Daye series, this one is building up to being very interesting. This follows Verity Price, whose family is human but with exceptional training – to keep track of, protect, and only as a last resort contain threats by the non-humans living around them. Verity lives in New York and is attempting to make a life as a dancer rather than just a Price, but even by this segment the dancing has taken a backseat. Her love interest comes from a group whose mission is to exterminate all non-humans – and while his feelings may be evolving, the group’s is not, and that conflict comes to a head in this installment. The story looks to be moving out of New York for the next book, so I look forward to getting to know more of the side characters who have thus far only been introduced distantly.
+20 Task (McGuire is a female author, Verity is the single female MC/narrator)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 305
20.6 Northanger AbbeyBrideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
+20 Task (satirist)
+5 Combo (20.2 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412536/?... BBC production company credits at bottom of page)
+5 Oldies (1945)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 730
20.10 InitiallyThe Once and Future King by T.H. White
+20 Task (1080 Lexile)
+5 Oldies (1939)
+5 Jumbo (639 pages)
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 760
20th CenturyTimeline: 1990-1999
Chronologician
15.3 - Published in 1992
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
+15 task
+10 bonus
Task total: 25
Grand total: 115
20th CenturyTimeline: 1990-1999
Chronologician
15.4 - Published in 1993
Coyote Blue - Christopher Moore
+15 task
+10 bonus
Task total: 25
Grand total: 140
I would like remove POST #387 from my total.Thank you!
10.10 - Group readsHHhH by Laurent Binet
Copy I read: HHhH
What an interesting book this was to read! Binet lets you know he is writing a book from the start and points out that he wants everything to be historically correct, yet he is still writing a novel. His way of telling the history of Reinhard Heydrich and his place in the Third Reich is fascinating and unique and I found myself glued to the pages. I did not know the name of Reinhard Heydrich as well as I knew some others in the Nazi ranks, but I do now and his name will forever send shivers down my spine like the mention of Mengele and his experiments has over the years. Heydrich was better known to me as “The Butcher of Prague” and I was familiar with many of his terrible deeds. As the assassination attempt grew closer, the pace picked up even more and I was enthralled to the bitter end! Thanks for the group read! I've been trying to get to this one for a couple of challenges now.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 1305
20.5 In Honor of EmmaThe Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen
+20
+10 (Combo 10.3 and 10.6)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 615
Task 20.5 - In honor of Emma, read a book written by a woman with a single female narrator/main character.The Drowning Girl (2012) by Caitlín R. Kiernan (Paperback, 336 pages)
Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Superior Achievement in a Novel (2012)
Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (2012)
James Tiptree Jr. Award (2012)
Review: Anachronous narratives are novels that have plots in which events are recounted in an order different from their chronological sequence. Most of the time, when I read an anachronous narrative novel, I get frustrated and confused and toss the novel. Not this time. Caitlín R. Kiernan successfully uses that technique to tell her story. The story is told in first person by a young woman who tells the reader on page 3 that “I was also insane”. I think it is Metafiction (defined: A novel where the narrator intentionally exposes him or herself as the author of the story). Here’s a typical sentence, occurring between descriptions of events and emotions:
p. 170: “Perhaps I should rip up these last few pages. Maybe I have no idea what I’m trying to say. Or I should have spent many more days working out each and every sentence on counteless scraps of paper, not daring to fit them together until every word has been unerringly selected.”
Is the novel fantasy (ghosts and mermaids and werewolves)? Or is it the fantastical ravings of a self-described insane woman? The reader is left to decide. The ending is a bit of a mush, so whichever kind of ending the reader prefers can be justified by the ending. (I had it at 4 *s until the “ending”, and marked it down to 3*s because of the incoherent ending.) Recommended for readers who like unconventional “novels”.
+ 20 Task
+05 Style:1. Combo (5 points ) (10.4 born in Dublin, Ireland)
+10 Style:3. Review (10 points)
Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 = 35
Grand Total: 395 + 35 = 430
10.5 Global Youth Service DayGoodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories by Philip Roth
This collection was populated by the most interesting cast of characters, and while I wasn't particularly fond of any of them I was interested to see where their antics would take them. My favorites were the boy in Hebrew school who won't accept the easy answers which infuriates his teacher, who ends up chasing the kid onto the roof and everyone thinks he's going to jump; the man going through a mid-life crisis, who ends up having an affair, his wife finds out and demands a divorce, then he has a heart attack (it sounds so formulaic, but the telling is fantastic); the army sergeant who gets played by a 19-year-old G.I. and ultimately returns the favor (and even though you're glad the G.I. gets his comeuppance, when you step back and look at the morality of the sergeant's actions...well, it's a conundrum. I think that's what I like most about Roth's writing. He shows us people doing some pretty despicable things, but before they do those things he has given us enough background information that we almost make exceptions for those actions).
Even though I didn't love most of his characters, I quite enjoyed his writing. And to think that this was his first book, published when he was only 26. Oy vey.
+10 Task (won Common Wealth Award in Literature in 2001)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.8-Philip Roth)
+5 Oldies (pub. 1958)
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 720
Task 20.10: InitiallyI read Naked in Death by J. D. Robb
REVIEW:
Usually I enjoy a thriller/suspense novel and get into them quickly. Not so with this one. It took several days for me to get finished. As I read I like to form a picture of the characters in my mind. I pictured Eve Dallas as a tough, masculine woman, honestly never expected her to be physically appealing to the main male character. I pictured him as an older Christian Grey. Anyway, not a great pair in my mind. As far as the suspense part, I had the killer narrowed down to two choices early on in the book. So .no surprises there either. Overall, the only thing that surprised me was how not surprised I was by this. I wish I liked it enough to read the whole series because I love Nora Roberts' other works.
+20: task
+10: review
+5: combo (10.6--shelved as murder/not mystery at BPL http://catalog.brooklynpubliclibrary....)
+5: combo (20.5--female author/main character)
+40: TASK TOTAL
+600: RwS TOTAL
Task 20.3 -. In honor of Pride & PrejudiceRead a book that has more than 100,000 ratings and an average rating over 3.99.
A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4) (2005) by George R.R. Martin (Mass Market Paperback, 1061 pages)
Review:This is the fourth book of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series (colloquially.known as “Game of Thrones” series). It is NOT a stand-alone novel; the reader should only attempt reading this novel after reading the first three books of the series (or viewing HBO’s TV series from the first three seasons).
The first three books of the series A Song of Ice and Fire were written and published 1996 – 2000. Fans waited 5 years for A Feast for Crows. George Martin knew they were waiting; he had fame and fortune and reams of unsolicited advice while he was writing A Feast for Crows. It shows. The editors stopped editing him – there’s a bloated feeling to the prose in this novel that was not present in the first three books of the series. Alot of fans had criticisms about books #1-3. Martin responded to the criticism: the few women in books #1-3 are all either victims or stupid (even Daenerys in book #1 is a victim!) In A Feast for Crows, there are a lot more women, and some of the women are just as strong and heroic as the guys. Martin responded to the criticism: what are the common people doing whilst the knights are fighting? In this volume of the series, Martin tells us. (Mostly they are trying to stay alive in a very unsafe world.) A Feast for Crows ends with a big TO BE CONTINUED.
Overall, if you read the first 3 books in the series, and want to know what happens next, I’d recommend reading this one.
+ 20 points (20.3)
+05 Style:1. Combo (5 points) (10.6 "murder")
+10 Style:3. Review (10 points)
+25 Style: 5. Jumbo (5 to 25 points): -1000+ Pages: 25 Points
Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 + 25 = 60
Grand Total: 430 + 60 = 490
20th Century - Chronologician15.4 Vivians by Molly Hughes
published 1935
+15 task
+10 bonus
Task Total: 25 points
Grand Total: 335
20.4 Mansfield ParkHard Times by Charles Dickens
I understand readers not putting this on their favorite list. I even understand people saying they preferred other Dickens to this one. Still, I came very close to giving this one 5 stars.
Dickens draws his two main male characters very broadly, almost cartoonish. He intends them to be representative of a group Dickens disliked intensely - manufacturers and educators with a formula. He satirises them, and the mental illustrations drawn are good. I don't usually like satire, but Dickens is humorous anyway. In this, he even has a scene that borders on the uproarious.
The major plot points are predictable. But how will Dickens contrive them? We look forward to comeuppances. From experience, we know to expect them from Dickens. Expect to cheer.
+20 Task
+15 Combo (20.1, 20.2 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109985/ , 20.6)
+10 Review
+15 Oldies (pub 1856)
Task Total = 60
Grand Total = 505
10.5 Global Youth Service DayGoodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
+ 10 Task – winner of the Common Wealth Award for Literature in 1983
+ 5 Oldies published 1939
Task Total = 15
Grand Total = 600
Task 20.7: Posthumous novelI read A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
REVIEW:
I've read several books by Binchy during this challenge and I have liked each one. This one strayed from her normal pattern of writing by devoting a chapter to each of the characters. I liked this and enjoyed the fact that she tied all the chapters back to the main character, Chicky Starr. Reading about the people and places in Ireland makes me want to visit there. She makes it all seem charming and refreshing for the soul. The characters deal with real life problems and all the problems don't magically work out for the best in the end. This isn't a fairy-tale so it's easier to "know" the characters and enjoy them for who they are. I read this in one day while traveling for work. Overall, good read--enjoy!
+20: task
+10: review
+5: combo (10.4-author born in Ireland)
+35: TASK TOTAL
+635: RwS TOTAL
20th Century Chronologician15.9 -- The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch, 1st published in 1957.
+15 task points
+10 bonus
Task Points: 25 points
Grand Total: 215 points
Task 10.3 - The plus: Read a book with a two-word title that begins with "The"Read The Surgeon (★★★, 24 Apr '13)
Review
The man she shot to death is back stalking her. Catherine Cordell, a surgeon in Boston lives her days on her feet as she attends to one trauma patient after another. In the face of wounds and bodily damage, she plays like a star performer, fixing people, bringing them back from the edge of death.
But behind this calm and composed woman is a haunting past. A past in which a serial killer, known to torture, mutilate and kill women, had terrorized Catherine, before being shot to death by her. Now, two years later, he seems to have come back from the dead. He is killing other women in exactly the same way but his main prize appears to be Cordell.
Detectives Jane Rizzoli and Thomas Moore of the Boston Police Department are on the hunt for this killer who has wrecked havoc in their city. But with Moore getting involved with Catherine and Rizzoli acting as the stung victim of jealousy, can the two remain objective?
An interesting, quick mystery read. While the climax isn't exactly didn't-see-it-coming or unexpected, it still makes for a good suspense title. Recommended to fans of the genre.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 195
Task 15.1: 20th Century - ChaosticianFall of Giants (★★★, 18 Apr '13)
+15 Task
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 210
Norma wrote: "20.5 In Honor of EmmaThe Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen
+20
+10 (Combo 10.3 and 10.6)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 615"
This is shelved as Mystery at BPL, so doesn't qualify for the 10.6 combo.
20.3 Pride and PrejudiceNaked by David Sedaris
Only thing better than reading David Sedaris? Listening to him read. Add occasional cameos by his sister, Amy, and I was laughing so hard that tears were coming to my eyes. As with most of his books, this is an assorted collection of experiences from his life. In this collection he comes to terms with the fact that he is gay after summer camp in Greece, his mother finds out she has cancer (only Sedaris could inject humor into such a scenario), his sister Lisa gets married, and he takes a trip to a nudist camp. Of course there is so much more, but those were the ones that stuck with me. Sedaris' wit and way with words make even the most difficult and disturbing moments in life seem like a little party. Two thumbs, way up.
+20 Task (120,508 ratings, 4.06 average stars)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.2, 20.6)
Task Total = 40
Grand Total = 760
15.7 20th Century--ChronologicianGuilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton, pub. 1993
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
Task Total = 25
Grand Total = 785
10.1 Square PegBlasphemy: New and Selected Stories by Sherman Alexie
Review: This is Sherman Alexie's newest collection of short stories. It includes some previously published stories as well as new ones. His short stories include Native American characters and often include occasions that are unique to current-day Native Americans. Most of his stories are set in the Northwest. But his real talent is, through these characters and their experiences, to bring focus to common human emotions. For me Alexie writes with just right balance of humor and pathos. His stories make me chuckle, shed a tear and feel a common bond with humanity.
It was interesting to me to experience some of these stories for a second or third time. Some of them were so sharp in my memory that I could even anticipate some of the phrases, sometimes parts of some of the stories were etched in my memory but other elements of the same story had been forgotten and some stories I only vaguely remembered. I think this is one of Alexie’s best collections.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 340
Post 598Sanz wrote: "Task 15.1: 20th Century - Chaostician
Fall of Giants (★★★, 18 Apr '13)
+15 Task
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 210"
Sorry, Sanz, as this was published originally in 2010, it does not qualify for the 20th Century sub-challenge.
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
The Betrothed (other topics)Brighton Rock (other topics)
The Princess Diaries (other topics)
Insatiable (other topics)
The Storyteller (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Alessandro Manzoni (other topics)Graham Greene (other topics)
Meg Cabot (other topics)
Tess Gerritsen (other topics)
Elizabeth Bowen (other topics)
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The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham
This is the first I have read in the Albert Campion series and I spent more time wondering just who the narrator and his associates were and by what authority Campion was involved in the investigation than I did trying to solve the mystery. As is common with books written in the 1930’s, I had difficulty understanding the values and motivations of the characters. Why would anyone attend a funeral for someone they barely knew at school and heartily disliked? Even with a cryptic anonymous letter it seems strange to me. I would certainly not recognise a dead body as someone I had been to school with under another name. Feeling this way, the I entirely missed the main plot of the story.
+ 10 Task – initials MA
+ 10 Review
+ 5 Combo (20.2 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0535812/?...)
+ 10 Oldies published 1937
Task Total = 35
Grand Total = 565