Reading with Style discussion
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SU 2016 Completed Tasks
10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
+10 Task
+10 Lost in Translation
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 330
Five Years Through Summer15.1 2015 (Traveling Backwards)
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 355
20.3 Winners!The Sleeping Dragon by Miyuki Miyabe
+20 Task: Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel (1992)
+10 Lost in Translation
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 405
20.4 Go for the Gold!Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
+20 Task: China
+ 5 Combo: 10.2 Picador/Virago
+10 Lost in Translation
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 440
20.10 Meta fiction (Elizabeth (Alaska)'s Task)The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.2 Picador/Virago
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 465
10.2 Picador/ ViragoLabyrinth by Kate Mosse (on Virago list)
+10 - Task
+ 5 - Combo (10.7)
+ 5 - Jumbo (515 pages)
Task Total - 20 pts
Grand Total - 185 pts
20.9 PoliticalCondor One by John Simpson
Review: If Condor One hadn’t fit both of the reading challenges I’m doing right now, I would have quit practically before I started. The premise is kind of fun, if completely unrealistic – a gay man becomes president and falls in love with his Secret Service agent. The execution, however, was completely flawed. The writing, especially the dialogue, was stilted. The worldbuilding made no sense. It’s set in an alternate 2012 United States where instead of a 2008 Obama victory somehow Antonin Scalia has had a single term in office, but he’s not running again and he’s not mentioned past the inauguration. The rest of the book was clearly written in 2008, because it talks all about Bush and his policies. The problem is that setting this story in the 2008 political climate is ludicrous when you realize that the whole premise is that the Democratic candidate (who, by the way, is cousins to the British royal family) is outed as a gay man six weeks before the general election and still manages to win. He’s an unabashed liberal and just does what he wants, basically playing around at being president. I’d have preferred if the author either created a fun happy utopian America or really faced the issues he was confronting on a surface level. Oh, and the romance was completely shallow and insta-love-ish… add in a sneaky shadowy assassination plot, and it was just ridiculous.
+20 Task (politics on main page)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.7)
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 700
10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Music for Wartime: Stories by Rebecca Makkai
Rarely do I encounter a story collection that I can rate with 5 stars, but every single story in this collection was original and beautifully crafted. Each one had an unusual take on subject matter I had read many times before and that is what put this collection over the top for me. Sometimes, an amazing impact was achieved in a few pages. The stories had emotional impact without "preaching" or heavy handed moralizing. I also loved the descriptions of music and they enhanced the collection. The story about Bach was a definite favorite! I will be putting Rebecca Makkai's novels on my TBR and I highly recommend this collection.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 485
20.7 U.S.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
+20 task (Mark Twain - MT - Montana)
+10 canon
+15 combo
(10.3 #39 https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...,
10.4 #100 https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7...
10.5 #3 https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7...)
Task Total: 45
Grand Total: 80
10.9 It's PersonalMr. Swirlee by Mike Faricy
+10 - Task
+ 5 - Combo (10.7)
Task Total - 15 pts
Grand Total - 200 pts
10.5 Mod TaskLook Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
This book is a fictional autobiography that closely resembles Wolfe's own life. The work follows Wolfe's character "Gene" from boyhood to Harvard graduate school. Gene comes from a North Carolina family that is borderline dysfunctional. The large family has many squabbles and the Mom no longer lives with the father because she is so busy acquiring real estate and running a boarding-house. A sister takes care of the drunkard father who has a prolonged illness. Gene, the youngest child is also the most gifted and goes to special schools and is the only one in the family to go to college...even though he is only 15 years old. He is also very tall....and often mistaken for being a man despite still being a boy.
I expected to love this novel having seen praise from Jack Kerouoac and William Faulkner and negative reviews from Hemingway (who I find distasteful). I did like the work...but didn't love it. There was nothing in the style to disturb me...but nothing to excite me either. The story was not difficult to follow... and I don't want to damn it with feint praise by saying it was merely competent...but that is how I felt when I finished it.
task +10
review +10
combo +5 (10.7)
jumbo +5
total= 30
grand total = 405
10.7 First LetterSherlock Holmes and the Secret Mission by Eddie Maguire
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 160
10.6 travelling the DDC wayVenice Is a Fish: A Sensual Guide by Tiziano Scarpa
+10 Task (945.31)
+10 Lost in Translation
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 325
10.2 picador/ViragoMurder in the Dark: Short Fictions and Prose Poems by Margaret Atwood
+10 Task (Virago)
+15 Combo (10.7, 20.7, 20.10)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 350
10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
+ 10 Task
+5 Combo (10.2)
+10 Lost in Translation (written in Japanese, read in French)
Task total = 25
Points total = 85
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 254 Deedee wrote: "Task 10.6 Traveling the DDC wayRead a book shelved in the 900s (900-999)
My local library had The Dark Ages (Historia Universal Asimov #8) (1968) by Isaac Asimov shelved as 940.1 but whatever. I'd like to move the book to:
20.7 "Isaac Asimov" = IA = Iowa.
Grand Total: 170 + 20 = 190
10.2 Picador/ViragoSilence by Shūsaku Endō
book mentioned in the Picador blog
Review
One of those books I’ve added to my tbr years ago and I could not remember why. Most possibly only because it was a Japanese work and due to my interest in Japanese literature, I probably did not look any further. Suffice to say, I didn’t particularly know what the book was about when I started reading and boy, was I shocked! The story is told from a Portuguese priest’s point of view. He came to Japan secretly in search of his old mentor whom, it was rumoured, has apostatised due to persecution & torture. It was quite interesting as we follow Father Rodrigues’ internal turmoil in witnessing the suffering of the secret Christians and was forced to make a choice of his own later on. That was the only interest I had in the book (the spiritual battle) as I didn’t really enjoy the work itself –there wasn’t anything in particular that stood out for me.
+10 Task
+5 Combo (10.7 - S)
+10 LiT
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 310
10.10 Group ReadsMurder Must AdvertiseDorothy L. Sayers
I enjoyed the mystery and it went places I wasn't entirely expecting, which is always nice. I very much enjoyed the main setting being in an office and in an advertising office and much of what was being discussed and investigated at the beginning of the book was centered on the daily conversation there. I don't read many mysteries and that's not something I've seen often, but it's a lot closer to my life (aside from the decade the story is set in, of course) than the gritty streets or cozy countryside. And it was very interesting to see how the story expanded beyond those confines as well, to be something more significant.
I found the trick of beginning the book with Death Bredon not reveled to be Peter Wimsey rather unnecessary. It was obvious if you knew what series this book belonged to and I didn't feel like it added anything. And there were a few other places that felt forced, but overall it was a good read.
+10 task
+10 combo (10.7 M, 20.5 #43)
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 560
10.2 - Picador/ViragoGlamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Victor Ward is a New York celebrity model, hired to promote a nightclub, cheating on his supermodel girlfriend, trying out for movie roles and clinging tenaciously to the edges of the A list. He’s unbearably shallow and dim, and his dialogue is mostly name-dropping and song lyrics.
I wondered at first if I could take 500 pages of Victor’s point of view, and it was certainly a challenge. But it soon becomes clear that odd things are going on. He thinks he’s being followed. People keep telling him they saw him at events he doesn’t remember going to. A black Jeep almost knocks him off his moped – more than once. Is he paranoid? Are drugs messing with his memory? Or is something weird and scary really happening in Victor’s world of fake tans and perfect abs?
(view spoiler)
+10 Task
+10 Review
+ 5 Jumbo (546 pages)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 245
20.10 Meta fiction (Elizabeth (Alaska)'s Task)The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.2 Picador/Virago
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 510
10.3 Holiday Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)
+10 Canon
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 535
Tien wrote: "10.2 Picador/ViragoSilence by Shūsaku Endō
book mentioned in the Picador blog
Review
One of those books I’ve added to my tbr years ago and I could not remember why. Mo..."
Hi Tien,
I can't see where the author is mentioned on this page, can you confirm ? http://www.picador.com/blog/september...
15.2 FYTS Time Traveler2014-1969
The Last Bookstore In America by Amy Stewart
Published 2009
+15 Task
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 175
Amanda wrote: "Hi Tien,I can't see where the author is mentioned on this page, can you confirm ? http://www.picador.com/blog/september... "
Yikes! I have this link http://www.picador.com/classic on my worksheet for some reason! I probably have clicked away & forgotten :(
In post 327, I claimed Silence by Shūsaku EndōI'll move it to
Task 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)
-5 Combo
Season Total: 305
10.5 Mod TaskO Pioneers! by Willa Cather
#70 on Great American Novel list
This felt like a very clear book, straightforward in language and tone. The first third to a half was more a series of interconnected short stories, but a more obvious plot slowly revealed itself. Yet, the plot wasn't necessarily the point, but rather the way the land itself changed and the people changed with it as a result.
I liked it and I'm actually considering reading My Antonia. But what I liked best was Alexandra, that she made her own success and her family's success in a book that was written in 1913. She did sacrifice for it in one way, but then she's also contrasted with Marie, who chose another way and ended up with her own sacrifices.
+10 task
+5 combo (10.7 O)
+10 review
Task total: 25
Grand total: 585
20.3 Winners!Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Prometheus Award for Best Novel 2012
Lexile 990
Fun! It's simple wish fulfillment in many ways, being the hero who solves all the cool puzzles with the entertainment culture you've been immersed in, fighting a great (corporate) evil, and saving yourself and your friends before becoming really powerful and rich. And this isn't a spoiler, because this is the kind of book where you know what the end game is - it's not being subversive, the narrator succeeds and this is not a surprise.
I enjoyed the negative and positive sides of a believable future. I enjoyed the wandering through 80s pop culture, even when I didn't recognize some references. I liked the flow of the story and the measured way that successes and obstacles were introduced. I cheered the narrator on. I just really liked it and will probably read it again sometime to enjoy my time within the story again.
+20 task
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 615
10.7 First LetterSwan Song by Robert McCammon
+10 Task
+20 Jumbo (956 pages in MPE)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 345
20.1 South AmericaNews of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez is usually associated with his novels containing elements of magical realism, but he was a reporter in his younger days. In "News of a Kidnapping" he returns to nonfiction to tell the story of ten hostages who were kidnapped by the wealthy Medellin drug cartel in Colombia. Pablo Escobar used the hostages to bargain with the Colombian government when he feared he would be extradited to the United States in 1990 for drug crimes. The city of Medellin, where the drug cartel was based, was full of violence with hundreds of policemen and members of the drug cartel killed each month.
In addition to the harrowing accounts of the captives, the book shows how the families, government officials, and an elderly saintly priest worked out a solution with Escobar. It was especially moving to read how a husband acted as one of the chief intermediaries between Escobar and the government, hoping for the release of his kidnapped wife and putting his own life at risk. After the first captive was killed, I was on edge wondering what the fate of the others would be. This well written book shows how Escobar kept the country of Colombia emotionally and politically hostage in his efforts to avoid extradition.
+20 task (author born in Colombia in 1927)
+10 LiT
+10 review
Task total: 40
Grand total: 340
Task 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Read a book with a title that starts with a letter found in OLYMPICS.
Murder and Marinara (An Italian Kitchen Mystery #1) (2013) by Rosie Genova
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 190 + 10 = 200
10.2 Picador/ViragoThe Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
On Picador Blog's list
Review
This book is my third Irish fiction this month and each one of them featured a mentally unstable character! These crazy narrators are driving me up the wall. Francis Brady did not have a very happy childhood with a drunk father and a nervy mother. However, an insult by a neighbour triggered a reaction from where things only got worst. This was somewhat hard to read as I felt pity for him half the time and the other half, wondering if there was something inherent wrong in him. It was also a fairly suspenseful read as you’d know something really horrible is going to happen at the end and it did… satisfactorily for the reader but also horrifying. In the end, I can only feel pity.
+10 Task
+5 Combo (20.3 - Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction 1992)
+10 Review
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 330
15.5 FYTS: Time Traveler1965-2015
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
+15 Task
+10 bonus
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 375
Task 20.10 Meta fiction Read any book by one of these authors associated with historiographic metafiction.
Great Work of Time (1989) by John Crowley
World Fantasy Award for Best Novella (1990)
+20 Task
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 200 + 20 = 220
Post 314 Karen Michele wrote: "20.4 Go for the Gold!Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
+20 Task: China
+ 5 Combo: 10.2 Picador/Virago
+10 Lost in Translation
Task Total: 35
Gran..."
This book was originally written in English, so no LiT points. (I looked several places to get the name of a translator, including WorldCat, but there is none.)
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 314 Karen Michele wrote: "20.4 Go for the Gold!Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
+20 Task: China
+ 5 Combo: 10.2 Picador/Virago
+10 Lost in T..."
I've got the change down, Elizabeth. In the acknowledgments, Guo talks about collaborating with others to translate the book, but it looks like it was updated to the point that it was published as a new book in that translation done by Guo herself.
20.6 WarCity of Women by David R. Gillham
#101 on WW2 list
This isn’t a book I would normally have chosen to read, however it has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years since my friend gave it to me. So, when this task came up, it seemed now was the time to read it.
This is a very well written book, but it took me some time to see how well the author built the action and the reader’s empathy with the characters. At the beginning of the book I wasn’t feeling compelled to read on – the novel is set in Berlin during WW2 – so, of course, we know terrible things will (or have) happened and the story starts slowly. He builds the story so effectively that once you get to the ‘meat’ of it you can hardly put it down. The oppressive atmosphere of fear and group-think is depicted well here. There are twists and turns, romance and drudgery, and in the end a (somewhat unexpected) heroine. He does an excellent job of keeping you engaged right up to the end. I would recommend this book, even if you are like me and don’t read war stories.
20 task
10 review
____
30
Running total 330
15.1 Five years through summer2012: Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan
+15 task
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 95
10.4 Opposite Lists (Light)Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
#72
+10 Task
+10 Canon
+5 Combo (10.7 First Letter)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 200
From Post 303Coralie wrote: "10.10 Group Reads
A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 305"
+10 Combo 20.5, 20.7
From Post 344Connie wrote: "20.1 South America
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez is usually associated with his novels containing elements of magical reali..."
+5 Combo 20.10
Marie wrote: "10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
+ 10 Task
+5 Combo (10.2)
+10 Lost in Translation (written in..."
Sorry this does not qualify for 10.2.
Kate S wrote: "From Post 344Connie wrote: "20.1 South America
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez is usually associated with his novels contai..."
Thanks, Kate!
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
My Name Is Red (other topics)Pop Goes the Weasel (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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Karen Stabiner (other topics)
Laura Brown (other topics)
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Bea wrote: "20.6 War
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
+5 Combo 10.5"
Thanks, Kate.