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SU 2016 Completed Tasks
20.3 Winners! The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction (1948)
Review
The Heart of the Matter is I don’t care if you are unhappy if you’re too much of a coward to take the steps to fix it. I find Scobie absolutely frustrating though understood his conflict for doing something right and doing something that will make him happy. Do not blame fate or God or whatever else for your mistake if you can't man up, own up, and take the consequences. On the other hand, it’s always so easy to talk when you’re on the other side of the fence. In any case, I’ve stated the reason for my frustration of the novel plus I also have an aversion for adultery/betrayal in fiction so I should have known better to avoid this novel. One thing I appreciate is the weave of lives in Colonial war-torn West Africa which was really interesting!
+20 Task
+10 Canon
+10 Review
Post Total: 40
Season Total: 425
15.1 FYTS: Time Traveler2014-1964
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness (2014)
+15 Task
+5 Bonus (over 500 pages)
Task Total - 20 pts
Grand Total - 240 pts
10.4 Opposite ListsLord of the Flies by William Golding
I remember seeing and enjoying the 1963 film when I was just a boy. But I think my enjoyment had nothing to do with the symbolism in the story...but more that it was just an adventure...and with just boys. I listened to the author read his own book... which I think added a flavor I wouldn't have had if I had read it to myself. Now, fifty years after seeing the movie, the book doesn't touch me the same way. I see the religious symbolism (that I hadn't seen at all with the film) laid on a bit thick...but that is probably the point. For those who haven't read the book or seen the film, the story presents a group of boys who become stranded on a deserted Pacific island after a plane crash during a war. After an initial effort to provide organization...the "civilization" devolves into brutality. I think I will only give this three stars...didn't hate it...but didn't love it either.
Task +10
Review +10
combo +10 (10.7, 20.10)
total =30
grand total= 515
15.4 FYTS Time Traveler2014-1969
The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld by Christine Wiltz
Published 1999
+15 Task
+5 Non-Fiction
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 260
From post 180Karen Michele wrote: "10.10 Group Reads
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)
+10 Lost in Translation
+ 5 Jumbo: 581
Task Total: 30
Gr..."
+5 Combo 20.3
From Post 370Ed wrote: "10.2 Picador/Virago
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
This book is on the 1001 Books You Must Read list despite it being an autobiography...strange since ..."
+5 Combo 20.7
15.1 FYTS: Time Traveler1966-2016
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (pub 1976)
+15 Task
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 765
10.10 Group ReadsShiloh by Shelby Foote
I'm not a big fan of war stories.... I get easily confused with the technical jargon, battle plans and just keeping personalities and sides straight. Foote tries to minimize that in this fictional account of the Civil War battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different combatant ...and alternates between North and South. No Generals....usually the grunts. And what you are left with, as usual, is the dreadfulness of combat, the mistaken ideals of the fighters and the futility of it all. That's not to say that there isn't a consequence...which still resonates 154 years later.
task +10
review +10
combo +5 (10.7)
total = 25
grand total = 545
10.10 Group ReadsA Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
This was my third books by Muriel Spark, and I don't know that I enjoyed it quite as much as the others. It didn't seem to really move anywhere, things happened but there were no "big" moments. Sure, Mrs Hawkins changed, but perhaps more physically than in any other respect, there was no real growth of character. Changes were continually hinted at in the development of other characters, some time between when Mrs Hawkins was telling the story and when the events she is narrating occurred, but they are never fully gone into, and perhaps they would have made a good story. However, they weren't really her story, so they remained only hints.
Of course, the story of what occurs with Hector Bartlett carries the foreboding and "not quite right" sense that The Driver's Seat had, but without the real sense of menace, which is perhaps what gave this a slightly flatter feeling, and this is maybe what is missing from this story.
+10 task
+10 review
+ 10 combos (20.5, 20.7)
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 400
10.3 HolidaySaving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
+10 Task
+5 Combo 10.7
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 455
20.3 Winners Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
+20 Task-2008 DABWAHA
+10 Combo 10.7, 20.7
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 485
15.5 FYTS Time Traveler2015-1970
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
+15 Task (1995)
+10 Bonus
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 510
15.6 FYTS-Time Traveler2015-1970
Ride With Me, Mariah Montana by Ivan Doig
+15 Task (1990)
+10 Bonus
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 535
20.7 U.S.Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal by Ann Rule
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 555
20.7 U.S. (Rebekah's Task)Sun Storm by Åsa Larsson
+20 Task AL
+ 5 Combo: 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)
+10 Lost in Translation
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 655
Kate, I may have missed subtracting some points somewhere or added wrong, but I had 615 as of post 400, added the +5 you gave me and got 620 + the 35 for this post gives me 655. Let me know if I need to adjust my total.
20.3 Winners!The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow
+20 Task: Sydney Taylor Book Award for Teen Readers (2012)
Grand Total: 665
20.7 U.S. (Rebekah's Task)AL - Alabama
The Blood Spilt (Rebecka Martinsson #2) by Åsa Larsson
Review
Woah, the ending literally broker my heart and I had to jump on to the next book to find out what’s happening next. Book 1, Sun Storm also had a crazy ending and it was hard to believe that Rebecka got involved in something violent yet again especially as she’s still recovering from trauma. She’s a brave girl though wanting to do the right thing. For some reason though, I couldn’t really get into the mystery side of things and the resolution didn’t quite satisfy (despite the dramatic end). I did find, however, the different culture/atmosphere interesting. It’s curious also, that both books so far involved the church!
+20 Task
+5 Combo (20.4 - Svenska Deckarakademins pris för bästa svenska kriminalroman (2004); Wikipedia notes as Best Swedish Crime Novel Award)
+10 LiT
+10 Review
Task Total: 45
Season Total: 470
15.5 FYTS Time Traveler2014-1969
Breaking The Rules by Ruth Wind
Published 1994
+25 Task
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 285
Tien wrote: " 20.7 U.S. (Rebekah's Task)AL - Alabama
The Blood Spilt (Rebecka Martinsson #2) by Åsa Larsson
Review
Woah, the ending literally broker my heart and I had to jump on..."
Hi Tien,
points are the same, but Winners task is 20.3, not 20.4 (just in case you have a spreadsheet!
15.6 FYTS Time Traveler2014-1969
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Published 1989
+25 Task
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 310
20.10 Meta FictionWorld's Fair by E.L. Doctorow
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.8)
+10 Canon
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 540
15.4 - FYTS - Time Traveler - 1965-20151980 skipped
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales - Oliver Sacks
(published 1985)
+15 task
+5 non-fiction
Post total: 20
Grand total: 225
10.10 - Group ReadsVoices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster - Svetlana Alexievich
This was a difficult book to read, and an even more difficult one to review. I'll admit I went in without much knowledge of the Chernobyl disaster, but this book was quite the eye-opener.
The interviews contained in this book are so raw and emotional, but also poetic and beautiful in their own way. Reading widows describing the horrible ways their husbands died; mothers describing their disfigured, sick children; men reliving the terrible conditions they were forced to work in for the "good" of their country...it was very hard to read at some points. I found myself needing to put the book down occasionally to collect myself, but ultimately the honesty and the poignant language kept pulling me back, despite my tears and the horror I felt for these people's tragedies.
Alexievich did a wonderful job collecting these interviews and putting them together in a way that truly paints a portrait of the horrors of Chernobyl, and also the strength of the "Chernobylites."
+10 task
+10 review
+10 LiT
Post total: 30
Grand total: 255
10.8 Come to the FairMr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace
+10 pts - Task
Grand Total - 250 pts
20.3 Winners!Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
won National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012
+20 pts - Task
Grand Total - 270 pts
Karen Michele wrote: "20.7 U.S. (Rebekah's Task)Kate, I may have missed subtracting some points somewhere or added wrong, but I had 615 as of post 400, added the +5 you gave me and got 620 + the 35 for this post gives me 655. Let me know if I need to adjust my total.
..."
Hi Karen,
Kate's letting me work with the database today (training!), and I've gone through all your posts and scores, and it looks like the difference goes back to where Elizabeth referred to no Lost In Translation Points for Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. You noted it, but I can't see that your points went back 10 for your next post.
15.4 Time TravelerPub. 2001
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
+15 task
+ 5 jumbo
Task total: 20
Grand total: 505
Amanda wrote: "Karen Michele wrote: "20.7 U.S. (Rebekah's Task)Kate, I may have missed subtracting some points somewhere or added wrong, but I had 615 as of post 400, added the +5 you gave me and got 620 + the ..."
Oh, that's exactly it, Amanda! Thanks for your work to find that and good luck with the database;)
15.5 FYTS: Time Traveller1963-2008
A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman
+25 Task for 5th book (1983)
+ 5 Non-fiction
+10 Bingo (team 5), claimed by Sam in bingo post 12
Post Total: 40
Season Total: 330
20.4 Go for the GoldChina Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford
Review: This book was written in 2005 and so is a decade old at this point. But Gifford's observations are interesting and I am going to have to see if I can find his comments on China since then. Gifford is a British journalist who speaks and reads Mandarin. He had worked in China about 20 years at the time he wrote this book. He took a journey before he left China on Hiway 312 from Shanghai to the western Chinese border with Kazakhstan. He interviews almost random people along the way. He often wins their trust enough to have them open up to him with their non-PC thoughts. Farmers, Amway salesmen, truck drivers, Uighur parents sending their daughter off to high school in the east, women who enforce the one child policy--all paint a picture of China in 2005.
Gifford at that time felt that China was fragile and something might tip it into chaos at any point. So far that hasn't happened and some reforms have been taken.
I recommend this book to readers who want a starting point understanding modern China.
+20 Task
+5 combo 10.7
+10 review
Task total: 35
Grand total: 85
20.10 MetafictionBehind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson has written a multigenerational story about a dysfunctional family. It starts with the conception of the narrator, Ruby Lennox, in York in 1952. Her mother is irritable and unhappy, her father is a philanderer, and her sisters are not very likable. Chapters with Ruby's story moving forward alternate with flashback chapters filling us in on the family history, going back to Ruby's great-grandmother. It's a family tale of loss, lack of fulfillment, and unhappiness. However, Atkinson's ironic sense of humor and Ruby's upbeat personality prevent the story from being a dark book.
Family secrets are foreshadowed, and slowly revealed. One of the most heartbreaking secrets comes close to the end of the book. It's a very complex book with an elaborate plot and many interconnections. The further I read into the book, the more I liked it. The chapters on World Wars I and II were especially poignant. "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" is very sophisticated for a first novel, and the author won the Whitbread Award. Atkinson's great gift is the ability to see the comic in tragic situations.
+20 task
+10 combo (10.2 Picador, 20.3 1996 Boeke Prize)
+10 review
Task total: 40
Grand total: 455
15.6 FYTS: Time Traveller1963-2008
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon
+25 Task (1988)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 365
Task 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Read a book with a title that starts with a letter found in OLYMPICS.
Mad Hatter's Holiday (Sergeant Cribb #4) (1973) by Peter Lovesey (Paperback, 192 pages)
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 265 + 10 =275
20.6 WarTime’s Arrow by Martin Amis
#99 on World War II Fiction
Review
What a strange novel! It’s really got you to use your brain because you have to keep reminding yourself that it is told in reverse chronological order… everything’s going backwards! Not only are the characters get younger but whatever they do (even daily things like eating or washing etc) are the other way around (ie. Instead of imagining food going into your mouth, you’d have to imagine food being regurgitated out and reassembling on the plate). It is definitely a fascinating idea and the choice of character added to the creepy ambience of the novel. It opens with a sort of loser of an old man but we were told that he is haunted with something sinister from his past. We then slowly followed along the journey back until it was all revealed.
+20 Task
+5 Combo (20.7 - MA (Massachusetts))
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 505
20.10 Meta FictionLife After Life by Kate Atkinson
Review: There are no new plots left and if you read enough, everything seems to be a part of a trend. Over the past half year or so I have read three quite different books which deals with the multiple twists and turns a life can take, by having the main character reincarnate over and over again. Life After Life does the same thing, and does it very well.
Ursula Todd is born into a upper middleclass family at the beginning of the 20th century, and lives through the perils of that century (the Spanish Flu, the First and Second World War) over and over again. I'm finding it hard to say much about the book, without spoiling it, but then again, I'm not sure that it's a book that can be spoiled at all.
I like how the book illustrates the more important cruxes of history, for instance the Spanish Flu. It takes several tries before Ursula makes it through the pandemic, which somehow brought home the pervasiveness of the disease to me.
This is a wonderful book and would make for a great bookclub read.
+20 Task
+15 Combo (10.7, 20.5 (#117 on list), 20.6 (#63 on WWII list)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (Read in Danish)
+5 Jumbo (544 pages)
Task total: 60 pts
Bingo bonus: 5 pts
Grand total: 455 pts
10.2 Picador/ViragoCloudstreet by Tim Winton
(Picador)
Review: Cloudstreet is big and messy and slightly confusing, a bit like the Lamb's and the Pickle's that inhabit both the pages and the eponmous house in the suburbs of Perth.
It took me quite a while to get into the book, maybe because I had a hard time relating to the characters, maybe because I listened to it on audio, and the narrator was soft spoken. But this saga of two families bound together by an (almost living) house crept under my skin and stayed there. The characters are wonderfully real and flawed, yet very likable. Nothing much goes on between the pages of the book, except for life which most days is quite unremarkable for all of us. In the end I'm left with a feeling of having read something true, an account of life as it might have been in a working class neighborhood in the suburbs of Perth in the middle of the 20th century.
+10 Task
+20 Combo (10.5 (Australia list), 10.7, 20.3 (Miles Franklin Literary Award 1992), 20.4 (Takes place solely in Australia))
+10 Review
Task total: 40 pts
Grand total: 495 pts
10.4 Opposite ListsThe Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
#79 on Light List
It's nice to lie down at the end of the day, pick up your book and have your 9yo ask "Where are you up to? What has been your favourite story?" She'd read this first, and after reading it myself I was surprised she didn't have many questions at that time. The language is a little harder than she is probably used to in parts, and like all fairy tales there is a little more than there seems to the tale themselves.
It probably helps, in the last instance, that given almost equal space to the stories, the book contains explanations and "historical references" by Albus Dumbledore, which for me where fun to read, but for Miss 9 they probably helped to explain some of the difficulties.
I could see relationships between these Wizarding Fairy Tales and those of us Muggles. One was definitely an alternative version of The Emperor's New Clothes, and whilst I can't think of any others right now, they did occur to me at the time.
+10 Task
+10 review
Task Total = 20
Grand Total = 420
20.1The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Review:
Well, I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. The Alchemist is very different from the type of book I usually read. I think it is the type of book that needs to be read over and over to understand and appreciate the full breadth of what the author is trying to accomplish. It is an inspirational/borderline religious text that the reader can take a lot away from. It has great literary merit. The story is simple and spun with care; constructed in a way that makes it both easy and difficult to get through. This is not a book to speed through but one to think about as you go. At times, I found it a bit preachy and repetitive. Overall, a good read and deserving of its popularity.
+20 Task
+10 LIT
+10 Review
Task Total: 40 pts
Grand Total: 195 pts
20.6 WarSuite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Review: I’ve lost track of how many challenges I’ve slated this book for and not read it, but I had it left on my Kindle from last season and when my BINGO team needed a 20.6 task, I plunged in. I’m not sure what I expected from Suite Francaise, since it’s one of those rare snapshots into history – a novel written during war and never completed – but it turned out to be almost lovely in its execution. I’d expected something rawer, angrier, or more full of fear. Certainly those things are present, and may have become more so had Némirovsky finished it, but the novel is mostly a snapshot of ordinary life, and the villains aren’t really the Germans but wealthy French people. It’s a shame that she was deported and killed before she could finish it – before, even, she knew what the end of the story was – but it’s remarkable nonetheless. I was even more engrossed by the notes at the end, and the letters after she was arrested. It’s amazing how much can survive during times of such chaos.
+20 Task (WWII fiction)
+10 Review
+10 Lost in Translation
+10 Combo (10.7, 20.3, 20.7)
Task Total: 55
Grand Total: 820
10.7 Phoenix and Ashes by Mercedes LackeyReview
This is the third installment in Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series. She blends fairy tales with fantasy. This is a retelling of Cinderella where Cinderella is a fire mage who hasn't come into her powers yet. Her father remarries and the woman he marries is an Earth mage. Intent on inheriting the money for herself, she binds Eleanor(our Cinderella) to the house so she can't leave. This prince is a noble named Reginald who is also an Air master.This book is set during World War I and the "prince" is a war hero. I also liked how the tarot cards were used to teach Eleanor her craft. I liked that the heroine was a strong female and she could handle herself and she had intellect. I strongly suggest reading this series if you enjoy fairy tales and fantasy.
Task +10
Style Review +10
Book Total: 20
Grand Total: 100
10.1 Square PegDay After Night by Anita Diamant
Review:
This is a well crafted story set after WWII in Palestine. The British hold "illegal" immigrants in detention camps as refugees from Europe pour into Palestine after the war. The story centers around four young Jewish women who have lost their families and have come through the war via different routes--from surviving a concentration camp to being part of the resistance. The young women, other refugees, employees, and Jewish volunteers find ways to cope with their histories and look forward to their "processing" and release.
Diamint skillfully weaves in the backgrounds of the young women and some intrigue into the book to make a satisfying and heart-felt story.
I listened to the audio and I wonder how the decisions of what accents to use for people speaking various non-native languages and then presenting them in English. For instance, how does a French woman speaking Hebrew sound when translated into English?
This is a good time to remind ourselves of Israel's past and past refugee crises as the Middle East is in turmoil and religious intolerance is again part of the mix.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 105
20.9 PoliticalThe Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer
Review:
Life is the only reason it took me so long to read this wonderfully written novel. It has all the twists and turns that make a book interesting to me.
Wes, a White House staffer, finds his life blown up by the ricochet from a bullet that killed Boyle. So how could he be seeing Boyle years later? And, if Boyle is alive, what happened that day he was disfigured? And, that is the thread that starts the unraveling of the story of that tragic day so long ago.
I gave this book 4* and would recommend it highly. This was my first Brad Metzger book, but it will not be the last!
+20 Task (Approved in thread)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 175
Five Years Through Summer (1970-2015) - Time Leaper15.4 - year 2015
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
+15 task
Grand Total: 190
10.4 Opposite ListsFrom "Light but not (too) dumb" list:
#37 - She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
Review:
This is a book that I had started a long time in the past, but I was really unable to connect to it so it ended on the "try again sometime in the future shelf". I finished it this go-around primarily because I was reading it for a group challenge, rather than for my own pleasure. I gave it 3*.
This is definitely a "coming of age" story...or at least a growing up and maturing story since it occurs in young adulthood rather than just the teen years.
I really had a hard time connecting with Dolores. I understood her teen issues and how hard it was for her but she was also a very manipulative woman - from stealing her roommate's letters to actually maneuvering to marry the guy who wrote those letters years later. She just was not a very admirable woman - even with the sympathy vote.
+10 Task
+5 Combo
+10 Review
Task total: 25
Grand Total: 215
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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Laura Brown (other topics)
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1965-2015
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
+15 Task
+10 bonus
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 505