Reading with Style discussion
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SP 19 Completed Tasks
15.8 Awards by Country Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Netherlands - Luisterboek Award
30 task
____
30
Running total: 680
10.8 MegafinishThe Flaw in All Magic by Ben S. Dobson
This was a mystery story of the development of a "private eye" in a magical world. The main character is a non mage who successfully got himself through mage school, revealed himself at the end, and got himself ejected without a diploma. He has a solid voice and a quest to prove that the mage himself is a flaw and so normal people should know more about magic. He does so spectacularly (including setbacks) when presented with the chance. What really makes the book shine while reading it is his half orc partner and her absolute insistence on being involved (as an equal, this is not a comedic sidekick). Their dynamic is fresh, really helps move things forward, and added to my enjoyment of the book. The pace of the mystery development and backstory development was also well done.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 1205
20.2 RebeccaMidnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine
Born in Nottingham, The United Kingdom, August 10, 1944
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.8 - M for Midnight)
+5 Oldies (pub 1994)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 715
15.6 Awards by CountryUSA - National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 300
20.5 Myra BreckinridgeThe Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino
This is beautifully detailed, imaginative historical fiction, featuring longing and secrets and a kaleidoscope of overlapping love triangles. The book is not as melodramatic as the existence of multiple love triangles makes it sound; no two sides of any of those triangles is the same kind of love, they're all at different angles, and the result is a complicated portrait of love, obligations, and human care (or not). I liked this a lot.
While the publisher comparisons to Fingersmith and Slammerkin correctly identify The Parting Glass's literary family (and why I picked it up), it doesn't have the elegance or the twists of Fingersmith or Slammerkin's energy or brutality. It has different strengths: the world-building of a diverse 1830s New York seething with nativism, and a likeable protagonist narrating with sincerity her minor cons and negotiating her secret lives.
+20 Task -- protagonist is a lesbian
+5 Combo (10.3 PAR-TIN-G)
+10 Review
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 335
From Post 566Deedee wrote: "Task 10.3 Scrabble
In honor of National Scrabble Day on April 13th, read a book with a 7-letter word in the title.
EXP LAI N
Men Explain Things to Me (2014) by [author:Rebecca So..."
+5 Combo 10.8
20.3 Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in LettersMeet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
"Meet Me at the Museum" is a delightful epistolary novel about a man and a woman who find themselves disappointed later in life. They are two strangers who begin a correspondence by chance when Tina, a farmer's wife in England, writes to Anders, a curator at Denmark's Silkeborg Museum. She has had an interest in the Tollund Man who was found in the Danish bogs and is exhibited at the museum. At first Tina and Anders seem very different because she works with her hands at a busy, cluttered farm while Anders works with his mind in a neat office. But they are both very observant, and they understand each other emotionally since Tina is in an unfulfilling marriage and Anders is a lonely widower. They are able to help each other through some rough times through their thoughtful letters. The end of the book is ambiguous leaving the reader wondering if they will ever meet in person. There are many paths we can take in life, and this charming book makes one think about our own choices along with Tina's and Ander's choices.
+20 task
+10 combo 10.8, 20.2 (approved in help thread)
+10 review
Task total: 40
Season total: 575
10.3 ScrabbleMelmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin
I'm still plugging away at The Novel Project in The Roundtable group as part of my goals for the year and I read Melmoth the Wanderer slowly over the past two months. I enjoyed parts of it quite a bit. If it had continued throughout as it began, it might even have been a 5 star read. Unfortunately, it bogged down in some sections after starting with a lot of action and intrigue. The gothic feeling at the beginning was well established, but a later section on a nearly deserted island didn't feel too "eerie" to me and I didn't find the romance that was the focus of the section compelling. From there the book had high points and boring parts, but overall it was enjoyable enough and I like reading books that preceded and established other writing style in a genre.
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.8 Megafinish
+10 Review
+15 Oldies (1820)
+ 5 Jumbo
Task Total: 45
Season Total: 930
10.4 AnimalHow to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher
How to Cook a Wolf is a book of essays about cooking well and frugally published in 1942 and influenced by the job of preparing food for a family in wartime. I ended up liking this quite a bit. My mom had me in 1953 and worked hard to be a good homemaker and cook and we ate on the 3 full meals a day and desert plan. I've learned many new habits through Weight Watchers and a lot of what Fisher said fit in and explained why my mom took the path she did and my mother-in-law instead continued many of her frugal war habits. I laughed out loud a few times, too. At one point she said you could light incense for odors if you didn't know her and never would have her over to your house or something to that effect and that cracked me up. I found the blackouts and preparations for war time cooking and eating interesting as well.
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.8 Megafinish
+10 Review
+10 Oldies-76 to 150 years old: 10 points (1869-1943)
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 985
10.5 Civil WarWild Seed by Octavia E. Butler
+10 Task
+ 5 Oldies - 25 to 75 years old: 5 points (1944-1994)
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 1000
20.1 Moll FlandersRoseanna by Maj Sjöwall
+20 Task
+ 5 Oldies-25 to 75 years old: 5 points (1944-1994)
+10 LIT
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 1035
20.6 Ellen FosterVillette by Charlotte Brontë
+20 Task
+ 5 Jumbo
+15 Oldies (1853) -151 to 250 years old: 15 points (1769-1868)
Task Total: 40
Season Total: 1075 (adjusted)
20.8 Poetry (Beth's Task) The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye
+20 Task
Season Total: 1095 (adjusted)
10.3 ScrabbleCreative Illustration Workshop for Mixed-Media Artists: Seeing, Sketching, Storytelling, and Using Found Materials by Katherine Dunn
Task total: 10
Grand total: 1205
20.9 True Crime The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller (2016)+20 task
+10 review
+5 Combo Scrabble 10.3 - Murders
Task 35
Season Total 875
I was trying to avoid murder stories, but the librarian at my school recommended this book to me so..... This is well-written and well-researched. The author wanted to be as fair as possible. She meant to show the true position of people on both sides, and I believe that she did that admirably. She also had a very obvious dislike of the excesses of the press at the time of Lizzie Borden's trial. I gave the book 4 stars due to the integrity of the author. It is not a genre I enjoy at all, but the writing was well
done.
Note about lexile level. I did check it out from my Middle School library. It is not listed in Lexile.com yet. Brooklyn Public library lists it as Juvenile Non-fiction grade level 7.8. I personally estimated the level at between 900 -1100, before looking it up. This website https://lexile.com/parents-students/m... lists grade levels with lexile range equivalents. This is something I regularly use when I make my lesson plans.
7th grade 925L to 1235L
8th grade 985L to 1295L
20.7 Anna Karenina:Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (#290 on the list)
Review: This book has been on my "to read" list for around 5 years, and I finally got round to reading it. I found it extremely easy to read, and couldn't put it down because it was fascinating. Despite having been written 20 years ago in America, and me only having ever lived in Europe, I think that lots of what the author teaches us in the book applies to the UK as well. The main difference, as also outlined by Polly Toynbee in her introduction, is the existence of the NHS, which means that at least in the UK, no matter how poor you are, you are guaranteed basic medical care, so you will not be going bankrupt if you get ill.
For anyone who doesn't know anything about this book, the author is a journalist who in 1999 went undercover in several different US states and tried to earn a living doing low-paid jobs, such as housecleaning, waitressing, working in retail and care homes. She describes the work, her colleagues and bosses, and how she discovered that it is almost impossible to make enough money doing those jobs to be able to have a safe home and eat well enough to actually keep healthy. She proves (as if there was still doubt) that hard work is not a way out of poverty in today's modern society, as entry level or "low skilled" jobs do not pay enough to make a living if you're on your own or a single parent. She keeps a careful diary of her expenses and describes the sorts of places you can expect to live, and outlines what a toll this has on her. Basically, she comes to the conclusion that "low-skilled" jobs actually require a lot of skill and physical effort, and the pay is a disgrace, and anyone who says that if you're poor, it's because you're just lazy, is talking nonsense. She describes how her colleagues all have at least 2, if not 3 jobs, working 15 hours per day 7 days a week, but are still poor, because of the cost of housing, transport to work, and medical insurance or bills, as the wages have not kept up at all with the cost of living.
+20 task
+10 review
+10 combos (10.3 Scrabble - "getting" is 7-letter word, and 10.8 Megafinish - "nickel" starts with "n")
Task total: 40
Grand total: 145
10.9 Sisters (Coralie's Task)Wise Children by Angela Carter
Hmmmm... well that was different!
I didn't love this book but it has something. The basic story is silly... a family saga - only here almost everyone in the family is a twin...and a celebrity of sorts. (Shakespeare is the muse for most of the family.) Add in a lot of confused paternity...a dash of questionable maternity...and the reader has a puzzle to identify the meaning of identity. The story is told by one of the aged daughters who with her twin sister became quasi- song and dance celebrities. I kept trying to think of a real life equivalent...and the best I could think of was Joan Rivers. Now Joan Rivers wasn't a song and dance gal...but her personality was over the top and uninhibited...as is almost everyone depicted in this novel. In real life, this family would be beating the Kardashians with their own reality show. Worth the read if for no other reason than the novelty of its voice. 3 stars.
Task=10
Combo= 5 (20.2)
Review=10
oldie=5 (1991)
Task total= 30
grand total= 935
Post 608 Deedee wrote: "Task 20.8 Poetry Read a book of poetry written by an author born in the 20th century (1901 to 2000).
author: Mary Oliver b. 1935
Books:
Felicity (2015) by [author:Mary Oliver|23..."
Both titles qualify for 10.8 Megafinish - so 5 combo points!
Post 624 Karen Michele wrote: "20.6 Ellen FosterVillette by Charlotte Brontë
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo: 20.7 Anna Kerenina
+ 5 Jumbo
+15 Oldies (1853) -151 to 250 years old: 15 points (1769-1868)
Task ..."
I'm sorry, Karen. This doesn't work for 20.7 because the book needs to be in the top 500 on that list and Villette is too far down the list.
Post 629 Lynn wrote: "20.9 True Crime The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller (2016)+20 task
+10 review
+5 Combo Scrabble 10.3 - Murders
Season Total 875
I was ..."
We need to have an actual Lexile score, rather than an estimate from an outside source. But you are safe with this one, because Lexile *has* scored it, and at 1100.
20.8- PoetryWomen Do This Every Day by Lillian Allen
Proof of date of birth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian...
Task: 20
Oldies: Published in 1993- 5 points
Post total: 25
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 624 Karen Michele wrote: "20.6 Ellen FosterVillette by Charlotte Brontë
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo: 20.7 Anna Kerenina
+ 5 Jumbo
+15 Oldies (1853) -151 to 250 years ol..."
Oops - sorry for the goof-
15.10 Awards by CountryMonkey Beach by Eden Robinson
Canada - Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
40 task
150 bonus, 10 countries
____
190
Running total: 900
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 629 Lynn wrote: "20.9 True Crime The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller (2016)+20 task
+10 review
+5 Combo Scrabble 10.3 - Murders
Se..."
Oh good. I should not have added the subtitle.
15.5 AbCNetherlands - WIZO Literatuurprijs (2013)
The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 555
10.2 DecadeOn The Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
+10 Task (1982)
+ 5 Oldies
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 570
20.6 Ellen FosterEvelina by Fanny Burney
+20 Task
+15 Combo (10.8, 20.1 approved, 20.3 entirely letters)
+15 Oldies (1778)
Post Total: 50
Season Total: 620
10.3 Seven Letter WordRandom Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
This is a powerful book. I have read reviews and interviews of the author that have focused on the criminal justice system and the war on drugs and reviews that have focused on poverty and the difficulty of navigating our safety net. But to me on this Mothers’ Day the book is about motherhood.
The book is about Coco and Jessica, who each have 5 children by a number of different fathers starting in their teens and Milagros, who raises Jessica’s children while Jessica is in prison and the young mothers’ relationships with their own mothers—Lourdes and Foxy. And the oldest daughters, Serena and Mercedes as they become teens themselves. How do you feed, cloth, house, protect, educate and form family relationships in such challenging circumstances when your own role models have done so poorly themselves.
This is a “fly-on-the-Wall” book where the author was there many times and interviewed the families but does not appear in the narrative.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Season total: 385
15.7 Awards by CountryUSA - Locus Award for Best Novel
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 355
20.9 True Crime (Kate S's Task)The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
Shelved as true-crime by 54 users
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.3 - FALLING)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 740
Hi Kate:for post 6 - I should have claimed a combo with 20.9, please add 5 to my score. Thanks
10.8 Megafinish (Lagullande's Task via Tien)Read a book where the first word of the title starts with a letter in MEGAFINISH.
Friendship Bread by Darien Gee
F found in Megafinish
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 10
15.1 AbCGermany - Deutscher Krimi Preis (the oldest and most prestigious German literary prize for crime fiction)
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 35
15.2 AbCUK - Saltire Society Literary Award for Fiction Book of the Year (2016)
His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 50
20.5 Myra BreckinridgeRead a book in which the protagonist is LGBTQ.
A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King
I do not usually seek out LGBTQ books. And, I generally do not like most written for that community as they appear to me to be carrying an agenda. But, occasionally, I find a writer who writes a good story and the LGBTQ aspect is just part of the character rather than the single focus of the story.
Imagine my pleasure if finding this book fit that criteria for me. The story is well told; the characterizations of Kate, Al and Vaun totally natural and believable; and the LGBTQ portion of Kate's private life revealed only as it was needed. I gave this book an easy 4*.
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.8 - Megafinish)
+10 Review
Point Total: 35
Season Total: 85
20.7 Anna KareninaRead one of the top 500 books from the Books Everyone Should Read at Least Once list.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
+20 Task (#360 on list)
+10 Combo (10.4 - sheep, 10.5 - Philip [Major General Philip Kearney, Jr. and General Philip Sheridan]
+5 Oldie (first published 1968)
Point Total: 35
Season Total: 120
10.3 The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King
+10 task
+5 combo (10.2 - 1987)
+5 oldies (1987)
Task total: 20
Grand total: 215
20.9 - true crime 2,806 timesI'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
+20 task
+5 combo (10.8)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 240
20.1Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block (yes, that's actually the main character's name)
YA, lexile 960
+20 task
+5 combo (10.2 - 1989)
+5 oldies (1989)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 270
20.8 Poetry (Beth's Task)Read a book of poetry written by an author born in the 20th century (1901 to 2000).
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Lexile 990L
+20 Task (author born 1963)
Point Total: 20
Season Total: 140
20.9 True Crime (Kate S's Task)Read a book shelved by at least 50 readers as true-crime.
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon
+20 Task (MPG Crime>True Crime 458 users)
+5 Oldie (first published 1991)
+5 Jumbo (599p)
Point Total: 30
Season Total: 170
20.4 NefertitiDoc by Mary Doria Russell
Task - 20 pts
Combo - 5 pts (10.7)
Task total - 25 pts
Season Total - 515
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
The Enormous Room (other topics)The Address (other topics)
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter (other topics)
Sense and Sensibility (other topics)
My Brilliant Friend (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
E.E. Cummings (other topics)Fiona Davis (other topics)
Theodora Goss (other topics)
Jane Austen (other topics)
Elena Ferrante (other topics)
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The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Denmark - Palle Rosenkrantz Prisen
20 task
____
20
Running total: 650