Reading with Style discussion
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SP 19 Completed Tasks
20.6 - Wilkie Collins, similar to BronteThe Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
+20 task
+15 oldies (published in 1859)
+5 jumbo (672pg.)
+5 combo (10.9 - half-sisters)
Task total: 45
Grand total: 400
15.10 AbCAll the Names by José Saramago
Finland--Mikael Agricola-palkinto 2001
Task total: 40
Finisher bonus 10 countries: 150
Season total: 865
20.1 Moll FlandersArabella by Georgette Heyer
+20 Task
+10 combo 10.8, 20.2
+5 Oldies (published 1949)
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 1100
10.8 MegafinishThe Sky Over Lima by Juan Gómez Bárcena
+10 Task (S)
+10 LiT
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 695
20.6 Ellen FosterThe Professor by Charlotte Brontë
20 task
10 review
15 Oldie (1857)
task total 45
season total 1075
The Professor by Charlotte Brontë was published posthumously by Charlotte's husband. Charlotte had attempted to submit it, but the publishers declined the book. She then went on to write Jane Eyre which was a tremendous success.
I do not feel that this book is as strong as Jane Eyre. There were sections within the book that were better and others that were weak. Some sections are very close to events in her own life where she was a student, and then a teacher. I felt the experience of reading this book was more academic, and not a fun read. I liked the ending, yet few books can really compare to the masterpieces the Bronte sisters wrote.
20.9 True CrimePublic Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough
Bryan Burrough started the research on this book when he realized that Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, the Ma Barker Gang and other high profile kidnappers and bank robbers operated at the same time—1933-34. And they were being tracked down by the newly emerging FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI files were being made public and Burroughs was able to track down unpublished manuscripts from some of the participants and he also relied on the research of other authors who had interviewed survivors.
This is a very detailed story of the movements and crimes of the “public enemies” and the FBI team following them. It is told mostly chronologically. There are so many people involved that it is often difficult to follow who they are.
But Burroughs describes the main events so well that I found myself tearing through sections as if this was a crime novel where I didn’t know the outcome.
+20 task
+10 review
+5 combo 10.3
+5 jumbo
Task total: 40
Season total: 460
10.3 Scrabble Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine K. Albright
In this book Madeleine Albright defines fascism (a more slippery term to pin down than I realized!) and then launches into case studies of a huge number of 20th and 21st century fascist leaders. I definitely found this book interesting -- even in sections on people I knew quite a bit about, there were new bits of information and ideas. It was interesting (though depressing) to have such a long parade of fascist leaders, one after the other, and to see their similarities and differences. I think what struck me the most was how many different ways there were for a fascist leader to take power -- if the goal is power, there seem to be endless ways for it to happen!
+10 task
+5 combo (10.8)
+10 review
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 325
10.8 MegafinishAmerican Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
This was a really enjoyable read. On one level it's a spy story -- not necessarily breakneck action but definitely some mystery and intrigue. But more so, I'd say it's a solid literary portrayal of an African American woman in the 1980s who joins the CIA for complex personal reasons and experiences what I'd imagine was a pretty typical mix of success, setbacks, outright racism and sexism, and questionable moments when she had to make tough decisions about what she believed and stood for. Some readers didn't like the fact that it was told in the form of a letter to her sons, a few years after leaving the CIA, but I didn't mind it. I didn't think it needed to be done that way, but it worked perfectly well for me. I enjoyed the story and I enjoyed the unique perspective on a typical spy story.
+10 task
+10 review
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 345
15.10 Awards by CountryCzech Republic - Franz Kafka Prize
The Tent by Margaret Atwood
+40 Task
+100 Finisher Bonus (9 countries)
Post Total: 140
Season Total: 555
15.6. AbC Australia - Children’s Book Council of Australia Award
Not in the Brooklyn Library Catalog
Master of the Grove by Victor Kelleher
+20 pts - Task
Season Total - 780 pts
10.8 Megafinish:Armada by Ernest Cline
Review: This is the second book by Cline that I've read, the first being Ready Player One which was made into a movie last year. This novel is is very similar to Ready Player One in the sense of the protagonist being a young man who is a computer geek who loves to spend all day playing games. If you're a fan of computer games, 80s popular culture, or just generally a geek, you'll love this one. There are hundreds of references to movies, songs, bands, games. The plot is quite straightforward and simplistic, but it is fun, and the ultimate point is that being a computer geek who just plays all the time is sometimes just the thing to save the entire world.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 165
Task 10.4 AnimalRead a book with the name of an animal in the title.
Tigers in Red Weather (2012) by Liza Klaussmann
Review: I was disappointed in this book. I had expected a historical novel set in post-World-War-II America. The setting was correct but the focus of the novel was in detailing the interactions of a woman “Nick” and her cousin / daughter / husband / social group. They are an upper-class family with an inherited beach home located somewhat vaguely on Martha’s Vineyard / Chappaquiddick Island group. The story begins right after the end of World War II, when Nick’s husband Hughes returns from the war, and ends in 1969. The style of writing is suitable for a beach read, light and breezy, and focused on the author telling the reader what is happening (as opposed to showing the reader what is happening). My main complaint about the novel: all of the characters are unlikeable and mean people, with one exception; and even that one exception is a teenaged girl who is willfully ignorant of the events swirling around her. I found the perfect word for the experience of reading this novel: Schadenfreude , defined as “the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another”. Not recommended.
+10 Task
+05 Combo (#10.3 “wea the r”)
+10 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 + 10 = 25
Grand Total: 420 + 25 = 445
10.4 AnimalThe Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
This novel has in abundance the two elements I like best: good prose and good characterization. But it has no plot. Surely there has to be something to carry the characterizations? Anthony Trollope wrote that a good story is nothing without the feeling of real people to carry it along. While plot isn't top most for me, there has to be one. More's the pity, because there is a good plot running in the background and I yearned for it.
At the beginning is the uprising in Sicily, which began the unification of Italy. Somewhere in my reading I had already known this happened in or about 1860, so my mind was settled on the time period. The Salina family symbol is a Leopard and this is the story of the family told primarily in the time of its Prince, Don Fabrizio. In fact, I would have been happy having just his story and that of his nephew, Tancredi. Unfortunately, the story goes beyond their demise. We see the family is weakened, but in telling us this, I thought the novel also weakened.
I wanted to like this so much more. Sometimes wishes don't become reality. The author wrote just this one novel. Too bad, because he had so much potential.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+ 5 combo (10.3)
+ 5 Oldies
+10 LiT
Task Total = 40
Season total = 960
+ 5 Oldies (1957)
20.9 True Crime Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
This book was absolutely riveting! It tells the story of the rise and eventual takedown of the company Theranos, which purported to be able to run hundreds of blood tests easily and quickly with a single finger stick. In fact, they had no ability to do this and went to great lengths to cover up the problems with their product and intimidate employees who raised questions. I have to say I had really missed all the events of this book while they were happening, so it was all new to me, but I think even if I had followed the news of Theranos more closely at the time, it would have been fascinating reading the backstory here. I would not say I have an abiding interest in Silicon Valley or medical technology but the smooth, compelling writing style and fascinating story made it worth reading.
+20 task (shelved 382 times as true crime)
+10 review
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 375
20.6 Ellen Foster Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
This was a strange, short book that tells the story of Ellen Foster, an abused and neglected young girl in the American South who eventually finds a home where she is safe. After reading, I looked at a bunch of Goodreads reviews and it seems to be polarizing among readers. It was hard to read the details of her life with her father, and then her grandmother wasn't much better! But at the same time, I enjoyed the characterization of Ellen, who came across as a serious, determined, and resolute child, obviously wise beyond her years. The casual racism of the time was also hard to read. The writing style was spare and serious -- I wouldn't say I loved the book but it was worth reading.
+20 task
+15 combo (10.2 - 1987; 10.8; 20.1)
+10 review
+5 oldies (pub 1987)
Task Total: 50
Season Total: 425
20.7 Anna KareninaA Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf was asked to give lectures on women and writing fiction. She expanded her thoughts into the book, "A Room of One's Own". Since the book was published in 1929, we have to take ourselves back to that era. In England, a married woman was not allowed by law to possess her own property until 1880, and women were given the vote in 1919. At that time women had fewer opportunities to be educated and travel. They were also expected to marry at a young age, manage a household, and raise large families.
Woolf says that a woman must have money and a room of her own to be able to write. She needs money with no strings attached, such as Woolf's bequest of 500 pounds yearly from a deceased aunt. The woman writer needs to be able to rent a room away form the household with its constant interruptions.
Woolf recommends that both men and women write with an androgynous mind: "It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man womanly....And fatal is no figure of speech for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death."
The author imagines what would have happened back in 1600 if William Shakespeare had an equally talented sister who wanted to write. The sister would not have been educated, and would have been forced to marry a man that her father chose. If she ran away, she would not have been able to get a job as an actor since all the actors were male. She probably would have become the mistress of someone in the theater to keep from starving, and soon would have become pregnant with an illegitimate child. Even if she possessed the same talent as her brother, there would have been a different outcome.
"Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh."
+20 task (# 486 on list)
+ 5 combo 10.8 Megafinish
+10 oldie pub 1929
+10 review
Task total: 45
Season total: 910
15.9. AbCIsrael 1983 Jerusalem Prize. The Enigma of Arrival: A Novel in Five Sections by V.S. Naipaul
Task total: 30 pts
Season total: 1155 pts
10.8 - MegafinishSweets, Begorra by Connie Shelton
+10 task
+5 Combo (10.3)
Task total: 15
Grand total: 325
10.6 Public DomainThe Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.8 M, 10.9 features twin sisters Dulcie and Bella Duveen, known as Dulcibella on stage (view spoiler))
+10 Oldies (1923)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 725
10.2 DecadeThe Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
+10 task (1987)
+ 5 combo (10.3)
+ 5 oldies
+ 5 jumbo
Task total=25
Grand total=35
10.3 ScrabbleFascism: A Warning by Madeleine K. Albright
+10 task
+ 5 combo (10.8)
Task total=15
Grand total=50
10.3 ScrabbleCheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell
+10 task
Task total=10
Grand total=60
10.3 ScrabbleDouble Sin and Other Stories by Agatha Christie
+10 task
+ 5 oldies (1961)
Task total=15
Grand total=85
10.9 SistersSisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager
+10 task
+10 combo (10.3, 10.8)
Task total=20
Grand total=105
10.9 SistersDivided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia by Pamela Spiro Wagner
+10 task
+ 5 combo (10.3)
Task total=15
Grand total=120
20.8 PoetryThe Fabulous Beasts: Poems and Anonymous Sins and Other Poems by Joyce Carol Oates
+20 task
+ 5 combo (10.8)
+ 5 oldies
Task total=30
Grand total=150
'20.6 Ellen FosterThe Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Another book I just loved, Right from the first ‘events related by’ I was caught up. I know I’ve mentioned this in other reviews……, but sometimes I have to wonder about myself and why I tend to approach ‘classics’ with trepidation. This is definitely a classic worth the time. It is so very well told and written. It does not seem stale or ‘old-fashioned’ in anyway. Given it’s age, I didn’t expect it to be so readable.
It was a great mystery to me – I had my suspicions but Collins was able to carry it out to the end without flagging. I’m sure anyone who has read this will agree when I say the left turn at the ¾ mark was crazy and unexpected! Wilkie really knew how to keep the reader engaged! I liked everything about this book – the mystery, the romance, the empathy to the human condition, etc, etc,… 5*
20 task
10 review
15 oldie
5 jumbo
10 combo 10.8,20.3
_____
60
Running total: 1080
Post 759 Beth wrote: "20.8 PoetryThe Ash and the Thorn - God on Trial? a Poetic Quest by Leonard H. Roller
+20 task
+5 combo 10.8
Task total: 20
Grand total: 1645"
I couldn't find any information on this author. Do you have a reference?
10.4 Animal in the TitleDeer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant
Deer Hunting with Jesus was published in 2007. So it would seem like it should be dated. But Bageant is prescient. He predicts the mortgage crisis, and although he is explaining the people who voted for George W. Bush, they certainly sound like Trump’s voters. Bageant has the perfect background to report from. He grew up in Winchester, VA. He has returned 30 years later after tours through Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon. He describes with passion and humor his family, school mates, neighbors and friends. And he tries to get urban and suburban lefty, educated, white Americans to understand these working class borderlanders and to understand the danger that they represent to the U.S.
Like several other reviewers, I have difficulty understanding his ideas about guns. Yes, I get meat hunting and don’t think many people object to hunting. But Bageant goes into self defense and gives without attribution a statistic on how many rapes have been prevented by a woman having a gun or knife. This is at time where we are having difficulty collecting statistics on how many people are killed by guns. So who knows where he got his number.
His warnings are even more important than they were a decade ago. And although he doesn’t seem to have any solutions for us, it is a very good explanation of what we are facing
+10 task
+5 combo 10.3
+10 review
Task total: 25
Season total: 485
This website has the text of the bio in the book of poetry. If him writing a business book in 1986 isnt enough for born 20th century that is fine, please remove the points. His own website doesnt appear to be active any longer.http://www.imshelfish.com/2014/05/int...
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 759 Beth wrote: "20.8 Poetry
The Ash and the Thorn - God on Trial? a Poetic Quest by Leonard H. Roller
+20 task
+5 combo 10.8
Task total: 20
Grand total: 16..."
10.8 megafinishThe Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming
I enjoyed this very different Bond novel, written from the perspective of the saved damsel. But there are problematic misogyny issues in the writing, as usual that may or may not be worth getting past.
The narrator is presented as resilient and capable, although naive and having fallen twice to the traps that "mama warns you" about regarding sex before marriage. They were presented sympathetically and bluntly at the same time. I wonder if in the cultural context they helped some people see "fallen" women as more real.
Plus then being the ideal wish fulfillment Bond girl in appreciating him and having zero intention of trying to have contact with him because if would go against his nature, and even living at the end of the book! Having had her soul healed by him, of course... I do not really feel these are spoilers, any more than saying Bond prevails over the bad guys is a spoiler.
The most cringe inducing comment was about "semi-rape" and would, if using different terminology, fall into the category exploited by thousands of romance novels - strong dangerous man being gentle for the heroine - but with the wording focuses less on the respect part of that. So much cringing on my part reading it because it explicitly plays into encouraging men to think women want a certain behavior, even if they dont say so.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 oldies
Task total: 25
Grand total: 1680
10.8 Megafinish (Lagullande's Task via Tien)The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm
I expected to enjoy this tome much more than I did. In this case, the tales as changed over the years in their re-tellings are much better. This is more of a collection of "scary" tales. So many of the stories have vividly violent scenes...for example, the last tale has a woman shut inside a barrel that has been studded with nails inside...and then she and the barrel are dragged by a team of horses until she dies.
It is also tiresome to read many different versions of the same story...most of which have only slight variations. And most of the stories use repetition anyway within each story. I don't need to read about any more princesses pledged to marry some prince who can answer a riddle or complete some impossible task. I'm going to give 3 stars generously for the historic value of this compilation. Another notch on my journey through the list of 1000 Children Books You Should Read Before You Grow Up.
Task=10
Review=10
Oldie=15 (1812)
jumbo=15 (880)
LiT= 10
Task total= 60
grand total= 1160
RwS bonus=100
Megafinish bonus= 200
Final Grand Total = 1465
Ed wrote: "10.8 Megafinish (Lagullande's Task via Tien)The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm
I expected to enjoy this tome much more than I did. In this case, the ta..."
Well done, Ed!
Post 797 Beth wrote: "This website has the text of the bio in the book of poetry. If him writing a business book in 1986 isnt enough for born 20th century that is fine, please remove the points. His own website doesnt a..."It's good, Beth. I wasn't so diligent, it seems.
It took me some digging to find it when I set aside the book as a possible read :) then I wasn't thinking about it when I posted. Thanks.
10.7 Olive KitteridgeThe Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
This book is everything I want from fantasy--complicated world that makes intrinsic sense and is full of interesting characters who are actually doing something instead of just milling around telling you about their world. The author never stops the plot to explain things, but I was always following and felt like I understood the important points about how this world works.
Also, characters here have sexuality that isn't the focus of their characters. There's a trans-woman and her experience is described, but it isn't the only thing we learn about the character; there's a three-way family unit that exists for a time and it's just taken as routine. Similarly, characters here have physical racial characteristics that the other characters use to try to place their origin, but the skin color of a character is just part of the package of what we know about a character. In 2019, I shouldn't still be impressed by this, but I find it rare still in a lot of novels.
I will definitely read more from this series and this author.
Also, the reader for the audiobook did an excellent job and handled the combination of scientific and made-up-scientific words with ease. I hope it's the same reader for the rest of the trilogy.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8, 20.5)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 865
20.6 Ellen FosterA Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll
This book consists of a series of puzzles (called "knots") of the missionaries and cannibals problem (wherein one must get all the people across a river in a boat that only holds xx persons and there are constraints about who can travel together or be left alone on one or the other side of the river). Some of the problems were more math based and some were more like traveling salesmen type maps.
Overall, many of these "knots" felt more like tricks than like puzzles or problems. I got fewer than half of the solutions correct, but in reading the answers, I sometimes felt that I'd been unfairly tricked by the phrasing of the problem rather than by a failure of thought. I suppose that's the way with these things.
At the end of the book, the author gives the solutions and also reviews the solutions that were sent in when these problems were published. I enjoyed reading the answers and hearing about the wrong answers that others had come up with--at least that made me feel better about failing to find the correct solution so often.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.3, 10.8, 10.9, 10.2)
+10 Oldies (1885)
Task total: 60
Grand total: 925
+100 RWS finish
Grand total: 1025
20.4 NefertitiInnocent Traitor by Alison Weir
I didn't know a thing about Lady Jane Grey. Honestly, as far as I knew Elizabeth I took the throne immediately following the death of Henry VIII. SO WRONG!
And poor Jane, the "nine days queen"! She was a pawn her entire life, right up until the time she was beheaded--at age 16/17 (as her date of birth is unknown, her age at date of death can only be approximated). She sounds like someone I would have been friends with--she just wanted to be left alone with her books and had not a care for the machinations of the court. Too bad for her, her parents were obsessed with them and as the eldest child of her family, all of the hopes for raising their status fell on her and her marriage potential.
I felt so bad for her--her mother was wretched and abusive, her father made it plain that he wanted a boy and was disappointed in his daughter, while her younger sister, Catherine, was doted upon and spoiled (though her youngest sister, Mary, seems to have been basically ignored--she was born a hunchback and a girl, so was of no use to their scheming parents).
I'm so glad I read this to better understand this period in history a bit better and extremely glad to have found this new author who made it interesting, really put you in the action without resorting to bodice-ripping tactics to keep your interest (I'm looking at you, Philippa Gregory).
Also: one of her favorite books was Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table which I have been struggling through. I picked it back up after finishing this book and it's easier to read now, after putting myself in the historical mindset to appreciate it! I may yet finish it (finally).
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8, 10.9--the relationship between Jane and Catherine is definitely covered more than Jane and Mary, but they're still all sisters)
Task total: 40
Season total: 1775
20.5 Myra BreckenridgeAll We Can Do Is Wait by Richard Lawson (900 Lexile)
I haven't read a YA book in a while. It used to be one of my go-to genres. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I might be done with it--if not forever, at least for a very long time :'-(
This one felt like it was trying a
It's about a group of teenagers who meet at a hospital in Boston after a bridge collapses and they're waiting to hear if their loved ones survived: Jason and Alexa are waiting to hear about their parents; Skyler is there for her sister, Kate; Scott is waiting for word on his girlfriend; Morgan is there for her father.
Most of the book is back story, explaining the relationships that tie these kids to the people they are waiting for (or waiting with, as in the case of Jason and Alexa).
While I normally appreciate this device, each of the stories felt melodramatic and angsty.
And it feels like the author has serious mommy issues: Jason and Alexa's mom sounds like a wealthy wino who has no time for her kids; Skyler and Kate's mom abandons them to go "find herself" in San Fransisco; Morgan's mom was a nurse who became a drug addict and abandoned her family. Ugh. Maybe he was trying to show how truly imperfect everyone's family/life is even when it seems ideal from the outside looking in, but COME ON!
Also, it seemed like he was trying to tackle too many issues: homosexuality/coming out, physical abuse, cancer, first loves/first break ups, poverty/wealth divide, immigrant experience, drunk driving, drug abuse...it was a bit much is all.
+20 Task (Jason's homosexuality and first relationship is a big part of the story)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8: "All"; 10.9: Skyler and Kate's relationship is also a main focus of the story)
Task total: 40
Season total: 1815
From Post 65Rebekah wrote: "20.6 Ellen Foster
Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
+20 pts - Task
+10 pts Combo (10.8, 20.1)
+ 5 pts - oldies
Task Total - 35 pts
Season Total -60 pts"
+5 Combo 10.2
From Post 658Bea wrote: "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..."
+Combo 10.8
From Post 695Coralie wrote: "10.8 Megafinish
Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 950"
+5 Jumbo
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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)
More...
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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America - ALA Alex Award 2015
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 200