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SP 19 Completed Tasks
20.7 Anna KareninaSomething Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town #2) by Ray Bradbury
+20 Task (#352)
+5 Combo (10.8)
+5 Oldies (pub 1962)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 295
15.6-Australia- Victorian Premier's Literary Award
Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan
Task Total = 20
Grand Total= 295
15.5 Awards by CountryThe Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
UK - Somerset Maugham Award
20 task
___
20
Running total: 430
15.2Japan - SF go Yomatai 2012 award for best translated
The City & the City by China Miéville
Task total: 15
Grand total: 380
10.9 SistersThe Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand
Too bad I wasn't on a beach for this one, cuz it's a perfect beach-read: two identical sisters, split apart when they were 17 and their parents divorced, switching places as adults. It's only believable when you've got your toes in some sand and a (very strong) drink in your hand. I didn't feel sympathetically toward any of the characters, even quite disliked many of them. Their internal dialogue, motivations, and conversation were not realistic, even bordering on absurd. Perhaps I'd have liked it more had I not listened to it, but actually hearing a person SAY some of the things that these characters were thinking highlighted their absurdity--a sixteen-year-old girl not knowing what rock-paper-scissors is?! You've got to be kidding me. That being said: I did love the sense of place(s) and the small-town feel of the islands. Based on what I read of other reviews on goodreads, I might give another Hilderbrand a try...but only if I've got a beach and a bottle of wine ;-)
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8, 10.10)
Task total: 30
Season total: 290
10.8- MEGAFINISHMinty Alley by C.L.R. James
Review:
This is a Caribbean classic and the first book published in 1936 in London which defined West Indian Literature. It began the trend of authors who relocated to London or America or Canada and wrote stories about their home island.
Minty Alley is a sort of coming of age tale set in the 1930s in Trinidad though it is never explicitly stated. Mr. Haynes is a twenty year old who has been coddled by his mother. She had big dreams for his life but died unexpectedly. Things are tight financially and Mr. Haynes decided to rent out his house and rent a room to pay the mortgage on his family home. What follows is the year long adventure at the new setting of #2 Minty Alley.
The chapters are often short but very descriptive. It felt like a story you would hear among family or older people who live in the Caribbean. There is some dialect but it is explained. Despite being only 244 pages, it dragged in some parts. Overall this is a light story which is authentic of life in an urban area of most Caribbean islands
Task: 10
Oldies: 10
Post total: 30
Season total: 125
Anika wrote: "10.9 SistersThe Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand
Too bad I wasn't on a beach for this one, cuz it's a perfect beach-read: two identical sisters, split apart when the..."
@ Annika, give the author another try. I have read a few books by this author.
Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "Anika wrote: "10.9 SistersThe Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand
Too bad I wasn't on a beach for this one, cuz it's a perfect beach-read: two identical sisters, split ..."
@ Annika, give the author another try. I have read a few books by this author.
I felt awful writing a “bad” review for a book chosen as a “group read” by a fellow RwS member :-/ I will definitely give the author another shot.
Try Here's to Us or Summerland
10.7 Olive KitteridgeSigns Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera
The first chapter had me feeling unbalanced: I wasn't sure if the action was real or a dream/fantasy. The language was atypical which added to that sense of being unsure of quite what is going on--works perfectly in this novella, a story about leaving behind the comfortable and familiar to venture into the unknown. The author uses language, symbols, and the convoluted quest of the main character to put the reader in the shoes of an immigrant--a far more effective device than mere description could ever accomplish. This book reminded me of Dante's Divine Comedy and the movie Maria, Full of Grace and a little bit of Aesop in there for good measure. It was concise, spare, poetic and I'll be thinking about this one for a good while to come.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 LiT
+5 Combo (10.8)
Task total: 35
Season total: 325
15.3 Germany - Kurd Labwitz Preis for Foreign Novel 2004
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Task total: 15
Grand total: 395
Lynn wrote: "10.4 Animal The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle10 task
10 review
10 Oldie
5 Combo Megafinish
Task + 35
Season Total 320
I have read several Sherlock Ho..."
I apologize, but I see that I made a mistake. The Hound of the Baskervilles is on the 500 Books to Read List (20.7 Anna Karenina) and I did not add that to the total. This task should have been +40 not +35.
15.1 AbC USA - Newberry Award
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink (Lexile - 890)
Task - 15 pts
Season Total -185
Tien wrote: "20.7 Anna KareninaSomething Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town #2) by Ray Bradbury
+20 Task (#352)
+5 Combo (10.8)
+5 Oldies (pub 1962)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 295"
I just found out that book was published just before I was born. Think it was a prophecy? My brother probably thought so! haha
20.1 Moll FlandersAraminta by Helen Cady Forbes
+20 pts - Task
+5 pts - Combo (10.8)
+10 pts - Oldies (1927)
Task Total - 35 pts
Season Total - 220 pts
20.1 Moll FlandersCarmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
I had not been aware of this pre-Dracula vampire story before I stumbled across it a couple days ago. It was an odd mish mash of sensational and explanatory. While reading it I was amused by the double meaning of every word Carmilla said, since of course the reader knows she is the vampire. I thought the build up was cleverly done although I didn't feel the "thrill" of it that was likely intended. And I have some issues with the explanations as there are contradictory parts. I am interested in finding a modern retelling or two where the characters are more fleshed out and the idea of the story is approached differently.
+20 task
+10 review
+10 oldies (1872)
+5 combo (10.5)
Task total: 45
Grand total: 440
10.7 Olive KitteridgeWhose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
This is Sayers’ first Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Her technique was to throw the reader into Wimsey’s life. As the mystery is revealed and Wimsey (and Parker from Scotland Yard) works to solve it we learn more about him, Bunter and three other characters which likely will be recurring. We find out that Wimsey has solved an important case previously, annoyed one of the main police detectives, and has influential friends at Scotland Yard.
I quite liked this approach. Time wasn’t wasted ‘telling’ us about the characters, instead the action starts right away and the reader has to pay attention to pick up information about the characters. I thought the mystery was interesting, well paced and well written.
This book was published in 1923, so it is best to be prepared for remarks (by various characters) about Jews that are uncomfortable and would be unacceptable now. I did find them cringe-worthy, but they didn’t detract from the overall story or the writing. 4*
10 task
10 review
10 oldie
5 combo 10.6
______
35
Running total: 465
15.6 AbCGermany - Welt-Literaturpreis
Self's Punishment by Bernhard Schlink
+20 Task
Season total = 175
20.1 Moll Flanders Heidi by Johanna Spyri20 task
10 LiT
10 review
10 Oldie (1880)
10 Combos 10.8, 20.7
+60 task
Season Total 440
I reread this book forty years or so after I first read it. What a beautiful book! It is a story of redemption and second chances. I had forgotten, or perhaps never realized in my youth that it is a retelling of the Prodigal Son narrative. The descriptions bring each setting vividly to life. The characters are beautifully drawn and fully developed. The story is touching. Sometimes you wish you could give a book 6 stars instead of 5.
10.4 AnimalStripes of the Sidestep Wolf by Sonya Hartnett
Lexile 1010
+10 Task (wolf)
+10 combo 10.3, 10.8
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 460
15.4 Awards by CountryGermany - Welt-Literaturpreis
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
+15 Task
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 260
20.10 AsiaPachinko by Min Jin Lee
A saga that follows four generations of a Korean family that has moved to Japan. It tells of their struggles and successes in the face of Japanese prejudice against their origins and Christian religion. With strong family and cultural bonds they work hard and sacrifice for education. They suffer with the civilian population through WWII.
The title, Pachinko, refers to a game of chance that has a somewhat disreputable reputation and can be associated with mafia, but offers opportunity to Korean immigrants and descendants because it is a business that is open to them.
Lee writes from the POV of various family members and friends. The story is clear and sympathetic. I very much enjoyed the book
+20 task
+5 combo 10.5
+10 review
Task total: 35
Season total 130
20.8 PoetryThe House on Marshland by Louise Glück 42 pages
and
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück 63 pages
The House on Marshland is Louise Glück's second book of poetry. This collection is rather bleak and directed inward. She wrote poems about childhood, mythology, religion, and nature. She also included love poems, but they are about the difficulties of love, and emotional pain.
Pulitzer Prize winner, The Wild Iris, is a collection of 54 poems telling about changes in a garden. The poems are written in the voices of individual flowers, the poet-gardener, and the God of the garden. Themes of transformation, suffering, death, and rebirth are present in the poems. The flowers die in the autumn and are reborn in the spring, while the poet-gardener can be emotionally and spiritually reborn. God's voice comes in poems about the seasons, light and darkness, and water and dryness. These elements lead to transformations--physical, emotional, and spiritual. Changes--time, aging, loss, our choices--can lead to feelings of despair, but also to new beginnings.
+20 task
+10 review
+ 5 oldie
Task total: 35
Season total: 245
10.9 Sisters (Coralie's Task)Although the main theme is not the two sisters, sisters feature prominently nevertheless.
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
Henry James frustrates me as a novelist. While I really like some of the raw emotions he writes about and expressions of how a woman thinks, which he writes quite vividly in his books, he also gets into a verbose form of writing. In reading this book I was annoyed in parts about the long sentences that had me read them a couple of times each. It couldn't get me turning the pages of the otherwise brilliant books and that, is perhaps my only grouse.
As a story teller, James is among the finest. There is a poise, a delicate expression of characters and emotions that are native to him. In this book, we encounter a fascinating female, Kate Croy, who is deeply in love with Deshner but the lack of money hinders her from marrying the man. In comes an innocent rich American Millie and Croy's mind has its own plans. However, have the heart and mind ever worked in accordance?
The characters in the novel were not as fleshed out as I would have expected from James. I would not rank it as high as 'Portrait of a Lady', but this book is remarkable nevertheless, if one has the patience to read through a lot of lengthy prose. As a consequence, this was a slow read for me. A 3 and a half stars.
Task +10
Review +10
Oldies +10 (Pub 1902)
Jumbo +10 (741 pages)
Task total 40
Season total 85+40 = 125
10.7 Olive Kitteridge (Rebekah's Task)Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
I enjoyed this short but incisive look inside an Indian family. The family begins poor and becomes wealthy...almost exclusively through the efforts of an Uncle that lives with them. The daughter's marriage quickly becomes a shambles. The son marries, and, his wife, the new addition to the now wealthy family realizes that everyone is freeloading off of the Uncle's work..and she has scruples about it. Those scruples create friction...and a tangled mess.
Although the novella is short, I felt I knew all the characters well with the exception of the mysterious uncle...and I think they will stick in my memory for quite a while to come.
3 solid stars.
Task=10
Review=10
Combo= 15 (10.3, 10.8, 20.10-India)
LiT=10
Task Total = 45
Grand Total= 340
Task 10.8 Megafinish Read a book where the first word of the title starts with a letter in MEGAFINISH. (Leading articles can be ignored or included as benefits the reader).
The Shakespeare Requirement (Jason Fitger #2) (2018) by Julie Schumacher
Review:The Shakespeare Requirement is a satiric look at life amongst the faculty of a second-tier American midwestern college. Our main protagonist is an English professor who has become (against his desires) the English Department Head. His department is starved of cash and resources, and he doesn’t know how to fight for what his department needs. The Economics Department is the English Department’s chief rival. The Department Head of the Economics Department uses techniques better suited for cut throat business competition than for a college campus. Schumacher, a college professor of English when she’s not writing novels, uses this set up to satirize the college faculty. The ending leaves room for a sequel if the author wishes to write one.
The first book in this series is Dear Committee Members. It is not necessary to have read the first book before reading this one, as all needed information from book #1 is included early in book #2. Dear Committee Members is an epistolary novel which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2015, and is very very funny.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20
Grand Total: 120 + 20 = 140
15.3 AbCUSA - National Book Award for Young People's Literature (2006)
The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
Lexile 1090 (as 'The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing')
+15 Task
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 360
10.9 SistersThe Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef
Well written biography of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte that successfully integrates their life stories with a description of their literary works. The Brontes were Victorian sisters whose lives were constrained not only by the relative poverty of their family but also by the social restrictions placed on them by society. Each of the longed to do something greater than they could within current social constraints and collectively they turned to writing under male names. The author does a wonderful job of illustrating the parallels between the Brontes lives and frustrations and those of the characters in their novels.
Recommend for anyone who has enjoyed the Brontes novels.
10 pts 10.9 Sisters
5 pts 10.3 Scrabble “sisters”
10 pts Review
Task total 25 pts
Season total 400 pts
AbC 15.1Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
YA Lexile Level 1100
Literary Award Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (1965)
United States of America
Task + 15
Season Total 455
15.2 AbCSweden Nobel Prize for Literature 2017
Kazuo Ishiguro. When We Were Orphans
Task total 15 pts
Season total 415 pts
10.9 SistersThe Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand
I did enjoy this novel, but my goodness the sisters (the titular identical twins) are train wrecks as human beings. Books like this make me glad I am an only child. The premise is that their childhood relationship was torn apart by their parent’s divorce and odd custody arrangement. I can understand that, but I couldn’t understand why these privileged, educated adult women didn’t recognize they have issues and should seek therapy.
One of the twins, Harper, has made questionable life decisions but she ended up being the one I liked the most. She seemed the most ‘real’; and gained insight and happiness along the course of the story. I found the other twin, Tabitha, to be a very unlikable character.
One aspect of this novel that jumped out at me, was how many of their bad decisions are fueled by alcohol. I had noted on the book’s GR page that a reader had asked if anyone else noticed how much drinking and driving there was in the novel. Well, I did – holey moley – do not drive on Martha’s Vineyard is the lesson. I’m not moralizing, I enjoy a drink myself but dangerous and thoughtless behaviour without consequences seems like an odd thing to write about so blithely.
I have enjoyed another of Hilderbrand’s novels quite a bit more, so I will give her another chance. 3*
10 task
10 review
10 combo 10.10, 10.8
_____
30
Running total: 495
10.9 SistersThe Lightkeeper's Daughters by Jean E. Pendziwol
+10 pts Task
+ 5 pts - Combo (10.10)
Task total - 15 pts
Season Total -245 pts
I’m too lazy to write a review but thanks, Katlin for selecting this book! I liked it a lot. Another one I stayed up til 3am to finish. I love twisty books like that. Like The Thirteenth Tale and the repartee between the elderly woman and the teenager
10.3. ScrabbleMother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht
Set in Germany during the 30 years war (1600s) this play captures the futility of war. The characters are not invested in the fighting, they are focussed in surviving amid the changing military landscape. Their goal is to survive and maybe make a small profit regardless of who is winning. Unfortunately, it becomes clear that war leaves no winners
This play was written during the late 1930s in German and first staged during the “Hitler War” in Zurich in 1941. While a historical setting, the looming conflict of World War II following the carnage of World War I only 20 years before, make the recurring peace and war of the 17th century an apt metaphor
10 pts. 10 .3. Scrabble “courage”
5 pts. 10.8 Megafinish
10 pts. Translation
10 pts. Oldie 1941
Task total 35 pts
Season total 450 pts
20.10 AsiaCentral Station by Lavie Tidhar
+20 Task (set in Israel)
+5 combo 10.3
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 485
10.6 Public DomainThe Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
+10 Task
+10 combo 10.3, 10.8
+10 Lost in Translation
+10 Oldies
+10 Jumbo (752 pages)
Post Total: 50
Season Total: 535
10.10 - group readThe Gunslinger by Stephen King
+10 task
+10 combo (10.2 - 1982, 10.8 - G)
+5 oldies
Task total: 25
Grand total: 155
10.5 Civil WarHow We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
This was a very well done popular science book. I read many history of technology works and Johnson took a nice approach with this one that connected the ideas a little differently for me. It was not really about individual innovations, as I had thought from the title, but about progress in 6 key areas showing one thing dependant on another over time. The writing is clear and in a good voice. The pictures included are relevant. Some of the pieces I found most interesting were about the ice block trade, about how developments in sound technology affected the civil rights movement, and about how mich cheaper light has become.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 combo (10.8)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 465
10.10 Group ReadsThe Gunslinger by Stephen King
Review: Okay so I re-read my own group read. But as I started to read the second book in this series, I realize I had forgotten some key points about what happened in the first, so I decided to review.
This book is so great. The world building is complete and vivid. I love the use of flashbacks as the Gunslinger progresses on his journey.
The ending is more philosophical and sci-fi paradoxical, so I recommending reading that bit when you have a bit of brain to give.
In his afterword, King writes that he didn't have the whole thing planned out and many of the characters and backstories aren't clear to him. This is no evidenced in the writing of The Gunslinger and I am intrigued to continue on the epic and see what we discover.
+10 Task
+5 Combo 10.2 Decade published 1982
+5 Combo 10.8 Megafinish
+5 Oldies
+10 Review
Task Total: 35pts
Grand Total: 95 pts
10.2 DecadeBach, Beethoven and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to Be Taught by David W. Barber
+10 Task published 1986
+5 Oldies
Task Total: 15 pts
Grand Total: 110 pts
15.7 AbCAustralia - Ned Kelly Award
The Dry by Jane Harper
+20 Task
Season total = 195
(This departs from my posted plan as I've made a substitution here and there.)
20.1 Moll FlandersCirce by Madeline Miller
This book deserves the hype. The book takes Circe from the Odyssey and creates a modern mythology that's accessible, fun, and just really works both as a retelling and as a story for people with no real knowledge of Greek mythology. I can't wait for my kids to be old enough to read this with them. They've been hearing snippets of Greek myths as bedtime stories since they were born and I think they'll get a real kick out of this one.
Retellings are tricky since there's so much backstory to deal with, but Miller adeptly weaves different pieces into her tale in ways that mostly fit right in and worked (with occasional quibbles that something was just distracting name-dropping rather than a fitting part of the Circe story). I loved the way the family tree was fleshed out between Circe, her siblings, and her father.
The narrator for the audiobook did an excellent job pacing the story and reads in a lovely lilting accent that fit the book perfectly. I found myself actually looking for more chores to do to keep listening a little longer.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.7, 10.9)
Task total: 40
Grand total: 255
10.7 Olive KitteridgeThe Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino
+10 Task
+20 combo 10.3, 10.8, 10.9, 20.10
+10 Lost in Translation
Post Total: 40
Season Total: 575
15.6 Awards by Country The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
France: Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for Romans étrangers
20 task
____
20
Running total: 515
I didn't know that I should mention that I am completely off my posted plan, but I see Elizabeth did above.
10.8 MegafinishIn a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
"In a Dark, Dark Wood" opens with twenty-six year old Leonora Shaw in a hospital bed with a traumatic head injury, memory loss, and contusions. She fearfully notices the police officer guarding the room, and wonders what she has forgotten.
Leonora, a reclusive writer, had been invited to a hen do (bachelorette party) for a friend that she had not contacted for ten years. It was held in a glass house in a remote part of a forest in Northumberland. The house is almost another character with the guests feeling like they are actors with the trees looking in. The cell reception is almost nonexistent.
The first part of the psychological mystery introduces the guests at the party, and sets up conflicts among them. Memories from their high school years add to the unsettled atmosphere. I really didn't trust any of them with their "mean girl" psychological games. Most of the second half of the story involves Leonora regaining her memory. As a suspect in a crime, she needs to figure things out quickly before the police arrest her. Although I guessed who was responsible for the crime, the book was entertaining as the mystery was revealed, layer by layer.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Season total: 265
Beth wrote: "20.1 Moll FlandersCarmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
I had not been aware of this pre-Dracula vampire story before I stumbled across it a couple days ago. It was an odd ..."
You can get combo points with 10.5 Civil War - General Phillip Sheridan
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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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Codex Born by Jim C. Hines
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 440