Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Monica wrote: ""A book you want to read based on the last sentence.

Wow. I think we're all going to have to help each other on this one!!! Right now, all I can think of is "reader, I married him.""

Wikipedia sa..."



Duly noted. I do know what a "last sentence" is LOL. I'm trying to figure out if you really thought I was confused about what a "last sentence" is? I had just forgotten that more came after that. Thanks for clearing things up.

I am also doing the 52 challenge, and they have a prompt " last sentence is 6 or fewer words". I will double it up with this prompt: I wanted to read this book (whatever it turns out to be) because the last sentence was 6 or fewer words, thereby filling two prompts. And I dot think it will be a spoiler, I will choose some books on my physical TBR and glance at the last sentence and count the words

It appears The Picture of Dorian Gray might qualify

I suggest The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - has a a short 5 word wonderful last sentence that has entered the vernacular to some degree: "It's pretty to think so."

Book is reasonably short and is based on real people and events that will be familiar from The Paris Wife by Paula McLain which was heavily researched.

I actually quite liked The Sun Also Rises and loved that last line. It was perfect.

I thought it would be hard to find something for this, but I was pulling books off my shelves this morning to look at their last lines, and Elsewhere knocked me off my feet with its final sentence, so I will be going with that one!

"I will never leave the coast. I will wait for Iris until I am air."

I've never read Wuthering Heights, and that was going to be my choice for the classic, because it was my mum's favourite book when she was younger. It's also mentioned in the list that someone posted, as having a great last line.

Theresa wrote: "I suggest The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - has a a short 5 word wonderful last sentence that has entered the vernacular to some degree: "It's pretty to think s..."

It's "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
My #1 favorite book.

Sometimes the summary for a book includes the last sentence. I just encountered this with We All Need To Eat on Hoopla.

The Haunting of Hill House has not just a great last line, but a great last paragraph.

Jackie wrote: "I have no idea how I'm going to tackle this! I might go with just retroactively assigning a book to this prompt after I read something with a good last line."

I was actually thinking of tackling this prompt the same way...I am really having a hard time with this one!!

Lisa wrote: "I agree with the commenters saying they hate this prompt. I’m against this one on principle.

I do NOT want to know the last line in a book before I read it. I don’t even want to read articles or ..."

I couldn't agree more and I absolutely like the way you are interperting this prompt....LOL!! The MOD's always say...."Your challenge, Your Rules"

Happy Reading!!

I have been struggling with this prompt....but, eventually decided to pick a book from the LISTOPIA put together by the MOD's!!
These are the books I had to pick from (books that I have on my bookshelf currently):

*Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
*Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
*Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
*East of Eden by John Steinbeck
*Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
*Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
*Circe by Madeline Miller

After some research I have decided to go with Circe by Madeline Miller

HAPPY READING!!!

The final line of The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley is “We walk past the fire and past the graves, under the stars, up the mountain, and up, and up,” and that one is on my TBR ever since I read her Beowulf translation so I’ll likely use it for this.

Erica wrote: "Anyone got a book that ends with The End?"

The End of the Road

Ends with "Terminal."

Jennifer W wrote: "I found this list..."

My favorites from the list are "YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO ART—RETURN TO LIFE." Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife and "P.S. Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonnaise." Trout Fishing in America

I've just finished We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and the last line made me smile. Might help someone.

'That's a good name for a book: We Solve Murders'

Yoo wrote: "I've just finished We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and the last line made me smile. Might help someone.

'That's a good name for a book: We Solve Murders'"

Thanks! I just added this to my list

I'm reading Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley. The book ends with an epigraph:
“And looking at one single label on a jar, he felt himself gone round the calendar to the private day this summer when he had looked at the circling world and found himself at its center.

The word on the jar was RELISH.

And he was glad that he had decided to live.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

I'm going for March: "For an instant, everything was bathed in radiance."

It appeals to me and intrigues me based on other books I've read that metaphorically compare light to liquid.

Just finished The Comeback, the second of my two-with-the-same-title books. I quite liked the last line although you actually need two. Will put it behind a spoiler tag, even though it doesn't spoil anything plotwise, just the tone the book ends on.

(view spoiler)[ Have you ever seen a sunset like this one? I hope you have, the wild pink sky slashed with flaming streaks of gold, the kind of sunset that makes you feel lucky, golden; the type that has the power to tell you that perhaps, for one small moment in time, you are exactly where you need to be. (hide spoiler)]

But my all time favorite last line, to the point where I've considered getting a tattoo of it is from Inferno. Plot spoilery, although can there be spoilers for a book that old?
The exact line differs with the translation, but basically

(view spoiler)["Then we came forth, to see again the stars." I had it in my head as "The first thing we saw when we emerged were the stars", but neither translation I have to hand has that version. Will have to keep hunting for which that is! (hide spoiler)]

Last night I finished A Quilt for Christmas which ended:

And now, she knew, the ragged quilt would warm their lives for all the Christmases to come.

I have been hearing good things about “The Teacher” by Freida McFadden.

Here’s the last line: “As we walk to the diner together, I decide that I am going to get a vanilla milkshake with a lot of whipped cream and a cherry on top, because I deserve a treat”.

It’s good enough for me. 🤷‍♀️

I used The Book Censor's Library and also added it to the Listopia.

The second-to-the-last sentence: Had he even existed?
Last sentence: Or had he just been a character in a book?

This is also one of the short-listed books in Tournament of Books for anyone else who might be making selections from that list as well.

Beth F wrote: "I used The Book Censor's Library and also added it to the Listopia.

The second-to-the-last sentence: Had he even existed?
Last sentence: Or had he just been a character in a book?..."

Thanks for that, that's on my TBR, so I'll use it for this!

Beth F wrote: "I used The Book Censor's Library and also added it to the Listopia.

The second-to-the-last sentence: Had he even existed?
Last sentence: Or had he just been a character in a book?..."

I just finished this book and had it marked for a book with "book" in the title, but I think I might switch it over to this prompt since I have The Book of George on hold, which is also in the Tournament of Books. Thanks so much!

Last line of Bone Smith:

"And she would defeat the undead."

Yoo wrote: "I've just finished We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and the last line made me smile. Might help someone.

'That's a good name for a book: We Solve Murders'"

Ooh, thank you. This is one I'd been hoping to read this year.

I liked this one from A Midwinter's Tail, if it's of use to anyone who likes Christmassy: "And outside, just for a moment among the new-budding gorse, a woman seems to turn and smile, before vanishing in a flurry of snow on the sea wind."

I think this will be a good chance for me to use a book from my physical TBR. Ill just go through them, look at the last sentence, and pick my fave!

I really liked the last line of The Bird Skinner by Alice Greenway. "She keeps her eyes shut and listens to the sound of spirit paddles."

. I am part of the camp that feels the last sentence of a book can be a spoiler. I think it's probably more likely with books that are part of a series but that isn't exclusive. FWIW, the Fourth Wing fits this prompt (I decided retroactively after reading the book) but it is a spoiler.

For this one I'm going with:

The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America

Grace wrote: "The last line of Lonesome Dove is “They say he missed that wh*re.” I have never read it, but based on this last line, I think I might!"

I just finished this (great read!) and came to add it because of that line!

Sasha wrote: "I'm going for March: "For an instant, everything was bathed in radiance."

It appeals to me and intrigues me based on other books I've read that metaphorically compare light to liquid."

Hm, well, I just finished this, and the last line was actually a bit of a disappointment in context. It seemed to come out of nowhere. The book overall was good, though - grim, but no more than a book about the realities of war should be.

Finished this book:


The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America

Rating: 4 star

Review:

This was a good read. While I believe in UAPs (UFOs) and aliens, I am a skeptic in actual alien abductions which was why I did not mind Bowman's take on the famed Betty & Barney Hill encounter. He states that he does not believe they were abducted by aliens. Before this book, I never thought to take a closer look at the times. Betty & Barney were a biracial couple (she was white, he was Black) in the 1960s, a time of the Civil Rights, and when biracial marriages were still frowned upon. No one knows what really happened that night but there's no question that they saw something they could not explain. Whether you believe in their story (which was gathered after hypnosis) or are just a general skeptic, it doesn't matter. Betty & Barney believed in their abduction until their deaths.

Although The Messy Lives of Book People is a perfect fit for #4, it also has a great last line:

"And when Liv looked up at the sky it shone pure white like a blank page of paper waiting to be written on."

I read In Five Years because the last line is “so let it be” and I needed a final line of six words or fewer for another challenge

Not my favourite prompt, and I retrofitted it:

Silence in the Age of Noise has the last line You have to find your own South Pole , which I thought was at least intriguing.

A book about finding silence without and within. Ironically, I read it on a train where several people were sharing their choice of music/gaming/conversation with everyone present. It is a beautifully produced book, with calming cover and photos, but ultimately, even though it was short, there were only so many times that the author could say 'silence is important'.

Who Has Seen the Wind had a great last sentence.

The wind turns in silent frenzy upon itself, whirling into a smoking funnel, breathing up top soil and tumbleweed skeletons to carry them on its spinning way over the prairie, out and out to the far line of the sky.

I read Circe. It's a re read. 5 stars.

I have a book that I tell people about (Magpie Murders). I ask them to let me know when they are finished because I think it has the best last two sentences. However, I wouldn't suggest reading the last sentence first.

I almost put it down because I thought I had picked up a book in the middle of the series. You haven't. It's the first and is worth the read.

If you prefer nonfiction so there's no story to "spoil," I was recently reminded of How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ. She describes her efforts to track down women writers who have disappeared from the canon, and concludes:

I've been trying to finish this monster for 13 ms. pages and it won't. Clearly it's not finished.
YOU finish it.

Finished All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

My Review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I'm cheating on this one for the sake of completionism and using Memento. It's a prequel I was probably going to read anyway and the last line is "Battlecarrier Alexander-78V".

But the more intriguing thing about it is what is below that, an image of the trolley problem. Anyone who knows the series knows the importance of that.

I'm going to try Circe. It's been on my book shelf for a long time.