Reading with Style discussion
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SP 2017 Completed Tasks
10.3 English LanguageStuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World by Mark Miodownik
Task total: 10
Grand total: 550
15.5 AotD Time Traveler/Different AwardsAmong Others by Jo Walton
+15 Task (Hugo Award 2012)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 430 - I might be off on this total
20.8 - Yours, Mine, and OursA Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King
I love this series. It's been two years since I've read the last book and everything came back quickly - the awesomeness of the characters, the interesting mysteries, the glimpses into human nature that are striking, quiet, and earned.
The mystery is good but it's not the real reason I'm here. I mean, I enjoyed it, of course! The setup is interesting, and it's always fun to see Holmes surprise Russell in some sort of disguise. But the whodunits aren't why I keep coming back to the series. It's the characters. They live and breathe, have faults and tics and ideals and tendencies. They're people, darn it, and I want to spend more time with them.
At the end of the previous installment the relationship of Holmes and Russell goes through a major change... a change I was afraid would squick me out. I should have known King would have things well in hand, though. A gap of four years between the last book and this means that we miss any troubles our leads may have worked through, instead seeing them now as intellectual partners that have a deeper insight into each other than before.
My e-library doesn't have this book so I ended up buying a paper copy. I liked filling it with post its, but not being able to carry it around easily meant it took much longer to finish than I would like. I think it may have been a four star read if I were able to keep the momentum and get through it faster... guess I'll have to reevaluate when I reread it. ('Cause I'll totally reread it. :D)
+20 task
+10 combo (10.2, 20.5)
+10 review
Task total: 40 points
Grand total: 285 points
15.5 AotD TravelerThe Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud
2010 Scotia Bank Giller
+15 Task
Grand Total = 365
15.8 AotDDifferent Prizes
That They May Face The Rising Sun by John McGahern
+15 Task -- 2002 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award
Post total: 15
Season total: 125
completed:
2008 The White Tiger Man Booker Prize
2007 The Missing Bram Stoker Best Novel
2006
2005 Camouflage Nebula Award
2004 Out There National Outdoor Book Award
2003 Perma Red Spur Award Best Novel of the West
2002 That They May Face The Rising Sun Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award
2001
2000 The Mighty Walzer Bollinger Wodehouse Comedy Award
1999 A Small Death in Lisbon CWA Golden Dagger Award
20.8 Yours, mine and oursThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer
Holmes, Watson, Moriarity, and Mycroft all make an appearance in this ‘undiscovered� manuscript by Watson. As well, to up the ante, Freud is an important character in the book.
I’m not 100% sure that I have owned this book since it was first published (1974), or when the movie was released (1976) � but it has been some time since I read it. If you have seen the seen the current Sherlock Holmes movies I think you will find that they have drawn from the first 1/3 to ½ of this book for the movie.
It is fast paced, and you get to go from London to Vienna. I particularly enjoyed Toby (the dog), who sniffs all the way from London to Vienna. The mystery portion of the story is a small, but there is a great deal of background on Holmes (which involves the other characters) which is interesting. Overall, a light and enjoyable read.
20 task
5 combo 10.2
10 review
_____
35
Running total: 410
10.7 Dead Poet's SocietyThe Moving Finger by Agatha Christie
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.2, 10.3)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 170
20.1 Lord of the RingsThe Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
+20 Task
+10 Combo (10.2, 10.3-UK)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 200
20.7 #AWW2017The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.2)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 250
20.9 National Dr.s' DayComplications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Review: Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is beautiful and thought provoking. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science is also interesting but not as focused. Gawande is a surgeon and he writes clearly and with feeling about his profession. He has the right balance of real life experiences and philosophizing. In this books he looks at surgical training, decision making, bariatic surgery, what happens when good doctors go bad, guiding patient decisions, and the role of instinct.
The reader for this audio version does a very good job.
+20 task
+10 combo 10.10, 20.6
+10 review
Task total: 40
Season total: 200
20.10 HesperusThe Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
The well-known story of Quasimodo, the hunchback foundling who has lived all his life in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the misanthropic priest who took care of him, the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, and the Truands of the Paris underworld.
I think this fits the "amazing" category to merit 5 stars, even if it is hard to get into and not perfect in its structure. I found the descriptions of 15th-century Paris a little turgid at times but once I was caught up in the story, I couldn't stop reading about the tortured souls who are at its centre. I did wish Esmeralda had a bit more gumption, however. She's a typical passive and brainless Victorian fictional female.
+20 task
+10 combo (10.2, 10.7)
+10 review
+10 canon (as "Notre-Dame de Paris")
+ 5 jumbo
Task Total: 55
Season Total: 455
15.4 AotDThe Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
Lexile 870
+15 task (Locus Award for Best Young Adult, 2012)
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 470
20.8 Yours, Mine, and Ours The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh
+20 task (approved)
+10 combo (10.2, 10.3)
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 500
Task 10.3 English LanguageRead a book by an author born in one of these English Language Countries: UK, South Africa or New Zealand.
Tanith Lee was born in London, England
Tamastara, or The Indian Nights (1984) by Tanith Lee (Paperback, 174 pages)
Review: Tamastara is a collection of 7 short stories/novelettes, all written by Tanith Lee. The first three stories were originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine; the four other stories were originally published in this book. All 7 stories are set in India; all 7 stories have a fantastical element to them. Elements include mystical cobras, tigers, Bollywood, arranged marriages and reincarnation. One of the stories, “The Ivory Merchants�, was difficult to follow (maybe it’s related to a Hindu god? So I miss the references.) The other six stories were good reads. Tanith Lee’s writing style has a sharp edge, a “bite� to it, that other authors do not have. These earlier stories are not particularly “dark�, so I’d call them “fantasy� rather than “horror�. Recommended for those who want to read something different and original.
+10 Task
+05 Comb (#10.2)
+10 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 + 10 = 25
Grand Total: 235 + 25 = 260
20.5 FoundationThe Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the People Who Raised Them by Amy Dickinson
I've known of Amy Dickinson mainly as a guest on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." When I saw that she was going to be an author at the book festival I was attending, I decided to pick this up to read it before hearing her speak. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into any of her panels--they were filled to capacity hours in advance.
This is the best memoir I've read in recent memory. It was real and funny and brave and I want to be Amy's friend and I want to increase the tiny population of Freeville, NY, by one (well, two if I bring my husband...four if you count our cats. And Amy would).
This memoir is about family (particularly about strong women--all of the women in her family save one are divorced with children and they all support and lift one another in amazing and admirable ways), about mothers and daughters, about finding wells of strength inside of ourselves we didn't realize were there...and it's all done with a fantastic sense of grace and humor.
I like that she never got preachy or self-help-y "...and you can too!" in this book...it was more like having a conversation over coffee with a friend who is divulging a bit more of their past than you'd known before. I loved it and have already bought a copy for a friend (which is a rarity for me--I'll recommend books, but if I bought books I've loved for everyone I think would like them, I'd be in debt up to my eyeballs).
+20 Task (born 1959 in Freeville, NY)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.2)
Post total: 35
Season total: 435
10.2 3, 4, or 5Dirty Pretty Things by Michael Faudet
I found this book on the aircraft on which I was working and as I had just finished the book I'd brought with me, still had two hours to go until my night was done and had neglected to bring another book with me, so I decided to read this one. Oy.
I could tell by flipping through it that it was poetry, but I'd never heard of the author before and there was no blurb on the back. As it turns out, it was a collection of erotic poetry. But not good erotic poetry--poetry that my porn-addicted college boyfriend would write...very cliche, unbearably trite, all lifted pleated skirts and panties. Some of the "poems" were just a title followed by one sentence. Very hipster, this-sentence-is-so-good-it-deserves-a-title "poems," for example:
"LIPS
Kisses dream of lips like yours."
or
"REALITY
Love and loss share the same unmade bed."
or
"FIRST KISS
The first kiss is the last to be forgotten."
Okay. I kinda like that last one. But, COME ON, one witty sentence does not a poem make!
The whole book wasn't like this, of course. There were some actual poems in there--they rhymed and everything, which made them all the more terrible.
Honestly, the best poem in the collection was written by someone else (his girlfriend, Lang Leav, who included it in the forward she penned).
I wish I'd spent the time I'd wasted reading this playing Candy Crush. And I don't even like Candy Crush.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 20
Season total: 455
10.4 International Question DayWhat I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Who knew Haruki Murakami was a marathoner!? I didn't...until now. And he listens to the Red Hot Chili Peppers when he's doing it (obviously he listens to other things, too--Rolling Stones, the Lovin' Spoonful, jazz...but the Chili Peppers pleasantly surprised me).
In this book he talks about how he started running--and how it coincided with his beginning to write. Yes, this book talks about his experiences running, what it feels like in his body and mind, different marathon experiences (including a solo run from Athens to Marathon--the original marathon!), but he also discusses his writing process and the influence running has on it. Both require you to show up, every day, and give your attention and effort. Every day that lapses that you step away from either task, it's that much harder to pick it back up.
I used to run. I was a six-mile-a-day girl for years. Then an injury kept me from it for a while and then it was just hard to get back into and it was always tomorrow I'll go, tomorrow I'll go, tomorrow I'll go...but tomorrow never came. Then I met my boyfriend (now husband) and three years later, here we are, fat and happy and I think of that six-mile-a-day girl and want to get back in her shoes and habits and this book helped immensely in reminding me why I loved to run in the first place. I think it's time for me to find my running shoes...
+10 Task
+10 Non-Western (Japanese author)
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Season total: 485
10.2 3,4, or 5The Bishop’s Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison
I heard this author speak on two different panels at the Tucson Book Festival. They were both panel discussions that my husband chose and I decided to go with him--they were focused on crime novels, which are not normally my favorite. I was curious to read this book after hearing her speak about it so much (well, she spoke about the series and this was the first in the series so I decided to give it a try).
It's about a Mormon woman who is the wife of the bishop of their congregation. She is a stay-at-home mom of five boys, only one of whom is still at home. She bakes--a lot. She's friendly, educated, and trying to be a good "bishop's wife" by helping out and supporting the members of their ward (the Mormon term for a congregation), including such varied things as helping put together a wedding reception, assisting with funeral arrangements, visiting ward members in need, and babysitting. One of the women in their ward goes missing and later her body is found. The nosy bishop's wife takes it upon herself to solve this crime.
The crime telling was not my favorite. It seemed very forced and clunky. The motive and explanation for the murder was sad, but something that I've heard happening all too often--and often in Mormon communities (though I've never heard of it ending in murder), so I suppose it didn't require too much of a suspension of disbelief. The bishop's wife's actions, though, were pretty unbelievable and didn't seem in line with the character that the author created.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 20
Season total: 505
20.2 RebeccaSharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
While I really liked Gone Girl, this one was not my favorite. It was a combination of interesting buzzwords ("cutters," "mean girls," "Munchausen by proxy syndrome," "small town drugs and rape") that didn't quite fit together...
Camille Preaker is a Chicagoland journalist who goes back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the murder of two teenage girls. The paper can't afford to put her up while she's there so she has to stay at her childhood home, a place she hasn't visited in years and which is ostensibly so awful it caused her to become a cutter, carving words all over her body.
For the most part, I felt like Flynn was so busy trying to shock you with awfulness--gang rape of young girls! thirteen-year-olds having drug and sex orgies! murderous mothers! disturbing slaughterhouse montage!--that she's trying to distract the reader from the fact the the writing isn't that great and the story is slow.
One thing I will say for it: the description of the pigs being slaughtered has put me off of pork products...maybe forever. THAT part actually did break my heart.
Perhaps it's the difference between listening to and reading a book--I listened to this and read Gone Girl...hearing it made the flaws that perhaps I'd otherwise overlook too glaring.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Season total: 535
10.7 Dead Poet's SocietyTwenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea by Pablo Neruda
Neruda has long been a favorite of mine, especially the twentieth poem of the first collection ("Tonight I can write the saddest lines..." loved it so much that, once upon a time, I embroidered a pair of jeans with the entire poem--in Spanish). I've always focused so much on the longing of that poem, the exquisite torture of loss, that I've missed the delicate yet powerful way he uses the natural world to reflect emotion. It wasn't until reading these collections together that I began to hear the ocean and feel dwarfed by the mountains and feel the wind tearing at my face. In the forward to On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea, Antonio Skarmeta points to the influence that the geography of Chile had on Neruda--a thin country bordered on one side by the peaks of the Andes and on the other side, the crashing waves of the ocean. This place, at once expansive and caged, seeps into each poem in ways that I hadn't noticed before.
+10 Task
+10 Non-Western (Chilean author)
+10 Canon
+10 Review
Task total: 40
Season total: 575
10.9 A Wrinkle in TimeKindred by Octavia E. Butler
I could not put this book down...well, after reading the first three pages and deciding it just wasn't for me, that is.
Yes, it took me a few weeks to pick it back up and I'm so glad I did.
This book follows Dana back and forth in time, from her home in L.A. in 1976 to Maryland of the early to mid-1800's.
Out of nowhere one June morning, Dana starts to feel light-headed and blacks out, coming to on the bank of a river where she sees a boy is drowning. She rushes in, pulls him out, and begins CPR. The boys mother, meanwhile, has reached them on the shore and starts hitting Dana, accusing her of killing her son. Despite the mother's blows, Dana continues CPR and is able to resuscitate the boy. As soon as she looks up from the boy's coughing and vomiting form, she is faced with the father holding a gun to her face. Dana blacks out again and wakes up in her kitchen.
As it turns out, the little boy is Rufus Weylin, Dana's great great great (however many "great"s) grandfather and she is somehow pulled to the past any time his life is in danger. Problem with that is, Rufus is a white man whose father owns a plantation and Dana is black. Add to that the fact that she doesn't know how it is she escapes back to her own time after saving Rufus's bacon and there we have a fascinating story of a modern-day African-American woman navigating a very different, inhospitable world.
The book ended in the same confusing scene that stymied me in the beginning and I still didn't quite get what happened, but overall I loved the book and would highly recommend it!
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.6: 4.17 avg. rating; 43,207 ratings)
Task total: 25
Season total: 600
20.3 EvictedSuper Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner
This book, as with so many of Malcolm Gladwell's books and the original Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, didn't feel like it had a cohesive theme, but was so much fun to read that I didn't really care.
It's supposed to be about everything, but seen from a very different perspective.
It has you rethinking prostitution, climate change, and the nature of altruism. They proved that car seats were unnecessary for children (using crash test children and regular old seatbelts), that driving drunk is statistically safer than walking drunk, and how the Endangered Species Act actually endangers at-risk animals. Honestly, it was all over the place--but an interesting all-over-the-place....like talking to an extremely intelligent and insightful and humorous friend who sufferers from ADHD. All. Over. The. Place.
+20 Task (tagged as current-events by 18 readers)
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Season total: 630
(sorry for the onslaught: I had a lot of time at work to read, but no computer from which to post!)
Wow you racked up some points. :)
15.10 AotDFlannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, 1983-1992
Time Traveler reading from oldest to newest
The Consequences of Desire by Dennis Hathaway
+15 Task (1992 winner)
+ 5 Not-a-Novel
+ 5 Oldies (pub. 1992)
Task total=25
Time Traveler Completion=100
Grand total=580
Task 10.1 Square PegYour Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (2016) by Sunil Yapa (Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Author) (Hardcover, 314 pages)
Review: The WTO Conference met in Seattle, Washington State during November 30, 1999 � December 01, 1999. This novel is centered on the protests against the WTO that occurred on those days. (This really happened � how did I miss it? Busy with real life, I guess.) The author tells the events through the eyes of various people present in Seattle, including several police officers, several protestors, and a WTO delegate from Sri Lanka. The author’s sympathies are 90% with the protestors, 8-9% with the WTO delegate, and occasionally he has a kind word for the police. No ambiguous, “they both have good points� sentiments here! Some of the most shocking events in the novel actually happened � I looked at youtube videos and sure enough, there is video of an event in the novel: (view spoiler). Overall, an interesting, briskly told novel, which does get heavy-handed in favor of the author’s pro-protestors political viewpoint.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20
Grand Total: 260 + 20 = 280
10.3 English LanguageLittle Deaths by Emma Flint
+10 Task (born in Newcastle, UK)
Points this post: 10
RwS total: 200
AotD total: -
Season Total: 200
10.8 Anthology (Beth's Task)The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2: From Kubla Khan to the Brontë Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Russ Kick
task = 10
grand total= 500
Post 343 Kazen wrote: "20.6 - My Name is RedEverneath by Brodi Ashton
Complicated feelings about this one. The good:
- A mythology-based story that I don't want to throw against the wa..."
Sorry, Kazen. This is YA at with a Lexile of 590. Task, but no styles.
Post 374 Anika wrote: "20.2 RebeccaSharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
While I really liked Gone Girl, this one was not my favorite. It was a combination of interesting buzzwor..."
You're in luck! This is no longer shelved as YA Fiction at BPL, and we have removed the low lexile from the database.
Post 376 Anika wrote: "10.9 A Wrinkle in TimeKindred by Octavia E. Butler
I could not put this book down...well, after reading the first three pages and deciding it just wasn't for me, that..."
This one, however, is still with a Lexile of 580. Task, but no styles.
10.8 Anthology (Beth's Task)The Selected Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay
+10 Task
+10 Combo: 10.2 3, 4, or 5 / 10.7 Dead Poet's Society
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 470
10.7 Dead Poet's Society (Ed's Task)Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti by Christina Rossetti
+10 Task
+10 Combo: 10.2 3, 4, or 5 / 10.3 English Language
+10 Canon
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 500
10.9 A Wrinkle in Time (Coralie's Task)The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
+10 Task
+10 Combo: 10.2 3, 4, or 5 / 10.3 English Language
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 520
20.4 My Family and Other Animals The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
+20 Task
+10 Combo: 10.3 English Language / 20.2 Rebecca
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 550
20.10 Hesperus Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
+20 Task
+10 Combo: 10.3 English Language / 10.7 Dead Poet's Society
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 610
20.10 Hesperus Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy
+20 Task
+20 Combo: 10.2 3, 4, or 5 / 10.3 English Language / 10.7 Dead Poet's Society / 20.1 Lord of the Rings
Task Total: 40
Season Total: 650
10.6 - Spring EquinoxPain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System by Sonya Huber
I knew from the opening lines of Pain Bows in Greeting that I would like this collection.
The essays range widely from the near poetry of the above to magazine-type explorations of what it means to live with pain. Some spin out metaphors.
Pain twists me like the ends of a Halls cough drop wrapper. A few cunning turns transform a flat square of wax paper into a neat home for a lozenge. If I do not unroll pain, I carry it.
All are fascinating. Huber tells us what it's like to watch your body slowly decline, to mourn the healthy body you've left behind, to try and explain and quantify your pain in just the right way to doctors and specialists. You're frustrated in reducing your pain to a number on a ten point scale. You underestimate it so you're not labeled as a drug seeker. When yet another person suggests that doing yoga would help, you read "the implication: if you tried harder, you could fix it."
It's a window into life with pain that I'm grateful to have. As a medical interpreter I feel better armed to assist patients who are in chronic pain themselves. I also feel like I have the tools to be a better human. A theme that has come up in my reading this year is that when someone tells you their story, listen. Believe them. Huber gives you no other choice.
I like some essays more than others, but it's still an easy recommend to anyone who works with or knows someone in chronic pain, or just wants a beautifully written peek into that world.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20 points
Grand total: 295 points
15.3 - AotDDarkness Burning by Delilah Devlin
+15 task (Aspen 2010)
Task total: 15 points
Grand total: 310 points
20.5 FoundationThe Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
The two orphaned Matsumoto brothers are living on the Street of a Thousand Blossoms with their loving grandparents. The story begins in 1939 when Japan is at war with China and becomes a major force in World War II. It is a time of deprivation as most of the food goes to the neighborhood military police who prey upon the people of Yanaka and sell the goods on the black market. Hiroshi, the older and stronger brother, has dreams of being a sumo wrestler. Kenji, shy and artistic, is mentored by an artist who makes Noh masks for the theater. Tokyo is fire bombed near the end of the war, although most of the people in Yanaka survive.
After the war, Hiroshi begins training in sumotori. The story also follows the lives of the two daughters of the sumo master. Some of the characters have a strong passion for the traditional arts of Japan, while others are looking to the future of a prosperous new Japan when they make their career and lifestyle choices.
I enjoyed the look at Japanese culture, especially the Noh theater, and the training and rituals practiced by the sumotori. I just loved the boys' grandparents who both possessed an inner strength and warm hearts. Tragedy after tragedy touched the lives of the people who were important to Hiroshi and Kenji, especially in the post-war years. But the writing was so calm and controlled that the tragic events hardly raised an emotional response as I was reading. So while I loved the immersion in Japanese culture, it seemed like some situations needed a little more emotional fire.
+20 task
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 280
Banana Cream Pie Murder by Joanne FlukeReview can be found here : /review/show...
Task +10
Review +10
Book Total: 20
Grand Total: 95
10.5 CircusThe Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
One reviewer of this book compared it to The Night Circus and Geek Love...but the only similarity for me was the fact that they are all "circus" books. I loved The Night Circus, could not make myself like Geek Love, and this one fell somewhere between those two.
The narrative is split between two stories: a traveling circus in the 1790s and a librarian living in a crumbling house that is perched on the edge of a cliff in the modern day.
Simon, the librarian, receives an ancient, water-damaged book in the mail from an antiquarian bookseller. The bookseller states that one of Simon's ancestor's names is in the book and that is why he sent it to him. This book is what ties the two different story lines together. It is also the crux of a curse that haunts his family, especially the women in his family--"mermaids" in the circus who can hold their breath for over ten minutes...yet all end up drowning before they turn 30 and always on July 24th. July 24th is fast approaching and Simon's sister, Enola, is back in town after years away (working as a fortune teller in yet another traveling circus) and he fears that she is destined to drown.
I read the first half of the book on my kindle and listened to the last half (when my library hold finally came through). I really liked the first half, the last half seemed rushed to get to the ending she wanted. Maybe, though, that was because I was listening while cleaning the house (which I don't love--does anyone?) and I didn't love the reader of the book--I'm afraid those two things may have colored my perception of the last half.
+10 Task (tagged 58 times as "circus")
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.2)
Task total: 25
Season total: 640
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 376 Anika wrote: "10.9 A Wrinkle in TimeKindred by Octavia E. Butler
I could not put this book down...well, after reading the first three pages and deciding it j..."
Humbug! Sorry about that! I didn't even think to check....I'll work on being better about that in the future.
15.6 Aotd TravelerI Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson
Nordic Council Literature Prize 2009
+15 Task
Grand Total = 380
10.2 - 3,4,5 Too Young to Marry by Rosalind Brett
I couldn't resist saving this classic 1950s Mills & Boon/Harlequin from the discard pile! Lorna is 18 and alone in the world. After leaving school she travelled to the South Sea Islands to join her father, but he was lost at sea soon afterwards. So his former business partner, Paul Westbrook, offers to marry her, basically to look after her and give her a home, although he thinks she's too young to be married so he won't actually touch her :-/
It's hard to believe how this marriage ever happened, the story is a little slow, and there are far too many misunderstandings, but it's a classic of its genre and time all the same. Fun!
+10 task
+ 5 combo (10.3)
+10 review
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 525
10.4 International Question DayWhere is Here? by Joyce Carol Oates
+10 task
+10 combo (10.2; 10.6)
Task total=20
Grand total=600
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
Letters to the End of Love (other topics)Made in the U.S.A. (other topics)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (other topics)
The Goldfinch (other topics)
The Boy on the Bridge (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Yvette Walker (other topics)Billie Letts (other topics)
Arthur Conan Doyle (other topics)
Donna Tartt (other topics)
M.R. Carey (other topics)
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The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
This story was excellent, as long as you enjoy the slightly detached tone of a fairy tale and a book that includes beautiful description that elaborates emotional presence without exactly advancing plot. And I do. It was magical and lyrical and absorbing. I liked how the side elements were woven into the primary text. The unfolding of what the contest really means is subtle and building in tension but doesn't feel like it drags. It would have been better if I hadn't known the "death" part from the blurb, although it's certainly foreshadowed by the "lost" part in the beginning. But it was still great, even so. It was a treat to imagine the circus, and the story within it, and I wish it was real so I could go.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 combo (10.2)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 540