Jennifer’s Comments (group member since Dec 03, 2021)

Jennifer’s comments from the On The Same Page group.

I've read Columbine and can highly recommend it.

Denise wrote: "AI was so funny in 2015."

Comic genius to be sure!

I sat out December because I was behind on some annual challenges that end December 31. Back in for January!

Oh what a great list! I've read four or five of them, not a dud in the bunch, and another 3 or 4 are on my list.

I recommend A. R. Gurney's Love Letters, and his The Dining Room. Rattigan's Separate Tables and The Winslow Boy are both good and have been made into beautiful films. Lombardi was very good if you are a football fan. The Audience was excellent if you are a fan of The Crown on Netflix -- same writer. If you are a fan of old movies, Philip Barry wrote both Holiday and The Philadelphia Story -- both vehicles for Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in the late 30s/early 40s.

I've read Seven Husband and A Most English Princess and liked both, Vikki. I hope you enjoy your reads!

Iron Lake is very good. I have The Scholar on my list. Will be watching to see what you think!

In for five, please!
PIFM"

Hi, everyone!

For anyone unfamiliar, this is a monthly challenge where you post a link to a shelf you created. It can be named "PIFM" or "Pick It For Me" etc, if you want one dedicated only to this challenge, or you can use an existing shelf you already have, as long as it has 100 or fewer books on it. The link must be to the specific shelf, or you will not be partnered.. Indicate how many books you would like to have picked for you from that shelf for the month in question. There is no lower limit as to how many books you can have on your shelf, but, of course, they should be books you are interested in reading during the next month and have ready access to.

On or about the 25th of each month, I will post who picks for whom. In order to accommodate an uneven number of participants, pairs will not be reciprocal -- in other words, it won't be Joanne picking for Jennifer and Jennifer picking for Joanne. It may be Joanne picks for Jennifer, Jennifer picks for Herman, and Herman picks for Suzanne, and someone else entirely picks for Joanne.

IF anyone has not been "picked for" by the 30th, I will pick for them if the designated picker can't be contacted by PM.

When you are assigned someone to pick for, note the number of books in parentheses after that person's name in the pick list, go to the link for their shelf, and pick that number of books for them. Post the books in a new message here. That person has the entire following month to read his/her picks. Someone will be picking for you the same way. We all like to see what people think about their picks, so we hope you will keep us posted in this thread!

Example: "In for five, please!
PIFM"

The HTML template for linking your shelf can be found HERE and if you have trouble, PM me and I will help you.

Your designated shelf must be set so that others can see it. To set up a PIFM shelf for those who would like to, go to the "MY BOOKS" link in the GOODREADS toolbar, scroll down below your shelves on the left until you see the "add shelf" button, and click that. Name it PIFM or Pick It For Me. Add books to it, and post the link to it in this challenge as described above. Again, if you need help, please don't hesitate to PM me!

If you are in for January, post your shelf and the number of picks you'd like to have below. See you on picking day!

January pairs:

Jennifer picks 1 for Martha
Beth picks 5 for Jennifer
Jackie picks 4 for Desley
Joy picks 1 for Jackie
Denise picks 3 for Joy
Martha picks 2 for Denise
Desley picks 2 for Beth

Hi everyone! January's colors are white or blue. Looking forward to seeing your covers!

What a great list! I really enjoyed Iron Lake, and several other books on your list are on my TBR as well. I hope you enjoy these.

Empire Falls and All the President's Men are both excellent reads, Kathleen. I have Cutting for Stone around here somewhere but haven't read it yet. And I've never read a book by Ishiguro that I didn't like. You have an excellent list!

Joy, I'm choosing for you. What a lovely cover!

My three:

I'm at 24 as of this writing for 2022: I'll try for 25 in 2023 and hope to beat it.

Last year I read 19. My goal this year is 25.

Plays I read in 2022 - not as many as I'd have liked!

First Episode Terence Rattigan
The Mountaintop Katori Hall
The Year of Magical Thinking: The Play Joan Didion
Twelve Angry Men Reginald Rose
Three Plays by Granville Barker: The Marrying of Ann Leete - The Voysey Inheritance - Waste
The Art of Concealment: The Life of Terence Rattigan
Lombardi Eric Simonson
Collected Plays Volume III, 1984-1991
The Audience Peter Morgan
In a Garden Philip Barry
Night Must Fall Emlyn Williams

Yep, and it is like stage five: the transition to it isn't gradual. You look at the calendar one day around October, and in a split second you leave the warm happy confines of stage 3 and segue into the bitterness and lonely drinking of stage 4. Stage five is the same way, except it happens the last week of November and you switch from booze to sugar (because of the holiday baking).

Glad you liked it. I think winter is perfect for Agatha Christie too, and I agree with you about holiday books being more romance-centered than my reading typically is!

On the moderators thread, we joke about "The Five Stages of the OTSP Annual Challenge."

They are:
1) Excitement,
2) Early progress,
3) Inattention,
4) Berating myself for not putting all audio books on my list, and
5) Panic.

Dates: 01/01/2023 - 03/31/2023

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.

Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?” Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept.

Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.


Blue Nights
Joan Didion