Pam’s Comments (group member since Dec 07, 2021)

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

Ioana wrote: "Pam wrote: "I highly recommend Elena Ferrante's quartet, starting with My Brilliant Friend. "

I've had this on my shelf for years...it's time for it, thanks for the reminder."

I hope you enjoy it! There's also a TV show now based on the books.

Lillie wrote: "Have no idea how I missed your challenge Pam! What a truly fun one. I've been wanting to do an ATW challenge and maybe I'll borrow this idea for next year.

Am going to have to go through your book..."

Thanks Lillie! I hope you find something of interest on my list. I am much more interested in books written by non-US authors. Although, I do have some US authors that I really like.

I highly recommend Elena Ferrante's quartet, starting with My Brilliant Friend. The book I read for this challenge was the 2nd in the series. In the Distance was really good, also!

Alondra wrote: "Pam wrote: "Marked off book #4 which I forgot about! I have started 2 of the books but they are not pulling me in. I'll probably still finish them. I have 2 others on the list that I plan to read f..."

Thank you Alondra! I try every year to pick books that I really want to read so I do feel like it's a success if I read some of them! I always have fun coming up with the list.

Hi Lillie! I read Klara and the Sun last year and really enjoyed it! Hope that helps your motivation. 😃

Marked off book #4 which I forgot about! I have started 2 of the books but they are not pulling me in. I'll probably still finish them. I have 2 others on the list that I plan to read for another challenge so they are up next - Parrot and Olivier in America and Lenin's Kisses. Why did I pick so many long books?! I think I was thinking that this is a challenge so why not go big. I'll consider the challenge a success if I finish 8 of my books. 12 would be short of a miracle.

Finished one more- A Psalm for the Wild-Built and used it for #20 Road trip. It's not the book I was planning to read but I think it fits. The monk Dex takes off into the wilderness with their wagon on a road. Not the traditional road trip but they are on a road and it is a trip. This was an enjoyable book with an optimistic, hopeful future. I look forward to reading book #2 in the series.

5 more to go. Can I do it?? None of the books I'm planning to read for the rest of the year fit these categories.

Finished 2 more for a total of 19.
19. A new book by your favorite author
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
- I don't have a favorite author but one of my favorite books was written by Verghese so I went with him.

21. A book that is co-authored.
Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
- This was a very odd book. I read it for a GR group read in another group and for my library SF group, both in August. I will be interested in the discussions! Should be quite interesting! It is a satire on the USSR scientific research.

The rest of the prompts are doable but a book centered around a holiday - I have no idea!

Finished 1 more for a total of 15. Prompt #11. A book that is dusty on your shelf - I read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. This was a re-read for a sci-fi book club meeting. The book holds up over all the years (128)!

I'm currently reading David Copperfield and the modern retelling Demon Copperhead for prompt #1. I think there will be a villain in the 2 books.

Finished 1 more for a total of 14. Prompt 13. A family drama - I read Book 3 in the Neapolitan Novel series Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante. This is an excellent series with lots of drama and introspection into women's lives.

Thanks Bill for your comments on Gibson’s trilogy. I may suggest Virtual Light next year for our sci-fi book club read.

Finished my 3rd book The Story of a New Name, book 2 in the Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante. It was equally as excellent as the first book! Easily a 5 star read for me. I plan to read books 3 and 4 this year. The sory of best friends Elena and Lila is fascinating and the writing is so good that it's hard to put the book down!

I also have Collected Stories by GG Marquez in the works. I hope to finish it in May and then start on The Alienist and Other Stories of 19th Centry Brazil. I may not finish this challenge, but I am reading books I own, which have all been 4-5 star reads, so that's important to me!

I see that you gave Idoru 5 stars. That’s encouraging since it’s sitting on my bookshelf getting dusty! I didn’t realize it’s 2nd in a series, though. Have you also read the first book Virtual Light??

Finished 5 more and have 1 in the works and 1 I have to check out of the library again to read. I'm switching back to my 12+4 challenge to read some books on my TBR and gathering dust in my house! Also, I'm doing some bilingual reading, which takes me more than twice as long as reading in just English since I'm noting new words/phrases. I'm having to cut back and not note everything that is new! So much new Spanish vocab for me but a lot more that I now know, which is encouraging! (Thank you Duolingo!)

Finished Book #2 In the Distance, which was my favorite book of the first quarter. It's really well written and not what you would call a typical western. Not at all! I definitely want to read the author's newest book, which has had a lot of buzz, Trust. Next up will probably be The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil. It's short and I'm reading it for a year long Latin American buddy read in another group. I really want to tackle The Books of Jacob after that!

Finished 4 more in February + one for my 12+4 challenge. Two in the works - Horse and House of Mist and the Shrouded Woman Two Novels: Two Novels by Maria Luisa Bombal. Total read this year - 5 classics and 3 non-classics which were all sci-fi related. Catching up on the classics this year!

This is is harder than I expected! But, I’m working on a list.

One down! I finished A High Wind in Jamaica. I was a little bored with the first 170 pages (possibly because I was reading other books at the same time) BUT it got very interesting about that point, due to a shocking event, and I developed an appreciation for the book! I've read 5 books set in the Caribbean Islands in the last 2 months, so I am going to take a break from that part of the world. I think my next 2 books from this list will be Happy Families: Stories (set in Mexico) and In the Distance (a travel starting in California and going eastwards, I think). Interestingly, on the back cover of In the Distance, one of the reviewers says the book has echoes of A High Wind in Jamaica, so now I'm curious why he wrote that.

I'm making good progress on this challenge - 4 finished and 3 currently being read! But, since I am trying to not duplicate books on this list with the 12+4 list, that challenge is still at zero! It's still early in the year, though.

I read this book at the end of 2022 and it was one of my top 3 reads. I found it fascinating! I'll comment more once others have finished it. There are aspects of gaming that I didn't realize really existed! I listened to a podcast where they were talking about the journalist's experience in this "world". Not being a gamer, I started to understand people's interest. I love the title and the 2 ways it connects to the book. It's perfect, as is the cover. I really enjoy Zevin's writing, also! I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I did!