Faye’s Comments (group member since Nov 05, 2013)

Faye’s comments from the The Reading Challenge Group group.

The Nonfiction Group Read for April is Crafts & Hobbies: 100 Days of Kindness - Spreading Happiness, Joy, and Love with 100 Acts of Random Kindness!, by Jacob Reimer!

Reading and discussion commence on April 1. Please keep spoilers behind spoiler tags.

The Genre Group Read for April is Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare! One of Shakespeare's best, if I may say so.

Reading and discussion commence on April 1. Please keep spoilers behind spoiler tags.

The Classic Group Read for April is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy!

Reading and discussion commence on April 1. Please keep spoilers behind spoiler tags.

The YA Group Read for April is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott! One of my all-time favourites. :)

Reading and discussion commence on April 1. Please keep spoilers behind spoiler tags.

Congrats, Lindsay! I love those names. :)

Welcome, Charlotte! Oxford? Jealous!!

February

08. Nostradamus: Countdown to Apocalypse, by Jean-Charles de Fontbrune (3/5 stars) - Read this for research, though I've always loved Nostradamus and fully believe that he had insight into our future. This was clearly not the greatest interpretation of his prophecies - it was written in 1980, and the author seemed to think WWIII and the war of the Antichrist would happen between then and 1999, which... they didn't. However, I appreciated that he not only gave us his own interpretation but also presented us with the prophecies in Nostradamus' original words. That way, I was able to interpret them for myself as best I could with my rusty French and almost-nonexistent Latin. Fascinating stuff.

09. The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes: And Other Surprising True Stories of Zoo Vets and their Patients, by Lucy H. Spelman and various (5/5 stars) - I think I missed my calling. If only life had gone my way, I could have been a zoo vet! Sigh...

This is a really cool collection of anecdotes from zoo and wildlife vets and the crazy situations they find themselves in. A lot of the stories are absolutely beautiful, some a little uncomfortable, some quite tear-jerking, but all of them were written by the vets themselves and are full of heart and good humour. It was a delight to read. Although (spoiler alert!) I kind of wish it had ended on a string of happy stories. I'm still a little bit sniffly over that giraffe.

10. Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo, by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence (5/5 stars) - The title isn't kidding - this really is an incredible story. A South African conservationist risked his life to enter Iraq during some of its darkest days to save the Baghdad Zoo and any other innocent animals that were caught in the human crossfire. What with cleaning up the aftermath of bombs and battles in and around the zoo, random firefights in the streets, looters who would steal anything that wasn't nailed down (and even then they'd give it a good try), black market animal traders, international politics getting in the way of absolutely everything, and, at times the most harrowing of all, the daily struggle to find food and water for the animals and people under Lawrence Anthony's care, this book is a non-stop roller coaster ride. Not for the faint of heart, but highly recommended nonetheless. Human beings, man...

11. Aerial Atlas of the Holy Land: Discover the Great Sites of History from the Air, by John Bowker (4/5 stars) - This book is full of stunning photographs of various cities and ruins throughout the Holy Land, as well as lots of interesting information about each site. I really enjoyed reading it, though just looking through the photographs would have been enjoyment enough.

12. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, by T.E. Lawrence (5/5 stars) - Beautifully written. I mean, BEAUTIFULLY. How Lawrence managed to write about such a brutal war with such brutal honesty and yet such BEAUTY is just... mind-blowing. His words paint such vivid pictures that I felt parched when he was without water in the desert, felt chills when he was freezing in the winter, and had to stop reading and clear my head for a few hours after the unflinching account of his brutalization for the sick enjoyment of the sadistic Bey at Deraa. It's an incredible story, and one that I'm glad to have read in Lawrence's own words, rather than relying on the Lawrence of Arabia movie to give me a clear picture of who this man was. The details are so mixed-and-matched in that movie it's almost an entirely different story.

More than anything, though, I was struck by how much I relate to this man. I'd felt while watching the movie that I kind of understood him, which was the main reason I wanted to read this book in the first place, and Chapter 103, when he ruminates on his 30th birthday about who he is and how he ticks, clinched it for me. I GET this guy. I've added him to my rather short list of people toward whose minds I feel an odd kinship. It's no wonder people today suspect he may have had Asperger's. My opinion is that he very much did.

Anyway. Excellent book. I loved it.

13. Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, by Robert H. Eisenman (4/5 stars) - I can't believe it's taken me this long to read these! This book didn't cover all of the Dead Sea Scrolls, just the fragmented ones from works that haven't been found anywhere else. Fascinating stuff, whether they came from a Jewish sect or early-days Christianity. I actually wonder if they were simply training scrolls, like university exam/thesis type of things, which these religious scholars couldn't burn or throw away because they contained the name of God. It would explain why they've never found Esther among them - it's the one book of the Bible where God is never mentioned, so any unwanted copies of it could have been burned or whatever. Solved!

January

01. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury (4/5 stars) - I really enjoyed this, though the style of the writing was a bit jarring at times. The story itself was amazingly imaginative (a merry-go-round that can age you or make you younger, a circus of freaks that use people's secret vices or insecurities to lure them in and turn them into freaks, too, etc), and Bradbury had a way of sucking you into the characters' situations and making you feel what they were feeling. Excellent storytelling. And it had a hopeful message (becoming happy and content with who you are and what you have is the only thing that can save you from being corrupted by vice), which I appreciated.

02. The Devil and Miss Prym, by Paulo Coelho (5/5 stars) - Another highly imaginative story with a hopeful message! I loved this - the devil comes to a small village and tells the people that he'll give them huge amounts of gold if they'll kill one person. Just an experiment - he just wants to see if people are inherently good or inherently evil. Turns out, people are much more complicated than that. Sure, we get tempted to do evil, and quite often we give in... but we make that choice. We struggle with it. We can decide NOT to do evil. It's a very thought-provoking story, and I enjoyed it very much. I'm anxious to read more of Coelho's work.

03. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand (5/5 stars) - An absolutely beautiful book about an absolutely incredible life. This is the book behind the movie directed by Angelina Jolie, all about Olympic runner Louis Zamporini's unbelievable ability to stay alive throughout the absolute worst that WWII had to offer. It's amazing. I recommend it to pretty much everybody, unless you're overly squeamish.

04. Jerusalem: The Biography, by Simon Sebag Montefiore (4/5 stars) - All I could think while reading about the violent, horrific history of the world's holiest city was... wow, 3 religions, all these millions of people, and not one of them seems to understand what they're claiming to worship. I mean, really? Does the One True God want all His followers to slaughter each other in His Great City century in, century out? I wouldn't have thought so. But there it is. It's a great book, though some of the details seemed a little off. For all I know, all of his information could have been totally wrong, but I at least know that he misinterpreted (or simply misunderstood) a lot of Biblical stuff.

05. Dangerous World: Natural Disasters Manmade Catastrophes And Futr Of Humn Survival, by Marq de Villiers (4/5 stars) - I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed this book - it gave me the overwhelming feeling time and time again that humanity is doomed one way or another - but it gave me the information I needed in a straightforward yet not entirely unhumourous manner, so... yay?

06. A Bevy of Beasts, by Gerald Durrell (3/5 stars) - I needed to do some zoo research, so I figured this prolific zookeeper-cum-author would be a good place to start, but... nah. He writes a good anecdote, but I think he and I disagree on some rather important animal-related philosophies. I started reading another of his books soon after this one and had to quit. I appreciate the work he did towards preserving endangered animals, though.

07. Apocalypse: A Natural History of Global Disasters, by Bill McGuire (3/5 stars) - This had a lot of the same information as Dangerous World, but none of the pizzazz. It did include some fictional futuristic scenarios that were somewhat helpful towards my novel research, but again... no pizzazz. I mostly skimmed it.

I always forget to update this thread!

So far this year I've read 18 wildcard books (mostly research) and 1 Dickens. Not exactly what I'd planned, but that's okay. I think what I'll try to do is post here the reviews I write and print out for my own records at the end of each month, many of which I don't put up for public consumption when I rate them on GR. So, January and February reviews coming right up...

Your thread is always so full and interesting, Kiwi. :)

Welcome, Lyn! Sounds like you've found the right place. :)

Welcome, Cindy! We're very good at keeping each other reading here. :)

That's awesome, Caite! :)

If you want it to count, it counts. These are personal challenges, so do whatever's comfortable for you. :)

LOL I have that problem, too, Becca!

Renee wrote: "I've started Cry, the Beloved Country. I'm really enjoying it. It's very well written. A small town minister must go into the city of Johannesburg. The early chapters underscore how out..."

I'm planning to read that this month, too.

Becca wrote: "I was excited about the prospect of reading this book; however, that excitement quickly went away. I made it through 20% of the book, but found myself avoiding reading because I was "supposed" to ..."

Aw, that's too bad. Maybe watch the movie instead?

It's wonderful that you still love to read in spite of all that, Caite! Good luck to you!

Welcome, Caite! Good for you, sticking with reading even though it's such a struggle. My dad has dyslexia, and I remember as a kid helping him to read, but these days I swear he reads more than I do! So it can get easier. :)

The Book Thief is awesome!

I feel ya, Cheryl. I'm having a hard time with it, too. The main character is just so... forgive me for using a "fandom" term but... Mary-Sue-ish? I just can't get into the characters. It's coming across as author's-fantasy rather than just plain fantasy, and that's a major turn-off for me. But yeah, the premise and world building is so great, so it's a shame.