spoko’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2021)

spoko’s comments from the EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club group.

I'm hoping for another blackout this year. Here goes . . .

❌ YA novel
     Walk Two Moons
❌ Re-read
    On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous — Read and re-read this year.
❌ From an author new to you
    Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
❌ Historical fiction
    Devil in a Blue Dress
❌ Author’s most recent book
    The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson
________________________

❌ Book connected to where you live
    Kings of Broken Things
❌ Award winner
    Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War (2025 Pulitzer — History)
❌ Two-word title
    Rough Sleepers
❌ Memoir/biography
    An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin
❌ Book that makes you laugh
    Where Eagles Dare
    Not hilarious, but I did have a couple laugh-out-loud moments. Honestly, that’s quite a bit for me.
________________________

❌ Read in a week or less
    The Fire Next Time
⬜ Published this year
    Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World
❌ EHRTBM book of the month
    The Road (April — Modern Classic/Popular)
❌ More than 400 pages
    Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (1182 pages; 53.5-hour audiobook)
❌ Color in the title
    The White Mosque
________________________

⬜ Based on a true story
     Code Name Hélène DNF. I tried, but it's just so bad. So I’m trying Red Joan.
❌ Translated from another language
    Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic)
❌ Book with a subtitle
    Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America
⬜ Numeral or punctuation in title
    The 272
⬜ Less than 200 pages
    We’re Alone
________________________

❌ On your TBR for at least 1 year
    The Namesake (since June 2023)
⬜ From the decade of your birth
    A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
❌ First in a series
    The Blackhouse ( Lewis Trilogy #1)
❌ More than 100 years old
    Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
❌ Set in a country you haven’t visited
    In the Shadow of the Banyan (Cambodia)



Pretty late in the year to get my first Bingo, but started right off with a double! (October 2)

Bingo #3! (October 9)

Bingo #4! (November 18)

Thanks all for participating. Be sure to check out the 2025 Bingo challenge !

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I count the same book for several categories or can I use it only once?

No, it can only count for one category, even if it fits many.

2. How do I paste the picture of the Bingo card into my post?

‣ After clicking on the link, your Bingo card is generated. Take a screenshot of it.
‣ You now need to upload the screenshot image file, and get a publicly available URL (web address) for it. Go onto the website https://imgur.com/upload and upload your file. Once it’s uploaded, click the Copy link button to copy your image’s URL (web address).
‣ Go back to your post on this discussion thread.
‣ Copy the following code and paste it into your post, replacing YOUR_URL_HERE with your URL:
       <img src="YOUR_URL_HERE.jpg">
Be sure there is a ‘.jpg’ tacked onto the end of your URL. So if your URL was  𝚑𝚝𝚝𝚙𝚜://𝚒𝚖𝚐𝚞𝚛.𝚌𝚘𝚖/𝚊/𝚎𝚑𝚁𝚝𝚋𝙼  your code should look like  <𝚒𝚖𝚐 𝚜𝚛𝚌="𝚑𝚝𝚝𝚙𝚜://𝚒𝚖𝚐𝚞𝚛.𝚌𝚘𝚖/𝚊/𝚎𝚑𝚁𝚝𝚋𝙼.𝚓𝚙𝚐">

3. Does “translated from another language” have to have been an English translation?

It simply has to have been translated from the original into some other language. If you normally read books in French, for example, then it might be a Russian book translated into French, or the same book translated into English!

4. How specific does “where you live” need to be? My city? Province/state? Country?

Tl;dr: If if feels like it’s about your part of the world, it works.

I thought it best to let each of us decide this for ourselves. For someone who lives somewhere like London or NYC, they wouldn’t be challenged to find something about their city, but they might even try to find something about their borough or neighborhood. For those of us living in rural or less-documented areas, it makes sense to think wider. I went with the state I live in. Others may choose a country or some other, wider space.

5. What does “book with a subtitle” mean?

A subtitle is simply some word or phrase that’s not part of the main title, but follows it. So like Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA or Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919. Obviously they’re pretty common in nonfiction, but novels do sometimes have subtitles as well. For example, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution (which actually has two subtitles), Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, or Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy’s Progress.

Welcome to the 2025 Bingo Reading Challenge, a fun way to read around the block and broaden your bookish horizons. This is a year-long challenge that can be played in a variety of ways.

Regular: say BINGO! You’ve read books that fit in the 5 categories presented on the bingo card in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal line.
Blackout: BIGNO! Italian Bingo, you’ve read all the categories of books on the card.
Mix it up: BONIG! Use the card as a way to inspire your reading life. Cross out as many categories of books as you’ve read.

https://mfbc.us/m/aa2g97n
⇑ This ⇑ is the interactive Bingo card, where you can actually cross out the books when you’ve read them. Note: Each time you click the link, it may generate a new card. So please take a screenshot of yours and paste it into your post.

Example post:

1) More than 400 pages: Gotham by Edwin G. Burrows & Mike Wallace—July 2
2) Holiday story: Jacob T. Marley by R. William Bennett—December 24

Here is the list of the categories:

 1. Author’s most recent book
 2. Award winner
 3. Based on a true story
 4. Book connected to where you live
 5. Book that makes you laugh
 6. Book with a subtitle
 7. Color in the title
 8. First in a series
 9. From an author new to you
10. From the decade of your birth
11. Historical fiction
12. Less than 200 pages
13. Memoir/biography
14. More than 100 years old
15. More than 400 pages
16. Numeral or punctuation in title
17. On your TBR for at least 1 year
18. Published this year
19. Re-read
20. Read in a week or less
21. Set in a country you haven’t visited
22. Translated from another language
23. Two-word title
24. YA novel
(Quasi-)“Free” space: EHRTBM book of the month

Happy reading!

This begins our group discussion of our Modern book selection, Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, nominated by Andi.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? How would you rate the worldbuilding—were you able to visualize the settings, cultures, etc.? Did you find Alina’s transformational journey believable and compelling? What questions were you left with?

This begins our group discussion of our Classics book selection, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, nominated by Pony.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? This book is famously concise—did you find that to be an advantage, or disadvantage? Which of Sun Tzu’s maxims most resonated for you? What questions were you left with?

Pride and Prejudice has been selected as the Catch-Up title for January 2025. Please feel free to continue with points from previous discussion, or bring up something new!

Do remember that this is the SPOILER thread, in case you would prefer to finish reading before proceeding here.

Honestly, I thought the world-building got in the way more than the message. It’s certainly not as though she invented anti-colonialism, and I didn’t think it hurt the story any.

But wow, I don’t think I’ll ever again read a speculative novel that takes place in a school. It’s such a lazy vehicle for an author to perform unrestrained exposition. This isn’t the first book I’ve read with that fault, but it was more prominent here. So incredibly tedious, and it just would. not. stop. As you say, Heather, it was far too much set-up before getting to the story. And then when they returned to that setting, I about gave up.

Squire wrote: “The footnotes don’t really add much to the story (for me) and they slow down progress.”

My advice: Skip the footnotes entirely. I’ve finished the book, and I don’t think a single one of the footnotes was necessary. Most didn’t even add much in the way of context or color. Just ignore them.

Heather wrote: “The footnotes so far actually don’t really make sense in that she gave a caveat (asking for pass at any inaccuracies about Oxford) at the beginning that this is an alternative timeline fantasy but then the footnotes appear to be her commentary on our own history.”

I agree—she seems not to have had ambivalent goals, as an author. She wants to tell a speculative story, but also really seems to want to show off all the research she did (or knowledge she had) on the time period. I found it a bit jarring, honestly.

This dovetailed with a larger issue I had with the novel. I kept running across parts where it seemed like the writing was less aimed at telling a good story, and more aimed at making the author look impressive. Sometimes it was just little asides—criticizing a contemporary author, etc.—and sometimes it was larger tendencies. But it almost always detracted from the book.

We apologize for this late beginning to our group discussion of our Classics book selection for December, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, nominated by Renata.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? What were your impressions of Charlie, Willie Wonka, and the other children? Did your sense of them change as you read on? What questions were you left with?

Thanks everyone—nominations are now closed, and the polls are open! Help us pick the next Catch-Up read by casting your vote here.

Thanks everyone—nominations are now closed, and the polls are open! Help us pick the next Classic read by casting your vote here.

Thanks everyone—nominations are now closed, and the polls are open! Help us pick the next Modern read by casting your vote here.

To begin with, I thought I might get just one or two bingos. Managed to do better than that, and I only read one or two specifically for this challenge.

B1. Supposed to read for school but didn’t The Things They Carried
B2. Award winner How to Say Babylon —2023 National Book Critics Circle award for autobiography
B3. Recommendation from a GR user The Devil’s Element —recommended in another GR group
B4. Less than 100 pages Midnight City: Corpse Blossom, 85 pages
B5. Published this year James

I1. Mystery/thriller By Way of Sorrow
I2. On your TBR for at least 2 years The Case Against Perfection — On my TBR for more than a decade!
I3. Re-read O Pioneers!
I4. Holiday story A Christmas Carol I was planning to fill this with Jacob T. Marley, but then this was chosen for the December book, and I ended up reading it first.
I5. Essay/short-story collection ¡Hola Papi!

N1. Set in the future The Sparrow (ironically, some of the “future” in this 1996 book is actually now past—but much of it isn’t)
N2. One-word title Rebecca
N3. YA novel Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 6: Follow the Smoke
N4. From an author new to you Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
N5. More than 500 pages Gotham

G1. First in a series Saga, vol. 1
G2. Translated from another language Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, trans. from the German by Joachim Neugroschel
G3. From the year you were born Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, pub. 1973 (Coincidentally, finished it right before my actual birthday; didn’t plan that, or even think of it until just now.)
G4. Source for film or TV show you liked The Talented Mr. Ripley
G5. Author’s first book Crying in H Mart

O1. Number in the title The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine
O2. Set in a city you want to visit The London House Largely, though not entirely, set in London. Still, the rest is set in Paris, D.C., and Boston—all cities I would like to re-visit.
O3. Fantasy/sci-fi Neverwhere
O4. More than 100 years old The Death of Ivan Ilyich, pub. 1886
O5. Graphic novel The Talk



B I N G O ! ! ! — April 19

B I N G O   A G A I N ! ! ! — July 5

BINGO yet again! — August 20

DOUBLE Bingo! — September 10

Another double! — October 4

Last double! — November 23

Triple bingo + BLACKOUT! — December 8

I second The Namesake.

I really like the Muppets version, though I’m no particular fan of them generally. Michael Caine is spectacular.

As for the audiobook, I haven’t heard Hugh Grant’s reading. But last year I discovered the Tim Curry version, which I loved. Can’t wait to hear it again, actually.

I nominate Starter Villain by John Scalzi (264 p., pub. 2023).

I second The Awakening, A Hero of Our Time, and The Body in the Library.

⟡ This far in, have your feelings changed about any of the characters? What about David himself?
⟡ What do you think of the novel's treatment of social class?

This begins our group discussion of our Modern book selection, Babel by R.F. Kuang, nominated by spoko.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? How did the blend of real & imaginary history work for you? How did you feel about the moral decisions the various characters made? What questions were you left with?