Lea’s Comments (group member since Jan 04, 2017)

Lea’s comments from the 2022 ONTD Reading Challenge group.

I finally read a book for this month! Honestly this was probably the most difficult to find a title that appealed to me because I ended up DNFing my original pick, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I just found the writing style really grating, it reminded me of fanfiction.

I ended up picking up Lucy Parker's latest romance, Making Up, part of her London Celebrities series. It was pretty mediocre to be honest.

No problem guys. And just a reminder that you don't have to pick any of the awards listed, there are many, many more out there (just make sure it is a legit award).

I found this website which talks a bit about some of the winners listed here: https://www.bookbub.com/blog/2018/06/...

Also: I've read Eleanor Oliphant last year and it is GREAT. Highly recommend it. I think I'll be going for All Systems Red this month.

HUGO AWARDS
Awards the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year
The Stone Sky - NK Jemisin (Novel)
All Systems Red - Martha Wells (Novella)
No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters - Ursula K LeGuin (Related Work)

NEBULA AWARDS
Recognizes the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. Awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
The Stone Sky - NK Jemisin (Novel)
All Systems Red - Martha Wells (Novella)

ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD
A UK prize for science fiction literature
Dreams Before the Start of Time - Anne Charnock

CRIME WRITING ASSOCIATION DAGGERS
The Liar - Steve Cavanagh (Gold Dagger: Crime Novel)
Bluebird, Bluebird - Attica Locke (Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Best Thriller)
Lola - Melissa Scrivner Love (New Blood Dagger: Crime Novel, 1st Time Author)
After the Fire - Henning Mankell (International)
Blood on the Page - Thomas Harding (Non Fiction)
Nucleus - Rory Clements (Historical)

EDGAR AWARDS
Awarded by Mystery Writers of America
Bluebird, Bluebird - Attica Locke (Novel)
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann (Fact Crime)

BRAM STOKER AWARDS
Awarded by the Horror Writers Association
Winners here: http://www.sfadb.com/Bram_Stoker_Awar...

SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS
Celebrates outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense, and dark fantasy fiction
The Hole - Hye-Young Pyun
Fever Dream - Samantha Schweblin & The Lost Daughter Collective - Lindsay Drager (joint winners, Novella)

RITA AWARDS
Romance Writers of America
Winners here: https://www.rwa.org/page/2018-winners

BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS
Awarded by the British Fantasy Society
The Ninth Rain - Jen Williams (Fantasy)
Strange Weather - Joe Hill (Collection)
The Changeling - Victor Lavalle (Horror)

Any award you want - you can go high-brow with the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Man Booker Prize or the National Book Award, explore what’s best in speculative fiction with the Hugo and Nebula awards, get scared by the Shirley Jackson or Bram Stoker Awards, read women with the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, fall in love with the Romance Writers of America (RITA Awards), etc!

BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
Awarded to a female author of any nationality for the best original full-length novel written in English, and published in the UK in the preceding year
Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie

GOLDEN MAN BOOKER PRIZE
The best Man Booker winner of the past 50 years
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

MAN BOOKER PRIZE
Best original novel, written in the English language and published in the UK
Milkman - Anna Burns

MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE
Given to a book in English translation
Flights - Olga Tokarczuk

PULITZER PRIZE
An award for achievements in literature in the United States
Less - Andrew Sean Greer (Best Fiction)
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder - Caroline Fraser (Best Biography)
The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea - Jack E. Davis (Best History)
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America - James Forman Jr (Best General Nonfiction)

PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION
Awarded to the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens
Improvement - Joan Silber

PRIX GONCOURT
France's most prestigious literary prize
Leurs enfants après eux - Nicolas Mathieu

COSTA BOOK AWARDS
Recognises English-language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman (First Novel)
Inside the Wave - Helen Dunmore (Poetry + Book of the Year)
Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor (Novel)
In the Days of Rain: A Daughter, a Father, a Cult - Rebecca Stott (Biography)

BRITISH BOOK AWARDS
Honours the commercial successes of publishers, authors and bookshops
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman (Début Book of the Year and Overall Winner)
Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor (Fiction)
The Dry - Jane Harper (Crime & Thriller)
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo Lodge (Nonfiction Narrative)
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas & The Lost Words (Robert Macfarlane) (joint winners Children's Book)

WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE
Celebrates exceptional books that engage with the topics of health and medicine
To Be a Machine : Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death - Mark O'Connell

CARNEGIE MEDAL
A British award that recognises one outstanding book for children or young adults
Where the World Ends - Geraldine McCaughrean

YA BOOK PRIZE
Champions Young Adult books written by authors living in the UK or Ireland
After the Fire - Will Hill

WATERSTONE'S CHILDREN'S BOOK PRIZE
An award given to a work of children's literature published during the previous year, open only to authors who have published no more than three books
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (Overall Winner and Older Fiction)

So I read an abridged edition of the Decameron by Boccaccio (abridged because it contains only 10 out of the 100 stories which make up the original book). It was a special edition I bought a while ago, illustrated like a medieval manuscript. It's under 150 pages, so I thought it's be a good opportunity to read a classic and knock a book down from my tbr.

It was fine? Okay, it's not like I read the original thing, but this was supposed to be a selection of the "best" stories, and I only really liked one of them. Some were a bit pointless, others were really just porn. Most were pretty misogynistic (yeah well, what can you expect from a medieval book).

Like, one of them is about a guy who pretends to be a mute and goes to work in a convent hoping the nuns will sleep with him. They all do, and he lives happily ever after sleeping with the whole convent. This is apparently a very popular story, some people think it's hilarious, it was even recently adapted to a movie (The Little Hours, with Allison Brie). It's just a nonsense male fantasy, it's not even satire. (Plus, I feel like that situation would easily turn into something more like The Beguiled).

Anyway. This was not for me. I don't really appreciate this kind of humour.

My favourite Brazilian fiction read this year was probably Vidas Secas (Barren Lives) by Graciliano Ramos. Most people read this at school, I didn't (my school picked other books). It's wonderful and really sad.

I was recently at a bookshop speaking to a foreigner, who asked me to recommend a book on Brazilian history, as he couldn't understand the country. The one I recommended was Brazil: A Biography by the historian Lilia Moritz Schwarcz. It's a big tome, but if anyone is really interested in Brazilian history, it's a good one. As for understanding the country, that I can't guarantee! lol

I went with a Miss Marple book for this challenge - I have a kindle collection of all Miss Marple mysteries which I'm making my way through, they are wonderful comfort reads. I picked 4:50 from Paddington, which was a bit far-fetched, but fun. I enjoyed it. I never guess the murderer in Agatha Christie's books!

I am super late but I'm just getting around to do this month's challenge. I read The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer. I didn't like it, but I had low expectations for it so I'm not disappointed. It's not one of her most popular books. I know there were other titles this month that I was probably going to enjoy a lot more, but as a big Heyer fan, I want to go through her backlist and I figured this was as good an opportunity as any. Possibly this book is much better in audio form, as at least you get Richard Armitage narrating, and it's abridged.

haha yes Dainey, totally agree about Rob. I haven't seen a reader like him yet. I'm going to pick up the other Squad books too but haven't gotten round to it yet

Cathryn, thanks for this great feedback! I'm really interested in Six Wakes and Midnight Sun. Since you mentioned you read PD James, can you rec some of your faves? I've only read one by her (Original Sin), and didn't like it, but I think it might just have been a weak entry point to her work, so I'm going to give her another try.

Welcome, X!

X wrote: "Journalistic longform counts as mystery right?"

Well, no, sorry. The challenge this month is to read a mystery book as in the genre mystery (fiction). True crime/nonfiction doesn't really fit. But we hope you can find a mystery book that appeals to you from the ONTD post or one of the lists Rachel linked!

Rachel wrote: "I've had Out and ..."

Oh no I really hated Out! I don't recommend it! :/

Susan wrote: "Also, would a book like Night Film be eligible?"

I don't know - Rach, you've read it, is it eligible?

Sasha, that's correct, Truth and Beauty doesn't fit this month's theme. If anyone is picking a memoir, the eligible ones are by famous actors/comedians/directors/etc, basically Hollywood people (and similar industries from other countries), reality show people, models and famous musicians, but not writers or politicians.

Anne Helen Petersen (the writer who gave us that hilarious profile on Armie Hammer) has a book on Old Hollywood gossip: Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema

I also found this book while browsing around on Goodreads today: One On One by Craig Brown (it's about unlikely meetings between famous people)

I think I might pick The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo for this month

Romance books where one character is famous for show biz reasons are eligible for this month. I really like Act Like It by Lucy Parker. Can one of our romance readers rec some more that fit this trope?

I don't really know anything about the Salem witch trials but I like reading about that sort of thing and I love Shirley Jackson, so I will definitely check this out!

Kim wrote: "I read Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins. It was insane!

Highly recommend."

omg I hadn't heard of this one but it's a Persephone book... it looks really good

I am late but I finally read a book that fits this challenge. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. It was faaaaantastic!

I'm going to have a super busy/stressful month so I have to pick something light. I might reread Miss Buncle's Book or read one of the PG Wodehouse books published in 34

(If anyone likes historical fiction with lots of political intrigue/family drama, I really recommend I, Claudius for this month!! It's a great book!!)

I read Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl. It's the first of his (I believe two) memoirs. I really like Dahl's books and this provided an insight into his background that I thought was really interesting. You can definitely see where he got those awful adults in his stories from.

It's written in pretty simple language, and I think even children can read it (it's published by Puffin after all), but like everything by Dahl it did get pretty dark sometimes.

If you are not a Roald Dahl reader, I would say this book would be of little interest to you, but I personally enjoyed it!