Anika’s Comments (group member since Dec 25, 2011)

Anika’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

15.7 PC

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden, 362 pages

+15 Task (by a living author)

Task total: 15
Season total: 540

10.10 Group Read

The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman

+10 Task (Thanks for choosing this one, Denise! Loved it)
+10 Not-a-Novel
+5 Jumbo (522 pages)
+15 Combo (10.8--shelved as "fantasy" 26 times; 20.1--born 1960; 20.4--approved in thread)

(I wasn't sure if it would qualify for 10.6 since they're more essays than short stories, so took the cautious route)

Task total: 40
Season total: 525

Owlette wrote: "20.1 Lifetime

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (Overdrive audiobook edition)

+20 Task
+25 combo: 10.9, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, 20.6

Task Total: 45
Season Tot..."

How did you like the audiobook for this one? I've been considering getting it on Audible...

10.7 For Real

The Designer by Marius Gabriel

+10 Task (Christian Dior, Suzy Solidor, Jean Cocteau, Pierre Balmain, and Ernest Hemingway are among the historical figures that populate this novel)
+10 Combo (20.1--born 1954; 20.9--two alcoholics, an opium addict, and a cocaine addict are among the cast of main characters)

Task total: 20
Season total: 485

Yay! Thank you! I can stop fighting myself now...it was getting ugly up in my brain ;-)

For the "published before 1950" bonus--books published IN 1950 wouldn't count, right? (I feel like I'm fighting a circular debate in my head and need someone else to tell me the right answer!)

10.2 It's All Relative

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

+10 Task ("Man")
+10 L-i-T (translated from Swedish)
+15 Combo (10.7--including Presidents Truman and Johnson, Stalin, Franco, Churchill, Chairman Mao, Kim Jong-il, just to name a few...there were A LOT in this one; 10.9; 20.1--born 1961)

Task total: 35
Season total: 465

20.1 Lifetime

Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson

+20 Task (b. 1959)
+10 Not-a-Novel
+15 Combo (10.6; 20.4--approved in thread; 20.7--all of the stories are set at Christmas-time in the Northern Hemisphere)

Task total: 45
Season total: 425

Amanda wrote: "Anika wrote: "I keep forgetting about the "change" aspect of this task (keep focusing on the "organizing" part)....
In I Am Not A Serial Killer, the main character is trying to find ..."

That does make sense...thank you for clarifying :-)

15.1 PC

Against Love Poetry: Poems by Eavan Boland, 64 pages, and Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Glück, 80 pages

+15 Task (both living authors)

Task total: 15
Season total: 380

20.5 Meta-Fiction

The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson

+20 Task
+15 Combo (20.1, 20.4--verified in thread, 20.8--verified in thread)

Task total: 35
Season total: 365

Jeanette Winterson

Received an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester in 2014 (http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/..., and in her speech at the event, she specifically mentions the fact that they are "honorary doctorates" https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...)

Thornton Wilder

Honorary Doctor of Letters at Yale, 1947 https://secretary.yale.edu/programs-s...

and Honorary Litt. D. at Harvard, 1951 https://www.harvard.edu/on-campus/com...

in addition to others (https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/f...) which I couldn't find specifications on...

(That's my last one for a while! Thank you again!)

10.3 Listopia Reigns!

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

+10 Task (#228 on list)
+20 Combo (10.8--listed 705 times as "fantasy; 10.9; 20.4--cleared in thread; 20.10--fictional epistolary novel)

Task total: 30
Season total: 330

Yay, thank you :-)
And hope you're having a lovely holiday season, Elizabeth :-)

Mary Oliver (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ol...)

Oliver has received honorary doctorates from The Art Institute of Boston, Marquette, Tufts, and Dartmouth.

C.S. Lewis

This is an incomplete list (I found one place that said he had received five honorary doctorates, but I didn't find them all them in my cursory perusal of the chronology linked here, however:

In 1946, Lewis was awarded honorary Doctor of Divinity by the University of St. Andrews.
In 1952, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Laval University, Quebec.
In 1959, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by the University of Manchester.

10.1 Readers Also Enjoyed

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis (980 Lexile)

+10 Task (found on the The Mystery of Hollow Places list, which I read last season)
+10 Combo (10.9, 20.1)

Task total: 20
Season total: 300

15.5 PC

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (930 Lexile)

+15 Task, 275 pages (by a living author)

Task total: 15
Season total: 280

20.7 It's Winter (or Summer)

A Short History of the Girl Next Door by Jared Reck (900 Lexile)

+20 Task (set in Pennsylvania, US, starts on Halloween and ends in January after school restarts after winter break, with a bulk of the book occurring around and after Christmas)
+15 Combo (10.9, 20.1, 20.10--fiction in first person)

Task total: 35
Season total: 265