Anika’s
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(group member since Dec 25, 2011)
Anika’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
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That is correct...unless you wanted to try to find a different volume other than Winter Garden published before 1949, in which case you'd get 10 oldie points¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Valerie wrote: "I wanted to confirm that these would work:The Cocktail Waitress
The Mistress of Spices"
Both would work (as general food-related words). I loved The Mistress of Spices and if that's the one you go with I can't wait to hear what you think!
20.6 The SonnetsThe Triumph of Achilles and Descending Figure by Louise Glück
+20 Task
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Female
+5 Oldies (1985, 1980)
+5 Combo (10.5: from author's profile, "Hungarian Jewish heritage")
Task total: 50
Season total: 50
chunwui wrote: "Can the “Not-A-Novel” style still be applied to this task? Every book for this task would get the style points so I wanted to check"Absolutely!
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "It looks as if King Solomon's Mines should fit as taking place in Zimbabwe and South Africa. But the GR page also shows Mexico - does anyone know how much/little takes place in Mexico?"From what I’m seeing based on reviews and summaries, it’s a negligible amount. (I read an abridged version of this when I was young and honestly don’t even remember any of it having been set in Mexico).
chunwui wrote: "Does that mean the book also can't work for any Ticket to Ride cities? Or does this just mean it can't qualify for any 10-pt/20-pt tasks?"It can’t fit any of the other 10- or 20-point tasks.
Readerboard for the Winter 23/24 Reading with Style Challenge!Please post your points for completed tasks in the Completed Tasks topic. This Readerboard folder shows the current point standings of the challenge participants who have posted points. It's generally updated every week or so.
Ticket to Ride Sample Post:
15.5 Ticket to Ride
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
City = San Francisco
+15 Task (Omaha--Kansas City--Denver--Salt Lake City--San Francisco)
Season total = 590 (assumes mid-season with a previous total of 575)
**Please include somewhere in your sub-challenge posts your train route as you go so we can make sure you get the correct bonus on completion of 15.1-15.10**
10.1 Square Peg:10.2 Singular Mystery: The Love of my Life
10.3 New Year's Tradition: The Covenant of Water
10.4 Leap Year: Odes to Lithium
10.5 Jewish Writers:
10.6 Winter Birthdays:
10.7
10.8
10.9
10.10 Group Reads:
20.1 Shakespeare: Exit, Pursued by a Bear, The Winter of Our Discontent
20.2 A Midsummer Night's Dream: Uprooted, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
20.3 The Tempest: She Who Became the Sun
20.4 Othello:
20.5 King John to Henry VIII:
20.6 The Sonnets:
20.7
20.8 The Big 5-0: She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
20.9 Fresh Start: Lessons in Chemistry
20.10 Boxing Day: Oliver Twist, The Grapes of Wrath
15.10 CoSGoodbye, I Love You by Carol Lynn Pearson
+15 Task, Aged (author is 83)
Task total: 15
+100 Finisher Bonus
+50 All 7 styles
+200 MegaFinish
Season total: 1115
That's it for me this season! Nothing like a finish just under the wire...
See you all in Winter!
20.2 WarThe Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes
"Maybe you scoff at the notion that there should be so much brouhaha over books. There were plenty of people who felt that way in May, 1933, as well. And I promise you, if I've learned anything from my time in Berlin, it's this: an attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn't a tempest in a teacup but rather a canary dead in a coal mine."
"Books were sacred, even the ones she didn't agree with or enjoy."
Althea is a young writer in 1933, invited to Berlin on a cultural exchange by Goebbels. She's from a small town in Maine, has no head for politics, and is grateful to the political machine that brought her to a thriving European metropolis.
There she meets Hannah, a sophisticated Berliner whose love of the cabarets and nightlife is rivaled only by her dedication to the resistance. One May night walking through the streets, they hear a raucous crowd and see a light. The light is a bonfire. The fuel is a growing tower of books. "Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too," Althea quotes, and finally sees the true colors of the Hitler regime.
Fast forward eleven years and we meet Viv whose personal crusade is to get books into the hands of American soldiers overseas, despite the political efforts to the contrary.
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I appreciated the way that Althea started out sympathetic towards the Nazi regime--she didn't have much information about them and they were her gracious hosts who were footing the bill for this extravagant vacation, she only heard their propaganda about a return to stability, their anti-Communist sentiment, their candy covered lies. Of course she would believe them--she had no one to contradict their lies. I liked that as she gained more information, she was able to see through them. It felt far more believable than if she instantly hated them (in 1933, most people in the U.S. were unaware of what the Nazi party was really about--based of the non-fiction I've read of this time period).
I also appreciated that Hannah quoted from Mein Kampf. There is no better way to know--and defeat--your enemy than to read their own words. She found the book and its ideas repugnant, but in knowing what was there she could fight against it.
So many of the themes felt uncomfortably contemporary...
--an unbalanced leader that the party thinks they can control--and it ends up blowing up in their faces.
--an increase in book bans which limits learning and allows for only one point of view to prevail.
--"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
I enjoyed this book--I liked the ideas it brought up, the structure (it bounced between three timelines--it never got confusing and was an effective device in unfolding the story), the characters (were well-rounded and imperfect which increases their believability), and the writing.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 30
+50 Half-way Bonus, 20-point tasks
Season total: 750
Apple wrote: "Okay, this one Mothering Sunday?"From what I can glean from the GR description it appears to qualify...Joanna might have a better idea as it looks like she's read it?
Apple wrote: "Would Exit West work?"I would say yes. It's an emigration story so it starts in one city(country) and ends in a different one...the whole book is the story of a move to a new place, so it should most definitely qualify.
10.9 GeorgiaBetween, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
I've read a few books by Jackson and know what to expect: a dysfunctional Southern family in a small town, the threat of a horrible thing (that never quite happens), and a happy ending. The writing isn't half bad, either. It's the book version of a fruit tart--light, as healthy as a dessert can be (fruit!--that would be Jackson's writing...suprisingly good for Chick Lit), but still a dessert (nothing "meaty" about it).
Nonny was born to a fifteen-year-old mother who wants nothing to do with her and is immediately adopted by a deaf (and soon to be blind) woman. Here's the rub: the fifteen-year-old's family and the deaf woman's family are Between's version of the Hatfields and McCoys.
The book has lots of secrets that are all uncovered by the end of the book and everything is tied up in a neat bow--but it never feels saccharine. Like a fruit tart, it's delicious and two bites later it's gone and the memory of it fades pretty quickly.
It was a nice fluffy read to give my brain a rest after the heavier book I recently finished.
+10 Task, set in Between, Georgia
+10 Review
Task total: 20
+50 Halfway Finish, 10-point tasks
Season total: 640
Bea wrote: "Well, I didn't have any idea where to start for this until I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRmng.... Great ideas and interpretations of what to look for!"Thank you so much for sharing this! This clip totally inspired my choice for this task :-)
As long as 75% of it is in 1547, you're golden. (Both 1199 and 1547 would be included, as the reigns of the kings included those years.)
15.6 CoSAs We Are Now by May Sarton
+15 Task, Aged: author lived to age 83
Task total: 15
Season total: 550
