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

Anika’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

20.8 Short

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

It's a snowy winter wonderland out my window and Christmas is right around the corner...time to read my favorite seasonal book!

I know I gush about this book every year, but it really is gush-worthy. I listened to it this year rather than reading my hard copy, and when "The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me" came up my heart broke a little because I knew the end was nigh.
I read some of the other reviews on goodreads and there were a lot of complaints about the scary/ghost stories...but she explains in the introduction about the Victorian tradition of darker stories in the bleak midwinter, so I felt those stories were right at home in this collection. Other people complained about the recipe sections...but they act as palate cleansers between stories while also giving you a peek into the author's life and experiences while the recipe itself takes up very little space in the story (some of the recipes sound delicious...I always think that "this is the year I try one!" yet the only one I've ever made is the mulled wine). I think of it more like alternating fiction and non-fiction rather than story and recipe...
I myself have no complaints about this book at all. I love the variety of stories: ghost stories, fairy tales, heart warming and heart breaking tales, modern day fables and all of them perfect for the season. The writing is stunning and by the end you have felt all of the feels.
I've given out seven copies of this book, more than any other book I've shared with people, and wish I could hand out a copy to each of you here.

+20 Task
+10 Review

Task total: 30
Season total: 320

15.10 AO

The Lost Property Office by James R. Hannibal, Lexile 730

+30 Task, J-L

Task total: 30
AO Finish: 100
Season total: 290

15.9 AO

And Yet: Poems by Kate Baer

+25, K-R

Task total: 25
Season total: 160

15.8 AO

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes on by Franny Choi

+20 Task, F-I

Task total: 20
Season total: 135

15.7 AO

View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems by Wisława Szymborska

+20 Task, W-A

Task total: 20
Season total: 115

15.6 AO

Good Company by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

+20 Task, C-Y

Task total: 20
Season total: 95

15.5 AO

Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and Grief by Victoria Chang

+15 Task, V-G

Task total: 15
Season total: 75

15.4 AO

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch

+15 Task (P-H)

Task total: 15
Season total: 60

15.3 AO

Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature by Zibby Owens

+15 Task (Z-S)

Task total: 15
Season total: 45

I don’t think my total on the reader board is right. I’ve gone back through everything twice and with the points Elizabeth found which I’d missed I should have a total of 1760 (25 RwS books and 10 EotP books). Help! Am I missing some deductions that I’m not aware of?

15.2 AO

Tartuffe by Molière

+15 Task (M-E)

Task total: 15
Season total: 30

15.1 AO

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan 780 Lexile (carryover book, read 51% of it today)

+15 Task (D-N)

Task total: 15
Season total: 15

I just had Henry V come through from the library and need something to listen to while I work on this quilt so I suppose I'll try to get this one in just under the wire before next season starts...from the description (this is one of the only Shakespeare I haven't read yet, so am relying heavily on the goodreads blurb), it sounds like it both lauds war and yet has a strong anti-war current running throughout as well.
Would this work here or not so much since it sounds like it might be playing both sides of the argument?
never mind…i’m still processing the book i read this afternoon … can’t get into this one. i think i’m done for the season. *sigh* i’m always a little sad on the last day, thinking of all the tasks i enjoyed that will disappear at midnight and of all the books i’d intended to read…who knows if i’ll find a time to work them in in the future…

20.3 Vonnegut

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

I read this one a few weeks ago and just realized I never posted it!

I'm so glad that I read the translation that I did--it was riotous! I know Greek comedy can be a good time, but every other play I've read I've had to work for it...this was pretty overt in its hilarity and innuendo.
Lysistrata is ready for the Peloponnesian War to be over and she knows exactly what to do to make that happen: she convinces all of the women--on both sides of the conflict--to withhold sexual favors until a peace if brokered. At times it felt a little too over-the-top, with the double entendres firing on all cylinders, but it was ridiculously funny and I can see its influence on later playwright's works.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+25 Oldies, pub. ~424
+5 Combo: 20.8, "I've managed to produce some soup and they're slaughtering for me/ A sucking-pig: its flesh should taste as tender as could be." (just gotta say: "Soup's On!" has been the surprise gift that keeps on giving! it has been one fun task)

Task total: 60
Season total: 1750

20.4 Saramago

Jeoffrey The Poet’s Cat by Oliver Soden

I was only going to read the first few pages. I wanted to see if I could plead the case for this being a "Biography?" option for Winter season--it definitely would fit..I know this because I ended up finishing the darn thing and now I'm sitting here bawling my eyes out as I write this review. I know I'm crying like mad because I still smart from the loss of our oldest cat last year (there's a passage when Jeoffrey is dying: "He was trembling slightly, his sides billowing in and out, slightly distended. But he made no attempt to move, and she sat still, calm and expectant, and let him manage his dying as he wished." I have so much regret that I could not be that calm in the face of my Simon's dying).
I'm also a sobbing mess because this unexpectedly powerful book is really about life in all its beauty and banality, its freedoms and confines, and about how we choose to share it.
Jeoffrey was born in 1750 in a cupboard in a brothel. He spent his childhood running the streets of London, adored by the whores, doted on by actors and aristocrats alike (he even "meets" the King of England). After a brief stay with a young lad, he ends up in a mental asylum to comfort a mad poet, Christopher Smart. While in the asylum, Smart had begun to write his magnum opus, Jubilate Agno. Jeoffrey found his way into a portion of the poem and it became the most recognized and oft-anthologized part of his 1,200-line work (which, incidentally, was not published until 1938 when an excerpted section was published in a literary magazine edited by T.S. Eliot).
The writing in this was perfect, the subject matter well-researched and documented, the snapshot of London in the mid-18th Century was intriguing, and overall it just *worked*. So good.

+20 Task, 97% is set between 1750-1773
+10 Review
+15 Combo: 10.6 told from Jeoffrey's POV; 20.8 ("He had scratched his way up the backs of buildings to whip in and out of first-floor windows, dive at the hems of skirts, lap at cream and soup, and snooze under beds, undisturbed by the rhythmic squeaking of the mattress above him."); 20.9

Task total: 45
Season total: 1690

20.10 Birthday

The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

The age of binge-watching entire series of a show in the space of a week has officially ruined me. I currently feel like Veruca Salt in her infamous "I want it now!" scene and it's not cute.
This third installment of the Thursday Murder Club series was so good, so unexpected in the way it wrapped up, so cleverly crafted...and now I'm just left with empty hands, (not-so-)patiently waiting for the next adventure.
I was already in love with our main cast of characters (already have them cast in my head for the film version), but I think we may have collected a couple more mainstays and I am definitely alright with it (the "Viking" and the former KGB bigwig have personality to spare and I hope they don't just disappear from the series). I think my favorite aspect of these stories is that even when there's a "bad guy," they act in a very understandable/human/not-character-y way and they are rather quite reasonable and--dare I say--delightful.

+20 Task, pub. 2022
+10 Review
+5 Combo: 10.4

Task total: 35
Season total: 1645

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Anika - Two Boys Kissing is YA and has a Lexile of 780, so a no go for Alpha Omega

Ha! I forgot we changed the Lexile. Will have to get that 700 screwed in to the old memory bank. ..."

I had to double-check a few times myself that it wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part ;-) I was so excited to see the reduced Lexile since we’re reading the Levithan title in my IRL book club and had no idea where to work it in otherwise.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Anika wrote: "It’s Love, Love by Victoria Chang, who mostly writes poetry but this is a novel in verse."

I'm sorry. We're going to say no to that one as it's target audience is 8-12 year olds."

I didn’t even think to look at target age…yeah, that def wouldn’t work! Thank you for looking at it for me, I appreciate it!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Anika wrote: "I can’t remember what to do with a book that is YA on BPL but the Lexile rating is “NP”…is it usable or disqualified?"

NP stands for Non Prose. Most of those are poetry and are "up t..."

It’s Love, Love by Victoria Chang, who mostly writes poetry but this is a novel in verse. I hadn’t heard of it before but ran across it while researching AO and was intrigued since I quite enjoy novels in verse and am curious to see how one by a Poet compares to the ones I’ve read by writers who typically work with prose. If it won’t work, no worries…I can read a different book by the same author :-)

I can’t remember what to do with a book that is YA on BPL but the Lexile rating is “NP”…is it usable or disqualified?