Cory Day’s
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(group member since Aug 18, 2012)
Cory Day’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
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20.7 Women of Achievement MonthSong of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy
Review: Song of Scarabaeus is a science fiction book with a hint of romance, which is my preference for sci-fi. Edie terraforms planets with her mind in some sort of hybrid of biology, technology, and maybe geology? I never really understood the science of it, although I don't really mind - I've never been one for 'hard' science fiction. Edie gets kidnapped from a job she doesn't much like and didn't get to choose and falls in with some morally suspect people, except the man she seems to be falling in love with. In fact, it seems as though the world Creasy has created has few ethical people in it. I'm hoping more details of the world and all its complicated societal structures will be further explored in the sequel - I felt like at the end of this one I'd just begun to get a grasp of some of it, but was left wanting more.
+20 Task (passes Bechtel Test - among other things, Edie talks to Cat about her kidnapping and their jobs)
+5 Multiple
+5 Combo (10.7 Monsterfest - weird killer animate plant-creatures that take over human bodies, and other killer alien life forms)
+10 Review
Task Total: 40
-5 points post 555 (book not published in 21st century)
Grand Total: 1175
15.8 - 8th book - Letter HDragonsbane by Barbara Hambly (pub. 1985) - Know your ABCs
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 1140
10.5 Elderly Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Review: At first I expected to place this in a pile of books I'd heard a lot about but really should've been a magazine article rather than a book. I thought if a book made the rounds that would mean it was too basic, a pop psychology-type deal with minimal substance. I was wrong.
Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work with Amos Tversky on decision making, and this basically synthesizes his life's work in a dense yet understandable book. The basic premise begins with a distinction between brain processes, which he calls System 1 and System 2. System 1 is the quick, more intuitive process that drives things like habit and 'gut' decisions. System 2 requires more time and thought, bringing in outside experience and knowledge, questioning quick decisions.
He goes on to explore the way these two processes function together (and get in the way of each other), and how they influence the way we make decisions. I found it difficult in reading the book to 'turn off' my System 2 - in many of his examples, I did not follow the mean - but I expect that is because it was already engaged in reading.
+10 Task (published 2011; Kahneman was born in 1934)
+5 Combo (20.8 Veteran - Attention And Effort was published in 1973, and this one in 2011)
+10 Review
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 1110
10.10 Group ReadsHiroshima by John Hersey
Review: This is a short but powerful account of the experiences of six people who lived through the drop of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In general, the original book actually seems to have stayed away from directly commenting on the ethics of America's actions, although the last chapter, added forty years later, is not easy on the USA. I'm glad the book's focus was not on whether or not the bomb should have been dropped, but rather on the experiences of some survivors. This didn't preclude me from asking the question (it's impossible not to), but the thing I found most interesting was how different the Japanese people's reactions were to how I'd expect Americans to react if a similar situation occurred here. Hersey writes, "a surprising number of people of Hiroshima remained more or less indifferent about the ethics of using the bomb," and "the Japanese tended to shy away from the term 'survivors,' because in its focus on being alive it might suggest some slight to the sacred dead." Neither sentiment is imaginable to me from an American perspective.
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.3 Garfunkel and 20.8 Veteran - John Hersey published from the 1940s to the early 1990s)
+5 Oldies (published 1946)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 1085
20.7 Women of Achievement MonthMortal Ties by Eileen Wilks
Review: This is the most recent book in Eileen Wilks' Lupi series of urban fantasy novels, and is a solid installment, although it is most definitely serving as a bridge between the previous one and those to come. Lily, Rule, and their friends are engaged in a war that most of earth doesn't know about, even if the presence of magic, werewolves (lupi), and elves are known. The novel continues the plot lines begun in previous stories, but really never ties up any of the overarching issues, and adds new ones to the mix. That's fine by me - I always like to have a fun few hours with familiar characters - and the best thing about these books is that the reader actually gets to follow the main characters through the development of their relationship, even as other characters and romances are introduced.
+20 Task (passes Bechtel Test - among other things, Lily talks to her friend Cynna about work and their safety)
+5 Combo (10.7 Monsterfest - werewolves, evil elves...)
+5 Multiple
+10 Review
Task Total: 40
+5 combo adjustment per post 761
Grand Total: 1050
Edit to post 92Switching Ashes of Honor from 10.9 To be Continued to 20.4 Carmilla (Seanan McGuire is bisexual: http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com...)
-10 Original Task
+20 Replacement Task
+5 Multiple
Net Adjustment: +15
Grand Total: 1005
20.10 Suicide Prevention MonthThe Periodic Table by Primo Levi
Review: This book is made up of a series of essays that come together to form a partial history of many things: of Primo Levi, of his family, of the Jewish people, of Italy, of chemistry, etc. Each essay has a title of an element of the periodic table that ties the story together, although not being a chemist I'm not sure I thoroughly understood each thread. The essays focus primarily on Levi's life in the time preceding and directly following his experiences in Auschwitz, but it (and perhaps also his suicide) pervades the collection.
The first essay, 'Argon', was a little off-putting to me. It was a tale of Levi's family and the Turin Jewish community, which was interesting but a little difficult to keep track of. He chose to use (and define) many Yiddish words, and that combined with the introduction of so many people and small anecdotes made it a bit of a slog. I never quite understood how argon came into play, and I found myself wondering exactly what came of some of the family members during WWII.
The benefit of an essay collection is that if one does not grab you, others may. Pieces of the later essays will probably stick with me for a while. In 'Zinc', he explains how his Jewishness has always been something in the background of his life: "...I had always considered my origin as an almost negligible but curious fact, a small amusing anomaly, like having a crooked nose or freckles; a Jew is somebody who at Christmas does not have a tree, who should not eat salami but eats it all the same, who has learned a bit of Hebrew at thirteen and then has forgotten it." Once the Holocaust began, I doubt he ever was able to look at his heritage in the same light again - or to escape it. In 'Iron', he describes his relationship with a school friend who was sparse and direct with words, and whose life and influence therefore proved difficult to explain on paper.
In 'Silver', he attends a college reunion, and while he makes no direct mention of the war, I cannot imagine what it must have been like explaining what had happened in those 25 years. Most striking to me, in 'Vanadium', he comes into contact with a German civilian from the lab where Levi worked while a prisoner in Auschwitz, who once asked him, "Why do you look so perturbed?" He struggles with how to deal with their correspondence, stating, "I did not feel capable of representing the dead of Auschwitz, nor did it seem to me sensible to see in Muller the representative of the butchers." It is obvious that in the end Levi could never get the answers or closure he may have desired from Muller - instead, he ended up being asked to provide those things to a man who was at best a passive bystander in Nazi brutality.
+20 Task (Levi threw himself from his apartment building in 1987 - http://bostonreview.net/BR24.3/gambet...)
+20 Combo (20.3 - shelved under 854 I believe - it was an 8-4 number but BPL is down; 20.5 - on Lab Lit list; 20.7 - If This Is a Man / The Truce was first published in 1947 and he published up to his death; 20.8 - this is a memoir in essays)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (published 1975)
Task Total: 55
Grand Total: 990
20.7 Women of Achievement MonthFury's Kiss by Karen Chance
Review: This is the third in the Dorina Basarab novels, and it's by far my favorite. Karen Chance is really bringing Dory into her own in this one, and developing the story she's weaving in these novels and her original Cassie Palmer novels. I wouldn't want to read this installation without reading the previous two, but I think the series stands separate from Cassie's. It was fun, however, to pick up the cameo appearances and to flush out the world.
Dory is, in many ways, a typical urban fantasy heroine - she's emotionally scarred and distant, she grew up without parents, and she kicks butt in black leather - but in this one she's made some major progress. I like that her emotional development is not purely romantic, since her relationship with her father is a major plot point, and she's just learning a lot about herself, period. She also made some major discoveries about her abilities, which I hope won't go too out of control in future books.
+20 Task (passes Bechtel Test - Dory and her best friend Claire talk about the war, danger, etc.)
+5 Multiple
+5 Combo (10.7 Monsterfest - vampires, etc.)
+5 Jumbo (536 pages)
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 935
10.3 GarfunkelPersuasion by Jane Austen
Review: I like Jane Austen even if she's not my favorite author. I think I like the adaptations and overall story lines better than I like reading the actual books. Nevertheless, since I've only read her most well known books and I'd heard good things about Persuasion, I was looking forward to it.
I didn't dislike it, but it took longer for me to read than I expected, since I never felt all that engaged in the story. The two Austen stories I'm most familiar with, Pride and Prejudice and Emma, have well-meaning but meddlesome protagonists. Anne is almost the opposite - she has allowed herself to be persuaded (in an event occurring 8 years prior to the story) to give up her own happiness in order to please her loved ones. This is a perfectly valid characteristic in a protagonist, and Anne is sweet and would likely make a great and loyal friend. I just find myself preferring a proactive character who gets in trouble as a result of her actions to a more passive character who lets herself be influenced by those around her.
+10 Task
+5 Combo (20.7 - feminist author)
+15 Oldies (published 1817)
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 900
15.7 - 7th book - Letter GLegend by David Gemmel (pub 1984) - Know your ABCs
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 870
20.6 DraculaRebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Review: I stayed up way too late finishing this book. I didn't expect that to happen, since the first half of the book kept me interested but not thoroughly engrossed. But then I hit the middle and there went my sleep. All of the sudden, the story of a young woman thrust into unfamiliar circumstances - a marriage to a much older widower and a new social class - became something much more riveting. I had a vague notion of the plot (it's hard to totally avoid spoilers for such a classic) but still managed to remain on the edge of my seat in the second half of the novel.
This isn't a ghost story, but the first Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, haunts the pages of the book and the lives of its characters. In many ways, it isn't until her memory becomes impossible to ignore that any of them finally manage to step out of her shadow and into a future.
+20 Task (top 100 Gothic novels)
+15 Combo (20.2 - top 150 books with a rural setting; 20.7 - passes Bechtel Test - the female narrator has numerous conversations with Mrs. Danvers and other women about Rebecca, the estate, clothing, etc.; 20.8 - du Maurier published from the 1930s into the 1980s)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (published 1938)
Task Total: 50
Grand Total: 840
20.3 Poe's TalesDiving Belles Lucy Wood
Review: This may be the first short story collection I've read that kept pulling me back, wanting to read the next one. I'd consider that a job well done, since short fiction has always been my least favorite form. In addition, since of the entries are based on Cornish folk tales, it made me want to explore further. I've read a lot of fairy and folk tales, but many of these seemed new.
Two stories stood out the most. In the first, 'Of Mothers and Little People', a grown child finds that there has been much more to her mother's life than she ever expected, and that sometimes "what you mistook for sadness is love." The second, 'Notes from the House Spirits', is exactly what the title suggests. It's the story of a house written from the perspective of basically the house itself. It was slightly spooky yet almost comforting, and something I'd never seen before. I was charmed (although being an architect that maybe isn't surprising).
+20 Task
+5 Multiple
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 790
15.6 - 6th book - Letter FFor Love of Mother-Not by Alan Dean Foster (pub 1983) - Know your ABCs
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 755
20.1 FrankensteinJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2005 Locus First Novel)
Review: This book has been on my 'to read' list for a number of years now, so I included it when challenging myself to read one book a month that I've been avoiding. It was on my radar because so many people hold it in high regard, but I'd been avoiding it because it's huge, and because a number of people also said it was boring and overrated. Unfortunately, I think I come down on the boring side more than anything. I had a really hard time finishing it, although I also didn't want to give up and set it aside forever.
At its best, 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell' is a clever historical fiction book with magic, with touches of the whimsy that my favorite fantasy books use. Clarke's favorite way of showing that whimsy and cleverness is by capitalizing Important Phrases so they seem more like characters than ideas, and I have to admit I'm a sucker for that devise. It doesn't matter if it's on Twitter, a Facebook update, or the pages of a 1000-page book - it gets me giggling every time.
At its worst, the novel read more like a dry history book, albeit of an alternate history of England using magic during the Napoleonic Wars. Clarke's use of footnotes sometimes worked really well, and no one could fault her world building, but many of the footnotes really emphasized the dryness rather than the uniqueness of the story. In the end, I'm glad I finally read this book, and the last 10% helped make the experience worthwhile, even even without totally redeeming it.
+20 Task
+15 Combo (10.7 Monsterfest - evil faeries; 10.8 - 7 letters in Susanna; 20.7 - passes Bechtel Test - Emma and Arabella talk about Emma's state of mind)
+5 Multiple
+10 Review
+25 Jumbo (1006 pages)
Task Total: 75
Grand Total: 740
10.4 Fall ColorsBrown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (not found in BPL; Seattle Public Library shelves it as Sci-Fi)
Review: This was a difficult book, full of drugs, violence, and betrayal. On the other hand, it's also about love, triumph, and redemption. Set in Caribbean neighborhoods of a post-apocalyptic Toronto, a young single mother named Ti-Jeanne must face her past and grow into her future. On the way, she learns that things are not always what they seem, that family comes in all shapes and sizes, and that love is not always simple, happy, or fair. It is always interesting to read stories in a different cultural setting, and this made me want to read more Caribbean literature in the future.
+10 Task
+15 Combo (10.7 Monsterfest - malevolent Jamaican duppy spirits; 20.1 Frankenstein - 1999 Locus First Novel; 20.7 - passes Bechtel Test - Ti-Jeanne and Mami have conversations about healing, spirits, and dreams)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 665
20.4 CarmillaSwordspoint by Ellen Kushner
Review: Swordspoint pulled me into the story from page one. Kushner created a world that's flushed out yet sketchy, with characters I found both lovable and despicable. The story centers around a hired swordsman (basically an assassin), Richard, and his lover with a hidden past, Alec. Both are both central to and peripheral to the complex politics of their world, which is mainly made up of neighboring cities that have very different rules but that are tied closely together. I never fully understood all the intricacies of the world and its politics, but was intrigued by its open sexuality and violence. The ending was loose yet satisfying, but I'm glad Kushner ultimately decided to write more novels in the same setting.
+20 Task (Ellen Kushner is married to Delia Sherman)
+10 Combo (10.8 - published 1987; 20.8 - Kushner published this novel in 1987 and her most recent novel The Man with the Knives in 2010)
+5 Oldies (published 1987)
+10 Review
Task Total: 45
Grand Total: 630
20.5 Jekyll and HydeBellwether by Connie Willis
Review: Connie Willis is known for science fiction, although most of the books I've read of hers read more like historical fiction. This one has no sci-fi elements, but somehow had a sci-fi feel to me. The story centers around Sandra, a statistician who researches fads for a large company. The book has minimal plot, exaggerated characterization (of people, animals, corporations, places, fads, etc.), and wittiness that verges on obnoxious... and I loved it.
Sandy is researching fads, and since the book is set in the 1990s it could easily feel dated, but it didn't to me. Rather, I thought it could easily have been set in some alternate recent past or near future. Sadly, the silly management practices she experiences at HiTek corporation are all too familiar - perhaps a bit obvious, but oh so enjoyable to make fun of.
After reading all of Willis's Oxford time travel books, I was afraid to explore more of Willis's writings because they seemed so different, but this has convinced me. I'll be finishing her back-list for sure.
+20 Task (on Lab Lit list)
+10 Multiple (20.7 - passes Bechtel Test - Sandra speaks about work issues, fads, and books to numerous female colleagues and friends, 20.8 - Willis has been publishing from the 1980s into this decade)
+10 Review
Task Total: 40
Grand Total: 585
15.5 - 5th book - Letter EPawn of Prophecy (900 Lexile) by David Eddings (pub 1982) - Know your ABCs
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 545
15.4 - 4th book - Letter DLoon Lake by E.L. Doctorow (pub 1980) - Know your ABCs
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 525
20.2 Wuthering HeightsI Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (Lexile 920)
Review: When I was growing up, my favorite book was Up a Road Slowly. It's an unusual choice for me - a slow, atmospheric coming of age novel with a not entirely likable protagonist - but I read it at least a dozen times and still reread parts. 'I Capture the Castle' reminded me of that favorite book in many of the best ways, but with a touch more humor and whimsy... and an ending that doesn't tie up quite as neatly into a bow.
Both the childhood me and the adult me really prefer things to be finished with a happy ending. But this is a chronicle of six months in the life of a seventeen year old girl, whose life is truly just beginning. It would really be unfair to tie up something that has barely started - and to get me to believe that, to persuade me it's okay to give up my pure happy ending - that's impressive.
Really, I should have known. This is Cassandra's story, and early in the novel she says something about a book's not being worthwhile if you never think of the characters after you've finished it. I expect I'll wonder what happened next to all of them: Cassandra and her sister Rose, who are each both selfish and kind, mature and childish; Stephen, who deserves more than he believes he's worthy of; Thomas, a child both looking for and pushing away his father's approval. Perhaps when I can't sleep I'll tell myself stories of their lives beyond the pages of the book, as Miss Marcy, the schoolteacher character within it, does.
+20 Task (#54 as of today)
+10 Combo (20.7 - passes Bechtel Test - Cassandra speaks with many of the women in her life about finances, clothing, books, etc.; 20.8 - Dodie Smith published her first play in 1931 and continued publishing until the 1980s)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (published 1948)
Task Total: 45
Grand Total: 505
