Bucket’s
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(group member since Feb 13, 2015)
Bucket’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 201-220 of 303
10.8 SinglesStay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It by Jennifer Michael Hecht
+10 Task
+5 Combo (10.6 – letters in second in subtitle)
Post total: 15
Season total: 100
Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - 10.5 - - 10.8 - -
15.1 15.2 - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
15.2 CiV 10In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway (156 pages, pub’d 1925)
+20 Task (G-H, 141-180/541-580, 1918-1932)
Post total: 20
Season total: 85
Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - 10.5 - - - - -
15.1 15.2 - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
10.1 List LoversPromise at Dawn by Romain Gary (List: 1001 books)
+10 Task
+10 Lost in Translation (translated from the French)
+5 Combo (10.6 – time)
Post total: 25
Season total: 65
Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - 10.5 - - - - -
15.1 - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
15.1 CiV 10Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (684 pages, pub’d 1915)
+15 Task (L-M, 261-300/661-700, 1903-1917)
Post total: 15
Season total: 40
Claimed to date:
- - - - 10.5 - - - - -
15.1 - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
10.5 ZaneThe Professor's House by Willa Cather
+10 Task
+10 Canon
+5 Combo (10.6 – hour)
Post total: 25
Season total: 25
Claimed to date:
- - - - 10.5 - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
It took quite a while, but I finally have a plan! I wanted to stick with books from my TBR and it turns out that once I let go of including Tess of the D'Urbervilles it all fell into place. Sorry, Tess!1873-1887 | IJK | 421-460/821-860
Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson
(1884 | J | 432)
1888-1902 | VWXYZ | 181-220/581-620
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
(1897 | W | 192)
1903-1917 | LM | 261-300/661-700
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
(1915 | M | 684)
1918-1932 | GH | 141-180/541-580
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
(1925 | H | 156)
1933-1947 | NO | 221-260/621-660
Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
(1934 | O | 251)
1948-1962 | CD | 381-420/781-820
The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
(1949 | C | 416)
1963-1977 | STU | 461-500/861-900
Death and the Dervish by Meša Selimović
(1966 | S | 473)
1978-1992 | AB | 101-140/501-540
Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence by Leila Abouzeid
(1989 | A | 129)
1993-2007 | EF | 341-380/741-780
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
(1997 | F | 341)
2008-2022 | PQR | 301-340/701-740
Jack by Marilynne Robinson
(2020 | R | 309)
Last post for me! Thanks, mods, I really enjoyed this challenge!10.5 Classics
The Trial by Franz Kafka (5,562 shelvings)
What makes The Trial interesting is its dark (very dark) humor. Josef K.'s situation is so ridiculous and so unfair and so completely unchangeable that all one can do is laugh. We're laughing to lessen our fear and frustration, but we're laughing all the same.
I also thought about how, as bizarre as Josef K.'s situation is, we've all experienced it to some level. The trial is just an extreme version of the strange bureaucratic processes we face in dealing with insurance companies, the justice system, or the DMV, that do little but set up roadblocks and ensure we understand as little as possible.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 1001 LIst
Post total: 30
Season total: 1190
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3(x2) 10.4 10.5(x2) 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 20.10
15.5 CoA, 13 lettersA Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
+15 Task
+100 Finisher
+50 All female authors
Post total: 165
Season total: 1160
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3(x2) 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 20.10
10.3 Back to SchoolThe Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma (see GR bio for educator info)
This reading experience was fun, and I blasted through the book in two days. The book has been on my TBR for years and I couldn't remember why I added it, so I looked at some reviews before starting that had me going in with low expectations. But the story is fun, plot-wise, and the characters are interesting. I was pleasantly surprised and almost want to give this four stars, but I can't quite.
The novel is a complicated thicket of truth and lies that can't be untangled. What is truth and what is fiction? Which versions of characters are "real," if any? We don't know, can't know, and, as the book points out, don't really need to know. I enjoyed this for a while, but the nihilism of it started to bother me by the end. Which truth is true may not matter, but as that's the essence of the reading experience here, it leaves little to sink my teeth into.
Moreover, this is a first novel. It's impressive, but the writing has a lot of that first-novel flavor. You know, a little precious, a little overt. And, in this case, a little holier-than-thou, sophomoric even. It reminded me of a YA novel in that way -- that juvenile pretension drives me nuts.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Post total: 20
Season total: 990
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3(x2) 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 20.10
15.8 CoA, 16-17 lettersThe Passion by Jeanette Winterson
+15 Task
Post total: 15
Season total: 970
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 20.10
20.10 Musical MysteriesThe Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Overall, I enjoyed this, despite mystery not really being my thing. It's a classic, which helps. There are certainly reasons it continues to be read (and put on as a musical) to this day. It does very much include the thing I dislike most about the mystery genre: an ending that ties up any and every loose thread, satisfies every curiosity, and sends surviving characters happily off into the sunset.
I enjoyed the first third as the mystery was set up and characters introduced most. I also loved the fantastical-seeming elements (disembodied voices, disappearing objects, the torture chamber). Their eventual explanations are pretty old-fashioned, but I forgive that since this was published in 1909.
I did find the phantom himself to be unbelievable as a character. I can accept the intense self-hatred hidden behind incredible pomp and need for control. But some of the evil things he does throughout the book are too evil for me to buy the very good things he does at the end. Especially given that Christine never offers him more than pity and obedience, something he already had from the Persian. It didn't feel like enough to change him the way the book asks us to believe.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.5: 8436 shelvings; 10.8: set in France; 20.1: see GR book info; 20.8: #6 on Best Gothic Books of All Time list;)
Post total: 50
Season total: 955
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 20.10
10.2 HalloweenOne D.O.A., One on the Way by Mary Robison (Death word: D.O.A.)
This is minimalism done well. Robison's style is tight, and full of dark humor.
The story: Eve scouts film locations while dealing with her rich in-laws, her obnoxious husband and his awful-in-a-different-way twin, and more. Everyone is out of touch, considering they're living in a post-Katrina New Orleans. Robison points that out by peppering the story with heartbreaking crime statistics and also concealed-carry tips. Dark humor indeed.
The characters are 100% unlikeable, but Eve (the main character) is still enjoyable to read about. She's venomous, but quirky, and struggling to deal with life in a way that we can drum up some sympathy for.
I was interested in the Adam-and-Eve-style betrayals that happen in a moment, change everything and have no undo button. Katrina is one, and there any several others in the story. Above all, this book is about the ways that our culture of independence forces us to be hardened by tragedy if we want to survive. We have to get angry in our brokenness to be strong. We pay lip service to coming together and supporting each other, but our culture makes it nearly impossible.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.5: born 1949)
Post total: 25
Season total: 905
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 -
20.5 BoomerIn the City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer
(born 1946 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Spa...)
This is a novel that very few authors could write. Spanbauer combines deep imagination, deft plotting, out-of-this-world writing chops, and the fantastical taken seriously.
The novel is mainly about Will Parker, a 20-something new arrival in New York City who is searching for his first love, and about the friends he meets in New York. That sounds quaint -- Layer on that it's the 80s (AIDS is just starting to be understood), these characters are racially diverse, mostly queer, haunted by past and current horrors, and using a lot of drugs and sex to cope. The novel is about those moments where things change and there's no turning back.
There are few writers I know of that write this boldly. Spanbauer doesn't hesitate to write about the sexual, the mundane, even the disgusting -- and he doesn't write in a way meant to shock. His tenderness for his characters is so strong that every word he writes feels like simple truth. He never leaves me feeling like a voyeur - he lets me truly see these characters who are so very different from myself.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Jumbo (512 pages)
+15 Combo (10.3: see GR bio; 20.3: currently 4.28; 20.9: “I rolled cigarettes, John poured the champagne. We toasted.”)
Post total: 50
Season total: 880
Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 -
15.9 CoA 18-19 lettersGirl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
+15 Task
Post total: 15
Season total: 830
Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 -
20.1 SeriallyEugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
(pub’d serially 1825-1832; it’s listed on the Wikipedia page for this task)
Poetry in translation, especially poetry that rhymes, is both an incredible feat and a hopeless undertaking. Since I don't read Russian, I'm not sure which Eugene Onegin is more of.
The word order and phrase-ology are often tortured, and a good number of the rhymes are near misses at best. But the tone is joyful, the imagery is vivid (particularly Tattiana's dream in Canto the Fifth), and the tongue-in-cheek self-reflection at the end of each Canto is as good as postmodern. Others more knowledgeable than me can determine how much credit (and blame) Pushkin gets and how much goes to the translator.
While Eugene is the main focus throughout, I love that Tattiana gets the final say. It's not exactly a happy ending for her either, but at least she leaves him "stood as if struck by lightning fire."
+20 Task
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+10 1001 Books
+15 Combo (10.5 Classics: 1587 shelvings; 20.3 Ratings: average 4.10; 20.9 Anniversary: “He enters. High the cork arose / And Comet champagne foaming flows.”)
Post total: 65
Season total: 815
Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 -
Great! Thank you, Kate!Kate S wrote: "Bucket wrote: "Just finished Eugene Onegin.
Does a novel in verse get "not-a-novel" style points? The whole book is written in rhyming couplets, but it does tell a fictional story."
..."
Just finished Eugene Onegin. Does a novel in verse get "not-a-novel" style points? The whole book is written in rhyming couplets, but it does tell a fictional story.
20.7 ExophonicThe Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays by Chinua Achebe
I found this collection a bit hit and miss. Some essays read like the speeches they originally were and others felt quickly tacked on to round out the collection.
But I did enjoy many of the essays -- especially "What Is Nigeria to Me?" "Africa's Tarnished Name" "Teaching Things Fall Apart" and "Africa is People."
Throughout, Achebe never shies away from discussing Europe's and the U.S.'s grievous wrongs of colonization, slavery, racism, and dehumanization of African people over centuries. Achebe expresses anger, disgust and frustration. He describes the unbelievable amount of work humanity has to do to resolve and make up for these awful mistakes. His skill as a writer is clear, because he also maintains a lightness of tone, a hopefulness, throughout the collection. His preference for joy is clear and contagious.
+20 Task
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.3 see bio on GR; 10.6 born Nov 1930)
Post total: 50
Season total: 750
Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - - 15.10
- 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 20.7 - 20.9 -
10.5 ClassicsThe Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht
I wanted to read something in German again (for the first time in more than a decade) so I went with this -- it's short-ish and I studied it in college so had familiarity. The reading experience was great! I did need a dictionary by my side but was pleasantly surprised that I still have a good handle on the complexities of German grammar.
As far as the play itself, I was not so charmed by it as I remember being in college. The message is a socialist one - that land and resources should belong to those who care for them so that they are useful to society at large. This time around I found this happy framing a little too simplistic.
In the chalk-circle parable, Gruscha is obviously a great mother and Natella is beyond terrible and obviously doesn't care about her child, only about her property/inheritance claims. In life, though, the situation is rarely this obvious. And I'm not sure that parenthood and love and such equivalent analogies to caring for/putting to good use the environment. Unlike a child, a forest or river thrive perfectly well when left alone by humans.
That said, Brecht is a fantastic writer and shows us his characters with both heart and humor. It makes for enjoyable reading.
+10 Task (103 shelvings)
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.7 Simon Shashava is a soldier - see Scene One description on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cau...)
Post total: 35
Season total: 700
Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - - 15.10
- 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
