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(group member since Aug 04, 2010)
Deedee’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
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Task 10.6 O61 Opposite words in titleBlack Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers (The Company #4.5) (2002) by Kage Baker (Paperback, 288 pages)
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 65 + 10 = 75
B: B3
I: 16, I22
N:
G: G51, G59
O: O61
Task 10.5 I22 Title has 2 wordsThe Cove (2012) by Ron Rash
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 55 + 10 = 65
B: B3
I: 16, I22
N:
G: G51, G59
O:
Task 10.4 G59 GYPSUM: First letter of title is found in "gypsum"gypSum
Some Kind of Fairy Tale (2012) by Graham Joyce (Hardcover, 310 pages)
Review: Most of Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a mainstream novel about a middle class family living in Leicester, England, and their interactons, past and present. Our main protagonists are all middle aged. Peter is 40ish year old, happily married, and the father of four children. His sister, Tara, disappeared when she was 16 years old; her body was never found and she was never seen or heard from again. Then, one Christmas morning, Tara returns. She claims she’s only been gone 6 months, and that she was ‘taken’ to another realm … a realm that sounds a lot like Tir na Nog, where the faeries live. There is very little ‘fantasy’ in the novel, which disappointed me as I enjoy fantasy novels. Others may feel that a little fantasy goes a long way, especially in a primarily mainstream novel about adult relationships.
+10 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 40 + 15 = 55
B: B3
I: 16
N:
G: G51, G59
O:
Task B3 Booker Prize, winners and nominees Klara and the Sun (2021) by Kazuo Ishiguro (Hardcover, 303 pages)
Review: “Klara and the Sun” is literary science fiction. Klara is an android (Androids — constructs that combine artificial intelligence and a mechanical body with a human-like appearance ). The term used in the novel is “Artificial Friend”. The author follows her life beginning with her time in the store window, her “placement” with a family, the family dynamics at the family she is placed at, and ends with the final days of her life. Parts were delightfully weird, and parts were very sad. I gave it 5 stars.
A side note: Ishiguro's 2005 novel Never Let Me Go was a more creative novel (just avoid all spoilers before reading!). Both novels are exceptionally “good reads”.
+10 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 25 + 15 = 40
B: B3
I: 16
N:
G: G51
O:
Task G51 Glass Slipper: Any retellingMPG of “Retelling”
The heroine is one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Also, (view spoiler).
Once More Upon a Time (2020) by Roshani Chokshi
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 15 + 10 = 25
B:
I: 16
N:
G: G51
O:
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Deedee wrote: "For B13, would this fit?Klara and the Sun
Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2021)
Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2022)
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee ..."
Thanks for clarifying :)
For B13, would this fit?Klara and the Sun
Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2021)
Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2022)
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science Fiction (2021)
and, for B3, do longlist nominees count, or is it limited to shortlist nominees?
Thanks
Task I16 Author name does not contan the letter "I"The Siege of Washington: The Untold Story of the Twelve Days That Shook the Union (2011) by John Lockwood and Charles Lockwood [973.731]
Review: This narrative non-fiction book is about Washington, D. C. (my hometown) April 14, 1861 to April 25, 1861. Those days are significant because they are the days immediately following the surrender to the Confederates of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, thus starting the American Civil War. Both Union and Confederate believed that the first target of the Confederates should/would be Washington, D. C.. Virginia was a Confederate State, and Maryland had significant numbers of Confederate sympathizers. Each day gets its own chapter. There exists extensive journals and memoirs of this time, and our authors take full advantage of the source material. The authors use the source materials to tell what the strategists were thinking, what the average person was thinking, what the prospective soldiers were thinking, and what famous people were thinking (like Clara Burton).
Many details are similar to this one:
p. 143: “In his haste to leave Washington for Richmond, [Robert E.] Lee left an unpaid balance of 37 cents for repair of his saddle bags at the Lutz leather goods shop at 392 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.”
Readers will find this book either fascinating or tedious due to the details included. I’m somewhat in the middle, finding bits very interesting, and other bits as tedious. Three stars.
+10 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 00 + 15 = 15
B:
I: 16
N:
G:
O:
Task 20.10 Between the Wars Set in Florida from August 31, 1935 to April 1936
The Last Train to Key West (2020) by Chanel Cleeton
+20 Task
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 470 + 20 = 490
Task 15.7 East AsiaSet entirely in JAPAN
The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2012) by Hiro Arikawa; translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
+15 Task
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 460 + 15 = 475
Task 20.8 Texas Independence (Rebekah's Task)Katherine Howe was born in Houston, Texas
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (The Physick Book #1) (2009) by Katherine Howe
+20 Task
+20 Combo (#10.4 Howe, #10.9 Dual Timeline (17th Century and 1991), #10.10 Group Read, #20.3 (Marblehead, MA and Salem, MA))
Task Total: 20 + 20 = 40
Grand Total: 420 + 40 = 460
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Deedee wrote: "OK a very basic question -- for five books in a column, for example, the "B" column, do they have to be consecutive (B1 - B2 - B3 - B4 -B5) or can they be any random 5 books from the..."OK Thanks! Makes planning a bit easier :)
Now another question:
For the squares that say "First letter in Title", do leading words like "A" or "The" count? so for The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, is the leading letter "T" or "P"?
OK a very basic question -- for five books in a column, for example, the "B" column, do they have to be consecutive (B1 - B2 - B3 - B4 -B5) or can they be any random 5 books from the B column (B1 - B3 - B7 - B9 - B10)? And, if the five have to be consecutive, does it have to be B1 - B2 - B3 - B4 -B5, B6 thru B10, etc., or can it be B3 - B4 - B5 - B6 - B7? Thanks
Task 10.2 EasterRead a book with a title consisting of at least three words, in which the initials can each be found in EASTER.
eASTer
For #20.9 combo:
Read a book in which a character or group of characters eat cake.
p. 195: “Her mother has also made her own birthday cake, a heavy whole-grain loaf sweetened with honey and loaded with currants. They sing ‘Happy Birthday’, and her mother blows out the single beeswax candle.” Then they eat the cake!
The Sidewalk Artist (2006) by Gina Buonaguro (Goodreads Author) and Janice Kirk (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 224 pages)
+10 Task
+10 Combo (#10.4 “Gina” and “Kirk”, #20.9 “eat cake”)
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 400 + 20 = 420
Task 20.3 Our TownIn honor of the 1938 drama winner, read a book set at least 80% in a small town. The town can be in any country.
Novel set in the small town of New River Junction in Michigan.
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (2019) by Anissa Gray (Hardcover, 294 pages)
+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.4 “Gray”)
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 370 + 25 = 395
Task 20.3 Our TownIn honor of the 1938 drama winner, read a book set at least 80% in a small town.
Novel is entirely set in a town of Hokes Folly, North Carolina, population 5,000.
For Whom the Book Tolls (Antique Bookshop Mystery #1) (2020) by Laura Gail Black
+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.4 name Laura Gail Black)
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 345 + 25 = 370
Task 20.5 The Killer AngelsRead any book having to do with a Civil War.
The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848 (2008) by Martin Dugard [973.62]
Review: This is the fourth book by Martin Dugard that I’ve read. The other three are:
Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook
The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, Including Accounts of Mutiny, Shipwreck, and Discovery
Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone
I have given all four of the books of his that I read 4 or 5 *’s. Martin Dugard specializes in narrative non-fiction aimed at the ‘educated layman’. His writing style is direct, newspaper-style and very understandable. He includes Notes and Bibliography at the back of the book, so the reader knows where he got the information (and that he isn’t just making things up or repeating gossip). All four of Dugard’s books that I’ve read have focused on a group of men travelling from point A to point B, including both the practicalities of travel (food – transportation – sleeping arrangements) and the unexpected occurrences along the way.
Training Ground follows (future President) General Zachary Taylor’s US Army (with Quartermaster Ulysses S. Grant and Commander Jefferson Davis) as it chases after the Mexican Army. The living conditions of the soldiers is discussed, as are the supply problems that the Army had (and that Grant and Davis solved). The goal: defeat the Mexican Army so that Texas can secede from Mexico. The battle descriptions were hard to follow, despite the maps, but I suspect that Dugard was more interested in how the soldiers reacted to battle than he was in battle strategy. Overall, recommended for the general reader.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20 + 10 = 30
Grand Total: 315 + 30 = 345
Task 20.9 Birthdays (Kate S's Task)Read a book in which a character or group of characters eat cake.
p. 138: “They crowd around her and when Marc places the cake down they launch into the ‘Happy Birthday’ song.” After which, the singers and the heroine eat the cake.
The Paradox Hotel (2022) by Rob Hart (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 336 pages)
Review:The Paradox Hotel is a twisty time travel science fiction novel set (mostly) around 2072 CE. Our first-person narrator is a hard-boiled, wise-cracking woman who is the Head of Security at the Paradox Hotel. Her medical condition is deteriorating, a result of the effects of too much time travel. (She was a time agent who time traveled to catch modern day (2072 CE) smugglers and those that wanted to change history.) Weird events (like clocks running backwards for a while, then resuming their forward motion) are taken in a matter-of-fact manner. Then – no spoilers – extremely strange events start happening. Our wise-cracking narrator has to figure out why the strange events are happening, and to stop them if she can. I found the novel enjoyable. However, I would recommend it only to fans of science fiction time travel stories, as I don’t think the novel has mainstream appeal.
+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.4 Name: Rob)
+10 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 = 35
Grand Total: 280 + 35 = 315
Task 20.2 PrizeRead a book that has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction/Novel.
Pulitzer Prize for Novel (1925)
For 20.9 combo: in the final chapter of the novel, “He was very comfortable, the General. He partook largely of tea and cakes.”
So Big (1924) by Edna Ferber (Paperback, 288 pages)
+20 Task
+10 Combo (#10.4 name: Edna, #20.9 Cakes)
+10 Oldies -76 to 150 years old: 10 points (1872-1946)
Task Total: 20 + 10 + 10 = 40
Grand Total: 240 + 40 = 280
