Deedee’s Comments (group member since Aug 04, 2010)

Deedee’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

Task 20.2 Prize
Read 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

Task 20.3 Our Town

For 20.3:
Novel is set in the small town of Zinnia, Mississippi

For 20.9 (Cake):
p. 11 the first person narrator, Sarah Booth Delaney, brings coffee and cake to her visitor; whereupon “He took a bite of cake.”

Buried Bones (Sarah Booth Delaney #2) (2000) by Carolyn Haines (Goodreads Author) (Paperback, 368 pages)
Review: The Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series is about to publish book #24 in 2022. Buried Bones is #2 of the series. Our heroine is Sarah Booth Delaney, a 33 year old woman who was raised as a debutante but now needs to make her own money. She’s doing that as a self-employed private detective (one with very few ethics, IMHO). She lives in the family home, an aging mansion, with a 1800s female ghost and an oversized dog. In this installment, an elderly friend of her mother is writing a memoir. He’s going to reveal a lot of secrets – and the people involved want those secrets to remain secrets. He has a dinner party to gloat; the next morning he’s found dead. The novel follows Sarah as she investigates his death, while having a dating life. It’s very unclear whether or not Sarah ever gets paid for her investigation in this book – but I suppose it’s OK, as she received a huge payoff from her investigation in Book #1 of the Series, Them Bones. This is a standalone book – there’s some backstory from book #1 that would give context to some of the situations in this book #2, but it’s not necessary to understanding the plot and characters of this book. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue the series, as Sarah isn’t a particularly likeable character, and the books are told in first person by Sarah.

+20 Task
+05 Combo (#20.9 “Cake”)
+10 Review

Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 = 35

Grand Total: 205 + 35 = 240

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Deedee wrote: "The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848 is a non-fiction book about the Mexican War, with a focus on the men who became gener..."

Yeah!
The book does seem to fit the spirit of the task -- a prequel, as it were, to the American Civil War -- as the author says the emphasis will be on how Lee, Grant, Sherman, Stonewall Jackson and other Americans learned the skill of warmaking that they then will use in the American Civil War.

Task 10.4 Name
Read any book by an author whose given name is 3, 4, or 5 letters long.

The Book of Lost Things (2006) by John Connolly (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 339 pages)

+10 Task

Task Total: 10

Grand Total: 195 + 10 = 205

The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848 is a non-fiction book about the Mexican War, with a focus on the men who became generals in the American Civil War.

Two of the main page genres are:

Military History > Civil War
American History > American Civil War

Would this fit this task? Thanks

Task 15.10 Western Asia
Read a book set in the Western Asia region: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Oman, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates

Set entirely in Constantinople (Turkey).

Alchemy of Fire (2004) by Gillian Bradshaw

+15 Task

Task Total: 15

Grand Total: 180 + 15 = 195

Task 15.6 Central Asia
Read a book set in the Central Asia region: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan

Set in Kazakhstan

Apples Are from Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared (2008) by Christopher Robbins (Hardcover, 304 pages) [915.8]

+15 Task

Task Total: 15

Grand Total: 165 + 15 = 180

Task 20.3 Our Town
Read a book set at least 80% in a small town. The town can be in any country.

For #20.3 small town
Early in the novel, we’re told that the small town of Silver Bay, Oregon (located on the Pacific Ocean coast) has a population of 922 citizens.

For #20.9 cake combo:
p. 179: “And the cake was also delicious and brought up memories of his own mother in the kitchen putting icing on such a cake….”
The main characters then shared a cake to celebrate the birthday of one of the main characters.

Death of an Artist (2012) by Kate Wilhelm (Hardcover, 279 pages)
Review: ‘Death of an Artist’ is a murder mystery where the murderer’s identity is known from the time the victim’s body is found. The ‘mystery’ part is how will our group of sympathetic characters bring the murderer to justice. While they are figuring that out, the reader is treated to vignettes of life in a small coastal town in Oregon. The novel is well-populated by individuals aged 50 and over – maybe because the author was over age 50 when she wrote this novel. One Senior Citizen is in need of a hip replacement. That hip caused so much pain! And the pain influenced events in the novel. Overall, it was an OK novel – not bad, but not great either.

+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.4 “Anne”, #20.9 cake)
+10 Review
Task Total: 20 + 10 + 10 = 40

Grand Total: 125 + 40 = 165

Task 20.9 Birthdays (Kate S's Task)
Read a book in which a character or group of characters eat cake.

p. 8: “We turned towards the door and saw a flurry of yellow light, followed by the bright flames of a birthday cake that was being carried into the room by my mother.” -- after which our first person narrator ate the cake

Actress (2020) by Anne Enright (Hardcover, 265 pages)

+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.4 “Anne”)

Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25

Grand Total: 100 + 25 = 125

Task 10.4 Name
Read any book by an author whose given name is 3, 4, or 5 letters long.

Children of Dune (Dune #3) (1976) by Frank Herbert (Mass Market Paperback, 408 pages)
Review: Children of Dune is the third novel in the Dune Chronicles. (#1 is Dune; #2 is Dune Messiah). It is NOT a standalone novel. Every now and then the author will info-dump a short paragraph summarizing the backstory of a character, or a short paragraph summarizing an event from previous novels. It’s enough to remind a reader of what came before – just enough to remind, and no more than that.

Children of Dune takes place nine years after the end of Dune Messiah. The main protagonists are fraternal twins who are the children of Paul Maud’dib (AKA Paul Atreides) (the main character of the first two books). They have to deal with a complicated political situation that has arisen after the events of the first two books. There’s an unexpectedly large amount of mysticism and philosophy throughout the novel, contributing to its 400+page length, but if the reader perseveres the novel does eventually return to plot- and character- driven events.

Recommended for fans of Dune.

+10 Task
+05 Oldies -25 to 75 years old: 5 points (1947-1997)
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 05 + 10 = 25

Grand Total: 75 + 25 = 100

Task 10.4 Name
Read any book by an author whose given name is 3, 4, or 5 letters long.

Unseemly Science (Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire #2) [ANGRY ROBOT] (2015) by Rod Duncan (Goodreads Author) (Paperback, 368 pages)
Review: Unseemly Science is the second book in the Alternate History Trilogy, “Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire”. It is set in an alternate Scotland and England. Our heroine, Elizabeth, was raised in a traveling circus. There she learned how to perform illusions and how to escape, Houdini-like, from constraints. As the novel opens, she is living on a houseboat, earning her living as a ’consulting detective’. Most of the novel follows Elizabeth as she works on her latest case.

The political lines are different in this alternate history novel. The north, where Elizabeth lives, is a Republic (which is good) but also enforces severe limitations on a woman’s life. To get around the limitations, Elizabeth has invented a brother ‘Edwin’ who can go places and do things that a woman cannot do, and she becomes ‘Edwin’ when the circumstances warrant. There’s a lot of action in this novel –good thing Elizabeth had all that training in the traveling circus! This #2-in-a-series novel can be read as a stand-alone (just read the “Selected Entries from a glossary of the Gas-Lit Empire" first (located at the back of the book) as that contains the worldbuilding information from book #1). If the reader wants the backstories of the recurring characters, then just read book #1, though the backstories aren’t necessary to follow the action. Recommended for fans of mystery-adventure novels and for those who like alternate history novels.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 55 + 20 = 75

Way behind on this .... last summer (June 2021) I read It Would Be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo which was set entirely in VENEZUELA.

Task 10.9 Dual (Tien's Task)
Read a book with dual timeline.

The Actual Star (2021) by Monica Byrne (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 624 pages)
Review: The Actual Star is a speculative fiction novel based on Mayan mythology. I don’t know much about Mayan mythology so I missed most of the references, which was frustrating. The novel itself is really three novels. Novel #1 is set during 1012 C.E. and is focused on the royal boy-girl twin couple. The Mayan practice of human sacrifice is intensely described. The CAVE is an important part of the sacrifice. Novel #2 is set during 2012. A young American woman of Mayan ancestry, Leah, travels to the Mayan area of Belize; she interacts with fraternal twin young men; and all three are drawn to the CAVE. Novel #3 is set during 3012. It’s post-apocalyptic and the human population is dramatically smaller than today. The prevailing religion has now acquired heretics. The main conflict is between a True Believer and a Heretic. The climax of novel #3 occurs at ….. the CAVE.

The author tells the story by alternating chapters – chapter set in 1012; next chapter set in 2012; next chapter set in 3012; repeat for 600 pages. She does try to link all three novels by (1) the CAVE and (2) the events at the end (which I found unconvincing). This is one of those stories where select individual chapters are better than the novel as a whole. As a novel, it just didn’t work for me.


+10 Task
+05 Combo (#10.2 “eASTer”)
+05 Jumbo 500-699 Pages:
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 05 + 05 +10 = 30

Grand Total: 25 + 30 = 55

Task 10.4 Name
Read any book by an author whose given name is 3, 4, or 5 letters long.

Dreamsnake (1978) by Vonda N. McIntyre (Mass Market Paperback, #11729, 319 pages)
Hugo Award for Best Novel (1979)
Nebula Award for Best Novel (1978)
Review: Dreamsnake is set in the far future and stars a (female) Healer named Snake. Snake uses snakes to create healing substances which she then administers to individuals in need of healing. It reads as if there were a series of novellas / novelettes starring Snake that the author then put together and smoothed out to make a novel. (Indeed, the novelette, “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” which makes up the first part of the novel was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1974 and won a Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1974). Each section has a resolution, then Snake travels to the next location. There is an overarching storyline which gets resolved at the end.

I liked how the author explored the differing motivations of the characters, especially when their actions seem at first inexplicable. I also liked the nice 1970s vibe in the novel – including the emphasis on women realizing that they have agency in their own life, and are not bound by convention. I think if a reader enjoys science fiction, then the reader would enjoy this novel.

+10 Task
+05 Oldies -25 to 75 years old: 5 points (1947-1997)
+10 Review

Grand Total: 10 + 05 + 10 = 25

I was surprised to see that Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev (I had thought of her as French) and that Nikolai Gogol was born in a city that is now part of Ukraine (I had thought of him as Russian, not Ukrainian).

I'm almost finished with The Actual Star and it has THREE timelines, "braided" in alternating chapters, set in: 1012, 2012 and 3012. Would three timelines fit? Or must it be restricted to two?

Task 20.4 Day of the Jackal
Read a book with a main page genre of "thriller".

The Devil's Hearth (Fever Devilin #1) (2003) by Phillip DePoy (Hardcover, 244 pages)

+20 Task

Task Total: 20

Grand Total: 550 + 20 = 570

Found another one! J.M. Coetzee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._C... born in South Africa in 1940, moved to Australia in 2002, became an Australian citizen 2006

I think Arthur C. Clarke would qualify -- he immigrated as an adult from England to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_... But maybe not as he remained a British citizen even though he lived the majority of his adult life in Sri Lanka.

Not sure about Isaac Asimov -- he was born in Russia, then immigrated with his parents at the age of 3 from Russia to New York City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_A... states that He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928 at the age of eight.

The end of the winter challenge approaches. I've been by the library, returning my pirate books and my "thriller" books (except for Perfect Little Children which I still plan to read in the spring), and checking out books from Africa & Asia. I always enjoy these challenges, thanks to the moderators for taking the time to create and run them!