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

Deedee’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

Task 10.4 International Question Day
Read a book with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” or “how” in the title.

This is Where I Leave You (2009) by Jonathan Tropper (Hardcover, 339 pages)
Review: This novel is about a dysfunctional Jewish family living in New York State. The patriarch of the family has passed away after a long illness, and the remainder of the nuclear family is sitting shiva for a week of mourning. There is the widow, the three sons, and the daughter, together with spouses and children. The novel is told in first person by one of the three sons. A goodly amount of the humor in this book is “gross-out” humor, which I don’t particularly care for. The people seem like real people. Maybe because of that, by the end of the novel, though, the reader wants to sit each character down and solve their problems (since the characters don’t seem to be able to solve them for themselves). Recommended for readers who like to read about dysfunctional families, and either enjoy or don’t mind gross-out humor.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 835 + 20 = 855

Task 10.2 3, 4, or 5

North to Yesterday (Texas Tradition (1967) by Robert Flynn (Hardcover, 338 pages)
Review: Native born Texan Robert Flynn is an author and a professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. This is one of his novels set in Texas and populated by Texans. The novel was printed in 1967, which was after 40 years of novels and film about the heroic, romantic cowboys of the West. Flynn does something new and different in this novel – he writes about incompetent, misfit cowboys (can you say “anti-hero”) doing a cattle drive. The humor comes from comparing the heroic version of a cattle drive to the experiences of our gang of cowboys. The ending was depressing.

The novel was clearly written and easy to follow. It probably seemed more edgy and ground-breaking and modern when it was first printed in 1967 than it is now, after decades of novels and films about anti-heroes. Recommended for those interested in another view of the Western novel.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 815 + 20 = 835

Task 10.8 Anthology

The Variable Man and Other Stories (1957) by Philip K. Dick (Paperback, 255 pages)
Review: This book is a collection of 5 stories (1 novella (1953), 4 novelettes(1953-1956)), all written by Philip K. Dick, all published first in Science Fiction magazines in the 1953-1956 timeframe. One of the stories, “Minority Report”, was the basis of a 10-episode television series in 2015 (see: IMDB: Minority Report .) The stories reflect standard 1950s science fiction tropes: nuclear war, machines running amok, mutated humans, and, of course, time travel. Four of the five stories are “military science fiction”. The other one (“Minority Report”) features policemen chasing criminals. The writing style is clear and straight-forward. Ideas are more important than people. There is sexism, but a lesser amount than in other 1950s science fiction. Recommended for fans of ‘Golden Age’ Science Fiction.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 795 + 20 = 815

I've had The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan on my TBR forever

Padma Viswanathan was born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

Just to verify, this title counts as 7 words:

Flotsam: A Novel of World War II

Thanks!

Task 10.10 Group Reads

The Gilded Hour (2015) by Sara Donati (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 741 pages)
Review: The Gilded Hour is a feel-good novel about two female physicians in 1880s New York City and the Italian orphans they adopt. The two women and their beaus have a marked 21st Century sensibility when it comes to gender roles, women working outside the home, religion and premarital relations. I enjoyed the first half, which was focused on our two heroines overcoming obstacles, finding romance, and providing for the Italian orphans. The second half sets up a small group of male villains and (view spoiler)[a court case alleging malpractice on the part of the female physicians (hide spoiler)]. (Don’t worry, 21st Century morality prevails.) The author afterward explains that one of the “male villains” was an actual person (Anthony Comstock) who behaved as described in the novel. (That is, the novel’s Mr. Comstock interacted with our fictional characters the same way the historical Mr. Comstock interacted with real live humans in the 1880s, according to historical documents.) I’ve read on the author’s website that she’s written a sequel, to be published in 2017 or 2018. Overall, I enjoyed this escape from reality, and I’m planning to read the sequel whenever it published.

+10 Task
+05 Combo (#10.2)
+10 Review
+10 Jumbo 700-799 Pages

Task Total: 10 + 05 + 10 + 10 = 35

Grand Total: 735 + 35 = 770

Task 20.1 Lord of the Rings
English short stories writers

Ashenden (1928) by W. Somerset Maugham
Review: This book is a collection of 7 interlocked short stories. Our protagonist is Ashenden. He is a debonair, cosmopolitan, sophisticaed British spy stationed abroad during World War I. In the Preface, Maugham writes: (The stories) are founded on experiences of my own during that war. (He hastens to add all the stories are fiction.) Each story ends with a twist. Twenty-first century readers would note that the stories are also racist – when it comes to intelligence and morality, British are the best, other Europeans are second-rate, and individuals who are non-European are a distant third. (Maugham’s contemporary readers probably just nodded their heads and said, yeah, so? That’s the way the world is!) Recommended for fans of espionage fiction and for literary-fiction readers who can overlook the British-is-best attitude.

+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.7 Waymarking Dead Poet Society)
+10 Review

Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 = 35

Grand Total: 700 + 35 = 735

Here's another:

The Shootist (1975) by Glendon Swarthout
Spur Award for Best Novel (1975)

Then, sometime after Glendon Swarthout died, his son wrote a sequel:
The Last Shootist (2014) by Miles Hood Swarthout
The novel begins by reproducing the last few pages from The Shootest. It continues the story of 18-year-old Gillom.

Task 15.9

Spur Award for Best Nonfiction (1980)
(note: I'm going to be doing all Spur Award, sequentially, 1972-1981)

The Peace Chiefs of the Cheyennes (1980) by Stan Hoig [970.0049]

+15 Task
+05 Not-a-Novel
+05 Oldies (published before 1992)

Task Total: 15 + 05 + 05 = 25

Grand Total: 675 + 25 = 700

Task 10.6 Spring Equinox

Nagasaki (2010) by Éric Faye; translated from French by Emily Boyce (Paperback, 112 pages)
WINNER: Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie française (2010)
Review: This novella was inspired by a real event that occurred in Nagasaki, Japan. The main character is a 58-year-old unwed, childless man who lives alone in a suburb of Nagasaki. He works as a meteorologist. Strange things appear to be happening in his house while he is at work. I don’t want to say anymore about the plot, except to say this is realistic fiction, not science fiction/fantasy. Almost all the descriptions are of emotions – very few descriptions are of appearances. The author does make a point of referencing the atomic bomb drop in August 1945 – 2 or 3 times – I’m not really sure why. He could have been making a symbolic observation about the novella’s characters; or, he could have just been determined to reference the atomic bomb for personal ideological reasons. The English translation is brisk and understandable. Recommended for readers of literary fiction.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 650 + 20 = 670

Task 10.2 3, 4, or 5

The Unseen World (2016) by Liz Moore
Review:This is a literary fiction novel about a Boston scientist and his daughter in the 1980s (mainly). The daughter, Ada, was produced via a surrogate arrangement by her father and a surrogate mother. Ada was raised by her eccentric, absent-professor father. A warm and loving Catholic woman living nearby is also frequently present. Midway through the novel, a mystery appears. The rest of the novel is the process of solving the mystery, and what happens afterwards. I really liked the first half of the novel. The reader really gets inside of Ada’s head. The mystery was interesting, also, and the process used to solve the mystery. The mystery’s solution: meh. It reminded me, oddly, of the real life Watergate ‘Deep Throat’ identity mystery. For years, speculation abounded about the identity of Woodward & Bernstein’s secret source ‘Deep Throat’. Some of the speculation was very inventive. In the end, Watergate’s mystery source turned out to be a rather bland bureaucrat who had been passed over for promotion and wanted revenge. How banal! The solution to the ‘mystery’ part of the novel struck me the same way --- after such a good buildup, a ‘oh, so that’s all it was’ reaction. Still, I really loved the first half of the novel, and the rest was good enough for me to give this one 4.5 stars which I rounded up to 5 stars. Recommended for fans of literary fiction (but not to mystery lovers).

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 630 + 20 = 650

Task 20.10 Hesperus

The Comedians (1966) by Graham Greene
Review: Graham Greene spent some time in Haiti in the early 1960s, left Haiti, then wrote this novel. Then-President Duvalier of Haiti was so upset with the novel that he spoke out against it, and had it banned. (The ban probably increased sales.) I found the background about the novel interesting. The novel itself was really good, also. It is told in first person by a 50ish year old man. He has inherited a hotel in Port-au-Prince; having nothing else going on at the time, he decides to move to the hotel and make his living by managing it. While he is there, Haiti falls apart. The electricity and phone service stop, civil service bureaucrats respond only to bribes, and the Haitian police (called Tonton Macoute) are violent bullies. Our narrator tells of the people he knows in Haiti and what becomes of them. He survives his experiences in Haiti. The narrator writes this novel after he leaves Haiti. Overall, the prose and the storyline are easy to follow. It is depressing that the most horrific events of the novel actually happened to real people. Recommended for readers of “serious” fiction.

+20 Task
+10 Combo (#10.3, #20.1)
+10 Review

Task Total: 20 + 10 + 10 = 40

Grand Total: 590 + 40 = 630

Task 15.8

Spur Award for Best Novel (1979)
(note: I'm going to be doing all Spur Award, sequentially, 1972-1981)

The Holdouts (1979) by William Decker

+15 Task
+05 Oldies (published before 1992)

Task Total: 15 + 05 = 20

Grand Total: 570 + 20 = 590

Task 10.2 3, 4, or 5

A Colony in a Nation (2017) by Christopher L. Hayes (Hardcover, 256 pages) [364.973]
Review:Chris Hayes is the host of a news program on MSNBC called “All In with Chris Hayes” which airs around here Monday through Friday from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM. This is his second non-fiction book. Mr. Hayes was the reporter on the scene in August 2014 at the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, that occurred after the shooting death of Michael Brown. Later, he did reporting from Baltimore, Maryland after a similar incident. He wrote this book in an attempt to understand why low-income urban African Americans think about the police, and about “law and order” the way they do. His conclusion: “There are two systems in one: the Nation, the place that makes all the rules, where the "citizens" live (aka white/upper class people), and the Colony, where the "subjects" (aka black/poor people) live.” The later part of the book is Mr. Hayes’ explanation why he believes this is so, personal anecdotes, and concluding with a "can't we all just get along" appeal. Recommended for readers interested in reading about current events from an ideological point of view.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 550 + 20 = 570

Task 10.2 3, 4, or 5

Across a Billion Years (1969) by Robert Silverberg (Paperback, 250 pages)
Review:Robert Silverberg writes science fiction and fantasy novels. The premise of this one: a multi-species scientific team of archeologists are working on an archeological dig on a planet many light-years from Earth. There are 11 archeologists, 6 human, 4 alien, and 1 sentient female android. The novel is told as a series of letters written by a young man (from context, aged 19-22) to his twin sister on Earth. (He’s collecting the “message cubes” and will present them to his sister when he sees her a few years from now.) The pluses: aliens who have different priorities than humans; the description of scientific discovery; and the uber-optimistic ending. The minuses: not really original – there must be dozens of science fiction novels about a small group of scientists making huge paradigm-shifting discoveries; and, most gratingly, the treatment in the novel of the young woman on the team – she’s such a pal, she doesn’t mind (view spoiler)[ a senior human male scientist forcing kisses ‘n’ cuddles on her (hide spoiler)]. She’s also in charge of making sure all the guys get the credit for the discoveries, and of smoothing out all ego conflicts (because, of course, SHE doesn’t need an ego). Grrr. Overall, Silverberg has written better, more original novels than this one. I’d start with one of those (Tower of Glass, Nightwings, Shadrach in the Furnace, The Last Song of Orpheus or Dying Inside)

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 530 + 20 = 550

Task 15.7

Spur Award for Best Novel (1978)
(note: I'm going to be doing all Spur Award, sequentially, 1972-1981)

Riders to Cibola: A Novel (1977) by Norman Zollinger

+15 Task
+05 Oldies (published before 1992)

Task Total: 15 + 05 = 20

Grand Total: 510 + 20 = 530

Task 10.6 Spring Equinox

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories (2014) by Hilary Mantel (Hardcover, 244 pages)
Audie Award for Short Stories/Collections (2015)
Review: This is a collection of 10 stories, all written by Hilary Mantel. Nine of them were previously published in London literary magazines; the title story, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher is new to this book. The tone of the stories is snide and sarcastic. Seven of the ten stories are told in first person. None of the people in the stories is likeable. Several of the stories appear to be inspired by events in the author’s life – “Sorry to Disturb” stars a British wife in Saudi Arabia (Ms. Mantel lived for a time in Saudi Arabia); “How Shall I know you?” stars a female writer who is working on a historical novel and who attends literary panels in her spare time. The title story, presumably NOT from real life, was one of the better ones, about a planned assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

Overall, the stories were bitter, unpleasant stories about bitter, unpleasant people. Not what I look for in a short story collection.

Hilary Mantel chooses interesting subjects for her novels, so they’ve made their way onto my voluminous TBR pile. I read Beyond Black when it first came out over a decade ago. It’s about a spirit medium who is not a fraud – she’s actually communicating with spirits. I don’t remember much about the novel but I do remember thinking it was a good read. There’s her Henry VIII trilogy, beginning with Wolf Hall; the novel about the French Revolution: A Place of Greater Safety; and the novel about a British wife in Saudi Arabia Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. Therefore, my disappointment in this collection will not stop me from giving some of her other novels a try.

+10 Task
+10 Combo (#10.2, #10.3)
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 + 10 = 30

Grand Total: 480 + 30 = 510

Task 15.6

Spur Award for Best Novel (1977)
(note: I'm going to be doing all Spur Award, sequentially, 1972-1981)

The Great Horse Race (1977) by Fred Grove

+15 Task
+05 Oldies (published before 1992)

Task Total: 15 + 05 = 20

Grand Total: 460 + 20 = 480

Task 10.6 Spring Equinox

The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China (2005) by Samuel Hawley (Goodreads Author) (Paperback, 2nd, 682 pages) [951.902]
Review:Statues of Yi Sun-sin are in nearly every big city in Korea. (Here’s one on the Internet you can look at if you want to: Statue of Yi Sun-sin ) Wikipedia says: Military historians have placed General Yi Sun-Sin on par with Admiral Horatio Nelson as arguably the greatest naval commander in history for his undefeated record against seemingly insurmountable odds despite no background in naval training. Yet, before I read this book, I had never heard of Yi Sun-sin or of Japan's Sixteenth-Century invasion of Korea. It is estimated that over one million “soldiers and civilians” died during the war.

The writing of this book is aimed at the “educated lay reader”. From the notes, it appears the author went to primary sources for material, and he states that he’s re-translated many of the documents. He has a pro-Korea bias, which makes sense as the author is a Canadian who lived and worked for many years in South Korea. (Maybe it is an anti-invader bias instead of a pro-Korean bias?) The prose is easy to follow and the author has included maps. Recommended for those interested in Japanese history, Korean history, naval history, and/or medieval warfare history.

+10 Task
+05 Combo (#10.2)
+10 Review
+05 Jumbo 500-699 Pages

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

Grand Total: 430 + 30 = 460