Jane from B.C.’s Comments (group member since Aug 08, 2010)

Jane from B.C.’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

Mine will be a chain of Canadian authours that I have never read.

The authour that I read in May (I didn't participate in the Spring 2014 challenge) that begins the chain is Robertson Davies. I am reading his book Fifth Business and will be finished this week.

15.1Margaret Laurence
15.2 Jane Urquhart
15.3 Elizabeth Hay
15.4 Joseph Boyden
15.5 Richard Wagamese
15.6 Mary Lawson
15.7 Lisa Moore
15.8 Wayne Grady
15.9 Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
15.10 Steven Galloway

OR the other Option that I am considering is:

15.1 Margaret Laurence
15.2 Martha Ostenso
15.3 Alistair MacLeod
15.4 Joseph Boyden
15.5 Richard Wagamese
15.6 Wayne Grady
15.7 Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
15.8 C.S. Richardson
15.9 Miriam Toews
15.10 Elizabeth Hay

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Jane from BC wrote: "Hi,
I have not participated in a challenge for over a year. Should I go back to the last challenge I participated in and pick an authour from there?"

You should choose your ..."

Great! Thanks!!

Hi,
I have not participated in a challenge for over a year. Should I go back to the last challenge I participated in and pick an authour from there?

Would this fit in this category?

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. The first person narrator of the novel is a little boy's imaginary friend.

20.9 Time for Dinner

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes (#14 on Nouvelle Cuisine list)

Review:
This audiobook was a lovely way to experience Frances Mayes' tale of her purchase, restoration, and then holiday residence in rural Tuscany. Barbara Caruso's narration of Mayes' description were a beautiful way to spend my time commuting to and from work. I was swept away with the vivid description of the country, the people, and the food. I know had I read the book, I would have stumbled over the Italian words, so it was nice to have a reader who rolled them of her tongue with beautiful ease.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.5 - female author telling her own story)

Total task : 25

GRAND TOTAL = 565

20.5 In Honor of Emma

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

This is a personal account of a lively young reporter struck down my a mysterious disease. She spent a month in the hospital as doctors struggled to find the cause of her seizures, hallucinations,personality change and near catatonia. The author was left with very little first hand memory of these events and has drawn upon her skills as a reporter to piece together her 'month of madness' based on her doctors' reports and the recollections of family and friends. It is a fascinating read as the mystery is uncovered. Unfortunately, the author's writing style is not very sophisticated. After the cause of the illness was discovered, my interest waned a bit. Never-the-less it makes for an informative read about this strange disease that can be fatal and often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

+20 Task (Female author telling her own story)
+10 Review

+30 Task Total

GRAND TOTAL = 540

I think you challenge organizers/moderators rock!!

You all deserve a break.

Thanks for everything you do for this group.

20.4 In honor of Mansfield Park

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Review:
This is Jeannette Walls memoirs of her unconventional upbringing by her bright but alcoholic father and her artistic put bipolar [the author never labels it thus but I strongly feel that this was the case] mother. Neither hold jobs for very long stretches and when they do, the money is squandered. The family endures all kinds of hardship due to her parents short comings - not enough food, inadequate clothing, questionable shelter, neglect - to name a few. The Walls parents love their children the only way them seem to know how. At times I had to put the book down and take a break as it became overwhelming. Yet Ms. Walls tells her story in a very matter of fact way. Ms. Walls and her three siblings have to fend for themselves and find their own way out of their hard life. It is a fascinating memoir.

+20 Task
+10 Combo - 20.3 (4.18 rating out of 305,902 ratings AND 20.5 (female author telling her own story)
+10 Review

+40 Total Task

GRAND TOTAL = 510

10.2 Memory Day
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

shelved as a Biography at BPL

Review:
This biography shot to the best-seller about a year ago. Ms Strayed lays her soul bare as she recounts her life at 26 as she tackled a solo trek on over 1000 miles of the grueling Pacific Coast Trail. The reason for her trek was to find herself and find peace after the devastating death of her beloved mother who was the center of her world and her family. In the four years after her mother’s death, Ms Strayed embarked on a series of self-destructive acts that culminated in the dissolution of her marriage. At this point she devised the plan to hike the PCT. Initially I was shocked by the behaviour that she spiraled into before her backpacking trip and I shook my head at the manner in which she was ill prepared for the grueling trek. However, as the book progressed I became to accept the author, warts and all. She is brave and fearless, both in conquering the trail and in the telling of her tale.

+10 Task
+5 Combo (20.5 female author, single female perspective)
+10 Review

Total task +25

GRAND TOTAL = 470

20.3 In honor of Pride and Prejudice

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

rating as of May 13, 2013 4.24 score on 126,961 ratings

Review:
I have had this book sitting on my shelf for quite a while, so I am glad it fit a challenge category. It is a fascinating story of twin boys, Marian and Shiva, born in Ethiopia to a dying mother and abandoned by their father the same day as they arrived in the world. Fortunately, the boys were quickly adopted by a pair of physicians who dearly loved the twins. These parents cultivated the love and curiosity of the medical profession that organically developed in the two boys albeit in different ways. This emotional tale of family and fate is told in the voice of one twin - Marion. This family epic is very well written with compelling characters. I especially liked the twin’s adopted father, Ghosh. I had been told that there was quite a bit of medical termonolgy and descriptions of medical procedures. I did not find this daunting to the enjoyment of this novel. In fact, I was on the ‘edge of my seat’ during some of the descritptions of the surgeries.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Jumbo (541 pages)

+35 Task total

GRAND TOTAL 445

20.6 In honor of Northanger Abbey

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris (listed in the Modern Satirtist category)

Review:
Well this was just the tonic I needed after a difficult week. It picked it up yesterday and am finished a day later. I really needed some good laughs and David Sedaris's latest collection of essays did the trick. This is similar to his other books in that he lovingly pokes fun at his family - his father especially in this book. He has a talent for taking mundane stories like trying to learn a foreign languages or being on a book tour and the next thing you know, you are in stitches. I realize that he exaggerates some of these stories for effect, but that is fine with me. It was a fun, quick, easy read and I welcomed the distraction.

+20 Task
+10 Review

+30 Total Task

Grand Total = 410

20th Century - Chronologician

15.5 The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert published in 1968

+15 Task
+10 Bonus

Task Total +25

Grand Total = 380

10.10 Group Read

HHhH by Laurent Binet


This is an unusual book. It tells the story of the high ranking Nazi Reinhart Heydrich (The Butcher of Prague) and the group of assassins sent to Prague in 1942 to kill him. French author, Laurent Binet, tells this historical tale by combining historical details that he interprets with his own personal view of the way history is re-told. The story-teller (is it Binet himself? or has he created a fictional ‘story teller’?) is filled with self-doubt. Is he telling this history accurately?? Is it right to recreate dialogue? Or invent the colour or make of a car when such details are unknown?? So this is a novel based on historical events but it also become a self reflection of an author coming to grips with the retelling of these historical events accurately. It is a fascinating way of looking at how history or historical fiction is written within the context of telling the history. However, by about midway through the book I became somewhat tired of all the author’s internal dilemma. I found that it broke up the tale. It almost became too self-referential and I felt that I was reading a writer’s journal instead a work of historical fiction. I wanted the narrative to pick up and the authour’s introspection to decrease, which it did as the novel progressed.


+10 Task
+10 Review

Total Task +20

Grand Total = 355

Camille wrote: "Task 20.6: Parody/Satire

I read Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

REVIEW:
This is by far one of the funniest books I've read in a while. I laughed out loud, literally, so many times that my husband star..."

Hi Camille,
Carl Hiaasen is one of my favourite authours and I have read all his books!! I always LOL at his writing. He has a new novel coming out in the summer.

10.3 The Plus

The Dinner by Herman Koch

All that I read about this book is .."don't read the reviews". So I will try to give a review without revealing much. All you really need to know about the plot it that two couples are having dinner together at a posh restaurant. Over the course of their meal they are avoiding the discussion of a certain subject that has all four of them on edge. The story (and back-story) is all told from the perspective of Paul. I would classify him as an unreliable narrator. The books is well plotted and more and more is revealed over the various courses of the meal. It is a fairly quick read and I was compelled to keep reading to find out what would transpire over meal. It is a translation of a Dutch novel and the translation is well done.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo Points (10.6: shelved as 'murder' 5x on Goodreads but not at BPL)

TOTAL: 25
GRAND TOTAL: 335

20.5 In honor of Emma - The Paris Wife by Paula McLain - (Female authour, first person POV with female main character)

I very much enjoyed this novel depicting the tumultuous five years of Hadley Richardson marriage to the budding novelist Ernest Hemingway. The book is told in first person from Hadley's perspective based on research that the Ms. McLain did at the Hemingway library. My vision of Hemingway was as a misogynist and an egotistical man who when through women and whiskey like a house on fire. This novel does bear this out. However this story is told through Hadley's eyes so the reader is introduced to the young Hemingway by his first muse. The novel also lovingly conveys Europe between the two World Wars and all the literary figures that populated that world and helped make Hemingway who he became. Richardson is depicted to be very much one of them, but also not willing to live the way many of them did with open marriages.

+20 Task
+10 Review

+30 Task total

Grand Total = 310

20.10 Initially
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Lexile score 1000)

I really thought that I had read this book before, but after the scene with the Trolls, nothing was familiar. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the original version of 'Middle Earth' and found myself envisioning the characters outside of those that Peter Jackson has given us in his movies with the exception of Gandalf, who I pictured as Ian McKellen's portrays him. I was a little surprised at how the dragon met his end and how the book concluded. I am glad to have this fresh picture in my head based on Tolkien's writing.

+20 - Task

+10 - Review

+15 - Combo(3)
20.3,
10.3,
10.9 (#36 on this list http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/14...)


+10 - Oldie (orginal pub. 1937)

+55 - total Task

Grand Total - 280

20th Century - Chronologician


15.4 I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven published 1967 (Lexile 1080)

+15 Task
+10 Bonus

Task total +25

GRAND TOTAL = 225

[I have added in the extra 5 points I missed from message 172, Task 10.8]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Jane from BC wrote: "Anika wrote: "Jane from BC wrote: "10.8 SPELL IT OUT
(Authour's initials - P.R.)


Nemesis by Philip Roth


This is my first experience reading Phili..."

OK, thanks Elizabeth! I will update my records.

Anika wrote: "Jane from BC wrote: "10.8 SPELL IT OUT
(Authour's initials - P.R.)


Nemesis by Philip Roth


This is my first experience reading Philip Roth. It is a slight novel but i..."

Hey Anika,

Thanks for the catching this. Do I edit my completed task for the book or add it in a separate message?