Connie ’s
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(group member since Nov 11, 2013)
Connie ’s
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Congratulations, Tien! Enjoy your gift card.
Would Deborah Levy's Living Autobiography series work for this task? She wrote a trilogy:Things I Don't Want to Know
The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography
Real Estate
Congratulations, Karen! You'll be busy with your new home and a grandchild.
20.7 RatingsThe Ice Garden by Moira Crone
Moira Crone's lyrical prose will sweep you away into a 1960s small rural Southern town. The book opens with ten-year-old Claire observing the arrival of her parents and new baby sister from the hospital:
"I was staring at my mother at that moment, not the baby. Her body and looks were things I observed the way some people relied on the clouds and the moon to try to decide what weather was coming. She was beautiful all the time. Everyone said so."
The mother, Diana, suffers from a mental illness that has her family walking on eggshells. Her husband is in denial, blinded by Diana's beauty. Claire is thrust into the role of protector of her beloved baby sister, burdened with too much responsibility for someone so young. Claire is fascinated by her mother and her love of beauty - music, art, lovely clothes - but she doesn't trust her.
"It wasn't hard not to tell. I knew if I told, it would be real. I couldn't bear for it to be real - many things, I could bear, but not this."
The secondary characters are also interesting. There's Aunt C who makes life an adventure. The housekeeper, Sidney, is warm and capable, but is also dealing with her own family issues. There is some racial tension in pre-Civil Rights Movement North Carolina in the background.
The author has a deep understanding of the emotions of both children and adults, and the pressures of having a mentally ill parent. Claire and her sister, Sweetie, were so real to me that I was ready to take them home! Her descriptions of the rural town, an ice storm, the neighborhood women, and the small-town gossip are all well-written. I'm glad that Moira Crone is now on my reading radar.
+20 task
+10 combo 10.4 Twelve; 10.8 The Threes
+10 review
Task total: 40
Season total: 775
Round 215.1 Alpha Omega
Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley
C - Y
Task total: 15
Season total: 735
15.10 Alpha OmegaAll the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
M - A
Task total: 30
Alpha-Omega Finish: 100
Season total: 720
20.2 BiographyThomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy, the novelist and poet, deserves its excellent reviews. While she discusses his novels in the context of when they were written, it's Tomalin's wide use of quotes from many poems that gives the book its sparkle.
Born in 1840, Hardy had a lower middle-class childhood as the son of a builder in his beloved Dorset. He was a good student and an avid reader who was trained to be an architect, mainly involved in church restoration. He achieved his dream of becoming a novelist and poet, and used the beautiful Dorset countryside as the setting for much of his work. He usually spent the spring and early summer months in London for the social season, or traveled in the Continent.
Hardy was often a neglectful husband in both of his marriages, and Tomalin devotes many pages to his first marriage to Emma Gifford. She begins the biography:
"In November of 1912 an aging writer lost his wife. He was not expecting her to die, but then he had not been taking much notice of her for some time. . . This is the moment when Thomas Hardy became a great poet."
Hardy felt remorseful after Emma's death and wrote many love poems remembering their happy courtship in northern Cornwall and their early married life. Of course, his second wife, Florence, was offended that the deceased Emma was his Muse.
While Hardy had lacked the resources to attend university as a young man, he received honorary degrees from many universities that recognized his genius. He was a man who was caught between two worlds - the simple life in Dorset and the intellectual life of London. His poetry often reflected his experiences in both places, his love of nature, his social awareness of the plight of women, his ambivalence about religion, and a world shaken by wars.
This is a very readable biography that gives insight into Thomas Hardy, the man, as well as Thomas Hardy, the writer. Highly recommended!
+20 task
+10 combo 10.4 Twelve; 20.5 Books
+10 review
+10 aged (born 1933)
Task total: 50
Season total: 590
Plans10.1 New Horizons
✓ How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell
10.2 Albright Sisters
✓ The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
10.3 Discworld
✓ Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout (Amgash #4) (or 20.6)
✓ The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civil War by Howard Bahr
10.4 3, 4, 5
✓ The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
✓ The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War by Howard Bahr
10.5 Wimsey
✓ The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner
10.6 Pi Day
The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill
Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin
10.7 20th Century Bookends
Rumer Godden died 1998
Wallace Stegner died 1993
William Maxwell died 2000
10.8 Gilmore Girls
Own 7 books on the list
10.9 Quilting
Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
10.10 Group reads
20.1 Modernist
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
✓ Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner
20.2 French
✓ A Summer with Montaigne: On the Art of Living Well by Antoine Campagne
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Happy People Read and Drink Coffee by Agnès Martin-Lugand
In the Country of Others by Leïla Slimani
20.3 POV
✓ The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
✓ Switchboard Soldiers: A Novel of the Heroic Women Who Served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps During World War I by Jennifer Chiaverini
✓ Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
✓ Somebody's Luggage by Charles Dickens
✓ Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith
✓ The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham
20.4 Sub-Continent
✓ The Artist of Disappearance by Anita Desai
20.5 Female
✓ Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
20.6 Award
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
✓ The Smiling Country by Elmer Kelton
Irish Book Award - Lifetime Achievement Award
2022 Anne Enright
2021 Sebastian Barry
2019 Colm Tóibín
2013 John Banville
20.7 Non-human
✓ Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (octopus)
20.8 Real Fiction
✓ The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (pub 5/1/23)
20.9 Non-Fiction (series)
Fences by August Wilson
✓ Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson
The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy
20.10 Uncommon Letter (Q, X, Z in name of character)
✓ The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce (Queenie)
✓ Maureen by Rachel Joyce (Queenie)
✓ Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Petrona Sanchez)
A list of Mystery possibilities to draw from to add to my Mystery Challenge:1901 My Strangest Case by Guy Newell Boothby
1906 A Rock in the Baltic by Robert Barr
1913 The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes
1921 The Paradise Mystery by J.S. Fletcher
1932 Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart
1938 Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
1951 The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
1963 The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch
1968 The Man on the Bench in the Barn by Georges Simenon
1979 The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block
1988 Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
1993 J is for Judgment by Sue Grafton
1998 Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz
2005 Still Life by Louise Penny 15.1
2015 Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic
2020 Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain 15.2
20.7 RatingsCity of Thieves by David Benioff
Seventeen-year-old Lev was working in the volunteer fire brigade in Leningrad during World War II. A dead Nazi paratrooper fell to the ground in front of his apartment building, and Lev and his friends looted the body, looking for food and weapons. Lev was thrown into prison for looting, and met his twenty-year-old cellmate, Kolya. When they were brought to the colonel, he said he would release them if they could deliver a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding cake.
People are starving in Leningrad, and even the black market has no eggs. Lev and Kolya trek out to the countryside in search of an egg farm behind enemy lines. They witness some horrific events, but also develop a warm friendship. Kolya is a gregarious man who acts like a big brother to the quieter Lev. Their banter is witty and thoughtful, and they have each other's backs in some terrifying situations. The five days in the Russian countryside act as a coming-of-age journey for Lev.
David Benioff is also a screenwriter, and his dialogue shines with emotion and humor. This is set against a backdrop of the atrocities of war, and a frigid Russian winter with little food and fuel. It all comes together in an unforgettable wartime story.
+20 task (138,867 ratings)
+ 5 combo 10.5 Journey (to the Russian countryside and back)
+10 review
Task total: 35
Season total: 495
10.9 Covid-19 HitsLessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
"Lessons in Chemistry" is a humorous book with a serious message about sexism and following your dreams. Elizabeth Zott is a research chemist in the early 1960s when it was groundbreaking for women to work in the sciences. She has a boss who steals her work, and treats her like a lab tech.
Eventually Elizabeth finds she's a single mother without a job, and needs to put food on the table. She takes a job on a TV cooking show, but presents it on her terms, encouraging women to pursue their interests and teaching them about the chemistry in meal preparation. The show is an amazing success, but Elizabeth knows that she is not following her own advice about women following their dreams.
The book does have some male characters that underestimate women or are sexual predators. But the story is not anti-male, and has some very caring, supportive men as well. It has a cross-section of people just like real life. Love and caring are important themes - Elizabeth's love for her soulmate and fellow chemist, the love of a parent for a child, and the love of an amazingly smart dog for his family. The dog, named "Six-Thirty," won my heart with his emotional intelligence and loyalty.
The hot pink American cover of the book has a bit of a Barbie vibe. It was a pleasant surprise to find that it's a feminist story about a brilliant woman and modern thinker. There is quite a bit of unrealistic exaggeration, but I considered it part of the humor. After I opened the cover, I found a witty, entertaining story that kept me turning the pages.
+10 task (2022 Historical Fiction and Debut)
+ 5 combo 20.7 Ratings (337,149)
+10 review
Task total: 25
Season total: 465
20.8 ShortDon't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
The title story, "Don't Look Now," was my favorite in this collection of five short stories. A grieving husband and wife are on vacation in Venice when some strange supernatural events occur.
"The Breakthrough" involves an engineer who is sent to a remote facility where secret research is being done. It had a science fiction, mad scientist vibe.
A British schoolmaster travels to Crete to enjoy his hobby of painting by the ocean in "Not After Midnight." A strange couple in a neighboring cottage are involved in a mysterious activity when they go off in their boat every day.
A young woman's father died, and she travels to Ireland to make a connection with his former best friend. He's a recluse on an island with several secrets in "A Border-Line Case."
In "The Way of the Cross," a British group was traveling with their pastor to visit the holy sites in Jerusalem. When he falls sick, a less experienced minister is recruited to take his place. This is a story about the pilgrims themselves, their interactions, and their relationships. It was my least favorite of the group.
In each of these stories Daphne du Maurier has the characters journey from their familiar English environment to a place where they feel uncertain and frightened when strange things happen. Sometimes they don't understand the language well, and don't have a friend with whom they can share their fears. The author is very skilled in setting up suspenseful situations.
+20 task
+15 combo 10.4 Twelve; 10.5 Journey; 20.10 Mystery
+10 review
+10 aged 1907-1989, age 82
Task total: 55
Season total: 440
20.7 RatingsHomegoing by Yaa Gyasi
"Homegoing" is a powerful novel composed of fourteen linked stories spanning three hundred years. In the 18th Century on the west coast of Africa, in what is now Ghana, beautiful Effia was sold by her parents for a large bride price to the English governor at Cape Coast Castle. Effia lived in comfort at the Castle while captured slaves were imprisoned in the dungeon below until they were shipped to America and other locations. One of the slaves was her half-sister Esi, who Effia had never met, who was kidnapped from another village.
The book follows seven generations of Esi's family from a life of slavery on a Southern plantation, the passing of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, the Jim Crow South, migration to the North, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, to modern times. Back in Africa, the stories of Effia's family explore the agreements between the English and the native tribes, pitting them against each other and encouraging kidnapping people to be sold as slaves. Countless wars were fought between tribes in the pursuit of wealth. After slavery was outlawed, British officials took ownership of some of the land and white missionaries tried to erase the African culture and religion.
The book shows seven generations being damaged by colonization in Africa and slavery in America. There was a loss of heritage and identity, especially when the children of slave parents were sold. Yaa Gyase's writing was excellent, and the author incorporated African myths into some of the chapters. There were fourteen main characters plus many additional family members and friends so it's not a book that you can read over an extended period of time. The author did give some of the characters memorable personal characteristics which was helpful with such a large cast of characters. Fortunately, there was also a useful family tree at the front of the book. "Homegoing"gives a reader lots of food for thought, including the meaning of "home."
+20 task (288,212 ratings)
+ 5 combo 10.4 Twelve
+10 review
Task total: 35
Season total: 385
10.4 TwelveStella Maris by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy's latest book is "Stella Maris," a companion novel to "The Passenger," but set earlier in 1972. The book is composed of seven psychiatric consultations between Alicia Western and Dr Cohen at a Wisconsin mental health facility, Stella Maris. Alicia is a beautiful twenty-year-old woman who had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic with hallucinations. She had been a child prodigy, and was a doctoral student of mathematics. She informed Dr Cohen that the word "prodigy" comes from the Latin word for monster.
Alicia and her brother Bobby are both brilliant and haunted by their father's involvement in the Manhattan Project. Bobby was in a coma in an Italian hospital after the crash of his Formula Two racing car when Alicia checked herself into Stella Maris. Alicia talked to the psychiatrist about philosophy, physics, mathematics, the atomic bomb, music, her violin, synesthesia, dreams, hallucinations, her brother, and the nature of existence. When Dr Cohen asks Alicia if she believes in an afterlife, she replies, "I dont believe in this one."
The dialogue varies from being fascinating to being way over the head of anyone without a background in theoretical mathematics. Dr Cohen asks her, "If you had not become a mathematician, what would you like to have been?" "Dead" is her reply.
I'm glad I read "Stella Maris" since it does answer some of the questions I had after reading "The Passenger." Sometimes the book feels like it's Cormac McCarthy himself who is speaking since he has been spending lots of time at the Santa Fe Institute for cutting-edge science. McCarthy does not use apostrophes or quotation marks in the book, but I didn't find it confusing. Every reader has to decide whether to read with a "go with the flow" attitude to get the gist of the book, or spend the time learning more about the many philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians mentioned.
+10 task
+10 review
+10 aged (born 1933)
Task total: 30
Season total: 350
20.3 NYRBIn the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano
"There were two entrances to the Cafe, but she always opted for the narrower one hidden in the shadows. She always chose the same table at the back of the little room."
The Cafe Conde's patrons were a group of Bohemian writers and intellectuals in 1950s Paris. A mysterious young woman, who they nickname Louki, sometimes sits with them but doesn't usually participate in the conversations.
The book has multiple narrators showing us various aspects of Louki's life. Louki's teenage years had been lonely with an absent father and a mother who worked nights, so Louki wandered the streets at night. She had recently left her husband, and became involved with Roland, an aspiring writer.
While the book follows the elusive Louki, it also explores space and time. One of the ideas is that in the confusion of a large city, everyone needs to find a few "fixed points" to hold on to, such as a favorite cafe. Another idea was that there were "neutral zones . . . a series of transitional zones -- no-man's-lands where we were on the border of everything else, in transit, or even held suspended."
Louki and others were often wandering the streets of Paris. Neighborhoods changed, and locations appeared and disappeared. Much was still a dreamy mystery by the end, but it was a lovely journey.
+20 task
+10 aged (born 1945)
+10 review
Task total: 40
Season total: 320
