Connie ’s Comments (group member since Nov 11, 2013)

Connie ’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

20.5 Faulkner

Night Walks by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was a talented journalist, and most of the eight essays in this collection are works of social journalism. A few works are more nostalgic in nature. The essays were originally published in the journals, "Household Words," or "All the Year Round." The themes of walking and observing run through the collection.

The title work, "Night Walks," is a semi-autobiographical essay about a man who walked the streets of London when he suffered from insomnia. The walker was very observant, noticing the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, and the dangerous people that he passed during the night. Many of these experiences were later incorporated into other literary works. Using beautiful imagery, Dickens wrote an excellent essay of nostalgic thoughts and social concerns. This five-star title essay is imaginative and sensual, and my favorite essay in this volume. I reviewed the other essays in a longer GR review.

+20 task (on list)
+ 5 combo 20.9 ABCs
+15 oldie (pub 1869)
+10 review

Task total: 50
Season total: 370

20.10 Birthday

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

"Like many others, I did not see it coming.
But William is a scientist, and he saw it coming; he saw it sooner than I did, is what I mean."

It was March in the early days of the pandemic, and Lucy's ex-husband takes her up to Maine to escape the threat of infection in New York City. William has rented a home on Maine's rocky coast. It was lockdown for them, punctuated with walks along the shore. Lucy and William had a complicated history, both together and apart. Now they were together 24/7, and their past connection helped them get through the stress of the pandemic and their worries about their daughters' health and marriages.

"Almost always, there was that sense of being underwater; of things not being real."

Much of the book takes place in Lucy's thoughts, and her insecurities from her damaged childhood are still with her. Lucy's voice is conversational, and the reader feels like they are with an empathetic old friend. Lucy is especially kind to people who are experiencing poverty or living alone, such as a woman she meets while volunteering at the food pantry.

This is a thoughtful novel about relationships, resilience, and understanding other people in challenging times. Author Elizabeth Strout has voiced the fears and insecurities we all felt during the pandemic's first year.

+20 task
+20 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (USA); 10.4 Series (Amgash #4); 10.9 NFL! (Maine in New England); 20.9 ABCs
+10 review

Task total: 50
Season total: 320

20.8 Soup's On!

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

"No one had ever spoken to him of how a man might fall in love with a piece of ground."

This award winning novel tells the story of the settlement of the New South Wales colony in Australia. William Thornhill, an impoverished boatman in London, was convicted of the theft of a load of timber in 1806. He was deported to the New South Wales penal colony with his family as a way to avoid swinging from the gallows. After serving his time in Sydney, Will claimed a beautiful piece of land along the Hawkesbury River in the frontier. However, this was land that the Aboriginal people had loved and considered their territory for years.

Kate Grenville wrote wonderful descriptions of the hard life of a boatman on the Thames, the relationship between Will and his wife, the difficulties of a new settler, and the confrontations with the indigenous people. The characters come so alive on the page that they are hard to leave at the end of the book.

An attempt to make kangaroo soup on pg 228: "They ended up with a kind of soup with a scum of hair that had to be strained through muslin."

+20 task
+20 combos 10.2 Octoberfest (Australia); 10.3 9, 10, 11 (Kate); 10.4 Series (Thornhill Family #1); 20.10 Birthday (2005)
+10 review

Task total: 50
Season total: 270

20.1 Jemisin

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked."

Ray was the son of a small-time crook, but he wanted to move up in the world. He attended college and bought a small furniture store in Harlem. Ray inherited a truck from his father that had a surprise gift in the spare tire well that funded his store. Money was scarce so Ray occasionally fenced some jewelry brought in by his cousin, Freddie, or sold a used TV that "fell off of a truck."

Ray, his wife, and their children are living in a small apartment near the subway and saving for something better. Life is going well in 1959 when Freddie gets involved in a dangerous plan to rob the safe in the Hotel Theresa, and volunteers Ray to fence the jewels. Freddie is like a brother to Ray so he tries to protect his cousin, and score enough cash to finance a new apartment. Ray also has a dream to move into Harlem's elite Black community.

The book follows Ray, his cousin Freddie, and his older friend Pepper through a series of heists. Harlem is populated with crooked cops demanding protection money, bookies, gangsters, and corrupt city workers. There are also civil rights workers and lawyers trying to make it a better place. Race, injustice, inequality, revenge, and gentrification are important themes in the book. Beautiful descriptions of 1960s New York City architecture, and bits of sarcastic humor also fill the pages. Ray is a man who is living a double life - the upright owner of a furniture store with a shady fencing business on the side.

It was fun to see a different side of Colson Whitehead's talent. I had already read "The Underground Railroad" and "The Nickel Boys," but this is a totally different type of book. He's a great writer so this heist story is both entertaining and thoughtful.

20.8 Soup's On!: page 44 "They were eating pea soup."

+20 task
+20 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (USA); 10.9 NFL! (New York City); 20.8 Soup's On!; 20.9 ABCs
+10 review

Task total: 50
Season total: 220

20.7 Cervantes

Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton

"Our Last Days in Barcelona" is the fifth book in the series about the Perez family who escaped to Florida after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. This book has two timelines set mostly in Spain in 1936 and 1964.

In 1936, Alicia Perez takes her young daughter, Isabel, to Barcelona to visit with her parents after she discovers that her husband had been unfaithful. Spain is in a state of unrest as fascism is rising, and the Spanish Civil War erupts. Alicia witnesses the bombing of Guernica by the Germans before making her way back to Cuba. Meanwhile, her cousin Rosa is dealing with family problems in Cuba.

In the 1964 timeline, Isabel is worried about her sister Beatriz after she disappears in Barcelona. Beatriz is involved in anti-Castro espionage, although she has a cover job at the American Embassy. Isabel travels to Barcelona to locate Beatriz. Isabel has been feeling weighed down by an unhappy marriage, but finds satisfaction when she uses her artistic talents.

In addition to the interesting historical elements, themes of love, duty to their family, and personal fulfillment are important. While it is not necessary to read the entire series before this book, the first book, "When We Left Cuba," is a good introduction to the characters and the political situation as the Perez family flees from Cuba. Chanel Cleeton's writing is warm, emotional, and entertaining.

+20 task (Spain)
+ 15 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (born US); 10.4 Series; 20.10 Birthday (pub 2022)
+10 review

Task total: 45
Season total: 170

20.2 King

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Kate Baron, a single mother working for a high-pressure law firm, gets a call to pick up her daughter. Amelia, who attends a private girls high school in New York City, has been caught cheating. When Kate arrives, Amelia is dead from a tragic fall. The police initially call it suicide, but Kate gets anonymous text messages that Amelia did not kill herself. The police reopen the investigation and, unbelievably, Kate is allowed to accompany the detective as he investigates.

The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Kate and Amelia. Much of Amelia's story is told through texts, blogs, and posts on Facebook and other social media. Amelia had joined a secret sorority, and she was an innocent among the older mean girls in the group.

The book was very suspenseful, although a few things seemed improbable. In addition to being a gripping mystery-thriller, it was also a heartbreaking book about bullying, the pressure on teens to be popular, and the difficulties of parenting in contemporary times.

+20 task (debut novel)
+15 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (born in US); 10.9 NFL (New York City); 20.9 ABCs
+10 review

Task total: 45
Season total: 125

10.4 Series

The Town by Conrad Richter

"The Town" is the third book of "The Awakening Land" trilogy about the growth of a small town in the Ohio frontier. Set in the 19th Century before the Civil War, this book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1951. "The Town" is a continuation of the life of Sayward, her lawyer husband Portius Wheeler, and their large family.

The town is changing with new businesses, more industry, a courthouse, a bridge, and a canal. Sayward becomes relatively wealthy as she sells off building lots of her land to new residents. Portius wants to move out of their log house into a new brick home which better reflects his importance as a judge and a civic leader. Once Sayward is residing in the new house, she feels nostalgic for the old way of life. Hard work and self-reliance were necessary attributes for the pioneers, and she sees a loss of those qualities even while life is getting easier for the next generation. Planting trees around the new home brought back memories of her childhood when the area was completely forested.

Much of the book focuses on Chancey, their youngest son. Chancey has been spoiled as a youngster due to his weak heart, and developed a self-centered fantasy world. His mother has to toughen him up with chores and walking, but he continues to resist. Chancy falls for a girl, Rosa, but the relationship is forbidden due to some past history known around the town. As he grows older, Chancey becomes more estranged from his family. He becomes a journalist, and develops values which clash with his mother's viewpoints.

As Sayward reaches her final years, it becomes more and more obvious how helpful she has been to various townspeople, escaped slaves, and her own family members with many good deeds done in secret. Sayward has retained her practical, "salt of the earth" qualities all her life. I enjoyed all three books of the trilogy, and would recommend reading them in order since they build upon each other.

+10 task
+15 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (American); 20.8 Soup's On! (Chapter 17-chicken); 20.9 ABCs
+ 5 oldie (pub 1950)
+10 review

Task total: 40
Season total: 80

I read Grief Cottage, and it would fit the task, Rosemary.

Very cute shirt, Elizabeth! Maybe you can hint that you want one for your birthday.

20.9 ABCs

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

When I finished the last page of "Cloud Cuckoo Land," I was wondering how Anthony Doerr managed to keep so many characters and timelines woven together to create this amazing book. Doerr has combined historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction in a story about books and libraries, the environment, and the importance of home.

A fictional fable written by Antonius Diogenes in ancient Greece is a unifying factor that connects the characters. The various characters find the ancient book, translate it, tell the story to children or the sick, and transform it into a play. Libraries lose and find the papyrus manuscript, and it is also partially destroyed by water and mold. But somehow, Diogenes' fable about the utopia of Cloud Cuckoo Land lives on.

There's lots of excitement and adventure in the book. The stories of Anna and Omeir intersect at the Siege of Constantinople in the 15th Century. Zeno learns ancient Greek from another prisoner-of-war in Korea. Zeno's story intersects with Seymour's tale in Idaho. Seymour is a troubled teenager who takes drastic measures to promote environmentalism in contemporary times. Konstance is in a futuristic timeline on a long voyage on the Argos interstellar spaceship operated by AI.

Author Anthony Doerr writes with imagination, warmth, and an understanding of the challenges that these characters and Planet Earth face. The book has short chapters which alternate among characters. There are some readers who would not be comfortable with so many timelines and locations. While I had no trouble following the story, some of the tension was lost by so many changes in the timelines. It's best to just go with the flow and see where the book takes you. "Cloud Cuckoo Land" is an unusual experience - something out of the ordinary. And I loved the owls!

+20 task
+ 5 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (born USA)
+ 5 jumbo (626 pages)
+10 review

Task total: 40
Season total: 40

Enjoy your gift card, Bea!

20.27 O63 First Letter of Title is Found in "orphan"

Odds Against by Dick Francis

Steeplechase jockey Sid Halley had a bad fall, slicing open his left hand and arm with a razor-sharp racing horseshoe. That ended his racing career, so Sid went to work for a detective agency that specializes in clients from the racing world. Two years later, Sid was shot in the abdomen during a minor job. He's put on a case investigating a group that has been sabotaging a race course so it loses its value. The crooks want to eventually sell the land for millions to developers who will turn the land into housing lots.

During the investigation Sid meets a woman whose face was severely burned when she was younger. They help each other emotionally deal with deformity and people's reactions to their disfigurements. This adds a thought-provoking theme to a good mystery.

"Odds Against" is the first of a series about Sid Halley, and I'm planning to read the next book, "Whip Hands." I enjoyed the atmosphere at the detective agency, and the steeplechase racing scene.

+20 task
+ 5 oldie (pub 1965)
+ 5 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 795

Plan

10.1 TBR
✓ Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

10.2 Octoberfest
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (USA)
✓ Weeds by Edith Summers Kelley (Canada)

10.3 9,10,11 (I,J,K)
✓ The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

10.4 Series
✓ The Town by Conrad Richter
Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart

10.5 Autumn's Colors
✓ The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne

10.6 Bless the Animals
Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
Dog on It by Spencer Quinn (or any in series)
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann

10.7 Geocaching

10.8 House
✓ The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
The Door by Magda Szabó

10.9 NFL
✓ The Sentence by Louise Erdrich MN
Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult NH

10.10 Group Reads

20.1 Jemisin (main character is a person of color)
✓ Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
✓ Ru by Kim Thúy

20.2 King (debut novel)
✓ Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
✓ Dangerous Women by Hope Adams

20.3 Vonnegut (anti-war)
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker

20.4 Saramago (18th Century)
Ross Poldark by Winston Graham set 1783-87
Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran set 1788

20.5 Faulkner (postage stamp)
✓ Night Walks by Charles Dickens
✓ Letter to His Father by Franz Kafka
Georges Simenon
Daphne du Maurier
Agatha Christie
Joseph Conrad
Thomas Hardy

20.6 Coleridge (Most Poetic Book Titles)
Lots of choices

20.7 Cervantes (Spanish Literature or Spain)
✓ Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton

20.8 Soup's On!
✓ The Secret River by Kate Grenville
✓ The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

20.9 ABCs
✓ Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
✓ Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

20.10 Birthday
✓ Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout 2022
✓ The Dinner by Herman Koch 2009
How It Went: Thirteen Late Stories of the Port William Membership by Wendell Berry

Happy Birthday, Jayme! I hope you enjoy your special day!

20.26 I17 Title Word Ends in "ing"

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

"The very thought of going back to Lower Binfield had done me good already. You know the feeling I had. Coming up for air! Like the big sea-turtles when they come paddling up to the surface, stick their noses out and fill their lungs with a great gulp before they sink down again among the seaweed and the octopuses. We're all stifling at the bottom of a dustbin, but I'd found the way to the top. Back to Lower Binfield!

George Bowling feels trapped in his marriage and in his job as a traveling insurance salesman. He's humorous, middle-aged, overweight, and fearful of an impending war with Hitler. As the title suggests, he feels like he is drowning in his life in present day England.

George thinks back to his carefree boyhood in the village of Lower Binfield. There are long passages about the fun of fishing with his buddies, and the beauty of nature. He also reminisces about his love of reading, his first job, his first love, and his experiences in the Great War. While some of the descriptions of his boyhood are quite lyrical, they could have been edited down.

After attending a lecture by an anti-fascist and feeling fearful about another war, George has the need for the peace and happiness he enjoyed as a boy before the Great War. He had some money from betting on the horses, and used it to travel back to Lower Binfield. The rest of the book tells about his experiences going back home.

Orwell's love of nature, fishing, and reading comes through in the character he created. George Bowling is humorous, cynical, not always likable, and understandably worried about the future. Except for the overly long musings about George's childhood, "Coming Up for Air" is an entertaining and thoughtfully written novel.

BINGO:
B5
I17
N42
G54
O70

+20 task
+ 5 oldie (pub 1939)
+ 5 review

Task total: 30
Bingo: 50
Season total: 765

Congratulations, Deedee! That's great news!

20.25 B1 Title has one word.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Jarrett, an enslaved boy working in a Kentucky stable, loved the foal Lexington from the day of his birth. Lexington eventually became a winning racehorse and the sire of many other champion thoroughbreds in the late 19th Century. The equine painter, Thomas Scott, captured the devotion between Jarrett and Lexington in his oil paintings. Scott also showed Jarrett's individuality at a time when slaves were just considered possessions. There was such a strong bond between Jarrett and the horse that the owners would sell them together. Overall, the antebellum owners had no more regard for the enslaved workers than they did for the racehorses, many who were run to their deaths.

The 19th Century chapters alternate with some about a 1950s New York art dealer, and others set in 2019 in Washington DC. A Nigerian-American art history major, Theo, finds a smoke-darkened oil painting of a horse in the trash. Theo meets an Australian bone expert, Jess, who is working on articulating Lexington's skeleton in the Smithsonian. The experts they encountered at the museum were fascinating. The contemporary black experience is seen through Theo, although his actions seem naive for 2019.

This was a wonderfully researched saga about racism, horse racing, Lexington, and the people who were connected to the race horse in myriad ways. The author's excellent writing, and choice of interesting topics made "Horse" a 5 star historical novel for me.

+20 task
+ 5 review

Task total: 25
Season total: 685

Plan and 2 Alternates:

2009 CWA International Dagger The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas
2010 Costa Book Award The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
2010 David J Langum Sr Prize The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber
2010 Spur Award Far Bright Star by Robert Olmstead
2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
2012 Man Asian Ru by Kim Thúy
2014 National Book Award Redeployment by Phil Klay
2014 Prince or Princess of Asturias Award The Sea by John Banville
2016 Edgar Best First Novel The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017 Pen/Faulkner for Fiction Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
2018 California Book Award The Library Book by Susan Orlean
2018 International Dublin Literary Award Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

20.24 O70 Book Published in the '70s

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton

It was the 1950s in West Texas, and Charlie Flagg's ranch had gone without rain for seven years. Charlie was a down-to-earth, overweight, stubborn man who was holding on to his ranch by a thread. It was a losing proposition when the animals could not graze on the dry, brown fields and the ranchers had to buy the feed. Would the rain come in time for Charlie and the other ranchers to save their beloved ranches?

Charlie was an independent thinker with strong principles handed down to him from his father and grandfather. He was self-reliant and refused to take any handouts from the government. The government programs may have been well-meaning, but some of them were so tied up in regulations that they often did as much harm as help.

This Western novel showed the different ways Charlie's neighbors dealt with the drought. Most of them were mortgaged up to their eyeballs, and had the threat of foreclosure hanging over them. The story also told about a changing attitude by some Anglos toward those of Mexican descent. Charlie appreciated Lupe, his loyal hired hand, and liked his warm Mexican-American family.

Author Elmer Kelton worked as an agricultural journalist during the 1950s drought and draws on this experience. He wrote good dialogue, sometimes laced with dry humor. The story of the drought is especially moving considering the volatile weather that has impacted Texas and many other areas.

+20 task
+ 5 oldie (pub 1973)
+ 5 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 660

20.23 G54 Title has four words

The Time of Man by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

"The Time of Man" follows Ellen, the daughter of a tenant farmer, as the young girl matures to be a wife and mother. It's written partly in a stream of consciousness in lyrical prose. Ellen is the only surviving child of parents who had lost five children. The young girl has to figure out life, adjusting to new circumstances as her father moves from farm to farm in the Kentucky hills.

The story tells of the beauty of the natural world, the bounty of the crops in a good year, the desperation in a bad year, and the back-breaking relentless labor. Ellen is resilient and helps her parents, but also takes time to experience the wonder of love. Although Ellen is dirt poor, she has a special radiance and a strong sense of loyalty to her family. Her powers of observation are useful when dealing with people, and bring joy when she is outdoors in nature.

My book was illustrated with beautiful wood engravings by Clare Leighton, an artist known for her art depicting workers. The engravings reinforced the feeling that a tenant farmer had to be strong and extremely hard working to survive in the early 20th Century.

This book is not for everyone since Ellen's interior thoughts comprise a large part of the book. It has both folk and lyrical qualities, and captures the reader with its beauty.

+20 task
+ 5 oldie (pub 1926)
+ 5 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 630