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

Connie ’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

10.6 Lifetime Achievement

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

+10 task (St Louis Award)
+10 combo 20.5, 20.6

Task total: 20
Season total: 125

15.1 RG Ratings 250-999

Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi: My Humble Quest to Heal My Colitis, Calm My ADD, and Find the Key to Happiness by Brian Leaf (615 ratings)

+15 task
+ 5 nonfiction

Task total: 20
Season total: 105

20.10 Historical

This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart

+20 task
+15 combo 10.3, 20.1, 20.6
+ 5 oldie (pub 1964)

Task total: 40
Season total: 85

20.7 Shakespeare

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

+20 task
+ 5 combo 20.6 Characters
+20 oldie (pub 1623)

Task total: 45
Season total: 45

Congrats to Rachel! Enjoy your gift card!

That's a great idea, Anika! There are some wonderful books on your list.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a delightful book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, Elizabeth.

10.10 Group Read

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

Chris Baldry, a British soldier in World War I, was sent home suffering from shell shock. Although he was not physically wounded, he had a fifteen year memory loss. He was remembering life as a young man at age 21. One wonders if he is better off in a mental state outside reality. If he is "cured", he will be sent back to the front--to flooded trenches, cannon fire, and dead bodies. Which situation is really a state of madness?

Rebecca West also reminds us that the families of the soldiers are deeply changed by war. Some families lose the people they love. For others, the person that marched off to war with visions of glory returns as a different person. "The Return of the Soldier" explores wealth and class, spiritual beauty versus physical beauty, and love as we see how three women react to Chris Baldry's situation. This novella can be read quickly, but contains lots of food for thought.

+10 task
+ 5 combo 10.3
+10 oldie (1918)
+10 review

Task total: 35
Season total: 945

20.7 Anna Karenina

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was asked to give lectures on women and writing fiction. She expanded her thoughts into the book, "A Room of One's Own". Since the book was published in 1929, we have to take ourselves back to that era. In England, a married woman was not allowed by law to possess her own property until 1880, and women were given the vote in 1919. At that time women had fewer opportunities to be educated and travel. They were also expected to marry at a young age, manage a household, and raise large families.

Woolf says that a woman must have money and a room of her own to be able to write. She needs money with no strings attached, such as Woolf's bequest of 500 pounds yearly from a deceased aunt. The woman writer needs to be able to rent a room away form the household with its constant interruptions.

Woolf recommends that both men and women write with an androgynous mind: "It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man womanly....And fatal is no figure of speech for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death."

The author imagines what would have happened back in 1600 if William Shakespeare had an equally talented sister who wanted to write. The sister would not have been educated, and would have been forced to marry a man that her father chose. If she ran away, she would not have been able to get a job as an actor since all the actors were male. She probably would have become the mistress of someone in the theater to keep from starving, and soon would have become pregnant with an illegitimate child. Even if she possessed the same talent as her brother, there would have been a different outcome.

"Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh."

+20 task (# 486 on list)
+ 5 combo 10.8 Megafinish
+10 oldie pub 1929
+10 review

Task total: 45
Season total: 910

15.10 AbC

All the Names by José Saramago

Finland--Mikael Agricola-palkinto 2001

Task total: 40
Finisher bonus 10 countries: 150
Season total: 865

15.9 AbC

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Italy--Premio Grinzane Cavour for Narrativa Straniera 2000

Task total: 30
Season total: 675

15.8 AbC

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Sweden--Nobel Prize for Literature 2017

Task total: 30
Season total: 645

15.7 AbC

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

France--Prix Femina Etranger 1993

Task total: 20
Season total: 615

I'm sorry about the loss of your mother, Deedee. You're so right that Mary Oliver's poems help us understand the circle of life with its joyful and sad times.

Congratulations to your daughter on her graduation and marriage.

15.6 AbC

Still Life by Louise Penny

Canada--Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel

Task total: 20
Season total: 595

Rebekah wrote: "Guess what I got from my three children for mother’s day? I’ll give you a clue. My oldest daughter has a part time job at Books-a-Million and gets a discount.

From her

Your kids have good taste in books. I loved The Overstory and Where the Crawdads Sing. I haven't read your third book, but it sounds exciting.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

The Fall of the Year by Howard Frank Mosher has 249 ratings now. Could I lock this in please?

This looks like a good "clear out the bookcase" subchallenge!

250,000 or more ratings DONE
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind OLD
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari NF
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens DONE 15.6


100,000 - 249,999
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
After You by Jojo Moyes

75,000 - 99,999 DONE
Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz DONE 15.9
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. OLD
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

25,000 - 74,999 DONE
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver OLD
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
Moonglow by Michael Chabon
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff NF 15.5 DONE

15,000 - 24,999 DONE
The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell DONE 15.3

10,000 - 14,999 DONE
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh OLD
The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis DONE 15.2

5,000 - 9,999 DONE
The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves
This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash
So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger
The Look of Love by Sarah Jio DONE 15.7

1,000 - 4,999 DONE
Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts DONE 15.4
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris NF


250 - 999 DONE
Savage Country by Robert Olmstead
The Distance Home by Paula Saunders
My Old True Love by Sheila Kay Adams
Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi: My Humble Quest to Heal My Colitis, Calm My ADD, and Find the Key to Happiness by Brian Leaf DONE 15.1

fewer than 250 ratings DONE
The Fall of the Year by Howard Frank Mosher DONE 15.8
Liberty's Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World by Michael Meyerson NF

20.3 Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

"Meet Me at the Museum" is a delightful epistolary novel about a man and a woman who find themselves disappointed later in life. They are two strangers who begin a correspondence by chance when Tina, a farmer's wife in England, writes to Anders, a curator at Denmark's Silkeborg Museum. She has had an interest in the Tollund Man who was found in the Danish bogs and is exhibited at the museum. At first Tina and Anders seem very different because she works with her hands at a busy, cluttered farm while Anders works with his mind in a neat office. But they are both very observant, and they understand each other emotionally since Tina is in an unfulfilling marriage and Anders is a lonely widower. They are able to help each other through some rough times through their thoughtful letters. The end of the book is ambiguous leaving the reader wondering if they will ever meet in person. There are many paths we can take in life, and this charming book makes one think about our own choices along with Tina's and Ander's choices.

+20 task
+10 combo 10.8, 20.2 (approved in help thread)
+10 review

Task total: 40
Season total: 575