Joanna’s Comments (group member since Nov 17, 2010)

Joanna’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

10.2 ANNIVERSARY

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

+10 Task (S)
+10 Female
+10 LiT
+5 Oldies (1972)
+30 Combo (10.1 - ColleenPA, 10.9 - 1972, 10.10, 20.3, 20.5 - http://claire-thinking.blogspot.com/2..., 20.8 - 1972)

Task total: 65
Grand total: 250

I should add:

Colette - I read several of her books in quick succession in 2013 and enjoyed them immensely

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "And off the top of my head, I could recommend Irène Némirovsky."

Oh, that's a good suggestion. I've read two of hers and liked them. I should investigate whether my library has other books by her.

20.6 Stand up for your rights

Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South

+20 Task
+20 Combo (10.5 - most recent, 10.9, 20.2 - Mississippi, 20.3)
+10 Female

Task total: 50
Grand total: 185

20.1 Decade

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Lexile 760

+20 Task
+25 Combo (10.1 - Deedee, 10.6, 10.9, 20.2 - Virginia, 20.3)
+10 Female

Task total: 55
Grand total: 135

10.4 Genius

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

+10 Task
+15 Combo (10.1 - Natalie, 20.4, 20.8 - 1971)
+10 Female
+5 Oldies (1971)

Task total: 40
Grand total: 80

10.1 5 stars

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

+10 Task (Chinook 5*)
+20 Combo (10.2, 10.9, 20.3, 20.6)
+10 Female

Task total: 40
Grand total: 40

So, this season has made me realize how few translated works I have on my shelves by female authors. Apparently, my most common non-English books are written by Japanese men, followed by men writing in other languages. But hardly any women. Please recommend some female authors who publish in languages other than English that I should read. Thanks!

Does this include all the sub-categories? For example, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters seems to have won the Hugo for Best Related Work in 2018.

I'm thinking of A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

The first review says this:

Elizabeth Bunce refers to her work as “historical fantasy” and she’s dead-on. One of the main strengths of A Curse Dark as Gold is the setting. The mill stands firmly at the center of the plot, and Elizabeth Bunce makes the place feel very real, right down to the last creaking board. But the setting is more than just the place – it’s also the whole community, the time, and the culture, which are cleverly modeled on the years near the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The competition between tradition and technology forms a smart backdrop for the Miller sisters’ struggles. The author also knows a thing or two about the woolen industry, that much is clear.

I'm thinking this combos with 20.5 based on this as well.

I think Joyce Carol Oates fits here too.

I'm looking at Enchanted by Alethea Kontis. It looks like she previously published illustrated children's books, but this seems to be the first novel. Does that work?

How about this:

This book also made me think of Joshilyn Jackson, particularly A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, about a girl’s search for her mother and the strained relationships between three generations of women, told from all three perspectives. The exploration of relationships in all their not-so-great glory, the strong women, as well as the sense of place, might appeal to those who liked The Flood Girls.

From here: https://cplreaderscorner.wordpress.co...

Can I count La Cucina as C (disregarding "La" as an article)? Or can we only disregard English articles?

10.10 Group Reads

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

This light science fiction novel is sort of like reading the science fiction version of Murder She Wrote. The plot isn't really the point and the main characters are all generally well-meaning nice salt of the earth folks (except here, they're well-meaning totally-different-from-humans aliens). A lovely crew is meandering about doing it's job (tunneling space connections) and blundering into inter-space political decisions.

I loved the world building and the characters in this book. So I could overlook the overall cheesiness. Who doesn't want a Star Trek like federation of sentient species where everyone is trying to be culturally conscious of all these different alien ways of being? Wouldn't we like to imagine that humans could somehow navigate to such a gloriously non-discriminatory way of being?

The narrator did a fantastic job with the audiobook. I'd definitely listen to her read other things. I'm immediately downloading the second book in the series.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.7)
+5 Jumbo

Task total: 30
Grand total: 640

In that same Willa Cather wikipedia entry, it says this:

In 1896, Cather moved to Pittsburgh after being hired to write for the Home Monthly,[13] a women's magazine patterned after the successful Ladies' Home Journal.[2]:114 A year later, she became a telegraph editor and drama critic for the Pittsburgh Leader

Does that qualify her as working at as a journalist?

10.9 Science!

Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski

How many times have I been told that the glass in old windows is thicker at the bottom than at the top because the glass is actually a liquid very slowly flowing downward? Turns out: not true. Thanks Ms. Czerski for putting that right for me.

This was a wonderful exploration of all manner of everyday objects and the way that those objects are explained by physics. Want to know how and why a toaster works? How the fluid in your ears works to help you figure out if you're moving? How electricity is created? All of this and more is explained in this book.

The narrator for the audiobook has a wonderful upbeat tone and a lovely British accent. I quite enjoyed listening to this as a blithely used all the modern-day marvels without question as to the magic that makes them function.

+10 Task (see BPL: https://borrow.bklynlibrary.org/iii/e...)
+10 Review
+10 Not a novel (nonfiction)

Task total: 30
Grand total: 610

15.8 PnM2

B1 - Published 2001 or later

Plays Well in Groups: A Journey Through the World of Group Sex by Katherine Frank

This is a work of academic anthropology, not a book published for a popular audience. I have a work-related reason to want to know more about academic anthropology and the writing styles of professors who write about sexuality, so I borrowed this book through inter-library loan. The book is well researched, densely packed with information about other studies, and interspersed with the author's own interviews with research subjects.

I feel educated on the subject, but more importantly for my purposes, it helped me have a much clearer understanding of how the personal and the research are intertwined in an academic anthropology text of this sort.

I wouldn't recommend this book to a general reader unless that reader has a particular academic interest in anthropology and sexuality.

+20 Task (pub. 2013)

Task total: 20
Grand total: 580

20.5 The English Patient

Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris

My bookclub picked this and I'm really sad I wasn't able to go to the meeting where it was discussed. I'm sure it led to an interesting discussion. This author has published lots of books, but I'd never heard of her.

The book tells the story of some crypto-Jews who ended up in New Mexico after fleeing Portugal and/or Spain during the Inquisition. The community in New Mexico maintains certain Jewish history without believing or consciously knowing of its Jewish roots--circumcision, no pork, candles on Fridays, etc. The town is Catholic, but somehow the traditions held.

Intertwined with the early 1990s story of the New Mexico community are the historical stories starting in the late 1490s with a Jewish explorer who travels with Columbus to the New World. The Inquisition comes alive in gory detail in these parts of the book. Often when books have this flip-flop structure, there's a part that I'm more interested in, but here, I was engaged with both storylines, so didn't mind switching between them.

I enjoyed the exploration of the ways in which history is passed from generation to generation. The striving of the residents of Entrada de Luna for a better life also felt real and powerful.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.7, 10.8, 20.4)

Task total: 45
Grand total: 560

Tentative list:

A1 - Ursula Hegi
A2 - Nnedi Okorafor
A3 - Joyce Carol Oates
A4 - Amy Herrick
A5 - J.D. Robb

B1 - Willa Cather
B2 - Penelope Fitzgerald
B3 - Ruth Rendell
B4 -
B5 -

C1 - Lauren Groff
C2 - Iris Murdoch
C3 - Penelope Lively
C4 - Emma Donoghue
C5 - Laurie Halse Anderson