Joanna’s
Comments
(group member since Nov 17, 2010)
Joanna’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 1,881-1,900 of 2,307
From Post 304 - Kate S wrote: "From Post 233...
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lexile 870
+5 Combo (20.6 #201 on list) "
Cool. I'd like to move it to 20.6 then.
From Post 233, I posted 25 points for this. I'll delete that and instead:
+20 Task (#201)
+10 Review (see post 233)
+5 Combo (10.2)
+5 Oldies
Task total: 40
Grand total: 315-25+40=330
20.10 Between the WarsThe Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton
Lexile: 910
Review:
I started reading this aloud with my four-year-old after we enjoyed the first installment. Unfortunately, this book takes too long to pick up to enough action to keep his interest. For the first half of the book, the whole story is background about living outside, getting set up in an old boot, worrying about wildlife, etc. I'll tell him the parts about discovering other Borrowers and eventually moving back indoors. Maybe we'll try the third installment. Still, I enjoyed reading more about these sweet little people and I love the concept of them "borrowing" miscellaneous stuff and repurposing it. The illustrations are also quite nice.
+20 Task (author born 1903)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (pub. 1954)
Task total: 35
Grand total: 315
TtPR Seafarer15.4 - 4th Stop - Nicaragua, A & B
Death of Somoza by Claribel Alegría
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
Task total: 25
Grand total: 280
10.2 ReindeerJames and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lexile 870
Review:
Roald Dahl is just so clever. I listened to this audiobook in the car with my 4.5 year old and my nearly 2 year old. My 4 year old loved this -- it's the second Dahl we've listened to -- we did The BFG first. I am really enjoying revisiting these childhood classics and explaining them to my son is wonderful, even if we have to stop the CD frequently for questions (and questions, and questions). How in the world did Dahl ever think up this story? My gosh, seagulls pulling a giant peach? To Manhattan? How can you not love this book. I'd love to read a biography of the author and learn more about his writing process.
+10 Task (shelved 1347 times as fantasy)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (1961)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 255
10.10 Group ReadsScenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
Review:
These interconnected stories were relentlessly full of unhappiness and loneliness and lives off-track. So often while reading these, I wanted to just reach out and shake the characters and tell them to move on with their lives. The bound by duty, lonely, stuck in a small town feel permeated. And yet, they also focused on the interconnectedness of the characters, all inhabitants of a small village in Israel. I found most of the stories haunting, and many of the actions rather unexplained, but strangely compelling. My favorite of the stories captured the awkwardness of a childhood crush in such a straightforward yet vulnerable way. I would definitely be interested in reading more by this author.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-novel (short stories)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 230
10.4 Chinese New YearThe Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History by Joseph M. Marshall III
Review:
At first, I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy listening to the author read this book. The author's voice is slow, but as I listened, it came to feel like the rhythm of an oral tradition storytelling. The author's personal connection to the story as a Lakota himself and his access to oral stories about Crazy Horse made this a very interesting description not only of Crazy Horse but also of the Lakota people of the late 1800s. I very much enjoyed hearing about the social traditions and the daily lives of these people who were so badly mistreated by the conquering whites.
+10 Task (Horse)
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-novel (nonfiction)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 200
20.5 DisturbingThe Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
Review:
An interesting premise, but a surprisingly boring read. Short summary: options will be assigned to a roll of dice, then carried out as determined by chance. (Starting with, if it's a 1, I'll go rape my best friend's wife/neighbor. Which it is, but she wanted it after all, so isn't that convenient. How divinely free. Or just boringly pointless.) For all the supposedly exciting and wild and free sex that was supposed to be happening by dice-driven randomness, I found myself trudging through. The satire of psychotherapy is amusing, but the narrator was so painfully annoying that I just couldn't bring myself to care. Oh, I'll do such-and-such because the dice told me to. Except that they only tell you to do the things that you've created as options. Read on the level of reminding us that much of life is unplannable and uncontrollable and we might be happier if we accepted chaos as natural rather than something to be struggled against, the book is an interesting philosophical commentary. Read for plot or as an instruction manual, it's just irksome.I'm not old enough to know whether I'd have liked it better in 1971. Maybe it was really revolutionary at the time.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (20.9 [541 pgs], 10.6 [first book])
+5 Jumbo (541 pgs)
+5 Oldies (pub. 1971)
Task total: 50
Grand total: 170
TtPR - Seafarer15.3 (3rd Stop): Mexico
Swift as Desire by Laura Esquivel
+15 task
+10 bonus
Task total: 25 points
Grand Total: 120
I really enjoyed Little Brother. I think that would have definite appeal to the teen boy sci-fi reader.
Would you mind putting the full list into the Tasks post as well?
TtPR - Seafarer15.2: US
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
Task total: 25
Grand total: 100
10.2 Reindeer - shelved as fantasy 1000+ timesThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Review:
This was on my list to read last season, but I didn't quite get to it, so I'm glad that there was a spot for it here.
Many authors should not read their own books. But Neil Gaiman is an exception. Listening to him narrate this tale greatly improved the experience for me, even if we were driving on the dark roads of bitterly cold Iowa while listening. The tale captures wonderfully the fantasy of childhood monsters and fantasies. I wondered throughout whether we are supposed to believe this as a tale of a fantastical, but real, event or a memory of a fantasy made up in the mind of a seven-year-old. It worked for me on both levels and I very much enjoyed listening. My husband, who doesn't always enjoy audiobooks, seemed to enjoy listening to this one.
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.5, 10.6 - most recent)
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 60
10.1 Reading ResolutionsTrying Cases to Win: Direct Examination by Herbert Jay Stern
Review:
Herbert Stern has done a fine job combining trial war stories with practical, how-to advice for trial lawyers. His theories for jury trials are contrary to much of the common received wisdom about what to do. I really enjoyed the first volume (opening statements, or, as Stern prefers, opening arguments) and was looking forward to following up with this volume on direct examination. He focuses on crafting a direct examination, particularly of key witnesses, to be a persuasive argument at the time of testimony and not merely the putting in of evidence to allow a strong closing. In particular, Stern rejects the idea that a good direct involves a witness telling his own story in chronological order. Highly recommended reading for trial lawyers. Not especially interesting for lay readers.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-novel
Task total: 30
Grand total: 30
15.10 Pick n Mix, D4, female author 40-60Published 1991, author born 1935 = 56
Postcards by Annie Proulx
Task Total: 30
Pick n Mix Completion Bonus: 100
Grand Total: 1180
Kate S wrote: "Sorry, Joanna. I meant to comment on that move when I did it, but must have gotten distracted. I moved the book to 15.8, but 15.8 is only worth 20 points, not 30. This should clear up the 10 point difference. "
Duh! I marked it wrong in my spreadsheet. Sorry for the confusion.
My score on the Readerboard seems to be 10 points different from my own calculation up to post 890. Can you help me figure out where I've gone wrong?ETA: Maybe my move of a book in Post 852 wasn't included?
10.8 Something Wicked This Way Comes...Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Review:
The audiobook was a really interesting way to re-experience this fabulous book. I read this book years ago when I was good friends with someone who was a huge Nabokov fan, but at this point, I only dimly remembered enjoying it. When reading the hardcopy, I couldn't resist the constant flipping back to the poem and following of cross references in the footnotes. In audio format, that's essentially impossible. Thus, I was forced to listen to the notes as a whole, in order, and essentially uninterrupted. I wouldn't recommend this as a first introduction to this lovely book, but it was a really pleasing way to come back to it all these years later. I loved the readers (one for the poem and one for the notes) on the unabridged audiobook. The reading of the index was a bit tedious, but otherwise, an overall enjoyable experience.
+10 Task (Timon of Athens IV,iii)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
+25 Combo (10.2 [#180], 10.6/20.2 [1899-1977], 20.6, 10.9 [Innovative Design #4])
Task Total: 55
Grand Total: 1060
20.8 Stephen King's BirthdaySomething Rotten by Jasper Fforde
Review:
My favorite installment so far in the Thursday Next series. I read the first book, then listened to the next three in audio format. Sadly, for this book, they changed the narrator. By the end of the book, I'd gotten used to the new narrator, but I still prefer the first one. This narrator tries to give a different voice to each character but it often results in a character sounding particularly dopey. This was especially unfortunate when she was speaking for Landon, who returns in this book after his absence in Book 3.
Overall, these books are just a touch too self-congratulatorily clever. Still, I find them wonderfully inventive and enjoy the literary references most of the time. This book (unlike Book 3) contained very little time in the book world. I'm glad to have read the two back to back because that provided the right balance between book world antics and real (i.e., fantasy England) world plots.
I'm looking forward to continuing the series, but perhaps will go back to hard copies since they seem to continue with the new narrator.
+20 Task (Cheshire cat, various fictional book people, 6 ft. tall hedgehog, talking gorilla)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.2, 10.8)
Task Total: 40
Grand Total: 1005
15.9 Pick n Mix, C2, 160 pages We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
+30 Task
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 965
