Reading with Style discussion
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Fall 2012 Rws Completed Tasks - Fall 2012
RwS Task10.4 - Celebrate Fall
Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier low lexile
+10 Task: red in title
refers to the red color of a ruby. Gemstones, color, music and alchemy are all part of this time travel book.Task total:10
Grand total: 820
RwS Task10.5 - Honor International Day for the Elderly
Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers low lexile
+10 Task: narrator over 60
"Young man. I'm seventy-five. Happily married for over forty years." P 2
Fantastic book! The book deals with important issues without any preaching.
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 830
Connie wrote: "Deedee wrote: "Yep, it's non-fiction. I've already used Square Peg. So, I guess this one has no points for this challenge."Did you use up your Canada Oktoberfest already?"
No I haven't -- yeah! -- I don't know why I overlooked Oktoberfest but am glad y'all caught that one --
10.2 – an author born in one of countries hosting Oktoberfest festivities: CANADA
+10 Task
+05 Style: 2. Multiple (5 points): Each time you repeat a task.
+10 Style:3. Review (10 points):
Task Total: 10 + 10 + 10 = 30
Grand Total: 715 + 30 = 745
Deedee wrote: "Connie wrote: "Deedee wrote: "Yep, it's non-fiction. I've already used Square Peg. So, I guess this one has no points for this challenge."Did you use up your Canada Oktoberfest already?"
No I ha..."
Ok, but there are no multiple points for Oktoberfest.
Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "Did you read the other ones in the series before this one? His book are lengthy but I never had a problem getting into them."Yes, I read all of them and has this feeling with each of the books.
Somehow Martin fails to build up suspense for me, neither the cozy feeling of being really drawn into the story and "living" with the characters (I don't really feel that I have to go on listening right now;).
I'll probably continue the series once the other books are published, because I can't stop myself from continuing a series I once began, but I'm not so eager for the sixth book than I am for the next installment of some other series.
Perhaps I might give the story another go one day without so much space in-between sessions (I listened along with my mum and we took about two years to finish all five books; sometimes with a break in-between in favor of another audiobook).
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Deedee wrote: "Connie wrote: "Deedee wrote: "Yep, it's non-fiction. I've already used Square Peg. So, I guess this one has no points for this challenge."Did you use up your Canada Oktoberfest alr..."
Ok, but there are no multiple points for Oktoberfest. ..."
OK
Grand Total: 745 - 10 = 735
Task 10.9 Read a book that continues a series of which you've already read the initial installment.I’ve read the first 4 books in the “Odd Thomas” series.
Also fits Task 10.7 published (2000-2012) with a spooky and imaginary character in it. (Ghosts. And (view spoiler))
Odd Apocalypse(Odd Thomas #5) (2012) by Dean Koontz
+10 Task
+05 Style:1. Combo (5 points): (10.7 Monsterfest IV)
+10 Style:3. Review (10 points):
Task Total: 10 + 05 + 10 = 25
Grand Total: 735 + 25 = 760
Review: The first Odd Thomas book is one of my favorites. We are introduced to our hero, Odd Thomas, a moral young man who can see ghosts and who pursues justice. Novels #2-#4 were good reads, although not as good as the first one. (The fourth book of the series, Odd Hours, read like an episode of the TV thriller series “24”. ) This, the fifth book of the series, begins a few hours after the end of the fourth book. Koontz assumes that you know the characters and the basic premise of the series already, and so he gets right into the action. There is a lot of supernatural action in this novel. Odd goes to location X. Supernatural beings confront him: action! Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Yawn. And then ….. I thought the ending was lame. (view spoiler). . Recommended for fans of books with a lot of supernatural action and for fans of horror novels.
20.3 Poe's TalesDiving Belles Lucy Wood
Review: This may be the first short story collection I've read that kept pulling me back, wanting to read the next one. I'd consider that a job well done, since short fiction has always been my least favorite form. In addition, since of the entries are based on Cornish folk tales, it made me want to explore further. I've read a lot of fairy and folk tales, but many of these seemed new.
Two stories stood out the most. In the first, 'Of Mothers and Little People', a grown child finds that there has been much more to her mother's life than she ever expected, and that sometimes "what you mistook for sadness is love." The second, 'Notes from the House Spirits', is exactly what the title suggests. It's the story of a house written from the perspective of basically the house itself. It was slightly spooky yet almost comforting, and something I'd never seen before. I was charmed (although being an architect that maybe isn't surprising).
+20 Task
+5 Multiple
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 790
Deedee wrote: "Task 10.9 Read a book that continues a series of which you've already read the initial installment.I’ve read the first 4 books in the “Odd Thomas” series.
Also fits Task 10.7 published (2000-20..."
I'm sure the mods will catch this, but Dean Koontz counts for Veteran's Day, too!
20.8 - Veteran Authors(El Mundo Alucinante: A Hallucinating World 1966, Voluntad de Vivir Manifestandose 1989)
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
This autobiographical book was more difficult to read than I expected. Arenas was born in a small, poverty stricken town in Cuba and came of age as Castro came to power and established his dictatorship. Arenas' depiction of Castro's concentration of power and the disastrous consequences for ordinary people as well as the outcasts of society was horrifically fascinating. You can hardly bear to look, but you can't look away, either.
It was published posthumously, with the permission of the author. And yet, it seemed more raw and unfinished than anything I've read in recent memory. It seemed disjointed and unfocused. At times it was brutally detailed (in both the descriptions of the author's homosexual exploits and of life in prison) and in other places events were exaggeratedly glossed over. I'm not sure if it is possible for an autobiography to have an unreliable narrator, but if so, this might be an example.
+20 task
+15 combo (20.4 - LGBT author, 20.9 - Author Bio, 20.10 - Author committed suicide)
+5 multiple
+10 review
Task Total: 50 points
Grand Total: 190 points
20.8 - Veteran Author(Confessions of a Mask - 1949, Spring Snow - 1969)
The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3 by Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima writes beautifully. His prose is stunning and deceptively simple. It is easy to see why he was considered for the Nobel prize. The Temple of the Dawn is the third book in his Sea of Fertility series, which traces the vast changes in Japanese society from 1912 to 1975, through the story of Shigekuni Honda and the several reincarnated lives of his boyhood friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae. This book, more than the second, required a detailed recall of the previous novels, which, unfortunately I had read too long ago. And while the language was beautiful, the long philosophical discourses on the history of reincarnation in all the major eastern religions was beyond me. I do look forward to the final, hopefully less introspective, novel.
+20 task
+10 combo (20.4 - LGBT, 20.10 - Author committed suicide)
+5 multiple
+10 review
+5 oldies (pub. 1970)
Task total: 50 points
Grand Total: 240 points
20.8 - Veteran Author(The Cock and Anchor: Being a Chronicle of Old Dublin City - 1845, In a Glass Darkly - 1872)
Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
This was a fairly quick, enjoyable read -- early Gothic horror at it's most stereotypical. A young heiress in distress who cries at every event, isolated in mansions in various states of disrepair, subject to the tyrannical whims of cloistered guardians, a loyal dim-witted servant, and a host of creepy characters, and even included a bonus gypsy fortune! Although the protagonist was irritating, I was involved enough that I found myself "shouting" advice at her and by the end was reading too fast and had to force myself to slow down.
+20 task
+15 combo (10.2 - Ireland, 20.6 - Gothic Novel, 20.7a - Bechdel test: Maud and Lady Knolly discuss Maud's governess & her poor health for at least a page.)
+5 multiple
+10 review
+15 oldies (pub. 1864)
+5 jumbo (528 pgs)
Task total: 70 points
Grand total: 310 points
Connie wrote: "20.4 CarmillaSprakeloos by Tom Lanoye
Review: Lanoye writes a book about his mother, who lost her ability to speak after a stroke. Since he likes to talk quite a bit about himself, it ends up be..."
Connie, this is listed as being a novel both here on Goodreads and on Wikipedia. It is, therefore, not eligible for combo points for 20.9. Do you have a reference showing this to be non-fiction?
20.8 - Veteran AuthorThe King of Torts by John Grisham
+20 task (The Firm in 1991, Calico Joe in 2012)
+5 multiple (4th book for this task)
Task total: 25 points
Grand Total: 315 points
20.7 Women of Achievement Month The Unidentified by Rae Mariz
+20 task (2 main characters, female friends, talk at length about art, their futures, and technology)
(no style points; low lexile)
Task total: 20 points
Grand total: 335 points
20.6 DraculaRebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Review: I stayed up way too late finishing this book. I didn't expect that to happen, since the first half of the book kept me interested but not thoroughly engrossed. But then I hit the middle and there went my sleep. All of the sudden, the story of a young woman thrust into unfamiliar circumstances - a marriage to a much older widower and a new social class - became something much more riveting. I had a vague notion of the plot (it's hard to totally avoid spoilers for such a classic) but still managed to remain on the edge of my seat in the second half of the novel.
This isn't a ghost story, but the first Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, haunts the pages of the book and the lives of its characters. In many ways, it isn't until her memory becomes impossible to ignore that any of them finally manage to step out of her shadow and into a future.
+20 Task (top 100 Gothic novels)
+15 Combo (20.2 - top 150 books with a rural setting; 20.7 - passes Bechtel Test - the female narrator has numerous conversations with Mrs. Danvers and other women about Rebecca, the estate, clothing, etc.; 20.8 - du Maurier published from the 1930s into the 1980s)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (published 1938)
Task Total: 50
Grand Total: 840
10.7 - Karen GHHS' Task - Monsterfest IVShadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Lexile: 800
I have to say that this is one of the best YA books I've read in quite a while. For that matter, it's one of the best books in general that I've read in quite a while. The characters are rich and believable, and the plot takes twists and turns that seem essential after you've gotten through them. At any rate, I gave this book five stars. The prose is wonderful, the creatures terrifying, and the story is amazing. I'm sorry for gushing, but it ranks among the best I've read this year. If you don't read another YA novel this year, read this one.
+10 Task (Volcra--blind batlike human-flesh eating creatures that live in the Shadow Fold; published in 2012)
+10 Review
Total: 20
Grand Total: 165
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Arow wrote: "Knowing your ABC'sDoctorate bonus:
(A) 75 points if all 10 books are published within any 25-year period (1851-1875, 1932-1956, 1967-1991, etc.).
and
(B) 75 points if the books are r..."
THANKS! I had a blast this Challenge with the Sub- Category. Just started my second round :-)
20.10 Suicide PreventionA Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
DFW killed himself in 2008.
Review: First, the reader for the audiobook version of this book was fantastic. The production is new (2012) even though the book was published in 1997 and contains essays written during the early to mid-nineties. I highly recommend the audiobook version for sale at audible/amazon.
Second, it's unbearably sad to read essays by this author knowing that he killed himself. Reading about his social awkwardness and his own feelings of despair and depression when taking a luxury cruise, I can see how the anxiety level could escalate to levels beyond his ability to live with it.
Third, these essays are some ofthe most well-written, humble, hilarious and insightful essays of just about any author I've read. I liked Infinite Jest fine, but I've loved DFW's essays. This collection and Consider the Lobster and Other Essays are absolute gems.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (20.3, 20.9)
Task total: 40
Grand total: 435
10.5 Honor the ElderlyRules for Old Men Waiting: A Novel by Peter R. Pouncey
Review: This is a quiet, introspective book. The protagonist is an old man, a retired historian and former rugby star, who is writing his final book and waiting to die. He is dying alone and comes to terms with his death through his writing and through his "rules" for how to spend his time during the final days--cook real food, write every day, no scotch until the end of the day, etc. I found the voice of the narrator entirely believable as he reflected on his own less than perfect character and his beloved, now dead, wife and his son who died in Vietnam. War is an important part of this book, both in the ways that it touched the private life of the narrator and in the research done by him (and, of course, by the author as well). Perfect reading for gloomy winter days, though I ended up reading it during some lovely fall weather instead.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.1 - McKitterick Prize 2006)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 460
10.8 Lucky 7sTypography For Lawyers by Matthew Butterick
Review: This book is a fantastic resource. The book was shared with me by one of my colleagues and I liked it so much that I bought my own copy to keep on my shelf at work to consult regularly. He has convinced me to break the long-standing habit of putting two spaces after periods and colons; he has convinced me to revisit the layout of documents filed in my cases. I agree with the person who wrote the forward that Butterick is wrong to suggest that brief headings should be numbered 1.1.1 instead of I.A.1., but I'll forgive him that small error. Though some reviewers suggest that this book isn't just for lawyers, I'll say that I think it wouldn't have much relevance to anyone who doesn't do a fair number of court filings or similarly regimented "publications."
+10 Task (10.8(B) - author name with seven letters)
+10 Review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 480
Kate S wrote: "Connie, this is listed as being a novel both here on Goodreads and on Wikipedia. It is, therefore, not eligible for combo points for 20.9. Do you have a reference showing this to be non-fiction?"I can't find one in English, but in my defense, it is rather a memoir/autobiography than fiction and it is shelved as non-fiction, autobiography, autobiographical.
ABC's 15.10 Letter JClimbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey 2005
Task (10th book) 45
Grand Total: 985
Ismaa wrote: "ABC's 15.10 Letter JClimbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey 2005
Task (10th book) 45
Grand Total: 985"
WooHoo! Congrats on finishing ABC!
Thank you, thank you :)))And with finishing the ABC's I have completed the RwS Challenge. My 30 books are done :))))
I'm so very happy (dance of joy)
ABC's Completed A to JGraduate bonuses: (A) 75 points if all 10 books are published within any 25-year period (1851-1875, 1932-1956, 1967-1991, etc.).
Books read were from 1989 to 2011.
+75 Bonus
Grand Total: 1060
Ismaa wrote: "ABC's Completed A to JGraduate bonuses: (A) 75 points if all 10 books are published within any 25-year period (1851-1875, 1932-1956, 1967-1991, etc.).
Books read were from 1989 to 2011.
+75 B..."
Even BIGGER congrats! It's a Mega Finish! Claim those points too!!!
:))) Elizabeth do I claim both the bonuses RwS Finish for 100 AND Mega Finish an additional 200 OR only the Mega Finish for 200 points?Please let me know :)
Ismaa wrote: ":))) Elizabeth do I claim both the bonuses RwS Finish for 100 AND Mega Finish an additional 200 OR only the Mega Finish for 200 points?Please let me know :)"
They are 3 separate finishes:
The sub-challenge (this time ABC)
The RwS for the 10- and 20-pointers
And because you could finish one of the above, but not the other,
The Mega Finish for completing both the sub- and RwS.
Thanks for clearing the confusion Elizabeth. I was thinking I was entitled to both and was about to merrily add 300 points to the total ;) Yipee I'll claim the Mega Finish now :))
Completion Bonuses: 2. Mega Finish (200 points): Complete all Reading with Style tasks and Know Your ABCs tasks. (30 book minimum -- at least one book claimed for task points for each task. Using a book for combo points for a task does not qualify as completing that task and a book may only be claimed for task points once).
+200 Mega Finish
Grand Total: 1260
Ismaa wrote: "Completion Bonuses: 2. Mega Finish (200 points): Complete all Reading with Style tasks and Know Your ABCs tasks. (30 book minimum -- at least one book claimed for task points for each task. Using..."
WOW! What a grand total! Congrats!
Thank you Liz M :)))Now I start to redo some of my fav tasks
Ismaa wrote: "Yipee I'll claim the Mega Finish now :))"Congratulations, Ismaa! Very impressive!
Ismaa wrote: "Thanks for clearing the confusion Elizabeth. I was thinking I was entitled to both and was about to merrily add 300 points to the total ;) Yipee I'll claim the Mega Finish now :))"
Congratulations Ismaa!
I think you can claim the 100 RwS finish bonus as well.
(I think that's what Elizabeth meant.)
Post 264Ismaa wrote: "20.5 In honor of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Lab lit/Realistic Scientist
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Review:
I loved this book, I hated this book. I loved it for taking me deep into the Amazon j..."
+5 Combo 20.8
Post 420Sara Grace ('00-'05) wrote: "20.5 Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
[Lab Lit list]
State of Wonder, Anne Patchett
I think I enjoyed this book all the more because I read The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon l..."
+5 Combo 20.8
Post 503Leigh wrote: "20.5 Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
+20 task (on the Lab Lit list)
+10 Combo 10.5 (Annick Swenson is 72) and 20.7 (passes the Bechel test: various women discuss children..."
+5 Combo 20.8
Jenifer wrote: "Task 15.4 Know Your ABC'sletter E/4th book: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
+20 task
Previous Total= 115 pts
Grand Total = 135 pts"
I show your previous total (from post 402) to be 135, making your new total 155.
Thank you Rosemary and Kate S for the tips and thank you D :)I'll do the needful now both for the 20.5 and the bonus :)
AMENDMENT FOR POST 26420.5 In honor of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Lab lit/Realistic Scientist
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
I have added another combo point for 20.8 Veteran Author, Anne Patchett first book published in 1992.
the new task total is 45 instead of 40
AMENDMENT FOR POST 639Claiming RwS Finish Bonus of 100 points, in addition to the Mega Finish claimed in 639
+ 5 for Combo point added in post 650 for earlier post of 264
+ 100 for RwS Finish
Grand Total: 1365
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Did you use up your Canada Oktoberfest already?