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Spring 2013 Rws Completed Tasks - Spring 2013
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20.2 Sense and SensibilityThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Review:
Reread this classic figuring that I might get to see the new movie version. I didn't really like this book the first time that I read it many years ago. I think I found the story okay, but not especially compelling. This time, I was completely gripped by the book both as an interesting story as well as a commentary on the American Dream as a concept. Now I am fully prepared to see the movie version. All I need is a free afternoon and a babysitter...maybe I'll have to wait for the movie to be on Netflix after all. We shall see.
+20 Task (2000 TV show: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210719/c...)
+10 Review
+10 Oldies (1925)
+5 Combo (10.6 - shelved 15 times as murder)
Task total: 45
Grand total: 730
20.4 Mansfield ParkThe Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Review:
The narrator for the audiobook version did a fine job with a poorly written book about a fascinating subject. The author tried to enliven the tale with personal stories about certain families living through the dust storms of the 1930s. But the writing was so flowery and sensationalist that it detracted from what should have been really compelling story telling.
I also listened to large parts of this book while driving through torrential downpours and storming weather, which felt wholly appropriate and made me glad to be driving through mere rain rather than killer dust.
I have a hard copy of this book at home and I plan to pull it from the shelves to look at the photos.
+20 Task (on both lists - #16 hardscrabble and #23 underclass when I last checked)
+10 Review
Task total: 30
+100 RWS finish
Grand total: 860
Joanna wrote: "+100 RWS finish"
Yay! Good job - under the wire!
One more I slipped in:20.5 - In honor of Emma
The Selection by Kiera Cass, low lexile
+20 Task: female author and narrator, America Singer.
Grand Total: 2160
Kate S wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "I had my last grand total as 1465 but the reader board has 1590. Did I skip some points?Yes, there was a discrepancy between posts 890 and 894. You had 1475 in post 890, but the..."
Thanks. For some reason, I have a tendency to chop off some points. I think my math problem may be congenital.
I might finish my last 2 books today. I had some minor surgery on Wednesday so I've had an excuse to lie in bed and read.
Joanna wrote: "20.4 Mansfield ParkThe Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Review:
The narrator for the audiobook version did a fine job with a p..."
Good for you! You made it!
20.4 - Mansfield ParkThe Color Purple by Alice Walker
+20 Task
+10 Combo (20.5 ; 20.3 - 198 000 ratings and 4.11)
+5 Oldies (1982)
Task total = 35
Points total = 350
Number of books read: 13
Number of rws tasks completed: 12/20
Number of That's SO 20th Century’s tasks completed: 0/10
20th Century - Chronologician15.10 The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
published 1929
+15 task
+10 bonus
+150 Completion bonus: Chronologician
Task Total: 175 points
Grand Total: 810
Yay! I finished the subchallenge - wasn't sure I would finish anything this time! Thanks everybody (and especially the mods) for another wonderful challenge. I'm now off to look at the tasks for summer - didn't dare before in case they distracted me from my reading!
20.5 In honor of EmmaThe Sinner by Tess Gerritsen
+20 task
+10 Combo (10.3 The Plus and 10.6 Ides of March)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 900
20.5 Emma-female author with female main character
by Jodi PiccoultTask +20
Style +15 Combo(10.3 The plus, Review)
Review
I really enjoyed this book. When I first saw the title I never dreamed it would be about the Holocaust. There are actually four points of view. 1) the point of view of the main character Sage Singer, 2) Josef Weber, who was a Nazi during World War II, 3) The story of Minka, Sage's grandmother, who is a holocaust survivor.
Josef asks Sage to end his life because he has done so many horrible things. She befriends him and then finds out about his dark past. I liked the story of Minka and all the hardships he has had to endure. I thought about this book after I put it down. I did some cross checking in this book to other books I read. In this book Minka is sent to Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp. When I read Sarah's Key, the main character Sarah was sent to Auschwitz as well. I cross checked that was the book "Briar Rose" where the main character Gemma was sent to Chelmno concentration camp in Poland. In the book, it said there were no survivors from Chelmno. So I looked up Chelmno to see if it was a real concentration camp and found out it existed. There were survivors and get this, the concentration camp was 30 miles away from Lodz, Poland which was the village that Minka in "The Storyteller lived in before the Nazi took her and her family. Pretty interesting, don't you think?
Book Total: 35
Grand Total: 295
Rosemary wrote: "+150 Completion bonus: Chronologician"
Yay is right! Good job!
Rosemary wrote: "20th Century - Chronologician15.10 The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
published 1929
+15 task
+10 bonus
+150 Completion bonus: Chronologician
Task Total: 175 points
Grand Total: 810
Yay! I..."
Well done!
20.5 EmmaInsatiable by Meg Cabot
Meena Harper has a job writing for a soap opera, a fantastic apartment on the Upper East Side (complete with a nice-but-nosy doorman), a pregnant best friend, a jerk of an ex-boyfriend, an unemployed brother who has moved in with her, and the pesky psychic ability to know when people she meets are going to die. Enter Lucien: tall, dark, handsome, and totally into Meena. Only problem: he's dead. Or, more accurately, undead. A vampire.
This is Meg Cabot (of The Princess Diaries fame)'s foray into the oh-so-popular sexy-vampire genre. It has several less-than-subtle shout-outs to Stoker: Meena Harper vs. Mina Harker; Jonathan Harper is Meena's brother vs. Jonathan Harker is Mina's husband; Abraham Holtzman is a vampire hunter vs. Abraham Van Helsing is a vampire hunter; both rely heavily on the mythology surrounding Vlad Tepes.
At times I was ready to throw the book across the room: the writing could be so obnoxious! It's written like a soap opera (and I absolutely detest soap operas!)...I hope it was just a self-reflective device the author used to magnify the absurd popularity of the subject matter. Sadly, I don't think that was the case. The only reason I'm giving this three stars is because towards the end, the writing was a little less Days of Our Lives and a little more Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the overt tongue-in-cheek moments.
+20 Task (written by a woman; main character is Meena Harper)
+10 Review
Task Total = 30
Final Total = 1700
Congratulations to all of the recent finishers!!
20.2 Sense and SensibilityBrighton Rock by Graham Greene
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233192/?...
Brighton Rock is supposed to be an "entertainment", a crime novel (as opposed to Greene's literary works that he referred to as novels). But in this early work, already the boundaries Greene tried to maintain are blurred. Brighton Rock depicts the story of an up-and-coming mobster, Pinkie, the young head of the local mob and Ida, the amateur detective that is determined to bring him to justice for killing a man she was briefly acquainted with. Although the framework of the plot is supposed to be a detective novel, the author spends far too much time in Pinkie's thoughts. It's one thing to be in the mind of an evil killer and quite another to be in the head of an insecure, not-very-bright 17 year old boy. While the writing at times was superb, the story was banal.
+20 task
+5 combo (10.5 - Jerusalem prize)
+10 review
+5 oldies (pub. 1938)
Task total: 40 points
Grand Total: 840 points
Anika wrote: "20.5 EmmaInsatiable by Meg Cabot
Meena Harper has a job writing for a soap opera, a fantastic apartment on the Upper East Side (complete with a nice-but-nosy doorman), a pregnant best friend, a ..."
Anika, I'm so sorry, but the Central branch of BPL has this shelved as YA and there is no Lexile.
20.1 Jane AustenThe Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
+20 Task (1785-1873)
+10 Jumbo (720 pages)
+15 Oldies (1827)
+10 Combo (10.3, 10.8)
Post Total: 55
Season Total: 2215
And that's it for Spring Season! Congrats to all the finishers and to everyone that met their reading goals. Now enjoy the break & get ready for Summer!
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
The Betrothed (other topics)Brighton Rock (other topics)
The Princess Diaries (other topics)
Insatiable (other topics)
The Storyteller (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Alessandro Manzoni (other topics)Graham Greene (other topics)
Meg Cabot (other topics)
Tess Gerritsen (other topics)
Elizabeth Bowen (other topics)
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The Sea by John Banville
Review:
I know this book has gotten extremely mixed reviews, but I quite enjoyed it. The book is stream of consciousness with no chapter breaks and little dialogue. It's not a plot or story driven novel. But the examination of grief was compelling and the way the author's mind jumped around between childhood memories and memories of his now dead wife seemed true and compelling. There were moments of frustration here as the protagonist described certain scenes with too much detail and too much intervention of his own inability to remember detail, but overall I enjoyed being inside the head of the narrator. Recommended only to those interested in this sort of literary exercise - this is a novel read for language, philosophy, and structure, not for storytelling or character development.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.3)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 685