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Fall 2013 RwS Completed Tasks - Fall 2013
20.8 Stephen KingThe Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Review: The Dog Stars is a post-apocalyptic tale told from the point of view of Hig, who lives somewhere in Colorado with his dog Jasper and a guy called Bangley. Most of the country has been wiped out by a plague of some kind of flu. Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road but with more humor and a little more hope, it follows Hig for a few months – the first half in his everyday life defending his territory with Bangley, then the second half when he sets out to explore in his Cessna, and see if he can find the person who belongs to the voice he heard on his radio while flying one day a few years before. The book is sad, but funny, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected, even if it made me cry a bit when (view spoiler).
+20 Task (Jasper the dog is Hig’s copilot and best friend)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 360
20.7 JewishThe Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Review: In preparation for meeting her this weekend, I decided to reread (via audiobook) Russell’s The Sparrow after over a decade. I’d been afraid to approach it, concerned that it wouldn’t be as good in reality as I remembered it to be. The Sparrow, along with Ender’s Game, was one of the first science fiction books I read after being assigned it as summer reading during college. Prior to it, I’d though all sci-fi must be boring, scientific nonsense that I had no interest in. The Sparrow convinced me that science fiction can be about people and can be a vehicle for exploring human societal issues in a way that more realistic fiction may not even be able to do. Upon rereading, I realized I remembered basically none of the plot (save “Jesuits in space!”) but the feeling was the same. Humor and utter despair are intermingled – the story starts after a horrible tragedy, so we know the story does not have a happy ending – but the characters are well-drawn and humor is woven throughout. I am glad I finally revisited it.
+20 Task
+5 Combo (the party from Earth meets two alien species, which provide many major characters)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 395
10.4 PrizesThe Lover by Marguerite Duras
Review: This is a short book, and one with more character than plot – I’ve never seen the movie based on it, but I’m not sure how that worked – it must have been expanded somehow. I read this on the plane when I couldn’t use my Kindle, and it definitely kept moving. It’s a story of a woman and her family and the year in which she discovers her sexuality. It’s a story of a family in a culture not quite their own, and fighting their own natures. All together, I found it slightly awkward and not thoroughly satisfying, but I think that’s mostly the point.
+10 Task
+20 Combo (10.6, 10.7, 20.2, 20.4)
+10 Canon
+10 Review
Task Total: 50
Grand Total: 445
20.4 roman à clefThe Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Review: I tried to read this a few years ago and for some reason just couldn’t get through it. This time, however, I blew through it. A collection of stories that blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, The Things They Carried hit a perfect note to begin to explain the war in Vietnam and its effects on the people who served there. O’Brien most of the time places himself as narrator, but sometimes becomes more of an observer, making all his characters seem both distinct and interchangeable. I felt through his writing a portion of the humid, stinking, buggy atmosphere and the mixed emotions (fear, boredom, excitement, humor…) the soldiers felt. I’m glad I was born outside that time, although it’s hard not to find parallels in current day.
+20 Task (on roman à clef list)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 490
10.2 Book LoversLost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
Review: The second in the Thursday Next series, this book was just as fun and ridiculous as the first. The premise of the series is that Thursday Next is a literary detective, living in an alternate timeline of Earth, where books and their characters are celebrities, time travel is a given, and dodo birds are not extinct. In this volume, Thursday is just settling into her new life as a married woman, faithful dodo Pickwick at her side (I think Pickwick is the only reason she ever goes home), someone starts trying to kill her, she is put on trial for an unknown crime, and her husband is eradicated. Thursday must figure out how to jump into books in order to do what needs doing – a process that will not run smoothly. These books are just pure fun, and filled to the brim with wordplay, puns, and literary references – a book lover’s dream. I don’t know what took me so long to continue the series, but I won’t wait as long to pick up the third one!
+10 Task (#24 on book lovers list)
+5 Combo (Pickwick isn’t human, and neither is the Cheshire Cat, who helps to train Thursday to jump into books)
+10 Review
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 515
20.8 Stephen KingSaga, Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan
+20 Task (none of the characters are human – they are warring alien races)
Graphic novel – no style points
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 535
10.7 Ex-Pat ExperienceA Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Review:
Gossipy and intimate, this posthumously published memoir/fictionalized reminiscence was a great way to visit Paris in a time machine. Ah, for the heady days of Paris in the twenties. To be hanging around with "Hem" and his besties--Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, etc. To hear a brilliant writer reflect on the hard work of writing, the uncertainty. Either you like this sort of gossip and navel-gazing or you find it totally pointless. There's probably not much middle ground here. The reader for the audiobook version did a fine, but unmemorable, job reading this. I'm glad I happened upon it at my library, but wouldn't waste an audible credit--better to read it in print.
+10 Task (Hemingway, an American, in Paris)
+10 Combo (10.6, 20.2 [1899-1961])
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand total: 455
20.10 International Day to End Poverty May be a Spolier Depending on How Easily Spolied You GetA Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
Review
This book is an excellent example of the horrors children must live through, (or not) in a warzone and how civil war is the most grotesque of all wars. What is most sickening that this continues to go on all over the world.
The author, Ishmael Beah, as a boy in Sierra Leon often sees refugees from a war he didn’t understand and thought would not affect him. He loves rap music and dances and when he and his friends go to another town for a talent show, they never knew it would be the last time they would see their families. As the war hits the city they are in, they try to make their way back to the village without getting killed. They learn of the place where their families are hiding and arrive within view in of the village just in time to see the village burned and every single resident murdered. After that the boys travel looking for safe places, stealing food and being beaten by villagers. They are very near to starving to death when the army takes them in. AT first it seems only for benevolent reasons, to feed and care for them while giving the young ones simple chores to do such as fetching water and firewood. Soon they are given serious weapons and ammunition. Some boys are small enough that carrying both of these causes them to fall over from the weight. The whole army survives on cocaine and marijuana in order to remove their consciences so they can deal with the atrocities they both experience and commit. When UN members arrive to “save the children”, they learn that if they remove a boy from the war, they don’t remove the war from the boy. Beah lives through conquering the “cold turkey” treatment of his addictions, the poisoning nightmares and migraines, severe PTS disorder. He becomes “rehabilitated” and is asked to speak in New York before the UN delegates. He starts a new and clean life with his uncle and family in the safety of the capitol city, only for the war to once again come to him with all its horrors.
This poignant testimony will anger, upset and grieve the reader and it is story we all need to hear.
+20 pts - Task
+10 pts - Non-Western (Sierra Leon)
+10 pts - Review
Task Total - 40 pts
Grand Total - 490 pts
10.7 Ex-pat ExperienceIn the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson
There once was a professor named William Dodd who wanted to write a few books about the history of the pre- and post-Civil War American South but couldn't find the time, what with teaching pesky classes and having to endure office hours to listen to the inanities of the undergrads he was forced to "educate." As the years progress, he finds himself in a position to request a political assignment as a foreign ambassador. He's hoping for a pretty politically-straightforward country so that he can do the bare minimum required of him and use his spare time to finish his books.
Instead, he is sent to Germany, where a charismatic leader named Hitler is gaining considerable clout.
This history follows not only dithering Dodd, but also his daughter, Martha, a flamboyant playgirl who is romantically linked to several officers in the Nazi party in addition to a Russian Communist and a French ambassador.
I suppose I judged the Dodds rather harshly, considering they were blind to what history had in store...but it was hard not to condemn them for the shortcomings that were evident even to their contemporaries.
I am trying not to say too much! Don't want venture into spoiler territory...
I was fascinated by this book and, as with The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, it was a well-researched, easy-to-read history that read more like fiction. Loved it.
+10 Task (approved in message 45 of the 10.7 thread)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.3: "and"; 20.9: #88 on the list)
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 205
20.6 Influenced by ProustThe Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
I was first attracted to this book by its topic: I travel for a living and so it appealed to me on a very basic level. Secondly, I was attracted to the fact that it was relatively short for a book written by someone influenced by Proust. (I've read Proust. Once. For a Literary Theory class at University. It was...not "painful", per se...but not a breeze, either.)
But this one...this one had me hooked from the very first line: "It was hard to say when exactly winter arrived. The decline was gradual, like that of a person into old age, inconspicuous from day to day until the season became an established, relentless reality."
The writing was lush and decadent. The ideas were soul-magnifying. The coincidences were numerous (quotes from van Gogh as I'm concurrently reading van Gogh's autobiography; an impromptu discussion of the miracle of taking off in an airplane, of being among the clouds, of being able to trace a map of the things you know on the ground that just happens to be before my eyes as my plane is hurtling down the runway and I'm sitting in a window seat...pausing after each sentence I read to experience the phenomena the author is deconstructing).
Of course, being influenced by Proust, this is not just a manifesto on travel: it digresses, twists, turns, and completely diverges. It discusses the difference between "travel" and "exploration". It discusses the nature of beauty, how we learn to see it, how we ingest it. It explores the idea of travel within the confines of our own four walls. And it reminds us that no matter how far from home we travel, we are still stuck with ourselves.
I love love loved this book. I couldn't put it down, read it in a day, and think I need to revisit it again. Soon. Certainly before my next journey.
+20 Task (author listed in message 2 of the 20.6 Q&A thread)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_de...)
Task Total = 35
Grand Total = 240
20.8 Stephen KingThe Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
Lexile 740
Percy Jackson continues his adventures challenged by ancient Greek Gods and monsters. He must rescue his best friend who is a satyr.
+20 Task
Grand Total: 70 points
10.3 Conjunction JunctionHouse of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid.
It has the conjunction and in the title.
Task +10
Style +10 Review
Book total: 20
Grand Total: 50
Review
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
15.7 – C4 – 250-350 pagesRemnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
336 pages
+20 points
Grand Total: 475 points
Rebekah wrote: "Pick N Mix15.6 - D3 F 3 Chinese
Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
Task Total - 20 pts
Grand Total - 215 pts
"
Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?
15.3 - Pick n' MixA3 - Europe
The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
+15 points
Task total: 15
Grand Total: 215
Cory (Bigler) '00-'05 wrote: "20.4 roman à clefThe Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Review: I tried to read this a few years ago and for some reason just couldn’t get through it. This time, however, I blew through it. A..."
+5 Combo 10.2 #118 on the list
Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "10.3 Conjunction JunctionHouse of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid.
It has the conjunction and in the title.
Task +10
Style +10 Review
Book total: 20
Gr..."
+5 Combo 10.6
Rebekah wrote: "Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?"It looks like we have it all straightened out now, Rebekah. Congrats on your Pick 'n' Mix Finish!!
10.3 - Conjunction JunctionSense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
+10 task
+10 combo (10.2 - Book Lovers; 10.6 - All Saints Day)
Post total: 20
Grand total: 75
Pick 'n' Mix15.7 D4 Female Author 40-60
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
+20 Task (Author was born 1850, book published 1899, approximately 49 years of age)
Season Total: 720
Pick 'n' Mix15.8 E6 non-fiction 500-999
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford
+20 Task (956.7044 DD at BPL)
Season Total: 740
20.10 UndevelopedI Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali
+20 Task (Author born in Yemen)
+10 Non-Western
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 770
20.8 Stephen King's BirthdayJaws by Peter Benchley
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.6-author died 2006)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 795
10.5 Labor dayThe Briar King by Greg Keyes
+ 10 task(King)
+ 5 Jumbo (553 pages)
Task Total: 15 points
Grand Total: 490
10.8 - Anika’s task – “Something wicked this way comes”:Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub
+10 Task: Romeo and Juliet: “A pair of star-cross’d lovers.”(Prologue)
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 665
10.1 - Square PegThe Basic Eight - Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler (AKA Lemony Snicket) isn't exactly well-known for his happy endings, but I was still surprised just how DARK this book was. It was also surprisingly funny! It's been years since I read the Lemony Snicket novels, but there were some parts where I definitely felt a little bit nostalgic. The writing was pretty similar to them (at least from what I remember,) but much more adult. The characters were pretentious and snarky, but in an intentionally ridiculous way which made them kind of endearing. I did sort of see the "twist" ending coming from about 3/4 of the way in, but the rest of the novel was unique enough to make up for it.
+10 task
+10 review
Post total: 20
Grand total: 95
15.7 Pick N Mix D-5 Male Author over 60The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally
+20 Task (Keneally born 1935, book pub 2012)
Grand Total = 150
Kate S wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?"It looks like we have it all straightened out now, Rebekah. Congrats on your Pick 'n..."
Thanks. I shouldn't have said anything about Karen taking my spot as the mixed up one. I'm back!
Seriously, thank you all for going to so much trouble to make it work.
Rebekah wrote: "Kate S wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?"It looks like we have it all straightened out now, Rebekah. Congrats ..."
Hopefully we are both back on track;)
And congrats on your finish!
20.6 Proust's InfluencePale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Review
Since I started participating in the RwS challenges, I have learned about new forms and/or terms of literature I had never known of before. Meta-Fiction and Unreliable Narrator are two of them. This book seems to be the granddaddy of all such novels. I loved the unique structure. I am always amazed when authors put another book or poem inside the book especially when they would be quite good as stand-alone pieces in themselves. The twists and turns as you learn more about the narrator are actually fun as well as funny. I put this book on my Books-to-Have-on-that-Desert-Island goodreads shelf. Like Karen, I agree this book truly deserves re-reading.
+20 pts - Task
+25 pts - Combo (10.2-#175, 10.6-1977, 10.8 - Timon of Athens IV,iii, 10.9 - #6 Innovative design, 20.2 - 1899 - 1977)
+10 pts - Review
+10 pts - Canon
Task Total - 65 pts
Grand Total - 555 pts
10.2 Book Lover's DayThe Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
Review
First of I didn’t realize Parnassus on Wheels was written by the same author and this book is it’s sequel, having read neither. The book is a “thriller” and of course had the boy meets girl device as well but the absolute VIP character is Roger Mifflin, a bookseller of second hand books. The shop is run in the front part of his house, which keeps everything handy for the story. I fall for books that reference other books. If I’ve read them, I feel a familiarity and if not, there’s a good chance I’ll want to. Roger Mifflin is a crusader for literature. His personality reminds me of a Dickens’ character. I don’t know if there really streets in Brooklyn named after authors but putting the bookstore in the middle of four such streets added a pinch of spice.
The book was printed just after World War I, when everyone was sure that would be the “war to end all wars”. It’s poignant knowing this didn’t happen and to read about the great hopes for the Armistice and President Wilson’s journey to Europe with his League of Nation dream. However this spy novel is along the lines of The Man that was Thursday by GK Chesterton in a humorous bumbling way. I really enjoyed it.
+ 10 pts - Task
+ 10 pts - Combo (10.6 - 1957, 20.2 - 1890 - 1957)
+ 10 pts - Review
Task Total - 30 pts
Grand Total - 585 pts
Karen GHHS wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Kate S wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?"It looks like we have it all straightened out now, Reb..."
hey!
I just noticed on Pale Fire you didn't give yourself the extra 5 style points. As much as I hate to admit it, 1962 is old.
Rebekah wrote: "Karen GHHS wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Kate S wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?"It looks like we have it all straig..."
Yes, but Oldies isn't one of the styles this quarter.
15.4 - B1 - Publish date 2001 -2013Breakdown by Sara Paretsky - published 2012
+15 task
Task total: 15
Grand total: 60
15.5 - D3 - Male 40 - 60Robert Crais - born 1953
The Watchman by Robert Crais - published 2007
+20 task
Task total: 20
Grand total: 80
Pick'n'Mix15.2 - E4 - Biography/Memoir
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain
+15 task
Post total: 15
Grand total: 110
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Karen GHHS wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Kate S wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Okay I've gone back and corrected this post by trading F3 for D3. I hope that makes it right?"It looks like we ha..."
Well, tie me down and call the train! I'm NOT back on track I'm afraid. Wasn't paying any attention to that. I'll correct my two earlier posts but
I need to read something real quick to make up for the 15 pts lost. It was so nice to see a round 600 that makes addition easier! (smile)
20.2 author alive between 1909 and 1922James Pattinson - 1915 - 2009
Squeaky Clean by James Pattinson
+20 task
+5 (Combo 10.6 - In honor of All Saints Day)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 145
Pick 'n' Mix15.7 C6-400-500 pages
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (449 pages)
+20 Task
Grand Total = 150 points
20.10 Liz's TaskAnd the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
I'm not sure where to start. This novel takes the reader through many characters, places, and continents yet everything is connected. It starts out with a small family in a village in Afghanistan and a story. Storytelling is an important element in the novel. Just when you think you are getting to know more, the POV shifts and in another place you get a different part of the story. Each chapter layers on the original story and is related to Abdullah and/or Pari in some way.
I really liked the way this book read. You have to pay attention. Sometimes I wanted to know more about the more minor people that have chapters, but this is really the story of the original family and it could not have been bookended any better.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 180 points
Tanya wrote: "20.10 Liz's TaskAnd the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
I'm not sure where to start. This novel takes the reader through many characters, places, and continents yet everything is connected. ..."
Tanya, I read in the description of this book that it takes place in many countries,Afghanistan, France, USA and Greece. Would it qualify for the Task 10.7, Ex-Pat Experience? That would give you 5 combo points.
10.6 The Day of the DeadThe Frozen Deep by Wilkie Collins
+ 10 task (died in 1889)
Task Total: 10 points
Grand Total: 500
20.8 Stephen KingRitual Magic by Eileen Wilks
Review: This is the tenth novel in the World of the Lupi series, and would not be a good entry point into the series. In this volume, Lily and Rule are up against their normal foe and her minions, plus an added bonus bad guy and HIS minions! They are pulled into the case when Lily’s mother, on her 57th birthday, mysteriously loses all memories past her 12th birthday, and this within weeks of Lily and Rule’s wedding, which her mom is basically planning. Since Lily and her mom have an overall antagonistic relationship, the parts where Lily has to deal with her mother’s being, in essence, a pre-teen girl are really interesting. However, as the case heats up those parts fall away, as do most of the interactions between Lily and Rule. These books are best when they maintain a balance between action and relationships, and I found this one a little too heavy on the action. Not my favorite, but I’ll definitely pick up the next one.
+20 Task (Rule is a lupi, which is another name for a werewolf, and many other characters are non-human)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 570
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 4: Materia (other topics)The Piper's Son (other topics)
The Name of the Rose (other topics)
The Name of the Rose (other topics)
The Blue Mountain (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Thomas Siddell (other topics)Melina Marchetta (other topics)
Umberto Eco (other topics)
Umberto Eco (other topics)
Meir Shalev (other topics)
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Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Review:
I think I needed a book of commentary to read alongside these stories to appreciate them. I enjoyed the work as stories, but never felt the amazement that I was expecting given the tremendous aura and buildup surrounding Borges. I was anticipating pondering these stories for weeks after reading them and instead I'm having a hard time remembering any specific story well enough to continue pondering. Still, I could tell that if I read these with a literature class or even a book club, I might have understood them at a deeper level and thus appreciated them more fully. I'd be interested in revisiting this collection to see if a second read through brings these stories to life for me.
+10 Task
+15 Combo (10.2 - Ficciones includes The Library of Babel, which is #116 on the book lover's list; 10.6, 20.2)
+10 Canon
+10 Review
+10 Nonwestern
Task total: 55
Grand total: 425