Play Book Tag discussion
Member ChallengeTracking 2016-20
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LibraryCin/Cindy's 2018 Challenges
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12x12 Animals, Passport Challenge, ColourCAT, AlphatKIT, Trim the TBRElephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II / Vicki Constantine Croke
4 stars
Jim (“Billy”) Williams went to live in the jungle in Burma in the 1920s and had such a connection with the elephants there, he stayed for decades. He was English and working for a teak logging company that used elephants as labour. Williams brought a kinder way of working with the animals, a way that seemed to work better for everyone – the company and the elephants alike.
The subtitle of the book talks about WWII, but that was only about the last 1/3 of the book, and not my main interest in the book, though it was a pretty amazing story in itself! I loved learning about the elephants and reading about the incredible things they do. Billy, himself, I found interesting, as well, and loved that he was in favour of training the elephants with positive reinforcement. Hard enough to read of the working animals (not there by their own choice), but Billy’s way with them made it better. He also opened “hospitals” for the elephants. The book had photos interspersed, and the notes at the end were actually really interesting – there were quite a few good tidbits and stories added in there.
12x12 Oh CanadaStones on a Grave / Kathy Kacer
3.5 stars
This is part of a series where each book focuses on a different girl. The seven girls that are the focus were all orphans in the early 1960s when the orphanage they lived in burnt down. They are old enough that they are sent away with just a bit of information about who they are.
In this one, 18-year old Sara is given enough information to discover that she came from Germany, and her mother was Jewish. She has a bit more information including a couple of place names and the name of a doctor who helped her get to Canada. With some money she’s made working a part-time job, and a little bit given to her from the headmistress of the orphanage, Sara heads to Germany to try to find out more about her past and, hopefully, her parents.
I liked this. I’ve enjoyed all the books I’ve read in the series so far. This one spent more time in Ontario before Sara leaves for Germany than the other books did before the other girls left. I particularly liked a couple of the secondary characters who helped Sara in Germany. The info about the Holocaust is kept fairly simple, though. I would have liked a little bit more there, but it is meant for a younger audience.
12x12 Nonfiction, PBTThe Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time / Jeff Deck, Benjamin D. Henson
4 stars
Jeff, an editor, decided that he would do some travelling around the US in 2008, in order to find and fix (whether subversively himself, or by asking) typos/errors on signs. He brought along friends with him as he made his way around the perimeter of the US for almost three months. He was armed with his Typo Correction Kit that he assembled himself and found that while some people were receptive to making the changes, others weren’t. In fact, by the time he got home again, he discovered that he was in some trouble for fixing one of the signs himself!
I really enjoyed this! There was some humour – I loved the “elixir of correction” (so as not to use a brand name) that he carried with him. There is an appendix at the end explaining some of the common errors. Jeff had a blog he kept going throughout his travels, but I’m sad to see that it no longer exists. There are some photos included interspersed throughout the book – photos of some before and after errors.
12x12 Audio, PBT, AlphaKITThe Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies / Jason Fagone
3.5 stars
Elizabeth and William Friedman met while learning to decode messages. They both went on to various jobs where they were decrypting messages, but Elizabeth’s work seems to have been forgotten. They were part of the beginning of cryptography. Elizabeth did some decoding during WWI, during prohibition in the 1920s, and during WWII.
This was good. It was interesting to learn about the history of cryptology and even more interesting that a woman was at the forefront of it! I listened to the audio, and while the narrator was fine, and mostly I was kept interested, my mind did wander occasionally. I think that’s why I sometimes forgot who was who and why I kept my rating down just a bit from the 4 stars I’d like to give! I would recommend this be read in print, though, as there is plenty I think I would have liked to have seen on a page rather than heard read out to me. Apparently, there was an “enhancement” to the audio that should come with the audio, but not via my library (though I have had one other book in the past from the library that came with a pdf I could (and did) download to look at graphs and charts).
12x12 Off the Shelf, ColourCATThe Snow Queen / Mercedes Lackey
3.5 stars
Aleksia is the “Snow Queen” or “Ice Fairy”, one in a long line of snow queens – she took over for someone else in the position. This also makes her one of the Godmothers of the kingdoms. As she goes about her usual business, she discovers that someone seems to be impersonating her to do terrible things. She must find out who is doing this and put a stop to it.
This actually had a few different storylines, which made it a bit confusing for me at the start. I enjoyed the second half much more after one of the storylines wrapped up (Aleksia’s “usual business”) and the other two storylines (including searching for the imposter) joined up.
12x12 TravelThe Suspect / Fiona Barton
4 stars
Kate is a reporter and her son, Jake, has been in Phuket, Thailand for a couple of years. Kate and her husband rarely hear from him. Meanwhile, two teenage girls have gone missing in Bangkok and Kate wants the story, so goes to talk to the mothers of the girls to see what she can find out before heading to Thailand to see what she can learn there.
I really liked this. It’s one that kept me wanting to read, to find out what happened! It’s the third in a series, but it can be read as a standalone. I’ve read the 2nd and 3rd books now, and want to go back and read the first. I did find the personal story of the detective good, and I bet there is more background on that, as well. The common factor in the books appears to mainly be Kate, but the detective is there, as well.
My top 10 (4.5+ stars):The Radium Girls / Kate Moore
Where I Belong / Alan Doyle
The Good Girl / Mary Kubica
A Dog’s Purpose / Bruce Cameron
In the Kingdom of Ice / Hampton Sides
Those Girls / Chevy Stevens
Gone Without A Trace / Mary Torjussen
The Alice Network / Kate Quinn
Doomsday Book / Connie Willis
The Heart’s Invisible Furies / John Boyne
Honourable mentions (4.25-4.5 stars):
The Woman in Cabin 10 / RuthWare
Never Let You Go / Chevy Stevens
The Clockmaker’s Daughter / Kate Morton
Broken Harbor / Tana French
Delia’s Shadow / Jaime Lee Moyer
Least Favourite (1.5 stars):
Everything is Illuminated / Jonathan Safron Foer
Dishonourable mentions (2 stars):
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu / Joshua Hammer
Peter the Great / Robert K. Massie
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer / Patrick Suskind
Dawn / Elie Weisel
A Bridge Too Far / Cornelius Ryan
I will figure out some stats and post those, too, but likely not till the weekend.
2018 Stats173 books
58,243 pages
= 337 pages / book (average)
New authors to me: 101 out of 173 = 58.3%
Canadian authors: 26 out of 173 = 15.0%
Some genres (some of these will overlap, and I probably missed some, too):
Nonfiction (not including Biography/Memoir): 29 out of 173 = 16.8%
Historical fiction: 23 out of 173 = 13.3%
Young adult: 17 out of 173 = 9.8%
Biography/Memoir: 25 out of 173 = 14.5%
Graphic novels: 5 out of 173 = 2.9%
Mystery/Thriller: 35 out of 173 = 20.2%
Contemporary Fiction: 18 out of 173 = 10.4%
For the first time this year, I added (out of curiosity) nonfiction and biography memoir together:
Nonfiction + Biography/Memoir: 54 out of 173 = 31.2%
Play Book Tag
Books mentioned in this topic
The Suspect (other topics)The Snow Queen (other topics)
The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies (other topics)
The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time (other topics)
Stones on a Grave (other topics)
More...
The Empty Chair / Jeffrey Deaver
3 stars
Two teenage girls have been kidnapped just after a boy was murdered in a small town. It’s not long before they know who they are looking for.
Sorry, not much of a summary. I listened to the audio, the abridged audio. Only because it was the only option for this book from the library. I often have a harder time listening to a male narrator, even if they are good. The narrator was Joe Mantegna (from Criminal Minds), but it was easy to lose focus. Of course, abridged doesn’t help, either. I paid attention to enough to get the gist of what was happening, so the plot was fine. Overall, I’m rating it ok, but it likely would have been better to read it myself and if it was unabridged.