Reading with Style discussion
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FA 18 Completed Tasks
AbBY 15.6-Reverse Chronological Order1955-1959
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
(born 1956)
task total= 30
grand total= 780
20.6 The Stone carversThe Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
This was Ryan’s debut novel, and it is easy to see why it was chosen for the many prizes. The structure is effective and not the usual way of telling a story. A different person that has been affected by Ireland’s financial crash and a specific event is the subject of each short chapter. By hearing their small and personal view of the event we get a fuller overview.
This is not Maeve Binchy’s Irish village – there is darkness, despair, and harsh small minded judgement. The novel is not unrelenting, but there is not happy ending. I read this in one sitting (on the plane) and I think this was helpful in keeping the characters straight. 3.5*
20 task
10 review
15 prize
5 combo 20.7
_____
50
Running total: 595
20.5 Singled outThe Water Rat of Wanchai by Ian Hamilton
I read the “The Dragonhead of Hong Kong” the prequel to the series previously. That book caught me immediately and made me want tot read the series. It was written two years after this one.
This is the first in the Ava Lee series by Hamilton. I felt, a little, that Hamilton was finding his feet in his writing, which is to be expected and not a deterrent.
Ava is such a great character – she is smart, capable, resourceful, and kick-ass (if need be – literally). Ava travels the world as a forensic accountant. I also enjoy his Toronto references (Ava is based in Toronto), which are spot on. 3.5*
-> Ava is single, never married, and definitely the head of her household. <-
20 task
10 review
5 prize
10 combo 10.3, 10.2
___
40
Running total: 635
10.2 Next?A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
Goodness gracious I love this series. Penny builds the fictional world and writes it so skillfully it is like a lesson on how to handle continuing characters well. Almost all of the characters are ones we’ve ‘met’ in previous installments, but (if they are integral to the story) we get to know them better – warts and all.
I like that her characters are all too human, and that this is revealed over the course of the series. Of course, the basic premise is present – someone is murdered. Once again, it happens in Three Pines so Chief Inspector Gamache and his team have to solve the mystery. His second in command, Jean Guy Beauvoir, is prominent in this story and some of it is heart wrenching. Very well done. 5*
10 task
10 review
10 prize
5 combo 10.5 (salamandra)
_____
35
Running total: 670
10.9 9, 10, 11Spilsburys Coast by Howard White, Jim Spilsbury
Jim Spilsbury grew up on an island in Desolation Sound, British Columbia. This an interesting telling of his life and times—the arrival of automobiles, radio receivers, radio phones, airplanes, WWII. The main focus is on Spilsbury’s creating a business around building, selling and servicing radios by boat along the British Columbia Coast during the first half of the twentieth century. The stories are interesting and well told. Occasionally he slipped off into radio technology that was not particularly understandable to me.
I recommend this book to travelers to this area, and to people interested in the history of radio.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 oldie (originally published 1987)
Task total 25
Season total: 325
From Post 11Ed wrote: "20.6 The Stone Carvers
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
As I was reading this novel, I began to realize it had some similarities with a book I recently fo..."
+10 Combo 20.7, 20.10
From Post 533Coralie wrote: "20.3 To Conquer Hell
War's Unwomanly Face by Svetlana Alexievich
+20 task
+10 Combo 10.9, 10.10
+5 Oldies (published 1985)
+10 Prizeworthy
Task Total: 45
Season..."
+10 Combo 10.2, 10.5
From Post 542Karen Michele wrote: "10.2 Next?
Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
+10 Task: Book 3
Task Total: 10
Season Total: 710"
+5 Combo 20.7
From Post 543Karen Michele wrote: "10.3 Real Place
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.9 9, 10, 11
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 725"
+5 Prize
From Post 550June wrote: "20.5- Singled Out
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín
Nora Webster is a recent widow
Task total: 20
Combo: 5 (10.5- published by Penguin)
Post total: 25"
+5 Prizeworthy
From Post 564Jenifer wrote: "10.1 Favorite Lists
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
+10 task (#24 on Best Books Ever, claimed in post 698
+15 prizeworthy
+5 oldie
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 575"
+5 Combo 10.9
From Post 574June wrote: "20.2- To Conquer Hell
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
Task: 20
Combo:5 (20.1)
Post total: 25"
+5 Prizeworthy
From Post 581Ed wrote: "10.5 Pet Day
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
this edition published by Penguin= https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9......"
+5 Combo 10.4
10.6 NoirBrief Cases by Jim Butcher
I never made it past the 2nd or 3rd Dresden book so I really appreciated the little introductions to these short stories that gave them some context. I enjoyed the three Bigfoot related storied the most, and each for slightly different reasons. There are some common themes in the collection, about finding strength in yourself, the dark is real but must be faced, allies are valuable, and sometimes you can find your ways around the corners of the rules. I enjoyed them, but still don't really feel like going back and attempting the main series again.
+10 task
+10 review
+10 combo (10.2, 10.5)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Task total: 30
Grand total: 1595
20.3 Birds without WingsThe Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin
This is the second in the Erast Fandorin series, but the first that I've read.
Set in 1877, Russia is at war with the Ottoman Empire. Independent and daring Varya has made her way to the front to be with her fiance. Upon her arrival, she finds out that he has made a fatal error which cost many lives and is now under arrest facing execution and her only hope of saving him is to work with a man she met on her journey to the front, Erast Fandorin. In another review, I saw him described as a Russian high-functioning autistic version of Sherlock Holmes and that sounds just about right.
I loved Erast--sadly, I felt like he was absent for much of this book. It mainly followed Varya as she was flirting with the men of the camp, with generals and journalists (and it seems giving very little thought to her fiance) to glean bits of information to help save her fiance. She was supposed to be a feminist Bolshevik, very cutting-edge for her day--I found her to be far more damsel-in-distress and she irked me big time. If I ever read another of these books, I certainly hope she won't be in it and that there is far more of the quirky Erast.
+20 Task (shelved 5 times as "turkey")
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2; 10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... "salamandra" has been okayed in help thread; 20.5--Varya is single throughout the book and lives on her own in the soldier's camp which is as close to "head of household" as you can get on the war front)
Task total: 45
Season total: 2190
15.10 AbBY Chronological1981-1985
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Jessie Burton was born in 1983.
+60 task
+100 finisher bonus
Task total: 160
Season total: 735
20.7 A Month in the Country
Jo Returns to the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
The twelfth book in the long-running Chalet School series, this book sees the series' main character Jo, having officially left school at the end of the previous book, returning to pay an extended visit in this one, as her sister's children are ill and she isn't allowed to stay with them. Due to staff illness she ends up taking on some teaching - which she quickly discovers is not her life's calling - and she is also working on writing her first book, with a view to becoming a published author.
Although I enjoyed this book, it isn't among my favourites of the series so far. I felt that it was a bit too focused on Jo, to the neglect of other characters, including some recently introduced ones who I would have expected to play a larger role. Jo is also a bit too universally loved by this point in the series, which I find a little irritating. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable book which had its amusing moments.
+20 Task (160 pages)
+10 Combo (10.2 - Chalet School #12; 20.1 - published 1936, contemporary setting)
+10 Oldies (published 1936)
+10 Review
Task total: 50
Season total: 215
Jo Returns to the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
The twelfth book in the long-running Chalet School series, this book sees the series' main character Jo, having officially left school at the end of the previous book, returning to pay an extended visit in this one, as her sister's children are ill and she isn't allowed to stay with them. Due to staff illness she ends up taking on some teaching - which she quickly discovers is not her life's calling - and she is also working on writing her first book, with a view to becoming a published author.
Although I enjoyed this book, it isn't among my favourites of the series so far. I felt that it was a bit too focused on Jo, to the neglect of other characters, including some recently introduced ones who I would have expected to play a larger role. Jo is also a bit too universally loved by this point in the series, which I find a little irritating. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable book which had its amusing moments.
+20 Task (160 pages)
+10 Combo (10.2 - Chalet School #12; 20.1 - published 1936, contemporary setting)
+10 Oldies (published 1936)
+10 Review
Task total: 50
Season total: 215
20.5 Singled OutJuror #3 by James Patterson & Nancy Allen
The protagonist, Ruby Bozarth, is a single woman living on her own & responsible for her own financial woes
Review
It's okay if you're just after a non-thinking quick read. I like Ruby as a character though I think if the book went any longer, I'd be getting annoyed at her. The story, on the other hand, though had so many holes and it was actually more like 2 serial novellas in 1 with what felt like a patch-on job for a segue-way to connect the 2.
The thing about legal thrillers is that it always feels like the police hasn't done their jobs properly. Specifically in this book, the police full on looks like they're either incompetent or in complete cahoots with the criminals. And that's what I found hard to believe in this book... there were just too many carelessness by the investigative team but if they were covering up something, this definitely wasn't sorted in the book. Basically, I'm left unsatisfied.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 795
10.3 Real PlaceA Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones
+10 task
+10 Combo 20.5, 20.10
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 1390
I would like to move a book from 20.6 to 10.710.7 Crazy Rich Asians…Or Not!
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
+10 task
+10 Combo 10.5, 20.6
Task Total change: -10
RwS Finish: 100
Mega Finish: 200
Season Total: 1680
10.8 Cli FiGreen Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
For a second time I just feel so done at the end of a book in this trilogy. The cast is large and the books are long and the writing is dense. Any given few pages is typically very interesting, whether about people or the changes being made to / occurring on Mars itself. But it just keeps going. I give Robinson kudos for making memorable characters while handling so many of them, and writing memorable situations. I like how he works with the idea that Mars is about millions of people while also being about small communities, about the artificially life lengthened original colonizers mixing with the children born there mixing with a steady stream of immigrants while Earth itself falls apart. The book is good. I am just ready for a long break before Blue Mars.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 oldies (1993)
+5 jumbo (624)
+10 prizes (Hugo, Locus)
+5 Combo (10.2)
Task total: 45
RwS Finish: 100
Grand total: 1740
Post 587 Deedee wrote: "Task 20.7 A Month in the CountryDoctor Who: Horror of the Space Snakes (2012) by Gary Russell (Paperback, 160 pages)
No Styles because this is a YA tie-in short novel ..."
Deedee, this isn't shelved at BPL, so the YA/Lexile rule does not apply. I've got a combo for 10.5 as the default is published by Penguin. It must be part of the Doctor Who series, too, although it doesn't have a link on GR, so also for 10.2. If you know of something else, let us know.
Post 608 Valerie wrote: "10.2 Next?A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
Goodness gracious I love this series. Penny builds the fictional world and writes it so skillfully it is like a les..."
This has only 1 award - Anthony Prize - the others are nominees, so only 5 Prize Worthy points
10.9 - 9, 10, 11Dangerous Secrets by Susan Hunter
+10 task
+5 Combo (10.2)
Task total: 15
Grand total: 605
10.5 Pet DayThe Witch Elm by Tana French
published by Penguin Audiobooks
Task total: 10
Grand Total: 785
15.5 AbBY Chronological
1880-84
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne (b. 1882)
Task total: 30
Season total: 245
1880-84
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne (b. 1882)
Task total: 30
Season total: 245
15.9 AbBY Chronologic1951-1955
What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey b. 1954
Task +45
Season Total: 570
20.10 VowelsThe Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
I don't understand why this book won a Pulitzer. It was fine and easily understandable and enjoyably compact. The descriptions of the characters and their lives was well done and disparate ones were certainly picked. I think the odd show of the identical twins was my favorite, despite being closer to the story of the mother and daughter. The structure of trying to justify death but the real lives in many ways defying that was interesting, since all the dead examined were at good hopeful points in their lives. I liked seeing a snapshot of a historical time and space. But mostly I just didn't feel any zing to the reading.
Task=20
review=10
combo= 10 (20.7-160p.; 10.5)
prizeworthy=5 (Pulitzer 1928)
Oldie=10 (1927)
task total - 55
Grand total - 1795
15.6 AbBYDate Range 1950-54
Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
+30 Task (born 1953)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 885
20.4 BirdsongPassing Strange by Ellen Klages
Lightly fantastical historical fiction. I liked this, and it was lovely and has marginalized characters creating their own happy endings in a world that continues to deny them (always good to read), but the writing style didn't quite work for me. I wished for an actual omniscient narrator rather than the muddy head-hopping that didn't connect deeply with the ostensible POV characters, and characters use dialogue too much to explain things (laws, strategies, slurs, etc.) to one another in clunky ways.
I did like how the characters (and the story) integrated things like science, magic, and art. Despite the seriousness of what the story involves, the friendships felt cozy and real, and the lives these friends lead felt whole.
+20 Task -- modern day & 1940
+5 Combo (20.5 -- the three main characters are single, widowed, and abandoned)
+5 Prizeworthy (won the World Fantasy Award this weekend!)
+10 Review
Task Total: 40
Season Total: 510
20.4 BirdsongHistory of the Rain by Niall Williams
I'm always in the middle of at least three books--one on my Kindle that I read before bed (I'm looking at you, The Sorrows of Young Werther--you have the innate ability to shut my eyes after three pages!); an actual book of paper, cloth, and glue from the library; and, finally, an audiobook that I can listen to as I'm attempting to get the infernally long list of things done around the house and in the yard to prepare for winter. History of the Rain was my audiobook, read in a lovely Irish brogue, which so completely transported me into Faha (specifically into the Swain home) that I kept finding myself staring off into the distance so I could more completely let the river of words wash over me. Don't even get me started on the last seven chapters--I couldn't get a thing done because I was crying so hard I couldn't see straight!
This book is charming, lovely, powerful, infused with poetry and built on the bedrock of a library of dead authors, I want to buy several copies in order to give them out as Christmas presents to all of the readers I know.
This is my favorite kind of book: the kind that leaves me wrung out, yet incandescent...if you've seen Amelie, there's a part where she walks a blind man around the streets and describes everything she sees and once she leaves him, he looks to the sky and begins to glow--that's how I feel. I love a book that takes me in, hands me a cup of tea, and tells me a story so real that I felt I've lived it. This is such a book. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for bringing this one to our attention.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.10, 20.6)
Task total: 40
Season total: 2230
20.2 To Conquer HellThe First Stone: Some Questions of Sex and Power by Helen Garner
+20 task
+5 Prizeworthy
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 1705
10.3- Real PlaceOur Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Task: 10
Combo:5 (10.5- Penguin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...)
Oldies: 5 (first published in 1958)
Post total: 20
20.5 Singled OutWords of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
+20 task
+5 Combo 10.2
+25 Jumbo (1084 Pages)
+10 Prizeworthy
Task Total: 60
Season Total: 1765
From Post 196Beth wrote: "20.6 The Stone Carvers
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
2011 winner
I liked the writing. I hated the "ending" and when I went to read more about it online, ju..."
This actually won 2 awards, so it qualifies for 10 prizeworthy points.
From Post 622Jenifer wrote: "20.5 Singled Out
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte by Kyra Davis
+20 task
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 775"
+5 Combo 10.2
10.6 NoirA Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg
This book was strangely difficult to get through, for all that it was clearly written and rather short, and I doubt I would have finished it if it was not on my Hugo/Nebula list. It was speculative fiction, a what might happen if a space colony was set up following this particular set of rules. It wasn't a dystopia but it was different, a society where the word "I" was an obscenity, among other things. And the story, told as an autobiography, is built around the idea of what happens when an experience swings him the other way towards valuing a drug induced telepathic communion. I don't think we are meant to come away from it with any particular opinion, but it is the kind of book where you could pick apart the philosophy and the man in many different ways, if you were so inclined.
+10 task
+5 oldies (1971)
+5 prize (Nebula)
+10 review
+5 combo (10.5 Panther)
Task total: 35
Grand total: 1835 including the correction in 643
AbBY 15.7-Reverse Chronological Order1950-1954
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (b. 1954)
task total= 30
grand total= 810
10.7 Crazy Rich Asians...or Not!How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents by Jimmy O. Yang
I thought it fitting to read this book, written by one of the actors who was actually in the movie adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians :-)
Jimmy O. Yang first hit it big in his role of Jian Yang in HBO's "Silicon Valley" and while it was fun to hear about his experiences on the show, the story of how he got there was far more fun.
His family emigrated from Hong Kong when he was 13-years-old. He couldn't speak English beyond the basics he had learned in school. To improve his English skills, he turned to the tv--BET, to be precise. It was so fun to hear him read this book, the way he can switch up his accent for effect.
He went to UCSD with a major in Economics--which he never used. He went into stand-up instead, much to his father's horror. To pay the bills, he was a used-car salesman, a DJ at a strip club (where he almost ended up entrenched in the seedy mob underworld), an Uber driver, all while renting someone's couch for $300 a month to get by. If it weren't true, it would be too ridiculous to be believed.
I quite enjoyed his writing style--very funny and silly, and then he'll drop a profound idea with complete nonchalance then continue with the narrative as if nothing special was said. I quite enjoyed his take on the "immigrant experience."
There was a lot of cursing in this book, so if you're sensitive to that I'd definitely steer clear. It was definitely good for a laugh.
+10 Task (born in Hong Kong)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.9, "Immigrant's"=10 letters)
Task total: 25
Season total: 2255
20.8 AutumnThe Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When I was in college, I read this and Candide in the same week for two different courses so they will forever be inextricable in my mind--they're published within 15 years of each other, both slim volumes, both about a young man who is madly in love with someone he can't have. Since I recently re-read Candide, I figured it was time to revisit Werther as well.
THAT was a terrible idea! Candide was much as I'd remembered--a hopeful hero who has Job-level trials and still sees this as "the best of all possible worlds." Werther did not age as well. He's insufferable! Self-absorbed, narcissistic, and indefatigably pursing Charlotte who is TAKEN (engaged and then, halfway through the book, married to Albert). I hate the character. I hate the writing, especially in the first 2/3 of the book which is a compilation of letters from Werther to his friend, Wilhelm, whining about how much he wants to be with Lotte and how he can't stand to see Albert touch her and how insufferable everyone is yet everyone wants his company so much blah blah blah. The last third is an account of what happens after (view spoiler).
Perhaps I hated it because I read it in such small bursts, a few pages here a few pages there over several weeks. Perhaps it's because as a modern reader I don't find the Sturm und Drang style appealing in the slightest. Perhaps I missed the point entirely.
But that was the LONGEST 149 pages of my life.
+20 Task (German author, pub. 1774)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.3; 10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... ; 20.7)
+5 Prizeworthy
+15 Oldies
Task total: 65
Season total: 2320
15.5 AbBY, Chronological 1900-1904The Panther and the Lash by Langston Hughes (born 1902)
+30 Task
Task total: 30
Season total: 2350
20.8 AutumnMartin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
Review
(view spoiler)
+20 pts - Task
+15 pts Combo (10.3-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin,...,
10.5-MPE, 10.9)
+10 pts - Review
+15 pts - Jumbo (830 pages)
+15 pts - Oldies (1844)
Task total - 75 pts
Season Total - 230 pts
Anika wrote: "20.8 AutumnThe Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When I was in college, I read this and Candide in the same week for two different ..."
There is a city in Germany named Werther https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werther...
15.9 AbBY1951 - 1955 Chronological
The Titian Committee by Iain Pears (b. 1955)
+ 45 Task
Season Total = 780
20.9 ArkansasOldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus
Review
Lucy Marsden is ninety-nine years old and an inmate of a nursing home. I listened to this on audio and as Lucy narrates the story to a person who is recording her experiences, it seemed as if Lucy were really talking to me, the listener.
Lucy was 15 in 1900 when she married Captain William Marsden, a 50 year old that was a Confederate veteran of the Civil War. She starts the story long before she was born when her husband and his bosom buddy were 13 and enlisted for the war. The experiences of the war, being on the losing side, the destruction of the South, all affect him greatly giving him life long demons young Lucy has to contend with throughout the whole marriage. Although both came from rich and Southern Aristocratic families, Lucy ends up after all her years in a charity nursing home, totally alone without children or any family alive. Yet for all this she is very exuberant and not really bitter, seeming to enjoy life as best she can. The author has given her some eccentricities that make her fun.
A few things did irritate me though aside from a 50-year-old man marrying a 15-year-old girl. Lucy keeps claiming to have had nine children but only five of them are ever named in her story, two simply going by the appellation of “The Twins”. However, the most annoying was the total historical inaccuracy. In her very small town in North Carolina, where everyone is known including their family histories, she speaks of “being room mother to all six of her kids when they were in elementary school” and have to bake cupcakes for six different classes. “Girl, That sure was a lot of cupcakes!” At that time in the early 20th century, most schoolhouses in rural areas were only one room with all grades together and the entire school population was usually about 20 at the most. There were a few more inconsistencies like that such as shopping malls being built were mansions once were but based on her age, this would be before 1940 when shopping malls were not that common especially in towns with a population of about 200-300!
I was also surprised that Lucy seemed to have absolutely no conditioning in racism, even having been born to former slave-owners and married to a former slave owner. She depends heavily on Castalia, a former slave of the Marsden family and with whom she develops a deep bond, but having grown up in the South myself, I know that even some of the most liberal families at the time still had assumptions and taboos that Lucy seems to have never known, nor her family.
I was entertained but the lack of so much authenticity didn’t allow me to slip so easily into the story and become one with it.
+20 pts - Task
+10 pts - Review
+20 pts - Combo (10.3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confede... , 10.9, 20.4, 20.5)
+15 pts - Prizeworthy (Ambassador Book Award, LA Times Book Prize, Sue Kaufman Prize)
+10 pts - Jumbo (736 pages)
+ 5 pts - Oldies (1990)
Task Total - 80 pts
Season Total - 310 Pts
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
All the Single Ladies (other topics)Infidel (other topics)
Dragonfly in Amber (other topics)
The Big Sleep (other topics)
The Big Sleep (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Rebecca Traister (other topics)Ayaan Hirsi Ali (other topics)
Diana Gabaldon (other topics)
Raymond Chandler (other topics)
Samuel Richardson (other topics)
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The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder (born 1897)
+20 Task
Task total: 20
Season total: 2145