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FA 18 Completed Tasks
Rebecca wrote:Anika wrote: "20.8 Autumn
The 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...
I love that you knew this, Rebecca! I never would have even thought to look it up as a possible place...
Mods: is that an acceptable combo, even though the "place" name isn't used as place in the title?
Also, Rebecca: WOW on your 80-point post! I don't think I have ever seen one book worth that many points...kudos :-)
Task 20.7 A Month in the CountryHouston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976) by James Tiptree Jr. (Hardcover, Science Fiction Book Club, 150 pages)
This is the MPE version
Hugo Award for Best Novella (1977)
Nebula Award for Best Novella (1976)
Locus Award Nominee for Best Novella (1977)
+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.3 ‘Houston’)
+05 Oldies -25 to 75 years old: (1943-1993)
Task Total: 20 + 05 + 05 = 30
Grand Total: 400 + 30 = 430
20.1 War’s EndMurder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood
+20 task (set in 1928)
+25 Combo (10.2, 10.3, 20.5, 20.7, 20.10)
+5 Oldies (published 1991)
Task Total: 50
Season Total: 1825
15.10 AbBY in order1951-1955
The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy born 1955
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_M...
Task total: 60
Completion bonus: 100
Mega Finish: 200
Grand total: 2195
Post 659 Beth wrote: "Completion bonus: 100
Mega Finish: 200."
Congratulations! Well done!
15.6 AbBY Chronological
1885-89
Elizabeth, Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin (born 1889)
Task total: 30
Season total: 275
1885-89
Elizabeth, Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin (born 1889)
Task total: 30
Season total: 275
15.1 AbBYDate Range 1960-1964
Nowhere Man by Aleksandar Hemon
+15 Task (author born 1964)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 1840
Anika wrote: "Rebecca wrote:Anika wrote: "20.8 Autumn
The 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 i..."
Thanks. I’m using this challenge to read all those long, Victorian English novels I’ve always been wanting to read but trying to complete the tasks in the past, I put aside in favor of books about half their size. Now I’m finally re-introduced to Trollope, I find I like him better and I never read (to by chagrin) George Eliot before and found I had really been missing out! Dickens is always been an old favorite of mine too so was glad to add some of his novels I’d never read as well. The 80 point one was another one my TBR list for a while as part of my interest in the Civil War, but again was sooooo long, I put it off.
Thanks mods and Karin for the tasks!
20.6 The Stone CarversOn Beauty by Zadie Smith
Howard Belsey is an art history professor at a small New England college, with a wife Kiki and three teenage children. His academic arch-enemy, fellow Rembrandt specialist Monty Kipps, lives in England with his wife and two teenagers, but Jerome Belsey is forging unwelcome links between the families, and soon Monty is appointed to a post at Howard’s college.
This had some great characters and I enjoyed it, but maybe I’ve read too many novels centring on a disaffected middle-aged college professor, his rivalries and his infidelities. I kept forgetting he was not a literature professor, as they usually are. It was much more powerful in the sections written from a female character’s point of view, especially when it was Howard’s wife Kiki.
+20 Task (2005)
+ 5 Combo (10.5 the MPE is Penguin)
+10 Review
+15 Prizeworthy
Task Total: 50
Season Total: 935
Rosemary wrote: "20.6 The Stone CarversOn Beauty by Zadie Smith
Howard Belsey is an art history professor at a small New England college, with a wife Kiki and three teenage children. Hi..."
This book won 4 awards!!
10.9 9, 10, 11 (Norma's Task via Rebekah)Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: Pet Day (Dodo) Rosmersholm
+10 Oldies (1886)
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 840
FYI - my records show that I reached 815 points on post 600 but the readerboard says 815 for posts through 585. I just went with 815 as my total before these two posts. Let me know if I goofed up.
20.4 BirdsongThere There by Tommy Orange
+20 Task: The story switches between the childhoods of the main characters and the present day (some of the characters are grandparents in the present day, so the time gap between the stories is over 10 years).
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 860
20.8 AutumnThe Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Review
If I were to describe this novel in one word, it would be LONG. If I were to add a second word, it would be PHILOSOPHICAL. This is a very, very long philosophical novel set primarily in 1913, and the various characters cover many different slants and various philosophical debates present in Austria at that time. The writing is extremely good, which is why this isn’t one star even though I didn’t like it. There are a variety of characters and points of view, but the main one is Urlich his is not lovable or even likable. I’d say he had some form of Asperger’s, alhough Musil describes him as having a “very masculine mind.”
There are some brilliant and even witty moments in this book, naturally, but the plot, if you can say there is one, is very loose and it feels like we aren’t really getting anywhere. That said, if you love long, literary, philosophical Austrian novels, then I recommend this one to you.
+20 Task
+25 Jumbo
+10 Oldie
+10 Awards
+10 Review
+5 Repeat task
+15 Combo 20.10 The Man Without Qualities, 10.3 Man, Côte d’Ivoire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man,_Iv... , 10.9 9 letter word “Q-u-a-l-i-t-i-e-s”
Task total = 95
Season Total= 250 (ps mods--I posted my edits to my other two books in general questions and the post numbers here
ETA subtracting 10 points because I had kept both sets of style points for summer and autumn and so added repeat points on two books where they don't belong, so 240 points
PS thanks, Rebecca, even though I didn't love this, if you weren't egging me on to do even better, I'd have ditched this novel and it really was interesting!
Task 20.5 Singled Out Read a book with a single female as the main character. The woman may be never-married, widowed, abandoned, etc, but should be the main character and obviously head of her own household.
Our heroine has never been married, lives alone, and travels a lot for her consulting business.
Criminal Confections (A Chocolate Whisperer Mystery #1) (2015) by Colette London (Mass Market Paperback, 314 pages)
Review: This is the first book in a series of cozy mysteries. Our heroine, Hayden, is a consultant to chocolate producing firms. She has been invited to a convention of such firms. When someone dies in an unusual manner, Hayden suspects foul play, and engages in amateur sleuthing.
Pros: luscious descriptions of chocolate, and the desserts that can be made from chocolate. (There are recipes in an appendix to the novel.)
Cons: Unlikeable heroine, even more unlikeable men that she interacts with, and a plot that is so implausible, it makes the TV show Murder, She Wrote seem realistic. There is also a love triangle involving Hayden, a mild mannered accountant, and a tattooed heavily muscled ‘bad boy’ type. (I list the 'love triange' as a con because: It is hard for the reader to believe that either one of the men would have any interest in Hayden!)
I’d skip this one – unless you want to read about chocolate!!
+20 Task
+10 Combo (#10.2(#1 of series), #10.9 (11 letter word: Con fec tio ns)
+10 Review
Task Total: 20 + 10 + 10 = 40
Grand Total: 430 + 40 = 470
Karin wrote: "20.8 AutumnThe Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Review
If I were to describe this novel in one word, it would be LONG. If I were to add a second word, it would ..."
You’re welcome! (Smile)
Ps you know we don’t get style points for repeating a task, don’t you?
10.9 9, 10, 11Watchtower by Elizabeth A. Lynn
I enjoyed the book, which read as a stand-alone despite being part of a series, and it was well written with believable characters who were more multi-dimensional than I often see, even when just playing supporting roles. It wasn't fantastical, just set in a completely alternate medievalish universe. While it was about a prince regaining his heritage, it was more about, and from the perspective of, his sworn man facing the changes in the world around him and not knowing how to understand or verbalize or deal with them, but going forward just the same. I found the ending sad, with the losses that were part of it, for all that the protagonists succeeded as expected.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 prize (world fantasy)
+5 oldies(1979)
+5 combo (10.2)
Task total: 35
Grand total: 2230
10.7 Crazy Rich Asians… Or Not!The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
+10 task (born in India)
+5 Combo (10.5, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...)
+5 Jumbo (512 pages)
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 1860
Rebekah wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "20.6 The Stone CarversOn Beauty by Zadie Smith"
This book won 4 awards!"
Thank you, Rebekah! I keep forgetting about that style!
I have edited my post.
Post 635 Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "10.2 NextBone Crossed by Patricia Briggs
Task +10
Grand Total: 105"
Jayme, this has a Penguin entry Bone Crossed - so combo for 10.5. It also has 2 awards, so +10 Prize Worthy.
20.10 Fall EquinoxThe Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter by Rupert Spira
The thrust of this book is that consciousness—or awareness—is everything, and physical matter is (in one sense) an illusion, or something wholly dependent on awareness. So we and our world are like characters in a dream—the world of the dream feels entirely real to the ‘self’ that is in the dream, but our waking self knows that it was only one of many possible dream selves and dream worlds. Time, space, and matter are all constructs within awareness.
I’d never heard of Rupert Spira before coming across this book, but it turns out he lives near me, so I plan to go and hear him speak.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 965
Rebekah wrote: "Karin wrote: "20.8 AutumnThe Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Review
If I were to describe this novel in one word, it would be LONG. If I were to add a second w..."
No, I forgot and was mixing it up with last time I guess.
10.2 Next?The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
I started this on the plane, right after “A Trick of the Light” which wasn’t exactly my reading plan but I had a some time to fill. Life interrupted my reading, so this book too longer to finish than normal. Yet even with the stop/start reading this book is so very compelling. This series is more like a serial (than stand alone mysteries with a continuing character), and demands to be read in order.
This time we are not in familiar Three Pines, instead we are deep in the Quebec forest (of which there is a great deal). Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir have to go to a monastery to solve a murder. It is a little like a locked room mystery. The story of the monks is interesting, the characters realistic, and there are some lighter moments between Gamache and Beauvoir; but there is also evil, and it is malicious. My goodness, the last quarter of this book is gut-wrenching.
My only problem with this series is that all I want to do now is read the next one, and then the next one…… and so on…... 4*
10 task
10 review
10 prize
10 combo 10.5, 10.9
_____
40
Running total: 710
20.10 VowelsAn Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage
This was a clearly written popular history book focused on the effect of food. I'd remembered that corn as we know it was developed by the South Americans and that the shift from hunter/gatherer to agricultural was significant - but this went into a great deal more detail about both of those events. I had not known that it was the import of the potato that helped make the Industrial Revolution possible or about the famines caused by Stalin's cooperative farm policies - including Mao believing the falsified successes and using that information to adopt similar policies in China or or that it was deliberate breeding of new wheat strains, almost all by one man, that had perhaps as much effect as fertilizers on our current larger food supply. I enjoyed the read.
+20 task
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 2260
20.3 Birds Without WingsFrom Russia With Love by Ian Fleming
It took a while to get to Bond in this one, which was odd, but when we did I was amused because Bond was bored and involved in office politics and wondering if he was being too involved because he was bored. We also had a Bond taken aback by seduction being an official part of his mission and, later, disturbed by being adjacent to a cold assassination instead of a confrontational fight, neither of which I would really have expected from my general memory of the movies.
The front part, the part before Bond, was still interesting to read. It still pulled you in with how Fleming set up the situations and described them. And I'm not sure how else he could have built up the plot of being about discrediting Bond, of having the tension throughout of even if Bond succeeds at what he thinks he is doing will he really fail in the end.
task = 20
review=10
combo= 25 (10.2;10.3; 10.5-MPE above published by Penguin; 20.8-pub.-1957; 20.10)
oldie=5 (1957)
Task total: 60
Grand total: 2320
15.10 AbBYChronological, 1956-1960
March Violets by Philip Kerr (b. 1956)
+60 Task
+100 AbBY Finish
Season total = 940
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "15.10 AbBYChronological, 1956-1960
March Violets by Philip Kerr (b. 1956)
+60 Task
+100 AbBY Finish
Season total = 940"
Congrats on your finish!
15.1 AbBYDate Range 1921-1925
A Hero Born (Legends of the Condor Heroes #1) by Jin Yong
+15 Task (author born 1924)
Note: I'll be skipping the next Date Range 1926-1930
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 805
15.2 AbBY (chronologically)Date Range 1931-1935
The Master Key by Masako Togawa
+20 Task (author born 1933)
Note: I skipped Date Range 1926-1930
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 825
From Post 631Jenifer wrote: "10.5 Pet Day
The Witch Elm by Tana French
published by Penguin Audiobooks
Task total: 10
Grand Total: 785"
+5 Jumbo (the MPE is the Hardcover listed at 509 pages)
From Post 402Ann wrote: "10.1 Favorite List
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
#29 in the list from post 454 in summer challenge:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1......"
+5 Prize-worthy
From Post 648Anika wrote: "20.8 Autumn
The 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 ..."
+5 Prize-worthy
From Post 657Deedee wrote: "Task 20.7 A Month in the Country
Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976) by James Tiptree Jr. (Hardcover, Science Fiction Book Club, 150 pages)
This is the MPE version..."
+10 Prize-worthy
Anika wrote: "Mods: is that an acceptable combo, even though the "place" name isn't used as place in the title?"While several of the claims made for combos with task 10.3 this week do not fit the spirit of the original task, the wording of the task has left a wide interpretation. I can appreciate the creativity and research that has gone into these claims. I will be accepting these claims this season, but beware of more specifically worded tasks in the future. ;)
15.7 AbBY Chronological
1890-94
In My Father's House by Corrie ten Boom (born 1892)
Task total: 30
Season total: 305
1890-94
In My Father's House by Corrie ten Boom (born 1892)
Task total: 30
Season total: 305
10.2 Next?
The Fourth Horseman by Sarah Woodbury
Task total: 10 (Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries #3)
Season total: 315
The Fourth Horseman by Sarah Woodbury
Task total: 10 (Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries #3)
Season total: 315
Seeing the mod response in post #689 that the 10.3 task can apply to name of a place although the place name is not used as a place in the title, I found place names for words in all five of my titles and posted the details in the task thread. Will edit my points after approval.
15.6 AbBY Chronological 1964-1968
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard (born 1968)
+30 task
Season total: 355
10.9 9, 10, 11The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
I quite enjoyed this inside look at the running of the White House—I especially liked the fact that it was (mostly) fair to both Democratic and Republican presidential families. It didn’t so much dish on the families as it shared amusing anecdotes which were mostly harmless (Johnson’s demanding a shower strong enough to knock him against the wall; JFK’s penchant for swimming naked; Chelsea Clinton learning to cook from the White House chef so she’d have the skills to feed herself when she went to college; Amy Carter roller skating around the residence). It also addressed situations that effected the entire nation—JFK’s assassination, Nixon’s resignation, the Clinton impeachment, and 9/11– from a very unique perspective. It was a quick, interesting read. 3 stars.
+10 Task (“residence”=9 letters)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.3–White House)
Task total: 25
Season total: 2390
10.8 Cli FiVoices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich
I’m glad I read this one *after* having read The Unwomanly Face of War...it was interesting to see the overlap in the narratives. I love her style of writing—I know it’s her compiling and editing other’s words, but what she is able to extract from people is stunning.
“[We] always lived in terror, we know how to live in terror, it’s our natural habitat. In this our people have no peers.” Truer words were never spoken! The fear of your government and the Gulag, the fear of the German enemy in WWII, to the fear of contamination from the meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, those poor people never catch a break. I’m absolutely awed by the grace with which they talk about the horrific things they went through, the homes they lost, the family members they watched die unspeakable deaths, the poor pets who were hunted down and destroyed....and everything was so beautiful—the trees, flowers, everything seemed fine but no one understood that radiation was raining down on the land or what that even meant.
The part that was hardest for me to read was how much Moscow knew, yet they willfully and consistently lied to the people, saying everything was just fine...
I think I have a new favorite non-fiction writer...just wish more of her books were translated and available!
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Prizeworthy
+25 Combo (10.2; 10.3; 10.5–https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... ; 10.9–“Chernobyl”=9 letters; 20.2)
Task total: 65
Season total: 2455
(That completes my second RwS Finish! Yay! Goal completed....now to see if I can finish a second AbBY before the month is out.)
15.3 AbBY (chronologically)Date Range 1936 - 1940
No One to Trust by Iris Johansen
+20 Task (author born 1938; wikipedia)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 845
In post 448, I claimed Heat and Dust for task 20.4. Please may I change it to task 20.7. I don't think this will affect my points total at all.Many thanks.
20.4 BirdsongThe Overstory by Richard Powers
+20 Task
+15 Combo (10.8, 10.9 Overstory, 20.6 Shortlisted 2018)
+5 Jumbo (502pp)
Points this post: 40
RwS total: 275
AbBY total: -
Season Total: 275
20.5 Singled OutA Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.9 Half-formed)
+15 Prize-worthy (Desmond Elliott Prize 2014, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize 2013, Women's Prize for Fiction 2014)
Points this post: 40
RwS total: 315
AbBY total: -
Season Total: 315
15.10 - AbBYDate Range 1971 - 1975
Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter
+60 (author born 1971)
+100 Completion Bonus
Task total: 160
Grand total: 765
20.10 Fall EquinoxThe Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss
+20 task
+10 Combo (10.9, 20.5)
+5 Prizeworthy
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 1895
15.4 AbBY (chronologically)Date Range 1941-1945
Princess Bari by Hwang Sok-yong
+20 Task (author born 1943)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 865
15.6 AbBY, Chronological 1905-1909Selected Poems by Theodore Roethke (born 1908)
+30 Task
Task total: 30
Season total: 2485
20.10 Fall EquinoxThe Sins of Jack Saul: The True Story of Dublin Jack and the Cleveland Street Scandal by Glenn Chandler
This is the story of a real 19th-century Irish male prostitute who worked in London and gave evidence at the time of the infamous Cleveland Street trials. The house in Cleveland Street, London, was a notorious male brothel. The resulting publicity and court case gave rise to a culture of prosecuting gay men rather than pretending they didn't exist, which led to Oscar Wilde's trial 6 years later, but was arguably better for gay rights in the long term, as it at least offered recognition.
Jack with his Dublin roots is winningly portrayed, but it's very hard to know where fact ends and fiction takes over. This isn't a totally fictionalised story - there's no dialogue, for example - but we read things like "Jack laid down his pen and took great satisfaction in that part of his recollections", which the author cannot possibly know. Also I wasn’t convinced that Jack actually wrote “Sins of the Cities and the Plain” rather than just allowing someone to use his name (or perhaps not even knowing that his name was used).
I’d have appreciated more clarity on what was research and what was the author's imagination, but it was still an interesting story.
+20 Task
+10 (10.3 Dublin, 10.9 Cleveland)
+10 Review
Task Total: 40
Season Total: 1005
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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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Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Nikki has disappointed her family--not only has she dropped out of law school, she's moved into her own apartment--which happens to be above the bar that (unbeknownst to her parents) she works in--and she has no prospects for marriage. Her sister, on the other hand, is ready to get married and asks her sister to post her personal ad at a Sikh temple in the Punjabi neighborhood of Southall in London. After begrudgingly posting her sister's personal, she sees a listing for a teaching position--to teach writing to the Sikh women of the community. Nikki needs to increase her income (her father has recently and unexpectedly passed away and now her mother is struggling to make ends meet) and decides to apply.
What follows is a little bit romance, a little bit mystery, surprisingly erotic (I thought the title was being a little facetious--NOPE!), and a whole lot of fun. This was the perfect audiobook to listen to while painting my room (every time I see the new color, I'm going to think of this book and blush a little bit).
+20 Task (Nikki is the main character, single never married, head of household)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.5--https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ; 10.7--author born in Singapore; 20.10--erotIc storiEs fOr pUnjAbi widows)
Task total: 45
Season total: 2365