Reading with Style discussion
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FA 19 Completed Tasks
20.6 Monster ReduxThe White Devil by John Webster
This play was published during William Shakespeare's lifetime but seems so much older. Perhaps it is because Shakespeare has entered the public psyche... but this less popular play seems so much more archaic and difficult for the modern reader. I read a copy that was annotated...and most of the annotations were not helpful. At times, I had to reference the Wikipedia page to make sure I understood what was happening in the play.
Anyway...a dark tale of courtly intrigue, adultery and murder. Most of the allusions would have been over my head but for the annotations... and even then I would just shrug my shoulders. One of the notes informed the reader that the author's reference to "winter plums" had no known significance. Well...thanks for that insight...I guess.
Two stars
Task=20
Review=10
Combo=5 (20.2)
NaN=10
Oldie=25 (1612)
Task Total= 70
Grand Total=910
Tasks Completed: 28
10.1 (40); 10.2(30); 10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.5 (30); 10.6 (30); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35); 10.9 (40); 10.10 (35)
15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20); 15.6(C4)(20); 15.7(D6)(20); 15.8 (E5)(20); 15.9 (30)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.3 (35); 20.4 (50); 20.5 (40); 20.6 (70); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45); 20.9 (40)
20.4 BoomerThe Dutch House by Ann Patchett
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo: 20.5 Non-Linear
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 905
15.3 PnM2E1 Title contains the name of a person
Joe Hill: A Biographical Novel by Wallace Stegner
+15
Season total: 130
20.9 Shipwrecked!In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
Finally…. I’ve finished this. I’ve had it out (from the library) for quite a while and it has been a slow read. Once I got to the part where the whale destroys the ship and the whalers are shipwrecked I found the book much more interesting. I think I just had such a bad attitude about whalers that I couldn’t generate any interest in the back story. However, I will say Philbrick has done an excellent job of researching and telling this story. The history of Nantucket was nicely summarized (even if only moderately interesting to me) as well as the workings of a whale ship. I really appreciated Philbrick’s approach to the whale attack (bringing in behavioural science) and the analysis of how the whaler’s of this time affected the population and size of sperm whales. I also found the relatively in-depth research Philbrick shared on starvation (and dehydration) to be quite interesting and added a lot to the narrative. I was surprised to learn how common cannibalism apparently was/is (in these type of situations). Overall, I’m glad I’ve read this and now am definite in my decision not to read Moby Dick. 3.5*
20 task
10 not a novel
10 review
15 combo 20.4, 20.5, 20.8 (Np Neptunium)
_______
55
Running total: 805
20.3 AuthorBrain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain–for Life (2015) by David Perlmutter, 320 pages.
+ 20 Task (author born December 31, 1954 according to his Goodreads author page)
+ 5 Combo A,I, E, U
+ 10 not-a novel
+ 10 review
Task 45 point
Season total 245
David Perlmutter is a doctor who seeks to look at his patient holistically. He discusses the complex human system. In fighting a particular ailment using the "germ mindset" - kill the invading bacteria or fight the virus - medicine will often create other problems. In particular, Dr. Perlmutter looks at diet and the intestinal biome to support health. The bacteria in the human digestive system is thought to effect health in a myriad of ways throughout the body. This book focuses on the role of probiotic pills or food sources and prebiotic supporting foods as a way that the average person can correct imbalances that may be effecting his or her personal health. We have probably all heard that it is important to eat yogurt after being prescribed a course of antibiotics. The book starts at this simple point but then expands beyond that. There are copious references to studies and some anecdotal evidence to bolster his professional opinions.
Good - probiotic foods, whole fresh foods, tea, coffee, chocolate....
Bad - antibiotics when overused, harmful pesticides, high carb diets, high fructose corn syrup...
It was worth reading. I went out and bought yogurt
PS> I just read the Goodreads profile on Dr. Perlmutter's author page. It is quite a hatchet job. The profile tries to completely discredit him. As a person who has fought against diabetes for 25 years now, most of what he said fell in line with what other doctors have told me. His emphasis on probiotics was new. I do not have experience with some of the other diseases he mentioned though: Turret's Syndrome, Alzheimer's, autism, celiac disease, etc.
20.5 Non-LinearAfter the Flood by Kassandra Montag
This was the group read of the month for my local library. I'd never heard of it before it was chosen and it was kind of a fluke that I actually read it, but once I started I couldn't put it down.
I don't know why I love post-apocalyptic novels so much. I think it's a form of theoretical preparation, perhaps? After having read We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast recently, I'm even more convinced that something terrible is altogether possible/probable in my lifetime (I sound kinda crazy? like a prepper? I don't know...maybe I am. I think it mostly manifests solely in my head and my book reviews--and my food storage :-P don't judge).
This one is set in a world where everything--except the tops of mountains which have now essentially become island chains--is under water. There are a few settlements and trading posts, lots of people on ships, and terrifying bands of pirates.
Myra was pregnant with her second child, living in Nebraska with her mother, grandmother, husband and daughter when the floods hit. Her husband kidnaps her daughter and disappears. The floods swallow up her mother. Her grandfather finishes building a ship for them just in time...Myra gives birth to Pearl and they have to move onto the boat as the water levels keep rising. As long as she has her grandfather, she thinks, she and Pearl will be okay. Until Grandpa dies. All of this comes out in the first few pages, so these aren't really spoilers...but I also don't want to end up giving anything else away so I'll just say that there are a few crucial shipwrecks, fear, terror, hope, and a sweet/sassy six-year-old who loves snakes. While there were a few times where I felt the author was not being true to a character or something rang false, the story was so intense it was easy enough to overlook. It's all plot, but sometimes that's just what a girl is looking for.
+20 Task (narrative switches between before and after the flood)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8; 20.9)
Task total: 40
Season total: 1550
15.8 PnM2 (Round 3)C5 - Unreliable Narrator
The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2) by N.K. Jemisin
approval
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 1,020
15.8 PnM2 Round 2 D1The Outside by Ada Hoffmann
+20 Task (science fiction)
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 790
15.9 PnM2 Round 2 C4Vigilance by Robert Jackson Bennett
+30 Task (third person narrator)
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 820
10.3 Andre GideThe Sundowners by Jon Cleary
+10 Task
+5 Combo (10.7 - O E A Y)
+5 Oldies (pub. 1952)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 1,040
20.5 Non-LinearMaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
+20 task
+5 Combo (20.7 - 187 times)
Task total = 25
Points total = 75
Post 492 Lara wrote: "This is my first time participating. So I hope I do this correctly.20.3 Author
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
This is a beautiful book with both uplifting and depressing stories, rich character d..."
Hi Lara, and again, welcome! Your post looks fine. However, I don't see that this has been shelved as speculative fiction at least 15 times for it to qualify for 20.7.
20.7 Spec FicThe Time Machine by H.G. Wells
I'd long neglected reading this classic, mostly because I thought I knew enough about it through cultural osmosis: time travel, pretty Eloi, blind Morlocks, leisure class lol, the rise of the underground, soylent green is people, etc., etc. But that was my loss, because I enjoyed reading this a lot. (Actually, I also found it frightening and had a bad dream about it. But it was a good book!)
I didn't expect this to be, essentially, a framed narrative, and I really enjoyed that aspect, that we get a condensed account of all the significant elements of the Time Traveler's adventure, and that he explains his thought processes in an appealing way, so that we could understand how he misunderstood and then understood the culture he'd found himself stranded in. I also found it pretty interesting to look at Victorian ideas of evolution and sociological development, and how Wells built an idea of the future from there. At a sentence level, this was also a great pleasure to read; Wells' physical description of time traveling in particular was both clear and beautifully described.
+20 Task -- shelved as "speculative fiction" 151 times
+5 Combo (20.5 non-linear; a couple chapters into the narrative, the time traveler travels far forward in time, but then returns to the contemporary-set story and narrates what happened in the future to the contemporary audience)
+10 Review
+10 Oldies -- published 1895
Post Total: 45
Season Total: 675
20.5 Non-Linear Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBT Rights Uprising that Changed America by Martin Duberman
This book took me forever but was well worth it. I actually started thinking about tracking it down over the summer in honor of the actual Stonewall anniversary, and it just never happened. I'm so glad I got to it in the end! Martin Duberman is one of the premier LGBT historians out there and this is really a great piece of history and a great piece of writing. He tells the story leading up to, during, and after the Stonewall riots in 1969, through six different people who were involved in various ways (some not heavily involved but important to add dimension to the story). We learn about their childhood and early adulthood, as a way to learn about various kinds of LGBT experiences pre-Stonewall, and we learn about the actual riot, and then the aftermath. What struck me most was hearing in more personal detail about some of the police harassment tactics -- I knew the facts but not the impact on real people -- and then, because I'm really interested in organizational politics, it was interesting to read about the internal conflicts between different groups and people as they battled about the best way to effect change.
+20 task (told from multiple POV, overlapping timelines, not always a forward progression in time)
+10 combo (10.7, 20.8 - Mendelvium Md)
+10 not-a-novel (nonfiction)
+10 review
Task Total: 50
Season Total: 230
Post 509 Lynn wrote: "20.3 AuthorBrain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain–for Life (2015) by David Perlmutter, 320 pages.
+ 20 Task (author born December 3..."
I think you meant 20.4 Boomer, and we'll score it as such. Let us know if you meant something else.
15.10-B1B. Publication Date (original publication date):
1. 2001 or later
The Complete Tilling Tales: Mapp and Lucia Short Stories by Geoff Martin
pub. 2016
Task=30
Completion Bonus=100
Task Total= 130
Grand Total=1040
Tasks Completed: 29
10.1 (40); 10.2(30); 10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.5 (30); 10.6 (30); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35); 10.9 (40); 10.10 (35)
✔15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20); 15.6(C4)(20); 15.7(D6)(20); 15.8 (E5)(20); 15.9(C3)(30); 15.10 (B1)(130)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.3 (35); 20.4 (50); 20.5 (40); 20.6 (70); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45); 20.9 (40)
20.1 InauguralThe Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
+20 Task (long-listed 2015)
+15 Combo (10.8, 20.2-16th century, 20.5)
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 855
10.7 A, E, I, O, U, sometimes YGirl with Green Eyes by Edna O'Brien
I read the first book in this trilogy so long ago that I can't remember anything about it. But in this second book, the "country girls" Caithleen/Kate and Baba have left their homes for the big city of Dublin, where Kate becomes involved with a struggling film director who is neither Catholic nor single, which brings her father storming to the city with friends and guns.
Kate is so passive I wanted to shake her, but where the novel really shines is in the realism of her voice with its simple syntax that hops from one telling detail to the next. It's also a wonderful commentary on the position of independent-minded young women in the not-yet-liberated late 1950s.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+ 5 Oldies (1962)
Post total: 25
Season Total: 545
20.4 BoomerOnly You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett
I chose to read this because it ticked off another notch on the 1000 Children's Books You Should Read Before You Die List and because it satisfied a Pop Sugar prompt to read a LitRPG book. That was a new genre for me...Literary Role Playing Game.
Not really my thing...but I didn't hate the book. Basically a young teen boy finds himself interacting with aliens in one of his games. Rather than return fire, the aliens surrender to him. That was unique...and the boy tries to figure out what to do. He gets some help from a neighbor girl who is also a pro at game playing...and she reluctantly agrees to help the boy guide the aliens with safe passage to their home planet...but not before they find themselves on the aliens' spaceship.
The author has a preface that indicates the book was written during the onset of the second Gulf War... and the novel serves as a reminder that game playing can...but should not get blurred with reality- that war is all too real.
2 stars
Task=20
Review=10
Oldie=5 (1992)
Task Total= 35
Grand Total=1075
Tasks Completed: 30
10.1 (40); 10.2(30); 10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.5 (30); 10.6 (30); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35); 10.9 (40); 10.10 (35)
✔15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20); 15.6(C4)(20); 15.7(D6)(20); 15.8 (E5)(20); 15.9(C3)(30); 15.10 (B1)(130)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.3 (35); 20.4 (50); 20.4(2x)(35); 20.5 (40); 20.6 (70); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45); 20.9 (40)
Post 516 Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Hi Lara, and again, welcome! Your post looks fine. However, I don't see that this has been shelved as speculative fiction at least 15 times for it to qualify for 20.7...."Oh, I put the wrong task number. I'm sorry. It should be:
20 - Task 20.3 Author
20 - Combo
- 10.2: Shelved as "books-about-books" 64 times
- 10.3: Title is "The ____"
- 10.7: Name includes 4 vowels (kAthrYn stOckEtt)
- 20.5: Non-linear (regular flashbacks to the past)
10 - Review
Task total = 50
Season total = 50
20.4 BoomerThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
20 - Task 20.4 (b.1960)
15 - Combo
- 10.2: Shelved as "Books-about-books" 16 times
- 20.5: Non-linear (dual-timeline, past and present)
- 20.7: Shelved as "Speculative-fiction" 161 times
10 - Review
Task total: 45
Season total: 95
20.4 BoomerThe Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
20 - Task 20.4 Boomer (b. 1963)
5 - Combo (10.3: Title is "The ___")
5 - Jumbo (771 pp)
10 - Review
Task total: 40
Season total: 135
Lara, could you copy/paste your review to be included with your post? I know it looks like it takes up space, but we like to see it here in the thread.
10.8 Double OThe Ghosts of Lookout Mountain by Larry Hillhouse
+10 pts -Task
+10 pts - Not a Novel
+10 Pts - Combo (10.7,20.6)
Task Total - 25 pts
Season Total - 400 pts
20.8 Periodic TableLeading With Emotional Courage: How to Have Hard Conversations, Create Accountability, And Inspire Action On Your Most Important Work by Peter Bregman
20 pts 20.8 Pb = Lead
10 Not a Novel
10 pts Review
Management book that focusses on how senior leadership should act to effectively motivate and lead teams. Some very good nuggets are scattered through the book including the importance of deciding the overall most important goal for your organization and advocating a ruthless approach to de prioritizing any activity that can be done by someone else or which does not align with that goal.
Interesting focus on the guts it takes to make hard decisions and how to do that in real life.
Unfortunately the writing style tends to bury the key points. While applicable examples are given they tend to break up the narrative and get in the way of the key messages
Task total 40 pts
Season Total 555 pts
10.1 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.7
20.4 20.5 20.8
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9
10.7 A, E, I, O, U + YPierre et Jean by Guy de Maupassant
This is my first Guy de Maupassant novel. I knew nothing about his style, so was a little hesitant. However, I particularly appreciate his writing and am looking forward to reading more of his work. He writes in a ‘naturalistic’ way and I think Wikipedia sums it up nicely with this quote “his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouements”. I find it very interesting that he was producing work like this while, in England, Henry James was using every word he could think of to express one tiny idea!
This novel is about a short period of time in a family’s life when an unexpected event causes a complete change (and rift) in the family dynamic. Even though the novel is short you feel like you get to know the characters reasonably well. The situation seems to be a little melodramatic (although de Maupassant never gets carried away with that), but it is one that anyone can see would have unimagined consequences. I found Pierre to be very self-absorbed and small minded; although really both brothers (Pierre and Jean) were spoiled and entitled. As I was reading I really couldn’t imagine how de Maupassant was going to wrap up his story, but when we got there it was the most appropriate ending. 4*
10 task
10 review
10 oldie
_____
30
Running total: 835
10.4 ReplayUsing Task 10.7 Summer Shorts
So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ - 90 pages
Ramatoulaye is a middle-aged, educated, Senegalese wife who has been deserted by her husband for a younger second wife and then widowed. This is her letter to her best friend, long because she is secluded in a 40-day mourning period, explaining all that has happened.
A classic of African feminist writing, this is a window into a world far from my own, but easy to identify with. I didn’t know until I read this that Senegal is a Muslim country, and women’s rights there are tied up with Islamic tradition. This was first published in 1981, so probably things have changed – for the better, I hope.
and
Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal- 85 pages
Miloš is a young trainee railway station worker in a sleepy country town in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in early 1945. He's just returned to work after an absence which I won't explain for fear of spoiling, to be welcomed by his two colleagues, a pigeon-fancying stationmaster and a womanising despatcher. With all his anxieties, he's not a natural hero, but these are turbulent times...
I loved this bittersweet novella. Hrabal has a gentle touch with his characters. There's a lot of humour in it – Miloš’s approach to the stationmaster’s wife is a high point – and some pathos, and some horror, too.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+ 5 Combo (20.5, both books are non-linear)
+ 5 Oldies (1981 & 1965)
Post total: 30
Season Total: 575
10.2 Book Lover's DayA Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé
"A Novel Bookstore" is a beautiful tribute to fine literature. Bookseller Ivan and heiress Francesca open a bookstore in Paris that sells only good literature chosen by a secret committee of eight novelists. The store with its high quality books and comfy couches is very successful at first. But then the bookstore comes under attack online and in other media by what seems to be an organized group determined to stop a new trend quickly. Is it a publisher, a writer, or a prize judge whose books have not been chosen? Publishing is a big business dependent on selling the newest books, and there are lots of people earning a paycheck from the industry. Some thugs physically attack people associated with the bookstore. An investigator is brought in, although there is no tidy ending to the mystery.
The best parts of the book were about the relationships of the main characters as friends and romantic partners, the authors in the secret committee, and the booksellers' deep love of literature. Francesca published a letter written from the heart about her love of good books. I found myself rereading it several times since it expresses the feelings of a true bibliophile, and included a small portion of it.
"We want books that cost their authors a great deal, books where you can feel the years of work, the backache, the writer's block, the author's panic at the thought that he might be lost: his discouragement, his courage, his anguish, his stubbornness, the risk of failure he has taken.
We want splendid books, books that immerse us in the splendor of reality and keep us there; books that prove to us that love is at work in the world next to evil, right up against it, at times indistinctly, and that it always will be, just the way that suffering will always ravage hearts. We want good novels."
+10 task (shelved 183X as books about books)
+20 combo 10.7 AEOU, 10.8 Double O, 20.4 (born 1950), 20.5 non-linear
+10 review
Task total: 40
Season total: 620
From Post 94Beth wrote: "10.10
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
I read this book around when the movie came out, at the end of high school/beginning of college, although it was only a f..."
+5 Combo 20.8
From Post 273Lynn wrote: "10.10 Group Reads
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Thank you Tien for choosing this book. I have had Interview with the Vampire in my Kindle library..."
+5 Combo 20.8
From Post 411June wrote: "20.4- Boomer
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
Task: 20
Combo: 10 ( 10.7- UIAE, 20.5)
Not a novel: 10
Oldies: 5- first published in 1991
Post to..."
Sorry, June, I show this as a novel, so it does not work for Not a Novel points.
From Post 431Ed wrote: "10.9 Science! (Mary's Task)
(Set almost exclusively in Cameroon)
A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell
I've watched a few of the PBS episodes of The Durrells and enjoy..."
+5 Combo 20.8
From Post 447Penny wrote: " 20.5 Non Linear
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
+20 Task
Task Total = 20
Season Total = 150"
+5 Jumbo
20.7 Spec FicArtemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
This is another book I wouldn't normally read...but I get to tick off a Pop Sugar challenge to read a book that was becoming a movie in 2019. Also...it is another notch on the 1000 Books You Should Read Before You Grow Up List.
Similarly to the last book I read, Only You Can Save Mankind , also a young adult fantasy novel... I didn't hate it...even though the reader is presented with characters who are fairies, centaurs, leprechauns, trolls and such. I appreciated the author's clever humor.
The story basically involves a human 12 year-old boy who develops a devious plan to steal fairy gold. The fairies fight back harder than one might expect...and along the way, the reader learns something about the codified fairy rules of their powers.
2 stars.
Task=20
Review=10
Task Total= 30
Grand Total=1110
Tasks Completed: 31
10.1 (40); 10.2(30); 10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.5 (30); 10.6 (30); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35); 10.9 (40); 10.10 (35)
✔15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20); 15.6(C4)(20); 15.7(D6)(20); 15.8 (E5)(20); 15.9(C3)(30); 15.10 (B1)(130)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.3 (35); 20.4 (50); 20.4(2x)(35); 20.5 (45); 20.6 (70); 20.7 (35);20.7(2x)(30); 20.8 (45); 20.9 (40)
15.10 A1. Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
+30 Task (Canada, USA, Mexico, and the Caribbean: Denver, CO, USA)
Task Total: 30
PnM Finish: 100
Season Total: 1035
10.8 Double O (Ed's Task)His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet
+10 Task
+10 Combo: 10.1 Sub Sandwich / 20.1 Inaugural
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 1055
20.4 BoomerPublic Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith
This is an evocative, imaginative, and often playful set of short stories about reading and books, words and language, and the lives and biographies of poets and writers. Additionally, there are brief interstitial pieces in which Smith relays the responses of other people (friends and strangers alike) to her query into their thoughts on public libraries. These are memories, remembrances, elegies, and opinions on the democratic, community-building ideal of a public library. (My favorite was Helen Oyeyemi's description of encountering the interlinked layers of her regional libraries growing up; it was very Helen Oyeyemi-esque, revealing the hidden layer of magic in something so seemingly ordinary.)
The theme here is that what we get from reading is a borrowed glimpse into the life of others, and that the connective act that is carrying pieces of the lives of others (strangers included) can be a practice of love. I really enjoyed this collection, and I continue to be eager to read more short fiction by Smith.
+20 Task -- born 1962
+10 Combo (10.2 shelved 57 times; 20.8 As = Arsenic)
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
Post Total: 50
Season Total: 725
15.7 PicknMix2E6 - Title contains a Q, X or Z
The Witch of Exmoor by Margaret Drabble
+20 Task
Season total = 180
20.7 Spec FicRed Rising by Pierce Brown
This is The Hunger Games meets Ender's Game with a little Percy Jackson and a bit of Divergent thrown in for good measure...
Darrow is a Red--the people who spend their lives making Mars livable for future generations, the lowest caste in this color-coded world...only they don't realize that the surface of Mars is already livable, complete with animals and plants and stars and sky, and they are just the grunts who are churning out materials to make that life possible for the Golds.
Darrow becomes the chosen one to break the chains of the oppressed and overthrow the tyranny that has been crushing the lives and hopes of all of his family and friends.
Even though it sometimes feels derivative (view spoiler), it was an interesting enough world and I always love a good political overthrow story (whether it be fic or non). It was a 3.5 for me, rounded up to 4.
+20 Task (shelved as spec fic by 71 readers)
+10 Review
+5 Combo, 20.8 Pb=Lead
Task total: 35
Season total: 1585
10.3 Andre GideThe Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Let's get the obvious out of the way first. This book wasn't necessary. The Handmaid's Tale stands alone as a masterful tale and doesn't need a follow up. This book is in no way necessary.
But it's so timely. Now that The Handmaid's Tale feels closer to reality than ever and almost like fortune telling for a book over thirty years old, everyone wanted to revisit Gilead. We wanted a hero to root for. We wanted some hope. And this book provides that. I wanted more delving into women's complicated relationships. There are hints of this as we learn more about the interior workings of the The Aunts, but nothing like what I've come to love from Atwood classics like
Cat's Eye.
The readers for the audiobook did an excellent job with the narration. I recommend this as an audiobook. Though, if you haven't listened to Claire Danes narrate The Handmaid's Tale, you might do that first because I really enjoyed revisiting the classic in audio format.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo (20.1, 10.7, 20.5)
Task total: 35
Grand total: 275
10.7 A, E, I, O, U and sometimes YA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin
I had in my head that these were short stories about lots of different pre-Game of Thrones things, but this is actually three novellas about the same character stapled into a single volume.
The three stories trace the travels of Ser Duncan the Tall--aka Dunc the Lunk, thick as a castle wall. Dunc is an unlikely knight. He's really just a ruffian who was taken in by a minor knight and knighted by that guy when the guy was dying. So he's had some training as a knight, but no real resources. Really, his primary defining trait is that he's just shy of seven feet tall. Sort of unbelievably, he manages to hook up with the King's youngest son, who convinces Dunc to take him along as his squire. Thus begin the travels of Dunc and Egg.
I have read the first three of the Game of Thrones book, so I have passing familiarity with Martin's world and some of the kings and players here, but that isn't necessary to understand these stories. This is more King Arthur than dragons and Winter is Coming.
I found the narrator's accent just a tad grating and the narration volume was inconsistent on the version that I listened to, which meant that on some of my devices it was hard to hear, but not always. Probably I'd pick this up in print if I had a choice.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not a novel (three novellas)
+5 Combo (20.4 - b. 1948)
Task total: 35
Grand total: 310
20.6 Monster ReduxThe Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks by Max Brooks
Meh. This was only okay, probably because I'm not a hard-core zombie person. I enjoyed World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and someone gave me a copy of this around the time that I read that in 2011. It's been sitting on my kindle shelf for the last 8 years, and I only now decided to pick it up because there was a zombie task for my reading group.
The book is a little bit repetitive and goes into excruciating but well-thought out detail of what you would do if there were a real life zombie attack. And it thinks carefully through the details of the zombies involved--here, caused by a virus, not smart but strong and hard to kill (nb. but can be killed by a headshot), heightened senses, etc. etc.
As I was reading, I kept thinking about how this also somewhat works as a survival guide for what to do in the much more likely and chilling scenario of major climate change disaster such that the country is overrun by climate refugees and our general social systems and police are incapable of managing the brave new world. Things like, what is your retreat plan, what is your training, what is your armory, how have you prepared, etc.
I most enjoyed the section that purported to be a history of all past zombie attacks. This was the more WWZ portion of the book and read more as storytelling than manual.
Recommended only for those who really like zombies.
+20 Task (zombie)
+10 Review
+10 Not a novel
Task total: 40
Grand total: 350
15.7 PnM2E2 - Title contains a numberThree Women by Lisa Taddeo
+20 Task
Task total: 20
Grand total: 370
20.2 Wolf HallThe City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella
I chose this short book because it is on the Western Canon. As a teenager, I remember reading Thomas More's Utopia and enjoying it. This book is also about a Utopian society...but seems so much less insightful to me. Perhaps that difference is due to the 40 odd years that have intervened.
Here a sea captain tells a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller about a strange place he has found...the city in the title.
Nevermind the problems I have with the philosophical points made, I just found it difficult to deal with so many incongruities. Equality is a virtue of the town...and yet women who wear makeup or high boots are condemned to death. Wisdom is deeply revered... but individuals can not use their wisdom necessarily to choose their own life partners. At one point, the author indicates that the citizens of the city are so fortified and prepared and wealthy...that there is no need for war. But then there is another section all about the citizens practices in war. There is adherence to Christianity of course...but then a favorable bow to astrology. These are just a few examples of flaws I detected.
We have enough problems dealing with our all too real democracy.... I don't need to consider life under this supposed utopian theocracy.
One star.
Task=20
Review=10
Combo=5 (20.8)
Oldie= 20 (1623)
Task Total= 55
Grand Total=1165
Tasks Completed: 29
Books read=32
✔10.1 (40); 10.2(30); 10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.5 (30); 10.6 (30); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35); 10.9 (40); 10.10 (35)
✔15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20); 15.6(C4)(20); 15.7(D6)(20); 15.8 (E5)(20); 15.9(C3)(30); 15.10 (B1)(130)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.2 (2x)(55); 20.3 (35); 20.4 (50); 20.4(2x)(35); 20.5 (45); 20.6 (70); 20.7 (35);20.7(2x)(30); 20.8 (45); 20.9 (40)
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Reading with Style
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Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Penelope Lively (other topics)Tom Wolfe (other topics)
Mitchell Zuckoff (other topics)
Joseph Kesselring (other topics)
Mitchell Zuckoff (other topics)
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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 20.5 Non-Linear
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 880