Reading with Style discussion
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FA 19 Completed Tasks
15.1 PnM2 (Round 2)B4 - pub 1882
An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
+15 Task
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 475
15.2 PnM2 (Round 2)D3 - MPG: short stories
Astray by Emma Donoghue
+15 Task
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 490
15.4 PnM2 -D4D. Genre - 4. non-fiction, biography, autobiography, memoir
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog
Task=15
Task Total= 15
Grand Total=315
Tasks Completed: 11
10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35)
15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15)
20.1 (35); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45)
15.1 PnM2 E1: Title contains the name of a personThe Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan
(John Warlow is the subject of the experiment)
Task total: 15
Season total: 85
20.5 Non-linearPriestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood
Five stars.
This is by far the funniest book I’ve ever read. Probably because I can relate. Oh god, can I relate.
My dad is not a priest, but for a moment he was a seminarian. And my childhood was VERY CATHOLIC, though the social-justice god-is-love type. Our Church replaced the giant crucified Jesus behind the altar with a blissed-out levitating risen one ...but you can’t just throw away the tortured Jesus so he went in the back stairwell of the school. It was HUGE and horrifying and also hilarious because we’d all high-five his toes when we walked by...
So there is a warped sense of humor that the author and I share.
I had 3 colors of highlighting going on for this book: laugh-out-loud, dark truth, and that-explains-a-lot. A note on the dark truths... when you grow up around a lot of Catholic priests, you will encounter some VERY BAD MEN. And there will also be so much normalized misogyny. When these things affected her, the author writes about it. However, those men did not prey on her, so going deep into that travesty is not her story to tell.
Also, there are dark things that did happen to her. She tells those stories. However, despite the pain and the scars those things left, there is a kindness in her telling. Read it and you will understand what I mean.
While the very devout might take offense to this book, it is written with kindness and love. There is truly nothing mean-spirited about any of it. What Lockwood writes, the fun she pokes, it’s all very very true.
I told my mother about it and she got a wicked glint in here eye and said she wanted to read it. I so often forget that my mom is where I get my sense of naughtiness. And when I read the last chapter, well I immediately ran out and bought a print copy for her. Turns out, this book is a love letter to a certain type of Irish Catholic mother.
Task total: 20
Not a novel: 10
Review: 10
Task total: 40
Season total: 125
10.6 WWIILife After Life by Kate Atkinson
What a great premise for a book – reliving your life until you ‘got it right’. Everyone else in your life stays the same throughout your various incarnations but you make different decisions that, of course, change the course of your history. As well, there may be an opportunity for you to change the course of world history since you know what direction events are going in.
This novel is a nice example of a non-linear narrative. Overall, it isn’t hard to follow though – unless you read in an episodic manner as I did. I read this while we were away (on a little holiday) for a few days, so my reading time was snatched here and there which made the narrative confusing (twice). That said, I really liked this novel except for the last two chapters (most chapters are short) which seemed like they were there just to be elliptical, this knocked .5* off. 4.5*
10 task
10 review
10 combo 20.4, 20.5
______
30
Running total: 350
20.5 Non-LinearBeowulf by Unknown
I came to Beowulf with very little knowledge about it: namely that Beowulf's not a wolf, there's a monster called Grendel, and Grendel's mother is also a character. That's all I knew going in, and not only did I end up schooled (Heaney's introduction is great), I enjoyed this epic poem quite a bit. Hero-versus-monster remains a timelessly engaging dynamic, and this is a particularly exciting, vivid, and gruesome rendition (thrice over!). I was especially impressed by just how gorgeously and individually rendered the individual monsters were, as well as by the thematic differences that each encounter evoked and developed within the narrative. The story is great, and Heaney's translation is beautifully wrought. It's definitely a poet's translation, and I found it enjoyable to read passages out loud, too.
While reading, I was interested by the combination of Christianity and paganism. So much of the story read like an overlay of Anglo-Saxon Britain & Christianity over Scandinavia & paganism (like for one, the literal landscape and geography described sounded much more like England than Denmark, you know?), and reading over the poem's context afterward, I was gratified to learn that this cross-cultural milieu was one the book's contemporary audience would be grappling with and would want to hear of heroes grappling with as well.
+20 Task -- frequent flashbacks & narrated historical digressions
+5 Combo (20.8 U = Uranium)
+10 Not-a-Novel (poetry)
+10 Review
+25 Oldies
Post Total: 70
Season Total: 160
10.1 Sub SandwichFear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
This book is best characterized as a hybrid between journalism and contemporaneous history. Given Bob Woodward’s reputation, I
don’t doubt that it is well sourced and (within the journalistic ethic of protecting sources) well documented even though that documentation is not provided. However, the challenge of working in effectively real time and with sources that are providing information on conversations that were arguably assumed to be confidential or potentially protected is the inability to use the perspective of hindsight to evaluate the net impact of the reported events.
This is likely one of the best researched books on the Trump Presidency to date, it reads extremely well and raises issues that must be considered in current political discourse. I will leave it to you to decide what the political implications are.
10 pts 10.1 Sub Sandwich
10 pts Not a Novel
10 pts Review
Task total 30 pts
Season Total 255 pts
10.1 10.3 10.7
20.4 20.5 20.8
10.8 Double OCan't Read, Can't Write, Heres My Book by Michael Jacques
If you need a positive and inspirational read – this is it!
This book was written by a young man from the community I live in. He works at the local grocery store (Sobey’s) and so is a recognizable face here. When he published his book there was a story in the local paper (front page!) about him and his book. He was selling his book at our Sobey’s, so I bought it because it’s what I do (I like to support young people in their dream). That was last year, so it’s been ‘in the pile’ for awhile.
Jacques has autism and an intellectual disability. He was able to fulfill his dream of writing a book by using speech to text software on his iPad. He has written about his life (so far) with the intention of encouraging everyone to “embrace and celebrate our differences”. This really is a charming, heart-warming book. He doesn’t deny that things aren’t always easy, and he has had negative experiences in his life but he is a person who sees the positive and has actively worked to advocate for persons with disabilities (based on his experience). A sentimental, but deserving 5*.
Thanks to Ed for this task, which got me off my behind and to reading this book!
10 task
10 review
10 not a novel
5 combo 10.7
_____
35
Running total: 385
15.3 PnM2 (Round 2)B5 - pub. 1831
The Complete Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe
+15 Task
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 505
10.3 Andre GideThe Trap by Melanie Raabe
I loved the premise: A famous (and famously reclusive) author whose sister was murdered years ago writes a book about said murder (thinly veiled, of course) to flush out the murderer and get a confession.
What I did not love: Chapters from this fictional book are interspersed with the action and the writing is pretty Stephenie Meyer-level bad, yet she’s supposed to be this great prize-winning literary star. Hmph. The pacing was frustrating—so rushed at the beginning that it was almost disorienting.
What I liked: You never know what is true...not what the narrator is saying or thinking, what is *actually* transpiring, constantly questioning assumptions you’d already considered truths. It was well done.
Though the writing wasn’t amazing it got the job done and the story had me engaged from beginning to end. 3.25 stars.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo 20.3
Task total: 25
Season total: 535
15.5 PnM2-F2F. Author Name- 2. E-H
Women Of Messina by Elio Vittorini
Task=20
Task Total= 20
Grand Total=335
Tasks Completed: 12
10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35)
15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20)
20.1 (35); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45)
20.7 Speculative FictionThe Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood introduced us to Gilead, a totalitarian theocracy controlled by men, in "The Handmaid's Tale". Her sequel, "The Testaments", starts 15 years later. It features the testimony or journals of three women. Aunt Lydia is the leader of the Aunts who mold young girls into the women needed to produce babies in the polluted world where many are sterile. Aunt Lydia is smart and cunning. Her backstory gives us reasons for her devious behavior. Aunt Lydia has the political instincts needed to manipulate people to facilitate change. The other two narrators are teenagers--Agnes who has grown up in Gilead, and Daisy who has lived in Canada.
"The Testaments" shows Gilead, with its Puritanical roots, in relation to the rest of North America after the United States had broken up. Canada is a lifeline for Handmaids who want to escape their fate with an Underground Femaleroad helping them travel north. Some dark humor from Aunt Lydia, and some teenage humor from Daisy are a welcome contrast to some of the dystopian scenes. The book is speculative fiction, a thriller, and a page turner. The story's thought-provoking ideas are important since variations of Gilead's methods for controlling women are already being used in parts of the world.
+20 task
+15 combo 10.3 Andre Gide, 20.1 Inaugural, 20.5 Non-linear
+10 review
Task total: 45
Season total: 260
20.4 BoomerMy Life with the Saints by James Martin
+20 Task (1960)
+5 Combo 20.5 (approved in task thread)
+10 Not a novel
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 35
15.3 B2. Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
+15 Task (Published 1951-2000)
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 345
20.10 Difficult (Elizabeth (Alaska)'s Task)As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
+20 Task
+10 Combo: 10.7 A, E, I, O, U, sometimes Y / 20.5 Non-Linear
+10 Oldies (1930)
Task Total: 40
Season Total: 400
20.4 BoomerThe Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee
+20 task (b. 1957)
+10 combo (10.2, 10.8)
+10 not-a-novel
Task total=40
Grand total=275
5 stars
15.5 PickNMix2D5 - Historical Fiction
To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield
+20 Task
Season total = 80
10.4 ReplaySpells of the City ed by Jean Rabe
Meets task 10.7 Summer Shorts
+10 task
+10 not a novel
Task total: 20
Grand total: 540
15.4 PnM2 A1Work Song by Danielle Allen
+15 Task -- set in the United States
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 175
10.4 ReplayDream Girl by Elmer Rice
And
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years by Emily Mann
These two plays are very different and are written to acheive different results. Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years is an acted memoir including recollections of discrimination and racism faced by the elderly Delany Sistersduring their lives. While the narrative touches on those issues and the Delany’s lifes, there is no depth to the characters or the narrative. Given their accomplishments and the times they lived in , this family story MUST have been more interesting and engaging than this play. Very Disappointing
Dream Girl on the other hand I found to be very engaging. The main character is a young woman who is distracted by what might be with alternate scenarios in her life played out as dream sequences on stage. Surprisingly, while there are some elements of the story (focus on marriage) which could have seemed dated, they are presented in a way that would not seen antiquated today. This is the third Elmer Rice play I have read and I have enjoyed all of them
10 pts 10.4 Replay - Summer Shorts
10 pts Not a Novel
10 pts Review
Task total 30 pts
Season Total 285 pts
10.1 10.3 10.4 10.7
20.4 20.5 20.8
15.6 PnM2-C4C. Narrator - 4. Third Person Narrator
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener by M.C. Beaton
Task=20
Task Total= 20
Grand Total=355
Tasks Completed: 13
10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (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)
20.1 (35); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45)
20.8 Periodic TableThe Wooden Overcoat by Pamela Branch
The Asterisk Club's members are all murderers who escaped conviction. Benjamin Cann arrives after being found innocent of murdering his wife, and is sent next door to find lodgings with two arty couples who have nothing to do with the club - until Cann is found murdered in their house. While they try to get rid of the body, without success, the president of the club is keen to retrieve their latest late member. Plenty of absurd situations follow.
I'm surprised Pamela Branch isn't better known. I think she's really funny, although as with most writers of the time, you have to put up with various prejudices.
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo (10.8)
+10 Review
+ 5 Oldies (1951)
Post total: 40
Season Total: 315
20.7 Lincoln in the BardoThe Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Low lexile
Task total: 20
Grand total: 160
Hello! I just discovered this group yesterday and am very excited to join in! The first book I finished as of September 1st-10.10 Group Reads
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
(Finished September 10th)
+10 Task
+35 (Combo- 10.3, 10.4, 10.7, 20.1, 20.4, 20.5, 20.8)
Total- 45 Points
Grand Total- 45 Points
20.7 Spec FicStation Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Completed September 14th)
+20 Task
+20 Combo (10.1, 10.4, 10.7, 20.5)
Task total = 40
Fall 2019 Total= 85
15.5 PnM2 (Round 2)A5 - Africa
Wife of the Gods (Darko Dawson #1) by Kwei Quartey
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 540
15.3 - PnM2 B1 - pub 2001 or laterLord of the Last Heartbeat by May Peterson
+15 task (pub 2019)
Task total: 15 points
Grand total: 65 points
15.4 PnMB1 - pub after 2001 - pub 2016
The Art of Murder by Nicola Slade
Task total: 15
Grand total: 555
10.8 Double ORedder Than Blood by Tanith Lee
This short story collection was just as slightly creepy and twisted as I typically expect from Lee. She usually has a different perspective on things and this collection of fairy tale inspired work definitely shows it. I found the first story confusing, although evocative, and liked the rest of the collection better, although many stories dealt with disturbing nsfw themes. Most thought provoking was a version of Cinderella which asked the question - why a caring woman would choose to make her (young, impressionable, naive) daughter as unattractive as possible? As unlikely to attract attention as possible? Ugliness is sometimes a partial protection.... My favorite story involved a happy, carefree version of Rapunzel that was all about the spin.
+10 task
+10 not a novel
+10 review
+10 combo (20.4, 20.8)
Task total: 40
Grand total: 595
20.2 Wolf HallThe Maid's Tragedy by Francis Beaumont
pub. 1619
The word 'tragedy"in the title is well chosen. "Death Galore" might have been a more colorful and appropriate title. As a mere story, this play, at the least, rivals any of Shakespeare's bloody tales. However, in the telling, it is really over the top. Artificial to the max. The play is on the Western Canon....and was probably very popular in its day. Now, I think the language would spur spasms of eye-rolls in the audience. Particularly troubling, and something I don't think Shakespeare ever did so artlessly, the central female figure, Evadne at the beginning proudly denounces the husband she has been forced to marry because her lover, the King, is her true love. A scene or two later, Evadne hates the King...without a true epiphany explained. Her change of heart was forced by her brother who considered her a ruined woman who needed to act to regain any of her honor. Two stars.
Task=20
Combo= 5 (10.7)
NaN=10
Review=10
oldie=20 (1619)
Task Total= 65
Grand Total=400
Tasks Completed: 13
10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (35)
15.1(E3)(15); 15.2(B2)(15); 15.3(F6)(15); 15.4(D4)(15); 15.5(F2)(20)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45)
Jackie wrote: "Hello! I just discovered this group yesterday and am very excited to join in! The first book I finished as of September 1st-10.10 Group Reads
The Sellout by [author:Paul Beatty|4..."
Welcome, Jackie! Your posts look fabulous!
10.10 Group ReadsWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
This is an intense collection of short stories. Not because anything particularly terrible happens (with one exception), but because they are about bleak reality. Life has thrown the characters it’s usual curve balls, and these stories are a snippet of them dealing with those twists. I would guess that most of these were written in the 1970s, but there was something about them that suggested the 1940s to me. They felt noir. As with any collection, some stories where stand-outs.
I listened to these stories, and it took me a while to appreciate the reader. At first his voice annoyed me, he seemed kind of bored(!). After time, I got used to him. I think this would be a good collection to ‘dip into’ over a period of time rather than all at once (which is what I did - listening only when I was in my studio). Mostly due to the overall darkness of the stories, as well this is tight, spare writing which doesn’t lend itself to speeding through. 4*
10 task
10 review
5 oldie
10 not a novel
5 combo 10.7
_______
40
Running total: 445
20.3 AuthorCharles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes
+20 task
+10 combo (10.7, 20.8 HS-Hassium)
+10 not-a-novel
Task total=40
Grand total=315
5 stars
(Thanks again, Elizabeth.)
15.10 PnM2 B4Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
+30 Task (published 1855)
Task Total: 30
Completion Bonus: 100
Season Total: 415
15.2 PnM2 C5The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
+15 task (taking unreliable narrator to new lows)
Season total = 140
20.4 BoomerUzumaki: Spiral into Horror, Vol. 1 by Junji Ito
Born 1963
Graphic novel, no style points.
+20 task
Task total = 20
Season total = 160
15.3 Pick 'n' Mix 2E3 Title is sentence
Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares by Aarti Namdev Shahani
Task total: 15
Season total: 275
15.8 P’nM C5 - unreliable narrator I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
+20 pts -Task
Season Total - 205 pts
15.5 PnMA1 - 100% set in the US, mostly VA and PA
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Task total: 20
Grand total: 615
10.4 Replay (of 20.1 Iris Murdoch, read a book published during Iris Murdoch's lifetime, 1919-1999)Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II by Svetlana Alexievich
"I can't tell everything in one evening. My heart can't stand it."
"When I talk about it, I bite my hands till they bleed, so as not to cry..."
"I lose my voice when I tell about this...My voice dies..."
"I don't want to remember. But I need to tell people about my misfortune. It's hard to weep alone."
As a reader, my heart was bleeding with the turn of every page.
Alexievich is a Nobel Prize winning journalist whose books are a compilation of interview--in this book, we are hearing the accounts of men and women who were children in WWII.
These interviews are shorter than many of those in her other books and read like dreams or fairy tales--but the horrible kind of fairy tales where children are fattened up to have their blood drained from them (because the Germans thought that transfusions of blood from children under the age of five helped the wounded soldier recover more quickly), and the only food another child could find were baked apples--the apples on the trees had baked from the heat of the burning village...and burning villagers...
While it is hard to read, these words stand as witness not only to the horrors that humans visit upon each other but also to the heroism that humans are capable of.
Again (and even more so) in this installation of her series, there is liberal use of ellipses--and so much is contained in those visual pauses.
"So I've told you...Is that all? All that's left of such horror? A few dozen words..."
5 stars. Easily.
+10 Task (first pub. 1985)
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+5 Combo--20.4, born 1948
Task total: 35
Season total: 570
15.7 PnM2-D6D. Genre- 6. contemporary, realism, literary fiction, classics
The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese
Task=20
Task Total= 20
Grand Total=420
Tasks Completed: 14
10.3 (35); 10.4 (35); 10.7 (35); 10.8 (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)
20.1 (35); 20.2 (65); 20.7 (35); 20.8 (45)
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
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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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D4
Nonfiction genre on main page
I : Six Nonlectures by E.E. Cummings
Task: 15
Grand total: 520