October 2019 Book Selection - Numbers

[La Tonya]

We will be doing another pick your own but with the theme of numbers in the title.

Thank You,
Leslie

[Leslie]

Thanks for setting up the thread La Tonya.

So, yes, October is a big month for me and our nation historically. I thought in honor of this we could each find something that uniquely interests each of us with a number in the title. So many historic things have happened, and then, of course, we have just fun things to read! I have found a TON of books with numbers in the title so I hope you will have fun with this.

Best wishes and please do share with all of us what you are finding.

I am thinking of reading 1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth

I also found some really fun books about Woodstock. Cool pictures.

[Raymond]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

[Leslie]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was read by a few of my other book clubs last year and I never did get to read it. They seemed to enjoy it! :-)

One of my other book clubs is reading The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White

[Sophie]

Any of The Famous Five Books By Enid Blyton but since you would want only one,
Five on a Treasure Island.

[Agnieszka]

I plan to read Zero Day by David Baldacci (John Puller #1) in October.

Plus I have plenty of books with numbers in title :-)

[Raymond]

Leslie wrote: "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was read by a few of my other book clubs last year and I never did get to read it. They seemed to enjoy it! :-)

One of my other book clubs is read..."

I was not expecting to see Theodore White's book, good choice.

[Agnieszka]

BTW The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is right now on sale https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...

[Leslie]

Everyone, you are picking nominations for yourself as in pick what you want to read and as many as you want to read. There are tons of choices out there. Have fun with it!!!!

[Leslie]

And thank you all for sharing your choices for the month and the helpful tips on sales. Always appreciated.

[Leslie]

Nari--Atlantisgirl wrote: "Can I suggest some books?"

Suggest anything you want. We are each picking something within the topic to read on our own. Read as many as you want and the suggestions are fun and appreciated.

[Leslie]

Sophie wrote: "Any of The Famous Five Books By Enid Blyton but since you would want only one,
Five on a Treasure Island."

You can read more than one! It's your experience!

[Leslie]

Agnieszka wrote: "I plan to read Zero Day by David Baldacci (John Puller #1) in October.

Plus I have plenty of books with numbers in title :-)"

I love Baldacci! And I also seem to have tons to choose from with this topic. Lots and lots of choices.

[Agnieszka]

Of course there're the Stephanie Plum novels and I'm considering to re-read some of my favorites - just in case some of you don't know this series the first one is: One for the Money

Then I discovered in my online libray this audio Defcon One - Angriff auf Amerika (lit. transl: Defcon One - Attack On Amarica) and should get it tomorrow.

[Leslie]

I started my book, two days ago and am LOVING it! :-) Hope you are finding something fun. I really am quite weak in my history of England and this has been good for me. I love the way this author writes. Will look for others by him for sure down the road.

[Agnieszka]

Two days ago I started Zero Day by David Baldacci - it's not his best book but starting to get interesting after one third of it.

Today I started and abandoned Defcon One - Angriff auf Amerika (lit. transl: Defcon One - Attack On Amarica)

(view spoiler)[First I wasn't able to listen to it on my iPad (the app broke down each time I tried to listen to or download it - OK 1GB is a pretty big file still dissapointing) than I changed to my (I admitt very old) desktop computer and couldn't start it as long as I tried to do anything else. So after stopping all processes and re-starting I was finally able to listen to it only to find out it's narrator is the guy you hear no difference if he's reading a thriller, a romance or the phone book :-( (hide spoiler)]

On a more hopeful note, while looking through my list for this month I noticed a series I want read for ages now and that fits here and my cover challenge perfectly. I have the prequel and the first three books in series and will see how far I'll get. The name of the series is Titus Ray Thriller the genre is Christian espionage:
#0.5: One Step Back
#1: One Night in Tehran
#2: Two Days in Caracas
#3: Three Weeks in Washington

[Leslie]

I completely understand. I hate abandoning books, but sometimes you need to. :-(

I enjoyed The Tenth Man by Graham Greene several years ago.

And I hear Tenth of December by George Saunders is good as well. I enjoy his other writings.

[Leslie]

From my To Read list....others to consider:

Black Cats & Four-Leaf Clovers: The Origins of Old Wives' Tales and Superstitions in Our Everyday Lives by Harry Oliver


The Third Man & The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene - love his writing and it's a two-fer for me for the month with other bookclubs. :-)

The Girl From Kathmandu: Twelve Dead Men and a Woman's Quest for Justice by Cam Simpson

Half World by Hiromi Goto

Woodstock 69 Summer Pop Festivals by Joseph S. Sia

Chronicles of the First Crusade by Christopher Tyerman

Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes

American Princess: A Novel of First Daughter Alice Roosevelt by Stephanie Marie Thornton

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair by William Hazelgrove

There's more, of course, but maybe these will inspire.

Enjoy!

[Agnieszka]

Zero Day got in the end better but still I'm glad it wasn't my first by David Baldacci since it wasn't one of his best in my oppinion.
I need to finish a bunch of books from libraries due in the next couple of weeks and will be back to this challenge in a week or two.

[Leslie]

Agnieszka wrote: "Zero Day got in the end better but still I'm glad it wasn't my first by David Baldacci since it wasn't one of his best in my oppinion.
I need to finish a bunch of book..."

Sounds good. I do enjoy reading your posts!

[〰️Beth〰️]

Leslie wrote: "I started my book, two days ago and am LOVING it! :-) Hope you are finding something fun. I really am quite weak in my history of England and this ..."

I had never heard of this author so I too picked up a copy. It is easy reading and informative so far.

[Leslie]

Glad you are enjoying it! :-) Thanks for reading along with me.

[Agnieszka]

I started the Titus Ray Thriller series read yesterday the prequel: One Step Back and started #1: One Night in Tehran - what a great surprise. Unfortunatelly many Christian novels are lacking in quality so my expectations for new authors are usually rather low though these are some really well written and crafted espionage thriller with interesting characters. I'm off again to lose myself in them.

Almost forgot! I got Die sieben Tode der Evelyn Hardcastle=The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle much earlier from my online library (originally scheduled for mid-November, last week it was about one week from today) such a nice surprise today - so I'll read another one with # in title :-)

[Leslie]

Sounds good. I'm still working on 1066.

[Agnieszka]

I see now the difference and development of the author's writting style between her debut One Night in Tehran published 2014 and the later written prequel One Step Back (2018). There were 3 novels and a short story collection between these and yeah the first book is by far not as great as the prequel. So I'm giving it a break and read some other books before I continue with the last part of One Night in Tehran. The issue I struggle most with (and more and especially within the last 75-100 pages) is how often she uses the word 'however': in total 202 times (285 pages novel) and there were pages it appeared up to 5 times and at least one short paragraph with 3 of those - grrr. Now almost each time I see this words I cringe and shudder inwardly.

Only yesterday when I added Die sieben Tode der Evelyn Hardcastle=The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle to my excel sheet I realised it's 600+ pages. If everything goes according to my plan I'll start it tomorrow evening and I doubt I'll finish it this month.

Do you want me to post my thoughts on these two when I finish them most likely in the first or second week of November or won't you come back to this thread after the end of October?

[Leslie]

Post! The threads will still be here. It's not uncommon at all to finally get around to something later, so I'm leaving them up for the reading year and then they can go to an archive thread section. It's fun to look back on our reads.

I love hearing your thoughts and you made me laugh with the "however" comment. Any serious book lover can relate to that!

[Agnieszka]

Leslie wrote: "Post! The threads will still be here. It's not uncommon at all to finally get around to something later,
...I love hearing your thoughts and you made me laugh with the "however" comment. Any serious book lover can relate to that!"

OK, good to know.
I'm only glad I know already it gets better otherwise I'm not sure I'd even try to finish the book - especially since it's more a collection of recollections/flash-backs from his ten years as CIA operative before he become Christ and not a real 'story' at least not in the first two parts. A thing I've noticed on accident and another one that makes me want finish the book is the last 'chapter': (view spoiler)[
THE END
Or just
THE BEGINNING
and that was the entire 'chapter' (hide spoiler)] somethig different that made me smile.

[Agnieszka]

I finished the last part of One Night in Tehran and apart form the many howevers it wasn't that bad. The book finally got some plot and one of the more important characters for the series finally got introduced - still I'd struggle to recommend this book. I hope the next will be better and since it continues the plot from this one I plan to read it soon as well.

[Agnieszka]

I'm considering to abandon Die sieben Tode der Evelyn Hardcastle=The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I'm one week into it and managed only 1 chater (and they are not that long) - it's so strange and I'm really struggling to read it. I was hoping it's more mystery than fantasy though right now it's the other way round and I really don't like fantasy. I still have two weeks on my online libray licence and if I won't like it more by the end of week 2 I'll give up (there's a pretty long waiting list on this book)

[Agnieszka]

Agnieszka wrote: "I'm considering to abandon Die sieben Tode der Evelyn Hardcastle=The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I'm one week into it and managed only 1 chater (and they are not..."

Today's a day I cleaned up my current reading list and abandoned five of them - among others this one - the sad thing was I expected to like all of them :-( That's life! You don't always get what you expect or at least wish for.