Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
Weekly Topics 2020
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04. A book set in a place or time that you wouldn't want to live
After the first sweep of my TBR, I had 231 options 😱 The good news is that I need an audiobook, so that narrowed the options quite a bit. I finally settled on Akata Witch, because I hate the heat, so couldn't live in Africa and a world where magic exists would freak me out (even though I love to read about it).
I am reading 'The river flows on ' by Maggie Craig, set in Clydebank tenements in the 1920/30s. I would not like to live as the women there bringing up a family on little or no money in 2 rooms in damp and poor conditions.
I read The Nickel Boys for this prompt. It is set in a hellish reform school in Florida during the Civil Rights era. It's based on actual events which is particularly chilling. Obviously very hard to read content, but I 'enjoyed' the novel. I will be reading Underground Railroad from this author in the future.
Vaguely tempted to go with a post apocalyptic story about an epidemic , however as I am currently living through an epidemic (although thankfully not in the hardest hit area of China), I think I should wait till this blows over (hopefully it will) before reading anything like that.
1. What are you reading for this category? Moon of the Crusted Snow2. What is the setting? This novel is set in a First Nations community in Canada that is mostly cut off from the rest of the world, especially once the area experiences an unknown apocalyptic scenario.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? See above lol
What are you reading for this category? With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia by Åsne SeierstadWhat is the setting? Mainly Serbia, immediately prior to and after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic
What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? I actually think that Serbia and the other former Yugoslavian countries sound fascinating. But at that point in history, a war zone, under the rule of a dictator? No, I wouldn't want to live in any country under those conditions.
I read The Bookseller of Kabul a few years ago, and enjoyed it so much that I bought a few more of Seierstad's books, though it’s taken me until now to actually get round to reading one. I really enjoy the way that she immerses herself in the lives and culture of those who she writes about, although this book has a different approach from Bookseller as each chapter follows a different citizen of Serbia. The range of people she befriended and observed includes students, refugees, journalists, politicians and even a Serbian rock star, with varying levels of engagement and from different sides of the political divides. The edition of this book which I read also included all the follow up visits she made since the book was first published. The result is a rich portrait of the lives and beliefs of those who experienced all sides of the conflicts, ideologies and reality of living in such a volatile and uncertain place and time. I’ll be honest and say that I understood little of the region and even less about the Balkan conflicts – I was a young child in the early 90’s and as is pointed out in the book the world had become more focused on other regions in the wake of 9/11 when I was old enough to have a better awareness and interest in the wider world. I watched a few potted history videos on Youtube before reading this book to try and understand it, but even with those and with having read the book, whilst I now understand how complex the issues were I still struggle to understand the issues themselves. That isn’t a criticism of the book at all, but simply a reflection of how layered and multifaceted such issues can be. Seierstad manages to remain fairly impartial even in the face of the most strident characters, although I did enjoy the wit and sly observations that still poke through occasionally. This book was fascinating, and if nothing else confirms for me that in any situation there are never such clear cut distinctions as wrong or right, and that those who suffer most are always those with the least power.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris - the Holocaust was truly horrific
1. What are you reading for this category?I read Wilder Girls by Rory Power.
2. What is the setting?
Raxler Island, Maine. While I believe that this island is fictional, there are apparently 3,166 islands off the coast of Maine which I find interesting.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
The story is inspired by Lord of the Flies but the inhabitants of the island, largely girls attending a boarding school, are infected by something they refer to as "The Tox". This "tox" not only affects the human inhabitants of the island but also all of the animals, trees and plants. It makes it a very scary and inhospitable place to live.
1. What are you reading for this category?Germinal by Emile Zola
2. What is the setting?
An 1860s coal mine that starts to tighten it's budget until people start starving and dying in preventable accidents.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
Everything. The miners are literally destroying their bodies trying o get as much coal as possible. Their families above ground are starving. The mine owners are the target of the deadly strikes. There's just no one having a good time in this book.
1. What are you reading for this category? I read What Rose Forgot2. What is the setting? The setting is a nursing home for dementia patients. She was placed there by family for no reason, but to get her away.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? It is a terrible place for someone who does not need to be there. But don't worry, she gets her revenge.
Nanette wrote: "I read The Book Woman Troublesome Creek https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...I couldn't imagine living in tha..."
You should follow up that reading with Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. It is a true story and a more modern look at the same area. It's coming out as a movie soon.
For this one, I am reading No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison which was written from the prison (sorry, I should say 'Refugee Processing Centre') on Manus Island set up by the Australian Government to essentially hold people, on no charges, for indefinite periods of time.I certainly would not have wanted to live there. None of the inmates did either.
1. What are you reading for this category?The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
2. What is the setting?
The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
Essentially everything about it. Concentration camps are a horrific part of history, and although difficult to read about, it is important that it never be forgotten. 3.5 - 4 stars.
What are you reading for this category? For this cateory, I read the crazily intense Afterlands by Steven HeightonWhat is the setting? There are several, but the extremely harrowing setting for two-thirds of the book is on an ice floe in the Davis Strait, off the coast of Greenland.
What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? The ice floe becomes home to 19 stranded Arctic explorers for six months in 1872 after they get separated from their ship, the USS Polaris, during a storm. Chilling.
For this prompt I read Platoon: Bravo Company. It's set in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and I think living in any war zone would be terrible and frightening!
1. What are you reading for this category?Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography
2. What is the setting?
Among other places, a homestead in De Smet, South Dakota in the 1870s and 1880s.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
Let's just keep it simple and say there's no electricity or running water and there's a chance of getting eaten by a wolf.
1. What are you reading for this category?Vrees (The Chemical Garden #2) by Lauren DeStefano
2. What is the setting?
A dystopian world: "A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years."
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
Dying at 20, I would already be dead....
I've read The Birthday BoysIt's set in Antarctica as I wanted to be literal about this prompt. It's about the attempt to be the first the South Pole by Scot and his team.
I wouldn't want to live there at all but certainly not during that doomed expedition
Very good book though
The Memory Police is definitely a place that I would not like to live. It takes place on an island where people's memories keep being lost. Items disappear from memory of every person on the island. Perfume, balls, foods, animals all keep disappearing and people can not remember what they are. For those who do remember the police come and remove them from the populace.
Friends and family can disappear without a trace because the Memory Police have taken them.
This was not the book I originally planned, but once I finished it I felt it fitted perfectly:1. What did you read for this category?
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
2. What was the setting?
London in the 1850s
3. What about the setting seemed inhospitable to you?
Almost everything - the descriptions of the stink, the dirt, the human and animal waste in the gutters, the lack of any kind of hygiene, the chaos and danger of the streets, not to mention the societal prejudices and attitudes of people at the time. It sounded like a pretty unpleasant time to live, especially if you weren't wealthy!
The Warehouse!!!! OMG you would NOT want to live in this place! And it is a fabulous book. Just read it for mine.
Mod
I read The Island of Sea Women. It was a great book, but I would not have wanted to live on that island in South Korea at that time.
For this prompt I read In the Shadow of the Banyan which is set in Cambodia during the time of the Khemer Rouge. A horrific and cruel period of time, based on the author's own life. The violence of the Khemer Rouge contrasts sharply with the love the family had for each other, and the strength of the family.
I read The Fountains of Silence for this prompt but also because it was the group read for Historathon. It's set during Franco's heavy-handed dictatorship in Spain.
1. What are you reading for this category?Regular: Children of Virtue and Vengeance
ABC: Vox
2. What is the setting?
Regular: The setting is fictional place called Orisha.
ABC: A fictionalized United States.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
Regular: People are persecuted for being different and for having magic. I would not like to live in a place that is at war.
ABC: No Books or Words--enough said!
I read Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim, listening on Audible with award winning narrator Bahni TurpinThe setting is a "good" plantation on the James River in Virginia
What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? Everything - the treatment of slaves as nonentities: taking away a mother from her child so that she can cater to the little white baby, taking that same woman's 10 year old boy and selling him to another plantation; the beatings of the slaves, the subjugation and brainwashing of white women.
Listening to the book gave it much more power I think than my reading the printed words.
1. What are you reading for this category?I read The Pesthouse by Jim Crace
2. What is the setting?
Post-apocalyptic America.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
It's a time of lawlessness, disease, and superstition.
Mod
I am currently listening to Murder on Black Swan Lane and although there are aristocrats in the book, a lot of it is set in the Victorian slums, where people are hungry, crowded and violent.
1. What are you reading for this category? I read The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates2. What is the setting? This setting was in the south during slavery.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? This is a time I would not want to have lived in.
Samantha wrote: "1. What are you reading for this category? Wanderers2. What is the setting? Various places in the US where a strange phenomenon and apocalyptic epidemic are taking place.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? Apocalyptic epidemics seem like they would be very scary to live through. ..."
Well this this is so true right now.......
I finished A Storm of Swords ( I'm on a mission now LOL) , so this is where I put it. I would say anyplace where eternal winter and the undead are coming, women are constantly being raped, and EVERYONES head is being chopped off is pretty inhospitable!
1)The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar2)Syria
3)it's a war zone
For this challenge I read: The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff I selected this book because I would not have wanted to live in German occupied France especially as a Jewish person hiding out from the Nazi's. It seems to be a terrifying timehttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://titlesurfingwithtraci.blogspo...
Who needs a book? We are all living in a time that we would not choose to live in. I believe that we are very fortunate to live in the place where we live because the Covid-19 death rate in America is only at about 1% while in the rest of the world it is closer to 4.7%. That said, since the pandemic, I hope all of you who have been sent home are binging toward a record year of book reading. I am still at work (CDC) and can't even read or listen to audiobooks at the gym since that is the first place that closed. Libraries are closed, too, so I am rationing my two library books which is not difficult since I am so tired after each stressful day. I keep hoping that a few Goodreads wins will find their way through to me. (-;
Cat wrote: "Who needs a book? We are all living in a time that we would not choose to live in. I believe that we are very fortunate to live in the place where we live because the Covid-19 death rate in America..."Gosh working at the CDC right now must be stressful hope you find ways to relax! My libraries have ramped up their digital libraries. I recently got a ton of books off hold because they increased the number of available copies. I know for some it is not the same as a physical copy but might be a way to get some new books so you don't have to ration. The CDC is so important right now I wish you and all those your work with the best.
Tracy wrote: "Samantha wrote: "1. What are you reading for this category? Wanderers
2. What is the setting? Various places in the US where a strange phenomenon and apocalyptic epidemic are taking..."
Crazy how when I wrote this I had no idea what was coming. It scary time for sure but hopefully not apocalyptic.
Mod
Future generations may choose 2020 as the time they wouldn't want to live in! I keep thinking there's plenty of material for future books, such as romance (separated by isolation), mystery (everyone thought the person died of virus but really it was murder), etc.
My daughter has a (joking) theory that somewhere in 2016 we entered an alternate universe where elections turned out unexpectedly, and all kinds of other weirdness followed. First sign was Chicago Cubs winning the World Series which couldn't have happened in the normal universe!
1. What are you reading for this category?
2. What is the setting?
A house.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
The setting that seems inhospitable to me is that the house is isolated, smart home, and haunted.
1. What are you reading for this category?As Bright as Heaven
2. What is the setting?
Philadelpha in 1918.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
The flu epidemic is the central plot of the story.
I just finished reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini for this prompt. A large portion of the story takes place in Afghanistan during the invasion by Russia and then the Taliban. I would not wish to live in such a war zone.
I read Dorothy Dunnett, The Ringed Castle (Lymond Chronicles no 5) for this prompt. It's set largely in 16th-century Russia: bitterly cold, generally inhospitable, often violent, and radically underdeveloped. The book's an excellent read, nonetheless.
I finished The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica.It is set on a small island in Maine. Where you'd have to take a ferry to get to the mainland.
I am afraid of water and boats, so it's a no-go for me.
Mod
That is an amazing series! So smart and complex. It would make a terrific TV or movie series also.
1. What are you reading for this category?I read Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan
2. What is the setting?
Much of the book is set in Taiwan from 1947-2003, with a middle section set in the US.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
Starting on Feb 28, 1947 Taiwan was under marital law until 1987!. For decades, thousands of people were arrested, thrown into prison, tortured and often executed. Even when a person moved to the US, their actions/words could negatively impact their family in Taiwan. Also, the 2003 chapter is set during the SARS virus outbreak in Taipei. Already living through that type of scenario and not enjoying it!
1. What are you reading for this category?The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness
2. What is the setting?
1970s Psychiatric Hospitals
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you?
The book is nonfiction and looks at the horrible conditions of Psychiatric hospitals in the 1970s
I read Dry by Neal Shusterman. I think the apocalyptic setting where there is no water and people are slowly going crazy is not that hospitable. Plus I would not want to live in California. It's too sunny.
I read two books for this prompt, both by authors on the Abe List of 100 Essential Female Writers: 1. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This book takes place in Nigeria. The main character has an abusive father and the country undergoes a military coup.
2. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. This book is based on the true story of an English village that shuts its borders in 1666 when infected by the plague. I read this back in January and I've thought a lot about it ever since.
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Mischling (other topics)Out of the Dust (other topics)
Oryx and Crake (other topics)
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (other topics)
Yellow Crocus (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Laila Ibrahim (other topics)Ann Weisgarber (other topics)
Nevil Shute (other topics)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (other topics)
Geraldine Brooks (other topics)
More...
2. What is the setting? Various places in the US where a strange phenomenon and apocalyptic epidemic are taking place.
3. What about the setting seems inhospitable to you? Apocalyptic epidemics seem like they would be very scary to live through.