February 2015 - Reporting Thread

[Kat]

New for February, we will trial a reporting thread to make badges a little easier (as you can see by how often I miss people!). It's very straightforward - discuss the book on the normal discussion threads, and then here just confirm what you read and what you thought about it (1-2 lines is fine). Easy peasy!

[Janice, Moderator]

Good idea, Kat!

[Canadian Dragon]

Hi I just finished the book It was nice easy read of time travel Even though I kind of hated the main character :)

[Janice, Moderator]

I've read two books that qualify for the February read.

I read Life After Life and discussed it with the group in its thread. While there were some good things in this book, I ended up giving it 2 stars because I couldn't really connect with the constant looping of Ursula's life. Interesting concept, provocative themes, but it missed the mark for me.

I also read Twelve Years a Slave and discussed it in the theme thread. It was a hard hitting non-fiction book about a free man, kidnapped and forced to live as a slave. I found it very upsetting.

[Casceil]

I participated in the discussion of Life After Life, which I had read previously. I don't know if that is enough for a badge. I may yet work in a "time" read.

[Janice, Moderator]

Casceil wrote: "I participated in the discussion of Life After Life, which I had read previously. I don't know if that is enough for a badge. I may yet work in a "time" read."

The group reads focus on discussion which is why we encourage people to say more than, "I liked the book, thought it was good". The book may be read prior to the month we discuss it in.

[Lynda]

I've been a little oblivious about badges, and maybe this isn't the appropriate place to ask my questions, so, please forgive me.

I didn't realize there were badges for the monthly discussion reads. Is it too little, too late to obtain them for December and January...now that I know what they are, I want one! LOL.

[Sarah, Moderator]

You already have one for January Lynda - check out the wall of fame section - you have a wall there.

[Lynda]

Sarah wrote: "You already have one for January Lynda - check out the wall of fame section - you have a wall there."

I told you I was oblivious!

[Lanelle]

I read Searching for Captain Wentworth. It's such a good story. Four and a half stars!

[Lisa]

I read The Daughter of Time. I gave it 4 stars. It was a really interesting little mystery story about Richard III and whether he was as bad as history has made him out to be.

[Cherie]

Lisa wrote: "I read The Daughter of Time. I gave it 4 stars. It was a really interesting little mystery story about Richard III and whether he was as bad as history has made him out to be."

Was he?

[Lisa]

Cherie wrote: "Lisa wrote: "I read The Daughter of Time. I gave it 4 stars. It was a really interesting little mystery story about Richard III and whether he was as bad as history has made him out ..."

'The Daughter of Time' puts forward a good argument in his favour. My personal opinion of him has changed quite a lot in the past couple of years. I used to think he was as bad as he was made out to be but having read a lot more about him and in more depth, I am now not so sure.

[Lara]

I just finished The Perfume Collector, which I give 3 stars. It had a story that moved back in forth in time to slowly unfold the connection between the two. However, less than halfway through the book I had figured that out and the ending was not a surprise at all. What was interesting was getting to know the two main characters.

[Liz]

I read The Impossible Lives of Greta Wellsfor this month's theme.

[Travis]

Time and Again fantastic book travelling to 1880's NYC

[Kat]

Liz, Travis, can you give us a brief (1-2 lines) overview of what you thought of the book? This makes badging far easier for us :)

[Almeta]

I read The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom. It was quick read, but just an okay book for me. No depth.

[Jessica]

I read Life After Life. It was a very different writing style that I couldn't get into, but I did enjoy some parts of the story.

[Berit]

I had already read Life After Life, a book I really found compelling and very thought-provoking. I read it for my real life book group, and we had quite a discussion about it. I am looking forward to reading the follow-up to this book. The plan is to read Time bound, this month I will let you know if I get to it.. I did discuss Life After Life in that discussion thread, as you will learn I will always have a little something to say about almost everything ;-)

[Elinaly]

I read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and discussed it with the group in its thread.
I really loved the book - loved the idea of the book, the way it was written and the "what if" made me think a lot.

What I really enjoyed were the conversations between main characters (Ursula and Teddy) - I read them several times and even repeated to myself out loud (silly, I know :)
So, for me it was definitely 5-star reading!

[Elsbeth]

I'm not really sure if this counts. The book is not about time travel. But the author does take us readers by the hand and show us around London in the years 1874-1876 (he sometimes even describes it as doing just this). The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber is an enormous book (955 pages), which is the reason it took me a couple of years before reading it ;)! But it is definitely worth it! Sometimes a book this large has a huge list of characters in the front of the book. This one does not need one. It has only about 5 main characters and a handful of others. Some parts are a bit '50 shades of...' (well it is about a prostitute, so what did I expect...), but the main story line is about what happens to the young woman Sugar, the man she becomes involved with (William), his wife Agnes, his brother Henry and Henry's woman friend, the widow Emmeline Fox. It is sometimes dramatic, sometimes funny and often entertaining.
I loved it (5 stars)!

[Kristie, Moderator]

Finished Timebound. I thought it was an interesting time travel book. There were a couple of confusing bits, but I think that's to be expected with science fiction / time travel. Overall, it was a good read.

[Lori]

I read Timebound. The book was entertaining. My favorite character was the grandmother. And, I plan to read the next book in the series.

[Berit]

I read Timebound, I really enjoyed it, I also will be continuing with the series. I like all the characters and found them all believable. I also had previously read Life After Life, and participated in that discussion as well, So I believe it only fair that I get to badges ;-) I am kidding :-) I think the concept of time travel is super interesting and kind of fun to get your mind around. I think I liked the way it worked in Timebound, a little better.

[KimeyDiann]

I finished listening to Left: A Novel by Tamar Ossowski. I planned on reading one of the group-read books, but the timing just didn't work out. ;)

Left was a very good, somewhat emotional, book. There are three narrators, the two daughters Franny and Matilda, and their mother Therese. Franny, who is on the autism spectrum, is the one who is left behind, but she doesn't know why and neither does her sister. Franny and Matilda tell the story as it is happening. Therese for the most part tells the story of her childhood and early adult life and ultimately explains why she left Franny. There are some surprises near the end of the book, but I actually saw them coming much earlier. I'm very rarely right in my predictions so I was sort of proud of myself for figuring it out! LOL.

I hope this fits the Time category since the story goes back and forth between current and past events.

[Sandra]

Sounds good, Kim. Added.

[Kat]

Berit wrote: "I read Timebound, I really enjoyed it, I also will be continuing with the series. I like all the characters and found them all believable. I also had previously read Life After Life, and participat..."

I think you have certainly earned a badge, Berit ;-). All you need is another time-themed book for the general discussion and you'd have the trifecta - no special badge for it, but definitely bragging rights ;-)

[Berit]

I think someone was wearing a watch and another book I read, does that count? :-) ;-)

[Sandra]

I read The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
The Time Traveler goes more than 800,000 years into the future to find the human race has developed in two different human species. The Eloi are the peaceful, herbivorous, upper-world inhabitants, while the Morlock are the dark, cannibal, down-world inhabitants. None of them is really smart, and definitively both of them are more primitive than we are. The Time Traveler does his own interpretation of how this happened as a result of the social differences at his time. I liked the book, and liked the ending. I rated it 3 stars.

[Peggy, Moderator]

I read Life After Life. I enjoyed it. I liked the idea of the story and the writing. There were some parts I raced through but also sometimes it couldn't really hold my attention. Also, during the book I often felt I missed things and after finishing it I still feel a bit confused.

[Mariab]

I (almost) missed that THIS was the reporting thread. I'll post a collage of my previous posts in other threads:

I finished Slaughterhouse-Five. It was a 5* reading for me.
If you are looking for plot, don't read this book. In a first approach seems to be a book about nothing. Is a wonderful book, tough, very deep and has some astonishing points of view. BUT it is not a everybody's taste kind of book. It is difficult to digest, to say the least.
The book has made me want to highlight some paragraphs, which is something that had not happened to me long ago.
Here a sample:
"she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops"
"They can see how permanent all the moments are and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have...that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string..."
And so it goes.

Dry and precise phrases, but hard as rocks and striking like fists.

"And so it goes"

[Cherie]

I finished Life After Life this evening, after dozing off a couple of times at the end. I thought it was a facinating story with a very unique method of recapping critical life events multiple times. Changing points of view and adding new characters made each one seem like a whole new story, like short stories in an anthology. I liked the transitions better in the beginning than at the end really. Now, I can't wait to get to talk to my daughter about it. She read it a couple of months ago.

[Ava Catherine]

I have finished Life After Life. I think it is a lovely book and that Kate Atkinson is a wonderful author. I kept wondering if Ursula remembered anything about her previous lives and if she had any regrets. It seems that Atkinson is trying to tell us that our lives are precarious (hanging by a thread), and our identities not fixed but subject to change, (by what may appear to be a whim) and our destinies are uncertain. Just like Ursula, who was an ordinary person, each of us must make decisions daily which affect the outcome of our lives. I think Atkinson has written a lovely family saga with a quirky twist.

[Mariab]

@Cherie & Connie.
I wanted to read Life After Life before already. Now I have more reasons to. Thanks for the comments!
(seems like the "time theme" was developed very similarly from different authors...)

[Cherie]

Mariab, I had wanted to read Life After Life for some time, but could never work it in. I am so glad I finally got a chance to read it for this group read.

[Ava Catherine]

Mariab, I think you will really like this book and the way Atkinson uses the characters' lives to make us think about our own lives. I know you are like me and tend to favor books that make you think about the themes long after finishing the book.

[Tejas Janet]

I read and shared some about various books I read this month that worked for the time theme: A Swiftly Tilting Planet and the Wrinkle in Time Quintet as a whole, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and Birdsong. Liked all quite a bit. Birdsong was my favorite tho hard to read with gruesome trench warfare scenes. But so completely real and written with great compassion for the lives lost. And so it goes.

[Lynn]

I read Dragonfly in Amber for the February theme

[Esther]

I have read Pomme S, the last of the 1984 trilogy.

[Sarah, Moderator]

I read Slaughterhouse-Five and discussed it in the "other reads" thread. I gave it 2 stars as I really didn't like it. I can see that it could be a very good book though but I don't think the audio format worked well for it. I found it very confusing. And as Mariab said, it' about nothing really. It has a string anti-war message and as such some of the things that occur and are described aren't easy to read but it wasn't that that was a problem for me. Just not knowing what was going on and where it was heading was the problem for me.

So, I went on to read The Bone Clocks. I am still reading it although I'm quite near the end now. It's very good. I am pleased I didn't let me experience with the author's previous books get in the way of me reading this one. It's fantastic. Split POVs which seems to be the authors style, all interconnected in someway then everything comes together at the end. Great characters and an interesting mix of subjects covered.

EDIT: I forgot. I also contributed to the discussion for Life After Life. I read it last year for the chunkster challenge. I really liked the plot device used although I was confused at first. I really liked the main character as you get to see her full personality from different POVs as well as her going through various different life choices as a result of her past lives.

[Kat]

I read one books for this months theme during the month of Feb:

I also read The Time Traveler's Wife (well, listened, technically) in February - I read it a couple of years back and loved it, and also really enjoyed the movie, so was interested to see how it would hold up.

I'm happy to say I also enjoyed it in the audio version - I think the author did a good job in making time travel a key element of the story without going into too much science-fiction type detail, whilst still helping me suspend my belief. And I've still got a soft spot for Henry (especially as this time around I pictured him as Eric Bana in my mind - delish!).

Definitely recommend it to romance lovers, and anyone that has been avoiding it as a 'popular book' (you know who you are), it pretty much lives up to the hype. A sequel would be interesting...

And one of the group reads, Life After Life - I joined in the discussion, even though I read it when it was first released:

see comment history The GR Awards are a funny beast. I also would not have rated this as a best historical fiction, but hey, it's all subjective :)

Maybe this is a vegemite book - I was addicted and I thought it was very clever (view spoiler)[ particularly how Atkinson used different POVs to stop the repetitiveness. However, there was also one 'life' that was way too over the top for me to even suspend belief for (hide spoiler)]

[Kat]

If you have read and/or discussed either of the February group reads, or a book that fits the February theme, please report here. You also need to tell us what you thought about the book to qualify for a badge (we will not go back through all the threads). You can also did as I, and several others did and copy and paste some of your contributions to the discussion so you don't need to write your feelings down twice!

[Casceil]

I participated in the discussion based on a read last year. My comments appear at messages 8, 23, 29, 43, 46, 64 and 110 of the discussion. I loved the book. I gave it five stars. I found the structure very clever and innovative. I loved the way the book demonstrated, over and over, how little things or minor events can change your life.

[Naomi]

I read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

earlier this month. It was an interesting idea on the time theme. The main character was born and lived his 1st life and died an old man and then was born again and this cycled on and on. There is a society of individuals who are born like this through time and they send messages to each other and try not to change history. Of course there are some issues where power-hungry people born that way try to control and change history to fit their ideas. The main character receives a warning on his death bed in one of his lives from a 7 year old girl who lives in the future past his death date telling him about the end of the world. So he spends his next lives trying to figure out what is going to cause the end of the world.
I really liked the book.

[Lynn]

Lynn wrote: "I read Dragonfly in Amber for the February theme"

Right, I didn't realise that you had to discuss it in here too. I have to say it seems a bit odd that you report you've read a book in the discussion thread and give your thoughts. An then you have to report and give your thoughts again in this thread.

My thoughts:
I love all the characters, I love the relationship between Jamie and Claire, I like the storylines for the most part (even the over-the-top ridiculous ones as they make it fun) and I like her writing. But she just writes too much, which makes it a bit of a challenge to get through.

[Janice, Moderator]

The purpose of doing this Lynn is to make it easier for Kat and Sarah to identify who is eligible for badges. It's a dog's breakfast sorting through 3 threads trying to determine who has read and discussed the book. We get people saying they're going to start, or mention that they read it 2 years ago, but either don't finish and don't discuss.

This thread does that in a one handy place. We're not asking that you discuss the book in this thread. Presumably you've already discussed it in depth in the appropriate thread. We're just asking that you claim your badge by saying that you read the book and say just a couple of things about it.

[Lynn]

Oh I got the reason behind a separate thread to report the book, I was questioning having to put your thoughts again that's all.

Anyway, whatever makes it easier.

[Janice, Moderator]

It's just a wee summary, that's all.

[Kat]

Lynn wrote: "Oh I got the reason behind a separate thread to report the book, I was questioning having to put your thoughts again that's all.

Anyway, whatever makes it easier."

You can also C+P a comment you made during the discussion so you don't have to rethink it, Lynn. That's what I did too.