Reading with Style discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Archives
>
SP 22 Completed Tasks
15.2 Western AfricaNigeria
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
+15 Task
+10 Non - Western
+ 5 Jumbo
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 1010
20.4 The ReiversThe Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
+20 Task (criminals released from incarceration - some are going straight and some are up to no good)
+10 Combo: 10.4 Name / 20.9 Birthdays (p192 ...could barely finish his piece of chocolate cake.)
+. 5 Jumbo
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 1045
10.9 - DualThe Girl in the Letter by Emily Gunnis
+10 task
+5 Combo - 10.4
Task total: 15
Grand total: 930
20.3 - Our TownThe Taken Ones by Ruhi Choudhary
+20 task
+5 Combo - 10.4
Task total: 25
Grand total: 955
Post 804 Deedee wrote: "Task 20.8 Texas Independence (Rebekah's Task)Katherine Howe was born in Houston, Texas
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (The Physick Book #1) (2009) by [author:Katherine Howe|3..."
10.4 is for first name, so the combo doesn't work here.
Post 808 Sue wrote: "10.2 EasterThe Evening Road by Laird Hunt
+10 task
Post total: 10
Season total: 625"
This has a combo with 10.4. But also, the GR description indicates this takes place in 1930, so would also qualify for 20.10. Let us know if this is incorrect.
20.9 BirthdaysSeptember by Rosamunde Pilcher
Cake: "Violet--also quite rightly--had been given the seat next to Virginia, with her birthday cake, in a large box, to hold on her knee."
A lovely country village in Scotland provides a gorgeous background for a 21st birthday celebration in September. Verona Steynton is planning a party with traditional Scottish reels and country dances with the men in kilts and the women in beautiful gowns. Invitations have been sent with some mailed to people who haven't returned to the village in years.
There is a large cast of characters with most of them associated with two prominent families. Patriarch Archie Balmerino, a titled landholder, was injured in a military incident in Northern Ireland and has to cope with a prosthetic leg. His sister Pandora, a free spirit with many secrets, has not been home to Scotland for twenty years, but she accepts an invitation to the party.
Violet is the wise matriarch of the Aird family, the confidant of many people in the village. Her son, Edmund, and his wife are having arguments about sending their young son off to boarding school at the age of eight. Edmund's sweet daughter is bringing her new boyfriend home with her to meet the family.
This was a cozy, warm story about families with many flashbacks. I had mixed feelings about the book. A few incidents seemed out of character. There were also many mentions of everyday tasks that could have been edited out. But that might be what some readers want--the feeling that they have spent the day by the fire drinking tea or whiskey, and sharing details of their lives.
+20 task
+ 5 combo 20.3 Our Town
+10 review
+ 5 oldie (pub 1990)
+ 5 jumbo (613 pages)
Task total: 45
Season total: 715
15.5 Southern AfricaBotswana
A Question of Power by Bessie Head
This was such a struggle to read. I tried to follow the terrors of an ill mind. I tried to make sense of the protagonist’s brief touches with reality. I tried to let go and realize that this was what might go on in the minds of people who have lost their moorings, who have had a mental breakdown. I tried to find logic where there wasn’t any. I don’t know how I would have felt if it had ended differently. I was grateful when the book was done.
I would recommend this to anyone trying to understand mental illness from POV of a sufferer.
+15 task
+10 review
+10 non western
+5 oldies
Task total: 40
+100 Completion bonus
Season total: 555
20.7 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoNight of January 16th by Ayn Rand
+20 task (approved in msg. 64 of task thread)
+10 combo (10.4, 20.10-based on contemporary event-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_o...
+10 oldies (1936)
Task total=40
Season total=395
15.10 Western AsiaCOUNTRY PROJECT: Kuwait
Mama Hissa's Mice by Saud Alsanousi
The more I think about this novel, the more I appreciate its structure. Set in Kuwait, the book describes life in a small neighborhood and the relationships between three boys of different sects and family backgrounds. Using a dual time line the author moves between the period of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the early 1990s and what was the near future (c 2020) when the novel was written. This future is presumed to be in the midst of a civil war.
The book can be hard to follow partly because of the movement between time lines, but also intentionally. It is framed as a book (written by one of the main characters) which has been censored within a book with actions of the future timeline being intentionally obscure.
Sectarianism at the local level, heightens the larger societal divisions and leads to diasterous future. The historical tensions in Kuwaiti society are illustrated through the microcosm of a small neighborhood and three boys growing up and trying to create a future
15 pts 15.10 Western Asis
20 pts Country project Kuwait
10 pts Nonwestern
10 pts Review
Task total: 55 pts
Total Season: 1245 pts
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.8 10.8 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 … … 15.7 15.8 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 … 20.6 20.7 20.8 20.9 20.10
10.31984 by George Orwell
This deserves a higher rating on just the writing and impact of the book, but my ratings are for my reaction. If I rated this in my youth when I thought things were only going to improve, this would probably have been a 5 star. But ugh. Middle-aged me in 2022 DID NOT WANT.
It’s my own fault. I knew the main points through cultural osmosis, which is probably why I waited so long to read it. Why did I decide now was the time to really dive in? WHY???
I know why… it’s because this was on a list of “best endings”. Sort of spoiler: (view spoiler)
Hahahahahahhahahaah poor me.
I’m a horror fan, but pretend horror. I want to be afraid of the dark, not the future.
Ugh.
+10 task
+ 5 combo (10.7)
+10 review
+5 Oldie
Task total = 30
Season total = 475
10.4 NameBlack Powder War by Naomi Novik
My whole family has been listening to this series together. That means we're moving through these books relatively slowly since we only listen when all four of us are there. This book continues the world-building of adding dragons to military campaign of Napoleonic adventures. Here, the protagonist and his dragon companion are leaving China and heading home to England. They pass through Turkey and are present for a massive battle between Napoleon and the Prussian forces.
Novik has a real knack for making it seem totally historical that there were dragons, complete with whole teams of helpers, flying about during the battles. I've really enjoyed this. This also has a more adult feel than many books because the main character is a gentleman in his thirties rather than an upstart teenager.
As always, Simon Vance is a top-notch narrator. If I'm considering a book for audio and discover that he's narrating, that usually tips the balance.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 1595
Mega Finish Bonus10.1 The Overnight Guest Heather Gudenkauf
10.2 The Evening Road Laird Hunt
10.3 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
10.4 A Change in Altitude Anita Shreve
10.5 The Kraken Project Douglas Preston
10.6 Solo: A Star Wars Story Mur Lafferty
10.7 The Heart Goes Last Margaret Atwood
10.8 The Sisters of the Winter Wood Rena Rossner
10.9 The Sandcastle Girls Chris Bohjalian
10.10 When All Is SaidAnne Griffin
15.1 Crocodile on the Sandbank Elizabeth Peters
15.2 The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts Joshua Hammer
15.3 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
15.4 Blood Line James Rollins
15.5 The No. 1 Ladies' Detective AgencyAlexander McCall Smith
15.6 Raiders from the North Alex Rutherford
15.7 Heaven Mieko Kawakami
15.8 The White Tiger Aravind Adiga
15.9 I Shot the Buddha Colin Cotterill
15.10 Last Train to Istanbul Ayşe Kulin
20.1 The Harvester Gene Stratton-Porter
20.2 Less Andrew Sean Greer
20.3 Hello, Summer Mary Kay Andrews
20.4 The Mystery of the Blue Train Agatha Christie
20.5 Sisters of the Confederacy Lauraine Snelling
20.6 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
20.7 Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration Felipe Fernández-Armesto
20.8 A Bone to PickCharlaine Harris
20.9 Prairie Tale: A MemoirMelissa Gilbert
20.10 Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919Stephen Puleo
+200 task
Post total: 200
Season Total: 845
Sue wrote: "Mega Finish Bonus"Congratulations! Well done!
Task 15.7 East AsiaSet entirely in JAPAN
The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2012) by Hiro Arikawa; translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
+15 Task
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 460 + 15 = 475
10.1 PopularMatrix by Lauren Groff
This is an interesting tale of a royal bastard orphan young woman, Marie, sent to an abby in England that was sponsored by Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th century. Marie is a nonconformist and has experience in running an estate. With good management and recognizing the talents and hard work of the nuns, postulants, and village women, she rescues the abby from poverty and becomes abbess. She slowly accepts her vocation but always with her own ideas, some of which are heretical. Groff touches on the events in the greater world including crusades, an interdiction, and the imprisonment of Eleanor.
Groff’s writing sometimes is lyrical. But she includes some elements that didn’t add to the story. I listened to an audio. The reader was OK. One thing that irritated me about her performance was that she read action parts too fast and loud.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total 20
Season total: 575
20.9 BirthdayThe Midnight Library by Matt Haig
I enjoyed this novel about the possibilities of life and the choices we make. It was interesting to follow Nora (the MC) along ‘paths not chosen’. Some of the lives were very different from her actual one, and a little hard to imagine her actually choosing as her ‘root life’. However, they make for amusing story-telling. Haig set up the novel very well positioning Nora as someone who has lived enough life to have regrets, but still young enough to choose life once she realizes all of the possibilities. The premise of the novel is not new, but I think Haig does it well. Perhaps because we are away (at the in-laws) and I miss my cats - I particularly enjoyed the cat story. 4*
20 task
10 review
5 combo 10.4
——————-
35
Jayme wrote: "10.4 Name Before We Were Yoursby Lisa Wingate
Task +10
Grand total: 355"
Qualifies for Combo with 20.8
https://lisawingate.com/about-lisa/
It also qualifies for 10.9 dual as well
20.5 Killer AngelsEnemy Women by Paulette Jiles
Civil War novel set in Missouri. Describes the multiple factions ( Union, Union Militia, Confederate, and Confederate Militias) that occupied the state wreaking havoc on the civilian population. The tragedy of the Civil War and its effect on the people was clearly described and further highlighted by extracts for Civil War diaries, military reports, memoirs and letters that began each chapter.
The history is told through the device of a romance between a female prisoner of the Union Army and a Union officer. The romance provides a way to tell the history and frame the action but it was difficult for me to become very engaged withe the romance. Readthe book for the history not the love story.
20 pts 20.5 Killer Angels
5 pts 20.8 Texas
10 pts Review
50 pts Halfway 20 pt tasks
Task total: 85 pts
Total Season: 1330 pts
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.8 10.8 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 … … … 15.7 15.8 15.9 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 20.8 20.9 20.10
20.3Death Mask by Ellis Peters
This is a stand alone from Ellis Peters. The story is set in the early to mid 1950s, and mainly takes place in a village (Wells) in England (although the village is incidental to the action). A teen-aged boy’s (Crispin) father has been killed (accidentally or not?) on an archeological dig in Greece and he has had to come back to England. He believes his father was murdered and devised a plan to lure the murderer to England and into the open. The narrator is Evelyn who is Crispin’s Mother’s friend and has been hired to tutor and keep an eye on Crispin. He is a man of the world, but open-hearted enough to try to understand a stoic boy with a secret. Well written, engaging, and a satisfying novel. 4.5*
20 task
10 review
5 combo 10.4
———————
35
10.8 Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished (Anika's Task)Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
I really ended up enjoying this book. The premise is that on her 19th birthday (which is also New Years), Oona doesn't turn 19 - instead, she wakes up in 2015, internally 19 but externally 51. And her whole life is like this -- each birthday she stays internally at her correct age but leaps to a new year of her life. At first, I found it kind of too twisty - I had a hard time getting a handle on how old she was, who she would or wouldn't know, what was happening. Finally, I had to decide to just accept it and keep reading (much like Oona had to do with her life!) and I enjoyed it much more that way. I ended up feeling like the book had some really interesting things to say about the ways that we all feel a complicated mix of loss, regret, nostalgia, joy when we look back on our pasts, and yet if we were able to revisit the past, would it be so great? Oona's struggle to stay in the present and find joy, no matter her circumstances, are just a heightened version of what we all deal with.
+10 Task
+10 review
+10 combo (20.7 - born in Ukraine, raised in Brooklyn, 20.9 - many birthdays throughout the book, all with cake!)
Task total: 30
Season Total: 505
20.9 BirthdaysA Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear
The last Maisie Dobbs until the author writes some more! Sob! I really have enjoyed this series. (I listened to them on audio and also really enjoyed the narrator). Here we are in the thick of WWII and the female ferry pilots who got planes from one base to another during the war are involved. Meanwhile, Eleanor Roosevelt is visiting the UK and in danger. I continue to learn a lot from this series about the way that WWII (which now, I think, feels like an "obvious" war - of course that war needed to be fought, of course the United States should have gotten in, etc) was not so "obvious" to everyone at the time - there were fascists in the US and UK who would have supported Hitler, and while I knew that intellectually, having it brought to life in fiction was both chilling and interesting.
+20 task ("I made a cake for you - it's a special cake" - ch 18)
+5 combo (20.7)
+10 review
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 540
20.8 Texas Independence Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
This was a hard book to read but also, I think, a beautifully written one. Hard because the grittiness of the crime, and the grimness of the everyday racism alongside the larger acts of racism in the town are so suffocating in the novel. Beautiful because of Locke's writing which manages to have humor and style to lift up the grittiness. Some of the lines I loved: "It was right on the line between a good time and a bad idea." and "She was no taller than a middle schooler, but she was dressed like an elderly man who just discovered the concept of gender fluidity." A while back we had a task about a "sense of place" and this book has that in spades - the East Texas landscape and culture comes to life so strongly, from the food to the dust on the road, that I feel like I've been there.
+20 task (author born in Houston TX)
+10 combo (20.3 - set in tiny East Texas town of Lark, 20.9 - "He was having a little sliver of pound cake soaked in Dr Pepper" - ch 26)
+10 review
Task Total: 40
Season Total: 580
15.5 Southern AfricaSouth Africa
Dead Before Dying by Deon Meyer
+15 task
+10 Non-Western (author is South African)
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 605
15.10 Western AsiaIsrael
The Missing File by D.A. Mishani
+15 task
+10 Non Western (author is Israeli)
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 630
15.1 Northern Africa(Egypt)
Clea by Lawrence Durrell
This was the last of the Alexandria Quartet which was a mixed bag for me. I was so confused by Durrell's enigmatic style in the first two novels that it was more like reading Virginia Woolf...a dream-like state with little insight into what was happening in reality. The third volume, Mountolive was excellent...and I finally felt that I was in sync with the author. This last one was good.... most of the characters re-appear after many years, circumstances have changed significantly...war being a major factor. Yet, the love lives of the key folks is still complicated. 3.5 stars
task =15
Review=10
Oldie=5 (1960)
task total= 30
Grand Total=960
10.1; 10.2; 10.3; 10.4 (2x); 10.5; -----; 10.7; -----; -----;10.10;
15.1; 15.2; 15.3; -----; 15.5; 15.6; 15.7; -----; 15.9; 15.10;
20.1; 20.2; 20.3; 20.4; ----; 20.6; 20.7; 20.8; 20.9; -----;
20.7 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoAn Air That Kills by Margaret Millar
+20 task
+ 5 combo (10.2)
+ 5 oldies (1957)
Task total=30
Season total=425
Five enthusiastic stars
20.7 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoAnniversaries, Volume 1: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, August 1967–April 1968 by Uwe Johnson
Volume one of two chunky books following a year in the life of a German woman and her ten-year-old daughter living in New York in the 1960s. Not much happens in their lives in this time, but alongside that story we have the American news as reported in the New York Times featuring the Vietnam war and the assassination of Martin Luther King among other events, while in another timeline we are slowly told the story of Gesine's parents and her own childhood in Nazi Germany.
This is long and slow, and if I hadn't been in a group reading the two volumes over a year, I might have given up. It's definitely not something I could read quickly, but 50 pages a week works and gives me a few weeks off. I'm not finding the mother and daughter particularly engaging, but a lot is starting to happen in the news in 1968, and the thread set in prewar and wartime Germany has a lot of emotional power.
This was my carryover book, started in late January... I am planning to read volume 2 equally slowly in the summer and fall seasons!
+20 Task (Poland to East Germany then West Germany, mentioned in help thread)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2, 10.4, 10.9)
+ 5 Oldies (1971)
+15 Jumbo (875 pages)
Post Total = 65
Season Total = 1895
20.10 Between the WarsSummer Moonshine by P.G. Wodehouse
Classic Wodehouse fun written and set in England in the 1930s. Jane Abbott wants to marry Adrian Peake, who wants to marry a rich young widow, whose stepson wants to marry Jane. Meanwhile Jane's impoverished father, Sir Buckstone Abbott, owns a huge and ugly house that he wants to get shot of, and he's hoping the princess will buy it.
Shenanigans ensue involving a long-lost brother-in-law, a court case, a houseboat, a set of false teeth, and a butler called Pollen. Of all the Wodehouse novels I have read that don’t involve Jeeves (which is not actually that many), this is the one I have enjoyed the most.
+20 Task (published 1937 and set at that time)
+10 Review
+ 5 Combo (20.7 UK to France then USA, mentioned in help thread)
+10 Oldies (1937)
Post Total = 45
Season Total = 1940
10.6 Space OutThe Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Although Kurt Vonnegut's uses science fiction as his usual vehicle, his fiction is almost always tongue-in-cheek. He is really writing about the human condition and often, as in this novel, the absurdity of war. Vonnegut's optimism is often overshadowed by his pessimism. I always feel as if he is hoping for the best but always expecting the worse. This novel finds us as spectators in a story about an American billionaire developing a rocket for space travel. (Sound familiar? This was written in 1959!) The billionaire is an awful person...but a prophecy holds that he will be Earth's savior from an attack by Martians. In addition to war, the reader has to grapple with the underpinnings of religion as well. I still enjoy Vonnegut's writing...but probably not as much as I did when I was in college. Perhaps I'm set in my ways and no longer question the way things are as much as I should...or have just resigned myself to all of life's inconsistencies. 4 stars
task =10
Review=10
Combo= 10 (10.2; 10.4)
Oldie=5 (1959)
task total= 35
Grand Total=995
10.1; 10.2; 10.3; 10.4 (2x); 10.5; 10.6; 10.7; -----; -----;10.10;
15.1; 15.2; 15.3; -----; 15.5; 15.6; 15.7; -----; 15.9; 15.10;
20.1; 20.2; 20.3; 20.4; ----; 20.6; 20.7; 20.8; 20.9; -----;
Switching Post 581 from 20.9 to15.4 Eastern Africa- Rwanda
Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
As I read this novel, I found myself thinking it was too cutesy... but then I also found myself appreciating how the author would raise difficult subjects...such as genocide or female genital mutilation in a manner that did not dissuade one from reading further. The premise is that Angel is a wonderful cake maker in Kilgali, Rwanda. She is originally from Tanzania. But through her customers, neighbors and friends, she learns how to understand and cope with so many difficult issues. She also learns how to face her own hardships. Angel is a lovable and memorable character... and her traits justified the "cutesy" parts of the narrative. Four stars.
task =15
Review=10
NW=10
task total= 35
Grand Total=995
10.1; 10.2; 10.3; 10.4 (2x); 10.5; 10.6; 10.7; -----; -----;10.10;
15.1; 15.2; 15.3; 15.4; 15.5; 15.6; 15.7; -----; 15.9; 15.10;
20.1; 20.2; 20.3; 20.4; ----; 20.6; 20.7; 20.8; -----; -----;
20.9 Birthdays (Kate S's Task)They Do It with Mirrors by Agatha Christie
I'm trying to read the Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot series in order and to completion. This is #5 in the Miss Marple series...and Marple is as delightful as ever. But, I am getting tired of the BIG REVEAL at the end of Christie's works. Even with the title of this one serving as a big clue, I really never felt that I had enough information to begin hazarding a guess as to who, how or why strange crimes are happening at the Stonygates estate. (Perhaps I'm dense.) It was a good change to take Marple out of her usual rural environment...but almost all the characters are insufferable with the exception of Marple and her friend Carrie Louise. Just two stars for me.
p.32- He nodded awkwardly and went on cramming cake into his mouth."
task =20
Review=10
Oldie= 5 (1952)
task total= 35
Grand Total=1030
10.1; 10.2; 10.3; 10.4 (2x); 10.5; 10.6; 10.7; -----; -----;10.10;
15.1; 15.2; 15.3; 15.4; 15.5; 15.6; 15.7; -----; 15.9; 15.10;
20.1; 20.2; 20.3; 20.4; ----; 20.6; 20.7; 20.8; 20.9; -----;
15.8 South AsiaBangladesh
Kundo Wakes Up by Saad Hossain
+15 Task
+10 Non-Western
Task total: 25
Season Total: 1470
20.1 PulitzerThe House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+20 - Task
+5 - Combo (10.2)
+15 - Oldies (1851)
Task Total 40 pts
20.9 BirthdaysRosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall
Rosaline Palmer, Cambridge University dropout and single mother, enters a televised baking contest where she quickly becomes romantically entangled with one of her competitors. No, make that two. And in case that wasn't already enough trouble, she is surrounded by collapsing cakes and exploding pies.
I wasn't wowed by this. The romance plot is predictable, (view spoiler). The book does challenge some expectations: for example, there is much use of the F word, which I imagine is not often seen in cosy baking stories, and Rosaline is bisexual (and makes sure everyone knows it). But having read other work by this author, I was a bit disappointed by this one. It was a fun read, but it felt too long and too obvious.
There is a lot of cake in this book. There are cakes in the shape of a dragon, a mermaid, a castle, and Marie Antoinette. Some cake ends up on the floor, but some also gets eaten.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+ 5 Combo (10.2)
Post Total = 35
Season Total = 1975
10.9 Dual (Tien's Task)Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
I enjoyed this novel more than I had expected. The dual timeline comes about as Evelyn visits her friend Mrs. Threadgood in a nursing home. Mrs. Threadgood in every other chapter, relates stories from the 1930's in their little town in Alabama. The star of her stories is Idgie, a young woman who has no qualms about her love for another soon-to-be married woman Ruth. That marriage "fails" and Ruth and Idgie get together and operate a cafe where they become the heartbeat of the town...and take care of those who need such care. Mix in some intrigue and Evelyn's 1980's feminist awakening and the reader has a good time. I never saw the movie...but I've put it on my To Be Watched list. 4 stars
task =10
Review=10
Combo= 10 (10.2; 20.3)
Oldie= 5 (1987)
task total= 35
Grand Total=1065
10.1; 10.2; 10.3; 10.4 (2x); 10.5; 10.6; 10.7; -----; 10.9;10.10;
15.1; 15.2; 15.3; 15.4; 15.5; 15.6; 15.7; -----; 15.9; 15.10;
20.1; 20.2; 20.3; 20.4; ----; 20.6; 20.7; 20.8; 20.9; -----;
20.8 Texas IndependenceThe Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles
Can I start with how wonderful is Jiles' writing?
THE MEN WHO decided the fate of the Red Indians lived in the east, under roofs of slate and shingle. There were windows paned with large sheets of glass that looked out comfortably on a dense and busy world. The roofs lined up in slanting layers of coal smoke on each side of narrow streets and these streets were full of hurrying people and vehicles at all hours.This book, at its core, is about the clash of cultures. As Europeans migrated across the Atlantic, they brought their culture with them. There were already people here with a different culture. There were always going to be problems. The clash in this novel takes place in the central part of the US just after the Civil War. And so there was also a changing in the "white man's" culture because now there was also the freedom of the slaves.
And later ...
Tall white-bodied sycamores whipped toward the southeast and their new leaves streamed like sequins into the wind. Lightning forked out of the clouds and in its brief catastrophic flash he saw the tree trunks become incandescent. The heaps of crumbling flood debris and jittering small leaves of the chokecherry lit up as if with pale fire.
The central character in this is one of those freed slaves, one Britt Johnson. Britt was wise and watchful and didn't rush into things, waiting to see how things would work out. Early in the novel, Britt and his neighbor and a couple of hands set off for town for supplies. In the men's absence, Britt's Texas homestead and of that neighbor were raided by Comanche. His oldest son was killed, also an adult daughter of the neighbor. The two women and three small children were taken captive. Britt was quiet throughout the coming winter, but when spring came, he set out to rescue his wife and children.
I cannot rave about Jiles enough.
+20 Task (Jiles lives in Utopia, Texas)
+10 Review
+ 5 Combo (20.3)
Task total = 35
Season total = 1095
15.4 Eastern AfricaZambia
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
+15 Task
+10 Non - Western
+ 5 Jumbo
Task Total: 30
15 Point Finish: 100
Season Total: 1175
20.10 Between the Wars (Elizabeth(Alaska)'s TaskThe Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear
+20 Task
+. 5 Combo: 20.9 Birthdays (p56 After they were each handed a piece of cake on fine china plates...)
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 1200
From Post 806Tawallah wrote: "20.8- Texas Independence
A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg
GR data shows Mr..."
+5 Combo 10.2
From Post 807Sue wrote: "15.7 East Asia ( Japan )
Heaven by Kawakami Mieko
+15 task
Post Total: 15
Season total: 615"
+10 Non-Western
From Post 823Marie wrote: "10.8 Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished
Le Bal by Irène Némirovsky
Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev.
+10 Task
+15 Combo (10.4; 20.7 - she immigrated and spent her life..."
+10 Non-Western
From Post 824Valerie wrote: "20.7
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
This is an interesting novel, told wholly in one voice. The focus is very narrow because of the one perspective, a..."
+10 Non-Western
+5 Combo 20.6
From Post 840Bea wrote: "Dual (Tien's Task)
Read a book with dual timeline.
The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor
This book deals with events from 1917 and 2017. It presents the events o..."
+5 Combo 10.4
From Post 845Bea wrote: "20.2 Prize
Read a book that has won the Pulitzer Prize in the following categories: Fiction/Novel, Poetry, Drama, General Nonfiction, History, Biography
March by [author:Geraldine B..."
+5 Combo 20.7
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde (other topics)Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde (other topics)
Your Madness, Not Mine: Stories of Cameroon (Volume 70) (other topics)
Cold Snap (other topics)
Invisible Monsters (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Jeff Guinn (other topics)Jeff Guinn (other topics)
Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi (other topics)
Marc Cameron (other topics)
Chuck Palahniuk (other topics)
More...
Egypt
The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
+15 Task
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 980