Reading with Style discussion
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FA 22 Completed Tasks
20.7 Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda
I don’t even know where to begin with this one. If you value economy of language, ahahahahahaha then yes, this is HORROR.
There is a story here, but it is buried under so many WORDs and WORDS and oh my god, this is everything I hate about capital-L Literature. It is deliberately inaccessible and opaque, so dense that it’s often pure nonsense, sprinkled with “edgy” content for a hook but serving no purpose. This was one of the most belabored, overdone, pretentious things I’ve ever read.
Kudos to those that found something to love in this book. I found it excruciating.
+20 task
+10 combo (20.1, 20.9)
+10 review
+10 translation
Task total=50
Season total=305
10.1 TBRTen Star Clues by E.R. Punshon
Punshon has wandered from his usual presentation in this one. The first quarter or so we learn something about the characters, all of whom live within (or very near) Castle Wych. As this is a murder mystery, it is anticipated that one of them will cease to be. Which one? And when a chapter ends with Bobby being called away before breakfast, I admit that I thought there were three possible victims.
This is the story of an heir thought dead for 10 years suddently showing up very much alive. Is he the true heir or is he an imposter? Why would the Earl accept him as his grandson when his claim looks sketchy at best? And how will the previously presumed heir react to his sudden appearance?
I love this series, though not every Bobby Owens mystery is worth 4 stars. This is one of them.
+10 Task (shelved in April 2021)
+10 Review
+ 5 Combo (10.4)
+10 Oldies (1941)
Task total = 35
Season total = 365
20.8 Soup's On! (Owlette's Task)Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear
+20 Task (page 42: butler suggests oxtail soup for dinner; page 163: broth for patient)
+20 Combo (10.3, 10.4, 20.1 (Indian immigrants are MCs), 20.9)
Task Total = 40
Season Total = 40
20.1 JemisinThe Guide by R.K. Narayan
After Raju is released from prison in southern India, he takes up residence in a deserted temple and soon finds himself being treated as a holy man. As we hear how this develops, he tells in the first person the tale of how he went from being a small-time shopkeeper to a people-pleasing tour guide fascinated by a traditional Indian dancer called Rosie, and how that led him into prison.
It's a wonderful comedy of errors with a very obtuse anti-hero. All the characters seem to fall into every trap that life lays for them, but Raju falls harder than most.
+20 Task (all of the characters are Indian)
+10 Review
+ 5 Combo (10.2 India)
+ 5 Oldies (1958)
Post total: 40
Season total: 605
20.10 BirthdayOur Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo
“The crime does not lie in extinguishing life, but in kindling it: organising it so that where there wasn’t any pain before, now there is.”
Ageing writer Fernando returns to his home city of Medellin, Colombia, after many years abroad, to find it has become surrounded by shanty towns and dominated by young men who shoot to kill for any reason or none. He takes up with one of these, Alexis, whom he describes as his "angel of death" and "baby boy", and we are led around the city by the two of them, causing and witnessing death wherever they go.
A disturbing book on many levels, but very powerful in its descriptions of the cheapness of life in an underworld that has normalised violence.
Soup: "a million pesos a ticket and a Maggi soup for eats"
+20 Task (1994)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.2 Colombia, 20.8)
+10 Lost in Translation
+ 5 Oldies (1994)
Post total: 55
Season total: 660
10.3What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
I have never read The Fall of the House of Usher, though god knows I’ve tried. It is one of those mental block books for me. I had a Poe phase as a child, but Usher was too dense and it always left me in a sleepy, dazed state. After reading this book, I tried to read the source and the same thing happened.
Happily, the retelling was not soporific. This was a page-turner, with plenty of gothic gloom and slow-burn creepiness. The climax was delightfully unnerving.
In the afterword, the author says she almost stopped writing this because she read Mexican Gothic, and did the world really need another fungus-riddled house? I’m glad she pressed on, because the characters (and the fungus) are more lively in this book.
Mushrooms and fungi are really having a moment in horror, and I am here for it!
+10 task
+5 combo 20.8 “…the cook managed to make a broth and I saw with pleasure that Madeline took more of it than she had of the chicken…”
+10 review
Task total=25
Season total =330
From Post 252Deedee wrote: "Task 10.9 NFL (Anika's Task)
Read a book set at least 75% in any of these cities which have a professional football team.
Novel set entirely in New York City.
The Rainbow (1974) by ..."
+5 Combo 10.2
From Post 271Karen Michele wrote: "20.1 Jemisin
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
+20 Task
+15 Combo: 10.3 9, 10, 11 / 10.4 Series / 20.8 Soup's On! (meat stew)
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 235"
+5 Combo 10.2
From Post 272Karen Michele wrote: "20.3 Vonnegut
Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
+20 Task
+10 Combo: 10.10 Group Reads / 20.8 Soup's On! (Sarkin Aung Wan was feeding him soup.)
+ 5 Oldies (1978)
Post..."
+5 Combo 10.2
From Post 277Bucket wrote: "20.2 King
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Review: This is an extremely impressive debut. The characters are everything here. As a reader, I could picture ..."
+5 Combo 10.2
From Post 281Bucket wrote: "20.9 ABCs
The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago
Review: The story is Saramago’s imagining of a historical event - when an elephant was transported from Portugal ..."
+10 Combo 20.2, 20.7
From Post 285Jayme wrote: "10.2 Octoberfest
So Far From Home: the Diary of Mary Driscoll, an Irish Mill Girl, Lowell, Massachusetts, 1847by Barry Denenberg
Author lives in US
Task + 10
combo 10...."
+10 Combo 20.9, 20.10
From Post 295Joanne wrote: " 20.10-Publication year is 2 consecutive digits.
Oath of Loyalty by Kyle Mills/Vince Flynn- published September, 2022
Book # 21 in the series that Vince Flynn started, Kyle Mills ..."
+10 combo 10.3, 20.9
"Season Total ??? 490 ??? ( Elizabeth I got lost with the added style points, so if I am wrong here I won't be surprised"
I show a total of 505 for you through post 300
10.8 House (Ann's Task)Other Birds. Sarah Addison Allen
It's been seven long years since readers have had a new book by Sarah Addison Allen, and Other Birds makes the wait worthwhile. Like so many of Sarah's books, family - lost and found, the one you're born into and the one you choose, plays a major role. Zoey, Mac, Oliver and Charlotte are all running from their past, or trying too hard to hold onto it. They end up together at a magical place called Dellawisp, populated by magical birds. As they grow to trust each other, their stories unfold, and they help one another move onto to the next chapter of their lives.
Task Total: 10
Review: 10
Combo: 20 ( C10.2 - US, 10.6, 20.8 - sweet potato soup, 20.10 - 2022)
Total: 40
Season Total: 590
10.2; 10.3; 10.4; 10.8; 10.9
15.1; 15.2; 15.3; 15.4; 15.5; 15.6; 15.7
20.1(x2); 20.2; 20.3; 20.6; 20.8; 20.10;
20.4 SaramagoThe Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery
20 pts 20.4 Saramago
5 pts 20.9 ABCs
5 pts 20.10
10 pts Review
Historical study of women’s life in Georgian England based largely on the letters, diaries and papers of genteel women in Yorkshire and Lancastershire. Very readable descriptions of family life, economic, social and managerial responsibilities of womens within the household and community. Vickery reaches the conclusion that women were much less isolated from the larger society than is typically assumed and actually played a substantial role in public life.
Very detailed descriptions in the women’s own voice let the reader know what was important to them and how they reacted to the world around them. These women were relatively privileged and had resources that were not available to all. But it is fascinating to see what they viewed as most important.
Task Total: 40 pts
Correction (see post #337): 5 pts
Season Total: 240 pts
10.1 … … … … … … … … …
20.1 … … 20.4… … … 20.8 20.9 20.10
15.1 … … … … … … … … …
15.10 EoTPR 2013 - 2022
2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
+15 pts - task
+50 pts - books read in 10 different time periods
+100 pts - completion bonus
165 pts - Task Total
20.2 King The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
+20 task (debut novel)
+5 combo (20.9 ABC’s A M)
Task total 25
Season Total 145
20.10 BirthdayDesperate Undertaking by Lindsey Davis
+20 task pub 2022
+5 Combo 10.4
Post total: 25
Season total: 555
Task 10.3 -- 9, 10, 11Read a book where any of the author's names begins with the 9th, 10th or 11th letter of the alphabet (I, J, K).
Kate Quinn was Born in Long Beach, CA, The United States
The Alice Network (2017) by Kate Quinn (Paperback 503 pages)
+10 Task
+10 Combo (#10.2 born USA; #20.9 (initials: K. Q.))
+05 Jumbo 500-699 Pages:
Task Total: 10 + 10 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 205 + 25 = 230
15.3 EotPFirst Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
+15 Task Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2022)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 650
10.3 9, 10, 11Deacon King Kong by James McBride
I'm anticipating that my bookclub will have hated this book. There's a whole host of characters, a sort of complicated interlaced story, and it takes about halfway through the book before things start to come together. My linear-minded bookclub folks are going to struggle with this. But by the end, I was really taken with this book and these characters. The storytelling was fabulous.
I loved the way that everyone knew everyone else's business, but sometimes not the whole story. The way that rumors traveled through the community felt very real and well-drawn. These characters understand that they are living in an unfair world, and they're existentially angry, but they are also living life fully and with faith in community and church and fate. In other words, these are complex individuals that this book allows the reader just a peek through a tiny window into their lives.
The narrator for the audiobook did a fantastic job managing this project and giving voice to all of these different characters. I think his narration moved this from a four-start to a five-star read for me. I'll definitely pay attention to see what else Mr. Hoffman has narrated.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.2, 10.9 - NYC, 20.1, 20.9)
Task total: 40
Grand total: 515
20.9 ABCsThe Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
Soup: "She spent several weeks on the cabbage soup diet. Never again."
+20 Task
+10 Combo (10.4, 20.8)
Post total: 30
Season total: 690
20.1 JemisinShe Would Be King by Wayétu Moore
Review: "Alike spirits separated at great distances will always be bound to meet, even if only once; kindred souls will always collide; and strings of coincidences are never what they appear to be on the surface, but instead are the mask of God."
Moore's main characters (Gbessa, June Dey, Norman Aragon) are these kindred souls. It's the 1830s and 40s and their childhoods take place worlds apart (Liberia, U.S. antebellum South, Jamaica). A fourth character serves as a force to bind their stories and ultimately bring the characters together in Liberia. She's a person, then a ghost, in June Dey's story, and the wind for the others. She reminded me of the swarm in Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift, but she's less of a Greek-chorus-style observer. She pushes and pulls on the characters and even speaks to them at times.
The characters are also bound by their supernatural gifts (strength, invisibility, immortality). Together, the three are portrayed as invincible, like Marvel-style superheroes, when they come together. Moore separates them for most of the story and it's easy to see why - there'd be nothing but conquering and victory with them together.
Gbessa is the most important character, and gets most of Moore's focus and all of her tenderness. She is portrayed as strong, wild and free, but also as broken, lonely and unmoored from any culture or home. All these parts of her make the end of the novel possible.
As the wind says, "The girl with the biggest gift of us all. Life. If she was not a girl or if she was not a woman; if she was not a woman or if she was not a witch, she would be king."
Overall, I enjoyed this and I think it's a great debut. I'm excited to read Moore's memoir and anything else she writes next. I will say that I think there's some room for improvement. It was a little too easy to see Moore tugging the authorial puppet strings here. I could feel a bit of strain to bring the three characters together, then apart, then together again.
+20 Task (MC is Gbessa who is Black)
+5 Combo (20.2 – debut by this author)
+10 Review
Task total = 35
Season total = 360
10.4 Series (Ed's Task)Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics by Tim Marshall
(Oy! I read this book thinking it would fit the 10.2 task... but it doesn't fit there or anywhere else but here. So, will have to plug in another book for 10.2. I was already behind schedule to complete all tasks. sigh)
Anyway, I have always been attracted to maps, flags and politics. I have read several books that discuss how borders are created...and usually the quirky stories behind the more bizarre examples. And when I saw this on my TBR list...I thought it would be similar... but no. It is a much more serious examination of how geography has dictated the policies of nation states.... much more than people might expect. Published in 2015, the book starts off with discussions about Russia.... and predicts that Russia "geographically" has to control Ukraine. (That is NOT a justification - but the realpolitik as seen from the Russian point of view.) Another interesting analysis is about how South America's remoteness inhibits its importance to world commerce. The most ominous part of the book is the last chapter about the geography of the Arctic...and how it is being re-shaped by climate change AND how the Russians have been using a long-term plan to seize dominance there... militarily and diplomatically.
Task=10
Review=10
Post Total=20
Grand Total=270
---; ---; ---;10.4 (2x); 10.5; ---; ---; ---; ---; ---;
15.1; 15.2; ----; ----; ----; ----; ----; ----; ----; ----;
----; ----; ----; ----; ----; ----;20.7; 20.8; ----; 20.10
15.8 EotPNo Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin
+15 Task 2018 Hugo
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 570
20.8 Soup’s OnLanterns by Patricia Veryan
+20 task stew
+15 Combo 10.4, 20.9, 2010
+ 5 Oldies pub 1996
Post total: 40
Season total: 610
20.1 JemisinRu by Kim Thúy
"I first saw the light of day in Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousand shreds, coloured the ground red like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of two million soldiers deployed and scattered throughout the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two."
Vietnamese-born Canadian novelist Kim Thúy wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about a wealthy family in Saigon that needs to escape as the Vietnam War was winding down. Instead of a chronological plot, the book was written using quick impressions and fragmented descriptions in a series of vignettes that go back and forth in time.
The family escaped by boat and spent time in a refuge camp in Malaysia. They immigrated to the town of Granby in Quebec, Canada. Kim Thúy's story is not a political history, but a personal story about immigration and survival, learning new languages, the American Dream, motherhood, and identity. She felt that she was in a "hybrid state: half this, half that, nothing at all and everything at once."
The author writes about the burdens that the frail women of Vietnam carry. The old women are hunched over from working in the fields, many young women are emotionally changed from working as prostitutes to survive, and the women vendors carry soup and other foods, bowls, and portable coal stoves on long bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders.
Kim Thúy has prospered in Canada and has now written several books in French. Her poetic prose is a delight, and the vignettes in Ru are opportunities for reflection.
Lots about soup since the Vietnamese eat soup for breakfast. p 106 "Each soup had its own vermicelli: round ones with beef, small and flat with pork and shrimp, transparent with chicken."
+20 task
+30 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (Vietnam) 10.3 9, 10, 11 (K); 20.2 King (debut); 20.8 Soup's On!; 20.9 ABCs; 20.10 Birthday (pub 2009)
+10 review
+10 Lost in Translation (from French)
Task total: 70
Season total: 560
10.6 Bless the AnimalsPlanet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
10 pts 10.6 Bless the Animals
5 pts 10.7 Geocaching
5 pts Oldies
10 pts Review
10 pts Translation
The book that the late 1960s movie was based on. (Interestingly by the same author as The Bridge Over the River Kwai). It has been years since I saw the movie, but the book tracks it quite well. Raises questions about what it means to be human, how and whether we are fundamentally different from animals and what civilization is.
Includes many standard science fiction tropes (eg long near light speed voyage involving time compression, Earth like alien workd with a civilization that mirrors human civilization) and sets up the surprise ending well. I would recommend it.
Task Total: 40 pts
Season Total: 280 pts
10.1 … … … 10.6 … … … …
20.1 … … 20.4… … … 20.8 20.9 20.10
15.1 … … … … … … … … …
20.8 Soups OnMaus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
20 pts 20.8 Soup’s On “Ah Grandmother, your stew is even tastier than I remembered.”
Task Total: 20 pts
Season Total: 300 pts
10.1 … … … 10.6 … … … …
20.1 … … 20.4… … … 20.8 20.9 20.10
15.1 … … … … … … … … …
20.8 Soup's On! Idéal Standard by Aude Picault
At one point of this graphic novel, the main character is cooking watercress soup.
+20 Task
(No style, graphic novel)
Task total=20
Points total = 260
... ; ... ; 10.3 ; ... ; ... ; 10.6 ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ...
15.1 ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ... ; ...
... ; 20.2 ; 20.3 ; 20.4 ; ... ; ... ; ... ; 20.8 (x2) ; 20.9 ; 20.10 (x2)
20.1 JemisinLong Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds
Just read the book proper and wanted to investigate the graphic novel too!
+20 Task
Grand Total: 330pts
Post 302 Joanne wrote: " 20.9 Author's initials appear in alphabetical orderBloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse by James L. Swanson
A ha..."
You are claiming 3 combos for this. I see 10.2 and 10.3. What is the other one?
20.9 ABCsOh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout's recurring character Lucy Barton is now in her 60s and is recently widowed after her second marriage. She has stayed friends with her first husband, William, who is on his third marriage with a much younger wife. When William decides to look into the past history of his enigmatic late mother, Lucy is the one he asks for help.
I found this so touching I can't give it less than 5 stars. William is both lovable and aggravating, (view spoiler) All this is just to say that the characters felt like real people, if not quite like anyone I have met.
Note: this book is set about 55% in New York City and 45% in Maine, New England, both qualifying for task 10.9.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2, 10.4, 10.9)
Post total: 45
Season total: 735
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 302 Joanne wrote: " 20.9 Author's initials appear in alphabetical orderBloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse by [author:James..."
It is only 2-I was going to claim10.9, but decided not to. Sorry about that.
10.9 NFLThe Invited by Jennifer McMahon
Helen and Nate have come into a little money and decided to leave city life for a bucolic life in Vermont. They find their dream tract of land--44 acres, right in their price range, with the perfect spot for them to build their dream home. Nate was a science teacher and loves the local flora and fauna while Helen, a former history teacher, is entranced by the story of the land they now call home: in the early 1920s a woman was hanged as a witch, her house burnt to the ground, and her daughter disappeared.
In this one, we get TWO houses-as-characters...one being built using the relics of a cursed family, one in a constant state of being torn down and rebuilt. Each exerts a different energy on the other characters in the story.
This was another perfect-for-the-season read with a pleasantly high creep-factor. The story bounces between past and present seamlessly, the ghost/witch story was on point, and the end was...mostly okay, even if it was a little eye-roll-y. Best listened to on an overcast fall day.
+10 Task, set 100% in New England (Vermont)
+10 Review
+20 Combo: 10.2 (born in U.S.), 10.3, 10.8, 20.9
Task total: 40
Season total: 545
20.10 BirthdayHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stoneby J.K. Rowling
Task +20
combo +25 (10.2, 10.3 JK Rowling, 10.4 series, 10.7 geocaching adventure MPG, 20.9 )
Book Total: 45
Grand Total: 235
15.3 EotP2010 Cartier Diamond Award -- Lifetime Achievement.
The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid
+ 15 -- 2010 Cartier Diamond Award
Points This Post: 15
Season Total: 50
Roster:
2008
2009
2010 Cartier Diamond Award The Mermaids Singing by Val McDiarmid
2011 Jerusalem Prize Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
2012
2013
2014 Scotiabank Award Us Conductors by Sean Michaels
2015
2016
2017
15.2 EotP2015 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
+ 15 2015 Bram Stoker Award
Points This Post: 15
Season Total: 65
Roster:
2008
2009
2010 Cartier Diamond Award The Mermaids Singing by Val McDiarmid
2011 Jerusalem Prize Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
2012
2013
2014 Scotiabank Award Us Conductors by Sean Michaels
2015 Bram Stoker Award Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
2016
2017
20.1 JemisinSalvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino
A man is found dead in his house, poisoned by a cup of coffee, but with no indication of where the poison came from. His wife is away, and another woman has her house keys. Did one of them do it, or did a third person enter the house unseen?
Like 'The Devotion of Suspect X', this is more of a how-done-it than a who-done-it. The answer to the 'how' is wonderfully convoluted, but the 'why' wasn't adequate for me.
I also wondered about the title, which is in English a direct translation of the Japanese. I read the French version, 'Un café maison', so I may have missed something, but I didn't notice any salvation or any saints...?
Still an enjoyable 4-star read!
+20 Task (all characters are ethnically Japanese)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.3, 10.4, 20.10 2008)
+10 LiT
Post total: 55
Season total: 790
20.1 JemisinI Have the Right to Destroy Myself by Kim Young-ha
I was drawn in by the title. I saw it on the "Most Poetic Book Titles" list and was instantly intrigued. Damn me for falling for a shiny new title. This book was SO not my jam. It had gross things just for the sake of gross things (not to help us better understand a concept or a character's motivations...it was just...ick...and I can never look at bottled water the same again).
A nameless character seeks out people (well, women) and grooms them into wanting to commit suicide which he offers to help them accomplish.
Every character is dismal, disconnected, and cold. I'm trying to think of *something* good I can say about the book (it is, after all, from an author "has won every major Korean literature award"), but I did not find one redeeming quality.
It was a short book but it took all of my willpower to finally finish it. SO glad to have that behind me. Now I need a shower.
+20 Task (all characters are Korean)
+10 LiT
+10 Review
+25 Combo: 10.3, 20.2, 20.6 (#101 on the list), 20.9, 20.10 (first pub. 1995)
Task total: 65
Season total: 610
10.9 NFL!Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
This book packs a punch in a very slim package. As well, it is very readable. At first I was slightly confused by whose POV we were reading, and then it became apparent that this we were privy to everyone’s POV. The readability is also deceiving, the story and it’s many layers is powerful and moving (even though seemingly told simply/artlessly). The characters are complex, and we gain insight into their choices. It seemed very authentic. You could easily read this in a few hours, but it is worth taking time over (maybe reading it in small chunks) to absorb the story more fully. 4*
10 task (NYC)
10 review
25 combo 10.2, 10.3, 10.5, 20.1, 20.9
______
45
Running total: 545
10.5 Autumn ColorsThe House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse
I kept seeing reviews that compared this to The Secret History and Rebecca...and I want to punch all of those people who made those comparisons. No. Just: no.
There's a big manor house in the countryside and the author can't decide whether or not this house is haunted or exerting an evil influence over the people staying there or if it's just a big old house--sometimes we are told outright that the house is doing this...but just because you say it without *showing* us the truth of it doesn't make it so. Author fail.
There's a group of friends who gather at this house (which one of them has inherited) for good and not-so-good times (I guess that's where people are getting the Secret History vibes?), but these people are pretty awful and I don't really care what happens to any of them.
This was a huge disappointment...it started out with such promise! The first 10% was setting up the possibility for an intriguing story. Too bad the last 90% was such a let-down.
Could be that I've been glutting myself on so many truly delicious atmospheric stories that this one, by comparison, was such an epic fail.
+10 Task (MIDNIGHT blue)
+10 Review
+20 Combo: 20.2, 20.8 ("There was asparagus soup to start."), 20.9, 20.10 (pub. 2008)
Task total: 40
Season total: 650
20.8 Soup’s OnThe Little Snake by A.L. Kennedy
+20 task barley soup
+10 Combo 10.3, 10.6
Post total: 30
Season total: 650
20.8 Soup’s OnThe Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
Erik Larson answers the question -what was it like in London during the blitz- at least for the Churchill family and staff. Much of Larson’s material comes from the personal diaries of Churchill’s teenage daughter, Mary, and of John Colville, a staffer. So there is the personal—parties, love, walks through the park, and fear—set against the public history of the war.
The book is well-written and effectively weaves together the personal with events on the world stage.
It is eerie to read this as I see the news of missiles striking civilian targets in cities throughout Ukraine.
There are several mentions of soup but the one that delighted me was Averill Harriman’s disparaging comments about the spinach soup that he was served at the White House when he had lunch with President Roosevelt.
+20 task
+10 review
+5 jumbo
+10 combo 10.2, 20.9
Task total: 45
Season total: 190
Task 20.8 Soup's On! (Owlette's Task)Read a book where one of the characters makes, serves, or eats soup. Quoting the text is not mandatory, but please let us know what kind of soup. "Soup" also includes chili, stew, or chowder.
For Stew (specifically green chile stew):
p. 294: “Levi followed Sun to the apartment where the kids awaited their return. Only they were in her parents’ house eating green chile stew and homemade tortillas.”
A Bad Day for Sunshine: A Novel (Sunshine Vicram #1) (2020) by Darynda Jones (Paperback 416 pages)
+20 Task
+20 Combo (#10.2 born USA, #10.3 I-J-K, #10.4 Series, #20.9 (initials: D. J.))
Task Total: 20 + 20 = 40
Grand Total: 230 + 40 = 270
20.10 Birthday (Elizabeth (Alaska's) TaskThe Confessional by Georges Simenon
Soup quote: "In the evening she didn't come down to dinner either, and just had a bowl of vegetable soup in her own room." pg. 125
+20 task
+15 combo (20.5, 20.8, 20.9)
+10 LiT
+ 5 oldies (1966)
Task total=50
Season total=200
20.9 ABCsMurder Is Easy by Agatha Christie
This was an enjoyable visit with Ms. Christie. Most of the novel has amateur detective, Luke Fitzwilliam, trying to first determine if there actually is a murderer on the loose and then who it is. He has just returned to England after working in a colony’s police force; so, he has the time (and the means) to travel to the village where the crimes are occurring. I found the mystery to be a good one. I really had no idea (until the reveal) who did it. Some of the red herrings that Christie inserted were pretty blatant though. There is also a romance element, that I’ve noticed Christie will put in her novels on occasion. This was my least favourite part of the novel. When the novel was released, one reviewer called the romance ‘anemic’; which I would agree with. 3.5*
20 task
10 review
10 oldie
10 combo 10.4, 20.5
_____
50
Running total: 595
20.10 BirthdayCaín by José Saramago
Review: I probably should have read a little more Saramago before diving into this, his swansong, but I've read two others (Blindness, The Elephant's Journey) so I do already have a sense of his unique style.
I wanted to like this more than I did. It's creative and often funny, right from the start. The first sentence:
"When the lord, also known as god, realised that adam and eve, although perfect in every outward aspect, could not utter a word or make even the most primitive of sounds, he must have felt annoyed with himself, for there was no one else in the garden of eden whom he could blame for this grave oversight . . ."
But the rest of the book is more of the same - poking fun at the Old Testament in ways that are often very funny or had me nodding my head, but without anything really new or intriguing. Cain is our focus, and he wanders through time experiencing Old Testament highlights and questioning god at every turn.
God and cain have conversations like this one several times:
"But I though the workings of the world depended entirely on your will, lord, Yes, I've been using my will rather too much, as have others in my name, that's why there is so much discontent, people turning their backs on me, some even denying my existence, Punish them, They're beyond my jurisdiction, out of my control, the life of a god isn't as easy as you all think, a god cannot, as people imagine, simply say I want, I can and I command, and he can't always get what he wants straight away, but has to go round in circles first..."
In the end we're left with the idea that either god doesn't exist or, if he does, he's somewhere between a tyrant and a dimwit and much weaker than we think. And, story-wise, humanity dies out right there in the old testament.
There were sparks of an idea of god as two-faced that were occasionally picked up and abandoned (fate is another name for god, "No one is just one person...", "satan is just another instrument of the lord, the one who does the dirty work to which god prefers not to put his name."). I wish Saramago had explored something like this a bit more, rather than just repeatedly rolling his eyes at the absurdity of it all before shrugging and moving on.
+20 Task (pub’d 2009)
+15 Combo (10.3 – Jose; 20.5 – https://colnect.com/en/stamps/stamp/7... 20.9 – JS)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (from the Portuguese)
Task total = 55
Season total = 415
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
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Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (other topics)
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Jules Verne (other topics)
Rachel Cohn (other topics)
Louise Penny (other topics)
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Dark Passage by David Goodis
+20 task
+15 combo (10.2, 10.5-Dark Venetian Red, 20.8 "There was beef broth, there was the tan cream of a vegetable-beef stew, there was a butterscotch pudding thinned down to liquid." And eaten through a glass straw, yikes. Chapter 12, page 130)
+10 oldies (1946)
Task total=45
Season total=150