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Trim Challenge 2023 – Community Announcement and Discussion Thread
Finished my September #11:I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell - 4* - My Review
Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir is written in an unusual way. Instead of recounting her life story in chronological order, she has assembled a series of seventeen essays that document times of her life when death made an appearance. She was afflicted with encephalitis as a child, has taken many risks, experienced accidents and near-drownings, and miscarriages. A few times, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her daughter suffers from a significant immune system disorder. O'Farrell writes beautifully about and fragility of life and the times when one decision, one chance outcome could have changed the course of her life. It is not a series of near-death experiences. Rather, it is a reflection on life’s challenges and the resiliency of the human spirit. I think each reader will bring to mind their own personal experiences when life could have taken a much different direction. I found it both moving and insightful.
My # 11 was If an Egyptian Cannot Speak EnglishHere is the review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
#11 SeptemberThe Rosie Effect by Don Tillman
3 stars
In this story Don and Rosie are recently married and expecting a baby. Don is extremely intelligent, but struggles with emotions. So Rosie is not sure if Don will be able to connect with the child and has concerns about this and ones related to finishing her graduate degree.
Don makes mistakes and keeps secrets to not add stress for Rosie; some of them are important, but others are silly. After working his way through things most issues have positive results.
Don’s friends are funny additions to the book and they appreciate his personality. He helps them all. The author has made Don relatable and the reader wants him to make things work out. It is an enjoyable read and a good sequel to the The Rosie Project.
I got too busy with work and life recently to finish my August book and now that it is basically mid-September I think I will have to give it up. I hope I can read Horrstor by Grady Hendrix this month because I love him! But we'll see 😬
Meli wrote: "I got too busy with work and life recently to finish my August book and now that it is basically mid-September I think I will have to give it up. I hope I can read Horrstor by Grady Hendrix this ..."
Meli - I am planning on Horrorstör in October - possibly end of this month. I don't think it will be a long read.
Theresa wrote: "Meli - I am planning on Horrorstör in October - possibly end of this month. I don't think it will be a long read."OK, great!
Can't wait to chat about it... assuming I can fit it in!
Meli wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Meli - I am planning on Horrorstör in October - possibly end of this month. I don't think it will be a long read."OK, great!
Can't wait to chat about it... assuming I can fit it in!"
I also need it for a year long challenge to fit prompt set in a single day. So there's some flexibility in my timing - but I do think it particularly fits for an October read. I think I might have put it on my Subdue board -- if I did and land on it, I'll read it. However at snails pace I'm moving through my Porter board .... it will be October before I am even close to it.
#11 SeptemberThe Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time 4 Stars
@ Jenn, you were right-very interesting and I am sure you would enjoy it
,
A very surprising, interesting take on the story of The Black Death, which killed between 75 and 200 million people from 1346 to 1353 in Asia and Europe and Northern Africa. Both pneumonic and bubonic plague affected the human population at the speed of light. Sources indicated that Europe alone lost half it's population,
The book included extensive research which includes diaries and letters and chronicles from religious men who lived long enough to record parts of what happened. Many of these writings blame God or the solar system for the unstoppable plague. We now know it was first carried by fleas on the rat and when transferred to humans, and was spread by contact.
The book was very readable, I found myself interested and picking it up each night to carry on learning about something I knew little about.
September - # 11A Woman in Jerusalem by A.B. Yehoshua - DNF
I have tried for more than 3 weeks to get into this book, without success. I carried it in my purse. I made it my kitchen table book. I put it at my bedside. And still, I only made it to page 30. I just never got interested in it. I am calling this one done.
At least it's off the TBR.
Good for you BC! Life is short. Throw it off the train!
Amy wrote: "Good for you BC! Life is short. Throw it off the train!"Agreed. I wish I could do that but I'm one of those people who keeps hoping a book will improve and keeps slogging until it is done. I do that with people too....refuse to give up on them even when my gut is telling me to run and warning me I'm just being used and they have no intention of ever doing what they say or stopping doing what I said hurts me. Not a good way to be so I'm proud of those of you who can do it.
I know you can do it! Please, I know you are young enough to be still teaching- so it can still effect your life. Take a chance, start with a book. and just throw it back-you will be amazed how wonderful you feel afterwards. I made a firm decision 5 years ago-when I was 61-it took til this year for me to do it with people, the only time I have had a serious regret, wishing I would have woke up when I was younger-the weight off your back will amaze you!
Jen wrote: "Agreed. I wish I could do that but I'm one of those people who keeps hoping a book will improve and keeps slogging until it is ..."I do this, too. I also try to "stay in touch" with just about everyone! Facebook helps (somewhat) with that.
September - #11A Long Time Coming by Aaron Elkins
4 stars
If you are intrigued by stories of art thefts and forgeries, real and fictional, this is a contemporary mystery for you, even if mysteries aren't your reading choice.
Two Renoirs are found at a flee market in Eastern Europe by a Milanese art dealer. In the resulting publicity, Sol, an elderly Italian Jew, a WWII survivor now living in NYC, recognizes them as paintings stolen from his great-grandfather's kitchen in Milano just a few months before the Nazis were defeated. After pursuing his legal rights in the Italian courts and losing, Valentino Caruso, a Met Museum curator heading to Milano for business, (gotta love the name!) agrees to see if he can get a lifetime loan of the one that's a café scene featuring Sol's great-grandfather. Of course it isn't that simple and all is not resolved until murder occurs.
I rounded this up from a 3.5 because all the art heist and forgery information, the legalities of art theft in Italy vs. the US, the WWII art theft background, were extensive and the soul of the story. The characters were fun, and though I have never been to Milano, I feel as if I would recognize it from reading this.
Has there been an announcement for the Oct number that I have missed or are we still waiting?
Anita just announced the tag yesterday, so our number should be coming up today
Joanne wrote: "Anita just announced the tag yesterday, so our number should be coming up today"I forget most of the group is about a day behind me. It's 7.30 pm Saturday here.
I messaged Amy - I think this month is going to be random because the list at top of thread shows Coffee Ann /☕️Ann as Picker. She hasn't been around in a while.Though with so few books left and the flexibility to swap around ... it really is any of them!
Just texted with Amy and she says the pick for October is #2!My #2 is Euphoria by Lily King.
That's a buddy read though I have no idea with whom. Will check.
I will set up the buddy read on Oct. 1. I own the book and have it in hand. It looks short.
ETA: buddy read acc/t Amy's schedule is Diana, Sally, and me.
Theresa wrote: "Just texted with Amy and she says the pick for October is #2!My #2 is Euphoria by Lily King.
That's a buddy read though I have no idea with whom. Will check.
I w..."
Yay, looking forward to reading and discussing the book together, Theresa and Sally!
My # 2 is As Bright as HeavenI am LoL because with my last few books, needed for other challenges, I have been stuck in the 14th century and The Black Death. I guess it is time to move on to the 1918 Pandemic!
I wasn't able to hit the last 2 books because work has just been SO busy :( I am basically just finishing book club books. October #2 is King Kong Theory which I really want to read but would rather read last month's Horrostor by Grady Hendrix, so I think I will try to read that instead. I also read a short story every day in October so any supplemental challenges kinda take a dive this month grim😬 So we shall see..
I have recently learned how to give up on people and I just quit a job that was making me miserable!! But funny enough I still will never DNF a book. Go figure.
Sally, I clearly want to hear more about your job. But what you said was also really funny. I also have trouble giving up on a book. Why don’t you write to me privately and tell me what’s going on.
I rarely give up on a book and I even more rarely regret spending the time. For me it always pays off in the end in some way. It's like theater and opera productions. I can count on 1 hand after nearly 50 years of attending live performances how many shows or operas I've abandonned at intermission - and that includes at least one where I was feeling too ill to stay! Even a show that was so bad I would have gotten up and left in the middle - it was one with no intermission -- we couldn't because we were so far into the row it was impossible to get out without completely disrupting the show which I never ever would do. In the end, bad it as was, my theater buddy and I have been dining out on stories about that show for decades.
Just look how much fun my dislike of Wolf Hall has led?! It wasn't all bad - just mostly. LOL.
Perhaps it's as simple with me that I have to read as part of my job so much badly written, boring, uninteresting or irritating documents, my level of 'not doing it for me' is set too high for most fiction writers and even non-fiction writers to reach.
Or maybe it's the memory of the nuns in elementary school.
Or maybe the fact I read quickly - when I do have time to read - that I am through it before I decide I don't like it.
Or all of the above.
But I have thrown a book or 3 at the wall - no dents or damage though. You have to take my word for it.
1) When We Believed in Mermaids2) The Sea of Tranquility
3)Intimacies
4)The Bar Harbor Retirement Home foR Famous Writers
5Hello Beautiful: A Novel
6)The Candy House
7)If We Had Known
8)Island Beneath the Sea
9)Outline
10)Transit
11)Island of
Missing Trees
12)Vigil Harbor
Only read 1,2,3, and 7
But I substituted a lot of other books. It’s actually been a really good reading year for me up till now
I've gotten much better at abandoning books I am not enjoying. It has been a goal of mine to let go of my "need" to see it through when I am only torturing myself. I would never judge anyone else, though, since it's been many years of trying to get to this point.
I finished my September #11 book:The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal
3 Stars
Set in two time periods, we see Mona in the current day as she approaches her 60th birthday as well as her childhood in Ireland and her life in the 1970s in Birmingham as she falls in love, marries and gets pregnant. I found this book to be really quite strange. In the present day, Mona has a shop where she makes and sells handmade dolls, and the women who come into her shop all seem to have meaningful conversation and want to share their memories from the past, which seemed hard to relate to. The characters seemed to have many hopes and ambitions that they had not acted on, and they had then accepted this and decided to try to make the best of their lives. It was told through lots of short chapters, and this meant it was a bit difficult to keep track of when the chapters kept jumping between the different characters.
1) The Art of Political Murder2) Remarkably Bright Creatures
3)My brilliant Friend
4)The Story of a new Name
5)Those Who Leave and Those Who stay
6) The Story of the Lost Child
7) West with Giraffes
8) The Glass Hotel
9) Hello Beautiful
10) When Neitzc he Wept
11) Tomorrow and Tommorow and Tomorrow
This is my more recent list which I had more success with. I read all but 1,7,10 and 12
#2 - Euphoria by Lily King4 stars
Lily King provides here a love triangle among young anthropoligists who found themselves studying in the same area in New Guinea for a few months in 1932. Nell already has reached academic success, plus popular fame and fortune, with the publication of a book based on her studies of a Solomon Islands tribe. Fen, her husband, has also published a report of his year with a tribe of sorcerers that brought him some academic acknowledgments but nothing compared to Nell's. There marriage is not smooth or completely happy , and the strain shows in their working partnership, with Fen[s jealousy and feelings of powerlessness tied to his lack of success compared to Nell's. The third member of this triangle, and the primary narrator, Bankson has achieved some respect due to his extended time spent with a tribe in New Guinea but struggles with depression, loneliness, and a sense of inadequacy, even failure, as an anthropologiest. For him, meeting Nell and Fen is life- and career- saving, especially Nell. All of course does not go smoothly for them.
King was inspired to write this by Margaret Mead and her time in New Guinea with two other noted anthropolgists, one her then husband and the other the man who became her third husband. It also clearly led to a great deal of research into cultural anthropology and its methodologies. I loved how King wove that into this story by having each main character represent a different methodology and theory. It added great depth and tension to the relationships.
I did enjoy the story here, but something just doesn't sit well for me, primarily with the first 25% or so of the book. That may have been my own fault though. Despoite knowing what this was about, and knowing it was fiction, I somehow had it in mind this was a retelling of Margaret Mead's life and relationships at that time, not a work of historical fiction. It took me too long to sort my head out when reading it, and I even went back at one point and re-read the first couple of chapters because I sure had not taken them in. My other issue is with the ending -- as being too quick and pat, though in truth I think I expected it. I basically give this 3.5 but rounded up to 4 as I really liked that it was primarily told by Bankson in the first person, and that the only other occasional narrator is Nell via a few diary entries here and there.
October- #2Die Trying by Lee Child
4 stars
Die Trying is another exciting Jack Reacher thriller. While helping someone, Reacher is accidentally caught up in the kidnapping of Holly Johnson. The assailants are not sure what to do with Reacher when he is with the victim, so they force him to come also.
The story is complicated with twists. Who is good and who is bad is not always easy to tell. Holly is important to the government and has connections in very high places. Militant groups are involved with the kidnapping, but they have much more in mind. The stakes are high, but Reacher is qualified to figure it all out.
The author keeps the reader interested and the full picture of what is going on is not revealed until the end. The descriptions of the character of Reacher and others are written well. Readers of other Jack Reacher books will enjoy this one.
About to begin The Wind Knows My Name. Finished Breathe which I actually hated but could not DNF. I generally do find I get something from a book I read but this one was a completely dismal experience. I know that there are people who loved it but I was not one of them
My second book for this month is Thr Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende. I live this author but this book has been kind of dissppointing
Sallys wrote: "My second book for this month is Thr Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende. I live this author but this book has been kind of dissppointing"Every author is entitled to a bad book ...
Sometimes publishing contracts dictate rather than where the creative spirit is currently sitting.
The book's not bad Just not as good as her others. A friend recently said the same thing as you Theresa.
The last two numbers picked are 9 for November and 10 for December. 9 for me is the Traitor’s Wife by Alison Pataki. I think it’s a buddy read with Cindy if I am not mistaken.
We will start over in 2024 with 24 titles. I promise to get us started and make it easy for us to set these up together. But as I always do, I wait for the moderators to announce the year-long challenges, so first, those get our primary attention, and second, we can see how our lists may fit in with those. As always, it will be easy for new members to hop in, and at any time during the two year cycle. So hang tight. We will indeed get to begin again anew.
I am pretty sure I am done with this challenge for the year. I just have too much on my plate for the rest of the year, health wise and with books all over the table that need finishing before I go to anything else. If I can get a another one in, I will. I will be back for 2024 though, thanks for all you do here Amy.
Joanne, the fact that you check in with your loving spirit is more than enough. I think everyone loves and appreciates that this is a really relaxed challenge, because people can kind of come and go if it works. And from any of us, we’ve cleared off more than we ever thought possible, even if it was less than we had anticipated.
Amy wrote: "9 for me is the Traitor’s Wife by Alison Pataki. I think it’s a buddy read with Cindy if I am not mistaken. ..."It might be a buddy read, but it's not with me.
My #9 is:
All My Patients are Under the Bed: Memoirs of a Cat Doctor / Louis J. Camuti, Marilyn Frankel, Haskel Frankel
I'm in for 2024 as well!! Right now I'm reading We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. I'm very engrossed by it but I feel like I may have read it already. As a rule I don't reread books. Theres just so much out there that I want to read!
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Play Book Tag
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Annie Spence is a public librarian. In this quick read she imagines talking to books as if they were people she knew. Each entry is anywhere from a few paragraphs to 3 pages. Books may be ones she is signing out or being returned, ones she comes across in a B&B when traveling, something her husband is reading, something she sees in the purse or shopping bag of a stranger, something that is being withdrawn from her collection for lack of use or replacement because of condition, etc. In each case she gives a personal reaction and maybe a snippet on when and why she originally read it or didn't.
The second part of the book are short chapters on things like: You and Two Books (recommendation), Books That Lead to More Books, Turning Your Lover into a Reader (recommendations based on what they last read), and Books I Never Break Up With (favorites). All with a short reason why. Much of this is humorous. Fun read.