Reading with Style discussion
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Spring 2012 Reading w/Style Completed Tasks
20.6 Selexyz BookstoreThe Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness by Pema Chödrön
"There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs, and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly."
This is the wisdom of no escape. There is nowhere else to go but the path that you have before you and you might as well take it for what it is, learn from it, and enjoy it a little along the way.
This slim volume is a collection of talks given during a one-month meditation practice at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia. Each chapter...each paragraph...really, each sentence has so much to consider and contemplate, I have started and stopped this book five times over the past six years. This was the first time that I made it all the way to the end. I'm not Buddhist. I'm not a very good pray-er/meditation-practitioner. I'm just a person trying to find a better way to travel this path I've been given. Though some of the writings dealt with very specific Buddhist teachings and philosophy and went right over my head, I loved the beauty and wisdom that was found on these pages. They challenged my idea of what a "good life" is; they gave me tools to better cope with and learn from the difficulties that life throws my way; they made me want to be more aware, more alive, more awake from breath to breath and moment to moment.
+20 Task (294.3443)
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
Task Total = 40
Grand Total = 550
10.6 Music of the Soul Selected Poetry by William Wordsworth
Review
Wordsworth was of course a classical literary superstar in his time and his works have held on to the present century. They celebrate nature, life, love and spirit. He also pays writes poetry to and about his sister, that some considered more sensual than fraternal and on the surface sounds so, only we must consider that in his time, romanticism allowed poets and others to express all relationships, whether friend, lover or family member in a much more intimate matter than today which would be misconstrued in this age. Wordsworth was well-received in his time and patronized by royalty. Browning writes a poem entitled Lost Leader which suggests in his eyes, Wordsworth sold out more for the prestige of being so well thought of by nobility than being true to his art. Being at court could very well compromise what he felt he could express and thus inhibit his creativity. Fear not, Browning, for Words worth has retained a steadfast following and if his creativity is stifled it could not be perceived by me at any rate to have been inhibited.
+10 pts - Task
+10 pts - Canon
+10 pts - Not a Novel
+10 pts - Review
Task Total - 40 pts
Grand Total - 615
Selected Poetry
20.6 In Honor Of Selexyz BookstoreThe Secret of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
Review:
I was rather underwhelmed by these stories. Agatha Christie has some very similar plots with a lot more drama. It could be argued that Father Brown came first, but for us reading today, it means that Chesterton's stories are rather too familiar and predictable. There's the disappearing ruby that is saved from being stolen; the man masquerading as heir to a fortune; the actor who is shot on stage; the exotic people from the East who turn out to be red herrings, etc. It’s amusing enough and I enjoyed the stories but I didn’t feel involved. These days, we have read it all before.
+20 Task (Father Brown is a Catholic priest)
+10 Combo (10.8 father; 20.5 pub.1927)
+10 Review
+10 Not a novel
Task total = 50
Grand total = 1090
10.4 It's your BirthdayPoems of Robert Browning edited by Rosemary Sprague
Review
Having never read a book devoted solely to Robert Browning’s poetry, I was surprised at variety of his work. Some was quite dark, one in particular about strangling his love with her hair and another as My Late Duchess, a betrayed husband hinting at his revenge. Though I know the story and even the song of The Pied Piper of Hamlin, I didn’t know he wrote the original story in verse. Some of it was quite humorous and sweetly poignant such as Development in which he tells how his father introduced him to Troy and the ancient Greek heroes, and as he mastered one Homeric or Virgilian work, would be encouraged to seek more and more of these historical stories on which he and his playmate’s imaginative wars were based, only to go on as he became older and being taught from a German historian that his beautiful dreamland did not actually exist. Oh the disappointment and loss in faith of his father’s omniscience. Browning also lauds many fellow poets and other artists such as musicians and artists. I would like to delve more into his work and motivations. Having held this fascination for nearly two centuries, it is a justified classic.
+10 pts - Task
+5 pts - Combo (10.6 book of verse)
+10 pts - Canon
+10 pts - Not a Novel
+10 pts - Review
Task total - 45 pts
Grand Total - 660 pts
It's AcademicThe Marriage Plot: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
Review: This is a post feminist take on the "marriage plot". The story follows three Brown seniors from the class of 1982. The woman, Maddie, has options not available to Jane Austin's protagonists. On graduation day they contemplate graduate school, travel, and fellowships as well as marriage. Eugenides has a warm and easy tone. I very much appreciate his sympathetic treatment of the maniac/depressive mental illness and it's impact on the friends of the afflicted. I found his treatment of the details of the philosophy of religious studies, semiotics, etc. went on a little too long.
+20 task
+5 (combo 10.10)
+10 review
Task total: 35
Previous total: 435
Grand total: 470
20.4 - El Ateneo BookstoreThe Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Made into a movie in 1991
Some books, while perhaps not having achieved the status of "classic," have earned fairly legendary acclaim. This was one of those books in which, from the first page, you can see why.
Pat Conroy's storytelling power, use of language and creation of dynamic and sympathetic characters all combined to make reading "The Prince of Tides" an unforgettable experience.
Conroy's writing is so good that I was even able to remain engaged during the parts of the story focused around football!
Having recently moved to Savannah, Georgia, it was really interesting to read a story so entwined with the landscape and culture of the South Carolina low country. Conroy brings the marshlands and sea islands to life without becoming too bogged down in physical detail. The land is more like a massive, pervasive character than a setting.
The main players in the story are quite believable yet far from mundane. Conroy smashed apart stereotypes with Tom, Savannah, Lowenstein, Luke and other characters. They can be wickedly funny in one moment and deeply sad in the next, brilliant and articulate but grounded in their homes, straying from tradition at one turn and clinging to family ties at the next.
To avoid spoilers, I won't get into the plotline, which is quite extensive and complex. Suffice it to say, it will keep you turning the pages (or listening late into the night, as I did, reading on audiobook!)
This book had been sitting in my "to read" list for quite some time and a reading challenge to read a book later made into a movie finally gave me cause to read it. I am very glad that I did, and highly recommend this book.
+20 task
+10 review
+5 jumbo (688 pages)
Task Total = 35
Grand Total = 185
20.5 In Honor Of Shakespeare & CoThe Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens
Review:
Louise is a widow with three grown-up daughters, left with so little money that she has nowhere to live and has to stay with her daughters in turns. None of the daughters are particularly happy in their lives and none of them really wants her. The family members that Louise gets on with best are a young granddaughter and one of her sons-in-law. By chance she meets and becomes friends with a man of a lower class who writes trashy thrillers. But the heart of the novel is her relationships with her daughters and what happens when she tries to help them – is it help or interference?
This is an excellent example of the kind of books that Persephone publish, slow-moving and focused on relationships. I loved it.
+20 Task (pub.1955)
+10 Review
The Village by Marghanita Laski
Review:
The story opens with the celebrations for the end of World War 2 in an English village, and examines class and how the barriers are breaking down as working class men are earning more than their professional middle class counterparts.
The plot here is rather predictable with middle class Margaret falling in love with the son of her mother's former servant, and I preferred the first half which was more of a comedy of manners, rather than the second half which is all about various people's reactions to their relationship. All in all I enjoyed reading this, but didn’t find it very original.
+20 Task (pub.1952)
+10 Review
Task total = 60
Grand total = 1150
ATW - CircumnavigatorTask 15.1 - Australasia - Australia E149.07 (fits a,b,c)
Jennifer Government by Max Barry
Task Total - 15 pts
Grand Total - 675 pts
10.9 Please Sir, I want some more"Indignation by Philip Roth
(I didn't participate in the Winter Challenge; this is my first. But last December, January and February I read Roth's The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, and The Prague Orgy.)
Task total=10
Grand total=160
20.10 It's academic The Heather Blazingby Colm Tóibín
+20 task (Princeton University and the University of Manchester) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colm_Toibin
Task total=20
Grand total=180
JD wrote: "20.7 In Honor of Kid's RepublicGreat Expectations by Charles Dickens
+20 Task
+15 Combo 20.4, 10.4, 20.3
+10 Canon
Task Total=45
Grand Total=195"
+5 Jumbo (over 500 pages)
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "AtW Circumnavigator15.10 (10th Itinerary stop) Mauritius (E 057 31)
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
Task Total = 25
+100 Well-Traveled Bonus
Grand Total = 360
my re..."
Congrats!
Congratulations, Elizabeth! How were your travels?
15.10 AtW CircumnavigatorAntarctica (00 00): At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
Task: 15
Bonus: 10
Task Total: 25
+Well-Traveled Bonus: 100
Grand Total: 545
Karen GHHS wrote: "Congratulations, Elizabeth! How were your travels?"I enjoyed this little jaunt. I read some things I might have put off longer and was well rewarded.
RwS Task:20.1 In Honor of The Tattered Cover
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Withdrawn from publication after the publisher's wife had moral objections:
http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/ba...
Sister Carrie surprised me. With its setting in the late 1800s, it was unusual, I think. At the beginning, I thought it might be just one more story of a young woman taken advantage of by a man, which is enjoyable enough if well written, but not really unique. In this story, however, Carrie is the one who steps out on her own to make a life for herself. I found the writing somewhat overdone and rambling at times, but there was something about the way the story was presented that appealed to me as well. The characters inner thoughts were there for the reader, but were rarely voiced out loud to the other person. This gave me a different opinion of the characters than I would have had if the story was just told through their actions. Sister Carrie is recommended for those that like classics and/or stories about the theater.
+20 Task
+15 Combo: 10.3 Girl’s Names / 10.4 It’s Your Birthday / 20.4 El Ateneo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044486/)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
+ 5 Jumbo (512 pages)
Task Total: 60
Grand Total: 1265
Task 10.10 The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
+10 Task
+10 Combo (20.5 pub 1953, 20.4 movie 1973)
Task total 20
Total points 365
+10 Task
+10 Combo (20.5 pub 1953, 20.4 movie 1973)
Task total 20
Total points 365
Task 10.9 Snuff by Terry Pratchett
I read Reaper Man fro the Winter Challenge.
Task total 10
Total points 375
Task 20.8 It's Alphabetic Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses by Thomas Hardy (laughing)
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.6 poetry)
+10 canon
+10 not a novel
Task total 45
Total points 420
I read Reaper Man fro the Winter Challenge.
Task total 10
Total points 375
Task 20.8 It's Alphabetic Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses by Thomas Hardy (laughing)
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.6 poetry)
+10 canon
+10 not a novel
Task total 45
Total points 420
Task 10.2 - Space Out - Read a book that features space travel.This novel, set in the far future when mankind has settled the stars, has its main characters travelling to three different planets:
Changing Vision (Web Shifters, #2) by Julie E. Czerneda
Review: This science fiction novel is volume #2 of a trilogy, Web Shifters. Even though this is a second novels of a trilogy, it can be read and enjoyed without having read the first novel. The author recaps the essentials from the first novel and proceeds from there. It helps that this second novel of a trilogy takes place 50 years after the conclusion of the first novel of the trilogy. Some of the backstory of the major characters can be learned only by reading the first book of the trilogy but it is not essential to following the story in this novel.
Julie E. Czerneda trained as a biologist. In the Web Shifters trilogy, she creates numerous alien characters, with unique physical structures which affect their perceptions and decisions with plot consequences as a result. The plot-driver: our main viewpoint character, Esen, is an alien amorphous blob who can shapeshift into any other alien structure. As a result of the events from Book #1 (Beholder's Eye), Esen is close friends with human Paul. They’ve had a peaceful life the past 50 years, living on the fringe of the known worlds, making a living by importing and exporting goods, keeping out of sight from those who wish them harm. They decide to go on a vacation on another world. While there, Paul is recognized, and the chase is on! Several species with their own goals and attitudes either help or hinder them; and a human starship commander who has spent the past 50 years trying to locate Esen and Paul and “bring them to justice” gets a whiff of their location. He chases them also, and has his own unique interactions (and misunderstandings with) various alien species.
I found this a very satisfying science fiction novel, and I intend to read the concluding volume “one of these days”. Recommended to anyone who likes science fiction, and especially recommended for those who like “space opera” type of science fiction tales.
+10 Task
+ 10 Style: 2. Review (10 points):
Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20
Grand Total: 345 + 20 = 365
10.3 Harvard BookstoreHousekeeping by >Marilynne Robinson
Review
This book’s theme is about abandonment, about a family of three generations of females and their dealings with mental illness. The book opens with a woman and her three daughters, her husband, their father, is killed in when the entire train he is on falls from a trestle into the deep, cold waters of the lake. This lake, train and trestle are very important props in this book. That’s the first abandonment. Then one by one the daughters leave their mother until she is alone. Molly goes to China to become a missionary, Helen elopes and moves to Seattle, Sylvie leaves to visit her married sister and never comes back but becomes a transient, riding the rails as a hobo, drifting from place to place. All three lose touch with their mother. Eventually Helen gives birth to two daughters, Lucille and Ruth. When they were young, their father disappeared. Although Helen receives a message from her husband, we are never told the contents. She packs the girls up and heads home to her mother’s house. Helen leaves the girls on the porch with their grandmother and drives off a cliff into the lake. After her suicide the girls’ live five years in a fairly normal routine with their grandmother until she dies. She leaves the care of them to her two elderly, maiden sisters-in-law who must move to the house. They are vulnerable and anxious almost to the point of panicking as they know nothing of raising girls and even find living away from their familiar apartment to be a great source of discomfort. Then one day Sylvie shows up, and when they decide she won’t run off, the aunts leave to go back to their old home. Sylvie is an unusual character even for that family. As the girls hit puberty, Lucille finds her odd behavior embarrassing and untenable. She abandons Ruth to live with her home-ec teacher so she can be like the other girls. Ruth sticks with Sylvie. Ruth and Sylvie are quite similar in their dreamy world, where time is irrelevant and odd behavior is the norm. The situation changes after a night out in a boat under the trestle at the very spot where the grandfather and Helen died causing the townspeople to become alarmed enough to engineer a solution for the proper upbringing of Ruth. Sylvie tries valiantly to become the type of mother the community would accept, burning long hoarded trash, cleaning, cooking real meals and sewing curtains, but it is too little too late and when they realize that, they set the house on fire and abandon Lucille, the town, the trestle and the lake to become permanent drifters together. I found the book slow and even boring although all the reviews I have read rave about this book. Myself, I prefer Robinson’s Pulitzer winner, Gilead to this one.
+20 pts - Task
+15 pts - Combo(20.2 100 greatest books, 20.4 - http://www.mymcpl.org/cfapps/botb/boo... , 20.10 - teaches at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop)
+10 pts - Reveiw
Task Total - 45 pts
Grand Total - 720 pts
10.10 Group ReadsThe Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Review:
The Marriage Plot tells the story of Madeline, Leonard, and Mitchell as they finish up their college years at Brown and embark into their lives the year after. It takes place in the early 80s. The idea of the marriage plot comes from the novels of the Victorian era where a woman's marriage basically determines her social status in life. Madeline is caught in a love triangle. Mitchell loves Madeline, Madeline loves Leonard, and Leonard loves Madeline, but he is a manic depressive.
I enjoyed the story as I have previously read Eugenides' previous works. The story has many layers, goes back in time, but it all goes together nicely.
+10 pts - Task
+5 pts - Combo (20.10 It's Academic-Princeton)
+10 - Review
Task Total - 25 pts
Grand Total - 90 pts
20.7 In honor of Kid’s Republic book storeMiddlemarch:A Study of Provincial Life by George Eliot
This was a big struggle to me; I could not deal with more than 3-4 chapters a day so it took me a long white to finish. Not only was it a big & thick book but also the fact that I just did not care a fig for any of the characters bar one. I suffer through skim-reading over other characters to get to ONE endearing character. She is, however, not only endearing to me but to everyone in the book. In the end, I am glad that everyone received their just deserves and that **sigh** love prevails once again.
+20 Task
+15 Combo (10.4 - grade 9-12; 20.4 - adaptation & 20.3)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
+20 Jumbo (904 pages)
Task Total = 75 points
Grand Total = 900 points
20.2 True ColorsThe Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht winner of the 2011 Orange Prize.
Review: This is an interesting and unusual novel. It is set in the Balkans with two threads-one early in WWII tells the story of “the grandfather’s” childhood in a small isolated mountain village and the other is the story of his granddaughter, Nadia, coming to terms with his death as the area tries to cope with the aftermath of the most recent wars. The stories are blends of individual histories, folk tales, and childhood memories. It covers a number of generations of superstition, hate, disruption and tigers. For now I have read the book for its story but it is, for me, one of the rare books that I want to set aside and pick up and re-read more deeply in the future.
The book is beautiful and fascinating. But it opened up some points of view that were abandoned. For instance, we briefly see the world several times from the original tiger’s point of view but this disappears.
+20 Task
+5 Combo 10.8 (wife)
+10 Review
Task total: 35
Previous total: 470
Grand total: 505
10.7 Reading is rewarding (I worked hard for this one!smile)Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price
Review
This is a magnificent example of character development. Although the book isn’t on one of “root for the bad guy” lists, it fits, for the title character is definitely a femme fatale. She is a “love ‘em and leave’em” kind of woman and has an extreme case of commitment phobia. Although she declares frequently she wants the love of a good man, preferably marriage, she runs out on them and leaves them in the lurch. This behavior is not only towards men but towards all who love or need her. After the murder/ suicide of her parents, she stays with relatives who raise her for five years. Then she begins her epic journey. She runs off to a cousin and his roommate. This implies a homosexual relationship between the men but is never actually stated and indeed the men have separate bedrooms. The roommate is a relative rescued from an orphanage and has serious abandonment issues. Kate and this man conceive a child. When plans are made for her to marry him and live all together as a family, she lights out. The man she calls to get her houses and feeds her and offers his eternal devotion but when the baby’s father shows up she takes off to go to Raleigh. Yet she leaves her fiancée in a sudden impulse by stepping off the train when it stops in her old hometown, while he is using the toilet. She is received again back into the family fold and delivers her baby, only to take off again at the father’s beckoning. By the time she gets there he is long gone but she gets involved with his employer. This man too wants to marry her so she skips out early one morning and moves in with her former (female) school teacher, totally abandoning her child. This is written in first person narrative forty years from the beginning of these events when she develops cancer. She says she is writing this for her son and seeks to find him. Two men commit suicide for her, not to mention all the broken hearts she leaves. She always waits until they are gone and then just goes by impulse without a good-bye. Here’s the strange thing though, I liked her! She was like a dopey girlfriend you might have had in high school, always messing up yet she would always be forgiven. The author says one of his great influences was Eudora Welty and you can see that plainly. This style of telling the story reminds me greatly of Why I live at the PO, in Welty’s Collected Stories.
+10 pts - Task
+5 pts - Combo (10.3 girls' names)
+10 pts - Review
Task Total - 25 pts
Grand total - 745 pts
20.8 It's AlphabeticThe Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple
Review:
I did enjoy these stories but not as much as I had expected. I found that the first one (which is very long) rather dragged, and then the same theme of daughters trying to escape from tyrannical parents seemed to repeat over and over again. They were not all the same by any means - there were also some stories about infidelity and those seemed much more original to me. I liked the gentle prose and some of the stories had great twists. If I was rating individual stories then there would be a few 5 stars, but as a collection I didn't think it was that great.
+20 Task (othe r st ories)
+10 Review
Task total = 30
20.9 It's Epidemic
Plague by Malcolm Rose
Review:
A new virus that causes a swift, ugly and painful death in 100% of cases suddenly appears in an English town and begins spreading. The town is quarantined and the race is on to find a vaccination or a cure before the virus spreads further.
This is a scary and interesting YA novel. There are maybe some plot holes (e.g. given the way the virus spreads, putting a security fence around the town would not have contained it) but it's a well-written, gripping read. It's not a futuristic story at all - it is very realistic and could easily happen.
It made me wonder how many of us would be alive today if HIV could be transmitted as easily as flu? How many more of us would have died (or not been born) in the long years of the 80s and 90s before effective treatment was developed? It is a frightening thought.
+20 Task
Not listed on lexile.com so not claiming style points.
Task total = 20
RwS Completion Bonus = 100 ... yay!
Grand total = 1300
Connie wrote: "15.10 AtW CircumnavigatorAntarctica (00 00): At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
Task: 15
Bonus: 10
Task Total: 25
+Well-Traveled Bonus: 100
Grand Total: 545"
Way to go, Connie!
20.4 - El Ateneo BookstoreThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Made into a movie in 2009, then again in 2011
This was an unusual read for me; I almost always prefer to read the book before seeing its film adaptation (yes, I'm one of those people!) But I tend to be way behind the crowd on ultra-popular series (STILL haven't touched Harry Potter, for example,) so I had only minimal knowledge of the book when I stumbled upon the newly released film at Blockbuster. I figured for a $2 rental charge, what the heck, I'd give it a shot. I ended up watching the movie twice in one weekend and promptly purchasing the book on audio.
This suspenseful, intense and intelligent book far exceeded my expectations. I found it to stand apart from its "genre" in a number of ways. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to put one label on it. On one level, it is a white-collar crime novel; on another, a thrilling psychological roller coaster; on another, a bold statement about gender roles in society. The backdrop of racketeering, extortion and money laundering and the ethical conflicts surrounding journalism make this much more than your run-of-the-mill cops and criminals mystery. In fact, the plot revolves around those dealing with crime outside of the law enforcement circle. Larsson adds another layer of intrigue with a decades-old unsolved missing persons case, which becomes far more complex than anyone anticipates.
Finally, the book is a very strongly-stated opinion piece on the treatment of and role of women in modern society. The original Swedish title was "Män som hatar kvinnor" or "Men who hate women," which, when altered to the English language title I think exemplifies the phrase "something gets lost in translation" better than anything else I've ever seen. One aspect of the book that did survive translation was the statistics on violent sexual crimes against women in Sweden, which appear as epigraphs at the beginning of each section. These sobering quotations lend some perspective in the midst of a work of fiction. There are all kinds of women in this book, from the unusual but brilliant Lisbeth to the ferocious and hateful Isabella to the mysterious Harriet. Larsson prompts us (or often pushes us) to think about why these women became the people they are. Even though these are resilient, smart, moral women, they are as easily victimized by violent and controlling men as those less fortunate and weaker minor characters who appear in the story. I thought this was an extremely interesting point of view to be expressed so sincerely by a male author.
In conclusion, I have noticed in reading some reviews that the style and content of this book made many readers uncomfortable, to which I would reply: good. Although I did not find Larsson's writing to be gratuitous or especially graphic as compared to other crime writers, I did feel it has much more impact. If the themes and events in this book did not make you both disturbed and outraged, then you need to go back and re-read it. This is an important piece of modern literature, and I am looking forward to reading the next book.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 215
10.7 Reading is RewardingThe Road by Cormac McCarthy
+10 Task
+5 Combo (20.4-2009 movie)
10.8 It's A Family Affair
Come Back: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back by Claire Fontaine
+10 Task
+10 Not-A-Novel (non fiction)
20.4 El Ateno Bookstore
The Natural by Bernard Malamud
+20 Task
+5 Combo (20.5-pub 1952)
Post Total: 60
Season Total: 1075
Rosemary wrote: "RwS Completion Bonus = 100 ... yay!"Congrats, Rosemary!!
20.5 - Shakespeare & CoUlysses by James Joyce
A true review of this book would be just two words: "I'm speechless". Hundreds of thousand of pages of scholarship have been dedicated to this monumental work; it is unlikely that I can add anything thing of note. It is a fascinating, frustrating, not entirely enjoyable read. There are moments of stunning beauty, humor, shock, severe boredom, and opacity. In it's minutely detailed description of a single day in 1904 Dublin, it attempts to contain all of human experience and more, and, perhaps purposefully, demonstrates the futility of depicting human experience. I am not sure if I liked this book, but if I could only have two books with me on a desert island, this would be the second book.
+20 task (pub. 1922, by Shakespeare & Co.)
+20 combo (10.5 - Anti-hero, 20.1 - Banned in the US, 20.3 - yes, it was made into a movie!, 20.7 - Internationally acclaimed)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
+20 jumbo (900+ pages)
Task Total: 80
Grand Total: 385
Task 20.2 - In Honor of True ColorsMy Ántonia by Willa Cather
Oopsie do! I just finished reading this book and decided to “fact-check” on Wikipedia to find that I just read the final book of her [Cather] “prairie trilogy” of novels, the companion volumes being O Pioneers and the Song of the Lark. But… it’s okay, completely different characters etc. Am just slightly OCD to have wanted to start from Numero Uno.
This book is written from a male perspective about a female friend. It is a ‘memorialisation’ of this friend, Antonia, whom he much admired. It began with their meeting as children; Antonia Shimerda and her family newly arrived to America and became his, Jim Burden, neighbour. From the very beginning he admired her beauty and spirit. As they grew, of course, life took them on separate paths and they drifted apart but in the end, he admired her still for the spark for life.
It has a very pastoral atmosphere to begin with as it is set in Nebraska. It is very interesting to me to see a portrait of what a foreign pioneer woman’s life was like. A lot of hard work; physically and also at being recognised / respected for who you are and what you have achieved.
+20 Task
+15 Combo (10.3 - Antonia Shimerda; 10.4 - gr 9-12; 20.4 - adaptation)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
Task Total = 55 points
Grand Total = 955 points
20.6 In Honor of Selexyz BookstoreHave a Little Faith: The Story of a Last Request by Mitch Albom
+20 Task
+10 Not a novel
Task total = 30
Grand total = 230
20.1 - In honor of The Tattered Cover, a Denver store that refused to turn over sales information to the police and won a case in the Colorado Supreme Court on first amendment grounds, Read a Banned Book.Banned in the Soviet Union: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
and in the United States: http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Novel by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
+20 Task
+5 Combo (20.4 - In honor of El Ateneo bookstore, a bookshop converted from an old theatre in downtown Buenos Aires, Read a Book that has been made into a movie.)
+10 Cannon
Total Points: 35
Grand Total: 305
Task 15.2 (2nd Itinerary Stop) Malaysia (E 101 41) A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint
fits A and C, author born in Malaysia, takes place in Malaysia
+15 Task
+10 Bonus Points
Task Total = 25
Grand Total - 770 pts
Rosemary wrote: "20.8 It's AlphabeticThe Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple
Review:
I did enjoy these stories but not as much as I had expected. I found that the first one (which is very long) rath..."
Congratulations Rosemary and Connie!
20.10 It's AcademicA Discovery of Witches by >Deborah Harkness
I waffled back and forth between 3 stars and 4 stars and settled ultimately on 3 stars. I prefer the Anne Rice world of witches and vampires to the Stephenie Meyer or Charlaine Harris worlds. I like my paranormal universes to be dark and I don't mind a story steeped in history - even history of science. With that said, I found the Deborah Harkness world of witches and vampires to be closer to Anne Rice albeit much lighter but pleasantly heavy on the history. I suspect I may enjoy All Souls Trilogy #2, Shadow of Night, even better as it looks like it will be even heavier on the history. After having become convinced that all contemporary paranormal fiction was a lost cause, I'm happy to have discovered Matthew, Diana and the work of Deborah Harkness.
Deborah Harkness is a Professor of History at the University of Southern California Los Angeles.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 335
Way to go Rosemary and Connie!
Karen GHHS wrote: "Way to go Rosemary and Connie!"You too, Karen!
Task 10.9 Please Sir, I Want Some MoreTiger's Voyage by Colleen Houck
(read this author in February)
This is the third book in the Tiger's Curse series. Once again it was an interesting story and I like all the mythology surrounding the ideas in the story. The love triangle is getting a bit annoying. Ren's the exciting one, but unpredictable at times and Kishan is the steady boyfriend, though not as much chemistry. One of them is going to either lose his heart or is life. I liked the journey through the dragons. I don't know a lot of these stories and they are intriguing to me.
I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. Maybe Kelsey won't have to choose between them. I guess I'll have to wait awhile to find out since the next book won't be out for months.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Jumbo (543 pages)
+25 Task total
115 points total
20.10 - It's academicThe Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
+20 task
+5 combo (10.10)
Task total: 25 points
Grand Total: 410
AtW--Circumnavigator15.7 (7th Itinerary Stop) Sweden (E018 04)
Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
15.8 (8th Itinerary Stop) Germany (E013 23)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
+15 Task
+10 Bonus
Task Total = 50
Grand Total = 600
10.4 It's Your BirthdayEmma by Jane Austen
This book is a delightful bit of confection. Emma, for all intents and purposes, is a typical teenager: she is absolutely certain of the thoughts and motives of those who are in her social circle; her father can do no wrong; no one can be matched without her having done it; and, eventually, realizing that she's not so certain about anything after all (ah, growing up, what a kick in the pants..or bustle). As ever, I appreciate reading Austen for the way she gives us a glimpse of what society was like (what it was to be accomplished, a woman, a wife). And, of course, I always fall head over heels for her leading man. Ah, Knightley, you do live up to your name!
+10 Task (on the list for 9-12 graders)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
+10 Combo
-10.3 Girls' Names
-20.4 El Ateneo (1996 adaptation)
Task Total = 40
Grand Total = 640
10.4 It's Your BirthdayThe Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
When I was a child my dad read this to me as a bed time story. Reading this book brought back some great memories, but it also made me realize that there was alot of the book that I had forgotten. I especially enjoyed rediscovering the parts of this book that I could not remember at all. For anyone who doesn't know, this book is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It follows the hobbit Bilbo Baggins on his adventures with a group of 13 dwarves who aim to reclaim a treasure from the dragon Smaug. The wizard Gandalf also makes an appearance. This is such a fun book to read I recommend that everyone should read it at least once in their life. Also now is a great time to add it to the "to read" pile as the new movie is being released sometime this year (last I heard it was going to be released in November but there have been many delays on the project so far).
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.10 Group Read, 20.4 El Ateneo http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 460
Silver wrote: "20.1 - In honor of The Tattered Cover, a Denver store that refused to turn over sales information to the police and won a case in the Colorado Supreme Court on first amendment grounds, Read a Banne..."Silver, I believe there is an addition error here. In post, 508, your total was 280+35 (from post 563)=315. Thanks.
Kelli wrote: "20.10 It's AcademicA Discovery of Witches by >Deborah Harkness
I waffled back and forth between 3 stars and 4 stars and settled ultimately on 3 stars. I ..."
+5 Jumbo, over 500 pages
10.10 Group ReadsThe Dovekeepers: A Novel by Alice Hoffman
What an absolutely fantastic book. I had never head of it before so I'm really glad that Anika recommended this book. I listened to the Audiobook, which was excellently done and really captured the beauty of the language, imagery, and characterization. The novel is told from the perspective of four different woman: The Assassin's Daughter, The Baker's Wife, The Warrior's Beloved, and The Witch of Moab. Each of these women represent the different female archetypes of maiden, mother, crone, and witch along with the various elements of fire, earth, water, metal. This novel is steeped in fantastical realism and was utterly spellbinding to listen to. I am so very glad I read this book as it worked it's way up among my favorites and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to others.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Jumbo
Task Total: 25
20.3 Harvard Top Seller
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
This is the second book I have read by Haruki Murakami and I was as absorbed by it as I was by my introduction to his work, After Dark. Connie was wonderful and suggested that if I liked After Dark then I should pick up either this book or The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Haruki Murakami could be considered the king of fantastical realism as that is what he is renowned for. It feels a little slow to get into one of his books and then all of a sudden you are captured by the story. This book interwove two different tales, one being Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the other being The End of the World, that connected in a way that only became fully clear at the end. I easily foresaw much of the connection as the clues were pretty obviously laid out but unlike some other books that didn't detract at all from the reading of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Rather the beauty of a book by Murakami is in the journey rather than in the destination. Realistic, gritty, and yet ultimately dreamy all at the same time, I have come to have a real affection for Murakami's style.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
RwS Finish: 100
Grand Total: 1145
AtW - CircumnavigatorTask 15.7 (7th stop) Egypt (E 031 13)
Rhadopis of Nubia by Naguib Mahfouz
+15 Task
+10 Bonus Points
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 1170
RwS Tasks20.6 In honor of Selexyz Bookstore
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
I am fascinated by the idea of stigmata and religious ecstasy. In addition, I am intrigued by convent life and what it takes to commit yourself to this life of contemplation and isolation. Mariette in Ecstasy is about a young girl experiencing phenomenon that cannot be explained and she is just beginning to experience convent life when the story opens. Her older sister is the Mother Superior of the convent and they have the opportunity to become reacquainted after years lived apart. The story revolves around the evaluation of Mariette's experiences. Is she really experiencing these episodes of ecstasy or could they possibly be faked? The nuns are divided on this issue and the convent is trying to decide what to do with Mariette based on which opinions win out. I enjoyed the book, but wanted more resolution and information about what Mariette was experiencing.
+20 Task
+15 Combo: 10.3 Girl’s Names / 20.10 It’s Academic (the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University)http://www.scu.edu/cas/english/facult... / 20.4 El Ateneo http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116991/
+10 Review
Task Total: 45
20.10 – Liz M’s Task – It’s academic
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth by Jay Hosler
http://www.juniata.edu/facultybio/bio...
Written by Jay Hosler, Associate Professor of Biology at Juniata College, Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth is both informative and a lot of fun! Biology was one of my three loves in high school (along with music and French), but I hadn't revisited my learning in a long while. The comics format of this book made everything clear and the pages were filled with Hosler's great sense of humor as well. The artists, Kevin and Zander Cannon, illustrate with the same clarity, purpose and fun! It is definitely an informational text, and is a little dry in places, but overall it is highly recommended to anyone who would like to learn more about evolution.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not a Novel
Task Total: 40
Points this Post: 85
Grand Total: 1350
AtW - CircumnavigatorTask 15.3 (3rd Itinerary Stop) UK (W00 0.07)
Death Comes to Pemberley (2011) by P.D. James
Set in the English countryside and in London, England.
The author, P.D. James, was "born in the United Kingdom" and "lives in London and Oxford".
+15 Task
+10 Bonus Points
Task Total = 25 Points
Grand Total: 365 + 25 = 390
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Reading with Style
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Mary Rose O'Reilley (other topics)
Ted Dekker (other topics)
Jim Fergus (other topics)
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A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
+20 task (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1376451/)
Task total=20
Grand total=150