The 2017 AW Reading Challenge! A "Pick 12" Choose Your Own Adventure

Yzjdriel

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Welcome Yzjdriel! You've got some great books on there. I've tried Paradise Lost several times, and I would like to finish it sometime. War and Peace is one of my all time favorites. I'll read it again some day, as I'm sure there is tons I missed the first time. I'm also interested in your take on This Side of Paradise. Fitzgerald is one of my heros, but I find Sinclair Lewis more accessible even if less significant.

I finished Love in the Time of Cholera last night. The writing was gorgeous, and stood up well through the translation. However, I didn't find the romance particularly interesting, or the character development very compelling. Fermina was the more interesting and dynamic character; Florentino was basically the same person at the end as at the beginning, and his string of romantic exploits didn't progress him very far toward or away from his goal.

The Color Purple is next, but I'm going to get caught up on some other reading in the meantime.

I had to read The Color Purple in HS, and I found it interesting while some of my classmates did not. Curious to know what your take on it is.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Since I took a vacation from my list, I've decided to add an extra-curricular section.

My current updated list:

1. Loose Ends: Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett. Done. [Beautifully written memoir of Patchett's friendship with Lucy Grealy. Liked the writing; didn't like Grealy.]
2. What You Read: Mopsa the Fairy by Jean Ingelow. Done. [Episodic and sometimes confusing, but lovely details.]
3. What Your Great-Grandparents Read: The Sketch Book by Washington Irving. Done. [Could also be Bits & Pieces, a mixed bag, some soporific, some delightful.]
4. You Really Shouldn't Have: Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Done. [How I got it was more dramatic than the book. Book is now out of the house.]
5. No Cliff Notes This Time: Othello by William Shakespeare. Done.
6. Bits & Pieces (or No Hablo): Forty Poems by Juan Ramon Jimenez translated by Robert Bly. Done.
7. I've Met Them: Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen.
8. Ripped from the Headlines: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
9. Support the Home Team: Of Marriageable Age by Sharon Maas [AKA aruna]
10. Steady There, Cowboy: Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry.
11. Better Known For...: The Toughest Show on Earth by Joseph Volpe.
12. Enter, Stage Whichever it was :): Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by JK Rowling. [Or maybe it should be whatever the category was named with the book based on a movie.]

Extra-curricular:
1. Becoming Finola by Suzanne Strempek Shea: I learned about this book when I read her Shelf Life, a memoir of working in a bookstore one year. During that year, she made a trip to Ireland and was idly rearranging the books in a craft store, when the owner suggested (as a joke) that she work for him. So she came up with the idea of an American woman who's out of work and traveling with her best friend. The best friend can't stand the place and leaves the MC there for 3 months, during which time the MC discovers the boyfriend she hoped to marry already is. She takes the craft store owner up on the offer of a job tidying the store and making bracelets. And then it's just easier to pretend to be Finola O'Flynn, which is the name of the shop. And then she takes Finola as a guide, and then wears her dresses, and then takes on Finola's (former) man. But then the real Finola returns. Uh, oh!

I have a great fondness for trying on someone else's identity stories, and I do love the premise, the opening and the ending and the characters. The writing is sometimes great too. Some people who write long sentences write them leisurely, but Shea's are breathless, like the MC's trying to convey as much detail as possible while using complicated analogies and metaphors. The problem is those kinds of sentences can go awry if you don't edit with extreme care. There were several places where a word was missing or a word was mistyped, and the whole thing turns to unpalatable soup. But most of the time, it was an enjoyable read.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

mrsmig

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In April I took some time off from my Challenge list and read George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo (which I loved) and a couple of Discworld books. Just finished my Earth, Wind, & Fire selection: CASCADIA'S FAULT by Jerry Thompson. It was quite good; a dense read but the science was quite accessible (although I shudder to think what might be in store for the Pacific Northwest if that fault ever has a catastrophic failure).

I'm moving on to my Chances are selection: Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN, which will no doubt be depressing. After that I have only my Support the home team read left. Definitely going to have to pick another dozen books to get me through the end of the year.


  1. What your parents read: PEYTON PLACE by Grace Metalious DONE
  2. Still time for more chapters: PATTI LUPONE: A MEMOIR by Patti LuPone DONE
  3. Tuesdays with Balaam’s Ass: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo DONE
  4. Chances are: BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
  5. Earth, Wind, & Fire: CASCADIA'S FAULT by Jerry Thompson DONE
  6. Step by step: HOW TO FIGHT A BEAR AND WIN AND OTHER SURVIVAL TIPS YOU'LL HOPEFULLY NEVER NEED by Bathroom Readers' Institute DONE
  7. Revenge of the nerds: SILENT WITNESSES: THE OFTEN GRUESOME BUT ALWAYS FASCINATING HISTORY OF FORENSIC SCIENCE by Nigel McCrery DONE
  8. Out of the park on first at bat: THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE by James Rebanks DONE
  9. You might also like. . . : NORSE MYTHOLOGY by Neil Gaiman DONE
  10. Support the home team: A DANGEROUS FICTION by Barbara Rogan
  11. Three-color mythology: THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN by Moore/O'Neill DONE
  12. Loose ends: HOW TO READ WATER by Tristan Gooley DONE


 
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Yzjdriel

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I've been swamped at work lately, but I've still got some good progress in!
Full disclosure though, Project Synergy is something I wrote, so I can't really count that, can I? So I'll add some extra-credit:

Enter Stage Right: Harry Potter and the Cursèd Child - Done
No CliffNotes This Time: Paradise Lost

She Did Drone On a Bit: Games Wizards Play - Diane Duane - Done
Three-Color Mythology: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei (the spin-off manga of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei - "The Underachieving Student at the Magician's High School") - Satou Tsutamo
- Done
Halcyon Days: Tunnels - Roderick Gordon
- Done
Wow. Nice: Triss - Brian Jacques
- Done
Loose ends: Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
- Done
Fired from the Canon: Project Synergy
- Done
No Hablo: War and Peace
LOL Random: This Side of Paradise - Fitzgerald
Counting Your Chickens: Four - Veronica Roth
I've Met Her!: Incarceron - Catherine Fisher
- Done
Extra Credit: Last Stand of Dead Men - Derek Landy
GF Told Me to Read: Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell
- Done
 

Chris P

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Coming to a theater near you: made into a motion picture: About a Boy - Nick Hornby
No hablo: a translation: Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Done
Rainbow warrior: with a color in the title: The Color Purple - Alice Walker Up next
Still time for more chapters: memoir/biography of someone still alive: An American Demon - Jack Grisham Done
What you read as a child: a book I loved as a child: The Woodshed Mystery - Gertrude C. Warner Done
I’ve met them!: by someone I've seen in real life: Commonwealth - Ann Patchett Done
Be the change you want to see: nonfic about a sociopolitical issue: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America - Nancy Isenberg Done
Lol random: from Gutenberg's "Random Titles" page: The Discovery of the Source of the Nile - John Hanning Speke Done
He did drone on a bit: book over 600 pages A Strangeness in My Mind - Orhan Pamuk Done
Support the home team: by an AWer: Mr Katz is a Zombie - Margaret Lesh Done
Be your own boss: self-published: I Hate that You Bloody Left Me - Heather Hill Done
Ye olde booke shoppe: written before 1700: The Romance of Tristan and Iseult - M. Joseph Bedier

Great to see so many people ahead of schedule on this! I'm amazed that I just have three left and it's only May. I'm taking the extra time to read some other things, particularly one of the short story compilations I get each year, and some Pearls Before Swine treasuries.
 

mrsmig

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Aaaand I finished my Chances are selection: BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy - I love his prose, but man, his stories are always so bleak.

That leaves only my Support the home team read, so that'll be next. Looks like I'll be starting a Part 2 of this year's Challenge!


  1. What your parents read: PEYTON PLACE by Grace Metalious DONE
  2. Still time for more chapters: PATTI LUPONE: A MEMOIR by Patti LuPone DONE
  3. Tuesdays with Balaam’s Ass: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo DONE
  4. Chances are: BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy DONE
  5. Earth, Wind, & Fire: CASCADIA'S FAULT by Jerry Thompson DONE
  6. Step by step: HOW TO FIGHT A BEAR AND WIN AND OTHER SURVIVAL TIPS YOU'LL HOPEFULLY NEVER NEED by Bathroom Readers' Institute DONE
  7. Revenge of the nerds: SILENT WITNESSES: THE OFTEN GRUESOME BUT ALWAYS FASCINATING HISTORY OF FORENSIC SCIENCE by Nigel McCrery DONE
  8. Out of the park on first at bat: THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE by James Rebanks DONE
  9. You might also like. . . : NORSE MYTHOLOGY by Neil Gaiman DONE
  10. Support the home team: A DANGEROUS FICTION by Barbara Rogan
  11. Three-color mythology: THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN by Moore/O'Neill DONE
  12. Loose ends: HOW TO READ WATER by Tristan Gooley DONE


 

mrsmig

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That didn't take long - finished my Support the home team read, Barbara Rogan's A DANGEROUS FICTION. I'm probably not the right audience for this one; it was a bit too formulaic for my taste.

So I'm done with this Challenge, but with more than half a year left to read in, I feel like taking on a second round. I'll be posting my Part 2 books as soon as I sort out which 12 new categories I want to tackle.


  1. What your parents read: PEYTON PLACE by Grace Metalious DONE
  2. Still time for more chapters: PATTI LUPONE: A MEMOIR by Patti LuPone DONE
  3. Tuesdays with Balaam’s Ass: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo DONE
  4. Chances are: BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy DONE
  5. Earth, Wind, & Fire: CASCADIA'S FAULT by Jerry Thompson DONE
  6. Step by step: HOW TO FIGHT A BEAR AND WIN AND OTHER SURVIVAL TIPS YOU'LL HOPEFULLY NEVER NEED by Bathroom Readers' Institute DONE
  7. Revenge of the nerds: SILENT WITNESSES: THE OFTEN GRUESOME BUT ALWAYS FASCINATING HISTORY OF FORENSIC SCIENCE by Nigel McCrery DONE
  8. Out of the park on first at bat: THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE by James Rebanks DONE
  9. You might also like. . . : NORSE MYTHOLOGY by Neil Gaiman DONE
  10. Support the home team: A DANGEROUS FICTION by Barbara Rogan DONE
  11. Three-color mythology: THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN by Moore/O'Neill DONE
  12. Loose ends: HOW TO READ WATER by Tristan Gooley DONE


:Trophy::Trophy::Trophy::Trophy::Trophy::PartySmil:Trophy::Trophy::Trophy::Trophy::Trophy:
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Good work, mrsmig!

I did enjoy A Dangerous Fiction. It's well-written and has a touch of depth to it in terms of theme, which not all mysteries have.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

mrsmig

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Here are my picks for the Second Round of my 2017 AW Reading Challenge:

1. Coming to a theatre near you - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles (and I've never seen the movie, so I'm coming to it with no expectations)
2. I remember that! - A TIME TO DIE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KURSK DISASTER by Robert Moore
3. Bits & pieces - THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2016 edited by Paula Guran
4. What you read - BEAUTIFUL JOE by Marshall Saunders
5. I've met them! - THE WATERWORKS by E.L. Doctorow
6. No Cliff Notes this time - THE RED PONY by John Steinbeck
7. Step by step - THE BACKYARD GOAT: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE by Sue Weaver
8. Ripped from the headlines - THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larson
9. Wow. Nice. - SNUFF by Terry Pratchett
10. Revenge of the nerds - ATOMIC ACCIDENTS: A HISTORY OF NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS AND DISASTERS by James Mahaffey
11. Better known for... BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey
12. Gramma would have loved this - TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by Richard Henry Dana

Think I'm going to start with SNUFF.
 

Cobalt Jade

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10. Revenge of the nerds - ATOMIC ACCIDENTS: A HISTORY OF NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS AND DISASTERS by James Mahaffey

This book sounds awesome!
 

mrsmig

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This book sounds awesome!

Yeah, I stumbled across it while cross-referencing another topic, and thought it sounded fascinating. I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, I breezed through my Wow. Nice selection (Terry Pratchett's SNUFF) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't initially care for Sam Vimes as a character, but he's really grown on me and the slapstick quality of the Watch books are nicely offset by some philosophical musings which go down easy thanks to Pratchett's whimsical sense of humor. Oh, how I'm going to hate it when I've finished the last few Discworld books.

Moving on to my What you read selection: Marshall Saunders' BEAUTIFUL JOE, which was given to me as a Christmas gift when I was quite young. Even then I knew it was a bit preachy and I expect that aspect will be even more annoying 50-some years later, but I still remember it as a good yarn.


[ ] 1. Coming to a theatre near you - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles (and I've never seen the movie, so I'm coming to it with no expectations)
[ ] 2. I remember that! - A TIME TO DIE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KURSK TRAGEDY by Robert Moore
[ ] 3. Bits & pieces - THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2016 edited by Paula Guran
[ ] 4. What you read - BEAUTIFUL JOE by Marshall Saunders
[ ] 5. I've met them! - THE WATERWORKS by E.L. Doctorow
[ ] 6. No Cliff Notes this time - THE RED PONY by John Steinbeck
[ ] 7. Step by step - THE BACKYARD GOAT: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE by Sue Weaver
[ ] 8. Ripped from the headlines - THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larson
[x] 9. Wow. Nice. - SNUFF by Terry Pratchett
[ ] 10. Revenge of the nerds - ATOMIC ACCIDENTS: A HISTORY OF NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS AND DISASTERS by James Mahaffey
[ ] 11. Better known for... BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey
[ ] 12. Gramma would have loved this - TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by Richard Henry Dana
 
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Chris P

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Great work, mrsmig! And quite ambitious to pick a whole 12 more books.

I loved Bossypants. Fey is totally without ego in describing herself. She goes from being a volunteer at a homeless shelter to TV star so seemlessly that you can see she's still the ordinary person she once was. I think it's one of the best examples of a memoir out there in that she's communicated her nature so clearly and humbly.
 

mrsmig

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Well, in fairness, I have a great deal of time on my hands backstage (I'm understudying) and reading is about the best way I know to make the time pass.
 

Chris P

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I got started on The Color Purple. It's taking a little bit to get used to the dialect, but I'm enjoying it so far.
 

mrsmig

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I got started on The Color Purple. It's taking a little bit to get used to the dialect, but I'm enjoying it so far.

I love the early chapters of the book; I was less enamored of the second half. Interested to hear what you think when you're done.

I finished my What you read selection: Marshall Saunders' BEAUTIFUL JOE. It aged far better than I expected, and still has the ability to move me now as it did when I was a youngster. Its message of kindness to animals is just as powerful as ever, even though the style is a bit quaint. I enjoyed revisiting it. I've moved on to my Gramma would have loved this selection: Richard Henry Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST. It was published a couple decades prior to BEAUTIFUL JOE, so the styles are somewhat similar. I'm only a chapter or two in and already enjoying it. My late father, who served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during WWII, had mentioned liking the book, but I'd never been able to find a copy. Thanks to Amazon Kindle, it's available once again, and at a bargain (99 cents).

I may swap out my No Cliff Notes this time section (Steinbeck's THE RED PONY) for what I'd originally wanted (Salinger's THE CATCHER IN THE RYE). I recall now that I read the Steinbeck in junior high school (granted, a somewhat truncated version), and the only reason I substituted it for the Salinger is that CATCHER is not available in an ebook version (really and truly). However, since I'm about to get my card for the New York Public Library, I may be able to check out a copy instead. I've spent so much money on Kindle books in the past couple of months that I'm trying to find cheaper ways to read.

[ ] 1. Coming to a theatre near you - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles (and I've never seen the movie, so I'm coming to it with no expectations)
[ ] 2. I remember that! - A TIME TO DIE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KURSK TRAGEDY by Robert Moore
[ ] 3. Bits & pieces - THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2016 edited by Paula Guran
[x] 4. What you read - BEAUTIFUL JOE by Marshall Saunders
[ ] 5. I've met them! - THE WATERWORKS by E.L. Doctorow
[ ] 6. No Cliff Notes this time - THE RED PONY by John Steinbeck
[ ] 7. Step by step - THE BACKYARD GOAT: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE by Sue Weaver
[ ] 8. Ripped from the headlines - THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larson
[x] 9. Wow. Nice. - SNUFF by Terry Pratchett
[ ] 10. Revenge of the nerds - ATOMIC ACCIDENTS: A HISTORY OF NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS AND DISASTERS by James Mahaffey
[ ] 11. Better known for... BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey
[] 12. Gramma would have loved this - TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by Richard Henry Dana
 
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Cobalt Jade

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Started reading The Aviary Gate, by Katie Hickman. Historical fantasy. The author is British, and the writing I found is different from the American novel style -- more meandering, more scholarly yet less disciplined, emotionally colder, and yet more visceral. It actually takes place in two eras, Constantinople in the 16th century, and in Oxford in the modern, which serves as a framing device for the Turkish harem story. I am perhaps 1/10th of the way in, but am already detecting the frothy elements of the romance, and enjoying them without quite being a fan of them. There is perhaps too much forced exposition through dialogue, but again, that may be par for the course for this kind of book, which is told in omniscient POV, so no getting up close and personal with the main characters.
 

Siri Kirpal

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My current updated list:

1. Loose Ends: Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett. Done. [Beautifully written memoir of Patchett's friendship with Lucy Grealy. Liked the writing; didn't like Grealy.]
2. What You Read: Mopsa the Fairy by Jean Ingelow. Done. [Episodic and sometimes confusing, but lovely details.]
3. What Your Great-Grandparents Read: The Sketch Book by Washington Irving. Done. [Could also be Bits & Pieces, a mixed bag, some soporific, some delightful.]
4. You Really Shouldn't Have: Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Done. [How I got it was more dramatic than the book. Book is now out of the house.]
5. No Cliff Notes This Time: Othello by William Shakespeare. Done.
6. Bits & Pieces (or No Hablo): Forty Poems by Juan Ramon Jimenez translated by Robert Bly. Done.
7. I've Met Them: Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen.
8. Ripped from the Headlines: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
9. Support the Home Team: Of Marriageable Age by Sharon Maas [AKA aruna]
10. Steady There, Cowboy: Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry. => Replace with The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh Done.
11. Better Known For...: The Toughest Show on Earth by Joseph Volpe.
12. Enter, Stage Whichever it was :): Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by JK Rowling. [Or maybe it should be whatever the category was named with the book based on a movie.]

Extra-curricular:
1. Becoming Finola by Suzanne Strempek Shea Done. [Fun, but not well edited.]

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I just finished The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh. It fits the Fired from the Canon category, so I'm replacing one of my early picks with it. The book was both a fast and fun read...and a disappointment. Yes, the plot's preposterous, but so are most of Dorothy Sayers' plots. So that didn't bother me. I can enjoy reading such things the way I can enjoy a good fantasy (equally preposterous). The problem was in the details.

I don't usually read fanfic. I started reading Paton Walsh's extension of Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey books, because the latter's estate asked her to complete Thrones, Dominations. She did a creditable job. I like A Presumption of Death even better, because we no longer have to deal with the worst of Sayers' affectations, but do get her delightful way with characters and detail. And I might add, A Presumption of Death has a plausible plot.

The Late Scholar is the fourth book in this series. And it is fired from the canon, precisely because it messes with the details of the canon. Harriet visits with her former dons. One of whom was named Miss Hilyard by Sayers, but Paton Walsh labels her Miss Hilliard. (Now that I've typed that I can see it may be a spellchecker run amok.) Sayers created all of the dons as individuals, and Miss Hilyard wasn't one to like Harriet at all, but Paton Walsh has her beaming at Harriet. In other words, the individuals are no longer true to Sayers' canon. And there's lots more of this same thing.

But if you don't know the canon and don't mind a ridiculous plot, it's a fast and fun read.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

mrsmig

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Finished my Gramma would have loved this selection: Richard Henry Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST. While much of it was slow going, due to the dated and somewhat florid writing style (and the preponderance of naval terminology), it was still a really interesting look at a merchant seaman's life prior to the Civil War. Dana's descriptions of the desolate California coast in that era were quite evocative, but I have to admit I was grateful to be done with it.

I've begun my I've met them! selection: E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS. Enjoying it thus far. I became acquainted with Doctorow when I did the Broadway revival of RAGTIME back in 2009; he was such a lovely man (even though he kept mistaking me for our leading lady - I was playing Emma Goldman, the antithesis of Mother, so I was always tickled by that). Still trying to make up my mind about replacing my No Cliff Notes This Time selection with THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. I got a New York Public Library card so I'm able to check out books now, but CATCHER seems to be a very popular book and is always wait listed.


[ ] 1. Coming to a theatre near you - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles (and I've never seen the movie, so I'm coming to it with no expectations)
[ ] 2. I remember that! - A TIME TO DIE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KURSK TRAGEDY by Robert Moore
[ ] 3. Bits & pieces - THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2016 edited by Paula Guran
[x] 4. What you read - BEAUTIFUL JOE by Marshall Saunders
[ ] 5. I've met them! - THE WATERWORKS by E.L. Doctorow
[ ] 6. No Cliff Notes this time - THE RED PONY by John Steinbeck
[ ] 7. Step by step - THE BACKYARD GOAT: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE by Sue Weaver
[ ] 8. Ripped from the headlines - THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larson
[x] 9. Wow. Nice. - SNUFF by Terry Pratchett
[ ] 10. Revenge of the nerds - ATOMIC ACCIDENTS: A HISTORY OF NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS AND DISASTERS by James Mahaffey
[ ] 11. Better known for... BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey
[x] 12. Gramma would have loved this - TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by Richard Henry Dana
 

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I'm a little late to the party, but this looks like great fun so I'm going to do my best to catch up :)

[] 8. Bits and pieces: An anthology (poetry, short stories, whatever).
Warrior: a collection of short stories by Antonica Jones (ed.)

[] 21. Loose ends: A book you started last year and haven’t yet finished.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik

[] 24. Crossing the (color) lines: A book about a PoC, any variety, written by an author of the same variety.
The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

[] 29. Where is that, again?: A book about a place you know little about.
A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe

[] 31. What you will read to your grandchildren: A children's book (middle grade or lower).
Who Let the Gods Out? by Maz Evans

[] 34. Wow. Nice: A book with a one-word title.
Timekeeper by Tara Sim

[] 36. Holy moly some authors like to use lots of words: A book whose title is more than six words long.
The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief by Lisa Tuttle

[] 40. He did drone on a bit: A book more than 600 pages.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

[] 41. What the Greatest Generation to Post-Millennials read: A book published since 1942.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood [CURRENTLY READING]

[] 43. Out of the park on first at bat: A debut.
Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

[] 46. Support the home team: A book by a fellow Awer
The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines or A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab

[] 48. Three-color mythology: A graphic novel or comic book.
Joyride, Volume 1 by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
 

mrsmig

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.
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Finished my I've met them! selection: E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS. It started off well, but ultimately it didn't hold my interest, and oh my God, the ellipses. Doctorow had a real love affair with them in this novel, and they drove me mad. Maybe he was trying for a period feel but every time they showed up I wanted to shriek.

I'm taking a little Discworld break before tackling the next book in my Challenge.


[ ] 1. Coming to a theatre near you - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles (and I've never seen the movie, so I'm coming to it with no expectations)
[ ] 2. I remember that! - A TIME TO DIE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KURSK TRAGEDY by Robert Moore
[ ] 3. Bits & pieces - THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2016 edited by Paula Guran
[x] 4. What you read - BEAUTIFUL JOE by Marshall Saunders
[x] 5. I've met them! - THE WATERWORKS by E.L. Doctorow
[ ] 6. No Cliff Notes this time - THE RED PONY by John Steinbeck
[ ] 7. Step by step - THE BACKYARD GOAT: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE by Sue Weaver
[ ] 8. Ripped from the headlines - THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larson
[x] 9. Wow. Nice. - SNUFF by Terry Pratchett
[ ] 10. Revenge of the nerds - ATOMIC ACCIDENTS: A HISTORY OF NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS AND DISASTERS by James Mahaffey
[ ] 11. Better known for... BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey
[x] 12. Gramma would have loved this - TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by Richard Henry Dana
 

Chris P

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Welcome foxesfairytales! I've heard a lot about The Handmaid's Tale. Let me know what you think of it. Siri is right, you have some interesting books on your list.

Cobalt Jane: Some books just feel British, if that makes any sense. I've tried to write in that style, and can only pull it off for short passages.

Siri: I like your analysis of the series. It's probably not something I would read on my own, but it brings to mind William Horwood's extension of Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows. Horwood doesn't quite capture the full wonder of Graham's Willows, but does a sweet and fun job of it. It was sad to see the characters age and eventually pass by the end of the final book, but then again he does it sweetly and in a way that doesn't feel cheap.

mrsmig: I was surprised you had met E.L. Doctorow, but then I realized I had mistaken him for someone else. I just can't remember who. Shows how much I know about him!

I'm still working through The Color Purple. I'm enjoying it when I get a chance to read it, but I've been busy and not had much time. I saw a good portion of the movie years ago, but I only seem to remember the part where Celie tells Harpo to beat his wife, and Harpo gets his butt kicked. The rest of it is completely new, which is strange because usually I remember a story as it goes along if I've seen the movie or read it before. Unless the movie is nothing like the book, of course.