Clue 2013

This is my first Categoy Challenge and I'm going to keep it simple. The goal is a minimum of 5 in each of the 13 categories.

1. Southern Writers

1. American Ghost : A Novel by Janis Owens
2. Saving Grace by Lee Smith
3. Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler
4. Crooked Letter Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

2. Fiction set outside the US

1. The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin (Russia) and January Alpha Cat
2. A Week In Winter by Mave Binchy (Ireland)
3. The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez (England)
4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (Italy)
5. Mrs. Ali's Road to Happiness by Farahad Zama (India)

COMPLETED

3. Mysteries and Thrillers

1. A Death in the Small Hours by Charles Finch
2. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
3, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (Alpha Cat For June)
4. Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart (Group Read July)
5. Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart

COMPLETED

6. Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
7. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, pseudonym for J.K. Rowling

4. Prize Winners

1. The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas and January CAT Award Winner (Spur Award)
2. The Freshour Cylinders by Speer Morgan and February CAT Award Winner
3. Whip Hand by Dick Francis and July CAT Award Winner (Edgar for best novel)
4. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear 2003 Agatha for best first novel
5. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Booker Prize

COMPLETE

5. History

1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed The World by Penny Colman
2. The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough
3. The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
4. Fort Smith Vanguard of Western Frontier History by Billy D. Higgins

6. Memoir and Biography

1. The Best Lawyer In A One-Lawyer Town by Dale Bumpers
2. Riding the Bus With My Sister by Rachel Simon
3. The Orchard: A Memoir by Theresa Weir
4. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt
5. A House In The Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

COMPLETE

7. Book Club and Group Reads

1. Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society by Amy Hill Hearth
2. Dream More by Dolly Parton
3. Old Filth by Jane Gardam
4. The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
5. The J.M. Barrie Ladies

COMPLETED

8. Science or Nature

9. Travel and Adventure

1. On the Noodle Road by Jen Lin-Liu
2. A Tuscan Childhood by Kinta Beevor
3. Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen

10. Related to Art

1. The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, fiction
2. The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland
3. Sargent by Donald Wigal
4. The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears
5. Ceramics by James Mackay

11. YA

1. A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper
2. The FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper
3. The FitzOsbornes At War by Michelle Cooper
4. Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

12. Misc. Fiction

1. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
2. The Blind Eye by Marica Fine
3. Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray
4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by by Rachel Joyce
5. The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney (July Alpha Cat)

COMPLETED

6. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (Sept Random Cat)

13. Misc Nonfiction

1. Plain and Simple A Woman's Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender
2. The FabYOUlist by Susan Campbell Cross
3. The Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn
4. My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse,
Read, and Shop by Ronald Rice

Welcome to the challenge clue!

Good luck, welcome to the challenge. Looks like you have good variety with your categories

Welcome! Simple is best - keeps you from going too crazy. Looking forward to following your reads.

Welcome!

Looks like 2013 is going to be a fun year! Looking forward to seeing what you choose to read for the challange.

I have added The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao to one of my challenge categories x

It's been on my TBR since it came out so I'm glad to have it planned. One of my friends with similar reading tastes thought it was fantastic so hopefully I will as well. I saw Junot Diaz interviewed on PBS recently and he was very interesting.

Glad you're joining the challenge! I look forward to hearing about your reads.

I am looking forward to your reading :)

Welcome & good luck, I am looking forward to reading Swamplandia next year too :)

Welcome from me too! I've not read very many Southern writers, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you read in that category.

Looking forward to hearing about your reads as well. Dinner with Persephone sounds really good.
And I finally read The Book Thief last year, after a couple of false starts, and was wowed by it. Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for all the well wishes, I've updated the possibilites with those I think I'll read in Jan. All are on the TBR pile. Looking at the award lists in Feb, I don't think I have any TBRs but will take a closer look later. Like many of you I want to hit as many of those TBRs as I can!

Three finished so far.

Boris Akunin, author of The Winter Queen came to me by bullet. The first in a series, I was warned it wasn't his best but I liked it and will continue the series. There were a few instances when elements of the plot are far fetched but the good writing and sense of place (Tsarist Russia) make up for it. The story begins when a student kills himself in a Moscow public garden and Erast Fandorin, a young detective, is put on the case. He soon suspects a political conspiracy but could never have guessed how far his investigations will take him or who he will eventually suspect.

Had it not been a bookclub pick I wouldn't have read Miss Dreamsville because I don't care for what one of my friends calls the Southern Silly genre. The story takes place in a small town in Florida in the early 1960s and has all the required characters: one homosexual, one divorced woman, one Northerner, one black woman, one woman on parole from prison. Get it? Two things especially irrate me about the book, one is that it treats serious subjects in a superficial way and the other that it was written by the author of Having our Say: The First 100 Years of the Delaney Sisters which I loved.

I thought The Chili Queen was terrific! It's a Western with great and mostly women characters. The book begins with Addie traveling back to her bordello in a small New Mexico town from the great city of Kansas City. The return is from an annual "business trip", she goes to the big city to buy all the latest fashions and to meet a man friend. She has a man friend in New Mexico too, the sweet dispositioned bank robber, Ned Partner. On the train she meets Emma who is traveling to the town where Addie lives to marry a man she has never met. And then there is Welcome, Addie's massive and large spirited black houskeeper. It's worth reading the book just to read Welcome's sass. A good story with some crossing and double crossing makes a fun and different read.

Oh, I decided to delete my possibilites list. It was already wearing on me as my grandmother used to say. (That means it was something of a burden). I'll choose as I go along.

I have a Possibilies list, but I'm keeping it on a loose piece of paper instead of listing on my thread - I've noticed that when I put them down on the thread, I tend to not want to read any of them. Odd, but true.

I haven't read as much in the last 10 days due to a trip and was happy to get back to my evening reading schedule mid week. A Death in the Small Hours is the 6th book in the Charles Lennox series by Charles Finch and one of my favorites. Reading the reviews on LT I see that isn't true for everyone though.

By the time of this book Charles has been a member of Parliament for several years and has not been doing any detection although he does consult with his young friend John Dallington on his cases. When a letter arrives from Charles' uncle asking him to come visit and help solve a murder in the quiet town near his estate Charles thinks he will decline but later changes his mind, not because of the promise of the investigation, but because he is due to give an important speech in Parliament and is being continually distracted by the visits of other politicians trying to influence his topic. And so off they go, Charles, his wife Jane, their baby Sophie, and nursemaid Miss Taylor, to Uncle Frederick and Everley.

I found the mystery good, the setting charming and the new characters introduced to the series interesting. With each book there is greater depth to Lennox as he struggles with the same life events we all do.

I'm sure I'll read this one again and in fact have been mulling over rereading the whole series, one after the other.

I do enjoy Finch's Charles Lenoxseries..... very happy to see you also enjoyed A Death in the Small Hours! One of Finch's best, IMO!

Hi Clue! It's nice to see another person doing more open categories - happy reading to you!

@ 31 -- I have A Death in the Small Hours ready and waiting for me -- hope to get to it soon!

I have completed The Snow Child for the random CAT and it is a wonderful book! The author, Eowyn Ivey, says that "growing up in Alaska, I've at times felt a foreigner in the page's of my country's literature. All the books I read and loved, but not one of them told of my home". That is how she came to write this book which is strongly Alaskan. It was inspired by a Russian Fairy tale that tells about an old husband and wife who build a snow child that comes to life.

In this book Mabel and Jack come to Alaska from the Eastern U.S. in the 1920s when they are in their forties. Mabel had been pregnant once when she was younger but the child was stillborn. Neither had been able to break through the grief and disapointment. When they arrived in Alaska they were distant with each other, living in a broken marriage, but they managed to build a house and clear land for farming. One year when the first snowfall comes they are in an unusual playful mood and build a snow child together. Jack gives it stick arms and Mable gives it her red scarf and gloves. The next day the snow child is gone and a magical story begins.

Completed the newly released A Week In Winter by Mave Binchy which she completed just before her death in July 2012.

Strongly character driven as her books have always been, in this she tells the story of each guest that stays the first week at the newly renovated Stone House, a restful B & B on the Irish Coast.

Finished The Freshour Cylinders by Speer Morgan a literary mystery/thriller that takes place in the 1930s in Western Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. The assistant prosecutor in Fort Smith investigates the violent murder of an Indian artifact collector. The artifacts of interest are from the Spiro Mound in Eastern Oklahoma, one of the few pre-Columbian temple mounds in the United States. The collector's estate is inherited by a young female archeologist who lives in Chicago but grew up in Fort Smith. She assists in the investigation and has an affair of sorts with the prosecutor. Violence, illegal political agreements, and the treatment of the Indian people all figure into the story.
There are some tense passages and at times I had no choice but to continue reading even if it was bedtime, dinner time or the phone was ringing! This was an Award CAT read, the book was an American Book Award winner in 1999.

I also completed Dream More by Dolly Parton for my bookclub. She organized the book around the principles she developed for the Dolly Foundation. There isn't anything new here but it's a short read and what can you say, Dolly's alway a hoot!

Just finished Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny the fifth in the Inspector Gamache series for the Award CAT (Agatha Award). The location of this book was different, rather than taking place in the small village of Three Pines it took place in Quebec City during the winter. One thing is for sure, I'm too much of a wimp for QC's deadly winter weather!

Gamache has gone to Quebec City to stay with his mentor as he (Gamache) recurperates from injuries, both mental and physical, received while he and his subordinates derailed an attempt to destroy Le Grande dam. Although he is on temporary leave, he gets caught up in the investigation of the murder of a man who has been frantically and erratically searching for Champlain's grave for years, much to the disdain and disgust of many Quebec City historians and citizens. In addition a murder that took place in Three Pines in the fourth book in the series is reinvestigated.

Bury Your Dead has 4.5 stars on LT and is also rated highly on Amazon. However, I'm giving it 3.5 stars because I didn't think the multiple story lines worked well and I thought the solution to the Quebec City murder too implausible. The series still remains one of my favorites and I give Louise Penny high praise for her ability to create a strong sense of place regardless of where the book is located. I'm sure she'll create some tourism for Quebec City due to her lovely descriptions of the city and it's citizens.

I love mysteries with an archaeological theme so The Freshour Cylinders is definitely going on the wishlist.

It's funny how different readers respond to the same book. Bury Your Dead is my favorite book in the series, but I can see why it didn't work as well for you. I was drawn to the setting in Quebec City and the historical society library.

Janis Owens grew up in rural Florida and throughout her childhood heard references to a murder that had taken place many years before. When she was a graduate student she thought she would write a short story based on it but family members were so evasive she had to drop the idea. She didn't return to the subject until she was a middle aged professional with three published novels. This time her research resulted in American Ghost, a Southern gothic novel about racial violence and what the consequences of both silence and breaking silence can be. Having grown up in a similar environment, I found the story very believable as well as complex, well written and reminiscent of Southern writer Ron Rash.

When I woke up this morning I immediately grabbed the Kindle because I was just a few chapters away from finishing A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper. I loved this book, a YA, that has the feel of I Capture The Castle. It takes place on an island between France and Spain, the kingdom of Montmaray, where the crazed king, his 17 year old daughter, two orphaned neices and their brother live in near poverty. The king's widowed sister lives in England, because she married well and is quite well off she pays the school fees for the nephew, Toby, to go to school in England and is insistent that the older girls come to London to be presented at court. The oldest neice, Sophie, who tells the story, wants so badly to go but sees so many roadblocks including the fact that she owns one dress!

The one village on the island is down to 4 when the story opens and after a death the others leave for an easier life. So there they are, a crazy man who hides away in his bedroom, the housekeeper who dotes on the king, two girls under 18 and a younger (I think about 12) girl who has had only the schooling the older sisters can force into her since they can no longer afford a proper tutor. The book takes place in 1936 and there are lots of heart stopping moments provided by the natural elements (sea, cliffs, storms) as well as by the growing war element.

Last night I ordered both this and the remaining 2 in the series in hardback so I can read and loan them. All are rated at 4 stars.

These books have been on my radar for a while. All three are in the library where I work and I so want to get to them. I'm glad you liked them since that might get me to read them sooner rather than later.

Have been traveling for work this month, meetings in the day and evening, and I'm not getting nearly enough reading in. Have only completed 2 this month: The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro and The Blind Eye by Marcia Fine. The Blind Eye is the book I read for April's CAT Award winner.

I loved The Art Forger. What's not to like? Art, theft, forgery, the Isabella Stewart museum. A good story with lots of twists and turns.

Currently reading The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard. May be able to squeeze a fourth one in for the month.

Excited to see your love of The Art Forger. My book club is reading it next month so am now really looking forward to it!

#42 Great books for those times you just need a relaxed, break form the real world read.

#44 I hope you like it as much as I did. I read it in book club too and most members liked it as much as I did but there were a couple who didn't care for the technical information on how forgery is done or found out. Most interesting to me though.

I finished Old Filth last night for the group read and thought it was great. I have to think it over but will give it 4 or 4.5 stars. This is my first book by Jane Gardam but I'll definately read more.

Old Filth was a rather surprisingly good read! Like you, it was my first Gardam and I am looking to reading more of her books.

I've been in one of those dreaded reading slumps the last few weeks. The books I planned to read this month suddenly don't appeal. What I didn't read though would probably have been more enjoyable than what I did! The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez came recommended by a friend whose taste is normally aligned with mine. I didn't find this book as good as she did though, I think it was average and I'll give it 3 stars.

That's too bad - hopefully your slump ends soon and June brings some better reads!

Thanks aliciamay.

I finished Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray this afternoon. A friend gave this to me last year and all this time I thought it was nonfiction even though I had read Jeanne Ray's novels.

Turns out this is a novel too and is about middle aged women who become invisible due to taking a combination of 3 drugs. Some of the experiences the women have are pretty funny. They never have to buy a plane ticket (though they do have to travel nude and with nothing in their hands) and clearing security is as simple as walking through. A bank robbery is stopped by an invisible woman walking up to the thief and yanking the gun from his hand - he didn't see her coming.

Interwoven in the story are the reactions of family ...like they don't notice the women they live with have become invisible. Overall a quirky little story that can be read quickly. A 3 from me.

I've finished 3 in June and should complete at least 2 more:

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan - a recent college grad loses his job as a web master and when he can't find anything else begins working as a clerk at a 24 hour bookstore. It doesn't take long for him to discover things don't seem quite right at the store...and aren't. Using his technical skills and those of his girlfriend, who works for Google, he discovers a secret literary society.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Harold Fry is a retired man in an unhappy marriage. He goes out one day to post a letter in answer to one he received from a woman he once worked with. She is alone and dying in a hospice hundreds of miles away. But once he comes to a post box he decides to walk a bit more before he drops the letter off...and ends up continuing to walk until he thinks he'll just walk to see her. Once he tells someone along the way of his pilgrimage it becomes a huge media event with all manner of wacky people joining him. It's a funny and charming read though with serious undertones.

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin. This historical novel is based on the lives of Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh. I wouldn't have read it unless it had been a book club selection because I have read most of Anne Morrow Lindgergh's books and would have just left it at that. I thought the first 1/3 of the book was boring but it became more interesting as their marriage progressed. As most know, their first child was kidnapped and murdered and of course that event created a deep shadow over their marriage and lives. In addition the marriage was complicated by his dominant personality and life long celebrity. The focus of the book is how Anne Morrow escaped his dominance, how the death of her 18 month old first child affected her life, and how she eventually created a life for herself.

I have The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry waiting for me on audio, read by Jim Broadbent - looking forward to it!

Priceless: How I Went Undercover To Rescue The World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman

Much of Robert Wittman's 21 year career was spent tracing, locating and recovering stolen art. He was one of the first art detectives within the FBI and founded the FBI's Art Crime Team. His work took him across the globe and lead him to people from all facets of society. A true life thriller!

A Corpse at St. Andrew's Chapel by Mel Starr

This is the second book in the Hugh de Singleton 14th century police procedurals and I'm hooked. Singleton is a 14th century surgeon and bailiff. Here a citizen is found dead in the woods with a torn throat. The night of the death Singleton heard a strange cry and thought there might be a wolf in the woods. As time goes by he becomes less and less sure a wolf had anything to do with the death but he doesn't like the consideration of murder because with this person, unliked by many, there would be so many suspects! There is great period detail (the author is a retired high school history teacher) including medieval surgery practices.

Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart

Read with the group read and loved it. Four stars for this mystery, suspense, romance. I read very little in the genre and would like to find more of this caliber but I'm not sure there are any...unless they are by Mary Stewart.

Luckily, Mary Stewart has a fairly extensive library of works! :)

I finished Nine Coaches Waiting last night and like you I really liked it!

Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart

Saw this on a quick trip to the library and continued on with Mary Stewart. This was written 30 years after Nine Coaches Waiting and is more of a "cozy". Kathy Herrick, gone 6 years from the English village where she grew up, investigates strange events that have been taking place at and near the cottage where she lived with her grandparents. A light book, it's fine for a summer day of lazy reading but does not have the dramatic suspense of Nine Coaches Waiting.

Nice review of Rose Cottage and good to know it reads more like a cozy than the suspenseful read of Nine Coaches Waiting. I am on the hunt for more Mary Stewart books to read and it is interesting to see that her writing style changes over time.

Whip Hand by Dick Francis

Sid Halley was (like Francis) a champion steeplechase jockey. A racing accident in which Sid lost a hand ended his career and he turned to private investigation instead. In Whip Hand, the second in the Sid Halley series, his ex-wife has stupidly gotten herself involved in what appears to be a phoney charity and she is likely to be arrested on fraud charges. He is also asked to investigate racing syndicates that may be responsible for somehow incapacitating promising young horses. From Chico, Sid's judo instructor friend, to a few sinister characters every mystery reader loves to hate, the characters are well done. I knew a man who lost his life because he apparently knew something about goings-on at a race track he shouldn't have. In this regard, the story seems all too real.

This was a CAT for July, it won the Edgar for best novel in 1981.

The J.M. Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society by Barbara Zitwer

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Joey, an architect from New York, becomes the manager of a project to renovate Stanway House, the home that inspired J. M. Barrie to write Peter Pan. Unfortunately the restoration is only a superficial plot element. The characters are equally superficial and the plot predictable.

Mrs. Ali's Road to Happiness by Farahad Zama

I received the first in this series, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People, as an ER. As described, it was charming and heart warming. The primary characters, Mr. and Mrs. Ali of India, are making a big change in their lives. Mr. Ali is retiring from the postal service and at Mrs. Ali's admonition that he'd better find something to do outside her house, he establishes The Marriage Bureau for Rich People on their verandah. Mrs. Ali's Road to Happiness is the 4th in the series although I thought it was the 2nd! Although the marriage bureau is still a part of the plot the primary action revolves around a young Muslim widow in the neighborhood adopting an orphan Hindu boy. Both Muslims and Hindus are alarmed and because the Ali's support her their lives are in turmoil as they are threatened with everything from arrest to excommunication. Both books take place in small town India and following along with the daily life of average citizens is one of the most enjoyable things about the series.

Because of the exotic locale do you think this would be enjoyed by the fans of the Precious Ramotswe series? It sounds like it could be.

Yes, particularly the first in the series and all of them are stand alone.

I'm behind with posting, these 3 have been read and I'm not going to review them because all 3 got a lot of attention when they were published and have good reviews available on them. And...I'm really short on time. I've heard it's September already!

Riding The Bus With My Sister: A True Life Journey by Rachael Simon
The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Saving Grace by Lee Smith takes place in the hills of North Carolina. The story of a family headed by a fundamentalist preacher (a snake handler and poison drinker) is told by his daughter Grace and follows her from childhood to her late thirties. Along the way Grace is subjected to seduction by a half-brother, the suicide of her mother, a failed marriage to a preacher with whom she has 2 daughters and a stillborn son, and an affair with a "hippie". I liked the first half of the book especially, Lee Smith writes so well about the hill people and as one reviewer said she always writes "without sanctimony". The later part of the book, once Grace leaves her husband, I didn't like as well and thought there were some loose ends that weakened the story. I normally like endings that require the reader to decide what happens to the character after the book ends, and this is one of those, but I thought the ending needed in this case to be less obtuse. Even so, I'm glad I read it and I'm giving it 3 stars.

Saving Grace sounds like an interesting book, even if the ending appeared to be lacking.

I had a moment of confusion when I clicked the link to the book page and saw "Scotland" "Historical Romance" and "Medieval" as the predominant tags..... and then I realized that I was looking at the wrong book. ;-)

LOL, I've done the same thing and have even loaded the wrong book to my library by mistake!

Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

This is Julie Kibler's first novel, a story that grew from her knowing that her grandmother had fallen in love with a young black man in a time that made the relationship impossible.

In the novel Isabella, a white woman in her 90s, has a special relationship with Dorrie her black hairdresser. When she asks Dorrie to drive her from Texas to Ohio for a funeral she doesn't even tell Dorrie who the funeral is for but Dorrie knows it must be important to Isabella to go and agrees to do the driving.

On the way Isabella slowly tells Dorrie a secret. She had a love affair with a young black man in the early 1940s. The young man was the gentle and gentlemanly son of the longtime family maid. Robert could have been murdered for having even a platonic friendship with Isabella even if her family had approved. They didn't, and the consequences still haunt Isabella.

Dorrie doesn't have the easiest of lives herself. A single mother of teenage children she struggles with finances and thinks her son's girlfriend may be pregnant. She hasn't had much luck with men and is in a quandary about a new relationship, Teague seems like a genuinely fine man but she doesn't know if it's even possible for that to be true. As they travel and Dorrie learns the whole story about Isabella and Robert she begins to find her own answers.

Kibler handles this rather complicated story well and the writing is more mature than I expect from a first novel.

Plain and Simple, A Woman's Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender

Sue Bender was a stressed and over achieving artist, mother and wife when she developed an interest in the Amish way of living after she was drawn to quilts used in a display in a department store. She learned Amish women had made them and became obsessed with the Amish belief in simplicity and order. She decided she wanted to live with an Amish family to experience their way of life first hand and did find a family willing to take her in for a few weeks. About a year later she stayed with a second Amish family. Her experiences living and learning the Amish way, and the families themselves, are very interesting and rich but I found the way she tried to incorporate what she admired about the Amish into her own life questionable. She explains numerous times why the Amish way of life will not work in her own circumstances although she purports to have adopted at least some of their philosophy. I think that is where the rub comes for me, I'm not convinced the Amish way of living can be partially applied and accomplish anything but superficial change.

I find that premise so condenscending! She could have just simplified her life by turning off her cell phone!

On The Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta by Jen Lin-Liu

The author grew up in a Chinese American family in Southern California, studied at Columbia, and in China as a Fulbright Fellow. After a trip to Italy, where her husband surprised her with a cooking class, she began to think about the similarities between Asian and European noodles and began to wonder how food had moved along the Silk Road. By this time she had lived in China a decade and had founded a cooking school for Westerners in Beijing. A seasoned world traveler, she decided to travel the Silk Road and compare food between various countries and regions. Traveling at times with other chefs, with her husband, and sometimes alone; she ate, interviewed chefs and took cooking classes in Western China, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Italy. Not only did she learn about food, she also learned about the lives and social circumstances of women all along the route. I found the constant food talk too much at times for me, but the interaction with the other women, usually as they taught her to prepare local foods, was fascinating.

It is a good thing I am eating dinner as I read your last review.... talk about a culinary travel log!

I've been so busy I haven't posted in a month so I'm playing catch up.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton And Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World by Penny Colman

ECS and SBA met in 1851. By that time Elizabeth, a wife and mother of 4 boys, was a leader in the women right's movement and had been an organizer of the first women's rights convention in 1848. Susan was an unmarried 31 year old Quaker who had retired from teaching to devote herself fulltime to the temperance movement. Upon meeting they became immediate friends and under Elizabeth's influence Susan also became involved in the women's movement. Together they worked the rest of their lives to improve social, economic, legal and political reforms for women. This is a very readable, well researched history and although I think it was written as YA it has enough depth to be interesting to any reader. 4 stars.

The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough

Since this was a group read and there are many reviews of it I'll just say I give it 4.5 stars and move on.

The Orchard: A Memoir by Theresa Weir

Theresa was 21 years old when she married Adrian, the son of a 5 generation farm family. They met shortly after Theresa moved into the community to work in her uncle's bar. Neither family wanted the marriage to take place and although Theresa lived on the family farm almost 20 years she was never accepted by his parents and lost all contact with her uncle. At the time of her marriage she had no knowledge of farming but quickly learned that it requires hard work, sacrifice and in her case isolation. There is a foreboding element to the book, primarily due to her anxiety related to the heavy use of insecticides on the apple farm. After the birth of their two children her fears grow and with good reason. While this is the memoir of one woman's life the book gives insight into the lives farm families across America lead and the challenges they face. 3.5 stars.

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt

This is not so much a personal history as it is a history of the 70s and 80s music scene. In fact from time to time it seemed just a list of places Ronstadt had played, musicians she had known and songs she had recorded. I think anyone interested in popular music from this time period will greatly enjoy this book and anyone expecting a personal memoir will be disappointed. 3.0 stars.

The FabYOUlist: List It, Live It, Love Your Life by Susan Campbell Cross

This was an ER and with a view from middle age is just silly. Susan became concerned at age 36 that 40 was just around the corner and she thought that by this age she would have "done more, seen more, become more." So she set about making a list of things she wanted to accomplish. It just so happens that the list ended up with 40 items. While there are some that are worthwhile goals, many are of the "go clubbing in VIP style in Vegas, sunbathe topless, go to a strip club" ilk. She lists each and then tells us about accomplishing them. Oh, and number 40? Write a book. 2 stars.

The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary by Fred Sanborn

This was given to me by a co-worker named Fred and I wish I could say it was worth it's title but I found it pretty much like the thousands of other rah-rah books out there. Not any worse, not any better. 2.5 stars

My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop by Ronald Rice

About 80 essays by writers on their favorite independent bookstores. Some of the writers I had read but many I hadn't. That didn't matter to me because what I share with all of them is a love for reading and great bookstores. It's a good book to keep close at hand and read an essay or two once in a while. I'm keeping it as a bookstore guide to use as I travel, out of the 80 or so bookstores written about I've been to 12 so I need to get on the road!

That does sound like a good book to have on hand when planning a trip. I'm curious to see which stores they recommend.

A Tuscan Childhoold by Kinta Beevor

Kinta Beevor was five in 1916 when her family left England to live in Tuscany. The Tuscan property was in the countryside, the structure that would become their home built high on a hill. Although it was originally built as a fortress in the 16th century her parents called their home "the castle". Her father had fallen in love with it for it's "wild beauty and wonderful views" when he first saw it in 1896. The book covers the lives of the family both at the castle and away for four decades. Beevor's father was a painter, her mother a writer, and they were very much a part of the artistic community of that time. Many well known visitors, including Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence, came to the castle. The most captivating people in the book are not the famous though, they are the Tuscan people who worked and lived near the castle. It's the description of their every day lives and their relationships with the family that cause the book to be as good as it is. 4.5 stars.

Sargent 1854-1925 text by Donald Wigal

Over 100 of Sargent's paintings with text. Well done and a good reference for anyone interested in his work.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

So many have read this first book in the Maisie Dobbs series I'll only say that although I'm late to the party, I'll continue on. Obviously it's a very popular series with roughly 10 ahead of me. I look forward to finding out how Psychologist and Investigator Dobbs carries on after WWI. I hope Winspear writes as well about the period after the war as she did of the period before and during it.

Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen decided to run the vicious Iditarod dog race before he even knew what mushing was all about. He had been trapping in northern Wisconsin, running 3 dogs on a sled, and thought he knew what it was all about. He didn't. The first half of the book takes place as he prepares, or tries to, for Iditarod racing. The last half is devoted to the actual running of this brutal 1180 mile endurance race in 1983. It's an unbelievable story and it's unbelievable that he lived to tell it, but he did, and in fact ran it again 2 years later.

A House in the Sky: A Memoir by Amanda Lindhout

When Amanda Lindhout was a child she dreamed about the faraway places she saw in National Geographic magazines. As a young adult she began to travel to some of those countries, working for several months and then traveling several months on savings. After a few years she tired of backpack travel and decided to try her hand at freelance journalism. She thought in this way she could earn enough money to travel comfortably. She was particularly interested in Africa and thought she could find places of interest, write about them, and sell the pieces to small travel publications. Rather quickly she decided to go to Somalia, talking a former boyfriend (Nigel) into going with her. Experienced journalists strongly advised her against Somalia, telling her she was at high risk for kidnapping. For some reason she thought the professionals were jealous of her so their opinion didn't slow her down, off she and Nigel went. They were in Somalia just a matter of days when the car they and 3 security guards were in was stopped by gunmen. They were pulled from the car and taken to a hiding place. It was more than a year before they would be free. The book covers Amanda’s life from childhood until she is rescued from the extremists holding her. It’s a frightening story but at the same time spellbinding.

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

This title is the book for my f2f group this month or I wouldn't have read it. I thought it was fiction, there have been so many "wives" novels of late, but no, it's a nonfiction account of the astronaut wives. If I have ever given the wives behind "those brave men" of the space program any thought I don't remember it, so it was good for me to become familiar with their history. The book is in great part the story of how NASA controlled the astronauts and their families, particularly in the beginning of the space program. Among the more incredible decisions NASA made was to have a reporter in the home with the wife during her husband's space flight so that he could record her reactions as she watched coverage on TV. Great copy if the husband was in grave danger. As good as the story itself is, the book doesn't deserve a strong rating, I'm giving it a 2.5. The writing needed more depth and maturity. As I was reading I had the thought that it read as if the writer had cut a lot of articles out of magazines, cut the paragraphs apart and then taped them all together for a book. I hope at some time in the future a stronger account is written.

Time to wrap up. This was my first category challenge and I really liked it. I didn't meet the goal I set for myself of 5 in 13 categories, at least in part because I thought the categories would just fill as I read. Then about October I realized that wasn't happening so I sacrificed a category to get most of the others.

Southern Writers 5/5
Fiction Set Outside the U.S. 5/5
Mysteries/Thrillers 5/5
Prize Winners 5/5
History 4/5
Memoirs/Bio 5/5
Book Club and Group Reads 5/5
Travel and Adventure 3/5
Related to Art 5/5
YA 4/5
Misc fiction 5/5
Misc nonfiction 4/5
Science or Nature 0/5

Looking forward to the 2014 Challenge!

Looks like you did a great job even though you didn't meet your goal. Glad we'll be seeing you again in 2014!

You did great! See you on your 2014 thread!