Sally Lou's 2017 challenge

Overview -- once again, my challenge is simple -- no clever themes, etc. Although I was planning not to set a goal for number of titles, I decided to track my reading on a ticker, setting a rather low goal since I'm planning to read a considerable number of long (for me) books. There will be considerable overlap among the categories.

I'm setting 10 categories, adding 2 + 0 + 1 +7.




Ticker should indicate 80 adult titles read as of 12/29/17

Children's Books Read ticker in category 8 message

(password = year of Margie's birth)

Category 1. CATWoman. I'm planning on participating in this CAT every month.

January -- classics -- Emma by Jane Austen -- completed Jan. 17th

February -- debut work -- nonfiction --Stiff by Mary Roach -- completed Feb. 10th
February -- debut work -- nonfiction -- Factory man by Beth Macy
February -- debut work -- children's fiction -- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

March -- genre -- mysteries -- Pardonable Lies by Jacqueine Winspear, finished Mar. 11th.

April -- memoir -- A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold -- finished Apr. 2nd.
April -- biographical fiction-- A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline -- finished April 5th.
April -- autobiography -- Fireweed: a Political Autobiography by Gerda Lerner -- finished Apr. 16th.

May -- women in art -- Art and Sexual Politics edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker -- finished reading May 11th.
May -- women in art -- Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others -- finished June 6th.

June: Professional women -- Unheard Voices: the First Historians of Southern Women by Anne Firor Scott
June: Professional women -- Dimestore: a Writer's Life by Lee Smith -- finished June 19th.

July: Women of color -- A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry -- finished July 4th.
July: Women of color -- Those Who Ride the Night Winds by Nikki Giovanni (collection of poems) -- finished July 13th.
July: Women of color -- Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni -- finished July 19th.
July --- women of color -- The Humming Birds by Lucinda Roy -- Finished July 26th.

Aug. -- historical fiction -- The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (Titanic, Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon) -- read July 28th and 29th but counting here
Aug. -- nonfiction -- Lucky by Alice Sebold (memoir of woman who got raped her freshman year of college) -- finished reading Aug. 15.

Sept. -- children's lit -- The Moffats by Eleanor Estes -- finished reading Aug. 28th, a few days early
Sept. -- children's lit -- Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Sept. 12th.

Oct. -- regional lit -- Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown -- very local, locale is Crozet, approximately 10 miles fro Charlottesville.

Nov. -- feminist writing -- Harriet Martineau on Women, edited by Gayle Graham Yates -- finished reading Nov. 8th.
Nov. -- feminist writing -- Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller -- finished reading Nov. 30th.

Dec. -- modern (post-1960) novels by women -- An American Marriage : a Novel by Tayari Jones -- finished reading Dec. 8th.
Dec. -- modern (post-1960) novels by women -- A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas -- read Dec. 19th.
Dec. -- modern (post-1960 novels by women) --A Christmas Message by Anne Perry -- read Dec 21st.
Dec. --- modern (post-1960 novels by women)-- Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear -- finished reading Dec. 26th.
Dec. --- modern (post 1960) novels by women --Glory over Everything by Kathleen Grissom -- finished Dec. 29th.

Category 2. Other CATs and KITs. I'm not planning on participating in any of these on a regular basis except possibly for RANDOMCat depending upon the topics and ALPHAKit if my reading falls into the letters for the month.

Feb. RandomCAT (possessive) -- Charlotte's Web by E.B. White -- read Feb. 3rd.
Feb. RandomCAT (possessive) -- Stormy, Misty's Foal by Marguerite Henry.

February -- CultureCAT (Medicine and Public Health) -- Stiff by Mary Roach -- completed Feb. 10th

March Awards Cat-- Newbery runner up -- Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg (1968) -- winner was her From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Both March Random CAT (Irish) and Awards CAT (Forward Poetry Prize in 2010) -- Human Chain by Seamus Heaney -- completed March 9th.

March Awards CAT -- Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear -- Macavity award for Historical mystery in 2006

April RandomCAT -- Summer by Edith Wharton -- borrowed from library

April AwardsCAT and CultureCAT (religion) -- The Color Purple by Alice Walker -- Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983, talks a lot about God and religion

May RandomCAT (Mother) and CultureCAT (gender) -- Art and Sexual Politics edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker -- finished reading May 11th.

May CultureCAT. (Gender) --- This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund -- finished reading May 26th.
May CultureCAT (Gender) --Love Wins: the Lovers and Lawyers who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell -- finished reading May 30th.

May RandomCAT (Mother) -- was an artist who liked the Lake District -- Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others -- finished June 6th.

June RandomCAT (new beginnings) -- The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien -- new to me book club and new to me author
June RandomCAT (new beginnings) -- The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson -- beginning of mid 20th century civil rights movement

July CultureCAT (violence, crime & justice) -- 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence by Howard Means -- finished July 11th.

July RandomCAT(author's birthday in July -- also Canada's birthday) -- "Royal Beatings" by Alice Munro (a short story)
July RandomCAT (author's birthday in July) -- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte -- finished early July 19th (shortly after midnight)

August CultureCAT (natural disasters) -- When the Rain Came by Earl Swift -- read Aug. 2nd.

August RandomCAT (animals) -- Ape House by Sara Gruen

Sept. RandomCAT (playing catch-up) -- Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- trying to reread all of her children's novels this calendar year -- finished Sept. 12th
Sept RandomCAT (playing catch-up -- Cakewalk by Rita Mae Brown --trying to read more ROOTs before cataract surgery -- books on good quality paper (discovered that Little House set was on poor quality paper and making me cough) -- finished Sept. 16th.

Sept. AlphaKIT -- Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal.

October RandomCAT (dark stories) -- The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers -- finished reading Oct. 7th.
October RandomCAT (dark stories) -- Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger -- finished reading Oct. 11th.

October CultureCAT (poverty) -- On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Oct. 16th.

Nov. RandomCAT (travel) and Nov. CultureCAT (conflict and war)- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -- constant use of helicopters, transporting people to various local destinations and between New world and Indian civilization in New Mexico, conflicts between the two civilizations and two characters who are not accepted by either -- finished Nov. 9th.

Dec. AlphaKIT (letter J)-- An American Marriage : a Novel by Tayari Jones -- finished reading Dec. 8th.
Dec. AlphaKIT (letter R) -- Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr -- finished reading Dec. 17th

Dec. RandomCAT (books that can be read in one day) -- These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties edited by Elaine Showalter -- finished reading Dec. 13th.
Dec. RandomCAT (books that can be read in one day) -- Mary Ingalls -- the College Years by Marie Tschopp -- read Dec. 14th.
Dec. RandomCAT (books that can be read in one day) -- Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- read Dec. 18th.
Dec. RandomCAT (books that can be read in one day) -- A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas -- read Dec. 19th.
Dec. RandomCAT --A Christmas Message by Anne Perry -- read Dec. 21st.
Dec RandomCAT -- The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- read Dec. 24th.
Dec. RandomCAT -- The Appalachian Outhouse by Dean Six (touchstone not working) -- read Dec. 31st

Category 3. BINGODog.

In 2016 I tried completing both the BingoDOG and the Woman BINGOPup, partly because I coordinated setting up the BingoPUP. For this BingoDOG card, I'm using both male and female authors, with an emphasis on female. For the BingoDOG card using only female authors, see message 80.

Books for BINGODog. This is my first BingoDOG card, and includes a few books with male authors. For my cards of female authors only, see http://www.librarything.com/topic/240713#6071552 for the cards and http://www.librarything.com/topic/240713#6071563 for the titles.

One of these cards is using most of the titles listed on this first card, substituting only for male authors. The other card, which I probably will not finish, does not have any repeats from this first card.

Read:

1. Author shares first and last initials -- Unheard Voices: the First Historians of Southern Women by Anne Firor Scott -- finished reading June 15th.

2. Set in a time before you were born -- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- read Feb. 13th.

3. Author born in 1930's -- Human Chain by Seamus Heaney (Irish poet born in 1939) (male author)

4. Debut work -- Stiff by Mary Roach -- completed Feb. 10th -- nonfiction by nonfiction author

5. Book about books -- So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to be and Why it Endures by Maureen Corrigan -- finished reading Apr. 9th.

6. Author abroad -- In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri (written in Italian while living in Italy) -- translated by Ann Goldstein -- finished reading May 9th.

7. Science related -- Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly -- completed Jan. 27th

8. Place name in title -- Nantucket Sisters by Nancy Thayer -- completed June 28th

9. Book about an animal -- The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts -- finished Feb. 25th.

10. Set in beach community -- At the Bay by Katherine Mansfield -- read Mar. 13th.

11. Next book in series -- Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear (Maisie Dobbs 3 read Maisie Dobbs 2 several years ago) -- finished Mar. 11th.

12. Owned more than 5 years --- Art and sexual politics: women's liberation, women artists, and art history edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker -- finished reading May 11th. (all the authors except Thomas B. Hess were female)

13. Read a CAT -- Fireweed by Gerda Lerner

14. Satire -- Animal Farm by George Orwell -- finished April 6th. (male author)

15. Set in a place you want to visit -- Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others -- finished June 6th. Lake District of England

16. Book published in 1917 -- Summer by Edith Wharton -- finished Apr. 21st.

17. One word title -- Emma by Jane Austen -- completed Jan. 17th.

18. Color in the title -- Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones -- completed Feb. 22nd -- Big Read book and Northside Book Group

19. Published in 1940s-1960s -- Stormy, Misty's Foal by Marguerite Henry -- (originally published in 1963) -- finished reading Feb. 16th.

20. Author uses initials -- Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (reread) -- read on Feb. 3rd. (male author)

21. Made into a movie -- The Color Purple by Alice Walker -- finished reading Apr. 26th.

22. Short stories -- Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout -- short stories about people mentioned in the author's My Name is Lucy Barton -- finished reading June 23rd.

23. Title refers to another literary work -- Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier -- finished reading May 5th. -- changed to Wild Things: the Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy, finished reading Aug. 22nd.

24. Set in a country you've never been to -- Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer (Mali) -- completed Jan. 22nd. (male author)

25. Appeals to the senses -- The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (extreme hunger, crowding, torture) -- completed May 5th.

Category 4. Short works such as novellas, short stories, essays, plays, etc. including selections from anthologies.

(Short works had been the topic of a later category, but decided to combine this with short OLLI course reading, 3/19/17.)

1. Prelude, a long short story or short novella by Katherine Mansfield -- listened to it on Librivox.org and followed along in book -- March 1st; read on own on Mar. 6th, reread on Mar. 7th. for OLLI class
2. The Doll's House, a short story by Katherine Mansfield -- could not find proper touchstone for it -- read Mar. 6th, reread Mar. 13th. for OLLI class
3. "The Woman at the Store" -- short story by Katherine Mansfield -- read Mar. 6th.
4. "Ole Underwood" -- short story by Katherine Mansfield -- read Mar. 6th.
5. At the Bay -- long short story or short novella by Katherine Mansfield, read Mar. 13th for OLLI class
6. During March read selected German poetry in translation for OLLI class; poets included Christian Morgenstern, Rainer Maria Rilke, Georg Heym, August Stramm, Georg Traki, Georg Gross, Bertold Brecht, Franz Werfel, Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann, Gunter Gross, and Hermann Hesse.
7. The Sodder Family Tragedy, pamphlet by Douglas MacGowan about 1945 mysterious Christmas Eve fire near Fayetteville, WV, from which 5 children were missing. Read Apr. 21st.
8. "The Blackguard" -- short story by Mary McCarthy --read July 7th -- trying to decide whether to read We Are the Stories We Tell ed. by Wendy Martin -- this the first story in that collection -- did not like.
9. "Royal Beatings" -- short story by Alice Munro -- read July 11th -- from We Are the Stories We Tell ed. by Wendy Martin
10. When the Rain Came by Earl Swift -- read Aug. 2nd -- 31 p. pamphlet reprinted from the Virginia-Pilot, articles written around time of 30th anniversary of Hurricane Camille in Nelson (and Rockbridge) Counties.
11. From the Mouth of Ma by Robyn Elizabeth Miller (pamphlet) -- read Sept. 22nd
12. "Unpacking My Library" by Walter Benjamin -- read twice for Oct. 31st OLLI class (8 p.)
13. "Such, Such Were the Joys" by George Orwell -- read twice for Nov. 7th OLLI class (35 p.)
14. "How I Started to Write" by Carlos Fuentes -- read twice for Nov. 14th OLLI class (22 p.)
15. "My Confession" by Mary McCarthy --- read for Nov. 28th OLLI class (22 p.)
16. "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin -- read for Dec. 5th OLLI class (19 p.) before hearing about change in assignment (this discussion postponed a week)
17. "Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self" by Gore Vidal -- read for Dec. 5th OLLI class (17 p.)
18. "Goodbye to All That" by Joan Didion -- read for Dec. 12th OLLI class (9 p.)
19. Mary Ingalls: the College Years by Marie Tschopp -- read on Dec. 14th.
20. Appalachian Outhouse by Dean Six -- read on Dec. 31st (early morning, could not sleep) -- pamphlet

Category 5. "Assigned reading" -- book clubs, committee reading, LT Early reviewers, OLLI classes, etc.

1. My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King as told to Barbara Reynolds -- for LT Early Reviewers (Nov. 2016 batch) -- finished reading Jan. 6th.

2. You Carried Me: a Daughter's Memoir by Melissa Ohden -- for LT Early Reviewers (Dec. 2016 batch) -- finished Jan. 12th.

3. Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer -- JMRL Northside Books Sandwiched in Committee -- finished Jan. 22nd.

4. Factory Man by Beth Macy -- for Northside book group February selection -- finished Feb. 13th.

5. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones -- for Northside book group March selection and Big Read -- finished Feb. 22nd.

6. Katherine Mansfield by Jane Phillimore -- in preparation for my OLLI class about Katherine Mansfield -- read Mar. 4th.

7. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah -- Northside Book Group May selection -- finishing reading to May 5th.

8. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy -- New Dominion book group May selection -- finished reading May 17th.

9. Hot Hands, Draft Hype, DiMaggio's Streak by Sheldon Hirsch -- LibraryThing Early Reviewers (March batch) -- finished reading May 19th.

10. The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien --New Dominion book group June selection -- finished reading June 10th.

11. The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Thompson -- JMRL Books sandwiched in committee -- finished reading June 15th.

12. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout -- New Dominion book group July selection -- read June 21st and 22nd.

13. A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston --- JMRL Books sandwiched in committee -- finished reading June 27th.

14. The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols --- JMRL Books sandwiched in committee -- finished reading July 4th.

15. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte -- Northside Book Group July selection -- finished reading July 19th.

16. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett -- New Dominion book group Aug. selection -- finished Aug. 12th.

17. Union Jack: John F. Kennedy's Special Relationship with Great Britain by Christopher Sandford -- LibraryThing Early Reviewers -- finished reading Aug. 26th.

18. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger -- Northside book group October selection -- finished reading Oct. 11th.

19. Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson -- New Dominion book group October selection -- finished reading Oct. 13th.

20. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -- Northside Book Group November selection -- finished reading Nov. 9th

21. Tell: Love, Defiance, and the Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights by Margaret Witt with Tim Connor -- LT early reviewer book -- finished reading Nov. 20th.

22. American Fire by Monica Hesse - - JMRL Northside Books Sandwiched In Committee. --- finished reading Nov. 25th.

23. Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least to the Lesser Presidents by Robert Strauss - - JMRL Northside Books Sandwiched In Committee -- finished reading Dec. 10th.

Category 6. Classics. I have several classics which I have not yet gotten around to reading.

1. Emma by Jane Austen -- completed Jan. 17th
2. Animal Farm by George Orwell -- finished April 6th.
3. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte -- finished July 19th
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -- finished Nov. 10th.

These include:
Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rolvaag (a reread from high school)
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Category 7. Library books read:
1. Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer (required reading for JMRL committee and BingoDOG)
2. Human Chain by Seamus Heaney (BingoDOG and RandomCAT)
3. Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear (BingoDOG and CATWoman and AwardsCAT)
4. Summer by Edith Wharton (BingoDOG)
5. In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri (for BingoDOG)
6. Never Caught: the Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar (for pleasure)
7. This Common secret by Susan Wicklund.
8. Love Wins: the Lovers and Lawyers who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell.
9. Never Caught: the Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar.
10. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.
11. A Life in Parts by Brian Cranston.
12. Nantucket Sisters by Nancy Thayer
13. Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni.
14. Those Who Ride the Night Winds by Nikki Giovanni.
15. Ape House by Sara Gruen
16. The Moffats by Eleanor Estes
17. Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood.

Category 8. Children's literature. I purchased Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder pre-pub, and a set of her Little House books. I really enjoyed reading Pioneer Girl but never got around to rereading the Little House books, which I plan to read in 2017. I will also probably read some other children's books.




Ticker should indicate 13 books read as of Dec. 24th.

1. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White -- read Feb. 3rd.
2. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- read Feb. 13th.
3. Stormy, Misty's Foal by Marguerite Henry -- finished Feb. 16th.
4. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth -- E.L. Konigsburg (March awards -- finished Mar. 3rd.
5. The Moffats by Eleanor Estes -- finished reading Aug. 28th.
6. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Sept. 12th.
7. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Oct. 13th
8. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Oct. 16th.
9. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Oct. 19th.
10. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Dec. 2nd.
11. LIttle Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- read Dec. 18th.
12. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Dec. 24th.
13. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- read Dec. 24th.

(code = year Kristin and Donna were born)

Category 9. New books. I will give myself permission to read newly acquired books when I acquire them. In the past, I have felt guilty about reading newly acquired books, feeling I needed to read from my backlog. Of course, if I don't read them when new, they become part of my backlog.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (anniversary gift) -- completed Jan. 27th.
Katherine Mansfield by Jane Phillimore (gift from OLLI instructor) -- in series Life & Works -- read Mar. 4th.
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold. -- (purchase during Va Festival of the Book -- finished Apr. 2nd.
A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline -- Va. Festival of the Book -- finished reading Apr. 5th.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah -- for book club -- finished reading May 5th.
The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien -- for New Dominion book group -- bought in May, finished reading in June
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout -- for New Dominion book group -- bought and finished reading in June
The Death of Expertise by Thomas M. Nichols -- for JMRL Northside Book Sandwiched in committee work --bought June 30th, read in early July
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett -- for New Dominion book group -- bought in July, finished reading in August
Lucky by Alice Sebold -- for CATWoman and all female authors BingoDOG -- bought and read in mid-August
Wild Things: the Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy -- bought and read Aug. 19th-22nd. (used for first BingoDOG card)
Pioneer Girl Perspectives : Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal -- finished reading Sept. 7th (bought in early June)
From the Mouth of Ma: a Search for Caroline Quiner Ingalls by Robynne Elizabeth Miller -- finished reading Sept. 23rd -- day or so after receiving it via Amazon
When the Lions Roared: Joe Paterno and One of College Football's Greatest Teams by Bill Contz (who was on the 1982 National Champion team) -- finished reading Sept. 29th, approximately one week after receiving it via Amazon
Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley -- finished reading Nov. 11th.

Category 10. Books from my TBR shelves. I'm not feeling so much pressure to read these since my husband and I recently did a major weeding project prior to moving to a retirement community -- withdrawing several hundred books. Some of the books weeded were books we had read, but many of my books were unread, including ones I had begun reading but never finished. Still, I have many TBR books which I want to read. I'm considering anything which I have owned at least two months before reading to be a TBR book.

My overall goal is to enjoy my reading.

1. Emma by Jane Austen

2. Stiff by Mary Roach

3. Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

4. So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to be and Why it Endures by Maureen Corrigan

5. Fireweed: a Political Autobiography by Gerda Lerner.

6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

7. Art and Sexual Politics edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker

8. Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others

9. Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier (bought in January for BingoDog) -- finished May 5th.

10. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (bought in February, read in July)

11. 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence by Howard Means -- bought in March at Virginia Book Festival -- read in July

12. The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, selected by Roxana Robinson (acquired 1/15/2016) -- finished reading in July

13. The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley (acquired between 1974 and 1992) -- read in July

14. The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (acquired Christmas 2016) -- read in July

15. Women's Friendships: a Collection of Short Stories, edited by Susan Koppelman (acquired before joining LibraryThing in Nov. 2007) -- read in July.

16. Cakewalk by Rita Mae Brown

All 4 of children's books read (see message 10)

>12 sallylou61: My overall goal is to enjoy my reading. Looks like you have your priorities straight! I am looking forward to keeping up with you in 2017.

Hope you have an enjoyable reading year!

Keeping things simple is the way to go. Enjoy your reading!

Indeed, enjoying the reading is the most important thing. Good luck with finding great books!

I hope you enjoy Emma when you get to it -- it's one of my favorite books!

Happy reading! The challenge shouldn't be a chore, so hope you have a great book-year.

Great categories. I loved Go Tell it On the Mountain by James Baldwin. I plan on reading The Fire Next Time for 2017. I'm also going to be reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker in April for the AwardsCAT since it won the Pulitzer. I planned to read it anyway, but now I'm hosting that month's CAT so I'm glad it fits.

Happy reading! I second the recommendation for Emma - love that one.

Congratulations on completing your major weeding project! It makes it so much easier to find a good book. Add my name to the list of Emma lovers.

>17 christina_reads:, >20 LittleTaiko:, >21 VivienneR: Emma is the only Jane Austen novel which I have not yet read, and I definitely want to read it.

>19 luvamystery65: Good suggestion to read The Color Purple for the April awards cat next year.

Looks like a good lineup for your 2017 reading!

Enjoy your 2017 reading!

Looks like a great plan. I also have Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Color Purple on my TBR list. I'll be interested to see what you think of them!

I just want to say that I love your category for new books. After all, if no one read new books there wouldn't be used books for us to buy! We have to support those struggling authors. We shouldn't feel guilty buying or reading new books. Weeding your TBRs for the move must have been hard. But it must have given you new inspiration to read them.

I look forward to seeing what books you read in 2017!

Hi Allison!

It looks like you have several good categories lined up for the year. I hope 2017 is a fulfilling reading year for you!

I've finished reading my first book for 2017 (which I started late in December 2016) My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King as told to Barbara Reynolds, a LT early review book. In this book Coretta Scott King wanted to portray herself as Coretta as an individual in her own right, not as the wife and widow of Martin Luther King or the mother of Yolanda, Martin Luther King III, Dexter, and Bernice. Coretta wanted her own identity. She describes how she was a full partner of Martin Luther King in his work during his lifetime. After his death, she worked hard on the issues they both considered important -- civil rights, peace, and labor issues, both nationally and internationally -- in addition to being a single mother of their children and building the King Center to be a lasting memorial to her husband.

I will be writing a longer review for LT this weekend.

4 stars -- Advanced reader's edition, which lacks index and 8 page photo insert

My second book read is another LT early review book, You Carried Me: a Daughter's Memoir by Melissa Ohden, which I received yesterday. It is the story of a woman who survived abortion; her mother had an unsuccessful abortion and was not aware that her daughter had survived. The first part of the book is very compelling, telling of Melissa's discovery that she was aborted and her struggles because of it. Although she had a very loving adoptive family, she had issues with eating, alcohol, and promiscuous sex as a teenager. In college many people did not believe her story about her birth. As an adult, in addition to searching for her birth family, Melissa became very involved with the pro-life movement. She often spoke out against abortion, even being featured in an anti-abortion ad against Obama during the 2012 presidential campaign. Recently, she testified at a hearing in favor of ending federal funding for Planned Parenthood, "one of the greatest honors of my life" (p.163).

The parts of the Melissa's story about her family life and her search for her birth-family are captivating. However, her activity against abortion, which she discusses at great length, although understandable, get rather tiresome, especially if one does not agree with her views. The book also has a strong Christian element although this is not overwhelming. Melissa's faith helped her deal with many struggles in her life.

4 stars

For both CatWoman and a one-word title square in Bingo, I read Emma by Jane Austen. This was the only Jane Austen novel which I had not read, and I really enjoyed it.

5 stars

For the Books Sandwiched in Committee of our local public library, I read The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: and their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer. I'm also counting this for the "Set in a country you've never been to" square of BingoDOG. The subtitle and the book jacket of this book are very misleading. Although the approximately 350,000 volumes of manuscripts housed in libraries in Timbuktu are successful transported to Bamako to save them from destruction by the Al Qaeda, most of the book is about the political struggles and wars, primarily in Mali, against the Al Qaeda. Moreover, the storage conditions were very poor in Bamako, and many manuscripts deteriorated there. The story of the manuscripts would have been much better told in a pamphlet or several long articles than in this particular book.

(If I don't read another book about books, I may switch this book to that bingo square.)

3 stars

I just finished reading Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, which I received for an anniversary gift on Tuesday. I was especially interested in reading this book since I'm planning to hear Ms. Shetterly speak about it at the Virginia Festival of the Book in March, it will be reviewed at our local library's monthly Books Sandwiched in program that same month, and there has been a lot of publicity about the movie. This book tells the history of female black mathematicians who worked for NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) during World War II and the 1950s which became NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) during the space race. The stories of several women in particular are featured. I especially liked the way that Ms. Shetterly showed the impact of important events in our national history with the history of aeronautics and the lives and working conditions of the women.

The movie is still in town; I plan to see it soon.

4.5 stars

>34 sallylou61: Wow, you're going to see her speak? That's awesome! Be sure to tell us all about it. This was a great book and I'm hoping to see the movie.

>35 rabbitprincess: Yes, Margot Lee Shetterly and Dana Sobel will be the featured speakers at the Saturday evening program at the Virginia Festival of the Book on March 25th. Although most of the programs at the Festival are free, the programs with meals and the Saturday evening program are ticketed events for which one must pay. I bought my ticket soon after they went on sale.

This afternoon my husband and I went to the movie, which we both enjoyed. If follows the book pretty well although it only features the women's work at NASA and the space race with nothing about their work for NACA. The movie vividly portrays how male oriented NASA was. There were a few scenes which I don't remember being in the book, and the family life of both Katherine and Dorothy are portrayed a bit more than in the book.

This year I think that I will set up a separate thread for the Virginia Festival of the Book on which I will describe the programs I attend. I had such a thread two years ago, and received a number of comments on it. Last year I just described the festival on my personal thread.

>36 sallylou61: That sounds like fun, enjoy! I really liked the movie. It ranked higher than the book, for me.

I reread Charlotte's Web by E.B. White on Feb. 3rd for both the February RandomCAT and the BingoDOG (author uses initials). At the beginning, I wondered whether the book was becoming too dated with mentioning specific items such as Frigidaire and some car types no longer being made (Studebakers, Packards, and De Sotos), but by the end of the book, I decided it is still an charming story. (In the late 1960s we read it in a children's literature class, and our instructor thought the book might get dated since it talked about sneakers -- something that might go out of style.)

4.5 stars

I have read Stiff by Mary Roach for the February CATWoman (debut work by a nonfiction author), BingoDOG (Debut work), and a ROOT. Although Ms. Roach has written a number of nonfiction books, this is the first one I've read. She describes many different things which can happen to a dead body, especially if it is donated for science or organ donation. Some chapters were very interesting, others rather boring to read, especially if I was not interested in the subject. I did not mind the grusomeness in some of the discussions. Ms. Roach occasionally used humor.

3.5 stars

I have finished Factory Man by Beth Macy for our book club meeting in a few days. I think that we decided to read this book because it features furniture manufacturing in southern Virginia and North Carolina so is relatively local although we live in Central Virginia. I agree with several people in our club whom I've seen the past few days; the book is very boring. Ms. Macy wrote the book after writing several articles on the topic; in my opinion, the articles (which I have not read) would probably be sufficient to cover the topic instead of lengthening the account into 400+ pages.

2.5 stars

Today I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods for enjoyment and for CATWoman, debut fiction, in this case juvenile fiction. I bought Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder when it was published and thought of rereading all the Little House books as I read that autobiography. However, I got so interested in the autobiography that I read only it. The whole set of Little House books has been in my TBR collection; I'm aiming to reread all of them this year.

I don't think I've read the early books since I was in elementary school many years ago. Although I remembered that the books gave instructions concerning how things were done, I was not aware that so much was explained including the making of bullets. After all these years, some scenes I anticipated such as Laura's receiving her doll, Charlotte, for Christmas and Mary's asking their aunt whether she preferred golden curls or brown curls, and the aunt's replying she liked both.

4.5 stars

>41 sallylou61: I've been telling myself that I need to reread this series as an adult.

For the February RandomCAT I just read Stormy, Misty's Foal by Marguerite Henry. I didn't read many animal stories as a child, and didn't read any of Marguerite Henry's books. I have become interested in the Misty stories since we live in Virginia now and enjoy going to Chincoteague. I enjoyed reading this story about Misty's giving birth during a bad storm which wiped out a lot of ponies on Chincoteague and Assateague Islands, in addition to destroying many homes and killing chickens in Chincoteague.

4 stars

>43 sallylou61: I loved the Misty stories when I was young. I never had a chance to visit Chincoteague Island unfortunately.

For the March selection for our public library book group I read Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones, which is the Big Read book this year. As a whole, I enjoyed the book, which is narrated by two half-sisters of a bigamist father. James' second wife, Gwen, and her daughter Dana, both know about James' other family, but Chaurisse and her mother, Laverne, do not know about Gwen and Dana. Dana is the narrator of the first part of the book and Chaurisse of the second part. Although some of the same incidents are mentioned in both parts from the viewpoints of the narrator, much of the action is different.
Dana is very active in the second part, narrated by Chaurisse, since she actively pursues interacting with her half-sister.

4 stars

For the book about an animal BingoDOG square, I read The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts, a book I purchased several years ago as a possible book club read. Our book club did not choose to read it. I know very little about horses; Snowman was a champion jumper, not a race horse. He was bought for $80.00 by Harry de Leyer, a recent immigrant from Holland, who rescued him out from a van filled with horses about to go to a slaughter house. Harry used him to teach young girls at a Long Island riding school how to ride. He accidentally discovered that Snowman could jump and liked to do so. Initially when he tried to train him for show jumping he was unsuccessful because he tried low obstacles; Snowman liked to do high jumping. Harry and Snowman became favorites at horse jumping shows since they had such low origins; they appealed to the common people who were beginning to attend these shows in the late 1950s, a time when change was occurring. They were also featured on television which was still relatively new.

At the beginning of the book, the text seemed a bit padded with the history of show horses and what was happening in the country. However, the story of Snowman was very compelling.

4 stars

>41 sallylou61: What did you think of Pioneer Girl? I've just started reading the Little House series with my daughter and she is full of questions that an autobiography might answer. :)

>47 donan: I really enjoyed reading Pioneer Girl although the writing is not as good as in the Little House books, which Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, heavily edited. Pamela Smith Hill, who edited Pioneer Girl, did a lot of research. She tried to track down everyone mentioned in the Little House Books, and told something about them or else said that she could not find any info about them. She also described the facts of Laura's life and how they differed from Laura's description in her books. Although I don't think you would want to read the autobiography to your daughter, you could certainly use it as a reference tool to answer her questions (and to learn more about Laura yourself).

Here is my LT review of the book. It is one of 34 LT reviews which appear at https://www.librarything.com/work/15044745/reviews/114628297

Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill, is a beautiful book on good quality paper. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote this autobiography of her childhood through her wedding day when she was in her 60s, many years after the events occurred. However, she wrote Pioneer Girl prior to writing her Little House books. Ms. Hill, who had already written a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, did a tremendous amount of research for this book; her annotations make up more of the textual material than the autobiography itself. Ms. Hill compares the autobiography to the fictional Little House books saying what is the same and how an event is treated differently, identifies all the people mentioned by Laura in her autobiography (or says that she is unable to identify them), compares Laura's account to actual historical events which occurred in the place being discussed and states when Laura gets an event or sequence of events incorrect, and even identifies the songs and birds, etc., mentioned by Laura. The book contains numerous illustrations – both photographs of the people and places discussed and illustrations from the Little House books.

Unfortunately, Ms. Hill does not provide any family trees for the Ingalls or Wilder families, and once she has identified a person, does not identify him/her again. Even if the person is a minor character; the reader must go to the index to find the page on which the note appeared. Moreover, in her annotations, Ms. Hill refers to Laura as “Wilder” instead of Laura even though the text is about Laura before she was married. Especially since there are other Wilders in the story, this practice is cumbersome for the reader.

A must read for serious fans and scholars of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Highly recommended.

>48 sallylou61: Thank you! That's very helpful.

For the March Awards CAT I read Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth -- E.L. Konigsburg, which was a Newbery Honor Book in 1968; it lost out to the author's From the Mixed Up Files of of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I did not enjoy this book as much as From the Mixed Up Files ... since this runner up was about witches, a topic I am not interested in. I felt that the book dragged. However, I liked its ending.

3 stars

This evening I read Katherine Mansfield by Jane Phillimore in preparation for a short, 3 class period OLLI course titled: Katherine Mansfield: New Zealand, the Modern World, and the Short Story. The short work by Ms. Phillimore, which is in the Life & Works series, gives an excellent introduction both to Katherine Mansfield's life and a criticism of her most important short stories. It will be very helpful as background material for my class since it covers the three short stories we will read and discuss. These stories include: "Prelude," "A Doll's House," and "At the Bay."

4.5 stars

I have finished reading Human Chain by the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney for the March RandomCAT and the March AwardsCAT (Forward Poetry Prize, best collection, 2010). I was at the computer a lot, especially for the last half or so of the collection, looking up words, the poems, and people. Many of the later poems were in memory of particular people.
Particularly some of the longer poems were analyzed online, which helped immensely in my understanding them.

I'm not rating this collection since I'm so unfamiliar with the backgrounds and the significance of many of the poems.

I just read Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear which fits three categories: CATWoman for being a mystery by a female author, Awards CAT (won the Macavity Award in 2006), and the BingoDOG square for next in a series. It is the third book in the Maisie Dobbs series; I read the second, Birds of a Feature several years ago for the MysteryCAT.

For a while, I thought that this book bogged down, but then it became more action oriented, and I really enjoyed it. The ending was not what I expected.

4 stars

I did not send many messages concerning my reading in March. I took two OLLI adult education courses, which did not involve quite as much reading as usual, and I did not list the readings in a separate message. I read several short stories by Katherine Mansfield, some for my Katherine Mansfield class and the others for pleasure (and to get more familiar with her writing). I also took a 20th century German poetry class. Although the class was conducted in English, we received the texts of the poetry in both German and English translation. Unfortunately, the instructor did not really look at the English translations, many of which I found rather pedestrian. Ioften found translations which I liked better on the web, but was not sure how true to the text they were.

I also attended one of my favorite annual events in Charlottesville: the Virginia Festival of the Book. I described it in thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/253210.

I began reading So We Read on:How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures by Maureen Corrigan for the BingoDOG square, Book about Books; A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline for pleasure but it would also qualify for the April CATWoman since it's a novel about Christina Olson featured in Andrew Wyeth's painting "Christina's World;"
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold which would also qualify for the April CATWoman being a memoir of the author's life after Columbine; and The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks edited by Elizabeth Alexander which, being a library book would qualify for the April RandomCAT. The first three books all relate to the Virginia Book Festival since I bought the second two this year at the festival and So We Read on a couple of years ago there. I plan to finish reading all these books this month (April).

I have finished reading A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold. I heard her speak last Sunday at the Virginia Festival of the Book; she gave a courageous and heartfelt talk on the Columbine shooting and how she coped with the aftermath. She is currently involved with groups in suicide prevention. Dylan was mentally ill when he was involved with murdering others, but also suicidal. She did not excuse his behavior.

Sue wrote this book both as therapy for herself, but more importantly to help other parents become aware of behavior that could mean their children need help. She went into great detail about the kind of person Dylan had been as a child and young teenager, and the signs which she and her husband and many professionals missed during the last two years of his life when he was deeply troubled and depressed without being diagnosed. She also discussed her family's and particularly her own anguish during the immediate aftermath through the years after the tragedy, and how she finally was able to find some comfort meeting with other parents whose children had committed suicide or murder and suicide. I feel that the last part of the book in which Ms. Klebold discusses steps in suicide prevention without being so personally involved.

This year I decided to really try to read new books promptly so that they would not become a backlog instead of concentrating so much on my backlog. This is particularly true of books I bought in connection with the Virginia Book Festival.

4 stars

I've just read A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline, a novel about Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth's painting, Christina's World, which I read both for pleasure and for the April CATWoman. I was particularly eager to read this since I heard Ms. Kline speak about this book at the recent Virginia Festival of the Book. A more detailed description of my thoughts about this book is in the April CATWoman thread. I'm using an I-tablet and don't know how to copy and paste on it.

4 stars

I read Animal Farm by George Orwell for the BingoDOG square, a satire. After a slow start, I enjoyed reading it; it's a timely book.

3 stars

I've finished reading So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to be and Why it Endures by Maureen Corrigan for the square Book about Books in BingoDOG. In this book about her favorite book Ms. Corrigan discusses the book in detail and at time compares it to other books, gives a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald particularly as it relates to the writing of this book, and describes why she thinks it endures. It, along with The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway and Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton are often taught in high school, possibly because they are short. However, that does not describe its appeal. It was not popular when Fitzgerald wrote it but was included in the WWII's Armed Services editions, paperbacks sent to soldiers. Moreover, several movies and plays are based on it, and there are commemorative items have been marketed.

One does not need to have recently read The Great Gatsby to enjoy this book.

4 stars

I've finished reading Fireweed: a Political Autobiography by Gerda Lerner about her life prior to going to college and becoming a leading women's historian.

Reviewed at: https://www.librarything.com/work/150523/book/115752945

4.5 stars

I've enjoyed reading Summer by Edith Wharton for the book published in 1917 BingoDOG square and the RandomCAT for April since I borrowed the book from our local public library. This is the first work by Wharton which I have read relatively recently which did not feature wealthy people. Charity Royall, the central female character, is a poor, barely educated young woman who was rescued as a very young child from semi-human mountain people by a man who became her guardian (and later her husband).

4 stars

>54 sallylou61: What did you think of The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks? I'm considering getting the book.

>61 VioletBramble: I did not finish reading The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks; reading it got to be a chore instead of a pleasure. I think that I was overloaded with poetry reading when I started reading Brooks' poems. I had just taken a 6 week German poetry in translation course, and had read a poetry book by Seamus Heaney for the March RandomCAT. Reading poetry tends to be a stretch for me. I had been reading The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks for the BingoDOG square author born/ book published in 1917; Brooks was born in 1917. I ended up reading Summer by Edith Wharton, which was also a library book, for that square instead; it was originally published in 1917.

I have finished reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker, an epistolary novel. This fits into several categories:
April AwardsCAT (Pulitzer 1983), April CultureCAT for religion (letters written by Celie written to God until she starts writing to her sister, and there is a considerable amount of discussion of the nature of God and about religion (and sister Nettie accompanies some missionaries to Africa), and BingoDog for being made into a movie. (I had already filled in the square for color in a title so I used the movie square instead). The characters in the novel speak in dialect, which makes the reading go more slowly than otherwise. The book also features some graphic sex, both women being raped by men and women having sex together.

4 stars

I just finished reading a book which was very difficult to put down it was so powerful: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I'm looking forward to our discussion of it in my bookclub. I'm not reviewing the plot, etc. here; it has been reviewed numerous times.

5 stars

>64 sallylou61: I loved that book!

>65 VictoriaPL: Have you read any other books by Kristin Hannah? She was a new author to me, but I see she has written over 20 books. If so, are there any others you recommend?

I've finished reading another book for BingoDOG: Reader I Married Him, edited by Tracy Chevalier for "Title refers to another literary work" square. This is an uneven series of stories inspired by that famous line from Jane Eyre. As a whole, I enjoyed the most the stories which were most closely connected with the novel; some had very little relevance to the book. My favorite stories are "The Orphan Exchange" by Audrey Niffenegger which closely parallels Jane's experiences in the boarding school with the central characters being Jane and Helen although the ending was different and "Reader, She Married Me" by Salley Vickers which told the story from Mr. Rochester's point of view. I had only heard of (and read anything) by three of the 21 authors: Jane Gardam, Emma Donoghue, and Tracy Chevalier; most of the authors were contemporary British authors.

3 stars

For the BingoDOG square of author abroad, I read In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri. Ms. Lahiri, an American author of Bengali descent, visited Italy many years ago and decided she wanted to learn Italian. Recently Ms. Lahiri lived in Italy for a couple years to improve her Italian, and wrote In Other Words in Italian. However, she had Ann Goldstein translate her book; she thought if she translated it, she would need to improve the book, plus she was interested in that stage of her writing to only write in Italian. I read the English translation. This book is a description of her learning to speak and write in Italian. Ms. Lahiri considers this book to be "a sort of linguistic autobiography, a self-portrait" (p. 213). In this account, Ms. Lahiri talks about some of the topics which she featured in her fiction: "identity, alienation, belonging" (p. 229). Ms. Lahiri often felt out of place: her parents, although they moved to America when she was a young girl, kept many of their Bengali ways such as speaking Bengali at home and her mother's dressing in Indian clothes. Although Ms. Lahiri considered Bengali her Mother language, and English her step-mother language, she primarily spoke English, wrote all her published fiction in English and considered English her dominate language. She felt both languages helped her learn Italian; English because it and Italian both share some Latin based words, and Bengali for the pronunciation. At the end of In Other Words, Ms. Lahiri stated that she was about to return to the United States, but did not know which language she would use in her future published writing.

4 stars

>68 sallylou61: This sounds fascinating!

Completed reading Art and Sexual Politics edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker. I don't like the idea of a male being editor of such a book; he contributed one short essay, but all the rest of the contributors were women. This book is rather dated, having been published in the early 1970s. Some of the artists contributing commented on this topic in relation to the women's movement of the late 1960s/early 70s. However, several of the essays were excellent, and this is an important topic. At the time of the book's publication, several important works of art which had been credited to famous male artists were discovered to be the work of a female artist who had been working with/under the male artist.

3.5 stars

I finished reading The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy for a book group which I'm planning to attend for the first time this Saturday. The book was lent to me by a friend who is a member of the group. Although I do not usually read fantasies, I enjoyed reading this story, particularly the first two parts. The last part was not as enchanting; it seemed out-of-place to the rest of the story. However, I found reading a book about snow and cold weather a bit out of place at this time of year in Virginia.

3.5 stars

>68 sallylou61: This sounds like an interesting read. I've read The Namesake and The Lowlands by Lahiri and liked them very much. This one sounds quite different but also appealing.

>69 MissWatson:, >72 mathgirl40: I really enjoyed reading In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri. I think that my enjoyment was enhanced by a book club discussion we had several years ago when we discussed The Namesake; we also talked about her and her family's adjustment to living in America in relation to that book. Some of her remarks in In Other Words reminded me of that discussion, which I found much more meaningful than most of our book club discussions.

I have finished reading Hot Hands, Draft Hype, DiMaggio's Streak by Sheldon Hirsch, a LT Early Reviewer book. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the sections on basketball and football more than the baseball one, which is my favorite professional men's sport. The baseball section was too statistical.

Reviewed at: https://www.librarything.com/work/19243248/reviews/141035521

3 stars

>63 sallylou61: - The Color Purple. What a fantastic movie, and one of these days I will get around to reading the book. ;-)

Also making note of The Nightingale.

Yesterday I borrowed Never Caught: the Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, and finished reading it tonight (Wednesday). It is the very interesting story of the life of one of Martha Washington's favored slaves -- and describes how slaves were treated by George and Martha Washington. Ona was one of the slaves who lived with and worked for the Washingtons in New York City and later Philadelphia during Washington's presidency. Pennsylvania had a law that if slaves lived in that state more than six months, they would be freed; therefore, the Washingtons rotated their slaves between Mount Vernon and Philadelphia, not having them at the later more than six months at a time. Ona wanted to be free, but knew that escaping was very dangerous. She decided to risk capture for freedom after she learned that Martha was planning on giving her to her unstable granddaughter as a wedding present. With the help of free blacks in Philadelphia, Ona escaped shortly before she would be taken back to Mount Vernon. The Washingtons traced her to New Hampshire, and tried to have her returned to them, but she managed to escape her captors. She ended up living a life of extreme poverty in freedom for approximately half a century. In the last chapter of the book, Ms. Dunbar briefly examined the life of one of Ona's sisters who was set free by a granddaughter's husband.

4 stars

For the CultureCAT I read This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor by Susan Wicklund. Dr. Wicklund became an abortion doctor because she wanted women to be able to have safe abortions, and to understand what was happening to their bodies during the procedure. She herself had had a legal abortion by a doctor who had treated her badly, not answering her questions or telling her what to expect. In this memoir Dr. Wicklund describes the hostility and dangers abortion doctors face from anti-abortionists including outside the clinic trying to get to work and even at their homes. She is a doctor who puts the patient first and is opposed to rigid regulations. she describes how she counsels patients to be sure they really want an abortion. She tells the stories of some patients, never using their names.

4 stars

In March I went to a program at the Virginia Festival of the Book which featured Jim Obergefell, one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case which legalized gay marriage. I found his story compelling, and decided to read the book he co-authored with Debbie Cenziper: Love Wins: the Lovers and Lawyers who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality. The subtitle of the book suggests that it covers only one very important case. However, the book, in addition to telling the story of Jim and his lover, then husband John Arthur (who died soon after their marriage), traces the court cases concerning gay marriage in Ohio. The Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges, actually bundled cases from Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan into one case concerning gay marriage. The stories of the plaintiffs were extremely interesting. However, the discussion of the various court cases became rather tedious. With so many people involved in the various trials, I was frustrated by the lack of an index or glossary identifying the various lawyers, judges, etc.

3.5 stars

I have finished reading (a bit late) Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others for the May CATWoman and Random CAT. (My mother was an artist, and really enjoyed her visit to the Lake District of England.) This is a beautiful book. However, it was a challenge to read. It is printed on relatively shiny paper which could cause a glare. The text mentioned many illustrations (by number); however, often the illustrations were not with that section of text, and it was inconvenient looking for the illustrations. Also, for a reader who is not familiar with the English countryside and towns, a map would have been very helpful.

Although the book was published as a companion to a 1987/88 exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, it is not a catalog. The book contains a brief biography of Potter's life and discusses her artwork in many fields including her interest in fungi and fossils (and her drawings of them). There are over 450 illustrations, most of which are of her artworks, although there are some photographs of people and places. A list of the illustrations usually with the medium, the size and current location (i.e. museum) is provided at the end of the book. The last couple of chapters talk about her impact on the Lake District; she was a Lake District farmer specializing in sheep, and she left her land to the National Trust.

3.5 stars

BingoDOG using only female authors (mostly same books as before)



BingoDOG using only female authors (different than first card)

BingoDOG reading -- only female authors.

Most of the books are the same as for my first BingoDOG card in message 4; only the differences are noted here.

3. Author born in 1930's -- A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (author born in 1930)

12. Owned more than 5 years -- The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley -- inherited sometime between 1974 and 1992 -- finished reading July 19th.

14. Satire -- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen -- finished reading Oct. 29

20. Author uses initials -- Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth -- E.L. Konigsburg -- finished reading Mar. 3rd.

24. Set in a country you've never been to -- Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood (Australia) -- finished reading Sept. 27th.

Entirely different titles from card in message 4 -- only female authors

1. Author with your first and last initials -- Lucky by Alice Sebold -- finished reading Aug. 15th.

2. Set in a time before I was born -- The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (1912) -- finished reading July 30th.

3. Author born in 1930's -- A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (author born in 1930)

4. Debut works (novel): Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

5. Book about books: Dimestore by Lee Smith

6. Author abroad -- In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield -- was in Germany briefly where she was miserable -- grew up in New Zealand, lived most of adult life in England

7. Science related -- Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr -- finished reading Dec. 17th.

8. Place name in title-- The New York Stories of Edith Wharton

9. Book or title about an animal -- Ape House by Sara Gruen -- finished reading Aug. 9th.

10. Set in a beach community -- I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman -- finished reading July 26th.

11. Next book in series -- Farmer boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- finished reading Sept. 12th.

12. Owned more than 5 years -- The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley -- inherited sometime between 1974 and 1992 -- finished reading July 19th.

13. Read a CAT: This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund (May CultureCAT -- Gender Equity)

14. Satire -- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen -- finished reading Oct. 29

15. Place you want to visit: The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber (Puget Sound area, Washington State)

16. Author born in 1917: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (born February 19, 1917) -- finished reading October 7th.

17. One Word title -- Commonwealth by Ann Patchett -- finished reading Aug. 12th.

18. Color in the Title: The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

19. Published in 1940s-1960s: The Moffats by Eleanor Estes -- finished reading Aug. 28th.

20. Author uses initials -- Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth -- E.L. Konigsburg -- finished reading Mar. 3rd.

21. Made into a movie -- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte -- finished reading May 19th.

22. Short stories -- Women's Friendships: a Collection of Short Stories edited by Susan Koppelman -- finished reading July 31st.

23. Title refers to another literary work -- Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier -- finished reading May 5th. -- Had read for first BingoDOG but just read Wild Things: the Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy on Aug. 22nd; this another excellent title but by a male so put it on the card for female and male authors.

24. Set in a country you've never been to -- Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood (Australia) -- finished reading Sept. 27th.

25. Appeals to the senses -- Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown -- Mrs. Murphy (the cat) and Tee Tucker (the dog) continually emphasize their superior sense of smell over that of humans

I have just finished reading The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien for a book group which I'm thinking of joining. I went to last month's meeting and plan to go next week. I don't know how the books are picked; it appears as if the leader might do the picking. Although I got very involved in reading the book, not wanting to put it down, I was disappointed in the ending, which I felt was unresolved. The outcome of the trial of a main character was not disclosed. I will be interested in the discussion we have at the book club meeting.

3 stars

I read The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson to see if I wanted to recommend it as a book to be reviewed in our local library branch's Books Sandwiched in this coming fall/winter. I will recommend it. The book tells the story of the lynching of Emmett Till, but also looks into factors of why such a horrible crime could occur and the perpetrators go unpunished, and the impact of this crime to the present day. The author makes the case for reactions against this injustice starting the mid-20th century civil rights movement. The description of the trial and particularly of exactly how Emmett Till was lynched (based partially on a FBI report) are compelling reading. Although J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant were the main perpetrators and the men brought to trial, others were involved and are named in the account of the lynching. Unfortunately, the author skips around between describing the case and giving the history of other brutal actions against blacks, especially in Mississippi, prior to this murder. Previous cases made the perpetrators think they could get away with the killing.

4 stars

For the June CATWoman and the author shares first and last initials square of BingoDOG, I read Unheard Voices: the First Historians of Southern Women edited by Anne Firor Scott. Dr. Scott gave a brief biography and evaluation of their careers as historians of "five women who had lived, studies, or worked within a twelve-mile radius of each other in North Carolina during the late 1920s and 30s. These historians are: Virginia Gearhart Gray, Marjorie Mendenhall, Julia Cherry Spruill, Guion Griffis Johnson, and Eleanor Miot Boatwright. Following that chapter, Dr. Scott included an essay on women's history by each of these historians preceded by a brief introduction in which she gave a brief background concerning the importance of the essay. Pictures of each historian as a young woman and as a mature woman are included.

4 stars

This month's book for one of my book groups also falls within the category of Professional women for CATWoman. It is Dimestore: a Writer's Life by Lee Smith. In this memoir in essay form, Ms. Smith both describes her life in a small town in which her father had a dimestore and her professional career, both as a writer and as a teacher of writing. I found the essays about her reading, writing, and teaching particularly interesting. This was a reread for me. Last summer when I read it, I took six 4 x 6 pages of notes; this time for my book group reading, I took seven 8.5 x 11 pages of notes plus three pages listing author and/or books she mention and one page listing her own writings which she discussed.

I felt that the ending essay about her writing in Maine to be anti-climatic; the next to the last chapter about celebrating various Christmases would have made a perfect ending.

5 stars again, the second time reading it

>85 sallylou61: - I am always impressed when a book receives a 5 star rating on re-read, be it fiction or non-fiction.

>86 lkernagh: We discussed Dimestore at our book club meeting tonight, and several of us had very very favorable opinions of it. I enjoyed it even more when I reread it than during my first reading. The second time around, I knew what to expect, and really savored the essays.
However, this is unusual for me. Often, I don't like a book as much on rereadings.

For the book club which I recently joined I've read the July selection, My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. I would probably not have read this book otherwise. It is a collection of vignettes centered on Lucy Barton, a woman who had a miserable childhood. Her mother, whom she has not seen in years, visits Lucy in the hospital for several days. They talk, but never really grapple with the absence of love Lucy has felt from her birth family. The entire account is seen through Lucy's eyes, and jumps around in time and place. At times, I felt that this book dragged although parts were interesting.

In general, I am not a fan of Elizabeth Strout's writing; I never did get through Olive Kitteridge which many people enjoyed. However, I'm also reading Anything is Possible, a companion to "Lucy Barton" with some of the characters whom Lucy and her mother gossiped about and am enjoying it.

3 stars for My Name is Lucy Barton

I've just finished reading Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout, a collection of short stories featuring people who were mentioned in the author's My Name is Lucy Barton. The stories can certainly be read without reading the novel. I read the book because the leader of our book group suggested we might want to read it as a companion the novel, and I like short stories as a genre. I began reading Anything is Possible before I received My Name is Lucy Barton from the library. When I got the novel, I decided to read it before continuing with the short stories. I found that when I read the novel, I enjoyed knowing more about the people I had read about in the short stories when Lucy and her mother talked about them. In a way I'm sorry I did not finish the short stories before reading the novel although reading these books in either order is fine.

I enjoyed the short stories much more than the novel. In my opinion, this collection is the best book I have read by Elizabeth Strout. I have also read Olive Kitteridge which I did not finish, and The Burgess Boys; I have not read either of her other books, Abide with Me and Amy and Isabelle.

I'm using Anything is Possible for the short stories square of BingoDOG.

4 stars

For our local library's Books Sandwiched in Committee I read A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston. Although it was an interesting memoir which describes his life as an actor and his philosophy concerning acting and has some humorous parts, I think that other books would be better candidates for reviewing for our audience -- mostly elderly women. It will be interesting to see what others on the committee think. At our last meeting, we suggested a number of books which one of us had read; now we are having at least one other person read each of the candidates.

3.5 stars

For my last uncompleted square of BingoDOG -- place name in title -- I read Nantucket Sisters by Nancy Thayer. This was a quick read of a beach-type book. I wanted to read a book with a Nantucket setting, and had never read anything by Ms. Thayer, and probably will not again. I found the plot rather unsatisfying and unbelievable.

I had planned to read The New York Stories of Edith Wharton for this square, and am still planning on finishing that collection. However, I wanted to read the stories at a rather slow pace, not more than one a day, to savor them, and decided to read a light novel now, especially since I have been doing some heavier for me reading the past few weeks.

I still have 4 squares to read for my BingoDOG card featuring only women authors; most of the titles are the same on the two cards.

3 stars

Congrats on completing your BingoDOG!

>92 lkernagh: Thanks. Many of the books I read for other challenges although some I borrowed from the library or purchased for a particular square.

For the July CATWoman and the author born in 1930s for my BingoDOG of women authors only, I read A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the first play performed on Broadway written by a black woman. It won the New York Drama Critic's Circle Award, the first such play by a black playwright. The version which I read is a more complete version than that shown on Broadway; it includes two scenes which were cut out for that production to shorten the play. When I was reading the play, I kept picturing Sidney Poitier as the main male character; he played that part in the original production. The play is about the struggles of a working class black family in Chicago's Southside, sometime between World War II and when the play was produced in 1959, and emphasizes the pride of the people and the struggles of Walter to be a man. The end of the play suggests that even though the family has won one struggle that they will continue to struggle in their new environment where they will be unwanted.

4.5 stars

I've finished reading another book for my public library's Books Sandwiched In committee work --- the last one I'm planning to read prior to our meeting next week. It is The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols. This is an interesting book about the role of expertise in our society and how expertise is dying. Too many people feel their opinions are just as valid as the knowledge of experts; they listen to the opinions of people they agree with. Mr. Nichols explores the role of such things as our educational system, the internet, and "new" journalism in this problem. He also discusses the responsibility of people to be informed citizens and voters in order for our democratic society to survive.

4 stars

For both the July CultureCAT (violence, crime and justice) and our public library's summer reading program (title containing a number) I read 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence by Howard Means. I heard Mr. Means discuss this book at Virginia Festival of the Book in March; I was attracted to that program because I was working at Penn State at the time of the Kent State shootings, and some people mistook Kent State for Penn State and asked if it was safe to come to our university. This is a comprehensive account of the Kent State tragedy and puts the shootings in context. The shootings happened on Monday, May 4, 1970 and followed a weekend of violence in the city of Kent and the burning down of the ROTC building on the Kent State campus. The mayor of Kent phoned the governor of Ohio on early Saturday morning (12:47 a.m.) and the Ohio National Guardsmen were sent. With the arrival of the National Guard, it took control of the campus; the university administration was left out of the loop. Kent was a very conservative town, and the governor, who was running for a U.S. Senate seat, wanted to punish campus unrest. During the whole occupation of the campus and town, the was no real leadership shown by either the guard leaders, the university administration, or the city government. Moreover, the guardsmen were poorly trained. The shootings occurred in a time of confusion. After the shootings, people were told to leave the area, but the guard initially blocked all exits from the area. Mr. Means puts the whole Kent State situation in the context of the times of political upheaval and change, particularly in relationship to the Vietnam War and the extending the war into Cambodia which Nixon had just ordered. Some of the students were protesting the war, but the area was filled with students and faculty changing classes and going to lunch. No individuals were convicted for the shooting of students. Much of public opinion in the vicinity particularly was against the students killed and injured; some people said even more should have been killed. Mr. Means makes a case for this being the end or an era of extremely active student protest.

4 stars

Yesterday in a poetry group which I attend, we read "Knoxville, Tennessee" by Nikki Giovanni. I enjoyed the poem and wanted to read more of her works so I borrowed two rather short poetry collections by her from our public library. I just finished reading Those Who Ride the Night Winds, which was published in 1983. It is divided into two sections: "Night Winds" and "Day Trippers." I enjoyed the poems in the first section much more, finding them more meaningful. Several of them were about well-known people such as Lorraine Hansberry, John Lennon, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. Emmett Till's mother and Rosa Parks were also mentioned in poems. Moreover, some well-known phrases appeared in some poems. I did get a little tired of the format. 24 of the 29 poems consisted of phrases or words with three dashes in between each thought.

I'm using this for a reading in this months CATWoman challenge.

4 stars

I've finished reading The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, selected and with an introduction by Roxana Robinson, which I took my time reading since I only read one story per day. It is a collection of 20 of Wharton's short stories, which Ms. Robinson selected because they are set in New York City although the last one, "Roman Fever," is set in Rome but features two women from New York. The stories were arranged by the order in which they were originally published. As a whole I enjoyed these stories, but I had to look several of them up on the internet to see what they meant. I was surprised that some of the earlier stories featured poor people since I had thought of Wharton as being a writer about upper class people. I particularly enjoyed "Expiation" about writing and a bishop's panning his niece's book so that it would sell better, "After Holbein" about two senile people having dinner together and pretending it is a large society dinner with imaginary people present, "Diagnosis" for its surprise ending. My least favorite story is "Pomegranate Seed," a ghost story; I don't particularly like that genre.

4 stars

For my book club meeting this evening I finally finished reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, which also qualifies for this month's RandomCAT and AlphaKIT and the made into a movie square for BingoDOG.
Although I really enjoyed this book when I read it as a teenager many years ago, I found it hard going this time. Although the book was well-written, the story was just too violent and the characters too cruel for my tastes. It will be interesting to see the reactions of others in our book group tonight.

3 stars

>99 sallylou61: I also was disappointed when I reread Wuthering Heights. As a teenager I thought it was so romantic and that Heathcliffe was the perfect man to swoon over but on a re-read at the mature ago of 50 I thought it was full of teen angst and I was left wanting to slap a few of the characters.

A friend from my book club and I discussed the background of Emily Bronte the other day; we were both disappointed in Wuthering Heights. My friend was unaware of the influence of the moors on Emily. I decided to find a picture of Haworth Parsonage in which the Brontes grew up, etc., and ended up reading The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley. This is a book of 144 pages; its cover claims it contains 140 illustrations. First I looked at all the pictures and read their captions; then read the whole text. This book has sentimental value to me since a family friend gave it to my father in 1970, the year after it was published. My parents and I had gone to England and visited Haworth Parsonage in 1969, and Father had bought be a book about the Brontes then. The scholarship about the Brontes is not up-to-date since the book is so old; for example, Ms. Bentley praises Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, which I think has been found to contain many inaccuracies. However, the book gives a good summary of the lives of the four Bronte siblings: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne and shows their isolation living in Haworth for much of their lives. Contains chronology of the Bronte family.

4 stars

>100 DeltaQueen50: It was over 50 years ago when I read Wuthering Heights. I graduated from college in 1965 and high school in 1961 (when I used my nickname Sally Lou); I'm pretty sure I read it during my high school years.

I have read another collection of poems by Nikki Giovanni (see >97 sallylou61:), this one titled: Bicycles: Love Poems. I enjoyed these poems although sometimes did not see why a particular poem was considered a love poem. I particularly like the language and rhythm of these poems. At the beginning of the book prior to the table of contents: "Bicycles: because love requires trust and balance."
The first and last poems refer to tragedies in the Blacksburg, VA area where Giovanni is on the faculty at Virginia Tech. The first poem, "Blacksburg under Siege: 21 August 2006 is about two murders committed by William Morva (although he was not named in the poem); the last "We Are Virginia Tech (16 April 2007) was read by Giovanni at a convocation within a few of the massacre.

(I remember reading in a newspaper article, a relative of one of the victims criticized the reading of this poem as being inappropriate, rah-rahing the school; that relative felt the University did not show the proper respect to the relatives in a number of ways following the massacre.)

(William Morva has recently been in the regional news because he was executed this past July 6th; a number of people urged the Governor of Virginia to grant him clemency.)

4 stars

For enjoyment and as part of our public library's summer reading program, I reread one of my favorite Quaker novels, I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman. It is a story about a young couple's desire to get married in a simple service instead of a large elaborate church service, which the bride's parents (especially her mother) want. It turns into becoming a story of conflicts in values of different members of the families, reestablishing relationships among distant relatives, and the Quaker way of life.

5 stars

My husband and I were just on a week-long river cruise. During that time (including waiting in airports at the beginning and end of our trip), I read four books: I Take Thee, Serenity mentioned in >104 sallylou61:, The Humming Birds, a book of poetry by Lucinda Roy which fit the CATWoman challenge, The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott, and Women's Friendships: a Collection of Short Stories, edited by Susan Koppelman. Although I found Roy's poetry collection interesting -- the first section contained poems about slavery, both the life of the slaves once they were here in the United States and their coming over on the packed ships; the second section poems about her family or about love, and the third section about women -- none of the poems are really memorable. Ms. Roy did use the images of birds or flying quite often.

The Dressmaker was a quick, enjoyable novel. Its setting was the Titanic and the hearings after the sinking. The book features: Tess, a young woman hired as a maid for Lady Lucile Duff Gordon, the fashion designer; Lady Duff Gordon and her husband and sister; two men who had been aboard the ship who became competitors for Tess's hand; a female newspaper reporter who got some scoops for the Titanic story for the New York Times; and Molly Brown of the Unsinkable Molly Brown fame. The story paints a very negative view of Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, accusing them of leaving people to die instead of going back to get more people to better fill their nearly empty life boat and accusing Lady Duff Gordon of being a very difficult woman as an employer and supervisor in her fashion business. I would like to read nonfiction about the real characters, especially Molly Brown, who was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri. I bought a short biography of her when we were in Hannibal last Sunday.

Women's Friendships is a wonderful collection of short stories by women about friendships between/among women. I especially liked that it included stories originally published between 1846 and 1991, written by women of various backgrounds including black women, Jewish women, an Native American of mixed heritage, and lesbians in addition to white women. The older stories tended to be by white women. Ms. Koppelman wrote an introduction about women's friendships and her experiences with them, and an afterword comparing/contrasting some of the stories, talking about themes, etc. Each story was introduced by a female scholar who told something about the author and her works with some specific comments about the story itself.

Humming Birds -- 3 stars

Dressmaker --3.5 stars

Women's Friendships -- 4.5 stars (might change to 5)

I just read When the Rain Came, a 31-page pamphlet written by Earl Swift commemorating the 30th anniversary of the impact of Hurricane Camille on Nelson and Rockbridge Counties in Virginia which killed approximately 125 in Nelson and 23 people in Rockbridge County. This pamphlet was reprinted from the newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot which ran the story in serial form Aug. 15th through Aug. 22, 1999. It provides a combination of an explanation of the forces which created the storm and why it did some much physical damage, and accounts of the experiences of some of the people who survived; many of whom lost most of their family members. It also provided then current pictures of some of the survivors and gave an update on them, which by now is 18 years old. Although this story was interesting, it cannot compare to Roar of the Heavens, a full-length book by Stefan Bechtel (published in 2006), which tells the story of Camille both on the Gulf Coast and Nelson County. Moreover, I attended anniversary events in Nelson County in 2009 for the 40th anniversary, and heard the two Raines brothers who had lost their parents and three siblings in the storm tell about their experiences. Therefore, I had heard and read more detailed, vivid accounts of this storm on Nelson County, part of the Charlottesville metropolitan statistical region.

Since this is so short a publication, I'm not counting it as a book -- only as a short work (and for the CultureCAT challenge).

3 stars

For the RandomCAT challenge and the animal in title square on my all female BingoDoG card, I read Ape House by Sara Gruen. Although I enjoyed this mystery of who destroyed the Great Ape Language Lab and how the apes would be rescued from a reality TV show, I found the writing a bit choppy; Ms. Gruen had several threads to her story and kept skipping between them. The book discusses the mistreatment of animals and alludes to the place of animals in research. It would be difficult to describe the plot without giving away the mystery.

3.5 stars

For the BingoDOG square for author who shares your first and last initials and the August CATWoman, I read Lucky by Alice Sebold. This is a memoir of a woman who was raped at the end of her freshman year at Syracuse University, written 18 years after the rape occurred. The edition I read contained an afterword by the author, written 18 years after the book was first published and dated January 2017. The title refers to a policeman telling her she was lucky to survived; the woman who had been attacked in the location she was did not survive. The book starts out dramatically with the author's experiencing the rape, and the most compelling parts of the book dealt directly with the rape: the rape itself, the establishing of evidence that it occurred (the woman's experiences in the hospital where she was attended to by sympathetic women), and everything connected with the trial (a large portion of the book). Ms. Sebold showed how the whole experience of the rape changed her; she was never the same after it. Many of her friends and acquaintances at Syracuse were surprised that she returned for her sophomore year, and could not act normally toward her; she made other friends. She also stood up for herself and did everything possible to have the rapist convicted. The end of the book was a let-down; she probably suffered from PTSD. She tried various drugs and drinking, and had a number of different male friends.

3.5 stars

Last weekend I saw Wild Things: the Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy at Barnes & Noble, and felt that I just had to read it. Mr. Handy enjoyed reading at bedtime to his children when they were young, and discovered that some of his favorite books as a child, he still enjoyed (and saw deeper messages in) and others he was disappointed in as an adult. He describes and criticizes children's books from picture books to young adult. I enjoyed reading this book, especially when he discussed old favorites of mine or books or authors I remembered reading. In my opinion, Mr. Handy was weakest in his comments about books which he had not read as a child, especially Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which he had considered girls' books when growing up. Mr. Handy did not shy away from serious topics; in the final chapter he discusses books dealing with death and especially recommends the picture book, The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown, published posthumously and Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.

Although there are some footnotes, this is not a scholarly book. It is conversational in tone; Mr. Handy often mentions how he related to a book or topic as a child.

4.5 stars

I have finally finished reading my Early Reviewer book, Union Jack: John F. Kennedy's Special Relationship with Great Britain by Christopher Sandford, and will be writing a review of it this weekend. I found it very tedious to read, and have read a number of books since receiving it. In the future, I'm planning not to request as many books in the reviewer program since many of them have not been as interesting as advertised.

review at http://www.librarything.com/work/19113682/reviews/143756913

3 stars

After reading Wild Things last week, I decided to read/reread some children's books, starting on the September CATWoman a bit early. I had not read any of Eleanor Estes' books about the Moffat family since elementary school many, many years ago. I just reread the first book in the series, The Moffats, and was rather disappointed in it. I was really struck by how out-of-date the book appeared to be with horse and buggies, the lack of electricity, scarlet fever quarantine, etc. I'm aware that Estes wrote the book in the early 1940s over 75 years ago! Although there is no introductory material (which is not normal for children's books anyway). according to the web, the series is based on Estes' childhood in the early 20th century.

The most memorable of Eleanor Estes' books to me is The Hundred Dresses which I reread several years ago and really enjoyed; it did not seem nearly so dated.

Sometime I may reread some of the other books about the Moffats, but I'm planning to reread the LIttle House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder this fall.

3 stars

It has been over a week since I added a message. Late last week we moved to a larger cottage in our retirement community. Our "new" cottage is the size and floor plan which we initially wanted; we moved into a smaller cottage last year which was available and which put us higher on the wait list for a larger one. We have gained an eat-in kitchen for both us and our cats plus a den for my husband plus a floor plan we like better.

I've just finished reading Pioneer Girl Perspectives : Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal. This book, published by the South Dakota Historical Society Press as part of its Pioneer Girl Project on the 150 anniversary year of Laura's birth, contains Laura's speech at the Detroit Book Fair in 1937, essays by nine literary scholars on some aspect of Laura's life and career and her lasting impact on children's literature, and an interview with a lawyer representing the Little House Heritage Trust. I found all of the contributions very interesting; two heavily featured Rose Wilder Lane and expressed very different ideas about her (liar versus accomplished author). Unfortunately, the book ended rather abruptly; I'm disappointed the editor did not close with an ending statement of some kind.

Review at http://www.librarything.com/work/19175589/reviews/142118872

4.5 stars

Glad to hear you're settled in to your new place and that it has a better floor plan.

>114 sallylou61: Thanks. We are really enjoying the extra space.

For both the CATWoman and RandomCAT challenges, I've just finished reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the only book in the Little House series that describes Almanzo's childhood instead of Laura's. This is the first time I have reread it since reading it in elementary school many many years ago. I was amazed to read how often Almanzo did not need to go to school -- staying home to do farm work including learning how to do specific duties -- even while his older siblings went to school. The book describes in detail how certain things were made including maple sugar and shoes, which is reminiscent of descriptions in the author's Little House in the Big Woods.

4 stars

I just finished reading Cakewalk by Rita Mae Brown. This is the first of the Runnymede series which I have read by her; it features people in a fictional town on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border (the Mason-Dixon Line) in 1920. There was a considerable amount of talk about the War which had just ended, and its effect with townsmen killed or injured. Both of the main male characters were veterans. Considerable anti-war sentiment is expressed and several times people say there will not be another war.

It was a fun read; Ms. Brown writes with a lot of humor and has her characters express political views. Celeste, the main female character is/has been a lesbian whose lover got pregnant and married Celeste's brother. Celeste then becomes involved with a much younger man (in his late 20s; she's in her 40s). Some female friends talk off and on throughout the book about whether or not women will get the vote; the story ends before suffrage is won.

This novel is more a series of events, many of which are connected in some way, than a book with a plot.

4 stars

(I was planning on devoting more time to rereading the Little House books, but discovered that the poor quality paper they are printed on was making me cough (allergy), so that I decided to read books printed on better paper. I am having cataract surgery next Wednesday (which is scary), and want to be well for it.)

My cataract surgery went well yesterday. I had the big patch taken off my eye today. My doctor is pleased with my progress although I still have a long way to go. I need to take exercise very easy the next few days (probably I won't exercise until after my next doctor's appointment early Monday morning), and no water exercise probably for a couple of weeks.

I have finished reading another hardback book on good quality paper, The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber. I think of her books as quick, easy reads. This book was a quick read, but all three main characters were trying to recover from tragedies (two of them from long ago) so that it was not a particularly cheerful read. Moreover, I don't really care for people conversing with the dead as two characters did in this book. However, life was definitely looking up for all three characters at the end. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

4 stars

>118 christina_reads: Glad to hear your surgery went well! I hope you will have a swift and complete recovery.

>118 christina_reads: Good to hear that everything went well with the cataract surgery.

Glad to hear your cataract surgery went well and wishing you a speedy recovery. And, congratulations on the new cottage.

>119 DeltaQueen50:, >120 VivienneR:, >121 sallylou61: Thanks.

Recently, I ordered two books from Amazon, a book about Penn State football plus a book concerning Laura Ingalls Wilder so that I would not need to pay postage. The shipment arrived last night. I discovered that I did not order the Wilder book I thought I had; I ordered From the Mouth of Ma: a Search for Caroline Quiner Ingalls by Robynne Elizabeth Miller instead of her The Three Faces of Nellie: the Real Story behind Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Nellie Oleson" (no touchstone since it is not in the LT database). The pamphlet about Ma is very disappointing. Ms. Miller provides very little hard information about Ma, probably because there was little written about her except in the Little House books. After giving a very brief biographical account of Ma, Ms. Miller takes proverbs or sayings that Ma Ingalls said in the various Little House books to explain Ma as a person. Ms. Miller gives the origin of the proverb if she could find it, and describes where it appears in the story. Ms. Miller writes in a very conversational tone, and tells as much about herself as she does about Ma; she often compares her own parenting style to Ma's. Several times Ms. Miller says that she herself has red hair, which is not really relevant to the examination of Ma's character. Moreover, she asks the reader if she/he agrees by addressing them as "you." Considering the page numbering, the pamphlet appears to have around 70 pages of text; however, Ms. Miller begins each chapter on an odd numbered page, and at least 5 times the even numbered page facing it is blank.

(I am only counting this as a short read, category 4, not as a book read.)

2 stars

Congrats on the successful surgery and my best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Happy that your surgery went well. Definite bummer about the pamphlet though.

>124 LittleTaiko:, >125 sallylou61: Thanks. When I saw my doctor on Monday, he was very pleased. I'm now having 4 eyedrops a day, down for 12 per day. I'm still wearing a metal patch everytime I go to bed to protect the eye. Also, I need to wear my glasses even though the prescription is wrong, once again to protect my eye (and remind me not to rub it, etc.). The incorrect prescription sometimes affects my balance; I'm not driving. Fortunately, I ought to have a new prescription within the next two weeks; we are waiting for the vision in my eye to stabilize.

I find my reading glasses which I normally do not use much more comfortable than my bifocals so that I'm wearing them around the house.

For the "set in a country you've never been" square on my only female writers' BingoDOG, I just read Kerry Greenwood's Murder on the Ballarat Train set in Australia; it's a Phryne Fisher mystery. I enjoyed the book, which featured both a murder mystery and a mystery of young girls being kidnapped from orphanages and being abused. However, I did not think that the sexual activity of Ms. Fisher was necessary.

Card at https://www.librarything.com/topic/240713#6071552

3.5 stars

I read When the Lions Roared: Joe Paterno and One of College Football's Greatest Teams by Bill Contz, which I purchased after seeing it recommended in a recent online Football Letter issued by the Penn State Alumni Association. The Football Letters are issued after every Penn State football game and describe the game, give miscellaneous other tidbits about Penn State football, and very briefly review other fall Penn State sports. Contz was a member of the 1982 team which was the first Penn State team to win the national championship. Contz describes each game that season, and relates various stories about practice, team members, etc. An additional special feature is "Todd's Take," short comments by quarterback Todd Blackledge on the games; he also wrote the foreword. In my opinion these descriptions and comments are excellent. I found the very statistical analysis by Contz of top national champions and which team was really the best rather uninteresting; so much of that is personal opinion.
Contz surveyed the 1982 team members and gives quotes from them concerning their opinions about Joe Paterno during their playing experiences-- all of which are very positive -- as well as a brief update of the players' lives, families, etc. The very serious issue of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and what Joe might have known about it was not addressed although Contz mentioned a book written by Joe's son and quarterback coach, Jay Paterno, in a positive light.

(Incidentally, I am not a Paterno fan; I feel that he should have been fired for insubordination several years before he was when he had several very poor seasons and refused to step down as coach when asked to do so.)

4.5 stars

For my first book for the October CATWoman I read Wish You Were Here, the first in the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries by Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown. This is the earliest mystery which I have read by Ms. Brown, a local author; the setting of the story is in Crozet which is approximately 10 miles from Charlottesville where I live. Although I enjoyed the mystery by the end of the story, it took me quite a while to "warm up" to it. What bothered me the most was the amount of conversation among the two cats and two dogs in the story.

3 or 3.5 stars

For the BingoDOG square "Author Abroad" I read In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield, a short story writer from New Zealand who spent most of her adult life in Great Britain. She lived in Bavaria briefly when she was pregnant and banished there by her mother, a very strong woman. In a German Pension was Ms. Mansfield's first book published. Although I enjoyed some of the stories -- especially "The Sister of the Baroness," "A Birthday," and "The Swing of the Pendulum" -- I felt most of the stories were not as interesting or well-written as Mansfield's later ones.

3.5 stars

I read all these stories in The Complete Stories of Katherine Mansfield instead of from a separate volume. In The Complete Stories, the stories are arranged by the books they were published in.

For the November RandomCAT and the BingoDOG square author born in 1917 I read The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers. There is a lot of darkness in this story -- both in the descriptions of the settings and in the weather and in the main characters themselves. All are depraved in some way. This is not the kind of story which I enjoy reading although Ms. McCullers is a skilled writer.

3 stars

John and I were on a short trip this weekend (Friday through today), and I took Radioland, a short volume of poetry by Leslie Wheeler with me. I originally thought that this might qualify for the October CATWoman since Ms. Wheeler is a relatively local author, teaching at a college about 75 miles from Charlottesville. However, this book does not qualify; it does not mention the region. Ms. Wheeler gave a poetry reading at our retirement community last April, and I bought Radioland then. I found the first three sections of her collection very understandable. They dealt with earthquakes and family break-ups; sexual activity of young people; and the author's trying to come to grips with her father's abandoning his family for a woman Ms. Wheeler's age. The last two sections were not meaningful for me; I often have trouble interpreting poetry since I tend to be more of a "factual" reader.

3 stars

For my bookclub meeting next week I have finished reading Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. Although it ends on a positive note, I would consider it a dark read since 5 deaths occurred, 3 of which were murders, and there was a lot of uncertainty and fear and oppressive weather. Moreover, the story takes place in the summer of 1961, and several of the most important adult male characters were damaged in World War II, and several other characters were handicapped in some way. Although I enjoyed the book, I felt that too many bad things happened in a small town over one summer to be believable. Also, one policeman was a gossip and very unprofessional.

4 stars

Both of the bookclubs which I attend meet the same week. For my bookclub meeting next Saturday morning I read Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. The leader of the bookclub picks the books, and I don't know how she decides what to select. Although this book is labelled as a novel, it seems to me to be a rather disjointed series of short essays or sketches. Although it features four girls -- August from Tennessee, Sylvia from Martinique, Gigi from South Carolina, and Angela from Brooklyn -- from late childhood through puberty, the whole book is narrated by Sylvia and told through her eyes, and keeps jumping around in time. There is a lot of searching and trying to feel connected with friends or family in this book.

3 stars

I'm still aiming to reread all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books this year, but still have more than halfway to go. I just finished rereading Little House on the Prairie, which, as a child, was my least favorite of the Little House books. In recent years, it has been controversial because of its racism concerning Native Americans. Ma openly expresses her dislike of them, and Mr. and Mrs. Scott, their neighbors who are minor characters in the story, are very anti-Native American. Both of the Scotts are quoted as saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" (p. 211, 284 in Harper Trophy ed.). Several times in the story an adult says that the Indians should move out of the Indian Territory. The story takes place around 1869/71, and was first published in 1935, well before Indians were commonly known as Native Americans. It is a story of its time. I think that it should still be available to children, but used as a learning device whenever possible.

(I had planned to read this book last month, and started it, but my allergies kicked in so I put it aside prior to having cataract surgery. It did not bother me the last few days.)

3 stars

I've reread another of the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- this time On the Banks of Plum Creek which has been a sentimental favorite since hearing my fourth grade teacher read it to us. That was my first introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder; I really loved hearing my teacher read it, which she read it as a treat to us. When there was a bit of spare time before lunch or between subjects, she would read us a chapter or two. I'm sure Mrs. Sweet also read us other books, but this was the memorable one. After hearing her read it, I started reading the other books in the series, beginning with one in our classroom library, which Mrs. Sweet picked off the bookmobile when it visited our school.

As I reread the book for the first time in many years, I remembered parts of it, and looked forward to rereading them. On this reading I was really struck by the poverty of the Ingalls family in this story. Although he did not like to be in debt, Pa obtained wood to build the house promising to repay after harvesting the wheat crop which he expected to be large and plentiful. When the whole crop was lost in a plague of grasshoppers, he had to walk several hundred miles to the east to obtain work harvesting crops which had not been hit by the plague. He had to walk to work during harvest season two years straight. Although in her writing, Laura wrote as positively as possible, the poverty is apparent to an adult. (I don't remember thinking of the poverty as a child.). This book is still a favorite.

5 stars

Continuing with my rereading of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- in order published: By the Shores of Silver Lake. I think that this is the first time I have reread this volume since I read it as a child. Then I did not like it as much as many of the others, possibly because it followed On the Banks of Plum Creek which was a very special book.

Although I remembered a lot about the book such as Mary's blindness and Mr. and Mrs. Boast's arriving for Christmas dinner, I was amazed at how this book created the setting for the rest of the series. The first buildings of the town of De Smet are built, the Ingalls go out to their claim for the first time, and Laura sees the Wilder men, Almanzo and Royal, in a distance although she does not talk to them. I could picture the Ingalls' living in the surveyors' house the winter before they moved to their claim since my husband and I saw it when we visited De Smut several years ago.

4 stars

For the satire square in my all female author BingoDOG, I reread Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, which I again enjoyed. This novel both satirizes the Gothic novels popular at the time of her writing and is a Gothic novel. Although this was the first novel Jane Austen completed writing, it was not published until after her death.
The end of the story was rather weak; the way General Tilney received his information is illogical. Also, Ms. Austen did not tell what became of the young characters in supporting roles such as James Morland (Catherine's brother), John and Isabella Thorpe, or Captain Tilney -- something she did in her other novels, and which I liked.

For the November CATWoman, I have finished reading Harriet Martineau on Women edited by Gayle Graham Yates. An Englishwoman, Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) throughout her life wrote on "the woman question" which was the 19th century term for feminism. Ms. Yates wrote a general introduction on Ms. Martineau's life and views, and then provided examples of Ms. Martineau's writings under the categories of: women's equal rights, women's education, American women (Ms. Martineau spent two years touring America and then wrote about it with special reference to antislavery and to women), portraits of women (Charlotte Bronte, Margaret Fuller, and Florence Nightingale plus women in hareems and women in Ireland), on economic, social, and political issues (including working women and women and divorce), and women's campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1866 and 1869, which allowed police to arrest any woman they expected to be prostitutes. Ms. Yates wrote introductions to each section in which she explained the content and significant of the documents included in the section.

4 stars

For my book club I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which marginally fits into both the RandomCAT and CultureCAT for this month. The characters are move by helicopter even for short trips, and several times the noise of helicopters is mentioned. There is considerable conflict, both between the people of the new world and the Indians living traditionally in New Mexico, and two characters - a new world woman who got pregnant and was left in New Mexico and her son - were not accepted by the Indians; the son was also not accepted in the new world. Moreover, there is conflict between the leaders of the new world and a few people who do not want to comply.

I found this book to be an interesting read. I thought the beginning was very slow, but enjoyed the book much more when more action occurred such as two characters going to observe the Indians in New Mexico, and the bringing back of the new world woman who had been stranded in New Mexico and her son. I found the ending rather unsettling. The emphasis on drugs and sex, which apparently resulted in many poor reviews when the book was first published in 1932, seemed very tame by today's standards.

3 stars

My copy of Brave New World also included Huxley's essay, Brave New World Revisited which he published in 1958. In this essay, he discussed what had happened since he published his novel approximately 25 years earlier. This time span included Hitler's Nazism, and World War II and a continuation of Stalin's rule. Huxley believed that in the future, society is more likely to be similar to his Brave New World than to George Orwell's 1984, and described why this is so. He discussed some major problems that can cause the rise of dictators including such things as over-population with scarcity of food, technological advances including modern medicine (allowing people to live longer) and around the clock news (even then), and over-organization (including the power of big government and big business and the decline of small businesses). He discussed the use of propaganda and brainwashing. In much of his discussion about science, he talked about scientific studies, primarily from the 1950s. Of course, there have been enormous advances in the past nearly 60 years so that much of the material about science and drugs is outdated. In regards to population control, Huxley even mentioned that there was no birth control pill (which did not come out until a couple of years after his book was published). However, there is much of value in this essay, and some of the points have already come true.

I enjoyed reading the essay much more than reading the novel. Moreover, the essay helped me understand the book better since Huxley pointed out specifics of what he was writing about in the novel.

4 stars

Stopping by to get caught up. Happy to learn that your cataract surgery went well and enjoyed reading your reviews of books read since my last visit here.

>142 sallylou61: Thanks for stopping by. I'm adjusting to my new glasses prescription well; the surgery went very well, but I am so near-sighted I still need to wear glasses. I expect when I see my doctor in another week or so that no changes will be necessary.

>128 sallylou61: My brother went to Penn State (before 1982). He later got a job in Nebraska. He asked me to send him a sweatshirt from my school (NOT in the Top Ten) because he didn't dare wear his Penn State shirt!

All caught up now!

>137 sallylou61: I'm enjoying reading your comments on the Little House books. These were favourites of mine when I was a child, and I've reread them since. When I was young, I liked Little Town on the Prairie best, but I've grown to appreciate The Long Winter.

>145 sallylou61: If I'm going to finish my project of rereading all the Little House books this year, I need to get back to reading them. I sometimes get involved in trying to read too many books for some of the CATs, especially the CATWoman for which I often read more than one selection.

My 10th Thingaversary was two days ago. I already have numerous books which I have not read, and with my birthday in November, Christmas in December, and wedding anniversary in January buying ten or eleven books was not something I wanted to do. (My husband gives me books for all three of these events.) Therefore, I purchased The Beggar Maid, a collection of ten short stories by Alice Munro, an author I enjoy reading.

Congratulations on your tenth Thingaversary!

Yay, congratulations!

>147 DeltaQueen50:, I so admire you for being self-controlled enough to realize all that and not embrace the idea to buy more books! I'm not a big shopper, and in general I have no problem with self-control... but when it comes to books. Well, yeah... no. So, congratulations on that, as well as on your thingaversary!!!

Happy Thingaversary! Enjoy all of the books from your birthday, Christmas, and anniversary, when they arrive :)

>148 MissWatson:, >149 whitewavedarling:, >150 rabbitprincess:, >151 sallylou61: Thanks.

>150 rabbitprincess: My husband and I both tend to buy too many books. Although my book club reads books available from the library, I tend to buy my own copies. However, I did not have the urge to buy numerous books at the same time.

>151 sallylou61: . I have just had my birthday and received Code Girls by Liza Mundy and We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I read Coates' Between the World and Me for my book club earlier this year, and am planning to take his new book with me over Thanksgiving. We plan to go to Chincoteague Island after visiting my sister and her family, and I'll have reading time there.

I have just finished reading an Early reviewer book, Tell: Love, Defiance, and the Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights by Margaret Witt with Tim Connor, which I'm planning to review tomorrow. It reads as if it was actually written by Mr. Connor; the whole account is in third person which bothered me at first. I expect autobiographies to be written in the first person. However, third person seemed very appropriate for the account of the trial itself.

3.5 stars

>152 sallylou61: Excellent! Let me know how Code Girls is. I borrowed it from the library but it came at a time when I couldn't devote my full attention to it, so I've re-requested it.

I just finished reading American Fire by Monica Hesse, which was listed last Sunday in The Washington Post's list of the 50 best nonfiction books of the year. It is about two losers who set numerous fires in Accomack County, an isolated rural county on Virginia's Eastern Shore, the efforts of firefighters to fight the fires, sometimes several a night for approximately six months, the efforts of the police and professionals they employed to solve the crimes, the arrest of the couple (Charlie Smith and his lover Tonya Bundick), and the trials of Ms. Bundick. (Charlie Smith pleaded guilty upon being caught.). Although this book was well written, the case was not very appealing and I thought the story dragged. Although 50 is a relatively large number of books, I would not rate it this high. I had read it in case I wanted to recommend it for our local library's Monthly Books Sandwiched in program. I will not be recommending it.

3 stars

Having read Harriet Martineau on Women by Martineau (1802-1876) an English feminist for the November CATWoman, I have just finished reading Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), an early American feminist. Martineau and Fuller knew each other's works, and referred to each other in these writings. Woman in the Nineteenth Century is a book I have had since living in Michigan in the early 1980s; I had started it several times; this time I read the whole book. Unfortunately, this edition, published by Norton in 1971, lacked notes explaining the text (and fell apart as I read it). The company published a revised, annotated edition in 1997, which would have been much more meaningful to read. Fuller's account, which is an expansion of an article published in The Dial (a magazine in 1843) is written as a long, long essay (179 p.). It lacks chapters or any real breaks in the account; the topic is merely given on the top of all the odd numbered pages. Fuller writes about women's place in society in history as seen through various myths (gods and goddesses in ancient times) and written works, most of which were written by men. This is where annotations would be especially useful in describing who the people and characters she mentions are. She also writes about how women should go about trying to improve the position of women. She writes a lot about marriage; she emphasizes that men and women should be equal in marriage. "That is the very fault of marriage, and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman does (in italics) belong to the man, instead of forming a whole with him." (p. 176). The book describes upper class women; very little mention is made of the lower classes.

3 stars

I'm continuing with my project of rereading all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books this year. I've finished reading The Long Winter, which I had not read for many, many years. I remembered the main incidents in this book, but it was fun rereading it. I was particularly interested in any appearances of Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland since they are so prominently featured in These Happy Golden Years. This time I noticed that there were some inconsistencies concerning the story of these male characters. Cap first appears in the book as a rather young school boy, but that same winter he and Almanzo travel many miles to get wheat for the starving town. Of course, the Little House books are fictional, and Laura was known for changing people's ages in the stories. She has Almanzo as being 19, and filing for a land claim by lying since the minimum age for that was 21. However, Almanzo was actually born in February 1857 and filed for his claim sometime in 1879; the same year his brother, Royal, and sister, Eliza Jane, also filed. Moreover, Laura has Almanzo and Cap both being 19 and a few months apart in age in 1881; Cap was born in late 1864 and was slightly two years older than Laura. However, this does not take away from the story. Much of the excting action involves men. Ma, Laura, and her sisters spent most of the long, hard winter days at home twisting hay for fuel and grinding wheat in a coffee grinder for bread. I remembered the monotony of the days from my much earlier reading.

4.5 stars

(I was especially interested in Almanzo's age filing for his claim since one of the author's Pioneer Girl Perspectives claimed that Almanzo was dishonest about filing his claim. This shows that one cannot use the fictional accounts when considering a person's character. My info concerning the "facts" comes from Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill and published by South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2014 -- an account which made me want to reread all the Little House books. Of course, it has taken me several years to get around to doing this.)

I've just finished reading a LT Early Reviewers book, An American Marriage : a Novel by Tayari Jones, which qualifies for both the CATWoman and AlphaKI. It's about Southern black marriages, fathers who desert their families, substitute fathers, a man incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, etc. I was especially glad to receive this book since I heard Ms. Jones talk at our public library this spring about her earlier book, Silver Sparrow, and she mentioned she was in the process of writing this one. I plan on writing a review this weekend.

4 stars

I just finished reading Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least to the Lesser Presidents by Robert Strauss for our branch library's Books Sandwiched in Committee. At our last meeting we suggested possible books for our monthly programs this coming spring, and I was assigned this book; at least two people read each suggestion. I never would have finished this book otherwise. Mr. Strauss is a journalist rather than a notable historian. Although he uses bibliographic endnotes, he makes a lot of judgments which I feel are unsubstantiated. Moreover, much of the book is not about Buchanan and his administration. There is a lot of repetition of information and padding with some general history of the time, and with stories about how Strauss became interested in history of the presidents, Buchanan in particular. Although he admits that some historians - and even John F. Kennedy at the beginning of his presidency - think that presidents should not be rated, Mr. Strauss constantly rates Buchanan as the Worst. President. Ever. using that punctuation and capitalization -- which got very tiresome. Mr. Strauss discusses other unsuccessful presidents, but tells why Buchanan was worse than they were. Even if Buchanan was the worst president, and he is at or near the bottom in various ratings, the book is not very convincing. I am not going to recommend it for our library program.

2.5 stars

For the RandomCAT challenge, I've read These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties, edited by Elaine Showalter who wrote a rather long introduction to the book (27 out of 147 pages), and short biographical introductions of each of the 17 feminists whose short essays were included. This book was published in 1978, but the essays were written in 1927 and 1928 for the magazine The Nation. Showalter wanted to compare feminism in the 1920s to that of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 70s. I was unfamiliar with most of the women; those I was familiar with included Inez Haynes Irwin, Sue Shelton White, Crystal Eastman, and Wanda Gag. The book ended with very brief responses by three psychologists, two of whom were men who were unsympathetic to feminism. I feel these responses were unnecessary to include; they added nothing of value to the book.

2.5 stars

Too bad that you have had a run of bleh non-fiction! I am particularly appreciating your reviews of the Little House books. Those were some of the only books I reread as a child, and I have a special place for them in my heart. It is quite enjoyable to get your thoughts on them now.

Also glad the surgery went well. How is your eye doing this far along?

This evening I read the pamphlet Mary Ingalls: the College Years by Marie Tschopp which gives a brief history of the college and describes life there, shows the classes Mary took and the grades she got, and gives a brief description of Mary's life after college. I had not been aware that she had been there for seven years, finishing approximately four years after Laura and Almanzo had gotten married.

I particularly enjoyed reading this pamphlet now since the next two Little House books to read talk about Mary's going to the Iowa College for the Blind.

Counted as short work read (category 4), not as a book.

3.5 stars

>161 sallylou61: I'm very pleased with the results of my cataract surgery. I can see much better with my left eye and am not getting the headaches I sometimes got before the surgery. I might be getting my right eye done next spring; it is not nearly as bad as the left one was, and my surgeon suggested waiting. I am so near-sighted that I still need to wear glasses for distance and usually do for reading, but wearing glasses has never bothered me. I've worn them since I was nine years old. Thanks for asking.

I'm planning on taking any Little House books which I do not read within the next few days on our Christmas vacation. We will be on a river cruise, and there will be plenty of time for reading.

You must be so relieved about your eyes. I know what it feels like when I clean my glasses and everything is clear again. I imagine you are enjoying an even greater joy.

On my fourth attempt, I read a book for the Science Related square on my all female authors BingoDOG card (second BingoDOG card using completely different titles): Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr. This is an excellent biography of Sally Ride, an excellent tennis player and scientist, who made great achievements in NASA -- 2 trips in space and on the committees investigating both the Challenger and Columbia explosions (and figuring out what went wrong) -- was a university teacher, and helped found a company -- Sally Ride Science -- which developed programs to encourage girls to go into science. As the first woman in space, Sally became a role model for girls and women, which she took seriously. She was an active feminist. To achieve all that she did in NASA, Sally often had to associate with people whose political opinions she did not share. Following Sally's death, her partner for 27 years announced though Sally's obituary that Sally was a lesbian. She had to keep that part secret in order to participate in the NASA program and in giving numerous workshops for young girls throughout the country.

5 stars

I'm continuing with my project of rereading all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books this year. I read Little Town on the Prairie, which I had not read for many, many years. Although I remembered many of the incidents in the book, I was surprised by how much of it seemed entirely new to me. I was impressed with the way the book fit in so well between The Long Winter and These Happy Golden Years. The story begins with a brief review of how the Ingalls family coped with the long, hard winter and ended with Laura's accepting an assignment to teach school twelve miles from home beginning the following Monday. Laura's teaching is described in These Happy Golden Years. Having recently read the pamphlet, Mary Ingalls: the College Years in which I was surprised to learn that Mary went to the Iowa College for the Blind for seven years, I discovered that Ma hoped that Mary could take the full course which lasted that long. I had not remembered that from my reading many years ago. This is the book in which Almanzo Wilder takes Laura to school in a buggy behind his beautiful Morgan horses (and they exchange name cards), and he walks Laura home from some revival meetings. This book, along with On the Banks of Plum Creek and These Happy Golden Years remain my favorite books in the series.

5 stars

I just finished reading A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas which qualifies both for the December CATWoman (novel published in 2014) and RandomCAT (started reading this afternoon after lunch). It was a quick read set around the time of the Civil War (1864-65), and could be considered an anti-war book.

Yesterday evening I read A Christmas Message by Anne Perry, which qualifies for both the December RandomCATand CATWoman (published in 2016). It is a novel set in the Holy Land in 1900, and involves danger, murder, and the meaning of religion (going to Jerusalem). It contained a lot of violence and did not really appeal to me.

2.5 stars

Stopping by to wish you and your loved ones peace, joy and happiness this holiday season and for 2018!

>169 sallylou61:. Thanks. happy holidays to you and your family also.

This afternoon I finished rereading what had been one of my favorite Little House books, These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Although I still enjoyed it, I would not rate it as highly as before.

On trip and using I-table. Might discuss more after returning home.

4.5 stars

This afternoon I also read The First Four Years byLaura Ingalls Wilder, which was found and published after daughter and heir's death. It was probably Laura's first draft, and not as polished as her earlier books. Also the story was very sad, especially with Almanzo's stroke which left him handicapped and the death of their infant son.

3 stars

>173 sallylou61:. Thanks.

I've just read Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear, a Maisie Dobbs novel which I really enjoyed. I did not suspect who the killer would be. The story contained messages -- both about the horrors of war and the unfairness of social class.

Still on vacation and using an I-tablet.

4.5 stars

I just finished reassign Glory over Everything by Kathleen Grissom, a novel which was hard to put down once I got into it. However, disappointed with end of book

Still on vacation and using an I-tablet.

3.5 stars

I got back from vacation and could not sleep so I read a very short pamphlet, The Appalachian Outhouse, by Dean Six. (Touchstone not working.) My husband, a West Virginian, bought this pamphlet at Tamarack, a restaurant/gift shop in West Virginia that we stopped at on our drive to Memphis to start our Christmas river cruise. He did not like the pamphlet, and I could tell why. It is very repetitious with many of the "stories" about people falling into the johns in outhouses -- and many of the places were probably not actually in Appalachia. However, the pamphlet was published in West Virginia.

Listed as a short read; not counted as a book.

1 star