July AlphaKIT: S and A

The rules are... none! Use the letters however you like to choose your reads for the month.

July AlphaKIT letters are : S and A.

and

Please remember to update the wiki and enter books alphabetically: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2018_AlphaKIT

Two of my favorite letters! Planning on reading The Secret History of the Pink Carnation for the ColorCat so this will fit here as well. Probably also going to read Mission to Paris by Alan Furst too.

I'm working on my ROOTs this year, will try to find some with those two commonly-used letters!

At this point I am planning on reading Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott and Endangered by Eliot Schrefer.

>2 LittleTaiko: I loved Pink Carnation!

Lots of both. I'll have to wait and see how they fit other challenges.

Ha! So far, I've only looked up what might work for me for ScaredyKIT... I look here and see S and A and think - oh, that should be easy! I'm sure it will be, but none of the ScaredyKIT options fit!

Here are a "few" that I have on my list that fit.

Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession
As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles
Avenging Angels
Crust No One by Winnie Archer
✔Dark Tide Rising by Anne Perry
I Shall Not Want
Katherine of Aragon, the true queen : a novel
Lady Risks All
Lethal Letters by Ellery Adams
✔Midnight Snacks are Murder
✔Murder At Breakers by Alyssa Maxwell
Murder At Marble House
Murder At Rough Point
Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue by Stephanie Blackmoore
✔Read and Gone by Allison Brook
✔Secret Affair
✔Souffle of Suspicion
Southern Spirits
Tart of Darkness by Denise Swanson
✔Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

For "A" I'm planning on My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows.

And I have several "S" books in mind for this month: Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers, The Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart, and This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada.

Some contenders from my TBR stacks:

1. Angela's Ashes (written and narrated by Frank McCourt)
   
2. Artemis (by Andy Weir)
   
3. Atonement (by Ian McEwan)
   
4. The Bone Season (by samantha Shannon)
   
5. The Help (by Kathryn Stockett)
   
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams)
   
7. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (by Lauren Willig)
   
8. The Secret in Their Eyes (by Eduardo Sacheri )
   
9. 1776 (written and narrated by David McCollough)
   
10. The Shack (by William P. Young)
    
11. Somewhere in Time (by Richard Matheson)
    
12. Song of Achilles (by Madeline Miller)
    
13. Station Eleven (by Emily St. John Mandel)
    
14. Stir of Echoes (by Richard Matheson)
    
15. Summit (by Harry Farthing)
    
16. Swan Song (by Robert McCammon)
    

A couple of these are re-reads but I may have read them so long ago that I don't remember much about them, or I want to hear the author narrate the audiobook.

It looks like I'll be starting with The Bone Season (by Samantha Shannon) and The Help (by Kathryn Stockett) as part of the postal book group I belong to but after that, it's anybody's guess as to where my mood will take me!

At the moment, my plan is The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw for "S" and Campaign Widows by Aimee Agresti for "A". I have tons of possibilities for both of these, though, so I'm not totally committed just yet.

Oh this is going to be fun. I have a lot to choose from. This is what is what I have on the shelf:

Megan Abbott: Dare me
Peter Ackroyd: The fall of Troy
Jussi Adler-Olsen: A conspiracy of faith
Andrea Camilleri: The Scent of the night
Jeffrey Archer: Cometh the hour
Lee Child: Small wars
Lee Child: The Affair
Helen Simonson: The Summer before the war
Maj Sjowall: Murder at the Savoy
Ali Smith: The Accidental
Michael Stanley: A carrion death
Chevy Stevens: Never let you go
Rebecca Stott: The coral thief
Tanis Rideout: Above all things
Victoria Roberts: After the fall
Vita Sackville-West: All passion spent
Elizabeth Hay: Alone in the classroom
Freeman Wills Crofts: Antidote to venom
Amelie Nothomb: The book of proper names
Countess of Carnarvon: Lady Almina and the real Downton Abbey

Ok, with a few more CAT threads having gone up, I have a few options that also fit here:

Sleep with the Lights On / Maggie Shayne
White Nights / Ann Cleeves
The Storyteller / Jodi Picoult (this is for my f2f book club)

For A I'm planning The Taster by V.S. Alexander.

I will start Stone's Fall by Iain Pears later this month and may not get it finished so if not I'll count it as an S next month.

Also for S I will be reading The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

I have two possibles this month, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or NW by Zadie Smith.

My 'S' book will be Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson, and my 'A' book is going to be Havana Libre by Robert Arellano. I hope to fit in Dominion by Shane Arbuthnott also if time permits...

Among the books I might read are:
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart
Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund

I will probably read several that fit, but Albion's Seed is one I'll finish in my study group this month which will count towards both letters.

Read Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

I just started two books, both for the "S" part of this month's challenge:

🐾 Swan Song (by Robert McCammon; narrated by Tom Stechschulte) - I had never heard of this book until my friend put it in his audiobook pantheon in 2015 and then again when it showed up on PBS' Great American Read list this past Spring! It's a nuclear post-apocalyptic tale set in the US and so far reads like a time capsule from the 1980s, reflecting Cold War fears and lots of cultural details (e.g. a security guard reading a Conan the Barbarian comic book, a computer game requiring what now seems like ridiculously low amounts of RAM, etc.) The cast of characters is obviously derivative of Stephen King's slate of people from The Stand and the whole concept of people on some sort of dream quest through a ravaged land inevitably invites comparison to King's epic as well.

🐾Subterrene War Trilogy, Book #1: Germline (by T.C. McCarthy) - I had started this in audio three months ago but bailed on it mostly because of the audiobook narrator's insistent pronunciation of "corps" as "corpse." It was distracting, so I got a print copy of the book instead. It's a military sci-fi adventure featuring a drug-addicted journalist sent to the mines of Kazakhstan, the frontline of the war being waged over a precious metal called Rhenium. The world-building is great, and the interior monologue of the protagonist is also very good, but the relationships with others are not particularly well done, so when some of them die (It's a war story, so, no, this is not a spoiler!), I don't feel particularly affected.

I had a little trouble sleeping last night so I binge-read Subterrene War Trilogy, Book #1: Germline (by T.C. McCarthy) and finished it! Thinking about what I wrote above in regard to the emotional distance in the protagonist's relationships, I'm willing to concede that it may have been deliberate on the author's part, reflecting the wall between the main character and others around him, cultivated by the character's drug use.

Overall, I give this book a "Pick" (3.75/5.00) for its descriptions of the grind of war, and the soldier's quest in the tunnels, above ground, in his head, and in his heart. There are two more books in the trilogy, from other character's POVs that I have on audio, and though I will keep them in my queue, I'm not jumping to get to them.

And now I'm going to start The Bone Season (Bone Season #1 by Samantha Shannon) - This is a fantasy novel featuring a clairvoyant or "dreamwalker" who is a political prisoner because of her gift. The descriptions that I have read make it seem like it should be a YA novel, but apparently not! We'll see!

I've read a light mystery, The Religious Body by Catherine Aird good for a hot day's reading.

Starting "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett, which handily covers both.

Finished Havana Libre by Robert Arellano. Full review written if you're interested, but I'm afraid this one fell a bit flat for me, aside from doing a pretty lovely job of depicting Havana, Cuba and Little Havana in Miami.

Finished Mission to Paris by Alan Furst yesterday. I'm not a huge fan of spy novels but this one was pretty good.

She Has Her Mother's Laugh; The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity by Carl Zimmer.

Sleep With the Lights On / Maggie Shayne
4 stars

Rachel has been blind since she was a teenager, and now she’s receiving a cornea transplant that finally “takes”. She has no idea what she’s in for. She received the corneas of a serial killer and is now having terrifying visions. And the killing continues…

I really liked this one. It kept me wanting to read. I did guess at the mystery very shortly before it was revealed, but I still really enjoyed the story to get there. Apparently, it is a series, and I do plan to continue.

COMPLETED State of Wonder by Ann Pratchett

Starting "My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises" by Fredrik Backman (no touchstones this morning)

Crossed / Ally Condie
3 stars

It’s been so long since I read the first book in the trilogy, I can only assume this is picking up where book 1 left off. I hope I’m not giving away any spoilers for book 1 by simply saying that Ky and Cassia have been separated and they are searching for each other.

I really hate when a series (especially one that continues right where the last one left off) doesn’t give some kind of recap of the previous book. I was pretty lost for a good portion of it, but it did pick up for me about half way through. Even though I still didn’t understand how the characters got to where they are now, at least I could just concentrate on what was happening “now”, in this part of the story. This was told in alternating viewpoints between Ky and Cassia. I liked a couple of the new characters, particularly Eli and Hunter. I will read the last book in the trilogy, if nothing else but for closure of the series. I’m rating this one “ok”, only because it was better in the second half.

I finished NW by Zadie Smith. I can't recommend it.

>28 Robertgreaves: 'My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises' (by Fredrik Backman) is the same as My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry.

Everyone once in a while there's a book like that, where an alternate title isn't discoverable. I had the same thing happen with The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Simon Mawer: In the US, it was published by Other Press under the title, 'Trapeze.'

COMPLETED My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman

>28 Robertgreaves: Touchstone now working again

The Summer before the war by Helen Simonson was terribly disappointing.

>33 VivienneR: Oh! I keep seeing that one on the shelf at our local Friends of the Library Book Shop, and I had been so tempted! What was so disappointing about it?

Had a nice time reading The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig.

>34 Tanya-dogearedcopy: It took a long time going nowhere. The dialogue was very stilted and nothing much happened for about 2/3 of the book. The scenes that took place during the war were brutal! I had trouble finishing it. I loved Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by the author.

Starting "Aristocrats" by Stella Tillyard.

I finished an A book, Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie and have started another A, The Age of Doubt by Andrea Camilleri.

I completed The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty for S.

>36 VivienneR: Totally agree. I loved Major Pettigrew, but this one just dragged until the war scenes (which flew by for me), but overall it was 200 pages too long. I think she tried to tackle too many "themes" (intolerance, individualism, the narrowness of small-town life), and ended up not really dealing with any of them in a satisfying way. I didn't care for any of the characters, and in my notes I see I commented on the forced nature of the dialogue. I especially disliked the "Henry James"-like character; very annoying and not funny.

Milkrun / Sarah Mlynowski
4 stars

When Jackie’s boyfriend leaves for Thailand (after she has packed up in order to follow him to Boston!) to “find himself”, then she hears from him that he’s found a new girlfriend, Jackie is devastated and doesn’t quite know what to do. With one of the very few girlfriends she has (she only has two, and one is in New York), she decides to get all dolled up and go out and find someone new.

This was fun! I wasn’t crazy about Jackie, herself, but parts of the story were quite amusing and I laughed out loud! Her job was entertaining (she’s a copy editor for a romance publisher). I don’t read a lot of chick lit, but I quite enjoy it when I do. This was a quick read and I do like this author. I really liked the ending.

Also reading Sleeping Angel by Greg Herren

COMPLETED Sleeping Angel by Greg Herren

Had a wonderful time reading Calypso, the latest from David Sedaris.

Read The South by Colm Toibin.

White Nights / Ann Cleeves
2.25 stars

A stranger has wandered into an art opening on the Shetland Islands, and makes a scene. He is later found dead – it is initially deemed a suicide, but on closer inspection, it appears to be a murder.

So, the premise sounds really good. I was hopeful. But, I was also listening to the audio, and it just couldn’t hold my interest. I did follow enough at the start to get my little summary (and it’s why the extra .25 stars), but it really went downhill after that, and I could rarely focus on what was going on. It makes me not want to continue the series, but I feel like I should try the 3rd one, just not on audio, and decide from there. I don’t remember the first book blowing me away, either, though I did rate it as “good”.

>46 LibraryCin: I liked that one far better than you did. I gave it 4 stars in 2011. I'd probably give it 3.5 today, based on more discriminating tastes. I did read it in print because I wasn't listening to audio books at that time.

August thread is up: http://www.librarything.com/topic/293612

COMPLETED Sins of the Fathers by Ruth Rendell

Completed book fits both "A" and "S" letters: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.

It took me two weeks to read The Bone Season (The Bone Season #1 by Samantha Shannon) and I'm disappointed that I didn't love it more. It's a fantasy novel that takes place in 2056 with an alternate history that starts in the UK in 1856: Prince Edward, in dabbling in the occult, breaks down the barriers between spiritual worlds. In 2056, Paige Mahoney, a young woman with the ability to place herself in others dreamscapes, is hunted down by the Scion and placed in a penal colony, Oxford. The world that Shannon builds is complicated, with orders of beings, a few more characters that are really needed to move the story along, lots of action that I'm not sure exactly what happened, and bizarrely, not any real tension. Despite a growing rebellion, danger around every corner, and issues of who to trust, I couldn't get overly concerned as I knew that this was the first in a current trilogy. Admittedly, it could be that this is a case where you only get out of a book what you put in: I'm mentally exhausted because of stuff and perhaps if I had been able to focus more this would have been more engaging. Still, I had borrowed the second book in the series, The Mime Order from the library but I think I'll just return it and move onto another book in my stacks.

I have finished Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott. I loved this story and this book is simply another reason why Megan Abbott is one of my favorite writers.

Read Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott. Which works for the S.

Finished Shanghai Girls by Lisa See for S. I really enjoyed this one.

COMPLETED A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell

Spaceman, An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino

Finished The Autumn Republic end of a trilogy. Flintlock fantasy quite good.

Now starting An Autumn War

For my "S" read I have completed Endangered by Eliot Schrefer. I gave 5 stars to this YA adventure story featuring bonobo apes.

In my quest to clear some really old books from my TBR shelf (pre-2013), I read And She Was by Alison Gaylin, a thriller with an unusual protagonist.

Starting Rivals of the Republic by Annelise Freisenbruch

Finished rereading via audiobook the classic Scaramouche - I love it! If you like Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and/or Dumas' The Three Musketeers, you should give this a try.

I also reread via audiobook the first Vorkosigan book, Shards of Honor.

I've been remiss at updating my A's and S's in this thread, but I've been posting them to the wiki, and I did complete Albion's Seed which fit both letters.

Killer Instinct / S.E. Green
4 stars

Lane is a teenager and has urges to hurt, or possibly even kill, people. She is fascinated by serial killers and begins to satisfy her urges by becoming a vigilante and hurting those people who seem to get away with a crime. In the meantime, she is contacted by a real-life serial killer, but why is the killer contacting her?

I thought this was really good. I was pulled in right away and found it fascinating (and a bit terrifying!) to be in Lane’s head! Being a YA book, it is a fast read. I listened to the audio and was kept interested. Lane did have a bit of a “softer” (somewhat) side to her when it came to her family and to animals, which I found kind of interesting, as well.

I have remembered that I have Peter Lovesey's Abracadaver on my shelf which will also fit this month's MysteryCAT :)

COMPLETED Rivals of the Republic by Annelise Freisenbruch

Starting "Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction" by Quentin Skinner.

Finished Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel which was really good!

I had always been wary of reading The Help (by Kathryn Stockett) for two reasons: 1) It was too popular! I usually avoid reading bestsellers, hyped books, Oprah books, etc., at least until the "buzz" has worn off and; 2) I wasn't sure about a Black narrative, written by a white woman, regardless of her affections for the help that was in her own family. However, it was the book selected by a member of my postal book group, so I dove in and read it in a few a few hours. It's the story of a white Southern woman named Skeeter Phelan who decides to transcribe the experiences of the help in her Mississippi town during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. If rather abruptly ended, the overall narrative is engaging and convincingly descriptive of some of the tensions that arise my merely taking up space as a black person in a white culture, and as a white woman treading a fine line between two worlds. I'm still not 100-per cent sure that a white woman should have written this book, but the fact remains that Ms. Stockett did write it, and in using Skeeter as a catalyst for the narrative, maintains the distance the author herself has from the Black Experience. Still, it's a good choice for book club discussions. (And, yeah, now I'm sorry I didn't read it sooner!)

COMPLETED Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction by Quentin Skinner

Finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

Started Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica / Laurie Gwen Shapiro
3.75 stars

Billy Gawronski’s parents immigrated from Poland to New York. He grew up wanting to be a sailor, and at 17, though his Dad wanted him to take over his successful interior design business, Billy stowed away on a ship belonging to his hero, Richard Byrd. Byrd had planned to be the first to fly over the Atlantic, but Lindberg just barely beat him to it. Instead, Byrd decided to head to Antarctica by ship, then to be the first to fly to the South Pole. Billy wanted to be part of it all.

This was good. It followed Billy (and Byrd), not just to Antarctica and back (and that is the bulk of the book), but I liked that it continued when they returned. They returned in 1930, just after the collapse of the stock market and the economy was bad, so it was not easy for any of the returning crew (though hailed as heroes) to find work at that time.

I finished Saint Martin's Summer by Sabatini and Abracadaver by Lovesey.

COMPLETED Arrival by Ted Chiang, also known as Stories of Your Life and Others, so it works for both.

Starting "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker.

It took me all of July to listen to it, but I just finished Swan Song (by Robert McCammon; narrated by Tom Stechschulte) - This is a horror/fantasy novel in which nuclear strikes have devasted the world. Against a perpetual winter landscape, survivors struggle with the breakdown of society, loss of technology, sicknesses, and death. Hope comes in the shape of a young girl who has the ability to call forth Life, and the mystic powers of a crazy bag lady on the streets of NYC who finds a melted mass of glass and jewels in the ruins of Fifth Avenue. The cast of characters, many plot devices, and themes are clearly ripped off from Stephen King's The Stand but McCammon is a better writer. Yep, I said it. Tom Stechschulte is the perfect narrator, bringing the 1980s zeitgeist and McCammon's characters to life.

Oh, this happens to me all the time. I am just starting All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wild which would cover A and S. It’s my August read for my F2F bookclub.

One more! Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder. And this book was so good. Full review written :)

Blood & Beauty / Sarah Dunant
2.5 stars

This book follows a fictional account of the Borgias. Rodrigo became pope in the late 1400s. He had four(?) children, including Cesare and Lucrezia. History has not looked upon them kindly. Rodrigo had a number of mistresses. Cesare, though becoming a cardinal (for a while) also slept around. There were rumors of incest among them, and murders happened. This book opens when the conclave is happening just as Rodrigo will be voted in as the new pope and Lucrezia is 13 years old and soon to be married.

How was this even acceptable for a pope!? How did he get voted in? (Hmmm, missed in in my reading of the book, but the summary tells me he bought his way to the papacy.) And for a cardinal (Cesare)? All the sleeping around. Even if there wasn’t any incest going on, Rodrigo’s children made it obvious he wasn’t celibate. Was this not a requirement of priests and higher ups in the Catholic Church at the time!? Anyway, I just didn’t find most of the book very interesting. I found the parts that focused on Lucrezia the most interesting and paid most attention to that, otherwise I was often skimming.

The Scent of the Night by Andrea Camilleri

Another good mystery featuring Salvo Montalbano and his crew. But for the life of me, I can't figure out why Livia and Montalbano are still trying to maintain their long-distance romance. They were never a good match.

Bonus: This one hits both letters.

I finished two more S books:
Lock 14 by Georges Simenon & The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo.
Also finished a short one that hits both S & A, The Butcher of Anderson Station by James S. A. Corey.

Here's my final results:

AlphaKIT - July - S & A

S
Simon Winchester / The Professor and the Madman - √ 16July18
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill - √ 19July18
John SANFORD / Heat Lightning - √ 26July18

A
ARMISTEAD Maupin / Michael Tolliver Lives - √ 28July18
Isabel ALLENDE / Island Beneath the Sea - √ 28July18

Managed to get in three "S" books in July:

The Story of English in 100 Words, by David Crystal
The Green Man, by Kate Sedley
Postcards from the Boys, by Ringo Starr

I finished Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for an A book.