Lisa's 2020 vision

(Our two kittens, Tipple and Chassé)

My 2020 vision is quite similar to 2019 with a few tweaks here and there. I'm still going to focus on series, 1001 books and books from my friend Lisa from across the pond. Like 2019, I also want to make room for a few presidential biographies, short story collections and favorite authors. Some new categories for Go Review That Book (I love this concept!) and Shakespeare, and re-used categories from years previous to 2019 for graphic novels and Virago Modern Classics. I'm adding one new series - the All Souls Trilogy, and bringing one series back from 2017 (Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole novels).

20 categories with a few goals here and there, and hopefully I'll have at least one book in each category. I have a category for CATs and KITs (for which I'm hosting 7!!! this year), where I fully expect to have lots of overlaps with other categories. And a category for my BingoDOG card, which I will let fill naturally for the most part.

I'm going to shoot for 64 books again in 2020, even though I haven't read that many since 2016, because why not aim high!

1. 1001 books

I want to read one a month - same goal as 2019, and I managed 10.



1. Invisible Cities - read in January
2. Pilgrimage - finished in March
3. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis - read in March
4. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - read in April
5. In Cold Blood - read in April
6. Crossfire - read in May

2. Finish The Wheel of Time

Seven to go:



1. Winter's Heart finished in March
2. Crossroads of Twilight finished in May

3. Finish catching up on The Dresden Files

I have these six, and hopefully the new one will come out in 2020!:



1. White Night (read in June)

4. US Presidents Challenge



A life-long challenge for me I think! I only managed one in 2019, will try for one a quarter in 2020:

John Tyler - John Tyler by Gary May, read in March
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore

5. Ender's Game

I have these four to read on my TBR and would like to read them all in 2020:


1. Xenocide - read in January

6. Books from Lisa

In the 12 years I've known Lisa, she has given me 120 books (I'll be getting the 2019 book gifts the second week in January)! I have a lot yet to read... I'd like to read one a month.

The first book she gave me:


1. Guns, Germs and Steel (finished in February)
2. The Siege (read in April)
3. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (read in April)
4. A Tale For the Time Being (read in May)

7. Short stories

I have tons of anthologies; here are two on my list for 2020 that are also 1001 books:

8. The Completist: Stephen King

The Stand is the one book in my entire library that I've re-read the most.


Stephen King is one of the authors where I want to read his entire fiction catalog. I have these books on my shelves that I haven't read yet:

Doctor Sleep
Bag of Bones
From a Buick 8
The Regulators
The Long Walk
Duma Key
Full Dark, No Stars
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
and with Peter Straub: Black House and The Talisman

9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks

He wrote his science fiction under Iain M. Banks and his 'normal' fiction under Iain Banks.

The first books of each that I read were:
and

Unread from my shelves:
Iain Banks:
Dead Air
A Song of Stone
Espedair Street
Whit
The Steep Approach to Garbadale
Walking on Glass

Iain M. Banks:
Surface Detail
Feersum Endjinn
Matter
Use of Weapons
Excession
Transition

10. Graphic Novels

I haven't read many graphic novels in the last few years and I'd like to read a few in 2020.

I have a several issues of The Sandman on my shelves, as well as a couple issues of Saga, and a few others to choose from.

11. Southern Vampire Mysteries

I finished all the Southern Vampire Mystery novels I had on my shelves in 2019 - I plan to pick up and read the five left in the series I haven't read yet.

1. Dead and Gone read in April

12. Virago Modern Classics

I didn't have a category for VMCs in 2019, but I did include one series and one multi-volume book. This year I'll read more one offs, and shoot for six. I'll also try to binge for All August All Virago.

1. Lantana Lane (read in April)

13. All Souls Trilogy

My boss' boss is a voracious reader and we give each other book recommendations all the time. This one came from him, and I'll try to get it read in 2020.

1. A Discovery of Witches (read in May)

14. Go Review That Book!

I love the concept of this LT group and I want to participate more in 2020. The first book I need to read and review is The Flight of the Phoenix.

1. The Flight of the Phoenix - read in January

15. Harry Hole by Jo Nesbo

I've read 2 and have 7 more on my TBR.

16. The Plays of William Shakespeare

I'm sure I've read many of his plays throughout my high school and college years but I don't really have a good memory of what I have and have not read, so I want to read/re-read them all!

17. Most collected, but unread!

I liked this idea in 2019, even though I will have only read one Heyer by the end of the year!

I took a look through my catalog and have a lot of books collected from certain authors where I haven't read even one yet. Quite often they are Virago Modern Classics, or recommended authors, or where I picked up a whole series that was recommended. So, these are the authors that are most collected, but unread, and I'd like to at least make a start!

Christine Feehan (12)
Nina Bawden (7)
George Eliot (6)
Rosamund Lehmann (6)

18. CATs and KITs

I'm hosting seven CATs/KITs this year and will certainly participate in many others along the way. I'll keep track of what fits the various CATs and KITs here, and I plan for lots of overlaps with the categories above.

January
SFFKIT - I Meant to Read It in 2019: Xenocide
RandomCAT - A New Year's Resolution: The Help
ScaredyKIT - 70s/80s horror/thriller: The Brownstone
TravelKIT - City vs. Country: Invisible Cities
Non-Fiction CAT - Journalism and News: Trace: Who Killed Maria James (finished in February)

February
TravelKIT - In Translation: The Mont Saint Michel, Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads
GeoCAT - Europe: The Mont Saint Michel, Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads
Non-fictionCAT - Travel: The Mont Saint Michel, Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads

March
RandomCAT - Seasons of Love: Winter's Heart
SFFKit - Series: Winter's Heart
ScaredyKIT - Haunted Place: The Thief of Always
NonFictionCAT - Biography: John Tyler
KITastrophe - Epidemics and Famine: The White Plague
AlphaKIT - G and C: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Thief of Always

April
RandomCAT - Showers and Flowers: Time Storm, Lantana Lane
SFFKit - Time Travel: Time Storm
AlphaKIT - S and T: Time Storm, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, In Cold Blood
ScaredyKIT - Paranormal: Dead and Gone, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
KITastrophe - Riots, Uprisings and Sieges: The Siege
Non-fictionCAT - Law and Order: In Cold Blood
GeoCAT - Australia, New Zealand and Oceania: Lantana Lane
TravelKIT - Related to a Place Where You Do Not Live: Lantana Lane, In Cold Blood, The Siege, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

May
GeoCAT - Any place you would like to visit: Crossfire, A Discovery of Witches
Non-fictionCAT - Science: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
ScaredyKIT - Occult: A Discovery of Witches
RandomCAT - Believe in Your Shelf: The Demolished Man
KITastrophe - Geologic Events: A Tale For the Time Being

19. Misc

If something somehow doesn't fit above, this is where it goes!

1. The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler by Norma Lois Peterson read in April

20. BingoDOG card



1. title contains a pun: A Tale For the Time Being
2. "library" or "thing" in title
3. pen name/anonymous author: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
4. books, bookstores, libraries: A Discovery of Witches
5. non-US/UK female author: Crossfire
6. epistolary or letters
7. periodic table element in title
8. from a Legacy Library: Invisible Cities
9. mystery or true crime: In Cold Blood
10. 3+ letters of "BINGO"
11. mythology or folklore
12. set in Asia
13. read a CAT: Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads
14. published in your birth year
15. red cover/red is prominent
16. published in 1820 or 1920
17. not set on Earth: Xenocide
18. published in 2020
19. about birth or death: The White Plague
20. proper name in title: The Mont Saint Michel
21. weird book title
22. small press or self-published
23. involves real historical event: The Help
24. LT author
25. by journalist/about journalism: Trace: Who Killed Maria James

And here's to a great year of reading in 2020! I'll be back in January sometime to add tickers and more pics/graphics/details and perhaps a few planned books.

Wonderful setup. Have a great reading year!

Happy reading in 2020! I will look forward to following along, particularly 1001 and Virago.

Great to see you all ready for 2020!

I really like your creative categories, Lisa. Looking forward to your reading updates and posts in 2020.

Have an excellent reading year! Looking forward to more hanging out with you in the Go Review That Book! group :)

I have a presidents category as well! Happy reading!

Happy reading in 2020!

I like your categories and I love Iain Banks! I currently have Espedair Street on my TBR.
I'm not sold on his Iain M. Banks books though. I really enjoyed Feersum Endjinn and Inversions but did not even finish Consider Phlebas.

I'll be following your reading in this and other categories with interest!

Lisa you have some great categories. I most especially love two of them and soon you will know why! ;-)

Love the cat photo at the top!

>1 LisaMorr: - OMG, they are adorable!

Love you setup. Happy reading in 2020!

Great categories! I'm looking forward to seeing what you choose to read. Love the kitties at >1 LisaMorr:

Great photo of the cats to open your thread.

>23 MissWatson:, >24 JayneCM:, >25 DeltaQueen50:, >26 This-n-That:, >29 Tess_W: Thank you all so much for visiting!

>27 rabbitprincess: Thanks - and I've finally read The Flight of the Phoenix!!! Just need to review it and assign something to the next person!

>28 LittleTaiko: Thanks, and here's to making more progress on our presidential biographies!

>30 chlorine: I read Consider Phlebas just to see what it was like - I had already read The Player of Games, Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist, which were all very good, so the completist in me said read it! I agree it was a more difficult book to get through. What other Iain Banks books have you read?

>30 chlorine: Yay Ro! And yay Harry, in all his forms...

>32 thornton37814:, >33 lkernagh:, >34 VivienneR:, >35 hailelib: Thanks! They are soooo cute and I miss them so much when I travel, thought it would be nice to have them at the top of my thread!

And here's a New Year's Eve pic with George Takei!

>37 LisaMorr: - Great picture!

#1 Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
592 pages
Category: Ender's Game
Fits: SFFKit, AlphaKIT, BingoDOG

Xenocide is the third book in the Ender's Game series and explores the increasing risk to Lusitania, a planet housing the only other two sentient species in the galaxy, along with a virus that would kill every human if it could. The book starts in space as Ender's sister travels to Lusitania to see her brother. It also reaches far away to a planet called Path, where certain citizens are touched by God, which causes them to be both incredibly smart and also servants to brutal OCD symptoms. Card somehow brings this all together into a really interesting mix, at times having the two non-human sentient species talk to each other. A good book and I'm looking forward to what happens next.

>37 LisaMorr: Look at you! I bet you had fun.

>37 LisaMorr: Awesome!!!

>38 lkernagh:, >40 luvamystery65:, >41 rabbitprincess: Thanks! Yes, I was a fangirl on this cruise!

>37 LisaMorr: Awesome! I've just started Takei's book, which I borrowed from the library.

>37 LisaMorr: - How cool! Great way to end the year.

>43 kac522: He was a celebrity lecturer on the cruise; he gave one lecture on his experience in the Japanese-American internment camps, one on his acting career and a Q&A session. He also did book signings. I hope you like the book - it was the last book I read in 2019, a very quick read and I thought very well done.

>44 LittleTaiko: Yes - agreed!

>37 LisaMorr: Very cool and interesting way to kick off the new year.

#2 The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor
312 pages
Category: Go Review That Book!
Fits: N/A

A cargo plane with a few oil drillers and military folks on board goes into a sandstorm and ends up crash landing in the middle of the desert (central Libya). What proceeds is a harrowing tale of how the survivors managed to fly out of the desert. I read it in just a little over a day - having to turn the next page to see if they could survive another day of heat, little water, only dates to eat, rivalries and stubbornness.

There was a lot of technical jargon, some of it that I didn't really follow - but I would've been helped if I had noticed the last page of the book earlier, which had a diagram of what they were trying to create!

Some of the characters were more well described than others and you didn't always understand what drove certain characters to do what they did.

In the end though, I enjoyed this book that my Dad passed on to me several years ago.

Late in getting around to wish you a Happy Year of Reading!

>48 Kristelh: Thanks very much - I am VERY late in visiting threads this year, no worries!

#3 The Help by Kathryn Stockett
534 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: RandomCAT, BingoDOG

I think everyone but me has either read the book or seen the movie. My hair stylist gave this book to me to read a few months ago and although I pulled it out a few times to read, other books that were part of my series focus last year always got the nod over this one. January's RandomCAT and a hair appointment next week pushed me to crack it open. So glad I did. Told in the viewpoints of two maids and a young woman aspiring to be a writer in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi, The Help was funny, difficult, suspenseful, sad and in the end hopeful. Excellent book.

Good luck with your reading.

>51 lowelibrary: Thank you!

#4 The Brownstone by Ken Eulo
75 pages (DNF)
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: ScaredyKIT

I started reading this thinking it might be something like The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz. Then I got the impression it was going to be a Rosemary's Baby knockoff. I gave it as good a chance as I could but had to stop after 75 pages. Bad writing, very cliched, the storyline didn't make sense and there were inconsistencies from page to page, from character to character. Ugh!

Starred your thread and looking forward your next reviews.

>53 LisaMorr: Kudos for being able to give up on a book you didin't like. That's something I'm trying to do more.

>50 LisaMorr: My IRL book group are reading The Help next, so I am hoping to get it read next month. I've heard mixed things about it (plus the controversy - not unlike the current American Dirt controversy - so I'm feeling a bit conflicted about reading it).

>54 chlorine: Thanks - I pretty much commit to finishing reading every 1001 book and anything I've committed to provide a review on, and luckily this was not one of those. I actually don't remember when I last put a book down saying to myself that I wasn't going to try to finish (I do have books laying around that I stopped reading, planned to get back to and still haven't gotten back to, but not with the express intention of never going back to them...). And I still read a few more pages that I should've!

>55 Jackie_K: I have thought about this - when I looked to the back of the book to see who the author was and read her bio, I was concerned. And that's probably partly the reason why it took me so long to read it. I've also been reading some of the comments and controversy about American Dirt, and while I'm sure some criticism is warranted, it doesn't seem exactly the same (although I haven't read American Dirt). What I thought about how the experience was related in The Help is that eyes were opened, and people were ashamed. Can people of one race not write authentically about people of another race (or religion, sexual orientation, etc...)? Is it wrong to try? Is it OK to feel some hope from a book like this, and also feel terrible about how things were (and still are in many places)? I guess I could go on and on... and I'm probably not hitting the point exactly right and putting my foot in my mouth also.

It's definitely a great book for a RL book club, and I look forward to seeing how the discussion goes for you.

#5 Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
165 pages
Category: 1001
Fits: TravelKIT, BingoDOG

At 165 pages, it should've been a quicker read for me, but nothing really happens - Marco Polo just describes imaginary cities to Kublai Khan, and it turns out they are all Venice. Lots of beautiful imagery, but I would've liked more plot.

>57 LisaMorr: This one is on my wishlist but for some reason I was under the impression that it was very long, in the order of 1,000 pages. Thanks for setting this right for me. I'll be less scared to pick it up!

Just catching up on reading your reviews here and it looks like you've made good progress with BingoDog. That's great you enjoyed reading The Help. I am guessing your hair stylist was relieved you liked it too? :)

January Summary

Five books in January, for an average page count of 296. Also finished the first novel in Pilgrimage 4, Oberland.

I'm trying to read more books that I've had around for a while and did really well with 4/5 books read on my shelves for a few years:

2008 or older: 1
2011: 1
2013: 2
2019: 1

More statistics:
1/5 books by women authors
0 non-fiction books
countries visited: US, Libya, Italy, Mongolia
CATs, KITs and DOGs: RandomCAT, TravelKIT, ScaredyKIT, SFFKit, AlphaKIT, BingoDOG

Category Progress:
1. 1001 books - 1
2. Wheel of Time series - 0
3. The Dresden Files - 0
4. US Presidents Challenge - 0
5. Ender's Game - 1
6. Books from Lisa - 0
7. Short Stories - 0
8. The Completist: Stephen King - 0
9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks - 0
10. Graphic Novels - 0
11. Southern Vampire Mysteries - 0
12. Virago Modern Classics - 0
13. All Souls Trilogy - 0
14. Go Review That Book! - 1
15. Harry Hole - 0
16. William Shakespeare - 0
17. Most collected, but unread! - 0
18. CATs and KITs - 4 (may have duplicates)
19. Miscellaneous - 0
20. BingoDOG - 3 (will have duplicates)

Best of the month: The Help - 5 stars

>58 chlorine: Yes! It's a reasonably quick read
>59 This-n-That: Yes, she was!

February (and beyond!) Reading Plans

I've had an ER book to read for a while now, and I realized at the end of January that it would actually fit the January non-fiction theme, so I just finished it on Saturday, and it was great (review coming!).

I'm going in for knee replacement surgery tomorrow and I'm pulling together a bunch of books from around the house right now, because I'll be a lot less ambulatory for a while. Pretty sure I won't read all these in February, but I've pulled books to fit some of the CATs and KITs and will be my next books in each of my categories.

ScaredyKIT: Psychological Thriller - The House on the Strand fits my VMC category

The following books will fit TravelKIT: In Translation, GeoCAT: Europe and Non-fiction CAT: Travel -
Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads, The mont Saint Michel Rubens house,
Funny Tales from Daily Life in the Westfjords of Iceland

Also, I pulled out Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst which will fit the GeoCAT and AlphaKIT and also fits my Books from Lisa category.

RandomCAT: published in a leap year: two books by Stephen King that fit my The Completist: Stephen King category: Duma Key and The Talisman.

KITastrophe: Suite Francaise which is also a 1001 book and fits my Books from Lisa category. And AlphaKIT.

AlphaKIT: Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, fits my Books from Lisa category, and AlphaKIT.

1001 books: Finish Pilgrimage 4. Also I pulled out Crossfire to meet the January challenge over on the 1001 page.

Wheel of Time: Winter's Heart

Dresden Files: White Night

US Presidents Challenge: John Tyler and The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler

Ender's Game: Children of the Mind

Books from Lisa: besides the ones mentioned above, I'd like to read Black and British for Black History Month. And I'm just about to finish Guns, Germs and Steel.

Anthologies: Both are also 1001 books - Obabakoak and This Way For the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen

The Completist: Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons

Graphic Novels: The Sandman, Volume 3

Harry Hole: Cockroaches

Virago Modern Classics: Far Cry from Kensington

All my best wishes for a successful operation and a reasonably comfortable recuperation, Lisa. I'm glad you're focused on the important thing - having books be easily accessible.

Best of luck with the surgery! And I agree with >63 RidgewayGirl: You have the exact right priorities :D

Best wishes for a speedy recovery - and lots of enjoyable reading while you do.

Good luck with your surgery! I hope you can enjoy your books.

Good luck for the surgery and post-op recovery! I hope the new knee gives you a new lease of life, and you get the chance for some good reads!

>62 LisaMorr: Hope the recovery from surgery goes smoothly. I love The House on the Strand—probably my favorite of hers after Rebecca.

Good luck with the surgery, Lisa, and best wishes for a quick recovery.

>63 RidgewayGirl:, >64 rabbitprincess:, >65 JayneCM:, >66 MissWatson:, >67 Jackie_K:, >68 NinieB:, >69 DeltaQueen50:

Thank you all! Surgery went well and I'm home now. So far I've finished only one book - knee replacement is exhausting!

>70 LisaMorr: Great news! Hope you have a speedy recovery.

>71 JayneCM: That's good news. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

>70 LisaMorr: glad to hear the surgery went well! Best wishes for a quick recovery!

>71 JayneCM:, >72 MissWatson:, >73 chlorine: Thank you so much!

I think PT is probably the hardest (and necessary) part of recuperation from replacement surgery. Good luck to you.

Good luck with your recovery! I've had both replaced and I know recovery is a bear!

Too late to wish you all the best with your surgery, I'm wishing you a quick recovery and all the best.

>75 markon: You are so right! Thanks very much.
>76 Tess_W: This is my second knee, so I definitely knew what to expect, but there are always some things that are a bit different. I understand that our memories of pain are not that accurate (or women would never have a second child, right?) - but I definitely think I am having more pain this time. That being said, I'm making good progress - I can bend up to 108 degrees already and I'm pretty straight so far (flattening my leg is one the more challenging things so far).
>77 VivienneR: Thanks so much - I appreciate your good wishes in recovery very much!

#6 Trace: Who Killed Maria James? by Rachael Brown
289 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: Non-fiction CAT, BingoDOG

Trace: Who Killed Maria James?, an ER book, was about a cold case murder of a Melbourne, Australia book shop owner that happened in 1980. The author, a journalist, spent 16 months investigating this murder for a podcast that eventually aired in 2017. It was really well done, covering what happened in 1980, jumping ahead to the journalist's investigation, and then back to the murder, and also in between, as additional parts of the investigation continued. The journalist's investigation led to new leads and questions about the original investigation and why certain leads were not completely followed up on way back then. It was disturbing at times as leads explored both pedophile priests and ritual killings. I was a bit disappointed with the ending, because eventually you have to publish the book and everything has not yet been resolved; I checked on line and was happy to see that the historical inquest was re-opened. Still more to come though in this true crime case. I will be checking in periodically!. It was a page-turner for me and overall a very good book.

#7 Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years by Jared Diamond
425 pages
Category: Books from Lisa
Fits: N/A

I started reading this book sometime last year and after a pretty fast start, it took me ~6 months to finish the last three chapters. The concepts are really interesting, but after a while Diamond was just too repetitive for me. In it, Diamond tries to answer the question of a New Guinean who wants to know why Diamond's people are the 'haves' and why his people are the 'have-nots'. While there is certainly a lot more explored in its 425 pages (not counting the bibliography or index), the main concepts that resonated with me are how the east-west axis of Eurasia was more conducive to the spread of people and ideas than the north-south axes of the Americas and Africa and secondly how Eurasia started out with a more beneficial food and animal 'package' than did either Africa or the Americas. I can understand why it won the Pulitzer.

#8 The Mont Saint Michel by Lucien Bely
32 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: TravelKIT, GeoCAT, Non-Fiction CAT, BingoDOG

I picked up this beautifully illustrated short history of Mont Saint Michel when I visited in 1977. I really enjoyed learning more about the architecture and the history of this beautiful abbey situated on a 170 meter block of granite in Normandy, France.

#9 Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads by Toomas Vendelin
63 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: TravelKIT, GeoCAT, Non-Fiction CAT, BingoDOG

I picked up this souvenir on my trip to Tallinn in 2012; it starts with a brief history and discussion of trade, guilds and the fortress. Then there is an excellent overhead photo of the old city with each building and tower numbered; the book then describes each area of the city with additional history and photos of the buildings including interesting architectural details. It brought back great memories of my trip.

>81 LisaMorr: Mont St-Michel is a place very appealing to me but for some reason I've never visited it. Lucky you to have seen it, and as a coincidence it was during my birth year! :)

>81 LisaMorr:
>83 chlorine:

I had the pleasure to visit in 2005 and thought it beautiful and very historical, as well.

>83 chlorine: 1977 was my first trip to France - loved it! It's so beautiful - and since you don't live too far, you should check it out!
>84 Tess_W: It's really something, isn't it?

>85 LisaMorr: Yes I definitely plan on visiting it one day!

February Summary

Four books in February, for an average page count of 202 - two short travel books brought the average down. It turns out having your knee replaced is not that conducive to getting lots more reading done, LOL. I finished the second novel in Pilgrimage 4, Dawn's Left Hand, and made good progress with the third novel, Clear Horizon.

I'm trying to read more books that I've had around for a while and did really well with 4/5 books read on my shelves for a few years:

2008 or older: 1
2012: 1
2018: 1
2019: 1

More statistics:
1/4 books by women authors
3 non-fiction books
countries visited: Australia, France, Estonia, and 6 of 7 continents with Guns, Germs and Steel
CATs, KITs and DOGs: GeoCAT, TravelKIT, BingoDOG

Category Progress:
1. 1001 books - 1
2. Wheel of Time series - 0
3. The Dresden Files - 0
4. US Presidents Challenge - 0
5. Ender's Game - 1
6. Books from Lisa - 1
7. Short Stories - 0
8. The Completist: Stephen King - 0
9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks - 0
10. Graphic Novels - 0
11. Southern Vampire Mysteries - 0
12. Virago Modern Classics - 0
13. All Souls Trilogy - 0
14. Go Review That Book! - 1
15. Harry Hole - 0
16. William Shakespeare - 0
17. Most collected, but unread! - 0
18. CATs and KITs - 7 (may have duplicates)
19. Miscellaneous - 0
20. BingoDOG - 5 (will have duplicates)

Best of the month: Trace: Who Killed Maria James, 4 stars

March Reading Plans

FINISH Pilgrimage with Pilgrimage 4! I'm on page 381 out of 658, and hopefully nothing will stop me from completing it this month. It's not an easy or quick read; I've tried to improve my progress by rewarding myself with a chapter of a 'more fun' book for every chapter completed in Pilgrimage 4.

1001 monthly challenge: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Bell Jar or Inside Mr. Enderby

And for the CATs and KITs:

RandomCAT: Winter's Heart, fits my Wheel of Time category
SFFKit: also Winter's Heart
Non-fictionCAT: The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, fits my US Presidents Challenge category
ScaredyKIT: The Thief of Always and maybe The Thirteenth Tale
KITastrophe: The White Plague and maybe Everything Flows
GeoCAT: so many to choose from; have narrowed it down to
Moon Tiger (Egypt) - fits my books from Lisa category
White Castle (Turkey) - books from Lisa
Snow (Turkey) - fits my 1001 category
In the Heart of the Seas (Israel) - fits my 1001 category
The Sheik (Algeria) - fits my VMC category
TravelKIT: haven't found anything yet, maybe something above will fit
AlphaKIT: G & C, looking at the above list, the following would fit: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Thief of Always by Clive Barker, Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman

And that's a big pile of books!

#10 Pilgrimage 4 by Dorothy Richardson
658 pages
Category: 1001 books
Fits: N/A

Finally finished the 2110 page work that is Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson with Pilgrimage 4. This last volume includes the five novels Oberland, Dawn's Left Hand, Clear Horizon, Dimple Hill and March Moonlight.

Oberland was different from all the rest of the Pilgrimage novels up to this point as it is about a vacation Miriam took to the Swiss Alps. Instead of going around London, this was focused on the natural beauty of Switzerland, with some focus on her interactions with the other people staying at the lodge. And her great love of tobogganing!

Dawn's Left Hand was kind a vague novel which had Miriam spending time with Hypo and his wife, and with Hypo alone, and also getting to know Amabel.

In Clear Horizon, Miriam continues her relationship with Amabel, meets with Michael again and introduces Amabel to Hypo. Amabel gets arrested while participating in the suffragette movement. Miriam asks a doctor she had turned down romantically for help with her sister, who is sick. The doctor confirm she needs surgery. Miriam is of course aghast as her sister and her husband have fallen on hard times and there is no money for an operation. The doctor has actually found another doctor who will perform the surgery for free and a Florence Nightingale Home where her sister can stay for practically nothing. The doctor also diagnoses Miriam with a nervous breakdown. It has been referenced from time to time that Miriam stays up all night, and gets up very early, and doesn't eat very well, and I guess this is what it has resulted in.

Dimple Hill sees Miriam taking a six-month sabbatical from work; she travels around and stays at several different hotels/boarding houses, at first traveling with friends, and then later staying with a family of Quakers that Michael recommended. She really enjoys her time there, practically becoming an honorary Quaker.

In the last novel, March Moonlight, which was published posthumously, Miriam takes a few breaks from Dimple Hill, the Quaker farm, to go back to London, to visit Amabel and Michael, and then when she goes back to Dimple Hill, she hears that someone else will be coming in September, an ex-Catholic priest, also suffering from a nervous breakdown. And in the meantime, Miriam needs to leave Dimple Hill for a while because Miss Rescorla will be away for a while - I guess she can't stay there if she's the only female? So Miriam stays in what I would characterize as a YWCA. She befriends a Russian woman there who comes to depend on Miriam, as she feels no one else likes her. Sadly, she commits suicide shortly after Miriam leaves.. When Miriam goes back to Dimple Hill, she finds that the French ex-Catholic priest, Charles, is already there. She takes the opportunity to speak French to Charles, which he really appreciates and she leaves her book, Modern Thought, out for him to discover, and they proceed to have lots of discussions about it. Charles declares his love for her, and she has to leave Dimple Hill because the Rescorlas won't let them both stay under the same roof after Charles tells them he loves her. Miriam confesses something to him (maybe about her affair with Hypo?) and she leaves and doesn't come back. The end of the book has Miriam talking up lodging at another boarding house, with the plan to make her living by writing, and living very frugally.

My overall thoughts on the entire work:

Four books actually, and more than 2100 pages, of living inside Miriam Henderson's mind in this stream of consciousness work, encompassing 13 novels. I'm glad for the experience of reading this work, but it was not an easy or fast read. It was difficult to follow who was who and to actually understand at times what was happening. At the time of its publication (over several years), her critics didn't suspect it was based on the author's life. I had to read a lot of reference material to understand the actual events taking place - for example, Miriam's mother commits suicide at the end of the first book (as Dorothy Richardson's mother did), but it was not explicitly stated anywhere in the book. I do not know how you would infer this. Also, she has an affair with Hypo (actually H. G. Wells in real life) and supposedly gets pregnant and has a miscarriage (by reading the Wikipedia explanation) - I had no idea from the book that this had happened.

Full of excruciating detail of people, their clothes, houses, furniture, the London streets, and nature, it went very slowly, Still I was interested in what it was like for a single woman to live and work on her own in London in the early 1900s. To attend lectures, read, and learn and question others about philosophy, to travel to Switzerland, live with a Quaker family, fall in love and have men fall in love with her, and to always stay single and live as independently as possible.

>89 LisaMorr: Did you read all five novels on this book in sequel or did you read other stuff in between?
It does seem like an important work.

>90 chlorine: So, I will confess, that I pretty much alternated a chapter of Pilgrimage 4 with a chapter of some other 'fun' (more plot-driven) book, kind of as a reward! Sometimes, if the chapters in Pilgrimage 4 were really short, I might've read a few in a row. It was definitely a difficult read!

It took me 14 months to read all four books and 2110 pages!

>90 chlorine: You say you confess to alternate between books as if it was a bad thing, I don't think so! It's quite an achievement to have finished this book and you're perfectly right to have managed this in any way you found enjoyable!
Now you can spend the rest of the year reading fun books. ;)

Good luck with your quest to finish Wheel of Time. You are giving me inspiration to continue. I've finished 7 books so far, so I'm a little bit behind you. To be honest, the last few were a chore to read at times, but I feel like I've invested too much in this series to give up now. I'll be eager to see your reviews.

>92 chlorine: Thanks for that. And I am looking forward to no more 2110 page tomes this year that are hard to read; I do imagine I'll read some 1001 books that are not the easiest though. That's ok - the sense of accomplishment is nice too.

>93 mathgirl40: Just finished Winter's Heart and will be posting my review shortly. I was looking back on my comments on the three I read last year - I did find the 6th book a slog for ~300 pages, but then it got exciting. I thought books 7 and 8 were pretty good, and 9 has been a good read; I'm excited to see some changes in 10, based on the ending in book 9! Good luck getting back to it one of these days - I think it's been a worthwhile series to read.

#11 Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
668 pages
Category: Wheel of Time
Fits: RandomCAT, SFFKit

Winter's heart, the ninth book in the Wheel of Time series, made progress in a number of storylines, and of course there is still a lot more to go. Mat finally gets to meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons, Rand has his relationships with Min, Elayne and Aviendha formalized in a way, and Perrin is still searching for Faile. The ending of this one leads me to think that the tone of the next book, and the remainder of the series, will change a bit, and I'm looking forward to that!

#12 The Thief of Always: A Fable by Clive Barker
225 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: ScaredyKIT, AlphaKIT

I've never read any of Barker's YA and at first I thought this book was a little too juvenile for me. The main character Harvey Swick was just a little too annoying in the beginning, but maybe that was on purpose? I kept with it and it turned out to be pretty good.

Harvey is bored to tears with the February blues - Christmas was too long ago and Easter is too far away. He's hoping and wishing for something to happen, and of course it does - he gets invited to the Holiday House, where he gets everything he wishes for and more. And of course, there's a catch.

After seeing so many folks do the PopSugar challenge, I thought I'd at least see how well I do with it this year. Much like the BingoDOG, I don't really plan to search out books for the prompts, but just see where my regular reading falls. And if towards the end of the year, I'm close to completing I might look for books that meet the remaining prompts.

ETA: This is probably cheating WRT the way it's meant to be done, but I'm going to list every book I've read that I think meets the prompts here, and then later delete them and see how many prompts end up getting completed without double-(or triple+)dipping.

1. A book that's published in 2020
2. A book by a trans or nonbinary author
3. A book with a great first line
4. A book about a book club
5. A book set in a city that has hosted the Olympics Crossfire, A Tale For the Time Being
6. A bildungsroman
7. The first book you touch on a shelf with your eyes closed
8. A book with an upside-down image on the cover
9. A book with a map: Winter's Heart, Crossroads of Twilight
10. A book recommended by your favorite blog, vlog, podcast, or online book club Crossfire, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
11. An anthology
12. A book that passes the Bechdel test: Pilgrimage 4, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
13. A book with the same title as a movie or TV show but is unrelated to it: Crossfire
14. A book by an author with flora or fauna in their name
15. A book published the month of your birthday: The Help
16. A book about or by a woman in STEM
17. A book that won an award in 2019
18. A book on a subject you know nothing about: Guns, Germs and Steel
19. A book with only words on the cover, no images or graphics
20. A book with a pun in the title: A Tale For the Time Being
21. A book featuring one of the seven deadly sins The White Plague, The Help, The Thief of Always, Trace: Who Killed Maria James, Xenocide, The Flight of the Phoenix, Crossfire, A Discovery of Witches
22. A book with a robot, cyborg, or Al character
23. A book with a bird on the cover
24. A fiction or nonfiction book about a world leader: John Tyler, The White Plague, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler
25. A book with "gold," "silver," or "bronze" in the title
26. A book by a WOC
27. A book with at least a four-star rating on Goodreads: The Thief of Always, Trace: Who Killed Maria James, Invisible Cities, The Help, Pilgrimage 4, Guns, Germs and Steel
28. A book you meant to read in 2019: Xenocide, Pilgrimage 4, Winter's Heart
29. A book about or involving social media
30. A book that has a book on the cover: Pilgrimage 4
31. A medical thriller: The White Plague
32. A book with a made-up language
33. A book set in a country beginning with "C"
34. A book you picked because the title caught your attention
35. A book with a three-word title: The White Plague
36. A book with a pink cover
37. A Western
38. A book by or about a journalist: Trace: Who Killed Maria James
39. Read a banned book during Banned Books Week
40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Advanced
1. A book written by an author in their 20s
2. A book with "20" or "twenty" in the title
3. A book with a character with a vision impairment or enhancement (a nod to 20/20 vision): The Siege
4. A book set in Japan, host of the 2020 Olympics: Crossfire, A Tale For the Time Being
5. A book set in the 1920s: Pilgrimage 4
6. A book by an author who has written more than 20 books: The Thief of Always, Xenocide, The White Plague, The Flight of the Phoenix, Winter's Heart
7. A book with more than 20 letters in its title: Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler
8. A book published in the 20th century: Winter's Heart, Pilgrimage 4, Guns, Germs and Steel, The Thief of Always, Invisible Cities, Xenocide, The White Plague, Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads, The Mont Saint Michel, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Crossfire, The Demolished Man
9. A book from a series with more than 20 books: John Tyler
10. A book with a main character in their 20s: Pilgrimage 4, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Crossfire, Winter's Heart, Crossroads of Twilight

>97 LisaMorr: Advanced prompt #4 could also be used next year, given that the Olympics have been postponed.

The challenge is most tempting... must resist...

#13 John Tyler by Gary May
183 pages
Category: US Presidents Challenge
Fits: Non-fictionCAT, AlphaKIT

This was a good short biography of a president who consistently places very low when historians rate presidents, essentially a 'historical dwarf'. On the positive side, his relatively unchallenged ascent to the presidency upon Harrison's death helped pave the way for future VPs to have smooth takeovers. He had some good foreign policy successes with Great Britain and China. He also stood up to Henry Clay and didn't let Clay try to run the government, thereby weakening the presidency. On the negative side - Texas and, after his presidency, his vote to approve the succession of Virginia. His push to preserve and extend a slave-holding America with the annexation of Texas accelerated the US on the path to the civil war.

One thing that I was totally clueless about and was a bit eye-opening was Tyler's pursuit of and eventual marriage to Julia Gardiner, 30 years his junior. It was evidently a happy marriage and produced seven children, giving Tyler 15 children in total - wow!

>98 rabbitprincess: I resisted PopSugar for a loooong time... Good luck! :)

#14 The White Plague by Frank Herbert
445 pages
Category: CATS and KITs
Fits: KITastrophe, BingoDOG

Reading about this man-made plague right now wasn't too bad as the plague in this book kills all the women, which is worse than what we are currently dealing with. John O'Neill is in Dublin with his wife and twins when they are killed in an IRA terrorist bombing. He goes back home and comes up with the worst revenge he can think of - a plague targeted at Ireland, England and Libya (who he sees as all part of the bombing) that kills only women. Of course, a plague like this can spread beyond a country's borders, and soon the world is in a race to cure the plague and prevent the end of the world. I liked it, but it wasn't quite a 4* read for me; there are only three female characters of note and there was a lot of arguing about Catholicism in Ireland which dragged a bit. I think it would be really neat to have a post-apocalyptic book describing how things continued in a world where the man to woman ratio is ~10,000 to 1.

>97 LisaMorr: I love the PopSugar Challenge but decided not to add it this year as I already have so many books lined up with my current challenges, CATs, KITs and Bingo. Maybe if I look like I am ahead later in the year? I love the look of the categories they have this year.

>102 JayneCM: I haven't really added it as a challenge per se - I'm not actually going to pick books for the prompts, but if a book I read for one of my other categories fits, then I'll list it. I think this is the first time that I could see my regular reading fitting a lot of the prompts! You read a lot more than me - I think you could do it!

I'm finding the number of challenges I'm part of this year already too much! (I'm doing the Non-Fic challenge from the 75 group, GeoCAT, TravelKIT and Non-FicCAT). The main thing that has been pushed to one side is the year-long read of Jerusalem by Alan Moore, which is a brilliant book but I'm just not making the time for it. Hopefully I'll carve out some time for it over the next couple of months.

I've done the PopSugar Challenge for 2018 and 2019 but decided to give it a miss this year as I had so many other challenges to tackle, but I do miss it and will probably get back to it next year.

>101 LisaMorr: You might be interested in The first century after Béatrice by Amin Maalouf. It's an anticipation novel in which a product can be taken by a woman so that she will give birth to a boy, but there's a catch: people discover that women who have taken this product once can never again give birth to girls... The novel tracks the spread of the imbalance between male and female births over time and different regions in the world, and the impact it has o society.

>106 chlorine: Oh, that looks very interesting!

>106 chlorine: I will definitely look for that one - thanks!

#15 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani
200 pages
Category: 1001 books
Fits: AlphaKIT

This short book takes place in Ferrara, Italy at the beginning of WWII and traces the Jewish narrator's relationship with the Finzi-Contini family, an aristocratic Jewish family with a big beautiful home within a very large walled estate. Very lyrical and bittersweet.

March Summary

Six books in March, for an average page count of 396 - more reading during this time of social distancing. Finally finished Pilgrimage!!!

I'm trying to read more books that I've had around for a while and did really well with 6/6 books read on my shelves for a few years:

2008 or older: 3
2016: 1
2017: 2

More statistics:
1/6 books by women authors - need to do better!
1 non-fiction books
countries visited: England, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland, USA
CATs, KITs and DOGs: AlphaKIT, RandomCAT, SFFKit, ScaredyKIT, Non-fictionCAT, KITastrophe

Category Progress:
1. 1001 books - 3
2. Wheel of Time series - 1
3. The Dresden Files - 0
4. US Presidents Challenge - 1
5. Ender's Game - 1
6. Books from Lisa - 1
7. Short Stories - 0
8. The Completist: Stephen King - 0
9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks - 0
10. Graphic Novels - 0
11. Southern Vampire Mysteries - 0
12. Virago Modern Classics - 0
13. All Souls Trilogy - 0
14. Go Review That Book! - 1
15. Harry Hole - 0
16. William Shakespeare - 0
17. Most collected, but unread! - 0
18. CATs and KITs - 12 (may have duplicates)
19. Miscellaneous - 0
20. BingoDOG - 7 (will have duplicates)

Best of the month: The White Plague and Winter's Heart, both 4 stars

Popping in to say hello Lisa.

>111 luvamystery65: Hi Ro! I hope you're doing well!

Quarterly Summary

Fifteen books read, which suggests I'll finish 60 books by year-end, which is pretty close to my goal.

3 of 15 books read were by women - I can see that many of the series I've picked for this year are by men, so will need to do better with the 1001 books, books from Lisa and CATS and KITs to see if I get that number up.

13 of 15 books read were acquired 2018 or earlier.

Average page count 324; last year it was 318 - just depends on how many BFBs I get through! I have quite a few tomes planned, so we'll see where it gets to.

And out of 20 categories, I haven't read anything in the following yet:
The Dresden Files
Short Stories
The Completist: Stephen King
The Completist: Iain M. Banks
Graphic Novels
Southern Vampire Mysteries
Virago Modern Classics
All Souls Trilogy
Harry Hole
William Shakespeare
Most Collected, But Unread

I can see a couple of these that I will be trying to hit in April, so that's a start.

Best reads:
5 * - The Help
4 * - Trace: Who Killed Maria James, Xenocide, Winter's Heart, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads

Worst: The Brownstone by Ken Eulo - DNF...

April Reading Plans

I plan to finish The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, which I started last month. And I'd like to continue the Wheel of Time series with Crossroads of Twilight and also the Dresden Files with White Night.

1001 monthly challenge: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

CATs and KITs:
GeoCAT: The Narrow Road to the Deep North (fits my Books from Lisa category) or Lantana Lane (fits my VMC category)
SFFKit: Time Storm
RandomCAT: Time Storm
Non-fictionCAT: In Cold Blood (fits my 1001 books category)
ScaredyKIT: Dead and Gone (fits my Southern Vampire Mysteries category) and also maybe The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (fits my Books from Lisa category) and Crossfire (fits my 1001 books category)
KITastrophe: The Siege (fits my Books from Lisa category)
AlphaKIT: Time Storm, In Cold Blood, The Siege, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, Crossroads of Twilight
TravelKIT: probably almost the books mentioned above could fit, we'll see

#16 Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson
441 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: AlphaKIT, SFFKit, RandomCAT

Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson is a very different take on time travel. 'Time storms' started to appear on earth - these were stationary or moving storm fronts. The moving storm fronts would change the time period of the areas they moved through - either to the future or the past. Most people didn't survive if they passed through a storm front (or it passed over them). The story follows the main character, Marc, and a mute girl and a leopard that he connects with, as they travel around the country looking for a solution.

I didn't really like the protagonist very much - he was quite self-absorbed and sexist - and there wasn't much substance to the female characters: a product of the time it was written (1977).

The ending was pretty bizarre - I felt like I was watching the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kudos for interesting concepts, but not that great of a book.

#17 The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler by Norma Lois Peterson
329 pages
Category: Misc
Fits: AlphaKIT

I started reading this expecting more of a biography to meet the US Presidents Challenge, but found that it's just what's described on the tin - all about the presidencies of these two men versus a biography. So, I put it aside and read John Tyler and then came back to this one. It's a very detailed study of Tyler's presidency (Harrison is dispatched within 45 pages, which pretty much matched with his short presidency). I had a hard time keeping up with the various names, but soon enough the main ones stayed with me through the book (e.g., Clay, Calhoun,
Upshur, Webster).

A couple of interesting notes I took down from both of these books - first it blew me away that Tyler, in advocating for all of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36'30" to be able to have slaves, he said, "Allowing it {slavery} to spread alleviated such tension and made eventual abolition more likely." What???? He also believed this to be true for the annexation of Texas.

And I saw a quote ascribed to Tyler in John Tyler and Virginia Rep. Botts in The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler - I wondered if it could have been a mistake, or at the least, that this would've been pointed out:

When Jackson signed into law a new tariff in 1832, Tyler said, "Man cannot worship God and Mammon." When Tyler vetoed a bank bill, Virginia Rep. Botts said, "It is impossible to serve both God and Mammon both."

>115 LisaMorr: I see that Time Storm was published in 1977. I noticed that when I read SFF of the 60s-70s I tend to have the same kind of misgivings you had. It seems to me that many earlier SFF works focused more on cool ideas than on the writing style or character development.

>117 chlorine: I agree with you on that. It's funny that when I was reading SFF back then, I don't remember having these issues; I guess I wasn't that evolved as a reader yet!

#18 Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
289 pages
Category: Southern Vampire Mysteries
Fits: ScaredyKIT

I finished Dead and Gone yesterday - the ninth book in the Southern Vampire Mysteries series - and it was a good one! The book starts with the shapeshifters and were-animals of the world revealing their true nature; since the vampires did it a few years back, these supes (supernaturals) figured it was safe to do as well. And it doesn't go that badly. However, it does get some people riled up.

This time, Sookie Stackhouse, the telepath waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, gets caught in the middle of a fairy war. But first she is trying, again, to make sure her brother doesn't go to jail for another ghastly murder - this time of a werepanther, her brother's ex-wife, who gets crucified. I really enjoyed this one.

>117 chlorine: Me neither! I read a ton of SFF books when I was younger that I loved then and I think I could not be bothered to finish them now! I guess it does mean that we evolve as readers.

#19 The Siege by Ismail Kadare
329 pages
Category: Books from Lisa
Fits: KITastrophe, AlphaKIT

I really enjoyed The Siege. This novel was about a Turkish siege of an unnamed Albanian citadel. It was told mainly from the point of view of the Turks - each chapter had a short (~page and a half) piece on what it was like for Albanians, but the bulk of the book told the story of the Turkish army laying siege. We hear from the commander-in-chief, his quartermaster general, the chronicler, the architect, the engineer, some of the soldiers, even some of the wives that the commander-in-chief brought along. I'm not exactly into war books, but I really liked the descriptions of the different military units and how the siege was executed. I may need to expand my reading horizons into this area!

Excellent read.

#20 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
128 pages
Category: 1001 books
Fits: AlphaKIT

This slim novel tells of Miss Jean Brodie, who, in the prime of her life, takes six girls under her wing at the Marcia Blaine School, where they each will become famous for something and are (except for Mary), the crème de la crème. Miss Brodie is an unconventional teacher, to say the least, and the headmistress is always trying to bring her down. But what brings her down in the end is unexpected. An interesting character study. I can't say that I was enamored of this book as I have been by others from Spark, but I was glad I read it.

>121 LisaMorr: I've read one book by Ismail Kadare, The palace of dreams, which I rather liked. I'm not into war books either myself (I would have been rather happy if War and Peace had been just Peace) but you make it sound interesting.

>121 LisaMorr: I really liked it. Also, it was translated first from Albanian to French. LOL about War and Peace; that's one I have to get to, eventually!

>124 LisaMorr: Yes I noticed that the English edition of The palace of dreams was also a translation of the French translation. It happened to me in reverse when I read The dead lake by Hamid Ismailov: the French version I read was translated from English rather than from the original... Russian apparently, which is weird because I didn't think there was a shortage of Russian translators in France...

>125 chlorine: That is weird!

#21 In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
343 pages
Category: 1001 books
Fits: AlphaKIT, Non-fictionCAT, BingoDOG

Fantastic read. Truman Capote did an amazing job bringing to life the real-life murder of a family of four in rural Kansas in 1959. Read like a novel.

#22 Lantana Lane by Eleanor Dark
254 pages
Category: VMC
Fits: GeoCAT, TravelKIT, RandomCAT

Told in a series of vignettes, Lantana Lane is about pineapple farmers in Queensland living on Lantana Lane. These interesting stories about the farmers and their families are humorous, and they are interspersed with chapters describing the climate, the lantana vine, the resident kookaburra, and the potential road deviation. Really enjoyed this.

#23 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
405 pages
Category: Books from Lisa
Fits: ScaredyKIT, BingoDOG

This was a really different book about reincarnation and I loved it. My common understanding of reincarnation was that when you die you are born again as someone (or something) else. Harry August dies and is re-born with all his memories of his previous lives intact. He eventually meets others that are like him - that they are re-born in the same bodies - and he learns how to live with this 'condition' (called ouraborans, many are members of the Cronus Club). Things change when a young ouraboran reached out to him on (one of) his deathbeds to tell him that the world is ending too quickly. Harry's personal mission is to understand who and why, and to try to stop it. Awesome!

April Summary

Eight books in April, best month of the year so far! An average page count of 315 - more books, not all long ones. Focusing a little better on reading during this time of social distancing.

I'm trying to read more books that I've had around for a while and did really well with 7/8 books read on my shelves for a few years:

2008 or older: 1
2012: 1
2015: 1
2016: 1
2017: 2
2018: 1
2019: 1

More statistics:
5/8 books by women authors - better!
2 non-fiction books
countries visited: Scotland, USA, England, China, Russia, Albania, Australia
CATs, KITs and DOGs: AlphaKIT, RandomCAT, SFFKit, ScaredyKIT, Non-fictionCAT, KITastrophe, TravelKIT, GeoCAT (that would be 100% of the CATs/KITs that I try to participate in!)

Category Progress:
1. 1001 books - 5
2. Wheel of Time series - 1
3. The Dresden Files - 0
4. US Presidents Challenge - 1
5. Ender's Game - 1
6. Books from Lisa - 3
7. Short Stories - 0
8. The Completist: Stephen King - 0
9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks - 0
10. Graphic Novels - 0
11. Southern Vampire Mysteries - 1
12. Virago Modern Classics - 1
13. All Souls Trilogy - 0
14. Go Review That Book! - 1
15. Harry Hole - 0
16. William Shakespeare - 0
17. Most collected, but unread! - 0
18. CATs and KITs - 20 (may have duplicates)
19. Miscellaneous - 1
20. BingoDOG - 9 (will have duplicates)

Best of the month: The Siege with 5 stars, followed closely by The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and In Cold Blood.

May Reading Plans

I'd like to continue the Wheel of Time series with Crossroads of Twilight and also the Dresden Files with White Night.

1001 monthly challenge: Crossfire (already finished!)

CATs and KITs:
GeoCAT - Any place you would like to visit: Crossfire, set in Japan, fits 1001 category
SFFKit - Sentient thing: Use of Weapons (Iain M. Banks category) and maybe Children of the Mind (Ender's Game category). I also have Robopocalypse.
RandomCAT - Believe in Your Shelf: The Demolished Man, More Than Human and/or The Space Merchants
Non-fictionCAT - Science: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics or The Edge of the Unknown
ScaredyKIT - Occult: A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy category)
KITastrophe - Geologic events: A Tale for the Time Being (Books from Lisa category) and maybe The Violins of Saint-Jacques and maybe a re-read of Lucifer's Hammer
AlphaKIT - L & P: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
TravelKIT - Modes of transportation: Not sure yet

#24 Crossfire by Miyuki Miyabe
404 pages
Category: 1001 books
Fits: BingoDOG, GeoCAT

A different sort of 1001 book - this novel focuses on Junko, a young woman with the power to start fires with her mind, and the arson detective investigating a series of what look like vengeance killings involving fire. The novel contrasts the isolation of Junko with a different kind of isolation for the detective, a middle-aged woman on the arson squad who was seemingly put in the role to meet a diversity goal. I raced through the book as it followed both Junko and the detective. I did find a few things to be a bit odd, including Junko's developing relationship with a young man she meets later in the novel, but overall I liked the book.

>132 LisaMorr: Crossfire sounds intriguing, I've read some other Japanese crime stories and I know they they can often be both dark and unusual. I will be picking up a copy of this one in the near future.

>129 LisaMorr: I'm glad you liked it! As always I remember the plot very very dimly but just seeing the word ouraboran brings a bit of it back. :)

>133 DeltaQueen50: I hope you like it when you get to it!

>134 chlorine: Weirdly enough, I found it to be a feel-good book!

#25 A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
579 pages
Category: All Souls Trilogy
Fits: BingoDOG, GeoCAT, ScaredyKIT

I was really excited with how this book started - in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, Diana discovers an enchanted tome. Soon she is caught up in a dangerous mystery involving other witches, demons and vampires. However, I found the pace to be too fast, frantic even, and would've enjoyed more descriptions of place and characters. Also, I found the romance angle to be a bit unbelievable. Still, I enjoyed the story and will definitely continue the trilogy.

#26 Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
81 pages
Category: CATs and KITS
Fits: Non-fictionCAT, AlphaKIT

The introduction of this slim books says it was written for those who know little or nothing about modern science. While that may be true, others will get something out of this book as well. I'm not a scientist, but as a chemical engineer I studied college-level physics and I definitely enjoyed this little book and learned some things. Also, written with some beautiful passages, I found it lovely. At 81 pages, it's definitely worth your time.

#27 Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
700 pages
Category: Wheel of Time
Fits: N/A

The tenth book of the Wheel of Time series is similar to A Crown of Swords in that there was an overlap between this book and the previous book. Rand and Nynaeve worked together at the end of Winter's Heart to cleanse saidar, and the impact of that effort was noticeable all over the world to anyone who could channel. This was another installment in the series where we spend a lot more time with Rand's friends then we do with him. Perrin gets closer to the Shaido who are holding Faile, Egwene get closer to Tar Valon, Elayne works to secure the throne in Caemlyn, Mat makes his escape from Ebu Dar. Ending on a cliffhanger, I'm looking forward to the next in the series, Knife of Dreams.

>136 LisaMorr: Also, I found the romance angle to be a bit unbelievable. I completely agree! I am continuing on because I feel as if I am really missing something here. Also, there is way too many secrets here between the two. Not little ones either. That is most definitely not love. Yikes! I'll see what the second one holds.

>136 LisaMorr: - It looks like your experience with the Harkness book was similar to mine: I was excited to read it, had to dispel disbelief over certain aspects, but still managed to enjoy it as a piece of escapism reading.

>139 luvamystery65:, >140 lkernagh: I do want to see what happens next, but I was a bit disappointed with the first book.

#28 The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
183 pages
Category: CATs and KITs
Fits: RandomCAT

I really didn't have to cringe too much (as I quite often do with early sci-fi in terms of the sexism). There really weren't many strong female characters, but the sexism wasn't too overt. This was a pretty good sci-fi mystery - maybe better described as a police procedural - where the police prefect, an Esper (person who can read minds), is trying to land a murder case. In a universe filled with Espers, nobody commits murders anymore as they are usually prevented before they happen. A good read.

#29 A Tale For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
422 pages
Category: Books from Lisa
Fits: KITastrophe

The 2011 tsunami sets up the whole book, in that, Ruth, a resident of an island near Vancouver, Canada, finds a diary washed up on the shore that her husband suggests is the first of the flotsam to arrive from Japan from the tsunami. The book alternates with a chapter of the diary, written by a Japanese teenage girl, Nao, with a chapter by Ruth as she investigates the diary and the other materials included in the Hello Kitty lunchbox.

I really enjoyed this book, and I recommend it for those who like magical realism. I also learned a lot about Buddhism, Japanese culture and WWII kamikaze pilots.

May Summary

Six books in May - not bad, and an average page count of 395 - fewer books, but some longer ones.

I'm trying to read more books that I've had around for a while - May was good with all books from 2018 or earlier and two from 2008 or earlier.

2008 or older: 2
2014: 1
2016: 1
2017: 1
2018: 1

More statistics:
3/6 books by women authors - happy to get 50%
1 non-fiction book
countries visited: Japan, USA, UK, France
CATs, KITs and DOGs: AlphaKIT, RandomCAT, ScaredyKIT, Non-fictionCAT, KITastrophe, GeoCAT, BingoDOG

Category Progress:
1. 1001 books - 6
2. Wheel of Time series - 2
3. The Dresden Files - 0
4. US Presidents Challenge - 1
5. Ender's Game - 1
6. Books from Lisa - 4
7. Short Stories - 0
8. The Completist: Stephen King - 0
9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks - 0
10. Graphic Novels - 0
11. Southern Vampire Mysteries - 1
12. Virago Modern Classics - 1
13. All Souls Trilogy - 1
14. Go Review That Book! - 1
15. Harry Hole - 0
16. William Shakespeare - 0
17. Most collected, but unread! - 0
18. CATs and KITs - 26 (may have duplicates)
19. Miscellaneous - 1
20. BingoDOG - 12 (will have duplicates)

Best of the month: A Tale For the Time Being

#30 White Night by Jim Butcher
495 pages
Category: Dresden Files
Fits: N/A

White Night was an excellent entry in the Dresden Files. This time Harry is investigating attacks on Chicago's practitioners of magic and unfortunately all the clues point to Harry and his brother. He also learns a bit more about what's happening with the various vampire groups, and along the way he continues to train his protégé.

#31 The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
255 pages
Category: Short Stories
Fits: ScaredyKIT, TravelKIT

This was my first introduction to H. P. Lovecraft, and I thought it was pretty good. Quite a varied collection, with a story ghost-written for Harry Houdini, Lovecraft's only science fiction story and a story that is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. Of the seven stories, only one didn't hit the mark for me, so I will be reading more Lovecraft.

#32 Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
411 pages
Category: The Completist - Iain M. Banks
Fits: SFFKit, GeoCAT

This is the third book in the Culture series I've read, and while a bit slow to start, I was really enjoying it by the end, and then there was quite a twist! It is told in alternating chapters that describe different timelines; one thing I didn't notice until probably the last third of the book is that one set of chapter numbers increases while the other decreases, and it made sense once I got to the ending. Ostensibly about Cheradenine Zakalwe, a mercenary, and the woman from the Culture who employs him, Diziet Sma, the book focuses on the Zakalwe family and how Cheradenine became the man he is.

June Summary

Only three books in June, with an average page count of 387 - June was a tough month, and I just couldn't focus that well on reading. Even so, each book read counted as the first book in a category (Dresden Files, short stories and Iain M. Bank).

I'm trying to read more books that I've had around for a while - June was good with all books from 2016 or earlier and one from 2008 or earlier:

2008 or older: 1
2015: 1
2016: 1

More statistics:
0/3 books by women authors
0 non-fiction book
countries visited: USA, Egypt
CATs, KITs and DOGs: ScaredyKIT, GeoCAT, TravelKIT, SFFKit

Category Progress:
1. 1001 books - 6
2. Wheel of Time series - 2
3. The Dresden Files - 1
4. US Presidents Challenge - 1
5. Ender's Game - 1
6. Books from Lisa - 4
7. Short Stories - 1
8. The Completist: Stephen King - 0
9. The Completist: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks - 1
10. Graphic Novels - 0
11. Southern Vampire Mysteries - 1
12. Virago Modern Classics - 1
13. All Souls Trilogy - 1
14. Go Review That Book! - 1
15. Harry Hole - 0
16. William Shakespeare - 0
17. Most collected, but unread! - 0
18. CATs and KITs - 26 (may have duplicates)
19. Miscellaneous - 1
20. BingoDOG - 12 (will have duplicates)

Best of the month: all 3 got 4 stars from me!

July Plans

Given that June didn't go so well, maybe I shouldn't make any plans! Ah, why not.

I want to continue with the Wheel of Time with the eleventh book, Knife of Dreams, which also gives me both J and R for the AlphaKIT. Also, I've picked up a bunch of books in support of BLM and will be including them in my reading every month. And, I had planned to read one presidential biography each quarter, but missed reading one by the end of June, so I'd like to read James K. Polk: A Biographical Companion.

1001 book: Deep Rivers, also fits the GeoCAT

ScaredyKIT: In a Lonely Place, The Robber Bride or My Cousin Rachel
KITastrophe: Zeitoun, also fits the year-long X and Z AlphaKIT
RandomCAT: The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time and/or The Sandman Volume 3
TravelKIT: The Golden Ass, Fifteen Dogs, Norse Mythology or American Gods
SFFKit: not sure yet if I will fit something in for space opera
Non-fictionCAT: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

Quarterly Summary

Thirty-two books read, which has me exactly on target for 64 books this year - I haven't been on target at mid-year in forever, so this is kind of cool! Of course, it depends a lot on how big the books are!

8 of 17 books read were by women - much better than the first quarter.

16 of 17 books read were acquired 2018 or earlier.

Average page count 356; last quarter it was 324, so read two more books this quarter and had a bigger page count, so definitely reading more! It was 318 last year, so this is shaping up to be a good reading year.

And out of 20 categories, I haven't read anything in the following yet:
The Completist: Stephen King
Graphic Novels
Harry Hole
William Shakespeare
Most Collected, But Unread

I'll have to start thinking about fitting in a book from each of these categories.

Best reads:
5 * - The Siege and A Tale for the Time Being
4.5 * - In Cold Blood and The Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Worst: Time Storm (2.5*)

>150 LisaMorr: I'm glad you liked Harry August too! Just finished it this morning, and wow!

Howdy Lisa! My reading plans have not gone well at all this year, but I'm still reading some for pleasure in the midst of pandemic, working and school. That's a victory. How are the cats?