Classics Club Spin

The Classics Club is hosting another spin. A number will be selected on Sunday 10/20/24. I have until December 18th to read the book from my list at that number.

Here is my list:

1. Hard Times, Charles Dickens, 1854
2. Come and Get It, Edna Ferber, 1935
3. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome, 1889
4. Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy, 1955
5. Steamboat Gothic, Francis Parkinson Keyes, 1952
6. Russia House, John le Carre, 1989
7. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, 1945
8. Howards End, E. M. Forster, 1910
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
10. Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey, 1912
11. Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965
12. The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham, 1944
13. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry, 1985 
14. True Grit, Charles Portis, 1968
15. 3 Lives, Gertrude Stein, 1909
16. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
17. Aesop's Fables
18. Song of the Lark, Willa Cather, 1915
19. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 1859
20. Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty, 1946

Only 3 months left!

As we approach the end of the year it seems like a good idea to look at how far I have gotten with the 2024 goals I set for my reading life.

• I planned to read 10 books from my Classics Club list and I have read 6 so far. I may get through 4 more titles from this list before the year ends.
• I wanted to read at least 6 books from my Readers' Advisory Reading List and have not read a single one. This doesn't look promising, but it also doesn't seem impossible.
• I read 9 of the 35 books on my #nonficnov tbr list and my goal was to read at least 6 of them before November 2024 so this one is done.
• I wanted to complete the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge at the Victorian level of 5 books and I have read 4 so far, but have only blogged about 2 and writing about the books is part of this challenge so I have work to do here. 
• I committed to the 2024 What's in a Name Challenge which requires 6 books. So far I have read one. 
• The Canadian Reading Challenge ended on July 1, 2024 and I was nowhere near to completing it. I have taken a break from this challenge for the current year. 
• I am not doing very well getting my owned-but-not-read shelf down to fewer than 100 books. It has hovered around the 130 mark most of the year. I need to both read from this shelf and stop adding to it.
• I have read 72 books so far this year so I should make it to my usual GoodReads goal of 100 books.
• Figure out where I left off with my Century of Books project. I have 3 years left in this project: 1901, 1903, and 1909. The goal was to figure out where I was, not to finish so that is a crossed off item.
• Continue posting a Book Report the first week of each month. So far so good on this one. 

I definitely have some reading to do if I am going to complete these challenges. Other than getting my owned-but-not-read shelf to fewer than 100 books--which is not going to happen in 3 months-- I think I can complete these goals. 

September Book Report

Manchester, NH

I finished 5 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“For it was a truth universally acknowledged that a single vicar must be in want of a wife." ― G.M. Malliet, Wicked Autumn

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 0 were from my owned-but-not-read shelf  (with 135 remaining)  
• 1 was from my Classics Club List 

 Here are the books I finished in September 2024: 

1. Shot with Crimson by Nicola Upson (4-stars)
2. A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman  (audiobook, 4-stars)
3. Wicked Autumn by G. M. Malliet (4-stars)
4. Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis (4-stars)
5. A Fountain Filled with Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming (4-stars)

Apparently this was a four-star month! I am not doing too well with reading for my various challenges and lists however. I will try to work on that in October.

Dom Casmurro

Dom Casmurro 

by Machado de Assis

translation by Helen Caldwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this novel. I discovered Machado de Assis back in college when I read Epitaph for a Small Winner (aka Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas) for a Latin American Literature class and was immediately a fan. I have read several of his other novels that have been translated to English (unfortunately I can't read Portugese) and have enjoyed all of them. 

The introduction in the edition I read was by Waldo Frank (dated 1952) and he explained that Laurence Sterne was a strong influence on Machado. This makes sense to me as the dry, quiet tone and the way the author steps out of the pages now and then to make asides, is similar. Dom Casmurro is told from the point of view of a man looking back over his life and telling us about it. He hints at the future implications of the events he describes, but until you get there in the story you don't know what happened. This builds a tension in the novel that propels you through it. 

“In ordinary life, the action of a third party does not free the contractor from an obligation; but the advantage of making a contract with heaven is that intentions are valid currency.” --Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

This book is on my Classics Club list.

August Book Report

Hampton, NH, August 2024

I finished 9 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“In her new, albeit fragile, mood, this letter does not unduly distress her. One lesson she has learned is that any opinion expressed by a person who does not understand how to use an apostrophe may be disregarded with impunity.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose

I made absolutely no progress this month toward any of my various goals and challenges. There are currently 134 books on my owned-but-not-read shelf.

 Here are the books I finished in August 2024: 

1. Murder in Williamstown by Kerry Greenwood (4-stars)
2. The White Rose by Jean Hanff Korelitz  (4-stars)
3. Fatal Family Ties by S. C. Perkins (3-stars)
4. Scents and Sensibility by Spencer Quinn (3-stars)
5. Dolled Up for Murder by Jane K. Cleland (4-stars)
6. Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews (3-stars)
7. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (audiobook, 3-stars)
8. The Historian's Toolbox by Robert C. Williams (3-stars)
9. Murder with Puffins by Donna Andrews (3-stars)

20 Books of Summer - Final Report

I finished reading my #20BooksOfSummer24 (hosted by Cathy at 746 Books) My final list bears very little resemblance to the list  I started with. 

Here is the final list:

1. All it Takes is a Goal by Jon Acuff  [June]
2. Rosemary Remembered by S.W. Albert  [July]
3. Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews [August]
4. 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg [June]
5. Tide and Punishment by Bree Baker [July]
6. Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan [July]
7. The Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs [June]
8. The Life List by Kate Christie [July]
9. The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark [July]
10. Dolled Up for Murder by Jane Cleland [August]
11. James by Percival Everett [July]
12. Murder in Williamstown by Kerry Greenwood [August]
13. The White Rose by Jean Hanff Korelitz [August]
14. You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz [June]
15. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon [July]
16. Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride [August]
17. Pastrami on Rye by Ted Merwin [June]
18. Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami [July]
19. Blood at the Root by Peter Robinson [July]
20. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin [July]

July Book Report

A favorite reading spot
July 2024

I finished 10 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading: 

“The act of mothering is not limited to the bearing of children.”
― Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 1 was from my owned-but-not-read shelf  (with 135 still remaining because I added one)  
• 2 counted toward the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge (or they will once I write them up)
• 1 was from my Classics Club List 
• All 10 count towards #20booksofsummer24!

 Here are the books I finished in July 2024: 

1. The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark (audiobook, 3-stars)
2. Blood at the Root by Peter Robinson (4-stars)
3. Rosemary Remembered by Susan Wittig Albert (4-stars)
4. Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami (4-stars)
5. The Life List by Kate Christie (audiobook, 4-stars)
6. Tide and Punishment by Bree Baker (4-stars)
7. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (3-stars)
8. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (5-stars)
9. Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan (4-stars)
10. James by Percival Everett (4-stars)

The first of July marked the end of another Canadian Reading Challenge that I did not complete. I decided to take a break from that challenge, at least for a while. I plan to continue to keep an eye out for interesting-looking books by Canadians, but fitting 13 of them into my reading year has been a problem for me in recent years. 

We

We 

by Yevgeny Zamyatin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't like this book particularly, but I was impressed by it and I see how it might have influenced both Orwell and Atwood who have essays about it included in the edition I read. This latest translation was done by Bela Shayevich.

"In a glass-enclosed city of perfectly straight lines, ruled over by an all-powerful “Benefactor,” the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState are regulated by spies and secret police; wear identical clothing; and are distinguished only by a number assigned to them at birth. That is, until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. He can feel things. He can fall in love. And, in doing so, he begins to dangerously veer from the norms of his society, becoming embroiled in a plot to destroy OneState and liberate the city." --GoodReads

 I'm not sure exactly what I didn't like about it, I think it was the disjointedness of the plot and that only the main character had any depth. 

The story is structured as a diary, with log entries intended to be read by the beings on another planet to whom it will be delivered by the amazing machine D-503 is building for the OneState. This structure was very effective for the story as it showed clearly the unravelling and regrouping of our narrator as different things happened. 

"A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.” 

This is definitely a novel worth reading and is on my Classics Club list.

June Book Report

Manchester, NH June 2024

I finished 5 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“There could be no picture making,” the film director Orson Welles flatly declared, “without pastrami.”
― Ted Merwin, Pastrami on Rye

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 0 were from my owned-but-not-read shelf  (with 135 remaining) 
• 1 was from my #NonFicNov TBR 
• All 5 count towards #20booksofsummer24!

 Here are the books I finished in June 2024: 

1. Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs (3-stars)
2. Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli by Ted Merwin (3-stars)
3. All it Takes is a Goal by Jon Acuff (5-stars)
4. You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz (4-stars)
5. 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg (3-stars)

I didn't get much finished this month, but I do have 7 books currently in progress so next month should have a higher finish number. I will be seeing Korelitz speak in October at the NH Book Festival so I have begun a deep dive into her backlist.