Orange October

Following Orange July, Darryl (kidzdoc) challenged us all to read at least one Orange book per month. If you plan on participating in October, here's the place to list your reading selection, comments, reviews and questions.

I have two Oranges planned for October: The Keep by Jennifer Egan (2008 LL) and Bitter Grounds by Sandra Benitez (1998 LL).

I'm planning to read The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht.

BTW, I did read Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela last month (2011 longlist), but I haven't reviewed it yet.

I plan on reading The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (2010 LL). Gothic in October.... perfect!

I am so sorry//////////////I didn't see this thread and started another. I don't know how to kill it but will put a notation on it to come here. :-(
~belva

I thought I'd read that if you started a topic then nothing was added to it, it would disappear on its own. I guess we'll see.
My Orange book for October will be Half a Yellow Sun. I hope it's not too overwhelming.

I have chosen as my 'ORANGE FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER' to read Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. I hope it is as good as it looks to be.

# 4:
Lori;
I really enjoyed The Little Stranger when I read it in July and it was a 4 1/2 * read for me. I hope you enjoy it tremendously.
~belva

@#6:
I hope you are correct. This will teach me to look a little more thoroughly.
I hope you love Half a Yellow Sun as much as I did. I found it to be a beautiful story.

No worries, Belva! Thanks for your thread management!

I plan on reading Case Histories this month!

#7: Brilliant, brilliant book! I really hope you love as much as I did, it's a desert island book for me.

This month I'll be reading The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel. It's the last unread Orange on my shelves, looks like I'll need to do some shopping before November...

I think I'll read When we Were Bad, a shortlisted book from several years back.

>#6: I also loved Half of a Yellow Sun. Fantastic book!

>#9: I'm also hoping to read Case Histories.

@#10: Wow!~! I guess I made a good choice. Now I am really jazzed to start Fugitive Pieces but I am happy that I don't have to go to a desert isle to read it. lol!~!

I'm hoping to read A Visit from the Goon Squad but I seem to have a lot of other priority reads this month so we shall see...

I loved Half of a Yellow Sun, Case Histories and The Little Stranger. Such wonderful Oranges!

>11 lauralkeet:: Laura, I've had When We Were Bad on my To Read shelf for years but it never seems to call me loudly enough to rectify that. I'll be really interested to hear what you think of it.

I'm also planning to read Half of a Yellow Sun this month with Joyce. I'm encouraged by all the good feedback about it.

You won't be sorry soul; it is a wonderfully beautiful read. And it remains with you for some time.

I ended up abandoning my September Orange read, but I've got two out for October: The Aguero Sisters and Gilgamesh: I'm particularly excited about the latter! It'll be a bit before I begin, though, since I'm spending the next two weeks only rereading books. Hmmm: maybe I'll reread one of the Oranges I've already loved!

I'll be reading A Visit from the Goon Squad towards the end of the month have mixed feelings as to how I will like it and have been humming and haaing about it - but have been pushed into reading it for a bookgroup so decision is now made :)

I didn't think I was going to have time to fit in an Orange book this month, but I just found out that The Help, which I'm reading for my book club, is on the list.

I hope you like The Help!

The Idea of Perfection - started that this week. It covers my own personal Orange challenge and my goal to read 5 books about Australia this year.

>21 catarina1:: LOVED that book!

I neglected to take 'my book' to bed with me last night and and hubby was already sleeping so I just grabbed one off the bookshelf in the bedroom. (The opening and closing of the door disturbs his sleep.) I am over half way through it, loving it, and looked at the book page this A.M. and found that it was the Orange Prize Winner of 2000. When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant. It was just a grab & read and I can't believe how taken I am by this book and that it is also an 'orange'. How lucky am I?
So this will be my October read for Darryl's 'An Orange a Month' challenge and next month I will read Fugitive Pieces.

That worked out, Miss Belva! =)

No worries about the duplicate thread, rainpebble. :)

I finished The Keep by Jennifer Egan, 2008 Longlist. 3 Stars.

The plot of "The Keep" is very difficult to summarize; it is the intertwining of three story lines about two cousins at a castle in Eastern Europe, a prisoner who is writing the story about the cousins, and a woman who is teaching a writing class at the prison. How Egan handles these threads - and eventually braids them together into one - is masterful. I am certain this book deserves a lofty label like "postmodern" or "metafiction" but the only label I will apply is "dazzling." I was almost too blinded by Egan's talent to truly appreciate the story, though, and this is why I am only giving it 3 Stars.

H-R-O; The Keep sounds intriguing and I will be checking my library for it. Tempting lil review there.

HRO - I tried to read The Keep a couple of months ago, but gave up on it. I began to feel nauseous while reading it, and although I'm not sure if it came from the book itself or other outside forces, I began to associate that feeling with the book. Too much for me!

I'm reading The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters for October! I have been working on it for a while, but plan to focus on it this month :)

Oh dear - I started to read A Visit from the Goon Squad and I really, really tried to like it and perservered for as long as I could.

but no - is not for me and failed the 50 page test.

Sally906
I agree with a Visit from the Good Squad - I picked it up at the airport this summer, and I think I'm still stuck about 1/3 into (or out of ) it. Really did try to like it, but the characters were just not likeable.

28 - I finished but I can't say it's going on my favourites list any time soon. Some stories were much better than others. Some were just downright strange.

Now why didn't I think of Orange for October... Come on.. Halloween? Day of the Dead... Nice orange colors between the pumpkins and the marigolds. Hopefully I can get to an Orange book before the end of the month.

Orange and October do go together!

I will be starting Case Histories tonight!

For those that have read Case Histories (or who haven't read it yet even)--don't forget that PBS is airing BBC's three part (two-hour increments) series of Kate Atkinson's mysteries starting this Sunday!! If you miss it, you can always catch up a week later here.

I finished The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - 2010 Orange longlist - and loved the slow suspenseful Gothic build to the story. This was my introduction to Waters' works and a great one at that! Review can be found on the book page.

A Visit from the Goon Squad was my October Orange read too. I wasn't sure how I'd get on with it after the mixed reviews but surprised myself by being one of it's fans!

I was concerned that I might find the structure gimmicky but thought it fitted perfectly with its theme of changes and time. The idea of a chapter written as a PowerPoint presentation particularly put me off but when I got to it, it made perfect sense. It was written by a central character's 12 year old daughter, of course it was written as a PowerPoint presentation! That's exactly how my 11 and 13 year old boys would chose to write a piece about their life too.

The characters weren't immediately likeable but they were believable and seeing them at different stages of their lives helped me understand them.

I definitely enjoyed this book more as I went on and reading it in one day when I was in bed with a cold probably helped. I can understand people giving up on it early but personally, I found it well worth persevering with.

Oh, I'm a fan of A Visit from the Goon Squad. Ditto to what Soupdragon said.

I've just started The Observations, shortlisted in 2007.

I've begun Gilgamesh and am so far entranced! I'm about 60 pages in, and just overwhelmed by London's descriptive powers. I feel like I'm really in the Australian Outback with Edith...I can't help hoping she manages to get out soon!

I doubled myself this month with Five Quarters of the Orange (long listed) and absolutely loved it!

Well, I finished Gilgamesh. I have to admit that I don't think the latter half of the novel lived up to the opening...for me, it began moving too fast, without enough detail, and skipping too many years. But the writing itself was lovely.

I finished Case Histories. Very good! Here is my review.

The Giant, O'Brien was just fantastic. LOVED it! Review here

#41 - Oh good! I own The Giant O'Brien. Maybe in December or January . . . (bumping it up the TBR stack)

I'm about half way through Half a Yellow Sun. The one thing wars seem to have in common is that people don't think they will happen in their city or country. I know I would be one of those people.

Finished, and really enjoyed, The Observations. Recommended.

I just started my October book yesterday: When we Were Bad. I'm only 50 pages in but I'm enjoying it. It's the story of an English Jewish family whose elder son runs off with another woman about a minute before he is to be married. Interesting, because English Jews don't appear often in literature, and the family itself is a real piece of work.

Lindsaci, strange, for my Orange book next month I'll also be reading about English Jews in Disobedience. Naomi Alderman stresses how unlike they are to New York Jews in that invisibility is their most prized possession.

>46 Citizenjoyce:: interesting, Joyce! I'm now more than halfway through the book and it's very good in a quirky sort of way. I see the "invisibility" aspect too though. The Jewish community is quite insular, and when one member strays outside of it he's surprised that well-known people aren't well-known to non-Jews.

I finished The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht just under the wire. It was one of the better books on this year's Orange Prize longlist, but not as good as The Memory of Love, IMO. I'll write a review of it in the next day or two.

My book for Orange November will probably be Old Filth by Jane Gardam.

November already? Time for a new thread!

I finished When We Were Bad, also just under the wire (10:50pm on 10/31!!) I loved it. Review coming soon.

Finished Case Histories yesterday - and I'm sure it was still October somewhere in the world at the time! Enjoyed it hugely. Great characters and well written.