July Unofficial AlphaKit : C and W

The Letters for July are:

and

Remember to add your reads to the wiki, here:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2014_Unofficial_AlphaCAT#July

Think I might try to read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.

Love this month! Those are my initials! :-)

Now, I have one that also fits the RandomCAT, so this one is pretty much for sure:
- The End of Your Life Book Club / Will Schwalbe

I'll choose C once I know what all my other groups are doing for July. Hopefully something will overlap, but if not, I'll just pick something.

Yeah, the thread is up!

Book selections will follow...

Now I have to read Charles Willeford since he fits both letters!

Ender's Shadow is in my sights, author is Orson Scott Card.

Starting The Moonlight Blogger, a collection of blog posts by Carol Fisher Saller.

How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back by Diana Rowland.

Highly entertaining!

COMPLETED Carol Fisher Saller's The Moonlight Blogger.

Starting Rob Goodman's "Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Caesar's Mortal Enemy".

Oh, I figured out what C book I'll do:
- Confessions of a Prairie Bitch / Alison Angrim

And W might change after all:
- Swiss Family Robinson / Johann David Wyss

Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold and Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry for me.

I've started Caliban's War.

Changed my mind and read The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy for my C book. Lovely book set around the time Dickens was writing A Tale of Two Cities. A book for the young and the young at heart who like Dickens, cats, and cheese and tales of friendship.

I read The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier for my C book. It's a novel about Quakers and the Underground Railroad in Ohio by the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. It was a book which I really wanted, and now seemed like a good time to do so.

I am listening to the audiobook of Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. Not sure how I like it yet...

COMPLETED Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Caesar's Mortal Enemy by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni.

Currently reading "The Frequent Flyer" (no touchstone) by James Ashton and Sarah Wood.

COMPLETED The Frequent Flyer by James Ashton and Sarah Wood.

Starting "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell.

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch / Alison Arngrim
4 stars

Alison Arngrim played Nellie, the mean classmate of Laura's on Little House on the Prairie. She was born to Canadian parents, both in the industry. Her father was gay and her older brother sexually abused her. When she was 11, she got the part of Nellie and her life changed.

This was really good. Alison talked about her life before and after Little House, and also had plenty of stories about the show and the people behind the scenes. It turns out she and Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura, were great friends. Alison later did some stand-up comedy, so she brings humour into her book, as well. I really enjoyed this. Now I might have to check out bios of some of the other Little House actors, as well.

Almost halfway through No Doors, No Windows by Joe Schreiber.

@Dejah_Thoris, I see you read Laura, did you like it?

Finished No Doors, No Windows. Started Wicked Autumn, Castle Cay, and Last Car to Elysian Fields

COMPLETED Cloud Atlas. Starting The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook.

Today I read Wanamaker's: Meet Me at the Eagle by Michael J. Lisicky. Although it was a short book, it would have been better as a article. Instead of concentrating on the main Philadelphia store which was noted for its giant eagle which became a place for individuals to meet and its well-known tea room and organ music, the author gave a history of department stores in the Philadelphia region with many openings and closings of branch stores. He tells why some of the once prominent large city department stores went out of business. The info on the back of the book jacket made it sound more as if the book would be a nostalgic visit to a store of the past, and thus the book was disappointing.

I'm in the middle of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

>24 mysterymax: Wow, that's a great one for this month's AlphaKIT!

Not only that - it's really good!

>26 mysterymax: That one is coming up soon in my TBR pile - glad to hear it's worth it. Maybe I'll start it during my long flight home tonight from Manila. Almost finished with the book I'm currently reading and could use something good to fill my time.

>27 LittleTaiko: Enjoy, and safe flight.

I started Ender's Shadow yesterday, and it sucked me in...I finally put it down last night when I couldn't keep my eyes open. Great start!

COMPLETED Michael Cook's The Koran: A Very Short Introduction.

Starting Little, Big by John Crowley.

Finished The Black Echo by Michael Connelly.

I read Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole.

Ender's Shadow completed, and will be given extremely high marks. It's been several years since I read Ender's Game, but without rereading it, I'm going to rank Ender's Shadow close to it. It's a "I can't-participate-in-real-life-I've-got-to-finish-reading-this" book.

Wonderstruck / Brian Selznick
4 stars

In 1977, Ben has recently lost his mother. He never knew his father, so he is living with his aunt and uncle. In 1927, Rose seems to have an obsession with a silent film star. They each set out for New York City to find, in Ben's case, his father, and in Rose's case, the actress, and both end up – 50 years apart – at the Museum of Natural History. Their storylines do eventually intersect.

I really liked this. Not necessarily for the story, though that was enjoyable, but for the way it was done. Rose's part of the story is all told in pictures. It makes it a very fat book as so many pages are pictures, but it read very quickly. The pictures are done very well – they are simple, but also quite beautiful.

>14 sallylou61: I hoped you liked The Last Runaway. I certainly did.

I have happily just realised that the book I have just finished, The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, fits this month's alphaKIT. Yay! It took me a whole month to read as it is HUGE. It is such a great story though so I am glad I spent all that time on it.

Finished Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegnar for my W challenge.

>36 LittleTaiko: that would work for the C challenge as well...

I just realized that the third book of the Deptford trilogy (which I just read), World of Wonders, will work for this!

Finished "No Doors, No Windows" by Joe Schreiber, "Wicked Autumn" by G.M. Malliet, and "Last Car to Elysian Fields" by James Lee Burke.
Started "Castle Cay"
Started Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill
oh, and audio The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb.

Lots of Cs and Ws this month!

COMPLETED John Crowley's Little, Big.

My review:
Smoky Barnable marries Daily Alice Drinkwater, whose family owns a mysterious house called Edgewood. The story of their marriage and descendants is told with flashbacks to earlier generations as the family's part in the Tale becomes clear.

This is a wonderful fantasy novel which follows a completely different track to the usual sub-Tolkeinesque worlds. The ending is heartbreaking.

Starting Charlaine Harris's "The Harper Connelly Collection".

#40 by @Robertgreaves> I've been meaing to read Little, Big for ages. One day, sooner rather than later.

It's quite a long, rambling story for the first half but well worth staying with it as everything falls into place in the second half.

Completed, The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields....loved this book.

Completed With Her in Ourland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a sequel to Herland. I was disappointed in this sequel, which is primarily a discussion of social conditions in the United States around 1916.

Review at https://www.librarything.com/work/43129/reviews/110685757

Finished Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling and added it to the wiki. Full Review written, but it was just rather okay...

COMPLETED Charlaine Harris's The Harper Connelly Collection.

Review:

The four books featuring Harper Connelly, who after being struck by lightning has the ability to sense the presence of nearby dead bodies and what they died of, and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, who acts as her business manager.

Grave Sight
First in the series. Harper and Tolliver are hired to find a missing teen who may have been killed by her boyfriend, who then committed suicide.

I'm not usually very good at working out whodunnit but the who and why were obvious very early on so the big reveal at the end fell pretty flat.

Grave Surprise
Harper is called to Memphis to give a demonstration of her powers before a professor eager to debunk her. She finds more than the professor bargained for when she finds the body of a little girl she had failed to find in Nashville.

This worked much better as a mystery. It kept me in the dark right to the end. I hope we see more of Xylda, a former turned psychic, and her grandson Manfred.

An Ice Cold Grave
Harper is called in to find a missing teenager his grandmother believes is dead rather than a runaway and uncovers a serial killer's victims.

Horrific story relieved by the romantic developments in the characters' lives.

Grave Secret
Called in to sense the cause of death of a client's grandfather, Harper also uncovers the fact that his housekeeper had died in chilbirth. But how does that relate to the disappearance of Harper's sister Cameron eight years ago?

Harper really needs to learn that when a client invites her home after a case is supposed to be closed she shouldn't go.

Currently reading: Michael Arditti's "The Celibate".