April AlphaKIT - Y and U

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

April AlphaKIT letters are : Y and U



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

My plan, at the moment, for U is Uprooted by Naomi Novik, which is yellow and will do nicely for the ColorCAT, too.



For Y, I'm thinking of Francis Mayes' A Year in the World.

>2 virginiahomeschooler: I loved Uprooted -- hope you do, too!

I'm planning on Elizabeth Daly's Unexpected Night for U and Lindsey Kelk's I Heart New York for Y.

I will definitely be reading Y is Yesterday by Sue Grafton and most likely Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley for my Y books. Probably will read Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce for U.

I might attempt Utopia by Thomas More (depending on my mood). If I can get a copy of Y is Yesterday, I will read that.

>4 LittleTaiko: I enjoyed Crome Yellow; hope you do too.

For Y I'm reading Season of Yellow Leaf by Douglas C. Jones. For U I will probably read An Unnecessary Woman by Rabin Alameddine.

I've got The Mysteries of Udolpho on the shelf from the library, maybe I'll finally get around to it.

>3 christina_reads: I'm glad to hear good things. It's one of those i picked up knowing nothing about it except that it was pretty.

>8 virginiahomeschooler: Traci, I also loved Uprooted. :)

For the letter Y I am planning on reading The Lost Daughter of Happiness by Geling Yan and for my U read, Without the Moon by Cathi Unsworth.

>7 Helenliz: Coincidentally, I'm rereading Northanger Abbey right now!

Oh! It's a couple of potentially trickier ones for April... will have to take a look at what I've got!

On my list for April.... The Yellow Birds (war), Bury Your Dead (mystery), and Use of Weapons (scifi).

I've got plenty for U so I will have a look first to see if they fit any other felines, but for Y, all I can see is Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

I've been focusing on my TBR stacks this year and I thought I had John Updike and Nicola Yoon novels, but it seems they have disappeared :-(

So looking at backlist titles that begin with the letters "U" or "Y," I see I have a couple of options:

Under the Empyrean Sky (by Chuck Wendig)
Underground Airlines (by Ben H. Winters)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (by Rachel Joyce)

You (by Caroline Kepnes, narrated by Santino Fontana)
You Better Not Cry (written and narrated by Augusten Burroughs)

I've been tearing through my audiobook backlog so I can see myself listening to the Caroline Kepness book, but the Augusten Burroughs looks to be a Christmastime book, and it won't be until the Summer when I start hitting my e-books and print book backlog. But we shall see :-)

>2 virginiahomeschooler: I'm planning on reading Uprooted, too! And then also The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima

>14 Tanya-dogearedcopy: You shot me with Underground Airlines! I really liked the Last Policeman Trilogy by Winters, so I looked at this one and just picked up the e-book. Thanks!

I'm going to plan on reading The Unwanted and Year of Wonders--we'll see how it goes. I'm already woefully behind on March...

>2 virginiahomeschooler: I can't recommend Uprooted enough. It's a great book. The Audible narration is great too.

Hmm. I might try another Leon Uris, as I loved all three books of his that I read to date.

Aha! Found another TBR that fits: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.

I found a few!

Knit Fast, Die Young
✔Shelved Under Murder
✔Until Again
Until Forever
Until Proven Guilty
Yorkshire

I discovered a ROOT that fits -- The Underground Man by Ross MacDonald so I will probably start with that.

>22 leslie.98: I've also been trying to match my ROOTs to AlphaKIT first, before other sources of reading.

>12 jeanned: I'll read Use of weapons by Iain M. Banks too and Kress'Yesterday's kin.

I finished my first: Horton Foote's The Young Man From Atlanta, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995.

Well I finished the novella Yesterday's kin by Nancy Kress. It's about a first contact that is not exactly a first contact and family matters ranging from a small family of five to the whole human "family".

>22 leslie.98: >23 fuzzi: >24 h-mb: I actually went through my ROOTS when the alpha pairings were announced and made a list for each month.

>27 cyderry: I did too but I am not good about actually reading those books *grin*

>27 cyderry: I did the same ;)

>28 leslie.98: Actually I found it great motivation to get those books read that had been languishing on my shelves and virtual shelves for some time. I've actually found some good books that probably would still be waiting to be read if not for meeting an AlphaKit criteria.

>27 cyderry: I've done that, too, and had the same result as >28 leslie.98:!

Oh, I found another one, Sergeant York, and it's a ROOT as well.

None of my ARCs I need to read fit these letters. I picked a few other books for challenges, and they don't fit either. I will find something--even if they are children's books!

You: A Novel (by Caroline Kepnes; narrated by Santino Fontana) - This is the story of Joe Goldberg, a bookstore clerk who becomes obsessed with, and super stalks, a 24-year old woman named Beck. I didn't know how far Kepnes was going to take her character, and I was riveted to the story as a result. It says something that I started it at 10:30 last night and finished the 11-hour audio early this afternoon. Santino Fontana is absolutely perfect and I want MOAR! (And, yes, I know there is Hidden Bodies. I just have to wait for my next credit to roll around!)

So that takes care of my "Y" read for the month, so now I just need to get to one of my "U"s!

>32 thornton37814: children's books are fine. :)

Happily read Failing Up by Leslie Odom Jr. for my U book. It's a quick, positive book about achieving goals and being okay with failure on your way to accomplishing those goals.

>34 fuzzi: I ended up finding a "Y" beginning a subtitle word on one. I did find a children's book in our library's catalog that will fit both letters. I didn't get down to pull it today. Crazy day at work!

I finished my U book tonight, Uprooted by Naomi Novik. It was fantastic.

I finished a U selection, Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta 4*.

I finished the audiobook of Y is for Yesterday, Sue Grafton's final book.

I also finished Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton.

I finished Sergeant York last night. It was a pretty good read.

Miss Mole by E.H. Young 4★

Miss Hannah Mole is a single woman of a certain age who earns her living as a housekeeper, companion or governess. But this isn't the usual story of such a person. Miss Mole is witty, outspoken, with a unique sense of fashion. It becomes obvious that there is more to tell about Hannah's life. Is it her sense of fun that leads us astray? There is definitely a secret. Little by little, crumbs of information are revealed but Young keeps the reader - and her characters - guessing to the final pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed this Virago Modern Classic and will be on the lookout for more by E.H. Young who had an interesting life herself.

I finished The Underground Man.

Currently reading "Unnatural Death" by Dorothy L. Sayers

COMPLETED Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers

You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried / Susannah Gora
4 stars

This book looks at ‘80s teen movies, including many John Hughes’ movies. The book takes the reader behind the scenes in the movies and we learn about the actors, as well as John Hughes and the other directors. There are chapters on “Sixteen Candles”, “The Breakfast Club”, “St. Elmo’s Fire”, “Pretty in Pink”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “Some Kind of Wonderful”, and “Say Anything”.

What a fun book for someone who was a teenager in the 80s (me)! I’ve seen all but two of the movies (and now feel like I should see those two!). Many of the actors were part of what became labelled the “Brat Pack”, based on an article written that was originally meant to be about Emilio Estevez, but became about a group of them who were out together one night. To be honest, I’d not even realized the phrase was meant (at the time) to be derogatory; I never read the article, nor had I realized that’s even where the term originated. So, I did learn plenty about the actors and the movies. I also want to go back and re-watch some of the movies I’ve already seen. My favourites were “Pretty in Pink” (I love Duckie!) and “Some Kind of Wonderful”.

I finished my 'Y' selection today:



The Sound of Waves
Shinji, a young fisherman on the island of Uta-Jima, falls in love with the lovely Hatsue. But she's the daughter of a wealthy ship-owner, and Shinji and his mother are poor. So, he despairs of ever being chosen as Hatsue's husband. His rival for her affection, Yasuo, is boorish and lazy, and even though Hatsue loves Shinji as well, her father seems primed to choose the richer suitor.

Hm. I tried to like this one, thinking that I was mistaking the lackluster story for some sort of quiet method of storytelling, or that maybe the plot was secondary to the language. But I kept fighting off the desire to skim ahead and just be finished already and with no evidence that the language was the key character, so unless it lost a great deal in the translation, this one is just not very interestingly told.

Just realized that Irish Fairy and Folk Tales counts for the AlphaKit because it was compiled by William Butler Yeats.

I'm reading Now You See Me by Sharon Bolton. There is a Y in there!

"U" selection: The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall by Chris Dolley. Overall, a decent enough mystery for mystery fans to enjoy and a story I can heartily recommend to the P.G. Wodehouse fans who appreciate the farcical, tongue-in-cheek irony that P.G. Wodehouse perfected, just not that great if you are expecting a fascinating steampunk read.

>45 Robertgreaves: I'm pretty sure I've read that one. At one point I read anything and everything by Dorothy L. Sayers that the library had or could acquire for me. I don't recall anything about it, though, ha.

May's thread is up: http://www.librarything.com/topic/290085

Finished Y is for Yesterday. I've read all 25 now, and honestly, this was not one of my favorites which is even more of a shame since it's the last. The subject matter left me cold, and half the story takes place in the past (hence the 'yesterday') so we're missing Kinsey. I'm glad I read it, just so the series is complete, but I wish it had been better.

Starting Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

For U, I read Underground Airlines. I highly recommend this one. The premise is that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated while he was still President-Elect, and the Civil War never happened. To save the Union, and in Lincoln's memory, the government initiated a compromise that kept slavery limited to certain Southern states and heavily regulated. In the present-day, Persons of Bound Service (PBs, or peebs) are limited to 4 states and the regulations are supposedly still in place. Fascinating social commentary, thrilling action, moral and ethical debates, and very thought-provoking.

The Unquiet Past / Kelley Armstrong
4 stars

This is one of 7 books in the “Secrets” series, all written by different authors. The premise behind the series, as a whole, is that, in 1964, an orphanage in Ontario has burnt down. The oldest kids are sent off on their own with only a small piece of info given to each of them about their past.

In this one, Tess is given only a phone number (but it’s out of service) and an address in a town in Quebec. The address leads to a large abandoned house. Tess has visions, and has never told anyone other than her very best friend about them. She gets an eerie feeling in this house. What happened here and what is Tess’ connection to the place?

I really liked this. I loved the super-creepy feeling at one point in the story. Wow, this author was very good with creating that creepy atmosphere! This is the second book I’ve read in this series, and I do plan to continue on.

An Unkindness of Ravens by Ruth Rendell 2.5★

Unlike modern police procedurals where there are overlapping cases being investigated, Wexford and Burden have a single case, and apart from Burden's wife being pregnant - with an unwanted girl - there are no side stories. Although this makes for a mystery that is straightforward and easy to follow, the conclusion was rushed and the reader is suddenly inundated with details of a finding far removed from the path of the investigation and without being shown how it was uncovered. Using a repudiated theory of Freud's was pretty hard to swallow, and would have been in 1985 too, when the book was published.

Skip this one, it's annoying and not up to Rendell's usual standard.

COMPLETED Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

I finished my U selection yesterday:



Uprooted
Every ten years The Dragon comes down from his tower into the valley and chooses a young woman to take back to the tower with him for the next ten years. Agnieszka never thought she'd be the girl - she's too messy and clumsy and uninterested in how she looks. The Dragon (the name of the valley's wizard, not an actual dragon) seems irritated at his decision at the choosing ceremony, too. And so they're thrown together just at a time when The (local and, of course, evil) Wood starts acting up more than it has in a very long time.

Okay, so there are a significant number of elements to this book that are tropey, to say the least: young girl heroine whose clumsiness and lack of fashion sense make her an unlikely pick for anything, but of course she isn't aware of just how attractive she really is or how much power she has inside; tall, dark, broody, and (of course) very old leading man (in this case a wizard and not a vampire, but the odds were 50/50, you know), who teams up with said girl to form an unlikely ship sort of thing. But. BUT. It's good. So. Good. It's just the right mix of good characters and an original story mixed with old-school fairy tale elements that I don't give a hoot about the tropiness.

I completed Season of Yellow Leaf by Douglas C. Jones

I finished A Year in the World for Y, which was disappointing.

Read one more U book this month - Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce that I'm happy to have finally read. Not sure why I had put it off for the last couple of years.

Finished a Y book: Blue Sun, Yellow Sky by Jamie Hoang 3*.

I went with a comfort reread last night, and didn't quite finish Under the Sweetwater Rim by Louis L'Amour. I'll finish it tonight. :)

I finished the audiobook of Sir Thomas More's Utopia.

I have finished a large ROOT, Underworld by Don DeLillo. Sadly, this one wasn't for me...

Well, I got another "Y" title in! This time, the author's last name begins with a "Y":

Forget Sorrow (by Belle Yang) - This is a non-fiction graphic novel that tells the story of the author's family history in China. The bulk of the narrative centers around the fates of Yang's great-grandfather and his children, reflecting life under Japanese Imperialism and The Cultural Revolution. You also get a sense of Yang's immediate family life, the tensions that simmer not only from straddling two cultures (her father moved to the US in the late 1950s and the artist herself was born in California,) but from the stress of having an ex-boyfriend and abuser cum stalker out on the loose. Yang both writes and illustrates this work, setting down the stories her father relates to her, and works a sort of spiritual catharsis out via her art. The black & white, pen & ink panels have an almost artistically naive or folkloric aspect to them and the story sometimes needed a little bit more editorial direction in terms of flow but nonetheless, an amazing work both in narrative content and art.

Finished Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen. What a weird little book. Still not sure what I think about it.

Finished Year of Wonders last night! Full review written, though it's a short one.

I finished Young Men in Spats, a collection of short stories about members of the Drones Club - lots of fun!

Finished Uncovering You: The Contract by Scarlett Edwards. It was a quick read, though not one I'd recommend...

I had started another Y book, but probably won't finish it today, only about half way through so far, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari.

I got to a Y book but no U, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, 3.67 stars for me. It is disturbing, heartbreaking and a bit too much time spent in horrific details and over the top successful college graduates in New York.

>73 Kristelh: Oh dear, this doesn't bode well. It's my bookclub's choice for July or August this year.

>74 Robertgreaves:. Its a book that generally gets 5 stars but it is long (>700 pages) and I do think it is flawed. I will be interested in how you experience the book.

>73 Kristelh: & >74 Robertgreaves: - I'm one that gave it 5 stars. It's difficult to read but yet I had a really hard time putting it down. I found myself constantly thinking about the characters and wondering what was going to happen next. At the very least it will make for a good book club discussion.

Y was definitely the tougher letter in April - for me, anyway. I managed two.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The Young Man From Atlanta by Horton Foote

For U:
Date Night on Union Station by E. M. Foner
Don't Die Under the Apple Tree by Amy Patricia Meade
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl

On to May and Q & K!