sallylou61's reading in 2020

I'm keeping pretty much the same format as in 2019. I enjoy listing my reading by months. BingoDOG is my favorite LT category although I try to read something from at least one CAT each month. I also belong to two book clubs, and take OLLI (adult education) classes for which I prefer literary seminars which, of course, means reading assigned materials. Currently I'm in a short story seminar at our retirement community, but do not know what form that will take in the future. We might be reading novels or discontinue.

In my numbering of titles read, I include short works such as short stories or plays. However, I do not give it a number in parentheses, which I do for books. The number in parentheses for books is continued throughout the year, whereas the number for monthly reads begins again each month. (Example taken from 2019:
3. (22) Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs by Wallace Stegner -- 3rd title read in May under which it is listed; 22nd book title for the year.)

Titles read in January:

1. Daisy Miller by Henry James -- read January 1st -- Short Story seminar and BingoDOG -- 4 stars
2. (1) Needville: Poems by Sara M. Robinson -- finished reading Jan. 9th -- BingoDOG -- 3 stars
3. (2) For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway -- Northside Book Group and BingoDOG -- finished reading Jan. 14th -- 3 stars
4. The Aspern Papers by Henry James -- finished reading Jan. 17th -- unrated
5. (3) The Library Book by Susan Orlean --BingoDOG -- finished reading Jan. 19th -- 2 stars
6. (4) Malnourished: A Memoir of Sisterhood and Hunger by Cinthia Ritchie -- BingoDOG card 2 -- read Jan. 20th -- 3 stars
7. The Middle Years by Henry James -- read Jan. 23rd
8. (5) Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land -- finished reading Jan. 29th -- 4 stars
9. The Tuesday Night Club by Agatha Christie -- MysteryKIT -- 3 stars
10. The Idol House of Astarte by Agatha Christie -- MysteryKIT -- 3 stars

Titles read in February: (NonfictionCAT host next month: Biography)

1. (6) So Big by Edna Ferber, RandomCAT, BingoDOG, AlphaKIT -- finished on Feb. 8th -- 4 stars.
2. The Pupil by Henry James -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Feb. 10th -- 3 stars
3. (7) Classified as Murder by Miranda James -- MysteryKIT, BingoDOG -- finished on Feb. 12th -- 3.5 stars
4. Needville: A Play in Two Acts by Sara M. Robinson --will be in the cast for a local production -- read Feb. 15th -- 4 stars
5. "Vanka" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- first read Feb. 15 for class Feb. 21
6. "The Student" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- first read Feb. 15 for class Feb. 21
7. (8) The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman -- OLLI class, BingoDOG -- finished reading Feb. 18th -- 3.5 stars.
8. "Gooseberries" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Feb. 20th for class Feb. 21

Titles read in March: (NonfictionCAT host: Biography)

1. (9) The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly -- OLLI mystery novels class -- finished March 1st -- 3 stars
2. "The Lady with the Little Dog" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Mar. 3d
3. (10) Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon -- OLLI mystery novels class -- finished Mar. 9th -- 2.5 stars
4. "Small Fry" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Mar. 12th
5. "The Darling" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Mar. 12th
6. (11) Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert -- OLLI mystery novels class and BingoDog -- finished Mar. 14th -- 4 stars
7. (12) Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- JMRL same page and Northside bookclub and BingoDOG -- NonfictionCAT (biography although written in poetry) -- finished reading Mar. 17th -- 5 stars
8. (13) The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie -- BingoDOG and MysteryKIT -- finished Mar. 21st -- 3 stars
9. (14) Jane and Dorothy: A True Tale of Sense and Sensibility: The Lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth by Marian Veevers -- NonfictionCAT and BingoDOG -- finished Mar. 25th -- 3.5 stars
10. (15) Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie -- BingoDOG and MysteryKIt -- finished Mar. 25th -- 4 stars
11. (16) Mouthful of Birds: Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell -- finished Mar. 28th -- BingoDOG -- 3 stars
12. (17) Mac on a Hot Tin Roof by Melinda Metz -- BingoDOG -- finished Mar. 30th -- 2.5 stars

Titles read in April:

1. (18) Buzz Saw: The Improbably Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series by Jesse Dougherty -- BingoDOG -- finished reading Apr. 4th -- 4 stars
2. (19) Race against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell --finished reading Apr. 7th -- BingoDOG and NonfictionCAT - 5 stars
3. (20) The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- BingoDOG -- finished reading Apr. 10th -- 5 stars
4. (21) Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher -- BingoDOG -- finished reading Apr. 13th -- 4 stars
5. (22) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams -- BingoDOG -- finished reading Apr. 15th -- 3.5 stars
6. (23) The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown -- CFM Friendly Big Read -- finished reading Apr. 18th --3.5 stars
7. (24) Women at the Wheel: A Century of Buying, Driving, and Fixing Cars by Katherine J. Parkin --BingoDOG -- finished reading Apr. 19th -- 3 stars
8. (25) Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly -- RandomCAT (spring, name of flower) -- finished reading April 22nd -- 3.5 stars
9. (26) Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep -- NonfictionCAT, BingoDOG (second card) -- finished reading Apr. 25th -- 4 stars
10. "Lusus Naturae" by Margaret Atwood -- sometime in April -- planned to read whole collection, Stone Mattress, soon but will probably save it until I know whether we'll be reading for book club in next year

Titles read in May:

1. (27) Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin -- BingoDOG -- finished reading May 4th -- 3 stars
2. Lady Susan by Jane Austen -- BingoDOG -- finished reading May 5th
3. (28) The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See -- BingoDOG -- finished reading May 11th -- 4.5 stars
4. (29) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -- finished reading May 14th -- 4.5 stars
5. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- finished rereading May 20th for book group zoom discussion replacing meeting not held in March. (Not counting again as a book since already counted but counting as a read this month)
6. (30) On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement edited by Bettina Friedl --BingoDog (card 2), RandomCAT (tbr shelf) -- finished reading May 21st (early morning) -- 3 stars.
7. (31) Pleasantville by Attica Locke (BingoDOG second card) -- finished reading May 25th -- 3 stars.
8. "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" by Katherine Anne Porter -- OLLI June discussion group -- read May 25th
9. (32) The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood -- BingoDOG -- finished reading May 27th -- 3 stars.
10. First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image, text by Edith P. Mayo and Lisa Kathleen Graddy, but design and illustrations are really what make this short publication of the Smithsonian Institute -- read May 30th.

Titles read in June:

1. (33) Cottage by the Sea by Debbie Macomber -- RandomCAT -- finished reading June 1 -- 4 stars.
2. (34) Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History by Jeremy Brown -- finished reading June 4th -- 3 stars.
3. (35) Selma's Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Robert A. Pratt -- NonfictionCAT (Society) and KITastrophe (Man-made)-- finished reading June 9th -- 3.5 stars
4. (36) Blue Marlin by Lee Smith -- RandomCAT (sea), BingoDOG card 2 -- finished reading June 13th -- 5 stars
5. (37) Furmidable Foes by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown -- BingoDOG card 2 -- finished reading June 20th -- 3 stars
6. (38) Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill -- NonfictionCAT (Society) -- finished reading June 21st -- 3.5 stars
7. (39) Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman -- RandomCAT -- finished reading June 26th -- 3 stars
8. (40) Cop Town by Karin Slaughter -- MysteryKIT -- finished reading June 30th -- 2.5 stars

Titles read in July: (DisasterKIT host next month, August: travel and marine)

1. (41) Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs by Caitlin Doughty -- NonfictionCAT and BingoDOG second card -- finished reading July 5th -- 4 stars
2. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss -- RandomCAT (picture book) -- read 6/8/20 --4 stars
3. (42) I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman -- OLLI discussion group -- finished rereading July 12th -- 5 stars
4. (43) Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver -- Northside book group -- finished reading July 13th -- 3 stars
5. "The Black Monk" by Anton Chekhov -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading July 17th
6. (44) Bibliophile by Jane Mount for RandomCAT and BingoDOG (second card) -- finished reading July 18th -- 3 stars
7. (45) To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee -- OLLI discussion group -- finished rereading July 20th. -- 5 stars
8. "The Beggar Maid" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading July 23rd
9. (46) The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline -- LT ER book -- finished reading July 28th -- 4 stars.
10. "The Ottawa Valley" by Alice Munro --Colonnades short story seminar -- read July 29th.
11. "The Moons of Jupiter" by Alice Munro --Colonnades short story seminar -- read July 29th.
12 (47) Behind a Mask by A. M. Bernard (pseud. for Louisa May Alcott, novella issued under this pseud.) BingoDOG 2nd card and ScardyKIT -- finished reading July 30th -- 4 stars

Titles read in August: (KITastrophe host: travel and marine)

1. (48) A Night to Remember by Walter Lord -- KITastrophe and NonfictionCAT -- finished reading Aug. 1st -- 5 stars
2. (49) Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters by Violet Jessop; introduced, edited, and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham -- KITastrophe and NonfictionCAT -- finished reading Aug. 4th -- 4 stars
3. "Friend of My Youth" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 5th.
4. "Fits" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 5th.
5. (50) Loving Frank by Nancy Horan --BingoDOG second card -- finished reading Aug. 8th -- 4 stars
6. "The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System -- by Joanna Cole; illustrations by Bruce Degen -- thought of using for Female author BingoDOG card, but planning to read 20 Hours, 40 Seconds by Amelia Earhart instead -- read Aug. 13th
7. (51) The Real Patsy Cline by Doug Hall -- RandomCAT -- finished reading Aug. 15th -- 3.5 stars
8. (52)Sinking the Sultana: A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home -- Sally M. Walker -- KITastrophe and NonfictionCAT -- finished reading Aug. 15th. -- not rated
9. (53) Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks -- Northside book group -- finished reading Aug. 18th -- 4 stars
10. "A Wilderness Station" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 20th.
11. "Vandals" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 20th.
12. "Good-bye, My Brother" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 24th.
13. "The Swimmer" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 24th.
14. (54) Stone Mattress: Nine Tales -- Margaret Atwood --BingoDOG card 2 -- finished reading Aug. 28th -- 4 stars
15. (55) Me & Patsy: Kickin' Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline -- Loretta Lynn -- RandomCAT and NonfictionCAT -- finished reading August 30th -- 4 stars

Titles read in September: (GeoCAT host next month: Great Britain, Canada, U.S.)
Unfortunately, I will not be reading much since the middle of September. I hit my head early in the month resulting in a concussion. I was progressing but hit my head again around 10 days later, and went back to the beginning of my recovery. I am supposed to stay off the computer as much as possible and limit my reading.

1. (56) Arsenic with Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde -- MysteryKIT and BingoDOG (card 2) -- finished reading Sept. 1st -- 3 stars
2. "The Five Forty Eight" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 1st
3. "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 1st
4. (57) 20 Hrs. 40 Min. by Amelia Earhart --BingoDOG (card 2) -- finished reading Sept. 5th -- 4 stars.
5. "The Angel of the Bridge" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 9th
6. "The Scarlet Moving Van" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 9th
7. "The Chimera" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 14th
8. (58) Nobody Hitchhikes Anymore by Ed Griffin-Nolan -- LT Early Reviewers -- finished reading Sept. 23rd -- 3 stars
9. (59) The Dutch House by Ann Patchett -- BingoDOG (card 2) and New Dominion book group -- finished reading Sept. 28 -- 3 stars
10. (60) The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck -- BingoDOG (card 2) and Northside book group -- finished listening to Sept. 30th -- 3 stars.

Titles read in October: (GeoCAT host: Great Britain, Canada, U.S.)

1. "My Three Fathers," article by Ann Patchett printed in Sept. 28th issue of the New Yorker -- mentioned in book club discussion of The Dutch House today -- read Oct. 3rd.
2. "The Lame Shall Enter First" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 5th
3. (61) A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor -- prior to zoom book talk sponsored by Montpelier -- finished reading October 8th --3.5 stars
4. "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 7th
5. (62) Woman and the New Race by Margaret Sanger -- BingoDOG (card 2) and supplementary reading for an OLLI course -- finished reading October 9th --2.5 stars.
6. "A View of the Woods" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 12th
7. "The Enduring Chill" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 15th
8. (63) The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller -- GeoCAT (Canada), RandomCAT (medical workers) and BingoDOG (LT author) -- finished reading Oct. 18th -- 4 stars
9. (64) The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson -- For book club, GeoCAT, NonfictionCAT, KITastrophe -- finished listening to/reading Oct. 21st -- 4 stars
10. "The Comforts of Home" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 23rd.
11. (65) A Lost Lady by Willa Cather -- BingoDOG (card 2) -- finished reading Oct. 28th -- 4 stars

Titles read in November: (MysteryKIT host next month: Cozies):

1. (66) Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner -- New Dominion book club and retirement home lit seminar -- finished reading Nov. 5th -- 3.5 stars
2. (67) House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday -- Northside Library book club -- BingoDOG (replacing Penelopiad in card 1 to make card 2 just female authors) -- finished reading Nov. 18th -- 3 stars
3. (68) Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles -- BingoDOG (card 2) -- finished reading Nov. 19th -- 2 stars
4. (69) Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey -- finished reading Nov. 22nd -- 4.5 stars
5. (70) The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick -- BingoDOG (card 2) -- finished reading Nov. 24th -- 4 stars
6. (71) Stories from Suffragette City edited by M. J. Rose and Fiona Davis -- pleasure -- finished reading Nov. 28th -- 4.5 stars
7. "The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway -- for Colonnades short story seminar which I missed Nov. 27th because of quarantine -- read Nov. 30th.
8. "A Clean, Well-lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway -- for Colonnades short story seminar which I missed Nov. 27th because of quarantine -- read Nov. 30th.

Titles read in December: (MysteryKIT host: Cozies)

1. The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation: A Christmas story by A. M. Barnard (pseud. for Louisa May Alcott) -- finished reading Dec. 1st
2. "In Another Country" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Dec. 3rd
3. "A Way You'll Never Be" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Dec. 4th
4. (72) Turning the Tide by Edith Maxwell --MysteryKIT (cozy mystery) -- finished reading Dec. 4th -- 4.5 stars
5. (73) The Puzzles of Amish Life by Donald B. Kraybill -- RandomCAT (author named Donald) -- finished reading Dec. 7th -- 4 stars
6. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading Dec. 11th
7. (74) Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen -- MysteryKIT (cozies), Christmas reading -- 4.5 stars
8. "Christmas Every Day" by William Dean Howells -- Christmas reading -- read Dec. 16
9. "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry -- Christmas reading (a reread) -- read Dec. 16th
10. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading Dec. 17th
11. "Christmas Storms and Sunshine" by Elizabeth Gaskell -- Christmas reading -- read Dec. 17th
12. (75) Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America by Stephanie Gorton -- BingoDOG card 2 -- finished reading Dec. 30th -- 4.5 stars

BingoDOG



BingoDOG (second card) -- only female authors: https://www.librarything.com/topic/313125#7136311

Titles read for BingoDOG:

1. Personal name in title: Daisy Miller by Henry James -- read January 1st -- 4 stars
2. Set in Asia: The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See --Korea -- finished reading May 11th -- 4.5 stars
3. Periodic table element in title: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams -- finished reading Apr. 15th -- 3.5 stars
4. Life or death, human aging: Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher -- finished reading Apr. 13th -- 4 stars
5. Book not set on Earth: Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie (murder took place in an airplane) -- finished reading Mar. 25th -- 4 stars
6. Published by a small press: Needville: Poems by Sara M. Robinson, published by Cedar Creek Publishing -- finished reading Jan. 9th -- 3 stars
7. Book by a journalist: Race against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell --finished reading Apr. 7th -- 5 stars
8. Weird book title: Mouthful of Birds: Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell -- finished Mar. 28th -- 1st Bingo (second horizontal line down)
9. Published in 1820 or 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (1920) -- finished Mar. 21st -- 3 stars
10. LT author: Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert -- finished reading Mar. 14th -- 4 stars
11. Non U.S./U.K. female author: The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) -- finished reading Apr. 10th -- 5 stars
12. Library or Thing in title: The Library Book by Susan Orlean -- finished reading Jan. 19 -- 2 stars (Earlier had put this in square 17: books, bookstores, libraries
13. Read a CAT: So Big by Edna Ferber, RandomCAT published in 1924, BingoDOG, AlphaKIT -- finished on Feb. 8th -- 4 stars.
14. Pen name -- Classified as Murder by Miranda James, pen name of Dean James -- finished on Feb. 12th -- 3.5 stars
15. Pub yr of birth: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -- finished May 14th -- 4.5 stars
16. Three consecutive letters in Bingo: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- finished reading Mar. 17th -- 5 stars
17. Books, bookstores, libraries: Jane and Dorothy: A True Tale of Sense and Sensibility: The Lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth --- Marian Veevers (talks a lot about Jane Austen's writings, Dorothy's writings and her influence on William Wordsworth, what the women read) -- finished reading Mar. 25th -- 3 stars
18. Involves real historical event: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (Spanish Civil War)-- finished reading Jan. 14th -- 3 stars -- originally in by a journalist square -- moved 47/20.
19. From a legacy library: Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin -- finished reading May 4th -- 3 stars
20. Red cover -- Women at the Wheel: A Century of Buying, Driving, and Fixing Cars by Katherine J. Parkin -- finished reading Apr. 19th -- 3 stars
21. Book published in 2020: Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series by Jesse Dougherty -- finished reading Apr. 4th -- 4 stars
22. Mythology: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood -- finished reading May 27th. -- replaced by House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday -- switching Atwood book to BingoDOG card 2 female only authors -- finished reading Nov. 18th -- 3 stars
23. Title contains a pun: Mac on a Hot Tin Roof by Melinda Metz — Mac is a cat -- finished reading Mar. 30th -- 2.5 stars
24. Mystery or true crime: The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman -- finished reading Feb. 18th -- 3.5 stars
25. Epistolary "novel": Lady Susan by Jane Austen -- finished reading May 5th.

Titles read for BingoDOG (second card) -- only female authors: https://www.librarything.com/topic/313125#7136312

Titles read for CATS:

January RandomCAT (challenging book): For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway -- finished reading Jan. 14th -- 3 stars

February RandomCAT (published in a leap year): So Big by Edna Ferber, published in 1924 -- finished on Feb. 8th -- 4 stars.

March NonfictionCAT (biography): Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- written in poetry -- finished reading Mar 17th -- 5 stars
March NonfictionCAT (biography): Jane and Dorothy: A True Tale of Sense and Sensibility: The Lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth by Marian Veevers -- finished Mar. 25th -- 3.5 stars

April NonfictionCAT (crime): Race against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell --finished reading Apr. 7th -- 5 stars
April RandomCAT (spring, name of flower): Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly -- finished reading April 22nd -- 3.5 stars
April NonfictionCAT (crime): Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep -- NonfictionCAT, BingoDOG (second card) -- finished reading Apr. 25th -- 4 stars

May RandomCAT (from tbr shelf): On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement edited by Bettina Friedl -- finished reading May 21st (early morning) -- 3 stars

June RandomCAT (sea, water): Cottage by the Sea by Debbie Macomber -- finished reading June 1 -- 4 stars
June NonfictionCAT (social problems): Selma's Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Robert A. Pratt -- finished reading June 9th -- 3.5 stars
June RandomCAT (sea): Blue Marlin by Lee Smith -- finished reading June 13th -- 5 stars
June NonfictionCAT (social problems): Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill -- finished reading June 21st -- 3.5 stars.
June RandomCAT (sea, water): Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman -- finished reading June 26th -- 3 stars

July NonfictionCAT (human science): Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs by Caitlin Doughty -- finished reading July 5th -- 4 stars
July RandomCAT (pictures): Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss -- read 6/8/20
July RandomCAT (pictures): Bibliophile by Jane Mount -- finished reading July 18th -- 3 stars

August NonfictionCAT (history): A Night to Remember by Walter Lord -- finished reading Aug. 1st -- 5 stars
August NonfictionCAT (history): Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters by Violet Jessop; introduced, edited, and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham -- finished reading Aug. 4th -- 4 stars
August RandomCAT (music): The Real Patsy Cline by Doug Hall -- finished reading Aug. 15th -- 3.5 stars
August NonfictionCAT (history): Sinking the Sultana: A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home -- Sally M. Walker -- finished reading Aug. 15th. -- not rated
August NonfictionCAT (history) and RandomCAT (music): Me & Patsy: Kickin' Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline -- Loretta Lynn -- RandomCAT and NonfictionCAT -- finished reading August 30th -- 4 stars

October GeoCAT (Canada), RandomCAT (medical workers): The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller -- finished reading Oct. 18th -- 4 stars
October GeoCAT (United States), NonfictionCAT (the arts -- lot about architecture): The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson -- - finished listening to/reading Oct. 21st -- 4 stars

December RandomCAT (author named Donald): The Puzzles of Amish Life by Donald B. Kraybill -- finished reading Dec. 7th -- 4 stars

Titles read for KITs:

January MysteryKIT (historical mysteries): The Tuesday Night Club and The Idol House of Astarte both short stories by Agatha Christie -- MysteryKIT -- 3 stars

February AlphaKIT (both F and B): So Big by Edna Ferber -- finished on Feb. 8th -- 4 stars.
February MysteryKIT (featuring animals): Classified as Murder by Miranda James -- finished reading Feb. 12th -- 3.5 stars

March MysteryKIT (Golden Age): The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie -- finished reading Mar. 21st -- 3 stars
March MysteryKIT (Golden Age): Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie -- finished reading Mar. 25th -- 4 stars

June KITastrophe (man-made): Selma's Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Robert A. Pratt -- finished reading June 9th -- 3.5 stars
June KITastrophe (man-made): Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill -- finished reading June 21st -- 3.5 stars.
June MysteryKIT (police procedural): Cop Town by Karin Slaughter -- finished reading June 30th -- 2.5 stars

July ScardyKIT (femmes fatales): Behind a Mask by A. M. Bernard (pseud. for Louisa May Alcott, novella issued under this pseud.) -- finished reading July 30th -- 4 stars

August KITastrophe (travel and marine): A Night to Remember by Walter Lord -- finished reading Aug. 1st -- 5 stars
August KITastrophe (travel and marine): Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters by Violet Jessop; introduced, edited, and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham -- finished reading Aug. 4th -- 4 stars
August KITastrophe (travel and marine):Sinking the Sultana: A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home -- Sally M. Walker -- finished reading Aug. 15th. -- not rated

September MysteryKIT (series): Arsenic with Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde (Crime with the Classics series) -- finished reading Sept. 1st -- 3 stars

October Kitastrophe (prior to 1900): The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson -- finished listening to/reading Oct. 21st -- 4 stars

December MysteryKIT (cozies): Turning the Tide by Edith Maxwell -- finished reading Dec. 4th -- 4.5 stars
December MysteryKIT (cozies): Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen -- finished reading Dec. 11th -- 4.5 stars

Assigned titles (book clubs, classes {excluding titles of short works}, LT early readers):

1. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway --Northside Book Club January read -- finished reading Jan. 14th -- 3 stars
2. Malnourished: A Memoir of Sisterhood and Hunger by Cinthia Ritchie -- LT ER -- read Jan. 20th -- 3 stars
3. The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman -- OLLI mystery novels class -- finished reading Feb. 18th -- 3.5 stars
4. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly -- OLLI mystery novels class -- finished March 1st -- 3 stars
5. Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon -- OLLI mystery novels class -- finished Mar. 9th -- 2.5 stars
6. Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert -- OLLI mystery novels class -- finished Mar. 14th -- 4 stars
7. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- JMRL same page and Northside bookclub, meeting cancelled -- NonfictionCAT (biography although written in poetry) -- finished reading Mar. 17th -- 5 stars
8. The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown -- CFM Friendly Big Read -- finished reading Apr. 18th --3.5 stars
9. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- finished rereading May 20th for book group zoom discussion replacing meeting not held in March -- 5 stars
10. I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman -- OLLI discussion group (reread a favorite book)-- finished rereading July 12th -- 5 stars.
11. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver -- Northside book group zoom meeting -- finished reading July 13th -- 3 stars.
12. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee -- OLLI discussion group (read a banned book) -- finished rereading July 20th. -- 5 stars.
13. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks -- Northside book group zoom meeting -- finished reading Aug. 18th -- 4 stars
14. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett -- New Dominion book group -- finished reading Sept. 28 -- 3 stars
15. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck -- Northside book group -- finished listening to Sept. 30th -- 3 stars.
16. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson --Northside book group -- finished listening to/reading Oct. 21st -- 4 stars
17. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner -- New Dominion book club and retirement home lit seminar -- finished reading Nov. 5th -- 3.5 stars

Books about Thomas Jefferson, Dolly Madison, and Abraham and/or Mary Lincoln. When we moved to Charlottesville over 30 years ago, Thomas Jefferson (or TJ as he was affectionately called then) appeared to be worshipped by the community. It seemed that before any major city decision could be reached, people considered what TJ might think. This has changed drastically over the last twenty years or so, especially since it has been established that Jefferson fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings -- which was strongly denied by certain "scholars" for quite some time. Now the community, the University of Virginia, and the historians connected with the local presidential homes -- Monticello (Jefferson), Highland (Monroe), and Montpelier (Madison) are reassessing the local leaders. I have a number of recent books about Jefferson and Dolly Madison which I have not yet read. I have always been interested in the Lincolns are have tbr books about them.

1. A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor -- prior to zoom book talk sponsored by Montpelier -- finished reading October 8th -- 3.5 stars

Books acquired at the annual Virginia Festival of the Book and tbr Secret Santa books. I have been better in the last year or so to read books I purchase at the festival. I want to read more from my decreasing backlog in this area plus read at least some of the books I will undoubtedly purchase at the 2020 festival. Moreover, at least until now (Dec. 17th) my Secret Santas have carefully ordered books they think I will like. I have read but not all of these.

The 2020 Virginia Festival of the Book was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, Jacqueline Woodson was to be the Literary Luncheon speaker and Brown Girl Dreaming was our public library's choice for their annual "same page" reading (connected with the festival)

1. So Big by Edna Ferber -- Secret Santa 2019 -- finished on Feb. 8th -- 4 stars.
2. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- Secret Santa 2018-- finished reading Apr. 10th -- 5 stars
3. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- JMRL same page and Northside bookclub -- finished reading Mar. 17th -- 5 stars -- 2020 festival
4. Pleasantville by Attica Locke -- finished reading May 25th -- 3 stars -- 2018 festival
5. Selma's Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Robert A. Pratt -- finished reading June 9th -- 3.5 stars -- 2017 festival
6. Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman -- finished reading June 26th -- 3 stars -- 2017 festival
7. Cop Town by Karin Slaughter -- finished reading June 30th -- 2.5 stars -- 2015 festival
8. Stone Mattress: Nine Tales -- Margaret Atwood -- finished reading Aug. 28th -- 4 stars -- Secret Santa 2018
9. A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor -- 2012 book festival -- finished reading October 8th.

Titles of short works read:

1. Daisy Miller by Henry James -- read January 1st -- Short Story seminar -- 4 stars
2. The Aspern Papers by Henry James -- Short Story seminar --- finished reading Jan. 17th
3. The Middle Years by Henry James -- Short Story seminar -- read Jan. 23rd
4. The Tuesday Night Club, a short story by Agatha Christie for MysteryKIT -- read in January
5. The Idol House of Astarte a short story by Agatha Christie for MysteryKIT -- read in January
6. The Pupil by Henry James -- short story seminar -- read Feb. 10th -- 3 stars
7. Needville: A Play in Two Acts by Sara M. Robinson --will be in the cast for a local production -- read Feb. 15th -- 4 stars
8. "Vanka" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- first read Feb. 15 for class Feb. 21
9. "The Student' by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- first read Feb. 15 for class Feb. 21
10. "Gooseberries" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Feb. 20th for class Feb. 21
11. "The Lady with the Little Dog" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Mar. 3d
12. "Small Fry" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Mar. 12th
13. "The Darling" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- read Mar. 12th
14. "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" by Katherine Anne Porter -- OLLI June discussion group -- read May 25th
15. First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image, text by Edith P. Mayo and Lisa Kathleen Graddy, but design and illustrations are really what make this short publication of the Smithsonian Institute -- read May 30th.
16. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss -- RandomCAT -- read 6/8/20
17. "The Black Monk" by Anton Chekhov -- Jim's short story seminar -- finished reading July 17th
18. "The Beggar Maid" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading July 23rd
19. "The Ottawa Valley" by Alice Munro --Colonnades short story seminar -- read July 29th.
20. "The Moons of Jupiter" by Alice Munro --Colonnades short story seminar -- read July 29th.
21. "Friend of My Youth'' by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 5th.
22. "Fits" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 5th.
23. "The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System -- by Joanna Cole; illustrations by Bruce Degen -- thought of using for Female author BingoDOG card, but planning to read 20 Hours, 40 Seconds by Amelia Earhart instead -- read Aug. 13th (fiction with nonfiction info about the solar system)
24. "A Wilderness Station" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 20th.
25. "Vandals" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 20th.
26. "Good-bye, My Brother" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 24th.
27. "The Swimmer" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 24th.
28. "The Five Forty Eight" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 1st
29. "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 1st
30. "The Angel of the Bridge" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 9th
31. "The Scarlet Moving Van" by John Cheever -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Sept. 9th
32. "My Three Fathers," article by Ann Patchett printed in Sept. 28th issue of the New Yorker -- mentioned in book club discussion of The Dutch House today -- read Oct. 3rd.
33. "The Lame Shall Enter First" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 5th
34. "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 7th
35. "A View of the Woods" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 12th
36. "The Enduring Chill" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 15th
37. "The Comforts of Home" by Flannery O'Connor -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Oct. 23rd.
38. "The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway -- for Colonnades short story seminar which I missed Nov. 27th because of quarantine -- read Nov. 30th.
39. "A Clean, Well-lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway -- for Colonnades short story seminar which I missed Nov. 27th because of quarantine -- read Nov. 30th.
40. The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation: A Christmas story by A. M. Barnard (pseud. for Louisa May Alcott) -- finished reading Dec. 1st
41. "In Another Country" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Dec. 3rd
42. "A Way You'll Never Be" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Dec. 4th
43. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading Dec. 11th.
44. "Christmas Every Day" by William Dean Howells -- Christmas reading -- read Dec. 16
45. "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry -- Christmas reading (a reread) -- read Dec. 16th
46. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway -- Colonnades short story seminar -- finished reading Dec. 17th
47. "Christmas Storms and Sunshine" by Elizabeth Gaskell -- Christmas reading -- read Dec. 17th.

Books I read because they appeal to me. I'm giving myself permission to do that.

1. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land -- finished reading Jan. 29th -- 4 stars
2. Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey -- finished reading Nov. 22nd -- 4.5 stars.
3. Stories from Suffragette City edited by M. J. Rose and Fiona Davis -- pleasure -- finished reading Nov. 28th -- 4.5 stars -- also book published in 2020

Books published in 2020: plan to read as many as possible. (* means have read)
1. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston -- pub. Jan. 14th; added to collection Feb. 15th
*2. Race against Time by Jerry Mitchell -- pub. Feb. 4th, added Feb. 23 (co-owned with husband) reviewed in Sun. Washington Post -- finished reading Apr. 7th -- 5 stars
*3. Citizen Reporters by Stephanie Gorton --pub. Feb. 18, added Mar. 18 (co-owned with husband) reviewed in Sun. Washington Post -- finished reading Dec. 30th -- 4.5 stars
*4. Buzz Saw by Jesse Dougherty -- pub. Mar. 24th, added Mar 30 reviewed in Sun. Washington Post sports section. -- finished reading Apr. 4th -- 4 stars
*5. Furmidable Foes by Rita Mae Brown -- pub. May 19th, added June 9 (Over the Moon Bookshop -- going out of business) -- finished reading June 20th -- 3 stars
*6. Blue Marlin by Lee Smith -- pub. Apr. 21st, added June 9 (Over the Moon Bookshop -- going out of business) -- finished reading June 13th -- 5 stars
*7. The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline -- to be published Sept. 15th -- Early Reviewer -- finished reading Aug. 28th -- 4 stars.
8. See No Stranger: a Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur -- pub. June 16th, recd as gift from FGC July 22nd
*9. Me & Patsy by Loretta Lynn -- pub. Apr. 7th -- borrowed from JMRL Aug. 27th -- finished reading Aug. 30th.
10. Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump -- pub. July 14th -- added to LT Sept. 11th (John bought shortly after book came out)
*11 Nobody Hitchhikes Anymore by Ed Griffin-Nolan -- LT Early Reviewers -- published Sept. 22nd but in Aug. list of Early Reviewers (recd Advanced reader copy, uncorrected proof)-- finished reading Sept. 23rd -- 3 stars
*12. Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey --published July 28th -- borrowed from JMRL Nov. 12th -- finished reading Nov. 22nd -- 4.5 stars.
* 13. Stories from Suffragette City edited by M. J. Rose and Fiona Davis -- published Oct. 27th -- received for birthday Nov. 19th. finished reading Nov. 28th -- 4.5 stars
14. This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear -- published Nov. 10th -- received for Christmas
15. Author in Chief by Craig Fehrman -- published Feb. 20th -- received for Christmas
16. The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th President -- and Why it Failed by Brad Meltzer amd Josh Mensch -- published May 5th -- bought on special 50% off sale on Dec. 27th

Welcome to my thread! On December 17th I once again made extensive changes to my goals. I started out with one BingoDOG card, then changed it to two BingoDOG cards with the second being only female authors. However, this year (2019) I have been working on two cards, and feel a compulsion to finish both. However, I'm finding that 2 cards take up too much of my reading; I want to make more of a dent in my tbr books and read more books just for interest or pleasure. I get a considerable amount of "assigned" reading through my two bookclubs.

Happy reading in 2020!

I am looking forward to following along with your 2020 reading. :)

Main Street is a possibility for one of my Bingo squares as well. Have a great reading year!

Have a great year of reading! I'm always tempted to do the monthly arrangements, but I find with a couple of catchall categories, I can make it work otherwise.

As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Wishing you an enjoyable 2020 reading year.

I read Daisy Miller by Henry James for a literature class which I'm taking at our retirement community. It also fits the BingoDOG square for a proper name. I did not like Daisy herself very much. She seemed to always want her own way, and was very inconsiderate of other people's feelings.

4 stars

>29 sallylou61: I read Daisy Miller several years back and only gave it a 3 star rating. I didn't like Daisy much either. That was such a disappointment because I loved my Aunt Daisy and wanted to love a protagonist with her given name.

>30 thornton37814: I'm in the midst of reading some works by Henry James for a weekly literature seminar at our retirement community. Now we are reading The Aspern Papers, a two week read. At least we are not trying his novels; I never got through The Portrait of a Lady which our book club read several years ago. Our instructor is an 85 year-old-male who used to teach at a small midwestern college. He seems to enjoy some of the male authors so much (Hemingway, Faulkner, and James) that I once asked him if he had taught at a male only college. After that, he showed more interest in discussing female characters (which he had skipped in Hemingway) and we even read some stories by females.

For the small press or self-published square for BingoDOG I read Needville by Sara M. Robinson, a collection of poetry published by Cedar Creek Publishing, "A Virginia Publisher of Virginia Books" (title page verso). Sara is a friend of mine who leads a poetry group at our retirement community although she does not reside there. I heard Sara read from this collection at a book signing party at a local bookstore. I enjoyed listening to her read much more than reading this book myself. She told some background about various poems which made them more meaningful. Before she retired, Sara was involved as a technical writer/ researcher in the mining industry. Needville, which features poems about poverty and the mining industry (and its decline/death) in Appalachia often uses names of elements, etc., with which I am not familiar. Sara and Jim, our literature instructor (>31 sallylou61:) are writing a play based on Needville; I will be interested in watching it as I understand it will have explanatory material between the poems, and show pictures of the poverty, etc. The book only has a picture on the cover with none inside although I have seen enough of the poverty in West Virginia, etc., to be able to imagine it.

3 stars

>31 sallylou61: - I haven't read much James. Just Daisy Miller and The Aspern Papers so looking forward to finding out what you think of that one!

>31 sallylou61: I own Washington Square, but I don't think I've read it.

Weirdly, I own several Henry James novels but just haven’t read any of them. I’ve got The Wings of the Dove, The Bostonians, and The Ambassadors waiting on the shelf.

>33 lkernagh:, >34 thornton37814:, >35 LittleTaiko: . I will return to finish reading The Aspern Papers later this week. The seminar I'm reading it for is Friday. I just finally finished reading Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, our bookclub read for tomorrow night (and both the RandomCAT and BingoDOG). I had started reading that book early last year for a class I planned to take but withdrew following my concussion. I'm a slow reader, and the Hemingway book was long and slow going. It's amazing he could take over 450 pages describing actions and people's feelings taking less than four days.

For my bookclub and the RandomCAT challenge, I've just finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. This is the first long novel which I have read by him although I've read several of his short stories and his novella The Old Man and the Sea. This novel was a difficult read for me because I do not particularly like his writing, and I felt the novel dragged on and on. Hemingway wrote approximately 470 pages to cover less than four days in time! At the beginning, I just knew it was about the Spanish Civil War; I understood the situation much better after reading about the novel in Wikipedia. I was interested in seeing how Hemingway treated the two female characters in the book; they were both important characters for some reason. Although he generally expected the women to obey the men, he did have Pilar in a leadership role. There was a lot of talking or thinking in the book, both about war and about death. The novel showed the brutality of war during a four-day span in a specific place. The protagonist had one specific job to do: to blow up a specific bridge at a specific time in battle.

3 stars

>37 sallylou61: I've read both aforementioned Hemingway's and I'm not a fan.

>33 lkernagh:, >34 thornton37814:, >35 LittleTaiko: I have not decided exactly what my feelings are about The Aspern Papers. I got tired of reading the story; I felt that it dragged on and that the narrator should not have tried to find the papers when Juliana was on her deathbed. However, I found the seminar discussion very interesting. Our instructor is very knowledgable about literature, and we have a retired child psychiatrist in our group who always has interesting psychological insights into characters (and authors). One of our class members wondered whether Tita in the English version (Tina in the American version) was actually the daughter of Jeffrey Aspern and Juliana Bordereau instead of her niece -- something our instructor had not thought of, but several of us think might be the case. We wonder whether that was the secret the papers contained. Our assignment this week includes a psychological analysis by William Veeder which appears in the text we are reading, the Norton Critical Edition of Tales of Henry James. At some point we will also view the movie of the Aspern Papers starring Vanessa Redgrave even though our instructor does not like it.

currently unrated for the novella

>38 Tess_W: Unfortunately, our instructor for our short story seminar likes Hemingway; we started out with his In Our Time, a collection of his short stories when our weekly seminar began last January. Jim is planning on going back to some Hemingway short stories in a few weeks after we finish studying Henry James. I'm thinking of skipping the course during the Hemingway sessions.

I read The Library Book by Susan Orlean, thinking it would qualify for KITastrophe whose subject this month is fire. However, early on, I realized that it just does not discuss the fire enough to qualify. The book is much more a history of the LA public library system, a description of the way that large library system is run, and the author's experience with libraries, including her doing research for this book than about the fire itself. She also tells the story of one individual who might have been an arsonist who started the fire, but who was never tried; the case against him was too flimsy for trial. Unfortunately, this is a very disjointed account; the author jumps from subject to subject, apparently writing what she feels like writing about, without any logical order. Although parts of the book are interesting, it lacks value as a nonfiction work since it does not provide any bibliographical footnotes or index.

I am using this book for the books, bookstores, libraries square of BingoDOG.

2 stars

Thank you for sharing your thoughts re: The Aspern Papers and for mentioning that there is a movie adaptation. I read it back in 2015, and gave it high marks at the time. Interestingly, I don't seem to recall much of the plot, so not as memorable a read as I might have thought it would be.

I have just read Malnourished: A Memoir of Sisterhood and Hunger by Cinthia Ritchie, a LT ER book. This was a difficult book to read because of the subject: a wretched family life, which included an indifferent stepfather who never showed the proper attention or love to the four sisters, but instead sexually abused them, and a mother who was too weak to stand up for her daughters. The sisters hungered for love and recognition, for a normal family life. They were close in age and tried to take care of each other. The author and one sister, Deena, experienced severe eating problems; when she was an adult, Deena died of anorexia. Before getting married, the author slept with many men; she had a son with a man she barely knew. She describes being a mother to her son.

The style of writing of this memoir is hard to follow since the author jumps around giving snatches of the story of the lives of her sisters, particularly Deena, and herself. She can be very good at describing a particular scene including the atmosphere and her feeling and supposes what Deena's feeling would be. Often she uses phrases instead of sentences. Sometimes she says that she lies, and it is hard to tell how much of the story she is telling is a lie. Also, particularly near the beginning, there is some swearing. However, the difficulty of the author's life is clearly shown; the abusive childhood had lasting effects.

The author uses first names and terms such as mother, grandmother in the book. No surnames are given; the names of the sisters are not their real names.

3 stars

I ended up reading only two of the thirteen short stories in The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie for the January MysteryKIT; I found them rather disappointing. It appears as if all the stories in the collection are stories told by a member of the Tuesday Night Club who knows the identity of the murderer, and the other group members try to guess solve the mystery. Jane Marple is probably the person who gets the correct answer; at least she did in the first two stories: The Tuesday Night Club and The Idol House of Astarte. "These problems were Miss Marple's first introduction to the world of detective story readers" (first sentence of Foreword written by Agatha Christie herself, p. 1 of collection).

Touchstone for collection title does not go to the correct record.

3 stars for these 2 stories

For the February RandomCAT (published in a leap year, 1924), which also qualified for the AlphaKIT (both F and B) and the BingoDOG (read a CAT), I read So Big by Edna Ferber. This is the first book I have read by this author although I have watched both the movie and seen the musical Show Boat a number of times. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book which featured Selina Peake De Jong, who, after being orphaned as a teenager, leaves Chicago to teach in a farm community. She ends up marrying a man without much ambition, who runs a failing farm. After the death of her husband which leaves her with a young son, she runs the farm herself working hard to support herself and her son. In doing so, she does not follow the norms of a turn-of-the-20th century woman. The last half of the book is more about her son, Dirk, nicknamed "So Big" as a baby. He is primarily interested in getting rich instead of fulfilling his dreams of being an architect. In the end, when he falls in love with a woman having his mother's values, he realizes, probably too late, how unfulfilled his life has been. I got rather tired of the emphasis on riches andDirk's disregard for the women working in his office.

4 stars

I read Classified as Murder by Miranda James, a new series to me for the MysteryKIT (animal detective) and BingoDOG (pen name; real name Dean James). I enjoyed the mystery but was able to guess the murderer before the end of the story. I was disappointed in the roles of the pets, cat and dog, in the solving of the mystery. The cat's role was just accidental. The animals did not talk and show their theories of how the solution was progressing as they do in Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy series.

3.5 stars

>46 sallylou61: Diesel did a little more in the book I read. He nudged Charlie toward clues and helped prevent some disasters the criminal planned.

Over on the BINGO thread, you mentioned reading A Ritual Bath for your class. What are the other 3 mysteries you'll be reading for it? Curious minds want to know.

>48 thornton37814: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly -- our instructor seems to like Connelly --- we read his The Drop for her class two years ago

Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon (a new-to-me author)

Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert (another new-to-me author)

>49 sallylou61: We have a group read of Donna Leon's Brunetti books. This year's thread is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/315244 The one you are reading is the April book for this year.

I've read some of the Albert ones, but not all. Connelly is quite popular. I think I'd prefer his Harry Bosch series to the lawyer one though.

I recently finished reading The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman for an OLLI adult education class. The class title is "Mystery Novels: Windows on Society and Culture. In our reading and discussion of the novels we are concentrating on what the novels show about these two topics. For example, this novel strongly portrays antisemitism and to a much smaller extent extremely negative views toward blacks, especially as viewed by teenage thugs. The reader learns a lot about Jewish culture and how some of its beliefs hamper the police in their investigation of rapes and murder. It also touches on adoption and intermarriage of Jews and Gentiles. Two groups in particular, the police and the thugs, use derogatory slang to a considerable extent.

3.5 stars

>50 thornton37814:. Our class is a four week course which starts next week and ends in mid-March. Thus I will be reading Suffer the Little Children the month before the group discusses it.

>52 sallylou61: You could join us in April to discuss it even though you read it in March. You might have some good insights from your class discussion.

>53 thornton37814:. I'm thinking of doing that.

I enjoyed catching up on your thread, and it was interesting to see your thoughts on your Hemingway reads. I read For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea in high school; I remembered liking The Old Man and the Sea more than For Whom the Bell Tolls, and I don't remember anything about the story in For Whom the Bell Tolls. I read a fictional memoir by Hemingway called True at First Light, about his time in Africa in 2017. I guess it's considered a fictional memoir in that the names are changed but it matches closely to his experiences there. Compared to my memory of reading his works in high school, I liked True at First Light a lot more (although I don't think I will love Hemingway!).

As are numerous other areas, Charlottesville and the surrounding region has many restrictions placed upon it by the coronavirus pandemic. Although there have not been any cases in our immediate area, many events have been cancelled. All Virginia public schools through grade 12 will be closed for at least the next two weeks by the request of the governor. Events more directly impacting me are the cancellation of the the annual 5-day Virginia Festival of the Book which was to be held next Wednesday through Sunday, the cancellation of all OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) classes (connected with the University of Virginia) beginning next Monday for the rest of the semester, and the restriction of any kind of visitors to our retirement community, and the cancellation of all programs at our public library (which includes a book group I am in). Some of our region's main attractions including Monticello, Highland (James Monroe's home), and Montpelier (James Madison's home) will also be closed for at least two weeks. UVa students have been on break this week, and have been asked not to come back to class; classes will be online.

Since I last wrote about any books I've read, I have read three more mysteries for our OLLI Mystery Novels class. Unfortunately, all OLLI classes were cancelled before we had our last class. Our classes focused on legal and cultural problems presented in the novels.

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly featured Mickey Haller, a defense lawyer who used his car (a Lincoln) as his office. One of my problems with him was that, especially in the first part of the book, he often mentioned how much money he expected to be paid; he advertised on the internet. He had two ex-wives and a young daughter; part of his struggles were with his first ex who was a prosecutor who exhibited her dislike for defense lawyers. Mr. Haller got caught up in a situation in which he was representing a very wealthy man for a large sum of money, who often lied to Haller; Haller realized that this client was actually responsible for a murder for which a former client of his was convicted and sent to prison. He felt he had a conflict of interest. The trial scene was very interesting, especially concerning the way it played out. Besides the rape case for which Haller was representing the rich guy, there was the murder of Haller's investigator and an attack on Haller himself. The solution of these crimes was not whom I expected although I had felt hints ahead of time.

3 stars

(I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as Connelly's The Drop featuring Harry Bosch which I read two years ago for a similar class taught by the same instructor.)

Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon. One of my friends really enjoys reading books by this author, and I'm aware that there is group read featuring Leon this year. However, this was my least favorite book for my class. I had never read Leon before, and am not that knowledgable about Venetian culture including its governance and police system. I had difficulty following the story. Our class discussion was centered on justice. Among the topics covered in the book we discussed were the police in Venice and regional police coming into the situation, illegal adoption of a baby by a doctor, falsifying of legal records, and the doctor as a vigilante.

In class, our instructor gave us a sheet identifying the characters and giving a short synopsis of the book. I was sorry not to have had the list of characters before reading the novel.

2.5 stars

Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert. This book, which I am also using for the LT author BingoDOG square, was my favorite book of the four we read for our mystery novels course. However, our class was cancelled for the semester before we had the session to discuss it. This novel features China Bayles, a female former lawyer, now living in a small town, who, with the help of her friend Ruby, tries to solve multiple deaths, all of which she believes are murders although the first was ruled as a suicide by the police. Among the illegal things she does is try to apprehend a suspected criminal by herself (accompanied by Ruby) instead of involving the police, and destroying evidence which could be connected with a death.

4 stars

I've just finished reading Brown Girl Dreaming in which Jacqueline Woodson tells the story of her ancestry and childhood in poetry. She was born in 1963 during the Civil Rights movement, and mentions some of its events as her relatives remembered them. Her story shows the difference between the treatments of blacks in the South where her mother was from and where she and her siblings went to visit her grandparents each summer, and Brooklyn where she grew up. From a very early age, Jacqueline knew that she wanted to be a writer. Her writing is beautiful.

Ms. Woodson was scheduled to be the literary luncheon speaker at the Virginia Festival of the Book which was supposed to be held later this week but was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. I'm sorry to have missed her talk.

5 stars

I just finished reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, which also qualified for the BingoDOG square published in 1820 or 1920 since it was published in 1920. This was the first Hercule Poirot mystery, and I did not think it was a good as many of the others. I thought that he was being too secretive, and the story dragged. However, I liked the ending. My edition gave 2 versions of chapter 12, "The Last Link," both the one originally published and an earlier, unpublished version. I liked the one published better.

3 stars

For the NonfictionCAT (biography) I read Jane and Dorothy: A True Tale of Sense and Sensibility by Marian Veevers.

Ms. Veevers has written a scholarly but enjoyable book comparing and contrasting the lives of Jane Austen (12/16/1775 to 7/18/1817) and Dorothy Wordsworth (12/25/1771 to 1/25/1855) and describing the circumstances under which girls and women lived in the late 18th/early 19th centuries in England. Ms. Veevers, who works for the Wordsworth Trust, shows that there were "several important parallels in their these women's lives: financial insecurity, a reliance on the support of brothers, a certain rebelliousness and, of course, literary talent" (p. xvi).

To obtain the greatest understanding of this biography, one should be very familiar with Jane Austen's novels since Ms. Veevers often refers to their themes or incidents in them when demonstrating how Jane or Dorothy fit into English society. One of the difficulties with the book is its stress on sensibility without specifically defining what that word meant in that time period. Also, the book skips back and forth between the lives of these two women; sometimes it is hard to tell when the situations are occurring.

The endnotes are especially valuably since they contain additional text. The bibliography is divided into two sections: one for Dorothy Wordsworth and one for Jane Austen. Family trees of the Austens and Wordsworths would have been extremely useful.

3.5 stars

I just read my second Agatha Christie book this month, Death in the Clouds. Although the death occurred on an airplane flight, the detection occurred mostly on the ground, contrary to its occurring on the train in Murder on the Orient Express. I found this aspect a bit disappointing, but as a whole enjoyed the book. I did not guess the perpetrator ahead of time but upon finishing the book, saw how the evidence fit.

4 stars

I've just read Mouthful of Birds: Stories by Samantha Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell, for the weird title square for BingoDOG. These short stories by an Argentinian author were all very strange. Although the stories have different themes, they are probably horror stories, a genre which I do not usually read. All of the stories are relatively short even for short stories; there are 20 stories on less than 230 pages, and if a story ended on an odd numbered page, the next page was blank. The title story is about a girl who would only eat live birds.

3 stars

For the title contains a pun square forBingoDOG, I read Mac on a Hot Tin Roof by Melinda Metz. Mac is a cat. I have never read anything by Ms. Metz before, and do not know what audience she was writing this book for. There was not as much about Mac as I expected, and the story was set in Hollywood, not a place I read about often. It was partly a mystery of solving what human stole three pieces of jewelry from three different addresses, partly a romance, and partly chick lit.

2.5 stars

With libraries closed and no more reading for adult education classes and probably book clubs this month, I have been buying more books for BingoDOG than usual without checking for reviews. I finding that titles which fit some of the squares are not the books I would normally read.

I have read two new books, published in 2020, which I have not described. First I read Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series by Jesse Dougherty, which I used for the published in 2020 BingoDOG square. This is a book which Washington Nationals fans particularly would enjoy. Writing in a popular style, Mr. Dougherty, who covered the Nats for the Washington Post, described the complete 2019 season of the baseball team from the "finalizing" of the roster prior to the beginning of the season through the World Series and a bit after. The Nats went from a record of 19-31 on May 24th to winning the series. His description included interesting biographical information of some of the key players including their backgrounds. Most of the story was told chronologically. As the midseason trading deadline approached, Mr. Dougherty described the Nats' management efforts to acquire relief pitchers, their weak spot. I felt that the most exciting part of the book was the playoff and World Series; at each level the Nats had to win on the crucial last day of the series.

This book was published on March 24th prior to the scheduled Major League opening day of March 26th, which, of course, did not happen. I felt reading the book that the publication was rushed; there were a few missing words, and on page 31, it sounds as if the team played the New York Mets in Philadelphia! Unfortunately, the book lacks any appendices. It would have been helpful to have had the complete schedule with the scores of the games plus
box scores for the playoff and World Series games. The book also lacked an index, which would have been useful.

4 stars

Today I finished reading Race against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell went from being a court reporter to an investigative reporter specializing in unsolved murders of blacks in Mississippi and Alabama for The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS) after viewing the 1989 movie, Mississippi Burning, while sitting next to a retired FBI special agent who had been charge of the investigation and kept telling him what was right and wrong about the movie. In this book, Mr. Mitchell discusses in detail four cases: the killings of (1) James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, (2) Medgar Evers, (3) Vernon Dahmer Sr., and (4) the Birmingham church killing of the four young girls: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley. Mr. Mitchell describes in detail his efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of these murders who were members of the KKK and untouchable in the South in the 1960s. In addition to investigating the murders which involved finding and tracking many leads and talking to numerous people including the suspects over two decades, Mr. Mitchell had to convince the appropriate people to bring the murderers to trial. The stories were those of hate, against both blacks and Jews; it was the story of white supremacy. Although all of the cases were appalling, I found the Medgar Evers case particularly hard to read because of Byron De La Beckwith's constant antisemitism and anti-black speech in the author's interviews with him.

The title Race against Time refers to needing to have the trials before too many of the suspects and witnesses died. Edgar Ray Killen, the man primarily responsible for the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, was not convicted until over 40 years after the killing.

In the Epilogue, Mr. Mitchell points out that these four cases were a minority of the cold cases which he worked on. He also mentions the rise again of hate killings in the past few years, pointing out specific cases.

I have just finished reading The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for BingoDOG.

This is a collection of 12 short stories by Ms. Adichie, a well-known Nigerian author of novels, short stories, and nonfiction. This excellent collection of stories is primarily set in Nigeria although a few are set in the United States and feature women trying to adjust to life here. All of the stories have very different plots although they feature strong women characters and show the lives of Nigerians and the relationships between men and women.

5 stars

For the Life, Death, Human Aging square of BingoDOG, I read Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher, a book I could readily relate to being in that age group.

Ms. Pipher, a psychologist born at the beginning of the baby boomer generation, discusses aging, particularly in women, primarily through her own experiences and those of women she knew and/or interviewed. These personal stories are particularly interesting. She goes back to some of these stories several times to illustrate different points. This did not bother me; some of the people seemed like "old friends" when I read about them more than once. The book talks a lot about loss -- through health issues and through the deaths of family members and friends among other things -- and how to adjust to living with the losses. For example, Ms. Pipher herself lost the use of her hands for writing and using a computer; she had to dictate her "writing." Ms. Pipher's book is filled with talk of relationships and how various people had handled difficult problems. She talks about continuing to grow in this optimistic book.

Each chapter begins with one of two quotations. For example, one of the quotations for the chapter on marriage is from Agatha Christie: "It's wonderful to be married to an archaeologist -- the older you get the more interested he is in you" (p. 184 paperback edition). Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted more than anyone else.

4 stars

For the element in periodic table in title BingoDOG square, I read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.

Although I saw the movie of this play many years ago, I have never seen it performed on the stage as I have for A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, both of which I enjoyed more than this play. I remembered that this play had a lot of drinking, especially in the first act, and that Brick is on crutches. I was really struck by the homosexuality, especially in the second act. I found it interesting that the first act primarily featured Brick and Margaret (Maggie the Cat) and the second Brick and his father Big Daddy. Most of the characters appeared in the third and final act. The edition I read included an introduction by Edward Albee, an essay at the end by Brian Parker followed by an essay, "Author and Director: A Delicate Situation" by Tennessee Williams, and a chronology of Williams' life.

3.5 stars

The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown

This is the second straight year that our Friends Meeting Library Committee has sponsored a Meeting-wide "Big Read" program in which adults and teenagers have been encouraged to read the same young adult book for a discussion during National Library Week. With the pandemic this year, we will be having the discussion via Zoom, and the author is expected to be present. I was a bit disappointed with this book. It is a coming-of-age story about a young girl, Alice, and deals with some important issues including family relationships, racial sensitivity, aging, and end of life. However, there is a lack of communication between Alice and her father, which results in secrets; in some ways Alice needs to rear herself.

For last year's discussion, the book we read was by a local author who used to come to our Meeting, and many of us knew her. This year the author lives in Virginia, but is not local. Also, I have a feeling that probably not as many people have read the book as last year. It will be interesting to see how our discussion goes tomorrow.

3.5 stars

Update Sunday evening, 4/19:

We had a very interesting zoom discussion this morning. Ms. Brown did a brief reading, she described what prompted her to write the book (9/11 and her children's reaction to it), a couple of woman in our group summarized the book, and we discussed many aspects of the story. Ms. Brown made comments or asked questions after each comment we made or question we asked. She was very personable; it was a delight to have her with us. More of us had read the book than I thought would read it, and many liked it very much -- more than I did. I was interested in hearing that Ms. Brown had written this as an adult novel, but many schools have added it to the curriculum at the middle school level. All of us participating in today's discussion were adults, and many of us were older than 60.

For the red book cover square of BingoDOG, I read Women at the Wheel: A Century of Buying, Driving, and Fixing Cars by Katherine J. Parkin. Although this was a relatively short book (less than 200 pages of text), it seemed to take forever to read it. The very best feature of the book is the photographs, which are primarily ads concerning cars and women. Reading the ads with the accompanying text and comments by the author pretty much make the text of the book, which gets very repetitious superfluous. The text covers the history of cars from the early cars through the present day, trying to negate the stereotypes of women as poor drivers who do not know anything about how cars work. The author's writing continually relies on ads to show how women have not overcome the stereotype. Generally, men, although many are poor drivers whose accidents are more serious and deadly than women's accidents, are considered better drivers, who know more about cars. Cars are portrayed as females, and some car models appeal sexually to men, at least as advertisements describe them.

3 stars: text 2.5 stars, illustrations 5 stars

Incidentally, I bought this book at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum last Thanksgiving time. It was reduced from $34.95 down to $9.95, which was the third time it was reduced in price. When I was reading the book, I peeled three stickers off the front cover, each giving price reductions.

2nd BingoDOG card -- only women authors:

I'm finding as I'm reading books that some of them would fit into squares for a second BingoDOG card. Although I have not completed the first card, I'm adding such titles to a second card. I will probably just include female authors for this card, and will probably not complete the card.

Titles read for BingoDOG 2 -- only female authors

1. Pseudonym or anonymously: Behind a Mask by A. M. Bernard (pseud. for Louisa May Alcott, novella issued under this pseud.) -- finished reading July 30th -- 4 stars
2. at least three letters of BINGO consecutively in order in the title: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan -- finished reading Aug. 8th -- 4 stars
3. Proper name in title: Pleasantville (a neighborhood in Houston) by Attica Locke -- finished reading May 25th -- 3 stars
4. Title contains a pun: Furmidable Foes by Rita Mae Brown -- finished reading June 20th -- 3 stars
5. Not set on Earth: 20 Hrs. 40 Min. by Amelia Earhart -- finished reading Sept. 5th -- 4 stars (1st bingo)
6. Epistolary novel or collection of letters: "A Wilderness Station" by Alice Munro -- Colonnades short story seminar -- read Aug. 20th.
7. Red prominent on cover: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett -- finished reading Sept. 28 -- 3 stars
8. published by a small press or self-published: Malnourished by Cinthia Ritchie (published by Raised Voices Press)
9. Published in the year of your birth: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles --finished reading Nov. 19th -- 2 stars
10. published in 1820 or 1920: Woman and the New Race by Margaret Sanger (published in 1920) -- finished reading Oct. 9th --2.5 stars
11. LT author: The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller -- finished reading Oct. 18th -- 4 stars
12. Book about books, bookstores, or libraries: Bibliophile by Jane Mount -- finished reading July 18th -- 3 stars
13. Read a CAT (May Random: long time on tbr shelf): On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement edited by Bettina Friedl -- finished reading May 21st (early morning)
14. Mythology or Folklore: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (had been on BingoCard 1, but finished reading House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday about Native American folklore for Northside Reading Group Nov. 18th and switched that book to BingoDOG first card to keep this an all female author card
16 "Library" or "Thing" in the title: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick -- finished reading Nov. 24th -- 4 stars
16. Written by non U.S., non U.K. female author: Stone Mattress: Nine Tales -- Margaret Atwood (Canadian) -- finished reading Aug. 28th -- 4 stars
17. Set in Asia: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck -- China -- finished listening to Sept. 30th -- 3 stars.
18. Mystery or true crime: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep -- finished reading Apr. 25th -- 4 stars
19. death, human aging: The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown
20. by a journalist, about journalism: Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America by Stephanie Gorton -- finished reading Dec. 30th -- 4.5 stars
21. Weird book title: Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs by Caitlin Doughty -- finished reading July 5th -- 4 stars
22. Periodic table element in title: Arsenic with Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde -- finished reading Sept. 1st -- 3 stars
23. In a legacy library: A Lost Lady by Willa Cather -- in 4 legacy libraries (Carson McCullers, Hemingway, William Someset Maugham, White House) -- finished reading Oct. 28th -- 4 stars -- 5th and 6th Bingos (bottom vertical row, middle horizontal row)
24. published in 2020: Blue Marlin by Lee Smith -- finished reading June 13th -- 5 stars
25. Real historical event: Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly (Russian Revolution, WWI)

>67 sallylou61: Your review makes me want to read this! I've added it to the wishlist.

>75 RidgewayGirl:. I hope that you find the book interesting. I hate to say enjoy for this kind of story.

For the RandomCAT challenge, I've read Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly. This is historical fiction taking place during the Russian Revolution and World War I. Although much of the story is set in Russia, part of the action takes place in France and in the United States. It is a prequel to the author's Lilac Girls; the central American character is the mother of the central American character in the earlier novel, both of whom were real people. Lost Roses primarily features three women -- Eliza, a wealthy American; Sofya, a formerly wealthy Russian whose family loses their wealth during the Russian Revolution; and Varinka, a poor Russian woman --- although their families are heavily involved.

The chapters are short, and the novel keeps switching from being narrated by these three women, a chapter at a time, which makes the novel a bit choppy. Most chapters end with something exciting or particularly interesting which makes the reader want to learn more about what is happening. However, the various stories are pulled together at the end.

3.5 stars

I've just finished reading Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep, which marginally fits the NonfictionCAT challenge (crime). The book is divided into three sections: the stories of (1) the Rev. Willie Maxwell who took out numerous life insurance policies on five of his neighbors/relatives and then murdered them and tried to collect on the policies, (2) Maxwell's lawyer and Democratic politician in Alabama Tom Radney who defended Rev. Maxwell in his trials until Maxwell himself was killed and then represented Robert Burns, Maxwell's murderer and (3) Harper Lee who attended the trial of Burns, and carefully researched the life and death of Maxwell planning to write a nonfiction book about it. Almost half of the book is devoted to Harper Lee, discussing her writing, her relationship to and research for Truman Capote for his In Cold Blood, and why she did not write another book after To Kill a Mockingbird. I found the section on Harper Lee particularly interesting although I was already aware of her friendship/relationship, both as a child and then as an adult with Capote.

4 stars

>77 sallylou61:
>78 sallylou61:

Both BB's for me!

>79 Tess_W:. I hope that you enjoy them both.

I've finished reading Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin for the "from a legacy library" square of BingoDOG. I had to go back to the beginning of the first chapter to realize that the first and last chapters referred to the same day, the fourteenth birthday of John, the stepson of a cruel minister named Gabriel. The middle three chapters, which are the major portions of the book, feature Florence, Gabriel's sister; Gabriel; and Elizabeth, Gabriel's wife and John's mother. These chapters give the background of the novel, showing the relationships between the characters. The novel stresses fundamental religion, and being either good or bad -- following God or the Devil.

3 stars

I've just finished reading The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See for the "Set in Asia" bingo square. Last year Ms. See gave an excellent talk at the literary luncheon of the Virginia Festival of the Book about her research for the book and the life of the women sea divers on Jeju, a Korean island. The story is one of a matrifocal society in which the women, the sea divers, are the workers who dangerously dive into the sea to gather sea products to sell and to eat. The men do the cooking and childcare. This is a story of female relationships, a changing culture and adapting or not adapting to it, and forgiveness or the lack of forgiveness. The story takes place between 1938 and 2004 so that it covers the impact of WWII, the Korean War, and industrializing society on Jeju, where the remaining haenyeo (women divers) are vanishing; most of them are over 70 years old whereas 55 used to be the retirement age. There is considerable violence with war and with underwater accidents of the haenyeo.

4.5 stars

I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, an autobiographical novel by Betty Smith for the published in the year of your birth BingoDOG square. I remember Shirley Chisholm's remark concerning being appointed to some kind of agricultural committee after being elected to Congress from urban New York that her appointment to that committee must have been justified by A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. However, I did not know what the book was about. It's a coming-to-age story of Francie Nolan's growing up in poverty in the slums of Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century; it includes combatting poverty, alcoholism, and being in a family of immigrants. Although the book features strong female characters, boys are given privileges over girls. A particularly sad scene occurs when a female English teacher gives Francie low grades on a set of papers she wrote about how father after his death; the teacher said that one should not write about poverty or alcoholism, subjects Francie know about personally. Francie had always gotten A's on her other writings about subjects with which she was not familiar. The teacher's comments about Francie's parents crushed Francie, who gave up doing her English assignments after that.

4.5 stars

>83 sallylou61: I felt sad after reading it, but I also loved it.

>84 Tess_W:. I also felt sad reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn although I thought it was beautifully written. Something which made me especially sad was thinking that the author had gone through a lot of the experiences described herself. I read the 75th anniversary edition with a foreword by Anna Quindlen who states: "There is no doubt that this is an autobiographical story; originally written as memoir, it was reconfigured as fiction at the request of an editor at its publishing house" (p. xiv).

For the RandomCAT, i just finished reading On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement edited by Bettina Friedl, which I've had on by tbr shelf since before I joined LT. This is a collection of 20 short, usually one-act plays used in the American suffrage campaign. Several of the plays turned anti-suffrage arguments into arguments for suffrage. Some dealt with social issues showing how women needed the vote. Two used the issue of pure milk, which was a concern since the wealthy were able to obtain pure milk while the poor only could get substandard milk which led to sickness and death. The issue of marriage and the use mistaken identity appeared in some of the plays. As with many collections, I found the quality of the plays uneven. The background and importance of each play was discussed in the introduction to the plays; I think it would have been more useful to have each play's introduction immediately precede the play.

3 stars

>86 sallylou61: That will be a book I try to locate. I teach a unit about women's suffrage and I might find something useful.

>87 Tess_W: On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement edited by Bettina Friedl. Boston: Northeastern University Press, c.1987. ISBN: 1-55553-018-4. It is an interesting approach to women's suffrage history.

>88 sallylou61: TY! I just picked one up from Amazon.

For pleasure and the title contains proper name square on my second BingoDOG card, I read Pleasantville, a mystery by Attica Locke. I had enjoyed hearing Ms. Locke's presentation at the 2018 Virginia Festival of the Book. Pleasantville is the name of a neighborhood in Houston. This complicated plot involves trying to solve the murders of three young women, and whether the same killer killed all three. The third victim had not been found in the same place as the first two, and the third one had put of a fight whereas the first two apparently had not. This novel involves the solving of these murders during a campaign run-off for the two highest vote-getters in the race to be mayor of Houston. One of the candidate's campaigns appears to target the campaign manager of the other candidate, having him accused and tried for the murders. The lawyer for the defendant has his office broken into and is injured twice. The plot gets a bit too complicated for my taste. There are too many characters to keep straight. This turns out to be the second book in a series featuring lawyer Jay Porter; it might have been beneficial to read the earlier book before this one.

3 stars

To complete my first BingoDOG card, I read The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. Apparently, Ms. Atwood wrote two versions of this novel plus a play based on it. The edition which I read, published by Grove Press, appears to be considerably shorter than the novel initially published by Canongate Books, at least by the large difference in page count. However, this is not the play since I compared it to an online version of the play; this book contains considerably more text than the play.

I have mixed feelings about the book. As I was reading it, I wondered what had been cut out from the earlier edition. I enjoyed hearing Penelope's side of the story including her explanations of her relations with other women such as her cousin, Helen of Troy, Odysseus's nurse who raised him and wanted to continue to serve him, and the twelve maidens (slaves) who were killed after Odysseus returned. Some of the writing was beautiful. However, sometimes Ms. Atwood used twentieth century language or ideas, which seemed out of place in the story. Moreover, there are sections not in The Odyssey such as his trial as told by the twelve maidens which was said to be in a "twenty-first-century-court of justice" (p.144). Moreover, Odysseus leaves Penelope shortly after arriving home.

3 stars

Congratulations on finishing the BingoDOG!

Congratulations on your Bingo success!

Congrats on the Bingo!

Congratulations on completing your first Bingo card!

>92 RidgewayGirl:, >93 MissWatson:, >94 Tess_W:, >95 lkernagh:. Thanks. Reading for my BingoDOG became my focus this spring with the pandemic. I needed to depend upon books John and I had in our collections since none of the residents in our retirement community have been allowed to leave campus for much of the spring, and our public library system was closed down until early the week. Knowing this was coming I bought more books than usual for my BingoDOG reading in March and ordered the last two online in this month.

Yesterday for the first time ever, I received via the bookmobile a couple of books I had put on hold. In addition to the public libraries in our area being open 4 hours per day for picking up books on hold, the bookmobile is making its regular rounds now, and comes to our retirement community (the Colonnades) twice a month. Yesterday, anyone who had books on hold requesting delivery through the book mobile was able to receive their requests. The bookmobile was not open to board, but brought our requests in sealed (i.e. stapled) paper bags to the front desk, and the Colonnades staff delivered them to us.

>96 sallylou61: glad you had at least limited service via the bookmobile. Growing up, I lived in a very rural community, about 30 miles from the nearest library (and our school did not have one), so the bookmobile was a treat I looked forward to once each month. Sadly, I read most of the books checked out within the first week and had to wait 3 weeks to get more. Sometimes I read them twice!

>96 sallylou61: My library has just started allowing people to return books again and in a few weeks will allow people to request and pick up books. I'm looking forward to it!

Congratulations on completing your Bingo Card - it's especially challenging this year due to all the closures. Good to hear that you are finally getting some access to books. My library is going to start curbside service on the first of June - I will have to pre-order the books and then the staff will bring them outside to you.

I've read a few Debbie Macomber books, mainly for quick reads when I'm on a cruise. Last summer I selected her Cottage by the Sea as a reward in our public library's summer reading program. I just read it for this month's RandomCAT. This was not as light reading as most of her other novels; it started out very depressingly with a young woman, Annie Marlowe, losing her entire nuclear family in a mudslide. She decided to move back to Oceanside, a small community which her family visited in the summers during her childhood, to find peace and begin life again. Most of the other featured characters in the novel are dealing with issues mainly caused by domestic abuse, which Annie becomes involved in trying to fix. There is a lot of lack of communication or miscommunication. In the end the characters find solutions to their problems in new living arrangements -- romance, divorcing an abusive husband, and adopting a baby. Once I got past the first chapter or so, I enjoyed the book.

4 stars

I just read Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History by Jeremy Brown. The book is definitely how the subtitle describes it; it is the history of influenza from the 1918 pandemic to 2018, a hundred years later when the book was published. I found the first three chapters particularly interesting because they covered the 1918 worldwide flu pandemic including how it was probably spread, the way it was treated, and where it probably originated. Many of the early victims were soldiers fighting in WWI, on both sides. For a while the U.S. and other nations fighting WWI were fighting two battles, those in the war and those against the flu. Also these early chapters mentioned the possibility of having another pandemic in the future, which, of course, is happening now. Studies have been made of some of the victims of the 1918 flu when their frozen bodies still carrying the diseased lungs were found. Much of the book was scientific, talking about how the flu acts in the body, and the search for a vaccination against the flu. Dr. Brown, an emergency room doctor, discussed flu epidemics from the 1950s through the twenty-first century and the characteristics of the different epidemics.

Being in today's world, two years after the book was published and we are actually in a pandemic, I found his chapter on the economics of pandemics weak. Jeremy Brown is a doctor, not an economist. He discusses the economics of pandemics primarily from the insurance companies' aspects and the various medical expenses. He does not consider other economic and social factors such as many people being out of work, the very high unemployment rate, the survival of businesses (especially small ones), people's being shut in for long periods of time, students not being in school for several months, etc. I have the feeling he did not expect a pandemic to last this long. His epilogue was about whether a pandemic would occur, and whether we would be ready for it.

3 stars

>102 sallylou61: How quickly that became outdated!

>103 rabbitprincess: It certainly did! However, the information about the 1918 pandemic was very interesting.

For the NonfictionCAT (social problems) I read Selma's Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Robert A. Pratt. I had bought this at the 2017 Virginia Festival of the Book after hearing the author speak. Early that summer I took it on a trip, but just began it and put it down. It's amazing how events can change one's feelings towards a book. In August 2017 Charlottesville experienced a weekend of hate when outside agitators from the alt-right came to town; one young woman was killed when a man rapidly drove his car through a crowd peacefully walking on a street several blocks from the demonstrations, and two police officers patrolling from a helicopter were also killed when their helicopter fell from the sky. Of course, there have been multiple cases of police killing blacks in recent years.

Although the title of the book is Selma's Bloody Sunday, it is actually the review of events in the Civil Rights movement leading up to Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, an account of Bloody Sunday midway through the book, and the struggle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I found the review of the earlier history and particularly the Bloody Sunday march very interesting. Bloody Sunday occurred when a mass of Alabama state troopers and policemen on horses badly beat a group of approximately 600 peaceful marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge leaving Selma on a march to Montgomery. In addition to the beatings and riding horses through the crowd, teargas was used making it difficult for the marchers to see and retreat.

Bloody Sunday was followed later that month by a 5 day march from Selma to Montgomery for which the marchers had protection from the federal government. Mr. Pratt also describes this march, which was peaceful although the marchers from around the country had to leave Montgomery the day they arrived there.

Bloody Sunday was an impetus for passing civil rights legislation. The story of the effort to pass this legislation has been discussed in other books, and was a let-down after the marches. In the epilogue, Mr. Pratt discusses the effect of the legislation on the South.

The book includes a number of very effective black and white photographs which help to tell the story before and through the marches.

3.5 stars

>91 sallylou61: Today I received via the public library's bookmobile the hardcover edition of The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood published by Canongate. It turns out that the paperback edition which I read contains the same text as the hardcover edition even though it is 40 pages shorter! (I had expected the paperback to be the same text, but when the page count was so different, I thought I might have an abridged edition without its being stated as such.) For full pages the paperback edition has 27 lines compared to 22 lines for the hardback, and the text is 5/8 of an inch wider across the page. Both editions contain a lot of white space on the pages; they are easier to read than some of the books now being published with relatively small print and not much white space on a page -- something I now look at when I'm considering buying books in a store.

I just bought Blue Marlin by Lee Smith from a small bookstore which is going out of business; it had been having financial difficulties, and the pandemic was the last straw. This was another book by Lee Smith which I enjoyed. It is an autobiographical novella in which Key West is featured. Lee and her parents were there, staying in the Blue Marlin, the same hotel in which the cast for the movie Operation Petticoat was living for the filming of that movie. Jenny and her mother loved to follow the lives of movie stars and were in a large crowd scene of the movie as were Lee and her parents. Jenny and her mother tried to observe the activities of Cary Grant and Tony Curtis at the motel. Includes lot of late 1950s nostalgia.

I used this book both for the RandomCAT challenge and the published in 2020 square for my BingoDOG card limited to female authors.

5 stars

I have just finished reading Furmidable Foes by Rita Mae Brown and her cat Sneaky Pie Brown for the pun in title square of the BingoDOG challenge. This is the third or fourth book in the Mrs. Murphy Mystery series to feature stories in two time periods: the eighteenth century and the present day. The locale is around Crozet, Virginia, a small town near Charlottesville. I read these mysteries primarily because they take place near where I live, and Ms. Brown is a local author whom I have heard speak on several times. In my opinion, this novel is not as interesting as many of the others. For the eighteenth century parts, there are now three main locations instead of two; Royal Oak, Maryland, is added to the two plantations near Crozet. The present day story revolves mostly around a church and gardening. Kinds of plants are mentioned too often, and the present day plot as a whole is not very interesting. Moreover, there are talking more animals than usual, and they do not play much of a part in the story. The story makes the most sense if one has read the previous books featuring the 18th century characters. I think Ms. Brown will probably continue with these stories in the two time periods because the current characters have not yet figured out some mysteries connected to the 18th century happenings. (Also, Ms. Brown and her cat pretty regularly turn out a book a year in this series.

3 stars

I have finished reading Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill for the NonfictionCAT. Although this book was only published 4 years ago (2016), it was published before Trump's election and in some ways seems very dated. All the chapters cover various problems concerning the United State's most vulnerable people: the poor. In his preface, Mr. Hill states "...class creates the material conditions and relations through which racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression are produced, sustained, and lived" (p. xx). The chapters are titled: (1) Nobody (which shows that many of the people the police kill are considered by the police to dispensable, to be nobodies); (2) Broken (which describes how the system of justice, including policing, is broken); (3) Bargained (the widespread use of plea bargaining instead of trials, (4) Armed (Militarization of the police); (5) Caged (in prison); (6) Emergency (when cities are governed by appointed officials because of financial problems instead of elected ones such as Detroit and Flint, which resulted in the poisonous water situation in Flint) and (7) Somebody (a short epilogue talking about the new activists and movements such as Black Lives Matter, Dream Defenders, etc. This epilogue seems overly optimistic considering what has occurred in the last four years. Reading about the cases, even those with which I was famiiiar, was interesting; I thought that Mr. Hill got rather bogged down in the philosophy of policing, prison administration, etc.

3.5 stars

>107 sallylou61: It's always sad to hear about a bookstore closing their doors.

>110 RidgewayGirl:. I agree. I think that this bookstore, Over the Moon Bookshop, had a hard time partly because it was located in a small town. Also, the owner often was selected to sell books at the annual Virginia Festival of the Book, which was cancelled one week before scheduled this year because of the pandemic. That would have been a big loss of income -- plus the nuisance of returning a lot of books to the wholesaler.

I just finished reading Wilde Lake, a murder mystery by Laura Lippman, which I purchased at the Virginia Festival of the Book several years ago. This was the first book I have read by Ms. Lippman, and I was disappointed although I found her writing smooth. Wilde Lake had an overly complicated plot, and there was a lot of shifting around in time. The father in the story was dishonest with his family. There were secrets, which several characters held for many years, which had tragic consequences.

3 stars

I just read Cop Town by Karin Slaughter, a book which I purchased at the 2015 Virginia Festival of the Book, for the MysteryKIT (police procedural). I had really enjoyed Ms. Slaughter's talk at the Mystery books brunch. However, this was just not my type of book. It covered the first four days of work for a rookie policewoman in Atlanta in 1974, but it was filled with violence, hatred of women, homosexuals, and Jews, and included a couple of vivid sexual scenes. The hatred displayed by the "old guard" police toward these groups of people was appalling; it definitely showed that police brutality was nothing new. Even the two main experienced policewomen were unnecessarily rough toward people.

2.5 stars

For my BingoDOG card featuring female authors, I read Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty for the weird title square. This was also a frightening title since I read in a book by a physician several years ago that this could happen. However, Ms. Caitlin, a mortician, points out that this will not happen very soon although it could happen to people who die who live alone with noone to check on them, and are not discovered until they have been dead for some time. Although Ms. Caitlin wrote this book for children, answering questions which children have asked about death, I found the book to be very interesting and informative, answering questions I have wondered about such as what happens during cremation, etc. (Both of my parents were cremated, and we received their ashes, but I never really knew the process.) Although the topic of death is very serious, Ms. Doughty wrote in a humorous way.

4 stars.

For an OLLI (adult education) summer discussion group, I reread one of my favorite books, I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman. This is a novel featuring a coming-of-age story, an aging story, and a community story. Serenity, a college student who feels pressured by her parents to marry, Peter, her boyfriend in a big wedding, goes to visit distant cousins she has never met to find out how to marry in a Quaker wedding. She and Peter become part of that loving farming community over a summer in which they work hard but feel loved. With the guidance of older Friends, especially the elderly cousins, they put off their wedding for a year until after they have finished college, and Serenity, with Peter's support, is able to tell her parents that they will be married in a Quaker wedding. Serenity also changes her college major to art history a field in which she is truly interested instead of the elementary education her father picked out for her. The aging story is that of the elderly cousins, Oliver and Daphne, who are coping with Daphne's paralysis. Serenity is a big help and joy to them.

5 stars

For my zoom book group meeting this coming Wednesday evening, I've finished reading Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. This novel contains the stories of two families who lived in a falling down house on the same property in Vineland, NJ -- one in the 1870s and the other in the 21st century. (The house was rebuilt after the first story takes place.) I found the 19th century story about a school teacher who is not allowed to teach about Darwin and who becomes a professional friend of a female scientist much more interesting that the 21st century family; I did not like the 21st century characters. The chapters alternated between the two stories, and the book was overly long in my opinion.

3 stars

I read and examined the illustrations of Bibliophile: an Illustrated Miscellany for RandomCAT and the books, bookstores, and libraries square of my BingoDOG card (female authors only). This book is a hodgepodge of illustrations of book spines for lists of books, the outsides of libraries and of bookstores. It contains a little bit of information about selected books, and about the libraries and bookstores and their owners. Instead of having the books, libraries, and bookstores in separate sections, each is scattered throughout the books.

3 stars

I've finished reading my LT ER book, The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline. The story richly describes the horrendous life of women in the notorious Newgate Prison in the nineteenth century and the conditions of their lives on ships carrying prisoners from Great Britain to Australia, which was largely colonized by prisoners. Two of the main characters, Angelina and Hazel, who had both been imprisoned for stealing, met on the ship, Medea, going to Australia. Angelina had had a very unfair trial in which only her accusers were allowed to say anything about her. On board the ship the female prisoners were at the mercy of the male crew and male prisoners. Life was not much if any better for the women once they got to Australia and were imprisoned there. Violent males, some of whom were murderers, were let out in the same communities. Relatively little of the story actually occurs in Australia

The British colonists were very cruel to the indigenous population of Australia. Mathinna, the third main female character, had been stolen as a young child from her village on a Australian island by the British governor and his wife. She was also an exile since she was taken to a place she had never known and was treated as if she was an inferior being, and displayed as an object. After she refused to adapt to the British ways, the governor’s family abandoned her.

When the story began Angelina was twenty one, Hazel a teenager, and Mathinna an eight-year child.

As seems to be a custom when currently writing fiction, Ms. Kline goes back and forth between Angelina and/or Hazel and Mathinna. She often switches at an exciting part.

In my opinion, The Exiles does not come up to the standard of the author’s Orphan Train or A Piece of the World although I have not read either one recently.

4 stars

I have finished reading Behind a Mask by A. M. Bernard, the pseudonym under which Louisa May Alcott wrote thrillers and mysteries, for my all female authors BingoDOG card and and ScardyKIT (femmes fatales). This is a novella about Jean Muir, a femme fatale. Jean Muir, an actress in her 30s, dressed up as someone much younger and took a position as a governess for a wealthy family in rural England. Besides the girl for whom she was governess, the family included 2 males of marriageable age, the mother, and an "elderly" 55-year-old uncle who lived next door. Ms. Muir achieves her goal.

4 stars

For the KITastrophe and NonfictionCAT I read A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. This is a wonderful telling of the last night of the Titanic; although this book was first published in 1955, over 40 years after the sinking, Mr. Lord was able to interview more 60 survivors including passengers from all three classes and members of the crew. He tells the stories of the actual experiences of the people including being on the lifeboats prior to being rescued by the Carpathia. He also describes in some detail how the captain and staff of the Carpathia got ready to accommodate the survivors of the Titanic -- an interesting account which I have not read anywhere else. The loading of the Titanic survivors onto the Carpathia is also described. At the end of the book is a list by class of all the passengers aboard the Titanic, supplied by the White Star line; those saved italicized. I'm sorry there was no such list of the crew.

5 stars

I've finished reading Titanic Survivor by Violet Jessop, introduced, edited and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham.
This is an autobiography of Ms. Jessop, highly edited by Mr. Maxtone-Graham, which tells the story of her life from childhood through her service on world cruises in the early 1930s. Included are her accounts of experiencing the sinking of both the Titanic and Britannic. Although these accounts are rather short, they both contain important information. Her whole account of life as a stewardess on several ships on several shipping lines is interesting. Mr. Maxtone-Graham, who interviewed her shortly before her death in the 1970s, years later edited her unpublished manuscript, adding much valuable information. (I think this book was titled Titanic Survivor to tie it to the Titanic literature; Ms. Jessop latest title for it was While I Remember.)

4 stars

I just finished reading Loving Frank by Nancy Horan title contains 3 consecutive letters in bingo for the all female authors BingoDOG card. The novel is about the love affair of Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright as told from the viewpoint of Mamah. Both Mrs. Cheney and Mr. Wright left their spouses and children to live together in Europe and then back in Wisconsin in Taliesin, the house Frank built for Mamah. Ms. Horan did a considerable amount of research, but not much is actually known about the feelings of Mamah other than that she was a feminist and translated some of the feminist writings of the Swedish feminist, Ellen Key, into English and that she had an influence on the architecture of her lover, Wright. Mr. Wright was not able to get a divorce from his first wife so that he and Mamah never got married; their life together in the early twentieth century was considered scandalous. Both Frank and Mamah are portrayed as very selfish people although Mamah was startled by Frank's failure to pay bills to his employees and suppliers, about which they had arguments. According to reviews of this book, people who do not know the basic story of Frank and Mamah are shocked by the ending.

4 stars

For the RandomCAT challenge (music) I ended up reading The Real Patsy Cline by Doug Hall. I had planned on reading Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis, but decided to hold that one off for the October NonfictionCAT since it would be more of a study for me. I enjoyed most of this short book about Patsy Cline; I'm familiar with some of her music, and enjoyed reading about her choosing and singing it. Also, the lyrics to most of her most popular songs were included in the text. Much of the description of Patsy's career was told by those who worked with her, but Mr. Hall wove these memories together seamlessly. I did find the comments after Patsy's untimely death to be hagiographic. The book included sections briefly identifying all the people who commented on Patsy, a timeline of her life, and a chronological listing of her records. Numerous photographs were also included.

3.5 stars

For the NonfictionCAT and KITastrophe, I read Sinking the Sultana: A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home by Sally M. Walker. This is actually a young adult nonfiction book, but it contains a lot of interesting information. The main reason that I chose it was because it did not first describe the battles that the soldiers on board the Sultana had been in. From watching a short movie a few years ago, I knew that the steamboat was grossly overloaded with former Union prisoners of war from the notorious Anderson Confederate Prison Camp in Georgia and the Cahaba Confederate Prison Camp in Alabama; however, I was not aware of what states these camps were in and how far the men had to travel to get to the Mississippi River where they were traveling from Also, I was not aware that in addition to the soldiers, civilian families were also on board, and had the nicest accommodations for the passengers. Moreover, some animals (horses and at least one cow) were also on board. The steamboat was supposed to hold no more than 376 passengers; although the number of soldiers is not known, there were probably over 2100 people on board, and although the number of deaths is not known, the official number (from the Customs Service) was 1537 (p.139). The sinking was probably caused by the bursting of three boilers, one of which had been repaired (patched instead of a more extensive repair) while the soldiers were being boarded. The gross overload of passengers was caused by greed: the more soldiers on board the more money to a few people.

The book describes the stories of a few of the passengers (including soldiers), the accident and how people in other boats and those living along the shore aided in rescuing people, the investigations of the disaster in which a few men were determined to be responsible but nobody was ever punished, and the reunions of the survivors. Although this was the worst marine disaster in American history, it did not get the attention that the Titanic did probably because it occurred in the midwest and involved mainly midwesterners, it occurred right after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the killing of John Wilkes Booth, and at the end of the Civil War in which numerous men died.

unrated

For my book club, I read Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks. The plague described here is in a small English town, Eyam, during 1665-1666. Although there are many characters, there are three main ones: Rector Michael Mompellion, his wife, Elinor, and Anna Frith, a young widowed housemaid who works for them. Anna is the narrator of the story; it is told from her point of view. Our book group was interested in examining what the village people, strongly led by Rector Mompeilion, did to try to conquer the plague. They isolated themselves in their village, and, as the plague spread and more and more people died met outside of their church instead of in the building. Some of the miners took things into their own hands and murdered two women, who were midwives and healers with herbs, as witches whom they blamed for the disease. Also, although many of the people helped each other, Anna's father and stepmother with whom she had very little contact and poor relations, tried to make money off the poor, helpless people. Several of us in the book group were disappointed with how the story ended.

4 stars

>125 sallylou61: My issue with Year of Wonders is that the main characters were largely modern people with modern ideas dressed up in costumes and the characters who reflected the beliefs of the time were all depicted as bad. It's hard to create a character who fully inhabits the time they are a part of and to make them sympathetic, but Brooks didn't even try.

>125 sallylou61: I, too, was quite disappointed with the ending; it just wasn't realistic and didn't fit with the rest of the book.

>126 RidgewayGirl: Interesting observation. I didn't see the story that way.

>127 Tess_W: When I read the ending which I disliked for the same reasons you did, I wondered whether Brooks moved Anna to that part of the world since she, Brooks, had been a journalist there for at least several years early in her career.

For the by a non U.S./U.K. female author on my BingoDOG card I've just finished reading Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by the Canadian Margaret Atwood. The subtitle on the cover is Nine Wicked Tales. The first three stories in the collection were interconnected since they featured some of the same characters, but could be read separately. Several of the stories ended with the reader uncertain what would happen next. The last story, "Torching the Dusties," about people in an old folks' home ends in horror.

4 stars

For the RandomCAT and NonfictionCAT challenges (and for pleasure) I read the recently published* Me & Patsy by Loretta Lynn in which Loretta Lynn describes her friendship with Patsy Cline. Although they only had about two years together, they became close friends and helped each other with their careers. Patsy was a mentor for Loretta. The book gets a bit repetitious at times, but describes a valuable friendship and a lot about the country music industry, especially in the 1960s.

*April 7, 2020

4 stars

Early this morning I finished reading Arsenic with Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde for my female authors only BingoDOG card and the MysteryKIT. This could be considered a modern rewriting of Austen's Persuasion and making it into a mystery. Each chapter began with a quote from some Austen novel, which I felt was often not particularly relevant for the chapter although I did not really study it; I was interested in reading the mystery novel. I usually don't care for the rewriting of classics. Moreover, I personally did not like the way the novel ended.

3 stars

Unfortunately, I will not be reading much since the middle of September. I hit my head early in the month resulting in a concussion. I was progressing but hit my head again around 10 days later, and went back to the beginning of my recovery. I am supposed to stay off the computer as much as possible and limit my reading -- and my thinking, which is particularly hard.
This also means not writing reviews of the few I have read

Sorry to hear about your concussion, take care of yourself.

>132 sallylou61: Oh no, I'm sorry about your concussion! Rest up and I hope you feel better soon.

>132 sallylou61: Please take care of yourself! I'm sending you hopes of a smooth recovery.

>132 sallylou61: How unfortunate! Get well soon!

Sorry to learn about your concussion. Joining the others with hopes for a smooth recovery and that you are feeling better soon.

>133 DeltaQueen50:, >134 rabbitprincess:, >135 RidgewayGirl:, >136 MissWatson:, >137 lkernagh: Thanks for your concern. I am getting much better, but still trying not to be on the computer much -- which is difficult, especially with zoom meetings and classes. Often for those, I close my eyes and listen as much as possible.
Reading print books is going better since it does not involve looking at a screen.

For the BingoDOG not set on earth square: 20 Hrs. 40 Min. by Amelia Earhart. In this memoir Ms. Earhart describes her first trip across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Friendship in 1928, in which she was a passenger. Her role was to keep a log of the flight. Much of the middle of book is primarily this log. It is very interesting reading. Amelia and the two pilots were stranded in Newfoundland for approximately two weeks by bad weather before their start across the Atlantic. Much of the flight was through fog. Much of the account of the trip talks about the weather and its impact on the flight.

In the last section of the book, Ms. Earhart gives her thoughts about aviation and the place of women in it. She foresaw the coming of commercial aviation, and stated that soon air flight would be more popular that traveling by ship across the ocean. (The three aboard the Friendship came back to the United States by ship; they were delivering the plane to the English owner.) Ms. Earhart predicted that marketing of commercial air flights should be targeted toward women.

The first part of the book discusses Ms. Earhart's earlier life, particularly as it related to flying. In her discussion of flying she often time compares it to driving a car; something else which was relatively new in the 1910s and 1920s.

Of particular interest to me was the way G. P. Putnam followed the flight; Ms. Earhart mentions hearing from him several times, and after the flight, she was a guest at his and his wife's home while writing the book. She does not say how much he might have influenced her writing.

4 stars

Early reviewers book: Nobody Hitchhikes Anymore by Ed Griffin-Nolan. Ed Griffin-Nolan hitchhiked across the United States with a friend in 1978. He decided to make another trip hitchhiking across the country forty years later -- this time alone. Nobody Hitchhikes Anymore is his story of these travels. Although the book focuses on the later trip, Mr. Griffin-Nolan is constantly comparing that trip to the one he made forty years earlier. The stories of his adventures are interesting, but can get rather frustrating. The reader only knows that the trip took eighteen days since he says so in the Epilogue. I particularly liked the first part of the book where the author said what he did the first day. Unfortunately, Mr. Griffin-Nolan did not number his days on the road; sometimes he said he was somewhere three days, but not how many days had passed before then. He told amusing stories of his rides with various drivers, but very little about his visits with friends or relatives along the way. Moreover, a map showing his overall trip was not in this advanced reader copy of the book.

3 stars

Read for a book club and the Red Prominent on the cover for BingoDOG: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Our leader seems to like Ann Patchett's writing; this is the second book by her which we have read in the last couple of years. In some ways this book was hard to read because of the cruelty in it. Danny, the narrator, and his sister Maeve did not have any real parent who acted in their best interest when they were growing up. I disliked both the mother who left them and the stepmother who was continually nasty to them and eventually kicked them out of the house in which they had grown up. Their father was weak, and would/could not stand up for his children to their stepmother, his second wife. Several times in the book, a character would do something that directly impacted another character without consulting with the person first. Also, the story, as with several books I've read recently, goes back and forth in time instead of being told chronologically.

Enjoyed discussion at book club.

3 stars

Listened to for a book club and the book set in Asia for BingoDOG: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. This story is set in China in the early part of the twentieth century. Although I found this book interesting, I felt that it dragged on. I enjoyed the first part in which Wang Lung was a poor, struggling farmer much more than when he was rich. The story primarily features Wang Lung from the time he was a young man getting married to a slave woman whom he had not seen prior to his wedding through his old age. However, three generations of the Wang Lung's family prominently appear with his father and uncle; Wang Lung with his wife and concubines, and Wang Lung's sons and daughters, both as children and adults. Much of the time, there are at least three generations living in one structure. The most appealing character to me was O-Lan, Wang Lung's wife, who had been a slave in a rich family's mansion before marrying Wang Lung. She was extremely hard working and had a lot of common sense; she helped the family to survive during hard times. The title, The Good Earth, comes from Wang Lung's deep identification with the earth which he felt was good.

3 stars

Read prior to a zoom discussion with the author sponsored by Montpelier, the Madisons' home I read: A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Included in an appendix is "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" by Paul Jennings, the first White House memoir.

Mr. Jennings was a very bright person who learned to read and write, probably being with Dolley Madison's son when he was being taught. Born in 1799, Mr. Jennings was a young male slave, who worked as a footman when the Madisons lived in the White House. His duties included being a messenger, dining room servant, and assistant to the coachman. After Madison's presidency, Mr. Jennings became his personal manservant and thus was with Madison much of the time. Both when he was a dining room servant at the White House and as Madison's personal manservant, Mr. Jennings was able to listen to numerous conversations and meetings.
The first half of the book is about life at the White House and then Montpelier up through Mr. Madison's death.

The second half is about Mr. Jennings' life after James Madison's death. Mr. Jennings was very disappointed that he was not given his freedom following Mr. Madison's death. Dolley Madison ignored the part of her husband's will about freeing slaves, and, because of being in financial difficulties sold many of the slaves, often separating families. Mr. Jennings, having met many important people, was able to ask Daniel Webster to buy him and let him earn his freedom. Mr. Jennings spent most of the rest of his life as a free man in Washington, D.C., where he held a low government position. Life in Washington was difficult since his wife and children were slaves on a neighboring plantation to Montpellier in Orange County, VA. Eventually, after his wife's death, he was able to buy his sons and daughters. Near the end of the book, Ms. Taylor writes about other former slaves of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison who lived in the same part of Washington as did Mr. Jennings, a section which I thought got rather tedious.

3.5 stars

For my BingoDOG female authors only card (and as collateral reading for an adult education course I took) I read Woman and the New Race by Margaret Sanger, which was published in 1920. Ms. Sanger was an early proponent of birth control, and founded the organization which eventually became Planned Parenthood. I found this book to be a chore to read. Ms. Sanger gave mixed messages. One of her main tenants was that overpopulation was the cause of all wars, and problems such as poverty, labor problems, etc.! She blamed women for these problems even though when she wrote the book, women had just become enfranchised in the United States. She put the blame on women for having too many children even though they did not know how to prevent having them. She wanted women to be free both to enjoy sex and to have the small number of children they wanted and would be able to care for. However, she blamed working women and children, who were forced to work for the family to have enough to live on for taking jobs away from men. Although she used the word eugenics in only one paragraph near the beginning of the book, by the end of the book she was writing about preventing the births of defectives. She did not go so far as to discuss sterilization, but was known later on for being in the eugenics movement.

2.5 stars

For the GeoCAT (Canada), RandomCat (medical workers) and BingoDOG women only authors (LT author) I read The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller. Shortly after birth the quints were taken from their parents and older siblings and put under the care of the doctor who delivered them plus a number of nurses, one for each child, most of whom did not stay long. The medical team was very intent on having all the quints survive; the environment was kept as germ free as possible. From the age of two until nine, the quints were under the guardianship of the government, still separated from their family. When they were finally reunited with their family, they did not fit in; their parents expected them to adjust to family life immediately after being cared for in an institutional setting for their early childhood. During their early years the quints were treated as a special show; visitors were allowed to walk around their playground, etc., and look at them through one-way glass. The trust found set up for the quints was used for every expense in any way connected with them including the building of their special home, etc., which left the surviving quints in poverty in their old age. The quints had major problems in adjusting to life in their adult years.
However, the quints looked back on their early years as the happiest time of their lives. Two of the quints became nurses as adults.

4 stars

>145 sallylou61: Wow, looks like a book I will need to read! Institutions for 11 years? Happiest years were there earliest years? Must have been some family! My Thingaversary is in about 8 weeks so I think this will go on my list!

>146 Tess_W:. The whole situation was very unfortunate. As a child, I remember first hearing about the quints when the first one to die died in the mid 1954 at the age of 20.. I think now that they make the news when any of them dies; there are only two left.

My Thingaversary is coming up in mid-November but I have given up buying books in celebration. My birthday is also in November and of course Christmas in December. My husband and I traditionally give each other books for those celebrations -- plus I still have a lot of tbr books.

Read for one of my book clubs: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. This book has two story lines which are intermingled throughout the book. One is the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, and especially the building of the site (including the architecture of the buildings, which ended up all being painted white since no other color could be agreed upon and the time of preparation was very short); the other is about a serial killer near the fair site who preyed particularly but not exclusively on young single women. I had read this book for another book club many years ago shortly after it had been published. This time I found the story of the architecture especially interesting since I knew more about some of the architects than previously, and did not remember as much about the architecture from my first reading. The architecture included the landscape architecture for the fair with Frederick Law Olmsted in charge. The painting of the buildings was under the direction of Francis Millet, who developed and used spray painting. I was not aware that type of painting was used so early.

The serial killer was an attractive young doctor who had a building built near the fair which he used for his killing. He had a soundproof closet in which he could pipe gas although he did not use that room for all of his killings. Unfortunately, so much was going on with the fair and in Chicago that the women were not immediately missed.

4 stars

Read for the from a legacy library on my female authors only BingoDOG card: A Lost Lady by Willa Cather. This is in 4 libraries with which I share books. This novella, narrated by Niel Herbert, tell about his feelings for a Mrs. Forrester from the time he is a young boy and she takes care of him when he is injured until she becomes a widow and leaves town many years later. The writing is beautiful, but the story is difficult to describe without giving away the plot.

4 stars

>149 sallylou61: a BB for me!

Haven't gotten much reading done this month. Spent a lot of time following the planning threads for the various CATs, KITs, and BingoDOG for next year, and, once again, volunteering to host too many CATs, KITs although I enjoy it.

Today is my 13th Thingaversary. Since I'm trying, rather unsuccessfully, to cut down on my buying of books, I bought two collections of 14 short stories each: Sherlock Holmes in America: 14 Original Stories edited by Martin Greenberg (et al) and The Stories of White Folks, a volume of 14 short stories by Langston Hughes. I thought of him as a poet rather than short story writer; this collection is supposed to be about interactions between blacks and whites in America during the 1920s and 1930s.

(I also bought Mistletoe and Holly: Classic Christmas Stories edited by Julia Livshin, but it includes more than 14 stories.)

My birthday is in two days, and of course, Christmas is coming up next month; our anniversary is in January. John and I usually give books to each other on these special days so that I will also be getting books as gifts the next few months.

Happy Thingaversary! Wow, Thingaversary, birthday, Christmas and anniversary - you have a lot of celebrations coming up!

Happy Thingaversary! I like your approach of buying stories instead of books...definitely more efficient in terms of shelf space! :)

Happy end-of-year celebration extravaganza!

Happy Thingaversary! Those of us who are into the double digits probably should be as sensible and measured as you are being, but I'm looking forward to my 13th binge in February.

Happy thingaversary! I love the idea of using the 14 short story books as your Thingaversary acquisitions, that is a very elegant solution. I hope you can enjoy and celebrate the upcoming festivities with family and friends.

>152 DeltaQueen50:, >153 christina_reads:, >154 rabbitprincess:, >155 RidgewayGirl:, >156 MissWatson:. Thanks. I have tried to buy short stories instead of numerous books the last few years. If I had known about Thingaversary when joining LT, I would have waited a couple of days and joined on my birthday so there would not have been so many different special days. Actually, joining LT was an early birthday gift to myself; I wanted to know what books I actually had (and the bookcases they were in) to avoid buying duplicates and to be able to find a book when I wanted to read it.

(Buying cheap mass market paperbacks is out for me since print on the usually poor quality paper usually kicks off my allergies. Several years ago at the Virginia Festival of the Book someone saw me smelling a paperback, and asked me if I was planning to eat it!)

>157 sallylou61: I don't read mass market paperbacks, either. The print is often too small and between the stingy margins and the cheap paper, it's an unpleasant reading experience. The funny thing is that when trade paperbacks first appeared in the mid-eighties, everyone in the bookstore I worked in agreed that they would never catch on.

>158 RidgewayGirl: I also don't read mass market paperbacks, either. The print is too small. If I can't get it as an Ebook , hard copy from the library, or audio book, I don't read it.

>158 RidgewayGirl:, >159 Tess_W:. Several months ago the friends of our local library had a potluck book sale -- 5 books for 5 dollars. One could choose the category and be handed a bag of books for the payment. I had phoned the library to see what kind of books they were since the ad said either hardback or trade paperback. The library staff member said that we did not have a choice concerning this, but she thought the books were fairly new and in good condition. I chose the category mystery, and my husband went and got the books for me. It turned out that I received 10 mass market paperbacks, 1 of which was very old and in poor condition! I thought that the library did not accept mass market paperbacks for their book sales.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Although I read this novel only once at the beginning of the month, I read it for two occasions: a book club and my retirement community short stories seminar for which we decided to read a novel instead of short stories. I was surprised how different the "discussions" were. At our book club zoom meeting early this month we talked about the different characters and what we thought about them as people and why they did some of the things they did. We agreed that some of the characters were complex, and that some of us did not like all of them. At our retirement community "seminar," our leader, an elderly former professor at a small college, dominated the discussion. He thought all the characters were nice people although Charity behaved very cruelly toward her husband Sid at the end. I found this very interesting since our leader has shown definite views about our readings; I have wondered about his interpretation of some of the stories, but in this case, I disagreed with his assessment that all of the characters were nice. I feel that Charity had a very controlling personality; although she could be kind, she definitely wanted her own way and others to do what she wanted. Moreover, both couples were parents, and we hear very little about their parenting.

This is the third work by Stegner which I have read, having already read his novel, The Big Rock Candy Mountain and his book of essays, which includes considerable biographical information, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs. Of these books, I like Crossing to Safety least. This probably is because the book is not what I expected; it was advertised as tracing the lives of two couples through time. Although the story jumps around in time with the beginning being about the end of Charity's life, most of the story is about their early relationships (first three years or so) of Sid and Charity Lang and Larry and Sally Morgan and the end of the story is a much fuller description of their reunion at the time Charity's dying, a large part of their lives are briefly mentioned but not really discussed.

I will be reading this book again next summer for another book club I'm in. It will be interesting to see how my view of the novel changes on second reading, and how our discussion will go then.

3.5 stars

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday, a Native American. We read this novel, a Pulitzer prize winner "widely credited as leading the way for the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream" for our virtual public library book club. (quote from wikipedia.). Many of us found this a difficult novel to read since it jumps around in time, and most of us, unfortunately, are not that familiar with Native American culture. The story is about Abel, a young Native American, who has just come home from serving in World War II. After the war, he has trouble fitting in on his reservation, where he was raised by his grandfather after the death of his mother; he never knew his father. Abel goes to Los Angeles where he finds some other Native Americans. However, he does not adjust to life there either, and after becoming a habitual drunkard, is sent by friends with whom he was living, back to his reservation where he takes care of his dying grandfather. The story contains many Native American myths. It also contains vivid sex scenes with two women -- much more descriptive than any we have read since I joined the book club approximately ten years ago.

We were sorry that we did not have anyone with a Native American background at our meeting. A number of years ago when we read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a middle-aged black man who had a teenage son attended. His participation telling how true to life the book is was invaluable. He described how he was stopped by the police since one of his taillights was dimmer than the other and how he modeled to his son what to do in that kind of situation.

3 stars

I read the novel Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles for my female author BingoDOG card for the published in the year of my birth square. There do not appear to be many adult books by female authors published in 1943 which are still readily available. There are more children's and YA books, several of which I've read, but I decided I wanted to read new to me.

Two Serious Ladies, according to the ad on Amazon, is supposed to be "a modernist cult-classic, mysterious, profound, anarchic, and funny." However, I found it a chore to read; several times I thought of giving up on this short novel and rereading These Happy Golden Years, which I've read multiple times. Two Serious Ladies features two upper class women, Miss Christina Goering and Mrs. Frieda Copperfield, who are friends. However, after briefly being mentioned together near the beginning of the book, they each go their own way and do not meet again until near the end of the book when their meeting is unsuccessful. The book switches back and forth between the women, and I had to go back to remember what the woman did earlier when she reappeared. The novel, in my opinion, did not seem to really have any plot -- just two women, trying to discover who they really were. Mrs. Copperfield abandoned her husband and got involved with prostitutes in Panama. Christina Goering left her friends with whom she was living to meet and briefly live with unsavory men.

2 stars

I read Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by the poet Natasha Trethewey, recommended by my Poetry seminar leader, because I wanted to read it. This is a beautifully written story of Ms. Trethewey's relationship with her mother, and her struggles both when growing up as a person of mixed racial inheritance and following her mother's murder by her former stepfather when she, Natasha, was in college. Natasha is the daughter of a Canadian man and AfroAmerican woman who met and married while in college. The author remembers the loving atmosphere she lived in as a very young child, and then the tension in her parents' marriage prior to their divorce. Natasha's mother later married a Vietnam veteran. Natasha was afraid to tell her mother the abuse she received from her stepfather when her mother is not around. There were other family secrets. Eventually, the stepfather also abused her mother, and, following their divorce initiated by her mother, shot and killed her. This had major repercussions on Natasha's life as she describes in the book. (Natasha continued to have a good relationship with her father throughout his life.)

4.5 stars

I read The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick for my female author only BingoDOG title contains Library or Thing square. This story also contains family secrets which had an adverse impact on lives of the characters; thus I read two books containing family secrets, one nonfiction and one fiction consecutively. Martha Storm, the main character, for years tried to please others instead of thinking of herself and her needs. She spent over twenty years taking care of her parents, sacrificing her opportunity to marry the man she loved and having a life of her own. She continued this pattern of doing things for others several years after her parents' deaths until she finally decided to boldly proclaim NO. After this proclamation, she searches for the answer to a puzzle and finds out the family secrets which leads to her liberation. The story started out very slowly for me, but became very interesting during Martha's search.

4 stars

I just finished reading Stories from Suffragette City edited by M. J. Rose and Fiona Davis, a collection of stories by 12 different authors, all featuring the suffrage parade in New York City held Oct. 23, 1915. New York State granted woman suffrage in 1917, but this year is the 100th anniversary of woman suffrage in the United States, which is probably the reason this collection was just published in October. The stories feature women (and men) from different social classes including the wealthy, the poor, immigrants, and blacks (called colored then). One character, a seven-year-old girl, appears prominently in two stories, and is mentioned in at least three others. I particularly liked "A Woman in Movement" by Alyson Richmond featuring an art student winning a contest and obtaining a part-time position at the periodical the suffrage periodical, "The Woman Voter" and marching with that group in the parade. My other favorite is "A First Step" by M. J. Rose featuring Katrina and Charles Tiffany (son of Louis Comfort Tiffany) and their niece Grace, the little girl mentioned above. Many of the stories feature women whose husbands or boy friends/fiances either do not support their suffrage activity or do not want them to march in the suffrage parade.

Nine of the stories are written by women and three by men, one of whom is Steve Berry who wrote a story featuring the Men's League for Woman Suffrage.

As with many collections, I found the quality of the stories uneven although most of them are excellent. Also, different people relate to different stories.

4.5 stars

I've read The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation: a Christmas Story by A. M. Barnard, a pseudonym of Louise May Alcott, for the Christmas thread. This is a Christmas story because it occurred around Christmas time. The book features ghosts and the telling of ghost stories in an old house. The main plot is the pairing of couples. In my opinion, this is not nearly as Christmasy as Alcott's Christmas story in Little Women.

2.5 stars

For the December MysteryKIT (cozy mysteries) which I am hosting I just read Turning the Tide, a Quaker Midwife Mystery, by Edith Maxwell. This is also a historical mystery occurring in Amesbury, Massachusetts, during the presidential election of 1888 (Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison); it features the suffrage/anti-suffrage fight including suffragettes standing on the opposite side of the street from the voting site where only men are voting. The Quaker midwife is a young woman, Rose Carroll, who is living with her brother-in-law and taking care of the children after her sister's death. In addition to her duties as the town's midwife, she also gets involved in helping to solve murders (only one in this book). She is also dealing with the local Quakers' opposition to her upcoming marriage with a non-Friend. The murder victim in this story is a local leader of the suffrage movement. I really enjoyed this mystery which includes several suspects, with strong motives for wanting the victim dead. I had not figured out the murderer before it was revealed near the end of the story.

(Early Quakers were often "read out of Meeting" (lost their membership) for marrying a non-Quaker. Apparently, this was still the practice in some meetings in the 1880s)

I just read The Puzzles of Amish Life by Donald B. Kraybill for the RandomCAT. This book is much more substantial than it sounds; Dr. Kraybill answers 18 different questions (puzzles) in explaining Amish culture and life as practiced by the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one of the oldest and largest Amish communities. Sample questions include: "Why do a religious people spurn religious symbols and church buildings?" and "Why is ownership of cars objectionable but not their use?" The Amish have had to adapt to many changes, particularly during the 20th century. This book might be a little out of date having been published in 1998, but it answers a lot of questions I have had over the years since my father was an expert on the Amish in the 1950s and 60s.

4 stars

>169 sallylou61: My mother loves to read about the Amish. I'm going to get this for her for Christmas. Thank you!

>170 Tess_W: I'm not sure how widely this book is still available in paperback although it seems to be available as an e-book. I bought this book in 2016 in a gift shop in the Lancaster, Pa. However, looking on the back cover, there is a URL for www.GoodBooks.com which now links to Skyhorse.Publishing.com. I found the book at https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/good-books/9781561480012/puzzles-of-amish-lif...
I found this looking under the author, Donald B. Kraybill. Searching by title gave me a list of mostly novels.

Dr. Kraybill, an authority on the Amish, has written a number of books about the Amish that can be obtained through Amazon (and probably elsewhere), many of which have been published since The Puzzles of Amish Life. Most of the other books were published by mainstream publishers (instead of Good Books, published in Intercourse, PA). The only other one which I have read is Amish grace : how forgiveness transcended tragedy, which is about the 2006 shooting of young Amish girls in a schoolhouse, and the Amish peoples' reaction to it -- a sad book.

For the MysteryKIT (cozy mysteries) and the Christmas reading thread I read Away in the Manger by Rhys Bowen. Molly Murphy Sullivan becomes concerned about two young children, staying in a rooming house in which the owner kicks them out every day without the proper clothing or anything to eat. She discovers them when she hears the young girl singing Away in the Manger in the Irish tune. The children's mother has disappeared. The mystery is to find the mother or other members of the family. To say anything more about the plot would give away too much of the story.

4.5 stars

I accidentally put in the above message re Away in the Manger twice!

>171 sallylou61: They usually sell Good Books in other Amish tourist destinations as well. I've picked up several in Holmes County, Ohio (as well as Lancaster County, Pennsylvania). I recommend Masthof Press (https://www.masthof.com/) for a wide selection of Amish non-fiction books (as well as some fiction).

Last book read in 2020: Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America by Stephanie Gorton. This last month of 2020 I really wanted to relax and read light things, especially mysteries. However, I also wanted to complete my BingoDOG card for women only authors, and this filled the by journalists/about journalism square. Moreover, I was interested in reading about Ida Tarbell, who came from the region my father grew up in (Northwestern Pennsylvania). Both she and my father graduated from Allegheny College although she graduated 45 years before he did.

This is a very interesting account about Mcclure's Magazine, an early muckraking magazine, especially its beginning through the height of its power, and the people primarily responsible for it. The magazine was founded by S. S. McClure who hired Ida Tarbell and others to do the reporting and run the office. Mr. McClure paid his staff well, and the reporters often were able to investigate topics in which they were interested. However, Mr. McClure himself was a very unstable person who was difficult to work for. Moreover, he was often away from the office and then come back with impractical ideas. Miss Tarbell was older than many of the employees, and she tried to make peace among the staff. Also Miss Tarbell and John Sanford Phillips tried both to get Mr. McClure to end his affairs with women and to keep the knowledge of the affairs away from the public. Finally Mr. McClure's grandiose ideas which he insisted on maintaining caused Mr. Phillips to resign from the paper, followed by Miss Tarbell and some others on the staff, who set up a company and bought a rival magazine, which did not list. McClure's still lasted for a while, but muckraking went into decline with World War I (and the patriotism that went with it), reforms, and new media including radio. In the epilogue, Ms. Gorton tells what happened to the main characters later in life.

Ms. Gorton gives the backgrounds of S. S. McClure and Ida Tarbell in alternating chapters in the first part of the book. Although their names appears in the subtitle, and they are the principal characters, several other people played important roles in the story. Since the story described different topics being research by different reporters, Mr. McClure's activities away from the office, etc., the story jumps around in time, which can be a bit confusing. However, overall, this is an excellent look at journalism (and life) at the turn of the 20th century.

4.5 stars