AnneDC's 2022 Reading: Part 1

Eagerly anticipating 2022!

Welcome to my thread. I am Anne, I live in Washington, DC, and I've been an LT member and a member of the 75 group since 2010, although I've had a few years of very sporadic participation. 2021 was a great reading year for me but a terrible year for posting (though better than 2020). I hope to be here a lot more in 2022, post comments about books at least occasionally, and if you visit me I will also visit you.

I read very diversely and across most genres, though I lean to literary fiction, crime/police procedurals, classics (19th century fiction), narrative non-fiction, and history. I am a sucker for challenges, and this year will try to do the Asian Book Challenge, the British Author Challenge, the American Author Challenge, and the Non-Fiction Challenge, in addition to the monthly TIOLI challenges.

Aside from books, I have three children but became an empty-nester this fall when my daughter headed to college in California. Still adjusting, and with the pandemic the freedom to do things more spontaneously hasn't really materialized.

Wishing everyone a joyous New Year!

Books read:
January
1. Beloved - Toni Morrison (R)
2. The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
3. Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
4. Five Children and It - E. Nesbit
5. Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
6. Intimacies - Katie Kitamura
7. The Chalk Pit - Elly Griffiths
8. New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation - Thomas Dyja
9. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
10. Life and Times of Michael K - J. M. Coetzee
11. My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
12. Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
13. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
14. Normal People - Sally Rooney
15. The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna
16. Dare to Disappoint - Özge Samancı
17. Mindful Drinking - Rosamund Dean

February
18. The Song of the Lark - Willa Cather
19. Tracks - Louise Erdrich (R)
20. Under a White Sky - Elizabeth Kolbert
21. If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin
22. The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles
23. On Juneteenth - Annette Gordon-Reed
24. Larry's Party - Carol Shields
25. A Year Down Yonder - Richard Peck
26. Mornings in Jenin - Susan Abulhawa
27. The Stone Face - William Gardner Smith
28. A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz (audio)
29. Black Skies - Arnaldur Indridason
29. The Fiery Trial - Eric Foner
30. Redemption Ground - Lorna Goodison
31. Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo
32. The Water Will Come - Jeff Goodell (audio)
33. The Road to Lichfield - Penelope Lively (Kindle)
34. Treasure Hunt - Andrea Camilleri (audio)
35. Is, Is Not - Tess Gallagher
36. Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss
37. When We Were Very Young - A. A. Milne (R)
38. Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am - Julia Cooke
39. The Women of Brewster Place - Gloria Naylor
40. Now We Are Six - A. A. Milne (R)
41. Generations: A Memoir - Lucille Clifton

March
42. Deacon King Kong - James MacBride
43. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII - Sonia Purnell
44. Reveille in Washington - Margaret Leech
45. The Splendid and the Vile - Erik Larson
46. Angelica's Smile - Andrea Camilleri
47. Clouds of Witness - Dorothy Sayers
48. Spring - Ali Smith
49. Moonglow - Michael Chabon
50. The Tale of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter (R)
51. The Tale of Benjamin Bunny - Beatrix Potter (R)
52. The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies - Beatrix Potter (R)
53. Blessing the Boats - Lucille Clifton
54. The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
55. Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
56. Little Mountain - Elias Khoury
57. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
58. A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America - Elliott Currie

April
59. The Five Wounds - Kristin Valdez Quade

Currently reading:

The Yellow House - Sarah M. Broom
Waking Up White - Debby Irving
Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
The Sentence - Louise Erdrich
Friends Divided - Gordon Wood

Best of 2021 (in alphabetical order)

FICTION
1. Carry Me Across the Water - Ethan Canin
2. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid
3. God Help the Child - Toni Morrison
4. The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai
5. Lost Children Archive - Valeria Luiselli
6. Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell
7. The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa
8. The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich
9. Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
10. The Story of the Lost Child - Elena Ferrante

Honorable Mentions: Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller, The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo

NONFICTION
1. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants - Robin Wall Kimmerer
2. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right - Jane Mayer
3. Grant - Ron Chernow
4. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family - Robert Kolker
5. How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America - Heather Cox Richardson
6. How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America - Clint Smith
7. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World - Andrea Wulf
8. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America - James Forman, Jr.
9. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder - Caroline Fraser
10. Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America - Cameron McWhirter

NOTABLE REREADS
Persuasion - Jane Austen
His Dark Materials trilogy - Phillip Pullman
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
This year I reread all of Toni Morrison's novels, except for Beloved, which I'm rereading now, and God Help the Child, which I read for the first time this year. (Thanks to Laura for inspiring this project!) For about half of them I listened to audio versions with Morrison herself narrating--such a treat! My favorites this time around have been Paradise, Love, Sula, and Song of Solomon.

2021 Book stats

In 2021 I read 168 books!
Looking back, this is a pretty strong number.

2020: 84
No threads in 2018 or 2019, and in 2017 I stopped keeping track in March.
2016: 127
2015: 119
2014: 136
2013: 124
2012: 194 (whaat? Also in 2012 I had 5 threads.)
2011: 166

I read the most in December (29) and the fewest books (10) in March, August, November, averaging 12-13 books a month.

Genre:
42 Nonfiction (25%)
112 Novels (67%)
14 Plays, Poetry, Short Stories (8%)

26 rereads
14 Childrens/YA

Format:
85 print books (51%)
31 audiobooks (18%)
22 Kindle books (13%)
PLUS--a new category:
30 multiple formats: (18%)*

Source:
My shelves or Kindle/audio library: 80
Library: 8
New (meaning I bought it in 2021, approximately when I decided to read it): 58
Both OTS and new: 22*

*The multiple format and both categories exist because, more and more often, I own a print book but decide that I also need it as an audiobook for any number of possible reasons, or I purchase the Kindle and Audible versions simultaneously through Whispersync. This feels wasteful, but I'm not sure I'm likely to stop doing it.
I track this mainly because I like to see how I'm doing with reading books off my shelves, versus buying new ones. When I buy a new audiobook (by definition all my audiobooks are new because I really only buy them when I'm about to read them, so there's no unread library) and it enables me to read a print book that's been sitting around for years, I think I'm counting that as reducing the TBR pile.

Authors:
95 female
71 male

For fiction only
47 new to me authors (out of 126)
Coming(maybe):
authors by nationality/identity
fiction by date of publication
fiction by genre

I'm surprised at the balance between fiction and non-fiction, I thought it would be a little closer, but I suppose that's because of the large number of series books in the fiction category. That I read more female than male authors doesn't surprise me--one thing that does surprise me is that the gender breakdown for my non-fiction reading is similar to that for my fiction reading. I'm not sure that's always been true, and it isn't something I was thinking about until I looked at the whole year. I think I did a pretty great job at reading books off my shelves--I read over 100 of my own books.

Accomplishments:
Kept my book list up to date all year!
Completed reading August Wilson's Century Cycle of plays.
Almost completed a read/reread of all of Toni Morrison's novels (reading Beloved now which is the last to go)
Finished 3 more presidents in my chronological reading of presidential biographies (moving on to Rutherford B. Hayes)
Read at least one book in every month of British Author Challenge
Read a book for 11 of 12 months of American Author Challenge and Non-Fiction Challenge
Read 5/6 of 2021 Women's Prize Shortlist (still have Piranesi to go)

2022 Goals and challenges

LT-related Intentions

1. Post on my thread at least weekly.
2. Post at least a sentence about books I finish.
3. Visit some other threads at least weekly.
4. Complete a TIOLI sweep in at least one month.
5. Participate in the following 4 monthly challenges:

Asian Books Challenge
JANUARY - Europe of Asia - Turkish Authors

1. The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
2. My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk
3. Dare to Disappoint - Özge Samancı

FEBRUARY - The Holy Land - Israeli & Palestinian Authors

1. Mornings in Jenin - Susan Abulhawa
2. A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz

MARCH - The Arab World - Writers from the Arab world
APRIL - Persia - Iranian writers
MAY - The Stans - There are 7 states all in the same region all ending in "Stan"
JUNE - The Indian Sub-Continent - Essentially authors from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
JULY - The Asian Superpower - Chinese Authors
AUGUST - Nippon - Japanese Authors
SEPTEMBER - Kimchi - Korean Authors
OCTOBER - INDO CHINE - Authors from Indo-China
NOVEMBER - The Malay Archipelago - Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian Authors
DECEMBER - The Asian Diaspora - Ethnic Asian writers from elsewhere

Nonfiction Challenge
January - Prizewinners and Nominees

1. Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe

February – *Welcome to the Anthropocene

1. Under a White Sky - Elizabeth Kolbert
2. The Water Will Come - Jeff Goodell

March – *Espionage (and Counter-Espionage)

1. A Woman of No Importance - Sonia Purnell

April – Armchair Traveling (in time or space)
May – *From Wars to Peace
June – Science & Medicine
July – *Cross-Genres
August – Books By Journalists
September – Biography
October – *From the 'Middle Ages' to the Renaissance.
November – Books About Books
December – As You Like It

American Author Challenge
JANUARY Graphic novels, comics and/or non-fiction

1. Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
2. Dare to Disappoint - Özge Samancı

FEBRUARY Tess Gallagher

1. Is, Is Not: Poems - Tess Gallagher

MARCH Bernard Malamud
APRIL Jennifer Finney Boylan
MAY 19th Century American Author of your choice
JUNE John Dos Passos
JULY Gish Jen
AUGUST Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
SEPTEMBER Pulitzer Prize Winners
OCTOBER John McPhee
NOVEMBER Native American authors, themes and history
DECEMBER Martha Gellhorn

British Author Challenge
January: Children's Classics

1. Five Children and It - E. Nesbit
2. When We Were Very Young - A. A. Milne
3. Now We Are Six - A. A. Milne

February: Mary Renault & Timothy Mo

1. Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo

March: The Interwar Period (11 November 1918-1 September 1939)

1. Clouds of Witness - Dorothy Sayers

April: Kamila Shamsie & Clive Barker
May: Comic Books/Graphic Novels & Audiobooks
June: Jackie Kay & E. F. Benson
July: The Georgian Era (1714-1837)
August: Espionage
September: Retellings, Continuations, and Non-Series Prequels & Sequels
October: Aminatta Forna & Lawrence Durrell
November: Arthurian Legend
December: Books about books

Wildcard I: Read the movies
Wildcard II: Rereads

Other goals/plans/projects:

1. Read entire Womens/Orange shortlist
2. More presidents (5 more would get me through McKinley and into the 20th century)
3. States: Finish reading a book set in each U.S. state
4. At least keep pace with incoming NYRB subscription books.
5. Add at least 12 more countries to the list from 2021
6. Figure out a mini-category challenge (coming later)

50 States List
Alabama (Transcendent Kingdom, Train Whistle Guitar)
Alaska (Julie of the Wolves)
Arizona (Lost Children Archive, The Water Knife)
Arkansas
California (Devil in a Blue Dress)
2022Colorado (The Song of the Lark)
Connecticut
Delaware
DC (Henry and Clara, State of Terror)
Florida (The Nickel Boys)
Georgia (Home, The March)
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois (The Great Believers) (2022 A Year Down Yonder)
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
2022 Kentucky (Beloved)
Louisiana (The Vanishing Half)
2022 Maine (Olive Kitteridge)
Maryland (Kindred)
Massachusetts (The House of the Seven Gables)
Michigan (Song of Solomon)
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
2022 Nebraska (The Lincoln Highway)
Nevada (The Water Knife)
New Hampshire
New Jersey (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)
New Mexico (House Made of Dawn)
New York (Jazz, Red at the Bone, The Godfather)
North Carolina (The March)
North Dakota (The Night Watchman) (Tracks 2022)
Ohio (The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved)
Oklahoma (Paradise)
Oregon (Henry Huggins)
Pennsylvania - (Seven Guitars, Fences, Jitney, Two Trains Running, King Hedley II, Such a Fun Age) (2022 Fun Home, The Stone Face)
Rhode Island
South Carolina - The March
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas (No Country for Old Men; Bluebird, Bluebird)
Utah
Vermont (Radio Free Vermont)
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

NYRB classics backlog:
These arrive on my doorstep every month and I really really mean to read them right away but as you can see my track record is terrible. This is last year's collection--more will keep coming. I'd like to read at least one a month to keep up.

The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington
Germs: A Memoir of Childhood - Richard Wollheim
Little Snow Landscape - Robert Walser
Other Worlds:Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints - Teffi
✔Good Behaviour - Molly Keane
The Dead Girls' Class Trip - Anna Seghers
✔The Stone Face - William Gardner Smith
Storm - George R. Stewart
Kapo - Aleksandar Tišma
The Open Road - Jean Giono
✔Generations - Lucille Clifton
✔Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor

Additional:
✔Reveille in Washington - Margaret Leech

Countries Visited (settings):
2021

Australia (True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey)
Barbados (How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House - Cherie Jones)
Belgium (A Nail, A Rose - Madeleine Bourdouxhe)
Canada (The Madness of Crowds - Louise Penny, My Darling Detective - Howard Norman)
Dominican Republic (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz)
England/UK (Theater Shoes - Noel Streatfeild, I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith, Autumn - Ali Smith, Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller)
France (Transit - Anna Seghers, The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai, In the Cafe of Lost Youth - Patrick Modiano)
Germany (All for Nothing - Walter Kempowski)
Ghana (Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi)
Iceland (Outrage - Arnaldur Indridason)
India (The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra - Vaseem Singh, Burnt Sugar - Avni Doshi)
Ireland(Good Behaviour - Molly Keane)
Italy (The Age of Doubt - Andrea Camilleri, The Story of the Lost Chld - Elena Ferrante)
Japan (Moshi Moshi - Banana Yoshimoto)
Laos (The Woman Who Wouldn't Die - Colin Cotterill)
Netherlands (The Wheel on the School - Meindert DeJong)
New Zealand (Colour Scheme - Ngaio Marsh)
Nigeria (Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
Norway (Nemesis - Jo Nesbo)
Pakistan (Homeland Elegies - Ayad Akhtar)
Poland (Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk)
Scotland (Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart)
Spain (The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
Thailand (Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo)

2022
1. Cyprus (The Island of Missing Trees)
2. South Africa (Life and Times of Michael K)
3. Turkey (My Name is Red, Dare to Disappoint)
4. Finland (The Year of the Hare)
5. Israel/Palestine (Mornings in Jenin, A Tale of Love and Darkness)
6. Jamaica (Redemption Ground)


Also, I got these books for Christmas. It would be ideal to read them before next Christmas.

The Love Songs of W. E. B. Dubois - Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
✔Intimacies - Katie Kitamura
When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamin Labatut
How Beautiful We Were - Imbolo Mbue
Red Comet - Heather Clark
The Copenhagen Trilogy - Tove Ditlevson
Invisible Child - Andrea Elliott
✔On Juneteenth - Annette Gordon-Reed

But then there are the ones I got last Christmas:

✔A Children's Bible - Lydia Millet
✔Deacon King Kong - James MacBride
✔Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
✔Homeland Elegies - Ayad Akhtar
✔The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
✔Hidden Valley Road - Robert Kolker
✔A Promised Land - Barack Obama
Shakespeare in a Divided America - James Shapiro
Uncanny Valley - Anna Wiener
War: How Conflict Shaped Us - Margaret MacMillan

Literary Prizes and Awards
Like some others in this group I like to keep track of how many of these I've read, and of course I have a long-term goal of reading them all. The bolded ones are the ones I've read.

Women's Prize (Orange/Baileys)
This is the award I pay the most attention to--I also aim to read the whole short list each year though that's been hit or miss. In 2021 I read all the shortlisted books EXCEPT the winner.
2022 Longlist
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
Careless by Kirsty Capes
Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé
Flamingo by Rachel Elliott
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey
Salt Lick by Lulu Allison
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini
The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
✔The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

1996 A Spell of Winter - Helen Dunmore
1997 Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
1998 Larry's Party - Carol Shields 2022
1999 A Crime in the Neighborhood - Suzanne Berne
2000 When I Lived in Modern Times - Linda Grant
2001 The Idea of Perfection - Kate Grenville
2002 Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
2003 Property - Valerie Martin
2004 Small Island - Andrea Levy
2005 We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
2006 On Beauty - Zadie Smith
2007 Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2008 The Road Home - Rose Tremain
2009 Home - Marilynne Robinson
2010 The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver
2011 The Tiger's Wife - Téa Obreht
2012 The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
2013 May We Be Forgiven - A.M. Homes
2014 A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing - Eimear McBride
2015 How to Be Both - Ali Smith
2016 The Glorious Heresies - Lisa McInerney
2017 The Power - Naomi Alderman
2018 Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie
2019 An American Marriage - Tayari Jones
2020 Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
2021 Piranesi - Suzanne Clark

Booker Winners

1969: Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby
1970: The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens
1970: Troubles - J. G. Farrell (Lost Man Booker Prize)
1971: In a Free State - V. S. Naipaul
1972: G - John Berger
1973: The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell
1974: The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer and
Holiday - Stanley Middleton
1975: Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1976: Saville - David Storey
1977: Staying On - Paul Scott
1978: The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch
1979: Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald
1980: Rites of Passage - William Golding
1981: Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
1982: Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
1983: Life & Times of Michael K - J. M. Coetzee (2022)
1984: Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
1985: The Bone People - Keri Hulme
1986: The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis
1987: Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
1988: Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
1989: The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
1990: Possession - A. S. Byatt
1991: The Famished Road - Ben Okri
1992: The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje and
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth
1993: Paddy Clarke - Ha Ha Ha Roddy Doyle (2021)
1994: How late it was, how late - James Kelman
1995: The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
1996: Last Orders - Graham Swift
1997: The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
1998: Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
1999: Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
2000: The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
2001: True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (2021)
2002: Life of Pi - Yann Martel
2003: Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
2004: The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
2005: The Sea - John Banville
2006: The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
2007: The Gathering - Anne Enright
2008: The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
2009: Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
2010: The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson
2011: The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
2012: Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel
2013: The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton
2014: The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan
2015: A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James
2016: The Sellout - Paul Beatty
2017: Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders
2018: Milkman - Anna Burns
2019: The Testaments - Margaret Atwood and
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo (2021)
2020: Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart (2021)
2021: The Promise - Damon Galgut

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1918 His Family - Ernest Poole
1919 The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington
1921 The Age Of Innocence - Edith Wharton
1922 Alice Adams - Booth Tarkington
1923 One Of Ours - Willa Cather
1924 The Able Mclaughlins - Margaret Wilson
1925 So Big - Edna Ferber
1926 Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis (Declined)
1927 Early Autumn - Louis Bromfield
1928 The Bridge Of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder
1929 Scarlet Sister Mary - Julia Peterkin
1930 Laughing Boy - Oliver Lafarge
1931 Years Of Grace - Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
1933 The Store - Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934 Lamb In His Bosom - Caroline Miller
1935 Now In November - Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 Honey In The Horn - Harold L Davis
1937 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
1938 The Late George Apley - John Phillips Marquand
1939 The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940 The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
1942 In This Our Life - Ellen Glasgow
1943 Dragon's Teeth - Upton Sinclair
1944 Journey In The Dark - Martin Flavin
1945 A Bell For Adano - John Hersey
1947 All The King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
1948 Tales Of The South Pacific - James Michener
1949 Guard Of Honor - James Gould Cozzens
1950 The Way West - A.B. Guthrie
1951 The Town - Conrad Richter
1952 The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk
1953 The Old Man And The Sea - Ernest Hemingway
1955 A Fable - William Faulkner
1956 Andersonville - Mckinlay Kantor
1958 A Death In The Family - James Agee
1959 The Travels Of Jaimie Mcpheeters - Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 Advise And Consent - Allen Drury
1961 To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
1962 The Edge Of Sadness - Edwin O'connor
1963 The Reivers - William Faulkner
1965 The Keepers Of The House - Shirley Ann Grau
1966 The Collected Stories Of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
1968 The Confessions Of Nat Turner - William Styron
1969 House Made Of Dawn - N Scott Momaday (2021)
1970 The Collected Stories Of Jean Stafford - Jean Stafford
1972 Angle Of Repose - Wallace Stegner
1973 The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
1975 The Killer Angels - Jeff Shaara
1976 Humboldt's Gift - Saul Bellow
1978 Elbow Room - James Alan Mcpherson
1979 The Stories Of John Cheever - John Cheever
1980 The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer
1981 A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
1982 Rabbit Is Rich - John Updike
1983 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
1984 Ironweed - William Kennedy
1985 Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie
1986 Lonesome Dove - Larry Mcmurtry
1987 A Summons To Memphis - Peter Taylor
1988 Beloved - Toni Morrison (R2022)
1989 Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
1990 The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love - Oscar Hijuelos
1991 Rabbit At Rest - John Updike
1992 A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
1993 A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain - Robert Olen Butler
1994 The Shipping News - E Annie Proulx
1995 The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
1996 Independence Day - Richard Ford
1997 Martin Dressler - Steven Millhauser
1998 American Pastoral - Philip Roth
1999 The Hours - Michael Cunningham
2000 Interpreter Of Maladies - Jumpha Lahiri
2001 The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
2002 Empire Falls - Richard Russo
2003 Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
2004 The Known World - Edward P. Jones
2005 Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
2006 March - Geraldine Brooks
2007 The Road - Cormac McCarthy
2008 The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (R 2021)
2009 Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout (2022)
2010 Tinkers - Paul Harding
2011 A Visit From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
2013 Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson
2014 The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
2015 All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
2016 The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017 The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
2018 Less - Andrew Sean Greer
2019 The Overstory - Richard Powers
2020 The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead (2021)
2021 The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich (2021)

New books acquired: None yet!

Welcome back, Anne! Maybe Covid will ease enough to let us have a meetup sometime this year.

Happy new year!

This group always helps me to read; welcome back, Anne. So pleased to see your thread bright and early.

>7 drneutron: Happy New Year, Jim! I sure hope a DC area meetup is in the cards for this year--that would be lovely.

>8 figsfromthistle: Happy New Year Anita! Off to see if you have a thread set up.

>9 PaulCranswick: Nice to see you Paul--I'm hoping an early thread is a good omen for more participation this year. I love your helpful tips--although realistically I don't think my top 2022 goals should be to read more. I seem to have that one well in hand!

Happy New Year, and happy reading in 2022!

Happy New Year!

Happy reading in 2022, Anne!

Have a great year of reading!

>2 AnneDC: Looking forward to seeing that list!

Happy New Year, Anne! I hope it is a great one.

Happy New Year, Anne. I look forward to following your reading this year. I hope it's a good one for you.

I'm too introverted for a meetup, but I'm lurking to keep track of the locals. ;) Happy new year!

Happy new year, Anne! I look forward to following your reading again.

Happy New Year, Anne. Thank you very much for those Book Prize Lists. Your thread will be a good reference for me as I am trying to read more of the winners. And the Women's Prize for Fiction will always be Orange for me!

Happy New Year, Anne, and thanks for making thse lists so convenient for slackers like me who never quite get them set! Enjoy the reading!

I've been in the car all day today driving home and have arrived to many messages. It's too early in the year to fall behind!

>11 banjo123: Happy New Year Rhonda and thanks for stopping by.

>12 SandDune: Happy New Year back, Rhian. I've been in the car all day and have arrived to many messages.

>13 FAMeulstee: Nice to see you and happy reading and happy 2022 to you, too.

>14 quondame: Susan I so love your graphic and seeing it popping up on all the threads. It makes me really think that 2022 is going to be a great year for reading.

>15 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori, and the same to you!

>16 alcottacre: Welcome, Stasia, and my list of 2021 Favorites is now available in message 2. (It was hard to choose!)

>17 BLBera: Happy 2022 Beth! I lost track of all threads towards the end of the year and couldn't catch up, but I'm looking forward to following your reading this year, and will go search out your thread.

>22 AnneDC: Thank you!

>18 London_StJ: Happy New Year and welcome! Lurk as much as you like.

>19 katiekrug: I hope you had a wonderful new year, Katie, and I'll try to give people some reading to follow this year. 2021 was all reading, no commentary.

>20 Donna828: You're welcome Donna. As it turned out, compiling those lists was much less stressful than creating a best of list. All copying and pasting and bolding and no decision-making. And I'm with you--it's always Orange in my heart.

>21 ffortsa: Happy New Year, Judy. I'm pretty sure I borrowed those lists from somewhere else--like Paul C's thread, so I'm delighted if it saves anyone else some time.

I love your list of favorites, Anne. Many of the ones I've read have been on my list. Braiding Sweetgrass is on the top of my "read soon" pile.

Glad to find someone else with Braiding Sweetgrass at the top of their Best list. But I often want to ‘match’ your reads at TIOLI. I didn’t have enough time, but I wanted to read The Memory Police and Shuggie Bain; hopefully this year.

January reading plans

At the moment I'm spending way too much time thinking about reading and no time at all actually reading,

For NF Challenge:
✔Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
Unworthy Republic - Claudio Saunt
Inheritance - Dani Shapiro

For Asian Book Challenge:
✔My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
✔The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak

For American Author Challenge:
✔Fun Home - Alison Bechdel

For British Author Challenge:
✔Five Children and It - E. Nesbit

Miscellaneous TIOLI challenges:
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
✔Invisible Cities
✔Intimacies
An American Marriage - Tayari Jones
✔Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
✔Life and Times of Michael K - J. M. Coetzee
Conspiracy of Faith - Jussi Adler-Olsen
✔Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
✔Beloved - Toni Morrison
Reveille in Washington - Margaret Leech
Lark and Termite - Jayne Anne Phillips
The Little Book of Hygge - Meik Weiking

I'm so, so relieved that I'm not the only person who hasn't finished/read The Overstory by Richard Powers. I got about halfway through, and then it became just too overwhelming and intense (I tried during the first months of the pandemic, which prob. didn't help...) So I stepped away, and haven't gone back to it.

Happy 2022 reading! Oh, how I loved E. Nesbit. I'm going to tackle a book she wrote for older/adult readers, The Lark, one of the titles released by Furrowed Middlebrow, a fun publisher whose e-books I've begun seeking out. The opening pages sound a bit "twee", but I'll see what the book itself looks like.

>26 BLBera: I struggle so with picking a list of favorites--it's so hard to narrow it down, and I always want to change it immediately. But some books do just stay with you in a special way, or change your outlook.

I think you'll enjoy Braiding Sweetgrass, when you get to it. My daughter recommended it to me and really wanted me to read it.

>27 raidergirl3: I did love Braiding Sweetgrass but just to clarify, my list is alphabetical! It would take me ten years to rank order my reading, so I don't even try. Just 10 standout fiction reads and 10 non-fiction. See you over on the TIOLI Challenge! I haven't posted my selections there yet--just some shared reads that I saw right away.

>29 Chatterbox: Nope, Suz, not the only one! (In fact when I saw your comment I thought, wait, did I say something about that book? I don't think I said anything about that book. But then I saw that it is one of the unread recent prizewinners. I'm unlikely to get to The Overstory this year, either, as I'm concentrating on Mount TBR and that isn't even on it. So unless it turns up in a Little Free Library, or is a perfect match for some TIOLI challenge, I predict it will remain unread a little longer.)
I've only read The Railway Children which I love, so I thought reading one of her others would be perfect for January.

Happy new Year, Anne! My daughter is attending school in central PA, so I have been through Dulles (and Baltimore and Philly) a few times:) Maybe a DC meetup could work for me! Great reading list last year.

>31 AMQS: Ahem. If so, don’t forget me!

>28 AnneDC: Fun Home is a great read. The first and last panel I organized for MLA was on Alison Bechdel, and there are some fabulous things being argued - but none of that is necessary to enjoy the sweet and sad story. I hope you enjoy it!

Fingers crossed that someone in the DMV will stage the musical... someday ...

Happy New Year Anne! Good to see you back here. I see you're going to be reading Empire of Pain. I just finished it yesterday and it's terrific. He's such a good narrative non-fiction writer.

>31 AMQS:, >32 drneutron: me too! I'm about 30-40min from Dulles and an hour from central DC. A DC meetup is definitely doable.

I can even do a DC meetup... One of my oldest friends from high school in Belgium lives in Arlington. I was able to travel down to see him last summer, and another trip is on the cards. He joined those of us LT folks who were maniacal enough to go the ALA conference when it was in DC a few years ago, pre-pandemic. Great fun.

>32 drneutron: I could never forget you, Jim! It would be wonderful to meet up with you again! And >35 lauralkeet: Laura and >36 Chatterbox: Suzanne!

>37 AMQS: Me, too! I want to come!!

>31 AMQS: Anne, it would be so great to fold you into a DC area meet-up!
Once we stop being the COVID capital of the nation.

>32 drneutron: Don't worry, Jim, you would of course be part of any DC-area meetup! And >38 SqueakyChu: Madeline. How nice that we'd now get >35 lauralkeet: Laura, and potentially >36 Chatterbox: Suzanne, and Anne passing through from Colorado. The idea of a future meet-up just gets better and better!

>33 London_StJ: London, I'm really looking forward to reading it--I've had it for some time but haven't gotten to it. I forgot that there's a musical. Are you also located in the DMV?

>34 brenzi: That's good to hear, Bonnie. I should be starting it in the next day or so. I also gave it to my son for Christmas because I thought it is a topic he'd be interested in. Did you read Say Nothing? That's the only other thing I've read by him but I loved it.

>36 Chatterbox: I remember a time years ago when you came to DC and we met and ordered bacon and egg risotto for brunch. Seems like another lifetime in so many ways!!

>35 lauralkeet: >37 AMQS: >38 SqueakyChu: >32 drneutron: >35 lauralkeet: Seems like we have the makings of a fabulous meetup, some day.

>39 AnneDC: I knew you wouldn't forget me, just wanted to be super sure... 😀

My first day back at work turned out to be a easier reentry than I was fearing. We had a big snowstorm and although we are still working 100% remotely, my boss decided to call it a snow day anyway. Yay!

The weather is just bizarre, though. Yesterday it was 61 degrees here in DC--tee-shirt weather. Today it snowed most of the day--the first snow we've had this year.

Currently reading:
     

>40 drneutron: Anyway, Jim, as far as I know, I'm not in charge of anything, although at the appropriate moment I'd be happy to help coordinate.

Hooray for snow days!

I heard about your snowstorm! And yes, yesterday was comfy here, and today I woke up and the thermometer said 19F. HOW entertaining.

I haven't read The Overstory either, and it doesn't seem to be in my near future, with several long books in the works.

And please add Jim and me to the list for any DC meetup - the train is our friend, and we haven't been down in a long time.

I remember that risotto, too, Anne! And it was a different era -- or at least a different decade... So much has changed but you'll be glad to hear that I still love risotto....

>39 AnneDC: I am indeed! I don't live in DC, but it's my performance "home," and I'm a DMV local for life.

>41 AnneDC: Huzzah for a remote snow day! I was just reading about the closure of 95 this morning - what a nightmare.

>43 BLBera: Snow days are the best!

>44 ffortsa: Will add you to any list for a future meetup, Judy. Likewise I haven't been to New York since January 2019--just before the pandemic hit. (It was a lovely trip that I remember very fondly.) I'll eventually get to The Overstory I'm sure, but it's not on my short list.

>45 Chatterbox: Suzanne, what's not to love about risotto, really? In fact, I made some the other night--but no bacon and no eggs.

>46 London_StJ: Good to know about more locals, London! That 95 situation was insane. It makes me glad I never go anywhere.

The annual end-of-year reading meme:

Describe yourself: Girl, Woman, Other

Describe how you feel: Good and Mad

Describe where you currently live: State of Terror

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? The Last Bookshop in London

Your favorite form of transportation is: Last Train to Paradise

Your favorite food is: In the Cafe of Lost Youth

Your favorite time of day is: The Children's Hour

Your best friend is: Angel

You and your friends are: Such a Fun Age

What’s the weather like: Winter (at least this week)

You fear: Cockroaches

What is the best advice you have to give: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Thought for the day: Why Won't You Apologize?

What is life for you: A Mercy

How you would like to die: Exit West

Your soul’s present condition: Unsettled Ground

What was 2021 like for you? All for Nothing

What do you want from 2022? Good Behaviour

>48 AnneDC: - Those are some great answers, Anne!

>49 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie. Such a pointless activity but so much fun to review all the book titles from a different point of view. I can never resist it.

I finished a book!


My first book of 2022 was Beloved, a reread (I think for the 4th time).

Last year I became interested in Laura's project to read or reread all of Toni Morrison's novels. I joined in the middle with Jazz, and kept reading, and then started back at the beginning with The Bluest Eye. So Beloved is the last, and a fitting end to this project. This book earned Morrison a Pulitzer Prize, and is the one I've read the most times. Though it's not my favorite--that would be Paradise--it's a solid number 2.

This book is so well known, that it seems pointless to do an actual review, so I'll focus on my re-reading experience.

124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom.

124 is the house where Sethe lives with daughter Denver, 18 years after escaping from slavery on the Sweet Home ("neither sweet nor home") plantation in Kentucky and crossing the river to Ohio to join her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and the three children she was able to send on ahead of her. Baby Suggs is a freedwoman--Halle, her son and Sethe's husband, purchased her freedom with extra labor so she could rest in her old age. Sethe gave birth to Denver on the way. Halle never arrived. When the story begins, 124 is seemingly haunted by a chaotic and spiteful spirit presence.

Morrison explores the horrors, and ongoing trauma, of slavery, and the haunting and inescapable impact of the past. There is a dark choice at the center of the story, which is probably the thing everyone knows about the book, whether they've read it or not. Morrison's writing is raw, powerful, dark, poetic, rich, and multilayered. This is a book that definitely rewards rereading. 5 stars.

I last read this in 2012--I looked to see whether I wrote a review then--nope--but I did note feeling like it was a different book than the book I read in my 20s and reread in my 30s. And now, reading it again, I have the same feeling. Additionally, this is the first time I've "read" this as an audiobook. In general, it's the kind of book I would insist on reading in print--for stories that are non-linear (and Beloved is not linear) I tend to need the words on the page. But for the 4th read, I went with Toni Morrison's own narration and it added an additional dimension, especially moving since she is no longer with us. (I had my print copy handy to reread certain sections, though.)

Although the general story remains clear and sharp in my mind, a lot of the details fade between readings. I found myself more interested in Paul D, Denver, and Baby Suggs than I've been in previous readings, whereas Sethe feels like a character I've come to know well. I was struck by a key ambiguity in a different way. I realize that I have a better understanding of actual history than I did in 2012, and that influenced my reading.

----
Reading all of Morrison's fiction was a satisfying project. I'm glad I did it, and would consider doing it again--maybe in 10 years?
Paradise is my favorite, Beloved second. Then come Song of Solomon, Sula, and The Bluest Eye, I think in that order, followed by Jazz, Love, and God Help the Child in some order. The ones that spoke to me least on rereading were A Mercy, Tar Baby, and Home--although I enjoyed the rereads.

>51 AnneDC: I need to read Beloved this year, Anne.

I think my favourite of hers that I have read is probably Sula.

Have a lovely weekend.

>48 AnneDC: cockroaches - *shudders*

>51 AnneDC: Congratulations on completing your Toni Morrison project, Anne. I like the idea of starting and ending with Beloved. For me, that novel was the inspiration to start a reading project, but I started at the beginning since I hadn't read most of her previous books. In any case, it's a great way to experience the full range of an author's work.

Great comments on Beloved, Anne. I agree that our reading experiences differ at different times of life.

I think my top three Morrisons are Paradise, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. During Laura's project, I read some for the first time, Jazz, Tar Baby, and Love, I think. But Beloved is the one I've read the most as well. It would be fun to go through again sometime.

I have one left to read to finish the August Wilson Century Cycle as well.

I haven’t read any Morrison books in many years, Anne. I probably need to reread Paradise to see the attraction. Apparently I didn’t connect with it on the first go-round. I have very fond memories of The Bluest Eye.

Fun reading meme answers.

Enjoy your remote snow day!

>52 PaulCranswick: I know you will eventually get to Beloved in your Pulitzer quest, Paul. I like Sula as well. I hope you've had a nice weekend yourself. I wish mine was a bit longer.

>53 AMQS: Exactly, Anne.

>54 lauralkeet: I'm so glad I joined in the group read of Jazz with you, Laura. It was a great inspiration. Now I'm trying to decide if there's another author I feel motivated to tackle in a similar approach.

Still thinking, and I'm open to ideas. If you were going to read someone's entire body of work, who would you pick?

>55 BLBera: Beth, it looks like we have the same three favorites, though maybe not in the exact same order. Song of Solomon was the first Toni Morrison book I read, and I read it in high school, so I think it has a particular significance for me.

I just finished the Century Cycle! Also, our theater has resumed operation and finally got to stage Seven Guitars, which I saw a few weeks before Christmas (before the COVID surge hit). The timing was great because I had just finished King Hedley II, which has overlapping characters. (My tickets to Seven Guitars in spring 2020 were the original inspiration to read the cycle of plays, so it's funny how that turned out.)

>56 Donna828: Hi Donna. Almost all of my Morrison project was rereads, and I loved reacquainting myself with all of them in a more intentional way. It reminds me how much I enjoy rereading (and also how much I forget!)

Currently reading:

           

> 57 Now I'm trying to decide if there's another author I feel motivated to tackle in a similar approach.
I think you both would enjoy Carol Shields books

I just finished King Hedley II and was wishing I still had the copy of Seven Guitars to refer to. I would love to see the whole cycle; lucky you to see Seven Guitars.

I got a bit behind on the Toni Morrison project, and still have a couple to read - Tar Baby and Home. I plan to get to them this year and then re-read Beloved, which I haven't read since high school.

I have toyed with the idea of doing something similar for another author; I know Bonnie did it for Anita Brookner and found it very satisfying. I need to identify an author with a robust enough backlist, but one that's not *too* long, so it doesn't feel like a never-ending chore!

>61 katiekrug: What Katie said. We did a couple of these reading projects in the Virago group, with Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym. I really enjoyed it. Brookner is a a good candidate. I've thought about Edith Wharton, but she's really prolific and I've already read a lot of her novels.

>62 lauralkeet: - The two I've considered on and off are Mary Wesley and Penelope Lively. I've a read a few novels of both of them and liked them very much.

Well I have to chime in on this. Brookner published 24 novels, so very prolific. It was easy to do one per month because they all ran 200-250 pages, so pretty short but it did take two years (I'll be finished this month). I loved doing it and now would love to read a bio of Brookner but there isn't one...yet. Hermione Lee is writing one but I imagine it'll take some time before it's in my hands. Anyway, I really enjoyed doing this long look into one writer's oeuvre. Just as I did Barbara Pym back in 2013. So I would suggest you choose someone whose work you're not only interested in, but who has published a number of books that you feel would be too burdensome. Pym was great because she only published 13 books so a bit easier to manage time wise. My two cents.

>59 raidergirl3: Thanks for stopping by! Carol Shields is an interesting suggestion--I've only read The Stone Diaries, which I loved, though I read it a long time ago. But I have two unread books on my shelves, and her body of work is about the right size. Hmmmm. (Do you have a thread anywhere? I can't seem to find you.)

>60 BLBera: Beth, when I decided to read the whole cycle I ordered all the plays on Amazon just to have them. So it's easy to refer back. I loved reading them in chronological order, which is not publication order and is not related in any way to the order in which I've seen the plays, which has been entirely random and incomplete. It's provided a nice sense of the flow of time.

>61 katiekrug: Tar Baby I had completely forgotten I had read before, and it struck me as very different from a lot of her other work. Even though it's not one of my favorites, it's a great read. Tensest dinner party scene I've encountered in a long time!

I completely agree about the "just-right" backlist. I can't commit to 30 books--that might take the fun out of it. I also want to avoid authors known for writing chunksters. (so no Tolstoy)

I also realize I don't necessarily have to be a completist about this. I remember doing a Steinbeck author focus some years back and we didn't get to absolutely everything, just a monthly selection. Likewise there was a year when I focused on Dickens, but didn't get to every book.

>62 lauralkeet: I've only read one of Elizabeth Taylor's books, but I own several, so that's an interesting idea. I've never read Pym but should. (I have Quartet in Autumn around here somewhere.)

I'd thought about Edith Wharton, and think she is a strong contender. I hadn't thought of her as especially prolific--I think a book a month would about do it. I've read many of her books but not all, and wouldn't mind rereading any of them.

>63 katiekrug: Omg Katie, I've never even heard of Mary Wesley. Off to do research. I could definitely get behind reading all of Penelope Lively.

>64 brenzi: Thanks Bonnie! I did recall you were reading Brookner in order but I didn't realize that was ongoing. Excellent tips.

Other authors I've considered are Louise Erdrich (probably too many books and too recently read--also, they just keep coming!), Kazuo Ishiguro, George Eliot, Colum McCann, Anne Tyler.

I'm adding Edith Wharton, Carol Shields, and Penelope Lively to that list. I'm also contemplating Taylor and Brookner.

Mary Wesley is a favorite author of mine, Anne. She published her first novel in her 70s and ended up writing about a dozen, I think. I've read 4 of them and loved them all.

Carol Shields is intriguing - like you, I've only read The Stone Diaries but I absolutely loved it, and I have several more of her books on my shelf.

I would of course echo the recommendations for Penelope Lively - my very first British Author Challenge what seems such a long time ago.

I have had spells of reading much of the work of particular authors - Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch spring to mind but another good one would be William Trevor whose novels and/or short story collections are never overlong and who has never disappointed me. Graham Swift is another with a decent back catalogue of work.

Penelope Lively is a favorite of mine as well. I went on a Carol Shields reading jag years ago (pre-LT), and remember liking her work quite a lot.

I also love Penelope Lively. And I have quite a few of her books on my shelves. Julia Alvarez is another one. I wouldn't mind rereading her books and a year would do it. She has a nice mixture of poetry, memoir and fiction as well.

>65 AnneDC: Carol Shields was an author that I decided I wanted to read all her books, after I read Unless. I've read all her novels and short stories, but there is a nonfiction I haven't read yet.
I've set up a thread at Club Read to have a place to hang out.

>23 AnneDC: Thanks for posting the list, Anne!

>51 AnneDC: I have yet to read a Toni Morrison book. Where would you suggest that I start, Anne?

Anne, that's a great idea to focus on an author. You have a good list of suggestions already so I won't wrack my brain for more. My plans call for reading the "best of" books from last year because I didn't read many of them and feel out of the loop. The library queues should be shorter which is a plus. Sometimes I have to wait so long for a book that I forget why I wanted to read it in the first place! I am next in line for The Lincoln Highway but seem stuck at #25 for Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak

Why I read this now: The Asian Book Challenge, Turkey, of course. But also–the cover grabbed my attention in the bookstore while I was shopping for Christmas gifts.

Rating: 4.3 stars or so

Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. In life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer veins that run through a butterfly’s wings.

Set in London in the present, and Cyprus in 1974, this is a sad story about star-crossed lovers (Defne is Turkish and Kostas is Greek) whose lives were upended by civil war, and about grief. The fig tree is an important narrator, bearing witness to many of the story’s events.

As the title suggests, and as you might expect from a story narrated by a tree, there is also a naturalist/environmental angle to this story–besides the human casualties, deforestation and habitat destruction are consequences of war and turmoil, and humans do not stop to notice the other creatures around them. Except Kostas, who as a boy wept over the deaths of songbirds and bats, and as a man became an evolutionary ecologist and botanist (one who knows how to care for a fig tree and is more interested in trees than people, according to his 16-year-old daughter Ada).

The dedication–”To immigrants and exiles everywhere, the uprooted, the rerooted, the rootless, and to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories”--does a pretty good job of highlighting the author’s themes.

I knew little about Cyprus except that it is disputed territory and that there was a conflict requiring UN peacekeepers, and I found this an immersive read. A great start to the challenge.

Great comments, Anne. I think there are four or five people ahead of me at the library. I look forward to it.

This is a book I’ve been noticing, but the line is already long at the library. I taught a girl named Defne from Turkey last year, and I have a really good association with that name. Not a reason to read a book, lol but it helps.

>66 katiekrug: Well, Katie, I will have to add Mary Wesley to my TBR. My situation with Carol Shields exactly matches yours--read The Stone Diaries and loved it, own a few more languishing unread. (Specifically, Unless and Larry's Party) I note that there are only 10.

>67 PaulCranswick: My first Penelope Lively read was How it All Began and I think it preceded the BAC. Upon investigation, Lively is more prolific than I had imagined--about 29 novels. I'm always up for reading another Penelope Lively book but I have to think seriously about 29. (I've read 5.) I love William Trevor, and am now giving him serious consideration, but he too wrote more novels than I had thought, and I would have to exempt most of the short story collections, although I slightly prefer his short stories to his novels.

>68 lauralkeet: So much Penelope Lively love around here! Reading project or not, it makes me want to seek out another book sooner rather than later.

>69 BLBera: Beth, I don't think I have any more unread Lively books on my shelves--I read The Photograph last year and I think that took care of my TBR backlog. Julia Alvarez--good idea. I just re-read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for a book group and it would be fun to go back to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents or In the Time of the Butterflies since they cover similar history. I think those are the only books I've read though I think I have In the Name of Salome.

>73 AnneDC: I am hoping to get to that one some time in the near future. I am currently reading Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World for the Asian Authors challenge.

>70 raidergirl3: I will hop over to Club Read and drop a star. I've never read Unless but I have it. Carol Shields seems like a manageable reading project. I'm interested.

>71 alcottacre: You're welcome, Stasia. Where to start with Toni Morrison? Hmmmm. I bet lots of people have opinions on this, but I think you could read her debut novel, The Bluest Eye--that would be as good a place to start as any. Or Sula, or Song of Solomon. Plenty of people probably read Beloved first because of the Pulitzer, and that would also be a good choice.

>72 Donna828: Donna, lots of people gave me suggestions and I came up with more of my own. I'm kind of excited to make a plan. I have The Lincoln Highway on my list, too, but no actual plans to get it.

>78 AnneDC: Thanks for the input, Anne. I will look tosee what my local library has.

Have a great rest of your week!

>74 BLBera: I hope you get it and like it, Beth.

>75 raidergirl3: I think having a connection to the name of a character is just as good a reason to read a book as liking the cover art. Defne is a name I hadn't encountered before.

>77 alcottacre: Shafak was a new author for me, Stasia, and I have not read any of her earlier work. It looks like several people are reading that one--I will be interested to see what you think.

>80 AnneDC: The book I am currently reading is the first Shafak for me too. Not at all sure what I think of it just yet. I am not very far into it.

I finished Fun Home yesterday--graphic memoir for the American Author January challenge. Very good! It's been gathering dust on my shelf for far too long. Back soon with comments.

I'm still reading (listening to) Empire of Pain: the Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty and it has me so upset. I thought I knew what I needed to know about the Oxycontin crisis and Purdue Pharma but I have to say I find myself continually shocked by the reality.

Currently reading:
           

>73 AnneDC: adding this to my list, Anne. My husband is a refugee from that war. Not a civil war exactly, as the conflict began with a Greece-backed coup that led to the Turkish invasion, but there was definitely conflict before those 1974 events. The area still requires UN peacekeeping.

>73 AnneDC: I just put The Island of Missing Trees on hold at the local public library. There are 83 people ahead of me on the wait list, and it is still on order at the library. :D

>82 AnneDC: Adding Empire of Pain to the BlackHole. Thanks for mentioning it, Anne.

Happy Thursday!

>82 AnneDC: I'll be interested to see what you make of Intimacies, Anne, as I recently picked that one up.

I was obviously pleased to see that the Shafak book made a great start for you to the Asian Book Challenge. It hasn't met with universal acclaim but does certainly have its devotees.

>84 SqueakyChu: Wow 83 people, Madeline? Are they all joining the challenge or is it for a shared TIOLI read!

Have a lovely weekend, Anne.

>84 SqueakyChu: Heh! As far as I know, nobody has even heard of LT or your challenge at that library, much less the TIOLI challenges. After reading everyone's comments here about The Island of Missing Trees, I'm wondering why it has such a high LT rating if most people here dislike it...or is it just the people on this thread?

>87 SqueakyChu: Hahaha, I was joking of course, Madeline, but please do spread the word about both our challenges! :D

>88 PaulCranswick: I knew you were kidding. I tried to talk one of my good friends (who speaks a bit of Turkish, by the way) into joining your challenge, but she outright refused. She also refuses to journal the BookCrossing books I give her so there's no surprise there! :D

>89 SqueakyChu: Well there is no accounting for taste or predilections I suppose, Madeline!

>90 PaulCranswick: I guess not! I really did think she would enjoy the challenge to read a book by a Turkish author, though.

>83 AMQS: That's a very interesting connection, Anne. I think you would like the book. Shafak doesn't really get into politics at all (for better or for worse), and avoids the question of sides--her focus is really on conflict's effect on people and the land and the story she's telling.

>84 SqueakyChu: Good luck with that Madeline. Turkey month will be long over. Aren't you reading a book now by the same author?

>85 alcottacre: Empire of Pain belongs in everyone's BlackHole, I think, Stasia. It's a great read--Keefe is an amazing non-fiction storyteller, although the story itself is a maddening one.

>86 PaulCranswick: Paul, I saw Intimacies turn up in one of your recent book binges. I got it for Christmas. There are several of us reading it for a TIOLI challenge--you're welcome to join in. It's pretty short!

I seem to recall from an earlier post that you started The Island of Missing Trees and were enjoying the beginning--did you end up bailing?

I hope to get to My Name is Red this weekend.

>87 SqueakyChu: I do occasionally wonder whether there are people around (at the library, at the bookstore, on the Metro) who are secretly LT members or people I chat with online--how would we know?

I actually haven't seen a lot of people disliking The Island of Missing Trees. I saw one person on the Asian Books thread giving up on it, but most of the people reading it seem to be enjoying it. I liked it myself as you saw. There seems to have been more conversation on the Asian Books thread about the writer's style as it pertains to earlier works. I don't think very many people have read this one. And it has a high LT rating because only 6 people have reviewed it and they all rated it 4 or 5.

With that said, there seems to be a fair amount of hype (hence the long library waitlist) and I don't really understand why. As I mentioned, I got it for the Asian Books challenge and because the cover caught my eye and it was prominently displayed in the bookstore. But now I'm wondering about the prominent display. Is it because of the Costa Prize shortlist? Or is it an independent booksellers favorite? Or does the author have a particular following?

>89 SqueakyChu: >91 SqueakyChu: I suppose "join the challenge" could be as simple as "read a book by a Turkish author this month" and need not have anything to do with LT--is your friend uninterested in books by Turkish authors, or does she not want to be pinned downon what to read?

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel

Why I Read This Now: 2022 American Author Challenge: read a graphic novel/memoir.

Rating: 4.75

This is not my favorite genre--I don't hate graphic novels, but I never gravitate towards them. Therefore the ones that get my attention tend to be truly stellar examples, and Fun Home is no exception. I think it made its way into my TBR collection because I saw it on a list of best memoirs, and I would agree with that designation. Also, there's no way to wish this had been written in a different format--the graphic memoir is perfectly suited to the story it's telling.

Fun Home loops and loops, from the author as a child to a college student and back to childhood, as she tries to process the death of her father, his identity, their relationship, her own coming out. Also--literature is a big theme. Her father was a high school English teacher and a reader, and books are one of their bonds. Reading this made me want to tackle Faulkner, Joyce, and Proust--and to reread The Wind in the Willows.

Also, there's a musical.

Alison Bechdel is a couple of years older than me but we grew up in the 60s and 70s, and her illustrations of her childhood really struck a chord with me. For example, she depicts the tv (a large piece of furniture--remember those?) featuring Yogi Bear, Bert and Ernie, the Brady Bunch, the Watergate hearings. There are also pictures of Operation in a closet, Quisp cereal on the breakfast table, a smiley face wastebasket, the Bicentennial. Obviously this is only possible in a graphic format.

I struggled with rating this one--I think it's a 5 star exemplar of a graphic memoir, but given my feelings about the genre, perhaps a little bit less of a personal favorite.

Sigh. The neverending pandemic. Helen is supposed to go back to college in California Monday morning. (for virtual classes from her dorm). Unfortunately, Thursday night she spent time with a high school friend, who got a positive COVID test on Friday morning. Helen should get the results of a PCR test she took yesterday either today or tomorrow--but I know that even a negative test would be pretty meaningless, since it was so soon after potential exposure. Still, it would check the box for the university, which requires a negative test within 72 hours before coming to campus.

Plus, we are expecting snow on Sunday and don't know whether we can get to the airport on Monday morning.

It would make sense to reschedule her flight to next weekend, but she is a little desperate to get out of here. :(

>73 AnneDC: Nice review! I have another book by the author--Bastard of Istanbul and hope that I like it as well as you did this one.

Back to my earlier topic of an author study. I've now spent WAY too much time on this, and of course came up with a list. So I refinedexpanded the candidate list. I added more potential authors and looked up how many novels in their body of work, and how many I've read, just to get a better sense of scope. Very revealing!

Julia Alvarez - 10 (2/10) (plus poems + NF)
Kate Atkinson - 11 (9/11) (plus ss collection)
Margaret Atwood - 20 (3/20) (plus ss, poetry, NF)
Willa Cather - 12 (4/12)
George Eliot - 8 (4/8)
Louise Erdrich - 18 (12/18) (plus childrens books + poems + NF)
Elizabeth Gaskell - 11 (4/11)
Kazuo Ishiguro - 8 (4/8) (plus novella + ss)
Henry James - 32 (6/32) (plus NF, stories, etc.)
Barbara Kingsolver - 8 (7/8) (plus NF)
Penelope Lively - 17 (5/17) (plus childrens books + ss collections)
Mario Vargas Llosa - 19 (4/19)
Colum McCann - 7 (2/7) (plus ss collections + NF)
David Mitchell - 8 (2/8)
Iris Murdoch - 26 (2/26)
Ann Patchett - 8 (4/8) (plus NF)
Carol Shields - 10 (1/10)
Muriel Spark - 24 (6/24)
Anne Tyler - 27 (10/27)
William Trevor - 21 (3/21) (plus ss collections)
Edith Wharton - 23 (5/23)

I generally want to focus on fiction, specifically novels, and not plan to read every short story, poem, play, or work of non-fiction. I realize for some of these authors I'd just like to read a little more for now and fill in gaps. Last year I focused on Toni Morrison and August Wilson (just the Century Cycle of 10 plays, not his complete work).

After compiling the list, here's what appeals the most:
Ishiguro
Erdrich
Lively
McCann
Mitchell
Patchett
Shields

And my plan is:
Read/re-read Kazuo Ishiguro's work this year, following up on my December read of Klara and the Sun and starting with A Pale View of Hills. This would be 3 rereads and 4 new reads. Plus it ties into the Asian Book Challenge.

Re-read the early Louise Erdrich books that are part of the Love Medicine not-quite-series. This would include 9 books: Tracks, Four Souls, Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, Tales of Burning Love, The Master Butcher's Singing Club, and The Painted Drum. The thought of rereading these (and reading a couple that I missed) fills me with joy.

At my leisure, work through all the Penelope Lively novels. There are 17, and I've read 5.

That is an excellent reading plan, Anne. I love that rereading Erdrich fills you with joy. I've only discovered her recently and really enjoyed the Love Medicine novels too. Although I see from your list that I've missed a couple and will need to remedy that.

>96 AnneDC: Great plan, Anne. There are two Erdrich novels that I haven't read, so I might join in those. Of the rez books you mentioned, most I've read several times (I taught them), so I'm not sure about that. I am on board with reading more Lively though.

Edited to add thanks for the lists. They are fun.

>92 AnneDC: I haven't bailed on The Island of Missing Trees, Anne, it is just that I promised to read Last Train to Istanbul with Carrie first and I only wanted to read one Turkish author at a time.

>96 AnneDC: Great list and just the sorts of plans I love to make. Good choice with Lively and I also want to complete all of hers and read some Colm McCann.

>96 AnneDC: Great list! It’s fun to look up authors you’ve enjoyed and find books you haven’t read yet. I see a few I missed that I know I looked for their other books after I read and loved one of their books. David Mitchell, and Kazuo Ishiguro in particular. I only put women writers on my list.
I relooked at Ishiguro and will prob re-read one of his, as they were so good.
I just read my first Erdrich, so I’ll keep an eye on her books too.

>92 AnneDC: Aren't you reading a book now by the same author?

Yes. I just finished reading 10 minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World which was strange. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. It was like reading several different kinds of books in one. I don't care about Turkey month as much as I do about shoehorning any book i read into a TIOLI challenge. :D

About secret LT members in a book store and elsewhere? Ask them! If they aren't members, encourage them to join...and soon they will be members!

I have actually never heard of the author Elif Shafak before. I think it's interesting that she is so popular. I'm just trying to find out why.

My friend is probably unwilling to type anything online about any books she reads. I love to write reviews because they help me remember what I read, but I guess that's not for everyone. She also belongs to two book clubs and has little time for extra reading. I think she would like reading books by Turkish authors. I'm not sure if she has read any before. She learned some Turkish from a former boyfriend who was Turkish.

>93 AnneDC: My local library still does not have a copy of that one, which I find very irritating.

>94 AnneDC: I understanding your sighing at the neverending pandemic. People just will not believe that it is not going away and refuse to take any precautions at all, it seems.

I like your reading plan, Anne. I haven't moved beyond the contemplation stage...

>93 AnneDC: I enjoyed Fun Home a lot and we went to see the musical version at the Young Vic a few years ago which worked surprisingly well.

I've been looking at my shelves as well, Anne, and I have a lot of unread Ali Smith and Rose Tremaine, so I might chip away at those.

>97 lauralkeet: I've also missed a couple of the reservation novels, Laura. It's not always been clear to me which of Erdrich's novels are related and which are stand-alone, but the list I compiled reflects a little internet research. I'll probably reread Tracks this month or next.

>98 BLBera: Which ones haven't you read, Beth? I haven't read La Rose, Future Home of the Living God, or The Sentence, and there are one or two of the reservation novels that I've missed. I'm eager to read The Sentence but I know you've just finished that.

>99 PaulCranswick: One Turkish author at a time--that makes sense.
I love to have a plan. Or several.

>100 raidergirl3: It was very satisfying to think about what an author study might look like. It started out as a "what next?" question but I ended up really thinking about favorite authors and reading gaps (and I have a much better sense of what to hunt for at library sales!).

>101 SqueakyChu: Madeline if I can't shoehorn a book into a TIOLI challenge I usually don't read it!

>102 alcottacre: Stasia, I bought my own copy when I was supposed to be buying gifts for other people, but I did check my library and although they seem to have a copy, there are a lot of holds and it looks like a whole bunch more are on order. Interesting.

>103 katiekrug: I feel like I spent a lot of time in the contemplation stage Katie and now it's time to get back to reading.

>104 SandDune: I'm intrigued by the Fun Home musical. Maybe someday.

>105 BLBera: I am working on Ali Smith's seasons quartet and have Spring and Summer to go, so I'm hoping to get to those this year. I haven't read Rose Tremaine but have two of her books sitting unread--I've been trying to read The Road Home forever but I never seem to get to it.

Helen got a negative COVID test yesterday so was able to fly back to California this morning for the start of her semester as planned. Now I'm missing her.

This weekend I finished Five Children and It, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Intimacies, and The Chalk Pit.

I loved Empire of Pain when I read it in December Anne. I also loved his Say Nothing. He is such a good writer of narrative nonfiction.

I like your reading plan and will follow with interest.

I haven't read The Painted Drum or Tales of Burning Love. FYI - from the Millions preview, I see that Ali Smith has another one coming Companion Piece, which is a companion piece to her quartet. I reread Autumn in the fall and want to reread Winter before I read the last two, three now, I guess. It sounds like our reading will be overlapping.

Happy Wednesday, Anne!

>107 AnneDC: Madeline if I can't shoehorn a book into a TIOLI challenge I usually don't read it!

LOL! Well, you'll probably be able to shoehorn any book into the following month's TIOLI challenge if they don't fit anywhere now! Alternatively, you can create a challenge to fit any book.

>110 brenzi: I thought Empire of Pain was great, Bonnie, in so many ways. I find it so interesting to read about things that I remember in real life, like all that Sackler philanthropy. I also loved Say Nothing. I agree he is a terrific writer, really able to pull you into a subject.

>111 BLBera: I haven't read The Painted Drum or Tales of Burning Love either, Beth. I'll let you know when I'm getting to them--it won't be for a while. If you want to try to read the rest of the Ali Smith books at the same time, let me know. I'd be up for some shared reading--maybe there are others interested too.

>112 alcottacre: Happy Friday, Stasia. What happened to Wednesday and Thursday?

>113 SqueakyChu: Is that a hint about next month's challenge, Madeline? I have to wait to see if my books fit into someone else's challenges before I create my own--that way I can craft it around a book that doesn't fit anywhere else.

Currently reading:
                 

>114 AnneDC: Sounds like a plan.

>115 AnneDC: Nice selection of books. Invisible cities sounds interesting.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Interested to see what you make of your latest reads, Anne.
Have a great weekend.

>114 AnneDC: Is that a hint about next month's challenge, Madeline?

No, because I don't know for sure which challenge I'll choose. However, *you* can create a challenge for your own book!

Ooooh! Now I see. You wait until the end so you can fit every book of yours into a challenge. *high five* :D

>114 AnneDC: Sounds like a plan. I'll wait on you for the Erdrich books. I am going to try to read Winter next month, probably in the second half of the month.

>116 BLBera: >120 BLBera: I just read Winter and will be ready to read Spring anytime, Beth--maybe in spring? I have a reading project for the year which is to finish up self-contained series--there are so many examples where I've read two out of three books of a trilogy and for some reason not gotten around to the third. So, Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light, Amitav Ghosh's Flood of Fire, Marilynne Robinson's Jack, Jane Smiley's Golden Age all fit this category, and so do the Ali Smith books. The dilemma is whether I have to go back and reread the earlier ones before moving on. Honestly, that's why most of these are still sitting unread.

>117 figsfromthistle: Hi, Anita. Interesting is a great description of Invisible Cities! It is a strange little book but I'm really enjoying it. I should finish it tonight.

>118 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul--I am behind on posting book comments but I do have a batch ready to go--and just in time because I'm about to finish a bunch of other books, and then I will be behind again. I see you have a new thread--I will try to stop by before it moves on.

>119 SqueakyChu: Exactly, Madeline! In fact I'm doing it now. I have a couple of books that won't fit into any of the challenges that have been posted for February. I'll wait to see if any new challenges help me out, and if not, I'll think of my own to capture the books that are left out. Stay tuned...

Sounds good. I will probably be ready for Spring in March - take that any way you wish! I also have to read The Mirror and the Light. I'm thinking that will be one for the summer, after I am done with school. I have my retirement date, August 16.

>121 AnneDC:
that have been posted for February

Oops, missed that; off I go to investigate.

Five Children and It - E. Nesbit

3.5 stars

Why Now: For the British Authors Challenge, January, classic children's books. Also it has been on my shelf unread for a long time.

5 children go on holiday and discover "It"--a Sammead, or sand-fairy, a magical creature who can grant them one wish a day. Of course, like anyone offered a chance to have wishes granted, they make all the wrong wishes, but have lots of adventures.

I love Nesbit's The Railway Children, and did not enjoy this nearly as much. I may have enjoyed it more as a child, or reading it to children.


Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - Patrick Radden Keefe

4.8 stars

Why now: Non-Fiction Challenge, January: Prizewinners. This won the Bailie Gifford Prize in 2021. Also, I gave it to my son for Christmas and thought I should read it too.

If you thought the Sackler family, secretive owners of Purdue Pharma, the company that fueled the current opioid crisis through greed and questionable business practices, were made to pay for their crimes, think again. But that would be skipping to the end.

Patrick Radden Keefe is a gifted writer of narrative non-fiction, and Empire of Pain is a gripping story about multiple generations of the Sackler family, well-known philanthropists and less well-known until recently as the owners of Purdue Pharma, makers of OxyContin. Keefe's account is both meticulous and highly readable. I could say so much about the subject matter of this book, but I'm getting riled up just thinking about it. It's a discouraging story about the ability of people with money and a willingness to lie to evade every kind of accountability and corrupt the people who are supposed to be regulating them. But it's fascinating, and a story we all should probably know more about. Highly recommend.

(I read this not too long after reading Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, about the influence of right wing billionaires and the fossil fuel industry (the Koch brothers--also big philanthropists) on our political system and their battle against environmental regulations of any kind. An interesting pairing and another illustration of how much damage the profit motive can do.)


The Chalk Pit - Elly Griffiths

3.5 stars

Why now: TIOLI challenge and a shared read, plus next in series.

Another entry in the Ruth Galloway series. I enjoy many things about this series, and I found this plot compelling so I read it very quickly. The love triangle annoys me, and Ruth's self-loathing regarding weight and appearance disappoints me. It feels simultaneously very familiar and very dispiriting. Will Ruth someday realize that she is setting a terrible example for Kate?


Intimacies - Katie Kitamura

4.3 stars

Why Now: TIOLI Challenge and a shared read; also a Christmas gift, and I have a resolution to read all gift books before next Christmas. This was on the NYT top ten books of the year.

This was a slim and quietly unsettling book. An unnamed woman has recently come to the Hague to work as a translator at the International Court. Everything about her existence feels temporary. There isn't really a strong plot here, although the story moves forward and situations change. Kitamura is exploring all different kinds of intimacy, in sometimes unexpected ways, including her understanding of the work of an interpreter. "My job is to make the space between languages as small as possible."

>122 BLBera: Spring in March--yes, let's hope! (I've been involved in a recurring discussion/argument with my oldest daughter, who insists that February is the first month of spring (weather-wise). Granted that in DC, late February does bring early signs of spring flowers etc., the New Englander in me can only see February as the cold heart of winter.

>123 raidergirl3: I had only discovered the February thread shortly before posting. It immediately distracted me from reading and everything else, including coming back here.

I finished a bunch of books this weekend, all of which I liked:
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
Life and Times of Michael K - J. M. Coetzee
My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
Normal People - Sally Rooney
and I will be back eventually to report more.

Currently reading:
The Song of the Lark - Willa Cather
The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna
Dare to Disappoint - Özge Samancı
Reveille in Washington - Margaret Leech

I will most likely finish The Year of the Hare and Dare to Disappoint today, and continue with The Song of the Lark and Reveille in Washington in February.

February Reading Possibilities

Finish:
✔The song of the Lark
Reveille in Washington Reading

✔A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz (Audio)
✔Mornings in Jenin - Susan Abulhawa
✔Under a White Sky - Susan Kolbert
Deacon King Kong - James McBride
✔Tracks - Louise Erdrich (Reread)
A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro (Reread)
✔The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery - Eric Foner
✔The Lincoln Highway - Amos Towles
✔Redemption Ground - Lorna Goodison
The Yellow House - Sarah Broom Reading
Moonglow - Michael Chabon Reading
The Last of the Wine - Mary Renault
✔Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo (if I can find it anywhere)
✔The Road to Lichfield - Penelope Lively (Kindle)
✔On Juneteenth - Annette Gordon-Reed
✔The Stone Face - William Gardner Smith
✔Is, Is Not - Tess Gallagher
✔If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin
✔The Women of Brewster Place - Gloria Naylor
✔Larry's Party - Carol Shields

>126 AnneDC: and >127 AnneDC: - I am in awe, Anne!

I've been in a bit of a reading funk (excluding audios) most of January, which makes me sad. Hoping February sees improvement!

>126 AnneDC:, >127 AnneDC: I can't wait to see your comments on your completed books. I loved Normal People and Olive Kitteridge but haven't read any of the others. You have an ambitious February planned. I try to focus on African American writers for February, but do have some book club books to read as well. I might try to get to The Road to Lichfield in March.

>128 katiekrug: Don't be too impressed with the February list, Katie--it's aspirational only, and it's a short month.
I've been participating in weekend Readathons lately, and I have to confess it's led to a tendency to NOT finish books during the week, but to save the last few chapters so as to record them as finished. Hence finishing 6 books in one weekend. It's alarming how much I respond to meaningless incentives.
I hope your reading funk lifts--although COVID is probably not going to help.

>129 BLBera: Comments forthcoming, Beth, although I had some January reading to wrap up so am behind. Normal People was simultaneously light and heavy, I haven't decided what I think about it yet.

Last year I made a point of reading ONLY African-American authors in February, but this year I'm too caught up in various challenges for that to work. My RL book club read is Deacon King Kong by James McBride, so that will be good for February.

Today I solved the Wordle in 2! I actually didn't believe that was really possible. Time to retire?

>131 AnneDC: - I solved it in 2 yesterday and said I was going to retire. But I did it again today (got it in 3) :)

>125 AnneDC: It must be spring. My amaryllis bloomed today. Granted, it’s indoors. But still... :D

>132 katiekrug: Maybe that's where I got the idea, Katie. Seriously, I hate to refresh the page after a particularly satisfying round. Oh wait--I can save it!

>133 SqueakyChu: Yes, my point exactly, Madeline. Indoors is the place to be in February! Having a February birthday I can affirm that it is always winter.

>124 AnneDC: Never heard of Kitamura before. Intimacies sounds like a great read.

>127 AnneDC: You look to have a great month ahead planned, Anne.

I will join you with the Lorna Goodison and James Baldwin reads.

Hi Anne. I love your February list. If you only read half of those books it will be a good month of reading. I see you are currently reading Song of the Lark. I am a big Cather fan and thought I had read all of hers. According to LT I haven't read it. Well, it's on my shelf and it's set in Colorado... Even if I read it before LT, I think it will be worth adding to the TBR stack that is starting to haunt me. I'll be back to see what you thought about it.

Happy Reading and Happy Upcoming Weekend. I like your idea about finishing multiple books during readathons. I will sometimes delay finishing a book so I can jumpstart a new month of reading. Not this month, though. The Patchett essay book was unputdownable!

Stopping by to wish you a great weekend, Anne.

>135 figsfromthistle: It's the only thing I've read by Kitamura, Anita, but I think I'll be on the lookout for other writings. I don't think it was a first novel.

>136 PaulCranswick: Great to have you along, Paul. I finished If Beale Street Could Talk and think you'll enjoy it. I'm reading Redemption Ground at a very measured pace, one short essay a day.

>137 Donna828: Donna I think you'd like Song of the Lark. It is apparently part of a trilogy (loose trilogy?) that includes O Pioneers! and My Antonia. The three books aren't particularly related as far as I can see, but I did enjoy Song of the Lark, maybe not quite as much as the other two, which are favorites. Song of the Lark is about a young woman's professional journey as a musician, but also about how her prairie childhood influences her art.

>138 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul--the weekend came and went, but I enjoyed it and am ready for another. Even though it's only Tuesday.

January Reading statistics

17 books read

12 Fiction 5 Nonfiction
1 reread
1 childrens/YA
2 graphic memoirs
1 crime series book
3 translated books
4 from 1001 books list
1 Pulitzer Prize
1 Booker Prize
17 TIOLI challenge

Format:
Audio: 4 (3 of these were both audio and print)
Kindle: 2
Print: 11

Source:
Library: 1
Off-the-shelf (before 12/21): 7
New in 2022: 2
New in 12/21: 6 (1 gift, 1 subscription, 2 gifts to others that I read, 2 impulse buys)
Multiple: 1 (new audio/old print)

Authors (fiction only)
Male: 4 Female: 8
3 Nobel authors
5 new to me
US 3 UK 3 Other 6 (Turkish, S African, Italian, Irish, Finnish)
Living: 7 Deceased: 5
Older than me: 3 Younger than me: 3 About my age: 1

Publication date
Brand new (2021 or 2022): 4
2000-2020: 6
1950-1999: 6
1900-1949: 1

Settings (Fiction)
Countries: Cyprus, UK, Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey, Ireland, Finland
States: Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maine,

Favorites:

NF: Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
F: Beloved - Toni Morrison

Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
Intimacies - Katie Kitamura
The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
Life and Times of Michael K - J. M. Coetzee
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
New York, New York New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess and Transformation - Thomas Dyja
Normal People - Sally Rooney
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Currently reading:

           
           

I'm reading Mornings in Jenin right now too Anne. How are you liking it?

>139 AnneDC: I am about halfway through Redemption Ground and enjoying it, Anne, though it is not earth shattering stuff either.

>142 brenzi: I'm enjoying it, Bonnie, but it is a difficult story isn't it? I could not believe that after part 1, which seemed disastrous enough, part 2 was titled "The Disaster." And history gives me little reason to think that things will get better for the characters.

>143 PaulCranswick: I don't think I'm quite as far as you, Paul, I think I've read about ten of the essays. Some I've liked more than others, of course, but in general I'm enjoying the author's perspective. And I find it very refreshing to read essays that are short.

>114 AnneDC: I have no idea what day of the week it is any more, Anne! I will be glad when COVID is really done with me.

>144 AnneDC: Yes, Anne - they are good reading and not at all heavy going. Obviously as a scribbler of lines myself I am interested very much by her thoughts on poetry and that creative process in general.

Anne, you have read some great books already this year, and I'm impressed by your planned reads. I've been in a rut myself - maybe I'll join you in some titles.

Hope all is well, Anne.

You read a couple of books at least in February that I remembered fondly. Timothy Mo and Penelope Lively in particular.

> 145 I have nothing to add to that sentiment, Stasia.

>146 PaulCranswick: and >148 PaulCranswick: I've been neglecting my thread terribly, Paul--thanks for stopping by. I've been reading a lot but not managing to report back much at all. I'd never read anything by Timothy Mo, but Lively is a favorite. I enjoyed reading her first novel, and my first exposure to Mo.

>147 ffortsa: Judy, sorry to hear about a rut. I did really well with my planned February reads. I'm about to post some for March. If anything catches your eye, I'm always up for a shared read.

Potential March reads

Finish:
✔Moonglow - Michael Chabon (reading)
✔Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865 - Margaret Leech (I've been reading this book forever and I'm so close)
The Yellow House - Sarah M. Broom (reading)

✔Deacon King Kong - James MacBride
✔A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II - Sonia Purnell
✔Little Mountain - Elias Khoury
An Unnecessary Woman - Rabih Alameddine
✔The Fixer - Bernard Malamud (reading)
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D. H. Lawrence
✔Clouds of Witness - Dorothy Sayers
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson (reading)
Four Souls - Louise Erdrich
✔Spring - Ali Smith
A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Nakano Thrift Shop - Hiromi Kawakami
✔A Peculiar Indifference - Elliott Currie
Rutherford B. Hayes - Hans Trefousse
Waking Up White - Debby Irving (reading)
My Name is Mary Sutter - Robin Oliviera
Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff
If Morning Ever Comes - Anne Tyler
✔The Splendid and the Vile - Erik Larson

>149 AnneDC: Oh well, ruts come and go. Jim suggested a good rut-breaker the other day, and now I'm ready for something a little more substantial.

You've quite a long list of selected titles there. I've read three of them, and many of the others are in the back of my mind, tapping on the interior window. Are you planning these in the order listed? or is it more like a lottery?

>151 ffortsa: lol Much more like a lottery, Judy! It's a mix of library books, audiobooks, recommendations, books for particular challenges, book club selections, etc, and the order of reading is determined by my mood at the moment.

So I just finished Deacon King Kong for a real book club that met yesterday, and A Woman of No Importance, because I needed an audiobook, even though I'm still working on Moonglow, Reveille in Washington, and The Yellow House. I'll aim to finish those, next, but also started The Splendid and the Vile because, again, I was in need of an audiobook. What will be next? Probably Winesburg, Ohio, because there's a group read.

And the longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction was announced today. I've read one and own another. Most I haven't heard of at all.

Build Your House Around My Body - Violet Kupersmith (now have)
Careless - Kirsty Capes
Creatures of Passage - Morowa Yejidé (reading--library)
Flamingo - Rachel Elliott
Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead (reading--audio)
Remote Sympathy - Catherine Chidgey (library)
Salt Lick - Lulu Allison
Sorrow and Bliss - Meg Mason (now have)
The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki (now have)
The Bread the Devil Knead - Lisa Allen-Agostini (library)
The Exhibitionist - Charlotte Mendelson
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev - Dawnie Walton (now have)
✔The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
The Paper Palace - Miranda Cowley Heller (library)
The Sentence - Louise Erdrich (reading--audio)
This One Sky Day - Leone Ross (now have--Popisho)

Currently Reading:

                       

The Yellow House was so good! I read it last year and still think about it.

>153 AnneDC: My library has a few of these, so I will try to read my way through, after, of course, Ali Smith. :)

I can't believe how many books you've read so far!

>153 AnneDC: Ouch! I have not read one on this list. I better get to it! A lot look promising.

I'm glad you were able to start Spring; I think it is as good as the first two. I know many people have said it's the weakest of the books. I did feel it was a bit jarring when she started the story of Brittany and left Richard and Paddy.

I finished it and made some comments. I'll watch for yours. I'd love to discuss.

>159 BLBera: I have less than 40 pages to go and should finish up today. We'll see whether I wait until my work day is over or squeeze in a little reading time earlier. I think I spotted a connection just before I turned off the light last night.

>155 banjo123: I had to set The Yellow House aside to finish a book for my book group, but I'm back to it again and really liking it. I've only finished the first "movement."

>156 BLBera: I feel like I'm doing more reading than anything else so far this year, Beth--not getting to a lot of other things I should be doing, but I am enjoying the reading!

>157 figsfromthistle: As I noted I've only read one of the books on the list, and hadn't heard of most of them, so you're not alone.
On a whim I decided to see which from the list were available at the library and started placing holds. Now they've all started to come in and so I have a huge stack of library books. I'm afraid that most of them are going to end up having additional holds, so I won't be able to renew them. There's nothing I hate more than returning a book to the library unread!

I can't wait to see your comments, Anne. I want to hear about the connection as well. Do you mean a connection to a previous book? I think I missed that.

Regarding the Women's Prize List, I have Creatures of Passage and Build Your House Around My Body from the library right now. I just started the first one. I did order a couple that my library didn't have.

>162 BLBera: I just finished the book and am going to have to puzzle over it a bit before I put down any thoughts. Probably tonight. I loved it but there's a lot to think about! Meanwhile, the connection has to do with Richard's imaginary daughter and his real daughter. I think his real daughter is Elisabeth from Autumn. He makes a point of how she spells her name with an s, an uncommon surname, and that she works at a university in London.

Ohh! Great catch. For some reason, I was thinking the girl's name was Katherine...I think you're right.

I wrote very disjointed comments; as befits the novel! I think it is hard to gather thoughts on this because there's so much there. I kind of want to read it over again -- and I will one of these years.

Now I want to go back and read the bits in Autumn about Elisabeth's mother. This could turn into a full-time job.

>166 BLBera: I know what you mean! I've been going back, and back.

Spring by Ali Smith

I love Ali Smith's playfulness with language. This was a challenging book but also fun to read--there are challenging books that feel like work, but Smith's writing always feels like play to me--even when I'm aware that I may be missing her point. I read through this quickly while also looping back again and again to earlier parts. I can't believe I waited so long to read this series. As it turns out, I will likely read them all in the course of a year, following the seasonal progression. Which is fitting.

Spring opens with one of several short interludes that are apart from the story.

Now what we don't want is Facts. What we want is bewilderment. What we want is repetition. What we want is repetition. What we want is people in power saying the truth is not the truth.

Sound familiar? Other such interludes convey the state of the nation, the menacing omnipresence of technology, ruminations about February, March, and April, a vile internet rant (or series of them--it's hard to say which), a seeming folk story about sacrificing a young girl to make spring return, the voice of Spring.

The book is written in three sections, telling different stories that take place at the same time, and they are interconnected in surprising ways. Part 1 takes place on a train platform in Scotland and centers on Richard, a TV and film director who did his best work in the 70s, and who is grieving the recent death of his close friend and collaborator, Paddy. Part 2 shifts to Brit, a young woman who works as a security guard at a migrant detention center, and the marvelous Florence, a 12 year old girl. In Part 3 the two storylines come together, of course.

I mentioned in an earlier thread that I was waiting to post comments until I puzzled over the book a little, and I think puzzle is the right word. These books are like puzzles with interlocking pieces. There are connections throughout, and even connections back to earlier books. I can't wait to read Summer--maybe in June!

Hi Anne - Two words struck me from your comments: playfulness and puzzle. Smith does play with language, and I love that. The sections at the beginning and the vile rant are parts that I feel as though she's checking in with us to find out if we're paying attention. And each section is part of the puzzle! I think I might try to read Summer in May because now I am really anxious to get to it. Also, I have preordered Companion Piece and want to read that when it comes.

>168 AnneDC: OK, it's taken me a while to notice that two different Seasonal Quartets were under discussion lately, Ali Smith's and Karl Ove Knausgård's. I suspect there are more, it being a natural sort of way to sort.

>168 AnneDC: Great comments on Spring, Anne. I can really relate to the work 'puzzle' because that one was puzzling to me. Perhaps that's why I haven't read Summer yet. I mentioned on Beth's thread that I plan to reread the first three in fairly close succession and then read Summer. I'll aim to do that in May and June...if I don't get caught up in some other reading plan. Lol.

>170 quondame: I have just finished the first part of Knausgaard's Quartet and, though it wasn't what I quite expected, I did find it mesmerising.

Have a lovely weekend, Anne

>169 BLBera: Beth, I can see the appeal of moving on to Summer in May and I would love to read it while Spring is fresh in my mind. I haven't had a lot of time for posting lately, but I have a couple of additional thoughts which I'll post on your thread, since they relate to comments over there.

>170 quondame: Yes, those two seasonal quartets have made the touchstones really a pain. I've not read Knausgard, although I have at least one of the books in that series. I have to say it's been annoying me that the Knausgard ones invariably pop up first!

>171 Donna828: It was puzzling to me, Donna, but eventually I felt like the pieces fell into place, although I still have some questions. I reviewed the first two before reading spring, and I found it helpful. They do stand alone, but there are overlapping themes (and even some slightly overlapping characters, as it turns out!).

>172 PaulCranswick: Paul, is the first one Autumn? That's the one I have, though I haven't read it (yet). It's interesting that both of these quartets start with Autumn--I'm not sure that's the obvious starting point. I hope you've had a nice weekend too.

Can't wait, Anne. I did have one question that I never commented on. How do Mansfield and Rilke fit into the grand scheme? I don't know a lot about either author, but knowing that Smith doesn't do anything randomly, there must be a reason that those two were chosen. Thoughts?

>172 PaulCranswick: It is indeed. Yep, you are right it does seem to be an odd place to start and interesting that both started in the same place.

>174 BLBera: I don't know either, and like you I'm not that familiar with either author, but I have some ideas.
1. Smith is clearly a big fan of Mansfield--she incorporated her into a previous short story she wrote and also wrote an introduction to some collected works. So I think in one sense this is her trying to highlight an author/artist she admires.
2. Paddy shares this admiration and has been trying (unsuccessfully) to get Richard to read Mansfield over the course of their friendship.
3. The Mansfield Rilke overlap in Switzerland apparently really did happen, though there's no evidence they met--and I think that happened in spring--the month of April.
4. Paddy talks about how the fact that the two authors were potentially in the same place at that particular point in time is extraordinary, given what they were working on at the time. I'll take her word for it. It felt to me like this tied into the idea of spring as a time of growth and things coming to fruition.
5. I think I dreamed this--but I could swear I googled the name of the author of the book April that they are adapting into a film and discovered it was a real book--but now I can't find any evidence of it. Weird. But I think that the Mansfield/Rilke non-encounter allows Smith to show how there are different ways of approaching a story--there's the book, and the lurid screenplay that Martin Terp wants to make, and Paddy's ideas about what is important and how to approach it, and Richard's idea that he pitches to Terp.
6. And there are epigraphs about spring from both authors.
I have a feeling if I knew their work better their inclusion would be clearer.

>175 PaulCranswick: One of these days I will get to the Knausgard seasons, but I also have at least one volume of My Struggle in my collection, and I'm not sure what to start with.

March Reading statistics

17 books read

13 Fiction 4 Nonfiction
3 reread
3 childrens/YA
1 poetry
2 crime series book
2 translated books
1 from 1001 books list
1 Pulitzer Prize

17 TIOLI challenge

Format:
Audio: 5 (2 of these were both audio and print)
Kindle: 1
Print: 11

Source:
Library: 3
Off-the-shelf (before 12/21): 12
New in 2022: 2

Authors
Male: 9 Female: 6
Fiction
New to me: 4
US 6 UK 3 Other 2 (Italy, Lebanon)

Publication date
Brand new (2021 or 2022): 1
2000-2020: 8
1950-1999: 3
1900-1949: 5

Settings (Fiction)
Countries: Italy, UK, Ukraine,
States: Ohio, California, New York, Multiple (Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania)

Favorites:
Deacon King Kong - James MacBride
Spring - Ali Smith

I loved all four of my non-fiction reads this month and can't pick a favorite, or even narrow it down.

>176 AnneDC: Great points, Anne! Thanks. I had thought of some of them, the spring connection, but thought that was not much of a reason to include them. I think your #1, 2, and the idea that there are different ways to tell stories are probably what Smith was getting at. I wonder if reading Mansfield will add some ideas. Another retirement project...

>115 AnneDC: The New York one looks great, is it a social history?

>154 AnneDC: I loved The Splendid and the Vile- it was a lovely surprise for me, reading that.

>168 AnneDC: Having not had a great experience with Winter, I was reluctant to try any more from the seasons series, but I keep hearing good things, so maybe will try one more.

>178 BLBera: I do feel persuaded to read more Katherine Mansfield. (see, her plan is working.) I recall reading The Garden Party in school and it made a favorable impression though I can't remember why. Maybe I will make time for some short stories later on. There's also a Claire Tomalin biography which has now caught my eye. One book always leads to another (and another).

>179 LovingLit: I really enjoyed the New York book--it came out last year. I think social history is a good way to describe it. It lays out three phases of New York that have characterized the city since 1978 (which the author takes as a low point). His framework is Retrenchment (1978), Renaissance (80's under Koch and Dinkins), Reformation (90s under Giuliani), Reimagination (post 9/11 under Bloomberg). While it's organized based on the terms and policies of different mayoral administrations, what you get is detailed discussion of the art world, use of public space and land, pop culture, policing, the AIDs crisis, restaurants, hip hop, Mrs. Astor, immigration, change. The epilogue addresses the COVID era but the book largely ends pre-pandemic. (Maybe I should catch up on some reviews.)

I also loved The Splendid and the Vile.

Did you also read Autumn or just Winter? I think Ali Smith is an author to love or hate--I'm in the love camp, but not everyone is. I am finding the Seasons books to be very comparable to her other work, and the series to be pretty consistent internally. If you want to give it another try, I would try Autumn--it will either reinforce your dislike of Winter or give you a different perspective. Or, don't.

Currently Reading:
                
               

Potential April Reads

Finished:
The Five Wounds - Kristin Valdez Quade
---
Reading
The Yellow House - Sara M. Broome
Waking Up White - Debby Irving
The Sentence - Louise Erdrich
Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
Creatures of Passage - Morowa Yijide (L)
The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin
---
Possibilities:
Passenger to Teheran - Vita Sackville-West
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy - Karen Abbott
My Part of Her - Javad Djavaheri (L)
A Door Between Us - Ehsaneh Sadr (L)
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
An Unnecessary Woman - Rabih Alameddine
In the City By the Sea - Khamila Shamsie
A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Copenhagen Trilogy - Tove Ditlevsen
Night Haunts - Sukhdev Sandhu
Search Sweet Country (L)
The Fell - Sarah Moss (L)
Treasures of Time - Penelope Lively
Elderhood - Louise Aronson(L)
Surfacing - Margaret Atwood (L)
Rutherford B. Hayes - Hans Trefousset (L)
The Devil's Star - Jo Nesbo (A)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Reread)
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel (Reread)
The Paper Palace - Miranda Cowley Heller (L)
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev - Dawnie Walton (L)

Which books I actually read will depend on whether I'm more focused on a TIOLI sweep or on the alarming number of library books I have

>182 AnneDC: That is rather a large list of possibilities for this month, Anne.
We may have a few shared reads. Erdrich, Heller, Walton, Nafisi

>182 AnneDC: That's a great list. If you lived in the woods by yourself and had food catered, you could probably get through it.

I second your comments on Smith; I don't see too many lukewarm comments about her. And I am also in the "love" camp.