June 2023 RandomKIT Walls

WALLS WALLS EVERYWHERE! This challenge is to read a book about “walls”, real or imagined. You may also read a book with the word “wall” in the title. This might be literally a wall—such as a border/fence, which could include a garden, a historical site, or a border such as a mountain range that divides countries. This could be literal walls such as Cathedral or any great architectural composition. There are walls in history such as the Great Wall of China, Jericho, or the Berlin Wall. Walls are used to keep people and others out or in! It could be the inside scoop in a long-forgotten asylum or the current conditions within prison walls. Sometimes we make walls for ourselves, such as those with agoraphobia. A wall could be the type of family-life you might have experienced or some type of forced conformity. The Iron Curtain was an imaginary wall, while a castle or a citadel was real. In AD 70 the Jews established themselves on Masada, a mountaintop fortress, and the Romans had to scale the wall. What about exile to a leper colony? What about a Russian gulag? Kidnappers/hostages? The possibilities are limitless! Here are some suggestions, but please chime in and add more titles to the pot!



This link will provide you with stories of other walls: https://www.history.com/news/7-famous-border-walls





Other possibilities:
The Door in the Wall
Painted Walls
Mending Walls
Victory on the Walls
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
Forty Autumns
Tunnel 29

Birgit's idea=city under siege!



What will you be reading?

wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2023_RandomKIT#June_Topic:_WALLS

That's an interesting challenge, Tess! I'm not planning that far ahead, May is far too busy. Maybe How to rule an empire and get away with it which is set in a city under siege?

I just finished Trail of lightning, where a magical Wall has come up around the Diné reservation.
Would have been a good match for this challenge:)
Will have to find something else… thinking…

>2 MissWatson: Good one! I'll add it ...giving you the honor(s), of course!

I think I will take advantage of this theme to revisit a series that has slipped through the cracks. Wall by Tom Abrahams is the 3rd book in a post-apocalyptic series.

I think I will read No Man's Land by Michael Califra, which is about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I have a couple of books in mind, both novels. There is Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer where a skeleton is found behind a false wall in a 1600 manor house. It is described as gothic and was very popular a few years ago when it came out.

I have Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall on the TBR so it's a maybe.

Last year I read Night Gardeing by E.L. Swann if you are interested in a novel here are comments I made about it: "The large house next door has new owners and Maggie begins to occupy herself by watching work in their garden by peeking through holes in the wall between them. She delights in the unusual choice of plants and the amazing feats of heavy equipment. It's not long before she also delights in watching Tristan Mallory, the landscape architect making it happen." I gave it a 3.5.

Dropping into recommend a book, The Man Who Walked Through Walls by Marcel Aymé. I thought it was brilliant. https://www.librarything.com/topic/326219#7406408

For once I'm requesting a book from the library for a challenge: If Walls Could Talk, by Lucy Worsley.

>8 pamelad: On my WL that one goes!

Not sure yet, but I'll probably be reading something involving the Iron Curtain.

>8 pamelad: I have this one to read. I knew someone hit me with a bullet for it.

Maybe I will try The Prisoner by Thomas M. Disch

I plan to finish A Most Contagious Game in which a skeleton is found inside the walls of a house. I started it and never finished it.

I'll need to investigate closer to see what might fit.

This one, though, I "only" rated 3.5 stars (good), but it fits the theme perfectly if anyone wants to look into it:
Walls: Travels Along the Barricades / Marcello Di Cintio

Another option for me is The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck that I just recently acquired. I seem to remember being hit by a BB but don't remember who is came from.

If anyone wants an unsettling read, Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss is very good.

I think I might read I Captured the Castle by Dodie Smith which has been on my TBR pile for a long time.

This is more wall-adjacent, as it is set in East Berlin during the 1980s, but I hope that counts! It's definitely related to the Iron Curtain anyway, even if the actual Berlin Wall doesn't feature. The book is The Stasi Poetry Circle by Philip Oltermann.

>1 Tess_W: This is an intriguing challenge. I don't have a plan yet, but the fun is in discovering which book will meet this challenge!

I have one on my tbr that sounds like it might fit. But it would mean requesting it via ILL (and that can take a while to get to me), so we'll see:

Correction Road / Glen Dresser

>1 Tess_W: I recently read The Door in the Wall for the first time. It deserved its Newbery.

>18 dudes22: I really enjoyed that one.

Not sure what I'll be reading, but I recalled an ER book years ago that was excellent, that I'd highly recommend: The War within These Walls by Aline Sax. Find it if you can.

Over the Woodward Wall has been on my list for a while. It was written by Seanan McGuire under a pen name and is the first in a series of four.

For anyone looking, Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr is absolutely fantastic--that collection was my entrance into his writing, and I absolutely adore it.

I'm tentatively thinking I'll read Ghost Wall...

Wow, such an interesting and unusual topic!

I think I will read Der geteilte Himmel (They Divided The Sky or Divided Heaven) by Christa Wolf, a novel featuring the construction of the Berlin Wall. It has been on my shelves for ages.

>24 whitewavedarling: - I'm glad to hear it was good. I have it on my TBR pile and was considering reading it for this.

I have a book that fits: The Fly on the Wall by Tony Hillerman.

I'm considering whether Magic Claims might fit this challenge, and whether I can get the book before the end of June.
Curran and Kate is always good for a wall or two, even though they have left Atlanta and the free people fortress there.

I read Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? by Crystal Smith Paul for this challenge. It involves breaking down and overcoming the walls of racism.

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

Set in a Bavarian castle at the end of World War II, the widow of one of the resisters who plotted to assassinate Hitler, is trying to fulfill her promise to protect the wives and families of other resisters who were executed. This is a story of Germany coping with defeat and shows the varying opinions of the German people from a perspective not usually encountered. Ultimately it is a story of friendship. I found some parts to be quite slow, but otherwise it is written beautifully and with compassion.

I read most of this before being hospitalized and although I missed some at the end I'm counting it as read

I completed Elizabeth von Arnim's The Pastor's Wife, who was certainly walled up by society and the church.

I have The Wall by John Hersey and
Jericho Walls by Kristi Collier

Read An unkindness of magicians by kat howard. About magicians living in an Unseen World shielded from the mundane world by their magic.
So the wall in this case is a bit metaphorical.

I read No Man's Land by Michael Califra It was a novel about the effects of the Berlin Wall while standing and also after the fall.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/351527

July is ready to go!

I have finished Le passe-muraille which I liked enough to go looking for more from this author.

I have completed my read of Wall by Tom Abraham.

I loved Jericho Walls by Kristi Collier.

I finished Dancers in Mourning where a lot of the action take space at a country house called "White Walls"

Finished Ghost Wall. I'd heard it wasn't exactly as advertised, and that's my big takeaway. I doubt I'll read anything else by the author. It was fine as short and simple lit-fics go, and I can admire what the author was going for, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it or felt drawn forward. Probably would have been a DNF for me if it weren't so short.

I've started The Wall, a novel by Marlen Haushofer. The journal of the last woman left on earth.

I have been in a terrible reading slump, BUT am finally getting to my read for this challenge, The Fly on the Wall by Tony Hillerman.

Correction Road / Glen Dresser
3 stars

Alberta is a rat-free province (this is true), and to be that way, there are people staffed at the Saskatchewan border to kill them when they are found. It’s 1979 and Hugh is one of those people. Joan, who works at the liquor store, is his girlfriend, though neither seems really interested in the other. In fact, when Joan meets Walt, who works at the museum, she doesn’t act on her interest in him, but it’s there. And it’s mutual.

This is a pretty slow story. Not much to it. Overall, I’m rating it ok, though. I’m not thrilled about rats being poisoned at the border. None of the people were terribly likable or interesting. I was a child in 1979, so some of the 70s references (tv, music, etc) were kind of fun. Also, my grandparents, then parents sold farm equipment, so it was interesting for me to read about the different farm equipment, though this is unlikely to be of interest to many.

I have read If These Walls Had Ears: The Biography of a House by James Morgan.

In 1989 James Morgan bought a house in the Hillcrest neighborhood in Little Rock. His home at 501 Holly was a 1920s era home and soon after he and his family moved in he became interested in learning about the previous seven owners. As a journalist he was prepared to uncover their stories and it amazes me how successful he was. There is much more here than just names and numbers. As he relates the family stories, a record of the social and cultural changes the families experienced through a century of living is related in a heartfelt way. 4*

>44 clue: That sounds a lot like the TV series in the UK "A House through Time". They take a residence and follow it from building to current day, tracing the people who lived in it through newspaper reports, censuses and so on. Fascinating stuff.

>45 Helenliz: I would love it too!

And in the early hours of 1 July I did finish How to rule an empire and get away with it, where the city walls play an important part in defending the city during a siege. The story is told by Notker, an actor roped in as a double of the recently killed hero fronting the defense, in a suitably irreverent style reminiscent of Harry Flashman (minus the lecherous bits).