November RandomKIT - A little light

I haven't visited LT for a long time (I just don't feel like spending too much time online these days because I have to use so much digital technology at work and I need a break), but I haven't forgotten that I am hosting November's RandomKIT!

Now that the days are getting darker in the northern hemisphere, many people light candles on their tables or decorate their rooms with them. Sometimes we all need a light in the dark, and maybe even more these days when it seems like the world becomes darker every time you look at the news.
So let's try to find some light in our books!

You could read a book that features light or a word connected to light in the title (such as candle, sun, brightness...). Or you could take "light" a bit metaphorically and read something light-hearted - or something that makes you feel more light, such as an old favourite or a preferred author of yours, or a story set in a place you love. You could even read a book featuring a source of light on the cover!

Here are a few ideas from my shelves:
I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
The Light Behind The Window by Lucinda Riley
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock
Evil Under The Sun by Agatha Christie
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Light A Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy

I hope you enjoy this month's challenge and don't forget to add your books to the wiki.

Lovely theme. Here in scandinavia we could all use a little more light at this time of year. Looking through my library, I think The Sun, the Moon and the stars is the closest I can find. Or maybe I’ll find some early Christmas reading like Jul i bulderby. Or something else with a candle on the front like the little book of hygge.

I have a few books which could work for this theme, although unfortunately more than one of them are grief memoirs! I'm not sure I'll be in the mood for those, so as long as I have enough time and haven't overcommitted myself, I'm going to aim to read Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

I have some good choices for this theme. Very tentatively, I'm thinking of Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai, or if I'm more in the mood for a mystery, Death Lights a Candle by Phoebe Atwood Taylor.

I think that I'll be reading A Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian. It's been on my TBR for a while.

Our local book group is reading Alone in the Light although it’s a somewhat depressing read about PTSD. I might consider something lighter!

I have several on my shelf too. I think I'll go with The Yellow Lighted Bookshop (nonfiction) by Lewis Buzbee, I've had it the longest.

The only fit I can find on my TBR shelf is The Illumination by Kevin Brockemeier

Trying to read from my shelf, so I think I will go the serious, non-fiction route with America's First Great Eclipse: How Scientists, Tourists, and the Rocky Mountain Eclipse of 1878 Changed Astronomy Forever by Steven Ruskin

I think I am going to go for a historical fiction read - Pillars of Light by Jane Johnson.

>9 Tess_W: Oh, that sounds interesting!

I am a big fan of lighthouses, so I will read Letters From The Lighthouse.

>1 MissBrangwen: Wonderful theme! November is always such a dark month, I'm looking forward to reading something sunny.

>1 MissBrangwen: Thanks, that's a lovely theme for this dark month!

Great theme. I'm planning on Aurora: CV-01.

For those reading the Armand Gamache series, How the Light Gets In would be a perfect choice for this month's theme :)

I'll have to dig on my shelves to see what fits for me!

What a perfect time for this theme!

I've also got a number of choices... I'm thinking I'll either go with Into the Light by Nicole Cooley (especially since I keep telling myself I aim to read more nonfiction...) or The Light Between Oceans, which has been sitting on my TBR pile for ages....

>12 JayneCM: That sounds lovely! Taking a BB for this one.

I have a few choices but the first pick is Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss.

>12 JayneCM: which reminds me that I've got Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson on my wishlist

In 2015, I hosted the July RandomCAT, and the topic was "Let there be Light". Here is the link so you can see the list of selections posted by participants if you are interested.

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2015_RandomCAT#July_-_Theme:_Let_There_B...

>21 LadyoftheLodge: Thank you for this. It gave me a couple of additional words to search for in titles!

So, I a likely to try for either:
Paper and Fire / Rachel Caine
or
The Fires Beneath the Sea / Lydia Millet

>22 LibraryCin: You are welcome! It is always good when we can help each other.

Due to UnUSUAL circumstances I find myself reading three books that will fit. Aurora CV-01, Light from Uncommon Stars and Light of Impossible Stars.

Those last two are gonna trip me up, I know it.

I may do a reread of Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler, a well done fictionalized account of the author's experience of going blind at 14. It's not a downer, and not sappy, recommended.

ETA: and it fits the Alpha KIT challenge, see here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/354382

>24 majkia: I hope you like Light From Uncommon Stars. I read it earlier this year and it's among my favorites.

I'm planning to read The Crone of Midnight Embers.

>24 majkia: >25 fuzzi: Oh, I should have added Light From Uncommon Stars in my list above! I'm so happy you mentioned this. I have not read it myself, but I gave it as a gift to my husband and he loved it.

I read A Light In The Attic by Shel Silverstein for this month's challenge.

Voting for the 2024 CATs is now happening at https://www.librarything.com/topic/354675#8274629! Voting will take place until Thursday, November 9, at 6:30 p.m. EST, at which time the votes will be counted and the 2024 CATs officially chosen. So stop by and vote for your favorites!

(Cross-posting to a bunch of threads to reach as many people as possible.)

I read Alone in the Light for our community book group. It is my turn to be the leader. This was a compelling and emotional read about Iraq veterans returning to civilian life. I had a difficult time getting through it and had to read it in small doses.

I seem to have gotten the wrong message for this months challenge. So far I've managed to read The dark is rising, Knot of Shadow, Night Witch and Black Mould.
Apparently I don't have a lot of book titles with light in them, so I found a book with a light on the front instead: Deep Work by Cal Newport. Interesting ideas about shallow and deep work, and the value derived from each. I'm looking forward to learning more about his proposals for increasing your ability for deep work and reducing distractions.

>31 amberwitch: LOL! I just finished When the Stars Go Dark myself!

I decided to work in America's First Great Eclipse: How Scientists, Tourists, and the Rocky Mountain Eclipse of 1878 Changed Astronomy Forever by Steve Ruskin. It was quite interesting and definitely fit the theme "light" only more in a more specific sense, i.e. corona, and also the absence of "light."

I finished reading The Annotated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, annotated by David M. Shapard. P&P is one of my favorite books which I had not reread for about 10 years. As you can see, I reread an old favorite.

I read Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss.

I was looking forward to something bright and sunny for the challenge, but sadly that didn't work out.

Beautiful writing, but I cannot say I enjoyed this depressing book.

>35 VivienneR: I started Bodies of Light a couple of years ago but did not finish and gave it away... It was too depressing for me and I couldn't deal with it! I hope you have some happier stories ahead.

>36 MissBrangwen: That's understandable. My next book was Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for GeoCAT (East Asia) that also promised to be a difficult read and was a DNF for me. Two books for the donations box.

2024 RandomKit planning thread is up on the 2024 Challenge page. Drop by if you’re interested! Just one more host is needed.

I read Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai.

I finished The Giver of Stars, Jojo Moyes, and
Moon Over Manifest by Cllalre Vanderpool.

I completed my read of Pillars of Light by Jane Johnson.

I read a memoir, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee.

I read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Lightning was not the type of light I had in mind when creating this challenge, but never mind! I think it fits, and it was also a light and funny read that brightened up my weekend.

The December thread is up! https://www.librarything.com/topic/355242

COMPLETED The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier in which people give off light from where they feel pain

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to my planned read (Stardust) in time - I've overcommitted as usual, and need to try and finish some of the many books I've already started for previous challenges!

>46 Jackie_K: - Oh Heck! I'm in the same boat. I can't seem to settle on what to read.

>47 dudes22: I'm usually such a good poly-reader, but this year I've seemed to settle on one book at a time, but that hasn't stopped me from starting several others in response to challenges etc. I'm going to have to rethink my reading strategy next year so I stop starting more than I can finish!

>48 Jackie_K: - I usually have one physical book, one ebook, and an audio going at the same time. But then I'll realize - "oh I need to read my book club book" and another one gets started. And I too start books because of the challenges.

And here's my book:


Viking's Dawn by Henry Treece

This was an engaging tale of a young man on his first voyage with vikings. It was well-written, not stereotypical, with some character development of the individuals within the diverse crew. While there was violence and killing the author kept it from being unnecessarily graphic.

Well, I ended up totally changing track on this one. I'd bought an author's memoir based on how much I adored her novels and poetry...only to pick it up this month, years later, and realize it was centered on her anti-abortion stance, which I just don't have patience for. So, that 'light' option got put down and given away, and I turned to a little book from an imprint of Small Beer Press...

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison. It seems Mitchison was known for fairy tales, and this work was originally published in 1952, but I'd somehow never heard from her even though she wrote over 70 books! In any case, I adored this and will likely search out more of her works.

I'm counting The Safe-Keeper's Secret by Sharon Shinn for this KIT, since it features two sources of light on the cover (fire and moon):

I finished Heat Lightning by Helen Hull (1932), set in the summer of 1930 in a small town in Michigan.

I have finished All the light we cannot see, about the German occupation of Saint-Malo and their last stand there.

I finished Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland which was about one of Louis XIV's mistresses, Louise de la Valliere.

Paper and Fire / Rachel Caine
2 stars

Can’t really give a summary, as I skimmed this book. Something about the Library of Alexandria, I think. And automata (is the plural not automatons?). Shouldn’t have bothered reading it at all. I vaguely recall not being excited about the first book, so I had to check my review. Sounds like I didn’t like the story (may not have followed that story, either), but apparently I liked the characters so decided to try the next one. Shouldn’t have bothered. Nothing interested me in this.

>56 LibraryCin: Your question about the plural of "automaton" got me curious! Merriam-Webster gives both "automatons" and "automata" as plural options. I think "automata" probably comes from a Greek plural form, similar to criterion/criteria and phenomenon/phenomena.

>57 christina_reads: Thank you! That is interesting. I think she used "automata" in the book, but I thought it sounded odd and wondered why it wasn't "automatons"!

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
This takes place over three days in a maternity unit in a Dublin hospital while the 1918 flu pandemic was raging. Donoghue offers little in the way of storytelling here, but her novel details the condition of hospitals, particularly the maternity unit, and as a sidebar, conditions in homes run by the Catholic Church. It’s all pretty dismal and it must be remembered that some of the procedures, treatments and church-run homes were in effect until much later than 1918.

The character of the doctor, was based on a real person, Dr. Kathleen Lynn, who started a free clinic.

Donoghue wrote this for 100th anniversary of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and days after it was presented to the publisher another pandemic hit.

The title was taken from the medieval Italian belief that illness proved the heavens were governing fate, that people were star-crossed: Influenza Delle stelle - the influence of the stars.

Thank you to everyone, I hope these books brought some light to dark November times! No on to December :-)

Finished my read for this - Letters From The Lighthouse. Wonderful book.