March AlphaKIT: U and A

Sorry for posting so early. I'm having major surgery tomorrow and will be in hospital for 3 to 5 days if all goes well.

Welcome to AlphaKIT! Each month AlphaKIT selects two letters to help you select books to read. Use them in any way you choose!

March letters are U and A: and

Update the March wiki here

All the best wishes for a safe operation and speedy recovery!

Good luck with your surgery, Jean. Hope all goes well for you.

I've got a few!
Currently Reading
✅ completed

✅Clammed Up
✅Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson
Mysterious Arrangement
✅Postman Always Dies Twice
Princess and the Pea by Victoria Alexander
✅Prosecco Pink by Traci Andrighetti
Spoonful of Murder by Connie Archer
✅Taste for Crime by Ellery Adams
Union Street Bakery
✅Victim at Valentine's by Ellie Alexander

Best wishes for a speedy recovery and thanks for posting early.

Wishing you a successful recovery and hoping it leaves you time for some reading when you are feeling well enough.

Wishing you a speedy recovery, Jean!

Jean, hope everything goes well!!

Best wishes for a swift recovery!

Planning to knock off both letters with Andy Duncan's collection of stories, An Agent of Utopia.

I hope the surgery went well, Jean!

I just noticed that both my books fit for both letters - Who Ate Up All The Shinga? and The Book of Unknown Americans.

I'm planning to read Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women by Annabel Abbs and, if my library hold comes in, Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea.

Finally figured out my plans for these letters! I'm going to read Something in the Woods Loves You by Jarod K. Anderson as my 'A' letter and The Unwelcome by Jacob Steven Mohr as my 'U' letter.

A: Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders.

I read Upon the Midnight Clear by Tasha Alexander for both letters.

The Ape Who Guards the Balance by Elizabeth Peters.

Hi all. I'm home from rehab and making good progress in getting better, but finding it difficult to concentrate on screens or pages. (Audiobooks are saving my sanity). So if there is an issue with the AlphaKITs threads, please let me know with a private message and i'll do my best to address it. Thanks.

COMPLETED Architecture: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Ballantyne

>17 majkia: Good to hear this. Keep doing the exercises. I speak from experience.

>17 majkia: ❤️and 🙏 and🤞that you keep improving! Slow and steady....and enjoy those audiobooks.

>17 majkia: Glad to see you are home, Jean. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Another A: Women Writing Musicals, Jennifer Ashley Tepper.

For both the U and the A, Arthur Upfield's The Devil's Steps.

My first A read this month was Elizabeth of York - The Last White Rose by Alison Weir.

I read Snapped by Alexa Martin for A.

I have finished three A books recently: Nordlicht – Die Tote am Strand by Anette Hinrichs, Die Stimme der Violine by Andrea Camilleri, and L’homme au ventre de plomb by Jean-François Parot.

I also read Children of War by Ahmet Yorulmaz, a novel set on the island of Crete between 1897 and the 1920s.

I'm reading Jeffrey Archer, Over my Dead Body, an easy fun thriller.

I read Christina Lauren's The Unhoneymooners, a perfectly fine contemporary romance that just didn't grab me.

I read An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson happily hitting both letters.
The most interesting part of Upson’s book is that the story is a fictionalized account of events surrounding Elizabeth Mackintosh’s play Richard of Bordeaux, that was a big success in the 1930’s West End. As a fan of books by Josephine Tey, Mackintosh’s pseudonym, this was a draw for me, and although it’s a clever mystery, it did not live up to my expectations. However, Upson gave readers a different view of Mackintosh and I’ll be reading more.

I have finished several A books so far:
Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Answers in the Form of Questions by Claire McNear

I have a hold on 2 possibilities for U that I hope will come in before the end of the month:
U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

A & U
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. There was a nice balance between scientific study, personal experience, and educated conjecture that went into it, and I don't use the term conjecture negatively — when she is theorizing, Grandin is explicit about that fact, and uses her professional experience, scientific studies, or both to back up her theories, which are always interesting even if I don't always think they're true.

I do want to mention that some of the book predicates on the idea that autistic brains are closer to animal brains than 'normal human' brains are. The continued use of 'normal' to mean 'non-autistic' was a little grating to me, but might be more of a barrier to reading to some, so I want to mention that upfront. Furthermore, the idea that autistic brains are more animalistic than non-autistic brains has been used for a long time to dehumanize autistic people and justify abuse, so this book as a whole might be triggering to some on that basis, although it strongly advocates for treating even animals as complex individuals with social and emotional needs, so I don't think someone from the justifying-abuse-against-autistic-people crowd would enjoy this book.

This book is from 2005, so some of the science that a discussion or two relies on is outdated, notably the idea of an 'alpha wolf' or 'alpha dog'. Nonetheless, there is a large amount of the book I found new and interesting, which I discussed in more detail in my personal thread here.

>35 GraceCollection: Our book club read this book, and we watched a movie about Temple Grandin that helped clarify a lot of the book. Our group members found it difficult to discuss.

I have read The Swiss Legacy by Anne Armstrong Thompson.

I have finished Armut, Reichtum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores by Achim von Arnim for A.

So far only Airs Above the Ground, audio version, qualifies this month.

U: The Best of Uncanny, Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, eds.

I've just finished Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narina Abgaryan for my "A" book.

>36 LadyoftheLodge: I'd love to hear your thoughts! Of course I understand that some language was a little difficult and perhaps outdated to modern terminology, but I did really enjoy the book overall.

For A, I read Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle

I have finished a U book: Ungeduld des Herzens by Stefan Zweig.

COMPLETED Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

I finished The Unfinished Clue.

I finally read an A book, Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda. A reread for me, and one I've enjoyed every time!

For U I read The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella

>34 staci426: Both of my U books did come in from the library. I finished one of them, U is for Undertow and am about 25% in on The Name of the Rose. I've started a third U, The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguru, about 1/3 of the way on this one. Both of these are pretty long, so hope to get them finished by the end of the month.

And I've finished another A, Anne Perry: The Murder of the Century by Peter Graham.

I just finished Towards Zero by Agatha Christie.

The Shopping Bags / Anna Wallner, Kristina Matisic

I finished The Dragonfly Gambit by A.D. Sui.

COMPLETED The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin

I have finished The Light of Day by Eric Ambler for A.

I (re) read Persuasion by Jane Austen.

I've finished Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea.

What I Wish I'd Known When I Was Young: The Art and Science of Growing Up

This book was written by the hosts of the Times podcast 'What I Wish I'd Known', which I admit I haven't listened to, but from what I can gather, their podcast is very similar to this book.

Drawing on interviews from a huge amount of successful people, from sports stars to musicians to CEOs to spies and politicians from every side and all over the world, the authors discuss the traits that have helped these people succeed, and how they were forged by adversity in their early lives, such as deaths of parents and siblings, abuse, poverty, and disability. The authors do acknowledge that for every child who is made more empathetic, more ambitious, more creative by trauma and tragedy, there are more who are broken by these same experiences. However, this book is a message of hope for those who have been through adversity, and the parents, teachers, and carers of children who may face or already have gone through adversity.

This book ends with a chapter discussing the 'COVID generation', and how a worldwide pandemic may become the fuel for a new generation of great movers and shakers. While I did appreciate that hopeful note, I felt this chapter overall (in great contrast to the rest of the book, I might add) was very derisive and contemptuous, mentioning how great this new generation would be compared to 'generation snowflake' (yes, that is a quote directly from the book) and how no millennial could accomplish anything because they crumbled into sand at any hint of a challenge, due, of course, to the way they were raised without any sort of challenge or hardship (no mention or blame towards who was doing the raising, of course) as if millennials weren't coming of age just when 9/11 shook the world or during terrible economic hardships.

If you can read this book without the ending souring it for you (or skipping that chapter entirely, if you need), I would still recommend this book, as without that bit at the end it was very inspiring, not to mention interesting.

I have finished a second book by Eric Ambler, Cause for alarm.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to any U books or authors this month.

Here are my A books/authors:

Remembered Death, Agatha Christie (1943)
Is He Popenjoy?, Anthony Trollope (1878)
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser (2017)
All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot (1972) (re-read on audiobook)
Selected Stories (Signet Classical Books), Anton Chekhov (originally published 1880s)

I managed to finish one of my long U books: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Isiguro. I'm at the 35% mark of the other one, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. I can use it for April now since there's an E.

Well, a few days late, but here are my picks this month.

Unbecoming a Lady for U
The Frozen River by Ariel Lowhon for A

I have two more A books and one U book to report:

I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver
Der Vater eines Mörders by Alfred Andersch (English title: The Father of a Murderer)
Under Her Care by Lucinda Berry

I'm late to come back and report, but I read Something in the Woods Loves You by Jarod K. Anderson as my 'A' book, and it was absolutely wonderful. It's one of those rare works that I wish I could magically put into every reader's hands. If you have any interest at all in reading nonfiction, I recommend it. Full review written.