Kristel's 2025 Journal 2nd Quarter

Spring is here in Florida and its time to think about returning to Minnesota. Spring in Minnesota is far different than Florida but the time for snow bird migration has arrived. Broken wing and all.

Reading1001
Booker and International Booker
Pulitzer
American Author
British Author
The European Tour Challenge
Benreadsgood challenge



Reading 1001

Reading 1001
Year Long Read: Tale Genji
Quarterly Reads:
Daniel Deronda April -June COMPLETED June 2025
V - Thomas Pynchon

Botm and others
January
The Circle - Dave Eggers
The Heather Blazing - Toibin
The Professor's House - Cather
The Bitter Glass - Eilis Dillon
February
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
Night Boat To Tangiers - Barry
Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak
March
The Successor - Kadare
Coming Up For Air - Orwell
Sunset Song
The Story of the Lost Child - Ferrante
England Made Me - Greene
April
Smiley's People - le Carre
Nowhere Man - Aleksandar Hemon
Elective Affinities - Goethe
Cranford - Gaskell
The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis
Spring Torrents - Turgenev
May
The Man Who Loved Children - Stead
The Pursuit of Love - Mitford
Hawksmoor reread
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs - Rilke
Tent of Miracles - Jorge Armado
June
Willard and His Bowling Trophies - Brautigan
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Keep the Aspidistra Flying - Orwell

TBR LIST, revised JUNE
1. The Joke - Milan Kundera (H)
2. Quicksand - Nella Larson (H)
3. Cement Garden - Ian McEwan (H)
✔4. The Heather Blazing - Toibin (H, B)
5. Wise Blood - O’Connor (H)
6. Tropic of Cancer - Miller (H)
7. Tropic of Capricorn - Miller (H)
8. Berlin Alexanderplatz (A)
9. Joseph Andrews (H) - Henry Fielding
10. Anagrams - Moore (H)
11. Violent bear it away - O’Connor (H)
✔12. Coming Up For Air - Orwell (H)
✔13. Keep the Aspidistra Flying - Orwell (H)
✔14. Doctor Zhivago - (L,B)
15. Sabbath’s Theater (L)
16. Operation Shylock (L)
✔17. The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge (H)
18. The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford, (H)
19. Homo Faber - Max Frisch
20. The Heat of the Day (H)
21. Viper’s Tangle (H)
22. The Private Memoirs of a Justified Sinner (H)
✔ 23. Smiley’s People (H)
24. The Home and the World (H)

American Author Challenge

American Author Challenge
JANUARY Pacific Northwest including Western BC and Southeastern Alaska

FEBRUARY -- MUSLIM AMERICAN AUTHORS PAUL: Ayann Hirsi Ali - Heretic

MARCH STEWART O’NAN Katie. Emily Alone

APRIL APPALACHIAN AUTHORS

MAY Pulitzer Prize Winners in HISTORY
Summer for the Gods - Edward J. Larson

JUNE Willy Vlautin

JULY ROMANCE LAURA

AUGUST True Crime & its Fictional Offspring
CAROLINE

the Sinners All Bow

SEPTEMBER Alice Hoffman

OCTOBER The Western KRISTEL https://www.servicescape.com/blog/book-genre-encyclopedia-144-genres-and-subgenr...
The Country Under Heaven by Frederic S. Durbin

NOVEMBER David Treuer

DECEMBER Meg Wolitzer

WILD CARD: Select from the 2016 list

European Challenge:
January: Prelude - Europe in the 19th Century (European Literature of the 19th Century)
The Children of the New Forest - Frederick Marryat

February: The Journey Begins - A Wider Scandinavia (Books by authors from Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland)
Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist
Autumn - Karl Ove Knausgard
James Thompson - Snow Angels

March : Into the Red Zone - Books from authors from Countries which were part of the Warsaw Pact)
The Successor - Ismail Kadare
Read Spring Flowers, Spring Frost in February

April : Scimitar and Cross - Books from authors from European Countries within the Ottoman Empire
The Last Tempation of Christ (Audible)

May : Interlude - Non National Languages - Books originally written in European languages that are not tied to a particular nation i.e. Yiddish, Regional languages such as Catalan, French, Spanish and Portuguese outside their borders including Latin America, Africa etc)
Tent of Miracles Brazil, written in Portuguese

June : Caesar to Meloni - Books written originally in Latin or Italian
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino Italian

July : The Germanic World - Books written by authors writing in German from Germany, Austria, Switzerland

August : Anita Fameulstee Memorial Month - Books by authors from the Benelux countries (Netherlands, Belgium. Luxembourg)
The Discomfort of Evening - Lucas Rijneveld

September : Interlude #2 - Books About Places in Europe (Travel, Non-fiction)
World Travel; an Irreverent Guide - Anthony Bourdain

October : La Belle France - Books by Authors from France

November : The Iberian Peninsula - Books by Spanish authors

December : Welcome Back to the Future - Translated Literature in the 21st Century

Benreadsgood challenge for 2025
1. January: Ann-uary - Read a book by an author called Ann, or with Ann in the title
Bird by Bird Anne Lamont

2. February: Flame-uary - Read a book with fire on the cover
Burn Baby Burn

3. March: Ides of March - Read a book with 15 letters in the title
The House of Doors Tan Twan Eng

The Ides of March was the 15th of March on the Roman calendar, and most famous for being the day Julius Caesar was betrayed and murdered.
But this prompt isn't about Caesar - we're just going with the whole '15th' thing.Looking for a book with 15 characters in the title. Spaces and punctuation don't count, only letters.

4. April: Read a book nominated for the Women's Prize
The Ministry of Time

Read any book that has ever been nominated for the Women's Prize (fiction or non-fiction).

5. May: May-ja Vu - Re-read a book, or read an author you've previously read (116 added)
Hawksmoor

This is here because I couldn't pass up the deja vu pun. And I don't re-read enough.

But if you hate re-reading, read a book by an author you've read before.

6. June: Reading Shame Forgiveness Month (92 added)
Catcher in the Rye
Everyone's favourite month-long public holiday is back!

Read that book you feel ashamed not to have read yet. Whether it's the book that's been on your shelf the longest, or one you've told everyone you already read but actually you haven't (you fibber). No judgement here.

7. July: Read a work in translation
Troubling Love Italian to English

Pretty self-explanatory: read a book translated from one language to another.

8. August: Read a book by a Booker Prize-winning author Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth

Read any book by an author that has won the Booker Prize (either English language or International). It doesn't have to be their prize-winning book!

9. September: Sapphire September - Read a book with a blue cover (109 added)

Sapphire is the birthstone for September. I don't really subscribe to that sort of thing, but it was a nice opportunity to ask you to read something blue.

10. October: Ug-tober - Read a book with an ugly cover (104 added)

We all judge books by their covers, so don't feel bad about that. Maybe it's put you off a certain book until now. But it's time to get over it, dust that little ugly duckling off, and read it.

11. November: No Comfort November - Read something outside your comfort zone (92 added)

Switch up your reading. If you normally read lit fic, give romance a go. If you're a non-fiction aficionado, try some poetry. Maybe read about a subject that intimidates you, or a person you don't agree with.

12. December: Decem-bros - Read a book about brothers or brotherhood (55 added)

There are lots of books about sisters right now, so let's read something about brothers.
bonus
Wildcard: Agatha All Along (7 added)

Swap out any prompt you're struggling with for an Agatha Christie. You can do this once.

To make sure your reading challenge still looks complete, add your Agatha to this prompt, and to the prompt you're swapping.

If you see an erroneous Agatha in another prompt: the person isn't going mad, it's just their wildcard.

This is dedicated to the dearly missed Alice and the Giant Bookshelf.

Booker Unread
BOOKER Unread
1. 1969: P. H. Newby, Something to Answer For - Own (K)
2. 1970: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member - OWN book
3. 1972: John Berger, G. - OWN-K
4. Holiday - Stanley Middleton OWN book
5. 1976: David Storey, Saville
6. 1984: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac - OWN book
7. 1985: Keri Hulme, The Bone People Audible
8. Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger Audible
9. 1993: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha OWN bppl
10 1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace - OWN K
11. 2001: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang-Hoopla
12. 2003: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
✔. 2021, The Promise by Damon Galgut READ
Booker International
15. 2018 - Flights - Olga Tokarczuk - Poland OWN book
16.2019 - Celestial Bodies - Jokha al-Hearth - Oman (Hoopla)
17. 2020 - The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld - Netherlands Own, audible
18. 2022 - Tomb of Sand - Geetanjali Shree - India (Hoopla)
19.2024- Kairos - Jenny OWN book
20. 2025 Heart Lamp - Banu Mushtaq (Audible)

Pulitzer
Pulitzer
1. 1918 HIS FAMILY - Ernest Poole
2. 1923 ONE OF OURS - Willa Cather
3. 1924 THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS - Margaret Wilson
✔4. 1926 ARROWSMITH - Sinclair Lewis (Declined) library COMPLETED 2/13/25
5. 1927 EARLY AUTUMN - Louis Bromfield
6. 1929 SCARLET SISTER MARY - Julia Peterkin
7. 1930 LAUGHING BOY - Oliver Lafarge Own
8. 1939 THE YEARLING - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
✔9. 1943 DRAGON'S TEETH - Upton Sinclair
10. 1945 A BELL FOR ADANO - John Hersey
11. 1947 ALL THE KING'S MEN - Robert Penn Warren
12. 1952 THE CAINE MUTINY - Herman Wouk
13. 1955 A FABLE - William Faulkner
14. 1956 ANDERSONVILLE - McKinlay Kantor
15. 1963 THE REIVERS - William Faulkner
16. 1968 THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER - William Styron OWN, book
17. 1970 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JEAN STAFFORD - Jean Stafford (audio/Hoopla)
18. 1985 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Alison Lurie (audible)
✔19. 1987 A SOMMONS TO MEMPHIS - Peter Taylor (Hoopla)
20. 1990 THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE - Oscar Hijuelos (audible
21. 1991 RABBIT AT REST - John Updike (audible)
22. 1993 A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN - Robert Olen Butler (audible)
23. 1996 INDEPENDENCE DAY - Richard Ford (hoopla)
24. 1997 MARTIN DRESSLER - Steven Millhauser (hoopla)

January Bingo Card
1. The Circle - Dave Eggers (1001) COMPLETED
2. Morality Play - Barry Unsworth (BAC) COMPLETED
3. The Praise Singer - Mary Renault (BAC) COMPLETED
4. Far to Go - Noel Streatfeild
5. Shepherds For Sale - Megan Basham COMPLETED
6. The Children of the New Forest - ET COMPLETED
7. The Return of the Native - ET
8. The Professor's House 1001 COMPLETED
9. House Mother Normal 1001
10. This Tender Land Bookclub
11. Silence of the Girls COMPLETED
12. The Heather Blazing 1001, tbr takedown COMPLETED
13. Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis Pulitzer
14. When the Angels Left the Old Country JBC
15. The Last List of Mabel Beaumont BB
16. The Eclipse of God - Lutzer
17. Black Dekker, TIOLI COMPLETED
18. Truth and Beauty - Anne Patchett COMPLETED
19. Martyr! best of 2024 COMPLETED
20. You Dreamed of Empires best of 2024
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamont
Paris France
The Bitter Glass - Ellis Dillon (1001)

Bookspin: Praise Singer
Double Spin: Black

Bingos 0
Books read 14

February Bingo
B1 The Promise - Damon Galhut
I1 Night Boat to Tangier - Kevin Berry
N1 The Last List of Mabel Beaumont - Laura Pearson
G1 Summons to Memphis - Peter Taylor
B2 Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindquist
G2 Autumn - Karl Ove Knausgard
02 Burn Baby Burn - Meg Medina
G3 Easy Prey - Catherine Lo
O3 Heretic - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
B4 Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
N4 Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis
B5 Spring Flowers, Spring Frost - Ismail Kadare
I5 Truth Be Told - Kia Abdullah
G5 Snow Angels - James Thompson
O5 Walking to Aldebaran - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Bookspin Night Boat to Tangier
Doublespin Let The Right one In

Bingos 2
Books Read 15

March Bingo
B1 The Gardener's Plot - Deborah Benoit
G1 This is What I Know About Art - Kimberly Drew
O1 Coming Up For Air
O2 Hot Milk
I3 The House of Doors
N3 The Story of The Lost Child
03 Jesus In Me - Lotz
B4 The Successor
N4 England Made Me
G4 Sunset Song
O4 Emily Alone
B5 Isola - Goodman
I5 Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
N5 Gerald Durrell My Fasmily and Other Animals

Bookspin Thr House of Doors
Doublespin The Successor
bingos 3

Books read 14

April Plans
1. The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis, 1001, ET, TIOLI7
2. How To Read a Book - Adler, TIOLI11
3. Nesting
4. Nowhere Man - Hemon 1001, Random
5. The Sinners All Bow - BC
📖. The Dream Hotel - Lalami starting
7. Martyr!
8. Anything is Possible
9. The Ministry of Time - Bradley COMPLETED 4/1
10. We Do Not Part
11. Spring Torrents 1001, Word
12. Smiley's People 1001 TBR takedown
13. Dragon's Teeth Pullitzer, TIOLI12
14. Not Without Laughter - TIOLI1
15 An Irish Doctor TIOLI1
16. A Prayer For the Crown-Shy TIOLI3
17. The Case For Faith TIOLI2
18. Cranford 1001botm
19. Elective Affinities 1001botm
20. readers choice

Bookspin: Dragon's Teeth
Doublespin: Nowhere Man

This is my April Bingo Card. I will not read them all. They're potential.

May Plans
1. Al Capone Does My Shirts
2. This is Happiness - BC Currently Reading
3. summer for the Gods NF, Pulitzer
4. Tent of Miracles 1001botm Currently Reading
5. Confessions - Airey on Deck
6. All Foursdeleted
7. Nesting COMPLETED
8. A Stillness at Appomattox NF, Pulitizer, History
9.The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge TBR
10. Paul Scott
11. The Collected Stories of Jan Stafford
12. The Man Who Loved Childdren COMPLETED
13. Only the Beautiful COMPLETED
14. Good Dirt COMPLETED
15. The Pursuit of Love COMPLETED
16. Hawksmoor reread, Completed
17. The Mothers
18. Feed - Mira Grant
19. Not Without Laughter COMPLETED
20. Some Remarks

June Plans
1, Reading Shame

Happy new thread, Kristel. It is spring, summer, autumn and winter in Kuala Lumpur as we do not have any seasons to speak of. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain as I type this, with Hani playing piano and Pip running riot!

Happy new thread, Kristel!

>14 PaulCranswick: Hi, Paul. The rainy season starts in May here. I think I would miss the seasons.

>15 alcottacre:, Thanks for stopping by Stasia.

#44
Book The Ministry of Time - Kate Bradley
Format: audio
Original publication date: 2024
Acquisition date/place: Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5
Book description/summary: Time travel, spies
Challenge(s): TIOLI, other
Author: British
List book: women's longlist
Genre fantasy, thriller
Liked: connrcyion with The Terror
Disliked: sexual explicit

Happy New Thread, Kristel. Is reading The Ministry of Time worthwhile? We’ll see if it’s on the Women’s Prize Short list around midnight my time .

Happy new one, Kristel!

>18 vancouverdeb: It's not bad Deborah. I am reading Dream Hotel now and its better. I was surprise that they're both SFF novels. Dream Hotel is dystopic. The other is a fantasy thriller romance.

>19 drneutron: Thanks Jim.

>11 Kristelh: Quite an ambitious April!

Happy new thread

>22 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita. They are only potentials. I usually try for 15.

45.
Book The Dream Hotel - Laila Lalami
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2025
Acquisition date/place: Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: surveillance
Challenge(s): women's long list
Author: Moraccan/US
List book: Women's longlist
Genre near future dystopia, speculative
Liked: I liked it
Disliked:

Summary for week 13, March 26 - April 1

Books read: 4
The Gardener's Plot - light, cozy
England Made Me - liked
Emily, Alone - aging, good
The Ministry of Time - time travel, so so

currently reading
The Dream Hotel - dystopic, a good one! COMPLETED
Smiley's People - 37% done, I like it.

My Holds
We Do Not Part soon
Martyr! ~ 2 weeks
Nesting ~ 2 weeks
Tell Me Everything , extending hold to May
Confessions ~ 4 weeks
Good Dirt ~ 6 weeks
All Fours ~ 7 weeks
The Sinner's All Bow ~ 12 weeks
The God of the Woods ~ 13 weeks
Three Days in June ~ 13 weeks

Up Next? TBD
Dragon's Teeth
The Last Temptationof Christ

Other; I see Ortho today to find out about my wrist. Praying I don't need surgery. Packing etc. Daughter and Granddaughter arrive Tuesday to help me close up and drive back.

April TIOLI
TIOLI-April
Challenges #1-6
1. Read a book whose title/subtitle includes any of these three-letter combinations: JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, MAY, JUN, JUL, AUG, SEP, OCT, NOV, DEC - msg #1 Not Without LAughter sora, An Irish Country Doctor

2. Read a book with the word/name 'Faith' in either the book's title or the author's name - msg #3 The Case for Faith lee strobel hoopla

3. Read a book that was a winner or finalist for the Nebula Awards between 2001 and 2025 - msg #4 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

4. Read a book with a word from the name of a cereal advertising mascot in the title or author's name - msg #5

5. Read a book whose title includes one of the 5 “Ws” – Who, What, When, Where and Why - msg #6

6. Read a book whose title or author's name includes a word with a "y" somewhere in the middle of the word - msg #7 Martyr!

Challenges #7-12
7. Read a book (fiction or non-fiction) set before 1000 CE - msg #8 The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis

8. Read a book about nature - msg #9 The Comfort of Crows

9. Read a book that names a flower or garden in the fourth chapter - msg #10

10. Read a book nominated for the Women's Prize - msg #14 The Ministry of Time - COMPLETED

11. Read a book with the work "book" in the title or images of books (plural) on the cover - msg #27 How To Read a Book

12. Read a book with a supernatural creature in the title or author's name - msg #33 Dragon’s Teeth

Challenge #13-18
13. Read a book written by a Canadian Author published after 2010 - msg #30

14. Read a book written by Jane Austen, about Austen, or a literary homage - msg #38

15. Read a book whose title mentions poison or a treatment for poison - msg #45

16. Read a book whose author has a name in the top 10 most popular baby names from the last five years - msg #49

17. Read a book with a title that consists of a single compound word - msg #51

18. Read a book with a game in the title - msg #67

Challenge #19-24
19. Read a book that you intended to read in the First Quarter of 2025 - msg #78

Birdwatch this month: roseate spoonbill.red-winged blackbird.

I'm glad you liked Dream Hotel so much, Kristel. I have it out from the library ,but I have so many other books to read , I am going to take it back and read it later.

Happy New Thread!

>24 Kristelh: Kristel, I am surprised that this one didn't make the shortlist as I don't know of anyone who has a bad word to say about it.

>29 PaulCranswick: I think dystopic novels do no do well in literary fiction competition. I predicted ministry of time and Dream Hotel would not make short list.

46.
Book Smiley's People - John LeCarre
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1979
Acquisition date/place: April 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: final encounter with nemesis
Challenge(s): tbr takedown
Author: British
List book: 1001
Genre spy, espionage, cold war
Liked: it was easy to follow, atmospheric
Disliked; I find it hard to remain focused

>30 Kristelh: I suppose you are right, Kristel, but Naomi Alderman did win the Women's Prize with The Power.

>32 PaulCranswick: I think that one and Handmaid Tale both contained more controversial issues of women’s power or lack of and religion controversy. The Dream Hotel and The Ministry of Time were both targeting government surveillance. Too much conspiracy.

>33 Kristelh: Maybe true, Kristel, but The Handmaid's Tale also missed out on the main prizes.

I'm not a big fan of dystopic novels , generally speaking, Kristel. Maybe in part because several were required reading for me in High School, Slaughter House Five, Lord of the Flies and others that I cannot remember at the moment. I was not a big fan of The Handmaids Tale when I read it several years ago. Now , murder, I can it into that. How is your wrist?

>34 PaulCranswick:. For some reason I thought Handmaid's Tale won something important but I see it only made the short list.

>35 vancouverdeb:. I struggled with The Handmaid's Tale but did like the second book more. The Testaments.

My wrist was surgically repaired on Friday and I think things are going well. Pain isn't bad. I am sleeping well. Frustrating typing with one hand. Hard to read an actual book. My daughter and granddaughter arrive to day to help me close up. we will go to the beach I think and also spend time at pool before heading north.

47.
Book We Do Not Part - Kang Han
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2021
Acquisition date/place: Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.75
Book description/summary: remembering, friendship, trauma
Challenge(s):
Author: Korean
List book: Nobel Laureate novelist
Genre literary fiction, historical.
Liked: quiet, soft because of snow
Disliked: grusome

Happy New Thread, Kristel. The Dream Hotel sounds interesting. I also want to read We Do Not Part. Glad you are enjoying the Merlin app. Seeing any interesting birds?

>37 Kristelh: I hear a lot about Han Kang as my Korean colleagues like to pretend that they are suddenly bookworms now that one of their own won the Nobel. I have only read The Vegetarian which stuck with me as much for its weirdness rather than any intrinsic quality.

Kristel, I must have missed what happened to your wrist ? Did you fracture it ? I hope it heals quickly.

>24 Kristelh: I need to get to that one. I try and read the books on the longlist, not just those on the shortlist. Glad to see that you liked it, Kristel!

>26 Kristelh: I hope you get them all read!

>31 Kristelh: I was not a big fan of that one either and never read beyond that one for LeCarre.

>37 Kristelh: Any book characterized as 'gruesome' is one I will actively avoid. Thanks for the heads up on that one.

>38 msf59: Thank you Mark. I think both books are worth reading. My life list for Florida is up to 24. My fun find was the osprey that I used the ‘sound’ to identify. Yesterday i was at the beach and was able to add the brown pelican and sandwich tern. I also added the roseate spoonbill. I will leave for Minnesota tomorrow.

>39 PaulCranswick: I too found the Vegetarian a book that stayed with you but I can’t say that i liked it. I think this one while also weird was easier to stomach, no pun intended.

>40 vancouverdeb: Yhe last Friday in March i fell and broke both bones in my arm at the wrist. 3 fractures. On this past Friday i had surgical repair, i head home tomorrow. My daughter and granddaughter came to drive ne home. I’m thankful that the pain is not bad. Typing is hunt and peck which i hate.

>41 alcottacre: I really liked the Dream Hotel. I look forward to your thoughts.
I won’t but with sitting in the back while Kelly and Reagan drive me back to Minnesota should help.

Yes, i think it will be my last LeCarre

If you read any Han Kang, Nobel winner, this is the better choice.

>44 Kristelh: That sounds like a bad break, Kristel. Three fractures! I fractured my wrist about 14 years ago. I fractured the ulna and radius at my wrist. And I managed to fracture a bone in my foot at the same time. But I just needed a cast and a boot cast for my foot. It is inconvenient for many activities, as you say. And all I did was slip and fall in my foyer.

So, We Do Not Part is the book to read of Han Kang's works ?

>46 vancouverdeb:, The head of the radius broke in 3 parts. Ulna just one and a ligament fracture.

Yes, i would choose We Do Not Part over Vegetarian.

Summary for week 14. April 2 - April 8

Books read: 3
The Dream m, yHotel - Lalami
Smiley’s People - LeCarre (TBR, 1001)
We Do NOt Part Kang Han (Nobel)

currently reading
Martyr! -COMPLETED
The Sinners All Bow Bookclub read

My Holds
Nesting ~ 2 weeks
Tell Me Everything , extending hold to May
Confessions ~ 2 weeks
Good Dirt ~ 4 weeks
All Fours ~ 5 weeks
The God of the Woods ~ 11 weeks
Three Days in June ~ 12 weeks

Up Next? TBD, i need to down load when i get to a WIFI
Dragon's Teeth - Sinclair, reading
The Last Temptationof Christ

Other; Left Florida Wednesday and as I type or try to type we are in Kentucky.Should be in Illinois tonight.

48.
Book: Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2024
Acquisition date/place: April 2025, Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 2 stars
Book description/summary: grief and everything else too
Challenge(s): TIOLI
Author: American Iranian
List book: National Book Award Finalist
Genre Literary Fiction
Liked: some great lines
Disliked: some not so great

I am back home. It seems cold coming from 90s in Florida.

Whoa! A Two star for Martyr. I will probably skip reading that, Kristel. I am glad you are home from Florida , even if it seems cold . The 90's is warm / hot for this time of year. Actually , where I live 90 would be very hot . Our summers are usually not too bad heat wise. I think 78 F is hot. 70 F or maybe even 68 F is what regard as a nice summer temperature, but it is often warmer that than that in the summer.

>51 vancouverdeb: Yes,for April the 90 degrees was above normal but 80s were a common high for the day. The humidity was also increasing. Today is suppose to be 68 in Minnesota which is considered warm here. You might like Martyr! more than I did. I don’t tend to like books with addictions and sexuality as themes. There were moments of brilliant lines but not enough to make it good for me.

Happy Saturday, Kristel. Glad to be back in the Midwest? Congrats on seeing 24 life birds in FLA. You should surpass that number in MN. Keep your eyes peeled. I have had Martyr! on my TBR. I will give it a shot, at some point.

>53 msf59: Today an eagle flew through my front yard. The deer came in last night to feed. they probably dont know I am bqck. I added the robin as there are none in Florida.

49.
Book Nowhere Man - Aleksander Hemon
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2002
Acquisition date/place: April 11, 2025, Hoopla Digital
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: Bosnian immigrant's struggles in US
Challenge(s): randomized reading list, bookspin bingo
Author: Bosnian/American
List book: 1001
Genre literary fiction
Liked: interesting style and semiautobiographical
Disliked: sexual content

I checked on the Jazz Age puzzle on line, and it looks good, Kristel. I hope you and your granddaughter are enjoying it. Those Galison puzzles are popular.

It's Wednesday. Saw the doctor, stitches out, removable splint for now. See Ortho on Friday. Work up scheduled. Making progress. I can now type with both hands.

Summary of Week 16, April 9th through the 15.
Books read:
Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar
Nowhere Man - Aleksandar Hemon

currently reading
Dragon's Teeth - Upton Sinclair
The Sinners All Bow Bookclub read

My Holds
Nesting ~ available soon, I might delay
Tell Me Everything , extending hold to May
Confessions ~ 2 weeks, probably will delay
Good Dirt ~ 4 weeks
All Fours ~ 4 weeks
The God of the Woods ~ 10 weeks
Three Days in June ~ 9 weeks
The Small and the Mighty - 6 weeks, Sharon McMahon
The Paris Express - 17 weeks

Up Next?
The Last Temptation of Christ
Elective Affinities
Cranford
Spring Torrents

Other; Home now, I saw my doctor today and will see Ortho on Friday. Stitches out and wearing a removable splint. I can now type with both hands.

Sorry about that wrist fracture, but glad it seems to be healing properly in good time. One-handed living is tough.

>58 laytonwoman3rd: at least it is my non dominant hand. I am thankful for that. Thanks for stopping by.

50.
Book Dragon's Teeth - Upton Sinclair
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1942
Acquisition date/place: April 2025, Hoopla Digital
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: pink guy fights against the Nazi
Challenge(s): Pulitzer, TIOLI
Author: US
List book: Pulitzer
Genre fiction, political, historical, socialism
Liked: it had it's good points
Disliked: too long and author bias

Great news that you can type with two hands and your fracture is healing quickly, Kristel.

>26 Kristelh: Soo many challenges this month!

>44 Kristelh: I had no idea that you broke two bones. I hope the you are healing well and fast!

>61I see ortho today so will know more after that. I have an OT evaluation next week. Since the original splint has been removed I have had more pain. Still bareable but pain none the less. Still can’t open cans and bottles.

>62 figsfromthistle:. Yes, I agree, too many challenges this month. And hard too. Yes, I have a total of 3 fractures in the wrist. And the surgery was only to repair the radial as that had broke into 3 pieces at the head. I do hope they all heal well. I see ortho today and next week OT.

Morning birds. Off to the west in a dead tree was a large black and white bird eating a fist and I thought it was an eagle but with my binonculars I was able to see the markings of the head as that of an osprey. Osprey are found in Minnesota but usually along the east coast. This county is not included in its areas. So cool, you could see him eating the fish from his perch in the tree.

Als see this morning, starling male and female, chicadees, juncoes.

51.
Book Elective Affinities - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1809
Acquisition date/place: April 2025, Hoopla
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: math and seduction in the garden
Challenge(s): Reading 1001, botm/April
Author: German
List book: 1001
Genre fiction
Liked: interesting look at relationships
Disliked: hmm

52.
Book Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1853
Acquisition date/place: April 2025 Hoopla
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: women rule the roost
Challenge(s): April botm, Reading 1001
Author: English
List book: 1001
Genre Victorian lit
Liked: nice comfort type read
Disliked: all's good

I'm glad you enjoyed Cranford, Kristel. Let us know how you are healing. Well, I hope. And quickly.

>68 vancouverdeb:, Good news, Deborah. I am healing well, the x-ray shows excellent alignment. Started hand exercises yesterday and OT tells me he'll have me normal in May. So far all tests that have been done to investigate why I fell are coming back normal. Good news and bad. Would like to have an answer but I expect they'll not find anything which is also good! I had a viral infection of some sort in first part of winter and I suspect it is all hang over from that. My two handed typing is almost back to normal and I think I could go without my splint when typing which would make it even better.

Summary of Week 16, April 16th through the 22nd.
Books read:
Dragon's Teeth - Upton Sinclair (Pulitzer, TIOLI#12)
Elective Affinities - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell

currently reading
The Last Temptation of Christ = Nikos Kazantzakis (1001, Ottoman Empire-Euro, TIOLI#7
Up next:
Spring Torents

My Holds
Nesting ~ available soon
Tell Me Everythinng ~ 6 weeks
Confessions ~ 2 weeks
Good Dirt ~ 4 weeks
All Fours ~ 3 weeks
The Lion Women of Tehran - 6 weeks
The God of the Woods ~ 9 weeks
Three Days in June ~ 7 weeks
The Paris Express - 15 weeks
The Sinners All Bow ~ 8 weeks
Murder at Gulls Nest ~ 9 weeks
Only the Beautiful ~ 12 weeks

53.
Book The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1952, 1955 into English
Acquisition date/place: April 2025 Hoopla Digital
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: He understands our weaknesses because he was tempted in every way as we are, yet he remained without sin.
Challenge(s): Euro Tour/Ottoman, Greek author, Reading 1001
Author: Greek
List book: 1001
Genre historical fiction
Liked: It was interesting to see how the author visualized these characters from his Greek perspective
Disliked: I think he forgot "yet he remained without sin".

54.
Book The Small and the Mighty - Sharon McMahon
Format: book
Original publication date: 2024
Acquisition date/place: April 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: 12 people and their story
Challenge(s): bookclub
Author: US, Minnesota
List book: no
Genre nonfiction
Liked: interesting people
Disliked: not unbiased at all

So other things besides reading. I spent the day with granddaughters and daughters at the bookstore and other shopping. This past month I have added these books: ,
1. The Last Temptation of Christ and
2. Only the Beautiful because the hold wait was too long for bookclub read.

I finished with Spring Torrents and need to review. I started The Tent of Miracles because I am afraid it may take me awhile to finish it.

Birds since arriving back in Minnesota
Blue Jay
Sparrows; house, song, chipping, swamp, tree swallow, Purple Martin, blue winged teal, green wing teal, common grackle, American Crow, Red wing blackbird, Canada goose, Mallard, White Pelican, mute swan, osprey, turkey vulture, American Robin. Black-capped Chickadee, Wood Duck, house Finch, junco. the Sora is still in the little slough but I've yet to see it.

Puzzle: current puzzle in progress; Salvador Dali by Eurographics Puzzles, 1000 pieces. Hard!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

I have a puzzle in progress as well, Kristel. It's a Mother Goose themed Ravenburger Puzzle, 1000 pieces. I hope to finish in fairly soon. I'm very glad that your wrist is healing well, Kristel.

>74 vancouverdeb:, I look forward to seeing your finished puzzle. Thanks for stopping by and glad that all is well.

55.
Book Spring Torrents - Ivan Turgenev
Format: audio book
Original publication date: 1872
Acquisition date/place: April 2025, Hoopla Digital
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: what wins; love or passion?
Challenge(s): Reading 10001 Word special event
Author: Russian
List book: 1001
Genre novel or novella
Liked: the good, the bad, the regretful
Disliked: it was good, maybe his best

56.
Book The Radical Disciple - John Stott
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2010
Acquisition date/place: April 2025, Hoopla Digital
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: what discipleship requires
Challenge(s): SS book
Author: British
List book:
Genre Christian, Christian life
Liked: liked the topic of suffering and also Death
Disliked:

57.
Book A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - Becky Chambers
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2022
Acquisition date/place: 2025, April, Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: hope, cozy fantasy
Challenge(s): read a Nebula winner or finalist
Author: US
List book: Nebula finalist, Locus Award winner
Genre Solarpunk, Coszy fantasy
Liked: an interesting new subgenre
Disliked: them, they, sexual content but minimal details. More romance than explicitly

58.
Book The Case for Faith - Lee Strobel
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2000
Acquisition date/place: April 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 5 stars
Book description/summary: throughal investigation into Christian faith
Challenge(s): TIOLI challenge to read a book with faith in the title
Author: US
List book: no
Genre nonfiction, apologetics, Christian
Liked: throughal
Disliked: assumption that the big bang theory is plausible explanation. I believe this was a weakness in the book.

combined Guardian/1001 list
✔Achebe, Chinua: Things Fall Apart (State of the Nation)
✔, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (SFF)
✔Alcott, Lousia May: Little Women (Family and Self)
Allain, Marcel and Pierre Souvestre: Fantômas (Crime)
✔Amis, Kingsley: Lucky Jim (Comedy)
✔Amis, Martin: Money - A Suicide Note (Comedy)
- The Information (Comedy)
✔ London Fields (State of the Nation)
✔Anand, Mulk Raj: Untouchable (State of the Nation)
✔Asimov, Isaac: Foundation (SFF)
✔Atwood, Margaret: Cat's Eye (Family and Self)
✔ The Handmaid's Tale (SFF)
✔ The Blind Assassin (SFF)
✔Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility (Love)
✔ Pride and Prejudice (Love)
✔ Mansfield Park (Love)
✔ Emma (Love)
✔ Northanger Abbey (Love)
✔ Persuasion (Love)
✔ Auster, Paul: The New York Trilogy (Crime)

✔Baldwin, James: Giovanni's Room (Love)
✔Go Tell It on the Mountain (State of the Nation)
✔Ballard, J. G.: The Drowned World (SFF)
✔ Crash (SFF)
✔ Empire of the Sun (War and Travel)
- Balzac, Honoré de: Eugénie Grandet (Family and Self)
✔ Le Père Goriot/Old Goriot (Family and Self)
- La Comédie Humaine/Lost Illusions (State of the Nation)
Banks, Iain: The Crow Road (Family and Self)
- The Wasp Factory (SFF)
✔ Barker Pat: Regeneration (War and Travel)
Barnes, Djuna: Nightwood (Love)
✔ Barnes, Julian: Flaubert's Parrot (Comedy)
Bassani, Giorgio: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Love)
✔ Beckett, Samuel: Molloy (Comedy)
- Malone Dies (Family and Self)
✔ Beckford, William: Vathek (SFF)
✔ Behn, Aphra: Oroonoko (State of the Nation)
✔ Bellow, Saul: The Adventures of Augie March (Comedy)
✔ Herzog (Family and Self)
✔ Humboldt's Gift (Family and Self)
✔ Bennett, Arnold: The Old Wives' Tale (Family and Self)
- Berger, John: G. (Family and Self)
- Bernhard, Thomas: Extinction (Family and Self)
- Bolaño, Roberto: The Savage Detectives (War and Travel)
- Bowen, Elizabeth: The Heat of the Day (Love)
✔ The Last September (State of the Nation)
✔ Brink, André: A Dry White Season (State of the Nation)
Broch, Hermann: The Death of Virgil (Family and Self)
✔ Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre (Love)
✔ Villette (Love)
- Shirley (State of the Nation)
✔ Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights (Love)
✔ Buchan, John: The 39 Steps (Crime)
✔ Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita (SFF)
✔ Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange (SFF)
Burney, Fanny: Evelina (Family and Self)
Burroughs, William: Naked Lunch (SFF)
Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh (Family and Self)
- Erewhon (SFF)
✔ Byatt, A. S.: Possession (Love)
- The Virgin in the Garden (State of the Nation)

✔ Cain, James M.: The Postman Always Rings Twice (Crime)
✔ Calvino, Italo: Invisible Cities (War and Travel)
✔ Camus, Albert: The Stranger/The Outsider (Family and Self)
✔ The Plague (State of the Nation)
✔ Canetti, Elias: Auto-da-Fé (War and Travel)
✔ Capote, Truman: Breakfast at Tiffany's (Love)
✔ Carey, Peter: Oscar and Lucinda (Love)
Carpentier, Alejo: The Kingdom of This World (State of the Nation)
✔ Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (SFF)
✔ Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (SFF)
✔ Carter, Angela: Wise Children (Family and Self)
- The Passion of New Eve (SFF)
- Nights at the Circus (SFF)
✔ Cather, Willa: The Professor's House (Family and Self)
- Céline, Louis-Ferdinand: Journey to the End of the Night (War and Travel)
✔ Chabon, Michael: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (SFF)
✔ Chandler, Raymond: The Big Sleep (Crime)
✔ The Long Goodbye (Crime)
✔Chéng'en Wu: A Journey to the West (War and Travel)
✔ Childers, Erskine: The Riddle of the Sands (Crime)
✔Choderlos de Laclos, Pierre: Dangerous Liaisons (Love)
✔Chopin, Kate: The Awakening (Family and Self)
✔Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Crime)
Cocteau, Jean: Les Enfants Terribles (Family and Self)
Coe, Jonathan: What a Carve Up! (State of the Nation)
✔ Coetzee, J. M.: Waiting for the Barbarians (State of the Nation)
- Disgrace (State of the Nation)
✔ Collins, Wilkie: The Woman in White (Crime)
- The Moonstone (Crime)
✔ Conrad, Joseph: The Secret Agent (Crime)
✔ Lord Jim (War and Travel)
✔ Heart of Darkness (War and Travel)
✔ Nostromo (War and Travel)

- Danielewski, Mark Z.: House of Leaves (SFF)
- de Beauvoir, Simone: The Mandarins (Family and Self)
✔ de Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel: Don Quixote (Comedy)
✔ de La Fayette, Madame: The Princess of Clèves (Love)
✔ de Maupassant, Guy: Bel-Ami (State of the Nation)
✔ de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine: The Little Prince (SFF)
✔ Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders (State of the Nation)
✔ Robinson Crusoe (War and Travel)
- Roxana; or, The Fortunate Mistress (Family and Self)
✔ DeLillo, Don: Underworld (State of the Nation)
✔ White Noise (State of the Nation)
✔ di Lampedusa, Guiseppe Tomasi: The Leopard (State of the Nation)
✔ Dick, Philip K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (SFF)
✔ Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities (State of the Nation)
✔ Bleak House (State of the Nation)
✔ Hard Times (State of the Nation)
✔ Oliver Twist (State of the Nation)
✔ Great Expectations (Family and Self)
✔ Martin Chuzzlewit (Comedy)
Diderot, Denis: Jacques the Fatalist (Comedy)
✔ Didion, Joan: Play It As It Lays (State of the Nation)
Döblin, Alfred: Berlin Alexanderplatz (State of the Nation)
✔ Doctorow, E. L.: The Book of Daniel (State of the Nation)
Dos Passos, John: U.S.A. (State of the Nation)
✔ Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment (Crime)
✔ Notes from the Underground (State of the Nation)
✔ The Brothers Karamazov (Family and Self)
✔ The Idiot (State of the Nation)
✔ Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles (Crime)
✔ Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie (State of the Nation)
✔ du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca (Love)
✔Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo (Crime)
✔ The Three Musketeers (War and Travel)
✔ Duras, Marguerite: The Lover (Love)
✔ Durrell, Lawrence: Justine (War and Travel)

- Eça de Queirós, José Maria de: The Crime of Father Amaro (Crime)
- Eco, Umberto: Foucault's Pendulum (SFF)
✔ The Name of the Rose (Crime)
✔ Edgeworth, Maria: Castle Rackrent (State of the Nation)
✔ Eliot, George: Adam Bede (Love)
- Daniel Deronda (Love)
✔ The Mill on the Floss (Love)
✔ Middlemarch (State of the Nation)
✔ Silas Marner (State of the Nation)
Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho (Crime)
✔ Ellison Ralph: Invisible Man (State of the Nation)
Elsschot, Willem: Cheese (Comedy)
✔ Endo, Shusaku: Silence (Family and Self)
✔ Enright, Anne: The Gathering (Family and Self)
✔ Eugenides, Jeffrey: Middlesex (Family and Self)
✔ The Virgin Suicides (Love)

✔Faber, Michel: Under the Skin (SFF)
✔Farrell, J. G.: The Siege of Krishnapur (War and Travel)
✔Faulkner, William: The Sound and the Fury (Family and Self)
Faulks, Sebastian: Birdsong (War and Travel)
Fielding, Henry: Joseph Andrews (Comedy)
✔ The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Comedy)
✔ Fitzgerald, F. Scott: Tender is the Night (Love)
✔ The Great Gatsby (Love)
✔ Flaubert, Gustave: Bouvard and Pécuchet (Comedy)
✔ Madame Bovary (Love)
- Sentimental Education (State of the Nation)
✔Fleming, Ian: Casino Royale (Crime)
✔Foer, Jonathan Safran: Everything is Illuminated (War and Travel)
✔ Fontane, Theodor: Effi Briest (State of the Nation)
Ford, Ford Madox: Parade's End (War and Travel)
✔ The Good Soldier (Love)
✔ Forster, E. M.: A Passage to India (State of the Nation)
✔ A Room with a View (Love)
✔ Howard's End (Family and Self)
✔ Fowles, John: The French Lieutenant's Woman
✔ The Magus (SFF)
✔ Franzen, Jonathan: The Corrections (State of the Nation)
Freud, Esther: Hideous Kinky (Family and Self)

Gaddis, William: The Recognitions (State of the Nation)
✔ Galsworthy, John: The Forsyte Saga (first book only) (Family and Self)
✔ Garcia Márquez, Gabriel: Love in the Time of Cholera (Love)✔- One Hundred Years of Solitude (War and Travel)
✔Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South (State of the Nation)
✔ Mary Barton (Family and Self)
✔ Gibbon, Lewis Grassic: Sunset Song (Love)
✔ Gibbons, Stella: Cold Comfort Farm (Comedy)
✔ Gibson, William: Neuromancer (SFF)
Gide, André: Strait is the Gate (Love)
✔ The Counterfeiters (State of the Nation)
✔ The Immoralist (Family and Self)
✔ Gissing, George: New Grub Street (State of the Nation)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: The Sorrows of Young Werther (Love)
Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls (Comedy)
✔ Golding, William: Lord of the Flies (SFF)
✔ Rites of Passage (War and Travel)
✔ Goldsmith, Oliver: The Vicar of Wakefield (Family and Self)
Goncharov, Ivan: Oblomov (Comedy)
✔ Gordimer, Nadine: July's People (State of the Nation)
- Gorky, Maxim: Mother (State of the Nation)
✔ Grass, Günter: The Tin Drum (War and Travel)
✔ Green, Henry: Living (Love)
✔ Greene, Graham: Brighton Rock (Crime)
✔ The Third Man (Crime)
✔ The End of the Affair (Love)
✔ The Power and the Glory (Family and Self)
✔ Grossmith, George and Weedon: The Diary of a Nobody (Comedy)

✔ Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Comedy)
✔ Hall, Radclyffe: The Well of Loneliness (Love)
Hamilton, Patrick: Hangover Square (Crime)
Hammett, Dashiell: Red Harvest (Crime)
- The Glass Key (Crime)
✔ The Maltese Falcon (Crime)
✔ The Thin Man (Crime)
✔ Hamsun, Knut: Hunger (Family and Self)
✔ Hardy, Thomas: Far from the Madding Crowd (Love)
✔ Jude the Obscure (Love)
✔ Tess of the D'Ubervilles (Love)
✔ The Woodlanders (Love)
✔ The Mayor of Casterbridge (State of the Nation)
✔ Hartley, L. P.: The Go-Between (Love)
✔ Hašek, Jaroslav: The Good Soldier Švejk (War and Travel)
✔ Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter (Love)
✔ The House of the Seven Gables (SFF)
✔ Heinlein, Robert A.: Stranger in a Strange Land (SFF)
✔ Heller, Joseph: Catch-22 (Comedy)
✔ Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms (Love)
✔ For Whom the Bell Tolls (War and Travel)
✔ The Old Man and the Sea (Family and Self)
✔Hesse, Hermann: Siddhartha (Family and Self)
✔ The Glass Bead Game (SFF)
✔ Highsmith, Patricia: The Talented Mr. Ripley (Crime)
Hines, Barry: A Kestrel for a Knave (State of the Nation)
✔ Høeg, Peter: Smilla's Sense of Snow (Crime)
Hogg, James: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (SFF)
✔ Hollinghurst, Alan: The Line of Beauty (State of the Nation)
- The Swimming-Pool Library (Love)
✔ Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables (State of the Nation)
✔Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World (SFF)
✔ Crome Yellow (Love)

✔ Irving, John: A Prayer for Owen Meany (Family and Self)
✔ Isherwood, Christopher: Goodbye to Berlin (State of the Nation)
✔ Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day (Love)
- The Unconsoled (SFF)

James, Henry: The Ambassadors (Family and Self)
✔ The Portrait of a Lady (Love)
✔ The Wings of the Dove (Love)
✔ The Turn of the Screw (SFF)
✔ Jelinek, Elfride: The Piano Teacher (Love)
Johnson, Samuel: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (War and Travel)
✔ Joyce, James: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Family and Self)
✔ Ulysses (Family and Self)
- Finnegans Wake (Comedy)

Kafka, Franz: The Castle (Comedy)
- The Trial (SFF)
✔ Kazantzakis, Nikos: Zorba the Greek (Love)
Kelman, James: How Late It Was, How Late (State of the Nation)
✔ Keneally, Thomas: Schindler's List/Schindler's Arc (War and Travel)
✔ Kennedy Toole, John: A Confederacy of Dunces (Comedy)
✔ Kerouac, Jack: On the Road (War and Travel)
✔ Kesey, Ken: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Family and Self)
✔ King, Stephen: The Shining (SFF)
✔ Kipling, Rudyard: Kim (Crime)
✔ Kundera, Milan: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Love)
✔ The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Love)
✔ Kureishi, Hanif: The Buddha of Suburbia (Family and Self
✔ Larsen, Nella: Passing (State of the Nation)
✔ Lawrence, D. H.: Sons and Lovers (Family and Self)
✔ Lady Chatterley's Lover (Love)
- The Rainbow (Love)
✔ Women in Love (Love)
✔Le Carré, John: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Crime)
✔ The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Crime)
✔ Le Fanu, Sheridan: Uncle Silas (SFF)
✔ Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird (Crime)
✔ Lee, Laurie: Cider with Rosie (Family and Self)
✔ Lem, Stanislaw: Solaris (SFF)
✔ Leonard, Elmore: Get Shorty (Crime)
✔ Lessing, Doris: The Golden Notebook (Family and Self)
✔ The Grass is Singing (State of the Nation)
Levi, Primo: If Not Now, When? (War and Travel)
✔ Lewis, M. G.: The Monk (SFF)
Lewis, Sinclair: Babbitt (State of the Nation)
✔ Main Street (State of the Nation)
London, Jack: Martin Eden (Family and Self)
✔ The Call of the Wild (War and Travel)
✔ Lowry, Malcolm: Under the Volcano (Family and Self)

✔Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria: Dom Casmurro (Love)
✔ The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (State of the Nation)
✔MacInnes, Colin: Absolute Beginners (State of the Nation)
✔ Malouf, David: Remembering Babylon (State of the Nation)
Malraux, André: Man's Fate (War and Travel)
✔ Mann, Thomas: Buddenbrooks (Family and Self)
✔ Death in Venice (Love)
✔ The Magic Mountain (State of the Nation)
Manzoni, Alessandro: The Betrothed (State of the Nation)
Marías, Javier: A Heart so White (Love)
✔ Maturin, Charles Robert: Melmoth the Wanderer (SFF)
- Maugham, W. Somerset: Cakes and Ale (Comedy)
✔ Of Human Bondage (Love)
McCabe, Patrick: The Butcher Boy (SFF)
✔ Cormac: All the Pretty Horses (War and Travel)
✔ Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West (War and Travel)
✔ McEwan, Ian: Atonement (Love)
✔ The Child in Time (Love)
- Enduring Love (Crime)
✔ McGahern, John: Amongst Women (State of the Nation)
✔ Melville, Herman: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (War and Travel)
Miller, Henry: Tropic of Cancer (Love)
✔ Mistry, Rohinton: A Fine Balance (State of the Nation)
- Family Matters (Family and Self)
✔ Mitchell, David: Cloud Atlas (SFF)
✔ Mitchell, Margaret: Gone with the Wind (Love)
✔ Mitford, Nancy: Love in a Cold Climate (Love)
- The Pursuit of Love (Love)
Moravia, Alberto: The Time of Indifference (State of the Nation)
✔ Morrison, Toni: Beloved (SFF)
✔ Song of Solomon (Family and Self)
✔ The Bluest Eye (Family and Self)
✔ Murakami, Haruki: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (SFF)
✔ Murdoch, Iris: The Black Prince (Family and Self)
✔ Under the Net (Comedy)
✔ Musil, Robert: The Man Without Qualities (Family and Self)

Nabokov, Vladimir: Ada: or, Ardor – A Family Chronicle (SFF)
✔ Lolita (Love)
✔ Pale Fire (Comedy)
- Pnin (Comedy)
✔ Naipaul, V. S.: A Bend in the River (State of the Nation)
✔ Neale Huston, Zora: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Love)
✔ Némirovsky, Irene: Suite Française (War and Travel)
Nin, Anaïs: Delta of Venus (Love)
✔ Nooteboom, Cees: All Souls Day (Love)

✔O'Brien, Flann: At Swim-Two-Birds (Family and Self)
✔ The Third Policeman (SFF)
✔ Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient (Love)
✔ Orwell, George: Animal Farm (State of the Nation)
✔ Burmese Days (War and Travel)
✔ 1984 (SFF)

✔ Pasolini, Pier Paulo: The Ragazzi (State of the Nation)
✔ Pasternak, Boris: Doctor Zhivago (Love)
✔ Paton, Alan: Cry, the Beloved Country (State of the Nation)
Pavese, Cesare: The Moon and the Bonfires (State of the Nation)
Peace, David: 1977 (Crime)
✔ Peake, Mervyn: Titus Groan (SFF)
✔ Perec, Georges: A Void (Comedy)
✔ Life – A User's Manual (Comedy)
✔ Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar (Family and Self)
✔ Powell, Anthony: A Dance to the Music of Time (Comedy)
✔ Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News (Family and Self)
✔ Proust, Marcel: Remembrance of Things Past (Family and Self)
✔ Puzo, Mario: The Godfather (Crime)
Pym, Barbara: Excellent Women (Comedy)
Pynchon, Thomas: Gravity's Rainbow (War and Travel)
✔ The Crying of Lot 49 (Crime)
- Vineland (State of the Nation)
- V. (Crime)
Rabelais, Françoise: Gargantua and Pantagruel (SFF)
✔ Radcliffe, Ann: The Mysteries of Udolpho (SFF)
✔ Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front (War and Travel)
✔ Rhys, Jean: Wide Sargasso Sea (Love)
✔ Richardson, Samuel: Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady (Love)
- Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (Love)
✔ Rider Haggard, H.: King Solomon's Mines (War and Travel)
✔ Roth, Henry: Call it Sleep (Family and Self)
✔ Roth, Joseph: The Radetzky March (State of the Nation)
✔ Roth, Philip: American Pastoral (State of the Nation)
✔ The Human Stain (State of the Nation)
- Portnoy's Complaint (Comedy)
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: Julie; or, The New Eloise (Family and Self)
✔ Roy, Arundhati: The God of Small Things (Family and Self)
✔ Rushdi, Salman: Midnight's Children (State of the Nation)
- Shame (State of the Nation)
- The Satanic Verses (SFF)
✔ Sagan, Françoise: Bonjour Tristesse (Love)
Salinger, J. D.: The Catcher in the Rye (Family and Self)
✔ Sayers, Dorothy L.: Murder Must Advertise (Crime)
✔ Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader (Love)
Sciascia, Leonardo: To Each His Own (State of the Nation)
✔ Scott, Sir Walter: Ivanhoe (War and Travel)
✔ Sebald, W. G.: Austerlitz (War and Travel)
✔ The Rings of Saturn (War and Travel)
Self, Will: Great Apes (Comedy)
✔ How the Dead Live (SFF)
Selvon, Sam: The Lonely Londoners (State of the Nation)
Sembène, Ousmane: God's Bits of Wood (State of the Nation)
Serge, Victor: The Case of Comrade Tulayev (State of the Nation)
Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy (Family and Self)
She, Lao: Rickshaw Boy (State of the Nation)
✔ Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft: Frankenstein (SFF)
✔ Shields, Carol: Unless (Family and Self)
✔ Shute, Nevil: A Town Like Alice (War and Travel)
✔ Sillitoe, Alan: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (State of the Nation)
✔ Sinclair, Upton: The Jungle (State of the Nation)
✔Singer, Isaac Bashevis: The Manor (Family and Self)
✔ Smith, Zadie: On Beauty (Family and Self)
✔ White Teeth (State of the Nation)
Smollett, Tobias George: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (Comedy)
- The Adventures of Roderick Random (Comedy)
- The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Comedy)
✔ Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (State of the Nation)
Spark, Muriel: The Driver's Seat (Comedy)
✔ The Girls of Slender Means (Comedy)
✔ The Prime of Miss Jean Brody (Comedy)
- Stead, Christina: The Man Who Loved Children (Family and Self)
✔ Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men (Crime)
✔ The Grapes of Wrath (State of the Nation)
✔ Stendhal: The Charterhouse of Parma (War and Travel)
✔ The Red and the Black (State of the Nation)
✔ Stephenson, Neal: Cryptonomicon (War and Travel)
Sterne, Laurence: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (War and Travel)
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Comedy)
✔ Stevenson, Robert Louis: Kidnapped (War and Travel)
✔ Treasure Island (War and Travel)
✔ The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (SFF)
✔ Stoker, Bram: Dracula (SFF)
✔ Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom's Cabin (State of the Nation)
Strindberg, August: The Red Room (State of the Nation)
✔ Süskin, Patrick: Perfume – The Story of a Murderer (Crime)
Svevo, Italo: Zeno's Conscience/Confessions of Zeno (Family and Self)
✔ Swift, Graham: Waterland (Love)
✔ Swift, Jonathan: A Tale of a Tub (Comedy)
✔ Gulliver's Travels (War and Travel)

Tagore, Rabindranath: The Home and the World (State of the Nation)
✔ Tartt, Donna: The Secret History (Crime)
✔ Thackeray, William Makepeace: Vanity Fair (State of the Nation)
✔ Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again (SFF)
✔ The Lord of the Rings (SFF)
✔ Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina (Love)
✔ War and Peace (War and Travel)
Tressel, Robert: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist (State of the Nation)
✔ Trollope, Anthony: The Last Chronicle of Barset (State of the Nation)
✔ Turgenev, Ivan: Fathers and Sons (Family and Self)
✔ Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (War and Travel)

✔ Updike, John: Rabbit, Run (Family and Self)
✔ Rabbit Redux (Family and Self)
✔ Rabbit is Rich (Family and Self)

Vassilikos, Vassilis: Z (State of the Nation)
✔ Verne, Jules: Around the World in Eighty Days (War and Travel)
✔ Journey to the Centre of the Earth (War and Travel)
✔ Voltaire: Candide (War and Travel)
✔ Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.: Breakfast of Champions (Comedy)
✔ Slaughterhouse-Five (War and Travel)

✔ Walker, Alice: The Color Purple (Family and Self)
✔ Wallace, David Foster: Infinite Jest (Comedy)
✔ Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto (SFF)
Warner, Alan: Morvern Callar (Family and Self)
Waterhouse, Keith: Billy Liar (State of the Nation)
✔ Waters, Sarah: Fingersmith (Crime)
✔ Waugh, Evelyn: A Handful of Dust (Comedy)
✔ Decline and Fall (Comedy)
✔ Vile Bodies (Comedy)
✔ Webb, Charles: The Graduate (Love)
✔ Wells, H. G.: The Time Machine (SFF)
✔ The War of the Worlds (SFF)
✔ Tono-Bungay (Comedy)
Welsh, Irvine: Trainspotting (State of the Nation)
✔ West, Rebecca: The Return of the Soldier (State of the Nation)
✔ Wharton, Edith: The Age of Innocence (Love)
✔ The House of Mirth (State of the Nation)
White, Patrick: The Tree of Man (Family and Self)
- Voss (State of the Nation)
✔White, T. H. The Once and Future King (first book only) (SFF)
✔ Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Family and Self)
✔ Winterson, Jeanette: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Family and Self)
✔The Passion (Love)
✔ Wodehouse, P. G.: Thank You, Jeeves (Comedy)
✔ Wolfe, Tom: The Bonfire of the Vanities (State of the Nation)
✔ Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway (Family and Self)
✔ Orlando (SFF)
✔ To the Lighthouse (Family and Self)
Wright, Richard: Native Son (Crime)
✔ Wyndham, John: The Day of the Triffids (SFF)
✔ The Midwich Cuckoos (SFF)

✔ Zamyatin, Yevgeny: We (SFF)
✔ Zola, Émile: Germinal (State of the Nation)
- The Beast Within/La Bête humaine (State of the Nation)
✔ Thérèse Raquin (Crime)

May TIOLI planning
Challenges #1-6
1. Read a book you *really should* read now (and tell us why) - msg #1
Only the Beautiful - Susan Meissner BC read

2. Read a book where one of the main characters is a young person under the age of 21 - msg #4 Not Without Laughter - Langston Huges COMPLETED

3. Read a book whose title includes a place you might find a book - msg #5
Tent of Miracles

4. Read a book by or about someone who has been to prison - msg #7
Al Capone Does My Shirts - Gennifer Choldenko

5. Re-read a book, or read an author you've previously read - msg #8 Hawksmoor or Staying On

6. Read a book by an author with a consecutive double letter in their name - msg #15
Paul Scott, Niall Williams, Roisin O'Donnell

Challenges #7-12
7. Read a book that has a word in the title that is also an authors name - msg #22

8. Read a book by an author who is or has heritage from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, the Maldives) - msg #27

9. Read a book that has won at least one award from an author you have never read before and name the award - msg #28
Summer For the Gods - Edward J Larson - Pulitzer History
A Stillness at Appomattox - Bruce Canton - Pulitzer History

10. Read a book that has been nominated for a Hugo Award - msg #29 *Feed - Mira Grant

11. Read a book by an author who uses three (or more) names - msg #30
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Rainer Maria Rilke

12. Read a book that includes any word for "mother" in either the title or the author's name - msg #36 The Mothers - Brit Bennett

Challenges #13-18
13. Read a book in honor of MrMorphy - msg #45
Neal Stephenson - Some Remarks or Polostan

14. Read a book where one of the main characters is in their old age - msg #65

15.Read a book with a title of 3 or more single syllable words, no initial a, an, or the

16. - msg #
17. - msg #
18. - msg

You are so organized with your reading , Kristel. For the most part, I just choose what looks interesting to me. I do make a plan to read Women's Prize for Fiction books and also Booker Prize books, but other than that , I just read what appeals to me. I do have several books in mind to read that I have out from the library or that I have purchased, but that is it.

>82 vancouverdeb:, Good morning, Deborah. I know you posted last night but I was sound asleep when you posted. I am organized on paper but not necessarily get it accomplished. My problem is I like lists and challenges. I also put together a bingo card of 20 books for Litsy challenge. That's why it looks like I have big plans but really I only have to read the bookspin number and the doublespin number, the rest is just options. This month I read 15 books and got 3 bingos.

I belong to a 1001 Reading Group on GR of which I am one of the admins. I try to keep up with those points challenges each month.

I belong to two local bookclubs and I had been really good at keeping up with them but not so much now that I go south in the winter.

And I try to do some of the challenges here at the 75ers. I also keep track of Pulitzer and Booker's but have not been so much into the Women's Prize. I'm an outsider here and feel that women get too much special treatment. I watch what you read and the ones you like and I but them on a running tbr list to see if they fit in anywhere.

Summary for week 17 and for the end of April
This week I read 5 books:
The Last Temptation of Christ
Spring Torrents
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
The Radical Disciple
A Case for Faith

My favorite book was probably A Case for Faith.

In April I read 15 books, my favorite fiction probably would be The Dream Hotel and nonfiction A Case for Faith.

I read 6 books from 1001 books this month. I read one Pulitzer.

In April I've been dealing with medical issues, returning from Minnesota, and today I was scheduled to see a cardiologist. So in May I will see Ortho, Primary, Cardiologist, OT so the medical will continue into May. I hope all is done by the end of June when I have a trip to Alaska scheduled.

Working on Salvador Dahli jigsaw and my life time bird list.

Happy Wednesday, Kristel. Just checking in. I am curious what this list is in post #80? It is a interesting list.

How is life in MN? Migration is really heating up here and lots of birds are passing through or staying for the season. I have still not seen an oriole or a grosbeak, although I'm keeping my peepers open. I spotted a white-crowned sparrow on the ground near my feeders yesterday. I always like seeing these little beauties, as they pass through,

>85 msf59:, hi Mark, the list is the books that are on both the Guardian list and the 1001 list. The checks are the ones I've read.

I have not had an oriole yet either. I get rose breasted grosbeaks but I don't get the others. I've had several varieties of sparrows. The lakes here are getting increasing populations of mute swans. So many times I can not get close enough to some of these birds to identify them. Do you have a small binoculars that you recommend. I have a larger one that is good but I don't like wearing them when I am out walking. The other day I had a cardinal in one of the newly leafed out willow singing so pretty and so red! I generally don't feed the birds in the summer but I did put out some the other day and I had a lot of chickadees at the feeder and they also come to my grape jelly.

Wow, you are in quite a few book groups and have so many goals with your reading , Kristel. I have read from the 1001 book list and even own a copy of the book, but I am not sure how many I have read from there. I'm the admin for the Women's Prize for Fiction here on LT, so I try to read a reasonable number of books from the Womens' Prize for Fiction.

I'm sorry to read that you are dealing with medical issues beyond your fractured wrist and I hope thing went well today at the cardiologist .Best of luck finishing your jigsaw puzzle, Kristel.

>87 vancouverdeb:, Thanks Deborah. I guess I wrote that wrong. I should have written, I am now scheduled to see the cardiologist (May 12). It’s just a follow up because of inconclusive test results from my stress EKG with Profusion. We’re trying to figure out why I blacked out. So far nothing very helpful which is what I expect will be the end results. I will probably never know. I’ve decided to blame everything on the viral infection that I had the early part of this year.

>88 Kristelh: If it helps to know, my son William passed out when he was at University. He had felt nauseous and vomited, then passed out at work at UBC. An ambulance was called and I got a call from his now wife from the hospital. I rushed into Vancouver Hospital, where he was on a heart monitor. He had an irregular EKG, but after consultation with a cardiologist, it was determined that his irregular EKG was normal for him. They decided that his passing out was due the virus the caused the vomiting. He was about 20 then and is not nearly 35 and has had not further problems. Thanks for joining Women's Prize for Fiction group. Let me know what you think All Fours when you get to it. I've heard there is a lot of sex , so I am not keen to read it.

>89 vancouverdeb: I totally agree, Deborah. I do think it is (was) the virus and a I think I just need to be more careful for longer periods. A few years back I had the vomiting with the passing out. So weird.

I have heard good things about All Fours and then I heard the "sex" stuff. Maybe I should take that one off my hold list.

A really nice and "slow" walk today out looking for birds. I had some fun sightings such as 3 eagles flying over the lake. I also added the Downy Woodpecker, and the Cooper Hawk. There were the usually noisy ones.

While at home I added the house wren and cedar wax wing. The Cedar Wax wing always come to my yard this time of the year and then they're gone.

59.
Book Not Without Laughter by Langston Huges
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1930
Acquisition date/place: AudioFile Sync, summer program
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: coming of age story set in Kansas
Challenge(s): I read this for April but decided I was not going to get it finished and it would work for TIOLI in May.
Author: US, African American
List book: no
Genre coming of age, Harlem Renaissance
Liked: it's a good story that points out pros and cons of different life style choices
Disliked:

60.
Book Good Dirt - Charmaine Wilkerson
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2025
Acquisition date/place: April 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: identity in a pottery
Challenge(s):
Author: Jamaican American
List book: no
Genre historical fiction
Liked: the story was good
Disliked: one minor sex scene, realistic though as this is not out of the norm for break ups

Yes, sex stuff is not really my thing in books either. Today I had a fast walk , about 12000 steps. It was a nice sunny day. Muffin was a at doggie daycare, so I could get a long, fast walk in as with the summer temps, or spring, she is slow , not so far walker. We get a lot of bird in my area, but not Cedar Wax Wings. Lots of good reading going on, Kristel.

Pulitzer Winners, updated 2025
Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
Trust - Hernan Diaz
Night Watch - Jayne Anne Phillips
The Town
Alice Adams
Demon Copperhead
So Big - Edna Ferber
Arrowsmith - Upton Sinclair
Dragon's Teeth - Upton Sinclair
A Summons To Memphis - Peter Taylor

Pulitzer
1. 1918 HIS FAMILY - Ernest Poole
✔2. 1919 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - Booth Tarkington Hoopla, 11/20/22
3. ✔1921 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Edith Wharton
☑4. 1922 ALICE ADAMS - Booth Tarkington
5. 1923 ONE OF OURS - Willa Cather
6. 1924 THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS - Margaret Wilson
☑7. 1925 SO BIG - Edna Ferber8. 1926
☑8. ARROWSMITH - Sinclair Lewis (Declined) library
9. 1927 EARLY AUTUMN - Louis Bromfield
10. ✔1928 THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY - Thornton Wilder
11. 1929 SCARLET SISTER MARY - Julia Peterkin
12. 1930 LAUGHING BOY - Oliver Lafarge Own
13. 1931 YEARS OF GRACE - Margaret Ayer Barnes
14. ✔1932 THE GOOD EARTH - Pearl Buck
15. 1933 THE STORE - Thomas Sigismund Stribling
16. 1934 LAMB IN HIS BOSOM - Caroline Miller
17. ✔1935 NOW IN NOVEMBER - Josephine Winslow Johnson 5/27/21
18. 1936 HONEY IN THE HORN - Harold L Davis
19. ✔1937 GONE WITH THE WIND - Margaret Mitchell
20. 1938 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY - John Phillips Marquand
21. 1939 THE YEARLING - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
22. ✔1940 THE GRAPES OF WRATH - John Steinbeck
23. 1942 IN THIS OUR LIFE - Ellen Glasgow
☑ 24. 1943 DRAGON'S TEETH - Upton Sinclair
25. 1944 JOURNEY IN THE DARK - Martin Flavin
26. 1945 A BELL FOR ADANO - John Hersey
27. 1947 ALL THE KING'S MEN - Robert Penn Warren
28. 1948 TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC - James Michener OWN
29. 1949 GUARD OF HONOR - James Gould Cozzens
30. 1950 THE WAY WEST - A.B. Guthrie
☑31. 1951 THE TOWN - Conrad Richter
32. 1952 THE CAINE MUTINY - Herman Wouk
33. ✔1953 THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Ernest Hemingway
34. 1955 A FABLE - William Faulkner
35. 1956 ANDERSONVILLE - McKinlay Kantor
✅. A DEATH IN THE FAMILY - James Agee
37. 1959 THE TRAVELS OF JAIMIE McPHEETERS - Robert Lewis Taylor
38. ✔1960 ADVISE AND CONSENT - Allen Drury 3/27/21
39. ✔1961 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee
40. 1962 THE EDGE OF SADNESS - Edwin O'Connor
41. 1963 THE REIVERS - William Faulkner
✅. 1965 THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE - Shirley Ann Grau OWN audible play 3/23
43. 1966 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF KATHERINE ANNE PORTER - Katherine Anne Porter READ some
✔44. 1967 THE FIXER - Bernard Malamud
45. 1968 THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER - William Styron, OWN 5/1/25
✅. 1969 HOUSE MADE OF DAWN - N Scott Momaday, Nov 2023
47. 1970 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JEAN STAFFORD - Jean Stafford (audio/Hoopla)
✅. 1972 ANGLE OF REPOSE - Wallace Stegner OWN 2/11/23
49. ✔1973 THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER - Eudora Welty
☑50. 1975 THE KILLER ANGELS - Jeff Shaara
51. ✔1976 HUMBOLDT'S GIFT - Saul Bellow
52. 1978 ELBOW ROOM - James Alan McPherson
53. 1979 THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER - John Cheever Read some
54. ✔1980 THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG - Norman Mailer
55. ✔1981 A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES - John Kennedy Toole
56. ✔1982 RABBIT IS RICH - John Updike
57. ✔1983 THE COLOR PURPLE - Alice Walker
58. 1984 IRONWEED - William Kennedy OWN
59. 1985 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Alison Lurie
60. 1986 LONESOME DOVE - Larry McMurtry OWN
☑61. 1987 A SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS - Peter Taylor
62. ✔1988 BELOVED - Toni Morrison
67. ☑ BREATHING LESSONS - Anne Tyler OWN
68. 1990 THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE - Oscar Hijuelos70.
69. 1991 RABBIT AT REST - John Updike
✔70. 1992 A THOUSAND ACRES - Jane Smiley OWN 4/20/21
71. 1993 A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN - Robert Olen Butler
72. ✔1994 THE SHIPPING NEWS - E Annie Proulx
73. ✔1995 THE STONE DIARIES - Carol Shields
74. 1996 INDEPENDENCE DAY - Richard Ford
75. 1997 MARTIN DRESSLER - Steven Millhauser
76. ✔1998 AMERICAN PASTORAL - Philip Roth
77. ✔1999 THE HOURS - Michael Cunningham
78. 2000 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES - Jumpha Lahiri
79. ✔2001 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY - Michael Chabon
80. 2002 EMPIRE FALLS - Richard Russo
81. ✔2003 MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides
✔82. 2004 THE KNOWN WORLD - Edward P. Jones
83. ✔2005 GILEAD - Marilynne Robinson
84. ✔2006 MARCH - Geraldine Brooks
85. ✔2007 THE ROAD - Cormac McCarthy
86. ✔2008 THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO - Junot Diaz
87. ✔2009 OLIVE KITTERIDGE - Elizabeth Strout
88. 2010 TINKERS - Paul Harding
89. ✔2011 A VISIT FROM THE GOOD SQUAD - Jennifer Egan
90 ✔2013 ORPHAN MASTER'S SON - Adam Johnson OWN
91. ✔2014 THE GOLDFINCH - Donna Tartt
92. ✔2015 ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE - Anthony Doerr
✔93. 2016 THE SYMPATHIZER - Viet Thanh Nguyen
94. ✔2017 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD - Colson Whitehead
95. ✔2018 LESS - Andrew Sean Greer READ 12/22/21
✅. 2019 THE OVERSTORY - Richard Powers OWN
97. 2020 THE NICKEL BOYS - Colson Whitehead OWN
✔98. 2021 The Night Watchman (hoopla, audio) COMPLETED 1/3/21
99. 2022 The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
100a. 2023 ☑ Trust
100b. 2023☑Demon Copperhead
101. 2024☑Night Watch
✅102. James - Percival Everett

Summary week 18.
Books read: 2
Not Without Laughter - Langston Hughes
Good Dirt - Charmaine Wilkerson

Currently reading:
The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead (will finish this today)
Only the Beautiful - Susan Meissner 61%

Holds:
Nesting, this is the next one to be started after I finish The Man Who Loved Children.
The Sinners All Bow ~ available soon, I would like to delay this until August
Confessions ~ 2 weeks
All Fours I will cancel this as I am sure I am not interested.
Three Days in June to be delivered in June
The Lion Women of Tehran ~ 4 weeks
How To Read a Book ~ 4 weeks
The God of the Woods ~ 5 weeks
Tell Me Everything ~ 6 weeks
Murder at Gulls Nest ~ 6 weeks
The Paris Express ~ 8 weeks

Puzzles: Still working on the Melting Clocks, Salvador Dali
Birds: Birds added; Chipping sparrow, American Goldfinch, Orchard Oriole, Baltimore Oriole, Swamp Sparrow, Downy Woodpecker, Cedar Waxwing, Northern House Wren, Cooper's Hawk.

Progress on wrist: making progress with OT. Working on extension and flexion. Next week will see Ortho for f/u. Going to the gym again. Driving a bit more. I sure hope that I will be done with the splint soon. So far the heart is checking out okay. I will see the cardioligist next week because of the inconclusive results with the profusion/EKG.

Weather/Spring: the grass has been mowed twice. Such a nice green. Most of the trees are getting their leaves. The Cherry is blooming and the apples are starting to bloom. I did my planting of the pots that are up by front door and worked in flower beds.

61.
Book The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
Format: ebook/audio
Original publication date: 1940
Acquisition date/place: 2014, ebook, Kindle
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.75 stars
Book description/summary: dysfunctional family
Challenge(s): Reading 1001, Special Event Word of the month
Author: Australian
List book: 1001
Genre fiction, domestic fiction, psychological novel
Liked:
Disliked: too long

>96 Kristelh: Glad that the OT is working for your wrist.

It is always such a pleasure to cut the grass at the beginning of the season. Happy gardening!

>98 figsfromthistle: Thanks Anita, The Green is so pretty this time of year.

62.
Book Only the Beautiful - Susan Meissner
Format: book
Original publication date: 2023
Acquisition date/place: April 2025/B&N
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.75 stars
Book description/summary: "we look to tomorrow, not yesterday"
Challenge(s): bookclub read
Author: US
List book: no
Genre historical fiction
Liked: interesting story of synesthesia and eugenics
Disliked: mostly satisfying story

Happy Friday, Kristel. For some reason I had your thread unstarred. It is now fixed. I like your bird report. I got out on the trails yesterday morning and saw my FOY- indigo buntings, grosbeaks, eastern kingbirds and orchard orioles. Several new warblers too, including Northern Parula, yellow warbler, golden-wing and a magnolia. I also snagged a yellow-throated vireo, thanks to Merlin. It popped up on my app- I looked up and it was right above my head. I LOVE this time of year.

I am participating in the Spring Bird Count tomorrow, with a couple of birding buddies. I have been doing this regularly for the past few years.

>101 msf59:, Hi Mark. I am having a lot of warbler showing up on the bird sound ID but yet to actually see them. The Sora pops up when I am walking the slough area but have not spotted it yet. A towhee showed up yesterday on the sound ID so I checked and I guess they do travel through here so maybe I will actually spot one. I need to take the binos with me I guess. Have fun with your bird count on Saturday. I will go out and walk. Weather has been really nice.

63.
Book Nesting - Roisin O'Donnell
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: January 2025
Acquisition date/place: May 2025, Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: on a tether
Challenge(s): BB from Deborah
Author: Irish
List book: Women's Longlist
Genre domestic fiction
Liked: I liked the character development and the crow on a tether
Disliked: it starts out hard to engage but it is perfect form the condition of the protagonist

Today's birds on my slough walk. I either saw a common yellowthroat or a yellow warbler. I am leaning toward female yellow warbler but who knows. I also saw a Gray Catbird. And then the usual that hang out at the slough.

The baltimore orioles have been constant visitors and they do like to tell me when the feeder needs more grape jelly. the house Finch and chickadees have also been visiting the grape jelly. I can't do seeds as the squirrels are just naughty and the grackels are pig birds.

I've read books by Susan Meissner in the long ago past ( my 40's) and she wrote good Christian Fiction then. I'm glad she has branched out . I am glad that you enjoyed Nesting. I really think that should have made the Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist. I just finished The Persians and while it was mildly entertaining, I don't understand how it made the Women's Prize For Fiction at all.

>105 vancouverdeb:. Yes, Deborah, you no longer can tell that Meissner writes Christian fiction. My bookclub that is part of my church probably do pick her books for that reason.

I thought Nesting for a debut novel was worthy of making it further than the Longlist.

Geller Prize Winners
1994 The Book of Secrets - M G Vassanji
1995 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry READ
1996 Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood READ
1997 Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler
1998 The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Monro
1999 A Good House - Bonnie Burnard
2000 Mercy Amoung the Children - David Adams Richards
2000 Anil's Ghost - Michael Ondaatje READ
2001 Clara Callan - Richard B Wright
2002 The Polished Hoe - Austin Clarke
2003 The In-between World of Vikram Lall - M G Vassanji
2004 Runaway stories - Alice Munro READ
2005 The Time In Between - David Bergen
2006 Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam
2007 Late Night on Air - Elizabeth Hay
2008 Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden
2009 The Bishop's Man - Linden MacIntyre
2010 The Sentimentalists - Joseph Skibsrud
2011 Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
2012 419 - Will Ferguson
2013 Hellgoing - Lynn Coady
2014 Us Conductors - Sean Michaels
2015 Fifteen Dogs - Andre Alexis
2016 Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeleine Thien
2017 Bellevue Square - Michael Redhill
2018 Washington Black - Esu Edugyan READ
2019 Reproduction - Ian Williams
2020 How to Pronounce Knife - Souvankham Thammavongsa
2021 What Strange Paradise - Omar El Akkad
2022 The Sleeping Car Porter - Suzette Mayre
2023 Study for Obedience - Sarah Bernstein
2024 Held - Anne Michaels
2025 TBA November 17

I've only read 5 of these. Some I can say, I have never heard of them. 5 of 30 or 17% read. A great place to seek out Canadian lit, https://gillerprize.ca/about/

I've only read 8 of those books, Kristel. That's embarrassing. I am considering A Fine Balance as my next read, but I am not sure yet. I own quite a few of them , but have not read them.

>148 Kristelh:, Well now I don't feel so bad, Deborah. A Fine Balance is a good read. I think you'll like that one.

Happy Mother's Day, Kristel. I am glad you able to ID some of the warblers. That takes some experience. Surprisingly we did not get a yellow warbler yesterday on the SBC. Many nest here for the season. We did get common yellow-throat. I did get my FOY blackburnian and chestnut-sided. Enjoy your day.

A Fine Balance is a fantastic read but it is also completely heart-rending.

>110 msf59:, Thank you Mark.

I am about 160 pages into A Fine Balance, Kristel and Mark and yes, I am really enjoying it so far.

64.
Book The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
Format: audio book
Original publication date: 1945
Acquisition date/place: May 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 4.5 stars
Book description/summary: comedy/pathos
Challenge(s): BAC, 1001
Author: British
List book: Yes, 1001
Genre comedy
Liked: I liked it more knowing it was semiautobiographical
Disliked: not that I disliked it at all but the father was cruel and it is also a study of the political (Fascist, Nazi, Communist, socialist) and it delves into maternity and the bad mother.

I started the series that is on prime

Summary for the 19th week, May 7 through the 13.
Books read this past week
61. The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead, 1001, domestic fiction, dysfunctional family (long)
62. Only The Beautiful, historical fiction covering the prewar WWII to post WWII, set in California (synesthesia and eugenics)
63. Nesting - Roisin O'Donnell, emotional abuse, Women's Long List, Debut novel. Highly recommended
64. The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitfoerd, 1001, semiautobiographical. Recommended. Currently watching the TV series on Prime.

Currently Reading:
1. Tale of Genji (year long read).
2. Tent of Miracles Jorge Amado, 1001, Brazilian, translated from the Portuguese. May botm
3. Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd, this is a reread for me. 1001, botm 1001
4. Needing to start Daniel Deronda Qrtly read for Reading 1001.

My Hold list
Confessions - Catherine Airey, 2 weeks
Three Days in June - Anne Tyler. I am holding off until closer to June on this one, 3 weeks
The Sinners All Bow a Book club read that I haven't finished yet, 3 weeks
The God of the Woods - 4 weeks
The Lion Women of Tehran - 4 weeks
How to Read a Book - Adler, 4 weeks
Murder at Gulls Nest ~ 5 weeks
Tell Me Everything ~ 6 weeks
The Paris Express ~ 7 weeks.
I took All Fours off as I don't think this one is for me.

Up Next: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
my TBR takedown for May, 1001 read.

FOY birds: Ring-necked pheasant, kildeer, wood thrush, gray catbird, common yellowthroat or female yellow warbler, and chipping sparrow.

Finished the Salvador Dali puzzle and will start The Great Gatsby next.

Health: Today I saw Ortho and no longer have to wear the splint. No further Ortho appointments. Will see OT one or two more times.

Other work up: the cardiologist believes I need more work up because of the syncopal episodes while being active. So I am to have a noninvasive angiogram and and echocardiogram. If they're negative then on to the electrophysiologist. If the angiogram is positive then on to the invasive angiogram. This will be my summer of tests, tests, tests, I guess.

>115 aceredd1:, >116 aceredd1:. Sorry too old.

The Atlantic Greatest American Novel, 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/03/best-books-american-fiction/67...
1. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (Read)
2. An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
3. The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein (on by tbr)
4. Death Comes to the Archbishop - Willa Cather (on my tbr)
5. Farewell to Arms - Hemingway, (Read)
6. Passing - Nella Larson (Read)
7. The Sound and the Fury - Wm Faulkner (read)
8. Absalom! Absalom! - Faulkner (read)
9. Nightwood - Djuna Barners (on my tbr)
10. East Goes West -
11. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston (read)
12. USA trilogy - Passos, (On my tbr)
13. Ask the Dust
14. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler (Read)
15. The Day of the Locust
16. Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck (Read)
17. Native Son - Richard Wright (own, on the tbr)
18. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Read)
19. All the King's Men (on my tbr)
20. The Street - Ann Petry
21. In a Lonely Place - Huges
22. Mountain Lion - Stafford
23. The Catcher in the Rye - Salenger (own, on my tbr)
24. Charlotte's Web - Read
25. Invisible Man - Ellison (Read)
26. Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury (read)
27. Maud Martha
28. Adventures of Augie March - Read
29. Lolita - (read)
30. Giovanni's Room Read
31. Peyton Place Read
32. Deep Water - Highsmith
33. No, No, Boy - Okada on my tbr
34. On The Road - (Read)
35. The Haunting of Hill House - Read
36. Catch-22 Read
37. A Wrinkle in Time - Read
38. Another Country -tbr
39. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Read
40. Pale Fire - Read
41. Zebra Striped Hearse
42. Bell Jar (read)
43. The Group - Mary McCarthy
44. Crying of Lot 49 Read
45. A Sport and a Pastime
46. Couples - Updike
47. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep read
48. Divorcing - Taubes
49. Portnoy's Complaint on tbr, own
50. Slaughterhouse Five read
51. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
52. Desperate Characters
53. Play it as it Lays - Read
54. Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine -
Stanley Crawford
55. Mumbo Jumbo
56. Sula read
57. Revolt of the Cockroach People
58. Oreo
59. The Dispossessed - Read
60. Winter in the Blood
61. Corregidora - Gayl Jones
62. Speedboat - Adler
63. Ceremony - Silko
64. Song of Solomon - read
65. A Contract with God - Eisner
66. Dancer From the Dance - Andrew Holleran
67. The Stand (read)
68. Kindred read
69. The Dog of the South
70. Housekeeping Read
71. The Salt Eaters
72. Little, Big: Or, the Fairies’ Parliament - John Crowley
73. Oxherding Tale - Charles Johnson
74. Machine Dreams
75. Blood Meridian read
76. A Summons to Memphis read this year
77. Watchmen read
78. Beloved read
79. Dawn
80. Geek Love read
81. Tripmaster Monkey
82. Dogeaters
83. American Psycho on the TBR but don't want to
84. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
85. Mating
86. Bastard out of Carolina own, on tbr
87. The Secret History read
88. So Far From God - Castillo
89. Stone Butch Blues
90. Shipping News read
91. Native Speaker
92. Sabbath's Theater tbr
93. Under the Feet of Jesus
94. Infinite Jest Read
95. I Love Dick
96. Underworld read
97. The Intuitionist own, tbr
98. Blonde read
99. House of Leaves own, tbr, tried 1x
100. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay read
101. The Last Samurai, own, tbr
102. the Quick and the Dead - Joy Williams
103. Erasure
104. I, the Divine, a novel in chapters
105. The Corrections - read
106. Caramelo
107. Perma Red
108. the Russian Debutante's Handbook
109. The Namesake Read
110. Veronica - Gaitskill
111. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz read
112. A Visit From the Goon Squad Read
113. I Hotel
114. Open City - Cole
115. Salvage the Bones own, tbr
116. The Round House - read
117. Americanah - read
118. Nevada - Binnie
119. The Brief History of Seven Killings Read
120. Family Life - Sharma
121. Fates and Furies read
122. The Fifth Season read
123. The Sellout read
124. The Sympathizer read
125. Amiable With Big Teeth - Claude McKay
126. Lincoln in the Bardo read
127. Sabrina graphic novel, Drnaso
128. Severance
129. There, There read
130. Lost children Archive, own, tbr
131. Nothing to See Here
132. The Old Drift
133. No one is Talking about This
134. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois - Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
135. Biography of X

Many of these I have never even heard of. Can they really be the Great American Novel? What would you add for years 2023, 2024?

I will perhaps try to read the ones I own. The others that I don't know and haven't heard of will not be a priority.

Ah, sorry to hear you need further testing, Kristel. I hope all goes well. Have you started your Great Gatsby puzzle ? And did you glue the Salvador Dali puzzle together ? I have started another puzzle, it's a picture of a cutaway house. I liked the image, plus it didn't look to challenging to do while I listen to A Fine Balance. I have the book to, so I am doing a combo of listening and reading. It is heart rending at times but, also humourous at times and I am really enjoying it. I am on page 569 or so of just over 700 pages, so that it good progress for me.

>121 vancouverdeb: A Fine Balance is such a good book that the number of pages don't seem to be an issue. I am glad you're enjoying it. I will start the Gatsby puzzle soon. My granddaughter is gluing the Salvador Dali one.

The good news is that I no longer have to wear the splint on my left wrist and besides doing burpees (I hate them) and down dog, I can resume most activites and weight training is also on hold except for light weights for the OT exercises. Mostly the extension, flexion. Even my supination and pronation are mostly normal now. My wrist has some swelling yet as my watch does not fit like it used to. I've been told that it will be awhile for that to go away.

I should get my Great Gatsby book (or find and audible) and do that while I work on the puzzle.

I am enjoying a very mild thunderstorm this morning. We really needed the rain and the temperature is also suppose to be less hot after the storms today.

I loved A Fine Balance, Kristel. Just finished it this evening. I recall when I fractured my wrist, it took so long to get flexibility back in it. The hospital offered rehab with an OT. It was discouraging at times, but I got nearly full mobility back. it took me about 2 months of rehab to regain the full flexibility. it does take up to a year for the swelling to down fully. I didn't think it could take that long, but I purchased a gold band for my wedding finger after the cast was off, and then later had to size down again . Then , at my GP's office, that wedding ring fell right off my finger. That was at about a years time. Finally I could wear my actual wedding rings again. So be careful, Kristel.

>123 vancouverdeb:.Yes, I was told that it will take a long time for the swelling to go away. I was able to put my rings back on a few weeks back when I was only wearing the splint but now that I can put my watch back on the left wrist I can only snap it at the 2nd hole where I could do 3 and 4 positions before the fracture. So that will be my measure of the swelling. I am doing OT. I think he is almost done with me and I will have to continue on my own. I also have started back to Silver Sneaker Classes so I can do some exercises there as well. I am not to do burpees (thank you very much) or Yoga.

I am glad you enjoyed A Fine Balance. What’s next. I am listening to Hawksmoor and reading Tent of Miracles both are rather hard to connect. Takes concentration.

We’re back to colder more normal May weather but it has been rainy and windy. Have a great weekend.

65.
Book Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1985
Acquisition date/place: May 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: parallel stories of Nicholas Dyer and Nicholas Hawksmoor, 19th and 20th century London
Challenge(s): botm May 2025 Reread
Author: British
List book: 1001, Whitbread and Guardian Fiction Prize
Genre novel, historical, mystery
Liked: I like novels that explore concepts of time.
Disliked: it is gruesome, violence and sexual content

Hawksmoor more sounds a little gruesome, Kristel. I am so glad you look after your grandog! I would love to have that option. At least we have a doggie daycare that Muffin loves, and she can get her overnight "VIP " boarding. I hope she will overcome her separation anxiety in time, but I have booked her into the VIP boarding from December 24 to 26, so that we can get out for Christmas and see our family. Maybe we won't need it - I hope, but they book up very quickly.

>120 Kristelh: I also can't believe how many of these I have not heard of here and I am no slouch in the American literature department. I also cannot believe how many American novels should be on this list. Hey, if it gets you reading, right?

Any interesting sightings? I did not see anything new on the camping trip, although there were many birds. I was surprised to see so many Swainson thrushes around. They must nest in this area. I also heard wood thrush continuously.

>126 vancouverdeb:. I hope Muffin does get over her separation anxiety but glad she has such a good doggie day care to back you up. Thanks for stopping by Deborah.

>127 msf59:. Hi Mark, thanks for stopping by. I have read 56 of the Atlantic list. And I own a few of them. I plan to try to get to the ones that I own and haven't read yet. I also plan to try to add in some Geller list books in support of Canadian friends.

Bird sightings most recently include: Green Heron, American Redstart, Warbling Vireo, Ring-necked pheasant, Killdeer, downy woodpecker (female). The Oriole feeder is quite busy. The weather has been rain, rain, rain, cold (highs in the 40s) and strong winds, not conducive to walks. The bird sounds have increased exponentially but I am not always able to find them.

Summary for week 20, May 14 - 20th

Books read: 65 YTD
Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd

Currently Reading:
Tale of Genji (year long read).
Tent of Miracles Jorge Amado, 1001, Brazilian, translated from the Portuguese. May botm
This is Happiness - Niall Williams

On Deck
Confessions - Catherine Airey
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

My Hold list
Three Days in June - Anne Tyler ~ 2 weeks
The Sinners All Bow a Book ~ 2 weeks
The God of the Woods - 3 weeks
The Lion Women of Tehran - 2 weeks
How to Read a Book - Adler, 4 weeks
Murder at Gulls Nest ~ 4 weeks
Tell Me Everything ~ 4 weeks
The Paris Express ~ 6 weeks.

FOY birds:
Warbling vireo
American redstart
Green Heron
Eastern Kingbird

Puzzles
Started The Great Gatsby

Health: done with Ortho and OT for wrist. Have made progress and now on my own.

Other work up: Testing on June 11th echocardiogram and June 12, angiogram.

Weather has been windy, rain and storms and cold. Got over 4 and 3/4 inches of rain in past week. Today it is just drizzle and the wind is gone. Hope to see sunshine soon.

66.
Book This is Happiness - Niall Williams
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2019
Acquisition date/place: Hoopla/May 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: coming of age in Faha
Challenge(s): bookclub read
Author: Irish
List book: no
Genre Coming-of-age story, Bildungsroman
Liked: I liked this story set in a small town with quirky characters
Disliked: alls good

Today was such a good bird day. The birds must be as happy as I that the rain has stopped. I saw Orioles, wrens, Flicker (FOY), mute swans flying over head, Canadian geese, pheasant among the usuals. Not real warm but the sun was so "bright" after so many cloudy days in a row.

This Is Happiness is on my TBR , Kristel . I’m glad you enjoyed it so much. Maybe I will get to it in June .I’m glad you had such a great day. It was nice here too .

>133 vancouverdeb:. It was a good one, Deborah. I will be reading the next one, Time of the Child in December for my other book club.

Yesterday was a happy bird day until I realized my martins were no longer singing to me. They did not make it through the days of rain and wind. The Martins eat insects flying high in the air and when it rains for days on end they are unable to get food and they starve. So I've lost my whole colony. I do not know if I'll be able to get a new colony. I am very sad today.

>135 Kristelh: Oh, how awful! I'm sorry about your feathered friends.

>135 Kristelh: Oh that is sad, Kristel. I remember purple martins at my grandparents place in Winnipeg . They had a home in a rural area just out of Winnipeg for quite a few years and got a lot of birds. Well, I backed up into a dumpster by accident today. It's not bad, but I'm sure my husband will notice the dent on the bumper. He won't be happy.

>137 vancouverdeb:. Oh, I am sad for you Deborah. I hate when that happens. It is a new car, right?

>136 laytonwoman3rd:, >137 vancouverdeb:, Thanks for your condolences. I do miss their chatter, Purple Martins are such happy birds.

67.
Book Confessions - Catherine Airey
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2025
Acquisition date/place: May 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: trauma history of generations of women,
Challenge(s): not sure why I read this one
Author:Irish/English
List book: no
Genre fiction
Liked: I agree with current decisions effecting the future generations
Disliked: sexual content

Sunday’s walk and birds: I heard many birds but actually saw a yellow warbler, Common Yellowthroat, a Redstart, and I think I saw a summer tanager. At the end of my walk sitting on the front step, the hummingbird came to my flowers. I heard warbling vireo, Tennessee Warbler, Chestnut sided warbler. Also a red eyed vireo. While sitting on the front step I was able to watch the doe feeding in the pasture. It was a nice Sunday. And I finished The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. A lot of poetic angst.

Morning, Kristel. I love your birding reports. Some good warblers there. The common yellow throats should stick around. Summer tanagers were my nemesis for several years and I finally tracked them down and I have seen quite a few now. Of course, you think you are seeing a cardinal but if you look closely you can spot them and of course their song is completely different.

I heard a great horned owl about 5am, hooting his heart out.

>141 msf59:. I hope I get to see an owl sometime this year. I have seen them fly in and grab a rabbit. I’ve also had one land in the front yard during the day, so I know they’re around. I believe they are great horned owls as that is the “feathers” they leave in my yard.

68.
Book The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Rainer Maria Rilke
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1910
Acquisition date/place: Hoopla Digital, 2025/May
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: Poetic angst
Challenge(s): Reading1001, TBR takedown
Author: German
List book: 1001
Genre existential
Liked:
Disliked: lots of angst

>142 Kristelh: I think that is so cool that you have the GHO's hanging around so close. In over 20 years living here, I have only heard them, even when they seem to be very close. Of course, it is also very dark then too. Do you ever hear barred owls?

I know the owls have a great many different sounds and I have not looked into yet. But I need to do that. I used to hear the “whoooo” at night when sitting at my computer desk. I don’t do that anymore so haven’t heard them. I need to go outside and sit and see what birds are making noise. I saw a snowy owl once when I lived in northern Minnesota. I did see the barred owls and babies the previous season in Florida. They were nesting in a tree. There are great horned in Florida too. I’ve seen then roosting on light poles in the park.

69.
Book Tent of Miracles
Format: book, used book, discard from Pioneer Library System
Original publication date: 1969
Acquisition date/place: 11/16/23
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: miscegentations ends racism
Challenge(s): botm May, 1001
Author: Brazilian
List book: 1001
Genre fiction
Liked: liked the ideas; see quotes in review
Disliked: there is sexual content, women used for sex, children born without fathers

70.
Book Al Capone Does my Shirts - Gennifer Choldenko
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2004
Acquisition date/place: Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 4
Book description/summary: middle school, historical fiction
Challenge(s): TIOLI
Author: US
List book: many long lists; Newbery Medal (Honor Book – 2005)
Genre Middle School, fiction, historical fiction
Liked: I liked the story of the autistic sister
Disliked: disliked how the mother neglected her son's well being, but its real

Summary week 21, May 21 - May 27
read: 3 YTD 69
This is Happiness
Confessions
Tent of Miracles

Currently reading:
Tale of Genji
Al Capone Does My Shirts
Starting:
Willard and His Bowling Trophies June botm 1001

On Deck
Daniel Deronda 1001 Qrtly read, need to start
other possilbles
Summer for the Gods
A Stillness at Appomatox

Completed the Great Gatsby jigsaw puzzle.

FOY sightings; Red-tailed hawk, ruby throated hummingbird, Tanager, mourning dove, Northern Flicker, Kingbird

My wrist is doing well. Playing pickleball once again. No tests until June.

Started Summer for the Gods for the AAC to read a Pulitzer Winner in History.

>149 Kristelh: I loved the Al Capone series! There are four books in the series, and amazingly, my library had all 4 on audio.

June TIOLI plans at this time
1. Read a book with the word "old" or "new" in the title or a book with a word in the title that rhymes with either "old" or "new" - msg #1
The Old Drift (from Atlantic GAN list )
Old Man’s War SF

2. Read a book that either has the word ‘question’ in the title or a book whose title includes a question mark - msg #3
Are you there God? It’s me Margaret

3. Read a book with a woman's first name in the title - msg #4
Veronica (Atlantic GAN)

4. Read a book whose title makes you think of a reduction in noise - msg #5
The Moor’s Last Sigh

5. Read a book whose title has five words or less and contains at least five vowels - msg #6

6. Read that book you feel ashamed not to have read yet- msg #7
The Catcher in the Rye or….

7. Read a book whose title has at least one set of consecutive double letters that are consonants - msg 8#
Willard and His Bowling Trophies

8. Read a memoir written by a Soldier, Politician or Mother - msg #12

9. Read a book with the word or number Zero in the title or subtitle - msg #16
Zero Day

10. Read a book which has language as a theme - msg #19

11. Read a book which meets a category on the 2025 Seattle Public Library book bingo card - msg #22
Daniel Deronda (One Big Book)

12. Read a book with an event in the title - msg #29

You are so organized with your reading plans, Kristel. I loosely have planned The Adversary and maybe Crime and Punishment for June. But it depends if I like the books. I loved your Great Gatsby puzzle!

I did not know you were playing pickleball? Wow! Fantastic. I am completely hooked on the game. I played 3 hours yesterday, inside because of the rain. We first had books in common and then birds and now PB. Ya can't beat it.

Getting ready to do some solo birding and then we get Jackson later in the PM. Another fine day.

>153 msf59: Exactly Mark. I often say pickleball is a good mental status exam. I play indoors in Minnesota (most of the time) and outside in Florida. I did break my wrist on the pickleball court but not because of pickleball. It just was a very unforgiving surface to go down on. I’m just getting back to playing since officially released by Ortho.

We have more in common. I have been closely involved with my grandchildren since they were born. Mine are young adult and teen now. We went to Grandcamp every year together. Grandcamp is a special time where you build a legacy with your grands.

And were both from the Midwest!

>152 vancouverdeb: Organizing my reading is half my fun. I hope you enjoy Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky is my favorite Russian author. I look forward to your thoughts.

>154 Kristelh: Glad to hear you are recovered from your injury. No one plays outside in MN? We have been waiting for it to warm up so we can play outdoors regularly, plus it is for FREE. That might start tomorrow. We have a very large group and they are a lot of fun to play with. We play doubles exclusively.

Hooray for the grandkids. We currently have one- Jackson, but with my son being recently engaged we sure hope for some more. I hope I am still around when they get to be young adults. You have been fortunate.

>156 msf59:. Mark, we have one outside court area so some do play outside. I started at the Y and just keep playing with my group. I have played outside occasionally. One friend has her own net so we can use some of the schools tennis courts that have been marked for pickleball. But mostly I play indoors. We all play doubles.

Yes, I love being a part of my grandchildren’s lives and they are a blessing.

71.
Book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion - Edward J. Larson
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1997
Acquisition date/place: Hoopla Digital, May 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: a look backwards and forwards at the Scopes Trial
Challenge(s): AAC History Pulitzer
Author: US
List book: Pulitzer History
Genre nonfiction, history
Liked: I liked that the author did not tell you what you should believe or take sides. He presented history well researched
Disliked:

72.
Book Star Trek: Vulcan's Soul: Exodus - Josepha Sherman
Format: audio
Original publication date: 2004
Acquisition date/place: May 31, 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: new to me, I watched the TV series but have not read any of them
Challenge(s): TIOLI
Author: US
List book: SFF
Genre SF
Liked:
Disliked

73.
Book The Mothers - Brit Bennett
Format: book/audio
Original publication date: 2016
Acquisition date/place: Indiespensible (Powells) and Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: mothers
Challenge(s): TIOLI
Author: US
List book: no
Genre fiction, domestic
Liked: liked the fact that there are consequences for decisions
Disliked: mild amount of sexual detail

Summary for May:
Books read: 15
1001: 5
Booker: 0
Pulitzer: read Pulitzer History winner, 1998
Nonfiction: 1
Oldest book was published 1910 and the newest was 2025.
US authors: 8 authors, counting Christine Stead as US
Irish authors: 3
German: 1
British: 2
Brazil: 1

74.
Book Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
Format: audiobook/book
Original publication date: 1601
Acquisition date/place: 7/9/2020
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: comedy of twins and shipwreck
Challenge(s): TIOLI
Author: British
List book: yes, I am sure
Genre drama/play
Liked: worth a reread as with all of Shakespeare
Disliked

Fifteen books read in May, Kristel! That is amazing. I read 5 books in May and that is okay with me. You read such variety of books. I tend to stick to historical fiction, mysteries and literary fiction.

>163 vancouverdeb:, And historical fiction, mystery and literary fiction are the best of the options, Deborah. I am working my way through 1001 and I like other lists. I still prefer the literary fiction, historical and mystery and struggle to like modernism and existential and experimental. Science fiction and fantasy are hit and miss with me.

Happy Wednesday, Kristel. I didn't care for The Mothers. It was a misfire for me but I really enjoyed The Vanishing Half. Go figure.

My bird walk went fine yesterday. A beautiful morning. 31 species. All summer residents though. Looks like most of the migrants have moved one. The highlight was a spotted sandpiper with two chicks foraging along a creek. Someone really wanted to see a pileated but we failed. This was a good spot for them too.

>165 msf59:, Good morning Mark. The Vanishing Half was better than The Mothers (If I am recalling correctly) but she is not an author I would pursue. There are better books out there.

Week 22 summary; May 28 through June 3rd.
Books read: 9
1. This is Happiness - Niall Williams Irish, NTMA, I will read more.
2. Confessions - Catherine Airey (Irish), NTMA, so so
3. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Rainer Maria Rilke ( Prague, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian empire), 1001, poetic prose. so so
4. Tent of Miracles - Jorge Amado (Brazil/Portulese language), 10001, was good, I have another book by him.
5. Al Capone Does My Shirt - Gennifer Choldenko. (US) This was fun read, middle school grade level.
6. Summer for the gods - Edward J. Larson (US). This was read for the American Author Challenge. Pulitzer winner for History, 1998.
7. The Mothers - Brit Bennett, (US), so so. Second book by the author for me.
8. Exodus (Star Trek: Vulcan's Soul, #1) - Josepha Sherman. First Star Trek book for me. Meh.
9. Twelfth Night - Shakespeare. This was my first reading of this play. Like always it benefits to read him more than once.

That was a good finish for the month of May. I read TIOLI 1-6

Currently reading
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot a chuckster.
Willard and His Bowling Trophy - Richard Brautigan. Glad it is a short one.

On deck
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
The God of the
Woods
Three Days in June

Holds
The Paris Express
The Lion Women of Tehran
The Sinners All Bow
Tell Me Everything
Murder At Gulls Nest
How to Read a Book
The Adversary
In Order to Live -

Birds this week: Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Pileated Woodpecker, Barn Swallow

It was a busy week with Bible Studies, card playing, pickleball, and mowing the grass. I might need to take a nap.

75.
Book Willard and His Bowling Trophies - Richard Brautigan
Format: book
Original publication date: 1975
Acquisition date/place: 5/6/2022, used book sale
Decimal/ Star rating: 4.5 stars
Book description/summary: little acts lead to big problems
Challenge(s): botm June 2025, Reading 1001
Author: US
List book: 1001
Genre postmodern, experimental
Liked: I liked how the author made this story work!
Disliked: it's all so very sad really, but the story as sexual content and violence

I am planning / hoping to read This Is Happiness soonish, too, Kristel. It looks like you have lots of great reads ahead.

>169 vancouverdeb:. I think you’ll enjoy This is Happiness, Deborah. I will finish Daniel Deronda soon and then I’ll start Sipsworth soon as it is my book club read for Tuesday. It is short so hope to get it done before Tuesday.

76.
Book Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
Format:
Original publication date: 1876
Acquisition date/place: 11/29/23
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: seeking identity
Challenge(s): Quarterly read, 2nd Q 2025
Author: British
List book: 1001, Guardian 1000
Genre literary fiction
Liked: I liked the novel mostly
Disliked: I didn't like some of the characters but that was the point and necessary for the book. Too much romance.

77.
Book Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret - Judy Blume
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1970
Acquisition date/place: Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: becoming a teenager in New Jersey
Challenge(s): TIOLI, a question in title
Author: US
List book: 1001 Children's books
Genre children's book
Liked: I liked that she had a dialogue with God
Disliked: that her parents discouraged faith

Congrats on blowing past 75!

>173 drneutron:, Thank you, Jim.

Congratulations on reading over 75 books so soon, Kristel!I've wantd to read Sipsworth for a while, but my library does not have it, and someone here on LT convinced me that it was too expensive to buy since it quite a short book. I'll be interested to see what you think.

>175 vancouverdeb:. Deborah, it is very short and while it is a very sweet book, and I am glad I read it, I am not sure I would buy it. I found it on Hoopla Digital. My library in Florida offers that service. Do your libraries in Canada have Hoopla available?

I see that I haven’t reviewed it here yet, but finished it before I read JUdy Blume’s book. I will have to get the review done today.

78.

Book Sipsworth
Format: Simon Van Booy
Original publication date: 2024
Acquisition date/place: June 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: the power of mouse
Challenge(s): bookclub read, June 2025
Author: Anglo American author
List book: no
Genre fiction, novella
Liked: it's a nice story of an old lady finding her place
Disliked: I found it a bit unbelievable and struggle with another animal having super characteristics

79.
Book The god of the Woods - Liz Moore
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2024
Acquisition date/place: May 2024
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: What happens in the family stays in the family
Challenge(s): bookclub read
Author: US
List book: no
Genre mystery
Liked: I liked this story of survival camp
Disliked: not much to c/o in this one

I think most libraries in Canada have switched to Libby from Hoopla, Kristel. At least mine has. Glad you had two enjoyable reads. I quite liked The God of The Woods.

80.
Book Three Days in June - Anne Tyler
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2025
Acquisition date/place: June 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 4.5 stars
Book description/summary: upheavals in the life of a 61 y/o
Challenge(s): BB
Author: US
List book: no
Genre domestic fiction
Liked: I liked how Gail grows
Disliked: no complaints

Happy Wednesday, Kristel. I also liked The God in the Woods. It seemed to get mixed reviews here on LT. I should get to the new Tyler. I am a fan.

Not much birding going on here but I did see a juvenile orchard oriole yesterday while doing Trail Watch.

Summary Week 23. Wednesday 4 through Tuesday 10
This week I read I read 6 books
Willard and His Trophies - Richard Brautigan. A 1001 book. Surprising good.
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot. A 1001 book and a classic. It was good but not my favorite by Eliot
Sipsworth - Simon Van Booy. A nice story about an old woman. Bookclub read. Lots of discussion and chuckles.
Are you there God? It's me Margaret - Judy Blume. My first book by Judy Blume. A good one but better read in middle school.
The god of the woods - Liz Moore This was a bookclub read that I missed reading at the time. A good mystery set in a survival camp. Lots of twists and turns.
Three Days in June - Anne Tyler. Another one by Anne Tyler that I enjoyed.

This was a really good week of reading.

Currently reading
The Catcher in The Rye cause I haven't read it and I've been putting it off as I do not like Salinger's writing.
Tale of Genji I need to get to the half way point because the year will soon be half done.
I will be starting The Castle of Crossed Destinies 1001 botm for June 2025.

My holds are all due to come in about 2 weeks.

Health: having echocardiogram and angiogram this week. Wrist is doing fine!

Played some pickleball Monday and Tuesday
Bible studies Groups: Monday and Wednesday
Bookclub Yesterday
Mowed grass yesterday
Cards this Friday.
Babysitting my grand dog. She's a quiet soul. Her parents don't let her bark so she grunts occasionally but that's about it. Oh, and she snores.
Today will go to gym and exercise, maybe play a game of pickleball but I expect it will be too busy. I have my echo today. Angiogram tomorrow.

Birds: This weeks new birds; snowy egret and great Egret. The migrating birds are gone and it's quieter on my walks. At my feeders; the house Finch, catbird, red bellied woodpecker, grackles, Orioles, hummingbird. I've seen some raptors, possibly the Northern Harrier. A beaver was spotted in the yard by my daughter. I've seen snapping turtle and painted turtle. The deer was seen once.

>179 vancouverdeb:. Oh, I do hope that the library in Florida does not drop Hoopla. So many great choices in that app. I really enjoyed the BB from you; Three Days In June and I saw that you had read The god of the woods. Both great books. Have a great day Deborah.

>181 msf59:. Hi Mark. Yes, the migratory birds are on their way I think. It's been a lot quieter on my walks. I am seeing more raptor activity. I'm not sure what they are because they are flying and little birds are chasing them or flying for cover.

I agree with you on migration but I need to stop playing PB and get out to see a few FOY birds like bobolinks, summer tanagers and blue grosbeaks. Of course, I'm heading out to play PB now...😎

81.
Book The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1969
Acquisition date/place: Hoopla
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars.
Book description/summary: Certainly a bright work and my score of 3 stars is probably because I listened to this. This is a book better read or read and listened too.
Challenge(s): botm Reading 1001
Author: Cuban born, lived in Italy and wrote in Italian
List book: 1001
Genre experimental
Liked: I liked the concept of using tarot cards to tell ones story. The tension of not being able to speak.
Disliked: there is some sexual content but it's not in your face type.

I would reread this if I find a real book copy of it.

>184 Kristelh: I am glad you enjoyed Three Days in June too, Kristel. I still remember the story. Well, The Safekeep won today. I think you will enjoy Tell Me Everything when you get to it.

>187 vancouverdeb: Hello, Deborah. I was not surprised that The Safekeep won. I didn’t;’t got Murder at Gulls Nest so I’ll be reading that one, soon.

82.
Book Keep the Aspidistra Flying - George Orwell
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1936
Acquisition date/place: Hoopla Digital, June 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: money, money, money and Aspidistra everywhere
Challenge(s): tbr takedown 1001
Author: British
List book: 1001
Genre literature
Liked: I liked the ending
Disliked: I disliked Gordon very much but that was probably the point.

I am not even trying to catch up, Kristel, just swinging by to thank you for helping to keep my thread warm while I was gone.

Have a marvelous Monday!

83.
Book Murder at Gulls Nest - Jess Kidd
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2025
Acquisition date/place: Libby, June 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars (barely)
Book description/summary: cozy mystery, not my cut of tea
Challenge(s): This was a BB
Author: US
List book: no
Genre cozy, mystery
Liked: it could have been better
Disliked: I disliked the main female sleuth. Just not my cup of tea.

>191 Kristelh: Ah, too bad about Murder at Gulls Nest, Kristel. I really enjoyed it , and it you got the BB from me, I steered you wrong. I loaned the book to my sister, but I am not sure if she has read it yet or not.

>192 vancouverdeb:. Mostly your BBs are great! I hope your sister enjoys it.

Summary of Week 24; June 11 to June 17.
Books read this week - 3
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Keep the Apidistra Flying - George Orwell
Murder at Gulls Nest - Jess Kidd

1001 books: 2
BB/library loan: 1

Not as good a book week as last week.

Currently reading:
How to Read a Book -- Adler. Just finished this one.
I ordered it because this has a lot of useful information and suggestions.

Catcher in the Rye, reading this finally. I am not hating it but Salinger is not a favorite of mind. I am about 50% through it.

Starting The Moor's Last Sigh - Salman Rushdie

On Deck:
Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Lean on Pete

My Library (Libby) Hold List
The Sinners All Bow - want to read this in August
The Paris Express ~ 2 weeks
The Lion Women of Tehran - want to read this in July/August
The Adversary ~ w weeks
Tell Me Everything ~ 2 weeks

Health: things are going well. Tests so far all basically normal for age (meaning there is evidence of aging). Wrist is much better.

I leave on a tour: Alaskas central National Parks June 26th.

84.
Book How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler
Format: audiobook (I ordered a paperback)
Original publication date: 1940
Acquisition date/place: June 2025, Libby. Book ordered 6/18/25 Better World Books
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: throughal research on the act of reading a book
Challenge(s): BB.
Author: Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, popular author and lay theologian.
List book: a book with a list
Genre nonfiction, literary criticism
Liked: some good ideas but also a list of "great books" to read.
Disliked: it's hard to imagine actually spending that much time studying a book but really, it is how it's done.

Sweet Thursday, Kristel. Just checking in. I like your eclectic reading. I enjoy mixing it up too. On audio, I am enjoying Raising Hare. You might like this one.

Are you playing PB regularly? I am but not looking forward to the heat wave that arrives this weekend. Seeing any interesting birds? I have not been getting out, on the trails. Bad Mark.

>196 msf59:, Thanks for stopping by Mark. I am an eclectic reader. I have been eyeballing Raising Hare as one I might like. Currently I am trying to finish up some books and trying to decide what I will read on my tour to Alaska. I am hoping to add some birds to my life list. And some other animals too.

I played PB on Tuesday and Thursday so far. Maybe I will play tomorrow. It is going to be hot (90s) and high humidity so will be looking to play indoors but so might everyone else.

Birds so far. I have seen baby orioles coming to the feeder. I guess I should say immature Orioles. I have had some chicadees, nuthatches, house Finch, red-bellied woodpecker, downy, wren. I saw a Redstart fairly close up yesterday on my walk. I have a hummingbird feeder now and so far I think I only have one humnmer. Something is drinking the syrup during the night so have had to bring in in.

ETA. Just saw a Great crested flycatcher on my deck. I think he must be eating the oranges. Or he is after the hummingbird.

85.
Book The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Format: book
Original publication date: 1951
Acquisition date/place: used book 2023
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: teenage angst or is this depression
Challenge(s): reading 1001
Author: US
List book: 1001
Genre fiction, coming of age
Liked: it was readable
Disliked: too much swearing

86.
Book The Moor's Last Sigh - Salman Rushdie
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 1995
Acquisition date/place: June 2025/Hoopla Digital
Decimal/ Star rating: 3.5 stars
Book description/summary: Family saga, India, art, politics, loss
Challenge(s): Special Event/Word, Reading 1001
Author: Indian born, English and American author
List book: Reading 1001, Booker Short list
Genre domestic fiction, magical realism
Liked: an interested story of a multiracial family of India
Disliked: sex/violence

87.
Book Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Format: book/audiobook
Original publication date: 2005
Acquisition date/place: 4/2019, Paperbackswap.com
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: old man meets dead wife fighting aliens
Challenge(s): TIOLI, NPR List
Author: US
List book: NPR SFF
Genre science fiction
Liked: it's an entertaining adventure
Disliked: sexual content, language

Morning, Kristel. You have been seeing some nice birds at your feeders. Mine have been quiet- mostly sparrows, finches and doves. I am going to try and play outside early today. Our indoor facility is closed for PB on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I am sure you are getting excited about your Alaska trip. We did the Alaska cruise, just over 20 years ago and it remains one of my favorite vacations. This was long before I started birding but I fondly remember the puffins.

I am glad you are joining me on The Stories of John Cheever. So far you are the only taker. LOL. Keep cool today.

>201 msf59: Hello Mark. The weather has cooled off here. I will play PB and then mow the grass which I am not keeping up with given the rain and fertilizer. I am having night animals at the feeders (raccoon or opossum) and squirrels in the day. The deer are hanging closer to the house. The flies and mosquitoes are probably bothering them. Have you read Lorrie Moore's collection, Birds of America?

88.
Book The Adversary - Michael Crummey
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2023
Acquisition date/place: June 2025 Libby
Decimal/ Star rating: 4 stars
Book description/summary: Brother and Sister/Cain and Abel
Challenge(s):
Author: Canadian author
List book: International Dublin Literary Award
Genre Historical fiction
Liked: I liked the story telling, the setting in Newfoundland . A Cain and Abel story
Disliked: the characters are hateful but that is the point. Be forwarned, this book is full of sexual, violence, and obcenities but an accurate albeit maybe exaggerated picture of life in a small shipping/fishing village in the 1800s.

>203 Kristelh: The Adversary was dark , indeed, Kristel. But I hope worth the read ? You gave it 4 stars as I did.

Happy Wednesday, Kristel. The Adversary is firmly on the list. When do you leave for Alaska? Are you going with someone?

>205 msf59: I am going on a tour. Another lady and I are sharing a room and a couple of my friends are also going. It is a tour so I just have to sit back and enjoy. I watched some videos last night. I get picked up at 4:30 today and fly out of Minneapolis tomorrow morning.

Wow! That sounds awesome. What is the name of the tour company? How long will it be? I am sure you picked some good books to take along. 😀

>207 msf59:. The Company is R & J. They do a great job. I am taking some books on kindle and some audios and I should be good. I do hate not having my list completed for July. I do a Bookspinbingo over at Litsy every month and I need my list done by July 2.

>198 Kristelh: Yeah, I was very surprised by the amount of swearing in the book, especially considering the original publication date.

>203 Kristelh: Sounds like one I can safely skip!

Have a wonderful trip!!

Enjoy your trip to Alaska, Kristel. It sounds like it will be a lovely time.

Finished Lean on Pete. A coming of age story. It really didn’t grab me.

89.
Book Lean on Pete - Willy Vlautin
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2010
Acquisition date/place: June 2025
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: young man has a tough life
Challenge(s): American Author Challenge
Author: US author
List book: no
Genre young adult book, fiction
Liked: it was good enough
Disliked: but just not that good

Good morning from Alaska. The sun set last night at 12:15 am and rose this morning at 3:45. I was awake about that time so went for a walk. I am surprised at how few birds I am seeing here in Canada. Not even squirrels etc either. I did see a moose along the road eating yesterday.

My birds so far: white-crowned sparrow, short billed gull, black-billed magpie, yellow-rumpled warbler, and a robin. I heard a dark eyed junco but did not spot him.

Currently reading Zero Day and Troubling Love. Not much reading getting done.

Today we explore Denali Park. Yesterday we were a part of 30% that get to see the whole peak of Denali. It was a nice day. Hopefully today will be good too.

More birds; Long-tailed Jager, golden Eagle, willow ptarmigan, Ravens.

Happy Sunday, Kristel. I LOVE your Alaska updates, especially the birds and wildlife sightings. I think I saw ptarmigan in Denali but this was long before I began serious birding. You are definitely seeing more wildlife than we did. Share some pics, if you can.

Today’s bird are two trumpeters and their two cygnets. Other than a moose early in day. I did not see any other animals. It was train ride from Denali to Talkeetna.

>215 msf59: I really don’t know how to put pictures on LT, Mark.

Where are you heading to, today?

>217 msf59: Today we head to Seward. Tomorrow we will cruise the fjord and hopefully will see puffins. Then it’s back to Anchorage and fly home on Thursday.

If I don’t get my monthly summary done. If I don’t get set up with my next quarterly thread. If I don’t get July set up, bear with me. I will soon be back home.

Are you taking the train to Seward? I loved that trip. Seward is beautiful and that is where I saw the puffins.

>220 msf59:. No Mark. I did take the train from Denali Park to Talkeetna and then back on the bus. I do the fjord cruise tomorrow and do hope I see a puffin. Today I saw another family of Trumpeters, Artic Terns, and a bald eagle. Some other birds that I wasn’t able to identify.

90.
Book Zero Day - David Baldacci
Format: audiobook
Original publication date: 2011
Acquisition date/place: my husband's book
Decimal/ Star rating: 3 stars
Book description/summary: so so
Challenge(s): TIOLI
Author: US
List book: no
Genre mystery/thriller
Liked: learned a bit about nuclear bombs
Disliked: sexual content, grusome violence

Ooh, arctic terns. Nice. I hope you are having a great time on the fjord.

It sounds like you are having a great trip, Kristel! It might be hard to return home. Enjoy your last few days I hope you saw some puffins today.

I did finish The Paris Express and catching up on Tale of Genji I should be at the half way point but I am not.

Sweet Thursday, Kristel. Safe travels today. I did not read Lean on Pete but I really enjoyed the movie adaptation. I read a few more Cheever stories. I think I am twelve stories in. Enjoying it but glad I am spreading this out over a couple of months.

Traveling back to Minnesota today. I’ll be back home early hours of Independence Day. I will get my next quarter set up then. I am currently reading Troubling Love - 32% and The Paris Express at 45%. I hope to get some reading done on the plane.

It was a good trip to Alaska. Lots of books suggested; The Mind of the Raven and of course others; several about the Iditarod Winterdance, Race Across Alaska, etc. But I decided not to buy any as the suitcase is too heavy as it is.

>226 msf59:. Hi Mark. I like Emma Donoghue’s writing, I am about half way. It’s historical fiction about the 1895 disaster at Montparnasse train station. Some good character building. Added the Glaucous-winged Gull today.

Summary for second quarter;
April I read 15 books
May, read 15 books
June, read 17 books read.

Total of 47 books for the quarter and 90 for the year.