Books

Read Your Name Challenge runs 1 Jan-31 Dec 2009:  Using your name or any name you like, read books with first title letters that spell out your name; I’m using SCOTT so I can read some fun books that I want to be sure and get to this year.

• Snakewater Affair, Liz Adair
• Captain’s Blood, William Shatner
• Onion John, John Krumgold (Newbery Award)
• The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
• The Quilter’s Apprentice, Jennifer Chiaverini

Snakewater Affair, by Liz Adair:  This is the third book in this series that involves a small-town deputy sheriff in Nevada.  He’s an affable guy with a perky wife who has a lot of common sense.  They are LDS and the books are filled with references.  Spider gets involved in solving mysteries in each novel and in this one he gets to travel to Washington and make a little extra money.  They have been barely hanging on since the mines closed and he had to take the law enforcement gig.  They are engaging characters, although sometimes he’s a little slow on the uptake when investigating.  Great writing? No.  Fun, quick stories? Yes.

Star Trek: Captain’s Blood, by William Shatner:  This is the second volume in the Totality trilogy.  I enjoy the Trek novels by Shatner because even though he has well-known Trek co-authors, he has an original voice.  His books stray from Trek canon by having Captain Kirk still alive through a strange regeneration process, but the rest of the books follow canon by intersecting with “real” events that have happened on film or in other books.  This story takes place after “Star Trek: Nemesis” and involves the Romulans and Remans.  It is a story in itself, but sets the stage for the final encounter between humanity and the Peace of the Totality that will destroy the galaxy.  Can’t wait to find out if we survive!

Onion John, John Krumgold: This was a coming-of-age story but also a cautionary tale.  Is it right to help someone so he can become less like himself and more like you?  Can a person be truly happy if he loses his identity to the larger society?  I liked the basic premise but found that the writing style irritated me, so it wasn’t one of my favorites.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith: I finally got around to reading this book and I really liked it.  It was a quiet, gentle book with some excitement and mystery thrown in.  The main character is a wise and thoughtful woman and very engaging.  I will be reading more of this series next year as the first volume was very fun.

The Quilter’s Apprentice, by Jennifer Chiaverini: I have been interested in this series and wanted to try it since I’ve started quilting.  The young couple in the book start work for an elderly woman trying to get her estate ready to sell.  They become friends and the owner, Sylvia, begins to teach Sarah how to quilt.  During the process, she tells stories of life during WWII and how she came to leave the estate.  The characters develop during the book and change in interesting ways, and I liked all the discussion of quilt blocks and their history.  I liked the book and will read some more of this series.

I’ve been thinking about joining this challenge now that my 2009 challenges are winding down, and since two of my book club reading buddies are doing it, I figured why not?  The new books will be the hardest for me because they don’t show up at my used book stores very often, but now that I have a library card, I can find new books.

 

The goal of this challenge is to read the number of books first published in a given year that corresponds to the last digit of each year in the 2000s — 10 books from 2010, 9 books from 2009, 8 books from 2008, etc. The total number of books required, therefore, is 55.

This challenge lasts from 9/9/09 through 10/10/10.

I’ll work on my list through the next few months, but I have some series to catch up on and this will be a great excuse because they are usually published one per year.  Voila!

2010-?

2009:  Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins; The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown

2008:  The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

2007

2006

2005:  The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards

2004:  Snakewater Affair, by Liz Adair

2003

2002

2001

 

What’s in a Name-2? runs 1 Jan-31 Dec 2009: 6 books that require something specific in the title

• profession
• time of day
• relative
• body part
• building
• medical condition

 

 (Profession) Captain’s Glory, by William Shatner: This is the third book in the Totality series by Shatner.  The first two books had some action but were setting the stage for the final confrontation in this book.  It had alot of action and moved right along as it tied together all the various threads leading to the climax.  Shatner’s dialogue is written like a Trek episode, in that the dialogue is true to the film characters.  It’s easy to hear each of them saying the words because they are so natural to the whole feel of the characters.  Lots of fun and it had a moral, too.

(Time of Day) Night of Many Dreams, by Gail Tsukiyama: I really like this author.  When I find an author I enjoy, I’m loyal.  This book follows a family in Hong Kong before and after WWII.  The story centers around the two sisters and their aunt and how they each make their way in life.  They follow their dreams, even though they aren’t traditional, and this causes conflict with the mother/sister.  So interesting to watch the story develop.  That’s one of the things I like about Tsukiyama.  You watch the story open up and grow and really come to know the characters, who aren’t caricatures or stock characters, but real people you recognize in real life.  Great read.

(Body Part) Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston: This book showed the development of the main character from a young, unwilling bride who is unhappy, to a runaway bride who becomes an object of status, to an independent woman free to love someone of her choice.  The development arc was very interesting and Hurston’s descriptions of life in 1930’s Florida was fascinating.  She reveals many interesting aspects of rural black life, such as jook joints, harvesting in the muck of the Everglades, relationships with Indians and whites, and the white justice system.  While socially fascinating, it was also a great read.

(Building) Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Anne Tyler: This is the third Tyler book I’ve read and her books are about personal relationships.  The dinner in the title takes place in the last chapter and the rest of the book tells the stories of the participants leading up to the dinner.  Each chapter tells more of the life of each of the main characters and the reader pieces together a more complete view of the family members as their story is told or as they are seen through the eyes of the others.  It was a touching book of survival among damaged people.

(Relative) The Memory-Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards: This book had a haunting theme of loss and secrets, but the language was beautiful.  She was so descriptive of places, feelings, and people.  I loved her photography metaphors and descriptions of light and shadow.  It took me a while to realize that the Memory Keeper was actually David and not Caroline as he tried to suspend time with his camera.  I really enjoyed this book, even though the actual decision that started the whole chain of events was horrific.

(Medical Condition) Born in Fire, by Nora Roberts: This was my first Nora Roberts.  The book was a fun, light read with nothing very philosophical or thought-provoking; a little racy; the first of a trilogy I will probably finish when I want something escapist to read, but she’s not going to be one of my favorite authors.

I’m signing up and posting my completion of the 2009 Diversity Rocks! Challenge all at the same time.  I chose the third option, which is:

 3. The Challenge Addict
I know you’re out there. You’re just itching for another challenge, and so far this one’s too easy. Or maybe you already have a diverse list of authors that you read. There are a couple of ways you can complete the challenge at this level.

• Commit to reading 6 books, 12 books, or 24 books by authors of color in 2009.

I  used books from my current challenges, and read 6.  I enjoyed them all, but my favorites were Hurston and Tsukiyama.

• A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
• Thousand Pieces of Gold, by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
• One More River to Cross, by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray
• Night of Many Dreams, by Gail Tsukiyama
• Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

I’ve finished my second reading challenge of the year with a month to spare.

Themed Reading Challenge runs 1 Feb-31 July 2009

4 books with the same theme; from your TBR pile; my theme is books with a musical instrument as a major plot device

The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason: This novel was very slow-moving, but not in a negative way.  It is a  character development novel and just took its own sweet time unfolding the character.  The story was intriguing: in 1886 an English piano tuner receives a commission from the War Office to tune a miltary officer’s piano in Burma.  The novel shows how Edgar Drake, the tuner, is changed during his fascinating journey to Burma and his stay in the jungle.  He is an Everyman thrust into an alien environment and how he reacts to his situation is the real thrust of the story.  The author also includes some interesting history of the area and Anglo-Burmese relations, and technical descriptions of pianos and the art of tuning.  The ending had some twists and turns and the novel did not end the way I expected.  It is a good book, but the reader has to be willing to go along for the ride.

The Soloist, by Mark Salzman: I really liked this book.  I was drawn to it originally at the thrift store because it had a musical title and a picture of a cello on the cover.  The description sounded good, so I picked it up.  It turned out to be a quiet book that was immensely touching.  It has three strands that are all woven together to form the full picture of a man coming to grips with his past and present and weaving them together to face his future.  It is written in first person and vignettes of Renne’s past as a child prodigy are interspersed with his present as a cello teacher of another prodigy and his involvement as a juror on a murder trial.  All these stories combine to help him re-invent himself as a man and as a musician and it was an interesting journey.  His descriptions of music and playing an instrument were deep and profound and I really enjoyed his wisdom and view of music.

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett: This was a great book that explored the relationships between hostages and their captors.  The plan goes wrong and the terrorists are faced with a house full of hostages and their experience together is the theme.  It shows what people are willing to do and to forget in order to survive.  It also shows the resiliency of the human soul.  Gen, the Japanese linguist who becomes the translator, is the filter through which we see everyone else’s dreams and desires.  I liked the way music and singing became the moving passion that unites them.

The Singing Stones, by Phyllis Whitney: Ah, Phyllis Whitney.  Her novels are one of life’s simple pleasures: romantic mystery sans blood, gore, sex, and language.  What better for some mind-candy fun?  Yes, her novels are somewhat formulaic, but part of the fun is always the setting.  Her novels are set in interesting locales that often become a character themselves.  I like books with a strong setting; I guess that’s how I get to travel, so I’ve been all over the world with Phyllis.  The stones that sing are an integral part of the story and since my theme is musical instruments, it fit right in for this challenge.