Book a Week 2018 - BW3: Travels along the Silk Road

[Robin M]

Happy Sunday and welcome to Week three in our Open Roads Reading Adventure. Greetings to all our readers and to all following our progress.  Mister Linky is available weekly on 52 Books in 52 Weeks  to share a link to your book reviews.

 

 

 

I've had an interesting time exploring Japan, but the pull of the Silk Road is drawing me away. There are a number of directions to go since the trade route runs from China across Central and South Asia, through the Middle East, and into Europe.  Let's take a step back in time with China Discovery's Classic Silk Road Tour. 

 

 

Shall we follow in the footsteps of Xuanzang, a seventh-century Chinese monk

 

 

"The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang tells the saga of the seventh-century Chinese monk Xuanzang, one of China's great heroes, who completed an epic sixteen-year-long journey to discover the heart of Buddhism at its source in India. Eight centuries before Columbus, this intrepid pilgrim traveled 10,000 miles on the Silk Road, meeting most of Asia's important leaders at that time. In this revised and updated edition, Sally Hovey Wriggins, the first Westerner to walk in Xuanzang's footsteps, brings to life a courageous explorer and devoutly religious man. Through Wriggins's telling of Xuanzang's fascinating and extensive journey, the reader comes to know the contours of the Silk Road, Buddhist art and archaeology, the principles of Buddhism, as well as the geography and history of China, Central Asia, and India. The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang is an inspiring story of human struggle and triumph, and a touchstone for understanding the religions, art, and culture of Asia."

 

Take a historical fiction journey full of dragons and ghosts

 

 

"SILK ROAD takes you into the golden age of China's multi-cultural Tang dynasty. Aided by ghosts, goddesses, dragons, and her own determination, the heroine becomes a courtesan, a musician, a runaway, a wandering swordswoman, a poet, and more.

 

Discover Buddha's hidden Library in Journeys on the Silk Road

 

 

 

 

"When a Chinese monk broke into a hidden cave in 1900, he uncovered one of the world’s great literary secrets: a time capsule from the ancient Silk Road. Inside, scrolls were piled from floor to ceiling, undisturbed for a thousand years. The gem within was the Diamond Sutra of AD 868. This key Buddhist teaching, made 500 years before Gutenberg inked his press, is the world’s oldest printed book."  

 

 

Explore the Cave Temples full of Buddhist Art

 

 

 

 

"The Mogao grottoes in northwestern China, located near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. Preserved in some five hundred caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi Desert are one thousand years of exquisite wall paintings and sculpture. Founded by Buddhist monks in the late fourth century, Mogao grew into an artistic and spiritual center whose renown extended from the Chinese capital to the far western kingdoms of the Silk Road. Among its treasures are 45,000 square meters of murals, more than 2,000 statues, and some 50,000 medieval silk paintings and illustrated manuscripts."

 

Immerse yourself in the poetry of the Silk Road

 

 

 

 

 

"Journeys Along the Silk Road is a fascinating poetic journey meandering along the ancient Silk Road featuring some of most exciting poets of our generation. The poems in the book reflect the great diversity of the cultures and people of the Silk Road. Drawn from countries traditionally associated with the ancient road they offer a fascinating snapshot of life along the Silk Road in the twenty-first century."

 

 

 

Explore these books and more with Goodread's Popular Silk Road books, Poems scattered along the Silk Road, or Silk Road Fantasy novels.

 

Happy Travels! 

 

*******************************

 

What are you reading this week?

 

 

 

Link to week Two

[Robin M]

I'm on page 609 out of 927 on The Sunne in Splendor - Love Sharon Kay Penman's writing.

 

I shelved The Courage to Write because it was too negative for me and happily reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones essays as well as Write a Novel in Ten Minutes a Day by Katharine Grubb.  Thank you to Amy for introducing me to the group and the book.  Has inspired me and I'm having fun storyboarding my current WIP.  Made a lot of progress this week with the outline.  

Edited January 14, 2018 by Robin M

[Loesje22000]

 

I finished quite some books this week:

 

* The Swedish gentle art of death cleaning

A reflective book, more then a practical how to

 

* Plead for populism

Essay(s) about the need of populism and why we don’t live in a diplomacracy in his eyes. intruiging was his view on the ‘verzuiling’, the first time I saw it stated as something positive

 

* Hidden Impact

Book about the hidden enviromental impact of our western lifestyle.

Lot of pictures, confronting about what really makes an impact

 

* The vineyard by Maria Duenas

I think I like her other book better, slow start, sometimes very descriptive, but finally very much well worth. I think I start to like Spanish literature :)

 

* Headlong by Michael Freyne

I liked the book very much! Although I wondered how someone outside Belgium / Netherlands would experience the book. Sometimes I forgot it was a translated book. It refers a lot to art history and history of the lower lands.

 

* dictatorship for beginners

A fun sometimes silly book about dicatorship.

[Violet Crown]

This week I burned the fingers of my dominant hand pretty badly, but they're all healed now, and the upside (silver lining! that's it!) was that, dh doing all the housework, I finished my first two books of the year and made headway through the slower ones I'm reading.

 

1. Eugene Sue, The Wandering Jew. A 1500-page chunkster from the mid-19th century, with one of literature's best villains--the reptilian (Sue uses this adjective a lot) nefarious Jesuit spymaster Rodin--and an indescribably over-the-top plot with the rare satisfaction for the jaded reader of (spoilers!!!) seeing nearly every good character die off as a result of Rodin's evil scheming, though of course he gets his comeuppance in the end.

 

2. Joris-Karl Huysmans, The Damned (La-Bas). I read Huysmans' Against Nature (A Rebours) a year or so ago and was so taken by his pioneering work in French Decadent literature that I rushed to check out everything else of his in our library. At the end of 2017 I read his Marthe, in which he was still emulating Zola's Naturalism; but The Damned, which followed A Rebours, is so much better. It's about a writer who greatly resembles Huysmans himself, who is trying to write a novel about a medieval "Bluebeard" child-murderer and satanist, and whose attempts to supplement the book with information about the contemporary (and absurdly pathetic) survival of satanism in modern Paris keeps interrupting his progress. Huysmans dearly wants the reader to read this as a roman a clef, and one of the best parts--after the first chapter where the writer's friend lectures him on the disastrous failure of Naturalism as a literary movement--has the writer's lover forcing him to sign an affidavit (as a condition to his being allowed to attend a Black Mass) swearing that all of the events or persons he will include in his book are false. Thus of course Huysmans can have it both ways: if his readers read La-Bas as thinly veiled reportage, his very assurances that it was all fictional would go to support the idea that it wasn't.

 

Still reading Child's Ballads and Cleanth Brooks' classic of New Criticism The Well-Wrought Urn, the latter in preparation for next semester's high school poetry course with Middle Girl. Lately it's seemed optimal to balance a book of poetry, a non-fiction book, and fiction, as the first two are always slower going for me. So time to pick some more fiction. Hardy, maybe?

 

ETA: formatting

Edited January 14, 2018 by Violet Crown

[JennyD]

Robin, years ago a book called Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day changed my life.  I still draw on strategies I learned from that book (along with A Clockwork Muse, and more recently, Ann Patchett's essay on writing in Secrets of a Happy Marriage).

 

This week I finished Less Than Angels, by Barbara Pym.  I enjoyed it immensely, despite one rather jarring plot point.  A few characters from Pym's other books popped up as minor characters in this one, which was fun, and makes me want to go back and reread some other old favorites.

 

I also finished How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, by Jordan Ellenberg.  This was just fantastic -- highly illuminating but also laugh-out-loud funny.  

 

And I restarted Menachem Elon's four-volume series, Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles (tr. Auerbach and Sykes).  I had started reading Volume 1 last summer, but then we went away for the semester and I didn't bring the volume with me because it was a library book.  Happily, though, DH has managed to find and buy all four volumes on eBay and so I've picked it up again.  Anyway, Menachem Elon was both a renowned scholar of Jewish law at Hebrew University and a Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. This set is essentially an extended study of the history of Jewish law and its relationship to secular law both in the Diaspora and in modern Israel.  It is positively brilliant and it's like the author is inside my head answering not only the questions I've had for years but also the questions I didn't even know I had.  It's a long-term project, though -- I expect I'll be plodding through this for many months to come, if not the entire year.  

Edited January 14, 2018 by JennyD

[JennyD]

And Violet, sorry to hear about your fingers!  Very glad they're healing.  

Edited January 14, 2018 by JennyD

[Negin]

This week I burned the fingers of my dominant hand pretty badly, but they're all healed now

Ouch! Sorry to hear this. 

 

I read Todo in Tuscany - 3 Stars - This was a truly heartwarming book, which had me in tears in some parts. If you love dogs and/or Tuscany, this book may be for you. I love dogs and we will be visiting Italy (as well as Tuscany) in a few months. Sorry for the overkill, but I will be reading lots of Italy-themed books before we go. My entire family laughs at my travel-themed books before trips. I think it's funny also. 

 

 

MY RATING SYSTEM

5 Stars

Fantastic, couldn't put it down

4 Stars

Really Good

3 Stars

Enjoyable

2 Stars

Just Okay – nothing to write home about

1 Star

Rubbish – waste of my money and time. Few books make it to this level, since I usually give up on them if they’re that bad.

[Ali in OR]

I finished We Were Eight Years in Power this week and thought it was excellent. Coates has helped me to see the world a little differently. I thought the essays on reparations, mass incarceration, and Donald Trump as the first white president were particularly good.

 

I also finished The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. This is a simple little book, just 117 pages, and the author is charming--I can almost hear the lilt in her voice. As loesje noted above, it's not really a how-to, but more of a motivational book. I think it's helpful to just establish the idea that it's a good thing to be paring down your possessions as you get older so your kids won't have to deal with it all. She also recommends doing this over a long period of time, maybe starting around 65 (she's "between 80 and 100" and thinks she started too late). Dh and I are slowly attacking our attic. We started last summer and had a garage sale to get rid of some stuff. That's probably the last garage sale, as they're a lot of work and don't make much money. But we did get rid of some big, awkward things, like the play structure, basketball hoop, and plyboard model train layout. In the last few months we've gone up to the attic once in awhile to work on small clear-out projects: recycling 4 old carseats, recycling broken strings of Christmas lights, cleaning out some papers from college, etc. I'm hoping our max inventory of stuff was a year or two ago and we can just slowly pare down over the next 20 years. Nothing drastic.

 

I started and abandoned Hawksmoor as too much evil. I'm now reading The Hate U Give--no big thoughts on that one yet except that 444 pages seems on the long side (I have that comment a lot. I tend to think most storied can be told in under 300 pages!)

[Butter]

This morning I finished The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly.  It's historical fiction.  I pre-read it for Cameron and Fritz.  It slowly unfolds the story and each chapter starts with some background historical information that relates to the chapter somehow.  I liked it.

[mumto2]

I haven't had much time for reading this week. I did finish my audio book It Devours! which is the second Night Vale book. It was.....entertaining IMO but dd loved it and all the pod casts etc associated with Night Vale. I will read more if dd really wants me to but not a first choice for me.

 

 

I've been looking forward to reading Song of the Silk Road for this stop so I have checked it out. I just hope I find more reading time! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8567279-song-of-the-silk-road?ac=1&from_search=true.

 

I still have my Murakami's to finish and several British cozy mysteries to read. I am currently working on a historical mystery set Post WWI called River of Darkness by Rennie Airth. At 50% I rate it as quite good. I like the characters and will be reading the sequels. This is one that kept appearing on lists as being good. For England county locations it has several Surrey, Sussex, Kent, and London, so far!

 

VC, Ouch, glad you are healing well.

 

Negin, I am looking forward to your holiday planning books!

[marbel]

I just finished my third book of the year, No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer.  Such a fun, delightful, fluffy, amusing little mystery.   I'm about to hand it off to my daughter, who has read many of Heyer's Regency romances. I think she will like this one too.

[Ausmumof3]

Currently...

About three to four ch in on the little coffee shop in Kabul.

About the same in on ICO by miyuki miyabe.

 

This is an odd book based on a PlayStation game apparently but I'm finding it an oddly compelling read. There is something about Japanese lit I think.

 

Also have read one of the free iBooks of the week which was a pretty trashy romance with an annoying and disappointing ending. I've had some of the free iBooks be surprisingly good. Not this one.

 

I'm listening to rethinking school and nodding my head to so much of it. Not surprisingly.

 

Still working through book 5 of the incorrigible children of Ashton place as a read aloud with my kids. I really want to up my read aloud habit this year. I especially wish I was doing more at ds5 level.

[Zebra]

This week I finished My Name is Lucy Barton and The American Heiress.   They were both fine.   I also continued reading Alexander Hamilton and I absolutely cannot wait to be done with this book, and have no idea why I am torturing myself  :lol: .  

 

I started Suite Francaise this week.   The story of the writer of the book is compelling; the book not so much.   I am probably going to give up.

 

I also started The Buried Giant, in my quest to finish all of Ishiguro's works.   I don't like medieval type fantasy books, so I am not thrilled with this one.  I am also listening to The Circle which is frightening.   It's not the greatest book ever, but I am finding myself yelling at the characters in my head, and wanting to find out how it ends.

 

  

[Guest]

I am practically, but not totally, finished reading The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. It is full of interesting, if maddening, information about how the sugar industry has covered its expansive behind and sugar-coated (haha) reports that would otherwise show the link from sugar consumption to the illnesses of western diet/lifestyle -obesity, diabetes, heart disease. Fascinating. Is also a motivator to reduce sugar in my diet, though I am already on the lower side of average. (I had jumped ahead to read the Epilogue in order to answer the burning question, “How much is still too much?†But the answer was ambiguous and now I am slogging theough the details of the last chapter)

 

I am in the middle of The One Hundred Year Old Man... -what a terrific book! Thanks to those who mentioned it here; I don’t remember who said it first. I love this book. If my Book Club people were more open to buying a book instead of borrowing, I would have suggested this book for Book Club. But there are no copies available far and wide.

 

Book Club has chosen Brave New World for this month. This will satisfy my own mini-challenge of reading one classic each month.

 

I want to read Rethinking School but I need to wait until I finish these.

[Matryoshka]

Finally finished some books!  :)  So, three down for the year now. 

 

1. One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead by Clare Dudman (audiobook) - Really liked this book about the life of Alfred Wegener, the German meteorologist who came up with the idea of continental drift.  4 stars.

 

2. Sein eigener Herr /Independent People by Haldór Laxness - Another one I really liked.  Bjartur is such a frustrating stubborn old git. I loved the character of Nonni and was glad he didn't end up like everyone else.  I even enjoyed learning about early 20th century Icelandic politics....  4 stars.

 

3. Zealot by Reza Aslan (ebook) - Very interesting book putting the historical Jesus into the political, religious and historical context of the times.  4 stars.

 

Currently reading: 

 

- The Dark is Rising - oops, behind on this one.  An enjoyable re-read.

 

- Dune (audiobook) - yeah, I've somehow managed never to have read this.  I think I tried once and couldn't get into it.  Trying it on audio instead.  Made a dent driving to upstate NY this weekend. 

 

- Word by Word: The Secret Lives of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper (ebook) - just downloaded this from Overdrive, so don't have much to say yet...

 

Coming up:

 

Have to get started on my two books for SciFi book club - Way Station and The Door into Ocean...

 

[Critterfixer]

Going to try to get some fiction read this week. Last week I finished some non-fiction selections, but the combination of surgery and sick children derailed a lot of plans. 

[Mothersweets]

Hi everyone!  

 

I haven't finished anything this week. I've been a bit overwhelmed with dress and shoe shopping lately. My son's wedding is next week and finding a dress that fits and is appropriate, etc. was harder than I expected! Anyway, I ended up finding three dresses and will just have to choose the one that fits the best after I stuff myself into some shape wear ( thank you, Spanx!). So, all that to say that I have been reading two books this week and just haven't finished anything yet - 

 

War and Peace -  Pierre is finding his mojo again.

 

Code Name Verity - I'm about halfway through and liking it.  

 

I'm going back to read through the thread now.

 

eta - I forgot to say that I am also listening to Gone With the Wind on audio. 

 

I hope your hand heals quickly, Violet!

Edited January 15, 2018 by Mothersweets

[Shawneinfl]

I'm enjoying SWB's new book: Rethinking School. I've been home educating for 18 years and this book has me looking at all my educational assumptions in a whole new way. I have much to chew on. I also enjoyed her recent podcast with Andrew Kern at Circe Forma.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Shawneinfl

[Ottakee]

I finished my first book in a week today.  

Have a Little Faith https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1255781.Have_a_Little_Faith  True story of a man asked to give a eulogy for his rabbi and his journey preparing for that and his interactions with a former addict turned pastor of a poor inner city church.  I give it a solid 4 starts.  While I don't agree with all of his theological positions, it does make you think and consider.  A nice, easy listen......that makes you want to have known the rabbi and the pastor in person.

 

I was reading Life Among the Piutes and it started out better but is a bit slow now.  Since I have got it as a free kindle book it is now on hold for a while as I have one of my kindle library books that needs to be read first.

I also started listening to Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder which is a light cozy mystery.  I read many in the series years ago but needed a nice, lighter book to listen to right now.

[Faithr]

Hello fellow readers!  Long time no see!  I started off last year really going for the bingo challenge but I wimped out half way. .. . I just am not that good at challenges.

 

Anyway, it took me over a year but I finished City of God by Augustine!  Woot!

And I just finished Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell.  An accidental reread (forgot I had read it before!)  But an excellent novel.  I loved it (again.)

Now I've started on Sylvia's Lovers also by Gaskell.

I'm also reading Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson

And The Odyssey (Lattimore) with my 11th grader.

[chiguirre]

I'm almost done with the audiobook of Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Silk-Roads-New-History-World/dp/B01B6OC1J6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515978697&sr=8-1&keywords=silk+roads

 

It's an excellent book. I've enjoyed looking at history through a different perspective and I've learned a lot about the Middle East and Central Asia.

[ErinE]

Several of my current reads are chunksters so I don’t feel like I’m making much progress. Good news! I submitted my volunteer application to the library before the winter holidays and I just received a call back. They want me to volunteer during the children’s story time which I think will be fun. Since I’ve cut back on my volunteering over the past few years, I’m looking forward to starting up again.

 

Books finished last week:

• Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. Fantasy. The commander of the Night Watch time travels to the past to hunt for a murderer and save the future.

• Biology: The Science of Life by Stephen Nowicki. Science-Biology. A college level course on basic biology concepts. I was reluctant to make much progress on this course as it’s 36 hours of lectures, filled with technical details on protein synthesis, cellular respiration, and photosynthesis. I don’t remember my introductory biology course having so much bio-chemistry but there’s likely been great strides in understanding over the decades. I had a road trip to visit family (and forgot to add other audiobooks) which helped me finish. Highly recommended if you really like biology or have a high school student interested in studying biology.

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. Science Fiction. After being abducted and brought to another planet, a language specialist mingles with alien species and learns their culture. This book is making me reconsider reading at least three books in a series for my NPR sci-fi/fantasy list. I’m moving on to Xanth while I decide if I’ll read Lewis’s next book.

• An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire. Urban Fantasy. A changeling investigates the disappearance of fae and human children. A few months ago, I found all the October Daye novels for a quarter each at the library’s used bookstore. The spines were barely cracked. Of course, I snatched them up and deposited them by my bedside where they’ve been gathering dust. As usual for January, I’m trying to decrease the size of my physical TBR pile.

• Rethinking School: How To Take Charge of Your Child’s Education by Susan Wise Bauer. Education. A brief history of public schooling in the US as well as ways to navigate the education system, whether through public, private, or home schooling. I felt like this a small sampling of the Hive’s wisdom for parents looking for answers so not much was new to me, but I could see how others (who don’t spend way too much time on the forums) would find this valuable. I appreciated Bauer’s honesty about her own parenting journey with her children, particularly the moment where she realized what she wanted for one child might not be best for that child.

• Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams. Memoir. An African-American man reflects on his upbringing and how he escaped the influence of his young peers. I found this book from a discussion between Glenn Loury and John McWhorter where Loury recommended Williams’ writing. This book is essentially a love letter to his father, a Southern black man who struggled to raise his boys in a racist society. Williams talks about the racism he experienced, but he also reflects on his peer culture, where education wasn’t valued and how his father fought against it. The closest analogy I could find in my recent reads, though without the heavy influence of racism, is Hillbilly Elegy. A philosophy class and his father’s continued calm influence ultimately cause him to reorient his values. A few warnings: Williams claims he was acting out a part in order to maintain his reputation, including incidents where he slaps his girlfriend and beats up another boy. His brother is violently arrested by police officers in his parents’ home, and his father’s dilemma over helping his son or being shot is just heartbreaking.

I’m currently listening to Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science and hoping to finish Ron Chernow’s Grant and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers this week. For fiction, I have two Discworld books, more October Daye, and the first book in the Xanth series.

Edited January 15, 2018 by ErinE

[Robin M]

Bringing over post from last week 

Two books completed during Week Two.

I’ve been sort of non-intensely reading about Middle America for the last year or so, and last week finished another book in that vein, called “Hand To Mouthâ€. I heard about it here, I think, and several of the chapters were familiar. I believe that the author published all or most of them as blog posts or essays or articles before the book was published. Conceptually it’s a translation piece about the challenges of being poor here, and what it is really like, and why obvious solutions don’t add up to a safety net or to anything of value sometimes. I found it very inspiring as a basis for moving our food nonprofit more broad. We need to figure out how to organize and tackle dental and optical care for our peeps, I think. That is a big gaping hole in the ‘net’ in general, and I had not previously considered how hard it would be to find a job if your teeth are messed up or if you don’t have glasses that you see properly through. This stuff is like a blinding glimpse of the obvious, really. I wonder if we could at least pass on old glasses in our clothing give away area. That is something that I think people would donate if we asked them to.

And I completed a work of fiction that I enjoyed but don’t remember the title of. Drat. Will return with it when it comes to me.

 

[Robin M]

Whoops!  Double post.  Taking advantage as Hubby made great margaritas tonight.   He used everything including the kitchen sink!    :laugh:

 

 

Haruki Murakimi has translated Raymond Chandler's novels 

 

Lit hub's Do Audio Books Count as Reading

 

Reading the Hours - the medieval experience of the bible

 

42 great horror books

 

Book riots - How fidget spinners can help you read - really!

Edited January 15, 2018 by Robin M

[PeacefulChaos]

I'm going to reply really quick to a couple from last week...

Never Let Me Go is slow and odd, but (imo) masterfully written and worth getting all the way through.  It's not exactly a page-turner for suspense purposes, though!  I liked it more than any of his other books.

 

I just looked up Year One, which looks like totally my thing, but is written by Nora Roberts - I thought she wrote sort of schlocky romances?  I am not sure how I feel about the idea of dystopian romance novels, to be honest.

I've not read much Nora Roberts because she's not my style - I thought I'd give Year One a try because of the dystopian aspect, but I think I will probably abandon it.  I'm about 3 chapters in and the thought of reading it sounds like a chore, so I think that's a sign!  :lol:  I'll just return it tomorrow lol.  

 

 

 

I've added a life goal to my list to be like your IL's. How lucky you and your kids are!

We all agree!  :D

Oh my goodness, I am so sorry! I've only had one (knock on wood) that went about 2 weeks and it was awful. I'll be thinking about you.  :grouphug:

Thank you.

 

* Hidden Impact
Book about the hidden enviromental impact of our western lifestyle.
Lot of pictures, confronting about what really makes an impact
 

 

^^Who is the author?  It sounds interesting but all I'm pulling up are unrelated titles.  

Thanks!

 

 

So, unsurprisingly, I didn't finish a book last week.  :lol:  Oh, well.  No biggie.

 

The kids finished some, though:

 

Link (13):

Air Raid - Pearl Harbor
The Crucible
Two of the Rick Riordan ones... sorry, Idk what they were called or anything.  :lol:

 

Astro (12): 
Angry Aztecs
Canterbury Tales

Pink (8):
What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?
Time Cat
and probably another one from the library, or two even

 

 

As I said above, I'm going to drop Year One - it's just not doing anything for me - and keep going on Never Let Me Go.  :)

[Loesje22000]

 

^^Who is the author? It sounds interesting but all I'm pulling up are unrelated titles.

Thanks!

 

 

. :)

Sorry, for putting you in extra work.

I’m Dutch, and read mostly in Dutch (and a little in English) but for this thread I translate Dutch titles into English if it is not already officially translated.

It is this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30520425-de-verborgen-impact

And not translated yet into English...

[Amira]

I'm almost done with the audiobook of Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Silk-Roads-New-History-World/dp/B01B6OC1J6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515978697&sr=8-1&keywords=silk+roads

 

It's an excellent book. I've enjoyed looking at history through a different perspective and I've learned a lot about the Middle East and Central Asia.

I think this is my favorite book about Central Asian history, especially since it doesn’t isolate Central Asia. And if my son hadn’t gone to school this year, we would have used this book as our primary text for a final year of world history, because it’s much more than just Central Asian history.

[Alice]

I finished The Alice Network, for my book club. It was fine. I didn’t love it or hate it. I did find the real story of the female WWI spies interesting and would like to learn more about that but the book was a little too full of caricatures and simplistic. Someone in my book club commented that it felt like a screenplay and I think that was probably the perfect comment...I felt like the author was writing for the potential movie instead of really developing the characters. 

 

I also read two short stories this week with my 9th grader: Big Two Hearted River by Hemingway and The Bear by Faulkner. I’m still reading Diary of Anne Frank with him as well. 

 

I run a book club for my daughter and her friends and had to read a book for that. It was ok, but interesting in that it’s a self-published autobiography by the grandmother of one of the book club girls. The girl is super excited that we chose it and I think all the girls are intrigued because of the connection. 

 

Up next I think is Autumn by Ali Smith. I have a bunch on my nightstand stack but I believe that has to go back to the library soon so it will be next. 

 

[marbel]

I'm almost done with the audiobook of Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Silk-Roads-New-History-World/dp/B01B6OC1J6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515978697&sr=8-1&keywords=silk+roads

 

It's an excellent book. I've enjoyed looking at history through a different perspective and I've learned a lot about the Middle East and Central Asia.

 

I keep getting this book from the library, starting it, getting distracted, and having to take it back.  I should just buy a copy!

 

I'm going to reply really quick to a couple from last week...

I've not read much Nora Roberts because she's not my style - I thought I'd give Year One a try because of the dystopian aspect, but I think I will probably abandon it.  I'm about 3 chapters in and the thought of reading it sounds like a chore, so I think that's a sign!   :lol:  I'll just return it tomorrow lol.  

 

<snip>

 

 

Has anyone read both Year One and Station Eleven?  They sound a lot alike. I consider Station Eleven to be one of the best books I've ever read.  I've never read anything by Nora Roberts.  Just wondering how they compare.  

[Mom-ninja.]

Jumping in quickly. I'm having a hard time keeping up with my online things I like to do and this thread is one of them. I've only read two books so far and neither is anything to write about. Meh books. 

 

More importantly, I kept forgetting to post that this month is national hot tea month. Well, according to my calendar it is. I have been enjoying Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice, Decaf Chai, and Sugar Plum Spice. I must say I try a lot of different teas and brands and I just find that Celestial Seasonings has almost never let me down. I know I am snubbed by many tea purists but I don't care. 

 

I am currently reading Mort by Pratchett. I'm so happy to all of you here who introduced me to Pratchett. 

[chiguirre]

I keep getting this book from the library, starting it, getting distracted, and having to take it back.  I should just buy a copy!

 

 

Has anyone read both Year One and Station Eleven?  They sound a lot alike. I consider Station Eleven to be one of the best books I've ever read.  I've never read anything by Nora Roberts.  Just wondering how they compare.  

 

I'd suggest getting The Silk Roads and reading a few chapters. Then return it or put it aside for a while and go back to it to read a few more. It's a dense book and trying to read it straight through is asking for information overload. It's an excellent audiobook for that reason. It's almost like a Great Courses class in that sense.

 

I loved Station Eleven! I haven't read Year One, but I'd recommend the Madd Addam trilogy by Margaret Atwood if you like dystopian books.

 

[mumto2]

Has anyone read both Year One and Station Eleven?  They sound a lot alike. I consider Station Eleven to be one of the best books I've ever read.  I've never read anything by Nora Roberts.  Just wondering how they compare.

 

I read and liked both a whole lot. My memory on Station Eleven details are a bit fuzzy so I can't be too exacting in my comparison. Year One has fantasy elements beyond the dystopian. In Station Eleven the surviving humans banded together but being a survivor didn't mean you were special in any way, I think. Year One has an added layer because people with latent magical abilities of any sort suddenly became more powerful which gave them a survival edge. Year One reminded me more of a fluffy The Passage then Station Eleven. I think enjoying paranormal and\or urban fantasy is probably necessary for Year One.

 

Mothersweets, How exciting! Have a great time at your son's wedding!

[Carol in Cal.]

 

This week so far I have finished “The 7 Rules of Elvira Carrâ€.

This novel is set in England and describes the life of a modern 20-something young woman with a Condition—undefined (the word retard is used pejoratively but the specifics are unclear—developmental delay? Autism seems likelyish). She gradually figures out how to live with NT folks in a way that allows her to be on her own among them, and in the process comes to terms with some ugly truths of her family life. It’s decently well-written from her point of view. I liked it but didn’t love it, and would probably not read it again. Glad it’s a library book. :)

 

I have also finished studying the first chapter of “Demystifying the Proverbs 31 Woman†by Elizabeth Ahlman. I am loving this so far but it is meaty and thought-provoking enough to be a very slow read. More scholarly than most books about this subject, I am finding it refreshing in that it doesn’t just treat this description as a list of virtues to aspire to, but also relates the passages to Ruth, to the rest of the book of Proverbs, and ultimately to Christ as the fulfilled of all virtue and the true personification of Wisdom. Highly recommended.

 

In the novel category I have started “The Best Kind of People†by Zoe Whittall.

[Rachel]

I’ve never posted in this thread before but read through the last two and have decided to jump in.

 

In the past week I finished:

-Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig. A story of a girl with autism who was adopted but keeps trying to get back to her birth mother and the little sister no one knows exists.

 

-The Girl Who Wrote in Silks by Kelli Estes. A story behind a silk sleeve found while remodeling a house in modern time. The story is told by the original embroiderer from the late 1800’s and in modern time. It was fiction but I kept hoping it was based on a true story which it wasn’t.

 

-On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder. My family is rereading all the Little House books this school year as my youngest doesn’t remember the last time we read them.

 

I just started A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter. So far I don’t love it, but it is the favorite of a good friend so I’m giving it a shot.

 

I’m also reading through the Bible again this year.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Rach

[Lady Florida.]

I finished The Taming of the Shrew and Prairie Fires last week. According to the schedule I'm following I was supposed to read the final act of Shrew today but I was moving right along and it didn't make sense to stop for the sake of a schedule, so I finished it on Friday. 

 

Every year in January my Goodreads challengel looks like I'm doing great. I'm often at least one book ahead and to anyone who doesn't know it would appear that I'm just reading like crazy. The reality is I'm finishing book began at the end of the previous year. So, if you happen to look at my challenge and see how that I'm ahead keep this in mind. :)

 

Currently Reading -

 

Excellent Women, Barbara Pym - reading with a GR group

Henry VI Part 1, Shakespeare - According to the schedule I'm supposed to start this tomorrow so whatever I read today will just give me a head start.

Jane Austen at Home, Lucy Worsley

The Stranger, Albert Camus

 

I'm on page 609 out of 927 on The Sunne in Splendor - Love Sharon Kay Penman's writing.

 

 

 

Glad to hear you're enjoying it. I loved that book so much and I love when others enjoy it too (even if they don't love it as much as I did). 

 

Also, I forgot to multi-quote your original post but I've had Journeys on the Silk Road on my TBR list for a few years. While I don't plan to start it this week or even this month, I hope to get to it sometime this year. 

 

 

I finished We Were Eight Years in Power this week and thought it was excellent. Coates has helped me to see the world a little differently. I thought the essays on reparations, mass incarceration, and Donald Trump as the first white president were particularly good.

 

 

 

 

I haven't read We Were Eight Years in Power but I can say the same (the bolded) about Between the World and Me. This next one is on my TBR list. Coates makes me uncomfortable but in a way that I need to be made uncomfortable.

[marbel]

I read and liked both a whole lot. My memory on Station Eleven details are a bit fuzzy so I can't be too exacting in my comparison. Year One has fantasy elements beyond the dystopian. In Station Eleven the surviving humans banded together but being a survivor didn't mean you were special in any way, I think. Year One has an added layer because people with latent magical abilities of any sort suddenly became more powerful which gave them a survival edge. Year One reminded me more of a fluffy The Passage then Station Eleven. I think enjoying paranormal and\or urban fantasy is probably necessary for Year One.

 

<snip>

 

 

<snip>

 

I loved Station Eleven! I haven't read Year One, but I'd recommend the Madd Addam trilogy by Margaret Atwood if you like dystopian books.

 

 

Ah, thanks for the information!  

 

I don't typically go for paranormal stories, so think I will pass this one by. 

 

Not generally a fan of dystopian stories either, but Station Eleven was so different from anything of that type I'd ever read.  Not a big M. Atwood fan either; I know I'm in the minority on this.  :-)  

[Raifta]

 

 

More importantly, I kept forgetting to post that this month is national hot tea month. Well, according to my calendar it is. I have been enjoying Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice, Decaf Chai, and Sugar Plum Spice. I must say I try a lot of different teas and brands and I just find that Celestial Seasonings has almost never let me down. I know I am snubbed by many tea purists but I don't care. 

 

I

 

Thank you for giving me a reason to buy more tea.  I feel like I have a lot but I love trying new kinds so I bought a rooibos I hadn't tried before and DD got Mango Passionfruit.  Plus I'm trying to drink tea instead of snacking in the evenings, so it's all good.

 

I'd suggest getting The Silk Roads and reading a few chapters. Then return it or put it aside for a while and go back to it to read a few more. It's a dense book and trying to read it straight through is asking for information overload. It's an excellent audiobook for that reason. It's almost like a Great Courses class in that sense.

 

I loved Station Eleven! I haven't read Year One, but I'd recommend the Madd Addam trilogy by Margaret Atwood if you like dystopian books.

 

 

Haven't read Year One but I also second the recommendation of the MaddAddam trilogy, particularly the first book Oryx and Crake which is that rare beast - a novel that I read as part of book club, having been reluctant to do so and having gotten it out of the library and then felt compelled to buy my own (hard copy!) version of it as I felt it was something that I would reread multiple times.

 

Like many posters, I also finally finished some books this week!

 

2. Catastrophic Happiness by Catherine Newman - a series of short essays about parenting and children and love and heartache.  I enjoyed these and sometimes found them almost painful to read as they were so spot-on about the joys and sorrows of life and living.  I had to pause fairly often to digest the emotions they raised as I thought back on my parenting journey so far and envisioned the future of our family. I got this from the library as I follow Newman's blog Ben and Birdy and was curious about it.  Worth the read.

 

3.  Georgia: An Arctic Diary by Georgia - this was one of my shelf books and was also definitely worth the read.  I was fascinated by this glimpse into the changing Inuit lifestyle in the early 1970s and how the author fit into life in the north and was eager to experience much of the Inuit lifestyle at that time.  She writes with an amazing amount of self-awareness for how her upbringing/culture might impinge on her views of the Inuit.  This is out of print and I am definitely putting it back on the shelf.  I think it might be a required reading book for Canadian History when my kids are in high school.

 

I'm now reading The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai and Less by Andrew Sean Greer, both novels, one from a local Little Free Library, one from the library.  I'm finding them both moderately interesting - enough so to make me want to finish them, but nothing to write home about.  I also started my next shelf book 1939: The Lost World of the Fair by David Gelernter.  I'm wondering about using this for my Microhistory Bingo square - thoughts from the BaWers?

[Raifta]

Ah, thanks for the information!  

 

I don't typically go for paranormal stories, so think I will pass this one by. 

 

Not generally a fan of dystopian stories either, but Station Eleven was so different from anything of that type I'd ever read.  Not a big M. Atwood fan either; I know I'm in the minority on this.  :-)  

 

Ah, you posted as I was posting to recommend MaddAddam as well.

 

Also not a huge Atwood fan, but this I did like.  

[ErinE]

Well, I’ll chime in and say pass on Oryx and Crake. I was bothered by the female character who simply exists as a s*x object for the two male characters (which includes describing child pornography). I read it after Handmaids Tale (where I was bothered by the passivity of the female characters) and can’t bring myself to read Atwood since.

 

ETA: I’ve edited my post, but if the above is too much info, let me know. I think people should be warned. I finished the book just because Atwood is praised so highly but the scene was disturbing to me.

Edited January 15, 2018 by ErinE

[Cascadia]

Jumping in quickly. I'm having a hard time keeping up with my online things I like to do and this thread is one of them. I've only read two books so far and neither is anything to write about. Meh books.

 

More importantly, I kept forgetting to post that this month is national hot tea month. Well, according to my calendar it is. I have been enjoying Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice, Decaf Chai, and Sugar Plum Spice. I must say I try a lot of different teas and brands and I just find that Celestial Seasonings has almost never let me down. I know I am snubbed by many tea purists but I don't care.

 

I am currently reading Mort by Pratchett. I'm so happy to all of you here who introduced me to Pratchett.

I have heard it said that "good wine is wine that you like to drink." I would say the same thing about tea. Enjoy your Celestial Seasonings!

[SKL]

Hi!  Happy 2018.  I've been home for a week and still working on getting back to normal.  :)

 

I am almost done with "Untangled," but I might just read it again since it's pretty much my life right now.  :P 

 

While flying home from circumnavigating the globe, I finally got a chance to read the books I bought for the girls to use to understand the countries we visited for the first time.  The girls didn't bother to read most of them, but I found them interesting.  Yes, they were kids' books, but so what.  :P  One that I would recommend is something about Stories from the Billabong, and also the Abc from Down Under (I like those abc geography books).  Short and sweet.

 

We stopped listening to Oliver Twist in order to squeeze in some middle school books.  Right now we are listening to The Watsons Go to Birmingham.  We will go back to Oliver once that is done, and we also received several classics for Christmas that I'm looking forward to sharing with them.

 

Right now I'm between read-alouds.  I think I would like to read some geography oriented books and other non-fictions that the girls are ageing out of.  They may not be too thrilled with that plan, but I feel like it's now or never with these books.  Then we can tackle another classic.

[LuvToRead]

Last week I finished "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See and

"Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain.

 

 

My current reads are "All She Left Behind" by Jane Kirkpatrick and "Assaulted Caramel" by Amanda Flower.  I enjoy a cozy mystery!

[Butter]

Today I finished Until We Collide by Charlotte Fallowfield.  That was one of the U's in turquoise.  It was a lovely little love story.  The couple were in love for years, but every time they bumped into each other, they were with other people so it was never "their" time.  In between, her love life was a comedy of errors.  While it was easily put-down-able, I enjoyed it a lot.

[Soror]

We made a library run and I picked up all sorts of goodies, perhaps a bit optimistic for the 3 wk check-out window :) 

 

I picked up The Art of Asking by Palmer, just started and nearly half-way through, I nearly put it down 30 pages in but I'm glad I kept going, it is really speaking to me at this point in my life (my word of the year being connection). I just picked it on a whim from the fav book list having liked the TED talk.

 

I also picked up 2 graphic novels, The Complete Maus and The Complete Persepolis, I've heard rav reviews for both so decided to pick them up.

 

Lastly, I grabbed a non-fic about women codebreakers of WW2.

 

Oh, and I'm half-way through a reread of The Hobbit, I'm loving it even more this go around. I planned to stretch it out but haven't been able to stop myself (maybe with other books here to distract me I'll slow down a bit).

[tuesdayschild]

Posting our BaW post first then I'll come back later when I have time to check out titles you are each mentioning  :o

 

We've just started to plan our new educating year and are considering literature, subjects, and outsourced courses (for state-run accreditation)  for Dd's first year of being the sole homeschooler in our home.  She has asked, specifically, to study through a few ancient classics, so I'm going to join in with her as a reading/discussion buddy.

 

I'm only doing a basic 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.

The books completed last week:

Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret ~ Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor N/F, Christian.  England, China. 

It took me a while to settle into this book, as mentioned a few weeks back, I nearly abandoned it a few times.  I’m pleased I stuck with it as I started appreciating this biography more once Taylor actually got to China. Such hardship!  As a small aside, the amount of time Taylor spent in sea travel was phenomenal.   

 

In This Grave Hour ~ Jacqueline Winspear    Kent, and, London, England.  (audiobook)

I wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate this book, so that taints my review. 

The narrator has a slightly depressive voice so I elected to skip all the repeated references to (the years back) tragic death of her husband and a subsequent miscarriage.  The author includes this as a very lengthy explanation, almost word for word, in every single book.  IMO, it is unnecessary and repetitious detail at this point in the series. 

The main mystery, the murder of the Belgians, wore a bit thin. The secondary mystery, trying to work out who the evacuee Anna is and where she is from, was much more interesting.  

 

Manna from Hades ~ Carola Dunn   Cosy mystery.  Cornwall, England.

Eleanor Trewynn is not unlike Mrs. Pollifax though definitely more dithery.  Having only read Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple cosy mysteries I was a little surprised at the amount of cursing the author injected into this book. No f  bombs.

 

Dead Mountain  ~ Donnie Eichar   N/F.    Russia, Ural Mountains.

The mystery surrounding this case is interesting.  Eichar writes well and is building background for his theory on what caused the hikers death.  He presents ‘scientific explanation’ as the solution to the mystery.  Perhaps.  Not convinced the case is solved. For others that like to know things like this too:  the author uses an F word early on in the book.

 

Still reading and enjoying:

The Zookeeper’s Wife,

My Family and Other Animals, and,

The Bettencourt Affair ~ (audiobook with the DC).

 

New to my reading basket this week:

• Young Mrs. Savage ~ D.E. Stevenson   Fiction. Gentle read. Scottish Countryside  (Found this author via BaW. Thank you!  So enjoyed Miss. Buncle.)
• Gray Matter ~ David I. Levy, M.D    N/F.   Medical/Memoir/Christian
• Moon Over Manifest ~ Clare Vanderpool  (I constantly review children’s books.  Enjoying this so far.)                   Would this count as a read for the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge – it only has 351 pages?

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Tuesdays Child

[PeacefulChaos]

Sorry, for putting you in extra work.

I’m Dutch, and read mostly in Dutch (and a little in English) but for this thread I translate Dutch titles into English if it is not already officially translated.

It is this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30520425-de-verborgen-impact

And not translated yet into English...

Aw, man, I went and got my hopes up!  :lol:  jkjk  

 

Jumping in quickly. I'm having a hard time keeping up with my online things I like to do and this thread is one of them. I've only read two books so far and neither is anything to write about. Meh books. 

 

More importantly, I kept forgetting to post that this month is national hot tea month. Well, according to my calendar it is. I have been enjoying Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice, Decaf Chai, and Sugar Plum Spice. I must say I try a lot of different teas and brands and I just find that Celestial Seasonings has almost never let me down. I know I am snubbed by many tea purists but I don't care. 

 

I am currently reading Mort by Pratchett. I'm so happy to all of you here who introduced me to Pratchett. 

I am with you on the tea!  Well, sort of.  I sit here every night and go through the thread with a cup of Good Earth Sweet & Spicy, which my snobby tea friends scoff at.  ;)  But I LOOOOOVEEE it.  So.  

 

Ah, thanks for the information!  

 

I don't typically go for paranormal stories, so think I will pass this one by. 

 

Not generally a fan of dystopian stories either, but Station Eleven was so different from anything of that type I'd ever read.  Not a big M. Atwood fan either; I know I'm in the minority on this.  :-)  

 

 

I'm kind of take it or leave it with M. Atwood.  When I read Oryx and Crake I was expecting so much more, partly because so many people raved about it.  I didn't know it was part of a trilogy, though, and I enjoy her books here and there.  

Which reminds me, I'm sure it was talked about back when it first came on but I wasn't on the board for quite some time - but I really liked the hulu adaptation of A Handmaid's Tale.  I've read the book and obviously this was a little different, but I felt like it was excellently done.

 

 

I'm liking Never Let Me Go more and more!  I'm nearly done with it, but right now it's got me thinking a lot lol.  

I was also thinking a little bit ago, it's been quite some time since I've really just read a lot.  So I think it will be trial and error for awhile, and maybe forever, as I try books and don't like them/ like them/ try to figure out what sort of things I like the best/ what I need to be in the right mood for/ etc.  I read a ton when I was a kid, but somehow it sort of fell off the radar for awhile.

[Robin M]

This week I burned the fingers of my dominant hand pretty badly, but they're all healed now, and the upside (silver lining! that's it!) was that, dh doing all the housework, I finished my first two books of the year and made headway through the slower ones I'm reading.

 

Ouch!! Glad you are doing better.  

 

 

Robin, years ago a book called Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day changed my life.  I still draw on strategies I learned from that book (along with A Clockwork Muse, and more recently, Ann Patchett's essay on writing in Secrets of a Happy Marriage).

Thanks, I'll be sure to check them out.

 

Ouch! Sorry to hear this. 

 

I read Todo in Tuscany - 3 Stars - This was a truly heartwarming book, which had me in tears in some parts. If you love dogs and/or Tuscany, this book may be for you. I love dogs and we will be visiting Italy (as well as Tuscany) in a few months. Sorry for the overkill, but I will be reading lots of Italy-themed books before we go. My entire family laughs at my travel-themed books before trips. I think it's funny also. 

 

Looking forward to your reads about Italy and your travels. Always exciting to hear about your travels!   

 

 

Hi everyone!  

 

I haven't finished anything this week. I've been a bit overwhelmed with dress and shoe shopping lately. My son's wedding is next week and finding a dress that fits and is appropriate, etc. was harder than I expected! Anyway, I ended up finding three dresses and will just have to choose the one that fits the best after I stuff myself into some shape wear ( thank you, Spanx!). So, all that to say that I have been reading two books this week and just haven't finished anything yet - 

 

War and Peace -  Pierre is finding his mojo again.

 

Code Name Verity - I'm about halfway through and liking it.  

 

I'm going back to read through the thread now.

 

eta - I forgot to say that I am also listening to Gone With the Wind on audio. 

 

I hope your hand heals quickly, Violet!

How exciting! Congratulations to your son.  We look forward to seeing pictures! 

 

Hello fellow readers!  Long time no see!  I started off last year really going for the bingo challenge but I wimped out half way. .. . I just am not that good at challenges.

 

Anyway, it took me over a year but I finished City of God by Augustine!  Woot!

And I just finished Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell.  An accidental reread (forgot I had read it before!)  But an excellent novel.  I loved it (again.)

Now I've started on Sylvia's Lovers also by Gaskell.

I'm also reading Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson

And The Odyssey (Lattimore) with my 11th grader.

Welcome back!  Yeah for finishing City of God!

 

Several of my current reads are chunksters so I don’t feel like I’m making much progress. Good news! I submitted my volunteer application to the library before the winter holidays and I just received a call back. They want me to volunteer during the children’s story time which I think will be fun. Since I’ve cut back on my volunteering over the past few years, I’m looking forward to starting up again.

 

Books finished last week:

• Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. Fantasy. The commander of the Night Watch time travels to the past to hunt for a murderer and save the future.

• Biology: The Science of Life by Stephen Nowicki. Science-Biology. A college level course on basic biology concepts. I was reluctant to make much progress on this course as it’s 36 hours of lectures, filled with technical details on protein synthesis, cellular respiration, and photosynthesis. I don’t remember my introductory biology course having so much bio-chemistry but there’s likely been great strides in understanding over the decades. I had a road trip to visit family (and forgot to add other audiobooks) which helped me finish. Highly recommended if you really like biology or have a high school student interested in studying biology.

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. Science Fiction. After being abducted and brought to another planet, a language specialist mingles with alien species and learns their culture. This book is making me reconsider reading at least three books in a series for my NPR sci-fi/fantasy list. I’m moving on to Xanth while I decide if I’ll read Lewis’s next book.

• An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire. Urban Fantasy. A changeling investigates the disappearance of fae and human children. A few months ago, I found all the October Daye novels for a quarter each at the library’s used bookstore. The spines were barely cracked. Of course, I snatched them up and deposited them by my bedside where they’ve been gathering dust. As usual for January, I’m trying to decrease the size of my physical TBR pile.

• Rethinking School: How To Take Charge of Your Child’s Education by Susan Wise Bauer. Education. A brief history of public schooling in the US as well as ways to navigate the education system, whether through public, private, or home schooling. I felt like this a small sampling of the Hive’s wisdom for parents looking for answers so not much was new to me, but I could see how others (who don’t spend way too much time on the forums) would find this valuable. I appreciated Bauer’s honesty about her own parenting journey with her children, particularly the moment where she realized what she wanted for one child might not be best for that child.

• Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams. Memoir. An African-American man reflects on his upbringing and how he escaped the influence of his young peers. I found this book from a discussion between Glenn Loury and John McWhorter where Loury recommended Williams’ writing. This book is essentially a love letter to his father, a Southern black man who struggled to raise his boys in a racist society. Williams talks about the racism he experienced, but he also reflects on his peer culture, where education wasn’t valued and how his father fought against it. The closest analogy I could find in my recent reads, though without the heavy influence of racism, is Hillbilly Elegy. A philosophy class and his father’s continued calm influence ultimately cause him to reorient his values. A few warnings: Williams claims he was acting out a part in order to maintain his reputation, including incidents where he slaps his girlfriend and beats up another boy. His brother is violently arrested by police officers in his parents’ home, and his father’s dilemma over helping his son or being shot is just heartbreaking.

I’m currently listening to Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science and hoping to finish Ron Chernow’s Grant and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers this week. For fiction, I have two Discworld books, more October Daye, and the first book in the Xanth series.

Congratulations on your new volunteer position reading for children's hour.  Sounds like loads of fun. Let me know how you enjoy Anthony's first book Spell for Chameleon in the xanth series.  I have quite a few packed away in my closet and happy to pass the next one along if you are interested.

[Soror]

I finished The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer today. I loved it. Lying awake in the middle of the night I was thinking about it. Ironically it hit me that it had little to do with the theme of the book, asking for help is not a huge struggle for me, I feel it is a blessing to let others help you. I enjoy that circle of giving and taking. BUT her sharing and openness, it hit me that it is the other end of the connection I'm striving for, to be an outside observer was inspiring and illuminating. Another theme that hit home to me was the acceptance of self and others, approaching my 40s that has been heavy on my mind, finally letting go of my inner critic and my worries about what everyone else thinks. Lastly, it was a peak inside a life so entirely different than my own. I rarely read biographies, I really should make it a point to seek them out.

 

 

Booklist- 

1-4: The Dark Is Rising Series

5: The Art of Asking

[Robin M]

Going to try to get some fiction read this week. Last week I finished some non-fiction selections, but the combination of surgery and sick children derailed a lot of plans. 

Hope you and the kids are all feeling better! 

 

Jumping in quickly. I'm having a hard time keeping up with my online things I like to do and this thread is one of them. I've only read two books so far and neither is anything to write about. Meh books. 

 

More importantly, I kept forgetting to post that this month is national hot tea month. Well, according to my calendar it is. I have been enjoying Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice, Decaf Chai, and Sugar Plum Spice. I must say I try a lot of different teas and brands and I just find that Celestial Seasonings has almost never let me down. I know I am snubbed by many tea purists but I don't care. 

 

I am currently reading Mort by Pratchett. I'm so happy to all of you here who introduced me to Pratchett. 

Eep!  So glad you posted as I have been remiss in sending out your bingo prize! Will get it in the mail in the next couple days! 

 

I keep getting this book from the library, starting it, getting distracted, and having to take it back.  I should just buy a copy!

 

 

Has anyone read both Year One and Station Eleven?  They sound a lot alike. I consider Station Eleven to be one of the best books I've ever read.  I've never read anything by Nora Roberts.  Just wondering how they compare.  

I read both Year One and Station Eleven?   While Nora is one of my favorite writers, Year One wasn't her best by far.  Station Eleven was so much better.  Given that Year One is more of a paranormal story, Station Eleven is a true apocalyptic novel and the characters had to rely on their wits and each other, rather than magic, for survival.  Up there with Swan Song and possibly Under the Dome (more of microcosm than world wide) for how humanity is put to the test and how they evolve from there. 

 

 

• Moon Over Manifest ~ Clare Vanderpool  (I constantly review children’s books.  Enjoying this so far.)                   Would this count as a read for the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge – it only has 351 pages?

Definitely!  Any kid's book over 100 pages counts as long as it has substance and this one certainly does.  

[mumto2]

Jumping in quickly. I'm having a hard time keeping up with my online things I like to do and this thread is one of them. I've only read two books so far and neither is anything to write about. Meh books.

 

More importantly, I kept forgetting to post that this month is national hot tea month. Well, according to my calendar it is. I have been enjoying Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice, Decaf Chai, and Sugar Plum Spice. I must say I try a lot of different teas and brands and I just find that Celestial Seasonings has almost never let me down. I know I am snubbed by many tea purists but I don't care.

 

I am currently reading Mort by Pratchett. I'm so happy to all of you here who introduced me to Pratchett.

Your mention of Sweet Plum Spice tea had me looking for something similar at the store today. Another fan of flavored teas. My current favorite is Twinning's Lemon Ginger. I really can't complain but it's cold and that flavor warms me right up. It's actually snowing here. The little boy next door is super excited. :lol: Then there is me who wonders why I didn't pick up more milk at the store just in case. Forecast for tomorrow is sunny and high 40's so I am just paranoid.

 

I finished a good series mystery today which is part of the Duncan Kincaid series by Deborah Crombie. He is a current day Scotland Yard Detective who travels around England solving cases which will be great for Brit Tripping. It's also on my list of series that I want to read more of so it is perfect for this years plans. This one was set mainly in Cambridgeshire. Hehttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/573127.Dreaming_of_the_Bones and is number 5 in the series. I have huge problems with being out of order in series and read the first 4 over the past 2 years but suspect that for most this book could stand alone. The bits of needed background are filled in.

 

Tuesdayschild, Glad you are enjoying DE Stevenson. I've been saving the Bundle series to read for when I need nice.......Was it good?