mumto2 Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 The rush of wonderful memories-with-my-children on from seeing that title. ♥ A quick memory trip with this children's book is a really nice way to start today: it's my son's 18th birthday today (and my Dd's 16th on Sunday) I wonder if they'd let me read some of it out aloud to them :lol: Happy Birthday to both of your dc’s! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuesdayschild Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Happy Birthday to both of your dc’s! Thank you! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cascadia Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Thanks to all those who've read Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear and commented on them. I had noted that I was looking for a nice fiction book to read and I was also scared to read these as I'd enjoyed some other Willis books previously and was afraid to ruin the magic. Well, I started Blackout last night and although I'm only 40 pages in, it is just as good as I'd hoped - fast paced, page-turner, interesting characters. Oh! and DD chose a book for me at the library last night: they had this display called "Blind Date with a Book" and the books were wrapped in brown paper with a two sentence description of the type of story. She was quite delighted by this concept and took her time picking one. She ended up picking Sense and Sensibility, so I will read that and be quite happy with her choice, as I haven't read it for probably 15 years at least and it will be good for my Brit Tripping. We also decided that this summer for their summer reading challenge, I will wrap up 20-30 books for them with descriptions and they will have to read 10-15 of them. I love this because then they aren't just picking a book based on its cover. I just finished All Clear this morning, and wanted to comment on this. I think that Blackout/All Clear can stand on their own, but there are two important characters who appear in this pair of books that we have previously met in Doomsday Book, and one might wonder why they are so important when they actually appear pretty briefly here. Also, when the story is wrapped up at the end of All Clear there is a very nice callback to Doomsday Book, and it would be a shame to have missed the significance. Of the four Oxford Time Travelers books, To Say Nothing of the Dog can completely stand on its own. It is also more lighthearted, while the other three are heavier drama. Blackout/All Clear are #14 and #15 for 2018. Brit Tripping update: 6 books read 14 counties 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cascadia Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 I have a question about the "Christmas in London" section of Brit Tripping. Does that mean that it needs to be a story that takes place in London at Christmas? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 The rush of wonderful memories-with-my-children on seeing that title. ♥ A quick memory trip with this children's book is a really nice way to start today: it's my son's 18th birthday today (and my Dd's 16th on Sunday) I wonder if they'd let me read some of it out aloud to them :lol: I hope that you do get to read at least some of the book aloud! A very happy birthday to both of your children. Regards, Kareni 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 So, I've already mentioned I'm aiming waaaay low for the Brit-tripping thing, but I know I'll end up reading a bunch of books set in England just 'cause (two so far), so I figure I should clarify where/if they fit in as I go along... Would Oxford on an alternate Earth count? (That would be Oxfordshire? Is "shire" just British for "county"?) Ooo, and I just looked up the setting of The Dark is Rising, and it's set in Buckinghamshire. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aggieamy Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 (edited) I have a question about the "Christmas in London" section of Brit Tripping. Does that mean that it needs to be a story that takes place in London at Christmas? I haven't had a chance to consult with Sandy so hopefully she'll agree with me ... Any book set in London will count. We will attempt to tie our posts into Christmas events around London but the story doesn't have to be a Christmas story. And six Brit Trip books read already! Wow. That's awesome! So, I've already mentioned I'm aiming waaaay low for the Brit-tripping thing, but I know I'll end up reading a bunch of books set in England just 'cause (two so far), so I figure I should clarify where/if they fit in as I go along... Would Oxford on an alternate Earth count? (That would be Oxfordshire? Is "shire" just British for "county"?) Ooo, and I just looked up the setting of The Dark is Rising, and it's set in Buckinghamshire. Oxford on an alternate Earth? Cool. Tentatively ruling is that it will count as long as it had an "England" feel to it. Edited February 16, 2018 by aggieamy 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aggieamy Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 I finished my Oxfordshire book off late last night. The second in the Lacey Flint mystery series. Another five star read. I requested the next one from the library already but it'll be back in London so I'll have to check the list for what I want to read next week. Dead Scared by SJ Bolton I'm still chugging away at Chrysanthemum! I'm getting much closer. My plan is to finish it and ROSE off by the end of February. Am I the only one still working on Chrysanthemum? 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 (edited) Oxford on an alternate Earth? Cool. Tentatively ruling is that it will count as long as it had an "England" feel to it. Yes, very England feel, complete with local accents and profs from Oxford University and a trip down the Thames. It's the first of three new prequels to the His Dark Materials trilogy (in which our heroine from alternate Oxford has a visit to the Oxford of our Earth). :) Edited February 16, 2018 by Matryoshka 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeacefulChaos Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 I finished my Oxfordshire book off late last night. The second in the Lacey Flint mystery series. Another five star read. I requested the next one from the library already but it'll be back in London so I'll have to check the list for what I want to read next week. Dead Scared by SJ Bolton I'm still chugging away at Chrysanthemum! I'm getting much closer. My plan is to finish it and ROSE off by the end of February. Am I the only one still working on Chrysanthemum? :seeya: 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaughingCat Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Tor.com is offering a free book monthly. This month's book is The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. THE EYE OF THE WORLD, the first book of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, is available from February 13, 12:01 AM ET to February 15 11:59 PM ET. Download before 11:59 PM ET February 15th, 2018. As you can see from the above, you should act quickly. The link is here. ** Made it with 15 minutes to spare -- thanks Kareni :) To Say Nothing of the Dog is my favorite Willis. I enjoyed Blackout/All Clear quite a lot -- but the end didn't quite pull together for me. I must admit though I have never read Doomsday Book though -- I've picked it up many times but never got past the first couple pages. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Have y'all seen the cover art for the kindle editions of Mary Stewart's novels? They're delightful! They remind me of vintage travel posters. https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Store-Mary-Stewart/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cp_27%3AMary%20Stewart Many are available for $1.99 and she has several that are set in England :) 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin M Posted February 16, 2018 Author Share Posted February 16, 2018 I'm still chugging away at Chrysanthemum! I'm getting much closer. My plan is to finish it and ROSE off by the end of February. Am I the only one still working on Chrysanthemum? Still chugging away on the vowel express a e u e o. Toot toot! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 (edited) I haven't had a chance to consult with Sandy so hopefully she'll agree with me ... Any book set in London will count. We will attempt to tie our posts into Christmas events around London but the story doesn't have to be a Christmas story. And six Brit Trip books read already! Wow. That's awesome! Oxford on an alternate Earth? Cool. Tentatively ruling is that it will count as long as it had an "England" feel to it. Totally agree! I just finished All Clear this morning, and wanted to comment on this. I think that Blackout/All Clear can stand on their own, but there are two important characters who appear in this pair of books that we have previously met in Doomsday Book, and one might wonder why they are so important when they actually appear pretty briefly here. Also, when the story is wrapped up at the end of All Clear there is a very nice callback to Doomsday Book, and it would be a shame to have missed the significance. Of the four Oxford Time Travelers books, To Say Nothing of the Dog can completely stand on its own. It is also more lighthearted, while the other three are heavier drama. Blackout/All Clear are #14 and #15 for 2018. Brit Tripping update: 6 books read 14 counties Yeah! Six already. :). I am just so glad you are enjoying Brit Tripping! Made it with 15 minutes to spare -- thanks Kareni :) To Say Nothing of the Dog is my favorite Willis. I enjoyed Blackout/All Clear quite a lot -- but the end didn't quite pull together for me. I must admit though I have never read Doomsday Book though -- I've picked it up many times but never got past the first couple pages. I was already planning to read one of Connie Willis' books while Brit Tripping.....it's starting to look like Oxford is going to be a really busy week. But multiple county's right? Have y'all seen the cover art for the kindle editions of Mary Stewart's novels? They're delightful! They remind me of vintage travel posters. https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Store-Mary-Stewart/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cp_27%3AMary%20Stewart Many are available for $1.99 and she has several that are set in England :) I LOVE Mary Stewart and those covers are so pretty. I did match a few with county's on the original list. I probably should try and figure out more for me. There are several I haven't read. Still chugging away on the vowel express a e u e o. Toot toot! Vowels are tough and you are doing this by author, right? Just plain painful! Edited February 16, 2018 by mumto2 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Finished Summerlong (Peter Beagle) last night. For a short book, it had a lot going on. The ending was both predictable and surprising--not an easy trick. I actually may end up buying it for closer study. My best writing textbooks are the books that surprise me. :001_smile: Next up, Ozark, Ozark, a collection of short stories and poems from the mountains just outside my back door. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raifta Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 I finished my two non-fiction books! Huzzah! 1939 - The Lost World of the Fair - Not that impressed - I felt that his reliance on the text of one fairgoer's diary covering one day at the fair made it a rather unbalanced portrayal of 1939 and the Fair. Also, despite the very detailed descriptions of the fair in the diary, I could never get a good sense of what it was like both in the literal sense and in the feelings people had about it - I wanted more maps and photos to accompany the very pedantic explanations of how the exhibits stood in relation to one another. And the occasional typo irritated me (perhaps more than it ought to). Some of the ideas about how society has changed were interesting (more 'ought to' concept of life in 1930s than now) and I wish those could have been explored further. I'm using this for the Microhistory square on the Bingo. Prisoners of Geography - I was fairly underwhelmed by this book; thanks to a fairly strong background in history, keeping up with the news and just completing World History up to the late 90s with the kids last week, not much of this was all that surprising. The chapters on the Middle East and the Arctic were the most helpful in learning something new. For someone who doesn't know much about how current events are driven by geography, this would be a good basic start. Using this one for the Cartography square on Bingo. To those of you who are my GoodReads friends, I'm still not entirely sure how the whole system works but I am enjoying it quite a bit. I'm trying to add 5-7 books a day from previous years' reading lists and I hope that is not too annoying to anyone. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Some bookish posts ~ A fun query from the Word Wenches site: What kind of reader were you as a kid? To My Fellow Hogwarts Houseless: You Are Not Alone by Laura Sackton Our Favorite Literary Female Friendships by Rachel Brittain 8 Pieces of Fictional Art I Wish Were Real by Laura Sackton and a complementary piece: Five Books that Contain Fictional Works of Art by Anne Charnock ** These are currently free to Kindle readers ~ a one day classic: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass POLK, HARPER & WHO by Panayotis Cacoyannis "A thoughtful, observant, and often humorous tale about real connections." Kirkus Reviews Regards, Kareni 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuesdayschild Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 I hope that you do get to read at least some of the book aloud! A very happy birthday to both of your children. Regards, Kareni I've been outvoted - no reading aloud from My Father's Dragon :) And, thank you for the birthday wishes. On a book sharing note ...... my printed copy of Charles Finches A Beautiful Blue Death has arrived from Bookdepository. A nice treat to look forward. I may get to complete Dead Man's Mirror ~ Agatha Christie today (Saturday). That shorter story has so many familiar themes in it ones that Christie has picked up and expounded at length in later books and even used as tiles ie: The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEGway Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 I finished Hillbilly Elegy and A Man Called Ove. I thought HE did a good job of using Vance's own story to highlight some really hard things...that will require more thought. I'm not sure what the take-away should be, though. Like, what should we (I) do with this information? I enjoyed AMCO, but I thought the stressing of 59 as old, old! Old! was a little silly. I'm mid-thirties, and I know better than that. The story seemed a little two-dimensional, too...but I liked that the author sort of played on that (or played it up?) to show how "real" Ove actually was. I'm glad I read it. There's always more to everyone else's story than I know. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 I just finished book # 10 for the year. It was an audio book suggested by a friend. The Mountain Between Us https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036S4CPW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 I listened to the 10 hour book in under 36 hours.....no small feat for a busy mom but it shows how great I thought it was. It sounds like a typical survival story of 2 people on a mountain top in the snow after a place crash. The story is just so much more than that. At times it had me in tears, at other times I was frustrated with the characters but it is a book that really makes you think about more than just the top story. If you do this as an audio book, just a small warning that there is just a few very brief moments that you might not want younger kids to listen to. Nothing explicit but a few hints and just mention of bodily functions. I just know that I like to be warned of these. I listened with my teen and was fine with it. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 I must have taken the wrong bus (you know: left driving in UK ;) ) and ended up in Surrey while finishing Howards End. I started this week in Poison ( cambridgeshire) but there is no WIFI in the examcentre for waiting parents so my kindle dictionary didn’t work... I will try to pick up the reading somewhere. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 These are currently free to Kindle readers ~ a one day classic: What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Volume 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates Storm Portal (Quantum Touch Book 1) by Michael R. Stern Spellsmith & Carver: Magicians' Rivalry by H. L. Burke Regards, Kareni 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 Started Ozark, Ozark last night and read about two places in the state that I absolutely must find and visit. One of them is a beautiful spring, the other an unfinished castle. I also picked up my E book at the library today. The Eye of the World--Robert Jordan. It might be a tad ambitious to finish all of that by the end of February. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin M Posted February 18, 2018 Author Share Posted February 18, 2018 Link to week 8 - please continue conversation in new thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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