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Book a Week 2017 - BW26: pearls, pearls, and more pearls


Robin M
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Maybe this & this?

 

If you google "1812 Russian military uniform", you will see various illustrations. The book Russia Against Napoleon also had illustrations of this sort in there (but I've returned the book to the library, so I can't pull it out & look at it right now).

 

Maps & Pictures of War of 1812.

 

(Seriously?!? Are you guys going to drag me back in??? Now I want to start reading again. :lol: and :willy_nilly: !)

Thank you!!

Somehow I got a different year I think

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At the moment I am on track with W&P. What may derail me in the weeks ahead is travel and visitors but I feel fairly confident that I'll see it through.

 

Tolstoy paints the sounds and smells of his settings from drawing rooms to battlegrounds so clearly.  The French and the footnotes can slow one down but I find these elements add depth and context.  I'm not one for quick reading anyway.

 

Applause to whoever suggested this brilliant idea of a W&P readalong.

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I'm still reading War and Peace, just haven't made much progress yet, since I'm reading A Sword of Chaos which is drawing my attention away.  IMHO War and Peace is much better than Moby Dick and if you made through Moby, well...   But I totally understand if it isn't the right time or folks are  not in the mood.  Don't read it if you feel you have too, but because you want to.  Maybe if its looked at, not as a soap opera, but as a character and historical cultural study (albeit fictional) of how people reacted to events during that time period, it might make it more inviting.  War and Peace is a book you have immerse yourself in for at least an hour at a time. Short burst just don't work.  Let yourself be drawn in.  Take notes ala swb's method of reading great books. Write down quotes that you like.  Follow rabbit trails of thought when they occur rather than thinking, oh I'll come back to it later.  Because believe me, when you go back later, you will have completely forgotten why the passage resonated at that time and not even be able to find the passage you wanted to remember.  I've done that often enough I've learned to keep pen close by to record my thoughts.  My 2 cents for the day  ~cheers~

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Powell's Mid-Year Roundup: Best Books of 2017 So Far

 

I know at least a few of these have been read & posted about by BaWers....

 

Interesting - I've read and enjoyed two of them (The Bear & The Nightingale & The Refugees), but I've abandoned three of them, and I added 5 newly to my TR list.  Sounds about right! 

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I'm still planning to read W & P, but I haven't even opened it yet. I knew I would not be able to read it on the schedule. I expect to like it - I liked The Cossacks, The Death of Ivan Ilych, and Anna Karenina. And anyway, I still need an over-500-pages for my bingo card :)

--

 

I really need to do a better job remembering who here led me to a book so I can thank them properly. I started Laurus today and it has pulled me in immediately. I just can't remember who had recommended it!

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The day of my wedding, I went to a fast food restaurant (don't judge....I didn't get to eat at my wedding!) while still in my dress. A man came up to me and asked if he could take my picture with his little girl, who was half hiding behind his leg. She was about 7 or so. Her dad told me they had been across the street eating ice cream when she saw me. She threw her ice cream away and made her dad follow "the pretty princess." So I had my picture taken with her and she told she didn't know that princesses ate chicken nuggets and fries. I told her to keep it a secret.   :lol:  

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I finished two very different books today,

 

Come Sundown  by Nora Roberts

 

Robin, are you the one who has already read this?  I enjoyed it as I normally do books by Nora Roberts.  (Though admittedly I lost interest in and did not finish her previous book, The Obsession.)  Trigger warning for (highlight to view)   kidnapping, rape, and long term captivity.

 

"A novel of suspense, family ties, and twisted passions from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obsession...

 

The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family business, an idyllic spot for vacationers. A little over thirty thousand acres and home to four generations, it’s kept running by Bodine Longbow with the help of a large staff, including new hire Callen Skinner. There was another member of the family once: Bodine’s aunt, Alice, who ran off before Bodine was born. She never returned, and the Longbows don’t talk about her much. The younger ones, who never met her, quietly presume she’s dead. But she isn’t. She is not far away, part of a new family, one she never chose―and her mind has been shattered…

 

When a bartender leaves the resort late one night, and Bo and Cal discover her battered body in the snow, it’s the first sign that danger lurks in the mountains that surround them. The police suspect Cal, but Bo finds herself trusting him―and turning to him as another woman is murdered and the Longbows are stunned by Alice’s sudden reappearance. The twisted story she has to tell about the past―and the threat that follows in her wake―will test the bonds of this strong family, and thrust Bodine into a darkness she could never have imagined."

**

 

I also read the graphic novel T-Minus: The Race to the Moon  by Jim Ottaviani and Zander Cannon to complete a square on the bingo card for my library's adult summer reading challenge.  It was a pleasant read but not something I'll likely re-read.

 

 

"Graphic fictionalized retelling of the moon landing timed for the fortieth anniversary!

In T-Minus the exciting story of two world superpowers racing to land a man on the moon is depicted through compelling comics artwork, taking readers through the history of the race and turning the engineers and astronauts involved into vivid and real characters. The story unfolds through the eyes of the figures working behind the scenes to make this miracle happen, showing every triumph and catastrophe along the way, and culminating in the dramatic event itself."

 

Regards,

Kareni

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I finished First Impressions by Charlie Lovett today.  It was a birthday gift from a friend who knows I love Jane Austen.  The book was a fictional story that weaves back and forth between Jane Austen in 1796 and  young woman in present day England.  A book about books and Jane Austen, love and mystery.  I really enjoyed it.  Though fictional, it didn't seem far-fetched like many Austen fan fics, and it seemed to keep Jane Austen close to what we know about her.  

 

It had a great quote..."A good book is like a good friend.  It will stay with you for the rest of your life.  When you first get to know it, it will give you excitement and adventure, and years later it will provide you with comfort and familiarity.  And best of all, you can share it with your children or your grandchildren or anyone you love enough to let into its secrets."

 

That was book #27 for me and fulfills the "selected by a friend" in the BaW Bingo.

Edited by Angel
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I'm in the middle of this week's W&P section. Hoping to get a good chunk read tomorrow while waiting for DS at chess. 

 

Recently I finished Casino Royale. This was my choice for "an espionage thriller" in the PopSugar challenge. I did not enjoy it. I'd never read or watched any James Bond stuff before, so at least now I know I'm not a fan. I also read Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter for my Prime Number box in BaW bingo. It was about a woman whose son is 18 when 9/11 happens. He makes the choice to join the military instead of going to an Ivy League school. He becomes part of a special ops team, then goes missing during a raid the same night Bin Laden is killed. The story goes back and forth between the son's and mother's perspectives as well as back and forth in time. It was just ok. I found the mom unlikable and there were other things that bugged me that would be spoilers. Going to pass it along to DH, he might enjoy it more.

 

Graphic novels/comic books - everyone in my house likes some variation of these. Within the past month DD discovered the Warriors graphic novels/manga, continuing her ongoing Warriors obsession. I checked out The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 1 a couple of weeks ago because it was mentioned on a homeschool blog I follow. I liked it, but I think my favorite superhero comic is the newer Ms. Marvel series.

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Years ago, my nephew was really into Death Note. For awhile he kept begging me to read it, so I did read some of them -- maybe the first 3 or 4 in the series? (You know that's a lot for me to read of any kind of series. Lol.) Manga is not my thing, but I found the overall storyline interesting enough for the few I read. Maybe you could try the first volume? Your library probably carries it. And, if it is in traditional format, you'll read from back to front.

 

There's a summary of it on this Buzzfeed list of best manga to read...

 

 

My 16yo just finished reading the 4th in the Death Note series and she loves it! The premise is intriguing to me, too!

 

 

Also, I'm on chapter 27? 28? of War and Peace. I'm liking it and plan to read more of it this weekend. 

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So, which 3 did you abandon? I ask because I was thinking The Book of Joan sounds like one you might read....

 

Yep, that was one of them. I didn't give it much of a chance - the body tattooing thing was too intense for me. But it was at a fraught moment that I tried to read it, I don't rule out trying again at some point. The other ones I abandoned were Borne (so weird) and The Hate U Give which I feel kind of guilty about, but it was so very YA. And there were some specific things about how the premise was set up - like this girl who had lived in this neighborhood her whole life was a stranger to the other teens, and was meeting them for the first time at the party at the beginning of the book - just felt so contrived. Like rather than jumping into the story in media res, the author felt compelled to force it to be a beginning. I don't know if that makes sense, but it felt stilted. However, the subject matter is important IMO and it's gotten good enough reviews that I will probably try it again at some point. 

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

Congratulations to Shannon!!! Is this the story that made you cry?

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Congratulations to Shannon!!! Is this the story that made you cry?

 

No, that one she entered in a bigger "grownup"  competition that hasn't been judged yet. This piece is actually a story-within-a-story that is from the novel she's working on. This website is for writers 13-18, so more of a peer group thing than the other one. I'm truly stunned and so happy for her, she needed a lift. Today started out being a really bad day, but we found a naturopath we both feel really optimistic about, and then with this, she's definitely in a much happier head space this evening.

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It's a lovely story, Rose! My favorite sentence:

 

Winkle saw a world of red haze through which dark shapes moved, a world of grey with trees made of stone, a world of towering metal mountains, flashing lights, and loud noises, and a world that wasn’t there at all, but just pretending.

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

 

What a lovely story!  My congratulations to Shannon and to you, Rose.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

Congratulations to Shannon! I liked her story very much. Lovely writing and a well-told tale. [emoji2][emoji106]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

Congratulations to Shannon!!!!! What a lovely story.

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Great job, Shannon!

 

I read three kids books pre-reading for the little boys.  None of them are counted toward my annual total.  One was Viking Ships Before Sunrise by Mary Pope Osborn.  Of course I've read it before.  I really like Magic Treehouse books for little kids.  It's such a gateway to Doctor Who (Treehouse, TARDIS... they're about the same) and I actually like the formulaic-ness of them (I absolutely loved Baby-sitters Club books when I was a kid and those are definitely formulaic).  I also read the Vikings Fact Tracker that goes along with it.  Honestly, it had more information in it than the Horrible Histories: Vicious Vikings I pre-read for Fritz.  Adrian will enjoy both of those books.  For Fritz, I read Can It Really Rain Frogs? by Spencer Christian.  I remember watching him on Good Morning America.  He was so smart and able to tell us all we needed to know about the weather.  The book is pretty fascinating.  Lots of weather information, including some crazy weather, aimed at middle grade age kids.

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A one day only currently free classic for Kindle readers ~

 

 

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

 

About the Author
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818) was an English author and playwright. Strongly influenced by the work of Ann Radcliffe and an adolescence spent learning languages in Europe, Lewis wrote his classic work The Monk in only ten weeks, earning himself the nickname “Monk†Lewis for the rest of his life. He went on to become a member of the English Parliament and an attaché to the British embassy in the Hague.
 

 

"In what is widely considered to be the first Gothic novel, a monk must resist a temptation that could consume his soul

Ambrosio has developed a reputation across Madrid for his piety and selflessness in his role as a monk. Left on the abbey’s doorstep as a child, Ambrosio took quickly to monastic life, and his fellow monks pronounced him a gift from the Virgin Mary. Despite his virtue, his status as the abbey’s favorite son is put in jeopardy with the arrival of Matilda, a woman with a terrible secret who disguises herself as a monk to be closer to Ambrosio.

A sensational Gothic horror novel that is as stunning to readers today as it was two hundred years ago, The Monk is a shocking rumination of the nature of good and evil, and a morality tale that explicitly details the consequences of desire."

 

Regards,

Kareni

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

 

 

:party:  :party: Hooray Shannon!!  Hooray Rose! :party:  :party:

 

It is a very magical story with some truly lovely writing. Count me among the very proud BaW Aunties!

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My Goodreads friends may have noticed that I have been busy putting lots of books in as read without dates. I am sorry that I have been filling your feeds with lots of books by a couple of authors each night. Hopefully I will be organized soon. :lol: ;)

 

I just finished listening to a cozy by Donna Andrews called Lord of the Wings. The only way I could get it was on audio. I wasn't expecting to like it because it's so far into the series and I expected to hate the narrator because she didn't sound like my Meg (the main character). I actually quite liked it...need to look up the narrator and try more with her.

 

Tomorrow we are hopefully heading to the coast for the day. I'm not sure that I will have much peaceful reading time so I will probably stick to the cozy books I have picked out to finish spelling Alexandrite. I will take W&P thanks to my Kindle. I will admit that I am hoping my audio version becomes available before I start another audio book on Monday......

 

Eta.....I just discovered a book I know I read last year not marked on Goodreads. I guess my obsession with trying to organize my series reading might have some additional record keeping benefits!

Edited by mumto2
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An enjoyable post from the Word Wenches site ~ What We're Reading

**

 

Currently free to Kindle readers (some listed previously) ~

 

Eat, Pray, Die (An Eat, Pray, Die Humorous Mystery Book 1)  by Chelsea Field

 

Ice Blue (Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series Book 1)   by Emma Jameson

 
Stray (Touchstone Book 1)  by Andrea K. Höst  (This is one Eliana recommended.)
 
 
 
The Art of Peeling an Orange  by Victoria Avilan
 
 

 

Regards,

Kareni

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I finished The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog.  Honestly, I have no idea how to rate this book. I saw it on a list, thought my dds would enjoy it, put it on hold. They both read it and loved it and told me I needed to read it. So I did . . . and I see why they loved it. It was a good story to appeal to thoughtful children - not little children, many awful things happen - who grapple with thoughts about the Big Questions, essentially boiled down to, if God is good, why are people so awful? And why do such awful things happen? I thought it did a nice job with that. And it was a magical adventure story with girls and boys and dogs and knights and dragons.

 

But for me? Honestly, I found it kind of tedious. And I really don't like books set in a medieval (or other past) time in which the characters act and talk in such a modern way. I find the anachronisms distracting, and this whole book was like that. I couldn't just sink into the story and suspend disbelief, because every page I was thinking, "That could never happen. No one would speak/behave/think like that in 12xx."  So here is a case of a lovely children's story that I think I just was unable to appreciate. I don't know if that makes it good storytelling/wrong demographic or just bad storytelling, but despite some parts that I liked the story really didn't work for me overall. And I found it overly violent for a story that is really pitched to appeal mostly to children. I don't know, I wish I could say I loved it, but I just didn't. I can appreciate what the author tried to do, and clearly it succeeded for my kids, but not for me. Hence, no idea how many stars to assign - luckily goodreads didn't force me to do so!

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I'm still planning to read W & P, but I haven't even opened it yet. I knew I would not be able to read it on the schedule. I expect to like it - I liked The Cossacks, The Death of Ivan Ilych, and Anna Karenina. And anyway, I still need an over-500-pages for my bingo card :)

--

 

I really need to do a better job remembering who here led me to a book so I can thank them properly. I started Laurus today and it has pulled me in immediately. I just can't remember who had recommended it!

Laurus sounds perfect and I just requested it from my library.

 

You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

Yay for Shannon! This is great!

 

For my IRL book group, I finished Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomon. The golf obsession drove me nuts only because that is the only thing DS talks about these days (besides red-headed girls, but I digress). This is the kid who decided to create a golf course in our yard. I'd just gone out for a couple of hours and came home to a golf course, complete with holes and flag poles...At any rate, I would have abandoned this book halfway through if it weren't for my book group. For the first half of the book, I wanted to do a therapeutic intervention on the main character and his wife. In the second half of the book, I became totally enchanted with the story and was ever so glad I stuck with it.

 

I'm in to Part II of W&P and am glad to be reading it. My head is full of a mish-mash of names and places, so I will be digging out the Maude translation for the helpful cheat sheets. More on that later. I've also started reading Mary Alice Monroe's The Book Club. I'm only a few pages into it, but I find it jarring to be reading this at the same time as W&P: the writing is so ... um ... non-Tolstoyan ... 

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

Oh my gosh! What a sweet story and so very well done. Tugged at my heart strings the whole way.  Congratulations Shannon!  Another proud 52 books auntie!

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I finished two very different books today,

 

 

Come Sundown  by Nora Roberts

 

Robin, are you the one who has already read this?  I enjoyed it as I normally do books by Nora Roberts.  (Though admittedly I lost interest in and did not finish her previous book, The Obsession.)  Trigger warning for (highlight to view)   kidnapping, rape, and long term captivity.

 

"A novel of suspense, family ties, and twisted passions from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obsession...

 

 

The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family business, an idyllic spot for vacationers. A little over thirty thousand acres and home to four generations, it’s kept running by Bodine Longbow with the help of a large staff, including new hire Callen Skinner. There was another member of the family once: Bodine’s aunt, Alice, who ran off before Bodine was born. She never returned, and the Longbows don’t talk about her much. The younger ones, who never met her, quietly presume she’s dead. But she isn’t. She is not far away, part of a new family, one she never chose―and her mind has been shattered…

 

When a bartender leaves the resort late one night, and Bo and Cal discover her battered body in the snow, it’s the first sign that danger lurks in the mountains that surround them. The police suspect Cal, but Bo finds herself trusting him―and turning to him as another woman is murdered and the Longbows are stunned by Alice’s sudden reappearance. The twisted story she has to tell about the past―and the threat that follows in her wake―will test the bonds of this strong family, and thrust Bodine into a darkness she could never have imagined."

 

**

Yes, I read it already. An excellent story.  Agree that is was much better than Obsession. That one was quite different and harder to read. 

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You guys, I''m so excited! Shannon just won a writing competition. Details here if you want to read more, but I know not all of you go to the Gen Ed Board, and I wanted to share the news with the BaW aunties for sure!

Congratulations to Shannon! She had some very nice turns of phrase in there.

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