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Book a Week 2021 - BW20: 52 Books Bingo - High Adventure


Robin M
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Happy Sunday!  This week we are going to go on a High Adventure for our next 52 Books category. Where will our daring do's take us on our nonfiction and fictional literary adventures this week?   Perhaps we'll climb the highest peak, dive to the bottom of the sea, hike narrow pathways and suspension bridges, brave the elements in the Antarctic or take an impossible quest that stretches the imagination.  

There are a number of ways to go with this category and you can interpret it anyway you like, so have fun following rabbit trails and see where they lead you.


Reedsy takes us to the heart of the jungle, across and under the sea, through the desert, sky, and space with 100 Best Adventure Books of All Time.

The Art of Manliness talks about what every man should read during their lifetime in The Essential Man’s Library: 50 Fictional Adventure Books Edition and Trail and Kale talks about women who inspires us with Best Women's Adventure Books.

When I think of high adventure I always think of westerns for some reason.  Outdoor life brings us a fictitious roundup of 19 Best Western Books of all Time.

Off the Shelf takes us on  7 Adventurous Novels That Will Whisk You Away on an Epic Journey Without Leaving Your Couch.

And of course, I can't leave out Goodreads major list of High Adventure Novels.

 

 
Have fun! 


********************
Count of Monte Cristo


Chapter 43. The House at Auteui
Chapter 44. The Vendetta
Chapter 45. The Rain of Blood

 

 Link to Week 19

 Visit  52 Books in 52 Weeks where you can find all the information on the annual, mini and perpetual challenges, as well as share your book reviews with other readers around the globe.

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Went to bed way late last night around 2:00 and I was tempted to post the Thread then since I sleep in on the weekends. Given that most of y'all are ahead of CA by hours, maybe I'll start posting it Saturday night. 

I'm still emmeshed in the world of Beatrice De Nova, our librarian of the month.  Finished #1 Hidden Fire and #2 This Same Earth.  Starting # The Force of Wind. 

"Giovanni and Beatrice travel to a hidden island on the far edge of China to seek the help of an ancient immortal court. Can they weave their way through the tangled web of centuries-old alliances and ruthless vampire feuds to find what they’ve been looking for? Friends will be revealed, enemies will find them, and a dangerous secret will come to light.
How far would you go to protect the ones you love? What would you sacrifice to kill the one you hate?"

 

We watched Sphere with Dustin Hoffman last night.  I saw it back when it came out and and totally forgot everything about it and it totally blew James mind away. It took him a while to get to sleep as well. Great psychological thriller.  Now I need to read the book. 

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I just finished the contemporary romance Italy Ever After by Leonie Mack; it started slow, but I enjoyed it. @Robin M and @mumto2 , this is the same author who wrote My Christmas Number One.

Here is the book blurb:

"TV journalist Lou feels battered and bruised after her divorce from Phil, the father of her daughter Edie. Her confidence and sense of fun have steadily been drained away, and she isn’t sure who she is any more.

When the opportunity arises to accompany Edie on a music camp in Italy for a month in the summer, Lou jumps at the chance for new adventures, new horizons and new friends. The hazy warmth of the summer sun, shining brightly over the stunning Lake Garda, slowly brings Lou back to life.

Nick Romano, Edie’s music teacher, loves being home in Italy, but coaching his students for their concert in Milan, is bringing back difficult memories. His blossoming friendship with Lou is the perfect distraction, although a summer fling would be easier to conduct without the scrutiny of his mother Greta, not to mention the interference of his extended Italian family.

As the summer passes, full of sunshine and breath-taking scenery, gelato and delicious feasts, Lou and Nick get ever closer. But as the time for farewell creeps up on them, will they be able to say goodbye and leave their memories behind in the Italian sun, or can a summer romance last a lifetime?"

Regards,

Kareni

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Some bookish posts from reddit:

Around the world in women's memoirs

https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/mmlbwy/around_the_world_in_womens_memoirs/

 

Let's Talk About Awesome Mothers and Families in Fantasy

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/lp45qr/lets_talk_about_awesome_mothers_and_families_in/?sort=controversial

 

What is Your One Favorite Fairy Tale, and What is Your One Favorite Book Retelling that Fairy Tale?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/mm6e4a/what_is_your_one_favorite_fairy_tale_and_what_is/


Regards,

Kareni

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@Robin MThank you for the fun thread.  I still need to click the links and explore.  I totally think you should start us off for the next week whenever works best for you!  No objection to Saturday night etc.......


Much of my reading this week as been centered around WWII in England. I have continued listening to Maize Dobbs and am now finishing the last one that has been published. I love that series as it seems to be pretty accurate. I also read the Last Bookshop in London which was fiction mixed with historical realities. These books intertwined and I can’t separate bits between......much about bomb shelters etc. I found the back yard bomb shelter interesting as it brought back memories.......a friend let archeologists into her garden in England to dig for Roman artifacts and they found a bomb shelter instead! Quite a surprise find. They excavated it, photographed it, and put her lawn back the way they found it.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53331577-the-last-bookshop-in-london

A couple of newish historical romance releases have been read both by Grace Burrowes who is a favorite of mine. I also a new mystery by James Verdan who I have enjoyed in the past. On Harrow Hill https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54170803-on-harrow-hill had too many people being killed to appeal but I finished it in order to find out who did it.

 

 

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I’ve been doing some fun escapist reading like a last Mrs Pollifax I hadn’t read before.  Not a lot to report here. 
 

Then I was up almost all night in a “couldn’t put it down” listening to an audiobook - not fun escapist at all, but I highly recommend it. 
 

And it fits the adventure books theme as a real life adventure as well! 
 

Plague of Corruption: Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science (Children’s Health Defense) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1510752242/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_KHYWNM4B46QACRJP1P9V
 

It’s pre-Covid btw. 

Much relates to health issues (like chronic fatigue) I have been dealing with for a long time.   So probably especially meaningful for me. 
 

However, it is also largely about corruption in science and vaccine industry. So in that way it relates to all of us potentially I think. 

 

Edited by Pen
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I just finished the book that my local book group will be discussing this week.

This was an informative and intriguing read, and I look forward to our (first in person) discussion (in over a year!). 

"On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness.

Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature."

Interestingly, the twenty year old thief had been homeschooled.

Regards,

Kareni

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6 minutes ago, Kareni said:

I just finished the book that my local book group will be discussing this week.

This was an informative and intriguing read, and I look forward to our (first in person) discussion (in over a year!). 

"On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness.

Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature."

Interestingly, the twenty year old thief had been homeschooled.

Regards,

Kareni


Is it fiction or based on real story? 

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I read the book The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind and then watched the film in on Netflix. They're very different! I think the absolute starvation was made clearer in the book, but I liked how the film focused on the women and the wider political reasons behind the famine. I also liked how both book and film showed it wasn't just one boy on his own, but a boy supported by a village. The kids watched the film, but I will save the book until they're a little older.

Read Pathfinders by Michael Bennet which is a non-fiction about Aboriginal Trackers (Aboriginal people who helped the police find lost children or criminals) in New South Wales. A good, plain, overview which touched on some important points - the 'tracking skill' was seen as 'instinct', like a dog's sniffing instinct, but was actually based on years of training; there were female trackers as well as male, but they were less likely to be utilised by the police; and that sometimes the Aboriginal people were in the terrible dilemma of being used against their own people. 

Finished off the entire Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan and enjoyed the mix of historical research and romance. I saw another book which looked interesting, Among the Beasts & Briars, but it isn't available in Australia at the moment via ebook; hopefully it appears at some point.

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I just finished my first book by Jodi Taylor, but it's not a book in her St Mary's series that some of you have read.

White Silence: An edge-of-your-seat supernatural thriller (Elizabeth Cage, Book 1) by Jodi Taylor 

This was a gripping read, and I've just requested the second book in the series. Incidentally, this book is currently 99¢ for Kindle readers.

"'I don't know who I am. I don't know what I am.'

Elizabeth Cage is a child when she discovers that there are things in this world that only she can see. But she doesn't want to see them and she definitely doesn't want them to see her.

What is a curse to Elizabeth is a gift to others - a very valuable gift they want to control.

When her husband dies, Elizabeth's world descends into a nightmare. But as she tries to piece her life back together, she discovers that not everything is as it seems.

Alone in a strange and frightening world, she's a vulnerable target to forces beyond her control.

And she knows that she can't trust anyone..."

Regards,

Kareni

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I've finished two books in the past week:

The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eger This very highly recommended a few weeks ago by @Negin and I wholeheartedly agree! Wonderful memoir by a Holocaust survivor, written with so much insight and empathy and love. Something that surprised me was that Ms. Eger lived in El Paso, TX and graduated from UTEP - much of my family is from there and it's rare to hear of anyone actually wanting to go there, lol.

The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery/supernatural thriller. It is set in late Victorian England and follows three different characters as they figure out a series of murders. The writing was terrific and the author really was able to evoke the feel of dirty, grungy, cold London. The voices of the characters sounded of the time and not just modern people with modern sensibilities  wearing Victorian era costumes. I listened to the audio and the narrator was fantastic.

Looking forward to going back through the links posted!

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I've finished two more books.

Death Sworn (Death Sworn series Book 1) by Leah Cypess

This was an enjoyable (perhaps not the right word for a book dealing with assassins) young adult fantasy. I could see reading the sequel.

"Ileni is losing her magic. And that means she's losing everything: her position as the rising star of her people, her purpose in life, and even the young man she loves. Sent to the assassins' cave hidden deep within the mountains, she expects no one will ever hear from her again. The last two sorcerers sent died within weeks of each other. Accidents? Or something more sinister? As Ileni navigates the dangers—both natural and human—of the caves, she'll discover secrets that have been kept for decades. And she'll find an ally in Sorin, the deadly young man who could be the assassins' next leader. With Sorin determined to protect her, sparks—magical and romantic—will fly. But will even he understand the choice she must make in the end?"

**

And Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) by R.J. Blain

This was a rather over the top silly and fun fantasy read. (Adult content)

"Catering to the magical is a tough gig on a good day, but Bailey has few other options. Spiking drinks with pixie dust keeps the locals happy and beats cleaning up the world’s nastiest magical substances. She could live without serving Police Chief Samuel Quinn most days of the week, especially after destroying his marriage.

But when she’s targeted with a cell phone bomb containing gorgon dust capable of transforming her home into a stone tomb, she’s tossed head first into a mess with her sexiest enemy. Add in his ex-wife angling for revenge, and Bailey must use every trick up her sleeve to survive.

The last thing she needs is to fall in love with Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor.

Saving Manhattan will be tough enough."

**

I also read 140 pages of Finders (Firstborn, Lastborn Book 1) by Melissa Scott.  I was enjoying it initially and then my interest waned.

Regards,

Kareni

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Just finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and really enjoyed it. I know a lot of people have recommended it on this board, but it's hard to find here in Australia - not available as an ebook, nor in libraries, and even hard to buy. I finally got a copy via ebay. Definitely a fascinating look at prewar New York as a series of villages, really. It reminded me strongly of another book I'd read, a true story about a boy growing up in a similar situation, can't remember the title. Similar theme of education being the saviour.

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