Lucy (Sibyx) digs her ROOTS in 2019

ROOT 2019 Category 1

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** 3 books have been pearl-ruled

Wallflowers, Carryovers, and Unfinished Business from 2018-Category 2


**

**4 books have been pearl-ruled

Pearl Ruled*



I don't have a "goal" of how many to Pearl Rule, but the tickers require a goal, so I put 10.

Hip Hip Hooray for the ROOTS group!

My total for 2018 was 22 read and four or five attempted or "Pearl Ruled"+ as it is called in the 75 group. I am very pleased to have cleared some snags from my shelves.

*"The Pearl Rule" How much of a book do you need to read to decide if it's worth it for you? For me around 20-25%. The rule applies throughout, albeit less rigorously to the 2019 list, unless otherwise indicated.

After much brooding about how to go about ROOTING this year I am inspired by Italo Calvino and his delicious words from If On a Winter's Night A Traveler:



Here is a link to my thread on the 75: 75 in 2019

THE LIST FOR 2019

Category 1
General Fiction
1. Life Before Man Margaret Atwood *** DONE
2. Underworld Don DeLillo
3. Sula Toni Morrison DONE
4. The Adventures of Maqroll Alvaro Mutis DONE
5. The Wrong Set Angus Wilson Pearled
6. The Book Thief Markus Zuzak DONE
7. Blindness Jose Saramago
8. The Russian Debutante's Handbook Gary Shteyngart Pearled

F/SF
1. The Peripheral William Gibson **** DONE
2. Gibbon's Decline and Fall Sherri S. TepperPearled
3. Peeps Scott Westerfeld DONE
4. Gateway Frederick Pohl DONE
5. Lightspeed: Women Destroy Science Fiction
6. The Crucible of Time John Brunner
7. The House of the Four Winds John Buchan
8. Dawn Octavia Butler

Non-Fiction
1. Under the Sea Wind Rachel Carson*****DONE
2. Snakes with Wings & Gold-Digging Ants HerodotusDONE
3. Sold As a Slave Olaudah Equiano Pearled
4. The Shipwrecked Men Cabeza de Vaca
5. Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond
6. A History of Britain at the Edge of the World Simon Schama
7. The Battle of Hastings Harriet Harvey Wood
8. Unquiet Soul: A Biography of Charlotte Bronte Margot PetersDONE

Category 2
Unfinished Business from 2018

Rayfield, Donald
1. Chekhov: A Life DONE!

Wallflowers 2018 Pearl Rule 10-20%

2. DeBeauvoir, Simone The Mandarins Pearled
3. Frazier, Charles Thirteen Moons DONE!
4. O'Faolain, Sean The Heat of the Sun DONE

*Extreme Wallflowers

5. At the Mouth of the River of Bees Kij Johnson ss DONE
6. At the Gate of all Wonder Kevin McIlvoy PEARLED
7. Like You'd Understand Anyway Jim Shepard ss DONE!
8. Losing Nelson Barry Unsworth PEARLED
9. History of the Rain Niall Williams DONE
10. Trespass Grace Dane MazurDONE
11. The Mongoliad (many authors) PEARLED

Books I Wandered Away From and WILL COMPLETE DAMMIT
12. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace (essays)
13. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Lydia Davis DONE

Welcome back and have a great reading year!

Welcome back, Lucy. Glad to see you again, Happy ROOTing.

Welcome back, happy ROOTing in 2019!

Hooray for the ROOTS group indeed, Lucy! Good luck with your ROOTS challenge for 2019.

Welcome back and happy ROOTing!

Thank you all so much!

I am enjoying seeing your categories!

I love the image in >1 sibylline: Recognizable and true!

Just to say that I will likely fiddle around with the list, but it is more or less done.

I'm working on Unfinished Business and Wallflowers.

>9 Caramellunacy: Thank you -- I keep tinkering with them.

>10 connie53: Calvino is the best!

I'm at Page 50 of The Mandarins (a Carryover from 2018.). Faltering in resolve to be tough even though I am not wild about the book so far.

>1 sibylline: Terrific words from Calvino! I finally read it last year and it is good to see those pages...think I will use the categories to triage some shelves of TBRs that I'm now only semi-interested in reading.

Enjoy your ROOTing!

I've picked up my first 2019 ROOT read -- from the sf list, a classic, Gateway by Frederick Pohl. I may have read it in my teens, but if I did, so far, I have zero recollection.

It's nice to get started!

I've put down my first 2019 ROOT read -- de Beauvoir's The Mandarins. In essence it's a matter of balance. If I am not finding the book gripping or enjoyable in itself I have to feel at least that what I am getting from the book is worth the trudge. I'm not taken with the characters and it feels dated and is obsessively political, again, in ways that feel outdated. Hesitantly feminist by our current standards. It's a product of an era.

Next I'll try out Grace Dane Mazur's Trespass.

I've less than a 100 pages to go in the Chekhov bio!

Category 2 Wallflowers etc #1: Pearled

The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir

I didn't even make it to 100 pages, just a tad over 50. I woke up thinking, "I can't read this book. I don't want to read this book." It isn't fair -- my guess is that the novel is entertaining enough in its own way, capturing the postwar era for French and (some) American intellectuals, drawn to what will evolve into the moderated socialist ideas current in the present-day. Also showing how an educated and intellectual and politically oriented woman would manage (or not). (Almost convincing myself to pick it up again!) Deciding not to read a book is an uncomfortable thing. Often you find yourself surprised and edified in unexpected ways. But not this time.

Good decision to drop the book if it's not working for you!

>18 rabbitprincess: That's what I think too. Just Pearl Rule the book.

Category 1 ROOT #1 2019
sf classic ***1/2
Gateway Frederick Pohl

I'm torn between a three and a half and a four star -- I'm going for four because for 1977 Gateway is a big step forward. He may call men "men" and women "girls" but at least the girls are there and working closely with everyone else as equals. A space explorer discovers, on Venus, tunnels and rockets from an alien culture and is taken to an asteroid (Gateway) filled with more spaceships. Problem is the alien technology is impenetrable to the humans, but the ships can be taken out to preprogrammed sites where treasures can be found and fortunes can be made if you don't die in the process, which many do. Enter Robinette Broadhead, regular dude, from Earth, seeking to make his fortune. He makes that fortune but at a price which, back on Earth he explores with a machine therapist. So much here, the alien treasure meme, still fresh, the machine intelligence, a strong move toward gender equality and neutrality about sexual preferences -- one disturbing episode of violence toward a woman mars the overall experience, when Broadhead, jealous of another man, beats up his girlfriend "because that's what guys do, they can't help it." Uh, impulse control? Should you get to have your fingers on the atom bomb, fellas? Just asking. Then to make things worse, she comes back to him. Bad and worse. Sorry if that is the kind of spoiler that will ruin the book for you -- it stood out as weird against the rest of it.. I will continue the series eventually because we have a lot of them, but not right this minute. ***1/2 (Should be a **** but for the bad biz toward the end.)

Category 2 Wallflowers etc #2
Anton Chekhov: A Life Donald Rayfield

I'm sure there are amusing names for hyper-inclusive biographies, I mean, right down to toilet paper usage (not kidding) - let us just call it the "laundry list bio". Much new information was released in the last few decades, letters etc. of Chekhov's that had been considered too racy by the Soviet state. And racy plenty of it is. Chekhov, rather like Shakespeare, arose from a class only two generations away from serfdom into precarious middle-class (shopkeeping). The parents worked tirelessly and devotedly (which includes beatings, scoldings and whatever else deemed necessary) to encourage the five boys to study hard and make something of themselves. This did not exclude occasionally abandoning them while they went elsewhere to try and make money. (The one sister, Masha, did receive slightly less harsh treatment although she was expected to do her share in the household.) The father, Pavel, was a religious fanatic and the boys grew up memorizing vast tracts of bible and music, reciting and singing the orthodox litany. Rayfield is so intent on laying out the new information that he does not linger over interpretation -- but many have seen that the Chekhovian story structure is musical, theme, development, return to deepened theme (at the simplest) and likely it is from this early influence. Rayfield mentions this here and there, but no deeper looks. As the boys grow up it becomes apparent that Kolia, the painter, is a genius but unstable and that Anton is the most stable and the most intelligent of the lot. Oldest brother Aleksandr is a math/science whiz but also vulnerable to substance abuse. They are all very randy and crude in ways that separate them entirely from, say, Tolstoy and the aristocratic classes. In fact there is something Elizabethan all around in a reaching after everything life could offer, as if knowing it couldn't last long. Russia at the turn of the century had, perhaps, more in common with earlier times than staid and repressed Western Europe. (About to explode into violence, yes.) In a biography of this magnitude I can hardly summarize but I will say that many things surprised me -- among them how careless Chekhov's family were with him, given that he became the de facto head of the family, a famous and admired man, the breadwinner. They were also amazingly restless always hopping on trains to Moscow, Petersburg, back to the dacha in the country, later to Yalta, now and then into Europe . . . and as Chekhov grew more ill these jaunts didn't cease. The weather in Russia is truly appalling most of the year and he found himself stuck in terrible circumstances waiting for trains -- no doubt these speeded on his death. The contradictions are endless. Chekhov knew how important he was: he never let Masha marry (she was not sure she wanted to and he played on it so she would stay head of domestic affairs for him). Everyone knew he was ill and that he should be kept warm and well fed, and yet Masha would go off, or later his wife Olga, and the house would go cold and the food would revert to potatoes and indigestible fatty stews he couldn't stomach . . . His mother was rather hopeless at caring for him too. Dogs were adored then cruelly abandoned. There were interludes, a few years at the dacha Melikhovo where they played at being estate owners and enjoyed themselves but it all proved to be incredibly hard work. I'm rambling -- Rayfield does provide the information for the knowledgeable Chekhovian to draw the parallels between what went on in his family life, love life, and travels and what he put into his works. An exhausting and exhaustive read but worth it for any Chekhovian admirer, which I am. The writing is never anything but solid, clear and so a degree above pedestrian, but Rayfield was trying to get in every scrap of information and he succeeds. ****1/2

Category 2 Wallflowers etc #3
contemp fic ***1/2
Trespass Graze Dane Mazur

This may sound more critical than I mean it to, but Trespass is an uneven novel. The other book of Mazur's that I have read, short stories, Silk were excellent, so perhaps the novel is not her form. I suspect not, as the problems came not in the characters or the settings or anything to do with the writing, but the story itself. Occurences felt contrived, right from the opening where there is a man bathing naked in the basement sink--and the lady of the house is naked too on a hot summer day. Is this New England? I live about as isolated as you can be and I don't go around naked because there are too many people around these days, not to mention the UPS man . . . anyhow, the baptism, the incident with the truck -- one of these maybe? I don't know, taken together they go over the top -- and in between these events people are shagging like bunnies. I couldn't really buy into it. An interesting novel though, not a struggle to read or anything and not a waste of time. Read the short stories, they are really good!***1/2

Next Up: Life Before Man Margaret Atwood

Category 2 Wallflowers etc #4 final book in
Varieties of Disturbance Book 4 in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

So now I have read all four of the individual books collected in the big orange volume. Several of these last stories were a bit different from the others--more of them were more like exercises in sociological inquiry or "studies" of human behaviour, interesting but . . . are they stories? Well, who cares, why not! What came into my mind was a study of Shakespeare's wife written by Germaine Greer -- the information about who she "really" was has to be gleaned from skimpy records of, say people with licenses to brew beer (she did), who inherited the "best bed" (she didn't) -- a picture does emerge but it is built as much on one's own ideas as the facts presented. The point, in other words! When Davis is at her best she is like a terrier pulling the squeaker out of a toy, intent and thorough, she'll take a behaviour apart until you cry uncle -- the best in this collection for me was the piece on what she learned from the baby. I do think even a non-short story reader might find Davis rewarding although I might be mad to think so. One of her stories has inspired me to take my mother's letters (I've kept about fifty) to read through and catalogue aspects of -- as a way to see what emerges, what might come through the whole and reveal more about who she was. I think Davis is extraordinary, original, funny, wise and humble. *****

Category 1 - ROOT#2 nat hist *****
Under the Sea Wind Rachel Carson

Extraordinary, beautifully written -- really, I have no proper words to describe the experience of reading Under the Sea Wind. If you love the ocean, you want to read it. *****

Category 1 - ROOT#3 contemp fic ***1/2
Life Before Man Margaret Atwood

Can't say that I consider this one of Atwood's best, but I believe Atwood is clever enough to pull one over on me, so I hardly dare insist. The story focusses around a couple, Elizabeth (works at the museum of natural history) and Nate (former lawyer/toymaker) Torontoans, for whom ten years of marriage has proved about the limit. There are side characters, including the absent lover of Elizabeth who has recently committed suicide before the novel opens. With her own voice there is also Nate's new love interest Lesje, ten years younger, who also works at the museum of natural history in dinosaurs. Elizabeth is a schemer and manipulator with a ruthless streak, Nate comes across alternately as a decent guy and self-absorbed and a crafter if justifications for less than ethical behaviour. Lesje, by nature a science geek and not very good at reading human signals or giving them, comes across as an aging naif, almost dangerously so. But in classic Atwoodian fashion, just as you are fed up with one character or another they shift, do something that has you shrug and forgive them. They are human like you and me. I didn't especially enjoy LBM but I respect Atwood too much to put down one of her books without a very good reason. Here's Lesje describing William (who was her partner before Nate) "In that prehistoric era during which she lived with William, she was able to depend on him. He liked being on time for work. he also liked getting up. He'd take a brisk shower, scrubbing himself with some kind of medieval flagellation instrument, and emerge pink as a rubber duck to ferret in the kitchen for Shreddies and milk . . . " So vivid. ***1/2

Greetings! I'm a fellow Chekhov admirer. I don't know why/whether you'd want to read another biography of him, but years ago I read famed biographer Henri Troyat's Chekhov and thought it was terrific. (I was studying Chekhov in grad school at the time.)

>26 rocketjk: thanks for stopping by -- I have the Troyat and I suspect that I might have read it in the 80's when I was given a full paperback collection of his work -- I think I may have because I had a much cleaner picture of Anton and company, but I can't swear I did. Anyway, I do intend to revisit it as part of the never ending Chekhov appreciation. The Rayfield sucked me in because he had access to papers locked up for lo! these one hundred years. And a good bit of it is racy. When I think how proper my folks were at that time, at the turn of the century! This crew was rough around the edges, smart, tough, hard-working and hard-living, non-conformist and Bohemian in every sense of the word.

I visited your page and was wowed by your short story reading. A short story writer I am currently enamored with is Lydia Davis.

I've finished, at long last!

Category 1 - ROOT#4 ww2 fic ***1/2
The Book Thief Markus Zusak

Perhaps I have ww2 fiction fatigue or perhaps for some other reason I was never deeply engaged. Young Liesel is brought to Molching (outside of Munich, not far from Dachau) to live with a couple as her father is gone and her mother is ill. On the trip her brother dies and when he is buried in a strange town in a snowy cemetery, Liesel picks up a book, The Gravedigger's Handbook. (One thing I've wondered and never investigated is if any of these titles are real.) She can't read but she treasures the book and the attention of Death, the narrator is drawn to her. (This choice of narrator did and didn't work --I've read too much Terry Pratchett, frankly). At any rate I wasn't tempted to set the novel aside and here and there I was drawn in more -- Liesel's relationship with the mayor's wife and her library and with Rudy, her best friend, especially. Lots here to like or even love. Perhaps it wasn't the right time for me to read this novel, it happens, so pay no attention to this rather lukewarm response. ***1/2

I'm seeing that I'm ahead of the game with the "Unfinished, Wallflower" goals with 4 of 14, but quite behind in the primary goal with only 4 of 24. . . Well, the book I'm on now Peeps should help with that and I guess I'll pick one more "sure thing" that I know I can read quickly. Must strategize.

Hope everyone here is getting somewhere with their own goals! Hope to have a life that permits some socializing one of these days.

Category 1 - ROOT#5 YA urban fantasy ***1/2
Peeps Scott Westerfeld

A couple of years ago my daughter handed me this saying, "I loved it. You will too!" Generally I'm not keen on vampires and the cover promised that even those not keen etc. would like it. My mother had a book around for the grandchildren called Grossology which was endlessly mesmerizing to her many grandchildren (including my daughter) and along with the story Westerfeld includes information about various parasites and what they do to snails, cows, you etcetera. Gross, basically. The plot? A lad is seduced and becomes a carrier of what is, essentially vampirism, but really he is hosting a parasite. He doesn't become a vampire but he acquires vampire features -- night vision, enhanced strength etcetera. He is hired by the city's Night Watch to catch real vampires . . . . only as the novel progresses it becomes clear that all is not as it appears to be. In many ways this should be a four star book but aspects of the plot were just too clunky for me, probably not for a 14 year old, however. Fun. ***1/2

I'm scheming -- choosing a Very Thin book for finishing up the month so I can stay on track with 2 ROOTS per month. In this case a very abridged taste of Herodotus Snakes With Wings & Gold-digging Ants -- from a set of odd little books "Penguin Great Journeys" that were given to me a long while back -- selections from various older texts by explorers and writers.

I like your scheming skills, Lucy!

>32 connie53: And it is the 31st, last day, and I still have, like, 30 pages to go! Argh!

Category 1 - ROOT#6 travel/history ****
Snakes with Wings & Gold-digging Ants Herodotus

Juicy excerpts from the History -- many concerning northern Africa, Egypt and Persia (the madman Cambyses). I always enjoy Herodotus, such a mix of wide-eyed wonder and "I've seen it all."
This is part of a series Penguin put out a while back called "Great Journeys" -- little tastes of traveler's tales through the ages. ****

Squeaking under the deadline!

Think I have to tackle one of the Extreme Wallflowers now.

So I've picked up, from the Extreme Wallflower list, A History of the Rain. I have a feeling I will like it.

>32 connie53: I saw you made it (ish). ;-))

I doubt I'll even make one book for this month, sadly.

>37 sibylline: There are still 20 days left in the month! :)

Also, going back to >24 sibylline:, I came across that book recently and wondered why it sounded familiar. Must have been from hearing about it here!

Category 2 - Wallflowers etc #6
contemp fic *****
History of the Rain Niall Williams

The Swain family is plagued with the Impossible Standard. Ruth Swain is ill and bedridden on the family farm in Clare amid the thousands of books her father collected. Her grandfather Swain, an Englishman, emigrated to Ireland when he was given a property by a family in Meath for a heroic act in World War I which he turns into a fine estate big house to show his father he can reach the Impossible Standard, but his father refuses even to visit. (Ireland not being a venue where the Impossible Standard can be met.) And so the grandfather begins to fish and writes a book on the salmon of Ireland as the estate molders into ruin. Ruth's father is brought up in genteel decay, reading and fishing with his father, then goes off to sea, returns and lands in Clare where he meets and falls in love with Ruth's mother. They have twins after many childless years, but one twin, the boy, eventually is lost. The father writes poetry and does his best to farm. (I'm not really spoiling, it is clear from early on that something Terrible happened). In the book Ruth never gets out of bed but is writing the story of the family. She refers frequently to the books in her father's library, likes to use capitals to highlight Important Matters. The story skates the thin line between humor and tragedy and never falters -- and with so many loving descriptions, dialogue and humorous (or sad) anecdotes about the people of the village of Faha. Delicious prose throughout.

As one who loves and plays Irish music, I've thought often about what makes Irish culture so unique because it IS unique, somehow embracing both the individual and the community, each needing the other to exist. At any Irish music gathering one can go from breathtaking complexity to heart-rending simplicity to uproarious laughter in seconds. There is never any relinquishing of what matters most: the wonder of being alive. Irish poetry, music, song, dance and literature all celebrate this fact, often, and paradoxically by honoring and remembering those who have died. Certainly History of the Rain fits this model. I cannot do the book justice, so I'll stop right here. *****

It took over a month to read, but this is a wonderful wonderful book and I am so glad I didn't chuck it out for having hung about my shelves so long. This wallflower is a rose! Make that an Irish rose!

I'm swamped at the moment in other books, don't know what I will pick out from my ROOTS grouping to read next.

>40 sibylline: Hurray, I'm glad that book worked out for you! Hope the next one is good too.

I think the book I have to read next is the Charlotte Bronte Bio. Unquiet Soul: A Biography of Charlotte Bronte Margot Peters Been pondering, and this is the one that exerts a tug of interest.

Because I'm falling behind, I'm picking up another ROOT right away -- the Sherri Tepper. I know it is one of her lesser novels and one that is focussed on women's rights and I expect I will read only a little of it, if I find it is "preaching to the converted" as I expect. It's more interesting to read stuff you haven't thought about than to have someone beat into you ideas you already agree with in an extreme setting.

If after 50 pages I've had enough I'll move on to The Peripheral.

The Bronte is shaping up to be a pretty good read.

Category 1 - ROOT #7 dyst
Gibbons Decline and Fall Sherri S. Tepper

I sped read through, getting the gist of the story - I know I started this another time and had a feeling that I stopped because I wasn't sufficiently engaged. Well, this time I paged through it -- weird mix of fanciful and shrill, so I'm done.

Category 1 - ROOT#8 dystopic ****

Gibson latches onto a few ideas and weaves a plot around a possibility -- in this case two ideas. One that it would be possible to communicate between past and future -- only to do that would create a "stub" -- the future will irrevocably alter the past and splinter off. The other is that it is possible to make human facsimiles with everything EXCEPT personality, character, soul. Autonomically functional. A person from the past can (as it were) download into one of these "peripherals" and be "as if" there -- just not in their own body (left, tended, behind in the past). Gibson also loves language for itself and always has a few words he uses over and over, in this case "polt" -- for someone the future folks are contacting/using in the past. "Haptic" is another one -- some sort of tatooish thing which gives the bearer some extra abilities, strength or night vision or whatever. He snuck in a couple of mentions of Australian drop bears too. I first encountered those in a Pratchett. ****

I've picked up The Russian Debutante's Handbook for the next ROOT -- so I have that and the Charlotte Bronté bio going. Didn't do so well with the ROOTing last month. Sigh. No way I'll get through all of these books, but I'm trying!

Category 1 - ROOT #9 Pearled
I've dilly-dallied along with the Shteyngart for a couple of hundred pages and I can't face two hundred more. I don't care. There's nothing at all the matter with the novel, not the right book at the right moment, possibly also dated, or it is me who is dated.

I've also removed one book that, after a sort of cursory look, I don't think I want to spend the time reading. My apologies to the author, I know how hard it is to write a novel.

I'm going to pick up two books -- One from list 1, the Angus Wilson and one from list 2, the Kij Johnson short stories. I've fallen behind -- books from List 2 that aren't attempted or read by the end of this year are to leave the house altogether -- so I am trying to get things moving again.

I'm within spitting distance of finishing the Brontë bio. Not a scintillating read but solid.

Category 1 - ROOT#10lit bio ****
Unquiet Soul Margot Peters

One of many substantial biographies of Charlotte and, of course, also her siblings. Any biography of the Brontës ends up being just about Charlotte, as by the end, of the six children, only she remains. Hitherto I've avoided the Brontë enigma, for that is what it is. How could one family produce three women at once who defy, for that is what they did, so thoroughly the Victorian conventions? And even more astonishing how did these women emerge from their severe and limited environment? These are the questions that feed energy to the story of the Brontës. The men, also, provide textbook psychological profiles, the rigid father, the indulged son. The biggest question of all would be--what would the Brontës have become had they been in a congenial environment? Would Branwell have learned that being gifted is only the first step, that hard, sustained work is the second? Would the sisters have been less dependent on one another? Would the four of them have spent the time they did as children writing their stories -this constant writing is what undoubtedly made all three such great storytellers once they were grown. They understood the craft because they had put the time in, criticizing and encouraging one another, no doubt. Peters raises these questions directly and indirectly. The last few chapters, which cover her decision to marry the curate Arthur Bell Nicholls and her subsequent death a few months later in some ways gripped me most, the most upsetting and the most maddening and also the most sad. Of course she was curious to find out what all the fuss was about! Peters speculates that the only solution for Charlotte, the only way she can not betray herself, her father, and her husband, is to die. The more I think about that, the more sense, in the most horrible way, the idea is. ****

I've tardily "pearl-ruled" the Shteyngart. Just not the right book for me.

I also dropped a novel from the Category 2 list. I read a few pages and thought Nunh-unh.

Category 2 Wallflowers #8

spec fic *****
At the Mouth of the River of Bees Kij Johnson

Because I wasn't enamored of the book's title (or the bee on the cover) I let this book languish on my shelves for 7 years . . . A collection of stories, some very short, a few very long, that are the real thing, speculative fiction: What if? . . . there was a river of bees crossing Montana? . . . the disappearing monkeys in the magic act go to a different dimension, briefly? . . . domesticated animals suddenly could talk? . . . . What makes the stories pulse with life are the characters: the woman who runs the magic act, the woman who follows the river of bees to the mouth (so loving and so straight up true about loving a dog that it is maybe the best dog story I've ever read), the woman who tries to help the newly self-aware dogs when people find they hate having them around. If you loathe speculative fiction, sf, fantasy, well, don't bother, but it you do love the genre you want to check out Johnson, if not this book, then some other. I sure will! *****

I would be too scared of the cover to pick that book up! Insects and arachnids on a book cover are enough to send me running in the other direction :( But I am glad you ended up enjoying the book!

>53 rabbitprincess: Exactly! Thank you for stopping by!

Category 1 - ROOT#11 Pearled

The Wrong Set Angus Wilson

Short stories and they are all about people with social ambitions. While I admit to having ambitions, they have more to do with getting out of bed or not eating two helpings than whether I have the right clothes on or have decorated my house properly. I've read some Wilson novels that I liked, but these have a bitter edge and are also more contrived as "stories". So I read a few (three) and thought, nope, don't have to go on.

You are really reading a lot of books in the past few weeks, Lucy. I can understand the pearl-ruling too. So much to read and so little time to read them.

It's clear to me I won't get to either of my goals unless there is a sudden intense rash of Pearl-ruling, which is unlikely. However, I am back on the case, having begun Thirteen Moons. I'm likely to read that through.

Overall I'm feeling ok about my progress -- I sometimes wish I was more comfortable letting books go with less effort, but I know how much work writers put into a book, so that makes the decision so tough!

>57 sibylline: Hope you enjoy Thirteen Moons. I actually liked it even better than Cold Mountain.

>58 rocketjk: I really did as you can see!

Category 2 - Wallflowers etc #9 hist fic ****
Thirteen Moons Charles Frazier

A gentler novel than the first blockbuster, Frazier offers the story of a survivor, Will Cooper who was sent out, bonded, as a boy to run a store inside the then Cherokee Nation in Western North Carolina. Twelve years old, orphaned, but a sturdy smart sensible type of boy who had enough schooling in both Latin, Greek and (by the same teacher!) poker to do all right this challenging environment. The reading gives him resources in his loneliness and the poker makes him, young as he as, a potential contender, winning him respect from adults. Almost immediately he meets the love of his life, Claire, mixed-breed (just barely, but enough for those days) and is adopted by the Chief in the community, Bear, and settles in. The story begins in the first quarter of the 19th century and continues right up into the early years of the 20th (or at least very late 19th -- exact dates not being a big part of this story) covering the removal of the Cherokee, the Civil War, the entrance of the railroad and other modern conveniences. Will fights to retain a small homeland for "his" people. The book is a bit romantic, a bit predictable as a coming of age story, especially Will's devotion to Claire, but a pleasure to read. As much as anything the story is a vehicle for describing the events that happened in that place and in that time period. Cold Mountain was a heartbreaker, Thirteen Moons is a thoughtful look, same area, different life, full of quiet hard-earned wisdom. ****

Glad you enjoyed Cold Mountain so much.

Eh, I think you mean Thirteen Moons?! I did indeed enjoy it.

Now I've picked up Sula from the main fiction list, which almost looks within reach, as in do-able to finish by December, although I am going to have to contend with the Extreme Wallflowers which I have vowed to send to new homes if I don't get to them. Tough choices lie ahead! I'm quite satisfied with my Pearl-Rule decisions so far, but I did expect to P-R more of these books!

>61 sibylline: Duh! Yes, that's what I meant!

Category 1 - ROOT#12 contemp fic ****1/2
Sula Toni Morrison

In what I think of as true novella, Morrison examines a turbulent, even tragic, life, through the eyes, mainly of her closest friend. Sula and Nel recognize some kinship, a mix of opposites and similarities combined (mostly the former). What both share are that they are observant, love language, love movement. But Sula is different--she seems to have no moral compass, she is oblivious to social cues and niceties, she is "like a man" in that she pursues what she wants without thinking about consequences. In a black woman in the early 20th century, this made you into a pariah, at best, a worse, a witch. There is so much depth in so few pages, I can hardly think what to mention, the moving way Morrison writes about the way the black neighborhood of Medallion, Ohio resists all despair by simply ignoring it and going on. But it is also a culture that is dying, a community that will disappear in the second half of the century. Today, a Sula would find a place in this more disconnected and amoral world, for better or worse. Another is the way so many characters are entwined, have witnessed or just "know" things about one another. There are hints of forces that lie beneath the surface of "normal" life, call it magic if you will, but it's entangled with nature and with life energy than any sort of "magic" in the wave a wand sort. Beautiful book! ****1/2

Hi Lucy. It's been a while but now I'm visiting your thread to see what you are reading.

And just saying Hi!

Thanks for stopping by Connie -- I'm busy reading a book from the list -- The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll and it may keep me busy right through the end of December as it is ridiculously long. A good book, not a fast read. Cheerfully gloomy or is it gloomily cheerful, funny and insightful I'm happy to be reading it, but it is going to mean lots of other books won't get read! Decisions will have to be made.

Thank so much Connie for stopping by. I'm keeping busy with The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll and it will probably see me through the rest of the year, being long and a slow read to boot. I'm happy to be reading it. I've done all right, but I wish I'd done better here. Decisions will have to be made as I started out determined that books I didn't get to would have to go. Of course, that now seems cruel and unfair.

I just noticed I never officially joined. So I did!

>67 sibylline: Very good!

I've added Like You'd Understand Anyway as I suspect I may not get through the Mutis by the end of the year. . . . I'm halfway. It is a worthwhile book, no question, but I can only read a little at a time. Not even a difficult book, but the prose is dense and formal, and, yeah, clearly a novel written by a poet. You can't rush. The journey, not the destination, etc.!

Category 2 - Wallflowers etc #10-

ss ****
Like You'd Understand Anyway Jim Shepard

This story collection has languished on my shelves for over a decade and so it went on the ROOT pile. A third of those books turn out to be ones I don't want to read, never did, but wouldn't admit it, but the rest have turned out to be gems, including this one. The stories have a similar underpinning, a smart weird kid/adult in some isolated situation, either to do with family or work. Things generally do not go well. A Nazi era ornithologist sent by Himmler to explore Tibet, nominally to bolster H's super bizarre Aryan origin theories, but in fact, seeking the Yeti. (Irony, yeh). A boy with a younger brother with emerging schizophrenia and clueless parents sent off to a horrible camp. The first female Russian cosmonaut. Explorers of the Australian Outback in the 1840's . . . there is often an older brother or mentor who has whacked the younger one into some kind of shape, able to cope with whatever life dishes out. The stories do probe, most of them, this male compulsion to be tough, act tough, die tough if need be, all the while totally aware of how stupid and self-defeating this behaviour is. Totally worth reading if you come across this book somewhere! ****

Looking at my lists: I seem to have read or pearled about 20 books. And next year I need to make the lists simpler! And perhaps a bit more realistic!

And yet, suddenly, the Wallflowers are waltzing away! Only two to go. I won't make it, but I do feel better!

Category 2 - Wallflowers, etc Pearled #11



An interesting book, worthy, well-written, but I just can't see reading about Nelson's life from this angle and through the eyes of this person, a man who compulsively, since childhood, acts out each and every great event in Nelson's life. Too depressing for me at this time.

Category 1 #13 Pearled Olaudah Equiano Sold as a Slave

No good reason really, I have so many books, and I have found these hard going. Such a fine idea, and original documents, but there you have it.

Category 2 Wallflowers etc #11 The Heat of the Sun

SS ***1/2
The Heat of the Sun Sean O'Faolain

This set of stories is more "contemporary" than the last set -- I read earlier this year, those were set in childhood, youth, Cork. These are stories of emigrants and Cork folk relocated to Dublin. Love stories, many of them. In a word, they felt dated in that way the work of many men who wrote in the first half of the 20th century does. An effort of some sort is being made to view women as fellow travelers, but not a very serious one. There are unvarnished moments: "Love, my dear, poor boy, is a sedative disguised as a stimulant. It's a mirror where man sees himself as a monster and women as a thing of unvarnished beauty,. If it wasn't for that all men would, otherwise, and normally, fear all women. You fear women. I fear women. But because we need them we have to have them. And that's where they have us, in the great and final triumph of women over men, called--by them not by us, and well called--Happy Wedlock. Love is a prison staffed by female warders . . . " Now this speech is given by a friend and the narrator, in the story, ends up in a sturdy friendly marriage, yet, in story after story in the collection this first sentiment is present. Or there are two sorts of men (and to be fair, women)--the dull and faithful and the fun and untrustworthy. He's a good writer, O'Faolain, knows his craft, but I did find myself skim-reading by the end. Several stories have an homage to Joyce feeling to them, especially the very short final story, "Passion." In his preface O'Faolain makes a distinction between story and tale (think blunt and incisive versus wandering and intuitive) that was perhaps the biggest takeaway for me. ***1/2

Category 1 ROOT #14
contemp fic ****1/2
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll Alvaro Mutis

comments forthcoming