What It’s About: This is a story about mothers and daughters. Nature and nurture, too, to some extent. If you fell for Chief Inspector Gamache in the first book (Still Life), this is more of that kindly intelligent sleuthing by conversation.
We meet the victim first and she is truly unlikeable. But does she deserve to die? Why did she move to Three Pines in the first place? What is she looking for in that dear town and how awful can she be to EVERYONE?! The murder is clever in its own right and unraveling the possibilities beyond the motive is part of the fun. If fun is what you call it? #sigh
Thoughts: I do not think this is standalone. In fact, I wish more time hadn’t passed between reading this and series #1 – which means that if I want to read #3, I best hurry!
Rating: Four slices of pie. I would have given it three stars because my recollection of the details in the first book escaped me and I don’t like loose threads. The extra slice of pie is gratitude for the lovely bits about lemon meringue pie. Kudos!
Thoughts by Richard Lloyd Parry, 2017, 7 hours 47 min, 295 HC
Narrated by Simon Vance
Challenge: What’s in a Name: Natural Disaster category
Genre/Theme: Nonfiction / Japan Tsunami March 2011
Type/Source:Audiobook / Audible
What It’s About: This story focuses most on a school that suffered higher than typical casualties for a tsunami in Japan. This was no ordinary tsunami, but it is obvious that the school administrators were caught off-guard and were ill-prepared. This is such a sad sad look into how humans grieve, blame, deal with their demons, and move on, if that is accurate. It’s not. The ghosts emerge in the very last section and it is fascinating!
Thoughts: A heartening and disheartening look at a culture, a community, politics – it’s ALL politics!, and connectedness. Of being human against and with the forces of nature. I can’t say it was enjoyable, but I’m glad to have read this.
Rating: Four slices of pie. No pie mentioned, though it is possible that a Japanese style of pastry that might fit my loose definition of “What is Pie?” was mentioned and I’m just ignorant of it.
Challenge: What’s in a Name: Shape category / Book Club
Genre/Theme: Historical Fiction / Ancient Chinese Womens Health
Type/Source:Hardcover / Library
What It’s About: Lady Tan was a real person, who published a book dedicated to the health concerns of women, way back in the 16th century. Lisa See imagined what her background was, what her life experiences were most likely that she would have the privilege to write and be so knowledgeable in a world and time that was typically very limiting to the ambitions of women.
Thoughts: First the negative; some of the scenes and conversations were so TELL TELL TELL and clunky. For the positives; the situations and events that propelled the action and the presentation of the historical research explored was fascinating. Lisa See was able to give life into her main characters and overall, it was a very enjoyable read.
Rating: I gave it 4 slices of pie. Should be a good conversation at book club.
***** Before I write about Wellness, I want to make an announcement or, rather, give notice, that this blog is suffering. Not sure exactly what is the issue— I think it might be old age?! — but, I am having lots of frustration and annoyance with the ability to load, not only the dashboard to this blog, but to load the page URL to view. To search help in WordPress forums, everything! I have a new laptop, I have cleared cache and reset the stupid AdBlocker. Nothing loads, or it takes chunks of minutes. It is only white pages that display and I can’t get to anything, not even to see if it is WordPress of my blog. It is signaling the end of my blogging days, I fear. Okay, just wanted to let you know….
Thoughts by Nathan Hill, Borzoi Book/Alfred A Knopf 2023, 611 pages
Challenge: What’s in a Name: Double Letter category / Litsy TOB
Genre/Theme: Contemporary Lit / Marriage
Type/Source:Hardcover / Purchase
What It’s About: from official blurb:
“A hilarious and moving exploration of a modern marriage that astounds in its breadth and intimacy.”
—Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half.
Thoughts: I was not in the proper mood to read this book. I could not get into it and I believe it was a “me” problem, not the book, because it seems like one I would typically enjoy. But, alas, let’s call it bad timing and TOB-fatigue.
Thoughts by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, PantheonBooks 2023, 364 pages
Challenge: What’s in a Name: Footwear category / TOB
Genre/Theme: Prison reform / Entertainment
Type/Source:eBook/ Libby
What It’s About: from official blurb:
Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars – the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America’s private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
Thoughts: I’m not sure what to think but would state that this is a great example of fictionalizing an important topic and hitting ALL the issues of what makes humans “human” – so aggravatingly complex.
Rating: I gave it 5 slices of pie. Though not quite what you would call an “enjoyable” read, it is memorable and sobering, illuminating and full of love as well as violence..
When I committed to my first Classics Club 50 at the start of 2015, I made a list of fifty books that seemed interesting to me; either titles were ones I needed extra motivation to read, or I thought maybe I was missing out, and/or a few were just a whim or an idea that the author or the book was impressively classic and I wanted to find out why.
I gave myself permission to substitute books and thus, I finished that Five Year Challenge having read 50+ books that were over 25 years old.
However, there were 13 of that original list I missed.
Four years now into my second commitment to read another 50 Classics and wanting to give myself an update post for motivation and preparation for the next twelve months, I am curious how many “classics” I have read so far. ___________________________________________________________________________
Question 1: Did I read many of my next set of 50 listed on 1/1/2020? Question 2: Did I manage to tackle any of the non-read titles from my original 50?
ANSWERs:
Welp, I didn’t keep a record of any second set of 50 – in fact, I’m not sure I even made a definitive list and/or didn’t keep it static. I think I only made a goodreads tag listing 25-yo books and added to it as time went by.
Q: BUT CARE! Did you read any of those 13?!
A: YES! I read THREE: Cry the Beloved Country, The Three Muskateers, and They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple. (Which was by far my favorite of those.) WHICH leaves the following ten to be considered as options for my next 12 months.
But wait! How many classics did I read in the last 4 years? Perhaps I’ve completed the challenge and didn’t even realize it. YES again. I read 46!! I now only have to read 4 more books published 25 years ago or longer and I’ll have completed Round TWO of the Classics Club 50.
Considering that I’ve committed to two Irving books for various challenges: Cider House Rules to satisfy a book with a neurodiversity #ReadICT, and Hotel New Hampshire, also for #ReadICT, I’m not sure which two off the chart above I want to read… The shortest ones? The ones not written by a white man? The ones I own? (A Confederacy of Dunces or Jude the Obscure)
My town’s library runs an annual challenge called “READ ICT”. My town is Wichita Kansas and ICT is our airport code. A post on our group’s Facebook page went viral and now we have LOTS of people who don’t live anywhere near Kansas joining in and I think it is wonderful. And fascinating! And a bit amusing. So many book lovers; the more the merrier!
So if you know any good books that also include recipes, recommend – especially if a PIE recipe! I am not worried about this category, I can always read through a cookbook.
AND, if anyone wants to read anything WITH me for a buddy read or buddies-read, let me know.
Oh dear, I just realized that I didn’t even glance at the ToB books for this year to see if any qualify. Other than Wellness, I mean. Well, HUH. Maybe one of those has an animal sidekick?
One more share, I have already baked a pie this year: presenting Sugar Cream Pie aka Hoosier Pie
Here we go again! my favorite reading challenge, the one that is less pressure and most engaging to me for year round fun. It gets me to look carefully at the books on my shelves that need to be read.
The What’s in a Name Challenge Categories for 2024 are:
Double letters – Wellness or The Bee Sting or Happiness Falls
An NFL team – Florida by Lauren Groff (has a Panther on the cover, which is close to a Jaguar?! or links to Carolina?! LOL) or The Giant’s House by E McCracken
>*>*>*>*>*>*>*>* Updated a few days later to say that my current read (listen), The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, has QUITE THE SCENE with pie!Sweet potato pie. Dare ya to read it and not think of me. LOL Happy New Year! (this note added on 12/28) <*<*<*<*<*<*<
Total Books read: 100+ (again, I read a few children’s books to make it to this century mark.) This year was actually quite similar to last year.
Pages read: 27,127 ………………………………2022: 27,952 Average pages per book: 268……………………………..274 Average pages per day: 76.4……………………………….77
Hours listened: ~255 compared to 240 last year. Audiobooks count: 26
My TOP 23 in the year 2023:
Top Ten: Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, Hello Beautiful, Tom Lake, The Rachel Incident, Buried in the Suburbs, The Bandit Queens, LaRose, Lots of Candles Plenty of Cake, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, The Book of Delights
Random Stuff:
31 FIVE SLICES OF PIE
43 FOUR
22 THREE
8 TWO
0 ONE
(These are spookily similar to last year!)
Books read that were over 400 pages: 14 with only 4 of 500 pages or more. Where have my chunksters gone?
Female to Male Ratio: 68 / 34 (~12 of that 26 being US or Brit white dudes…) Total Books by New-to-Me Authors = 77 (compared to 42 last year, but 72 in 2021) Repeat Authors = 22 and some multiple time in 2022 (Wilson, Patchett, Morrison) A few were new and I read a second: McDermott, Kuang Total Books by Authors of Color/LGTBQ+ = 19 (best guess estimate – didn’t do thorough research into backgrounds; assumptions might have been made)
Oldest Book: 1919 – The Haunted Bookshop – fun!
Number of Books Pub’d in 2023: 27 (and 22 pub’d in 2022!, 57% pub’d in the last 3 years.) Books over 25 years old = 12 – These count towards my Classics Club – Round 2 which is due this time next year.
Number of books read on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die: 4 All Quiet on the Western Front The Once & Future King (uh,DNF! eek) Beloved – a reread, and Jazz also by Toni Morrison
Hardcovers 29 eBooks 23 Audiobooks 26 Tradeback 26 paperback 1 . . . . . . . . also spookily similar to last 2 years.
Genres Total Adult Fiction Books Read = 34 Total YA Fiction Books Read = 0 Children’s = 9 Total Memoir Books Read = 11 Total Nonfiction Books Read = 23 (22 LAST YEAR) Short Story / Essays = 6 Poetry = 6 Mystery/Thriller = 9 Translated = 2 (Japanese and German) Fantasy = 6 SciFi = 1 Historical Fiction = 2 Cookbooks = 1 – not really a cookbook but was about pie, go figure. Adventure = 0 – what IS this anyway? Maybe the 2 art books I read? Business = 1 Graphical = 0
Number of debuts: 8 (best guess) Best debut: The Bandit Queens by Parini Schrof
Interesting Coincidences – Three books with CAT in the title? I am allergic to cats, as cute and feisty as they are – I don’t own one. I seem to have read quite a few titles featuring animals: goat, dog, cat, lamb, sloth, horse, bird, snake (copperhead)
Books that mentioned pie: 50
And… the Care’s Books & Pie 2023 Pie in Literature Award goes to:
First Honorable Mention: A Gathering of Old Men had a pretty good scene about pie as a way to charm the man you love but doesn’t seem to notice you; but also, that you have your maid/cook bake that pie…
I had Lucy bake me an apple pie, because I knew how much Jack just liked his apple pie. I told Lucy when she came to work that morning if she baked me the best apple pie she ever baked in her life, I would give her half the day off.
Second Honorable Mention: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Set on a cherry farm, so a good bet cherry pie would make a mention.
Emily has made bread and pie and after a day of work, bread and pie are really all we want.
Finally, drum roll please.
And the winner goes to The Guncle for baking pie for a birthday and also the discussion of what KIND of pie to make. I then proceeded to post a recipe on Litsy for Snowman Pie!
“We could get a cake,” “Okay. But your father likes pie.” . . .
“Pie is hot.” . . .
“One of every cold pie we can find and then everybody will have a choice. Satisfied? Thnowman pie. Snowman pie? What‘s that? Grant shrugged. “It just sounded good.”
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Best Pie Quote:
“At Adrian TX, we stop at a little place called the Midpoint Cafe, located at the exact “Geo-Mathematical” midpoint of Route 66, whatever that means. I finally got my appetite back, even though I’m not sure what I can keep down. They do have homemade “Ugly Crust” pies, which intrigue me.”
I completed the What’s in a Name Challenge and also, my town’s library’s 12 Category Challenge #ReadICT. I have added a few classics to my 5-year block of 50 goal but I’ll save that for the Recap Post in a few weeks. (YIKES!! I have to the end of 2024 to get it all done. I better start paying better attention...)
I’m back to blogging, Baby! Woot.
What’s in a Name? √
Read a book from each of the following categories:
I have a *new* system that I go to the host site when I complete a book and LIKE the category post, then I write a review post and return to that post to add my comment with link to the review. I realized yesterday that I hadn’t written a review post for the Chess Piece category, so got that done. √ And now, I write this post.
I do want to say that for the last 2 years, I’ve been saying I’ll read a book on Listening that always seems to meet a challenge somewhere, and I still haven’t read it. Maybe 2024 is the year I was (am) supposed to read it.
I made a lot of pie: Mulberry Hand Pies, Quince Pie, Rhode Island Coffee Milk Pie, a lot of Apple – which is weird for me because I usually don’t like making Apple Pie (#shrug), Peach, Lemon Meringue, and probably more I don’t recall. Oh Pecan! for Thanksgiving. I’ll make Pumpkin for Christmas. I am experimenting with a Cherry Cranberry Pie per my brother’s request, and want to try making Sunny Anderson’ s Grandma Williams’s Squash Pie which has some lemon hints. What pie will you be making for the Holidays?
The #ReadICT Challenge has 12 Categories and I’ve read multiple books for almost all of them. I announced it all on Facebook, but here’s somewhat of a pictorial completionist shot:
Which brings me to the Tournament of Books. I am working through a few of the long list, but will get REALLY frenzied when the short list is announced. Sometime within the next 2 weeks.
by Louise Penny, 2006, 313 pages
Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.
by Richard Lloyd Parry, 2017, 7 hours 47 min, 295 HC
by Lisa See, 2023, 611 pages
by Nathan Hill, Borzoi Book/Alfred A Knopf 2023, 611 pages
Care's Books and Pie 