Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Thoughts by Gabrielle Zevin, Alfred A Knopf 2022, 401 pages

Challenge: for March 2023 Tournament of Books

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; friendship, gaming industry

Type/Source: Hardcover, loaned to me by a friend (thanks SuzP!)

What It’s About: Sam, age 12, is a lonely boy in a hospital, recovering from a car accident with extreme long-time physical and emotional repercussions when he meets Sadie, age 11, and they become friends, bonding over games. They are both smart, both go to Boston from California to attend college, and both are ambitious to create their own game, together. They grow up in the process. It all reminds me of the motto of Kansas, “Ad Astra per Aspera” Latin for “to the stars through difficulties.” This is about the creative process, captures a particular time for a unique industry, but basically, it is about love and friendship.

Thoughts: I had that comfortable feeling of being in the hands of a talented writer. I believe that the thread-count of this one exceeds her prior novel that I read (and enjoyed but seemed, fluffier, rather than tight?, AJ Fikry – which, by the way, Zevin wrote the screenplay for and subsequent film has been adapted! Who has seen it?!)

A truly enjoyable read. Lots of lovely vocabulary words that were fun to look up. Trenchant, collogue, sere, nihilism, echt, ersatz…

Rating: Five slices of pie. One boring mention of (pizza) pie and that is good enough:

“Sadie hadn’t eaten since the plane that morning, and she ended up eating almost the whole pie.”

39%

Finally, just want to share a fun link that a dear friend brought to my attention (Thanks Stef!)

Stuck on Your Novel? Bake a Pie! “Cliche Chicken Pot Pie”

 

 

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The Rabbit Hutch

Thoughts by Tess Gunty, Alfred A Knopf 2022, 338 pages, National Book Award 2022

Challenge: for March 2023 Tournament of Books

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; decaying town

Type/Source: Hardcover, library

What It’s About: A decaying town, lack of industry, climate change effects such as flooding, lost people trying to survive, kids in the system, contrasts between poverty and privilege, mystics, and weird pie.

Thoughts: I didn’t really enjoy reading it and I was luckily enough to have time to make myself sit with the book and READ. “Just keep reading.” I was both repelled by the behaviors and attracted to any scraps of redemption. Some really great passages, and terrific turns of phrase.

And, OH. The last line. Good, really good.

Rating: Four slices of pie. A pie shop, sour cream pie with black licorice, butterscotch cream pie. Possibly a contender for Care’s 2022 Pie in Literature Award!

“Home is a pie in the oven, live saxophone downtown, and a backyard of fireflies.”

65%

 

 

TOB Favorites – It’s ON!

Blank Brackets — > HERE <–

Explore the Goodreads > Groups –> Tourney Folder HERE <– (not sure if you have to join? I don’t recall how that works but I think it is set to public-view)

I’m so excited!

So far, Pachinko advances over The Animators, Skippy Dies defeats Idaho, Version Control over Girl.Woman.Other (I *hate* commas in book titles), and Homegoing wins over There.There!

That was last week.

This week, so far, A Tale for the Time Being triumphs over Never Let Me Go and The Tsar of Love and Techno narrowly escapes over Nothing to See Here‘s Fire Kids.

This is getting GOOD. All of the judgments have been wonderful to read and cheer for. I can’t argue with any of them. According to my favorites in order (see below), I should be a bit disappointed but let’s remember – -these are FAVORITES! so I can’t be upset.

(Honestly? I had forgotten that I had place Tsar the top of the top. I made this list before the bracket was announced.)

My list track is here — the long list and the short list… with my list in order presented here:

The Tsar of Love and Techno, Milkman, Life After Life, Version Control, A Tale for the Time Being, Nothing to See Here, Homegoing, The Animators, Pachinko, Idaho, Never Let Me Go, Girl♥Woman♥Other, Stephen Florida, Skippy Dies, Exit West, There♠There

For the rest of the week, I hope Life After Life prevails and Milkman conquers.

*** Updated: Stephen Florida wins over Life After Life.. 10/20/21

*** Updated: Milkman is selected over Exit West 10/21/2021

Then… we’ll just have to see what happens! My vote for top 8:

Which is your favorite?

Are you going to drop everything once the TOB Long List is announced for 2022?!?!?! I will…

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2022. 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.

Salvage the Bones

Thoughts by Jesmyn Ward, Bloomsbury 2011, 261 pages

Challenge: Longlist TOB Favorites

Genre/Theme: Contemporary Lit/Katrina Hurricane

Type/Source: Hardcover / Gift from friend

What It’s About: This is the story of 12 days leading up to and just after Hurricane Katrina hitting the coast of Mississippi near the town of St. Catherine and its hamlet Bois Sauvage, home to Esch, a 15 yo girl, — and her drunk father, her 3 brothers, and those boys’ friends, plus the fighting dog China and her newly born pups.

Thoughts: Brutal, raw, intense. I read with my fingers covering my eyes. A tough go, really.

And suddenly there is a great split between now and then, and I wonder where the world where that day happened has gone because we are not in it.

Rating: Four slices of pie. Lemon Meringue

“They were growing then, but still small as the peaks of cream on lemon meringue pie with hard knots at the middle.”

page 23

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2022. 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.

and the 2017 Pie in Literature Award goes to…

OR….

More Year End Book Analysis Fun … and No Whining This Time

I have decided 86 is the number of books I read last year. This includes DNFs, skimmed, and samples. Goodreads says I read 91 and I am not going to dig into it to figure out the difference. And this isn’t a whine, it’s just the way it is. This will be a long rambling post; enjoy or skip, I understand…

Same as last year! 

Total pages read is under dispute. Goodreads says 26,600.

I listened to 13 audiobooks. ~191 hours.

I had 16 five star reads and they are all so different — I enjoyed the experiences for different reasons. 
Run, Home, The Grand Sophy, Code Name Verity, The 4 and 20 Blackbirds Pie Book, The Bone Clocks, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, Just Mercy, Lap Girl, The Nix, Mister Monkey, Black Wave, Lincoln in the Bardo, So Much Blue, Anything is Possible, Born a Crime. I refuse to rank them and choose favorites but I will  endorse a TOP TWO as recommendations. These two were the shiniest of the shiny:

  TOP AUDIOBOOK EXPERIENCE.

TOP OVERALL ENJOYABLE FICTION 

The other books that I gave 4 slices to yet now looking back I wonder why and so I now want to shout out some love to are:

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. You will never again board an elevator and not think of this nutty little jewel. I liked it more than The Underground Railroad but that is probably because it is not as heavy…

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin – wow! A series I’m eager to continue…

Lila. It’s Marilynn Robinson. Duh. I think I should have read the print version, though.

Petty:The Biography by Warren Zanes – oh. RIP, Tom. You wrote some great songs. Thank you. (and I was very impressed with the writing. I’m a new fan of Zanes.)

Mr. Splitfoot – quirky! Loved it.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Not sure why I didn’t give this one five slices originally. It deserves all its accolades and I recommend everyone read it. Gonna be a movie!

 

The longest title: On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon. The shortest title would be Z (leave off the stuff after the ‘:’) The longest book I read was NOS4A2 by Joe Hill at 742 pages. The longest audiobook was The Sport of Kings at ~23 hours.

I read 48 books by women, 38 written by men.

Repeated authors:  Ann Patchett, David Mitchell, Stephen King, Marilynne Robinson, Kate Atkinson, Colson Whitehead.

Translated books:  Sudden Death by Alvara Enrigue, A Man Called Ove by Fred Backman, The Little Paris Bookshop, Wake in Winter by Ndezha Belenkaya.

DNFs included two of the above…

Books I read that I now need to see the movie:  Blindness, Mr. Mercedes, A Man Called Ove, A Long Way Home 

Books I read because I saw the movie:  The Hunter was the source story for Payback. 

Challenges I successfully met:  The What’s in a Name Challenge and the Tournament of Books. I had THE BEST time with the TOB and must say I am ridiculously proud that I read EVERY BOOK on the SHORT LIST!

Challenges that bested me:  Classics Club and the 2017 Classics Challenge.

I can’t find my list tracking the 1001+ books to read before I die but I don’t think I hit many. I just didn’t read many old books; mostly read recently published. Perhaps Home by Marilynne Robinson? Orlando?

By decade:
2018 – 1
2017 – 10
2016 – 24
2010-2015 – 27
2000-2009 – 10
1990-99 – 7
1980-89 – 2
1970-79 – 2
1960-69 – 1
1950-59 – 2
1920-29 – 1

(whoa – no books from the 19th century. I told you I failed the classics challenge last year! I will blame the TOB on that and my new obsession to read books that might be TOB, though track record disputes this, methinks.)

The only readalongs I participated in were both  David Mitchell books:  The Bone Clocks and Slade House (which I read for RIP.)

I want to give David Mitchell my Pie in Literature Award but I can’t. His tweet was ever so squee worthy but it wasn’t IN A BOOK.

So the WINNER of the 2017 Care’s Books and Pie blog’s “PIE IN LITERATURE” Award goes to!

drum roll…

WHAT ALICE FORGOT  by Liane Moriarty for the community bake off of the  giant lemon meringue pie!

“She dreamed of a giant rolling pin.”

“Custody battle. It sounded like custardy battle.”

 

Cheers! Til this time again next year. I’m sure there will be whining… Have a great 2018 of reading experiences!!

 

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Links Roundup LitPie-Style

Hello,

I’m going to try and create a links round-up of the fun and feisty articles and posts from around the web.  Scratch that, “there is no try”, let’s do it!

My first entry is from a 7th grade Reading teacher in Wisconsin. She’s a go-getter and I am always inspired by her words and ideas. This time, she’s explaining how she introduces POETRY to her students. And since 2017 is Care’s Year of Poetry, I had to share.

A great quote: “You are a 10-year-old explaining to a theoretical physicist how time travel might work.” Did you know I can’t resist a good time-travel book?  Now go read this article if you are interested in actively participating in the Anti-Racism Campaign.

Favorite book bloggers who post about pie!  Rhapsody Jill and Stefanie of So Many Books. Did I miss anyone?

Another fun pi + pie video.

Link to The Morning News Tournament of Books 2017 because I can’t get enough of it so there.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE ANNOUNCES WINNERS FOR 2016 AWARDS!!!!!   (Link to Finalists Announcement. Curious that there were two books about loneliness in the Criticism category? I am. Has anyone read a book in this category? Again, me = curious)

Occasionally, I’ll google-search for “Pies in Literature” or some such nonsense just to see what comes up. This blog (ME!) shows up in SECOND SPOT for today’s look-see at what the webs are finding. Nothing too recent, but there are actual articles from 2015 about finding pie in a certain book. Fun, right? oh yea.

Savvy Verse and Wit has the Monthly Poetry Challenge Sign Up ready. I admit, I’m delighted every time I see a bit of poetry somewhere, here and there. I still don’t quite know how I should track my 100 poems in 2017 but I am proud of what progress I am building towards an awareness and appreciation for how poetry can impact a day in a good way.

Shout out to other bloggers who do EXCELLENT with providing Link Up posts:  Jenny who always reads the ends of books first, and, and, and…  I couldn’t find any recents ones so please provide me your suggestions!  Thanks.

Finally, a poem about pie:

(click on the image to go to the poet’s Twitter page…)

Have a great weekend!  I’ll have Dublin and Joyce books to chat about next week. I need to get back to reading books…  I need to read The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George by Tuesday.

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The Sympathizer

Thoughts  by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Audible Audio 2015, 13 hours 53 minutes

Narrated by François Chau – excellent!

Challenge: for my personal challenge to read as many of the Rooster short list as possible.

Genre: Pulitzer Prize Winner!  (though this is a recent distinction – very exciting!)

Type/Source: Audiobook / Audible Credit

 Why I read this now: Stars aligned, I guess. I do believe that the Rooster commentary mentions this as a good audio so when it was time for me to use a credit, this is what got selected.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:  The fictionalized first-person account of a North Vietnamese communist spy who works for the South Vietnamese military, trained by the CIA, educated in America, son of a French priest and his South Vietnamese housekeeper? or paramour? (I forget; both?) at the time of the Fall of Saigon and after. It is set in Vietnam, America/California and has a brief interlude in the Philippines.

WHAT’s GOOD:  It is historical fiction with all the cool things that push my buttons – lush descriptions, witty repertoire, cutting insights into human nature, philosophy, action and thrilling suspense, conflict of conscience, love of sorts and falling in love or not, HISTORY, etc. I really wouldn’t call myself a spy-novel reader but I thought this quite fascinating.

What’s NOT so good: At times, I wonder if it had all the stereotypical elements a spy novel should have but I haven’t read very many and maybe a spy-novel is supposed to. Truly, I didn’t know what to expect but this delivers well on things I like in a story. ON THE OTHER HAND, I thought at times that it was too long and needed to get on with but I’m sure that was my mood and what was going on in ‘real life’ conflicting with time and interest to keep invested. But I pushed through and ended up liking the book overall.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This is often stated to be satire and of course, I can only recognize this from being told and not really of my own recognition. But I find that I am a big fan of satire even when I don’t quite get it. 

I am thrilled that this won the Pulitzer for Fiction 2016 only because 1) I just read it (validation?), 2) I somehow have unknowingly embarked on a Personal Pulitzer Challenge, and 3) the surprise and timing made it fun.

RATING: Four slices of pie. Pie actually was mentioned a lot – there is an entire sequence about eating humble pie that because in audio, I will either have to go hunt or skip…

 

 

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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Thoughts Atheneum Books for Young Readers (Simon & Schuster) 2013 orig.1967, 172 pages

For the latest Classics Club Spin. I’m also counting this for the Kids Classic category of the Classics Challenge.

Loved it!

Claudia is a 6th grader who wants to run away so her family will miss her and thus appreciate her. She gets caught up in the planning – she is a very good planner. Smart, too. She ends up taking her little brother Jamie with her, and not just because he has plenty of cash to fund the adventure (though the money does prove helpful) but because he is just a good kid.

The adventure takes a turn when Claudia falls in love with the statue Angel which may or may not be a work of Michelangelo. She cannot return home until she KNOWS!

Fun book. Very quick to read. Four slices of pie.

“Jamie bought a cheese sandwich and coffee. After eating these he still felt hungry and told Claudia she could have twenty-five cents more for pie if she wished. Claudia, who had eaten cereal and drunk pineapple juice, scolded him about the need to eat properly. Breakfast food for breakfast, and lunch food for lunch.” [Phooey on that – I’m with Jamie. Pie for breakfast is CERTAINLY acceptable and appropriate.]

Another favorite quote from page 151:

“Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.”

Winner of the Newbery Medal.

TELL ME IF YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE!

Possible Spoiler; I have a question… I totally failed to find the link between the attorney and the kids – he was the kids’ grandfather!? I was a bit gobsmacked at the end with this minor plot point revelation. But I didn’t let it diminish my enjoyment.

 

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Week Two: Book Pairings #NonFicNov

Week 2: November 9 to 13 (Hosted by Leslie)

Book Pairing: Match a fiction book with a nonfiction book that you would recommend.

• Note: I recommend these but I have NOT read all of these! But I want to so that is just as good, yes? I can recommend books I haven’t read yet, I think.

One of the reasons I love the blog CitizenReader is for the wonderful book-pairing readalongs hosted; so I could easily ‘borrow’ the ones I participated in and share here:

Thomas Keenan’s Technocreep (NF) with John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War (fiction) – oops, I wanted to but did not get to either of these books…

Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctor’s Plague (NF) with Joanna Kavenna’s The Birth of Love (fiction) – I actually DID read BOTH and shall I just say: FASCINATING.

We had a book menage of all nonfiction books by/on Shirley Jackson:  Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons (book about raising her kids) with the biography of her by Judith Oppenhemier, titled Personal Demons –> HOWEVER THIS IS SUPPOSED to be finding a nonfic to go with fiction, so this inspires me to suggest reading Salem’s Lot with the Haunting of Hill House! (yep, havent’ read but saw the movie) Might as well throw in a nonfic book about Stephen King or by King? On Writing would suffice, but that leads me to a fun pairing of On Writing with Carrie, King’s first book. On Writing talks about how he came to write Carrie… 

But let’s think a little. Hmmmm. . .

How about:  Reading Lolita in Tehran with  The Bookseller of Kabul? Oh – these are both nonfiction, set in different countries but same theme of persecution and restriction of women and education. Perhaps this fiction offering: Khaled Hosseini’s  A Thousand Splendid Suns will work as a good pairing with The Bookseller – both Afghanistan.

Oooooo, how about this? This features a pairing of setting and time frame:  How about fiction Sister Carrie (set in Chicago 1900ish) with  Devil in the White City, circa 1893? note: I have yet to read Devil White City; I know I know! It’s TOTALLY crazy that I haven’t read it yet.

AND, here’s a good one! I walked into the indie book store in Newport Rhode Island and asked for Jill Morrow’s Newport  but it wasn’t on the shelf. So the wonderful staff recommended a nonfiction read  Gilded – which was delicious fun; I got the full scoop on Newport now and then. Um, I still need to get a copy of the Morrow book…

Finally, I present a book menage of my own planned for at the time I started reading Orphan Master but I never did get around to on the nonfic side. (Shame on me?) but I ❤LOVED❤ the fiction half of this pairing: The Orphan Master’s Son with Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy:  Ordinary Lives in Northern Korea.

.

I’m excited to see what everyone posts on this.

What about you? Did this post stimulate any share-able ideas?

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The Luminaries

Thoughts  The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, Little,Brown and Co 2013, 848 pages. Ebook + Audible = Whispersync

Narrated by Mark Meadows; 29 hours, 14 minutes (if anyone wants me to One-Book this to them, let me know.)

Hokitika = Around. And then back again, beginning.

The blurb from goodreads.com:  It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner.

A book that was exciting! and then sometimes, not.

A book that was complicated; and sometimes almost boring.

“Devlin sipped his whiskey. The taste was smoky and slightly musty; it put him in mind of cured meats, and new books, and barnyards, and cloves.”

A book that had my full attention! until it went over my head and I didn’t care enough to figure it out. (see Astrology:  Each chapter had a title about signs and moons and such. It also included a quick list of what would happen to whom which actually was helpful but I never could figure out the connexions to signs and symbols.)

A book that both tried to inspire me to work harder at getting it!  and then flip-side, had me quite impressed with myself for comprehending what I did.

A book that will likely become one of those books that I can say I’m proud to have read and may one day (but I doubt it) be able to say so at a cocktail party, “Look at me! I read The Luminaries!! I have also attempted Ulysses and loved Les Miserables!  I’m such a good reader. Hhrmpph.”

I’m a lousy ‘reader’. Whatever.

I didn’t get any of the astrology. I just don’t get it. I am a Gemini and the only thing I know about it is that my sign is the twins. And I think maybe this is actually significant to the story in The Luminaries but … well, I’m not sure.

Actually, this aspect (the astrology) is easy to gloss over and really didn’t frustrate me in the least.

I was entertained once I got into the rhythm of the story and finally got the characters straight in my head. I think the narrator did a MARVELOUS job with voices and was even going to commend him for the female voices until the end when I began to think Lydia Greenway was just a little too-too vampish.

I bet I haven’t talked you into reading this, am I right? Ah, if you already have given thought to wanting to read this, please don’t let me talk you out of it. It has many merits and maybe you will love it? Go for it. I’m thinking of getting it for my Dad for Father’s Day…

“A woman fallen has no future; a man risen has no past.”

This was in last year’s Tournament of Books if you want to see how it fared. I tend to agree with the judging mostly.

Have fun!

Rating:  Three slices of fish pie.  “…where he ordered one portion of fish pie – the perennial lunchtime special – and one glass of lemon cordial.”

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