Thoughts by Anna Quindlen, Random House Trade 2012, 205 pages
Challenge: What’s in a Name: Celebration category
Genre/Theme:Essays, Family and Motherhood, Aging, Feminism
Type/Source: Tradeback / Second Hand Bookstore Purchase
What It’s About: Anna shares her thoughts on aging. She is so insightful and hopeful.
“At age 60 I find myself poised between the inevitable and the possible, the things I know and understand and the things I hope to learn and perhaps unravel. But it’s still a bit of a mystery, the yet to come, with that greatest of all mysteries, mortality, at its very end.”
Thoughts: She talks a lot about family and her place in the progression of time. Also her timing into the American workforce balanced with the progression of the women’s movement. And, considerate of being thankful that she lived past the age her mother died, and in the realization of how much her mother missed by dying young, and also the perspective of how her mother’s death impacted her appreciation of life ongoing. I was especially thankful and admiring of her essay on religion.
Rating: I don’t think I was cognizant of her use of the the title in the text, nor do I think she ever mentioned pie. Five slices of pie because I love her. And the cover makes me happy.
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 2023 are:
Btw, I deleted all my Twitter accounts. End of an era? I do miss it, but it was no longer the Twitter I knew and loved.
Let’s talk CHALLENGES. I’m looking at the few challenges I worked at in 2022 and picking books from what I read that satisfy as a last ditch effort – I was picky and in doubt about a few but at this stage in the game, WHO CARES!
The What’s in a Name Challenge is COMPLETE:
I’m not bothering to figure out if I posted to the host site (SORRY!) and just enjoying the accomplishment over here in my personal glory/reflection.
Moving on to the question of will I continue in 2023! YES! Yes, of course, and I have a stack of books picked out that will satisfy the new categories but will list more in a dedicated post here in the next few days or weeks.
Classics Club 50 Part 2 – I read a few classics from my lists and some I realized after that the publish date qualifies for this challenge so I will commit, once again, to a dedicated post in the future with what I’ve read so far and how many I have yet to read. Quick glance says I have to read between 20 – 25 by the end of year 2024. I’ll make it. Looking good.
Buddy Reads! Who is in for 2023? The Stephen King Fairy Tales is sure showing up in the publicity marketing machine! Anyone want to commit a date for that in 2023?
or is TOB going to suck up all the reading time and force me to say, “How About April?!”
Which brings me to the Tournament of Books. I am almost half way through the 18 on the short list. I think I’ll make this one, too. HUZZAH!
OK, [the SECOND] the reason I wanted to post today is because I was triggered by something that happened this weekend. It set me on an exploratory path. Triggered? y..e..a..h… it really is interesting and annoying how many words involve gun-related language, would you agree? I’m stalling, I get it, I really want to make sure you are following along on this ride before I share what I really am giggly-goo to do.
I was checking Litsy over the weekend and someone posted on the book Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny.
click on book cover to go to 2018 review with video…
I read this. That was my thought. Do I recall what it is about? No. No, I didn’t have much if any recollection.
So what do you do if you are a book blogger? You go to your blog and search. (well, sometimes I do go to Goodreads first but that is usually when I want to know WHEN I read something and this was an IF question.)
Sure enough, I did read this. In 2018!
Four
Long
Years
Ago
(still here?)
Let’s get on with this, shall we?
If you were with me in 2018, I offered up some video reviews and recaps.
I – HAD – FORGOTTEN!!!
Huh, looked ’em up, checked my YouTube account, blah blah blah, why not try again? here ya go:
Me, trying to remember what it is I’m supposed to do! or learn what is changed, probably…
Enjoy! ( I amuse myself sometimes. LANDSCAPE VIEW!??!?! OMG – they *DID* change things… SIGH)
And BECAUSE, I am out of practice. (see? My first self-doubt question is to wonder if I need that comma after my all-caps “BECAUSE”. I don’t, do I. Not a question, but now I have to leave it or you wouldn’t have much of a clue what I was talking about. )
Because I am out of practice, I need to just open a blank post and start free-associating.
So this is what I am doing!
First (since the above is epilogue) I will shout out a big WOO HOO to Amy for being a super dooper book friend by text.
We just texted and had a lovely conversation about books and doing-what-makes-you-happy and somehow after that, the convo devolved to Twitter and capitalism.
How do you spell SAY-Lah-VEE. ?
How old were you when you discovered that french words were very much not what they looked like spelled?!
I still recall the day when I found out what “hors d’oeuvres” were/was/WHAT?!
I knew then that I would NEVER learn French.
Ok, where were we? Trying to get the CARE back to putting words into the internet! I miss it! Yet everytime I sit to write a post, I just can’t. I can’t remember the steps, I can’t recall the process, I don’t desire the whateveritwas. The ooomph, motivation and the want to… THERE. but not the mechanics, and the overcoming of the hump of just-doing.
I really can’t quite figure it out.
I loved LOVED City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert.
I have loved her authoringabilities since that book that everyone hated that I can’t at this exact moment recall. WHAT IS THAT?! Peace Love Pie? no…. Love Pray Eat? EAT PRAY LOVE! ok, whew
I thought that was total wonderfulness.
SO I especially, vocally veraciously loudly follow Elizabeth Gilbert because she is T.A.L.E.N.T-ed in the kinds of books I like to read. I don’t know how else to describe them but I’m gathering a list of authors that fit my MUST-READS: Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, Rachel Joyce, Kate Atkinson, Liz Moore, Kate DiCamillo, … oh, I’m SURE there are MORE. (Tell me who I’m missing.)
April 28 is Blueberry Pie Day
Just heard that Elizabeth McCracken has a movie rights optioned on her book The Giant’s House which I have yet to read. Might have to put that on my May —- no! June list.
Here is my May list:
OK then myFriends, let’s encourage each other to contribute when we can and validate our thoughts and opinions of beauty and art cuz, GOLLY, it can be a struggle with the evil Putin being evil, and other mind-boggling disregard for humanity.
ok, then. I’m working on finishing 2 more books this month and then writing an April recap. Be kind!
My favorite was … Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore, followed by the delightful Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley, a classic novella from 1917.
Locations and travels:
Odessa TX in the 70s (Valentine)
San Francisco, also in the 70s (We Run the Tides, for #readICT)
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks links to WRtT because both were set in exclusive high schools, this one in Massachusetts (#readICT)
Parnassus on Wheels traveled New England in the early 1900s
London both now and 1700s in The Lost Apothecary (book club)
Puerto Rico and Brooklyn NY in Olga Dies Dreaming
The Stand-In took me to Toronto
Wintering took place in England (WiaN)
The Alchemy of Us covered history across many maps
UPDATE on #TOB2022
My least favorite Klara and the Sun took the Rooster in March’s Tournament of Books
I can confidently state the The Trees captured the hearts for favorite of the Commentariat so that is the book I’m most recommending as “THE BEST”; my personal favorite is The Sentence
Am inspired to read a new translation of Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley, one of the judges this year. MANY if not most of the judgments were excellent.
Pie was mentioned in four of this month’s reads. A history of PYREX mentions pie, all kinds of pie and multiple paragraphs cover a summer expedition to eat pie across the country, squash pie in Parnassus on Wheels and this from WRtT:
piroshkis are meat pie
April 3 is Chocolate Mousse Pie Day, April 5 is Empanada Day, April 28 is Blueberry Pie Day! I don’t think I made any pie in March. I just wasn’t feelin’ it.
I’m a completist! I finished The Echo Wife and The Confessions of Copeland Cain on the same day last week and I’ve been working on this post ever since. I want to update with my thoughts about all that …
Let’s share my thoughts of the TOB books so that I can remember them at Tourney Time. Which is SOON. It starts on March 8. First, let’s present my list of favorites, best to least: 1. The Sentences by Louise Erdrich 2. The Trees by Percival Everett 3. Matrix by Lauren Groff 4. Subdivision by Robt J Lennon 5. All’s Well by Mona Awad 6. The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki 7. The Confession of Copeland Cane by Keenan Norris 8. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura 9. In Concrete by Anna Garreta 10. Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke 11. No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood 12. Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney 13. When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut 14. Nervous System by Lina Meruane 15. Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart 16. Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge 17. The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey 18. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
NOTE: these middle positions shift up and down if I contemplate further. Suffice it to say, I won’t really be upset about any of these winning. For me, the tournament is about how others react (and beautifully explain) these books, the ideas, the craft, the art. THE DISCUSSION. It’s all terribly subjective and I’m here for it. _________________________________________________________________________
The following THOUGHTS are most recent to first read. ________________________________________________
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, eBook, 253 pages This book was a failure for me. I didn’t care for it. I finished it, but I thought it uneven and not quite believable. Maybe it was that it diverted far from what I was hoping and expecting. For all the moral quandaries on the ethics of cloning, it really didn’t hit hard on the big questions for me. And it seems heavy-handed for what questions it did explore … which now, a few many days later, I forget what they are. Identity, I think. But mostly just more on the never-ending story of how men are pigs. I thought many of the main character’s head-thoughts were said over and over and over again. I get it already. You are upset about your marriage. You are unsure about this clone of yourself, yadayadayada blah blah blah. I’m sure that I’ll totally change my mind when the Commentariat has a go at this one!
The Confession of Copeland Cain by Keenan Norris, audiobook 11.2 hrs
Let me share the blurb:
BOOK BLURB: (Cope) is just a regular teenager coming up in a terrifying world. A slightly eccentric, flip-phone loving kid with analog tendencies and a sideline hustling sneakers, the boundaries of Copeland’s life are demarcated from the jump by urban toxicity, an educational apparatus with confounding intentions, and a police state that has merged with media conglomerates – the highly rated Insurgency Alert Desk that surveils and harasses his neighborhood in the name of anti-terrorism.
Recruited by the nearby private school even as he and his folks face eviction, Copeland is doing his damnedest to do right by himself, for himself. And yet the forces at play entrap him in a reality that chews up his past and obscures his future. Copeland’s wry awareness of the absurd keeps life passable, as do his friends and their surprising array of survival skills. And yet in the aftermath of a protest rally against police violence, everything changes, and Copeland finds himself caught in the flood of history.
I really enjoyed this. Cope is very endearing and thoughtful and working on being his best. It has some comic moments, too. It might need to be said that it is brutal and shines the spotlight on harsh reality, too. Recommended. π
I attempted Libertie via eBook from the library. I just could not get into it. I put aside and then came back to it on Audible audio. I got about half way and skipped to the end. Read others’ reviews. Felt I got it. Call it a partial-DNF. I might have missed the middle to last quarter. I was not a fan. To recap what I think it was about: a young girl whose mother was a black female doctor in a free black town in New York who assisted the Underground Railroad. Libertie grew up with expectations of pursuing her own medical degree and assisting mom. She didn’t subscribe to that plan. Between 2 and 3 slices of pie.
Time to chat about ALL’s WELL! I thought this delicious. BUT ONLY!!!! Only after the horrid hard difficult painful PAINFUL first part that discussed the pain of ongoing cumulative on-going ever-present pain. Did I mention it was sickeningly painful? It was. Just painful; all the reviews talk about how visceral it was. I’m not sure if ‘visceral’ is the right word but it was powerful. But then! the cartoon birds of happiness played and the tone shifted and I thought it was WOW. Fantasy elements aside, I thought it brilliantly executed and was on board for the rest of the show and how it played out. This was very much a book that was felt, both bad and good in the body. Well done Author, Author!
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura, Hardcover (Library) 352 pages Quietly powerful. Our protag moved to The Hague, taking at job interpreting for the international war crimes tribunal. Fascinating! but it was her working through the worlds of being an immigrant, making friends, working at what she was working on, and starting a relationship, etc.; these elements formed the power of the story.
I should have liked When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut and translated by Adrian Nathan West, narrated by Adam Barr, 5 hours and 40 minutes. I appreciate all those who loved it but … I don’t know. Maybe I should have read the print and not listened. It is interesting to me that this and Matrix had lots of fact vs fiction disgruntlement and what that MEANS. (I don’t know what it means!) Three slices of pie. (I don’t know if it mentioned pie, either! If anyone has the eBook… go check real quick, wouldya?)
(Dec 2021) Nervous System / Lina Meruane Tb (2021,228) *** 122 Several People Are Typing / Calvin Kasulke A (2021,3.45) **** 120 The Book of Form and Emptiness / Ruth Ozeki A (2021,18.5) π ***** 118 The Trees / Percival Everett Tb (2021,309) π ***** 117
Ten years ago, about this time, I discovered a PROJECT that aligned nicely with that year’s goal of writing a letter every day. I succeeded on that project and I’m excited to share that I will be participating in this February’s Month of Letters aka/hashtag #LetterMo again. TEN YEARS! So this year is actually my 11th year. WOW.
Volunteers keep the website going; it’s changed some over the decade. Author Mary Robinette Kowal (Twitter link) started it all and since abdicated it to the universe. I’ve read 2 of her books:
I reviewed Shades of Milk & Honey in a roundup post 2014 and never got around to writing many reviews at all of books read in 2018, such as Calculating Stars.
Rules to #LetterMo are simple – I actually do the deluxe version and write every single day, but I think the stated guidelines suggest sending something in the mail every day the mail runs. Thus, if in the US, this means only Monday thru Saturday. The website community awards badges for certain challenges and has virtual stickers, buttons and more.
OH yea! Another rule is to reply to any letter received in February… which takew me into March.
So… if I have your address, I will probably drop you a snailmail note next month. If you would like me to send a postcard or letter, please tell me your address in an email to BkClubCare [at] Gmail.
10 books; 87 for the year (1 book cover not included above – a pie cookbook)
1548 pages, ~14 hours | 19333 total pages, 186 hours
Hardcovers – 1, 5 Tradebacks, 0 eBooks, 4 Audiobooks (though 3 would likely be the equivalent of a magazine article?!)
3 from the Library, 2 purchased from an Indie Bookstore, 1 Audible Credit and 3 more Included with Audible Membership, 1 gift
My favorite was … I don’t have a favorite this month! I can tell you that I voted for Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch for my TOB Summer Camp favorite. And I really did like Housekeeping – it was SO unique! and I really enjoyed Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets… Black Gold, too, was a pleasant listen.
I gave 2 slices to The Orphan Collector but left the rating blank on goodreads because I just can’t figure out what didn’t work. I only know that I experienced that “blech, I don’t want to read this” feeling. Maybe it is a coconut book.
Locations and travels:
early 1600s Germany EKYMiaW
the Pacific Northwest (specifics unknown, 2 books: TFLotP and Housekeeping)
Georgia and the Olympics (basketball, Black Gold)
the future I,Autohouse
early 1900s Philadelphia TOC
1970s NYC IBSCT
on tour with Sting, but mostly England
“If you look steadily into that unblinking blue, into that pinpoint at the center of the eye, you discover a bottomless cruelty, a viciousness, cold and icy.
… if you do exist in the unbelievably frozen winter which lives behind that eye, you are marked, marked, marked.”
I finished a total of 27 book-books (kicked out the kids books, short audiobooks, and the cookbook)
I read 18 of the original 20 books I wanted to read June/July/Aug
The two from my original list I did not get to:
Up in the Air by Walter Kirn
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Pie was mentioned in four of this month’s reads. Sweetie pie, a pie seller thrown in jail, all sorts of good fond pie mentions in Housekeeping, and a shop that sold pie and sandwiches. YUM.
Peach Crumb
Chocolate Pecan
Plum Tart
August 20 is Chocolate Pecan Pie Day, August 24 is Peach Pie Day; I don’t know if Plum Tart has a day but I had plums on hand so… I made a mini Plum Tart.
by Anna Quindlen, Random House Trade 2012, 205 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 Keenan Norris, audiobook 11.2 hrs
π
via eBook from the library. I just could not get into it. I put aside and then came back to it on Audible audio. I got about half way and skipped to the end. Read others’ reviews. Felt I got it. Call it a partial-DNF. I might have missed the middle to last quarter. I was not a fan. To recap what I think it was about: a young girl whose mother was a black female doctor in a free black town in New York who assisted the Underground Railroad. Libertie grew up with expectations of pursuing her own medical degree and assisting mom. She didn’t subscribe to that plan. Between 2 and 3 slices of pie.
I thought this delicious. BUT ONLY!!!! Only after the horrid hard difficult painful PAINFUL first part that discussed the pain of ongoing cumulative on-going ever-present pain. Did I mention it was sickeningly painful? It was. Just painful; all the reviews talk about how visceral it was. I’m not sure if ‘visceral’ is the right word but it was powerful. But then! the cartoon birds of happiness played and the tone shifted and I thought it was WOW. Fantasy elements aside, I thought it brilliantly executed and was on board for the rest of the show and how it played out. This was very much a book that was felt, both bad and good in the body. Well done Author, Author! 
by Katie Kitamura, Hardcover (Library) 352 pages
by Gary Shteyngart, eBook via Libby, 336 pages. It was alright. I skimmed and read the end. (who AM I?!) Three slices of pie.
by Benjamin Labatut and translated by Adrian Nathan West, narrated by Adam Barr, 5 hours and 40 minutes. I appreciate all those who loved it but … I don’t know. Maybe I should have read the print and not listened. It is interesting to me that this and Matrix had lots of fact vs fiction disgruntlement and what that MEANS. (I don’t know what it means!) Three slices of pie. (I don’t know if it mentioned pie, either! If anyone has the eBook… go check real quick, wouldya?)
Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Online Book Club aka Care’s Books and Pie. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club aka BkClubCare. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.
Care's Books and Pie 