Classics Club Spin Oct 2021 #ccspin #MyCCSPINList

Time for another Spin! #28 – Number reveal 10.17, read by 12/12/2021

**** UPDATED on 10/17 8:30 am to share the SPIN NUMBER is 12! 

Click the image above to go to the announcement post.

Will update later today with the selected spin number which will identify the book I need to read…

My Spin List:

1	Villette
2	Gilgamesh
3	Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
4	the Counterfeiters
5	Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
6	A Few Green Leaves – B. Pym
7	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – PK Dick
8	Under the Greenwood Tree – Hardy
9	The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
10	At the Mountains of Madness – Lovecraft
11	Pale Fire – Nabokov
12	Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin  <—- SPIN SELECTION!
13	Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
14	The Good Soldier – Ford M Ford
15	Death Comes for the Archbishop – W.Cather
16	Rabbit, Run – Updike
17	All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West
18	The Soul of Kindness – Elizabeth Taylor
19	The King Must Die – Mary Renault
20	The Way We Live Now – Trollope

Here’s hoping 18 hits – it’s on Kindle sale so I bought it.  GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

COMPLETED ♦ What’s in a Name Challenge ♦ 2021

The What’s in a Name 6-Category Reading Challenge is hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook. The image below will link to the Challenge Sign up Page.

• One/1  – Anna Quindlen’s One True Thing  
• Doubled word – I have two options here:   Apologize, APOLOGIZE by Elizabeth Kelly or The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire Lazebnik
• Reference to outer space  – Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air   I also read Klara and the Sun which would fit, as well.
• Possessive noun – The Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet   
• Botanical word – The People in the Trees   and I was also wondering if I could count Ella Minnow Pea?    (In my signup post, I shared my hope to read one or both of these:  The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock or Alan Drew’s Gardens of Water   and I still just might.)
• Article of clothing:  Pauli Murray’s Proud Shoes  

This is one of my favorite challenges!

And this year is one of the first where I have actually finished the books I said I would when I started the challenge. AND that I’m not scrambling to finish in December.

My list in goodreads.

Copyright © 2007-2020. 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.

If Beale Street Could Talk

Thoughts by James Baldwin, Vintage 2006 (orig 1974), 197 pages

Challenge: 20 Books of Summer, Book to Movie

Genre/Theme: Civil Rights, Love Story

Type/Source: Tradeback, Indie Bookstore purchase

What It’s About: I’m rusty. I was on SUCH a good roll of writing/posting/sharing my book thoughts and now, I can’t think of thing to say.

This is the story of first love and family love. And heartache. Both for the young couple and because of the tragedies they are swept up in, for whatever family is and should be. The way Tish’s family supported her and Fonny, contrasted with how Fonny’s family (exception, his father) was not able to do the same. Sad and unfair. Nothing was fair.

“The only way anything gets done is when you make up your mind to do it.“

Thoughts: I was gutted at the end. I’m not sure I can recall a book that quite did what this one did AFTER the last page was read. I closed the book and sat and just welled up, welled over. And felt almost a physical sensation, shock-like.

Rating: Five slices of pie.

Sweetie pie.

 

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

Update August 2021 in Review with Note on #20BooksofSummer

 Monthly Recap Time!

• 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.”

If beale street could talk

UPDATE on #20BooksofSummer:

• 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.

What was YOUR favorite book of August?

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

Books to Movie Edition 2021-A

Stacy of Stacy’s Books posted on InstaGram asking what the latest movie based on a book was worthy of praise. I took it as a throwdown to mention ALL the movies that were BETTER than the book! before I realized she didn’t really ask that.

But since I had just watched Housekeeping the film after recently reading Housekeeping the book by Marilynne Robinson, I figured you my Readers were due for another edition of BOOKS to MOVIE! What follows is random thoughts on our topic.

• 

• 

I know I didn’t really do a good post/review on Housekeeping, but I was gobsmacked by its uniqueness and its ending which . . .  was perfectly suitable but left me wanting to scream and discuss it and tear it apart with someone. You know; for FUN. I had much fun reading all the movie reviews, too. PRAISE for the actress, Christine Lahti, who played Sylvie, the pivotal most interesting character. The two girls, their parallel-but-not-the-same coming of age stories, the tenderness against the sad heavy plight of family. I think seeing the film enhanced my understanding of the reading experience. Win, win.

I looked up “plight” here – is this the word I am wanting to use? The definition of PLIGHT is an unfortunate, difficult, precarious situation. I think it works.

Okay, wordpressblock is SUCKING again. . .

OK, let’s just type and edit later.

Since the last Books to Movie Edition (which was apparently back in 2016. Well. HUH.), I have read many books that have been made into movies. Let’s list, shall we?

If I look at my books-read list and think… how many of these have had movies made? and how many of those movies did I see??? I think it is a long list. My latest post only talked about those movies I had seen that had been adapted to screen from book form. Uh, I think we are beyond the scope of a quick post update.

I don’t know quite what to do here! LOL

OK, I’m going to go through the last 5 years of book titles to see if I have seen any movies based on such. In the last 5 years. Can’t be that hard, can it?

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons – SEE IT! omg, much fun. I might even say that the movie is better than the book! But. I also think that reading the book first makes the movie fun. I don’t think the movie quite delivers the same kick if you don’t have the appreciation of what is going on. I could be wrong. But the movie was great. (And if you have Amazon Prime and have seen The Man in the High Castle, let’s talk Rufus Sewall.) 2017

The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Clark – intense. Book is better because the narrator is a sensitive soul with deep thoughts and that is tough to translate to the big screen, imo.

Wolf Hall. Well, yeah. GOOD STUFF. The mini-series with Mark Rylance. I liked the book better because it is just SO GOOD. But the vid version is entertaining, too.

The Time Machine. I actually posted both the book and the movie review together last year. I get its historic importance but it didn’t thrill more than just an appreciation.

Let’s keep this going. Let’s do another post or two, sometime before end of year, that lists movies I want to see based on books I’ve read.

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

Did anyone even follow all this? LOL what a mess….

The Three Musketeers

Thoughts by Alexander Dumas, Bantam Classics 1984 (orig 1844), 635 pages

Audiobook 23 hours 32 minutes, narrated by John Lee

Challenge: Classics Club Spin #26

Genre/Theme: “Cloak and Sword” story / Adventure

Type/Source: Paperback and Audiobook / Purchased in 2009 at Borders, Audible

What It’s About: This was a lot of fun and I enjoyed meeting the main characters; fighting for the King and against the scheming Cardinal and his guards, as well as wooing all the ladies. It had a lot of humor. It did seem long and tedious, at times, though.

Thoughts: Not nearly as good at The Count of Monte Cristo but still dashing and adventurous.

Rating: Rounding up to 4 slices of pie. No pie mentioned.

I talked friends into renting the 1973 movie starring all sorts of big stars! and it was… also not as good as the Count of Monte Cristo movie. But I’m glad to have watched it. The movie really emphasized the campiness and humor.

 

Charleton Heston! Raquel Welch!! among others…. Link to IMDB.com

 

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

Books and Pie: Pineapple Edition

I made pie last week. I need to get in better habit to share these moments with you here at Care’s Books and Pie Blog, wouldn’t you agree? So, I was thinking it might be fun to find a book or two that feature (however loosely!) the pie flavor recently baked. In this edition, the flavor is PINEAPPLE.

Book Title #1: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

FIVE PIE SLICES of Two Crust Mango and Pineapple Pie with Coconut Sorbet!

Read my review here.

Book Title #2: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

“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.”

read my review here.

Book Title #3: Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook; recipe modified from Pineapple-Apricot Pie, p. 84

Pineapple-Mango Pie

Enjoy a slice!

 

Have you encountered a Pineapple Pie lately? Have you seen Pineapple Pie on the menu board of your local pastry shoppe, perhaps? What about in your reading?

Here’s cheers to thinking of me whenever pie is featured in your literature travels…

 

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

Classics Club Spin April 2021 #ccspin #MyCCSPINList

Time for another Spin! #26 – Number reveal 4/18, read by 5/31

Click the image above to go to the announcement post.

And this is the Selected Number Post!         ELEVEN ****   11  *****

My Spin List:

1	The Postman Always Rings Twice – JM Cain
2	Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
3	Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
4	If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin
5	Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
6	A Few Green Leaves – B. Pym
7	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – PK Dick
8	Under the Greenwood Tree – Hardy
9	The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
10	At the Mountains of Madness – Lovecraft
11	The Three Musketeers – Alex Dumas
12	Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
13	Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
14	Steppenwolf – Hesse
15	Death Comes for the Archbishop – W.Cather
16	Rabbit, Run – Updike
17	All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West
18	American Pastoral – Philip Roth
19	The King Must Die – Mary Renault
20	Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Here’s hoping all of these are immediately available at the library.  GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Copyright © 2007-2021. 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.

What’s in a Name Challenge 2021 Sign Up Post

The What’s in a Name 6-Category Reading Challenge is hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook. The image below will link to the Challenge Sign up Page.

UPDATED Jan 13, 2021 – see PURPLE FONT BELOW…

In 2021, choose 6 books that have titles that contain a:
(Click on the links for more examples and info)

• One/1  – Anna Quindlen’s One True Thing
• Doubled word – I have two options here:   Apologize, APOLOGIZE by Elizabeth Kelly or The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire Lazebnik
• Reference to outer space  – Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air 
• Possessive noun – I hope to read BOTH of these: The Children’s Book by A.S.Byatt and The Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

                                             and 

• Botanical word – I own 2 books with “garden” in the title: The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock or Alan Drew’s Gardens of Water
• Article of clothing – I have NO IDEA! please help. I couldn’t even figure out how to search by gr tbr to give me suggestions.

I will be reading Pauli Murray’s Proud Shoes for the Article of Clothing category… 

This is one of my favorite challenges because it gets me to go through my own shelves and I am reminded of or re-find possibilities of some great reads!

More choices possible on my list in goodreads.

Copyright © 2007-2020. 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.

Classics Club Spin Nov 2020 #ccspin #MyCCSPINList

Time for another Spin! – I love these so much. It’s one of the reasons I joined the Classics Club in the first place.

Click the image above to go to the announcement post.

“Before Sunday 22nd November 2020, create a post that lists twenty books  that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.”

This is my Spin List:

1	The Postman Always Rings Twice – JM Cain
2	Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
3	Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
4	the Counterfeiters – A. Gide
5	Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
6	A Few Green Leaves – B. Pym
7	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – PK Dick
8	Under the Greenwood Tree – Hardy
9	The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
10	At the Mountains of Madness – Lovecraft
11	The Three Musketeers – Alex Dumas
12	Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
13	Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
14	Steppenwolf – Hesse
15	Death Comes for the Archbishop – W.Cather
16	Rabbit, Run – Updike
17	All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West
18	The Way We Live Now – Trollope
19	The King Must Die – Mary Renault
20	Jude the Obscure – Hardy

Here’s hoping all of these are immediately available at the library and that the spin  number result is a few-page-count title!  Please.  GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Copyright © 2007-2020. 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.