Tender is the Night

Thoughts by F.Scott Fitzgerald, 1934, 356 pages

Challenge:  Classics Club Spin

Genre: Classic

Type/Source: ebook, library

 Why I read this now:  SPIN!   

MOTIVATION for READING: I had read somewhere that this was his best work. I may have read that wrong. Could be it is still a topic of debate.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:  LOTS going on in this book and to be honest, I didn’t give it my full attention (which might mean that I actually failed to finish. Shame on me! I am still counting it as read…)

Dick Diver is married. He and his wife make a lovely much-admired couple and live in an amazingly glamorous spot on the French Riviera leading a glamorous life. But really, he is a psychoanalyst married to a former patient (named Nicole, who seems perfectly lovely in the first half) and is now attracted (the Dick dude) to a cute young glamorous up&coming actress who throws herself at him. But really, I didn’t get much farther than that. I love that history shocks me – that WHAT?!          WHY young ladies don’t throw themselves at happily married men they meet on the beach AND admire the wives and yet still throw themselves at the husband anyway AND TELL THEIR OWN MOTHER?!  in the late 1920s?!  did they? Do they?

I would have never. (Told my mother.)

I put the book down and ten days later when I had the time and mindspace to jump back in, I found out that it was a 14 day library ebook loan and I FAILED. Oooops. It expired.

So I spent a few hours watching YouTube BookTube videos and caught myself up on the plot of what I missed.

Dick and Nicole’s marriage implodes. He does end up sleeping with the young actress apparently but the book takes a turn and shares how Dick and Nicole met in the first place; then Nicole sleeps with a friend, — apparently, they talk it out “LIKE ADULTS” (whatever that might mean) and it ends ambiguously with Dick being an alcoholic and Nicole hopefully have her HEA. I heard it had an ambiguous ending.

OK, maybe I kept zoning out on the less than 10 minute BookTube reviews. Sue me.

THOUGHTS: This book does seem to have CARE PIE written ALL OVER IT! But no, nope. I just didn’t quite get into that must-finish-keep-reading-it’s-past-my-bedtime-don’t-care state which I was wanting.

Should I have audiobooked it?!

oH yEA.  I will watch the movie. Hopefully sooner than later. Casting looks suspect in my distant future viewpoint yet the pretties and the settings look like it just might deliver.  Jason Robards, Jennifer Jones, Joan Fontaine?! and Jill St John. Adapted to the 1960s and made in 1962. Sign. me. up.

RATING:  Three slices of pie.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

The Time Machine Audiobook then Film

Thoughts by  HG Wells, Tantor 2008 (orig 1853), ~ 4 hours

Narrated by Scott Brick

Challenge: Classics Club, Back to Classics Genre or Movie Adaption?

Genre: Science Fiction

Type/Source: Audiobook/Library

 Why I read this now:  Hard to say…

MOTIVATION for READING: I love time travel stuff.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:  A gentleman invents a time machine and jettisons himself off into the far, very far, future.

Humanity splits into good and bad?  leisure class and workers – lots to dissect here if I was feeling academic, which today I am not. But, even as I reflected its place as commentary on society and its juxtaposition with what is going on now in relation to capitalism, etc, I just don’t have the energy to do more than recognize it likely has something to say that I might want to pay attention to?

THOUGHTS: It was OK. Some of these old-timey books, I just love and get right into the rhythm. This one had me a bit impatient. I now know what Morlocks are. I certainly can appreciate the classic and the WOW! factor this has enjoyed over the years.

I was more excited to read somewhere that the 1960 film version was considered quite cool; the special effects still impress. So we watched it and it was a fun.

With so many classics, the fun is saying “Yep, read it.” and I am glad to be able to say so now. Check it off the list.

RATING:  Three slices of pie.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Classics Spin Aug 2020

Updated, copied directly from the Classics Club announcement: If you joined the game last week, find number 18 on your CC Spin #24 List! That’s the CLASSIC you are challenged to read by 30th September, 2020.

Since I missed the announcement post, I have to grab 20 titles and then toss them into a randomizer to find which will be put in the 18th spot so I can read it! I love the SPIN…

The last time I “spun”, I had 19 books left on my original list:  Crossing off the ones I did read since then and adding in some from my NEXT batch of 50, I get this odd ball list:

1. The Three Musketeers – Alex Dumas
2. Jude the Obscure – Hardy
3. Rabbit, Run – Updike
4. Naked Lunch – Wm Burroughs
5. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
6. Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
7. Candide – Voltaire
8. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
9. Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
10. Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
11. The Way We Live Now – Trollope
12. the Counterfeiters – A. Gide
13. A Handful of Dust – Waugh
14. The Ox-bow Incident – Walter Van Tilberg Clark
15. Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
16. One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
17. They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
18. The Bird’s Nest – Shirley Jackson
19. The King Must Die
20. NEW: Tender is the Night
21. NEW: Persuasion
22. NEW: Madame Bovary
23. NEW: Waves
24. NEW: If Beale Street Could Talk
25. NEW: Giovanni’s Room
26. NEW: Pale Fire
27. NEW: Villette

SO…. Then I copied the list into a google sheet and then used the function RANDOMIZE RANGE a few times. After all that, I looked which book title was in the 18th slot.

and…

TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F.Scott Fitzgerald

1	Waves
2	Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
3	Jude the Obscure – Hardy
4	Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
5	Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
6	the Counterfeiters – A. Gide
7	They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
8	Giovanni’s Room
9	Pale Fire
10	The King Must Die
11	The Three Musketeers – Alex Dumas
12	Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
13	Villette
14	Madame Bovary
15	Persuasion
16	If Beale Street Could Talk
17	The Way We Live Now – Trollope
18	Tender is the Night
19	Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
20	Rabbit, Run – Updike

 

I was hoping for Villette. I left off / paused, if you will, reading it right when the Pandemic hit and I just am not inspired to get back to it…

 

Copyright © 2007-2019. 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.ing

April 2020 Mini-Reviews

Thoughts

 

I want to post something and I don’t really want to write a “review”. These mini-reviews are what I can do. NEEDS MUST.

I already told you how much I loved Mad With Yellow. In fact, I am still MAD with the color yellow! Do you think it is the color of the season? I seem to notice every woman on TV who wears bold yellow…   And only because I don’t see men wearing bold yellow often. But, I WOULD NOTICE IF THEY DID!  I am loving yellow in fashion this season.

I’ve told you that I very much enjoyed Call Me By Your Name. I still haven’t seen the movie. Haven’t figured out how to carve out 2 hours of alone time in the apartment to do this. I just don’t think the husband would want to see it. Hmmmm. ANYWAY.

[One of my coworkers admitted that they drive around the block the equivalent time that it used to take to commute to work just to have some alone time. I get that.]

Tell Me Lies was a free audiobook that I DNF’d. Ugh. Could NOT be enticed to care! I really am not much of a thriller reader unless very VERY good. I must be swept away. If I get an inkling of an eye-roll moment, the whole deal is sunk. Ugh. AND THEN! I read the description on goodreads (and wondered how I missed it) and thought to myself, “yea. No.” Hey, it was free. Whatever.  (I am not the right reader for this – give me a break?)

The Sisters Brothers was the last book I needed to read for the Super Rooster Tournament of Books. I had been avoiding it and it really was a good read!  The movie was beautiful. The movie plot line didn’t quite jive with what I hoped to see, but I always like to give credit to another’s interpretation. (In other words, I am very forgiving and rarely say that condescending phrase, “the book is always better.” – absolutes should be avoided. And coulda/woulda/shoulda…) My advice is to just “read the book.” #shrug

I read The Banker’s Wife for a book club. Remember that admission earlier that I’m not much of a thriller reader? yea….    I really did enjoy the book club discussion, though, and we had some fun thoughts shared without being … horrid to it. #BIGSMILEYFACE. The women in this book kick some bad guy ass but it really isn’t my style of favorite read.

I just couldn’t get into Cut & Run. I got disoriented trying to figure out the different voices. #whentoomanynarratorsdistractfromanaudiobook

and finally, sadly, this pandemic just makes a reading of Dorian Gray, just hard. Difficult. Unrelateable. Weird.  DNF’d about half way or definitely 1/3+ way. Will have to figure out a way to talk the husband into watching the movie.

ha!

Be Safe. Be Well. Live in the Moment. Tell me what shows I must see.

Here’s a pie I baked for Coconut Cream Pie Day:

It’s actually Almond Joy Mousse Cake Pie!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Treasure Island

Thoughts by Robt Louis Stevenson, Audible Studios 2017 (orig 1882), 6 hours 23 minutes

Narrated by the Philip Glenister, Daniel Mays, Catherine Tate, Owen Teale.

Challenge:  Back to Classics Challenge (Place, 19th C, Nature or Genre?), Classics Club

Genre: Adventure

Type/Source: Audio / Audible

WHAT’s it ABOUT:  A coming of age tale on the high seas, battling pirates for buried treasure. 

WHAT’s GOOD: Very fast paced, lots of dastardly deeds and swashbuckling. I enjoyed “young Jim”‘s mother who was full of love AND snark. Her only son craves a more adventurous life than running a seaside inn where the clientele is lowlifes and drunks but yay, that’s how they meet The Pirate. Well, the first pirate of many. So First Pirate dies and leaves a map that is discovered by Jim. Second Pirate attempts to steal map and threatens the life of the poor innkeepers but is thwarted. When Jim entrusts ‘gentlemen’ to secure a ship to voyage to the island where said treasure is suspected, we find out that the cook is our Third Pirate who declares mutiny. Jim is often dismissed as too young but then always exceeds expectations in every situation.

 What’s NOT so good:  Oh, it is perfectly fine if you like pirates and swashbuckling. The audio had long pauses between chapters which were a beat too long.

FINAL THOUGHTS:  I missed this in school but I can understand why this is often taught to middle school kids. I am curious why the fast food seafood chain decided to name it Long John Silvers. Took a risk there, donchathink? But maybe not. Well, come to think of it, I don’t even know if they are still in biz. They had a long run, though.

RATING:  Four slices

No pie mentions noted.

 

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Books and Pie. All rights reserved. This post is an original post by Care from Care’s Online Book Club aka Care’s Books and Pie.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Round Two of Classics Club 50 Challenge

I have decided to create my second #CC50 list on goodreads.

Book List 2

My idea for this list is to keep adding to it any book that fits the criteria and if by the date when 5 years is up (in Dec 2024, I’ll have read at least 50 of them.

Sound good?   

Starting with Villette by Brontë, my first book of the year. However, it’s looking like I will finish Treasure Island before that.

 

Help! My enthusiasm for Villette is waning! it’s so long. ugh. I better come across a pie reference soon…

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post is an original post by Care from Care’s Online Book Club aka Care’s Books and Pie.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

I Completed my Classics Club 50 (with substitutions) #cc50

I did it!  I (sort of) did it!!  I DID read over 50 classics in 5 years!!!

On Dec 19, 2014, I listed 50 classics that I wanted to read by Dec 19, 2019. I defined ‘classic’ as anything over 25 years old.  This was the list.

HOWEVER, I allowed myself to swap in books to replace my original and since I can’t find any language on the Club site that endorses or expressly prohibits this, I’m going with it. Hey  –  as far as I know, there aren’t any ClassicsClubPolice, so…

[PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give the golden trophy anyway!  please please?!?!]

I will admit I didn’t review every book. Sorry. I invite you to search any titles  via the search tool on my blog (upper right corner) if you want to see if I have read a specific book. You can also check bkclubcare on goodreads.

Here I list the substitutes only and then list the few I did not get to from my original 50. Sound fun? Ok, let’s go. For an overall list, click here on my update page.

The 17 (Runner Ups) that were not “Original 50”:
The Winter’s Tale / Shakespeare – Jan 2015
The Making of a Marchioness / FHBurnette – Apr2015
The Talented Mr. Ripley /PHighsmith June2015
Atlas Shrugged/Ayn Rand July2015
Brave New World – Jan2016
Go Tell It on the Mt/JBaldwin May2016
TKAM/Lee Sep2016
The Four Million/O.Henry Dec2016
The Summer of My German Soldier/BGreene Apr17
The Grand Sophy/GeoHeyer Aug17
Waiting for Godot/SamBeckett Sep17
Angle of Repose/WStegner Oct17
A Wizard of Earthsea/LeGuin Apr 2018
Jane Eyre/Bronte Apr18
O Pioneers/Cather Jun18
A Clockwork Orange  Aug19
Now in November / Josephine Johnson Nov 2019

The ones (count: 13) I still need to read, maybe, someday:
48. The Three Muskateers – Alex Dumas – have ready on audio!
46. Jude the Obscure – Hardy – I own a copy, in a box, buried
44. Rabbit, Run – Updike – yea, rethinking if I have to …
42. Cry the Beloved Country – Alan Paton – DNF’d once, own a copy
31. Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
26. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
24. Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
23. Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
22. The Way We Live Now – Trollope
19. the Counterfeiters – A. Gide
14. Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
13. They Were Sisters – Dorothy Whipple – difficult to find!
7. The King Must Die – Mary Renault – considering audio

Yes, I realize that 17 doesn’t quite equate 13. That’s OK, right? I read MORE than 50 classics in 50 years! yay me

Will I make a ROUND 2 list and commit to Dec 2024?  maybe. . .  [Updated 1/12/2020 with links to my next list of classics by Dec 2024!]

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2019. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

The Ox-Bow Incident

Thoughts by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Kindle edition (orig 1940), 290 pages

Category  2. 20th Century Classic. 

A cowboy book, out on the range. Reminded me of western movies, and maybe I ‘ve seen the movie based on this book but if I did, it was a very long time ago.

I would like to see the film (again) eventually.

It’s about good versus evil and mob mentality. It’s about wanting to see what happens, fear of missing out, not sure how to stop it but sure as hell gonna try. It’s about quite a bit and it is very masculine-centric.

“Most men are more afraid of being thought cowards than of anything else, and a lot more afraid of being thought physical cowards than moral ones.”

It’s about uncertainty. It’s about power. It’s full of dread.

“you can feel awful guilty about nothing when the men you’re with don’t trust you.”

It is right and wrong, black and white and yet exposes all the ambiguity.

“…getting angry enough not to be scared when you knew you were wrong.”

I gave this four slices of pie.

No pie mentions noted.

Classics Club 50

“…she did a lot of intelligent feeling.”

Copyright © 2007-2019. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Mini Reviews for Mid October 2019

Thoughts

Since my last random update post, August’s, when I was audiobooking Charlotte Sometimes, I have not only completed my Classics Club 50 in 5 years requirement but am devouring more classics in a race to the end of the year!

Not sure why the above is indented, but I’m going with it. The list/image below is in finished order, but I’m going to talk about audiobooks first and then print.

OK, so I finished Charlotte and only kind of liked it. Gave it 3 slices of pie. As far as I recall (and perhaps failed to note) there was NO PIE. Boo.

On to my next audiobook, also a classic, Tom Hardy’s The Woodlanders – and I was all in for the drama-DRAMA-D.R.A.M.A!!! of that crazy tale.

Started Naked Lunch after that both for Classics Club 50 and for this year’s What’s in a Name Challenge. I DNF’d. I got 25% in and decided that I wasn’t going to enrich my life further by listening to any more c words, f words, p words and v words.  (v for vomit.)  I’m counting it as read. Judge me all you want. (Applause also appreciated.)

Then it was on to A Handful of Dust!   Crazy wild tale, really. Quite. I would love to chat with anyone who would like to discuss. I don’t think I shall forget this story. Ever. Evelyn Waugh is just so easy to imagine as a snooty and brilliant uppercrusty-judgey Brit. Apparently he hated Dickens. Huh.

I palate-cleansed with a quick 1 hour audio ‘short story’ called Wally Roux, Quantum Mechanics, an Audible Exclusive (freebie) and enjoyed it very much. I like time travel stories.

After that and still into is my current audiobook, Wolf Hall. More on that in a later post…

Now print – mostly eBooks:

For print and in this case, I mean KINDLE, I read   The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal and LOVED IT!  OF course it HAD PIE!  Pie was a goddamn THEME.  Five slices of pie served with beer, if you please. Read it if you LOVED Kitchens of the Great Midwest, which I did. I think it was an eBook. (Yes, yes it was. I noted that.)

I read a few free or not-expensive eBook romances:   Next in Line by Amy Daws (fun! especially to read aloud to the hub while driving in to work) and Sealed With a Kiss   by Leeanna Morgan (not my cup of tea – skimmed it).

And, YIPPEE SKIPPY for me! I finally finished The House of the Seven Gables!! After many rocky starts which never ever seemed to catch, this time, I rolled up my sleeves and powered through. LOVED it once the characters were allowed to be characters (about 25% in, I’d guess? and not the history prep explanation which begins this story. I’m so glad to have read it. whew.

Then The Bird’s Nest was available – I think it was a library eBook? Very Shirley Jackson. I adore Shirley Jackson. Such talent. This book impressed me.

Oh wait! I read A Clockwork Orange, too. And yes, it was odd, violent and scary but not as scary as Naked Lunch. At least ACO had a story.

Which brings us to Love in a Cold Climate  – hardback, library – which I just finished and immediately reviewed in the post prior to this one.

The pie tally?  7 out of the 12 had pie. A few had interesting pie references, indeed (chubb pie in Love in a Cold Climate!)  Plus, a description of pie dough rolling in The Woodlanders, kidney pie and meat pie in A Handful of Dust. Truly, I’m deeply suspicious of any Brit book not having pie!

On the list of 1001+ Books To Read Before You Die: A Clockwork Orange, House of Seven Gables, and Cold Climate Love. And Naked Lunch.

Edith would just as soon take another woman’s husband as another woman’s pie recipe, and she had the best husband in the world, so there you go.

• from The Lager Queen of Minnesota

Copyright © 2007-2019. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Love in a Cold Climate

Thoughts by Nancy Mitford, Hamish Hamilton 1995 (orig 1949), 343 pages

Challenge:  Classic Club 50 and Back to the Classics 2019 – By a Woman Category

**AND** What’s in a Name 

Challenge 2019Temperature

Genre: British Class Capers?

Type/Source: Library

 Why I read this now:  Classics Club Spin October 2019

MOTIVATION for READING: Curiosity about the Mitfords

Page 33: “… and everything too much in apple-pie order,”

WHAT’s it ABOUT:  A rich society girl with a scheming mother and dutiful father decides not to do as expected.

What gr says: “Polly Hampton has long been groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, the fearsome and ambitious Lady Montdore. But Polly, with her stunning good looks and impeccable connections, is bored by the monotony of her glittering debut season in London. Having just come from India, where her father served as Viceroy, she claims to have hoped that society in a colder climate would be less obsessed with love affairs. The apparently aloof and indifferent Polly has a long-held secret, however, one that leads to the shattering of her mother’s dreams and her own disinheritance. When an elderly duke begins pursuing the disgraced Polly and a callow potential heir curries favor with her parents, nothing goes as expected, but in the end all find happiness in their own unconventional ways.”

THOUGHTS: 

Yea, let’s discuss the “in the end, all find happiness” – really?  I thought the ending SO abrupt!  I’m left shaking my head, “what did I just read?” “what IS this?” Who really was this Polly girl – so truly naive?” Oh goodness me. Maybe just like her mother?

In some ways, this book was extremely fascinating.

I really liked Fanny. I thought she was beautifully written into life. I enjoyed her very much.

I think I am just glad the book is done. I can say I read it. I now have an inkling about who was Nancy Mitford, I am not at all opposed to reading more by her and about her, and this book suffered from being the book I read immediately after A Handful of Dust.

Dust was another tragedy/comedy of the Brits and their moneyed ranks, just set  a generation or so prior. And much more tragic and not very funny. Dark funny not silly funny.

I really say “really” too much and I really am spending too much time with the British upper crust these days!

Three slices of pie.

Page 109: “several wheelbarrows were filled and the contents taken off to be used as manure for cottage gardens or chubb pie, according to taste.”

Copyright © 2007-2019. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.