Category Archives: Read-along

Swann

Thoughts by Carol Shields, Open Road Media 2013 (orig 1987), 386 pages

Challenge: Readalong with Laila

Genre/Theme: Literary Mystery

Type/Source: eBook / Kindle purchase

What It’s About: Mary Swann was a poor woman who wrote poems in a small town in Ontario Canada. When a literature professor finds an old copy of Swann’s poetry collection, she brings laudatory attention to the work. In her investigation of who this woman could be so that she can shine academic light on its brilliance, she finds out that the poet was violently murdered by her husband on the very day she got the publishing deal.

The academic world sensationalizes and salivates over anything they can find on how Swann could have come into her genius. Items begin to disappear: the only known photograph of the poet goes missing, luggage is lost, the poet’s diary is misplaced. Is something sinister happening?

Thoughts: The reader knows but the characters do not figure out that someone has been pilfering items until near the end of the book when there is an academic symposium and all can compare notes. It’s not like me to figure out the whodunnit but it was pretty obvious. I can’t say I ma happy with the ending but I enjoyed my time with the unraveling and the characters who all loved Mary in their own way. My favorite was the publisher, an editor in his 80s who wrote fun letters.

With it being written in the mid-80s, I was loving the references to politics and cultural touchpoints. And it had pie!

“It isn’t important.” “Everything’s important.” “I can’t remember what I was going to say.” She looked down at her rhubarb pie and pledged herself not to jeopardize what was left of the evening.

Rating: 4 slices of pie.

Readers might be willing to tolerate the new typeface imposed on them, and no one seemed to miss the old “Pie of the Week” feature when it disappeared from the Women’s page, but…

 

 

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.

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Part 6 ♦ THE END ♦ #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Announcing the end of our April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me!  Thank you to everyone who read with us,  tweeted and commented, shared on Facebook and sent emails & letters. 

✦ Part 6 – April 30 ✦

Part 6: Coffey on the Mile

Did you enjoy the questions? I tried to find out more about the contest and who may have won back in 1996 but nothing came up in my search.

The last question: Would you like to have John Coffey’s “Gift”? Why or why not?

Not me, no way. Too painful. And who knows how old John Coffey was; he likely had been roaming the earth for a long, long time.

I do want to ask if those of you who read the WHOLE BOOK (versus the installment paperbacks) if you also had the Author’s Afterword? because in mine, it mentions that he doesn’t know if he will change it some…

As for the process of writing a novel in six installments, King has compared it to frosting a cake.

“You’ve got the frosting in a bowl, and you’ve got the cake on a plate and you’re saying to yourself: I hope that I have enough to frost the last side, and I hope I don’t have so much left over that I have to make cupcakes and frost them.”

– So says King in a 1996 article

Thank you everyone for reading along with us!

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Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

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Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Part 5 #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me! Recent Twitter activity: A few quotes, a few observations, updates. Pretty quiet. Facebook has an update that someone raced through to the end. No worries! It’s flexible. Just keep engaging.

✦ the END is nigh! ✦ Part 6 – April 30 ✦

Discussion on any part is not limited to only these dates. Be early be late, all good.

Part 5: Night Journey

THE QUESTION.

The narrator Paul has a strange dream on the way back from Warden Moore’s house. What do you think the dream means?

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Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

pieratingsml
Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Part 4 #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me! Recent Twitter activity: A few quotes, a few observations, updates. Pretty quiet. Facebook has an update that someone raced through to the end. No worries! It’s flexible. Just keep engaging.

✦ Part 5 – April 26 ✦ Part 6 – April 30 – The End ✦

Discussion on any part is not limited to only these dates. Be early be late, all good.

Part 4: The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix

THE QUESTION.

Brad Dolan, the orderly at Georgia Pines, reminds the narrator of Percy Wetmore. What similarities do the two of them share?

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Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

pieratingsml
Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Part 3 #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me! Recent Twitter activity: A few quotes, a few observations, updates. Pretty quiet. Facebook has an update that someone raced through to the end. No worries! It’s flexible. Just keep engaging.

Part 4 – April 21 ✦ Part 5 – April 26 ✦ Part 6 – April 30 – The End ✦

Discussion on any part is not limited to only these dates. Be early be late, all good.

Part 3: Coffey’s Hands

In comments on post for Part 2, it was mentioned that King uses a LOT of cliches. Anyone have any to share? I didn’t note them but did give a chuckle of recognition when I encountered “no good deed goes unpunished.”

THE QUESTION.

King constantly portrays Percy much less sympathetically than Delacroix of Coffey. What is he trying to say?

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Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

pieratingsml
Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Part 2 #GreenMileAlong Readalong …ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me! Recent Twitter activity: We have a schedule. Today being April 6, we will post on Part 1, the first 95 pages, including King’s note about the project structure.  We also have 6 of us reading! at least, 6 have enthusiastically tweeted or FaceBooked that they are willing to participate. (I’m sorry – I don’t have any more party favors…)

Part 3 – April 16

Part 4 – April 21

Part 5 – April 26

Part 6 – April 30

 

Part 2: The Mouse on the Mile

THE QUESTION.

Sorry, my part 2 didn’t have a provided contest question. These will resume Part 3.

Any thoughts to share?

How about this quote and what it might mean? Discuss:

We had once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create.

What is being referenced here. (p.44 in Part 2, right after the scene with Chief and the doctor confirming.)

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Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

pieratingsml
Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Part 1 #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me! Recent Twitter activity: We have a schedule. Today being April 6, we will post on Part 1, the first 95 pages, including King’s note about the project structure.  We also have 6 of us reading! at least, 6 have enthusiastically tweeted or FaceBooked that they are willing to participate. (I’m sorry – I don’t have any more party favors…)

Part 1 – April 6  …………………………………………….. Part 4 – April 21

Part 2 – April 11 ……………………………………………. Part 5 – April 26

Part 3 – April 16 ……………………………………………. Part 6 – April 30 – The End.

Discussion on any part is not limited to only these dates. Be early be late, all good.

Part 1: The Two Dead Girls

OK, whew. I probably should have kept better notes. I did have a very “Hmmmm…” reaction to a few choices made by our author regarding race. Did we need to know the Sheriff was caught with a 17 yo black girl? I think not. Anyway, 

THE QUESTION.

I purchased the serialized collection of individual paperbacks. At the end of Part 1, King asks the following:

Why does the mouse, Mr. Jingles, choose Delacroix as its special friend?

Answer? Because Delacroix feeds him? I have seen the movie multiple times, but I don’t recall the answer to the question….

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Also, did we need all those many words to describe the urinary infection?

Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

pieratingsml
Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Announcing April #GreenMileAlong Readalong

Presented to you by @AvidReader25 and me! Here, there and maybe Twitter? Litsy already has a readalong started for this book going on right now – can you believe it? Well, we will just add another…

It is high time we get back to reading another book by this esteemed author.  How ’bout it?

Let’s do this!

Link to Melissa’s AVID READER blog

pieratingsml

Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Wolf Hall

Thoughts by Hilary Mantel, Macmillan Audio 2009, 24 hours 14 minutes

Narrated by Simon Slater

Genre: Historical Lit
Type/Source: Audiobook, Audible
 Why I read this now:  Reading this for both TOB and to satisfy my own curiosity. I want to be ready for the 3rd in the series which is due in March.

MOTIVATION for READING: Super Rooster Chase <– see post. This edition of the TOB is to be held sometime in 2020. The March 202o edition will be just another regular TOB, I think.  The Long List for that is due next week! (I’ll update a link when I have it.) #SuperRoosterTOB

I really enjoyed listening to Wolf Hall and was wowed by the dialogue, the drama, the layers and depths to Cromwell’s persona.

Mantel was able to make him a sympathetic character! I like history, I do. I just don’t know as much as I think I should. Prior to this, I really didn’t have much knowledge other than the popular image of King Henry VIII and all his wives. I would say I thought Cromwell to be a shrewd, cruel man involved in some way with that period of English history. But this story does NOT portray him as particularly evil or mean, but rather quietly ambitious, loyal, fatherly, community-minded and very very thoughtful. I wasn’t sure what to do with this gentle, considerate and — oh sure, scheming  — person.

Was he scheming or just very very good at being flexible and adept at taking advantage of the opportunities presented?

So, I liked Cromwell. I did. Sigh. After finishing this book, I googled what might happen next and…. huh.  Well.

I’m not going to give a review of what happens in this book. It’s about Tom C and his rise to power, basically. And all THAT  is very dependent on the relationship with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Anne is fascinating; very very fascinating…  OH, the whole thing is just DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA. I love how Hilary imagined it might have gone down. And I was amazed at how subtle and slippery it was. In fact, truly, I missed the milestones in the day to day to day – wait. WHAT happened? What did I miss?!

OFF WITH THEIR HEAD!

I googled SO MANY names! so many histories so many s/he begat so-and-so.

I googled Rafe Sadler. I googled his son Gregory. I googled “Is Oliver Cromwell related to Thomas Cromwell?” Such history! I can see why some people get obsessed with all things Royal.  It’s just fascinating for some reason. (I’ve googled descendants of our Founding Fathers, too, to see if any have popped up famous…) Family histories fascinate me, what can I say. You might wonder if I’m agog with the Kennedys but actually, I’m only mildly interested in them… The Vanderbilts tho? OH YEA.

I can’t wait to do the next in the series; will probably do the audiobook.

From a #SuperRooster perspective, this is not my favorite to win but I’m glad to finally read it and I’m psyched to be ready for the Champion TOB when it happens.

Your turn. Thoughts? Do share!

 

 

Ch 19 42:28         “Like he was a lid to a pie,”

Four slices of pie.

 

 

 

Up next: the Accidental by Ali Smith. Discussion 12/15/2019

My copy just arrived… This will be my first Ali Smith!

pierating

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.