2026 Reading Challenge discussion

So excited to start the new year's reading! Some of you inspired me to keep track of the types of books I read, so I've been tweaking what I want to record. I'm ready to go!

Books read in 2017 Goal reached!!

1. Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt (3 stars)
2. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (4 stars)
3. The Greenhouse by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (4 stars)
4. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (4 stars)
5. Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History by Canyon Sam (4 stars)
6. The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (3 stars)
7. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (5 stars)
8. 750 Years in Paris by Vincent Mahé (4 stars)
9. Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin (5 stars)
10. The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri (4 stars)
11. It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario (5 stars)
12. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith (4 stars)
13. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (2 stars)
14. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (5 stars)
15. Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California by Frances Dinkelspiel (4 stars)
16. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin (5 stars)
17. A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (4 stars)
18. The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston (3 stars)
19. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (3 stars)
20. San Francisco Noir by Nathaniel Rich (5 stars)
21. Moonglow by Michael Chabon (5 stars)
22. The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion (3 stars)
23. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (5 stars) (yes, again!)
24. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (5 stars)
25. Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson (5 stars)
26. The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes (5 stars)
27. Nutshell by Ian McEwan (5 stars)
28. The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin (4 stars)
29. Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemelman (2 stars)
30. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (4 stars)
31. Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (5 stars)
32. All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister (4 stars)
33. Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing by Ben Blatt (4 stars)
34. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1 star)
35. Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin (3 stars)
36. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (4 stars)
37. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (3 stars)
38. Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (3 stars)
39. Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (5 stars)
40. The Terracotta Army: The History of Ancient China’s Famous Terracotta Warriors and Horses by Charles River Editors (3 stars)
41. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (4 stars)
42. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (5 stars)
43. The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates by Frans de Waal (5 stars)
44. Fallout by Sara Paretsky (5 stars)
45. Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes (5 stars)
46. Lumberjanes #1 by Noelle Stevenson (3 stars)
47. Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan (3 stars)
48. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (4 stars)
49. An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (4 stars)
50. Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories by Rob Brotherton (4 stars)
51. The Mummies of Ürümchi by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (5 stars)
52. The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang, translated by Chi-Young Kim (5 stars)
53. American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World by David Baron (3 stars)
54. The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro (4 stars)
55. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (2 stars)
56. Cress by Marissa Meyer (5 stars)
57. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (3 stars)
58. The Untold Adventures of Santa Claus by Ogden Nash (5 stars)
59. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (5 stars)
60. Sherlock: A Study in Pink by Steven Moffat (3 stars)
61. The Light Princess by George MacDonald (3 stars)
62. Winter by Marissa Meyer (4 stars)
63. The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading by Anne Gisleson (4 stars)
64. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (5 stars)
65. Sourdough by Robin Sloan (3 stars)
66. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (5 stars)
67. Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xinran (4 stars)
68. Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes (4 stars)
69. Fairest by Marissa Meyer (3 stars)
70. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (5 stars)
71. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (5 stars)
72. The Language of Food - A Linguist Reads the Menu by Dan Jurafsky (4 stars)
73. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn (4 stars)
74. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (5 stars)
75. Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks (4 stars)
76. Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport byMatthew Algeo (4 stars)
77. Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged by Ayisha Malik (3 stars)
78. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (4 stars)
79. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (4 stars)
80. A Question of Belief by Donna Leon (3 stars)
81. When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (5 stars)
82. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (4 stars)
83. Free Spirit: Growing Up On the Road and Off the Grid by Joshua Safran (5 stars)
84. Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James (2 stars)
85. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay (3 stars)
86. Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar (5 stars)
87. A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power by Jimmy Carter (5 stars)
88. What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi (4 stars)
89. A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (3 stars)
90. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (5 stars)

2017 Reading Statistics

Genre/Type:
Biography/Memoir: 10
The Arts: 1
Classics: 4
Fantasy: 9
Graphic Novel: 4
Gender: 5
Historical Fiction: 4
General Fiction: 4
Plays:
Literary Fiction: 13
Mystery: 8
Essays: 1
How-to:
Humor: 1
History: 4
Archaeology: 4
Language: 2
Social Action: 1
Psychology: 1
Food & Nutrition: 1
Other Nonfiction: 2
Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic:
Science Fiction:
Science: 1
Short Stories: 3
Poetry: 1
Children's: 2
Young Adult: 1
Religion: 1

Length
Short (<250 pages): 28
Medium (250-500 pages): 59
Long (501-800 pages): 2
Very Long (>800 pages): 1

Author Gender
Female: 50
Male: 40

New to Me or Repeat Author?
New to Me: 57
Repeat: 32

Series or Standalone Book?
Series: 20
Stand alone: 70

Re-read?
Yes: 4

Format
eBook: 67
Hard or paperback: 21
Audiobook: 2

I own: 64
From library: 26

Decade Published
2010's: 57
2000's: 13
1990's: 6
1980's: 4
1970's: 1
1960's: 2
1950's: 1
1940's: 2
1930's: 1
1920's:
1910's:
1900's: 1
Pre-1900's: 2

Total books this year:
January - 10
February - 6
March - 4
April - 5
May - 11
June - 8
July - 9
August - 8
September - 9
October - 9
November - 8
December - 3

1/75 Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt (3 stars)

Interesting history of JPL, and basic, clear explanations of some of the science, though after awhile all the projects and missions blurred together. Similarly, the women were never looked at deeply and they became almost indistinguishable from each other, too. The book was descriptive but could have used a lot more analysis.

2/75 Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (4 stars)

Sparkled is the word that keeps coming to mind when I think about this novella. It's a story of grief, and loneliness, and depression, yet there's always a vibrant undercurrent of life. I loved the central relationships in the story and also the way Mikage is able to see the world. The short "Moonlight Shadow" that is a second story in the book is similar to "Kitchen," but I found it less satisfying.

3/75 The Greenhouse by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (4 stars)

I'm not quite sure what I think of this book. I was drawn into it -- at times felt compelled to keep reading -- even though the style was even, calm and slow. Young Lobbi is contending with a great deal: the death of his mother, an autistic twin brother, an infant daughter conceived after a chance encounter, and no clear view of the future. His problems feel very real but in the end I can't tell whether he was really grappling with them or just getting through. Some of the circumstances seem a bit contrived, also, yet the book won't leave me alone. I feel like I may need to reread it.

4/75 Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (4 stars)

An extremely vivid account of one family's life in China over several generations. The inside view of the Cultural Revolution, when even parents and children were turned against each other and you could trust no one, was terrifying. I was particularly impressed by Chang's analysis of why, at the time, she would blame everyone but Mao for what was happening. Most interesting of all, though, was that life for women was always horrendous before the Communist regime as they had no rights whatsoever. In her daily prayers, the author's great-grandmother begged Buddha not to reincarnate her as a woman. "Let me become a cat or a dog, but not a woman." The book could have been much shorter, though, and I think it would have been more effective; it tried to do too much.

5/75 Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History by Canyon Sam (4 stars)

The heart-wrenching personal stories of the women who survived the Chinese take-over of Tibet are powerfully told in this book, which is part oral history, part memoir, and part journalism. The brutality the women were forced to endure (the monks and many of the men had fled, leaving the women and children behind) was far worse than I could have imagined, and their resilience far stronger. I understand now that Tibet has been robbed not only of its independence but its culture, and essentially is no longer Tibet. The author states that she tried writing this book in several genres and finally settled the mixture presented here, but it would have been more effective if she had minimized her own personal journey, which detracted from the stories of the Tibetan women.

6/75 The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (3 stars)

Téa Obreht crafts beautiful sentences and writes lovely descriptions, but after awhile I became bored by the book, and then positively irritated. I think it's because there was an emotional flatness to it - there was no person I could grab onto or empathize with and I didn't get a clear sense of what motivated anyone. I could not understand why Natalia (the narrator, who is telling the story of her grandfather) and Zora were lifelong friends, or even figure out why Zora was in the book; the grandmother's conversations with Natalia were a complete mystery to me; the lengthy back stories of the characters in the magical tales led nowhere; and even Natalia's attachment to her grandfather seemed impersonal. Half way through the book I read several reviews by critics to help guide me, but in the end I thought their reviews offered more than the book did. Still, the author puts words together well; many passages, taken alone, were wonderful to read -- they just didn't seem to form a novel.

Good luck!

7/75 Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (5 stars)

When I picked up Lab Girl, I was expecting tales of just how hard it is to be a female scientist, but that is not the focus of this captivating memoir. The underlying theme is the author's passion for both her work and her family, as she defines 'family,' and everything else (being a woman, an academic, bipolar, coming from undemonstrative parents) is discussed from that viewpoint. I loved the deeply literary quality of Jahren's writing, the honest way she expresses herself, and the perfect pacing of the book. Sometimes alarm bells would go off in my head at little red flags seemingly unnoticed by the author, and then later these things would make sense as she unfolded her story. Her description of a manic-depressive episode put me inside the experience in a way that nothing else ever has. That and her very short chapter on cacti are sections that I will read again and again.

8/75 750 Years in Paris by Vincent Mahé (4 stars)

What a wonderful way to appreciate history! I became engrossed in looking at the changes -- some small, some large -- in one building in Paris over 750 years. What is being thrown out that window? Who is marching by? When did the street get paved? My biggest regret is that there is no text, save one page at the very end, to help the reader interpret what is in the pictures. Apparently the book was meticulously researched and as a reader I'd like a little more guidance in interpreting the drawings.

9/75 Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin (5 stars)

I read this children's book a few days ago just because it was by Ursula K. Le Guin -- I'm a big fan of exposing kids to fine writing. It seemed like a good book to read to a child, nicely written but nothing spectacular. However, I find that the book keeps coming to mind. There are a number of issues raised (pros and cons of being different, adjusting to new situations, accepting inevitabilities, deciding whom to trust, supporting family members) in ways that would be appealing to children and that simply make a good story. It was thought provoking enough that I bothered to rate and review it!

10/75 The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri (4 stars)

Jhumpa Lahiri's fiction is all about identity -- who belongs? who doesn't? who are you, and how do you appear to others? She perceives the world through these lenses, so it should come as no surprise that this essay on book jackets is also about identity. Full of contradictions and shifting analogies, The Clothing of Books nonetheless is filled with insights about how what is on the outside relates to what is inside. The essay is actually a translation of a speech given to a group of writers, and I found that experiencing it as a reader (rather than as an author) occasionally placed me on the outside, giving even more resonance to what she said. It's an engaging little book and short enough to be read through in one sitting.

11/75 It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario (5 stars)

Not being a big risk taker myself, I've always been mystified by journalists who put themselves in danger time and again for a story. Lynsey Addario, a Pulitzer prize and MacArthur winning photojournalist, wonders the same thing about herself as she recounts the kidnappings, loneliness, and other hardships that come with her chosen profession. This is a riveting, unsentimental memoir that offers no excuses but plenty of insight. I felt like I was right there with her on some of her assignments.

12/75 The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith (4 stars)

Why has writing in the present tense suddenly become the thing to do? It seems to flatten the characters and keeps readers constantly aware of the novelist's artifice instead of drawing them into the story. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos suffers from this device, but I was nonetheless intrigued by the cleverly plotted mystery involving the painting's modern owner and the artist who forged a copy of it. I liked the way the author doled out information as the characters became aware of their own motivations.

13/75 Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (2 stars)

I had been looking forward to reading this for some time, so I was disappointed when the book fell far short of my expectations. It was disorganized and lacked focus, abruptly jumping from one thing to the next and then off to another. It begins with a description of each of Nafisi's "girls" - way too much to take in all at once - and yet the book is really about Nafisi and not the "girls" (who are actually women, most of whom have endured far more difficult situations than Nafisi has). The most off-putting part of the book, however, is its artificial tone. Iran was going through a hellish time, but the book is filled with chit chat about pastry and ice cream, interspersed with little fits of temper. I kept feeling that Nafisi was trying to seem literary in describing what was happening rather than actually writing of deeply felt personal experiences. This pseudo-literary quality leads to bizarre statements that make no sense. For example, a cloud "looked white and innocent enough, like a child who has just committed a murder." Huh? She mentions "a quiet young man, an elementary school teacher. Let us call him Mr. Dori and move on." And she does move on - he's never mentioned before or after that, yet Nafisi notes his presence (irrelevant to the story) and makes up a name. The book is filled with disjointed comments that may be only slightly off, but which eventually exhaust the reader and cast doubt on the author's understanding and motives.

14/75 Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (5 stars)

Computers, jinns, adventure, philosophy, and romance in a story that's as timely as it is eternal. The characters are engaging and the writing is delightful!

15/75 Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California by Frances Dinkelspiel (4 stars)

This book intertwines two stories, one the history of California winemaking and the other the crime in 2005 that destroyed more than $100 million worth of wine. The author, a journalist, became interested in the story through her family's historical connection to the industry. I had always imagined European winemakers planting their ancestral vines in the rolling hills of Napa, but learned that Los Angeles had been the original heart of the California wine industry, that Native Americans were forced into slave labor in the vineyards, and that Wild West gunfights are as much a part of the history of winemaking as of Tombstone Territory. Dinkelspiel does an especially good job presenting the tale of convicted arsonist Mark Anderson; she lets a portrait of a very disturbed man unfold over the course of the book. The book was carefully researched and has many footnotes and references for those inclined to learn more.

16/75 The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin (5 stars)

The dedication of The Obelisk Gate reads: "To those who have no choice but to prepare their children for the battlefield." Amal El-Mohtar quotes this in his NPR review and comments, "With these books, Jemisin facets diamonds out of the hot mess of our world." This gets at the heart of what I like so much about this series - it's an amazing alternate world that really is our own. Jemisin is unsparing in how she portrays her characters, able to explain them without excusing them. I particularly marvel at how she handles race and gender; there were times I was unsure who was what, which is a very effective strategy. Her second person ("you") narration in the chapters about Essun is extremely compelling, putting the reader in Essun's shoes to understand the world from her point of view. I can't wait for the third volume of this trilogy! Definitely start with vol. 1 (The Fifth Season) if you haven't read it because you won't understand this book without it.
Favorite quote: "No voting on who gets to be people."

17/75 A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (4 stars)

A witty, clever updating of Sherlock Holmes with a teenage girl as Holmes and a teenage boy as Watson. It doesn't take itself too seriously and adapts itself to modern sensibilities so that it's quite a fun book to read. And it mentions Galway Kinnell a couple of times, so what's not to like? ;)

18/75 The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston (3 stars)

Wow, I never want to meet a fer-de-lance, and now I know why. Preston's vivid description of the jungle around La Mosquitia was transporting and I actually pulled my feet up onto my chair as I read about the cockroaches covering the jungle floor at night. His discussion of post-excursion disease was also riveting. But the book was uneven. The first third or so was a slow moving account of Spanish exploration and the preparation for the archaeological expedition to find the lost city. If the book had been divided into clearly labeled parts (like history and preparation; the expedition; the aftermath: microbes and men), I would more happily have followed the reading rather than wondering where it was going. I was also disappointed that Preston's strong warnings at the end felt tacked on rather than central to his narrative. And I'm really annoyed at the title -- the city had other names as well and some indigenous groups have protested calling it the City of the Monkey God, but a monkey god probably sells more books than a white city (La Ciudad Blanca).

19/75 A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (3 stars)

Engagingly written, but predictable. There's a lot of gender stereotyping and condescension when a story is about an unpleasant old codger who gets his heart warmed by eccentric but lovable neighbors. It would have been a very different story if the wife had been a curmudgeon -- and they wouldn't call her a curmudgeon but a bitch.

20/75 San Francisco Noir by Nathaniel Rich (5 stars)

I'm not much of a film buff, but when an acquaintance recommended this book it sounded like a fun way to get a feel for the city that I just moved to. Reading the two pages of commentary on each of 41 noir films made in San Francisco gave me a good sense of the genre and a different perspective on the city. I've been enjoying selecting movies to watch (a few are not easy to locate) and added quite a few to my Netflix queue.

21/75 Moonglow by Michael Chabon (5 stars)

This is my favorite of Michael Chabon's books. It's a novel in memoir form (and perhaps sometimes a memoir in novel form?), and brings truths that are deeper than facts into a constantly shifting focus. As always with Chabon's works, the words sparkle.

22/75 The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion (3 stars)

I found the first book in this series, The Rosie Project, to be laugh-out-loud funny as well as somewhat insightful, which this follow-up was not. Jokes about trying to find a spouse can be funny (book 1), but it's harder to coax humor from suspected pedophilia and other contrived situations (book 2).

23/75 Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (5 stars)

Notes on second reading: I had intended to just skim through this book to refresh my memory before a book club meeting, but once again it completely drew me in and I reread every page! I noticed things the second time that I had originally missed, and discovered nuances that made the second reading even richer than the first.

Original review:
When I picked up Lab Girl, I was expecting tales of just how hard it is to be a female scientist, but that is not the focus of this captivating memoir. The underlying theme is the author's passion for both her work and her family, as she defines 'family,' and everything else (being a woman, an academic, bipolar, coming from undemonstrative parents) is discussed from that viewpoint. I loved the deeply literary quality of Jahren's writing, the honest way she expresses herself, and the perfect pacing of the book. Sometimes alarm bells would go off in my head at little red flags seemingly unnoticed by the author, and then later these things would make sense as she unfolded her story. Her description of a manic-depressive episode put me inside the experience in a way that nothing else ever has. That and her very short chapter on cacti are sections that I will read again and again.

24/75 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (5 stars)

The collision of two cultures, as the subtitle phrases it, can be a train wreck. Both the doctors and Lia's family wanted to help this desperately sick child, but their very different understandings of how to do that made it impossible for them to do anything but work at cross purposes. Anne Fadiman goes beyond a simple analysis of cultural "customs" and "beliefs" and brings her readers into the very different way-of-being that the Hmong have -- and that helps us see how artificially constructed our own view of the world is. I loved reading Fadiman's beautiful prose, but more than that, I love what it did to me. This is a book worth reading.

25/75 Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson (5 stars)

What a kick - a Pakistani-American teenager is the new Ms Marvel! Great drawings, and all sorts of family/school/friend issues are handled well. It's exciting, too!

26/75 The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes (5 stars)

A real tour de force on the part of the author. The most fascinating part of this book is how we come to believe what we do about how things work, and how constant repetition of something can make it "true." (It's definitely a lesson for our times in many ways.) I have long doubted many things I learned in school (I'm a dietitian), but Taubes convinced me that sugar is probably even worse than I had thought. He is careful to make clear that there's so much we don't know, and may never know, but that doesn't mean there isn't a reasonable course of action. I do wish he would have discussed white wheat flour and its relation to refined sugar -- maybe his next book?

27/75 Nutshell by Ian McEwan (5 stars)

Absolutely amazing. Over the top and beyond ridiculous, it was also a wild ride, incredibly clever and literate, and deeply involving. One reviewer described the fetus narrator as part Hamlet / part Stewie (from Family Guy) and that certainly captures the tone.

28/75 The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin (4 stars)

This book tells two stories – one is the story of Olive Oatman's life and the second is the story of how others used her life story for their own purposes. Heading west with her parents and siblings in 1851, Olive saw her family murdered and was taken captive by native tribes. Five years later she was "rescued" and returned to white American society. As much as possible, Mifflin carefully disentangles what actually happened to Olive from the numerous books and legends about her and then analyzes how her story has been used to bolster and justify various racial prejudices and social mores. Olive seems to have been complicit in some of the fabrication, probably for her own protection. I would like to have seen a chapter dedicated to looking at everything from Olive's perspective; her likely motivations are certainly alluded to but could have been focused on more closely. I enjoyed the book and learned a lot.

29/75 Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemelman (2 stars)

Offensive stereotypes (gender/racial/religious), stilted dialogue, poor character development. The book was written in 1966, which may explain some of it, but I kept wincing as I read.

30/75 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (4 stars)

Why did it take me so long to discover this little gem? Witty and warm, it makes me long for the days when people wrote real letters.

31/75 Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (5 stars)

Near the end of the book is this sentence, "What puzzled Abel about life was how much one forgot but then lived with anyway - like phantom limbs, he supposed." This, for me, was the whole book: feeling everyone's phantom limbs. Beautifully, incredibly written.

32/75 All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister (4 stars)

A snippet from the author's introduction gives a sense of the tone of this book: "Later, I would learn that Shakespeare's comedies ended with wedlock and his tragedies with death, making marriage death's narrative equivalent and supporting my childhood hunch about its ability to shut down a story." How and why that has been true not just in literature but in life, and how it may be changing, are thoroughly explored in this lively and provocative book, which is a highly readable mixture of history, analysis of the data on marriage, and interviews with women.

Thank you for including your thoughts upon completion, Cheri :) I really enjoy reading through them :)

Good luck with your goal!

Lisa wrote: "Thank you for including your thoughts upon completion, Cheri :) I really enjoy reading through them :)

Good luck with your goal!"

Hi, Lisa -- Thanks so much for your kind comments. I find my little notes help me remember the book. Enjoy your own reading!

33/75 Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing by Ben Blatt (4 stars)

We all have hunches about what makes a book good, or how to identify one author's style from another, but Ben Blatt runs thousands of books of all sorts (from classics to fan fiction) through a computer program to see what the data actually show. He does a good job explaining how he chose the questions he asks and the books he analyzes, and why the results might matter - though he readily admits the data are just a starting point for understanding.

I found the first few chapters fascinating (use of -ly adverbs, gender issues, author "fingerprints"), but subsequent chapters were of less interest and I thought sometimes items were included just to make the book longer (size of author's name on cover). The writing/editing could also use some work. Many sentences were not clear and some proofreading would have helped with cut-and-paste type errors ("Should Brits worry that they are using losing their grasp...?"). Still, I enjoyed the book overall and would like to find something that goes into more depth on some of the things presented in the initial chapters.

34/75 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1 star)

Trite, clichéd, full of pseudo wisdom with an undercurrent of sexism. I am making myself finish books I start, but I wouldn't have made it through this one if it had been any longer.

35/75 Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin (3 stars)

A lot of fun, great sense of place, and I enjoyed even the soap-opera-like aspects of the book. But people and things came together just a little too predictably to be really satisfying.

36/75 Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (4 stars)

Near the end of this book, I realized that I was imagining every scene through a fuzzy lens washed with honey-colored light. I loved the warmth that emanated from the characters (even the less savory ones, for they were all multi-dimensional) and the rich evocation of time and place. Even though nothing much happens in the book, I was so engaged with the characters that it was hard to stop reading. Only one thing really bothered me and that is likely because I read the book some 70 years after it was written: the story is completely masculine in its perspective. The women of the whorehouse are happy and safe, and housewives are mean and uncaring. All the relationships beyond the mere satisfaction of lust are masculine. If you can successfully translate these to a more universal human understanding, then this is a wonderful book.

37/75 The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (3 stars)

Not my favorite genre, but I liked the female hero (and the fact that there was a female hero).

38/75 Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (3 stars)

At first I took this for a comedy of manners, but an odd one. Some passages are funny, some are quite moving, and some threw me completely -- I would form a picture of what was going on and then Edith (the protagonist) would come to a conclusion about the events that didn't mesh with what I felt had been described. The book was published in 1984 but the language and ideas, especially where gender was concerned, seemed to come from at least several decades previous. It was jarring to suddenly have mention of something that was clearly more modern than I kept picturing. I can't believe it won the Booker prize.

39/75 Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (5 stars)

Such a good mystery! Unusual setting, well developed characters, with a plot that kept me thinking and wondering. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Nice Cheri, added the series to my TBR list!

40/75 The Terracotta Army: The History of Ancient China’s Famous Terracotta Warriors and Horses by Charles River Editors (3 stars)

Shortly after seeing the terracotta warriors on their US tour, I picked up this book on a Kindle daily special. It's short and informative, especially with regard to how the warriors were made. I wish I had read this before seeing the exhibit. However, the book has a lot of cut-and-paste from other writings on the subject and so the writing seemed disjointed. It felt more like reading a student's term paper than a monograph by an expert.

Susy wrote: "Nice Cheri, added the series to my TBR list!"

Great, I hope you enjoy it! I just found out that there's a BBC series, 3 seasons of which are available on Netflix, based on this book series. It's called Shetland.

41/75 My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (4 stars)

What a chilly opening for a book -- a child's guardian encouraging him to poke a murderer's 4-week old hanging corpse with a stick -- but it sets up a taut sense of foreboding for the rest of the book. Du Maurier draws us into a twilight-zone world where personal desires and obsessions can lead to very dark places. It's a good read.

Cheri wrote: "41/75 My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (4 stars)

What a chilly opening for a book -- a child's guardian encouraging him to poke a murderer's 4-week old hangin..."

This was a good one- though the ending was pretty ambiguous. Have you watched the film version?

Lady Clementina wrote: "This was a good one- though the ending was pretty ambiguous. Have you watched the film version? "
Yes, definitely an ambiguous ending, but I liked it better for that; I know some people hated the lack of resolution. I plan to see the film, have not done so yet! Have you -- is it good?