Mamzel's 2017 WANT Reading

After a hiatus I am back!

Like others here in the Category Challenge, I am setting up a somewhat more relaxed system this year. The only group I will participate in this year will be the SFF/SFFF-KIT. The bold letters spell out the word WANT (Walk, Awareness, New, TBR).



I will plan on at least one audiobook per month to reflect my continuing efforts to WALK every day.



Each month I plan to read one book from my school library which reflects the different cultures of our student body (Hispanic, LGBTQ, African American, disabled). A for AWARENESS.



Next I will have a place to enter NEW and shiny additions from either my collection or my library's.



And of course, hardly a year goes by when I don't try to pare down my collection of TBRs from my shelves and my Kindle. I will also include books I find from my work library (a public high school).

I look forward to following everyone in this group and will love to follow your reading adventures (as well as families and furfamilies updates).



W -
A - Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
N - The Dispatcher by John Scalzi
T - Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh
T -
Edit | More

When we last met I had returned from St. Thomas back to California. I immediately fell into a reading funk that lasted for months. My one major read was Mists of Avalon which I enjoyed but couldn't find anything else to interest me and reread my Witcher series and a few of the wonderful Dr. Siri books.

When school started up I was again in a whirl with textbooks and Chromebooks. Irma hit St. Thomas and before it could dry out, Maria hit. 2 category 5 storms in a row! Luckily my dad had rebuilt his house to withstand such storms and he made it through with no problems. He even had two refugees who left their boats to their destiny. Dad is still without power and still has one house guest. Luckily he managed to get a generator which keeps his food cold/frozen.

Then October arrived and one night the hills of Napa and Sonoma counties were covered with fire. Both sides of our valley were ablaze, the valley was smothered in choking smoke. We lost cell and internet service but were fortunate that we never lost power. It took three days before I could reach my dad and let him know my daughter's number in case he couldn't reach me. He hadn't even heard about the fires. Good thing I guess. My neighborhood was safe, in some part by some angels on bulldozers. Private citizens went and created a fire break with their company's equipment. The fire came within a mile of my house. (This picture is not my house but gives you an idea of what it was like for us.)



School was out for two weeks because of the terrible air quality. Weather programs had to choose a new color for their graphics because numbers had never been so high.

We are now back in business and trying to make up for a lost two weeks. The district is applying for a waiver so we don't have to try and change the calendar to make them up. I have found a few books that piqued my interest so I'm back on track to finish the year.

Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic Pollution by Marcus Erikson

This was an ER I read. It dispels the myth of the giant island of plastic items swirling around the middle of the Pacific but paints a dreary picture nonetheless. Plastic items that end up in the ocean do eventually break down. If they weren't picked up by birds or end up choking turtles, they turn into tiny pieces that are ingested by smaller fish. They work their way up the food chain to - yeah, you guessed it - our food. There was a lot of technical jargon but the message was easy to understand.



Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke

This was a graphic novel that came into our library. It was a memoir that rubbed me the wrong way. I found it self-pitying and annoying.



The Takedown by Corrie Wang

Much better! This was a technological YA thriller about a student who had to hunt down someone who had posted a false picture of her having sex with a teacher.



The Color of Pixar by Tia Kratter

This was a breath of fresh air. I received it through the ER program. No story, except to arrange stills from the wonderful Pixar movies in order of the predominant color in a rainbow order. My favorites were Finding Nemo and Ratatouille. Since there were several episodes of Toy Story and Cars, (not my favorites) they made up a majority of the stills.



Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

I am late to the comic book worlds of Marvel and DC but I gave this one a stab. It explains the emergence of Wonder Woman in a story where she rescues a human girl and is embroiled in her problems outside of the hidden Amazon world.

----

I am sure I have missed a number of books I have read. I have been listening to Harry Potter (as I can download them). It's tough since they are so long and I can't renew them, but have to put a hold on them to continue.

I have continued with the theme, picking up with October.

W=
A=
N= The Arsonist by Stephanie Oakes
N= Warcross by Marie Lu
T= The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild


W=
A The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
A An Uninterrupted View of the Sky by Melanie Crowder
N The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard
N The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer
N Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdritch
T Moxie by Jennifer Matthieu
T And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin



N The Dispatcher by John Scalzi
N Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

Welcome back! So glad to hear that your dad weathered the storms and fire in St. Thomas! I hope you enjoy the rest of your 2017 challenge. :)

Welcome back! What a crazy last few months you've had. I'm happy to hear that you are getting back to normal after the fires.

The Arsonist by Stephanie Oaks (2017)

Interesting story bringing together an Iraqi boy and American girl and an East German girl through her diary. The reader is given a look a life in Iraq and what is was like to live behind the Iron Curtain.



The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild (2016)

This book was loaned to me by a teacher. It is a great mystery story centered around a work of art by Watteau (an artist unknown to me). It is discovered in a junk store and purchased by an unwitting woman as a gift to a possible date. She is intrigued by the painting when the date fell through and her attempts to discover who painted it ignited a storm of art work intrigue. Great story!



Warcross by Marie Lu (2017)

If you enjoyed Ready Player One you will like this YA thriller. A young woman enters an intense competition in a virtual world to try and learn who is attempting to kill the game's billionaire creator.



The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017)

Riveting story giving an inside view of young black people being pulled over by a white police officer who then shot the male driver. The young female passenger is left to deal with the press, her friends, family, and the rest of the world.



Moxie by Jennifer Matthieu (2017)

I loved this book a lot. I love stories where young people find their voice and improve the world they inhabit. This young girl lives in Texas, in a small town which lives and breathes for their high school football team. She follows her mother's example from her days in Seattle where she produced zines. Vivian secretly produces her own zines complaining about the misogynist football players' behavior.

-----
Finally, I just celebrated my 10th Thingversary!!!

First, congratulations on your 10th Thingaversary! You have had a very stressful time of it, but I am glad to hear that both your and your father's homes are intact. I visited the beautiful island of St. Thomas a number of years ago and can't bear to think of the damage it has sustained. Glad that your reading funk is in the past.

So glad to see you back posting! Very glad to hear that your home is still standing and that your dad is OK too. Hope you have an excellent rest of the reading year!

I'm glad to hear you're safe and sound now.

Welcome back! What an eventful time you've had. I'm glad to hear that all is OK now.

Welcome back! The fire season has been horrendous this year. Sorry to see the impact it had in your area. Glad to see that everything is OK.

Thanks, everyone, for your warm comments.

More catch-up reviews and one for a book just finished.



The Open Road by M.M. Holaday (2017)

This book was given to me by the author's sister who happens to be a friend of my father's who knows that I work in a library. Do you know the feeling when someone gives you a book with the expectation that you will love it? And you are afraid that it will be hard to be accommodating. Well, it happens that it wasn't so hard at all.

It was a historical fiction that took place in the 1860s in the wild, wild west. Love triangle, Native Americans, horses, and lots of adventure. If you enjoy such stories it is worth getting the book from Amazon, Kindle or hard cover.



Eight Skilled Gentlemen by Barry Hughart (2010)

I picked this one up for my Kindle. I had not remembered that I had read another of this series that takes place in Ancient China. That is why I like this series - different location and folklore. One of the reviews for the book says that it is a mystery for non-mystery readers and fantasy for non-fantasy readers. I think that is perfectly put.



The Revenge of Moriarty by John Gardner

I read Gardner's Grendel eons ago but never forgot it. When I saw this book on sale I grabbed it.

It was difficult for me to remember this book wasn't written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was very true to his language and style. I had fun with it.



Sixth of Dusk by Brandon Sanderson (2014)

I've read the first two of his Stormlight Archive megabooks (hesitant on diving into the third) so it was without any qualms that I dove into this novella.

A trapper on an island full of dangerous plants and animals sees his own corpse in time to prevent getting killed.



The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein (2014)

This was a National Book Award winning story about magic and the Holocaust. A young girl meets a magician who warns about the danger looming for the Jewish people in her corner of Eastern Europe. She sees him as her ticket away from her small village.

Wonderful writing!

The next book is the most recent I have finished.



The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard (2009)

Augustus Landor is a retired NYC policeman who is asked to quietly investigate a brutal murder of a West Point Cadet. In order to learn more about the closely private body of cadets, he enlists the help of a fourth classman by the now familiar name of Edgar Allan Poe.

The story was greatly enhanced by the language and vocabulary used. I enjoyed the glimpse into the early life of the famous poet and life on the famous Army officer training ground.

An Uninterrupted View of the Sky by Melanie Crowder (2017)

This is one of those heart wrenching stories of the horrible lives imposed on people through no fault of their own. It takes place in Bolivia and describes the unfair law, 1008, which allows police to throw people in jail with little or no evidence of wrongdoing and little or no chance at ever getting out. In this case, it is the father of Francisco and his little sister, Pilar, who ends up in prison. Their mother wastes no time bailing on them so the two kids have to live with their father in prison. They are not the only children there. The plan is to finish the year in school and then go to their grandparents' house in the Altiplano, just the place their father fled years before.

Readers may learn how this unfair law was enacted with pressure from the U.S. to try and stem the cocaine produced in that country for sale in the U.S. It turned into a cruel excuse for the arrest and incarceration of people of Indian descent, Indios. What is so surprising is the fact that mothers abandon their children to live in such a hostile environment.

Welcome back! Certainly a hard time you have been through. I'm glad to hear that everything turned out ok and that your reading funk is over, too.

Welcome back! I'm so sorry to hear about your terrible experiences with storms and fires - no wonder you had a reading funk. Glad to see you're getting back on track.

Welcome back, and thank you for your comment on my thread too!

The fires and storms looked awful - I'm so glad that you and your dad are safe.

The wildfire experience was harrowing I'm sure. Glad you are safe.

>14 mamzel: I too finished the first two Stormlight chunksters. I've started the third book, reading the free installments that Tor had posted on its Web site as a teaser. They posted the first 32 chapters, so I guess I'm committed now. :)

>16 Chrischi_HH: Thanks. I've found some pretty decent YA to read lately.

>17 VivienneR: My dad still doesn't have power. We're experiencing rain today so now we need to worry about flash floods and landslides.

>18 Jackie_K: It was certainly a year to remember! I've already booked a flight to St. Thomas in March.

>19 thornton37814: I appreciate your comments. The bare black scars on the hills are a terrible reminder.

>20 mathgirl40: Funny that 32 chapters count as a teaser! Maybe I'll tackle it over my winter break.

Hello Mamzel! Glad to find your thread. I am glad your house was spared during these fires and I hope your Dad gets his power back. And glad to see you read (re-read?) Mists of Avalon. It's been a while for me but was transformative on how I see literature.

>14 mamzel: Based on "Pale Blue Eye", are you familiar with Lynn Cullen's Mrs. Poe?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with a perfectly cooked turkey and enjoyable company! We were a smallish group - husband, son, daughter, and daughter's boyfriend. My daughter and I have the Thanksgiving dinner down to a well-ordered drill. We haven't changed our recipes for years so we are well rehearsed! Everything came out delicious and I made a soup yesterday from the carcass. Four dinners and lunches from one day of cooking!

>22 threadnsong: It was a first time read for me. I had it on my must-read-someday list for a long time. I'm glad I finally got to it.

>23 threadnsong: I have not heard of this one. It looks really interesting. I'm going to add it to the aforementioned list.

I have finished two fabulous (non-fantasy) stories.



The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer (2014)

I am usually not attracted to stories of family and friends but this one included a mathematical twist that appealed to me. Throw in a female genius and I'm sold! This one was wonderful.



Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdritch (2017)

Wow was this a story! Cedar is a young woman, single, pregnant, Ojibwa raised by white parents, who receives a letter from her birth mother. Something else is going on around her which takes a back seat, at first. Pregnant women are vanishing but Cedar is not worried at the moment since she's not showing yet. It's more important to find out why she was put up for adoption and how it was possible to be adopted by a white family.

Written as a journal describing her life and feelings to her unborn child, we follow Cedar on her journey of discovery and eventually going into hiding to prevent ending up as one of the vanished.

Tension slowly builds as the reader learns more about the evolutionary chaos around Cedar.

Erdritch writes an amazing story. I have read The Round House and intend to read much more of her.

And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin (2017)

Remember the movie, Strangers on the Train"? That's the basis of this YA book which begins with a group of five teens. They had received an email to meet in an abandoned carriage house in the middle of the night with rain and lightning. The roof collapsed on them and one heroically dug the others out. Later, in the hospital, they begin to wonder who sent them the email and why.

One of the boys, Caleb, is the son of a famous psychologist and tells half of the story. The alternate chapters are told by Saralinda, the youngest of the group, hampered by a clubfoot and learning to control diabetes on her own. They slowly come to realize that all their lives were in danger when the brakes gave out on another of their group, Antoine, who then perished in a collision with a truck.

The other four are left to try and survive and make their story known.

Good action and suspense.

>24 mamzel: - Math and a female genius? I am sold too! Especially since I do tend to like books about families and friends.

It was a lucky Kindle sale purchase. I hope you can find it and enjoy it.

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi (2017)

Scalzi takes interesting scifi concepts and puts them in his stories. In Red Shirts he borrowed the trope from the original Star Trek series about the expendable crew members and in Old Man's War he envisioned a time when one could exchange their tired, sick body for a new one if they sign up for military service.

In this short book, death is not permanent if one is murdered. If death is caused by another person, the victim is instantly transported to their own home, usually to their bed, completely nude and uninjured. Certain individuals have been charged with causing death to prevent accidental death. For instance, an insurance company will hire a dispatcher to stand by in an operating room. If it looks like things will go bad for the patient (and the insured hospital), he steps in and "dispatches" the patient who then instantly wakes up at home in pre-surgery condition. As one might surmise, dispatchers are being approached to perform their duties for less than legitimate reasons. One has disappeared, so, Tony Valdez, a dispatcher, is asked to assist in locating him.

A fun, short mystery with a scifi twist.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley (2013)

I'm guilty of padding my annual total with a quickly read graphic novel.

This was a food memoir illustrating how closely tied memory is related to food. The author/illustrator has many such memories since her parents were both foodies and she spent a lot of time in professional kitchens and farmers markets.

One of my favorite movie moments was in Ratatouille when the food critic tastes his dish and flashes back to a childhood moment. It moved me since it was a dish that reminded me of my mother. I can easily relate to her memories.

A few recipes are included in the book.

>29 mamzel: Nothing wrong with reading graphic novels or children's literature. I read that one a year or two ago myself.

I didn't realize you were up with the Northern California fires -- that looks terrifying!

The Dispatcher sounds like an intriguing premise, and Scalzi is a pretty solid writer to take it on. I haven't been stunned by what I've read by him, but neither have I ever been disappointed. And best of luck packing in the last set of books for the year. :)

>30 thornton37814: I'm glad I work in a HS library and have access to these books. I really don't know if I would read them if I didn't.

>31 pammab: And now southern California is facing even an even worse catastrophe as far as acreage, luckily not in loss of life.

Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh (2017)

I really wanted to love this book which takes place in a future version of Seoul, Korea. A number of things, however, prevented that from happening.

Young people are being trained to man robot things called God Machines. Lee Jaewon was a orphan who already has managed to extricate himself from a gang and made it through the training academy. He is assigned to accompany Tera, an "enhanced" young woman because she is wont to lose control of her physical abilities. Feelings ensue.

There are a number of plots and subplots which had me lost at times but I pushed through to the end. One of the things that bugged me (and I really regret not marking the page) was a comment about the sun setting in the east. There was no mention of any recombining of North and South Korea or what may have happened to the Glorious Leaders thereof. The last thing that really annoyed me was the presence of a gold medal on the cover for something called a New Visions Award. Reading the small print and googling I discovered this was "awarded" by Tu Books who, wait for it, is the publisher of this book. I would consider that self-aggrandizing.

Hi Mamzel, stopping by to wish you and your loved ones peace, joy and happiness this holiday season and for 2018!

To all of my LT friends!

>36 VivienneR: Thanks!