November ColourCAT: red

Red is one of the spectral colours at the longwave end of visible light and gives us red dawns and red sunsets. Many ancient religions had a goddess of the dawn: Aurora, Eos, Ushas, Zorya.

Red is the colour of fire, hence of danger. For a long time, redhaired women were synonymous with witchcraft and sexual attraction. The red-haired woman

Red is also the colour of blood, hence of passion, love and marriage (e.g. in China or India).

Red is the colour of summer fruits: strawberries, raspberries, cherries, apples, and of vegetables: beetroot, peppers, chillies, tomatoes. The beet queen, The Cherry Orchard

Red is the colour of precious jewels: ruby, garnet, carnelian, coral, which are sometimes used as first names. The heroine of Jubilee Trail is named Garnet. A price beyond rubies

Red is the colour of many flowers, some of which are powerful symbols: red roses for love, red carnations are worn on Labour Day in many countries, red poppies are worn on Remembrance Day in November. Sea of Poppies

Red is the colour of radical political movements: the French Jacobins wore red caps. The workers’ movements have red flags since the time of the first organised unions and strikes: “The people’s flag is deepest red” sings the British Labour party, and there are countless other songs.
The weavers in Gerhart Hauptmann’s drama Die Weber march under a red flag, the socialists and communists used it, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht named their journal for it, and so did the Chinese Communists.

Red comes in many shades: crimson, scarlet, burgundy, cardinal, auburn, cerise, fuchsia, oxblood, vermilion, cinnabar, madder The crimson petal and the white, Warrior Scarlet

Red does not appear in many surnames. Those few are thought to derive from a nickname for redhaired people: Roth, Rothenbaum, Rothman, (Le)Roux, Rosso/Rossini.

Enjoy your book of choice and don’t forget to update the wiki!

So many covers have red elements in them, I'm going to be spoiled for choice for this one.

Speaking of red names - I used to work in a credit union (way back when) and we had a customer whose name was Rose Rose. She married into it, but still...

>3 dudes22: Sometimes I wonder at the names people put up with. But "Rose" offers quite a few family names: Rosenbaum, Rosenfeld, Rosenzweig. Didn't think of that!

I have the perfect book for this CAT: The Spy Wore Red by Aline, Countess of Romanones. Red is both in the title and all over the cover!

I'm planning on reading A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon, as my copy has a fair bit of red on the cover. Unlike >2 Robertgreaves: I am discovering quite a dearth of red-covered books in my collection.

Last year I read a brilliant graphic biography, Red Rosa by Kate Evans. I won't read it again so soon after I first read it, but would absolutely recommend it for anyone who's interested in Rosa Luxemburg.

I'm planning on Red River by Lalita Tademy.

>3 dudes22: I know a woman named Carolyn who has always gone by Rolyn. Then she married into the name Rollins.

I purposely read Gods and Beasts so that I could get to The Red Road for next month. I think I also have Red River on my NOOK, I'll have to check.

I am planning on reading All That Matters by Wayson Choy:



and Sisters Red by Jackson Pierce:

I've scheduled The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman for my "red" read.

I will have to peruse through my pile'o'books here and see what I have that's red...

I have been wanting to get to the Red Rising series and since I haven't read the first one this would be a good time to get it read.

I've got two that I'm considering / hoping to get to:



And

I have a few books I'll be reading in November that fit here.

The shadowy bits of this wall looking like dried blood

A dramatically backlit feather

Gregor looking all spiffy at his wedding

I am putting one off until November that originally thought I'd read this month:
- Red Heart Tattoo / Lurlene McDaniel

Also a possibility:
- To Sleep With the Angels / David Cowan

This will probably be one that I read The Red Umbrella, I own it and haven’t read it so this is a good opportunity.

I've changed my mind about what I'm going to read for this challenge. I've too many hefty books on the go already to be able to face another biggish book right now, but I dug out a copy of a little book of poetry by Wilfred Owen to read for the WWI centenary and it has a single red poppy on the front cover, so I will count that towards this challenge instead.

I was checking my books and did not see any "red" in the titles and also did not find any books at Goodwill yesterday so I checked gutenberg.org and found The Little Red Hen, an Old English Folk Tale by Florence White Williams and read it. It was cute and I had never read it. This morning I found The Red Headed League from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by A. Conan Doyle. Short but I will count them.
Leona

I've read Vox by Christina Dalcher for this CAT. It wasn't very good, but the cover was white with the title in big red letters.

Planning to read Red Dog by Louis De Bernieres.

Red Heart Tattoo / Lurlene McDaniel
3.75 stars

Morgan is the class president, and her boyfriend, Trent, is a football star at school. Morgan’s best friend, Kelli, is a cheerleader and her boyfriend is also a football star. Roth was orphaned young, and lived in foster homes until his uncle returned from military service and took him in. His Uncle Max is now married, so it feels like he has a real home with people who love him, even though Max doesn’t really know how to be a parent. Max runs a tattoo shop and Roth is on the edge of being in trouble, but never anything overly serious. Outsider Liza is Roth’s best friend. They are all seniors when someone sets off a bomb at their school. Some die, and some are injured.

I’d give this 4 stars for the story, but 3.5 stars for going through the story so quickly and leaving out a lot more detail. However, it is a YA book, so maybe the 4 stars is still justified. I really liked the story. I sympathized with most of the characters, but it helped that we see the events from many different characters’ viewpoints. Definitely good YA.

I have completed All That Matters by Wayson Choy. This was sequel to his previous book Jade Peony about the Chen family. I loved the first book and this book was as well done, but as plot covered the same time period, it was a little repetitive.

I've just finished Wilfred Owen's war poems, The Pity of War. These poems have probably done more than anything to expose what Owen called "the old Lie" (about the honour of dying for one's country). 100 years on, still searingly powerful. 5/5.

I have finished Die Naschmarkt-Morde, a mystery set in 1903 Vienna with a beautiful detail from Klimt's painting Danae, showing a woman with vivid red hair. And Klimt even has a short scene in the book.

Starting Chronicle of the Russian Tsars by David Warnes. Red lettering on the cover (although it looks more purple in the image), and also a red spine.

I've just finished Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, book 2 of the Gentleman Bastard series. I've been holding off reading this for a while so I could read it for this month's challenge and am glad to have finally gotten to it.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

The letters are red and the book is about communism and I think Red is a color that is often connected with communism so I am putting the book here for this CAT.

I finished reading The Red Collar, a charming short novel translated from the French.

I finished Blood Dreams which has a decent amount of red on the cover, plus the imagery of blood, which is red. This one has been on my tbr shelves for about 10 years and was the first book I've read by Kay Hooper. It was Ok, but nothing that would make me want to read more of her work.

COMPLETED Shards of Murder by Cheryl Hollon

The cover of My Dear Hamilton shows Mrs. Hamilton wearing a red dress.

I've finished Bloodroot by Susan Wittig Albert.

Der Kaffeedieb has a lovely dustjacket showing a 17th century harbour scene, but the hardcover book itself has a dark red binding. Great story, well written, an author to keep in mind.

Starting Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings by Jonathan Swift (although Gulliver's clothes look more orange in the image, they are definitely scarlet on the book)

I picked up the Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke today.

My latest book had the title printed in red on the cover and spine: Tod am Nord-Ostsee-Kanal. Very good historical mystery set on the construction site of the Kiel Canal in 1894.

Finished Red Dog by Louis de Bernieres, which is short and simple. Might be a good book for someone learning English. Not for me.

Just finished Hot Flash Holidays which has a red cover. Now I need to read the others in the series.

I am taking advantage of this month's ColourCAT to try and get a lot of books read off my TBR piles. So far, I have finished the following:

..

Quarantine by Jim Crace
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
Seeing by Jose Saramago

Red seems to be a popular colour for book covers!

COMPLETED Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings by Jonathan Swift

Finished Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke. I like her book as they are fast and easy reads. Recipes are good also and I have made some of them.

Went sideways and changed choices for this challenge at the last minute, but I ended up reading The Fear Collector by Gregg Olsen. The dominant colors on the cover are red and black, with an eye-drawing red sky at the top and red blood dripping over the white-typeface on the cover.

I finished The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez which is set in the early sixties as Castro becomes dictator of Cuba. It is a young adult audio that was free in 2017. It’s a story of two children sent to the US by parents to keep them from the government control fo the youth. It was nice story, with everything working out.

The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien a harrowing but brilliant story set in Bosnia and Ireland.

>46 VivienneR:, I wished I could have gotten to that one this month.

Starting Descartes: A Very Short Introduction

(The book is red rather than pink)

>47 Kristelh: It will certainly keep you thinking after you read it. As I said, harrowing but brilliant.

COMPLETED Descartes: A Very Short Introduction

I've just finished Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.

Finished Jason by Laurell K. Hamilton--the cover is almost entirely red.

I finished The red badge of courage by Stephen Crane, where red is also an important colour in the many descriptions of nature.

edited for touchstone

Three more red cover reads completed:

..

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - Yes, it looks a little more orange than red on the screen but it is a red
Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk

>54 lkernagh: What did you think of Slammerkin? I quite liked it when I read it; it has been a while, so I don't recall details, though!

I just noticed that the book I finished last night has this lovely red title.

I am listening to the children’s book Fyre by. Angie Sage and it has a red cover.

I finished listening to Scythe by Neal Shusterman. This is a YA dystopian fantasy with lots of shades of red on the cover.

I am reading Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich and my edition has a white cover with red on it.

H.H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil / Adam Selzer
4 stars

H.H. Holmes, born Herman Mudgett, did more than murder women in his “hotel” during the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. He was all about money and not shy about committing fraud to gain it. He had a number of alias’s, and he lied all the time. He was “married” to three women, but only legally married to the first, since he never divorced her. He eventually wrote a “confession” with more lies, as he confessed to killing people he couldn’t have. He was only convicted of murdering one person, Ben Pitezel, though it’s fairly certain, he also killed three of Ben’s children. There were a few women who worked for/with him in his “hotel” who were most likely murdered by him.

There is so much misinformation out there. Adam Selzer went to primary sources to write this book. Even many of those are not reliable, but Selzer does his best to sift through all the information and try to come up with the most plausible story of Holmes. It was good, and for enjoyment of/interest in the book, I’d actually give it 3.5 stars (good), but I really want to give it an overall of 4 stars for all the detailed research. I feel like this should be the primary book on Holmes, with all the research that went into it. Selzer also looks at other books/articles written about Holmes and looks deeper into where the information came from for those works to determine how legitimate the information is (including Eric Larson’s “The Devil in the White City”). Well worth the read for anyone interested in learning more about Holmes.

I have finished The masked city by Genevieve Cogman which has a very stylish dark red cover. Fun.

I finished another with a red title. Gripping read, this one.

Starting Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Inwood

I recently finished The Spy Wore Red and really enjoyed it! It's a memoir, but it reads like a WWII spy novel!

I've started America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo for this CAT. I don't think I'll manage to finish it in time to count it, but the cover certainly works.

COMPLETED Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Inwood

Christmas at High Rising by Angela Thirkell
A sweet collection of eight stories originally published in the 1930s and 1940s, most of which are set at High Rising in Thirkell's fictional county of Barsetshire. Disappointlngly, only two are set at Christmas. The one I liked best was about dinner parties that could have featured in Shakespeare's plays.

I finished one more red book: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I didn't realize until about half way through that I had already read this a few years ago. It was excellent both times around.

>54 lkernagh: - Sadly, Slammerkin didn't work for me. I ended up being too frustrated with the protagonist. Found it really hard to feel sorry for her when she got fixated on her dreams and didn't care who she hurt, but the portrayal of the time period was really interesting reading.

-------------------------

My last batch of red cover reads (as my current read will carry over into December):

.

Who Do You Think You Are? by Pauline Burgess
Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo

>65 VivienneR: I love the covers of Thirkell's books published by Virago!

I finished Absolution by Caro Ramsay and The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, both with striking red titles: