November Random CAT : Fortune and Glory!

Remember when you were a little kid and your parents, your aunts and uncles, your teachers - virtually everyone - would ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? It kept happening, right? Until you were more or less settled in life, and you still kind of dreamed about something more glamorous or appealing?

For me, it was a cosmologist (not that I knew what the right word was but I wanted to study the stars) or an Egyptologist. (I was definitely a weird kid). Of course parents kept pushing more realistic goals but I still kinda wish I'd had the opportunity to follow through.

So, for this month's challenge, read a book that focuses on whatever it was you dreamed of becoming at some time in your life.

Please update the wiki with your reading: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_RandomCAT#November:_-_Theme:

Oh my! I've always found that to be such an impossible question that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. >;-) These days I just want to make a difference and the right amount of trouble. And if that involves bossing people about, well I like doing that too. >:-D

I did want to be a mechanic, just like my dad, so maybe I'll read something connected to the automobile.

I might read something by Michael Innes or a Poirot. I wanted to be one of those impossibly erudite, cultured people in Golden Age detective fiction even if I had no particular interest in being a detective.

I'll read sci fi, of course. :)

I have lived my dream, very lucky! I always wanted to be a teacher. I think I will read the next installment of Miss Read's Fairacre.

What fun! I wanted to be a farmer or to be a vet. I'll have something on my shelves I'm sure.

I was going to be a detective or, because of Nancy Drew, a sleuth. I will read Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie which features a couple of young sleuths.

Wonderful theme! I wanted to be a mystery writer so finding something in my collection will be easy.

I don't remember real well, but I think for a time I wanted to be a veterinarian, so I think that's what I'll go with. I certainly have plenty of books to cover that one!

I *love* this challenge - such a clever idea!

Since I was a kiddo, I've had three dream jobs: a teacher, a librarian, and a flower delivery person. I've had the wonderful luck of doing two of those things so far (professor and librarian), and who knows, maybe someday I'll achieve the third! I think I'll probably read the next installment of the cozy mystery series I'm working through, with a librarian as the main character, Death in the Stacks.

>5 Tess_W: I am in there with you! My favorite thing to play as a kid was school! I always wanted to be a teacher (although I also thought about being a librarian). This will give me lots to choose from.

>11 LadyoftheLodge: ;)

There were so many careers that I contemplated, including veterinarian, park ranger, truck driver, artist, DJ, photographer, the list goes on... I'm sure I can find something to fit...

>10 scaifea: Ha! Thank you for that reminder. I am a librarian, and I did want to be one - at least for a while - when I was younger!

I am still probably going to stick with the veterinarian theme, though, as there are a couple I had as possibilities for another challenge this month that I am unlikely to get to, so I'll read them for this in November instead. :-)

I really have no idea what to do with this. I don't remember wishing to be anything in particular. I guess I'll troll through my TBR and see what I can figure out.

A bit early but the book I was reading this month fits for me because it's about a mystery writer - Howard Engel in The Man Who Forgot How to Read.

>16 VivienneR: Ha! I too am thinking of reading about a mystery writer!

I've been dreaming up plots since I was in grade school, and in every job I've had but never put pen to paper. Is that how you were too?

ETA: I was editing my post #16 when you responded and now your comment is also #16. Weird, looks like LT can't count.

>18 VivienneR: I confess I never went very far with the plotting part. But I gobbled up mysteries so fast when I was a teenager that I was convinced I could write a good mystery.

>19 NinieB: I still gobble them up and often consider changing the storyline as I'm reading. I'm sure I wouldn't be making any improvement but some just call out for a character shake up. So many fictitious detectives male and female have major problems.

If I go way back, I wanted to be a forest ranger. Not sure there are many books about forest rangers anymore. But when it came to really deciding, I wanted to be a librarian but ended up going into nursing because it is what my parents were willing to support. In the end I think it was the better decision. There are many books out there about libraries and probably librarians and then I could read books suggested by Nancy Pearl, librarian.

>21 Kristelh: - Nevada Barr has a series about a forest ranger.

I wanted to be a newspaper columnist when I was younger, along the lines of Dave Barry, Linwood Barclay, and Jim Qwilleran, so I will re-read The Cat Who Sniffed Glue for this challenge.

Here is the link to the 2022 CAT poll. Please choose your favourite CATs, maximum 4.

https://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=617f6ec1e4b04db784c19635

Voting closes 4pm, Saturday, November 6th, Melbourne, Australia. That's 10 pm Friday in San Francisco.

I read several of the Magic School Bus books, which feature a teacher (which I am and always wanted to be).

RandomCAT will be a KIT next year. If we want to keep it going, we need someone to manage the KIT.

2022 Planning Thread for RandomKit:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/336399

December thread is here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/336710

I read Evie Dunmore's Portrait of a Scotsman for this CAT. The heroine wants to be an artist, and that is definitely something I remember wanting to be as a kid...although I have zero talent in the visual arts, so it's probably a good thing I changed my mind!

I really enjoyed Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime and it was perfect for this theme as Tommy and Tuppence mimic the various styles of literary detectives much as I did when I was young and playing at being a detective!

>30 DeltaQueen50: That's one of my favorites of Agatha Christie!

I can't say I was a kid, but at some point I really wanted to be a farmer. I bought this really large book (I think through Mother Earth News) that had a green cardboard cover and the pages were tan and it included information on all kinds of things about farming. The usual how to make jam and put up food, but also how to get a stump out of the ground and kill a pig. I kept that book for a really long time but I've never had a farm.

Anyway - I read One-Woman Farm by Jenna Woginrich about her life starting and living on her own farm. Written like a monthly journal, I enjoyed following her life on the farm.

Another one for this month: Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran
I've been dipping into this all month and found it fascinating. I believe I've read everything by Christie and a lot of what has been written about her, so although this appears to be all over the place, it actually made perfect sense in illustrating how the Queen of Crime planned her stories. The index is invaluable. I'm glad I got my own copy because it is something I'll refer to often especially when I re-read her work. Highly recommended for would-be mystery authors and Agatha Christie fans.

I also plan to read Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie, which is about Ariadne Oliver, Christie's character who is a mystery writer (and alter ego?)

Just finished Eon by Greg Bear. I definitely identified with the main female character.

Ask the Animals / Bruce R. Coston
3.75 stars

This is a memoir by a veterinarian. It focuses more on his life than the animal anecdotes, but those are definitely added in, as well; that is, it the larger focus is on his life in becoming and being a veterinarian (as well as some family life and his own pets).

For the most part I liked it. I found the schooling and the anecdotes interesting. Of his home life, the pets were the best part. I was disappointed, however, to read that at least one of his cats (not sure about the others) was declawed, as was the office cat at his practice.

I always wanted to be a librarian. So I am reading Booking the Crook by Laurie Cass

I always wanted to be a teacher, and I was able to achieve that dream--and more! I read the second installment of Miss Read, The Village Diary which was divided into 12 chapters, each with the appropriate activities for the season. I see that even then teachers, although getting 8 weeks off, still worked most of that time preparing for the next year!

Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie
Not one of Christie's best but I love Mrs Ariadne Oliver, who is said to be Christie's alter ego as she is a mystery novelist - just what I wanted to be.

I also read A Christmas Courtship which is part of the Berlin Bookmobile series. My other career choice (besides teacher) was children's librarian. I have the degree, just never worked as a librarian other than volunteer.

When I was 13, our whole family went to Missouri where my father taught summer school at the University of Missouri. As a treat, we all took our first airplane ride from Columbia to St. Louis, stopping at Jefferson City on the way. It was a small commuter plane run by Ozark Airlines, which has not been in existence for years. I really enjoyed that experience and decided I wanted to be an airplane stewardess. Fortunately, this career choice did not last very long; I would have been completely unsuited for it. However, I still enjoy reading books about stewardesses. I just read Up in the Air, an autobiography of Betty Riegel, an English stewardess who worked during the glory days of Pan Am in the 1960s.

I love reading about everyone's dreams.

I'm currently reading Breakthrough which involves scientists trying to understand Dolphin language. I majored in Math in university and joined the Air Force to get into the computer field, so I definitely identify with the programmers trying to come up with a translation program.

I wanted to be a forest ranger when I was young so it was recommended that I read a book with Anne Pigeon. So I read Hard Truth by Nevada Barr. It really wasn't my kind of book. It felt like the author was just trying way to hard and this was not even near the beginning of the series. I don't think I will read any more in the series.

>42 Kristelh: I think I like some of the earlier installments best. A Superior Death which featured Isle Royale really stuck with me. I don't think Hard Truth was one of her better ones. If you don't like those, try the Joe Pickett series by C. J. Box.

>43 thornton37814:, I really wanted to read A Superior Death because it is set in my home area. Maybe I will keep an eye out for that one. I haven't read C. J. Box but I might have some around on my TBR as my husband had read those.

>44 Kristelh: I think Winter Study is also set in that area. I haven't read it yet. It's next up for me (although I have read a couple of later installments out of order).

At one point in my teens I thought about becoming a police officer, but realised rather early on that I wouldn't pass the physical test. So I contented myself with reading mysteries such as Der norwegische Gast.

I thought as a child I would live on a farm when I grew up but it didn't work out that way. For this challenge I read The Shepard's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks Rebanks works a farm in northern Scotland where families have lived for generations and still pass on traditional farming ways.

I thought as a child I would live on a farm when I grew up but it didn't work out that way. For this challenge I read The Shepard's Life by James Rebanks. Rebanks works a farm in northern Scotland where families have lived for generations and still pass on traditional farming ways.