BW40: October Spooktacular

 

Happy Sunday! Are you ready for our October Spooktacular? What spooks you, gives you goosebumps, sends a chill up your spine, keeps you up reading late into night?  Horror, thrillers, dark comedy, science fiction,  supernatural thrillers, speculative fiction, true crime stories, books with morally grey characters.  Perhaps cozy reads or paranormal reads with ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or mummies. There is something for everyone, even if you like spooky lite. Boo!

16 Spooky Halloween Books for Adults

Spooky Books to Read Every October

31 Halloween Books to Read This October

Goodreads all inclusive Spooky Book Lists

And for those who aren't into the spookiness, our fall reading challenge will be ongoing until Winter. Plus I think we should extended banned books week through October because I still want to read Grapes of Wrath along with Steinbeck's Working Days: The Journal of the Grapes of Wrath. I also want to read Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits which is also on the Top 100 Banned Books List. 

Which brings us to our letter of the week - M- which stands for magical realism, memoirs, motifs, marginalia, and metaphors.  

Happy reading! 

BW39: I have a Notion it is Fall!

 

Happy Sunday! I've got a notion it's Fall. Well, in the Northern Hemisphere at least. Those of you in the Southern Hemisphere are ushering in Spring.  Either way, nature is painting the landscape with vivid and vibrant colors.  Which means, it's time for our Fall Reading Challenge or mission or journey or whatever you want to call it. 

Read a book with, which is, or about (But not all inclusive)

• Leaves, trees, or nature of some sort on the cover. 
• Fall colors on the cover. 
• Fall in the title.
• Set in Fall or Autumn
• Someone who could possibly fall, whether physically or metaphorically.
• Released in September, October, or November.
• A cozy full of murder and mayhem.
• Full of pumpkins
• About someone who transforms.
• Is magical or mystical.
• About Halloween, Samhain, Octoberfest, Día de Muertos, Diwali, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, 

The Ultimate Fall 2024 Reading List which is a round up of list from around the internet.   Haruki Murakami's latest - The City and Its Uncertain Walls will be out on November 19th. Louise Penney's #19 in the Gamache series - The Grey Wolf - will be out on October 29th.  Nora Roberts 2nd book in The Lost Bridge Trilogy - The Mirror - will be out on November 19th. 

The Queen's Reading room - Season 15 includes Geraldine Brooks Horse, E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia, Tan Twan Eng's The House of Doors, and Robert Harris's Archangel.  

Have fun filling up your TBR stacks. 

Oh! And it's Banned Book Week so read some challenged books 

Happy reading! 

BW38: O is for Oulipo

 

Happy Sunday!  O is for Oulipo and also stands for odd so bear with me.   

I was introduced to the form of Oulipo in a writing class years ago and found it quite intriguing.  Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle or OULIPO was founded by French Mathematician Francois de Lionnais and writer Raymond Queneau in 1960.   Basically it is introducing a constraint such as not using a certain letter, and other oddities, while writing a poem, creating a short story, or a lipogram.  

A few years back I experimented with creating an OULIPO using Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken which took an interesting turn.   I tried the N + 7 route which is to replace the major nouns with another noun which is the 7th one below it in the dictionary.   However the first line ending up being 

Two Robbers diverged in a Women

Hmmm! Once I quit laughing, I got the bright idea to take book titles and transform them into a story, but got as far as a weird poem.

Figured I'd better stick to reading books by authors using the technique.  

Italo Calvino is one author who liked to experiment with his stories.  In "if on a winter's night a traveler"  is written in both second person so the you is the reader, yourself, and an alternative narrator in alternating chapters which makes for an intriguing and creative story. 

"if on a winter's night a traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together, the stories form a labyrinth of literature known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers pursue the story lines that intrigue them and try to read each other. Deeply profound and surprisingly romantic, this classic is a beautiful meditation on the transformative power of reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives."

I've read "if on a winter's night" as well as "Invisible Cities" and will be delving into "The Complete Cosmocomics" soon. 

"Italo Calvino’s beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these thirty-four dazzling stories—collected here in one definitive anthology—relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world. They are an indelible (and unfailingly delightful) literary achievement."

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar is another strange one with two ways to read the book - straight forward or in a Hopscotch manner jumping into 'expendable' chapters the author had written which are supposed to add to or explain some of what was going on.  I hopscotched around, letting the number at the end of each chapter tell me what to read next.  But you have to pay close attention if you want to find the end of the story. 

Explore some books using Oulipo constraints from Goodreads round up of Oulipo Books or Literary Salon's Index. 

Blogatini – The Adventurous Writer – The Oulipo Movement

Who Are the Women of Oulipo?

Have fun exploring! 

  

BW37: Pseudonym

 

Happy Sunday!  Big P, little p, what begins with P.   Passion, poetry, peace, patient, parallels, park, progress, and pseudonym to name a few.  Your task this week is to find a book written by an author under a pseudonym or pen name. 

I'm currently reading Passion in Death by J.D. Robb which is another pen name for Nora Roberts.  I just stumbled upon Rules of Engagement written by Selene Montgomery which happens to be the pen name for Stacey Abrams who previously served as a state representative for Georgia. Dean Koontz is another favorite author who wrote under several pen names including David Axton, K. R. Dwyer, Richard Paige, and others. Stephen King used Richard Bachman as another pen name while Anne Rice used A.N. Roquelaure or Anne Rampling.   Fantasy author Charles De Lint wrote dark fantasy novels aka horror under the name of Samuel Key which were scary good. 

It's always fun to search out books written under a different pen name by authors because you'll never know what amazing stories you'll find.  

10 Contemporary Authors Writing Under More Than One Name

12 Modern Writers who use a Pen name

10 Famous Author Pseudonyms And Why They Were Chosen

Have fun!

BW36: September Author of the Month - Steve Berry

Happy Sunday!  Welcome to September in which we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, Classical Music Month, Baby Safety Month, as well as National Courtesy Month.  This month we celebrate Labor Day, anticipate the beginning of Fall, and commemorate 911 and those we lost as well as the heroes of the day. 

Our author of the Month is Steve Berry who writes action packed mystery thrillers mixed with history.   He is best known for his Cotton Malone series consisting of 19 books so far. He also has written several stand alone books, plus has teamed up with different authors including M.J. Rose in the Cassiopeia Vitt adventure series as well as Grant Blackwood in the Luke Daniels historical adventures. 

Our letter of the week is Q which is appropriate since Berry's books take us on different quests.  Q is also for question, quagmires, queens, and quotes. 

Happy reading! 

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BW35: Reverie in Open Air by Rita Dove

 

Happy Sunday! We are celebrating the 72nd birthday of  Rita Dove, born August 28, 1952 and poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995 and Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Dove has three lifetime achievement awards, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and is the only poet given both the National Humanities Medal in 1996 and the National Medal of the Arts in 2011.

Reverie in Open Air

by 

Rita Dove

I acknowledge my status as a stranger:   

Inappropriate clothes, odd habits   

Out of sync with wasp and wren.   

I admit I don’t know how   

To sit still or move without purpose.   

I prefer books to moonlight, statuary to trees.   

But this lawn has been leveled for looking,   

So I kick off my sandals and walk its cool green.   

Who claims we’re mere muscle and fluids?   

My feet are the primitives here.   

As for the rest—ah, the air now   

Is a tonic of absence, bearing nothing   

But news of a breeze.

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW34: Seeds

 

Happy Sunday!  What do you think of when you hear the word "Seeds."  Planting, germinating, thinking, gardening, tennis players, seeds of doubt, seeds of thought, parable of the mustard seed, or maybe even Svalbard to name a few.  

Read a book with seed in the title.

Read a fiction or nonfiction book about Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

What to Read: 20 Children’s Books About Seeds and Plants

Rachel Gullo's Books That Were Seeds for My Novel

The Unusual Crops of Strange Trees & Plants

Best Fiction Books About Plants

Orchards in Romance Novels

“You shall be my roots and

I will be your shade,

though the sun burns my leaves.

You shall quench my thirst and

I will feed you fruit,

though time takes my seed.

And when I'm lost and can tell nothing of this earth

you will give me hope.

And my voice you will always hear.

And my hand you will always have.

For I will shelter you.

And I will comfort you.

And even when we are nothing left,

not even in death,

I will remember you.”

― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Happy Reading! 

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW33: 52 Books Bingo - Tell Me a Secret

 

Happy Sunday! Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Tell Me a Secret. I loved books with secrets. Books about secret agents, secret societies, secret doors and passageways, secret towns or a town with a secret, secret friendships or relationships, family secrets. That hidden something the characters, people, companies, or place want to keep hidden and everyone else is trying to uncover.  Read a book about a secret or with secret in the title.

 

Pan MacMillan’s Books with secrets

 

Modern Mrs. Darcy’s 20 notable novels featuring family secrets

 

Penguin Random House Page-Turning Spy Novels

 

Goodread’s Best Books of Secrets

 

Big T, little T, what begins with T:  Tenacious, transparent, taboo, and twists.

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW32: August Author of the Month - Marie Brennan

 

Happy Sunday! Welcome to August and our Author of the Month - Marie Brennan who is best known for her Memoirs of Lady Trent series.  Brennan has also written several other science fiction fantasy series as well as numerous short stories.  I am currently on the third book in her Lady Trent series  - Voyage of the Basilisk - and looking forward to reading the rest of the series which just so happen to be available for free on Kindle Unlimited. 

August is also Romance Awareness Month and International Pirate Month which means it looks like we'll have some swashbuckling pirates to read about as well.  And since we're still in the Dog Days of Summer, today is National Water Balloon Day.  So fill up some balloons with water and cool down with a royal water balloon fight. 

We're counting down the year with our A to Z and Back again challenge and this week's letter is U.  Big U, little U, authors names that begins with U. Uris, Unger, Undset, Ure, Underhill to name a few.  Also, look for books with U in the title such as Unbroken, U is for Undertow, The Ugly Duckling, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, or Under the Net.  

Understand? 

Have fun uncovering unique and uplifting or ubiquitous reads!

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BW31: Vetiver by John Ashbery

 

Big V, little V, what begins with V.  Virtual, vintage, vanguard, vault, vernacular, verses, and vignettes all sound good to me.  

Vetiver

By 

John Ashbery

Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay,

As the flowers recited their lines

And pike stirred at the bottom of the pond.

The pen was cool to the touch.

The staircase swept upward

Through fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholy

Already distilled in letters of the alphabet.

It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugar

Palaces and also lines of care

At the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks,

The color once known as “ashes of roses.”

How many snakes and lizards shed their skins

For time to be passing on like this,

Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound toward

The conclusion. It had all been working so well and now,

Well, it just kind of came apart in the hand

As a change is voiced, sharp

As a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowed

Past us into a basin called infinity.

There was no charge for anything, the gates

Had been left open intentionally.

Don’t follow, you can have whatever it is.

And in some room someone examines his youth,

Finds it dry and hollow, porous to the touch.

O keep me with you, unless the outdoors

Embraces both of us, unites us, unless

The birdcatchers put away their twigs,

The fishermen haul in their sleek empty nets

And others become part of the immense crowd

Around this bonfire, a situation

That has come to mean us to us, and the crying

In the leaves is saved, the last silver drops.

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BW30: Water

 

Happy Sunday. It's hot, hot, hot and since today is National Ice Cream Day, a bowl or cone filled with ice cream would absolutely hit the spot.  Also our next 52 Books Bingo Category will help keep us cool -  Water.  Read a story set in, on, around or under a body of water.  A story about the ocean, a lake, a pond, a river, or even a puddle. A story in which it seems water is almost a character. There are so many ways to go with this category.

Once by the Pacific 

By 

Robert Frost

The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in,

And thought of doing something to the shore

That water never did to land before.

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.

You could not tell, and yet it looked as if

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,

The cliff in being backed by continent;

It looked as if a night of dark intent

Was coming, and not only a night, an age.

Someone had better be prepared for rage.

There would be more than ocean-water broken

Before God's last Put out the light was spoken.

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BW29: Xylophone

 

Happy Sunday!  We're on X in our A to Z and Back and Again and X seems to be one of the hardest letters to find for titles and or authors so let's make it easy.  Find a book with a x anywhere in the title with the X sound such as excellent, excel, extra, exploit, or fox, tux, wax, maximum, or hoax.   Looking on my shelves, I find Exit Strategy by Martha Wells, Axis by Robert Charles Wilson, or Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch.   Authors such as Qui Xiaolong or Roxanne St. Claire or Alexandra Ivy or C.J. Box. Have fun and be creative. 

Xylophone

By 

Jimmy

Synapses, flick flack, brain waves, where was I? There i went

Rewinded it, but it sounds all too different.

I better record this, but it's too late. Where was I?

A thousand smiles in my motor functions. It's moving, like a butterfly.

I'm moving, like a butterfly, my mind is moving, like a butterfly.

And that's all there is to it.

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