Nonfiction Review: HOW TO SURVIVE THE END OF THE WORLD (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: How to Survive the End of the World: A Graphic Exploration of How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction by Katy Doughty

Book Beginnings:

Page one: How did the human story start? Science tells us that we began with some apes who stood a little taller. ( From the theory of evolution) From religion and mythology come origin stories of a divine breath that brought some dirt to life... (From the book of Genesis in the Bible and Torah.)

Friday56:

Page 61: There have been five mass extinctions in Earth's history. Volcanoes had a hand in at least two of them. (Chart list these five events and answers the percentage of species extinct, the cause, losers, winners.)

Summary: 

Since 99.9 percent of all species that have lived are extinct, it’s bound to be our turn eventually, right? So what’s most likely to kill us? A well-timed asteroid? Some new robot overlords? With wit and dry humor, debut graphic novelist Katy Doughty blends science and history to explore our chances of surviving disasters such as plagues, global warming, and alien invasion. Drawing on interviews with experts in fields like infectious diseases, AI, and interplanetary exploration, she combines cutting-edge research with compelling visuals: mugshots of the deadliest microbes, graphs of the winners and losers of mass extinction events, and a whole lot of dinosaur drawings. For apocalypse aficionados, the morbidly curious, and the just plain curious, this is your antidote to existential dread—a timely, imaginative, and ultimately hopeful take on humankind’s ability to survive the odds. (Publisher)

Review: I like getting my information from a variety of sources, so when I saw a graphic (illustrated) book, about how we can possibly avoid extinction from climate change, I snapped it up. And I have to confess that by-in-large the reading experience was just about perfect for my recent attention span. 

The information was divided into eight chapters/categories/themes: The Beginning; Plagues and Pandemics: Deadly Blasts; Climate Meltdown; Killer Machines; Falling Skies; Cosmic Collapse; and The End. The first photo was taken from the Beginning, theories and science behind how the earth and humans came into existence. I like that there is both the science and the mythology/religious aspects to the explanations. As a teacher it was always apparent to me that students needed to know that we honored their religious beliefs.

The second page photo was from the section about blasts which includes volcanoes and, sadly, bombs. Of the five extinction events the Earth has encountered in the past, three were from volcanoes.

I had the most trouble reading the section called Killing Machines which dealt in part with artificial intelligence. Right before reading the book I had seen an interview with a man who has recently published a book about ways to use AI for good (as compared to nefarious purposes?) He said something which really shook me up. When the industrial revolution started it took society about 100 years to change and adapt. With AI we may have three years, if that. Gulp. I wasn't interested in feeling worried or scared so I sort of zipped through this section.

The last chapter, The End, ended on a surprisingly hopeful and positive note, as you can see from the illustrations below:

It takes courage to imagine the end of the world-- and even more courage to try to change the ending.

But if you imagine the end of the world, what other ends can you imagine? The end of greed? The end of violence? It takes wisdom to see yourself as part of these stories. You may find a piece of yourself, and of humanity, that is permanent: some history we came from and some legacy we will leave behind...

This book is a good one and very worthy of your attention. Check it out from your library. If your library doesn't have a copy, request that they purchase one. A book for all ages. 

My rating: 5 stars.

____________________________________________________________

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Review: LEGENDARY FRYBREAD DRIVE-IN

Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a collection of intertribal YA stories edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith with contributions from Indigenous writers Cynthia Leitich Smith, Kate Hart, Eric Gansworth, Marcella Bell, Darcie Little Badger, Karina Iceberg, Kaua Māhoe Adams, Andrea L. Rogers, Cheryl Isaacs, Christine Hartman Derr, Brian Young, K.A. Cobell, A.J. Eversole, Byron Graves, Angeline Boulley, David A. Robertson, and Jen Ferguson. These writers represent at least a dozen different Indigenous tribes/nations/people in the USA, including Alaska and Hawaii, and Canada. 

Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-in slips into every rez or place that Native kids hangout. It shows up one day without warning with its green and yellow neon sign beckoning Native teens from every tribal nation, often when they need it the most. While there teens can find a rotating menu of amazing ingenious foods, which varies by locales, but always includes frybread is on the menu. They are also treated to music and movies surrounded by other people who understand them, often speaking their Native language. Honorary grandparents or elders serve them and not only dish out good food but also offer a listening ear or words of wisdom. 

Each story is both unique and yet the same. I imagine that Cynthia Leitich Smith set the perimeters: Sandy June's isn't easy to find, the menu should serve some indigenous specialties specific to the area and involve the teen in making the item, use some words/phrases in your language, have the teenager find answers through both Native wisdom and also good ol' working things out. Every story mentions frybread and most (not all) mention Indian (NDN) tacos.

As I finished the last story a thought occurred to me. We live very close to the Puyallup Indian tribal lands, and not far from the where the Muckleshoots call home. We pass through Nisqually land as we drive to our state capitol. (All of these tribes are interconnected and are known collectively as the Salmon People of the Pacific NW) And yet, I have never had an NDN taco before. I could guess what they are: taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese folded into frybread. Well, I suddenly had to find out for myself. I discovered there was a frybread food truck less than 10 miles from our home. Don agreed to have an NDN taco with me for lunch. 

We found the food truck, no problem, and each ordered an NDN taco, and a strawberry frybread cake to share. Since there were no picnic tables, we drove to a nearby park to eat. I expected our taco to have a slab of frybread folded around the fixings. Our taco had frybread already cut up into chunks which we decided made it more like a taco salad but easier to consume. The strawberry frybread was like strawberry shortcake, a favorite. All delicious.

Now we are curious to go back and try the other items on the menu: Frydogs, fryburgers, and fry pizza!

I highly recommend this book not only because it won the coveted Printz Award this past January, given to the best YA literature published the previous year, but also because it does a nice job of showing the ancient wisdom in many indigenous cultures. Wisdom which is being shared a warm and inviting way.

Every public library and all middle  and high school libraries in the USA and Canada need at least one, if not more, copies of this book. It needs to be widely available not only for Native kids to find themselves on the pages of a book but also to increase cultural awareness and understanding among teens of all cultures.

My rating: 5 stars.

-Anne

Book Tag Author: Firsts, Lasts, and Favorites

Book tag:
Author Firsts, Lasts, and Favorites

I saw this tag on Emma’s blog (Words and Peace), who herself saw it on another blog, so I decided to join. I'm super late to the party as this book tag originally circulated back in late 2024. Better late than never! 

Join in? Grab the logo, create a list, link back. (I couldn't figure out who started the tag. If is was you, let me know and I'll credit you!)

“The basic principle is to find some authors you’ve read multiple books from, picking out a favorite, the first book you read, the last book you read, and one still on your TBR“.

Here goes:

John Green
First: Looking for Alaska
Last: Everything is Tuberculosis
Favorite: The Anthropocene Reviewed
TBR: Hollywood Ending (coming Sept. 2026)

Maggie Stiefvater 
First: Shiver
Last: Greywaren
Favorite: The Scorpio Races
TBR: The Listeners

Jane Austen
First: Pride and Prejudice
Last: Northanger Abbey -reread
Favorite: Pride and Prejudice
TBR: Love and Friendship

Barbara Kingsolver
First: Pigs in Heaven
Last: Demon Copperhead
Favorite: The Poisonwood Bible
TBR: Small Wonders

Ann Patchett
First: Run
Last: Bel Canto
Favorite: The Dutch House
TBR: Whistler (coming June 2026)

Amor Towles
First: A Gentleman in Moscow
Last: The Lincoln Highway
Favorite: The Lincoln Highway
TBR: Rules of Civility

Maggie O'Farrell
First: I Am I Am I Am
Last: The Marriage Portrait
Favorite: Hamnet
TBR: Land (coming June 2026)

Terry Pratchett
First: Nation
Last: Small Gods
Favorite: Dodger
TBR: Good Omens or Hogfather

-Anne

TTT: Favorite Audiobooks for Road Trips

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Audiobooks for Road Trips (with Input from Don)

I'm off-topic today.

We are leaving on a road trip later this week. One of the things we always do on long trips is have plenty of audiobook choices for our listening enjoyment. If something doesn't work we can quickly switch to another book since we have lots of options.

When I discussed this list with Don he said the best audiobooks do something that the print version couldn't. Either it allows us to digest a book we wouldn't have read on our own or it benefits from the community experience, allowing us to discuss the topic or the plot as it is unfolding. Audio enhancements can bring aspects of the story alive and so do the narrators. If the book utilizes foreign words or made up ones (fantasy) they help with pronunciation or accents. So by and large, we the readers, liked the books better because we listened to them.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
This is the first book Don thought of when I mentioned my project this week. Barrett Whitener, the narrator of the audiobook, was brilliant. He had the Louisiana accent down pat and the comedic timing pitch perfect. I don't think we would have caught all the humor without the assist he provided. 13 hr. 32 min.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
This book won all kinds of awards for its production. It used 166 unique narrators, some of them famous, making it especially delightful to listen to. In my book club I was the only one who listened to it and the only one who liked it. I know it was because I listened and the other gals didn't. 7 hr. 25 min.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The production of this wonderful book is why it is on my list today. Rocky, the alien creature, speaks to Ryland Grace in musical tones. They use those tones in the production. I missed that aspect of the story in the movie where they went straight to the interpretation. 
16 hrs. 10 min.

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green
I can picture where we were on our road trip to California while we were listening to this book -- Lake Tahoe! John Green narrates his own book and the essays are all interrelated, many having to do with the COVID lockdowns which we were experiencing right at that time. We talked and laughed and relistened to parts. It was a fantastic listening experience. 10 hr. 42 min.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
This book is long, 626 pages, and the plot unfolds in four different timelines. Don and I both enjoyed the book because of the assist we gave each other. When one of us was confused, we'd stop and discuss what was happening to bring the other person up to speed. Marin Ireland and Simon Jones shared narration duty. 14 hr. 52 min.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Another tome of a book, 639 pages. Likely neither of us would have read this alone. We had the benefit of a long trip and time to enjoy it together. And, boy, this is a good story. 26 hr. 20 min.

James by Percival Everett
Language was a really big deal in the story. There were lots of instances where, James, the black slave who is educated and can read, has to speak in the slave dialect to not draw attention to his education. This was a perfect book to listen to for all this code switching. 7 hr. 49 min.

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench, with Brendan O'Hea
Dame Judi Dench is interviewed by Brendan O'Hea and the two talk about all the Shakespeare roles she played while in the Royal Shakespeare Company. A voice actor, Barbara Flynn, was used for the parts that needed to be read out since Dench now has vision problems so she can no longer read. 12 hr. 5 min.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
We debated whether to add this book to the list but Don, who references this book probably more than any book we've listened to together, won out. He felt the form of having Saunders essentially teach the reader what makes a good story followed by one of the many narrators of this audiobook, read out a whole short story by one of four Russian authors as examples to make his point, was so effective. 14 hrs. 45 min.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

The main character, Lionel, had Tourette's Syndrome, and has dramatic verbal tics. "Frank Muller’s narration is nothing short of astounding. He gives Lionel’s Tourette’s persona a distinctly different voice and makes the lightning transitions from voice to voice with never a slip. Somehow he manages to make Lionel not a sentimental sideshow, but a fully human character you like right away. In less capable hands this might have been a disaster, but with the consummate skill of this audio superstar it becomes an achievement unlikely to be equaled--by him or anyone else." (AudioFile) We laughed our way through this book. I'm not even sure if readers of the print version would find these outbursts funny or not. 10 hr. 9 min.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz
A late addition to the list after a short discussion with Don. Listening to this book was like listening to someone talking to another person on the phone. You only hear one side of the conversation yet you can usually figure out what is going on. It is an immigrant story and very timely for what is happening in the country right now. Lest you think we only listen to long books, here is a short one. 6 hr. 17

Here we are. Partners in life, partners in listening.

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- May 24th

A pair of Dark-eyed Juncos laid eggs in their nest in a wreath on our porch. Everytime we go out the front door they flush, fly to a nearby bush and squawk at us.

Weather: Spring. One day warm, the next cool. One day sunny, the next overcast. Who knows what today will bring?

The nest: It's a mystery. The day after we took this photo of the Dark-eyed Junco nest, we found the nest destroyed on a chair on the porch and the eggs were gone. We have no idea what happened. Who or what destroyed it? We are so sad for those parent birds.

Roses this week -- top to bottom, left to right: Eyeconic; Abbaye de Clooney; Love; Voodoo; Gourmet Popcorn Miniature tree; Fourth of July Climber; Habitat for Humanity; Cecile Brunner Miniature climber; Midas Touch.

Roses: It is a very lovely time of year in Western Washington. Many of the azaleas are still blooming, all the rhododendrons are blooming in their variety of colors in everyone's yards, and this year the roses are blooming already. Almost all my bushes (and I have a lot) are putting on their first bloom or will in the next few days. 

The garage clean-up project: is done! At least the garage part. See photo above. All three cars in the their own bays! Now we need to finish the photo project...to scan all the old photos from Don's parents and grandparents so we can tuck their tubs away. We're maybe 1/4th complete it, but have started.

Road-trip ahead: Next Saturday Don and I leave for a road-trip to see two more National Parks -- Yellowstone and Grand Teton -- and various sites along the way. I have so many audiobooks queued up so we have lots of options for listening for our many hours in the car: The Warmth of Other Suns by Wilkerson; This Land is Your Land by Gage;  Dungeon Crawler Carl by Dinniman; The Stranger by Camus; Angel Down by Kraus; and The Astral Library by Quinn. Lots of options!

Reading and blogging the past three weeks:

• Reviews published (hyperlinked):

Moby Dick by Melville. My One Big Book of 2026. It was a commitment but I finished it. I had a lot to say in my review. I hope you take a look.

This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman. A novel in short stories about members of one family. I enjoyed my reading experience with this book.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. A memoir by a mother who lost two sons to suicide. Heartbreaking but also beautifully written.

The Book of Belonging: Bible Stories for Kind and Contemplative Kids by Mariko Clark. I love this collection of stories found in the Bible. The illustrations make the stories come alive. I purchased this for our church library.

Three short novellas: The Tomb Guardians, The English Know Wool, and This is How You Lose the Time War. 

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. A book club choice. A very spiritual and sweet story.

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan. A story told in two time periods. Very complex and rewarding.

• Read but not reviewed or published yet:
• How to Survive the End of the World: a Graphic Exploration of How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction by Katie Doughty. I loved it. 
• Today We Go Home by Kelli Estes. A book club choice about women in the military (today) and women who fought in the Civil War disguised as men. 
• Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I loved this collection of short stories all by YA Indigenous authors. Afterwards Don and I went out and had our first ever Indian Tacos (made with frybread) for lunch.
  
  
  
• Other blog posts:
• TTT: Humorists I Wish Were Still Living Today
• Sunday Salon -- Mother's Day
• TTT: Flowers on the Cover
• Classics Club Spin #44, with an update
• TTT: Memorable Secondary Characters
• 20 Books of Summer Challenge. My initial list.
  
  
  

My daughter is 38 today! Where have the years gone? We are hosting a birthday dinner after church in her honor: salmon, salad, bread, risotto, and, of course, spice cake and ice cream.

My daughter and I at her sixth birthday party.

Summer Reading Challenges

20 Books of Summer is one of the longest-running events in the book blogosphere and is so low-pressure, a perfect reading challenge for summer months. Here are the details.

• The #20BOS26 challenge runs from Monday June 1st to Monday August 31st
• It is hosted byAnnabel at AnnaBookBel
• The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15 or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR. (If you think you’ll only manage 5, that’s fine too.)
• Pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick just at whim from your TBR.
• If you do pick a list, you can change it at any time – swap books in/out.
• Don’t get panicked at not reaching your target, it’s not really a challenge as such.
• Just enjoy a summer of great reading and make a bit of space on your shelves!
• Don’t forget to add your posts to the monthly linkys. The final one will stay open till for a week into September to catch the last reviews.

Here are some books I am hoping to conquer by summer's end, but since the past is prologue, my summer reading won't go completely to plan...

1. The Stranger / Camus.

2. Angel Down / Kraus

3. The Astral Library / Quinn

4. Animal Farm / Orwell

5. A Far-Flung Life / Stedman

6. Kin / Jones

7. Parable of the Sower / Butler

8. Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter / Fawcett

9. Call Me Ishmaelle /  Guo  *448 pages

10. This Land is Your Land / Gage

11. Madame Bovary / Flaubert

12. Dungeon Crawler Carl / Dinniman *450 pages

13. The Warmth of Other Suns / Wilkerson *640 pages

14. The Man Who Could Move Clouds / Contreras

15. The Seven Sisters / Riley *460 pages

16. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay / Ferrante *418 pages

17. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie / Spark

18. Book Club #1 August Choice TBA

19. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny / Desai *670 pages

20. Goodreads June Challenge Choice TBA

Sue Jackson of Book by Book hosts a Big Book Summer Reading Challenge.

Here's a little about the challenge.

The idea behind this reading challenge is simple: Use the ease of summer to tackle a Big Book (400+ pages) or two or ... however many you want! You set your own goals. And if it is the start of winter where you live, then it's your Big Book Winter Challenge. Everyone is welcome to participate.

The Details:
Hey, it's summer, so we'll keep this low-key and easy!
Anything 400 pages or more qualifies as a big book.
The challenge runs from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend (May 22 this year) through Labor Day (September 7 this year).

Choose one or two or however many big books you want as your goal. Wait, did you get that? You only need to read 1 book with 400+ pages this summer to participate! (though you are welcome to read more, if you want).
No sign-ups are necessary! All readers are welcome to participate.

Books I think I might tackle this summer which are longer than 400 pages are marked with * on the above list. 

-Anne

Review: WHAT WE CAN KNOW (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

Book Beginnings/First Line Friday quote:

On 20 May 2119 I took a the overnight ferry from Port Marlborough and arrived in the late afternoon at the small quay near Maentwrog-under-Sea that serves the Bodleian Snowdonia Library.

Friday56 quote:

The humanities are always in crisis. I no longer believe this is an institutional matter -- it's in the nature of intellectual life, or of thought itself.

Summary:

2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found.

2119: The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost.

Tom Metcalfe, a scholar at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain's remaining archipelagos, pores over the archives of the early twenty-first century, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith.

When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the great lost poem, revelations of entangled love and a brutal crime emerge, destroying his assumptions about a story he thought he knew intimately. (Publisher)

Review: Back in 2014, Francis Blundy, a renowned poet and thinker-of-day, wrote a poem as a birthday gift for his wife -- A Corona for Vivien. He read the poem, made up of 15 interlocking Petrarchan sonnets. aloud to his wife and the other people assembled for the birthday dinner. Afterwards a lot was made of the poem and the dinner party but no one ever saw the poem or had a chance to read it with their own eyes. It simply disappeared. The poem, in its absence, took on great meaning because it was thought to have said something profound about climate change.

A century later, after the cataclysmic nuclear wars and rising sea levels have changed life on Earth as we know it, a professor of literature specializing in the years 1990-2030, Tom Metcalfe, makes a difficult trip, via bike, ferry, and funicular to the Bodleian library to learn everything he could learn about the poet and his most famous, missing poem. Mining the Internet for everything there was to know about the Blundy, he says, “I know all that they knew—and more, for I know some of their secrets and their futures, and the dates of their deaths.” And yet, the corona is still missing and Metcalfe would like nothing better than being the person who finds it and reveals it to the world.

In part two, Vivien takes over the story, and we learn about what really happened with the Blundys and she reveals a secret of huge and serious proportions. 

What We Can Know is a complex, sometimes confusing, but very rewarding novel. It had a lot to say about what our future may look like. There were also some really interesting insights into academia, particularly about the humanities and literature. The book, the story, the plot were all rich.

My rating: 4.25

____________________________________________________________

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Nonfiction review: THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW

Things in Nature Merely Grow is a heartbreaking memoir by Yiyun Li. 

“There is no good way to say this,” Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book.

“There is no good way to state these facts, which must be acknowledged . . . My husband and I had two children and lost them -- Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home.”

Li, a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, decided to write this memoir for James. She wrote another book after her first son died, Where Reason Ends, which was a novel and one she imagined Vincent as the main character. Li decided to write a memoir for James. He wasn't like his brother, effervescent and outward facing, James wouldn't have liked to be the center of attention for anything, including a character in a book.

Most people would gasp at the idea of a mother writing a book about her son just months after his death, but Li found she needed to do it. She realized that words may fail but are still necessary. Li also continued doing things that others in a similar situation would have cast aside in the weeks/months after the suicides -- piano lessons, gardening, teaching, and writing -- among them. She called this "radical acceptance". She didn't use the words "grief" or "mourning" in the book. She decided she wanted to live thinkingly not feelingly next to the deaths of her sons.

As Li writes, “The verb that does not die is ‘to be.’ Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now.”

I think that above quote was the one that nearly broke my heart. Just think about being a mother of two children who commit suicide and to be able to embrace the now and now and now. Such bravery.

The story isn't only about James and Vincent it is also a bit about Li's childhood. Her mother was very abusive and would blame her outbursts and anger on Li because she loved her best. In 2012 Li was so depressed she attempted suicide twice and had to be hospitalized. She worried later that her own suicide attempts may have given her sons the ideas for ending their own lives. Such an awful, unknowable spot to be in.

Clearly this is not the usual grief memoir. Much of the book focuses on the inadequacies of words to express the magnitude of loss the author is feeling. By embracing radical acceptance Li is allowing herself to live with dignity looking into the future. Li also gives some practical ideas how to be a friend to someone who loses a loved one. She actually gives suggested phrases and actions to use and those to avoid. 

The prose are exquisitely written. Li has full command of literary references which completely charmed me. Such talent.

 Avoid this book if you are triggered by suicide and related topics.

My rating is 5 stars.

-Anne

TTT: Secondary Characters

 Top Ten Tuesday: Memorable Secondary Characters in Classic Literature

In 2021 I created a list of secondary characters that deserve their own novels. This time I want to highlight secondary characters who have interested me in classics. I'd like to know more about their stories but it is unlikely I'd read a whole book about them.

Mrs. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen
The matchmaking busybody, who loves a good laugh and is actually quite kind.

Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte
She falls in love with Heathcliff and marries him, but he treats her very badly.

Queequeg in Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville
A "cannibal" from Polynesia, friend of Ishmael, and a fellow sailor on the Pequot.

Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Ivan Dostoevsky
An elder and spiritual advisor and teacher to Alyosha, the third brother. 

Clara Peggotty in David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens

The nurse and housekeeper in the Copperfield home. She's David's only friend and comforter in his childhood, remains a friend in his adulthood.

Lee in East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck
A brilliant, philosophical Chinese-American who acts as the loyal housekeeper, advisor, and surrogate father to the Trask family. He is the best character in the book, yet he wasn't included in the movie made from it.

Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The narrator and moral compass in Gatsby. He gets tangled in the tragic romance at the heart of the story.

Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey
A psychiatric patient at the hospital when Randle McMurphy is brought into the ward as a patient. Ultimately McMurphy upsets the status quo of the whole ward and Chief Bromden is a witness. He ends up being the teller of the story and a hero in the end. 

Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller
The chief mess officer and an all-around entrepreneur in Yossarian's unit in WWII. He buys and sells anything as long as he thinks he'll make money, including selling bombs to the Germans.

 

Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride (1973) by William Goldman
Not sure if he is actually a secondary character or a primary one, but I'd love to know more about this character. Actually, I'd love to know more several other characters in this wonderful book. Montoya is a mission to avenge his father's murder.

Anne