End of Summer -- How I Did on Reading Challenges

I participated in four reading challenges this summer:

20 Books of Summer

Big Book Summer Challenge

Goodreads Summer Reading Challenges

Paris in July

Here is how I did on each of them:

20 Books of Summer

I was an overachiever, far exceeding my goal.

My list of books read (✔ were the books on my initial list which I read) :

Legend: A=Audiobook; C=Classic; P=Poetry; NF=Nonfiction; GN=Graphic Novel/Comic; MG-Middle Grades; CL=Children's Lit; YA=Young Adult; M=Memoir; E=Essays; SS=Short Stories; BC=Book Club; N=Novella

1. Abscond by Abraham Verghese  -- SS
2. The Antidote by Karen Russell ✔ A
3. Banned Together edited by Ashley Hope Perez -- M; E; SS; GN; NF
4. Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten ✔ M; NF
5. The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel ✔ BC
6. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn -- BC
7. Bring the Magic Home by Sunny Chanel -- NF
8. Candide by Voltaire -- C; A
9. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller ✔ C; A
10. The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Osterman --GN
11. The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami ✔ A
12. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong -- BC; A
13. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison -- A
14. Final Solution by Michael Chabon --   N
15. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson -- NF
16. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin ✔ C
17. Grimm's Fairy Tales -- C
18. The Hearing Test by Eliza B. Callahan
19. How to Read a Book by Monica Wood ✔ BC; A
20. How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell --MG; A
21. The Imitation Game by Jim Ottaviani -- GN; NF
22. The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill
23. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson -- NF
24. Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico 
25. The Names by Florence Knapp -- BC; A
26. North American Maps for Curious Minds by Matthew Bucklan -- NF
27. Now in November by Josephine W. Johnson -- C
28. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout ✔ A
29. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley -- A
30. Poems for Tortured Souls by Liz Ison ✔ P
31. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton -- M
32. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean -- A; N
33. Road Home by Rex Ogle -- M; A
34. Say Nothing: Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe -- NF
35. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer -- NF; A
36. So Long, and Thanks for the Fish by Douglas Adams -- A
37. Someone Builds a Dream by Lisa Wheeler -- CL
38. Song of the Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout -- GN
39. Teaching with Fire by Sam Intrator -- P; NF
40. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy -- C
41. Three Days in June by Anne Tyler ✔ BC; A
42. The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
43. The Vegetarian by Han Kang -- N
44. Watchmen by Alan Moore ✔ GN
45. Water, Water by Billy Collins ✔ P
46. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson -- N; A
47. What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley N. Arimah -- SS
48. When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

___________________________________________________________________________

Big Book Summer Challenge

Books over 400 pages

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller -- 453 pages

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn -- 432 pages

The Antidote by Karen Russell --432 pages

Watchmen by Alan Moore -- 416 pages

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison -- 468 pages

The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Osterman -- 480 pages

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong -- 416 pages

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy -- 508 pages

Say Nothing: Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe -- 560 pages

Whew!

_________________________________________________________________

Goodreads hosted a summer challenge to read books nine categories. They didn't open up each challenge at the beginning of the summer, maybe two at a time, and then would close categories through the summer. I finished my last book today! Colorful bookmarks means I completed that category.

I kind of lost track of which books went with what challenges but these are what I think I read for each:

1. Page Turner: Collected 7/4/25 How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

2. Speed Reader: Collected 7/4/25 A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

3. Book Boss: Collected 7/11/25 Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

4. Challenges Favs: Collected 7/23/25 The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

5. Poolside Puzzler: Collected 7/9/25 The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

6. Chart Toppers: Collected 8/13/25 The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

7. Acclaimed Toppers: Collected 8/3/25 What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky by L. Arimah

8. Debut Darlings: The Names by Florence Knapp, collected on 8/31/25

9. Lightning Round: The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, collected on 8/16/25

A new set of challenges will open up in mid September, I think, if you want to join for the end of the year challenges.

____________________________________________________________________________

Paris in July
French-related activities

My first year with this challenge and I found lots of fun activities, including attempting to read a book in French. I baked, I listened to French music and made playlists, I watched the Tour du France.

Read about all my activities:

Paris in July --Books, Food , Music and More

and

Paris in July - Part Two

_____________________________________________________________________

Adult Summer Reading -- Book Bingo
King County Library System

__________________________________________________________________________

Goodbye Summer! I had a great time.

-Anne

YA Review: SONG OF A BLACKBIRD

Title: Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout

Book Beginnings photo of illustrations:

Friday56 photo of illustrations:

Summary: The story starts in Amsterdam in 2011 when Annick is worried about her grandmother who was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. The only cure is a stem cell transplant but when Oma's siblings check to see if they are a match they discover they are not even biological siblings. It is quite a shock. Annick wants to help her Oma figure out her history before it is too late. The only clue she has for a starting spot are the five prints hanging on the wall, all signed by Emma B., one with a note "For Joanna. May these prints keep your story alive."

The story then jumps back in time to April 1943 in Amsterdam where Emma, an art student, lives. As the Nazis ramp up their occupation of The Netherlands, Emma finds herself drawn into resistance work using her art skills to create forged documents. One day she is asked to smuggle two Jewish children, Hanna and Soli, to safety. Their parents were already removed to a concentration camp. The woman, one of their mother's friends, takes the little girl but not the boy. She said he looked too Jewish. Emma has to seek out another situation for the boy and eventually finds him shelter in the Catholic Church with Father Theo. But only if Emma will provide ration cards for Soli and the other boys hiding there.

The story jumps back and forth from 2011 to 1943 as Annick finally finds some clues which may lead Oma to her family of origin. And where we learn of all the work that Emma does in the Dutch Resistance.

Review: Though Song of a Blackbird is a fictional story it is based on real people (or composites of people.) The lives of the real Dutch heroes were highlighted at the end of the book. There really were artists who worked on forging documents, including papers for the biggest bank heist in Dutch history. Women would carry these documents around in fake pregnancy bellies or in strollers because women and children were not under the same scrutiny as men for suspicious activities. Children were smuggled and relocated with Dutch families but usually only the girls, as boys would have to tell-tale circumcision as a sign they were of Jewish heritage. Many of these children were never told of their heritage or knew anything at all about the Jewish culture, robbed first of their parents and secondly their personal history.

I found the book to be very enlightening since I knew very little about the Dutch Resistance during WWII. But I also enjoyed the medium of the book. Artist Maria van Lieshoul used old photographs taken by Resistance photographers in the 1940s for a project called the Underground Camera. The very act of taking a photograph was considered an act of resistance under the Nazis. Using mixed media, Lieshoul would overlay these photos with her illustrations. In the example, below, you see the black and white photo inside a cathedral with her illustrations above. I found this technique very unusual yet it helped give the whole project a sense of authenticity.

Note the illustration of the characters sitting up in the balcony talking.

As a retired teen librarian I still like to read YA books, especially YA nonfiction, every once in a while. I find it very refreshing to read factual, or information based on facts, written in a format for teen readers. All the lengthy boring bits are removed and what is left is just a fascinating story. That is doubly true for graphic novels.

My rating: 4.5 stars

Challenges: 20+ Books of Summer 

-Anne

Classic Review: CANDIDE

 

"Once upon a time in Westphalia, in the castle of Monsieur the Baron von Thunder-ten-tronckh, there lived a young boy on whom nature had bestowed the gentlest of dispositions. His countenance expressed his soul. He combined solid judgment with complete openness of mind; which is the reason, I believe, that he was called Candide." (Opening lines of Candide)

This is the story of the illegitimate Candide, who is exiled from the castle where he lived because he kissed the hand of Cunégonde, the daughter of the Baron. In exile he is conscripted into the army of the King of Bulgars, followed by a series of catastrophes wherever he goes: from Europe to South America, Africa, Asia, and back to Europe.  He is whipped, beat up, hung and left for dead. Everywhere he goes he encounters wars, or earthquakes, or Inquisitions. Yet, through it all he is guided by the philosophy of his mentor Dr. Pangloss, that he lives "in the best of all possible worlds." The book's subtitle comes from this philosophy -- Optimism. This is really a witty, fast-paced, absurd adventure, at least on the surface.

Candide's author, Voltaire, was one of the most significant French philosophers of the Enlightenment. 

At the dawn of the eighteenth-century Age of Reason, Voltaire was part of a revolution in intellectual ferment with such thinkers as Descartes, Newton, Montesquieu, John Locke, and Benjamin Franklin upending centuries-old views of the universe, human rights, religious authority, and the concept of absolute monarchy (Davis, 48).

The tale is much more than a silly action-packed romp around the world, but a philosophical statement about all every sacred cow of Voltaire's day: the church, priesthood, royalty, government, aristocracy, philosophers, and scientists. He even went after the slave trade. Remember this was written in 1759! Even though a classic, the book is not stuffy. It is a timeless satire which can speak to us today. 

"I think Candide is a lesson in the absurd, a demonstration of the difficulties of making sense of life, of all philosophies, of living a meaningful life," said Nicholas Cronk, director of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford, "...and that is why the book goes on speaking to us, and goes on making us laugh (50).

I admit I missed most of this until my husband, who was listening to the Candide audiobook with me, set me straight. People who read the book and focus only on the silliness will likely tire of it before too long. But if one changes their focus and pays attention to who and what is being skewered one can easily find modern day counterparts to these 18th century problems. Once Don pointed this out to me, I got it. Think about how some church leaders today seek power so much they are willing to abandon core principles of the faith to fit the politics of the day; or how people in power want more money for themselves and their friends so they scapegoat the little guy -- kicking people off Medicaid or deporting immigrants -- to show how tough they are; or people who have no values themselves yet cling to whatever nonsense they hear on TV. We are living through Candide all over again. What's the old adage? Those who fail to learn history are condemned to repeat it.

Source: Davis, Kenneth C. "Candide, or Optimism -1759 - Voltaire." Great Short Books: A Year of Reading--Briefly. Scribner, 2022, pp. 45-51. 

-Anne

TTT: Favorite National Park Memories

Top Ten Tuesday: Non-bookish freebie: My Favorite National Park Memories

My husband and I are determined to visit as many National Parks as we can. 

Here are some of my favorite moments spent in a National Park:

Glacier National Park, Montana
June 2025
So many memorable moments but our tour with the whole family on the Red Bus was a highlight.
A book I read in June 2025: Raising Hare: a Memoir by Chloe Dalton

Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington
January 2025
Mt. Rainier is practically in our backyard and so we visit it quite often. On this sunny day we drove up to Paradise (Nisqually entrance on south side) with our youngest grandson. It was snowy but very warm that day so we kept shedding layers. For lunch we sat on the tailgate of Grandpa's pickup truck and sipped hot chocolate. Jamie informed me, just the other day, that he wants us to take him back up the mountain so he can sip hot chocolate sitting on the tailgate. A very happy memory.
Book read in January 2025: Playground by Richard Powers

Acadia National Park, Maine
October 2024
The entire part of the state of Maine we visited seemed like one, beautiful National Park. Acadia was full of visitors the day we were there with everyone looking at the Fall colors.
Book read in October 2024: Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Zion National Park, Utah
April 2024
Everything about this park was majestic but our hike to this overlook was the most spectacular. We visited two parks in Utah with the whole family then went on to visit the three National Parks in the state by ourselves.
Book read in April 2024: Leave Only Footprint: My Acadia to Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
April 2024
The rock formations, called hoodoos, blew my mind. The boys took a hike amongst the hoodoos. This hike was the favorite hike of our trip. (Shown Grandpa and grandson)
Another book I read in April: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Arches National Park, Utah
April 2024
We walked over ten miles this day. So many arches, such beauty. We also found Canyonlands NP and Capitol Reef NP so fascinating and unusual.
Another book I read in April during that trip: Sweet Thunder by Ivan Doig

Everglades National Park, Florida
October 2023
I was stunned by this river of grass. It was very different than I expected. My eyes couldn't take in all the beauty at once.
Book I read in October 2023: Made for the Journey by Elisabeth Elliott

Death Valley National Park, California
May 2023
A terrible photo of me but a terrific view (bottom half.) We got up at 4 AM to drive from Las Vegas to Dante's Point in Death Valley NP to witness sunrise. The sky was overcast but we were alone on the point for a sacred experience. The whole day unfolded like a miracle. We couldn't believe the varied landscapes and experiences in this park. 
Book I read in May of 2023: A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

Kings Canyon National Park, California
April 2023
Sequoias. The biggest trees on earth. Just standing beneath them was overwhelming. (The route to Sequoia NP was washed out due to tremendous snow storms that winter so we didn't get to see General Sherman tree, the biggest of the behemoths. Guess we'll just have to go back some day!)
A book I read on this trip: The Fox and I by Catherine Raven

Olympic National Park, Washington
March 2023
Spending a weekend with friends from New Jersey on the Olympic Peninsula in our state. Here we are in front of the gorgeous Lake Crescent. Later in the day we hiked in the mossy Hoh rain forest.
A book I was reading at the time: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Haleakala National Park, Maui, Hawaii
February 2023
Visiting Hawaii with my sister and her husband. This park's strange ecosystem is so memorable -- a dormant volcano which last erupted in the 15th Century.
A Book I read in Feb. 2023: Citizen Vince by Jess Walter

Joshua Tree National Park, California
June 2022
The rock formations and the trees, which really aren't trees. It was like we arrived on another planet. A sign at the Visitor Center said: "DON'T DIE HERE TODAY." Good advice. We remind each other of it frequently.
An appropriate book I read during this trip: Stranger Planet by Nathan Pyle

Lassen Volcanic National Park, California
July 2021
We picnicked at beautiful Lake Helen which is at an elevation over 8000 ft. near the summit of the park. 
Book I remember reading on this trip: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

Badlands National Park, South Dakota
June 2018.
My daughter and I drove across the country after she finished grad school in New York back to our home in Washington State. We stopped at this National Park and gaped for a while. It was a little off-putting all the signs to beware of poisonous snakes.
We listened to a lot of audiobooks on the trip. One was: Going Bovine by Libba Bray.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
May 2015
A sorority sister, her husband, Don, and I took the first tour boat of the season to witness the wild beauty of the fjords and the glaciers. The seas were rough and everyone got sick except me. It was a revelation...I don't get seasick. 
A book I was reading in May of 2015: Mosquitoland by David Arnold

Of course, I loved The Redwoods, Crater Lake, The Grand Canyon, and Yosemite. But we visited them before we had phones with cameras. So far I believe we have visited 24 of the parks together. Don has visited three without me and I have visited one as a child, Yellowstone, which he hasn't seen. We want to go back to all those parks together.

Yosemite National Park, California
July 2012.
(I took a photo of a photo so I could include this marvelous park.)
My parents planned a family reunion for a few days after our daughter's wedding. We were exhausted, obviously, but also exhilarated. My younger sister and her family opted to do some hiking while my older sister and her hubby joined us for a bus tour of Yosemite which really paid off. We got to take photos at all the key spots, like Half Dome behind us, without the hassle of having to find parking. The bus driver was also a tour guide and we learned a ton about the park and about the National Park system in general. We were there for such a short time. I definitely want to go back, especially in early spring when they have frazil ice. 
A book I read in July of 2012: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- Preparing for Grand-Adventure 2.0

Grand-Adventure 1.0, June 2022.

Weather: HOT! But we are heading to the Washington Coast where it should be quite a bit cooler. In fact sometimes when it is hot inland, the coast can be downright chilly and foggy. We'll see.

Grand-Adventure 2.0: Monday we head out with our grandsons for an overnight at the Washington Coast (Grayland, WA., to be specific.  I hope the name is not a prognostication of the weather to come.) Grandparents and grandsons having an adventure together = Grand-Adventure. We're calling it 2.0 since we did a similar adventure with the boys three years ago when they were nearly two and five. The weather didn't cooperate that weekend at all. It rained 2 inches in 24-hours. Digging in the sand and flying kites in that kind of weather is just not fun.  (See the photo above of the boys playing indoors on big stuffed toys and dismantled water pistols.) This time we plan on doing the same stuff, minus all the rain.

One of my favorite moments from Grand-Adventure 1.0

Shopping list: We made a list of fun foods and food we think the boys may eat then went shopping this morning. Of course we ran into friends we haven't seen in years and stood and visited for a while, self conscious of the marshmallows, chocolate bars, graham crackers (for S'Mores), doughnuts, and veggie straws in our cart. Ha! 😅

Books for the adventure: We are helping Jamie read through a list of '100 books every kid should know before kindergarten.' I checked out a pile of 10 or so books from the list to take with us. Ian, who is a good reader for his age, will bring a book from home. I did check out a little "I Can Read" book about zombies in MineCraft for him. I proofread it and approve but won't push it if he isn't interested. I'm reading a YA collection called Banned Together -- YA authors and illustrators talking about their experiences with banned books. Don is reading Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. I've checked out four audiobooks for consideration. As we get underway a choice will be made as to which book we want to listen to. Our choices: Peter Pan; How to Train a Dragon; The Wild Robot; or Henry and Ribsy. Don and I are listening to Candide when we are alone in the car and I hope we get a chance to finish it enroute to pick up and after dropping off the boys. Clearly I always make plans that involve books.

Blogging since my last post (hyperlinked):

• TTT: Help Getting Out of A Reading Slump
• Review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye
• Encouragement for My Daughter: Teaching with Fire
• Four Short Book Reviews: The Deep Dark; A River Runs Through It; Road Home; Now in November
• TTT: The Longest Books I've Read in 2025 So Far
• Classic Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
• Review: The Emperor of Gladness
• Review and quotes: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Books I've completed but not reviewed yet:

• The Vegetarian by Han
• The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Magnusson
• The Serviceberry by Kimmerer
• Song of the Blackbird by Lieshout

Nature's Bounty...the rule of none, none, none, too many!

Jealous? Can you believe our bounty?

-Anne

Review and quotes: SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH

I forget some days just how much I need Douglas Adams and his zany sense of humor in my life. Then I read another installment of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I'm reminded how refreshing laughter can be. 

In So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, the 4th book in the series, we travel back to Earth (yes, back to Earth) with Arthur Dent and find out the dang thing wasn't destroyed after all, or was it? Everything seems the same except for one issue -- Where have all the dolphins gone?

“The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.”

I found myself laughing out loud, sometimes even snorting at the silliness. And I would have to stop myself by remembering that Adams wrote this book in the 1980s. How did he know we would be electing lizards to govern us in the 2020s? And why don't we stop doing it when lizards clearly do not have our best interest in mind?

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

Sounds about right, huh? So, let's see, what else did Adams hit right on the head? How about the truth spoken by Wonko the Sane?

The sign read:
"Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."

“It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”

Ever thought that? You read the directions on packaging and wonder how could someone not know that already? One direction on medicine packaging that always stops me short is "Don't take this product if you are allergic to it." Okay. Sounds like that is logical advice but why would anyone?

Adams seems to have lived his life inside me. Why just the other day I attempted to eat the driest sandwich known to man. The thing was like attempting to eat sawdust or worse. When I read this description about sandwiches in England, I started laughing and didn't stop laughing for several hours. Apparently my sandwich was made in England and I didn't even know it.

“There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.

"'Make 'em dry,' is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, `make 'em rubbery.' If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing 'em once a week.'

"It is by eating sandwiches in pubs on Saturday lunchtimes that the British seek to atone for whatever their national sins have been. They're not altogether clear what those sins are, and don't want to know either. Sins are not the sort of things one wants to know about. But whatever their sins are they are amply atoned for by the sandwiches they make themselves eat.”

If  you have read any of the books in the series you are familiar with how many conversations between characters just seem to have nothing to do with anything. Now I know it was intentional -- to sell books in America. Ha!

“It's guff. It doesn't advance the action. It makes for nice fat books such as the American market thrives on, but it doesn't actually get you anywhere.”

 This is the fourth book in the series. I have managed to really spread out my reading over the years, not intentionally, but every time I read the next books in the series I wonder why I haven't zoomed thru the series in one fell swoop. Here is my schedule to date:

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) -- read March 2011, reread in Sept. 2017
• The Restaurant at the End of the World (1980) -- read May 2020
• Life, the Universe, and Everything (1982) -- read September 2023
• So Long, and Thanks for the Fish (1984) -- read August 2025
• Mostly Harmless (1992) -- TBD

Likely I didn't zoom through the books because Douglas Adams didn't zoom through them either. Adams was terrible with deadlines. Apparently he was locked in a hotel room with his editor for three weeks to finish this book. He is quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." So I guess his personality wasn't too far off from the characters in his books.

I listened to the audiobooks so far for each book in the series. So good and double the fun. Stephen Fry narrated the first book. Oh boy, is he good at his job! Martin Freeman narrated the rest of the books in the series. He's not quite as good as the original but still excellent.

There are a few books I amazed when I learn someone hasn't read them: To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (The sequels are just bonus material!) I love them all so much.

-Anne

Review: THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS (+Discussion Questions)

Title: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

Book Beginnings quote: 

The hardest thing in the world is to live only once.

Friday56 quote: 

When the tour was over, Hai followed BJ into the office, which was the size of a large porta-potty.

Summary:

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. (Publisher)

Review: One of my favorite Christmas movies is "It's a Wonderful Life" starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. At one particularly low moment in his life, George stands on a bridge over the river, contemplating suicide. At the exact moment before the jump, another man falls into the river. We learn that this second man is actually an angel, Clarence, who is sent to save George. One can't read the opening sequence of The Emperor of Gladness, outlined in the summary, without comparing the two stories. Hai, a desperate and very unhappy boy is saved from killing himself by the ancient Grazina who, like Clarence-the-angel, devises a life-saving scheme on the spot.

Unlike George, who lives in Bedford Falls surrounded by a family and a whole community who loves him and indeed cheers for him, Hai lives in East Gladness, a town past its prime with no sense of community spirit at all. Hai feels alone, isolated by culture, experiences, and trauma. 

When Grazina extends an invitation for Hai to live with her, she essentially offers a way out of this isolation and eventually a found family. Grazina needs Hai as much as he needs her. Later Hai finds a group of friends, to add to his found family, at his place of employment, HomeMarket. There is Sony, Hai's neurodivergent cousin; BJ, the restaurant manager whose dream is to become a professional wrestler; and a whole host of misfits. "The reader is forever being dragged along, metaphorically speaking, as someone slips slow motion on a banana peel." (NYT).

Hai is a Vietnamese-born immigrant. Both his mother and grandmother brought the trauma from the war with them when they left their homeland. Now Hai is saddled with their expectations to make something of himself but his drug addiction and grief over the death of a friend have trapped him in inaction. He confesses to Grazina that he once wanted to be a writer. "My dream was to write a novel that held everything I loved, including unlovable things." He may have wanted to be a writer but he lied to his mother, telling her he was in medical school in Boston, a deception he kept up even though he almost killed himself for the knowledge he was disappointing her.

Author Ocean Vuong puts a lot into this book. There are so many topics/theme, if is hard to keep track of them: books, wars, racism, drugs. "For sure this is a book deeply attentive to oft-overlooked populations and simple survival; Hai may be reading Slaughterhouse-Five and The Brothers Karamazov, but he’s living out of Fast Food Nation and Nickel and Dimed (NYT). I'm sure a ton of the literary references were lost on me, but I caught those. In particular, one reference I didn't get until reading reviews of the book later had to do with the title. One of the two epigraphs is by poet Wallace Stevens, who wrote a poem titled "The Emperor of Ice Cream." An obscure reference that maybe only another poet, such as Vuong, would recognize.

I find Ocean Vuong's poetry and prose difficult to read. I am not sure if it is that he writes about experiences I haven't lived or if it is just over my head. Often I am left wondering what just happened as when I got to the end of The Emperor of Gladness. Does it end on a note of hope or not? I couldn't tell. If you've read the book, you tell me.

My rating: 4 stars.

Challenge: Big Book Summer, 416 pages

The Emperor of Gladness Discussion questions, 

modified from ReadingGroupGuides.

1. One of the epigraphs is taken from a Connecticut poet, Wallace Stevens who wrote a poem "The Emperor of Ice Cream." What do you think Vuong is saying with his title while giving a nod to Stevens?

2. Both Hai and Grazina are immigrants. Talk about their stories. Are they typical American immigrant stories? Are they living the American Dream?

3. When Hai got hired at HomeMarket he gained a "real, quantifiable foothold in the world" (59). Talk about the value of work, using examples from the book and from your own experiences.

4. When Grazina asked Hai to live with him and after he makes friends at HomeMarket it is as if he finds a family. Talk about the ways all these people supported one another. Compare them to actual family members actions.

5. The theme of war was sprinkled throughout the book. What wars? What do you think Vuong was saying how wars affect us even those long over?

6. There are several mothers and mother-figures in the book. What insights does Hai gain from Grazina and Maureen about the challenges of parenting? Why do you think Hai doesn't feel like he can be honest with his mother? Do you think there is any way to repair their relationship?

7. Ghosts make several appearances in the book (see pages 35, 160, 165). Why do you think Vuong included so many references to ghosts? Were the characters being haunted or helped by them?

8. Hai says we tell ourselves stories to make our life more bearable. What are the stories some of the characters are telling themselves? (BJ, Maureen, Sony)

9. What are the different ways that characters cope with the death of loved ones?

10. Both Sony and Hai lie to their mothers. Why do people lie? Are lies ever good?

11. The end of the novel has Hai hiding in a dumpster seeing into the future for other characters but he doesn't see his own future. What do you think happens to Hai? What ending would you write for him? Why do you think the author left the ending hovering someplace between hope and despair?

12. The Emperor of Gladness is described as semi-autobiographical. If you met Vuong, what questions would you like to ask him about this book compared to his life?

-Anne

Classic Review: WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE

Merricat Blackwood, her older sister Constance, and their Uncle Julian live in a manor home separate from a nearby village. Constance has not left the home or the estate since the events of six years prior when the rest of the family died from poisoning and she was tried and acquitted of the crime. Julian is wheelchair bound and he spends his days reliving and writing about the day of that gruesome event. Only Merricat has contact with the outside world as she is tasked with going to the village twice a week for shopping and for library books. While in town she is often mocked and derided by the villagers and their children. Once home, the three carry on happily in their solitary existences. Then one day Cousin Charles shows up and all the daily patterns and schedules are thrown off. Merricat clearly does not like her cousin and vise versa. Charles is also very disrespectful to Uncle Julian but he seems to have formed an alliance with Constance. This really upsets both Merricat and Julian leading to a disastrous outcome.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle was Shirley Jackson's last, and many say best, novel. It was published in 1962. The book is often categorized as gothic horror. It is not super creepy but there is a very sinister undercurrent to the tale. Who poisoned the family if not Constance and why are the sisters so satisfied to live alone in the manor, sequestered from the outside world? And why does Julian say that Merricat is dead? Is she a ghost? I don't think so, but it made me wonder

In his introduction to the 2006 Penguin Edition, writer Jonathan Lethem says the village in the story is probably North Bennington, Vermont where the author and her college professor husband lived and encountered "reflexive anti-semitism and anti-intellectualism." Oh boy, wouldn't you hate to be from there knowing the whole world now knows this about you? All of Jackson's works deal with everyday evils but this book also probes themes of love and devotion despite a general feeling of unease and the oddness characters. Jackson struggled with agoraphobia as did the character Constance in the book. Oppenheimer, one of Jackson's biographers, said that Merricat and Constance "were the yin and yang of Shirley's inner self." Hmm...agoraphobic, anti-social, accused murderers...not sure I'd like to be associated with these traits. But the sisters were indeed devoted to one another, so there is that.

According to Wikipedia, the lead paragraph of We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the "best opening paragraph of any novel." The language is described as "so coercive it is impossible not to keep on reading." I have to admit, the paragraph is quite unexpected. I read on.

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and *Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death- cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.”

*A reclusive relative of England's Richard the III. 

I liked the book a lot. 4.25 stars.

-Anne

TTT: Tomes: The Longest Books I've read in 2025 so far

Top Ten Tuesday: Tomes

These are the longest books I've read in 2025 so far

The Brothers Karamazov, 845 pages

Say Nothing: Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, 560 pages

David Copperfield, 501 pages

The God of the Woods, 490 pages

The Deep Dark, 480 pages

The Fifth Season, 468 pages

Catch-22, 453 pages

The Frozen River, 448 pages

The Antidote, 432 pages

The Briar Club, 432 pages

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

Big Tomes on my TBR

War and Peace, 1392 pages

The 1619 Project, 1040 pages

Pillars of the Earth, 976 pages

Anna Karenina, 964 pages

1Q84, 944

11/22/63, 849 pages

The Iliad, 848 pages

Murtaugh, 688 pages

Crime and Punishment, 671 pages

A Fine Balance, 603 pages

The Caine Mutiny, 537 pages

I'm always a bit daunted to start LONG books. Many have been on my TBR for years for that reason.

-Anne