Sunday Salon, July 10th

This week's book haul

Weather: Sprinkling. It has been spring-like weather most of the week with intermittent rain and sun-breaks.

The literary equivalent to "her eyes were bigger than her stomach": This week I visited two used bookstores and three libraries (one of them mine) and checked-out or purchased a huge pile of books (see photo above.) When do I think I will have the time to read that many books all at once? I couldn't stop myself. It is laughable or pathetic, depending on how one looks at it.

The good news and the bad news about the weather: the weather has been rainy and cool, not exactly sit-outside-and-read weather. So I've had a pretty good excuse to sit-inside-and-read. (Which is lucky since I have so many books to get through! ha!)

Appointments: I spent one day this week arranging appointments for the rest of the summer. Dental, vision, chiropractic, doctor, car tune-up, and dermatology. Now I will spend the rest of the summer going to them. Ha!

Elfie on the 4th of July. Looking rather patriotic.

4th of July: We weren't very festive this year. We spent our national holiday at our daughter's house, playing games, and hanging out with her cat. Rita and her hubby are in Germany right now so her sister has been going to the house every other day or so to check on the cat and to give her a little bit of company.  We went home with enough time to tend our own pets. The 4th of July is so torturous on pets. All the exploding sounds of fireworks going off just about scared them to death. It really is pretty awful for them.

Books read this week:

• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson---Stevenson is a lawyer who is attempting to get rid of the death penalty and long prison sentences for inmates who were juveniles convicted as adults, and addressing the inequality in our justice system. This is an important and extremely distressing book. (Audiobook)
• A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor---this classic collection of short stories was O'Connor's first. I read it as part of the Classics Club's current challenge. The review should be ready later today.
• Unbecoming by Jenny Downham---a YA book about three generations of women and the unraveling of a mystery which has them at odds with each other and themselves. Click on this link to read my review.

Currently reading (or at least I've read a tiny bit on lots of books):

• Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen---I suspect it will takes me months to finish this classic. But I want to read it as I am still engulfed in my Kenya phase. Progress: less than 10%
• The Splendid Outcast: Eight Africa Stories by Beryl Markham---I found this gem at a used book shop. Also part of my Kenya phase, or should I say, craze? Progress: I've only read the introduction.
• Places Like No Other by Brenna Yovanoff---a YA selection. Not far enough into it to make much of a report. Progress: less than 10%.
• The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson---an audiobook read by the author. This is for an upcoming book club session. Progress: less than 5%.
• The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen---another book club selection, this one is based a real historical figure who was a spy during the Civil War. It is a long book, I must put my greatest effort into this one this week. Less than 10%. (Notice a theme? I am reading five books and have hardly made a dent in any of them. Ha!)

Prayers for: my brother. He met with the oncologist this week about his melanomas. He is going to have to be vigilant for the rest of his life. I am praying that he has seen the last of the cancerous moles.

65th wedding anniversary: My siblings and I are planning a celebration for our folks for later in the summer. We're at the invitations and planning food and music phase.

An awful week in our nation: the the needless death of two black men and then the killing of the four police officers in Dallas. Trevor Noah makes some good points: we should all be pro-black and pro-police.



Late for church: While having fun blogging this morning I lost track of time so would be late for church. Should I go? I decided that being late was better than not going, just for the nurturing part of being among my friends and worshiping together. It seems that it was a theme as this quote was on the front of the church bulletin today:

"I go to church every Sunday, which is like going to the gas station

once a week and really, really filling up."

-Anne Lamott.

Have a good week!

Unbecoming by Jenny Downham

Where do I start? How can I dissect this wonderful book, Unbecoming by Jenny Downham, and do it justice?

First let's look at the title: UNBECOMING. It sounds like something my grandmother would have said to me when I wore an outfit she didn't like. "That dress is unbecoming on you." It is not really a term one hears often these days. This is how it is defined---

So from the title we learn two things about the book: that things don't fit and are unflattering, literally and figuratively. OK. So it seems that things don't fit, but what things? Must dig deeper.

How about the cover? Can it tell us anything? Let's take a look:

Three women, three generations, three secrets. Hmm? A mystery that involves three generations of women. But wait, three women? Could this also be symbolic? The maiden, mother, and crone archetype representing the three phases of womanhood, or the triple goddess who provides opposing balance to the male essence. Perhaps we are on to something here. We have a multi-generational mystery involving three women and until it is solved, their combined power or essence won't actualized. Each woman separately is "unbecoming", but together they are "becoming."

The term "becoming" has two definitions: 1. The adjective form of the word means flattering, as in a person's appearance. Certainly the three women with their ginger-colored hair are all attractive. But as we know when worry-lines decrease and smiles increase everyone looks more lovely.  2. The noun usage has to do with the process of coming to be something or passing into a state. The act of coming together allows each woman a chance at transformation, where she can pass into a new state and a new place. I love it. This totally explains everything about the book, at least in the most ethereal of terms.

What all this analysis doesn't do it deal with specifics and since the books is a mystery, I don't want to reveal too many details and wreck things for you. Let's just say this. Kate, the maiden, has to find a way to accept and love herself even though she finds herself attracted to other women, not men. Caroline, the mother, has to be willing to let go of her anger and forgive her mother, the crone, for a lifetime of supposed slights. Mary, the crone, has a memory which is dissolving. Before it goes completely she has something important to say or do.

The book is lovely, lovely, lovely. It is the best LGBT book I've ever read without it being a LGBT book specifically. (Let's just say, some people act very unbecoming about that issue in the book.) The family mystery, though not edge-of-you-seat stuff, is certainly compelling and drives the narrative. The characters all show tremendous growth which is satisfying and necessary to the conclusion. My only quibble: the book is long. It is nearly 400 pages in length which will be a deterrent for my teen readers. I listened to the audiobook and I thought it would never end at 14+ hours of listening. There is not much anyone can do about the length now except give themselves permission to speed read through sections or turn the speed up to 1.25 on the audiobook (which is what I did.)

I will definitely purchase this book for my library and will add the LGBT tag to the catalog markings so students can find their way to it. I will also consider it for a Mock Printz selection in the Fall.

Source: Audiobook checked out via Hoopla, a service provided by my public. library.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

2017 Printz Award Contenders

17 / 35 books. 49% done!

Friday Quotes: PLACES NO ONE KNOWS

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---

Book Title: Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff

Book Beginnings: 

There is something awful about the sun. It rockets up from the horizon like a hot-air balloon. One minute, you're looking at the shy, glowing sliver of it. The next, it's glaring down at you like the wrath of God.

Friday 56: 

This is the functional opposite of dreams about delivering speeches to packed auditoriums while naked. It's like my subconscious is underscoring all the way the world consists of tightly knot biomes, and I am on the outside.

Comments: I am attempting to read all the YA books published in 2016 that have received three starred reviews or more, currently somewhere around 35 books. Places No One Knows is one of those books. I like the quotes but haven't read enough to know if they are representative of the writing throughout.


Anne

West With the Night by Beryl Markham, a classic if I've ever read one.

Last  month my book club's selection was Circling the Sun by Paula McLain, It is a novelized memoir of Beryl Markham's life. After finishing that book my attention immediately shifted to the original, West With the Night by Markham herself. The book was published in 1942, and though it got good reviews it fell into almost immediate obscurity. I think the timing wasn't good with a war on and all.  It would have remained out-of-print and little known but in 1983 some papers of Ernest Hemingway were found by his son. In them Hemingway praised Markham's book and her writing to his publisher Max Perkins,

…As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer…she can write rings around us all… The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people’s stories, are absolutely true… I wish you would get it and read it because it is a really a bloody wonderful book.

Markham was still alive living in poverty in Kenya in 1983 and the re-publication of her masterpiece allowed her to a live out her life in comfort.

Unlike most other memoirs I've read, West With the Night reads much more like an adventure novel, or a travel journal, or a collection of short stories not necessarily presented in chronological order. Markham was born in England in the early 1900s and moved to British East Africa (before Kenya was Kenya) with her father in 1903 as a colonist. He was a farmer, a businessman, a horse trainer. She was a wild thing who wanted more than anything to be a warrior, went a boar hunt which nearly killed her favorite dog,  and was "moderately eaten" by a pet lion. Each chapter represents a memory of Markham's life in Africa, or as a horse trainer herself, or as an aviator once she learned to fly. My favorites were the Africa stories.

“There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa -- and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime. Whoever writes a new one can afford a certain complacency in the knowledge that his is a new picture agreeing with no one else's, but likely to be haughtily disagreed with by all those who believed in some other Africa. ... Being thus all things to all authors, it follows, I suppose, that Africa must be all things to all readers.

Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home.” 

If a hunter goes on a safari in Africa he/she only knows that part of of the continent's story. If missionaries go to Africa to win souls, will they really experience the soul of the land? Markham would argue that few people outside of Africans themselves would ever know and understand this incredible land because they come to it with ulterior motives.

We know, or think we know, quite a bit about Markham's contemporaries: the Baron Bror von Blixen and his wife Karen and their friend, Denys Finch-Hatton because of the famous book and film, Out of Africa. Though Beryl had an affair with Finch-Hatton, she only talks about him a little in this book and only about his flying and his death.

“Denys (Finch-Hatton) has been written about before and he will be written about again. If someone has not already said it, someone will say that he was a great man who never achieved greatness, and this will not only be trite, but wrong; he was a great man who never achieved arrogance.”

She writes more about her friendship with Bror von Blixen because she becomes a pilot spotter for his elephant safari business. The chapters about elephant hunting where they worked together were the most difficult of all to read because, of course, elephants are now endangered and no one should be hunting or killing them. But I had to remind myself continually that Beryl and the Baron were doing this in the 1930s before people understood the fragility of the animal kingdom in the face of human incursions.

The title of the book West With the Night was in reference to Markham's remarkable flight from England to New York, via Nova Scotia in 1936, the first female to make this solo flight across the ocean, she said she was almost continually flying with the night.

Unlike Circling the Sun, readers will learn nothing from this book about Markham's love life, her husbands, or about her son, who lived in England with his father. So really the book isn't about Beryl Markham it is really about three things: horse training, flying, and Africa itself. Markham is just the story-teller.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there are quite a few scholars who believe that Markham didn't actually pen this book. They believe that it was ghost written by her third husband, Raoul Schumacher. I was asked by other book club members if it bothered me if indeed it wasn't written by Markham. After a brief pause I decided it didn't. The book is exquisitely written and the stories belong to Markham. Markham's biographer, Mary Lovell, asked Markham about the controversy because she had always maintained that she was the sole author of her book.

Beryl herself was totally unconcerned about the theory that she had not written the book. When I discussed the subject with her, she dismissed it, 'Oh, that darn thing again?" Asked how she answered her detractors, she shrugged and said, 'I don't bother...' (Lovell, 1987)

That settles it for me.  Just because someone doesn't have a lot of formal education doesn't mean they are stupid. Shakespeare is a case in point.  Markham also wrote a few short stories, published in a book called  The Splendid Outcast which adds to the proof, in my mind anyway, that the gal could write.

Markham mused on the first line of the book, “How is it possible to bring order out of memory?”  West With the Night is her attempt to do just that. And for her memories I am grateful because now I too can travel to Kenya through the beautiful words on a page and live with her as she recalls a few precious memories of a time gone by.

Source: half and half: Print edition checked out from a school library in my district; Audio edition checked out from the public library.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

West With the Night fulfills another selection from the Women's Classic Literature event.

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann, a conflicted review

Young adult literature is rarely straight-forward. No one would want to read it if it was. But Christine Heppermann's Ask Me How I Got Here is even less predictable than most and I am very conflicted in how I feel about the book.

Addie attends a private Catholic School, The Immaculate Heart Academy, where she is more interested in running cross-country and boys than she is about her studies. When she finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her she turns her attention to his friend Nick, a cute artsy, sensitive musician. Nick and Addie fall easily into a sexual relationship without much forethought and, surprise, Addie gets pregnant. She decides, with the support of Nick and her parents, to get an abortion. Afterwards she experiences new feelings, perhaps guilt or remorse, or just grief and ambivalence. but school and cross country no longer interest Addie. Friendships, even with her best friend and with Nick fall to the wayside. Then Addie has a chance meeting with an old teammate, Claire, and a whole new world opens up.

Ask Me How I Got Here is written in verse. Heppermann's first book I read, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty consisted of short, often pithy poems retelling old fairy tales in modern terms. The poems in this book fell into two varieties: those written by Heppermann to serve as the storytelling device, and those written by Addie which are cleverly made to look like her handwriting. Many of the poems had religious themes which made sense since Addie attended a Catholic school and was grappling with her conscience. "Praying While Flushing" starts Hail, Mary, full of grace,/You know what it is like/ the Lord is with thee. I  know what it is like to ask for help in a prayer. In this case, Addie is praying that the results of the pregnancy test will be negative. The poem entitled "Mercy", Nick comes over after the abortion and her parents go away and come back with mint chocolate chip ice cream. What a great mercy when those who love us the most show their forgiveness and mercy, even when we are not deserving. In addition Addie has to confront the hypocrisies of her faith where the nuns who founded her school did so with a mission of compassion as the goal, yet often treat students in a non-compassionate way. This is exemplified in the poem "Kind of Like Yogurt."

I loved the poetry in Ask Me How I Got Here and the story reads very quickly because of it. I finished the book in less than two hours. But I am still very conflicted about aspects of the writing and the story. To begin with I was a bit shocked by how graphic and erotic the descriptions of sex were. As a high school librarian with students, grades 9-12, do I purchase the book because the subject matter is too mature for the younger students or buy it because my older students could handle it? I can't decide. Does the beauty of the poetry override the explicit nature of the subject? I am not sure.

Secondly, my conflicted feelings about the book have to do with the length. Usually books written in verse are about twice as long as the average YA novel. This gives plenty of time for the plot to develop. This book was shorter than the usual book at 225 pages in length. Everything seemed to happen so fast. As a reader I was robbed of the opportunity to understand the nuances of decisions, make friends with the characters, or even root for the main character. The plot twist near the end of the book seems to come out of left field so I felt almost ambushed by it. I needed more than I got and was left feeling short-changed.

For the above reasons I give the book a 3.5 out of 5 rating. I loved the poetry but was left feeling unsatisfied by the execution of the story.

Source: I checked the book out of the public library.

2017 Printz Award Contenders

16 / 35 books. 46% done!

Sunday Salon, July 3rd

Black bear, eating clover outside Whistler, B.C.

Weather: light rain, with sun-breaks

Canada: We spent last week in Whistler where we have a time-share condo. We've been going to Whistler for over twenty years and find it a relaxing, delightful environment. Don took golf lessons, I read and blogged. We went to the lake and floated around in our inflatable kayak. We read our books in the sun down by the swimming pool. We shopped at the quaint shops, even finding a wedding present for a friend's daughter's upcoming wedding. We drove out to one of the Winter Olympic sites and saw two bears snacking on the clover alongside the road. There are signs everywhere to be "bear aware". Our last night there we treated ourselves to a dinner out at our favorite restaurant, The Rimrock Cafe. Everything was delicious, especially the finale, Sticky Toffee Pudding with homemade vanilla ice cream.

Wedding: We raced home from Canada to attend the wedding of a daughter of close friends. Katie's mom is the sister of my best friend from high school, Ken. Ken and his wife and their extended family made the trip from points south and east for the wedding. We had lots of fun visiting with everyone. Tonight the crew is heading over to our house for a salmon dinner.

Books currently reading:

• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson---This is the audiobook Don and I listened to on our trip to Whistler and back. It is about the author's experiences giving legal assistance to individuals on death row and others who cannot afford legal help. It is enlightening and horrifying how unjust our justice system is for people who have little money and people of color. Progress 77%.
• A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Conner---this short story collection is my Classics Club spin book. O'Conner became famous for her short stories, all set in the South, and most dealing with issues related to religion. Progress: 39%.

Books finished this week:

• Character, Driven by David Lubar--- a coming-of-age story about a boy who recounts experiences of his senior year of high school. Check out my review here. 
• Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Hepermann---another coming-of-age story this one written in verse about a girl who has an unintended pregnancy.

Recipes of the day: Boysenberry Cobbler and Raspberry Crisp. Take your pick I will be making both for dinner tonight. I love berry season.

Books representing my lifetime: I had fun this week creating a list of books I've read which were published each year of my life. Take a look at the list here.

Happy Independence Day tomorrow! (Watch and listen, I love the piccolo solo.)

Books representing my lifetime

Earlier this week I posted a list of the 75 best books of the last 75 years. The list was put together by Ann Pratchett for the 75th anniversary of the PARADE magazine. At the end of the post I challenged myself and my readers to create a list of best books read in our lifetime. The following is my attempt to cover my life with books. As you will see, I did not read the books during the given year necessarily, they were just published in that year. 

Creating the list was way harder than I thought it would be. For one thing, I have not gone back and read many books published during my childhood, hence the high number of (C) children's titles without an (A) adult title. I discovered a few things along the way, too. Little Bear was not written by Maurice Sendak, as I always thought. He was just the illustrator of my first childhood book. In 2008 there was a shift in publishing and more YA titles than adult titles were sold that year. That trend continues. One more note, many of the books I have listed were books I liked fine but in no way represent the best books I've ever read. Often I included them on the list because they were memorable in some way and I continue to think about them even now.

Here is my original post about the Parade Magazine 75 best in past 75 years. I challenge you to create a list of books which represent your lifetime. Good luck!

Books I’ve read and enjoyed over the course of my lifetime;

 published 1957-2016

A=Adult titles; C=Children’s or YA titles

1957	A-On the Beach by Nevil Shute C-Little Bear by Elise Holmelund, ill. By M. Sendak	1987	A-Beloved by Toni Morrison (tied) A-The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher
1958	A-Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe C-Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes	1988	A-Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver C-The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
1959	A-Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank C-The Birthday Book by Dr. Seuss	1989	A-The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay C-Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
1960	A-To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee C-Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell	1990	A-The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien C-Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss
1961	C- Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls C-The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (Tied)	1991	A-The Firm by John Grisham C- If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numberoff
1962	C- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle	1992	A- Ishmael by Daniel Quinn C- Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park
1963	A-The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath C-Where the Wild Things Are by M. Sendak	1993	A- The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx C- The Giver by Lois Lowry
1964	A- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway C- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein	1994	A- Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (tied)  A-Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
1965	A-In Cold Blood by Truman Capote C-The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary	1995	C-The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (tied) C-Sabriel by Garth Nix
1966	None	1996	A-Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt C- Lily's Purple Purse by Kevin Henkes
1967	A-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez C-The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton	1997	A-The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy C- Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone by JK Rowling (first pub. in UK, series complete 2007.)
1968	A-The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough C-Ramona the Pest by  B. Cleary	1998	A-The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver C-Holes by Louis Sachar
1969	A- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelo C-The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle	1999	A-Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham C-Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
1970	A-The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison C-The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White	2000	A-In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson C-Because of Winn-Dixie by DiCamillo
1971	A-The Hiding Place by C. ten Boom C-Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIMH by O’Brien	2001	A-Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (tied) A-Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
1972	A-All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot C-My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok	2002	A- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides C- Feed by M.T. Anderson
1973	C-The Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Green	2003	A- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini C- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
1974	A-All the President’s Men by Woodward and Bernstein C-There’s a Wocket in My Pocket by Dr. Seuss	2004	A- The Plot Against America by Philip Roth C- The Race to Save the Lord God Bird by Philip Hoose
1975	C-Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit	2005	A-The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls C-Looking for Alaska by John Green
1976	A- Roots by Alex Haley C-The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter	2006	A-The Worst Hard Time by T. Egan   C-The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
1977	A-The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough C-Miss Nelson is Missing by Allard and Marshall	2007	A- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz C- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling
1978	A- The World According to Garp by John Irving C- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett	2008	A-The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Barrows and Shaffer C- The Hunger Games by S. Collins
1979	A- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams C-The Neverending Story by Michael Ende	2009	A-The Help by Kathryn Stockett (tied) A- Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
1980	A-A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole C-The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Noble	2010	A- Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand C- Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
1981	A-When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner	2011	A-Ready Player One by Ernest Cline C-Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
1982	A- The Color Purple by AliceWalker  A-Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (tied) C-Jamberry by Bruce Degen	2012	A-Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn C- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
1983	A- The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett C-The Berenstain Bears and a Messy Room by Stan Berenstain	2013	A-The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt C-Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
1984	A- Cold Sassy Tree by Olive A. Burns C-The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by A. Wood and D. Wood	2014	A-All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr C- I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
1985	A- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood C-The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg	2015	A-Circling the Sun by Paula McLain C-Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
1986	A-Maus I  by Art Speigelman C-The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon	2016	A-My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout C-The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (4th in Raven Cycles eries)