TTT: My favorite books in a series by numbers

Top Ten Tuesday: Today's topic is favorite books with numbers in the title. Since we just did that post two years ago (If you want to see that list, here it is: 'TTT: Books with numbers in the title') I decided to tweak the theme and attempt to identify my favorite books in series by number.

 Series   / Author                                     Title of book                               Number placement in series

Chaos Walking   / Ness                      The Knife of Never Letting Go                            #1

The Chronicles of Narnia / Lewis       The Voyage of the Dawn Treader                       #3

Hunger Games / Collins                       Hunger Games / Catching Fire                        Tie #1, 2

His Mark Materials  / Pullman            The Golden Compass/ The Subtle Knife /          Tie #1-3  

                                                             The Amber Spyglass  

Dairy Queen / Murdock                       The Off Season                                                   #2

 

The Inheritance Cycle / Paolini           Eragon                                                                 #1

 

Tiffany Aching  / Pratchett                    The Shepherd's Crown                                        #5

 

The Lunar Chronicles / Meyer             Cress                                                                    #3 

 

Bill Hodges Trilogy  / King                  Mr. Mercedes                                                      #1

 

Harry Potter / Rawling                         The Goblet of Fire                                               #4

Abhorsen / Nix                                     Lirael                                                                   #2

 

The Raven Cycle / Stiefvater             Raven Boys / The Dream Thieves /                     Tie #1-4

                                                           Blue Lily, Lily Blue / The Raven King

         

As a teen librarian I felt an urge to read widely so I rarely would complete series once I got a feel for the story line and the author's writing. Of the many, many series I started it was rare that I would finish them. I did complete all the books in the series listed above, however. 

-Anne               

Sunday Salon --- mid September check-in

It is hard to believe that it was twenty years ago since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center that has changed our world so much.

Weather: Rain! It is the first measurable rain we've had all summer. Yay!

Pirates and Mr. One-derful: Last Sunday we helped celebrate the birth of both our grandsons with a Pirate Party for Ian, the soon-to-be four-year-old, and a first party celebration for Jamie, Mr. One-derful. Ian had a little crew of other three/four/five-year old boys who also dressed as pirates and searched for treasure, made hook hands, and had the story Pirate Stew read to them. Then our attention turned to a soon-to-be one-year old and watched in awe as he made a complete mess with his cake. He looked like he'd hit the jackpot.

Our face masks reflect the school colors: yellow and green.

Football! Don and I attended our first in-person football game in over a year (due to covid restrictions.) Things looked different with everyone wearing masks and having to show their vaccine cards to get through the gate, but it was worth it to be safe. The day was sizzling HOT but even my 92-yer-old mother was glad to be there. This week we watched our team win from the comforts of our home, though, since they were on the road. University of Oregon 35, Ohio State 28! Go Ducks!

 A fun day at Northwest Trek

My sister Kathy came back with us from Oregon to attend the birthday party and spend time with her grand nephews. Our daughter, Carly, flew home from San Francisco for the party, too. We had a good week of visiting. One day we made a fun trip to NW Trek so Ian could show off to Kathy all the animals he has enjoyed seeing in the past.

Cute photos of Jamie: because he didn't make the photo collage above. Here he is celebrating his second first birthday today with the family favorite banana cake his brother and I made together. And the first time he and his family visited the Children's Museum in Olympia yesterday.

Good news on the national front: Just when it seems that all the news is bad, there is this--- (Click hyperlinks to read more)

• This pandemic has the potential of turning around

  President Biden is unfazed by the sputtering of negligent GOPer governors. Joe is simply not bothered by them! He knows what is the right thing to do and he is doing it-- requiring companies that employ over 100 people must require vaccinations or mandatory testing once a week.

  GOP governors threaten to sue over mandates; Biden says, ‘have at it’, Annabelle Timsit, Washington Post, September 10, 2021.

  Biden to GOP: “Have at it.” Why? Federal case law has consistently held that mandatory vaccinations are constitutional, for over 100 years. That’s why.  

• Businesses BACK the vaccine mandate

  Federal mandate takes vaccine decision off employers’ hands, Barbara Ortutay, AP, September 10, 2021.

•  Attorney General Garland brings the full force of the Justice Department against the Texas Abortion ban
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Covid vaccines work really well

  San Francisco Schools Have Had No COVID-19 Outbreaks Since Classes Began Last Month, Deepa Shivaram, NPR, September 10, 2021.
  

• Criminals will be brought to justice

  More Capitol rioters plead guilty, including man who threatened to shoot Pelosi, Shawna Chen, Axios, September 10, 2021.

Books. Books. Books. What I've been reading and listening to.... 

• The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. The 2021 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. Based on the journals from Erdrich's grandfather about a historical event where Congress tried to renege on treaties in the 1950s. Powerful. Heartbreaking and heart-warming.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. A re-read but I did enjoy an illustrated version.
• Wade in the Waters: Poems by Tracy K. Smith. Really, really thought provoking. I can't even explain how impactful several of the poems are.
• This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. A reread for an upcoming book club. A family is keeping a big, explosive secret. Their daughter was born a son. Audiobook. I haven't finished the review yet but come back in a few days to read it.
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Another past Pulitzer winner. Audiobook. 69% complete.
• Prince Caspian by CS Lewis. The second book in the Chronicles of Narnia. Another reread. 94%.
• My reading challenges update:
  
  
  

A few funny items and food for thought:

 

 

Requisite cat photos: 

Who's under the blanket

The same guy who came to brunch: George

-Anne

Review and quotes: THE NIGHT WATCHMAN. Where I examine why this book won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature?

Title: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Book Beginnings quote:

Friday56 quote (taken from page 9, last page of free preview on-line):

Summary: Drawing on her own grandfather's letters, written when he was a tribal council member, Louise Erdrich shines a light on a shameful event (or near-event) in United State history when Congress introduced a bill to terminate treaty rights of some Native tribes, including the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa of North Dakota. The bill would have forced assimilation onto tribal members and a big land grab for whites. 

The opening lines of the book introduce Thomas Wazhashka, the fictional character fashioned after Erdrich's grandfather, who works at the jewel bearing plant as a night watchman and spends part of his time there writing letters seeking support about tribal concerns. Ultimately he and other tribal members go to Washington, D.C. to protest the termination bill, helping to ensure that it doesn't pass out of Congress. 

In addition to the activism, the book is really about persistence and survival. The Turtle Mountain Chippewa showed dogged determination to survive against all odds. The poverty and the racist abuse were in plain view for the readers to see. Yet dignity and tradition also took center stage leaving readers with the opportunity to appreciate not only the hardships but also the culture and beauty of a people long marginalized.

Review and thoughts about the Pulitzer Prize: Louise Erdrich herself wondered why anyone would want to read a book about a dreadful bill that passed out of Congress in 1954. Yet, here she is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her book, The Night Watchman. As I read it, a book club selection, I kept asking myself what was it that made this book, this moment, this story so exceptional, worthy of such a grand prize? First I have learned that Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain band of the Chippewa, lives in Minneapolis. It broke her heart to see what happened in her city with George Floyd's murder and the subsequent protests. Race relations in this country are so messy, not only for blacks but for all BIPOC individuals. This story, about the atrocities leveled against Native people throughout history, is just one more account to prove this point. Erdrich called the Pulitzer a "welcome contrast to the news of the last year." Stories of race, racism, and colonialism swept the Pulitzer Prizes for the Arts this year. Another Native author, Natalie Diaz, won the poetry award for Post Colonial Love Poems, and all the other awards in the arts went to those writing about the Black experience (Pulitzer Prize Winners, 2021).

The Pulitzer committee said this about the book: It is "a majestic, polyphonic novel about a community’s efforts to halt the proposed displacement and elimination of several Native American tribes in the 1950s, rendered with dexterity and imagination." A Native American Studies professor from Dartmouth, N Bruce Duthu, said “Perhaps more than any other contemporary writer, Louise has helped to elevate the national IQ on issues of social, historical, and legal significance relating to Native peoples. She is a national treasure” (Dartmouth). Clearly The Night Watchman and Louise Erdrich were worthy of this, the grandest of all book prizes.

But what can I say about it on a smaller scale? At first I found the book to be terribly confusing. There are so many characters and there is a lot of story or stories to be told. But once I settled in I was just simply enraptured by the tales and what I was learning. I was profoundly moved by the conversation Thomas had with a white teacher who asked him what would be wrong with assimilating into white culture. Thomas explained that question would be like asking a person living in England, or some other European country to give up their culture when a conquering country sweeps in. "How would you feel? Thomas asks. The teacher said he'd be angry and wouldn't do it. Thomas pointed out that is what whites expect us to do. "This is our land. We were here first, yet whites sweep in and expect us to change to be like them, not taking into consideration any of our customs or traditions."

Erdrich gives us more than a peek at these cultures and traditions, too. The mysticism, the connection to nature, the strength that comes from family and community all gave the story tremendous depth. And then the characters -- I liked them all -- especially Patrice who wants to do more than survive, she wants to thrive. After finishing the book I felt like I wanted to keep living with these characters for a while, wanting to know about happens to them after the story ends. This doesn't happen to me very often, but it did with The Night Watchman.

Lastly, I listened to the audiobook read by Erdrich herself. I felt that the speed of the recording was too slow for my taste so I bumped the listening speed up to 1.3 which solved that problem. Not sure if this solution would work for everyone but it worked for me.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

Challenges:

• 20-Books of Summer 2021 Challenge: 26/20
• Big Book Summer Challenge: 8th book read for this challenge this past summer. 462 pages in length. 
• Pulitzer Prize Challenge: a personal challenge to read the current award winner for literature and past winners of my choosing. This is the 42nd Pulitzer Prize winner (or runner-up) I've read.
  

-Anne

Review and quotes: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE with Hugh Thomson illustrations

Title: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Book Beginnings quote: 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Friday56 quote:

A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her,  a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter.

Summary: With five unmarried daughters on her hands, and the prospect of losing the family home on the horizon, Mrs. Bennet is preoccupied with the topic of marriage, more specifically, the marriage of her daughters. When the estate called Netherfield Hall is let to a young bachelor named Charles Bingley, Mrs. Bennet is sure he will want to marry one of her daughters. But true love does not always fall into straight lines and along the way the Bennet family, their neighbors, and relatives will have to hang on for a bumpy ride before coming to rest at a very satisfactory ending.

The cover page of this edition is illustrated but doesn't give credit to the artist, Hugh Thomson.

 

This edition is gloriously illustrated with drawings done by Hugh Thomson. His illustrations have been held in high regard by Austen fans since his work first appeared in the 1894 edition of Pride and Prejudice. At the time of its publication a writer for The Times noted: "Mr. Thomson's pencil seems to have caught the very spirit of Jane Austen's inimitable pen, and no one who loves Pride and Prejudice will fail to recognize the extreme felicity, grace, and humor of his charming illustrations." Every page of this edition contained some illustrations, even if they were just flowers or small birds but usually some illustration done by Thomson to match the action on the page. I was simply charmed.

Here is a sample page with an illustration. In it the Gardiner children meet with their cousin Jane.

Review: The opening line, "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." is one of the best known and oft repeated lines in all of literature. Pride and Prejudice is also one of the most beloved novels ever written. Even people who haven't actually read the book, love it because of the plethora of wonderful movies made from it. People love this book so much that others, who haven't read the book, will lie about reading it anyway.  "P and P is the tenth most common book people lie about having read when they really didn't" (Elle).

When I was in 5th or 6th grade I got my hands on the Great Illustrated Classics version of Pride and Prejudice for children. I remember reading, and rereading the terribly romantic scene when Lizzy and Darcy are walking around the garden and he declares that he still loves her. So many swoons. I'd never read anything so romantic in my short life. Ever since that first reading of an abridged version I have loved the book with all my heart. I can't remember when I first read the unabridged version, probably high school and maybe again when I entered my Jane Austen phase -- reading all her novels, one after the other. I always seem to find time to reread my favorite sections just like the first time through. Around that same time I became a collector of Jane Austen movies on DVD and I rewatch them with some regularity. Unfortunately these movies, and my frequency of viewing them, has led me to think I know the book better than I do. That is what I found so delightful this time through, recognizing those parts not included in the movies, including the longer dialogues, and the frequency that characters came into contact with each other. 

When I was working as a school librarian I would sponsor a Jane Austen week once a year. A Jane Austen movie, divided into five parts, would be shown during lunch and I would give students a little history of the time period (Regency) and tell a bit about the author. I also would tell the students, and I still believe this, that they may want to watch the movie before embarking on the reading of one of Austen's books. The long paragraphing and the spelling of some of the words (chuse and dropt, come to mind as examples) can be a bit off-putting for teen readers who are used to standard spelling and terribly short paragraphs.  

This particular edition of P and P is an odd size, about the dimensions of a children's picture book. It was tough to hold if I was reading in bed and I often found myself having to adjust the angle of the page due to light bouncing off the shiny paper. In a way I enjoyed this reading experience better than I would have with a standard book. Each chapter fit within the confines of two or three pages and those long-g-g-g Austen paragraphs were broken up by the darling illustrations.

It's been a few days now since I finished my rereading of Pride and Prejudice and I confess I wish I wasn't finished. I love living with the Bennet girls with the confines of the pages of this marvelous book and I miss it when I'm done. Italo Calvino defined a classic as a book "that is never finished saying what it has to say." For over 200 years people have been reading and re-reading Pride and Prejudice and it isn't finished saying what it has to say yet. Thank goodness!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

Challenges:

• Austen in August
• 20-Books of Summer Challenge -- 25/20
  

-Anne

TTT: Austen Men Ranked

Top Ten Tuesday: The assignment this week is to name my favorite literary crushes. I've done this assignment several times. See that list here. Instead, today I will rank all of Jane Austen's available men, from most crush-worthy to least. 

These are the men I'm choosing from in my ranking:

Pride and Prejudice	Sense and Sensibility	Northanger Abbey	Emma	Mansfield Park	Persuasion	Sanditon
F. Darcy	E Ferrars	H Tilney	G Knightly	E. Bertram	F.Wentworth	S. Parker
C. Bingley	Willoughby	J. Thorpe	Mr. Elton	H Crawford	W. Elliot	Y. Stringer
G Wickham	Col Brandon		F Churchill
Mr. Collins

 

My ranking (biggest crush to no crush at all): 

Top Nine:

1. Fitzwilliam Darcy: He's rich and handsome; he becomes a better man; and saves the day.

2. Captain Frederick Wentworth: His love was true over seven years.

3. Henry Tilney: He stood up to his terrible father at great cost.

4. Col. Brandon: rich, devoted, and selfless.

5. Edward Ferrars: bumbling but sweet; does the right thing in the end.

6. George Knightley: like a big brother until confessions of love.

7. Edmund Bertram: kind to his cousin when his family wasn't; admitted he was wrong.

8. Young Stringer: kind; hard worker; interested in further education (But I'm not sure this character was an actual character in the portion of Sanditon that JA wrote.)

9. Charles Bingley; kind and bumbling but easily swayed by sisters.

Bottom nine:

10. Henry Crawford: I believe he really did love Fanny Price but didn't know how to comport himself.

11. Sidney Parker: Snobbish, yet comes around to being quite charming, before he 'takes one for the team.'

12. Frank Churchill: Not a bad guy, just a guy with a big secret.

13.  John Willoughby: I know he truly loved Marianne but had to abandon her for his greater love for money.

14. Mr. Collins: weak and sniveling but not mean.

15. William Elliot: He was after a title and willing to use his cousin to get it.

16. George Wickham: a liar and a cheat, but apparently quite personable. 

17. Mr. Elton: mean, thoughtless, and little; held a grudge.

18. John Thorpe: a liar and a cheat, but not personable.

Answers: 

 

 

Top left to right: 5, 4, 1, 2, 6, 3, 7, 8, 9

Bottom left to right: 14, 10, 18, 11, 13, 16, 17, 12, 15