Six degrees of separation: From Hooper to Hooper

#6Degrees

Six degrees of separation:
The French and Love

OMG! Using my own rules for this fun meme hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest (see there the origin of the meme and how it works – posted the first Saturday of every month), something absolutely amazing happened this month: without even working on it, I started with author Chloe Hooper and ended up with Emma Hooper!

Here are my own quirky rules:

1. Use your list of books on Goodreads
2. Take the first word of the title offered and find another title with that word in it
3. Then use the first word of THAT title to find your text title
4. Or the second if the title starts with the same word, or you are stuck

After the covers, you can find the links to my reviews or to the title on Goodreads:

Arsonist Born on a blue day

born-a-crime Portrait of a Murderer

james joyce Etta and Otto

1. The Arsonist: A Mind of Fire 
= I haven’t read anything yet by this author, but this one sounds good!

2. Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
= I read this a long time ago, and really enjoyed it a lot. That’s Tammet’s autobiography. He is a British autistic savant with Asperger’s syndrome. He associates words and numbers with colors, and has the most amazing memory. It was fascinating.

3. Born a Crime =
It’s time to read this other autobiography if you have not yet. I don’t have TV, so I didn’t know who Trevor Noah was. After reading the book, I went to Youtube to watch excerpts of his TV show. I hated it. So, even if you hate his shows and his disparaging humor, you have to read this book, it’s very different from the style of the shows. It’s an amazing portrait of South Africa, and his mother is incredible!
Incidentally, I read this book with a read-along with another blogger, and the posts related to this book are super super popular. So if you want to increase your blog traffic, review this book!!

4. Portrait of a Murderer: A Christmas Crime Story
= my verdict was: An unusual classic mystery, where you know early who did what. But why?  

5. James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner – A Graphic Biography
= I love reading biographies as “graphic novels”. This one was fascinating – I really didn’t know much about James Joyce. And the art was excellent as well.
Unfortunately, I haven’t reviewed it yet.
Now, do you think I have read a book with the word James in the title?

6. Etta and Otto and Russell and James
= I remembered right away, because this is a charming book, and James is actually a little coyote! I listened to this one, and enjoyed it a lot:
A lovely account of a journey with a talking coyote, both through the land and the self, where memories and discoveries combine to better know oneself and others.

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Visit other chains here

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HAVE YOU READ AND ENJOYED ANY OF THESE BOOKS?
HAVE YOU PLAYED
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
THIS MONTH?

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2019: February wrap-up

FEBRUARY WRAP-UP

It’s still insanely cold around Chicago, so what better to do than curl up with a good book? I did read some interesting ones this month.
And I also DNFed two:

  • A Deadly Affection, by Cuyler Overholt. I explain why here
  • I tried briefly the upcoming In the Blink of an Eye, but found it super confusing and stopped quickly. So I have this brand new ARC, if anyone is interested in some swap

Let’s talk about good things now.
I’m still reading Don Quixote, basically by myself, as the people who organized the read-along seem to have stopped. I’m also late in the schedule, but slowly but surely, I’ll manage.
Everyday, I also read a chapter of Les Misérables in French, a read-along with one my students. It’s kind of neat to see her reactions, as she hasn’t read it yet, and doesn’t know what’s coming. Even though I read it decades ago, I no longer have the effect of surprise. We are almost done with volume 1.

So here is what I finished in February:

8 books:
7 in print 
with 2,391 pages, an average of 85 pages/day
(wow! I’m impressed: 2 were long books, one of them a manga!)
1 in audio
with 11H06, an average of 23 mn/day

4 in literary fiction:

  1. La vie mode d’emploi, by Georges Perec – in French
  2. The Goose Fritz, by Sergei Lebedev – ebook, for review
  3. Trace, by Pat Cummings – book won, middle grade
  4. The Library of Lost and Found, by Phaedra Patrick – ebook, for review

1 in poetry:

  1. Cocktails with a Dead Man, by Joe Albanese

1 in nonfiction:

  1. Earthern Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition, by Gabriel Bunge

1 in manga:

  1. Orange, volume 1, by Ichigo Takano

1 in between nonfiction and historical fiction!!

  1. HHhH, by Laurent Binet – audio, in French

So yes, I finally found a manga that I really loved and devoured! It’s YA and romancy, two genres that I usually don’t like, but it’s a very interesting story actually, and the art is beautiful. I’m saving volume 2 for March, and I found the latest one by the same author as well!

MY FAVORITES IN FEBRUARY

HHhH Earthen Vessels

READING CHALLENGES & RECAP

Classics Club: 42/50 (until end of 2020)
2019 Calendar of Crime Challenge 1/12
Where Are You Reading?: 21/50 – to be finished in ??
Total of books read in 2019 = 15/100
Number of books added to my TBR this past month= 30, BUT I did manage to delete a lot of old ones.

Blog wise, you may have noticed a few posts for Thursday Travels. I’ll try to do this on a regular basis.

MOST POPULAR BOOK REVIEW THIS PAST MONTH

Are We French Yet

click on the cover to access my review

MOST POPULAR POST THIS PAST MONTH
– NON BOOK REVIEW –

Born a Crime chapter 9-14:
read along at Book Bloggers International

BOOK BLOG THAT BROUGHT ME MOST TRAFFIC THIS PAST MONTH

Modern Mrs Darcy
please go visit

TOP COMMENTERS OF THE MONTH

Judy at Keep the Wisdom
Karen at Booker Talk
Angela at Musings of a Literary Wanderer

BLOG MILESTONES 

1,924 posts
over 4,740 subscribers
over 173,170 hits

Be sure to check the giveaway posted on my homepage!

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Come back on Monday
to see the books I plan to read in March
and my exciting plan!

Eiffel Tower OrangeEiffel Tower OrangeEiffel Tower Orange

How was YOUR month of February?

2019-Monthly-Wrap-Up-Round-Up_300

Nicole at Feed Your Fiction Addiction
has created a Month In Review meme
where you can link your monthly recap posts
Thanks Nicole!

 

Top Ten places to visit

Top Ten Places Mentioned In Books
That I’d Like to Visit

TTT for February 26, 2019
#TopTenTuesday

🌼🌼🌼

For this edition of #TopTenTuesday, we are talking about
“Places Mentioned In Books That I’d Like to Visit” (submitted by Georgia @justreadthemm).
Here are actually the 10 places I most recently visited in books. The first 7 books alone are books I have read in 2019.
And yes, I would love to visit them all, definitely Japan!

Orange HHhH

  1. Japan
  2. Czechoslovakia

The Goose Fritz La vie mode demploi

3 and 4: Germany and Russia
5: France

The Moonstone The Plotters

6. England
7. South Korea

The only woman in the room Che

8. Austria
9. Cuba

Kingdom of the Blind

10. Canada

Have you read any of these? Which one is your favorite?
What is the place encountered in books
you would most want to visit?

 
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