December AlphaKIT: W and N

Welcome to AlphaKIT for December. Thanks to everyone for a year of AlphaKIT. Hopefully 2021 will be a better year for all of us. Please join us for the 2021 AlphaKIT

As usual, the rules are... none! Use the letters however you like to choose your reads for the month. Well, okay, there is one rule: Have Fun!

December AlphaKIT letters are : W and N.

and

Please remember to update the wiki and enter books alphabetically: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2020_AlphaKIT#December:_-_Letters:_W_and...

I’m planning on reading the following:

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
Word to the Wise by Jenn McKinlay
Second to Nun by Alice Loweecey

Thanks for continuing to provide us with these threads, Jean. I love the AlphaKit!

For December I have set aside a couple of Christmas reads with:

The Bishop's Wife by Robert Nathan
Covent Garden in the Snow by Jules Wake

I will probably read The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig, not sure of my other choice yet.

Planning on:

A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy by Alex White
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

As of now, my plan is to read The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason F. Wright and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

I like to find a book that will work for both letters and I only have one on my shelf that will work for N and W, O Come Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Claire by Nial Williams. This will probably be it.

Lots of possibilities here, so I'll wait and see how other challenges fit

I always take a look at the other ones first to see if something fits. If not, I'll pick something specifically.

I just acquired a boatload of books in the Sue Barton and Cherry Ames nurse series, so lots of possibilities for "N."

>10 LadyoftheLodge: Wow! I haven't heard these two series mentioned for a long time! I read several Sue Barton's when I was a kid. I don't think the library had more than one or two Cherry Ames.

I discovered a few years ago while reading The ghost in the little house by William Holtz that Bolyston and Rose Wilder Lane met in Europe after World War I and became good enough friends that they lived in a house together in Albania for two years, and at Rocky Ridge Farm for several months after they returned to the US.

I haven't heard of her Carol Page series until I looked her up on Wikipedia just now.

Here are my possibilities:

✔Christmas Table: A Novel
✔Eat, Drink, and be Wary
For Whom the Book Tolls
✔Gourd to Death by Kirsten Weiss
Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix
✔Strega Nona
✔Strega Nona's Magic Lessons
✔Thread and Buried by Lea Wait
✔Waffle Lot Of Murder
Wedding Bear Blue
Where Have All the Birdies Gone?
✔Windsor Knot
✔Wrench in the Works

>11 markon: When I was in school, a bunch of us traded books around. Nancy Drew was very popular, but we also read Cherry Ames and Trixie Belden. I just learned about the Carol Page series recently too. Some beautiful reproduction copies are available for Sue Barton and Carol Page series. (My oldest sister is a nurse, and she recently told us that the reason she became a nurse is because she read the Sue Barton and Cherry Ames books as a kid.)

I'll be reading The Moon King by Neil Williamson for the double.

Looks like I'll be reading:

Floodpath / Job Wilkman
Countdown / Alan Weisman
The Bat / Jo Nesbo

I'm planning on Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis and A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik.

I read Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis - fun Christmas novella!

I'm going to do a leisurely reread of The way of thorn and thunder by Daniel Heath Justice.

I finished An Amish Christmas Wedding by Amy Clipston and others.

COMPLETED Fluency and Remanence by Jennifer Foehner Wells

The Bat / Jo Nesbo
3 stars

Harry is a police officer/detective from Norway. When a Norwegian woman is murdered in Australia, where she’s been living, Harry heads down to help the local police with the investigation. It seems that this may actually be the work of a serial killer, though it wasn’t initially obvious. Add in an Australian aboriginal police officer, a homosexual clown, and a Swedish barmaid as a love interest, and we have “The Bat”.

I didn’t find the backstory/personal interest story all that interesting. I do know I’m not as much a fan of noir mysteries. Is this one? Not sure. Also not always a fan of police procedurals. Is this one? It had a bit of that feeling to it (of both), but maybe it didn’t quite fit the definitions. Anyway, I’m calling this one “ok”. It did pick up at the very end, but somehow I think I missed an important tie-up. If I didn’t miss it, then something went very wrong. I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series.

>21 LibraryCin: I also thought that this was a mediocre novel and, I read it when I was into reading mysteries (yes, this is one), including police procedurals (yes, again). I'm told they get better but my reading rule-of-thumb is that if the first-in-series doesn't impress, I don't continue. There are just too many better books waiting to be discovered!

I read Sailor's Night Before Christmas which is a fun take-off on the Night Before Christmas. The colorful illustrations are a suitable accompaniment for the story, which features Santa as an Old Salt who arrives in a tugboat pulled by seahorses. I have a collection of take-offs on the Night Before Christmas, and it was a good opportunity to get the books out and read this favorite and off-beat Christmas story.

>22 Tanya-dogearedcopy: mysteries (yes, this is one),

Oh, I knew it fit "mysteries", just wasn't sure if it fit as a "noir" mystery.

Someone recommended a standalone by Nesbo, so I'll probably give that a try. If I don't like it, though, I likely won't try anymore.

>24 LibraryCin: Oh! Sorry! Yeah, IIRC this wasn’t dark enough to be considered noir, but then again, when I go dark, I go really dark— so maybe relative to a cozy it’s considered “noir”?

COMPLETED The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin

COMPLETED Newton by Peter Ackroyd

Starting Neutron Star by Larry Niven

Completed The Whipping Boy last night. Meh.

Read Second to Nun by Alice Loweecey.

Finished The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura
The description sounded like this was a quirky tale and in a way it was, but somehow it failed to appeal.

I finished The Whisper in the Gloom by Nicholas Blake. I hope to read No Orchids for Miss Blandish but in case I don't get to it, I am covered :)

COMPLETED Neutron Star by Larry Niven

January 2021 thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/327171

Thanks for the link, >33 majkia:!

I finished a couple of audiobook ROOTs in the past few days which work for this KIT:
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, 3.5* - a YA novel in which a teenaged girl from Louisiana arrives in London for a year at boarding school just when a series of Jack the Ripper style murders begin.

Wild Bird by Wendelin van Draanen, 4* - another YA novel, this time about a teenaged girl who, having "gone off the rails" with drugs and alcohol, stealing & lying, is sent by her parents to a wilderness therapy camp in the Utah desert.

The Turn of the Key / Ruth Ware.
4.25 stars

The book starts off with Rowan in jail, but we don’t know why. From there, she is writing letters to a lawyer, begging him to believe her story. We back up through these letters to find what happened. When she applied to be a nanny to three girls at their home, at the end of the interview, one of the girls gave her a “hug” and warns her away from coming back. Rowan takes the job, anyway, and is scared out of her wits when there are footsteps coming from above her room, apparently in a long-ago locked attic. The house itself is decked out with all modern amenities of a smart-house, where everything can be controlled via an app on a phone. This includes cameras and speakers in most rooms.

I listened to the audio and I don’t think I ever lost interest. This was so good. I really didn’t know what was going on and I wanted to keep listening to find out. It was creepy – at least there were plenty of parts that were. As the twists were coming at the end, there was one I guessed just minutes before it was revealed. The ultimate twist was the very end, though. The end added the extra 1/4 star for me.

Countdown: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth / Alan Weisman
3.5 stars

This primarily looks at human overpopulation of our planet. How can we survive? What do we need to do and how do we do it? Weisman looks at different countries, communities, cultures... Some are ones that have promoted large families. In some cases, some countries are reaching or have already reached their limit of what their country or area can realistically support – what have they done/are doing to help with this?

This was interesting, certainly a topic that many consider taboo, but really is one of the biggest issues when it comes to the issues with our planet’s environment (the other one being consumerism... which, of course, is amplified with a larger world population). Have to admit, though, it took a long time for me to read; it did help that a good chunk of it at the end was references.

I have completed both my December AlphaKit reads with Covent Garden in the Snow by Jules Wake and The Bishop's Wife by Robert Nathan.

Finished my W book for the month - Word to the Wise by Jenn McKinlay.

Finished my N book - Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

I finished Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind.

I've finished The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason Wright.

I read a short work by Lois McMaster Bujold, Winterfair Gifts which will work for W.

Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America... / Jon Wilkman
3.5 stars

In 1928 a fairly newly built dam near (and meant to serve) Los Angeles burst. The ensuing flood killed possibly around 500 people. This book looks at the building of the dam, the disaster itself, and the aftermath – the trial and the groups put together to try to figure out what went wrong. A long-time, popular man at the head of LA’s waterworks for decades was mostly fingered as being responsible, as he was the one mainly responsible for the building of the dam.

It was good. It was pretty slow to start, as the building of the dam wasn’t all that interesting to me. But it got better (that is, more interesting) once the flood actually happened. Even the follow-up in trying to figure out what happened kept my interest more than the initial building of it.

COMPLETED The Countertenor Wore Garlic by Mark Schweizer

(also reading "A Song for Nero" by Thomas Holt) (no touchstones?)

Couple more books completed: The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker and The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman.

finished Silver in the Wood (W) Emily Tesh

Finished Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg
4.5 stars

COMPLETED A Song for Nero by Thomas Holt

Starting "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins

COMPLETED The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Managed to read one book for each letter.

When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error, by Danielle Ofri

The Traveller and Other Stories, by Stuart Neville

I wrapped up the year with A Parcel of Patterns (by Jill Paton Walsh) this morning and managed to squeak this one in for the challenge! This was recommended to me a couple years ago by someone here on LT, after I had finished reading and enjoying Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders. This is a young adult novella taking place in the English village of Eyam (pronounced \EEM\)when the plague breaks out in 1666. Like Brooks' novel, this is based on true, surviving accounts of the people who elected to quarantine themselves from the rest of the world. Even I've been avoiding plague stories this year, and there were passages that seem to strongly resonate with the now-times despite it having been written in 1983, I loved this story!

>1 majkia: is it too late to update the Wiki?