Weird_O ROOTS 2016

I'm in for 40 this year, Pat.




2016ROOTs

Somethin' somethin', ya know?

I missed my ROOTs goal for 2015 by 5, completing 39 ROOTs rather than 44. I expect to do better in 2016.

   • I acquired a LOT of books during 2015, all of which will be ROOTs come January 1, 2016.
   • I set up some challenges partly (mostly) aimed at clearing the ROOTs.
   • I set my my target lower than what I estimate my real number (undisclosed, of course) will be.

About those challenges. I noticed that I have more than a dozen good "murder 'n' mayhem" books shelved but unread, ranging from Helter Skelter to Carl Hiaasen and Walter Mosley thomes to Career of Evil. Read one a month, I sez to myself. I also noticed I had quite a collection of Pulitzer Prize winners, many unread. So read 'em, I sez to meself; I got enough to read two a month. See that? I'm already at 36 ROOTs, but I haven't yet accounted for my two-division Doorstop Challenge or Mark's AACIII.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! This Is Gonna Be Great!

Hi Bill, welcome to the ROOTers!

Good luck with your rooting!

Happy 2016 ROOTing!

Good luck with your challenge!

Happy ROOTing 2016, Bill.

Bill, I'm glad you are going to be joining us again this year.

Would you please be so kind as to copy your ticker to the ticker thread? Once the HTML is in both places, whenever you update the ticker here on your thread it will also be updated in the ticker thread for me to use.

Hi Bill, good luck with your ROOT reading!

>8 cyderry: The TickerThing has been copied to the Master TickerList.

>9 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori. If you check out my thread (I'm getting it assembled), you'll see I'm stacking the deck. Going to clear a lot of books from the TBR bookcase. :-)

Hi Bill, I love those extra challenge in >2 weird_O: . Good luck with meeting them.

Thank you, ladies, for the colorful New Year's greetings.

Last evening, with ROOTs in mind (along with some other reading stimuli), I headed out on two minor errands, then dropped by a stellar used-book shop (okay, okay; this was the real impetus for the trip). Scored five books I want to read this year, just in time for them to be ROOTs. Ha ha ha. Sneaky, huh?

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Good Faith by Jane Smiley
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Sneaky, huh?

That's why we love you. :-)

Happiest of ROOT-ing!

>13 weird_O: Brilliant! Nice haul, too!

>13 weird_O: very well done, Bill.

>13 weird_O: Nice book haul, Bill. :-)

>10 weird_O: - "stacking the deck" sounds like a good to me. ;-)

Here's my reading card for January 2016.

AAC: Anne Tyler
    The Accidental Tourist
     Breathing Lessons
     Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Pulitzer Prize Novel: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1989)
Pulitzer Prize Miscellany: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (1997 Bio)
Dead Weight Doorstop: The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (615 pages)
Wedge Doorstop: The Quiet American by Graham Green (189 pages)
Murder 'n' Mayhem: Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
NFC (Biography/Memoir/Autobiography): Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

2015 Leftovers: The Singular Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolph Raspe et al
    Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris

Group Read: War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Half way through The Accidental Tourist. Forty pages to go in Munchausen. Not many pages into Uncle Remus.

All these are ROOTs.

Good job, Bill. And very nice organized!

But is was on the way, right?;) My BFF tells me that Cannery Row is Steinbeck's best.

Happy New Year! That's quite a plateful of reading matter!

A week into the new year, I've read four books, all ROOTs.

1. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (1/2/16)
2. The Singular Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolph Raspe and others (1/3/16)
3. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (1/5/16}
4. The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1/7/16)

Now reading The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris.

Wow, I'm impressed. The Gulag Archipelago is on my TBR list also!

>23 weird_O: - Excellent!

Congrats! How was Career of Evil?

Four ROOTs all ready! Way to go, Bill.

>26 avanders: Review here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5419439

>24 Tess_W: I've bailed--only temporarily, I hope--on the reading of The Gulag Archipelago. The copy I have is a very thick mass-market paperback with very small type. Just not comfortable for reading. I'll look for a more manageable package. My replacement was The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett, a 729-pager that I finished late last night. If you are interest in what I thought of that check in a few days at my 75-book challenge thread here:https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5419439

Having finished Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on the 9th and Old Wives' today (the 16th), I'm now up to six books for the year, all of them ROOTs. And I'm starting Angela's Ashes--yes, a ROOT--today. Breathing Lessons follows that, then War & Peace--yes, both ROOTs.

What can I say....

Great progress, weird-0! I just finished War and Peace and I like it.

>28 weird_O: thanks! I have the first 2 Galbraith books, but I haven't read them yet! I think I've just been worried that I will be disappointed. But A Casual Vacancy was quite good (even if not my normal "type" of book), and I'm sure I will like these as well! :) Sounds like Rowling's writing is her writing, and I will probably enjoy it no matter what she writes about...

>30 avanders: I liked the first two, Ava. And can't wait for part three to be translated.

Gee, a month has passed since I visited my ROOTs. In >28 weird_O: I was just starting Angela's Ashes, with Breathing Lessons on deck. I'm here today to report that those I completed in January, taking my reading total to 8, all ROOTs.

With February more than half gone, I've read six books, four of them ROOTs. The four are:

Our Town by Thornton Wilder (2/3/16)
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley (2/5/16)
The Tycoons by Charles Morris (2/10/16)
Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2/14/16)

So altogether, I've read 12 ROOTs books this year. My ticker-tocker up top is up-to-date.

If you are interested in my weird book reports, here are three:

Breathing Lessons: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5456913
The Old Wives' Tale: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5458883
Our Town: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5460011

Good job, Bill!

I've always wanted to read Our Town. Great review!

Yeah great job with your ROOTs!

Wull, thanks all. I'm doing what I can. :-)

The month is (almost) history. I'm not going to finish another book, and besides, the ones I'm reading now aren't ROOT books.

Here's a Weird ROOTs roundup: In February, I read 11 books. Seven were ROOTs.

Year to date: 15 ROOTs.

That there clicker-tracker gizmo is will be updated in 2 minutes.

Job well done, Bill!

March isn't over yet, but I read my last ROOT for this month.

Here's a Weird ROOTs roundup: In March, I've read 6 books, so far, and will complete 2 more by March 31. Two I've already read were ROOTs, but that'll be it.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (3/8/16)
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (3/22/16)

Year to date: 17 ROOTs.

That there clicker-tracker gizmo is updated.

Did you enjoy War and Peace?

I made a mistake! I forgot that I found and purchased A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley on December 29, 2015, specifically so it would be a ROOT. So actually, I read THREE ROOTs in March.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (3/8/16)
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (3/11/16)
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (3/22/16)

Year to date: 18 ROOTs.

That there clicker-tracker gizmo is updated.

>40 Tess_W: Tess, I am still sorting out War & Peace. I read about half the book in January into February, took a break from it, and read the second half in March. In February, I was upbeat and thought the story and presentation were excellent. Then reading the second half drained a lot of my enthusiasm. It kept going and going and going...

I'm proud of myself for getting through all one thousand six hundred seventy-two pages, I'm glad I read it, but I ain't going to reread it.

>42 weird_O:, I feel the same way about War and Peace. I came, I saw, I conquered....no need to do it again!

April 2016 is kaput. Only four books completed, but three were ROOTs.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr (4/4/16)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (4/28/16)
John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet (4/31/16)

Year to date: 21 ROOTs.

That there clicker-tracker gizmo is updated.

>44 weird_O: Reminds me to dig out Benet's anthology and re-read John Brown's Body as well as By the Waters of Babylon

>44 weird_O: what did you think of The Alienist? It either is or used to be on my shelves.. I could always put it back... ;)

>46 avanders: My take on The Alienist is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/220240#5543798

I did like it. About the time I finished it, a came upon Carr's The Angel of Darkness, which apparently is a sequel, with many of the same characters. And just after posting my report, DrNeutron passed along a link to an article reporting that Carr is working on a second sequel and also a prequel.

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/04/11/alienist-author-caleb-carr-returns

>45 Tess_W: Well, go for it, Tess. I wasn't sure I could cope with so long a poem. But I've read some excellent Civil War books by the likes of Shelby Foote, Bruce Catton, Henry Steele Commager, James McPherson, U. S. Grant, yahda yahda. Benet to me did a very good job in weaving together all the threads, capturing the moods and the suffering, hardships, and devastation.

>47 weird_O: thanks! I didn't realize there was a sequel... or more! Very cool :)

I've been neglectful. My last update on ROOTs was two months ago. Here's what I've read in May and June.

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (5/3/16)
A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (5/5/16)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (5/6/16)
Truman by David McCullough (6/2/16)
A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester (6/12/16)
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth (6/13/16)
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (6/19/16)
Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor (6/25/16)
So Human an Animal by Rene Dubos (6/30/16)

That's nine ROOTs to add to the 21 finished at the end of May. Now up to 30. It does look like I'll surpass more goal of 30 ROOTs.

My latest ROOT was A Crack in the Edge of the World as well, Bill. It was a good one.

Excellent progress so far! Good luck with the last bit of your goal!

End of July is here.

A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck, photos by Robert Capa (7/3/16)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (7/4/16)
March by Geraldine Brooks (7/10/16)
The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck (7/19/16)
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (7/23/16)
Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen (7/25/16)

Six ROOTs in July, producing a year-to-date total of 36. Four to go. I think I'll hit my goal of 40 for the year, probably in August.

Great total! I will probably join you in reaching the ROOT goal in August.

Maybe I can join too! Just 5 more to go for me.

>54 rabbitprincess: >55 connie53: Sure, sure. Jump right in.

>56 weird_O: How creative!

Wow you're doing great - you're almost at your goal!

I read six more ROOTs in August. Two books past my goal for the year!

The rest is gravy!!

Hooray, well done for surpassing your goal!

>59 weird_O: Excellent work! :)

I neglected to list the books I read in August. As it worked out, 6 of my 7 reads were ROOTs.

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (8/2/16)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (8/6/16)
Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark (8/7/16)
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (8/16/16)
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (8/20/16)
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner (8/31/16)

Woo hoo congrats on meeting & passing your goal!

Congrats on reaching your goal!

>63 avanders: >64 Tess_W: Thank you much. Maybe I should revise my goal, adding, say, 3.5 ROOTs for each of the four months remaining in the year. That'd be 14 ROOTs to add to the 42 I have, yielding 54 for 2016. I'm pretty certain I can reach that goal.

>65 weird_O: You could do that, or don't change your goal and go over your goal. Any books over your goal fills the gap for those who don't make their goal and helps the group reach the group goal.

Congrats on reaching your goal!

>66 Tess_W: that's what I was going to say ;)

So I reached--even surpassed--my goal in August. Now I've stretched that margin by...wait for it...wait for it...ONE!!!!

Forty-three for the year so far. ONE! Oh man, I am killing it.

Bwaahahahahaha!

LOL, very good job, Bill.

October was a good reading month, and four of the nine books read were ROOTs. I should be at 47. The ticker is not cooperating with my effort to update it. Ah, technology. Can't live with it, can't kill it.

I blame Drumpf's Russian hackers.