Nonfiction November 2020: Book Pairings

Posted on November 10, 2020 by WordsAndPeace

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#nonficnov

Book Pairings

hosted by Julz of Julz Reads

This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.
It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!”
or just two titles that you think would go well together.
Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history
by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

Today, I’m offering you 3 novels paired with 3 nonfiction books I read this year

Click on the covers to get more details

BOOK PAIRING #1

BIRDS

Migrations:
VERDICT: Both beautiful and heart-wrenching. And of course, a must for all birders.
Franny, from Galway, Ireland, knows that it’s probably the last time the Arctic Terns are migrating, so she decided to follow and accompany them on their last journey.
She goes to Greenland, where the bird starts its migration, and manages to convince Captain Ennis Malone to accept her on his shipping boat The Saghani. His crew has had a hard time finding fish, also because of global warming and all we have done to our planet, but Franny is a scientist and knows that the Arctic Tern adjusts its route to where they can find fish to eat. So that should work, right?
Things get complicated…

BOOK PAIRING #2

MARIE-ANTOINETTE

Becoming Marie-Antoinette:
The book is excellent at describing the royal families and all the petty details of everyday life, from the rising to the preparation for the night; at showing what it would have taken to become the queen of France, lots of advantages maybe, but also lots of sacrifices.

BOOK PAIRING #3

TEA

The Broken Teaglass:
Take words, a job with words and dictionaries, and a good mystery, well, how could I resist that!
A neat, smart, very enjoyable and quick read.

HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THESE?
WOULD YOU HAVE ANOTHER
BOOK PAIRING RELATED TO BIRDS OR TEA?

Recap: 20 Books of Summer 2020

Posted on September 3, 2020 by WordsAndPeace

Once again, 746books.com organized a special challenge:

20 Books of Summer
June 1-August 31

Summer is already over so it’s time to see how it went for this challenge.

I’m happy with the amount of books I read:
I reached 20 books on July 28, and ended up reading 28 books.
These were not necessarily the 20 I had lined up, I had to adjust to urgent books coming my way for review.
Unfortunately, I only reviewed 6 of these.

And I was planning to connect with participants of this challenge, which I didn’t do much at all, by lack of time.

Out of these 28, 15 books were in print, and 13 in audio (6 of these were Bible books)
12 were mysteries/thrillers

Books I especially liked?:
scratch that, there are too many!!

I will just highlight four books that were different, types of revelations:

Or What You Will:
An amazing author, totally new to me.
Great structure, so many references
VERDICT: Unique fantasy love letter to the Renaissance. Luscious!
See my review, with excerpts

If You Cross The River:
I got this in 2019, why did I wait so long to read it?
Incredible writing. I devoured it in no time

Migrations:
wow, certainly one of my favorites of the year so far.
VERDICT: Both beautiful and heart-wrenching. And of course, a must for all birders.
See my review, with pictures and data

Killer, Come Back to Me
BIG revelation, I didn’t even know he had written crime fiction. Did you?
And he is so so good at it!

So here is the file with my 28 books.

Did you participate?
What was your favorite book this Summer?

2020: July wrap-up

Posted on August 1, 2020 by WordsAndPeace

JULY 2020 WRAP-UP

Exceptionally, like many of you I suspect, no vacation this year. Apart from a short semi staycation week with just a quarter of my regular tutoring hours, so that I could clean the house… and so listen to more audiobooks, as I never do the one without the other!
I usually don’t read much if I go on vacation somewhere. So having no distraction at home, the reading schedule has remained steady.
So much so that I have already read 21/20 books of Summer. I’ll probably reach 32 or more by the end of August.

📚 So here are the titles I read in July:

12 books:
7 in print
= with 2,122 pages, a daily average of 68 pages/day
5 in audio
= 23H43, a daily average of 45 minutes

5 in mystery:

The Murder on the Links, #2 by Agatha Christie – audio, for The Classics Club
No Woods so Dark as These, by Randall Silvis – ebook, for review for Criminal Element. Review live on 8/3
Poirot Investigates #3 by Agatha Christie – audio, for The Classics Club
Celle qui pleurait sous l’eau, by Niko Tackian – ebook, readalong with a French student
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd #4 by Agatha Christie – audio, for The Classics Club

4 in nonfiction:

The First Book of Samuel – audio, for The Classics Club
I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf, by Grant Snider
The Second Book of Samuel – audio, for The Classics Club
Marie Antoinette’s World, by Will Bashor- ebook for review for France Book Tours Review live on 8/14

2 in literary fiction:

A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami – ebook, readalong with the Online Murakami Book Club (meeting on Discord)
Complètement cramé, by Gilles Legardinier- ebook, readalong with the French Book Club (meeting on Discord)

1 in children book:

The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate

MY FAVORITE BOOKS THIS PAST MONTH

Lots of great books, but I’ll go with the less heavy ones, to fit a Summer mood.

READING CHALLENGES & RECAP

Classics Club: 38/50 (from October 2019-until September 2024)
Japanese Literature Challenge: 9 books read
Total of books read in 2020 = 72/110
Number of books added to my TBR this past month= 33

BOOKS I REVIEWED THIS PAST MONTH

GIVEAWAYS

The open giveaways are on my homepage

And we have 2 books available for reviews on France Book Tours
One is a historical novel with a famous musician in Paris.
The other is a horror novel based on a super famous French classic!