#CBR8 Book 74: "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

Page count: 528 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Francie Nolan grows up in the tenements of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York in the early years of the 20th Century. The granddaughter of German and Irish immigrants, Francie and her younger brother Neeley (real name Cornelius) grow up dirt poor, but thankfully don't really realise it until they get older. Their mother, Katie, works hard as a janitress to make sure they have a place to stay and food on the table. Their father, Johnny, is handsome and charming, a gifted singer, and a drunk. He works as a singing waiter when he can, but is too unreliable to hold down a steady job. Francie and Neeley help out as best they can, collecting junk and selling it for pennies.

The daughter and sister of women who never even learned how to read and write, Katie Nolan values education above all, and is determined that both of her children are going to get educated, whatever the cost. Even before the children are literate themselves, she reads them a page from the Bible and from the collected works of Shakespeare. Francie is quiet and bookish and loves the local library, determined to read her way through every book on the shelves, from A to Z. She reads a book a day and does well in school, so well that the family lie about her address so she can go to a better school in a more prosperous part of town.

Francie works hard to do well in school, but has to get a job rather than go to high school, or her family can't manage. She doesn't give up on her dream of going to college eventually, though, and through perseverance and determination, slowly manages to achieve her goals.

I'm sure a lot of American teenagers possibly read this book at some point during their school years. Written in the 1940s, when it wouldn't have been as much of a historical novel as it is now, it is a wonderful, if very sad and affecting, portrayal of what growing up poor in Brooklyn pre-World War I would have been like. It's a book that doesn't shy away from showing the harsh realities of being poor and hungry, but it's not an utterly miserable book, by any means. The Nolan children may not have a lot of money, but they are taught to be responsible, work hard and they have their pride. Katie Nolan doesn't take charity from anyone and when her husband, who she stole away from her best friend because Katie just knew she had to have him, turns out to be weak and unreliable, well, then she just shoulders more of the burden of providing for the family. Johnny Nolan may be a drunk, but he's never violent, abusive or cruel and he does what he can to take care of his wife and children.

As she grows older, it becomes very obvious to Francie that her mother will always love Neeley best, and she quietly resents her mother for this fact. At the same time, she herself admits that she loves her father more, as he seems to see her and understand her in a way her mother never could. She's a fairly lonely child, finding it hard to trust women other than her closest kin, having seen the judgemental nature of many of the women in the neighbourhood. Living mainly in her books, she nonetheless sees the realities of life and the frailties of human nature all around her in the tenements and in the marriages of her parents and aunts.

Even with snatches of humour and the occasional hint of levity, the book really is very sad for a lot of the story, because there is nothing nostalgic or romantic about being the working poor. As Francie comes of age, she is fully aware how often she and her family are judged, and hard they must work just to make ends meet, let alone to put something aside for a rainy day. She comes to share her mother's opinion that education is the way out of poverty and does her very best to excel in school.

This book made me smile, it made me sad, and towards the end, it made me actually sob, because I had been so engrossed in the story that I didn't want it to end. About two thirds of the way through, the story was getting so grim and I was so despondent that I spoiled the rest of the story on Wikipedia. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read to the end if I didn't know that things were going to get better for the Nolans eventually.

A wonderful coming of age story, chronicling a very real past, with a wonderful set of characters. Francie's immediate and extended family are all wonderful. This book is a beloved classic for a reason. It's a sad and emotional reading experience, but is not relentlessly bleak all the way through and there is hope and a promise of a better life for the surviving characters at then end of the story. 

Judging a book by its cover: The version I read has a simple and elegant cover, with the major colours being green (along the spine) and brown, towards the bottom of the book and reflected in the font used for the title. There is a faint sketch of a tree behind the title, also done in greens. It's a good cover, if nothing flashy or too exciting.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 64: "Throne of the Crescent Moon" by Saladin Ahmed

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Resorting to the blurb for a plot summary, because I need to get my reviews up to date, and trying to come up with my own synopsis takes too long:

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms are at a boiling point. A struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious Falcon Prince is reaching its climax. In the midst of this brewing rebellion, a series of brutal supernatural murders strike at the heart of the Kingdoms.

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, three score and more years old, has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives. But when an old flame's family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter's path. Raseed bas Raseed, a hidebound holy warrior, is eager to deliver God's justice. Zamia Badawi has been gifted with the near-mythical power of the Lion-Shape, but lives only to avenge her father's death. Until she meets Raseed and Adoulla.

When they learn that the murders and the brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing, they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn the city, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin. 
 
First of all, I would like to point out that the blurb I copied from the back of my book actually contained TWO separate grammatical errors, that I felt the need to correct before transcribing it. That's some piss-poor copy-editing there, Gollancz publishers. Real nice. I can't have spent too much time reading the back before picking this book up at a clearance sale at the Oslo Airport book shop a few years ago. I may have refrained from buying the book if I'd seen that. Now, having read the whole book (as far as I can recall, there are no egregious grammatical errors in the actual book), I'm glad I did buy it. It was an entertaining, and out of the ordinary read, for me.

Second of all, the blurb makes it seem as if Adoulla is actually pretty much retired when these supernatural murders occur. That is not the case. He is in fact pretty much the only one still trained in the old ways to kill ghuls and other horrible monsters, with most of his peers either already retired or dead. Naturally, he's getting a bit fed up, and feeling his age more and more. Raseed is a deeply religious dervish and Adoulla's apprentice. He's frequently shocked and outraged at the older man's speech and behaviour, but there is also clearly a lot of affection between them. Together, they work hard for little monetary reward and keep risking their lives to keep the populace of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms safe.

Zamia Banu Laith Badawi is a desert warrior, who was chosen to take on the role as Protector of her tribe, meaning she can shape-shift into a lion with supernaturally sharp claws and teeth. Normally, the role of Protector would be bestowed on a man, and after Zamia's entire tribe was brutally murdered by an evil, soul-stealing sorcerer, she is starting to believe that she is unworthy of her gifts. She has nonetheless sworn to avenge her people and while initially sceptical to Adoulla and Raseed, she agrees to join forces with them. As it turns out that her lion-shape is the only thing able to harm the incorporeal Jackal-spirit helping the sorcerer, her aid becomes invaluable to the ghul hunters.

The majority of epic fantasy seems to be both written and largely populated by white men. Luckily, the fantasy landscape isn't all J.R.R "I have three women of any importance in my fantasy epic, and let's face it, Arwen isn't much to write home about" Tolkien any more, but unlike in paranormal fantasy (where pretty much all the writers and protagonists I can think of are women, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden being the notable exception), there is still a strong dominance of Caucasian men both writing and populating the stories. Now, Saladin Ahmed is also a dude, but he is of Arabian descent and there is not, as far as I can tell from their physical descriptions, a single white person in this book. The setting, characters, supernatural threats and magic is all Arabic-inspired, reminding me a lot of A Thousand and One Nights.

Two of the protagonists are men, one older, one young, but they would clearly be completely overpowered if not for Zamia. The most important supporting character is also a formidable woman of rank and magical abilities and it shouldn't be quite so surprising when women are given prominence and an equal share of the glory in fantasy. But it sort of is.

So why no more than 3.5 stars? Despite the interesting and unusual setting, the pretty cool characters and the fairly action-packed plot, I just kept waiting to get more engrossed in the story. It took me four full days to finish the book, which is unusual for a book of only 300 pages. I will absolutely be keeping my eye out for the next book in the series, as I hope that now that I've been introduced to the world and the characters, the next book may be more of a page-turner for me. A promising beginning to a series, but not the most exciting fantasy I've read. Huge kudos for doing something different, though.

Judging a book by its cover: The UK paperback I own of this has a fairly plain cover, a bluish purple with hints of mosaic decoration, with the Throne of the title prominently displayed, even highlighted as with a spotlight. There is a curved sword resting on it and quite a lot of blood on the sword, as well as the seat and base of the throne. I don't want to spoil too much of the book, but the image is really quite apt. The US cover has an artist's rendering of what the three protagonists might look like while fighting ghuls, but I actually prefer this simple cover, as my mental image of the characters doesn't match up with that of the other cover.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

Reading Challenges for 2016

So in my end of year review, I said I would be doing fewer reading challenges this year. That is still true, but it turns out, that when you get hooked on reading challenges, it's very hard to cut down as new and exciting ones are announced. I will not be doing the insane amount I did last year, because frankly, it was exhausting and while I like to make lists, I don't exactly want to feel like everything I read has to be able to tick off some box or other.

I do a lot of reading, because it's how I relax and I plan to complete at least a double Cannonball by the end of the year - helping to fund cancer research through my blogging seems even more important now with the horrible start to 2016, with cancer killing great men like Lemmy, David Bowie and Alan Rickman. My godfather is currently also fighting the disease, and sadly it doesn't look good. So I will read, and I will blog and try to promote the Cannonball Read website so we get a lot of hits. A lot of the challenges I will be doing, will just be getting credit for reading books I was already going to read. My current TBR on Goodreads is getting ridiculous and even having gotten rid of over 200 books last year, I have years worth of books to read, either in paper or e-book form. Of course, there is just no conceivable way that I will stop buying books or hoping I'll get them as presents. So the list will keep growing. To that end, I've promised myself that I have to read more books I actually own personally, not just books I've added to the TBR and am planning to borrow.

Last year, I made separate sign-up posts for every challenge. That took forever. It's going to take long enough to link all the different ones in this post, but that's the way I'm doing it. Hope I don't offend any of the hosts of the various challenges by doing it this way.

1. Obviously the Cannonball Read. I managed a triple Cannonball, 156 books read and reviewed in 2015, but that was partially because I broke my arm badly and was off work for about six weeks at the end of the year. I doubt I will have the time or energy for that many, but hope to complete a double, 104, at least. 

2. You Read How Many Books? hosted by the Crafty Engineer. The minimum level is a 100, and since I read way more than that last year, I'm trying for level 2, 150 books.

3. Alphabet Soup 2016, hosted by Dollycas. This is my third year doing this challenge, which basically means I have to read 26 books, each starting with one letter of the alphabet (A, and and the can be removed). Only Q, X and Z are slightly different. They can be anywhere in the title.

4. Colour Coded Reading Challenge 2016, hosted by My Reader's Block. Since this challenge opened to let you read books where the colour in question was the dominant colour on the cover, not just had to be featured in some way in the name of the book, this has become one of my favourite challenges. I just had to repeat it. The colours in question are black, white, red, blue, yellow, green and brown. There are also categories for any other colour and "suggests colour".

5. The 2016 TBR Pile Reading Challenge, hosted by Bookish Lifestyle helped motivate me to read a staggering 90 books on my TBR list last year, so I need to sign up for it again. Their highest level is Married with Children, at 50+ books, so that's the one I'm doing again this year.

6. The Bring Your Own Books Challenge, or B.Y.O.B, is hosted by Literary Distractions. It's a new one for me this year, but ties into the reading what I own goal. Having checked my To Read shelf in LibraryThing, it seems I have at least (because I sometimes forget to tag books correctly) 368 books on my shelves, either real dead tree books or e-books, that I haven't read. I should do something about that. There aren't any levels for this one, but I've set myself the personal goal that I have to read at least 3-4 books a month that I owned before the start of 2016.

7. The 2016 Monthly Key Word Challenge, hosted by My Soul Called Life, is fairly simple. There is a list of key words posted for every month of the year. The goal is to read at least one book every month that fits with one of the key words. Creativity in interpreting the key words is encouraged.

8. What an Animal IX Challenge, hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews is also one I've enjoyed for several years and which doesn't really require me to change my reading habits, just keep track of what I already read. Any book with an animal in the title, on the cover, featuring an animal in a prominent role or with a character who is or turns into an animal (vampires and other supernatural creatures also count) is eligible and that means I can easily complete level 4 - 21 or more books.

9. Finishing the Series 2016 is now hosted by Bea's Book Nook and is another one of those challenges where I basically get credit for doing what I should be doing anyway. I start a lot of series, and then forget about them. This challenge tries to encourage you to pick them back up, reading as many books as required until you get to the last book currently published in the series. Having completed 23 last year, I'm signing up for level 4 - 7 or more series.

10. I suspect the 2016 Women Challenge, hosted by Peek a Book is actually aimed at someone who doesn't primarily read books by female authors. This is another challenge I'm going back to, because it doesn't actually require any effort on my part, and sometimes it's nice to just take the easy credit. I've signed up for the highest possible level - Wonder Woman - to read 20+ books by female authors. To give myself at least a teeny tiny bit of a challenge, I won't allow myself to count any author more than once, even if I read multiple books by them.

11. The 2016 New Author Challenge, hosted by Literary Escapism, is now in its eight year, and encourages readers to discover new authors, either debut ones, or established writers you just haven't tried anything by before. I doubt I'll be able to reach the highest level of 50, so I'm signing up to read stuff by at least 25 new authors in 2016.

12. The 2016 New to You Challenge, hosted by The Herd Presents, allows for some crossover with the previous challenge mentioned, as anything new to me - be it an author, a series, a genre all count. I'm signing up for level 4 "Going for a Swim" with this one, at least 50 new things over the course of the year.

13. The 2016 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, once again hosted by Passages to the Past, is one of the ones I seem to be able to complete without actually challenging myself much, because I read a whole lot of historical novels. Last year, it took me most of the year to finish the highest level, "Prehistoric", with 50+ books, but that doesn't mean that I should aim for lower this year. I like historical novels of all kinds, I will aim high once more.

14. The Pick Your Genre Challenge, also hosted by The Herd Presents, allows the reader to pretty much design their own reading challenge. As I'm not really doing a romance specific challenge this year, I've decided that my genre of choice will be just that - romance.

15. The 2016 Diverse Reads Challenge, hosted by Chasing Faerietales, doesn't have any set reading levels. They just want you to read diverse books, with main characters including but not limited to LGBTQIA, persons of colour, gender diversity, people with disability (including physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual or developmental; chronic conditions, mental illnesses and addiction) and ethnic, cultural and religious minorities. This is something I need to be better at, so I'm going to try to read at least 30 books that fit these criteria in 2016.

16. What's in a Name 2016, hosted by The Worm Hole is a fairly small one, requiring only that I read six books. It was a fun one last year, and I decided to repeat it after seeing the categories. I need to read a book featuring: the name of a country, an item of clothing, an item of furniture, a profession, a month of the year and the word "tree" in the title.

17. The 2016 Literary Pickers Challenge, hosted by Delighted Reader is a new one for me this year, a literary scavenger hunt. There's a list of 100 different items to be found in romances (or books with a strong romance element) and I thought it looked like fun. I'm signing up for level 2, "Garage Sale Guru" and will be looking carefully in each of the romantic books I read this year to see what I can cross off the list.

18. I think I qualify as a Reading Challenge Addict and am signing up for "Out of this World", 16+ Reading Challenges entered (and hopefully completed).

I will also try to do the April and October Dewey Read-a-thons and sign up for this year's R.I.P read in September and October, because I love those. It turns out I'm really bad at limiting myself, and that if I don't have a dozen or so challenges to compete in, I'm at a loss as to what I should read next.