Tag: Reading Challenges

The Epic of Gilgamesh

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January 22, 2023

3:44 pm

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The Epic of Gilgamesh
translated by Andrew George

Description (from back cover copy):

Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as far as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, predates Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh’s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality.

First Sentence:

He who saw the Deep, the country’s foundation,
[who knew the proper ways,] was wise in all matters!

It’s been a rough weekend chez Tangled Skein, but I’m determined to get a blog entry up today.

This is one of those books I’ve heard referenced many, many times, but I’m pretty sure was not part of the Comparative Literature course I took in college. I think Ancient Near East was on a different syllabus.

For a first reading, I wouldn’t recommend this particular edition. While some translations blend the multiple extant versions of the text into a single work, this approach is more academic. Various iterations – “Standard Version of the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic”, “Sumerian Poems of Gilgamesh”, “Fragments of Old Versions of the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic”, and “Miscellaneous Babylonian Fragments” – are presented as separate chapters. Specific markers denote when text is restored from multiple sources, as well as indicating text missing from the available tablets entirely. A lengthy introduction explains all of this, and sets the poem in context for the modern reader.

This format provides an excellent study of what is available, what is missing, and how the text may have changed over time. For a reader completely new to the epic, it is a lot of detail to take in while simultaneously just trying to follow the plot.

Source: Purchased from Amazon

Challenges: Classics Club and 2023 TBR Pile



The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2021, edited by Lee Child

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August 25, 2022

6:45 pm

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The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2021
edited by Lee Child

Description (from Goodreads):

Under the auspices of New York City’s legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller Lee Child has selected the twenty most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

Given my choice, I gravitate toward cozy mysteries and historicals. (And, of course, Sherlock Holmes.) So, I’ve never read most of the authors in this anthology. And now my TBR has gotten even longer.

As with any anthology, there were pieces I liked more than others, but the overall quality was fantastic. There was even a Holmes story, David Marcum’s “The Adventure of the Home Office Baby”. I didn’t catch it in The Strand, so it was nice to read it here.

The next edition is being edited by Sara Paretsky. I’m already looking forward to it.

Source: Picked up in the exhibit hall at ALA Annual 2022

Challenges: Read Harder 2022: Read a “Best ___ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice.



The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander

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February 5, 2022

5:08 pm

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The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander by Homer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description (from back cover copy):

Composed around 730 B.C., Homer’s Iliad recounts the events of a few momentous weeks in the protracted ten-year war between the invading Achaeans, or Greeks, and the Trojans in their besieged city of Ilion. And, as told by Homer, this ancient tale of a particular Bronze Age conflict becomes a sublime and sweeping evocation of the destruction of war throughout the ages.

Carved close to the original Greek, acclaimed classicist Caroline Alexander’s new translation is swift and lean, with the driving cadence of its source—a translation epic in scale and yet devastating in its precision and power.

First Sentence:

Wrath – sing, goddess, of the ruinous wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles
that inflicted woes without number upon the Achaeans,
hurled forth to Hades many strong souls of warriors
and rendered their bodies prey for the dogs,
for all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished;
sing from when they two first stood in conflict —
Atreus’ son, lord of men, and godlike Achilles.

Homer’s Illiad is a Classic-with-a-Capital-C. I think I must have read some of it as part of a comparative literature course in college, but I don’t remember it at all, so aside from vague recollections of Greek mythology and a middle school play about the Trojan War (mostly memorable for a joke that none of us understood at the time), I came to it without any background.

I really appreciated Arnold’s introduction, which went over what is known about Homer and the Epic Cycle, as well as the historical setting and the major players in the drama. The map and family trees provided were a helpful reference – for some reason, I had particular difficulty remembering that Alexandros is Paris, and who was related to whom on which side of the war.

War is the center of this poem, and it is not pretty. There is chapter after chapter of This-Guy-Son-of-That-Guy-Brother-of-This-Other-Guy-King-of-That-Land slew That-Guy-Son-of-This-Guy-Nephew-of-That-Other-Guy-Ruler-of-Such-and-Such-People in graphic ways that emphasize the absolute brutality of battle (even if the grasp of anatomy is questionable). And there are lots of animal sacrifices described in detail.

The sacrifices are meant to keep the favor of the gods, who are busy squabbling amongst themselves on Olympus. That both sides are performing sacrifices and praying to the same fickle gods is also a factor, it seems.

The last few chapters, in which Achilles is finally prodded out of his truly epic sulk and joins in the fighting, take the stakes up a notch, but in the end, the war still hasn’t reached its conclusion. So much horrific bloodshed, and this is only a tiny portion of the Trojan War.

The Iliad is one of the books on my Classics Club list, which I have been neglecting. It’s one of the earliest works on my list, and an important text in Western Literature and History, but I suspect it’s never going to rank among my personal favorites.

Source: Purchased at The Last Bookshop, Los Angeles, February 2020

Challenges: Back to the Classics: Classic Set in a Place You’d Like to Visit (we’re going to assume visiting the modern-day site counts, since I don’t particularly wish to visit the last year of an epic war, thanks); Official TBR Pile Challenge; Mount TBR; and Classics Club.

Murder Outside the Lines (Pen & Ink Mysteries #3) by Krista Davis

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January 17, 2022

7:00 am

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Murder Outside the Lines
by Krista Davis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Publisher Description (via GoodReads):

With Halloween just around the corner, the fall colors in Georgetown are brilliant. As manager of the Color Me Read bookstore, coloring book creator Florrie Fox has arranged for psychic author Hilda Rattenhorst to read from Spooktacular Ghost Stories. But the celebrity medium arrives for the event in hysterics, insisting she just saw a bare foot sticking out of a rolled-up carpet in a nearby alley. Is someone trying to sweep murder under the rug? Florrie calls in her policeman beau, Sergeant Eric Jonquille, but the carpet corpse has disappeared without a trace.

Then in the middle of her reading, Hilda chillingly declares that she feels the killer’s presence in the store. Is this a publicity stunt or a genuine psychic episode? It seems there’s no happy medium. When a local bibliophile is soon discovered missing, a strange mystery begins to unroll. Now it’s up to Florrie and Jonquille to expose a killer’s true colors . . . 


First Line:

The crate was delivered to Color Me Read around noon on Thursday.

It’s Spooky Time in Georgetown in the third Pen & Ink Mystery. Florrie Fox is comfortable in her renovated carriage house home, her job as bookshop manager, and her other job creating adult coloring books. So, naturally, things take a turn for the wacky. A human skull arrives in the deliveries. Strange noises come from nowhere. The celebrity psychic booked for an author event shows up claiming she just saw what might be a murder victim, but there is no corpse to be found.

In addition to the present-day mystery, a 200-year-old ghost story is told in pieces, eventually tying into the main story and adding to the atmosphere. In the end, of course, all the seemingly-supernatural happenings get rational explanations. Well, mostly.

This is a fun addition to the series. I only wish I’d read it in the fall for the proper mood. I’ve read both of the previous volumes, but it’s been a while, so I don’t really remember the details. I didn’t really need to, though; there’s enough information in the text to bring readers up to speed on the important things without doing a full recap of everything that’s happened. There’s also a “Cast of Characters” in the front that I found very useful.

There is an ongoing thread about the disappearance of a child (the daughter of Florrie’s boss) years ago that I hope gets some resolution eventually. That was one detail that I had completely forgotten about, so when a reference to it popped up, it was jarring. If harm to children is a no-go for you, dear reader, you might want to skip this series. Other than that, I really enjoy these cozy mysteries and look forward to the next book, A Colorful Scheme, currently slated to publish in August 2022.

Source: Checked out from my public library

Challenges: Read Harder 2022 Task #2: Read a book set in a bookstore

Reading Challenges 2022

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January 12, 2022

7:00 am

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Sepia-toned picture of two piles of books
Image by Thorsten Frenzel from Pixabay

Oh, look. It’s January again.

I actually started this post in December, which might say something about how this is going already.

I’m signing up for four reading challenges this year, along with my ongoing Classics Club list, which is going to play a large part in three of the challenges.

My 2022 Reading Challenges:

  • Read Harder 2022: From the folks at Book Riot, this challenge (now in its 8th year) is “designed to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books.” I managed 22/24 tasks in 2021, largely thanks to a big push in December. Goal for 2022: spread the effort out a bit more.
  • Back to the Classics Challenge 2022: I’m so glad Karen at Books and Chocolate is hosting this again. After my showing of 0 tasks last year, there’s nowhere to go but up, right? I’ll be pulling from my Classics Club 2019-2023 list, which I’m still a teensy bit behind on.
  • Mount TBR Challenge 2022: Another one I completely dropped in 2021. One thing I did do last year, though, was purchase several of the books I want to read from my Classics Club list, which means they all count toward this goal. I also have at least half a shelf of books received when I was part of a mystery-of-the-month club that I would like to read and then probably donate to the library.
  • Official TBR Pile Challenge 2022: Adam at Roof Beam Reader has brought back the Official TBR Pile Challenge. Unlike Mount TBR, this one requires a list at the beginning of the year. My list has its own Official TBR Pile Challenge 2022 page.

I will once again be tracking the challenges using the post tags and using the pages linked under “Reading Challenges“.

How about you? Any goals for 2022?

2021 Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

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January 9, 2022

7:00 am

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Well. That was certainly a year, wasn’t it? Remember all those reading challenges I signed up for in 2021? Let’s see how those went!

Read Harder 2021
Goal: 24 Books
Result: 22 (92%)

  1. Read a book you’ve been intimidated to read
  2. Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
  3. Read a non-European novel in translation: The Others by Sarah Blau
  4. Read an LGBTQ+ history book: Stonewall: A Building, an Uprising, a Revolution by Rob Sanders
  5. Read a genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author: Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
  6. Read a fanfic: Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
  7. Read a fat-positive romance
  8. Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
  9. Read a middle grade mystery: Linked by Gordon Korman
  10. Read an SFF anthology edited by a person of color: A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology edited by Dhonielle Clayton
  11. Read a food memoir by an author of color: The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-american Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
  12. Read a work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color: The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
  13. Read a book with a cover you don’t like: Shirlick Holmes and the Case of the Wandering Wardrobe by Jane Yolen
  14. Read a realistic YA book not set in the U.S., UK, or Canada: If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
  15. Read a memoir by a Latinx author: Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx by Sonia Manzano
  16. Read an own voices book about disability: The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer
  17. Read an own voices YA book with a Black main character that isn’t about Black pain: Tristan Strong Destroys the World (Tristan Strong #2) by Kwame Mbalia
  18. Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader: No Room for Small Dreams: Courage, Imagination, and the Making of Modern Israel by Shimon Peres
  19. Read a historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist: The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan
  20. Read a book of nature poems: The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane
  21. Read a children’s book that isn’t about disability that includes a main character with a disability: Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
  22. Read a book set in the Midwest: Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park
  23. Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness: Empty by Susan Burton
  24. Read a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn’t die: Murder Always Barks Twice (Chatty Corgi Mystery #2) by Jennifer Hawkins

There were several books that I sought out specifically to satisfy challenges, so I feel this did what it was supposed to do in broadening my reading horizons. I had a book picked out for task 7, but I just ran out of time. And I never did figure out what to read for task 1. At least, not with enough time left in the year to finish.

2021 Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Goal: 25 books (silver), and 10% feedback ratio
Result: 39, and 10% feedback ratio

I gave feedback on a whole slew of titles I’d read since joining Netgalley in 2011, but I also requested a bunch of new titles.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2021
Goal: 12 books
Result: 0

I’m sure I read books that fit at least two of the challenges, but I forgot to actually post about them, so I’m not counting them.

Mount TBR Challenge 2021
Goal 24 books (Mount Blanc)
Result: 0

I know I’m missing some books from my reading log – I’m sure I read something in the month of April. I checked out a lot of books from the library, though. Almost 82% of the books I read, according to the log stats.

Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2021
Goal: 24 books(Mount Crumpit)
Result: 77 books (320%)

So, the thing about this challenge is that it counts books that you add to your virtual TBR within the year. It’s really a count of books I read that I don’t own, including a bunch I read for work after the Youth Media Awards were announced. If I only count books that I added to my GoodReads list prior to 1/1/21, the total drops to 19.

Overall, it was a pretty good year of reading. But in 2022, I’ve really got to tackle my physical TBR and those classics. My Classics Club deadline is coming up fast.

Reading Challenges 2021

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January 2, 2021

2:40 pm

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Sepia-toned picture of two piles of books
Image by Thorsten Frenzel from Pixabay

I know. I know. Every December I sign up for a bunch of challenges, and then life happens, and they fall by the wayside. And then it’s December again, and I sign up for another bunch of challenges.

Well, I just can’t help myself.

My 2021 Reading Challenges:

  • Read Harder 2021: From the folks at Book Riot, this challenge (now in its 7th year) is “designed to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books.” I managed 19/24 tasks in 2020.
  • 2021 Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge: I joined NetGalley in 2011, so I’ve requested a lot of books over the years. NetGalley recommends a feedback ratio of 80%, and mine is (at the end of 2020) a dismal 6%. I would have to give feedback on over 500 books to hit 80% right now, and that’s obviously not going to happen, but I’d like to get to, say, 10%. So, I’ll be aiming for the Silver level (25 books). Wish me luck.
  • Back to the Classics Challenge 2021: I’m joining in this one again, and again planning to pull from my Classics Club 2019-2023 list, which I’m a teensy bit behind on.
  • Mount TBR Challenge 2021 and Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2021: These two challenges, both hosted at My Reader’s Block, focus on those TBR shelves, whether I own the book or not. I’m aiming for 24 books on each, or Mount Blanc and Mount Crumpit, respectively.

Five challenges, two of which will almost certainly overlap significantly. I’ll be tracking them using the post tags and using the pages linked under “Reading Challenges“.

I do have one more bookish goal for 2021: I’d like to figure out how to use Edelweiss better. I know there’s a lot that I could be doing with it, but I haven’t taken the time to explore it.

What are your reading plans for 2021?

2020 Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

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January 1, 2021

11:53 pm

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Oh, Beth of December 2019, you had no idea what was coming. You went and signed up for a bunch of challenges again, and then… well. Let’s round ’em up!

Back to the Classics (hosted by Books and Chocolate)
Goal: 12 books
Result: 5 (42%)

Yes, I did use the maximum of 3 children’s books. Still considerably better than last year.

  • 19th Century Classic (1800-1899): Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy (1888) (12/29/20)
  • 20th Century Classic (1900-1970): Basil and the Lost Colony (1964) by Eve Titus (1/27/20)
  • A Genre Classic: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1/29/20)
  • Classic with a Person’s Name in the Title: Tales from Shakespeare by Charles & Mary Lamb (12/31/20)
  • Classic with a Place in the Title: Basil of Baker Street (1958) by Eve Titus (1/25/20)
  • Classic by a Woman Author
  • Classic in Translation
  • Classic by a Person of Color
  • Classic with Nature in the Title
  • Classic About a Family
  • Abandoned Classic
  • Classic Adaptation

Georgian Reading Challenge (hosted by Becky’s Book Reviews)
Goal: 4 books
Result: 1 (25%): Tales from Shakespeare by Charles & Mary Lamb (1807)

Victorian Reading Challenge (hosted by Becky’s Book Reviews)
Goal: 20 books
Result: 1 (5%)

  • JANUARY/FEBRUARY – JOURNEYS and TRAVELS: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1895)
  • FEBRUARY/MARCH – LOVE and MARRIAGE
  • MARCH/APRIL – SECOND CHANCES
  • APRIL/MAY – NAMES AS TITLES
  • MAY/JUNE – LONG TITLE OR LONG SUB-TITLES
  • JUNE/JULY – ADAPTATIONS
  • JULY/AUGUST – FAVORITE AUTHORS, NEW-TO-ME BOOKS
  • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER – BACK TO SCHOOL
  • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER – CRIME OR TRUE CRIME
  • OCTOBER/NOVEMBER – HOME AND FAMILY
  • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER – COMFORT READS

Read Harder (Book Riot)
Goal: 24 Books
Result: 19 (79%)

  1. A YA nonfiction book: Flowers in the Gutter by K.R. Gaddy
  2. A retelling of a classic of the canon, fairy tale, or myth by an author of color: A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
  3. A mystery where the victim(s) is not a woman: The Alienist by Caleb Carr
  4. A graphic memoir: Spinning by Tillie Walden
  5. A book about a natural disaster: The Thief of Worlds by Bruce Coville
  6. A play by an author of color and/or queer author
  7. A historical fiction novel not set in WWII: The Deep by Alma Katsu
  8. An audiobook of poetry: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Simon Armitage, read by Bill Wallis
  9. The LAST book in a series: The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) by Rick Riordan (This one was Maureen Johnson’s The Hand on the Wall, but then she announced a forthcoming fourth book!)
  10. A book that takes place in a rural setting: The Lost Man by Jane Harper
  11. A debut novel by a queer author: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
  12. A memoir by someone from a religious tradition (or lack of religious tradition) that is not your own: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
  13. A food book about a cuisine you’ve never tried before
  14. A romance starring a single parent: Courting the Countess by Jenny Frame
  15. A book about climate change
  16. A doorstopper (over 500 pages) published after 1950, written by a woman
  17. A sci-fi/fantasy novella (under 120 pages): The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
  18. A picture book with a human main character from a marginalized community: Double Bass Blues by Andrea J. Loney
  19. A book by or about a refugee: Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
  20. A middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the US or the UK: Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong by A.J. Low
  21. A book with a main character or protagonist with a disability (fiction or non): Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
  22. A horror book published by an indie press: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Vampire Slaying by Grady Hendrix
  23. An edition of a literary magazine (digital or physical)
  24. A book in any genre by a Native, First Nations, or Indigenous author: I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day

Reading Women (Reading Women podcast)
Goal: 24 Books
Result: 8 (33%)

  1.  Book by an Author from the Caribbean or India
  2. A Book Translated from an Asian Language
  3. A Book about the Environment
  4. A Picture Book Written/Illustrated by a BIPOC Author: Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o, illustrated by Vashti Harrison
  5. A Winner of the Stella Prize or the Women’s Prize for Fiction
  6. A Nonfiction Title by a Woman Historian:  Flowers in the Gutter by K.R. Gaddy
  7. A Book Featuring Afrofuturism or Africanfuturism: The City We Became (Great Cities #1) by N.K. Jemisin
  8. An Anthology by Multiple Authors
  9. A Book Inspired by Folklore
  10. A Book about a Woman Artist: The Anatomist’s Wife by Anna Lee Huber
  11. Read and Watch a Book-to-Movie Adaptation
  12. A Book about a Woman Who Inspires You
  13. A Book by an Arab Woman
  14. A Book Set in Japan or by a Japanese Author
  15. A Biography
  16. A Book Featuring a Woman with a Disability
  17. A Book Over 500 Pages
  18. A Book Under 100 Pages: What is Given from the Heart by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by April Harrison
  19. A Book That’s Frequently Recommended to You
  20. A Feel-Good or Happy Book: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
  21. A Book about Food
  22. A Book by Either a Favorite or a New-to-You Publisher: To Fetch a Felon by Jennifer Hawkins (Berkley Publishing Group)
  23. A Book by an LGBTQ+ Author: Spinning by Tillie Walden
  24. A Book from the 2019 Reading Women Award Shortlists (Nonfiction | Fiction) or Honorable Mentions
  25. BONUS: A book by Toni Morrison
  26. BONUS: A book by Isabel Allende

I suspect I read some things that satisfied a couple more of those Reading Women tasks.

Overall, I did way better than last year, which actually surprised me a little bit. 2020 was quite a year, y’all.

To Fetch a Felon by Jennifer Hawkins

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December 28, 2020

2:03 pm

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A small reddish Corgi dog sniffing at the ground under a black table. Table is set with a white teapot. A black chair is overturned in front of the dog.

To Fetch a Felon by Jennifer Hawkins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Synopsis:

Emma Reed left her finance career in London to open a tea shop in a lovely Cornish village. Things get off to a bad start when her Corgi, Oliver, races into a neighbor’s garden. A neighbor who really loves her garden and really doesn’t like dogs. And who happens to own the building Emma is hoping to rent for her tea shop.

When Emma tries to patch things up with a friendly visit and some fresh-baked scones, she finds her grumpy neighbor dead, the victim of what Oliver says is some very wrong-smelling tea.

Oh, yes, Oliver talks. Only to Emma, though, which makes for some awkward moments around other people.

Emma and Oliver set out to find the murderer and uncover some long-held village secrets along the way.

My Thoughts:

Sometimes, what you need is a good old-fashioned cozy mystery, complete with idyllic small-town setting, an amateur sleuth, and a talking animal.

Just me?

It was definitely what I needed, and this book delivered. Oliver, the noble warrior Corgi, and Emma are absolutely charming. The murder victim is the classic cozy victim: someone who, when you ask, “Who would kill this person?”, the answer is along the lines of, “Almost anyone who ever met them, maybe?” Except, of course, the person is more complicated than that.

This is just the start of a new series, and I’m already looking forward to future sleuthing with Emma and Oliver.

Source:

E-ARC from NetGalley – thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for making it available!

Challenges:

Reading Women #22: A Book by Either a Favorite or a New-to-You Publisher

View all my reviews

Classics Club Spin #24: The Number Is…

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August 10, 2020

7:00 am

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The drawing has been done!

Your Lucky Spin Number is 18

Number 18 on my list for this Spin is Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy.

It is the year 2000-and full employment, material abundance and social harmony can be found everywhere. This is the America to which Julian West, a young Bostonian, awakens after more than a century of sleep. West’s initial sense of wonder, his gradual acceptance of the new order and a new love, and Bellamy’s wonderful prophetic inventions – electric lighting, shopping malls, credit cards, electronic broadcasting – ensured the mass popularity of this 1888 novel. But however rich in fantasy and romance, Looking Backward is a passionate attack on the social ills of nineteenth-century industrialism and a plea for social reform and moral renewal.

I may have read this book in college, when it was still the 1990s, but the year 2000 was coming up fast. I took a class on Utopian Literature, and I’m pretty sure this was on the syllabus. We read some interesting work for that class, and I wish I still had the reading list, but since there’ve been 25 years and a 2,000-mile move between then and now, it’s not surprising that I don’t have it anymore.

If we did read it, I don’t think I remember anything about it. It’s always possible, though, that one of the “I know I read that somewhere” fragments in my brain will be found inside.

This is a much shorter book than my last lucky spin selection, so I might even make it by the end of September.