Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2020/What I've Read in 2021

31) Monty: The Making of a General 1887-1942 by Nigel Hamilton the first of a 3 volume biography of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. This I found to be rather tedious even though I enjoy biographies in general. Most of what was recounted I felt could have been left out and wasn’t really necessary other than to emphasise that his ego was there from the very beginning. It marginally got better towards the end when it recounts his take over of command of the Eighth Army in the North African campaign which is where this book roughly ends.

32) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse I think I picked this up thinking that it would be about the life of Buddha whose journey from pampered Indian prince to enlightenment would become Buddhism. While certainly yes it is about that path I found this to be a little too philosophical for my personal tastes

[B] #20 Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore[\B]

Every New Years Eve, Oona wakes up the next day to be a different age for a year. Since her jumps are not linear, I.e. going from 18 to 51, this makes her life interesting, to say the least. Fun concept, enjoyable book!

#21 Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

This book focuses on downwardly mobile older people. With diminishing resources, these seniors live in converted vans and take back breaking temporary jobs. It's sad that people are driven to this.

The award winning movie is also good but it focuses on one person rather than several.

33) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning epic is well worthy of its award. Set against the backdrop of the Depression the Joad family who leave their home in the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma in search of a better life in California.

34) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this is a another re-read for me. I first encountered Dickens’ classic while studying history in school as we were studying the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror which is of course the setting for this novel at the time. It is still a well crafted tale intertwining the lives of Charles Darnay a French aristocrat who disagrees with his family’s view on the lower classes, his wife Lucie and father in law Dr Manette who was previously imprisoned for 18 years in the notorious Bastille prison, the Defarge’s who are active participants in the uprising against the aristocracy in France and English lawyer Sydney Carton who bears a striking resemblance to Darnay.

#32 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Elizer Yudkowski This epic fanfic (yes, "fanfic") tome is available online via a simple search and can be read online or downloaded in PDF format. It takes Harry (the beloved adopted son of a scientist father and a teacher mother) through his years at Hogwarts and turns everything in the Rowling canon on its head. I'm generally familiar with the Harry Potter mythology, but this still surprised me (imagine playing quiddich without that buzzy golden flying thing). I enjoyed it. And I appreciate that it apparently took six years (six years?!) for the author to post all 640,000 words of this monster. Very different take on the Potter universe.

#33 C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alister McGrath Three very influential men died on November 22nd, 1963. They were President John F. Kennedy, former Presidential candidate and long-time public servant Adelai Stevenson, and author/teacher Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis. If all you know about C. S. Lewis is Narnia, you've missed out on a lot. He wrote wonderfully inventive fiction, along with common-sense books defending Christian principles and doctrines. I learned that he was a human being just like me, a man who exhibited strengths and weaknesses and heartaches just like I occasionally do. Very interesting.

#34 Alpha and Omega: The End of Days by Harry Turtledove The author specializes in alternate history - "what if" on a global scale. In this one, he presents a current time when Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all proven right. And wrong. All at the same time. None of the beloved doctrines of any faith are left unsmashed. Harry apparently thinks we'd all be better off if we ignored all that religious stuff and decided to "just get along." I read it because I wanted to see how he thought the end times should be. It turns out that, according to Harry T., all of us are complete idiots.

#35 The House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove I'm bunching books by author again. This one is about Depression-era barnstorming baseball in the U.S. with a twist - the depression was caused not by economics but by so much of the magic in the world going away. You'll read about thugs, baseball games, vampires, eccentric teammates, zombies, crumbling ballparks, werewolves, thinly disguised real major league players, voodoo hex men, romance, all set against the backdrop of ballplayers trying to get enough to eat each day. Unlike most of his books, there is no major point here. It's just a thin but fun romp. To get a really good taste of Turtledove's work, read his debut effort "The Guns of the South." The civil war will never be the same.

#36 Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove If the son of Russian immigrants had defeated FDR in the 1932 Democratic primary (because FDR died in a house fire set by henchmen of the son of immigrants) and went on to become a virtual dictator, the mid-20th century might have looked as bleak as this. Under Joe Steele, the U.S. begins to look like Hitler's Germany or Trotsky's Russia (he beat out Stalin), and we trace the downward spiral through the eyes of two brothers. One becomes a White House speechwriter, while the other is sent to a Wyoming labor camp for writing articles "harmful to America." It's what the United States might look like should a charismatic leader with fewer morals or ethics than any 20th-century despot come to power and do literally anything to remain there. Quite chilling.

#37 C. S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason by Victor Reppert Lewis proposed a fairly simple but logical defense of Jesus' divinity, one that was later attacked by "real philosophers," in essence because he hadn't presented his argument as they would have preferred. The author takes up Lewis' proposition and defends it quite ably and adds to it. He also counters a number of objections to Lewis' proposition, again quite ably. I truly enjoyed this book.

#22 Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane

Lila is upset when nobody can find her husband. Especially because she's the one who killed him and the body isn't where she left it. A fun thriller.

7. As Old As Time by Liz Braswell

A Disney twisted tale. In this delightful, captivating story, Belle is the daughter of the enchantress who cursed the Beast. See, his parents, the King and Queen, didn't like people with magic. So they turned a blind eye to the "disappearance," beatings, and murders of the magical beings living within their realm. The enchantress, wanting to make them pay for their crimes, refuses to rid the kingdom of the plague, returning a year later to see if their 11 year old son, the Prince, is any better than his parents. But he sneers at the "old beggar woman" and turns her away, so she curses them. But magic has a way of coming back on itself...

As a lover of all things Disney, this was such a fun read. I loved the way it cut back and forth between things that were happening in the present and slowly revealing the past in other chapters. And while the ending still hit a somewhat bittersweet note, it felt absolutely right.

#23 All Girls by Emily Layden


When I started this book on an airplane, I thought it would be a LIfetime movie like mystery and thus a good light read. Instead it brought up a lot of questions about girls, sex and how society reacts/treats them. On Goodreads, other readers were bothered by the fact that each chapter was narrated by a different girl over the course of one school year. That didn't detract from me. There was plenty of overlap. Others were expecting afull-fledged mystery and were disappointed by the lack of one. This book addressed many complex issues which don't have easy answers. It could start some good book club conversations.

35) The Pearl by John Steinbeck based on a Mexican folktale the message of greed and societal norms is very good, but I just wasn’t as engaged by it like I had with his other novels.

36) Monkey King by Wu Cheng’en better known as Journey to the West (or to be more correct, the translation is West Journey Record) this is considered to be one of the four great novels in Chinese literature. I know this story in very rough detail, but since I can’t read Chinese, I’ve never actually read the book. This is a fictional account published during the Ming Dynasty of a Buddhist monk named Xuanzang who journeyed to India in search of Buddhist texts and would record his journey for official Tang Dynasty Records. Personally this was just too weird for me given the cast of characters who join him on this journey include a pig and a monkey (hence the title that the novel is better known by in western circles)

#24 Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal by Nicole LaPorte

Rick Singer's manipulations to get rich kids into elite colleges is truly frightening.

37) Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Volume 1 by Luo Guanzhong This is another of the four great novels of Chinese literature. It is also the oldest and perhaps the best known of all the classics. Volume 1 introduces the main players and their various alliances and battles as they struggle to gain control of China following the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Given my lack of literacy in Chinese, I did have to rely on google and my dad to fully understand who was who, but I actually did enjoy this.

38) Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics by Joe Biden this is a reprint to coincide with the election of President Biden, but was first published in 2007 before he became Obama’s running mate. Political memoirs are always going to be on the self serving side, but it was interesting to see his perspective on how he coped with the loss of his first wife and daughter in a car accident just after he was first elected. All in all I did enjoy this look into his years in the senate

#25 Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn


While I didn't agree with all of these author's points, the book did a good job illustrating the struggles of working class Americans.

#26 The Better Liar by Tanen Jones


I think I've read too many thrillers because while there were lots of twists in this story, I wasn't surprised by any of them.

#27 In Five Years by Rebecca Serle


This was a fun read. I love the idea of getting a glimpse of the future and seeing how it all works out. From Goodreads, I got the impression that many readers were angry this wasn't a true love story. They also seemed upset that bad things happened to people. Which, in my opinion, made it a better book. It was about the personal growth of the main character,.

8. Once Upon A Dream by Liz Braswell

What if Sleeping Beauty never woke up when Prince Philip kissed her? What if Maleficent wasn't entirely defeated when the Prince killed her in her dragon form?

As much as I wanted to like this one, I found I was bored more often than not. None of the characters sounded remotely like themselves (not that the author had much to work with, Aurora only has something like 16 lines of dialogue in the whole movie), to the point of distraction. Everyone sounded far too modern and casual to be believable and I honestly hated the whole "this entire thing takes place in a dreamscape" plotline. And I couldn't stand Aurora's constant wishy-washiness. One moment she's a strong heroine, the next she's simpering over the two realties that exist in her head - the ones Maleficent planted in the dreamscape and the real world ones where she lived with the fairies in the forest.

#28 Sharpie: The Life Story of Evelyn Sharp by Diane Ruth Armour Bartels

This book described the life of Evelyn Sharp, one of the first female pilots, which should've been an interesting story. It wasn't. It's a shame. The author felt the need to document everything (which isn't a bad thing). But do you need to include quotes and footnote that Evelyn thought flying was "swell"? So incredibly stiff. So many insignificant trivial details! Yes, it's impressive that the small town of Ord Nebraska helped her out so much during a difficult time but I just don't care about the cast of the senior class play or who furnished the refreshments at the dance. I only finished this book (skimming when I hit half way) because I read it for book club and wanted to be able to contribute in the discussion. Otherwise, this book was a waste of time.

#29 Anxious People by Fredrik Backman


It took some time to get into this one. The characters were not very likeable. But that changed as the story progressed and everything came together nicely.

#38 Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell It is exceptionally difficult to "read" people accurately at first meeting. One can learn to do it better, but no one can do it accurately every time. Malcolm Gladwell takes us through the psychology of trying to "read the minds" of others when the social context is new or out of order. He discusses several cases where an inaccurate reading results in tragedy, and what can be done better. He doesn't present a magic bullet solution for the problem - because there isn't one - but he does make some excellent points about ways to do better.

#39 Death in Winter by Michael Jan Friedman Star Trek: Next Generation. Beverly Crusher undertakes a highly dangerous medical mercy mission and ends up in mortal danger. Jean-Luc Picard must marshal all of his resources, both personal and professional, to attempt a rescue. Spoiler: (not really, though) Beverly's okay! Yay! Friedman is a good writer, and despite my knowing what cannot happen, he maintained a good bit of dramatic tension. It's more WAFFy than science-fiction-y.

#40 By Tank Into Normandy by Stuart Hills Hills was a tank commander in the D-Day invasion of Normandy (British army) and he made it all the way through to the German surrender. That was quite a feat, too, since so many of his comrades did not survive. First-person war memoir told in typical English stiff-upper-lip understatement. Still a good read.

#41 Oona Out Of Order by Margarita Montimore Oona is a seventeen-year-old girl whose mother is a "free spirit" in London's mid-eighties club scene. She's also a budding professional musician who must choose between a European tour with the band or school. But on New Year's Eve, the night before her eighteenth birthday, she blacks out and wakes up on her fifty-first birthday. For reasons never explained (not even a little bit), she lives her life by bouncing from year to year on her birthday and must learn to deal with her changed circumstances. Before long she gets the idea that she can change her future - but apparently she lives in a determinist universe and just makes things worse. Except for her financial situation, of course. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't my cup of tea either. I kept waiting for her to "grow up" and work with her bizarre life instead of against it. She does so at the final stages of the book - sort of - but the end still left me with a melancholy pall. Very WAFFy, though.

#42 Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain A young woman comes of age at Oxford at the very beginning of The Great War (World War 1). Her brother, fiance, good friend, and unrequited admirer all enter the British army and fight in France. None of them survive. The book takes us from her youth to Oxford to her service as a nurse - both at home and in France - and she comes out disappointed with civilization, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction given the horrors she witnessed and the losses she sustained. The story takes us through her pacifist and feminist work after the war up to her marriage in 1925 to a man she names only as "G." The memoir was published in 1933 and is still in print. A movie by the same name came out in 2014 and is available on video or a via number of streaming services. Both book and movie are worth the time, I think.

#43 As Old As Time by Liz Braswell DC, thank you for mentioning this title. I found out that this is a series by several authors which take fairy tales and corkscrew the plot around. In this one, Belle's mother cursed the Beast and his kingdom. Belle must battle with him, against him, and beside him to overcome the terrible fate that pursues them. Very girl power, but the author does not denigrate all men - just the ones who deserve it. Also, the author no longer uses a pseudonym because the assassins who were chasing her are all dead now.

#44 Straight On Till Morning by Liz Braswell Peter Pan loses his shadow in twelve-year-old Wendy's bedroom - and he doesn't get it back. Four years later, Wendy - who continues to write fantasy stories in her notebook at which her very proper parents express extreme disapproval - dodges her parents' plan to send her to Ireland as a governess by offering Peter's shadow to Captain Hook in exchange for passage to Never Land. Another youth fiction girl power story, but still interesting. Wendy screws up royally, but proves to be most ingenious in the end. And there's a very sweet epilogue involving a certain denizen of Never Land.

39) The Romance of the Three Kingdoms Volume 2 by Luo Guanzhong the conclusion to the last book which ended with the Battle of Red Cliffs that divided China into the Three Kingdoms through to a unified China under the Jin Dynasty

40) Monty vol 2: Master if the Battlefield 1942-1944 by Nigel Hamilton like it’s predecessor most of what was put forward really wasn’t necessary to the narrative, I understand what he was trying to do, but this was really laborious to read and quite disappointing. It did bring a good travel memory for me though when Southwick Park was mentioned as I have personally visited what was then SHAEF headquarters

9. Mirror, Mirror by Jen Calonita - I was surprised to find I really enjoyed this one. As much of a Disnerd as I am, Snow White has never been my favorite Princess. Actually, she's my least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE what she represents in terms of filmmaking - the very first full length feature film to be 100% animated. But I've always gravitated towards the other Princesses, especially "take charge" ones who do their best to make their own lives, like Belle and Jasmine, for example. Anyway, the tagline for the book is ' What if the Evil Queen poisoned the Prince? Honestly, I felt like this was extremely misleading. The book is 95% a retelling of the movie we all know and love, but with a twist that didn't feel so much like a twist, but felt like it 100% COULD have happened. It tells of how Snow's parents left the scene, of her aunt's (The Evil Queen) rise to power, how the Queen came to learn the Dark Arts and find the magic mirror, and why Snow isn't the Queen, when she rightfully has a claim to the throne. The stuff about the Prince being poisoned and Snow (who is a real take charge leader in this - a nice, refreshing change of pace from the Sleeping Beauty book) confronting her aunt is just a very few pages at the very end of the book. All in all, a very fun read, even if seeing the Prince name "Henrich/Henri" was like chewing a mouthful of glass for me. True Disnerds know that, while his name is never said on screen, his name is Florian. Also, Grumpy seemed less grumpy and more "grumble once or twice but otherwise throw himself in as Snow's staunchest alley." And Doc didn't have his trademark mixed up words. (In the movie, him saying something like "first light" would come out as "lirst fight" before he corrected himself.)

10. Percy Jackson: The Battle for the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan - Loved this installment of the series. We get to pop into and out of the famous Labyrinth of myth and even get to meet it's creator, Daedalus. Even very old mythological creatures get to show up, like Briares, the last living Hundred Handed One - a creature even older than the Olympian Gods.

11. Percy Jackson: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan - Percy and his friends finally face down Cronos, who has regenerated into the body of a former demigod. The battle rages across New York City, culminating in a final, epic clash on Olympus (the 600th floor of the Empire State Building). I loved this one too. A great series and I'm a little sad to move on from it. Luckily, there is the Heroes of Olympus series that I just bought for myself...I mean the kids...yes, that's right...the kids...


Terry - I'm glad you were inspired to check out the Disney Twisted Tales! My favorites have been the Frozen, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan ones so far! (I've put a hold on the recently released Hercules one with the library and hope it comes through soon.)

41) Essence of Decision Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is one of the most defining moments of the 20th century in which at the height of the Cold War, the world was at the precipice of a third world war only this time with two superpowers with access to nuclear weapons.
Although really hard absorb as it is extremely academic and obviously aimed at students of international diplomacy and politics it does provide great insight into differing theories on how to handle crisis situations that have global consequences. That being said if you were looking for something that is more historical in context then certainly this one definitely isn’t the one for that

#30 The Perfect Wife by J.P. Delaney


Ok thriller. The concept of a robot with human feelings is pushing credibility but it was an interesting concept to explore.