[gameplay screenshots under the cut :’( ]

2017 Reading

262 books read. 60% of new reads Non-fiction, authors from 55 unique countries, 35% of authors read from countries other than USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. Asterisks denote re-reads, bolds are favorites. January: The Deeds of the Disturber – Elizabeth Peters The Wiregrass – Pam Webber Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi It Didn't Start With You – Mark Wolynn Facing the Lion – Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton Before We Visit the Goddess – Chitra Divakaruni Colored People – Henry Louis Gates Jr. My Khyber Marriage – Morag Murray Abdullah Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines – Margery Sharp Farewell to the East End – Jennifer Worth Fire and Air – Erik Vlaminck My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me – Jennifer Teege Catherine the Great – Robert K Massie My Mother's Sabbath Days – Chaim Grade Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me – Harvey Pekar, JT Waldman The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend – Katarina Bivald Stammered Songbook – Erwin Mortier Savushun – Simin Daneshvar The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran Beyond the Walls – Nazim Hikmet The Dressmaker of Khair Khana – Gayle Tzemach Lemmon A Day No Pigs Would Die – Robert Newton Peck *

February: Bone Black – bell hooks Special Exits – Joyce Farmer Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose Bright Dead Things – Ada Limon Middlemarch – George Eliot Confessions of an English Opium Eater – Thomas de Quincey Medusa's Gaze – Marina Belozerskaya Child of the Prophecy – Juliet Marillier * The File on H – Ismail Kadare The Motorcycle Diaries – Ernesto Che Guevara Passing – Nella Larsen Whose Body? - Dorothy L. Sayers The Spiral Staircase – Karen Armstrong Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi Defiance – Nechama Tec

March: Yes, Chef – Marcus Samuelsson Discontent and its Civilizations – Mohsin Hamid The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 1 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Patience and Sarah – Isabel Miller Dying Light in Corduba – Lindsey Davis * Five Days at Memorial – Sheri Fink A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman * The Shia Revival – Vali Nasr Girt – David Hunt Half Magic – Edward Eager * Dreams of Joy – Lisa See * Too Pretty to Live – Dennis Brooks West with the Night – Beryl Markham Little Fuzzy – H. Beam Piper *

April: Defying Hitler – Sebastian Haffner Monsters in Appalachia – Sheryl Monks Sorcerer to the Crown – Zen Cho The Man Without a Face – Masha Gessen Peace is Every Step – Thich Nhat Hanh Flory – Flory van Beek Why Soccer Matters – Pele The Zhivago Affair – Peter Finn, Petra Couvee The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake – Breece Pancake The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson Chasing Utopia – Nikki Giovanni The Invisible Bridge – Julie Orringer * Young Adults – Daniel Pinkwater Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel – John Stubbs Black Gun, Silver Star – Art T. Burton The Arab of the Future 2 – Riad Sattouf Hole in the Heart – Henny Beaumont MASH – Richard Hooker Forgotten Ally – Rana Mitter Zorro – Isabel Allende Flying Couch – Amy Kurzweil

May: The Bite of the Mango – Mariatu Kamara Mystic and Rider – Sharon Shinn * Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Angela Davis Capture – David A. Kessler Poor Cow – Nell Dunn My Father's Dragon – Ruth Stiles Gannett * Elmer and the Dragon – Ruth Stiles Gannett * The Dragons of Blueland – Ruth Stiles Gannett * Hetty Feather – Jacqueline Wilson In the Shadow of the Banyan – Vaddey Ratner The Last Camel Died at Noon – Elizabeth Peters Cannibalism – Bill Schutt The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry The Food of a Younger Land – Mark Kurlansky Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue Words on the Move – John McWhorter John Ransom's Diary: Andersonville – John Ransom Such a Lovely Little War – Marcelino Truong Child of All Nations – Irmgard Keun One Child – Mei Fong Country of Red Azaleas – Domnica Radulescu Between Two Worlds – Zainab Salbi Malinche – Julia Esquivel A Lucky Child – Thomas Buergenthal The Drackenberg Adventure – Lloyd Alexander Say You're One of Them – Uwem Akpan William Wells Brown – Ezra Greenspan

June: Partners In Crime – Agatha Christie The Chinese in America – Iris Chang The Great Escape – Kati Marton As Texas Goes... – Gail Collins Pavilion of Women – Pearl S. Buck Classic Chinese Stories – Lu Xun The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West The Slave Across the Street – Theresa Flores Miss Bianca in the Orient – Margery Sharp Boy Erased – Garrard Conley How to Be a Dictator – Mikal Hem A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini Tears of the Desert – Halima Bashir The Death and Life of Great American Cities – Jane Jacobs The First Salute – Barbara Tuchman Come as You Are – Emily Nagoski The Want-Ad Killer – Ann Rule The Gulag Archipelago Vol 2 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

July: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz – L. Frank Baum * The Blazing World – Margaret Cavendish Madonna in a Fur Coat – Sabahattin Ali Duende – tracy k. smith The ACB With Honora Lee – Kate de Goldi Mountains of the Pharaohs – Zahi Hawass Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy Chronicle of a Last Summer – Yasmine el Rashidi Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann Mister Monday – Garth Nix * Leaving Yuba City – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The Silk Roads – Peter Frankopan The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams A Corner of White – Jaclyn Moriarty * Circling the Sun – Paula McLain Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – Al Franken Believe Me – Eddie Izzard The Cracks in the Kingdom – Jaclyn Moriarty * Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe – Fannie Flagg * One Hundred and One Days – Asne Seierstad Grim Tuesday – Garth Nix * The Vanishing Velasquez – Laura Cumming Four Against the Arctic – David Roberts The Marriage Bureau – Penrose Halson The Jesuit and the Skull – Amir D Aczel Drowned Wednesday – Garth Nix * Roots, Radicals, and Rockers – Billy Bragg A Tangle of Gold – Jaclyn Moriarty * Lydia, Queen of Palestine – Uri Orlev *

August: Sir Thursday – Garth Nix * The Hoboken Chicken Emergency – Daniel Pinkwater * Lady Friday – Garth Nix * Freddy and the Perilous Adventure – Walter R. Brooks * Venice – Jan Morris China's Long March – Jean Fritz Trials of the Earth – Mary Mann Hamilton The Bully Pulpit – Doris Kearns Goodwin Final Exit – Derek Humphry The Book of Emma Reyes – Emma Reyes Freddy the Politician – Walter R. Brooks * Dragonflight – Anne McCaffrey * What the Witch Left – Ruth Chew All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville-West The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde The Curse of the Blue Figurine – John Bellairs * When They Severed Earth From Sky – Elizabeth Wayland Barber Superior Saturday – Garth Nix * The Boston Girl – Anita Diamant The Mummy, The Will, and the Crypt – John Bellairs * Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? - Frans de Waal The Philadelphia Adventure – Lloyd Alexander * Lord Sunday – Garth Nix * The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull – John Bellairs * Five Little Pigs – Agatha Christie * Love in Vain – JM Dupont, Mezzo A Little History of the World – EH Gombrich Last Things – Marissa Moss Imagine Wanting Only This – Kristen Radtke Dinosaur Empire – Abby Howard The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents – Terry Pratchett *

September: First Bite by Bee Wilson The Xanadu Adventure by Lloyd Alexander Orientalism – Edward Said The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan – Carl Barks The Island on Bird Street – Uri Orlev * The Indifferent Stars Above – Daniel James Brown Beneath the Lion's Gaze – Maaza Mengiste The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde * The Book of Five Rings – Miyamoto Musashi The Drunken Botanist – Amy Stewart The Turtle of Oman – Naomi Shahib Nye The Alleluia Files – Sharon Shinn * Gut Feelings – Gerd Gigerenzer The Secret of Hondorica – Carl Barks Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller The Abominable Mr. Seabrook – Joe Ollmann Black Flags – Joby Warrick

October: Fear – Thich Nhat Hanh Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 – Naoki Higashida To the Bright Edge of the World – Eowyn Ivey Why? - Mario Livio Just One Damned Thing After Another – Jodi Taylor The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Blindness – Jose Saramago The Book Thieves – Anders Rydell Reality is not What it Seems – Carlo Rovelli Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell * The Witch Family – Eleanor Estes * Sister Mine – Nalo Hopkinson La Vagabonde – Colette Becoming Nicole – Amy Ellis Nutt

November: The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing The Children's Book – A.S. Byatt The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin Under the Udala Trees – Chinelo Okparanta Who Killed These Girls? – Beverly Lowry Running for my Life – Lopez Lmong Radium Girls – Kate Moore News of the World – Paulette Jiles The Red Pony – John Steinbeck The Edible History of Humanity – Tom Standage A Woman in Arabia – Gertrude Bell and Georgina Howell Founding Gardeners – Andrea Wulf Anatomy of a Disapperance – Hisham Matar The Book of Night Women – Marlon James Ground Zero – Kevin J. Anderson * Acorna – Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball * A Girl Named Zippy – Haven Kimmel * The Age of the Vikings – Anders Winroth The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction – Helen Graham A General History of the Pyrates – Captain Charles Johnson (suspected Nathaniel Mist) Clouds of Witness – Dorothy L. Sayers * The Lonely City – Olivia Laing No Time for Tears – Judy Heath

December: The Unwomanly Face of War – Svetlana Alexievich Gay-Neck - Dhan Gopal Mukerji The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See Get Well Soon – Jennifer Wright The Testament of Mary – Colm Toibin The Roman Way – Edith Hamilton Understood Betsy – Dorothy Canfield Fisher * The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Vicente Blasco Ibanez Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert C. O'Brien SPQR – Mary Beard Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild * Hogfather – Terry Pratchett * The Sorrow of War – Bao Ninh Drowned Hopes – Donald E. Westlake * Selected Essays – Michel de Montaigne Vietnam – Stanley Karnow The Snake, The Crocodile, and the Dog – Elizabeth Peters Guests of the Sheik – Elizabetha Warnok Fernea Stone Butch Blues – Leslie Feinberg Wicked Plants – Amy Stewart Life in a Medieval City – Joseph and Frances Gies Under the Sea Wind – Rachel Carson The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia – Mary and Brian Talbot Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey * The Treasure of the Ten Avatars – Don Rosa Escape From Forbidden Valley – Don Rosa Nightwood – Djuna Barnes Here Comes the Sun – Nicole Dennis-Benn Over My Dead Body – Rex Stout *

Colette:  I hate for you to see me like this.  I should be up giving you a big hug, but here I am stuck in bed.  And you didn’t need to leave your work to come see me, dear.  It was just a little fall, that’s all.

Jamie:  You’re more important than training, Mom.

Colette:  . . . It’s too soon to say goodbye.

A final farewell ~

On a good day, they carried Colette upstairs so she could paint.

Lauren:  Hi, there’s been a medical emergency in the family.  Is there any way he can come home early?  No...  No, I’m afraid not.  Really?  Oh, that’s perfect.  Thank you.  I’ll let them know.

26 for the OC ask pls! and since i cannot read and won't let that stop me, i'm going to request 26 for any of your OCs that you'd like to ramble about! (and as a book snob, 23 if you feel like it dhfgjs!)

i also cannot read and won't stop you 🙈 there are three artists and two writers in the canfield family, so i think they're the perfect choice for these questions. (this is my excuse to temporarily bring colette back from the dead.)

-

26. what is your oc’s favorite art movement?

maddison prefers the neo-impressionism movement, and her favorite artist is paul signac! she likes the vibrant colors and the use of reds and oranges and pinks.

colette was very into pre-raphaelite art. she's john william waterhouse's biggest fan. her favorites are the lady of shalott and the lady of shalott looking at lancelot.

matteo leans into suprematism. if he hadn't gone into art, he probably would've studied architectural design, and i think that's evident in the importance of feeling in geometry.

23. which oc dog ears pages? which oc thinks that’s an ABOMINATION?

paula dog-ears the heck out of everything she reads (and writes!). to her, the reading experience is just as much of a story as the story within the pages. what better way to tell the story than marking of the book?

cedric thinks it's an abomination. in his defense, he works in publishing, so the physical book itself is the "art" he spends the most time on. color-coded book tabs and sticky notes for him, thank you very much.

-

oc ask game

End of Part 1 ~

It’s Easter, and the Canfields are throwing a dinner party!  It’s the first party without Colette, and everyone felt her absence :’(

Consider this my entry in the Family Reunion CAS Challenge by @faerie-tempest ~

ALLLLRIGHT everybody this is the announcement that gameplay resumes TOMORROW 🎊🎊

If you're new here or forgot everything that's happened during the hiatus (don't worry, I did, too), allow me to introduce you to the Canfields. (Here's the family tree.)

I do rotational gameplay with three groups which I call Gen1, Gen2, and The Blantons. Here are some crash courses I made recently-ish:

Gen1

Gen2

The Blantons [pt 1 & pt 2]

They're all very brief and mostly pictures. They're great if you want to meet all my sims. The only things that happened since then is that a few kids aged up and Colette died (rip queen).

Anyway, see you tomorrow with Gen2!!!

Since Colette’s death, the OG Canfield house has changed quite a bit.  Maddison’s developed new fears, she and Don sleep the whole day, and Lukas watches a lot of TV.

Oh, and Lauren got a new job.  She’s a secret agent now.

Crash Course: Gen 1

If you’re new here, or if you haven’t been around long, or if you’ve forgotten, or if you like looking pretty pictures:  I have an ongoing gameplay/storytelling save with my main family, the Canfields.  It started as the 100 Baby Challenge, but it spiraled out of control...

It’s been a hot minute since I posted about them on here, so here’s a brief synopsis of their shenanigans.

The head of the family is Mrs. Colette Lothario (née Canfield), and she has twelve lovely children!  She’s married to Don Lothario, though he isn’t the father of any of the kids.

Maddison (kiddo #1) and Lukas (#2) live at home with their parents.  They help pay the bills with their gardening and painting skills.  They’re also the best of friends <3

Lauren (#8) also lives at home.  She’s a workaholic, but she isn’t happy with her job.  She’s everyone’s favorite aunt, and you can always identify her by her fun hair colors.

Their youngest brother Jamie (#12) just graduated, turned 18, and enrolled in the military.  They held a big birthday bash~

Jamie and his girlfriend Hana are inseparable.  They both love pizza, basketball, and stealing hearts.  Here they are at prom (back when Jamie had beautiful long hair):

Now that Jamie’s left for military training, the whole family’s feeling the empty nest syndrome.  It’s bittersweet seeing the last kid fly the coop!

next >>

Crash Course: The Blantons (pt.1)

Like stories?  Like chaos?  Like characters who seem smart at the surface level but do stupid things as self-sabotage?  Then I’ve got the family for you!  (This crash course is a bit longer due to its storytelling sagas, so I split it in two.)

Okay, let’s break this down.  Colette Canfield had twelve kids, and kiddo #6 was Miss Katlyn.  She was a childhood prodigy pianist and violinist, and now she’s a world famous performer and songwriter!   Katlyn is married to Pierce Blanton, a rich tech dude with a big heart.

They’re both massive sweethearts :’)

Katlyn and Pierce adopted Nora when she was six years old.  She struggled with previous foster homes because she’s short-tempered and rebellious, but the Blantons took her under their wing and raised her into a fine young lady.

After a long struggle, Katlyn gave birth to their son Elliott.  The pregnancy was difficult, but the baby survived.  However, he struggles with a few health conditions.  The obvious one is albinism, but lately, he’s been light-sensitive with a piercing headache behind his eyes.  His mom is worried...

Scotch the dog is his best friend :)

At surface level, the family is pretty normal and conventional.  Let’s dig deeper, shall we?

<< prev | PART 2 >>

Matriarchs ~

monarch madness by @samssims