ebeeb Reads These

Hello All! I am new to LibraryThing and this group; this is my very first post!

I read far too slowly to read anything near 75 books a year, so this will be more of a reading diary for me.

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A Few Literary Goals for 2021

• Read a (very easy) book in German –– I am currently at a very low beginner level (A1), and I would be immensely proud if I could manage to read even a children's story this year.

• Organize and catalogue the libraries -- Due to space constraints, Mr. ebeeb and I split our library between our home and his office. The idea initially was to keep all the fiction at home and the nonfiction in the office, with an indexed catalogue to keep it all straight. Well, that hasn't happened. I hope that changes this year.

• Review at least some of the books I read -- I remember books so much better even years later if I write a little bit on them. That's mostly why I'm here. I like to get into the nitty gritty details, so the reviews will probably have spoilers, but don't worry, I'll always warn you.

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Are We Literary Friends?
Here's a little trivia so you can get to know whether we might just be literary pals.

3 Recent Reads I Liked:
- The House of Mirth –– Edith Wharton
- The Human Condition -- Hannah Arendt
- Medea -- Euripedes

3 Recent Reads I Disliked (but still finished):
- War and Peace -- Leo Tolstoy (please don't shoot!)
- Norse Mythology -- Neil Gaiman
- The Sorrows of Young Werther -- Goethe

What I'm Reading Right Now: Penguin Island by Anatole France

Most Obscure Book I've Read Recently: The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura: A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos by Irmtraud Morgner

Some Favorite Authors of the Moment
- Iris Murdoch
- John McWhorter
- Umberto Eco

Classics or moderns?
Classics.

Character or plot?
Character.

Fiction or nonfiction?
Depends on what I had for breakfast.

Most shocking literary confession?
I think Pride and Prejudice is a teeny bit overrated.

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About Me

If you've made it this far, thank you! My name is Elizabeth and I'm a freelance writer and researcher. I'm originally from San Diego and currently live in Massachusetts.

In my literary life I've usually stuck to the canon, but recently I've been branching out to more modern works, which is how I ended up signing up for LibraryThing! I don't read nearly as quickly as most people here seem to; I probably read 1-2 books per month. If you'd like to follow along with me, you are very welcome. :)

Welcome to LT and the 75ers! I’m glad you’ve joined us. Let me know if you have any question - I’m happy to help.

Hi, Elizabeth, and welcome to the group! You had me at Medea, so I'll be happily following along with your reading.

>2 drneutron: Thank you for the warm welcome!

>3 scaifea: My jaw actually dropped open a few times while I was reading Medea; it was one of the most wonderfully surprising reads I've stumbled upon in a long time and is definitely on my re-read list.

I'll be following along with you too -- I love the term "lady of leisure," that could more-or-less describe me too! :)

>5 ebeeb: *Such* a great play. Euripides is The Business, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm afraid my Lady of Leisure days are on hold now that I'm back among the working class. Oh well. It was lovely while it lasted, and I do try to maintain the attitude if not the actual lifestyle...

Welcome to the group, Elizabeth.

Don't worry about the 75 books; there are some who read 6 times that number in a year and others who never quite managed to make the target. Doesn't matter and most of us hover somewhere between (closer to the lower than higher numbers usually)!

>1 ebeeb: I'm also fond of Iris Murdoch.

>7 PaulCranswick: Thank you for the warm welcome, Paul!

I like all the quirky challenges you're participating in as part of your reading plan (love the Queen Victoria Challenge!) -- seems like a great way to diversify what you read. Is there some list/challenge repository somewhere on LibraryThing that I'm missing or have you come up with these on your own?

Is it possible to actually really enjoy... a shipping confirmation? I didn't know I could until I got this sweet little missive from Better World Books!

Hello Elizabeth,

(Your book(s) asked to write you a personal note - it seemed unusual, but who are we to say no?)

Holy canasta! It's me... it's me! I can't believe it is actually me! You could have picked any of over 2 million books but you picked me! I've got to get packed! How is the weather where you live? Will I need a dust jacket? I can't believe I'm leaving Mishawaka, Indiana already - the friendly people, the Hummer plant, the Linebacker Lounge - so many memories. I don't have much time to say goodbye to everyone, but it's time to see the world!

I can't wait to meet you! You sound like such a well read person. Although, I have to say, it sure has taken you a while! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but how would you like to spend five months sandwiched between Jane Eyre (drama queen) and Fundamentals of Thermodynamics (pyromaniac)? At least Jane was an upgrade from that stupid book on brewing beer. How many times did the ol' brewmaster have one too many and topple off our shelf at 2am?

I know the trip to meet you will be long and fraught with peril, but after the close calls I've had, I'm ready for anything (besides, some of my best friends are suspense novels). Just five months ago, I thought I was a goner. My owner was moving and couldn't take me with her. I was sure I was landfill bait until I ended up in a Better World Books book drive bin. Thanks to your socially conscious book shopping, I've found a new home. Even better, your book buying dollars are helping kids read from Brazil to Botswana.

Now I'll always envisage wrapping up my books all snuggly in their dust jackets when I'm carrying them in the snow.

Oh, that's cool!

By the way, my son lived in Mishawaka when he was a grad student at Notre Dame. 😀

Welcome, Elizabeth!

>9 ebeeb: That would make me smile too :-)

>8 ebeeb: I'm to blame for most of them myself, Elizabeth!

The 52 Book Club Challenge was taken from Chelle in the group and I think a few of the other challenges like the Around the World one, the Bookers, Nobels, Pulitzers etc are variants of challenges other group members have adopted. I can't remember which ones I was first to start and we are all magpies here anyway!

>10 drneutron: I spent some time in South Bend; I loved it there! Gorgeous fireflies in the summer, and there was a great place to get Vietnamese sandwiches that I used to go to all the time.

>11 FAMeulstee: Thank you for the warm welcome. :)

>12 PaulCranswick: Magpies is right, I love having a good cozy hodgepodge for a reading list!

Does anyone else just have the hardest time paying attention to audiobooks?

I am trying to listen to The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken while doing other things and even though the narration couldn't be better, my mind wanders and I miss out on a lot of details and sometimes even major plot points. I've tried audiobooks again and again, but it can feel like work to make sure I don't drift off, and at the same time when something in the narrative does interest me I guess I like to sort of sit with an idea for a while and not move on so quickly, yet the audio keeps barreling on (even though I stop and restart while reading print, pausing and rewinding just seem unnatural in this medium!).

I actually love listening to podcasts and The Great Courses, which for me are somehow easier to follow (less of a sustained narrative perhaps), so I would've thought audiobooks would be similar but... they're not for some reason.

There are a lot of books I'd like to be acquainted with, but not enough to expressly sit down and read, so it's a shame it just hasn't worked so far for me. I just never feel like I've got a good grip on an audiobook, it's like it's all passing through the air without any participation from me.

Generally audiobooks seem wildly popular these days. Anyone else just not connect with them?

>14 ebeeb: If the butter chicken was cooked by our maid and South-East Asia's best coffee maker, Erni, then I can expect it could be "deadly". She finds it extremely difficult to cook anything that leaves your mouth aflame!

>14 ebeeb: Yes, there are others, I have trouble listening to audiobooks too.
I tried some years ago, when I had to go back to an anti-depressant that messed up my reading as a side effect. I tried again when I weaned off the anti-depressant, but still no luck. So I keep it at paper books and e-books.

>14 ebeeb: Yup, I have the same trouble. mrsdrneutron, on the other hand, would much rather have an audiobook than a text - and gets way more out of the audiobook.

>15 PaulCranswick: Haha, I'll take the coffee, but hold the spice! Mr. ebeeb is from Pakistan and learned to cook from his mother, but luckily she was a contrarian and in a world of hot hot food she decided to always cook dishes with a more mild flavor profile. This is great news for me, since I can enjoy Mr. ebeeb's curries and butter chickens are at a spice level I can manage!

>16 FAMeulstee: >17 drneutron: I am not the only one! Hallelujah! We can't help it if we're visiophiles. :)

>14 ebeeb: I just can't listen to fiction on audio. I consume most of my nonfiction that way, though. I think it's a combination between not finding it easy to tune into the descriptive writing and being annoyed by dialogue being read. I hate the voices that narrators do. All of them.

When I used to run, I would listen to nonfiction audiobooks. It was a great way to concentrate on the book as well as to keep me from thinking about the length of the run.

Welcome to the group!

>1 ebeeb: Nice challenges!

>18 ebeeb: I love the subtleties of Pakistani food, Elizabeth - agree that it doesn't need to be spicy to be tasty.

I write an occasional little newsletter mostly for friends and family just sharing interesting links from the web I've stumbled upon recently. This week, though, my browser add-on deleted all of my bookmarks!

I decided to instead make an edition about the scratch-off book poster I made a while ago. I thought people here might enjoy it too.



It's accidentally become sort of like a visual book diary, with books covers added up top for those books I've read "off-piste."

More pictures and commentary here if you'd like more detail!

>9 ebeeb: That's a hoot. My nephew lives in Mishawaka, too.

>14 ebeeb: Re: audiobooks. For a first reading, I can only listen to non-fiction as an audiobook. It's like listening to NPR or something. Right now I'm listening to My Own Words, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which includes some recordings of RBG giving lectures, talks and dissents from the bench as well as sections read by a narrator. Outstanding.

However, I *love* listening to favorite classics as re-reads, where the narrator is brilliant (a crummy narrator can ruin a great book), and I already have a good sense of the characters and plots. For example, I have Juliet Stevenson reading all of Jane Austen (except P&P) on audiobook, and it is outstanding. I really think Jane Austen was meant to be read aloud. Stevenson also reads Middlemarch and Jane Eyre that are superb.

There is something about listening to a favorite that is very comforting--I don't have to worry about paying attention to every detail, but I can enjoy the various characterizations of the voices, the dialogue and the writing so much more.

I also like Simon Vance (aka Robert Whitfield) for Dickens; but again, ONLY as re-reads.

>23 kac522: Huh, I'd never thought about using audiobooks for re-reads before, maybe that's the magic I'm missing. I can see that working for me because I'd already know what direction the book is headed in and I wouldn't have to catch everything. Jane Eyre is one my absolute favorites, so I'll keep the Stevenson in mind the next time I try out an audiobook! Thanks for the rec!

I got this wonderful BBC Drama Collection of Dickens that I thought was produced very well, though I still had a hard time following it (I only listened to ones I hadn't read; I need to go back!). It's not an actual narration of the books, more like a full cast re-enactment, but I thought it was very well done.

>24 ebeeb: That looks like a brilliant collection--you can't go wrong with Ian McKellen, so I'm sure the performance is top-notch. I would recommend going back and listening to a Dickens you love & know well--you'll be amazed how much you've forgotten, and maybe even "missed." It's like visiting an old friend, but with new eyes.

I think the first time reading a book I'm so engrossed in the story, that I miss the more subtle things. Recently I listened to Little Dorrit (25 CDs, I think!), and despite 2 book readings and watching several movie versions, so much came to light in this unabridged audio version that I had missed. I literally cried at some points--not good when you're driving! And now I can't watch a movie version right away--the voices from that audiobook (Robert Whitfield, aka Simon Vance) are so precious to me that I can't stand to think of them being replaced.

Next up is the audiobook of Our Mutual Friend, once I finish RBG.

>22 ebeeb: That is some serious reading, Elizabeth!

>25 kac522: I am planning on Our Mutual Friend too this year, if you want a pal to read along with.

>25 kac522: I always feel that I don't re-read books often enough -- my dad once mentioned that about 1 in 3 of the books he picked up was a re-read, and somehow that number stuck with me as an ideal, though the siren call of the to-read pile never allows me to get there. You've completely sold me on this idea!

I also wonder if it might be good for verse that one is very familiar with. I once tried to memorize The Wasteland (I think I only memorized about two pages!); I've never heard it recited aloud, and I imagine it might be very pleasant to listen to.

>26 PaulCranswick: Under the Net was a pretty fun silly read amongst all the seriousness!

>27 ebeeb: I don't re-read 1 out of 3, but I've certainly re-read more books in this past difficult year than ever before. And it's helped lower my anxiety levels to re-visit loved & cherished works.

Dropping in to wish you a wonderful weekend.

>29 figsfromthistle: Thank you. :) I had a very restful Saturday -- I actually fell asleep for a very long afternoon nap! Didn't do much else, which to me is an ideal weekend. I hope you're enjoying your weekend too. :)

I'm not much of a re-reader and rarely go there other than:

Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Rings
Hammond Innes
Alistair MacLean
Eric Ambler

I have started looking at my 150 favourite reads and will plan to do re-reads as part of a challenge over say three years.- one per week.

I have only re-read a handful of books in my life. It seems like a nice experience when people talk about it, but I always want to read something new.

I wonder if our habits have changed over time -- I remember in college being completely fine with re-watching TV shows and movies; probably most of what I watched was a re-watch and I was happy with that. I'd buy DVDs (what a notion!) with the sole purpose of re-watching, and I probably have a number of movies and TV episodes memorized almost word-for-word. Now I can hardly stand to re-watch anything, even things I've liked; it makes me feel antsy and like I'm wasting my time.

I've become somewhat the same way with books. I used to re-read some, and I was happiest if I was reading a book that was so long it felt never-ending, so I could really get absorbed in that other life -- the best thing in the world was knowing I would never run out of pages. But these days I pretty much never re-read, and even when I'm reading a very good book some part of me is always eyeing the next, perhaps in some kind of anxiety that I'm missing out on everything else that's out there. Maybe I'm being a tad nostalgic, but it's been a long time since I've felt that kind of absorption, the thought "I hope I don't run out!"

I'm not sure if this is just because as I've gotten older I've become a more savvy reader, or if it's something bigger to do with the way we consume media now. But I agree, it feels more and more like re-reads are "taking away" from new reads, and I'm more anxious than ever to get to those.

Of course, there's the question of whether any of this is actually a problem. I don't think I'm missing much by not re-watching TV shows all the time. But I suppose I'm a little sentimental about being able to take on a book entirely, to let it really seep into and become a central part of my mental life -- of me, really -- for a time; to go unhurried, even to savor it, with no thoughts of "what's next" or of tackling my to-read pile. When I'm constantly looking to the next read, that utter absorption -- one of the parts of reading I have most enjoyed -- is diminished for me, and I suppose that does bother me when I think about it. Though I do get such a greater breadth of ideas and thoughts running through my mind by reading more widely, an experience I did not get from re-reading when I was younger.

Finished my first read since starting at Library Thing! Penguin Island by Anatole France



I have to say this was a tough read for me and took a lot longer than it should have. It's short and the prose is light, but after a promising beginning it becomes almost intolerably tedious -- a real disappointment in a satire -- and I found myself avoiding it for days at a stretch.

The conceit couldn't be better: A priest of advanced age, blinded and deafened by snowstorms, finds himself in Antarctica. Mistaking a population of penguins for a kind of Edenic society of heathens, he baptizes them. This causes a ruckus up in heaven, where the saints, looking down from on high, debate what to do about these newly Christian penguins. In the end it's decided that now that the penguins have souls, they'll need to be turned into human beings. Thus, the land of Penguinia -- conveniently appended to France by a cartoonish contrivance -- is created.

The penguins begin as cavemen and we watch over generations as they progress to a modern society. The beginning stages are really very funny and I thought I'd love this book. France creates a kind of national mythology for the Penguins, and we see how all of the founding tales, interpreted in romantic and heroic terms by later generations, are based in a corrupt reality.

--Spoilers Begin Here--

We see, for instance, how a woman more enamored of young shepherds than of her own husband becomes, down the years, the patron saint of Penguinia, adored for her virginal purity. Her husband, the first king of Penguinia, known for having saved the people from a dragon, is in fact merely a swindler who donned a dragon costume to steal from the people when it suited him, and "slayed" the dragon when it no longer did.

This is the kind of thing I find amusing, and I liked these sections. But the narrative suffers as we leave prehistoric times. Coming into recorded history, the book roughly follows the outlines of French history, and it's both too generalized and too specific to be interesting. Generalized because most of the serialized narratives take up only a few pages: we are told of characters' actions in summary fashion rather than witnessing them, for the most part, and there never seems any point in learning anyone's name since they'll be gone soon enough. Specific because this satire doesn't really work on multiple levels: you either get the references, or you don't, and if you don't, there is little of interest in the stories.

I held on because I wanted to get to the most famous section of the book, a recounting of the Dreyfus Affair through the Penguinian lens. Anatole France was at the forefront of Dreyfus's defense and was active in the politics of the time, so I expected his take to be illuminating. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Instead, the satire is, by my lights, rather lazy: the Penguins are at this point indistinguishable from other Europeans, and Anatole France doesn't even bother with any artistic invention: the Dreyfus in question is not from "Porposia," for instance -- in fact there is nothing fanciful about him at all: in the intervening years since Penguinia first attached itself to the coast of France, the Penguins have learned to be simple old-fashioned Anti-semites. It's all just a bit too straightforward and literal to really work. I'd summarize it as more of a sort of éxposé than a satire, a reckoning with what Anatole France felt was the spirit of the time. There were a few interesting observations, but ultimately I didn't come away feeling I understood the Dreyfus affair any better than I already did. And unfortunately the narrative does not attempt to comment on anything beyond its immediate subject.

There is one more episode after the Dreyfus Affair which follows the story of how a married woman's youthful dalliance ultimately leads to out-and-out war; it was funny enough.

Finally, the book ends on an unfitting and grim note, with all of Penguinia succumbing to chaos and dissolution (replete with a scene that seems straight out of Fight Club), only to rise and restart the cycle over again. I'm fine with grim, but this just seemed an odd note to end on after the lighter tone immediately preceding.

--Spoilers End Here--

This is the first book I've read by Anatole France, and even though I didn't like it, it somehow feels more like a misfire from an author I might otherwise like than something I really regret reading. There was something to the writing, and I liked his sharpness and humor when it was there. I'll certainly give France another chance some time, most likely with Thaïs.

That’s certainly an interesting concept, though probably not one I’d read given your comments about the satire misfire.

>34 ebeeb: Great book cover and excellent "first" review.

>35 drneutron: It's too bad my first review here wasn't so great, but I'm hoping I will have better things to say about my next read.

>36 PaulCranswick: Thank you. :)