Mamzel's 2014 Challenge of the Books - Part Trois

Last thread was getting overlong so I'm opening up a new one.
Thanks for visiting!

Part Un here
Part Deux here

1. Blips - LT recommendations - 3
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 10
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 5
4. ITB - cross genre - 7
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 3
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 7
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list - 6
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 3
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 10
10. Galley - food related - 1
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous - 7
12. Fleet - group reads - 2
13. Ship's hold - YA - 9
13a. HUB Challenge - 23
14. Poop Deck - books not finished -3

Total read: 96 (not including DNFs)

Favorites (4.5 - 5 stars)



The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley (2014)
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2013)
Kraken by China Miéville
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (2010)
Reamde by Neal Stephenson (2011)
The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014)
The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi (2014)

BLIPS - books that have been on my radar for a while. It will be interesting to see if I can keep up with the titles I'll keep adding.

1. Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (1995)
2. Unwritten Vol. 1 - 10 by Mike Carey
3. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch (2011)

PROPOSED:
1. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - moved to group reads category
2. The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Dìaz
3. Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch Midnight Riot read 6/14/14
4. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino - read 1/20/14
5. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
6. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

BUOYANCY - explanation of the mystery of why such huge ships can float - mysteries



1. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley (2014)
2. Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith (2013)
3. Ripper by Isabel Allende (2014)
4. The Leopard by Jo Nesbø (2009, translated to English 2011)
5. The Christmas Hope by Perry
6. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Smith
7. Magic 101 by Mercedes Lackey (2014)
8. Burning Water by Mercedes Lackey (2006)
9. The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014)
10. Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn (2014)

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN- ghost and horror stories



1. S. by Doug Durst and J.J. Abrams (2013)
2. Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman (1999)
3. The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure (2013)
4. Out of Tune edited by John Maberry (2014)
5. Working Stiff by Kevin J. Anderson (2015)

ITB (Integrated Tug-Barge) - more than one genre (The last ship I worked on was similar to this. It carried petroleum products like gasoline and jet fuel.)



1. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (2013)
(historical fiction and fantasy)
2. Raiders of the Nile by Steven Saylor (2014)
3. The Empire Striketh Back by Ian Doescher (2014)
4. Kraken by China Miéville (2010)
5. Lock In by John Scalzi (2014)
6. The Camelot Papers by Peter David
7. Prince of Fools by Mark Lawrence

KEEL - the backbone of the ship - classic literature - from the 1001 books challenge



1. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (originally 1853)
2. Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (1991)
3. Keep the Apidistra Flying by George Orwell

FOREIGN FLAG - name given to a ship flying a flag other than U.S. - non-American authors



1. Hild by Nicola Griffith (2013)
2. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (orig. pub. 1979, translated 1981)
3. Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson (1934)
4. Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson (orig. 1936)
5. The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg (2008)
6. Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago (2005, translated in 2008)
7. Desert God by Wilbur Smith (2014)

ORLOP DECK - where my ROOTs are stowed!



1. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg et al (2011)
2. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (2013)
3. Stardust by Neil Gaiman (2008)
4. Snake Skin by CJ Lyons (2014)
5. Wax by Therese Ambrose Smith (2011)
6. Poseidon's Arrow by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (2012)

CATAMARAN - science fiction (referring to the amazing technology that went into the recent America's Cup boats)



1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (2013)
2. Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson (2014) (Steampunk)
3. The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrnes

SHIP'S LOG - legal documentation of ship's voyages - nonfiction



1. Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration by Ann Bausum (2008)
2. Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska's WWII Invasion by Samantha Seiple (2011)
3. The Normans: From Raiders to Kings by Lars Brownworth (2014)
4. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
5. Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar (2013)
6. Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons from Maine's Greatest Generation by Morgan Rielly (2014)
7. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (2010)
8. As You Wish by Cary Elwes (2014)
9. On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi by Ryusho Kadota (2014)
10. Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (2002)

GALLEY - food related (cookbooks, etc.)



1. Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Ross (2013)

BREAKBULK- freighters that can carry just about any cargo - anything that doesn't fit another category. (This ship is very similar to the first one I worked on, the Export Ambassador, in 1978.)



1. Breadfruit by Celestine Vaite (2006)
2. Howl: A Graphic Novel by Allen Ginsberg, animated by Eric Drooker (2010)
3. Reamde by Neal Stephenson (2011)
4. Shattered by Kevin Hearne
5. The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1953)
6. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (1992)
7. Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet (2015)

FLEET - a group of ships - I will record my successfully completed group reads here.



PROPOSED:
Middlemarch - first quarter
Bleak House - January - 1/10/14
The Picture of Dorian Gray - One Librarything One Book
Enrique's Journey - January GEOCAT
Cantebury Tales - second quarter
Bel Canto - March
Maddaddam - Atwood in April
The Prague Cemetery - Eco in May 5/22/14
Unbroken - November
I Am Malala - fourth quarter 10/17/2014



SHIP'S HOLD - where the cargo is held - the bulk of my reading which is usually YA fiction (This is a hold on a bulk carrier which would carry items such as coal, iron ore, loose grains, etc. The second and third ships I worked on were bulk carriers.)

1. The Good Braider by Terry Farish, read by Cherise Boothe (2014)
2. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (2011)
3. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (2013), narrated by Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra
4. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
5. The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason (2014)
6. Half a King by Joe Abercrombie, narrated by John Keating (2014)
7. The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi (2014)
8. Conversion by Katherine Howe (2014)
9. Confessions: The Paris Mysteries by James Patterson


**Subcategory - Books read for the HUB challenge

1. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2013)
2. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (2013)
3. "The President Has Been Shot!" by James L. Swanson (2013)
4. Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool (2013)
5. In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters (2013)
6. Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle (2013)
7. Winger by Andrew Smith (2013)
8. Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi, read by Sunil Malhotra (2013)
9. Scowler by Daniel Kraus (2013)
10. Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner (2013)
11. Courage Has No Color by Tanya Lee Stone (2013)
12. Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks (2013)
13. The Adventures of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks (2013)
14. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos (2013)
15. Dodger by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs, (2012)
16. Dogs of War by Sheila Kennan & Nathan Fox (2013)
17. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (2013)
18. Will & Whit by Laura Lee Gulledge (2013)
19. Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd (2013)
20. Lexicon by Max Barry (2013)
21. MIND MGMT #1 by Matt Kindt (2013)
22. I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak (orig. 2002 in Australia)
23. War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay

POOP DECK - Category inspired by BookLizard - books that fail the Pearl Rule and/or get thrown against a bulkhead!



The Portrait of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde - unless I get back to it at a later date. Mr. Wilde is really, really full of his own brilliance. I was blinded.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (2013), narrated by Tom Hollander, DNF - I will not return to finish this book. It may work better in print than audio but I won't live long enough to find out.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (2013), read by Fenella Woolgar - Renewed library's audiobook but still didn't finish.

Necromancer by William Gibson (1984), read by Robertson Dean - Too many terms and medical issues to be able to follow this story while driving. Gave up after 4 DCs. It was funny, however, to hear a science fiction story from 20 years ago still talking about dialed telephones

I want to start this new thread with a picture of last night's dinner. My son, daughter, and daughter's BF joined us for an oyster feast. We enjoyed the freshest oysters from the Hog Island Oyster Company, an oyster farm that operates in Tomales Bay. Unfortunately they have been told they have to close because of their impact on the environment. What a crock! An oyster farm is fully invested in maintaining the most pristine conditions for their crops to thrive. They would not enjoy any success if they were selling polluted critters. In the meantime, ranchers are allowed to continue to raise cattle on Point Reyes which are way more environmentally impacting. In any case, we had a delicious meal and enjoyed each other's excellent company!

Happy new thread! Those oysters look yummy. :)

I liked your nautical pictures and explanations the first time I read your thread, and I enjoyed them just as much a third time.

>11 RidgewayGirl: I was just about to say the same thing!

Happy new thread! Glad to see all the categories again. The ITB one is particularly interesting. Good idea!

Thanks, everyone, for stopping by!

It's nice to revisit the nautical pictures. Happy reading!

Happy new thread!

Congrats on the shiny new thread!

Love the new thread and your oyster feast!

Happy new thread!!

I hope everyone is enjoying good summer weather wherever you are!

I've been slow on finishing books. I have a major new distraction. Monsieur built me a new computer and it's screaming fast - far more juice than I really need. But... since I have it I may as well not let it go to waste so I am playing a few games that take full advantage of the speed. It has been years since I've been able to enjoy a good old dungeon crawl. I started with, and am totally hooked on Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim. The graphics are phenomenal, the art is amazing, and the game is challenging but not daunting since I have the assistance of an extremely detailed game guide. An upside to this is I have something to talk about with my son.

On the work front, I have been working a few hours here and there, first copying the huge newsletter to go out to parents before school starts. I've also helped check out new laptops to the teachers. They're excited. I got one for the library and have played with it a little so that I'll be able to help the teachers and the students with Windows 8 (don't get me started) on the brand new computers in the library. Later this week volunteers will be coming in to help stuff the newsletter and forms into mailing envelopes. This also takes place in the library (the hub of all action, of course) so I have tables set up with the various pieces to get mailed.

I've also been making the rounds with various medical offices having tests and junk. Joy!

I have three ERs that came all at once, two are audiobooks, one an uncorrected proof. The book is excellent and I should be finished soon. One of the audiobooks is very long (14 hours) so it will be a while since I only listen in my car. But I will persevere!



Shattered by Kevin Hearne (2013)
The Iron Druid Chronicles #7

Few things trigger old memories so quickly as authority figures from our youth.

Atticus and Granuaile are fighting the celestial bad guys again. I'm sure glad us mere mortals don't have to worry about the mythological heavyweights since we have more than enough bad guys in real life! As I mentioned earlier, I am so grateful for the quick rehash of the previous books. It's hard enough to keep the characters straight in the current book without having to remember who did what to whom in the past episodes.

And I love his relationship with the Irish Wolfhound, Oberon, whose religious leanings involve the worship of sausage.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

Okay, if you keep talking about Oberon, you'll hook me on this series eventually. I have always suspected that my dogs worship chicken.

Congrats on the new thread!

New thread!
>9 mamzel: what a feast! They're being shut down because of environmental impact? Does that mean every seafood restaurant in your area will have to stop serving oysters?

>20 mamzel:
I'm still waiting for the ER copy of that one to arrive. It is a very fun series and Oberon is a huge part of that.

Oh, a nice new thread, and you've been busy too.

Nice new thread! I think around here (RI) oyster farms are actually on the increase and I could swear "they" were saying it's actually good for the water, etc.

Happy new thread, and the oyster picture is making me drool. I love fresh oysters. It's really too bad the farm has to close.

There was this article about the last day of the oyster farm. Since they were in an area that was part of a proposed sanctuary they got the boot. And, yes, dudes22, the water for an oyster farm has to be maintained in pristine quality, not only for the growth and health of the creatures but the humans that eat them! I think I heard that the company is moving to Washington state.

Oh, I have been away for a while! I started back at work this week and have been totally exhausted when I got home. We got a lot of technology at our school this year that I am trying to keep track of. I just wish people would keep their hands off of them. I finally got an accounting of teacher laptops and found there were about 8 that went out without being checked out. We have about 420 Chromebooks that will be going out to classes and I have finally been able to do an inventory of them. So it took most of the week to accomplish that. Of course, there was a bit of "welcome back" hugs and sharing of books read with some of the teachers. I've also been learning Windows 8 (we have it on the new laptops as well as all new computers in the library) so I will be able to help teachers and students when they come back. Quite a step up from Windows XP and Office 2007!

I have been reading a little. I'm listening to a very long Early Reviewers book in the car, Prince of Fools, which I am loving. I also have an audio book from ER called The Girl with all the Gifts which I have on my phone. If things are quiet when school starts maybe I'll listen to that too. In the meantime I did finish another ER (they all arrived at the same time), the review for which follows. I am reading a totally off-the-wall book, Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago on my Kindle.



The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne (2014)

The world begins anew, starting now.

I received this book through the Early Reviewers program.

It was hard to say what genre this book would settle into. It takes place in the near future (second half of the 21st century) and there was quite a bit of interesting technology but I wouldn't call it science fiction. It features two women but I wouldn't call it chick lit either. It does feature the journeys of the two women, one from Mumbai to Ethiopia via a bridge of energy-generating pontoons, and another woman who starts from western Africa and travels across the Sahara in a truck with two men and another woman.

Meena is a young Indian woman who wakes up one morning with five fang wounds in her chest. She decides it's time to leave and return to Ethiopia where she was born. She finds an outfitter who supplies her with all her needs for hiking across the bridge where other adventurers and runaways can be found. Among her things are desalting kits and a spiffy gadget that can transform seaweed into any food you desire. She also has a nice shelter that can also submerge when the surface becomes too rough due to storms. Miriama starts out from western Africa and hides in the back of a truck but is found by the driver and is allowed to continue with them. She has eaten a piece of sea snake that doesn't agree with her and causes her distress all through her journey. (Not too subtle metaphors referring to a part of the male anatomy.) We discover that each of them is escaping bad situations involving men.

I have decided that edgy books are what appeal most to me these days and this book could definitely be considered edgy. Was it perfect? No. This was a debut novel and I found the ending a bit abrupt but the travel portions of the book were captivating as each woman faced totally different environments and dangers.

We also get a glimpse into a future where third world countries still cannot shake some of their old bad habits, like the caste system in India and the disquiet between blacks and Arabs in northern Africa.

CATEGORY: ITB (CROSS-GENRE)

Now that I have posted my review with pictures and article link, I will take my iPad out to the living room and try to catch up on other peoples' threads!

Oh, the first week of school has been busy, busy, busy. At night, to keep from falling asleep too early, I've been playing an RPG on my new screaming machine (I need to think up a good name for it). I finished this book last weekend and haven't visited LT to review it since then. So, here we go...



Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago (2005, translated in 2008)

The following day, no one died. This fact, being absolutely contrary to life's rules, provoked enormous and, in the circumstances, perfectly justifiable anxiety in people's minds, for we have only to consider that in the entire forty volumes of universal history there is no mention, not even one exemplary case, of such a phenomenon ever having occurred, for a whole day to go by, with its generous allowance of twenty-four hours, diurnal and nocturnal, matutinal and vespertine, without one death from an illness, a fatal fall, or a successful suicide, not one, not a single one.

I usually only quote the first line of a book but I've given two lines to give everyone a taste of how the book reads. Sentences go on and on, paragraphs go on for pages, and dialogue lacks punctuation. Since I'm not an English major, I will quote from Wikipedia (I couldn't even find him in any of my literature reference).

José de Sousa Saramago, 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the greatest living novelist" and considers him to be "a permanent part of the Western canon",12 while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."1

About the book -

Saramago's experimental style often features long sentences, at times more than a page long. He used periods sparingly, choosing instead a loose flow of clauses joined by commas.7 Many of his paragraphs extend for pages without pausing for dialogue, (which Saramago chooses not to delimit by quotation marks); when the speaker changes, Saramago capitalizes the first letter of the new speaker's clause. His works often refer to his other works.

Additionally, his novel Death with Interruptions (also translated as Death at Intervals) takes place in a country in which, suddenly, nobody dies, and concerns, in part, the spiritual and political implications of the event, although the book ultimately moves from a synoptic to a more personal perspective.

Fortunately, this was a relatively short book or I might have given up. It sure was interesting, though.

CATEGORY: FOREIGN FLAG (NON-AMERICAN AUTHOR)

OOOOO! I just saw a review for a new Chet and Bernie - Paw and Order! Going to reserve copy at the library now.

Death with Interruptions is on my read-eventually list. Good to know about its style!

I like Saramago's style of writing very much, so I'm anticipating enjoying Death with Interruptions a lot - sorry it didn't quite do it for you.

Death with Interruptions sounds interesting!

>33 -Eva-: What else of his would you recommend? I read Death with Interruptions a few years ago and remember liking his writing style once I got into the rhythm of it. Would like to read something else by him.

I loved Death with Interruptions but I am also a big fan of Saramago's writing style. I thought he had created such a great character in 'little d' and had lots of fun with his digs at bureaucracy in the story.

>35 LittleTaiko: I read Saramago's The Siege of Lisbon in February and really enjoyed it. I have also seen good reviews of Blindness here on LT, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

>35 LittleTaiko: & >37 inge87:
Blindness is fantastic! Just fasten your seatbelt and abandon yourself to the narrator's voice - it'll be quite a ride!

It wasn't that I didn't like it. It was unusual but I'm glad I read it. I found my eyes glazing over on some of the run on-and-on-and-on paragraphs. When I looked at his other books, I thought The Elephant's Journey looked intriguing and I will look out for it.

I have both Blindness and The Elephant's Journey in my TBR. I was going to read Blindness last year for one of the Award Cats, but didn't manage to get to it. I'm not a big fan of the run-on, but I will give it/them a chance some day.

I happened to glance on my shelf this morning and what did I see? The Elephant's Journey!

I gave up on Blindness. I didn't find it that believable and when someone commented on it "lots of poop" I decided I'd skip that one and perhaps try another Saramago later. The Stone Raft was made into a movie that I saw. That one might be interesting, and the movie had a fantastic moment when the Rock of Gibraltar stayed behind while the rest of the Iberian Peninsula relocated.

I'll happily add both The Elephant's Journey and The Stone Raft to my wishlist.

Happy Doctor Who Day!

I started The Elephant's Journey this morning.

Speaking of this morning!

We had ourselves an earthquake this morning. At 3:20 I was awakened to a loud roar and the bed was pitching around. I could hear the water in the pool sloshing (we lost about 4 inches of water). When I tried to get out of bed I had to skate over all the books that had fallen from a shelf. My husband was able to stick a flashlight in my hand as we cautiously made our way through the house. Parts of our entertainment center had toppled over and spilled cookbooks, pictures, and electronics on the floor. Power was out as could be expected and there was nothing I could do until the sun came up except to listen to the radio. My daughter and I set up the camp stove and made coffee. Later I went to the library and I have thousands of books to pick up tomorrow. They did tell students to stay home tomorrow so we can get cleaned up. We've had a couple of little aftershocks but I really hope we don't have any more large ones. No apparent structural damage and no one was injured beyond a major adrenaline spike. Ah! Life in sunny California!


Entertainment center in my house




Library mess

Oh no! Restoring order seems like such a daunting task! But Thank Goodness that no one was seriously hurt! I've only ever experienced one teeny, tiny earthquake, and that was in Massachusetts! Ironically, now that I live in moderate Earthquake territory, I haven't felt one yet! Though we do have nasty wildfires to contend with :-(

Oh Dear, what a mess. I an glad to hear nobody was hurt. It must have been quite frightening waking up in the middle of an earthquake.

I saw that on the news this morning - happy to hear that nothing more serious happened to you guys!

Glad to see that no one was injured but what a clean up task to put everything back in order!

Heard this on the news this am. Glad you are ok. What a mess. Never been near an earthquake, hope never to be.

Yikes! Glad you're okay. Good luck tomorrow cleaning up the mess.

That's crazy! That's going to take some time to put back in order. Glad you and family are ok.

So glad to hear that you and your family are alright. This one seems to have been a nasty one. I will be thinking of you having to reshelf all those book tomorrow.

I don't envy you the job of picking up all those books tomorrow. I'm glad you are okay though.

I'm glad you're okay.

Good to know that you are all okay. I did kind of smile at the picture of the library. It reminded me of the times I managed to roll a wheel of the bookmobile over a hump....

Oh no! I heard about the quake but didn't know you would be affected. Glad to hear everyone's OK and I hope the books are the same.

So glad you and yours weren't hurt! Best of luck with the re-shelving.

I too am glad you're ok.

Thanks everyone for your good thoughts. I sat at my desk this morning and felt a little overwhelmed and sorry for myself. Whenever a truck went by outside and I felt the vibrations I felt jumpy expecting aftershocks. I wanted a cup of coffee but couldn't get to my coffee maker. I turned on a radio station with happy music, cleared a way to the maker and a couple of instructional aides came in and helped me start in the area behind my desk. I was told that I couldn't work on the rest of the library until they fixed the drop ceiling fixtures and put the diffusers back on the lights. The lights got repaired but not the panels. I went with the librarian to visit some of the other schools who were pretty well cleaned up. We went out to lunch, returned to our library where things still weren't done so we called it a day.

One of the secretaries had a cute story of her cat who may have saved her life. The cat had been acting strange for about a week and she was concerned that it had a brain tumor. The cat woke her up at 3:00 so she went to the kitchen for a drink. After the quake hit she found that a shelf had fallen on her bed and surely would have injured her. She's convinced the cat felt tremors early on.

Many people said their pets were traumatized but one lady had two labs who were just thrilled that people were up to play with them at such an early hour.

It is my opinion that quake preparedness was good and that is why there were so few injuries. The hospital and first responders were very prepared and minimized damage. I think recent events got enough people to support their chimneys and check for gas leaks so that more damage didn't occur.

Glad to know that things are getting back to normal. It sounds scary!

Managed to get all the books picked up and generally placed correctly yesterday with the help of a few staff members. I'll still have to go through and read the shelves though. One book I was looking for called Plate Tectonics had been replaced in the Astronomy section. There's a message there, I know. Our extraordinary custodial staff fixed all the ceiling issues and even snuck in last night and vacuumed all the dust and stuff that fell down from the ceilings. It would be hard to tell that anything happened except for all the TV vans outside. I put up a display of earthquake books with the smashed globe acting as a symbol with the recalcitrant plate tectonics book.

The Camelot Papers by Peter David (2011)

My first sight of the castle filled me with nothing but a deep and abiding anger.

I had received this book as part of a Humble Bundle offer and it has been on my Kindle for a while before I finally decided to read it. What a treat! It has a rather hard-to-swallow premise that we are reading the memoirs of a literate slave named Viviana. She arrives at Camelot and is put in service in the kitchen. Eventually she receives the notice of Guinevere because of her outspoken views and is made her lady-in-waiting. There are lots of twists to the well known story such as the facts that Morgan is Guinevere's sister, Arthur is a wuss (he faints at the sight of blood), and Galahad is a figment of Viviana's imagination.

What won me over (and believe me, it wasn't the cover - I didn't see that until I went to the book's page) was the great writing. Viviana has a fresh and modern voice and point of view and manages to influence events in court. I was surprised to learn this book has over 400 pages. It read very quickly and really held my attention.

CATEGORY: ORLOP DECK (TBR LIST)

>60 mamzel:
" two labs who were just thrilled that people were up to play with them at such an early hour"
Haha - I love that!!

I just discovered that the latest Louise Penny book is out. Waiting for text from library that my copy is available!

eta: I'm 28th in queue. Just as well since I have other things in the works. I hope to hear good things from other LTers in the meanwhile.

I am sharing this article because it relates to something all of us deal with on a regular basis - how we choose our next book to read. I found it so interesting that students in particular need recommendations for their next reading adventure. I, and I suspect many of you, never have that problem or indeed never have had that problem since we started to read!

On the Nightstand: On Deciding What to Read Next by Sonya Chung

>65 mamzel: - I bought the book but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Hopefully this weekend I can start it and report back. It wasn't part of my reading plan for September but I'll definitely all other books aside for this!

>66 mamzel: - good article.

Howl: A Graphic Novel by Allen Ginsberg, animated by Eric Drooker (2010)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...

One of the pleasures/hazards of working in a library is coming across a book that catches my attention and having to read it right then. Today I've been covering new books and came across the graphic novel version of Howl. Not having been a lit student I am totally unfamiliar with this work even though I was aware of it. I can't say I understand much of it but I was blown away by the words. The artwork is soft and surreal, not as sharp and jagged as the poetry. It comes from the movie based on the poem. I think I may try to see if I can find it on Netflix this weekend.



...to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head...

CATEGORY: BREAKBULK (MISCELLANEOUS)

>67 LittleTaiko: I'll watch for your comments.

>68 dudes22: So glad you enjoyed it.

>69 mamzel:
Yep, that's a BB right there!

Howl: A Graphic Novel looks worth looking for, especially given how powerful that one illustration you've posted is.

>71 -Eva-: and >72 RidgewayGirl: It's worth the quick read, that's for sure.

JULY AND AUGUST ROUND UP

1. Blips - LT recommendations -3
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 4
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 3
4. ITB - cross genre -4
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 2
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 7
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list -3
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 2
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 7
10. Galley - food related - 1
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous - 2
12. Fleet - group reads
13. Ship's hold - YA -23
13a. HUB Challenge - 22
14. Poop Deck - books not finished -2

Total read: 85

Favorites:



I'm a little behind my pace from last year. I will have to hustle if I will break 100 this year. Back to more YA reads!

First of this last quarter:



Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell (1956)

I can't for the life of me remember why I downloaded this book to my Kindle. Before I begin, however, this is an aspidistra:


per Wikipedia: Aspidistra elatior is common worldwide as a foliage house plant that is very tolerant of neglect.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Gordon Comstock lives in London in the late 1930s, a country under the threat of war, not that he's all that concerned about that. What he is concerned about is waging his own personal war against money. His philosophy is that people should not work and live solely for earning and spending money. He gives up a decent job writing ad copy to take a menial job in a used book store. This job earns him the bare minimum to pay for his attic room and an occasional beer. Maybe if he suffers enough he will be able to write the poetry he wants to and be published. He has a friend of means who wouldn't mind paying for a meal or visit to a pub if Gordon would swallow his pride once in a while. He has a sister who has grown up knowing that all efforts must be directed to supporting her brother. Gordon also has a girlfriend who refuses to sleep with him until they are married but he can't believe that she can love him since he has no money.

This guy is sooooo messed up! Page after page of his wallowing self pity and stubbornness. The only reason I went on with this book is to see if ANYTHING would shake him of this self-imposed misery and bring him to join our world of capitalism. That I stayed with him to the end is a real credit to Orwell's writing.

CATEGORY: FOREIGN FLAG (NON-AMERICAN AUTHOR)

Hmmm ... I'm not sure I want pages of "wallowing self pity and stubbornness" either. I've been meaning to read Keep the Apidistra Flying, but that doesn't sound encouraging. However, I do agree about the quality of Orwell's writing. I love his essays as well as his novels.

>69 mamzel: And it's a BB ! The art is gorgeous and it's the only way that I would dare to read Howl, thanks for the review :)

>75 mathgirl40: I read the book with an almost constant need to slap the man and yell, "Get over yourself already!" I would say an author has done his job well if he evokes emotions like that.
He does snap out of it when he gets the girl friend pregnant.

>76 electrice: It is eye catching. I got caught up with another book today, a picture book of tsunami damage.

Prince of Fools by Mark Lawrence, narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds (2014)

ONE - I am a liar, a cheat, and a coward, but I will never, ever, let a friend down. Unless of course letting them down requires honesty, fair play, or bravery.

I received this audio book through the Early Reviewers Program and did I ever hit the jackpot with this one.

14 hours driving with Jalan and Snorri (guessing on the spelling) and their adventures with unborn, brutal weather, ax battles, and other nasty stuff was such a treat. Jal is a spoiled castle brat who is thrust into the cruel world alone when war breaks out. Luckily, he joins up with Snorri Snorgesen (sp?), a huge blond Viking who takes him under his wing. Jal is well aware of his shortcomings but manages a little growth along the way. He becomes a legitimate member of humankind when he discovers he has the power to heal people's wounds and diseases which comes very helpful.

The story is told from Jal's self-deprecating point of view. He is well aware of his short comings but surprises even himself at times. He has a wonderful sense of humor which had me smiling always, chuckling frequently, and laughing out loud on rare occasions.

If Lawrence's other stories have this sense of humor, I'll definitely be reading them. In any case, I'll keep an eye out for continuations of Jal's story.

CATEGORY: FLYING DUTCHMAN (HORROR) because of the violence and monsters

>78 mamzel: Fabulous opening line...now I have to check out this book!

Me as well!! Although the reader is not one I enjoy, so I think I'll go with paper.

Just catching up on your thread. That picture of the library mess is horrifying. I wish I could have helped you reshelve but I'm on the other coast and use LOC. Do you Dewey? I hope your library is put back together by now.

Prince of Fools sounds good. The library doesn't have the audio, but I put the ebook on my wishlist.

I saw you added Half a King to your library. Are you planning to read it soon? I have it sitting on my Kindle and could use an excuse to read it sooner. Mini-group read?

80> I'm glad to hear you say that since I can't get the audio.

79 & 80> Group read in January? LOL.

He sounds a bit like the people who read the paragraphs in my English-book when I was a kid - we'd listen to that first in class so that we would get pronunciation right, but it wasn't very evocative... :)

Good idea, but I am terrible at commitments like that - if I pick a book in advance, it's pretty much a guarantee I won't want to read it when the time comes around.

>78 mamzel: Mark Lawrence has been on my radar for a while but so far not got around to picking up any of his books. Looks like I need to remedy that situation.

Glad to hear you made it through the earthquake okay, but what a headache!

>74 mamzel: I think that Orwell is the master of the clueless protagonist. I like Orwell, but I won't be in a rush to start this book!

Eva, As a comparison, I had recently listened to a recording of a Horatio Hornblower book read by the type of British narrator whose voice practically dripped icicles he was soooooo British. Reynolds was much more relaxed, less high-brow, more animated and fit well with the story. I loaned the book to my coworker and she loves the narrator, too. It's too bad he brings back bad memories to you.

>81 BookLizard: I started Half a King this morning. The beginning has many similarities to Prince of Fools in that the protagonist is a prince with much to learn. In this book, however, he has to learn a lot faster since he becomes king even before I got to work. It was funny that I won these two books, both audio, back to back.

>85 aliciamay: I realized I read it for the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die thread. I should have tried his book Burmese Days by him. I might have enjoyed that one better.

>81 BookLizard: >82 BookLizard: If you guys get together for a group read, I will have the inducement to enjoy it again!

>78 mamzel: Great line, promising book. Taken note of.

LOL on the Apidapispappystra. I've known that guy. Sometimes I am that guy. I think if I read that book, it might spur me on to rejoin the corporate world. ;) In the US, as much as you try, it seems you can never escape capitalism and I have to say, bookstores in England and the US are capitalist even in Orwell's time. Was this vaguely disguised autobiography?

& glad you survived the earthquake!!! Whoa! I think I would've cried seeing all those books on the floor, and then I would've set some of the students to putting them back in place.

You've got me wishing that my library had Prince of Fools.

Sounds like the earthquake could have been worse, but all those books to reshelve! Hope you are all back to normal now.

>87 MissWatson: >89 hailelib: I hope you won't be disappointed if you give it a try.

>88 cammykitty: giggle. I have to stop and think about how to pronounce the name of the plant every time! I love your alternate spelling. I have no idea if this was based on personal experience. I'd rather believe that he just invented this guy than base it on himself or someone he actually knew.

I felt pretty overwhelmed and still edgy on the Monday following the quake. However, I had plenty help getting things back in order from aides and others who didn't have that much to clean up.

I did some marathon reading this weekend and am close to finishing the mammoth Reamde.

I'm looking through a magazine of books coming out soon and was thrilled to see another of the River God series by Wilbur Smith. I immediately went and put a hold on it at my library. Was also thrilled to find the next in the Precious Ramotswe series and did likewise. They only have the audio book on order but that will do fine. In the magazine the book is a normal price, $24.95 but the ebook price is $74.85!!! Whaaaaa?? I guess they don't want to sell any of those!

eta - For those of you who are fans of the Longmire series, a book of short stories is coming out.

Ahoy mateys!
Row over to the Pirate Page and try your hand at digging for treasure. It took me a while to solve the puzzles and was finally able to get the last answer with help. Too fun!

>93 mamzel: - I had great fun working on that today!! #'s 5, 8, and 10 were the hardest for me to solve.

8 was the worst, wasn't it? The clues left by other LTers helped tremendously!

>94 LittleTaiko: & >95 mamzel: 8 & 10 were horrid. I needed a couple of clues on 10 and nearly the entire page of clues for 8. Finally got it, though.

Ah, that $74.85 has got to be a typo! Either they cut their proofreader to save money, or their proofreader got distracted because he/she was excited as you were that the next book was coming out.

#8 was really hard for me too - I needed a lot of help with that one. The first few I accidentally came upon searching for something else - I didn't even know there was a game going on! What a fun idea!!

>96 PawsforThought: Yay for us!
>98 -Eva-: You must have been doing some heavy duty browsing to accidentally come across the treasures! I thought the arrangement was really well done.
>97 cammykitty: I paid attention to the costs of other ebooks and saw a number of really high costs from different publishers, and not all books by those publishers were that high so I don't quite get why some are and others aren't.



Reamde by Neal Stephenson (2011)

Richard kept his head down. Not all those cow pies were frozen, and the ones that were could turn an ankle.

I was at a friend's house where they were still getting things put away from the earthquake and noticed this book on the floor. I commented how I have always meant to try one of his books and she picked it up and handed it to me. And, so, there I was. No more putting it off.

Over 1000 pages long. Pardon me while I crow about finishing a book of that length!

And to fill a book that size are no less than two different worlds (the real one and a virtual one), loads of characters in both those worlds (some concurring) and plenty of action in both, sometimes simultaneously. I couldn't help but think of a wall in Mr. Stephenson's house plastered from floor to ceiling in sticky notes of various colors to keep everything straight.

Richard Forthrast is a billionaire who started off smuggling marijuana and now has built and owns a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) in a world called T'Rain. Some gold miners in China (youths who spend hours harvesting gold in the virtual world so that their bosses can convert them to money in the real world) have created a virus called REAMDE (a mashup, I think, of the basic Readme file and the slang for screwed, reamed) which attacks players' computer files and encodes them for ransom. As more people contracted the virus and tried to deliver the gold to the designated spot in T'Rain it became more and more difficult as scavengers swooped in and ambushed them for the gold they were carrying. Things were getting out of hand.

A group of techies including Richard's Eritrean-born niece, Zula, go to China to find the miners to try and convince them to stop. In Xiamen they find the group but are headed off by a group of Russian mobsters who are also looking for the group. Zula misdirects them to the floor above the miners which just happens to be the home of a group of Islamic terrorists and... well I won't spoil the rest of the story which involves lots of weapons, some tricky jet flying, computerese, and lots of chase scenes in the mountains of British Columbia and Idaho. Last weekend I easily spent two mornings reading for over 6 hours each. And the time flew. Whenever I thought of taking a break and doing something productive but directly I caved in and had to pick up the book for a little while longer. I can't remember the last time I was so deeply immersed in a book.

I dinged the book a half star because the chasing in the mountains went on and on and on.

CATEGORY: BREAKBULK (MISCELLANEOUS)

>99 mamzel: Yay indeed.

I think I can guess what Eva was browsing to stumble over the treasure troves by accident. One or two classic children's books would do it, for instance. Or a little tour around the LT shop.

>99 mamzel: & >100 PawsforThought:
Well, it was Talk Like A Pirate-day, so I was doing a loop around my catalog to see if I had something appropriate for that and I didn't really read that yellow bar that popped up (it looked like any other reminder about the Pirate-version of LT). Then I was looking for the location of a book I know I own by Jung (I use Collections to keep track) and then I suddenly had 3 treasures, so I had to go find the rest, naturally! :)

We got our little treasure chest badges - too cool!



Lock In by John Scalzi (2014)

Haden's syndrome is the name given to a set of continuing physical and mental conditions and disabilities initially brought on by "the Great Fly," the influenza-like global pandemic that resulted in the deaths of more than 400 million people worldwide, either through the initial flu-like symptoms, the secondary stage of meningitis-like cerebral and spinal inflammation, or through complications arising due to the third stage of the disease, which typically caused complete paralysis of the voluntary nervous system, resulting in "lock in" for its victims.

Told from the viewpoint of a 'locked in', Chris Shane, we get a story that is equally science fiction and detective mystery. Chris is the son of a professional basketball player turned politician, a very wealthy individual. Chris was one of the earliest people diagnosed with the syndrome and because his father was a great advocate for the lock ins, was practically a poster boy. He wanted to make a positive contribution to society so he became a police officer and worked with the homicide division as an expert of Haden's syndrome.

Scalzi has a great talent to create characters who are regular humans in a totally new twist of a condition. Here we have a new population of people , some are totally paralyzed but completely cognizant of everything. Others have been altered to be able to allow the conscience of the lock ins to share their brain and be a living container. These are called mediators. Technology has been created to provide robots for the lock ins called threeps after C3PO. This new culture and technology creates all sorts of new problems and the inevitable scoundrels that want to take advantage of the situation. With such a rich new world, it is amazing that this book is quite short and fast reading.

CATEGORY: ITB (CROSS-GENRE) science fiction & detective mystery

Of course Lock In seems like a fast read after Reamde! Lock In sounds interesting, especially since there are people like that now and no one is doing much of anything for them as far as gainful and interesting employment goes. Steven Hawking is a rarity.

Yay! We do have our treasure chest badges! Thanks for pointing it out.

>103 cammykitty: It only took two short mornings to read Lock In. I could have read it in one sitting but wanted to stretch it out. Reamde took about three weekends with a couple of marathon reading sessions.

>104 RidgewayGirl: They're so cuuute!

I've requested Lock In from the library and am definitely looking forward to it! :)

>102 mamzel:
Oh, I hadn't seen that the badges had come in. Nice!

I haven't received notification of a prize. Has anyone won one of the book or t-shirt prizes?

I haven't heard either, but I think they're waiting to send any notifications until the new system is rolled out (can't remember where I read that, though). It'll probably show up on the blog.

The winners were listed in message 434 on the talk thread:

Among those who'll soon be swabbing the decks in only the finest of LibraryThing garb:

GerrysBookshelf
mandymarie20
dne2004
murderbydeath
Kelsey1696

And the lucky land-lubbers who've won a free book:

The_Froo
SylviaC
ForeignCircus
cheekylala
Frl.Famos

Doesn't look like anyone from this group. Too bad! Better luck next year, everyone! (If there'll be another hunt next year, I hope.)

I bet there will be. So much fun! People really seemed to enjoy it. I know I did!

I went to the San Francisco Library FOL book sale this past weekend and was a very good girl. I started by looking for books for the library and found a few, especially some in French as requested by our French teacher. I found one book, later, at a gift store on Polk St. that had some used books. It was an ARC for the soon-to-be-released book by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Doubt Factory. It feels so odd to be reading an ARC that I did not win from Early Reviewers. I held my tongue and did not point out to the counterperson that it plainly says on the front "NOT FOR SALE".

Great reviews of Reamde and Lock In! Both are by authors I like very much, and I hope to get to them eventually. Actually, I really, really want to read more Stephenson, but the length and depth of his books are rather intimidating.

Great reviews! I am now rather excited that I have a copy of Reamde, as I have yet to dip into Stephenson's works. I agree with you. It feels great when you finish a 1000 page chunkster! ;-)

>113 mamzel:
My FOL-bookstore sells plenty of ARCs - and some of them come from me, I have to admit. :)

I think an FOL sale is different than a store that's making a profit from selling books, IMO. I donate ARCs to FOL sales when I'm done with them.

>114 mathgirl40: I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the book read. There was not a dull moment to be had. My only little niggle was that I was mentally exhausted by the chasing around and the end seemed to drag on and on.

>115 lkernagh: Thanks. I'm looking around for my next major challenge already.

>116 -Eva-: and >117 dudes22: It was not a FOL sale where I bought it - it was a regular store. I put my ARCs on my work library's Honor Shelf (books not catalogued or checked out - students are on their honor to return them when done).

I finished an inventory of our fiction books and cannot account for 25 books. It happens. I kept track of books I want to read as I went along. That's the dangerous part of this activity!

Boy, oh boy, did September fly by. We are into the last quarter of the year. I did some recount of my books and adjusted some titles so my progress to date is as follows:

1. Blips - LT recommendations -4
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 7
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 3
4. ITB - cross genre - 7
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 2
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 7
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list -3
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 3
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 7
10. Galley - food related - 1
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous - 4
12. Fleet - group reads -2
13. Ship's hold - YA - 4
13a. HUB Challenge - 23
14. Poop Deck - books not finished -2

GRAND TOTAL: 79

Three out the four books I completed this month earned four stars or more from me and I would recommend them to fans of their particular genres!

>119 mamzel: I was really excited to see your positive review and end-of-the-month recommendation for Prince of Fools! I got a review copy from Recorded Books and now I'm just waiting to finish up my current listen before I start. I usually blow past reviews of books I'm about to review myself; but in this case, I'm a little bit out of my wheelhouse and needed a little insight! :-)

Lock in is definitely on my WL. That "not for sale" thing on ARCs is to protect them from places like bookstores that get tons and tons of ARCs for the sales staff. I put ARCs on bookmooch and donate them to charitable booksales all the time. I do, however, hold on to them until after there release date. Publishers are often pretty serious about their release dates so I don't mess with them. However, if the next owner promised to write a review, they'd probably be happy. ARCs are all about creating buzz.

>120 Tanya-dogearedcopy: I loaned Prince of Fools to the librarian and she loved it, too. Even if you aren't a fan of fantasy sword-slashing stories, the humor and journey are loads of fun.

>121 cammykitty: I will indeed write a review for the book. As I said, it was not a book sale where I found it and I don't think it has quite been released yet. I give my ARCs away to the students here. I hope you will enjoy Lock In. It's really an intriguing situation.

>118 mamzel:
Well, I clearly didn't read that properly. :) I've seen ARCs in regular shops too, but less often. I like the honor shelf-idea!!

>118 mamzel: - I don't think I worded my post in 117 very well. I did realize that you didn't buy it at an FOL sale and was agreeing that it shouldn't have been in a store that makes a profit from selling books (used or not).

I give some of my ARCs to the school library, some to the students. My books go all over the place when I'm done with them! ARC or not. I'm amazed at how excited even our "reluctant" readers are to get a book that is their very own to keep.

Ugh! Sneeze! Nose wipe! Cough! Cough! Cough! Head cold. I felt the tickle in my throat on Saturday and by Sunday was carrying around a box of tissues wherever I went. I stayed home yesterday and today but should be well enough to go in tomorrow. At least I can catch up a little on reading and reviewing. It's been hard to read though, since my sinuses were swollen and my eyes were red and yucky. The first I'll share is an Early Reviewer title that took me much too long to read.



The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason (2014)

There are a limited number of excuses for a young, intelligent woman of seventeen to be traversing the fog-shrouded streets of London at midnight.

On one hand this book has a lot of promise with some interesting characters and premises but it seemed to try too hard and I found it straining at times. The two main characters were young women (yay!), one of which is Evaline Stoker, sister to Bram, and the other is Mina Holmes, daughter of Mycroft and niece of Sherlock. Evaline is a vampire hunter and is the physical one of the pair. Mina is a true Holmes, a genius with the talent of observation like her famous uncle. Unfortunately they both suffer from attitudes that no one can match their abilities, least of all each other. They do not bond and form a team. This may happen in the next book. They are brought together by Miss Adler, the only woman to get the better of Sherlock, to investigate the murders of prominent young women linked by scarabs left by their bodies.

Another thing that felt strained was the overabundance of steam gadgets to perform every task imaginable. The last thing that bothered me was the presence of two young men, one a street scamp named Pix and the other an American who appears from the future at the scene of the latest murder (boo!). Because all young women know they can't possibly accomplish anything if a guy isn't around to perform the heavy work.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (YA)

These are two books I had downloaded to my Kindle a while ago. They were read usually at night and usually to help me get back to sleep. They were not fantastic, the second was more interesting than the first.



Magic 101 by Mercedes Lackey (2014)

Meh! This was a straight to Kindle book as (I imagine) a teaser to investigate the rest of the series. It introduces us to Diana Tregarde who is a witch and occult investigator. We see how she debunks amateur practitioners and helps clean up their accidental conjurings.

It was only OK.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)



Burning Water by Mercedes Lackey (2006)

Lupe sobbed harshly, her voice muffled, as if smothered by the darkness all about her.

Diana is invited to Texas to investigate mysteries occurrences in the Dallas area such as the flight of types of people like the Rom. Horrible bodies are found with hearts torn out and the bodies framed with flowers. With all of her gifts Diana couldn't figure out what or who was responsible until she finally gets to meet with a bruja who gives her the clue to investigate an Aztec connection. It seems an old god had possessed a man visiting Mexico and has returned to the States with four young Mexican sisters who model for his photography business. They are recreating a series of sacrifices and rituals to return to power and avenge the death of the Aztec empire.

The action, mythology, and occult in this story made it fun and engaging, the perfect Kindle read.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

Finished off another book that had been on my Kindle for a while.



Snake Skin by CJ Lyons (2014)

She stroked the tip of her thumbnail against her tongue, testing. Not sharp enough. Yet.

Lucy Guardino is the wife of a psychologist and the mother of a 12-year old daughter. She is also an FBI agent who works as a coordinator to organize various agencies investigated cases involving child pornography and abductions. She is in the middle of a sting operation to catch a group of child predators when the daughter of a prominent couple is abducted from her home.

While she is investigating the disturbing facts of the girl's home life, her own daughter becomes ill and she has the obligatory tug of war between career and home. At the root of her dedication is her determination to make the world safer for her daughter. Single-handedly.

The story was well developed with interesting twists but I have to ding her half a star for two annoying and distracting habits of the protagonist. The first is how she if forever cracking her jaw, clenching her jaw, stretching her neck (to remind us how stressful her career is) and the other is how she twists her wedding ring, kisses it after removing it for uncover work, taps it on the phone, desk, etc. (to remind us how stressful her home life is).

I bought this book as a Kindle special, designed I'm sure to entice me to read more of this series. Unfortunately I don't think I will.

CATEGORY: ORLOP DECK (ROOTS)

The Clockwork Scarab has such an interesting premise. I'll keep it in mind in case my daughter goes Sherlock-crazy again.

This afternoon after school I am running over to the public library to pick up ... I finally got to the head of the queue . . . The Long Way Home. Guess what I'm doing this weekend!

Enjoy your weekend with Louise Penny! ;)

LOL! I feel for the author! I'm sure all those neck stretches and twists of the wedding ring were in response to someone at some time in her life harping at her to "show, don't tell."

>126 mamzel:
Hope you feel better soon!

I've been so tempted by that book because of the cover, but I keep seeing reviews in the same vein as yours, so I'll stay away.

>132 cammykitty: They were as subtle as a sledgehammer, for sure!

>133 -Eva-: Except for an annoying and lingering post nasal drip I'm back in action. Thanks! I really can't recommend this book which is unfortunate because the story was pretty decent and the reason I kept with it to the end.

I spent a good amount of this morning galloping through The Long Way Home. Penny sure has a gift for keeping us in a story and not letting go. I had to force myself to stop and leave something for tomorrow and get to doing something productive. I've changed the sheets on my bed and am on my second load of laundry.

I finished this audiobook yesterday.



Half a King by Joe Abercrombie, narrated by John Keating (2014)

There was a harsh gale blowing on the night Yarvi learned he was a king. Or, half a king, at least.

It was rather unfair to listen to this book directly on the heels of The Prince of Fools. There were many parallels in the stories and the book by Lawrence eclipsed Abercrombie's. Both feature a young prince, unlikely to sit on the throne and cast adrift by the murderous actions of others. They both rely on others for their survival as they grow and eventually return to their home. Yarvi, however, does not have the sense of humor the Jarl has.

Yarvi is the younger son of the king of Gettland but was born with a deformed and useless arm so he was relegated to learning at the side of an old woman, Mother Gundrun (sp?). He was destined to serve as a minister when his older brother took the throne. Before his brother could marry their cousin, however, their uncle killed both the king and the brother. When it was Yarvi's turn, he accidently tripped and fell over the side of the castle into the sea. He was picked up by a boat and sold into slavery to pull an oar with his one good arm. At this point Yarvi seemed rather rudderless (pun intended) and just went with the flow without any plans to return home and avenge his family or even just get himself out of slavery. I found it hard to sympathize with the character or root for him to succeed. He eventually manages to organize a little mutiny and escape with a couple of fellow slaves. They manage to make their way back to Gettland and with the help of another king, oust the uncle.

There was no fantastical elements in this story and none of the humor that made Prince of Fools so much fun. Ironically there was a blurb for the other book at the end of this one.

The narrator was perfectly suited to this type of story and did a fine job juggling accents for the different character.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (YA)

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014)

As Clara Morrow approachyed, she wondered if he'd repeat the same small gesture he'd done every morning.

For those of you who are already fans of the Chief Inspector Gamache series you already know.

For those of you two or three who haven't yet discovered it, you are in for such a wonderful treat. Please start the series from the beginning and savor your way to this one. You won't ever be disappointed and will discover you have a new little family to care about and be amazed by.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

>135 mamzel: Glad to see you enjoyed the Louise Penny. It will probably be November before I have time to pick it up, but I'm looking forward to reading it.

I read the following three books aloud to one of our SH (Severely Handicapped) classes today. The kids liked them a lot and the teachers enjoyed them, too.



The Widow's Broom by Chris Van Allsburg has always been a favorite of mine. His illustrations are just gorgeous.



Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou was a pleasant surprise. I did not know we had this book in our library.



Wolves in the Wall by Neil Gaiman - need I say any more?

I had another surprise today when another of our Special Ed teachers came in and wanted to start bringing her class in on a regular basis. It's taken her this long??

The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi (2014)

This review is based on an ARC.

Paolo Bacigalupi introduces us to the seedy world of obfuscators that help corporations continue to produce and sell potentially lethal products. The means they use are cunning and dastardly. Alix's father works for a company that is a leader in this field. Until she is abducted by some teen activists and shown what he does, she had had a comfortable life. Now she is in a position where she may have to betray her father to prevent them from continuing.

Very exciting action. In some ways the action seems much more mature than normal YA fare and this makes it a recommendation for adults as well as teens.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (YA)

You've been very busy. As to that teacher, some people take longer to figure things out ; )
And I'd never heard of The Widow's Broom but it's on the WL now.

Audible had Wolves in the Walls on my recommended list... I'm not surprised they think I'd enjoy Gaiman, but a picture book in audio format makes no sense to me. :)

>139 mstrust: I have had some things weighing on me that interfered with my enjoyment of books for a while but they have lifted so I am enjoying the heck out of books while I can!

>140 -Eva-: They'll try and sell you anything, won't they? It would be fun to listen to with a good narrator but the art is too good to miss.



I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb (2013)

I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday.

I can understand if a person would rather not read this book but I would recommend they at least read the prologue. It would give them a taste of her voice that will stay with them a very long time.

We all know what happened to Malala and maybe you have seen her speak on TV. I give so much credit to her father who worked so hard to provide the children in Swat valley an education and Malala has taken this crusade to the world's stage. For a sample of her beauty and strength watch this clip from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

The style of writing is a little hard to get through. She throws facts around like confetti and never stays on one topic for long. My heart breaks for the people who have to suffer at the hands of terrorists like the Taliban.

It was well worth the time to read her story and I will continue to follow her progress.

CATEGORY: FLEET (GROUP READS)

141> I'm reading it now. The writing doesn't flow, but it's still quite readable.

>142 BookLizard: Luckily, it doesn't take long to read.

This is my 401st review! Heavens!



Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn (2014)

We blasted out of bayou country, Bernie behind the wheel, me in the shotgun seat.

Chet and Bernie are back at it, a brilliant duo bringing different talents to the team. Bernie is a vet of the Iraqi war, now the key person for the Little Detective Agency. Chet failed out of K-9 school, distracted by a cat, and is the other half of this pair. Together they solve crimes. This time they follow Suzie, Bernie's girlfriend to the location of her new job in Washington, D.C. In no time, her contact is found dead and Bernie is accused of murder and jailed. A totally new variety of crime challenges their skills. Of course, the story is told by Chet with his unique canine perspective.

For fans of the series, more fun. For those who haven't tried this series yet, start with the first one, Dog On It.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

I'm hoping to catch up with this series next year. Or they could start with the prequel A Cat Was Involved. ( although it might only be available by ebook)

>135 mamzel:: I'm so glad to see your positive review of Louise Penny's new book. I've started it and have been having some doubts, as it seems quite different from her earlier books. However, I've loved everything she has written so far so I expect this one will be a winner too, but it's sure nice to get confirmation from others.

>144 dudes22: I did get that on my Kindle. It was fun to learn what happened on what was a pivotal day for Chet!

>145 mathgirl40: She seems to really get into the art side of her stories. I wonder if she paints herself. She sure knows a lot about history and technique. Way beyond my meager knowledge, for sure!

Thanks for reminding me of Chet and Bernie. I've just ordered book 2 in the series from the library...Paw and Order sounds good but it will take me a while to get there.

I had a wonderful evening last night listening to Cary Elwes talk about his book, As You Wish, all about the making of the classic movie, Princess Bride. He was handsome, charming, and funny as all get-out. He started by eschewing the chairs behind the table and sitting on top of the table so that everyone could see him. He told stories from the book and did a wonderful job with the voices of Rob Reiner, Andre, Mel Brooks, and others. The capacity audience had a wonderful time.
(That's my daughter behind me on the left.)

Sounds like a great time! And he does look handsome.

>148 mamzel: Cary Elwes!!! I definitely want to read that book when it comes out.

>148 mamzel: Glad you had such a nice time. I'm not in the least surprised, Elwes has always seemed to me an incredibly nice and engaging person. Wish I could have met him. And doesn't he still look great!? (Seriously, amazing genes, that guy.) Ah, Westley...

I can't remember the name of the moderator but he was quite easy on the eyes as well. A totally delicious night!

What fun! I'm pretty much sure he won't be signing books is Munich, unfortunately.

>148 mamzel:
Sounds like so much fun!

148> *squee!* How exciting! I have a copy of his book on my Kindle, but just haven't gotten to it yet.

>153 RidgewayGirl: Interestingly, the story opens in Berlin where Mr. Elwes was shooting an indie film named Maschenka, a few months after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
>154 -Eva-: My daughter and I had a blast!
>155 BookLizard: Think about my notes before you start it.



As You Wish by Cary Elwes (2014)

The note simply read: IMPORTANT.

Cary Elwes shares a ton of stories about his experiences while shooting the cult classic, The Princess Bride, the movie based on the book by William Goldman. Be warned that this book, while charming and funny as all get-out, may leave you with memories and images that will interfere with the simple joy of watching the movie forever. An example of this is Andre the Giant let loose a giant-sized fart when they were filming the scene at the top of the parapet as Westley was coming back to life. However, if you are a fan of movie trivia and you love knowing the backstory of the making of a film, this book is for you.

Full of laughter and tears since, as we know, some of the original cast are no longer with us and could not participate in the 25th anniversary showing at Lincoln Center.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S LOG (NONFICTION)

156> Thanks for the warning. I've seen the movie so many times, that something new might not be bad.

Conversion by Katherine Howe (2014)

How long must I wait?
His tongue creeps out the corner of his mouth while he writes, the tip of it black with ink, the blacking in his gums staining his teeth. He looks like he's got a mouthful of tar. I've been waiting for some time, but Reverend Green's still writing. He quill runs across the paper, scratching like mouse paws. Scratch scratch, dip, scratch, lick, scratch.

When I saw the cover and name of this book I had absolutely no idea what it would be about. I probably would not have even been interested enough to open it and read what it's about but the lovely ladies at our indie bookstore book talked it so I got it for the library and read it.

Interspersed with scenes from 18th century Salem Village, our book takes place in modern day Danvers, Massachusetts, in a prestigious (is there any other kind?) girl's school. Students are starting to demonstrate bizarre symptoms and alarm is growing about their cause. Can this be a reoccurrence of the events of Salem, are there chemicals in the ground water, are the seniors falling to the pressure of graduating and college, or is there some other more bizarre reason?

One of the girls is given an assignment to compare the historical facts of Salem with Arthur Miller's The Crucible so that has given me the incentive to read the play.

It was interesting following the panic and insanity of the parents and school administration in light of today's news and people's reactions to the news.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (YA LIT)

That sounds interesting. I recently read Megan Abbott's The Fever, which is also a kind of modern re-telling of the Salem account.

October Round Up

1. Blips - LT recommendations -4
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 11
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 3
4. ITB - cross genre - 7
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 2
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 7
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list - 4
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 3
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 8
10. Galley - food related - 1
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous - 4
12. Fleet - group reads - 3
13. Ship's hold - YA - 8
13a. HUB Challenge - 23
14. Poop Deck - books not finished -2

Total read: 90

Outstanding for the month:

I wanted to share my Halloween "costume" but I am having issues with uploading pictures to my gallery. They will not, for the life of me, upload correctly. The one that is portrait oriented comes in sideways and the one that is landscape oriented uploads upside down. Even if I rotate the original picture it still uploads cattywonkers.
Each of us in the office chose an app and our community officer (campus cop) was able to create an iron-on transfer. I chose OverDrive. (I would have chosen LibraryThing but I wanted to stay more with the school spirit and we are trying to get the students to use OverDrive.)

I have always meant to read Olive Kitteridge so when a miniseries started on HBO last night I couldn't resist watching. Especially since Frances McDormand has the title role! Small fishing village in Maine, lots of mental illness, weird family dynamics. And, except for a little wind, it looks like Maine has beautiful weather all the time. Very enjoyable!

I really wished that we had HBO when I heard that they were doing the miniseries. Happy to hear that it's been enjoyable so far as the book was really good. Olive can be a challenging person to root for, but I bet Frances McDormand plays her perfectly.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1953)

A small upper bedroom in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, Salem, Massachusetts, in the spring of the year 1692.

This is the setting for the play based on the events of the witch hunts in Salem. I read this play because of the references in the last book I read, Conversion which gave me the incentive to read something I may never have otherwise read. I chose the cover you see here but I actually read it in a book of collected Miller plays published by The Library of America.

It started out rather slow for me as the image of older white men badgering young girls into admitting foul deeds and naming others left me feeling cold and creeped out. The actions of the girls were no better. The fourth act, which centered on John Proctor and the painful decision he had to make, was both chilling and uplifting as he ultimately gave up his life to keep his name clear.

I don't read many plays but I'm glad I read this one.

CATEGORY: BREAKBULK (MISCELLANEOUS)

Confessions: The Paris Mysteries by James Patterson

Hello, friend.
I'm writing to you from Paris on a stunning day that is way beyond anything I could have imagined. I thought I was prepared for this, but I was wrong.

The things I do for my students!

I already had one of this series in the library and I made the terrible mistake of getting another one for the library before reading the first. Shame on me! And to think I was willing to give Patterson one more chance at redemption.

Horrible! Terrible! Nauseating!

First off, I had an issue with the name of the protagonist. The children of Maud and Malcolm Angel are named Katherine, Matty, Hugo, and twins named Harrison and . . . wait for it . . . Tandoori! Really??

The Angel Pharmaceutical Company created a bunch of drugs that enhanced various talents and, of course, these children were used for guinea pigs. Katherine was the one that was, for some reason, given drugs to enhance both her intelligence to Einstein levels and her strength to compete with Olympic weight lifters. Unfortunately, she died (or was she killed) in a fiery accident (though we know that motorcycles are so safe). Had she learned something about her evil uncle's plans to market these drugs to foreign countries? Wait. I'm giving away too much.

One of my major complaints about Patterson is that he spreads his words over the pages like a dieter spreads butter on toast. In 293 pages, there were 69 chapters, which were broken up into 6 books. There were so many blank or half-printed pages that I wept for the waste of trees.

And the writing! Oh, the writing! Here's an example that had me wondering just how stupid Patterson thinks his readers are. Tandoori is describing the American Hospital in Paris and trying to emphasis how ritzy it is.

It was almost like a resort where you could have brain surgery and get a high-fashion haircut at the same time.

At this point I think Captain Underpants has greater literary merit.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (YA BOOKS)

>165 mamzel: I loved your review ... and it's convinced me that I really should not try Patterson again. I did attempt one of his books years ago but abandoned it. I too wondered about the ridiculously short chapters. I kept thinking that I should give him another try, since he is so popular, but it sounds like I'm not missing much.

Great review! I find it is hit or miss with him. Some I have liked - others really not.

Patterson doesn't even write them! If you look closely, you'll notice most of his books are by him (in HUGE letters) and someone else (in small letters). He comes up with the ideas and then some hack writer does the actual writing and profits off of Patterson's name.

Fabulous review! Lazy writing deserves to be called out. And I've been to the American hospital in Paris. They must have done some serious renovating.

>168 BookLizard: Actually, according to one of those 'other' writers, Patterson does do a lot of work on the books. I would also contend that these co-authors are not all "hack" writers but have some excellent books of their own. I could use Mark Sullivan as one example of that. But I would agree that, perhaps, the co-authoring with so many different writers might lend to that inconsistency in quality.

I noticed a while ago with the Alex Cross series that the plot lines got thinner and the books got shorter. I think it's become a way for him to push out books based on name recognition for $$. I notice on Fantasticfiction.com that he has 11 books that came out/will come out in 2014. He can't possibly be writing that much himself and have them have substance. I thought I read somewhere that with at least some of the series, he writes a plot line and then edits the writing of his "co-writer". That said, I'm still reading his Women's Murder Club series. But if it begins to go the way of the Alex Cross series, I'll abandon that one too.

My son loves Patterson's Middle School series. You know, if you could earn buckets of money coming up with ideas that other people did the hard work of writing up, wouldn't you do it?

170> I stand corrected. My point was that different writers would explain the difference in quality as opposed to James Patterson himself being inconsistent.

>172 RidgewayGirl: Have you read one of them yourself? It would probably only take you an hour to blast through one. I read the first of the Witches and Wizards series and found it vacuous. I have not read any of the Daniel X which I see is in our middle schools. Is this the series he is reading?

With reading programs like Accelerated Reading becoming the focus of reading programs in schools, students seem to gravitate to books that take little time to read, little effort to absorb, and have easy tests to pass. I have observed that kids who have had three years of meeting assigned point totals come to high school with little motivation to read for pleasure. AR has sucked the fun out of books for these kids.

I understand that Patterson does not write these books himself. I discovered this sad truth a few decades ago when my brother had a chance to talk with James Michener and he revealed he only made outlines of his later books and left the grunt work to others. And then we were told Carolyn Keene was actually a lot of different authors creating the Nancy Drew series. I am sure many of the more popular authors these days have the same method of "writing."

I think of James Patterson no longer as an author but a brand.

>165 mamzel: I tried reading one of Patterson's books years ago and hated it. I was told by someone that I should try the other series instead of that one because I'd like it better. However, I've not been inclined to do so. That one book was definitely an abandoned read. I'm positive I read past page 50 on it so I even gave it longer than the Pearl rule.

>165 mamzel: - Wow, 1/2 star.... nothing like sinking below Captain Underpants. ;-) Great review. I honestly cannot remember if I have or haven't read a James Patterson book.

.... Oops, apparently I have. I read Sunday at Tiffany's two years ago. According to my review at the time, I almost abandoned that book in the first 100 hundred pages for "the rather lowbrow writing style, plot and character development" and came to the conclusion that the good news was that this was one more book off my TBR bookcase.

Desert God by Wilbur Smith (2014)
A Novel of Ancient Egypt

Aton blinked his little eyes that were set deep in their rolls of fat, and then raised them from the bao board laid out between us. He turned his gaze on the two young princesses of the royal house of Tamose who were disporting themselves naked in the limpid water of the lagoon.

The narrator of the story is Taita, a eunuch in the service of the Pharaoh. He is a genius, able to conceive feats of engineering and warfare unmatched by regular soldiers. He loved the Pharaoh's wife and, since her death, the two princesses, beautiful and spoiled. Egypt is under attack and is likely to be beaten into oblivion by the Hyksos and their chariots. Taita comes up with a diabolical plot to gain an alliance with the powerful civilization of Crete. He disguises his men as warriors of Hyksos and takes over three Minoan triremes loaded with a huge amount of silver. He then organizes a massive caravan to transport the princesses and a good amount of the silver to Crete to forge an alliance and get rid of the Hyksos.

I have read other stories by Smith and he can seem to be misogynistic so it might be rather ironic that the most intelligent and powerful man (besides Pharaoh) is a eunuch. He is unique, and it could be possibly anachronistic how cunning he is, and he is in no way humble about his abilities. But it is hard to dislike someone so devoted to the young princesses. I had difficulty in how he allowed them to form attachments to officers and develop relationships (one to the point of having to abort) but I chalked it up to a reminder that this was a long time ago and there were very different mores then.

I would definitely read this series from the beginning. You could skip the second book which brings the reader to the present to follow archeologists studying the period.

CATEGORY: NON-AMERICAN AUTHORS (SOUTH AFRICAN)

>177 mamzel: I am tempted to read your review for Desert God but my father-in-law has just lent me his copy of River God and I don't want to spoil the outcome for myself. I am glad to see the four stars though. Obviously you liked it.

>178 Roro8: I don't think I gave any spoilers that couldn't be picked up from the book's description. I hope you enjoy it. I saw that it made the National Bestseller's List last week.

I recently reached my 7th Thingversary and I want to thank everyone for the fun and book adventures I've taken here.



All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (1992)

The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his books. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase.

Sixteen-year old John Grady Cole has just come from his grandfather's funeral to the ranch they had been in their family for generations. John's mother had since deserted life in Texas and his father moved to town to deal with the aftermath of being in the war. There was no one else to run the ranch so it's being sold. John has no choice but to saddle up his horse and head out to find a life. He persuades his friend, Lacey Rawlins to join him and on their way south to Mexico they are joined by a very young man named Jimmy Blevins.

This was a very moving book. The author used no conversational punctuation which highlighted the stark landscape of southern Texas and Mexico. The boys predictably ran into lots of trouble and John fell in love with a girl he could never be with.

The terse language and references to Western wear made me think of a young Longmire. When the girl told John there was no way they could be together he sums up his feelings thusly.

He saw very clearly how all his life led only to this moment and all after led nowhere at all.

Ouch! Fantastic read!

CATEGORY: BREAKBULK (MISCELLANEOUS)



On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi by Ryusho Kadota (2014)

The boy gazed out to sea.

I received this book through the Early Reviewers Program.

I have a little engineering knowledge and I requested this book without much forethought about whether or not I would be able to understand the technical side of it. When I started reading it I was also nervous that I would not be able to follow all the foreign Japanese names. Both of these fears were unnecessary and I was able to keep track of the events and the people involved with little difficulty.

On March 11, 2:46 pm the area was shaken by a huge 9.1 magnitude earthquake. Almost an hour later the site was hit with a tsunami that towered over 10 meters high. Together theses natural events created a scene of unimaginable damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that could potentially radioactively poison a huge area including Tokyo. Due to the heroic efforts of the staff that were on site at the time, and additional help from the outside, this danger was kept relatively minor. Only two fatalities were suffered - men who had gone into the basement of one of the reactors to check for damage caused by the earthquake but were trapped and killed when the tsunami hit.

This book was written based on interviews with some of the men who were at the site but centered on Masao Yoshida, Site Superintendent. He never lost sight of the goal to protect the people who lived in the neighborhood of the plant but also the people who stayed to work tirelessly to keep the plants from going critical.

The author couldn't help but put in a little drama to this stupendous story but the item that hit me was that once stuff started happening, the men focused on the job at hand and gave little or no thought to their families until things settled enough and communication became possible. Their families could get no news and feared that they were dead.

Very taught story.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S LOG (NONFICTION)

Happy Thingversary! Do you have a shopping spree planned?

>179 mamzel: & >180 aliciamay: - Yes, inquiring mind want to know! Happy Thingaversary!

>179 mamzel: I've read the review now. Happy thingaversary :-)

Happy thingaversary!

And Happy Thingaversary from me!

Thanks everyone! I bought one new book for myself - Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet. I've been on rather a Kindle buying binge lately. Of course, if something strikes me I will treat myself as a belated Thingversary.

I know I'll forget between now and next June (ah, the joys of aging!) but Naomi Novik has a new book coming out that's not a Temeraire story. The review I read purports "magic, comedy, and bravery." I can't wait. It will be called Uprooted. Dragons? Of course!

185> Naomi Novak is an LT author, so reading one of her books would complete a square for BingoDOG next year. Which book would you recommend I read?

A lot of people have enjoyed her Temeraire series so you might like to start with His Majesty's Dragon. If you have a thing for dragons you're in for a treat!

Happy Thingaversary!

>188 -Eva-: Thanks!



Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet (2015)

Chip picked out the destination for our honeymoon.

When I read this book took place on Virgin Gorda (a place I sailed to frequently in my youth) and featured mermaids, I was so thrilled. Alas, my expectations were cruelly dashed.

Deb and Chip were getting married and planning the honeymoon. The marriage seemed to bring out the cynic in her. One tradition after another was shot down as childish and wasteful. One honeymoon idea after another was shot down as too dangerous. Not the way to endear a character to a reader. Not that I don't agree with her. I had a simple courtroom marriage followed by a decadent dinner with family and friends. I have no use for all the folderol but still... I couldn't help but wonder if it really was the author's feelings projected through the character and I am uncomfortable with that when I am reading something for fun.

And what about the mermaids you ask? With all the related action, they seem to take a back seat to Deb's feelings about stuff.

You can skip this one.

CATEGORY: BREAKBULK (MISCELLANEOUS)

I've been trying to get Monsieur to try audiobooks to enjoy during his commute but (of all people) he is resistant to new things. He has not read a book since starting to wear reading glasses. This weekend I found a Jeeves audiobook on the FOL bookshelf and got it for him. I also borrowed Neuromancer for myself. (I am presently listening to Life After Life which isn't working well as an audiobook and wish it would end already.) I hope I can get him to enjoy books again in this format.

Sorry Mermaids in Paradise wasn't a better read. I had added it to my wishlist after reading somewhere that it was like Beauty Queens by Libba Bray which I really enjoyed. I think I will remove Mermaids from the wishlist and possibly move it to the library list.

I loved Beauty Queens and would not abase it by this comparison. After I wrote my review I read the only other review on the book's page which liked the book a little less than I did.

Ugh! So sorry you had to suffer through Mermaids in Paradise but now I don't have to. I saw that book cover and smiled because it made me think fondly of Pushing Daisies and the two aunts. A book with a cover like that shouldn't be hiding a whiny, practical main character who is being the anti-bride.

>158 mamzel: - Katherine Howe is actually a descendent of two accused - and I believe executed - Salem witches. I'm starting to wonder if all her books will be about the Salem witch trials.

>193 cammykitty: It had such a good premise but lost its way.

>194 VioletBramble: Interesting!

I just finished watching The Musketeers yesterday and really enjoyed it! Peter Capaldi was fantastic as Richelieu; he made my blood run cold in the last two episodes especially. I also liked Maimie McCoy as Milady. And it was amusing to see Ryan Gage as Louis XIII when I'd last seen him as the Master of Lake-Town's lackey in The Desolation of Smaug ;) I will be interested to see where they take the show with Season 2, since Peter probably won't be in it.

He might be. I can't imagine a different actor playing Richelieu or the show without such a great villain. I missed that Ryan Gage was in the Hobbit. Good eye!

I read somewhere that Marc Warren would be playing another Cardinal, Rochefort. He has some very large shoes to fill!

>198 rabbitprincess: I will definitely be watching for the next season to start!



Out of Tune edited by John Maberry (2014)

I was awarded an ebook copy by Early Reviewers but was unable to download it to my Kindle so I ended up buying it anyway.

Out of Tune is an anthology of short stories written by a variety of dark fantasy authors and based on old ballads. Information about the particular ballad is given after the story. The first story is about Wendy Darling and takes place on her wedding day. She is visited by the Lost Boys who are a little different from the ones described in the original stories. Other stories include one about mermaids (I think I'm being haunted by them) and one about John Henry. There truly was not a bad story in the bunch and I found that I had to force myself to turn off the Kindle at night.

CATEGORY: FLYING DUTCHMAN (HORROR)

I've also read the first three of the Locke & Key series with great enjoyment. Waiting for the next three from the library.



After the brutal death of their father, three kids and their mother move to their father's ancestral home, a mansion with mysterious keys that keep popping up. The youngest boy finds the first of them and finds he can leave his body and go anywhere he wants. Art is simple but very striking. I love it when the artists seem to have extra drawings they include at the end of each volume.

>200 mamzel:
Yey! So glad you liked them.

I am hoping the library will be open tomorrow so I can pick up the next two. They were closed today.



Wax by Therese Ambrose Smith (2011)

I found this book at one of my favorite used book stores and was sold by the promise of a story about the young women who took the men's places in the shipyards during World War II. That was only part of the book and I discovered that I had a book that had three basic stories crammed into one. The second story was what happened after our three main characters had to quit their positions when the shipyards stopped building ships. One of them went to Reno and the other two went to Half Moon Bay to build a candle factory. This part of the book was an interesting tale of failed railroads and land deals. The third story, hardly touched, was one of a woman discovering she was a lesbian at a time of little to no knowledge (much less tolerance) for those of her sexual preferences. I was left hungry for more of each of these stories and not satisfied by the brief visit to each.

Great promise but unfortunately, little satisfaction from this book.

CATEGORY: ORLOP DECK (TBR BOOK)

I also read a novella by Jim Butcher called Working for Bigfoot which was actually three shorts about Harry Dresden and his adventures helping Strength of a River in His Shoulders, a Sasquatch with a son who is having very human problems. Harry is hired to help young Irwin Pounder, first with bullies, then with a vampire, and finally with a practitioner of black magic. I got this through a Humble Bundle sale.

Locke & Key is going on the WL. Sounds like something our school library might want to add to the graphic novel section. On Wax, your description of the first part reminds me of Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy. It's a long book, but well worth it and it does focus on what the women were doing during WWII.

I'm finally catching up with your thread, so first, belated congratulations on your Thingaversary! I'm glad you enjoyed the first three Locke & Key volumes. I liked the entire series and found the conclusion very satisifying, so I hope you'll enjoy the next three as much as I did. I too appreciated seeing the extra artwork at the end of the volumes. Gabriel Rodriguez's artwork is perfect for this series!

>203 cammykitty: Definitely good for a HS library. Nice that it is limited in size, too. The hard covers look like they will last a good long time (rare with graphic novels).

>204 mathgirl40: Thanks for stopping by! Only a couple of weeks until I move over to 2015. I can't believe it's almost here already!

Well, I certainly made out like a bandit on Kindle deals this Cyber Monday. In particular, lots of Cadfael episodes. Guess I can call it my Thingaversary splurge.

I need some help from you guys.
During the week of Halloween I put quotes into the school newsletter from well known horror classics like Frankenstein and Dracula. It was well received and I thought I would like to do something similar for next week, before we take off for winter break. Aside from A Christmas Carol, though, I am drawing a blank what classics I can draw from. Can anyone give me some suggestions for books I may have in my library? Perhaps a story where Christmas occurs even if it is not the focus of the story? I've got Little Women and I'll see if I can pull something festively quotable from Harry Potter.

The Gift of the Magi Duh! Thanks CBL - that was timely.
I only need one more.

>207 mamzel: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Father Christmas definitely makes an appearance, although I can't remember whether there's anything very quotable in that section. Or is that too overtly religious (I'm assuming this is public school)?

I will look there and, yes, this is a public school.

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, or, and I know this is a long shot, the wonderful Lost Empires by J. B. Priestley, which has a chapter or two over Christmas.

>208Somehow I am missing TL,tW,atW from the series?!

>210 mstrust: Unfortunately I don't have any of those. One of our English teachers just wandered through and gave me my fifth - My Antonia.

Thanks for your quick help!

There is mention of Christmas celebrations in the Little House books.

I vote for How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss.

>212 RidgewayGirl: We don't have any of that series in this library. Not a good match for my population. Thanks for the idea.

>213 dudes22: We used to have that book in our picture book section but it was stolen. I keep looking for a replacement at the FOL sales.

I'm reading Scott Westerfeld's latest, Afterworlds and I keep thinking about something a character talks about. He calls it the Angelina Jolie Paradox.

Sagan cleared his throat. "You know when you're watching a movie starring Angelina Jolie? And the character she's playing looks just like Angelina Jolie, right?"
"Un, yes. Because that's who she is."
"No, she's a regular person in that world, not a movie star. But the other characters never mention that she looks exactly like Angelina Jolie. No one ever comes up to her on the street and says, 'Can I have your autograph?'"
"Because that would mess up the movie," Carla said.
"Exactly. So when you cast Angelina Jolie in a film, you're creating an alternate universe in which actress Angelina Jolie does not exist. Because otherwise people would be noticing the resemblance all the time. This is what I call the Angelina Jolie Paradox."

This kind of thing always makes me want to slap myself on my head and wonder why I never thought of that.

I ran into a similar discussion, but about shows like Elementary and Sherlock, which seem to take place in our world, but it's one in which no one has ever heard of the books by Arthur Conan Doyle.

>215 mamzel: I was thinking about this a little the other day, in the context of "Ocean's Twelve." Julia Roberts is in that movie, and there's a scene in which her character pretends to be Julia Roberts (because they look so alike!). That really annoyed me, and I think you've hit on the reason why...since Julia Roberts is playing a regular person in the movie, the world of that movie should not contain Julia Roberts!

217> I thought that was funny. It made it seem more real.

You have to remember, most movies and TV shows are fictional. You have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy them. Maybe that's part of why the book is always better than the movie.

>218 BookLizard: I have no problem suspending belief. With authors and screenwriters playing with facts all the time I do little else when reading or watching. (Although watching the movie Interstellar last week stretched my belief to the snapping point.) That conversation came about when our teen author started having doubts about naming one of her characters after a Hindu god and wondering how that affected the Hindu religion in her created world. Another belief suspension mentioned is how ghosts can walk through walls but the ground beneath their feet is always firm enough support them. I have pondered this effect but allowed latitude for the sake of the story. It's a fun story except I am experiencing whiplash. The chapters alternate between the author and her adventures in the real world and the chapters of her book.

I moved a book shelf into my bedroom and am in the process of picking up stacks from the floor and putting them on the shelf. To celebrate I went to the first day of the library's book sale (paid for lifetime membership of the FOL).

I got the following for the school's library:
Nightrise by Anthony Horowitz
Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith
Ultimate Spiderman: Power and Responsibility
Ultimate Spiderman Vol. 2: Learning Curve
Wicked by Gregory Maguire (to replace banged up copy)

For myself:
The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie (read before putting in the library)
audiobooks:
The Lord of the Rings BBC dramatization
All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Heriot
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris
A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks

For my daughter's collection of antique children's books:
The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene, an original 1930 edition in very good shape

My friend and I then proceeded to our coffee shop and bookstore where I bought:
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

Not a bad day!

I am checking to make sure the books I put on the shelf have been duly recorded as TBRs in LT so that I start the year with an accurate (albeit ridiculous) tally of owned and unread books. My hope is that with them displayed on the shelf I will be able to pull from there to use in next year's CATs. I already found two Austen novels I forgot I had bought!

LATER - I added a grand total of 82 books! I won't have to buy any books next year. (*cough, cough*)

I'm now going to rejoin Locke & Key since I picked up Volume 6 at the library today (after I visited the book sale).

Poseidon's Arrow by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (2012)

A Dirk Pitt novel

October 1943 - The Indian Ocean
The light of a half-moon shimmered off the restless sea like a streak of flaming mercury. To Lieutenant Alberto Conti, the iridescent waves reminded him of a Monet waterscape viewed in a darkened room.

Once again, Dirk Pitt saves the world, or at least a super secret plant to build a super fast submarine. The prototype engine and plans are stolen and buy guys are trying to corner the market on rare earth minerals needed for the super magnets in the engine. The cool thing about this book is that the climactic end takes place in the Panama Canal, a very cool place.

"Lives are at stake, and time is short," Pitt said.

This book hits the ground running and doesn't pause anywhere to take a breath. But one does not read Cussler for character development.

CATEGORY: ORLOP DECK (ROOTs)

"I won't have to buy any books next year"
Sure, that's going to happen. :)

Ooh, hope you like the Locke & Key finish!!

Looks like a very successful library book sale - love those books!

>222 -Eva-: I think I will give a name to my condition - hyperbibliographia - I can't walk past a display of books for sale to save my life. My similarly afflicted friend was impressed that I had walked through Trader Joe's without buying their delicious Peppermint Joe Joe's! (but that was after I had a little chocolate/mint goody in the book store)

>223 lkernagh: I started listening to the David Sedaris this morning. I think it will be an excellent car book.

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld (2014)

The most important email that Darcy Patel ever wrote was three paragraphs long.

You would expect that a book by Westerfeld would be totally unique and that a book with starred reviews from Booklist, Publisher's Weekly, and VOYA would be exceptional and you would be right on both counts. This book is a winner on several different levels.

It is two books told in alternating chapters. The white edged pages starring Darcy relate the story of an 18-year old girl who has had her NaNoWriMo book picked up by publishers. She moves to New York to work on the rewrites, living on her own for the first time. The other book with black edges is the book that she wrote and features Lizzie, a girl who survives a terrorist attack in an airport with the help of a spirit guide. She then has the ability to see ghosts of dead people who are not forgotten. The edges of the book look like zebra stripes. It took me a while to get used to the mental whiplash going between worlds but the colored edges kept me informed of where I was.

What I particularly loved about this book was the inside look at book publishing. It was also interesting to me that Lizzie's love interest was a boy and that Darcy was able to portray that even though in her world she discovered that it was a girl that sparked her interest.

Working in a high school library I got a kick out of some of the things she and her friends talked about.

"Tell me about YA heaven again?" Darcy pleaded.
The boys were still jabbering in front, heedless of danger, so Imogen answered softly. "There's a dress code. If you were a New York Times bestseller, you get to wear a black robe with red trim, like a don at a boarding school."
"That must annoy everyone else," Darcy said.
"Not really. The robes look fancy, but they're really hot, and everyone secretly covets the sparkly tiaras that only Printz winners are allowed to wear."

I hope Westerfeld gets his tiara soon!

If you have a young friend who is a writer, get them this book!!!

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (YA BOOKS)

Westerfeld tends to be entertaining, so I'll take a BB for that one! :)

Me too!

Me three!

>224 mamzel: My girls used to haul me across the street if they saw a used bookstore ahead. Tis a not rare disease.

>199 mamzel: Catching up on your thread. Sorry to be so late on this comment. Thank you for the review of Out of Tune. This one is going on my wish list. Maybe Santa (or my husband) will put it under the Christmas tree. 😀

>226 -Eva-: >227 dudes22: >228 AHS-Wolfy: I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!
>229 mysterymax: Those kids!!!
>230 craso: I hope Santa is listening!


Working Stiff by Kevin J. Anderson (2015)

I thought I had posted my thoughts on this but I guess I forgot to hit "Post message." This was an enjoyable collection of stories featuring a private investigator named Dan Shambles who happens to be a zombie (well-maintained in his words). He has a girlfriend who is a ghost and a partner who is a regular human. He also has a human friend who is a police detective and who asks for his help in cases that feature supernatural beings.

I smiled through most of the book and laughed out loud in a few places. And I'm not a fan of zombies so that's saying a lot! One of the stories, for example, is about the theft of Santa's Naughty and Nice list. Quite seasonable.

It's also fun that this is my first book published in 2015.

CATEGORY: FLYING DUTCHMAN (GHOST AND HORROR STORIES)

Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (2002)

Like a giant bird of prey, the whaleship moved lazily up the western coast of South America, zigging and zagging across a living sea of oil. For that was the Pacific Ocean in 1821, a vast field of warm-blooded oil deposits known as sperm whales.

This book is the junior version of the bestseller, In the Heart of the Sea, also by Philbrick. The story is no less horrifying or dramatic, however, in telling of the shipwrecked crew and their survival for over 90 days in small whale boats. Before this story, the reader gets insight into the life of a sailor aboard a whaleship and the hard, dangerous profession he plies. What happened to the Essex was the inspiration for Moby Dick}.

The ship was attacked (yes, attacked) by a sperm whale, apparently in response to the killing of three whales in its pod. The 21-man crew not already in boats had barely any time to get into a last boat before the ship capsized. They spent a day recovering what supplies they could from the ship then decided on a course toward the South American coast rather than the nearer but less known islands in the South Pacific. They survived over 90 days by eating meager amounts of hardtack, turtles (supplies picked up in the Galapagos), barnacles from the bottom of the boats, and finally, their dead crewmates.

I can't wait to try and talk this books to students when we come back in January!!! I love survival stories like Men Against the Sea, the second book of the Bounty trilogy. I read this because the movie version is coming out in March titled after the adult version.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S LOG (NONFICTION)

It's now about 2:00 pm, our students have finished their finals and the last procrastinators have printed out projects. The library is quiet now and I have just finished my last book for this year's challenge. Before I migrate to next year, I will give my final stats.

1. Blips - LT recommendations - 3
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 10
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 5
4. ITB - cross genre - 7
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 3
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 7
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list - 6
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 3
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 10
10. Galley - food related - 1
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous - 7
12. Fleet - group reads - 2
13. Ship's hold - YA - 9
13a. HUB Challenge - 23
14. Poop Deck - books not finished -3

Total books read: 96 (not including DNFs)

Total pages: 32,313

Adult: 58
YA: 36
Juvenile: 3

Graphic Novels: 9
Nonfiction: 16
Story collections: 2
Audiobooks: 8
Early Release: 12

Kindle: 27
School library: 28
County library: 22
Own shelves: 11 (!! - shame on me)
Borrowed: 1

Speculative fiction: 30
Historical fiction: 9
Mysteries: 13
General fiction: 24

Favorites:
The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley (2014)
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2013)
Kraken by China Miéville
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (2010)
Reamde by Neal Stephenson (2011)
The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014)
The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi (2014)

I have definitely increased the number of nonfiction (good for me) and books read on my Kindle. What I really want to be sure to do next year is read more books off my shelves while continuing to read books in my school's library.

See you on the other side!

Congratulations on finishing your challenge. Reading 96 books is great. Seeing Kraken on your favorite reads list reminded me my copy is sitting on a shelf.

Yay! Congrats on finishing.

Congratulations on finishing. See you over on the 15 group.

>215 mamzel: This reminded me of the scene in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason where Bridget interviews Colin Firth, who played Darcy in the first movie. I never got around to seeing the movie version of this second book, but I wondered whether Colin Firth played both Darcy and himself.

Congratulations on finishing your challenge! I'm happy to see that Kraken and Reamde are among your favourites. I'm planning to read more Miéville and Stephenson next year, though I've not settled on the specific books.

Congrats on completing your challenge!

Well done!

>238 mathgirl40: If I remember correctly, the scene isn't in the movie itself, but there's an extra on the dvd where Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones interviews Colin Firth as Darcy.

Looks like you had a good reading year! See you in the 2015 group :)

Congrats on finishing!!! I too am aiming to read off the shelves more next year, but that's my goal every year and every year that pesky bookstore takes my money. :)

>234 LittleTaiko: See you there, too!

>235 craso: Kraken was quite an unusual book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

>236 BookLizard: Thanks!

>237 dudes22: Here's to another great year of books!

>238 mathgirl40: If I watched that movie I can't recall that scene. My plans for next year include Perdido Street Station and Snowcrash.

>239 AHS-Wolfy: Thanks!

>240 mysterymax: *taking a bow*

>241 RidgewayGirl: That could be why I can't recall the scene!

>242 rabbitprincess: May 2015 bring you lots of good books!

>243 -Eva-: I hope that committing to the CATs next year will help me in this endeavor. I'm filling in my time until Jan. 1 with books off my shelf and Kindle. I love finding books that I forgot I owned. Right now I'm reading The Sherlockian which I had deep in a pile.

Congratulations on finishing, that's an enviable number of books.

Congrats! You've had a good year!

What a great year of reading! Congrats and I've enjoyed your thread!

>245 MissWatson: and >246 mstrust: Thanks so much. I read a little less than last year but I am OK with that. There's always next year to look forward to and plan.

>247 japaul22: Thanks. I'll follow your reading for next year.

Congratulations on completing your 2014 Challenge and thanks for all the BB you struck me with - including recently with Revenge of the Whale. Looking forward to the many hits of 2015!

Congratulations on completing your challenge! Very happy to see Reamde made your favorites list. I am looking forward to reading my first Stephenson book next year. I really liked Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl so I will be keeping an eye out for a copy of The Doubt Factory.

You might also enjoy Zombie Baseball Beatdown which was written for middle schoolers and had some fun moments as well as a couple of messages for the young reader. I listened to the audio version and laughed out loud.

Good to know... thanks!

I am slowly working my way through a bazillion threads and wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2015!

Merry Christmas, Lori!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy reading New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Congratulations on completing what looks to have been a very good reading year! Although I haven't commented much, I've enjoyed your reviews immensely. I hope 2015 is as good or even better!

Belated congratulations on completing your challenge! Great job!

Congratulations on completing your challenge and have a great New Year!

Thanks so much. It has been a blast!