CBL's 2015 Reading, Part 7

I'm Carrie, and this is my 5th year in this group. I've enjoyed forming new friendships each year, and I look forward to reading along with all of you this year.

I discovered that I could read at age 4 and I've been an avid reader ever since. I wasn't born when JFK died, and one of my earliest memories is watching the moon landing. I'll let you do the math.

My parents and grandparents were readers and I grew up surrounded by books. To no one's surprise, I became a librarian. Contrary to a popular misconception, we do not sit around and read books all day. Daily exposure to a constant flow of new, unread books can be torture for a bookaholic, but with time one gets used to it.

At home I'm "mama" to my furbaby Adrian (named for Adrian Monk), a 3-year-old Shih Tzu mix I adopted from the local Humane Society in September 2013.



My top 5 books in 2014:
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom - a reread that I loved even more as an audiobook
The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim - one of the best historical novels I've ever read
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope - it was hard to say goodbye to the folks in Barsetshire
Joy in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse - I love listening to audio versions of Wodehouse
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer - an inspirational memoir of a largely self-educated young DIY engineer in Malawi

Best of Thread 1:
The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su & Kate Rorick (4.5) Review
Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth (4.5) Review

Best of Thread 2:
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris (4.5) Review
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (4.5) Review
Whiskers of the Lion by P. L. Gaus (5) Review

Best of Thread 3:
Brendan the Navigator by Jean Fritz, illustrated by Enrico Arno (4.5) Review
Jesus Loves Me This I Know: The Remarkable Story Behind the World's Most Beloved Children's Song by Robert J. Morgan (4.5) Review

Best of thread 4:
The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin (5) Review
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (4.5) Review
The Trembling of a Leaf by W. Somerset Maugham (4.5) Review
Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (4.5) Review
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (4.5) Review
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (5) Review

Best of Thread 5:
Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole (4.5) Review
Kindred by Octavia Butler (4.5) Review
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (5) Review
Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin; illustrated by S. D. Schindler (4.5) Review

Best of Thread 6:
Making Haste from Babylon by Nick Bunker (5) Review
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell (4.5) Review

Progress toward goal in 2015:




Books read in October
119. The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson (4) - completed 10/4/15
120. The Black Count by Tom Reiss (4) - completed 10/5/15
121. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (4) - completed 10/11/15
122. Dracula by Bram Stoker (4) - completed 10/11/15
123. Surviving Cissy: My Family Affair of Life in Hollywood by Kathy Garver (2.5) - completed 10/12/15
124. The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer (4) - completed 10/14/15
125. The Railway Viaduct by Edward Marston (2) - completed 10/18/15
126. The Lie by Helen Dunmore (4) - completed 10/19/15
127. American Classics by Amy Tan et al. (4) - completed 10/23/15
128. The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin (2.5) - completed 10/24/15
129. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell (4.5) - completed 10/26/15
130. Amphigorey by Edward Gorey (2.5) - completed 10/29/15
131. Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (4) - completed 10/31/15
132. The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson (3.5) - completed 10/31/15

Books read in November
133. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; illustrated by Jules Feiffer (3.5) - completed 11/3/15
134. A Rare Murder in Princeton by Ann Waldron (1.5) - completed 11/7/15
135. The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (2.5) - completed 11/9/15
136. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (4) - completed 11/13/15
137. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson (4) - completed 11/15/15
138. Corridors of the Night by Anne Perry (3) - completed 11/17/15
139. When London Was Capital of America by Julie Flavell (3.5) - completed 11/20/15
140. The Gratitude Diaries by Janice Kaplan (3.5) - completed 11/22/15
141. Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark (4) - completed 11/22/15
142. An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd (3.5) - completed 11/28/15
143. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (4.5) - completed 11/29/15

Books read in December
144. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose (5) - completed 12/6/15
145. Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson (3.5) - completed 12/6/15
146. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (4) - completed 12/10/15
147. Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread by Mary Jane Hathaway (3) - completed 12/13/15
148. Halfway House by Ellery Queen (3.5) - completed 12/16/15
149. The Girl in Blue by P.G. Wodehouse (4) - completed 12/20/15
150. The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd (3) - completed 12/21/15
151. The Strangers We Became by Cynthia Kaplan Shamash (3.5) - completed 12/23/15
152. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (4) - completed 12/24/15
153. Not a Creature Was Stirring by Jane Haddam (3.5) - completed 12/31/15

Books acquired in October
71. Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence by Alan Gilbert (free ebook)
72. Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing by Megan Smolenyak (purchased)
73. A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (purchased)
74. Librarian's Guide to Online Searching by Suzanne S. Bell (purchased)
75. Crooked House by Agatha Christie (purchased)
76. Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread by Mary Jane Hathaway (purchased)
77. Corridors of the Night by Anne Perry; narrated by David Colacci (September ER win)

Books acquired in November
78. Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G. Cohen (free ebook)
79. The Strangers We Became by Cynthia Kaplan Shamash (October ER win)
80. The Gratitude Diaries by Janice Kaplan (purchased)
81. Willoughbyland by Matthew Parker (purchased)
82. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (free ebook)

Books acquired in December
83. 'Dangerous Work': Diary of an Arctic Adventure by Arthur Conan Doyle (free ebook)
84. The Sound of Chariots by Helen Topping Miller (purchased)
85. The Upstairs Wife by Rafia Zakaria (November ER book)
86. The Christmas Virtues edited by Jonathan V. Last (review copy)
87. Jane and the Canterbury Tale by Stephanie Barron (Christmas swap)
88. Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin (Christmas swap)
89. The Landscape of London by Sampson Lloyd (photography) & Cameron Brown (text) (gift)
90. The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (SantaThing)
91. Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding (SantaThing)
92. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld (SantaThing)

British Authors challenge

I'll list my planned reads and update as I complete them

January:
In Search of a Homeland by Penelope Lively - COMPLETED 1/2/15
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro - COMPLETED 1/21/15

February:
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - COMPLETED 3/10/15
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - COMPLETED 2/16/15

March:
The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier - COMPLETED 3/9/15
The City & the City by China Mieville - COMPLETED 3/24/15
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

April:
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - COMPLETED 4/12/15
The Trembling of a Leaf (COMPLETED 4/14/15) and perhaps The Painted Veil (COMPLETED 4/30/15) by Somerset Maugham

May:
The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble - COMPLETED 5/30/15
Koba the Dread by Martin Amis

June:
Shakespeare by Anthony Burgess - COMPLETED 6/16/15
An Awfully Big Adventure or The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge

July:
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - COMPLETED 7/12/15
Flush: A Biography by Virginia Woolf - COMPLETED 7/25/15
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

August:
The Power and the Glory or Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene - COMPLETED 8/25/15
Favours by Bernice Rubens
Something Special: A Story by Iris Murdoch - COMPLETED 8/3/15

September:
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie - COMPLETED 9/17/15
Small Island The Long Song by Andrea Levy - COMPLETED 9/24/15

October:
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell - COMPLETED 10/26/15
A Spell of Winter The Lie by Helen Dunmore - COMPLETED 10/19/15

November:
Loitering with Intent or Memento Mori by Muriel Spark - COMPLETED 11/22/15
Restless or An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd - COMPLETED 11/28/15

December:
Fludd or A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel
Something Fresh or The Girl in Blue by P. G. Wodehouse - COMPLETED 12/20/15

American Authors Challenge

Planned reads will be updated as they are completed.

January: The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers - COMPLETED 1/24/15
February: Portrait of a Lady Daisy Miller by Henry James - COMPLETED 2/16/15
March: Richard Ford The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane COMPLETED 4/12/15
April: The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich - COMPLETED 4/8/15
May: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis - COMPLETED 5/24/15
June: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner - COMPLETED 6/30/15
July: Catwings series by Ursula Le Guin - COMPLETED 7/2/15
August: Lonesome Dove or Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
September: Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
October: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury - COMPLETED 10/11/15
November: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - COMPLETED 11/13/15
December: The March by E. L. Doctorow

I started a reading tour of the Commonwealth countries in 2013 and I would like to complete the tour in 2015 if possible. I'll list books here as I complete them.

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin (4) - Rwanda - completed 1/23/15
The Trembling of a Leaf by W. Somerset Maugham (4.5) - Samoa - completed 4/14/15
King of the Cannibals by Jim Cromarty (2.5) - Vanuatu - completed 6/19/15

One of my 2015 goals is reading retellings of or books inspired by Jane Austen's novels. I will list these books here as I complete them.

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su & Kate Rorick - completed 1/3/15
Edmund Bertram's Diary by Amanda Grange - completed 3/6/15
Pride and Prejudice and Kitties by Jane Austen, Pamela Jane, and Deborah Guyol - completed 3/22/15
Pride and Prejudice, Retold in Limericks by Seamus O'Leprechaun - completed 5/14/15
Sense & Sensibility by Joanna Trollope (3.5) - completed 6/6/15
Emma by Alexander McCall Smith (2.5) - completed 7/5/15
The Jane Austen Handbook by Margaret C. Sullivan (3) - completed 9/9/15
North by Northanger by Carrie Bebris (3.5) - completed 9/27/15
Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners by Josephine Ross; illustrated by Henrietta Webb (4) - completed 9/30/15
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (4) - completed 10/31/15
Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread by Mary Jane Hathaway (3) - completed 12/13/15

Autumn in the mountains is beautiful. Here's an autumn photo taken at one of the overlooks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when my brother and I were small. I think I wore that dress in kindergarten, so I would have been 5 and my brother 3.

119. The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson
TIOLI #17 - Title contains just one 4-letter word

The sheriff of a neighboring county asks Absaroka County, Wyoming, sheriff Walt Longmire to house a prisoner awaiting trial to relieve overcrowding in the neighboring county's jail. Mary Barsad has been accused of murdering her husband after he deliberately set their barn on fire and killed her horses. It doesn't take long for Longmire to develop doubts about the prisoner's guilt. After securing permission from the sheriff with jurisdiction in that county, Walt goes undercover to see if he can discover additional evidence that would point to someone else's guilt.

Readers learned about Walt's experience in Vietnam in the last book in the series. This book reveals more of Walt's back story since the murder occurred near Walt's childhood home. Walt is largely on his own while he's undercover so the regular supporting characters don't appear as frequently this time. Unfortunately, the little we get of Vic is too much. I much prefer Walt in the company of Dog, horses, and the young boy he met during this investigation.

4 stars

Ooh, lovely new thread.

>7 cbl_tn: you know you're talking to a serious reader when they are reading novels that are inspired by other novels, intentionallly!

>10 LovingLit: Thanks for being my first visitor! I'm enjoying this year's Jane Austen project. It's a lot more entertaining than last year's World War I project (although the goal for that one was education, not entertainment).

Happy new thread, Carrie!

>12 susanj67: Thanks Susan!

Happy new thread!

>14 scaifea: Thanks Amber!

Nice new thread, Carrie!

Yay new thread!

Happy new thread, Carrie: I love the picture. The kids are cute, but the backdrop is breathtaking.

>16 kidzdoc: >17 leahbird: >18 BLBera: Thanks Darryl, Leah & Beth!

120. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
TIOLI #6 - Title includes a word starting with one of the 6 central letters of the alphabet ("Monte")

Most people recognize the name “Alexandre Dumas” thanks to the enduring popularity of The Three Musketeers. Many people are aware that the novelist Alexandre Dumas had a son Alexandre who was a playwright as well as a novelist. Far fewer are familiar with the original Alexandre Dumas. He was born in what is now Haiti to a French father (a marquis, no less) and a slave mother. He had the great fortune to live in France during a period of great freedom for Africans and people of mixed race. He had the great misfortune to be a contemporary of Napoleon, who took away those liberties when he rose to power.

The first person intrudes at several points in the narrative. This wouldn't be remarkable in an autobiography, but it's unexpected in a biography. The first person passages reveal Reiss's extraordinary efforts to access primary sources that had lain untouched in archives and repositories for two centuries. (Some of the richest sources were stored in a safe whose combination had been lost at the death of the only person who knew it. Thanks to Reiss's persistence, the safe was blown open and Reiss was permitted to view its contents.) The newly discovered primary sources will interest scholars, while Reiss's vivid narrative will appeal to general readers and fans of The Count of Monte Cristo and other action and adventure novels inspired by the life of General Dumas.

4 stars

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Carrie.

Happy new thread Carrie! Glad you also enjoyed The Black Count.

>20 cbl_tn: Loved this book. Non-fiction with a plot as gripping as fiction.

>21 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara!

>22 souloftherose: >23 charl08: I've been wanting to read this book for ages. I'm glad I finally got around to it. It's well worth the time spent reading.

-----------------------------------------
I have a cousin who lives on the other side of Knoxville, about an hour away. Today is a milestone birthday for her. It's also Wednesday, which is her usual day off of work. I'm working this Saturday so I took a half day off this afternoon. I took my cousin to lunch and then treated her to a manicure and spa pedicure. As it turned out, she really needed it today. She just learned that one of her cats has cancer and won't be with her much longer.

Congrats on your new thread, Carrie.

I'm so sorry to read about your cousin's cat. Our fur kids are so precious to us.

Hi Carrie! I'm slowly getting caught up after being mostly AWOL for a couple of weeks, thanks to work.

I have The Black Count saved on audio, and hope to get to it soon-ish.....

>25 tymfos: Thanks Terri! I could tell she is heartbroken over her cat. He's only 11, so she expected to have several more years with him.

>26 katiekrug: Hi Katie! I started The Black Count in paperback but switched to an ebook a few chapters in. I had finished the ebook I was reading and didn't have anything else lined up for that format. The author uses lots of footnotes. I'm not sure how those are handled in audio format. Let me know when you find out (if you can tell). I'm curious!

Happy weekend, Carrie.

>28 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara!

121. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
TIOLI #1 - Author's last name contains a 3-letter English word spelled backwards (rub)

In the in-between month of October, a strange carnival appears overnight in a small Illinois town. Two almost-14-year-old boys, hovering between childhood and manhood, find themselves both attracted and repelled by the proprietors of the carnival and their collection of freaks. When the boys see more than they are meant to see, they discover the evil at the heart of this strange carnival. The boys instinctively hide, but the evil pursues them through the town. Help and hope come from an unexpected source.

This is a powerful story of temptation, sin, good and evil, friendship, and love. The lesson here is that the struggle between good and evil is a war, not a battle. Family and friends can make us stronger if we are willing to let them share our burdens. It's a moral lesson, but not a religious one, as it presupposes that we are able to resist temptation and sin by our own will.

”...Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun and he's guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit our appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others, and look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt and sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two...”

4 stars

Hi Carrie, happy new thread! I remember reading Something Wicked This Way Comes when I was still in school, but I can't remember anything about it. Time for a re-read!

My daughter read The Black Count last year for school, and counts it among her favorite books. Now I need to get to it.

I also read those last two books - your reviews perfectly capture them. Two big old thumbs up!

Love the sweet picture of the young you and your brother at the overlook.

>31 AMQS: Thanks Anne! The nice thing about Something Wicked This Way Comes is that one of the three main characters is a 50-something father who works nights in the library as its janitor. I suspect you may view the book a little differently a second time around as a parent and a librarian.

I'm glad to hear that your daughter read The Black Count for school. I think it's a good selection for high school libraries. It would make a great featured read for Black History Month.

>32 countrylife: Thanks Cindy! I really enjoyed both books. I'm glad you did, too!

122. Dracula by Bram Stoker
TIOLI #2 - Book published/set in the Victorian era

Although I hadn't read this novel before, it held few surprises for me. The basic plot is part of popular culture. (My first exposure may have been the Gilligan's Island parody episode, and my high school choir performed the musical parody Dracula, Baby my senior year.) What did surprise me is that it is an epistolary novel. I listened to a Naxos audio version recorded by a cast of voice actors. It's an excellent production, and it turned out to be a great way to experience this book. The narrators read with such conviction that I was able to overlook some of the dated scientific material (e.g., about blood transfusions). I liked this book much more than Frankenstein.

4 stars

Next up in audio: The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer

123. Surviving Cissy: My Family Affair of Life in Hollywood by Kathy Garver
TIOLI #1 - Author's last name contains a 3-letter English word spelled backward (rag, rev)

Before the Brady Bunch, there was Family Affair. I loved the show because it featured children just slightly older than me. I loved their New York apartment. I loved the children's relationship with Uncle Bill. And I loved that the twins had a big sister, Cissy. I wanted a big sister just like her.

Actress Kathy Garver played the role of Cissy for the entire run of the series. She had been a child actress and had years of acting experience behind her when she was cast in the role of Cissy. Ms. Garver's autobiography covers her entire career, from her first movie experience as a stand-in for the child actress in The Night of the Hunter to her most recent stage and teaching experience.

Sadly, tabloid covers keep shoppers up to date on the failures and problems of former child stars. Kathy Garver isn't tabloid fodder. She had a stable family life as a child, she studied acting as an adult, and she continues to find employment in a profession she still loves. I enjoyed reading about Ms. Garver's experiences with Family Affair, about her friendships with other child starts, and about the fields of voice over acting and audiobook narration.

The high quality paper in the hardcover edition shows the many photographs to good effect. However, the writing quality doesn't meet the same standard. The text reads more like a draft than like a finished product. The text describes events that occurred in July 2015. I received a hardcover copy – not an advanced reading copy – in mid-September. Figuring in printing and shipping time, there must have been little to no editing of the final draft. Ms. Garver has had an interesting career in several areas of the entertainment business, and it's too bad that her writing didn't get better editorial treatment.

This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

2.5 stars

I have a guest dog today and tomorrow. Stella's parents are away for the weekend. Adrian enjoys her company. She's been here enough that this is a second home for her, and she's no trouble. I put some banana bread in the oven right before she arrived and I'm waiting for it to finish baking so I can have some for breakfast.

>8 cbl_tn: What a wonderful photo!!!! I was in grade school in the 1950's and wore dresses similar to the one you were wearing.

Happy Weekend to you!

>37 Whisper1: Thanks Linda! That was one of my favorite dresses. I think it's the one that had a matching doll, which is probably why I loved it so much.

124. The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer
TIOLI #17 - Title includes just one 4-letter word

Fourteen-year-old Enola Holmes has been avoiding her older brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft, since their mother's disappearance a year ago. She has no intention of ending up in a boarding school. She's been living in London in disguise. Now her landlady, Mrs. Tupper, has been kidnapped, and Enola is on the trail of the kidnappers. Her search uncovers a connection to the Crimean War and “the Lady with the Lamp”. It also brings her dangerously close to her brother, Sherlock, who is also on the trail of the kidnappers. Can Enola rescue her landlady without being caught by her brother and sent to boarding school?

Enola Holmes is a smart, spunky heroine who will appeal particularly to tween girls. Her attitude and behavior reminds me of Amelia Peabody. The stories lean more to action and adventure to appeal to middle grade readers. I listened to the audio version read by Katherine Kellgren, one of my favorite audiobook readers. She perfectly captures the humorous melodrama of the story.

4 stars

Lori and I are back from the Asian festival. (Well, I'm back. Lori's still on her way home.) it was disappointing. By the time we got there, it was so crowded that we couldn't see anything. The festival was located in an alley away from the rest of the park and there just wasn't enough space for the booths, people, and stage presentations. We didn't stay very long. We found a place to eat lunch, then we drove out west and stopped at a pet store, a shoe store, and Trader Joe's. I came jome with a pair of New Balance walking shoes and a new winter coat for Adrian. He's put on just enough weight that his old one is a little too snug.

>40 cbl_tn: She failed to mention that the guest dog bit me. Glad I had on jeans so it didn't penetrate. My kittens got Advantage II for Kittens, some colorful balls, and a couple of scratching boards.

>40 cbl_tn: Next Asia festival you should do right here in Malaysia, Carrie!

>41 thornton37814: Lori I hope you bit the thing back!

Have a lovely weekend, Carrie.

>42 PaulCranswick: I actually went to their website, found the contact link, and told them that unless they found a larger venue and a way that people could actually see performers, that I wouldn't be back. I let them know I'd driven from a distance and was greatly disappointed.

>41 thornton37814: Yes, she did. Neither Adrian nor the dog I had as a child were biters so I'm not sure hiw to train Stella not to do that. I was going to look for a muzzle for her at the pet store but I forgot. I know she's bitten the vet before. Adrian just licks them when they give him a shot.

>42 PaulCranswick: Malaysia sounds like a good plan!

>43 thornton37814: Good! You didn't happen to contact the restaurant while you were on a roll, did you?

125. The Railway Viaduct by Edward Marston
TIOLI #2 - Book set during Queen Victoria's reign

When the dead body of an unidentified man is flung from a train as it crosses Sankey Viaduct, the railway operators quickly call in Robert Colbeck of Scotland Yard. His previous successes at solving crimes connected with rail travel have earned him the nickname “The Railway Detective”. This time Colbeck's investigation will take him to France, where a British contractor is constructing a new rail line for the French.

This book's plot feels forced. The author seems more interested in providing readers with a detailed history of railway engineering than in constructing a detailed puzzle for readers to solve along with the fictional detective. The detective is becoming more obnoxious in each subsequent novel in the series. I believe I'll stop with this one.

2 stars

Here's a picture of the Sankey Viaduct, location of the murder in The Railway Viaduct:

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons"

>44 cbl_tn: It sounds like it was a day to talk about even if the Asian festival was disappointing, Carrie. Too bad about the dog bite, Lori. I always find them a bit of a shock even if they don't hurt that much. What happened at the restaurant?

>47 Familyhistorian: We went someplace we'd been before and the concept has changed completely. The service was poor. We waited forever for our checks, and then we waited some more for our change.

>48 cbl_tn: Sounds like the capper to a disappointing day. I hope that your next outing turns out better.

>44 cbl_tn: I haven't contacted them yet, but I should do that!

Yikes! That sounds like a dreadful day out. Sorry that you two had such a lousy go of it.

>51 kidzdoc: It didn't start out well but it ended well with new shoes and Trader Joe's.

>52 cbl_tn: Yes, I enjoyed some of my Pecan Praline Granola this morning at breakfast.

>53 thornton37814: Wish I could have found my brand there!

126. The Lie by Helen Dunmore
TIOLI #6 - Title word begins with one of the 6 middle letters of the alphabet (L)

Everything has changed when Daniel Branwell returns to Cornwall after fighting in the trenches of France in World War I. Daniel's mother has died, and with no other family and no home, he lives in a makeshift shelter near the home of an elderly, reclusive woman. Daniel suffers from PTSD, and he's haunted by memories of the war and by the ghost of his childhood friend, Frederick, who did not survive the war. Although he avoids most people, Daniel reestablishes a relationship with Frederick's sister, Felicia, a war widow at just 20 years old. Preferring his established routines to uncertainty, Daniel lies to Felicia about his present circumstances. Only later does he realize that he's committed himself to maintaining a certain appearance which will become increasingly difficult.

Daniel's fragile mental state makes him a somewhat unreliable narrator. Is Daniel's PTSD episodic or unremitting? Just what was Daniel's lie? Was it what he tells readers it was? Or is his entire story a lie? Can readers trust anything he tells us? This book will stimulate discussion about war and its management, its psychological effects on veterans, social class and military life and experience, and society's responsibilities for veterans.

4 stars

>55 cbl_tn: Pleased to see that The Lie went well for you Carrie. I think that, in the main, Helen Dunmore has fallen a little flat in the challenge but I thought The Siege which I read was ok too. Not fantastic but certainly not at all bad.

>56 PaulCranswick: I was pleased with my first venture with Helen Dunmore. I will try her again at some point.

Delighted to see that you enjoyed The Lie by Helen Dunmore. I have that out from the library, but I am not sure if I will get to it before it's due date. I've read The Betrayal and the The Seige by her and really enjoyed them. I also read The Greatcoat, which I was not as keen on.

>58 vancouverdeb: Hi Deborah! I will try The Siege next time I'm ready for one of her works. I like her writing style.

How is Poppy? I'm way behind on threads, but I'll try to drop in soon to catch up on your reading and news.

127. American Classics by Amy Tan et al.

This audio collection pairs short stories by well-regarded American authors with (mostly) well-known actors. Most of the stories are written in first person, giving the presentations the feel of a dramatic monologue. My favorite stories in the collection are “Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. The best performance is René Auberjonois' delivery of Edgar Allan Poe's “The Black Cat”. Stockard Channing's performance of Eudora Welty's “Why I Live at the P.O.” is nearly as good. “Where Have You Been, Where Are You Going?” by Joyce Carol Oates is the only story that fell flat. It's also one of just two stories written in the third person, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

The complete contents:
“Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan, performed by Freda Foh Shen
“Game” by Donald Barthelme, performed by David Strathairn
“Why I Live at the P.O. by Eudora Welty, performed by Stockard Channing
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, performed by René Auberjonois
“Where Have You Been, Where Are You Going?” by Joyce Carol Oates, performed by Christine Baranski
“At the Anarchist's Convention” by John Sayles, performed by Jerry Stiller
“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, performed by Carmen De Lavallade
“Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor” by John Cheever, performed by Malachy McCourt

Recommended for short story and American lit fans.

4 stars

Next up in audio: The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin

Happy weekend, Carrie.

>61 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara!

128. The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin
TIOLI #2 - Set during Victoria's reign

The Explorers Club is a farce in which a scientific society in Victorian England is presented with its first female candidate for membership. The level of humor is juvenile, and the sexism and racism are too overdone to be funny. Some of the humor is apparently physical, which doesn't translate well to an audio format. The most worthwhile part of the recording is the 20-25 minute concluding interview with author Eileen Pollack, who talks about her undergraduate experience as one of two female physics students at Yale.

2.5 stars

Next up in audio: Corridors of the Night by Anne Perry

>128 cbl_tn: - Sounds like one to avoid.

>64 lkernagh: At least it was a free download for me. And it was short, which was what I needed to fill the gap until my ER audiobook arrived.

My friend who volunteers for the Humane Society talked me into going with her this afternoon to exhibit at the Open Streets Knoxville event. We had a Humane Society dog with us - a senior Boston terrier with a temperament very much like Adrian's. She got along well with people of all ages and with the dogs from other rescue organizations. I hated taking her back to the shelter, but when we got there we found out that her adoption had been finalized while we were gone and her new family was picking her up within the hour. The event was fun. We were right next to the belly dancers. That was ... interesting.

I had planned on coming to Open Streets today but got sidelined by work! Dangit!

>67 leahbird: I'm sorry you missed it! It was fun. We were in the parking lot of The Central Collective, which had its ribbon cutting during the afternoon. Mayor Rogero was there for the ceremony. The building was open for tours. I love seeing old buildings renovated and repurposed.

We were within eyesight of the old Sears building, where my family did most of our shopping when I was a child. It brought back lots of happy memories.

I used to live there in Happy Holler (on Oklahoma) and still love the area. It was definitely down on it's luck when I moved in, but in the 3 years I lived there, there were old houses being remodeled and listed for upwards of $750,000. Every time I go down there, there is some new business or renovated building that is just so cool.

>69 leahbird: That must have been a fun place to live!

129. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
TIOLI #17 - Title includes one four-letter word (Zoet)

When clerk Jacob De Zoet arrives in Dejima, an artificial island offshore from Nagasaki, he intends to make his fortune, return to the Netherlands in five years' time, and marry his sweetheart, Anne. However, Jacob is a principled man who believes in the tenets of his faith. He soon learns how costly principles can be in a trading system that thrives on corruption. His devotion to Anne is tested by his infatuation with a Japanese midwife - an infatuation that has unforeseen repercussions that will affect both the Dutch traders and the Japanese.

Setting, characters, and plot combine to make this an unforgettable novel. My only complaint is that some of the action takes place outside the book's pages. The midwife Orita is the only female among the book's central characters and I would have liked more of her story than Mitchell gives his readers. If Mitchell would write more historical novels I would happily read them.

4.5 stars

>55 cbl_tn: Dunmore's The Lie sounds interesting. I didn't manage to read either of this month's BAC pick despite having books by both on the TBR. One of which was >71 cbl_tn: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet which I'm pleased to see you really enjoyed.

>72 souloftherose: I've been meaning to read Jacob De Zoet for ages and I was pleased that it lived up to my high expectations. Sometimes my anticipation builds so much that I'm disappointed by what many readers would consider a great book.

I'm happy that the BAC prompted me to read Dunmore. She hadn't made it to the TBR list, and I discovered that I like her writing. One thing I liked about this book is that it isn't any longer than it needed to be. So many writers these days tend to overwrite. The over-writers are more often than not "tellers" instead of "showers".

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Well, I've come down with some kind of crud again - possibly bronchitis. I'm not as sick as I was in May, when I could barely stand up. I'm doing a better job at staying hydrated and I've been taking extra medicine at night for my cough. I was almost out of that and my doctor gave me plenty of refills when I saw him yesterday. He had the nurse give me a steroid shot before I went home, and he also had me start a 9-day course of prednisone today. I came home at lunchtime with a low grade fever, which is a new development, so I called the office to see if he thinks he needs to add an antibiotic. I'm poaching some chicken breasts now. I'll use one to make chicken and rice soup and freeze the other. I also mixed up a batch of three-bean salad. I'm almost out of popsicles but I can restock on those at the new Dollar General just down the road. They have ice cream, too. :)

130. Amphigorey by Edward Gorey
TIOLI #3 - Title has no repeated letters

Amphigorey was all the rage when I was in high school, but I don't remember reading it then. I've always loved Gorey's opening sequence for Masterpiece Mystery. I finally got around to reading Amphigorey and I decided I'd left it too late. Some of the humor is harmless. The black humor about missing and abused children is hard to digest in this era of Amber alerts. I still love the gothic drawings, but the accompanying text? Not so much.

2.5 stars

Get well soon, Carrie. I can't wait to read Jacob de Zoet. I want to read a Mitchell yet this year and am torn about which to choose.

I love Gorey!

>75 BLBera: Thanks Beth! I am feeling better today. I went to work for a few hours this morning, then worked at home this afternoon. It's less stressful at home, even with the extra dog who is more highly strung than Adrian.

Sorry to learn that you have not been feeling well. Working from home sounds like the perfect solution to help you get over the crud.

>77 lkernagh: Thanks Lori! I'm feeling better by the hour. I just wish I could quit waking up at 4 a.m.! I've had a lazy day at home with Adrian and our guest dog, Stella, with a bit of laundry and a bit of cooking. I finally had all the right ingredients at the right time to make sweet potato pudding. Yum!

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I've just had probably my only trick-or-treater. My neighbors across the street have a granddaughter in 4th or 5th grade. She just dropped by to collect for herself and her toddler brother. One child down the road has lots of allergies so I doubt she gets to go trick-or-treating. There's a family just down the road with a baby too young to trick-or-treat. It's a dead-end road so we don't get outside traffic.

I finished Northanger Abbey this afternoon (Val McDermid's modern retelling), with a review to come later. It's my favorite of the three Austen Project books I've read. I've got one more book I want to finish today so it will count for October - The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. I only have one chapter left but it's a long chapter.

Get well soon, Carrie.

>79 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara! I think I could use one of your wellness holidays!

>80 cbl_tn: That would help for sure.

>78 cbl_tn: I am glad to hear that you are feeling better, Carrie. It sounds like you are having a very restful day. Only one trick-or-treater? I wish it was the same here. I am prepared for the usual onslaught though there might be fewer this year because of the rain - maybe we might even be able to eat supper in relative peace (I wish).

I kind of wish I wish I was you, Carrie! I am preparing for a fair few trick or treaters this evening - but it is not yet dark here. I don't mind so much, but my little dog does! Jean McDonald - she is a good author and knowledgeable dogs. I think I've read Mine!: A Guide to Resource Guarding.

Poppy has come a long , long way since we got her just a little less than 2 years ago. But she still has her issues. She does not care for people knocking on the door , so I'll have my hands full tonight . ( My husband is still at work ) .

>82 Familyhistorian: Yes, just one trick-or-treater. I always buy candy anyway. I'll take the rest to work on Monday.

>83 vancouverdeb: Adrian would love a constant stream of visitors. However, guest dog Stella is wary of strangers so it's a good thing we just had the one. She's seen this girl plenty of times on walks so she wasn't exactly a stranger.

131. Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid
TIOLI #1 - Backwards 3-letter word in author's last name (dim, red)

17-year-old Cat Morland, the oldest daughter of a Dorset vicar, is having the time of her life while accompanying her childless friends and neighbors, the Allens, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her hosts send her to dancing lessons to learn the dances for the Highland Ball. She is intrigued by her partner, the handsome Henry Tilney. However, she is soon distracted by her new friend, Bella Thorpe, who she soon learns is seeing her older brother, James. Bella's brother, Johnny, a friend of James's from Cambridge, soon latches on to Cat, not recognizing that his attentions are both unwelcome and hindering any further development in her relationship with Henry Tilney. Fortunately, Henry and his sister, Ellie, persevere in their attempts at cultivating her friendship. The three find that they have a lot in common, including a love for the Hebridean Harpies horror novels. Cat is thrilled when the Tilneys invite her to stay at their home, Northanger Abbey, where the environment and the odd behavior of the Tilney's father, General Tilney, resemble the vampire stories Cat loves so much.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a good substitute for the social milieu of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. It's hard to imagine this retelling working well in a different setting. At 17, Cat seems a bit young for a lawyer in training. However, it's not nearly as challenging as the difficulty Joanna Trollope faced with a plausible relationship storyline for Marianne and Brandon in her updating of Sense & Sensibility. The texting and Facebooking seem natural in this setting, although I wouldn't notice if McDermid didn't strike the right tone here. This is the most enjoyable of the three Austen Project novels I've read so far, and I think it will satisfy many of Austen's fans. McDermid successfully blends her own voice with Austen's original story. She's set a high bar for the remaining three novels in the project.

4 stars

132. The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson
TIOLI #1 - Author's name includes a 3-letter English word spelled backwards (nod)

I read a few books on dog care and training before I adopted a 2-year-old Shih Tzu two years ago. I hadn't had a dog since elementary school so my experience was rusty. This book's explanation of dog motivation and behavior makes more sense to me, and confirms things that I've observed while living with a dog for the last two years. Dogs learn behavior through classical and operant conditioning. This happens - in both directions - whether or not the human owners are aware of it. Trainers can use these learning principles to encourage desired behavior and discourage unwanted behavior.

I had instinctively been conditioning my dog to do things in certain places or at certain times (for example, crate training) by offering positive reinforcement. Donaldson's book provides explanations and describes techniques that will help me to improve my still fairly raw skills. Now that I've read the book, I think it would help to see the training techniques in action, so I've ordered one of her DVDs.

The book is essentially self-published by Donaldson's Academy for Dog Trainers. The valuable content is worthy of professional editing and design to eliminate repetitiveness and make it more visually appealing.

3.5 stars

October Recap

Best of the month: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
Worst of the month: The Railway Viaduct by Edward Marston

Physical books – owned: 3
Physical books – borrowed: 2
Ebooks – borrowed: 5
Audiobooks – owned: 3
Audiobooks – borrowed: 1

Planned reads for November:

An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - Reading
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
A Rare Murder in Princeton by Ann Waldron
When London Was Capital of America by Julie Flavell
The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

Audiobooks:
Corridors of the Night by Anne Perry - Listening
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Edited to add Winterson book.

Nice comments on the Austen project novel. I recently picked it up and look forward to it.

>89 BLBera: Thanks Beth! It was an enjoyable way to spend part of my weekend.

I hope you are feeling better Carrie.

Carrie, I'm sorry to read you're sick again. This is not your year as far as illness goes! Take it as easy as the fur-babies allow.

I've had my eye on that Julie Flavell book for a while so I'll be very interested in your opinion :-)

>85 cbl_tn: I liked this treatment too, Carrie, and agree with you that it's the best of the them, so far. I was very disappointed in Alexander McCall Smith's Emma: A Modern Retelling, possibly from having expected more than I did from the other two.

>91 Whisper1: Thanks Linda! I am mostly feeling better, but I'm learning that the weather has a big effect on this. I guess it's all part of living with allergies.

>92 susanj67: Thanks Susan! I learned from my experience in the soring, and I think my doctor did, too. I think I got on top of this early.

The Julie Flavell book has been in my TBR stash for a while. I'm excited about reading it. The LT ratings are encouraging!

>85 cbl_tn: Hi Kerry! The McCall Smith Emma was a big disappointment to me, too. I really enjoyed the other two.

I learned this past week about the Hogarth Shakespeare project so now I have another series of retellings to pursue. The first book in the series was just released in October. It's a retelling of The Winter's Tale by Jeanette Winterson. I have to read the Shakespeare first, though. There are other big names signed up for this project, including Anne Tyler, Margaret Atwood, Jo Nesbo, and Gillian Flynn

>85 cbl_tn: I do like the sound of this retelling and like to read books set in Edinburgh so will look out for it. As you say, some of the Austen stories are more difficult to imagine today.

I'm intrigued who will retell Persuasion, my favourite Austen. 8 years without knowing what happened to someone (who is still cared for) seems unlikely to happen in the age of Google...

>95 charl08: Persuasion is my favorite Austen, too! I think I could imagine a retelling working in a political setting. It will be interesting to see who is chosen to write it and what modern context they choose for it.

The Hogarth Shakespeare project sounds great. I will give me the impetus I need to finish my reading of the plays. What a lot of good writers signed on!

>73 cbl_tn: Oh, no! Really sorry to hear you're sick again. Glad to hear you are starting to feel better.

>97 BLBera: I've read less than half of the plays so I'm glad for this nudge to read them. I placed a hold on a copy of The Gap of Time, Winterson's retelling of The Winter's Tale. My library system has 3 copies and two are currently available. The library where I work has the play on audio CD so I think I'll check that out tomorrow and read along while I listen.

>98 souloftherose: Thanks Heather! The extra hour last night helped. :)

All caught up with you, Carrie, and sorry to hear that you are feeling under the weather. Hoping that you are completely well very soon. You have been doing some great reading - I am intrigued by the Northanger Abbey remake. I have the Trollope remake of Sense and Sensibility on the shelves but your earlier thoughts on it have me in no hurry to get to it.

>100 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie! I still have a lot to learn about living with allergies and asthma. I'm encouraged that I'm not nearly as ill as I was in May.

i hope you enjoy McDermid's Northanger Abbey. Austen had fun spoofing the gothic fiction of her era in the original, and I think McDermid had fun with her retelling.

Hi Carrie. All caught up with you. I love the pic of young Carrie and her little brother. Sorry that the Asian festival was a dud. Hopefully they will improve the location for next year. I'm glad Jacob de Zoat has another fan. It's not a typical Mitchell book. I think he should write more historical fiction.

What a neat railway viaduct. Too bad the book wasn't as winning as the real thing.

>102 Donna828: Hi Donna! I'm glad to hear that you liked Jacob De Zoet too. I loved it so much that I'm afraid I'll be disappointed with anything else of Mitchell's that I try.

>103 countrylife: I know! Wouldn't you like to see it in person?!

I just spotted one of the Hogarth Shakespeare books in the November ER batch: Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson.

133. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; illustrated by Jules Feiffer
TIOLI #3 - Read a fantasy

There once was a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.

When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him—least of all the things that should have.

With the aid of a magical tollbooth, Milo travels through the Lands Beyond. He picks up a couple of travel companions along the way, and together they set out to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air. By the end of his quest, Milo has learned so many ways to fill his time and use it wisely that he should never run out of interesting things to do. The allegorical story isn't quite subtle enough for my taste, and possibly wouldn't have been even if I had read it as a child. I find that messages stick with me better if I have to work just a bit harder to see them.

If my great-grandfather had lived long enough, this is a book he might have bought for his great-grandchildren. My mother frequently quoted his advice to her: “Wherever you are, be all there.” I think he would have given the same advice to Milo.

3.5 stars

Morning, Carrie! I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth many years ago, and then I gave it to my nephew because I thought he might like it. Turned out to be one of his very favorite books, so that's a fun memory. After that, we exchanged books all the time.

>107 Crazymamie: I'm really not sure how I missed this one during my childhood. That's neat that you share reading tastes with your nephew. Is this the same nephew that recently moved to GA?

My mother and my grandmother (her mother-in-law) used to pass books back and forth. We always traveled with a bag of books when we went to visit.

Yep. But now he's moved back to Indiana again. LOL! He needs to figure out what he wants, I feel like he is lost right now, and it makes me sad because I want so much for him to be happy. He's such a great guy.

>109 Crazymamie: I missed that development! I hope he finds his passion in life sooner rather than later.

I don't have many chores that have to be done this evening. I'm steaming some Brussels sprouts to go with leftover meat & potato pie so I'll have a few dishes to wash later. That's about it. Now that it gets dark so early, it seems like it's easier to spend the evening reading. I'm really enjoying The Lacuna so far, and I'm very glad for the nudge from this month's AAC to finally get it to the top of my TBR stack. I'll probably try to read at least a chapter of When London Was Capital of America, another book I've been looking forward to reading for ages. I read the intro last night and I'm eager to continue with it. Yesterday I picked up library copies of An Ice-Cream War, Loitering with Intent, and The Gap of Time so I'm all set for the rest of the month.

>111 cbl_tn: I'm glad you are enjoying The Lacuna. I liked it when I read it.

>73 cbl_tn: how is the health? I hope you are better by now!

>111 cbl_tn: steamed Brussels sprouts and mash and meat pie! Yum. I feel hungry now

>112 thornton37814: I made it through about 100 pages yesterday. I have a mystery I want to read this weekend so it may be next week before I finish it. We'll see.

>113 LovingLit: Mostly better now! There's something in my work environment that makes it worse while I'm there. It could be the temperature. I keep my home thermostat at 70F or below, but I don't have any control over the thermostat at work. Dust mites are more active above 70F and they're a major allergen for me. I've had an earache keeping me awake part of the night but I don't think I have an infection. Just another allergy symptom.

I still have some leftovers that will take care of tonight's dinner. :)

>106 cbl_tn:, I vow to read The Phantom Toolbooth. Your comments are excellent and prompt me to red this sooner rather than later.

I hope you are feeling better today.

>115 Whisper1: I think you will enjoy The Phantom Tollbooth! I am feeling better today, but tired. I woke up at 4 and never really got back to sleep. I took the last dose of prednisone this morning so maybe I'll start sleeping better now that I'm finished with it.

I received an inspiring email at work today that I thought I'd share here:

He played with the team through 1983, its last season in Fort Lauderdale. For the white grapes, Chardonnay is the most common. He was the only son of the couple and was educated privately. These systems only produce still images. TXE2 contained about 100,000 reeds. Jews alike in an informal manner. No decision had been made on Swansea. The most lucrative part of the business turned out to be barnstorming displays promoting short recreational plane rides. May 14, 1966, Pages 1, 11. Jersey City Machine Co. An internal memo at the hospital told employees to look for a tall man with wires protruding from his clothing.

It seems to be composed of sentences pulled from random Wikipedia articles. Even weirder, there weren't any hypertext links trying to lure me to a web site.

>117 cbl_tn: What a cool/strange email! Do you know the sender?

>118 Shutzie27: No, it's definitely spam. The email address is French.

My cough still isn't quite gone, and it looks likely to rain all day. This will be a stay at home day with laundry, reading, and naps. I hope to be back to normal by the beginning of the week.

134. A Rare Murder in Princeton by Ann Waldron
TIOLI #8 - Book with red on the cover

McLeod Dulaney is back in Princeton to teach a writing course. Her friend, George, has invited her to stay in the guest room of the house he recently bought. On McLeod's first evening in Princeton, George introduces her to his mentor, Nathaniel Ledbetter, who is now the director of Rare Books and Special Collections at the university. Over dinner, Ledbetter tells George and McLeod about the murder of the former owner of George's house. He also interests McLeod into researching the papers of author Henry van Dyke. McLeod begins spending time in Rare Books and Special Collections and gets to know several of its employees, regular visitors, and a major donor. After McLeod discovers a murdered corpse upon her arrival at the archive one morning, her mind won't rest until she has solved the murder. The discovery of some valuable items in a box in George's garage provides an additional puzzle for McLeod to solve.

The university setting focusing on rare books and special collections provided the only point of interest for me. The book is poorly written and the plot is unfocused. There are too many mysteries, too many characters, too much aimless dialogue, and too few clues. McLeod's investigative methods are limited to going out to lunch with suspects or cooking for suspects. Although this doesn't claim to be a culinary mystery, recipes are provided. I doubt I'll pick up another book in this series.

1.5 stars

>117 cbl_tn: An internal memo at the hospital told employees to look for a tall man with wires protruding from his clothing.

Carrie, this is the sentence that intrigues me most! I hope you have a relaxing Sunday and get rid of the cough.

>121 cbl_tn: Yikes, I'll avoid that one Carrie,, thank you very much. Have a great weekend notwithstanding that dud.

>122 susanj67: Hi Susan! That sentence intrigued me, too. I think it comes from a Wikipedia article on the 2005 London bombings.

>123 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul! Definitely one for you to avoid!

This afternoon Adrian and I went with Stella and her family to the fall festival at one of the local animal shelters. Adrian and Stella enjoyed the smells and meeting other dogs. I was able to buy a few Christmas gifts from the vendors there. And Adrian has lots of free treats to enjoy in the next month or so.

One of the dogs Adrian met today is Smokey the Bluetick hound, the official mascot of the University of Tennessee. Please note that Adrian was dressed appropriately in his football sweater. :)

>120 cbl_tn: Spam, yeech. Still...cool for a writing prompt or two.

I hope you feel better soon and had as a good day reading and napping as possible. Also, thanks for the review of A Rare Murder in Princeton; I definitely would've picked that one up based on a synopsis.

>125 cbl_tn: We're simul-posting. Love Adrian in his sweater!

>126 Shutzie27: Hi! The cough is gone today, but it's been replaced by a headache, and maybe a low grade fever. I've also somehow thrown out my lower back. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

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When I was looking at cookbooks yesterday I came across a recipe for a chicken and sweet potato casserole. It sounded yummy, so I'm cooking the chicken this evening and I'll make the casserole tomorrow evening. It makes a lot but I think it will freeze well. I'll keep out enough for a few meals later this week and freeze the rest.

Hej Carrie, hope you feel better today.
>42 PaulCranswick: >44 cbl_tn: any meetup in Malaysia? Tell me when, I'd like to take part in that festival. I've never been to Malaysia *sigh*

>125 cbl_tn: Carrie, I love your posts about the doggie outings with Adrian and Stella. He looks very smart! Smokey seems pretty laid back. I'd never heard of the Bluetick hound breed but he's a handsome fellow too. Sorry you're still suffering - I lost most of the weekend to a headache thanks to my back/neck/arm etc but I'm finally coming out of it, which is just as well for a day in the office. I hope you're all better soon.

>129 paulstalder: That would be great, wouldn't it?! The odds that I'll ever travel as far afield as Malaysia are pretty slim.

>130 susanj67: Hi Susan! My back is better this morning. It's still a little sore, but I have more range of motion. The headache is gone, too, so I'm nearly back to normal. Yay! I may have more Adrian and Stella stories next weekend. Stella is staying with us Friday-Sunday.

The Bluetick Coonhound is an American hunting breed. Smokey may be the most famous one. He even has a book about him!

>131 cbl_tn: Carrie, that looks like a cute book. For Adrian, that must have been like getting his photo taken with a Kardashian!

LOVE the photo! Glad to hear that your back is better this morning - hope you continue to feel even better as the day goes on. Sounds like you took one for the team with that last mystery - thanks, Carrie!

>132 susanj67: I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right! And I thought of a career option for Adrian. I think he would be a good sports mascot. I can guarantee he will lick the opposing team every game. ;-)

>133 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! I don't feel great yet, but I definitely feel better than I did last week. I think whatever bug I had is finally on its way out. The last mystery might have suffered in comparison with Barbara Kingsolver's writing, although I generally rate genre fiction in comparison with other books in that genre and not in comparison with literary giants like Kingsolver.

135. The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
TIOLI #11 - Read a play

This is not one of Shakespeare's best plays. It seems like a mashup of Othello (insane jealously) and Much Ado about Nothing (characters running around in disguises). The beginning feels like it's started in the middle. Some important revelations take place off-stage, described by minor characters instead of enacted by the central characters. Shakespeare's finest works seem to drip with cliches because they're the source of those cliches. This one does not. The most famous line from this play may be the stage direction “Exit pursued by a bear.” Recommended only for completists.

2.5 stars

". . .he will lick the opposing team every game." (I enjoy a chuckle first thing in the morning!) The picture is adorable, too.

>106 cbl_tn: That was one of my favourite books as a child - I think I was too caught up in the fanatstical adventure to be bothered by the allegory.

>135 cbl_tn: “Exit pursued by a bear.” That's the part I remember from The Winter's Tale, that and a statue.

Sorry to hear you're still not feeling 100%. Hope you feel better soon.

>136 countrylife: I'm glad I could supply the early morning chuckle! Adrian is definitely a licker, and fairly indiscriminate about it.

>137 souloftherose: Hi Heather! It might be fun to see a live performance of The Winter's Tale sometime - as long as there's no chance of the bear exiting into the audience. This one will never be a favorite, though.

I think I'm finally over whatever I've been fighting for the last two weeks. I feel almost normal today. It's about time!

I'm with you, Carrie. The Winter's Tale is not one of my favorites. I did see a performance, and it really didn't change my view much. I want to read the Hogarth version soon; my library has a copy.

>139 BLBera: I'm glad I'm in such good company! I plan to read the Hogarth version this weekend. I've got a library copy and I may not be able to renew it when the loan expires.

Yay for feeling better! I hope it lasts for a long, long time.

>141 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg! Fingers crossed that it will.

You'll probably get to it before I do, Carrie. I have a couple of library books that are due before that one. I'll watch for your comments.

I finished The Lacuna last night, too late to write up a review. I'll do that later today. I just pulled a batch of blueberry muffins out of the oven. I decided it was time to use some of the blueberries I froze last summer, when they were abundant and cheap. I'm getting ready to start The Gap of Time, which I notice has a synopsis of The Winter's Tale at the beginning of the book.

>144 cbl_tn: Interested to see what you made of that chunkster, Carrie. Have a lovely Sunday and I can just about smell those muffins.....................wait my toast is burning!

>145 PaulCranswick: i'll get to the review later today, probably after my guest dog has gone home. It's a little difficult to use a laptop with two lapdogs and one lap...

Hi Carrie! I've enjoyed catching up here. The Phantom Tollbooth is a favorite of mine from childhood -- I'm sure I read it at least 50 times! Marina loves the Enola Holmes books -- fun to see your reviews, too:)

136. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
TIOLI #7 - Book with a connection to the visual arts

After the failure of his parents' marriage, Harrison Shepard's mother takes him to her native Mexico. Harrison is mostly left to his own devices while his mother spends her time dancing, smoking, drinking, and chasing men. The acquisition of a notebook leads to a life-long habit of journaling. A young cook becomes a father figure for Harrison, who becomes his assistant in the kitchen. When Harrison and his mother move to Mexico City, he becomes the cook for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. When their household grows to include the Russian Trotsky and his entourage, Harrison adds translating and secretarial duties to his cooking duties. After Trotsky's assassination, Harrison eventually lands in Asheville, North Carolina, where he becomes a successful novelist. However, his past association with communists make him a target for Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee.

I loved the first ¾ of the book, especially the parts set in Mexico. The last quarter of the book fell flat. I was fascinated by the structure. The combination of journal entries, copies of letters, and newspaper clippings gives it a feel similar to reading through a box of loose family papers. The structure was problematic in the ebook version I read. I kept wanting to refer back to earlier parts of the book, but because there are no chapters, the only reference points in the table of contents are the part headings, with each part consisting of more than 100 pages. Many readers will prefer reading a print copy for this reason.

I read this despite my general aversion to reading fictionalized accounts of real people and events. I don't want my knowledge of history clouded by fiction. I don't know a whole lot about Trotsky, and I feel like I need to read a biography to put him in proper perspective. Kingsolver portrays him in this book as a kind of grandfatherly, professorial, genteel man. I'm sure there were more facets to his character, including some darker traits.

4 stars

>147 AMQS: Hi Anne! I wish I had discovered The Phantom Tollbooth as a child! I have enjoyed the two Enola Holmes books I've read so far. Her personality reminds me of Amelia Peabody, another Victorian favorite. Maybe Marina would enjoy that series when she's a little older.

I just finished The Gap of Time. The full review will have to wait until tomorrow, but I think Winterson managed to improve on Shakespeare's plot.

137. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson's cover version of The Winter's Tale improves on the original story. Shakespeare's play feels like it starts in the middle of the story. Winterson provides the back story of Leo and Xeno's friendship (they were best friends – and a bit more – at boarding school in their teens), and she gives Leo at least a bit of ground for his violent jealousy of Xeno's relationship with Leo's wife, Mimi. Leo's violence, the strong language, and the graphic sexual details in the first part exceed my comfort level. The scene where Leo rapes his 9-month-pregnant wife is particularly disturbing, However, Shakespeare can be violent, vulgar, and bawdy. My sensibilities aren't jarred as much when such scenes are written in archaic Elizabethan English. Winterson creatively worked in all of the characters and major plot elements of The Winter's Tale – even “Exit, pursued by a bear.” She even drops in references to her own work! Winterson's reflections on time are poetic:

And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman's fortune or one man's loss. And we can't know the lives of others. And we can't know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change.

I read this book over the weekend after the Paris terrorist attacks, with 24/7 cable news playing in the background. I found this passage particularly ironic in light of current events:

”Benjamin Franklin said that if you have to choose between liberty and security, choose liberty.”
“I guess they didn't have world terrorism back then.”
“That's just a way of scaring us.”
“I don't agree. People get killed.”
“Yes, they do, but some guy with a bomb in a backpack—how often does that happen, and to how many people? But no work, no home, no hope—that's the everyday life of millions, billions of people. To me, that's the threat. And climate change is the threat. And war, and drought and famine...”

It happened in Paris on Friday, November 13, 2015.

>248 souloftherose: I don't know much about Trotsky, but he's not coming out smelling of roses in Young Stalin the bio of Stalin’s years before dictatorship. Montefiore is not a fan.

>152 charl08: I came home from work today with a brief biography of Trotsky by Geoffrey Swain. I don't know that I'll read the whole thing, but I'll at least skim it to see if I can get a better picture of the real man.

Hi, Carrie! Sorry to hear that you've had the crud. I was sicker than I've ever been thanks to whatever has been going around here, so I can relate. Glad you're feeling better than you were.

Hi Terri! I'm all better now. The cough lasted for 2 weeks. I got on it early so I wasn't completely incapacitated like I was last spring. I'm glad you're feeling better, too!

I finished the audio of Corridors of the Night on Tuesday and I finished When London Was Capital of America this evening. Hopefully I'll find time to review them in the morning before I leave for my hair appointment. I've started the audio of Code Name Verity and my next print book will be Loitering with Intent. It's short and I hope to finish it this weekend.

Hi Carrie, I finally find time to do some weekend greetings. Wishing you a most lovely weekend.

>157 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara! It's starting off well with a visit from you! :-)

:-)

138. Corridors of the Night by Anne Perry
TIOLI #3 - Book that is 11th or later in a series (#21)

After agreeing to fill in for a friend who nurses at a London hospital, Hester Monk discovers that the hospital administrators are endangering the lives of three children with a medical experiment. Hester is kidnapped, partly because she has discovered the experiment and partly because her nursing skills are needed to provide care for a VIP patient. Hester's kidnappers are unaware that her husband, William Monk, is a policeman with the Thames River Police. Monk quickly locates and rescues Hester. Bringing the kidnappers to justice proves to be a more difficult challenge, even for the Monks' friend Oliver Rathbone.

Anne Perry's novels walk a fine line between introspection and melodrama. When she's at her best, her work is very good. This isn't one of her best. It crosses the line into melodrama at several points, and the pacing doesn't work. The audio experience is very likely an improvement over the print reading experience. David Colacci's expert narration restrains the melodrama inherent in Perry's writing. Recommended only for series fans, who would do well to get this one in audio rather than print.

This review is based on a complimentary audio recording provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

3 stars

Next up in audio: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

139. When London Was Capital of America by Julie Flavell
TIOLI #9 - Title completes the phrase "I am thankful for..."

This book looks primarily at the decade before the American Revolution, when numerous American and West Indian colonists lived and worked in London for extended periods. Flavell focuses on a few representative individuals and families, including the Laurens family who owned a South Carolina plantation and Yankees Benjamin Franklin and his son William. The case study format results in a non-chronological look at the era, and some repetition is inevitable. My favorite chapter describes the American colonial imprint on London's landscape, including trees and plants imported from the colonies that could be seen at places such as Kew Gardens; statues, monuments, and paintings of American colonial heroes; and in the rise of new retail shops tied to imported products like tobacco, sugar, coffee, and cocoa beans. The portraits and street scenes are a good compliment for the text. More legible maps would have been nice. The maps on the end papers and at the beginning of each chapter are more decorative than functional.

3.5 stars

Hi Carrie - Great comments on The Gap of Time; I hope to get to it soon.

I loved Code Name Verity. I'll watch for your comments. You also remind me that I want to restart the Monk and Pitt series -- both are so good, and I have lots of reading pleasure ahead. Too bad that this last one didn't measure up. On the whole, I think I like the Pitt series better, but I've read more of it.

>162 BLBera: Thanks Beth! I'll be curious to see what you think of The Gap of Time. I used to prefer the Monk series to the Pitt series, but I think I'm getting tired of the Monk series. I've read more of them, though.

The reader for Code Name Verity sounds very much like one of the readers of Letters from Skye. I checked and they're not the same person, but they sure sound like they could be!

I've been thinking about replacing my iPad mini with a model with more storage capacity. I currently have a 16GB model and I've maxed out the storage on some occasions and had to delete photos and apps. While I was getting my hair done this afternoon, I dropped my iPad and the screen cracked in a couple of places. That made up my mind for me. I've already ordered a replacement with more capacity. Hopefully it will arrive before I leave for Thanksgiving. The main thing that worries me is whether all of my ebooks will transfer from the various e-reading apps like Bluefire and Kobo. Anyone have any experience with this?

140. The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side can Transform Your Life by Janice Kaplan
TIOLI #16 - Subtitle is longer than title (3:12)

I've been seeing references to this book for several months, but it took a sermon on gratitude to provide the needed nudge to order it. I'm a sympathetic audience for Kaplan's message. I'm already a believer in the importance of gratitude, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Kaplan balances her personal experience of living gratefully for a year with research and interviews with scientists, doctors, psychologists, counselors, and fitness experts, as well as quotes from philosophers.

I couldn't help noticing a big hole in Kaplan's otherwise thorough research. Kaplan largely neglected a religious perspective on gratitude. She spoke to one Rabbi, one or two devotees of New Age spirituality, and one Catholic friend, but she didn't address what any of these religions actually teach about gratitude. The Bible has a lot to say about it:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6, ESV)

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17, ESV)

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18, ESV)

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Timothy 2:1-2, ESV)

There are also all the Psalms of thanksgiving, too numerous to quote here. It's hard to be proud, envious, greedy, or angry when you're focused on gratitude.

The biggest takeaway I gained from this book is its reminder to enjoy today. One of Kaplan's interviewees made the observation that thinking too much of the past can lead to depression and thinking too much about the future can lead to anxiety. It struck me that, in a sense, depression and anxiety are two sides of the same coin. I need to learn from the past and plan for the future while making sure that I fully live in the present.

3.5 stars

>164 cbl_tn: I have had no thoughts about replacing my Kindle since I got it more than a year ago for the simple reason that I have hardly used it. I suppose I replace it in a way every time I go to the bookstore and add to my physical TBR. XX

>166 PaulCranswick: Ha! I've never considered a Kindle. I don't buy ebooks - I just borrow them or download free ones. Kindles don't work well for borrowing. I use my iPad Mini daily for lots of things besides reading books. I still have at least one foot firmly planted in the print world and I won't become ebook exclusive any time soon.

141. Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
TIOLI #10 - Author's name has no repeating vowels

Author Fleur Talbot looks back on her life during the time she was writing her first novel in 1949-1950. Money was tight then, and Fleur could barely afford the rent for her single room. Through a friend, Fleur got a job as secretary for the Autobiographical Association headed by Sir Quentin Oliver. At first she puzzled over the odd assortment of individuals that formed the group. Their lives hardly seemed worthy of the type of effort encouraged by Sir Oliver. When the group began to act out scenes from Fleur's novel, Warrender Chase, Fleur started to question Sir Oliver's character and motives.

Underneath the wicked humor, this is a novel about writing and writers, particularly autobiography and autobiographical fiction, biographers and novelists. How much falsehood is present in an autobiography, and how much truth is there in autobiographical fiction? Which one is preferable? Spark's novel is a quick and entertaining read that raises philosophical questions for readers to ponder long after turning its last page.

I was sure that nothing had happened in their lives and equally sure that Sir Quentin was pumping something artificial into their real lives instead of on paper. Presented fictionally, one could have done something authentic with that poor material. But the inducing them to express themselves in life resulted in falsity.

What is truth? I could have realized these people with my fun and games with their life-stories, while Sir Quentin was destroying them with his needling after frankness...

4 stars

>168 cbl_tn: Loitering with Intent sounds interesting, Carrie. Autobiography is a strange subgenera. I have often wondered about how 20 something's can write them.

>169 Familyhistorian: I've had the same thought! Although I have to say, I enjoyed I Am Malala and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind when I read them last year.

My new iPad Mini arrived this afternoon. It looks like everything transferred from the old iPad except for the books in the Bluefire Reader app. I was able to download most of them again, but I lost a couple. :-(

Hi Carrie, I haven't been around here in a dog's age. Hope all is well.

Enjoy your new mini iPad.

Hi Linda! I'm officially on vacation now. I decided to take the whole day off tomorrow instead of working a half day. I'm looking forward to relaxing and visiting with friends. Not sure how much reading I'll manage to do until I get home.

>173 cbl_tn: I'm taking a half day tomorrow, too. Busy at work. But I'm also taking off Monday and Tuesday so I'll have a nice 6.5 day weekend.

Last weekend, we had an unexpected 16-inch snowfall (was supposed to be 4 to 6) and got some serious reading in then. Except for shoveling, I didn't head outside anywhere at all. The heaviest "first snow of the season" ever.

A 6.5 day weekend would be lovely! Mine will have to wait until Christmas, though.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating today! I left one of my top reasons to be thankful with his friend, Stella, while I spend a couple of days with friends. The turkey is in the oven and it smells wonderful!

>168 cbl_tn: I like the sound of this, adding it to the wishlist.

Happy holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving, Carrie :-) I hope your top reason enjoys his time with Stella too.

>177 charl08: I think you'll like it.

>178 susanj67: Thenks Susan! I had an email update letting me know that my friend has repaired his favorite stuffed toy. I hope Adrian is sufficiently grateful! We're taking the dogs to an open house at the Humane Society on Sunday. Santa is supposed to be there. Maybe Adrian can have his picture taken with Santa.

Happy Thanksgiving, Carrie. Enjoy the time off.

>180 BLBera: Thanks Beth! Yesterday was a good day. I enjoyed the visit with friends. I don't do Black Friday (I'd rather get a root canal) so I'm driving home today. I hope the traffic will be light since so many are out shopping.

>181 cbl_tn: Carrie, have a safe trip. We have Black Friday here now (although there is much tutting about an American tradition being imported when we don't have the long weekend) and I bought a new combination microwave this morning. It had been in my basket on the shop's website for ages, as mine is slowly conking out, and I saved £50! I think I like this tradition :-) Then I bought some Skechers. Then I made myself stop.

>182 susanj67: That does seem strange without the holiday weekend to go along with it. I'll probably do some online shopping, but I won't be joining the crowds in the stores.

That's a great deal on the microwave!

Have a great holiday weekend with your friends, Carrie!

I'm with you, Carrie. I am staying home and doing laundry and grading today - no shopping for me.

<184 Thanks Darryl! I wish I could have stayed longer. My friend and I watched a Christmas video before I hit the road this morning. She sent me home with lots of leftovers so I won't have to cook for a while - turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, green beans, carrot souffle, broccoli casserole, pie. Adrian and I are settled in at home now.

>185 BLBera: Today was a good day to travel while most of the rest of the US is shopping. The traffic wasn't too bad!

Here's a picture of Adrian taken by my dog-sitting friends yesterday. They were decorating for Christmas and Adrian got into the spirit! (Sort of. He hates having things on his head. Can you tell?!)

>187 cbl_tn: Carrie, I think I can tell! Poor little dude :-)

>188 susanj67: He's a pretty good sport about it and he doesn't seem to hold us against us when we dress him up for photos!

>287 cbl_tn: Adrian looks cute and tolerant!

>190 Familyhistorian: That's Adrian all right! I'm grateful that he has such a good disposition.

Just one acquisition to report this week. I ordered Willoughbyland a while ago after learning about it on Susan's thread. It arrived on Monday. I plan to read in in January for the 2016 Category Challenge's GeoCAT.

Trust that your long Thanksgiving weekend has been a wonderful one, Carrie. xx

>193 PaulCranswick: It's been a great weekend! Now I need to get serious about my Christmas shopping...

142. An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
TIOLI #2 - At least one character is a military veteran or currently serving

For most of us, any mention of World War I conjures up images of trench warfare on the Western front in France and Belgium. However, there were other fronts, including East Africa. Boyd's novel examines the war's effects in East Africa through the experiences of an American resident in British East Africa, a German couple in German East Africa, and an English family whose oldest son was an officer in an Indian Regiment that was sent to East Africa. What appear to be separate stories eventually intersect.

The novel held my interest but failed to engage my emotions. I felt like an observer rather than a participant. I think the characters had a lot to do with that. The characters are all so self-absorbed that the war is merely a means to their own ends for each of them. The few female characters all seem underdeveloped.

One of the minor characters steals the scene each time he appears. Wheech-Browning is a government official in British East Africa before the war, and he holds various military posts during the war. He's so focused on following regulations to the letter that he's oblivious to the chaos and destruction that he leaves in his wake. Wheech-Browning is described as a tall and lanky man, and my mental image of him looks a lot like John Cleese.

3.5 stars

This afternoon Adrian and I went to the Open House at the Humane Society with Stella and her "mama". Santa was there, and Adrian got to have his picture taken with him!

143. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
TIOLI #2 - At least one character is a military veteran or currently serving

This novel highlights the various roles of young women in Allied service in World War II. Maddie is a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary. “Queenie”, a descendant of both William Wallace and Mary, Queen of Scots, is fluent in both German and French, making her useful as a spy behind enemy lines. The story of their wartime experiences is told in their own words. Other women they encounter include a Nazi interrogator, a treasonous radio broadcaster, and members of the French resistance. It's a story of suspense, heroism, friendship, love, loyalty, and heartbreak. The afterword reveals that the author is herself a pilot and strove for authenticity in the creation of the characters and the situations in which they found themselves. The audio production is exceptional, and it adds another layer of intimacy to the first-person journal account of the joys of friendship and the horrors of war. Highly recommended.

4.5 stars

Next up in audio: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose

Hi Carrie - I love the pic of Adrian with Santa! I hadn't thought about the audio and journal aspect of Code Name Verity; I imagine it would work very well.

>198 BLBera: Adrian wasn't a bit scared of the man with a beard and a funny suit! He's such a good dog

November Recap

Best of the month: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Worst of the month: A Rare Murder in Princeton by Ann Waldron

Physical books – owned: 2
Physical books – borrowed: 5
Ebooks – owned: 1
Ebooks – borrowed: 1
Audiobooks – owned: 2

>187 cbl_tn:, >196 cbl_tn:

Aaawwww! What a sweetie!

>201 tymfos: He's a keeper!

Glad to hear you liked Code Name Verity. I've been hearing a lot of good about that one. You tipped the scales for me to put it on my for-later shelf at the library.

>203 countrylife: It really is a special book! I think most of its reviews are a bit vague because it's hard to get into specifics about what the reviewer liked (or didn't like) about the book without giving away spoilers.

With all the tragedy in the last 24 hours, I was expecting to be depressed by the morning newspaper. Instead, one of the front page stories brightened my whole day. Our local paper is behind a paywall so I'll link to a press release about the story instead. It reminded me that just one person doing the right thing at the right time can make a huge difference in the world.

What a great story, Carrie. As I read Symphony for the City of the Dead and think about Stalin's reign of terror, I find myself wondering what I would do if put in the situation of informing on someone to save my life.

Wishing you a lovely weekend, Carrie.

>206 BLBera: The newspaper article provided details about how the man's family found out about his wartime heroism. After the man's death, his son was doing some research and came across a newspaper article about Richard Nixon's real estate search in New York. Nixon bought a townhouse that had belonged to a Jewish veteran whose life was saved by this man's father. The article about Nixon told enough of the story to get the son started on his research about this unknown aspect of his father's life.

>207 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara!

Not much reading so far this weekend. I did read the first chapter of Junkyard Dogs last night, and I'll listen to my current audiobook while I clean this afternoon. I spent most of last night and this morning binge watching season 2 of Broadchurch, which just became available on Netflix this week. The end of season one had me in tears. Season 2 wasn't quite as gut-wrenching, but I shed a few tears at the end of this one, too.

Last week's acquisitions:

I added two free ebooks last week:
The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
'Dangerous Work': Diary of an Arctic Adventure by Arthur Conan Doyle (December's free ebook from University of Chicago Press)

>211 cbl_tn: The Merchant of Venice is one of the most engaging of the Bard's plays.

Have a lovely Sunday, Carrie. xx

>212 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul! Not a Cranswickian haul, but both are good additions to my ebook collection. The Merchant of Venice is new to me. It's not one I was required to read in school, and it's not one I've seen on stage. One of my biggest regrets is not going to see it in London when Dustin Hoffman played the role of Shylock.

144. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose
TIOLI #2 - Book I planned to read from the beginning of the year

Rosa Parks was not the first African American female to refuse to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Claudette Colvin was. Rosa Parks was not the second African American female to refuse to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Mary Louise Smith was. Rosa Parks became the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott after two teenaged African American girls paved the way. Claudette Colvin was one of the four African American female plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, a landmark case in which segregation of buses violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Fifty years after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus, Claudette Colvin told her story to author Phillip M. Hoose. Hoose puts Colvin's early life into historical context while quoting extensively from Ms. Colvin about her personal experiences in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement (presumably from the many hours of interviews he conducted as part of his research for this book). Colvin's voice is even more evident in the audio version read by Channie Waites. This highly readable biography belongs in every public and secondary school library.

5 stars

Next up in audio: Halfway House by Ellery Queen

>214 cbl_tn: Oooh, I just recently listened to that one, too! So good. I'm happy that you liked it, too!

>215 scaifea: It was great! I think Linda (Whisper1) recently read it, too.

>216 cbl_tn: Huh! I don't remember seeing it on her thread, but then again, I get threaderpated sometimes round here... It certainly is one that she'd like, I think.

>217 scaifea: Threaderpated - I like it! It needs to go in the LT Lexicon!

>218 cbl_tn: *grins* Sometimes my 5am brain works pretty well...

>217 scaifea: "threaderpated" - What Carrie said! She just beat me to it.

I'm waiting for it to show up in the OED!

I'm now wondering if someone else created it and I'm just remembering it from a while back... It honestly seems too clever for me to have come up with it on my own. Ha!

>222 scaifea: I guess the OED entry will have to say "word of unknown origin popularized by Amber". ;-)

>223 cbl_tn: *snork!*

Hi Carrie, I'm immediately going to my library website and requesting The Phantom Tollbooth. It's been on my to do list for ages and I'm finally going to take care of that baby.

>225 Carmenere: I'm glad I could help you with that! Have you read it before? It's a fun book!

>226 cbl_tn: Nope, never. I'll slip it in before the year is out

>227 Carmenere: It's a pretty quick read so I think you'll be able to fit in somewhere!

Reading has slowed way down this month. I've finished a couple of books this week, but haven't had a chance to review them yet. Maybe tomorrow. At least I am making good progress on my current audiobook, Halfway House by Ellery Queen. I just started Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread. It should be a quick read and I may be able to finish it this weekend even with working tomorrow, as long as I don't get distracted by Christmas movies. I'm still on track to hit 150 books by the end of the year. Christmas vacation is in sight! My reading will pick up while I'm on vacation. I'm going to my brother's for Christmas. They're night owls and I'm not, so I'm usually up for a few hours before anyone else is. Not much to do then except read!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Carrie.

>230 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara! We're having unseasonably warm weather this weekend. It feels more like spring than almost winter. I have to work today, but tomorrow is supposed to be pleasant. The cold weather is on its way so I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts!

145. Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson
TIOLI #3 - Book with no red or green on front cover (matched read)

I tried to get a straight answer from his grandson and granddaughter-in-law as to why their grandfather had been tied with a hundred feet of nylon rope to the rear bumper of the 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado.

If the first sentence sounds grim, it's anything but as Sheriff Walt Longmire deals with just one more incident involving the accident-prone Stewart family, proprietors of the local junkyard. The severed thumb the Stewarts found is just the thing to keep Walt's deputy, “Sancho”, occupied while Walt figures out a way to keep him from quitting. Then there's deputy Vic Moretti, who's even surlier than usual with Valentine's Day reminding her of the “off again” status of her romantic relationship with her boss. Farce turns to tragedy with the news of Geo Stewart's death following an assault at the hand of his antagonistic neighbor. Evidence at the scene of Geo's death suggests the case may be more complicated that it first appeared.

This sixth series book reads a lot like a cozy mystery, with relationships between Walt and many of the secondary characters at the forefront in the first half of the book. Seemingly unconnected threads are all tied up neatly by the end of the book. While the humor makes it an entertaining read, it's not as satisfying or as memorable as other books in the series.

3.5 stars

146. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
TIOLI #16 - Nonfiction

Maya Angelou's memoir of her early life recounts the difficulties of growing up African American in the South in the era of segregation. Angelou doesn't shrink from describing the sexual abuse that damaged her childhood but didn't destroy her. This memoir is Angelou's poem, “Still I Rise”, in prose form, with lyrically beautiful passages describing events like tent revivals, picnics, and graduation ceremonies. Although Angelou is never coarse, she is frank about sexual matters. Recommended for high school aged readers and above.

4 stars

>187 cbl_tn: Adrian is so adorable…even with his pouty face!

>196 cbl_tn: He looks much happier on Santa's lap. What a cutie!

I just finished Junkyard Dogs, Carrie. I may have liked it slightly better than you did. I thought the plot was a bit too convoluted even though everything cleared up in the end. Have fun at your brother's over Christmas. Early morning reading sounds like a wonderful way to begin the day!

>234 Donna828: Thanks Donna! I wish I knew what Adrian whispered in Santa's ear!

Yes, the Longmire book was a little too convoluted. I also thought it wrapped up a little too conveniently. But it was fun. I love the dry humor in this series!

I am fairly sure that you'll get to 150 books this year, Carrie.

A great reading year for sure.

Have a lovely weekend.

>236 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul!

Looks like you will have no problem hitting the 150 book mark, Carrie.

>238 Familyhistorian: And I'm a book closer now. I just finished #147!

147. Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread by Mary Jane Hathaway
TIOLI #7 - Book dedicated to a family member (husband, children)

This Jane Austen retelling of Persuasion is quite a bit different from others I've read. For one thing, it's set in Tupelo, Mississippi. For another thing, Lucy Crawford is an African American woman, and the man she loved and lost ten years earlier is white. Finally, it's Christian fiction, but not evangelical; the lost love is a Catholic. While the book sticks to the Christian romance formula, the quality of the writing is better than most. A shared love of poetry brought Lucy and Jem together the first time, and the story is sprinkled with references to and/or quotes from Thoreau, George Eliot, and Sara Teasdale. And of course there's food. It's the South, after all! The Christian element isn't heavy-handed or “preachy”. It's a book that could be enjoyed by romance fans of any or no faith.

3 stars

>239 cbl_tn: You go girl!

148. Halfway House by Ellery Queen
TIOLI #13 - Author wrote more than 12 books

Private investigator Ellery Queen runs into an old school friend in a Trenton bar. Lawyer Bill Angell is on his way to visit his brother-in-law, Joe Wilson, at a shack by the Delaware river. Bill arrives to find his brother-in-law dying from a stab wound, with just enough breath to accuse a veiled lady of his murder. It's a good thing that Bill has run into his old friend, Ellery, since he may be the only person who can sift through the details to correctly identify the killer.

The Ellery Queen mysteries play fair with readers. There is a characteristic pause in the story when all of the clues have been presented and it's possible for readers to piece them together to reach the same conclusion as Ellery. In this book, that point came when there were still two discs/segments left in the audio version. With nearly an hour left in the audio version, all of the characters knew the murderer's identity. However, Ellery continued to refer to the murderer as “the criminal” for quite some time yet. To say this was irritating would be an understatement. Ellery Queen's mysteries make a refreshing change from heavier reads, but they have enough idiosyncrasies to deter me from binge reading the series.

3.5 stars

Next up in audio: The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd

Since I'm flying over Christmas, I went ahead and opened my Christmas swap books last night. I thought I would celebrate the end of the semester. My Santa sent me Jane and the Canterbury Tale (next up for me in the Jane Austen mystery series) and Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin. It's a lovely book with lots of illustrations, including a map and a family tree!

>148 cbl_tn: even though yor revieww is really good,l it makes me not want to read the Lacuna! I just don't feel the need....

Congrats on your secret Santa books!

>244 LovingLit: Thanks Megan! I really enjoyed most of The Lacuna. Just not the end.

Christmas cards are done and ready to drop in the mail when I take Adrian to his grooming appointment. I'm nearly finished with my Christmas shopping. I just need to pick up a couple of gift cards while I'm out. I'd like to get a lot of reading in this weekend, finishing The Strangers We Became and reading The Girl in Blue. I keep getting distracted by the Christmas movies on the Hallmark and Lifetime channels, though. I know I'll get in more than an hour of listening time for The Walnut Tree while I'm out running errands today.

Wishing you a lovely weekend, Carrie.

>243 cbl_tn: Ooh, I really enjoyed Jane Austen: A Life. Hope you do too.

>247 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara! It's been a productive weekend so far. I finished my Christmas shopping, mailed my Christmas cards, did several loads of laundry, took the dog to the groomers, and bought groceries to tide me over till I leave on Tuesday.

>248 souloftherose: I think I will love it!

Thaat's indeed very productive.

149. The Girl in Blue by P. G. Wodehouse
TIOLI #9 - Title contains the word "blue"

A country house, financial worries, an unwanted engagement, love at first sight, an unexpected legacy, and a missing Gainsborough miniature provide the elements for yet another entertaining farce by P. G. Wodehouse. I'm more familiar with his Jeeves and Wooster stories, which I think of as period pieces. This book, published in 1971, provides evidence that Wodehouse's characteristic wit could keep up with the times.

I loved this description of the country estate's library:

The library was on the second floor, a large somber room brooded over by hundreds of grim calf-bound books assembled in the days when the reading public went in for volumes of collected sermons and had not yet acquired a taste for anything with spies and a couple of good murders in it.

Warmly recommended.

4 stars

I finished #150 in the car on the way home from getting allergy shots this morning. Review of The Walnut Tree to come later.

I'm leaving tomorrow to spend Christmas with my brother. Adrian will be staying with his friend Stella, but I think he really wants to go to Texas with me.

150. The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd
TIOLI #17 - Part of the story is set in Paris

At the request of her school friend Madeleine, Lady Elspeth Douglas travels to France in the summer of 1914 to await the birth of Madeleine's first child. War breaks out while she is there. Before he leaves for his service, Madeleine's brother, Alain, declares his intention to ask Elspeth's guardian for her hand in marriage at the conclusion of the war. As Elspeth makes her way back to England, she runs into an old acquaintance, Captain Peter Gilchrist. Elspeth fights her growing love for Peter since she feels herself promised to Alain. Without the knowledge of her guardian, Elspeth trains for nursing service. By nursing in France, Elspeth will be closer to both the man she loves and the man to whom she is promised.

Readers who can suspend disbelief in the coincidences that drive much of the plot will enjoy this war-themed holiday novella. Mother/son writing duo “Charles Todd” is known more for mystery than for romance. Elspeth does help to solve a mystery in this story, but it's so slight and underdeveloped that the story would have been better off without it. Bess Crawford makes a few brief appearances as one of Elspeth's London flatmates. This story will appeal to fans of Anne Perry's Christmas novellas as well as to fans of Charles Todd's Bess Crawford series.

Just a note about the audio version. The narrator, Fiona Hardingham, has a pleasant voice. I was puzzled, though, why Elspeth only spoke with a Scots accent when she was remembering/recounting a conversation she had with another character since Elspeth was the first-person narrator. And I was puzzled why her fellow Scot, Peter, didn't have a Scots accent.

3 stars

Next up in audio: The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

I started listening to Louise Penny's The Nature of the Beast today. This will be my second audio experience with her novels. Her original narrator, Ralph Cosham, died shortly after the release of the last book in the series. This recording opens with Louise Penny's tribute to Ralph Cosham and her introduction of the new narrator, Robert Bathurst, known to Downton Abbey fans as Sir Anthony Strallan. I thought this was a nice touch.

Carrie, wishing you

>256 Carmenere: Thanks Lynda! Merry Christmas to you, too!

I'm at th airport, but my plane isn't My flight has been delayed about an hour. I have plenty to read, I have snacks, and I found an empty rocking chair. I'm settling in to wait.

Fingers cross it's all sorted out soon.

Good luck with your travels Carrie, and I hope that your holiday will be merry and bright.

>259 charl08: >260 Whisper1: Thanks! I don't have a connecting flight to worry about so I'm not nearly as stressed as most of the other passengers. Knoxville's airport is small, but it's pleasant. I've wandered through the gift shop, and there is a Starbucks if I get thirsty.

There is now a plane at our gate and the desk is open. I think it's a good sign. The plane our flight was supposed to use seems not to have left Meridian, MS for Dallas. We were waiting for its arrival from Dallas. It looks like they sent a replacement from Dayton. The plane is too small for the jetway, and there is a man in a wheelchair waiting for this flight. I'm not sure how they'll deal with this.

I should check out what's been going on weatherwise in Meridian MS today. Besides the departing flight that was cancelled, they had some arrivals that were diverted.

A plane from Dayton? How interesting, that is where I am this week. My daughter and family live in the Beavercreek/Dayton Ohio area. It is nice here. I like it. People are so friendly. I think it might be the airforce influence. There is a large base here. People are away from their biological family, and thus make family of friends.

>263 Whisper1: Sadly, the plane from Dayton was for a DC flight. I'm still waiting for my plane to arrive from Dallas. Latest word was that it's in the air so I don't think my flight will be cancelled. I'll just arrive 3 hours later than I was supposed to.

No reliable info on my flight. There is another flight leaving soon for Dallas and I was able to get a seat on it. At least one other passenger was able to switch to that flight, too. We're boarding now!

Here is a link to the situation with our city library. http://www.richmond-news.com/city-hall/public-library-hours-slashed-by-council-1...

It seems like the library is finding e -books to be expensive. The other issue is that my city is "tasked" with having to provide books in a several languages. One thing I'd like to find out is whether the non- English language books are borrowed as often as English books. I understand that my cities population is very diverse, but it would make sense to add to language collections that are used the most. But I am not sure how that works.

Enjoy Christmas with your brother! Hope the trip goes smoothly!

>266 vancouverdeb: Hi Deborah! Ebooks are more exoensive for libraries to purchase than print books. Libraries are able to purchase print books at a discount. Ebooks are not discounted and often cost as much or more than the retail price of the hardcover edition. Libraries can't buy used ebooks, either. The budget doesn't stretch nearly as far with ebooks.

I finally made it to my brother's house. I switched flights since a seat was available on a later flight that actually had a plane in Knoxville. However, my bag didn't make it onto that flight. My original flight finally left Knoxville just before the flight I was on landed in Dallas. My brother and I had just enough time to go out to get something for dinner and go back to the airport to pick up my bag. At least it was the first bag off the plane!

Carrie, I'm glad you made it and also have your luggage! As you say, at least you didn't have the stress of a connecting flight. I hope you got some decent reading in while you were waiting :-)

>268 susanj67: I only managed about a chapter of Harry Potter at the Knoxville airport. I was too busy checking the airline app and the airport's flight tracker to concentrate on reading. I read several chapters on the plane until I grew too sleepy to read. My brother was with me while I waited for my bag to arrive so we visited while we waited.

>270 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara! Happy Holidays to you, too!

Merry Christmas Carrie!

Glad you made it safely to your brother's, Carrie. Bookish Christmas wishes to you!

>272 SandDune: >273 souloftherose: Thanks Rhian & Heather! What lovely trees!

For my Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Holiday image this year (we are so diverse!), I've chosen this photograph by local photographer Mark Lenoce of the pier at Pacific Beach to express my holiday wishes to you: Peace on Earth and Good Will toward All!

>275 ronincats: Thanks Roni! What a beautiful, peaceful image!

Merry Christmas!

Just now catching up, Carrie and we have some reading in common. I'm at the same place you are in the Jane Austen series and had very similar thoughts about The Walnut Tree, which for me was a bit of a bummer as Charles Todd is one of my all-time favorite mystery authors.

At any rate, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

>277 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg! That's the title of one of the books I brought with me to read!

>278 Shutzie27: I think The Walnut Tree would have been more enjoyable if it had been edited down. It 's too long for a novella and I expected more out if it as a result.

I finished #151 last night: The Strangers We Became. The review will have to wait until I'm home and reunited with my laptop. I started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at the airport and I'm also dipping into the essays in The Christmas Virtues.

We'll have Christmas dinner and open presents this evening. I still have a few presents to wrap. I'd like to make a cranberry sauce at some point today. I'm baking a berry cobbler right now that I'll be able to eat for dessert. The rest will eat store-bought delicacies that look delicious, but I can't be sure they don't contain corn products. (The chocolate torte is dusted with powdered sugar so I know I have to avoid it.) Either my allergies have flared up or I'm coming down with something, so I forsee at least one nap today.

>281 cbl_tn: Carrie, I hope the nap cures you. Maybe it's the strange Texan weather :-) Merry Christmas for this evening, and tomorrow.

Have a lovely holiday, Carrie

Warm wishes for a magical holiday season, Carrie!

Best wishes for the holiday season, Carrie!

>282 susanj67: >283 PaulCranswick: >284 katiekrug: >285 lyzard: Thanks Susan, Paul, Katie, and Liz!

Here at my brother's we celebrate Mexican style. We had Christmas dinner at 10 pm last night, then opened gifts at midnight. (No books for me, alas, but some very nice gifts nonetheless.) We sang karaoke carols so everyone was able to at least follow along if the language was unfamiliar. (My brother and I did not learn Spanish carols as children. YouTube to the rescue!) I went to bed at 2 while the party was still going strong because I knew I would wake up at the usual time. :) At some point I will get up and make coffee cake for breakfast. I figured I would be the first one up and I would have plenty of time!

The coffee cake was a hit! I think today is shaping up to be pretty laud back. We've opened stockings and now we're watching a Christmas movie. I think we're done cooking for the day. There are enough leftovers for meals. Maybe I'll get in some reading time later. I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone last night. I'd like to read The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus today, and maybe start on Not a Creature Was Stirring.

Sounds like a good day! We woke up and did stockings then friends/family calls. Now I'm ready to curl up in the library and read until we head over to a neighbor's house for tamales.

Your Mexican style Christmas sounds like fun, Carrie. I would definitely have joined you in that berry cobbler! Wishing you peace and joy for the rest of the holiday season.

>290 Donna828: Thanks Donna! I had leftover cobbler this afternoon. It turned out well! I hope you and your family enjoy the remainder of the holidays!

>289 Shutzie27: Sounds like you've had a pleasant holiday! I hope you enjoy the tamales!

Merry Christmas, Carrie. I'm glad you and your luggage made it to your brother's without too much drama.

Congratulations on 150. I look forward to following your reading next year.

>283 PaulCranswick: Thanks Beth! It's hard to believe it's time for me to head home already. Adrian is coming to mert me at the airport! :-)

>294 cbl_tn: I bet that will be one happy dog! Safe travels.

Glad to see that your travels finally worked out OK, even if you and your luggage arrived on different planes.
Safe travels back!

>295 Familyhistorian: He was a happy dog! He snuggled up to me all the way home.

>296 tymfos: Thanks Terri! I had a minor delay on the way home today, but at least my suitcase was on the same flight this time. There was a weather delay after we taxied away from the gate.

Sig looks very regal in that photo!

Carrie, I'm glad you got home safe and sound. Seems they are having tornado warnings all over the place around Dallas this evening.

>298 katiekrug: It was 82 degrees with a tornado watch on when we went to the airport. There was a line of storms north of DFW and a smaller pocket of rain/storms south, with nothing going on at the airport. It was very windy, though, and my brother thought there was a cold front on the way in. I called my brother about a half hour ago to let him know I was home and they were at the Gaylord Texan. He didn't sound too worried about the weather.

Glad you got home ok, Carrie.

Terrible tornadoes in Texas tonight. Rowlett and Garland were two areas I heard being mentioned. I don't know my Texas geography but I think these are near Dallas or maybe east Dallas.

>300 lindapanzo: Thanks Linda! Garland is northeast of Dallas and is nearly an hour's drive from where my brother lives. I just looked at the weather map and his area is under a flash flood warning for another hour and a tornado watch for a bit longer after that. It looks like the cold front has already passed through. The current temperature there is 49. My SIL's family is going to freeze. They're from the Yucatan Peninsula and anything less than 70 degrees is cold for them.

My friends sent me this photo of Adrian while I was away. I love this face! I haven't figured out how to add photos to my thread on my iPad so it had to wait until I got home.

Hi Carrie. It sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas. I read many of your wonderful, well-written reviews. In particular. Ray Bradbury is a favorite. All the best for a restful Sunday.

>303 Whisper1: Hi Linda! I did have a wonderful Christmas once I finally arrived. I have only read two of Ray Bradbury's books so far and I've really liked both of them. I need to work him into my reading lineup more often!

I hope you're continuing to enjoy the visit with your family!

Carrie. I discovered Ray Bradbury in college. Thefreshman literasure class had to critique There Will Come Soft Rains. I was immediately hooked! I think Bradbury can say more in one sentence than most writers say in paragraphs.

I head home tomorrow. How is your transition back? I anticipate being torn between being home, but missing my Ohio family.

>305 Whisper1: I hope you have safe travels tomorrow. I miss my brother and SIL and my SIL's family, but Dorothy was right. There's no place like home. I battled allergies the entire trip, and I'm feeling much better at home where I have more control over the environment.

I look forward to discovering more of Bradbury's treasures!

I've got a couple of reviews to write but they'll have to wait at least another day. When I finally had time to sit down this evening thinking I'd read for a while, I fell asleep instead.

I would be a very worried traveler at an airport when there is a tornado warning in the area. Glad to see you are back home okay, Carrie!

>302 cbl_tn: - Poor Adrian does look as though he was pining for you while you where away. So sweet!

>308 lkernagh: Thanks Lori! Adrian enjoys snoozing on a lap in the evenings. Usually it's mine, but he'll take any lap available.

Hi Carrie, I'm glad to hear of your Christmas holiday among family, but I'm sure you're glad to get back to your Adrian:) Scary situation in Dallas with the tornado. Glad you and your loved ones are safe.

Congratulations on reaching 150 books, and Mexican Christmas definitely sounds like a lot of fun! Look forward to seeing you in 2016.

>302 cbl_tn: Such a cute little face! I hope you're feeling better now you're home.

>310 AMQS: Thanks Anne! My brother was closer to the flash flooding than to the tornadoes. That's scary enough!

>311 evilmoose: Thanks! I'm excited about my reading goals for 2016 and I'm ready to get started!

>312 susanj67: I know! I have a hard time not giving him all the treats he wants thanks to that face! I do feel lots better now that I'm home. I love to travel, but it's getting harder and harder to do.

Congrats on the 150 books - a great rounder number to finishthe year.

That picture of Adrian is very cute. Will look forward to hearing about your reading in 2016.

>314 charl08: Thanks Charlotte! I haven't spent much time on the 2016 threads yet. I have one more 2015 book I want to finish before heading over. I will look for you there!

>315 cbl_tn: I would love to get to 165, but I think I'll be stuck at 164. I have something else that I want to work on today (in addition to baking the cheesecake). I guess I could read that Welsh cookbook I got in my SantaThing haul and make it! I'm glad I started typing this message to come up with a solution! I'd still have time to do the other.

>316 thornton37814: I'm glad that will work out for you!

151. The Strangers We Became by Cynthia Kaplan Shamash
TIOLI #10 - Rolling Santa Claus challenge

Cynthia Kaplan Shamash was the youngest of four children in an Iraqi Jewish family. By the time of the author's birth in 1963, there were only about 10,000 Jews left in Iraq. In the years following her birth, Iraqi Jews lost more and more of their rights. The family finally made a decision to leave Iraq in 1972. After an aborted attempt that resulted in a brief imprisonment for the children as well as the parents, the Shamash family was able to leave Iraq for Turkey, then Israel, and finally Holland. The author shares her earliest memories from her childhood in Iraq, the family's reunion with relatives in Israel who had left Iraq decades earlier, and the often painful adjustments to Dutch culture in Amsterdam. It was difficult for Kaplan Shamash to succeed in school in the absence of language and cultural support. This neglect is surprising since the family had an assigned social worker. An extended stay with an Orthodox family in London and Kaplan Shamash's desire to become a dentist provided the motivation she needed to succeed in her schoolwork in a second language. The bulk of the memoir focuses on the Shamash family's transition to life in Amsterdam. The ending seems rushed in the author's attempt to describe the remainder of her educational path into professional dentistry and her young adult life. This memoir is recommended for readers interested in Jewish history and culture, Iraq and/or Middle Eastern history and culture, and immigrant experience narratives.

This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

3.5 stars

>302 cbl_tn: Oh, how adorable!

>319 tymfos: He has a sweet face, doesn't he?!

152. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
TIOLI #2 Book on my TBR list at the beginning of 2015

I'm very late to the party with this series. Now I see what all the fuss is about! The basic structure of the plot isn't new – a young orphan who learns of his true identity and sets out to fulfill his destiny. It's the characters and setting that set this series apart – wizards in training at an English boarding school. It's an absorbing, page-turning story. One benefit of starting this series after its completion is that I don't have to wait months and months for the release of the next book in the series

4 stars

153. Not a Creature Was Stirring by Jane Haddam
TIOLI #13 - Book by an author who has published at least 12 books

Widower and retired FBI agent Gregor Demarkian has moved back to the Armenian neighborhood in Philadelphia where he spent his childhood. Just before Christmas, a local Armenian priest asks Gregor for a favor. Gregor is to go to Engine House, the Bryn Mawr mansion of the Hannaford family, as a dinner guest. In return, Mr. Hannaford will give Gregor a briefcase containing $100,000, destined for the Armenian church. Hannaford arrives to find a murder scene. Robert Hannaford is dead, and the murderer must have been someone inside the house. The pool of suspects is limited to Hannaford's seven children, all of whom he hated and who hated their father in return. The local police hire Gregor as a consultant. Solving the case becomes increasingly urgent and the pool of suspects narrower as more murders occur.

I enjoyed this first-in-series mystery. The holiday setting in a mansion with a limited number of suspects is similar to the vintage country house murder mysteries that are always a favorite with me. The cultural setting in Philadelphia's Armenian community is also appealing. I look forward to reading additional books in this series.

3.5 stars

December Recap

Best of the month: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose
Worst of the month: It was a pretty good reading month!

Physical books – owned: 3
Physical books – borrowed: 2
Ebooks – borrowed: 2
Audiobooks – owned: 1
Audiobooks – borrowed: 2

I'll wrap up 2015 with the end-of-year meme:

Describe yourself: The Witness for the Prosecution
Describe how you feel: Tempest-Tost
Describe where you currently live: The Hollow
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: To the Lighthouse
Your favorite form of transportation: The Dark Horse
Your best friend is: The Girl in Blue
You and your friends are: Kindred
What’s the weather like: A Cold Day in Paradise
You fear: Junkyard Dogs
What is the best advice you have to give: Call the Midwife
Thought for the day: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
How I would like to die: An Ice-Cream War
My soul’s present condition: Something Special

That's some good advice in 324!

>325 leahbird: I thought you would like that one!

>324 cbl_tn: I like how you want to die!