Nickelini Reads 2016 - Second Half

I prefer to keep my reading thread together, but last year it got unwieldy by October, so I figure that the halfway point is the most reasonable place for a split. Here we go again . . . .



December

73. Vancouver in the Seventies: Photos from a Decade That Changed the City, Kate Bird
72. in the Winter Dark, Tim Winton
71. A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
70. Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata
69. The Conjoined, Jen Sookfong Lee
68. Othello, Shakespeare

November

67. Writing Jane Austen, Elizabeth Aston
66. Amongst Women, John McGahren
65. Pick-Up Sticks, Sarah Ellis
64. The Box Garden, Carol Shields
63. Disclaimer, Renee Knight
62. Bridget Jones's Baby, Helen Fielding
61. Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy, Helen Fielding

October

60. The Monster Calls, Patrick Ness
59. Highway Robbery, Kate Thompson
58. I'm Not Scared, Niccolo Ammaniti
57. Vampires & Other Monstrous Creatures, Pemberton-Smythe
56. Northanger Abbey, Val McDermid
55. The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood
54. October, Richard Wright
53. But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"?, University of Chicago Editorial Staff

September

52. Swing Low: a Life, Miriam Toews
51. Neuromancer, William Gibson
50. The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life, Donna Jackson Nakazawa (2013)
49. Slade House, David Mitchell

August

48. The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing
47. In the Woods, Tana French
46. Atlas of Remote Islands, JudithSchalansky
45. So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson
44. The Productivity Project, Chris Bailey
43. Buttoned-Up, Fantastic Man
42. Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O'Farrell

July

41. You're Better Than Me, Bonnie McFarlane
40. We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi
39. The Wife's Tale, Lori Lansens
38. NW, Zadie Smith
37. Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen

June

36. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, wirrow, and others
35. A Little Stranger, Kate Pullinger
34. The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
33. The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald
32. One Good Story, That One, Thomas King
31. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

May

30. The Sleeper & the Spindle, Neil Gaiman
29. Dancing Girls, Margaret Atwood
28. Life & Times of Michael K, JM Coetzee
27. Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor
26. Infidelity, Stacey Mae Fowles
25. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

April

24. The Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism, Christopher Hitchens
23. The First Horseman: Disease in Human History, John Arbeth
22. Though the Keyhole: Sex, Scandal and the Secret Life of the Country House, Susan C Law
21. Darcy's Story, Janet Aylmer
20. Mr Darcy & the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman, Maria Hamilton
19. Deadly Jewels, Jeanette de Beauvoir

March

18. The Gum Thief, Douglas Coupland
17. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo
16. Eminent Hipsters, Donald Fagen
15. Seducing Mr Darcy, Gwyn Cready
14. Jane Austen Cover to Cover, Margaret C Sullivan
13. Exercises in Style, Raymond Queneau
12. Sanditon and Other Stories, Jane Austen
11. How to Write . . . Shoshanna Evers, ed.
10. 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, Matt Madden

February

9. Among the Janeites, Deborah Yaffe
8. Bestsellers: a Very Short Introduction, John Sutherland
7. Afterimage, Helen Humphreys
6. Moloka'i, Alan Brennert

January

5. If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland
4. Girl with Green Eyes, Edan O'Brien
3. Freshwater: a Comedy, Virginia Woolf
2. Cold Earth, Sarah Moss
1. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Seigfried Sassoon

Book Stats 2016 (updated monthly)

Author's Nationality

UK: 26
Canada: 16
Ireland: 3
US: 16
France: 1
South Africa: 1
Russia: 1
Australia: 3
Nigeria: 1
Germany: 1
Italy - 1
Japan - 1
Unknown - 2
Mixed: 1

Author's Gender

Female: 44
Male: 27
Mixed: 2

Year First Published

1603
1790-1817
1928
1938 x 2
1947
1956
1962
1964
1967 **
1976
1977 x 2
1978
1983
1984
1985*
1988 x 2
1990
1991
1993
1994
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005 x 2
2006
2007 x 6
2008 x 2
2009 x 3
2010
2011 x 3
2012 x 3
2013 x 9
2014 x 5
2015 x 5
2016 x 7

*material in book was written in 1923 & 1935
** written 1930s

Travelling with Books (where these books took me)

Kent, Edwardian-era / Greenland, 2009 / Isle of Wight, late Victorian period / Ireland, 1950s / Molokai, Hawaii, 20th century / Sussex, 1860s / England, 1790 - 1817 / Paris, 1947 / Pittsburg, PA, 2008 / North America, 1950 - 2012 / Mumbai, 2008 / Vancouver, 2006 / Montreal, 2015 / England, 1810 / England, 1810 / England, 1760-1830 / WWII France & Germany / Toronto, 2013 / England, 1970s / South Africa, 1980s / Canada, 1970s / Fairyland / Moscow, 1930s / Canada, 1992 / East Anglia, 1959 / Sydney, 1950s / London, Las Vegas & Vancouver 2004 / London & Kent, 1937 / NW London, 2000s / Southern Ontario & Southern California, 2009 / Alberta, Vancouver, New York City & Los Angeles, 1990-2015 / London & Ireland, 1976 / East London, 1980s/ Obscure islands, 1600 - 2009 / Ireland 2007 / England, 1960s-1980s / London 1970s-2010s / Cyberspace 1984 / Steinbach, Manitoba 1940 - 1990 / Quebec 1940 & England 2000s / Australia 2015 / Scotland 2015 / Italy 1978 / England 1800s / England 2011 / London 2014 / London 2016 / London 2015 & 1995 / Vancouver & Toronto 1977 / Vancouver 1991 / Ireland mid-20th century / England 2010 / Venice & Cyprus 1600 / Vancouver 1940s-2016 / Western Japan 1930s / SoCal 1962 / SW Australia 1988 / Vancouver 1970s

Non-fiction Books: 20

And just for fun . . . .

>4 Nickelini: Oh! That's just too funny!!!!!

Love your thread topper. HOw pretty. :)

>4 Nickelini: Love it!

4> Wonderfully silly.

Oh, and it's written by a someone with a Masters of Library Science degree. See, we academics can have fun, too!

The craziest librarian I know is a former student who is Director of User Services and Resource Sharing at the University of Maryland. In his spare time, he's an Elvis impersonator and attends Star Trek conventions.

>8 Cariola: it's written by a someone with a Masters of Library Science degree

Good catch! I missed that detail. Too funny.

37. Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen, 1938


Cover comments: "Portrait of Marguerite van Mons," by Theo van Rysselberghe. I love this Anchor Books cover so very much. It fits the novel quite well, although the girl in the painting is 10 and it's 1886, and in the novel Portia is 16 and it's 1938. I have seen this painting used on other book covers.

Comments: Portia, 16 years old and recently orphaned, returns to London from the Continent to live with her much older half-brother and his shallow wife. She has a flirtation with their odious friend Eddie, spends some time at the seaside with more people she's never met before, and writes in her diary. Portia is extremely naive, I'd even say a little on the stupid side. Her diary entries are matter-of-fact observations that expose secrets and are telling in their naivety, and inevitably cause all sorts of upset.

Elizabeth Bowen is considered one of the 20th century greats, and as a sort of literary bridge between Henry James and Virginia Woolf, and then Iris Murdoch and Anita Brookner (or any other list of mid- to late-twentieth century Brits), I really want to love her. But after this, my third Bowen, I still don't. This is chiefly because I don't feel for any of her characters. They say and do things that are just weird to me and I can't relate at all.

On the upside, when she's not writing dialogue, Bowen's writing is gorgeous. I copied out 6 pages worth of quotations into my reading journal. Death of the Heart was also full of details on day-to-day life in late 30s England that I found fascinating.

Death of the Heart is on the Times and Modern Library top 100 books of the 20th century lists, and also on the Guardian 1000 list.

Rating: Oh, who knows. The plot, characters and dialogue were 2.5, the rest of the writing a 5.

Why I Read This Now: This has been in my tbr pile for a decade, but after reading Heat of the Day in 2008, I didn't feel up to attempting Bowen again. I needed a book for my Irish literature challenge category, and since Bowen is Anglo-Irish, I thought it was time to tackle this one. Since there was not one apparent Irish thing about this book, I'll count it for my mid-century modern category instead.

I have two more Bowens in my TBR -- The Last September and The House in Paris, so I'm not giving up on her yet.

Recommended for: people who like those quiet British novels where no one says what they mean.

I enjoyed reading your review of Death of the Heart and a great recommendation

I haven't tried Bowen yet, but like you, I expect I should like her given her reputation. I have To the North on the shelf and will probably read it within the next year.

>10 Nickelini: I didn't love In the Heat of Day either; perhaps not ready for her unique style. But I was fascinated by Eva Trout, another oddball character that unintentionally disrupts the lives of all around her.

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde, 2001


Cover comment: fun.

Comments: I really expected to like this, but it didn't work for me at all, on any level. I thought I'd Pearl-rule it, but I couldn't even make it that far and abandoned it at page 31.

Why I Read This Now: I thought it would be a quick, fun read. And it's been in my TBR pile forever, so it was time.

Recommended for: I thought readers like me, but I was wrong.

>14 Nickelini: I tried it and had the same experience. I made it to about the same point.

>14 Nickelini: it's been in my TBR pile forever as well, but I gues it will stay there a little longer now 😉

>10 Nickelini:

I find Bowen oblique and rather detached, but perhaps that's to be expected from the literary bridge between Henry James and Virginia Woolf. :)

"oblique" is a good word to describe her.

38. NW, Zadie Smith, 2012


Cover comments: great cover for this novel, although I'm not crazy about the colour combinations.

Comments: The story of two thirty-something women, Leah and Natalie (formerly Keisha) who grew up in the NW6 area of London. This novel is very disjointed, requires concentration by the reader, and has little plot, but I loved it. Great voice, highly original, paints a vivid picture of this section of London life.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Recommended for: readers who like good writing and don't need a plot.

Why I Read This Now: I've been trying to get to it for years.

>38 baswood: Agree with you on all points. Loved this one, but still loved White Teeth even more.

>20 Cariola: I'm looking forward to that one.

Smith has a new one coming out soon: Swing Time.

>22 Cariola:. I heard and was excited, but then I saw it was about tap dancers. Oh well, I still have her back catalogue to read through.

I'm sorry you didn't like The Eyre Affair. I was charmed by the world building and taken by the idea of book sales resulting in weapons drawn (it made me dissatisfied with the careful politeness of everyone at the FOL booksale I attended right after I finished the book.) And the idea of running street battles between different schools of art. But if we all like the same books, the world would be a less interesting place.

>14 Nickelini: Thanks for that. I had a look at my copy and decided your opinion has merit. Someone else will enjoy it more than I.

>24 RidgewayGirl:, >25 VivienneR: I was disappointed that I didn't like it--I really thought it was "me." Alas, it wasn't.

I have a whole list of books like that. Many of them were lauded by people here whose opinions on books I trust.

23> What's wrong with tap dancers?

>28 janeajones: Just sounds like a really boring subject. Also, circuses, anything set on a submarine, war, baseball and football. All sports, really. I know there are exceptions and there are fabulous stories written about all these subjects. But these are the subjects that make me less inclined to give a book a try.

29> I love books about circuses ( Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus is one of my favorites), but I agree with you about submarines, war and sports. I don't think I've ever read a book about tap dancers.

39. The Wife's Tale, Lori Lansens, 2009


Cover comments: Hmmm. Artistically I give this a middling grade at best. I guess the silhouette is a sort of metaphor though. The book certainly has worse covers out there.

Comments: I enjoyed The Wife's Tale very much. Some reader reviews complain that the story is unrealistic, but I see the "Tale" part of the title telling us that this was never supposed to be exactly realistic. It's a story, and like other tales, it's the story of a journey.

Mary Gooch is morbidly obese and lives a life of relative isolation in small town Southern Ontario. On the eve of her 25th wedding anniversary, her devoted husband abandons her. Shocked out of her malaise, she goes to his family in Southern California looking for him. Along the way she meets many wonderfully-drawn characters and discovers herself. I also found that at the sentence level the writing was often rather wonderful.

The book is not perfect and if I wanted to nitpick, I could pick away. There was one point midway through the novel that I thought the author was taking us down a cliched predictable path. But then she veered away, and the story went off in a direction, and toward a conclusion, that I didn't predict at all.

Although I don't believe the author meant the story to be realistic in itself, the details of the story are crisp and evocative. I particularly delighted in her descriptions of life in the small area of SoCal where she sets the second half of The Wife's Tale, as it's a corner of the world I know very well. Even though she changed some of the names (Thousand Oaks was decimated and became Hundred Oaks, for example), the real world setting is clear, right down to the corner where she meets the Mexican men (just one of many example). I love that sort of verisimilitude in a novel, although I know others couldn't care less.

Years ago I read the same author's The Girls, which I found massively disappointing. I'm happy to say that this one was much better.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Why I Read This Now: someone on the Canadian Bookworms group recommended it and I thought it was time to pull it out of the TBR. Also, I needed to make room on the shelf where I stored it, so this was really the time.

Recommended for: if it sounds interesting, try it.

I have to admit I have a lot of trouble getting past the title. Just deadens any enthusiasm. I did really like your review. The book behind the title sounds good.

>32 dchaikin: never thought about that . . . but I have to say, all her titles are less than inspiring: Rush Home Road, The Girls, The Mountain Story, and The Wife's Tale. All pretty snoozy.

>31 Nickelini: I like stories that surprise you. I'm not blown away by the title either, but I like the cover.

40. We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2012


Cover comments: pretty simple, primary colours, hint of African style perhaps . . . maybe reflecting the mood of the book (as in "this is a no brainer. Why do I need to say this?"). Just a thought.

Comments & Why I Read This Now: After hearing two recommendations yesterday for We Should All Be Feminists by Chimanmanda Ngozi Adichie, I found a copy and read it last night. It's based on her famous TED Talk, and I'd say it's mainly directed to people who think feminism is a negative word, and people who think it's a dated concept. Lovely writing, very readable, and it's short.

Last winter, every 16 year old in Sweden received a copy of We Should All Be Feminists. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/04/every-16-year-old-in-sweden-to-rec...

Recommended for: everyone. It'll take 30 minutes out of your life.

Rating: 4 stars

41. You're Better Than Me: a Memoir, Bonnie McFarlane, 2016


Comment: We all have that school photo from that day we wish we'd been sick and missed photo day. I'm not sure any of mine were quite this bad.

Comments: Bonnie McFarlane is a comedian I'm not familiar with, but she's had a successful career on HBO and David Letterman, as a comedy writer, and performing in New York City and Los Angeles. Lots of clips of her on YouTube. Her story begins on an impoverished farm in northern Alberta, through an awkward childhood, and then starting out in comedy in Vancouver before heading south to the States for many more years of trying to break into the business.

Why I Read This Now: Two very different friends both raved about this new book.

Rating: I didn't like it as much as they did. No doubt, there were some very funny parts, but the self-deprecating humour started to grate, and at times I found her a bit on the mean side. The final bit of the book was about political correctness and censorship, and sort of lessened my impression of her being a bit mean.

Recommended for: readers who like funny memoirs and people interested in how to break into comedy in North America.

>31 Nickelini: Nice review of The Wife's Tale. I got an Early Review copy of it a few years ago and although I liked it well enough, you seem to have enjoyed it more. I enjoyed your comments.

We should all be feminists - nah I think we would be better if we were all socialists.

Would Donald Trump enjoy this book and when he is President will he send a copy to all 16 year olds.

>38 baswood: Ugh. I was going to make a smart ass comment about he that can't be named, but I can't even do that. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

>38 baswood: When he is president? Not even if?!

Let's just not start this, okay? Thanks.

>41 Nickelini: Of course. I am sorry!

>42 Simone2: No problem. I just look at LibraryThing as my little oasis from the what I dislike in the world.

I've started A Wife's Tale, which has been on my tbr for a while, and i'm enjoying it. Thanks for the push.

42. Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O'Farrell, 2013


Cover comments: completely uninspired ("How about we use an image of a woman, but she's not facing the reader. No one has thought of that before."). Also, some incompetent photoshopping makes the body look not-human.

Comments: During the 1976 heatwave in London, Gretta's husband goes out for a newspaper and doesn't return. She discovers he's taken money and his passport. She calls her three adult children home. Lots of dysfunction. They end up following their father back to his home in Ireland.

Initially I had trouble focusing on this because the narrative would suddenly shift to a character's memories. Once everyone was introduced and their backstories all told, the novel settled down and I enjoyed it more.

Rating: Slightly better than average. 3.5 stars.

Why I Read This Now: A while ago I read Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing of Esme Lennox, which I loved, so I wanted to read more by this author.

Recommended for: people who like stories about family dynamics.

43. Buttoned-Up, Fantastic Man, 2013


Cover comments: fits the book perfectly.

Comments: This is part of the Penguin Lines series published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. In theory, it covers the East London line. In reality, it has absolutely nothing to do with public transportation or the Tube.

What it is instead is a sociological look at a subculture of London where skinny young men wear their shirts buttoned to the top, without a tie. It traces the influences through 80s new wave (there's an interview with one of the Pet Shop Boys) and back to the Mods. Being a book about English people, there is of course much mention of class.

Note that Fantastic Man is a magazine. This book is made up of several essays by its editors and writers.

Rating: As a book about the London Underground (and how it is sold), this book is a complete fail and would get half a star. As a study of a very specific topic and group of people, I actually rather enjoyed it and give it four stars.

Recommended for: this is an extremely niche book. If you're not interested in menswear, 1980s British music, Mods, and the English class system, you will not like anything about Buttoned-Up.

Why I Read This Now: hadn't read anything from this series for a while.

44. The Productivity Project, Chris Bailey, 2016


Cover comments: Love the blue, dislike the typeface

Comments: Bailey takes a holistic approach to productivity, looking at the whole being and not just the expected organizational tips. Chapters are short and focused, and the conversational tone makes this an easy read.

Overall this isn't a bad book, and based on reader reviews, lots of people found it helpful.
However, at the age of 53, I'd long-ago figured out most of what he was selling. I may have picked up one or two small tips in the 272 pages.

Shortly after purchasing The Productivity Project, I listened to a book review podcast that reviewed it (can't find that to check back on it either). I wish I'd listened to it before buying because they were right and I wouldn't have bothered.

What was extremely annoying about this is that the author seems to almost fetishize productivity. After graduating from university, instead of accepting one of two real life job offers, he decides to take a year out of his life to do productivity experiments and blog about it (and then later write this book). He has little life experience, no job, no office politics, no home to maintain (he lives in his girlfriend's dad's basement), no kids . . . basically he's a kid himself, indulging in his obsession. Let's see him write this book when he's 50 and see if he has something useful to say.

Why I Read This Now: obviously I was looking to make myself more productive. I started it back in January and picked through it here and there.

Recommended for: This book came highly recommended, but I can't figure out now who did the recommending and ask for a refund. I will not recommend it.

Rating: 2 stars

Note: Chris Bailey has a TED Talk video. So he seems to be making a career for himself out of this topic.

45. So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Ron Ronson, 2015


Cover comments: Good cover! Different and most fitting to the book.

Comments: This was a thought-provoking and highly readable sociological look at how people are publicly flogged through the internet. If I start giving details of why I liked this, this review will be overly long and I don't have time for that. Just go read it.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: anyone who spends time on the internet.

Why I Read This Now: I've been wanting to read something by Ronson since I saw him on Jon Stewart last year.

Note: Jon Ronson discusses this book in a TED Talk. He also has a TED Talk discussing his book The Psychopath Test.

>48 Nickelini: I've been thinking of reading this. I've seen so many internet pile-ons. Most have some justification, but the ferocity of the responses one sees, out of proportion to the offense, often give pause.

>49 dukedom_enough: Yes, and he talks about that too in the paperback edition. It's a quick and easy read.

I enjoyed catching up on your thread, Joyce.
>4 Nickelini: This really made me smile.
>10 Nickelini: I have The Last September on my shelf. It has been there for a while, and I'm not sure why I haven't been tempted yet. Maybe the latter part of the year...
>14 Nickelini: I listened to the first four books in the Jasper Fforde series, and found them to be quite witty. I wonder how I would feel if I was reading them. As Kay says, we can't all like the same things.
>45 Nickelini: I really enjoyed The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, and have The Hand That First Held Mine on my Kindle. I'm hoping to enjoy it as much.
>48 Nickelini: I've seen this book and wondered about it. Now you've piqued my interest.

>51 NanaCC: and I'm not sure why I haven't been tempted yet.

Elizabeth Bowen isn't an easy read. You have to gather up the mental energy and know that you'll be able to focus. That, I suspect, is your "why." But when stars align, then she's a good read.

46. Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I have Never Set Foot On and Never Will, Judith Schalansky, translator Chirstine Lo, 2009


Cover comments: Not amazing, but just fine for a book such as this.

Rating: The book isn't perfect, but I enjoyed it so much that I'm giving it 5 stars.

Comments: Growing up in East Germany, author Judith Schalansky dreamed of travelling to all the places she found in atlases and knew she'd never be allowed to see. The world has changed, but she still loves maps and armchair travel.

Each of the fifty islands gets a two-page spread in this book. The right side is a map of the island, and the left side includes some facts: Name, location, country, size, number of residents or inhabitants, distance from other places (often equally obscure), and a timeline of a few events since the island was discovered. The rest of the page is a vignette describing some aspect or event related to the island. This little story does not necessarily tell the reader much, and is definitely not a travel guide. The islands are grouped by ocean.

I found many of the little stories captivating, even when it told me nothing about the island itself. They often raised more questions than they answered. But what a great resource for fiction writers -- I got so many story ideas.

Every since I spent the summer of my eighth year reading our new encyclopedia set, I've been hooked on maps and learning about strange far-off places. Remote areas such as Patagonia, Tibet and Labrador. And islands in particular have always been a favourite -- Baffin Island, Capri, Sri Lanka, Kauai, Chincoteague, the Maldives, the Channel Islands and the Shetland Islands, Reunion, Seychelles, and Mauritius, New Guinea, Iceland, Bora Bora, Paau, Tasmania, St Pierre et Miquelon, Svalbard . . . I could go on (I've actually made it to three of those).

I bought this book expecting to have a number of these included, but I was wrong. Of the fifty islands in the Atlas of Remote Islands, I had only heard of St Kilda, Ascension, St Helena, Diego Garcia, Christmas Island, Norfolk, Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, and Iwo Jima. That leaves 41 new-to-me islands. My status as a geography geek is in peril.

And now I have a new list of islands to add to my travel bucket list: Number one is South Keeling or Cocos Island, followed by Robinson Crusoe, and Tristan da Cunha. Many of the islands I never want to visit, even in my worst nightmare.

South Keeling:


Robinson Crusoe Island:


Tristan da Cunha:


In conclusion, even though I had to go to the internet to look up what photos of the island and other relevant information, this book was just too much fun.

Recommended for: mapheads and geography geeks like me. As a child, I was fascinated by the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with their tales of strange islands, and in high school, I was mesmerized by the voyages of discovery (particularly Magellan, for some reason). Obscure places have always intrigued me. It appears Schalansky had me in mind when she wrote this book.

Why I Read This Now: it's been at the top of Mnt TBR for years.

>53 Nickelini: I bought this as a gift for my husband a couple of years back, but I've never read it myself. Sounds like I should!

The Atlas of Remote Islands is such a wonderful book. I'm glad you loved it, too.

Great review of Atlas of Remote Islands, Joyce!

I bought Atlas of Remote Islands when Kay reviewed it but it's still languishing on the TBR, Thanks for making me think about it again.

>53 Nickelini: Sounds like a great coffee table book.

47. In the Woods, Tana French, 2007


Cover comments: oh my, this is truly dreadful. We're talking a wood in Ireland, with strange goings on and at least one murder, maybe more. So much artistic inspiration, and I'd expect something even vaguely artistic. Instead we get this. Awful, lazy, wrong on every single level. Blech. BTW: that smudge between the author's name and the smaller book title is a strand of trees, if you squint and look carefully. Because "woods." This book designer needs to find another line of work.

Comments: Award-winning Irish mystery writer Tana French's first book, In the Woods combines the story of a recent murder of a 12 year old ballerina, found in the woods next to some homes outside of Dublin, with the story of the detective who works the case and who just happens to be the survivor of a mystery, set in the same woods when he was 12 and his two best friends disappeared.

My comments on this book will be even more disjointed than usual because I have mixed feelings about this one. I think I'll use bullet form.

What I liked:

- Very readable, distinct characters that make the reader care, colourful writing, interesting story. Only one line (and there will be more lines of negative), but all of these are really important.

What I didn't like:

- I figured out who the culprit of one murder was early on, although I had no idea how the murder was done, or more importantly, why.

- At just under 600 pages, this novel was WAY too long. I like a nice, tight 150 - 250 page book, and although I realize some stories need more, this one was easily 200 pages over it's allowance.

- ETA: I love a story set in a forest. So much potential for a mysterious, even creepy mood. There was none of this in this book -- a book with a title that pretty much promises me that mood. The whole thing could have been set in a field for all the atmosphere she failed to include.

And some spoiler comments:

About the protagonist: He turns into a complete jerk 2/3 of the way through and never adequately explains why.

About the ending: Two things. First, that the criminal doesn't really get what is deserved is unsatisfying in a crime novel. If you want to write bad guys getting away with stuff, then make it more literary and less mystery novel. Second, the older mystery about the missing kids is never solved. Why even bring that in to it? Huge disappointment

Why I Read This Now: Last year I read Tana French's Broken Harbour and I was really impressed. I wanted to read more by this author. And before that I'd read In the Forest, by Edna O'Brien, which was a murder mystery set in a forest in Ireland. When I posted my comments on LT, several people suggested this book.

Rating: Readable and interesting, but flawed. Her later book Broken Harbour is much better, so I will continue to read this author. In the Woods is a first novel, and I believe she gets better.

Recommended for: Tana French is wildly popular, so I guess a wide audience. From what I can tell, although she writes a series, the books seem to stand-alone. Perhaps this isn't the best one to start with.

48. The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing, 1988


Cover comments: Okay but sort of boring.

** LT has changed my cover to something I've never seen before. Not boring, as mine was. Will fix when I have time.

Comments: Oh my. I read this book cover-to-cover two days ago, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Yes, it's only 133 pages, and told in as a linear timeline with fairly straight forward language. But Lessing is subtle and clever and The Fifth Child sneaks up and clobbers you. Which is exactly what the actual fifth child would do. But I'm ahead of myself.

In mid-60s London, David and Harriet meet at an office party. They hit it off because they aren't like anyone else and share similar goals. Namely, to buy a comfortable big house and fill it with loads of children. Eight or ten, at least. The swinging sixties and mod London are not for them. The enormous Victorian house they buy is two hours north of London, which makes for a very long commute for David, and even at that distance, it's beyond their budget, especially when Harriet immediately gets pregnant and quits work. In a few years they have four lovely children--two boys and two girls. And every holiday their huge house fills up with extended family. So much fun, such a perfect family. Except David is exhausted from working to support all these people, and Harriet is exhausted from being pregnant and breast feeding and chasing toddlers all day. All the extended family and friends who come to stay tell them they've taken on too much and to slow down, but David and Harriet stubbornly plug their ears and say "this is what we want to do!"

Except they really can't afford it, and even though David is disgusted by his upper class upbringing, he asks his father to pay their mortgage. And they can't physically handle it either -- Harriet's mother sacrifices her retirement to move in and become an unpaid full time nanny (even though she has other children and grandchildren). But David and Harriet think it's exactly what they want, and don't seem to grasp that they aren't actually accomplishing it. (David and Harriet frustrated me!)

Then. Then Harriet gets pregnant a fifth time. From the beginning the pregnancy is significantly worse than her previous uncomfortable pregnancies. At eight months, she gives birth to an eleven pound baby, Ben, and he's extremely ugly. And strong, and very unhappy. They call him goblin and gargoyle. Things go very badly. The happy house guests disappear. Pets die. His siblings lock their doors at night. For a while, Ben is institutionalized. Against everyone's wishes, Harriet brings him back home. Things get even worse. Everyone blames Harriet. From a very young age, Ben spends a lot of time with neighbourhood delinquents, because they all get along and it gives the family breathing space. Doctors and teachers are useless in giving the family guidance. I don't want to give much more away, but the story progresses and then ends when Ben is 15 and basically is running wild with thugs. After reading The Fifth Child, I learned that there is a sequel, Ben, in the World, which I've already ordered and plan to read when it arrives.

There is so much subtext in this novel that I can't even begin to go into it here. In some ways, the book is similar to We Need to Talk About Kevin and in others it's more like Rosemary's Baby.

The only other Doris Lessing I've read is The Grass is Singing, which was very different but similar in length and also in being a deceivingly simple story that packs a wallop.

Rating: when I read it, I thought 3.5 stars, but the more I think about it and read commentary on it (and reader reviews), and think some more, I think it's more like 4.5 stars.

Why I Read This Now: I was researching "best short novels" for my book club, and this was highly recommended. Since I owned it, I thought I'd preview it before we meet to decide on our books for the next year. There is a lot of discussion material in the Fifth Child, despite its short length. Which to me is a sign of a talented author.

Recommended for: Well, not everyone. Some people will give it a straight read, and miss all the subtleties, and then just say they don't like the story or characters. I've read a lot of reader reviews today, and there are some great comments in the one-star reviews, but a lot of those reviewers are also missing what's important in the book. It's definitely controversial work. People who like to pull apart what an author is doing, and don't mind some horrific things in their nice middle class English novel, will probably appreciate the Fifth Child.

I'm glad you'll keep going with French, despite not loving In The Woods. As someone who like both longer books and unresolved plot points, I did love this book. And I thought Rob's behavior towards the end made sense in the light of what he was going through internally; it made sense to me, despite what he did to his relationship with Cassie. The Likeness mentions that issue briefly.

I've got The Fifth Child on my tbr. I really want to read it, but I also don't want to, so for now it joins Room in the stack of books I Just Can't Face Today.

>61 RidgewayGirl: Hmmm, I found Room to be sort of meh. Interesting enough I guess, but it didn't tug at my emotions in any way. The Fifth Child is more interesting with its symbolism. And I'm always interested in stories where the mother is criticized for not doing what society thinks all mothers must do. Did you read We Need to Talk About Kevin?

>60 Nickelini: On short books: I think Mothering Sunday would also fit your criteria (assuming the aforesaid stains ad infinitum won't upset your book club members. And there is an excellent list of discussion questions at the end that got me thinking more about it. Oddly, the paperback (coming out next March) is listed as 288 pages but the hardback at 136.

>63 Cariola: I've been wondering about that one for book club. If it was already out in paperback, I'd suggest it for sure. Availability of books is key for our group -- we won't entertain a situation where everyone has to either fork out $25 for a hardback or join a months long queue at the library.

I suspect that page number count is a clerical error.

Excellent and enthusiastic review of the Fifth child I shall look forward to reading this one.

>62 Nickelini: Yes, I did read We Need to Talk About Kevin and found it brilliant. I wondered at the time if Shriver was a parent as it seemed she much be, but was relieved later to find that she is just a dedicated aunt and felt that had she had children it would have been irresponsible of her to have written that book.

>66 RidgewayGirl: Interesting. I don't quite catch why it would have been irresponsible, but still interesting. And Doris Lessing had 3 children. She left the first two behind with her ex-husband when she moved from Africa to England, and took her third--who had life-long health problems-- with her.

>60 Nickelini: Within a minute after reading your review I had clicked 'Buy now' on Amazon. Great review.
And I also think you'll like Mothering Sunday although I don't think it has anything in common with this book except for its length.

Two great reviews! I've been torn about Tana French. I had a glance at one of her books in the library (it may have been In the Woods) and didn't care for it much. Then I picked up Faithful Place at a booksale but haven't even opened it, probably because I think it might be the same quality.

One bullet hit the mark: I've added The Fifth Child to my tbr list. I've always enjoyed Doris Lessing.

49. Slade House, David Mitchell, 2015


Cover comments: very pleasing and suits the book well.

Comments: Slade House, somewhere in London (or is it?), draws certain people to it, every nine years. But like the Hotel California, once they're there, they can never leave. What is going on? I'm not going to give the story away -- it's only 238 pages, so find out for yourself.

Slade House is structured in five sections that feel fairly equal in length and importance. They are set nine years apart, starting in 1979, and are narrated by five different characters. There are recurring elements. I liked this structure very much indeed.

Rating: An interesting and fun read with some great vocabulary.

Why I Read This Now: It's a fairly short book that appears to be readily available and I was wondering if it might be good for my book club. Somehow I don't think it really fits our tone.

I thought I'd read David Mitchell before but now I see I haven't, even though I've owned Cloud Atlas for a million years. I'm not sure who I was confusing him with.

Recommended for: readers who like different and slightly creepy stories.

>70 Nickelini: Cloud Atlas is quite good; it's not just about its structural gimmicks. I was looking at Slade House in the bookstore; I like shorter books. So, maybe I'll check it out.

I'm on the fence with Slade House. I just removed In the Woods from my wishlist, but kept Atlas of Remote Islands. Great review of The Fifth Child (and thank goodness we stopped at two)

I guess I'm one who loves long books, or at least I don't get turned off by the length. I have loved Tana French's books. Faithful Place remains my favorite of the series so far. Her newest book in the series is due out very soon. I've read them in published order, and like that she uses a minor character in previous books as the star of her new ones.

I really should get to Doris Lessing.

>73 NanaCC: I like how she uses minor characters from one novel and makes them the protagonist of another novel -- great technique. I almost never read series (too much like a really, really long book!), but I'll continue to read her books if she does this.

51. Neuromancer, William Gibson, 1984


Cover comments: not terrible or anything, but what even is this? What does it represent? However, nice colour and the typeface is appropriate and pleasing.

Comments: Reading Neuromancer is an exercise of going far beyond my comfort zone -- my brain just isn't wired for this sort of science fiction. Despite that, there were some interesting parts, some excellent writing, and I can see why this book is considered important and how it was influential to not just sci-fi, but to culture and technology.

Fans of the book--people who have read it two or three times-- talk about how dense and packed with details it is, and how difficult to understand everything going on. But in the end, with the aid of Shmoop.com and Wikipedia, I think I got the main idea and picked up on a few of the cryptic details as well.

This is the novel from where we get the word "cyberspace." It won the triple crown of sci-fi awards: Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K Dick award, and is on pretty much every best-of list that it qualifies for.

Rating: sort of a balance between "not a good reading experience" and "wow, I can see why this is so highly regarded" makes this a 3 star read.

Recommended for: people who like to read books that are highly influential, and in particular, people who like technology for technology's sake. Personally, I like technology for what it can do for me and am not much interested in it as a subject itself. Still, I often found bits in the novel about technology that even I found interesting.

Why I Read This Now: I was looking to check off some boxes* and was perusing potential books. The opening sentence: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel," which is simply brilliant, caught my attention.

* boxes checked: 1001 list, Guardian 1000 list, something from my TBR pile, Canadian author (Gibson has lived here in Vancouver since 1972 and used to teach at UBC).

52. Swing Low: a Life, Miriam Toews, 2005


Cover comments: the longer I look at this, the more I like it. The egg is symbolic to events in the story, so I like that too.

Comments: Swing Low is an unusual book in that it's a first-person memoir written by the narrator's daughter. Renowned Canadian author Miriam Toews grew up in small town Manitoba where her father was a popular school teacher. Outside of school, unfortunately, he was a sick man and struggled with bipolar disorder and eventually committed suicide. Toew's book honours his life and struggle.

I admit that I had trouble getting into the book at first. It seemed an aimless string of bits about his mental confusion, interspersed with bits about him hassling the nurses at the hospital. I was rather annoyed because I couldn't see where it was going, and couldn't figure out how the book earned so many 4-and 5-star reader reviews. But then it clicked, and I was entranced. Toews writes simple stories, vignettes, really, that put together tell the story of a kind, gentle, but very ill man. Her writing isn't fancy or show offy (in honour of her father's simple Mennonite traditions, perhaps?), but every page is filled with clarity and beauty. And sadness.

Note: her more recent novel, My Puny Sorrows, was influenced by her sister's suicide, which happened years after Swing Low was published. So much sadness.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Why I Read This Now: There is a Miriam Toews read happening this month on LT, and I have several of her books in my TBR pile. This one was the oldest.

Recommended for: readers who like books full of humanity and feeling.

Interesting to read your comments on Neuromancer as you are a self confessed non reader of science fiction. It has been on my shelf for ages, perhaps it will stay there for a while longer.

>75 Nickelini: >77 baswood:

There's probably no other science fiction novel that made as big a splash upon publication as Neuromancer, at least since H. G. Wells. Most of the novels published since show its influence.

It's fun to note some ways it has been eclipsed, though. That first line, "...color of television, tuned to a dead channel". In 1984, that was a snowy grey-white. For my current TV, that's solid black, with a "No Signal" notice superposed. Young people need a textual note to grasp the simile. And there's a passage involving a bank of pay phones that's been superseded now that most people have mobiles.

To show how good Gibson can be, to someone who's not a science fiction reader, I suggest Pattern Recognition - some element of the fantastic, some thriller elements, very well written.

>78 dukedom_enough: That's really interesting! I really hadn't thought of that dead channel thing. One thing I did like about it was putting my head in 1980s mode and try to remember how that felt.

I will leave myself open to reading Pattern Recognition sometime in the future.

>77 baswood: Maybe one day, like me, you'll suddenly feel like reading it.

53. But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"?: Advice from the Chicago Style Q&A, The University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff, 2016


Cover comments: bright and lively, just like the text within (but then this book is made by the gurus of publishing, so I'd expect no less)

Rating: 4.5 stars. When I learned that this book existed back in August, I thought "oh I need to read this!" and ordered it immediately.

Comments: “A wonderful blend of substance and snark—both a useful reference and a fun (yes, fun) read." says Grammar Girl, of grammargirl.com.

Twenty years ago when I became a technical, and then quickly, a corporate writer, I met online a group of several hundred copyeditors, and over the years I've stayed in touch with many of them. We used to use a ListServ, but now I chat business with them on Facebook. This diverse group comes from all over the globe, and I've never met a group of people that I've learned more from -- they're not only highly intelligent (and for the most part, highly educated), but they have great critical thinking skills and a dogged sense of fairness, and for the most part, a wicked, wicked sense of humour.

So it was no surprise to me that But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"? is all of those things.

The books draws from the Q&A at the Chicago Manual of Style website (If you're not familiar with The Chicago Manual of Style, and really, why would you be? It is the end-all and be-all of grammar and formatting questions for North America. The UK has several books addressing the same issues--Oxford and Cambridge presses both publish versions--but none as definitive and revered as the CMS). This is a collection of various questions from their Q&A section. There are a few stupid questions -- which all get a humorously irreverent response, but for the most part the questions are from people who know their stuff, and can't find the answer in CMS. Some of my favourites:

Q: Is there a period after an abbreviation of a country if it is terminating a sentence? "I went to the U.K.."

A: Seriously, have you ever seen two periods in a row like that in print? If we told you to put two periods, would you do it? Would you set your hair on fire if CMOS said you should?

Q: I often have to edit sentences with dangling modifiers--for example, "As a valued supporter, I am pleased to invite you . . . " -- (snip technical details) -- That is, until today I received feedback from a higher up that said it had to be changed -- (snip more technical stuff) -- Now I'm really confused! Is that a legitimate critique? Should I just rework the entire sentence?

A: Although the higher-up botched the grammar critique . . . it's clear that your editing was rejected, so yes, you need to try again. For instance --(snip technical answer)-- If your higher-up just can't part with the opening phrase, explain that you would be happy to reword but can't think of a more efficient way to eliminate the dangling modifier. Using the term "dangling modifier" is often enough to frighten someone who doesn't know grammar into complying.

(I have to say that throwing out grammatical terms in this situation has worked for me in the past when others have balked at my edits)

Q: I need help on how it would be easier to make a bibliography easier.

A: You could keep it short. You could find the references online and copy and paste them in so you don't have to type them. You could buy some software that helps format bibliographies. You could ask your mom to do it.

Okay, two of those were pretty snarky. Really, there are good answers to the questions from non-twits, which is most of the 108 pg book.

Recommended for: Obviously a specialized audience, but anyone who cares about writing and presenting information correctly, I think. If you're not detail oriented, the existence of this book will utterly baffle you.

Why I Read This Now: This is the sort of thing that tempts me.

NOTE 1: Please don't judge the content, grammar, or any other technical detail of this post. I am in a rush, and simultaneously cooking dinner.

NOTE 2: If you want the short version, here you go: consistency is important, but even more important is communicating as clearly as possible to your reader. Always.

>80 Nickelini: Haha, I think I would probably enjoy reading that.

>80 Nickelini: I am feeling weirdly drawn to this book.

>81 .Monkey.:, >82 bragan: You've been trapped by the evil ways of copyeditors.

>80 Nickelini: Me too. Or three!

54. October, Richard B Wright, 2007


Cover comments: lovely. Who doesn't like a quite autumn scene?

Comments: The narrator of October is a retired Victorian lit professor who travels from Ontario to visit his daughter, living in England, just after her diagnosis with terminal cancer. On his last day in England, he runs into someone he had been close to sixty years earlier when they were both teenage boys vacationing on the east coast of Quebec. Gabriel is terminally ill and on his way to Switzerland for doctor assisted suicide. He asks the narrator to accompany him. This prompts memories and flashbacks to that summer in Quebec when the two teens were in a love triangle with a local girl.

The structure of October is interesting, with its multiple parallels and echoes, and Wright is a gifted and skillful writer. I wasn't particularly interested in the 1940s storyline, however, and doctor-assisted suicide is no longer a controversial or edgy topic here in Canada.

October was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC award and the Giller Prize.

Rating: 3 stars

Recommended for: people who like thoughtful novels with jumping timelines.

Why I Read This Now: I've been meaning to read something by Richard B Wright for many years and it's October, so of course, time to read October. (BTW: most of the novel is set in summer)

This is the view that the narrator sees from his window in the 1940s scenes (Perce Rock, Quebec)

>80 Nickelini: Love the idea of the book! Now can I start a sentence with 'but'? ;)

HI Joyce I also loved your review of All the Light We Cannot See. My feelings about the book were identical! Have to look for your review of Swing Low: A Life, It on my list for the near future! p.s. lots of wind and rain but no power out. Oh boy lots of fir cones down though. Tidy up time.

55. The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood, 2015 (published outside of Australia in 2016)


Cover comments: I think this Europa Editions cover is great.

Comments: Two women, Verla and Yolanda, wake up from a drugged sleep to find themselves captives at a dilapidated sheep station in the Australian Outback. They are wearing 19th century style clothes, and upon waking, their heads are shaved. There are eight other young women there in the same situation, but information is scarce as they are brutally beaten if they speak or ask questions. Slowly they settle in to their bleak existence under the ever-watchful eye of their jailors, the creepy Bonsor, the dreadlocked yogi Teddy, and the crazy pseudo-nurse, Nancy. The whole lot of them are held inside the vast property by a powerful electric fence.

Eventually, the young women figure out that the one thing they share is that they were all involved in a public scandal—one that included powerful men. For example, Barb was an Olympic hopeful until she went public about the sexual assault by her swim coach.

Things go from bad to worse. It appears they are abandoned in this prison, they begin to starve and both the captives and the jailors begin to go insane. Different women try different approaches to survive, and Yolanda and Verla gain agency by learning to use the nature surrounding their jail. This is one aspect of the title The Natural Way of Things. The title has a double meaning, as it also refers to the misogynistic order of the world.

I’ve read that The Natural Way of Things is a combination of Lord of the Flies, The Handmaid’s Tale, and “Mad Max.” I can see that, but it’s also very different from all of those. And I’d further add that it’s also just a little bit like “Orange is the New Black,” and also “Rabbit Proof Fence.”

The writing is sparse and beautiful, especially the way the author uses the nature of the Outback. It’s structured in short chapters, which makes the novel highly readable. I would like to hear more from Charlotte Woods, but I’m not sure if her earlier novels are published outside of Australia.

The Natural Way of Things won the 2016 Stella Award (for Australia women writers), was nominated for the Miles Franklin Award, and has been optioned for a film. It was inspired by true events that happened in the 1960s (now I’m off to learn about that hidden Australian history).

Rating: Definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year, but I can’t quite give it 5 stars because

1. It took me about 40 pages to get into it (5 star books have to grab me right away)
2. I’d have liked more information on the faceless corporation that took the women captive. I think the anonymity and lack of details is most likely purposeful because it’s irrelevant, but I find the concept interesting and want to know more
3. I’d have loved more detail on each of the women’s background stories. I was looking forward to a short chapter, or even a page, on how each of them ended up there, but it was all just too vague and I think a missed opportunity
4. I wanted to know the background story and motivation of the three jailors—their lives were no picnic either

Recommended for: everyone

Why I Read This Now: I bought it right after hearing about it on The Readers podcast this summer, but it flew to the top of Mnt TBR when I got tickets to see the author at the Vancouver Writer’s Festival later this week.

ETA: Saw Charlotte Wood at the Vancouver Writer's Festival last night and she explained some of her reasons for the choices she made in writing The Natural Way of Things, specifically my concern in point 3, above. She thought that writing all those separate stories would distract from the narrative thrust of the the novel, and that does make sense. Also, including the details of the 10 characters would open them up to judgment and scrutiny, which is sort of opposite of one of the points of the novel. So while I had that feeling when I read the book, I now completely understand why the novel is stronger without those scenes.

Adding The Natural Way of Things to my wishlist. I do like the Europa Editions books and this one sounds gripping.

>89 RidgewayGirl: I'll be surprised if you don't like this one!

Great review of The Natural Way of Things - it's gone straight on my wishlist.

Wait - there's a true story behind this?!!

>92 dchaikin: Yes! I heard the author mention briefly and someone on GoodReads has a link in her review. I haven't read into it yet but will come back and post when I know more.

>92 dchaikin: Okay, here's the first one: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-natural-way-of-things-by-charlotte...

from the article:

Wood heard a radio documentary about women who had been locked up as teenagers in the Hay Institution for Girls, an offshoot of Parramatta Girls Home that was reserved for the 10 worst offenders in the state in the 1960s and '70s. They were drugged and put on a train to the decommissioned men's prison in south-western NSW, where they were forced to march, look at the floor, never talk to each other, and endure rape and other violence.

"The people in Hay could hear great screams at night," Wood says. "Nothing that happens in my books is anywhere near what happened to those girls. The girls were talked about as sluts and 'they deserved to be there'. One reason many of them were there was they had been sexually abused or assaulted in some way and they told someone about it, so then it was 'they are promiscuous'."

Wood did not want to write a literal story about the Hay Institution, which had been covered in memoirs and a play by Alana Valentine. She began a story set in the '60s but found her writing was dead on the page, "that awful sludgy feeling where nothing is working". To stir herself up, she tried writing it in the near future.

"It started to come alive: the writing had an energy and there was material there. One of the things I found heartbreaking about that place was the girls were blamed for something that was done to them, that weird, sick psychology of a culture that says, 'You've been assaulted so let's lock you up'. I started having my ears and eyes open for every political sex scandal and scapegoating of women."

There was the news of an army cadet who became known as "the Skype slut" after she reported being secretly filmed having sex. And the David Jones employee who complained she had been sexually harassed by the chief executive. Another young woman who worked at DJ's told Wood, "We all hate her. She's a gold-digger. He didn't rape her or anything."

The Natural Way of Things evolved into a dystopian fable, both gripping and lyrical, in which 10 young women who have been through different sexual ordeals are dumped on an isolated property behind electric fences with two male guards and a female "nurse". It's a creepy set-up with an unknown corporate enemy behind their imprisonment; the tension builds as conditions worsen. But there is no graphic violence and it's the unpredictable development of the characters under pressure that is fascinating.

Here's the second: http://www.parragirls.org.au/hay-girls-institution.php

Hay Girls Institution

In July 1961 a former colonial gaol at Hay, 760 kilometers from Sydney, was gazetted as an annex to Parramatta Girls Home and in September the first girls were transferred. The Institution for Girls at Hay,was a place of secondary punishment for 'incorrigible' girls who the authorities at Parramatta considered needed 'extra training'. It was a small facility which catered for up to 12 girls at any given time and the official term of stay was 3 months however this was frequently extended with some girls returning to Hay a number of times during their term at Parramatta.

Click on the link for more fascinating information.

I'm stunned. What the hell? Sorry, I know awful stuff like this has happened and happens, it's just surreal to see it in a first world country 50 years ago as official policy.

>96 dchaikin: I'm stunned. What the hell? Sorry, I know awful stuff like this has happened and happens, it's just surreal to see it in a first world country 50 years ago as official policy.

I know! My thoughts exactly. Makes me wonder what went on in North America, Western Europe and the UK. I know Ireland had something awful with the homes for unwed mothers, and in the 30s - 50s Quebec had the Duplessis orphans, but this is different again. Maybe it happened in Australia because of their penal colony mindset? The thing that I find really freaky is that these prisons closed down in the 70s and I lived in Australia just a few years later (1982-83) and I even went through Hay, NSW and remember it well (it's REALLY in the middle of nowhere). Very creepy.

I have put The Natural Way of Things on hold at the library.
Have you ever seen the movie The Magdalene Sisters about the "punishing" of unwed mothers in Ireland by having them be slaves and captive in the convent laundries in Ireland? It is a shocking/shameful movie. The last Magdalene asylum closed in 1996.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magdalene_Sisters
Same thing happened in Denmark. The girls who authorities considered "a risk to society" were sent to Sprogo, an island off the coast. That is what the book The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen is about. This prison remained until the 60's.
http://www.kulturarv.dk/1001fortaellinger/en_GB/sprogoe

>98 mdoris:

OMG head spinning. Why does endless misogyny never cease to disturb me? All this Donald Trump nonsense is annoying. Really? You think they are coming out of the woodwork and making this up because why didn't they say things at the time? Really? After Bill Cosby? After Jian Ghomeshi? (I mean, really, Jian Ghomeshi? A man doesn't have to be all that powerful for women to know that speaking up will lead to nothing but slut shaming). The world we live in astounds me, and not in the Planet Earth way.

I DID know a little about the Magdalene Sisters, but didn't realize 1996! Wow! And Denmark? Just wow.

It all reminds me of Margaret Atwood being interviewed a million years ago and saying that she never wrote anything that had never happened. I'm sure the Charlotte Wood thought about that when she wrote The Natural Way of Things. In fact, I might ask her about that when I see her on Wednesday evening!

> This is just shocking, I had no idea of all of them. I'll have to read more on this.
I am very interested in you meeting Charlotte Wood, I hope you'll let us know what she thinks.

>100 Simone2: I really enjoyed the event, and I even asked a question in the Q&A period. And got my book signed and got to tell her how much I liked her work.

It's really interesting to hear authors talk about their decisions and inspiration. There was a lengthy discussion about my spoiler point #3 (>88 Nickelini:), and so I will go add a note to my review. It makes sense now.

Earlier in the evening, I attended another event at the Vancouver Writer's Festival on women and humour. The authors were Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette), Lisa Moore (February, a fabulous but unfunny book), Marni Jackson (Don't I Know You?), and Amy Jones (We're All in This Together). Lots of laughs and I learned a lot about their writing processes.

>96 dchaikin:, >98 mdoris:, >100 Simone2:

Also, the author teared up a few times talking about the real life facts that inspired The Natural Way of Things and also at the shame of her country's current treatment of refugees. The Australian refugee camps were also an inspiration for the novel.

Very interesting to hear about your authors visits at the Writers' Fesival. Vancouver does and amazing job of attracting authors. I have had a PDF look at the program and it sure gives lots of ideas for future reads. Are you attending any other sessions? Is Semple's new book a funny one? I really liked her Bernadette one. I thought it was very unique. I always love learning/hearing about the writing process. Sounds like a successful visit to the Festival!

Thumbed your review.

>103 mdoris: Thanks for the thumb!

I'm thinking of going to something else since last night was such a success, but I don't think I'll have time. Next year I'll go to more events, since now I know what it's all about. Two women I sat beside come every year from Nelson, BC for the whole week. And here I am in Vancouver and have never gone.

Maria Semple's new book does indeed sound funny, from what I can tell. I thought I probably wanted to read it, but now I know I definitely want to. I don't know when it's out in paperback though (the hard back is expensive and I prefer the smaller, lighter trade paperbacks)

56. Northanger Abbey, Val McDermid, 2014


Cover comments: excellent cover. Love the typeface, love the silhouetted house with the modern day appendages. The cover also feels nice, and the pages flip and open pleasingly.

Comments: This book was great fun to read and I was always happy to pick it up and settle down with it. This rewrite of the Jane Austen novel with the same name is part of the Austen project retellings of her novels.

In this Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland, now called Cat, is still an extremely naive 17 year old. In this version she was home-schooled in a village in the Piddle Valley, Dorset. Instead of going to Bath with a family friend, here she is taken to the Edinburgh Festival. There she befriends the self-centred Thorpe siblings and the nicer Tilney siblings. It's been a few years since I read the Austen novel, but from what I can tell, McDermid mirrors the original closely while dragging it into the twenty-first century, complete with smartphones, Facebook and Twitter.

If I wanted to, I could really trash this novel. As someone who has a 16 year old and a 20 year old, and has spent a lot of time around teens and twenty-somethings, I can only criticize the artificiality of the dialogue. At times it tried too hard to be "cool,' but just came off wrong, and other times it was ridiculously formal, which was also wrong. Don't even get me started on the texting bits: "I'm OK> Fone ws dead b4. Looking 4ward 2 seeing u. Mist u all. C u soon. X" No one does this, let alone every character.

Cat did learn to develop a bit of a spine by the end, but her wide-eyed innocence and trust of others strained credulity. Several times she refused alcohol because she wasn't legal drinking age. Don't get me wrong -- not drinking is fine, but how about "no thank you," "I'm not interested," or "I don't feel like it." Saying "I'm not legal drinking age" when clearly no one else had a problem with bending the rule just made her look like Pollyanna Tattlepants who ran to the teacher and finked on her classmates after recess everyday.

Half way through I got a bit skeeved out when I realized that Cat often acted more like a 12 year old, and despite that was forming a mutual attraction with Henry Tilney, who was a lawyer, which I reckon makes him at least 24. Ewww. This age and maturity difference might have worked 200 years ago in Austen's day, but did not work now. Unless he was an ephebephile, what could he possibly find interesting in her?

Despite the serious flaws, I still found this entertaining and fun.

Why I Read This Now: What better time to read a book set in a Gothic mansion than the week before Halloween?

Recommended for: people who enjoy retellings even when they have faults.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The same Val McDermid who writes all those nasty crime novels.

>106 baswood: -- Not sure if you're asking a question or making a statement. Yes, the author is known as a crime writer, but as I've never heard of her outside of this book, I didn't feel it warranted a comment. Her fans will be interested, I guess, but I didn't care.

57. Vampires and Other Monstrous Creatures, Professor Julius Pemberton-Smythe (Mary-Jane Knight), 2007


Cover comments: this is an art book as much as it's a textual resource, and the art is ghoulishly good.

Comments: Vampires and Other Monstrous Creatures purports to be a guide to identifying and protecting oneself from vampires. Tiny print on the book's front matter page tells me:

This facsimile edition has been carefully reproduced from the original volume carried by Dr Cornelius Van Helsing on his Transylvanian journey in 1907, which was discovered by Marcus de Wolff among his father Gustav's papers in 1937.

Abraham Van Helsing is of course the vampire hunter from Dracula, and there is a literary tradition of inventing Van Helsing descendants in later vampire works. Ah ha, further sleuthing shows that this is actually written by one Mary-Jane Knight. Further study also shows that this book is made for children, which is something that many a casual observer would miss -- the illustrations are horrifying and some parents would not want their kids to even see this book.

Anyhoo, the 80 page fully illustrated book is a guide to vampires in history, around the world, vampire legends, how to fend off a vampire, and then a compendium of other creatures including banshees, harpies, and zombies. Fun, interesting, entertaining.

Recommended for: great addition for school and public libraries. Eleven year olds will love it.

Rating: 4 stars

Why I Read This Now: it's been in my TBR for a number of years (picked it up free at t a book sale), and I'm doing a Halloween read here at LT

58. I'm Not Scared, Niccolo Ammaniti, trans. from Italian J. Hunt, 2001


Cover comments: depicts the feeling of the book.

Comments: I struggle to describe this 225 book without giving anything away, so I'm going to be a little vague here:

In the heatwave of 1978, 9 year old Michele discovers some chilling secrets while playing with his friends in rural Italy. The reader follows his transformation from innocence to horrible realism.

I didn't take to the novel at first. I found the atmosphere stifling and didn't like any of the characters. But by page 70 I was gripped by this unusual story. For most of the book, I had no idea what would happen next.

Rating: Because it got off to a slow start and then ended in a flabby manner, I'm only giving it 3.5 stars. The middle part of the book, however, was excellent.

Recommended for: Despite my middle-of-the-road rating, I actually recommend this one quite highly to most readers. I expect I will remember it for a long time.

Why I Read This Now: it's been high on my TBR list for ages. I think I should read more Italian literature, since my husband and daughters have Italian citizenship.

>109 Nickelini: I read this years ago and can't remember anything about it (my usual one week book memory syndrome), but I DO remember I enjoyed it!

Enjoying your reviews - much to catch up on.

60. A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness, 2011


cover comments: amazingly wonderful

Comments: A Monster Calls is the winner of important awards for both the writing and illustration, and it deserved all of them. Highly unusual and brilliantly executed. I don't want to say too much, because I think the less you know going in, the better. If you're worried about monsters, just remember that they are only metaphors.

Why I Read This Now: it's been high on my to-read list for years, and monsters + Halloween, and also I wanted to read it before the movie came out (movie trailer looks great, btw)

Recommended for: people with feelings

Rating: 4.5 stars



Illustrations by Jim Kay, who is currently creating the illustrated Harry Potter editions.

>59 Nickelini: Sounds intriguing, I have never heard of it. Does the author have anything to do with the same called monster in Scotland?!

>112 Simone2: Ha ha! Not that I can tell, but maybe he's just not saying.

Protestations of not being scared, gothic mansions, monsters and vampires? Must be Halloween.

I have read Val McDermid crime novels, but I just can't pair her with a Jane Austen story. Based on your review, I might just have to try it.

61. Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy, Helen Fielding, 2013


cover comments: looks more ChickLit than this book really is.

Comments: In which we find Bridget Jones in her 50s, with two small children, and widowed from Mark Darcy (who died in a horrific event in the Sudan). Without Mark, Bridget is back to serious struggling again. It's been four years as a single mother, and she's lonely and missing sex.

Some fun moments, some clever moments, many dumb moments, some touching moments. In the end, it was an enjoyable and distracting read (which is what I needed), but Bridget without Mark just doesn't work for me.

Rating: B- . . . somehow I can only think in letter grades at the moment

Why I Read This Now: I actually started it last year but the idea of a dead Mark Darcy just depressed me so I put it aside. I started again because I want to read the latest Bridget Jones book and thought I should read this first.

Recommended for: Bridget Jones fans, anyone interested in the life of a 50-something woman.

And now on to Bridget Jones's Baby . . .

62. Bridget Jones’s Baby, Helen Fielding, 2016


Cover comments: Interesting that they didn’t use a movie tie-in cover and I give them a nod of approval for that.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Comments: There are two types of people in the world: Bridget Jones fans and people who aren’t Bridget Jones fans. If you are in that later group, go back to what you were doing because none of what follows will mean anything to you.

If you’re still with me, I’ll go on to say that I trust you’re up on the changes that have happened in Jones’s life since the first two books and films, and therefore, I’m not going to hide anything here with spoiler tags. You’ve been warned. Okay, so . . . .

Bridget Jones’s Baby was released a month after the movie came out. I had no intention of read this because I’d seen the film, and further, film-to-book has never been a good thing in my experience. However, I saw it on sale at the grocery store and –I have no excuses—I’m weak.

And what a surprise when it turned out to be 1. Good!, and 2. Not the same story as the film! Apparently it’s based on both the film and on earlier newspaper columns by Fielding (which I hear were different again). It’s like there are multiple Bridget Jones universes.

In this version, there is no music festival with Ed Sheeran, and hence, no handsome, nice American billionaire and Dr. McDreamy. There’s just Daniel Cleever. Still. And instead of the realistic way the film had Mark and Bridget split up, this time it was Daniel Cleever ruining things for them yet again. Of course it was. Really, I find it hard to believe that Bridget hadn’t permanently kicked him to the kerb. Thank you, Hugh Grant for staying away from the third movie and forcing them to do something fresh and better. In that way I preferred the film of Bridget Jones’s Baby to this book.

But! I liked this too. Once I accepted the idea of Daniel Cleever still lurking around being his horrible self, I enjoyed his humour-while-being-a-jerk –with-Hugh-Grant’s voice. The writing in this is sharper and wittier than Mad About the Boy. MAtB was padded and bloated, but Bridget Jones’s Baby is perhaps too short (217 quick to read pages), and of course the advantage to this over the other is it’s full of Mark Darcy. And I do love me some Bridget and Mark. And all her friends, and here, her dad was especially sweet and wise. Sigh.

Recommended for: Bridget Jones fans, especially those who were upset when Helen Fielding killed off Mark Darcy in MAtB. She redeems herself just a little here.

Why I Read This Now: the ultimate comfort read.

Sounds fun. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the film. I had low hopes of it being any good, and actually I thought it was very well done and pretty funny in places.

>116 Nickelini: & >117 AlisonY: My lists just get longer and longer! I'm adding both books and movies.

63. Disclaimer, Renee Knight, 2015


Cover comments: beware the headless woman! Checking the book's LT page, I see that there are much better covers for this out there--ones that actually fit the story and are intriguing. Don't know why this edition exists.

Comments: I was doubtful when I bought Disclaimer, but I was drawn to the premise: Catherine Ravenscroft, who has a pleasant middle aged life, finds a book on her nightstand that she doesn't recognize, and then discovers it's about her and a secret from 20 years earlier. The story is told through chapters that switch from Catherine's 3rd person story and the 1st person narration of her nemesis.

This is a suspense thriller, and like all the other thrillers out there, you need to just go along for the ride and not think about it too much. It's definitely readable, by which I mean it moves along and has lots of twists to keep it interesting. On the sentence and paragraph level, it's well written. For the first 2/3 I did struggle to understand the motivations of every single character, and this made it a solid 3 star read for me. The last 3rd was much better, and the big reveal was unexpected, which added a star.

Recommended for: This is a good book for an airplane flight or to read at the beach.

Rating: Almost a 4 star read, but in the end, 3.5 stars.

Why I Read This Now: I have no memory of what inspired me to pick up this book at this time.

>119 Nickelini: This is one of those books which is hovering around my TBR list without ever quite making it on! I think it'll be a good holiday read one day.

64. The Box Garden, Carol Shields, 1977


Cover comments: ho hum. I probably would have liked it better when this edition was published in the 90s.

Comments: Charleen Forrest is a divorced single-mother of a 15 year old boy who travels across the country to attend her mother's second wedding. Although that synopsis is not exactly inspiring, The Box Garden was a good read because Shields is a fabulous writer. It took me a bit to get into this--at first it just seemed dated, and she tended to get mired in minutiae, but then it sort of clicked, and I enjoyed hearing about life in the 70s, and some of her minute details were actually pretty interesting. And the story itself just picked up. I particularly liked reading the infuriating character of Charleen's mother, who Shields often described as "meagerly" but I'd describe as "miserly." And I laughed when Charleen's friends disparaged her boyfriend for being an orthodontist -- I just never knew that was a profession to be ashamed of. I haven't read Shields for many years, but she was just as readable as I remembered, while still being smart and observant. I also always liked how Shields allows her characters to have some happy relationships.

Why I Read This Now: I read a lot of Carol Shields in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and have always meant to read more of her work.

Rating: A good solid read. 3.5 stars, maybe 4.

Recommended for: People who like books about families.

Although that synopsis is not exactly inspiring, The Box Garden was a good read because Shields is a fabulous writer.

This pretty much sums up all of Carol Shields novels for me. They never look like much, but they do deliver.

66. Amongst Women, John McGahern, 1990


Cover comments: Uninspired! But hey, men can also look away, so it's equal opportunity. The monochromatic dull colours fit well though. Makes me ask: Did anyone enjoy life in Ireland in the mid-20th century?

Comments: Michael Moran was once a guerrilla leader in the Irish War of Independence. Now he's a widowed farmer, with five older children and a new younger wife. He's principled and pious, but rather a tyrant, and everyone walks on eggshells around him. McGahern writes with clean, sparse language that rewards the close attentive reader, but will bore others and anyone looking for a strong plot.

The title, Amongst Women, refers to Moran living with his wife (the most likeable character in the novel) and three grown daughters. It also refers to a line out of the Hail Mary prayer that they spend much time reciting every day. I'm not Catholic, so had to have one of my RC friends explain what was going on -- this family spent a huge chunk of their lives on their knees with their rosary beads.

I can appreciate what other readers have said in their 5-star and 2-star reviews, but I fall somewhere in the middle. A few years ago I read McGahern's The Dark and I was blown away (although I don't remember details of it); I didn't like Amongst Women as much even though it is considered his masterpiece. It's 184 pages without chapters, and with few paragraph breaks, which is a structure that I find unnecessarily tedious. Give the reader some little breaks, m'kay?

Amongst Women was nominated for the Booker Prize, is on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and Guardian 1000* lists, along with many other "best ever" lists.

*Guardian 1000 has it under their State of the Nation category, which I can see, but I would have put it under Family & Self for sure.

Recommended for: people who like subtle novels. Readers who raved about it often said that the main character reminded them of their Irish dad, grandfather, or neighbour. I'm not Irish, and I don't know any men like him, so that wasn't a factor for me. Readers who didn't like it often said they were just sick of novels that sympathized with patriarchs who probably needed to get their asses kicked. I paraphrase.

Why I Read This Now: I've wanted to read it since I read The Dark.

Rating: It is well written and all that, but several things didn't mesh with my brain, so for me it's a 3.5 stars. YMMV. If you haven't read McGahern, try The Dark -- the one that got the Catholic Church in a tizzy.

And for your entertainment . . . . since we're talking about Ireland and Catholics . . . in 2013 we flew from Vancouver to London. My family had seats in the centre of the plane. Near the end of the flight, my teenage daughters realized there were two seats by a window a few rows behind, so moved. When I saw on the screen map that we were above Ireland, I stood up and asked my older daughter "hey, we're over Ireland, what do you see?" (yes, stupid question, but after 8 hours in coach, any distraction will do).

She replied: "It's green!" She turned to look out the window, then looked back at me. "I see potatoes!. . . . And Catholics!"

Everyone who heard laughed. But like I said, 8 hours in coach can make you stir crazy.

Well, I have a copy of The Dark on my tbr, so I'll take your advice and start there, but Amongst Women sounds interesting. I might enjoy growing indignant about the need for an ass-whopping.

>123 Nickelini: Did anyone enjoy life in Ireland in the mid-20th century? That made me chuckle.

I'm not of fan of Irish angst by any means, but you make this one sound promising.

I haven't read anything by McGahern, but he sounds somewhat like Graham Swift, based on your review.

Your daughter would have made me laugh too. I would do anything to get out of a plane after all that time.

>124 RidgewayGirl: Would love to hear your thoughts on either book.

>125 SassyLassy: I've read one Graham Swift (name escapes me at the moment but I think it won the Booker and I know was made into a movie with Helen Mirren), and I hadn't thought of it, but yes, McGahern does fit in a similar category.

And air travel . . . ugh! Hate travelling, love being places. What to do?

67. Writing Jane Austen, Elizabeth Aston, 2010


Cover comments: Whatever. Not as bad as the book itself, I suppose.

Rating: I quickly deemed this a one-star read and although I could have dropped it, I decided to hate read it. By the end I realized that it was pretty fun in a weird way so I'll bump that up to two stars.

Comments: Georgina Jackson is a historian living in London who recently wrote a novel that was highly acclaimed, but didn't sell. She's desperate to stay in England, but is in debt and unless the situation changes, she won't be allowed to stay in the country and will have to return to the States and become a waitress. Even though her area of expertise is late-Victorian workhouses, her aggressive agent assigns her to write a novel based on a fragment recently discovered that was written by Jane Austen. Never mind that England abounds in Austen scholars, and people who, unlike our protagonist, have actually read Jane Austen, somehow Georgina gets picked to continue Austen's work, and lo and behold, it pays a hefty advance too!

Georgina, despite her PhD, is a ninny. She spends the first 140 pages of the book running around with her hands in the air saying "I don't respect Jane Austen!" "Jane Austen fans R dum," and the like. While doing this, just about everyone she meets is a Jane Austen fan (as are 99% of the people who pick up this book). For sometimes odd reasons, she ends up at Jane Austen sites in England. Even her dear old friend from back home is now running a Jane Austen shop in Bath. She goes around for several weeks bumping into Jane Austen things in the name of research, but not learning anything.

Finally, she accidentally starts reading Pride and Prejudice, and then goes on to read all six of Austen's novels in two days without sleeping or eating. Suddenly, Austen is brilliant! But then the next 80 pages or so are of her having writer's block and whining, "I'm not worthy." We are all aware of that.

Out of the blue, she starts writing, but then develops a repetitive strain injury because all she does is type, and now she can't go on. Still can't figure out what that was about. Gets voice recognition software and finishes the novel. There's a little twist, but no conflict. And then she marries the cute nice guy out of the blue, which I guessed on page one so not a spoiler.

The worst thing about this: There are lots of characters in Writing Jane Austen, and not one of them acts like a real person acts. And not one of them speaks like a real person speaks.

That said, even though it's horribly written in terms of action, pacing, motivation, I could go on . . . on the sentence-by-sentence level, I sometimes enjoyed it. There were many characters that even though they weren't real, I did enjoy. She threw in scads of little Jane Austen references that made me roll my eyes, but some of them were cute or clever. For example, the love interest is named Henry Lefroy, and Jane Austen had a possible crush or relationship with Tom Lefroy. And even though the ending was predictable from the start, I was interested in how she would get there. So not the absolutely worst book ever.

But the main character was just so stupid and annoying. At one point, completely out of nowhere, she asks another character "Do you know what a ha-ha is?" No reason given for why she wanted to know this, and no ha-has later in the book. Also, I think someone with a PhD in the late Victorian period would have run across this somewhere in her studies. I know I only have a BA, but when getting an education you do learn stuff outside of the immediate scope of your area of expertise. I've personally met some pretty dumb PhD's, but Georgina Jackson takes the cake.

Why I Read This Now: It's been a grey, dreary November here in Vancouver. I needed something FUN! Not exactly the fun I was looking for, but sometimes a good hate read is fun too.

Recommended for: not recommended unless you're in a perverse mood.

Note: The book doesn't say so, but I'm positive that "Elizabeth Aston" is a shameless pseudonym invented to snag Jane Austen fans.

Thank you for reading this. I'm a sucker for all modern chick-lit based on the novels of Jane Austen and so would have purchased a copy with actual money without thinking twice about it. Thank you for saving me both time and money.

Not sure I would have touched it, but very entertained by your review.

>128 RidgewayGirl: I paid actual money, but it was a used copy, so probably only $5 or so. I don't feel too burned.

>129 dchaikin: Always happy to entertain with a scathing review.

>127 Nickelini: The book itself could never measure up to your review! It was just the thing for a grey dreary start to December.

Still pondering how someone with such antipathies "accidentally" starts reading Pride and Predjudice, but then she would have to have come around some time. Voice recognition software... there's a good buy for someone in debt.

Love the term "hate read".

Highly entertaining review! Of the sort of book that you regularly hurl across the room before going back and picking it up again... as you say, sometimes quite fun!

>131 SassyLassy: Voice recognition software... there's a good buy for someone in debt.

I didn't think of that! Another strike against it. (Granted, it was a gift, but the person who bought it also had money woes., so no difference).

>132 wandering_star: the sort of book that you regularly hurl across the room

It's how we get our arm workouts. Got to keep our biceps toned somehow.

>132 wandering_star: A strong argument for physical books. Throwing a kindle or iPad across the room can get expensive over time.

>134 RidgewayGirl: Maybe push the delete button really, really hard!!! LOL!

>127 Nickelini: But then the next 80 pages or so are of her having writer's block and whining, "I'm not worthy." We are all aware of that.

I just wanted to say, this bit of snark made me laugh out loud. And that's coming from someone who doesn't even like Austen.

>131 SassyLassy: I am now going to imagine her tripping and falling face-first into a copy of Pride and Prejudice.

>133 Nickelini:, >134 RidgewayGirl:, >135 avidmom: giggle

68. Othello, William Shakespeare, 1603


No cover comment as this isn't my edition

Comments: What's there to say about Shakespeare that hasn't already been said?

Why I Read This Now: My daughter had to read this for high school English, and I always try to read along if it's a book or play I haven't read before.

This morning I was reading about people in Illinois freaking out about the porn that students were having to read -- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy was the offensive piece of filth this time.--and how no 18 year old should ever read books that name either male or female genitals. (Never mind that 18 year olds aren't legally children, and what are they doing in high school anyway?)

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/illinois-parents-call-for-smut-book-ban-we-cant-...

These people would stroke out if they knew precious 16 year old snowflakes were reading Othello, with all its drunkenness, adultery, whores, and inter-racial relationships, although I'm sure they'd be all good with the violent murders. I clutch my pearls just thinking about it.

Rating: I'll never like reading plays, and I'm not a big fan of Shakespearean English. I like to read him for the cultural references. This one is sort of in the middle for me-- not as good as The Tempest, Hamlet and King Lear, but better than Measure for Measure.

Recommended for: people who want to read the classics.

That rawstory article was just depressing.

I almost always get a laugh when I visit your thread, and this visit was no exception. Thank you. :)

69. The Conjoined, Jen Sookfong Lee, 2016


Cover comments: I do rather like this cover even though it does have that faceless figure that publishers love so much this decade. I love the red riding hood motif, although the novel doesn't have anything to do with Red. And the title is a bit of a mystery -- I guess it's a metaphor of some sort, although that seems a bit of a stretch. Anyway, no conjoined twins anywhere to be found.

Comments from the back cover: "On a sunny May morning, social worker Jessica Campbell sorts through her mother’s belongings after her recent funeral. In the basement, she makes a shocking discovery — two dead girls curled into the bottom of her mother’s chest freezers. She remembers a pair of foster children who lived with the family in 1988: Casey and Jamie Cheng — troubled, beautiful, and wild teenaged sisters from Vancouver’s Chinatown. After six weeks, they disappeared; social workers, police officers, and Jessica herself assumed they had run away."

Based on this, I expected the mother to be a real nasty piece of work. Instead, mom Donna is a gentle, granola, earthy saint of a woman who takes in foster kids. Influenced by her mother, Jessica has become a social worker with a case load of children in crisis and a do-gooder social warrior boyfriend. The story travels back in time to her mother and grandmother's past, the past of the dead girls and their parent's past. Along the way, Jessica discovers that her mother had had a few very dark chapters in her life.

The Conjoined was a compelling read that always made me want to know more, with beautiful writing and interesting characters. Lee captures the feeling of Vancouver very well and makes it a secondary character in the book.

What stopped the novel from being a five star read was that there were a few too many unanswered questions, the main one being that the mystery of the girls' death is unresolved. I understand what Lee was doing artistically, but I think ultimately it lets down the reader.

Rating: a solid 4 stars

Recommended for: Readers looking for something a little different, and books that accurately reflect diversity. Readers who need to like or admire the characters in a book might want to skip this one.

Why I Read This Now: This is Jen Sookfong Lee's third adult novel, and every time one is published I say "I want to read that!" This time I did. (I will get to her other books one day too).

I have wondered what this book was about, so glad to read your review. I am, however, slightly annoyed that the title doesn't mean what it seems it should mean.

>142 dchaikin: Not sure what was up with that. I've actually met the author a few times, so if I ever bump into her again (we are in very loosely connected social circles) I will certainly ask her.

If you want to read about conjoined twins, try The Girls by Lori Lansens. I wasn't a huge fan, but it was certainly entertaining and others have liked it more. It was nominated for the Orange Prize.

Joyce, that's pretty cool you know Lee, even in a loose way. Wonder what she might say. Would she be offended? As for the The Girls, there was a time when I really wanted to read it, but at the moment it just seems like another book. Doesn't draw me to it. And, it's not that I want to read about conjoined twins, it's that when I see the word "conjoined", I automatically fill in "twins", the words just unconsciously go together (sigh...yes, like conjoined twins...)

>144 dchaikin: I hear you about The Girls. It might be just another book. Like they say, so many books, so little time. . . . I preferred the same author's The Wife's Tale .

As for asking Jen Sookfong Lee -- she's pretty outspoken and assertive. I don't know her well enough to know how easily she's offended, but if that question would offend her then so would a lot less, and thus I don't really care. She also works for CBC Radio sometimes, so she can handle it. Two of the three times I've talked to her we had a nice chat about books, so I think I could word it right. Our connection is through my husband who is friends with her now ex-husband. They are divorced, but have a young son, so are still connected and she gave him a warm and heartfelt thank you in this book.

70. Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata, 1947, translated from Japanese by Edward G Seidensticker, 1956


Cover comments: I had never heard of this book when I was drawn to this cover at the library. I didn't have time to read it but ordered a copy. I continue to think it's attractive, but I find the bottom third too disconnected from the top part to give it high praise. The two parts on their own are lovely though.

Comments: In Snow Country, a Tokyo businessman pays several visits to a vacation village on the west coast of Japan, which is one of the snowiest spots on earth. There he has a relationship with a spa geisha, and also another woman named Yoko. The language in the book is clean and simple, but comes together to say something nuanced and complex.

What I Liked About Snow Country: Kawabata paints a fabulous image of winter in this snowy area of Japan, and the book is highly atmospheric. It makes me want to read more Japanese literature and also visit Japan.

What I didn't like: I admit I didn't get a lot of this book. It lacked context for me -- I just don't know enough about 1930s Japanese culture or geishas to fully understand what was going on. This would have been an excellent novel to study in a university class.

Snow Country was cited as helping Kawabata win the Nobel Prize for literature.

There is an excellent 6 page introduction by "E.G.S." It contains spoilers, but this is not a book that you read for plot, so I think it's irrelevant.

Why I Read This Now: we are having unusual snow in Vancouver and I thought this would fit the mood.

Recommended for: going by reader reviews, most people like this better than I did, so if it interests you, give it a try.

Rating: 3 stars

Edited to correct spelling error. I knew when I typed "sited" that it was wrong but I was immediately distracted and didn't correct it to "cited."

Interesting! I like the cover as it looks online.

71. A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood, 1964


Cover comments: I am often drawn to Vintage Classics covers, but this one, with a painting by Vania Zouravliov, is one I find extremely ugly. Especially since the 2009 movie made from the book is super stylish. This is one of those rare times I would have preferred the movie tie-in cover:



Comments: This short novel takes place over one day in the life of George Falconer. It's late 1962, and George is a university professor Englishman who has lived in Southern California since before the end of WWII. He is in deep mourning for the love of his life, Jim, who was recently killed in a car accident.

I've seen the film several times --it's my favourite non-Darcy Colin Firth movie--so I knew the story. I wasn't surprised by the touching and poignant writing, but I wasn't expecting it to be so sharply cynical, and often almost scatological. There isn't much of a plot, but it has a lot to say about life and death and aging and bodies.

Rating: This will be on my top 5 list for the year, and I plan to reread it again in a few years.

Recommended for: people who like intelligent short novels.

Why I Read This Now: Over at the Category Challenge group I have a category titled "A Single Man: Mid-century Novels". I figure I should try and get to the book I named my category after.


Colin Firth was nominated for the Academy Award for his role in A Single Man. Although he clearly was the best actor that year, the odious Jeff Bridges stole the prize from him. (He did win the next year, but that's beside the point)

A Single Man sounds good, Joyce. I'll keep my eye out for it.

Great post. Sounds like if I were forced to make a choice, I should choose the movie over the book. I hadn't heard of either.

>148 Nickelini: You took the words right out of my mouth: "Wow, that cover is UGLY!"

>149 kidzdoc: Darryl, yes, do look for it. One of the better books I read this year.

>150 dchaikin: Hard call --they are both excellent and a little different from each other. Can't go wrong with the film though.

>151 Cariola: And Vintage Classics has other Isherwoods with similar art. Don't know what they were thinking with that decision.

Catching up - some interesting reads...

Entertaining to catch up with your thread.

>148 Nickelini: I think that is possibly Colin Firth's best role, although I haven't seen him as Darcy. The film led me to the book, and for one of only a few times, I preferred the film, although as you say, Isherwood does have a lot to say about the inevitable and says it well.

Intriguing title for your category challenge... off to check it out.

>155 SassyLassy: although I haven't seen him as Darcy

Shocking! You've never seen Pride & Prejudice? Bridget Jones's Diary? (x3) . . . I even count Love Actually as a Darcy role, although my justification is weak (I guess it's the guy goes above and beyond behind the scenes to win the girl story line). You have yourself some viewing to do!

>156 Nickelini: No cred at all in that department, having never seen any Bridget Jones, or even the Pride and Prejudice. I will confess though that last weekend, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by roads closed by snow, preparing for expected hordes this weekend, and what seemed like nothing ready, I rebelled and sat down in front of a blazing fire with Love Actually and felt great! Your Category thread has me contemplating a re watch of Shakespeare in Love in the next day or two, which should have the same effect.

>156 Nickelini:, >157 SassyLassy: I'm holding my annual Christmas viewing of 'Love Actually' tonight. Always a feel good movie. And with Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant, what's not to love?

Been thinking about 'Shakespeare in Love' lately, too, after a discussion with another LTer about a Shakespeare-based book I was listening to that irritated me so much that I returned it to audible. Stoppard does such a wonderful job of incorporating well-known lines into the script by comparison. I think McEwan did a pretty good job of that in Nutshell as well.

>157 SassyLassy:, >158 Cariola: I love me some Love Actually. We've watched it twice this year already (once was just in the background while painting our living room so I guess I should say I've listened twice and watched once). There are some very vocal Love Actually haters out there -- some of their points are valid but don't make me hate the movie, other of their points are so ridiculous. Yes, the movie isn't remotely realistic, and nothing works like that (office parties, school plays, airports, I could go on), but it's charming and delightful and hilarious.

Bridget Jones I is my comfort film and I've long forgotten how I didn't like it very much the first time I saw it (so different than how I pictured things in the book).

And I could watch Shakespeare in Love happily twice a year.

72. In the Winter Dark, Tim Winton, 1988


Cover comments: I love blue covers. I love covers with trees on them. I love when they do interesting things with the typeface. You guessed it -- I love this cover.

Comments: Loved the cover, the book itself, not so much.

In an isolated valley in south-western Australia live four people who pretty much stick to themselves. There is the elderly Stubbs couple, young pregnant and abandoned Ronnie, and an urban escapee named Murray Jaccob. One night the Stubbs small pet dog is mysteriously and horrifically decapitated, and then some of Ronnie's ducks and her goat are slaughtered. The four reluctantly band together to fight off what ever it is that is terrifying them. Being a literary sort of thriller, we soon suspect that the horror might be within.

There is a film of this novella that someone has posted on YouTube and I plan to watch it in the next week or so.

Rating: This one didn't really work for me and my initial thought is to give it two stars. There were things about it I liked, and I'll think about it. I have a feeling I might like it a bit better after some reflection.

Why I Read This Now: it was the darkest week of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere, so I thought the title was apt. I didn't find the book had either the "winter" or the "dark" atmosphere that I was expecting.

Recommended for: most readers liked this more than I did. If you need to like the characters in a book, or are bothered by descriptions of animal cruelty, don't read In the Winter Dark.

I also like this cover a lot:

>159 Nickelini: Yes, I heard all the squabbling about older men getting beautiful younger women. Doesn't make a scrap of difference to me, I still love the movie.

My other comfort movie is 'A Room with a View.'

>161 Cariola: Ah yes, me too. I can't convince anyone in my family to watch it with me though.

I'll join in the love for Love, Actually. I didn't like the Keira Knightly story but Colin and also the Prime Minister dancing around more than make up for it.

>163 RidgewayGirl: The Kiera Knightly story absolutely appalled me for years (I used to yell at the TV when she ran after him and kissed him), but I've become numb to it somehow.

73. Vancouver in the Seventies: Photos from a Decade That Changed the City, Kate Bird, 2016


Cover comments: Oh, yeah.

Rating: my first 5 star book this year.

Comments: I adore this book. My older daughter gave it to me for Christmas. When it was published a few months ago, I thought "I need that! . . . But I buy too many books, so later." and then I forgot about it. I was pretty excited to open it.

I guess I must talk about the 70s wistfully. I certainly didn't used to, but over time I've come to appreciate a lot of that decade. In 1970 I was 7, so this covers the part of my childhood and teen years that I best remember. Our collective memory seems to highlight more of what was wrong with the 70s -- low brow culture (Partridge Family, Charlie's Angels), horrible clothes (afros on white people, huge flare jeans, tie-die . . . while forgetting that it was the beginnings of Ralph Lauren, Halston and Calvin Klein), and horrible home decor (orange Formica counter-tops and avocado green appliances). But the 70s were so much more . . .

As this book shows. The author was the librarian for the Vancouver Sun, and built a story of the decade around 149 photos originally published in the newspaper, arranged by year. Vancouver saw some drastic changes in the 70s -- Granville Island, the Seabus, Pacific Centre, the Vancouver Aquarium, Robson Square, the revitalization of Gastown and Granville St, etc.

Before the mid-80s, no one from the rest of the world seemed to know that there was a city called Vancouver. So I was surprised at how many famous people visited during the 70s -- my favourite picture in this category is Tina Turner, who played the BC Institute of Technology dance in 1975. I also love the picture of five year old Justin Trudeau (at the time he was the prime minister's son). Apparently there were also a lot of protests and riots. I don't remember that part.

There is an excellent forward by a fellow Vancouverite who is my age -- Douglas Coupland (author of Generation X and many others)

The book is heavy on people and events, and not so much about the changing landscape.

Recommended for: People who like photo journalism, people who are interested in the history of Vancouver or the 70s.

Why I Read This Now: opened it on Christmas morning and started reading immediately.

>165 Nickelini: Nice review, Joyce!

>165 Nickelini: I must have that book! My first visits to Vancouver were in the 70s so that's the city I remember. We still laugh about the time we bought a coffee table in Gastown while we were on a camping trip in BC. To unload our camping equipment we had to remove the table first. We got many odd looks at every campsite when the first thing we took out was a fancy carved coffee table! My son, a fan of all things retro, still has the table.

>165 Nickelini: you're the only one, Joyce. No other copies on LT. I'll consider if, well, if I ever get to Vancouver.

>168 dchaikin: I know, and it's sort of odd, because according to Amazon.ca, it's a best seller. It certainly got some publicity when it was published. I suspect that because it's more of a coffee table book than anything, people who own it might not think to put it on LT.

>165 Nickelini: That's a great story.

>165 Nickelini: Love photojournalism, love Vancouver, so what a book to look for. I always remember my first trip to Vancouver. I had got on a plane in St Johns NL that June morning in the usual snow, stopped over in Halifax in rain, changed planes in Toronto in grey and finally arrived in Vancouver, some 7,000+ km later just at suppertime. The rhododendrons and azaleas were in full bloom, the sun was shining, people on bikes were everywhere, joggers (unheard of in NL at that time) were going straight up those hills, everyone looking fit, tanned, at least six inches taller than I was used to, and oh so healthy... it was paradise. And then, there were the food options. I truly felt I had arrived in another country, it was all so foreign.

>167 VivienneR: Good story about the table. I love the things people produce out of seemingly bottomless vehicles when arriving at their campsites. On another BC trip, we were following a school bus up from the Nanaimo ferry into Vancouver. The bus had been turned into a home and the entire back windows on three sides were displaying a huge library of books. The bus was making very slow progress.

Year End Reading Stats

Total books read: 73
Different authors: 72
New to me authors: 45

Author's Nationality

UK: 26 (36%)
Canada: 16 (22%)
Ireland: 3 (4%)
US: 16 (22%)
France: 1
South Africa: 1
Russia: 1
Australia: 3 (4%)
Nigeria: 1
Germany: 1
Italy - 1
Japan - 1
Unknown - 2
Mixed: 1

Author's Gender

Female: 44 (60%)
Male: 27 (37%)
Mixed: 2

Year First Published

1603
1790-1817
1928
1938 x 2
1947
1956
1962
1964
1967 **
1976
1977 x 2
1978
1983
1984
1985*
1988 x 2
1990
1991
1993
1994
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005 x 2
2006
2007 x 6
2008 x 2
2009 x 3
2010
2011 x 3
2012 x 3
2013 x 9
2014 x 5
2015 x 5
2016 x 7 (almost 10%)

*material in book was written in 1923 & 1935
** written 1930s

Travelling with Books (where these books took me)

Kent, Edwardian-era / Greenland, 2009 / Isle of Wight, late Victorian period / Ireland, 1950s / Molokai, Hawaii, 20th century / Sussex, 1860s / England, 1790 - 1817 / Paris, 1947 / Pittsburg, PA, 2008 / North America, 1950 - 2012 / Mumbai, 2008 / Vancouver, 2006 / Montreal, 2015 / England, 1810 / England, 1810 / England, 1760-1830 / WWII France & Germany / Toronto, 2013 / England, 1970s / South Africa, 1980s / Canada, 1970s / Fairyland / Moscow, 1930s / Canada, 1992 / East Anglia, 1959 / Sydney, 1950s / London, Las Vegas & Vancouver 2004 / London & Kent, 1937 / NW London, 2000s / Southern Ontario & Southern California, 2009 / Alberta, Vancouver, New York City & Los Angeles, 1990-2015 / London & Ireland, 1976 / East London, 1980s/ Obscure islands, 1600 - 2009 / Ireland 2007 / England, 1960s-1980s / London 1970s-2010s / Cyberspace 1984 / Steinbach, Manitoba 1940 - 1990 / Quebec 1940 & England 2000s / Australia 2015 / Scotland 2015 / Italy 1978 / England 1800s / England 2011 / London 2014 / London 2016 / London 2015 & 1995 / Vancouver & Toronto 1977 / Vancouver 1991 / Ireland mid-20th century / England 2010 / Venice & Cyprus 1600 / Vancouver 1940s-2016 / Western Japan 1930s / SoCal 1962 / SW Australia 1988 / Vancouver 1970s

Non-fiction Books: 20 (27%)

Notes on all of this

73 books is sort of a low to middle average for me. Much of this is as expected, but what is different in 2016 is:

- My relatively high proportion of UK authors reflects that that is the area that I both enjoy the most and where I feel most comfortable. Happy to continue with this even though I know it's not fashionable around some LT parts.

- Read almost 10% books published this year which is highly unusual for me. I usually wait until a ll the hub bub has died down before I decide whether or not a book is worth picking up.

- 20 non-fiction books feels low -- for sure 10 or 20 years ago the proportions would have been reversed.

New to me authors who I'll seek out eagerly

Madeleine St John
Zadie Smiith
David Mitchell
Charlotte Wood
Jen Sookfong Lee

Books I Remember Fondly - at the time I may not have rated these all highly, but in my memory I enjoyed them and any faults I saw then are forgotten or forgiven.

Sanditon and Other Stories, Jane Austen
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
NW, Zadie Smith
A Single Man, Christopher Usherwood
Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood
Bridget Jones's Baby, Helen Fielding
Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man, Siegfried Sassoon
Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor
The Conjoined, Jen Sookfong Lee
Fifth Child, Doris Lessing
Slade House, David Mitchell

Non-fiction:

very favourites: Through the Keyhole, Susan C Law and Vancouver in the 70s, Kate Bird

Among the Janeites
Jane Austen Cover to Cover
Eminent Hipsters, Donald Fagan
Swing Low: a Life, Miriam Toews
But Can I Start a Sentence With "But", Chicago Manual of Style

Most Disliked

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr*
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo*
If You Want to Write

Did not finish:

Grapes of Wrath, the John Steinbeck classic. Loved the narrator, but couldn't handle the dialogue or the plot.

* Read these for book club. Didn't expect to like them, but my bookclub has surprised me before, so I tried. No one was very fond of the Beautiful Forevers, most but not all adored All Those Lights We're Not Seeing.

-

I will start a thread on the 2017 group this week. Please join me there.

Wonderful to see your book thoughts from 2016. For sure will look for your 2017 thread! All the best reading.

I just put Swing Low on hold at the library. I thought All My Puny Sorrows was amazing. I agree, I was not a fan of All the Light We Cannot See and felt like a bit of a lone wolk at the time when there was so much fuss about it.