Prop2gether's 2008 List

Okay, since last year I managed to read an average of 2 books a week, but this year I'm also trying to do more of other activities, I want to see if I can make the number 75. Between the book club at work, reading books upon which movies I've seen were based, favorite writers of serial novels or mysteries, here is my list so far this year:

The Terror by Dan Simmons
Sure of You by Armistead Maupin
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
Kill Me by Stephen White
The Museum of Dr. Moses by Joyce Carol Oates
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier
Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Railroad Detective by Edward Marston
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis
Band of Angels by Robert Penn Warren
The Excursion Train by Edward Marston
The Queen's Head by Edward Marston
The Merry Devils by Edward Marston
The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates
The Trip to Jerusalem by Edward Marston
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Girl at the Lion D'Or by Sebastian Faulks
Before the Fact by Francis Ilse (aka Anthony Berkeley)
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
The Nine Giants by Edward Marston
The Mad Courtesan by Edward Marston
The Silent Woman by Edward Marston
Tomorrow Happens by David Brin
The Laughing Hangman by Edward Marston

A total of 30 so far, but currently reading Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith on the train and My Cousin Rachel at home.

Welcome to the group,

See you read Band of Angels by Robert penn Warren. I thoroughly enjoyed All the king's Men and wondered if you've read that, and if so, how does it compare to your read of Band of Angels? Or, if not, just a few thoughts about Band of Angels.

I've read All The King's Men, and Band of Angels is a lesser book in style and form. I read it because I had watched the movie with Clark Gable, Sidney Poiter and Yvonne de Carlo and wanted to know how much was chopped to write the script. The answer is quite a bit more than was usual, even at that time. This novel is largely forgotten, but it was worth my time. The book has a particularly searing account of the slave trade, especially in Africa pre-Civil War. Gable's speech is powerful, but nothing compared to the character's tale in the novel.

Thanks for the synopsis. I'll have to add this to my list of books to look for.....I loved Warren's writing.

So, now I have to numbers 31 through 35:

Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
Heartfelt Gifts to Knit or Crochet by Vanna White (yes, THAT Vanna White)
The Wolves of Savernake by Edward Marston

As you can see, I'm on track with the No. 1 Ladies Detective Club, but that's because book 7 is on our group list for this month and I want to catch up. Still reading My Cousin Rachel by du Maurier and Earth by David Brin at home.

And now to add numbers 36 through 39:

The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars by Steven Brust

The last two are part of the Fairy Tale series which I've decided to read in full. I read Snow White and Rose Red years ago, and when I added it to my LT list, discovered all the others in the series. Since these are "old" stories retold, they are quite fun to read.

I haven't added the other two knitting books which I have read yet. They're kind of like dictionaries and cookbooks--fun to read if you're a fan, but deadly for most people to pick up for more than a reference.

Well, I missed one book in my list between numbers 28 and 29. So I add here as number 40:

The Roaring Boy by Edward Marston

Plus numbers 41 through 44:

The Ravens of Blackwater by Edward Marston
The Dragons of Archenfeld by Edward Marston
The Lions of the North by Edward Marston
The Serpents of Harbledown by Edward Marston

Obviously not only am I completing the Domesday series of mysteries by Marston, I am still reading du Maurier, Brin, and C. S. Lewis this week.

Are you reading the rest of the science fiction by CS Lewis? They've been on my tbr pile, but haven't read them yet.

Also I see you've read Kill Me by Stephen White. He's one of my favorite psychological crime writers, but I haven't read that one yet.

Welcome, prop2gether! How did you like The Gravedigger's Daughter? I do so love Oates and Butler!

btw, I read the Lewis SF trilogy ages ago but I thought it not terribly good SF and too allegorical for my tastes.

I'm within 15 pages of finishing Perelandra and have the third at home. I enjoyed the first (Out of the Silent Planet) which was, strictly speaking, more science fiction than allegory/sermon. Perelandra is pure allegory: Gabriel in the Garden of Eden trying to figure out how to save Adam and Eve. I've found it way too intense for this type of story. That said, I've read other allegories by Lewis and enjoyed them. The Narnia stories I considered good fun when I read them years ago and not too heavy on the religion. This trilogy is bogging me down at the moment. Maybe the third book will redeem the series.

I read Kill Me at the suggestion of a work buddy who shares books with me. It was pretty good, but for this type of fiction, my absolute favorite writer is Minette Walters.

The Gravedigger's Daughter was one of our work book club selections and recommended by a Joyce Carol Oates fan. She absolutely loved it and I enjoyed it. I did, however, find it about 150 pages too long for my interest. I think she needed one more editing session to make it tighter. But, as I said, my friend loved it, and if you are an Oates fan, you will probably share that enthusiasm. I love Octavia Butler's work, having only been really reading it for about a year. I'm into science fiction, but usually not the authors (and many are women) who are into the fantasy/white knight end of the genre. So I'm late in appreciating Butler's work. And we are in agreement about the Lewis trilogy. Frankly, Perelandra is driving me nuts.

Yes, I've read The Gravedigger's Daughter and enjoyed it very much; just wanted to see what you thought.

My comments on the Lewis SF trilogy are rather general and just that impression remains of something read literally decades ago. I have read quite a bit of his other stuff, again ages ago, some very allegorical, some not (and some not even fiction:-) He would not appeal to me now.

Okay, I now have numbers 45 and 46:

The Fair Maid of Bohemia by Edward Marston
Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

While obviously I'm working at completing some mystery series (Alexander McCall Smith and Edward Marston), I'm enjoying them because they are fast reads, designed to entertain and that's it. No great thoughts.

I started the Lewis science fiction trilogy after reading laudatory reviews on the reissued books at my local book store. The first, Out of the Silent Planet, was interesting and only slightly proselytizing for Lewis's faith. Perelandra made me nuts! It's not hard to follow that Ransom (and, yes, the name is important) is out to rescue Perelandra's (aka the planet Venus) "Eve" from seduction from Un-man. The world is a wonderful, non-threatening environment, and Eve is not aware of evil. Duh. Ransom literally fights with Un-man on several occasions, follows him to the underworld, kills him (several times), gets bitten by him, and then finds he is the savior going home to Earth. The entire last chapter read like an order of worship, complete with choral repeats. I'm hoping Lewis got back on track with the third book, which I have waiting at home to start.

In the meantime, I'm going to cleanse my palate, as it were, with some No. 1 Ladies Detective stories, and David Brin's Earth.

Enjoyed your comments over on my thread and responded to a few of them. I haven't read much of the Lewis sci-fi but I am intrigued now that you' ve made some comments here. I greatly enjoyed the Narnia series and i have also enjoyed some of his other more theological writings. I will have to look these up at the bookstore and peruse them.

Just marched right over number 50 this morning:

47 The Wanton Angel by Edward Marston
48 Shopgirl by Steve Martin
49 Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith
50 The Stallions of Woodstock by Edward Marston

The Wanton Angel is the next in order of the Nick Bracewell/Elizabethan mystery series by Marston, while The Stallions of Woodstock is the next in order in Marston's Domesday series. Being a huge theatre and Shakespeare fan, I find fiction set in Elizabethan times either to be quite fun or very irritating because there's no or very sloppy background research done. Marston's series, both set in documented English historical eras, are very entertaining and I am enjoying them quite a bit.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Club is just plain fun. Blue Shoes and Happiness was last month's co-selection for the book club at my office, but I wanted to read the series in order, and just got to this one. Again, just a fun read.

I picked up Shopgirl after seeing several comments on LT. The movie left me indifferent, but I found the book more interesting, but in character study and writing.

Now--on to Longitude by Dava Sobel.

So numbers 51 through 53:

Longitude by Dava Sobel
A Modest Proposal .... by Jonathan Swift
The Hawks of Delamere by Edward Marston

I watched the A&E presentation of Longitude and was fascinated by it, so, of course, sought out the book it was based on--and liked it very much. It's really not much more than an extended magazine article (which was the first publication) but now I understand why longitude is calculated in hours, minutes and seconds. It's a fascinating bit of history about a remarkable man and his inventions.

The Hawks of Delamere is the next in order for the Domesday mystery series by Marston, and I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It had the Welsh and the Normans and the Saxons all at each other, but it was well done and another one down in the series.

I was checking out other LT groups, found the 1001 Books group, with the inimitable Excel chart prepared by Arukiyomi. I don't agree with many of the 20th or 19th century selections, but was really curious about the earlier ones, as an English Literature major (with a solid minor in History). So I've decided to read the list from the beginning of the choices, starting with some short books/novellas.

Thus, I started with a short satire by Jonathan Swift--A Modest Proposal (and the title is nearly longer than the document) downloaded from the Gutenberg Project. Until I hit the proposal itself, I forgot about Swift's being a satirist, and then I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. It's quite a piece of art, in intent and style, and I highly recommend it. So one more on the 1001 Books You Must Read as well for this year.

And so to continue my recitation thus far:

Numbers 54 through 56:

The Devil's Apprentice by Edward Marston
Oroonoko; or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

The first is next in the Nick Bracewell series by Marston, and just for fun.

The second and third were taken from the 1001 Must Read lists. Oroonoko was interesting for its style and historical value: a novel about the Americas (more or less) by a woman several centuries back, and the last a recent novel by Trevor. This one was absolutely fabulous and I highly recommend it. Questions? I'll be happy to tell you why.

I read Lucy Gault back in January and loved it! It is still my #1 for 2008 so far. I think I should read another of Trevor's very soon...

#5 are you still persevering with My Cousin Rachel? I have to admit it is one of my favourite du Maurier novels, and wondered if you were finding it hard-going for any reason? Not that you need to finish it to keep on track for 75 this year!

I absolutely loved this book! The story, the writing, the characters--all of it. Trevor's got quite a few on the library shelves and I'm going back to find another one soon myself. Just for the pleasure of his writing.

Yes and no. I've actually read My Cousin Rachel many years ago, but do like du Maurier's writing. Rebecca is an easier read, I think, because My Cousin Rachel seems more textured, more layered, and it is certainly a bit longer. It doesn't always work a straight thread through the storyline which Rebecca does, so yes, it is a bit harder going. I'm just taking my time with it, and reading some serial mysteries and stuff in between chapters.

Okay. I kind of hoped to hit the number 60 in June, but I came really close. Here are numbers 57 through 59:

The Princess of Cleves by Mme de Lafayette
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
The Wildcats of Exeter by Edward Marston

The first two are from the end of the 1001 Books You Must Read. Since the purported goal of that list is show the development of the novel, and because I really was an English Lit major and had read many other "classics," including some in Old and Middle English, I figured I'd try to find out what I missed, according to these experts. Many of these early works are shorter than 100 pages, but, as my daughter learned with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, brevity is not necessarily easier reading.

Happily, The Princess of Cleves was delightful. It's not a happily ever after story, but it's good story telling and the writing is good. Supposedly, it is the first time that a marriage/love story is based on the parties being in love and not just pawns in a marriage game. It is also French in origin, based in a historical royal court that may or may not be based on a court of the period of the author. There are a lot of suppositions about the novel itself, but they did not detract from the ability of the writer to tell the story. I really did enjoy this early novel.

The Postman Always Ring Twice is a classic on many fronts: it was a first in crime novels, in its fast paced action and dialogue; it got banned for the explicit sexuality; it's had several films (one fabulous--go for John Garfield and Lana Turner; one middling--ignore the Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange version), an opera, and some foreign versions made; and it's just darn good. I was amazed at how fast it read and how caught up in the story I was--despite knowing exactly how it would end. Incidentally, the title line is not in the book. There are a lot of interpretations, about this fact including several by Cain, but the book was simply a great read.

So the 1001 Must Read list scored on two last week.

The Wildcats of Exeter is the latest in the Domesday series by Edward Marston, and I'm just having a whale of a time following Ralph, Gervase, Golde, and their entourage around Britain settling land disputes.

So now I'm attempting Grimus by Salman Rushdie (the shortest of his several titles on the 1001 list); The Nightingale by Dalkey in the Fairy Tale Series; The Foxes of Warwick (yes! I'm still with the Domesday troupe); The Midwich Cuckoos by Wyndham (another from the 1001 Books list, plus another great horror film! called Children of the Damned). On the back burner this week are My Cousin Rachel by du Maurier and Earth by David Brin. I love David's short stories and a select few of his novels, but this is my upteenth start at this novel. I'm not sure if it's because it was so lauded by the science fiction community, or what. I mean to finish it this time.

Well, I've been digging around used book shops for awhile now looking for a used copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice and you now have me excited. Your description makes the book sound great. It's on my wish list because I am doing something similar to the 1001 books deal. I found a few different 100 best novels list and have been collecting and reading off of those lists for a few years now. It's been great fun, exposing myself to writers and novels I probably would never have picked up otherwise.

Okay, numbers 60 through 62:

The Foxes of Exeter by Edward Marston
The Wonderful O by James Thurber
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

The first is the next installment in the Domesday series. It was slower than the last couple, but I still enjoy the series.

The Thurber and Wyndham books are from the 1001 list. OMG! They are fabulous. Thurber's story, as is all of his stuff, a light-hearted romp through an "adult" story. Pirates are seeking treasure, and one of them hates the letter "O" and works on eliminating it from every aspect of life on an island where the treasure is supposedly hidden. It's readable in one sitting, about 79 pages or so, but it's just an absolute delight.

I've not read Wyndham's books, although I've certainly seen movies derived from his works (think Day of the Triffids). The movie made from this one, Village of the Damned, scared the willies out of me when I first saw it. True horror without the slasher or blood and guts. The book is even more terrifying in many respects, even though it's something of a period piece because of the discussions about the Russians. This is a masterpiece of suspense--right up to several plot twists in the last 20 pages.

Again, two for the 1001.

And to continue numbers 63 through 66:

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
The Nightingale by Kara Dalkey
White as Snow by Tanith Lee

Again, the first two are from the 1001 Must Read list, with Black Water by a modern writer and Castle Rackrent by a writer who is historically much farther down the list.

I enjoyed Black Water much more than I thought I might. Younger readers might not recognize the connections to Chappaquiddick Island many years ago, but the connection is really only in the spine of the story. The narrator is the young girl smitten with the idea of the Senator and power and all that goes with the title and station. She is effectively narrating her life through her death, and it made for very compelling reading.

Castle Rackrent is identified as the first novel with a narrator who is not totally reliable (i.e., having his own interests or shortsidedness involved in the story). Parts were fun, part were tedious, but it is short, ends with a moral lesson and a full set of endnotes by the author explaining terms in the text. It was short which was a huge benefit, because I wanted to strangle the narrator at times. Oh well--that's why there are classics around--so we can debate their relative merits.

So--one up and one down for the 1001.

The Nightingale and White as Snow are part the Fairy Tale series of rewritten fairy tales. I thoroughly enjoyed Snow White and Rose Red years ago, and recently I enjoyed Briar Rose very much. These two fall somewhere between those original reads and Steven Brust's The Sun, The Moon, And The Stars earlier this year. The Nightingale was a long to start moving, but I enjoyed the story in its inverted Japanese (as opposed to Chinese in Anderson's version) setting. Tanith Lee is a harder take, however, and while I have seen a much darker version of the Snow White story (the original is dark enough, thank you!) in a film version featuring Sigourney Weaver, this version was vaguely unsatisfying. Oh well, the series is mostly entertaining, and I will try to complete it, if for no other reason than to say that I've read modern adult versions of fairy tales which were originally for adults.

Day of the Triffids beckons, as do several mysteries.

And 67 through 69:

Murder on the Lusitania by Conrad Allen
Murder on the Mauretania by Conrad Allen
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

The first two are another series by Edward Marston under an alias. They were cute, but not as entertaining for me as the Doomsday series or the Nick Bracewell Elizabethan series. I copped to the villaims shortly after they were introduced, and so the plot interfered with getting to the resolution.

The Killer Inside Me is another 1001 Must Read winner! A noir first-person narrative, it is clean and fast and fascinating.

The Killer Inside Me sounds cool. You are attracting me towards the 1001 Must Read List. Curses, another list to start.

Add 70 through 72, all from the 1001 Must Read:

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

First, going back to The Killer Inside Me--it was a chilling read from start to finish as the narrator works his way through his life to the book's end. Similar in some respects to Mr. Brooks, if you saw the movie, but obviously, this is the original and it was quite a ride.

Same with Casino Royale once I got past the instructions on baccarat (which may be fascinating to some, but wasn't for me--I'll never have the opportunity to use the lesson) and I really did enjoy reading about 007's adventures.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham was great fun--a terrific science fiction story by a master of the genre. Highly recommended.

And then there's Less Than Zero by Ellis. It's on the 1001 Must Read list. Beats the hell out me why. Supposedly it's comparable to Catcher in the Rye and I suppose the narrative nature of the book is the reason why. And it supposedly gives a picture of a generation in Southern California that was idle, rich, and heavily into drugs. It's disjointed, vulgar (and I've read some books which were full of vulgar language but well worth the reading), and, ultimately, had no redeeming features for me.

I've been slow on the reading for the past two weeks because my father passed away, but now that I'm back home and commuting--the reading's back on schedule. And I'm almost at the magic number of 75!

Sorry to hear about your father. My sympathies...

Casino Royale is my second favorite Bond after On Her Majesty's Secret Service, so I'm glad you liked it! I just finished reading pretty much the whole series, and it's interesting to see how Bond changes as the series progresses. Are you going to read more of them?

I echo drneutron's sympathies.
Naturally, we all grieve differently. A few years ago when my grandmother died, I found it took a long time until I could concentrate on reading a book. Short stories were about all I could read for some time.

However, as a child, I read as a way to cope with grief and spent hours and hours tucked away in quiet at my local library.

Take good care of yourself.

I am sorry for your loss. I wish there was something better or more comforting to say. I have to agree with Whisper1, I had a hard time reading when I lost my father. But, since losing him, I have read some of his favorite stories and feel more connected to him and his life.

Thanks to you all for your messages. I've always been a reader, since I was stuck in bed for the entire second grade with a serious illness. Not being able to do so while visiting with my kin for the funeral was actually a setback for me, but I find that getting back into shorter novels is helping. The longer ones are too distracting at the moment.

And I discovered I read two books prior to my leaving the country which I need to add to me "read" list, plus I finished a Ladies No. 1 Detective Club. So numbers 73 through 75:

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith

The first two are again from the 1001 Must Read list (and I recently discovered that this is the ORIGINAL list I'm using, not the revised list); the last is the latest read in a well-known detective series.

The 13 Clocks is a Thurber fable about a princess, a prince, a puzzle to be solved, and great obstacles to be overcome. It is also funny, fun, and deliciously Thurber.

Having read The Alchemist by Coelho, I was expecting Veronika Decides to Die to be of a similar fablesque story in the telling. It's a very interesting tale of a young woman who decides to kill herself because she can find no meaning in life and ends up in a mental hospital. She is then told her recovery is limited and that her life is therefore of limited duration. What evolves from that simple premise is very intriguing, especially because Coelho incorporates at the beginning and the end some personal data about his own life and being involuntarily hospitalized. I enjoyed this novel immensely.

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive is the next to read in the series (for me), and I enjoyed this one as well. There are more complications in Mma Ramotswe's life and business, but all gently and happily resolved.

I started Scott Smith's The Ruins on the plane and will probably finish it about the time I get through Tam Lin (in the Fairy Tale series) and Galileo's Daughter, a biography partly told through the letters of his eldest daughter.

Incidentally, while in London, I did have an opportunity to visit the Greenwich Observatory and see the Harrison clocks on display (the subject of Longitude, which I read earlier this year). They were as fascinating in real life as they were in the book.

And before this month ends, add numbers 76 through 78, all one-act plays which my son was reading through for his directorial debut next spring:

Cinderella Wore Combat Boots by Jerry Chase
He Done Her Wrong or Wedded But No Bride by Anita Bell
Defying Gravity by Jane Anderson

The first was a 60's play written for presentation mostly "off the streets" to school age children. It's apparently popular in high schools and there are a couple of YouTube videos available of those productions.

The second is a classic meller-drama with the hissing villain, the doomed heroine, the stalwart hero, and all that chaos.

The third was written after the Challenger disaster and is an interesting "take" on the event, specifically through a daughter's eyes and also those of a NASA tech. Interestingly, Philip Seymour Hoffman was the tech in the first presentation.

Hi Prop2gether.
I'm simply checking in with you to see how you are doing. Grief can kick you in the stomach sometimes. I hope you are taking real good care of yourself.
Linda

Thanks for the kind thoughts. Mostly I get "kicked in the stomach" at home or on the phone with my family, and so far, I'm doing fine. I'm watching no-brainer films from my film library (nearly 1300 DVDs and videos--I get no television because I refuse to pay cable/satellite fees) or reading, reading, reading on the transit system to and from work.

Thanks very much.

Okay, I ended July truckin' my way through numbers 79 through 81:

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Kaffe Knits Again by Kaffe Fassett
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

The Kaffe Knits was a joy to look at--such glorious designs, but on reading the instructions and needle sizes, crossing my eyes at the charts to follow--It will remain just that: a beautiful book of projects that I will never attempt.

Score two more for the 1001 Must Read list with The Castle of Otranto and The Vicar of Wakefield! Otranto is considered the first "gothic" novel and it lacks nothing in its barely 150 pages: castle, ghosts, maidens in distress, mothers ready to surrender everything for their daughters, villains, swordplay, and yes, even pirates along the way. Because it was one of the first to incorporate all these elements, it would be interesting. However, it is also very similar in many respects to modern romance novels in its telling. Great fun.

The Vicar of Wakefield has been on every classics list I've ever had, and I've avoided it for years, probably because of the title includes "vicar." Turns out I was only cheating myself of a delightfully told story of a family as narrated by the father/vicar. There are sermons and lectures to be sure because of the character, but is Walpole satirizing his current day or merely telling a romantic story with a happy ending? Who cares--I was very pleased with this one.

Okay this weekend I decided to work on finishing a short list I've compiled of 1001 Must Reads plus some series books, all before mid-month. So three down (which, to be perfectly honest, I've been reading steadily from for several weeks), all because my book club has chosen two books for this month which I should read. This weekend's books are:

Numbers 82 through 84:

Homo Faber by Max Frisch
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean

Homo Faber is another from the 1001 Must Read. It was good, a man who is machinist-oriented living out and narrating circumstances which are truly serendipitous: he's on a business trip and doesn't like his seat mate, so he tries to miss the connecting flight, then discovers the man is brother to a long-lost friend, and delays the business portion of his trip to join the man in a hunt through the Mayan jungle to a plantation to locate the brother. After a baffling turn of events for the narrator, he continues his business trip to South America, finds he's early, decides to return to Europe by boat, and meets a delightful twenty-something on board. There are events which follow that are personal and evocative, and I was caught up in the story. I do recommend it, but be prepared for backward and forward narrative outside of the storyline. It doesn't change the story, which I suppose is the author's rationale for using the structure, but it certainly sways feelings for and about the narrator.

The Ruins is Scott Smith's latest book, after A Simple Plan. I loved the narrative of A Simple Plan, and hoped this would be as chilling in its narrative. I found the language bloated, and the storyline totally predictable, but Smith can tell a good yarn. I just wish there had been some judicious editing around the middle of the book. Essentially, four friends on vacation in Mexico meet up with other travelers (a German whose brother has taken off with a stranger and three Greeks who don't speak English, Spanish, or German). Searching for the missing brother in the Mayan jungle, the friends plus the German plus one of the Greeks endure lots of scares and bad accidents in trying to make it out of the jungle. Stephen King gives this book accolades on the cover blurb, but I found it overwritten.

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean is the latest I've read in the Fairy Tale Series. It's based, not on a fairy tale precisely, but a Scottish ballad wherein the girl saves the guy (remember the quote in Sabrina? Quite similar instance here.) Dean has replaced the story in a small midwestern college and follows a group of freshmen through four years until the climax where the heroine must save the young man who will be sacrificed by the Fairy Queen. It was an interesting tale, but it took me a while to get comfortable with all the people and personalities involved, especially since there are secondary and tertiary characters who are highly relevant to the story, but not always easy to remember when they pop into the story again. I did enjoy it, and Dean includes the ballad in its entirety to read.

Ah, so here I am for numbers 85 through 87:

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Fitcher's Brides by Gregory Frost

I managed to get through an intensive English Lit degree course without ever having to read Samuel Johnson. This novel is from the 1001 Must Read, and, once again, a hit for me! Whatever did I think about avoiding this man's writing? I think the Boswell connection is to blame--the whole following the great man around idea just irritated me. No matter, this was a lovely tale of a young man (and his sister who blunders into the escape) trying to find out what the perfect life would be for someone whose life was not as perfect as their own. There's great philosophy hidden as discussions between characters and some elegant plotting which is sometimes missing in longer novels of the period.

I've read Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, The Mousetrap, some of the Miss Marples, and Ten Little Indians several times. I again managed to avoid reading about Hercule Poirot by seeing his screen incarnations. But my parents live in the building that David Suchet did in London, and this mystery's on the 1001 Must Read. I really enjoyed this one, especially the twist which did catch me flat-footed. That darned list is getting me into some great reads!

Fitcher's Brides by Gregory Frost is my latest reading from the Fairy Tales Collection, and I loved this book, almost as much as Snow White and Rose Red and Briar Rose. The two in the series which I read between (The Nightingale and White as Snow) were not as entertaining. Frost sets this Bluebeard story in pre-Civil War period, with the three sisters of the classic story as the brides. They join their father and stepmother in following a religious leader who has named the day of the end of the world. Curiously enough, his wives keep disappearing or running away with no trace, but no one in the "cult" recognizes this similarity as anything sinister because they will all be saved on the last day. What a great read this was!

Fitcher's Brides sounds really good - just put it on the wishlist.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I had originally planned to read this just after White as Snow, but it didn't take. When I returned three weeks later, it was an immediate "grab" and I read it in less than three days.

Here are 88 through 90:

Murder on the Minnesota by Conrad Allen
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
The End of the Road by John Barth

Allen's (aka Edward Marston) next in series of shipboard mysteries featuring a team of detectives, one male and one female. This adventure was more fun that the last one I read in the series, so I will probably go on to the next one. This is just fun reading for me.

The next two are from the 1001 Must Read list, and I thoroughly enjoyed both.

I picked up Journey to the Center of the Earth because (a) I really enjoyed the new film version, and (b) it was a short read on the list. What a hoot! I've read Wells and found his prose often very turgid, even in stories I've enjoyed. Not so here! What I've missed all these years by avoiding actually reading Jules Verne. It's fast paced, it's full of action and factual information (and both the author in the original edition and the translator in this edition explained things that were not quite factual), it's got love, adventure maps, hidden messages--the whole nine yards. I loved this book and am positively looking forward to reading another. By the bye, I read the Barnes and Noble Classics edition, so this is the translation I'm recommending.

The End of the Road by John Garth was also a surprise. I've heard of Giles Goat Boy, but never read it, and again picked this one because of length (less than 200 pages). It was not a disappointment. For the first hundred pages or so, it's a rather rollicking romp through one young man's life. Found in a paralytic state in a station by a doctor, he accepts treatment which includes starting a job teaching grammar at a local college. He meets a fellow professor and his wife, and the story switches tracks slightly. There are long, highly entertaining, philosophical discussions, mostly about the nature of honesty in relationships. The story takes a serious turn about half-way through, and I was so involved with the characters, it seemed natural. Highly recommended.

And two more winners from the 1001 Must Read list.

And numbers 91 through 94 (I had a day sitting in a jury assembly room for hours with no television, so guess what I did!):

AntiCraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister by Renee Rigdon
The Bawdy Basket by Edward Marston
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan

Anticraft is all about "sinister" knitting, as in skulls, crossbones, fishnet stockings and gloves, and fun or funky fashions. Better yet, it has two fabulous recipes buried in the text! Another book of patterns I won't work on, but it was fun to read.

The Bawdy Basket is the latest (for me) in the Elizabethan mystery series featuring Nick Bracewell. This one was similar to the rest, but I enjoy the time period and the writing, so it's a recommendation from me.

Around the World in Eighty Days--yet another Verne because I neglected reading him in school. Fun, fabulous pace, and another one that makes you wonder why filmmakers so often feel the need to "improve" on a story that needs no such help.

Okay, I'm just not sure how to deal with Willard and His Bowling Trophies. I haven't read Brautigan before, so maybe this is just his style. The novella (it's not much more) intertwines three stories so that the end of the story for all three is one night in San Francisco. It's weirdly fascinating, however, and I found myself just plowing through it because the characters seemed to demand the attention. Except maybe the Logan sisters.

The last two, Verne and Brautigan--again from the 1001 Must Read list.

Sounds like the Nick Bracewell mystery series is one that I would enjoy. I will check and see if my local library has any of them.

As for Jules Verne, his books are all fun at least to me. I think I have read them all (and mostly as an adult, not as a kid). I hope you enjoy them!

Hi Prop2gether

I liked your comment re. Jules Verne. I haven't read any of his books and your posting prompts me to do so.

The Nick Bracewell series is a great deal of fun for me, as a theatre and especially Elizabethan theatre, fan. The mysteries are fairly straightforward, but the characters evolve through the series and it's been a delight moving with them. Thus, I strongly recommend reading them in order.

And Verne! I'm in love with another older author! Really, if I had read him, I would have recommended his books when my son was not going to read anything he didn't have to. Thank goodness Harry Potter re-introduced him to the written word, but I could have offered him Verne earlier.

And now, on to numbers 95 though 100:

The Cool Girl's Guide to Knitting by Nicki Trench
Simple 1-2-3 Knitting by Jean Lampe
The Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters
The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

The first two are obviously knitting books, but I laughed out loud at the "20 Mistakes Every Knitter Should Make" in Cool Girl's Guide and will definitely be making a gift of this book.

I am a huge Minette Walters fan and only once have I not been as caught up in her stories as the first time I picked up The Ice House (and that was Fox Evil, for the record). This murder mystery, set in London, having a PTSD ex-soldier, injured in the Iraqi war, as its protagonist, is another great tale, and very worthy of the praise heaped on it.

Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan was just reflexive reading after Willard and His Bowling Trophies. I wanted to make sure I was actually seeing what was written on the pages. I was, and this classic is fun--another of those I've skipped over the years.

The Devil and Miss Prym and Crome Yellow are another two from the 1001 Must Read list--and wow! I have to get away from this list occasionally. I like Coelho's writting more and more--it's gentle and fable-like qualities remind me a bit of Thurber, but the core of this story is much more The Devil and Daniel Webster.

Crome Yellow is very early Huxley, a story of manners as a group of young people gather for a weekend at Crome Yellow, the home of their host. The interaction between the characters was typical of the style of the novel, but I was fascinated with two other sections of the novel. In one, the host reads from his history of the house and the story was intriguing to follow. In the other, one of the guests offers a solution to the world's ills which is a strong foreshadowing of Brave New World.

So now, I'm on to Hammett and Wolfe.

Prop2gether - my local library had exactly 1 book by Marston, so I am going to have to look further afield. I am going to check the local bookstores and if that does not work, I will check online. It really does sound like a series I would enjoy, and following your advice, I will try and find them in order. The only one my library had was The Queen's Head, which I think was the first in the series, so I can at least start on them.

alcottacre--I feel your pain. After introducing me to Marston's Inspector Colbert (the train detective in another series), neither of my local library systems has any of the rest of the series. I recently discovered a link for California libraries, so that's my next option. You can list a book by author, title, ISBN, and the website will tell you which libraries have the book. What a find!

So I have 101 through 103 here:

The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Old School by Tobias Wolff

The first two--again from the 1001 Must Read. Although I suspect diehard mystery fans always read Hammett in any case, this is the second one I've read. The narrator/protagonist is not a detective, or a P.I., but the aide to a politico, and he is investigating the murder which can affect an election. It was fascinating for all the characters--and I got caught by at least one red herring!

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was a fabulous play, and, of course, film with Maggie Smith in the title role. The book is better--deeper and you get to learn what happened to the Brodie girls. It's told in mixed forward/backward views, and I really enjoyed it.

Old School is one of two books for this month's book club. I enjoyed the book until the last chapter where I felt like Wolff was trying to wrap too much up. I still recommend it for some great reading about writers and style.

Your first two there are fairly recent reads for me. Hammet because he is the mold, in many ways, for much of our detective fiction these days. His was so much more orginial and gritty, though. I have an omnibus edition which I read right through without stopping because it was so juicy!!

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was a read for a 100 best list and one I would not have othersie picked up. I found it very good. I was surprised by her psychological precision in fashioning the characters and their motives.

blackdogbooks--I really did enjoy The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie much more than I thought I would, considering how well-known the play has become. The novel was deeper.

And here are numbers 104 through 108, all from the 1001 Must Read List:

Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd
Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

Blood and Guts is literally a book that is hard to define in words. Ostensibly a diary of a girl, it covers about four years of her life, from the time she discovers that her dad (who she has been having sex with) has a new girlfriend and so she runs away to New York. There she's sold into white slavery, learns the trade, ends up in the Middle East (or thereabouts) and meets up with Jean Genet, who abuses her, and then she ends up with cancer. In between, there are hand-drawn pictures, dream maps, retold classics (The Scarlet Letter in wildly interpreted), a purported affair with Jimmy Carter, and lots more. It's a gut-wrenching read, but there were sections that were absolutely mesmerizing.

Hawksmoor is a mystery, told in two centuries, centered around six churches in central London. The architect who writes in the English of his time (around late 1700's-1800's) and a modern detective are involved in the crimes and solving of the crimes. Much of the style of the book was more easily understood after I read that Hawksmoor (the name of the detective) was, in real life, the name of the architect of those churches in real life. There's an interesting close to the story which involves the two characters together.

Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel that has stayed with me. Set in a Latin country on a frontier outpost, a magistrate who has been in place for nearly thirty years, has to deal with government soldiers who come in to finish off the "barbarians" who live in the wilderness outside the settlement. There's the obvious question about who is the barbarian here, but beyond that, the story was very persuasive in pulling you into the life of the magistrate and the consequences of the storyline.

And Hammett was just sensational.

Now--a three-day weekend to read and watch some really bad movies!

"...and watch some really bad movies!
LOL!!! May I recommend the Lifetime Movie Network? :)

Alas, I've never read the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie but I have a long weekend wherein I hope to read at least three books and I've added this to the top of the pile.

Thanks to you and blackdogbooks for the comments which prompt me to read this one.

Thanks for the movie post--but I don't have cable or satellite television--just one or two local stations plus my library of films and Netflix. I just refused to pay the outrageous fees for the other services and found I could get along just fine without them. A friend is bringing over her collection of movies with Ice-T in them (go figure) but I have plenty to add to the mix--seen Lake Placid or Anaconda(s), anyone?

Enjoy The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It was a great read.

#53 - I'm like you - I gave up Cable and gave up Zip (which is renting DVDs thru the mail) as well. Does your local library system have movies/docs? I find there is enough there to keep me happy and it's free.

I agree with dihiba...I check out movies from my local library free of cost.

Some examples I've had from my library lately: The Remains of the Day, Elizabeth (About Eliz I, presented by David Starkey); Foyle's War Series I; Majesty at Work (recent series on the House of Windsor at work - fascinating - the Queen works harder than most of her subjects, I would guess); and just about all the Colin Dexter Inspector Morse series. I will soon have a Rosamunde Pilcher adaptation and a Margery Allingham Campion mystery series to watch.

Yes, I do use my local library--but lately, my checkout list is full of books. What a shock! Netflix is relatively cheap (and much cheaper than cable around me) and has some more variety, but the library has VHS tapes which I also watch. I've found many of the British productions of classics there (the many miniseries which were filmed in the 1980s are mostly great fun), plus classic films which aren't always available on DVD. I've also watched a lot of the plays which were filmed on-stage in the 1960's and 1970's as part of various drama projects (Faye Dunaway in Hogan's Goat).

My personal DVD/VHS library is over 1400, most of which were either gifts, bought at the library book fair, or as used rentals. Some are greats, some are not, but all are interesting in some way--kinda like the books most of them are based on.

I like the idea of the DVD mail/rental but the problem I found was I couldn't request what I wanted in the order I wanted - it was basically potluck.

Well, I get them in order from Netflix, but I have no idea about other services. Plus, I am notoriously bad about being overdue on books and other rentals, so not having to pay for late fees is very tempting. I have gotten much more responsible about late fees to a library, especially since they now cut privileges at a $5 cumulative fine!

Well, the highlights of the weekend bad movie marathon were Phantasm and Leprechaun in the Hood. I kid you not!

Now, for numbers 109 through 115:

Scottish Highland Knits by Sarah Dallas
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernieres
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

The knits and patterns were fabulous--but I like to read and ooh and ah through the pictures of the completed work. The patterns or the recommended yarns are usually too much for me. But there was a great sweater coat in this one!

The Chrysalids were because I had already read two of Wyndham's books from the 1001 Must Read (this one is NOT on the list) and I really enjoy his fiction. This was more distant future than his others, but I did enjoy the ride very much.

All the others are from the 1001 Must Read list and every one of them is a very good book.

Senor Vivo writes letters to his local newspaper about the Coca Lord whose product is, as Senor Vivo sees it, a blight on the community and country. There are some very funny episodes where the Coca Lord is trying to kill off his nemesis and fails; there are some very tragic consequences for various characters because they are in a country run by drug lords; and there is a strong mystic core to the story. This story stayed with me and I very much recommend it to others.

The Girls of Slender Means is set in London during and after WWII. The setting is a women's "hotel" of the period and the various inhabitants. The story slips back and forth between "then" and "now" very effectively to tell its story. Muriel Spark is the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and I can now recommend both books.

The Island of Dr. Moreau is the only Wells I have read as an adult that I wasn't totally bored with his style. This one moves, it's still a topical story, and I did enjoy it.

Farewell, My Lovely is a mystery by one the early masters of the style. It read very fast and was quite entertaining, but I have to say, at this point, I like Hammett's style better.

Onward and upward--I accidentally got myself into a $1 bookstore last week, and I'm in serious trouble now.

Prop2gether...
loved your comment regarding the $1 bookstore dilemma. I found bookCloseouts.com and they had over 1,000 books for $1 in the month of August.

I DID NOT buy 1,000 books, but did buy many and they arrived in two shipments. My partner, simply shook his head and grinned when I came home from work and was excited to open the boxes.

Now, his question is...."Where are YOU going to put all these?"

Well, I still have the 60-plus boxes in a storage unit that are just mine, not counting the boxes of my children's books. I quit buying bookshelves on the theory that would contain the mania. How wrong can one person be?

I'm smiling!
A long time ago, and I cannot remember where I saw or read this, but there was a story of the end of the world and a lone, solitary man who was a survivor and thought it ok to be alone as long as he had his books...then the tale twiststed when he steped on his glasses and they broke thus rendering him unable to read...

This is my nightmare!

#62 Prop2gether: I keep telling myself that when my children move out, I can take over their rooms with my books, lol! Then maybe, finally, I will have enough room for all of them.

alcottacre
Here is my experience:
When the children move out, temporarily the space is empty...soon to be filled with children's books for grandchildren...

Jan Brett's book The Hat
Jane Brett's The Wild Christmas Reindeer
Cordory's Halloween
Moon Dance: A Sparkle Book
Where Is Elmo's Blankey
Good Night Sweet Butterlies
Green Eggs and Ham
Christmas is Coming by Susanne Schwandt
Peter and the Wolfe by Erna Voligt
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Five Little Speckled Frogs
Barney
James and the Snowman
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Brown Wise
Five Little Ladybugs...

For us bookaholics, there is simply another outlet..
and the tradition is passed along...

Oh yes--and the nightmare episode was from The Twilight Zone and starred Burgess Meredith. It chilled me when I first saw it, because he was so smug about how he was going to read everything he ever wanted to now that no one could tell him what to do.

And about the children--my first went to college, came home for two years, left again, and I'm still putting away her things. My dream house would have a library from floor to ceiling, lots of wood, rails, and cozy chairs, plus a nice large picture window to give light. Sigh.

As all of you, I'm the first (and sometimes last) resort for my nieces and nephews when they need to find something to read for school. Come to think of it--my children are still doing that, as well as half the floor I work on--I have almost 60 books on my desk and in my cubbie!

It tears me up to give away my books, even to libraries or charities, so they get shifted around, loaned out, so I've even managed to keep some by using them as shelves for the video bookcase.

Just catching up on your thread, prop!

64, 65 Prop & Whisper, It's been my experience that when the children move out all of their 'stuff' doesn't always move with them! And sometimes they move back in! (temporarily).

I'm slowly boxing up the kids' books, cataloging and tagging them along the way. I doubt they'll come looking for them until they have children of their own (they are 29, 26 and 24).

Hi avaland, prop2gether and alcottacre.

How I wish I was home reading on this rainy day. A cup of tea and the ability to relax while finishing the 50 pages remaining on my current book -- Plain Truth would be soooo great!

I'm smiling about our comments re. children moving out, moving back, moving out and then leaving their stuff.

My basement is filled with belongings of my 25 year old daughter and my husband's 34 year old son (He moved to Germany and asked us to store things "temporarily." That was six years ago!

I spent this past weekend sorting and organizing lots of boxes when the time could have been spent reading...

Adding numbers 116 through 121:

Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
Night at the Alexandra by William Trevor
The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
Grimus by Salman Rushdie
The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd

Trevor's short novel was the only one NOT on the 1001 Must Read list, but he's an author I discovered through the list earlier this year.

I loved Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, enjoyed Slow Man, and read Disgrace--that kind of sums up my reactions to the three novels. Slow Man had an interesting premise in the protagonist who loses a leg in a biking accident. The story is essentially his adjustment to a more restricted world, with the question being--who's restricting him. He has a nurse he loves (but she is married) and an annoying lady writer who creeps into his life, and, eventually, he has to work through the entanglements of his new life.

Disgrace is well told, a story based in South Africa, of a professor who loses his position over a charge of sexual harassment, and moves in with his daughter who lives in a small sharehold. He is a Byron scholar and really not able to "see" what his daughter and others see as the reality of life. A horrific event shortly after he moves in with his daughter forces some re-evaluation of his values, but I felt the novel was deliberately (and to my mind, evasively) unfinished. It's very topical, but I was disappointed with the book.

Night at the Alexandra is a short novel about a boy in an Irish town during World War II. An English woman married to a German moves into town and he builds her a cinema. The boy tells the story of the couple from his perspective as an adult, and I found it touching and enjoyable.

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark--OMG! I've read Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Girls of Slender Means, and they are well-told tales of girls or women of a specific time (before and after WWII). This novel is more current (and apparently was a picture starring Elizabeth Taylor and Ian Bannen). A young woman goes on holiday to the south (presumably Italy) in a bizarre combination outfit (op art colors and styles) and spends a day shopping with an old lady, getting caught up in a student riot, fending off advances from various men--and then, well, the question is--was she deliberately plotting her own murder?

I finished Grimus!!!! It took over three months of studious effort, but I finally finished a Rushdie book. It's his first and shortest, and was highly praised by science fiction leaders at the time it was published. Sorry--not for me. A young man of American Indian descent, Flapping Eagle, drinks one of two potions (think Alice and the Drink Me bottles), the one which gives eternal life. The other potion bottle, which gives death, is broken, so Flapping Eagle lives for 777 years-plus looking for his sister and for the Grimus which is the source of the potion. He is guided for a period of time by a man named Virgil (I kid you not), goes through dimensional shifts, finds Calf Island, the home of the Grimus, and eventually meets up with the Grimus. There's a great discussion of this book on Wikipedia that is probably a bit more fair to someone trying to find out about the story. I despised this book, but wanted to finish at least one Rushdie novel.

The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd is a fictional account of Mary and Charles Lamb (authors of Tales of Shakespeare) and their relationship with a Shakespearean forger. It was fun and a quick read.

I'm about half-way through Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and into Ales and Cake by Somerset Maugham, and enjoying both books. But I got my ER August selection on the banning of Grapes of Wrath and that will probably be the next one I finish.

You are an inspiration!

Me? Thanks, but I'm still in the less than 250 page syndrome, which always looks like so much more on a list. And there's so many books to read!!!! I better not step on my glasses!

Prop2gether
Many thanks for making me laugh right out loud regarding your comment on hoping not to step on your glasses. It has been an incredibly busy fall. I had 368 pages of a yearbook to proof and re-write during the last two weeks. I'm far to old for these 60 our weeks. Plus, it cuts into my reading/down time.

I very much enjoy your posts and your recommendations. I've added quite a bit to my tbr pile thanks to you! (I'm smiling)

Well, considering that as a child, I sat on my glasses and ended up in my school pictures with white adhesive tape on the rims.... Consider the possibility when there are bi- and tri-focals involved--does that double or triple the odds?

Prop2gether....Thanks for the laughs. I'm bone weary...My god...I just noticed that I typed in haste today and wrote "our" instead of hour, as in 60 HOUR weeks.
This is funny considering I'm proofing and re-writing student stories and yet made such a huge gaff.

All in a day's work eh?

White adhesive tape on the rims of your glasses must have looked cute.

Speaking of glasses, my husband is a retired eye doctor. One morning he knocked my glasses off the night stand and then stepped on them. I could not see and thus could not go to work. When I called the office in to explain what happened, my co-workers thought it hilarious that the eye doctor broke glasses. Luckily he had a friend who squeezed me in his schedule and in the meantime before the new glasses arrived gave me contacts.

Whisper--I can assure you that NOW the adhesive tape looks kind of cute, but then---no. But there was the time in the office when I broke the stems on one set and ended up rubber-banding two pairs of old glasses together (across the nose) to get the current prescription so I could work at the computer. It was a heavy set, but it worked. Just looked a little weird. I'm very glad to hear that other people break their glasses or have them broken. In my family, I seem to be the only one who does that.

Adding numbers 122 through 125:

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Jack the Giant-Killer by Charles de Lint
A Circle of Cats by Charles de Lint
The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint

Looks like I needed something lighter after Mrs. Woolf, doesn't it.

I had managed not to read any Virginia Woolf through my school days, but Mrs. Dalloway was an interesting exercise in her style. It's basically a "one day in the life of" story, told with flashes forward and back to fill in the information the reader needs to understand what's happening. I found it interesting, but not overwhelming.

The three by Charles de Lint are pure fantasy. Jack the Giant-Killer is part of the Fairy Tale Series and it was a delightful retelling of several "Jack" stories of legend. In this one, Jack is really Jacky, and it's set in Ottawa, but she still is the trickster of fairy tales. It was just fun.

A Circle of Cats is a charming picture story of a young girl who lives with her aunt by a forest. The girl feeds the animals, talks to the trees, and her goal in life is to meet a real fairy. While napping in the woods, she is bitten by a poisonous snake and a circle of cats she has been feeding (or know of her) save her life in a most unique manner. I read this on a lunch hour in the library, and really enjoyed it.

The Dreaming Place was the result of looking for another de Lint after reading Jack the Giant-Killer. It turned into a one-night read about two girls who are cousins, one stalked by an Indian spirit and one friendly with a card reader. That sounds horrid, but the read was clean and fun. I'm looking for more de Lint in my future reading.

I'm about two-thirds through Maugham's Cakes and Ales and it is really quite a trip. I also have hit the "meat and potato" portion of Banned in the Obscene" which is my ER book and about the burning and banning of The Grapes of Wrath in Kern County. Quite fascinating!

I've never heard of Charles de Lint and I really like your descriptions of these books

I'm off to the library after work. The weather forecast is rain for the weekend...so, to heck with cleaning. I'm going to read A Circle of Cats

Thanks!

Pick up Moonheart while you're at it. It's my favorite de Lint.

My local library doesn't have A Circle of Cats or Moonheart. I checked Amazon and they don't have A Circle of Cats in stock, but can be ordered elsewhere for lots of $$$.

My local library has Forests of the Heart Dreams Underfoot Someplace to be flying and Waifs and Strays Would you recommend any of these?

I haven't read much else by de Lint, except some short stories in collections, but I like his style. His emphasis is usually on Celtic legend (i.e., Jack the Giant-Killer), but I'm going to try some others. I did almost take out Forest of the Heart from the library yesterday.

#78 Whisper 1: I just read my first de Lint book, The Little Country and it was wonderful, so if you can track it down, I heartily recommend it.

Hello prop2gether! It's taking me a while to browse everyone's threads since I am so late to the party... liking the booklist, lots on here I want to ask more about but much of it read at the beginning of the year so it seems a bit late to ask...

Re. #66, I still have two 2m X 80cm bookcases at my mum's, each full, each with three 2-foot stacks of other books on top. I graduated just over 10 years ago now....

My mum is conducting a campaign of return-by-stealth: every time my 9YO stays with her he comes back with a couple of books. Although I think she may have to wait until my daughter is of reading age before she manages to shift the Anne of Green Gables and Sadlers Wells ballet books ;-)

I still haven't catalogued those books on LT either.

#81: I love it - return by stealth!

Hi, just found your thread and wanted to say how much I am enjoying your comments. You have been reading a very interesting collection of books this year. Including some of my favourite authors. I highly recommend Louis de Bernieres other books in the South American series. I can't remember their names offhand, I read them years ago, but they remain favourites.

Dreams Underfoot is actually a good intro to de Lint. It's a lot of shorts focused around his fictional town which seems to have a link to the mystical. Try it!!!

Wow! What a productive weekend! I finished four books and got a series of nice compliments from you here. I also ended up at a bookstore the day after payday--so I did end up with Moonheart as my "pay the full price" book after the recommendation above, along with too many reprint classics to read and pass on to family.

FlossieT, if you'd like my opinion on any book on the list, just ask (or go to my profile page, if you'd prefer). I have no problem giving opinions, as you may have noted with both Ellis and Rushdie above, but I also think try to keep it balanced so that if the writer or genre is your cup of tea, go for it.

I love the return by stealth idea. I actually just did that by sending two books to my daughter for her birthday. She's involved in graduate and certification classes and I sent her The Vicar of Wakefield and Journey to the Center of the Earth for a change of pace.

And now to numbers 126 through 129:

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
The Owls of Gloucester by Edward Marston
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

I absolutely loved Cakes and Ale. It's nominally the story of a narrator who has been asked to contribute to the biography of a deceased literary legend. It seems he knew the man years earlier and the widow and biographer want his "inside information" to complete the story. As the reader of the narrative, we get not only the full story, but opinions on the man, his widow, and the biographer, and also a very neat twist in the closing chapter. I laughed out loud when I got there because it was the perfect ending to the story.

The Owls of Gloucester is the tenth in the mystery series by Marston set with the Domesday "audit" committee which is traveling the country confirming land rights (and also solving murders). This one is set in Gloucester, and I just enjoy the characters and the descriptions of the time period, so I'll continue the series.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford was something of a surprise for me. Starting in the English countryside some time after WWI and ending towards the end of WWII, it is a well-told story of a woman looking for love. The narrator's mother (known as the Bolter to the family because she runs away from marriages and commitments) has left her to the care of her aunts and uncles, where life is remarkably similar to the lives of the Mitford girls (as I recall). The main character of the novel is the second oldest daughter of the aunt, and her attempts to understand and find love in her life. Again, there is a slight twist at the end, and it was perfect.

Hideous Kinky has received rave reviews and a film version featuring Kate Winslet, but, while I enjoyed reading the perspective of a four or five year to how the world revolves, it was also somewhat disconcerting because, as a child, she really doesn't understand a lot of what she describes. The girl, her sister, Bea, and her mother end up in Morocco for several years, waiting for money to come from Daddy in England, while Mum is trying to find herself. Very descriptive of the time period (mid-60s) in that area of the world, it was interesting, but not nearly the "great" book for me that others believe it to be.

Okay, we're up to number 132 today (and, of course, still reading):

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Marya: A Life by Joyce Carol Oates

Again, all from the 1001 Must Read list (our book group is reading Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Pier, one of my all-time favorites on the science fiction rack, and some interesting reads.

I'm loving everything I've read by Muriel Spark, and Memento Mori is another great read. A group of older people all get telephone calls from a stranger reminding them they will die (the "memento mori" or reminder of death). This is a study of how the ladies and gents interact with each other, deal with the calls, and just a great read.

After the Quake was a surprise for me--I really liked the stories. It's a set of six short stories, all related to the Kobe earthquake, but not interconnected in any other way. I've read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and most of Hard Boiled Wonderland, and found I really had to concentrate to keep the story going. This set of stories did not require that level of concentration, but they were charming and sad and funny, and I enjoyed them.

Marya: A Life is the fourth or fifth Oates novel I have read. Some I really enjoy and some I just finish and say, okay I read it. This one was the latter type for me. It's well-written, as always with her work, but I just never got involved or really interested in the lead character.

Now I'm on to Wide Sargasso Sea, The End of the Affair, and a short novel by Carol Shields.

I'll be interested in learning what your thoughts/impressions are regarding Wide Sargasso Sea.

#87 I had to read Wide Sargasso Sea as a college student. I liked it. I'm guessing you already know the premise.

Hi and welcome!

One of the most marvelous things about this site is that I've learned about so many books I never would have heard about previously. A LT member posted this one and since Jane Eyre is at the top of the list of my all-time favorite books, it sparked my interest. I read it and really enjoyed the creative concept behind the story, ie the point of view of Bertha (the crazy woman in the attic.)

#89 Hi Whisper, thank you for the welcome. :)

Yes, as I recall Rhys was from the West Indies and took great offense at a disparaging reference to West Indies brides that Bronte makes in Jane Eyre.

When I have more time, I plan to read some more of Rhys books.
Have you read any others, and if so, what would you recommend.

Let's see, I loved The Handmaid's Tale and am glad to see that on the list. If you like Atwood, you might like Tepper's Gate to Women's Country.

Other good books by and about women, Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (not a religious book), and The Color Purple. Also, you might like some Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club or The Kitchen God's Wife.

Favorite books not by nor about women A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Diamond Age, and Stephen King's The Stand

MrsHeisenberg--where can I find your list? We seem to have similar tastes in our reading. You should also try Fanny, Herself by Edna Ferber for a great "feminist" book before such language came into being.

Oh Prop2gether, I'm so lazy about scanning my books in. I'm really just here to talk to all of you!

Okay, just wondering. It's become quite fun to explore LT libraries and see what other people read (or want to read).

And number 132: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

I liked the style; I liked the story by itself; and I'm kind of annoyed about the hype and link to Jane Eyre. After reading about Rhys's rationale for writing this story (she wasn't happy with Ms. Bronte's depiction of Mr. Rochester's West Indian bride), I expected something a bit different.

First, I should state upfront that generally speaking, novels which are derivative of other works are not favorites for me. There are exceptions and this work is one that I enjoyed reading. However, the "true" story of Antoinette/Bertha is historically not a match to Mr. Rochester and Jane's story, which causes some problem in then combining the characters and time periods.

Rhys tells the story in three sections, from different characters' perspectives, and you are sympathetic and angry with both major characters by the end of the story. The person I was actually fascinated with the expansion of was Grace Poole's story toward the end of the book.

I recommend the book to others, but don't look for a direct match-up with Jane and her story. It doesn't happen. The story of the girl/woman who is Antoinette is strong enough by itself and you should enjoy it for the telling of that tale.

The disparity of the narrative tales between the two stories is actually what I liked best. There's always two sides, or more, to any tale. But I really enjoyed her style more than anything.

jumping in on the Wide Sargasso Sea conversation, I had a difficult time with the switching back and forth of the characters and naturally because I like Rochester, I had a hard time accepting him as a nasty creep.

I do agree with you prop2gether; the book is not a direct match-up with Jane Eyre and while I didn't like the portrayal of Rochester, I thought the premise was exceedingly creative!

Whisper, my main complaint is that the novel stands very well on its own, and it seems somewhat pettish of Rhys to insist that a more detailed history of Bertha and her life was necessary. Historically Bronte, writing on both Bertha's madness and its treatment, is close to accurate for the time. The view that the West Indies were a place of magic and voodoo was accepted.

I've also watched at least six versions of the book on film and video and, I have more exceptions to make with how Jane is played than how Bertha is portrayed.

Sigh. It's what makes for discussion. I did pass the book on to a friend for her assessment, and she hasn't read Jane Eyre, so it should be interesting.

Have you seen the A&E version of Jane Eyre? To me, it is the best yet. Of the six or more versions of the book on file and video, do you have a favorite?

And, I enjoy reading your comments and thoughts. Thanks!

Linda

I am late coming to this group--infact I only started exploring any groups a little lesss than a month ago and joined this group just a few days ago. I have enjoyed reading the posts on this thread and Have a few comments for prop2gether.

I notice you have read a lot of Marston. My oder son has been bugging me to read Marston for years. do you have a suggestion where to start? I like mysteries and I kknow that at least some of his work are mysteries.

C.S. Lewis' Ransom trilogy--I love those books although I agree that Perelandra is probably the weakest of the three and the one that is most obviously an allegory (but I liked that one, too). It's unfortunate that they have been labeled as sci-fi and I doubt that Lewis is the one that put that label on them. I think fantasy would be a better label if one requires one. My favorite was That Hideous Strength. I hope you get around to reading it-if only to get the satisfaction of finishing the series!

I will definitely be looking for the 1001 must read books--is that on LT? I could use that for getting my ideas for my list next year. This year is pretty well "booked-up!" unintentional pun--but I'll take credit for it. :-)

Two books you mention I will definitely be looking for: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain--haven't read it nor seen any of the movies and I think I'll like it and Cakes and ale by Maugham--haven't read that and haven't read Maugham in years. Thanks for reminding me! I already own Galileo's Daughter and Vicar of Wakefield and you just moved them to my TBR pile. I'm also behind on my McCall Smith mystery series--I will be getting back to them, also. I have Journey to the Center of the Earth in my library. When I complete this year's challenge I will be ready with a list to start next year.

Thanks! I really enjoyed my time with your list and will be checking back. I'm assuming you will continue reading even though you have passed the 75 book mark. What a remarkable year of reading ou have had!

Alcottacre, Whisper1, Prop2gether, et al

My husband had a unique solution to the problem of "empty nest" and children who leave their stuff behind. When our sons were about 20 and 23, the younger one still in college in our town and the older one having moved home to save money because he was getting married the next year, we had to move from Savannah, Georgia to California because the lab in which my husand worked was closed. Our boys had to find an apartment to share and we "tore up the nest" and left.

I don't recommend it--be glad that you can store your children's stuff for them and provide a "home" they can come home to instead of a place they''ve never lived where they can visit--as strangers to everyone but you. Neither of our sons lives in Savannah now, though. Our older son moved to Chicago when he married. Our younger son lived in Savannah for a few more years and then came out here to do an internship in physical therapy and stayed when he was hired by the group where he did his internship. so the story has a happy ending.

I'm all for books and stories in life that have a happy ending...(I'm smiling)

Prop2gether: That's an impressive list you've got going there. And in your first post way back in May you weren't sure you'd make it to 75. Way to go.

Oh my! Lots of questions to answer or think about here....

I've seen the BBC versions and the A&E version, as well as Lawrence Olivier and George C. Scott and William Hurt in theatrical releases. I seem to have missed one of the latest, but....my favorite Rochester is Timothy Dalton (followed by Michael Jayson, Olivier and Ciaran Hinds) and my favorite Jane is Sorcha Cusack (followed by Zelah Clarke and Samantha Morgan). If I could, I'd mix and match casts to get the full story combined with great production values.

Marston--I chanced on his Inspector Colbert (the train detective) and loved it. Set in Victorian times, Colbert, with his sergeant solves murders set in or around trains. Stylistically, these are similar to Holmes and Watson, and I found them fun. I've also read most of the Domesday series, set in the reign of William, when the land issues of a conquering force were being resolved between the Saxons, the Welsh, and Irish. This series involves the "second" team sent out to resolve issues found in the initial research, and, of course, there is murder and mayhem everywhere they stop. The Nicholas Bracewell series is set in Elizabethan times, and Nick is the book holder (i.e., stage manager) of a London theatrical troupe. I love Shakespeare and Elizabethan novels (but get really upset when the history is blatantly wrong--not a problem here). I've worked in theatre and I really enjoy this series. I've also read several of his works under the name of Conrad Allen involving a man and woman operating as detectives on ships (liners and at least one freighter) in the early twentieth century.

However, CAVEAT--as with all series work, yes, you can start in the middle, but I don't recommend it. Start at the beginning and build on the characters and stories.

I haven't had the energy to pick up That Hideous Strength after the annoying results with Perelandra, but being something of a compulsive list reader, I will get to it. Thanks for the recommendation.

As for the 1001 Must Read--check out the LT group on this, and for a fabulous chart to use, follow the links to http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?page_id=160, where you can download the latest list. I've created a personal "cheat sheet" with the authors in alphabetical order so I can find books on the shelves.

And I will be in serious trouble if I ever have to stop reading.

And my ER selection Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath:

As a Steinbeck fan, someone who spent growing up years in the Central Valley, and as an avid reader of lots of banned books as well as histories, I was disappointed by this work. As noted elsewhere, this work is either too long for an article or too short in its history.

Wartzman's style is so friendly, it drove me nuts. I'm also concerned about the reference to the writer Stephen Crain (I really believe he meant Stephen Crane), and the language which is quite proper in emails (the motion was "OK'd" by the council), but not as well used in a historical reference.

I did learn much about the period which, while relevant, seriously interrupted the story I thought I would be reading--that of the book banning and burning. The cover and notes lead you to believe that you will be learning more about the Kern County librarian who opposed the ban, or the writer who precipitated it all with his explosive novel. The bulk of the book is a history of the politics of the time, and the campaign and politics of Upton Sinclair was very enlightening.

The net? This is not the specific history that the title or blurbs would like you to believe it is; it is a broader overview of the history of the migrant worker in California during the Depression of the Twentieth Century.

Oooh, Prop2gether, my first job out of college was in Salinas.

I spent years in Taft (originally Moron), in a public housing unit when I was very little, and then on an oil lease (after a stint in Sweetwater, Texas) held by Honolulu Oil--my dad was a chemical engineer specializing in natural gas. We learned to swim in Taft's municipal pool, and I missed all of the second grade with Valley Fever. Not too far from Bakersfield, Acton, or the other towns mentioned in the book.

On the other hand, I do love Steinbeck.

Just posted on someone elses thread about the Steinbeck library and his childhood house which houses a wonderful, old-fashioned restaurant. Have you been to either?

As a Steinbeck fan, have you read Blaze? Everyone on the 75'ers is probably sick of me recommending this book but it is an homage to Of Mice and Men in King genre as a ghost story. I loved it. And it is not one of his true horror stories, so it is much more accesible than some of his others to the non-King reader.

Funny you should mention Blaze because I picked it up in the discount section at my book store last week for very little cash. It's right next to the copy of Nevermore and the de Lint book I picked up the month before that.

#109 blackdogbooks

I have always felt I should read a Stephen King novel because he's supposed to be a great writer, but I just don't read that genre. I am going to look for Blaze because I just read Of Mice and Men a few weeks ago and love it. I hope my B&N will have it when I go next Wednesday. And that will be a new month so i won't have to feel guilty and worry about how many "books I've bought this month"! Hopefully by then I will have forgotten my guilt about how wild I've been in September!

Well, I hope you both enjoy it.

MusicMom41, it is still a King book, so expect some violence and some descriptive writing. But, it is nothing like some of his true horror stories. I found the book sad and moving and a good ghost story.

MusicMom41
Feeling "guilty" about book purchases is a common theme here on LT. However, for the most part, I think we move along and the guilt is temporary -- until the next book lot purchase.

As for me, I've ordered four shipments from bookCloseouts.com in the last two months. I rationalized the purchases made in August because many were $1 per book.

Now, I've simply transferred my guilt from buying so many to the guilt of going to the library and checking out selections, realizing that my taking them home equates to the fact that someone else doesn't get to read them until I bring them back.

Ah, life is complicated eh? (I'm smiling)

Ah well, better guilt over books than other kinds of guilt, I guess. I just love LT because so many other people feel like I do about reading and books, especially those on shelves with covers and everything. I always find at least one author reference or one book reference that I try to follow up--just because there's one more book to read.

Now for numbers 135 through 138 (see the notes above for Wide Sargasso Sea and Obscene in the Extreme:

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Box Garden by Carol Shields
In The Heart of the Seas by Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

Again, three winners from the 1001 Must Read List, and a minor work by a 1001 Must Read writer, all of which I recommend.

The End of the Affair is the story of the affair and, needless to day, its end--as told by the man, who is trying to figure out exactly how the affair ended. When he discovers his version and her version have different points and times, he tries to reconcile it so he can write it out in one of his novels. I found myself at times picturing the characters in turn of the century clothing, because their manners and habits were so typically those of writers of that period. However, the story takes place over the time of WWII in London, and when events forced themselves in, I had no trouble converting my mind pictures to match. The story is almost as much about having faith in a person as being in love, and it was a pleasure.

The Box Garden was mistake on my part--I thought it was on the "list," but it isn't. However, I've enjoyed Shields work, and this was no exception. It's a short novella-length story of a woman with a teenaged son, a boyfriend her friends feel is beneath her, who travels to her mother's wedding. Set in Canada, she and her boyfriend take the train to her mother's, meet up with her sister and her husband, and then have several days to get ready for the wedding. She decides to look up her ex who lives nearby, and on a lunch trip with her mother's fiance (who's a former priest), finds some shocking truths. There is one more twist to the story which makes it unwind very satisfactorily. Again--recommended.

(continued in next missive-my computer's not happy!)

In the Heart of the Seas was a delight! Told by a narrator as if he is sitting next to you, it's the story of a group of Jews emigrating to Israel. They met a young man who is also traveling to Israel, and, as he completes their minyan, it is a blessing. The book is short, a travel diary in a sense, and it is full of tests of faith (at one point the young man literally misses the boat) and rewards for holding onto faith. It was a fun read.

Faceless Killers is the first in a mystery series by a "Scandinavian writer" (that's how I was originally told about this book) about a small-town detective trying to solve a double homicide shortly after the new year. He's middle-aged, with a troublesome teenish daughter, a wife who's left him, and a foxy new DA is in town. Classic elements, classic story, well told and interesting. Highly recommended for mystery fans. Now I have to find the next in series in English.

On to Cornell Woolrich (mystery) and The Big Sleep (also mystery--is there a trend here).

Wow! Sounds like some great reading going on at your house . . . and more books to add to Continent TBR at mine.

Always reading going on--sometimes the laundry and the vacuuming suffer because of it. Although I've noticed the kitchen and bathrooms seem to be exempt--a curious anomaly, I guess. There's always a book in my purse, also one in my wheelie, and then there's at least three in some stage at home. Some addiction here!

Laundry? Vacuuming? Never heard of them, lol.

As far as the books around the house go, I completely understand. At present, I have 2 next to the computer, 1 on the love seat, 1 that I am actively reading in my library, and 2 on the headboard of my bed. But, I am not addicted.

Well, I have to say the dusting and ironing went by the wayside long ago. But I do have to keep the cat fur under control--technically, I'm allergic to it. But neither the cats nor I seem to care! And no, I'm not addicted to reading or wishing to read or planning to read.

Dear fellow Bookaholic members

You make me smile at the end of a long day!

#120: Glad we could help you out Whisper!

Okay, finished numbers 139 and 140:

Manhattan Love Story by Cornell Woolrich
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Liked both stories very much, and both are from same literary period and genre--hard boiled noir, although Woolrich is often considered the "father" while Chandler is the talent who broadened the field. Woolrich, however, is responsible for much of what we love in film noir (think Rear Window lately reinvented as Disturbia) and you know how influential he was. Chandler is known for his paltry seven novels which only influenced some of the best of the genre in writing and in film. High recommendations for both.

Reading Blaze, Blackdogbooks, and having a grand time with the resituated Lennie/George story. Also nearly through The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, and what a hoot!

Re post 114: The story is almost as much about having faith in a person as being in love...

I just finished reading The End of the Affair too and I just wanted to say that I really like how you described it there. I thought that was the most compelling theme in the novel, and I appreciated that Greene didn't really resolve anything for Bendrix's inability to trust.

Glad you are enjoying Blaze!!!!

I saw a movie version of The End of the Affair. I believe it had Julianne Moore in it. don't remember if I liked it or not though?!?!?!?

Okay, numbers 141 and 142:

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
White Noise by Don DeLillo

Years ago I watched an inane movie starring (among others) Bobby Morse, Liberace, Tab Hunter, and Anjanette Comer about a funeral parlor/business. Funny, but not nearly as funny as the source, The Loved One by Waugh which is, as subtitled, an Anglo-American Tragedy. However, it is very funny as satire on the funeral industry, the movie industry, and the Brits in Hollywood colony. Highly recommended, but only if you can deal with the satire which involves death and dying. (If you made it through Swift's A Modest Proposal, then you'll have no problem here.)

White Noise is the second DeLillio I've read from the 1001 Must Read list, and sorry, DiLillo fans--I don't get why. The conversations between the characters are very "true to life"--which often makes them boring or exasperating or stilted. The narrator is a professor who teaches Hitler as a full curriculum study at a university (but he doesn't speak German). He's been married five times to four women, has a modern mixed set of children and step-children. His ex-wives all seem to have been involved in espionage in some way, while his current wife is afraid of death. The story is told in three parts: in the first, you meet most of the cast of characters; in the second, a toxic cloud is released over the town through an accident; and in the third--well, there's supposed to be some resolution of issues. Okay, I got it, but I didn't enjoy the ride at all.

I am, however, greatly enjoying Blaze and The Sea by John Banville. Just finishing up Things Fall Apart, and will read the supplemental essays because of the novel. These three I can recommend, and I haven't finished with them yet.

I read Things Fall Apart this year and loved it. Glad you are enjoying it.

On the advice of blackdogbooks I bought Blaze last Wednesday and plan to read it as part of the 75 book challenge. It is a genre with which I am not too familiar and will be a new adventure for me. Your enjoying of it give me encouragement to get started.

I went to hear John Banville (OK, actually alter ego Benjamin Black) read from The Lemur last Thursday :-) I have a copy of The Sea on my TBR bookshelf and it's definitely jumped up the list after his comments on his attitude to writing - really a fascinating evening.

Oh wow! I would have loved to hear Banville speak.

Is wishes were...well, there are some authors I'd like to hear and some I'd love to explain what the heck they were writing about. I have a good friend who's a very successful author, and I've found that if I ask why some character or plotline was used instead of another, the answer is often "It just seemed right." Of course, in official book release language, it all appears to have been very carefully thought out, but I think "it just seemed right" is really the truth of the matter.

Numbers 143 through 145:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Acebe
Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll
Blaze by Stephen King/Richard Bachman

Things Fall Apart was excellent. It was a well-drawn portrait of both a man and his tribe, and the changing world around them. The volume I had included several essays about both the Igbo/Ibo culture and the author, and both were very helpful in "filling out" the story for me. This was a 1001 Must Read.

Bones of the Moon was a shelf "caught my eye" book because of the cover--mostly. It's a fantasy that was okay, but I wasn't overwhelmed by it. The blurbs talk about the great writing, but frankly, the story of someone who lives in a second life in dreams based on their childhood and current life is not that new. The writing was good enough to keep me going, but the story was rather stale for me.

Blaze was great! Thanks to blackdogbooks and a King fan at work, I finally did read this work by Richard Bachman. Okay by King. It's an interesting reworking of Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, with Blaze as the Lennie character and George is George. The difference is that King has molded a combination kidnapping/ghost story out of the material, and it all works very nicely. As a fan of both authors' works, I did not feel cheated by either version. This is one of King's works with a great deal of heart in it, as opposed to horrific or scatological references.

Currently into The Sea by John Banville and Novel with Cocaine by M. Ageyev--very interesting reading.

Prop2gether/alaskabookworm: assuming the minidisc didn't conk out (and that he signed the permission form!), a recording of the John Banville event should be on the London Review Bookshop's website in the next couple of weeks - will drop you a line if it jumps those hurdles.

Prop,

I am so glad you enjoyed Blaze. I am always nervous when someone tries out a book on my recommendation, especially one written by King becasue he's so love him/hate him in the reactions he engenders. I too am a huge Steinbeck fan and loved the homage and re-work of Of Mice and Men. Cheers!!!!

I would love to have had some of the essays you mentioned in the Things Fall Apart edition you read. I finished that this year and enjoyed it but was curious about the foundaitons of the story and the history of the tribe/culture. I found it very similar to stories and literature from some of the Native American cultures.

YOu have about convinced me to put the 1001 books into my varied 100 best lists which I have been working on for the last few years. I think I am going to try and finish up these four lists first and then move on to your 1001 list!

Blackdogbooks,

I generally like King (there are a few exceptions), but I thought Blaze was both a tribute to a great work, and a good story by itself.

The edition of Things Fall Apart is shown in my library, and I do recommend the essays. It is apparently a "school" edition. I didn't read them until I was about half-way through, but was glad I did because they enhanced the story for me. It is actually quite similar to several Native American/Indian (depending on who are listing for preferred ethnicity), but that's probably not so much of a coincidence. Acebe was educated in a British manner, but his family is both Christian and native in their worship, so he has both histories to draw upon for his story.

As for the 1001 Must Read, I started it as a joke on the "Eng Lit Major" who hasn't read all the classics, but I've found some really great reads and authors along the way.

Prop2gether.

I re-read your book list and found two Joyce Carol Oates books. I noted your response to Avaland (in June..message #12.) regarding The Grave Digger's Daughter and I've added that one to my tbr list.
I've read a lot of Joyce Carol Oates this year and I'm also curious regarding your thoughts on The Museum of Dr. Moses

Whisper, actually there should be four Oates books: The Gravedigger's Daughter, Black Water, The Museum of Dr. Moses, and Marya. Of the four, the two I enjoyed were Black Water and The Museum of Dr. Moses. The latter is a short story collection and I find I like her shorter novels and her short stories much better than her longer fiction. Her longer fiction always seems somewhat unfinished to me, but I have a friend who loves everything Oates has written.

I find that true with Faulkner's works as well, really enjoying his short stories and The Reivers, but losing it with some of the other novels.

sHi.

Sorry I missed the post regardig the other two JKO books. I'm a bit weary today with a nasty headache .
I read Black Water but haven't read the other three you mentioned. I agree with you regarding liking her short stories better than the longer books. I read Blonde and thought it was way too many pages.

Whisper, definitely understand about the headache. Worked late on Tuesday and had to take the bus, not the train home, and by the time I walked in the front door, I realized I hadn't eaten in nearly 10 hours--no wonder I had the headache!

So I found a couple of writers this year on the 1001 Must Read list that I really enjoy, and Muriel Spark is one of those writers. My next two books this year are numbers 146 and 147:

Novel With Cocaine by M. Ageyev
Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark

Novel With Cocaine is a fascinating read (again, from the 1001 Must Read list) about a Russian student in 1917. One of the notes to the book commented that this is one novel of the Russian revolution which never actually mentions the revolution. The story follows a young man through his last year in school, a summer romance with a married woman, his introduction to cocaine, and the consequences. That's the outline; the story is much more intense and very, very personal for the writer. The novel appears to have been published under a pseudonym and the true author is unknown. What can be seen is the talent of the writer, especially in the young man's introduction to various aspects of school, social hierarchies, and, of course, cocaine. The description of love and hate combined in the addiction is shocking and yet, somehow, somewhat appealing as well. The ending manages to neatly close out the story, but I still found myself thinking about "what if." I recommend this book.

I also heartily recommend Aiding and Abetting. I've enjoyed every one of Muriel Spark's novels I've read, and I started with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, one of four on the 1001 Must Read list. This small novel is not one of those books, but it was a great fun, fast read. Based on the Lord Lucan disappearance (he killed the nanny but had planned on killing his wife, who he only injured seriously--official story). His story was that he was passing by when the murder occurred and really disappeared because of his debts. It is known that his circle of friends "aided and abetted" him in eluding the police for some time. This is a wholly original tale of what possibly could have happened to Lucky Lucan, and includes a psychologist who was once a miraculous stigmatist, and her patients/clients. It was just plain fun to read.

I am definitely intrigued by Novel with Cocaine. Have mentioned on another thread in the 75ers (I think - maybe just in my own head...) that I have just got old enough to be embarrassed by my own apolitical-ness. The Russian revolution is another of those periods I know nothing about but almost certainly ought to. Will put it on the list.

Floossie T
Beware...reading books about the Russian revolution will lead you to a path of many tbr books. For starters, I recommend a book I read earlier this year by Robert Alexander. The Kitchen Boy was a fascinating read.

#137 & 138: I agree with Whisper on The Kitchen Boy. I just finished it this week. Truth be told though, I much prefer nonfiction regarding that time in Russian history.

If you are interested, I did pull up on YouTube the funerals of the last Tsar and his family as well as a documentary regarding their executions and the circumstances surrounding them. It was very interesting.

alcottacre

I'll check YouTube regarding Nicholas and Alexandra

It haunts me that they sewed gems in their clothing and thus when they were executed, they were in agony because the gems buffeted the bullets and it took longer to die....What a sad and tragic story. Glad you liked The Kitchen Boy I thought Robert Alexander was very creative in taking one sentence that survived from the diaries regarding letting the kitchen boy go and from this he wove a book.

Linda, the title of the documentary that I viewed on YouTube was called The Mystery of the Romanovs, and I believe it was in 5 parts. Sorry, I should have included the info in my original post. As far as the funeral services went, I just did a search on YouTube for the funeral of Nicholas II.

I agree with you concerning Alexander's imagination. To take one sentence and construct a book around it seems a remarkable achievement. Did you ever check out The Kitchen Boy website?

Hi Lois
Yes, I did check out The Kitchen Boy website after reading the book. It provided a lot of information and was very well done.

Thanks for the info. regarding YouTube. I'll check this later today.

Hello again, and for numbers 148 through 150 (OMG, I just realized that means I doubled my numbers from the expectated 75!):

The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell
At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
Why I Write by George Orwell

The Dogs of Riga is the second Wallander mystery after Faceless Killers. The first book is on the 1001 Must Read list, and I enjoyed the detective enough to read the next in line. This was a fascinating mystery based on a raft which floats to shore with two bodies in it near Wallander's small town in Sweden. The raft is determined to be of Eastern European manufacture, the dead men had Eastern Europeon dental work, and a Latvian detective comes to assist the Swedish detective. The Latvian detective returns home, is murdered, and Wallander goes to Latvia to assist in solving both the murders which were found in Sweden and and the murder of the detective. He ends up mixing with political upheavals, the underground (political and drug) in Latvia, and, all in all, an entertaining mystery. I like Mankell's detective and I like this series.

At the Mountains of Madness is one of the 1001 Must Read, and somehow, I never had read Lovecraft's work, which is considered basic to the genre. The title story is indeed worth the read, but the paperback edition I have had a different selection of "and other stories" than the library edition I started reading. The three other stories in the paperback were also good, but the best was the last, and shortest, "The Statement of Randolph Carter." The last sentence was the most terrifying in a horrific final statement. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.

Why I Write by Orwell was an impulse buy at my bookstore. It's a small Penguin edition of four essays by Orwell, and it was timely, entertaining, and covered broadly three areas of interest: why Orwell writes, England and a discussion of the WWII political philosophies, and how writing affects politics and everyday life. Obviously, Orwell writes on these topics in his Animal Farm and 1984 novels, but these essays were published for a different purpose. They are fascinating to read because they give the most direct insight into Orwell's own evolving philosphy for a decade, and they are so on target for much of today, it was a real pleasure reading them.

I've just added Why I Write to my wish list. I'm collecting Orwell right now because one of my projects in 2009 is to explore his writing in depth. I read Down and Out in Paris and London for the first time this year and it re-awakened my interest in him.

MusicMom, just for fun, the subheading on the cover of Why I Write is:

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind"

I had so much fun reading this book, even though there's an extremely sad essay called "A Hanging" in it. I hope you enjoy it!

Currently reading: The Sea by John Banville; Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski; A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant; and The Finishing School by Muriel Spark. Three are from the 1001 Must Read and the last was the final novel by a 1001 Must Read author who I really enjoy. This sounds like a lot on my plate but most of these books are less than 240 pages, and they are very different in style and story, and I spent most of last weekend in airports or in flight--I needed to be able to change my reading to suit the time.

I like to have two or three different styles going also--I like to read to fit my mood--and attention span! Especially late at night!

I plan to find a copy of 1001 Must Read to start exploring next year. I notice there are a lot of readers on LT using it. Hopefully they will still be using it next year so I can get ideas of where to start. I'm also curious how many I may have already read--I'm assuming there are some "classics" included and I've read a lot of those in my life. LT has already greatly expanded my reading with new authors and even new genre so I up to expanding even more.

congratulations Prop2gether on doubling the goal :-)

Wow! I was so into reading your reviews I totally missed that you had read 75 X 2! Congratulations! An awesome achievement.

Woo Hoo! Motoring on through those books now Prop - I expect to see you at 200 any day now. Congratulations!

Why I Write and Dogs of Riga both sound like books I would enjoy, so on to Continent TBR they go. Thanks for the recommendations!

Alcottacre---Just remember that Dogs of Riga is part of a series. I always like to read mystery series in order because then I can follow along with the characters as they develop. I do recommend both Faceless Killers and Dogs of Riga.

And number 151:

The Finishing School by Muriel Spark

Her last, and not her best according to the reviewers, but I enjoyed this book by Spark. She always manages to surprise me, and in this case, it was the subtle slurs cast against the publishing world which were fun. Set in a European private school, which moves from location to location in order to avoid collecting debts (okay, and to pay some as well), with a very small coterie of students, the plot centers around one young man who is writing a "new" novel about Mary of Scotland and her involvement (?) in Lord Darnley's murder, and the instructor who is suffering from writer's block and, at the same time, jealousy over his student's apparent success. A small book, but fun.

#150: Thanks for the reminder, Prop2gether. I have noted it as such. And I am one of those who has to read the series in order, too. I hate not knowing what went on before!

Have you read Sparks' Curriculum Vitae?

#151: No, I have not read that one. Do you recommend it? Thus far, I have been shocked, amused, and generally engaged by Spark's works, but never disappointed.

I haven't read any of Muriel Sparks books. I've never heard of her. So, thanks for these posts. Based on your review, I've added The Finishing School to the ever growing mountain of tbr books.

I have read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and have been tempted enough by reviews to add The girls of slender means to my TBR pile... I found Muriel Spark to be a breath of fresh air; a funny and caustic writer. I am thinking of adding The finishing school to my pile.... decisions, decisions..

#152 Prop2gether: I do recommend it. Sparks' dry sense of humor is very much in evidence in her autobiography. I think you would enjoy it.

Glad you enjoyed At the Mountains of Madness. I read this two years ago. Great book!!!

#155--I have the book in the reserve list now, thanks!

#156--I was never so reminded of a landscape from a film as when reading this, and thinking of the Antarctic scenes in X-Files: The Movie. ;-) At the Mountains of Madness and the three other stories were my introduction to Lovecraft (although I've heard of him, of course), and I enjoyed the ride.

And to add two breeze-through books as numbers 152 and 153, which are kind of like palate cleansers for deeper works:

Clean This! 320 Reasons to Stop Cleaning by Mary McHugh. A gift book, this one is epigram advice as to why you need never clean house again. It was just fun--even good clean fun.

There is Nothing Like a Thane by Clive Francis is a light-hearted romp through the history of presenting "that" play by Shakespeare. It is one of the shortest plays, is a tragedy by definition (maybe a little history for James), yet it has one of the funniest track records ever! This book reminded me of all those Richard Armour books I read to get through various literature classes. They were funny, they were right on target, and they asked the most amazing questions: "What would you do if your mother named you Moth or Mustardseed? Would you really?" (with apologies for any misquote--but that's what I remember #@$$#$ years after reading it!).

And for numbers 157 through 159:

A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant
Auggie Wren's Christmas Story by Paul Auster
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter by Yasumari Kawabata

Once again, all writers from the 1001 Must Read, and two books from the lists, all recommended.

A Woman's Life was a fascinating study of a young woman we meet very often in literature of the time--young aristocrat (not too high) with doting parents who marries a man who is crude, a gambler, unfaithful, and who does not like his son. Most of the book covers her life through the death of her husband (in circumstances which can be funny--depending on your interpretation of the scene). The last quarter of the novel deals with the woman who, in turn, dotes on her son. He is a gambler, in love with a prostitute, and drains her estate. Okay, you've read it all in other places, but this is very well laid out and I enjoyed the book far more than I thought I would, and I recommend it.

Auggie Wren's Christmas Story is a cute holiday fable that belongs in with No Room at the Inn by Edna Ferber and others written for this season. I know Auster is on the 1001 Must Read list, but this was the book I pulled from the shelf to check out his style.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a fable which was added to the "new" 1001 Must Read as before Aesop and other "tales." It is the story of an adopted girl who is courted by several men, but she doesn't wish to marry and so assigns them impossible tasks to perform. When each man fails in his turn (some cheat, some lie), there is a lesson (usually a groaning pun) to be learned. There is one last lesson from the young woman to the Emperor before the story closes with a mythic ending. The edition I read was in both Japanese and English, with glorious illustrations. Again, recommended (and a very fast read).

I have the Auster book on my stack of Read Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Books. I'm glad to know you liked it.

I have several longtime favorite "short" stories (besides Dickens, of course) for the holiday season. Auster's book belongs right up there.

And for numbers 157 through 159 (having magically burped through 153 to 156 in my last missive by renumbering them), so really 157 through 159:

Wise Children by Angela Carter
Robinson by Muriel Spark
Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead

Wise Children is from the 1001 Must Read list, and I have read a couple of Carter's short stories in collections. However, this book which is grounded in the twins confusion plays of Shakespeare and concerns at least three (maybe five) generations of actor-performers, mostly in Shakespeare or similar genres, was something of a challenge at first. Basically, it is the remembrances of one "old lady" twin on the occasion of her father's (natural not putative) one hundredth birthday. The story is told in a stream of consciousness style that takes some getting used to, because characters are introduced and then dropped for long periods. There are at least three sets of twins in the story to complicate affairs, and an awful lot of guessing "who's the daddy" of any of the particular sets. There were several events which, as described, were hilarious and worthy of the plays they were "borrowed" from, and I would recommend the book, but to a reader who is willing to go the long road to get the twist. I have another Carter on the shelf, so I'm certainly willing to read more of her work.

Robinson was Spark's second published work, and it doesn't have quite the polish and zing of some of her later books, but it certainly has enough. January Marlow and two men survive a plane crash into the island of Robinson, which is owned by a man named Robinson, who is raising an orphan named Miguel. The island is vaguely shaped like a running man, so there's more than a bit of symbolism here. There are discussions about faith, education, the Catholic church, and then--Robinson disappears and all the evidence points to one of the island inhabitants. The question is--who did it and why? January is our narrator and, as the only woman in the main story, she provides an interesting contrast to the men she is marooned with, that is, until the pomegranate books arrive.

Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead was recommended by Avaland, and is a fun read. A young disgruntled nomenclature consultant has come to a small Southern town to rename it--his contract has one provision no other does--it binds the town to accept the name he gives the council for at least one year. The book is the story of both the source of "Apex" and why and how it hides the hurt, and the the town of Winthrop revealing its unique history and prior names. It was fun, and I thank Avaland for the recommendation.

And for numbers 160 and 161:

Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo

I like Dick's stories, had missed this, and also misread the title, thinking it was the basis for the new Shia Lebeouf movie, but no matter. It's very early Dick, rife with a "who's the Communist traitor" scenario, but the story is founded on the eight people who ended up on the wrong end of a lab experiment. They find themselves in alternate universes which are actually creations of several of the individuals involved in the accident. Deadly scenarios but not always overtly dangerous, the characters have to figure out how to get back to "reality" in order to save all eight. Recommended, especially for fans of the genre.

The Mixquiahuala Letters is one-third of my book club's selections for this month (the other two are Kiln People by David Brin and The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, which only goes to show how interesting a set of selections drawn from a hat can be). I was dissatisfied with Mixquiahuala. It's advertised as an epistolary history of two friends, but you only get one party's letters to read. Then Castillo tells you upfront basically--read this book in any order you want to get any result you want. She offers three "options" or proposed order of the letters, but also suggests you can just pick and choose whatever letter in whatever order--or to ignore any letter you choose. There's a lot of anger in this book, and a questionable identity when the narrator refers to herself as "i" throughout the narrative. There are poems mixed in, and there is some very interesting writing about female/male relationships, but frankly, I still was disappointed with the book as a read. Our group meets next week, and it will be interesting to see how others viewed the book.

I'll be interested in your reaction to Kiln People. I found it to be a lot of fun.

Oh, Kiln People is a reread for the book club. I enjoyed it the first time around, so this should be a bit of a romp. I thought it was clever in the use of the golem idea and, it was a nicely turned homage to the detective stories of earlier writers.

prop, I see you got your hands on the 2nd Wallander mystery. I also have it somewhere around here (admittedly, I only read the first line of your comments on the book because I didn't want to know anything about the story ahead of time). Now, if I can only remember where I put it. . .

Did you read Kiln People? Did I miss that somewhere above? I thought the premise fascinating but find Brin gets too preachy or perhaps it's enamored of his own prose, anyway, I thought they could've trimmed the last 100 pages.

Glad you liked the Whitehead and the Carter. Angela isn't for everyone, me thinks. Her imagination and cleverness blows me away though.

Avaland, I have third and fourth Wallanders at home from the library as I write this response. Just waiting, however, because I just found Deeper, the sequel by Jeff Long to his Descent, about Hell under Earth. Strictly a guilty pleasure, but I'm bound up in it now.

I've found David's stuff up and down over the years. Kiln People was one I read when it came out and have recommended over the years to others because it is far less technical than some of his most famous work. I tend to enjoy his non-science oriented work much more than his physics-related (and those blasted dolphins!) stuff, and I like his short stories generally better than his novels. He says he tends to like them better himself. But he is somewhat preachy, and always has been--have you read any of his non-fiction work or browsed his official website? He's definitely a man on several missions.

The Whitehead was clever and very savvy about the industry, which is why I passed it on (returning by stealth) to my daugher, who is public relations.

I've got Nights at the Circus to read this weekend, and, because Carter is so well known in her genre, I'm hoping to like it more than Wise Children. Her short stories have been interesting, so I have hopes.

Okay for numbers 162 through 166:

Zipporah by Marek Halter
Deeper by Jeff Long
Little Boy Broken by Jeremy Todd
The Floating Opera by John Garth
I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti

One series book, one sequel, one Early Reviewer, and two from the 1001 Must Read--not too shabby a collection, all together.

Zipporah is the narrative of Moses' wife as retold by Marek Halter. It's part of his series of "as told by" of various Biblical women, and it was interesting in that he tells the story of Zipporah as a Cushite adoptee of Jethro's (who is a remarkably "modern" woman) who is the force behind Moses' return to Egypt after he runs from the murder of the slavemaster. Unfortunately for the storyline, Zipporah eventually becomes less and less effective and the story does not end well. I will read the third in the series, but I hope it's a stronger tale.

Deeper is the sequel to Descent by Jeff Long, and which seems to be either a "loved it" or "hated it" book by the reviews. I'm in the middle. I love the imagery evoked by Long, and the story was, like many mid-trilogies, really a narration between points, but it was a fast read, and I've passed it on to friends.

Little Boy Broken was my Early Reader book from last month. It was a serious disappointment, vitriolic in many passages, and unclear in others. A true abuse story, it is quite horrific in the blurbs and in several incidents in the book, but the anger streaming off the pages turned me off very early in the reading. It's also a very incomplete book in which the epilogue promises "the rest of the story" in a sequel. Sad and horrific as the story it, it should have been the complete story here.

The Floating Opera by John Garth was interesting. From the 1001 Must Read list, it is Garth's first published novel which editors rewrote and he later reissued with the original ending (which I read here in this issue--it would be interesting to read the original ending now). Ostensibly, the narrator spends his day talking about his life to date and why he is committing suicide at day's end. There are flashbacks and a few flash-forwards, but much of the novel is "today" which is between the world wars in a small town. The Floating Opera is a stage show on a riverboat and plays into two scenarios: one is the narrator's vision of standing on a shore watching a traveling riverboat show and seeing only what's happening when it passes, and because the climax is built around a traveling show that stops in town. Recommended but generally a leisurely read.

I'm Not Scared was fabulous! Another from the 1001 Must Read, by an Italian author (there is one review talking about a translation from the original Spanish which should be ignored). Set in a small hillside town of only five houses (and families) in Southern Italy, it is the story of a nine-year boy who, while playing with his friends and sister, discovers a terrible secret. It is a novel of children, of terrible actions by adults, and of restitution. Told from the boy's perspective, not everything is clear, and those that are clear to an adult--well, the child is father to the man here. Highly recommended.

Almost through Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and finishing up Kiln People for my book club.

Agreed on I'm Not Scared!!!

I downloaded the 1001 spreadsheet today. A curse upon you!!!!!!

LOL!! I avoided downloading for months after I started trying to check out what I'd missed in those classes I avoided because of boring titles (Early Women Writers, Other Than Dickens, and so forth). Then reached that point where I just downloaded that !@$ chart and love both chart and many of the writers or works I've read this year. As Alice said, "Curiouser and curiouser." Have fun figuring out how old you'll be when you finish the list (assuming, of course, there are no more editions with books replaced).

Prop2gether

I think the touchstone to I'm not Scared must be wrong--it goes to a children's book by Jonathon Allen. Is the one you are talking about by Niccolo Ammamti? I wanted to check it out--and this seems like an Italian name.

Can someone tell me how to download the 1001 chart? Someone gave me the link (I'm assuming if I can't find that post I can google it to get there again?) but I didn't know how to download it. I've been trying to write down as many as I can as they are mentioned--but that gets tedious and I keep misplacing my "notes!"

The download is up at Msg #105 on this thread. Just click the link and then choose the version of Excel on your computer, click it and save it on your computer. Beware, many books lay in wait there!!! Abandon hope all ye who enter!!!!

And this on top of the 400 or so books on my lists that I was already working on. "Have fun with how old you'll be when you finish". Are you kidding, I need to channel Ponce de Leon for some extra years!!!!

MusicMom, yes, it's the Ammaniti book and I had to "change" the bookmark to find it under "Others." Sometimes the change works and sometimes it doesn't. But I always tell the author in my listing for the book, so if the touchstone fouls up, there's a second option.

If you have any trouble downloading the aruyami chart, check out any of the links under the 1001 Book Group which talk about the problems people (including me) had with the "new" version of the chart. But it's a delight knowing I have at least many more leisurely book reading years ahead of me.

#173--What do you think of the list as a whole? I hadn't heard much about it until coming to LT, but found a listing here and poked around it.

It seemed like it was very heavy on some authors and had some significant holes. Is this just my lack of knowledge about what are considered the best books right now?

I found the list--thanks blackdogbooks! My son downloaded it for me onto the excel I didn't know my computer had.

It looks interesting and there are many that I had already planned to read (I've read only 106 of them so far!) but there quite a few I know I'll pass on. I already own 61 more so those will be my first tbrs from this list.

Of the ones removed from the original list I have one major quibble--The Borthers Karamazov definitely should have been left on the list! I would also vote to put Cannery Row back on--but that is probably because it is a personal favorite of mine.

Of the others on the delete list that I've read, I agree with his decision to remove them. I enjoyed most of them but I wouldn't consider them essential.

I guess I've found another category for the 999 challenge--it will give me more 'wiggle' room in my choices. And possibly some cross-overs if I need them.

Poor prop2gether--we do sometimes forget and monopolize your 75 challenge thread for other discussions! Sorry. It all started because mentioned I'm Not Scared was on the list!

MusicMom--Not to worry, I love reading it all. This group has been so much fun because of the discussions. Sometimes they range, but they are very rarely uninteresting.

TadAD--I have major objections to several authors being on the list, and major objections to several works that are on it. But I decided to start sampling off the list, and, voila! Suddenly I've found some authors I absolutely love, some books that are great (and, incidentally, how did I ever miss them?), plus I'm actually reading some of those "classics" that sounded so riproaring boring (but found quite entertaining to read). So I just decided to go with the flow, and include all 1001 plus 282 in the lists of recommended books. I still try some and set them aside to try again later. I still have to struggle to even pull some authors off the shelf, but I figure I've lost no more reading time doing this than if I'd wandered through my library or bookstore just looking.

Incidentally, in case you're wondering: I still don't understand why Bret Easton Ellis is on the list; it's painful for me to read Salman Rushdie; I think there's an awful lot of mediocre Philip Roth on the list; and I discovered William Trevor, Muriel Spark, Richard Brautigan, and Henning Mankell; I had great fun reading Samuel Johnson's History of Rassalas and Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield.

Besides, didn't I mention I'm something of a compulsive list reader?

So here are numbers 167 and 168:

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is another from the 1001 Must Read list and it was great. The story of a young adoptee who is raised by a mother who is immersed in a Christian sect which is very literal in its interpretation of everything Biblical. She was chosen by her mother and raised to be a missionary for the church, and has some very serious conflicts with schools, and then with the church because she realizes that while she loves God, she also loves women. Told in chapters named for the first eight books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth), Jeanette must weave her way through her family, her faith, and her understanding of love to a resolution. Very enjoyable, and recommended.

Alexander's Bridge was Cather's first published novel and she later disavowed it for story and style. That's too bad, because it's a simple story, told simply, in beautiful language. You can easily see how Cather segued into her later writing from this short novel about a man who loves his wife and his first love, and whose rise to the top of his profession through talent and money eventually costs everything. Highly recommended.

Edited because I can't count--there are eight, not six chapters to Winterson's novel.

This is late, I know, but now I'm looking forward even more to I'm Not Scared - I read Steal You Away back in June/July and thought it was brilliant. I just got a copy of I'm Not Scared from the charity shops so it won't be long before I get there. I hope.

Well, I am going to need to channel Ponce de Leon, Methuselah, and Nicholas Flammel to get through my Continent TBR, so I can completely sympathize with you, blackdogbooks.

I have added to my ever-expanding Continent TBR I'm Not Scared, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and Alexander's Bridge. Thanks (I think) for the recommendations, Prop2gether.

LOL! For the "Thanks (I think) for the recommendations" because every time I find a new book or author on any of this group's threads, my thanks is the same! Another one on the pile--although I do enjoy having the chart tell me how many books I need to read each year to complete the list. I think I have a long life ahead of me yet! Plus all of those recommendations or just plain interesting reading which we discuss--ah me. Sigh.

Number 169 is Kiln People by David Brin.

This was a re-read for my book club, and I still enjoy it quite a bit. I was much more aware this time of the plotting elements because this year introduced me to Cornell Woolrich, Dashiell Hammett and Philip Chandler. The intricate plotting owes its origins to these masters of the genre. Plus it was just a fun take on the private detective in the future story--a future when you create clay duplicates (dittos or dits) of yourself to do mundane or dangerous work. And every so often a "frankie" (i.e., Frankenstein) with a mind of its own. A golem story combined with a murder mystery was great.

I am going to have to pull Kiln People out again when I do my annual re-reads in December and January. It has been a while and I need to revisit the story.

Me, too. I enjoyed Kiln People a lot the first time I read it, but that has been 5 years ago. Do you have a particular time of the year when you do re-reads, Stasia? I tend to pull them down when I want to be sure of a good story and haven't the emotional resources to engage a new one right then. And with my memory these days, half the time it's as good as a brand new book!!

Oh, Prop2gether, if you enjoy future detectives, or alternate detectives, may I recommend some oldie but goodie books? Lee Killough wrote good science fiction in the 70's and 80's before she moved into vampirism, such as Deadly Silents and The Doppelganger Gambit( the latter is the first of 4 starring the detective team of Brill & Maxwell). The first is serious, exploring the difficulty of solving a crime of violence in an alien telepathic culture, while the Brill & Maxwell books are fun plays off of their personalities as well as mysteries. Randall Garrett, of course, wrote the Lord Darcy books about an aristocratic Sherlock Holmes-type in an alternative England where magic exists (and has very specific rules). Sharon Shinn wrote a really good science fiction mystery called Wrapt in Crystal--she's moved over pretty much into fantasy now, but that book is outstanding among her books IMHO. Shinn's Jenna Starborn, BTW, is a decent SF retelling of Jane Eyre (with prosthetics!).

Haven't heard of any of these writers--so, of course, I will have to check them out. Thanks!

#182 ronincats: Yes, I do a lot of my re-reads around the holidays in December and January, although I will do as you do and pull them off the shelves every now and again through the year if I need to. I have a standard list that I am building on as far as my re-reads go: Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour, Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and A Gentle Madness by Nicholas Basbanes, and then I throw in other books as the spirit moves.

#183 ronincats: I will purloin some of those ideas for books from you as well. Thanks!

Ending October on number 170:

City of Glass by Paul Auster

This is my second graphic novel, and, having been a comic book collector in my youth, I still have some problems working my way around that new term. The first such novel I read was Maus, so I was somewhat prepared for the bleak story told here by Auster. There are some interesting storylines involving the Tower of Babel, language in general, Don Quixote, and--Paul Auster as a character in his own story.

The coincidence is funny in that I am midway through The Razor's Edge which is told by Maugham as a character in his own novel.

I found it interesting, and now especially, will have to search out the David Brin graphic novel that's out there somewhere.

Hi Prop2gether...
You have read 170 books.....WOW...You are amazing!

#186 Prop2gether: How are you liking The Razor's Edge? The movie version of the book (with Tyrone Power) is what lead me to my love affair with Maugham's writings.

There's also a version of The Razor's Edge with Bill Murray as the lead. While that may sound awful, I thought it was very good and extremely out of the box for Bill. That one led me to read Maugham.

I agree on the Bill Murray version of the movie. Though I saw it some time ago, I was led to Maugham after seeing it. Often these inherently funny people have a way getting to the heart of other emotions.

#187-190: I'm having a great time with The Razor's Edge although I'm about half-way through the novel. I do want to see both movie versions. Last year on a whim I picked up Nightmare Alley starring Power in one of his non-heroic and/or non-swashbuckler roles, and he was fabulous.

Now for number 171 through 175:

The White Lioness by Henning Mankell
Ashes and Diamonds by George (aka Jerzy)Andrzejewski
The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark by Muriel Spark

Two mysteries, two from the 1001 Must Read list, and a set of ghost stories. Not too bad a combination. I'll have to recount them a little later, but wanted to get the list upfront.

Hi Prop2gether.
Two of those listed above sound very interesting to me.
I have not read The Blithedale Romance by Hawthrone. What did you think of this one?
And, I recently read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and now I'm heading to the library after work to see if I can find The Ghosts Stories of Muriel Spark

Thanks!

LOL--I am so glad to see others get blipped in two slots like I do :-)

So about my latest reading:

The White Lioness is the third in the Kurt Wallender mystery series and I love it. This time around a local murder has tie-ins to South Africa just as de Klerk has released Mandella. At the time the book was published in Sweden, this had not even happened, so the prescience of Mankell is remarkable. This series is just so much fun for me, even if much of it seems to happen during cold/er weather in Sweden.

Ashes and Diamonds was an astonishing work. Not the easiest read (the library edition I had was an original English translation from 1952 AND had survived the LA Library fire!), but worth the time and learning names which are not familiar. WWII is just ending but not yet over, and Poland has been overrun by the Red Army. There are rebels who are anxious to have Communism and there are those who refuse to accept the idea of a Communist state which used to be Poland. The main story line concerns groups of each faction who fighting each other, and a group of young men hunting down to murder a Communist leader. It's about politics, it's about war, it's about men and women, it's about families, it's about survival. All in fewer than 240 pages. For me, the soul of the stories is found in a graveyard on a headstone by one of the characters:

Passer-by
I was what you are
You shall be what I am,
Let us pray for one another.

The Return of the Dancing Master is another detective novel by Henning Mankell, but introducing two different small town detectives (other than Kurt Wallendar above). I was caught up in this story, but not as impressed with it--although I have to laugh that Mankell has the serendipity to name a native-born Swedish detective Guiseppi. It's a long-ranging story which starts in WWII and ends in Scotland, and I'd recommend it--but not as a starter for Mankell's detective fiction.

The Blithedale Romance by Hawthorne was a surprise for me. I'm not a huge fan of The Scarlet Letter and I enjoyed The House of the Seven Gables, but I really enjoy Hawthorne's short stories best. This read from the 1001 Must Read was somewhere in-between. A group of young idealists spend a summer working on a community (i.e., the Transcendalist communities of Hawthorne's day), and by the end of the summer, we have learned about four of the personalities in detail: the narrator (Cloverdale) who is a poet; the single-minded egoist Hollingsworth; delicate and fragile Priscilla; and Zenobia, who is both strong and delicate, like the tropical flower she always wears in her hair. Because it's Hawthorne, there's a tragic twist or two, and I periodically was annoyed by some of the over-the-top lyricism of Hawthorne's style, but was so caught into the net of the story that I read it all--and enjoyed it.

The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark by Muriel Spark is an intriguing mix of her short stories (as opposed to her short novels). I really do love this woman's work and style. These are ghost stories in the literal sense--they are about or told by ghosts. I found one or two not to my liking, but still enjoyed the set.

http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/124/

Prop2gether, I agree with you regarding Hawthorne's short stories.

The Artist of the Beautiful (link listed above) is one of my favorites.

Thanks Whisper, I'll check out the website.

Now for numbers 176 through 178:

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Unless by Carol Shields
The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

The first two are from the 1001 Must Read (yes! again!) and the third is from an author from that list.

The Razor's Edge was interesting to me because Maugham inserted himself as a character in his own novel and then allows himself to narrate the story. I was totally caught up when he wrote that this was an American story as told by an Englishman who was trying to write as an American. It's a story of people with money before the 1929 stock market crash including, among others, a young woman in love with a war veteran who wants to find himself (but he doesn't know exactly what he's looking for); another up-and-comer who's in love with that woman (and ends up marrying her and then losing almost everything in the 1929 stock market crash), the "older generation" of her mother (who's benignly practical) and uncle (who's a first class snob with a heart); the practical young French whore; the American girl who falls to drugs and prostitution when her family is destroyed--and there's more. There have been two classic films made of the novel (Tyrone Power in one and Bill Murray in the other), but the words are very powerful. I recommend this book highly, especially for a picture of a "period" between the world wars.

Unless was an interesting and fun novel with a serious core. I've loved Shields since I first read The Stone Diaries years ago, but this book was intriguing on several levels. The narrator is a woman writer who is having family and writing "issues" and shares them with the reader. Her eldest daughter has become a street begger who wears a sign reading "Goodness" and spends nights in a shelter. Everyone is trying to be willing to let the girl work out her problems, but.... Her non-husband husband is a physician who studies trilobites and attends conferences about the animals. Her two tweener daughters are busy with their lives but also spend weekends with their sister to support her. Meanwhile, our narrator is trying to write a sequel to her first novel, which was an unexpected success, while simultaneously working with translating the fourth volume of memoirs of an older woman writer. However, some of the best discussions in the novel are interior discussions of the writer with herself about words and the process of writing. Recommended, especially for readers who like to read about writing.

The Ballad of Peckham Rye is the latest Muriel Spark I've read this year, and it's great fun. Dougal Douglas (who also goes by the alias of Douglas Dougal) has come to town, and chaos follows in his wake: a groom walks out on his wedding; the typing pool is embattled; and a street prophet and a nasty gang try to figure out how to work around a man who has a "fatal flaw" where he can't stand being around people who are sick or ailing. On the other hand, he does shapeshift and occasionally show people where his horns were surgically removed, usually around the time he's managed to bring out their "fatal flaws." Satire of the best kind here!

Just finishing The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, also on the "list."

Weird. I just put Mr. Ripley on my library reserve list since they've just gotten a new set of the Ripley books. Great minds think alike, I guess!

By golly, you're as prolific a reader as Nancy Pearl.

Wow, some great reads lately, Prop2gether. My local library does not have any of the Kurt Wallender series, so it looks like I will have to buy those, and from your descriptions of them, thoroughly enjoy them.

Glad to hear that you like The Razor's Edge. I have only seen the film version with Tyrone Power, not being a Bill Murray fan, but would be interested in hearing what you think of the two films.

Although I do love The Scarlet Letter, I am also a fan of Hawthorne's short stories. My favorite is Rappaccini's Daughter (I do not think I spelled it right). If you ever get around to reading it, I would like to see your thoughts on it.

And I agree with alaskabookworm - you could give Nancy Pearl a run for her money.

Is Nancy Pearl the lady who posts 10 to 15 books a week? Until I get something to do books on tape while I'm walking between points, I can't hope to match her intake! But LOL here! I'm having so much fun with LT, this group especially, and the challenges of finding new to me authors and works, that sometimes the pages just seem to fly. My library cards have never been so full so consistently.

I love Rappaccini's Daughter by Hawthorne. It and Poe's The Cask of the Amontillado were two of the first horror stories I ever read, and they are still chilling because of their simple story lines. No blood, no guts, no gore. Just pure horror.

And I'm sure I've seen the Tyrone Power version of the film at some point and I did ignore the Bill Murray version when it came out. But he got good notices and several LT fans have recommended it, so I'm willing to try. I recently watched two very different versions of LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven and wow! What a difference directors and casts can make (not to mention screenwriters).

>that's interesting, I just catalogued City of Glass! I picked it up at a library sale in October.

#200 Prop2gether: Nancy Pearl is the librarian who wrote Book Lust and More Book Lust. If you have not heard of the books, I highly recommend them. Pearl crosses nationalities, genres, etc in recommending books for just about everyone's taste.

And alcottacre is the Lter who reads 10 to 15 books per week! :-)

alcottacre is legend in my home. she is oft spoken of in hushed, hallowed tones.

alcottacre, I really liked the Bill Murray version but haven't seen the Tyrone Power version, so it's hard for me to compare. If you're not a Murray fan, there is still a chance you might like that version, as his antics are towned down in favor of the character. But there is still a Murray feel to the character.

Nancy Pearl is also the lady immortalised in the Librarian Action figure, no?

OK, I will look for Murray's version somewhere (I do not really do movies except for the old black and white ones). Maybe I will send my hubby to look for it a Blockbuster next time he is there (he does do movies, does not do books, lol). Thanks blackdog (I am whispering so not to disturb the hush at your home).

LOL--I come back from a weekend and always have a fun exchange to read. Thanks! (And Blackdog, I, too, talk in whispers about Alcottacre's lists--sheer awe.) I should note that while I will read writers' books about the writing process, I usually don't read books of recommended reading. Okay, okay, the 1001 Must Read list is there--but as a list of recommended reading, mixed up with a lot of other lists. I'll have to look up Nancy Pearl's books, however, with two recommendations here.

However, I have numbers 179 through 182:

Timbuktu by Paul Auster
The Man Who Smiled by Manning Hankell
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
The Grisly Wife by Rodney Hall

Two again from the 1001 Must Read, one the next in series for a detective from Sweden, and one for the Reading Globally theme of Australia in November.

I loved Timbuktu! It's a dog story, first, and I've been in love with that type of story since my first Albert Payson Terhune in second grade. Mr. Bones and his "master" Willie G. Christmas are in the last stages of a long journey as the book opens. They've been homeless for some time, but manage to get through each day. Bones is telling the story, so his perceptions of human life are tweaked, but when Willie appears to be dying, then Bones follow instructions and takes off to try find a home. Even with the higher "moral" of homelessness as a theme, it's a great story of a pooch on the road. Also on the 1001 Must Read (2006).

The Man Who Smiled is the fourth Kurt Wallender I've read, and I think, the weakest in story structure and telling. Which is to say, it's still good reading, but you do need to have read the earlier novels to understand both where this story begins and how it ends.

The Talented Mr. Ripley is another 1001 Must Read, and I was amazed at how closely Minghella followed the novel. He introduced a character barely discussed in the novel, but the set-up, the murders, the ending--close match. I'm not sure I would want to follow up on Ripley, but Highsmith did write three additional novels, so the reading public liked her anti-hero a lot.

The Grisly Wife is an Australian prize winner, one of a trilogy of novels about early Australia by Rodney Hall (himself an English import). It's told entirely in first person narrative by the wife of an illiterate minister (formerly shoemaker) who brought his congregation of women (Household of the Heavenly Stars) from Victorian England to New South Wales to found their church. The wife is also the mother of a single child born to the congregation named Immanuel in light of their interpretation that he will be the reborn savior. Difficult to follow at times because of the narrative structure, the novel was intriguing enough to finish--and to find that first assumptions can be dangerous.

On to A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and Moll Flanders.

Wow. I guess I have some catching up to do...

Nah, it's the end of the year--there's a whole new challenge starting up for 2009, and this group really doesn't count numbers too well. Some read faster, some read slower--but everyone exchanges books and recommendations. Also sometimes recipes, maps, and visitor sites.

Moll Flanders......great book. Hope you enjoy it!!!

#207 Prop: Sounds like more great reads and more books for me to add to my Continent. Thanks for the recommendations!

Your entry of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian showed up in Connections on my Home page and it looked so interesting I immediately requested it from the library.

I haven't reviewed it yet, but I LOVED this book. It's funny, it's touching, it's a family story with a darkness in the past that creates a new future. Two sisters discover that their 85-year old widowed father is about to marry a 35-ish Ukrainian divorcee, and also publish a history of the tractor--in Ukrainian. The sisters have not been "sisterly" for years, especially since their mother's death, but have to work together to save their irascible father. The story is told by the younger daughter who first discovers the situation, and family history spills out. There's pain and suffering in the history, but also some grand human qualities like love and perseverance. It was a very fast read, and I can't wait to check out her other works.

That's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, number 183 on my list--and from the 1001 Must Read list--again.

#213: That book has been on Continent TBR for a while now, but unfortunately, my local library does not have a copy. I may have to put it on ILL, because I really want to read it.

I just put in a request at my library for Short History of Tractors--I'm 6 on the list but there are 4 copies in the Valley Cat system so with luck it will be coming around the time I get back from Chicago after Thanksgiving. Thanks for bringing this book to my attention.

Isn't it interesting how different the fiction markets can be between countries! Tractors was completely massive in the UK and is absolutely everywhere (even now).

If an ILL is going to take a long time, speak up, and I daresay I can procure a few secondhand copies in no time flat :-)

#216 FlossieT: Thanks for the offer. I finally decided that I would just purchase it myself and ordered it online rather than waiting for ILL.

Hope you all enjoy the Ukrainian sisters as much as I did!

For me, numbers 184 and 185:

Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker
Symposium by Muriel Spark

Hallucinating Foucault is another from the 1001 Must Read list and, while I enjoyed the read, I don't think it will be one I'll think of rereading. The young man who is narrating the story is doing his thesis work on an author who was highly praised for his work (and widely compared to Foucault), and then, at the height of his fame ten years earlier, "flipped out" and disappeared into a French hospital asylum. Urged on by a new girlfriend, the young man seeks out the writer, and, for a period of time, becomes the writer's companion. There is much discussion about writers and their readers, and how a writer's works are directed to his/her readers, directly or indirectly. For me, the novel did not end well because it has essentially two endings--one in the story line, and one in the form of an epilogue (without calling it that). It is the writer/reader dialogues and discussions that were most fascinating to me, and I do recommend the book for those who like to read about that topic.

Symposium was a hoot! Five couples attend a posh dinner party in London, where another guest is expected after dinner. Unfortunately, she's permanently delayed by her own murder. This reads as a light murder mystery, with all the attendant characters: a mad Scottish uncle, a burglary ring run by and with a rent-a-butler, newlyweds, and never-will-be-marrieds, a suspicious mother-in-law (as well as a mother and father plus three sisters). And don't forget the sisters at the Convent of Good Hope who include plumbers, and an artist painting the Communist revolution on the walls. There's Margaret, who attracts evil doing simply by standing in place, and who adores her mad uncle. It was like reading some of Mamet introduced into Christie. I had a great deal of fun with this one.

Reading your post re. symposium reminded me to give Muriel Spark another try.
Like others, I'm going to try to obtain a copy of Short History of Tractors This one sounds great!

If I keep reading your posts and adding your books to my pile, I'll be like Stasia and have a continent tbr.

Thanks again.

Ooh. I'm a bit behind here. FlossieT: Nancy Pearl IS the person immortalized as the Librarian Action Figure (to my children's consternation, my version remains unopened in the box, so I'll never know if the "shushing action" really works).

I've avoided buying Short History of Tractors for a long time, but now see I must get it. At least I won't feel bad coughing up another $5 on abebooks knowing with certainty that it will be well-spent.

Lots of nice things amongst the 75ers about Muriel Spark! I read Miss Jean Brodie as a teenager and remember being a bit irritated by it, but she really sounds worth a second try.

PS alaskabookworm: my Shakespeare Action Figure (by the same company, I believe) is also still unopened, despite a 6YO with a fetish for opening packages. I think the packaging is part of the point, personally!

And I have a Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure, also still in original package!

Nothing, ladies, at all, to realizing that your child from the age of 6 on, refused to open certain gifts because "they lose their value if you do that, Mom." Hence, the boxes of Stars Wars memorabilia in storage. His sister was furious that he would not open his Darth Vader to battle with her Obi-Wan Kenobi! Her "elf" from LOTR opened; his Gandalf not. Sheesh.

Oh, Laurie, you lucky person. That boy is going to be a millionaire and take care of you in your old age! All you will have to do is sit around and read.

OMG. Pristine Star Wars - I am so envious. My bro's and mine all have featureless pink plastic faces owing to their intergalactic battles fought under the massive bush in the garden which led to them not making it back inside before the rain.... still, now *my* kids are playing with them :)

That stuff was all miles better first time round, right?

ronincats--I'm counting on it! He figured out when he was 12 that if his sister was going to have money when she retired, he'd probably have to manage her money for her. So now--he's a college senior about to earn a BA in theatre and two BS degrees in business administration and economics--all in four years' time. Pretty amazing. His sister is studying for her advanced degree--in the field of disaster management. Whoda thunk it from the kid who won first prize in a costume contest as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a home-sewn outfit. Just goes to show you never can tell.

You guys have resurrected fond memories of my Star Trek Captain Kirk action figure who beamed to a planet that bore a strange resemblance to the inside of a floor lamp shade. Alas, he was melted by the extreme heat on the planet's surface and was never the same, carrying around an arm with an extremely misshapen shoulder and losing part of his famous quaff.

Okay, now numbers 186 through 190:

Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham
The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
Curriculum Vitae by Muriel Spark
Out of the Deeps aka The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham
The Manila Rope by Veijo Meri

Two science fiction novels by a favorite writer, one mystery by an early master of the genre, an autobiography, and a war novel (on the 1001 Must Read list) are the latest I've read.

Have to review later--must not let computer get upset.

Okay, John Wyndham--the gentleman who wrote The Midwich Cuckoos, also wrote other science fiction including Trouble with Lichen and Out of the Deeps (US title for The Kraken Wakes).

In Lichen, two scientists discover that the properties of a lichen found only in an isolated part of China has the ability to extend life without other side affects. He keeps the secret, testing within his family (surprise! to his daughter and son), and she founds a highly successful cosmetics firm. When the secret is eventually disclosed, which method was the "better" way to go? A surprisingly strong "feminist" leaning before such terms were popular, and a strongly moral argument are highlights.

In Out of the Deeps, the question is whether or not we should assume all invaders are friendlies or if we should assume they are enemies. A man and a woman, both research/writers for EBC (no, not BBC, as they tell everyone) get involved with the discovery of aliens in our oceans and how to live with invasion. Curiously enough, some of the enemies' tactics sound an awful like like global warming warnings--take heed!

The Bride Wore Black is one of Woolrich's first and it is a treat. A friend at work is a huge Woolrich fan and urged me to read his work, and I've very glad to have followed that advice. In the story herein, a beautiful woman mysteriously is around when four men die in separate incidents. Only the initial detective is sure that the deaths are related, but it is a moment of "stupidity" that gives him the full picture. Definitely a recommendation for fans of the genre who like Cain and Hammett and Chandler.

Alcottacres recommended Curriculum Vitae because I've been such a sound-off fan of Muriel Spark's works. This autobiography carries us from her childhood through just past the critical acclaim for her first novel. Her style is familiar, and her story intriguing. She did not have the simple sheltered life one might imagine, but had some very harrowing and troubled periods (including a husband with mental problems, a job with British intelligence during WWII dissembling the truth overseas, and a stint as an editor of a poetry magazine that was uncomfortable (to put it in mild terms)). I enjoyed it very much.

Going on, computer's glitching on me.

The Manila Rope was a pull from the 1001 Must Read list for two reasons: It was short and it was by a Finnish writer. My dad's family is Finnish, and the Finns have a unique sense of humor mixed with the grimmest aspects of life. This novel is the WWII story of how Joose gets a 60-foot length of rope home on a troop train from the front--past his own officers and past the Germans who also run troop trains on the tracks. But it's also the stories as told by men on the train as they are going home from the front of what they've been through. Because much Scandinavian humor is self-deprecating, there is a lot of horror mixed in as well. If you've seen Deadwood (the series), then the pig story won't surprise you, but how the first bomb was dropped in Finland is fun. Very episodic, but I enjoyed it.

Still working on Moll Flanders and now Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell plus there's a Pirandello in here somewhere.

I just added The Bride Wore Black to my tbr for next year. One of my 999 categories is "mysteries" and I have been planning to read some of the "classic" ones like Chandler and Hammett. I remember my mother loved Cornell Woolrich and somehow I've never read him. I hope I can get it from the library--the entire Central California Valley Cat system lists one copy!

All your talk about Muriel Spark prompted me to pick up a used copy of Territorial Rights. Years ago I read Momento Mori for my RL book group -- I don't remember much about it, as it was just after I got off chemotherapy and my mind was pretty fuzzy, but I think I liked it. You've been so enthusiastic I decided to try another of hers. Maybe I'll find another author to read "in depth."

I am very pleased to have been introduced to Woolrich, even though I've only started mining the books available (two down, so far). They are absolute classics in mood, style, and story. The Bride Wore Black was also great fun, trying to figure the twist (almost, not quite).

And I have really enjoyed Muriel Spark's writing. She took a course to learn to write shorter novels, and she was an editor of several publications. It shows in her writing, because it is so spare, but lethal. The last one I read, Symposium, was very much in that mode, and again, I really enjoyed the twists and the tale. I've been reading her work wildly out of order because of book availablity, but that's probably better for me--I've not been as judgmental about the later books, which are often light in the story department, as the critics were, and consequently, I've still enjoyed the ride.

And number 191:

The Architecture of Desire by Mary Gentle

Not to put it too finely, I loathed this book. Because I read a lot of period fiction, a librarian had recommended another of Gentle's books to me, and I was never been able to get into it. I finished this one, and really--can't think of any reason to read another book by her.

I've really enjoyed these posts ... and the chatter they generate ;-> Your review on Symposium (msg 218) just cracked me up :) Nice way with words my friend.

Prop2gether, as we head on into the final month of the year 2008, I want to thank you for all the wonderful books you read. I've expanded my reading list and tbr pile because of your posts.

I'm moving your book #188 up toward the top of the tbr pile...Thanks for turning me into a Muriel Sparks fan.

Book 188--"WOW" -- and now I note you are up to book 191! How do you and Stasia find the space for all these books...and the time to read them... You both are a true inspiration to me.

Oh nice notes from fellow readers--I love this group! It has expanded my choices exponentially. When I write about a book or an author, I try to just give a taste of what interested (or irritated) me, and let anyone reading decide if it's worth the time for him or her to pick up the work. I generally do read blurbs (which, incidentally, was a huge disappointment to me on #191) and after I've finished a book, I'll read reviews to see how my impressions match up with others.

As for reading? I read everywhere and just about anything. I spent a year in bed as a seriously ill child and it was reading or stultifying boredom. My parents basically operated an open book shelf policy--if you pulled it from the shelf, you could read it (which is how I read The Group by Mary McCarthy at about age 12 the first time, not understanding half of the "adult" story line). I read on the bus and train to and from work, during breaks and lunch, and often at home in the evening (also sometimes walking on the sidewalks, but that can be dangerous). I have only one channel of regular television because I won't pay for cable or satellite, so I often read with a movie or music playing in the background. I always have at least one book in my bag, and bookstores are lethal for me. The $1 store just reopened, and I have to find another route from the library to the bus stop--soon.

lol i can relate to the 2nd paragraph -- mine was/is asthma. i too read while walking (i gave up reading while driving!).

Glad to know that you enjoyed Curriculum Vitae. I will need to read some more of Spark's work one of these days, too.

I am adding The Trouble with Lichen and The Bride Wore Black to Continent TBR as well. Thanks for the suggestions and reviews.

So here are numbers 192 through 194, short (fewer than 250 pages each) but I see some biggies coming up on my TBR:

Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
The Klingon Hamlet by William Shakespeare (and the Klingon Institute)
Macbeth: The Graphic Novel (Original Text) by William Shakespeare

Annie John was a disappointment for me, taken from the 1001 Must Read list. The narrator is a young Caribbean girl from about the age of 6 or so through her departure from her island home at 17. The book is well written and the individual episodes from different ages are probably typical. My problem was that Annie, who is narrating the story, is smart, ambitious, and willing to lie, steal, cheat or do whatever is necessary to reach her goals. It doesn't make her more interesting (as Moll Flanders becomes), it makes her far less sympathetic, especially when she's leaving the only home she's ever really known. I would read another of Kincaid's works, but this one just didn't do it.

On the other hand--Shakespeare in two forms I certainly never thought I'd see, let alone read:

Hamlet in Klingon (actually, it's a dual text book with English on one side and Klingon on the other), with additional informational material. I love it!

Macbeth in a graphic novel, complete and unabridged original text! I suppose it helps that this play is the shortest of the Bard's, but still--a beautiful book, complete with a history of Shakespeare, current information as well, a family tree of the monarchs, and so forth. Lots of fun information, plus the publisher has two revised English versions for those who don't want to tackle the original. This is a prized Early Reviewer for me.

Prop2gether

I'm not a big fan of graphic novels (actually I've never read one--when I look at them I find the pictures distract me from the story--I seem to automatically make my own mental pictures as I read and graphic novels confuse me) but your recommendation of Macbeth has me rethinking my aversion to graphic novels. I'm going to try to find a copy to look at. For one thing--so many young people today are reading graphic novels, if they can be seduced to Shakespeare by a graphic version I would be thrilled. I would buy them just to hand out to my teenage music students! If I were to run for public office my platform would be that this world needs more Shakespeare. (Okay--off my soap box! :-D )

Book #191, I don't believe I have ever heard such strong words from you about a book. I got a good belly laugh from that. I guess that's one I don't have to go looking for. You're still on the hook for getting my mind started on this whole 1001 thing though.

#242 BDB: Look on the bright side - if you read 500 books a year, it will only take you 2 years and a day to do the 1001 book thing.

First, MusicMom, when I collected them, they were called comic books and typically cost 10 cents a piece, expect that Classics Illustrated were always a bit more. (I learned my 12s tables when prices on DC and Marvel comics increased!) What happily surprised me was that this edition is full, complete, still readable, but with faces to match characters, it can be easier to follow. Plus I reviewed again all the supplemental materials, and they were pretty complete. Apparently there's another triple set (full text, slightly modern, really modern) for Henvy V as well--wouldn't that be fun reading the St. Crispin's Day speech in current lingo!

Blackdog--so you understood I disliked the book? Seriously, I think I used the word "abhor" with Bret Easton Ellis earlier this year, but at least Less Than Zero had a plot line. For me, there was so much wrong with this book and the characters--the only blessing was it was very short. Having read so many good and great books in the last few months, this was pure disappointment. But I'm still with Moll Flanders (we're in Virginia at the moment), and with Peter Carey's My Life as a Fake, so whew! Good things coming!

The Klingon Hamlet???? I've got to have that! Onto the wishlist it goes.

Msg 240 -- I wondered if these graphic novels might be good for the GED class my sis has (low level readers, see: http://www.librarything.com/topic/50150). But it took me a while to remember which thread they were on :)

Fourpawz--the authorized version of the original play! Hard to resist--and I failed to resist.

Suslyn--I'll check out the list later. Monday's are a bear.

But I need to list before I lose the order numbers 195 through 199:

No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

The first and last from the 1001 Must Read list; the second an autobiographical history of Orwell's service in the Spanish Civil War; and the third a novel by an Australian author for the Read Abroad November challenge (my second for this subject).

>248 Prop2gether: Prop, what did you think of Sexing the Cherry?

- TT

#248 Prop2gether

I'm going on a George Orwell kick next year; wold you recommend Homage to Catalonia and can I put it in the biography/memoir category in 999? I have a feeling I won't be reading much beyond my 81 books for 999 because I've got quite a few that will take a while to read. Not much "fluff" on my list--although some might think the scifi/fantasy category is fluff. For me it will be a challenge--lovingly done because I want to talk books with my sons who read quite a bit of that genre.

#248-here's my notes:

No One Writes to the Colonel is a collection of one long and several related short stories by Marquez. I did enjoy most of the stories, although they are terribly depressing. I have never been able to read his longer novels, but now I understand why--between the depressing storylines and the oblique references to politics/history/classics, I get bogged down. Recommended as short stories, but they are not happy ones.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell was a treat for me. It is the first time I've read anything that even approximated making sense of the Spanish Civil War from an outsider's perspective. Orwell went in as a political naif and came out chastened in his views. He has two chapters in which he first warns readers that if politics are not interesting, then skip the chapters, but in those chapters, he delineates the action on the front, behind the scenes, and in his immediate neighborhood very effectively. I thought it was quite relevant, especially for students of WWII, and do wish more people had read it when it was originally published.

My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey was a read for Reading Globally-Australia, and it was okay for me. I kept reading because Carey is quite as accomplished a writer as these characters are fakes--some totally, some partially, but no one is immune from the charge by the book's end, and everyone ends up cheated in some manner by their own actions.

Sexing the Cherry is the second book I've read by Winterson, and it was bolstered because I had some idea of her sexuality. The title refers to horticultural grafting around the time of the Puritan revolution and reinstatement of the British crown. There are new versions of the 12 dancing princesses fairy tale, and some fascinating discussions of both court life under the Puritans and being more than dirt poor at the time. I enjoyed the book, but found myself a bit bewildered by some time changes which Winterson sets into the story, to combine past, present, and future. You have to be willing to "go with the flow" when you read this author.

Sexing the Cherry is on my to read pile, although I know nothing about it, so I'm very curious - what should I know about Winterson's sexuality before I begin reading? And do you think Winterson does a good job of melding historical elements and magical realism?

>251 Prop2gether:. Thanks Prop, I will give Sexing the Cherry a whirl - bit scary about Winterston's sexuality!

oops typo!

- TT

Winterson is gay, and that is also to say that she allows her characters to have similar or mixed feelings about love. Her first book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is semi-autobiographical. Very funny, very touching, very original. She is also religious (having been raised to be a missionary) and has a very deft way of mixing mystical elements (or fairy stories) into her plots. Sometimes they seem like weird deviations, but they are always incorporated into the final product. Her female characters tend to be strong, often by need, but in this story, Jordan, the lead male character, is very intriguing. He's the element of the story with the strongest mystical ties, and it works.

> 254 Prop, you have definately whetted my appetite for Sexing the Cherry!
Thanks.

- TT

Oh, that's where I know her name from! I read Oranges a couple years ago and remember liking it. Thank you for telling me more about Sexing the Cherry - I'm excited to read it!

Geesh, by the time I get back here, there are 50 new posts! You're doing some great reading, prop, although me thinks you are dating yourself a bit with some of your comments;-)

Glad to read your comments on the Winterson. I've been meaning to read more of her. I've only read Lighthousekeeping which I thought quite good. The new one...Stone Gods sounds good also.

Avaland, not sure exactly which comments date me, but I presume most do--if I listed my movie, reading, and television preferences (especially compared to my children's)--definitely maps to my generation! ;-) Never could lie or hide it very well. LOL!

And numbers 199 (okay, I can't count well past my fingers and toes) through 201, to end November:

Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec
Deadly Silents by Lee Killough
Red Dog by Louis De Bernieres

More later, computer acting up again.

congratulations on nearly reaching book #200 :-)

Sorry Laurie, I could not resist checking the numbers (a bit OCD with counts/numbers) on your thread, in message 50 and 60 you counted one book too much, some other mistakes were corrected. So IMHO these books are numbers 197-199

I'll doublecheck, thanks! I have another "master" list which automatically numbers for me for my book reading at work (sorry on non-work hours!), and it shows I just passed 200--so now I have to find what I missed on this list. Grrr....being compulsive about those lists can sometimes backfire. Right now, my numbers match, so I'll just have to check line by book!

if you add a tag like "read in 2008" to your books on LT, it would be easier to check.

What did you think of Deadly Silents? I love early Lee Killough science fiction, before she got into fantasy.

So I haven't found anything missing, but I'll print my thread and doublecheck tonight against my other non-LT list. Now I'm getting willies about my son looking this over for his statistics class--just kidding. I do want to make sure I'm correct, so thanks for the note.

#263--Good idea, except I have these other lists already, and I've been trying to put my tags on a diet--I never remember what they are when I'm in the middle of entering a book, and then end up having to edit again. I like the tags, but I want them more generic than most LTers (I think).

#264: Deadly Silents was interesting, and a fun outing with an author recommended above by ronincats. I guessed the killer long before the hero did (he was a little dim in that area) but the writing was pretty good for the genre. Killough was thorough enough to keep the story running on a couple of levels, but there were several unfinished bits which bothered me when I closed the book. I will be looking for more of her stuff in the library.

Things: A Story of the Sixties is from the 1001 Must Read list (yes, I keep reading off that list!), and I enjoyed this novella. Apparently it was not published in a US market when it was originally released, and that was probably a political judgment. The story follows a young couple through their meeting, their lives together, their jobs (in advertising/marketing), their excursion to Africa, and their return. It's a very simple story told in literal terms by the possessions they wish for, obtain, or never succeed in getting--thus, things. This might be too slow for some (I almost did not make it through the first 5 or 10 pages), but suddenly, I was caught up in Perec's style and thoroughly enjoyed the story.

Red Dog was fun. I actually started reading this twice because the first time my mood was aiming for something more "intellectual," and this story is not that. It's the rewritten history of a kelpie "big red" dog who was a big part of many people's lives in Australia. Short but highly enjoyable and I recommend it.

Aha! Found two missing books, although my count is correct at 201:

The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters by Lynne Vogel

Both were in August, the DeLillo right after Blood and Guts in High School, which may explain my memory lapse. DeLillo's book was so very, very bland right after the shock of Kathy Acker's book, that it really didn't make any memorable impression. Based on my reaction to the other DeLillo I read, I'd say that's probably my feeling about his writing thus far.

The knitting book was fun to look at, pretty patterns, but nothing I'm going to attempt.

And now, I've completed two more--later today with details.

Oh, and I got a portable disk player for my birthday, so here come books on tape/disk! I can walk and read!

I am glad you found them :-)
and Happy Birthday!

Hi Prop2gether.
Happy Birthday
imap://lcl1@mail.lehigh.edu:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E123319?part=1.2&type=image/jpeg&filename=305-happy_birthday_balloon.jpg

And numbers 202 and 203:

Conflicts by Herb Brin
Jazz by Toni Morrison

A book of poetry by David Brin's father and another classic on the 1001 Must Read by a wonderful writer were my latest.

David Brin has a salutation page on his website which is dedicated to his father. However, I found this book when I was searching in the library for something else. A very small volume of verse written in the late sixties and early seventies, Herb Brin's poetry is very topical and more visceral than many of his contemporary poets. I liked most of the poems, and I think it's because they remind of classic story telling with rhythm and repetition. Not for every reader, but I enjoyed them.

I love Toni Morrison's works, but haven't read much since Song of Solomon years ago. This is on that infamous list (the original version), and well worth the time. Written in a riff style similar to the time period and the story, you float along with the characters to learn their backgrounds, their feelings, their lives. Love this quote: "Violet learned then what she had forgotten until this moment: that laughter is serious. More complicated, more serious than tears."

Fabulous writing! Still with Moll Flanders, but working on some shorter works from "that list" which looked interesting. But I will be slowing down because there's the baking and the knitting to complete before the holidays. Busy, busy, busy....

Prop2gether, glad you liked Jazz - and thanks for the quote. Haven't read it in years.

Knitting??? What is it about reading people... I'm hopeless at knitting: every time I pick up the needles I have to remind myself how to cast on and I usually drop a stitch about every third row. Still have a bobble hat in the drawer under the TV that I started at university...

Well, I knit and I crochet, which, for some reason, seems very odd to people who know I'm left-handed. I would also sew, but I can no longer see the eye to thread with a big magnifying glass in hand. I also have a bunch of personal taboos: no hook smaller than an E and no needles smaller than an 8 (unless I'm really stuck on a pattern); nothing in pieces to be put together except a brim with a hat. Lately, I'm into scarves, hats, leg warmers, and that type of stuff. I'll use variegated yarn so I don't have to carry colors and I use wooden needles because they are lighter. Oh, and no dark colors--can't see those either. But I'm now an expert on counting stitches and picking up lost ones! In other words, I can schmooze my way through to the end!

Picking up lost stitches: now that's a superpower I'd like to have.

Yeah, well, when you consistently lose or gain stitches, you figure out how to correct! I really dislike starting over!

You guys have me in stitches!!!!

I love to watch Mrs Tortoise knitting - it is somehow such a peaceful occupation. I feel all cosy and warm just watching her. Beneath my hard shell I am such a softy!

- TT

BDB, would that be counted cross-stitch or a preprinted pattern? You and TT just need to remember that knitting needles are now allowed on airlines!

In a slightly different direction, two more books for numbers 204 and 205:

Proof by David Auburn
A Bridge to the Stars by Henning Mankell

The first is a play which I have seen several times because my ex and my son were working on the production. I enjoyed reading the play more than seeing it because the lead in the production I saw was totally wrong for the part. However, she owned the production company, so.... The premise is that a young woman has spent four years caring for her father who was crazy. He had been a brilliant mathematician, and now that he has died, one of his students wants to find out if any more brilliant work was left in one of the 103 notebooks which were filled. She, on the other hand, is dealing with the ghost of her father and with her older sister (who now feels that the crazy has passed on). A theorem is discovered--who wrote it is the question. This play won the Pulitzer Prize for Auburn and it is worth the read, but the time shifts wildly back and forth from scene to scene, so this may not be for everyone.

A Bridge to the Stars in the next note--my 'puter won't work for another line.

So, A Bridge to the Stars is by the Swede who writes the Kurt Wallender mysteries, but is a YA coming of age story, geared more for young to middle teens. The protagonist is a nearly 12 year old who is frustrated by his father's apparent lack of ambition (his father was an able-bodied seaman and is now a lumberjack) and the new woman in his father's life. The boy wants to know why his mother abandoned him years earlier, and in the course of trying to figure out his own life, creates a "ship's log" journal for himself, a secret society with only one other member, and finds himself out in the cold trying to find a dog he sees running toward the moon.

It sound much more bizarre than it reads. There was one passage that I loved, between the boy and a neighbor one night:

The neighbor says...."I read bits here and there and if there's something I don't like, I change it. This book has an ending I don't like, so I'm writing a new one as I want it to be."

When asked if that can be done, the neighbor responds "There are all sorts of things you're not supposed to do....No doubt you're not supposed to make changes in books either. But I do all that even so. I'm not doing anybody any harm. Besides, I'm mad."

I enjoyed the book, but I did have to rework my reading to YA again because I'm used to reading mysteries by this author. I do recommend it. There's a slightly mystic air about the happenings, but the boy does grow, as do his neighbors.

Did you like the movie version of Proof?

BDB, haven't seen the film version yet. Did get to the stage version way too many times through the rehearsal and presentation process to have been able to watch it without reading first. It's on my Netflix list though.

And numbers 206 through 208:

Reality and Dreams by Muriel Spark
I Die, But My Memory Lives On by Henning Mankell
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

Again, with the Muriel Spark's story! Yes! I love this woman's writing. At her peak, you can't find better. At her lowest, she's still ahead of the crowd. This book is the story of movie director who injures himself on set by falling from a crane and his family--typically dysfunctional in a Spark way. Movies, being a medium of reality and fantasy, invite the comparison and discussions about what is real and what is not between the various members of the family. Coming from an old Hollywood family, this was especially fun for me to read.

I Die, But My Memory Lives On by Mankell is his non-fiction narrative about working on the Memory Book project in Africa for AIDS-stricken adults to record their memories for their families, and, especially for the children who will not know them. It is touching, it is angering because so little is really done to treat the disease on the continent, and it is humbling. The book is split between Hankell's narrative and actual entries from memory books (pages marked with a butterfly) and it is quite something to read.

The Fifth Child by Lessing I picked up after reading discussions on someone else's thread in the 75 group (sorry! I don't recall whose because I had no intention of pulling it from the library shelves, but did). In any event, it is a short but comprehensive novel about the idyllic family (mom, dad, with four children-2 girls and 2 boys) who find themselves living with a child who seems a throwback to our original ancestors. He is loud; he is demanding; he is self-sufficient physically much earlier than most children; he terrorizes distant and immediate family--in short, he destroys the family. Throughout the story, however, the family (immediate and extended) try to deal with a situation which is "normal" and yet also "abnormal." As the oldest of 8, with something like 27 nieces and nephews (and climbing into the grands here as well), I found the story tragic but probable. I understood both sides of the question, but also understood the problems associated with "making do." I recommend it very highly, but it is an emotional read.

As always great reviews. Don't even know where to begin commenting but I was immediately drawn to I Die, But My Memory Lives On. One for the wishlist of 2009. Sounds really good and sad at the same time.

Trish, the book is very short, but very intense, and I recommend it. I'm more impressed by Mankell's diversity with each book I read. Not all are great, but most are really good.

And for numbers 209 and 210:

Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark

I really enjoyed both books. In the latest Kurt Wallender book, the police procedures, the murders, and the mystery were all very intriguing to follow. I even found some sympathy for the murderer along the way. Mostly, however, I like how real Wallender is, on the job and in his home life. He forgets the change to run the washing machine, for pete's sake. But he's a great detective and I thoroughly enjoy this series.

And, yes, another Muriel Spark--this one prompted by her experience as an editor of a poetry magazine. Suffice to say, this novel very slyly hoists everyone involved in the episode by their own petards. I laughed out loud at several sections. (However, that may also be becaue I've read Curriculum Vitae, Spark's autobiography, which goes into detail about the job and people involved in it.) Recommended.

Got a little mired with Moll Flanders, but she's waiting in Virginia for me to pick up the story again. Also reading a Pirandello novel (which is reminding me why I never cared for his plays, but...) and Jacob the Liar from the 1001 Must Read. Since I was loaned Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, I'll finish that this weekend to return it.

Once I bounced over 200 books, I wondered if I could triple the 75 books to 225 by year's end. Looks like it may happen. I can guarantee the numbers will be lower in 2009 because I'm reading at least five books of well over 500 pages. That will be a challenge all by itself!

well if they're a good 500 it's worth it. Hope you find that to be true.

Yeah, I'm hoping so. Several are "classics" or from the 1001 Must Read list, so we'll see if I end up with reading or listening to some--or tossing them across the room! This year was sort an aberration of my reading patterns because after my dad passed away in July, I had trouble concentrating on longer works. I've slowly worked out of that, but I have found that I really like some of these "shorter" authors as well.

Oh and having found TT's Idiot's Guide to Creating Your Own Ticker, here's mine to (hopefully) close out this year:

O good another idiot joins the club! :)

"Racing towards the finishing line, coming up on the inside straight, its prop leading by a nose!"

- TT

Just stopping to say, while I often don't comment -- I do chuckle as I read these threads.

Okay, for numbers 211 and 212:

One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello
The Swallow and the Tom Cat by Jorge Amado

I have never been a fan of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, and this novel is in a similar vein. Vitangelo Moscarda, the narrator, suddenly realizes one morning when his wife makes an offhand comment about his appearance, that he sees himself differently than she sees him. Most of the rest of the novel is a Moscarda discussing the possibilities of his "other" selves and then trying experiments with others around to see if he can get them to see him as he sees himself. The experiments alienate most of his family and friends and the novel ends with only Moscarda satisfied with his living in his moment. I never lost the train of the discussion, but it went on for much longer than I was interested. This is a 1001 Must Read--and it's done. However, I found in subsequent research that one of my all-time Twilight Zone favorite episodes "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" is partially based on one of my least-favorite plays. Curious.

The Swallow and the Tom Cat by Amado was just a charming love story that I found on the library shelves. Short, but intriguing--I recommend it for the writer's humor that's inbedded in the story just as much as for the bird and the cat.

Years ago I read Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Amado and really liked it. I will have to hunt for The Swallow and the Tom Cat although I probably should read The War of the Saints first since it has been on my shelf for years and I've never gotten to it! I kind of forgot about it after we moved (over 10 years ago!)--I need to dig for it.

#289 Prop2gether: I put The Swallow and the Tom Cat on hold at my local library. It sounds like just the kind of read that is perfect for this time of year. Thanks for the recommendation!

BTW - I keep expecting another horse to show up on your ticker. I think it needs more than one, lol. Obviously, I think it should be a race - I am sure there is something Freudian in that.

>292 alcottacre: Stasia, perhaps this will help:

“and now its Prop heading for the finishing line, still streaking ahead, being chased by the rest of the pack, she has quickened the pace, widened the gap by adding another two furlongs , there are just 13 furlongs to go before she reaches the finishing line…”

- TT

#293 TT: I love it!

Much better posting that I can manage--the last race horse I think I watched was way too many years ago (except for Seabiscuit and National Velvet, of course).

Up to numbers 213 through 215:

Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn
Wrapt in Crystal by Sharon Shinn
Dewey: The Small-Town Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

Thanks, ronincats, for two fabulous references with Sharon Shinn--I really enjoyed both books. The last was a loaner from a friend which I had to return by today, and it was a quick fun read. More if you ask.

Of course I will ask! I thought the Jane Eyre retell was quite true to the spirit of the original and loved the cryogenic twist at the end. And I loved the characters in Wrapt in Crystal--it's a favorite of mine. Tell me more about your reactions.

Ronincats: The retelling of Jane Eyre was loving and true-to-the spirit of the original. I'm not fond of novels which "expand" on stories which were well done, or in sequels long after the orignal, but I thought this was a lively and entertaining story. Like another reviewer, I was astonished at how much of the original story Shinn actually managed to incorporate with very little sleight of hand.

And Wrapt in Crystal was very much a delight. It was a murder mystery which kept me guessing, and I, too, loved the characters. I saw a bit of Asimov, a bit of Herbert, a bit of several other writers, but the story was very well told. I'm surprised Shinn's not readily available on the bookstore shelves, because her stories sell themselves.

I have a copy of Jenna Starborn on my nightstand - I am evidently going to have to get to it soon.

I will look out for Wrapt in Crystal as well.

As far as Dewey goes, I really enjoyed it and I hope you did too, Prop. The book is what I would call a 'comfort' read - nothing earth-shattering going on, just a simple story, simply told.

And for numbers 216 and 217:

A Man Asleep by Georges Perec
Beneath the Polar Star: Glimpses of Finnish History by Veijo Meri; translated by Philip Binham

Perec's is another from 1001 Must Read, and I am so glad I read other books between Perec's books! I enjoyed Things: A Story of the Sixties once it was started, but this one--A Man Asleep was a struggle. Fortunately, it was quite short. Essentially, a man wakes up one morning and spends the rest of the book trying to will himself out of existence. I realize there are a lot of discussions about this book and the existentialist POV, but really? Enough. However, a chance comment in a review caught my eye, and I think I can deal with the story more realistically on that level--it's an excellent step-by-step description of someone who is depressed, grows more deeply depressed, and finally hits bottom. Maybe it's because it's nearly half a century since it was published and that's a more modern interpretation, but the book works for me on that level.

Beneath the Polar Star was a history I pulled because I so enjoyed Meri's Manila Rope earlier this year. It's simply a series of essays on various aspects of Finnish history, most less than 5 pages long. My problem with the book was that the translator of this work was literal--sometimes to the point of making the writing stilted and hard to follow. Perhaps the Irish translators of Manila Rope should have been used, because you get "glimpses" of Meri's Finnish wry humor in the writing, but most of the book is harder to read. I enjoyed the book because it is my heritage, each essay is really a complete story of an event or a personage, and there were some great photographs and woodcuts shown.

Currently reading Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth on CD--because I'm listening to David Dukes' fine interpretation, I'm still with the book, but otherwise...I'll let you know when I'm finished. The book won the National Book Prize and it is on the 1001 Must Read. There is something rotten in NYC or Romania here....

Corrected because I can't tell the difference between a DVD and a CD--aren't they all disks? Sigh!

"Currently reading Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth on DVD"

DVD?

BTW I'm coming "out of the closet"--

I never found a Roth book I could love or even tolerate. I finished Portnoy's Complaint and complained the entire way. I promptly gave it away. I tried two or three of his later ones because of recommendations from friends but got them from the library and didn't finish them--although I did read the endings to see if I ought to finish them. I finally gave up on him. It doesn't look like you will be trying to convince me to give this one a try!

nothing rotten in Romania here, as in my house! Just finished a thorough pre-departure cleaning ;->

Question: I have trouble with counting listening to a book as reading one. Obviously others don't -- care to enlighten me? I wanna know! :)

First, as to Roth--I'm with MusicMom here--I've never been happy with any of his works, but there are at least 4 on the 1284 Must Read, so I checked this out. Grrrr.

As to counting books on tape or CD--the blind have been counting this as reading for many years. I also think it would count if you read a book to your child (for instance, my brother read Tom Sawyer to his first-grader, chapter by chapter, and they discussed it every night. That's also reading--just out loud. It means I can "get through" some books I wouldn't normally attempt, and often, because of the readers, the story itself is clearer. I'm listening to unabridged versions, so that can mean lots of CDs in the "jacket" (in this case, 14 CDs covering 17 hours of listening). It also means I can "read" while I'm walking or on noisy trains where distractions interrupt my books.

So I count them.

Thanks Prop. I also count reading aloud... I'm going to muse some more over the aural thing. I'm not blind, so the fact that I can see the print hangs me up a bit. I have, however, noted some audio books on Project Gutenberg I may put toward my 999 classics, so we'll see.

I count audio books, though I tag them as such. I spend too many hours in a car not to use them.

My take is this: when all is said and done, it's the same words hitting your brain if you use an unabridged recording. Yes, you have someone else's voice putting inflections on the prose. However, an illustrated copy of the book also puts inflections on what you read...in some ways even more potent ones...and no one would even think of discounting those.

I'm a competent reader—good vocabulary, good spelling skills, good mechanical scanning ability—so I'm not reading to "learn to read." Therefore, it's the content that matters and that comes down to: same words on the brain.

Sounds excellent to me!

(Plus, I can assure you, listening to this particular book is far easier than reading it would be--I'm not tempted to toss my player across the room!)

Well, numbers 218 through 223:

George Washington's Rules of Civility & Behaviour in Company and Conversation
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski
Ulysses S. Grant: the Unlikely Hero by Michael Korda
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov/Edward Kemp (play version)
Sabbath's Theater by Philp Roth (CD-14 disks/17 hours)

The civics lessons which the teenaged George had to copy in his workbook are still applicable today. There are 110 rules for behavior, of which I really like the last:

Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Boroski is a series of short stories written by him about his Auschwitz and other camp experiences. They are short, stark, and to the point--the goal of survival becomes all. All important, all you can think about, all you can try to do. The writing shows such great promise that it is unnerving to realize what the world missed because this young man, who was barely 17 when he was interned, killed himself in 1951. Highly recommended, but like Ashes and Diamonds, it is not for the faint of heart.

Korda's history of Grant is also highly recommended. Having joined the sister-challenge of U.S. Presidents, this is my first official read in that group. It's pithy, no-fusses--a lot like the man himself, I believe. Korda has some interesting tiebacks to modern history, which also seem accurate to me.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling will be read by every fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed the tales, the commentary from the notes of Albus Dumbledore, and the explanations from J.K. herself. It was a fun read of fairy tales for the magically-endowed.

The Master and Margarita is actually a book on the 1284 Must Read list, but I managed to get the play version. Oh well, it was a fun read of an off-the-wall subversive story, ostensibly involving Pilate, Jesus, the Master (Satan?) and Margarita. It floats through time and space, and while it was sometimes confusing, it was never boring to read. Is it Stalin as Satan? Is he Pilate? And who is Margarita? I guess I'll have to read the novel now.

Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth is my completed book on CD, and it was a long (17 hour) trip. Critics either loved it or panned it, and it did win the National Book Award (which frankly, makes me wonder about the judges). If the novel were pared to its essential elements, it might have been more for me, but I got tired of hearing about sexual escapades, descriptions of anatomy, sexual deviations, sexual dreams--most in very vulgar terms. I'm not squeamish about reading or hearing this stuff (too much time spent backstage, I guess), but it just got boring past belief. I finished the book partly on what I'm calling this year my "Bret Easton Ellis" promise--I will finish the book no matter what. Not recommended, and I agree with the NY Times critic who really, really disliked the book on publication.

Still working on Jacob the Liar by Jurek Becker (another 1284 book), Pere Goriot by de Balzac on audio (yet another 1284 book), and, silly me, counted up the 1284 and other TBR books on my floor in piles--when I hit 125, I decided to watch six shows from the first season of The Muppet Show this weekend (this one ended with Vincent Price!). It's way more than I'll read in the new year! I have knitting and crocheting to do!!!

>308 Prop2gether: ...I decided to watch six shows from the first season of The Muppet Show...

LOL. A fitting response to overwhelming TBR piles.

I've spent the last few days watching "White Christmas", "The Bishop's Wife" (my favorite Christmas movie and far better than the remake), "The Shop Around the Corner" (also better than the remake), "Miracle on 34th Street", "The Cheaters" (I'd never seen this before but I'll watch anything by Lubitsch), "We're No Angels", "Christmas in Connecticut", "Remember the Night" and various kids' shows (even my older kid still loves "Rudolf").

My husband got season four of Lost for Christmas - evening reading is going to be sadly neglected for awhile until we get through all those DVDs.

LOL: for Christmas movies, we watch "The Bishop's Wife," "Miracle on 34th Street" (the original), "The Christmas Story," "Holiday Inn," and "White Christmas." But no celebration is complete without those other seasonal movies: "Die Hard I" and "Die Hard II" and "Lethal Weapon."

And flying out to St. Louis: I left Jacob the Liar at home (heavy book) and read numbers 225 and 226: Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope and The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories by O. Henry. Number 224 just before I left was Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson.

Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles is a retelling by Winterson of the Greek stories of these two heroes. It was fascinating, fun. and a very fast read. I loved the way Winterson grounded the story in the cosmos, and then worked her way through a compromise of these two men to accomplish their separate ways.

Christmas at Thompson Hall by Trollope was a pull from the library because I'm planning to read Trollope in 2009 anyway. This short novel offered an opportunity to read his work without too much effort. It was a light, fun story of a couple enroute home to England for a family Christmas celebration, and the problems they run into, starting in Paris, when she tries to find mustard for a mustard plaster for her husband. It's a bit of a farce, but it was fun.

And William Sydney Porter has few stories which outdo The Gift of Magi for a seasonal lift. This collection has several of his classic stories which are always good reading.

Happy holidays to all of you!!

O. Henry/Porter...definitely in the running as my favorite author.

The whole "heavy book" thing is the only impetus to buying a Kindle or some other eBook reader. Carrying 5-10 books on a trip gets heavy.

Glad you branch out a bit with the Christmas watching. YippeeKiYAy............

I brought home exactly 1 Christmas book from the library, and still have not managed to read it. Maybe by next Christmas . . .

Prop! We have Die Hard and Lethal Weapon on our lists too -- LOL Ours got amended this year to include The Long Kiss Goodnight as well :) At our home we also watch Holiday Inn, The Preacher's Wife and Miracle on 34th Street. My copy of It's a Wonderful Life took a walk while I lived in Paris and I haven't been able to replace it with another zone 2 DVD. I also have the cartoon Grinch on dvd and hope to add the Charlie Brown Christmas sometime.

We've added a few of the newer Christmas specials to the list as well: Santa Claus (Tim Allen) and Elf. The latter was a gift and is zone 1 so we still haven't seen it!

Hope your Christmas was great and your return trip is safe.

>315 suslyn:: Susan, have you tried "The Bishop's Wife"? I found it much better than the remake. However, I admit to being a sucker for old movies.

>316 TadAD: Tad, I do prefer the Bishop's Wife, but we own the other. Who can compare to Cary Grant? :) I love the old ones too. We also have the new Miracle on 34th Street -- and, again, I prefer the old one. C'est la vie.

Number 227 is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, one of two books from my Secret Santa, and I'm in the middle of my Early Reviewer copy of the new translation of Pinocchio and also of Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier, both of which I should finish tonight.

Exceeded all goals I set for myself this year, and I was really surprised by that! Thanks all for great suggestions.

Also, just rediscovered another Christmas movie--The Thin Man with Myrna Loy and William Powell, based on the fabulous Dashiell Hammett.

Official end of year finish: Number 228 is The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, another of those 1001 Must Read books, and an interesting story of love, war, amnesia, and all wrapped up neatly in less than 200 pages. The writing in this novel was stark, clean, and beautiful.

On to 2009~~

...and many more good books! Truly an awesome total, Prop.

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West goes onto my TBR pile. I read quite a bit of Rebecca West when I was young but not this one. This one sounds like a good way to "rediscover" her--I used to love her books.

228 is an impressive number! Congratulations!

Great job, Prop!

Hi Prop2gether
Thanks for all the wonderful recommendations in 2008. My TBR pile expanded because of your wonderful reviews!

Congratulations on reading so many books!