girlunderglass stares out from her display case

So here goes - I'll give it a try. No particular goal, I don't really care if I reach 30 or 50 or 100. But I will do the three Rs: read - rate - review. Happy reading everyone!

Rating system:
★ - lousy
★★ - it was ok, I suppose
★★★ - enjoyed it
★★★★ - loved it!
★★★★★ - amazing; one of my all-time favorites

BOOKS READ
(clicking on the titles leads to the individual messages where I posted the reviews, NOT to the work itself on LT. A big thank you to Shewhowearsred for explaining the HTML codes)

January:
1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt ★★★★ (msg #1)
2. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling ★★★★ (msg #1)
3. The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi ★★★1/2 (msg #3)
4. Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille ★★★ (msg #11)
5. Book Lust by Nancy Pearl ★★★★ (msg #31)
6. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg ★★★1/2 (msg #36)
7. Pinter in Play by Susan Hollis Merritt ★★★ (msg #46)
8. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler ★★★ (msg #55)
9. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende ★★★★ (msg #61)

February:
10. The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories by Rudyard Kipling ★★ (msg #64)
11. The Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin ★★★1/2 (msg #77)
12. I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb ★★★★★ (msg #132)
13. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer ★★1/2 (msg #154)
14. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells ★★★ (msg #202)
15. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon ★★★1/2 (msg #217)
16. Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying by Roald Dahl ★★★ (msg #199)

March (Month of the Firsts):
17. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin ★★★★1/2 (msg #242)
18. Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories by P.G. Wodehouse ★★★ (msg #262)




1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Rating: ★★★★
Tags: 1990s, fiction, U.S.A.

First book I read this year. I was going to spend the holidays in Venice and Milan so I wanted a book that I could get lost in for the trip. This book was a recommendation and a very good one, at that. I thought it would last me for the whole trip, as it looked quite big, but it was impossible to put down. The plot centers around six students at a small college in Vermont - six students that committed a murder, that is. Don't worry, I haven't spoiled anything, the murder is revealed in the opening pages of the novel, although little else is. The motivation for it and the effect it has on everyone involved you find out throughout the novel. This is not a mystery/detective novel though. For starters, we know from the beginning who the killers are. And also, the story is not just based on plot. Ultimately, the book is powerful because of its brilliant characters. The Secret History explores their motives, their actions, their feelings, their peculiarities - but not quite so much as to make you feel you know them; they remain unpredictable, yet believable, until the end. It's an engaging read and I would really recommend it.




2. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
Rating: ★★★★
Tags: 2000s, fiction, children's lit, fantasy, U.K.

This was a Christmas present - and of course anyone who knows me can assert that anything Potter-related would make me very happy. Each story is accompanied by commentary supposedly written by Dumbledore - and used by Rowling to send some messages of her own, and to take a few stabs at all those self-righteous morons who keep trying to get Harry Potter out of school libraries. This commentary is, in most cases, a lot more interesting than the fairy tales themselves, which seem to be targeted at a younger audience (well, they are fairy tales, after all). This book is a great treat for anyone that loves HP, although I am quite curious to see what Mrs. Rowling has in store for us after Harry.

Great reviews, girlunderglass!
--BJ

oh thanks! i tried to see if you've joined the challenge yourself but couldn't find any threads, have you?




3. The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Rating: ★★★1/2
Tags: 1990s, fiction, postcolonial lit, Pakistan, U.K.

This is probably my first dab at what is generally being termed "post-colonial" writing. Karim, whose father is an Indian and his mother an Englishwoman, longs to escape the suburbs that shaped his childhood and go to London. And that he does, in the meantime attempting to rise up the social ladder, witnessing the rise of Punk and living London in the seventies, coping with his family's breakup, struggling with his own issues, and trying to understand the sociopolitical situation in England. But mostly, young Karim is looking for an identity, looking for a place where he can fit in all of this. Louis Menand once said about Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye) that "he never lets anything stand by itself. He always tells you what to think. He has everyone pegged... He seems (and this is why his character can be so addictive) to have something that few people ever consistently attain: an attitude toward life." In this sense, Karim is the anti-Holden: an attitude towards life is what he most wants, yet he doesn't know how to go about developing one; he never tells you what to think about any situation; he hasn't figured out who the people around him are - if they are enemies or friends; and he still has a long way to go until he figures out who he himself is. I have heard some rumors however that the beauty lies in the journey...(?)

Must pick next book now :D I keep looking and looking at my bookshelf and nothing pops out. Tomorrow it is, then. *sigh*

Yes, I have joined the challenge. My thread is named BJ Reads 50+ in 2009. I also have one named BJ Reads 50 Books of the Bible. I am trying to read the Bible all the way through and wanted a way to keep up with it.

I am not very good at writing reviews. I just make a comment or two. I enjoy reading the reviews that others write.

I hope you find a wonderful book to read next! :)
--BJ
Edited to correct the name of my thread. :)

Good luck with your challenge. I too am a Harry Potter freak and read anything HP related, that is why The Tales of Beedle the Bard was my first book of this year.

The Secret History book looks very interesting I may just have to find myself a copy somewhere.

I love reading reviews of other members because I don't think I write great reviews.

Hi Girlunderglass. I have enjoyed reading your wonderful reviews and I have already picked The Secret History and The Tales of Beedle the Bard for my TBR pile. As a dedicated mystery and HP fan they seemed just too irresistable. Thanks and good luck on your challenge. I hope that you find a great book for your next read.

Hi girlunderglass (love that name) and welcome to the 50 book challenge.

I can see that I'm going to have to pick up The Secret History. Yours is not the first positive review that I've read. Did you read her other book The Little Friend? Amazing writing, couldn't put it down, and by the end I wanted to throw it across the room. I would love to discuss it with someone. Anyway, despite that, since I already know that I like Tartt's writing, I should give Secret History a try. Again, welcome.

*billiejean --> found your thread + will keep watching it. I love writing anything, so i'm glad you're enjoying the reviews!
*crazy4reading --> yes you should definitely find a copy somewhere! always nice to find potterfreaks :)
*kirconnell --> thanks ! i'm waiting to hear your thoughts on any of them!
*theaelizabet --> I've actually been watching your challenge - you are aware that you read freakishly fast, right? :) I haven't read The Little Friend unfortunately, though I've only heard good things abut it. The Secret History also has a bit of a "hmm...that was weird; didn't see that coming" end, but it felt like any other end would have been inappropriate. It fitted the mood of the book. I'm not gonna give anything away, but Donna Tartt seemed to be making a statement against neat endings - life doesn't always tie up all loose ends, so why should literature?

Oh by the way, I've started Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye. It's quite small so it shouldn't take me more than a day or so.

Tartt definitely didn't worry about tying up loose ends in The Little Friend, but I'll say no more. If you ever read it let me know.

As to my fast reading: Nah, I started my challenge in October. I'm decent, but there are many people here who I swear must never work, eat, or talk to friends and family, but instead sit around reading a bazillion books. I wish.

ok so I've been playing wii the whole weekend and didn't read a single line - shame on me - but today I had a chance to finish:




4. Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
Tags: 1920s, fiction, surrealist, erotica, France
Rating: ★★★

This is a very short book divided in two parts: the first is basically the account of two teenagers' sexual lives. The sex scenes are very graphic and at times very disturbing; Bataille uses certain recurring symbols throughout the story (egg=>eyeball=>testicles etc) and , in the second part of the novella, he explains how these symbols came to be fixed in his mind, and how they ended up being distorted so wildly by his imagination. This brief explanation is equally disturbing, if not more so, than the story he previously concocted. Thank God, this edition included two essays in addition to the story, one of which tried to explain the metaphor of the eye (enabling readers to take a peek at the workings behind the curtain, and thus acknowledge Bataille's merit) and another one, equally interesting, discussing pornography as a form of art. All in all, it was interesting to read a genre that isn't really what I usually go for - not sure if I will pick other books by him any time soon, though.

Currently reading: Smilla's Sense of Snow

Hola GUG

Had to find your thread so I could star it. It seems like you read stuff I'd be interested in reading. =) I enjoyed your reviews and am glad you're writing them for each book you read. I hope you keep up the thread for the year.

The Secret History is a book I've been wanting to read. It reminds me of and has been compared to Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl which I loved and would totally recommend to you.

hey chrine! thanks for dropping by -

I am indeed planning to keep my thread, and keep posting reviews for every book I read. It just feels too good to know I'm keeping track of everything I read for me to abandon it. I've heard a lot of good things about Special Topics in Calamity Physics lately and I see that LibraryThing has it as a recommendation for The Secret History. Hmmm...in the recommendations for The Secret History there's also Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, whom I see you're a fan of. Haven't read anything by her, though I have heard that, despite the fact that she was a Jew, she portrays Jews quite negatively in her writings and in fact reinforces antisemitism - is that terribly mistaken?

Hola GUG

I've only read Suite Francaise by her. It was a group read with one of my book clubs. I've also heard the same thing about her. I don't remember very much of it in that book though, but I read it awhile ago.

I put all my 4 and 5 star authors (since I started using LT) in my favorite authors list rather spending hours willy-nilly filling the list. So an author there doesn't necessarily mean I've read a lot of their works, just that I like what I've read so far.

Hi, girlunderglass. Glad to hear you enjoyed The Secret History. The first time I read it I was completely bowled over but when I read it again 10 years later I had a hard time with it and couldn't think why I'd enjoyed it so much the first time round. Perhaps one's reaction depends on one's age at the time.

I've heard good things about Smilla's Sense of Snow but haven't actually read it. How are you getting on with it?

Chrine - what a great idea! I was having such a hard time deciding on the authors I wanted to add to my favorites...I believe I might just steal your technique :D I don't know if I'll try Suite Francaise any time soon, I have trouble with unfinished novels, they piss me off. I'm definitely putting Special Topics in Calamity Physics higher on my reading list, though.

Robertgreaves - hmmm I've sometimes enjoyed/understood a book more after rereading it at another time in my life, but I've never had the opposite. I've never enjoyed something less than the first time - maybe it's because I only reread books I absolutely loved. You're definitely right though, one's reaction does depend on their age at the time, as well as on their mood at the time, and on the tings they've heard about a book beforehand. Sometimes I expect so much from a book that I'll almost inevitably end up disappointed after I read it. It's not really fair, is it?

I've only read about a quarter of Smilla's Sense of Snow, but I usually read much more on weekends, so I might just finish it by Monday. Loving the protagonist so far - Smilla. She's just so...well, I'd love to use a better word but there's no other way of putting it... cool.

Hello! I'm glad to you're still posting your reviews. I enjoyed reading your first three. I've already added The Secret History to my TBR list. Oy!

I'm eager to see what you have to say about Smilla's Sense of Snow. It's another one of those I've been eyeing of late.

Let me put in a good word for Suite Francaise. Don't let knowing that it is an unfinished novel put you off to reading it. It's excellent. Each part of the book is a novella in and of itself. Before you read the book, though, read a bit about the author, Irene Nemirovsky, first. That will put the novel in perspective.

I also read another book by Nemirovsky called Fire in the Blood. I liked that novel even better.

My husband also read both Nemirovsky books, and liked them very much as well.

You're also spot on with The Secret History and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Both books are huge...and creepy! I loved them!! I hope you like them as well. Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a book you'll either love or hate. It seems no one is neutral about that book. :)

It's worth reading Smilla's Sense of Snow although I wasn't crazy about the last third of the book. The Danish author Peter Hoeg has written some very interesting books. I liked the other two I've read: Borderliners (intriguing), and The Woman and the Ape (bizarre).

Hola GUG

Totally welcome to steal my technique.

I did hate that Suite Francaise was unfinished. I really enjoyed the first two parts (IN had 6 parts planned) and wanted to see what she would have done with the rest of it.

I'm glad to hear you're going to try Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

Hola SqueakyChu

I've got Fire in the Blood on my TBR list and am glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics was my pick for book club last year and no one else who read it liked it (not many read it because of the long size and it was read in January). The husband liked it though.

</i>Smilla is still on my TBR stack, but I read his latest, The Quiet Girl, the year before last. It was bizarre, and I don't think I ever really made any sense out of the ending or the plot overall, but somehow that didn't really matter. I still enjoyed it.

edit: italics begone!

hmmm...what was with all the italics?? weird.

Squeakychu - maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that I won't like so I don't have to add yet another book to my TBR :) I'm sure I'll give her a chance in the future, it's just that I have too many books I want to read sooner than that. As a fellow LTer, I'm sure you understand.

Medellia, I think I know what you mean about Hoeg - some plot details are kind of hard to follow, I've had some "...huh??" moments myself while reading Smilla.

chrine - let's see where I can find myself a copy of Special Topics. I don't live in an English-speaking country, yet I read mostly in English so it might take me a while. It's not listed on Bookmooch + I've just ordered a bunch of books from Amazon so it's probably not gonna be thaaaat soon.

Hola GUG

Now I'm curious about what country you live in, if you don't mind saying. I assume if you read primarily in English that you're orginally British or American.

haha, I'm not British nor American - I've just developed a habit of reading mostly in English ever since I was...oh I don't know 12-13? I'm half Greek half-Romanian, currently leaving in Greece, but probably moving to Spain in a year or so. I just hate reading in translation, and a lot of my favourite writers happen to be American (Salinger, E.E. Cummings, Vonnegut etc.). Oh, plus I'm studying English literature - it just seemed appropriate somehow ;)

Hi Girl,

Not bad yourself, 5 books already! I haven't read The Secret History but I do have The Little Friend sitting on my shelf. Your rating system is very similar to mine when I rate books here. Keep up the good work, I'll keep tabs on your reading and your reviews.

Hola GUG

Well, your English is very good. lol And I'm sure this isn't the first time you're been told that living in Greece must be beautiful. Spain sounds fun too. I envy you the food and wine.

so..um...I took the book quiz everyone on LT seems to be raving about :) apparently:

You're A Theory of Justice!

by John Rawls

In the beginning, you lived in a town. The town had many problems!
Rather than moving, you decided to come up with the idea for the best town ever. Going
all the way back to the original position, you created the idea for the best town ever!
Lo and behold, the best town ever looked almost identical to the town you lived in. You
decided to stay in the town. Now you resent people mistaking your refined thought
experiments for "the wall of stupidity" in high school debate
rounds.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Now I just have to read it :D

I took it a few different times and got a different book each time. It is cool.

Hey girlunderglass- Your English is terrific. As to you current and future locations: I'm jealous! Spain is one of my favorite countries.

5. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl
Tags: 2000s, non-fiction, U.S.A.
Rating: ★★★★

An Amazon order I'd made containing this book just got delivered yesterday. I was done with it in a single day. Of course, this isn't one of those books that you read once. It's one of those books that you go back to again and again, for consultation. I was hesitant to buy any "books about books" in the beginning because I was worried that my taste wouldn't coincide with the author's and it would be a waste of money, but I needn't have worried. Pearl's recommended reads are so diverse that it is IMPOSSIBLE not to find something that you'll be interested in. (If you have expertise in matters of law you can draft a legal document that attests the validity of the previous statement and holds me responsible if the book doesn't deliver what I promised and I will sign it in a second.) Book Lust doesn't have a specific reader in mind, it's for all ages and all tastes. The book has separate categories for different regions (from Japan to New Mexico and everything in between), different time periods (Vietnam, WWI&WWII, 100 Great Reads for Every Decade etc) and different genres (ALL genres, from epistolary novels to cyberpunk). The best part was that it wasn't just a list of novels - almost every book has a brief description that makes you aware of the subject and themes of the book, without giving too much away (1001 Books you Must Read Before You Die spoiled some books' ending for me). Some of my favorite categories were "Aging", "Companion Reads", "Girls Coming of Age", "Spies and Spymasters" "Three-Hanky Reads", "My Own Private Dui" and, of course, "Too Good to Miss". There are only two negative things I have to say about the book: a) it makes you sadly aware of the fact that you will never be able to read everything that you wan to because there's just too much out there; and b) it will add a very frightening amount of books to my TBR pile. Oh well.

"it makes you sadly aware of the fact that you will never be able to read everything that you want to because there's just too much out there"

And are you aware that there is More Book Lust?

theaelizabet :)
yes I'm afraid what with this book and with seeing all the wonderful recommendations here on this group I am becoming more and more certain that on the day that I die they will find a TBR list in my left pocket, containing thousands of books that I won't have had the chance to read. (I'm hoping my children will become obsessed with the list and will make it their lives' purpose to find and read all the books on the list and then THEIR children will write a wonderful novel about their parents' search. So that at least something will have come out of my bibliomania! )

Spain is one of my favorite countries as well, which is why I'm hoping to move there.

Review of Smilla's Sense of Snow coming up soon.

*edited to add that I'm NEVER gonna read More Book Lust!

Book Lust sounds like a great investment. I am going to wish list Book Lust on Borders.

It is sad to know that I won't be able to read every book that I would like to. I like your idea GUG. I think I will start writing a TBR list now.

Now that I need to order for my Grandma's birthday (90th!), I will have to add that book to the list for me. What a great review!
--BJ

6. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg
Tags: 1990s, fiction, mystery & crime, ecofiction, Denmark
Rating: ★★★1/2 or ★★★★ (cannot decide, don't make me!)

This book was a weird mixture...parts amazing and parts indifferent.* I'm sure I'm not the first to observe that this novel doesn't feel at all like a detective/mystery novel. It's too insightful, too observant, too honest, too deep to be just that. Plus, the protagonist is one of the most fascinating women I've read about in a long time. So why not an even higher rating? Well, there were various things that bothered me - little things, yet things that poked and poked at me until they annoyed the hell out of me. Things like the mechanic - Smilla's love interest - who I thought shouldn't have been in the book in the first place. (IMO, Hoeg should've either left out the "love story" all together or drawn a more sympathetic/interesting character.) Or like most of the different characters on the boat who, in their majority, were more like stereotyped caricatures representing a universe united against Smilla. Like the fact that I wouldn't have cared less if the murdered kid had turned out to be eaten by Bigfoot - and the identity of the murderer surely should be of interest in a mystery novel, no? Hoeg was a sailor, a fencer and a mountaineer before he was a writer, so it's not surprising that he is at his best when he writes about the things that interest him most. The best parts of the book are those where Smilla reminisces about her childhood, talks about her love of ice and her passion for both nature and science, and describes the world and people around her. The worst parts are those where the novel purported to be a romance book, a detective novel, or a thriller. I still recommend this book - don't think for a moment that it's boring or bad - it just isn't what it claims to be.

Quote:
"I can't imagine that anything like the Christian image of hell actually exists. But lately I've been wondering about the ancient Greenlandic realm of the dead. If you consider all the unpleasantness you encounter while you're alive, it seems improbable that it would all come to an end simply because you're dead.

tiny little SPOILER (I don't think I'm giving away too much)
*I have seen various reviews here on LT (notably TadAD's) that expressed dislike for the last part of the book. I want to make clear that I don't think the last part of the novel was much worse than the others. The good parts and bad parts were all mixed together, for me. The slightly over-the-top ending didn't annoy me, as it didn't seem impossible. Since Smilla's worldview was so grounded in science and we get reminders of her expertise so many times throughout the book, I felt like just the fact that she accepted what was happening as possible was proof enough that it could happen - if that makes sense. We got hints that something BIG was gonna happen all over the book, so it didn't come as a surprise.

I liked your review of Smilla's Sense of Snow. I also thought that Smilla was an amazing character. I read this book several years ago and never forgot it. I kind of like the over the top ending. But mostly I like reading about her friendship with the boy.
--BJ

thanks BJ! Yes, I also loved reading about her friendship with the boy!

For those of you who are also on the 75challenge group (and BJ I know YOU are :P) I've also started a thread there. Here it is!

Do you plan on watching the movie, Smilla's Sense of Snow, now that you've finished the book? I haven't read the book yet (though it's somewhere in my TBR pile), but I thought the movie was pretty good, even though the ending was kind of out there.

hmm I actually didn't even know there WAS a movie! is it faithful to the book? did the make it very Hollywoodian?

I liked the movie, but I generally like movies. :) I am trying to remember who was in it. I can't remember the names but I remember their faces. :/ (My daughter tells me that I need to branch out and make a wider variety of faces!) It comes on tv from time to time.
--BJ

#40: As far as I know, the movie's pretty faithful to the book. It's been a couple years since I've watched it, but I don't think it was very Hollywoodian (love the word, btw).

#41: Ditto here, billiejean. :) It's hard for me to hate most movies. And to jog your memory, Julia Ormond and Gabriel Byrne were in it. Ha ha! I love the :/ face. My fave is the ;) and :P, but use them too often and people think you're a perv. ;) Oops.

>my fave is the shocked one :O, I just can't get enough of it. I'm finding everything I read on these threads very shocking these days, just so I can use it :D
Now I guess I'll have to see that movie - need.more.time.need.more.time.need.more.time.need.more.time.
*deep sigh*

Currently reading:
Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter by Susan Hollis Merritt (touchstone doesn't seem to work)

Currently listening to: (audiobook)
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Quote:
"Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the word 'Jew,' with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions.... For the Jew was still characterized for me by nothing but his religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I maintained my rejection of religious attacks in this case as in others. Consequently, the tone, particularly that of the Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation."

Ironic, isn't it?

Indeed.

7. Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter by Susan Hollis Merrit
Tags: 1990s, non-fiction, literary criticism, U.K.
Rating: ★★★

Susan Hollis Merritt makes an argument for "greater cooperation and collaboration among critics and for relating the strategies used by individual Pinter critics to tendencies in recent literary and critical theory." The book is well-written and well-documented, and the arguments she puts forth make perfect sense. However, I do not think it is a book I would read "for pleasure" - to plough through it requires a certain amount of determination that, had I not been in the middle of a research on Pinter, I would not have managed. I cannot say I loved reading it, though I cannot say that it felt like a chore, either. Merritt, in my opinion, possesses the ability to impress the Pinter scholar, but she does not have the literary talent necessary to keep the common reader interested. At the moment, I myself am somewhere in between.

Hi, girlunderglass.

I see you've read The secret history - I enjoyed it too.

Also, Book lust looks interesting. I'll have to look out for it.

Hi parmaviolet! You really should look for Book Lust, but beware! Your TBR will increase significantly!

That is why I am afraid to try Book Lust, because I know it will add to my TBR pile.

>49 crazy4reading: that is true but, on the other hand, it might make you interested in genres you never thought you would be interested in. There's just SO much in there!

I know, yet I have been trying a lot of different books lately. I never really read Literature/Fiction before and now that is all I am buying at the store. I will be looking into Book Lust soon.

I too love The Secret History and read calamity physics based on the much-noted parallels therein. I enjoyed it but wish to sound a note of caution: I see it as a cross between the Secret History and The DaVinci Code - it lacks the calm confidence of the Tartt book. That said, I'd still reccommend it - and look forward to your reaction

>51 crazy4reading: Really? You never used to read fiction? That's all I ever read - that's why I've decided to try some non-fiction this year as well. I don't usually read non-fiction.

>52 bencritchley: Thanks for the warning! I'm not one of those that hated the Da Vinci code, however. I enjoyed it for what it was. I mean, it's no great work of literature or anything but I did read it in one sitting. Just because Brown won't be winning any Nobel prizes any time soon, it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the fact that he can make me read 400 pages in three hours. That said, of course I'd take The Secret History over The Da Vinci Code any day, so I'm REALLY curious now how I will feel about Calamity Physics, if you say it's somewhere in between :)

Yes at least that is how I feel. Over the past couple of years I have been really into the fantasy books. Before that I read nothing but mystery and suspense novels. I am trying to read a bigger variety of books.

8. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler (audiobook)
Tags: 1920s, non-fiction, autobiography, political theory, Germany
Rating: ★★★

How do you rate a book like this? Do you rate it according to literary merit, according to how influential or important it is, according to how much you "enjoyed" it, according to how fascinating the subject, or according to the validity of the opinions voiced in it? Obviously I do not agree with the opinions the man voices, nor do I think the arguments he puts forth are valid. If the book is an attempt to justify himself, he fails. If it's an attempt to convert people to his way of thinking, he fails again. But that doesn't mean I'm not glad I listened to his arguments, nor does it mean that I didn't find the book interesting. In the first part of the book, when he is talking about his childhood and teenage years, Hitler seems like an educated and rational man: he adores books, believes firmly in the power of education, has a passion for history and geography, and his biggest ambition is to become a painter or an architect (!). Not only that, but he dismisses antisemitic theories "on grounds of human tolerance" and believes everyone should have a right to practice whatever religion they want to. His explanation of the reasons that compelled him to make his "greatest transformation of all" - his conversion to antisemitism - is ludicrous, at best. (Jews smell bad? 90% of artists he dislikes are Jews? Jews have formed a conspiracy to control all the newspapers? and nonsense like that) From that point onwards, the book becomes an outlet for his hatred towards Jews and for expressing his dreams of the expansion of Germany. The book is two-thirds tedious and one-third interesting, two-thirds nonsensical (in terms of arguments) and one-third rational. My rating is based purely on enjoyment, although I do not think that is fair. My conclusion would be the following: even though a big part of it drags on and even though no one in his right mind could justify Hitler based on this book, I do believe everyone should read it, so that they can understand better one of the people that changed the history of the world.

Good review!
--BJ

Mein Kampf is interesting, insulting and tedious, isn't it? I read it years ago (when I was a teenager, I think). It was fascinating reading, given its historical context, yet I remember it also felt creepy to be indulging this lunatic murderer with my time.

Wonderful review, girl! :) I doubt I'll ever read it, but I see it at work quite a bit (I work in a library), especially during our Banned Book week. And kudos with sticking out the tedious bits. Usually if a book bores me that much, I donate it. ;)

>56 billiejean: thanks BJ!!!

>57 theaelizabet: interesting, insulting and tedious Now you've just gone and made me feel stupid :) You said in three words what I was trying to say in one big paragraph! I'm still glad I read it though... and would love to read some more objective material on Hitler.

>58 saraslibrary: thanks so much, Sara! Well - I kind of cheated: I listened to the audiobook so whenever I felt he was getting too boring I just let my attention er...wander for a bit. :P I don't own an actual physical copy of the book, or I would happily donate it!

#59: Well, I don't really consider that cheating. The material was still the same; you just listened to it instead of reading. :) I wish I could do that. I would get so much more accomplished if I popped a CD into my player instead of read. Plus you could always hit fast-forward. ;)

9. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Tags: 1980s, fiction, magical realism, Chile
Rating: ★★★★

This was my introduction to Allende - I haven't read The House of the Spirits, which seems to be the most famous of her works. I'll spare you the agony of reading the whole paragraph and just say from starters that I loved the book. The novel follows Eva and Rolf's journey from childhood to adulthood in alternating chapters: one for the girl, one for the boy. It is implied from the beginning that circumstances will bring these two together, though at first it is difficult to see how that might happen, as they lead very different lives in different corners of the world. Allende is a brilliant storyteller, managing to blend myth, history, politics and magical realism into her novel seemingly effortlessly. I'm not sure if the novel could be called historical fiction (help anyone?) but the tumultuous political background of Latin America is certainly used creatively by the author to influence the lives of her characters. (Wikipedia informs me that "while the country's political history, traced through several decades of the mid-20th century, bears many similarities to Chile -the author's original nationality- the geography and social context of the story depict a society more similar to Venezuela.") The story does not get boring for a second and you will find yourself racing through chapters in anticipation of Eva and Rolf's foreshadowed encounter. There is only one chapter that I disliked in the book, which seemed to me just wrong, so if any of you have read or are planning to read the book I would love to discuss it with someone. Still, this one works its way easily into my "recommended reads" category.

*Edit: Eva Luna is, in the book, famous for her storytelling - the most prominent of her talents. I found that Allende has written another book called The Stories of Eva Luna containing 10 short stories supposedly written by Eva. I cannot wait to get my hands on that!

Wow your review has me wanting to read the book. I have never read any of Allende's works before. I will be adding this to my ever growing of books wanting to try/buy.

Thanks crazy!
I keep adding books as well, though sometimes it seems kind of pointless, as I have no idea when will I EVER have enough time to read all of them. Classic LT behaviour. :)

10. The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Tags: 1880s, fiction, short stories, U.K., India
Rating: ★★

The Man Who Would Be king and Other Stories wasn't really my cup of tea. The book contains five short stories, each quite different from the other: you will find amongst them a Poe-esque thriller, a love story between a British soldier and an Indian woman, and a picaresque tale set in Afghanistan. Having never read anything by Kipling before and having heard his name mentioned repeatedly, I was expecting something more. Granted this is still the 19th century - so maybe I'm overlooking the fact that some techniques which today seem old and dated might have been considered innovative then. Still, from the point of view of a modern reader, this book didn't have much to give me. I had heard that Kipling is deeply associated with British colonialism, but somehow expected his views to be more subtle. The extremely racist descriptions of Indians and other colonized people is, frankly, very insulting - even while acknowledging as I do that that sort of attitude was almost universal at the time. One could argue that the descriptions of the locals are provided by fictional characters and not by Kipling himself and that perhaps Kipling is just an apt historian documenting his contemporaries' views on colonialism. Even if that were the case - which I doubt - the fact remains that none of the five stories in this collection manage to escape the portrayal of the British protagonist as infinitely superior to the native inhabitants whose land he has invaded. The only story of the five included that I can truly say I enjoyed was Wee Willie Winkie, not that it managed to change my overall opinion on the book. Perhaps a reason one should read this is to get an idea of colonization in the 19th century through the perspective of the settlers. Still, there are better books out there on the subject.

Is it that obvious? *blushes*
:)

I must admit the only Kipling I've read are his children's stories. I heartily recommend Just So Stories.

And of course there's the old joke, but possibly new to you:

"Do you like Kipling?"

"I don't know, I've never kippled."

You write really good reviews, I'm envious! I can write till the cows come home but book reviews are intimidating to write for me for some reason. I didn't have a chance to read every review you have on here, but was impressed with what you did with The Secret History and Mein Kampf for very different reasons obviously. I read The Secret History around the time that it came out, which is quite a while ago now and based on your review, I'm thinking maybe I should do a second reading (every time I do that though I think about all the unread books that are sitting there just waiting to be picked up). As for Mein Kampf... even the best of reviews won't convince me to read it because the last thing I need is to spend any kind of time in Hitler's brain. I've seen and been traumatized by so much Holocaust footage in my school days that I don't think I could stand any more of it. But your review was very informative, fair, well balanced and the next best thing to actually reading the book written by the Devil himself, imho.

>67 Robertgreaves: haha yes, the joke IS new to me :) Thanks for the recommendation, maybe his children's stories aren't so openly racist and I might like them more. I've gotten a few recommendations for The Jungle Books too, have you read those?

>68 Smiler69: *Eliza (c'est moi!) thanks you very much Smiller* :)
If you don't want to read something written by Hitler, maybe you would be interested in some biographies of him. Someone recommended a few that sound very interesting over at my 75 challenge thread. (can't remember who right now, sorry!) That way you probably won't have to hear insulting and racist things about Jews, and still get more in-depth information on Hitler's life and on what happened during WWII. However, if you feel you know enough on the subject from school etc, there are maaaany wonderful books out there waiting to be read so no need to waste your time on something you're not interested in!

On another note -
I'm currently reading:
♦ The Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin
♦ I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

Yes, I have read the Jungle Books, but it was so long ago I have only the vaguest memories of them, and I'm not sure now what comes from the books themselves and what comes from the Disney cartoon.

Great reviews, I LOVED The Secret History - I read it for a book group years ago and at least once or twice since - and have Book Lust wishlisted... I'll be looking out for more to come!

>70 Robertgreaves: yes, I see what you mean. With the Harry Potter books, for example, it's practically impossible to get out of your head some actors' faces. That's why I stopped watching them.

>71 elliepotten: Thanks Ellie! As you probably saw from my review, I loved it as well. And Book Lust is definitely worth reading too! I've put some of the books that Pearl recommends on my Bookmooch wishlist, but unfortunately a lot of them are proving to be quite hard to find! Btw love your profile picture :)

Excellent reviews! I've just added The Secret History to my TBR list. Glad that you enjoyed your first Allende novel!

thanks Holly! (sneak-peaked at your prof.)
I think you'll love The Secret History. Either that or you'll be totally exasperated by its ending. One of the two :) Worth the risk!
Ok, sleepy time for me - it's 4.30 AM here in Greece. That bitch, Isomnia.

OK, I went out and bought Book Lust. Thanks. ;)

oooh can't wait to see what you think!

I finished this book some days ago but kept putting off writing about it...



11. The Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin
Tags: 1960s, literary theory, theatre, non-fiction, U.K.
Rating: ★★★1/2

This is obviously an essential read for anyone with an interest in theatre: a book that has managed to remain as influential and as fresh as it was when it was published in the 60s. Esslin can easily brag of having been there first. Before everyone started jumping on the "absurd" bandwagon he wrote a whole book devoted to the subject. Hell, even the name "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by him.* Part of the reason why the book hasn't lost its appeal is, I think, the fact that it is very accessible. You don't need to know much about the subject in order to understand Esslin's views. It offers a basic understanding of the works of playwrights typically associated with the theatre of the absurd, such as Beckett, Pinter, Ionesco, Adamov, Genet, Albee, etcetera. The book does not overwhelm with details, nor does it delve deeply into each play. Esslin prefers to merely touch upon each work only as much as it is necessary in order to draw comparisons that will make it as easy for us as possible to find the common theme and to solve the "puzzle" of the play. I found this book very interesting, though didn't exactly love it. I admit to enjoying reading the works of the playwrights mentioned a great deal more, but with the help of this book I now understand them better. If you plan to do an extensive read of any of the playwrights mentioned above, The Theatre of the Absurd will definitely enhance your experience.

*Incidentally, I've always found Esslin's wikipedia entry very depressing. It starts like this: "Martin Julius Esslin (June 6, 1918–February 24, 2002) was a Hungarian-born English producer and script writer, journalist, adaptor and translator, critic, academic scholar and professor of drama, best known for coining the term "Theatre of the Absurd" in his work of that name." You spend your whole life doing all those things and you're "best known" for naming something? Say you're a writer/scientist/scholar/biologist, you work hard all your life, your try to make scientific discoveries, you try to be a good writer, you try your best to be a good parent, you're kind to people - you make a difference in some people's lives. And then one day you go "when that bird flaps its wings it sounds like a faint hum! Hmmm... Hum. Bird. Hum. Bird. Hummingbird!!!" and that's what you're known for in the future! Fifty years from now there's someone saying "...isn't he/she the one that thought of the name for hummingbird?" Talk about the absurdity of life.

Edit: (Sorry about the rant!)

I look forward to your review of I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. I loved it and never really talked to anyone about it when I finished it...
I'm curious what you think!

why hello there :) I was wondering when you might pass by!
That's why we're doing the whole book-exchange thingy so we can talk about it!*

P.S. *I still stand by what I said about the protagonist and I don't get why you didn't like him very much :(*

How did I not know about Book Lust? Actually, maybe it was better that I didn't...books like that are dangerous in my hands :)

Are you planning to read any more Wally Lamb? The only one of his books I've read so far is She's Come Undone, which I think got some mixed reviews but I really liked it.

It's good to hear that you liked She's Come Undone as I've mooched it recently and waiting for it to arrive! (well... fireeyedboy mooched it but I'm going to read it too :D) I'm loving I Know This Much Is True soooo much! I'm only on page 200 of the almost 900 and last night I was already in tears: a thing very rare with books for me, that - paradoxically - makes me very happy when it happens!

I know what you mean GUG. I love it when I cry it makes me happy to know that a book has touched me that much and has drawn me into the story so well.

P.S. I am planning on buying Book Lust this weekend. I need to use my 30% off coupon for Borders anyway.

Hi - and thanks for the *. I saw you have The Book Thief on your TBR list. I would highly recommend it.

I agree with you about Smilla. I often felt it know what kind of book it wanted to be. At times I liked the direction it went in, and others felt like I was watching a mediocre action flick (that said, no, I haven't seen the movie version).

And I must be the only person on the planet who didn't love The Secret History.

Thanks to LT, Special Topics in Calamity Physics has been on my TBR list for a bit. We'll see if I get around to it in '09.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing what else you read this year!

Thanks for your comment on Wally Lamb. All of his books are winners! You will not be able shake off I Know This Much is True for a long time to come! Enjoy!

>82 crazy4reading: Yes! That's exactly what I mean. You'll probably need 50 more coupons after you buy Book Lust ;)

>83 ljbwell: I've heard soooo many good things about The Book Thief...I keep waiting to mooch it but it's on hundreds of wishlists :( I think I'm just gonna have to buy it. Oh well. As for The Secret History I'm glad there are people who don't like it too, it would be too boring if we all did! Looking forward to your reads as well!

>84 msf59: I think I know what you mean... even when I'm not reading it I find myself thinking about it! Between my book and the new season of LOST the mice on the treadmill that keeps my brain operating are running non-stop. :D

#85. Have you given any thought to stealing a copy of The Book Thief? Only kidding (I think).

After you left a comment on my thread about said book I lurked your profile--and was amazed to see that you resemble Liesel Meminger, the feisty, stubborn book thief!

Also, I Know This Much Is True is one of my all-time favorites, which my wife is reading as I "speak."

I haven't read Book Lust, but have you or anyone read this (link to Amazon):

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

Charlie

Yes, yes, yes! I have The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop - even the cover seems to emanate a sweet shop glow of warmth and happiness. I loved it and liked the balance between the history of bookselling and modern ideas about stores and books and reading.

#87. Thanks, EP! I was window-shopping Amazon when I came across it and the Booklist review intrigued me.

I like to check out the LT experts first, though, so I'll order a copy.

ooooh the book looks lovely! Even the cover, like Elliepotten said! Thanks for the recommendation, I hadn't heard of it before. I've been doing a lot of lurking on many threads myself. Sometimes it's ok just to enjoy the conversations - since there's really no time to comment on everyone's thread, there are just too many of them. Especially on the 75 books challenge, it's IMPOSSIBLE to keep up.

I'm very excited about I Know This Much Is True - it's so nice when you discover a new author! To think that after I finish this I have other 3 books of his to choose from! :D

Edit: BOOKS not booms

The Yellow lighted bookshop does look interesting. I am going to have wish list it on Amazon.

I didn't but Book Lust, because it wasn't in stock at Borders. I will just have to order it from Amazon. Instead I bought my daughter her book for the AP Spanish exam she will be taking.

>89 girlunderglass: I sometimes browse through people's challenge threads too - I just take the top ten current ones off the forums or something, and have a look to see if I want to wishlist any of the books, or if their tastes are similar enough to mine to star them...

What I do usually is if I like a thread I comment on it so that it appears on "Your Posts". Or, if I like it but can't find anything interesting to say at that moment I star it, and as soon as I comment on it unstar it because it will show up in my posts anyway. Does that sound weird?
Anyway, I tend to be more interested when people say a little bit about the books they've read, even if it's just a little blurb or an opinion. I tend to x those threads that only have a list of books...I mean why would I be interested in reading a list of books without knowing anything about them? It's not as if I'm lacking ideas on what to read next, God knows. When one don't say ANYTHING except the title of the books on their thread, I take it to mean that it is a challenge only meant for themselves - that they haven't joined the group to chat but just to keep track of the books they read. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming that, but that's what I think.

I loved your rant from a couple of days ago re: people who end up being known for something of little consequence even after a lifetime of incredible achievements. For some reason, that topic has been on my mind a lot for the past couple of years. Some people think about finance or politics or the ozone layer... I think about what kind of legacy we leave behind after we're gone (along with worrying about the environment as the two are obviously related).

Also... and I am going to write the following at the risk of being burned at the stake here. I read She’s Come Undone at around the time it came out in the early 90's and it is undoubtedly the book I hated most out of all the reading I have ever done so far. I found it SO depressing, SO gloomy, SO devoid of any kind of hope that at about 3/4 of the way through and having forced myself to get that far, I got in a fit of rage and threw it into the garbage can. I have never ever, EVER thrown out a book in my life before, nor do I intend to do it again, but short of setting fire to the thing, it was the most expedient way I could think of to get it out of my sight. It left me with a similar lingering impression as The Bell Jar did, and both are books I wish I had never read, in whole or in part. But then I'm a OEP with BPD so that sort of writing tends to get under my skin and causes all kinds of short-circuits of the kind which probably don't happen to the average reader. That being said, it is very well written and I suppose it’s a good story from what I can remember, so you will probably enjoy it. In fact, I can't wait to read your review which might help me understand why this book became the huge success that it did.

Sorry about what turned out to be a long rant on your thread. I'll aim for pithy comments in future, though I must admit that is not my forte. :-)

Smiler69:

I'm reading The Bell Jar at the moment. No urge to throw it in the bin though. Of course I'm only up to chapter 7. The writing (voice thing) seems a bit detached from whats happening (or maybe thats just the way I'm reading the book). But not gloomy or depressing yet. I'm actually enjoying it. I hope that doesn't change later on in the novel. Now you have me worried!

>92 girlunderglass: I agree with everything you just said! I can always find SOMETHING to say on threads I like the look of, so I just star my own and anyone's I want to keep a closer eye on so I can find them more quickly. And I don't bother with the listers either - there's nothing to read or respond to, and it's hard to pick up any recommendations from a title alone! Even on the Facebook version of my challenge - one expanding note - I write a line or two in case any of my friends are actually interested...

>93 Smiler69: Smiler, I've also read The Bell Jar, and though it was sad (warning to lillian_shannice - it does get a bit gloomy later on) I actually felt I had a lot in common with the narrator. Of course, being 19 while reading a book like The Bell Jar helps :) You've made me VERY intrigued about She's Come Undone now - I can't wait to read it and see if our reactions match. Sorry to be such an ignoramus, but what is OEP? By the way, long rants and I get along perfectly so no need to apologize ;)

>94 lillian_shannice: thanks for dropping by - I'll be checking your thread to see what you think of TBJ

>95 elliepotten: I've also starred just my own and a few others. If I don't star a thread it doesn't mean I don't like it; in fact I always check "Your Posts" first, and then, if I have time, "Your Starred". That's very interesting, the way you're keeping track of your challenge on Facebook. I had never thought of it and it seems like a good idea except that I have very few friends in real life who read. :( Which is why I *need* LibraryThing. Knowing that there ARE in fact so many people out there that love books helps me sleep at night.

I wondered what OEP was too! I presume BPD is bipolar (me too - and I wasn't keen on The Bell Jar either, I must admit).

I don't know if anyone actually gives a damn about my Facebook updates on my challenge. All except one, my 'stalker'. She lives in India, I don't actually know her, but she added me through a book-related group and likes to comment on anything bookish, and keeps telling me I have nice features. I figure she lives far enough away for this not to concern me too much for the time being! :-)

BPD = Borderline Personality Disorder?

Ooooh, hadn't though of that one. Officially it's the abbreviation for borderline, I think, but I sometimes use it (and have seen others use it) as a quick way for writing bipolar disorder... same idea in this context, I suppose. :-)

#96. Just taking a Sunday morning stroll around the threads and I found this:

"except that I have very few friends in real life who read."

Three years ago my wife gave me the game Trivial Pursuit - Book Lover's Edition for Christmas--and it's never been played because I don't have two or three other friends to play it with.

Sad, isn't it.

BTW, I've sneaked a peek at some of the questions and they are hard!

I have one friend who reads a bit but, sod's law, she rarely reads any of the same stuff as me and (no offence to her) she isn't really the brightest spark in the box when it comes to chatting about books. Does anyone else find themselves bristling when someone exclaims heartily over a book they apparently 'just loved', but doesn't even get the title right?!

Yes that does get annoying. If you really love the book then you should remember the title. I know I sometimes do not express myself as well as others do about books but I try my best.

>Ellie, I know exactly the type - that sounds a bit like someone I know, actually. Now is it my impression or we're getting a bit mean here? I will not elaborate so as not to get carried away. ;)

>Crazy, as long as you can name your favorite book properly, we're not judging. Wait. But what are you talking about? I follow your thread and it's really good!

>Brainflakes, see, that makes me SO sad. It's the same with me. Gather a bunch of friends who read AND would like to play a game with literary questions?? Ha. Ha. Never gonna happen. My best friend is a casual reader, at best. Sometimes she'll read these big books and sometimes she won't read anything for a year. My other friends/acquaintances either don't read at all (90%) or read sometimes but don't really discuss books (10%). Even my mom, who used to read tons when she was my age (we have these bookshelves full of old books in Romania where I used to live) , nowadays doesn't even glance at a book. I admit to being genuinely terrified that it is going to happen to me to. A lot of people seem to just lose interest/curiosity in many things as they grow older, or simply don't make time for things like reading a good book. I am very aware of it and try to not go for too long without reading anything.

gug> Thank you very much. I think being on here and having my own site has helped me with my reviews and expressing how I truly feel about the books that I read.

I know I have tried some Trivial Pursuit games but never one specifically about books. There are some questions about literature in Trivial Pursuit (general game) and those questions can be hard too.

Too bad we can't all get together and play the Trivial Pursuit/Books version.

BPD: I meant is as Bipolar Disorder, but Borderline Personality Disorder was a good guess.

OEP: Overly Emotional Person. I saw it on a discussion group somewhere and decided it applies to me too. Don't think it's a clinical term though.

girlunderglass: I'd be very surprised if you had a reaction to She's Come Undone even remotely close to mine. Everybody who's ever mentioned the book has nothing but good things to say about it which leaves me thinking there really is something wrong with me—other than the BPD and OEP that is, which don't really count in my view :-)

>102 crazy4reading: crazy4reading - You're on LibraryThing aren't you?! And people recognise your name on threads, therefore I don't think you have anything to worry about when it comes to your self expression and bookish credentials... ;-)

>103 girlunderglass: girlunderglass - no meaniness intended towards the good friends of LibraryThingers, merely extending waves of gratitude to all the lovely bookish people on here for saving my sanity and giving me someone to talk books with despite my closeted little English life, haha.

>106 Smiler69: Hello, fellow emotional bipolar reader!

girlunderglass + Crazy: I'm reading a book right now which has a title that I would be hard pressed to divulge without having it right under my nose to copy. I'll be sure to get it right when I write my impressions about this wonderful little book. I don't dare get it wrong nor call what I write "reviews" compared to the great stuff I see on some threads here, and particularly this one!

#107: Hello Ellie! I'm almost twice your age now (yes, I read your profile), but look and act like I'm still a 20-something, and am still trying to figure out how to live a "normal" life . As if that exists for anyone! I don't get out of the house for days on end and am very happy to keep my own company mostly, but keep being told I need to rub elbows with fellow humans out there in "real" life (apparently internet doesn't count—dang!). I figure the less I get out, the more time I have for reading. Ha! Please don't take my counsel, whatever you do, I set a very bad example.

Thank you Ellie for those kind words.

Smiler69, I take it the title must be very long or complicated. I have trouble at times to remember books that I am reading when they are not in front of me either.

Smiler , you flatter me so! ;) Oh and by the way, I'm about Ellie's age too and don't feel the need to "rub elbows with fellow human beings" all that often myself. Two quiet days indoors with books and movies and scrabble and mexican food is my idea of a well-spent weekend. I don't think you need to worry about setting a bad example, we're most of us already afflicted by ILBMTP* syndrome.

Not remembering the title of a random book does not affect your bookish credentials, we've all done it. Not remembering the title of your favorite book...well...kind of does. :)

*I Like Books More Than People

Waaaay back on #103 you said, "Even my mom . . . nowadays doesn't even glance at a book. I admit to being genuinely terrified that it is going to happen to me to.

I do most of my thinking in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, and that statement bothered me. I'm not a fancy scientist or anything, but as far as I know there is no "regressive reading gene." Plus, you're not your mom. Plus, don't count your sparrows until they're hatched--or something like that.

I've heard of very few (if any) book lovers giving up books; we're just too curious, we thirst for knowledge, and we love good stories and storytelling.

While I'm sociable I'm not a party animal, and books have gotten me through some tough times in my life.

So, as the Irish like to say, no worries.

Charlie

>110 girlunderglass: I HAVE to remember that one... ILBMTP syndrome... yes, that's me too. Admittedly there's the year-long agoraphobia thing too but even before all that I was the same. Give me a quiet weekend with some nice food, a DVD or two, a couple of good programmes on telly in the evening, and PLENTY of time in between to get stuck into a book, and I'm quite happy...

I try to get out in the week for a couple of hours a day (I'm not back to work yet), and I go and sit with my parents for a bit of telly in the evenings, and dinner at the weekend, but the weekend is definitely no-rubbing-shoulders-unless-it's-my-mum time. Who needs real people when fictional characters are just so damn interesting?!

"but as far as I know there is no regressive reading gene"
Isn't there, though, Charlie? I'm not just talking about reading here but I know/have heard of sooo many people who as they grow older abandon their hobbies and just focus on work and making money and providing for their children. I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere but Greek parents are quite overprotective and a bit obsessed with their children. If you ask most Greek moms about their hobbies they will reply "what hobbies? do you think I have time for hobbies?" And I'm not speculating here, I have asked this question many times and I have talked to people my age about their parents and they never seem to do anything they really enjoy except watch TV. I'm sorry if this is offensive to you; the thing is, it's offensive to me too. It's ridiculous in fact. But it's happening. Many many people, as soon as they graduate, just don't make time for things like reading any more. I don't know if you heard on the news about all the stuff ("riots" as the media called them) going on in Greece last month, but one of the reasons everyone was so dissatisfied with the government and with the situation here is that people have to work their asses of for nothing. They call this the "700 euro generation" in Greece because that's how much most people get paid per month. A LOT of people have to work two jobs, especially if they have kids. When one has two jobs and still only make 1000 euro a month it's natural that they'll answer "what hobbies? do you think I have time for hobbies?" I'm not saying that we're all starving, I'm just saying that people seem to have more important things on their minds (to them). Also, don't tell me that you haven't ever known people who read as kids and then gradually abandoned this habit. The fact that kids are usually full of curiosity for the world around them surely helps when it comes to reading; and many of them lose that curiosity as adults. It saddens me that it happens, yet many times it does. I'm not saying everyone will do it. But a vast enough amount of people for me to be talking about it as a phenomenon

I wrote all this very quickly , because I have to go eat or the dinner will get cold so sorry if sth doesn't make much sense!

Oh, and Ellie:
"Who needs real people when fictional characters are just so damn interesting?!"
Bless you :)

The good news is that, even if you do slow down on reading while raising kids, you can easily return to the habit. This happened to me. When my kids needed me more, I read less (although I did read to them a lot). Now that they are grown, I have purposefully returned to the habit of reading. I was amazed at all the books I missed! So, not to worry, even if you do find that you slow down, it won't be permanent -- because it is so important to you.
--BJ

#113. What I meant by that quote is that you (and all the rest of us) are not physically programmed to suddenly stop reading--or any other hobby. It is, rather, a mental choice, albeit not always a conscious one. (Gee, I sound like a shrink!)

I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere but Greek parents are quite overprotective and a bit obsessed with their children.

I think that mothers all over the world are the same. Of course we need their protection while we are growing up, but it becomes a detriment once we are grown and in our twenties, thirties, forties, etc. They are very good at instilling guilt and martyrdom: "I gave up the best years of my life for you and now you don't even call me every fifteen minutes," or some such thing.

Of course, if you still live at home, you have to follow the home rules.

As far as all the people who have to work two jobs to survive, I feel badly for them. Americans are starting to find that out with all the economic damage Bush and his cohorts did. I can understand a lot of them giving up hobbies because most hobbies are expensive. If they have time for TV, though, I think they have time to read a book--which can be had for free at the library.

In a nutshell, Eliza, I'm saying that you are not doomed, nor should you worry about something that hasn't happened. Someone once told me that 95% of the things we worry about never happen; in my own life, I've found that to be pretty much true.

I wonder what Ellie has to say about all this--I have six Blogger friends in England, Scotland, and Ireland, all adults and all readers.

Ellie is quite sleepy right now - the heater's on, it's nearly midnight, you know how it is when you get all warm and tired... All I would say is, let me off the hook if I don't have time to read if I have an actual tiny baby or something, but if I EVER say I'm losing the will to read and learn, kill me. Or just tie me up with a book in front of me and don't let me get up until I've finished it, depending how lenient (leniant? see, tired) you're feeling. The day I give up on reading or (if I'm an old lady) listening to audio books is the day life stops being worth living!

I was one that read less when my kids were younger so that I could take care of them. I do feel that people all over to give up their hobbies for family, money or just because. I know people in the US that have had to work two jobs way before all this economic damage by Bush.

I do think that people also pick up the habits of their parents. So if a parent that use to read and then stops reading may make some one incline to stop too.

Ellie I hope you got enough sleep and I don't think I would give up reading unless I went blind.

I have no kids but tonnes of hobbies and interests. Over the years the amount of reading I do has greatly varied, but when I'm in a period of less reading, I don't worry about it because I'm usually too busy doing other things, plus I know I'll always get back to more reading sooner or later. Don't get me wrong, I love reading and would be miserable if that was taken away from me, but then again I'd probably just start writing my own stories. :-)

I just want to say that I've been loving these conversations we've been having and thanks everyone who's participated! I think LT and all these wonderful talks about books will make it very difficult for me to ever stop reading and that's a very reassuring thought :)

I've decided to brighten up my profile a little with some reading pictures, take a look here .

Wow, that brings back memories! I used to love the Beatrix Potter books when I was growing up. The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin was my favourite. There's a giant book out there with all of the stories collected in one volume, I'd love to have that for my own kids one day.

I actually never read any B.Potter when I was little, but I saw that box set at Borders when I was in London last year and just couldn't resist! It looked so pretty (as you can see in the picture) I'm not sure if you can get an idea of its size from the pic but the books are actually really tiny, they're about half the size of my palm. They're adorable! I've put a little toy rabbit next to that box on by bookshelf, to keep it company ;)

Unfortunately, I've only read the first of those miniature books and wasn't crazy about it. I suppose you just have to have read them as a kid...

I am a mother of 2 young boys and I read more these days then I have done all my life. I was never a reader but the last few years I can 't seem to read enough. I have even joined a bookclub in my town.

That is one thing I wish I could find is a book club near me.

ditto, Crazy!
You are so lucky Heidi! (is that your real name?) Although I guess LibraryThing is like a virtual book club - still, it would be nice (understatement) to talk to people face-to-face and discuss the same books. Oh, and I saw on your profile that you're a fan of Gilmore Girls, so nice to meet another addict! GG and LOST = my top shows on TV ever, hands down.

Yes it's Heidi, it is really great because we pick the books that we read and it is a good selection of books. We have really great discussions about the book and then it brings on different topics.
Yes I love GG but is not on any more here and hard to find re-runs(dvds are great).

>121 girlunderglass: I haven't read them since I was young so they may not be as appealing to me now either, but I do love to look at the pictures :) I think part of my wanting to have them for my kids is nostalgia but you never know, they may end up loving it.

>125 heidimorden: I don't watch Lost (although my fiance lives for it and is determined to make me watch every episode on dvd this summer), but I do love Gilmore Girls! I got seasons 1 and 2 on dvd for Christmas and have loved watching the older episodes. I haven't seen the final season, yet, though, I'm looking forward to eventually getting the entire series on dvd. Such a great show.

I think I'd probably like Beatrix Potter better now. I loved the TV programmes with Niamh Cusack - brilliant memories of eating pieces of Easter egg and Smarties watching them in the holidays - but the books kinda creeped me out a little bit when I was little, especially the ratty ones. I don't know why!

>heidi, just download it from the net - much easier than waiting for dvds (although I do love the bonus features they have on some of them, particularly the "Gilmorisms" section)

>spacepotatoes You should listen to your fiance! Thankfully my boyfriend didn't need to much persuasion were LOST is concerned, he loved it from the beginning and it's now one of his favorite shows (:D). I haven't watched the last season of GG either, although I couldn't resist until I could download the whole season so I went ahead and read the transcripts of ALL the episodes. How pathetic is that? And then I didn't even watch the season because I knew what happened. I plan to soon though.

>Ellie, can't really relate to watching Cusack, nor to eating Easter eggs, as I used to hate eggs when I was little (now I love them). But I DO relate to Smarties, I used to be CRAZY about Smarties ! :)

On another note, I just finished I Know This Much Is True and I am just in awe. I'll post the review tomorrow - I'm not up for it now, that books is so emotionally exhausting, you have no idea.

Hi girlunderglass, I'm looking forward to your review of I Know This Much Is True. I read The Bell Jar and She's Come Undone as a teenager and loved both of them.

The former I first read at 17 and I really identified with Esther Greenwood. After being the model student, I'd convinced myself that I'd somehow messed up my exams and wouldn't be able to get into the university of my choice, which would have been the end of the world to me at the time. Happily, the panic was all in my head, but I remember The Bell Jar really affecting me. It became my favourite book and I've read it a few times since. I read it most recently last summer, as a 29-year-old, and it seemed different that time, much funnier in fact.

I've only read She's Come Undone once and am a bit hazy on the plot, but I remember crying a lot while reading it! I'm now interested to re-read it and see whether I have the same response. I love it when a book gets hold of me emotionally, so it looks like I should give I Know This Much Is True a try as well.

PS I am also a big Gilmore Girls fan and am sad it's no longer on...

>spacepotatoes, girlunderglass, omg that last season was the best. It ended a way that you didn't know what was going happen but it didn't leave you wondering. I don't watch Lost, sorry.
>spacepotatoes I saw that you added The Book Theif by Markus Zusak, it is on my TBR list, just wondering your thoughts?

So, taking a deep breath and here we go.



12. I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
Tags: 1980s, fiction, U.S.A.
Rating: ★★★★★

I don't know what I can say about this book that will make you go and read it NOW. I wish you would just go and read it because I said so, but that's not how these things work. So I'll start by stating boldly that I haven't read anything this good in a very long time. Although I'm not sure it's the best way to go with this one, let me lay out the plot for you a bit. I Know This Much Is True is essentially the story of two brothers: Dominick - our protagonist and narrator - and Thomas, his schizophrenic identical twin. They do not know who their real father is and their stepfather is...well...let's just say he's not a role model. Their family history is a big mystery. And their lives are pretty much as f***ed up as they can get. Sounds like a big cliché? If only all books were such stunning and heartbreaking clichés. Like all amazing works of literature, I Know This Much Is True contains little glimpses of life itself, scattered all over the place. Reading the words on every page feels a bit like sucking on your favorite lollipop - you just have to stop every now and then, the better to savour its taste. Me, I paused a bit after each paragraph. As soon as I started it I knew it would be one of those books...the ones you're sad to say goodbye to, the ones you want to keep reading forever. The storytelling is fantastic, nothing overdone, but nothing understated either. The plot is compelling and believable, the conclusion is realistic yet extremely touching, and the characters simply steal your heart. Not one person feels secondary in this book; everyone has a role, everyone has a story, there are no peripheral "flat" characters that are just there to fill a void. The book manages to discuss and explore religion, racism, identity, education, politics, war, parentage, jealousy, immigration, history, and pretty much everything in between. Also, bonus points go to the writer for the effort he has put into researching the issues that the book explores: Lamb has evidently done his homework on schizophrenia, on twin brothers. on the Italian immigration to America, on psychoanalysis, on the history and geography of the area where he places his characters and weaves his story. Like many reviewers of this book have done before me, I urge you not to be put off by its size. Believe me, as soon as you start reading it, you will want it to be long. There are about 5 novels that can brag about having made me cry. This is one of them.

Opening sentence: "On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut Public Library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable."

A great review, gug, of one of my all-time favorite books. I can't count the number of times I've told people, "You HAVE to read this book!", and when they don't I feel like choking them.

Well, not really, but close.

Sounds interesting and is now added to my ever-growing list of TBRs.

"There are about 5 novels that can brag about having made me cry. This is one of them."

The Book Thief and Of Mice and Men are the two that spring to mind for me. Possibly also The Bone People.

>130 Rebeki: "After being the model student, I'd convinced myself that I'd somehow messed up my exams and wouldn't be able to get into the university of my choice, which would have been the end of the world to me at the time." haha yep, I can identify with that. As for I Know This Much Is True, well, the review is here finally and as you can see I loved it. I really hope you decide to read it soon.

>131 heidimorden: Heidi, The Book Thief is on my TBR as well. Though I have to find a copy of it first. I've had it on my wishlist on Bookmooch for ages, but it's never available.

>133 BrainFlakes: Thanks, Charlie. I think that's pretty much what I'll be doing from now on. Threaten to choke people if they don't read the book. Why not? It's as good a strategy as any :)

>134 ljbwell: Another mention of The Book Thief! That book is gonna drive me crazy before I finally get my hands on it. If it keeps teasing me like that all the time I may have to follow the instructions hinted at in the title. (i.e. steal it)
Never heard of The Bone People - hmm I just read some reviews of it...mental disorder was one thing, but I'm not sure I can deal with child abuse as well! I'll keep it in mind though when the mood comes again for an emotional book (and I know it will come again :D). I've read Of Mice and Men but didn't find it as emotional as you did - that said it's still a good book!
Another book that made me cry (well, its ending did) is Filth - it takes a while getting used to the lingo, but its well worth sticking with it.

I have book club tonight at the bookstore, I will have to check to see if they have it. If you want I can send you the book to you girlunderglass after I am done.

That sounds great! Let me know! And let me know if it lives up to the hype ;)

Great review of I know this much is true!

Having a brother myself, particularly one with, well 'troubles', definitely helped me relate to Dominick, and the way he gives everything to help his brother, however much it affects his own life and happiness.

And I definitely agree with your take. The book does truly cover so so much, 'religion, racism, identity, education, politics, war, parentage, jealousy, immigration, history, and pretty much everything in between.' To say he 'researched' it would be an understatement.

I must admit that I was a bit worried when the (what initially appears to be a) side story began - the reading of the diary - I thought it would be a distraction from the real story. Of course I quickly realised I couldn't have been more wrong. The diary was an integral part of the story; as was, as you pointed out, every little fragment, however minuscule. It truly is to Wally Lamb's credit that he somehow managed to put all these fragmented pieces together into one big, beautiful whole.
A must read.

>138 fireeyedboy: Thanks so much for giving me THIS one of all the books you could've! :) I was a bit concerned when the side story appeared as well. In fact...oh God how to explain this without giving anything away for those who haven't read it?? SPOILER: You know when the *cough cough* tragic moment I mentioned yesterday happens? I thought Lamb didn't give us enough time, he was switching between stories at that point too much so that I was still immersed in the grandfather's story and wasn't fully focused on the actual Thomas/Dominick story. I had to go back and re-read it after it happened I was so shocked. END SPOILER That was basically my only little complain in the whole book. I'll tell you more when I see you! You've only rated it 4 stars, huh? *surprised* Have you started Fahrenheit yet?

>131 heidimorden: Heidi, I think you might have mistaken The Book of Ralph in my library for The Book Thief, although I looked it up after seeing your comment and it does sound interesting. I'm not sure if I'm ready for another Holocaust-related book at the moment, though, since the one I'm about to start is also a Holocaust story. I don't know if my emotions can take that much of a beating at once :)

> 128 girlunderglass - How on earth can you like Smarties but not Easter eggs? Chocolate tastes so much better in an egg shape! I've put I Know This Much is True straight on my wish list...

>141 elliepotten: Ahaaaaaaaaaaa! *little bulb of dawning understanding lighting over Eliza's head* I though you meant PROPER eggs, not chocolate eggs. You know, the kind you dye at Easter and then eat with cheese and bread and salami? :)
I agree then - chocolate DOES taste much better in egg shape. There's just something about chocolate eggs, especially when it's the really big ones (but not the ones with the dark and bitter chocolate)!

Solemn announcement to my beloved challenge-mates. It is my pleasure to inform you that the Day has finally come. Dramatic Pause. Sigh. I have started reading Twilight!

(I'm copying this from my other thread, not an ounce of creativity left in me at this hour)

Yes. I've decided to follow the hype rather than go against it. However, I did stick a Harry Potter bookmark in the book. I feared that if I didn't I would have recurring nightmares of a crazy, shoeless, dirty-haired J.K. Rowling chasing me in the streets and yelling "BETRAYAL!! BETRAYAAAAL!!!"

sorry spacepotatoes, it was on another libaray. I got the book tonight, might read another book for a light read after reading The Golden Notebook which I didn't care for and The Girls which was really good. I think that New Moon will be next, I enjoyed Twilight.
girlunderglass Twilight is a book that you can read to remind you of highschool crushes and young love with a twist.

143: I haven't read any of the series, and after reading Let the right one in (I read it in Swedish, but it is available in English), I'm hesitant to delve into them right away. I'll be curious to see what you think.

>144 heidimorden: Yep, it reminds me of highschool alright, although I'm not sure that's a good thing. It reminds my how embarrassing and oh so "dramatic" teenagers are when it comes to the other sex. I'm sure I would have loved this book when I was 15 - and that kind of scares me. I am enjoying it however, it's fun.

>145 ljbwell: Haha I just checked Let the Right One in, uhmmm..wow. It has paedophilia as a tag. I can assure you you won't find that in Twilight - it's just a fun, easy read. Your can even put your brain on standby while reading this, if you want to give it a little rest, you won't particularly need it. But my X chromosomes are smiling happily at Edward and Bella, rejoicing in their...uhm... passionate love? (okay, that was a little ironic. But I am enjoying it)

Yep, started reading Fahrenheit 451last night! :)

Well it seems I now have a few more books to add to my wish list: Book Thief, I Know this Much is True.

Now Girlunderglass, I have read all the Twilight back in August and am a huge Harry Potter fan, I was skeptical about enjoying the series. I was pleasantly surprised by how much it did make me think about being in high school. All of the books are a fun easy read, imo. I am glad I did read them and I am planning to read them for the 999 challenge as re-reads.

I have Fahrenheit 451 on my TBR list. I don't know if I will get to it this year.

Oh, I LOVED Twilight! It really got me as if I was 15 again, it was so intense and nerve-tingly and exciting. I'm reading Eclipse now and with a bit of raw animal rivalry thrown in it's getting spicier by the page. Haha, I'm a sucker for a bit of dangerous bad boy lurve!

Yes Ellie I feel the same way you do about the Twilight book. I definitely have to re-read them soon.

I wanted to let you know that I just bought Book Lust at Borders today. It is on my TBR pile or I may just read it a little bit at a time. I am afraid I may see more books to buy...

hmm..I'm not exactly loving Twilight...I'll save my rant for the review, however!
Have you read Book Lust at all, Crazy4reading? Are you enjoying it?

I just read the A is for Alice chapter so far. I am one of those people that usually read one book at a time. Some times I try reading more then one book at a time but then I usually start confusing them.

I loved Twilight but not like I love HP.

You've got me very, very intrigued about Book Lust. My wish list already has over 600 books on it (and growing...) so it's probably the last thing I need. But I fear I may just have to get it nonetheless. Will keep you posted.

13. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Tags: 2000s, fantasy, YA, U.S.A.
Rating: ★★1/2

Everyone probably knows the basic storyline of this book so I won't bother going into that. I don't usually make pro/con lists with books, instead basing my reviews on a sort of general feeling I get from reading them. I do however, have some sort of mental pro/con list where Twilight is concerned. I will start with the bad things. Meyer is not a good writer. That much is transparent from the very first pages. Not only that, but she appears to be very delusional/ignorant where relationships are concerned, at least for her age. Either that, or she's did the best she could to describe the behaviour of an idiotic teenage girl who is in desperate need of a shrink (note: not of an average teenage girl) in the hope that there are enough of those around the world to make Twilight a best-seller. Poor Bella tells Edward things like "You're driving me crazy" and "You're good at everything you do",and "You're doing it again...dazzling me", and "Look at me, I'm absolutely ordinary...and look at you!" and that her favorite gemstone is topaz because "It's the color of your eyes today" for Christ's sake. Raise your hand if you ever told that to the teenage boy/girl you had a crush on. That's what I thought. And here you thought I was being harsh on Meyer. Also, apart from the fact that it's corny and unrealistic, with some of the most vomit-inducing dialogues ever, the book is absolutely sexist: Bella obeys Edward in everything he says, she cannot live without him, she is totally helpless and he has to save her all the time, she is oh-so-fragile, she cries all the time, she cooks for her dad and goes shopping with her girlfriends but abandons everything to be with Edward etcetera. Because that's what women do, of course. Please. Give me Hermione over that pathetic self-pitying, obsessed, insecure girl anytime.

And since I mentioned Harry Potter I have to say this. I didn't want to make any comparisons between Meyer and Rowling, because it's kind of mean towards Meyer, but I couldn't help but note a very obvious thing. One of the very best things about the Harry Potter books is that Rowling touches upon some serious subjects (like slavery, racism, class differences, corruption, politics, family values, etcetera) always within the context of the story, cleverly imbuing the books with her own opinions without allowing the reader to glimpse her own authorial voice beneath the characters' beliefs. She does not have to resort to cheap declarations and definitions of her beliefs. Imagine if, instead of trying to illustrate slavery and oppresion through house-elves, or racism through the prejudice against "Mudbloods" she had just made Harry say "Slavery is very very bad and unjust. So is racism." That's what it felt like sometimes reading some of the words Meyer put in her characters' mouths. For example, take Meyer's opinion the origins of our humans/the Universe (remember Sarah Palin anyone?) :

Edward: "Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn't we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don't believe that this whole world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?"

Or take her transparent opinions on pre-marital sex:

"I'm curious now, though," he said, his voice light again. "Have you ever...?" He trailed off suggestively.
"Of course not." I flushed. "I told you I've never felt like this about anyone before, not even close"
"I know. It's just that I know other people's thoughts. I know love and lust don't always keep the same company."
"They do for me" (...)
"That's nice. We have one thing in common, at least." He sounded satisfied

Now I'm sorry but is that the best she could do? Ignoring the fact that I disagree with her opinions, it's pretty pathetic the way she tries and fails to make it sound like the characters' opinions instead of her own. It is perhaps one of the reasons why Edward never seems believable. If this is the way teenage girls will imagine the "perfect" man from now on, I really pity them, and hold Meyer responsible for making them believe a man who is obsessive, arrogant, aggressive, sexist, violent, and creepy, who demands obedience and uses physical force (even if he says it's for good), who clearly does not understand the concept of privacy and is a stalker to boot, is actually DESIRABLE. As far as I can see, the only qualities of Edward's mentioned throughout the book are that he's unbelievably beautiful, he's "muscular" and powerful, and he is oh so "perfect" and good at everything he does. Oh yeah and that he has enough self-restraint not to eat Bella. A keeper this one, huh?

If the book had continued with the ridiculous corny conversations between Edward and Bella, the rating would have been much lower. However, it picked up a bit and the last quarter of the book was actually fun. (after James came into the picture) So I'll mention some pros as well to justify my rating: very easy to read, not tiring, not intellectually demanding (that could also be a con), suspenseful in its last half and I quite enjoyed the moments with the Cullens all together. After finishing the book I actually wanted to find out what happens next - though more to the Cullens as a family, not to Edward and Bella - so I suppose that's a pro as well. The book felt very girly and I think I would've enjoyed it much better as a delusional daydreaming teenager.

Sorry to all the fans out there, if I've insulted you in any way, I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and if you disagree with my criticism I'd love to hear why.

I'm not a fan and don't think I'll ever waste my time trying to figure out whether I might have become one as a teenager either. That being said, I found your review to be most entertaining. I found Meyer's writing excruciating just in those two blurbs you quoted and doubt I could handle a cringe-fest such as this one at any point in my life. Lucky for me, you wrote an honest review about it so I'll know to steer clear without any hesitation. More time for all those other books I've got on my TBR pile (my apologies to the fans).

I am not going to argue with you about your review. I enjoyed the books. I guess when I read I don't go into reading books to critique them to the extent many people do.

I quite enjoyed the story line because I can and have seen girls act the way Bella did with Edward. Do I agree with a girl acting like that, no, but they do. As I read the Twilight I felt that the way both Edward and Bella behaved was 'normal' for the way they were feeling, meaning that they are so caught up in their emotions that they do and say things that they normally wouldn't. Also when a person falls for someone they always/usually view them better then they really are. A girl will always think the guy is "muscular" and "perfect", in their eyes.

I feel that this book is more for entertainment then anything else. It is not meant to challenge your intellect at all. If you go in thinking this book is going to be anything like HP you are wrong.

Okay now I am done discussing the book...

Awwww, harsh evaluation of Twilight! I think maybe I'm just one of those girls who would love to just be completely looked after sometimes, to feel safe and protected in the arms of someone stronger than me, to be loved unconditionally by a gentlemen with good manners and a selfless attitude... Don't we all? And haven't we all fallen hopelessly, embarrassingly in love with people at school, to the point where we can see no flaws? They are supposed to be vampires, after all.

Meyer's not the finest literary writer but then again neither is J.K. Rowling or Nicholas Sparks - but their books made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, made me giggle and cry, made me desperate to get back to the story until I finished it in an emotional heap! I just finished Eclipse and now I'm delaying gratification and reading a couple of other things before I hit Breaking Dawn and see how it all ends...

Ellie: "Meyer's not the finest literary writer but then again neither is J.K. Rowling or Nicholas Sparks"

...ahem...I will just quote Stephen King on this:

" Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. ... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."

and he goes on...

"People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they’re not overtly sexual."

The real difference for me (except for the quality of the writing) is that HP can be read in any number of ways: as a coming-of-age story, an adventure story, a mystery, a thriller, a war story, as fantasy, as a romance, as a bildungsroman, as a critique on various aspects of society, as a comedy, as a tragedy. Twilight is essentially just a romance where the vampire stuff is only peripheral, it's only used as an obstacle to Bella and Edward's love. And, to me, even as a love story, it's just too corny. Sorry if I seem harsh, but that's my opinion. I don't judge anyone that enjoys the books (or any other books for that matter). Reading ANY book is better than reading nothing. Plus hey, I finished the Da Vinci code in one sitting so I shouldn't speak. ;)

>156 crazy4reading: Crazy: "I feel that this book is more for entertainment then anything else. It is not meant to challenge your intellect at all. I totally agree. And I enjoyed the storyline as well, I guess. I didn't HATE the book, it's just Meyer's ideas that annoy me.

>155 Smiler69: Thanks so much, Smiler. You know the saying: So many books...

Hey my review of Twilight just made onto Hot Reviews :D Yay, that makes me a happy girl :P Any extra thumbs-up for the review (to make sure it stays there for a bit) are appreciated! Thanks.

Interesting review, girlunderglass. I've been resisting the hype so far, despite many people insisting that I HAVE to read these books. Your review confirmed that they are exactly like I expected. Now I can continue resisting without wondering what I'm missing :)

In gug's defense (not that she needs it), I read books by writers who are far from "literary", like Dan Brown, Danielle Steel, and Nicholas Sparks and still enjoy them most of the time. But it stops being mindless entertainment for me when the poor quality of the writing, characterization, and dialogue gets to be a distraction. I don't go in with the intention of critiquing a book to death but when it's distractingly bad, I can't help it. Of course, everyone's tastes are different so what is distracting to me may not be for someone else, and that's ok too.

ETA: Just wanted to note that I didn't intend for this to come off as hostile or an attack on anyone's ideas, it was just a general comment.

Hehe, another Twilight scrap begins! At least on LibraryThing we all respect each other's opinions - I've seen some really nasty fights start over books on other sites. I guess the more people read the bestsellers, the more conflicting views and controversy are going to swell up amongst readers... Maybe I'm just far too vulnerable to falling head over heels for fictional characters! ;-)

I think that can happen to the best of us, ellie :)

No scrapping intended, on my part at least. It was mostly a response to message 156, about some people looking more critically at books than others. Just my perspective on that.

I've seen some major debates over J.K. Rowling and the literary merit of the HP books get really ugly really fast on other sites, I can see how this series would inspire similar argument. But beyond my comment above, I will stay out of it :)

Response to spacepotatoes, that is my opinion about how some people go into reading books. My reviews are always how I feel. I am not the most verbose person nor am I that great at analyzing books. I read a book and say whether or not I enjoyed it. I guess since I have usually just read one genre of book for ages that looking at the writing, characterization and dialogue requires me to not enjoy the story. I feel that doing that to a book is more for an English major then just some one like me that loves to read and get lost in different worlds.

I did not take your statement as an attack and please don't take mine as one either. Just my opinions and general comment.

Your review of Twilight made me laugh out loud. I reserved it at the library (I'm number 220 or something, so it will be awhile). I'll read it expecting a light diversion, not earth-shaking literature. I kind of want to see for myself what all the fuss is about. Plus, I work with kids who have read the books -- it's nice to relate to something they're enjoying, though by the time I actually get to it they'll have moved on to something else.

Years ago I finally got around to watching the movie Titanic because I was in charge of a group of kids in an opera -- which meant hours with them backstage -- and Titanic was all they could talk about. I enjoyed the movie (it didn't change my life or anything), but I still didn't have much to talk to the kids about (..."yes, it was sad. yes, he is cute"...)

>162 spacepotatoes: spacepotatoes: I've seen some major debates over J.K. Rowling and the literary merit of the HP books get really ugly really fast on other sites, I can see how this series would inspire similar argument.

I'm sure what you say is true spacepotatoes, and I find that so sad. What ever happened to "read and let read"? Is not the whole point of these forums to allow us to express our personal views and then discuss them intelligently (or reasonably so)? It saddens me that doing that very thing (i.e. expressing one's views) often turns out into a minefield rife with potential of blowing up in the commentator's face. Whether it's about books or anything else for that matter. Peace & Books. Read and Let Read man. Don't kill the reviewer, that's all I'm sayin'. :-)

I saw a sign saying 'Books Not Bombs' - do you think we should amend that to verbal bombing as well?! I think LibraryThingers are mostly too intelligent to get into that... and I have noticed that the majority of really abusive Twilight bashers on social networks are teenage boys who are just jealous that every girl at school is swooning over a Cullen! :-)

If it's any consolation, before I fell for Jasper/Edward/Jacob I ALSO fell for Noah Calhoun, Mr Rochester, Heathcliff, Sirius Black, Max De Winter, Aragorn, and many other yummy fictional men - and I'm sure they won't be the last! ;-)

It's all good, crazy4reading :) And I definitely agree that overthinking it can take away from actually enjoying the story.

> 166 I had a HUGE crush on Aragorn while I was reading LOTR! And then seeing Viggo Mortensen in the movies...*swoon*. I've also fallen for several of Jane Austen's leading men, Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables), and Garret from Message in a Bottle. And those are just the ones I can remember ;)

#166: Heathcliff? Max De Winter? Nasty fellows both. Mind you, I fell for Rebecca abit and she probably wasn't very nice, so I can't really comment. Sorry for hijacking the thread - I've not read Twilight - and probably never will, to be honest, but I do enjoy your reviews, even of those books in which I have little interest, GUG

>164 AMQS: I saw Titanic when I was in school, they took us all to the cinema, the whole class. Taking a bunch of ten year-olds to see Titanic, not sure if it was such a good idea. Everyone was crying. :) (p.s. "yes, it was sad. yes, he is cute". LOL)

>166 elliepotten: Ellie, Sirius oooooooooooh yuuumm :D I've actually joined this group on Facebook called "Sirius Black was so much hotter in my head". Not that Gary Oldman isn't good-looking :)

Okay I'm starting to sound like Bella so I'll stop. But I do get the falling for fictional characters thing. Always had it - especially as a teenager. Jess from Gilmore Girls was another one - but then I saw the actor (Milo whatshisname) doing an interview on some show and he sounded like a total moron. The interviewer asked him if he ever reads (like the character he's playing) and he laughed and said something like "yeah, right", and then proceeded to inform the viewers that his hobby is rolling dice. No, really. Playing for money and stuff. He even had them with him. Wish I could remember what show it was.

>167 spacepotatoes: I never did get the appeal of Viggo Mortensen

>154 girlunderglass: Hey, GUG, I really enjoyed your interview and I will thumbs up it on LT. Now to put in my two cents worth. I am really proud of my fellow LTers in the way that they can agree to disagree about books. Books tend to be subjective and what works for one reader doesn't for another. I also have seen some truly evil arguments over books on other sites and I feel bad that those readers behaved so unfairly. That said I did enjoy reading the Twilight series except Breaking Dawn which really pushed me to the limit of my patience. I took them for what they were. Not literature, just entertainment for a long weekend. I too was curious what all the fuss was about. I didn't fall for Edward as most of my friends did and I am often pointing out his faults to them without much success. Such is the blindness of love. I don't know if you plan to read anymore in the series, but I would be extremely interested to read your opinion of Jacob who I found to be very different from Edward. Thanks for the great review. Bon reading!

I think that reading these kinds of books lets you escape to a place that you are not from. It is like when your parents told you that you couldn't see a boy because he was "bad",so you didn't. But reading this series you can because she had the guts to do it.

Exactly! I don't know many girls who wouldn't occasionally go for the bad boy/intense passionate guy over someone more normal (or in this case, er, human...)

>171 heidimorden: Heidi, I always did the opposite of what my mom told me anyway, (when I was really little all she had to do to make me eat disgusting vegetables was to tell me they were horrible, and I would eat them just to spite her; that was the only strategy that never failed her, until I got old enough to know she's doing it, that is) so perhaps that particular craving to defy my parents is totally exhausted :) Never much liked the "bad boys" myself, but I do get the appeal.

edit: sp.

You'd better hurry up and read another book so we can start a new philosophical discussion! ;-)

actually Ellie, I'm studying because I have exams until the middle of March :( I don't really have much time to read now...but at least I'm reading textbooks :)

So, I was looking through LT and I'd never noticed that male/female authors function they added. (it's in "Memes")
Apparently, 79.5% of my authors are male? And I was under the impression that I read plenty of female authors! This needs to be rectified. Have any of you done it? What percentage did you get? (come one, make me feel a little less bad about my score)

I have 40.51% males right now. I keep going through my authors to make them male or female. I have 96 males, 141 female, 2 other/contested/unknown and 40 not set. Once I get all of them set then I will see how many I really have.

I have 30 female authors and 17 male authors. I have 38.64% males right now. I never really looked at the authors gender before, go ladies!

yes but set the gender of all the ones that are "unknown" so you can know exactly! I had less males at first but then I edited the gender ofall the unidentified ones and voila - only 20% females :(

That is what I have been doing but I had so many to begin with that it is taking forever to get it done.

Hmm, this is interesting! I've seen the meme but hadn't tried it yet. I was expecting to have a lot more female authors than male but it turned out to be pretty close: 60 male to 72 female (45.45 % male).

Good luck with your exams!

My numbers are almost as male-heavy as yours, and like you, I thought I made more of an effort to read female authors: 74.6% male, 326 to 111.

I've noticed that little Male or Female feature before. Pretty neat. Mine:

Percent male: 41.35%
Male: 325
Female: 461
Other/Contested/Unknown: 1
N/A: 6
Not set: 267

I have yet to update the "Not set" section. 267 is kind of a lot to do at this moment--I'm getting ready for work--but I'll have a stab at it soon. I love fixing little things like that at LT.

Just to be a pain the butt (hee!), I wanted to add that I usually don't choose a book on if it was written by a woman or man; but I've noticed I generally choose books on if the protagonist is female. I wonder if that's the same for everyone (to relate to the protagonist maybe)?

girlunderglass--Are you going to put your textbooks on your reading list? Or do you keep those separate? I check out plenty of books from work but rarely read them front to back, so that's one reason why I don't list those on my reading list.

P.S. Good luck with your exams. Hope we'll see more of you--and your reviews--in mid March. :)

Well...the exam I'm reading for now (Dramatic Theory and Criticism) only has extracts - many, many extracts, courtesy of those infernal Norton Anthologies - from various books so I'm not going to count any towards my goal for 2009. I'm not going to mention them on this thread then. But I don't know about my other exams - if there's something I need to read in its entirety then I will definitely include it.

I'm sure of one thing though, my next review will be on here sooner than those damn Collections they keep teasing us with. I can't stand the anticipation any longer!!!

Oh, and you said:
"I usually don't choose a book on if it was written by a woman or man; but I've noticed I generally choose books on if the protagonist is female. I wonder if that's the same for everyone (to relate to the protagonist maybe)?"

I've noticed that while I do relate to female characters more, I tend to empathize with male characters more, they tend to move me more. I'm usually more impatient with female characters, ESPECIALLY with the ones that remind me of myself... I don't know why and it probably bears a lot of psychoanalysis so I'll drop it now. (Probably because I'm harsher on myself than on everyone else?)

Thanks for your input and your "good luck"s everyone!

Here's another one: GOOD LUCK with the exams - and the Norton anthologies...

Have you tried that statistic thing about whether your authors are living or deceased? I'm sure a few of mine - Santa Montefiore, for example - would be intrigued to know that they are, in fact, dead. On the plus side, elevated posthumous sales could be quite a bonus! :-)

#183: Yeah, I don't blame you for not adding those books to your reading list. That's quite a few. And what's Collections? Something new with LT? That's very interesting about how you said you empathize with male characters more. And you're probably right, maybe the female characters remind you of parts of yourself you're not comfortable with yet. Who knows. I'm definitely no shrink. :D

#184: Good one to point out, ellie. What percentage did you get? 80.65% of my authors are alive, which wasn't too surprising since I don't read a lot of older books.

Whoa that's weird, I'm totally the opposite! Who knew I'm such a dead people-lover? Only 27% of my authors are alive! :))

Collections is indeed something new with LT. It's the ability to have different lists (for example wishlists, favorite-books, owned, kept at the beach house, whatever). You can name your lists whatever you want to, and you can make them count or not count towards your total of books (for example you can exclude the books you've added to your TBR list from your library total, but still have them visible to others if you want to). Many people have been waiting for this for a long time. They're saying we'll have it BEFORE March 9th. I can't wait! I haven't added any books that I haven't read on LT, so I'll finally be able to have my wishlists on LT, without having them count as "read" books :D

Ellie what are your dead-alive stats?

Ha ha! A necrophiliac? That might be something you would want to keep to yourself. ;)

Collections sounds pretty cool, but I'm really waiting for the feature where you can block certain books from the public. That's why I have my entire library private--there a few books I'd rather not have my family know I own.

I think you'll be able to make certain lists private (and thus the books that are on those lists) - don't quote me on this though, I'm not sure! We'll see when it finally happens...

Oh, even better. Yeah, now I can't wait either! Thanks. :)

Thanks for explaining the Collections thing GUG. I was trying to figure that out for the longest time. So that means I can start reading books from the library and add them but not have them count towards my total, that is awesome. Now I can't wait either.

I don't know what my dead percentage is right now. I will have to look at it later and let you know. I have to get going so that I can get to work...

Okay I have 81.49% alive. I am still working on getting them all with a date. Some I can't even find any information on so just a little more research to be done.

Hmmm...male was about 79%. I knew it was heavily so, but not by that much. Dead was only about 28%, which I found quite surprising. A lot of the older/classic books I read years ago aren't in here, though, and that would bump the numbers.

Now if they did a meme for books with characters that were dead or died in the course of the story, *then* I'd have a much higher number. ;-)

Break a leg on your exams, GUG!!

Apparently 58.93% of my authors are alive (except we've already worked out that LibraryThing has killed off a few live ones), and 52.94% are male - that's pretty even then...

Good Luck with exams! :)
--BJ

helloooooooo everyone...I've been missing from LT for a while now so I thought I'd check in and see if there's anyone still checking this thread :) Thanks for your encouragement and I am happy to report that my first two exams went well. So did our LOST party that I kept talking about, big hit, and I had so much fun! Here's a picture for any LOST fans out there.

DHARMA beers ;)



I'm currently studying for an exam in Victorian Poetry, so these next days I have to read, among others, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold, Lord Tennyson, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin, etcetera

Reviews of Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying and War of the Worlds coming by the end of the week!

*Edit: Also, has anyone read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series? There's a box set with all 5 books on Bookmooch but the covers are really really painfully ugly, so I'm thinking of just buying them. I would love to hear some good feedback re the series before I go and spend my money on it!

I'm a huge LOST fan and love the beer picture! I'm going to have to get some of that :) Good luck on your next exam!

I haven't read any of His Dark Materials books yet (haven't watched the movie either), but I've heard they're pretty good. Couldn't hurt to buy them, imo, if you're into fantasy.

They are pretty absorbing - I read all three a couple of years ago and found them to be quite complex, and I was surprised by how emotional I felt by the end. Worth mooching and reading at least once.

> 194 First, congrats on the first two exams! Good luck on the next. Re: His Dark Materials, I thought it was a trilogy? I've read the first two books and I am debating whether or not to bother with the third because I was quite irritated by the second one. It's not my personal favourite series.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is fantastic. I really enjoyed the books. I just read them last year. They are complex. I am posting a link so that you can see my reviews. I hope this works.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=crazy4reading&deepsearch=philip

Yes it is a Trilogy.

Hey GUG. My daughter and I listened to the audio version of The Golden Comapss. It was a wonderful version wherein Pullman reads the narration and all of the characters are read by professional actors. My daughter continued with the other two books and enjoyed them both. I haven't found the time (or frankly the inclination) to read the other two.

Continued best luck with your exams. I hope to find more time to hang around LT in March.

Thanks for the feedback!

Well, I looked up the series on LT and there are five books included - one is a prequel to the rest and another one a companion read or something. So I guess they don't really count.

Thanks ackakukak! I was hoping there might be some Losties around ;) The beers are really easy, we just printed the Dharma logos, removed the beer labels, and then glued the logos onto the bottles. :)

Crazy, I'm on my way to your reviews right at this instant!

Yay! A new review! :)



14. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Tags: 1890s, fiction, sci-fi, U.K.
Rating: ★★★

One of the books that set the foundation for subsequent science-fiction novels, War of the Worlds is a tale of a Martian invasion of Earth. The book is split into two sections, the first titled The Coming of the Martians and the second The Earth Under the Martians. For a book that is only 200 pages long, it took me a long time to get into it. All throughout the first part of the novel I kept thinking "yes, okay, the Martians are frightening and literally bloodthirsty, the protagonist has been separated from his wife and home and the whole of England is being destroyed, but why don't I care?" It seemed to me that Wells never makes you feel anything for the protagonist, nor his brother, who features prominently in the story and whose "adventures" bored me to death. It is also perhaps a mark of of the age I grew up in that I didn't even wince while reading the same gory descriptions of disembodied human parts, burning buildings and cadavers that shocked Wells's readers in the 19th century.

However, after reading half of the novel I finally stopped expecting character development and stopped hoping the protagonist's ordeal would move me. For I realized that the narrator is not, in fact, the real protagonist of this book. The real protagonist here is the whole of humanity and Wells is excellent at exposing and ridiculing the folly of the human race. For me, The War of the Worlds is best read as a satire on Victorian culture. First of all Wells critiques imperialism and colonialism in a very poignant way. Thus, the same British Empire that is constantly invading other countries is now being invaded by a more powerful race that merely wants to expand its territory and pays no regard to human lives. The invasion literature of the time that wants Britain attacked by a foreign force (typically Germany) is also ridiculed when Britain is in fact attacked by aliens. Furthermore, Wells mocks his contemporaries for still clinging obsessively to religion, after proofs to the contrary offered by Darwin's theories and by the (then) recent developments in geology, anthropology, astronomy and other sciences. In the book, a clergyman who considers the coming of the Martians to be the biblical Armageddon and prays for God to save humanity is presented as mentally disturbed and is, eventually, punished for his outdated views. Wells' message is more than obvious. The Martians are never presented as mysterious, supernatural beings that no one understands. In fact the detailed description of their anatomy and their possible evolution process was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting parts of the novel. Never before have the words "science-fiction" been more aptly used to describe a book. The War of the Worlds is exactly that - a book in which all the ideas are based on actual scientific theories enriched by Wells's imagination.

Conclusion? The second part is much better than the first one; once you accept that you're not gonna care whether the narrator reunites with his wife or not and instead try to observe how the entire human race reacts to the invasion, the book can only get better.

That was a GREAT review! It's one of those books that I can't recall reading or not (I'm verging on Alzheimer’s, methinks), but your review made me want to (re)discover it. Your conclusion that it is in fact a satire on Victorian culture sounds bang on to me and the examples you gave, very telling.

When you say
It is also perhaps a mark of of the age I grew up in that I didn't even wince while reading the same gory descriptions of disembodied human parts, burning buildings and cadavers that shocked Wells's readers in the 19th century.

I am inclined to strongly agree with you there. Even though we intellectually know we are desensitized nowadays, we rarely have anything to compare it to in our personal experience. In my case, much like a Victorian lady probably did in her day, I used to literally FAINT at the sight of blood—even in movies—and had to be brought to hospital once or twice, whereas nowadays I can watch CSI and the like without (hardly) wincing, since there are constantly guts exploding all over the place on tv and in the movies. I can only imagine how shocked readers would have been when the book came out. I always try to put myself in the period at which a book has come out when I'm reading, but that's nearly impossible. We can't UN-learn decades and centuries of knowledge while we are reading, but it certainly makes things more interesting when we are fully aware of how different realities probably were and can compare it to our own current experience.

That is a great, insightful review, GUG. I agree that wells was mocking "humanity," but I wonder how many of his readers picked up on it in 1900.

Nifty cover, too.

on the subject of His Dark Materials, I'm a big fan! A proper classic of childrens literature. And if you want a version of WoTW that makes you care about the characters, may I humbly recommend Jeff Wayne's 1970s musical double lp! It's.... exactly as one might expect, given that it was made in the 70s and features Phil Lynott out of Thin Lizzy, among others

>203 Smiler69: Thanks, Smiler! In reality I couldn't have planned The War of the Worlds better because I'm reading about the Victorian age for an exam and so everything makes much more sense. Perhaps normally I wouldn't be so observant as to notice every time an author mocks his own era and his contemporaries but this time it stood out so much. I was reading, for example, how much of the writing in the 1890s (the book was written during that decade) illustrates a breakdown of the Victorian society and melancholy is characteristic of its spirit. "Artists of the 1890s were very much aware of living at the end of a great century and often cultivated a deliberately fin de siècle pose." So, you see, Wells was by no means the only one writing about the end of the world, apocalypse, decay etcetera. He was just the only one using aliens to do so ;) Oh, and I agree with pretty much everything you said about how desensitized we are and how, fortunately or unfortunately, we cannot unlearn that.

>204 BrainFlakes: Yep, I guess it goes to show how oblivious his contemporaries were to the fact that they're being mocked that they called this book a Scientific Romance. The "romance" part is totally insignificant in my opinion. He probably just included it because that was the standard of the age and he needed his books to sell - a further mockery on his part :)

>205 bencritchley: Haha I laughed out loud at that! I'll ...uhh... make sure to check it out? (Thin Lizzy, not really my type) :) Re His Dark Materials, now that's what I want to hear in order to buy them! I was expecting more fans and I was kind of worried... (crazy4reading, thanks for your nice reviews too, they helped) I'm planning a trip to Spain in March so I'll have some money which will probably go towards the series ! Can't wait!

Oh! I have just started The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time!

Ooooh. I hope you like that one. In any case looking forward to your review. I read it last year and was quite taken actually. Actually, strike that. Wasn't so much taken as I was reading it, but it grew and grew on me afterward.

I am glad the reviews helped girlunderglass.

Good luck with the exams! :)
--BJ

A very insightful review, girlunderglass. I second the recommendation of the 1970s musical version, which was narrated by Richard Burton, and also had David Essex as one of the characters.

BTW, I think the romance in "Scientific Romance" just means a story, rather than a love story -- and scientific romance was the standard term for what we now call science fiction.

>207 Smiler69: I now know EXACTLY what you meant. There are many things that make this book a very quick read - it's not very big and there are all the little diagrams and drawings and the writing is (intentionally) so simple and the story is compelling - that you don't really notice it when you read it, if that makes sense. But afterwards I found myself quoting Christopher all the time...his little monologues about maths and science and people and the world are delightful :)

>208 crazy4reading: Thanks for helping! I am definitely buying the books as soon as I have some cash.

>209 billiejean: Merciiii! Three down, three to go.

>210 Robertgreaves: Oh really? I had no idea (scientific romance) Are you sure?? Hmmm. Thanks for telling me! :) And I will make sure to look for the musical online.

Now, back to business. :)
I've finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Over to You (audiobooks are sooo slow) this weekend, so I'm gonna count them towards my February reads. I've had a lot of things going on this weekend, some that made me happy, some sad, so haven't had time to write reviews but will tomorrow, for both of them.

I also have a plan for my March reading. I figured I'd make the first month of spring my Month of the Firsts. That is, I will only read writers I've never read before. My plan is to try and read well-known writers or writers that are part of the literary canon but that I have never, for some reason, got around to reading. The month's reads will include my first Austen, Pratchett, Le Guin and Wodehouse and probably some others as well. If anyone should care to join me or at least keep me company along the way, that would be very very nice :)

#211. Rats. I just finished my first Terry Pratchett, but I reviewed it last night on the 28th. I'll dig around, though, and find someone: it isn't like there's a shortage of authors.

What a great idea - I´ve just finished two books by authors I´ve never read before (P. Robert Smith and Castle Freeman), and enjoyed both, so maybe I´ll carry on with the Month of the Firsts too. If nothing else, it might help me tackle my pile of unread books. Good luck, hope you like the Pratchett and Wodehouse (two of my favourites!)

Please pass a Dharma beer. The husband and I are totally into Lost too.

I could make this a Month of Firsts too. The majority of the books I'm currently reading and the ones I'm planning to read are by authors I've never read before.

>211 girlunderglass: That's a great idea! I'm looking forward to your reviews, Pratchett and Le Guin are authors I've been meaning to check out myself. Although, I've read one short story by Le Guin (assuming we're talking about Ursula K. Le Guin here) but I don't think that counts :) Enjoy!

That's so great everyone!! Can't wait to start reading & reviewing and reading your reviews as well! I am indeed talking about that Le Guin, spotatoes.

Chrine, I'm passing you and your husband some cold beers now.

Cheers!

15. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Tags: 2000s, fiction, mystery & crime, U.K.
Rating: ★★★1/2

" Mrs. Peters's husband is a vicar called the Reverend Peters, and he comes to our school sometime to talk to us, and I asked him where heaven was, and he said, "It's not in our universe. It's a different kind of place altogether." The Reverend Peters makes a funny ticking noise sometimes with his tongue when he is thinking. And he smokes cigarettes and you can smell them on his breath and I don't like this.
I said that there wasn't anything outside the universe and there wasn't another kind of place altogether. Except that there might be if you went through a black hole, but a black hole is what is called a singularity, which means it is impossible to find out what is on the other side because the gravity of a black hole is so big that even electromagnetic waves like light can't get out of it, and electromagnetic waves are how we get information about things that are far away. And if heaven was on the other side of a black hole, people would have to be fired into space on rockets to get there and they aren't or people would notice.
I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they won't to carry on living and don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish."

Meet 15-year old Christopher Boone, a kid with Asperger's Syndrome whose dream is to become an astronaut. Christopher likes maths and science and puzzles. And he also likes animals. So when his neighbour's dog is killed he goes on a quest to find out who did it. It's hard being a detective when you have difficulties communicating with people, and a dozen other "behavioral problems" but Christopher does it anyway; and when he finds out who the murderer is, the revelations that follow turn his world upside down.

That's pretty much the storyline. I had no idea what rating I would give the book. While I was reading it I knew I was enjoying it very much: Christopher's little rants about maths puzzles, about the universe, about the inexplicable behaviour of his fellow humans, and about himself are lovely. Even now I find myself thinking about them and quoting them very often. But at the same time I didn't get the feeling that I was reading a great book. I think that has a lot to do with the writing. In Haddon's attempt to portray Christopher as realistically as possible, he makes him employ a simple, logical, undemanding and unsentimental language - which is indeed very effective in creating the impression that we're actually in Christopher's head. The problem with this, however, is that even after having read the book I still can't tell if Haddon is a good or a bad writer. On the one hand I cannot say the writing is beautiful - sometimes the book feels like reading a science book and sometimes like a teenager's diary. On the other hand, that is after all, the effect the author was trying to create: that the novel is written by a science-obsessed teenager with certain behavioral issues who views the world very logically. I must say I would be very curious to read something else by Haddon, if only to see how his writing differs from this book. That said, I did enjoy this one quite a bit and I think it is definitely worth the very short time it will take you to read it.



You can also read the book online here.

That's for the beers, GUG.

I would say for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time that Mark Haddon is a good writer if the book made you feel like you were reading something written by the character he created. That he did Christopher's voice well. But I also agree that it's hard to tell what his writing would be like in other books. Good review.

Looking forward to your views on Le Guin - I've been meaning to check her out ever since I read/watched The Jane Austen Book Club and Grigg is so enthusiastic about her books!

> 219 That's exactly what piqued my interest in Le Guin, too! Then recently, one of the blogs I read linked to a short story of hers (this one: http://harelbarzilai.org/words/omelas.txt) and I enjoyed it. Here's hoping for a good recommendation from gug this month ;)

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is the most amazing story - I read it for the first time years ago, but I still find myself thinking about it quite often, especially whenever there is discussion about things like Guantanamo Bay, or (in Australia) the treatment of illegal immigrants/refugees. Never read any of her full-length books though, maybe time to add her to the list.

"Firsts".. what a great idea for March! I have books by all four authors you mentioned in my TB pile, and they would all be firsts for me, too. I think I will give it a shot!
Looking foward to more of your wonderful reviews!

I completely agree with what you say about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time because I was faced with the same dilemma when trying to decide whether it was a great book or not. In the end I gave it four stars (which is quite a lot for me) because I decided only a very good writer could write so convincingly as to make me feel like I had actually entered a character's mind and actually understand his thought processes. I also have A Spot of Bother, one of Mark Haddon's other books on my TBR pile and I will definitely be comparing it with The Curious Incident of the Dog as I read it to determine how good a writer he is.

I love your idea of reading all new (to you) writers this month and would join you too, only I had the *brilliant* idea to list some of the books on my TBR pile on BookMooch to get me reading a bit faster, and of course those were snapped up in no time so my reading list is pretty well set for this month. There is only one author I haven't read in the pile right now, which is Cormac McCarthy. I guess I can consider that my contribution to your challenge. :-)

Hey GUG: I made it to the Big Time just like you! My review of Collected Stories of William Faulkner made the hot list this morning! I'm not bragging or anything . . . well, yes I am.

Congratulations, Charlie!!!!

Though I made it twice so you still have to beat me mouahahahahhahahaha *evil evil laugh* :))

I really need to make some more time for LT, I haven't checked anyone's threads in three days :( I shall look for your aforementioned review!

You have an excellent evil laugh--it sure scared me.

And congrats yourself for making the list twice. I just hope you don't become unmanageable when you make it a third time.

haha
I just gave your review a thumb-up so my laugh wasn't that evil :)

Wow, Brainflakes. Your review actually made me want to read Faulkner. Thumbs up!!

This review is due from February (!!). Yes, I know, it's just that I've been so busy with studying. The good news is that my last exam is on Friday and from then on I'll be able to spend more time reading and reviewing and reading other people's threads (yay!) :)



16. Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying by Roald Dahl
Tags: 1940s, short stories, U.K.
Rating: ★★★

This is one of Dahl's earliest short story collections - and even if you hadn't read that on a site somewhere or in this review you would have realized it yourself. Dahl is still experimenting with writing: he knows what he wants to narrate and why he wants people to hear his stories, but it is blatantly obvious that he doesn't yet know how to do so; he is searching for the form and writing style that would best fit his purpose. That is by no means saying that the writing is bad. It is merely a beginner's writing who doesn't trust his own skills yet - an extremely talented beginner's, for sure, but a beginner's nonetheless. Dahl draws from his experience as a pilot during WWII and sets his stories mostly in places he actually served and fought in - mainly Egypt and Greece - and the descriptions of the setting, of the locals and their lives have the ring of authenticity. Moreover, his portrayals of his compatriots and the fragments of conversation going on between them are funny and sometimes moving at the same time. So what is the problem? There is the fact that certain scenes seem to repeat themselves over and over in the various stories; some expressions and words are constantly used in similar situations, as if the writer doesn't not dare to stray from the reality of what happened in the least, does not dare trust his imagination. Dahl hadn't discovered yet that single most handy of devices that would make his children's stories so unique and beloved all over the world: invention. If the words that are available to you are not enough to say what you want them to say, just make up your own words. In Over To You he seems to make do with what's handed to him. Still, the collection is an interesting read indeed, if only because it shows a different aspect of Dahl's writing and personality. Because it shows us that the man who needs to take refuge in children's stories, imaginary worlds and fairy tales is a man shaped and scarred by his experiences during the war.

#229. That is one hell of an insightful conclusion. It comes close to beautiful, but I won't tell you that for fear of Bigheaditis.

Well done.

Yep, what Brain said. No ego strokes from me either. ;) j/k

I haven't read any of Roald Dahl's adult books, but I'll have to try Over to You, even though LT predicts I won't like it. We'll see about that . . . .

aww thanks so much you guys!

I want to make an observation on The Left Hand of Darkness so far. I realized I just LOVE invented languages. In the book the characters sometimes use Gethenian words, (whose meaning is explained to us, of course) and it adds so much to the authenticity of their speech and it makes the whole alien world seem so much more plausible. It reminded me of Watership Down with all the words in "rabbit speech", which I just realized that I loved so much that I still remember some of them! Can't think of any other books that make use of this device right now but when it's done properly it just makes the text so rich...

100% with you on that one. I've recently thought that I missed out on a potential calling writing languages for sci-fi TV & movies. How much fun must that career be?!

>233 ljbwell: I get you! That would be amazing!

Another update to say I fixed all the links in my first post (the one where I track my progress) so that now, if you click on the titles of the books, it leads to the part in this thread where they are reviewed. Frankly I think it's a brilliant system and would like to thank Shewhowearsred soooooo much for sharing the HTML codes necessary to do it :)

#234. That is nifty as hell, but I'm jellus. I'll figger it out if it takes my last brain flake.

Or maybe I'll just "borrow" it from your page source . . .

Heck, I think it's so brilliant, I won't even bother to borrow it. I'm just going to plain steal it. As soon as I figure out how. GUG... hope you'll still talk to me. :-/

I agree, it does add to the feeling of authenticity. But it can be overdone. I can't remember what the book was now, but I had to give up on one where practically every word in some sentences was in the invented language.

Somebody who is very good at it is Anne McCaffrey. She does it so subtly you just accept the new words to the point you assume they are English words you haven't happened to come across before.

On the topic of invented language, I think the best example is A Clockwork Orange - Burgess creates this alien, terrifying, and yet utterly familiar world, and despite the initial sense of disorientation, before you know it, you're thinking; 'wow, I really viddy what this chellovek is on about'.

You can go ahead and steal it folks, I'll still talk to you :))

>237 Robertgreaves: Are you talking about any specific book, or do many of her novels have invented language? Any recommendations in particular?

>238 tash99: TO this day I've never read A Clockwork Orange...and had NO IDEA that it has invented words! I don't remember anything like that in the movie...though of course I shouldn't judge a book by its adaptations (which I did like, however)!

Anne McCaffrey mainly writes series, the best known of which is her Pern series set on the planet of that name where biologically engineered dragons are used by humans to defend the planet against a space borne spore with nasty properties. I first read some of the series when I was a teenager, and I always thought "weyr" was a standard English term for a dragon's home, but McCaffrey made it up.

Antony Burgess invented a whole slang for A Clockwork Orange made up of hybrid Russian and English words.

Nadsat was challenging, but eventually it started to feel natural. Amazing what context can do for you!

Lewis Carroll, with Jabberwocky in particular, is a great example how we are able to understand - innately almost - seemingly gibberish language.

>240 Robertgreaves:,241 thanks both for the recommendations, I will make sure to seek them out! And now...



17. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Tags: 1960s, fiction, sci-fi, U.S.A.
Rating: ★★★★1/2

"Our entire pattern of socio-sexual interaction is non-existent here.(...) There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protected/protective. One is respected and judged only as a human being. You cannot cast a Gethenian into the role of Man or Woman, while adopting towards "him" a corresponding role dependent on your expectations of the interactions between persons of the same or opposite sex. It is an appalling experience for a Terran..."

Genry is sent to the planet called Gethen as an envoy, his mission being to further the cause of the Ekumen - an alliance of various planets, including Earth, that would like to count Gethen amongst its members. He is sent there alone so as to prevent Gethenians from seeing him as a threat, and so he can explain to them the benefits they would experience if they were to be part of the Union: benefits economic, scientific, medicinal, political and, of course, cultural. His mission, however, is complicated by many factors. For one thing, Genry is considered a "pervert" because he is not androgynous and because his sexual potency is not limited to a few days per month - he is in constant "kemmer". For another, while his reproductive system is considered abnormal, such cases have been known to exist on Gethen and so many do not believe that he comes from another planet, having never seen an "alien" before. In fact, no birds or any sort of winged animals exist on Gethen and therefore, not only do they not believe it is possible to build spaceships, but they think it impossible to fly at all. "How could it ever occur to a sane man that he could fly?", asks one Gethenian. Further complications arise when political considerations get in the way of the mission; when leaders that are suppose to care for the general good of all mankind, are too blinded by personal interests and territorial disputes to see the bigger picture.

Because of the ambiguous sexuality of the Gethenians, who are potentially both Man and Woman, the novel is often seen as a study on gender and sexuality. It is true that by using an alienating device (no pun intended) to great effect, Le Guin makes us reconsider gender roles. She manages to explore the way in which such a trivial factor as sex can determine our entire roles in society and shape out behaviour patterns that we follow through life. But The Left Hand of Darkness amounts to so much more than gender study. There are so many layers of meaning! Le Guin creates a whole world filled with the myths, legends, religions, popular beliefs and traditions of a rich and complex society. Many of these are interspersed throughout the book not necessarily to advance the story but, it seems, for the single purpose of enriching our experience. The ideologies and unspoken rules of behaviour that surface through the Gethenians' speech and through their actions make it possible for us to see their true nature. We recognize that the inhabitants of this cold planet (nicknamed "Winter" by Earthlings) are so very different, yet at the same time so similar to us; that they are unmistakably human. Le Guin does not only teach us about gender, but also about friendship and trust, about politics, about tradition, about respect, about patriotism and about bigotry, about lies and truth, about ambiguity, about the acceptance of the Other, whether that Other is of a different gender, or of a different colour; whether that Other is merely an inhabitant of a different country, or whether he is a strange black alien who is considered a pervert because he "must carry always his sexual organ outside himself" . The truth is I haven't read many science-fiction novels, but it doesn't take an expert to tell that this is one of the best.

Fantastic review, GuG! This sounds like a really fascinating read. Your review brought up so many questions and thoughts about the themes/ideas brought up in the book that I have no choice but to put it on my TBR list. This reminds me a little bit of The Handmaid's Tale, only because of the various issues that it seems to discuss, and I absolutely loved that so I could see really liking this Le Guin too.

I haven't read TLHoD, but it seems amazing that Le Guin was able to accomplish so much in a mere 300 pages or so. I believe this is one to read, thanks to your review.

Thanks Sp, I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale but I've just mooched it so I'll have a chance to note the similarities and differences between the two books soon enough!

Charlie, it is an incredible achievement indeed and I believe she wouldn't have been able to do it if she had stuck to one man's perspective (the envoy's). Instead what we have is a variety of sources and points of view represented...a certain Gethenian named Estraven is an important part of the book and we see the action often in diary form from his perspective. Furthermore, and laziness compels me to just copy this from wikipedia so I don't have to look for the proper words, "throughout the novel, there are short creation myths and legends, explaining the psychology of the Gethenians and illuminating Estraven's unspoken past. One story discusses the place inside the storm, a quiet haven within a blizzard. One story discusses the roots of the Yomeshta religion. One is an ancient Handdara creation myth. One discusses what a traitor is (the story concerns an ancestor of Estraven), and so on." These make for a very rich story, indeed. :)

I just read your post about the first book you read this year, The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Seems great, definately going to try to get a hold of that one! :)

i just finished writing you a looong message and the damn thing just went and DISAPPEARED on me when I tried to post it. That'll teach me. So I'll keep it short: great review on The Left Hand of Darkness. Will try to keep it in mind when am ready for Sci Fi. Hope you enjoy The Handmaid's Tale as it's one of my favourites by Margaret Atwood and of course looking forward to your comments on it. I'm off to write a review about Steppenwolf which I basically forced myself to plough through, so we'll see how that goes.

On Steppenwolf, haven't read it but I've heard it's not one of Esse's best and quite different from the rest. You might wanna try Siddharta, or even Demian, which I quite enjoyed. I'll probably get to Atwood only in April, as I seem to be reading slower than usual lately. Yeah and I hate it when that happens (LT crashes). I usually copy something to my clipboard if I'm writing something long, though.

Tammie, thanks for stopping by - The Secret History probably ranks as my number three of my best reads so far this year, with two being The Left Hand of Darkness and number one being I Know This Much Is True ! Hope you enjoy it :)

I LOVED The Secret History - I read it for a book group a few years ago and it shot straight up my 'Favourite Books' list - I think I've read it two or three times at least now.

Thanks GUG for the brilliant review of Left Hand of Darkness - I've been intrigued about it since The Jane Austen Book Club but haven't come across it in bookshops or the library. I'll definitely be getting myself a copy from Amazon now!

#248. Excellent advice. I always copy my comments to the clipboard before posting--I learned the hard way from Blogger, which was (is) famous for eating comments.

HAH! Made the hotlist again, GUG, so we're tied.

Thanks for dropping by Ellie, I have the feeling that we haven't had any book talks lately :)

Ha! I learned the hard way from Blogger too... It's TERRIBLE! Apart from the fact that it has a gazillion problem when saving/posting, they can also (and have repeatedly in fact) delete your posts without telling you why. I mean I get if they delete a post for "copyright infringement" and explain what artist didn't want their song shared, or their picture viewed (although why wouldn't they?) but to actually delete something you've made yourself , written and put effort into without even telling you why is absolutely absurd. Anyway, here I go ranting again. And you can't stop me 'cause I'm on my own thread this time. *makes use of her intimidating and apparently efficient evil laugh*
Congratulations are in order again BrainFlakes! And this time without the evil laugh :)

Resisting the temptation to put Left Hand of Darkness in the TBR pile to re-read.

Re: 248, 250 & 252

GUG, thanks for the suggestions for books by Hesse, though I actually read Siddharta last year. I quite enjoyed it, which is why I thought I'd follow it up with Steppenwolf. Now I wish I hadn't bothered. It's really brought me down in a big way.

As for Blogger, I've been on it for about 3-4 years now and I am indeed familiar with comments getting chewed up then disappearing, but I had not heard about actual posts disappearing. I've had a couple of blogs and a combined 5,000 posts or so and been lucky never to have that happen to me. But that's scaring me into seriously considering taking those extra steps toward getting my own domain name and moving my blog over so NO ONE can decide what is and isn't appropriate content.

>253 Robertgreaves: Resistance is futiiiiiiiiiiiile! I think it's just one of those books that gets mentioned so much (and deservedly so) that one way or another it'll cross your path at some point :)

>254 Smiler69: Yep, seriously considering the Big Move myself. I think it might be worth it. Not only because Blogger is crappy and undependable but because, like you said, noone will delete your posts just because some sad idiot who's angry at the world clicked "report".

And GUG takes the lead on the reviews hotlist, 3-2. I don't know how the reviews are chosen, and maybe I don't want to, but we're . . . hot!

I'm not very humble, am I.

Brainflakes: humble, maybe not but entertaining, yes! :-)

Hey GUG - my conversational prowess may have dipped a bit recently but fear not, I've been dropping by on the sly on a regular basis to see what's happening!

And I totally agree with you on >253 Robertgreaves: - you can resist adding something to a TBR list but you can guarantee that in a week or two you'll see it again somewhere else and it'll worm its way on anyway!

Currently reading:

♠ Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories - my first Wodehouse woo hoo :)

It sounds great and I hope you enjoy it! Wodehouse usually is hilarious!:) I love all the novels I've read about Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the stories! (I think I must add this volume to my endless wishlist(s). I haven't heard of it before.:)
Happy Reading!

My wife found a perfectly good copy of Fingersmith at the used bookstore last night, so Sarah Waters is a first for me. I read the first chapter and was hooked, but said wife turned out the light and made me go to sleep.

18. Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories by P.G. Wodehouse
Tags: 1910s, fiction, short stories, humour
Rating: ★★★

Well, my first Wodehouse has come and gone and, to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. Not that I didn't like his style or sense of humour, but I'd heard so many good things about him here on LT that I can't help feeling that I've somehow missed something. Like the Universe has conspired to keep me from enjoying a perfectly good author. I enjoyed some parts of the book and it definitely had its funny moments. But, overall, the short stories were repetitive, both thematically and stylistically and included way too many one-dimensional characters, including the protagonists. The Wooster and Jeeves stories? Rich and idle Englishman's uncle/aunt threatens to cut his allowance if the fella' doesn't meet a particular request of said aunt or uncle's. He asks for help from another rich and idle gentleman, Bertie Wooster. His butler, Jeeves usually comes up with a plan and solves the problem. In exchange, Bertie gets rid of a particular clothing item that offends Jeeves's exquisite taste. Once it's an ugly suit, in another story, it's a moustache (okay, not a clothing item), in a different one a pair of socks. The Reggie Pepper stories? Almost the same plot, except this time he solves his friends' problems on his own, without any butler being dragged in. It's like the novelist is writing the same narrative over and over again. Of course, this is some of Wodehouse's earliest stuff we're talking about, so I'd say some faults are excusable to a certain degree. It's certainly not unusual for an author, especially a young one, to write the same story again and again until he perfects it. If the author later gains fame, all the variations of those stories are almost sure to find some greedy bastard willing to publish them. And I wish they wouldn't. Just because some authors' fans would even read their shopping lists, doesn't mean they should be given the chance to. If I wasn't so obsessed about finishing all books started if it kills me, I would've probably stopped midway through. And would've probably enjoyed the book more if I had. After a while, however, it felt extremely tiring reading almost identical plots narrated using an almost identical choice of words. I realize this was probably not the ideal Wodehouse to start with, so I'm not giving up on the chap just yet. Next time I'll try one of his novels - not least because it's trickier to find the same story ad nauseam in novel form :)

So, to conclude -
Didn't like: repetitive storylines, repetitive choice of words, one-dimensional characters, too high expectations that weren't met

Liked: witty, funny parts, very characteristic vocabulary and style (the words "chap" , "chump", "rummy", the adding of "-what?" after every sentence and the expression "wasn't it Shakespeare or some other smart chap that said..." are now part of my vocabulary. If I ever wanna do a Wodehouse imitation, I'll be able to pull it off now :P)

There's this second-hand bookstore called the Word I particularly like going to where they have an astonishing amount of books by Wodehouse available in comparison to every other author. I've been too shy to ask the gruff clerks what that's all about since I hadn't really heard of him until a few months ago. Now I can confidently walk up to a clerk and say "Excuse me old chap, but I was rather hoping you'd have one of Wodehouse's later works to suggest—I'm told his earlier work is rather tedious, 'bit like reading a grocery list—what?" lol

hehe you did it perfectly! I'm impressed :)

Yes, well done - very English! It's making me feel I need to go and make a cup of tea...

Indeed, a wee spot of would fit the bill.
N/B

Hey guys!!
I think I'm moving permanently to my other thread as it really doesn't make sense to have two of them. My challenge is here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/55773

I've really loved our conversations here so, if you enjoy this thread, please don't be discouraged by the fact that it's moved to another group; come over, star and say hello :) You don't need to join the group.

I have a new review up, of the latest book I read, it's a small haiku collection. Read it here.

I'm gonna continue checking everyone's threads on the 50 book challenge as well as on the 75 one! Waiting for your new reviews and comments on books...
Eliza