Return of the Ninja Math Librarian (swynn)

130) The wheelman / Duane Swierczynski
129) Carved in bone / Jefferson Bass
128) Shiloh / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
127) The house on the mound / August Derleth
126) O pioneers! / Willa Cather
125) Hawkes Harbor / S.E. Hinton
124) Upheaval / Chris Holbrook
123) The case of Charles Dexter Ward / H.P. Lovecraft
122) The betrayal of Liliuokalani / Helena Allen
121) Ella Minnow Pea / Mark Dunn
120) Buried screams / C. Dean Andersson
119) Storm front / Jim Butcher
118) Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe / Fannie Flagg
117) The night train / Clyde Edgerton
116) Murder is binding / Lorna Barrett
115) Ancient of days / Michael Bishop
114) Known dead / Donald Harstad
113) Deep and dark and dangerous /Mary Downing Hahn
112) Dark of the moon / Tracy Barrett
111) Fifty miles from tomorrow / William L. Iggiagruk Hensley
110) Little brother / Cory Doctorow
109) Maigret and the yellow dog / Georges Simenon
108) Lightning bug / Donald Harington
107) The old Willis place / Mary Downing Hahn
106) Monday I'll save the world / Larry Hayes
105) The edge of reason / Melinda Snodgrass
104) The breathtaker / Alice Blanchard
103) The doll in the garden / Mary Downing Hahn
102) Borderline / Nevada Barr
101) December stillness / Mary Downing Hahn
100) The scarlet letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne
99) Deadwood /Pete Dexter
98) Blue Heaven / C.J. Box
97) A few degrees from Hell / Scott Ludwig
96) Daphne's book / Mary Downing Hahn
95) A bad day for pretty / Sophie Littlefield
94) Closed for the season / Mary Downing Hahn
93) Staggerford / John Hassler
92) All the lovely bad ones / Mary Downing Hahn
91) The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks / Rebecca Skloot
90) The world menders / Lloyd Biggle
89) The deltoid pumpkin seed / John McPhee
88) Love medicine / Louise Erdrich
87) The naked sun / Isaac Asimov
86) Orange is the new black / Piper Kerman
85) Learning to swim / Sara J. Henry
84) Pictures from an expedition / Diane Smith
83) Past master / R.A. Lafferty
82) Calling out / Rae Meadows
81) Utopia / Lincoln Child
80) Apocalypse when? / Willard Wells
79) Nocturnes for the King of Naples / Edmund White
78) The law at Randado / Elmore Leonard
77) Darkside / Belinda Bauer
76) The still, small voice of trumpets / Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
75) Assassination vacation / Sarah Vowell
74) Cradle of splendor / Patricia Anthony
73) The information / James Gleick
72) A girl's guide to guns and monsters / ed. Martin Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes

Here are this year's rules for the maps: I fill in a country on the world map when I read a book by an author native to that country. I fill in a state on the U.S. map when I read a book set in that state.


I have read books by authors from 13 countries (5.77%) this year.
Create your own visited map of The World


Success! I visited all 50 states (100%) in my reading this year!
Create your own visited map of The United States

Readings from the first thread:

71) Winter study / Nevada Barr
70) An illuminated life / Heidi Adizzone
69) The scar / China Miéville
68) Them / Jon Ronson
67) Purgatory Chasm / Steve Ulfelder
66) Ultramarathon man / Dean Karnazes
65) Maigret's war of nerves / Georges Simenon
64) Half a life / Darin Strauss
63) Enchanted pilgrimage / Clifford D. Simak
62) Swallow / Sefi Atta
61) Postmortem / Patricia Cornwell
60) How to live / Sarah Bakewell
59) Abandon galaxy! / Bart Somers
58) The bounty hunters / Elmore Leonard
57) We can build you / Philip K. Dick
56) The devotion of Suspect X / Keigo Higashino
55) The game's afoot! / Andrew Mehlmann
54) Norse code / Greg van Eekhout
53) By nightfall / Michael Cunningham
52) Killer weekend / Ridley Pearson
51) Mixed blood / Roger Smith
50) Allah is not obliged / Ahmadou Kourouma
49) The Holmes-Dracula file / Fred Saberhagen
48) In the land of believers / Gina Welch
47) Spellbent / Lucy A. Snyder
46) In search of Klingsor / Jorge Volpi
45) Killer's payoff / Ed McBain
44) Black hearts / Jim Frederick
43) X-rated bloodsuckers / Mario Acevedo
42) Maigret stonewalled / Georges Simenon
41) Ensel und Krete / Walter Moers
40) Dexter is delicious / Jeff Lindsay
39) Atchafalaya houseboat / Gwen Roland
38) The caves of steel / Isaac Asimov
37) Winterkill / C.J. Box
36) Kalin / E.C. Tubb
35) Morituri / Yasmina Khadra
34) King Rat / China Miéville
33) My abandonment / Peter Rock
32) The weight / Andrew Vachss
31) The 1972 annual world's best SF / Donald A. Wollheim (ed.)
30) Fantasia mathematica / Clifton Fadiman
29) The control of nature / John McPhee
28) Miss Zukas and the library murders / Jo Dereske
27) Reading Lolita in Tehran / Azar Nafisi
26) The nymphos of Rocky Flats / Mario Acevedo
25) Heaven is for real / Todd Burpo
24) Hard truth / Nevada Barr
23) Knife music / David Carnoy
22) The particular sadness of lemon cake / Aimee Bender
21) Kill the dead / Richard Kadrey
20) The dwarf / Cho Se-Hui
19) The outlander / Gil Adamson
18) The keeper of the keys / Janny Wurts
17) The sweetness at the bottom of the pie / Alan Bradley
16) Goblin quest / Jim C. Hines
15) A race like no other / Liz Robbins
14) Sundog / Brian Ball
13) High country / Nevada Barr
12) Beowulf
11) Jed the dead / Alan Dean Foster
10) Calculus of variations / Gilbert Ames Bliss
9) River of doubt / Candice Millard
8) Fateless / Imre Kertesz
7) Black Vulmea's vengeance / Robert E. Howard
6) Mudbound / Hilary Jordan
5) Star Prince Charlie / Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson
4) Dogfight, a love story / Matt Burgess
3) King's blood four / Sheri S. Tepper
2) Toyman / E. C. Tubb
1) What I talk about when I talk about running / Haruki Murakami

72) A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters / ed. Martin Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes

This is a collection of 13 stories about girls, usually fighting monsters, usually with guns. It sounds a lot more fun than it is: the stories are mostly just okay, with a couple better than average and one that had me wishing there were such a thing as Acme Memory Bleach. Several seem to be episodes in ongoing series, with not enough backstory to understand the character dynamics, and not enough frontstory to care.

The drifter by Jane Lindskold. Set in the Old West, Prudence Bledsoe tracks her werewolf brother, who has gone rogue.

Our lady of the vampires by Nancy Holder. Set in Depression-era L.A., a girl finds herself in an orphanage which seems to have an unholy arrangement with local vampires.

Best friends by Lilith Saintcrow. Two high-school girls deal with homophobia and a vampire. This is one of the better ones.

Elizabeth and Anna's big adventure by Jeanne Stein. A girl and her vampire babysitter fight off a home invader.

Lupercalia by Anton Strout. Helen Leda is tired of being a fool for love, so she decides to track the bastard down. Love, that is. Another of the better ones.

Murder she workshopped by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. An assassin who specializes in supernatural targets attends a writing workshop. This one is fluff, but still my favorite of the lot.

Heart of ash by Jim C. Hines. Lena Greenwood is a nature spirit who becomes exactly what her current lover most desires. She also fights evil, which becomes a problem when her current lover's desires turn to longings more domestic.

Jiang Shi by Elizabeth A. Vaughan. Kate discovers that has inadvertently become some sort of Chinese legend: "the Wise One, Bearer of the Scale, chosen of the Emperor Dragon, Lord of the Dragon Kings, Ruler of the Weather and the Waters of the World." It happened while Kate was fighting ninja rats on Harleys, which sounds fun. But the story starts after the ninja rat fight and wraps up with a deus ex machina, and there's not much but banter in between. Forgettable.

No matter where you go by Tanya Huff. Vicki Nelson and Mike Celluci investigate occult goings-on at a local cemetery. They discover a group of high-school misfits trying to open a portal to another world, under the impression that any other world would be better than this one.

Signed in blood by P. R. Frost. Tess Noncoiré's friend Holly is a musician. Lately Holly's crowds have been leaving her concerts inexplicably ... drained. Tess investigates.

Broch de Shlang by Mickey Zucker Reichert. A single mother raising two daughters, one of them severely handicapped, learns about a family curse involving snakes. This one is just awful, cynical and distasteful storytelling. Even if you read this book, skip this one or don't say I didn't warn you.

The woolly mountains by Alexander B. Potter. Something about Yeti and dragons, set in a future Vermont where paranormals and humans live in a fragile truce.

Invasive species by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Random Delaney is an exterminator of spaceship pests. Hired to clear a ship of metal mites, she discovers that the real problem is something a little more insidious.

I liked A Superior Death better than Winter Study.

3: They discover a group of high-school misfits trying to open a portal to another world, under the impression that any other world would be better than this one.

All other worlds, in my experience, have been better than high school.

#4: Me too. It's especially disappointing that the quality of Barr's mysteries has been declining in recent entries, with the villains motivated just by the fact that they're sociopaths.

#5: Agreed, high school is a pretty awful level of Hell.

#3: I think I will just give the whole book a miss :)

73) The Information : a History, a Theory, a Flood / James Gleick

Janet Maslin reviewed this book in the New York Times, calling it "sexily theoretical" and gushing that it is "to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand." The latter is clearly hyperbole and I don't even know what "sexily theoretical" means, though I suppose it's preferable to being "theoretically sexy."

So I'm not as gushing as Janet Maslin. Gleick sets out to give a popular history of "information." It's an ambitious project, complicated not a little by the fact that even his subject's definition is ambiguous; complicated even more by the fact that when you reach the late twentieth century the term becomes hopelessly abstract and (even worse for a popular account) burdened with lots of math.

Gleick's strategy is wise and largely successful. He is selective and anecdotal. He moves quickly past bits that have been discussed elsewhere ad infinitum (like the printing press); and spends a little more time on curious topics that other writers might call tangential (like African drumming). You won't come away with a deep understanding of information theory, but you'll be entertained and intrigued. And don't worry: he skips almost all the math.

I suppose just about anyone with an interest in information is going to find things that he wishes had been given more attention. What do I wish he'd covered more carefully? Well, the math obviously. I also wish he'd spent more time on quantum computing -- it is way cool, and Gleick certainly has the background to go on a while longer. Also, he almost completely ignores "information science," that sticky social science so closely related to librarianship. He talks a little about the European documentation movement, but that's about it. He even talks about "disambiguation pages" as if ambiguous names were something Wikipedia discovered. (Two words, dude: "authority records.")

Ah well, it's no secret that librarians are not sexily theoretical. No sir, nothing theoretical about us.

All in all, it's a nice and not at all taxing introduction to information theory. It misses a few opportunities, but makes a lot of the ones it takes. It's not as good as his Chaos, I think, but still quite entertaining and enlightening and recommended.

#8: That one sounds like a book I would enjoy so I will give it a shot. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Stephen.

8: I'll probably have similar reservations, but onto the wishlist it goes.

Ah well, it's no secret that librarians are not sexily theoretical. No sir, nothing theoretical about us.

Nope, we're just flat out sexy. No theory required. ;) Sounds like an interesting read.

Nope, we're just flat out sexy.

That's right. Of course if we were theoretical, sexily would be the only way we'd know.

So very, very true. :D

74) Cradle of splendor / Patricia Anthony

This near-future political thriller opens with Brazil's entry into the space race: a manned Brazilian space launch. The launch has been planned with the help of the Germans, enviously watched by the Japanese, and guaranteed to fail by the Americans.

And fail it does. Before achieving escape velocity -- before even passing out of sight -- the craft's rockets fail. And then it rises into orbit anyway.

There is much to like, especially the great setting: a vividly imagined Brazil undergoing a social and technological renaissance. The characters are complex and conflicted. The politics are nuanced. Anthony has things to say about sexual violence and political violence, about technofetishism, and about the politics of American empire. I'm sympathetic to most of Anthony's perspectives, and she's skillful at making points without preaching.

Still, I'm not as happy with this book as I'd like. I'm dissatisfied with the science-fiction elements, which are barely explored and never explained. And a couple of promising characters turn into pathetic caricatures, although that may be the point.

Altogether, it's an intriguing book that I can't get enthusiastic about. There's enough promise here, though, to look up some of Anthony's other books. Does anyone have a favorite?

I have never read any of Patricia Anthony's books, so I am going to be completely useless. Sorry.

I do hope book 75 turns out to be a dandy for you!

#15: It is. In fact, I have a brand-new author crush.

Which is a good thing, since my man-crush on China Miéville was beginning to get awkward ...

75) Assassination vacation / Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell soliloquizes on the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, and on her own pilgrimages to view sites and artifacts related to their deaths. Yeah, that's the idea. I'd hate to have heard her pitch that to a potential publisher.

Aw, who am I kidding? I'm ready to hear Sarah Vowell pitch anything. Wry, sly, brilliant and completely charming, she dances from assassin Charles Guiteau to the Oneida free-love commune to Peter Gallagher's eyebrows like a twinkle-toed James Burke of American history, but with better one-liners. This book is fascinating, morbid, and hilarious, often all at once. Reader, I rather liked it.

I'd seen several other LTers praising Sarah Vowell, so she's been sitting in the Someday Swamp for awhile. Last month's double-double letter TIOLI challenge was the impetus finally to check this one out. According to my notes, I originally added this to the Swamp on Marie's (mihess's) recommendation. Thanks, Marie!

Congrats on 75! Now what?
Sarah Vowell has been on my mental Someday list (? random floating stuff) for ages, wouldn't've had high hopes for this one based on the description... so now it floats more prominently.

Congrats on reaching the magic number and with what sounds like a great read! Going to stick Sarah Vowell on the mental list of authors to check out.

#18-19: Thanks! I hope you like her humor as much as I did.

Now what?

I planned to finish my 75 by August so I could focus on taking a class this fall. (I had my eye on Differential Geometry.) I've reached that goal, but projects coming up at work make a fall class a bad idea for me, especially a computation-based course, which I tend to find more difficult than the proof-based ones. I just won't have the time.

Fortunately, there's no shortage of more books. Next up is a 1968 planetary romance, then something from a pile of library books with looming due dates. I'd like to read a thick classic this fall, either Cervantes or Gibbon, but alas I'm easily distracted.

wouldn't've had high hopes for this one based on the description

I'd been putting Sarah Vowell off for the same reason-- despite positive reviews, her books have summaries that just don't sound very appealing. I know better now.

76) The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets / Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

Great title, and the book's not half bad either.

The Federation of Independent Planets wants to extend its boundaries, but the planet Gurnil stands in the way. To join the federation, Gurnil must have a planetwide democratic government. But the Federation's ethics prevent it from imposing a democracy (ahem) and until Gurnil develops its own democracy its natives can't even be told the Federation exists.

The Federation's policy in such situations is to send in a team of the Interplanetary Relations Bureau for the purposes of fomenting democracy from within. That strategy only worked halfway on Gurnil: the planet has two continents, one of which converted quickly, but the other seems to be happy with its traditional monarchy. And we can't have that. Enter Jef Fornil, agent of the Cultural Survey, to bring an outsider's insight to Gurnil.

Okay, so the premise is pretty ridiculous. What this has going for it is an appealing solution: Fornil decides to provoke revolution by appealing to aesthetics rather than to bombast or violence. It helps that Biggle is a competent writer whose belief in art and music comes through in his prose.

It's certainly a product of its time: the sexism is a bit cringe-inducing and the imperialism even more so.
It's far from perfect, and it's not going to turn anybody on to science fiction. But for those who already love the genre it's worth a read.

Congrats!

I've read several Patricia Anthony books, and liked them all to one degree or another. Each was very different in subject matter, and I liked that. I don't read a huge amount of sf though so I'm not the best judge of whether you would like these. They're all fairly short and quick reads so you might want to try one ( or more):

Happy Policeman
Cold Allies
Brother Termite
Flanders
Conscience of the Beagle

Congrats on reaching the 75 books mark! I liked Biggle a lot back in the day--his love of music and art always comes through. I still have some of his books but haven't read them for ages--will need to do so next year when I do the big SF pruning project.

> 22 & 23: Thanks!

> 24: Thanks for the suggestions. I hope to try another of Anthony's books soon.

> 25: Thanks! Sometime soon I'll be reading The World Menders, Biggle's follow-up to The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets. I'm looking forward to it.

77) Darkside / Belinda Bauer

Jonas Holly is the village bobby in Shipcott, a rural noplace in Exmoor. Jonas had once set his sights on more exciting duty, but then his wife was diagnosed with MS and he found his priorities realigned. The Shipcott beat is low-stress and predictable ... until an elderly paralyzed woman is smothered in her sleep.

An officious bully of a homicide detective descends upon Shipcott with his team. Jonas does his best to assist the detective while also reassuring the locals and caring for his wife. But then he starts to receive taunting messages from the killer. And then the body count rises.

This is a follow-up to Bauer's 2010 thriller Blacklands, which I read last year and thought terrific. This is set in the same village; Steven Lamb, the precocious child-hero of Blacklands has a cameo.

On the plus side, this is atmospheric and suspenseful and has a textured setting. It's all effectively gothic and brooding. On the minus, the viewpoint shifts between Jonas Holly and the homicide detective with sometimes jarring frequency, and the ending is a bit contrived. For me the pluses outweigh the minuses, and I cautiously recommend it.

i havent been to that many states ive only been to three

Hi Tini! I had hoped to visit all 50 in my reading this year, but as you can see I'm way behind the pace.

#27: I still need to get to Blacklands, which I have had in the BlackHole far too long.

#30: I hope you like it when you get to it, Stasia.

Apropos of not very much, I follow the blog "Halfway There" written by a mathematics professor who styles himself "Zeno." (10 points for you if you've already made the connection between the moniker and the blog title.) The latest entry is a dilemma many of us face: what to do with all these damn books. Discard them? (Shudder.) Trade them in for a Kindle? (Eek!) Clear out a storage shed? (Tell me more.):

http://zenoferox.blogspot.com/2011/08/do-it-yourself-yourself.html

I'm feeling his pain quite a bit, since last weekend I visited my brother who in a fit of inexplicable practicality decided to trim his collection of mass-market fantasy paperbacks. I scored a couple of dozen Darkover books and the first dozen or so books in Gold Eagle's Rogue Angel series. Plus quite a few miscellanea.

When will I read them? Who cares!? Where shall I put them, that's the question.

#31: Where shall I put them, that's the question.

The age old question!

31: Seems he could use a database and tags too: http://zenoferox.blogspot.com/2009/04/living-in-bookcase-land.html.

>33 qebo:: Yes, challenges of bibliographic organization are a perennial topic on his blog.

Actually, in my library too: I've started shelving part of my collection according to ISBN, just to see what it would look like. This results in an arrangement by publisher, less chronological than I expected but interesting nonetheless.

78) The Law at Randado / Elmore Leonard

Kirby Frye is a young deputy-sheriff in Randado, where a couple of cattle rustlers are awaiting a ride to Tucson for trial. But while Kirby is out of town chasing fugitives, the offended rancher convinces a few pillars of the community -- one of them the father of Kirby's girlfriend -- to treat the rustlers to a lynching.

When Kirby returns he has to decide whom he serves: the leading lights of his community, or the law in Tucson. Aw heck, 'tain't much of a choice.

Like Leonard's first book there's nothing new here to anyone who grew up watching Hollywood westerns. This one feels like the kind Anthony Mann and James Stewart used to do so well. The writing is brisk and the narrative moves right along.

According to IMDB, this was filmed as "Border Shootout," with Glenn Ford in his final role as Kirby's supervising sheriff. Never seen it.

#35: I wish I could say that Westerns are my thing, but they just aren't. I will be giving that book a pass.

>35 swynn:: Generally they're not mine either. I'm reading through Elmore Leonard's works primarily for his thrillers. But these westerns came first. And besides, there's the Western TIOLI this month ...

#37: I have actually read a couple of books for the Western TIOLI challenge this month, Doc and Thirteenth Child, but neither of them is really traditional westerns.

79) Nocturnes for the King of Naples / Edmund White

It's a novel in the form of scenes from an autobiography, addressed to a lost lover.

Richard mentioned this after my comments on Michael Cunningham's By Nightfall. which I found lovely of style but lacking in substance. The comparison is apt: White's book too has a style/substance imbalance, with the scales tipped heavily toward an elliptic and lyrical style.

But of the two, I prefer this one, which has a greater feeling of intimacy and immediacy justifying its stylistic excesses. And coming in at under 150 pages it barely has time to wear out its welcome. Despite Cunningham's considerable skill, White is the better poet and his book is recommended.

80) Apocalypse When? / Willard Wells

Physicist Willard Wells takes on the question of how long we can expect to survive.

Wells's answer is a classic good-news bad-news response. The good news is that there's about a 70% chance we'll last for a good long time -- i.e., thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of years.

The bad news is our survival probably depends on a near-extinction event within the next year or so, which will wipe out modern civilization, thereby eliminating human-caused and technologically-exacerbated means of extinction.

There's math, but for the most part it's elementary probability. Hairy details are worked out in appendices. For casual readers, the most interesting part may be the final chapter, where Wells describes possible doomsday or near-doomsday scenarios.

Probability is not my strong suit, so I can't give a good critique of Wells's analysis. To my undisciplined eye it appears valid given his assumptions. I do have a couple of reservations, though.

The first is those very assumptions. In many places Wells says, "We don't have a good way of knowing how to calculate process X, but it seems reasonable to assume that we can use process Y as a model." But even a casual reader can see Y differs from X in possibly significant ways. Built on so many assumptions, the structure seems a bit tottery. In Wells's defense, he attacks the question from four different directions, and all four logical strategies converge on the same answer. Still, one wonders.

My second reservation is a disciplinary prejudice. Wells is a quantum physicist so I can assume his command of probability theory. But his arguments and applications belong more to actuarial than physical science. Their extradisciplinarity does not render Wells's arguments invalid, but I would be curious to read an actuary's take on his claims.

Summing up: it's fairly short, and the mathematical content is significant but not advanced. If that sounds interesting, you probably won't be disappointed and I recommend giving it a browse.

Moby Dick is on my son's English syllabus this year. He's a reluctant reader, and I'd been thinking of finding another book to share with him, so .... we've been reading MD at bedtime for about a week now.

I last read MD in college, and remember it crying out for an editor. I appreciated the symbolism and all, but sweet celestial cetaceans, did Melville ever ramble!

I stand corrected: he wasn't rambling, he was just showing off. I am loving Melville's rhythms and his vocabulary and his alliteration and his images and his evident overflowing joy in language. Maybe reading it aloud is what makes the difference, but it's a different book this time around -- which is why we re-read the classics, right?

Of course, I haven't gotten to the chapters cataloging the whales and arguing that they're fish not mammals, etc. I may change my mind then ...

And how does Ninja Jr. like it? He finds it an excellent soporific. Ah, youth.

he wasn't rambling, he was just showing off

That was basically my take on it as well when I read it for the first time earlier this year. I'm not sure I'd ever tackle Moby Dick again as a re-read though...

Micky, I didn't remember seeing your comments about Moby Dick earlier this year, so I just went and found them in your first thread.

After reading your comments, I'm even more curious about how long my enthusiasm will last. We've just boarded the Pequod, so the chapters remain before us about shipboard procedures and whale biology and the whiteness of the whiteness on the whiteness of the whale. There remain hundreds of pages to start feeling that it's quite enough, thanks.

Right now though I'm loving it.

I've recently been doing more night running, which means I stay off the street and keep to a well-lit running path. It's safer, but it's a little flat and dull and I thought I'd start listening to some books during the longer runs. Someone else here on LT had mentioned LibriVox, so I thought I'd give it a try.



Lisbeth Longfrock by Hans Aanrud

I give a thumbs-up to listening to audiobooks while running, and to LibriVox, and to "Annise" whose reading of this book outshone a few commercial recordings I've heard. (Apparently she has also read Gray's anatomy for LibriVox, which I think I'll give a miss.)

It's the story of a girl growing up in rural Norway. After her mother dies, Lisbeth moves in with a kindly farmer lady and aspires to be head milk-maid. It's played mostly for local color -- "watch the girl grow up in rural Norway." There's little plot and less drama and zero surprises, but the writing is direct and plain, and occasionally humorous. Altogether it's genial and relaxing but not especially memorable excepting only one character: Crookhorn, the goat who thinks he's a horse. For him alone the book was worth the listen.

It reminds me quite a bit of Heidi, another book whose charms are mostly lost on me, and I expect that Lisbeth Longfrock will appeal to the same audience.

Here's an interesting excerpt from Lincoln Child's Utopia, describing a fellow who would not be tempted to join us 75ers:

He'd decided that, if he was going to read a book, it had better be a long one. He didn't understand why somebody would go to the time and effort of reading something, just to have it end after a couple of hundred pages. You'd have to start all over again with another one. There'd be the trouble of learning new names, figuring out a new story. It was highly inefficient. It didn't make sense.

So, after some recon in a Denver bookstore, he'd settled on Proust. At 3,365 pages, Remembrance of Things Past was certainly long enough.

Read a second book? Horrors. Oh wait ...

#41: I read Moby Dick for the first time last year with the group read. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but I do not see myself re-reading it any time soon.

Stasia, I didn't think I'd re-read it any time soon either. But now I expect this isn't my last re-read.



81) Utopia / Lincoln Child

Mayhem in a high-tech theme park. Okay, but it does go on a bit too long.

Set in Nevada, so I get to fill in that state.

#47: I suspect that the 'not re-reading any time soon' remark is about the same as 'never say never.' :)

82) Calling Out / Rae Meadows

When her long-term boyfriend leaves her for another woman, Jane flees New York for Salt Lake City, where she finds work answering the telephone at an escort service. She also takes calls from her ex, who still wants to be friends. Jane is drifting and she's lonely and she's not getting younger, so she soon finds herself considering more than just the phones.

The writing is clear and flowing. It is frequently funny, finding humor in hypocrisies and fetishes and legal niceties like the fact that it's legal to spank a naked man but a misdemeanor to spank him in his underwear. It's certainly an amusing read, and its merits were strong enough to win the Utah Book Award for Fiction in 2006. But for me Jane's aimlessness became irritating and overall I found it more titillating than illuminating.

#49: Does not sound like one I am just going to rush right out and read. . .

> 50: Probably a good choice, Stasia.

If the phrase "escort service for Mormons" piques your interest or your sense of humor, then you won't be entirely disappointed. There's also something to be said for exploring the indignities we willingly undergo in the search for love and belonging. But there are better books, and only so much time left. If I were a star-giving person, it'd be in three's neighborhood.

These days, books have to be 3.5 stars or above for me to even look at them. I am turning into a book snob, I realize, but I am running out of time to read everything in the BlackHole :)

>52 alcottacre:: I hear you, though I am always up for a two-star read. Preferably involving laser battles, slavering jibberjab beasts, and bikini-armored warrior goddesses.

Twelve was such an awesome age.

83) Past Master / R. A. Lafferty

The utopian world of Astrobe is under assault from mechanical things and a powerful nothing that threaten to destroy not only Astrobe but all of humanity. Astrobe's leaders decide to fetch a savior from their human past -- a "past master" -- to lead them in their battle for survival. They settle on Thomas More.

When More learns he's the chosen leader of some future society, he's less surprised than you'd think. He assumes that the choice is based on his authorship of Utopia, and is amused that anybody took his satire seriously. Nevertheless he accepts, having some inkling that he's going to die pretty soon anyway.

This was Lafferty's first novel, and my first of his. I'd heard that his work was literary and somewhat opaque, and this book certainly fits the description. Every page is full of verbal pranks and extreme cleverness. Lafferty's descriptions of world and characters are delightful, playful and provocative. Unfortunately, the plot is thin: long passages have the feel of an poet's imaginary encyclopedia, and a little goes a long way. (But then, is plot really the point?)

Recommended? Jeez, I don't know. I'm still making up my mind. Good or not, it's certainly a different ride than I'm used to. I will read more Lafferty, and my opinion of this piece will probably adjust accordingly.

This is interesting ...

T-shirts featuring names of philosophers and scientists in the style of great rock bands' logos. The line is called "Monsters of Grok." (For those who don't recognize the term, "grok" is a Stranger in a Strange Land thing.)

http://monstersofgrok.com/

I want the Hypatia shirt. She is my idol: librarian, mathematician, pagan, musician, philosopher, authority on Diophantus and Euclid ... and she had this written about her by a 7th-century prude:

"And in those days there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles."

Come to think of it, forget the shirt. I want Hypatia. I'm beguiled through her Satanic wiles and I never even met the woman.

#55: Come to think of it, forget the shirt. I want Hypatia. I'm beguiled through her Satanic wiles and I never even met the woman.

LOL!

Past Master sounds intriguing...

>57 gennyt:: It is! If you decide to sample it, I hope you find it as interesting as I did!

I've been away from network access for a few days, visiting my parents in northeast Iowa.

I'd been up there earlier this summer, and had dragged them along when I ran a 5K nearby.

Mom was very interested in the event and observed, "Half of these people aren't even running!"

It's true, as just about anyone who's been to a 5K can attest: it may be a "race" but a lot of 5K participants don't seem to be in much of a hurry. I pointed out that most of the "runners" don't really run to win. A few do, but many more are just trying to beat a personal best, many others are there for the exercise or for the event or for the social contacts or to support the charity -- in fact, there are about as many reasons to run a 5K as there are runners.

"But they're not even running," she said. "I could do that!"

I reckoned she could. "When you're ready to do a 5K, give me a call," I said, "and I'll do it with you."

My mother has been walking for exercise, a mile or two a day. Over the last few months she slowly built up her distance until she reached 3 miles. A few weeks ago she called to tell me she was ready for her 5K (=3.1 miles), and this Saturday we walked it.

I'm proud beyond words of my mother: at 67 years old she just completed her first 5K. She's making plans for maintaining her training through the winter so she can do another in the spring. As for me ... at 59 minutes, it was my slowest time ever on a 5K. It was also the best.

Oh, and I read a book:



84) Pictures from an Expedition / Diane Smith

This historical novel is about an artist working as a scientific illustrator in 1876. Her work catches the eye of a Yale professor, who sends her out to Montana to work with an archaeological expedition. She meets a cast of colorful characters, gets involved in academic battles large and petty, and worries about hostile natives after General Custer's defeat.

It certainly sounds interesting, but for whatever reason I just couldn't get into it. The characters who should have been colorful seemed rather drab instead, the academic battles all seemed petty to me, and for all the talk about hostile Indians the suspense was pretty thin. But your mileage may vary: it won the Montana Book Award in 2002 so it must have captured somebody's interest.

59: It does sound like it should be interesting.
58: Sweet. And congrats! My parents, age 81, run. I've had vague hopes of convincing them to enter a 5K or 5 mile local race. With a stroller, we could get 4 generations on the family team. However, they run on an indoor track, and the localest races are in the summer and hilly.

>60 qebo:: Four generations would be great. We did get three generations this weekend, since I made my son walk with us. That is, he started with us, but soon got tired of the ancients' lagging pace and sped on ahead. Still, we did get a shot of all three of us in the race T-shirt together. (Photo may be pending.)

61: Cool! Photo would be nice. :-)

85) Learning to Swim / Sara J. Henry

Pretty good thriller about a freelance writer and amateur triathlete who is crossing Lake Champlain via ferry, when she sees a boy thrown off the back end of a ferry going the opposite direction. She jumps into the chilly water, rescues the boy and swims him back to shore. She spends the rest of the book trying to learn the boy's story, track down the badguys and decide whom to trust.

I didn't always like the heroine's decisions -- such as the decision not to turn the boy over to the police -- but even her worst decisions were understandable given her background and temperament. Overall, it's a quick thriller that kept me turning pages even through the long middle.

Along the way Henry sets up potential romantic entanglements with three different men, none of which is entirely resolved. So it looked like a series-launcher, and a visit to the author's website confirmed it. I'm up for the next installment.

86) Orange is the New Black / Piper Kerman

The author gets sent to prison for a drug-trafficking-related crime she committed ten years earlier when young and stupid. She describes her 13 months in a women's prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

It's insightful, it's enlightening, it's thought-provoking, it's sprinkled with humor. Oh, and she can write. Recommended.

Tarzan of the Apes / Edgar Rice Burroughs

This was a LibriVox audiobook completed mostly while running. The first half was quite good, and I was impressed with how well the book had aged. Then other human characters showed up and I changed my mind. Still, if you can stomach the period racism, sexism, and classism along with the ridiculous coincidences it's an okay adventure all the way through.

I've never really felt compelled to read that one. I think I'll just stick with the Disney version, Phil Collins songs and all. :)

>66 MickyFine:: Excellent choice. First half, the book is better; second half, the Disney version is an improvement significant enough to make it the better work.

87) The Naked Sun / Isaac Asimov

In this follow-up to The Caves of Steel, human detective Elijah Baley and robot detective Daneel Olivaw travel to the colony world of Solaria to investigate a murder.

Solaria is crawling with robots, but sparsely populated by humans, all of whom have severe sociophobia. The murder victim was bludgeoned to death, which complicates matters: it's impossible that a robot could have killed the victim, since robots are programmed to harm no humans. But a human criminal would have had to invade the victim's personal space -- and idea so distasteful it might as well be impossible.

Spoiler: Baley & Olivaw sort it all out.

#68 - Thanks for the review! I'll have to checkout the Elijah Bailey novels one of these days. I think I have Caves of Steel at least.

>69 DorsVenabili:: You're welcome! I hope you like them when you get around to them.

88) Love Medicine / Louis Erdrich

A collection of interrelated stories about an extended Native American family, mostly living on a reservation in North Dakota.

This was my introduction to Louise Erdrich, and it's the best thing I've read in quite a while. It's funny, it's poignant, it flows like a bestseller but it's also layered with interconnected themes and compelling symbols. I'll definitely read more Erdrich.

I do like those Asimov mysteries--I think they've aged better than some of his other books.

>72 ronincats:: Agreed, I've certainly enjoyed The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun.

I've read lots of Asimov's short stories, but I think the only other novels I've read of his are the Foundation trilogy, which I loved way back in Junior High.

I'm not sure where to go from here: on to The Robots of Dawn or back to Pebble in the Sky. Doesn't The Robots of Dawn link Baley & Olivaw to the Galactic Empire series somehow? Or is that not until Robots and Empire?

#73 - If you liked the Foundation trilogy, I would suggest Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation and Earth. Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation take place before the trilogy and the others take place after. I think there are others, but it's early.

>74 DorsVenabili:: Oh, I have read Prelude to Foundation if it's about a young Hari Seldon hopping around among domed cities. That's about all I remember.

I think I'll find Pebble in the Sky and just work through all the novels in the order they were published.

That sounds like a good plan. Also, I know there are a lot of good Asimov timelines out there, so you can read them in the chronological order that the stories happen (within the empire/robots/foundation universe). I'm going to shut up now - I'm really sounding like a dork at this point. : )

>76 DorsVenabili:: Apology forbidden. Any announcement of dorkiness on this thread must be made with pride.

89) The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed / John McPhee

An account of the Aereon Corporation's attempts to develop a lighter-than-air craft that would offer an economical alternative to air freight.

This is the second book I've read by McPhee, after The Control of Nature (comments here). Here again we have the themes of human ingenuity and bucking the odds. McPhee's style is straightforward and reportorial, sticking to facts but also capturing with with well-selected quotes the personality of each major player. He also delivers short lessons in aerodynamics so smoothly that I had the temporary illusion of understanding how things fly.

It's engaging, entertaining, enlightening, and recommended. Thanks to Megi (Megi53) for listing it on the TIOLI page for challenge #4. Excellent choice!

90) The World Menders / Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

This is a follow-up to The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets (my comments are above in post #21). It's the second and last in Biggle's "Cultural Survey" series, which is a shame because I'd certainly read more.

On the planet Branoff IV there are two intelligent races: the Racsz who live lives of leisure in the cities, creating works of art and music; and the olz who live lives of slavery on the countryside growing crops to feed the Racsz. Cultural Survey Trainee Cedd Farrari arrives on Branoff IV to help nudge these races toward democratic government.

This book shares some of the flaws of the first, most notably a mid-twentieth-century sexism and imperialism. Also, the plot is heavily coincidence-driven and there's a romantic subplot with all the spark of damp dirt. And I'm not comfortable with the resolution, which dodges more questions than it answers.

But there's a lot to recommend it. The world of Branoff IV is certainly interesting, implausibilities and inconsistencies and all. Biggle is especially interested in imagining the kinds of cultural artifacts his imagined societies would create. There is meditation on meddling in another culture's affairs. There's even some exploration of what "culture" means. All of it hanging on a story that despite its flaws kept me entertained.

Like the first book, I'd recommend it to those who are interested in this sort of thing. "This sort of thing" means: science fiction of a seventies vintage and an anthropological bent. You can certainly do a lot worse.

91) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks / Rebecca Skloot.

Me too.

Glad you liked the second book as well. Like I said above, I have 6 of Biggle's books acquired in the 70s, and I enjoyed them a lot at the time.

>81 ronincats:: I did like it, and the series was growing on me so I'm disappointed that there aren't more.

I do have a couple more Biggle books on my unread shelves, including Monument and The Light that Never Was and maybe one or two others, but probably won't get to any of them soon. Do you remember a favorite that I should push farther up the list?

92) All the Lovely Bad Ones / Mary Downing Hahn

Travis and Corey are a mischievous pair of middle-grade siblings spending a summer at their grandmother's rural Vermont inn. (They can't go to summer camp because of some ... high-spirited incidents ... the previous summer.)

When Travis and Corey learn that the inn is supposed to be haunted, they decide to fake some spectral visitations. They reckon that nobody will be hurt, that the performances will be fun, and that their pranks may even generate business for the inn. They don't reckon that their activities might wake the inn's real ghosts ...

I read this because the author is scheduled to be a guest at my employer's "Children's Literature Festival" next spring.

The excellent title comes from James Whitcomb Riley's poem, "Little Orphant Annie":

To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

93) Staggerford / John Hassler

A few weeks ago I mentioned to my Minnesotan brother that I was trying to read books set in as many of the 50 states as I could before the end of the year. "If you haven't done Minnesota yet," he said, "then read Staggerford."

Was my brother ever right.

It starts out as a sort of romantic comedy of manners: Miles Pruitt is a high-school teacher in rural Staggerford, Minnesota. Miles is approaching middle age with his share of disappointments and dilemmas: the love of his life Anna Thea has escaped his grasp, having married the officious and ambitious principal of Miles's high school. Anna Thea is also a schoolteacher, and staffs a classroom near Miles's, offering daily reminders of the happiness he can't have. Pickings in Staggerford are slim, so he's reduced to dating his neighbor the spinster librarian, who seems to have an undiagnosed case of Asperger's Syndrome. And he may be falling in love with one of his students who has certainly fallen in love with him.

But what starts out as light and satirical becomes a surprisingly affecting meditation on disappointment and hope and tenacity. I recognized and laughed at myself more than once, also some unnamed friends, family and and acquaintances. Highly recommended.

Staggerford sounds like an intriguing read, although just reading the character description, I feel sad for the "spinster librarian." One of these days, I'm going to come across a novel whose librarian is neither sexy nor spinster...

Micky,

+1 on wishing away the stereotypes.

In this case, Hassler seems to know he's cast a stock character, and instead of trying to convince us otherwise, he dresses her in a stock costume and sends her out on stage with instructions to ham it up:

There was little to love about Imogene Kite. She was all warts and adenoids. Judging by how little she worked to make herself attractive, she seemed to be in no hurry to find a husband. She sewed not. Neither did she ski. She never laughed or cooked or visited the sick. She lived with her mother in the house across the alley from Miss McGee's. What she did, incessantly, was look up information in the card catalog. Miles had never known anyone with such a respect for pure knowledge as Imogene Kite. At one time or another in their steady but distant relationship, Imogene had explained to Miles the difference between deciduous and coniferous trees, and she had told him how Egyptians made bricks, and she had cleared up his ignorance concerning the Kaiser's problems in the Baltic states.

Oddly, and for my taste, Imogene Kite turns out to be one of the book's more appealing characters. (Yes, there's a bit of me in her. Card catalogs: nostalgic sigh.)

94) Closed for the Season / Mary Downing Hahn

Logan and his family have just moved to a rural Virginia town, not realizing that their new home is locally known as "the murder house."

Logan's new neighbor Arthur wastes no time in sharing the rumors: that the house's previous owner was pushed down the basement stairs, that she was suspected of embezzling money from a local amusement park, that she was probably killed by an intruder searching for the hidden cash, and that the murderer is still at large.

When they stumble across some clues, Logan and Arthur find themselves investigating the murder, looking for the cash, and confronting some very dangerous people.

I read all of Hassler's Staggerford books in the late 80's/early 90s. If you liked the first book I think you'd like the rest. I remember them getting better as they went along. I didn't like his second series about a jazz musician professor as much as I liked the Staggerford books.

>88 VioletBramble:: I do plan to read more Staggerford books, so it's good to hear Hassler maintains the quality. Thanks for the recommendation!

95) A Bad Day for Pretty / Sophie Littlefield

Stella Hardesty is recovering from the events of A Bad Day for Sorry, trying to make time with the hunky sheriff when the lawman's not-quite-ex-wife comes shows up on a strong cold wind -- figuratively and literally: simultaneous with the ex's arrival, a tornado blows through town. Among other things the storm knocks down a snack shed at the local fairgrounds, where it exposes a body beneath the foundation.

The prime suspect is Neb Donovan, who poured the foundation for the snack shed. Stella thinks Neb innocent: she knows Neb -- she helped him kick his Oxycontin habit years ago -- and she thinks he's incapable of such violence. As the evidence mounts against Neb, Stella's chances with the studly sheriff look less and less promising.

I enjoyed the first book in this series, but this one didn't impress me. This one just seemed aimless and silly: big holes in plot and logic, heavy-handed Ozark dialect and hillbilly stereotypes, and a lightweight mystery which the heroine solves through a convenient and unconvincing burst of inspiration. On top of all that, the women characters -- not just Stella and the ex, but the out-of-town lady cop lending her expertise to the investigation -- spend far too much time competing with each other for the attention of a small-town sheriff. Girls, really: boys aren't worth that kind of trouble. Not a damn one of us.

To be fair, Staggerford is a tough act to follow and maybe I'd have liked the book better in a different mood: it's obviously supposed to be breezy and fun. It just didn't work that way for me, and I don't think I'll follow the series further.

96) Daphne's Book / Mary Downing Hahn

Jess is experiencing a personal crisis in her social life as her best friend Tricia spends more and more time with her more popular friends. Things get worse when her English teacher pairs her with Daphne Woodleigh for a "write-a-book" assignment. Daphne is the new kid, isn't very sociable, dresses weird, and worst of all is a target of constant ridicule for Tricia and her new friends.

Daphne has to decide how to handle middle-school peer pressure, her growing friendship with Daphne, and her dawning realization that Daphne's home situation is not only less than ideal -- it may be dangerous.

Oh, 80s YA. Was that style of cover art ever really appealing?

>92 MickyFine:: Perhaps I'm just an '80's child, but of all the alternatives at the book's work page I confess I find that one the most appealing.

Not that any of the covers would generate a sale from me, but it's much preferable to the strangely-posed photo cover of a current edition:



... which to me screams "Sweet Valley High."

Yeah, I think that book is just doomed to bad covers. :)

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks -- I've been reading less and doing other things more. In particular, working on a couple of projects for work; and revisiting old monster movies in honor of the season (Jaws holds up remarkably well; The Amityville Horror not so much).

Plus, last Sunday I met my goal of completing a four hour marathon, with an official time of 3:59:00 at Des Moines (pics here).

While on the course, I did spend some time thinking about stories from book #97:



97) A Few Degrees from Hell / Scott Ludwig

The race starts within Death Valley National Park at Badwater, California, 282 feet below sea level and hemmed in by nearby mountains over 11,000 feet high. It leads you on a paved road 135 miles through Death Valley, over two mountain passes each gaining nearly 5,000 feet in elevation, through the town of Lone Pine, California and up the steeply switch backed Portals Road. The Portals Road starts at 3,700 feet and ascends 13 winding miles to 8,360 feet ending at the trailhead to Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States at 14,496 feet.

The book is a collection of personal accounts from 25 runners and one crew leader who participated in the Badwater Ultramarathon of 2003, the year that temperatures soared above 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and that forty percent of the runners did not finish.

In other words, about as unlike Des Moines as you can get. These stories are particularly useful for remembering that, even twenty-some miles into a marathon, you ain't suffering too much just yet.

It's a moderately polished collection from "iUniverse," one of these new web-based self-publishing firms. As self-published volumes go it's pretty good, and I found it entertaining, informative, and inspirational.

95: official time of 3:59:00 at Des Moines
Congrats! What's with the thumbs up on the bridge?

>96 qebo:: That was at about 24 miles, and about the time I realized I was really going to make it.

98) Blue Heaven / C.J. Box

Rural north Idaho: two kids witness a murder in the woods, and go into hiding. Turns out the killers are retired cops who maneuver themselves into leading the search for the missing children. Of course, the cops' plan is not to rescue the kids; it's to make sure they never talk.

Fortunately, the kids take shelter in a barn owned by Jess Rawlins, a gristly old salt-of-the-earth Gary Cooper type. Cue the good vs. evil music.

This was the October pick for my RL book discussion group, which met this evening. The discussion was led by a literature professor who loves mysteries. She called attention to the way Box mixes elements of western and mystery genres. We heard complaints (valid, I think) about a couple of plot holes, but the consensus was that it's a satisfying thriller with better-than-average characters and something to say about changes in rural communities.

It was a re-read for me, and good enough I didn't mind.

Congratulations on your marathon!

Thanks, Roni!

Now if I can just shave another 40 minutes I'll qualify for Boston ...

100: Though even if you qualify by time, you might not qualify by lottery...

>101 qebo:: That would certainly not stop me from saying, "I qualified for Boston."

All of which is pretty academic at this point. Besides, with Boston's new system of giving preference to runners who come in *under* the qualifying time, it'll be a cold day in Badwater before I ever make the cut.

99) Deadwood / Pete Dexter

Last year I read Dexter's latest novel Spooner and wasn't quite sure what to make of it: it was funny and sometimes poignant but also viciously misanthropic. Now I've read his second novel, an account of the last days of "Wild Bill" Hickock and the town that buried him: Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

It's funny and sometimes poignant and also viciously misanthropic. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but I know I'll read more Dexter.

100) The Scarlet Letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne

Like 60% of American high school students, my son was assigned this book for Junior English. Coincidentally, Junior English is exactly where I first encountered "The Scarlet Letter." Let's just say I like it more than my son did.

Actually, that's not saying much. I liked it a lot more than he did. After helping my son through some difficult passages, I decided it was time for a reread.

I think this was my fifth reading of "The Scarlet Letter." With one exception, I've liked it every time. The one exception was in college, when it was assigned for an American Lit survey course. That once the book's symbolism seemed laborious and obvious and I wondered why I had liked it so much in high school. Probably because I had been such a child then, and that my tastes had since refined.

Fortunately, I read it again in my late twenties and remembered what a gem this book is. A fourth reading in my mid-thirties confirmed it.

What struck me this my fifth time was Hawthorne's admirable economy. Written in a time that favored overwriting, impromptu sermonizing, and random lecturing this book is unusually attentive to its characters and themes. It does not stray. There is nothing to cut.

I also liked the "Custom-House" preface. I'd barely noticed it before, and all I remembered was that it set up the "Based on true facts" premise of the novel. This is the first time I've found this introductory sketch interesting. I think I've skipped it a couple of times, thinking it's not worth the time.

Oh, I'm still not enchanted by "The Custom-House." It goes on too long with extended descriptions of custom-house clerks, and it makes opaque references to contemporary politics. It's less economical than the novel. But Hawthorne's ponderings about comfortable employment killing a man's creative impulses... that strikes a bit close to home. Ouch. And he was only working three and a half hours a day.

All in all, a rewarding revisit of a marvelous book, confirming its place among my favorites. A safe but satisfying choice for book number one hundred.

104: Yup, 11th grade English, alas with a teacher I loathed, which poisoned so many books. Maybe 35+ years later, it's time to move on...

>105 qebo:: Fortunately, I got along well with my 11th grade English teacher (not counting the time she pulled Cliff's Notes from her desk to refute a comment I made about "To kill a mockingbird").

I had less rapport with the professor who taught the American Lit survey class. That may have had something to do with my disliking it so much the second time around.

I never studied The Scarlet Letter in high school or undergrad. Of course, that's probably the result of living in Canada and mostly studying British literature in university. However, when I read it on my own a few years back, I did enjoy it.

>107 MickyFine::"that's probably the result of living in Canada"

Probably so: I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I think in the States the most commonly assigned novels in high school are "The Scarlet Letter," "Huckleberry Finn,""To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby," and "Of Mice and Men." Several people have told me they were assigned "Catcher in the Rye" in high school, but even in the 80's, that would not have been approved for required reading in my school.

Do you have any sense of the most commonly assigned novels in Canadian high schools?

I enjoyed The Scarlet Letter when I read it in my 20s, knowing nothing about Hawthorne or American literature at all, and not really knowing what to expect. It certainly wasn't required reading in a British high school - though our syllabus did include The Great Gatsby (which I hated), along with the expected native writers like Dickens, Shakespeare, Chaucer...

I don't remember the Custom-House bit - perhaps I skipped over that when I read it also.

Curriculums in Canada can vary quite a bit because each province is responsible for setting its own curriculum. But in Alberta, the most commonly assigned reads in high school (not all novels) are The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Macbeth, Hamlet, Streetcar Named Desire, and Death of a Salesman.

>109 gennyt: & 110: It's interesting that "The Great Gatsby" is featured in British and Canadian schools, as it's often presented as an analysis of "The American Dream." And speaking of "Gatsby" I'm long overdue for a reread. So many books ...

Speaking of books:



101) December stillness / Mary Downing Hahn

Kelly and her friends are at the library. They're supposed to be studying for a current issues paper but that's really the one thing they're not doing when a homeless man at a nearby table captures their attention. On a whim, Kelly goes over to the man and tries to start a conversation. The man rebuffs her, and a stern librarian tells her to leave the man alone. Instead of leaving him alone, Kelly gets an idea: she will write her paper on homelessness, and will befriend the homeless man in order to interview him for her paper. But she doesn't know what she's getting into.

Incidentally, the cover on my edition is another '80s watercolor, like that of Book #96 above. Like the cover of Daphne's book, it's not great. It shows Kelly and the homeless guy with dreamy faraway gazes, long scarves waving in a wintry breeze. Still I prefer it to the above contemporary cover. The new cover is not only heavy-handed but it ignores the main plot in preference to a subplot. Consequently the cover's significance is unclear until the very last chapter.

Interesting plot. Did libraries and librarians get an easier time of it in this one?

Micky:

There's a lot of library in this one, as Kelly keeps going there to contact the homeless man. He keeps telling her to leave him alone, and the librarians keep politely but firmly telling her to mind her own business.

Spoilers follow!

The library and staff are quite realistic: the author probably drew on her own experiences as a children's librarian. It's a suburban library, full of middle-class patrons and one homeless man, Mr. Weems. Many patrons want the library to ban Mr. Weems because he's smelly and acts funny and gives well-washed patrons the fantods. Nevertheless, library staff have insisted that the public library is for everybody, pleasant or otherwise.

Kelly unintentionally makes things worse by constantly pestering the man, eventually provoking him into an outburst. The library director, trying to please both his patrons and his idealistic staff, hits on a bureaucratic solution: Mr. Weems may still come to the library, but he may no longer bring his bags inside.

Everyone understands what has been done: the bags contain all of Mr. Weems's earthly possessions. He's not going to leave them one the street, and he has no closet to keep them while visiting the library. Effectively he has been banned from the library, and yet the director can pretend to have attempted accommodation. The librarians are furious, but their hands are tied.

I can imagine a "bag man problem" playing out exactly that way in a suburban library, down to the opinions and reactions of each player. So the library administration doesn't finish in the best light, but I give Hahn top marks for realism.

Yup, it unfortunately sounds highly realistic.

102) Borderline / Nevada Barr

Anna Pigeon, suffering from PTSD following the events of Winter Study, is on leave from the Park Service, vacationing with her husband in Big Bend National Park. But this vacation won't be much for relaxation: rafting down the Rio Grande, Anna's tour group finds a dying pregnant woman; Anna delivers the baby by emergency C-section; and a sniper starts picking off members of their party.

Pretty good jacket copy, but the book struck me as a sloppy, rambling mess.

Barr has a habit of spending too much time in her heroine's stream of consciousness. Usually I don't mind much but it seemed particularly egregious in this installment. She leaves no tangent untraveled, from gripes about Kids These Days and their Sense of Entitlement to the pros and cons of disposable diapers to what a terrible thing it is to tell a lie.

Just as bad are sloppy errors, like writing that the town of Terlingua is on the eastern side of Big Bend, when the map pretty clearly puts it on the west side. Or referring to the "Okay Corral," which I'm pretty sure is written "O.K."

Still and all, it's not as dull as "Liberty Falling" and far from the steaming heap that was "Flashback." For my enjoyment, it may just have suffered from following so close on the heels of the tightly-crafted The Scarlet Letter.

103) The Doll in the Garden / Mary Downing Hahn

After her father's death, Ashley moves with her mother to an apartment in Monkton Mills. Her new neighbor friend Kristi warns Ashley that the apartment is haunted; and the crabby old landlady warns Ashley to stay out of the garden ... and stay away from the neighbor girl.

Ashley heeds neither of the landlady's warnings. Ashley follows a ghost cat into the garden, where she and Kristi dig up a buried old doll and meet a girl who died decades ago.

104) Breathtaker / Alice Blanchard

A serial killer in Oklahoma and North Texas uses tornadoes to cover up his crimes. It's a little far-fetched, and some plot points don't quite fit. But it's not bad either. It kept my attention, but I won't go looking for more Blanchard.

105) The Edge of Reason / Melinda Snodgrass

Richard Oort is an Albuquerque cop who gets a little more than he bargained for when he comes to the aid of a girl being mugged. Turns out the girl is a sorceress; her attackers are animated piles of earth and sticks; and the forces behind the battle are nothing less than gods and devils.

I wanted to enjoy this more than I did. It has a political agenda that some would call "liberal," but that I'm more inclined to call "common sense," and a mythological agenda that swaps goodguys for badguys in the western world's favorite myths. I'm sympathetic to Sondgrass's politics, but even so they feel awfully heavy-handed. I'm sympathetic to her theology, but even so it feels simplistic and occasionally inconsistent. It doesn't help that through the middle third or so the book's focus seems to blur.

So there's plenty to disappoint. And yet ... it's playful and subversive and action-packed enough that I'm ready to read volume 2.

106) Monday I'll Save the World / Larry Hayes

Larry Hayes was a columnist and editorial page editor for the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette. He was also an activist, and in this memoir he writes about some of the issues that he fought hardest to reform: housing of juvenile offenders in adult prisons, corporal punishment in public schools, segregation of public schools, and unjust treatment of the mentally ill. He talks about the cases that raised the issues and how he used the editorial page and his social network to effect change.

It's not great literature but it's an admirable career, written with the crisp effectiveness you'd expect from a seasoned journalist. Hayes is one of the angels (for the most part, anyway ... he does make a crack about algebra for which I'll withhold my opinion of his mathematical judgment) and this is recommended for readers interested in this sort of thing.

107) The Old Willis Place / Mary Downing Hahn

Diana and Georgie have been living on the old Willis property for as long as they can remember. They must follow a few simple rules like "Don't leave the property," "Don't let anyone see you," and "Don't go in the Old Willis Place," but other than this they're allowed to do whatever they like -- and they like to play tricks on the property's caretakers. Caretakers tend not to last long; they get the impression the property is haunted.

But the new caretaker has a daughter about Diana's age, and Diana is just lonely enough to break the rules to make a friend.

108) Lightning Bug / Donald Harington

The last time Latha Bourne saw Every Dill, he was burning bridges on the way out of town. Every had come home from the Great War hoping to win Latha's heart, but when that didn't happen he raped her, robbed the bank, and disappeared unmourned.

After Every's disappearance, Latha first went to live with her sister, then was committed to a mental asylum from which she inexplicably escaped. Now seventeen years later, Latha is the postmistress of Stay More, Arkansas, a tiny Ozarks community barely big enough for a post office. The last person she expects to see coming down the road is Every Dill.

Last year I read Donald Harington's With and had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it was beautifully written; on the other hand, its sexual themes were a bit disturbing.

I have mixed feelings about this one too. The language is pitch-perfect -- even the dialect! The story is a nicely balanced riff on loss and searching and finding, with a tone that manages to be both desperate and tender. On the other hand, its sexual themes were a bit disturbing.

Let's be clear: this book has sex. When the jacket copy says "erotic" it ain't just whistling "Oh, Arkansas." There's tender sex, exuberant sex, violent sex, desperate sex, funny sex, disturbing sex. There's sex with relatives, sex between children, sex with livestock:

Frank Morrison woke to discover he had a morning hard, but Rosie protested, "It's Sattiday, my day off." He waited for it to subside, and when it did not he went to the barn and used a ewe."

There's even dreamy sort-of-sex with Jesus Christ. Most disturbing, there's the fact that it's a story about a girl who is in love with her rapist, which I find a pretty hard storyline to stomach.

And yet, it's such a well-crafted, lyrical book, that I have to say: if the warnings about sexual content don't turn you off, go read it now and decide for yourself. Recommended.

109) Maigret and the yellow dog / Georges Simenon

A respected wine merchant is shot in the village of Concarneau. Maigret is ordered to investigate.

Shortly after Maigret's arrival in Concarneau, somebody tries to poison the merchant's drinking buddies. Though that attempt fails, one of the buddies soon disappears, another dies of arsenic poisoning, and a third bunkers down his hotel room.

Nearly as perplexing as the crime wave is the mysterious yellow dog who arrived at its beginning.

Is it a spoiler to say Maigret solves all? I thought not.

110) Little brother / Cory Doctorow

A hacker kid inadvertently becomes a public enemy by being in the wrong place & time following a terrorist attack in San Francisco.

This book has many many positive reviews and I'm happy for it, because its message is timely and essential: individual rights must be defended in a surveillance society. No matter what some news agencies want you to believe, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights still matter. They matter a lot.

Alas, it wasn't for me. I like fiction and I like polemic, but in the same way I like ice cream and hamburgers: separately please. This was much too heavy handed for fiction and too Dick-and-Jane for polemic. For that reason I can't recommended it.

I totally agree with your review of Little Brother. It had an interesting premise but it didn't really work for me. Hope your next read is better.

>124 MickyFine:: Unfortunately, my next few are okay-not-great reads . I keep switching among them because I keep losing interest ... but not enough that I don't come back to read some more.



111) Fifty Miles From Tomorrow / William L. Iggiagruk Hensley

I picked this one up for Darryl's "Book by a Native American" challenge, and to fill Alaska in the map above. It's the memoir of a Inupiat politician, who grew up in a traditional village north of the Arctic Circle, went to high school in Tennessee, then returned to Alaska and became active in filing and negotiating land claims for native Alaskans.

It's okay, but not great. Hensley is most engaging when reminiscing about his traditional childhood, or making the case for Native land rights. As a political memoir, though, it's a bit too politic: you get the sense that Hensley knows he has some career left and doesn't want to offend anyone with whom he may yet have someday to work.

Guardedly recommended to those with an interest in native Alaskan culture.

112) Dark of the Moon / Tracy Barrett

This is a YA historical novel imagining the real story behind the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Theseus is an illegitimate son of the King of Athens, sent to Krete as tribute. Ariadne is a sort of priestess-in-training on Krete. Beneath the palace lives the "Minotaurus," rumored to be a man-eating monster but really he's Ariadne's deformed and handicapped older brother -- and her one true friend.

The book's pacing was a little off for me, but there's much to admire: Barrett vividly imagines Minoan culture and her characters' places in it. A recurring theme is the ways that experiences turn into stories, and stories into myth: along the way, you'll gain novel perspectives on many Greek myths.

Recommended for buffs of Greek mythology.

Hmm, I'm torn over your latest read. I do love Greek mythology but I'm not a fan of historical fiction set during the classical period (I'm full of contradictions, I know). I'll put it on the mental maybe list for now, I think.

>127 MickyFine:: Sounds like the mental maybe list is the right place for it.



113) Deep and Dark and Dangerous / Mary Downing Hahn

Years ago, Claire and Dulcie spent their summers at the family cabin-on-a-lake in Webster's Cove, Maine. Then one summer a girl drowned in the lake, and they never went back. Until now: Dulcie is now an artist and decides to return to the cabin for seclusion and inspiration as she prepares for a show. To help watch her four-year-old daughter Emma, Dulcie offers Claire's daughter Ali an irresistible summer job of babysitting/hanging out on the lake.

But in Webster's Cove Emma soon finds a friend, Sissy. Sissy is a petulant child who knows too much about that girl who drowned years ago and who bears an eerie resemblance to her ...

(My reluctant-reader son calls this "pretty good but not scary really.")

114) Known Dead / Donald Harstad

Authorities find a marijuana patch in a state park in eastern Iowa, and stake it out to nab the growers. But the stakeout ends with a shootout and two bodies: one narcotics enforcement agent and one dopehead hired by the grower to tend the patch. The shooters escape unidentified, but a local claims he has seen "Navy SEALs" running maneuvers in the area.

The investigation seems dead-ended until days later, when local cops serving notice at a nearby farm unwittingly provoke a survivalist into another shootout. This one ends with more bodies and an unexpected lead on the earlier killings.

Deputy Sheriff Call Houseman investigates, competing for information with a DEA agent who cares only about the drugs and not the murders.

This was okay-not-great. Strong points are an intricate plot and a light narrative touch. Also there's a convincing attention to procedural detail: the author is a retired police officer, so one assumes it's authentic. Unfortunately, the characters are flat and the prose is only adequate. On balance, it's entertaining but not especially memorable. I'll probably read the next.

Typee / Herman Melville

This was a LibriVox audiobook completed mostly while running. It's the semiautobiographical story of a whaleman who escapes a tyrannical captain while the ship takes on supplies at the Marquesan island of Nuku Hiva. The narrator and a friend flee into the Nuku Hivan jungle, landing in the valley of the Typee, a reputed tribe of cannibals.

To the fugitives' relief, the Typee do not consume them; instead they are treated as honored guests of an island paradise. Alas, paradise turns out to be another sort of captivity, and our narrator spends the rest of the book trying to escape the valley. Interspersed with the narrator's efforts are many chapters detailing Typee daily life and customs, along with rants on the corrupting influence of Christian missionaries.

During his life I understand this was Melville's most popular work. I can see why: it's a simple and engaging mix of travel narrative and adventure, without the self-indulgent philosophical asides and poetical flourishes we've come to associate with Melville. Nowadays we tend to think Moby Dick is the superior work. I can see why: self-indulgence and all it's a more complex, more rewarding work of a more accomplished writer. If I had to read just one I'd choose Typee; if I had to re-read just one I'd choose Moby Dick.

Typee may be less suited than Moby Dick for rereading, but this first read (erm, first listening I suppose) was plenty fun, and recommended for readers who don't mind nineteenth-century American prose.

The book is freely available through LibriVox here:
http://librivox.org/typee-by-herman-melville/

115) Ancient of Days / Michael Bishop

A member of homo habilis turns up in rural Georgia and takes up residence with our narrator's ex-wife. The stubbornly un-extinct hominid proves to have some artistic talent and an interest in theology. Ruminations follow on what it means to be human, what it means to be creative, and what it means to have a soul.

This was okay but not great. It's a bit too ruminant for my taste, especially in its religious speculations which were not very novel in either sense of the word.

On the positive side, it mostly avoids earnest pontifications. Bishop's playful prose had me smiling frequently and laughing a few times. His characters sometimes swerve dangerously close to caricature but mostly remain appealing, even if they're not always exactly likeable.

I can't say that I recommend it exactly, but if you like thoughtful science fiction on anthropological themes that is not even vaguely interested in snappy plotting, then it's worth a look.

131: Well, it's an interesting and appealing idea, but in all probability, life's too short...

>132 qebo:: Agreed. The rest of the Bishop oeuvre will have to wait for other things.

116) Murder is Binding / Lorna Barrett

Tricia Miles runs a mystery bookshop in a tourist-trap New Hampshire village that caters to book lovers. When the neighboring bookshop's owner is murdered, Tricia is the sheriff's favorite suspect and must investigate the murder in order to clear her name.

This was a nice change from a long run of okay-not-great reads. This one wasn't "great" either, but it delivers exactly what you can reasonably expect from a cozy: entertaining dialog, a diverting puzzle with a satisfying solution, and genial characters you wouldn't mind meeting again. I will read more in this series.

Incidentally, I picked this up because Linda (lindapanzo) read the most recent entry and commented that she loved the series, excepting disappointingly the latest one. I needed a book set in New Hampshire and gave the series opener a try. Thanks, Linda!

117) The Night Train / Clyde Edgerton

Rural North Carolina in the 1960's. Rumors swirl about uppity Blacks in Alabama entering restaurants and movie theaters and marching where they know they shouldn't. But it hasn't happened -- yet -- in North Carolina, and won't if anybody knows what's good for them.

So it's not exactly safe for Dwayne Harris to be close friends with Larry Lime. They live on different sides of the railroad tracks. But Dwayne has a band. They've been working on a repertoire of Hank Williams covers and gospel songs. And now Dwayne has discovered James Brown's Live at the Apollo. He wants his band to play just like James Brown, and only Larry Lime -- a budding jazz musician learning to play piano like Thelonious Monk -- can teach him.

It's about friendship and growing up and music and some ugly American history. It's quick and works like a family anecdote about a crazy cousin and with a perfect punch line. Recommended.

118) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe /Fannie Flagg

Up until a couple of days ago, I'd neither read Fried Green Tomatoes nor seen the movie adaptation. This makes me a statistical outlier, so I won't bother summarizing the story: ninety percent of everybody else already knows.

I've intended to read this book ever since the movie came out (1991, according to IMDB). At the time I was a part-time circulation clerk at a small public library, and heard so many patrons say "Oh, the movie was so good, and the book was so much better." Print snob that I am, I wanted to read the book first.

And now, twenty years later, I finally got around to it.

My reaction is mostly positive. I get what all the gushing is about. It's funny and frequently poignant. The prose is transparent and the tone is joyful. All of that makes for a very fast and pleasurable 400-page read.

There were points that bothered me, though. It does get a bit pollyannish at times: in 1930's Alabama, would Idgie's and Ruth's relationship really be so well accepted? To the extent that Idgie's parents try to set the pair up? To the extent that even the local Klan doesn't mind? Really?

On the later side of the civil rights movement, would Evelyn really be able to visit "the largest black church in Birmingham" in 1986 and find herself the only Caucasian in the congregation? This doesn't quite match my experience: in the early nineties I visited several black churches with the future Mrs. Ninja, and was never the only white congregant -- there were always at least few white folks, related to members by kinship or affection, or who were themselves members because they preferred that congregation's style of worship. Could Birmingham really be that much different from Tulsa?

The narrative jumps around in time a lot. This is mostly okay, even though it is occasionally disorienting for the reader. But the scrambled chronology seems now and then to confuse the author as well: for instance, she has a character released from prison in July 1948 after serving six months for a crime he commits in October 1949.

These are nitpicky complaints, which probably wouldn't have bothered me if I hadn't had such high expectations for so long. If I were a star-giving kinda guy I'd give it more than three and less and five, and I'd recommend it to friends and library patrons. Flagg's Alabama is a wonderful place; it just doesn't seem to be located on this planet.

And now I can finally watch that movie.

136: I'm one of the 10%, and after reading a few reviews, I expect to remain so. Not aversion really, just not my sort of thing.

137: If by "sort of thing" you mean faux-nostalgic stories about rural communities in the vein of Lake Wobegon, then you're probably right.

Somehow, I'm a pushover for that sort of thing. I realize that it's sentimentalism, that it doesn't match my own experience of rural community (which is much more Main Street than Andy Griffith), and I respond like a salivating dog anyway.

If by "sort of thing" you mean faux-nostalgic stories about rural communities in the vein of Lake Wobegon
Yeah, this describes it quite nicely.

119) Storm front / Jim Butcher

First in the series about a modern-day wizard who works as a Chicago gumshoe. This series seems to be pretty well liked among 75ers, and it's just found a new fan.

I fall on the other side of the fence with Fried Green Tomatoes. I've only seen the film and I love it to pieces but I'm almost afraid to read the book in case I dislike it and it taints my view of the film. Weird, I know, but this type of novel usually isn't my thing although it works well for me on film. I probably need some kind of support group or something. ;)

>141 MickyFine:: Actually, I've been thinking something similar with my current read, a horror novel which would probably work for me as a movie but as a book it's falling flat.

If we were talking about Staggerford or Lake Wobegon I'd recommend you give it a try anyway. But Fried Green Tomatoes ... considering my own misgivings, I'll tell you to go with your gut.

120) Buried Screams / C. Dean Andersson

A bottomless shaft appears in a cemetery in Stoneridge, Kansas. Townspeople are attacked by things that look like their friends and pets and neighbors ... and then don't.

I'm an indiscriminate watcher of horror films, and I keep thinking that should translate into a love of horror literature as well. But with exceptions -- Lovecraft, James, Matheson, and some King, Barker, and Koontz -- most horror books just haven't worked for me. This one neither.

There's a certain Body Snatchers creepiness to some of the monster-attack scenes, but those scenes quickly get repetitive. Our heroes are mostly oblivious to what's going on around them, carrying on with random conversations which the author tediously records with every "Okay," "I see," and "I didn't know that."

(SPOILER maybe)
Andersson also can't seem to decide what kind of monster his monster is, and wraps it up with a muddled mishmash of extraterrestrial terror and Scandinavian mythology.

Still I felt that the story, mess that it was, would have worked for me on film. So maybe the book works too if this sort of book is your sort of thing. But for casual readers of horror, this one is not recommended.

Re: Fried Green Tomatoes. I've seen the movie now and understand its charm too. But I'm with those library patrons: the book is better.



This was a LibriVox audiobook completed mostly while running. Septimus Harding is a meek clergyman caught in the cross-fire between corrupt clergy and self-righteous reformers. Not much happens but the narration, the dialog, and the satire are light and engaging. It's my first Trollope, but I'll listen to more.

The book is freely available through LibriVox here:
http://librivox.org/the-warden-by-anthony-trollope/

121) Ella Minnow Pea / Mark Dunn

This has been pretty widely read among 75ers, so I won't bother with a summary. I liked it too ... early on I worried that it was going to be just one joke that wore quickly thin, but it developed quite nicely. Its atmosphere turns effectively claustrophobic, and at least from the midpoint on it's perfectly paced. As a commentary on surveillance society, it's much more effective than Little Brother (Book #110 above).

My only complaint has nothing to do with the book itself. The Library of Congress has classified it as "South Carolina -- Fiction," but it doesn't really take place in South Carolina. Instead the setting is a mythical island nation off the coast of SC. They misled me those LC catalogers! So ... this late in the year, can I fudge a little and call it a SC read anyway for my 50 state challenge? (Yeah, I know : there's exactly one person who cares.)

mistletoe smooches!

Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Oooh ... mistletoe and book trees and lovely quilting patterns. I have no choice but to call off the War on Christmas this year.

Merry Christmas to all!

Following the death of my modem I've been Internetless the last few days. So here are some titles to catch up:



122) The Betrayal of Liliuokalani / Helena G. Allen

Beloved matriarch of an island paradise vs. avaricious children of Christian missionaries. Guess who wins?

I listened to Melville's Typee earlier this fall, in which Melville mentions the "Sandwich Islands" and the corruption of natives by missionaries. Intrigued by these off-hand comments, and wishing to correct my near-complete ignorance of Hawaiian history, I picked up this biography of "Queen" Liliuokalani. It's based heavily on interviews with Liliuokalani's "hanai daughter" Lydia Aholo, but is also supported generously by other primary and secondary sources.

It's quite readable, clearly a popular rather than an academic biography (despite the footnotes), and properly infuriating. Recommended.



123) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward / H. P. Lovecraft

Occult goings-on on Providence, Rhode Island. It's just delicious.



124) Upheaval / Chris Holbrook

Slice-of-life stories from East Kentucky. Some better than others, but the collection as a whole doesn't do much for me.

125) Hawkes Harbor / S.E. Hinton

Aimless tough meets new-world Dracula. It starts with some noirish promise, but fizzles out early, and stops about 100 pages too late. Recommended only for readers looking for a quick read with a Delaware setting for a 50-state challenge.



126) O Pioneers! / Willa Cather

Poignant, unsentimental stories about broad minds and small ones on the Nebraska prairie, narrated in lyrical prose. Thank goodness it's not too late for one of the best reads of the year. Highly recommended.

Looks a good bunch of reading. One of these days I will get around to reading Willa Cather.

O Pioneers! is only the second I've read of Cather's novels -- the first was My Antonia, which was required reading for some college class years ago. I remember thinking My Antonia was okay but nothing special, so O Pioneers! blew me away. Right time, right book -- and the fact that it wasn't assigned probably helped.

I want to come back to it sometime and read it more slowly -- right now I'm trying to make a 50-state challenge by year's end. With 3 1/2 books to go and vacation through New Year's, I think my chances are good!

I'd say you have a very decent chance. I'm only trying to squeeze in one more this year which should be entirely doable. :)

127) The House on the Mound / August Derleth

I don't remember where I picked this up or how long ago, but I'm sure I got it because I recognized Derleth as an author of several stories derived from H.P. Lovecraft's work. I assumed this would be some sort of haunted house story.

Not even close. It turns out that, in addition to derivative horror tales, Derleth was a prolific historical novelist. He assumed he'd be remembered chiefly for his series of novels dramatizing the history of Wisconsin. Of which this is one.

This one is based on the life of Hercules Dousman, a 19th-century Prairie du Chien businessman. He made an early fortune in the fur trade, then an even bigger one diversifying into real estate, railroads, and a steamboat line. This novel follows the latter half of his life, when his business life is complicated by personal drama: a custody conflict with his deceased partner's sister over his biological son.

My feelings are mixed. Non-white, non-male caracters are caricatures, with some awful dialect and occasionally painful stereotypes. Housman himself is not very sympathetic, distant from his family and an irredeemable jackass with respect to the custody battle.

Nevertheless, the story grew on me. Derleth throws in a lot of local color, and you get a "you were there" sense that I assume is the main appeal of historical fiction. Still it's not sufficiently appealing for me to seek out more of Derleth's historical work.

So: to fans of historical novels it's worth a look, or to readers with an interest in Wisconsin history. To others, its merits probably aren't worth the time.



128) Shiloh / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Every bit as good I remember it.

If you haven't read this story about a rural West Virginia boy and his determination to save a dog from its abusive owner, or if you've only seen the movie, then do yourself a favor and launch your 2012 list with it.

50 state challenge accomplished:



129) Carved in Bone / Jefferson Bass

Okay thriller set in Knoxville and Cooke County, TN. The lead is a professor at the University of Tennessee's "Body Farm." He's also a pretty miserable human being, but not in an interesting way: he fantasizes about his students, steals kisses from undergrads, and he treats his son like dirt. Presumably we're suppose to sympathize with his failures because his wife died of cancer and he has a talent for puns.

The mystery is okay, the forensic science is fascinating, but the protagonist is such a jerk that I'm not in a hurry to continue.



130) The Wheelman / Duane Swierczynski

Now here's a miserable human being in an interesting way: Lennon is a getaway driver in a bit of a spot: his team lifts $650K from a downtown Philadelphia bank, hides the loot in a long term parking lot, and is leaving town when they're T-boned by an SUV. Lennon is beaten to within an inch of his life, stripped, and stuffed down a drainpipe.

First Lennon has to extract hiimself from the drainpipe. Then he goes looking for his payoff. And his payback. The list of involved parties include the Russian mob, the Italian mob, corrupt cops, corrupt politicians, and a lineup of wannabe toughs. It's bloody, it's over-the-top, it has no agenda deeper than plot, and it's a slam-bang cap to 2011.
_____

I probably won't start my 2012 thread before this weekend, but I will be back. For 2012 I plan to back off mysteries and thrillers to read more science fiction (I'll have a personal challenge focusing on some titles from the early 1970s) and a lot more nonfiction.

I look forward to it. Happy New Year!