Avaland's 2008 Book Chronicle

2008 Reading
----------------------------December
100. A Pilgrim's Guide to Chaos in the Heartland by Jessica Goodfellow (poetry, US)
99. The Imposter by Damon Galgut (fiction, South Africa)
98. The Situation by Jeff VanderMeer (surrealist fiction, US)
97. Firewall by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish)
96. pending - Love Songs for the Shy & Cynical by Robert Shearman (short fiction, UK)
95. A Mercy by Toni Morrison (fiction, historical, US)
94. Delirium by Laura Restrepo (fiction, Colombia)
93. The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish)
92. Tenderness by Joyce Carol Oates (poetry, US)
91. Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning by Alice Walker (poetry, US)
90. On the Overgrown Path by David Herter (novella, US author)
---------------------------November
89. The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish)
88. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood (novel, Canadian)
87. The Rector and the Doctor's Family by Mrs. Oliphant (novel, 19th C)
86. The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville (novel, Australian)
85. Disquiet by Julia Leigh (novella, Australian)
84. Cumulative reading from:
The Early New England Cotton Manufacture by Carol Ware*
The Golden Threads by Hannah Josephson*
83. Loom and Spindle or, Life Among the Early Mill Girls by Harriet Robinson (memoir, 19th century American)
82. When the Devil Holds the Candle by Karin Fossum (mystery, Norwegian)
81. Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag (Essay, American)
80. Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward (fiction, American)
--------------------------------------- October
79. Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler (science fiction, American)
78. Hope Leslie, or, Early Times in the Massachusetts by Catharine Maria Sedgwick (early American)
77. Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzabarian)
76. The Day the Leader was Killed by Naguib Mahfouz (Egyptian)
75. Good Wives by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (a reread)(social history, American)
74. Chicago by Alaa Al Aswany (fiction, Egyptian)
73. To My Husband and Other Poems by Anne Bradstreet (poetry, early American)
--------------------------------------- Sept.
72. Cumulative reading from:
Fissures in the Rock: New England in the 17th century by Richard Archer
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fisher
Salem Witchcraft by Charles W. Upham
Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle
71. Everyday Life in Early America by David Freeman Hawke
70. The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill (fiction, UK)
69. Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work: Stories, Jason Brown (short fiction, American)
68. Cry Wolf by Aileen La Tourette (fiction/SF, American)
67. The Journey Home by Olaf Olafsson (fiction, Icelandic)
66. Wit's End by Karen Joy Fowler (fiction, American)
----------------------------------------------------- August
65. The Love of Fat Men by Helen Dunmore (short fiction, UK)
64. Buxton Spice by Oonya Kempadoo (fiction, Guyanan)
63. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (a reread, fiction/SF, Canadian)
62. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish)
61. Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (fiction, UK)
60. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter (fiction, UK)
59. The Hunting Gun by Inoue Sasushi (novella, Japanese)
58. Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara (novella, Japanese)
57. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (short fiction, American)
56. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon (mystery/American)
------------------------------------------------------ July
55. Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead (fiction, American)
54. Transported : Short Stories by Tim Jones (short fiction, New Zealand)
53. Measuring Time by Helon Habila (fiction, Nigerian)
52. Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson (fiction, early American)
51. Kelroy by Rebecca Rush (fiction, early American)
50. Incredible Good Fortune : Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin (poetry, American)
----------------------------------------------------- June
49. The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason (mystery/Icelandic)
48. Blue Back by Tim Winton (fiction, Australian)
47. The Hiding Place by Tezza Azzopardi (fiction, UK)
46. Leaving Yuba City by Chitra Divakaruni (poetry, India/US)
45. The Anatomy Theater by Nadine Sabra Meyer (poetry, US)
44. Voices by Arnuldur Indridason (mystery, Iceland)
43. Taylor Five by Gwyneth Jones aka Ann Halam (SF, YA, set in Borneo, UK author)
42. Mosquito by Roma Tearne (fiction, Sri Lanka)
41. Children of the New World by Assia Djebar (fiction, Algeria)
40. The Birth House by Ami McKay (fiction, Canada)
39.See *** below in April (a book I forgot to log here).
38. Socialism is Great! A Worker's Memoir of the New China by Lijia Zhang (memoir, China)
======================================MAY
37. The Abandoned Baobab: The Autobiography of a Senegalese Woman by Ken Bugul (memoir, Senegal)
----------------
36.
Cumulative reading from:
In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton and...
The Salem Witch Trials : A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach.
-----------------
35. The Given Day by Dennis Lehane (forthcoming, Sept. 08; USA, fiction)
34. Queen of a Rainy Country: Poems by Linda Pastan (poetry, US)
33. Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy (poetry, UK)
32. The Outcast by Sadie Jones (UK, fiction)
31. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (a reread)
===================================APRIL
30. Ninety-five Nights of Listening : Poems by Malinda Markham (poetry)
**.Plain & Ugly Janes : The Rise of the Ugly Woman in Contemporary American Literature by Charlotte Wright (literary criticism)
29. The Outlander by Gil Adamson (Canada, fiction)
28. Sorry by Gail Jones (Australia, fiction)
27. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville. A REREAD (fiction, Australia)
26. A New England Tale, Catharine Maria Sedgwick (fiction,published originally 1822)
25.Wild Nights! Stories about the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates.(short fiction collection, USA)
24. The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber (Suspense, USA)
23. Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu (YA, Niger)
==================================MARCH
22. Love in the Kingdom of Oil by Nawal El Saadawi (fiction, Egypt)
---------
21.
Cumulative reading from:
Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott, Martha Saxton
The Alcotts: A Biography of a Family, Madelon Bedell
The Transcendental Wife, Cynthia Barton.
Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands, compiled by Clara Endicott Sears
Alcott in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, & Memoirs by Family, Friends, * Associates; edited by Daniel Shealy
A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott and Little Women, Sarah Elbert
-----------
20.Of Dreams & Assassins by Malika Mokeddem (fiction, Algeria)
----------
19.
Cumulative reading from: Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938 by Barbara Bates
The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis by Thomas Dormandy
Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis in American Culture since 1870, by Katherine Ott. (loved this last one!)
---
18. The Lowell Offering: Writings by New England Mill Women edited by Benita Eisler (anthology, USA)
17. Across the Mystic Shore by Suroopa Mukherjee (India, fiction)
16. Farm to Factory: Women's Letters 1830-1850, Thomas Dublin (nonfiction, USA)
15. The Bonds of Womanhood: 'Woman's Sphere' in New England, 1780-1835, by Nancy F. Cott. (social history, USA)
14. Exit Music, by Ian Rankin (mystery, Scotland)
13. Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers, edited by Susan Morrison (essays)
==================================FEBRUARY
12. Vale of Tears, Paulette Oriol (Haiti, fiction)
11. Tiny Deaths, Robert Shearman (LT author, shearrob; short fiction collection, UK))
10. Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell (reread, fiction, classics, UK)
=======================================JANUARY
9. The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey (fiction)
8. Tropical Fish: Stories from Entebbe, Doreen Baingawa (Uganda, short fiction collection)
7. My Place by Sally Morgan (Australian aboriginal, memoir)
6. Our American King by David Lozell Martin (satirical dystopian fiction)
5. Moonlit Bride, Buchi Emecheta (fiction, Nigeria)
4. The Lifted Veil, George Eliot (fiction, classics)

3. Dangarembga, Tsitsi (Zimbabwe) Nervous Conditions (fiction)
2. Sicking, Anja (Netherlands) The Silent Sin (fiction)
1. Memmi, Albert (Tunisia) Pillar of Salt (fiction)
Djebar, Assia (Algeria), Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (short fiction collection)

1. Pillar of Salt, Albert Memmi. This is an excellent, semi-autobiographical book about self-identity - said to be in the vein of the French 'despair' novel - set in Tunis. His prose is wonderfully descriptive and there is an acute sense of place, particular at the beginning which he is a boy. The main character has a Berber mother, an urban Jewish father but as he is educated he identifies more with the French. Thus, his dilemma. Like Memmi, the young man eventually studies and teaches philosophy. (That said, by the end of the novel, and especially after he spends much of WWII still wondering who he is and whether he fits in, I just wanted the guy to get his head out of his a$%.)

2. The Silent Sin, Anja Sicking. Set in mid-18th Century Amsterdam, this novel has a limited domestic setting and is narrated by a young girl of good upbringing who has fallen on hard times and now works as a house servant for a printer of music. The young protagonist and domestic setting is reminiscent of Girl with a Pearl Earring (based on my distant memories of that book) and offered some wonderful domestic details. Essentially a mystery, the story parcels out small references to 'the silent sin' and increasing 'clues' as the young woman works it out for herself. While a mildly entertaining story, I thought it somewhat disappointing. There are various elements to the story (a sister, for example), that broaden the reader's expectations but go nowhere. OK, I get the point that people used to be executed for this 'sin' but I failed to be truly moved by it, and I cannot help but think that the book could've been so much more.

3. Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe/Rhodesia). Set in the late 1960's in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), this is a classic bildungsroman or coming-of-age novel about a young woman of poor circumstances who wishes to escape the constraints of her rural life. Opportunity is presented to her but it comes with a price. As Tambu negotiates her future she struggles with issues of identity, gender, class, race & culture (to name just a few!). The story is compelling, the characters memorable.

It is also very interesting to compare and contrast with Memmi's Pillar of Salt. Very interesting indeed.

4. The Lifted Veil by George Eliot. A small novella with afterword published separately by Virago/Penguin. A tale of a sensitive man's clairvoyance, his alienation and despair. It by no means lives up to her novels, but is quite good. I enjoyed her use of the supernatural to tell her story, to make her story! It rounds her out a little more in my mind and just adds to her overall genius, imo.

I admit that I feel like I am cheating using a 91 page book in this list:-)

5. The Moonlight Bride by Buchi Emecheta, another novella published on its own. It is the story of two young girls who have learned of a secret - that a new bride will be coming to their village, one that will arrive in the moonlight. While the girls prepare for the event, they wonder not only who the bride is but who within their village is the groom. Wonderful images of village and family life in Nigeria set perhaps earlier in the 20th century (hard to tell). A much lighter read in several respects than her Joys of Motherhood, could be considered a YA novel.

Avaland... the books you are reading sound fascinating, especially Pillar of Salt and Nervous Conditions...

cerievans1, thank you. These are part of a longer list of African fiction (which I have posted on a personal thread in the Reading Globally group. As I read more fiction from various countries, combined with the nonfiction, my sense of these areas rearrange within my mind. It encourages me to continue; however, I also always have the urge to break away and read something different.

I really enjoy reading African fiction especially Measuring Time by Helon Habila which was one of my favourite books of 2007... will have a look at your list of African fiction for ideas :@)

ceri, oh dear, is this another I will have to put on my wish list?:-) My formal study of African fiction is nearly at an end but along the way I have acquired another 12-20 African novels of interest, so who knows.

6. Our American King by David Lozell Martin. A satirical post-apocalyptic novel set here in America. This is not written with the gravitas of The Pesthouse or The Road but with a sly wit, often irreverent, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, poking fun of our cultural foibles along the way but giving us plenty to think about at the same time. Despite the humor in the book, it contains a good bit of grimness and violence. It is somewhat reminiscent of the satire of James Morrow (i.e. Only Begotten Daughter, City of Truth). A weirdly entertaining read. And who knew the Canadians were such a threat?

edited to finalize the review.

7. My Place by Sally Morgan This is an autobiography, sometimes referred to as the Australian "Roots", which features narratives from three generations of the author's Australian aboriginal family. Although I found some of the author's tale of growing up a bit tedious at times, it is important because it is the story of her discovery of her family origins, and sets up the reader for the rest of the narratives (great uncle, mother, grandmother). I found these later narratives riveting, heart-breaking and ultimately very moving.

note: I think what I found tedious in the first part of the book was the author's use of great gobs of dialog.

8. Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana.
This is an excellent collection of related coming-of-age stories about three sisters in contemporary Uganda (the aftermath of Idi Amin). Generally, the stories focus on one sister at a time, but a majority of the stories are about Christine, the youngest of the three. We see her as a child running her hands through her mother's costume jewelry and later, at 29, returning home to Uganda after living in the US for seven years. Very well done, I will be interested in what else this author writes.

now reading The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey (the downstairs book) and Delirium by Laura Restrepo (the upstairs book). Things may be about to slow down again, as I have some research to do.

Oh, dear. I keep committing to group reads in various groups. . .

I need to re-read Cranford in February for a non-LT group, The Fifth Business for a private group on LT, a novel by a Haitian author for March for Reading Globally (I think that will be Vale of Tears by Paullette Poujol Oriol), and a novel about Muslim women for a theme read for Reading Globally in April (probably Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora. I suspect I will be sidetracked by the 'required reading' and research I have to do, but still I'm compulsive:-)

9. The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey

Margot Livesey skillfully weaves four related narratives in this story of two friends and those that touch their lives. She really has this incredible insight into the fine emotional webbing that connects us as human beings and I enjoy her books because of it. The reader cannot help but be drawn into this story and these characters' lives. Well done.

note: the blurb on the back of the book (at least on my reader's copy) is slightly confusing. While the book is ultimately about two women, the first two narratives are about men (who are connected to the women)

Oh. I'll have to look for that. I read Eva Moves the Furniture which was as good and small and strange as its title. It's unusual writing, in that it seems as spare and as simple as a fairytale, capturing all the love and loneliness of the story, but, is never simplistic, or awkward in the way that many fairytale-like novels can be. (Oops. I just looked. You've already read that and given it lots of stars. Does this measure up?)

It's a different kind of story but her insight into her characters remains the same. The novel is set up into 4 parts. 1. Sean, Abigail's current boyfriend. 2.Cameron, Dara's father. 3. Dara 4. Abigail. Any one of these narratives could've been the basis for a novel in itself. It's interesting and comes together at the end (although Sean is abandoned a bit). I read Banishing Verona also.

eta, some of it takes place in Edinburgh, most in London. The book blurb takes about the role of luck in our lives but that didn't seem to register with me. She shows how the things that happen in our lives affect our later lives, essentially how we become who we are.

Still reading Delirium and have taken up Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell to reread.

Still reading the two books in >16 avaland: above. I've been distracted by many other things and have not read much; however, I have progressed in both (meanwhile, the books continue to pile up!)

10. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. A funny and touching collection of tales about a small country village (mostly inhabited by women) during the middle of the 19th century. One can almost feel the changes that the industrial revolution will bring hovering just outside of the stories.

Alas, I may not get back to Delirium as I have been too long away from it. I had a high fever last evening into the night so today I'm lolling about in bed with Tiny Deaths, a collection of short stories by LT author & user shearrob (Robert Shearman). Ok, I'm lolling about with the laptop also:-)

11. Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman. I first met Rob here on LT in 2006 because we shared a truly eclectic list of books and I couldn't resist striking up a conversation. While I share many books with many people there are only a few who share a similar variety, Rob is one of these. So, it was only natural that I should want to read his collection of short stories when it came out.

Tiny Deaths is a collection of imaginative, wry, oddly thoughtful, and wonderfully entertaining short stories (or perhaps that is oddly imaginative and wryly thoughtful...). A young girl is reincarnated as an ashtray in her parents' livingroom; a man finds himself in hell with Hitler's dog as his roommate; an elderly man discovers his old television set is bleeding; in order to right a wrong done, the 'gods' send everyone on earth notice as to the time, date & nature of their death...well, all except one man...
Strangely odd but uncannily familiar, these stories are about grief, death, love, marriage, and all manner of human relationships, a worthy read for those of us who like to read outside the box once in a while.

I have a copy of Tiny Deaths waiting to be collected at Waterstones this evening. Now I'm looking forward to reading it even more!

I'm now reading Australian Classics by Janet Gleeson-White and Vale of Tears by Haitian author Paulette Oriol. The former is a terrific book which profiles 50 authors and their most celebrated title. I took it to lunch with me yesterday and read all the entries on women authors first. It also has lists of favorite Australian books by various notable Aussies. The latter is a novel that I'm reading for the Reading Globally theme read (Haiti) for March. It might also work for the Girlybooks theme read of "Social Class" also for March. . .

12. Vale of Tears by Paulette Poujol Oriol

Oriol is a Haitian novelist who wrote this book as a bit of of a challenge. "This novel is an answer to a question asked by a very dear friend who wanted to know why my hero, Pierre Tervil, in my earlier novel, Le Creusetalways maintains such an upward moral and social momentum and why everything seems to succeed in his life. I answered her in 1981, 'I could just as well painted a character who fails.'" And so we have Vale of Tears, the tragic life of the beautiful, charming bourgeoisie Coralie Santeuil who, in her naivety falls prey to her scheming family, fails to learn from the great tragedies around her, and just has bad luck. In an alternating narrative, as the elderly, deformed Coralie sets out to beg rent and food money from acquaintances and others, we hear the story of her life through flashbacks.

Oriol is a great storyteller and we are soon sucked into this sad, humiliating and engrossing story.

eta to fix typos & misspellings

Avaland, both your # 11 & 12 sound pretty interesting. Was Tiny Deaths difficult to find? I couldn't find it in my local library. The premises of some of those stories sound pretty fascinating.

I grew up in Miami, where Haiti was often in the news, but have to admit I'd never thought much about their literary tradition. I'll have to check out Oriol when I get a chance.

hi, CarlosMcRey! Tiny Deaths is only available from the UK right now from a small press (it's in paperback, though). I bought it through The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide!). I enjoyed the stories quite a lot and found it worth the expense.

With regards to Haiti, the "Reading Globally" group is doing Haiti as a theme read for March so it might be interesting to watch that thread and see if other interesting titles pop up. Here's a link to the group:
http://www.librarything.com/groups/readinggloballyficti

Alas, I see to be picking up one book after another and running between them all. Besides deciding to take up Delirium again, I am reading The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 and picking through essays in: Australian Classics: 50 Great Writers and Their Celebrated Works AND Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers, edited by Susan Morrison.

Thanks, for the recommendation! Looks like there's some good information.

13. Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers, edited by Susan Morrison

These thirty essays, by women writers such as Susan Orlean, Deborah Tannen, Lorrie Moore, Lionel Shriver, Kathryn Harrison and more, take a look at Hillary Rodham Clinton from a variety of viewpoints, all thought-provoking, a few whimsical, not all of them flattering. The book claims that with its thirty essays it provides a composite picture of Senator Clinton, and that may be so, but what it really offers is an insightful look at how ambitious women in the political sphere...(or any sphere for that matter) are thought about and why. I found the book an unusual, thoughtful read for an election year, something beyond the usual propaganda.

Well, I seem to have set all my current books aside for the comfy read of Exit Music by Ian Rankin. . .

I love those comfy reads, don't you? I tell my girls all the time it's like visiting an old friend you haven't seen for a while.

>28 alcottacre: yes, indeed. What a nice excursion (especially since I'm reading a lot of nonfiction currently).



14. Exit Music by Ian Rankin.

John Rebus is three days from retirement and still manages to get himself suspended in this complex mystery involving Scottish politicians, Russian businessmen, drug dealers and 'Big Ger McCafferty'. Although I found the actual mystery resolution slightly disappointing (at least one of which I guessed, which is unusual), I always find much delight in the grinding thought processes and antics of Rebus & company. This is not a book for newcomers to the series, but a fitting end (or is it, really?) for devoted fans who adore Rebus despite all his crusty, alcoholic, irreverent and maverick ways.

15. The Bonds of Womanhood : "woman's sphere" in New England, 1780-1835, by Nancy F. Cott.

This is a very readable social history of women's experience in New England in the period after the Revolutionary War but before the heyday of the Industrial Revolution. I think Cott does a good job of interpreting women's lives within the context of the period, rather than measuring them against later 20th century values when the book was written. Despite the seemly fixed domestic sphere that women operated in, it was a time of change. It is this change, that I was particularly interested in.

16. Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860 edited by Thomas Dublin.

This is a collection of New England women's letters, many of whom worked in the mills and factories of the region. The letters give the reader a little peek into both the rural life for young women of this era, but also the urban life of the mill workers. It also portrays the broad kinship ties these women had with one another, and with their extended families. Dublin, a social historian now teaching at SUNY Binghamton, provides a readable, thorough introduction, footnotes and an afterward which enhances one's reading. I love this stuff.

17. Across the Mystic Shore by Suroopa Mukherjee

Set in New Delhi and Varanasi, India, this debut novel* begins with the arrival of a young boy in an upper middle class Bengali household and it is his arrival which sets off an exploration of past and present, in the entwined lives of six people. The multiple narratives spiral around a central mystery that is not resolved until the very end, and despite some seemingly overgenerous or awkward use of idioms (i.e. getting down to brass tacks) which gave the prose a translated feel at times, the story and characters are compelling and I stayed up late to finish it (something I rarely do these days). The dust jacket includes these few lines, which I feel accurately describes the novel and which I cannot improve upon: The novel is full of the sights, sounds and scents of India and delivers both an exploration of conflicts peculiar to Indian society and a universal underlying message about the strength of love and how it can be both selfish and selfless.

*this is the author's first adult novel.

18. The Lowell Offering: Writings by New England Mill Women 1840-1845, edited by Benita Eisler

This book is an interesting collection of writings (stories, letters, essays, and poetry) by the native New England women who worked in the mills here in New England in the middle of the 19th century (just prior to the changeover to immigrant labor). The original editor/s of the literary magazine seemed to favor mostly upbeat and positive viewpoints of millwork, and avoid any sensitive issues such as hours and wages; there was some criticism around this (and accusations of being subsidized by the mill owners). Beyond this, and bearing in mind what it doesn't include, it's an enlightening window into the lives of women who left their family farms and flocked to the mills to support themselves.

19. Collected Reading from three books:
Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938 by Barbara Bates
The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis by Thomas Dormandy
Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis in American Culture since 1870, by Katherine Ott.

It feels like cheating to list these three books, but the cumulative reading from them would surely equal that of most of the books I've previously listed. Actually, my 'favorite' of the three is Fevered Lives which takes the viewpoint of the disease within the cultural context. "Cultures give form and meaning to what happens within our bodies," Ott says in her introduction. I found her book fascinating. The Bates book uses Pennsylvania as a focus, the Dormany book is UK-centered and had pieces on the suffering of notables like the Brontes, Orwell and Robert Louis Stevenson (all very interesting).

I know someone else in this group is chronicling the articles they read. I've been reading A LOT of articles off JSTR but to chronicle them here would make me crazy. I'm just enough of an obsessive reader to be attempting personal reading at the same time I'm doing research:-)

>34 avaland:, avaland - All those books on TB look fascinating. Thanks for pulling out one that stands out above the others. I don't know that I could stand three books on the subject, but I will definitely be looking for Fevered Lives.

20. Of Dreams and Assassins by Malika Mokeddem

This semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of one young woman's struggle for freedom (on all planes) in a repressive country, in this case, an Algeria which is "caught by two terrorisms" the army and the Islamic fundamentalists. Kenza herself narrates the story of her young life; her suffocating childhood, her frustrated dreams; her fear and anger so palpable to the reader. Kenza fears a slide into insanity if she does not leave and heads for Southern France. It is while she is in France that we see Kenza exhale and begin to unwind through dreams and small liberties. Kenza, is meant to represent the 'everywoman' in Algeria. It is while she is away from Algeria that we come to understand how courageous its women are. The book was more moving than I expected. This book, in addition to those by Assia Djebar, has given me some understanding of the situation of women in Algeria, and some insight into their literary traditions.

Adding the covers is a nice touch!

thank you, Cariola. I had them in photobucket anyway because I post them on my profile page so. . .

21. Collected Reading from:
A.Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott, Martha Saxton

B.The Alcotts: A Biography of a Family, Madelon Bedell

C.The Transcendental Wife, Cynthia Barton.

D.Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands, compiled by Clara Endicott Sears

E. Alcott in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, & Memoirs by Family, Friends, * Associates; edited by Daniel Shealy

F. A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott and Little Women, Sarah Elbert

Some of the information in these books are redundant, of course. I read D. thoroughly, a reread (I was married at Fruitlands in 2005 and read up on it thoroughly that year). I have skimmed the relevant contents of all but Transcendental Wife which was quite good, especially since it is devoted to Abba May Alcott, my subject area; and Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography which I found myself thoroughly engrossed in, reading far more than necessary for my research. This same danger was present for "The Alcotts" book, but I resisted.

The Alcott family was NOT the perfect one presented in Little Women. The real story is no less interesting, quite grim at times. I hold little admiration for Bronson Alcott, but a great amount for Abba May who did the best she could with so very little.

22. Love in the Kingdom of Oil by Nawal El-Saadawi

This short novel is what I call a surrealist-satire (if there is such a thing). The premise is simple: a woman who has worked in an archaeological office/department disappears or appears to take leave, something unheard of. The reader follows the woman through a tangle of dream-like scenes many of which has her unable to escape from a man who is always asleep or half-asleep and who continually fills urns with oil for her to carry on her head. Meanwhile, in equally odd glimpses we see the police commissioner interviewing her husband and boss. Surrealism - in a severe oversimplification - was/is an attempt to made visible the true nature of thought, and this novel is thick with the visual making the reader feel totally lost at times. Because of my previous reading of El-Saadawi, I can presume her theme and message, perhaps even speculate what some of the imagery represents; but it's a tough slog. I do see her here making a connection for women further back in Egyptian history, pre-Islam - I found that interesting. It is hard for me to access my reading of it, declare I like it or not, even rate it. This novel could be of interest to those interested in surrealism, Egyptian contemporary culture, and fellow El-Saadawi fans.

23. The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu

I saw this book in a publishers catalog and thought it unusual; ordered and bought but unfortunately it has taken me six months to get to reading it. This is a young woman's coming-of-age novel set in 2070 Africa. It is a delightful blend of African culture & folklore, science fiction and fantasy. The characters and setting are wonderfully rendered, the story suitably complex. Well and thoughtfully written, this novel is truly captivating and a delicious read for all ages (I feel as if I've been lost in it for weeks and its only been two days!).

#43: I told myself I wasn't allowed to buy any books this month (my TBR pile is ridiculously large)... but The Shadow Speaker looks so interesting, and there are copies at Strand... Inner conflict!

Seriously, though, thanks for the mini-review. :)

heh heh, medellia12, we are all vulnerable here:-)

I agree, it sounds fascinating - definitely on my list of books to look out for (along with Margot Livesay - you've definitely convinced me she's one to read)... I'm not sure I should have joined this group, I already have far to large a backlog of books I want to read!!

So great to go through this thread and see all the fascinating reading you do. One wonders if you sleep ... Thanks for sharing your insights; some of these will have to be wishlisted!

24. The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber

What a fun read, chock full of juicy art history tidbits that I gobbled up like candy spread before a child. I read Gruber first novel years ago and enjoyed that also - less for its dark suspense than for the anthropological detail. This is a better book, I think. Art and madness are often partners, are they not? The Forgery of Venus tells the tale of one artist who, unlike so many, has real genius; but like so many, fails to achieve anything close to his potential. A dalliance with a drug study program sets him on the road to madness. Unable to provide for his ailing son and generally get his life together, he takes a lucrative commission in Italy to repaint a Tiepolo on a palazzo ceiling. As he completes the job and more irresistible commissions are offered, his life dips in and out of madness...he loses touch with who he is...or is something more sinister going on? This is a fun read, a genuine suspense novel that builds up slowly, and Gruber skillfully paints all those wonderful art history details (well, details of all kinds). Honestly, nothing got done around this house until I finished it.

Avaland -

Thanks for the rec on The House on Fortune Street. You may recall I had it in my Mount TBR (currently 500 books) and your praise made me pull it out. I heartily agree with your review. Great read.

Nancy

Nancy, good to see you over here on the 75 Book thread!:-) Yes, it was a good read, although thinking back I think Sean and the father might sit a bit more prominently in my memory...funny, isn't it?

25. Wild Nights! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates
Oates is tweaking some of our most revered iconic American authors in these fabricated tales of their last days. Poe is tending a lighthouse in the Pacific, Dickinson returns to life in the 21st century as a human-looking robot, Mark Twain finds another young woman for his Angelfish collection, James finds passion amidst the horror of a wartime hospital ward, and Hemingway can't get out of his own head, it seems. Oates takes something from the authors' own writing styles and makes it her own here. She also mixes some elements of horror, SF & fantasy in some of the stories. I'm not sure she succeeds entirely in what she is doing, but it was a fun read (and I had some good laughs either over some particular scene, the entire premise of the story, or in her use of the authors' writing styles).

Well I was looking around for your list to see what you have been reading. I am on the 50 book challenge myself (the number of books I read last year - thought I could do a repeat forsure), but I am happy to say I have already read 20!

Surprising. I know I have heard others say it was well - you would expect that all the time you spend on LT to mean you would read less books, but in my case it is more.

Keep in touch,
Nancy

>52 alphaorder: Nancy, I would say LT cuts into my other personal time but not my reading time (for the most part).

Have I changed my reading because of LT? I don't think so. I do pay attention to what friends read and it can influence my decisions but I'm still a fairly adventurous soul and like to go wherever the wind takes me. I do read more nonfiction, poetry and fiction translations now but that is more because I'm no longer at the bookstore and feeling less obligated to read forthcoming fiction (mostly fiction). I do miss shopping for promising debut novels from the publisher catalogs, I found it much more reliable than reading just from what shows up in the store mail. I know you know what I mean:-) I can see some of the forthcoming publisher catalogs (i.e. Harcourt) online. It's dangerous, as it is no longer free!

26. A New England Tale by Catharine Maria Sedgwick

First published in 1820 and popular both here in the states and abroad, this novel is a fine, early example of the moral women's novels of 19th century New England. The book has all the trappings of other popular 19th century novels (orphans, mysterious strangers, a madwoman..etc) but is set in small town Massachusetts (known to be based on the author's hometown of Stockbridge more recently made notable by Norman Rockwell and home of Gutherie's 'Alice's Restaurant'). It is a charming story of a good orphan named Jane who is sent to live with her cruel aunt and spoiled cousins. There she will spend her adolescence negotiating many a situation (no spoilers!) that will 'test' her. The Christian moralizing is thicker than clotted cream in the book but if one can get through it, it's an engaging tale (rather tame by current standards, of course, and sadly without the wit of Austen). There is a bit of skewering of the upper classes here (to which Ms. Sedgwick belonged) and more than a small attempt to expose the hypocrisy in their religious practice. There is also a hint of the emerging Transcendentalism in New England. I'm afraid I cannot rate my reading of this, because I feel it is not best judged by today's standard's.

I have to ask where Mr. Rochester is, for, superficially, this sounds very like Jane Eyre. I am intrigued and have added it to my hideously overloaded Amazon wish list.

Fourpawz2, Well, I did think of Jane Eyre - there are some nominal similarities. But her Quaker benefactor (who becomes her husband in the end and that's not really a spoiler for its fairly predictable) reminds me a bit more of a religious Colonel Brandon from Austen's Sense and Sensibility. But this Jane is a bit more like the character of Jane Eyre. The madwoman - 'crazy bet' - is used much like Shakespeare's fools are*, to say things that propriety doesn't allow other characters to say. It is certainly possible that Bronte may have read the book.

*I may be entirely wrong about Shakespeare's fools and I expect Cariola to eventually come along and straighten me out on the subject. It's been years since i've thought of Shakespeare, I think.

btw, fourpawz2, this novel was republished by Oxford University press as part of an early American women writers series of about six books. I managed to pick up two more in the series via BookMooch (this one belongs to the library).

Hmm, very interesting. Especially as I am reading Sense and Sensibility at the moment. The setting makes it especially interesting. I am quite enamored of The Scarlet Letter, and this resonates with that, too.

kambrogi, funny the book didn't bring to mind any Hawthorne, but then again, he liked the older settings. There is certainly morality in British 19th century novels, but not usually with all the religious rhetoric. . .

27. Sorry by Gail Jones

Sorry is the story of Perdita, an unwanted child of a unhappy couple living in northwest Australia after the first World War. Perdita's father thinks himself a scholar and comes to Australia from England to study the aboriginal peoples. Her mother enters a marriage of convenience and regrets it nearly every moment thereafter. Both parents are somewhat mentally unstable and it is into this household Perdita arrives. Unloved by her parents, she finds love, affection and companionship where she can in her troubled childhood, mostly among the aboriginal peoples of the area; Billy, the neighbor's deaf son, and Mary, a young aboriginal woman brought into the household when Perdita's mother is hospitalized. This is sad story, horrible in places, yet with small, lovely moments - beautifully written in a lyrical prose that is wonderfully poetic throughout. Clearly, Jones's novel is meant to explore through fiction the idea of apology and atonement in Australia's treatment of the aboriginal people. The novel predates the apology issued this year by Australian PM Kevin Rudd to the aboriginal peoples of the country. This certainly is one of the best books I've read so far this year.

Ok - up to the top of Mount TBR Sorry goes!

Wow, looks terrific. (that click you heard was on the wishlist!)

28. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville

This was a quick reread for the Girlybooks group theme read this month of "Women and Beauty"; however, the book is a story about baggage and history, about accepting your imperfections. It is also the oddest and best, middle-aged love story I think I have ever read.

Harley Savage, a fabric artist and staff member at the Sydney Museum of Applied Arts comes to the dying outback town of Karakarook to assist them in starting a heritage museum. Douglas Chessman is a civil engineer who comes into town at the same time to consult about the destruction of the old historic bridge and the construction of a new one. Both are unlovely and flawed individuals with lots of emotional baggage and that's why i love them! There also exists in the story a comic foil of sorts in the character of Felicity Porcelline who, at 41, is obsessive about her looks (a perfectionist generally) and who is - though she denies it to herself - hot on Alfred Chang the local butcher. Do you see a bit of play with some of the names?

No spoilers. This was my book of the year a few years back and the reread was a delightful opportunity for a pleasant revisit.

Wow - what an endorsement. I am adding it to my wishlist now and sharing it with my co-worker. This is just her book!

Well, I just checked the LT reviews and it seems they are mixed. I might understand why. The dialogue had no quotation marks. Also the Felicity subplot seems rather an odd addition at times. And it is an odd, nervous love story in a dusty, dilapidated setting (might be offputting if one is looking for wine and roses). Grenville is witty but overall the novel is not a comic one, per se. These are not criticisms as much as they are observations. I like to say that it also has what i regard as a singular romantic moment that defies stereotypes. Can't say more, sorry, no spoilers! :-)

You reminded me to go paste it into the reviews, thanks alphaorder!

Often the books with higgledy piggledy opinions are some of the best, don't you think. Maybe because they run a bit off centre? I must read this one, Avaland. I really liked her The Secret River

29. The Outlander by Gil Adamson

Set in 1903 in Western Canada, The Outlander is the story of a 19-year old widow named Mary Boulton who has killed her husband and flees into the mountains pursued by her menacing, red-headed look-a-like brothers-in-law. Mostly unaccustomed to living outdoors, Mary learns to survive through her own devices and through the help of various eclectic characters she runs into along the way. This is a fabulous adventure story, riveting in its telling, evocative of the wilds and the western Canadian frontier of the time. Mary is a tenacious, resourceful (within her means) and lucky young woman, prone to seeing things and hearing voices, and her tale in this debut novel by Adamson is certainly worth the ride.

Avaland,

The Toronto Public Library has an online book club discussing The Outlander by Gil Adamson. You can find it at:

http://bookbuzzdiscussion.torontopubliclibrary.ca/webx?50@544.DJkfaf5VdMw.0@.ee8...

If that link doesn't work, try:

http://bookbuzzdiscussion.torontopubliclibrary.ca/
and then click on the book title.

I don't understand why the touchstones for the book don't work (not listed under the Outlander options)--it's definitely in the LT system. Anyone know how to fix that?

Thanks, Nickelini. A wonderful story but no deep insights, if you know what I mean.

30. Ninety-five Nights of Listening : Poems by Malinda Markham

I am never quite comfortable 'reviewing' poetry, it's such a subjective thing. This collection is inspired by the author's 'fascination with Japanese language, art and literature' and perhaps that is why I found quite a bit of it obtuse.There are some beautiful lines in each poem but oftentimes, in the end, I'd wonder what it was about - beyond a collection of images. There are some exceptions which I found quite lovely.

There seems to be so many things that can affect the reading of poetry - mood, time-constraints, concentration . . .etc. Perhaps on a different set of evenings, I would've responded to them differently. Oftentimes, though, I wonder if much contemporary poetry is being written for the largely academic subculture that functions as a mutual admiration society and not for the rest of us. . .

As an academic, I can say that I think you're right. I was on a search committee that hired a poet last year, and most of the stuff coming in as samples seemed intended to be obtuse. I tend to like poetry that uses striking but meaningful images, allusions, etc. and that has a sense of its own music. When I spoke in favor of one such poet, I was informed that her work was "too facile."

Well, I do my part and buy a few individual volumes a year of contemporary stuff, but it seems all the poets are academics and it seems there should be more voices in the mix (of course I realize that academia is pretty much the only way a poet can make a living). Sigh.

I took another poetry class last fall and while I found the professor very good with critique and suggestions, I found some of her discussion topics a bit too esoteric - all caught up in rhetoric, imo. But then again, this can be what academia is all about to some people, can't it?:-) I'm thinking of Howard in On Beauty here.

Thank God for Donald Hall, Edward Hirsch, Brad Leihauser, and Billy Collins.

What about Simon Armitage, Cariola and Avaland. Any opinions on him as a contemporary poet?

I read an article in the NYT today about his new rendering of The Odyssey, as a BBC 'play' and now in book form. Sounds intriguing. I am not so aware of the american poets as I should be. In fact I cannot talk to them at all.

#74 I'm not familiar with Armitage. In fact, most of the poets I mentioned above are relative "old-timers," although they are still actively writing. I wish I had more time to peruse more recent poets' work. One name I can throw out is Li Young Lee, who came to campus a few years ago; I really love his work.

>73 Cariola:: I am reading Donald Hall's memoir Upacking the Boxes now. It is really lovely. Prose written by a poet. My kind of thing.

Sorry Lois, but I had one more really cool poetry thing to share.

An author friend of mine, Liam Callanan (All Saints) is working on a project with the Poetry Foundation and others called POETRY EVERYWHERE. Some local students have animated 15 poems and Liam has arranged for them to be shown on buses here and in four other cities (yes, our buses have TVs on them, can you believe it? That is where this whole idea got started). Anyway, you can read about this very cool program and see some of the poems here:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=732920

Our store is hosting the premiere on Tuesday. Can't wait.

Isn't he the author of the other Cloud Atlas, alphaorder? I did read it, btw:-)

Interesting poetry bit, very clever of them.

I stopped reading Donald Hall after Without, I found it just too depressing. Since I lived in New Hampshire at the time, Hall was a local. I have loved Billy Collins (although my husband had to point out the jazz references I missed) over the years. While I do make an effort to seek out the work of women, I do still buy what looks interesting in the bookstore. Last three collections by men I thought were quite good were Salvage by Michael Crummey (Canadian), Overnight by Paul Violi, and About the Size of It by Tom Disch. I'm always exploring and enjoy browsing through a poetry section.

Yes, Liam is also the author of Cloud Atlas. I used his more recent book All Saints as the reference point, since I figured if I used Cloud Atlas, most would think I was talking about David Mitchell!

I'm here to second the Li Young Lee recommendation and throw out a few more names...Sharon Olds, Sandra Cisneros (though she writes fiction as well), Joy Harjo, Jill Alexander Essbaum...

Of course a great introduction to new poets (all nationalities) is Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley and the second one in the bloodaxe books series Being Alive. These are both very approachable anthologies and bring back the joy of poetry that we are sometimes stripped of through bad experiences, school, etc.

hjelliot, thank you for the recommendations. I have been a Sharon Olds fans for quite a while (since the beginning!) although I stopped buying volumes after The Father - it was all seeming so repetitive. I should take a look at some of her newer stuff. And I do have at least one Cisneros volume. I'm familiar with the BloodAxe books but haven't thought to buy any, I'll keep it in mind though, as well the Li Young Lee.

If one doesn't object to poetry in translation, Durs Grünbein's selected, Ashes for Breakfast is tremendous. I wrote about it here (Message #16):

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=30591

>82 dcozy: no, one doesn't object:-)

31. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Despite this being a reread - a multiple reread - I'm stunned into inarticulateness after finishing this novel. Part of this is the power of the book generally, part is the power of the book personally. There are so many parts of my life that echo in this novel; certainly not parts that I wish to discuss in detail on a public forum. And certainly as I have gotten older, I have returned different to the book than the previous time I have read it. I may have to give it a day or two before I write about it.

---------posted 5/9/08 cross-posted on the Reading Globally group

The first time I read this novel, my response was entirely personal due to experience in the 70s with a similar fundamentalist mindset. It was frightening in so many ways. As I have grown away from that intense personal response I have really come to appreciate the novel on many levels.

This book was written in the early 1980s. Prior to this time, here in America we had been preoccupied with the Iranian revolution and the taking of American hostages abroad. There was growing unrest, protests by students, labor unions, and churches against apartheid in South Africa. There had been a rise of fundamentalism here in the 1970s and fundamental Christians were beginning to influence politics through Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980. The 2nd wave of feminism was in full swing here. The 'Take Back the Night' march and rally, protesting violence against women, (mentioned in the book) happened in Europe in 1976 and 77, and subsequent rallies were held in the US in 1978. This is an oversimplification of history, but meant as a brief primer to some of the things that may have influences Atwood's tale. Add to this, Margaret Atwood's interest in totalitarian governments.

The book was published just as there was renewed interest in Orwell's 1984. It is also worth noting that V for Vendetta a dystopian graphic novel was written in the same period (there is another dystopia which I also usually include in this period, but the title escapes me at the moment).

Briefly, the book tells of one woman's experience as a 'handmaid' in the Republic of Gilead - which seems encompass most of the eastern US, and most of the story is set in what is now Cambridge, Massachusetts, home of Harvard University. Offred, so named because she is 'of Fred', Fred's handmaid; is telling her own story after the fact. Gilead is an oppressive, fundamentalist republic. I don't want to give away too much of the story but it's clear Atwood was interested in the patterns of totalitarianism and theocracy. One cannot read this without thinking of Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, the Iran revolution, and even the New England Puritans.

As with most dystopian novels, the story plays out a 'what if?' scenario extrapolating from then current social and political trends. It is still scarily revelant now, imo.

Atwood did not set out to write a feminist novel, it was really totalitarianism and theocracy she was interested in writing about; but what she has written has also become a feminist classic. If I had to pick just one watershed novel that powerfully influenced my life, this would be it.

avaland - thank you;
a) you've definitely make me want to reread The Handmaid's Tale (I think this was the first Margaret Atwood I read)
b) I'm not generally much of a poetry person, with a few pretty obvious exceptions - I've always thought that I should keep challenging this as the few exceptions move me greatly, so I'm always glad to see recommendations for approachable work and
c) (with apologies for listing, it's a hard to shed background thing) I've worked out that it's you that made me want to give Margaret Livesey a go (v much enjoyed Eva... - you write very informative, mobilising critiques!

Why thank you, flissp.

Lovely thread. I'm adding to my wish list.

32. The Outcast by Sadie Jones

Don't you just detest it when a book reaches out when you're not looking, grabs you by the collar, and pulls you in to itself making you a prisoner of its story --- even when you think you are free, doing or thinking something else, you really aren't. This book is one of those. . .

This is a mesmerizing debut novel. Lewis is a oddly compelling character, a young boy/man broken badly by his mother's death. He lives with his father and stepmother in a post-war, provincial town outside of London where it is all closeness and cordiality on the outside, but is as broken as Lewis on the inside. A great sadness pervades the story, but I did not find it depressing; instead the sadness carries you like a wave through the novel and you let it, sensing as you read that are coming closer and closer to some horrible, cathartic moment. . . and it comes, but not in the way you expect it. This is an emotional, psychological novel about the redemptive power of love - I'm amazed it is the author's first.

Thank you for your excellent, concise reviews. I'll now have to keep on the lookout for The Outcast.

>88 avaland:, Darn you, avaland (shakes fist) - why are you always reading such interesting books?! Another one for my wish list! :)

#90 --Fanny . . . that's too funny. Do you ever go into a bookstore (this seems to happen to me especially at used bookstores) and the sales clerk says "oh, you have great taste in books"? This has happened to me quite a few times over the past few years. Funny, before LT & university, I don't think it happened.

#88: I have already put The Outcast on hold at my local library. I am anxious to see how I like it.

33. Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy

Now, don't laugh - this has been the upstairs 'bathroom book' and by now I must've read it through several times. This has been my difficulty keeping track of my reading - I'm always reading (in bed, in the car, in the bathroom, in waiting rooms...etc) and while it's easy to log the one novel I read each evening; I often forget the other reads.
I love Carol Ann Duffy's poetry. I haven't read it exhaustively, mind you, but I have read quite a bit. This collection includes poetry from her first four volumes, plus six poems from my favorite, The World's Wife. Duffy has her own quirky voice, a great sense of humor, and writes accessibly. She has a way with language that just delights me. Just this morning I was cracking up over one poem titled "A Healthy Meal".

The gourmet tastes the secret dreams of cows
tossed lightly in garlic. Behind the green door, swish
of oxtails languish on an earthen dish. Here are
wishbones and pinkies; fingerbowls will absolve guilt.

Capped teeth chatter to a kidney of at the breast
of something which once flew. These hearts knew
no love and on their beds of saffron rice they lie
beyond reproach. What is the claret like? Blood.

On table six, the language of tongues is braised
in armagnac. The woman chewing suckling pig
must sleep with her husband later. Leg,
saddle and breast bleat against pure white cloth.

Alter calf to veal in four attempts. This is
the power of words; knife, tripe, lights, charcuterie.
A fat man orders his rare and a fine sweat
bastes his face. There are napkins to wife the evidence

and sauces to gag the groans of abattoirs. The menu
lists the recent dead in French, from which they order
offal, poultry, fish. Meat flops in the jowls. Belch.
Death moves in the bowels. You are what you eat.

Aren't some of those lines just brilliant? Do you suppose she is a vegetarian? :-) Here's one of my favorite's from The World's Wife, also included in this collection:

Mrs. Darwin

7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him ---
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds
me of you.

34. Queen of a Rainy Country by Linda Pastan

Another lovely collection of poetry, this time by notable American poet Linda Pastan (she has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award). This collection contains poems about everything from the seasons and marriage to 9/11 and Abu Ghraib! There's poems about poetry, and a fair amount of reflection on growing older. I like poets who are able to compress their thoughts into a poem and I'm not afraid of the white space on a page. Pastan does this. Here are a couple of my favorite short poems at this moment; however, if you ask me an hour from now I might choose different ones.

October

No more than a few
blue shadows
move over it---
the merest hint
that gold is about
to tarnish and
the whole leafy carapace
of summer vanish
in smoke. Without
the seasons, we could be
as oblivious
as animals, for whom
death comes
without prefiguring
and only once.

Firing the Muse

I am giving up the muse Calliope.
I have told her to pack up her pens and her inks
and to take her lyrical smile,
her coaxing ways, back to Mr. Helicon,
or at least to New York.
I will even write her a reference if she likes
to someone whose head is still fizzy
with iambs and trochees,
someone still hungry for the scent of the laurel,
the taste of fame, for the pure astonishment of seeing
her own words blaze up on the page.
Let me lie in this hammock in the fading sun
without guilt or longing, just a glass
of cold white wine in one hand,
not even a book in the other. A dog
will lie at my feet who can't read anyway,
loving me just for myself, and for
the biscuit I keep concealed in my pocket.

Lois -

Let me know how you like th Lehane. My husband was just sent an ARC and I will encourage him if you like it.

I have just added Queen of a Rainy Country to my wishlist. Thanks for the rec!

Nancy, I'm enjoying it despite the fact that the women characters are relegated to supporting roles:-) I think it is very evocative of Boston 100 years ago, of the US a 100 years ago - so much going on (i.e. war, influenza, civil unrest, immigration, race relations) and it's all in the there, plus Babe Ruth and baseball. He presents it all on the individual level first, with the larger theatre apparent in the background. I suspect the novel is not going to pack the punch that Mystic River did; mostly because it's a different kind of novel than anything he has written previously.

Just to say that I, too, have added The Outcast to my wishlist - you should get commission, avaland!

As long as everyone understands that there's a fair amount drinking, abuse and self-abuse in the book to contend with (I didn't want to write that in initially because I debated whether or not it would be considered a 'spoiler', but I think not. This is not a book for someone looking for a Disney or Hallmark Hall of Fame story! I will be interested in your responses if you all get around to reading it.

eta, I am a direct ancestor of a convicted witch. It's easier to get you to read books than it is to turn you into a blue boar these days:-)

35. The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane's new novel is a brawny historical fiction that recreates 1918/19 Boston in rich, vivid detail. He lured me into this 700 page novel slowly --- at a 100 pages I was hooked; at 300 pages it was evident I had sold my soul to it. Tightly plotted, his story includes plenty of action, suspense and blood-letting. His characters are wonderfully rendered, real people, some likable, some not so much. His heroes, Danny Coughlin and Luther Lawrence, both young men coming into their own during turbulent times, and stumbling along the way. Ultimately the book dramatizes the Boston Policemen's Strike, but beyond that it is a story of family, love, corruption, unrest, terror, fear, race, class, and power, power, power. I never realized how much was going on the United States during those two years and how much of today can be seen in it --and it's all in there, and then some! Fans of Lehane will find everything they have come to expect from him and more---this isn't a departure for him, it's an evolution.

Now, don't laugh, but as I finished the novel, it began to rain outside and somehow I found it a most fitting afterward to this exceptional tale.

Am I the only one that takes a 700 page novel to a spa pedicure?

Wow, what a great sounding book and thanks for your great review here. I loved the first Lehane book I read recently and this, though it sounds so different in subject matter, seems very interesting.

36. Collected reading from:

In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton and...
The Salem Witch Trials : A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach.

I have hoards of books on the witch trials, but these are my two favorites and, as it happens, two of the most recent. I've been doing research once again for my final project and have reread a fair book's worth between the two books list. The Roach book is terrific is one is looking for a chronological timeline of what is going on and where during this whole crisis. The Norton book is an excellent read; she places the trials within the historical context of the 1st and 2nd Indian wars, describes the local politics and the role of gossip; she describes the 17th century New England mindset and talks about what the magistrates might have had to gain by giving credence to these young women's ravings. Very insightful. If I had to pick one, the Norton volume would be the one I'd recommend most.

Avaland . . . have you also studied the witch prosecutions in Europe? (I meant to say persecution, but actually, prosecutions is more accurate because you don't actually need to be a witch to be prosecuted as one) I briefly studied them for a history course, but I don't know much about the US version (other than reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond). I'm wondering if they were similar, or if the surrounding circumstances were similar. Mind you, that would be a difficult call, seeing there is no consensus on what caused the phenomena in Europe. Still, any thoughts? Related, or completely different?

Well, 17th century New England were still living in a pre-Enlightenment mindset; most believed one could be bewitched and that devils existed. The Norton book spends some time explaining why the Salem witch trials (which really encompasses a county, not just one town) were different than accusations made previously, which I assume to be more similar to the European accusations. There apparently had always been accusations of witchcraft, and the judges referred back to earlier English statutes. I do have some books on the European witch-hunts and prosecution but have not been able to read more than a smattering from them. I think the causes were a culmination of things (some mentioned in 102 above). The Joseph McCarthy era here was much like the hysteria of the witch crisis, as was the day-care hysteria in the 80s. I'm not sociologist or social psychologist but I see them all coming out of some root fears and other conditions were favorable for things to get out of control.

It's certainly an interesting topic, and one I'd like to learn more about.

#104 Interesting parallels--the McCarthy comparison is obvious, but I hadn't thought about the day care thing in that light. Should we throw in the "there's a pedophile in every priest" phenomenon too?

'Mrs Darwin' and 'Firing the Muse' - fantastic!

re: message 100, I completely understand the suitable weather thing - there are some books it's just _wrong_ to read on a sunny day (and vice versa)!

>106 laytonwoman3rd: quite possibly; there have certainly been books suggesting it. . .
Speaking of which, one excellent one I have read, is The Blind Side of the Heart by Michael C. White.

>107 flissp: well, like every volume of poetry I read, there are some poems I like and some I'm pretty tepid about.

avaland, you sure do get around. If I had known you were checkup up on me I would have been adding more to my 50 Book Challenge postings. I promise to add more info in the future. 50 Book Challenge, I think it will be more like 30 or 35, but we will see.

I just finished The Automatic Detective and thought it was a fun read with a lot of heart. I am a sucker for robots trying to become human, like Data on Star Trek: TNG.

I haven't got to The Light Ages yet. I read a story of his in Steampunk where he created a world not unlike the movie The City of Lost Children. It was a bit bleak though and stuck with me for a few days.

I try and keep track of you on connections. I saw your listing for Wild Nights! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates. Looks real interesting. I've never read her work before, but I like Poe, Dickinson and James. I also noticed all the female New England authors you read. I have always been fond of Louisa May Allcott. I haven't read many biographies of her life, I always get sad when I read about her involvement as a nurse in the Civil War. It hits a chord with me for some reason. I also like Hawthorne. My husband is big time into Emerson, we have a bust of him on the computer cart in the library.

The Handmaid's Tale is one of my favorite books, but I decided not to join your discussion group because I haven't read it in awhile. I am 8 or 9 books behind in my new reading and my want list grows everyday.

37. The Abandoned Baobab: The Autobiography of a Senegalese Woman by Ken Bugul

Ken Bugul is the pseudonym of Mariétou M'Baye, a Senegalese author born in 1947. Apparently this memoir, which is translated from the French, caused a stir when it was first published in the very early 80s due to her frankness about all aspects of her life - including her sex life, drug use and prostitution. The memoir basically tells the story of Bugul's life in Africa up to when she leaves to study in Belgium and her years in Europe. The narrative is not chronological, and the book begins with Ken's 'prehistory' reminiscent of traditional African storytelling. The afterward calls the book an autobiographical novel which suggests some of the material is fiction, but truth can still be found in inexactitude, so this didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. This is a story of a young woman's search for identity - a young, bright, colonized, black African woman's story. Her struggle is painful to 'watch' as she suffers and stumbles quite a bit before she comes to an understanding of her place in the world. Her observations of the progressive European mindset at that time (late 60s, early 70s) are very interesting. This is a very good book, enlightening.

I'm only 25 pages into Sorry by Gail Jones but I'm already thinking it's a beauty. The prose is wonderful.

Oh, I agree, amanda! I will have to check to see if she writes poetry . . .

38. Socialism is Great!: A Worker's Memoir of the New China by Lijia Zhang.

I heard Lijia Zhang being interviewed on my local NPR station. Here's the interview if you're interested. Her memoir is about growing up in China in the 1980s after the death of Mao and as China was just beginning to open up to the outside. Her family's poverty forced her to leave school early and go to work in a factory, inheriting a position there from her mother who then found another job. But Lijia was ambitious and had dreams of another life outside the factory. I think it's her spunk and honesty that makes her story so compelling. She chronicles her ups and downs, particularly all her relationships (most of them naive, all of them on the sly) and her persistence about learning English. A terrific read that confirms we are all fundamentally more alike than we are different. Oh, she loved Jane Eyre.

Another great rec Lois - thank you! I hadn't heard of this book, but sounds like I need to add it to my library.

Oh, my, this will have my wish list toppling, but I can't pass it up, avaland! Thanks, again, for a great rec.

39. Plain & Ugly JanesThe Rise of the Ugly Woman in Contemporary American Literature by Charlotte Wright (literary criticism) Trying to sync this list with the one on my profile page. It seems this is the only glitch: I failed to log this book here.


40. The Birth House by Ami McKay

Each year I comb through the extensive longlist for the Impac Dublin prize. Usually there are over 100 titles longlisted, but if you go into the library list and look at what each individual library nominated it can be very interesting. Generally speaking, the books that get nominated multiple times are usually guaranteed good reads. For example, a couple of years ago I noticed the multiple nominations for several titles by the various Australian libraries (each library can nominate 3 titles). The White Earth and Sixty Lights, two terrific Australian novels were discovered this way. This past year, I noticed The Birth House nominated by more than one Canadian library, so I had to have it.

The Birth House is story about a young midwife in a small coastal community (Scots Bay) in Nova Scotia during the years of the Great War. McKay does a great job creating this community and peopling it - one feels comfy there fairly quickly (at least I did). The Birth House is a story about women, particularly about women's reproductive health and choice; and about the community of women. I found the story compelling, despite a few things I thought not quite credible.

This novel brings to mind Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's nonfiction presentation of the diary of Maine midwife Martha Ballard (a fave of mine); it also, at moments, made me think of Anne of Green Gables which is set chronologically just prior to this and in nearby Prince Edward Island. It is not to be really compared with AoGG, it just came to mind at times. And the small part of the book set in Boston correlates nicely with the Dennis Lehane historical fiction read a few weeks ago; it is set during the same time period (they both use the same Babe-Ruth-piano-into-the-pond story...which some of us who live in the area get a bit tired of hearing).

A very good story, probably not quite prize-winning quality, but comfortable, thoughtful and engaging.

41. Children of the New World : A Novel of the Algerian War by Assia Djebar

This is Djebar's third book, published originally in 1962, apparently only translated into English in 2005. It's an extraordinary book for a twenty-six year old author.

In this novel she profiles nine people - 4 women and 4 men and sandwiched between them, the local police officer (who is indeed in a tough spot). As best I can tell with all the background bits, the story centers on one day in the life of these Algerians in 1957 during the Algerian War for independence. All of the characters are interconnected and many cross paths on this day. I found this story of people caught up in war riveting and the lack of 'heroes' or 'heroines' intriguing. One of the most riveting scenes was when a traditional wife decides to take action by walking alone in public across town to her husband's shop to warn him (this is NEVER done by any respectable woman, even veiled). I held my breath as I went with her. I think the people of this book will linger in my mind for some time to come.

42. Mosquito by Roma Tearne

This is a beautifully written first novel, a story of love and war. Still grieving after the death of his wife, Theo leaves the comfort of London for his native home in Sri Lanka. It is there he meets a talented and extraordinarily perceptive young woman, a budding artist, whose talent he encourages. Under the watchful eye of his servant and friend, Sugi; and as tensions between the Army and the Tamil rebels intensify locally, Theo falls in love. And then all hell breaks loose (sorry, no spoilers here)! The book explores friendship, psychological survival, the devastation of war and the enduring power of love.

According to the publisher, Roma Tearne is donating a portion of her proceeds to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, a human rights organization that exists to enable survivors of torture and organized violence to engage in a healing process to assert their own human dignity and worth.

43. Taylor Five by Ann Halam aka Gwyneth Jones

This young adult novel is set in the fictional state of Kandar in Borneo. Taylor, her brother and her scientist parents live at a wildlife refuge for orangutans. Taylor is also one of five cloned humans in the world, she a clone of a family friend, a brilliant scientist who works for the same parent company as her parents. Up until recently Taylor has taken this information fairly well, but now she's plagued with doubts and self-loathing. When rebels in the area's civil war attack the refuge, Taylor and brother must flee into the jungle and fend for themselves - and they are accompanied by an older orangutan, the refuge's mascot named 'uncle'. Though action-packed this novel still manages to probe questions of self-identity and teach some environmental lessons (not to mention the science behind invitro fertilization and cloning. I would've loved a book like this when I was twelve!

44. Voices by Arnaldur Indridason (no touchstone!)

This is another excellent mystery novel and police procedural (the 3rd) from Icelandic author Indridason. Set in Reykajavik, this story examines the murder of a former child star now doorman and part-time Santa Claus at a local hotel. Everyone it seems, has secrets:-) As with many mystery series, one enjoys a quick introduction to the repeating main characters and a slow unraveling of their lives over multiple books. These are not for everyone; they are bleak and subdued (almost like a heavy weight hangs over everything); dialog is spare, and the main character, Erlandur, is wonderfully gloomy (oh dear, my enthusiasm is showing!); but it also affords an interesting window into Iceland. They are far more cerebral than guns & bluster, just the way I like them.

His first book, Jar City, has been made into a movie in Icelandic with subtitles. I thought it quite good and it kept to the book well (although it had been a while since I had read it). I think seeing Erlandur really digging into his dinner of sheep's head was the high point . . .just kiddin')

45. The Anatomy Theater by Nadine Sabra Meyer

This is excellent poetry. It is also one of the most unusual poetry collections I have read. It begins with the biological: graphic poems about the human body. The body being dissected in a Victorian anatomy theater, for instance. Or pieces written in response to various anatomical paintings and illustrations. The imagery is startling, sometimes gruesome in its frankness, but fascinating.

And there is an interesting effect on the reader when the poems in the collection move from the biological to the aesthetic (the later part of the collection) . She responds to the body in art, such as, one of Klimt's unfinished works.

I kept looking at this collection every time I went into the bookstore until I finally bought it. When I started it, I thought I wouldn't like it, wouldn't finish it. But I have and I do. Her use of language and imagery is impressive. Some of it is just brilliant.

Best bathroom book ever: Flash Fiction Forward : 80 Very Short Stories. Found it at a library sale this weekend. The stories, many by notable authors, are from a page to 2 1/2 pages long.

#88: I finally got to read The Outcast over the weekend and it was wonderful! I felt so much for the characters of Lewis and Kit. Thank you for recommending it, avaland. A truly good book.

You're welcome! (but I must give credit to the Orange Prize longlist, because that's where I found it).

>121 avaland: - makes me think of Being Dead by Jim Crace, which narrates the physical decay (amongst other things) of a murdered couple. Everyman by Philip Roth has the same level of discomfort, but it describes the physical decline of a dying man.

Has Dr Gunther von Hagens reached the States? He uses (donated) bodies to make anatomical sculptures.

If he is the guy that plastizes the bodies, then yes, there was a big exhibition at the Boston Science Museum (which we didn't get to).

I'm not a terribly squeamish person generally, but yes, I did find this discomforting (more than a few whinces during my readings). Yet, the more I read it, the more I admire it.

The Body World exhibit just left Milwaukee. It was the most attended exhibit in our museum's history. My husband went, but I would not go...

46. Leaving Yuba City by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Unlike reading a novel where I move clearly in a linear fashion through the book, I tend to meander through a poetry collection. So sometimes it is difficult to tell if I have 'finished' the book or not.

This collection published about ten years is by the author of Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Arranged Marriage...etc. It contains poems about India, about the Indian experience in America, poems about women, and poems based on paintings, photographs and Indian films.

No matter what the subject matter, these poems have a quiet or subdued voice which has an effect like someone coming put a blanket around your shoulders while you are reading. Divakaruni's images often flow effortlessly into a narrative - clearly she has things to show and tell you.

an excerpt from Two Women Outside a Circus, Pushkar

Faces pressed to the green stakes
of the circus fence, two village women
crouch low in the cloudy evening with their babies,
breathing in the odors of the beasts
painted on the canvas above:
great black snakes with ruby eyes,
tigers with stars sewn into their skins.
Beyond, a tent translucent with sudden light,
bits of exotic sound: gunshots, growls,
a woman's raucous laugh.

An excerpt from The Makers of Chili Paste
...
We are not like the others in the village below,
glancing bright black at men
when they go to the well for water.
Our red hands burn like lanterns
through our solitary nights.
...
Those are rather random excerpts from just two of the poems I liked.

47. The Hiding Place by Tezza Azzopardi

This is a excellent story of a Maltese immigrant family living in Wales in the 1960s. It is story from the viewpoint of the youngest daughter, a rich narrative built around her memories and what she has been told. The story concentrates on about five years but includes background material and carries the story ahead to when the daughters reunite at their mother's funeral decades later. It's a grim book in subject matter - poverty in all its forms and expressions, corruption & its victimization, cruelty, despair - but in it also a sort of malformed love, a stunted sense of community, and humankind's amazing ability to survive.

I've read Azzopardi's second novel, Remember Me which was also very good, one of my favorites of a few years ago; this book is even better.

I really liked The Hiding Place although it was very grim. The writing was excellent. I have Azzopardi's second novel in the TBR book pile

Torontoc, I have the third here also (although amandameale was disappointed in it) Winterton Blue.

Wow, what a lot of great reading. Thanks for the thoughtful reviews, avaland.

48. Blueback by Tim Winton

This is technically a juvenile chapter book but it says on the cover "a fable for all ages". Blueback is a wonderful story about a boy, his mother and his best friend, a huge blue fish. It is also a story about being part of the land and sea around you. It's very moving.

The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason

The 4th of Indridason's Icelandic mysteries to be translated to English, this novel unravels the mystery of a man's skeleton found when a lake drains unexpectedly due to geological causes. There is a equally fascinating storyline running through the book about Icelandic students (those of a socialist persuasion) studying in Leipzig, Germany during the 1950s. I love these books; they are intelligent, credible police procedurals with convincing characters and an interesting (and different ) setting.

#120 above is his previous book.

OK, avaland, you have convinced me on the Indridason mysteries, so I am ordering them from BookCloseouts.com. The only one they do not have is The Draining Lake, so I will look elsewhere for it. They sound like books I am really going to enjoy. I'll let you know!

The Draining Lake is not officially out in the US until September and then only in hardcover. A newer one called "Arctic Chill" is coming out in the UK in September. I have been buying the paperbacks from the UK, but this last one I got off ABEbooks.

alcottacre, I am picky about my mysteries. I started working for police departments when I was 19 (communications) and stopped about 20 years later (just before starting at the bookstore). I rarely read American mysteries (although I will sometimes listen to them on audio) for obvious reasons, but I tend to enjoy mysteries set elsewhere (Japan, Europe, the UK, Sweden, China...now iceland). The only mystery authors I religiously follow at the moment are: PD James, Reginald Hill, Ian Rankin, and Indridason).

Curious about your experience with law enforcement there? Did you stay in communications or move to other areas of support? And, was this in New England or elsewhere?

From your comment, it seems you are picky about mysteries because you often don't find them accurate or true to life. Am I off the mark there?

>137 blackdogbooks: various states in New England and in California. No, other than some 'matron' duties on late shifts (frisking females before they were put in cells), I stayed with communications. The opportunity was there in the late 70s to move "up" but I wasn't interested then, and later when I had young children I really wasn't interested. Still, it is amazing what one observes (and we could ride sometimes, if we wanted to). Yes, you are on the mark. Even if one allows for a certain amount of conceit (like annual murders in small towns) in order to keep a series going, American mysteries are too filled with chases and guns (and no mention of paperwork). I can count on one hand the number of murders I have sent officers to. . . And don't get me started on thrillers and the imaginary action-packed lives of lawyers... :-)

Hi Avaland
I'm curious how you get the photos/covers of the book on your posting. Can you tell me how you do this?
Thanks.

I second that question by Whispers and I have to say that I love your reading selections. They are so varied and unique. Am I right in saying that you read alot of east Asian/Mid East lit(or at least by authors of the aforementioned descent)?

>140 TrishNYC: I actually read more African lit (with quite a bit of North African lit), some South Asian (India, Sri Lanka) these days. I had a big jaq of East Asian lit (China, Japan) in the past so read a bit less of there at the moment.

re: book covers. I used to do via the cumbersome way of uploading covers to photobucket, but christiguc gave me a shorter way:

1. Copy and paste this line of code somewhere where you can have it handy. Take out the spaces between all the brackets (I had to put them in so the code would show up for you).
2. Each time you want a book cover on a thread or your profile page, paste the line of code in. Delete the words IMAGE LOCATION.
3. Search for the book cover you want here on LT or elsewhere. Right click and choose "Copy image location". Paste that between the quote marks where you deleted the words.
4. The first numbers in the line of code - 200px - is the height of the cover and you can adjust that. I use 200 here, 180 or 160 on my profile page. The 10px is the margin between book covers, seems to be a nice spacing so I don't touch that.
5. If you want to make a row of book covers make sure there are no spaces between your lines of code.

I'm fond of looking at book covers and it breaks up the text nicely.

Thanks for taking the time to post the instructions. I appreciate it and will give it a try.

50. Incredible Good Fortune : Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin

I bought this book because it was Le Guin and one does develop a certain curiosity about the poetry of the authors one reads.

This is a wonderful collection - sometimes whimsical and playful, often musical, yet other poems more thoughtful and reflective. They are simple but not simplistic. Here are some of my favorites:

The Housewife

I will follow the meter man
and read the whirling dials
hidden on house by bushes,
O sweet Peter my meter man!
The dials go creepwhirling round an round.
Thrushes are chuckling under the bushes.
Here comes the postman walking his miles
round and round, over the ground,
brave Daily Bailey my maily man!

I will destroy the dials with you,
I will lose the letters with you,
Peter the Reader, Bailey-go-gaily,
only be true to me, only be true.

Nine Lines, August 9

The gold of evening is closing,
drawing in, tightening.
The light is losing. It is
a little frightening
how fast August goes.
Others have noticed this.
The cat on his concealed swotchblade toes
comes by, and what he says
is silent, but enlightening.

Talk Shows

In rush and gush of wordy juice
the torrents of our talking run,
I say to you, he says to them
the sap that swells the human stem.

Listen, listen: a lesser voice,
a whisper of the wind on stone
along the river's drouth-white bed,
the shadow the of the word unsaid.

A Request

Should my tongue be tied by stroke
listen to me as if I spoke

and said to you, "My dear, my friend,
stay here a while and take my hand;

my voice is hindered by this clot,
but silence says what I cannot,

and you can answer as you please
such undemanding words as these.

Or let our conversation be
a mute and patient amity,

sitting, all the words bygone,
like a stone beside a stone.

It takes a while to learn to talk
the long language of the rock."

50. Kelroy by Rebecca Rush

Kelroy was published in 1812 by an American woman author who we know very little about. Set in the upper echelons of Philadelphia society, it's the story of a beautiful, calculating widow who, having been left somewhat improverished by the death of her debt-ridden rich husband, takes the view that her two beautiful daughters will be her retirement plan, so to speak. She decides to invest what fortune she has left in her daughters and marry them off to wealthy young men all while carrying on the ruse that she is still a very wealthy woman and her daughters have an inheritance. Talk about controlling! Still, she's more than a two-dimensional villain. The daughters are very different, the eldest is more like her mother, the younger sweeter. Kelroy is not the best title for the book, imo; it would be like naming Pride & Prejudice "Darcy" - Kelroy is the name of the charming, moody and penniless poet that the younger daughter falls in love with. I'll say no more about the plot except there are some contrivances that are just a little too coincidental (not terribly unusual in 19th lit, I'd say). It's fascinating to compare upper class American society with that of England of the same time through the pictures we have of it in literature. Rush's prose can be a bit pretentious and she doesn't have the wit of Austen, of course, but still I found the book compelling and the ending somewhat unexpected.

Kelroy sounds very interesting, avaland. I'm adding it to my wishlist and will be looking for others in that series!

I love the Le Guin poems!

52. Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson

This was a popular novel throughout the entire 19th century, reprinted many times. It is touted as the first American bestseller; it's reign ending when Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. Set during the Revolutionary War, it is a tale of the young, naive & virtuous Charlotte Temple who is seduced by a young British soldier with the help of his friend and one of her teachers. Nearly all the characters are stereotypes created to tell this little melodramatic warning tale. However, as I read, the characters often made me think of other 19th century literary characters; for example, Charlotte kept bringing 'Little Nel' to mind. The narrator is intrusive, usually bookending a chapter or at least ending it and setting up the next. The whole book seemed almost like a staged production, which is the way I kept visualizing it.

All this said, it was delightful to read what 'everybody' was reading in the early 19th century here in the states. The introduction, which I read after reading the novel, is equally interesting, as are the notes on the author's life (her family were British loyalists and POWs in Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War).

avaland, you read the most amazing things. I learn of authors here I never would have encountered otherwise. I'm going on the hunt for the Indridason series. They sound fascinating.

As above - #147.
I'm adding and adding to my "must buy" list. And thanks for the poetry excerpts.

53. Measuring Time by Helon Habila

There is so much in this book, I'm not sure I will do it justice of any kind. It is a beautifully written book that mixes the modern novel form with traditional storytelling, it's narrative is rather melancholy. Set in the 1960s through the 1990s, it is the story of twin boys: Lamamo, who is strong and athletic, and Mamo who is sickly and studious. It is Mamo's point of view which eventually dominates. In it's telling the story of the twins; who are, by the way, aware that once they would have been seen as a bad omen and left in the jungle to die; the novel tells of Nigeria, even all of Africa.

Without giving too much away, the boys, so close growing up, go their separate ways as teens. Mamo, who suffers from sickle cell anemia, turns to study and becomes first a teacher, then a writer, and secretary to a local ruler. His writing career begins when, on request of a professor he had submitted a piece for a journal to, he is asked to write his own opinion of what good history writing is.

...as far as he was concerned a true history is one that looks at the lives of individuals, ordinary people who toil and dream and suffer, who bear the brunt of whatever vicissitude time inflicts on the nation. p. 180

This is exactly what this novel does.

#149: It is for reasons like this that you are now the 18th most similar library to mine on the weighted list. Looks like you're going to continue to climb. :)

#149 That is one of my favourite novels, Avaland, you have good taste!

As I mentioned on Cariola's thread, I am so jealous of the treasures that the two of you dig up, and now you have found another!

>150 Medellia: ah, but those lists are so fickle:-)
>151 cerievans1: I might have seen your comments on it somewhere, because it was a Nigerian author I wasn't aware of previously. I have added his first novel to my BM wish list (although I'm officially on vacation there until I get back from Australia)
>152 alcottacre: Just followin' my nose through the stacks, really.

Thanks, all.

ah, but those lists are so fickle:-)

True, but with half of your library on my wishlist, you may be here to stay. ;)

54. Transported by Tim Jones

I've not been much of a short fiction reader until this last couple of years. In saying that, I'm presenting a disclaimer of sorts, that I really don't know how to write about short fiction collections. . .

"Transported" is a collection of more than two dozen short stories by New Zealand author Tim Jones. I don't think there is one overarching theme as might be suggested by the title, but I come away from the whole collection with thoughts of human beings' relationships with each other and their relationship with the earth they live on.

The collection is more varied than most, ranging from thoughtful stories of human relationships, to clever and witty flirtations with the famous like Borges, Lenin and Gorbachev; to mythology, suspense, and science fiction. For me it was like trying to drive on a country back road when one has been driving in suburbs for too long; it takes a little getting used to the unexpected turns in the road, the bumps and ruts, the fallen trees and the narrow stretches. This is not a bad thing, for indeed, country roads offer their own pleasures.

Some of my favorite stories are: "Alarm" and "Robinson in Love", two stories about men in almost-relationships; "Cold Storage" a suspense story about a con-artist's last con (and maybe not!); "Morning on Volkov", an eerie science fiction tale about researchers monitoring the proto-life on an alien planet; and "Measureless to Man", a story about Coleridge and his muse (so to speak). There are bits of other stories which still linger and more than a few vivid images of the land called New Zealand. This is a fine collection of short fiction for the adventurous reader who enjoys getting off the neat, paved streets once in a while.

I will be out of the country for a few weeks and will hopefully be posting from 'away' (the thought of having hundreds of LT posts piling up is a little unnerving). I'm spending lots of time on planes and thus in airports, so I'm bringing a fair number of books with me (and they do have books where I'm going, so I'm told). When I get back I will need to buckle down and finish my project.

Have a wonderful trip avaland! Glad to hear that you are going somewhere that has books, lol.

55. Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead

This arc is a refugee from the bookstore days and turned up in a recently shuffled book pile. In this satiric novel, a unnamed 'nomenclature consultant', who job in corporate America is to name products, is called in to assist a town suffering an identity crisis. His clients are the three members of the town council, each with their own agenda, their own idea of what the town's name should be. It's witty, I chuckled my way through it, eager to discover what name the consultant would give the town (struggling through the process of exploring the town and it's history and letting the name come through along with the protagonist). Along the way the author skewers branding, corporate America, and other parts of our culture.

Where oh where do you find such interesting books?
I'm going to see if my local library has Apex Hides the Hurt

Oh my, I wish I had more time to read.

>whisper1, this one I found in the piles of arc sent to us at the bookstore (in my bookstore days). I'm sometimes attracted to odd stuff:-)

In looking over my reading log thus far, of the 54 books listed:

6 are by Australian/New Zealand authors
4 from Canada
10 from Africa
12 from the UK/Europe/Iceland
3 from Asia/South Asia
1 from the Caribbean
Roughly 15 - 20 are by US writers (depending how I count the books I use for research) About half of these are fiction, the other half poetry and nonfiction.

6 were written before 1900
6 were poetry collections
5 were short fiction collections
roughly 10 were nonfiction books (again, depending on how I count all my research)
Of the novels, a quick count finds 12 male authors, 25 female authors. The poetry is all female.

While I'm not into quantity of books read, I do like to assess my reading from time to time. My goals and my literary attractions tend to run together, as they have so far this year. I'm reading more literature from outside the US than within; I'm making a point of reading more female authors than men, I'm allowing myself to read more poetry and am exploring more short fiction. It's not a year to evaluate the nonfiction as I'm reading a lot for research. All in all, I'm pretty happy with my reading thus far.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my reading thus far. So are we. You come across the most interesting books!

>162 alcottacre: that made me laugh, alcottacre. I like to spend as much time out of the box as in. Everyone defines their 'box' differently.

I will hand it to Library Thing. The walls of my box have greatly expanded since I landed here!

I love the recap.

I might have to do that myself, although mine won't be as varied. Maybe that will force me to push on the sides of the box.

Have a great trip!

>165 alphaorder: well, like I said, everyone's box is different; said in a different way - everyone has different aims. Some seem to feel they need to read more generally. Or read differently. Read more nonfiction, read more translations, read more classics. I aim to read more from outside the US which hasn't been difficult because I've been attracted to it the last ten years or so. Last year, I started to read African literature and now, with every African novel I read, the continent unfolds a little more (it helps to have the two related classes to augment that attraction:-)

Well, the suitcases are packed and my carry-on has 8 books in it (most under 250 pages...) and is still underweight! That should cover the 23 hours on airplanes and the extra hours in airports.

I hope your trip is a safe one.

Have finished Olive Kitteridge, The Final Solution and am currently reading Buxton Spice. Will post on these when I am back from Australia and on my own comfy MAC:-)

Have a fantastic trip, Avaland!

Australia! I am so jealous . . .

Just finished a week in Sydney, off to Cairns tomorrow. . . pictures on the blog (they have the world's largest bats here!)

Finished Buxton Spice in North Queensland and just finished Heat and Dustby Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (we are in Alice Springs now). Will do comments on each when I get back to my home computers:-)

I think I will start Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara next.

Sounds like your trip is going well at least from a reading standpoint. Hope you and your hubby are enjoying yourselves!

thanks, alcottacre, we are but every now and again we have to take some time to 'chill'.

Finished Snakes and Earrings an all-to vivid account of a young girl's involvement in Japanese punk culture. Thankfully, it was short. The girl is mostly interested in getting a tattoo and splitting her tongue. . .

The girl is mostly interested in getting a tattoo and splitting her tongue. . .
All I can say to that is "Ouch!"

Yep. me too. Won't say how it turns out.

Finished The Hunting Gun a short novel by Yasushi Inoue which was very good. Will write more when I get back. Now reading The Magic Toyshop by a fave author - Angela Carter.

56. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

A short detective novel set in England near the end of WWII. It's clearly an homage (I don't want to give too much away), and a delightful one for some of us who are fond of that which he is paying homage to; but I thought the ending seemed a bit flat. Still, it was nice to visit an old friend.

We're back from Oz and will catch up eventually (I've got some sort of southern hemispheric flu)

57. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

A collection of fourteen stories set in the same community in Maine (mid-coast), each focusing on different families, residents or, in one case, former residents. The character who threads through the whole book tying it together is that of Olive Kitteridge, a "gracious, grey-haired, pleasantly large woman" who could be compassionate, stormy, clumsy, creative, decisive and sharp. I really enjoyed these stories; Strout does a great job creating credible characters and community. I admit I was a tiny bit disappointed not to find some resemblance of 'home' in it (it's set in my home state in the area my mother, brother and sister live).

58. Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara

Winner of the Akutagawa Prize in 2006 for best serious Japanese story published by a new or rising author, Snakes and Earrings provides a vivid and graphic window into a part of Japan's culture beyond stereotypes. It is the story set in Japan's punk subculture's rebellious youth - a subculture of tattoos, piercings, sex and violence. The young 19 year old protagonist has just hooked up with a new boyfriend and she's interested in acquiring a 'forked' tongue (split) like his. It's a subculture I wasn't terribly comfortable in and the novella was thankfully short. Still, it was an interesting peek into another part of Japanese culture.

Hi Avaland. I want to thank you for the description of Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead. Because of your post, I read this, and, like you, laughed along the way. It is a book I would not have heard about or read if not for you and LT. So, thanks again!

Linda

You're welcome, Linda. I think I heard an interview with the author on NPR around the time the book came out - which might have inspired a dig through the store's arc's to find it. Ah! Miss those days!

59. The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue

A unusual poem in a hunting magazine prompts a reader to share several letters written to him with the poet. The letters are by three women each of whom have been affected by the same love affair (the lover, her daughter, and the wife). Interesting picture of upper middle class post-WWII Japan.

60. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter

I once read that Angela Carter's novels never quite succeed as mere novels and sometimes I might be inclined to agree; however, she is so brilliant otherwise it makes up for any flaws in the novels, imo. I love her delicious prose, which in others' hands might glow purple, but in hers is sheer delight. It makes me smile (even in all it's gothic horror).

This is a short, gothic, coming-of-age tale of three orphans sent to live with their eccentric puppet-making uncle and his family after their parents' death. It's not a children's story by any means. It's Carter's second novel, I believe, and not without flaws but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Carter died at the age of 52 and one can only imagine what fabulous further works she would have created had she lived longer. I love this woman.

61. Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
This book tells the story of two women in India. First, in 1920, the bored and spoiled English colonial wife and second, her step-granddaughter who is drawn to India because of the letters left behind. The book is very evocative and has an acute sense of place - all heat and dust - and the story is compelling. I will definitely look for some of Jhabvala's other books.


62. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

Other readers have been bugging me to read this author for years now and I finally got around to it! This is the first in the Kurt Wallander detective series, a excellent police procedural set in Sweden. I love that Mankell finds a way to include the boring paperwork, the constant spinning-of-wheels, and the time that goes by trying to solve a case - much more in tune with reality. Wallander's personal life has taken a downturn and he struggles with it during the course of the novel. I've mooched the second book in the series.

I'm glad you liked Wallander! It took me a while to get to them, too, but I'm just on my second one now (The Dogs of Riga (unlike you I'm not disciplined to seek them out in order!!))

Sounds like you enjoyed Australia, too. My boyfriend is from Queensland, and I loved it when I went for the first time last year.

63. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

This is a satirical, post-apocalyptic and dystopian story that tells the story of Jimmy aka Snowmen and how the world as he knew it ended. This is my second reading of this terrific novel. Atwood is brilliant. The book will not be for everyone (I find a lot of people don't 'get' satire).

Hi avaland. You've just reminded me that Oryx and Crake is on my TBR pile - I'm starting to feel a little swamped by this pile!

Hope you had a lovely time in Oz - it's a fantastic place (and I'm longing to go back). Have you read A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, or The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey?

Hi Avaland

I'm curious about book #60, the Magic Toyshop Can you take a minute to tell me a bit about your impressions?

And, I'm heading to the library this afternoon to check out Oryx and Crake. I finished The Penelopiad a few weeks ago.

I was trying to finish up O&C for the summer discussion on the Atwoodians group:-)

Whisper1, I'll fill in the comment on the Carter very shortly:-)
flissp, I have read both of those! (and so many more, so it was nice to see the actual landscape: from Sydney to the rainforest and Great Barrier Reef to the desert - wonderful!).

An "Atwoodians group" on LT? Thanks for letting me know.

64. Buxton Spice by Oonya Kempadoo

An interesting coming-of-age novel set in Guyana in the 1970s. I'm not sure I warmed up entirely to any of the characters and I'm not sure this works as a bildungsroman - 'm not sure the protagonist makes it to adulthood in the book. But despite my disconnection and my technical beefs, the story was interesting as a vivid portrait of the very intense place that Guyana was during that era.


65. Love of Fat Men by Helen Dunmore.

I had read and enjoyed several of Dunmore's novels when I came across this paperback collection at a library sale. It stayed in the car for a few months as the 'emergency book' before I decided to take it with me to Oz.

This collection of short stories seem all to be set in Nordic countries. There is a reoccurring character named Ulli who, throughout various stories, is seen with family, friends or lovers. My favorite story - one I thought most powerful - was about a woman who in grieving over a miscarriage believes she has birthed a tiny, tinkerbell-sized daughter.

I really love the books you read. I love detective novels and I find that I tend to read mostly British mysteries. Just looking over your thread, I am getting so many ideas for other authors.

Thanks, Trish.


66. Wit's End by Karen Joy Fowler

Wit's End is a delightful read, made even more delightful if you are a mystery fan - particular of any of the authors that have written oodles of books and had many of them made into television dramas (i.e. Christie, James, George, Dexter...). 29 year old Rima death makes an extended visit to her famous Godmother in Santa Cruz (California) who is a notable mystery author. It is hoped that she might heal from several family tragedies while getting to know her godmother and the other people who inhabit or frequent Wit's End (the house's name!). Odd things happen and that's all I'm going to say. The book has a sly wit that I loved - I chuckled through the whole thing. It also has a fair amount of pop culture and political references which date it but also makes it all the more California-ish. I'm a Karen Joy Fowler fan and each of her books are very different. This one is delightfully playful, imo.

Hi avaland - just beginning to really get into this group and checking out the threads of other people who have commented on mine! Really like the sound of Apex Hides the Hurt (#158) - will look out for that. I read The Intuitionist a long time ago and quite enjoyed it.

Hi FlossieT
And welcome to the group. I read Apex Hides the Hurt after Avaland's post re. this book. It is worth the read.

I now have Wit's End on hold at my local library thanks to your recommendation, avaland. The people at the library think I am nuts for the number of holds I have, but, oh well!

Well, see what you think of it. It seems reviews pretty tepid except for MegWaiteClayton and mine. Still, maybe I was just in the right 'mood' (I've been sick, so anything much 'deeper' wouldn't have been possible).

hi Avaland

I hope you feel better .... soon!

Thanks, but I'm not feeling so bad now and am operating somewhat normally but this virus just keeps dragging on...it obviously wasn't an ordinary cold. My husband has had it (got it about a week and a half behind me) and has been home all week also. We make quite a team (although he sounds waaaaay worse than me these days).

67. The Journey Home by Olaf Olafsson

Disa has been running a small hotel in the English countryside for decades but time constraints prompt her to make a long-overdue trip back to her native Iceland. The whole process unleashes a whirlwind of memories she has long kept behind her. Disa has made her mistakes in life and suffered losses like all of us have; and she seems determined to work through it all now. I found the story compelling, some of the writing beautifully done (Olafsson translated his own book apparently or rewrote it in English) and the glimpses into life in Iceland before and during WWII is fascinating (generally, I thought the novel excellent). Disa is not always a sympathetic character but one comes to know and respect her over the course of the novel. Borrowing an adjective from one of the book blurbs, the book is 'soulful' without being depressing.

#200: Wow! Sounds like you have found another winner - and yes, I added it to my massive (and growing) TBR mountain. Thanks for another great recommendation!

Seeing your reference to Henning Mankell identified an author a friend has recommended but couldn't remember the name (only that he was Scandinavian--which to a Finnish descendent is so very unhelpful!). So I'm off to find his work and also look for Apex Hides the Hurt. Thanks for some great referrals.

I like your desription of The Journey Home I've added it to my list.

68. Cry Wolf by Aileen La Tourette

Set in a post-apocalyptic world in a small utopian civilization which is deliberately not given a history, this tale is less of a straightforward story of what happened and why than a story about truth, lies and storytelling. I felt my expectations were set up for a straightforward tale of destruction and survival and the creation of a new, better civilization and I was a little disappointed that didn't turn out quite that way (although you do get the basics); however, it did provide me a few thoughtful moments around the ideas of religion, history, truth, lies, the power of story and more so all is not lost. It brings to mind Atwood's Oryx and Crake. Curie and her four companions are much in the same position as Snowman was with the Crakers - What do you tell them and how much? A worthy read, though I wasn't wowed by it.

69. Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work : Stories by Jason Brown

I came across this book in Publishers Weekly, I'd not heard of the author or even the publisher before. I'm always up for a story or stories set in my home state of Maine but I always approach them with a bit of skepticism.

Set in the fictional town of Vaughn (in Maine on the Kennebec River) - not all that far from the setting of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, these somewhat but not entirely bleak stories seem to explore the holes in people's lives, oftentimes told in the voice or point-of-view of a child or teen. There is something about the way his has captured the people and the area - the river, the woods, the ocean...etc; and also the weight of history in their lives that resonates with me in a way that Strout's book didn't. The stories are beautifully written and completely mesmerizing. I was even surprised to find myself breathless with suspense in a few of them (what was going to happen?!). Might not be for everyone, but this collection was a five star book for me.

oh Avaland.....you are so dangerous for me (I'm smiling.) I've added yet another to the tbr pile because of your wonderful recommendations. Thanks...I do appreciate it.
Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work sounds fascinating.

How I wish I had more time to read.....

oh Avaland.....you are so dangerous for me (I'm smiling.) I've added yet another to the tbr pile because of your wonderful recommendations. Thanks...I do appreciate it.
Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work sounds fascinating.

How I wish I had more time to read.....

Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work sounds delightful, but I thought that question was answered in Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil and Daniel Webster or some of Hawthorne's works long ago--just teasing! Sigh. My list just grows.

>208 Prop2gether: good thinking! they both are homage (of a kind) to a Cotton Mather sermon or piece of writing (the name of it escapes me).

whisper, I'm picturing you, metaphorically-speaking, in a place like this:

*photo removed.

It seems a dangerous to be! Frankly, I would not expect readers to like everything I like, especially when the stuff gets quirky like this. We all have our own psychologies, filters, moods and timing.

I got in 3 of Arnaldur Indridason's books today avaland and am starting on Jar City. I am anxious to see how I like them. Thanks again for the recommendation!

Dear Avaland...
You are a person after my own heart! Yes, I would be in a place where there are lots and lots of sweets. Books and candy..WOW. It doesn't get much better than that!

Cheers and thanks for your kindness.

Whoa, I am so impressed by your reading choices. They are so unique. I am just wondering do you get your books here in America or do you order them from abroad?

Avaland - thanks for your review on Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work. I'll definitely be adding it to my TBR pile :)

>213 TrishNYC: I get my books mostly here in the US, although I do buy from the Book Depository in the UK occasionally when something isn't available here.

When I'm looking for new books, I read the reviews in Publishers Weekly either in the library or online, an old habit from the bookstore days. The reviews are relatively short and slightly ahead of publication as they are meant for booksellers.

The book Cry Wolf came into my hands because I've been picking up Viragos when I see them at library sales for various LT friends who are rapid about them. This one looked interesting and I thought I'd read it first.

>211 alcottacre: That's exciting. I think the translator loosens up a bit over the course of several books but still, Erlandur is a man of few words. Also, if you have Netflix you might be able to find the movie of Jar City which I saw on TV (some arrangement with Comcast & International films now playing in the theaters). I thought the movie cast the characters perfectly; they look like ordinary people not Hollywood types.

>212 Whisper1: pssst. I think the sayings on the inside of the Dove chocolates have gotten better.

What I like about your reading picks, avaland, is that most are books and authors I've never heard of. Where do you find them?

>216 alaskabookworm: Oh, different places, I suppose. I'm not sure there's a formula to finding any of them, just what looks interesting.


70. The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill

An old painting of a Venetian carnival scene holds a mystery that is slowly revealed to both Oliver, who has come to visit his old professor in Cambridge, the owner of the picture; and to the reader. This was a delightful and wonderfully well-written 'ghost' story that kept me riveted for all 145 of its tiny pages.

oooh, that looks good.... I love Susan Hill, I love Cambridge, I love ghost stories. Christmas treats :-)

Ditto. Onto the big list it goes. Only I'm not sure I can hold out til Christmas.

It would make a lovely stocking stuffer, it's just the right size (about 4X7 inches).

avaland
I've added your recent book to my library. My tags are now noted TO BE READ -- located on avaland's list, located of alcottacres list, located on akeela's list, located on fourpawz2 list, etc. . In this way I can keep track of who recommened the books.

You have such a wonderful library!

Wow! I'm a tag. I am honored, whisper1 (btw, you can call me Lois, like in Lois Lane, easy to remember).

I love Whisper's idea and am going to purloin it if and when LT gets a wishlist feature. For now, I am only going to catalog books I actually own, but I think her concept is great!

I agree, it's a great idea. Going to have to keep better run of who recommended a book so that I can steal it too!

Thanks! You have made my day!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery--right? Downright copying is good as long as you give the source so others can do the same, so thanks for the idea. It really is terrific.

71. Everyday Life in Early America by David Freeman Hawke A vivid, easily digestible (and short) social history of 17th century American life. Good followup if you liked Mayflower by Philbrick.

I picked the book up ages ago because I enjoyed the subject matter and it came in handy for my research. There are other social histories in this series: The Expansion of Everyday Life 1860-1876 by Daniel Sutherland, and Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life 1876-1915 by Thomas J. Schlereth and at least one other if you're interested.

#228 avaland: Sounds like another good recommendation. I did enjoy Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, plus I just like reading about history, so I will probably look for the entire series. Thanks!

72. Cumulative reading from:
Fissures in the Rock: New England in the 17th century by Richard Archer
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fisher
Salem Witchcraft by Charles W. Upham
Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle

"Fissures" is basically refutes the idea that 17th century New England was a homogeneous Puritan culture. It focuses on differences and conflict.

'Albion's Seed" discusses four ways of British immigrants to America. I was most interested in the first and earliest (1629 - 1640) in New England and the adaptation of British culture to this frontier. I did find it fascinating how much of the original British culture made it all the way down to my generation. The ways of cooking and so on. Of course, a tiny bit of it will continue in my children but they are much more children of the world, I think (not part of my research but just a interesting tidbit).

"Home Life" does cover some of the 17th century but spends a lot of time in the 18th. Originally written in 1898, it's a detailed account of how early America lived. Did you know that for the first fifty years in America, the colonists had to clear the land using just hand tools? (the plow doesn't appear on the scene until the 1670s). The author not only tells you what they might have used for, say, illumination but also explains in detail how they would've used pine knots or made candles. My complaint with this book is that she drifts (maybe 'flows') from early 16th century into the 17th without clear delineation, so one doesn't have a clear idea exactly when everyone was using tallow...etc.

Salem Witchcraft is an edition of a book originally written in 1867. While I prefer a couple of the modern discussions of Salem (see book #36 from May), the Upham account is also interesting. I have the transcripts of the entire trials coming via interlibrary loan for next week I hope.

A few more days in the 17th, then I hope I can move back into the 18th (and read other parts of some of the same books!).

avaland - you really do have one of the most interesting book lists here on LT! The research that you're doing sounds so fascinating - especially the Salem Witch Trials transcripts! May I ask if you're working on an essay or a study? Or is it all for personal enrichment?

Well, thank you, fasciknitting. It's an extensive creative project involving six New England women of various time periods. The Salem-era woman happens to be my greatX10 grandmother. It's an attempt to revisit history and give voice to women. For each woman (and some of them are fictional) it is a mix of original poetry, epistolary pieces, or historical vignettes, and inclusion of existing literature or historical pieces.

Avaland, which witch : ) are you descended from? My kids are descended from Anne Martin - their father's family (Bailey) arrived in Mass. in 1640 and through generations moved up into NH and VT and ca 1840 into Quebec and now Ontario.

Mary Bradbury, who also connected through inter-family marriage to several other families of the accused (but not Martin, me thinks). Mary arrived as Mary Perkins in 1631. I know the Bailey name well, although often spelled Bayley; my home town in Maine was full of them (our part of the town) :-)

Do you mean Susanna Martin? (Ann Martin wrote the Sweet Valley books, didn't she?) Was she born a Bailey? I see mention of a few Baileys including the Rev. John Bailey, one of several clergymen John Proctor wrote to from prison to complain that Richard Carrier (son of accused Martha Carrier) had been tortured to make them confess. I picked up on the Bailey name because of the connection noted above.

Mary was the only person accused who neither confessed or was hung (spirited away by family and friends or 'allowed to escape' as she was sentenced to hang). There is so much more intrigue in the whole story than most people understand. I highly recommend In the Devil's Snare by historian Mary Beth Norton if your husband (or children if they are old enough to read it) is looking for a book to read on the subject.

Well, your husband and I, and yours and my children are most probably distantly (very, very) related as there was so much intermarriage in a smallish population. In fact, I have discovered I doubly descend from Mary as the grandson I descend from married his first cousin! btw, I think my neighbor told me she descends from Martin also.

avaland: As usual a list of books that is making me drool. (It's OK - I won't leave any of it in here.)

it's nice that you clean up after yourself, Ms. Meale.

Thanks for that information avaland - sorry to be so nosey in the first place :p I hope you're enjoying your research. I think when part of it revolves around a relative it must make it 100 times more interesting! Unfortunately, we haven't been unable to trace back my family line too far - it ends pretty much with my great-great grandparents, which were all in Texas. I'd love to know when my family arrived in this country and where they first settled. I'm jealous that you have so much of your genealogy mapped out!

ps. Ann M. Martin wrote the Baby-Sitters Club books... Sweet Valley was Francine Pascal.

I'm truly enjoying the posts regarding Salem witches, witch trials.
If you have not visited Salem, Mass. during Halloween and would like to see the town filled with very "interesting" people, I would recommend this experience.

I've visited The House of Seven Gables a number of times. I simply love American Literature and Concord, Lexington, Salem are such interesting places to visit.

>237 neverlistless: I wouldn't call you nosey, I'd call you interested! "Your people" probably got to the US in a variety of ways, eh? When you consider that if you go back five generations you have 32 ancestors (providing there was no intermarriage:-); 10 generations is over 1000! That's a lot of people!

I chose Mary for one of my six subjects because I had done some research into her some years ago. I really wanted to know what her life was like (not just names and dates). While at the Salisbury public library reading through the town history, I realized that Mary was just 1 out of 500+ female ancestors at that point in my ancestry. And I'm related equally to all of them. This could make someone (like me) really crazy. So, I decided I would focus on my motherline (mother to grandmother to greatgrandmother....etc in a single line). I haven't worked on it since I went back to school, the trail went cold in the late 1700s. . .

Whisper, House of the Seven Gables is one of the best things in Salem, imo. And the next time you're in Concord, let me know (I'm not far away)

How I envy that you live near Concord. To live in a space surrounded by that much history and that much American literature would be heaven for me.

I may have previously mentioned that after years of visiting your area on vacations, my daughter and son-in law lived in Waltham when my son in law obtain his masters in engineering at Tufts.

I fell in love with Lexington!

I'm distracted from reading by this! This is an area of wetlands just up the street from my house. The trees in the wet areas always turn color first. We don't hit peak color generally until mid-October so I have several more weeks of this.

how very beautiful!

Thanks!

I am so jealous! We do not get very many trees here in Texas that change like that. I so miss Pennsylvania at this time of the year.

Gorgeous! I'm really enjoying my drives to and from work right now, too - I can't wait to fully experience my first New England Autumn!!

#244 - autumn is the best time of year in New England, IMO. Hope it lives up to your expectations! Personally, I wish October would last for 3 months - or longer.

me too! It's my favorite month.

Now, I must return to the 17th century for the rest of the day.

Avaland, sorry it is Susanna Martin. It's been a long time since I was involved in the family research...
The Bailey my ex is descended from was a Richard Bailey who settled in Rowley, Mass. He also descends from a John Bayley/Bailey who left behind lots of descendents - can't remember which Mass. town he was in.
I think the Martin connection comes through his Peabody line - they joined up with the Bailey line in Quebec in the 1840's - she had the lovely name of Sophronia Stickney Peabody - the Stickneys being another early family from that area. The Peabody left NH ca 1800 and went to Quebec.
He also descends from the New England poetess Anne Bradstreet.
It's lovely here now too - I'm in Eastern Ontario and the leaves are just about at their peak.

re: Foliage Peak. I was told the same thing by Tiffin also in Ontario, east of Toronto (I think). I love this time of year. Families in New England are so intermarried in the 17th century, it's amazing!

dihiba
I smiled reading the name of "Sophronia Stickney Peabody." Now that is quite a moniker to live up to.

When visiting Concord, MA visiting The Old Manse and also studying Nathaniel Hawthorne, I grew to like his wife's name, which I believe was Sophia Peabody. I has a ring to it.

Here is a site regarding Sophia Peabody....

http://hawthorneinsalem.org/Life&Times/Family/Immediate/Introduction.html

>Whisper, I'll be in Concord next week. May or may not stop in at the Old Manse, but I need to see Orchard House again.

A Perfectly Good Family by Lionel Shriver

I canned this one at the halfway point. It's about three siblings fighting over their inheritance which they also have to share with a nonprofit. I didn't care for the characters at all but I kept going hoping I'd come to care for them. By the middle of the book I didn't life was too short and I didn't have the patience to see if they would redeem themselves in some way. There was so much disdain for the dead parents and so much judgment and criticism towards each other...bleh. But I see most everyone gave it a 3 to 5 star rating. If you've read it, please tell me what you thought of it.

#251 avaland: I have not read the book, but from your description it sounds like it needs to be retitled to "The Imperfectly Terrible Group of Strangers that Nobody Wants to Meet, Know, or Otherwise Come in Contact With".

>Whisper, I was in Salem yesterday just to do a little visual research at the so-called 'witch house' a.k.a the oldest house in Salem and the only house remaining in town that has a direct connection to the witch trials.

http://www.salemweb.com/witchhouse/

I didn't visit the other sites on this visit as I have seen them before (the memorial, House of the Seven Gables...etc) and it was meant to be a quick trip (it's about a 45-50 minute drive from home). I do have to get over to Concord next week for Orchard House but may not take the time to stop in at the Old Manse. There is also a little Hawthorne house out in the Western part of the state at Tanglewood in Lenox. He summered there (Melville was not far away - did you know I cleaned Melville's house once?)

>252 alcottacre: ha ha! yes. Well, they probably weren't as bad as my family;-)

ok Lois
NOW I am really, really envious. Your posts re. Salem brings back oh so many good, wonderful memories.

Have you ever visited Walden Pond? My first visit there was great, but I remember being a tad disappointed at the trailer park located across the street.

You cleaned Melville's house once! I have visited the 'witch house.' I have not heard of Orchard House, or if I did visit it I don't remember. Please tell me more.

Thanks so much for the information. I remember that Sophia Peabody and/or Nathaniel Hawthorne etched an inscription on one the glass windows in the Old Manse. Because glass was so expensive at that time and it was a property he was renting, I remember being a little disappointed at their lack of respect for the house.

Orchard House is the Alcott house. http://www.louisamayalcott.org/

Thanks for the information regarding the Alcott House. I will defintely visit that.

Have you visited this one?
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/index_home.shtml

or
Mark Twain's house?

These houses are next to each other in Hartford CT.

I found them fascinating!

BTY, it is neat to share information with someone who is so knowledgeable and likes New England! Thanks!

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/

Ugh..I need another cup of coffee. In the previous message I meant to write BTW (by the way) instead of BTY (I have no idea what BTY might stand for...
Bacon, Tomato Yam sandwich? (I'm smiling.)

Actually I think BTY stands for Back To You, doesn't it? Or did I just make that up? :-)

#252 - this made me LOL: I'm still avoiding Kevin, whatever my mother-in-law says about it!

I am vicariously enjoying all the New England discussion (and making notes in my TBR list!). My sister-in-law moved to Boston with her husband in August, but I've only ever spent about 10 days in the area, about 10 years ago - singing, and moving around an awful lot - we did 18 states in 21 days....

Looking at that picture of Orchard House makes me drool with envy. Gawd, how I would love to live in a house like that! (I comfort myself by saying that undoubtedly my little four room hovel is a lot (somewhat?) cheaper to heat.) *Sniff*

Here's some pictures I took in Concord today.

http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb243/avaland_photos/Concord/?action=view&amp...

Concord's about 8 miles away so I can bop over for a short visit most anytime. I went to see Abigail Alcott's gravesite (Marmee) and the Alcott house again. The house is remarkable because it has the original family furnishings. I would have liked to loiter another hour or so in Louisa's room but the tour would not have allowed it (security and all that). Silly me, I was so interested in getting a shot of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne's grave marker that I forgot to take a picture of Nathaniel's (very boring though, just a plain marker that says, 'Hawthorne' on it). Enjoy.

WOW! I cannot thank you enough for posting these photos. They are simply incredible. I visited author's ridge many times and seeing your pictures brings back so many wonderful memories. It looks like such a beautiful day in Concord today.

Yes, thank you, Avaland. How I wish I'd been there instead of here.... So close and yet so far....

OK, jealous does not even begin to cover what I am feeling! Thanks so much for sharing the pictures. I hope on my next trip up to PA I can make a stop in Concord. It looks truly lovely.

Thanks for sharing your pictures, avaland! The Sleepy Hollow Cemetery looks like my kind of place... and Orchard House, too! I went to the Orchard House's website and fell in love with Louisa's and May's chambers. *swoon*

I think I'm going to post in the All Things New England, New Hampshire thread about literary adventures in my area... there's bound to be one or two, right?

Oh, avaland. I loved Little Women and their various sequels dearly. I'm so thrilled to discover that Concord is only 17 miles from my sister-in-law in Boston!! Our 10-day break at an as-yet-undefined point next year (dictated almost certainly by when the flights are cheap!) looks like it might extend into a rather more lengthy stay.

Oh, avaland. I loved Little Women and their various sequels dearly. I'm so thrilled to discover that Concord is only 17 miles from my sister-in-law in Boston!! Our 10-day break at an as-yet-undefined point next year (dictated almost certainly by when the flights are cheap!) looks like it might extend into a rather more lengthy stay.

Thanks so much for posting those pics.

>265 neverlistless: Well, there's Robert Frost's house.... ( http://frostplace.org/ )
and just across the NH/ME line, there's Sarah Orne Jewett's house. http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/jewett.htm
If you like sculpture, drive west to Lebanon and take the road south to Cornish and St. Gauden's Nat'l Historic site. A fabulous place, very peaceful. http://www.sgnhs.org/ (I believe J. D. Salinger lives in the same town). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger

>267 FlossieT: It could make a lovely day trip out from the city:-)

73. To My Husband and Other Poems by Anne Bradstreet

This is a short collection of Bradstreet's poetry. Bradstreet (1612-1672) was an early colonist of New England settling eventually in Ipswich just north of Salem when it was still frontier. A volume of her poetry was published in England during her lifetime but not in America. I was looking for something in particular as I read through the volume, so it is perhaps unfair of me to comment on the collection as a whole. Despite the sometmes thick 'Puritan-speak', there are some real gems here, like these "Contemplations":

1.
Some time now past in the Autumnal Tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
Where gilded o're by his rich golden head.
Their leaves and fruits seem'd painted, but was true
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hew,
Rapt were my sences at this delectable view.

"The Prologue"
4.
I am obnoxious to each carping tonque
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poets pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they case on Female wits:
If what I do prove well, it won't advance,
They'l say it's stoln, or else it was by chance.

Lois - just a friendly reminder that you may want to start a new thread. :)

nah, for continuity, I'll keep this one going until the end of the year:-) What's another 70-100 messages!

Thanks for those links, ava! I'm definitely interested in all of them, but especially The Frost House. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be closing for the winter season soon (as in: Monday). I'm going to begin begging my boyfriend asap for a literary trip, though!

thanks again :)

Love the Bradstreet poems, thanks for sharing those!

>273 neverlistless: awww, call me Lois.
>274 marise: you're welcome, marise, see you in person real soon!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm trying to cut back a little on LT so as to concentrate better on my research. So, if I don't get to your individual threads it's not that I don't want to or am not tempted to. . . it's because I can spend many happy hours visiting and not what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't suppose I could get you all to stop posting for a few months so I don't get behind?

Hard to tell I'm trying to cut back when I'm starting new threads, eh? The three threads "What are We Reading..." is the result of my frustration with the What are You reading now? thread in the group by the same name. The group is so big and so varied these days, I find it hard to follow and respond in a timely manner. I thought it would be interesting to try similar threads here but a little more specific and with a smaller group.

But I'm not even in your group here, but I'm planning on contributing to those threads when I have something to contribute! :) Excellent ideas, Lois!

Cutting back on visiting time? Good luck!

Lois
YOu will be missed! And, good luck with your research!

Take care,
Linda

>278 Whisper1: oh, I'll be in and out, not too far away:-)

74. Chicago by Alaa Al Aswany

This novel centers around a University medical school in Chicago. It has a fairly large cast of characters most of whom, but not all, are professors or graduate students at the school who are Egyptian. Despite the US setting, the struggles in all of their lives seems to contribute to a discussion about Egypt which pervades the whole book. I got the sense that it was easier for the author to have this discussion in a setting outside of his country this time (as opposed to his Yacoubian Building which was set in Egypt). He does make some astute comments about America, imo, but also uses stereotypes if it suits his purpose. Beyond this stuff that I'm still mulling, the characters and their individual stories are compelling and I think some of their stories will stay with me a long time.

eta: just a note, it seems everyone's sex life is presented in the story as if something could be revealed about the individual through his/her sex life.

#276 avaland: I know what you mean about cutting back. I gave up the "What Are You Reading Now" group a month or so ago because I just could not keep up with that group and this one as well.

Hope the research goes well! Best of luck with it.

BTW - I was able to obtain a copy of In the Devil's Snare from my local library. I look forward to reading it.

Stasia

#279 avaland

What is Chicago about. There was no touchstone for me to check it out. I'm going to Chicago over Thanksgiving because our older son and his family live there. I love reading books about Chicago.

#276 & 280

I'm also finding myself overextended on all the threads I've been trying to keep up with--it cuts seriously into my reading time! This group, though, is where I'm getting the most ideas of new books and new authors I would like to try. So when I have just a little time to cruise the threads I head for the 75 challenges. It's the closest thing I have in my town to a "book store to browse in!"

I'm sorry I started so late this year that I haven't been able to investigate more than a handful of the challenge threads so far. Next year I will be in on the beginning and will be able to keep up better with you guys!

>281 MusicMom41: it's not much about Chicago, imo; it's really about Egypt. I think it was easier for the author to place his story outside of Egypt. Will post some comments above. My daughter is spending Thanksgiving in Chicago also!

Chicago is a happening for Thanksgiving. My son is coming down from college, my daughter from NYC, their dad from St. Louis, and me from Burbank, California. Two years running! I just hope for some slightly warmer weather than last year's!

Prop2gether: We are going to Chicago from Reedley, CA--near Fresno. Let's take them California sunshine! ;-)

Oh, I'm hoping! I was in Ripon (Wisconsin, not California or England) last weekend and it was just plain hot! Last year in Chicago, the wind about did us West Coasters in. So--I'm all in favor of warm in November.

>geesh, maybe there ought to be an LT meetup in Chicago that weekend.


77. Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah

This is Zanzibarian author Gurnah's first novel published in the late 1980s. It's a coming-of-age story set in a wretched seaport town in east Africa. We are powerless against a potent narrative that draws us into young Hassan's life, into the brutal poverty he and his family suffers, and into his struggle against it. A reprieve of sorts comes to him in the form of a summons from his wealthy uncle in Nairobi and we go along with Hassan as he encounters this other world. While not quite as sophisticated as his later books, in my opinion, this book is still mesmerizing and Gurnah's gifts are already apparent.

Lois, I'm heading for a week in hot, sticky Florida. How I wish I was going to cool, beautiful Mass.
instead.

I imagine it is simply lovely where you are this time of year.
Memory of Departure sounds fascinating. I've added it to the HUGE list of TBR...................

I'm taking books #60 and 69 from your list and hope to read them this coming week.

Thanks again for all your wonderful recommendations!

Ah, but I'm here in St. Louis, Missouri at the moment! The weather has been quite nice here over the last couple of days. I met up with LTer "marise" today and we went here:






This is "The Book House". The house is filled upstairs, downstairs and in the basement floor to ceiling with books. I believe all proceeds go to charities working with special needs kids.

I'm out here to visit my daughter. She stood us up to go to the Obama event with the other 99,999 people.

I attended a conference in St. Louis last summer. I didn't get the opportunity to see too much because I was workshop bound at the hotel. The students attending the conference with me did convince me to take a break and go to the arch. WOW, the "book house" looks neat! I would have prefered that....

Ok, time to confess...how many books did you buy?
And, did you have lots of fun doing so?

I may go to St. Louis just to visit the book house, load up my car, and come home again. What a great looking place and all in a good cause to boot!

Memory of Departure made Continent TBR. Thanks for another great recommendation, avaland.

I only bought 4, 2 of which are going to another LTer. I didn't want to weigh down my carry-on luggage any more than it already is. I left them down in the car, but one is an Esther Forbes.

>290 alcottacre: I think if you were going to start with a Gurnah novel, I'd recommend By the Sea (oh, touchstones not working again). Others might recommend Paradise to read first.

Are all the Gurnah books about Africa? I'm on an African reading kick right now that I expect to last into next year, so I may need to check him out.

I'll tell you what you're missing back in good ol' Massachusetts, Whisper and Avaland - 48 degrees, gray, cloudy skies and a freeeeeezing east wind right off the water. It's freaking 58 degrees in my house!

#291: Thanks avaland. I will start with his earlier works and go forward from there.

#292, #294, I recently read By the Sea, thanks to avaland, and loved it, so I'll be looking for more by Gurnah too. And MusicMom, if you're looking for African books, I highly recommend Ngugi wa Thiong'o, both the recent, satiric Wizard of the Crow and the older, more scathingly political Petals of Blood.

Thanks, rebeccanyc--I'll check those out!

Avaland, Thanks for the reviews on Apex Hides the Hurt, which I finished at high speed last night. It was fun, and, an intriguing look into both ethnic and business takes on marketing strategies. This is my daughter's field of interest, so I've passed the book on to her.

Sorry, I'm slow to get back in here after the trip. Yes, Gurnah is from Zanzibar, a part of Tanzania, although I believe he lives in the UK now. All of his books are about Africa, although By the Sea is set partially in the UK.

For those interested in African novels, HERE'S a link to the 100 Best African Books of the 20th century. If you pop the french titles in Google, usually you can get a translation for them. Not all are available in English. Favorites have been Emecheta, Mahfouz, Djebar, Dangarembga, Couto, Ngugi, el Saadawi (to name a few). It's a good list and the one I used to construct the independent study I did a year ago.

For more contemporary African writers I have enjoyed Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, both to the Adichie novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana, The Famished Road by Ben Okri. I have many more classic and contemporary African novels in the TBR pile.

Hey Avaland I see you were just in St Louis. My brother moved out there two years ago for Business School.

That house looks like my kind of paradise.

>299 TrishNYC: Trish, it seems like a nice city for young people. My daughter seems to like it. She's looking to rent a loft downtown. Is your brother at Washington University?

Yes, he was at Washington U and he just graduated in May. I have not been there yet but I hope to get down soon. As much a I dream of travelling the world, it woul be nice to see America cause there is alot of amazing stuff to see here.

78. Hope Leslie, or, Early Times in the Massachusetts by Catharine Maria Sedgwick.

Published in 1827, Hope Leslie is an historical fiction set in Massachusetts during the early years of the colony. It presents two heroines, imo, Hope Leslie, a thoughtful, charming and spirited colonist, and Magawisca, a noble, passionate and wise, young native American woman; both compelling and credible. The story is full of danger, intrigue, love, family and frontier - quite compelling if one has patience for the sometimes thick, antique prose and many digressions (which the narrator is only too willing to apologize for). The author was a contemporary of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper and aimed, as they did, to write a truly 'American' novel which showcased our landscapes, history and values but Sedgwick focused on women's lives. Her novel is more nuanced than her contemporaries, there is a lot she questions through her narrative. This novel is perhaps an underappreciated part of our literary heritage and a great read.

eta, I'm pretty sure I have read this before though it must have been ages ago.

Sounds like another great recommendation, avaland. On to Continent TBR it goes. Thanks!

ok Lois, I know that if I continue to check your posts and those of Stasia, my tbr pile will take until at least 2010 to finish.

Oh, the joy of it all. Thanks to both of you. I'm having such a great time!

I have an extra copy of the book if someone would like it. Picked it up at a library sale Saturday. First come, first served:-)

Hey, if no one else claims it, I will take it! One can never have too many books.

leave your address in a private message on my profile page and I'll send it out very soon!

Just added Hope Leslie to my "wish list." I think I can fit it into my American History category on next year's 999 challenge (I'm including both fiction & nonfiction in that category--unless I get so many I need two categories!) It sounds like it would be really fun to read and it would be interesting to read an historical novel written by an author who lived in a nearer, but for us still an historical era. (Did that sentence make sense?--Oh, well!)

>308 MusicMom41: a good choice for that category, musicmom41.



79. Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler

This novel is the 2nd book in a group of five 'Patternist' novels by Octavia Butler who wrote the five books in the series out of sequence. The first novel chronologically is Wild Seed and a good place to start. In that book, we are introduced to Doro, an immortal and, frankly, a parasite, who has been breeding throughout the centuries, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In Mind of My Mind he confronts a telepathic daughter who has developed into something special, something he has been waiting for, for a long time. Be careful what you wish for.

I'm not sure the book stands on its own very well - it is a complete story but, imo, the reader is better served by reading the whole series. I enjoy Butler's novels because she draws great characters and always has something to say about family, gender, race, and power.

#309 avaland: Could you give the order the books need to be read in please? I would be interested in reading them. Thanks!

#310 Butler disavowed the the third book of the five, and you will have some trouble finding it (Survivor is the title), but the four novels are combined in one book called Seed to Harvest, and the order of the individual books from start to finish is Wild Seed followed by Mind of My Mind followed by Clay's Ark followed by Patternmaster. So Survivor, if you can find it, should be read between Mind of My Mind and Clay's Ark. I enjoyed the series in its entirety, but have found that to be the case with Butler's multi-book series. When you finish, you have the whole picture she's been setting up. If you want to go a bit off-track with Butler, try The Fledging, a slightly off-kilter look at vampires.

Prop, I loved the Fledgling and, for that matter, all of her books. I happened to reread Mind of My Mind when my husband unearthed his copy while we were going through his books that had been in storage. I will miss her writing!

Prop has listed the chronology, the books were written in the following order: 1. Patternmaster ('76) 2. Mind of My Mind ('77) 3. Survivor ('78) 4. Wild Seed ('80) 5. Clay's Ark ('84). I suppose either way would be all right.

Thank you both for your help! I will look for them at my local library.

I'm a huge Octavia Butler fan, and recently was told by an LA librarian about how she would check out books by the pile and read everything she could.

Alcottacre, my experience with Butler's work is that you should read them in the "book" order, not the publication order. That's the recommendation for Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, and I've just found it cleaner and easier to do the story order.

Avaland, I, too, loved Fledgling and found it inventive in a sometimes tired genre (vampire novels) and entertaining. Glad to hear you loved it as well.

Well, my library was hit and miss on the 'Patternist' novels - it had books 2,3, and 5 only - so I went ahead and ordered Seed to Harvest today. My library also did not have Fledgling. but I think I will wait and see how I like the other books first. I thank you both for your help.

>314 Prop2gether: agree about the book's inventiveness. I don't generally read vampire novels of any kind, but I would've read anything she wrote. This tale and China Mieville neighborhood of vampires in The Scar are the extent of my vampire reading. Wasn't Doro a bit of a vampire for all intents and purposes?

80. Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Set in a poor, rural community on the Mississippi Gulf coast, this is an intimate tale of twin brothers whose lives diverge in the summer after high school graduation. There is such love and honesty in the telling of this story, balancing the despair and difficulties with hope, family and community. I was drawn in almost immediately by the boys - Joshua and Christophe - and the book never let me go. I'm still thinking about them! This is a very talented author's debut novel and I, for one, will be watching out for her future work.

I also wanted to add that I could not help thinking back to a book I read earlier this year also about two twin brothers who lives diverge as I read this book. That book was Measuring Time by Helon Habila.

eta to fix image

Sounds like another great find, avaland! I will definitely put it on Continent TBR - I think Measuring Time is already residing there.

Where the line bleeds sounds really interesting and sad. I just bought Octavia Butler's Fledgling last week. I kept seeing her work every time I logged on to bn.com or went to the store that I finally decided to give it a whirl. I have not read it yet, theres way too much on the TBR pile, but I like those kinds of stories so I think I will like this one.

Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag

Interesting essay about how we as a society view illness. Sontag uses TB/consumption and cancer, as examples. I read the 1978 edition so it did not include AIDS. Not exactly a bedtime book, but certainly a thoughtful essay.

82. When the Devil Holds a Candle by Karin Fossum

This is the second Fossum mystery I have read and I was disappointed, perhaps less because of the story and more because of my personal preferences. A beautiful, angelic-looking teenage boy has gone missing, though he is hardly the angelic boy that his mother insists he is. His best friend knows more than he's telling. So do others. It's a race between time and madness (hey! no spoilers here.) This is, for all intents and purposes, a psychological thriller not a police procedural, and it's clear I prefer the latter. While the story kept me reading (another book where I felt I had read it before), I was disappointed that the crime was not solved by the pavement-pounding, clever brilliance of the detectives on the case. Sigh.

#321: I like a little bit of everything, so I might give the Fossum book a try. About the only mysteries I really dislike are the ones spending a good portion of the book in a courtroom - I really hate reading through cross examinations, and redirects, etc.

83. Loom and Spindle, or, Life Among the Early Mill Girls by Harriet H. Robinson

Harriet Robinson began working the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1835 at the age of ten. This is her memoir of the years working as a 'mill girl' and what came after for her. It is a wonderfully detailed account that brings to life the community of working women in the early part of the 19th century.

Hi
You read such wonderful, wonderful books about New England...
Thanks for all your exciting posts that make me want to leave my computer desk and drive on up to Mass, CT, RI, Vermont and NH.

#323 avaland: It is a wonderfully detailed account that brings to life the community of working women in the early part of the 19th century.

I love books that just draw you in so much that you feel as if you are right there. Sounds like this one fits the bill! Thanks so much for another great reading suggestion.

I'm drooling over Loom and Spindle, or Life Among the Early Mill Girls. Onto the wishlist it goes.

#326 Fourpawz: How are you going to read it if it is all wet from you drooling over it? :)

>326 Fourpawz2: yeah, imagine listing that in the condition notes on BookMooch. "heavily drooled over thus some warping of cover and page edges but otherwise in readable condition - once you get the pages unstuck" :-)

I'm adding Loom and Spindle to the list.
I hope 2009 provides the opportunity to read all of thes wonderful, wonderful books that I've added.

#328 avaland: I have a feeling that BookMoochies would actually understand the drooled on condition of a book!

#327 alcottacre - heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee!!!!

84. The Early New England Cotton Manufacture by Carol Ware and
The Golden Threads: New England's Mill Girls and Magnates by Hannah Josephson (cumulative reading from both)

The Early New England Cotton Manufacture published in 1931 is a scholarly look at the beginnings of the cotton manufacture in the United States. It chronicles the rise of industrialization (and the factory system) in the country, it also foreshadows the corporate form of organization which would come to dominate the future. It's a bit more technical than I needed for my research but some of it was useful to understand what was going on in the very late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The Golden Threads is a very readable account of the cotton industry but from the perspective of the people involved. There is much on the early mill girls (which is what I'm researching), a fair amount taken from Loom and Spindle (see above). There is also some equally intriguing stuff about the magnates of the time, although I tried not to become too interested in it lest it distract me from my mission:-) The early story of the mills is quite fascinating because of how they set out to do it differently than the British were doing (if you read North and South by Gaskell, you'll know what I'm talking about. They had to do it differently because they didn't have the same kind of labor pools. Without rambling on and on, this is a good overall picture of the beginnings of the cotton manufacture and the people involve through to the end of the early idyllic decades.

Sounds like some very interesting research that you are pulling together, Lois. I think The Golden Threads is a book I would be interested in reading. Thanks for the recommendation.

Avaland--Guess what books I am going to be on the market for? And guess why? :) And yes, I know he won't be in it but I can pretend to be acquiring knowledge can't I?

Avaland, if you're interested in a novel that largely takes part in in the mills in 19th-century New England, try Unravelling by Elizabeth Graver.

>334 TrishNYC: now, don't tease. . .out with it now!

>335 Cariola: yes, I have fondled that book since it came out but never quite picked it up. There are a number of good books set in that period (i.e. Call the Darkness Light by Nancy Zaroulis). I have to stay away from contemporary fiction set in the eras of my research until I am done. I don't want to confuse fact and fiction, however, your reminder is good for I may indeed what to read it after I am done.

Noticing that you liked Ursula Le Guin's poetry and have read several post-apocalyptic books, have you ever read her Always Coming Home? Reads like an anthropological study of a future post-apocalyptic society, including their songs and poetry, and one of my favorites of her books.

ronincats, thanks for stopping by, and yes, I have most Le Guin - although any book of hers is worthy of a reread, imo. It has been a very long time!

Disquiet by Julia Leigh

Olivia arrives with her two children at her family home unexpectedly after a twelve-year absence and just as her brother and wife arrive at the same home from the hospital after the death of their baby. A well-crafted, mesmerizing and haunting novella or short novel of one family's sorrows, past and present.

Onto the pile for Disquiet then - sounds a good find. Thanks, avaland!

>340 FlossieT: ah, but it was a gift from the discerning and thoughtful amandameale:-)

Hi Lois...
I like your description of Disquiet. I'm adding it to the ever growing mound of TBR.

Sounds like another one I would enjoy as well. I will put Disquiet onto Continent TBR, which is now on the brink of a continental shift.

>343 alcottacre: literary plate tectonics and continental drift. . .I like it:-)

I admit I purloined the idea from Blackdogbooks . . .

yes, I remember seeing that! (both my daughters have geology degrees so i am used to conversation around the holiday table sometimes being about plate tectonics, erosion, minerals and igneous rock. They give me rocks for gifts!

#346 avaland: Rocks for gifts might not be such a bad deal - especially if the rocks are diamonds, lol.

My grandmother kept a rock for years that was her "potato" rock because it looked like a russet baking potato.

Here's my potato rock - the asteroid Eros...One of my spacecraft landed on it.

>279 avaland: - Hey, thanks for posting your thoughts on Chicago . This is on my TBR list & although it sounds like you weren't blown away by it, its nice to hear what you think.

ok, I simply have to pile on some comments to the rock conversations. Years ago, I met my ex husband in college in a geology class. I sat in the front of the class, he in the back. I was always on time; he was usually late.

Alas, while I thought he was a rare emerald, he really was slippery shale. He truly was a diamond in the rough; I simply grew tired of trying to bring out the brillance...
ah, it has been a long day so I'll stop right there.

Seriously though, my heritage is welsh and english. My ancestors were coal miners who immigrated to a small Pennsylvania town and named it Bangor (after the area they came from in Wales.) In Bangor PA, they mined slate instead of coal. The slag heaps are still visable lo these many years after the mines are closed. Many of the houses in that area still have beautiful slate roofs and, as a child, I remember that many of the sidewalks were composed of slate and not concrete.

Lois,
Today I finished reading The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill. I found this one on your list and added it to my tbr pile. Thanks for your post regarding this book. I enjoyed it!

whisper, honest to dog, I was just looking at Bangor, PA on a map - well, I was looking for something else and I noticed it because I'm a Mainer and we, of course, have a Bangor also. It's roughly in northeastern PA, isn't it? Jennifer Haigh writes about this area, I believe (i.e. Baker Towers)

>349 drneutron: Jim, my husband's a little bummed that the Spaceflight group isn't active. He loves the stuff. He's a scientist also (his undergrad degree is physics) and although he is not in the aerospace field, the company he works for does do work for NASA occasionally. Btw, did you see the pictures of the meteor in Alberta, Canada recently? Awesome! (and btw, we were thrilled to have a fabulous view of the milky way from the middle of the Australian desert this summer).

Yeah, I joined the Spaceflight group, but nothing's been happening. I did see the meteor pictures, truly cool! On cool winter nights, we get pretty decent viewing in my backyard, but still get some light pollution from Baltimore and DC. A local amateur astronomy group came over once and we got some fantastic views of Saturn and the Moon. I'd love to go out to the desert for viewing sometime - I bet it was awesome!

Hi Lois
What a small world! I have not visited Bangor Maine, but I simply love Maine. WE usually vacation in Princeton, which is far north (about a 12-13 hour drive from where we live in the Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, PA area.
I dream of moving to Maine when I retire, but I'm sure that vacationing there and living there in the winter are two different things.

If you want to get a sense of Bangor, PA, the best reference would be books by Adriana Trigiani. The Queen of the Big Time is set in Roseto, which is a small hamlet a few miles from Bangor. Still, to this day it is heavily populated by a wonderful Italian community. And, like the welsh and english in Bangor and Pen Argyl who named neighboring towns after the areas they previously inhabited before settling in the United States, the Italian community named their town from Roseto Italy.

>355 drneutron: It was awesome, albeit brief. We booked an activity that buses everyone out into the desert, and somewhere in the middle of wining and dining us, turns out all the lights so an amateur astronomer could point out the highlights of the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere. We probably were more interested than most for we were disappointed when soon the lights came back up and the wine began being poured again. Sigh.

>356 Whisper1: Very interesting!

86. The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville

A well-crafted historical fiction which tells the tale of the brilliant Daniel Rooke who, as a soldier and an astronomer, journeys to Australia with the first ships from England but becomes also a linguist when a 12 year old Aboriginal girl begins to teach him. Grenville deftly places the reader among them, as they both attempt to make sense of each others worlds.

I think my favorite Grenville novels will remain The Idea of Perfection and The Secret River but this was a great read.

87. The Rector and the Doctor's Family by Mrs. Oliphant

The back of the book suggests this is a book for lovers of Austen, Eliot and Trollope, but Oliphant has neither the wit of Austen nor the depth of Eliot. As an author, Mrs Oliphant is clearly her own woman, but that said, these two stories did bring Trollope's Barsetshire Chronicles and Gaskell's Cranford to mind. I believe this is the first book in Oliphant's 'Carlingford Chronicles', and, as the title suggests, features a story of the new rector come to town, and another of the young doctor's family - clearly one of the 19th century's most dysfunctional families. Although I found the mental laborings (gerbil wheels) of some of the characters amazingly tedious at times, the stories were enjoyable enough. I wonder why we haven't seen a BBC production of Carlingford?

Lois
With a title like book #87, I simply have to ask about your comments.

Please take a minute and share your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

Linda

>360 Whisper1: you are right on top of things!

duh...did I miss your review originally. Yikes! I must need a vacation! Thanks! And, my apologies.

Kate Grenville's books appear to be worth looking into. Thanks for the suggestions. On to Continent TBR they go!

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

It's the late 60s or early 70s and our nameless protagonist arrives in the Canadian wilderness with her three friends after receiving a report that her father is missing. It's a bit of a mystery, a bit of a nontraditional ghost story but a very internal book. The protagonist doesn't cope with life well and she's not someone you can cozy up to; in fact, I think I was most drawn to her when she was interacting with nature not people. While not my favorite Atwood, I found the book intriguing, sometimes odd, and it still lingers in my mind in a weird, itchy way.

This was a reread for me but I found I did not remember much of the story, so it might as well have been the first time around.

Lois, I'm glad you finished Surfacing. I must admit, I'm having a bit of a hard time finishing it again... I remember that I had the same reaction the first time I read it: it was hard to get into it, but I eventually got really interested in it. I hope that happens again!

What's funny is that I read it before, ages ago, but I remembered so little about it. The ending threw me again! Are you coming over to the Atwoodians to toss the novel around with us?

Have you recuperated from Thanksgiving yet? I certainly hope so :)

89. The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell

Two young men, dressed in expensive business suits, are found dead in a red rubber raft off the coast of Sweden. Thus begins an odyssey that will take detective Wallander out of the country to find answers to a mystery that is so much more than it seems at first. I was a bit disappointed in this book because the mystery turns into intrigue and it becomes much less of a police procedural than a thriller full of chase scenes, hide and seek, guns and secret passwords. If you like that sort of stuff, it's a great book but if you're a fan of the police procedural, you may be disappointed as I was.

>368 avaland: avaland, I hadn't thought about it in those terms (police procedural or not), but it's true that this is the Wallander mystery that I've enjoyed least so far (I put it down to my own inability to keep up with secret passwords, etc etc, and I know I switched off a bit). There's just something about Wallander as a character that I really like, though. I've been trying to read Kennedy's Brain for the last month, and I've come to the conclusion that for me at least Mankell without Wallander just doesn't work. I've got so far now that I may as well finish it (I keep forgetting to take anything else up to bed to replace it!) but it's very disappointing.

>369 rachbxl: I found myself starting to skim a bit in the last third of the book. Despite my attempts to pull myself out of Surfacing by reading the Mankell, I'm still a bit haunted by the book.

90. On the Overgrown Path by David Herter

The composer Janacek is stuck in a small village near the mountains when his train leaves without him. The villagers are very accommodating and he decides to make the best of his time by investigating some folk music he heard but strange and mysterious things begin to happen. Set in the early 1920s in Slovakia (I think), this delightful novella manages to still give the feeling of a folkloric wooded winter setting, with just a dash of Gothic. Janacek is an intriguing character to be placed in the middle of it (I skimmed the wikipedia entry on Janacek before I read the book as I know little of classical music).

The BBC can't afford to make the Chronicles of Carlingford - they have spent all their money adapting Wallender, with Kenneth Brannagh in the title role. It wasn't bad - will be interesting to compare to the Swedish adaptations which they are showing next week. (BBC4 has decided to show famous detectives adapted in their own country - this week was Maigret).

I would be happy if they even managed to adapt an Oliphant ghost story for Xmas (BBC has a history of ghost story adaptations at Xmas) - she is one of the best ghost story writers of the 19th century.

Now why can't we get those programs:-( This is probably why someone from the UK just mooched my copy of The Dogs of Riga. I hope the third book returns to the police procedural.

Michael and I have been going through the Rebus adaptations which aren't bad. It's interesting that in the series he isn't aging really and the books were done out of order.

So there has been no Oliphant adapted? I would think with the success of Gaskell's work (it's amazing the amount of readers who are not familiar with her work), they might tackle Oliphant.

avaland

Where did you find a copy of On the Overgrown Path? My Central California library catalog doesn't list it and on amazon the cheapest copy is over $40--they list 2 hard bounds and 1 paperback (over$100!) available. I would love to read that book.

Well, if your third Wallender is The White Lioness (some translations shift orders), it is indeed chock full of police procedure, but it's also as political as Dogs of Riga. The events occur in both South Africa and Sweden, so you get a bit of both countries' procedures. but it is a tighter plot than the second. It was the fourth that I had more trouble getting through, but I am enjoying the fifth (Sidetracked) in the series. I also read another Mankell set in Sweden called The Return of the Dancing Master which was strictly more muder mystery, but I found it slower. (Although one of the native-born detective was named Guiseppi!) What I really want to read is Mankell's children's books, because apparently they are very popular at home.

It does sound interesting. Our library only has it as a 2-LP recording. Unfortunately, I gave my turntable away years ago.

>374 MusicMom41: mmom, I actually bought this when it first became available. It was published by a UK publisher of mostly science fiction and fantasy (and everything in between) short fiction. I had read the author's first novel (SF) and enjoyed it, bought his 2nd (in the TBR pile) and then the novella came along. It is one of 500 signed, limited paperbacks, I'm afraid.

>375 Prop2gether: Good to know. I've put them on my BM wishlist, I'm in no hurry as I have an Asa Larsson mystery in the pile, a Reginald Hill on its way, and the new PD James on a list somewhere:-)

>376 TadAD: ah, but you want Herter's novella, not Janacek's music, yes? btw, vinyl is hot again, I'm told:-)

Off to leave a note on the author's website about doing a new printing...

Ah, brain blip on my part. I just searched on the title without looking at the author. My bad. Oh well...my library doesn't have it.

I have audiophile friends who assure me vinyl is making a comeback. Not for me, though. CD is good enough and much more convenient.

This is the problem with reading out of print, limited edition books; is it not?

The book is still listed on the publisher's website (UK), I assume it's still in print.
http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/acatalog/on_the_overgrown_path_pb.html

#374: Carolyn, I found several copies available on www.abebooks.com, so you might try there. You can narrow the search down by country if you prefer not to have the booked shipped from Europe.

91. Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning by Alice Walker (poetry)

This collection is date 1979, with most of the poems written during the 1970s. I didn't think I was going to like this collection when I started it, the poems in the first section, imo, were unremarkable. Beginning with the second section the poems really started to speak to me. I usually like a bit more music in my poetry but perhaps it is fitting that her poetry is relatively straightforward, her passion and griefs played out in the lines simply in kind of an organic cadence. Here are two short poems I liked a lot:

Moody

I am a moody woman
my temper as black as my brows
as sharp as my nails
as impartial as a flood
that is seeking, seeking, seeking
always
somewhere to stop.

Your Soul Shines

Your soul shines
like the sides of a fish.
My tears are salty
my grief is deep.
Come live in me again.
Each day I walk along the edges
of the tall rocks.

avaland, I've added On the Overgrown Path to my wishlist - and it sounds beautiful (and hard to get my hands on)! Thank you :)

Thanks for sharing the poems, avaland. Lovely.

>381 avaland:. Avaland, please give us an example of a musical poem - I am intrigued.

- TT

What beautiful poems. Thanks for sending this!

Thanks for sharing the poems. I have never read Alice Walker, but I will be looking for a book of her poems. I want more! (I love poetry.) and it just so happens I have a poetry category in my 999 challenge!

MusicMom, Alice Walker is a must-read for sure, although I haven't enjoyed her more recent work so much - she's got a bit more New Age-y nowadays than I personally feel entirely comfortable with. But if that's more your bag, you may well enjoy Now Is the Time To Open Your Heart (I would offer you my copy but someone mooched it off me not so long ago).

Her essays are very thought-provoking, and I've always appreciated her coining of "womanist".

Will find a 'musical' one and post. But here's another one for those of you who have husbands over a certain age:

The Bullfrogs
by Joyce Carol Oates

At dusk the bullfrogs begin
Singly & shyly at first
hidden in tall grasses at the edge
of our pond hidden in night
in the earth's moist bowels
what deep guttural calls
what somber reptilian lust
belly-croaks bulging eyes
pleas promises & demands
Love love love me only
me

And you others, men no longer young
gone slack in the gut, pouchy jowls
& hair thinning slantwise combed
over strange domes of heads---
What is this? what has happened?
Will you love me just the same?
Me only me only me?

Boys' eyes and clumsy groping hands
we grip. Well, yes.

Very sweet, so true.

Found (and ordered, of course) a copy of On the Overgrown Path from abebooks.com for $8.50!

I have a copy on the way from the same source. We are all going to have to get together and compare notes later on, lol.

For those who can afford to pay more, the publisher in the UK still has copies. Link in message #379. I think it's $15 plus shipping. I'm going to order the 2nd volume, The Luminous Depths.

92. Tenderness by Joyce Carol Oates (poetry)

comments to follow

93. The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell

This fifth in Mankell's "Kurt Wallander" series (my 3rd) is a superb and detailed police procedural surrounding two particularly appalling murders. Wallander is a moody and depressive man who sounds much older than his late 40-something years, but he is a talented, patient and thoughtful detective. Being inside his head for the 400+ pages of this novel as he unravels a particularly complex and conflicting case is pure delight. Along the way, we learn of the issues and difficulties plaguing crime-fighting in Sweden and elsewhere in the world and the psychology of both the criminals and those who make a career of catching them. The suspense builds very, very slowly in the book - deliciously so. This is the best Wallander novel of the three I have read thus far.

I have seen all kinds of wonderful comments through the various threads on Henning Mankell's books. I hope I get my book order in soon - it has several of his in it!

>395 alcottacre: They are probably not for everyone. But if someone likes Rankin or Indridason, they would probably like Mankell. Most of the action is cerebral:-)

>396 avaland: Avaland, I recently bought a couple of Rankin's title's. I have added a crime category for 2009 so I am goiing to read him then. Not sure if crime is my thing, but I am going to try it. Is Rankin into cerebral action as it sounds like I might quite enjoy that?

- TT

>397 TheTortoise: TheTortoise, well, I can't be sure you would like them. Rankin is gritty; he says he set out to show the Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sides of Edinburgh. Rebus is a good detective generally but isn't the best team player and often acts 'outside the box' - which always lands him in trouble with his superiors. He drinks way too heavily, doesn't take care of himself, and has a sucky personal life. He is divorced and currently single.

Wallander is more moody, depressive, more self-reflective than Rebus. He struggles to maintain his personal life, he mulls over it a lot. He is also divorced and currently single (as of this 5th book), though has a rather tentative relationship with someone he met in the 2nd book. He plays by the rules and works well with his team.

Indridason's Erlendur is also divorced and currently single with a love interest. He has a drug-addicted daughter and an estranged son. He's a good detective but not much of a talker but works well with his team of two. He's a loner who likes to read survival books. His private life has been sucky - and he's been a bit of a loser - but it's improving as he comes to term with things in his past.

These mysteries/ classic police procedurals are often referred to as 'dark', the tone of the books heavy; but I like them because they are truer to real police work than most American thrillers which rely too much on their magic wands (guns). I have worked for three police departments and associated with another 10 or so through communications work, so I'm picky.

>398 avaland: avaland: Weeell, you do not paint a very pretty picture but I will give Rankin a go - not sure what your American expression means: "a sucky personal life". Please elucidate. My guess is that it means "bad", but in what way?

- TT

>399 TheTortoise: No one adjective seemed to be suitable:-) For a number of reasons, unable to maintain good relationships generally, but especially with women. They do a bit better with their children, but it's a struggle. All three seem happiest when at work but at the same time they are unhappy...

Another one in this vein is Peter Robinson's series with Det. Alan Banks. Set in Yorkshire - not quite as gritty as Rankin's but vg. Best read in order, of course, as it follows Banks' personal life. Also divorced, has female problems, grown kids, stupid bosses, dumb co-workers, etc. He's very much into music, and Robinson does go on about that a bit....

Hey! I'm looking that one up (Peter Robinson series with Det. Alan Banks). I'm very much into music--it should be right up my alley! Thank for the suggestion, dihiba.

>401 dihiba: yes, Rankin is into music too. I had a co-worker in the bookstore who is a big Robinson fan. We hosted Robinson in the last year I was there.

*I'm currently staying at a hotel as refugee from the ice/rain storm. Not only did the ice cause the power outage, but the rain flooded the basement. The house is down to 44º now.

avaland

I hope you are able to get back into your house soon! And get the basement cleared--I also hope all your books are safe and dry!

Lois
I'm so sorry to hear about your rain flooded basement. I can relate. I previously owned a darling house, but each and every September the basement flooded. It was always a mess.

Good luck!

oh Lois, that is not fun, flooded and staying elsewhere...
I hope you can return soon and that there is not too much damage in your house!
Anita

The power is back on, the house warm, internet working:-) The basement is being dealt with - slowly and I've got food back in my refrigerator/freezer again. Life is slowly getting back to normal (there is still no school in town, some communities have just canceled school through the holidays). However, I am now REALLY behind in everything and it has cut into my reading time. wah!

Lois
I'm sure this is not something easy to deal with, especially during the holidays!

Take care
Linda

#407: Lois, I hope you recover completely soon to normality, if there is such a thing. Sorry to hear that you have had so much trouble lately. I hope you manage to have a good holiday season in spite of the difficulties!

Stasia

94. Delirium by Laura Restrepo

I set this book down earlier in the year for some reason or another, certainly no fault of the book's, but it did not take long to pick up the thread or threads once I resumed.

Delirium is set in the 1980s in Bogota, Colombia at perhaps a low point in the country's history. Aguilar, a laid-off professor of literature has returned from a trip to find Agustina, his young wife, in a hotel room, delirious. What followed is an unraveling of the mystery of her illness, told in the first person by many voices - Aguilar, Aunt Sofi, Midas McAllister and even Agustina herself. It is the story of corruption, family secrets and lies upon lies. Restrepo's story is compelling, her prose, as translated, beautiful at times. I'm not sure I know enough about Colombia to speculate whether the delirious Agustina is a symbolic stand-in for a country also in what might be considered at the time to be a kind of insanity. It's not a perfect novel, the ending is not quite as satisfying as one would hope but it is still a worthy and fascinating read. I will be looking for more of Retrepo's novels in the future.

Where do you find such interesting books!
I enjoy your reviews.

Avaland, I glad that you are finding time for reading--and back in your house. Have a wonderful Christmas and don't worry about what doesn't get done--just enjoy the holiday!

>411 Whisper1: thanks, whisper1. I don't think of them as reviews as much as just across-the-kitchen-table commentary.

>412 MusicMom41: thanks, musicmom, things are mostly back to normal except there is 'stuff' upstairs that was pulled out of the basement. It's been showing steady since Friday morning, so I'm baking, ready and doing a little cleaning. I think my daughter will spend much of her day in the Chicago airport with everyone else. . .

Finished Morrison's A Mercy, will write a little on it when I get my thoughts together. Otherwise, I hope to finish Rob Shearman's short fiction collection today, and I have started another Henning Mankell mystery (as nudged on the booknudger group).

>410 avaland: Lois, I'm glad Delirium came good in the end! I really enjoyed it earlier this year (I have absolutely no recollection of the ending, though, so can't say if I agree with you on that). I'm glad you felt the translation worked, too - I read it in Spanish and as I was reading it I was thinking that it was one I really wouldn't want to translate. You make an interesting point about Agustina possibly representing Colombia - will have to have a think about that; it hadn't occurred to me at all.

95. A Mercy by Toni Morrison

A Mercy is a beautifully written short novel about slavery of all kinds. To be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing (p. 167). It is also about some of the less celebrated underpinnings of our culture. I thought this novel with its wonderfully realized women, too short - but perhaps that is the best of compliments.

96. Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman

97. Firewall by Henning Mankell

Yet another superb police procedural. What else can I say?

98. The Situation by Jeff Vandermeer

If Franz Kafka and Terry Gilliam had collaborated on the television show "The Office" you might have something similar to this wry, often laugh-out-loud surreal novelette of an office 'situation'. Insects and other creatures on the low end of the food chain are as useful and common in this office as post-its and email. VanderMeer has created a delightfully bizarre world that ironically resembles our own. btw, my husband and I read this 'tag team' style - I read 5 - 8 pages, then he read them, until we got through the book. Great fun.

Comments for the rest coming, really.

</b>Great Christmas haul, Lois! Looking forward to the comments.

edit to attempt to close the tag... doesn't seem to work!!

</b>

There, closed for you

Thanks Flossie & Tad; I found the missing end close tag (interestingly it was on the third title) and fixed it.

Some great recent reading, Lois. I am adding both A Mercy and The Situation to Continent TBR. The only Toni Morrision I have attempted to read was The Bluest Eye and I just could not get into it. I will give her another shot.

re Toni Morrison

I loved! Song of Solomon when I read it several years ago. I bought Beloved but never got around to reading it--I guess I'd better dig it out for 2009. Then I can explore some of her others.

I've read Bluest Eye and Beloved but I should read more at some point.
Her writing is beautiful. A Mercy may start out somewhat confusing but it sorts itself out.

I was going to get A Mercy on audio, but Morrison is the reader, and I didn't care for the sample I heard. So I'll be waiting for it to come out in paperback (or for a swap copy). I've read a lot of her earlier works--Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Sula, The Bluest Eye, Beloved, and Paradise. I wasn't too crazy about the last listed, so I skipped Jazz and Love and anything else that came out in that period. But A Mercy sounds really good.

99. The Impostor by Damon Galgut

A depressed poet retires to his brother's cottage in the South African countryside to write but instead gets involved with a wealthy developer, an old school chum he fails to remember. The book's narrative starts out deceptively light (in fact, I was somewhat mystified by all the rave reviews at first), but deepens as our protagonist finds him sinking deeper into a moral quagmire. There's a lot here - about the individual, about South Africa, about race, history, lies, corruption, truth and honesty (and more!).

I have read the author's The Quarry and The Good Doctor, and this book seemed somewhat a departure from those, although it has been a number of years and I can't quite put my finger on why I think that.

I've managed to finish up everything I wanted to. I just have a few more reviews to write up before I move on into the new year.

Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Rob Shearman (short fiction)

A Pilgrim's Guide to Chaos in the Heartland by Jessica Goodfellow (poetry)

comments to follow (probably tomorrow)

Wow, it's quiet in here. Everyone must be off to their new homes. I see have some homework to do (reviews/comments) before I can call the year finished, eh?

My 2009 reading will be HERE

yes Lois
everone made it comfortable in their new 2009 place ;-)
You could close 2008, unless you really want to write the reviews/comments for later reference....
Anita