TadAD's 75 Book Challenge

I thought I'd give this a try. I wanted to use this as a push to myself to read more of a variety of books. So, I'm giving myself two challenges.

1) Read 75 new books between joining LT and the end of the year.
2) Read 75 new books by my LT anniversary of 22 Mar 2009, not including mystery, thriller, science fiction or fantasy.

1) Small Favor by Jim Butcher
2) Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong
3) From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
4) (1) Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by J. Maarten Troost
5) Cruel Zinc Melodies by Glen Cook
6) Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews
7) The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson
8) (2) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
9) (3) Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
10) (4) Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian
11) (5) Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome
12) Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
13) Valor's Trial by Tanya Huff
14) Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon
15) (6) A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
16) Something from the Nightside by Simon Green
17) (7) Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
18) The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
19) Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey
20) Already Dead by Charlie Huston
21) The Sultan's Seal by Jenny White
22) (8) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
23) Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
24) Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter
25) Valiant by Jack Campbell
26) (9) Connections by James Burke
27) The Mission Song by John le Carré
27) Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap into Vision by Stephen R. Donaldson
28) (10) Shane by Jack Schaefer
29) (11) In Hazard by Richard Hughes
30) (12) Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
31) (13) Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
32) (14) A Trip to the Beach by Melinda Blanchard
33) Halting State by Charles Stross
34) (15) The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester
35) Farthing by Jo Walton
36) The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith
37) The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
38) (16) Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
39) (17) The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup by Susan Orlean
40) (18) Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
41) The Broker by John Grisham
42) The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King
43) (19) El Imperio del Sol by Hugo Rojo (I can't make this one use the right touchstone.)
44) Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn
45) (20) Adventures with Purpose by Richard Bangs
46) (21) The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
47) No Dominion by Charlie Huston
48) Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston
49) Hit and Run by Lawrence Block
50) The Plutonium Blonde by Zakour and Ganem
51) (22) Peter Wicked: A Matty Graves Novel by Broos Campbell
52) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
53) (23) H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian
54) The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury
55) (24) The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
56) (25) Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
57) Superior Saturday by Garth Nix
58) (26) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
59) (27) Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip by Dayton Duncan
60) (28) War Chief of the Seminoles by May McNeer
61) (29) The Kitchen Madonna by Rumer Godden
62) Don't Say a Word by Barbara Freethy
63) (30) Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
64) (31) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
65) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
66) (32) Emma by Jane Austen
67) (33) The Dark Horse by Rumer Godden
68) (34) Jack Absolute by C. C. Humphreys

+ 11 re-read books.

Welcome TadAD

No, Tad, that is totally unfair! You SHOULD count the science fiction, mystery and thrillers just as much as any other book. Heck, if I cut those out, my book count would be more than decimated. By the way, after reading Three Men in a boat, you should now read Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog!

I have; I think it's one of the funnier books around, particularly if you've read Gaudy Night and Three Men In A Boat.

Maybe I'll do a separate count including those. I don't think 75 will be any kind of challenge if I include them in the total, though.

Mine too, but after reading the Jerome K. Jerome book, and re-reading TSNOTD, I picked up a lot of references throughout the whole book, not just the momentary sighting of them on the river, which really enhanced my enjoyment.

Besides, if you don't record and reflect on the science fiction you are reading, how am I going to know which new books to read? We share 311 books in common, so I can probably trust your taste! My thread is titled "Half-way Point of 2008: 87 and counting" in this group, if you are interested.

Welcome!

Jumps in defense of fantasy (don't read the other omitted categories, so will only speak for fantasy heh). Yes, by omitting them it gives the impression that they're 'fluff'. The fantasy I read is certainly not fluff! It's usually dense, strong, and just as powerful as other non-genre reads.

Include the fantasy! Include the fantasy! *forms a one woman rabble*

:)

I don't think you're reading what I'm writing. In no way did I say or imply that what you read (and what I clearly have been reading) is fluff.

I'm omitting them because I want to push myself back to reading more variety instead of almost solely science fiction, mystery, fantasy and thrillers.

Hm, I was just replying to the pre-edited version of the OP. :)

It just gave me a slightly different impression - didn't read anything in the first version about variety, just about how you read sci-fi, thrillers and mysteries for relaxation etc. (That was how I interpreted it, and since it's gone, I can't recheck it). So, hence, my thought that perhaps you thought they were fluffier than other things.

No offense meant, so I do hope none was taken. Ima just passionate about fantasy tis all.

*book hugs*

No problem and no offense. Those comments were actually in the later replies to ronincats. I figured it was just easier to move everything up to the top instead of having to read through the whole thread.

If you look at the amended list which has things I've read in the last couple months, you'll see that 75% of my reading is still genre.

Finished Connections by James Burke in a single sitting. While I don't agree with everything he states, it was fascinating!

You know, my to-read pile reached such stupid proportions lately that I decided on a strict(ish) system of alphabetising my reading. One fantasy from whatever letter I'm up to, then one Lit Fic from what letter I'm up to. Throw in a classic or a non-fiction if I feel like it. The letters move slower in fantasy due to the frequency of series and so on. I just found it a great way to ensure I read a mix of types, as I was getting truly overwhelmed! Suits pedantic lil me too.

I, too, read Pride and Prejudice lately, and the Kushiel's series is one of my favourites. How do you like the switch from Phedre to Imriel? It threw me a little, and I find most main characters hard to live up to Phedre, but still, it's Carey and it's in Phedre's world, with Phedre in it.

I would have preferred to stay with Phedre. Having said that, I think she accomplished the change of protagonist as well as anyone has ever done. There are a number of series where I've just stopped reading because my favorite characters are being retired.

I think the last book was weaker than the previous five. As I said in my review, it's probably just that I'm a bit tired of the "Oh look! Something else has happened to separate our lovers." and bit of irritation that she took Phedre and Joscelyn out of the action so artificially. At least the previous two had Phedre in it...this really didn't.

The real test will be where she goes now. She's stated that the books are moving many generations into the future and there will be no more stories with the folks we know. That will be a real test of my loyalty. She's a wonderful writer, perhaps she can convince me that this is OK.

Did you read the Godslayer/Banewreaker series? I really enjoyed it, so here's hoping for future efforts. Although, she really would need to create extremely memorable characters to carry on Phedre's world without her in it...

Generational fiction can be tricky...

I tried Godslayer and couldn't get into it. Given how much I liked the Kushiel series, it puzzled me. I've tentatively chalked it up to a I-wasn't-in-the-right-mood thing and put them aside to retry in the fall.

Just finished The Mission Song by John le Carré and was totally underwhelmed.

Several folks convinced me that I should continue reading Donaldson's Gap series...I had stopped after the first volume. So, I re-read The Real Story and then read Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap into Vision. While I don't, yet, agree that this is his best series, I can agree that it starts to pick up in the second volume and I'll go ahead and pick up the next one.

Read Shane by Jack Schaefer this morning.

Starting on The Broker by John Grisham (audio book for the commute) and Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost (for home).

I read Shane this year for the first time. What did you think? I really enjoyed the book a great deal. I was struck by the extra layers for each of the characters and how Shane affected their lives, which ran beneath the regular Western structure.

I put my comments in the Review section in the library for any books I've read since joining LT.

Just back from vacation and haven't entered them in my library yet, but finished:

In Hazard by Richard Hughes (disappointment), Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost (enjoyed), Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (mixed), A Trip to the Beach by Melinda Blanchard (good), Halting State by Charles Stross (good), The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester (bad), Farthing by Jo Walton (good), The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith (fine), The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (very good), Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks (fair), The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup by Susan Orlean (fair), Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (good), The Broker by John Grisham (OK).

Oh, and The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King (good) and El Imperio del Sol by Hugo Rojo (painful).

Hi TadAD

I find The Yiddish Policemen's Union posted frequently here on library thing. I've reserved this at my local libray and will pick it up tomorrow. Thanks for your note that it is very good.

Yep, I heartily agree - The Yiddish Policemen's Union was very good. Chabon also wrote another favorite of mine - Gentlemen of the Road. You might like it as well.

Thanks drneutron

I'll add Gentlemen of the Road to my list. So many books...so darn little time.

I've just ordered The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I'm definitely game to try some more Chabon.

Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn. A good sequel to the author's debut mystery.

Adventures with Purpose by Richard Bangs. Read this for Early Reviewers...OK, not great.

The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. An amusing memoir.

Finished off No Dominion by Charlie Huston and Hit and Run by Lawrence Block, both of which I had going and enjoyed. Also read Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston and enjoyed.

Just read A Separate Peace by John Knowles (not counted toward total because it's a re-read from high school). Though I see more value in it now than I did in 1974, I'm puzzled why this is so ubiquitous on high school reading lists. As a coming-of-age story, it's only going to resonate with a limited portion of the population and, if it doesn't, you're left with a somewhat boring story. Oh well, just my two cents—a lot of people seem to love it and I guess I'll go down in flames. :-)

50) The Plutonium Blonde by Zakour and Ganem. They didn't hit the mark on this one...humor a bit leaden, not much action, etc.

My reaction exactly on The Plutonium Blonde. "tried really hard to be clever, but a little too mechanical about it, didn't really care about the characters. Too comic-booky."

51) Peter Wicked: A Matty Graves Novel by Broos Campbell. An early reviewer copy that I felt duty-bound to finish but was, otherwise, a waste of time.

52) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Little Brother has gotten a lot of press. What did you think of it?

I'd recommend it, but not with the glowing reviews other seem to give. My review is in my library.

53) H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian

54) The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury - not recommended.

Hi
What was it that you didn't like about The Last Templar

Anything I read since joining LT has a review in my library.

I'll check this. Thanks

55) (24) The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - an excellent read

56) (25) Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad - another good one.

57) Superior Saturday by Garth Nix - cliffhanger...not like Nix to do this and I'm irritated.

58) (26) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows - a quite enjoyable novel...a feel good that hit the mark squarely.

Hi.
the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is on many lists and noted as a good/great book. I've been trying to get this from my library, but there is a long list. I've already spent my $ for books this month, so I'll wait. But, seeing you post reminded me that I need to move this to the tippy top of the tbr pile.

59) (27) Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip by Dayton Duncan - OK, but not as satisfying as other things Ken Burns has done.

60) (28) War Chief of the Seminoles by May McNeer - I try to read all the books my children have to read for school. This is a candidate for a biography book report. A bit romanticized, but gets the basic story of Osceola and the Seminole War out.

61) (29) The Kitchen Madonna by Rumer Godden - heartwarming without being sappy. Quite short...could be read to children.

I'm becoming quite the Godden fan. I first read In This House of Brede a number of years ago and, so far, have liked everything I've read of hers. I've picked up The Dark Horse at the same time in the second hand store and will give it a go soon.

I have one book by Rumer Godden The Diddakoi, I have read is long ago, don't remember details, only that I liked it ;-)

A limit to the amount of $ you can spend on books. Don't let anyone hear you saying that around here!?!?!?

Blackwells, the UK bookstore, is currently selling a book bag with a quote on the side that runs something like:

"If I have money, I buy books. If I find I have some left over, I buy food."

(I'll edit this when I manage to get the right words...)

Pretty much sums it up, doesn't it!

Message 52 and 53....

I've recently discovered this site
http://www.bookcloseouts.com/default.asp?N=0

It is very addictive. I've ordered four separate shipments in the last month. There was a huge sale in August -- hardcover books for $1.00.
Oh my!

>47 Whisper1: and 52 Whisper1 and blackdogbooks
not a limit in $, but a budget in € ;-)

62) Don't Say a Word by Barbara Freethy - a fairly generic suspense novel.

For some reason, I was under the impression that Rumer Godden wrote children's books exclusively. I will have to look for some of her 'grown up' books. Let us know what you think of The Dark Horse.

I certainly shall. If you're looking for her adult books, In This House of Brede is perhaps her most famous. I can't speak to it being her best (though I enjoyed it a lot) as I've only read it, An Episode of Sparrows and The Kitchen Madonna.

63) (30) Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - a very enjoyable book. I can see why folks say it's like Dumas...though I don't agree.

64) (31) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett - I had trouble finishing it due to boredom. As perverse as it sounds, however, I think that was part of the point and am quite glad to have finally read it.

With re-reads, that makes 75 in 5 months. Unfortunately, the goal I set myself was 75 new works...so 11 to go. :-)

whispering "congratulations" I will shout it after the next 11 books ;-)

65) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - I enjoyed this thoroughly. While I caught many of the literary allusions (convenient that Godot was the last book read, hey?), I'm sure I missed many more. Perhaps re-read in a few years to see what else I can see.

I read Kingfishers Catch Fire by Rumer Godden a while ago - saw it in a second-hand shop and was curious, as I hadn't realised either that she wrote for adults as well. It was a gentle read, with several vivid characters who have stayed with me. I read The Greengage Summer in my late teens - I don't know what I would think now, but I loved it back then.

I'm waiting for an annotated edition--surely someone has to do one sometime!! I know there are so many allusions that I've completely missed, but this series is a really fun read.

66) (32) Emma by Jane Austen - a very funny book!

Was this your first Austen and/or first read of Emma? I jsut finished and the answer for me would be yest to both. Any more thoughts on the book?

It was my second Austen, my first read of Emma. Here's what I wrote in my library:

Jane Austen's humorous portrayal of a spoiled, but likeable, young woman whose ill-considered interferences in the romantic lives of her social circle is delightfully funny. Much less serious than Pride and Prejudice, Emma is full of charming wit as the author pokes fun at all and sundry of her characters. I found the ever-fretting Mr. Woodhouse to be one of the funniest characters I've ever encountered in literature, the voluble Miss Bates quite comic, and the captious Mrs. Elton the pretentious bore I love to despise.

In one sense, the novel is a fairly predictable series of romantic confusions and misconceptions…reminding me of a comedy from Shakespeare or Sheridan. Emma has such a high opinion of her own infallibility and matchmaking ability, and yet is so patently bad at it, that the reader can always see the next pitfall as she blunders along. However, the charm and humor the author has invested in the work keep us viewing her with affectionate indulgence.

If your only encounter is with pale imitations such as the movie "Clueless", I really recommend a try at this novel.

Beyond that, I preferred Pride and Prejudice very slightly because I liked Elizabeth a bit more than Emma but enjoyed both books enough that I plan to move on to Sense and Sensibility after some other intervening reads.

67) (33) The Dark Horse by Rumer Godden

Rumer Godden provides us with an appealing retelling of a famous event in the horse racing world of British India, based upon the annals of the Royal Calcutta Turf Club. A thoroughbred, thought ruined by injury and mistreatment, goes on to win the most coveted trophy in Indian racing, detouring along the way as an inhabitant of the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Poverty.

Filled with colorful and charming characters, from the horse trainer who was forced from his cavalry regiment for marrying locally, to the former jockey who gets a second chance with the horse he loves, to the Mother Superior who rode show jumpers as a girl, The Dark Horse has all the gentle charm that appears to be Ms. Godden’s hallmark. A light-hearted, but heart-warming story.

Hello there~The Egg and I was a delight when I read it years ago. Never thought I'd ever hear anyone at LT having read it, though. The film with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray was fun, but is cinema history for introducing Ma and Pa Kettle to the movie-going public.

Captain Alatriste is fun, although I wish my Spanish was strong enough to catch up with all the non-translated sequels. And I really enjoyed The Seville Communion and The Club Dumas (which may be where the Dumas referencing is coming from0 --but avoid the horrid film adaption called The Ninth Gate. It's only half the story, and the murk doesn't work without the light.

Happy reading.

I was not a fan of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies, but I enjoyed the book a lot.

I've heard that the Alatriste sequels are all going to be translated. We'll see.

Ooh, old message, back at #29, to bring up The Egg and I. That was our high school senior play and I played the female lead, so I HAD to read the book after that. Many, many years ago. Actually never saw the film, though.

68) (34) Jack Absolute by C. C. Humphreys

This is Humphrey’s first volume in a historical military series featuring a character lifted from Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals…or, as this story would have it, featuring the man from whom Sheridan (a character in this book) copied his character. Captain Absolute is a loyal, if conflicted, British officer whose intimate knowledge of up-state New York finds him a spy working against the American rebels as well as a secret organization desiring anarchy in the New World.

The author has set fictional Jack amidst the historical figures of the time, clearly stamping them with his opinions of their efforts, ranging from a largely vindicated General John Burgoyne, through an unpleasant Benedict Arnold, to British spymaster John André, and even to a very young Edward Pellew (before either his very real fame or his fictional appearance in Forester's Hornblower novels).

Despite the (inevitable) comparisons to George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, this novel is nothing of the kind. Though there are humorous moments, this book is not a comedy, nor is the protagonist someone we despise while enjoying. About the only similarity between the works is that both characters are Army officers incarnated from other works of fiction.

There is plenty of action and historical flavor for those enjoy this type of fiction. It is far better than Broos Campbell’s Matty Graves novels, somewhat inferior to Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin stories. Though I found Jack’s survival a bit too much due to a series of deus ex machinas, particularly the ending, I enjoyed the story and will look forward to trying the sequels.

msg#68, Have to agree with your thoughts on Mr. Woodhouse.....he had me chuclking throughout...my favorite newly learned word was the description of him in the book....valitudinarian: a person wo weak and sickly constitution, esp., one whose chief concern is being or becoming an invalid.

69) Keeping Watch by Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King has given us another excellent psychological thriller in this story of a disturbed veteran of the Viet Nam War, Allen Carmichael, who rescues children from abusive parents.

Ms. King's exploration of what shaped and drives Carmichael was entirely convincing. While you cannot expect that you actually understand the Viet Nam experience from this reading, you do end up with a very real sense of horror at what an essentially moral man faced and did over there. I had read reviews that suggested that this back-story detracted from the novel—I could not disagree more. Without that history, the novel would have been a formulaic suspense novel, entirely plot-driven with no depth to the characters.

Nor does the plot disappoint. The action moves along quickly, despite the flashbacks to Southeast Asia, toward the finale. Ms. King keeps you guessing right up until the end about which plot twists will actually happen and which will prove to be red herrings.

I particularly liked that the author resisted the urge to tie everything up neatly and prettily for our sensibilities. The protagonist has not really found redemption, though he's found a measure of peace. Children are heavily conflicted over being removed from parents, even those who abuse them…and the damage done to them is not suddenly 'healed' for having been rescued.

This is definitely a recommended read if you like suspense novels.

wow..Keeping Watch sounds like a "heavy" read.
Thanks for your well-written description.

I recently obtained a copy of the BeeKeeper's Apprentice from my local library and hope to start it soon. Have you read this book?

I enjoyed The Beekeeper's Apprentice quite a bit when I read it a few years ago, Whisper1. Of course, I was quite a Sherlock Holmes fan as a youngster. Have you read the Carole Nelson Douglas series with Irene Adler as a contemporary of Holmes?

#76 Yes, Whisper1, I've read The Beekeeper's Apprentice. I enjoyed it and a short review is in my library. I've got the sequel waiting in the TBR pile where it will percolate up to the top in due course.

I'm not sure I'd use the word 'heavy' for Keeping Watch; it's not apocalyptic or a total bummer. However, it's certainly not light reading—the subject matter, alone, is too evocative and Ms. King definitely hoped you'd get a sense of the psychological effects of Viet Nam and abuse.

70) Escape to Witch Mountain by Alexander Key

I read this as part of keeping track of everything my children were reading; it was published a bit too late for me to read it as the intended audience though I do remember reading another of his books, The Forgotten Door. Thankfully, I've missed the allegedly horrible Disney adaptations of this book into film.

Though a bit dated politically and culturally, I still found it an enjoyable book. The basic plot of "children with special abilities need to escape the bad guys who want to exploit them and get home" is still enjoyable despite having been used before. The story is well enough written and the characters endearing.

A gentle book that won't frighten children, a simple introduction to science fiction if you want your children to try that genre, it's worth a read.

TadAD
It looks like you will soon be crossing the finish line and breaking the tape as you race across the the 75 book challenge milestone!

Congrats on near completion of the goal!

71) (35) Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz by John F. Szwed

John Szwed’s introductory book is described (both explicitly and implicitly by the title) as an entrée to the world of jazz for the beginner. While the book is written at exactly the right level of difficulty and complexity for this purpose, I don’t think the book is successful.

The information in the book can be divided roughly into two categories. The first, smaller, portion of the work comprises descriptions of the various styles of jazz. In this regard, the book is begging for a companion CD. In the audio book format (this is what I used) the sound clips could have been embedded. Unaccompanied textual descriptions of a sonic medium work no better than would an Art History book without pictures. For example, having someone attempt to describe the characteristics of swing notes leaves the reader wondering if they truly understand the rhythmic implications or if their imagination has wandered off the path. Szwed does provide recommended listening lists. However, this approach turns reading an introductory book into a significant investment of time (and money) in attempting to locate these selections—especially since many of them are out of print or hard to find.

The second, and major, portion is a recounting of the history of the music and attendant societal changes. While this informative, the author’s approach to providing examples is mind-numbing. He is never content to say, “Here’s a fact; as seen in the music of Artist A.” Instead, we get, “Here’s a fact, as seen in the music of Artist A on Tune 1, Tune 2, Tune 3, and Artist B on Tune 4, Tune 5, Tune 6, and Artist C on Tune 7, Tune 8 and Tune 9.” These lists of examples can occupy minutes of an audio book and, one must presume, paragraphs of text. While it might be gratifying to know that there are several examples one could consult for illustration, the effect is to turn the experience into one of reading a laundry list.

I think that it is this characteristic of the book that indicates how it should have been billed: a Recommended Listening List. Its strength is not as a ‘101’ course on jazz, it’s as a reference work providing a wide and varied list of good artists and recordings that the jazz novice might choose to enjoy. A correct level set of the reader’s expectations would make the book more successful with the reader...though, in my particular case, it would have left it unread because I was looking for an introductory reading on jazz, not a “100 Best Jazz Tunes” list.

72) (36) Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

If you haven't already read a dozen reviews, this is Tracy Kidder's look at the life work of Paul Farmer, a doctor who has dedicated every aspect of his life to bringing sound medical treatment to the poorest areas of the world, leading a fight against the tuberculosis pandemic, and trying to change the ways the "haves" of the medical world interact with the "have nots".

I find my reaction to the book is one of ambivalence or, more accurately, I find that I enjoyed the book unquestionably but my reaction to the contents is ambivalent.

Looking at this story simply from a perspective of "Is this worth reading?" my answer is a definite "Yes!" Kidder's writing flows along smoothly, never getting bogged down in medical details, bringing a very clear picture of this man and his work. The first-person perspective he uses draws you right into the story, giving it immediacy and intimacy. I'm sure that there are accusations that Kidder seems to have fallen under the spell of Dr. Farmer and doesn't provide a balanced picture. However, I don't think that's fair. There is no intent to deceive or slant and Kidder does raise the counter-arguments; the reader who is not, himself, under Farmer's spell will see them and can follow them as he chooses.

Looking at this story from the perspective of the word I've heard applied most often..."inspirational"...I find that I'm less in accordance. As someone else implied, Dr. Farmer is so extreme that I almost have to read this book as a type of fiction, populated with a superhero whose exploits I admire but have no thoughts of attempting myself. The sign in his facility seems to show that even his own staff has that reaction: "If Paul is the model, we're f*****."

I cannot help but compare this to another book I read this year, Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea. While Mountains Beyond Mountains is unquestionably better written, easier to read and more entertaining, the other retained a sense of human proportion that inspired me to think about what I, personally, might do. Mountains Beyond Mountains, lacking that scale, did not personally inspire, rather it moved me to compassion and awareness.

Part of the Olympian remoteness I feel about Dr. Farmer is that he inhabits a land of moral absolutes, whereas I cannot so easily walk away from the real world. To take a stance that the rich of the world have an absolute moral obligation to do whatever they can to help the poor is a moral high ground...and to do everything you can to bring that about is admirable and wonderful. However, to conduct your actions as if you have already succeeded lets you occupy that moral high ground at a cost to those you want to help. We can thrill to the heroics that spent more resources than the organization had to rush a boy from Haiti to Boston for an operation that might cure his advanced cancer. However, we can also acknowledge that the child's chances were not good and that the $20,000 spent to save, ultimately, zero lives would have bought 16 or so others from the same plateau the drugs needed to save them from dying of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. We can all think on Shaw's dictum about unreasonable men and progress, but we cannot forget that progress is not always benign to those caught up in it.

This is a book I think everyone should read—well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking. If it inspires you to a similar life, even in part, then it's wonderful. If it only moves you to compassion and helping out, then perhaps Farmer would say, "Well, I'll take that."

73) Death's Half Acre by Margaret Maron

Another serviceable addition in the Judge Deborah Knott series. The mystery was fairly bland and it wasn't too hard to figure out a variety of the subplots...mostly it gets by on the charming and colorful characters we've come to enjoy.

you are very close to meeting the goal of the 75 challenge. Congrats!

74) (37) The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

Given that it was a Newbery Honor Book and is a class reading selection in grammar school, I expected a bit more from Avi's story of a well-to-do young girl who gets caught up in mutiny on a trans-Atlantic crossing in the early 19th century. The book is not bad—it's an adventure story with plenty of action; it's quick and easy to read; the dialog is fairly age-appropriate for its target audience; the characters are a bit one-dimensional, but not unduly so.

My objection is simply that it's not that believable. Hardened criminals, their comrades murdered because of betrayal by a 13-year old girl passenger, are unlikely to adopt her as a fellow crew member, nor is the Captain...no matter how psychotic...likely to countenance it when that girl is the daughter of his ship's owner. Upon the Captain's death, the elevation of that same 13-year old to Captain, despite every member of the ship wishing to maintain the illusion that she never became part of the crew, can only be met with a snort of laughter. I also find it somewhat unbelievable (were the unpleasant life of an ordinary seaman truly depicted) that Charlotte would deal with her father's insistence on proper behavior by running away to return to a life at sea...or that a newly-elevated captain would be willing to accept the runaway daughter of the ship's owner as such a seaman.

Small complaints but I think there are better historical novels, and better Newbery candidates, that can serve as class reading projects.

Thanks, Whisper1, I'll probably finish it this weekend since I've got 3 other books going.

#81 TadAD: I will definitely have to put Jazz 101 on Continent TBR. Right now, I have Visions of Jazz checked out of the library, but have not yet had a chance to delve into it. Might be interesting to see how the books compare.

75 (38) The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

The basic story line of The Prince and the Pauper is probably familiar to everyone as it has become a Hollywood staple in a long series of movies: screen adaptations of varying qualities of the book directly, as well as basic plot lifts like “A Change of Place” or “Model Behavior”.

Twain’s book is more than just the piece of Hollywood froth into which it’s generally made, however. The ironic and amused tone that is present in so many of his works is much reduced; Twain’s reflections on his subject are darker and pointed. There is humor in the book...a fair amount of it...but there is also a very direct criticism of social systems where the ordinary person is at the mercy of authority, reflections on "the grass is always greener...", and the folly of judging someone by their appearances or circumstances.

The novel is a bit slower-paced than his more famous works and a modern editor would probably cut a bit of Edward’s continual ranting about his rights when taken for Tom. Nonetheless, as with every Twain novel I’ve tried, this one is worth reading.

crogratulations TadAD, you too have reached 75 :-)

Congrats on my part too, TadAD. You are one of the threads I have starred to keep an eye on what you are reading, and well worthwhile too!

Thanks, everyone. And, ronincats...that's great to hear.

76) Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

In some ways I liked this second in the Thursday Next series less than its predecessor; in some ways I liked it more...but, either way, I liked it.

On the negative side, the book ended up lacking some of the depth of The Eyre Affair. Fforde introduced so many new things that he couldn't spend any real time on any of them. We have three new villains (well, two new and the same old Goliath Corporation) and a whole new police force outside of Special Ops that works inside books as the main plot points, but these keep getting interrupted by numerous side stories. It was a bit much for 399 pages.

On the other hand, the book simply reads better. The author's writing is much smoother and this volume is much more of a page-turner than the first. Thursday is a much more well-rounded character. The villains have less of that cartoon aspect that was so present in Acheron Hades. And, quite frankly, her adventures as a Prose Resource Operative seem much more fun than life in SpecOps-27.

I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

#92 - Glad to hear you liked Lost in a Good Book better than the first. I was so-so on the first, but this is coming up soon on my TBR list and I have high hopes I'll like it better too.

Re-read of Conquerors from the Darkness by Robert Silverberg after about 40 years.

I read this book several times when I was 11 years old...I thought it was a great adventure story. I found a 50¢ copy in a used book store and gave it a shot. Unfortunately for me, it didn't hold up as well as some other childhood favorites.

The returning aliens who knocked modern Earth back to the Middle Ages are incompetent bumblers now unable to mount even a creditable defense against the sword-wielding humans. The hero is a rather unpleasant, amoral young man bent on becoming the top dog in the seafarers-preying-on-city-folks trade. Everyone else is cardboard. It heads downhill from there.

Oh well. At least it was only about an hour of reading. :-)

Belated congrats on reaching 75! And how nice to follow your achievement up with a lovely bit of Thursday too.

77) (39) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Lush and sensual language, an extremely delicious (and malicious) wit, characters so well-drawn I could feel distaste and pity creeping over me—I wish Wilde had written more than one novel.

Oh, but Wilde wrote some marvelously pithy stage works! Try watching the 1944/45 (I forget which) film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray starring Hurd Hatfield. It's absolutely fabulous.

#96/97: The movie was made in 1945 and I heartily second Prop2gether's recommendation. It is a great film.

I'm pretty sure I'll get to his stage works and short stories over time. Dorian Gray was my first work by him...the closest I've been before was satirizing him in a college production of "Patience"...but I enjoyed it enough to add him to the list of authors whose works I pick up every X number of books or so.

Re-read of The Thread That Binds the Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Was moving a pile of paperbacks upstairs and ended up sitting down and going through this. Still her best book by far, imo.

I've not read, but have certainly heard of the Picture of Dorian Gray I'm heading to the library tonight to obtain this.

Thanks..

And, I've never heard of Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Can you tell me why you like her books. I'm interested in your impressions.

TadAD, I just re-read all of the Chapel Hollow books recently--you commented on my thread when I did so. I agree, this is STILL my favorite book of hers (Nina Kiriki Hoffman), but I have come to appreciate The Silent Strength of Stones more upon rereads, and both set up characters we meet and interact with in the newest book, Spirits that Walk in Shadow. But I'm quite fond of Matt in A Red Heart of Memories and Past the Size of Dreaming as well. Anyone trying her out, though, stay away from Catalyst, IMO an experiment that didn't work very well. So, I know you just had a couple of hours of pure pleasure---sigh!!

Hi Whisper1. Well, I don't actually like all of her books but I do like the Chapel Hollow ones. The others are just fair in my opinion but many people love them. As you can see by #102, ronincats likes them and you should get her take on them.

Hoffman basically writes modern fantasy. The Chapel Hollow books are about a few families that have supernatural abilities, can communicate with their ancestors and other spirits, etc...and what happens when outsiders encounter these families. They are very reclusive, clannish, inbred, many quite ammoral (though each book has at least one member who isn't); to me they feel like something out of "Deliverance." Those families are really why I like the books. They're intriguing and interesting, even when they're being a bit repellent.

Basically, somewhat unusual, well-written modern fantasy, somewhat on the Young Adult side.

Not a very coherent set of thoughts, but I'm dashing out for the evening. :-)

Thanks for responding to my question. I'll give this author a try based on your impressions.

Now there are TBR queues inside my TBR queues!

I had started, and was enjoying, The Janissary Tree, then my son casually announced that the book report he thought was due in the middle of November is actually due next week, and since I try to read everything the kids are reading for school...

...then the ARC of Those Who Dream By Day arrived and I always feel obligated to get them done immediately, so....

...I guess The Janissary Tree will wait a few days. Anyway, starting with my son's book report:

78) The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

This book ranged from Excellent for the first two-thirds to Good for the final third. This is an engrossing story that explores themes ranging from a child's need for affection, through the ethics of cloning, to the sociopolitical issues of our world today.

The story follows the life of Matt, a clone of a drug lord, raised around family members who hate him and are disgusted by what he is. Matt's life is disturbing to the reader…in the good way that makes you think. We see the corrupting effects of absolute power, not just in the obvious example of his ancient precursor, but also in Matt, himself, when he is allowed to wield it. We see the desperate isolation of being different, and hated for that difference. We watch Matt struggle between identifying with and, to some extent, loving El Patrón, while being repulsed by what his other self has become.

Farmer sets up these situations and issues with a sophistication that would not be out of place in adult fiction and then smoothly accelerates into an excellent adventure story. I didn't want to put the book down until Matt made his bid for freedom from his home.

The final third wasn't quite as good when Farmer moves Matt into a world of socialism-gone-amok. He finds himself in a sadistic communal life with orphan boys that cannot help but remind a reader of Sachar's Holes. I'm sure her intent was to contrast a form of social slavery with the physical slavery Matt knew growing up, but it seemed a trifle disconnected with the first part of the story and lacked the depth of the latter. It is good reading, suffering only by comparison with the first part of the book.

I highly recommend this book for more mature Young Adult readers, some of the themes and the violence that occurs periodically might be disturbing to younger individuals.

79) The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

Mystery, Historical Fiction

This is the first in Jason Goodwin’s mystery series set in Istanbul in 1836, the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. It features Yashim Togalu, a eunuch in the sultan’s service, who is called upon to solve a series of murders of Army officers, as well as the murder of a harem girl.

Very soon, he is drawn into what appears to be a resurgence of the Janissaries. Founded in the 14th century, these elite soldiers had carved out an empire for the Turks. Over time, however, they had fallen into decay, extorting pay from the government and murdering sultans who attempted to reform them, until their brutal suppression in 1826.

The mystery component of this book is average. It proceeds in a fairly straight line with only few twists and turns. The real strength of this book lies in the vivid portrayal of life in Istanbul, of the intrigues of Topkapi Palace, of the tensions and fractures as Turkey struggles to become a modern country and stave off the European powers anxious to extend their influence. You can really feel the historian in the author.

Goodwin gives us a rich cast of supporting characters. I found myself wanting to know more about some of them and, hopefully, future books in the series will let us see a bit more of them.

Those who enjoy historical mysteries will probably enjoy this book.

80) Those Who Dream By Day by Linda Cargill.

Mystery, Historical Fiction, Early Reviewer

On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland, an event that many feel precipitated the United States into World War I. There was an unexplained second explosion aboard the ship after the torpedo strike that has occasioned many theories, ranging from boiler explosions to a secret cargo of munitions.

Linda Cargill has taken this event and woven a thriller around it. The basic premise of this story had a lot of potential. Saboteurs and assassins follow the heroine and her family to Great Britain and then back to the United States. Mysterious plots rear up to implicate her fiancé’s father and somehow tie to Lawrence of Arabia’s campaigns against the Turks in Arabia. A nice little love triangle develops with the isolationist American on one side and the British aristocrat on the other.

Unfortunately, the novel is marred by some very awkward writing. The dialog is almost universally wooden. It ranges from the merely ridiculous (“Pah! I spit upon your precious ancient trinkets!”) to the melodramatic (“Anyone who deals with the diabolical Lawrence deserves to die.”). You always have the feeling that the characters are talking at each other rather with each other...and, even allowing for the more formal behavior of the period, the characters actions simply aren't realistic. The novel's pacing is uneven and odd, alternating between long descriptions and short bursts of herky-jerky motion where someone says something and then, in the very next paragraph, is off doing something else as if they had never spoken.

With this kind of writing, I really wanted to give this book a lower rating. However, the plot actually did have some potential—well, except for the Mel Brooks moment when the Ku Klux Klan suddenly appears out of nowhere in the Pennsylvania suburbs to kill a bad guy—so let's just mark it as not enjoyed.

The publisher indicates that there will be a second book that picks up after 1919 and takes the plots through five generations to 2014. I’ll give it a pass.

Sounds like The Janissary Tree is definitely up my alley, TadAD. Thanks for the recommendation!

81) The World According to Garp by John Irving


Just didn't do it for me the way Cider House Rules did. Wonderful writing but the whole first part just dragged for me.

Hi
I agree with your comments regarding The World According to Garp. I'm glad this wasn't the first John Irving book I read or I would not have read some of his others -- which are stellar. If you haven't read A Prayer for Owen Meany, you might want to try this. It is one of my favorite (top three) books of all time.

I enjoyed perusing your thread and got some ideas to add to my TBR pile. The first one I'm hunting for is To Say Nothing of the Dog for my fantasy category next year. That sounds like something I would enjoy because I like time travel books and love Victorian novels!

You've really read a wide range of literature--and several of my favorites. Don't you love the way LT expand the breadth of one's reading, discovering new authors and new genres?

You will get even more out of To Say Nothing of the Dog if you read Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men on a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog first. You don't have to--I read and loved the Willis book at least three times before I read the Jerome book, but if you do, there are a lot of in references and jokes that make the book even more fun.

#111 - Good choice! I think you can't go wrong with To Say Nothing of the Dog. As ronincats says, Three Men in a Boat is parodied in the novel and there are some references to Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night that are fun to catch if you've already read them.

I enjoy most types of books—a fairly low tolerance for the super-depressing stuff (Tess of the D'Urbervilles will never be my cup of tea) and pure chick lit, but everything else is considered fair game. LT in general, and this forum, in specific, have flooded by New Authors piles.

I'm going to have to move To Say Nothing of the Dog up the list - Jerome K Jerome AND Dorothy L Sayers? Wow.

#111 MusicMom1: If you are trying Connie Willis, do not neglect The Doomsday Book either if you've not read it yet. It is very good.

That was on the recommended list for her.

82) (41) Night by Elie Wiesel


It took me two tries to get going in this book because I was listening to it on an audio book and the narrator was not the best.

Once I did, I was mesmerized. There's probably not much that hasn't already been said about this story of the author's experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, so I'll just say that it's worth reading. The nightmare of the life, the slow loss of humanity, the brief moments of hope had me riveted in anger and horror.

The book is told in the first person and, though Mr. Rosenblatt is a bit awkward and wooden in his reading style, having the story "told to you" by listening made it seem even more real that reading the words.

#117: Ok, sorry did not realize that.

No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like I was shutting you down. I was just confirming that it was one of the ones others had recommended.

Night was one of the ones I read this year, also. I think everyone should read this incredible book. I had dreaded it and put it off for quite a while. But it is a gripping read and about events that we should never forget. It is so full of the human spirit and reminds us of what we are capable of--on both sides, as victims and as perpetrators!

#120 TadAD: No problem on this end. I did not take offense, and am sorry if you thought I had. Sometimes it is just hard to keep track of what everyone is recommending on every thread. I don't understand why, lol.

Oh Tad, I'm so glad I did not get Those Who Dream By Day, but I loved reading your review. And that line - "Pah! I spit upon your precious ancient trinkets!" I loved it. I wonder if I can start using it around the office.

Thanks to all for the advice! The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog are both now on my "to buy for 999" list as is Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome book.

Since Gaudy Night is one of my all time favorite books of any genre and a regular reread for me, how could I not be seduced by these suggestions! If I could just find 5 more books related to these I could have an entire new category. ;-)

Two books I picked up based upon LT recommendations.

83) (42) In the Heart of the Seas by S. Y. Agnon.

Sort of damning with faint praise but all I can say is that I didn't mind it. A gentle tale of a group of rabbis traveling from Eastern Europe to Israel. It was amusing at times...I enjoyed a rabbi asking an innkeeper how he knew God wanted his prayers instead of a glass of brandy and a dish of groats. However, I also found it tedious at times; fortunately it is short. I've read that Agnon is a great stylist in Hebrew, writing very taut and compelling prose. The translation gave me none of that, mostly emerging as a parody of an archaic form of speech.

84) The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

I can see why many say this will be one of the classic time-travel books. Mr. Powers gave us wonderful and vivid characters, a great thriller plot, wonderful 19th century atmosphere, and managed the whole "changing known history paradox" issue with aplomb.

#124 - I'm with you MusicMom41. Gaudy Night is one of my favorite books, period. I like all of Sayers' books, but that one is kind of special. I just convinced a friend at work to read Strong Poison so that he could read Have His Carcase so that he could read Gaudy Night.

"Placetne, Magistra?" "Placet."

Now to decide what's next. I've got Hitchings' Defining the World going as my "read a bit each night" and Cornwell's Sharpe's Tiger as my commuting audio book (Frederick Davison is a great narrator, btw). Have to decide between A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie King, The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson, Prospero's Cell by Lawrence Durrell, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Hmmm, can't get all the touchstones to work. Oh well.

I read The Thirteenth Tale when it first came out because B&N was hyping it so much and I could get it for about half price. I'm usually skeptical about seriously hyped books so i was very surprised how much I enjoyed this. Reading about that library (you'll know what I'm talking about when you get there!) was worth the price of the book--and the story is surprisingly gripping. This is definitely a "book about books."

Choices, choices - don't you love them? I am reading the Sharpe series by Cornwell now and finished Sharpe's Tiger about a month or so ago. I really am enjoying the series. A Monstrous Regiment of Women is not the best entry in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, IMHO, so I would probably not make it my first choice. I agree with MusicMom41's assessment of The Thirteenth Tale for the most part, although from the sounds of it, I enjoyed it a little less than she did.

I have not read The Sea Around Us, Prospero's Cell or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so in my opinion, you need to read one of those and write a review so I know whether or not I should read them, lol.

Your wish is my command. The Larsson book was on the top of the stack, so I started it. :-)

Cool beans!

#29 alcottacre and TadAD

re Thirteenth Tale--maybe I sounded a little too enthusiastic. I do love books about books and that is mainly what kept me interested. I had a good time reading it and maybe I'll try another by Setterfield if she writes on something that will interest me. But this is not one I will read again. It was somewhat uneven and is some places really stretched credulity. But I did find it entertaining and not difficult to finish.

Adding to the Thirteenth Tale discussion, I enjoyed it, but I would not consider it a great book. It was thoughtful, and keeps you guessing. I liked the ghostly feel to it too. One of the aspects I enjoyed most about it was the nods it gave to other books like Rebecca and Jane Eyre which I had already loved, and it made me want to read Turn of the Screw as well. If you've read any of these books and enjoyed them, then you'll like this one too and will appreciate the similarities.

Interesting to hear collective thoughts on The Thirteenth Tale. I've been lent it (well - actually several months ago and it has sat on my shelf ever since!!) by someone who loved it, but the majority verdict seems to be "uneven". I think I might read it next though - I have The Wasted Vigil out from the library which I ought really to be reading next but I'm not really in the sort of mood right now where I can plunge into a gritty and gruesome political novel.

Turn of the Screw is going to be my "read" for Halloween. :-)

85) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson


Well, it was excellent. Very good writing with none of that translated-from-a-foreign-language feel (kudos to Reg Keeland on that, I guess). The mystery was well-done, definitely a page-turner. I had some suspicions of what had really happened that were correct but not in an "Oh, this is so obvious!" sort of way. The characters are very real, very interesting and...most of them...very likable.

Really, the only negative thing about the whole book is the last page. However, I have hopes that will be fixed in the two sequels that are, supposedly, going to be published.

So, yes, alcottacre, you should read it.

I've added Gaudy Night to my list. It sounds very interesting.

#137 - Hmmm, I just checked your library, Whisper1, and you don't have any Sayers other than that one. It's just my two cents but you might want to read it second.

The Lord Peter books without Harriet can be read in pretty much any order. My two favorites would be The Nine Tailors and Murder Must Advertise.

However, the books with Harriet are a different kettle of fish, imo. Gaudy Night is about Harriet coming to terms with her decision about Peter. It makes more sense if you know their history. I'd recommend you read at least Strong Poison first. This is the book that introduces Harriet and shows us the strong influence she will have in everything about Peter's life from that point on.

If you want to skip the second one, Have His Carcase, it won't make as much difference, I think. If you fall in love with them, you can go back and fill it in before moving on to Busman's Honeymoon and the final short story, "Tallboys".

But, either way you decide to do it, she's a wonderful writer and Peter/Harriet are one of the great couples.

Thanks...I appreciate your feedback.

I'm heading to the library tomorrow!

Whisper1

I agree with everything TadAD had to say about the Lord Peter Wimsey novels (even the same favorite "non-Harriet" ones) except,
even though it is not her best book, I would recommend reading Have His Carcase also before Gaudy Night. Gaudy Night has a good story in addition to the added attraction of the relationship between Lord Peter and Harriet--but the relationship part of the story will be more satisfying if you've read both previous novels. (imo)

#136 TadAD: Thanks for the input. I will look out for it. Now you can move on to the others that you are vetting for me, lol.

While I am here, I might as well weigh in on the Dorothy Sayers books as well. The Nine Tailors (without Harriet) and Gaudy Night (with Harriet are probably my two favorites. I do not think you can go wrong with Sayers, but I second MusicMom's suggestion of reading Have His Carcase before Gaudy Night.

Yes, if you are willing to insert two books before Gaudy Night I would read them completely in order. I originally suggested that—you can see the edit on the post where I changed what I wrote :-)—but was afraid I'd scare you away: "What? I have to read two books before I can get to the one everyone is recommending?"

BTW, have either of you read Thrones, Dominations, the book that was begun by Sayers but finished by Jill Walsh? I've become so leery of other authors picking up characters I love that I've never picked it up.

However, I ended up liking The Beekeeper's Apprentice, so perhaps this kind of thing is not universally bad.

#141 - Sadly, you must wait. :-) My daughter brought home a new book that her friends recommended for her, so that's next on the list. Then I'll see how my mood strikes me but suddenly I'm eyeing A Betrayal in Winter.

Well, enough folks on LT have had great things to say about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo that I've got it on order at the library. This place is *so* not helping me get caught up with all the good books out there...

You know, that raises an interesting point...dealing with the TBR pile. I find that I've had to start doing triage. Books that I was marginal about are just falling off the list. Otherwise, it wouldn't be long before I said, "I store my TBR pile at the corner of Rt. 10 and Rt. 202. It has the words 'Barnes & Noble' on the front."

Right now, I have 23 books at home, another stack at the cabin, about 5 books on order at the library and 40 in my Amazon Wish List. That's about my upper limit for prioritization.

Others have a seemingly infinite stack. Out of curiosity, how do you cope with it?

Fortunately, most of my TBR is kept electronically as lists of books I want to get from the library. So there's no actual overflowing stack of books somewhere waiting for me. I'm pushing the limits on how many books I can put on my lists in the library catalog system - I've got separate fiction and nonfiction lists, as well as new lists for mysteries and sf/fantasy. All in order to try to get around the 100 book limit for each list. When collections comes along, I'm planning to put 'em all in a single collection. For books I buy, I decide first from my lists, then go buy. Inevitably, I buy something *else* too, but I try to keep that under control as best I can.

The real struggle is in deciding what to read next, whether from my stack or what I'll get from the library next. My method is to scan the lists and pick what strikes my fancy at the moment. I can't think of a better way. I've tried prioritizing my list and first-in-first-out, but I always get back to the momentary pick.

TadAD
Others have a seemingly infinite stack. Out of curiosity, how do you cope with it?

About 1/3 of our books are TBR, the result of years collecting, without being able to read, but still loving books.
I just started reading again this year and take one book and then the next ;-)
Some books are moved up in the TBR-pile, because of recomendations here, some even added to the wishlist.
At least I am sure I won't ever be without books to read. And most books I like I read more than once.

Chiming in on this conversation regarding the priority of TBR, my choices are based on recommendations here on LT. For example, Fam has me hooked on YA genre. A selection I would not have read save for one of her recommendations which lead to others.....

I'm convinced though that the only way to whittle down the TBR mountain is not to read posts of others...But, I'm addicted to all the wonderful books mentioned...

2009 will be a year of working on TBR....I'm smiling of course.

86) (43) Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

Young Adult, Historical Fiction

Read because my daughter decided it's her current reading project based upon her friends' recommendations.

This is an engaging young novel about the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. It's also a coming of age story for Matilda Cook as events force her to grow up, learn self-reliance and care for those around her. Ms. Anderson has given us a very human story as well as an interesting picture of life during a terrible moment in our history. She does not overly sugar-coat the story, showing the selfishness and brutality brought out in some people, along with the compassion others displayed.

A twentieth century education allows us to look with horror on the American medical practices of the day, the bleeding which killed many that the fever did not, the heavy-metal poisoning from taking mercury. It also allows us to feel a bit of irony as the characters swat at the occasional 'annoying' mosquito, while they worry that the miasma that permeates the air and woodwork will bring on the disease.

Hi TadAD
I'm reading a lot of YA books these days and thus your description of Fever 1793 has piqued my interest. I'm adding it to the TBR pile.
Thanks!

TadAD, your daughter might enjoy Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow, a YA (though the phrase didn't exist when it was published) novel about a young woman in Revolutionary Charleston. She's a female counterpoint to Johnny Tremain and I have recommended this book to others (one of whom kept my copy!) many times. I understand it's due for a reissue this fall, but it's in libraries. Check out the Amazon comments, and you won't find a reader who didn't enjoy the book.

Thanks, Prop2gether, I'll add that to the list of suggestions I have for her. She has to read a minimum of 16 pages a night from a book of her choice for school, so we need a new one every few weeks.

Belatedly coming to the Dorothy Sayers party (I've been clearing out the shed - not a small job): My first LPW, and still my absolute all-time favourite, was Murder Must Advertise. But I then went on to Gaudy Night *before* Strong Poison - and it is possible to enjoy them out of sequence; you just lose a bit of the tension in the latter since you know the outcome. It's still a great read.

TadAD, I just got both Thrones, Dominations and its sequel, A Presumption of Death, off a couple of bookswap sites. Consensus amongst the DLS afficionadoes I know is that while not *quite* of the DLS standards, they are still well worth a read :-) - meaning a cut above your average posthumous sequel.

As for the seemingly-infinite TBR stack.... this problem has got much worse for me since the advent of the warehouse booksale. I don't really "cope" with it as inside me there is still someone wailing despairingly that unless I win the lottery there is no way I can hope to read all the books already on my TBR list, let alone the new ones that are being published all the time. But I "manage" it by popping everything I hear of that I'd like to read in my Visual Bookshelf on Facebook, buying things I know are on my TBR list in the warehouse sales, and borrowing them when I see them in the library.

It's been a while since I got through the buying/borrowing phase and selected something from the TBR list to actively seek out for acquisition, so I'm not sure what would happen in that scenario!! I suspect that, as above, it would be ruled by the mood of the moment.

Regarding the TBR stack - as everyone probably knows by now, mine has become a Continent of its own. I will never get everything read on it, but that does not dissuade me from adding to it. I take input from everyone's (and I do mean everyone's - I try to read them all) posts in the group and then read stuff off the TBR list as the mood strikes. I have a spreadsheet that I update with books I would like to read from here as well as one's I run across in the course of my own reading.

I am with Whisper regarding Fever 1793 - I will have to hunt it down. I will also try to track down the Celia Garth book that Prop recommended as well.

TadAD, I remembered another couple of great YA books last night: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field is a delightful story of a wooden doll in early American history. My copy was my mother's and it's an award winner, so it's still out there. She may be too old for the Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, but they were great fun as well.

We have the Mushroom Planet books. I liked the first two a lot when I was kid, though I was so-so on the third and fourth. I've tried suggesting those and the Carol Kendall books, but she doesn't seem to have much interest in SF or Fantasy.

Thanks for the other suggestions. When she finishes Fever, we'll take a look at those to see if they appeal to her.

I'm hoping that she's starting to ask her friends and, thereby, starting to build some kind of book-interest-network instead of me having to do it for her. My youngest loves reading, but this one is a bit tepid on it. She'd rather be outside playing sports.

87) A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham


The second book in his The Long Price Quartet, this volume brings us another plot by the Galt against the Khaiem, plus continues the story of Otah as he gets dragged into the dynastic struggle for his father's throne.

I enjoyed this second book in the quartet even more than A Shadow in Summer. The characters were better drawn and the plot, once it got going, kept me turning the pages.

I'm looking forward to the third.

#159 TadAD: Sounds like a series that I need to seek out. What are the other 2 books besides the ones you have mentioned?

The third book is An Autumn War. It just came out this past July. The fourth book, The Price of Spring is still with the publisher.

I find them quite interesting—the author has accomplished the difficult task of doing something a bit new in fantasy. The books are set in a vaguely oriental land where...very rarely...gifted poets are able to give corporeal existence to a creature known as an andat...a personification of an idea. The andat dislike existing and want only to dissolve back into being merely a concept. This is all background for the larger story arc, which involves a neighboring country's ambitions to overthrow those who control andat.

Very readable books, human characters. I suspect he's going to become one of the next crop of "names" in fantasy.

Edit: Spelling. I'm incapable of proofreading before hitting Submit.

Dogs got me up at 4:00 a.m., so spent the morning re-reading No Garlic in the Soup by Leonard Wibberley. I still think this is one of the best travel/humor books ever written, along with Travels with Alice and A Year in Provence. Pity it's out of print.

#162 TadAD: I love Peter Mayle's Provence books, so I will have to look out for the others you mentioned. I would probably enjoy them as well.

Thanks for the additional info on the Long Price Quartet.

Editing, schmediting, who cares if you can spell?

88) A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King



A pleasant sequel to The Beekeeper's Apprentice. On the negative side, the mystery was not as satisfying as that of the first book and the apprehension of the villain was accomplished with very little tension, action or excitement.

On the positive side, this is much more of a Mary Russell book than a Holmes story, giving us a better picture of her character, her strengths and weaknesses, the similarities and differences between her and Holmes. Perhaps it was just the similar post-War, Oxford setting, perhaps it was a deliberate act upon Ms. King's part, but I could not stop seeing the parallels with Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night—the book in which Harriet steps out of Peter's shadow and unravels her own mystery.

As for the ending...it's obviously on the reader's mind from the beginning of the book. Perhaps, given the book I think she was emulating, it was inevitable. However, it does seem a bit jarring to 21st century sensibilities. I'll give Ms. King the benefit of the doubt and wait until I've read more works in the series to decide if she can carry it off.

Chiming in belatedly on the TBR pile topic. I tend to pick up books that look interesting at the book store, in used bookstores, on PaperBackSwap, in addition to authors I buy regularly as soon as they turn into paperbacks (there are a few I buy in hardback, but who has the shelf space?). I started with a shelf in my behind the study door bookshelves. Then I expanded to two shelves. Plus 6-12 on my nightstand, what I am working on at a given time. Then I started piling them up on the back of the sofa in my office. Then two piles. Then three piles. Then four piles. Now I'm piling a pile in front of one of the piles, although I have to be very careful or it will topple over. I'm at about 150 physical books in the TBR "pile" at the moment, not counting professional books. Some of them have been there for over 10 years--those I may have started and not been able to get into them at the time so put them back for later. I pull depending on mood at the time. Lately I've been starting to pull some of the really old ones and giving up on them, trading them off. I'd call it decluttering expcept that I am still bringing in more than I am sending off.

89) Prospero's Cell by Lawrence Durrell


This was wonderful!

For years, one of my favorite books has been My Family and Other Animals, written by Lawrence’s brother, Gerald, and which tells the story of the family’s sojourn on the island of Corfu just before World War II. In it, we met the pompous Larry...a character we saw through the lens of Gerald’s irreverent and irrepressible humor.

I knew little of this book beyond that it was Lawrence’s view of this same period and I suppose I expected a travelogue, more somber in tone as befitting a serious poet and literary figure, but essentially the same story.

Instead I found something I can’t quite characterize. It has elements of the travelogue, stories about the places he visited and individuals he met, about the customs and idiosyncrasies of the people, and reflections upon the culture. But, interspersed with these are vignettes, often no more than a paragraph or two, each a gem illuminating a small moment of his stay. No plot, no story, just a word picture formed from short sentences and fragments that came together like an Impressionist painting to build a picture of the colors, moods and emotions so vivid that I found myself transported to his instant in time.

The Larry of his brother’s book is nowhere recognizable, nor does his family figure in the story. Instead the main character is Corfu. We find a very gifted author who was deeply in love with the land in which he found himself and whose memories of that place were focused into beautiful and evocative writing by its loss to the War.

This goes onto my bookshelf next to Gerald’s book…a pair of volumes that, between them, illuminate a somewhat bygone era, one a memoir of childhood adventure, the other reflections on adult experience.

90) Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong by Pierre Bayard


I wish this 188 page book had been about 133 pages long but, otherwise, enjoyed it.

Peter Bayard’s notion is that the characters of a novel live and operate independently of their author and that the latter is often unaware of the true events taking place in a story (the quote from Jasper Fforde at the beginning of the book gives the reader his first inkling).

In previous stories, he has apparently shown that Claudius was not the villain of Hamlet and that Hercule Poirot misidentified the murderer in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In this volume he tackles Sherlock Holmes, showing that the detective got it entirely wrong in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The book comprises six actual sections, but is divided into roughly four parts that don’t quite correspond to the author’s divisions. The first is a recapitulation of the plot of The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is done quickly and is useful if you haven’t read the latter recently.

The second is an explanation and critique of Holmes’ methods. If you are a fan of the detective, this section is nothing new, for you are certainly familiar with those methods. Quite probably, you have also reached the independent conclusion that Holmes often treats statistical probabilities as facts and often leaps to ill-supported conclusions that seem brilliant only because the comparison is Watson, who is such a dunderhead. Yet, Bayard expresses his ideas quickly and with many examples and it is enjoyable to read.

The third section came close to ruining the book for me. It is a psycho-philosophical discourse on the “realness” of fictional works, along with a recounting of Doyle’s actual dissatisfaction with Holmes. And it is long. And it is tedious. Essentially, Bayard sets up the premise that Doyle was so upset with his inability to kill Holmes that he could not be trusted to provide an unbiased reporting of events. It felt like five pages of text ballooned into over 60.

The fourth section is the payoff, in which Bayard exposes the real murderer in the book. No spoilers but, quite simply, his solution is much better than Doyle’s. The resolution is a much better fit of the facts of the story; the crime more intricate and interesting to the reader; the oddities and coincidences which fill this story are explained.

A recommended read but, if you skim the third section, I shan’t blame you.

TadAD, another interesting book for the TBR pile!

I read Bayard's How to Talk ABout Books You Haven't Read, which made me quite cross (one of those books where, if I ever wrote in a book, I would have been irritably scrawling 'NO!!' against whole paragraphs); it sounds like the third section that you disliked so much has a lot in common with the book I read :)

My husband is a complete Sherlock Holmes nut so this will have to go on the Christmas list - though I'll also make him a gift of your recommendation about part 3....

I think he'll enjoy it. I'm a fairly big fan of the Holmes stories and was a bit worried that this book would somehow tarnish things. It didn't. I'll probably try Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? at some point. The revisiting of Hamlet is apparently not translated, yet.

--Tad

Hmmm. Another one for the TBR pile. I love Holmes pastiches and Holmesiana...

91) Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell

I loved this book. If the rest of the series is even close, I'm set for a lot of commuting miles!

I am adding both of the Durrell brothers books to Continent TBR, and chiming in on Sharpe's Tiger - I have only read a couple of books in the series, but they have both been very good. I, too, am hoping that the rest of the series holds up to the standards of the first couple.

92) Living with the Dead by Kelley Armstrong

It was OK. Hope and Karl are not my favorite characters in this series and I hope Ms. Armstrong switches viewpoints again for the next volume.

Edit to add author's name. Proofreading before Submit.........

>91 TadAD: - Most of the series is just as good, although there are a few that are only ok. Tiger was written later in Cornwell's career then some of the later (timeline wise) books. I haven't found anything by Cornwell I haven't liked.

93) The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Another good book from one of my favorite essayists, though this is more a history book than essays...similar to Assassination Vacation rather than Take the Cannoli. The topic (Puritans) is a bit drier than her other works but the wonderful Vowell humor and writing ability is all there. If learning about Winthrop, Williams and Hutchinson isn't your thing, it might not be for you; if you are interested, this is a good way to learn a bit about them.

WOW TadAd
You are really clipping through the most interesting books!

I enjoy your posts!

Well, thank you very much! :-)

Reread The Duluth Mongoose by Jack Denton Smith as one of the kids needs a book for a school project.

It's probably been 35 or 40 years since I first read this book about Mr. Magoo, the mongoose that became the only legal one of his kind in this country after a presidential pardon by Kennedy. A bit YA but still enjoyable.

TadAD, re: your TBR management question. I changed the picture on my profile to show the "back of the couch" portion of the TBR pile. :-)

Nice stack of books!

Mine is getting simpler. I've spent so much money on books this year I've made a resolution to buy no more until Jan 1, 2009. So, other than 10-15 books still sitting in the house, my TBR pile is held in online in my "Holds" for the county library system.

94) Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Pretty much what I expected for his first foray in YA fiction...which is a good thing. Hiaasen is one of my "buy immediately upon release" authors.

Quirky humor wrapped around younger characters make up this story about kids trying to stop a developer from building on the nesting site of endangered owls. The outcome is never in doubt, but it's a quick and enjoyable read for an adult and my daughter loved it.

I make that promise every week or so and then fail miserably but enjoyably!!

ronincats, love the books picture.

Yeah, me too! And then I see a book I just have to have (and,of course, all the ones mentioned here). I have started using the library again more. It takes so long for them to get NEW books that I had stopped relying on them for my favorite authors, but many of these are available.

Thanks, BDB, re the picture. Think I should do as someone did on another thread, and let you all decide which of those books I read next? Solves the question of how to decide!

#181: I would read it just because it has owls in it - I collect them - so thanks for adding another YA book to my stack.

So did I mention the $1 book store has re-opened? I make lots of resolutions about buying books, but....

Yes, I can probably resist Amazon and B&N where I'm going to pay $8-$30 for a book...but the local convent runs a second hand book shop where hardbacks are $1. That's the one that will be tough!

HI TadAd

Thanks to Fam and Stasia, I've been reading lots of YA books -- a genre I previously had not discovered. Thus, I'm adding Hoot to my tbr mountain.
Thanks.

Quick re-read of Tarzan of the Apes slid in among my books. Each of our kids has to do a little non-school reading each night and my son...not a great reader of anything except comic books and XBox screens...asked me to pick out "an adventure" for him. He seems interested (fingers crossed). If so, there's 20-something more where that one came from, plus 11 Mars books, 5 Venus books, The Mad King, etc. *smile*

Edgar Rice Burroughs has been the foot in the door for many of us young neglectful souls who didn't want to read. Burroughs, DeFoe, and Stevenson got me back in the library.

I just found an old red cover hardback of Tarzan and the Apes.....brought back memories!

Red cover...the Grosset & Dunlap editions with the J. Allen St. John frontispieces? I have many...

That's the ones!!!!

I have one, now. I read the papers checked out from the library.

I read most of the stories from the library, also. Now, I watch at second-hand shops and pick up the hardcovers for a buck or so. Someday I'll have a complete set to pass on to the kids.

Hey TadAD - I had to come back here to let you know that I ordered Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong from 'my' bookshop today. The bookseller wanted to know where I found it and has ordered a couple of copies for their stock! So you should clearly pride yourself on having cultural influence in London ;-)

*smile*

95) Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour.

I really wanted to love this book. On the opening page he talks about the poems of Kipling and Service and, since I have been known to annoy friends and family by reciting "Gunga Din" or "The Cremation of Sam McGee" at odd times out at the cabin, I thought I was really going to like this book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. I don't see myself ever rereading it...using it as a reference for books on topics in which I am interested, yes, but rereading, no.

Here's the review I'm putting in my library:
**************

This book is not an autobiography nor, despite the subtitle, much of a memoir and Mr. L'Amour states that right up front on pages 2 and 3. To some extent, I wish it had been, for Mr. L'Amour has clearly led quite an exciting life and most of the interesting bits he chooses to defer for another day. What it intends is "a story of an adventure in education." Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much adventure in it that story. It starts well with some of his days as a hobo and his introduction to the Little Blue Book series of classics, then segues into a stint as a solitary mine assessor when there was nothing to do but work and read books left behind at the mine by a schoolteacher. However, as the book progresses and his life (presumably) becomes less adventurous, much of the content becomes "I wanted to know about Africa, so I read these five books; I wanted to know about frontier settlers, so I read these eight books." This isn't all unfortunate, as I shall talk about below, but, on the whole, I don't think the book delivered on its promise of adventure.

I also think that Mr. L'Amour missed out on a great opportunity. A college professor of mine once said that everything you write needs to answer the question, "So what?" What I would have loved here…and what is conspicuously absent…is any reflection on what the books meant to him, how they affected his thoughts and beliefs, what impact their content had on his life.

A real biography about Mr. L'Amour would be a book worth trying. Hobo, sailor in the Far East, miner, soldier, boxer, author, lumberman…there's a lot of interesting life there. However, I could never escape the feeling in this particular book that what we were getting was not just "here's my life," but a carefully cultivated picture—perhaps a character out of one of his own novels: tall, handsome, laconic, self-reliant, moral, brave, competent with his fists yet intellectual and compassionate. There is just a bit too much artifice in lines like "I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and learn." Of course, it is understandable that an autobiographer would want to present himself in a light he finds appealing. However, in this case, it sat at odds with his decided air of ingenuousness. I find myself asking, would a frank and forthright cowboy really spend much time making sure I believed him to be frank and forthright?

The value of this book lies almost as a reference work. Mr. L'Amour will pick a topic and give you his summary of the books he found most valuable on the topic. Interested in Turkestan?...read W. Bartold, Howorth, Pan-Ku b and Burton Watson. Want to know about the Apaches?...try Major John G. Bourke and John C. Cremony. I don't see this as a book I will ever reread. However, I do see it as a book I might consult, for there were many topics he mentioned that I would find interesting. At the end of the volume, he gathers much of his reading into a series of lists that might be seen as his analog of a Boxall 1001 list of books…a L'Amour 731.

I have to be interested in a person who can talk about his favorite World War I literature as The Case of Sergeant Grischa and All Quiet on the Western Front and then immediately move to Burrough's The Mastermind of Mars. It fits my own eclectic/eccentric reading tastes. However, I wish we'd had more in this book…more of the life stories, more of the man, more of the adventure in education.

96) Mainspring by Jay Lake

I loved the premise; I loved the characters when they were introduced. I found the execution disappointing and the ending not good at all. Oh well...they can't all be winners.

Time to go through the pile I pick out something really good...some bad bronchitis, kidney stones and some micro-tears in back muscles (from protecting the pain of #2 from the sneezing of #1). The good news is the doctors thought pneumonia but X-rays cleared that. Interesting evening last night; I've never had an MRI or CAT-Scan, got both last night. Bed for me and let the kids bring me stuff. :-)

...edit for typos...

ooh, TadAD - sounds miserable. Hope you're coping OK, and that you'll be feeling much better very soon.

awww TadAD, I am sorry, kuddos and hoping for a speedy recovery!

Anita

Wish you a speedy recovery.
Take care.

Take really good care of yourself, TadAD--lots of rest and a lot of water. I'll be thinking of you and hoping for a fast recovery.

Thanks, all.

97) A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Warm, witty, insightful...this was a delight read. Thanks to those who recommended it.

And, as part of my ongoing project to read all of Shakespeare:

98) Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

Somehow, "sleep with me or I'll kill your brother" doesn't seem like a comedy to me, though a collection I have classifies is this way. Still, I enjoyed this a lot.

Tad,

I sincerely hope you are feeling better, and glad the pneumonia was ruled out (I've had it several times and it is definitely not fun). Glad to see the illness is allowing you to get some reading done!

As far as L'Amour goes, I believe that there are several true biographies of the man available. I will do some checking and see if I can come up with any names for you if you are interested.

Stasia

Up early so, after doing the crossword puzzle, reread The Borrowers, which my youngest is interested in. It's still fun 45 years after the first reading. :-)

I am reading a lot of young adult and juvenile literature this year, so maybe I should give The Borrowers a try. I do not ever remember reading the book, although I do recall a TV series by that name, I think.

It was also made into a movie. However, the books (there are four that I know of, but perhaps more) were much better, imo. Folks only seem to know of her Bedknob and Broomstick...I guess because it was made into Disney movie...but this other series is fun, too.

Books are always better than movies, IMHO. Of course, I may be a bit prejudiced, lol.

BTW - Hope you are feeling better today!

99) Shimura Trouble by Sujata Massey

A big step back up from Girl in a Box, this felt more like the early Rei Shimura books. Massey also gets rid of the silly notion of Rei as a spy....thank goodness, it was an absurd concept that didn't fit the character at all.

100) Kiln People by David Brin

** NB: Some minor spoilers when talking about what I didn't like **

I'd give this book a weak recommendation. It's a good mystery based upon a great premise...the perfection of technology allowing humans to make disposable copies of themselves, called dittos, for tedious or dangerous work. Unfortunately, Brin was not able to stick to the mystery but wandered off into some mysticism that really detracted from the story.

The mystery portion of the story is well done. There are a lot of subplots weaving back and forth and, while some are more obvious that others, there are enough twists that you'll probably be kept guessing right up to the end on some things. There's not as much tension as you might find in an "ordinary" mystery simply because threats to a ditto simply usually aren't that big a deal...the human will just make another. I must confess, however, that I did find myself rooting for green Albert to succeed; even though a ditto, he had the most interesting personality in the book. Real Albert also manages to get himself into trouble eventually and that ratchets up the suspense level a bit.

I found the mysticism of the book less satisfying. By-and-large, the backdrop of this book is a technological science fiction story and the vague spiritualities just didn't fit into that framework. Brin has been guilty of this in some of his other works and I wish he'd stop—he doesn’t do "humans evolving to a higher consciousness" very well. He tries to be grand about it and just comes across as a bit pretentious.

Brin has done better if you’re new to him. If you've liked everything else he's done, give this a try.

>202 TadAD: Tad. I am currently reading Shakespeare's History Plays. Have you read any of those yet? I recently read the first part of Henry VI. Willy was only in his twenties when he wrote it - remarkably mature. A fascinating read.

I must read Measure for Measure! It will go on my Shakespeare Category for 2009.

- TT

#210: Yes, I've read a few of the Histories so far: Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry V, Richard II and Richard III. Though there are individual plays I really like in the Tragedies and Comedies, I think the History plays are the ones I'm enjoying the most on average.

This has been a project of mine for a couple of years. I'm really having fun. I suspect there will be a couple I'll have to wade through (e.g. Two Noble Kinsmen), but I'm saving a couple of the "biggies" such as King Lear for the end to make up for them.

Interesting comments on David Brin's work, and I agree that his works vary all over the place. Still I enjoy reading his stuff just to see what's been wandering through his brain pan.

As for Shakespeare, Two Noble Kinsmen was easier in many respects than Coriolanus or Henry VIII. I enjoy the "darker" comedies usually, but watch every version I can find. Having been involved in the production of the entire canon at one point in my life, I like to see the interpretations. I was given a birthday gift last year of Ian McKellan as Lear and we were sitting literally five rows from the stage. What a treat! The one I'm trying to find is Paul Scofield's Lear from the sixties--which I saw once and have not forgotten.

Yes, I've been warned that Coriolanus is rough, also.

Not sure about a performance from the 60s, but here is one from 1970 with Scofield.

Edit: This year, I decided that, in addition to reading them, I need to see them also. I figure that I'll get more out of them if I read them, see them, re-read them. It will be slow going as I don't have a ton of free time, but this is a fun thing and I don't mind it carrying on for a while.

The only one I had ever seen was Romeo and Juliet in high school. So, I've started looking up some of the more famous performances. I've gotten and watched the Olivier Richard III and the Welles Macbeth. Do you have some recommendations?

On the Brin front, I find him very inconsistent. I think the first three of the Uplift books are quite good (except for the very end of The Uplift War)...Startide Rising being one of my favorite science fiction books. The second three Uplift books were fine. The Postman was quite good. I liked Earth right up until the end and then he lost me big time. I thought The Practice Effect would have worked as a novella but didn't have enough meat for a novel.

When I look at what I like about his writing and what I don't, it really boils down to: I think he's a good science fiction writer; I think he's a not-so-good mystic.

BTW, the subtitle on Kiln People in Amazon is (The Kiln Books). Are there more? I'm not aware of any.

I think that's the one--it was a brilliant production, but the Amazon notes say it's not US compatible. Sigh. Versions of Shakespeare which I personally recommend:

Both the MGM "all star" and the Kevin Kline versions of Midsummer Night's Dream. In the first, you get all of MGM's special effects, plus Mickey Rooney as Puck and Anita Louise as Titania and James Cagney as Bottom. In the second, you get Kevin Kline as Bottom.

The Anthony Hopkins version of Titus, which makes a convoluted story make a lot more sense. Stunningly beautiful, it has all the horror with it as well.

The Kenneth Branagh/Lawrence Fishbourne version of Othello stopped me in my tracks (except I was slightly irritated by Desdemona). There is also a version of the stage production starring Ian McKellan as Iago (uncut, so it does carry on) that is great.

Richard III was beautifully adapted by McKellan to Nazi times, but there is also a version by Thames Shakespeare that is good watching. Of course, there is Olivier on the battlefield as well.

I like the following versions of Hamlet for different reasons: Richard Burton (stage production from the sixties); Olivier (for a heartbreaking Ophelia); Mel Gibson; Ethan Hawke (includes Fortinbras! and very interesting focus). I found the Campbell Scott version deadly boring despite the cast.

There's more, if you're interested.

David told me that there was talk of a sequel several years back when there were negotiations about a film of Kiln People and that he started one, but that it got put aside for another Earth-type book. Personally, I like his short stories much better than his novels, except for The Postman (which started as short stories) and The Practice Effect. I just laugh when the mystic stuff starts and go on, and I liked Kiln People for all the stuff you did as well.

I added the MGM "Midsummer Night's Dream", the Hopkins "Titus Andronicus" and the Branah "Othello" to Netflix and will give them a try...though I'll want to read the last two before seeing them.

Since I saw Olivier's "Richard III", I'll hold off on that for a while.

Do you have a favorite "Merchant of Venice"? I have the Pacino/Fiennes/Irons version down on my Netflix queue somewhere but it's nowhere near the top, yet, so I can easily change it.

101) Sport Royal by Anthony Hope

I saw an old pocket-sized edition of this book at a garage sale. Since I loved The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau when I was younger, I gave it a try.

It was an unremarkable, but pleasant, set of short stories. Only the first had any of the adventure of his novels; the rest were just typical, light short stories from the end of the 19th century.

Nothing special, but the entire thing was only an hour or so of reading and $1.00, so I'm not disappointed.

Edit: touchstone is tricky...had to reselect the same book twice

I've seen three versions of Merchant of Venice which were worth rewatching for me: The Pacino version; a 2001 version directed by Trevor Nunn (which must be a restaging); and the Olivier/Plowright version from the seventies. Olivier is painful to watch because he is so mannered, but Plowright, although not the right age for Portia, is fabulous to watch.

Which reminds me--once you've watched Richard III, try Looking for Richard by Al Pacino. It's an interesting study of Pacino and his producer (very harried man!) trying to find the perfect locations and cast for a film version of Richard III. You watch rehearsals as well as discussions about character and acting decisions. There are some intriguing casting choices which are explained--and damn! They work.

I've already watched Richard III. So, I'll try the Pacino film you mentioned.

Thanks for the other suggestions.

You're very welcome. And if you get interested in the "modern" retellings--there are some great ones out there.

I also think Brin inconsistent. I do like the first Uplift trilogy VERY much--I'm quite okay with the ending of Uplift War--I love the sense of humor and the interlocking themes and the aliens especially in that book.The second trilogy didn't resonate nearly as much regarding story line and characters but was passable until (restraining self from shouting and getting violent) he totally copped out in the last book--talk about mysticism and heebie-jeebies, Tad, that was monstrous! I will never forgive him for that. Practice Effect, I agree, very slight book. Earth and Postman I was fine with. I enjoyed Kiln People--loved his homage to classic mystery tropes and also laughed a lot. Haven't read it since it came out, don't remember mysticism in it, but not denying it may be there--just been too long and that's not what stuck with me about the book. Probably time for a re-read.

I recently reread Kiln People and was far more appreciative of the classic mystery mores that were followed than I was the first time I read it. But I do heartily recommend his short stories.

Hi TadAd
I want to thank you for your post regarding Fever 1793. I finished this a few days ago and found it to be a very interesting read.

> 213 Tad - Try Henry V with Kenneth Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Simon Shepherd, and James Larkin. "Once more into the breach dear friends, once more, let us fill up the gap with our English dead" Also, the St. Crsipin's Day speech is a favourite of mine.

>218 TadAD: Tad as you loved The Prisoner of Zenda you might like to try Royal Flash which I have recently read. A take on The Prisoner of Zenda with Flashy in the title role! A really good read.

- TT

I agree with TT on the recommendation of Henry V. I sometimes use the St. Crispin's Day speech to kick off my undergraduate course on Leadership. We talk about influence and identification ("we few, we chosen few, we band of brothers"). Even the ones who are usually asleep in the back seem to like it!

Re: St. Crispin's Day speech--It's one of the pieces of Shakespeare I memorized years ago I loved it so much. Marullus' speech in Julius Caesar (the "Wherefore rejoice" one) was my favorite until I read Henry V, but it didn't stand a chance after that. Now, I'd be hard-pushed to find 8 lines I loved more in Shakespeare than the last 8 of that speech.

I'll put the Flashman book on the list. Do they need to be read in some sort of order? I'm a sucker for those types of novels...not only Prisoner of Zenda but McCutcheon's Graustark and Burrough's The Mad King.

>224 Whisper1:: You're very welcome, Whisper1. I'm glad you liked it.

My favorite Shakespeare line is still the messenger in King John, having been sent back and forth several times: "Let that be thy message and go rot."

On the related-to-Shakespeare movies, there's A Double Life with Ronald Colman (and a very young Shelley Winters) based on Othello where the actor loses himself in the part. Excellent film!

I added Fever 1793 to the library list, there is a Dutch translation available :-)

Fam, because you enjoy YA books, I really think you will appreciate Fever 1793.

Chiming in on the Shakespeare conversations, I never knew of the St. Crispin's Day speech...and now I am prompted to rent the Henry V film.

Porch reader, again, I think your course must be incredibly fascinating. It sounds like you are teaching a lot of great stuff..and enjoying it along the way.

As far as the Shakespeare films go, you might also check your local library to see if they have any videos of the PBS series where they filmed the play versions. PBS may have filmed some of the lesser known plays that you might not be able to find in a traditional film version.

>231 Whisper1:: Whisper1, I'm sure Google can supply you with the complete text, but here's the lines we were talking about. Henry is giving a speech to his men before the battle at Agincourt. The English have been fighting for a long time at the end of a very long supply line. They are exhausted and are faced with overwhelming odds (somewhere between 3-1 and 50-1, depending on whose story you believe). Somehow, the real Henry motivated his troops enough that they scored a devastating victory over the French.

Shakespeare's take on that motivation:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Thanks TadAD and Stasia!

Not sure what it is I did, but you are welcome for whatever it was, lol!

Please excuse the duplicate posts that follow. I am a technologically challenged person working on her daughter's laptop for the first time and having major difficulties :)

Msg 29 (Okay I was late getting over here!) Had no idea The Egg and I was a book first, but it shouldn't come as a surprise. It certainly did make a lovely movie :)

Msg 68, i think -- love the review on Emma. You have such a nice way with words. Poop! Now I'm going to have to read more of your reviews LOL

Msg 125 "ort of damning with faint praise but all I can say is that I didn't mind it" Thx for my first laugh of the day -- a real LOL rather than an internal chuckle written as LOL

Msg 147 "Rt. 10 and Rt. 202." I could see Rt 202 from our yard :) We lived a mile from KoP Mall. I do miss Valley Forge Park.

Did I miss the conclusion of your illness trouble, report on the MRI etc.? Are you better? Hope so!

RE: Burroughs and young readers, have any of you read the Biggles books by W. E. Johns? He's an RAF pilot who goes through a series of adventures across the world. They're not as captivating as Burroughs, nor are they as bigoted. Grew up reading Burroughs and loving it. Went back to read them later and was shocked at how full of hate they were, especially my beloved Tarzans. Glad that didn't stick :)

(the deleted msg above was an accidental post of this one before I was finished)

Back in my bachelor days, I used to live just a few blocks from KoP mall.

The illness is getting much better. Ultra-sound and some drugs broke up the kidney stones well enough that they are not hurting. Antiobiotics nuked the infections. They also seemed to help the bronchitis, which is now just annoying. Percoset helped the back pain, but the tears still hurt if I move the wrong way. Much better, though! Thanks.

I've never tried W. E. Johns. I'll keep an eye out for the Biggles books.

I'm sorry to hear you've been under the weather. Hopefully not so out of it that you're unable to read!?

so glad to hear you're doing better! We hope for "all better" soon. Can't say Biggles is wonderful. I found a stack of them at a brocante (French garage sale) and snatched 'me up. But I can see kids thinking they were fun. Employed your 50 page rule today on the book that was on the "try again someday pile'-- many thanks :) I didn't really want to try again -- I'd rather re-read something I love if I run out of unread material.

Oh definitely feel better! And back to Shakespeare (I just added the Klingon Hamlet and graphic Macbeth--so there's all kinds of possibilities here. I wanted to suggest one other film "around" Shakespeare called Theatre of Blood starring Vincent Price and Diana Rigg. The critics who reviled a Shakespearean actor start meeting their destinies in methods suggested by various Shakespearean plays performed in the actor's last season. Great fun, especially if you know the plays.

102) The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

It's been reviewed here by a lot of people, so there's really not much to say: a pleasant short novel that will give an hour or so's pleasure. A funny beginning, a slightly surprising ending, in between some good humor, a nice message without being preachy.

Off the subject...$15.00 for a novella. What is the world coming to? Thank goodness for libraries!

Hi TadAd
I was out of town for a few days and then have been swamped with work so I haven't had a lot of time to read a lot of the posts.
I'm catching up a bit tonight and I'm so sorry to hear you have not been well.

I hope you are well real soon.

Take care
Linda

Since I stayed home from work (lots of vacation time left and not feeling that hot), and since The Uncommon Reader was so short, I decided to sort some of the paperback piles on the third floor so that I can find them when I want them.

Yeah, that lasted 10 minutes and then I ran into The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner and ended up just sitting there and re-reading them.

If you've never encountered these, they are wonderful YA fantasy novels set in rural England of today-ish. They feel very much like Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising books, if you're familiar with those.

Thanks, Linda and everyone.

I watched your posts increase by several while I was checking the bottom 100 or so I missed in the last two days. I just had to come over and participate. Glad you are feeling better.

BUT, you guys are killing me with your posts. I can't keep up!!!! ARGHHHHH!!!! I am losing control!!!!!! My OCD side is going to take over!!!!! We're going down, we're going down................@~#$@#%#%Y!!

Perhaps we're all cramming since the year is drawing to a close.

I've not heard of Alan Garner before; sounds like a winner. On to the library website to place ANOTHER hold.

>249 alaskabookworm:: It surprises me, alaskabookworm, how little known he is. I talk to friends who are fantasy readers and most say, "Who?"

He's won the Carnegie Medal (for The Owl Service) plus several other awards, has been awarded an OBE for his work in YA and Children's literature, and many serious studies of YA fantasy put his works very near the top yet, somehow, that's the situation. In a way, his recent win of a Phoenix Award (book published in England over 20 years ago that didn't win a major award, but should have) seems to sum up this guy.

I found him only by accident in a second hand book store back in the 80s. I then worked at it and found most of his books, many of which weren't in print at that time. Fortunately, I think most are out again and another generation can find them. I hope you enjoy them.

I tried his adult literature and wasn't able to get into it. He works very hard at reproducing the local dialect of his home (Cheshire) and, somehow, it didn't work for me. His YA stuff does not do that.

I haven't tried his adult stuff, but have
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960)
The Moon of Gomrath (1963) - Sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Elidor (1965)
The Owl Service (1967)
Red Shift (1973)

all of which I picked up in the late 70s, early 80s. I like the first two best, but have read them all numerous times. Heavy emphasis on Welsh mythology, great sense of the countryside.

Edited to add touchstones.

You complained of $15 for a novella--it was only $12.00 in the version I got at Borders this week! Still a lot, though.

TadAD
Certainly, I trust your judgment regarding YA books.
I've added The Weirdstone of Brisingame and The Moon of Gomrath to the list.

Thanks.

>252 ronincats:: Maybe the library edition was more. I was just looking at the price inside the dust jacket of the copy I had checked out.

That explains it--yours was a hard-bound edition, and the one I got at the book store was soft-bound.

TadAD: You have read Three men in a boat! I have wanted to read that for years! How did you like it?

>256 lmichet:: It's quite funny and worth the short time it takes to read.

Excellent. Now I only have to FIND it somewhere-- my college library is mysteriously lacking in most of the kinds of novels I want to read

#246 TadAD: Happens to me all the time when I want to catalog books. I am merrily going along for 10-20 minutes, stumble across something I have not read in a while, and the next thing I know, 2 hours have gone by and I had not catalogued another book

Thanks for the recommendations on the Alan Garner books. I will definitely be on the look out for them.

Glad to hear that you are on the mend!

re: multitudinous msgs :) Gonna have to get me some Alan Garner, and checkout -- again -- Ronincats' library to see what else I've missed. How sloppy of me :)

103) The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

My October Early Reviewer book. I'm glad I finally got around to reading this—recommended, though not emphatically.

The story is set centuries after global nuclear war destroyed most of civilization, set knowledge back to a largely pre-industrial level, and fragmented those who survived into small societies scattered around the world. Mutations are frequent among all forms of life.

The first two thirds of the book evokes a chill in the reader as it portrays a small pocket of people in Labrador whose society has developed based upon religious fundamentalism that is murderously intolerant of any deviation from How God Meant Everything To Be. Mutations in lifestock and plants are utterly destroyed immediately, humans with mutations ("Blasphemies") are sought diligently and killed or driven away; women who bear mutated children are eventually sterilized as delivering Devil's Spawn. The protagonist, David, is born into this intolerance and, having a fairly significant non-visible mutation himself, we watch as he comes to question, and eventually reject, the society that produced him.

The last third of the book loses its focus. David and others like him are discovered and must run. At this point, the story loses its thoughtful tone and simply becomes a quick adventure with little depth or excitement. There is very little tension in the escape before the runners are scooped up by exiled Blasphemies. Their new captors have no depth of character and subplots we've expected from early in the book—such as the fate of the young friend of David's who was exiled, or the story of the mutant who looks suspiciously like David's father—zip by with little explanation, little color and, consequently, little interest.

I think the ending rescues the book. Friends have told me that they do not like it at all. They see it as, "and suddenly they were rescued by the Sealanders and lived happily ever after." I have an different interpretation of the ending. The speech given by the Sealand woman at the end shows me a society just as sure of its essential superiority as the one into which David was born. Its members have replaced certainty of their superiority on the basis of religious faith with certainty of superiority on the basis of Darwinian theories. I don't think Wyndham quit on us halfway through; I think his parting shot is a warning about the dangers of any sort of dogma that sets one group above another.

Recommended.

Interesting that this was an Early Reviewer book--because it was originally published nearly 50 years ago! I read it earlier this year and got the same interpretation of the ending. This is Wyndham's one excursion outside of "real" life to future times, and I think it worked out well.

Yes, you can feel the Cold War tones in the book. I don't know how to put my finger on it, but so many books from that era have a certain "feel".

I'm actually surprised that publishers would send re-releases out as advance copies. You'd think it wouldn't be justified from a marketing perspective. However, beggars can't be choosers and this is what Abby sent me.

LOL--My Early Reviewer book this month is Macbeth--the graphic novel version! So I guess oldies are winners here.

>227 TadAD: Tad, Royal Flash is only the second in the series, so start with Flashman which is the first in the series. Flashman is based on the character in Tom Brown's Schooldays which you don't necesssarily have to read to enjoy the Flashman books. I have only just bought a copy as I haven't read it yet either!

- TT

The leaves all having been disposed of yesterday, I spent today relaxing with a couple books. Re-read Dorsai!. I don't know why I do it to myself: every time I re-read this book, I get depressed. It's not the book...I like the book...it's depression over how a series I started out liking so much became so unenjoyable.

I picked up Soldier, Ask Not in a second hand book store back in the 70s and, not realizing it was part of a series, read it...enjoyed it. Found the Tactics of Mistake prequel, read it...enjoyed it. The Dorsai! sequel got re-released in the mid-70s, read it...enjoyed it.

And then the good times ended. The pre-pre-prequel No Room for Man got re-released, read it...despised it. Hmmm. Two collections of short stores (Lost Dorsai and Spirit of the Dorsai) that were uneven and only fair. Then novel after novel of cut rate action and mediocre mystic babble. Dickson passed away, so it will never be rescued.

*sigh* It could have been one the great series. Fortunately, Tactics of Mistake, Soldier, Ask Not and Dorsai! actually form a coherent trilogy even though the larger Childe Cycle was a flop (imo).

Yah! I kept those three plus Spirit of the Dorsai. I also have Necromancer (No Room for Man) but it's been so long since I read it I have no idea what I thought of it. I have one of the later books that was given to me but I've never read it (Other). When I reread Dickson, I tend to go for Wolfling, Masters of Everon (I have this thing for telepathic cats) and occasionally The Dragon and The George. I loved that book, but none of the sequels lived up to it IMHO and after trying two, I stopped reading them, and didn't keep those two. The only reason I don't go back to that Dorsai trilogy is that I'd have to read all 3!

104) Secrets of a Family Album by Isla Dewar

A pleasant, comforting story whose focus is the members of an extended family, all of whom are struggling with disappointments in their own lives and envy over the lives of other members. The result is a slice of life novel with well-drawn characters, interesting stories, and a large dose of humor. I particularly liked that Ms. Dewar could take the most banal of events, such as giving a cheese sandwich to the wrong person, and fashion a situation whose emotional content I immediately understood. If you're looking for an uncomplicated, make-you-feel-good sort of book, I enjoyed this one.

TadAd
It is now the end of the academic semester and deadlines loom -- I am looking for a make-you-feel-good sort of book.

I'm adding your book #104 to my list.
Thanks! I enjoyed your description.

Msg 267 that is so true on The Dragon & the George Series. I do like some of Dickson's non-Dorsai sfs very much too, Alien Way, for example. Gee I just got No Room for Man in that shipment. Hope I like it better than you did.

(lots of messages back coming late to the party) Alan Garner!! Fantastic. Well worth a look. The Owl Service is genuinely creepy.

He's published one for adults reasonably recently, Thursbitch, which I had put on my TBR list but Scott Pack was not impressed, which did cause me a moment's pause (so I've moved it down a bit).

105) Shadow of the Hawk by Geoffrey Trease

I saw this at a friend's house and thought it was a book by the same name I had read as a kid. After some research, it turns out that book was the British version of the book published in America as The Daughter of the Hawk by C. S. Forester.

This one turned out to be the American version of the British book The Hills of Varna. It was a bit of serendipity as I enjoyed it. It's a YA adventure story, set during the Renaissance, about a young man and a young woman (disguised as a boy) on a search to recover a Greek manuscript from a monastery in the Balkans. Full of local and temporal color, a reasonable bit of adventure, and with an ending that avoids some cliché, this was fun.

It's probably not easy to find a copy, but I think I'll keep an eye out for one for my kids.

Edit: Touchstones all messed up, so I removed them.

Sounds like another good YA book for me to hunt up. Thanks for the review and recommendation.

You might try www.abebooks.com in the hunt for a copy for your children.

Yeah, I found a couple there, on Amazon and a few other places. Violates my "no buying books before 2009" rule, so I'll wait a bit.

I would have to go through withdrawal symptoms if I had a 'no buying books' rule. In order to just save myself the time and heartache, I do not :)

I'm using the library. I have enough of a Wish List that I can find plenty of things around the county and get them transferred to our town.

Yes, I use the library a lot, too. Unfortunately, that does not seem to keep me from buying books, though.

I hope you are feeling better these days!

106) Edge of Darkness by Barry Thornton



I used to spend a lot of my free time in a darkroom. Sadly, time does not permit anymore, the enlarger is packed away, and photo tweaking is a Photoshop process. Still, I love reading books about black & white photography.

This is a good one. It's filled with exceptionally nice landscape photographs. However, it's more than just a coffee table book—the author spends a good deal of time sharing a lifetime of advice on lighting, focusing decisions, printing techniques, etc.

TadAD
You are a very interesting person! As a publications adviser, there are many instances when I tell students about the beauty of black and white photos compared to color. Each year, I stress the need for the book to contain both color and black and white.

I imagine you may like the photography of Ansel Adams.

Sitting above me is the four part Old Faithful series by him. :-)

107) Auggie Wren's Christmas Story by Paul Auster

I read this on someone here's recommendation...I think prop2gether.

An enjoyable few minutes of reading. A Christmas story that manages to be fun and Christmas-y without being sentimental in the slightest.

I hear there's a movie. I'm not sure how they managed to fill an entire movie from just a few minutes of story, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

108) March by Geraldine Brooks

I had mixed reactions to the book, basically summed up by, "Enjoyed the writing, disliked the characters."

I found March, himself, very tedious. The endless self-flagellation grated. Having first-hand experience (I have an 11 year old daughter), I just wanted to roll my eyes and say, "Drama queen!" Even his moral postures seemed to have no real adult depth. For a man who was intimate with some of the thinkers of his day, was a minister, and was actively involved in the Underground Railroad, he seemed to have very little understanding of the world. I was more reminded of a sanctimonious teenager whipped to a demagogic fury rather than the mature reflections of a 41 year old man. Marmee March just struck me as a bit hypocritical.

There was a Publishers Weekly blurb about the "host of achingly human minor characters." That is exactly what I didn't find. Instead, I encountered a supporting cast all playing roles. Clement was the stereotypical evil southern farmer; Canning the stereotypical carpetbagger; Grace and Zannah the stereotypical beautiful and intelligent slaves.

Balancing this was an easy and readable writing style that carried the book along swiftly. I have no idea if the language of the book is actually authentic, but it felt that way, a window into 150 years ago. The book is moving in spite of the characters. Brooks shows us the senseless deaths and horror of the war, the brutality of slavery, the savage behaviors of which men are capable once society breaks down, the greed of those willing to exploit the tragedy and the naïveté of those who thought to apply a quick fix.

I would give this book a light recommendation. It failed being very good, but is worth a read.

#272 - ooh, this brought back memories of a book we had in school Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease. I think I was in grade 7 (the same year our teacher read The Hobbit to us - before it was well known, we thought it was fantastic).
I want to read Cue for Treason again! I'm on the hunt....

109) No Room at the Inn by Edna Ferber


A retelling of Christ's birth set in anti-Semitic, pre-World War II Europe. Not your average Christmas story, but it was moving.

110) Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

I read this to see what all the fuss is about. I didn't love it. Edward was a little too perfect. Bella was a little too clueless (you have the entire male population salivating over you and you don't have even a hint you're attractive?). She was definitely a little too flat emotionally—I don't care how in love you are, there's going to be some emotional spark over the fact that your boyfriend really, really, really hungers to kill you. I also found the first 80% of the book a bit stretched: since there was almost zero tension between Bella and Edward other than hormones, it wasn't until the introduction of James that conflict really entered the book. I'd have liked about 100 fewer pages at the beginning and about 100 more toward the end.

On the other hand, I can see how this appeals. It's got that guilty pleasure type of writing where you get sucked into the drama. If your hormones are pumping just like Bella's, this book is probably great.

I don't know if I'll continue the books or not. I've deliberately avoided learning what the series was about because I thought I'd read it. However, based on the first book, I don't feel I'm going out on a limb predicting a vampire/werewolf/human love triangle, a bunch of damsel-in-distress moments, a lot of angst over the "make me a vampire" thing...

...in other words, Laurel Hamilton for the PG-13 set.

I'm not sure I want to go that route again...particularly since I'm hearing from a number of those in the perfect target audience (daughter's middle school and high school friends) that the series ends with a whimper.

I can't say I recommend it; I can't say it's terrible.

I've been thinking of trying to get hold of a copy to see what the fuss is about. From your review, I fear that I would get sucked into the 'guilty pleasure' world so maybe its better that I can't get hold of a copy!!! lol

I also wanted to start this series for the very same reason but your review has put me off, for sometime atleast.

I've read such varying opinions and at least one wickedly funny satirical analysis--it's good to get your opinion, Tad, because I really wanted to know what so many people saw in this despite its documented shortcomings! And I don't really want to read it myself (she confesses shamefacedly).

I had much the same reaction to March. Mr. March was pretty much what I expected him to be and I knew that he would not be somebody very likeable. The whole book, in fact, waxed and waned in likeability for me. Those stock characters were killers.

Oh, glad to hear you enjoyed both Christmas stories I found this year. I thought they were good representations of their times and the basic messages of the season.

111) Random Harvest by James Hilton


Well, a very good book for number eleventy-one.

Sandwiched between Armistice Day of World War I and the opening shots of World War II, this is the story of a man who lost his memory from shell shock in the first war, started to build a new life, and then had an accident that took his memory of that life while restoring his pre-war memory. On the surface it's a well-told romance with wonderful characters, both major and minor. Underneath, it's a metaphor for England and a disappearing way of life. Heart-warming without being sentimental, thought-provoking.

I liked this more than either Goodbye, Mr. Chips or Lost Horizon...both books that I enjoyed. So far, Hilton is batting 1000 with me.

Edit: "sentimental" has only one "i"

#291 TadAD: I have not yet read Random Harvest by Hilton. I have read the other 2 of his you mentioned and enjoyed them, so I will definitely have to give it a try. Thanks for the recommedation!

>111 MusicMom41:. Tad, thanks for your review of Random Harvest. I read Goodbye, Mr. Chips a short while ago and am now reading Lost Horizon and loving it. So I will definately look out for Random Harvest.

Intriguing! I loved Goodbye, Mr. Chips -- thx.

I wonder if it appealed to me so much because I'm just finishing up The Guns of August. The surface story of Random Harvest is about the man who lost his memory. However, it's not hard to see the book as being about England's failure to learn from World War I and repeating the same mistakes going into World War II. Since The Guns of August has me screaming to myself about "how could they have been so blind!?!" (I know, 20-20 hindsight) I found the Hilton book particularly affecting.

This is one of those books I'll re-read down the road. I wonder how I'll react then.

All this isn't to change what I said above...I did enjoy it more than Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Lost Horizon. I'm just wondering why. :-)

#295 Tad: Maybe it is just as simple as it is a better book . . .

Well, it looks like the movie folks liked Greer Garson for Goodbye Mr. Chips and Ronald Colman for Lost Horizon enough to unite them in Random Harvest, the movie. Thanks for another reference to a Hilton novel. I like his works.

The movie's gotten some nice reviews, so I'll probably Netflix it and have a look. Be aware that there's a plot twist to this book so, if you don't want it spoiled for the book, you might want to read before watching.

112) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

I liked this even better than the movie—everything was a bit clearer and richer: my distaste for Jean Brodie, the growing divergence of the girls' private feelings from their subservient demeanor, the perspectives into the minds of Miss Brodie's adult acquaintances. Whereas my admiration for Maggie Smith's abilities made her the most interesting part of the film for me, I found myself more interested in the growth of the girls as individuals and their life choices in the book.

The book is not long and Ms. Spark has achieved such a good flow between the school-days perspective and that of Sandy's memories, and between the stories of the six girls, that it almost seemed like a short story.

nice review

Thank you.

>295 TadAD: Tad, I was just checking my local library system and I didn't know that Hilton had written another Chips book called To You, Mr. Chips. Have you read this? Or anyone? There was another book listed under James Hilton but I don't think it can be the same author Murder at School or maybe it is? Anyone?

ETA : Found it on Wikipedia: James Hilton: Murder at School (U.S. title: Was It Murder?), published under the pen-name Glen Trevor, 1931 (A Pot-boiler, maybe?)

- TT

113) The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman


This eminently-readable history book covers the first 30 days of World War I, ending with the Battle of the Marne that stopped the German drive toward Paris.

As a complete picture of history, it is somewhat deficient. The book focuses almost exclusively on the German-French conflict, and barely mentioning the precipitating ambitions of Austro-Hungary, the precipitating actions of Serbia, the British economic pressures and the internal Social Democrat pressures on Germany, and very little about the Russian involvement after the Battle of Tannenberg.

However, as a recounting of the actions and disasters of those opening days of battle, it was riveting. The common picture of World War I as a static battle of trenches had not yet come into focus; this was a time of rapid move and countermove that set the stage for the rest of the war and, arguably, the rest of the half-century.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this book is how much the lives of millions were affected, not by the results of actual fighting, but by the unwillingness of a few military leaders to deal with what was rather than their opinions of what should be: the reliance of the French military generals, particularly Joffre, on the absurd doctrine of élan as embodied in Plan XVII; Sir John French's certainty that his troops were unable to fight despite the reports of their commanders; Kluck's exposure of his right flank to the French and British because German doctrine stated that troops in towns expecting siege never advanced out from their fortifications. Equally depressing was the realization that the Germans deliberately reintroduced a campaign of terror on civilians as a weapon of war, thereby presaging the remaining conflicts of the century.

I highly recommend this.

>302 TheTortoise:: No, I haven't read that one, yet.

I read The Guns of August the first year I was married--it was one of the books Hubby brought to the Union. I was enthralled by it and remember I read it in one Saturday--a long day, finished about 11:00 PM. Then I was too excited go to sleep so I picked up another book to make me sleepy--Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. (I didn't know anything about that book at the time.) I crawled into bed just as the sun was coming up. Oh, it was wonderful being young and able to keep awake to read as long as I wanted! Thanks for the memory!

114) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

This has been on my reading list for years; I finally got around to it.

This is a story about a woman and the two men in love with her. However, it is not your typical love triangle, for one of them knows she is a "girl that I met forty years too late," and he contents himself with helping her build her life with the man she loves.

The first part of the book introduces us to Jean, Joe and Noel, and tells the story of the first meeting of Jean and Joe loosely based upon some horrible incidents in the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia during World War II. The second half is a friendly slice of Australia in the 1950s (Shute immigrated there), including that era's mores and prejudices about women and Aborigines. It is subtly replete with Mr. Shute's feelings about self-reliance and individual initiative (in some ways, Shute is like an Ayn Rand without the in-your-face attitude).

The book is simply written in Shute's easily-read style: quiet, colorful, entertaining.

Recommended.

You might also want to try Shute's The Pied Piper, although you may have to hunt for it. I saw the film version with Monty Wooley twice and recall it, and the book, with great affection.

I absolutely love A Town Like Alice, its been on my and my mother's 'comfort reading' list for many years and I'm glad you enjoyed it as well. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Have you ever read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?

Yes! Betty Smith's book is wonderful, as was the film made with Dorothy McGuire as the mother, and James Dunn as the father. It's a coming of age in New York story, and I really enjoyed each time I've read it.

#114 TadAD

A Town Like Alice is one of my favorite books of all time--and due for a reread! I also second Prop2gether's recommendation of Pied Piper. That one is charming.

I'm trying to collect all of his works--Schute was a favorite author of my Dad which is where I got started with him. He is hard to find in the US now because he's not in print here. I haunt the used book stores.

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I like A Town Like Alice more than I had liked Marazan and The Lonely Road, so I'm fine with trying some of his other stuff.

message 299
I had the same reactions as you re. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I really disliked her manipulative ways.

I've added A Town Like Alice to my tbr pile. I've never heard of this book and your description is delightful.

I'm adding A Town Like Alice too, I'd love to read it. I remember seeing it on Masterpiece Theatre years ago and loved it. The show really concentrated a lot on the first part of the story, and that's the part of it I really remember. Bryan Brown starred in it, thanks for reminding me of it!

TadAD, you should also consider On the Beach by Shute. I read that this year and it was very good. It was on one of my 100 best lists and I still haven't read any other Shute. It is an early nuclear holocaust type story. I think you would enjoy it.

Nevil Shute is one of my favorites and I love On the Beach. BDB beat me to the punch in recommending it. I read A Town Like Alice several years ago - maybe it is time for a revisit.

My book group just recently read March. Much the same reaction to yours. I liked it more than most people, but as you mentioned, it may be more for the writing than the characters. I love Brooks' writing and loved People of the Book and Nine Parts of Desire.

I've also read Twilight - the whole series in fact. A guilty pleasure, admittedly. Once I started I had to see how everything turned out. I must say, I saw the movie and I thought it was much better than the book.

My book group also read A Town Like Alice a couple years ago. We all liked it a lot. Nevil Shute reminds me of On the Beach, and On the Beach reminds me of another book by the same person from my book group that recommended A Town Like Alice in the first place: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. Have you read that one?

I do not know about anyone else posting on the thread, but I have not read Alas, Babylon. I will put it on Continent TBR.

Ha! Stasia! A book I can send YOU!!!!! (finally)

#320: Trust me on this, Linda, it is not hard to find books to send me :)

>318 alaskabookworm:: Linda,

Yes, I've read Alas, Babylon and enjoyed it.

If you like post-apocalyptic fiction, another one I enjoyed was Malevil by Robert Merle. I think it's out of print, but can probably be found somewhere.

I've had Martin's Earth Abides on my TBR pile for a long time now. It never quite percolates to the top, but it will get there someday.

#322 Tad: I read Earth Abides this last year. I thought it was very good, although I still have problems with the fact that the survivor's children were taught very little reading.

And for you Nevil Shute fans--do try Pied Piper if you can find it. If not, find the movie starring Monty Wooley--it's a gem.

115) A Game of Universe by Eric S. Nylund

I'll let one of my favorite cartoon characters, Berke Breathed's Bill the Cat, give my review: Ack! Thbbbt!

Christmas is quite busy for our family, plus we're releasing a new version of the product at work in a week, so that may be the end of books finished for this year. Maybe one or two more, if I'm lucky...we'll see.

Including 20ish re-reads that I remembered to write down, it was 135 for the nine months since I joined LT...about 180ish for the year. However, it felt a bit stressed at times, so maybe I'll shoot for 150 or so next year.

#325 has got to be the best review so far! 8^}

drneutron...
I agree...that was a funny review....
TadAD, finally I found a book on your list that I will not add to my tbr pile...

Good luck with the new version of the product at work...

I hear you on cutting back. I have so many things which need to be done. I'm going to try to read no more books than I logged this year for a start (I missed a bunch, so even if I hit the same number it will be fewer books/yr). Also decided to count pages (or attempt it) next year, as all books are not created equal ... hmmm then again, all pages aren't created equal -- word counts? LOL

I'm not in the same league as you all--but I did beat 100 books this year. Next year I anticipate not reading quite so many because my 999 challenge means I'll be reading less fluff and more books that will require concentration. I'll be happy if I get my 81--although I may slip in a little fluff along the way! ;-)

In 2009 I will once again keep track of the pages I read from my personal library--this year I hope to reach 15,000 pages in books I physically own -- I have about 300 more to go!

>330 MusicMom41: I thought, '81?' LOL didn't realize 9x9 is 81 LOL Okay, math is not my strong point. I was thinking 'what does that have to do with a 75 book challenge?!' Duh

Oh Suslyn, the trick with the nines tables is to subtract 1 from whatever number you multiply by 9 (say 7-1=6) and that's your first number, then add to that number to make 9 again (i.e., 6+3=9). So 9*5=(5-1=4) plus 5=9, so the final number is 45. Sounds more complicated in written form, but trust me, it works! My dad, the chemical engineer, had all kinds of math tricks up his sleeve.

Prop2gether

My Dad taught me that trick, too. He got so interested in math helping me all through school to really understand it, that when he retired from the USCG the year I graduated high school he went back and got an advanced degree in math and spent many years as head of the math department of the California Maritime Academy.

Once you get above the point where that works, you can still remember that the digits of any positive number divisible by 9, add up to 9...use recursion if the first number is greater than a single digit.

E.g.

9 * 5487 = 49383

4+9+3+8+3 = 27

2+7 = 9

Value in everyday life?...perhaps not much. Interest for those of us who like trivia...priceless. Oops, sorry MasterCard.

With elementary school students, I use the finger technique. Does the same thing that Prop2gether's method does but manually.

LOL--my daughter was kicked out as an fifth grader tutor for lower grades when she taught them a finger counting game her grandfather taught her:

How many fingers do you have? (show two open hands with fingers and thumb spread apart)

(Crowd answers "10" or super-smart "8 plus 2 thumbs")

Say, No. (Then count down on one hand) 10, 9, 8, 7, 6--and 5 (hold up other hand) is 11.

Still a hit with the K-3 crowd of nieces and nephews!!

TadAD: I've never heard that trick before. (Where have I been?) That's pretty cool. And I'm not sure why, but it seems a bit freaky too.

Prop, once you've figured out how to make 2 + 2 = 5 the rest is easy!

- TT

All you have to do is get out of a decimal system. (teehee!)

The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises by Stephen R. Donaldson

Finally the books are picking up the pace enough that I can see why folks like this series. I'm dubious that it will displace the Mordant books as my favorite Donaldson but, at least, I'm enjoying the story now.

I'm going to hold off on reviews until I finish the fourth and fifth, since it's really a single story.

117) Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell

Lots of time stuck in traffic due to winter weather let me finish the second in the Sharpe series on audio book. An excellent #2 following the excellent #1! I love this series, so far.

Unfortunately, #3 - #5 are not yet available in unabridged audio book from my library system and I'm enjoying doing these and O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series as commute-killers. So I'll jump to Sharpe's Rifles.

Edit: Since when is there an apostrophe in the word "lots"?

Anything is possible after a stretch of time stuck in traffic, even a change in the rules of apostrophe's.

>341 TadAD: Tad, I have just started reading Bernard Cornwell. Except I started with the Starbuck series and am reading Rebel. There are only four in this series and I have them all. Then I plan to start on the Sharpe series. Cornwell is such an excellent writer.

- TT

i read the broker last year

i'm still gonna read all the books. even my daughter says the last book is weird, but i want to see myself what happens with bella and edward.

>343 TheTortoise:: TheTortoise

I think there are 21 novels and at least 3 short stories in the Sharpe series, so it can last a loooonnnggg time.

#341

"Edit: Since when is there an apostrophe in the word "lots"?"

lot's = belonging to (a) lot! e.g. The lot's pavement is bumpy. ;-)

(sorry--I never met a rhetorical question I wasn't tempted to try to answer!)

>341 TadAD: I too came to respond:

When it's referring to his wife :)

>346 TadAD: Tad, I only plan to read the first six! Because I have 3-6 and will probably borrow 1 & 2 from the library.

>348 suslyn: Of course, Suse: Lot's Wife!

- TT

>349 TheTortoise:: I figure I'll spread them over a lot of years. I've done 2/21 Sharpe novels and 3/20½ Aubrey/Maturin novels. That will provide years of driving entertainment even if I don't pick up other audio books (which I do).

118) The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order by Stephen R. Donaldson

Not bad. I'm holding my review until I finish the fifth book, since it's all one story.

Thought I'd give fleela's idea of using big numbers to set off book counts from message ids (it makes the book entries easier to find) a try.

For Christmas, I received:

: A Cedar Cove Christmas by Debbie Macomber

This Christmas tale attempts to replicate in modern times the basic story of the Nativity in just about every way except for having a divine birth. We have the young girl, Mary Jo, traveling and finding no room in the hotels. We find shelter in an apartment above a barn, surrounded by sheep, oxen, horses and a camel. We've got her brothers...three of them...last name Wyse...carrying presents of gold, incense and perfume...trying to find her. We've got all kinds of Good Samaritans acting as angels of mercy. We've even got a young child who received a drum as a present who wants to play for her.

For the first half, the book seemed like a fairly typical Christmas feel-good: a quick and easy read that wouldn't challenge the mind much. As the second half unfolded, however, it all just seemed a bit forced—nary a twist or turn in the quest to jam every Christmas vignette into the story. By the time we got to the three Wyse men navigating by following a star...err, fireworks launched outside the barn...I was glad for the book to end.

Certainly not recommended. In a Christmas spirit, I'll give it a very neutral:



Edit: numerous typos.

>352 TadAD: Tad, I tried to use Fleela's idea but couldnt figure out how to do it. How did you do it, please?

- TT

>353 TheTortoise:: TT

Basically, you have to use images since LT doesn't allow you to use font specifications other than bold, etc. fleela and I use slightly different approach for getting our images but everything else is the same.

She picks up a unique image for each number. Google search on "number X", click on the 'images' link, select 'small images' in the combo box, then insert that image into your post with an <img> tag.

That approach will end up with each number looking slightly different, which I didn't want. So, I made an image of each digit and put them up on the Web. Then I just "glue" them together to make the number I want. For example, to make '10', I would use:

<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_1.bmp"><img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_0.bmp">

If you want individual digits, you can make them by getting the look you want in Word or some other app and then posting them on the Web somewhere. Or, you're welcome to use mine, if you want:

<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_0.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_1.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_2.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_3.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_4.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_5.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_6.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_7.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_8.bmp">
<img src="http://www.deffler.com/lt/number_9.bmp">

>354 TadAD:: AAAAHHHH! Are you telling me that this old dog may need to learn a new trick to get all fancy with my thread??!! I'm scared.

TadAD
Regarding the numbers posted above...I am in awe of your abilities! May I borrow the numbers as weel?

If so, thanks!

Of course.

Many thanks http://www.deffler.com/LT/number_2.bmp
you!

Linda, you need the whole thing, including the:

<img src="

and the

">

that bracket the URL.

ok, I'll give it another try when I have more energy.
Many thanks for your guidance!

: Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel by Jonathan Maberry

Thriller, Horror, Early Reviewer

Maberry has taken a basic horror concept and applied the dictum "there must be a logical explanation for this" and created a suspense thriller. Terrorists have developed a prion-based parasite that destroys higher brain function in its victims, slows their metabolism dramatically, cuts the pain centers and has a terrible drive to reproduce by saliva transmission…effectively, zombies. Baltimore cop Joe Ledger gets recruited into a top-secret government organization to stop the use of this weapon by jihadis.

Maberry did a good job of it. Despite a few moments of melodrama, the writing is fast-paced and smooth and I was drawn right into the story. There is very little build-up. From the opening concept that “When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week, then there’s …something wrong…" to the final pages of the story, the action is relentless and exciting. Along the way, we are introduced to a number of fairly well-drawn and interesting characters—hopefully, we’ll get to know more about them in the sequel promised in the book’s blurb.

The cross-over from horror to techno-thriller actually works fairly well. Regardless of whether the biology actually makes sense, I had neither the feeling of reading a horror book with a really lame explanation for events, nor the feeling of a thriller with a ludicrous terrorist gimmick. The author has done a good job of keeping the technical explanations to the right level: neither mystic hand-waving nor tedious droning of scientific details.

I’m looking forward to picking up the next Joe Ledger book.



Edit: typos

#361: Thanks for the write up on Patient Zero, Tad. Looks like a good book and one I will have to track down.

While not as ambitious in categorizing as some, I like the idea of summing up the year that someone started:

Final Four Fiction (in no order)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Random Harvest by John Hilton
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Final Four Non-fiction (in no order)
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
Night by Elie Wiesel
Prospero's Cell by Lawrence Durrell
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Some Bookie Awards
Worst Fiction Book: A Game of Universe by Eric S. Nylund

Worst Non-fiction Book: The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester

Most Cliché Plot Line: A Cedar Cove Christmas by Debbie Macomber

Book You Couldn't Put Down: Night by Elie Wiesel

Book You Couldn't Wait to Put Down: A Game of Universe by Eric S. Nylund

Most Original Idea: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

I Loved This Character: Mary Russell in The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie r. King

How Nice To See An Old Friend: Jack Aubrey in H. M. S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian

I Felt I Should Like It, But Didn't: In the Heart of the Seas by S. J. Agnon

Totals for the 9 months I kept track
New Reads: 120
Re-reads: 21
Cumulative: 141

Fiction: 117
Non-fiction: 24
New Authors: 72
"Non-genre" Reads (a goal this year): 58
Reading Globally additions: 7

Glad to see you too liked The Picture of Dorian Gray, its one of my all time favourites.

TadAD

Love your summary.

I've only read one of your fiction titles--Pride and Prejudice which I've read many times starting when I was 13 years old. I own a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and will now add it to my classics category in 999. I read my first Michael Chabon book this year and I think I can put Yiddish Policemen in my mystery category. Now you are filling my categories! :-)

3 out of 4 of your nonfiction books are favorites of mine and will stand up to rereads. I've read Gerald Durrell but I don't think I've read Lawrence--but where can I put him!

Bookie Awards: I read The Professor and the Madman and though it was wonderful. I've tried a couple of his others but couldn't get into them. I own The Map that Changed the World--an impulse buy in the London airport that I've never gotten around to. It sounds like this will be another one I'll be putting off.

I'm sorry you didn't like In the Heart of the Seas. It took me a while to get into it, but when I finally got the flow I really enjoyed it--I love folk stories, quests, and "life journeys"--so it was my kind of book, I guess.

I'll be doing my summary when this year is over--still reading! ("On the hill" for 3 days while Hubby is "in the valley" working--he'll come up by train Wednesday night for the weekend.)

>365 MusicMom41:: MusicMom41 - I went and checked your 999 categories. Probably the only place it would fit is Memoirs, Biography, Letters and History. It is a memoir of his life on Corfu covering the same period as Gerald's My Family and Other Animals. However, you have that category well-filled, so perhaps the next challenge! ;-)

Arrrrrgh!

Now I have 2 more books to fit in! I haven't read THAT Gerald Durrell book!

Hey--I'm supposed to read fewer books next year than this year!

Egads!

It's his absolutest bestest!!!!

*smile*

Actually, something that is quite interesting is to contrast Larry as seen through Gerald's pre-teen eyes with the person revealed by Lawrence's own writing.

>354 TadAD: Thanks Tad. I will have to run this by Mrs Tortoise as she will be able to do this for me. I am not so hot on the techie stuff!

- TT

I appreciated your review of the year very much. You check out my thread as do a few others but I'm not sure it would benefit anyone for me to do a similar thing. I suppose I might surprise myself though... hmmm

Bless you

Susan, by all means do a summary if you think you'd enjoy it. I will certainly read it.

Thx - I started and realized how incomplete it would be, how much time it would take etc and quit. Maybe next year.

Before I leave the States I need to paint a vanity and mirror for my folks' bathroom, finish reading and editing the current version of dad's book, and time-permitting, help my mom assemble some scrapbooks she wants me to take home with me (here is your life type thing). So no list.

>369 TheTortoise: Actually Tad, I did manage to do it on my own! OK I just copy and pasted your links - but it works! So thanks.

Happy New Year and see you on the 2009 thread!

- TT

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