Rebeccanyc's 2009 Reading, Part 2

My first thread is getting a little long, so I've decided it's time to start a new thread for September and the rest of the year. You can read my first thread here.

Here is my running list of books I've read this year, with the most recent ones first. My thoughts on books 1-53 are on the first thread; I'll comment on later books below.

Your thoughts are welcome! That's why I joined Club Read!

87. Dark Avenues by Ivan Bunin
*86. How Markets Fail by John Cassidy
*85. American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
*84. Everything Flows, by Vassily Grossman
*83. The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel
82. Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis
*81. Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
*80. Fludd by Hilary Mantel
79. Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel
*78 Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
77. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
76. Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman by Francine du Plessix Gray
75. The Book of Fathers by Miklós Vámos
74. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
*73. The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
*72. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
71. The Last Jet-Engine Laugh by Ruchir Joshi
70. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War by Neil Sheehan
69. Translation Is a Love Affair, by Jacques Poulin
*68. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
*67. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
*66 Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann
65. Lucinella by Lore Segal
*64. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
63. The Gates of Hell: Sir John Franklin's Tragic Quest for the Northwest Passage
*62. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
61. The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño
60. Harare North by Brian Chikwava
*59. The Cost of Living by Mavis Gallant
58. Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
57. In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic by David Wessel
56. The Cave and the Cathedral by Amir D. Aczel
*55. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
54. Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
53. Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
*52. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
51. Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret MacMillan
50. Pigeon Pie by Nancy Mitford
49. My Life in France by Julia Child
48. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
47. The Russia House by John le Carré
46. Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis by George Makari
45. The Thing around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
44. Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien
43. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
*42. A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
41. A Dream in Polar Fog by Yuri Rytkheu
*40 The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Atlantic Expedition by Susan Soloman
39. The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy
*38 Smiley's People by John le Carré
37. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
*36 The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré
*35 Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić
*34. In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
33. Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters by George A. Akerlof and Robert Shiller
*32. Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
31. The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch
30. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
29. Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz
28. *Nobody Move by Denis Johnson
27. Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
26. In the United States of Africa by Abdourahman A. Waberi
25. The Drinker by Hans Fallada
24. *Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen
23. A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis
22. The Winners by Julio Cortázar
21. *The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara Tuchman
20. *Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
19. *The Emperor's Tomb by Joseph Roth
18. The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer
17. *Agent Zigzag by Ben McIntyre
16. Novel 11, Book 18 by Dag Solstad
15. *Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy
14. The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life by Michael Blastland and Arthur Dilnot
13. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus
12. *The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori
11. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
10. Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto
9. With Your Crooked Heart by Helen Dunmore
8. The Secret Pilgrim by John Le Carre
7. *2666 by Roberto Bolano
6. The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life through the Pages of a Lost Journal by Lily Koppel
5. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
4. How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein
3. *The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
2. The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
1.Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler

As an update on my reading, I'm still working my way through the fascinating and very rewarding Joseph and His Brothers, but it is quite a tome, so I'm not taking it with me on my end-of-summer trip upstate. Instead, I'm taking the highly recommended on LT Await Your Reply and The Glass Room, along with a new book on prehistoric art, a subject that interests me, The Cave and the Cathedral.

Rebecca, I stayed in a house overflowing with books last weekend and have now borrowed all three of the Smiley books on your recommendation; also picked up Buddenbrooks and then regretfully put it down again (on the grounds that 9 books borrowed was already too many....)

Will be interested to hear what you make of the Chaon - it does seem to be getting some very approving reviews. I have the opening extract from the Random House website open in my browser but still haven't got round to reading it. By coincidence, I'm reading Letters to a Fiction Writer at the moment, a collection of letters written to writers, by writers. Published in 1999, it was a little too early for Chaon to make it as a letter-author, but he is named as a recipient!

Flossie, Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the Smiley series. See below for the Chaon.

#54 Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

I read this book because it's generated so much buzz both here on LT and in reviews. It was a compelling read, with well-drawn out characters and situations, deft interweaving of three plot strands, and fast pacing but . . . well, I'm not sure what my "but" is but I wasn't completely satisfied even though I couldn't put it down. Maybe it's because the issue of identity and identify theft are a tad obvious, maybe it's because I had a little bit of an idea of one of the plot twists in advance, maybe it's because a few scenes were a little over the top, maybe it's because there were some threads that weren't tied up (unless I didn't read it carefully enough) . . . In any case, it is very well written, quite creepy, and definitely worth reading.

#55 The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

Darryl's (kidzdoc) enthusiastic review of this book led me to read it. It is a lovely moving portrait of a family, a time of war and turmoil, and a very special building, a totally modern home with an amazing glass room built by a noted architect for the family. The story begins at a time of hope, in 1929, when, in the aftermath of the first world war, Czechoslovakia has become an independent country, and modern ideas of art, architecture, and politics are thriving. Then, the world they know falls apart, both politically and emotionally, and the openness of the glass room contrasts with secrets within the family and between members of the family and the people around them. We see what happens to the family and to the house through the war, German occupation, and Soviet occupation and control. I thought it was a beautiful book but it was marred for me by one very hard-to-believe coincidence that was an essential plot point, and by a smaller one at the end.

I'm glad that you liked The Glass Room, Rebecca. What was the first coincidence that you were referring to? I'm pretty sure that the smaller one at the end was the same one I (and others) also noted.

Darryl, I don't want to put a spoiler on my thread, so I am going to post a comment on your profile.

#57 The Cave and the Cathedral by Amir D. Aczel

The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists by Gregory Curtis was one of my favorite books of last year, and so I was eager to pursue my interest in prehistoric art by reading this book. Alas, I was disappointed. The author writes in a breezy, repertorial style, covering some the same historical ground as Curtis in his discussions of cave explorers and interpreters, but in a dramatically less profound and moving way. He does provide some interesting information about the theory of the meaning of the cave art that he happens to believe, and that was not particularly highlighted in The Cave Painters, and there are some gorgeous plates, but there is also a great deal of repetition. The book focuses more on the interpretation of the art and less on the grandeur of the human sprirt that is capable of such artistic prowess. Incidentally, I read The Cave Painters because of this New Yorker article which I also found inspiring.

PS The subtitle "How a real-life Indiana Jones and a renegade scholar decoded the ancient art of man" is total marketing-speak and has virtually nothing to do with the book.

#57 In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic by David Wessel

David Wessel is the economics editor of The Wall Street Journal and his journalism background shows in this readable story of the behind-the-scenes activity in Washington as our current economic crisis began and grew. In some cases, there might be a little too much detail (for me) about who said what and when, but overall I found it gave me some good insight into what was going on and why people acted the way they did. To the extent Wessel concludes anything, he notes that Bernanke et al. will be judged by how fast we emerge from the problem, rather than whether they saved us from falling into a far worse situation than the one we're in.

Rebecca, your thread is as interesting as always!

I'm still eagerly waiting for some of your thoughts on Thomas Mann. But don't worry, I am a patient cat.

Thanks, Murr. You will have to be patient because it is a looooooooong book and too heavy for me to carry around on the subway, my prime reading time. But, for a little tidbit at nearly one-third of the way through, I can say it is beautifully written, perceptive about character, thought-provoking, and in places over my head.

#58 Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow

Doctorow has always been brilliant at creating characters and at deceptively simple wonderful writing, and this slim novel is no exception. Taking off from, and changing in significant ways, the lives of the real-life eccentric hoarders, the Collyer brothers, he makes the often-stereotyped brothers into feeling, thinking, individual human beings, albeit at fringe of "normal" society; introduces other equally well-drawn characters who interact with the Collyers; and comments obliquely on many of the major events of the 20th century in the US and on the meaning of history itself (although in one instance that irked me as a life-long New Yorker, he played a little fast and loose with timing). It is perhaps not Doctorow's best, but I enjoyed and found it strangely moving.

Another one for the wish list. Thanks, Rebecca!

Glad to put one on your list, Darryl; I've spent so much money because of you!

Flying coast to coast is good for reading! I've finished three relatively short books and hope to read at least one more on the plane home tomorrow.

#59 The Cost of Living by Mavis Gallant

I am a huge Mavis Gallant fan and snapped up this new collection of her stories, mostly early ones, as soon as it was released. In any collection, some stories are better than others, but almost nobody has better insight into people who are in some way estranged from their families, the world, their relationships than Gallant.

#60 Harare North by Brian Chikwava

I read this on Darryl/kidzdoc's recommendation. A somewhat satiric, at times bleak look at the lives of immigrants/asylum seekers from Zimbabwe in London (the Harare North of the title), as well as other poor people who are largely unseen in the bustle of a major city, flavored with politics, exploitation of all kinds, and a grim sense of humor.

#61 The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño

Having only read long (very long!) novels by Bolaño, I was intrigued to read this short one. It has many familiar Bolaño elements -- multiple narrators, short chapters, Mexican and Chilean poets living in Europe -- and tells the story of several intersecting lives and a mysterious death, while exploring love, obsession, and the lives of immigrants in Spain.

#62 Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

I can't imagine why I let this delightful novel languish on my shelves for several years! Sylvia Townsend Warner is a wonderful writer who manages to combine a deep love for the English countryside with a light but piercing look at the faults and hypocrisies of "proper" English society in the 1920s, all leavened with a touch of the supernatural (something I normally shy away from, but which works perfectly here). As Alison Lurie points out in the introduction to the edition (NYRB) I read, Townsend Warner was several years ahead of Virginia Woolf in making the case for women needing a life of their own.

Snap again, Rebecca. I just finished this one a week ago.

I also loved this one - Warner has a lovely clear and crisp style, don't you think? I checked out of the library a book of her collected articles for the New Yorker, Scenes of Childhood, which hopefully will give me a biographical look at her.

#63 The Gates of Hell: Sir John Franklin's Tragic Quest for the Northwest Passage by Andrew Lambert

Despite my interest in polar exploration, this book was a slog (I confess I skimmed a lot of it) and flawed in many ways, some general and some perhaps because I wasn't the kind of reader the author was writing for. In general, it is almost fatally flawed by the lack of maps showing the region Franklin and the other explorers were exploring (there is one tiny map tucked into a group of plates but neither it nor the other plates are ever referenced in the text). Second, the bulk of the book is not about Franklin and his quest, but about the ins and outs of British politics as it affected naval, scientific, and exploration policies in the 19th century, and about the efforts of Franklin's widow to find out what happened to him. Third, it is endlessly, endlessly detailed about the above -- more than I ever wanted to know. Perhaps a scholar of naval and scientific policies of the 19th century would enjoy this book, but not a general reader like me.

That's sad the book wasn't good. I'm also interested in the Franklin expedition. Have you read the new biography of Crozier? It's Captain Francis Crozier: Last Man Standing? by Michael Smith. It's very good and kept me riveted the entire time. There's another biography, Second in Command: A Biography of Captain Francis Crozier by May Fluhmann, that I do not recommend. It's very boring and, like The Gates of Hell has no maps. Last Man Standing has many maps, though, and they're very good! There's not much about politics either. Just a little bit so you understand why Crozier wasn't picked as commander of the expedition and the like.

Hi Rebecca Ann, I remember now that you have an interest in Franklin. This book will actually tell you a lot about Franklin's career, possibly more than you want to know, but not enough about the expedition itself. I will probably not read the bio of Croziernow because I already have several polar books on my TBR and am more interested in reading about different expeditions. But I will keep it on my mental back burner -- thanks for the recommendation.

*64 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I can only add to the chorus of praise for this wonderful book. I am not usually a reader of historical novels, so I can't say how Wolf Hall compares to others, but for me it transcends the genre (although the history was fascinating) and is really a story of power, intrigue, family, and -- above all-- character and a world in the middle of dramatic change. Hilary Mantel is an amazing writer who captures the feel of the times, the essence of the people (and there are lots of them, so the list at the beginning of the novel is essential), and the intellectual debates with such beautiful and unobtrusive prose that I felt totally enveloped in the early 16th century and the minds of Cromwell and the others. I will now look for Mantel's other work.

Rebecca, I have A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel, which I picked up at a used bookstore in Massachusetts a week ago. However, I will read Wolf Hall first (once I get it, which should be in a couple of days), since it comes so well recommended and highly praised by many very well read friends, yourself included.

I'm glad that you also enjoyed Wolf Hall, Rebecca.

BTW, it will be released in the US today.

I just ordered two more books by Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black and A Place of Greater Safety, as well as another by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Summer Will Show.

#65 Lucinella by Lore Segal

I picked up this novella because I loved two of Lore Segal's books that I read years ago, Other People's Houses and Her First American, although I was less impressed by her recent collection of stories, Shakespeare's Kitchen. Lucinella is completely unlike all of these. Loosely about a group of poets in the 1970s, it has very poetic language and is very funny in places and moving in others, but although it seems to be "realistic," it actually includes people and events that are magical. If I had to say what it was "about," I would say creativity, professional and personal jealousy and competitiveness, and love. I enjoyed it, I guess, and it is said to be a "cult classic," but I was really left scratching my head.

#66 Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann

I have been on an amazing journey with this book for the past 3 or 4 months, and I hardly know what to say about it. Yes, it is very long but (in the new John Woods translation at least), it is very readable. It took me so long because I have little reading time at home and it's too big to carry on the subway, but it was also good to have time to mull it over as I was reading.

Taking the biblical stories of Jacob and Joseph as the center of the book, Mann creates wonderful characters, believable psychology, and vividly depicted natural settings and human activities and pageantry, interweaving this with investigations of the nature of history, the nature of of time, mythology and the mythological origins of modern western religions, cultural anthropology, the repetition of events and motifs, and the interconnectedness of human stories. And I'm sure I missed a lot in this summary! But although there are places where he directly explores these ideas, in most cases they emerge from the stories themselves.

It is a remarkable book, completely worth all the time I put into it, and I would say one of the greatest books I've read (although I have a long list of those).

Could you post that long list sometime, Rebecca? My wishlist just isn't long enough already! ;)

Joseph and His Brothers is definitely going to be on it, now.

Marise, my copy is an old one, published by Knopf in 1963. I wonder whose translation it is...I will have to dig it out of one of the TBR piles.

Paola, if it is 1963 it is the original English translation, as the John Woods translation just came out in recent years; he is busy translating a great deal if not all of Mann. In his preface, he says that the earlier translator used a lot of "biblical" language and he (Woods) tried to use the varied and more down-to-earth language that Mann actually used in German. It is certainly extremely readable, so it might be worth investing in a copy of the new edition if you are seriously planning to read it.

marise/Christine, I would have to think about it because I have read so many wonderful books over the years, but I would enjoy doing that and will try to find some time to ponder it. You don't have to buy them, you know!

#67 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

I needed an easier read and this was it, the novel that brought le Carré fame. Although his later novels, especially the Karla trilogy, are more psychologically complex, this is still a very well written and ingeniously polotted book and gives a grim, realistic feeling for the mood around the time of the creation of the Berlin Wall. For me, having read le Carré's later work first, it was interesting to see the first (?) appearance, in a minor role, of George Smiley, who later became the protagonist of so many other works, as well as other characters who appear later too.

31> I listened to a radio play of this recently with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley. I really enjoyed it and am tempted to pick up a copy of the book.

#68 We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

How I have managed not to read this brilliantly creepy novel until now is a mystery to me. The world Jackson creates through the eyes of the utterly compelling narrator, Merricat, is so convincingly portrayed, and the sense of impending doom so subtly but insistently evoked, that I, as a reader, could not help but see everything from Merricat's seriously disturbed perspective. This beautifully written book will haunt me for a long time.

>33 rebeccanyc: - I felt the same way, Rebecca. Shirley Jackson immediately won me over with that book.

I must be a total idiot, since I really did not find it so interesting.

Not at all, Paola, everyone responds differently to books; that's what makes it so interesting to talk about them here. If we all agreed, it would be boring!

Thanks, Rebecca, you DO make me feel better!

#69 Translation Is a Love Affair by Jacques Poulin

This book just arrived from my subscription to Archipelago Books and I read it in a day. It is a charming novella, ostensibly about an aging author and his young translator, with a little detective story at its core, but really about the power of nature, animals, and human contact to, I hate to use this word, "heal." What saves it from being sappy and obvious is the observational power of the narrator and her simple, precise language.

#70 A Fiery Peace in a Cold War by Neil Sheehan

This is a history of the military aspects of the cold war as seen through the successful efforts of one general (and many other people) to build the intercontinental nuclear missile system. Much of it was interesting, but in places I found the details of military bureaucratic infighting a little too detailed. The best parts of it were the insights into character and the look at how the technology developed -- a good reminder that so much of what we take for granted in our own lives had a military origin. Neil Sheehan is an excellent journalist who also wrote A Bright Shining Lie about the Vietnam war.

This weekend, I am going on a trip with my sweetie, and while he works I will be sleeping and reading. We'll be gone a week, and I'm bringing (I hope) way too many books with me: A Place of Greater Safety and Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel, The War at the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Paris Review Interviews IV, and possibly one or two shorter books, especially if my order from the Book Depository for more Shirley Jacksons arrives today or tomorrow. "See" you all when I get back.

Have a good time! A Place of Greater Safety should keep you going for a little while :)

sounds great!
The War at the End of the World is excellent.

Back again, and I'll write about the books I read individually, including one that I finished before I left, The Last Jet-Engine Laugh by Ruchir Joshi. And you are both right, FlossieT and Murr: A Place of Greater Safety did keep me going for a while and The War at the End of the World, which I should finish today or tomorrow is wonderful. In addition, I've been dipping into the interviews in The Paris Interviews IV.

#71. The Last Jet-Engine Laugh by Ruchir Joshi

I really wanted to like this book, which I read for the Reading Globally India theme read, more than I did. It is an ambitious work, which combines a multigenerational story with a futuristic look ahead to 2030, along with some forays into environmental issues, photography and the meaning of reality, and space technology. I am glad I read this book, and I admire the author's ambition, but my feelings about it are mixed.

The protagonist, writing from the dystopic future of 2030, looks back at his own life as a photographer, son, husband, lover, and father; at his parents' lives, both real and imagined; and at the life of his daughter Para, formerly a fighter pilot and now on a military spaceship stationed above the Indian/ Pakistani border (a war is taking place between India and a Pakistani-Saudi alliance, tacitly supported by the US). At times the writing is beautiful and the story compelling, but at other times it is difficult to figure out what is going on, partly because of the untranslated Indian words (although the sense can often be figured out) and partly because it is often not clear what time period the novel is in or what is real and what is imagined.

#72 A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

After finishing Wolf Hall, I was eager to read other works by Mantel, and this book, also a historical novel, is quite different but just as wonderful. It is more complex than Wolf Hall, not only because it has three main protagonists (Danton, Robespierre, and Desmoulins) during the French Revolution, but also because the story is not as focused as that of Wolf Hall and tries and mostly succeeds to weave together many, many threads and many subsidiary characters. Mantel's ability to create all these different characters, especially some of the female ones, is marvelous, and while it was sometimes difficult to keep track of who was who, I found the sweep of the novel completely engrossing, and would now love to read more about the French Revolution and the rapid deterioration from idealism to terror.

I haven't actually read it yet ;-) - last year was the Year of the Doorstop Novel, and I resolved to read SHORT books this year... but I do have a copy. It sounds absolutely fantastic, and I will probably read it before Wolf Hall. Probably.

It is shorter than Wolf Hall, but requires more careful reading (or at least it did for me).

#73 The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

It took me a little while to get into this book, as Vargas Llosa introduces a lot of characters and a lot of plot segments, but oh it is wonderful as they all start to come together.

This is the story of a group of misfits/criminals/suffering people of all types who fall under the sway of a charismatic preacher and who create their own community on land taken from an aristocratic landowner in the northeastern Bahia region of Brazil at the end of the 19th century. The existence of this community gives rise to all kinds of political theories, plots, and reactions among the new republican leaders of Brazil, the aristocracy, revolutionary dreamers, and the army, leading to a series of wars. Vargas Llosa's ability to get inside the heads of all these people, each of whom believes his way of viewing the situation is correct, often to the point of fanaticism and delusion, is marvelous, and the novel is both moving and thrilling. Also wonderful is the vivid sense of the remote and harsh environment in which the story unfolds.

#74 The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

After reading and loving We Have Always Lived in the Castle, I was eager to read more of Shirley Jackson. Maybe I'm just not a fan of the paranormal, but it was the psychological deterioration of the protagonist that truly grabbed me, and the parts of the book that implied there was really something haunting Hill House left me cold. The writing is great, of course, and the story compelling enough to keep me up late last night, but I wasn't going around checking behind the doors and under the bed.

Hmm...after your review, I'm not sure if I want to read this or not. I had planned to read it for the October Reading Globally theme, but found other things to read instead. Maybe I'll save it for next month, or early next year.

It's quick, but if you want something really great, read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I read for, but slightly after, the October Reading Globally read, although it's not strictly supernatural.

#75 The Book of Fathers by Miklós Vámos

I wanted to read this book after I read a rave review by Jane Smiley in the New York Times Book Review. Alas, I was sorely disappointed. It is the story of 12 generations of a Hungarian family, focusing in each generation on the first-born son who, for most of the book, inherits the magical ability to see into the family's past and sometimes into the future; Hungarian history from the past 300 years is thrown in too. The novel irritated me for several reasons. First of all, it was way too formulaic: each generation is matched up with one of the 12 astrological signs, each chapter begins with a "poetic" look at what is happening in the natural world at the time of that astrological sign, etc. Second, the characters of each of the sons/fathers seemed wooden to me, designed to fit the history and the sign. Finally, I don't know whether it was the author or the translator, but there were a lot of odd, old-fashioned, or out-of-place words and, in the final section, some of which takes place in New York City, some things that were just plain wrong. Still, there was enough going on that I read the whole book just to see how it all worked out.

#76. Madame de Staël: The First Modern Woman by Francine du Plessix Gray

This short biography was a lively and well written introduction to a woman who is perhaps best known for her romances but who was remarkable for her intellect and her commitment to independence for women. du Plessix Gray provides some fascinating insights into her childhood and psychology. This was particularly interesting to me since I recently read A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel's historical novel about the French revolution, and de Staël's father was an important person in the lead-up to the revolution.

Madame De Stael had a huge influence on Russian culture. She travelled in Russia widely and wrote about it. Her book on Germany in particular was very influential in Russia, and influenced a generation of Russian Romantics to study in Germany. Her novels were a big influence, in particular on the young Dostoevsky, and also on Pushkin.

She sounds like a fascinating woman, so I'm wondering why this book was short? Francine du Plessix Gray has written an excellent book on the Marguis de Sade, which I highly recommend for more on the French Revolution and the period.

sorry, can't get the touchstone to work....

I believe it is short because it is part of the Atlas series of brief biographies by noted authors. The interesting thing about her travels is that she traveled a lot because Napoleon kept exiling her, first from Paris, then from France, and then from countries he had conquered. Interesting that her novels influenced the Russians. I'm a fan of du Plessix Gray's Them, about her difficult and dramatic parents, so I'll look for the de Sade biography.

#77. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

Like many, I read "The Lottery" in high school ( a LONG time ago now) and have never forgotten it (who could?), but I had never read any other short stories by Shirley Jackson. The stories in this collection vary in interest and intensity, but all are disturbing in some way. Jackson is excellent at deflating the pompous, the conventional, the unconsciously racist in 40s and 50s US society, at examining sad and uncommunicative relationships between men and women, and at throwing a little twist of the supernatural in on occasion.

#78 Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Completely unlike Mantel's historical novels except in her superb writing ability, Beyond Black is a horrifying, funny, at times gruesome novel ostensibly about a fat female psychic, Alison, her performances at "fayres" around southern England, a group of others on the same circuit, and the spirits, mostly nasty, that haunt her. But really it is the story of a woman trying to remember and overcome the effects of a really unspeakable childhood. While harrowing at times, Mantel's characterizations are so fascinating (including a self-serving, self-satisfied, petty helper Alison takes on, as well as the various spirits), the portrait of the superficiality and blandness of much of contemporary life so pointed, and the writing so lively that I accepted the horror along with the satire.

The last two both sound great, Rebecca.On to the wishlist they go! And, yes, I read "The Lottery" in high school too (also a very long time ago), and it still creeps me out.

>58 Nickelini:: I read it, too, and the teacher also showed a short film. The images still haunt me!

I wonder if it's on YouTube. (I'm constantly amazed at what you can get on YouTube).

Wow, Rebecca, we may read many of the same books, but there's always some great reading on your thread. Interesting about the Dan Chaon (since it was one of the few novels which made the PW all-male top ten, and was up for the National Book Award - wasn't it?). Intrigued about the Mavis Gallant and you are reading all of the Shirley Jackson's I bought after attending the Shirley Jackson awards ceremony in July. I have read some SJ but thought I need to reread some and read others. I enjoy a good creepy story. Two which won the SJ Award in different categories were Julia Leigh's Disquiet and Yoko Ogawa's The Diving Pool.

Lois, if you haven't read Mavis Gallant I would start with Varieties of Exile, which was the first collection of her work I read, and follow that with Paris Stories. Both have stronger works than The Cost of Living. And, so far, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is my favorite Shirley Jackson. I don't normally think of myself as a fan of creepy books, but I do seem to have been reading (and enjoying) quite a few lately and will look for the books you mention.

#79. Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel

I continued my Mantel read-a-thon with this book, which I found a little disappointing in comparison to the other books by her that I have read. This relatively early work (1988) focuses on a 30-ish British woman who, after living/working in Africa, follows her husband to a construction management job in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she lives an isolated existence in a 4-unit apartment building. She becomes somewhat friendly with her two neighbors, both religiously observant, increasingly anxious about a mysteriously unoccupied -- but not unused -- apartment in the building, and annoyed and aggravated by the frustrations of being a woman in Jeddah and by the denseness of her husband's ex-pat colleagues. A somewhat confusing mystery with an unexplained ending ensues. The real issue is how one can learn what is going on when everything is a secret, behind closed doors; when misinformation thrives; and when what people tell you may not be true. The creepiest part of the book is at the very end when you count up the months and then go back to the memo that starts off the novel. Mantel is wonderful, as always, at psychology and at poking holes in conventional wisdom, but the story is not as compelling as her later works. If this had been the first Mantel I read, I don't know if I would have become the fan I am.

#80 Fludd by Hilary Mantel

I am by no means only reading books by Mantel, but my recent bout with the flu kept me away from the more difficult books I'm working my way through and so I picked up this short novel from the Mantel stash I'm accumulating. Once again, Mantel shows her wonderful writing and her wickedly pointed humor as she takes the reader to a bleak, semi-industrial town in northern England, the dispirited priest of its Catholic church, and the fear-inducing head nun of its convent -- and then the bishop sends Fludd, a young curate . . . or does he? Fludd, in any case, proceeds to very quietly change the lives of several people whose lives need changing. I confess (I couldn't resist saying that) that I'm quite sure some of the Catholic and alchemical symbolism in the book passed me by in my fevered state, but even so this is a charming and witty novel.

Nice review, Rebecca; I'll read Fludd early in 2010.

I hope that you're feeling better!

I hope you're feeling better too. I plan to pick up some Mantel as soon as I can find some. your reviews are very persuasive.

Rebecca - Just stopping by and posting so this thread will show up on my "Your Posts" list and I can keep up better. Interesting to see your reactions to the different Mantel books.

I've never heard of Hilary Mantel, but her work sounds interesting. I've ordered both Fludd and Beyond Black and I look forward to digging in!

Thanks for your kind messages. RebeccaAnn, Mantel's Wolf Hall just won the Booker Prize. It and A Place of Greater Safety are both massive, complex historical novels, quite different from the other novels.

By the way, the other three Mantels I ordered from the Book Depository (thank again, Darryl) arrived yesterday, so I am now extremely well stocked with them. The new ones are Learning to Talk, a book of short stories, which should be interesting; Giving up the Ghost, her memoir, which should be illuminating (I just learned she was educated in a convent in northern England, so this certainly gave her a lot of grist for the mill of Fludd; and another short novel, The Giant, O'Brien.

> 19/63 in re Franklin..celebrated in Stan Rogers best known song, "NorthWest Passage"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI

"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage
And make a northwest passage to the sea"

Bob -- thank you!

#81 Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

I am glad that I read several of Mantel's novels before reading her brief, spare, biting, harrowing, and completely unsentimental memoir, because the memoir not only illuminates her fiction but is also illuminated by it. Mantel grew up in a poor, Catholic, northern England family and her depiction of what it means to not have enough money is stunning (and the condition of housing possibly surprising, given that this is the 1950s & 60s), as is her portrait of herself as "Miss Neverwell" a decade or more before the real reason for her terrible health is discovered and "fixed." Despite these and other horror stories, the memoir is not as grim as it sounds, because it is rescued by Mantel's razor-sharp perception, wonderful writing, and complete lack, as I said above, of sentimentality.

#82. Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis

What I found most interesting about this novel, the story of a self-described "morose, tight-lipped man withdrawn within himself" who recalls his childhood romance and later marriage and jealousy, interspersed with his interactions with his extended family, neighbors, and friends, is that, although written in 1900 and depicting events of the mid- and late 1800s it is written in a startlingly modern, almost metafictional style. That is, the author frequently mentions that he's writing this book, refers to events from previous chapters by chapter number, discusses whether he should or shouldn't include certain events, etc. He also is excellent at characterization, bringing both major and minor characters to life. All in all, I admired the book more than I enjoyed reading it. Machado de Assis is said by some to be Brazil's greatest writer.

#83 The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel

Everyone is probably getting tired of me saying how much I'm enjoying Hilary Mantel's books, but this one is easily one of the best I've read. Based loosely on the story of a real Irish giant who came to London to exhibit himself, and also loosely on the story of a doctor/scientist who was interested in dissecting human bodies, the novel is (of course) beautifully written, deeply moving, and insightful about British and Irish society, life in London in the mid-18th century, and the public's appetite for "freaks" of all sorts. It is also enlivened and deepened by the Irish tales told by the giant.

Everyone is probably getting tired of me saying how much I'm enjoying Hilary Mantel's books

On the contrary, it's great to learn about another wonderful writer out there who's just waiting for me to discover her! I'm putting all these books on my wishlist (love that LT feature!), and hoping I can pull Wolf Hall out of Mnt TBR this holiday break.

Fludd arrived in the mail for me today! I'm very excited to read it, but I think I'm going to hold back and finish the last two books of the series I'm currently reading, but a few other books I never got around to finishing due to hectic finals week. Still, can't wait to read it!

I just posted this list of my favorite books of 2009 on my new Club Read 2010 thread, and thought I would include it here too.

My favorite books of 2009 -- with no restrictions on how many I can include! Within categories, these are listed more or less with my most recent reads first. It was a great reading year, and I hope 2010 will be even better.

Contemporary and Recent Fiction
American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel
Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Nobody Move by Denis Johnson
2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Older Fiction
Everything Flows by Vassily Grossman
The War at the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Cost of Living by Mavis Gallant (written a while ago but newly collected this year)
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
Smiley's People by John le Carré
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré
Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
The Emperor's Tomb by Joseph Roth
The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori

Nonfiction
The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy
The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith

I am currently reading two books that will probably make it onto this list if I finish them this year: Everything Flows by Vassily Grossman and How Markets Fail by John Cassidy.

ETA Today, 12/26, I did add Everything Flows to the list.

Wow, rebecca, your favorites outnumber many of our totals!

Well, I had a great reading year and I'm hopeless at narrowing down my favorites into a 10-best list! I did have some disappointments, though, too.

#84 Everything Flows by Vassily Grossman

This is another remarkable book by Vassily Grossman, whose Life and Fate is one of the best and remarkable books I've ever read. While much shorter (and apparently left unfinished, although not necessarily in length, at Grossman's death), it attempts to encompass the breadth of Stalinist horrors, from the show trials and purges to the Doctor's Plot (known as the Killer Doctors, apparently, in the Soviet Union) to the Gulag, and, most horrifyingly, to collectivization and what is called the Terror Famine in the Ukraine, and reaches back to czarist times, the Revolution, and Lenin. It mixes the story of a man released from the Siberian labor camps after 30 years, and his encounters with a cousin who managed to stay out of them, the man who informed on him, and a new lover, with interludes of a dialogue among informers, reflections on informing, the astonishing monologue about the famine, and the protagonist's/Grossman's own analysis of the "Russian soul," Lenin, and Stalin. Thus, it is not a standard kind of novel, but it is moving, shocking, and compelling all at the same time.

And I'm adding this book to my "best of 2009" list above.

#85. American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell

I read this collection of short stories because avaland/Lois recommended it enthusiastically, and I enthusiastically second her recommendation. The stories focus on working-class and poorer men and woman in rural Michigan, struggling to survive in a world that has largely passed them by. Campbell brings out the humanity and the love and the strength (and weaknesses too) in her varied characters, and many of them will stick with me for some time. Like Lois, I read this collection in almost one sitting.

Also adding this one to the "best of 2009" list.

>80 rebeccanyc: yay!

#86. How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy

I've read several books about economics/finance and our current economic crisis this year and this is unquestionably the pick of the litter (with the exception of John Kenneth Galbraith's classic The Great Crash 1929, brilliantly written with an acid wit, and sometimes called more historically than economically valid). Cassidy, a journalist, is a lucid writer, who takes the reader on a tour of standard free-market/invisible hand theory and then what he calls "reality-based economics," showing how many factors, including "rational irrationality," "beauty contests," and the "law of lemons" affect how markets work in real life. Finally, in the last section, he applies these concepts to what happened in the real estate bubble, the collapse of the subprime housing market, and everything that ensued, as well as some recommendations for taming misplaced incentives. I found it informative, thought-provoking, readable, and scary.

I'm definitely going to look out for this - Cassidy's Dot.con, in which he did the same thing for the dotcom bubble (in which, technically, I was employed at the time) as it sounds like he's just done for the current crisis, was a fantastic read - really interesting.

#87. Dark Avenues by Ivan Bunin

I am giving up on my last read of 2009 about 3/4 of the way through this collection of short stories, because they were just getting to be too much the same. Bunin, a Russian writer who fled after the revolution, wrote this collection in the south of France during the Nazi era "to escape to a different world" as the interesting biographical and critical notes at the end of this edition say. The stories, which mostly take place in the prerevolutionary era (although some take place post-revolution, in French exile), all focus on love, mostly the loss of love, some purely "romantic," others more physical; some trite, some moving, some irritatingly sexist. But what kept me going was Bunin's wonderful depictions of the varied beauties of the Russian countryside, and the often decaying houses and estates within it. Apparently he first set out to be a poet, and these sections are the highlights, for me, of the stories.

On to 2010! My new thread is here.

thnx for link

rebeccanyc, I hope you're well. I am in the middle of Joseph and His Brothers and, perhaps like you, can hardly find words to express the joy and wonder of the experience. Mann is writing about thousands of years ago, about today, about all time. His sentences are a marvel, his ideas at the same time familiar and unexpected! I felt the same way about Proust's In Search of Lost Time. People ask me how I am enjoying my reading; it is almost unutterable.

Wow! I'm amazed that you found this old thread (it's only because I star all my threads that I realized you'd commented on it)! Glad you're enjoying Joseph and His Brothers; when I finally made it though Proust (after trying many times before), I was surprised by how much I liked it and how funny he could be (until the last volume or two where I thought it bogged down).

If you're interested, come on over to my current thread.