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Ship breaker : a novel by Paolo Bacigalupi

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Redwall by Brian Jacques

The piano by Jane Campion

The golden bowl by Henry James

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

The monstrumologist by Richard Yancey

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Member: Wombat

CollectionsYour library (4,572), Read but unowned (102), All collections (4,673)

Reviews219 reviews

Tagsfiction (2,523), childrens (842), fantasy (704), young adult (623), M (526), picture book (463), mystery (263), romance (262), history (233), regency (232) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud, tag mirror

About meI'm a computer professional with varied reading interests---history, fantasy, poetry, mysteries, baseball, etc. I'm married to an English professor whose interests include 19th century novels, romance novels, children's books, and quilting.

About my libraryThe library currently spans the entire house. We have books in almost every room. There are cookbooks in the kitchen, classic literature in the living room, old computer books, travel books, and children's literature in the guest bedroom. More children's books in my daughter's room. Still more children's books in my wife's office (notice a common thread here?), along with her academic books. Books I'm hoping to read soon are in the master bedroom, and everything else is in the den. (I also have a bunch of technical books in my office at work.)

Just about everything is cataloged. A few of my daughter's books may still be missing; it's hard to be sure I've got all of them when they keep migrating around the house...

I don't have ratings on any of our books. I can't think of a one-dimensional way to compare books that will work for me.

I'm currently using the Read but unowned collection for books that I want to review, but that I don't own, and for books I'm currently reading, but don't own (i.e., library books). It would be impossible to provide a comprehensive list of all the books I've read but don't own a copy of.

(The picture above is from Kerry Argent's Wombat and Bandicoot - Best of Friends. You'll find it in our library, along with several other books featuring wombats.)

GroupsAll Things Discworldian - The Guild of Pratchett Fans, Baseball, Bostonians, British & Irish Children's Fiction, Children's Literature, City-Related Books, Classical Music, Computer Scientists, Cryptic Crosswords, Fair Use Etc —show all groups

Favorite authorsJane Austen, Terry Pratchett, Dr. Seuss, Rex Stout, P. G. Wodehouse (Shared favorites)

VenuesFavorites

Favorite bookstoresCurious George Goes to Wordsworth, Porter Square Books

Real nameKeith

LocationCambridge, MA

Emailkeitheecs.harvard.edu

Account typepublic, lifetime

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/Wombat (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Wombat (library)

Member sinceSep 12, 2005

Most recent activity

Wombat added:
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Wombat added:
The summer prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Wombat added:
Just one day by Gayle Forman

Wombat added:
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

Wombat added:
A concise history of Spain by William D. Phillips

Wombat added:
Making Victorians : the Drummond children's world, 1827-1832 by Susan Lasdun

Read your review of The Grand Sophy. Try The Unknown Ajax next, even more amusing if one can imagine. ;)

posted by esther_a at 6:37 pm (EST) on Nov 15, 2009

I see you don't have the following:
Wombat Stew, by Marcia K. Vaughan, illustrated by Pamela Lofts
Silver Burdett Press, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,1986
First published in 1984 by Ashton Scholastic Pty Lmited (Inc. in NSW), PO Box 579, Gosford 2250.
ISBN 0-382-09211-2
LC Catalog Card No. 85-63492
Platypus,Emu, Old Blue Tongue the Lizard, Echidna and Koala conspire to trick Dingo out of making stew out of Wombat.
Includes a song - music and lyrics.
High on my list of favorite stories to read over and over again with a class of preschoolers.

posted by jisabellam at 9:47 am (EST) on Jul 11, 2009

I loved the little story which was your "review" of Pride and Prejudice. I am glad you enjoyed it though. It must be really special to you and your wife. I love Jane Austen's books and have read most of them at least twice. I hope you have read "Emma" which I found just as entertaining as Pride and Prejudice. I think Jane Austen was a woman before her time.

posted by anniekirk at 11:51 am (EST) on Jan 12, 2009

i still have a couple of old Lisp and Fortran manuals in my office......

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 12:14 pm (EST) on Jan 11, 2009

And you haven't said in your review that Jane Austen is one of your 5 favorite authors...

posted by Pepys at 5:36 am (EST) on Jan 8, 2009

Just wanted to leave a comment on how I loved your P&P review. OK, your P&P story. Either way, it's still fantastic.

(You're on the hot reviews list).

posted by ryn_books at 5:27 am (EST) on Jan 8, 2009

I glanced at your page and finally remembered a long-lost favorite children's book, Diary of a Wombat. I have to get that for my kids! Thank you for being a wombat lover and helping remember that book.

posted by LeesyLou at 9:06 am (EST) on May 14, 2008

hey keith,

our collections appear to have an interesting intersection. how did you like pushkin's onegin? which translation did you read? have you read vikram seth's the golden gate, which is modeled on it?

peter

posted by peterdmark at 3:23 am (EST) on Jun 14, 2007

I love your list. We don't share many, but the ones we share are some of my favorites.

You have Annie on My Mind on your list. I strongly recommend The Year They Burned the Books, by Nancy Garden as well.

posted by rosethorne at 10:03 pm (EST) on May 21, 2006

I'm enjoying it. Another foray into delightful and mostly useless information on my part, but it sounds as though your wife may make good use of it.

And by the way, when I was in college, we used to refer to the dorm cleaning women as "wombats" ---with all due respect and affection, of course. (I think I recognize one of them in your icon!) I guess that practice has fallen out of favor---my daughter attended the same college, and she never heard the term. I think we should have called the maintenance men "bandicoots".

posted by laytonwoman3rd at 3:52 pm (EST) on Dec 29, 2005

Ohhh...another lucky person who received the Nancy Drew "biography" for Christmas!

posted by laytonwoman3rd at 10:24 am (EST) on Dec 29, 2005

Ooh, and I'm not yet done listing my children's lit and YA books yet!

My degree (Simmons in Boston) was the best money I've ever spent...er, am spending and will continue to spend as I repay loans. Luckily, undergrad gave me lots of practice in this skill.

posted by Sarahsponda at 2:23 pm (EST) on Nov 6, 2005

I have to admit I contributed a little bit to the Wolfe reading list at that site, so I'm (hopefully) pardonably partial to it. ;)

posted by Linkmeister at 2:56 am (EST) on Oct 5, 2005

By all means. Complete collections of that kind do make it easier to connect - it happens to me with Agatha Christie, as well, though that holds far less significance than Rex Stout fans. :)

And sometimes it's the odd volumes that mean the most. Isolated things one doesn't expect anyone else to share (which is why I like the adjustment for book obscurity so much!).

At least I'll go ahead and put my own cookbooks in. If I can't go to the Flamingo with Archie, have Wolfe actually enjoy my company, or snag Saul Panzer for a husband, perhaps I will at least grow into a decent cook! (- Not that Fritz is in any danger!)

Julie

posted by Eurydice at 11:21 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2005

It is funny, isn't it, Keith? The only devoted Wolfe reader I know in person is one I hooked on him, myself! Yet there seem to be many of us, and I am delighted to meet another one!

People who value books, and love language, gravitate (and relate) to Wolfe and to Stout's writing more than others, perhaps, hence the numbers here...?

The Red Box hasn't arrived, but I'm looking forward to it. Your parents' copy sounds like the kind of wonderfully timeworn paperback I grew up on. I had one fall apart on me today, re-shelving.

- Hope you're able to get a re-reading in!

If I could have a second wish, beyond Wolfe's library, I'd like to see Fritz's select fifty cookbooks, too...

Julie

posted by Eurydice at 12:45 am (EST) on Oct 3, 2005

Congratulations on the 3000 mark!

posted by Eurydice at 1:57 am (EST) on Oct 1, 2005