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Member: jfetting

CollectionsYour library (753), Currently reading (5), To read (259), Favorites (59), Mom's books (11), 1001 books (209), Folio Society (41), Wishlist (19), All collections (785)

Reviews27 reviews

Tagsfiction (519), TBR (268), 1001 (203), British literature (171), American literature (107), nonfiction (107), children's literature (69), favorites (54), ML100 (49), Folio Society (42) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

Groups100 Books Challenge for 2009, 1001 Books to read before you die, 1010 Category Challenge, 30-something LibraryThingers, Anglophiles, Author Theme Reads, Barbara Pym Fan Club, Baseball, Booze!, Christianityshow all groups

Favorite authorsMargaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, A. S. Byatt, Noël Coward, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Faulkner, Jasper Fforde, E. M. Forster, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Jay Gould, Graham Greene, Kazuo Ishiguro, Henry James, Primo Levi, Iris Murdoch, Vladimir Nabokov, Anthony Powell, Barbara Pym, Marilynne Robinson, José Saramago, William Shakespeare, Anthony Trollope, Evelyn Waugh (Shared favorites)

About meI'm a biologist and a freshly-minted PhD, who reads as much fiction as possible to help my brain decompress after a day of experiments. I usually have more than one book going at a time, due to my short attention span. Most of my reading is literary fiction or the classics, with generous helpings of Jasper Fforde and trashy historical fiction to lighten things up. I'm trying to increase the amount of nonfiction, fiction from other countries, and fiction by people of color.

All-time favorite books:
Jane Eyre
Lolita
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The Sound and the Fury
Pride and Prejudice

About my libraryThe books listed here are all books I own. Being a broke grad student, I try to use the library first and then only buy the books I really like. "Try" being the operative word - I love buying books and am therefore failing miserably since spending more time on LT.

Most tags are self-explanatory. "Trash" and "fluff" are not insults. "Overrated" is.
My rating system:
5 stars - my favorites. Books I love, books I'd rescue from a burning building, books I read and re-read.
4 stars - really like this book. I've probably read it more than once, or intend to read it again.
3 stars - I like it. It's a good book, or a useful book (especially bio texts).
2 stars - meh - probably purchased before the library rule took effect.
1 star - I've jumped on the Bookmooch bandwagon, and will no longer keep any 1 star books. Unless they have been written in because they were used in a college class. (This is the only reason I still own "Lord Jim" and any Hemingway besides "A Farewell to Arms".)

Star ratings are based entirely on how much I enjoyed the book. If this means that Ulysses only has a half a star higher rating than An Assembly Such As This, so be it.

A list of all the books I've read (including library books and whatnot) can be found at the far-inferior Goodreads

Also onBookMooch, Facebook, Lists of Bests

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameJennifer

LocationPortland, ME

Emailjenniferfettingyahoo.com

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

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

Common KnowledgeSeries (119), Awards (316), Characters (4873), Places (884)

Member sinceNov 14, 2006

Currently readingThe Emperor's Children (Vintage) by Claire Messud
Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters--and How to Talk About It by Krista Tippett
Collected Poems (Modern Library) by W.H. Auden
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman

Leave a comment

Hi;
Mark and I have been discussing the possibility of another group read in November and want your input. We have narrowed it down to two books at this point. "The People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks and "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. So chat it up with friends or us and let us know if you are up for it and what you think. Probably the same plan as with "Pillars of the Earth" which seemed to work out perfectly for almost all of us.
Think it over and give one of us a shout.
hugs and looking forward to hearing from you,
belva
Good morning Jennifer;
I wish listed your Bonhoeffer read and here is the one I read.
Letters from Cell 92 by Bonhoeffer and von Wedemeyer.
It was very good, but other than the letters he wrote her,
it is more about her than him as he was imprisoned most of
the time covered in this particular book. But well worth
the read. I thought a great deal about Paul as I was reading
about Bonhoeffer. He spent a good deal of time imprisoned as
well. Totally different, but he did come to mind a lot. So when
I finished, I found myself going back to Paul's letters in the
Bible. Good stuff, that.
Good to hear from you Jen and I hope you are having a good weekend
and loving your life.
God bless.
belva
Hey Jen, Thanks for the congrats!!! And for not "spilling the beans"! No, the "little Charles" is just a joke, although Charles is a big family name for the Paul's and we MIGHT use it as a middle name.
Jennifer
Noticed you liked The Virgin Suicides, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here as well as a few other book-related sites. Thought you might like my book since it's also about a dysfunctional family and a bit dark. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like (I'm out of physical copies at the moment). Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/

Thanks,

Chris
Thought you might be intersted in joining my new thread. Check it out.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/66785
Thank you for the good wishes! I love having two girls. (Of course that may change when they are both teenagers!) The new baby sleeps a lot, so I've actually gotten MORE reading done since I'm up at odd hours. I see that you're reading The Origin of Species - is it worth reading still? I've found that I've read "around" that book - lots of other books ABOUT it, or about Darwin, but haven't yet taken the plunge.
I love your library's organization! I'm a recent LT convert (February) and hadn't quite figured out the stars and tags yet. I'll definitely be stealing some of your ideas :). (BTW- great collection of books!)
No, unfortunately no one is sending me free Edward Gorey books (ER or otherwise). I wish! I've been on a Gorey kick lately and realized I hadn't added my Gorey books to my library. How I overlooked that, I don't know. :-)
Jennifer, I just saw your post where you mentioned you lived in St. Louis. Are you from there? I visited St. Louis on a business trip in 1993, and I was very impressed by how friendly everyone was! I don't think I've ever been anywhere as friendly.
I am just a lowly grad student, but I decided that counts as a scientist too. My lab works on learning and memory, and most of the projects I work on right now concern learning/memory and sleep in neurodegenerative disease models. Congratulations on writing your dissertation, how exciting!
We are both Midwestern scientists working on Drosophila with similarly sized libraries! We should start a special Drosophila lovers guild here on LT. What is the subject of your PhD work?
Hi Jennifer,

thanks for adding me to your interesting libraries list :) I am very impressed that you are reading so many books while completing a dissertation!

regards,

Laura
Hey Jennifer;
I just came across your "story" about "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and my first thought upon finishing was: This kid should be a writer or at the very least a writer of reviews. That was so funny I about *hit my pants!~! Hard to believe it is true!
Happy reading and good luck with your schooling. I have to admire anyone who works as hard as you do and still has so much fun with their life.
N/B
Hi Jennifer - I am glad you liked the review. Thanks.

It was a bit overdone, and way too long, but I did it for myself really. I am relieved you don't mind me posting it onto your thread.

Levi is such a hero of mine. I went through a rather obsessive time reading him a few years ago - his other books are really worthwhile too!

Thanks for putting up with the ranting on your thread. A Levi post will always bring me out of the wood work!

Cheers,
Karen
Overall, I'm glad I read A Brief History of the Dead. It was both more and less than I was expecting, but the concept was so different that I still think about it from time to time. I wouldn't put you off giving it a try. By the way - what did you think of The Post-Birthday World? I keep "bumping into" that book and I'm wondering if I should give it a try.

~Corrina
Hi Jennifer,

I've read Atwood's 'The Penelopiad', Winterson's 'Weight' and Smith's 'Girl Meets Boy'. I enjoyed 'Weight', a retelling of the Hercules and Atlas myth. 'Girl Meets Boy' was different from Atwood and Winterson's writing in that it is the myth (I forget which one) in a modern setting, more of a story based on the myth than a retelling. I didn't like 'Girl Meets Boy' as much as the other two but it wasn't bad.
There's a website that lists all the books in the series and gives a little blurb on each which might be helpful - http://www.themyths.co.uk/

Let me know if you decide to read any more from the series as I'd be interested to know what you think about them.

Belinda.
Aha! found you :) It was you who suggested You Are A Dog??

Love it, Thank you !
Sure, I'd be interested. What ideas are floating around out there?

- Michael
Hi there. I am enjoying "The Code of the Woosters". I was introduced to his books through his sitcom on British television. It was a hoot. I couldn't stop laughing. It is so far from what I am use to seeing. I picked up a book of his about a year ago and read it. It is probably on my list on here. I don't remember picking this one up but when I saw it I knew it was the one I wanted to read. Really enjoying it. I do have a hard cover copy about P.G. Wodehouse. I should be interesting.

Jacqueline
Hi, Jennifer

Funny you mention Sylvia Tietjens . . . my prof does not stop talking about her. In fact, we're doing a class project centered on her. I'm really curious to meet this character. Apparently she is like no other (which I find hard to believe . . . Cleopatra? Scarlett O'Hara? Lady MacBeth? Erica Caine?).

I had refrained from voting over at the author read group because I know I won't be able to participate. I'll just follow along with the crowd and speak up where I can.

Good to hear you've like Siege of Lisbon. I'm going to definitely try to read that one later in 2009.

Cheers,

Joyce
I haven't begun the interviewing process yet, but I'm 1/1 so far on getting asked to visit campuses. Thanks for the assurances though--the first school I'm visiting is spending over $450 just to fly me there and back, which I took as a good sign, but it's nice to hear it from somebody who's already been through the process.

Your project sounds really interesting. When I worked with drosophila in a bio class, my lab partner kept reprimanding me for calling them "boys" and "girls instead of "males" and "females"...
Cheers,
Erin
PS--Are you a student at WashU? I almost applied there...
Hi Jennifer,
I'll definitely let you know how it goes--I just got my copy in the mail yesterday and was very excited (so excited that I promptly dropped it, actually). I see that you're reading quite a bit of Noel Coward--I have both Pomp and Circumstance and his Collected Stories, but I haven't read either one yet, although I really love his autobiography and plays.

Just out of curiosity, and because there aren't that many grad students on here who aren't in library science programs, what's your thesis/research interest? I'll be starting a PhD program in Behavioral Neuroscience next year, so you're sort of where I will be soon (i.e., broke and stressed out). :)
Cheers,
Erin
Oh, I am an EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEvil old imp indeed. My Other of Significance, though not my wife/lover despite what her family thinks after Christmas, got me "Dead Balls and Double Curves" for a belated Christmas present (other gifts she got were pretty much duds, so she felt bad and got me something guaranteed to please: A book, and about baseball!). Now I must have the Baltimore Orioles book, since it was their humiliation in the seventh inning of the seventh game of the Series that made my 1969 worth living through!

Did you notice the book "Breaking Into Baseball" about the role women have played in the sport? That sounds interesting too...but who the HELL ever heard of Southern Illinois University before this?! GOd bless 'em for their weird little press, though.

I like the February idea, and maybe if the discussion gets noised about on the non-fiction thread during January...? Then inivite Cait Murphy if there are enough people? Opinion eagerly sought!

Cheers
RMD
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