I'm a sucker for artificial ways to make me feel like my reading is organized. I'm going to do titles, with the beginning article omitted.

I would like to find books with one word titles for every letter of the alphabet, but that may be pushing it.

Message edited by its author, Nov 25, 2009, 4:04pm.

A

B
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

C
The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle

D
Daphne by Justine Picardie

E
Exile by Denise Mina
Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2009, 9:50pm.

F

G

H

I

J
Jemima J. by Jane Green

Message edited by its author, Sep 2, 2009, 12:04pm.

K

L
Lost by Gregory Maguire

M
Matilda by Roald Dahl

N
Naoko by Keigo Higashino

O
The Outlander by Gil Adamson

Message edited by its author, Dec 16, 2009, 10:30am.

P
Possession by A.S. Byatt

Q

R
Resolution by Denise Mina

S
Serena by Ron Rash
Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman

T

Message edited by its author, Dec 15, 2009, 9:45am.

U

V

W
The Wall by Jeff Long

X

Y

Z

Message edited by its author, Oct 18, 2009, 10:48am.

I just finished Daphne by Justine Picardie and since it fits so nicely, I'm including it.

I won't write a entire review here, but I really loved this book. I would recommend it to readers who like books about books, or who enjoyed The Thirteenth Tale.

OK, so I had to look it up. You teach me so many things!

abecedary....
n. book arranged in alphabetical order; elementary text-book.

abecedarian, n. member of 16th-century German Anabaptist sect who refused to learn to read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abecedarian

Now isn't that interesting?

Message edited by its author, Aug 28, 2009, 4:07pm.

VictoriaPL, thanks for looking it up. Interesting...

RidgewayGirl,

What are your styles? I guess everyone can help you track down one word titles (and you just put a new idea in my head so once I am done with my 2 lists, I probably be starting ~10 new...) :)

Thanks, VictoriaPL, I am now determined to use abecedarian in casual conversation. Maybe as a vile insult. My dentist in an abecedarian with a head like a pimple. Not sure it flows.

I have just finished Exile, by Denise Mina, the second in her Garnethill trilogy. Garnethill is a lovely, one-word title, but I've already read it this year.

Exile is a very dark, bleak story, set in a frightening version of London and Glasgow, in which the powerful prey on the weak and the weak prey on the weaker. It's amazing, but very, very sad, redeemed mainly by the idea that most people are just trying to do the best they can and that kindness is not impossible and is the most important thing. Mina writes so well, finding new ways to say things without ever saying "look at me, look at what I can do".

And now I've finished the Garnethill trilogy with Resolution. It was both excellent and handy, featuring single worded titles just in time for this challenge.

I recommend the trilogy to anyone who likes dark crime novels, with a great deal of local flavor (Glasgow, in this case. Anyone for a fried haggis with chips?). The books should be read in order, as I'm not sure they'd make any sense otherwise.

Next up is a sugary chick-lit novel handily called Jemina J..

#11 I've added Garnethill to the wishlist - thanks for the book recommendation, but I'll pass on the haggis!

#11

That sounds like something I would like - thank you for adding to my already inflated wishlist...

I've actually had carry-out haggis and chips! Some "nice" friends got me some when I was in Edinburgh and they made me try it before they told me what it was. It's actually quite nice - tastes like a spicy paté. I'd have it again!

I've slightly broken my own rules by including a book with more than just a single word, but Jemima J. seemed to fit too perfectly not to include it.

As for the book itself, it was a light, frothy chick-lit novel, that was fun to read, but had no real substance. A great marshmellow of a book.

Next up for this challenge is Colm Toibin's Brooklyn, which should provide a bit more substance.

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis, a young Irish woman, who immigrates to the United States in the 1950s when she can't find work in her small town in Ireland. Eilis is a reluctant American, and intensely homesick, until she slowly accustoms herself to her new life in Brooklyn. She becomes involved with a second generation Italian immigrant and begins to plan for the future when she is called back to Ireland and forced to make an active choice in determining her own life.

Brooklyn is the story of immigration, the newcomer whose longing for home is almost unbearable, the next generation, aware of the past but eager to make a future and the uneasy mingling of diverse cultures on the streets of New York just after WWII.

Colm Toibin's voice is quiet and measured but perfectly describes Eilis's strong emotions. His descriptions of mid-century New York and Ireland are vivid and alive. An excellent, excellent book.

#15 This looks like a good book - I've added it to the wishlist. Nice review!

Hi RidgewayGirl, just had to stop by and say how much I loved the Garnet Hill Trilogy as well. Denise Mina can really take you to her dark side. Have you read the Patty Meehan books by her yet? I've read the first and plan on reading the others, not as bleak as Garnet Hill, but pretty good.

Yes, I love the Paddy Meehan series as well. Mina can do no wrong!

***belva skips through the thread ignoring all of the most excellent recx***

Well, using great determination (also called "stubborness"), I have finished Possession by A.S. Byatt. This book has been staring at me resentfully from the bottom of my TBR, and I had avoided it because it seemed much more worthy than intriguing. And it did start slowly. I slogged through 225 pages before managing to get caught up in the story despite myself. But once engaged, I had trouble putting it down. It was well worth persevering with, although I will admit to skimming some of the longer stretches of Victorian verse.

Chalk one up for the terrificness of the ABC challenge! Hope C is engrossing from the start.

I have just gotten a copy of Sebastian Faulk's third novel, A Fool's Alphabet. I hereby add it to my list as my special bonus book.

What a great title, I should have used A Fool's Alphabet for the name of my challenge!

Hee hee. I thought the same thing myself.

For W I read The Wall by Jeff Long, a thriller about climbing. Ever since Into Thin Air I, like many, many others, have been fascinated by mountain climbing. Why on earth would anyone voluntarily do this? is pretty much the root of my interest, and memoirs and true tales just don't go very far into the why. I suspect that for all the religious tourism that goes on (carrying prayer flags up Everest, etc), climbers are not a very introspective lot. This book goes a ways to explaining things to me, for all that it was wrapped up in the form of a thriller. The protagonist is narcissistic, misogynistic and a tad selfish. He knows that it's better to leave people and places before they demand sacrifice. Despite the main character's essential unlikability, this was a rip roaring read. That I wasn't that worried about his fate made it easier to enjoy the details.

Set on El Capitan in California, the book has lots of details about Yosemite National Park and the social hierarchy of the climbers, rangers and rescue workers who inhabit the park.

Serena had been sitting on my TBR for awhile and was part of the reason for deciding to fill this challenge with books of one word. Set in the North Carolina mountains near the Tennessee border during the Great Depression, the story concerns a timber magnate and his ruthless bride Serena and their determination to control everything around them. This book was hard to put down. Serena is a singularly unsympathetic character, but the story is so rip-roaring and fast paced, featuring a child in peril, details of what it was like to work as a lumberjack, life in the Appalachian Mountains and the political fight to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that her likability was unnecessary.

That's very interesting to know, thanks for sharing that. It looks like an interesting book!

Serena sounds really interesting. I watched the PBS series on National Parks recently and they touched on the political fights surrounding the creation of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. I also just finished a book set in North Carolina in the 1930. It was a coming of age tale, Jim The Boy, a simple tale about a loving family written beautifully. Anyway, I will be on the lookout for Serena.

I'm currently really enjoying the one word title restriction I've placed on myself for this challenge. It's been easy so far to pick books off my TBR that fit beautifully. I'm not sure how I'll feel about it once I've filled in all the easy letters.

I read Matilda aloud to my children. Roald Dahl is a great favorite with them, especially his more bloodthirsty offerings. I like the way his stories don't let the adults be all-knowing or particularly benevolent. He allows children to be resourceful and brave. Quentin Blake's illustrations fit Dahl's work in the same way that Shepard's fit Milne's. So we enjoyed Matilda, who had to find a way to save both herself and her teacher, very much.

The Outlander is a book I'd been eager to read since I heard about it. It concerns a young woman, unnamed for part of the book, fleeing into the Rocky mountains after killing her husband. She is being chased by her husband's brothers. What happens and what led up to the murder were both fascinating and the characters were both sympathetic and firmly rooted in the turn of the last century.

I read a second "E" book, Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro. I have a terrible cold, and couldn't concentrate on any of the books I'm currently reading, and so I turned to Mount Toobie and pulled out a chick-lit novel. This one's set in London (and isn't it the case that 95% of all novels in the genre are set in London or New York?), and features an American stuck in a boring job and a dead marriage who discovers a book about elegance, which she follows to discover who she is and what she really wants. It was an above average read for its genre and hopefully now I'll be able to concentrate on something more challenging.

Hope you'll be feeling better soon RWgirl. I got a chuckle out of Mount Toobie.

When in danger, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout.

Lost is a book by the author of Wicked. Maguire cleverly combines fairytales and history and an agile imagination to create stories that are Impossible not to keep thinking about, long after the book is finished. Lost uses the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge as its pillar, to tell the story of Winnie Rudge, a writer who has traveled to London to research her next novel. She arrives to find the relative she planned to stay with missing, his flat occupied by builders and a very creepy haunting. Maguire's talent is in how he combines all the disparate elements of his story into a seamless tale.

I really enjoyed my "C" book, The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle. The novel follows what happens when a disgraced cop relegated to patrolling the aisles of a supermarket becomes involved with the messy life of a battered check out girl. The book roars along frantically but manages to have complex, believable characters and tight plot. Omaha was vividly portrayed. I'll be looking for more books by this author.

Message edited by its author, Nov 25, 2009, 4:05pm.

The Cleanup sounds good, I've added it to my wish list. I checked my library and they carry a couple of his books as well.

Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman is my second "S" book, but I've added it to my best books of the year list. Scottsboro is a fictionalized account of the infamous Scottsboro trial of 1933. Alice Whittier is a journalist working in New York for a Communist newspaper when she hears about nine black men pulled off of a train in Alabama for fighting with white men and then accused of rape by the two white women found riding the rails. Ruby Bates is one of the two women, an unemployed mill worker and sometime prostitute whose conscience eventually is awakened to what she did. The book follows the two women, focusing on Alice, through the multiple trials and American political life during the Great Depression. It is well told, the research flawlessly folded into an intriguing story.

I am going to have to stop reading your thread! Scottsboro sounds fantastic and I just have to add it to my wishlist.

#37 Scottsboro is an excellent book, Judy, you're going to love it.

Thanks for the additional recommend Sandy. It's on my wishlist as of now. I see Ellen Feldman has written more books - have either of you read anything else by her?

Message edited by its author, Dec 15, 2009, 9:59pm.

#39 No, I haven't. But I probably should...

I plan to find Ellen Feldman's other books. And to read more about life during the depression.

Naoko is the first book by Keigo Higashino to be translated into English. It's an odd tale of a mother and daughter who are in a bus accident, the mother, Naoko, sustains fatal injuries, the daughter, Monami, lays in a coma. Heisuke, the father, is there when his daughter awakes from the coma. But it's Naoko, not Monami, in the body of the eleven-year-old girl.

What follows is the confusion of family life turned inside out. Naoko must adjust to the life of a schoolgirl, Heisuke to living with his not-quite wife. Naoko is a well written, imaginative book, with a wealth of detail of daily life in Japan. I enjoyed it very much, staying up late to finish it.