lycomayflower's 2010 challenge

This here be my 2010 75-Book Challenge Thread. I'll be keeping a list of all books read in this post with links to the actual post about the book. Numbers in parentheses are page-counts for each book.

78. The Fry Chronicles (425)
77. The Typist (190)
76. A Christmas Carol (131)
75. The Haunted Bookshop (292)
74. Hogfather (354)
73. A Highland Christmas (131)
72. Boy Culture (178)
71. The Polysyllabic Spree (143)
70. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (759)
69. Mysterious Skin (292)
68. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (652)
67. The Joy Machine (278)
66. Cherry Ames: Boarding School Nurse (212)
65. The Lost Language of Cranes (319)
64. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (870)
63. The Abode of Life (207)
62. Godbody (205)
61. A Spider on the Stairs (310)
60. Washington D.C., Then and Now (143) and Art and History of Washington D.C. (127)
59. The Fall (370)
58. Merry Hall (317)
57. Shiver (392)
56. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (734)
55. The Book of Lost Things (339, 470)
54. The Chosen (271)
53. Strangers from the Sky (402)
52. Her Fearful Symmetry (401)
51. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (435)
50. Final Theory (359)
49. I Capture the Castle (343)
48. Ballet Shoes (233)
47. The Uncommon Reader (120)
46. The Magus (184/668)
45. The Callender Papers (182)
44. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (341)
43. The Book on the Bookshelf (252)
42. The Westing Game (182)
41. Never Let Me Go (288)
40. A Brief History of Time (197)
39. These Old Shades (378)
38. Story of O (235)
37. Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek (221)
36. Unseen Academicals (400)
35. On Chesil Beach (203)
34. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (309)
33. Prime Directive (404)
32. Imagined London (152)
31. Catch-all Spot
30. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (388)
29. The Camomile Lawn (336)
28. The Mystery of Grace (269)
27. The English Patient (302)
26. Spock Must Die! (118) (I feel compelled to note that the number marking the place at which this post appears in my thread is a palindrome.)
25. Bunnicula (98)
24. Maus (159)
23. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (355)
22. Job: A Comedy of Justice (368)
21. Giovanni's Room (169)
20. The World of Star Trek (276)
19. Mrs Dalloway (194)
18. The Godwulf Manuscript (204)
17. The Adventures of Sally
16. The Phantom Tollbooth (256)
15. Crucible: Kirk: The Star for Every Wandering (294)
14. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (306)
13. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (206)
12. Crucible: Spock: The Fire and the Rose (390)
11. Up the Down Staircase (350)
10. Great Expectations (441)
9. The Soul Thief (210)
8. Yesterday's Son (191)
7. Moby Dick (625)
6. One Good Knight (393)
5. Pride and Prejudice (292)
4. Dream Boy (195)
3. Bits Read with my Lit Students
2. How Much for Just the Planet? (253)
1. The Little Stranger (463)

Link to my 2009 75 Book Thread.

Explanation of what I include in my thread.

Aha! You are here. Why don't you skip over to The introductions thread and, well, introduce yourself? (Yes, I know who you are.)

Gotcha starred!

* ba-ding!

>2 laytonwoman3rd:: don't you hate it when she does that? Telling you, a grown woman, what to do. The nerve. I notice you are giving her the silent treatment, a time-honored mother-daughter communication technique. I will star & watch this thread with interest !!

:) to Linda ...

Welcome!

Glad to see you back, Laura!

A little birdie told me it's your birthday today! (She also told me she misses you.) Happy happy birthday! This will be a great year for you!!!

He's playing Happy Birthday to you!

And I think he's got the tartan right!

1.) The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters ****

As is usually true for me with Waters's work, I very much enjoyed the writing here. In particular, I thought Waters created an engaging voice for Dr. Faraday which pulled me easily through the story and nicely conjured up late 1940s England. I was intrigued by the strange goings on at Hundreds Hall and eager throughout to find out what happened next. Spoilers ahead. In the end though, I was a bit let down by the irresolution of those strange goings on. It's never made clear whether the Ayreses were all simply going mad or if something supernatural vexed them and their house. I'd have been okay with that sort of irresolution if I thought the irresolution itself accomplished anything. As it is, the story just sort of seems to end when there are no more Ayreses to destroy. I wasn't expecting a Stephen King-y revelation of Just What the Hell the Spooky Bits Where About, but this complete lack of explanation leaves me feeling a bit like Waters wrote an excellent first fourth-fifths of a book.

Oh yes, thank you for articulating what has been bugging me about this book!

Good start to your reading year, Laura!

2.) How Much for Just the Planet?, John M. Ford ***1/2

Weird, weird Star Trek book in which the Enterprise contingent and some Klingons attempt to convince the inhabitants of a dilithium-rich planet that their respective governments would be the better choice for developing mining rights on the planet (under the Organian Peace Treaty, see). Too bad the natives would rather lead the whole lot through a comedy routine to exasperate them to the point of agreeing to the natives' terms outright rather than going a couple of rounds with the diplomats. It's absurd, and I think it's good absurd. It's just . . . I prefer my absurdity on a bed of reality (think Wodehouse), and this was a little too . . . absurdity on a bed of crazy leaf with a side of crack juice for me.

absurdity on a bed of crazy leaf with a side of crack juice Must remember that phrase. It's so applicable to so much of my life.

Love that review, Laura!

3.) It's the round-up spot again. I'm teaching an intro to fiction class this semester, and I need a place to stick all of the excerpts, stories, and bits that aren't big enough to claim a spot of their own on the thread. I'll up-date this post with these little reads as I do them and count them as a whole as one "book."

--"Can This Story Be Saved?" Michael Wilkerson ***1/2
Again with the neat metafictiony bits, but in the end it's like watching someone execute a particularly difficult finger exercise on the piano. It may be skillful and perhaps the pianist's insight into form and structure is brilliant, but the exercise still isn't music. And this isn't a story.

--"A Conversation with My Father," Grace Paley ***1/2
Nice metafictional elements, but doesn't really work for me as a story. (Which is probably another way of saying that I deliberately miss Paley's point, but I want my stories to be stories first, darn it.)

--"A Continutity of Parks," Julio Cortazar ****
The story doubles back on itself and blurs the line between reading and reality. Neat.

--"By His Bootstraps," Robert Heinlein ****
I do love the way Heinlein uses the device of time travel to show the same scene from four points of view.

--"Barn Burning," William Faulkner ***1/2

--"Hills Like White Elephants," Ernest Hemingway ***

--"The Dead," James Joyce ****

--"Araby," James Joyce ***
A lovely evocation of a time and place, and remarkably effective at putting some of the feel of childhood on the page, but though I find the epiphanic ending is largely earned, I'm still left thinking the story is somehow incomplete.

--"The Black Monk," Anton Chekov ***1/2
A bit more engaging for me than most of Chekov, but still I want to throw my hands up at the end: "Is that it?"

--"The Lady with the Toy Dog," Anton Chekov ***
I appreciate the character study aspects of this story, but the characters themselves generate no sympathy. Ultimately, this leaves me completely dissatisfied with the story. This is pretty much how I always feel about Chekov.

--"The Birthmark," Nathaniel Hawthorne ***
Again. Symbolism. Poke it with a spoon.

--"The Minister's Black Veil," Nathaniel Hawthorne ***
Okay. I find Hawhthorne's symbolism annoying.

--Tom Jones excerpt, Henry Fielding ***1/2
Again, an excerpt for my students to give them a taste of the earlier stuff before we dive into some full-length works.

--Pamela excerpt, Samuel Richardson ***1/2
It gets the extra half star for making me want to keep going every time I pick it up. I mean, really, it's a book about power, class, and sex--what's not to like? But Richardson does go on so, and I'll admit that I've never been able to get more than halfway through. Gave my students the first ten pages or so to give them a taste of where the novel in English started out.

4.) Dream Boy, Jim Grimsley ****

I enjoyed this story of two teenaged boys falling in love in rural North Carolina in the 60s. The boys' feelings for each other were convincingly and tenderly rendered on the page, and the setting did much to illustrate how these characters are. I did find the pacing a bit off, with the back third seeming to take the story places the front thirds didn't prepare me for. I expected not to get out of the story without violence, and that expectation was met. But nothing in the early chapters suggested or led up to the ambiguous, half-mystical ending. I'm okay with coming out of a novel with questions, but only if the questions are useful. The questions I'm left with at the end of Dream Boy just make me think Grimsley didn't quite do his job. Three stars for plot/structure. Five for writing/characterization. Gets you four in my math class.

5.) Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen ****

One of the books I'm reading with my lit students. This is my favorite of the Austen novels I've read. I find that it starts a tad slowly, but as soon as Mr. Bingley quits Netherfield (is it for good, oh noes?), it picks up and I'm just carried along by the narrative (despite having read the thing upwards of five times and seen various film incarnations of it repeatedly).

6.) One Good Knight, Mercedes Lackey ***1/2

Passably entertaining princess and dragon stuff. Fulfilled its function as a diverting read while I was stuck in bed for the better part of a week. Gets the extra half star for some fairly clever plot twists (not that I didn't still see them coming--but points for niftiness).

Hope you are feeling better now, Laura!

7.) Moby Dick, Herman Melville ****

Second read for me of Moby Dick (unless you count the storybook I had as a sprout; then it's more). I love Moby Dick while at the same time being impatient with it. Part of me is fascinated by all of the "stuff" chapters and I like what Melville is doing with form, but my readerly reaction is often to wish that he would stop dicking about and just tell the tale already. Read with my lit students.

You are your mother's daughter. :o)

> 23
I thought the "stuff" chapters were adding to the charm of Moby Dick, with just the tale I would have liked it less.

>23 lycomayflower: You mean you wish he'd moby along?

@ 26 You're so funny, Junior Barnes.

Jonah?? Wasn't that a different whale?

.
.
.
.

I despair of you.

Haven't you always?

Just make sure your mom doesn't throw away the snowball! :D

#31 FTW!!!!!

:)

8.) Yesterday's Son, A. C. Crispin ***1/2

A quite enjoyable Star Trek outing which takes as its starting point the relationship between Spock and Zarabeth from the TOS episode "All Our Yesterdays." Turns out Spock fathered a child with Zarabeth and now he wants to go back and rescue his son from the past. And he does. And awkwardness and Trek-adventure shenanigans ensue. Nice attention to Triumvirate interactions here, and a plot that trips along. Loses a half star for leaving Spock's awkwardness with his son sort of unresolved (though there's a sequel and I look forward to seeing where this storyline goes).

Mariette Hartley. I was right. The mind has not entirely rotted away.

Okay, one: how do you know about Memory Alpha? And two: didn't she also play that Swedish nurse on MASH who Charles had his drawers in a twist about and then she saved the guy who was reacting to penicillin by giving him adrenaline and then Charles was all "ZORMG, you are the best thing ever I shall now ingratiate myself to you and be a ginormous pain in the arse"? (Run-on sentence FTW.)

You mean Hot Lips Hoolihan? Loretta Swit. (Pardon me for eavesdropping.)

No...no..not Hot Lips. A visiting doctor, I think, not nurse. Her name was Inge. . Hawkeye was smitten with her, but couldn't deal with her rather agressive romantic approach. The Charles thing may have been that episode, too.
Oh, and I'm the Mom...remember? I know EVERYTHING.

Yeah, she was a doctor. I looked it up. And it was indeed Mariette Hartley.

You're too young to remember but she did a series of funny Polaroid (I know, what's a Polaroid?) commercials with James Garner, and people thought they were really married to each other. She took to wearing a shirt that said "I'm NOT Mrs. James Garner", or something like that.

Here, watch one, or a few

And that search led me to another favorite creature of yours Hugh Laurie does Polaroid

I KNOW what a Polaroid is. Sheesh.

9.) The Soul Thief, Charles Baxter ***1/2

Meh. Characters leave me cold (especially in the first section, where everyone is a phoney grad student--I know phoney grad students and Baxter doesn't give his phoney grad students any redeeming qualities or compelling traits that make me want to hang out with them in my spare time), though the writing is often pretty lovely (there's a two-page descriptive bit at the beginning of chapter 19 that made me exceedingly cranky because if the rest of the book had been that good, I'da swooned). I'll probably give Baxter another go sometime; the writing was good enough for that. And everybody ought to be allowed one phoney grad student.

10.) Great Expectations, Charles Dickens ****

I have a deep fondness for Great Expectations (I find Pip very sympathetic, despite his being kind of a bastard a lot of the time, and bits of the thing are hilarious), but it's also kind of sloggy to get through. Read with my lit students.

I remember reading GE for school at about the same time that I was reading David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities and it did not grab me at all. Truthfully, I think I was just way too creeped out by Miss Havisham to fully appreciate Pip.

11.) Up the Down Staircase, Bel Kaufman, ****

I'm not usually a big fan of the epistolary style, but Kaufman makes it work beautifully in Up the Down Staircase. I'm always (this is my second read? third?) startled by how much I connect with Sylvia's students even though we only see them through little snippets of their writing and through Sylvia's letters to her friend. The final moment with Joe Ferone is heartrending. Excellent depiction of the hardships and the joys of teaching, with a predictable but believably-rendered outcome. I boggle at administrative life before the advent of electronic mail (I date myself as a young'un, I know)--imagine sending a conventional memo to several hundred people that says only "Ignore the bells." And then sending several more memos to all those people later in the day. And then again tomorrow. And the next day. I mean, the paper.

#45: I have heard of Up the Down Staircase, but never read it. I will have to look for it. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Laura.

Stop all that reading. It's giving you headaches.

You! Thas interfering with the competition, that is. Tellin' lies. Tryin' to scare people off. Dirty pool!

>45 lycomayflower:: I loved that book. I reread it a couple of years ago and it's amazing how much the underlying situations still seem relevant. ;-D

12.) Crucible: Spock: The Fire and the Rose, David R. George ****

This is the second in a trilogy of books published in celebration of Star Trek's 40th Anniversary. Each of the three books explores the life of one of the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and all three books take the events of TOS episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" as central to the understanding of our three main characters. I reviewed the first book (Crucible: McCoy: Provenance of Shadows) here. The rest of the following review will get slightly spoilery for The Fire and the Rose and for a few TOS episodes.

Within Star Trek fandom, there is a reasonably widely accepted interpretation of TOS canon (by which I mean a lot of people accept it and a larger lot of people don't) which posits that Kirk and Spock were sexually and romantically attracted to one another and most likely acted on these feelings, perhaps to the point of forming a long-term, committed relationship. I am one of those fans who find this interpretation both plausible and satisfying. So, when I come across a Star Trek story which builds its narrative around a core comprised of Spock's feelings toward Kirk, I'm going to balk a bit when those feelings are those of friendship and nothing but. That simply isn't my read of these characters, and the author is going to have to work hard to make me find his interpretation compelling. (This reaction is much like when a movie is made of a favorite book and an actor cast as a cherished character looks nothing like how I'd pictured that character. The script may be first-rate and the acting brilliant, but that version of the character isn't going to sit right, and it's going to take a lot of convincing to get me to accept it.)

I give you this background so that I can convey the appropriate amount of praise when I say that George manages to get me thoroughly invested in this story about Spock's feelings of friendship toward Kirk. I was utterly sold by George's interpretation of their relationship and found thoroughly compelling Spock's pain and regret at his failure to be a good friend to Kirk during the Edith Keeler catastrophe. The later exploration of Spock's emotional crisis after Kirk's death, his subsequent persual of the Kolinahr (the years-long Vulcan ritual to purge all emotion (rather than simply control it) that we see Spock fail at in the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and his realization that he can only be who he is meant to be if he embraces both his Vulcan and his (emotional) human sides is well done and very nicely illustrates how we get from the Spock of, say, TOS season one to the far more mature and sometimes almost emotional Spock who appears in TNG (and in the 2009 Reboot, but, of course, George can't be referencing that since this book was published in 2006). All of these things push the book into four-star territory, while some points of the execution would have left it hanging out around three.

Like the McCoy installment of the trilogy, this one somewhat clumsily summarizes many events of the Star Trek canon. George actually does an admirable job of incorporating canonical stuff into his own storyline; it's the way he gets the canonical material on the page that is less than satisfactory. This is a problem of audience, I suppose. He's clearly writing for that guy who's seen all these Trek eps and movies but who doesn't really remember them too well. Thing is, I don't think that guy reads this book. So, I'm left sitting there shaking my book and muttering, "I know what happened in The Voyage Home! I don't need a three-page plot refresher!" Over the course of nearly four hundred pages, this actually got quite annoying and would often throw me out of a story that I was otherwise quite caught up in. George also has an unfortunate tendency to over-write his dialogue tags: "'This is not the fal-tor-pan', Spock said, obviously understanding McCoy's implication." Aaaaauuuugghh! Let us pick up on the connections ourselves, especially if they're obvious. Aaaauuuggghhh!

But all in all, a satisfying Star Trek novel, though one final observation: George has a pretty impressive handle on the canon and a nice talent for making connections between bits of the canon that make sense within his own story. That being the case, I don't see how he can possibly have left the events of the episode "Requiem for Methuselah" out of this book. (He makes a passing reference to the "Dame of the Hour" from this ep once or twice, but only in a list of Kirk's lost or tragic loves--there's nothing specific about it.) George casts Spock as tormented by his failure to be a good friend to Kirk in "The City on the Edge of Forever." Spock comes to believe that he either should have tried to find a way to preserve the time line without letting Edith die or been more supportive (dare I say "emotionally available"?) to Kirk given his (Spock's) understanding of what was going down. Now, in "Requiem for Methuselah," Kirk falls in love with a young woman who turns out to be an android. She "dies" because she can't handle the power of the conflicting emotions she feels for Kirk and for her mentor, Flint. Kirk is devastated by this; the episode ends with him sitting dejectedly at his desk (tellingly, not seeing to ship's business, but letting Spock take care of things). When Spock comes in to give a report, Kirk says, "A very old and lonely man. And a young and lonely man. We put on a pretty poor show, didn't we? If only I could forget." And then he falls asleep at his desk. McCoy comes in and makes a speech to Spock about the joys and sorrows of love, pointing out that Spock will never know either (how this conversation doesn't wake Kirk up is anyone's guess). When McCoy leaves, Spock initiates a mind-meld with Kirk and says, "Forget." Roll credits. Seems to me that this episode speaks directly to Spock's friendship failures in "City." Basically, he's trying (though clumsily, maybe) to help his friend in the ways he failed to earlier. So where the heck is this bit in The Fire and the Rose? I can only hope that George was saving it for the book on Kirk. (I'll note that George sort of skirts the issue by placing Spock's realization of his failures in "City" after the events of "Requiem" (during the events of TAS episode "Yesteryear"), though that still begs the question: what was Spock thinking at the end of "Requiem"?)

13.) Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor ****

Markedly both delightful and depressing. Taylor's attention to detail and her gentle depiction of these characters was lovely to read, but at the same time, the loneliness and quiet despair of the residents of the Claremont was painful, sometimes almost to the point where I didn't really want to continue with the book. I was also slightly annoyed--maybe not with these particular characters, because Taylor paints them so sympathetically that I can hardly be cross with them, but maybe just in general--at the sort of "waiting to die" attitude of Mrs Palfrey and the others. I can't quite imagine getting to my old age and suddenly not being genuinely interested in something--the Claremonters seem only to do things (reading, knitting, playing games) because they pass the time. Perhaps this reaction is telling--surely no one expects, at twenty-nine, that she will spend the last years of her life alone, lonely, and bored. Perhaps it is precisely that annoyance in the young with such an attitude in the old that makes Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont so poignant.

#51: I certainly hope that in my old age I am doing something! I would hate to think I am just passing time waiting to die, even though I do read a lot. Depressing thought.

14.) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins ****1/2

A media studies exploration of television fandom from the early nineties. One of the best studies on the subject, at least partly because Jenkins considers himself a fan of the type he's discussing (too many critical discussions of fandom treat fans as weird or strange and their work suffers for it--there is, for instance, a section on slash fan fiction in Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters: Gender Dissent and Heterosocial Bonds in Gay Culture which, in its contempt for or misunderstanding of the subject, contains errors in its literary analysis which no undergrad English student would stand for). Jenkins spends a lot of time discussing who television fans are, what they do, and how their participation in fannish activities affects them. Overall, it's a positive study which provides a lot of insight, even if (or maybe especially if) you're a fan yourself. The missing last half-star reflects the fact that parts of the study read as very dated--being published in 1992, it predates the explosion of fan-related activity on the internet and (obviously) doesn't discuss many of the staples of recent fan-focus (Harry Potter, Jackson's Lord of the Rings, the second Star Wars trilogy, the new Doctor Who, nearly half of the installments in the Star Trek franchise).

15.) Crucible: Kirk: The Star to Every Wandering, David R. George III ***1/2

The third in George's trilogy which takes TOS episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" as a focal point. My reviews of the first two are here (McCoy) and here (Spock).

This is a decent Star Trek novel, but as a third to the first two in the Crucible series, it's quite disappointing. The first two are basically character studies, and in the tradition of some of the best fan fiction, they attempt to connect points in the canon and fill in gaps to tell us something about the characters that we didn't get from the original material. The Kirk installment is more of an adventure story (George admits as much in his afterward to this volume), and it focuses on a part of canon I find to be boring and unsatisfying (Kirk's death on the Enterprise B and subsequent efforts to help Picard stop Soran from blowing up the star around which Veridian III orbits). As an action story, it's fair; as an insight into Kirk's character, it's fail. George makes it clear that Kirk was never able to find happiness with a woman after Edith's death because she was his soul mate and no one else could compare (and the very few scenes we get between him and Edith are pretty nice), but the book really isn't about that. George said he wanted to disrupt reader expectations with this book. He certainly did that for this reader. He also disappointed me and left me feeling like Kirk, who should be the most interesting character to explore in relation to "City," got short shrift.

#53, 54. Thumbed and thumbed. You ever consider reviewing books for a living?

16.) The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster ****

I had never read this as a child, and it was mentioned here on LT so many times in the past few weeks that I thought I should give it a whirl. Delightfully clever and pleasant. Quite glad I read it, though a bit sad I never did read it as a sprout--I think I would have loved it to bits when I was young enough that the word play would have taken me a moment to sort out.

#56: I never read that one as a child either, Laura, but I have it home from the library to read now. It will be interesting to see if I feel the same way about the book reading it as an adult as you did.

17.) The Adventures of Sally, P.G. Wodehouse ***1/2

I listened to the audiobook of this Wodehouse novel during my Spring Break driving to and from Roanoke. This was my first non-Jeeves-and-Wooster Wodehouse, and I liked it okay. I had the same problem here as I have with the Jooster novels: I grow tired of the wit and frivolity of it all long before the thing is over. Wodehouse makes me laugh out loud at least once a chapter, and that's great, but I find the characters to be little more than surface (even if I like them), and that's wearing after awhile. I will say that it was nice to see a Wodehouse story where the characters end up somewhere other than where they started (you can't fundamentally change Jeeves and Wooster unless you are resigned to not writing any more of them), though I knew exactly where ol' PGW was going within three chapters, and I just wasn't as excited to watch him get there as I ought to have been.

Wot? No nipping of policemen's helmets this time? Poor old Pennsylvania Gas & Water slipping, is he?

Poor old Pennsylvania Gas & Water LOL!

No, no nipping of policemen's helmets in this one. Actually, there's a lot less purely ridiculous shenanigans in this one than in Joosters. Maybe because Sally is not really part of that monied, aimless, and useless set that Bertie belongs to.

18.) The Godwulf Manuscript, Robert B. Parker ***1/2

I read a good number of the Spenser books in high school and enjoyed them quite a bit. And now I've decided that I'm going to read through the whole series in order. So. Liked this one, though it was never one of my favorites. I was surprised by how well I remembered the book as I read it. Spenser is a great combination of wise guy, tough guy, and heart, and his first adventure is certainly worth reading for its own sake as well as for an introduction to the character before some of the hightlights of the series.

So, you bought that yesterday, and have finished it already? That's the trouble with Parker...and candy. It's gone so fast you feel you need another piece right away. And there's only so much Parker to be had. At least he doesn't go straight to your hips.

19.) Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf ****

I love Virgina Woolf more the more I read her. And Mrs Dalloway never disappoints. The constantly shifting pov always amazes me. Read with my lit students.

20.) The World of Star Trek, David Gerrold ****

I picked this up at our local used bookstore for something less than a dollar and didn't expect much from it beyond the usual behind the scenes stories, most of which I could probably tell myself at this point. But The World of Star Trek was a delightful surprise. It's divided into four sections--one on Roddenberry's original concept for the show, one on the production of the show, one about fan response, and one on the show's unfulfilled potential. The whole book was enjoyable, but the first and last sections were the most interesting (the sections on production and fan response, while offering some nice tidbits I had not heard before, were mostly old news to me). Gerrold provides insightful discussion in these sections about how television worked in the sixites, how Star Trek did (and did not) work within that model, why (from the point of view storytelling, rather than demographics) Star Trek was so successful, and why the show basically fell apart in the third season. Overall a decent standard behind the scenes book (and with a somewhat unique perspective compared to later such books, as this one was published in that limbo after the show went off the air when it was clear that it still had legs but no concrete plans for further series or a movie were in the works) coupled with a thoughtful, considered critique of the show as a whole. Recommended enthusiastically for fans of TOS and conditionally for anyone interested in television or writing.

#64: I will look for that one. Thanks for the recommendation, Laura.

*poke* I'm catching up.

HA! Expect a veritable flurry of activity from me in the next few days. I shall be victorious!

21.) Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin ****

I had a hard time settling into this for a second read (I did it with my lit students). Perhaps it was just too soon to read it again, or perhaps this sort of beautiful language coupled with an almost fatalistic structure simply has more power the first time through. I was struck by a misogynistic attitude this time that I don't remember noticing much before (my students also commented on it), and I look forward to letting the book sit for a long while and then reading again to see if I can further untangle all of the complicated attitudes here.

Oh come ON...you just read that! Re-reads don't count unless there's at least 3 years in between.

Oh REEEEALLY? And who made you Grande Poobah of the LT Challenge Thread Rules-I-Just-Made-Up?

Laura, even your mother is not allowed to be Book Police here. Re-reads count if you want them too. Your thread, your rules.

Sorry, Linda.

>70 lycomayflower:: she does that stuff all the time. You should see her when a thread gets too long. Swoops in like a hawk, she does.

Fear me. I swoop.

So, you'll be ridding my thread of small ground creatures then? I guess that's okay.

22.) Job: A Comedy of Justice, Robert Heinlein ****

Typical Heinlein narrative style coupled with a somewhat atypical story of a modern-day Job who is jerked from one reality to another (usually losing everything in the transition) by, he suspects, God (or gods). Drags a touch in the middle, but Heinlein brings the whole thing to a satisfyingly irreverant and nifty conclusion. In other words, he does explain (mostly) what's been going on, and the explanation is worth the time it takes to get to it.

#75: I had that one home from the library last year and never got a chance to read it before I had to take it back. Thanks for the reminder to pick it up again.

23.) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer ***1/2

Salon.com called Foer's novel about the personal aftermath for a young boy whose father died in the towers on 9/11 "surprisingly consoling." I wanted to give this book at least four stars, maybe more, but two things held me back. The first is that I didn't find Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close nearly as consoling as I expected it to be. Everything Is Illuminated was cathartic for me in ways I didn't even know I needed, and that is why I trusted Foer to take me through a 9/11 story. He does not violate that trust, and there are many small scenes in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which are consoling. But in the end, I was left thinking, "Yes, and?" Perhaps it is simply too soon--whether for me to have read this book or for such a story to be written, I don't know.

The second thing that keeps me from giving Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close a higher rating is the style. I grew tired of the "play" with form (insertion of pictures into the text, unconventional portrayal of dialogue on the page, the mute grandfather's notebook communications, et cetera), mostly because they never settled into meaningful pieces of the story for me rather than simply play with form. Such things are always a hard sell for me, but Foer convinced me in Everything Is Illuminated. Not so here.

I will end by saying that there is still much to admire in this novel. The writing is generally quite fine, and the portrayal of a wicked intelligent but disturbed and young boy is masterful. Finally, Foer packs the book with images that are equal parts startling, haunting, and lovely. The images may be worth the play that doesn't pay off, but that sense that Foer didn't quite deliver in the end is hard to overcome.

#77: I have that one home from the library now to read. I hope I like it more than you did, Laura. Let's hope your next read is better for you!

#77: "Everything is Illuminated was cathartic for me in ways I didn't even know I needed..." Very well put--I feel the same!

24.) Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History, Art Spiegelman ****

Reading this with my lit students. As with the first time, I find the graphic novel form an excellent choice for telling this story and think Spiegelman's choice to depict the characters as various kinds of animals to be inspired. My students are really getting into the book in ways they mostly haven't with previous works this semester.

#80: I loved both of the Maus books. It sounds like they are really working for your students. Great news!

There's some updates at at post 18 (Bits Read with My Lit Students).

25.) Bunnicula, James Howe and Deborah Howe ****

Loved this children's chapter book when I was wee, and it holds up to adult reading. Howard (the dog) tells the story of the new addition to the Monroe family, a wee bunny who Chester the cat thinks is a (vegetable-juice-sucking) vampire. Compelling voice from Howard coupled with humorous antics from Chester (and the nifty premise) are what make this a stand-out. The illustrations are fun, too. (I intend to read the entire Bunnicula series over the next few months, and will probably count several of them as one book.)

>83 lycomayflower: - I read Bunnicula to my kids last year, and we all loved it. I've got to remember to read more of the series to them soon!

Aww, I still love Bunnicula too... such good memories... it thrilled me a few years ago to see the publisher had re-packaged and re-released them. It's great that kids are still able to read them today, as they definitely are those kind of books that stand the test of time. Well, the first three that were around in my childhood anyway! :D

I had just the reverse reaction to Foer's books. Maybe the order read does make the difference, as I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close first. Would I have been as delighted by Foer's inventiveness the second time around? Maybe not. I do think the history of the grandparents during the war was a more moving story in Everything is Illuminated, and I had some ambivalence about both the grandmother's and the grandfather's writings, but I'm such a sucker for young children as narrators.

26.) Spock Must Die!, James Blish **1/2

Ug. I put up with a lot in genre fiction because I like it (which is not to say that there isn't some genre fiction that is written very well--but I turn to genre fiction more for story than for beautiful prose, so I look past less literary writing if the story is sufficiently entertaining). But this is pretty awful. The writing is often clumsy (and don't even let me get started on the representation of Scotty's dialect and accent--I ask you, when did Scotty ever say anything anywheres near "Mickle though it fashes me" or "my mind's sae bollixed up by the screen itsel', an' by all the weirds I've had tae dree"? IDEK, I said I wouldn't start in on it, sorry), the plot is dull and poorly executed, the characterizations are off, the psuedo-philosophical expectations set up in the beginning are not satisfactorily met, and details of the Trek universe are weirdly wonky. There are a few neat moments here, like Uhura using the language of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake as a code the Klingons surely wouldn't be able to crack (ha!), but they in no way make up for the rest of the thing.

I know Blish was one of the grand poobahs of 20th century sci-fi (and he adapted most of the original Trek eps into short stories (all of which I've read--I don't remember if they were good or not)), so I wonder if this just represents an off day or sommat. But as the first ever original Star Trek novel, Spock Must Die! is a pretty poor showing.

#87: I feel no need whatosever to read that one. Hope your next read is better, Laura!

27.) The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje ***1/2

This is the last of the texts I read with my students this semester. When I first read The English Patient in my late teens (and fresh from having seen the movie), I loved it. I was completely wrapped up in the poetry of the language and the romanticism of the desert and of the villa in Italy. So I was surprised to find myself growing impatient with the prose and annoyed by the novel's refusal to make the characters real rather than like ethereal dream figures. Maybe this just isn't a book I was meant to reread, or maybe I just read it at exactly the right time the first time.

#89: I remember watching the movie and not caring for it at all, but I have never read the book. I may give it a go just to see how I feel about it.

28.) The Mystery of Grace, Charles de Lint ***

This was an impulse buy which I read most of in one sitting and then didn't come back to for two weeks (because I was packing and moving, not because I didn't want to). My impression of it may have suffered because of that, but I don't think so. I loved the setting here (American Southwest, with a lot of the mysticism, mythology, and culture arising from the book's Hispanic characters), and the premise had promise (the main character finds herself dead and trapped in a strange afterlife which she is sure isn't quite right), but the whole book just read flat. The pacing seemed off (even before my putting it down for a long time), I never quite warmed fully to Grace (though, intellectually, I like her), and even though I think I see what de Lint was going for, I was left with a decided "And? So?" feeling in the end.

Don't you hate when that happens?

29.) The Camomile Lawn, Mary Wesley ***1/2

I expected this to be a story focusing on an extended family in England in the summer before World War II, but it's scope is grander than that, following the characters we are introduced to in that summer throughout the war and beyond. I mostly enjoyed the writing, though there were quite a few moments where I had to stop and reread a passage to sort what the author was saying. Not sure if this was a British/American language problem or a larger problem with the writing, but it was annoying. Generally a pleasant read, though I think I would have liked it better if it had narrowed focus, either to just a few characters or to a shorter span of time. I felt kept at a distance from the characters, despite also feeling that the characters had the kind of depth that would have allowed a closer look.

#93: I think I will give that one a try, bearing in mind your reservations.

30.) The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Robert Heinlein ****

Enjoyable for all the reasons Heinlein is ever enjoyable--fast-pace, snappy dialogue, likable characters, dashes of philosophy, and gripping writing. The precise workings of the final third escape me (I suspect a more thorough and recent familiarity with several other key Heinlein novels would help with this problem), but mostly I was having too much fun to care much. I can never tell when I thoroughly enjoy a Heinlein if that fact is the result of my being in just the right mood for him or of that particular book being better than some of the others. Whatever the reason, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls was a delight.

#95: I have not read that one by Heinlein. I will have to give it a shot. Thanks for the recommendation, Laura.

>95 lycomayflower:: I read that back in the mid-80s and can't even remember what it was about. Wonder if it's still kicking around here for a reread....

31.) Catch-all spot for short stories/essays for the next few months.

--"The Littoral Zone," Andrea Barrett ***1/2
Pretty good short story containing a nicely understated metaphor for the story's theme, through the story falls into the category of stories about how Life Is Disappointing and We Can't Really Do Anything About It But Be Knowing and Wistful. Such stories make me exceedingly and inescapably cranky.

--"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere," ZZ Packer ****
Both this and "Brownies" are from Packer's collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. I was introduced to ZZ Packer's work in a fiction workshop a few years ago--I have vague memories of having been impressed, but I never picked up anything else by her. (I think the story might have been "Brownies," in actual fact, as the first two-thirds of the story was quite familar. But I didn't remember the end, and it's killer; I can't imagine having read it and forgotten.) Good stuff, this, and I'm tempted to read through the collection (it's LW3's). But letting it sit and coming back to it at subsequent visits to the Ents' has a certain appeal as well.

--"Brownies," ZZ Packer ****

--"The Five Orange Pips," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ***
Enjoyable but somewhat anti-climactic Sherlock Holmes short adventure.

32.) Imagined London, Anna Quindlen ***1/2

My copy is uncorrected proofs picked up at a used bookstore. I found the book fun and diverting, but the musings about London seemed somewhat disjointed. The map which my copy says is "to come" and chapter titles would likely have helped a lot. Recommended with reservations--if the kind of small changes which would pull the book better together were made in the final version, this is probably at least a four-star afternoon's diversion. If not, not.

#31 Inflatin' yer numbers by readin' MY books...I dunno.

Pshaw.

#99: I already have that one in the BlackHole. Thanks for the reminder, Laura.

33.) Prime Directive, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens ****

Great premise with brilliant execution in the first third. Loses a bit of steam after the opening (particularly in the Chekov and Sulu sections, which, despite hooking up with the rest of the story quite adequately in the end, slowed the story down for me throughout), but remains a good and mostly satisfying Star Trek outing.

34.) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling ***1/2

Doing a reread of the Potter series over the coming months. First one is fun, but not nearly as engaging as the later installments. Despite the fact that things all tie together smartly in the end, this one reads episodic to me, and I'm usually not sold on that manner of story-telling.

I picked Imagined London up at a used booksale last year. I'll have to find it and see if the published version is better than the one you read.

35.) On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan ***1/2

I'm always impressed by McEwan's writing and On Chesil Beach is no exception there. I thought the structure here was lovely; McEwan follows the two main characters on their wedding night and fills in backstory about each of them and their relationship at relevant points in that narrative. But the conflict of the novel--Edward and Florence's inability to relate to one another sexually or communicate effectively--was unconvincing. Intellectually I can accept that two characters might have these problems with the particulars McEwan outlines and that such problems might largely be blamed on the time that produced them (as the novel repeatedly suggests); but I haven't been made to believe it, and that lack mostly makes me want to knock the characters' heads together. The conclusion to which the novel comes also seems obvious to the point where 203 pages of exploration to get to it feels like inelegant excess.

Interesting, Laura. I have this on my shelves, having heard *something* good about it somewhere, and because it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. I guess I'll read it the next time I'm feeling like knocking heads.

I had a more positive response to the book; I think maybe because I knew people who were a product of that time and I "came of age" during the little revolutionary reaction to it, I could more easily buy the scenario.

36.) Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett ****

My husband's been a fan of Pratchett forever, but I'd never read anything of his. We listened to a bit of Unseen Academicals on audiobook on the trip back to Virginia after the wedding and I was surprised to find it laugh-out-loud funny and engaging, so I decided to read the book. Those first impressions held true, and while I found the story to be lacking quite the level of narrative drive ("and then? and then??") that will keep me well and truly hooked, the humor, cleverness, gently biting satire, and genuinely engaging characters very nearly made up for that. I think Pratchett may be, for me, like Heinlein--I will have to be in just the right mood to enjoy his work, but when I am, it will be a delight to read him.

"My husband" -- I like the sound of that ! Congratulations, btw.

I am adding my congratulations as well, Laura.

37.) Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek: Allegories of Desire in the Television Series and Films, David Greven ***1/2

Review pending.

38.) Story of O, Pauline Reage ***1/2

Not sure what to do with this. As an exploration of submissive sexuality, it seems fairly lackluster, though (as is suggested in some of the prefatory material) I'm not sure it isn't meant to be less about inclinations and acts and more an exploration of soul and psyche. But in either case I would expect strong characterization and specificity of experience and growth. But all of the characters here read strikingly blank to me--especially O, whose designation makes her seem almost a literal hole in the text which is inescapably associated with the bodily orifices she is forced to keep ready for use at all times. Even the sex acts depicted--wherein lies the most specificity of detail in the book--lack the kind of infusion of meaning that would justify the narrative time spent on them. I don't feel as if I've come to know a character, nor can I comfortably read O as a symbol for woman, or love, or slavery, or anything else which suggests itself as a possible subject of this novel. I am left utterly dumbfounded by the thing; perhaps it needs to percolate, perhaps the novel doesn't speak to my generation, perhaps it just doesn't speak to me.

#38 Yeah...I think you were born two/t'ree decades too late to fully appreciate this one. Of course, I haven't read it, but I remember hearing a lot about it. It was the dirty book you were supposed to know about in my adolescence, although I doubt whether any of my superiorly well-informed contemporaries had ever managed to get their hands on a copy, let alone actually read it. While I grew up in a house that had both Lady Chatterley and Angelique right there on the bookshelves in plain sight.

>113 lycomayflower: & 114: Well, I'm two/t'ree decades older than you and I will cop to having read it. :-)

I think that a lot of this book's mystique (if you will) for an older generation is simply what your mother mentioned: it was the dirty book to know about. In an era where things we'd now only call R-rated were just creeping into mainstream, this pushed the boundaries. It wasn't just sex; it was BDSM, etc. all rolled into one. Not only that, it wasn't about forced slavery...Odile embraced it and that left people asking, "Could that really happen?" Depth of character or symbolic meaning weren't even on the table because the taboo-ness of the subject matter was overwhelming.

Just my take, though. I read it in the 70s, was titillated by it and perturbed a bit. I remember having trouble putting a personality on O that would allow her to love Rene and then Sir Stephen—the former seemed so romantically French and the latter so sternly British.

An interesting thing is that Declos never intended this to be a published book...in fact, she often stated categorically, "I am no novelist." She wrote it for her lover (allegedly on a challenge). This leaves open a lot of room for private meaning.

Oh well, probably more words than the book is worth. :-D

It's tempting to hijack this thread into "dirty books we read in our youth" ... but I won't.

...

9-1/2 weeks
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

#116 Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Nah, we knew you couldn't. And I, for one, am glad. That's another one I never read.

#115 They say "two/t'ree" in Joisey???

>116 lauralkeet:: Never read that one...though I did see the movie. :-)

Thinking back about "dirty books": I read Justine back about the same time as The Story of O. I read Anne Rice's Beauty trilogy that she wrote as Anne Roquelaire. The latter weren't my fault—my wife was on an Anne Rice kick and bought everything she had written. I simply had to read them, then, didn't I?

>117 laytonwoman3rd:: A bit when you get over around the Goethals Bridge. :-)

But, I'm not really from Joisey land...being more on the western side of the state where it's still Jersey. We don't even say "What exit?" though I confess "We're going down the Shore" does escape our lips.

39.) These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer ****

Light, diverting, and fun. Better in the first and last thirds than in the middle, where the heroine's childlike innocence became a bit wearing. And the end, where the villain is finally dispensed with, is absolutely delicious.

>119 lycomayflower:: wasn't that fun? It was my first Heyer and quite enjoyable. I agree with you about the ending!!

#119: *sigh* Another Heyer I still need to read . . .

Be sure and find Devil's Cub, the sequel! Also lots of fun.

40.) A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking ****

Well-written and concise discussion of some nifty theoretical physics including black holes, the big bang, time, and the search for a unified theory of everything. Hawking explains complex science well (I've come away with a satisfying, if non-working*, understanding of most of the concepts he discusses), and his funky sense of humor helps make this a fun read.

*By which I mean that I grasp the concepts in general terms but would have a hard time teaching them to anyone else and certainly could not draw conclusions from or otherwise use my knowledge.

Congratulations on passing the halfway point of the challenge, Laura! I know this has been a busy year for you.

Thanks! I'm enjoying some more reading time now as things have slowed up a bit.

Congratulations on reading Hawking. I must try him again sometime--I didn't find him all that approachable, as I recall. Not that I rule out the possibility that your mind is more receptive to physics than mine...

41.) Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro ****

Ishiguro's clear and compelling style coupled with a rare talent for making little details utterly fascinating are what pull me through his books. These are what made The Remains of the Day a page-turner when it had no right to be, and these are what hold my interest in Never Let Me Go. The workings of the dystopian society portrayed in the book are almost secondary to the experience and voice of the narrator and the relationships she forms with her friends. While Ishiguro's vision is a bit chilling, the moment where the entire truth of the thing is revealed feels almost an afterthought. I will remember the novel more for its insights into the ways children behave toward one another than for any commentary on how our good intentions have the potential to turn us monstrous.

#127: I liked that one too, my first by Ishiguro, but I still need to get to The Remains of the Day.

Now, see, Stasia, that just seems wrong! ;-) I have this notion that everyone who reads Ishiguro should be introduced to him/his writing through Remains of the Day.

#129: I know, I know. I do actually own Remains of the Day, I just need to locate it so I can give it a read :)

I own Remains of the Day too and really want to read it...sigh...can't read everything at the same time...bummer...

#131: I wish I could read everything at the same time too, Angela!

42.) The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin ****

When Sam Westing dies, his will calls together sixteen heirs and promises his multi-million dollar estate to whichever of them can solve the mystery it lays out for them. The result offers a satisfyingly clever puzzle for readers (which should be solvable if proper attention is paid) and an exploration of the sixteen heirs' characters and interactions that has a sophistication rare in a novel aimed at middle schoolers. I enjoyed this one when I was younger, and it was a delight to reread it now.

43.) The Book on the Bookshelf, Henry Petroski ****1/2

A fascinating history of the book and book furniture which begins by asking where bookshelves came from. Petroski's answer begins with the ancient Romans and explores how developments in one piece of technology (the book) influenced and necessitated developments in another (book furniture, or methods of book storage). Petroski's clear and enthusiastic writing made this a page-turner (with the possible exception of two chapters near the end in which the mechanics of bookshelves in the 20th century began to lose me a bit, possibly because they seem too familiar, especially compared to the uncanny workings of the older furniture), and I strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in the history of the book or the history of things.

I am dodging book bullets right and left. I have already read both numbers 42 and 43. Whew!

44.) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling ***1/2

I've mentioned, I think, that I'm rereading the entire series. This may be the last time I do, as I increasingly find the early ones just don't quite hold my interest. After this go-through, I imagine that when I feel a need for HP, I'll just chose one of the later ones (three or four for the exciting, still lighthearted stuff or six or seven for the hard-core Voldy plotty bits) and not try to get through the whole thing again. That said, there was a lot here that I was surprised to be reminded occurred so early in the series (such as the introduction of Moaning Myrtle) and whole bits I had forgotten about entirely (like the singing Valentine Harry receives in the hallway, much to his consternation).

45.) The Callender Papers, Cynthia Voigt ****

Young adult book that I never read as I young adult. As always, Voigt impresses with her intelligent writing and strong young characters. The solution to the mystery here is perhaps a bit predictable, but the deft characterization of the narrator makes up for it.

#137: I have not read that one by Voigt. I will have to look for it.

46.) The Magus, John Fowles **1/2 (conditional)

Here's something I've never done before: I'm counting a book I haven't finished. I've read enough of it, and invested enough time in it, that I'm calling that fair. I pretty well hated the 184 pages of this novel that I read. And I hated it most for having the potential for being awesome and failing miserably. The set-up--young Englishman goes to Greek island to teach and meets a mysterious ex-pat who seems to want to run said Y.E. through a secret masquerade for unknown purpose--ought to be delightfully creepy and engaging. But no. The narrator has exactly the kind of mid-twentieth century arrogant malaise that makes me want to shove him out an airlock, the "mysterious" Conchis is boring as hell, and the "strange" goings-on fail to entice or intrigue. The prose is tight and highly readable, though it is infected by the narrator's insufferable character. My rating of two and a half stars is conditional because I'll allow that rating a book I haven't finished isn't quite fair and because, having loved Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman, I'm a bit mystified by my reaction to The Magus.

I've read enough of it, and invested enough time in it, that I'm calling that fair. Ordinarily, I would grant you this liberty, but as it puts you one up on me again, UH UH! Not fair. And no more recommendations from me to get you out of your reading slump. Take up needlepoint or bonsai, or sommat.

Does this mean you tracked down a US postal truck today and stole back a package of books you sent my way? Because I think that the USPS looks askew at that sort of thing.

#141: I think that the USPS looks askew at that sort of thing.

Definitely!

47.) The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett ****1/2

Delightful little book with pleasant prose, effortless characterization, and joyous gems about reading which ring true. Last half star missing because I was bothered several times by the nagging feeling that there was a sharp political statement being made that just wasn't quite jelling. (Is this an indictment of the British monarchy? Simply a statement about the importance of self-analysis over constant duty? A commentary on the near-sightedness of Those Who Are In Charge?) I'm not sure the book would be better if this statement were made clear, but the fact the question presented itself and wasn't answered made the novella fall just short of perfect. Recommended.

#143: I love that one. I have read it 3 years running now and still enjoy it as much as I did the first time around. I am glad you liked it, Laura.

48.) Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild ****

I didn't know about the "Shoe Books" when I was a kid; the first I ever heard of them was when Kathleen Kelley overheard a customer asking a dim-witted children's section employee of Fox Books for one in You've Got Mail and then gave a thirty-second blurb on them that proves the movie's point about independently-owned shops beautifully ("I'd start with Ballet Shoes--it's my favorite. Though skating shoes is also completely wonderful. But it's out of print.") When I stumbled across a BBC production of Ballet Shoes recently, I decided I was clearly meant to read the book. It's delightful, and the details of 1930s London life and stage work are fascinating. Recommended.

#145: I have one of Streatfield's books coming up this month too, but it is not one of the children's books. I have seen a couple of good reviews of Ballet Shoes now. I will have to look for it. Thanks for the reminder.

49.) I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith ****

I'm using the word "delightful" a lot lately to describe the books I've liked; that's mostly because I've been in the mood to read things which would delight one these last few days. I Capture the Castle is a perfect Delightful Read: it has a young, cheerful narrator; a sense that while there are real problems in life nothing too terribly dreadful could ever happen; gemmy insights into life, family, and love which ring true; and just enough slightly zany adventures to make the book feel a lark. My only complaint is that the romance thread (which is important, but very much as part of a larger fabric) is left dangling a bit in the end. Recommended.

#147: I agree with you about I Capture the Castle. It is delightful!

I have a copy of that around here...somewhere....

50.) Final Theory, Mark Alpert ***

My husband has little patience for television if he can see where the story is going. It's not unusual for him to sigh twenty minutes into an hour-long drama, wave dismissively at the television and predict what's going to happen in a disgusted tone. He's often right and generally cranky because he feels the writers didn't do their jobs if he can see it all before it plays out. I'm more patient , especially if I am in any way invested in the characters. I'm usually okay seeing how something plays out even if I'm relatively sure what will happen. But in reading Final Theory, I felt like my husband often does watching television. I knew how scenes would unfold as soon as they were set up and I saw plot twists coming hundreds of pages before they were revealed. And the fact that I did irritated me greatly, probably because there is almost no character development here to speak of. (It should be said, I suppose, that this is a thriller, and that thrillers aren't generally known for their characterization, and that I'm not usually a fan of the genre.) That lack of character development might have been okay if the plot had been sharp enough to keep me entertained or if the result of all of the running about and killing people (seriously--even for a book of this type, the body count is ridiculous) weren't that the general situation returned to exactly what it was at the start of the thing. If you like physics and the idea of a Theory of Everything (the presence of which being what drew me to this book in the first place), go read physics. If you are a huge fan of the thriller genre, you may find something here you like. Otherwise, skip it.

#150: Skipping it!

Congratulations on hitting 50 books for the year though, Laura!

51.) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling ****

(Spoilery for Book 3 and the whole series.)

One of my favorite Potters. Good plot and begins to escape the more formulaic feel of Book 2. Remarkable also that it holds the attention so well because it is a "bridge" book: Voldemort does not appear, and the major developments to the grand story arc here are all either back-story or set-up for later books. Interesting as well that this is the only Potter in which the narrative misdirection is set straight entirely through the discoveries of the principles (Harry, Ron, Hermione) rather than explained to Harry (and the reader) by Dumbledore. Even in Book 7, after Dumbledore is dead, he manages to have an "Explain It All To Harry" chapter.

#152: That is one of my favorite books in the series too, Laura.

I think it was the best of them. The only other contender in my mind is the first one, simply because it was first and introduced us to it all.

>154 TadAD:: I'm with you, Tad. I've enjoyed them all but appreciate #'s 1 & 3 the most.

52.) Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger ****

A better book, I think, than The Time-Traveler's Wife, though somehow not quite as compelling (that one was a page-turner for me; this one was engaging, but did not have that quality). Interesting characters, neat premise, well-written. The ending leaves me a bit unsatisfied (as did the ending of tTTW), but altogether a good read.

Yeah, but I've got homemade sauce ...

I dun need sauce. My man is making steaks. O=)

Yeah, well, my printer is out of ink. With something like 8 pages of genealogy stuff I need printed before tomorrow. Whatcha gonna do 'bout that?

53.) Star Trek: Strangers from the Sky, Margaret Wander Bonanno ****

A "giant" Star Trek book (it says so on the cover!) that delivers fairly well on the higher stakes and grander narrative that the long ST novels promise. This one is a book within a book and works fairly well as such. The plot involves Earth's First Contact with Vulcans (the book predates the TNG movie First Contact and tells a more interesting story, I think). A thoroughly enjoyable read with good characterization of ST staple characters and fantastic original characters but falls well short of five-star territory for a somewhat anti-climatic ending.

54.) The Chosen, Chaim Potok ****

Fascinating portrayal of Jewish culture in 1940s Brooklyn with a very compelling narrator and a greatly effecting conclusion. Recommended.

#161: I love that one. I am glad you enjoyed it as well, Laura.

I've loved most of the Potok I've read though that one was a particular favorite. You might try My Name is Asher Lev if you haven't already.

#161 Was that a re-read for you? I kind of remember discussing it with you before. One of my favorite "finds" many years ago...meaning I just pulled it off a library shelf, without knowing a thing about it, and found it to be a treasure.

Yep, reread. May even be the third time, actually, but I think it had been a while.

55.) The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly ***1/2

Not really a retelling of fairy tales (like Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber--though there are certainly elements of retelling here), but an exploration of how a child who has been exposed to many such tales might use them (probably subconsciously) to learn how to grow up. A fascinating concept, and Connolly executes it fairly well. The flaw (and this may be an inherent flaw in the premise rather than a failing of skill in the execution) is that the book lacks both the depth of character I expect from a novel because its characters operate largely as fairy tale "types" and the sort of plot arc I expect from a novel because scenes are arranged episodically as David moves from one fairy tale/beast/challenge/lesson to another. The mystery of what was actually happening to David was also no mystery at all to me from early on (though, again, one might argue that this is a natural result of form here, if Connolly is intentionally mimicking the style of fairy tales themselves--when was the last time you didn't understand what would happen in a fairly tale immediately after the initial set-up? All fairy tales work the same way. (cf. Vladimir Propp, Joseph Campbell)). Despite all that (or maybe because of it?), the book is quite enjoyable--the writing is clean and the story does pull one along (mostly--there were a few points in the middle where I found the episodic nature of the thing a bit wearing). The supplementary material Connolly includes at the end in which he discusses the fairy tales he's alluded to in the book is a fantastic resource both for the book and for the tales themselves. Recommended for those interested in or fascinated by fairy tales and in general for anyone willing to put expectations for novel structure aside.

Nice review. The Book of Lost Things is sitting here in my TBR pile, and I WILL get around to it eventually!

Ditto what roni said.

56.) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling ****

Thoroughly enjoyable, this one, even on a third read. Nice dose of Hogwarts shenanigans coupled with really meaty plotty bits. I had forgotten how much the movie leaves out of Goblet. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that fully two thirds of the book is not in the film--and while most of that missing material is not strictly necessary to understand the Voldemort-arises-again story arc, its absence effectively impoverishes the story of this book as well as the themes Rowling is developing for further exploration in later installments.

57.) Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater ***

Twilight-esque YA novel with werewolves as the central pseudo-mythological beastie. Somehow doesn't have the atmosphere or appeal of Twilight. I didn't find Twilight to be superfantastisch or anything, but it did grab my attention and make me want to keep reading. Shiver did not. It was only in the second half there seemed to be any real stakes to the story (though once it did pick up, I was more involved), and the world of the story is not nearly well-enough developed to make me really buy into it. I did like that the story was told from the points of view of both halves of the love relationship, and the fact that Grace and werewolf boyfriend Sam are basically equals in the relationship (if anything, the power and confidence is skewed in Grace's favor) made a nice change from Twilight's uber-protective, all-powerful boyfriend mode. Though, like the Twilight series, Shiver implies (though not as strongly Twilight, admittedly) that sexuality is death and obsession and desire all twisted up together, and it puts that knot out there in an appealing package without doing enough to unravel it into anything like a thread of understanding.

Edit to fix: dutchism

I think I enjoyed Shiver slightly more than you did, Laura. I have not had a chance to read the sequel, Linger, yet but I hear that it is better.

#57 Edit to fix: dutchism HA! Now why did you did that?

Why'd I fix it? I thought it might strain the comprehension of the non-Dutch among us.

Since I stopped cold on Twilight, I think I'll have to pass on this one if it doesn't "have the atmosphere or appeal".

#173 You drownin' down there? It's really putting down here. (Hey, isn't it up to us to bring culture to the masses?)

Not quite drowning. Creek is highest I've ever seen it. I think it's creeping over its bank on the far shore (it would have a job to do to get out, I think, as is uphill on either side) and we have flash flood warnings. Rain is starting to let up, though. Perfect day to stay indoors with book, blanket, kittens.

Book, blanket, kittens = Bliss
Rain, commute, office = Blech

58.) Merry Hall, Beverley Nichols ****

Husband: What's that you're reading?
Me: *holds book up* It's about a guy gardening.
Husband: *looks confused* Is it a novel?
Me: Nope. Like a memoir. Guy buys a big Georgian house in the country in England and builds a garden.
Husband: So it's like the most boring book ever written?
Me: It's interesting actually.
Husband: Uh huh. Nonfiction. Pshaw.
Me: You're reading nonfiction. You're reading three thousand pages on the Civil War.
Husband: That's different.

As delightfully exasperating as that conversation was, it does encapsulate most of what I have to say about Merry Hall. It has no plot, no thrust, it sounds like it ought be terribly dry, and it seems that there's little point (it's not even a how-to book--in fact, it would be worse than useless as a how-to book). And yet, it is a fabulously entertaining read--provided you like England and the English, find details compelling, and are content to be pulled along by voice. I do, I do, and I am. If you also do and are as well, you'll like Merry Hall, too. Falls short of five-star territory because Nichols is just a touch racist and a heap misogynistic and the (mostly brief) moments when those attitudes touch the pages make the book less than perfectly pleasant. They are not deal-breakers, however, as they seem to be, for the first, an unfortunate product of the time that we can almost excuse because there seems to be no malice in it, and, for the second, a disposition rather than an ideology and one which causes little harm in Nichols's mostly-male world.

I have Nichols' Cry Havoc! around my house somewhere waiting to be read. I wonder if his less than stellar attitudes come through in that one as well.

Edited because I cannot spell.

59.) The Fall, Simon Mawer ***1/2

I ought to have liked this book more than I did. I wanted to like it more than I did. I love a finely-turned-out sentence. I love novels that know things. The Fall has those and is that. And the characters were likable enough, compelling enough. But it's as if I saw and absorbed all of the things the novel had to say hundreds of pages before it was done showing them to me. In the end, when all of the connections and betrayals between characters had finally been explicitly revealed, I said, "I know! I've known forever. What about it?"

Sounds like a frustrating read to me!

60.) Washington D.C., Then and Now, Alexander D. Mitchell IV ***** and Art and History of Washington D.C., Bruce R. Smith ****

Counting these together as one because they are heavy on pictures and light on text.

Washington D.C., Then and Now is a lovely short collection of vintage photographs (mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries) of various buildings and locations in Washington coupled with recent photographs (within the last ten years) of those same locations. Each set is accompanied by captions detailing the photographs and explaining briefly what has changed and why. Very enjoyable.

Art and History of Washington D.C. is a collection of full-color photographs of the famous buildings, monuments, museums, and neighborhoods of D.C. with short discussions of each. Beautiful photography and decent coverage of the history and relevant points of each location featured, though sometimes fails to make perfectly clear what one is looking at in the photos.

Washington D.C. is probably my favorite city. I just love it. I will have to look for those books. Thanks for the recommendations, Laura.

You're welcome.

Husband and I just got back from a long weekend in D.C. I had never been there, and I absolutely loved it! We are already planning to go back--repeatedly.

I can understand why! I would like to go back as well. Just not sure when I am going to be able to do it.

I am glad to hear you love DC. I live there (in the city not the burbs). I love it too. I hope that you get a chance to visit the DC that is not the Federal government. I think that is the best part. Well, that and free museums.

61.) A Spider on the Stairs, Cassandra Chan ****

A murder mystery which appears to be a part of a series, though it didn't seem to matter much that I've not read the first three installments. The cover caught my attention at the library (it's a great cover, but blamed if I can figure what it or the title have to do with the story), and I'm glad I picked this up on a whim. Mid-rate writing but fun characters, diverting setting, and entertaining plot. I see myself looking in on more of Gibbons and Bethancourt's adventures in future.

#187: I will have to check that series out! Thanks for the recommendation, Laura.

62.) Godbody, Theodore Sturgeon ****1/2

Not sure what to do with this other than to say that it totally enthralled me. The message is not exactly new (the take-away message in Christianity is the love one another bit) nor is the notion that sex is about love (or you're doing it wrong), but Sturgeon presents those ideas in a way that feels revelatory even if you agreed with his notions from the start. And the structure (each chapter is told from the point of view of a different towns-person--usually one who seemed of minor importance in the section before) is intriguing and flawless. Recommended, though note that there is a fairly large helping of (somewhat) graphic sex here (all for a purpose).

#189: That one looks too good to pass up! Into the BlackHole it goes.

63.) The Abode of Life, Lee Correy ****

A somewhat less than stellar Star Trek book but a pretty decent sci-fi story. It's as if the author had a good idea for a science fiction plot and then sort of man-handled it into a Trek tale. Details of the operation of the ship and the fleet seem slightly off and the interactions between the characters don't really have that Trek feel to them (Kirk hardly seems to be friends with Spock and McCoy most of the time). And I have issues with some of the writing. (Dialogue tags. Oh my head, the dialogue tags. "Kirk wanted to know" is not a dialogue tag. "Said" is a dialogue tag. "Asked" is a dialogue tag. "Whispered" is a dialogue tag. Dialogue tags are verbs. They can be modified, on occasion, with great care and restraint. While "snapped" is a dialogue tag, it's generally a bad one and in Kirk's case is indicative of a mode of speaking Kirk would only use rarely. To have him "snap" every other time he speaks is bad writing and reveals a poor understanding of his character. . . . . I might be done now.) But. There are some really neat science-y ideas here of a caliber one doesn't often run across in Trek, and overall the story was satisfying. Recommended if you can stand some writing ticks and accept that this won't feel like Trek.

64.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling ****

A touch spoilery, this.

I have long said HP5 ought to have been called "Harry Potter and the No-Good, Awful, Terrible Bad Year: Dumbledore Screws Up." While there are parts of this book that I love (the encounter with the Dementors in Privet Drive, Grimmauld Place, the interaction between Harry and Snape during Occlumency lessons, the D.A., Fred and George's brilliant departure from Hogwarts), for the most part I find it rather a chore to get through the thing. It is, as many have said, over long (though I think this may be a perception that results from some less than tight sentence-level writing; I don't know that I can point to any plot or character development that I think ought to have been excised), but that is not my chief complaint. Part of what makes Harry Potter so good is the atmosphere Rowling creates. All the books set at Hogwarts have significant sections in which little happens (or little appears to happen), but I don't lose interest during those sections because Rowling has created a fascinating, charming setting which I would love to visit and which I am content to hear about, even if the plot doesn't seem to be getting along. I'm happy to spend some time just watching these characters exist in their environment. Rowling wrecks that handily with the introduction of Dolores Umbridge. I HATE her. I'm meant to, I know. But I hate her so much that I can hardly stand to read about her. I suppose this is a testament to Rowling's ability to create a nasty character (and to make the reader feel sharply precisely what the characters feel), but it also marks a failing at creating a wholly entertaining and satisfying read.

#192: I am glad to know I am not the only one who hates Umbridge at that level. Book 5 is the only HP book I have never re-read thanks to Umbridge.

Yeah. I have (clearly) reread it, but I'm guessing I won't read it again (or if I do, I'll do some judicious jumping about and skipping of bits). Another thing about Umbridge is that she's not complex. She's cruel and sadistic. That's it. There's no sense that if we cared to look deeper we might find something interesting or contradictory or sympathetic. Unlike most of Rowling's villains (Snape, Voldemort, Crouch, Sirius (in HP3), Umbridge just is what she appears to be.

Her lack of character depth certainly stands her in stark contrast with the other people in the HP world. I know we all have characters we love to hate, but Umbridge to me is not one of those people - Snape is, Voldemort is, but not Umbridge.

Ditto on that, Laura and Stasia! Umbridge makes my skin crawl.

65.) The Lost Language of Cranes, David Leavitt ****

Compelling study of a family living in early 80's Manhattan. The characters are largely sympathetic, the writing draws one right in, and Leavitt has an enviable way of marking details so that they are both fascinating and telling. There was, however, a strong sense that these characters live lives in which most actions are continuous and repeated and important thoughts and emotions occur often but at no particular, specific time. It is as if they live constantly in the past imperfective, and while I'm sure that was intentional and pointed, it did became tiresome by the end of the book.

66.) Cherry Ames: Boarding School Nurse, Helen Wells ****

I took one or two Cherry Ames books out of the library when I was a kid and remembered enjoying them, so when I saw several of the original hardbacks in a used bookshop recently, I decided I ought take one home and give it a whirl. What a fun read! I was afraid the writing might be too awful to stand or the cheery, good-girl attitude of a 50's novel for young ladies just too ghastly to sit through. But no! The writing is not great, but it's not at all bad either. If one can stand a lot of "exclaiming" and "crying" in dialogue tags, on the whole, the writing is fairly good. And while it is clear that the book was designed at least partly to give girls a good professional, personal, and moral role model (work always comes first! never go to bed without washing your face! stay away from fresh boys!), the attitude comes off as pleasantly innocent rather than sickeningly gooey. The story also involves an interesting (though not terribly surprising) mystery, and, in the process of resolving that mystery, provides some interesting details about nursing and another activity that I shall not name to save spoiling things. A satisfying, pleasant surprise.

work always comes first! never go to bed without washing your face! stay away from fresh boys! Substitute brushing your teeth for washing your face, and those are all the same things your mother told you, right?

Weeeell, maybe. But with fewer exclamation points and less of a sense that doing so makes you A Good American Person.

67.) The Joy Machine, James Gunn, from a story by Theodore Sturgeon ***1/2

Another good sci-fi idea tacked onto a Star Trek book without too much regard for making it a STAR TREK book. Unlike the last Trek I read, this one doesn't feel wrong (with wonky details of the Trek universe), but it doesn't feel right either. For the most part, the book gives dialogue to characters with familiar names (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura--especially Uhura) without making much attempt to make those characters sound like the people who we associate with those names. The plot was also a bit of a let-down--it started off very strong with an interesting set-up with a lot of potential to say revelatory things about work, joy, free will, the human condition, and (implicitly) communism. But then it morphed into a fairly standard adventure story about Saving the Day. Disappointing.

#201: I think I will give that one a pass.

68.) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling ****1/2

One of my favorites of the series. This one is tightly paced and provides some of the meatiest Voldemort backstory bits (which I love) of the whole series. After HP5, HP6 is a relief in its relative brevity, its absence of obsessive teenage angst, its (nearly) Umbridgelessness, and its extensive use of Dumbledore on the page--though I think this would be one of my favorites even if it didn't shine in comparison to its over-long, cranky-making predecessor.

#203: I think this would be one of my favorites even if it didn't shine in comparison to its over-long, cranky-making predecessor.

I agree with that!

69.) Mysterious Skin, Scott Heim ****

Very well written with compelling characters and a fantastic sense of place. The end feels both perfect and not enough--after all that these characters have gone through, I kind of want to see how they go on, not just get a striking image of partial resolution.

#205: I looked at some of the reviews of that one and think it is going to be a bit too graphic for my taste. Nice review though, Laura.

70.) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling ****

One of my favorites in terms of story developments. So much comes together here, and it's quite satisfying to see that happen. But for overall cohesion of plot and character interaction, six or three (or four) is better.

71.) The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby ****

A collection of Hornby's monthly Believer columns about book-buying and book-reading. A fun read, especially as Hornby responds to what he reads in a readerly and writerly fashion more than a critical or analytical one. Most engaging when I'd also read what he's read, but worthwhile even when I hadn't.

Huh. Lookee that. Today's my five-year anniversary on LT.

Happy Thingaversary! That means tomorrow is mine, then. You making the cake, or shall I?

See, whya gotta go and mentions things like cake? Now I want one.

I never did.

Happy Thingaversary!! Five, huh! That's a lot. What five books are you buying to celebrate!

Happy belated Thingaversary, Laura!

72.) Boy Culture, Matthew Rettenmund ****

A novel told in a series of confessions by "X," a gay male prostitute who sleeps with no one but clients and has fallen in love with his roommate. Compelling voice coupled with a sincere, realistic love story and keen observations make this a good read. The movie made from the book, however, is better, with a sharper thematic focus and a lovely symmetry which the book lacks.

You may be interested in this Story Corp episode I heard on NPR this morning. Grab a tissue and listen to it, rather than reading it. I had a little trouble focusing on the road for a minute or two.

73.) A Highland Christmas, M.C. Beaton ***1/2

A Hamish Macbeth mystery from the middle-ish of the series, though the first I've read (I have seen all of the television series based on the books). Light on plot, this installment could be called "Hamish Saves Christmas." It's a light, quick, pleasant little book, and just the thing for a cold (almost-) winter afternoon's diversion from longer, heavier reads in the works.

#217: I have not read that one in the series. I will have to see if the library has it. Thanks for the mention.

74.) Hogfather, Terry Pratchett ****

The husbeast says this is his favorite Pratchett, and I can see why. The story is imaginative and funny and the satiric look at Christmas is sharp and telling without ever leaving a bah humbug-y taste behind. It has a lot to say about both the modern celebration of Christmas and the human impulse to create gods, monsters, and fairy-folk. Good stuff.

Some discussion of that one on this thread which you may not have seen. Should I read it, d'ya think?

Not sure. I think you would like it for what it says and the imagination in it. Not sure you would care for the tone. (That's a genuine "not sure"--I really can't hazard much of a guess on this one.) I say give it a go. It's fun, and Pratchett can be wickedly, wickedly funny.

75.) The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley ***1/2

A mostly pleasant read, most pleasant when it is about books, the bookshop, or reading. The resolution to the mystery at the bookshop is interesting, but I found much of the run-up to it to be a bit tedious.

^ Thanks! I am sort of ridiculously excited at having met the challenge this year.

76.) A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens *****

An annual read, this year read aloud with my husband. Most delightful.

What happened to Stasia's post? (Or was it a GIF? I block some of those.)

Congrats! Yep, it's a jumpy congrats guy...

#224: I am sort of ridiculously excited at having met the challenge this year.

You have good reason to be since you have been exceptionally busy getting married this year!

Congratulations on reaching (and passing) the 75 book mark!!

77.) The Typist, Michael Knight ****

This story of a young GI typist in occupied Japan just after the war is written beautifully, and Knight creates characters and situations seemingly without effort. He puts historical figures (General MacArthur, MacArthur's son) on the page in such a way that I believe they may have acted this way, done these things, and makes me forget to care that they almost certainly did not. But the novel feels curiously flat, as if nothing that happens to the narrator actually means very much, though the things that happen appear significant and the narrator identifies them as such. (I was reminded of Peter Ho Davies's The Welsh Girl, which, though ultimately a very different sort of a book, does some of the same things and has this same curious near-brilliance while failing to be terribly compelling). In the end, I felt I surely must have missed something (in particular, it seemed that a revelation had been promised about a certain incident on a train), and I flipped back looking for the moment that would make it all gel. I didn't find it. I'm still not convinced that this isn't my fault. Guardedly recommended; recommended because the writing here and Knight as a writer generally deserve the recommendation (and because if someone else sees what I missed, this could be a wonderful read), guardedly because the book just wasn't as good as I thought it would be.

@ 229

Thanks, roni!

I remember that feeling about The Welsh Girl myself. I hate finishing an otherwise good book with "what did I miss?" or "is that IT?" hanging in my head.

#230: I have never read The Welsh Girl, but I do own it. Thanks for the heads up about it.

Laura, are you joining us again for 2011? The group is up and running: http://www.librarything.com/groups/75booksin20111#forums

Yep! I've joined the group--just haven't started a thread yet.

Great! I will see you over there soon then.

78.) The Fry Chronicles, Stephen Fry ****1/2

More autobiog from Fry in the veinish of Moab is My Washpot, though this one concentrates more heavily on his career (comma beginnings of). Fun to read (Fry's humor, word play, and alliteration are almost as much fun on the page as they are to listen to when he speaks them) and chock full of anecdotes about lots of people who you'll recognize if you are in any way familiar with British entertainment of the eighties and nineties (and naughts). If I have any criticisms they are these two: first, there is a tendency for material to be repeated (not dreadfully often, but frequently enough I noted it)--as if the sections haven't quite fully decided to cling together as a book (or as if maybe just one more editorial read-through might not have gone amiss). This I found mostly a minor complaint and generally it did not diminish the reading experience. Second, Fry insists that he has always found his body uncomfortable and disgusting and has always believed himself to be decidedly less than good-looking. (I believe him, even if I find the first notion odd and the second to be proved incontrovertibly wrong by the very pictures he includes in the book). He also makes passing mention of a several-years-long relationship which he says was sexual and implies was loving and friendly. And yet he never comments on how (whether?) this self-image was impacted by that relationship. It seems it almost must have been, and though Fry discusses (briefly) the end of that relationship and a subsequent period of celibacy, he never makes any kind of connection between that image and that relationship. As the self-image is an oft-returned to part of Fry's character in the book, the result of this lack is a hole in the story. And I cannot tell if that hole is telling or just, well, a gap.

Happy New Year, Laura!

Round up post!

Because it's FUN.

Top 5 New Reads of 2010:
The Book on the Bookshelf
The Uncommon Reader
Godbody
The Fry Chronicles
The Little Stranger

Best Rereads of 2010:
Up the Down Staircase
Textual Poachers
A Christmas Carol
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Worst Reads of 2010:
The Magus
Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek
Spock Must Die!
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Longest Read of 2010:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (870)
--excluding HP:
15540::Moby Dick (625)

Shortest Read of 2010:
7441::Bunnicula (98)
--excluding ya:
Spock Must Die! (118)

23,024 pages read.

78 "books" read,
2 of which were actually catch-all spots for very short works,
1 of which was an audiobook,
1 of which was actually two books counted as one,
1 of which was not read in its entirety, leaving exactly
75 books read, in the strictest sense of "books" and "read"

66 fiction
9 nonfiction

25 rereads,
of which 7 were read for school/teaching

7 read for school/teaching

14 ya
5 mystery/thriller
9 Star Trek
3 about Star Trek
4 non-Trek sci-fi
13 fantasy, of which
7 were Harry Potter

18 contemporary, literary novels
9 classics
5 autobiog/biog/history
2 litcrit
1 science

~33 British
~38 American

46 written by men
28 written by women
2 written by a man/woman team

I'm here for 2011, by the way.