Mstrust vs. 11 in 11

I've chosen my categories, and while the books listed are likely to be read this year, it ain't a promise. Throughout the year I add more books to my library, so some on the list may be replaced at the discretion of the management.

If you see a title you'll also be reading, let's try to do a read together.

Pulling a Pint with the Irish

1. I Am Mary Dunne
2. The Magician's Wife
3. The Sea
4. Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception
5. The Lonely Girl
6. The Snapper 2 stars
7. The Book of Lost Things
8. The Book of Irish Weirdness
9. Girls in Their Married Bliss
10. The House in Paris

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
The Sea, Shipwrecks, Pirates and Survival

1. Captured By Pirates
2. She Captains
3. Seafaring Women
4. The Tragic Fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis
5. Return to Treasure Island

On Yer Bike!
The serial novels of the fantastic British show, The Professionals.

1. The Professionals Annual 1983 3.5 stars
2. The Professionals 4: Hunter Hunted 4 stars
3. The Professionals 5: Blind Run 4 stars
4. The Professionals 6: Fall Girl 4 stars

I'm Not Making This Up
Non-Fiction

1. Stuff:Compulsive Hoarding 4 stars
2. Marie Antoinette: The Journey 5 stars
3. Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara3.5 stars
4. Hetty: The Genius and Madness 4.5 stars
5. Libraries of the Ancient World
6. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher 4 stars
7. San Francisco is Burning
8. Running with Scissors
9. Madame Tussaud: A Life in Wax
10. Eats, Shoots and Leaves
11. Sundays with Sullivan 2.5 stars

You Meddling Kids!
Mysteries, noir, suspense

1. On What Grounds 2.5 stars
2. Cover Her Face 4 stars
3. I'll Bury My Dead
3. Cream Puff Murder 3 stars
4. Over My Dead Body 4 stars
5. The Murder Room 4.5 stars
6. The Moving Toyshop
7. Let's Kill Uncle 4 stars
8. The Big Four 3.5 stars
9. Poirot Investigates 3 stars
10. The Secret of Chimneys 2.5 stars
11. Last Bus to Woodstock 4 stars

Long Story Short
Short Story Collections

1. Tales of the Alhambra
2. Birds of America 5 stars
3. Demonology
4. The Country of Pointed Firs
5. Smoke and Mirrors
6. Speaking with the Angels
7. English Country House Murders
8. Lord Peter Views the Body
9. Stranger Things Happen 4.5 stars

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

1. Pies and Prejudice
2. Britannia in Brief 3.5 stars
3. 101 Places Not To See Before You Die 3.5 stars
4. Lost on Planet China- 5 stars
5. Ciao, America!
6. Something to Declare: Essays on France and French Culture3 stars
7. Almost French
8. Frommer's San Francisco 2011 4 stars
9. Adventures on the High Teas 4 stars
10. Japanland
11. Hay-On-Wye: Blue Guide 5 stars

I'll Have My Regular
Re-reads

1. Gastroanomalies 5 stars

I Ain't Scared of No Ghost
Autumn/Halloween Reads

1. Count Karlstein
2. Doctor Faustus
3. Arabat
4. Arabat: Days of Magic, Nights of War
5. Lives of the Monster Dogs
6. The Witch's Journal: Cooking with Children
7. The Turn of the Screw
8. The Woman in White
9. The List of 7

Come Out and Play

1. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
2. Luther
3. Royal Hunt of the Sun 3 stars
4. Wodehouse: Four Plays
5. The Bachelor Party
6. Inadmissible Evidence 3.5 stars

Something Nasty in the Woodshed...
You Never Know What It'll Be

1. The Assignment by Durrenmatt
2. Suite Francais
3. Simple Times:Crafts for Poor People 4.5 stars
4. The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World 5 stars
5. How To Be A Complete Bastard-3 stars
6. Cocktail Time- 5 stars
7. 124124::Interior Desecrations 4 stars
8. You Are What You Eat 3.5 stars
9. The Uncommon Reader 4.5 stars

You've got some good reads lined up for next year. I am planning on reading The Women In White later on in the year, I think I might need some company to help me get through such a chunkster. Whenever you are planning on reading it would probably work ok for me.

Ooh, starring you! Also, "Something Nasty in the Woodshed" made me giggle with delight.

> christina- I picture the woman from the film hissing it.

>13 DeltaQueen50: Delta- I'd love to do a read of that one with you! I have it planned for October so we'll decide on a date to begin it. Wanna shoot for Oct. 1st?

October 1st sounds good for me. I'll make a note of it.

I want to join you. I had planned on reading The Woman in White for my 1111 also. I actually have been trying to read it for three years but keep putting it off. This way I know I'll get it read.

Hi Jennifer - Great to see you here and with a varied selection of categories! I have read and really enjoyed The Black Tower by Louis Bayard. Looking forward to following your reading next year!

Thanks for finding me, Lori! I just got The Black Tower last month, but I've had Mr. Timothy for about a year and haven't gotten to it.

>12 mstrust: LA- great! I had it on by TBR October list this year and didn't manage it. I think it will be a good one to have reading partners.

You've got some great books lined up for the year, and I'll look forward to following your progress on your thread. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher and The Black Tower are both in my TBRs and would fit in several of my 11 in 11 categories. Libraries in the Ancient World is on my list of books I want to borrow and read from the library.

>20 cbl_tn: I've looked forward to The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher for a long time. Let me know if you get a copy.

I already have a copy of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. It just hasn't risen to the top of my TBRs yet!

Don't mind me- just adding more to my lists.

My first tandem read will be Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser sometime in January. I'm reading this with a friend and we haven't settled on the exact start date.

Just starred you. An interesting and varied reading list that includes a number that I intend to read, sooner or later: Tales of the Alhambra, Count Karlstein, Lives of the Monster Dogs. So I will be watching. Have fun.

Thanks Kathryn. Count Karlstein was on my list for 2010 but I didn't get to it, so it's first up for Halloween this year. Seniority.

I'm interested in The Woman in White too. Around October, we can start a group read thread. Looks like there are enough of us.

cammy- that's great. We've set Oct. 1st to start that one (easier to remember the date). I think we'll all get more out of it with a bunch of us comparing notes.

Yes! I'm not into book groups but not because I don't like the discussion. I just have too many books I want to read to let anyone else choose them for me! I'm sure we'll all get more out of it!

As for Kelly Link's Donner party, It's in "Stranger Things Happen" and is called "The Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party."

Thanks for looking that up for me. Funny, I just watched a movie called "Donner Party" today about the point when the survivors made their last efforts to climb out of the Sierras.

That is a funny coincidence. There's also an interesting, but stomach-churning, documentary on the Uruguayan rugby team that crashed in the Andes. I can't remember what it is called though.

I've seen one or two documentaries on the plane crash that show the survivors. They have mostly been very successful in life. Nando Parrado wrote an interesting book called Miracle in the Andes that covers the crash and also how he coped once he was home.

Nando was my favorite person in the documentary. He was obviously very brave. I'll look for the book.

Just added a few more to my categories as I received a fistful of gift cards for Christmas. My most exciting order is The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World, a book I've wanted for a long time.

mstrust, I have a copy of Most Beautiful Libraries. I'll flip through it a couple of times each year. Enjoy! The problem is- planning trips to see some of these libraries in person.

Library porn! Excellent.

Yes! You're allowed to lick the page when it's your own book.

>Ghost- My big have-to-see was the 5th Ave. branch of the New York Public library. We went last year and it was thrilling! Of course I have a whole list of others I'd like to visit, but I think this book will end up directing my vacations. I chose Chicago for our honeymoon because I wanted to visit the Shedd Aquarium.

And here is Number One!

Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost. Troost is the author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals and Getting Stones with Savages, about the years he lived in small South Pacific islands. This time, he leaves his family in California and spends months traveling throughout China. He started out with the idea that he might like to move his young family there, that it would be good for the kids to live in an exotic culture for a year. So he went to check it out, starting in Beijing, going south, then west, then going into Tibet and finally, literally, to the edge of North Korea. What he learned about China cured him of the idea of bringing his children there. While Troost writes humorously about the most frustrating times of being in a country where you don't speak the language, understand the system or trust the safety of the food, there is a lot more here than just a "fish out of water" story. He writes of air so polluted that it's a yellow-brown color that burns the lungs and village lakes that are so contaminated that they have a rainbow-colored film. Troost found that he was rarely allowed to sleep through the night in a hotel due to calls from prostitutes offering their services, and that beggars are so prevalent and aggressive that he was attacked by one for ignoring him. In marketplaces, he was offered the body parts of endangered tigers.
Troost did experience days of calm, mostly in the mountains, but even here he writes of the destruction of Tibetan tribal villages and gorges as the government works to expand its resources for Beijing.
This is a lot more than a travel book. Troost writes about his real experience, even when it's unbelievably awful. Seeing China through his eyes is to gain more prospective for the reader than usual, as he's Dutch-born, Canadian-raised with an American family and he's lived all over the world.
Even though it cured me of ever wanting to travel in China, it's a fascinating book. I'm glad I started the year with this one. 5 stars.

I have his other two books on my TBR, and will have to read them before I allow myself to be lured by your review!

Hope you eventually enjoy them. At this point, I'll read anything he puts out.

2. How To Be A Complete Bastard by Adrian Edmondson. Ah, nostalgia... I was a young girl staying in England in 1987 and this book was everywhere in London. The Young Ones were huge (a four man comedy group on stage and television that was groundbreaking in that they played to the young, disenfranchised people who found the Thatcher-era unemployment not to their liking. Edmondson played the character of violent Vivian). My friend Mitzi and I would flip through this book in the shops and giggle.

Anyway, I found this online. Actually reading it this time, well, I'm not that young anymore and my tastes have changed and times have changed. This book is a product of that decade, when things like rudeness was rare and therefore shocking and funny, and the word 'anarchy' was bandied about a lot more.
This book was meant as a novelty, so not written with any notion of remaining relevant decades later, but I'm glad I finally found the book I had memories about. 3 stars

That book by Troost sounds fascinating. Hmm.

40> LOL I wouldn't expect that book to be fab, but I'm sure it was good for a laugh. & memories, such as Crocodile Snogging & Madness smashing guitars as they continue to lipsynch distractedly.

Oooh, and gluing your flatmate's face to the windowpane and making Neil do all the cooking because he's the only one who does any housework, ever.

And sticking a biro into Ric's forehead and leaving it there. I still find The Young Ones hilarious. Or putting a silent P in front of Ric's name when they did the University Challenge. It's juvenile stuff, but still so funny.

Lentils...

I'm so happy to find other fans! The Young Ones were a huge part of my teens, but being in America, I only had one friend who knew what I was talking about.

And Rik Mayall's Bigger Than Hitler,Better Than Christ is hilarious.

I grew up in the US too and had to sneak over to a friend's house to watch it because it was on cable and I didn't have cable.

I used to watch it at a friend's house too. We didn't have MTV. My favorite was Ric. Remember this exchange between Adrian and Ric?

"You can't do that. I'm going to write to my member of parliment!"
"You can't do that; you're an anarchist!"
"Well, I'll write to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen then!
(writing) Dear Echo,"

I really am a geek.

Even my mother would come running in to the episode when Neil head sort of exploded and he turned to the camera and said, "Ewww, I didn't know I wore a wig."

The only episode I remember is the one with Neil and the lentils. I think about it whenever I have lentils. Seriously.

Neil was always doing something with lentils!!! I've never seen more disgusting lentils in my life!

Remember Ric's poem to Cliff Richards? Cliff... as if... etc Painful!

And of course, there's the time Neil got a job as a cop and stood outside the party house knocking on the door and calling "Pigs."

Rick's poetry? Here's one from their book Bachelor Boys.

Rick's Teen Anguish Poem

oh god,
why
am I so much more sensitive than everybody else?
why
do I feel things so much more acutely than them,
and understand so much more.
I bet I'm the first person who's ever felt as rotten
as this.
could it be
that I'm going to grow up
to be a great poet and thinker, and all those other
wankers in my class are going to have to work
in factories or go on the dole?
yes, I think it could.

That's magic right there.

Only thing that improves that poem is the memory of his euphonic voice and the special way he pronounced his Rs in words like "rotten." :)

The Young Ones was a part of my pop culture growing up in Canberra, Australia. I loved it how they had the band Madness on often and I always think about the young ones whenever I hear 'House of Fun'. Neil was my favorite with Vivian a close second. Since I eat a lot of lentils I try not to think too hard about what they were doing with them :-)

k>Confession, Neil was my fav too, but I'm happy to say I've never seen a lentil dish that looked like he had cooked it.

>54 kpolhuis:, 55 What, like Neil dropping his enormous pot of lentil stew on the filthy carpet, then scraping it back in and yelling, "Guys, dinner!"?

3. Who The Hell is Pansy O' Hara by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy. This is a book of backstories to the most famous and groundbreaking books written in the western cultures over the past 200 years.
Beginning with Pride and Prejudice, this book researches how others such as Oliver Twist, War and Peace, The War of the Worlds, Peter Pan, The Catcher in the Rye, The Cat in the Hat, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Origin of Species and many more came to be written and how they became so famous.
If, like me, you adore books about books, or you like to read a book a chapter at a time, this is great. And FYI, "Pansy O' Hara" was Scarlett's name while Mitchell wrote her manuscript of Gone With The Wind". 3.5 stars

56> Scraping it up off the floor wasn't the most horrifying thing about his lentils. The texture!!! It looked more like manure stew than lentils!

True, yet I'd probably eat the lentils over the dead pigeon he grabbed from the trash can and stuffed in his bag.

Ugh! I'd forgotten that. I am good at blocking things from my memory.

4. Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie. Another in my ongoing effort to read each Christie, this is a collection of Poirot short stories published in 1924. Each story is just 10-15 pages long, and each features the team of Poirot and Hastings solving crimes such as the kidnapping of the Prime Minister, the theft of a famous diamond, the murder of a wealthy old uncle and the superstition of an Egyptian curse.
While there are humorous moments of Poirot's vanity throughout, this isn't one of Christie's great ones. Probably due to the fact that the stories are so short that the characters, other than Poirot, are barely fleshed out. 3 stars

5. Gastroanomalies by James Lileks. This is one I bought after Christmas and it's a re-read for me. I adore books by Lileks; he just has a strange sense of humor.
It's a book that takes recipes, advertising and photos from the 1930's through the 70's and pokes fun. The pages featuring a 30's family and their love of Kellogg's All Bran cereal is worth the price alone. This is one of those books that you can pull out whenever you need a laugh. 5 Stars

OMG - I live in MN and have seen shrines to Betty Crocker and histories of the Pillsburry doughboy and reprints of '50s cookbooks. I can imagine what he did in that book!

Exactly- all those lurid color photos from 1960's cookbooks where you can't tell if it's suppose to be dinner or vomit.

Yes, and all the recipes call for a pound of crisco and a shovel of salt. Yikes!

6. Adventures on the High Teas by Stuart Maconie. Maconie is a London music writer and t.v. host from Middle England, what seems to be the equivalent of the Midwest in America. On the surface, this book has him traveling to small towns and villages that tend to be overlooked in favor of places like London or Birmingham. It appears to be essays that are sometimes funny, other times, like discussing musician Nick Drake, sad. But there's a lot more here: Maconie breaks it up into chapters that concentrate on food, music, literature or the British railway, and all along he goes into interesting biographies of the famous or infamous, such as when visiting the little hometown of Thatcher.

I'm so used to reading British slang that I usually have no problem, but perhaps because Maconie is from the north, he sometimes uses phrases or whole sentences that stop me. Still, that's a small complaint. This isn't so much a guide book as a book that proves that history is everywhere in England. 4 stars

I haven't read that one by Stuart Maconie, but enjoyed Pies and Prejudice which is about being from northern England. He is from near Wigan in Lancashire, which is in the north west - not at all an area that would be considered Middle England as its a very working class, industrial area - not sure if it would be like the Midwest because I don't know enough about that area.

I'm adding the Maconie book to the wish list. Sounds like my kind of book. Plus, a Nick Drake mention makes it required reading at my house. This is the second book I've added from your thread already. Keep up the good reading!

Thanks, Violet, and I hope you like it as much as I did! Yes, I've been listening to Drake on Youtube.

7. Blue Guide: Hay-On-Wye. Hay-On-Wye, Wales is a booktown and one of my dream destinations. I've been to Wales before, but I was too young to care much about books, and I didn't know anything about Hay until reading the wonderful Sixpence House a couple of years ago.
Anyway, this guide covers just about anything you'd need to know about Hay, from the Norman history, the landscape, famous citizens and, of course, the names and addresses of the many bookshops and the genres they specialize in. It could do with a few more photos, but this is the first "Hay-On-Wye" edition, so no whining. 5 stars

8. The Professionals Annual 1983 Part of my ongoing obsession with the British t.v. series. They put out annuals for about seven years, I believe, and they're filled with articles, photos and fan fiction. 3.5 stars

Oh, why aren't the touchstones working?

It's arrived! Finally! The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World!!!

>70 mstrust: I've wanted to go to Hay-on-Wye since reading about it in At Home with Books.

>71 mstrust: That one is on my wishlist for awhile. I look forward to hearing what you think.

> 72 It's a gorgeous book, full of full page color photos and even some three page fold-outs. The epitome of books about books.

9. Cocktail Time by P.G. Wodehouse. Johnny Pearce can't get married because his fiancee refuses to live with Johnny's old nursemaid, Nanny Bruce. Nanny won't leave until Johnny gives her 500 pounds, which he doesn't have. Respected barrister Beefy hates the younger generation, but they love his risque novel, Cocktail Time. Once Beefy's mooching nephew finds out who wrote it, he turns to blackmail. And setting up most of these complications is Uncle Fred.

Most of my Wodehouse reads have been of Wooster and Jeeves, but I'm glad I finally got one of Uncle Fred. This is so funny and clever. Wodehouse at his best with quick put-downs. 5 stars

74> It sounds very Jeeves & Wooster though, just without Bertie, Jeeves and Aunt Agatha, although Nanny Bruce sounds like she could be friends with the Aged Aunt.

>73 mstrust: Must resist the siren call of The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World...Swore I would not buy anymore books this month...Darn, that one click button. Toast and water for the rest of the month it is.

Library porn! Who can resist?

>75 cammykitty: If Aunt Agatha and Nanny Bruce met it would be like Godzilla and Mothra fighting over Tokyo.

>76 Tanglewood:, 77 When I showed my husband, he said, "I'll bet this adds to the list of places we need to visit." I heard a touch of resignation in his voice.

LOL! I must meet Nanny Bruce then!

10. The Professionals 4: Hunter Hunted by Ken Blake. I hope to read the rest of this series this year. For anyone unfamiliar, The Professionals were a huge hit show in the U.K. in the late 70's/early 80's about a government department called CI5. Think the CIA, but with less regulation. The top men were Bodie and Doyle, and their boss Mr. Cowley yells at them alot.

In this book, Bodie and Doyle track down a kidnapped Israeli Cabinet Minister, find a sniper with stolen submachine gun and defend the department's existence after a man dies in their care.Lots of action. 4 stars

11. The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer. This play, written in the early 60's, deals with the Spanish conquest of the Incas. Pizarro, De Soto and their army of soldiers and priests travel to Peru in search of gold. They find a culture that has no hunger or sin and plenty of gold. The people are ruled by Atahuallpa, the son of the sun. He is held prisoner by the Spaniards until his people bring all the gold they possess to Pizarro, but over the months Pizarro and the king develop a friendship that threatens the Spanish army.
I wanted to read this one after seeing the movie a long time ago. It starred Robert Shaw as Pizarro and Christopher Plummer as Atahuallpa. Yes, Plummer played an Incan, and he was brilliant. Also, the movie has a massacre scene that was filmed in a strangely beautiful way. 3 stars

12. Interior Desecrations by James Lileks. This came in the mail today so I put everything else aside because I love me some Lileks. And, like him, I have always said the 70's was the ugliest decade. I remember my Brownie troop leader making us do tie-dye shirts and my babysitter had a living room full of macrame plant hangers. Yuck.
This book is full of hideous home scenes- shag carpet, orange kitchens, weird reflective wallpaper and yes, macrame plant hangers. Add in the snarky commentary and it's a lot of fun. 4 stars

82> Oh, he's right! Without a doubt. Beats the Victorians for sure because the Victorians didn't have enough light in their houses to see if things were ugly or not.

They also didn't have the technology to make Flower Power decals that could be put all over one's dresser, as my older sister did. Lucky Victorians.

Looking back over my life, the 70's certainly stand out as years of bad taste. The clothes, the hair (I had a frizzy, frizzy perm for awhile), the decorations. What were we thinking??

I actually lived in a house with orange shag carpet! (I didn't choose it, but I didn't really object to it, either.)

Ours was green shag, the color of old avocados. But the kitchen, that was orange. And the oven was brown. My skin is crawling.

13. Sundays with Sullivan by Bernie Ilson. This is an ER book from LibraryThing.
Ilson worked on The Ed Sullivan Show for eight years and met with many famous people like The Beatles and LBJ. He spent time with Sullivan while setting up interviews and promotional meetings for the show, and while the first few chapters are interesting as he discusses how Sullivan put together a live show every week, Ilson is not a natural storyteller. He has a halting way of writing and I noticed that hardly a paragraph went by without some common word or phrase put into quotation marks, such as "top ten".
When he writes about the hard work Sullivan did and the man's accomplishments, he really does give some insight, but the last few chapters seem like padding and towards the end he actually has a chapter of answers from a broad survey he sent out to people (nobody famous) who may have watched the show growing up. 2.5 stars

14. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link. A book of short stories, several based on fairy tales such as "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". Link's writing is like a surreal dream. Things may start out normal but the reader realizes quickly that there are no traditional boundaries. A woman receives the present of a talking cat from her boyfriend, who is then kidnapped by The Snow Queen. A man lives in the tree in front of the famous Girl Detective's house and follows her from tree to tree about town as she solves the mystery of the dancing princesses.
These stories don't have endings so much as final sentences that sort of drift off, but I found the stories to be beyond quirky and full of imagination. 4.5 stars

I love Stranger Things Happen too. Sometimes she comes up with something that makes me smack your head and ask why I'd never made that bizarre connection.

I will absolutely look for more from her. When you think she's going to zig, she zags. So original.

She is really original. Sadly, I don't know how much time she actually has to write. Have you seen those huge Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies? Kelly, her husband Gavin Grant, and Ellen Datlow edit those. I can't imagine how much time that must take!

No, I haven't seen those, but then about the only fantasy I read is Harry Potter so I didn't know about those anthologies. Thanks. :)

15. You Are What You Eat by Gillian McKeith. I loved this show when it was on BBC and I'd been wanting to read this book for a long time. Probably the first half was about what I expected, with McKeith discussing what fruits and veg are best for certain health problems, looking at the tongue and the dreaded bowels (her obsession with feces seems like a fetish). I have started on Vitamin E, per her suggestion that this will rid me of red, scaly hands.
The last several chapters sort of lost me as she highly recommends algae (not gonna happen) and meditation, even including some chants. Which seems so un-Gillian McKeith to me. Where's the angry woman who stomps around the grocery store telling people they're fat and spotty?
Anyway, there is enough food info here to have me consulting it multiple times. 3.5 stars

Haven't seen Gillian McKeith in the US, but sounds like she's more entertaining than "Super size me." Does she recommend hijiki? It's seaweed that looks like shredded shoe leather and tastes slightly better. If I were a starving pirate, I *might* eat it.

@95, she used to be on all of the time in the US on BBC America (You Are What You Eat was the show). We don't have the station any more, but the show was pretty good. They always made a table of what the person would eat in a week (wonder what they did with that food?)

>cammy , yes she does have a small section about the various types and benefits of seaweed. I eat it on miso soup or wrapped around a sushi roll, so that doesn't bother me. But when she went into the algaes I kept thinking, "nope."

>Gillian seems so mean that I can picture her stomping up and down on the bad food and saying, "Nobody will eat this rubbish!"

Hey, someone will eat tater tots and cream of mushroom soup!

& nori is just fine. That's the miso soup/sushi seaweed. I'll dig in my heals before the algae though! That hijiki stuff has got to go! ... & I'm remembering some school video in the 70s that said krill would be the food answer to the world's population problem. ??? Want to arm wrestle a whale for his krill? Not me.

Did you see the episode where she gave the kids in the family packets of algae flakes and told them to have that as an after school snack? Yeah, right. I do like some seaweeds, nori and kombu. Have not tried hijiki yet, but have some recipes that call for it. And yes, she is obsessed with poop. I love how they make fun of her on the Graham Norton show.
Let us know if the Vit E helps your hands. I used to take Vit E daily and it didn't do anything for my red, dry hands. But then, I have to wash my hands constantly at work.
Is her recipe for chickpea patties (or whatever she calls them) in the book?

I don't remember that one, but I can guess the reaction.
The redness on my hands did look a whole lot better after just two or three days taking the Vitamin E. I also take Fish Oil capsules (for a while now), but my hands are still very dry most of the time. Even with hand creams. Still, it's only been about a week.

There is a recipe in the book for "Veggie Bean Burgers" which can be made with chickpeas. It has shallots and miso and herbs, so if you didn't form it into patties and try to pass it off as a burger it would probably make a very nice salad.

100> But try to get a salad down a 12 year old boy's throat! You might have a chance if you lie about the burger. ... albeit a slim chance

Happy happy joy joy

The enormous book sale was this weekend. I've come home with these:

All Quiet On The Western Front
Justine
Flaubert's Parrot
Scoop
How Green Was My Valley
The Thirteenth Tale
Olive Kitteridge
The Seven Year Itch
I'm A Stranger Here Myself
A Walk in the Woods
The Wings of a Dove
Geisha, A Life
Paris out of Hand
Secret Lives of Great Authors
Inadmissible Evidence
The Sun King
Historical Hotels of London
Literary Trips
Thomas Cook Guide to New Zealand
Living and Working in London
Book of British Villages

and a whole lot of mysteries:
Artists in Crime
Died in the Wool
Over My Dead Body
An Unkindness of Ravens
Behold, Here's Poison
On What Grounds
The Theban Mysteries
All Hallows Evil
Last Seen Wearing
Last Bus to Woodstock
The Remorseful Day
The Way Through The Woods
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Jane and the Wandering Eye
A Flaw in the Blood
Death on the Nile and
The Getaway Guide to Agatha Christie's England

And I'm not kidding when I say that I have no shelf space for this. I may end up holding them.

I can just picture you standing in the middle of your house with your arms full of books!! You really got a great haul.

Wow, what a score!

Excellent book haul Jennifer!

Definitely, quite the sale, & I'd read all those on the list. So, perhaps if there is no shelf space left, you can build a platform for your bed and place all the books between the mattress and the floor. ??? I'm assuming you've used all your pile-under-chair space. ;)

A fantastic haul. Enjoy them all.

Thanks everyone! I don't know why I come away with such a smug sense of accomplishment every year, but I know this is a group that understands.

>106 cammykitty: hmmm, platform bed. I like the sound of that.

16. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale. This is the true account of the murder of Saville Kent, a three year old, in 1860 England. He was taken from his bed in the middle of the night and murdered, his body found in the family privy.
The murder quickly became a fascination with the British newspapers and the public. The family's dynamics were gossiped about and celebrities such as Charles Dickens backed which family member or servant they thought had done it.
Mr. Whicher was the top detective sent from Scotland Yard to find the murderer. Within two weeks he arrested one of the daughters, but through a missing nightdress and the lack of cooperation of the local police, Whicher's career was ruined.
I can't imagine how much time and work went into researching this book. Summerscale provides such detail into not only the murder and the Kent family, but also the investigators and English Victorian society. My only quibble was with the extensive amount of comparisons with authors such as Wilkie Collins, Dickens and Henry James. There are large chunks of quotes from the works of these authors throughout and I found myself having to skip over them, as I haven't read those books yet and hated that there were spoilers everywhere. 4 stars

109> !!! Sounds like a Victorian version of Jon Benet Ramsey! How horrible. & yes, the spoilers would drive me mad too.

That's exactly what I thought too, JonBenet. And we have this idea that the media was more polite or gentle in those days, but the papers in this case were writing about the unattractiveness of family members and insinuating that the father was boinking the nanny.

Wow! That's definitely National Enquirer style.

That's a pretty good haul from the book sale. Loved Olive Kitteridge.

I'm looking forward to that one. Actually, I'm looking forward to all of them. If only I could read faster.

Sadly, reading too fast causes something sort of like an icecream headache.

And it's equally unfortunate that one can't read multiple books at once. We do have two eyes, after all.

Oooh, wouldn't that be loverly?

It's only been a few days and I'm wishing there was another sale this weekend. I think I have to wait until April.

17. The Secret Of Chimneys by Agatha Christie. Anthony Cade agrees to do a little job for his friend. He takes the manuscript of a dead ruler to London in order to personally had it over to the publisher. He quickly learns that everyone knows he has the manuscript and he finds himself involved in multiple murders, a pretty widow, political movements and the family of an English estate.

I'm a big Christie fan so it actually pains me to say that this one was a clunker. I found little to draw me into caring about the characters, and that's so unlike Christie, who can usually grab me so quickly. It seemed to take forever to finish this. I actually disliked the heroine a lot. She was described as charming and beguiling, but I saw her as smug and wanted her to stop with the rude banter that passed as flirting.
As I'm reading all A.C.'s in order of publication, I see this as nothing more than a fluke, as I know that she followed this one with the wonderful The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. 2.5 stars

Wow, good for you reading through all her books, in order no less! I did enjoy The Murder of Roger Ackroyd which is the only one I have read thus far. I did download free ecopies from Gutenberg of the two they had (Secret Adversary and The Mysterious Affair at Styles).

And I agree, great haul from the library sale!! :)

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is wonderful and she got a lot of flack for it for a reason I won't tell, because it would be a hideous spoiler! I had a mystery writing class once, and that was one of the books we studied. I agree though. AC had some books that were far better than others.

Thanks! I enjoyed the two you've downloaded. After those you'll have to get to her most popular titles- And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. They're stupendous. I also like Endless Night quite a bit. Oh, and A Murder is Announced is a lot of fun. Actually, I could keep going, but I'm glad to meet a new A.C. fan.

Thanks! I have a paper copy of Murder on the Orient Express under the other name... I hadn't realized at the time that it went under more than one name :)

120:I can see why she might have gotten some flack about that, but it made for an interesting ending anyway! :)

122> It was brilliant! She got flack *whispers* because everyone was jealous that they hadn't thought of it first. ;)

*snerk!* I bet you are right! :P I didn't see it coming, I will give her that much :)

>123 cammykitty: Good call! For the time it was so original, and it has held up amazingly well. Just a really clever book.

18. Something to Declare: Essays on France and French Culture by Julian Barnes. This book of essays covers many of the topics that are recognized as French territory: filmmaker Truffaut and the New Wave, the Tour de France, the singers of the 50's-60's who moaned on finding out that they were sharing their mistresses with others. And then there are the nine, yes nine, chapters on Barnes' favorite writer, Flaubert.

The writing is engaging from the beginning as Barnes describes his family vacations around France year after year, and his growing sense of comfort with the French culture. I especially appreciated his chapter on those singers such as Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens (though I can't understand why my favorite, Serge Gainsborg wasn't included) and the one on author Georges Simenon was full of decadent scandal and therefore wonderful.
But you should probably really, really like Flaubert in order to get through those eight chapters which discuss not just his work, but his childhood, his affairs and the many pages on whether or not he burned his ex-girlfriend's love letters. Barnes spends quite some time telling the reader why Satre's bio on Flaubert was wrong.
So, I guess I'm saying that if you're not so into Flaubert, the first eight chapters are still good reading, and if you love Flaubert, you'll be happy here. 3 stars

Also, for anyone with Netflix, there's a documentary called "Book Wars" about the people who sold books on the streets of NYC. It was filmed ten years ago when Bloomberg began trying to get rid of them.

Oooo Book Wars sounds great! :)

19. The Professionals 5: Blind Run by Ken Blake. In the fifth installment of the series, Bodie and Doyle chauffeur a mysterious figure who keeps getting shot at, discover a crooked FBI informant working in London and take down a police chief who runs his city like a dictatorship.
Oh, you know Bodie and Doyle are badass because they're doing it all in a Capri and a Ford Fiesta. 4 stars

20. Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter. Inspector Morse takes on the case of a young woman found raped and murdered in a pub parking lot. The list of suspects gets longer as Morse and Sergeant Lewis, working together for the first time, discover that the victim was far from innocent.

This is the first of the Inspector Morse series, and the second that I've read (The Dead of Jericho a few months ago). The mystery here is done really well and is hard to figure out. The cons:the romance between Morse and a suspect's roommate is sudden and melodramatic, and the attitude towards rape victims is so outdated that it's jarring and reminds the reader that this was written in 1975. If it weren't for those flaws, this would read like a modern book set in those pre-DNA days. I enjoyed it. 4 stars

Glad to see phrases like "attitude towards rape victims is so outdated." I remember TV shows in the 70s used rape as their generic violent crime. Sounds like I should read an Inspector Morse, but maybe not this one.

Hearing the way the characters discuss it certainly gave me a few WTF moments, but I carried on. If you can overlook that aspect (and I know a lot of people couldn't), it is a good story.

21. On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle. When coffee shop employee Annabelle falls down a flight of stairs at work one night and becomes comatose, the police think that it was probably an accident. But shop manager Clare thinks that Annabelle was pushed and begins looking for suspects. Annabelle knew quite a few people who would gain from her death- jealous rivals and a wealthy boyfriend who may not want a poor girlfriend anymore.

I expected this to be a fluff mystery, but though the crime takes place on the first pages, it doesn't become the focus of the story until nearly 100 pages in. Instead, so much is about Clare's problems with her ex-husband and her adoration of Madame, owner of the coffee shop. And yes, lots of coffee talk: how to make different coffee drinks, how to mess up coffee, how to store it, etc. Not a surprise in a book that is set in a coffee shop, but it really is non-stop preparation and consumption of coffee.
My other problem was why a coffee shop manager would investigate what turns out to be a very serious crime. The police are there and Clare has no experience in law, yet from the very beginning she is interviewing suspects.
Someone else may find this book charming, but I found it too out there to continue with this series. 2.5 stars

Hah, that's the problem with amateur P.I. series. Hard to justify someone interviewing suspects when they don't have enough motivation/experience. & I had to back up a cafe. Done talking coffee! So, thanks for warning me. This one's not for me.

I think it's strange that I like mysteries and I like cooking and baking (used to do dessert catering), but I haven't liked the culinary mysteries that I've tried so far. I read about three chapters of a Diane Mott Davidson a few years ago and didn't like it at all. I do have one Joanna Fluke lined up for this month. My sister likes her and says the recipes included are pretty good.
But yes, I need more reason for a cook to investigate a murder than just, "I knew the victim."

A lot of the food mysteries are a bit on the fluffy side of cozy. The Monsuer Pamplemousse mysteries by Bond of Paddington Bear Fame made me giggle sometimes, but they failed as a mystery. I don't know. There's got to be someone out there that combines cooking and killing well.

The Laura Childs tea shop mysteries are probably my favorites in the cozy/food genre. I also probably enjoy the Katherine Hall Page series more than most of the cozies that are in the culinary category. A few years ago, I read a mystery by Lou Jane Temple that was a historical mystery with a cooking theme. I remember enjoying it and had I been reviewing it on LibraryThing, I would have probably given it a 4 star rating. I probably need to go back and add it to my "library" and at least rate it. If nothing else, it might make me try to track down a few of the others in the series.

>136 cammykitty: There's got to be someone out there that combines cooking and killing well.

Ha! To be a master at both, lol!
I've been seeing the name of Pamplemousse around on LT but hadn't heard of this series before. I think I would prefer the mystery part to overshadow the cooking part, just because I think that finding a murderer is more important than a perfect souffle. Or at least for a mystery.

>137 thornton37814: I have Death by Darjeeling waiting in the wings and I haven't read any of Childs before. Thanks for the other names. Food mysteries seem to be the fastest growing sub-genre. That's why I keep trying- with so many authors do it, I'm bound to find someone I like.

22. The Murder Room by P.D. James.
The Dupayne Museum is situated right outside London and houses a collection of artifacts about the years in between WWI and WWII. It also contains The Murder Room, filled with evidence of the most famous murders of the era.
The Dupayne children, all in their 40's-50's, have never loved each other or the father who founded the museum. When the lease on the property comes due, Neville announces that he has no intention of signing to keep the museum open and that he would rather see it close and be done with it. Guess who's the first to die?

This is my first of James' books and the twelfth in the Adam Dalgliesh series. I wanted to read some of her work after seeing a Youtube video of her making a fool of a BBC executive in an interview, and I started with this book because I saw the movie starring wonderful Martin Shaw as A.D. I will continue with the series. It's well-written, has plenty of twists, multiple murders (value for money!) and I like the characters. 4.5 stars

The Murder Room was very good, but her later books have lost something. They definitely show her age! But her earlier books are fantastic and I envy you getting to read them all for the first time.

Oh, that's too bad. But it happened to Agatha Christie also. Something like Elephants Can Remember, written very late in life, seems like a different author from Murder on the Orient Express.

Death by Darjeeling is such a great title. I'll be watching for your review, once it reaches the top of your Mount TBR.

I'll have to put The Murder Room on Mount TBR, and RidgewayGirl, I'm not surprised to say her later books have lost something. It's an amazing modern mystery writer who doesn't! They often have several pen names, write multiple books each year, and are expected to keep a series going which requires them to keep characters, settings, type of murders etc the same/similar. One mystery writer told me that when she told her publisher she wanted to start a new series, they said sure, but we can't pay you the same as for your established series. ... I almost feel sorry for mystery writers!

23. Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser.
This is a nice, thick non-fiction about the life of the French queen, from birth through to her execution. It's my first bio of Antoinette so even though Fraser writes from an almost completely sympathetic angle, and that isn't to say a skewed angle, I learned so much. I didn't even know that the woman wasn't French but Austrian!
After reading hundreds of pages, seeing her go from a rather neglected Austrian princess to a neglected French princess, living through the early years of her marriage to Louis XVI, who seems to have pretended she was invisible for about the first ten years until they became so attached to each other, it really was sad to read of how they and their children were treated by the men who drove the revolution.
Bios can seem a little dry in the beginning, but I never had my interest lag in this one, and now I actually understand what led up to the French Revolution. And no, she never said, "Let them eat cake." 5 stars

#23 One for the wishlist. I read Fraser's mysteries when I was a teenager. They were quite good, but I'm not sure I'd like them now. I've heard her biographies are good though. ... & when I think of Marie Antoinette now, I think of her anime-style carrying around a skull that talks with a squeaky voice. "Chevalier D'eon" did a really weird take on the French Revolution, and I think Marie was one of the good guys, but whoever knows.

Funny, I always knew Fraser as a writer of historical bios and just recently found that she wrote mysteries. With all the research she does for her non-fiction, when does she find the time?

Who knows! She wrote a ton of mysteries too, and I don't remember them being historical.

24. Frommer's San Francisco 2011. My husband and I love just about everything about this city- the food, the weather, Chinatown, the art, the food, the Ferry Building, the Aquarium by the Bay, the food...

But we haven't been since 2008 and we'll most likely take our vacation here this year, so time for the latest guide book. Especially since a guide book that is even a year old is outdated, what with all the businesses going under. I found out a few weeks ago that one of the best restaurants in North Beach, Iluna Basque, closed in December. And the shopping section in this year's guide has shrunk from previous years. Geez, there are only six independent bookstores?
But there are some new things that sound cool, like a new Disney museum and some revamped lounges and jazz clubs. I'm ready to go. 4 stars

25. Over My Dead Body by Rex Stout. A young woman from the Balkans turns up in Nero Wolfe's office, screaming that he needs to save his daughter. This is news to both Wolfe and his assistant Goodwin, the narrator of this story, who learns a little more about his employer's past.
The mystery starts off with a diamond theft and leads to murder, and Wolfe's professional reputation could be ruined if his daughter is guilty.

This is my first Nero Wolfe and I love the snappy 30's dialogue where the law men greet each other with "Go to hell." Fun and a good mystery. 4 stars

Hee! I loved the Nero Wolfe series and keep meaning to read the book. Glad you liked it!

@148 -- I've never been tempted to read the Nero Wolfe books before, but your comment about "where the law men greet each other with 'Go to hell'" has made me curious!

>149 Bcteagirl: Janice- I have Three Doors to Death on the shelf and I'm going to find more. Who wouldn't like fat Nero and sarcastic Archie?

>150 christina_reads: christina- It was a lot more fun than I expected so I do recommend!

I haven't read Nero either, but I'm wondering how a woman from the Balkans, diamonds, and Nero Wolfe all come together. It sounds quite unlikely. ;)

I can see how slowly I've moved this month but it couldn't be helped. I'm expecting my fourth visitor of the month tomorrow and I'm just beat. I was able to finish this bit of fluff though.

26. Cream Puff Murder by Joanne Fluke. Cookie shop owner Hannah begins working out with her sister at the local gym in order to shed a few pounds in time for their mother's book launch. Some of the classes are taught by Ronnie, a predatory woman who is loathed by every other female in town and who ends up dead in the gym jacuzzi. Hannah's boyfriend, her sister Michelle's boyfriend and her sister Andrea's husband are all sheriffs, but are taken off the case because they were all involved with the victim. So Hannah, her other boyfriend, Norman, her sisters and their mothers all work to find the killer and clear the men of murder.

Sound silly? It is. This is, I believe, the eleventh book of the popular series, and it's so unbelievably g-rated that even Disney would wonder where the action is. It's almost completely violence-free and the characters are as chaste as the Amish. Even when spending the night at Norman's, her supposed ex-fiancee, Hannah sleeps in a separate room. Not that I thought Norman was into it, what with his love of his cat, Cuddles, and his figuring out the calorie count of Hannah's food. But three sisters finding out that their partners are all suspected of having an affair with the town slut, and not a single fistfight? No "You motherf-----!"? Has the woman who writes these ever met a woman?
So I found this to be an easy-to-read bit of nothing and I think I will give up on culinary mysteries at this point. No hard feelings. BUT I will look into Fluke's recipes more because the ones in this book look really good. So that gets the book an extra half point. 3 stars

27. Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris. A how-to for learning how to make a mouse ghetto for any dying rodents you might find, an obscene fruit salad, a rusty nail wind chime and tampon ghosts. Crafts are arranged by topics such as "The Joy of Poverty", "Unreturnable Gift Giving", "Making Love" and "Sausages". Hidden amongst the bad advice are real recipes, and there are plenty of photos of the Sedaris type, which means weird 70's clothing and generally making herself look like a mental patient. I've been a fan since the "Strangers With Candy" days. 4.5 stars

28. 101 Places Not to See Before You Die by Catherine Price. Just as the title says, these are places all over the world that the author recommends you should avoid because of danger, probable revulsion or just because she finds them overrated. Not all the places are even possible to visit, such as Io, one of Jupiter's moons, and including Stonehenge and the entire state of Nevada will have many people who disagree with Price's taste. But there are some surprising places and experiences in here. 3.5 stars

I haven't read (or watched) anything by Amy Sedaris, but I think I'll have to check out Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. It sounds hilarious!

Yes, and her other book I Like You was too. If you don't know, Amy is the sister of David Sedaris and the family enjoys a strange sense of humor.

I Like You is, in my opinion, the better book.

29. Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon by Charles Slack. Hetty Green was known as The Witch of Wall Street around 1890, as she dressed in shabby old black gowns and outdated bonnets while she saw to her business about New York's financial district. I first read about her in The People's Almanac as a kid and thought she was fascinating, as did every newspaper during her decades as the wealthiest woman in America. She had an amazing business sense, which she gained from her wealthy father, to know when a piece of real estate or a bond would be valuable in the future and to keep her head when the stock market plunged. There were several times when NYC approached and received loans from Hetty Green of over a million dollars to keep public services running.

There are many stories about her greed and some are true. She actually did dress herself and her children as paupers to receive free medical attention. Sometimes she was recognized and made to pay the bill, which made her furious. She would haggle with merchants and waiters over charges as low as 15 cents at a time when she owned a railroad and some of the most valuable property on Michigan Ave. She refused to pay for a cab, instead walking miles every day to the bank. And she was suspected of forging her aunt's signature to a will that cut out most of the beneficiaries after the woman's death.

The surprises in this book are that Hetty actually did let go of some of her money, giving large anonymous donations to charities and speaking out for the working class. And the full story concerning her son's damaged leg is here.The claim that has been printed so many times- that she allowed the boy's leg to go without medical treatment until it had to be amputated rather than pay a doctor- is untrue. A very interesting read. 4.5 stars

Good review! Slack's book sounds like something I would find fascinating to read.

Thanks, and I hope you're able to find it.

I have just discovered that my local library has a copy. Now, I am totally looking forward to reading it!

158: I was lucky enough to get I like you through bookmooch, so I have a copy at home!
159: the Hetty book sounds interesting, I remember hearing a little bit about her even up here!

>163 Bcteagirl: Wow, someone on BM was really nice to send that big book!

30. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Frost is a professor of psychology at Smith College who specializes in hoarding and Steketee is a professor at Boston University who has written a treatment manual on hoarding.
This book features case studies of hoarders they have worked with. While most hoarders tend to be older or elderly women, hoarders here run the gamut: male, female, elderly, children, poverty-level to very wealthy. Even a set of twins who hoard in almost the exact same way.

While I dislike most reality shows, I've seen every episode of A&E's "Hoarders". It's fascinating to me that someone can't throw things away and instead builds walls of stuff around them like a cocoon. Frost describes the steps that led to his case studies becoming hoarders and how their therapy progressed. He's honest and says when a hoarder refused further treatment or when the treatment didn't work. If you're interested in the subject, you'll like this. 4 stars

I had heard about this book and occasionally watch Hoarders. I am glad to hear you liked the book!

I'm afraid to read about hoarders - as I fear with my buying and storing of books, I may be one step away from being an actual hoarder!

Get a dog! He'll work against your hoarding instinct by chewing up books... until you decide dogs are so great that you need more of them. When you start hoarding critters, you're in real trouble!

Is it ironic that there was no room for me to put this book called Stuff vertically on the shelf?

169: Lmao! :)

169: Very! Unless you need more shelves.

31. The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World by Guillaume de Laubier. Full of big color photos that make you feel like you're standing in the room. Some of them are centerfolds!
This heavy book also has lots of history of the libraries featured, such as owners and how they began, dates of the buildings and restorations, etc. But it's all about the photos here, which is book porn at it's finest.
I first saw this book on a visit to Manhattan where it was at the gift shop of the Fifth Ave. branch, which is glorious and of course, one of the libraries in the book. 5 stars

>172 mstrust: I loved that book. Not only were the photos stunning, but the history of some of the libraries was very interesting.

Yes, and I'm sure I'll keep going back to it. It's too beautiful to just sit on a shelf.

32. The Big Four by Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot is thrilled to find that his friend Hastings has returned to England for a visit from his ranch in South America. No sooner do the friends meet again than they are involved in international espionage, as a secret group calling themselves "The Big Four" is putting themselves into position to rule the world.

This is a departure from Christie's usual English country estate plots, as Poirot and Hastings are traveling the world in order to save it from what is essentially a group of multi-national terrorists. It took a few chapters for me to get into it as it is such a change from Christie's norm, but as the body count got higher I enjoyed it more. 3.5 stars

Sounds a bit more like Mrs. Pollifax's type of espionage. ;)

I have one Mrs Pollifax on the shelf but haven't gotten to it yet. I really do like the "Golden Age" mystery writers I guess.

33. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. The Queen climbs aboard the mobile library parked outside the palace and borrows a book so as not to be rude to the driver. The only other person there is Norman, a member of the palace kitchen staff. Their polite conversation and the discovery of books so late in life leads to a change that everyone isn't happy with.

Oh, I'll go ahead and say it- this is an adorable little book. The elderly Queen suddenly finding the world of books and devouring them with such enthusiasm that she begins slacking at her royal duties and even discovers that she is human. It's simply fun. 4.5 stars

I remember reading and enjoying The Uncommon Reader! I really need to look into Bennett's other works. Thanks bring his works back to my attention.

The only other work of Bennett's that I'm familiar with is the movie of his The History Boys, which I didn't care for very much. I actually didn't realize it was the same guy until I started reading this one. Alot less angst here.

34. The Professionals 6: Fall Girl by Ken Blake. Doyle, Bodie and Cowley protecting the U.K. This round: Bodie is set-up as the scapegoat when his ex-girlfriend, an East German movie star involved in espionage, shows up. Also, Cowley finds out who is behind a crooked government building contract and a dying double-agent returns to London, prompting the Russians to try and get clever. 4 stars

35. Birds of America by Lorrie Moore. I've been meaning to read Moore for a couple of years now, as I enjoy short story collections and her name always comes up. And, finally, I find that it's well-deserved praise. These stories are character studies. Sometimes the character is an unusual personality, but mostly the stories are about people who are just getting by, but regardless, I have to know what's going to happen to them. Nothing good in most cases, but when the author is this good, I don't care.

My favorite story was "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People", about a grown daughter who books a flight to Ireland as an escape from her problems, only to find that her mother decides to go too.
Very recommended. 5 stars

182> LOL! Yes, sounds like they are about terribly normal people. What a perfect, and terribly normal plot twist. Guess I'll have to WL this one.

Yeah, my mother wouldn't do that but my MIL tried to go on our honeymoon with us, so I could relate.

36. Let's Kill Uncle by Rohan O' Grady. Barnaby and Christie are both sent to the small island off the coast of Canada to spend the summer. Christie has been sent by her hardworking mother to stay with "The Goat-Lady" of the island, while orphaned heir Barnaby has been sent by his uncle.
The two can't stand one another, but being the only children, they are forced to rely on each other for company. When Uncle arrives for a weekend it upsets Barnaby so much that he tells Christie why he is afraid of being around Uncle, and the two decide that the only way to save Barnaby's life is to kill Uncle first. Getting in the way at every turn is the Sergeant, a mountie of the highest morals.

This is a story about children having to fend for themselves, about how often adults don't know best and that telling truth sometimes gets you nowhere. Though the main characters are children, this isn't a children's book. 4 stars

Big book sale today!

The Obituary Writer
Brooklyn
Chang and Eng
The Light of Evening
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
Murder in the Bastille
The Worst Noel
Magic for Beginners
The Geography of Bliss
Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Sock
Fruit of the Lemon
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse
The Skull Beneath the Skin
Original Sin
Devices and Desires
A Certain Justice
Postcards
The Snapper
The Tent
Homer and Langley
Juliet, Naked

Okay, No More!!! (until the next sale in September.)

Wow, you really scored! Good haul. I've just added Let's Kill Uncle to my wishlist - sounds interesting.

That is a good haul. Have you found shelves for them all?

Thanks! What better way to spend Easter, right?

Delta- I should have mentioned that this is an ER, but it is a re-issue, so I don't know if it's in the stores yet. But you're right, interesting and unusual.

Girl- well... most are still stacked around the table in the front hall. I will be attempting to place them today but I'm not feeling good about the odds. See, I've gotten to the point where I'm shopping for those invisible stacking shelves for the walls.

There is always room. Sometimes you just have to take everything out and rearrange mightily. Booksales are a joy, aren't they?

Ah, let me know what you think about Chang and Eng. I've been curious about that one for awhile.

& I'd asked for Let's Kill Uncle too. I couldn't tell if it would be suspenseful or silly.

Did you get Let's Kill Uncle from the early reviewers? It has been on my wishlist since, and your review is great! :)

Cammie- I was interested in Chang and Eng when it came out too, then I forgot about it. Guess it was meant to be!

Bcgirl- Yes, it was an ER, and thanks so much!

37. Inadmissible Evidence by John Osborne. A play that centers on solicitor Bill Maitland, a man who stacks up mistresses by the dozen, has a bad word to say about most people he meets and who hates his business and employees. He is obsessed with recalling every woman he's ever known. Throughout, he forces his assistant to listen to his bile, observe him juggling his wife, long-time girlfriend, daughter and casual encounters, only to suddenly become a professional when a client walks in. At some point the reader becomes aware that while Bill claims to have no respect for most people, he desperately tries to keep them from leaving him.

This play was first performed in 1965 with Nicol Williamson as Bill and Peter Sallis as his assistant. Osborne was responsible for the enormous change in British theater nine years before, by writing the first "kitchen sink" drama, Look Back In Anger. While this play had nowhere near the impact of Anger, it is very much his voice coming through, and I'll bet Williamson did something amazing as Bill. 3.5 stars

Peter Sallis - the voice of Wallace? He can play cowering nice guy very well. I would've loved to have seen that on stage.

Yep, that's the guy. My edition even has a few photos from the play and Sallis looks exactly the same as he did 20 years later.

I know! How on earth can Peter Sallis NEVER change. Perhaps the key is to never look young in the first place?

That's pretty much what I was thinking!

38. Britannia in Brief by Leslie Banker and William Mullins. Author Banker is American and Mullins is English, and this is relevant because the book is relating British locations, history, speech, food and culture to the American audience. Very handy for explaining the pecking order of royals, the political parties, what marmite is made from, the different literary awards, what your choice of newspapers tells the world and who a person named Jordan is and why she's famous. 3.5 stars

Speaking as an American, marmite, veggimite and all-bran are all things that sound terribly frightening. I'll stick to my peanut butter and shredded wheat.

LOL at Cammykitty! I also think marmite sounds frightening. I think it may be an aquired taste!

I'm a chicken too. From everything I've heard about it, if you weren't raised eating it, you'll find the smell alone stomach churning. I've seen both marmite and vegimite for sale and I'd never have the guts to try it.
They are suppose to be packed with vitamins and very healthy, but then so are grubworms.

"so are grubworms." Yup! That's about what I think too. I'm sure they think we eat something atrocious too, but then again, there are plenty of McDonalds and Starbucks in Europe.

I have a jar of marmite in my cupboard that I am afraid to open :P

I moved to England as a young adult, tried Marmite there and came to love it. A lot of people make the mistake of spreading it like jam or butter. A little goes a long way! The secret is to spread it thinly. I suppose you could say it's like concentrated broth. The taste reminds me of broth, anyway.

205: Good tip, thank you! :)

<206 See, you're encouraged now, aren't you?

CHUG!CHUG!CHUG!CHUG!

39. The Snapper by Roddy Doyle. Twenty year-old Sharon Rabbitte is raped in a nightclub parking lot and discovers she's pregnant, but she was so blind drunk when the rape occurred that she can't remember who the man was.

Does this sound funny to you? No? Me neither, but the blurbs on the back say it is- "...another winning comedy about family life in north Dublin." And "Mr. Doyle has an astonishing talent for turning the humdrum into high comedy...Even the family dog rings true." Okay, the family dog gets left out in the rain and kicked by the mother. The pregnant girl continues to drink like a fish, encouraged by father and friends, and barely a sentence goes by without the word "fuck" in it. Seriously, it's used as an adjective, a noun and a verb on every page.

This is the third of the Barrytown Trilogy, which includes The Commitments, which I haven't read and The Van, which I read a few chapters of and didn't like enough to keep going. I really liked Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, so I guess it's the Rabbitte family that I don't like. 2 stars

>209 mstrust: That book sounds perfectly dreadful to me! I think I'll pass... and thanks for the heads up!

I've only read Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and enjoyed it. It seems that most people saw that as a comedy too, but I saw it as so dark that you had to either laugh or cry. That's his thing, I think. Nothing in what you described sounds funny, but if you pile bad on bad on bad, eventually some people will crack and start laughing.

Good point, cammy. And I usually enjoy black humor, which the Irish excel at. But I never clicked with this one.
I have several others by Doyle on the shelf, bought on the strength of Paddy Clarke, so I know I'll try out more from him.

>210 ivyd: ivy I wish I could have led you to a great book, but maybe the next one!

Part 2 of my thread:
here

Hope you can stop by!