Sibyx Marches On: 3

Currently Reading Updated Thursday 31 March

Baron Wormser, The Road Washes Out in Spring: a poet's memoir of living off the grid NF
- Seasonally appropriate; a read to savor.
David Mitchell Cloud Atlas F
- I am loving it! I'm finally giving CA the time and energy it deserves and now, of course, I can't stop reading!
Brian Aldiss Helliconia Summer SF
-book 2 in the trilogy

Audiobook: Kate Pullinger The Mistress of Nothing F
-- just barely begun. Lady Duff-Gordon's lady's maid.

STILL ON HOLD: Nathaniel Philbrick Mayflower american history
--(switching from audiobook to print).

abandoned in March : Stephen R. Donaldson The Mirror of her Dreams * 1/2 fantasy, yawn.

Finished in March
23. William Kamkwamba The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind NF ***** Stars are for the achievement of this inspiring young man.
24. Diane Glancy Stoneheart F ****
25. John A. Greed Glastonbury Tales
26. John Cowper Powys A Glastonbury Romance F *****
27. Ursula LeGuin Always Coming Home SF ***1/2
28. Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer *****
A MUST READ to learn about the settling of our neighbor, Canada
29. Brian Aldiss Helliconia Spring SF ****
30. Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake SF *****
31. Outliers Malcolm Gladwell NF **** (audiobook)

Best of January

Fiction Helen Humphreys The Lost Garden ****1/2
Non F David Grann The Lost City of Z*****

Best of February
Fiction Helen Humphreys The Frozen Thames F *****
Non-F Emma Larkin, Finding George Orwell in Burma ****1/2 NF, travel

January Reading

1. Kevin J. Anderson Hidden Empire first of seven, space opera (science-lite), enjoyable ***1/2
2. Christopher Isherwood The World in the Evening F ****
3. Mary Ann Shaffer The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society F, ww2, recommended ***3/4
4. Patrick Marnham Wild Mary: A Life of Mary Wesley ****
5. Charles Stross Toast sf/short stories ****
6. David Grann The Lost City of Z adventure *****
7. Helen Humphries The Lost Garden contemp fiction ****1/2
8. Kevin J. Anderson A Forest of Stars space opera ***1/2
9. Jeremy Bernstein Quantum Leaps Science ****
10. Alain de Botton A Week at the Airport NF travel ***3/4
11. Kevin J. Anderson Horizon Storms #3 7 Suns.... space opera ***1/2

February
12. Laura Talbot The Gentlewomen for Virago week F ****
13. Kevin J. Anderson Scattered Suns Book IV Seven Suns Saga - sp/op ***1/2 Defiantly I continue to enjoy this series!
14. Jamie Ford 6006690::The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet **** Contemp F.
15. R.F. Treharne 456001::The Glastonbury Legends in tandem w/ A Glastonbury Romance, background ****
16. Emma Larkin Finding George Orwell in Burma Memoir ****1/2
17. Suzette Haden Elgin Native Tongue sf ***
18. Kevin J. Anderson Of Fire and Night Book 5 (of 7) sp/op ***1/2
19. Kevin J. Anderson Metal Swarm Book 6 (of 7) Saga of Seven Suns. sp/op *** 1/2
20. Helen Humphreys The Frozen Thames F *****
21. Kevin J. Anderson The Ashes of Worlds Book 7 (of 7) of the Saga of Seven Suns sp/op ***1/2
22. Jon McGregor So Many Ways to Begin ER F ****

TOTALS for 2011
fiction (n.b. some books are listed in more than one category) contemp fiction - 6, sf - 2, sp/op -7, short stories-1, mystery - 0 , Classical 0, Virago - 1

non-fiction biography 1, history-1, science-1, travel-3

Misc
men: 16, women:6, living:7 dead: 3, american:4, english:10canadian:1, don't know:1 abandoned:2

Star Count
*****stars - 2 (1 f, 1 nf)
****1/2 stars - 2
**** stars - 8
***3/4 - 2
***1/2 stars - 7
***stars - 1

First! Got your new one here starred.

Happy to see you!

I seem to be having my usual struggle to post things where I want them to be -- I tried to unpack on comment #1 and ended up posting on comment 4 -- and I know I hit the edit symbol. This happened last time too. So I am going to go away for a little while and let it sort itself out and settle down. Very annoying!

Sorry that you're annoyed, but happy to find your new thread early! Read on, my friend, read on!

I just received The Frozen Thames today, Lucy. I was surprised to see what a cute little book it is. Somehow, I was expecting something more conventional - size-wise, that is.

Now all I have to do is decide if I should put it in it's place, as determined by the "Law of the Shelf", or should I break the Law and push it to the head of the line.

Tough one Charlotte. I cannot figure out how I pick my next book, it feels more random than electrons, frankly.

Thanks for coming back to get me on your old thread!

Found you! Glad you came back and posted the link. I know, I am setting up a new thread today too--can be frustrating.

Found your new thread. Now I need to go back and catch up on the old one!

Thanks Lucy for the wonderful summaries at the beginning of your thread. It is so helpful to me - I generally love what you love. Will have to favorite messages 1 and 2 for future reference. :)

I found you again, too! :)

Hi Lucy, I find new thread making chores time-consuming and annoying. I've asked my hubby if I could hire an LT secretary but he didn't think I was serious! You are starred again.

>9 sibylline:: I cannot figure out how I pick my next book

My system involves a coin-flip between two actions:

Heads: Read the highest priority thing on the TBR stack based upon Early Reviewer/Group Read deadlines.

Tails: Snatch something that catches my eye and read it quickly before guilt sets in.

Ooo, Tad. That's way too regimented for me. I love to drift here and there picking up books, reading a chapter, reshelving them, or mixing them up and eeny-meeny-miny-mo-ing them, and then reading something else entirely. I think my choice habit is predicated on my living forever, so maybe I ought to rethink.....hmmmm.

It's way too regimented for me, also. My problem is that I commit to read books and then something else catches my eye. By nature, I'm very much an impulse reader.

Yep. That's why I have 7 or 8 on my currently reading list as well as another 1 or 2 that I'm sneaking in when I feel like it. Actually, I guess I keep only 3 or 4 going at a time, but really! If I have the books available, why shouldn't I read them when I feel like it?

Seat o'pants, random, and a twist of planning - only a twist. I do occasionally, for ex, reorganize my tbr shelves in a sort of vague 'these come first' way. I might read one or two of them.

It remains to be seen, too, if this strategy of pretending I'm reading it (Cloud Atlas) will work.

Grr. Suddenly it is snowing rather furiously out there. I better go look at the weather, I didn't expect anything today, silly me. And I have quite a lot of driving later today. Bleh.

My tbr piles are organized alphabetically by author--there's no way I could do them by preference, as that keeps changing!! ;-)

Snow squalls here, too. But pretty sunset now.

I'm thinking I might take an armful of books and toss them down the stairs, then read them as they fall starting from the top... or bottom. Can't decide.
Sounds way too violent for my pretty books anyway. :( Nevermind. What am I thinking? Don't want to hurt them. Will have to come up with another idea. No method of deciding today will necessarily stand up to tomorrow's choices. *heavy sigh*

oops! double posted. sorry

Hmmm -- one could write the title on pieces of paper and draw randomly from a bowl? I know myself, I would pull one out and then go, naw, and put it back in and try another one. That is more or less what I do anyway.

So I'm back to report that Stephen Donaldson definitely does not float my boat -- I'm taking The Mirror of Her Dreams back to the library from whence it came. At first it seemed as if it had some potential, but the 'heroine' is just dreary and I peeked ahead and I'd figured out just about everything, who was good and who was bad, within 100 or so of close to 700 pages. To tell the truth I'm always relieved to find where my tolerance limit is, and that I HAVE one..... I mean, I know I do, there's all sorts of tripe I don't read, but there's plenty that I do read happily.

It's not bad, mind you, just not engaging enough for me in some critical way. So this is book #2 for this year in the Abandoned category. Off to take it off of various lists.

"To tell the truth I'm always relieved to find where my tolerance limit is, and that I HAVE one....."

Good for you! Wish I could be more sure of that. I put up with too much I don't like - always hoping things will get better. But with all the good books around, why bother?

#24, yup, that's what happens to me when I try to impose discipline on my reading. My inner rebel promptly stages a revolt.

The eternal problem of what to read next - that is why I am now ruled by The Law of the Shelf ... and this is also why I have had so many 'meh' reads so far this year. But I know that in among the turkeys there have to be some good things - I hope.

Classic March craziness here -- it was down to minus 5 this morning, but now is up to a heat-wave of around 15 -- but since the sun is shining, and is quite strong all the icicles etc. are melting like mad. The fields and heaps of plowed snow have this coating on them like...like.... molten silver, a thin sheet of ice over the snow, very striking.

My eyes are giving me trouble the last few days (printed matter overload) so I won't be around much today (if I can restrain myself which I can't, so I'll be around a little) I have to forego reading. It's not my glasses or anything -- my eyes always do this if I push them too hard. I have plenty of things I've been putting off, and I have music where I've been slacking off terribly.

In fact, if you see me hanging around, tell me to get off!

I'll do no such thing, but do be kind to yourself!

Here's what I did to pick out my current read: went to the bookcase in room 1, picked two or three books out and laid them on the bed, did the same with three other bookcases. Hence, about a dozen books laying on the bed. Now the painstaking process of elemination until, finally, just two are left. I read the first chapter in each book and finally decided which one I wanted to read right now. Whewww....I've got to find a better way. How about the first book I touch? Nah....that never works.

I'm telling you, Bonnie, The Law of the Shelf works best. You just have be stern with yourself and know that eventually the stuff that you really want to read will rise to the top (so to speak).

Take care of your eyes, Sib. Sorry to hear they're giving you trouble.

Lucy
Helen Humphreys is an incredible writer. Have you read Wild Dogs? I loved the illustrations and stories in The Frozen Thames. I may buy a copy. When I read it a few years ago I checked it out of the library.

Wild Dogs is on my wishlist. I did scoop up a copy of Coventry recently.

My eyes are better - but I'm still being cautious. I was all ready to participate in the readathon (mainly to get through a couple more New Yorkers) and then thought better of it....

It's in the forties and rainy here which is good, even if a bit dreary to look at. I am so ready for all this snow to GO AWAY.

I'm basically dipping in and out of the 'currently reading' books listed up above.

People talk about the dog days of summer; but March is just as bad. It's not winter, it's not yet spring, it's just that time when we're excruciatingly fed up with one and more than ready for the next.

I'm trying to rest my eyes, too -- overkill from working on the computer this week, I think.

Just stopping by to say hello Lucy.

It is RAINING. I would say as much as half the snow is gone but there are giant puddles everywhere and it's a sodden scene, one best ignored. I think we'll have to do a little creative digging to guide run off off of the driveway but so far so good.

I spent a large part of the weekend reading an MSS of an unpublished novel, can't really list it, can't review it.... a wee bit frustrating for the ole ocd side of my personality.

Meanwhile.... nothing. This weather is difficult and is wreaking havoc with my ability to think. I'm happy about the thaw, very happy, but discombobulated.

No, wait, I have a reading goal for today, two of them. Finish one NYer (it's a food issue, those take longer) and finish The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind which is a terrific book about an amazing young person, I've been reading a chapter a night but now I'm in the home stretch, eager to watch William K. get the attention and respect he has earned.

I've been wanting to read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind; thanks for the reminder. Re March, ugh. I'm south of you, the mounds of grungy snow got washed away a week or so ago, it's raining again today, and my back yard is a disaster. Last fall I anchored tarps with 8" nails and bricks to cover the evil grass, so I can replace it with a garden this spring, but the melting snow soaked the ground, and the wind ripped out the nails, and I've now gone through three rounds of reanchoring to no avail, and the grass is beginning to sprout, but it's still too cold and windy and icky to work outside for any productive length of time.

Lucy

I didn't know that Helen Humprey's wrote another book. I hope my local library has Coventry. Thanks for mentioning this one!

Hi Lucy!
My driveway is now half ice and half mud... March is not my favorite month of the year. Too sullen! :P

Snowshoes to rubber boots! ick
Nevertheless, have a great Sunday reading. (I need goals - sounds intriguing!)

March is lovely here - our snow went away a long time ago, and today we had clear blue skies and warm spring sun. I was at an 80th birthday lunch party and there were people sitting outside in the garden. Still round about freezing at night time, but during the day we definitely know that spring is just about here. Mind you, by tomorrow we'll probably have rain again...

>39 qebo:. Oh, what a big drag! It's hard work getting rid of that stuff.

Right after my post earlier, I looked outside and thought, Uh oh. Short slightly oversimplified version: The ditch that is supposed to drain the water from the hill above the house is filled with slush that is acting as a dam, ditch blocked, water pouring into driveway, toward house...... so I go out and dig this trench (in the snow, not dirt) diverting water toward the pond that works pretty well until we realize that it is only the tip of the iceberg......but I need a break so I come in and finish up the last couple of chapters of the Windmill book and then go back out..... we've done ok with it and now our snowplow guy and friend is here and they are figuring something out together, so I can have my lunch. It's a little bit of a 'perfect storm' scenario, several feet of snow, lots of rain, and it's our first full winter so we don't know the deal ---next year we'll have a better ideas of where NOT to put the snow..... (part of the problem is probably that some plowed snow has gone in the ditch.....) I'm guessing we aren't the only folks with problems today. The rain has pretty much turned to snow -- it's going to get cold again, but the water will keep running as the ground really isn't very frozen, so it is essential we get something sorted out! March fun, indeed.

But I did finish a book, my first one for March, somehow in all that, and improved my upper arm strength (will I ever be sore tomorrow!) and earned my cookies. If I can get through the food issue of the NYer I'll be happy!

Here, Lucy, thought of you when I saw this in the funnies today--

http://comics.com/the_knight_life/

Roni! You have no idea how apropos that is! And now it is snowing again -- something like 16-18 inches likely......

But I am mainly here to report that I have to quit with only one New Yorker done, not two as I had hoped -- it was a food issue and simply loaded with goodies. I'll report on that on the New Yorker thread I think.

I am adding a short novel to the Currently Reading pile Stone Heart about Sacajawea by Diane Glancy that has come my way and is a work-related read.

43: The good news though is that during a brief lull in the rain I went out to the yard to investigate whether anything other than grass and weeds was beginning to grow, and there are sprouts! Of bulbs that I planted last fall! Not yet prominent, have to stand directly over and peer closely to see the tips, but I'm encouraged.

45: So sorry you're in for another round of snow, but I suppose you knew what you were getting into, abstractly anyway. There's a New Yorker thread?

Here is a link to the 'group' -- I started it soon after joining LT last year and then sort of forgot about it and remembered just a month or so ago!: here . I'd love more participants. If I think of them more as books I know I will keep up better.

47: Thanks! I added it to my watch list. No serious aversion to joining, but I reorganized my groups in December and put them all on watch status, and haven't gotten around to reconsidering.

Wow! All that in one food issue?

I might fit into this NY thread - and here's why...
You've mentioned The New Yorker enough times, that I finally bought one when I went to CT last weekend. Never got a chance to read it there (waaaaay too busy) ... have been eyeing it ever since. So, I'm wondering ... am I behind already after buying only one issue?

My Mom saw it on my table and insisted on ordering a subscription for me. Not sure if she did or not, but we'll see. The sub price was irresistable compared to what I paid.

Wow Claudia! The key to this magazine is ...... attitude, I think, like going once a week to some french bakery, you have to be realistic about what you eat or you'll explode. Other than a couple of Science things I don't read any other 'current' stuff -- if something big is going on I'll glance at some newspaper or other but I hardly even listen to the radio any more, when I don't listen I feel better and the world doesn't fall apart, surprise surprise -- so this is my source for 'what is going on' -- and by that I don't mean politics but reading comprehensibly about the latest in cancer research or about interesting trends and people and books. Most of the articles are unbiased politically and those are the ones I on which I concentrate. I've discovered many good non-fiction writers through NYer and a few good fiction writers (new ones, I mean -- Allegra Goodman comes to mind).

hmm. I don't read much in the newspaper or listen to the radio at all. I could do well without either. I don't need to know about every fire, murder and fluctuation in the stock market. Like you, " I feel better and the world doesn't fall apart, surprise surprise..."

I am NOT interested in day-to-day politics at all. I'd rather read something that has been written by someone with time to gather facts and thoughts, give meaning to events by placing them in the 'big picture', and sift out the redundant and superfluous.

I actually bought my one NY for the article on George Elliot - which btw I thought was quite interesting. (But I'm guessing you haven't gotten to that one yet.)

So... maybe I will like this magazine after all. :) Hopefully, I won't explode!

Pat told me about that issue, that is one of the carrots I am working toward.....

Snow is up to 18 inches....... and still falling heavily. This is the biggest storm yet. And I really had no idea. Flood yesterday, blizzard today. I'm doing the only thing that makes any sense at all: baking bread and making sticky buns.

>53 sibylline:: excellent plan, Lucy! Don't forget a large pot of coffee or tea.

It's really an unbelievable storm -- much much worse than predicted -- I'm guessing because the Lake (Champlain) has thawed out again and, generally, there's much more moisture in the air that wasn't (somehow) factored in. In fact, this is what I would call a blizzard, even by VT standards, because it is quite windy.

Off to knead my 'sponge'. Now that sounds gross but it isn't!

Yum--what a great idea. I'm a bread machine type of baker, but I think I'll go throw some ingredients into the machine--it smells so wonderful as it bakes!!

And Lucy, I DID know how apropos, that's why I sent it! Although a bit too early, as it turns out. ;-D

Poor Lucy - even in Maine I am starting to see some of the ground that's been under the snow for weeks (months?).

How did the sticky buns turn out? One of my favs!

They were good but more bready because I just took one-third of the bread dough, tossed in an egg and a little more sugar and turned that bit into the sticky buns at the end of the 'dough rising' process..... I think I put a bit of milk or something else in the dough usually, can't remember.

Over two feet of snow. It has stopped. We are in such big trouble if we have another rainstorm like the last one before a good deal of this has sublimated or otherwise melted away bit by bit......

So I did a good bit of reading today in several books -- I still hope to get to p. 800 in A Glastonbury Romance before conking out (19 pages....), I got way into Helliconia Spring which is definitely a great piece of SF -- set on a planet that only has two season, hot and cold, both lasting around 600 years with brutal transitions. Two sentient bipedal types, one human the other.... sort of like a creepy white-furred Wookie with sharp horns protruding from shoulders - they are adapted to the cold cycle and the humans are adapted to the heat cycle - the whole book seems to be about how interdependency and circumstance give rise to entwined but antagonistic systems -- this planet has evolved the cruel and extreme way it has in response to these cycles.... oh dear, I'm getting over-involved explaining, considering I'm only 1/3 done.

Finished the last Nov 2010 New Yorker (there were FIVE!) which is a great relief. If I can read two a weekend I might one day catch up!

No progress on any other reads, though I'll probably tackle some Ursula now.

I lost you! then found you..

Just wondering how you're doing with all your snow.

Lucy, I hope you don't actually get all the rain they are predicting. Get out the tall boots! Be careful, be safe!

My dear friends, I am a wreck - pulled a muscle in my rib cage pushing snow off the roof (don't worry I wasn't ON the roof we have this push thing), the heater in my shack has crapped out, my eyes hurt off and on, and the weather is just impossible -- I LIKE weather generally but you really can't take a walk when the road is a weird mix of rock hard ice and mud and the wind is howling at 25-30 mph in pretty steady gusts. Oh, and let's not forget the sleet. I mean, you CAN, you can do it, but it doesn't really do a lot for your mood. I just have to get my mind into accepting how it is presently.

I am sure we will get ALL the rain, every drop. We are almost ready with our ditch mostly redug (courtesy of friend w/bucket loader who is supposedly coming to finish today). He made snow mountains that tower above my head and all of that has to melt and go away.

You are darlings to ask.

I am, at least, enjoying reading. The little book about Sacajewea is a gem. Passages from Clark and Lewis' journals on one side of the page and Sacajawea's internal thoughts during the journey on the other. She made a great attempt to be 'authentic' - use what little there is in the text as her springboard without expanding or romanticizing.

The weather map looks like the storm is from Virginia up through northern Ontario. Are you on the "rain" side of today's weather line or the "sleet and wintry mix" side? There's some flooding in our town (a river runs right through the middle) but our house is on quite high ground, so we're good.

Take care of your rib.

Just stopping briefly to sympathize with all your woes. Only a few weeks until Spring, surely, even in Vermont, and then things will look (and be) up. Hang in there.

We are right on the line, back and forth, snow rain sleet and back and forth. Bleh. Huntington is just south and east of Burlington along the western side of the spine of the Green Mountains.

Ah, Janet, I am so happy you are trolling the threads! I'd forgotten (this is my first full March since around 1995) just how tough March is. April can be disappointing, but March tests what you are made of. (Me, made of floss)

How did you manage to have partial Marchs between 1995 and now?
That trick could make you lots of $$$

Actually it was more like 1999 - before that we were constantly back and forth to Philly. I had to settle down in PH and stay put (spousal unit kept going back and forth, tending to various hot irons) when the kidster went to kindergarten. All done with, thank goodness!

Aha! Aren't you glad you didn't have to drive back and forth this winter? :)

I don't know how you are doing it.. Keep warm and heal quickly..
If you have a book ( LOLOL) it might help you to relax?

And have a hot toddy after every meal.....

:)

I can't even imagine it. I would have been so worried about him. We're too old for that sort of shenanigan anymore.

Lucy I really sympathize with you. We've been having some typical March weather around here ourselves: snow/ice/sleet/rain and W-I-N-D-S-------yesterday they were gusting to 50 mph and I had a hard time getting the car door open. Can't wait to get beyond this to better weather in April maybe. Good luck to you getting through it and hope you'll feel better soon.

Lucy, you are being tested big time!! I hope your pulled muscle and eyes are better soon. I was afraid you were battling the weather when I didn't see you on LT. If anyone deserves a beautiful spring it's you. Wishing you lots of green scenery for St. Patrick's Day, if not sooner. Keep us posted.

Me too! Me too! Heal and be safe! And begone, foul sleet! (at least)

Lucy, I don't know how you do it! Sounds like a really fierce winter. I hope that "March goes out like a lamb" thing happens for you soon.

Wow, a pulled muscle in your ribcage, OUCH! How inconvenient, to say the least.

I hate, loathe, despise and abominate March. It teases you with a little scent of spring in the air, green sprouts start poking up hopefully out of the ground and then, WHAM! Snow, rain, gusty winds, mud and general sloppiness.

It has rained here in northeast Ohio for 2 days straight. Just looked out of the window and it's beginning to turn into big, wet snowflakes. I guess I'll keep reading the 719 page bio of Frank Sinatra that I have from the library...

Sandy K

"March" wrecks my brain, largely because of my mother's whacked-out attitude about "horrible, horrible March." When she was an impressionable young woman, she had her fortune told at the Kansas State fair. She was "told" that she would have four children--and wonder of wonders (sarcasm) that's what happened! I also think that just maybe this midwest Merlin told her she would die in March. Oh, I am so sick of this month! I have been dealing with this my entire life. Couldn't we skip it just one year?

Sorry for your March Vermont travails, Lucy.

I don't feel that way about it, thank goodness, I don't take it personally! The main problem is that I love (need to be?) being outside for part of the day and March is such a challenge in that regard that it frustrates me no end, even our road is a mess. I've been shocked by how violent the weather is, how extreme -- as if the whole area is resisting this inevitable change to a new season. Right now I think the wind is a steady 15-20 with gusts up to 40 or more. Every now and then I think, is that an engine? but it's just one of these gusts ripping through the pines on the hill behind the house.

Meanwhile, I did a lot of reading today, mostly in A Glastonbury Romance which I am reading mostly with Peggy. I've hit p. 902 which means I have 200 pages and three chapters to go, which is chicken feed. What a book! What a writer!

I'm enjoying Always Coming Home more than most people on the Women/Future thread. She's pushing limits, 'experimenting' and trying to offer a piece of fiction that is itself a reflection of the time/space continuum that the people of 'the Valley' live in. Read what you want, when you want, in any order you want because it is all the same thing, ultimately. I get a little fidgety with the poems but I love all the other stuff now I'm getting the hang of it.

I killed off one of three Dec. 2011 New Yorkers. The thing I liked the best was a poem by Ellen Bryant Voight about snow falling off her roof - here are a couple of lines:
"the snowpack over my head breaks apart and slides on its own melting/down from the eaves as though my roof had shrugged...."

I've finished Diane Glancy's Stoneheart A short, poetic imagining of Sacajewea's experience on the trip with Lewis and Clark. Glancy juxtaposes the words and descriptions of Lewis and Clark's actual journals with her text and the combination is very effective, quite moving and even convincing. I picked it up for work reasons, but anyone who is a Lewis and Clark afficionado should like it. **** and almost 1/2 (it's just a little too slight).

I should add that I would be happy to give this to anyone who is interested, I don't need to hang on to it. I'll wait a day or two and then put it up on PBS.

In other reading news, Peggy and I are in the home stretch with A Glastonbury Romance which may just be the longest book I've ever tackled at 1120 pages..... I also need to finish up the Glastonbury Tales along with it. I'm enjoying all the books I'm reading but there isn't enough time in the day, so it seems I have to decide to push this one or that one on any given day....

>78 sibylline:: Now you have me curious about what the longest book I've read is. Of course, it depends on the definition of "book"...if a single story spans multiple volumes, is that a single book? If so, something like Jordan's Wheel of Time is likely to take the cake since it probably clocks in at 10,000 pages when all is said and done.

However, for single volume, hmmmm...looking at the "fat" ones I see on the shelf, Atlas Shrugged, War and Peace and Les Miserables are all monsters. I wonder if there's a site somewhere that lists big books by word count since page count is affected by so many factors?

ETA: Here's one. I've read two of these: Atlas Shrugged and Gai-Jin. It only includes books originally written in English; will have to poke around some more.

I think another thousand or so pager I've tackled is "The Tale of Genji", I spent a whole semester of college reading it. Most Pynchon books are fabulously lengthy, though none over a 1000 as far as I can remember.

You know I bet there is a website dedicated to books over 1000 pages...... after I finish up my comment here I'm going to go look and see.

So I finished up the second 'background' book on Glastonbury, Glastonbury Tales by John A. Greed. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through because I became aware at some point that Greed had a 'bias' -- but the fact is, he's quite open about it (evangelical) and makes every effort until the last few pages, to contain his desire to proselytize. Anyway, he touches on ALL the legends, even the most cockamamie ones, with space aliens and the zodiac (shades of Battlestar Galactica anyone?) and he does so with humor and the right amount of skepticism most of the time. He sees the zodiac in a religious way that is new to me (that a 'pagan' interpretation overlays a structure that anticipates Christ), and it was fun too to remember von Danigen and Chariots of the Gods.
What does matter, however, is that the Greed does contribute to my understanding of what is going on in A Glastonbury Romance but I will comment on that over on the group thread as it gets a bit specific and spoilerish. One last remark, the final chapter has an hilarious description of what sounds like the British 'Woodstock' which took place nearby in 1971. The author was at his most endearing, for he was deeply horrified by the 'naked man riding a motorbike', people dancing themselves into such frenzies that they had to be hauled off to the medical tent, a tent devoted to helping people who were having bad trips --- but he has determined to be open-minded about everyone and everything, and tries to see the good in it although he can't get a lot further than 'youthful energy and spirit' I commend him for the effort! Even though the book tackles some silly stuff, he does it in a balanced way most of the time. Only recommended to those who love the Grail legends and are deeply interested in Glastonbury. ***1/2

I copied this, but I'm not going to add the brackets except on the ones I've read! I'm sure it is not inclusive but it is a start:

2666,A Feast for Crows, A Glastonbury Romance, A Storm of Swords, A Suitable Boy, And Quiet Flows the Don, Atlas Shrugged, Battlefield Earth, Bleak House, Centennial, Child of the Phoenix, Clarissa, Coming Home, Cryptonomicon, Debt of Honor, Don Quixote, Dream of the Red Chamber, Exective Orders, Fortune's Favorites, Gai-Jin, Gone With the Wind, House of Chains, Hunger's Brides, In Search of Lost Time, Infinite Jest, It, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Joseph and His Brothers, Journey to the West, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, Les Miserables, Little Dorrit, London, Mission Earth, Mondfeuer, Noble House, Pandora's Star, Poor Fellow My Country, Remembrance Rock, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sacajawea, Shantaram, Shogun, Texas, The Bear and the Dragon, The Cider House Rules, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Covenant, The Dark Tower, The Fiery Cross, The Grass Crown, The Light Bearer, The Lord of the Rings, The Man Without Qualities, The Naked God, The Neutronium Alchemist, The October Horse, The Plum in the Golden Vase, The Reality Dysfunction, The Stand, The Tale of Genji, The Witching Hour, War and Peace, War and Remembrance, Water Margin, Wheel of Time, Whirlwind, World Without End.

Phew. I'm actually amazed by how many I have read. And there are several I've been meaning to read for a long time -- Bleak House being #1. Cryptonomicon being #2.

Touchstones are behaving abominably -- but anything with the funny numbers I've read, as well as the blue ones.

hmmm... interesting list, Lucy. I've read about 8 or 9 of these. Funny how some of them didn't seem so very long (e.g., The Count of Monte Cristo) and others seemed to go on forever (e.g., Don freakin' Quixote).

I have Sacajawea and Bleak House waiting for me now... maybe when I do more reading on the deck and the distractions of the house are behind me.

I know -- I was surprised by some of them -- maybe it isn't an accurate list, I just found it when I googled 1000 page novels!

I think it might be the problem of going by page count rather than word count. I just looked at my two editions of The Count of Monte Cristo. One is 1053 pages long, one is 747. Neither are abridged.

That's a pretty good list. I think I had more patience for long, long reads when I was younger.

I've read these; I'm sort of surprised I haven't read more of them: A Feast for Crows, A Storm of Swords, Atlas Shrugged, Bleak House, Centennial, Clarissa, Gone With the Wind, Les Miserables, Little Dorrit, Noble House, Shogun, The Cider House Rules, War and Peace.

The ones that are on my list to read: 2666, Gai-Jin, The Covenant. Maybe others, but those are the ones that jump out at me.

Hi Lucy,
I've found you again! I didn't realize you'd started a new thread. Sorry to hear about all your weather woes and I hope the ribcage muscle is on the mend.
I'm a bit chagrined to discover I've read only one of the doorstop volumes - The Lord of the Rings - but do I get extra credit for having read it three times? I take some comfort in knowing that I'll add War and Peace this year but I can see I've got my work cut out for me if I want to hold my head up in this group.
Sunny on the sandbar today. Cats, including this one, are enjoying lolling in front of the windows.

It's a little 'cheaty' in that some of these books are the sum a multi-volume epic -- hard to know where to draw that line.....

I started the Baron Wormser this morning and it is a delight. I'll be quoting ad nauseam: "Anything out of the ordinary tends to be taken personally." (On their choice to live off the grid, which was more or less accidental, where they wanted to build the power company wouldn't go.)

Remembering the first night in the new house: "Night's coming was so profound, so transfixing, so soft yet indelible that I was startled and lulled in the same awed moment. I remember very clearly feeling how, second by tiny second, it was getting darker, how the dark was creeping in, how it was inexorable and delicate, how night 'fell'-a great slow curtain-how darkness 'grew'-something organic yet rooted in the ineffable."

>87 sibylline:. I don't think multi-volumes count. If they did, then wouldn't you have to count every series ever written? I think it has to be a book that is 1,000 pages between covers. And while word count is interesting, this is page count, not word count. If you can find a volume where the book is 1000 pages, then I think it counts, even if PENGUIN BOOKS (curse their name) has published the book in a 300-page format.

I should add The Stand to my list, but I can't say that I liked it. In Nov. 2011, King will be bring out a new 1000+ pager, 11/22/63. "If you had the chance to change history, would you? Would the consequences be worth it?" I will definitely be reading that one.

I definitely agree -- but I don't know if say, Lord of the Rings gets published in one volume? It is three volumes, always, and yet, you really do have to read all three to get the whole story...... it is a recognizable 'whole'. There are a number of books around like that which might get a little fuzzy around the edges.

I think Lord of the Rings is a special case, and I would defer to people like you, Lucy, who I am thinking knows the trilogy inside out. There may be others like it that people would argue for being part of one whole. But I would say that generally multiple-volume epics or series shouldn't be counted unless they appear in one book between covers.

Returning to add one of my all-time favorite books of any length, And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer--1176 pages in the hardbound edition published by Putnam. I've read this twice. The first time, when I came to the end of it, I literally cried, because I felt like the people in this book living in this small Ohio town (?--I think so) were as dear to me as any of my "real" friends. My copy of this book is falling apart even worse than my copy of Middlemarch.

Sadly, the latest "review" of the book at LT is one-star: Life is just too short to trudge through a book as heavey {sic} going as this! I would suggest for this person maybe some Danielle Steel?

>89 sibylline:: I've read LoTR probably a dozen times in my life and I agree it's a single story. However, if you count that, then you have to count all the huge fantasies being written right now where a single story spans huge numbers of volumes. Publishing them in a single volume is impractical because you couldn't lift it but they aren't a series...it's one main plot line from the first page until the last.

I just added up Robert Jordan's story The Wheel of Time and it's 9,876 pages with one volume left to end the story.

George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice it is 4,384 pages with at least two volumes left to go.

Both have single volumes over 1000 pages but they are single stories across all the volumes.

Interesting topic about long books. Like Becky (Post 85) I lack patience for those super-long books the older I get. I consider anything over 500 pages to be a "chunkster."

I've read eleven of the 1,000+ page books you listed in #81. I've been saying I'm going to read The Count of Monte Cristo for two years now. I ought to just read it because I'm pretty certain I'm going to love it.

I also want to read Texas since my son and his wife moved there last year. My copy is in two volumes. Does anyone read Michener anymore? I loved The Covenant when I read it years ago.

I read one or two Micheners, Hawaii and one other, can't think what. I think maybe some of Tom Wolfe's books, like A Man in Full have to come darn close to 1000.

Not to mention that I don't think Infinite Jest made it on the list. That, I hope to read with Janet later this spring when she's up for it....

>88 labwriter: I read The Stand ages ago and actually loved it but haven't read King in many years. However, the one you mention will come out in November sounds very, very intriguing.

Infinite Jest is on there, Lucy! I'm going to copy your list and do Touchstones for the ones I've read....I was going to do it at my place, but I'll just add it to yours to keep the conversation in one place. I don't know that I'd count S.King books because they go so fast. But I will. I didn't see A Dance to the Music of Time which is more essentially one book than some of the other series up there.....same for The Raj Quartet. If LotR counts, they should.
And Clarissa! I looked at my copy this morning: 1499 pages of large format Penguin with little bitty print. Even my penchant for big books isn't dragging me into that!
2666 (not 1000 pages in my copy),A Feast for Crows, A Glastonbury Romance, A Storm of Swords, Atlas Shrugged, Bleak House, Centennial, Cryptonomicon, Don Quixote, Gai-Jin, Gone With the Wind, Infinite Jest, It, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Little Dorrit, Noble House, Pandora's Star, Shogun, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Lord of the Rings, The Neutronium Alchemist (maybe --- I know I read one of them at least), The Reality Dysfunction, The Stand, War and Peace, War and Remembrance, Wheel of Time (I've read only through book 9, I think).
Now that's a somewhat mis-spent youth!
(Edited in an attempt to get it right!)

>96 LizzieD:. Believe it or not, Peggy, Clarissa is the kind of book that you hate to see come to an end. Honest. OK, full disclosure: I read the abridged version for my English class (no way we could have gotten through the almost 1500 pages of the original), but I do have the original version on my shelf and I'm going to read it when my year for reading English lit comes around (2012?).

My copy of 2666 is only 800-something pages.

>94 sibylline:. Nah, Lucy, Tom Wolfe's books only look bloated. Man in Full is around 700 pages.

My copy of Tom Jones (Wesleyan UP) is 982 pages. Can I count it?

I found another one: Executive Orders by Tom Clancy, a Jack Ryan novel. One of these days I'm going to read the whole Jack Ryan series over again. I love those books. This one comes to 1358 in a mass paperback edition. It's a much-read copy that was passed around in Baghdad and yet somehow made its way home.

I loved Clarissa also. I appear to have given it four stars when I entered it (probably early on in my LT adventure). I should change it to a five. It took awhile for me to figure out what those stars 'mean' (to me, anyway) but Clarissa is definitely one of the 'big boys'.

Over on the TIOLI thread would they let Tom Jones pass at 982? I guess all you really have to do is find an edition that does go over 1000..... there does seem to be a good deal of wiggle room in that regard.

Peggy - I AM IMPRESSED!!!!!! Here's another one: His Dark Materials -- the Pullman set.

Everyone I know who has read The Count of Monte Cristo has LOVED it. Go for it, Donna!

I used to think nothing of picking up a chunkster when I was younger. Had better eyes then, I guess. Plus, Michener was a fav author to me back then - what choice did I have? Always marveled that anyone could get that many words together... and more than once! And now that I think of it - without a computer!?!

>98 sibylline:. Tom Jones, Modern Library edition, 2002, 1024 pages. Obviously TIOLI could never be wrong.

>99 -Cee-: I'm laughing as I remember an 11th grader from my regular English class who looked at an assignment and clearly appalled, said, "You mean you expect me to write 500 words out of my own head???!!!!?????"

All kinds of respect to the two of you for getting through Clarissa. Let me know when you start it, Becky! And I can add Tom Jones to my list too.

So now you have me looking on my shelves for large novels.

I think we have to count Dos Passos' U.S.A. even though it's a trilogy made up of The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money. I think it's one book because the pagination found in the Library of America edition treats the 3 parts as one book: thus, 1240 pages.

Then there's Norman Mailer's Harlot's Ghost, published in 1991. My edition is 1175 pages which does not include a 10-page list of character and place names. Good luck, haha.

I guess I've read more of these monsters that I thought. I only wish I had the list of books I was reading in the 1970s, mainly taken out from the library because I was barely able to afford food during that decade, let alone books. I know I went for the long ones then.

Of course, U.S.A. -

Did you read that Mailer? I confess I didn't. He's good though, you want not to like him, but he's too good.

That's really funny/sad Peggy.

LOL, Peggy! The first time I read a Stephen King book I remember thinking - wow, what detail...his English teacher must have LOVED him!

>103 sibylline:. You know, I'm sure I read that book (the spine is creased), but I don't remember a darned thing about it. I'm going to give it another try one of these days. It's probably one of those books I tried to read at 3:00 a.m. on a slow night at work.

I have posted since Monday which is unusual, but I've been avoiding LT a little in favor of reading and I've had 'things to do' darn it all, that interfere with my literary life!

But it has paid off, this afternoon, sitting in a parking lot indulging in a piece of pizza (oh Naughty!) I finished A Glastonbury Romance. I will attempt, at some point, a 'review' of it. Powys is a staggeringly good writer and storyteller, capable of a radical, imaginative, prophetic, bracing and embracing view of human nature, the natural world, the universe, and everything......

I've been reading aGR since...... I can't think when I started it, maybe on New Year's Day or around then..... with Peggy and others, but Peggy and I seem to be the only two staggering on to the finish line. This is my third Powys, Porius remains the one I consider a masterpiece, this one is only a tiny bit behind it.

I am on the last disk of Champlain's Dream -- those last disks often end rather abruptly when you least expect it, so I imagine it will be finished in the next couple of days -- depends on how much driving around alone I do.

Oh dear, I think I'm about 1000 pages behind you on aGR! I am proving again that I am no good with group reads, or at keeping multiple books on the go at the same time. Anyway, I'm glad you've enjoyed it so much, and look forward to your review when you manage that. I may get it finished myself before the end of the year with a little perseverance!

I'm happy to know that it is still in your bookshelf!

"Powys is a staggeringly good writer and storyteller, capable of a radical, imaginative, prophetic, bracing and embracing view of human nature, the natural world, the universe, and everything...... "

Good grief! How can I not add this writer to my wish list? At these lengths, I need to pick ONE! Which one, Lucy? Is Porius a chunster too?

Have gotten The Sisters by Mary Lovell from the library which I will read as soon as I finish Sophia's story. :)

>106 sibylline:: You make the Powys sound so inviting but I'm so completely overwhelmed this year with backlogged reading, I don't see how I can tackle another doorstop book. :-(

It's always such a feeling of accomplishment to finish a great book like this--congrats!

Peggy just finished to and we are both suffering from that 'thrilled but bereft' sensation. I instantly have a lot more room in the bookbag I carry around, that is for sure.

Porius is the one to read, no question in my mind. It is 'short' at around 680 or so pages...... I am not much of a rereader, but I plan to reread it within the next couple of years, before the memory of the first read fades. It is right up there with the best of the best in my book. I've never read anything else so utterly and viscerally even relentlessly present, in every moment. It's not 'intellectual' for all that there are plenty of words you might have to look up and a deep knowledge of celtic, roman, saxon, far-eastern lore and history of the period (late 400 B.C. Wales) that might send you into the outreaches of the internet looking things up. Maybe in a year or so we can have a group read. I would be totally up for that.

>112 sibylline:: I'd be interested in participating in that read if it was next year.

Congratulations on finishing Glastonbury Lucy. I ashamed to say that I'm still back at about p. 250 and haven't picked it up in weeks. I need to just make a concentrated effort, instead of trying to read a few pages here and there. And congratulations to Peggy too.

Even though I wimped out on the reading, your and Peggy's comments on the GR thread were fantastic. That thread will be my constant companion when I get back into it again, which I hope will be soon, since I don't want to waste the time and effort put I've put into it so far.

I've done that too, found a thread to follow when I finally get around to some huge -- there must be thousands of really great group read threads gathering dust in LT cyberspace.... Good luck when you get to it, it is an amazing book, but it has to be the right time for a book like that. I had heaps of very helpful snow days.

and merci du compliment, I appreciate it. One of my biggest triumphs was posting a pic off the internet, that was a first for me!

Lucy!!! I am sitting in a coffee shop one block from The Last Word book shop in Philly. I finally had an opportunity to visit today and WOW, I can't thank you enough for recommending it to me ... What was it, a year ago?! I found eight -- count 'em -- Virago Modern Classics, and about 5 more that I already owned. More details to follow later today in the Virago Group, after I catalog the books. But I wanted to stop by your thread right away !!!

Thanks again ....

I've finished Always Coming Home by Ursula LeGuin Regarded as a novel, I don't think, ultimately, it fulfills enough of a reader's needs, lacking a coherent form, although it does have a 'pattern' of shifting from long narrative, shorter narrative or drama, to poetry. It's a shame really, because the individual bits and pieces are consistently interesting, occasionally astoundingly wise and insightful in a quiet way. As an experiment I consider it a worthy exercise, worth a rating of four stars, or even four and a half, but as a novel, it should probably only get a three. Many of my questions about how the whole Earth manages things (and there is implied that there are settlements off Earth too) are left unanswered for me -- in particular the role of The Exchange -- how it survived and evolved after whatever cataclysmic events there were. The people have, for ex, electricity but I know (since we have them) that solar panels are sophisticated items, not likely to manufactured locally unless some whizzbang technology has been invented..... maybe I'm being bloody-minded, but that kicks in for me when too many questions crowd my mind.

Also while I loved this culture, truly love their wise ways, they were just a little too wise to be true for me just as the Condors were a bit too stupid.

It's worthy attempt at something a bit different, it's brave and if you are a lover of the invention of alternate cultures this one is deeply conceived and beautifully although not cohesively or smoothly, presented like individual tiles and areas in a mosaic that catch the eye, but an overall picture that isn't quite in focus.

I enjoyed reading yor impessions of Always Coming Home. I read it years ago for a class and I can't recall the story as much as I do the feeling of the book, if that makes sense, which I liked. I haven't read much more by LeGuin, although I plan on getting to Lavinia soon.

Thankyou! I loved Lavinia - esp after a group read last summer of The Aeneid.

Hi, Lucy! Thanks for separating the novel from the worldbuilding in *ACH*. Even with that insight, I'm afraid it will be a long, long time before I tackle it again.

But first, the weather: It is snowing. All last week we made such great progress, so that as of this morning perhaps a solid 2/3 snow gone in open area, and greatly reduced in the woods, plus it has packed so hard you can walk on it..... but now, the forecast for us is perhaps as much as 7 inches..... and the most insane thing is that it is above freezing, a little, but the snow is sticking and remaining snow. Must be cold up on high.

On the to book news: I finished Champlain's Dream by David Hackett Fisher which I have been listening to for about six weeks. Dare I say this? But Champlain is insanely appealing, a totally beguiling, fascinating, awe-inspiring person as Hackett presents him. For one, there is the mystery and the romance. He was, quite seriously but not provably, a bastard son of Henri IV - Henri was in the area, was into dallying, at the right time, and from around the time of Champlain's birth the family won special favors AND when he was a bit older the king allowed him into his inner circle AND Champlain was able to use the honorific "Sieur" when the rest of his family didn't.

That little blurb about Champlain made the whole thing seem quite fun to read! Adding it to my Wish List.

But first, the weather: It is snowing. All last week we made such great progress, so that as of this morning perhaps a solid 2/3 snow gone in open area, and greatly reduced in the woods, plus it has packed so hard you can walk on it..... but now, the forecast for us is perhaps as much as 7 inches..... and the most insane thing is that it is above freezing, a little, but the snow is sticking and remaining snow. Must be cold up on high.

On the to book news: I finished Champlain's Dream by David Hackett Fischer towhich I have been listening for about six weeks. Dare I say this? But Champlain is insanely appealing, a totally beguiling, fascinating, awe-inspiring person as Hackett presents him. For one, there is the mystery and the romance. He was, quite seriously but not provably, a bastard son of Henri IV - Henri was in the area, was into dallying, at the right time, and from around the time of Champlain's birth the family won special favors AND when he was a bit older the king allowed him into his inner circle AND Champlain was able to use the honorific "Sieur" when the rest of his family didn't.

Secondly he was a true visionary with the intelligence, determination and the courage to implement his ideas. He wanted to found a peaceful society, he wanted to find a way for the French settlers to live peacefully and respectfully among the native people, and while he did not fully succeed, it wasn't for lack of effort and, in fact, to a great degree he did succeed in getting Eastern Canada off to a very different footing from any other settlement in the Americas.

I can't say enough about the man, I'm as astonished as I was when reading about Hamilton -- possibly more astonished as Champlain seems to combine the qualities of a Washington-Hamilton figure - grit and wisdom plus charm and wit.

The biography is balanced and was an excellent listen, which would indicate an equally good read. By balanced I mean, threading that difficult path between telling detail and too much detail, offering different points of view about an event, and overall smooth transitions.

I can't think of a historical figure who deserves a fabulous bio-pic more than Champlain!!!!! If have you never read a book about Canada, this is it. If you never read another one, you will at least have a solid foundation about how the country began.
*****

Wow, 5 stars. The Champlain book sounds great. I'm pretty sure I WL'd it when you first mentioned it but I'll have to check.

I can't believe you're getting so much more new snow! Have you at least been able to get outside everyday? I know you said that was crucial for you.

weather update: It appears to be fizzling, but there's still time...... so far less than an inch and it is sort of crepitating now.... finger's crossed. I'll go out in it, for sure, Pat. The great thing right now is that the snow that's left is so hard you can walk right on it. I carry ski poles for extra balance, but it isn't slippery (but you never know, thus the poles).

I do want to add that if you (the reader) should decide to listen to the audio, at some point you want to find a copy to look at the pictures of which there are many -- including beautiful maps and sketches by Champlain himself. What a guy!

I LOVED the book on Hamilton! I love Canada (but no one will move there with me). Five Stars! and pictures!

OK. You got me again. Great review and it's going on the WL.

snowing here too... very pretty. Don't worry, Lucy. Spring snow doesn't last.

Claudia, I know you will love it.

Grrrr now suddenly the snow is acting.... snowy.

Can't imagine so much snow. We had a bad winter (for us) but snow is long gone, and the last few days have been balmy and sunny. Hope spring comes your way soon!

Well, the spring peepers (tiny 1 inch frogs) are due any time after the 1st of April -- they are the true harbingers of spring around here. The sugaring is going apace, perfect weather for it.

Wow Lucy I sense a real love for Samuel deChamplain. And interestingly Champlain's Dream has just jumped onto my teetering tower. Hmmmm.

No snow but the temperature is supposed to drop to around 17 degrees the next couple of nights so future snow is a given.

Ah yes! The spring peepers! Love when I can open the windows and listen to nature singing while I am in bed. But, do tell Lucy, how are those little cuties gonna wriggle out from under all your snow by April 1st? You'd better get melting!

Hope you have a great day...

This is vaguely hilarious -- this Saturday all the local maple sugar 'farmers' are hosting a pancake breakfast and maple sugar 'tasting' -- now there is no difference in flavor from farm to farm, although the type, grade A, B does make a diff (I like the used motor oil type - more flavor) and I think that is pretty well regulated -- but anyhow, they have 'tastings' of cheeses and wines and everything else, so why not maple sugar. We will all be quite giddy by the end of it, that much I guarantee.
We only have one proper dairy farm left or we'd have milk tastings, no doubt. I love it.

Oh yes, and I am reading, of course.

Great review of Champlain's Dream, Lucy; I'll add it to my wish list.

Thanks also (via Laura) for mentioning The Last Word Bookshop in Philadelphia. I'll definitely go there when I visit my parents next month.

I didn't know peepers were frogs. Do they make a 'peep, peep' sort of noise? Maple sugar tasting sounds great fun, especially with pancakes too. Oh and yes, Champlain's Dream sounds very interesting. I know nothing of him as yet!

Here's a recording of the peepers -- believe me it is quite a racket!!!!
here .

Darryl -- oh how I envy you! Middlebury has some great used bookstores, but even though it is only 45 minutes away it seems to be my ever-receding horizon. I miss those bookstores!!!!!

When my grandmother (who lived in Florida) visited us in St. Thomas she had to stuff her ears with cotton because of the racket. In Florida they called the exterminator if they heard as much as one cricket! The local frogs are called coquis after the two tone sound they make. When I have trouble falling asleep I try to recall the sound.

What noisy creatures!

>133 kidzdoc:: Darryl, there are two excellent bookshops that Lucy made me aware of:
The Last Word, 220 S. 40th St. (University City)
The Book Trader, 7 N. 2nd Street (Society Hill more or less)

Both are open 7 days, 10am-10pm. Both are fabulous shops. Geographically they sort of anchor the city's east/west edges. You can drive from one to the other via Walnut & Chestnut Streets. I guess that would be the scenic route; you could also take the Vine St. Expwy.

#137: Thanks, Laura! I normally take SEPTA Regional Rail into Center City, so I would take the Market Street Subway to both bookshops (40th St and 2nd St stations, respectively).

My Philadelphia bookstore of choice was Robin's Bookstore on 13th St between Walnut and Chestnut Sts, which (I think) was the oldest independent bookstore in Center City, which had a small but eclectic selection of books. It's now been converted into a very small seller of "bargain books and magazines" on the tiny second floor, and I haven't been there since the change. I keep meaning to go to Joseph Fox Bookshop, but I'll try The Last Word and The Book Trader first.

I will have to listen to the peepers later when my dog isn't by my side. We have bullfrogs in the pond behind our house and I love the sound they make when they get going. If I remember correctly, it's usually in late May.

Another bookstore, tucked away in the Art Museum section s my favorite of all, Bookhaven, they don't do anything on computer or have a website or anything, all notecards. It's very easy to find -- it is at the light at 22nd and Fairmount -- the prison is opposite on the north side of the street, the shop is one building in from the corner heading west (toward the museum, basically). It has become a very 'cool' part of town and there are lots of good and even great restaurants and a very good cafe one block to the east...... They are picky, so the books are really good.

I used to go to a fair number of poetry readings at Robin's...... it is sad that they couldn't make it, but the location was too expensive and not where the 'readers' are, I think.

I love Joseph Fox, they are choosy and they know what they have and why they have it.

Have a wonderful time and I would say, eat a cheesesteak for me, except I never did eat them!

Very little reading today, working and to-ing and fro-ing. No melting happened either. And my Irish session meets this Thursday which means I need to get practicing!

Enjoy your spring snow, Lucy. When we lived in Colorado Springs, I quickly learned that April is the snowiest month there. I learned the hard way by losing my tender plantings the first spring.

We have bullfrogs here in addition to spring peepers. I love how they sound, but those peepers can drive one crazy. Oh well, they're just celebrating spring (that's my theory anyway) so I can't begrudge them their high-pitched concerts.

>141 sibylline:: oh yes Lucy, I liked Book Haven too. I stumbled on that one before receiving your recommendations. Joseph Fox is a nice indie shop selling new books. I like Book Trader and Last Word because they deal in used books.

Bookhaven is all used too -- they have more Viragos than anybody and since they aren't on computer you have to go there (or call them up) to see what they have.

How I miss the peepers, Lucy. For me they are the sound of spring. They were all around my grandparents' farm and I used to love arriving there for the weekend and hearing them screeching loud all around us. And the bullfrogs in the swamp - that's another thing I miss. I wish there were some way of importing peepers and bullfrogs to my property, but I don't have a swamp for them and probably my abutters would not appreciate any attempt on my part to turn the lot between us into one.

You made me chuckle, Charlotte, because here I am longing for them but once they are here they are so LOUD! I hope they start up a few at a time and not all at once. Actually, that will be interesting to pay attention to! Not a lot of melting will happen today, alas, as it is cold. April 1 is looking less and less likely.

Meanwhile, I finished Brian Aldiss's Helliconia Spring. It took me a little while to get into it, not that I minded; Helliconia is a complicated planet with two suns and a 'Great Year' cycle that lasts well over a thousand years, causing a centuries long warm cycle followed by a centuries long cold cycle. The eco-system that has developed is (ha-ha) bi-polar, so during the warm spells the 'humans' fare well, and during the cold spells the principal (there are others) intelligent species, the multi-jointed, yellow-blooded, intelligent 'phagors,' referred to as 'the ancipitals,' dominate. The important point is that neither species can exist without the other, they are interdependent, that is how they have evolved. However and most cruelly, during the periods of change disequilibrium prevails and thousands of both humans and phagors die, the humans mostly from a tick-borne disease that the phagors host and the humans provide the breeding grounds (iew) for and also from out and out fighting, as they perceive each other as mortal enemies. During the 'winter' periods the humans generally slide far backwards, culturally caught up in the struggle of simply staying alive, everything, or almost everything gained and learned in the warm periods is lost, including the whys and wherefors of the astronomical reasons for the shifts. What matters is Helliconia is a deeply thought out world, the story is well told as a story, and the characters whose lives we follow while not hugely rounded are sufficiently unpredictible and interesting to be enjoyable.
My only complaint, if it is even a complaint, is that the 'Earth Station Avernus' posted above the planet which is a thousand light-years away from Earth, sending 'Eductainment' footage about the planet back to earth (viewed, yes, a thousand years later) feels like an afterthought or maybe a remnant from an earlier version of the story, a device that, so far, feels clunky and irrelevant. Maybe however in one of the two subsequent volumes the Avernus will play a more active role..... wait and see, I guess. ****

Helliconia Spring sounds like an interesting one, Lucy.

Thanks for the recording of the peepers Lucy! The Aldiss book looks interesting too. I, for one, would be interested in hearing more about your science fiction reads. But I also understand that it's hard to stop and write about each book as you finish it.

I am intrigued by Helliconia Spring, Lucy. Think I'll ad it to the Giant Freaking Wishlist just so I don't lose track of it.

Lucy,

I loved the Helliconia books and read the trilogy through twice while I was in college. I think one of the residents of Avernus plays a key part in the plot of "Helliconia Summer," but my memory has grown fuzzy so I can't swear to it. (It may be time for a reread.) I'm glad to hear the books have found a new admirer.

swynn - I'm glad that the Avernus maybe does kick in in some way in the next installment, all the rest is so well done -- I don't know if I mentioned it, but I'm impressed that it doesn't feel 'dated' at all -- if anything, more relevant than ever.

Sorry Charlotte! Luckily the wishlist can't topple over onto one!

No need for an apology, Lucy. I never mind the size of the GFW. I suspect that there things on it that I will never buy or read, but I like to keep everything that intrigues me there in case I run across it someday and am in a position to buy it.

I loved all three Helliconia books when I read them a long time ago. I recently bought two of the series for a reread when I came across them in a used book store. I'm continuing to look for the third.
(Wonder why there wasn't a 4th, so that all four seasons got equal time?)

I was wondering about that and decided maybe there wasn't any autumn..... just a guess..... spring came on fast and as I understand the reverse happens the same way? I'm dying to start the next one but I feel like I have to soldier on and finish Oryx and Crake which is creepy and depressing (in a good way -- it's a very good book, dystopic, depressing..... all that fun stuff!) In fact I'm taking a break from it right now. I hope to finish tomorrow.

>154 sibylline:. This is the sort of Atwood I avoid. I'm feeling the need for some Fannie Flagg. She has a trilogy of sorts set in a small Missouri town, starting with, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!. If I want creepy, dystopic, and depressing, all I have to do is turn on the news. Heh.

>154 sibylline:: I finished it (the O&C) last night. I didn't have to force myself to read that one...loved it! Though, you're right about it being depressing.

I tried the Aldiss sometime shortly after college and it didn't grab me. It's been a lot of decades, maybe I should give it another try.

I enjoy Fannie Flagg.. haven't read one in a while..

I had to look up Fannie Flagg..... sigh. She's never crossed my radar screen before, although, no doubt, for the next three weeks I will see her everywhere.

I've finished Oryx and Crake and I'm giving it a *****. Dystopic isn't my number one sci-fi choice, but what impressed me the most is that it is a ripping good story, incredibly well told with one of the more engaging protagonists I've encountered in a while. Most dystopic books I've read get so caught up in the details of survival that character and even story are sacrificed, but not here. Atwood even pauses to make us laugh, (the blue willies, I'm thinking). As a novel it hits all the novelly essentials, great story, great characters, masterful choice of 'narrative distance', masterful unfolding, even a hint of what Forster calls the prophetic, the greater glue that connects us all and makes us human. I found myself wishing the strange new humans well, with even some 'good riddance to the old.' Quite a remarkable book.

Did you ever see the movie Fried Green Tomatoes? 1991: it starred Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Cicely Tyson, etc.



That was based on FF's book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. If you haven't seen the movie, please get it. Oh do.

I LOVED that movie! Good, so I'm not totally out there in the dark. Is there a 'best' Flagg to start with? I could use a comfort read now and then.

I remember Fannie Flagg mostly as a comedian. Do you remember Allen Funt and Candid Camera? She was the co-host in the 1970s. I also remember her doing a falling-down funny parody of Lady Bird Johnson. FF was also from the South and she had sort of a big nose like Lady Bird, so the fit was perfect. The only book of hers I've read is FGT; I'm hoping the Missouri trilogy is as good.

Note: I edited this thing about 10 times because my head is underwater with a cold and I can't think or spel or type. Bleh.

I can't type today either and I have no excuse.....

Candid Camera was fun, and I do remember her co-hosting. Even the Lady Bird rings a bell -- I never registered her name, is all.

Hope the cold comes and goes quickly.

Thanks Lucy. I think I'm going to throw in the towell and watch a movie.

yes, love that movie :)

Lucy, I have an unread copy of Oryx and Crake. I need to get to it soon after seeing your 5 star rating.

Loved, loved loved Fried Green Tomatoes (the movie). Funny but I don't remember Kathy Bates being in it (but obviously she was) and I love almost anything she does. Must get that and watch again soon.

ETA never mind what I said about Bates. She of course was the present day woman who slammed her car into that of the snotty b***h in the store parking lot. How in the world did I forget that? Definitely looking for that movie again.

Kathy Bates was great in that movie. One memorable scene: she was in a parking lot, driving around, looking for a parking place and a car full of much younger girls pulled ahead of her and stole her place, laughing outrageously at the dumb old broad, saying "Face it lady, we're younger and faster." So Kathy backed up and drove her car deliberately into theirs, and she drove away laughing, saying, "Face it girls, I'm older and I have more insurance." It's a great movie.

Here's the link to the scene.

Hey Lucy, hope you're having a good weekend.
I own Oryx and Crake but Atwood scares me. Your comments however give me some incentive to finally get to it.

I'll be very interested to know what you think when you do read it.

yep... I love Kathy Bates too, in anything! That movie is a fave though.
For those of you who like it.. have you seen How To Make an American Quilt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Make_an_American_Quilt

No Kathy Bates, but Winona Ryder, Ellen Burstyn and Anne Bancroft...
One of my top 3 favorite movies..

eta

I mention it because I think it is another good "women's" movie.. good strong characters..

I'm rattling along in Cloud Atlas. What a book! What a read! What a writer!

Good to know you're enjoying your read. Hi Sib.

Hi back!

So I am here to report on my time working at our library today where I am putting together a sf and fantasy collection, many of the books donated by us when we moved. We got rid of the bad books, kept the best books, but had plenty of duplicates and quite good books to give, plus another person around the same time donated several fantasy boxes.

I've pretty well gone through the sf but I am not that well-read in the fantasy genre..... I'm going to look around for a fantasy group on here and beg them to help me -- I've written down all the names of the writers I don't know anything (or only a little) about. So if any of you are interested I will be sure to post a link to wherever that thread ends up and I hope you will send all your fantasy-loving friends there to help me out.

Here is the link: HERE

I found some fun things to bring home and look at -- a James Tiptree book of short stories that just has that 'look' of a good one (and indeed both reviews here seem to say that), an old George R R Martin and Lisa Tuttle, Windhaven, and an Octavia Butler, Dawn. I had a Russ somewhere too, in a pile, but I must have left it there.

The hardest thing is when it's a great book we don't have but such a lousy, yellowed falling-apart copy it can only go to the re-use shed at the transfer station..... but at least it can go there and maybe make somebody happy.

I had fun and came home dusty and happy. That's the main thing!

Book dust is good. So is happiness!

Glad you had fun, Lucy. It sounds like alot of work!

Hi Lucy. I went over and burdened you with my opinions. :-D

Which Tiptree was it? I haven't read her work for a long time—you mentioning it makes me want to see if I can find a copy buried up on the third floor somewhere.

Good for you, Lucy! Reading a great book and working on a great project...
good to see you having dusty fun!
I gave Cloud Atlas 5 stars - it has become one of my favorites. I struggled with the format at first, but it all came together. I really think I will re-read this book someday - a rarity for me.

I followed your fantasy link but I don't think I have much to add there. I'd keep the Norton and Vance for sure.

Anyway, about Cloud Atlas...why do you like it? The description turns me off but all the reviews sound great. I can't make up my mind on whether to plunge into it or not.

I just did a stupid, wrote a whole post, went off to look at something without saving it, lost it. All about why I am loving Cloud Atlas. In short, I probably wouldn't have read it if not for LT -- but trust everyone, plunge in!

All input in the fantasy task is helpful. Five boxes are a lot to deal with. I've read more of the older stuff I think and then the recent biggies like Martin and Bujold, de Lint, and Hobb and so on. But I didn't read any fantasy for two plus decades.....late 70's, 80's and most of the 90's when I think a fair amount of this stuff was written??? Not sure about that either. I'm familiar with most of these names, although not all.

I can't keep the Tiptree title in my head!! But here is a fascinating link to James Tiptree Jr/Alice Sheldon Bradley's wiki entry. Don't miss the bit about Silverberg et al:
here

It's the short stories with 10,000 years in the title!

Okay, I'm back Ten Thousand Light-years From Home Sheesh.

Did I mention I got my ER book from who knows when. I only sign up for one at a time and I don't sign up again til I've read and reviewed whatever shows up. Anyhow it's Meg Wolitzer's Uncoupling -- definitely not the book that is showing on my touchstone! Possibly because it's just barely out, it isn't showing up????

Your policy of not ordering a new ER book until you've reviewed the last one sounds brilliant! I've got 3 to review that I haven't read yet and another on the way for March and realize I'm in big trouble. Now to see if I've got the discipline to institute it!

I have managed to avoid temptation by not looking -- so I think I may have entirely missed March, but I'll be ready for April. And I'm motivated. Three! That's almost as bad as a stack of NYers!!!!!!

Will be interested to see what you think of Windhaven, Lucy. I set out to read it last year and then dropped it when I completely lost interest in it. I think that it's more Tuttle than Martin. At least I hope so. If not then George should be ashamed of himself.

Oh dear, well, it's a freebie so...... I'm not that impressed with Tuttle, something chirpy about her. It's doubly annoying because I sense potential there. Like, she can't decide if she's serious or making fun of the genre? Does that make sense?

I've finished Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success which I would categorize as a classic New Yorker idea, that is, to lift the rock on some accepted notion and see what turns up underneath it. You come away with a richer understanding about how extremes of success or failure happen -- he makes the point over and over and over that it isn't one thing only, say, hard work or talent, but a special brew of hard work AND talent AND smart enough (a very important point -- IQ above 115-20 means very little -- anyone from there on up can learn just about anything they need to if they are willing to work hard at it) AND timing -- call it luck, or seizing opportunity or a matching-up of talents with circumstances...... that is the x factor, the one. Mr. Microsoft went to a high school that had a time-share computer, bought by a very forward-looking parent group with their bake sale (or whatever) money. By the time he got to college where he had another big break computer-wise, he was already great at programming compared to most people, he had the expertise to be desirable as the field began to expand.... and so on. Yeah, he did the work and he's smart, but he was in the right place at the right time. Gladwell examines all sorts of professions and careers: Canadian hockey stars, airline pilot communications, math, feuding and a host of other areas where people make assumptions like 'oh I'm no good at math' and does his best to explode them. Birthdates, cultural folkways, social backgrounds..... many things contribute to the success or failure of an individual to get and take advantage of those lucky breaks. It's a great point, but it's a tricky one -- looked at one way you'd think, oh, it's just random, looked at another way the hard work piece especially stays intact. No one at all succeeds if they aren't super-committed to whatever it is. You will only become huge success if a number of things fall in place, however.
I have a great-great grandfather who was at West Point with all the men who subsequently became the 'big' generals on both sides of the Civil War. (Class of 1835 or so I think) He also became a general, a minor one, but mainly turned out to be a very competent bureaucrat -- he only commanded one engagement and mainly cleaned up after Sherman and after the war. To my mind he is a prime example of the Gladwell phenom. He was a smart-enough boy, son of successful hardware store owners from Massena NY and he got his big chance and got lucky.
One thing Gladwell doesn't talk about though is how some folks recognize those opportunities and step up and take advantage of them. A few times in my life I've recognized with a sort thrill that this is a break, a door opening, and I have gone through some of them, and I have chickened out of some others, sometimes to my regret. There is a factor of wanting something badly enough to throw yourself into the unknown that he does not address. It was a great listen -- he reads it himself and has a nice voice. ****

>186 sibylline:: I listened to him reading The Tipping Point, and would agree that he has a good voice for his material.

I like the neatness of a monthly thread, so I am moving over to April here I'm afraid it isn't set up yet, but I'm working on it!

I'm testing something to do with a photo, ignore this!

I've decided to try my hardest not to request any ER's for awhile. Once in awhile I'll find a gem and more often than not others are just a ho hum read. I've got way too many books that I really want to read lined up on my bookshelves and reading hohum books takes up too much time. Hope I'm not sounding to snobbery.

Ouliers looks like a fascinating book and your review is very helpful.

Hi sibyx, I wrote a more detailed message about the Outliers summary. Would you take a look here? Thanks!
http://www.librarything.com/topic/118658