March 2011

I know it's not over yet (and I may finish one more up before April) but I just couldn't wait to post!!

Beastly by Alex Flinn - I really enjoyed this one but it could turn out that the movie is better than the book. I haven't seen it yet but the author I feel leaves a little too much up to the reader's imagination (for a change.) For those of you not familiar, the book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen - Had to read this one for our new One Book, One Community initiative at school. It greatly appealed to both my environmentalist tree-hugger side and my rebellious, bad-ass side. :) It's about some middle school kids who find burrowing owls living on a lot that they want to bull-doze to put up a pancake house.

Trapped by Michael Northrop - I was hoping that reading this would negate the snow that doesn't seem to end here in PA. (Looking at the Winter Storm Watch for tomorrow of 5-10 inches, apparently I was wrong.) This one is about a group of kids and a teacher who get stranded in a New England high school during a snowstorm that doesn't seem to let up. It's not an entirely happy tale and is actually believable for survival fiction.

Finally, Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakely-Cartwright - This book was actually based on the movie. Catherine Hardwicke (of Twilight fame/infamy) approached the author to create this one in order to further flesh out the characters. I enjoyed the twist and could envision myself being there, although some of Valerie's decisions I felt were poor and mine would've been different. (But that's okay.) Be forewarned the final/bonus chapter that wraps things up (sloppily) is online.

Edit/Addition:

And I'm currently reading Red Kayak. I'm hoping to be done tonight. :)

Of the twelve books I finished this month four were audiobooks – a dramatic leap from the usual one per month. This is because they are usually what I ‘read’ in bed and I have been unwell for most of the time (nothing serious just a lingering cold) so there have been lots of early nights.

Brideshead Revisited read by Jeremy Irons, A Room with a View read by Frederick Davidson, The Tiger in the Well read by Anton Lesser and The Pursuit of Love read by Emilia Fox. Only Tiger was a new book the others have been read many times from the page in the past. All the readers were good, although Emilia Fox’s diction was poor. Listening to Jeremy Irons was like relaxing in a warm, scented bath! And Anton Lesser is my favourite male reader. Perhaps it’s my age, but I found the characters in Brideshead, Pursuit of Love and Room with a View rather irritating this time – they often seemed too young and silly, so, while I loved the reading I didn’t enjoy the books as much.

I read five books on my Kindle. I’m using this to read out of copyright books – they’re free! It was my intention to read ‘The Classics’ but this month it’s been the sensational books (really Penny Dreadfuls) of their day. I had recently re-read Three Weeks and this month I read its two sequels, One Day and High Noon, by Elinor Glyn. Three Weeks was worth it the other two were not. I’m also enjoying some Ripping Yarns. I’ve read several John Buchans lately and this month I finished Prester John. I can usually allow for the inherent racism, sexism and classism of the era and mentally set it aside but the racism in this was too much to cope with, so I can tick it off my TBR list but I shan’t be doing a re-read. The other Kindle reads were The Water Babies and Emma. One of the joys of owning a Kindle is that I never need be without some Jane Austen to read. While Emma is not my favourite (at least not this month) I do enjoy it. I was completely fooled by the mystery in the story the first time I read it (about 35 years ago) and each time I re-read it I notice more clues that passed me by before. I will probably not re-read The Water Babies. When in curmudgeon mode I deplore the short attention span of Young People Today but I’m sure I would have found this hard to read as a child – the adventure parts are interesting but the moralising ramblings in between seem to go on forever and to go nowhere.

Finally I have read some real paper books: Bury your dead the sixth book in the Three Pines series and just as good as the previous ones; and the 6th and 7th stories in the Sunday Philosophy Club series – The Lost Art of Gratitude and The Charming Quirks of Others. Neither of them were particularly wonderful but they are pleasant, comfortable reads and just what I need at the end of winter.

This month:

The extra 2% by Jonah Keri (LTER) – a management book on the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team and how they went from last to first using Wall Street principles.

British samplers by Jane Toller – a very brief sketch of British samplers along with Welsh, Scottish, American. Really more for the collector than the stitcher as Toller is an antiques dealer but her chapter on care of textiles is excellent.

The divided mind by John Sarno - a further discussion of his mindbody thesis (TMS – tension myositis syndrome) for pain and other physical maladies along with his basic findings. Other practitioners write the final chapters. I am reading a book by one of the contributors now and will report next month.

The age of wonder by Richard Holmes – a history of science in Britain in the romantic age written by a scholar of the period. Fascinating reading. (Actually a re-read to be able to write a review – as good the second time around.)

Napoleon's buttons by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson – how 17 chemical compounds changed history. Re-read to write review which is coming. (Having writer’s block with this one.)

Introducing RDA by Chris Oliver – read for work to better understand RDA (Resource Description and Access), FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) and FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data). Only a librarian could love this book but it’s the clearest explanations I have found.

Take time for paradise by A. Bartlett Giamatti (LTER) – the sociology of leisure, sports and games by the former Commissioner of baseball. Not really a baseball book exactly and written in the dense style of a scholar but well worth the time spent.

Comfort, healing and joy by David Fox (LTMG) – practical hints on how to live a better life. No secrets here but the chapters are short and are meant to be re-read and savored.

If I had to pick a favorite book this month, I would say The age of reason. There were no bad books in this batch.

And, except as noted, all books are reviewed.

Edited to fix touchstone

I was a reading fool this month - but I spent about a week in and out of bed trying to get over a cold, so that's my excuse (and I'm sticking to it!!)

Series Reads
The Cereal Murders - I listened to this on a trip - I didn't like the narration (though I have liked the narrator in the past); she made the main character sound more sarcastic than I "pictured" in my head.
The Laughter of Dead Kings - the last of the Vickie Bliss mysteries and a satisfying finish it was.
In the Company of Others - second in the Father Tim series by Jan Karon. I find her books to be comforting reading.
Booked to Die - The Bookman's Wake - I'm re-reading this series (just got in the mood) and it's fun because I live in Denver so all the city descriptions are familiar.
The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog -Amelia Peabody makes me giggle!
The Reverse of the Medal - still working my way through Patrick O'Brian's series.

Young Adult
It's So Amazing! - It's Perfectly Normal - did a little sex ed in our house this month :)
13 Little Blue Envelopes - audio - was entertaining
The Cay - picked up for my son but couldn't resist revisiting it myself!
for my Newberry project -
Lincoln: a photobiography - learned a few new facts, always nice ...
The Whipping Boy - easy to read and amusing
Joyful Noise - I'd really like to hear these read aloud. It was hard to imagine in my head!!
King of the Wind - my horse-mad daughter would love this
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - very touching, particularly as it is based on family history
Adam of the Road - hard to get started but then the story picked up
and a picture book, The Simple Prince, because someone asked me to review it...

Classics
Washington Square
Beowulf: A Prose Translation
The Declaration of Independence and Other Great Documents
A Room With a View - hey CDVicarage! did you enjoy it as much as I did?

Other Stuff
A Fistful of Rice - interesting stuff about micro-finance in India
Made for You and Me - received as an Early Review book - it posed some interesting questions
The Great Typo Hunt - read for bookclub - very verbose!
Pride of Carthage - also read for bookclub - readable and I learned quite a bit about Hannibal
Eli the Good - another Early Review book - beautiful book - a keeper
Just as I Am - free Kindle book - Christian fiction and pretty well written

My favorite of the month? Eli the Good. I love Silas House - mostly I really like the way he tells a story. I read a fair amount of good stuff this month - you can't go wrong with classics or Newberry award winners.

A very mixed month for me (and, btw, lovely to see some of our newer members leaping in so enthusiastically here!) with some very boring study, a couple of 'ho-hum's and some wonderful stuff:

1 Ghost of a Chance by Rhiannon Lassiter (no touchstones) - an ER book that wasn't clearly publicised as being for children (or maybe YA?), hence, quite a disappointment but at least a quick one.

2 Pain of Death by Adam Creed (again, no touchstones) - I had to go away and look this up because I couldn't remember a single thing about it. Clearly, I wasn't impressed.

3 Paranormality by Richard Wiseman (ditto touchstones) - one of those books that attempts to explain the mental connections and patterns the human mind makes - it looks at everything from optical illiusions to near-death experience and, although it doesn't really have anything new to say, makes for an interesting read.

4 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot - okay, I give up on touchstones today) - my first big success of the month. It's been talked about a lot on LT and there's not much I can add to the discussion. The book tells the story of a woman whose cancerous cells were taken from her body shortly before her death in 1951. Despite many unsuccessful previous attempts to do this with other patients, Henrietta's cells survived and multiplied to the extent that they are still being used in laboratories all over the world today. This book tells the reader about the many. many medical advances made thanks to these cells, while never forgetting the story of the very real person behind those advances. Fascinating.

5 Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman- the story of a house and its several generations of inhabitants. As one would expect from Hoffman, the story is lyrical and enchanting and a wonderful addition to anyone's library.

6 The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (Roddy Doyle) - I had been meaning to read this book practically since it was first published and was looking forward to it but I'm afraid Roddy Doyle and I just don't get on. I find his writing style forced and tedious and I'm just going to have to accept he's not for me. I know I'm in a minority there and happily bow to his many millions of fans who are seeing something in the books that I just don't get. I didn't finish this one.

7 31, Bond Street (Ellen Horan) - although I have a weak stomach these days for modern true crime, the historical ones are still able to grab me. This is the true story of the murder of Bond Street dentist Harvey Burdell and the trial of his mistress who stands accused of killing him. In the general style of books like The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

8 . . . But I didn't enjoy it half as much as this one - Schopenhauer's Telescope (Yippee! a working touchstone at last!). I picked this up with some trepidation as, judging by the cover blurb, it could have gone either way and been either very good or very boring. Two men stand in the woods outside some unspecified European town. One man is digging a hole, while the other watches him. To say much more than that would be to give away too much about the story but this is a beautifully written little book about the pacts we make with ourselves about doing the unthinkable. It's short enough to be read in a couple of evenings but the effects upon the reader remain much longer that that. A bit of a gem.

9 Faulks on Fiction - (Sebastian Faulks)- this is a book that accompanies a recent BBC2 series and both are a delight to anyone who loves books. Faulks looks at the development of character in some of our best-known literary classics, in particular concentrating on the various literary 'types' that include The Lover; The Villain; The Snob and The Hero, among whom are Tom Jones, Becky Sharp, Fagin, Heathcliff, Pip Pirrip - I could go on (and I'll leave it to you to decide which category each of these fals into. If you love reading about books as much as you love reading the books themselves this is a real treat.

10 City of Bones (Michael Connelly) - a good crime read that introduced me to an author I hadn't tried before. There's not a lot to say about most crime books but this was a good example of the genre. Bones from a 20 year old murder are found in woods and Detective Harry Bosch is called in to solve the crime. It's not great literature but it passed a couple of evenings very pleasantly and there were times when I had real trouble putting it down. Does what is says on the tin.

11 Coriolanus by Shakespeare

12 Coriolanus by Brecht - both versions of the play were for study purposes and all I can really say is that I'm glad they're over. There are some Shakey plays I love and there are some Brecht plays I love. These weren't amongst them.

13 However, the course I'm doing also required that I find a third version of the story to study and that gave me the perfect opportunity to pick up Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, which has been languishing on Mount TBR for far too long. It's no Jane Eyre but it's a fabulous read and I just wish I could have given it more time than study deadlines allowed for.

14 Little Face - I was utterly gripped by this psychological thriller by Sophie Hannah. It didn't take me long to work out who the 'baddie' was but what kept me up until four o' clock one morning was the desire to find out just how and why that person had committed their crimes - and the biggest mystery of the book and the hinge on which everything else hangs had me completely baffled until the end. I'll be looking out for more of Hannah's books.

15 There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya. This is a collection of fairy stories for grown-ups in the style of Angela Carter but with a distinctly Russian feel. I'm sure they won't be everyone's cup of tea but I found them enchanting in a surreal, dream-like and very dark way.

16 Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy by Marina Hyde. I've said quite a bit about this book elsewhere on LT so won't rehash it all again here. I will just say that if the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end every time some actor or singer gets roped in to pontificate on politics or some other subject they know nothing about then this book is a must. Not only is it an important and timely warning to the rest of the world that having made a couple of records does not qualify you as an expert on world peace, abortion, cancer or anything much else, it is also a delightfully bitchy and massively entertaining read.

Picking a 'book of the month' this time around is a toughie but, after lots of consideration and fumbling with the envelope, I'm going to announce a tie between two very different books, Schopenhauer's Telescope and Celebrity. I can't think of anyone I wouldn't recommend these books to.

ETA - Okay, take back everything I said about working touchstones. Schopenhauer's Telescope is by Gerard Donovan.

ETA (again) and now they're back! I give up.

HI,
I’m going to try and keep track of my reading in this group. So here’s March (I went on vacation, that should explain the high level of chick-lit this month). I'll start with the non-chick-lit.

Water for elephants by Sara Gruen I really enjoyed this book. The characters were real, the story was captivating. It has one of the saddest scenes I have ever read, where the old man is waiting for his family to take him from the home t o the circus. It was a beautifully simple, heartbreaking scene, partly because I’m sure it’s a true experience for many. I had been hesitating to read this book and was so glad I tried it when the place I was vacationing had a copy on the shelf.

The first three stories in Say You’re One of Them Uwem Akpan. All have been great stories. I will read the remaining stories soon. I read this at the start of March so I can recall detail of what I might like to comment on.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell I have read half. It was good, not quite what I was expecting (I had never read any of Goldwell before and was expecting something more like Freakonomics).

I finished Qissat Short Stories by Palestinian Women which I had started to in December. There are lots of interesting stories. This group of short stories was an interesting way to learn about a part of the world I don’t know much about. All the stories were well written and nice to read.

761509::Bridget Jones’s Diary Helen Fielding….Always a good read.

Good in Bed Jennifer Weiner I like that the characters are not like every other chick-lit character, they have unique personalities (I think most are pretty similar to Weiner herself). Lots of outlandish events but all in all a fun read.

Little Earthquakes Jennifer Weiner I have read several weiner books and this is the one I like the least (I’m glad I bought it second hand). It felt like it took a while for the story to get going, this may be because there are three women’s stories to tell so a few chapters are spent introducing each. Also, because there are many main characters you don’t get to really care about any of them because you really just spend superficial time with each of them. Although to give Weiner credit even her worst book is much better than a lot of the chick lit out there.

Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrnd I didn’t really like this book. It was readable enough on an airplane and at the beach, but not great. I won’t be picking up this author again.

Booksloth, don't feel bad about Roddy Doyle. Not for me, either. I love Irish lit. But I just can't get into Roddy Doyle. I'm not quite sure why. It just doesn't appeal to me. I don't know if it's the style, if it's the subject matter/characters/plot, or what. He just doesn't do it for me.

#7 Glad I'm not the only one!

#6 I have to ask - did you take Bridget Jones with you on holiday or find it in your room when you arrived? My reason for asking is because in the past 5 years or so I've found a copy of that book in every single apartment I've ever stayed in on holiday. I suppose it's some kind of proof that it's one pf those books that is fun to read but nobody wants to take home.

Thanks for your list _Lana_, lots of interesting stuf there. Soon be time for those April ones!

Not posting a March list - cannot separate March from April if I want to - so I will be posting a double list in the April thread - when I get the list done.

I am keeping a recent May one though - so this should work.