Fourpawz2 Soldiers on Toward 75

Here is the new thread.

Here's the link to the first thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/104720

Books that have come into the house since last time:

The Gilded Dinosaur by Mark Jaffe saw a program about these two paleontologists on PBS last week and had to have this book
Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford - had never heard of this author before reading Lady's Maid and thought I would like to read something of hers
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
Eating for England by Nigel Slater - saw this on one of elliepotten's threads last winter, I think it was
A Cotswold Killing by Rebecca Tope - you wouldn't believe the outrageous price I paid for this MM paperback
Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos - loved the film
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones - has been on the GFW for quite some time.

And that's it. Missing that book sale last month is sure hurting the new purchase totals this year. Ah, well.

Lost you for a bit, but I've found you again, Charlotte!

I'm glad. Hate being lost - it's my biggest phobia.

*tying a loJack to Charlotte* ... ok, I won't get to lose you again. :-)

Now, why didn't I think of that ages ago? I feel much better.

*waving* at Charlotte

Book No. 45 - A Mortal Bane by Roberta Gellis - was an o.k. 12th century, historical fiction murder mystery, which takes place in England and involves murder on church property and the whorehouse next door. Did not love it. There were too many suspects for me. The whores were interesting. I think a dyed-in-the-wool lover of historical mysteries might find it more interesting than I did.

3 stars
342 pages

Started it on 8/3/11 at 12:39 PM
Finished it on 8/6/11 at 3:44 PM

Took me 8 hours and 31 minutes to read it.

There were no books mentioned inside this book.

Books into the house since last time:
The Bells by Richard Harvell - which has been on the GFW since Ilana reviewed it and I was eager to purchase it.
and
The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace which I got in exchange for a Robin Hobb book that I bought on my previous trip to my local idie bookstore. Forgot I had already gotten the Hobb one free on my Kindle. Haven't done that much, but it has happened before. Guess I was swayed by the ever so attractive cover that I did not even stop to think if I might have it already. That's probably the one thing that I really miss with the Kindle - the artwork. They ought to fix that, even if it can't be in color.

Has been raining all morning and there is a nice damp and chilly wind out of the west - my favorite kind of weather! Wish it would stay like this all day.

Have replaced the giant dead TV with a smaller, infinitely superior flat screen. Only took me most all of yesterday afternoon (interrupted by a short break in which I finished book no. 45) to get it up and running. Was so delighted at actually having a working TV in the house that I watched the Red Sox play the Yankees yesterday afternoon - something I don't do. Good game.

Hi Charlotte, found you again! I'm so behind on everyone, but I'm all caught up with you now. I got The Blind Contessa's New Machine too recently and look forward to reading it. It would be interesting to keep a record of how long it takes me to get to a book after I've gotten it. I guess that could be done pretty easily in the book's main page, I seem to recall seeing a space to enter that info. Just one more thing to think of though!

Enjoy the new TV. I feel so "with it" since I got my HDTV a month ago. I haven't increased my TV watching much (yet, wait till the fall shows start up) but it does make for a more pleasant experience overall. Maybe it's the fact that it's the first TV I've actually purchased myself? Or at least... have put on credit which I'm paying back. :-S

I'm way behind too. It's either a matter of keeping up or reading. I've been reading so I'm way, way behind everywhere. You are so right about the picture. That first day, watching the Red Sox, I truly believe that if they'd kept the camera on any particular bearded player for five minutes straight I would have been able to count each and every hair on said player's face.
Will try to get back here later on today in order to account for my recent reading. And to catch up on threads.

Hi Charlotte, lost you for a couple of days.

I was thinking of you today because listening to Rules of Civility in which they mention quite a lot of... oh. Authors actually, not necessarily the books, though there are many quotes so... yeah, just have to figure out what books are quotes, that's all.

Thanks for the reminder that I still need to get to The Blind Contessa's New Machine. I am off to see if the local library has a copy yet. . .

Congrats on the new TV!

Hey Lucy! I haven't lost you, but I have to read the last 135 messages on your thread. Things get out of hand so quickly around here.

With some books, Ilana, it is quite burdensome to keep up with the books within books task I've set for myself. Intend to keep on til the end of the year though - can't stop now at month 8 now, can I?

I was surprised Stasia to see how pricey TBCNM is - or rather how small the books is. I think I was still on some kind of high from buying the TV and $14 plus dollars (less the exchange price on the Hobb book) did not strike me as being a bit much.

Book No. 46 - Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw - I had forgotten (if I ever knew) that this was part of another Arthurian trilogy (how many of these are there out there anyway?) and although I will probably always think that Bernard Cornwell has done the very best trilogy of them all I'm game to try others. This book revolved around Gawain and Arthur is a minor, almost invisible character for most of the time. Focusing on Gawain was not a problem for me - the problem was that HoM is super, super dull. It dragged pretty much from the beginning and I had to force myself to finish it. Well before the end I knew that I had no ambition to read the next two books in the series.

3 stars - because I know it is not badly written - just uninteresting to me
279 pages

Started on 8/6/11 at 5:13 PM
Finished on 8/10/11 at 10:59 AM

Took me 8 hours and 11 minutes to read this book.

No other books mentioned within this book

Next, I cheated a little bit with Book No. 47 - Catwings by Ursula K. LeGuin - which is without a doubt - a children's book. A nice little story about a litter of kittens who were born with nice big wings. They can literally fly. Nice illustrations. I bought it because I liked the title.

3.5 stars
40 pages

Started on 8/10/11 at 11:20 AM
Finished on 8/10/11 at 11: 40

Took me 20 minutes to read.

No other books mentioned inside this book (Cats don't read even though they like to interfere with the people they live with who are trying to read.)

Book No. 48 - Stormchild by Bernard Cornwell is not one of his historical fiction books, but rather it is a seagoing thriller from the early nineties. I bought it because it is by Cornwell and I wanted to see how he is/was at writing thrillers. One thing for sure - he knows his sailing stuff inside and out, or so it seems to me. The choice of this book might seem a little weird for someone like me as I don't care for the ocean at all. It's nice to walk on the beach in the off-season, I suppose, but as far as being on it or swimming in it or worst of all eating the hideous crap that comes out of it, I could hardly care less. But I read this book anyway and had a good time doing so.

The characters aren't exactly the most compelling - some of them were rather stock, but when writing about the ocean and sailing - especially in a raging storm or traveling into tiny, scary places were only a crazy person would go in a boat, Cornwell did a creditable job. Those parts felt very real to me - and made me more sure than ever, that I have no desire to go sailing over the bounding main anywhere.

It was a good, satisfying read - pure escapism.

4 stars - mostly for the parts about sailing.
469 pages

Started on 8/10/13 at 11:53 AM
Finished on 8/13/11 at 1:38 AM - A testament to how gripping this book was - I hardly ever refuse to go to sleep until I've finished a particular book as there is always tomorrow.

Took me 8 hours to read.

I think there was a book mentioned inside this one, but I forgot to write the name down and will have to go back and check on that later.

Book No. 49 - The Sisters by Mary S. Lovell - a biography of the six Mitford sisters - Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah - with a good deal concerning their parents, friends, other relations, husbands, lovers and prominent people of their time. I read this one out of order - way out of order - but I've been hankering - big time - to read this book ever since I got it and so I indulged. It was tremendously good and made me want to read lots more about this family. How they fought! How funny they were! How narrow-minded. How awfully they behaved toward one another. How they loved each other. Politics tore the family apart and left everything and everyone in a miserable Humpty-Dumpty-esque condition. I loved this book - even though it made me very sad.

5 stars
529 pages

Started on 8/14/11 at 6:48 AM
Finished on 8/15/11 at 6:34 PM

Good thing it did nothing but rain on Sunday and Monday because it took me 17 hours and 3 minutes to read this book.

Books mentioned inside this one:
The Canterville Ghost
ivanhoe
Highland Fling
Vile Bodies
Black Beauty
David Copperfield
Little Chimney Sweep by Blake
Cry Havoc
Jew Suss
Christmas Pudding
Mein Kampf
Wigs on the Green
Hons and Rebels
Love in a Cold Climate
The Brown Book of Hitler Terror
The Pursuit of Love
Don't Tell Alfred
Out of Bounds by Esmond Romilly
Boadilla
Friends Apart
Pigeon Pie
Brideshead Revisted
My Answer by Oswald Mosley
The Alternative by Oswald Mosley
Stuka Pilot
The Blessing
Lifemanship
Gamesmanship
One-Upmanship
Madame de Pompadour
Noblesse Oblige
Voltaire in Love
The Princesse de Cleves
The Little Hut
My Life by Oswald Mosley
The Water Beetle
The American Way of Death
The American Way of Birth
Kind and Usual Punishment
Poison Penmanship
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Frederick the Great by Nancy Mitford
A Life of Contrasts
Loved Ones by Diana Mitford
Rules of the Game by Nicholas Mosley
The House of Mitford
Faces of Philip
Grace Had an English Heart
Satanic Verses
The House by Duchess of Devonshire
The Estate by Duchess of Devonshire

*whew!*
Books about writers are the worst! Either they are writing books or they are reading them.

Wow 5 stars. And here I sit with that one on my shelf I think. I have some book about the sisters. Anyway, you have made me want to read this sooner rather than later.

Have you read The Mitfords by Charlotte Mosley yet? If not, give it a shot!

The Sisters sounds fascinating. Just so you know, the current touchstone leads to a book by Littell on the CIA. You say you read it out of order, but I don't see it as linked to a series?

but as far as being on it or swimming in it or worst of all eating the hideous crap that comes out of it, I could hardly care less.

You DO make me laugh Charlotte. I happen to love the ocean and miss it terribly.

I fixed it! (proud of myself)

It isn't part of a series - what I meant was that it was out of order for me. All of my books are supposed to wait patiently for me to read them in approximately the order I got them, which means pretty much of a two year wait at the least. But with this one I could not wait.

Re: the ocean - wanna trade spaces? (Please know that Willie is not allowed to leave the country - or so he claims - so any trade would mean that you must also trade sweet little Coco for the cat that is 'too mean to die'.)

Oh my, now I understand what you meant. I could never stick to a rigid system of any kind. Not disciplined enough, and besides, I need to have some spontaneity in all areas of life or else I just... well let's just say I do better that way.

You're by the ocean? Really?? I'd trade spaces with you in a heartbeat, but I don't think I could trade Coco for all the wealth in the world. He's just too precious to me. And sorry to say, but 'too mean to die' sounds like a scary prospect. :-)

Love your reviews, Charlotte. I'd forgotten about The Blind Contessa book, so catching up on your thread was a good reminder that I need to add this to my obese wish list.

Which version of the Kindle do you have? Because in the latest one, you can get pictures and diagrams on it, albeit in b/w.

I'm not sure exactly what version it is, Caroline, but it isn't one of the newer ones. I bought it sometime around late March, early April of 2010 as an indulgence brought on by the fact that for the first time (and probably the last time) I was getting a decent tax refund and I wanted to treat myself. Right after I got it - about three or four weeks later - the next version came out. Figures. I put The Blind Contessa on my GFW after Richard raved about it sometime last year. If all goes right I'll read it in about another 2 years. Unless I give in to another one of those urges.

Stasia - I haven't read the Charlotte Mosley book yet. It's one of the relatively huge number of books about this family that I want to read. I enjoyed The Sisters so much because they made me think of my own hideously dysfunctional family - only worse. My mother hated Jessica Mitford - I remember her engrossed in her The American Way of Death (which I've never read) and coming up for air periodically to denounce her as a "filthy Communist". Mummy was an un-repentant right wing nutcase.

Bonnie, you should track that puppy down and read it. It's way good.

I'm not right next to the ocean, Ilana. My town is. New Bedford sits right on the ocean and is supposed to be the fishing port that annually lands more seafood, dollar-wise, than any other one in the country. I live in the northern end of town, far away from the actual ocean. For some reason I've never really cared about the ocean all that much. The best thing about it is that it keeps a lot of the snow away in the winter time. Myself, I prefer rivers and lakes and even big ponds. There is a possibility that I might just be a changeling from Iowa.
I knew that it was unlikely that you would go for that Coco for Willie trade, but I had to try. He's just the cutest thing on four paws, I swear. You don't hold it against me, do you?

AAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!

Was just getting to the end of writing about Book 50 and 51 when my hand accidentally wiped out everything I'd written. I HATE that!

*sigh*

Will have to go pound head against wall and come back later once I've staunched the blood from expected head wound and stopped throwing things about the place generally.

Note to self: In future must write all LT entries elsewhere and then do a cut and paste.

Oh gawd! Don't you hate that?!?! I hate that too. I always promise myself to type things up elsewhere and then never don't. So sorry that happened to you. What I generally do is just do a "select all" and then "copy" once in a while, though that doesn't really work either because then I end up copying something else to insert here or there and then if something terrible has happened, end up doing a "paste" in hopes my long text will reappear, and then it's just some dumb web link that shows up, or something. Sometimes if I'm being especially clever (or just feeling especially paranoid), I copy everything into a mail message, which acts as a backup.

And no, not holding it against you. I would have tried the same scam if I were caught with a "too mean to die" situation. Ezra, who sometimes makes me want to rip all my hair out... well I sometimes think he'll probably outlive the two others, just to show me up. But we'll see.

Drop by my thread when you have a second, I'd like you to participate in a fun little project I've got going... it involves picking out a book for me...

No, don't pound the head, Charlotte! It hurts!!! I hate when that happens ... accidentally wiping out work done, although I also hate it when I pound my head. ;-)

I tend to write my reviews when I add books to my LT library, rather than in my thread, and that way I just have to cut and paste into my thread.

O.K. I've re-written - or at least I've attempted to do so. Somehow trying to recapture one's hopelessly lost entries is never very satisfactory, but there is no point in gnashing my teeth over it. It is what it is - and here it is:

Book No. 50 – The Night Watch by Sarah Waters – was an o.k. read for me. Not great – o.k. Told backward from just after WWII and going back to 1941 it was the story of a group of gay men and women living in London. I don’t care much for books done this way – it seems like such a blatant attempt at a gimmick. Occasionally it works, but most of the time I think that it would have been better without it. Of Waters’ books that I’ve read to date, I’d have to say that I liked this one the least. There were no characters that I really liked and the story was just kind of meh. I did like the bits that she wrote about London during the bombing and how these people managed to live in such an environment, but that was probably only about half of the story. I hope that this is the worst of her books for I’ve really enjoyed her other stuff.

Three stars
524 pages

Started on 8/13/11 at 8:45 AM
Finished on 8/20/11 at 12:55 PM

Took me 10 hours and 12 minutes to read it.

There was only one book mentioned inside this book – Frenchman’s Creek

Book No. 51 – Her Fearful Symmetry – by Audrey Niffenegger – I know that there is a lot of feeling out there – from disappointment to downright dislike - regarding this book, but I really, really liked it. Maybe part of it is because I’ve always thought it would be kind of neat to have some long lost/totally unknown relative leave me something like a flat in London, the way Valentina and Julia’s aunt did in this book. But beyond that I really liked the other things that Niffenegger wrote about – the apartment that the twins go to live in, Highgate Cemetery next door, the OCD upstairs neighbor and especially Aunt Elspeth. It was satisfyingly creepy and even when I saw the big OMG conclusion coming I was still left with my mouth hanging open and saying to Willie (who did not reply, as per usual) “I can’t believe she did that!”

For me this was a 4.5 star book
401 pages

Started on 8/20/11 at 1:32 PM
Finished on 8/21/11 at 2:32 PM

Took me 7 hours and 22 minutes to read.

Of course what with Aunt Elspeth having been a rare books dealer and everybody in the book being readers there is a goodly list of book titles to be found within this book. Namely –

Lonely Planet - not sure if this is an actual book, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt
Brideshead Revisted
The American Friend - not sure about this one either
Rough Guide - ditto
Time-Out - ditto
Super Mini British Slang Dictionary - ditto
Lucky Jim
Tristram Shandy
Villette
Middlemarch
Emma
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Turn of the Screw
The Woman in White
Blythe Spirit
Pomegranate Seed - think the touchstone is probably wrong
The Old Man and the Sea

I have to think that those titles I am not sure about have to be actual books, but am pretty sure that the touchstones are not right for them either. But - I decided to list every book this year so list them I must.

Books new to the house since last time - just 2 this time:
Lumby Lines by Gail Fraser and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography by Margaret Forster

Now I'm off to take a look at other people's stuff for a change.

Charlotte, come back! There's always room for your selection my friend.

Lonely Planet and Rough Guide are publishers of travel books - so I guess the volumes mentioned would have been one of those series, eg The Rough Guide to Portugal or Lonely Planet France etc.

Thanks, Genny. I suspected something like that, but there was not enough info to be sure.

And now for - HURRICANE WATCH 2011!!!! from here on the Southcoast of Massachusetts

Am pretty sick of this already, but that doesn't mean I'm completely stupid. Have no fear of storm surge - am way, way away from the water and the town is protected by a super terrific hurricane barrier that has worked perfectly for over forty years.

Did think it prudent to check the sump pump that I had installed last March to see if it actually works as there hasn't been enough water in basement for it to go on. Filled it to the point where the whole thing was submersed and...... NOTHING!!!! Have called Roto Rooter and they are supposed to be coming to find out what the problem is.

Plan to figure out what kinds of batteries I need and how many and then go and get them tomorrow after work. May not buy any milk even though it is supposed to be a southern New England tradition that everyone participates in. (That and the purchase of bread.) I can understand it in the winter when you can always stick your food in a snowbank if you have to, but what is the point of buying perishables in the summer when you know that the electricity is going out? Always seemed sort of dumb to me. Probably won't buy anything that will go bad this Saturday and wait for a better day when everything powers up again.

Am rooting for this thing to go over Connecticut, far, far to the west. New York would be even better. (sorry, all NYers and folks from the Nutmeg state!). I would rather be on the east side where the wind is worse than on the west side where the rain is worse. Better yet I would like it to take sharp dogleg east at about say, North Carolina and then never have to hear about it again. I never did care for the name of Irene....

Irene?

Hope the storm blows over and doesn't hit anyone, though that's probably wishful thinking!

You didn't pick a book for me finally... whatcha waiting for?? ;-)

I've got(had) four different female relations - mother-daughter combinations both of them - named Irene. It's just always been one of those names that I never liked. My family seems to have a lot of not great names like that. Maude, Ethel, Bess, Effie, Florence - not liking them so much, I have to say.

Book No. 52 - A Place of Execution by Val McDermid - was recommended to me by Suslyn, I believe it was, back a couple of years ago when I was doing some whinging about how much I did not care for mysteries, but was trying to get over it. Well, this book's turn finally came and I finished it this afternoon. For a very long while, I enjoyed this mystery that revolved around the disappearance of a child, the investigation, the resolution, etc., etc., but then Ms. McDermid did something that really annoyed me. She fell for the GIANT COINCIDENCE ploy. Now why did she have to go and do that? Naturally, it being a mystery novel I cannot speak very much about said GCp, but I thought it was a cheap way out and I do wish she had chosen some other way to work it out. I think she could have done it. Still - as the rest of the book was very readable and quite good I am only penalizing this book very lightly and am giving it -

3.5 stars
404 pages

Started on 8/21/11 at 3:11 PM
Finished on 8/25/11 at 4:32 PM

Took me 10 hours and 14 minutes to read it.

There were three books mentioned inside this one:-
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre and
Ten Rillington Place - a book that I have had on my GFW for some time. I read this book way back when I was just a kid - another inappropriate read from my childhood - and have been wanting to read it again.

#22: OK, I am glad that the Mosley book is on the TBR list. I also want to read more about the family.

I hope Irene does not hit you :)

Hope you survived Irene ok Charlotte?

Yes, I did survive Irene, Heather and rather handily compared to some. She did kind of wreck my participation in the Hurricane Readathon (my very first Readathon), though, when the power went off midday. It came back on in the evening, but I was pretty much done with reading by then, so I didn't finish properly.

I tell you there is nothing more discouraging when you don't have power to be able to look right across the street from where you live and see that the people who live over there do have power and that they are using it - right where the electricity-bereft can see them. If I made the rules I would make one that said - 'If I don't have electricity then nobody has electricity!' I'm kind of selfish that way - among others. Still - it happens all the time and I wish that they'd be the ones that lose it for a change instead of the people on my little side street.

Book No. 53 - my Readathon book - was Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin a honking good book about vampires, paddlewheel steamboats and the Mississippi River. It was just perfect at taking my mind off of all that nasty hurricane business. There is a really good vampire in this book who wants to gather up all of his fellow vamps and subject them to this cure he has come up with and then there is a really nasty vampire who is totally reactionary when it comes to the cure. Martin does an excellent job with this story. He made the era when the steamboat was king of the river very, very real for me and his take on vampires and how they 'live' highly entertaining. Can't talk much about the plot for fear of ruining it.

Four stars
350 pages

Started on 8/25/11 at 5:33 PM
Finished on 8/28/11 at 4:06 PM

Took me 10 hours and 8 minutes to read.

No books mentioned in this one.

Am not counting Beasts of No Nation which was the next book I picked up. After about 5 minutes i closed that puppy up - for good. Did not care for its writing style and will be sending it out into the wide, wide world looking for a new home if anyone will give it house room.

Book No. 54 - Earthman's Burden by Paul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson was a nice collection of science fiction short stories dating from the 1950's concerning a far away planet populated by creatures who look just like adorable teddy bears. They have this habit of reading Earth literature and then living out what they've read in a most obsessive fashion. I particularly liked The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch in which they've turned their society into one giant horse opera. That was probably the best of the six stories and I kind of wished that it had been the last story as I am one of those 'save the best for last' kinds of people.

3.25 stars
188 pages

Started on 8/28/11 at 5:05 PM
Finished on 8/29/11 at 4:57 PM

Took me 5 hours and 17 minutes to read.

No specific books mentioned in this one.

Books that have come into the house since last time:
A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and
So Much to Be Done

Am trying to read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand right now, but am wondering if I will finish it. I think it must not be a very good sign when I decide within two pages of the moment when the main character is introduced that I absolutely hate him. And he was introduced on Page 1.

Good review for Fevre Dream! I'll have to add that one to my wishlist

#34: I think it must not be a very good sign when I decide within two pages of the moment when the main character is introduced that I absolutely hate him. And he was introduced on Page 1.

LOL

I think I'm sending The Fountainhead on sabbatical for a while (maybe forever). I sneaked a peek at some reviews and began to lose whatever enthusiasm I still had for reading it.

Book No. 55 - HMS Cockerel by Dewey Lambdin - a rollicking good book. Full of the adventures of one of my favorite historical fiction characters - Alan Lewrie - both on the high seas and between the sheets. It's 1793 now. The French Revolution is still going on and Napoleon is just an artillery captain (The two of them meet briefly in this book. Alan winds up surrendering his sword to Napoleon, so I'm sure they will meet again) and the poor French Royalists who did not get themselves guillotined before this are in serious danger from the French Republicans who are moving south on the seaport town of Toulon intent upon executing anybody and everybody they missed before now.

By this time Alan's gotten married and has three children. He dearly loves his wife and kiddies, but he just can't help being tempted in other quarters. He's flawed, but endearing. It's the same way at sea - he makes mistakes, but always does his best, managing, more often than not, to pull it off with his outside of the box thinking. He's just a lot of fun for me - much more so than Hornblower or that other British sea-faring guy of the Napoleonic era. You know who I mean - what's his name. And he likes cats. too. How can I not love a hero who likes cats.

Anyway, I gave this book
4 and a half stars
401 pages

Started on 8/3/11 at 9:43 AM
Finished on 8/5/11 at 2:26 PM

There was one book mentioned in the Afterword:
The Rover by Joseph Conrad

>37 Fourpawz2: Is the "other" book the Maturin and Aubrey series by Patrick O'Brian? (I haven't read any...yet...it's just the only one that comes to mind re: British seafaring guys).

That's the one! At least I was able to read a couple (and a half) of the Hornblower books before I bogged down on the series. I couldn't even finish the first O'Brian book. For some reason I was not able to keep on reading when I was so confused by all those doggone nautical terms. There are probably just as many nauticalisms in Lambdin's stuff - they just don't seem to get between me and my enjoyment of the story.

Book No. 56 - Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie - I have been waiting patiently for the first Miss Marple in my quest to read all of AC's mysteries in order and finally the glad day arrived. For me, Miss M is by far the best of AC's sleuths. Guess I'm all about coziness.
In trying to puzzle out the identity of the murderer, I used the method whereby one decides who it is who is most unnecessary to the story at hand and that is usually who the guilty party is (works very well with one hour TV mysteries), but alas it failed me here. My choice did turn out to be a criminal, but turned out not to be the murderer. Still and all, I did not mind that - once again - I failed to figure things out before all was revealed.
Anyway, I did enjoy this one very much - for me it was so much better than most of her previous books. This book was published in 1930 and I think I noticed a kind of change in this one, in that all of the previous ones seemed as though they had been written sometime in the 19th century and with this one AC seems at last to have turned a corner and joined the modern world. I don't know why it seems that way to me - perhaps it has something to do with the Great Depression having gotten underway or some such. If the next one slips back into the previous pattern and once again commences to torture me with a truly dopey story then I guess I will have been proven wrong and it has something more to do with where she sets her stories and who is doing the crime-solving than with any kind of sea-change wrought by world events.

3.75 stars (and maybe a teensy bit more than that)
247 pages

Started on 9/5/11 at 2:53 PM
Finished on 9/10/1 at 2:12 PM

Took me 6 Hours and 25 minutes to read it.

There were no books mentioned inside this one

>39 Fourpawz2: I only read one Hornblower book and liked it alright, but not enough to devote myself to the series. I have heard that the nautical terms in O'Brian's books can be daunting, and I fully expect to have a dictionary at my elbow if/when I ever get to those books. :)

Glad you enjoyed your first Miss Marple book. I've read just two of Christie's - And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. I shall have to move up a Marple story on the TBR list. Your solve-the-mystery method reminds me of what I used to do years ago with the Boxcar Children book (the later books, not the original 19)...which adult do the kids never suspect (until the last chapter)?

#39 One of my ambitions is to reread all the AC's in order but given the number of Golden Age mystery series I'm currently in the middle of I don't think I will be starting my reread for some time.

I can never figure out who 'dunnit' either.

Hi Charlotte, things have been quiet around here!

I came and lurked a few times and kept wanting to comment about The Fountainhead which is now and old topic I do realize. I just wanted to say that someone I knew in RL had recommended that book to me knowing about my interest in design and it's principles and when I started the book, I quickly realized that we are not meant to like Roark. Trying to like him is like trying to hug a bristling porcupine, and while his individualism may be offensive, I found I respected his uncompromising views on what it means to be true to one's vision. If it weren't for that kind of rigour, art and culture would never have developed and expanded and grown over the centuries as they have done. Only true visionaries who stick to their own beliefs can achieve their goals in a world which constantly demands compromise and accepts mediocrity as the norm while hypocritically celebrating true genius. In any case, as a designer, I certainly admired his integrity and yes, his very intransigence... qualities I could not hold on to in my own work and projects, which always started out with the intention to set a high bar and ended up being singularly bland. True artists, the great masters and geniuses were never known to be particularly pleasant individuals or to follow the crowd. I've often felt that my desire to be liked has severely impeded my growth as an artist and wished sometimes I had the guts to just put my foot down and take a real stand.

Oh, and hi. Hope all is well with you. :-)

I was super lazy all last week and very, very neglectful of LT. Shame on me. Can't blame it on work cuz I was on vacation. I never go anywhere - just stay at home reading and trying to be somewhat useful. I kept meaning to come here and get things up to date, but obviously I failed.

I knew I wasn't supposed to like Roark, but I found him to be so very far beyond unpleasant. I kept wanting to growl 'Arrogant puppy!" at him and pitch the book across the room. But - it's a big book and I was afraid I might break something. I know I've read other books that revolved around people I would never think of liking, but I still liked the book just the same. But, for me, The Fountainhead was altogether different. I think it unlikely that I will be making another attempt to read it.

Book No. 57 - was The White Rose by Glen Cook, the last book in the Black Company trilogy. I read the first two books several years ago, but somehow I never got around to this one (it was lurking at the back of a double-stacked shelf) until now. I think that I liked it the best of the three. Cook's stuff is not like other fantasies - overstocked with backstory, adjectives and characters. It is spare and different. I especially enjoyed the sentient rocks. They are not the kinds of rocks that you might chuck at someone, but something, I gather, more like Stonehenge-type standing stones. They talk and move around The Plain of Fear - which is where a lot of the action takes place. He also has stands of poisonous coral on TPoF, walking trees, windwhales (they fly and the Company uses them like battleships), mantas (think fighter jets) and dreadful lightning storms, called change storms because anything caught in them changes hideously. Very enjoyable
4 stars
317 pages

Started on 9/10/11 at 3:29 PM
Finished on 9/13/11 at 2:52 PM

Took me 6 hours and 29 minutes to read it.

No books mentioned inside this one.

Book new to the house since last time:

The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse by John R. Erickson - I love the Hank the Cowdog books and when I was floundering around trying to think of what I should get for my first Audible.com book I decided on this one because I have a couple of others on tape. It was harder than I thought it would be to pick out books to listen to for I have a serious preference for books that I can touch. If I can't touch them, they almost seem to me to be inferior somehow. Am going to have to try to get over this some.

The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb - another Audible.com book. Hey - they were having a sale.
The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
Indiana by George Sand
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan - Yay! I got the last copy in the store.
Black Ships by Jo Graham
The Fallen and Leviathan by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Am pretty sure that I am giving up on The Dragonbone Chair. I'm almost at page 200 and it is just sooooo slow, taking forever to move anywhere at all. This is one of those fantasy books that is quite guilty of too much description, too many adjectives. I'm supposed to like Simon aren't I? But instead he is just a very annoying adolescent and I don't care about him. (Also, I suspect that this is a Quest fantasy and you know how I feel about them.) That said, I have the next book (which is really so big that they published it in two physical books) in the series taking up room on my TBR shelf to no purpose. Thank goodness I bought them at a used book sale.

Have completed another book, but it has a lot of books inside it and I have to get the list together (it's in a couple of different places) before I list it here.

I know what you mean about Roark! And what a name!

I just noticed that LT lists Garth Nix as the author of Oliver Twist. Now how the heck did that happen?!!

Book No. 58 - Aristotle's Children by Richard E. Rubenstein - traces the discovery (re-discovery?) and emergence of Aristotelian thought and its influences on Christianity from the time of Augustine through to the time of the rise of Protestantism when Faith and Science went their separate ways. (Muslim thought was also influenced by the re-discovery of Aristotle, but for a much shorter time period as the conservative, fundamental elements clamped down Islam in the 12th century and have been holding it in thrall ever since.)

I know little about philosophy - it is a subject that taxes my poor, feeble brain - but after reading this book over many, many weeks, I find myself wanting to know more about the subject. (Thus my purchase of The Dream of Reason last week.) As Rubenstein writes about it, philosophy is not just some silly, waste of time, but instead both of the Ancient Greek philosophies (Aristotle's and Plato's) had a profound influence on Christian thought and history throughout the early and middle Medieval periods.

Anyway, I liked this book very much. I did have to read it slowly and I couldn't read too much of it at once in order to prevent brain over-load, but I never thought for a minute of not finishing it.

3.75 stars
298 pages

Started on 7/4/11 at 1:32 PM
Finished on 9/14/11 at 2:31 PM

Took me 14 hours exactly to read this book

These are the books/works mentioned inside this one:

Bible
The Bhagavad Gita
Quran
2001: A Space Odyssey
Almagest by Ptolemy
On The Art of Healing by Galen
On Anatomical Procedures by Galen
Elements of Geometry by Euclid

De Anima
Metaphysics
Physics
On the Heavens
History of Animals
On Generation and Corruption
Nichomachean Ethics
Politics
- all by Aristotle

Theology of Aristotle
Book of Causes – possibly by Aristotle
The Sublime Faith – Abraham ibn Daud
Algebra by al-Khwarizimi
The Guide to the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides*
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
Confession of Augustine
History of the Goths by Cassiodorus
Organon by Aristotle
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
Timaeus by Plato
The Incoherence of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali
Monologion by St. Anselm
Proslogion by St Anselm
On the Universe – a spurious work – not Aristotle’s
On There Being Only One Intellect by St. Thomas Aquinas
The Correction of Brother Thomas by William de la Mare
The Correction of the Corruption of Brother Thomas by John of Paris
Image of the World by Pierre D’Ailly
The Book of the Heavens and the Earth by Nicole Oresme

*I really like saying this name - my ears find it very entertaining. There are words/names that I really like - and others that I really hate - and this is one of the former.

I have finished another book, but I've run out of time for now as it is time to heat up the spaghetti sauce and have a little something to eat.

Book No. 59 - The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt - is an obscure oldie written around the turn of the last century, I believe. The story concerns an imaginary southern town, the ongoing relations between it's white and black citizens and a group of three horrible men who conspire to turn public opinion against the town's blacks in order to take power away from the Reconstruction Republicans who are running things. Their plotting is only one aspect of the story - much of the book is taken up with the white Delamere (headed by a fine old aristocrat) and Carteret (headed by an evil plotting newspaper owner) families and the black Dr. Miller (wonderful surgeon and founder of a colored hospital) and his family. Dr. Miller's and Major Carteret's wives have a blood relationship that causes heartache and problems for them and their families which might have been resolved long, long ago if not for other people's interference. Rounding everything off is the brewing up of a bloody race riot by the three conspirators.

There is a good deal of dialect in this novel - which can be a little annoying - but I got used to it after a short while. Overall I was surprised at how modern the book seemed and how readable it was.

Giving this one 3.5 stars
310 pages

Started on 9/17/11 at 4:00 PM
Finished on 9/21/11 at 12:02 PM

Took me 7 hours and 13 minutes to read this book

There were no other books mentioned inside this one.

Have started Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George. It's massive - a little too massive if you've read her story previously - several times. Will do my best to get through it before the snow flies.

That is hilarious about Oliver Twist! I occasionally stumble into very strange LT mix-ups but that one is above the norm!

The Chesnutt sounds interesting -- I'm often amazed by how 'contemporary' a book written long ago can be.

#45 & 48 Garth Nix will presumably have written an introduction for one particular version. I think it's a new feature they're working on which isn't completely fleshed out yet which is aiming to give multiple authors credit for books (so Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman both get credit for Good Omens for example). I think they need to add some kind of quantifier to the author page though because Garth Nix obviously didn't write Oliver Twist but it looks that way from his author page.

There's a thread about it here.

Hi Charlotte. First of all, I feel I owe you an apology. Here I was complaining this week about not receiving comments and meanwhile, I've come and lurked on your thread I don't know how many times. I've been wanting to continue the discussion on Fountainhead for example, because for me it was a book that was quite momentous, but will drop it and will just say you were wise not to throw such a big book against the wall as would have ended up with a hole to fix, no doubt.

I used to be quite keen on philosophy in my late teens and early twenties, but I too find it taxes my brain now. That said, I've always thought it to be a very important topic and a basic necessity for the development of thought... so that I should probably keep at it because I'm practically brain dead in my middle age. So I admire your valiant effort with Aristotle's Children. Some books aren't meant to be page turners, especially not when they contain dense information. Now you're making me feel so lazy with all the fiction and brain candy I've been feeding myself with.

Funny about the Oliver Twist attribution, but Heather's explanation makes sense.

Hugs!

Well, I guess that explains all that weirdness, Heather. I don't imagine that it will stay that way for long.

No apologies necessary, Ilana. I don't mind discussing The Fountainhead, but I fear I gave up on it too soon to be able to contribute much. I can fully understand how a character who stands up for his beliefs would be an admirable thing, but Roark - for me - was just so wretchedly unpleasant. There seemed, to me, no need to be that way. Of course, if he had been true to himself AND a nice person at the same time I suppose there might not be much of a story left. (Hard for me to really tell this last, of course, considering the point at which I put it back on the shelf.) I don't know - he just seemed to have, at much too late an age, a juvenile's attitude. You know the kind I mean - the fifteen and sixteen year olds who just get so much enjoyment out of saying odious things and making judgments. I just want to swat them.

I did not know you had an interest in philosophy. I can't say that I really ever did, but I was definitely interested in the things that Rubinstein wrote about in Aristotle's Children. Another interesting avenue for me to explore!

Book No. 60 - The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse by John R. Erickson - my first Audible.com book and, as usual for me, very enjoyable. I know that these are kid's books, (I have several others on tape) but I just love Hank, the self-appointed Head of Ranch Security, and all the other characters. His side-kick, cowardly, sweet Drover, Pete the barn cat, Hank's nemesis, Sally Mae (wife of Loper, Hank's owner) is present as well several members of Sally Mae's family are all present. Rip and Snort - Hank's coyote friends and my especial favorites - are not in this book, but that did not take away from my enjoyment. Once again Hank came through and the ranch and everything and everyone on it was properly protected by him and his super sleuthing instincts.

4.5 stars

Started on 9/12/11 at 3:11 PM
Finished on 9/27/11 at 4:34 PM (in the car on the way home from work. I know I promised my cousin that I wouldn't listen to my iPod in the car anymore, but he specifically asked me not to 'listen to music' - nothing about books was said. Promise still kept - sort of.)

No books were mentioned inside this one - Hank is much too busy keeping everything and everyone safe and secure to be reading. I believe he actually can read, but chooses only to read things that have some relevance to his job as Head of Ranch Security.

Hank the Cowdog—how sweeeeet!!! :-)

I clicked on the touchstone and saw this latest book is the 8th in the series, so assumed you've read the previous ones? Sounds like a fun story.

Back to The Fountainhead, I'm not sure to what extent this has anything to do with it, but it was originally suggested to me by a young man, a lover, who having been a diplomat's child (a "diplo-brat" as Suz would say) had moved around all over the world and had an usual life in general and some very clear ideas about what was morally right and wrong, which did not necessarily fit into the expected patterns. At the time, I was fascinated by this. I was in my 30s and I guess it took me a long long time to grow out of my teens (perhaps never will for a variety of reasons), and I thought that this sort of thinking went hand in hand with artistic temperament. I'm not sure if I've known anyone quite as bad as Roark, but have definitely come across some incredibly selfish individuals in both my personal and professional life (though for the record, also want to say that have met countless amazingly kind people as well). So, while I did not at all like Roark in the least, I took it as a given and accepted this about him as part of the larger story. That being said, it may very well be that the book itself lacks maturity. I know Ayn Rand novels, specifically this one and Cloud Atlas are part of the curriculum in some posh colleges in the U.S. (read about that in Vanity Fair articles at some point) and the author and her philosophy have come under lots of criticism over time, since, as I understand it, part of her belief system was that the individual should prevail. Albeit all that, I found it made for a fascinating read, but I concede that it's probably not for everybody, and I don't know how I would feel about it if I tried to read it now, when so many things in my life have changed (no more lovers, for one!)

I can't say I've read many philosophical works, but always been interested in the philosophical aspect and systems of various authors I've read over the years, including works such as The Republic and The Symposium both by Plato, various others such as Camus and Simone de Beauvoir most of which I studied within academic contexts (thought de Beauvoir was kept for my "fun" reads... I was pretty serious at the time)

Oops. I've been going on forever. Sorry about that.

Hank is the cutest thing, Ilana and I think it's mostly because he just doesn't always 'get' things. I don't have all of the previous seven books - think I'm missing a couple, but when I was cruising through the Hank books on Audible, I wanted to get the biggest one that I could for my money - so to speak. There are dozens more of them and I plan to get them all - eventually. I really enjoy Erickson's reading of his books. Each one has a couple of songs and they are usually funny and well done. I especially like the way he does Sally Mae's voice - it's so obviously a man doing an imitation of a woman's voice and not well, but I don't know, I think that kind of adds to my enjoyment of it.

I can't say that I've ever known anybody exactly like Roark - except for one friend who had just the snootiest attitude toward anyone she did not consider her intellectual equal. I am sad to say that in the beginning of our friendship I admired her so slavishly that I did nothing to keep her from hurting another friend who she considered not up to her standards. It was not my finest moment.

So, you've actually read The Republic. I know I was given a copy in high school for some class or other and I suppose I read it, but I can't remember one thing about it except for the cover which was red, blue and grey. I think, at the time, it must have been beyond me.

Book No. 60 - was Wellington by Elizabeth Longford. This was the second book of her fairly massive biography of the Duke. I read the first one, which followed him from the cradle through the Battle of Waterloo, several years ago. This book literally picks up his life from the day after the battle and continues on through to the end. It was a natural dividing place given that Wellington's life on the field of battle was done after Waterloo and from then on he devoted himself to serving the Crown.

Longford does not have a very engaging manner of writing; it almost seems as if she assumes that the reader must be aware of a very great lot that he/she (me, actually) doesn't really know at all. Some of the political stuff was a slog - a lot of the inner workings of the House of Lords and the general political system seemed pretty obscure at times. Or maybe I'm just a dull American or something - I don't know.

Still, though, Wellington comes through as a great man, just the same. Although he is known to history as 'The Iron Duke', he had many endearing and fine qualities - his way with children, his generosity, his refusal to deal in patronage - very unusual in a politician of his time (or any other, for that matter).

It was worth the time I spent on it even if I didn't understand everything.

Three stars
417 pages
Started on 9/14/11 at 2:53 PM
Finished on 10/1/11 at 3:17 PM

There were a few books mentioned inside this one:

Candide by Voltaire
Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb
The Great Reform Bill by J.R.M. Butler
Holy Living and Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor
Demonstration of the Truth of Christianity by Keith
and
Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion by Nicholas Patrick Wiseman - These last 4 were the books that were in the Duke's bedroom when he died.

Am kind of looking forward to the end of this year when I can stop keeping track of 'books within books'. Think I may keep track of something else next year. Something like - eye-color or hair color or something else less taxing.

Absorbing discussion these last few entries..... my daughter was a Hank maniac and we have, in fact, a cat named Hank (Hank the Goof Cat) -- he's huge and very silly, so well-named. My husband read them aloud to our daughter and he was brilliant. My best 'voice' was his little buddy dog who was always limping around, "my laig, my laig!" Drover! Hmmmm. We liked Erickson's reading too, of course. For some reason Rip and Snort come up fairly often as a topic of convo. "You're eating that like you are Rip or Snort" stuff like that.

You've been valiant listing titles and I've read it with great interest. Locales might be interesting too.

I'll definitely have to look Hank up. Didn't realize they were all on Audible.

I'm always amazed about your assiduity with keeping track of the book titles mentioned. I always wonder how you do it. I mean, do you have pen and paper at hand all the time to jot them down? I keep thinking I'll put post-it notes whenever I come across parts that I'd like to quote in my reviews later, but then never get around to doing it. It's been fun seeing all the books you've mentioned so far.

I agree it has been so interesting to see what books are mentioned. But it must be quite a task to keep on top of...

I pretty much keep lists in different places - little pads of paper, index cards, my iPod, a little notebook (currently). The other day when I was listening to Stiff while sitting in my car, waiting for my friend (and fellow car-pooler) who was inside her mother-in-law's apt. getting her fed and ready for the day, I suddenly realized that a book had been mentioned, so I had to scrabble around looking for something resembling paper in order to write the name down. All I could find was a register tape from CVS so I wrote the info on the back of it - after having to stretch myself all out of shape trying to paw around in my bag that was sitting on the floor in the back and was covered up by my lunch box looking for a pen. And I am not a limber kind of person. This is one of the reasons why this has gotten to be a chore and why I am looking forward to being done with it. Likewise my decision to chart precisely how long it is taking me to read books - something I've been doing since sometime this past summer. (Don't know where I was going with that.)

Book No. 61 - Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George - one, freakin' GYNORMOUS pile of paper and too long by about 250 to 300 pages - at the very least. This woman needs to be reined in by her publisher. Really she does. There were many interludes that were not necessary to the telling of this story. I could not help but think, at times, that she could not bear not to use each and every little piece of minutia she uncovered in the course of her research. She should work on that. No need to beat the reader to death with a superfluity of info - especially when it adds nothing to the telling of the tale.

As for Mary herself, George's version did nothing to make me like this woman, who was clearly incredibly unsuited to the role she was born into. I think when I was young, I had a certain amount of sympathy for Mary, but after this reading of her story, I could only think of the people who died on her account and of poor Scotland. She was weak at a time when the country needed a different kind of ruler entirely - someone strong and savvy who could have dealt with Knox and all the treacherous, ambitious, lying Lords of her time. Mary Stewart plainly never had what it took.

Cannot recommend this book for people who might have a life. A better choice, I think, would be Royal Road to Fotheringhay by Jean Plaidy (aka Victoria Holt or Antonia Fraser's biography of Mary.

Giving this one 3 stars
866 pages

Started this one on 9/21/11 at 12:21 PM
Finished it on 10/10/11 at 2:00 PM

Took me 28 hours and 34 minutes to read it.

These books were mentioned inside this one:

The Bible - not the King James version for sure!!
Stratagems and Subtleties of War by Sextus Julius
The Order of Battle by Aelian
Devises Heroiques by Claud Paradin
La Nature et Diversite des Poissons by Pierre Belon
and
Julius Cesar's Commentaries

Was horrified, last week, to hear a newscaster on Boston's NPR station burbling about one of the winners of the 'Noble Prize'. Noble? Really? This is not the first time that I've heard one of their people mangle the pronunciation of a word or a name. Where are they getting these people?

I, for one, have considered keeping track of how long it takes me to read books, but because it's so much work I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.

Sorry you didn't enjoy Mary Queen of Scotland more than that. I've had The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers on my wishlist for a while, but see that you only rated that one three stars as well. Would it be once again because of too much material? I know it's a pretty enormous book, which puts me off a little, as do all books over 400-500 pages.

Who knows where they get their newscasters. Apparently, all they need to be good at is to read from their cue cards or whatever. Maybe saying 'Noble' was a kind of editorial comment on the nature of the prize? Doubt it somehow, but I can see why some people would make that mistake. Kind of pathetic in this case.

I think that I only gave that one three stars because when I was entering it into my library it had been many years since I read it and I really couldn't remember very much about it. I remember liking it, but not being in love with it. That particular copy is probably the oddest book among all the books that I own as it was in a fire where it got completely soaked - so much so that many people would have just called it a complete loss, thrown it away and replaced it. However, as my father had bought it as a Christmas present for me and money as always was an issue he did not like having to buy it again. So he put it in the freezer and that Christmas I received this huge, heavy, frozen chunk of paper. It took a few weeks of thawing it out in front of a heat register before it was dry enough for the pages to separate so that reading could commence.

I've finished another book and planned to enter it now, but I am in bed and my notebook is elsewhere. As it has been a vicious bear of a day - and an expensive one with a HUGE unexpected car repair bill - I am wiped and not inclined to go creeping about in search of said notebook. Will have to put off logging the latest book until a later time.

That is indeed a strange-sounding book, as far as condition goes. I'm surprised it was readable at all by the time it was dry enough to handle.

Sorry about the car repair bill. One thing I definitely do NOT miss about having a car.

Hope you're feeling better by now Charlotte.

That book, physically, is about a third bigger than it should be. I think getting soaked and then frozen like that made things sort of pop out a bit more. But it wasn't at all difficult to read. Still smells a little bit smoky even after all these years.

I so wish I did not have to have a car, but this city does not have the greatest public transport system. As I work in the most crime ridden part of the city (the part where the random shootings take place) I really would not want to use it for commuting. I think I've assimilated the unpleasantness of the bill now and I will deal with it without limiting myself to gruel and water for the immediate future.

Book No. 62 - Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron is a straight up mystery and the first book in the Deborah Knott series. As per usual, at the very beginning I was not loving it, but about a third of the way through I started to like it. Deborah Knott, a lawyer running for judge in a fictional North Carolina county, is hired by a local girl to solve the murder of the girl's mother that took place when she was just a baby. It was a gruesome murder - the young mother was shot in the head and left in an abandoned mill building for several days with her infant daughter until the two of them are found by workmen in the area. Deborah does not want to take this on, but she has a connection to the dead woman's daughter - she used to babysit for her - and she agrees to look into it.

At 261 pages this book was just the right length. I'm giving it 3.25 stars and I intend to read the next book in the series which for this mystery-phobe is kind of unusual.

Started it on 9/24/11 at 10:09 PM hoping to get a little relief from the whole Mary Queen of Scots thing.
Finished it on 10/11/11 at 5:50 PM

Took me 4 hours and 53 minutes to read this one.

There were no books mentioned within this book

Books that came into the house since last time:

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - had to have this one as it is the first book in a 34 book Historical Fiction series. 34 books!? Really? I was amazed and curious and think that I should suspend the Rule of the Shelf and read this one out of order, just because, if I don't I may die before I get through the series.
Walking to Gatlinburg by Howard Frank Mosher
Stiff by Mary Roach - currently listening to this one. Am not sure if listening to it while grocery shopping is a good idea, but I did it yesterday. Tried not to make too many faces as I went along lest my fellow shoppers think that it had something to do with the food.

There are a couple more titles, but I can't remember them or get to them just now so will have to list them another time.

I'm happy that you've found a mystery that appealed to you Charlotte. I haven't read many mysteries with female detectives, so might look into this one.

eta: looks like they have the ENTIRE series at the library. Which is practically unheard of. Have added Bootlegger's Daughter to the continually expanding wishlist.

A 34-book series sounds like quite the commitment. Good luck with that one! :-)

We managed to accidentally flood our new flat two weeks before we were getting married. Luckily nothing really got damaged (although we had to hire dehumidifiers to dry out the carpets) but if a book had got soaked I would never have thought of putting it in the freezer! I'm very impressed that it survived the thawing process.

"Tried not to make too many faces as I went along lest my fellow shoppers think that it had something to do with the food."

That did make me chuckle :-)

Have you read Mary Roach before? I read Packing for Mars last year and really enjoyed it but for some reason haven't got round to her other books.

No, I haven't read Roach before, Heather. I've kind of had it in the back of my mind for a while and decided to get it now because Audible had a great sale.
I've just finished the bits on embalming and decomposition and am thinking that I must leave instructions that my corpse is to be hurried off to the crematorium immediately, if not sooner! Truly.

Books that have come into the house since the last time:

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens - audible.com
Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay - audible.com
One Summer by David Baldacci - lent to me by a friend. Have a feeling that this is not something I would have chosen on my own.
Murder Past Due by Miranda James

Book No. 63 - The Green Branch by Edith Pargeter which is the second book in The Heaven Tree Trilogy. The trilogy is straight historical fiction of 13th century England, instead of historical fiction mystery - the genre for which Pargeter is best known.

I think that I read the first book in 2008, so it was hardly surprising that I could barely remember what had gone before. However, I got up to speed before long and found that I liked this book even better than the first. It turns out that son of the first book's hero, Harry Talvace - who is also named Harry - is even more stubborn than his father was - if that is possible and it gets him into a lot of trouble. And young Harry is treated even worse than his father was, by their mutual enemy, Sir Ralf Isambard. The things that Isambard does to the Talvace men out of sheer hatred are really dreadful. I mean really - you ought not to go around digging up dead men just to spite them. It isn't done. Still and all, Isambard is a worthy villain and he and young Harry have a curious relationship. It almost seems as if they both love one another while at the same time they truly hate one another. I expect that the third and last part of the trilogy won't let me down in its excellence when I get to it - which I hope is not more than another three or four months.

I suspect when I'm done with this trilogy that it might end up being among my favorites.

4 stars
259 pages

Started on 10/11/11 at 6:03 PM
Finished on 10/17/11 at 6:09 PM

Took me 9 hours and 13 minutes to read this book.

No other books were mentioned inside this one.

Book No. 64 - was The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly which was one of my SantaThing books from a couple of years ago. Very enjoyable. It was sad, funny, scary, and exciting all at once. It had the flavor of a children's book, but in the end, it seemed to me, more like a book for adults. I liked the different take Connolly had on several of the Fairy Tales he recounted in the course of the book and I especially liked his version of Snow White and Seven Dwarves. All around it was a good read.

339 pages
4 stars

Started on 10/17/11 at 7:12 PM
Finished on 10/20/11 at 8:39 AM

Took me 8 hours and 4 minutes to read.

There were no actual books named inside this one.

Book No. 65 - The Mousewife by Rumer Godden - is an out and out children's book, probably the 4 to six year old group. It was the story of the Mousewife, a mouse who lives in the house of a spinster who has captured a bird and put it in a cage meaning to keep it as her pet. The Mousewife who has a hard time getting enough food for her family starts filching food from the bird's cage. The spinster keeps a too-clean house and the Mousewife's husband seems to be a lazy bugger and is no help to her, pleading sickness as his reason for staying in bed all the time. Eventually, however, she gets to know the bird, begins to feel sorry for it, trapped as it is inside the spinster's house and eventually thinks of how to help the bird escape before it dies. It was a quiet sort of story. I loved that the Mousewife named one of her children Flannelette for the scrap of fabric she brought home to her nest.

Started and finished this book on 10/20 and it took me only 17 minutes to read it. It was just 46 pages long and a lot of that was taken up with illustrations (probably the book's weakest bit), but it is a book and at this late date I'll count any book no matter how small. I am way behind last year's totals and though I know that it is not about the numbers, I always want to read just a little more than I did the year before. I won't even come close this year.

3.5 stars for this book.

No books inside this one - the Mousewife had a very full life - no time for hobbies.

The Book of Lost Things has been on my WL for quite some time already, so glad to see it backed by you.

As far as counting books goes... this year I decided if it's a book it's a book and it counts! Don't know if I'll take the same approach next year, but we'll see. I've never read as much as I have this year in my life before, but then, I've also been pushing aside everything else, which I don't know that I want to keep doing. Showering? Might be a good thing after all. Something to consider in 2012. ;-)

#67 I read The Book of Lost Things last year and really enjoyed it. I think the young protagonist gives it a children's book feel but I also think it's more of an adult book. And I'm glad I'm not the only person who has unread Christmas presents from years ago :-)

I've got about a two year stretch between acquisition and reading, Heather - sort of like my two week stretch between LT postings. I think there's one more SantaThing book from that Christmas back in 2009 on the to-be-read-next shelf, but it is pretty far down the line. Probably won't get to it before next spring, if then.

Book No. 66 - Life Mask by Emma Donoghue started kind of slowly and to be truthful it never really did speed along. But, it did kind of grow on me. It is dense and full of information about the very end of the 18th century - in particular it deals with the English political situation, various scandals, broken marriages and romantic disasters of the day, the mess in France and the reaction amongst aristocratic folks in England - they wavier between full-on support that progresses into horror and retreat as the Revolution turns all bloody and crazy. The central character is a widow, the Hon. Anne Damer, a female sculptor and niece to Horace Walpole, beginning at the middle portion of her life. Anne is, according to scandal-mongering rumor, a Sapphist and this allegation affects her friendships with the actress Eliza Farren and Mary Berry.

One thing that I especially liked about this book was that virtually every person in it was a real person - only the servants are fictional. Donoghue's treatment of her characters was absolutely perfect. I had no trouble believing that every word she has them speak could have been ones that they actually did say in real life. Very often I find with Historical Fiction that the real life people come across sounding very stilted and clunky. My usual reaction to the their dialog is one of embarrassment for them and I want to get past that part of the book as soon as I can.

What can I say - the book grew on me.

I have to give it 4stars
639 pages

Started on 10/20/11 at 5:19 PM
Finished on 10/30/11 at 12:19 PM

These books were mentioned inside this one:
Vathek by William Beckford
Julie by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile by James Bruce
The Odyssey
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
Don Quixote
A Simple Story by Elizabeth Inchbald
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
Caleb Williams by William Godwin
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The Monk
Camilla by Fanny Burney

#70 I've added Life Mask to the list. At some point I want to read about 18th century stuff and that might be a good one to try.

Book No. 67 - American Eve by Paula Uruburu - the story of Evelyn Nesbit. There was an American Experience episode about Evelyn on PBS some years ago and I wanted to read more about her life. Evelyn was an artist's model in the early 1900's - a hauntingly beautiful, very young girl, and unlike any other female of the time. She soon became a photographer's model, pushed into the business by her absolutely vile mother. Evelyn attracted the attention of Stanford White, foremost architect of his day, a man in his forties when Evelyn was 16 and eventually became his mistress while underage. At the same time the fabulously wealthy and fabulously nuts, Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh also developed a massive crush on her which went along nicely with the stupendous hatred he had for White - an obsession which pre-dated Evelyn Nesbit. Naturally it all turned very, very bad.

Uruburu's telling of this story is not bad although it was, I thought, a little bit scattered at times. And I did not like the fact that there was no index. Non-fiction books, in my book, absolutely require an index. There were notes and a tiny list of 'Further Reading', but she could have and should done better in this regard.

3.25 stars - mostly for the story itself
372 pages

Started on 10/30/11 at 3:23 PM
Finished on 11/2/11 at 5:20 PM

There were two books mentioned inside this one:-
Nana by Emile Zola
and
The Traitor by the super-nutty Harry K. Thaw

Book No. 68 - Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire - was an o.k. kind of book though not much about it seemed particularly Cinderella-ish to me until near the very end. Found that hardly mattered when I got to the last chapter as Maguire chose to pull a giant rabbit out of the hat - that kind of surprise rabbit that really makes you pissed-off with the writer for wasting so much of your time. Turned an o.k. read into a Let's-Jettison-This-Book-As-Quickly-As-Possible read.

Phooey on him!!

2.75 stars
368 pages

No books in this one.

Ooooo -- Red Mars -- that and the next two, will keep you busy!!!!!

Very often I find with Historical Fiction that the real life people come across sounding very stilted and clunky. My usual reaction to the their dialog is one of embarrassment for them and I want to get past that part of the book as soon as I can.

I know exactly what you mean. I've had Slammerkin on my shelf for much too long now—probably more than two years, so I'm refusing to add any other books on the WL by her until I've gotten to it, but will keep your recommendation in mind Charlotte.

You had me really interested in American Eve, and I'd be ok with no index, especially as I hardly ever read non-fiction (other than art books) so wouldn't know that it was missing. But I hesitate... apart from the index issue, what rating would you have given it?

I have Slammerkin, too, Ilana - read it a few years ago, BLT (that's Before Library Thing, not Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato) and enjoyed it quite a lot.

As for American Eve if I ignore the no Index issue, I guess I'd up the rating to about 3.5, but mostly because of the story and not for the author's writing.

Evelyn's story is compelling - she was so young when her father died and then her life turned upside down. Her mother was absolutely useless - certainly not the kind of mother that her children could depend upon for comfort. Evelyn had to have been a very strong person, even at a very young age, for I think that many children caught in her situation, would have been crushed by the sort of future she seemed destined for.

Evelyn changed the standard for beauty in the American female - no more pouter-pigeon bosoms and giant Kim Kardashian-type booties - but of course that was no wonder as she was around 14 or 15 when she began modeling. I hardly know anything about the time-period - 1901 to 1906 (the year my mother's mother was born) - but I'd like to read more about the time before WWI. *Sigh* I can't imagine how I'll ever find the time to read everything I want to. I'm going to have to live to be around 180. Hope my eyeballs hold out.

Hope my eyeballs hold out.

There's always audiobooks if they don't! ;-)

I guess I'll pass on American Eve, but I'm quite fascinated with the period as well and her story sounds quite fascinating. Maybe someone else will write a better book about her someday...

Or a movie. I think with the right people it could be a really good movie.

Book No. 69 - Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman - led me into Magical Realism again - a place that I don't really like that much. Take away all the MR elements and it's just a really ordinary story of women of various generations who don't get along very well through much of the book. I know that Hoffman has her fans, but this was just kind of meh for me. I might try her again, but I think next time I won't spend any money on her and will find something at the library.

3 stars
244 pages

No books in this one.

Alice Hoffman is kind of maddening to me because she almost works, but there's always something too easy, the story takes a turn that doesn't ..... go anywhere? Can't quite put a finger on it.

Yeah, I would agree with you Lucy - if this book is representative of her usual stuff. It was just so - ordinary - and the MR stuff did not save it. Of course I'm not a fan of MR so in the end, even if the story had been better, it still might not have done anything toward saving it.

Book No. 70 - The House at Riverton by Kate Morton - was o.k. Thought the characters were rather stock and the "breathtaking ending" the back cover promised was pretty much missing. It wasn't bad - it just did not reach the level I expected it to.

3 stars
468 pages

Started on 11/11/11 @ 10:40 AM
Finished on 11/13/11 at 9:02 PM

Books mentioned inside this one were:
The Bible
Jane Eyre
Frankenstein
The Castle of Otranto
The Valley of Fear
Bleak House
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
and
Ulysses

Books that have come into the house since last time:-
The Castle of Otranto - got this one after reading Life Mask
The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant by Pamela Horn
and
Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King

All three of these have been languishing on my GFW for a long time. It was time to actually buy them.

Too bad about The House at Riverton. It had been on my wishlist for a while and then I got it last year and been wanting to get to it since, but hasn't happened yet.

Where did you find The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant? I had to get it used via AbeBooks as didn't find it in the usual places. And by the way, I got it because of the fact that it was on your wishlist. :-)

I got it used at amazon. It's in very good shape - not pawed over by thousands and no obvious 'stuff' on any of the pages. And - seeing that you'd bought it, reminded me that it was languishing on the GFW. Thanks!

As for THaR - I hope my 'meh' reaction to it doesn't take away from it any when you get to it. You may like it better than I did. For me, it just did not sizzle.

Book No. 71 - One Summer by David Baldacci - I do not own this book - it was lent to me by a friend - and judging from this book, I would want my credit cards to spontaneously combust in my purse should I ever show any inclination to purchase a DB book for myself.

I understand that this book is not the sort of thing that he writes ordinarily - that he was trying something new - but that is hardly any kind of an excuse for really boring/bad writing.

The hero has some kind of fatal disease. I say 'some kind' not out of laziness or because I've already returned the book to my friend, but rather because DB did not even bother to provide the name of a real disease to the reader. Instead he had the patient skate by with the info that the name of the disease in question was too complicated/hard to understand for him to divulge it. I thought that was super sloppy of DB. The characters were stock. Children who were either saccharine, difficult or wise beyond their years. Naturally all the problems with the kids were ironed out before the end of the book. There is a very wealthy teenaged girl who is - surprise - spoiled! And mean! Is there not any other kind of rich girl? And of course there was a plucky female restauranteur who I knew the instant that she was introduced would turn out to be the love-interest for the hero (he recovered miraculously from his 100%-of-the-time fatal disease). There was also a Giant Problem with the hero's custody of his kids, that I also saw a mile off. DB provided a setting with an abandoned lighthouse on the Carolina coast that the hero is re-habbing so it was not hard for me to see that a big ol' storm was in the offing - one that would provide a necessary crisis at the end of the book - one his Hero could use in order to save the day.

Snooze fest and a complete waste of paper.

The only good thing about it was that it was so predictable that I read it in a few hours.

2 stars (although that may be a little too generous)
333 pages

Started it on 11/13/11 at 9:07 AM
Finished it on 11/13/11 at 2:15 PM

No books in this one. Characters like these don't read.
They are too busy hitting all their predictable marks to find the time for a book.

Book No. 72 - Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian - was, I thought, a good WWII historical fiction selection. For some reason that I did not get, there seem to be those on LT who really, really don't like this book. Don't know why. I liked it. The only failing it seemed to have, for me, was a little bit of disconnect in the romance area - I thought that Anna and Callum did not click as much as they might have. However, all the rest of it, in my opinion, was exceedingly good. I would read another Bohjalian book.

3.75 Stars
360 pages

There may be some books mentioned inside this one, but I think I've misplaced my notes. Will check and add them later.

Book No. 73 - Death of a Scriptwriter by M.C. Beaton - another Hamish MacBeth mystery. I am getting to be a fan of MacBeth even though he should probably be characterized as a Detective-Lite kind of cop. Probably I like him because he fits in nicely with my growing preference for cozy mysteries. Had no idea who the murderer was - my usual method for trying to figure it out did not work here as there were no people in the story who were not necessary to it. Maybe this method works better with TV mysteries.

3.25 stars
214 pages

Started it on 11/19/20/11 at 4:13 PM
Finished it on 11/20/11 at 11:14 AM

Any books for this one are on that missing piece of paper.

Have not been adding many books to my library over the last month or so because I have been saving my book budget in order to blow the whole thing on an iPad2. Mission accomplished as of today. My Kindle (which I still have) is just old enough so that I can't take out books from the library on it. There are books that I want to read, but do not necessarily think that I want to own and the iPad will take of that that very nicely I should think.

Had to take Willie to the vet earlier in the week in order to get his claws clipped - he was sticking to all the chairs and the blankets and rugs. His doctor discovered that he has a little bit of kidney disease - not surprising in a gentleman of his age. She doesn't need to see him for 2 months so am taking this as a sign that he is not in dire straits just now. However, I am having to slip medication into his food (shhh! Don't let him know) as he may also have a little bit of a UTI as well. So far he doesn't have a clue and is slurping up the crushed pills with his Fancy Feast just fine.

Charlotte- I also liked Skeletons at the Feast. It was also my 1st. It may not be perfect but he is a strong storyteller. I read Midwives too, which I also liked.

Since David Baldacci wasn't on my radar before, I see no reason to put him there now. Always a relief to be able to eliminate a writer from the infinite list of possibilities.

Congrats on the iPad2! How exciting. I'm totally jealous, but then again, that glossy screen must be a bitch to keep clean, no? I got a matte film for my new iPhone and am finding it very useful, though I didn't think I'd like it.

Sorry to hear about Willie's troubles. How old is he again? I never thought of crushing the pills when I had to feed them to Ezra. Probably would have saved me a few scratches. Speaking of which, can't you cut his claws yourself? I can't cut Coco's because the one time I tried, I thought I was being extra careful and he ended up bleeding all over the place, but I have no troubles with the cats.

That's what I thought too, Mark. I'm keeping Midwives in mind.

Willie is 19/20 - that is to say when I got him in March of 1994, the vet said he was 2, so I figure he was born in 92 or 91. I can't believe how much better the pill crushing thing is working this time around. Last time it was horrible! I smelled like fish all of the time because I was using tuna and bypassing his usual Fancy Feast. I think I was afraid that if I put the meds in there that he would decide not to ever eat any FF again and FF is his only vice. He isn't much for treats. He doesn't like cheese so there's no point in that. He's really just a cat food cat. He does like some of my food, but I'm not making a whole vat of spaghetti meat sauce for him. Besides the people food that he likes he doesn't eat in quantity. Mostly he just likes to "lick the platter clean", so to speak.

As for claw clipping - I'm a little leery of that and mostly on account of the bleeding thing. Willie doesn't like me to touch his paws much; whenever I'm holding them for too long (i.e. more than 10 seconds), he yanks them away. I'd much rather leave it to the professionals.

I don't actually have the iPad yet - I bought it on line for delivery, Monday I think. There is only 1 Apple store in the vicinity - the Providence Place Mall in RI. I wasn't going near there on Black Friday. I expect the screen will be a bit finger-printy, but I'm ok with that. Sometimes my iPod touch gets messy, but it only takes a few seconds to clean. I had a flim-y thing on it when I got it, but I never could get every single wrinkle/bubble out of it and that used to bug me. I was constantly fussing with it and smoothing it until I just plain wore it out. I think with the acquisition of the iPad I will have absolutely everything covered. My dream of an iPhone is not realistic as I don't make enough calls to justify one. I think it is meant for people with more money than I make, kids, certain kinds of jobs and/or a jillion friends. I'm strictly a pay-as-I-go kind of person when it comes to phones and so I am just bumbling along in the back of the phone technology pack.

Charlotte, I have Skeletons at the Feast in my TBR Tower, and I'd been hesitant about moving it up to read because I'd read poor reviews from some on LT here. So I'm glad to see one positive review from you. It's given me hope that I might like it and I'll try to move it up the rungs to read it before the year is out.

If you get a little piece of chamois, it'll keep your iPad screen and iPod nicely clean of finger-printy smears.

Thanks Caro, for the advice about the chamois. Adding that to my list of things to acquire. Hope you like SatF. The back cover seems to emphasize the love story, but I thought that it's strength was in the other characters' stories. Looking forward to your opinion.

Book No. 74 - This Republic of Sufferingby Drew Gilpin Faust. I've read a lot of books about the Civil War and I mean a LOT of books. i've got four whole big book shelves just crammed with them and I'm sure there are a few more CW and CW related books lurking around the house, still waiting to be read. This one is one of the best I've read. It deals with the Civil War dead - killing, dying, identifying, burying, counting, accepting, etc., etc. - and is one of the more unusual (I think) CW books around. I enjoyed it immensely. I think that anyone with an interest in this era would like it as much as I did.

4.5 stars
271 pages

Started on 11/25/11 at 4 PM
Finished on 12/3/11 at 1:16 PM

Books (fiction only) mentioned inside this book:

Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Gates Ajar
Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty by John W. DeForest

And - finally - Book No. 75 - The Siege by Helen Dunmore. It seems as if I often end up reading a book about either the siege of Leningrad or about starving and freezing in the month of December.
This book was well-written, grim and the story of these poor people was amazing. But - over all - I think I liked The Bronze Horseman a little better, mainly because I preferred TBH's Alexander over TS's Andrei. Andrei was just a little bit bland, I thought. And I had a similar problem with the relationship between Marina and Mikhail - it felt a little flat to me. Also, I had a little trouble accepting the idea that the Levin family - hovering on the edge of being in trouble with the government the way they were - would have really had a pretty nice apartment all to themselves the way they did. It was good, but not great.

3.5 stars
291 pages

Started on 12/3/11 at1:37 AM
Finished on 12/5/11 at 10:39 PM

No specific books mentioned inside this one although there were a lot of books in it that were burned for heating purposes. Wonder how long my own books would last in dire circumstances.

Hi There...Oh, my but it has been awhile since I visited. I also read a lot of books regarding the siege of Leningrad. Perhaps I've asked you before, so I'm sorry for the repetion if I have, but I'm wondering if you read Harrison Salisbury's book The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad? In my opinion it is the best source of information regarding Hitler's attempt to starve and control the Russians.

Hey Linda! Yes, it has been a while. I am sorry to say I have been terribly neglectful of your thread in recent months, but there just never seems to be half enough time! I do have the Salisbury book. Bought it this year sometime and it's one of many I am perishing to read. That anyone at all could have survived that horrible event is amazing to me and it says so much about what people are capable of when there is no other choice.

I brought a Morton home from the library the other day, but couldn't get into it and took it back. Bohjalian is a 'local' author (lives in Burlington) and I have always liked his ideas and am interested in the kinds of things he chooses to write about but - well -- I guess I have found him disappointing, certainly not below a *** but rarely more than that. The books never quite fit together, always have some awkwardnesses.

Congrats on reaching 75 books Charlotte. Only, sorry it wasn't a more enjoyable one for you.

I didn't respond to your comments on Wilie and I'm sorry about that. My cats won't eat anything but their cat food either, and believe me, I've tried giving them all kinds of stuff. Mimi ate a good portion of butter once when I left it on the counter, but I didn't make that mistake again. She used to lap up yoghourt, but now she snubs the stuff. Ezra only likes his dry kibbles, while Mimi whines for the canned stuff.

I'll have to come up with a system for 2012 because I spend so much time here on LT, I hardly get anything else done and can't keep on top of threads no matter what. I'm sorry I've been neglectful Charlotte, hope you forgive me.

Congrats!

Thanks, Doc!

Nothing to forgive, Ilana. I have been to disappear from view for ten days at a time. Sometimes (for me) it's either read or visit threads, but not both. Reading tends to win out. Of course with threads like yours (and those of many, many others) I would hate to see them trimmed, but there's only so much time in a day.

I'm lucky with Willie that he really, really likes his dry Feline C/D food. He'd better at that price! The Fancy Feast is just a treat - his only food vice. He does like vanilla ice cream a wee bit and I've been known to buy him his own container of the really good stuff upon occasion, but not very often and he doesn't seem to miss it when there is an ice cream famine in the house.

His own container of ice cream! Talk about a fancy feast! :-)

I splurge on the really good holistic stuff, but draw the line at buying them their own tub of Haagen Dazs!

I used to get him HD in the pint size, but now they sell it in a really teeny, tiny size that costs under 2 dollars. Think maybe I'll get him a fresh one this weekend.

OMG! I was joking about the HD, because that's what I eat usually, but WOW, your guy certainly does get the fancy feasting doesn't he? And why not? If Ezra or Mimi were into the stuff, I'd probably give them a little too, although I am too concerned about their teeth most of the time to let them have sweets on any sort of regular or irregular basis.

Congrats on reaching 75, Charlotte ..... books read that is.

My mum's dog loves HD ice cream, and she shares her pints with him ... except Rum & Raisin. He doesn't seem to like that flavor much ... makes him sneeze.

Charlotte- Congrats on 75! Yahoo! Sorry, The Siege wasn't a better read for you! I loved it!

Congratulations on reaching 75 Charlotte! HD for the cat is not a bad idea. I usually share my Skinny Cow bars with our Buddy. There's no way you get to eat it yourself if he sees it.

Thanks for the congrats guys! I must do better next year - it took me forever to get here this year.

Shared my ice cream with Willie on Sunday - he got the bottom of the dish and enjoyed it very much. Not sure if his vet would approve, but a guy can't always follow the rules.

Book No. 76 - We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickinson Rich - I remember this book from my grandparents' library. Whenever I would run out of things to read they always tried to get me to read it. I never did. I could tell just by looking at the cover that there were no castles in it and no lovelorn maidens either.
Now, i've finally read it -borrowed it from a friend - and it was a really, really good book. The author lived for many years in one of the most isolated parts of the country - deepest, darkest Maine - in the 30's and early 40's with her husband and young son. (Louise gave birth to her son with only the baby's father present and did not think a thing of it.) The Riches did not live in complete isolation - they had a hired man - and their neighbors weren't more than a few miles away, but there was no running down to the corner store for them. Once the snow fell they had no transportation at all and the only way out of the woods was on foot. Yet they never thought a thing of it - in fact they reveled in it for they preferred the isolation. Rich also writes beautifully about nature in all it's aspects - a subject I've always thought a difficult one to write about successfully. I really liked this book and it's one of my favorites for the year. Granny and Grandpa would laugh if they were still alive.

4.5 stars
322 pages

Started on 12/6/11 at 7:42 AM
Finished on 12/10/11 at 2:53 PM

Books mentioned inside this one:
The Education of Henry Adams
A Free Man's Worship
The Case of Sergeant Grischa

De-lurking to say Congrats on 75!

Congrats indeed! The Rich book sounds wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you.
You should read this book, Lucy. I think you would love it.

Book No. 77 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - a re-read for me. An attorney friend of mine introduced me to the series many years ago and I read the first three books (I think) as soon as I could get my paws on them. Loved all of them. But then I stalled out on the one that seemed to be all about Quidditch. For me it was just a sports book. Don't like sports books and I never did finish the series. However, i have decided to revisit Harry Potter and finally read through to the end. Loved this book the second time as much as I did the first. It's probably my favorite of all the YA books.

4 stars
309 pages

Started on 12/10/11 at 3:54 PM
Finished on 12/11/11 at 5:41 PM

Am uncertain about counting Quidditch Through the Ages as a 'mentioned book' as it was not a real book at the time.

Was annoyed to realize that there are English and American versions of the book - did not pick up on that the first time around. Seems kind of insulting that someone would think American readers were not up to reading the book unless it was americanized for them. Can you imagine Dickens, Austen or Hardy 'translated into American'? Horrors!

Book No. 78 - One for the Money by Janet Evanovich - Never planned to read any of the Stephanie Plum books - no particular reason why not. For some reason - perhaps the heroine's name - I think I got it into my head that they were books about a kid. Couldn't have been more wrong.
Read this book on the recommendation of a friend. I thought if Patty liked these books then I had to give one a shot. Patty is the mother of 4 young girls and her life is incredibly busy. Truly I did not believe she had any time at all in which to read and so clearly I had to give this a shot.
Have to say I liked this book very much. Not great literature, but it had a flow, an engaging heroine and a whole slew of interesting secondary characters. Benito the boxer was one of the scariest maniacs i've encountered recently - was glad that he is not real and that if he were he'd be down in New Jersey and nowhere near me.

4 stars
320 pages

Started on 12/11/11 at 9:53 AM
Finished on 12/15/11 at 6 PM

No books mentioned inside this one - bounty hunters who have to spend all of their time dodging homicidal maniacs have no time in which to read.

Oh - I ordered the second book in the series this morning.

Am going to have to add up the numbers re: the books mentioned within books thing I've been doing this year. Realize now that I should have kept a separate list somewhere, but it is not surprising to me that I didn't. I am not an organized person. Am fairly certain that the Bible will be the most frequently mentioned book.

Wishing you all the very best Charlotte!

Belated congratulations on reading 75 books this year and Merry Christmas! I was chuckling away when you mentioned giving Willie ice cream although we let our cat lick out the yoghurt pots and occasionally have a saucer of milk too.

Regarding American and English editions - I think I'd assumed there were always different editions for the two countries even if it was only spelling changes. But then I've never compared American and English editions of any book.

I don't know where my head was the first time around, Heather. It was only when there was mention of Harry Potter for President and sweaters instead of jumpers that I got the wind up. I think it's really stupid.

Book No. 79 - The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart - a truly ancient mystery story. Read this one because I was looking for an eBook to borrow at my library that they wouldn't want back very soon - if ever - so that I would have plenty of time in which to read it. (First one - yay!)

It wasn't bad. It didn't seem hugely original, but then again it was written over a hundred years ago, so it might have seemed more original way back when. It's really all a matter of mistaken identity on a train resulting in murder and a bunch of coincidences. And love. Mysteries of this era always seem to have some kind of love story thrown into the mix.
i am embarrassed to say that at the distance of a week since finishing this book, I can't remember with 100% certainty who the murderer was. (There were many candidates and theories, not to mention two professional detectives and one amateur each working mostly on his own.) It was a harmless little story, readable enough to finish.

270 pages
3.25 stars

Started on 12/6/11 at 11 PM
Finished on 12/18/11 at 1:18 PM

Book No. 80 - Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle - involved a society composed of sword wielding rats dressed in 17th century clothing who seemed to be lording it over the humans most of whom spend all of their time engaged in building projects for the Fane (I think these were the gargoyles, although I don't think that word is ever used to describe them). There is a revolution afoot and many plots - so many plots that I could hardly tell what everybody was plotting about. I think it had something to do with freeing some of the humans and overthrowing the Fane - but they weren't the same plots. There was also a plague. And a creature who wasn't quite human and wasn't quite rat. She had a long, kind of prehensile tail and she functioned as a King's Memory - kind of a living tape recorder. There was also a lot about The Boat, which I gathered was how the new souls arrived in town. Same old faces, but without any memories of the past. Oh, yes, and it was hot. Very, very, very hot. Much mention of the blazing sun, sweat and sweaty clothes. The constant mention of how hot it was and how sweaty everyone was was pretty annoying. There was one character who was not only sweaty, but pretty much always covered in machine oil (needed for the trebuchets and other like Medieval machines of war) and that was pretty tiresome too. And then there was the Rat King - or really 8 rats who were bound together by their tails which, over the course of time had grown together - literally. Icky.

Anyway it was super, super confusing which, by reading the mish-mash I've written above, is pretty obvious. I only finished it because I could not bear to have another unfinished book on my record. Obviously not recommended. Except for the sleep deprived. This book should take care of any insomniac out there quite nicely.

Started on 12/15/11 at 11:25 PM
Finished on 12/24/11 at 12:01 PM

Book No. 81 - The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I saw the movie a long, long time ago - so long that I really did not remember anything about it except for the fact that there was a group of people in a book club. They all have problems. And they all like Jane Austen to a greater or lesser degree. There is a marriage just gone bad. A lesbian relationship just broken up. A mysterious man - a newcomer to town who seems to be good mate material, but for which woman? None of them seem, on the face of it, to be the perfect woman for him. One older woman, who might be spiraling down toward final decrepitude. One woman with mother issues. The confirmed old maid. Their stories are told in concert with their reading of the Austen novels - one each month - but no attempt was made, I thought, to make their lives match the novels which was a good choice. I was most interested in what the book club members thought about the books, the questions they asked one another and the insights into the characters.

I've just got to finish reading all the Austen books. Am shockingly behind in that regard.

The one thing I found puzzling was the narrator. Plainly the narrator is part of the group, but which one is she? I never figured that out.

250 pages
3.25 stars - mainly for some of the crap at the back of the book - what different people thought of Austen upon first reading her. Thought it was filler and unnecessary.

A whole bunch of books mentioned inside this one:

Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Sense and Sensibility
Persuasion
David Copperfield
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abbey
The Secret Garden
Irish Red
Old Yeller
The Perfect Storm
The Lord of the Rings
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Lathe of Heaven
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Fountainhead
The Lives of the Saints
Searoad
and
The Hobbitt

Charlotte, I wish you a very Happy New Year! See you in 2012!

2011 is almost done and it's time to list my last book:

Book No. 82 - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson - a terrific read. I've resisted this book for a long time (the excessive praise thing), but found that by actually reading it, it deserves every syllable of adulation. It's just a book about life and it rings true on every page. The only bad thing about it was that I did not expect to like it so much and took it out of the library in eBook form, so now I have to buy it as it is already a favorite.

4.5 stars
465 eBook pages (whatever that may translate into in terms of real pages I don't know)

Started on 12/25/11 at 1:06 PM
Finished on 12/28/11 at 6:45 AM

There were 4 books mentioned inside this one -
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Puck of Pook's Hill (ditto)
War and Peace
and
The Qur'an

Have neglected to list new books to the house in quite a while so here is the list:-

One For the Money by Janet Evanovich
Two for the Dough (ditto)
Thinking Small - my November ER book
Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick - bought for self when I was supposed to be buying gift certs for others
Death of a Cad by M.C. Beaton
The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart - already read and mentioned above
The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon
Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith pre-ordered this on amazon ages ago expecting to get it next month. Was published early for some reason
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Quicksand by Geoffrey Wawro
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
(The previous 3 are my "Mark's Christmas Swap" books from NancyWhite) and
His Excellency George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis - a Christmas present from a friend

I have about 150 or so pages to read in the current read that I am closest to finishing, but don't think that I'll be done until tomorrow, so I guess the list stands at 82. Shameful.

And my counting books within books endeavor has also come to an end. the count for the year was 401. As I expected the Bible was the runaway winner at 11, followed by the Qur'an at 4 and at 3 each were Ivanhoe, The Odyssey, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Wuthering Heights and The Aeneid. Only Wuthering Heights surprised me a little bit. I expected that Pride and Prejudice would have been mentioned more. Perhaps this is confirmation of my suspicion that the reverence shown P&P is a modern phenomenon. Or not. It was hardly a scientific project. Just fun - for about the first 5 months. Then it got tedious.

Onward to 2012....