Smiler: Speedier than Lightning in 2011. Part Onze.

Illustration by Pierre Mornet



Currently Reading:
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
♫ Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese



My Threads
Part Un (Books 1-5)
Part Deux (Books 6-29)
Part Trois (Books 30-54)
Part Quatre (Books 55-72)
Part Cinq (Books 73-99)
Part Six (Books 100-110)
Part Sept (Books 111-128)
Part Huit (Books 129-145)
Part Neuf (Books 146-181)
Part Dix (Books 182-200)

11 in 11 Challenge:
Category #1: The Classics 10/11
Category #2: Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart Series 5/11
Category #3: Mysteries & Crime Fiction 10/11
Category #4: Visual Arts 7/11
Category #5: Books Published Since 2009 10/11
Category #6: New To Me Authors 10/11
Category #7: Big and Scary: books over 400 pages 7/11
Category #8: The Two World Wars and the Time In-Between 9/11
Category #9: En Français 7/11
Category #10: Sooner Than Later: Recent Acquisitions 9/11
Category #11: The Film Might Be Good But the Book is Better 8/11

Books completed in September
198. ♫ Great Expectations by Charles Dickens ★★★½ (review) ☀
199. One City, Two Brothers by Chris Smith, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★¼ (review) ☀
200. Nasreddine & Son Âne by Odile Weulersse, illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer ★★★★ (review) ☀
201. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck ★★★★★ (review) ☀
202. ♫ Still Life by Louise Penny ★★★ (review) ☀
203. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt ★★★★½ (review) ☀
204. ♫ The Hunter: A Parker Novel by Richard Stark ★★★★ (review) ☀
205. ♫ The Man with the Getaway Face Richard Stark ★★★★ (review) ☀
205. ♫ Die Trying by Lee Child ★★★½ (review) ☀
206. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ★★★★ (review) ☀
207. I Am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts ★★½ (review) ☀
208. The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi ★★★ (review) ☀
209. Bugs in a Blanket by Beatrice Alemagna ★★★ (review) ☀
210. J'ai le droit d'être un enfant by Alain Serres, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★ (review) ☀
211. The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo ★★★ (review) ☀
212. Fil de Fée by Philippe Lechermeier, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★ (review) ☀
213. ♫ Farm Boy by Michael Morpurgo ★★★ (review) ☀
214. ♫ The White Rhino Hotel by Bartle Bull ★★★⅞ (review) ☀
215. Pearl of China by Anchee Min ★★★½ (review) ☀
216. From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus ★★★★★ (review) ☀
217. ♫ The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey ★★★½ (review) ☀
218. ♫ Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (rating & review on the way) ☀
219. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (rating & review on the way) ☀
220. Carte Blanche by Carlo Lucarelli (rating & review on the way) ☀

Books completed in October
221. ♫ Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear (rating & review on the way) ☀
222. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling



My rating system:
★ - hated it (may or may not have finished it but listing it for the trouble)
★★ - it was just ok
★★★ - enjoyed it (good)
★★★★ - loved it! (very good)
★★★★★ - all-time favourite (blew me away—will read again)

⅛ ¼ ⅓ ½ ¾ ⅞

♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
☀ = TIOLI

Suggested reads for September
☛ ✔ The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (House of Earth Trilogy 1, TIOLI #12: title with a word appearing on wikipedia page about Mid-Autumn Festival)
☛ * Pearl of China by Anchee Min (ER Book, TIOLI #12)
☛ ❉ The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (TIOLI #6: cover is primarily one of the 3 prime colours)
☛ ✔ Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan1, TIOLI #7)
☛ ❉ Son Excellence Eugène Rougon by Émile Zola (Les Rougon-Macquart 6, TIOLI #17: title contains the full name of a character)
☛ ❉ From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus (TIOLI #12: Moon)
☛ ❉ For Grace Received by Valeria Parrella (TIOLI #5: an author never read for TIOLI) (returned unread)
☛ ❉ Carte Blanche by Carlo Lucarelli (TIOLI #6)
☛ ❉ The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo (TIOLI #6)
☛ ❉ The Young Man and the Sea by Rodman Philbrick (TIOLI #6) (unfinished)
☛ ❉ From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg - (TIOLI #3: tagged with a word which brings to mind "school") (unfinished)
☛ ❉ I Am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts (TIOLI #5)
❉ The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling - (Omnibus) - Reading
☛ ✔ The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman (omnibus, TIOLI #2: Jewish main character or a nonfiction book on Judaica/Judaism)
☛ ♫ Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (TIOLI #3: tagged with a word which brings to mind "school")
☛ ♫ Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (TIOLI #3)
☛ ♫ Die Trying by Lee Child (Jack Reacher, No. 2, TIOLI #7: nine letters in the title)
☛ ♫ The Hunter: A Parker Novel by Richard Stark (Parker 1, TIOLI #6)
☛ ♫ Still Life by Louise Penny (Inspector Armand Gamache, Three Pines Mystery 1, TIOLI #13: set in the province where you were born)


More suggestions for September Series & Sequels
☛ ✔ Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett (Calder Art Mysteries 1, TIOLI #3)
✔ The Ghost Road by Pat Barker (Regeneration Trilogy 3)
❉ Chien de faïence / The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri (Inspector Montalbano Mysteries 2)
❉ Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones (Dalemark Quartet 1) (returned unread)
❉ Dust by Arthur Slade

* = must read
♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
❉ = library
☛ = TIOLI

Suggested reads for October

* ☛❉ Son Excellence Eugène Rougon by Émile Zola (Library Book, 11/11, TIOLI #9: Author whose first and/or last name begins and ends with a vowel)
☛❉ Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart (Library Book, TIOLI Challenge #18: A book that has been mentioned in 150 conversations or less) - Reading
☛❉ Dust by Arthur Slade (Library Book, TIOLI Challenge #18)
☛❉ Chien de faïence (The Terracotta Dog) by Andrea Camilleri (Library Book, TIOLI #9)
☛✔ The Ghost Road by Pat Barker (TIOLI Challenge #18)
☛✔ Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (TIOLI Challenge #11)
☛✔ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (TIOLI #1: A novel assigned in an English class)
☛✔ Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (TIOLI Challenge #2: Read a Characteristic Work of the 75 Book Challenge group)
☛✔ The House at Riverton by Kate Morton (TIOLI Challenge #2)
☛✔ Alexey Brodovitch by Kerry William Purcell (TIOLI Challenge #3: About an artist for National Arts & Humanities Month)
☛✔ Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 by Carol Squiers (TIOLI Challenge #3)
☛✔ Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky (TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book about infectious diseases)
☛✔ Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (TIOLI Challenge#10: Read a book from Book Browse website) ---> moved to November
☛♫ Summer by Edith Wharton (TIOLI Challenge #1)
☛♫ Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson (TIOLI Challenge #2)
☛♫ Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (TIOLI Challenge #2) - Listening
☛♫ A Room with a View by E. M. Forster (TIOLI Challenge #4: Author using anything other than the simplest version of their name)
☛♫ To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (TIOLI Challenge #11)
☛♫ Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie (TIOLI Challenge #17: Letter X in the title)

Nobel Prize month suggested reads

☛✔ Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (TIOLI Challenge #18)
☛✔ The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (TIOLI Challenge #15: author has an alliterative name)
☛✔ The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago (TIOLI Challenge #18)
☛✔ The Red Pony by John Steinbeck (TIOLI Challenge #18)
☛♫ The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison (TIOLI Challenge #18)

(currently editing)

* = must read
♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
❉ = library
☛ = TIOLI

Books I've read so far:

January:
1. Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler (TIOLI) ★★★★ (review)
2. La Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty) by Tahar Ben Jelloun (TIOLI) ★★★★ (review)
3. Regeneration - 1st of the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker (TIOLI) ★★★★★ (review)
4. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane ★★★ (review)
5. Sanderson: The Essence of English Decoration by Mary Schoeser ★★★★½ (review)
6. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (TIOLI) ★★★ (review)
7. Doors Open by Ian Rankin (TIOLI) ★★★ (review)
8. The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson ★★★★ (review)
9. A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon ★★★★ (review)
10. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt (TIOLI) ★★★★ (review)
11. Egon Schiele: The Leopold Collection by Rudolf Leopold (TIOLI) ★★★½ (review)
12. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (TIOLI, Group Read) ★★★ (review)
13. The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket ★★★ (review)
14. The Arrival by Shaun Tan ★★★★★ (review)
15. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak ★★★★ (review)
16. The Bells by Richard Harvell ★★★★ (review)
17. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin ★★½ (TIOLI) (review)
18. ♫ Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens ★★★ (TIOLI) (review)
19. ♫ Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney ★★★★ (review)
20. The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom ★★★★ (review)

February:
21. Through a Glass Darkly by Donna Leon ★★★ (review)
22. ♫ Skellig by David Almond ★★★ (review)
23. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman ★★★★★ (review)
24. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe ★★★½ (review)
25. ♫ The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman ★★★★★ (review)
26. ♫ The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West ★★★★½ (review)
27. ♫ The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins ★★★★⅓ (review)
28. ♫ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll ★★★★½ (notes on the audiobook)
29. Three Seconds by Roslund & Hellström ★★★ (review)
30. The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers by Henry James ★★★★ (review)
31. ♫ The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie ★★★½ (review)
32. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski ★★★★ (review)
33. ♫ Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman ★★★★¼ (review)
34. La Fortune des Rougons by Émile Zola ★★★★ (review)
35. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins ★★★★ (review)
36. ♫ The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton ★★★★ (review)
37. The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker ★★★⅘ (review)

March:
38. ♫ Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood ★★★⅘ (review)
39. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot ★★★★¼ (review)
40. ♫ The Help by Kathryn Stockett ★★★★⅓ (review)
41. Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman ★★★¾ (review)
42. Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko ★★★¾ (review)
43. ♫ The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie ★★★ (review)
44. Coraline by Neil Gaiman ★★★★ (review)
45. Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan ★★★★ (review)
46. Dead Souls by Ian Rankin ★★½ (review)
47. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney ★★½ (review)
48. ♫ Already Dead by Charlie Huston ★★★¾ (review)
49. ♫ The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman ★★★★⅓ (review)
50. ♫ Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene ★★★½ (review)
51. Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman ★★★¾ (review)
52. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ★★⅚ (review)
53. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy ★★⅚ (review)
54. ♫ Tripwire by Lee Child ★★★★ (review)
55. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri ★★★½ (review)
56. ♫ Matilda by Roald Dahl ★★★★ (review)
57. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James ★★★★½ (review)

April:
58. ♫ Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog) by Jerome K. Jerome ★★★★ (review)
59. Sandman: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman ★★½ (review)
60. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón ★★★★⅝ (review)
61. ♫ Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain ★★★★ (review)
62. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick ★★★★ (review)
63. Invisible River by Helena McEwen ★ (Read for Early Reviewers) (review)
64. ♫ Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn ★★★★⅓ (review)
65. ♫ Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson ★★★★⅞ (review)
66. ♫ Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh ★★★★⅓ (review)
67. La Curée (The Kill) by Émile Zola ★★★★⅓ (review)
68. ♫ The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse ★★⅘ (review)
69. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton ★★½ (review)
70. Mockingjay (Hunger Games 3) by Suzanne Collins ★★★★ (review)
71. ♫ Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë ★★★★⅞ (review)
72. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman ★★★★½ (review)
73. Apollo's Angels : A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans ★★★★½ (review)
74. ♫ Grass for His Pillow (Tales of the Otori: Book 2) by Lian Hearn ★★★½ (review)
75. ♫ The Fall of the House of Usher: The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe ★★★⅝ (review)
76. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway ★★★★ (review)
77. ♫ The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino ★★★⅓ (review)
78. Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris) by Émile Zola ★★★★⅓ (review)

May:
79. ♫ Animal Farm by George Orwell ★★★★★ (review)
80. Playback: A Graphic Novel by Raymond Chandler ★★¼ (review)
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys ★★★★¼ (review)
82. ♫ Dubliners by James Joyce ★★★★ (review)
83. ♫ The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht ★★★★★ (review)
84. ♫ Gros-Câlin by Romain Gary ★★★★⅓ (review)
85. L'argent facile (Easy Money) - Stockholm Noir 1, by Jens Lapidus ★½ (review)
86. The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo ★★★★ (review)
87. ♫ And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie ★★★★ (review)
88. Emma, Volume 1 by Kaoru Mori ★★½ (review)
89. ♫ La petite fille de monsieur Linh (Monsieur Linh and His Child) by Philippe Claudel ★★★★½ (review)
90. Lost & Found by Shaun Tan ★★★★★ (review)
91. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain ★★★★ (review)
92. Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 by David Petersen ★★★ (review)
93. ♫ Mansfield Park by Jane Austen ★★★¾ (review)
94. The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva ★★★¾ (review)
95. The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger ★★½ (review)
96. Daytripper by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba ★★★½ (review)
97. ♫ Killing Floor by Lee Child ★★★½ (review)
98. ♫ Flying Too High : a Phryne Fisher Mystery by Kerry Greenwood ★★★½ (review)
99. Silas Marner by George Eliot ★★★★ (review)
100. ♫ An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin ★★★★⅓ (review)

June
101. Le Chat du Rabbin: La Bar-Mitsva (The Rabbi's Cat, Book 1) ★★★★⅓ (review)
102. ♫ Les âmes grises (By a Slow River) by Philippe Claudel ★★★★½ (review)
103. Monstres Malades by Emmanuelle Houdart ★★★★ (review)
104. Le Chat du Rabbin: Le Malka des Lions (The Rabbi's Cat, Book 2) ★★★★ (review)
105. The Haunted Playground by Shaun Tan ★★★½ (review)
106. In Search of Klingsor by Jorge Volpi ★★½ (review)
107. ♫ The Prestige by Christopher Priest ★★★⅞ (review)
108. Le Chat du Rabbin: L'Exode (The Rabbi's Cat, Book 3) ★★★★ (review)
109. ♫ Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant ★★★★½ (review)
110. ♫ The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey ★★★★ (review)
111. The Tiger : A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant ★★★★ (review)
112. ♫ The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell ★★★¾ (review)
113. The Deadly Doll by Janine Burke ★★★★ (review)
114. ♫ Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach, read by Samuel L. Jackson ★★★★½ (review)
115. La Conquête de Plassans / The Conquest of Plassans by Émile Zola ★★★★⅓ (review)
116. The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise by Georges Perec ★★★ (review)
117. ♫ Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller ★★★½ (review)
118. Trapped by James Moloney ★★½ (review)
119. L'apprentissage amoureux by Laetitia Bourget ★★★★⅓ (review)
120. ♫ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: The Primary Phase (BBC Radio Collection) by Douglas Adams ★★★★★ (review)
121. Le Chat du Rabbin: Le Paradis terrestre (The Rabbi's Cat, Book 4) ★★★½ (review)

July
122. Blanche Neige by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★¾ (review) ☀
123. The Old Child by Jenny Erpenbeck ★★★½ (review)
124. ♫ Black Beauty by Anna Sewell ★★★½ (review) ☀
125. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo ★★★½ (review) ☀
126. The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin ★★★★ (review) ☀
127. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes ★★★★ (review) ☀
128. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo ★★★★★ (review)
129. ♫ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ★★★★ (review) ☀
130. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame ★★★★ (review) ☀
131. L'enfant silence by by Cécile Roumiguière & Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★⅓ (review)
132. Le petit chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★ (review) ☀
133. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan ★★★★ (review) ☀
134. Le Carnet Rouge by Benjamin Lacombe illustrated by Agata Kawa ★★★★¾ (review)
135. ♫ Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris ★★★★ (review) ☀
136. ♫ The Cat in the Hat and Other Dr. Seuss Favorites by Dr. Seuss ★★★★ (review) ☀
137. ♫ The Roald Dahl Audio CD Collection by Roald Dahl ★★★★⅓ (review) ☀
138. Le chat du rabbin 5: Jérusalem d'Afrique by Joann Sfar ★★★★⅓ (review)
139. Flotsam by David Wiesner ★★★★½ (review) ☀
140. The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo ★★★★⅓ (review)
141. Le bois de Klara / Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck ★★★½ (review) ☀
142. ♫ Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson ★★★ (review) ☀
143. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman ★★★★⅓ (review) ☀
144. Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★½ (review) ☀
145. La funeste nuit d'Ernest by Sébastien Perez, Illustrated by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★ (review) ☀
146. Longs Cheveux by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★ (review)
147. Blues Bayou by Benjamin Lacombe illustrated by Daniela Cytryn ★★★★(review)
148. Cerise Griotte / Cherry and Olve by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★ (review)
149. Pourquoi la carapace de la tortue... ? by Mimi Barthélémy illustrated by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★ (review)
150. Les Amants Papillons by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★ (review)
151. La grande journée du petit Lin Yi / Lin Yi's Lantern by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★ (review)
152. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead ★★★★⅓ (review) ☀

August
153. Hurricane by David Wiesner ★★★ (review)
154. Kite flier by Dennis Haseley ★★½ (review)
155. Tuesday by David Wiesner ★★★★ (review)
156. Sector 7 by David Wiesner ★★★★ (review)
157. June 29, 1999 by David Wiesner ★★★★½ (review)
158. La Petite Sorcière by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★½ (review) ☀
159. Grimoire de Sorcières by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★½ (review) ☀
160. ♫ Watership Down by Richard Adams ★★★½ (review) ☀
161. ♫ Charlotte's Web by E. B. White ★★½ (review) ☀
162. La mélodie des tuyaux by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★ (review) ☀
163. L'Esprit du temps, tome 1 by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★½ (review) ☀
164. L'Esprit du temps, tome 2 by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★ (review) ☀
165. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ★★★★★ (review) ☀
166. L'amoureux by Rébecca Dautremer ★★★ (review) ☀
167. Cyrano by Taï-Marc Le Thanh, illustrated by Rébecca Dautremer ★★★★ (review) ☀
168. Nasreddine by Odile Weulersse, illustrated by Rébecca Dautremer ★★★★½ (review) ☀
169. L'ange de grand père / Grandpa's Angel by Jutta Bauer ★★★★½ (review)
170. Selma by Jutta Bauer ★★★★⅞ (review) ☀
171. Sweet Tooth Vol. 1: Out of the Woods by Jeff Lemire ★★★★ (review) ☀
172. ♫ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith ★★★★½ (review) ☀
173. ♫ Once Upon A Time In The North by Philip Pullman ★★★★ (review) ☀
174. ♫ Brokeback Mountain by E. Annie Proulx ★★★★½ (review) ☀
175. Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo ★★★★★ (review) ☀
176. La faute de l'abbé Mouret / The Sin of Father Mouret by Émile Zola ★★⅞ (review) ☀
177. Un Lion à Paris by Beatrice Alemagna ★★★★★ (review) ☀
178. Le trésor de Clara by Beatrice Alemagna ★★★½ (review) ☀
179. Le secret d'Ugolin by Beatrice Alemagna ★★★★ (review) ☀
180. Un jour, grand-père m'a donné un ruisseau by Gaëlle Perret, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★★ (review) ☀
181. Tristan et Iseult by Béatrice Fontanel, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★★ (review) ☀
182. ♫ Rules of Civility by Amor Towles ★★★ (review) ☀
183. Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer ★★★★ (review) ☀
184. ♫ The Scarecrow And His Servant by Philip Pullman ★★★ (review)
185. Renard & Renard (Kleines Glück & Wilde Welt) by Max Bolliger, illustrated by Klaus Ensikat ★★★★ (review)
186. Princesses oubliées ou inconnues... / The Secret Lives of Princesses by Philippe Lechermeier, illustrated by Rébecca Dautremer ★★★ (review) ☀
187. Tigre le Dévoué by Qifeng Shen, illustrated by Agata Kawa ★★★★ (review) ☀
188. Rossignol by Benjamin Perez, illustrated by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★★ (review) ☀
189. Rose Blanche by Christophe Gallaz, illustrated by Roberto Innocenti ★★★★ (review) ☀
190. The Miracle of the Bears by Wolf Erlbruch ★★★ (review) ☀
191. The Fearsome Five by Wolf Erlbruch ★★★½ (review)
192. Histoire courte d'une goutte by Beatrice Alemagna ★★★¾ (review) ☀
193. L'enfant qui mangeait les nuages by Agnès Lestrade, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★★ (review) ☀
194. The Crows of Pearblossom by Aldous Huxley, illustrated by Sophie Blackall ★★★½ (review)
195. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin ★★★★½ (review) ☀
196. Destins de Chiens by Benjamin Lacombe ★★★½ (review) ☀
197. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo ★★★★★ (review) ☀

Note: touchstone books are rated 4.5 and up.

Books I'd like to read this year (*options* not obligations!)
✔★ Prodigal Summer and/or The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
✔ Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky
✔ Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
✔★ The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
✔♫★ Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
✔♫★ Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
✔ A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
✔ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
✔★ La Fortune des Rougons by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 1)
♫★ Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
♫★ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
✔ The Moment of Seeing by Stephanie Comer
✔★ The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
✔ The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
✔ The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
✔ The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
✔ Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
✔ A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
✔ The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
✔★ The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky --->keep for 2012
✔★ Samarcande by Amin Maalouf
✔ La vie devant soi (The Life Before Us) by Romain Gary
✔ Stupeurs et tremblements Fear and Trembling by Amélie Nothomb
✔★ L'enfant de sable (The Sand Child) by Tahar Ben Jelloun
✔★ The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
✔ Crete by Barry Unsworth --->keep for 2012
✔★ Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
✔★ Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
♫★ The Difference Engine by William Gibson
✔★ The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi --->keep for 2012
✔★ One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
✔★ The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
✔★ The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
✔★ The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
✔ La Curée by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 2)
❉ Le Ventre de Paris by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 3)
❉ La Conquête de Plassans by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 4)
❉ La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 5)
❉ Son Excellence Eugène Rougon by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 6)
✔ L'Assomoir by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 7)
Une Page d'Amour by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 8)
✔ Nana by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 9)
✔ Pot-Bouille by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 10)
Au Bonheur des Dames by Émile Zola (Rougon-Macquart 11)
✔ Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
❉ To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
❉ Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans
Cleopatra : A Life by Stacy Schiff
✔★ The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
✔★ The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
♫ The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman
✔★ L'élégance du hérisson by Muriel Barbery --->keep for 2012
✔ La forme de l'eau by Andrea Camilleri
✔ l'Excursion à Tindari by Andrea Camilleri
✔ L'enfant de Noé by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
La reine Margot by Alexandre Dumas --->keep for 2012
✔★ Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
✔★ The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
♫♞ A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
♫❉ An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
♫★ Animal Farm by George Orwell
♫❉ Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
♫♞ As You Like It by Shakespeare
♫❉ Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières
♫❉ Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo --->keep for 2012
✔ American Gods by Neil Gaiman
♫♞ Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
♫❉ Dubliners by James Joyce
♫❉ Gros-câlin by Romain Gary
♫★ Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon --->keep for 2012
♫❉ No Dominion by Charlie Huston (unfinished)
♫ Passing by Nella Larsen
♫❉ Tales Of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
♫❉ Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
♫❉ The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde (unfinished)
♫❉ The Blue Notebook by James Levine
♫♞ The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
♫❉ The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
♫❉ Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
♫❉ Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
♫❉ When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
✔★ The Tenant and the Motive by Javier Cercas
✔★ Possession by A.S. Byatt
✔★ The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
✔★ Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
✔★ Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
✔★ There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
✔★ Queenpin by Megan Abbott
✔★ The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation by M. T. Anderson
✔★ Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill
✔★ The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace
✔★ The World of Gloria Vanderbilt by Wendy Goodman
✔★ Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 by Carol Squiers

✔ = off the shelf
♫ = audiobook (all acquired in 2011)
❉ = library
★ = acquired in 2011
♞ = performance

(ongoing editing)

And I get to be first here and admire that curious painting! What gives? (It reminds me of Gully Jimson in The Horse's Mouth. I really, really need to get back to Joyce Cary. Group read, anybody?) You read so much and such good stuff that I'm always knocked out when I come over. *picks self up and totters off* Happy New Thread!

I'm second! I thought I had caught a fish when that picture popped out at me. A shiny new star for a shiny new thread!

Placing my star and giving a hug. :)

Hi Peggy, Doona and Valerie, nice to see you've all found me. And so soon too!

Another beautiful and creatively stimulating picture on your thread - YAY! Take it easy, and have a good Sunday!

Hi Laura, thanks for dropping by the new place and please know I got your PM filled with kindnesses and will respond to you soon.

Starring, saying hi, and wondering if that is Mimi or Ezra on the cat stand by the window in the photo on your profile.

Mmm, fish!

A bouquet of flowers for your new thread:

Hi Ilana, starring your new thread and admiring the art. I'll have to investigate Mr Mornet. My thoughts have been with you since I read your message on the last thread. Just want to say how much I've enjoyed getting to know you through the threads this year.

Hi Ilana- Lets hope today is a better day for you! Interesting illustration. What are your thoughts about it? Hugs!

Found you and starred you, and hoping the next day is a bit brighter for you.

Just dropping by to add my star. Hope things are improving.

Dropping off a star with all the others. :)

You're picture makes me want fish....catfish...

Hi Ilana, just dropping by to leave a star. I love your opening picture, it really grabs the eye.

#13 Hi Ellen, that's my little girl Mimi on that picture. Ezra is a grey tabby. There's a picture of him pouting among my gallery images if you're curious to see him.

#14 Those are lovely flowers Darryl, very sweet of you, thanks!

#15 Re: artwork, I discovered Pierre Mornet via Marlena Agency, which reps very talented illustrators around the world, some very well known, like Serge Bloch. Many of them are hired by reputable publications such as The New Yorker, so might seem familiar. I chose to work with several artists represented by Marlena when I was at the magazine and those were, and remain, some of the mosts pleasant experiences I had as an art director. I must say that whenever I've worked with such high caliber talent I really felt that I was fulfilling my calling, and it's something I miss very much, so I'm very glad we can at least share our passion for illustration together Kerry. Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts, I'm a little bit better today, but can't help feeling overwhelmed with fear and apprehension sometimes.

#16 Thoughts about it? Do you want the long or the short version Mark?

Let's see if I can do pithy for once: I love this illustrator's style, his use of colour, and the surrealistic effect of his compositions. The mood and tone he sets suit my state of mind. I was looking for an image which suited the horizontal format I've imposed for myself, and this one also happens to express my feelings about where I currently see myself in the world. I'm just a small fish who's sunk to the depths, but as long as I've got my red dress on, all will be well with the world... or then again, I might get become appealing bait for one of those great big creatures, though they look harmless enough. Ok, not so pithy, but I tried. ;-)

Salutations and welcome to Genny, Heather, Micky, Nathan and Judy. I've got quite a few reviews coming. Just need to get cracking and will be posting throughout the week.

Have a great week everyone and happy reading!

Interesting picture. Love the surrealism of this one. Interesting that the girl, who would be the center of our attention anyway, probably, is given the bright red dress, drawing the eye even more.

Glad you're back, Sweetie.

Hi Gail, it's good to have you here. I think the girl in the image is the character in a story, because there are several illustrations featuring her with her red dress, though I didn't find any details at all about her beyond the images themselves. She's an intriguing one, to be sure.

201. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck ★★★★★
(Read for TIOLI #12: title with a word appearing on wikipedia page about Mid-Autumn Festival and 11 in 11 Category #6: New To Me Authors)

"And what will we do with a pretty woman? We must have a woman who will tend the house and bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face! No, not a pretty woman in our house. We are farmers. Moreover, who has heard of a pretty slave who was virgin in a wealthy house? All the young lords have had their fill of her. It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty."

When we meet Wang Lung, he is a poor farmer taking care of his elderly father. On this day he is preparing for a special event: today is the day he will go get himself a wife, and he looks forward to his new life, when he will no longer have to boil the water for his father to drink in the morning, nor have to prepare food, nor clean house, as there will finally be a woman by his side to take care of all these things. Wang Lung feels in a celebratory mood, so he puts a few tea leaves in his father's water and goes as far as taking a bath, even as his father objects to such waste and luxury. Indeed, what if the new wife comes to expect these things? All the same, Wang Lung has in mind to have a feast that night and works out that with his few coins, he might be able to afford some meat and even perhaps to get a shave from a barber. He makes his way to the town, and eventually presents himself to the great House of Hwang, which is owned by a wealthy family, and where even the man who guards the gate makes him feel inferior. Wang Lung is there to collect O Lan, the woman who is to be his wife. O Lan has been a slave in the kitchens of this house for the better part of her life, which is all a man in Wang Lungs's position can expect for a wife. O Lan will sacrifice herself completely for her husband and the family she gives him, as is expected of a woman in China in these pre-revolutionary days. And so we follow this family and the great saga that unfolds in clear and simple prose that belies the complexity of human relations, the great struggles and changes, and the timeless themes explored in this novel which well deserves to be regarded as a masterpiece of the twentieth century. Pearl S. Buck said she only wrote about what she knew, and that China was all she knew about, and part of her genius is in creating a story set in a China known to few people in the West, with it's people and customs and values so very foreign and strange to a modern Western reader, yet exploring universal themes which make us empathize with the characters and live through their struggles right alongside them. A thoroughly enjoyable reading experience, this novel deserves to be read at least once.

Wow, five stars. That's a recommendation if I've ever seen/read one. Great review, Ilana. Thanks!

Hello lovely Ilana! Caught up with your new thread and just visiting to say *allo*. Gorgeous review of The Good Earth which I read as a teen but acquired again recently to see if it was as excellent as I remembered - judging from your review it still has resonance! I do hope you get to Possession this year - I would love to know what you think of it. *kiss to eack cheek* thanks for your kindnesses on my thread!

Fabulous review of The Good Earth, Ilana! I've never read it, but I certainly will now.

Great review. Like Prue, I read this as a teen and loved it. Noting the recent buzz on LT about the book I have thought about rereading it too. I'm considering a Rereads category for my 12in12 for all those great books I read as a teen and also because I feel I should reread the Harry Potter seven.

Just stopping by to add another star to your collection:)



Great review of The Good Earth - I think I read it as a teenager ... maybe time for a re-read.

Hi Ilana, I completely missed your last thread and didn't fully read it now, sorry. Don't know yet when I'll be able to be a regular visitor again.

What a beautiful and strange picture.
this one also happens to express my feelings about where I currently see myself in the world
Actually, that's what was my first thought when I saw it - that this is me. :-)

How great - you rated The Good Earth with full 5 stars! That one has been on my shelf for more than 2 years now. I won't be able to read it this month for the TIOLI, but I'll try to get to it this year.

Great, great, review Ilana! I am going to go give my thumb after posting this message. And I am impressed that it garnered the illustrious 5 star rating from you since I know you reserve that only for your truly best reads! :)

Love the illustration, as ever. And a very nice review of The Good Earth. I've never wanted to read TGE before - for some reason it never appealed to me, but now that I actually know what it's about I trotted right over to amazon and bought myself a copy. Thanks, Ilana!

Hi There
Great review for The Good Earth! Added to the ever growing wishlist!

Another thumbs up for your review of The Good Earth. I read it many, many years ago and loved it. All this recent interest in the book has sparked an interest for a re-read, which I don't do very often.

A beautiful review, Ilana. The book doesn't really pique my interest but I really appreciate the eloquence of your review. Added my thumb to the rest.

#26 Yes, the full five. When I finish a book and feel like going back to the first page and starting all over again... now THAT's a five star book for sure!

#27 Hi Prue, lovely to hear from you! I too hope to get to Possession this year, but if not, it'll be a priority in 2012.

#28 I'll look forward to your comments on The Good Earth when you've read it Darryl.

#29 I think one of the reasons for the buzz is because of Anchee Min's most recent book, Pearl of China which was offered as an ER book. Which reminds me, I need to get cracking on that one too. I'm planning a re-reads category for 12/12 as well, but I should probably make up a list first to see if I'll even come up with a full dozen I want to read again yet, though somehow I doubt it'll be very hard.

#30 Hi calm, that star collection is looking very nice, thanks :-)

#31 Hi Nathalie, don't worry about catching up with the old thread, it's old news now. It's nice to see you in theses parts, even if it's just for a brief visit. Know that you are missed!

#32 Thanks for the thumb Valerie. I think what surprised me the most about TGE was how Buck made me care about all these people, even though most of them were not likeable in the least, but somehow that wasn't really important. Surprising to that it's such an enjoyable read when there is so much that should have rubbed me the wrong way. It's one of those rare books that exceeded expectations by a long shot.

#33 Wow, I'm impressed that you went ahead and bought the book right away Charlotte. But all the same, I hope you won't hold it against me if you end up not enjoying it as much as me...

#34 Chelle, trust me when I say that there's no chance your wish list will stop growing as long as you hang out with this group!

#35 I know, who has time for re-reads when there are so many books to discover, right? But some books really are worth revisiting, sometimes even a few times. Thanks for the thumb Judy!

#36 Thanks so much Micky, I appreciate your comment and the thumb too of course.

*****

I finished Ethan Frome last night and now went back to read the introduction, something I don't do very often, but the story really piqued my interest and I want to find out more about it.

Another slow day over here. Wanted to visit threads and write more reviews but migraine makes it hard to even just sit up right now, so I'll lay down and take it easy for a while.

Not to worry about the possibility of me not liking TGE. Got it for less than 3 bucks on amazon - not a huge investment. Hoping it is not too beat up.

Looking forward to your opinion of Ethan Frome (when you are migraine-less again). That was probably the one book that I was required to read in high school that I really liked. I bought it not that long ago (sometime within the last two years, I think) and I believe it is coming up soon on the TBR shelf.

Hi Ilana, I've just been catching up on threads and read your posts on the last one and I hope you are feeling better this week. Late as always but my virtual hugs should have arrived on time. And I'm also looking forward to your review of Ethan Frome, another classic that has been on my radar for far too long.

As for that pesky migraine, definitely take it easy and enjoy a rest and look after yourself.

I tried sleeping off the migraine, which of course never quite works, but at least I'm out cold while it hangs out. Little wonder it's come about today since we've been having a pretty good rainstorm, so low pressure system and whatnot. I would have liked to get some reading done, but that wasn't possible. I even tried listening to an audio when I went to walk Coco earlier in the day and couldn't handle that either. But now that the rain is actually falling, it's a bit better. I hope I'm ok tomorrow because I signed up for a volunteering gig collecting funds at the hospital to benefit people in the horn of Africa. It's just a couple of hours, but with a migraine, it could end up being a couple of hours of pure hell, so I'll hope for the best.

#38 Charlotte, I look forward to my review of Ethan Frome too! But as usual, I'm way behind on my reviews, so it'll be a while till I get to it. Unlike many LTers, it's very rare that I can knock out a review right after I've finished reading something because I need time to let it sink in and live with it a little bit before I can even make up my mind about what I want to say about it, if that makes any sense.

#39 It's never too late for hugs Leonie :-) What I posted about the other day is really an ongoing concern, it's just I try not to dwell on it too much because that's not helpful, but sometimes the load becomes too heavy to carry, if that makes sense at all. We all have our struggles. I guess it keeps life interesting.

Hope you feel better Ilana!
I know what you mean about those migraines though. I feel like mine is more accurate at predicting when the weather system is changing then my local forecast...

Hope your migraine is dissipating, Ilana. I've had them hovering for the last week, too, when that low pressure system moved through.

I meant to chime in during the Great Expectations discussion that I also read it as a freshman in high school and remember practically nothing about it, but when I met Miss Haversham in the Thursday Next books, I loved her character there, and wondered if I should reread GE to meet her pre-BookWorld.

And that is QUITE a striking picture!

37> trust me when I say that there's no chance your wish list will stop growing as long as you hang out with this group! TOO TRUE!!!!!

I hope you feel better soon, Ilana.

Good morning everyone, and thanks for your kind messages Valerie, Roni and Ellen

I'm feeling much better this morning, thanks. Which is weird since we're expecting more thunderstorms during the day, but hey, I'm not complaining! Am in a bit of a rush since I need to start getting reading in a minute so I can get myself to the hospital for my little volunteering stint collecting funds. I'm really happy that I'm well enough to meet that engagement. Afterwards, making my way to The Word to collect all the books I set aside last week. Is anyone willing to bet as to whether or not I'll be able to resist looking through the shelves again?

Finished I Am the Great Horse last night, which took me forever to get through. Wish I could say I loved it, because it was a recommendation from Kerry, but it wasn't quite so this time. I'll be starting on something else today, though not sure what yet. I did start on the audio of The White Rhino Hotel by Bartle Bull last night, and am just one chapter in so far, but I've heard so many good things about it, it's fair to say I do have quite a fair bit of expectations.

I have a tenner that says you browse the shelves and find at least one more book of interest enough to collect. :-)

Good morning, you Hot Reviewer, you! I added my thumb to the melange. I loved The Good Earth when I read it many years ago and when I listened to it on a roadtrip several years ago. It's one of those timeless treasures of which one never tires. I hope you're having a GREAT week!

Yeah, I'm going to go along with Ellen and bet that you will not only browse the shelves but add to that ever growing collection, only because that is exactly what I would end up doing. :)

Hi Ilana- I'm so glad you are feeling better today! Hooray! And I hope you enjoy your audio of White Rhino Hotel.

I agree with Ellen and Valerie as it is also just what I'd do as well. Very glad to hear the migraines are behaving today.

No doubt sitting on your thoughts for a while helps to make your reviews so very good. Most of the time I rush my thoughts and that is why your's are fine wine and my reflections are mere grape juice.

Hope the Horn of Africa thingy went well.

#45 So wait... who owes what to whom, now that you prediction came true? ;-)

#46 Thanks for the extra thumb Donna. I have to say I do get a kick out of seeing my reviews make it on that column once in a while. It feels like such an honour! Even though I try to get rid of as many books as possible after I've read them (no room for them!) I'm keeping my copy of The Good Earth because I know I'll want to read it again in the not so distant future.

#47 Right, well, that was a pretty safe bet, I'd say. I'm glad that I was only tempted by ONE book. And almost picked up another (The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, which was recommended by Darryl), but then realized I already had the same title in the pile I had put aside!

#48 Hey Mark, I'm really glad I'm feeling better today too, such a relief after all that Sturm und Drang. Not being original in the least with that expression, since I saw it on Gail's thread recently, but it fits perfectly, so I've nicked it. :-)

#49 Hello my friend! Don't want to tempt the migraine, but somehow it's staying at bay even though we have a low pressure system with rainstorms coming in and out... feels so good being pain-free, and is so rare that I'm really enjoying it while it lasts.

#50 Fine wine vs. grape juice... LOL! You're being much to kind to me, and much to Unkind to yourself. It's true I've always found it quite easy to express myself in writing (much more so than verbally) but when it comes to writing anything even semi-formal like a review, I just can't do it until it decides to type itself, more or less. So really, I don't let it sit there on purpose, it's just my mind works s-l-o-w-l-y sometimes. :-)

I collected just over $80 today for the Horn of Africa thingy in about 90 minutes. Which is pretty good considering we do zero solicitation (and thank heavens for that, because I am no saleswoman, that's for sure). The money will be donated to World Vision and the govt. is matching donations until the 16th this month, so it's encouraging, even though I made quite a bit more last week. I'll probably go back on Thursday again because they haven't had enough volunteers sign up for this fund-raising campaign, and I feel like if I don't go, it'll be money lost. It's strange for me to just stand there and smile—I'm so used to always being occupied with something, but it's very calming somehow, even though there are loads of people walking by all the time since I'm right next to the cafeteria.

*****

So I went to The Word to pick up my haul from last week. I won't repeat the list of books I got since I already posted about it here, though I did forget to list The Leopard and The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh among the spoils. Spent another hour looking through the offerings today and found a brand new copy of Beatrix Potter: The Extraordinary Life of a Victorian Genius by Linda Lear for half the price of a new book from BookDepository. I always check against them with my iPhone as I'm shopping to make sure I'm getting a good deal, since BD often matches or beats used book prices. I had borrowed The Extraordinary Life of a Victorian Genius from the library but didn't have the time to read it, so now it's a sure bet I'll get to it... someday now that I own it.

When I came back home, it was unbearably humid and just as I was walking out the door with Coco to go to the library, a wonderful rainstorm declared itself. I had an umbrella, but left it closed as long as I could—it was so refreshing to get rained on! At the library, picked up The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt illustrated by the wonderful Tony DiTerlizzi (who was inspired by Edward Gorey among others) another recommendation by Kerry. I also got yet another copy of The Wind in the Willows, just to look at the illustrations by Arthur Rackham, which are of course wonderful. We sat at the nearby dog-friendly café were I pored over both books before returning them back to the book chute. I also got the audio version of Muriel Spark's A Far Cry from Kensington. I've somehow built up quite a little collection of her works on audio (four of them) without actually aiming for recorded books... just sort of happened that way. Maybe a Muriel Spark category for 12/12, or "Read a book by an author you have three or more books by in your tbr", or...

Well, we never shook on it, but in theory you owe me ten bucks. I'll accept ten friendly and interesting posts and we'll call it even. Since your thread and your posts on others' threads are always among my favorites, this should be an easy debt to settle. :-)

Your "Horn in Africa thingy" sounds great. Nice work. And well done on more successful spoils-collection at The Word (I take it this is a bookstore in Montreal?).

Oh, and ----- hooray for the end of a migraine!

Ellen, you always say the nicest things... as you can imagine, your comment put a big smile on my face.

The Word is my favourite second hand bookstore here in Montreal, yes. They specialize in literature and the owner is very finicky about the condition of books, so there's always bound to be an interesting selection of books that will pass my rigid criteria as to condition. They're right next to the McGill university campus, and close to the Royal Victoria hospital, where I've done a couple of volunteering sessions, and where I'm also followed medically.

*****

Tomorrow, I'll be spending a good part of the day with my GF Kimmy. She's my best RL friend, but we don't see each other all that often since she has a family to look after and a growing business that keep her very busy. So whenever we have time together we try to cram in as much as possible. So, not loads of LT or reading time tomorrow, but it'll be a nice to be with a flesh and blood person and get an actual, physical hug too! :-) Not that you wonderful LT people aren't real or anything!

I still haven't decided what book to pick up next. I really should read Pearl of China, since it's an ER book and already overdue for a review, and now I've read The Good Earth, I have no excuse to NOT read it (it's about Peal S. Buck). I've not read anything by Anchee Min yet, but I've had Empress Orchid on my shelves for... wow, a long time! and was curious about other books by her as well, so this is as good a place as any to get acquainted with her writing.

I'll probably pick up a YA book as well, since I have quite a few from the library left over from this summer's YA festival. It'll either be The young man and the sea, or Dust, or From the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler or maybe even a book from my own shelves, Leviathan which was picked by Laura from my September list as a MUST READ for me this month... there's no lack of options, that's for sure! :-)

Enjoy your time with Kimmy! RL hugs are an occasional must!

Just dropping by to say Hi! Ilana - 211 books to date this year - you and Morph could start your 250 book challenge thread but the membership may be a wee bit lower than this one. Interesting cover photo - is that you lost amongst the fishes contemplating an award winning surf & turf?

"Horn in Africa thingy"??

Ilana- Enjoy your day today with your GF!

I loved From the Mixed-Up Files when I read it in middle school! I should read it again sometime, especially since I now work in the museum field and there are several museums I'd love to live in.

So glad to hear your migraine is lifting/lifted. I rmember how terrible they were; fortunately haven't had but two or three in 10 years---shhh---don't tell. I was just reading that dull book about the immediate post-American-Revolutionary period and saw this stunner: "Jefferson was just recovering from a migraine that had lasted a month." A month-long migraine!!! Torture.

Added yet another thumb to the fantastic review of The Good Earth. It was one of my first "adult" reads, when I was a young teen, and it left an indelible impression. Maybe it's time for a re-read.

And, you'll be pleased to know that I listened to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this a.m. duing my stint on the Walking Track. Smiled the whole time and occasionally laughed aloud--people must think I'm kind of loony. A great recommendation from you; thanks very much!

Have lots of fun with your friend today.

I hope you have a great time hanging out with Kimmy! As much as we all love books, every so often, to talk to real person is a nice change. :)

As well, since I bought into the bet, you'd owe me 10 bucks as well but a friendly LT hug and smile will sufficiently cover your debt...this time. ;)

Rain used to be my favourite kind of weather as a kid, I loved to be rained on, especially when we lived in Singapore and it was so hot but you could cool down each evening with the monsoon rains. I'm really liking the sound of your new Beatrix Potter book and will wait eagerly to see what you think of it, I thought the movie was very well done even though it had ms. Renee in it who I don't usually like.

Good morning Ilana, glad to hear you are feeling a bit better - nice haul of books from The Word.
Unlike many LTers, it's very rare that I can knock out a review right after I've finished reading something because I need time to let it sink in and live with it a little bit before I can even make up my mind about what I want to say about it, if that makes any sense. That's my experience, too.

Unlike many LTers, it's very rare that I can knock out a review right after I've finished reading something because I need time to let it sink in and live with it a little bit before I can even make up my mind about what I want to say about it, if that makes any sense.

I agree, too.

Hello Ilana lovely, just a quick passing by but very envious of your second hand books haul....I remember studying The Leopard in Literature class - really enjoyed it...

I usually give it a day or two but not much longer since I have this problem where I feel like I can't fully engage in the book I'm currently reading if I'm still constantly trying to figure out what I want to say about the book I just finished. :) And plus I know my personality that if I let them back log, I just won't end up reviewing them at all!

I put my thoughts down about a book almost as soon as I turn the last page. I don't feel I do reviews as much as I write my feelings and personal reaction to the book, so immediacy is important to capture the actual mood.

I know my personality that if I let them back log, I just won't end up reviewing them at all! That too is true of me; hence the lack of proper reviews on my thread and the slight niggling guilt I have all the time that I haven't got round to them yet...

I've been mostly away from the computer these past couple of days. I'm trying to wean myself off a little. One of my art classes (watercolours) is starting on Monday, then I have a full day painting class starting a couple of weeks from now and of course I'll also have assignments to do at home, so won't be able to spend so much time here on LT. I'm a bit sad about that, but it's about time though, because I haven't worked on any art projects at all in the last couple of months.

Yesterday after my last short gig for the World Vision fund drive at the hospital, had a chat with volunteer services about the possibility of a regular commitment and working more closely with patients. Since I haven't heard anything at all from J at the Allan Institute about the 'artist in residence' position, I may as well put my volunteering training to use some other way. To think that just a few years ago I had panic attacks in hospitals and was phobic about germs or getting near sick people... Nothing is decided yet, and I'll wait to start my classes before taking on anything else, but it's in the works.

I spent a lovely day with Kimmy on Wednesday. We went to see The Help and both liked it a lot. I thought the movie was completely true to the novel, but the audiobook was so amazingly well executed that I'd still pick the latter if I had to choose. Only thing is, she wanted to go shopping beforehand. A dangerous activity for me since I'm a compulsive spender, so it's much like an alcoholic going to a bar... just asking for trouble. Since we have very similar tastes and went to stores we both liked, she had to constantly tell me to put things down and walk away. At Club Monaco (my former Friday evening after-work weekly binge), there were a couple of printed silk scarves—the kind of accessories that can transform a wardrobe, as good accessories can, and some basic t-shirts (a staple for me) which were so soft I was practically drooling. In another store, I became fixated on a pair of canary yellow Hunter Wellies... I love rubber boots and own one pair already but have wanted yellow ones for ages for a cheerful note on gloomy days. Kimmy talked me out of all of it (there was much more of course!), but I knew I'd be on St-Catherine street again on Thursday after the hospital to return a book, and of course I got into trouble and spent like mad. Now I'll have to return most of it because I truly can't afford it. But no, still didn't get the yellow Wellingtons.

I DID get a gorgeous copy of Around the World in Eighty Days, a large hardcover French edition richly illustrated with original 19th Century photographs. It was priced at $19.99 and I was thrilled when I checked on Amazon later and saw they were selling it at... $79.99. I had borrowed a much used copy of AtWiED from the library this summer and returned it not having found time to read it, so that's one more for the TBR pile.

#54 Ellen, Kimmy is one of the very few RL people I still see since I left work after my breakdown. There aren't a lot of people I no longer feel comfortable with now that I'm no longer a 'VIP' and considered a lost cause by most, but she's an old friend who sees beyond the superficialities, which of course means a lot to me.

#55 Hi Paul, you funny guy! I know my numbers seem huge already, but they're inflated by many many picture books, so I'll have to adjust my count at the end of the year to see how many of those are actual books of more than 30 pages!

#56 Hi Mark. That was probably not the best choice of words. The events themselves are horrific, but the volunteering was no huge effort, so yes, a 'thingy'. ;-)

#57 I really want to like From the Mixed-Up Files, but I read a couple of chapters and got annoyed with the patronizing tone. Even as a child, I had a problem with that, so it's hard to tell if I'm just more sensitive to that now as an adult. The storyline appeals to me though, so I'll try to forge ahead, but if I'm still bothered after a few more chapters, I'll drop it. Have soooo many books that I won't get to this month that I won't bother with those that don't appeal.

#58 A month-long migraine!!! Torture.

Yes well, I can tell you from experience, it's definitely a punishing experience. I've had several month-long or more migraines that made me want to bash my brains out, and so far have survived them, against all expectation. But I can't imagine having to make life or death decisions in that state. Sheesh.

I'm glad you enjoyed your recent audiobook experience. If you're going to laugh out loud, then Roald Dahl is your man. I do plenty of that myself. So often in fact, that I've ceased caring what people think. Being labeled as the neighbourhood crazy affords me some kind of protection, I'm sure! :-)

#59 I'm usually smart about making bets Val, and will only play when it's a sure win. Except for 6/49—I keep buying tickets because... well if you don't play you'll never know, will you? But next time I make a bet like that, I'll make sure to have plenty of ER books on hand to send away or something...

#60 Leonie, join the club: I can't stand Renée either. I think I vaguely remember seeing the movie, but really she ruins every movie she's in for me because all I can remember is how much she annoyed me. Wish I knew why. I'll have to get my hands on the Peter Rabbit tales before I plunge into that book to refresh my memory, but I look forward to it too.

Genny, Darryl, Valerie, Judy, I realized after reading that sentence over that what I should have said was:

Unlike many LTers, it's very rare that I can knock out a review right after I've finished reading something because I need time to let it sink in and live with it a little bit before I can even make up my mind about what I want to say about even think about it.

Because even if I tried, the words wouldn't come while nothing but a tiny marble clattered around my empty head, would they? Lol.

Val & Genny: plus I know my personality that if I let them back log, I just won't end up reviewing them at all!

Speaking of which... I'd better get to it and start knocking out a few right now before I give up on that task myself...

202. ♫ Still Life by Louise Penny ★★★
(Read for Series & Sequels September, TIOLI #13: set in the region where I was born & 11/11 Category #3: Mysteries & Crime Fiction)

When 76 year-old artist Jane Neal is found dead in the woods surrounding the small town of Three Pines in the province of Québec, none of the locals even imagines it could have been anything but a hunting accident. But when Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team from Montreal become convinced her killing was deliberate and probably perpetrated by someone close to Jane, her friends band together and decide to have a close look at her house. Shortly before dying, Jane, who had until then never let them see her home beyond the kitchen, had invited all her friends into her inner sanctum for a special occasion. If these walls could talk, might they reveal who the killer is?

I wasn't sure I'd like this series set near my hometown. For one thing, I've read less than a handful of books set in my region, with which I've always had a love/hate relationship, and for another, I had the impression this mystery might be a little too much on the "cozy" side for my tastes. The story made for a pleasant listening experience with Ralph Cosham as the audiobook narrator, but it wasn't until I got to halfway through that I even became curious to find out who the killer was; the people and the place seemed a little too quaint and as a local, I wasn't thrilled to hear the inevitable references made about the friction between Anglo and Francophone cultures, something that has always bothered me as a local, but which needed to be broached at least in the first book in the series, as it's very much an ongoing issue in these parts. But after being assured the series only keeps getting better as it goes on, and then getting discouraged when it seemed the second book was nowhere to be found at the library, where it was listed under a different title, I realized I probably enjoyed the first book more than I realized after all. And since I really want to read Bury Your Dead, book #6, which seems to be an all around favourite without skipping ahead, I'm willing to settle back and try to read on with the fresh and less jaded perspective of a visitor to my home region.

*****

As an aside, I thought I'd mention that Louise Penny will be at the Chapter's store on Set-Catherine street on Sunday the 18th at 2 p.m. to sign her latest book for any of her fans who live nearby or are thinking of visiting in the coming days.

203. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt ★★★★½
(Read for TIOLI #6: cover in one of the 3 prime colours and 11/11 Category #5: Books Published Since 2009)

Hired by the powerful Commodore to kill a man by the name of Hermann Kermit Warm in the mid-19th century, brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters embark on a road trip from their home in Oregon City to the California of the Gold Rush frenzy to find their mark. As Eli, who tells us the story from his own perspective informs us, there is a lot of bickering and arguing between the brothers. There is the matter of their horses to start with. After their last assignment in which their steeds were immolated, Charlie got first pick among two other mounts and got the aptly named "Nimble", while Eli, who had loved his previous horse and still has nightmares about the horrible way in which he died, got stuck with "Tub", who is as quick and lithe as his name implies. Though Tub poses a very real threat as an impediment to their next assignment, Charlie won't hear of replacing him before they're done with the job, for which he informs his younger brother that he has been chosen as the lead by Commodore and will therefore also earn more money. Eli is already ambivalent about what they do to earn a living—and well he should be as the sensitive and poetic soul he is—and he can't help but view his brother with a measure of contempt, quick as Charlie is to anger and given his brutal ways and hard drinking. But for all that, there is no denying the brothers make for a formidable and fearsome team, and as they make their way to California and to H. K. Warm, they find plenty of opportunities to stay on top of their game when it comes to killing, maiming and stealing as they encounter various individuals en route. It seems a sure bet that Hermann K. Warm doesn't stand a chance against this duo, and though the brothers have proved time and again that (almost) nothing can stand in their way, they are completely unprepared for what awaits them when they finally find him.

What is often a brutal story filled with violence and plenty of grizzly details is handled with so much skill and sensitivity by Patrick deWitt, that I found myself by turns laughing and sighing sadly, often within the same short paragraph. My only regret is that I didn't take note of the countless quotable sections I came across as I was reading the book, but scanning quickly through again to find those bits, I realized that much of the humour was very much contextual and that taken in isolation, sentences that made me chuckle out loud like "I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head" won't come off right until there's been some buildup to that moment (though I doubt anyone will find my comment to be a spoiler). Did this novel deserve to be picked for the Booker Prize Longlist? I couldn't say because I haven't read any other contenders. Did it deserve to be picked for the Shortlist and should it win? I'd say probably not, because while there is plenty to reflect upon in this story, I wouldn't define this as a particularly profound novel, if only because it does too much of a darn good job at entertaining us. But I certainly won't fault it for that. Much recommended, but animal lovers beware that there are some harsh scenes ahead.

Ilana- I liked your review of Still Life. I never reviewed it but I ended up liking it a bit more than you did and will probably read the next book.
I loved your Sisters Brothers review! Great job and I hope you snag another potential reader.

Hello:)
I have seen that a lot of people have been chatting about Louise Penny lately and I am thinking I should probably give this series a shot. I liked your honest review of it. And I have Sisters Brothers from the library waiting it's turn to be read!

I have Still Life and will read it eventually. I worry that it will be a little bit too "cozy," as you say, for my taste, but I definitely want to explore that series. Your review of Sisters Brothers, on the other hand, makes me want to add that to my wish list. I know there has been much mixed reaction to that novel, but your review is terrific.
eta: I put Sisters Brothers on hold at the library. I'm #99 in line for one of 16 copies!

#72 Hey Mark, I don't know that Sisters Brothers needs my review to garner it more readers, I'm sure it's on a bunch of bestseller lists and snagging a spot on the Booker Prize Shortlist can't hurt anything either! As for Louise Penny, I'll for sure get my hands on the next book too, it's just a question of when. Had they had it at Audible, I would have gotten it there right away, but as they don't, it'll be a while probably.

#73 Hi Chelle, I woulnd't have known about Louise Penny if it hadn't been for this gang right here on LT. I hope you enjoy The Sisters Brothers. I thought it was great and already look forward to seeing what they do with the movie version!

#74 I didn't realize there had been anything but glowing reviews for Sisters Brothers Ellen, because those I've read so far have been nothing but glowing. I guess I should check out the main page to see what people find fault with. I worked out that you're basically more or less the 6th person in line for Sisters Brothers (if there were just one copy that is), so don't despair! I sure hope the wait will have been worth it when you do get it!

*****

I forgot to mention that I received Jamrach's Menagerie in the mail yesterday, and then today got The Cat's Table. I keep forgetting that the Ondaatje novel isn't actually on the Booker Prize listing, short OR long, because Darryl's review of it make me want to read it so badly, that I keep thinking "must read it before the Booker Prize is announced". I was about to order The Sense of an Ending just now, but had a look at my Visa bill and was discouraged to see that every second expense on there was for books or audiobooks. Does that mean that I should stop now, or maybe I should follow Darryl's lead on this one too, especially considering it's the favourite to win this year, as I believe I read on his thread? Big decisions. Whatever the case may be, I'll have to return several books to the library unread and re-prioritize my reading list for this month, as I'd like to fit in at least those two above mentioned books soon.

I tried catching up on threads today, but it's hopeless. Only got two reviews out and so many more to go still, and meanwhile I hardly get an hour in each day to actually sit or lay down with a book, so I don't know how I'll manage to catch up on either threads or reviews, but I do know I'd better get to bed if I even want to get that hour in with Pearl of China tonight.

Hi Ilana,
Thanks for the review of Still Life. I have it on my iPad kindle and read the first ten or so pages and didn't get into it at all. I'll try harder soon...

I finished The Sense of an Ending last week and loved it too and want it to win the Booker now. I hope it turns up in your library soon!

Hi Cushla, thanks for dropping by. Louise Penny certainly seems to be revered in these parts. I found Still Life really took off for me towards the middle, once all the elements had been put in place, and from then on it just started getting more and more interesting. I definitely felt she was still working out how to make all the parts fit in, and establishing the little world she then went on to develop over the other instalments of the series. I'll be curious to see how it evolves, and will continue along for the ride.

I reserved The Sense of an Ending at the library a few days ago, but it's impossible to know right now when it'll actually be available to me. I'm on the verge of ordering it from BookDepository, and have been for the past few days now. It's just a question of when at this point... I've just spent so much on books this month already that I keep telling myself to be reasonable. We'll see how much longer I can hold off...

204. ♫ The Hunter: A Parker Novel by Richard Stark ★★★★
(Read for September Series & Sequels, TIOLI #6: cover in one of the 3 prime colours & 11/11 Category #10: Sooner Than Later: Recent Acquisitions)

In the first of the Parker series by Richard Stark—one of prodigiously prolific Donald E. Westlake's many pen names—Parker appears seemingly out of nowhere and makes his way to Manhattan to take his revenge on those who left him for dead after a heist in which some of his partners got too greedy. Originally published in 1962, Westlake clearly redefined the hardboiled genre popularized by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler with the creation of Parker, a hard-hitting, cold-blooded murdering anti-hero who makes us believe he's serious when he says he's sworn off love for good. No detective he, but a professional thief—one of the best in the business who lets nothing stand in his way. In this case, the plan being to reclaim the money that was stolen from him by "The Outfit", the organized crime gang he takes on singlehandedly so he can secure his future. The bad guys are really creepy and the good guys just don't exist. Fast moving, violent and addictive stuff.





205. ♫ The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark ★★★★
(Read for September Series & Sequels, TIOLI #6: cover in one of the 3 prime colours)

In book 2 of the Parker series, our man gets a whole new face via plastic surgery to get away from "The Outfit" since the mob unsurprisingly has a target on his back. An old heisting buddy contacts him to put together an armoured truck robbery, but Parker doesn't trust his pal's dame, a waitress beyond her prime who takes herself for both Bonnie and Clide. Our man's quickly figured out all the angles for the robbery and the inevitable double-cross required to secure the goods, when the plastic surgeon's slap-happy driver and dysfunctional right-hand man appears on the scene with claims his boss has been murdered and intent on finding the killer, with threats to reveal Parker's identity. Things get messy. Then they get messier still. What more can a gal ask for?

Just saying "hi," Ilana. Nothing of substance to say this evening, but I wanted to check in on your thread.

Hi Ilana. I keep seeing all the good reviews of The Sisters Brothers but I don't know if it would be too dark for me to read at the moment. Hope you can find a balance between art classes, reading and LT; I think it's something we all struggle with to a certain extent. Please don't worry about catching up on threads or reviews (although having said that I'm looking forward to your thoughts on Ethan Frome).

Love your Richard Stark reviews - gave me a laugh! Well done Ilana!

Hi Ilana, I'm glad to hear that Kimmy is such a good friend to you... she kept you from buying clothes and accessories but apparently approved the book purchase. Way to go, Kimmy... and Ilana. I'm glad to see you have your priorities straight!

I usually do reviews or comments after sleeping on a book. Well, I don't really sleep on the actual book, but you know what I mean. ;-) I can't start in on a new book until I get a few thoughts down on paper or computer without a guilty conscience. Lately, I've been skipping formal reviews and just writing comments on my thread.

Those are some good reviews as always. I was particularly interested in your "local" take on Three Pines and Louise Penny. I enjoy the books but none has garnered over 4 stars from me yet. I picked up A Trick of the Light at the library yesterday and will get to it later this week.

Enjoy your art classes. It's important to nurture that creative side, at least that's what I've heard. I don't seem to have one. I do enjoy my college experience with literature, however. It gets me out of my usual routine while still allowing me to do what I love best - reading, of course.

Speaking of coincidence.....i just scored a 14-book haul of Richard Stark titles on eBay....older editions with the un-PC covers....my first auction win! I read most of the Parker books back in the 60s when they were "new" and that is probably when i developed my love of Hard Boiled detective novels and Noir everything....for good or ill????

I love your reviews of the two Starks, by the way...but I love your reviews......period. Now, do you know of a good ghostwriter? The two reviews I owe are painfully stalled....Oy!

;-}

I had never heard of Richard Stark but your reviews make the Parker series sound like a terrific find. I'll be investigating.....
:-)

Hi everyone, I just spent a good portion of the day with my dad, taking advantage of a beautiful day, not too warm, not too cool and not a cloud in the sky. We walked our dogs and relaxed in a beautiful secluded spot, then we made a simple and tasty dinner at his place. My dad and I... well it's a complicated relationship as we're both plenty eccentric (him much more so) and stubborn besides, so I'm always happy when we manage to spend time together without too much drama. Today was mostly drama free, so it's good.

Wish I'd had time to get more reviews out, but it's not going to happen tonight. Maybe tomorrow after my class?

#79 & 84 Hi Ellen, I wish I could remember how I first came across Richard Stark... most likely one of his books was on sale on Audible which prompted me to look him up. That's been known to happen more often than I care to admit. Jude's comment above reminds me I should point out that he's most definitely NOT PC, but then, hardboiled wouldn't be hardboiled if it was trying to be politically correct, would it?

#80 Heather, while Sisters Brothers is plenty entertaining, it is also quite dark. It's always hard to evaluate each person's threshold—I have a hard time figuring out my own since it seems to fluctuate a whole lot, but I'd say if senseless killing and suffering animals bother you, then stay away for now.

As for Ethan Frome, I have a whole bunch of notes that I've plagiarized from the book's intro all typed up, now just have to write up my own opinion about the story... hopefully I'll get that out soon.

#81 Glad that gave you a laugh Prue, that was my intended purpose when I wrote those. :-)

#82 We-elllll actually Donna, Kimmy doesn't know about the book because I got it the day after. But I'm sure she'd have approved. Shall I ask her so we can verify just how straight her priorities are? ;-)

I never consider my reviews as formal either. In fact, I wouldn't have any idea how to go about it if I was asked to write one. I just try to put myself in a reader's shoes and ask myself what I might like to know about the book to help me decided whether I want to pick it up or not. No. Not really. I just type whatever comes up and then do a bit of editing, the same way I go about writing everything else. But then again, for some books, I do tend to get quite worked up when I want to make sure to give it it's full due... I think your approach is the best, and I always like your reviews by the way.

As for the art classes, I don't quite know what's up with me theses days, but I'm feeling decidedly un-creative as well and kind of not wanting to work on art projects. I prefer doing really dull and repetitive things like tagging and re-tagging and then editing my tags all over again for my ever-growing book collection. But I still look forward to my class tomorrow. A good art teacher always makes you want to express yourself visually, and she's a GREAT art teacher. I'm sure you'd discover you're artistic plenty too if you came along for those classes with me!

#83 Oooohhh, how cool is that?! I would LOVE to see those original covers, I just love vintage graphic design, whether "good" or "bad", and the un-PCer, the better! Maybe you can scan a couple of covers or take a picture and post it here when you receive the books?

As for your stalled reviews, maybe you should do like Donna and not try to write 'reviews' and just approach it like you approach writing your regular comments about life in general. Might make the whole thing less daunting and a whole lot more fun. Just an idea.

I took advantage of the current $4.95 sale going on at Audible last night and got quite a mixed bag.

In no particular order:

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick - out of my comfort zone with non-fiction, but the subject is interesting to me
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - didn't have a chance to read the library copy I got this summer
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey by Alison Weir
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - I'm really not sure about this one, but at that price, may as well give it a try
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss - Narrated by George Guidall among others. When I looked him up, I found out he's recorded over 900 audiobooks!!!
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - again narrated by Guidall. I have the book version too—am a bit daunted by this one, so audio seems less intimidating
Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie - read that one in the 80s. Saw the movie. This version is read by David Suchet, who played Poirot in the TV series.
A Room With a View by E. M. Forster - another one I already own the book version to, but this one's read by Joanna David and I couldn't resist.
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear - been eyeing this one for quite a while, so jumped on it.

Good haul from Audible. I've been thinking about trying out trial period. I've just started listening to audios and I've been borrowing them from the library so far. Maybe eventually I'll get around to trying it out.

Just dropping by, I also got a few in the audible sale, though looking at them I wonder why as they are all heavy going nonfiction. Does your library do digital borrowing, I'm getting quite a few audiobooks through downloads from my library.

Good to see you've had a lovely day out with your father. We're still waiting for some nice outdoor weather here.

Ilana, your haul from Audible looks marvelous!!!!!!!! I've been perusing the audible website, still holding out for that one book from the library to see how I like listening to novels. Several on your recent acquisition list interest me. I hope I like the audiobook I have on hold, because I can feel my credit card itching to get used...... steady, Ellen.....

>85 Smiler69: I can be as PC as the next soul, but when I read a good hard-boiled detective novel, I do NOT require such! For me, part of the point of a hard-boiled detective is their disdain for rules and societal boundaries. I think it's part of what appeals -- for those of us who must, indeed, live within those boundaries (most of the time), it constitutes great escape lit to read about someone who eschews them ---- usually for the sake of good. I will put something by Richard Stark on hold so I can, um, investigate his writing. :-)

eta: Just put The Hunter on hold at the library. "Suspended" it so it will come available early in October. Maybe I can fit it in an October TIOLI challenge.

I'll try to take pictures of some of the Stark covers...

My stalled reviews......because i've sat on them for too long...but, i have one ready to post tomorrow/today.

Sometimes i do "sleep on" a book....in fact, i always did when i was a kid....no silly "blankie" or teddy bear/stuffed rabbit...a book under the pillow was "normal" for me.....weird, huh?

;-}

I'm off to my watercolour class shortly. Am quite tickled by this Pirate Speak day thing, though won't be using the vernacular me'self too much as not overly familiar with pirate-things.

I'll respond to your comments individually when I get back later today, but just wanted to say to Jude that I don't think there's anything weird about sleeping on a book... considering all the times I've fallen asleep with a book over my face! :-)

I've given up on From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler I'm sorry to say. No offence to the book's many fans, but I just felt like it was talking down to the reader which had me annoyed several times on each page, so that's that. Maybe when I'm older still I'll find that quaint or something, but I never did appreciate being talked to like a child, especially not when I was actually a child myself and not now either.

Pearl of China is ok, though I can't say I'm thrilled by it. This one I have to stick to because it's an ER book, and it's not as though it were bad... just not terribly inspiring. Meanwhile, I've got all these other wonderful books on standby I'm dying to get to. Argh!

Gotta run. Hope all you mateys be havin' a rollickin' good day.

Arrrrrgh, me Lassie!!!

*not the dog, doofus*

;-}

I chimed in on your Challenge entry, Chasing Vermeer for Challenge #3. I have been meaning to get to it for over a year now! So I finally picked it a couple of days ago and it was pretty good.

Hope you enjoy your watercolour class and that it helps to re-enthuse you about your own projects. Avast!

#87 Chelle, borrowing audios from the library is probably the smartest way of going about it, and whenever I find one that appeals to me on Audible, I always check the library first to see if they have it, only we're rather limited as far as audios go. The trial period is totally worth it though. Let me know if you decide to go that route.

#88 Hi Kerry. No digital borrowing from our library system is available at this time, but I'll be among the first to try it out if ever they get with the times and offer that service. They did have A LOT of nonfiction in this sale over at Audible, didn't they? All the same, I always end up buying from their $4.95 sales—it's a great price for a book in any format, methinks. I guess spring is just around the corner for you guys isn't it? I need to sort through my winter clothes, remove all the creases from the cashmere sweaters that have been boxed up for the summer and get ready for another one of our bone-chilling Canadian winters... from Siberia with love :-)

#89 For me, part of the point of a hard-boiled detective is their disdain for rules and societal boundaries. I think it's part of what appeals -- for those of us who must, indeed, live within those boundaries (most of the time), it constitutes great escape lit to read about someone who eschews them ---- usually for the sake of good

Ellen, I agree with all of the above, though must reiterate that Parker is NOT a good guy by any stretch of the imagination. As for Audible, why don't you just get the Go the F**k to Sleep audio by Samuel L. Jackson for under $2? I don't recall if you read that book or not, but even if you did, it's 6 minutes of pure fun and quite hilarious, the way he reads it, believe me. And not a big commitment financially speaking. Though I suspect if you're even remotely like me, going for just that ONE book will lead you to making many many other purchases, which I gather is what you're trying to avoid, correct? ;-)

#92 Doofus, now there's a great name for a dog! Lol.

#93 Jacqueline, I guess now that you were inspired to share a read with me, the least I could do would be to read Chasing Vermeer too, right? I promise I'll at least try to fit it in. It's been sitting around for quite a while over here too...

#94 Hi Heather, thanks for the good wishes with the class. It was definitely a good starter. Nice and gentle, not too challenging but fun. I posted what I did in class today on my arts stuff blog, right here if you're curious and want to get a peep.

Hi Ilana. I listened to the teaser for Go the F**k to Sleep and was laughing out loud! I will download it and give it a listen (audio is doing some decent "deals," it seems). I also downloaded Whose Body? which is just under 6 hours long. As the bus ride gets darker (fall, winter, and spring, you know), listening to a book will be a bit easier than reading one. And, yes, I think we may have the acquisition impulse in common......

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Matey.

Hi Ilana- I'm glad you are enjoying the Richard Stark books. I have been revisiting them, through the new graphics adaptations. And keep in mind, Stark is a pen name for Donald Westlake, who also has an amazing body of work.
Hey, I've been reading Ethan Frome too. I should be done with it today. It's been wonderful. I loved Go the F**k to Sleep too. Jackson rules!

#96 Speaking of acquisition impulse, I just went ahead and did my credit card more damage with the following:

The Bookplates and Badges of C. F. A. Voysey by Karen Livingstone
Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities
Albertus Seba: Cabinet of Natural Curiosities by Albert Seba
Jamies Kitchen: A Cooking Course for Everyone by Jamie Oliver (on sale at an unbeatable price)
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (finally!)

I ordered the first two books to have a look at before deciding whether to keep them, but I've seen the Albertus Seba book and just HAD to have it. The Jamie Oliver cookbook is feeding into my wishful thinking that if I buy good cookbooks, I'll get inspired to actually use them. Might eventually work, who knows?

#97 Hi Mark, I really enjoyed the first two Stark books and very much tempted to listen to the third. The narrator, John Chancer does a good job, though I see they also have another narrator, Stephen R. Thorne who does some of the books, but they both have a similar kind of delivery. I found out Stark was a pen name for Donald E. Westlake via Wikipedia shortly after I started listening to the first book. The man certainly put out quite a bounty of novels, and I was pleased to see he had written the screenplay for The Grifters which I enjoyed a lot when it came out. I might just have to check out Jim Thompson while I'm at it, since he's the one who originally wrote the book after all.

Gotta love LT. Where else would you see Ethan Frome and Go the F**k to Sleep mentioned in the same line? :-)

Hello Ilana - you should try Jim Thompson - I think he is really good BUT be forewarned that his characters are generally an amoral lot and his novels are quite dark...

Hi Ilana! Prue you've reminded me also to look up Jim Thompson

Hi Ilana!

Just dropping by your thread and trying to catch up. Great reviews as usual and I'm glad to hear that you got to spend some time with your Dad, drama free. I know for myself, each conversation I have with my mom that doesn't end up with us fighting and me hanging up the phone is an achievement in itself. Although since I've had the monkey, we've been a lot better. I don't know if she is just making better choices or being a mom has given me the extra patience that I didn't know I had before.
Anyways, I hope you are having a great day my friend! :)

#99 Hi Prue, thanks for the warning. I have to admit I don't feel a pressing need to explore Thomspson as there are many many other authors on my shelves that I can't wait to get to, but I'm sure I'll be tempted to explore his amoral and dark side eventually. ;-)

#100 Hi Paul!

*****

I was dead to the world yesterday, just completely drained of energy. I suspect the new art class took a lot out of me; it didn't feel like it at the time, but shortly after class I was hit with vertigo and had to take a cab home, then couldn't get enough sleep yesterday. Feel much better today, and though it's a gorgeous day and I should spend some of it outside, I'm determined to crank out some much overdue reviews today.

#101 Hi Valerie, I missed your message as I was posting my latest news. I'm glad to hear things are better with your mum. I hear that having children forces parents to dig into their wells of patience, so it's likely that you've tapped into that, but maybe she's so happy to be a grandma that she's more willing to make allowances too? In any case, it's all good.

Dropping by your thread Ilana! Ha! I opt to do my grocery shopping where Chapters/ Indigo is just across the street. As result, I am in there an embarrassing amount of time!;) The Sisters Brothers - oh I just loved it!!! 5 stars from me!!

I've also read a couple of Louise Penny's. For me though, after a few books I lost interest. Inspector Gamache was just to smug for me, and all of the people in the village just too odd. Please don't revile me for that opinion!;) I understand you have your own reasons for not being keen on Three Pine Village.

I'm dropping a star! Do come by and chat on my thread, if you get time. BTW - I'm flying phobic, so I have not visited votre Belle Province for many years- actually I was 16! ;) But I did love Montreal. What a beautiful city.

Hi Ilana, catching up on threads once more, we're all too chatty!! Hope you're feeling a bit better today, vertigo is not good and no fun to have. Hope you're still taking it easy and I've been drooling at the recent titles you've acquired. Lovely lovely books.

I had every intention of writing a bunch of reviews today, and haven't given up on that plan, but not so sure it'll come to fruition tonight.

(rant removed)

Oops, was busily typing away my rant and missed your lovely messages, Deb and Leonie.

Taking my angel out for a quick walk, and then will try to post some reviews. Or at least ONE review. *sigh*

205. ♫ Die Trying by Lee Child ★★★½
(Read for TIOLI #7: nine letters in the title)

While Reacher is passing through Chicago, walking on a busy street, he gives a helping hand to a beautiful woman saddled with a crutch trying to make her way out of a dry cleaners with an armful of clean clothes. In the same moment, Reacher and the woman are accosted by two thugs with guns drawn who force them into a vehicle and take the duo on a cross-country drive. Reacher has never seen these men before, and he rightly assumes that the woman, Holy, was the target and that he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure enough, it just so happens that Holy, and newly recruited FBI agent, is the daughter of an Army general who is current head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The goons are rough and mean and make the trip unpleasant for their charge, and Reacher finds plenty of opportunities to defend the dame, but what awaits them when they arrive at their destination is pure madness. Action-packed with clearly defined roles where the good guys are practically saints and the bad guys are rotten to the core, I listened to this audiobook in just two long sessions. While Child was still obviously trying to find his stride with this second Jack Reacher book, it certainly filled the need for action-packed, larger than life drama. Looking forward to the next one.

Hi Ilana. As I predicted, with the impending start of school my life is getting busier: less time to read and less time to check in with my friends on LT. So - two things: one, I will check in less frequently and may sometimes still lurk on your thread (I hope that's okay) simply because I feel silly just saying hi every time. and two: I enjoy the Jack Reacher novels when I need a complete escape. I have read about a half-dozen of them.

Pardon the poor grammar. I'm too tired to worry about complete sentences tonight.

Oh, and a third thing: I've listened to the first two chapters of Whose Body? and I think audiobooks are going to be just the ticket for a dark Seattle winter and a busy, stressful life. :-)

Hi Ellen. I understand busy and stressful, and though I miss our frequent interactions, don't be shy to lurk away... that being said, even "just" saying hi lets me know you've been here and that in itself is satisfying plenty for me.

I had Whose Body? on my radar for this month, but since I don't have it in hand and ended up buying a whole bunch of books this month, I guess I won't be getting to it in September. I'm glad to know the audio experience is working out for you so far.

I somehow have a hard time equating West Coast living with stress, but that's probably because I've never actually had to hold down a real job whenever I've spent time next to the Pacific Ocean.

Never seen Seattle before. How are you with impromptu visits from LT friends? ;-)

206. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ★★★★
(Read for TIOLI #17: a book title with a character's full name and 11/11 Category #1: The Classics)

"I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-back bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was. It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was no more than fifty-two."

The narrator goes on to tell us the story of Ethan Frome, who had great aspirations as a young man, with hopes of having a brilliant career and moving to a big city. But first with his sick parents, and then Zenobia, the woman who helped him care for them—whom he was trapped into marrying and who then went on to become a self-pitying and difficult invalid who sought expensive cures—Ethan had little hope of escaping the ancestral home and the poverty that his doomed farm and marriage constrained him to. When Zeena's cheerful first cousin Mattie comes to the farm to help with the household chores in the heart of a bitterly cold winter, Ethan can't help but bask in her warmth. He starts dreaming of a better life again, and together they share a brief and chaste romance which, in this puritanical place, is bound to spell disaster. This is great writing by Wharton, and though the story might be glum, the characters and their opposing motivations form an unforgettable love triangle in a human drama which I found almost comical for the extreme state of hopelessness into which the protagonists are plunged, seemingly for all eternity (but that's just me). The introduction by Elizabeth Ammons in the Penguin Classics Deluxe edition, which I read after taking in the novel, goes on to explain how it drew on Wharton's personal experiences, even though based on first impressions, one might think Ethan Frome was a complete departure from her writing about the cosseted upper classes she belonged to. For example, the mysterious ailments Zenobia suffers from appear to be derived directly from the author's own struggles with depression for which Wharton sought treatment in the mid-1890s:

"She suffered from nausea, weight loss, extreme fatigue, headaches, and profound despondency. At the time, the standard diagnosis for such symptoms was neurasthenia, sometimes called hysteria, and the treatment, as Wharton's contemporary Charlotte Perkins Gilman chronicled in her famous 1892 story, The Yellow Wallpaper, was known as the rest cure. The prescribe therapy involved total bed rest, preferably in a hospital, hotel, or sanitarium, where the patient was fed, bathed, given douches and enemas, massaged, and in every other way kept dependent and completely immobile for weeks or, if necessary, months. This program of rest required removal from all exciting or upsetting stimuli such as newspapers, magazines, books, letters, visitors, or any other activity requiring mental of physical exertions, no matter how mild, including writing, sewing, and drawing. The rest cure aimed to create a healing calm so that the patient could regain mental health. For Gilman, as her short story records, it was a recipe for insanity [and no wonder!]. But for Wharton, the regimen she experienced as an outpatient had a beneficial effect. In large part she recovered because he physician, unlike Gilman's, encouraged her to pursue her writing, which she avidly did."

It seems that the notion of infidelity was also drawn from personal experiences. As Wharton and her husband Teddy's unhappy marriage fell apart, each struggling with depression and with Teddy having several affairs, Edith Wharton also broke her marriage vows and "had a secret and passionate love affair with a slightly younger man, Morton Fullerton, from about 1907 to 1910. As she related it [in documents she explicitly left in a sealed packed labeled, in her own hand "For My Biographer], the affair exposed her for the first and only time in her life to intense, fulfilling, erotic passion, a realitiy that respectable late-era Victorian women such as Wharton, brought up to believe sex a necessary and unspeakable evil, where not supposed to experience. The affair ended in 1910. A year later she wrote Ethan Frome and in 1913 filed for divorce."

I was yearning for some brain candy last night before sleep, so couldn't resist starting A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, especially after a bunch of discussion about the first book on Leonie's thread. Really unreasonably of me to start up on this one considering how many other books I want to get to ASAP, including some from the Booker Prize shortlist, but so it goes. So far, I haven't planned any reading for October, highly unusual for me this late in the month, but I'm thinking of keeping it that way for now.

Almost finished with White Rhino Hotel by Bartle Bull, which really grew on me as the story and characters started to come together, but am I the only one who's bothered by a dwarf having sex with, then marrying a 12 year old girl, albeit the story is set in 1920 East Africa?

Am sitting at my favourite café, Lili & Oli, which is right nearby the library, where I went to return a few books unread a little while ago. I decided to lighten the load at least a little bit, because there's no way I'll manage to read everything I've planned for the month AND my recent arrivals too. I've decided not to use the drop-off box anymore since I discovered this week that a book I returned unread a good while back now has gone missing. It's The Moffats, and I'd be really upset if they charged me for it because for one thing I'm absolutely, 125% certain that I returned it, but also because one of the reasons I didn't read it was because it was so old the pages were brown, a great big turnoff for me. I'd just as soon buy a new copy and donate it to them, but of course "it doesn't work that way".

On a much more pleasant note, I picked up From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus when I got here. It's a novella I guess, with just 108 pages, and I plunged right in from the very first page till I got to the halfway mark a few minutes ago. I would have continued on and finished it, but decided to take a break, if only to prolong the pleasure. An absolute treat of a poetic book.

Is it me or has it been awfully quiet on my thread this week? Did I say anything wrong or is everyone just lurking? With Ellen busy with work, I've lost a regular commenter and I must say I miss her posts, which always made me smile. In fact, ANY post on my thread from any of you lovely people makes me smile...

/end of not so subtle hint :-)

You've done nothing wrong

Fall (or it's preview) is a Bitch for some people (myself..i hate the "interim" seasons)

I loved your review of Ethan Frome....i first read it...age 11...my brother was in college, a serious Jock...could not be bothered with English Lit....he sent me the copy of the book...paid me $10 to finish reading it (this was 1962)..i did so..still love the book.....he passed the course on the notes of an 11-year-old

I know this is weird...OY!

#114 That's very funny Jude - sounds a typically fraternal thing to do!

Hello Ilana - definitely NOT you - great review of Ethan Fromne, which I have gone ahead and ordered from BD (breaking about four of my self-imposed rules on book limiting. Compounding my sin, I added two other books to the order while I was at it NO self-control at all.

I love picturing you in sme French-style cafe with you gorgeous dog, sipping a latte (or are you an espresso gal?) and reading something fascinating, no doubt appearing enigmatic and mysteriously alluring to passers by....

113> I agree completely that (if they insist on penalizing you for the missing book) they should allow you to buy a new copy and replace it! I've been known to drop books that I'm done with into the return slot as a kind of stealth donation (although I only do this with books that are currently of interest and in good condition, books I'm certain I could sell at one of the local used book stores).

115> I also like the image of Ilana and Coco sitting at an outdoor cafe ... of course appearing enigmatic and mysteriously alluring!!

Now I want to re-read Ethan Frome.

Hi Ilana- I think there are just lulls on LT, it's nothing personal. Folks sometimes just lurk. I don't always leave a message either, although I know it's great to receive them.
Wow, an excellent review of Ethan Frome. You hit a grand slam on that one and I love the added Wharton bio segments. I finished the book earlier this week and now I don't have to write my own review because yours is perfection. Hugs!

#114 LOL> Jude darling, I could swear you made almost the exact same comment on one of my threads before, thought it wasn't about Ethan Frome and I believe you had charged him $20 that time... weren't age 11 either, if memory serves, so you must have made a nice bundle off that dumb jock brother of yours ("dumb" is my editorial addition).

I don't know why, and this isn't logical at all, but it would seem that I've had much more trouble with spring than with fall, if I think back over the 169 changes of season I've experienced so far (not sure about the math, but that's what I calculated 42 years x 4 +1 since my bd is in summer). Fall calls for gorgeous cozy sweaters (nothing less than cashmere, collected over the years for me!), wearing those beautiful boots that can't withstand harsher weather, a cool nip in the air, the smell of falling leaves (which smell so GREEN for some reason)... Not so fond of the loss of daylight, but compared to the agony of having to shed layers and expose my bluish skin to the elements come spring... and all that activity that I should be taking on... I wonder if this correlates in any way with my preference for going to sleep over waking up... nearly always a rude awakening for me, as far as that goes. No point in looking for any logic there, I guess.

#115 Bless your heart Prue, you bring so much poetry and caring into your comments.

Maybe you haven't had a chance to keep up with my compulsive posting here with so much going on on your end, but I've abandoned all measure of control when it comes to book-buying this month. I don't even dare tally it all up; between BD, ChaptersIndigo.com and Audible.com... factor in a bunch of hardcovers in there... OUCH! But have to say, it hurts so good! ;-)

I love picturing you in some French-style cafe with you gorgeous dog, sipping a latte (or are you an espresso gal?) and reading something fascinating, no doubt appearing enigmatic and mysteriously alluring to passers by....

Lately it's been iced lattes (thought that's likely to change as it gets colder), and this café is a kind of cozy bohemian place with a couch (on which I am sitting right now) and a bunch of vintage items displayed on quirky old shelves. I've just taken a few pics which I'll post later as I don't have the cable here to upload them. While the reading certainly was fascinating, my guess is that I must appear more like that scary crazy gal with frizzy hair (it's humid today) who talks to her dog. ;-)

But again, sweet of you to put such a lovely slant on things. xo

Wow... Ask and Ye Shall Receive, eh? Ellen and Mark, I guess we cross-posted just now.

#116 Ellen, I love your "stealth donation" system. I would do that with my library, especially since they're currently refusing donation, but worse, I've just found out that they will be closing the adult section of my library branch and will only be serving children and families from now on. Mind you, I'll still be able to pick up and drop off books the way I've been doing apparently, and though I haven't taken full advantage of the facilities since I always go with Coco (who isn't allowed in, technically), I strongly object to this decision on principle. A great big chunk of my earning are given up to the gov't and I fully expect them to use some of it for cultural purposes, and not just as payoffs to the mafia to build bridges so badly made that they fall all over people. Oops. Where did THAT rant come from??

Go ahead and re-read Ethan Frome why don't you? It's so short anyway. I should have done that myself, but then spent so much time copying parts of the intro that it ate into my reading time. ;-)

#117 because yours is perfection

Mark, you've so very kind my friend. Too kind, considering this one was really a hack job, with me making myself appear erudite via blatant plagiarism! Given that, feel free to copy/paste this review, since all I did was a good typing job (though there are likely a few typos in there)! Lol!
That said, I look forward to reading your own thoughts about the book. It certainly deserves it's place among other works of fine literature.

It's been really quiet across LT, but especially in the 75 Books group. We're down about 1000 messages in the weekly average stat, and our current level is less than half the message rate of the start of the year. That said, I'm still reading all the threads, and even though I don't always respond, I enjoy your reviews a lot!

Jim- I'm not surprised we are a 1000 msgs down! This is what happens when Stasia, Our Ambassador, is away! Haven't heard much from Richard either!

Ilana- I did not find your review a hack job, at all!

Hi Ilana, loved your reviews and can't wait to get stuck into Ethan Frome soon, right after I finish The Tiger's Wife which your comments on other threads have made me want to get back into it again (I've been distracting myself with a couple of graphic novels). Oh, and my excuse for being absent is having a week full of house guests and no time to call my own.

#120 I guess it makes sense that posting is down as there was probably an accrued amount of messages in the summer, when many people were on vacation, and now with the return to work and school, most folks no doubt just don't have so much time to devote to LT. It'll probably come to that for me too as I add on activities in the coming month or two. We 75ers sure are a talkative bunch when time allows, and I've certainly revelled in all those discussions. Was being semi-fascetious with my comment you know... but glad all the same it prompted you to comment ;-)

I didn't realize you read all the threads. How do you ever find time to do that? And no wonder you can't comment most of the time with all that work (and never mind you paying job!)

#121 You're right about Stasia's absence seriously affecting the total amount of posts here. I wonder what percentage of messages she's responsible for making and eliciting when she can be more active here?

Mark sweetie, I just know the thumb came from you... did I say you're a sweetheart? I mean it. (no blushing now!)

#122 Leonie, I know The Tiger's Wife elicited a wide range of reactions, and mine was completely from the heart—so obviously highly personal. I hope you won't regret having been influenced by my enthusiasm for it, but one way or another, I'll be interested to read what you have to say about it.

Your comment about guests staying for a full week and having no time for yourself reminds me of something my cousin used to say: "Guests are like fish, they start stinking after a while." Kind of mean, but all too true, metaphorically speaking!

Hope you get your life back soon for your sake!

>118 Smiler69: Actually it was Emma for which i was paid $20

Would that my brother remembered that...

too much going on in my life...to post here

sorry/sari

Loved the Ethan Frome review and am so happy that you liked that book. As I have said it is the only book that the authorities compelled me to read in school that I really did like a lot.

Have not noticed that messages are off much of any on LT. I don't get a lot of visitors over at my place and as for other people's threads, they get so far ahead of me that although I can think of several clever things to say as I am trying to work my way through dozens and dozens of entries, by the time I get to the bottom and the point where I can contribute I don't because I am days too late to the party and way, way out of context.

I, too, am a lover of autumn. Can't stand summer. Here, on the last night of summer, I am annoyed because it is humid and not chilly at all. How I wish it were sweater weather tomorrow. But, I don't care how not like autumn it is tomorrow, I will not wear sandals anymore. It's time for regular shoes and getting off the painting-the-toenails-anew-every-other-minute routine.

Hey Ilana, sweetie. I, too, love many things about autumn although I dread the shorter days. Even having grown up in Florida, I'm no lover of heat but I do love the long daylight hours of summer. We just converted our wood-burning fireplace with a gas insert (with a remote control, no less!). I figure I'll get through this winter by sitting in our cozy little living room with an automatic fire going, a book in my hand, and a glass of wine on the table beside me. Oh, and probably a cat on my lap!

Hi Ilana - I also found the Milena Agus an absorbing though quick read. I love the powerful impact shorter works can have on the reader.
I'm another LTer whose guilty of mainly lurking on all the threads lately, I have quite a few reviews backed up again...sigh

they will be closing the adult section of my library branch
I can't even figure out what this means!!!! No adult books? Very sad! I'm a state employee and I know intimately the truth and depth and reality of the budget crisis for public entities, but this is still a very sad way for the city to manage its money woes. Ugh.
I agree with whomever said that libraries are the foundation of democracy (or something like that).

Well, Ilana, I've just discovered you and I'm delighted to do so! Actually I've seen you on Mark's threads -and I've lurked on your thread a wee bit -but know I'm beginning to feel that I know you! Dropping a star!Just going to be VERY LATE as I am on the West Coast ...chat more soon!;)

Hi Ilana - delurking to say Hi and thanks for mentioning From the Land of the Moon. I love Europa Editions and was happy to discover my library has this one!

.... and I cannot understand why your library is closing the adult section to just provide services for children and families. Maybe more to the point I cannot fathom how they can get away with that decision without some sort of public outcry.

Hi, Ilana, another loyal follower delurking to say hello! I haven't had much energy for posting recently, but I do read you pretty much every day!

I didn't realize you read all the threads. How do you ever find time to do that?

Some I read more closely than others... ;)

Seriously, some I skim, some I read. Mainly I want to be alert to any issues with the group that might come up like a wave of spam, or some such. I also read pretty fast, so it doesn't take that long. Plus I usually only contribute to a small subset of threads.

Definitely not you my friend. :)
I think LT ebbs and flows like any other place. Some days there are like hundreds of messages on threads and I can't keep up and other days it's so quiet that I wonder if everyone has moved to a deserted island with no internet access. ;)
Personally for me, fall is one of my favourite season. There something about it that is peaceful and reflective for me. It's cold enough that I need to take out my scarves and jackets but warm enough to still make strolling a pleasurable experience. I hope this fall treats you well with lots of company and excellent books to pass the time.

Hi there , Ilana. I must say I am shocked that your library is closing out the adult section! I cannot fathom that! I'd be ranting just like you . I've heard on the news about the aging infrastructure in Quebec. Any chance of moving provinces? I know that's not easy!! I've lived in BC for all of my life -save my first 4 year of life .

Hi Ilana, here I am sitting in Jasper, and it's actually quite warm and sunny here. I just had to comment on your library closing the adult section. I think we had better all brace ourselves, I saw on the news that people were trying to fight a number of library closures in Toronto, and it sounds like Quebec is taking cost-cutting measures. I think all we all should be a little nervous in these budget crunching times. I seem to be visiting my library 2 to 3 times a week and I don't know what I'd do if I lost it!

I also wanted to say how impressed I am that Dr.Neutron checks out all the threads - even with skimming that's a lot of reading!

I loved the image of you as a mysterious, alluring woman sitting at the French sidewalk cafe - I have to admit that's how I was picturing you as well!

Have a good weekend. (this is Friday right? That's what travelling does, makes me lose track of days.)

I'm a bigger fan of winter, personally. Lots of cozy clothes (sweaters, scarves, mitts, hats, etc), everything looks so pretty, and I have a legitimate excuse for my tendency to spend all my time indoors. :)

Thank you all so much for visiting and commenting! Certainly makes me feel special today!

#124 Jude, in hindsight, knowing what I know about that despicable person, I wish you'd written papers that would have failed him. Can you imagine? And then refused to return his money of course. ;-)

#125 Charlotte, I for one think it's perfectly okay to comment on a discussion that only seems no longer relevant. For one thing, some threads move so fast that if you look closely, you might realize that the subject in question was broached that very day or the previous one. And even if not, it's always nice to get different points of view on any given subject...

Funny about the sandals thing, because I had the very same thought about no longer having to look after my toes. I have a heck of a time trying to do my own feet and so in the summer, usually splurge every 3-5 weeks or so on a professional pedicure, but the girl at the place nearest me gave me such a hard time for not showing up more often (jokingly, supposedly) last time I went (with my best friend, for my birthday no less) that I suddenly realized I've never liked the way I was treated by any of the staff or even the owners there, as they're really quite rude, so this summer had two disasters happening below my ankles. Plus, it's always so strange having someone work on one's feet. I can never get away from the notion that it must be a vestige of colonialism and I've always found it creates a strange dynamic with me sitting wayyy up there on those high chairs and she sitting wayyy down below bowing down over my feet. I've obviously given this matter way too much thought. I need to get a life. Or stop thinking about nonsense so much in any case. Socks are the ultimate solution to everything! :-)

Glad you liked the review.

#126 Yes, losing daylight is rather hard to cope with. Every spring, I get so excited about the lengthening days and by mid-summer, I take it for granted that there's still light out at nine o'clock so that by August and September it's always a shock to realize that it's only early evening still and we're already living in the dark... and is a reminder that pretty soon it'll be nighttime by early afternoon! Sitting and reading with a cat on one's lap sounds amazing. But neither of my cats will oblige and Coco only does so to please me and then gets away as soon as he decides he's put in enough time. So typically male.

#127 Kerry, I do plenty of lurking myself and plenty of bookmarking too, to revisit some of the conversations that I don't have energy to do more than scan through sometimes, and the reviews especially, require me to slow down and pay attention so that I'm always behind somehow, even if I sometimes visit several times a day.

I want to finish the Agus book tonight, but I'm almost finished with Pearl of China and also want to read from Clash of Kings. I've been on The Jungle Books seemingly forever because while I enjoy the Mowgli stories quite a lot, not always so fond of the others that seem to drag on forever. Should have borrowed just one book at a time for that one.

I think you and I have a similar approach to reviews: let them pile up till it seems like an impossible task to get through and then get them all out in one big burst. I need to take your example and write them shorter the way you do but whenever I try, I find I haven't said my fill.

Ellen, Lori, Deborah, Judy, about the library situation here, it seems that they will be closing the adult section because we have four libraries serving our district, which apparently isn't densely populated enough to justify that many of them. Still doesn't explain why they're closing the adult section and keeping the kid's section (even enlarging it!) and shouldn't they have figured out that problem before they'd spent all that money to open up all four libraries to begin with? But yes. Cutbacks. It shows too, especially in my sector which historically has been quite poor but is slowly being gentrified—there's barely any maintenance to speak of anymore, so that whatever trash people throw on the street stays there. Forever. The walking paths are difficult to negotiate because they've let all the trees and hedges run amok. I really wonder just what it is they do with all those tax dollars we pay in Quebec (VERY high taxes here, for those who don't know). It's all rather maddening.

But the good news is that my neighbourhood library will still be an outlet to collect and drop off books reserved online from the rest of the network, which is what I've been using it for anyway. All the same, I don't know where all those people who depend on that institution to get out of the house, or get access to computers and so on will go. Certainly not to the other three libraries, which are out of the way. I've signed a petition and written a comment, but something tells me there's no going back now.

#129 Hi Deb, thanks for the star, and of course you're welcome here anytime. I've dropped a star on your place too. But as the year progresses and I have more and more threads to visit I end up doing more lurking and less commenting. I enjoyed the lively discussion on your thread last time I visited.

#130 Lori, From the Land of the Moon is my very first Europa book in the actual Europa edition. It's a great one to start with as it certainly makes me want to read more of their titles. Was it on your thread I saw Margherita Dolce Vita? I remember being very tempted by it. Thanks for delurking, it's so nice to find out who some of the readers are. I've had blogs and an online presence for well over a decade now, but I can never get used to the fact that no comments isn't an indication that no one is reading, even though I myself lurk quite a lot.

#131 Janet! Always nice hearing from you. Loyal too eh? I don't know how you do it, I can barely keep up with myself most of the time! But it's heartwarming to know I'm not just talking to myself here too. ;-)

#132 Jim, I wish I'd inherited the fast reader gene from my mum, but no, I must do with plodding along, so I'm very envious of you speedy readers and always keep hoping if I exercise enough, I'll manage it too someday.

#133 It's cold enough that I need to take out my scarves and jackets but warm enough to still make strolling a pleasurable experience.

Valerie, this evening was exactly like that, nice and cool, but comfortable, so that I could put on that gorgeous light leather jacket from Roots I overspent on long ago now, and I felt like prolonging our walk because it's so nice up the hill from me in Westmount, and it was so enjoyable being out and about. You're right: quiet and reflective too, just the way I like it.

#134 You know Deb, for some reason I've gone out and done job interviews at some point in my life in Paris, London and New York, even in Sidney Australia most recently, but somehow never seriously considered moving to another province, even though I'm not especially attached to Quebec. I guess it's just familiar here, and I've got my network of health care providers in place so that moving just next door and having to start all over again seemed like more trouble than it was worth until recently. Not logical really since starting over in a different country is such a big challenge. But BC is a place I might seriously consider moving to eventually. The West Coast vibe works well for me and I was overwhelmed with the natural beauty I saw when visiting Vancouver and the Whistler area a few times.

#135 Judy, I've had a hard time keeping track of the days too since I took leave from work, so it's all more or less the same to me. I'm so envious of your travels, never been to Jasper and I'm sure it's gorgeous out there. Are you taking pictures? I'd love to see some!

As for the "mysterious, alluring woman sitting at the café" image, I'll keep that in mind next time I decide to go there and wear a nice vintage dress and put on a discreet but captivating perfume to better inhabit the part maybe. Only it's not a sidewalk café and most people there speak English, and the main reason I like it other than the good coffee and music is because they allow dogs in, which is almost unheard of. ;-)

#136 everything looks so pretty, and I have a legitimate excuse for my tendency to spend all my time indoors.

I swear Micky, I had to double check to make sure I hadn't written that part myself. I never thought there would come a day when I would almost prefer winter over summer, but it did happen last winter. Now that I'm older and a foolish fashion-conscious girl no longer, I've got all the proper gear to stay properly covered up and warm, and with Coco, the best excuse to go out and play in the snow, which he absolutely loves, which makes me laugh and giggle, and since I don't need to worry about getting around these days, there's absolutely no downside to great big snowstorms anymore. I think I'm actually looking forward to it. Minus the nightime coming in before four o'clock part. :-|

I just read the New York Times review for the latest Lee Child novel, The Affair, and found out that Tom Cruise has been cast as Jack Reacher? WTF?!?! How perfectly horrid. Never mind that I can't stand the guy and think he's a dangerous madman as well as a cocky little s**t, but he IN NO WAY fits the part! I don't know what you other Reacher fans think of this, but I think it's an outrage, and I've only read three books in the series so far...

126, 137 - One downside of Malaysia is the absence of seasons - it can be oppressive having almost everyday at 33 deg c and 90+% humidity. Just back from England in the throes of early autumn/fall but I do recall how the really cold weather plays havoc with my pipes so I'm better off where I am.

138 - We are also not well served by libraries in Malaysia which I do miss. I recall as a boy in Yorkshire we used to have a library van visit the village on a weekly basis and a proper library in the next village. The van no longer operates and the library is scheduled for closure too - sad.

140 - Oh! heaven help us. Reacher is supposed to be 6 ft 5 not 5 ft 5! I must admit that I imagine Reacher looking something like Child himself with sandy hair and weathered expression. An older version of the chap Hemsworth who played in the recent Thor movie would be a better fit. Daniel Craig would be Ok too although maybe not quite tall enough.

Hi Ilana, I did enjoy Margherita Dolce Vita when I read it earlier this year. It is a fun, satirical read. Europa does have a nice range of genres they publish and I find the quality of the stories, and the translations, to be well written. I have yet to come across a dud.

Ilana, thank you for perfectly expressing a view of Mr. Cruise, not my favorite personality. The only movie I liked with him was--uh-oh--the one with Dustin Hoffman as his idiot-savant brother. Even then, though, it was still Tom Cruise, not an actual character.

A couple of thumbs distributed. You do such nice reviews.

Interesting chat about the seasons. In Mass., where I grew up, the distinctions were extreme, fall being an absolutely delightful time and late spring a considerable relief. Then in Florida, we had endless summers with perhaps two weeks of autumn and one week of winter. Here in Alabama I appreciate the distinct seasons again, with the transitions being the favorite--by October I'm sick of hot weather, and by April, even I am tired of cold rainy days.

Been a bit down in the doldrums, and hence less posting on my part. I do try to read most threads I'm following most days.

Never had a pedicure or manicure: have a real fear of getting one of those horrid fungus infections. Ew.

#141 Paul, I guess it's true we take having seasons for granted in the Western world. know how I'd feel about not having them, even if I was stuck in ideal temperate weather all the time. But don't the days lengthen and shorten throughout the year all the same? Forgive my ignorance.

Re Reacher: I know, the guy is supposed to be a not so gentle giant, rugged, blonde, tough... all the things that Tom Cruise is not. And you're right, I agree that he must look something like Child. I read on his wikipedia bio that he created the character when, after he lost his long-standing job, his wife said to him while they were at the supermarket that worse comes to worse, he could always work as a "reacher". And he does say that he created a tall protagonist to resemble him. I don't have anything against short people, my mum is barely 5 feet tall and is a bundle of wonderful things, but I do have something against Tom Cruise and his damn Napoleon complex. Didn't know who Hemsworth was till Googled him just now and agree an older version would fit too, and I'd take Daniel Craig over Tom Cruise any day, even though he pouts too much to me credible to me.

#142 Lori, I can't believe I actually remembered that I'd seen that review on your thread. Considering what a bad memory I have, and how many book reviews I read on countless threads here, it's almost miraculous! Not sure why that one made an impression. Can't even remember the storyline right now. May have been as simple as the fact I found the cover art intriguing. It's been on my BookDepository WL since, but just added it here too so I could keep a record of where I got the recommendation for posterity. :-)

*****

Finished From the Land of the Moon and have to say two things: one, it's one of my favourite reads this year and will definitely get 5 stars since it tugged at my heart in just the right way, and two, I'm glad I hadn't read anything about it beyond the description on the Europa Editions site—especially not the back cover—so I could discover it all for myself (all the more so since by the time I got to it, I had completely forgotten what it was about).

Also finished Pearl of China, which I have mixed feelings about. Didn't like the beginning, for reasons I'll explain when I get to writing the review, but towards the middle, I was quite gripped with the sweep of things, which held my interest right through the end. All in all, I'm glad I read it but I have my reservations, as I said.

Received The Sense of an Ending yesterday in the mail from ChaptersIndigo.com and as much as I'm tempted to pick it up, I'm feeling a little bit blue today—nothing exceptional or unbearable though—so I'm wondering if I should maybe wait until the clouds have literally cleared from the skies to embark on a short adventure which promises to be packed with feeling.

Speaking of feeling blue, my cousin in Israel, who is several years younger than me and also suffers from chronic depression shared a very sweet animated clip today on my Facebook page called When I am Sad. She said she couldn't believe they'd made a movie about her, and somehow, I can also relate all too well.

Next up: A Clash of Kings, to finish the intro and maybe a chapter or two, then hopefully will churn out a bunch of overdue reviews so that I can be only slightly behind on the reviews for the books I just finished and not hopelessly so.

Hi Ilana- All this Jack Reacher talk, I thought I would chime in. I'm finally going to start Die Trying on audio. I read the Killing Floor a few years ago. I liked it but did not love it but so many of my pals over here, are Reacher fanatics, that I thought I would give it another shot, plus I heard this one takes place in Chicago.
I like Tom Cruise and will defend some of his work but he definitely sounds miscast as Reacher. I liked Cruise in "Rainman" too. His work in "Born on the 4th of July" is incredible and so was his supporting part in "Magnolia".
Hope your blues are dissipating! Hugs!

#143 Gail! I was busily typing up my latest screed and missed your message.

So nice to hear from you! I figured you weren't in the best of places but have learned from my mum, for better or for worse, to give people their space and privacy when they retreat.

Some actors have a gift for blending into their parts so much that you forget that they're anything but the character they're playing, while others always retain their actor persona, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and I agree that Cruise is in the latter category. I agree he was good in Rainman, but again, the role was perfect for his bombastic presence and Hoffman was so good that he stole the show as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks so much for the thumbs. Some reviews I just knock out and don't think about much while others end up taking so much time and energy that it's nice to know they're appreciated, even if ultimately I do it for my own satisfaction. I wish I could translate some of my humble writing skills to fiction. I've had a few false starts here and there... but lack confidence and most of all, discipline. Maybe all this concentrated reading I've been doing lately and the great feedback I've been getting here with this amazing community might give me enough confidence to try it in earnest. November is NaNoWriMo month, which I intend to join once again this year, even though I have no idea what I'll write about. But with a goal of 50,000 words and nothing else, it can be quite liberating to just take the plunge and see what comes out at the other end.

Sorry about all the gabbing. Guess I'm in a talkative mood today. :-)

#145 Hi Mark! Die Trying starts out in Chicago, but then they go on quite a road trip, and that's all I'm going to say about it. I started the series with the third book, Tripwire and then went back to the beginning, and I have a sense that like most series, it keeps getting better as Child develops his main man and spins out different plots for him. I'd be quite surprised if you didn't end up enjoying him, but of course, to each their own. I have to admit that I found him quite seductive from the get-go, so there's a very good chance I'll keep going with this one when I'm in need of action-packed brain candy. I'll take that over chick lit any day!

Cruise has his fans, and I still respect you for being one of them. ;-)

But you can imagine how disappointing it is to find that a character you find seductive on the page is to be embodied on the screen with someone you find repulsive. No offence or anything. He's good looking by most standards, I've just never liked him and that whole business of scientology. Won't get into that because I don't know anything about it except that I think it's a lot of poppycock.

207. I Am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts ★★½
(Read for TIOLI #5: an author never read for TIOLI)

Based on real-life events, this book describe the relationship between Alexander the Great and his horse. We follow the ambitious young king on his long campaign to conquer the Persian empire along with India and form the largest empire in ancient history, the twist being that the story is literally told from the horse's mouth. The description of their initial encounter in the novel is very similar to that stated in wikipedia:

When Alexander was ten years old, a horse trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted by anyone, and Philip ordered it to be taken away. Alexander, however, detected the horse's fear of his own shadow and asked for a turn to tame the horse, which he eventually managed. According to Plutarch, Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed him tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", and bought the horse for him. Alexander would name the horse Bucephalas, meaning "ox-head". Bucephalas would be Alexander's companion throughout his journeys as far as India. When Bucephalas died (due to old age, according to Plutarch, for he was already thirty), Alexander named a city after him, Bucephala.

In this fictional account, Roberts invents a young groom, Charmedes who is attached to Bucephalas by a strong spiritual connection, and since the horse is dangerous to handle by anyone else, Alexander appoints young Charmedes as his official horse groom. When it turns out that Charmedes is actually Charmeia, even though it is unheard of that a girl should do a man's work, Alexander still keeps her on as she is the only one who can give the special care required by Bucephalas to heal all the wounds he receives in battle, and he also relies on what appears to be her prophetic dreams.

I really wanted to like this book a lot. I'm usually immediately taken in by stories about animals and this one was recommended by Kerry, who's suggestions usually hit the spot for me, but it just didn't click. One of the problems is that I don't enjoy stories of battles to begin with and this book described Alexander's conquests step by step. I might have enjoyed it more if it had not been written for young adults, because the tone and approach sometimes grated on me. For example, most of the chapters ended with a tally by the horse of the results following each battle with numbers of enemies dead, numbers taken as slaves, numbers of Macedonians dead and how many horses have perished. The last statistic was usually accompanied by a comment from Bucephalas such as: "Horses dead: 100, including Zoroaster and Aura's foal (VERY sad!)" One interesting aspect was that we got Bucephalas' unbiased view of the great conqueror, who believed himself to be the son of Zeus and was obsessed with reaching the end of the world where it was prophesized that he would attain immortality. Not surprisingly, Alexander comes across as an insecure brute who is intent on forcing the world to regard him as a great king. An interesting book, but unfortunately not quite my cup of tea.

Very nice review, Ilana! I have to admit though that I have never really liked ancient historical fiction although I adore classical mythology. Which makes the chances of my having ever picked up this book slim. Having read your review, I feel perfectly fine keeping it that way. :)

Gail - sorry to hear your down in the dumps -hugs and chin up.

Mark - Nothing against Cruise either - loved Jerry MacGuire - even if Cuba Gooding Jr stole the show - and am horizontally challenged myself! It's just that casting him as Reacher is an offence to the books as he is short and dark and Reacher is written as huge and fair.

Ilana - the days dont lengthen or shorten as they do in the west - dusk varies about 30 minutes throughout the year.
Great review and the book sounds almost literally like a horses ass!

Actually the genre is a variable one I Claudius is amongst the best things ever written in my view but you are right there is some rubbish out there too.

>111 Smiler69:: Ilana, I love all the Edith Wharton tidbits you included in your review. I didn't know that she also suffered from depression. I'm glad that writing helped her. It's our gain, too!

So you're not a Tom Cruise fan either, huh? I'm surprised that Brad Pitt wasn't cast as Jack Reacher. He seems to be in every other movie these days. But he's a Springfield-boy - so I have to like him. ;-)

#148 Hi Micky, and thanks—I never like to write a less than glowing review, especially when it's a book that was recommended by an LT friend. Kerry had also recommended War Horse which I read this year and absolutely loved (5 stars loved actually), so I guess it all evens out somehow.

Don't know if I'd ever read ancient historical fiction before this latest one so I couldn't say whether it's a period that especially appeals to me or not. I did follow a Ancient Greek studies program back in college but am ashamed to say I don't recall that first thing about it.

#149 Paul: "horses ass"? Please explain, am not familiar with that expression I don't think.

I've had my eye on I Claudius for quite a while now. I'll make sure to add you as a recommender in my tags.

#150 Donna, I had assumed that you had the same edition as me and had read the introduction, so didn't think you'd learn anything from my review, but am glad you did.

No, not a Tom Cruise fan. The boy just seems to try too hard and I just can't take him seriously. I would have liked them to cast someone less known for Jack Reacher, it just doesn't seem right to have a face that we've all seen ten million times for the role. I used to like Brad Pitt well enough, and find that he has talent, but lose interest in most actors when they've been as overexposed as these two have. And let's face it, this is NOT the age of truly great actors.

Ilana stretching a play on words somewhat - horse's ass normally refers to someone or something which is either stupid or spoilt - This was based on your less than glowing account of I am the Great Horse whereby the 'great horse' was actually a horse's ass (I think I know what I mean!).

Just to prove it is not entirely self-invented please refer www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=horse%27s%20ass

btw I must hasten to add I was referring to the characters in the book and not the author as Ms. Roberts is no doubt a lovely lady!

Ok. Have a bunch of children's and YA books to review and don't want to be at it all night. I almost convinced myself to skip them altogether, but instead have decided to set a challenge for myself: only one line allowed for each review. Two or three at the most...






208. The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi ★★★
(Read for TIOLI #5: an author never read for TIOLI)

I had never read this classic cautionary tale by Howitt about a wily spider who sweet talks a fly into his web. Wonderfully illustrated with macabre black and white images inspired by Edward Gorey and Tim Burton which bring to mind old horror films from the early days of cinema.






209. Bugs in a Blanket by Beatrice Alemagna ★★★
(Read for TIOLI #5: an author never read for TIOLI)

A wonderful story that celebrated diversity, this is a short tale of a flea who holds a party where all the guests start asking each other why they look the way they do: one has long legs, one is yellow, another has large eyes, one is a mix of colours and so on. Very original collage illustrations made with felted wool.






210. J'ai le droit d'être un enfant by Alain Serres, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★
(Read for TIOLI #5: an author never read for TIOLI)

The title translates to "I Have the Right to be a Child"; this book pays tribute to children's rights by enunciating those rights with an accompaniment illustrations which celebrating childhood and diversity.

#152 I think I know what I mean!

LOL!

Well, I guess Bucephalas did have a high opinion of himself, you're absolutely right. He considered that he was always the top horse, so to speak and made sure to "dominate all the piles", something which he mentioned repeatedly to get his point across (and I DO know what I mean!). But I'd say the real horse's ass was Alexander, whom I found impossible to like. But then, he WAS a great conqueror and I don't expect that sort to be the warm and fuzzy type...

Dunno why I didn't look up the urbandick right away, I've been known to make a contribution or two myself ;-)

211. The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo, with illustrations by Michael Foreman ★★★
(Read for TIOLI #6: cover in a primary colour - blue)

A young reporter relates how she got her first big break when her editor sent her to interview a great and very famous violinist called Paolo Levi. The one thing the editor insists on is: "whatever you do, don't ask the Mozart Question". The reporter has no idea what that means, and when she meets Levi she asks him to tell her how he got started playing the violin, which prompts the violinist to come clean once and for all and explain how his parents survived the concentration camps and why it is that up until that point, he was always refused to play any Mozart. A good and touching story.






212. Fil de Fée by Philippe Lechermeier, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty ★★★

Beautifully illustrated quirky poems about fairies and how to create magic. A beautiful celebration of fun and creativity for young ones, I wasn't crazy about the poems, but the illustrations were worth the detour.









213. ♫ Farm Boy by Michael Morpurgo ★★★

I picked up this audiobook because it was partially performed by Derek Jacobi and because it revisits some of the characters from War Horse, a book which I read this year and fell in love with. Here, a young man visits with his grandfather on the family farm where the old man asks him to stay on for a few months to teach him how to read and write. When the young man leaves to go travelling, he finds his elder has left him an envelope with a handwritten story of how he and his own father won a race between their horses and a man on a tractor. One of the horses in question is Joey, the star of War Horse and we find out that he had a long life and a comfortable retirement. Sweet.

I just love these flash mob videos. Here's a flash mob at Copenhagen Central Station with the Copenhagen Philharmonic playing Ravel's Bolero. Just sent to me from my uncle in Israel. Watch it full screen if you can to get the full effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrEk06XXaAw

Came in late (busy at the National Book Fest yesterday!), so missed Reacher/Cruise talk. The selection has been roundly criticized, but Lee Child is adamant that Cruise has a presence that can pull it off. I think it's hogwash and Cruise is putting money into the movie so he can star in it. :)

Have to say I completely agree with you Jim, that's the first thing that came to mind for me too.

I have quite an embarrassing question to ask. Embarrassing mostly because it will reveal the full extent of my ignorance and just how uncultured I am, but so be it.

I spend quite a lot of time and effort tagging my books here, and refer to my tags quite a lot. Because I read a very wide range of books and genres, I've taken to using the word "literature" in my tagging very loosely to mean "written works", so that I can identify the book's provenance, i.e. English Literature, Russian Literature, French Literature, Danish Literature, etc, even when applied to various genres such as crime fiction and historical fiction, and even Children's & YA, and some graphic novels, etc. The only thing is that by doing that, I'm not keeping track of what books actually have literary merit. So I'm asking you good people whether I should NOT tag my books as "literature" and use some other word which would more accurately denote provenance, or whether I should just add "literary fiction" or some such when this label applies.

Please note this is a life & death concern, so your opinion is very precious to me. ;-)

*****

Meanwhile, I've picked up The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and Memento Mori (on audio) by Muriel Spark and am about to plunge into some reading now. Will probably be at it most of the evening, mainly with the audiobook, as I have MOUNTAINS of laundry to fold and cooking to do (Borscht soup and apple/peach crumble) and then at 9 pm, the Boardwalk Empire season premiere is starting. Looking forward to that.

I'd just add literary fiction or even just literary. "British literature" is a valid description.

Jim, in the second part of your comment, do you mean to say it's a valid description when applied to genre fiction for example?

Hi Ilana, can't believe how much I have missed here but important things first, your descriptions of Tom Cruise are spot on and I haven't even read a Jack Reacher book yet and I am outraged. I was the weird person who preferred Goose in Top Gun (and of course Ice Man) as I found Cruise so annoying and funny looking to boot. So pleased to know I'm not alone there.

I agree with Jim and would just add the tag 'literary fiction' when needed. My tags are all over the place really so I'm impressed you have such good guidelines with your ones. Another thing that I need to do but never seem to find the time. Also must finish adding the rest of my library to LT one of these days..

Sure, I think of British literature as a work produced in Britain. Although I can certainly see the point that some might think of literature as something of literary merit beyond mass market or genre books. But then, I almost typed mass market literature. :)

Whew, I came back to thirty-six unread posts on your thread, Ilana! I've skimmed them a bit and here are my thoughts:
Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher????? Noooooooooo. I don't know whom I would prefer to have cast in the role (being pretty lousy at knowing who's who in the acting world) but certainly not Tom Cruise, about whom my feelings exactly match yours. Ugh.

You've had a string of 3-star reads but some with pretty nice illustrations.

I'm glad your library can still serve as a pick-up and drop-off location for your on-line reservations. That's frankly how I use my local branch, as well, and it's quite convenient.

Regarding the use of the word "literature," I went back and forth on that a bit, myself. I decided to generally avoid that word in my tags because it does (for me) connote some high level of literary value, which may not actually match a particular work. So, I often tag a book with the country in which it is set (which only sometimes matches the country from which the author hails): so I would tag it "Russia" rather than "Russian Literature." However, I've gone back and forth a fair amount on how best to tag books I read. I'm still working on developing a "system" that works for me. Like Leonie, my tags are all over the place.

#163 Leonie, the only reason my tags seem organized is because I have too much time on my hands and keep revising my system. I find it very meditative actually, so it's one of my favourite activities, sometimes even more so than reading! I think after all the craziness I went through with my career and needing to be "creative" within impossible constraints has led me to need to find solace in incredibly repetitive tasks like that. I'll eventually bring that into my artwork, if I can just find a way to focus on more than one thing at a time. I keep saying I need to come up with a schedule as if I was still in school—have a period for reading, one for writing, one for painting, on for drawing, on for blogging, and so on. But really, I only seem organized from the outside. Inside my brain it's a complete mess! Hence my need to create order somewhere however illusory it might be.

#164 Jim, I've just found that the word literature seems to be used to include or exclude lots of things, which is why I appropriated it that way to begin with. So yes, that extra "literary fiction" tag might be the solution.

#165 Thirty-six? Really?? I bet you at least two thirds or those were my own entries, right?

I don't know what it is about that T. C. guy, but he's always gotten under my skin. And some would say that we only hate those who remind us of things we don't like about ourselves, which is a pretty scary prospect. I'm glad to see that some of my friends here have the same feelings about him. Though not all of course.

Tags: I didn't want to use the name of the country to indicate the country of origin, because I use those to indicate where the action is set, so might have several in a row, such as "France", "U.S.A." and "Africa" if the characters move around in the story or whatever. I try to make it so each tag has only one meaning, which is why I use so many of them. For example, "Crime Fiction" will also have a "Fiction" tag, so I can keep track of that vs "Non-Fiction" for example. Honestly, I feel a bit embarrassed revealing my obsession with tags here. As a creative, I should be against tags on principle! Maybe I'm just not creative after all and should stop trying to be something I'm not?

Oy, I think I just gave myself a headache with that one. I'm off. TTYL!

>166 Smiler69: Tag obsession is NOT a bad thing! (Says the person with a 9-tier tag hierarchy...)

Could you use demonyms to denote literature from various countries, or are those already used to refer to original language?

Hi Ilana. Sorry for getting behind on your thread again...

I really enjoyed your review of Ethan Frome and, like Donna, my edition didn't have an introduction or notes so I appreciated the extra info - thank you :-)

Re tagging, I used to use British literature, French literature etc for all fiction works but changed it to British author, French author so I could tag non-fiction works as well. So I think it would be fine to use those tags if that's what you want to do. I confess to getting a bit obsessed with my tagging too...

I haven't read the Jack Reacher books but I'm not a big fan of Mr Cruise - he smiles too much.

We've had library cuts here too but so far they've just cut opening hours rather than closing a whole branch (or a section of a branch).

#167 I just looked up your 9-tier system on your profile page. Impressive! I've got a tier system too, but it's not clearly defined enough for me to make a clear list like you have. I'm envious now and may have to do something about that.

I can't think right now whether and how I've used demonyms, and if I have, they probably do refer to original language. Will have to look into it further. Too early in the morning for me right now.

#168 Heather, no need to apologize, I perfectly understand getting behind on threads. I don't think it's possible to stay up to date with everyone here—I know I can't manage it, and I spend HOURS, many hours most days here on LT.

You've raised a good point about being to tag non-fiction by using the author tag. I'll give it serious consideration.

>169 Smiler69: I highly recommend such a system (I'm such a cataloging freak). To make sure I instituted it across the board, I created a Retag collection, put all my books (read and unread) in the collection, and then went crazy with the tags. Actually, I've still got around 150 books left to tag. It's a time consuming project.

Can't add to the tagging debate, I'm a lazy tagger...one day. My library is no longer up to date either.
Too bad about I am the great horse, I was obviously more taken with it, I've always loved stories told from an animal's POV. I thought it was a great children's novel for that period of history, especially as there aren't many novels about Alexander for this age group.
Jack Reacher: Tom Cruise is not my favourite actor and definitely not my first choice for this role, obviously money talks in Hollywood and I think Lee Child has to be diplomatic about the casting. That said I was so taken in by the story and all the action that I didn't take in any description of Reacher for the first couple of books I read. So my first ideas about Reacher were far removed from how Child describes him, though now I'm one of those readers who just picture Lee Child as Reacher.

I use tags mainly as a reminder to me of when I read the book or if it won a prize. I guess like Kerry, I'd be considered a "lazy tagger". I am awed by your tags, Ilana. Maybe I'll try and do a more comprehensive tagging system next year, but there is no way that I'm going back and adding tags to old books in my library!

My copy of Ethan Frome was an old school edition. I loved it for its hardbound mustard yellow cover but the only introduction was more like a study guide for schoolchildren with vocabulary words, etc. I'm reading The Custom of the Country on my iPad and don't have the notes that my fellow students have in their editions. If I'm curious about something it's easy to link to google and get more information that I want or need. I just checked out my other Edith Wharton books. Summer has an introduction by Marilyn French; and I'm excited to see that The Age of Innocence has an intro by R.W.B. Lewis who wrote the definitive biography of Wharton.

My question is: Do you read the introduction first or after you've read the book? I've done both, but I think I prefer to read it at the end. That's the way my professor suggests we do it because so many introductions give big spoilers.

Ethan Frome and The Custom of the Country are two of my favorites. I did not care for Summer all that much. And I cannot remember if I read The Age of Innocence. I read the book in order. If the notes are first, I read them first. If the notes are at the end I read them at the end. Sometimes I do skip them though. The notes at the beginning of my copy of Ethan Frome were really good. If I remember correctly, the writer said that Wharton wrote Ethan Frome just as a way to practice her French. She did not initially intend to publish it.

#172 I always read the introduction after I've read the book. Sometimes they give spoilers for the plot which is really annoying. Glad to know I've inadvertantly been doing what your professor recommends!

#173 So did Edith Wharton write Ethan Frome in French? I had no idea. (Answering my own question, a quick google says yes and then she translated it back to English and revised it slightly for publication.)

#170 I think you've got me beat there as far as obsessive behaviour goes—in terms of tagging that is, because I'm not sure I'm quite willing to go over my entire collection quite that methodically, but I'll keep it in mind all the same.

#171 Kerry, I felt so bad when I realized I wasn't enjoying I Am the Great Horse as much as I thought I would, mostly because I knew you had love the book so much yourself. Can't win 'em all I guess. But if it's any consolation, War Horse is among my favourite reads of the year and of all time, so that one recommendation makes up for any book I might not be so enamoured with from here on end.

Just so you know, with my recent reorganization of book recommendation tags, I've been able to establish that as of today you are by far my #1 recommender with no less than 42 books appearing in my collections, both Wishlist and TBR because of you.

To put things in perspective, the next highest recommender is:
Linda/Whisper1 (29)
Mark/msf59 (22)
Judy/DeltaQueen (17)
Donna/Donna828 (13)
Stasia/alcottacre (12)
Darryl/Kidzdoc & Madeline/SqueakyChu (11)
and Deborah/Cariola (10)
with countless others who are continually contributing to grow my LT collection. I should specify that those numbers are much more limited than they could have been by now, because a couple of months into the year, when I realized how many book bullets I was taking since I'd joined this group in December, I decided I had to be much more strict about adding anything to the wish list.

#172 Donna, the only reason I'm so obsessed with my tagging is that there are so few things in my life that I can reliably keep track of and quantify, that books tags seem like an easy and satisfying challenge, thanks to blessedly unchanging variables. i.e. if I tag a book as "20th Century, 1930s, Fiction, American Literature, Classics, Great Depression, Family, Immigration, Poverty, Nobel Prize, 1001 Books, New, Purchased at BookDepository, TIOLI, Read in 2010" (a random example) then NO MATTER WHAT I read afterward, or how I feel at any given moment or what the weather is like and so on, those tags will always be valid and remain in place if I want. Also helps that they're all conveniently located on a web site that is geared to that kind of organization.

The only reason I thought we had the same edition of Ethan Frome was because of the cover image you had posted on your thread along with your review. I only recently started reading book intros and don't do so consistently because they're often incredibly dull and written by scholars or individuals who don't always have a gift for writing. But now that I take the time to review most books I read and end up doing some sort of research on them, I look into them more often, but only read till they end if they're interesting. I've made the mistake of reading intros to novels first a couple of times and been unhappy about the spoilers, so will never do so again, unless for a work of non-fiction, or if I've read the novel in the past and want to read it again with more a general perspective.

#173 Jennifer, you're absolutely right, that part was in the book's general introduction as well, but I'd forgotten to mention it, maybe because switching from French to English didn't strike me as being out of the ordinary since I live in a province where everything has to be written in both languages, among other things.

#174 I guess you and I must be really clever to have figured it out for ourselves eh Heather? :-) Trial and error is more like it, seems like.

I find it funny that she chose to write a story that is set in the States in French, but stranger things have been known to happen.

Linda beat me out?? What's up with that? I want a recount! All kidding aside, I wish I would started tagging books this way. The thing is, I only add a book, as I'm reading it, with the occasional WL title here and there.
Actually, I'm enjoying Die Trying. The audio fits very well with this. If I continue the series, this is the way I'll go!

I just knew I'd get in trouble once I revealed those numbers! Truth be told, my statistics are not completely appropriate since I adopted the system of noting sources for recommendations well into the year, so possibly some escaped my attention. Also, when I integrated my tagging system recently, I mistakenly lost a few recommenders there too. So if it pleases you, we can assume you probably would have beaten Linda. ;-)

I like the audio for the Jack Reacher series and also have the intention of continuing in that format. I find that narrator is perfectly convincing and sets just the right tone. Glad you're enjoying it. The next in series Tripwire is quite a trip. Was the first I listened to when they had an Audible sale, and that got me hooked, so don't give up just yet!

Books

I received a nice and heavy package yesterday containing three gorgeous books:

Cabinet of Natural Curiosities: The Complete Plates in Colour, 1734-1765 by Albertus Seba - visually stunning and freaky all at once
Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities by John M. Carrera - 19th century wood engravings and illustrations from old Webster's dictionaries all brought together to form a fascinating visual narrative (can't wait to 'read' that one!)
And also The Bookplates and Badges of C. F. A. Voysey by Karen Livingstone which apparently is too recent to have a touchstone. Not certain I'll be keeping that one, but since they didn't have any copies in store, I decided to see what it's about, but I may want a more general book about Voysey, and/or the Arts and Crafts movement.

From Amazon received today: Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins.

Finished Memento Mori by Muriel Spark last night, which I enjoyed quite a lot along with The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes which, for various reasons, didn't appeal to me nearly as much as it has to all the reviewers up until now (sorry Darryl), besides the fact that I didn't understand the big denouement and am hoping someone can help me out with that (Darryl?)

The TIOLI challenges for October have started going up, so I guess it's time for me to start planning my reading for the month ahead!

Lots of reviews due. Will get working on that asap.

Ilana, I tried to post earlier and I got booted out of LT. Oh well.

I see you've added The Terra Cotta Dog for my October TIOLI challenge. I've read the first two in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series and really enjoyed them. Maybe I'll add the third, The Snack Thief, to see if I continue enjoying them.

Ellen, what do you mean, you got "booted out" of LT??

I noticed that there were already a few different titles by Camilleri on your challenge. Now to see if any of those will end up being shared reads. :-)

Hi Ilana, looking forward to those reviews you mentioned. Just wanted to let you know that I'm picking up a couple of Benjamin Lacombe books from the library tomorrow (finally got around to ordering them) and I can't wait. I'm hoping it will motivate me to get back to my drawing and painting which has been too long forgotten.

214. ♫ The White Rhino Hotel by Bartle Bull ★★★⅞
(Read for TIOLI Challenge #6: Cover in a primary colour & 11/11 Category #10: Sooner Than Later - Recent Acquisitions)

Set in Kenia after WWI, we follow the progress of English colonizers, most of them wounded veterans who have come to Africa in hopes of starting over. Anton Rider was too young to fight in the war, but he embarks on a ship from England to a continent that will allow him the space to roam free and hunt in the wilderness. During the voyage, he takes notice of a beautiful young woman, Gwen, who is on her way to meet her husband, already stationed in Kenia where they will cultivate a plot of land won in a raffle. But there are also two Irish brothers, imposing and brutal escaped murderers present, one of which takes a liking to Gwen, then forces his way into her cabin and rapes her until young Anton Rider catches him in the act, and from then on the two men become sworn enemies.

Meanwhile, at the White Rhino Hotel, barman Olivio the dwarf is mixed up in many intrigues, one of which is providing sexual favours to the hotel owner's wife. All these characters will come together in what is the first instalment of a great saga. It is Bartle Bull's ode to Africa, it's native people and it's natural wildness, and the forces of hatred and loyalty, passion and cruelty, avarice and lust which come together to form a thrilling story which combines plenty of action with lyrical and evocative descriptions of the settings. I would have given this one a higher rating for general appreciation, but was quite bothered by an element of the story, which has Olivio take on a twelve year-old black girl as his servant and sexual plaything. While this is part of the customs of the natives, who marry off their girls at a very young age, and while the girl ends up having her way with him and all is well, I would have much preferred not being privy to their sexual explorations, an element I found very disturbing. All the same, I'll continue on with the trilogy, because there's too much good stuff here to sink one's teeth into.

Hi Leonie, was just in the process of writing my latest review when you posted! I hope you enjoy the Lacombe books and that they help spark a renewed interest in the pursuit of your talents. Will be happy to see the results too! :-)

>180 Smiler69: It was just computer malfunction, or server malfunction, or something. No person actually booted me out (I'd like to see 'em try!: "put 'em up, 'put em up.....")

215. Pearl of China by Anchee Min ★★★½
(Read for TIOLI Challenge #12: A title with a word appearing on wikipedia page about Mid-Autumn Festival)

"Pearl Buck and I have a long history together, and in some sense that story is at the heart of my novel. As a teen back in China in 1972 during the Cultural Revolution, I was asked to denounce Pearl Buck as an "American cultural imperialist." Though I wasn't given a change to read The Good Earth, I dutifully went ahead and made the denunciation. Years later, when I was living in America, [...] I read the book on a plane and burst into tears. I cried because I realized how beautifully Buck had told the story of the Chinese peasant, in a way that few others, even Chinese, had ever done. And I cried because I was only then realizing that I was only one of a generation that had been indoctrinated to think poorly of Buck. I wrote the novel to show where Pearl's great sensitivity and insight into the Chinese and Chinese culture came from. And also to show how the relationship between Pearl Buck and China changed over time, just as mine had changed." — From a Q & A with Anchee Min in the Bloomsbury edition of Pearl of China

In this fictionalized biographical account, which spans from Pearl S. Buck's years in China to several years after her death, the narrator, Willow, gives a first-person account of how she and Pearl came to know each other as little girls, and the progress of their lives as the two women become lifelong friends. Willow is an invention of course, and while Min says she based herself on several people to build that character, she also represents the fondness and admiration that Anchee Min herself has obviously developed for the American woman who embodied the Chinese spirit and went on to become a Nobel Prize-winning author, thanks to her novels which were set in China. Based on a mixture of fact and invention, Willow describes her own life situation, growing up with a father who was a beggar, and by contrast, Pearl's parents, both Presbyterian missionaries, with Pearl's father, Absalom Sydenstricker working tirelessly to bring the Christian faith to the mostly Buddhist natives, while her mother tried to bring music and culture and help the people in her own way, in a China that would never be home to her.

The first half of the book describes both young women's progress in an evolving China undergoing grave turmoil, first with the Boxer Rebellion, a proto-nationalist movement which declared war on foreigners and Christianity. During the worst of the persecutions, Pearl sought shelter in America, but returned as soon as it was safe to do so with her new husband, agricultural economist missionary, John Lossing Buck with whom she had a child, Carol, who was sadly afflicted with a condition which caused mental retardation. Willow describes what appears to be an unhappy marriage, of a husband who refused to support Pearl's fledgling writing career, of the difficulties the author faced when trying to have The Good Earth published, in a time when no one believed a book about the peasant class would be of interest to anyone. While I found all this interesting, this first part of the book seemed unconvincing; the Pearl character didn't ring true and seemed two-dimensional. But things really took off following the "Nanking Incident" during which Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops, Communist forces, and assorted warlords murdered several Westeners, and with their lives threatened Peal and her family were forced to leave China again, this time for good. From here on Willow's first person narrative mostly concentrates on relating the changes that came with the rise of communism and the cult of Mao and though Pearl remains in the background, she seems more convincing at a distance, while the dramatic changes, not least of which the Cultural Revolution, are vividly recounted, Willow having married a man who is involved with the communist party from it's very beginning and eventually becomes Mao's right hand.

All in all, this makes for a good read, and since Min took plenty of artistic license, a non-fictional account of Pearl S. Buck's life might be necessary to sort out fact from fiction. But Anchee Min does offer a uniquely Chinese perspective on Pearl's life, her relationship to China and how the Chinese people viewed her, and weaves it all into an enlightening and eminently readable novel.

Hi Ilana- Good review of WRH! It's been a long time since I read it and you refreshed some of my fond memories. I think you'll enjoy Cafe on the Nile.
Pearl of China also sounds interesting. I need to get to The Good Earth in the next couple months.

#184 LOL! Funny lady. :-)

#186 Oh good, I'm glad my White Rhino Hotel review gets your approval. I was a little bit nervous about that, so now I can rest easy. ;-)

Wow, Ilana! You are amazing! Such organisation! I bow at your feet!

Really really intrigued by the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities - hoping you can post some images. I adore art books - and collecting antiques curios stuff - bit of a passion. The Pictorial Webster's: A visual dictionary of curiosities sounds equally covetable...

#188 Prue, please don't bow, you're embarrassing me. Especially since you'd change your mind quickly if you saw my apartment!

You're right about those two books being covetable. That's exactly as I should have kept them for now, considering I went insane with book-related purchases this month (it was so bad I don't even dare add up the total amount I spent). But I'm sure I'll appreciate them through the years. And yes, will post some images if I can, you know I will!

Hi Ilana, think I'm ducking the book bullets for those two but I did enjoy your reviews.

Hi Heather, I'll try to hit you with one of my upcoming and overdue reviews. ;-)

HI There!

#192 Hi Linda! Nice to see you in shape to do the rounds tonight.

*****

Not a lot of news in my world today. Wasn't feeling very well, and then Coco's back flared up and my little guy's been pretty miserable all day too. I gave him a dose of his anti-inflammatory medication which I'm hoping will have him all better by tomorrow. It's been raining almost non-stop for the last 24 hours, which sort of went with the general mood here.

I picked up Carte Blanche by Carlo Lucarelli last night and have a good chance of finishing it on time for another TIOLI read in September since it's only 108 pages. An Italian Noir police procedural set in Fascist Italy near the end of the war, 1945. Good stuff, and first in a trilogy. Also picked up Bridge of Birds and really enjoying it. Making slow progress on all my reading since... not spending all that much time actually reading and have several books going, so it's a few pages here, a few pages there. I'm hoping to catch up on more reviews tomorrow, if the review muse deigns to pay me a visit. Meanwhile, my listening pleasure has been seriously compromised since one of my earphone for my iPod decided to go AWOL and stopped emitting sound out of the blue. It's just awful. I've become so accustomed to having my audiobooks on when I'm up and around doing things, and listening with one ear is intolerable. Only bought them in April too! I've already contacted the company and fully expect them to replace the earphones. Hopefully they'll hold up their warranty promise and send me a new pair ASAP.

Wishing you all a good night and a good day.

Ilana and Coco - hoping your back(s) and your mood(s) are improved on Friday. I loved your review of Pearl of China. I still want to read Good Earth first, but PoC sounds like a good fictionalized story of Buck's life. Sometimes those work best for me, though I have to remind myself to sort out the fact from the fiction.

Frustrating to have your earphone go berserk on you. Ugh. I have a pair that I really like -- by Etymotic Research -- and I would be very bummed if they stopped working.

Hope your Friday is good. eta: hugs to you and Coco and Ezra and Mimi!

My sympathies on the earphones, I had the same thing happen a few weeks ago and bought a cheap replacement pair which I found to deliver far superior sound to my ears than the more expensive pair they replaced. I'm currently listening to Pearl Buck's Imperial Woman for Paul's Nobel Prize Winners theme read. I read The Good Earth many years ago so was interested in your review of Pearl of China.

Hope you and Coco wake up to a better day.

Finally got caught up on your thread, so much to digest! I think I fall in the careless tagger category, my tagging is all over the place.

Carte Blanche sounds interesting, I'll be looking forward to seeing your eventual review.

Hello lovely ladies (and gentlemen). Not sure what I did with my day. All I know is it's 1 am and I need to get my beauty rest. Tomorrow am going to a luncheon get-together with a new group of Montreal Book Bloggers. I was quite surprised when I was invited to join in because 1. I didn't think anyone actually read my blog, other than my parents and 2. While I do blog about books quite often, I would definitely not say it's a book blog. The cool thing is we've organized a book trade and we'll all be going home with a new pile of books. Neat eh?

I squeezed in one last TIOLI read today for Stasia's "Read a fictional book with Jewish main character or a nonfiction book on Judaica/Judaism" challenge which was very fitting for this Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year): Songs from the garden of Eden: Jewish Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes. It's a book and CD combo with 28 traditional Jewish songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish and Arabic. The CD is quite wonderful to listen to and the book shows the lyrics in the original language, English and the phonetic version. There's a little writeup about each song which gives the background of how and when it came about and what the underlying message might be. I had borrowed it from the library ages ago and almost passed it up, but I'm really glad I didn't. Brought back lots of memories of childhood, and a few tears too... I'll definitely have to get my hands on Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books as a next step.

#194 Thanks for your good wishes Ellen. Coco was much better today and was up to his usual capers when we went for our walk this afternoon, doing twists in mid-air and generally being the most adorable little clown ever. When I upgrade my iPhone (with video capacity) I'll try to catch him in action so you can see for yourself.

About the earphones: Klipsch wrote back to me today to say that they're sending a pair which should get to me in the next 7 to 10 days. Don't know how I'll wait that long, because meanwhile, I twisted and bent the cable so much to try to get sound in both ears that now they're both kaput. *Sigh*

#195 Where did you get the Imperial Woman audio from Kerry? I see they have it on Audible. I like the sound of the narrator Kirsten Potter. I see they have several other Pearl S. Buck titles like Sons, A House Divided, The Women's Pavillion and Peony. I might have to get at least one of those.

#196 Judy, that must have been quite a lot of work. Amazing how much catching up there is to do after just one day away from here. I like people who take time to tag their books because when I look up their collections, it gives me a better idea about the books. But of course those who have the time and the desire to do so are few.

Carte Blanche was good. I'll probably seek out the next book in the series. I'm pretty sure I saw they had it at the library.

Ilana - I was lucky to get Imperial Woman from my library as an e-audio download, which once transferred to my iPod is basically there till I want to listen to it. I'm enjoying the narration, I'm about 4 hours into the 17 hour marathon and so far it's quite interesting with lots of historical detail.

Glad to hear Coco's doing better and I hope you enjoy your luncheon with the book bloggers (luncheon sounds so much more exciting than lunch!)

Ilana dropping by to say hi - somehow I missed your latest thread - wont make the same mistake twice!

Resisting desire to tag....

Am very glad to hear that our little buddy is feeling better. Hope you enjoyed your bloggers luncheon.

The luncheon today with the Montreal Book Bloggers was quite fun. There were fourteen of us (big surprise: all women!) and we started with the best part—trading books (see the dozen I brought home below). It took us a while to settle down to our seats as there were plenty of late arrivals—made me feel good not being the last to arrive, for once! There was a huge table of Japanese tourists just behind us who kept staring and obviously were wondering what the heck was going on. One woman asked me what we were doing and were we book sellers? I tried to explain to her what we were about, but I don't think she quite got it, so I summed it up with "We're all just crazy about books", which she seemed to think was very strange. We had... well lunch, obviously, chatted a lot about books (duh!) and time flew. After 2-3 hours, we made our way to Indigo, our big box Canadian bookstore, had a look at the sales section, where I picked up the only book I actually paid for today, the Sarah Dunant, and also swung by the Graphic Novel section which was filled with plenty of tempting treats—I discovered two books by Lynda Barry—who is, according to wikipedia "One of the most successful non-mainstream American cartoonists". There was What It Is, about which wikipedia says: ""What It Is" (2008) is a graphic novel that is part memoir, part collage and part workbook in which Barry instructs her readers in methods to open up their own creativity."—and the more recent Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book. Both are super creative and artistic, combining drawing and painting and cartoons, with lots of collage. I've just got to get my hands on both ASAP.

I should point out that this was the very first time for seeing people in RL that I've met on online book-related sites (dating sites, well... that's a thing of the past now, thank heavens.) Nice bunch of ladies too.

Meanwhile, I just added these to my ginormous tbr collection:

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (Audiobook) - already have this one as a tree book, but I thought maybe if I get the audio I'll get to it sooner?
Peony in Love by Lisa See
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton
Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

*****

#198 Kerry, unfortunately, the library here doesn't carry any audio versions of Bucks' novels, but I've wishlisted a bunch of them on Audible. They seem like they're all very good productions too.

#199 luncheon sounds so much more exciting than lunch!

Indeed! Quite posh innit? ;-) Since we were a bunch of women (Ladies), I thought the word was quite appropriate.

#200 Hi Paul, no worries mate, I'm always missing lots of action here on LT. I don't think anyone here can keep up, except for the speed readers among us (am definitely NOT among them, sadly enough).

#201 Ooooohhh! Jeanne, I just had a quick peek and noticed you're quite the tagger yourself! Will have to go have a proper look. You might inspire me to adopt yet more tagging levels, who knows? :-)

#202 Our little buddy is doing just fine Charlotte. Unfortunately, he didn't quite appreciate the luncheon nearly as much as I did, since he was cooped up in his crate and hates it when I leave him behind (as most dogs do). The very next day after the back trouble he was out doing his clown antics and spinning around like a little top all over the place. I'll try to catch him on video sometime. It really is so adorable. He's not so pleased about the rain that's been pouring for the past 48 hours or so, on and off, kind of puts a damper on his walks, which are inevitably shorter than usual. Such is a dog's life.

For those who have missed them at the top of my thread, here are my planned reads for the month. Completely unrealistic, as usual...

Suggested reads for October

TIOLI #1: A novel assigned in an English class
☛✔ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
☛♫ Summer by Edith Wharton

TIOLI #2: Read a Characteristic Work of the 75 Book Challenge group
☛✔ Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
☛✔ The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
☛♫ Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
☛♫ Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

TIOLI #3: About an artist for National Arts & Humanities Month
☛✔ Alexey Brodovitch by Kerry William Purcell
☛✔ Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 by Carol Squiers (TIOLI #3)

TIOLI #4: Author using anything other than the simplest version of their name
☛♫ A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

TIOLI #6: Read a book about infectious diseases
☛✔ Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky

TIOLI #9: Author whose first and/or last name begins and ends with a vowel
* ☛❉ Son Excellence Eugène Rougon by Émile Zola (11in 11: Émile Zola),
☛❉ Chien de faïence (The Terracotta Dog) by Andrea Camilleri

TIOLI #10: Read a book from Book Browse website
☛✔ Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh ---> moved to November

TIOLI #11: An author whose first and last names have the same number of letters
☛✔ Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
☛♫ To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

TIOLI #17: Letter X in the title
☛♫ Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie

TIOLI #18: A book that has been mentioned in 150 conversations or less
☛❉ Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart - Reading
☛❉ Dust by Arthur Slade
☛✔ The Ghost Road by Pat Barker



Nobel Prize month suggested reads

☛✔ The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (TIOLI Challenge #15: author has an alliterative name)
☛✔ Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (TIOLI #18)
☛✔ The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago (TIOLI #18)
☛✔ The Red Pony by John Steinbeck (TIOLI #18)
☛♫ The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison (TIOLI #18)

* = must read
♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
❉ = library
☛ = TIOLI

Another busy month with lots of good reading, Ilana.

Hi Ilana- It sounds like you had a good time with your Montreal Book Bloggers. How often do they meet?
It looks like you added an impressive list to your LT WL. I've read 3 of them, my favorite being Olive Kitteridge. God, i love that book.
Wow, your October looks jam packed. We should read Sea of Poppies together. It just won't be this month. Maybe November?

Loved your description of the bookblogging lunch and what a great haul of books to bring home. I have to add that I got a copy of Lynda Barry's What it is out from the library last week after catching a peek of it on a blog I've started following. Your October reading list looks to be as long as my one - don't we ever learn!

#205 Judy, it'll be interesting to see what I'll have actually read at the end of the month!

#206 Mark, the MBBs are a newly formed group and had their first get-together in July, which I missed because I was being ridiculous and not paying much attention to my email. We just had an informal discussion about frequency and I think we're going to be aiming for every 2 months. It takes a whole month to get it organized, so that should work out. It was a good time... and I finally got to meet an LT friend in the flesh! Avis isn't in our 75ers group, but she's here on LT and as it turns out... we're practically neighbours too!

By the way, that list of books I posted are books I actually brought home. Maybe I didn't make that clear, so I've edited the post to make that more obvious. When I was looking at the books on offer (we have a Facebook group where we all posted what we had available), I kept checking on LT to see what the feedback was on them, and I saw that you'd LOVED Olive Kitteridge with those 5 stars and read your review, which was a big factor in me choosing it.

Good idea about reading Sea of Poppies together in November. I don't know what I was thinking, putting on the list for this month—the thing is a doorstopper and I'll either have to read just that book in the month, or give myself a couple of months to get through it.

#207 Nope, we never learn. I don't know... I'd like to try it some time... just planning for 3-5 books and then seeing what happens. But then... I always have such a huge backlog of books I can't wait to get to, and then the TIOLI challenges are yet another incentive to pile up the possibilities. At least I know I'm not alone!

I just check out Winter Pages and followed a link to a page with the following information:

"During Spring Semester of 2012, Lynda Barry will be the University of Wisconsin’s Artist in Residence on the Madison campus. She’ll be teaching a writing and picture-making class called, “What It Is: Manually Shifting the Image” which will meet twice a week. The class will be open to both graduate and undergraduate students from all academic disciplines. No artistic talent is required to be part of this class, but students should have an interest in memory, images, how the brain works, and what the biological function of the thing we call ‘the arts’ may be."

Your comment also inspired me to look up her books at the library and I've reserved the two, including What It Is, which is the reasonable way to go, because I was all hung-ho to purchase them right away, but considering the small fortune I spent in books in September, it might be a good idea to cool it with the purchases for a month or two...

Ilana - good luck with your proposed reads - I also have the Gunther Grass lined up this month. Of your recent additions I've read the Atkinson, the Zadie Smith, the Waugh and the Styron. Have all the others on the shelves except Mustian and Strout so I'll be especially keen to have your thoughts on those.

Hi, Ilana ~ Just caught up on your thread. Whew! Between your reviews and your plans for October reading, among all the other stuff, there's a lot to take in!

Good list of books acquired and planned reads for October. Sea of Poppies is a book I'd like to read at some point too.

#209 Paul, thanks, I figure if I manage to read half of those I'll have done a good job of it! Been wanting to read The Tin Drum for a long time. Let's see if I manage to do it this month... there are no guarantees :-)

#210 Mary, I imagine that is a lot to get caught up on this far along in the thread... even I don't remember everything that's been said here! Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment, always nice to hear from you!

#211 Heather, I always start the month with the best of intentions, but with too much pressure too. Maybe November will be the month when I only plan a handful of reads and take it from there?

Nice list of proposed reads, Ilana!

#213 Thanks Darryl, I just had a look at my list of proposed reads for September and saw that out of 24 suggested reads, I only completed half, so it'll me interesting to see what dozen makes it through in October!

***

Right. Time to knock out some reviews!

216. From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus ★★★★★
(Read for September TIOLI #12: Title with a word appearing on wikipedia page about Mid-Autumn Festival and 11 in 11 Category #6: New To Me Authors )

“She had married late, in June of 1943, after the American bombing of Cagliari, and in those days to be thirty and not yet settled was already to be something of an old maid. Not that she was ugly, or lacked suitors—on the contrary. But at a certain point the wooers called less frequently and then stopped, each time before they had officially asked my great-grandfather for her hand. Dear signorina, circumstances beyond my control prevent me from calling on you this Wednesday, and also next, which would be very enjoyable for me but, unfortunately, impossible. So grandmother waited for the third Wednesday, but a little girl, a pipiedda, always arrived with the letter that put off the visit again, and then there was nothing.”

This tiny little book of just 108 pages packs the rich history of the narrator's grandmother, who, growing up in a small Sardinian village and considered to be crazy, was the shame of her parents and sisters. When a man, very recently widowed by the aforementioned bombing offers to marry the inconvenient girl, her father accepts the proposal although she begs him to refuse; she does not love the man and neither does he love her, but marry they do, to everyone's relief. But nearly ten years later, the woman has had one miscarriage after another, even though she has made sure to meet her husband's every sexual demand, no matter how peculiar, to keep him away from the brothels, so she is sent off to be cured of kidney stones at a thermal bath station. There, she meets another patient, a war veteran, and for the very first time, experiences with him the love, passion and consideration she has always yearned for.

It's difficult for me to put into words why it is I fell in love with this little book. It's a story about ordinary people trying their best to get on with life and make do with what they have, while going to great lengths to fulfill their yearning and passion, in ways that some would call madness and others would consider to be artistic genius. Gorgeous. A must read.

Five stars, 108 pages, your review making it sound right up my alley: I've just put it on hold at the library. I hope I can fit it into an October TIOLI. It only has 21 conversations associated with it, so I know I can! :-)

217. ♫ The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey ★★★½
(Read for TIOLI #6: cover is primarily one of the 3 prime colours and 11 in 11 Category #3: Mysteries & Crime Fiction)

Right. I wasn't going to write a review for this one, as I feel like I'm not qualified to do so for reasons I shall explain shortly. Here is the book description from Amazon, since I don't think I could really improve upon it: "In Daughter of Time, Tey focuses on the legend of Richard III, the evil hunchback of British history accused of murdering his young nephews. While at a London hospital recuperating from a fall, Inspector Alan Grant becomes fascinated by a portrait of King Richard. A student of human faces, Grant cannot believe that the man in the picture would kill his own nephews. With an American researcher's help, Grant delves into his country's history to discover just what kind of man Richard Plantagenet was and who really killed the little princes."

Why can't I write a proper review? Because truth be told, probably 90% of the story went right over my head. But the 10% I did get, I absolutely loved. Well and truly. Having read one Josephine Tey novel before—The Franchise Affair—and tremendously enjoyed her unique style and amusing, snappy dialogue, I was looking forward to this one, which came highly recommended. I was hesitant to read it for the simple reason that I know... well, nothing about British history, and even less about it's monarchs, even though Queen Elizabeth II has graced most of our currency, including all our coins and our $20 (and former $2) bills for as far back as I can remember. But that was of no help whatsoever here—further proof that money is definitely not the solution to everything. I had asked, on one of the many mystery threads here on LT, whether one should have some historical background to enjoy this novel and was told 'absolutely not necessary'. Well. I beg to differ. So basically, all the bits describing the court intrigues during Richard III's reign, to me seemed to have altogether too many characters I wasn't even a little bit familiar with running around doing a lot of things I didn't understand involving the usual greed, envy, ambition, etc. But all the other bits were an absolute delight; here, a sample from the opening lines of the book as poorly copied by me from the audiobook version (punctuation my own, obviously):

Grant lay on his high, white cot and stared at the ceiling. Stared at it with loathing. He knew by heart every last minute crack on it's nice clean surface. He'd made maps of the ceiling and gone exploring on them; rivers, islands and continents. He'd made guessing games of it and discovered hidden objects; faces, birds and fishes. He had made mathematical calculations of it and rediscovered his childhood; theorems angles and triangles. There was practically nothing else he could do but look at it. He hated the sight of it. He had suggested to the midget that she might turn his bed around a little so he could have a new patch of ceiling to explore. But it seemed that that would spoil the symmetry of the room and in hospitals, symmetry ranks just a short head behind cleanliness and a whole length in front of godliness. Anything out of the parallel was hospital profanity. Why didn't he read? She asked, Why didn't he go on reading some of those expensive new novels that his friends kept on bringing him? "There are far too many people born in to the world, and far too many words written; millions and millions of them, pouring from the presses every minute; it's a horrible thought." "You sound constipated" said the midget. 'The Midget' was nurse Ingham, and she was in so per fact a very nice 5 feet 2 with everything in just proportion. Grant called her 'The Midget' to compensate himself for being bossed around by a piece of Dresden china which he could pick up in one hand. When he was on his feet, that is to say.

Add to this Sir Derek Jacobi's wonderfully expressive narration, and it's obvious why I couldn't let the simple matter of 'not being able to make out the better part of the novel' get in the way of me enjoying it till the very end. So really, it's completely unfair of me to give such a low rating to such an excellent and entertaining piece of literature, as I know it's entirely my fault that I didn't—at the very least—acquaint myself with the wikipedia page about Richard III. I hope I'll be forgiven by Tey's fans for this lack of consideration on my part, especially since you can now count me among her fans too.

Each time I visit here I come away with so many books that I want to read.

Hi Ilana!!!

#216 & 219 Hi Ellen! So sorry, I hadn't seen your previous comment since I was so busy putting together my very lengthy 'non-review' above! :-)
I'm almost certain you will LOVE From the Land of the Moon. If you don't, it'll have been maybe a couple hours of your life devoted to a worthy cause, but I'm sure glad my review inspired you to pick this one up and hope others others are encouraged to do so to. It's Agus's first published effort, and I'll definitely be looking out for whatever she comes up with next.

#218 Hi Linda, I guess that evens things out a little since I've been riddled with book bullets on your threads in the course of the year. ;-)

Oh gosh, Ilana - I am having a bad month with BBs; my WL is now seriously out of control! Just had to add From the land of the moon..

Prue, I don't even look at the number of books in my collections anymore, including the WL; I just know it'll keep growing and growing, but the nice here is that it takes up no room at all no matter how big it gets. ;-)

From the Land of the Moon is a worthwhile addition. Hope you enjoy it when you get to it.

Hi Ilana!! I keep meaning to stop by your thread and finally I am here!! About time! I so enjoyed your last visit to my thread! Looks like you've got a lot of books on tap! I loved When Will There Be Good News- I hope you love it too. Oranges are not the Only Fruit seemed promising at the start -but in the end I was not so keen about it. However, everyone's taste is so different!

Well, I don't have cats like you, but I do have a small dog who will not use our backyard to do " her business " so I feel like I am always on the verge of going out for a walk - which I am about to do!!! Rain, cover of dark, snow, sunshine - off we go!!!!! :)

#223 Hi Deb, indeed, there is no lack of books over here and quite a few going right now. I'm almost certain I'll love When Will There Be Good News as I've read a couple of books by Kate Atkinson and really liked them a lot.

I never complain about having to take Coco for walks (ok, almost never) since, one of the reasons I got him to begin with was to force me out of the house and make me move around a little. Not to mention the companionship and all the other wonderful things that a dog can bring into one's life. It's been raining here a lot for the past few days and tonight was the first time that I could take him for a longer walk since quite a while, so he was the happiest puppy you've ever seen. :-)

*****

I finished my first read of October and for TIOLI, Maisie Dobbs. I liked it well enough. It delves on themes that I have great interest in, namely WWI and it's aftermath and I like her unique approach (for a detective) for dealing with people. I did the audiobook version and the narrator was good, but she made it all sound a bit too cutesy for my liking, so I'll seek out the next in series in print format instead.

Also started a book I'd been looking forward to for a long time: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, again, in audio format. I'm just a few chapters in, but properly hooked and I can tell this one will inspire me to do a whole bunch of housework to keep listening for hours without interruptions. Very good stuff.

Can't make rounds of threads tonight as am exhausted, as I always am after taking a class. Also, I have to return some books to the library and want to finish The Jungle Books tonight as would hate to miss just two stories after all the time I've taken to get through it. As a bonus, it'll fit into the Nobel Prize monthly theme now.

Ok, feel my eyes closing, and have lots of rituals to oversee before laying down with book in hand, so I'd better hop to it.

Hi Ilana, wow this has been a busy wee thread. I've listed more titles to read but just had to say that I'm loved hearing about your RL encounter with your fellow bloggers, sounded like a great time and thanks for the review of From the Land of the Moon - looks like a keeper to me.

Ilana- I was a big fan of Cutting For Stone and yes the 1st half of that book is jaw-dropping. Enjoy!

I'm definitely going to read Cutting for Stone this month. It might be a good one for my air travel in a couple of weeks.

#225 Hi Leonie, always nice to have your visits, especially as I know you're a busy lady and have lots to look after. The get-together with the Montreal Book Bloggers was lots of fun. I don't get out of the house much and don't see that many people outside from my art classes, and it was fun getting together with a group that shares a similar passion. Gave me a taste of what an LT get-together might be like.

From the Land of the Moon is one of these books that will stay with me forever, that's how powerfully I connected with the story. It does have a lingering quality. I think I'll buy the book eventually, as it's a story I'd like to revisit over the years. Hopefully you can get your hands on it, and if you do I'll look forward to your take on it.

#226 Hi Mark. You're right Cutting for Stone is proving to be quite a powerful experience. The story itself packs a punch and the writing is quite gorgeous. But your note makes me wonder... is the second half not as good? I almost don't want to know...

#227 Oh Ellen, I am sure you'll love Cutting for Stone, again, I'm only 7 chapters in (out of 16, in the 1st of 3 parts), but it's really a great story and I understand now why it's so very popular. Quite a gem of story.

*****

As I was just writing to one of our members in a PM, one of the challenges I face is that I tend to be generally quite tired, but my energy levels still wildly fluctuate; yesterday I had an art class, which I very much enjoyed, and was quite excited about, but the pattern seems to be that after the class and the day or two following it, I'm completely exhausted and have trouble getting out of bed and even staying awake no matter how much sleep I get. Today is such as day, so my online presence in general, and here on LT is much diminished as I find it difficult to form clear thoughts and communicate. Which means that I've not been able to keep up with all you wonderful people and doubt I'll be able to do so tonight either. For now, I need to go finish a book which is due at the library today, which closes in just over an hour, so off I go. Wishing you all the very best and looking forward to further exchanges.

Hope you're feeling a bit better soon Ilana and that the reading helped. You take care and visit us when you're up to it but not before proper 'Ilana Time' has been had.

Hi, Ilana. I sympathize totally with your "low energy after doing something higher energy" issues - although my medical problems are completely different from yours, I have the same issue. But it's sort of worth it, right. in order to have those higher energy days and positive experiences? I hope you get some good reading time in between the naps and relaxes.

#229 Thank you Leonie. Had a very restful day yesterday. Not quite awake enough now to know how I'm doing yet, but hopefully I'll be in better shape today. At least it looks like a gorgeous day outside, if not exactly warm, but I don't mind that.

#230 Hi Janet, you're right of course that it's worth having those higher energy days and experiences; I just wish one didn't have to pay such a high price for them. But yes, had a very relaxing day yesterday, got plenty of sleep and a bit or reading done with Coco either laying right besides or right on top of me. Quite lovely actually.

*****

Just a quick stop before I go off to my appointment this morning. I finally finished Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books right on time for Nobel Prize Month. I got quite wrapped up in the final notes and introduction (in that order), so ended up reading well after the library's closing time, which means I'll have been late to return books for the first time, but it was worth it.

I finally received my ER book from the July batch, A graphic novel adaptation of The Canterbury Tales by Seymour Chwast. Haven't read the original, but since the book claims "You'll love it, whether you've enjoyed The Canterbury Tales for years, or this is your first delectable introduction", how could I resist a delectable introduction?

Right. So off I go. Will try not to be late for once.

Goodness Ilana, your thread is a like a marathon everytime time I am here but it is worth the effort each and every time. Great books and great reviews have me coming back and feeding my book addiction :)
I am a random tagger and I wish I was more organized but I can't think of a way to make the haphazard more cohesive so for now I will just stick with my randomness. :)

Just added From the Land of the Moon to my GFW - sounds good. I thought I already The Gendarme there as well, but don't. Will be looking forward to hearing about it from you. I can't remember if I was one of those who blithely reassured you that a knowledge of Richard III's era wasn't necessary to one's enjoyment of The Daughter of Time, but I hope I wasn't. Still, though, three and half stars seems pretty complimentary to me considering that you walked into it pretty much blind.

Oh, I was so far behind... but now I'm caught up! after the class and the day or two following it, I'm completely exhausted and have trouble getting out of bed and even staying awake no matter how much sleep I get. I too am in a very similar position - I have had for nearly 2 years a problem with fatigue, following a virus, and I tend to have two or three days of being able to do very little following any more active days. On some of those low days I still spend a lot of time on LT, but on others I neglect all the threads including my own, and sometimes even can't summon the energy to read. But the active days are worth it, as Janet reminds us, even if we take time to recover! I'm trying to learn to be more patient with my body when it needs to rest...

On the tagging issue, I'm quite detailed though not fully consistent (but would like to be). I always start with year read, then fiction/non-fiction, genre, century or decade in which it is set, sometimes century in which it is written, and indication of nationality of author and geographical setting(s) of book. I've been inconsistent about whether I say 20th century fiction or 20th century literature, though interestingly I seem to say 'literature' for past centuries more readily - do I subconsciously feel that because it has stood the test of time it deserves that name more? I need to try to standardise this aspect... I do from time to time spend a happy hour or so adjusting the tags already added and trying to bring some more consistency.

But for me the best bit about tagging is the bit at the end of my standard list, which is the creative bit - anything to describe what strikes me as significant about the content, themes, or other aspects that make the book memorable. I gave a particularly full set of tags to one book I recently enjoyed very much - Started early, took my dog, the latest Kate Atkinson - read 2011, fiction, literary fiction, literary mystery, 21st century fiction, Yorkshire, Leeds, 1970s, lost children, identity, children, dogs, police corruption, loneliness, dementia, Emily Dickinson, Betty's Tea Rooms, abbeys, kidnap, adoption, rescue and I reckon that in general the more of these wild card descriptive tags a book generates, the more that's an indicator that I enjoyed it very much!

Great reviews and book talk, Ilana. Now I can't wait to find From the Land of the Moon; sounds like precisely my type of book.

I too hope I wasn't one who said no knowledge of Richard III was necessary for the Tey book. I loved it, but had quite a bit of study of the late Middle Ages and the Tudors in my younger days.

Tagging...hmmm. I would love to be more systematic, and work at it rather haphazardly. Tagging helps me remember books, and also helps me to group future reads in a seemly order.
*laughs at her own obvious lie*

Hi Ilana- I guess you have to be careful with making a statement like that, but no Cutting for Stone does not drop off in the 2nd half but I was blown away by the 1st half, that's all. Enjoy!
I can't wait to get to Started early, took my dog. I'll probably request that one from the library, maybe next month.
BTW- I am loving A Dance With Dragons. It's great to be back with these beloved characters.

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple died today. He was only 56 years old. He'd been battling pancreatic cancer for quite a while. He was a visionary who, as says in the NY Times "helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age". Very sad news indeed. R.I.P. Steve and thanks for your many contributions.

Thank you for putting this here, Ilana; Mr. Jobs truly changed my life, for the better.

#232 Hi Valerie, always glad to have your visits and you know, it's the very same experience for me whenever I visit your thread too—so many interesting things to catch up on! I haven't had much time on LT this week for various reasons and am really behind. Hopefully will be able to catch up soon.

#233 You know Charlotte, I can't for the life of me remember who gave me that advice—probably more than one person and I guess I could go back and try to find the original thread to find out, but it hardly matters. I'm still glad I listened to this fabulous audiobook. As you say, I agree that 3.5 stars was quite generous all things considered, but I thought it would be unfair to give it a lower rating considering how much I enjoyed the book and the fact that had I done just a bit of homework, everything would have been clear to me.

#234 Genny, it sounds like we both have similar issues as far as managing our energy levels. I consider myself lucky that I have all my time to myself so I can get plenty of rest when I need it. When I was working, every month there were two weeks that were intense, unbelievable madness to meet deadlines and two weeks that were relatively slow, so basically I'd spend two weeks hardly sleeping at all, and two weeks recuperating.

It looks like we have very similar approaches to tagging as well. I also tag themes that stand out, and various things that were significant to me. The only difference I can see from the example you've given me is that I usually mention when I read the books at the very end, and start with century of events in the book and of publication, and indicate places at the end of the list of themes after which I indicate relevant awards and mentions, and also where I got the book and what condition it was in (used, new, hardcover). The only issue I'm having is that I still haven't come up with a satisfactory system to indicate publication date and differentiate it from the dates of events. Have started writing "21st Century Publication" for example, if it's a historical novel, but am not consistent with that and it's driving me mad.

#235 Gail, nice to have you back. From the Land of the Moon is one of those books I love so much that I'm considering trying to sell copies on a street corner somewhere downtown. I'd give them away even, if I could afford it. ;-)

As I said to Charlotte about Daughter of Time, it doesn't really matter who gave that advice to me, because I enjoyed it all the same and it's very possible that I'll revisit it when I've acquired the necessary background knowledge. But you're definitely ahead of me by far if you've studied the Middle Ages and Tudor era, which I know virtually nothing about, though am slowly slowly becoming more familiar with.

*laughs at her own obvious lie*

Funny Gail! :-) It's true though that tagging helps me remember at a glance what the book was about and with a short list of words I can sometimes recall details about the book that I wouldn't remember otherwise, not even with my reviews.

#236 Mark, I'm partially jealous that you're so far ahead of me in the Jackson Brodie series, but at the same time not really because I still get to enjoy them. I should get to One Good Turn asap though, I planned to read it then didn't get to it countless times this year already. Very glad to hear you're enjoying the latest in the Game of Thrones series. I'm slowly making my way through A Clash of Kings and liking it so far, though can't wait for Danaeris to make her appearance!

#237 Gail, Steve Jobs was a huge influence in my life too, albeit indirectly of course. I've been a fan of Apple and the philosophy behind the products since the first day I discovered a PC, which was with the Apple II I believe. I've never even considered looking at the competition since. I've always identified Apple as the maverick and the trailblazer, setting standards of excellence, and a lot of that was because of Job's influence. Sad that he had to go so young.

Today was spent mostly in bookstores, after an appointment with one of my caretakers this morning which went rather well. I met this lovely young woman who has just arrived in Montreal from England last week. Her and her partner are settling down here as he got a job with Bombardier. We met at bookstore (where else?) Paragraphe, which is one of the few independent bookstores we have here in Mtl, and I ended up accompanying her to one a used bookstore nearby. She just joined a book club, and said she'll check it out and invite me if it looks interesting. fTomorrow morning, have to be up bright and early as starting a painting class which lasts from 9:30 a.m. till 4:30 p.m. I'm a bit nervous about it because 1) am not a morning person, as some of you already know 2) it's a long class and I don't know whether I'll have the energy to carry me through, and if I do, worry about how long it'll take me to recuperate and most of all, 3) am not all that motivated to go, which is really kind of silly. But I'll try the first class tomorrow, and if I still find I'm not that enthusiastic about it, I can cancel the class at no charge and save up the money to take another art class in the winter term.

Books

Brought home from Paragraphe:

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

From Chapters:
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggies O'Farrell (audiobook)

I tried to be reasonable and only got books on sale. However, I almost had a heart attack when I got to the cashier. My rewards card had just expired a few days ago and it costs a fee to join and renew, but they recently started a new FREE rewards system, so the cashier looked up my account to see which card would give me the best savings based on my purchasing habits. Well... I was in complete shock when she showed me what the total amount I had spent there since last September was. IN. SHOCK. Because, not only is it an exorbitant amount, but that's just for ChaptersIndigo. Not including BookDepository. Not including Amazon. Not including used bookstores like The Word, where I drop $50 with every visit. The total amount is probably the equivalent of a very nice little trip to Europe. I mean, even the cashier—a very nice, helpful girl—seemed shocked by how much I had spent, and when I said that at that rate, they should be sending me birthday and christmas gifts at the very least, she had to agree. I still can't quite get over it. So. There are changes coming as far as my book-buying habits go, that is for SURE. *ouch*

K. Have to go. Have some reading to do and then lights out ASAP so I can make it on time to my painting class. Looking forward to catching up with everyone!

The news of Job's death is all over my Facebook thread. Seems so sudden and yet he was battling the cancer for awhile now. He definitely is visionary, bringing Apple back from the brink of obscurity with some of the coolest gadgets and toys.

Ilana, first of all I can't wait to hear your thoughts on your ER book, the graphic retelling of The Canterbury Tales. I got so excited hearing that there was this new version out that I've pre-ordered it from the library and also ordered his take on Dante's Inferno which should arrive next week.. oh dear, my poor bookshelves have given up on my wicked ways and just openly scorn me now.

I hope you do have a good time at your class tomorrow although I can certainly understand how long a day that will be for you. I'm just happy to hear you are painting. And lastly, Steve Jobs, that is so sad. His was an incredibly creative mind and I don't even use any Apple products.

Hi Ilana! I'm glad to hear you are feeling more rested , and I hope that you have that you have a great day tomorrow. I'm very similar to you in having a tough time with my energy levels. I think at least once a week I have what I call " A Tired Day" where I don't leave the house, nor get dressed. It's the day I recuperate from the rest of the days - in which I'm hardly a go getter!;)

Hello! Hope you enjoy your art class!

My chapters card expires in November and I am scared to go in and renew now as I know my chapters buying habits are a tad bit ridiculous as well!
Did they tell you whether the plum card would be better for you or to stay with the rewards program?

Thanks for posting the Steve Jobs thing. I've never used any Apple products (always beyond my budget) but it's amazing what influence his creative ideas and design have had on the world of communications etc beyond even those who directly use iPhones/Pods etc.

Re the tagging, yes we are quite similar, and have the same areas that are hard to be consistent with. I do like to record "where I got the book and what condition it was in (used, new, hardcover)" but I do this in the cataloguing (using the where from feature now, and the private comments field for price and other details. I'm annoyed that with all the other physical description fields that there are now, there is still nowhere to indicate binding, ie hardback or paperback, so I normally add that in the publication field. But I do use tags for certain special editions, like Folios or VMCs.

Hello Ilana - will be very keen to see your review of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. I have it on the SoS after it was recommended by a very dear friend...Do hope you enjoy the art class, and am really glad that you are making the effort to go.

>240 Smiler69:

Regarding...money spent on books

Oy.....i have more books than furniture in my house...but that is my situation....

(i should maybe take this private, no?)

;-}

Hi Ilana - thanks for visiting my thread. I'm uncertain as to what to do about my Rewards care vs the Plum Rewards at Chapter's Indigo. It's all too much for my small brain!!!! I think I'll stick with my 10 % off card! I too make shockingly expensive purchases at Chapters - never mind Amazon ca!!!

Oh dear oh dear... I've been wanting to catch up with everyone AND write reviews AND start a new thread today, but time does fly so fast here on LT.

Do hope you enjoy the art class, and am really glad that you are making the effort to go.

Well, as I said to Prue (who made that comment) on her thread today, my effort today consisted of writing an email to cancel the class. For some reason, from the moment I signed up to that painting class, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go as wasn't all that keen on working on my paintings. Just not much in the mood to work on my art these days for some reason, and I thought besides that if I cancelled it, I could pay for another art class in the winter term, which I'll have to sign up for in November and which I don't know how I'd pay for otherwise. Just didn't have the energy to get out of bed at all today and ended up getting up well into the afternoon. Took a long walk with Coco as it was a beautiful day, though made sure to dress warmly as it's gotten very chilly this week.

Now I wonder whether there's any chance at all that I'll get some reviews out of the way tonight? One can always hope...

#241 Valerie, I guess Job's death seemed sudden because he was such a powerful figure that it seemed that he would vanquish this thing and stay around to keep reaching new heights. Just another reminder that we are all mortal and never know when our number is up.

#242 Leonie, I'll make room for Canterbury Tales as soon as possible and try to put out my review within a decent delay this time as I usually end up being incredibly late for them.

About Apple products, even if you've never actually used one before, you've definitely used some form of technology that was influenced by them in one form or another.

#243 Well Deborah, I thought I'd be ok as far as energy goes today, but I guess I was being optimistic, because it sure didn't turn out that way. But oh well. So it goes.

#244 Hi Chelle, I ended up going with the Plum Rewards card because it's free and essentially the savings are the same online, which is where I buy 95% of my books. The in-store savings don't mean much to me, other than the rare times I purchase books they have on sale, so it wasn't worth continuing with iRewards wich costs to renew every year, as you know.

#245 it's amazing what influence his creative ideas and design have had on the world of communications etc beyond even those who directly use iPhones/Pods etc.

Genny, I couldn't agree with you more about that. And yes, I have to admit that their products are expensive, and goodness knows how much money I might have saved over the years going with the competition, but as far as I'm concerned, the IS no competition for Apple products, which have up till now been in a category of their own. As for the future... well, we'll see about that.

I like the 'were from' feature, but only use it occasionally, as a batch thing, because I find that tagging the books takes long enough without using all these other fields and options. But it's great to know they're there for when I'm feeling like I want to do more admin-like tasks.

#246 Prue, The Vanishing Act had been on my WL for quite some time, as I found the storyline quite intriguing, so am looking forward to it.

#247 Jude, your comment is perfectly appropriate here. As you know, I tend to let it all hang out here, so it's all good. Was nice talking to you tonight. xx

#248 Deb, something tells me that my 'shockingly expensive' outranks yours! :-S

Well, I guess my overdue reviews can wait a bit longer, but you can't say I haven't got my priorities straight:

NEW THREAD