Smiler Takes On 12 in 12

Off we go! Hi, my name is Ilana. I took part in the 11/11 Challenge last year and completed all my challenges, save one, for which I came short by two books. I still consider that a reasonably good attempt. This year, I'm not sure whether I should go for a full 12 books per category, or aim for an easier target of 6 books each, so I opt to start with the latter option and then may change my mind back and forth a few times. There are my categories:

1. The First Half 1901-1951 8/12
2. Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics 6/12
3. Picked for me - chosen from my shelves at random by LTers 6/12
4. Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 6/12
5. The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery 11/12
6. Going Places - International authors & places 8/12
7. Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy 10/12
8. Hot Off the Press - Published since 2011 6/12
9. Visual Treats - books on art, photography, design, or just beautiful books 2/12
10. Beyond Fiction - non-fiction 6/12
11. Litérature Française - read in French 4/12
12. From My Treasure-Trove - off the shelf (acquired before 31/12/11) 5/12
Total read: 78/144

I'm also an active member of the 75 Books Challenge for 2012, and that thread can be found here.

Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

1. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓ (review)
2. The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓ (review)
3. Troubles by J. G. Farrell ★★★★½ (review)
4. ♫ Fear by Stefan Zweig ★★★★½ (review)
5. ♫ Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman Stefan Zweig ★★★★½ (review)
6. The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓ (review)
7. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan ★★★⅓ (review)
8. A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor ★★½ (review)




Possibilities from my shelves




Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898 - 1995)

Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

1. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole ★★★★ (review)
2. ♫ Dracula by Bram Stoker ★★★★ (review)
3. ♫ The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ★★★★½ (review)
4. ♫ David Copperfield by Charles Dickens ★★★★ (review)
5. My Letter to the World and Other Poems by Emily Dickinson, Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault ★★★★★ (review)
6. Persuasion by Jane Austen ★★★★ (review)




Possibilities from my shelves




Painting:

Category #3: Picked for me - chosen from my shelves at random by LTers

1. ♫ Fight Club by Chuck Palaniukh (Picked by Deern) ★★★½ (review)
2. ♫ Études de Femmes by Honoré de Balzac ★★★★½ (review)
3. ♫ Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon ★★★★⅓ (review)
4. ♫ The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré - Guardian 1000 (Crime) ★★★⅓ (review)
5. The Global Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger ★★★½ (review)
6. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer ★★★★⅓ (review)




+6 others from the following:
Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood - Picked by MickyFine
Études de Femmes by Honoré de Balzac - Picked by bucketyell
The Global Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger - Picked by msf59
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Branddon - Picked by avatiakh
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré - Picked by casvelyn
Arabian Nights: Four Tales from a Thousand and One Nights by Marc Chagall - Picked by Donna828
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Picked by DragonFreak
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver - Picked by calm
No Great Mischief by Alasdair MacLeod - Picked by KiwiNyx
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer - Picked by DeltaQueen50
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - Picked by Deern
Le Grand livre de la tendresse by Jacques Salomé - Picked by LauraBrook
Blindness by José Saramago - Guardian 1000 (Science Fiction & Fantasy) - Picked by Whisper1 - Group Read
Caravan of Dreams of Idries Shah - Picked by PiyushChourasia
The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1) by Jonathan Stroud - Picked by -Eva-
Candide by Voltaire - Picked by Fourpawz2
Native Son by Richard Wright - Guardian 1000 (Crime) - Picked by EBT1002
Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman - Picked by bohemima

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best

1. ♫ Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - Guardian 1000 (Love) ★★★★⅓ (review)
2. ♫ The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark - Guardian 1000 (Comedy) ★★★¾ (review)
3. ♫ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - Guardian 1000 (Love) ★★★★⅛ (review)
4. ♫ Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley - Guardian 1000 (Crime) ★★★★⅓ (review)
5. ♫ The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark ★★½ - Guardian 1000 (Comedy) (review)
6. ♫ Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - Guardian 1000 (Crime) ★★★★⅓ (review)




"A few" possibilities from my shelves

Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

1. ♫ To Fear a Painted Devil by Ruth Rendell ★★★⅓ (review)
2. ♫ A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes ★★★★½ (review)
3. ♫ The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura ★★★ (review)
4. ♫ Death and Judgment / A Venetian Reckoning by Donna Leon ★★★½ (review)
5. A Murder of Quality by John Le Carré ★★★★ (review)
6. ♫ Running Blind / The Visitor by Lee Child ★★★¾ (review)
7. ♫ The Crazy Kill by Chester Himes ★★★★ (review)
8. ♫ Stettin Station by David Downing ★★★★½ (review)
9. ♫ The Suspect by Michael Robotham ★★★★ (review)
10. ♫ Lost by Michael Robotham ★★★⅓ (review)
11. ♫ The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes ★★★½ (review)




Options from my shelves




Image by Thomas Allen

Category #6: Going Places - International authors & places

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett ★★★★ (review)
2. ♫ Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd ★★★★½ (review)
3. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís ★★★★ (review)
4. ♫ Letter from an Unknown Woman by Stefan Zweig ★★★★½ (review)
5. ♫ The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark ★★★ (review)
6. ♫ Katherine by Anya Seton ★★★★¼ (review)
7. ♫ Restless by William Boyd ★★★★⅓ (review)
8. The Observations by Jane Harris ★★★★⅓ (review)

Category #7: Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy

1. No One Noticed the Cat by Anne McCaffrey ★★★¾ (review)
2. ♫ The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo ★★★ (review)
3. ♫ The Difference Engine by William Gibson ★★½ (review)
4. The Seeing Stone by Holly Black, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi ★★★⅞ (review)
5. ♫ Doomsday Book by Connie Willis ★★★ (review)
6. ♫ The City & The City by China Miéville ★★★★ (review)
7. Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, Illustrated by Maira Kalman ★★★★ (review)
8. ♫ Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper ★★★★ (review)
9. ♫ The Maze Runner by James Dashner ★★⅞ (review)
10. ♫ Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card ★★★★⅓ (review)

Possibilities from my shelves




Illustration by Charles Santore

Category #8: Hot Off the Press - Published since 2011

1. From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón ★★★ (review)
2. ♫ On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry ★★★★½ (review)
3. The Last Song by Eva Wiseman ★★★★ (review)
4. ♫ The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller ★★★★⅓ (review)
5. ♫ The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye ★★★★ (review)
6. River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh ★★★★½ (review)

Category #9: Visual Treats - books on art, photography, design, or just beautiful books

1. Paris: Made by Hand by Pia Jane Bijkerk ★★★★ (review)
2. The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin by Peter Sís ★★★½ (review)



Possibilities:
The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts Stephanie Cormer
Beware Wet Paint Alan Fletcher
Auguste Rodin: Drawings & Watercolors Antoine Le Normand-Romain
The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson David P. Silcox




Ispiration/bulletin board by artist Fiona Richards, Cartolina Cards

Category #10: Beyond Fiction - non-fiction

1. ♫ Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson ★★★ (review)
2. ♫ Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick ★★★★ (review)
3. ♫ Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson ★★★★⅓ (review)
4. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman ★★★★ (review)
5. On Cats by Doris Lessing ★★★★ (review)
6. Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís ★★★★ (review)




Possibilities:
Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris by Michael Allin
The Confessions of Saint Augustine St. Aurelius Augustinus
Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home Susan Hill
Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell

More options From my shelves

Category #11: Litérature Française - contemporary & classic French lit (read in French)

1. L'Assommoir by Émile Zola ★★★★½ (review)
2. Le vieux chagrin by Jacques Poulin ★½ (review)
3. L'élégance du hérisson / The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery ★★★⅓ (review)
4. ♫ Le mystère de la chambre jaune / The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux ★★★ (review)




Possibilities from my shelves.

Category #12: From My Treasure-Trove - off the shelf (acquired before 31/12/11)

1. A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin ★★★★⅓ (review)
2. The Secret River by Kate Grenville ★★★★ (review)
3. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh ★★★★½ (review)
4. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi ★★★⅞ (review)
5. Queenpin by Megan Abbott ★★★½ (review)




Photo: The baroque library at the Abbey of St. Florian in Austria

Beautiful and jaw-dropping effort with the heading pics and the craftily chosen topics! Salutes all around especially for getting the picture of my reading room as a heading for 12!

LMAO :-D

I know... I think all of us wish we had a reading room like that. I keep salivating over that picture. You probably have enough books to fill that space, but I don't. Or at least, not quite yet. ;-)

Got this one starred, love your choice of images.

Starred! And Paul's right, "beautiful and jaw-dropping". Taking a mental note to check if St. Florian is far from Merano, I need to see that library!

Wow St Florian is a stunner! The rest of your images are pretty good too :-)

Hi Ilana - great categories and wonderful pictures - love that library:)

What a terrific thread!!!! I have starred it and will follow your progress with glee. I just love the visuals..... Nice work, Ilana.

Got you starred for the new year! I love the graphics for your 'picked by LT-ers' and 'Visual Treats' categories! And that library is beautiful, I think I have a few photos of that one tucked away on my computer somewhere that I like to drool over once in a while... ;)

Ooh, shiny! Looking forward to following you in 2012.

Got you starred!

Starred! We have several overlapping categories for next year--I'm reading from the Guardian 1000, as well as nineteenth-century novels and books published 2010-2012.

Your thread looks great, Ilana. Love your picture choices, looking forward to 2012. I've been studing The Guardian 1000 list as well, I can't belive with all the reading I've done that I have missed so many.

And, by the way, if that's Paul's reading room, I'm on way over!

What a great list of categories! Especially that "Visual Treats" category -- wonderful picture too. I love reading books on art and design, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye on that one.

Stopping by to star. Love the pics too!

Hi Kerry, Nathalie, Alana, calm, Ellen, Ellie, Christina, Lisa, casvelyn, Judy, Joy and Eva!

Thanks for dropping by. I had fun looking for those images and I'm glad that the planning stage is out of the way. I did see some people were planning on starting this December, and as much as I'd like to do that myself, it looks like I'll be struggling to finish the 11/11 till the last minute. Another shiny new year is just around the corner!

Love the pictures - especially the library and your "picked for me" category image!

Thanks Sandy, it was fun to look for these images. The library is to dies for, isn't it?

I've started the job of organizing my TBR tags to reflect selections from my shelves, such as in this example. I won't be able to do it in all categories, but I've done a few others, and will come back to do those that lend themselves to this exercise.

Hi Ilana! Nope, I'm resisting the urge to start in December too. It feels a bit like cheating for me, like I'll be missing out on the big launch on 1 January! Plus I still have four books from a blog challenge to read, and a couple of review books, so I don't want to get sidetracked!

Hey Ellie, December is a nonstarter for me at this point since I've still got a dozen books to go to finish my 11/11. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind one bit getting a head start! :-)

Ilana, I've waited each year for January 1st to post my first book in the new challenge. I may start the book in December, but I don't finish it until January. Right now, I'm trying to finish 11in11, if I manage to finish a few days early, I'll start a chunkster which will take til January!

Chèli, sounds like you have a good plan in place. I wonder if I could do the same... but that's not likely as I'm quite behind at this point.

We don't usually read the same stuff but thought I'd give a shout out. You've got one or two possible books we'd have in common.

*waves*

Hi Morphi, thanks for dropping by! *waves back*

I'm moving to this group from the 75 Books group and cruising through everyone's thread. I love the art you chose for your categories. I see you have the Bartimaeus series on tap. Have fun with those!

#38 What? Abandoning the 75ers? Why would you want to do that? Admittedly, I'm not sure that I'll manage to keep up with both groups, already having trouble doing so, but one can always hope. Bartimaeus should be fun. Lots of people seem to think it's a great series.

The TIOLI challenges for January have gone up, and thought there are new ones being posted still, here's how my month is shaping up:

#1: The First Half 1901-1951:
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)

#4: Guardian Knows Best:
♫ The Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

#6: Going Places:
Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris by Michael Allin (TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a work of narrative non-fiction)

#8: Hot Off the Press:
♫ Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (TIOLI Challenge #11)

#10: Beyond Fiction:
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (TIOLI Challenge #11)
♫ Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (TIOLI Challenge #11)

#11: Litérature Française:
L'Assomoir by Émile Zola (need to find a challenge for this)

#12: From My Treasure-Trove:
The Secret River by Kate Grenville (75ers, group read, TIOLI Challenge #9: Read a book with the name of a body of water in the title)
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (TIOLI Challenge #9)

I read zarafa for my 10/10 link here http://www.librarything.com/topic/74962#t

It's message 150 something for the review

Hope you enjoy it, I was left wanting more...

Hi Ilana - Nice TIOLI list. I love trying to fit reading for my other challenges into my 12 in 12 categories!

#41 Sorry Zarafa didn't work so well for you. I don't read very much history, or non-fiction for that matter, so we'll see...

#42 Lori, I'm always trying to find books in my collection that fit as many categories as possible, that's what helps me pick them from my ever-growing collection and wishlist.

Hi Ilana you have some good reads lined up for January! Cannery Row was one of my best reads this year.

Lisa, I'm considering changing one of my categories to accommodate all the Steinbeck reading I'll be doing this year with the Steinbeckathon. I'll be creating a main thread for that on the 75ers 2012 group, probably on New Year's Eve or thereabouts if you're interested to see what we'll be covering. Oh, just remembered—I posted the list recently on the 12/12 group reads thread too. You can join if/when/as you like... or not! :-)

Hi Ilana, I made it a personal challenge to read all of Steinbeck's books back in September (before I cottoned on to a group read for 2012) - so far I've read 5 of his books and I've made it one of my 12 in 12 categories. I was thinking of joining in a few of the group reads if it's convenient at the time. One of the books The Wayward Bus I hadn't heard of so the group read has already been helpful!

Category #12: From My Treasure-Trove

1. A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin ★★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #2: Read a book in honor of Dragon Appreciation Day)

This review contains many spoilers for those who haven't read book one, A Game of Thrones.

Now that King Robert Baratheon is dead and that his alleged son Joffrey, a vicious and sadistic young teen, has taken over the Iron Throne, the people of King's Landing are starving nearly to death and the Seven Kingdoms are being disputed by three other kings. There is Robb Stark, the heir to house Stark (now that his father Ned Stark is dead), who has been proclaimed King of the North, and Robert Baratheon's two brothers, Lord Stannis and youngest brother Renly, each vying to take over the throne. As can be expected, much bloodshed ensues, but there is also plenty of intrigue and adventure all through the massive novel which proceeds along at a fast and exciting clip.

Once again told through the different points of view of various characters, we follow the story as the narration alternates between Tyrion Lannister, now the king's hand in his father's stead, who must plot against sister Cercei and nephew Joffrey to keep his place and his head; Catelyn Stark, on a mission to broker peace and convince the Baratheon brothers to unite with Robb against Joffrey and his people; Sansa Stark, still held captive in King's Landing, who keeps hoping her knight in shining armour will rescue her from Joffrey's cruelty and bring her home; Arya Stark, presumed dead by the rest of her family and forced into servitude at Harrenhal after having been made prisoner by Lannister's people, which doesn't stop her from continually plotting to overthrow the enemy; Bran Stark, a mere boy coming into his own powers with the huge responsibility of holding down Winterfell while older brother Robb wages war against the Lannisters; Jon Snow, on a dangerous mission north of the Wall, with the Night's Watch; Theon Greyjoy, Lord Ned Stark's former ward, now returned to his family, who fancies himself a great warrior; Daenerys Targaryen, accompanied by her three baby dragons, attempting to amass the small fortune she needs to acquire ships so she can reclaim the throne, and finally Davos Seaworth, a former smuggler who has been knighted by Stannis Baratheon, who brings us into the heart of the battle.

With the story fragmented is so many different parts, one might think much confusion would ensue, but part of Martin's genius is he manages to hold it all together and keep the narration firmly moving along. I had plenty of opportunity to put his skills to the test too, as it took me several months to get through the first half of the novel, simply because I was trying to read too many other things at the same time. But somehow, both his characters and the events they take us through were so memorable that even I, with my poor faculties of recall, still followed the thread of the story without trouble, and by the time I got to the halfway mark, found I simply had to put everything else aside and rush through till the end. If in the first book, we loved to hate snot-faced, evil bastard prince Joffrey, the real villain in this novel is Theon Greyjoy, who's delusions of grandeur and sense of entitlement lead him to acts so despicable, he manages to make us forget Joffrey with his barbaric schemes. The ending comes as a very pleasant surprise and has me impatiently looking forward to the next in series.

Category #6: Going Places

2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett ★★★★
(Also read for Orange January, TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book that was long or shortlisted for, or won the Orange prize)

"A kiss in so much loneliness was like a hand pulling you up out of the water, scooping you up from a place of drowning and into the reckless abundance of air."

In an unnamed small South American country, Mr. Katsumi Hosokawa, the head of a powerful Japanese electronics company, has been invited to celebrate his fifty-sixth birthday, in hopes that he will consider opening a plant in the host country. Mr. Hosokawa has so far refused all the advances the country has made, and has no intention of developing his business in a part of the world that is plagued with drug trafficking and guerrilla revolutions. But the government has finally succeeded in securing a visit from him by having his favourite opera diva, Roxanne Coss, make a personal appearance and sing a short selection from her repertoire at an exorbitant rate. No expense is spared to ensure the guests are well taken care of in the luxury to which they are accustomed.

Just as the singer has finished the last song and her audience is still floating on the echoes of the soprano's enchanting voice, the grand living room in the Vice-Presidential mansion is invaded by a group of terrorists who demand that the President be surrendered to them. Only the President has cancelled his appearance at the very last minute so that he would not miss his favourite soap opera, and so the guerrillas decide they will hold the VIP guests from various nations as hostages instead. The rest of the novel takes place within the house over the course of many weeks, as the guests and captors negotiate terms among each other and surprising connections are formed and evolve, in no small part due to the highly developed language skills of Mr. Hosokawa's personal interpreter, Gen Watanabe. This is certainly not a novel for those seeking story and action. Instead, it is a reflection on human nature as a social animal, and on the real love and affection that can be present within a confined setting, even among people of opposing factions, when the pressures and conventions of time and real life are taken away, which I suppose is best summed up as being an excellent portrayal of the Stockholm Syndrome. Some fascinating character studies in a beautifully written novel that has left it's mark on this reader.

Love that review, yet another book bullet bang on target.

My work is done then. :-)

I have got to get to that book this month!

I'll look forward to your comments on it when you do get to it Ellen. I don't know about you, but I severely overbooked myself this month and am reading much too slowly to keep up with all the books on my list...

I severely overbooked myself this month and am reading much too slowly to keep up with all the books on my list...

Absolutely 100% in the same boat.

Oops, I just gave away my copy of Bel Canto unread (I did try and it didn't grip me). Glad to hear you liked it - I'll try to pick it up some other time when the mood is right since it's clearly read-worthy.

#53 I don't know if you remember Ellen, but I tried limiting my reading commitments one month last year (can't remember which now), and I must say it felt pretty good actually exceeding my expectations for once! I should definitely try that again.

#54 Eva, seems I'm convincing a lot of people to return to that book and give it a second chance. It's a slow simmer kind of experience for which you do indeed have to be in the right mood.

Glad to see Clash of Kings continued to captivate you. I have book one in the series waiting on my TBR bookcase and hope to start the series at some point.

Nice review of Bel Canto. I enjoyed it immensely last year but never sure what other readers may think.

Hi Lori! Bel Canto is one of those books that nobody seems to agree on. It definitely helped me to enjoy it more knowing what I was getting into and not expecting too much excitement. Though there was some of that too.

The George R. R. Martin series is indeed very captivating. I'd be surprised if you didn't like it as well.

I thought of you this Christmas, when my LT Secret Santa chose The Mistress of the Art of Death from my wishlist, as it landed there because of one of your recommendations. I really look forward to that one as well.

Category #10: Beyond Fiction

3. ♫ Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson ★★★
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a work of narrative non-fiction)

My love affair with Apple: I remember it as if it was yesterday: it was the early 80s, I was barely into my teens, we were staying with friends for the summer in gorgeous Arundel up in the Laurentian mountains. My cousin Frankie and I were hanging out on the wraparound porch when we saw there was some activity in the den. One of the many Flanagan brothers was sitting in front of a small monitor, busily clicking at the keyboard. We asked what he was doing and he said he was playing a computer game. Neither of us had seen a computer before, and in no time at all, were were engrossed in some kind of alien invasion game and bickering to take turns in front of the funny little beige box where glowing green "invaders" threatened to take all our lives on the black screen. Thus was born a passion for all things Apple.

Fast forward a few years, when I became a designer, first as a student, then working in advertising, design and publishing, the Mac was the only computer used by professionals. Anyone using a PC was highly suspect and considered a hacker, not a designer. I've owned and worked on more versions of Mac computers than I can count. When the iPod came out, I just had to have it, along with other models as they became available, and got an iPhone as soon as I could get my hands on one. Never once did I consider getting a PC computer, or an Apple product equivalent. I was sold on so many levels, but the fundamental thing that's always attracted me to Apple is their excellence in design and intuitive modes of operation, and their ability to invent products that were simply must-haves.

The actual book review: The book follow's Steve Job's personal life, which is to say it talks about his beloved company, Apple throughout, since Jobs' modus operandi at Apple has been part of Steve's DNA from the moment his adoptive father showed him that design excellence means getting even the details that nobody sees well crafted. The first half of the book talks about his biological parents and how he came to be adopted. Then about his adoptive parents and his early childhood and propensity for getting into trouble at school, mostly because he was so clever that he was easily bored. Then comes the friendship with Steve Wozniak with who Jobs created the first Apple computer. Wozniak was another genius, and passionate about engineering. Things get very technical to explain their early experimentation with electronics, as we're taken through the process of how the first Apple computer came to be, then the Apple II, then the Lisa, and finally the Macintosh, all created when Jobs was still in his early 20s. To show just how integral Apple was to his life and what a complex personality Jobs was, he named the Lisa after a daughter he had more or less abandoned in his early 20s. His personal life was messy. He studied Zen Buddhism from his late teens, adopted all kinds of extreme vegan diets, experimented a lot with LSD, did the whole India thing, and all these experiences somehow became connected to the products he created. How and why he was ousted from Apple in the 80s is discussed at length and in great detail, with countless quotes and bits of dialogue from many of the players involved, which to me ended up sounding more than anything like office politics being discussed around the water cooler. I've never been a water cooler kind of person, so found that part very irritating. Eventually in the second half, we get to Steve returning to Apple after several failures and the timeline continues to cover both his personal life and the inventions and products he created with the iPod, iTunes, the iTunes store, the Apple stores (which were thought by some analysts to fail miserably after one year), then the creation of the iPhone and finally, the iPad and the iCloud. Of course the last chapters examine his cancer and treatments, and how he eventually came to succumb to the illness.

If you, like me, are interested to learn about the thinking behind these revolutionary products, this book is just the ticket for you. If you want a book with plenty of quotes and comments from people who knew and worked with Steve Jobs, along with plenty of comments from the horse's mouth, again, this is the book to go to. I found the evolution of the thinking behind each product and how it came to be designed and produced to be fascinating. But.

For the first half of the book, I kept wondering why I was even bothering with it. Jobs comes off as one of the most unlikeable people imaginable. It may be that he was as unpleasant as portrayed, but I found it strange that he didn't seem to have a single redeeming quality, save for his focus on perfection. His personal charm was mentioned casually as just another tool in his arsenal, another means to an end, when the bullying had run it's course.

I wish I'd kept track of amount of times the term Reality Distortion Field was mentioned. As says on wikipedia: "RDF was said to distort an audience's sense of proportion and scales of difficulties and made them believe that the task at hand was possible. While RDF has been criticized as anti-reality, those close to Jobs have also illustrated numerous instances in which creating the sense that the seemingly impossible was possible led to the impossible being accomplished." I got the point the first and tenth and fiftieth time, but maybe I'm being unfair. I've worked in advertising, where this sort of mentality is rampant, whereas most readers probably haven't come across this mentality.

I suppose that Isaacson wanted to be true to Steve Jobs' manner of expression, so the entire book was filled wall to wall with expletives. Although I'm a big fan of Apple products, I don't have a particular bias towards Job; but what grated on me was that his brand of genius as a visionary with faultless design sense and a brilliant marketer didn't seem to carry much weight. Imagine someone writing about Picasso and focusing most of all on what a horrid man he was to others with offhanded mentions of what a brilliant artist he was. Comparing Jobs to Picasso might not be entirely appropriate, but it's undeniable that both men left a legacy that did, and will outlive them both. Yet, Jobs, ever the control freak, repeatedly told Isaacson he would not ask to see the manuscript and would not read the book when it was published, saying he knew there was a lot of it he wouldn't like, but trusting the author would write an accurate portrayal of him. To me, that speaks of a man who accepts himself with all his foibles, and that alone is a quality worthy of admiration.

4. Category #3: Picked for me (by Deern)

♫ Fight Club by Chuck Palaniukh ★★★½
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

"You buy furniture, you tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled, then the right set of dishes, then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you."

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile."

"The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. The second rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club."

Our narrator hasn't slept in weeks. He hates his job, and feels trapped by his possessions after years of religiously studying the IKEA catalogue. Then he meets Tyler Durden and his life is transformed. Tyler doesn't believe in society. In fact, he has plans to destroy society. First by getting men to conquer their fears, then by raising an army of followers who are trained never to ask questions. A fascinating look at what can lurk between the cracks of a man's well-ordered life. Whether it's a paean to, or a criticism of nihilism is left to the reader to decide. Not for the faint of heart; it's a very bleak story but the catharsis sought by the Fight Club members can also infect the reader, as it did yours truly.

Have you seen the Jane Austen's Fight Club video? I think it's hilarious, but I'm generally considered to have a bizarre sense of humor.

(This video buffers slowly, at least on my computer. Let it load a good part of the way before starting it, or it'll pause every 15 seconds.)

thats very silly :-D wonder what it is about Austen that encourages mash ups...

It's because Austen had such a good sense of humor. :)

#60 Thatis very silly! :-D Thanks for sharing it, it's the perfect follow-up to the Palaniukh novel. Or any Jane Austen novel, for that matter. ;-)

You're welcome! I've watched it so many times, and it still cracks me up every time.

I think if I lived at that time, I'd like to punch people as well, so I enjoyed that quite a bit! :)

I've tried and failed Palahniuk in the past, and I just can't handle his writing. For Fight Club, I'll be content with having watched the film, even though I accidentally figured out the twist in the beginning (I unfortunately saw it right after Primal Fear).

Just chiming in to say that I also love the Jane Austen Fight Club. A-mazing. :)

Thanks for the giggle I got from the Jane Austen Fight Club!

That video is the first thing I've ever seen that actually made me think I might like Jane Austen after all! LOL!

>68 _debbie_: Unfortunately, there's little fighting in the actual Jane Austen books. I love them anyway, but then again, I have no desire to read Fight Club.

#68 LOL! :-D

#69 Well, I certainly wouldn't have thought about mixing those two novels together if you hadn't posted this video. Then again, I did get Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! Not that I'm into zombies really, but a spoof of this book in particular really appealed to me.

I think the fact that they are completely different is part of the appeal. Because after you see the video, it all makes perfect sense.

Just so.

Not a fan of Palahnuik either, but I got a laugh out of that video as well.

Time for some reviews:



Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

5. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #1, and Steinbeckathon)

For roughly the first half of the novel, I was just trying to get my bearings and get a feel for the lay of the land. I knew ahead of time I shouldn't look for a story; it’s more akin to a love poem to Monterey and the down-in-the-dumps Cannery Row, where whores, bums, shopkeepers and one marine biologist eke out a living. The living conditions Steinbeck describes here are difficult at best, but the emphasis is on observing details, as one would simply record facts, or like a camera taking snapshots without any bias. Perhaps the lack or a real plot contributes to making this world and it's inhabitants seem so real—real life doesn't follow storylines either, after all. A few characters stand out, especially Doc, the aforementioned marine biologist, who is universally loved by all the local residents, and I couldn't help but wonder how much Steinbeck put of himself in this character who has wonderful discerning tastes in music and books, if not the people he counts among his friends. It’s a short novel that is almost impossible to describe, but must be experienced at least once. I'll definitely read it again, if only to fully take in Steinbeck's gorgeous prose.






Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

6. ♫ To Fear a Painted Devil by Ruth Rendell ★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

Tamsin and Patrick Selby have an unhappy marriage. Tamsin is a beautiful young woman just on the verge of turning 27. Her husband, who also happens to be her first cousin, is very controlling, down to dictating what kind of clothes his wife should wear (plain in subdued colours), whether she should wear makeup (she shouldn't) and how she is to keep the house (immaculate). They live in a beautiful house in fictional housing development of Linchester, Nottinghamshire, and Tamsin has invited their neighbours to a get-together she's organized for her birthday. Patrick is rude to her and the guests throughout, and when he gets repeatedly stung by several wasps, no one is much chagrinned by his plight, nor when he is found dead the next day. The local doctor doesn't believe in foul play until some persistent gossiping leads him to investigate a little further to find out if there's any truth to claims that beautiful Tamsin had something to do with Patrick's death. A good enough story, but none of the characters made much of an impression on me and left me rather indifferent. There is an interesting sub-plot having to do with a painting of John the Baptist head on a bloody platter.






Category #7: Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy

7. No One Noticed the Cat by Anne McCaffrey ★★★¾
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

"When Mangan Tighe, regent to Prince Jamas the Fifth, died, no one noticed the cat in their grief for the passing of this good and learned man."
When prince Jamas meets with the self-proclaimed king of lands near his realm of Espania, he falls helplessly in love with one of the young women in the king's retinue. But it seems the king and his evil queen have dark designs and are plotting to kill young Jamas so they can lay claim to his land. But who could have known that Niffy the cat would be such a guardian angel? A fun and eminently readable short novel. Recommended.






Category #10: Beyond Fiction

8. ♫ Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a work of narrative non-fiction)

This seemed like a timely choice of reading shortly after Kim Jong-il's death in December 2011. Barbara Demick, a Los Angeles Times journalist, has painted a harrowing picture of what life has been like in North Korea since the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic in 1948. Her narrative is based on interviews with several defectors from Chongjin, North Korea who told her their life stories and related the huge change in quality of life they experienced following Kim Il-sung's death in 1994. Up until then, everyone had a roof over their heads and sufficient food, but the famines of the 90s made what had been difficult living until then seem like ideal times. This novel was published in 2009, prior to Kim Jong-il's death of course, but of particular interest was the description of how the North Korean people reacted to the passing of Kim Il-sung, who had been considered as a god, due in no small part to the propaganda which is all-pervasive. It was easy to draw parallels between the images we saw in the news last month of grieving people in the capital. It was reported here that the images of grieving North Koreans had been staged, and descriptions of how people reacted to Kim Il-sung's death would seem to support this theory, but also explain the extent of the oppression of the North Korean regime on it's people. Fascinating, and of course, very troubling.

I read Nothing To Envy in 2010 and thought it was great. I also watched the media coverage of Kim Jong-il's death and given what was written by Demick I had no trouble believing it was all staged.

#75 Alana, I only wish I'd read it a few months ago when I first got it, so I could have put what I saw in the news in context, but better late than never.

Just popping in to check on your progress. I have that George R R Martin series on my radar but haven't gotten there yet.

I have that George R R Martin series on my radar but haven't gotten there yet.

Once you do, I'm ready to bet you'll get hooked, like everybody else I know who's dipped their toes in. I never thought I'd be into this particular sort of fantasy, but it quite blew my socks off!

Ilana, don't tempt me more... I have the Michael Scott series that I want to finish first - two more books and then I might be ready to start it.

Does anyone know if there is a planned end to the A Song of Ice and Fire-series or if it'll just keep going? Since I go so bonkers when I read a series, I'd rather wait until it's finished, but if this one will go on indefinitely I might as well get started now.

Well, it was originally planned as a trilogy, so probably no planned end in sight.

Oh dear... :)

#79 Sorry, I guess, but not really. :-)

#80 & 82 You got your answer Eva... might as well get started now! They're each massive volumes and should keep you busy for a little while, though knowing how compulsive you'll probably get about reading the series, you might want to wait a little so you don't have to do like other addicts and wait another 8-10 years for him to publish the next installment!

9. Category #8: Hot Off the Press - Published since 2011

From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón ★★★
(Early Reviewers book, also read for TIOLI Challenge #13: Read a book written by someone who was already famous for something OTHER than writing)

"A medium-sized fellow ... Beady brown eyes set close to his beak within pale surrounds ... The beak itself quite long, thick and powerful, with a slight downward curve at the end, dark in colour but lighter at the top ... No neck to speak of; a spry stocky figure with short, tapering legs, a barrel chest and a big belly ... Head a dark grizzled brown, with a ruff extending from nape to mid-crown ... Clad in a grey-brown coat of narrow cut, with a faint purple sheen in the twilight; bright stockings, a speckled undershirt ... Importunate with his own kind, garrulous with others ... So might one describe the purple sandpiper and so men describe me ... I can think of many things worse than being likened to you, my feathered Jeremiah, for we have both crawled from the hand of the same craftsman, been carved with the same knife: you quickened to life on the fourth day, I on the sixth..."

Thus does Jónas Palmason's introduce himself when the story begins, in the autumn on 1635. Divided into four parts, ending with the Spring Equinox of 1639, the novel moves between Jónas' stream of consciousness, wherein bits and pieces of his past and present mingle in a confused and confusing soliloquy about what led him to be abandoned on an island off the coast of Iceland, and a central section where the crux of the story is told in a more straightforward narrative. Known as Jónas the Learned by some, he is a self-taught healer and a poet who has been exiled on charges of heretical conduct. A successful exorcism has earned him a good reputation in a time when superstition abounds and many still believe in unicorns and other mythical creatures, but his fate is sealed when he shows opposition to the local magistrate who is intent on carrying out his plan to massacre innocent Basque whalers.

The novel is beautifully written and full of evocative and poetic imagery. The massacre is harrowing, but again interspersed with imaginative sequences. My main problem with this novel is that I felt utterly lost in the first section, as I imagine is the intention of the author, perhaps to render Jónas' own state of mind? but too much of what is said here was completely lost on me, and I quickly started feeling like I was just reading this book because I needed to write a review about it. Then the two middle sections were exactly what I imagined this novel could be like based on the short blurb I'd read about it and which had made me think I might enjoy this book. Here Jónas clearly describes the harrowing night of the massacre of the whalers which led to his banishment, as well as a trip to Denmark where he meets the fascinating Dr. Worm, who hires him as one of his research assistants to catalogue his unlikely collection of curios, and tries and fails to get our man acquitted. But then again, the final section with more vague recollections, from which other parts of narrative painfully emerge, felt frustrating more than anything. Here, the following words made me think perhaps I wasn't being quite patient enough:

"I lean back in bed, stretching my arms and cracking my joints ... The mouse is still huddled cosily by the fire; it is quite extraordinary how she puts up with my ramblings ... The vetch porridge has hardened in the bowl; I scrape out the leftovers and scatter them on the floor ... In a place of entertainment like this it is the storyteller who must pay his audience rather than the other way round ..."

Now that I’ve gotten the lay of the land, I see this is the kind of book that I might enjoy more on second reading, though I’m not sure it would be quite worth the effort given there are so many other books on my shelves calling out to me...

>83 Smiler69: and wait another 8-10 years for him to publish the next installment!

I read the first 5 books of ASoIaF as soon as A Feast for Crows came out. Now I can't bring myself to read A Dance with Dragons because I know how long it will be before the next one arrives in the shops. As it is I'll need to reread them all to remind myself of all the details and subplots I've forgotten.

From the Mouth of the Whale sounds like a very frustrating read. Hope your next one is better.

Since I'm over here I had to stop off at your Quebecoise joint to say hi! Like Luke and Leia I'll see you over the other side!

->83 Smiler69:
See, that's what I'm afraid of, so I'd rather wait until it's completely done so I can just completely immerse myself, but if there is no end in sight, I might as well get started. I am trying to learn how to read a series like a normal person, but I'm not very good at that as you well know.

I have another of Sjón's books on Mt. TBR - I hope it's less confusing than this one!

I am trying to learn how to read a series like a normal person,

Is there such a person? Aren't you supposed to read books in a series like a gum drop junkie devours gum drops...... or, am I missing something here????? I know the rate of publication can put the series junkie on a starvation diet while waiting for the next book in the series so I applaud your idea..... wait until the series has enough books out there so that the overdose may slow you down before the publication starvation diet kicks in.

;-)

LOL! I do love to just go crazy with a series, but I have found that when I start a series and realize it's not all done yet, I sometimes resent it a little bit. And, yes, I am fully aware of how batty I sound. :)

#85 Alana, there's been quite a few since From the Mouth of the Whale with some very satisfactory reads indeed. I just need to find the time to actually review them!

#86 Paul, always nice getting a message from you, be it on this side or the other! :-)

#87 I am trying to learn how to read a series like a normal person, but I'm not very good at that as you well know.

Eva, who's to say you don't have the right idea when it comes to reading series? And besides, do you know any *normal* people around here??

#88 Exactly. I sort of wish I had the drive to read series in one go, but I quickly get bored when reading any one genre or author and have to keep switching around. I've always been a serial monogamist, I guess, but not much of a serialist! ;-)

#89 And, yes, I am fully aware of how batty I sound.

You'll have to try harder Eva, because I don't see it. :-)

Always happy to be among you, my fellow nutters! :)

I'll join you in wishing that I could read a series through in a single effort. After 2, or maybe 3, books in a row in a single series or by the same author, I get what I call "author fatigue". The formula of the series become too evident and I'm on to all of their tricks. I need to get away from a series in between books for a little while so that it feels fresh when I come back again. But not so long that I forget characters and subplots. It's a fine line between too soon and too long!

It's a fine line between too soon and too long!

Couldn't agree with you more. I tend to have a terrible memory for those things, but have found that in most series, there are "entry points" peppered throughout that allow newcomers or those like me to clue in on what's occurred just before without having to go back to the previous book. I'm pretty sure this is an editor/publisher thing to ensure readers can start with any one book to hook them in. From what I know about the magazine publishing industry (which is quite a lot actually, based on all the market research material I was given to work with), it's definitely a tactic used in different sorts of media, to encourage newcomers.

When I read more than two books from a series in a row, I too get annoyed with the formula, and what I call "entry points" (though I doubt that's the actual term), because when they start summing up past action, it tends to get on my nerves. I've never been very patient about having things repeated to me, even when it can be helpful because somehow that's when my memory suddenly kicks in and works perfectly fine! lol

"It's a fine line between too soon and too long!"

I'm agreeing as well - and another problem is that you can't even set "your own" line because it varies so much between different series. I devoured the whole Rebus-series last year and there was very little back-story because it's mainly has the characters' personal stories moving in the background, so I didn't have a problem with much repeated information. I also read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan-trilogy last year, but since I had to wait a while for part 3 to be published, I forgot so many details that it took a while to get back into it and I would have wanted more repetition. Tricky business...! I do love to just mow through a series, though - complete immersion in a fictional world is heaven!! :)

Category #8: Hot Off the Press - Published since 2011

10. ♫ On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry ★★★★½
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #17: word with three identical vowels)

"Part 1: First Day Without Bill

Bill is gone. What is the sound of an 89 year-old heart breaking? It might not be much more than silence, and certainly a small, slight sound."*

Lily Bere has just lost her grandson Bill. She is 89 years old and, having lived a long life filled with heartbreak and loss, she has decided that she no longer wants to go on. She is determined to take her life, but first, she decides to write her memoirs, with each chapter's heading counting off the days since the loss of her grandson. During seventeen days and seventeen chapters, she recalls the events of her life which have led her to the present circumstances; from her girlhood with her family in Ireland, to a pressing escape to America with her beloved, and all the many people and and adventures and experiences she has accumulated. Though her story is filled with sorrow, the telling of it is by turns quite amusing. Though she writes in what could be considered a conversational tone, there is also much poetry in the choosing of her words. To say I loved this book does it little justice. I was completely immersed in it, and felt like I was living life right alongside Lily. I'm sure one of the things that made it such an unforgettable experience, was the fact that the audiobook I listened to is narrated by the excellent Wanda McCaddon, aka Nadia May, whose sensitive reading along with the slight Irish accent she uses made Lily seem that much more real. Wholeheartedly recommended, and I predict: one of my favourites of the year.

"To remember sometimes, is a great sorrow. But when the remembering has been done, there comes afterwards a very curious peacefulness—because you have planted your flag on the summit of the sorrow, you have climbed it. And I notice again in the writing of this confession that there is nothing called "long ago" after all. When things are summoned up, it is all present time, pure and simple. So that much to my surprise, people I have loved are allowed to live again." —Fifteenth Day Without Bill

*quotes are transcripts from the audio version, and as such aren't fully consistent with the original, though I've tried to render them as meticulously as possible.

Beautiful quote! I'll have to look for On Canaan's Side. & on audio too! Going to library site to see if they have it right now. :)

Oh good! I'm glad I inspired to pick it up and hope you like it at least half as much as I did. Good luck with your search!

They have it! I've put it on hold.

Category #7: Young at Heart

11. ♫ The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo ★★★
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

Based on my reading in 2011 or War Horse and Private Peaceful, it's fair to say that Michael Morpurgo is one of my favourite Young Adult authors, but unfortunately, I can't say this is one of my favourite books by him. Set against the backdrop of WWII, the story is set in 1943. Twelve-year-old Lily lives on a farm close to the seaside in and English village. Her father is away with the army, and she and her classmates have to put up with the "townie" evacuees at school, but otherwise the war seems far away. Until one day, Lily and her family and all the other villagers are notified that they have fifteen days to evacuate their homes and relocate. The Allied forces intend to use the village and it's ideal seaside location to practice for their landing in Normandy, better known as D-Day. Lily meets with a young American soldier and instantly takes a liking to him. He's the first black man she's ever seen, and she soon grows very fond of Adie. One of Lily's greatest concern is that her beloved cat, Tips, has gone missing and she is worried Tips might be harmed in one of the army's practice exercises, when guns and real bombs are used. But Adie has promised Lily that Tips will come home unharmed and she is inclined to trust the young soldier. The story is told by a young boy who's grandmother has given him her girlhood diary to read, so that most of the story is narrated from the point of view of a twelve-year old girl. It's a sweet story, and the ending definitely struck a sentimental chord with me, but I guess my biggest problem with this novel is that I kept waiting for something Amazing to happen to Tips, and felt let down in that sense. I was bothered by the voice of a twelve year-old girl and her seemingly silly concerns, and felt at times that this book was truly best left to young girls to read.

On the audiobook version, Morpurgo read the afterword, informing the reader of some of the facts the story was based on. One incident which is related in the narrative alludes to Operation Tiger, an incident which was kept under wraps for many years. This information augmented my appreciation of the novel. I should also say that, I've just now found out that the book is based on Morpurgo's and his grandmother's real-life experiences, which again, has raised my appreciation of the novel quite a lot. I just wish the title hadn't misled me, as I might have appreciated the story quite a bit more.

#98 That's awesome! I really hope you like it. I know the reviews have been quite mixed.

Great reviews, Ilana. You've convinced me to seek out On Canaan's Side too. And I know my library has it because I've seen it on the new book shelves. :)

Oh Pat, I'll anxiously await your feedback on it!

>95 Smiler69: - Great review! Made me wishlist On Canaan's Side! Love the quotes!

#103 If I've managed to convince more than one person to at least consider reading this book, then my job is done! :-)

Category #10: Beyond Fiction

12. ♫ Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson ★★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a work of narrative non-fiction)

From the outset, Bryson explains that his intention for this book was to relate the few known facts about Shakespeare, and not to indulge in theories and suppositions, as it would seem most biographers of the Bard have done, which in turn explains why it is such a short book. I'm very new to Shakespeare, having only read one of his plays thus far—King Lear—and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm also not in the habit of reading very much non-fiction, but I found this short biography to be filled with interesting facts and amusing anecdotes. Many firsts with this book, as it was also my first book by Bryson, but I'll be looking out for more. The audiobook version narrated by the author was also quite delightful.

Category #6: Going Places

13. ♫ Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd ★★★★½
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

Hope Clearwater is a young woman who has already accumulated quite a few harrowing life experiences, and she tells the story of what has led up to her living on Brazzaville Beach in some unnamed part of Africa. First comes a marriage to a mathematician shortly after having finished her own studies as a researcher. Completely obsessed by his research into the mathematics of unpredictability, her husband displays more and more distressing signs of mental instability until Hope must face that she cannot continue living with him. Then comes her work in Africa as part of a research organization that focuses on studying primates in the wild. Here again, she soon sees some disturbing behaviour on the part of the chimps under her observation, which runs contrary to the long-held belief that they are peaceful and gentle animals, and rather more like humans than anyone, including her boss, is willing to accept. Brilliantly written and filled with unexpected twists and turns, I was continually impressed with the way Boyd incorporated what must have been an incredible amount of research (into primate behaviour and advanced mathematics, among other things) into a very engaging novel. My first William Boyd and certainly not my last. Great narrations by Harriet Walter, who does a very convincing job as Hope Clearwater.

I've only ever tried one Bryson book before and I was not pleased about it, so I am happy to hear this one was good. The topic is what my Uni degree is in, though, so I'll pass on it because of that. I have heard people recommend his A Walk in the Woods if you're looking to listen to more.

Category #9: Visual Treats

14. Paris: Made by Hand by Pia Jane Bijkerk ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb)

The subtitle 50 Shops Where Decorators and Stylists Source the Chic & Unique gives a decent indication of what this small 6 by 6 inch book has to offer. Bijkerk, who is herself a professional stylist and photographer, shares some of her favourite spots where she likes to source unusual hand-made objects for her shoots. With a wide range of shops and ateliers including jewelry shops, needlework supplies, sculpture and painting, children's clothes, repurposed industrial materials, ceramists, and stationary merchants, among many others, there's something for every taste and every budget here, though the emphasis isn't necessarily on shopping. The book is set up as a sort of walking tour of Paris; divided into sections according to different neighbourhoods, or Parisian arrondissements she encourages the reader discover tiny workshops and holes in the wall that might otherwise pass notice, with frequent encouragements to talk to the various friendly artisans along the way. Short texts accompany atmospheric photos which really made me yearn to stroll around Paris. Published by The Little Bookroom, Bijkerk also published Amsterdam: Made by Hand more recently.

Eva, quite a few people read A Walk in the Woods over in the 75ers group and highly recommended it. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on A Short History of Nearly Everything. Which book of his did you read?

I tried Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, which turned out to be a typical whine about everything that's crap about Europe based on his two-second stay in each country. Not recommended. I have A Short History of Nearly Everything and A Walk in the Woods on the list for when I'm ready to give Mr. Bryson a chance to redeem himself. :)

I lived in Amsterdam for a while back in a previous life and that Amsterdam: Made by Hand looks beautiful from the preview on Amazon.

I can see why you'd be turned off after reading that initial book. I would be too.

I LOVE Amsterdam! I'm so envious that you actually got to live there. It's just a wonderful place and the people are so friendly there too!

I agree with Eva, Neither Here Nor There is the only Bryson I've read and it got a bit repetitive in the end. I do have Down Under waiting on the bookshelf, and I'm quite curious about A Short History which was one of my SantaThing books, although I'm still waiting for that to turn up.

ETA: Whoops, you beat me to posting Ilana :-)

Paris: Made by Hand looks interesting. Eye candy! & Brazzaville - Jane Goodall must have had that trouble. She was the first, as far as I know, to watch a chimp territorial war. A modern researcher believing that chimps are peaceful is pretty hard to believe! I'm assuming the book was set back a few decades. It sounds good.

#112 Alana, should I be surprised that you haven't received you SantaThing book yet, or is that a fairly normal thing?

#113 Katie, you're right, I should have specified that the story was set a few decades ago. Jane Goodall is not at all referred to, though I imagine Boyd based himself on some of her findings for the book.

#95 At first I thought, "um, I don't think so" but as I read more of your comments about this book, the more I was intrigued. I'll make a note to get it on audio, though, since you recommend it so highly.

#115 I thought the audio really added to the experience, though I'm sure the books is equally excellent on paper.

No I don't think it's particularly normal. Last year I had all my books by the 24th, although this year my first one arrived just after new year but the other Kiwi's had their books before new year I think.

#117 I hope for your sake they arrive soon.

Category #11: Litérature Française

15. L'Assommoir by Émile Zola ★★★★½
(Also read for TIOLI #1: Read a book with an animal on the left hand page, a beverage on the right hand page, and the number 3 in both page numbers)

Zola can't be said to be synonymous with light reading, and this novel in particular is probably one of the bleakest in the Rougon-Macquart twenty-novel series, though also one of the most memorable and hard to put down. Gervaise Maquart is only twenty-two years old at the start of the novel. She is living in a hovel with her two small boys and her lover Lantier, the father of her children, who takes every cent she makes and at the first opportunity leaves them all to their own devices and takes up with another woman. Gervaise, with her willingness to work hard as a washerwoman manages to pull through and for a while resists the advances of Coupeau, a roofer and a neighbour of hers who professes his love for her and begs her to marry him with every chance he gets. Gervaise is understandably mistrustful of men, but she eventually gives in and agrees to the marriage; Coupeau after all is a hard worker and unlike Lantier, is also a teetotaller, and she is hopeful that they can have a good family life; after all, all she wishes for in life is to have food to eat every day, a clean place to live and not to be beaten by her man. The couple works hard and manages to put aside enough savings so that eventually, Gervaise is able to realize another of her dreams and opens her own laundry business. For a number of years, there are good times to be had by all, until Coupeau has a bad fall. Encouraged by Gervaise to take his time to recuperate from a badly broken leg, Coupeau takes to spending all his time with his former work friends, who like to hang out in drinking holes, and he eventually turns to drink himself. The second half of the novel describes the couple's slow but steady decline into alcoholism and debauchery. Though very bleak, Zola has peopled the novel with a cast of fascinating characters, among whom are the Lorilleux couple, composed of Coupeau's sister and her husband. These two take an instant dislike to the young woman and are blinded by their envy and avarice which makes them hate Gervaise's success all the more and then celebrate her decline with glee. The couple's daughter Nana is also introduced, she of the eponymous 9th novel in the series, who shortly after her sixteenth year runs away from her parent's debauchery only to land in a mess of her own making. This is a stinging portrayal of the horrors of alcoholism and of the victims it leaves behind. It exposes harsh realities and shocking violence, even by today's standards, but the reward is a fascinating story extremely well told.

Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

16. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI #3: Read a book with a word of at least 5 letters in the title that is an anagram of another 5 letter word - Castle/cleats)

The novel is purportedly reproduces an ancient manuscript, and tells the story of Manfred, the Prince of the Castle of Otranto, who had only one son and one daughter from his wife. Manfred's sole preoccupation was to continue his bloodline so that the estate should pass on to his descendants, and so he had arranged for a marriage between his son and a young noble maiden who's father had been killed in the crusades and who had been living in the castle with them. But when on the wedding day the Prince's son is bizarrely killed by a giant helmet fallen from the sky (thus crushing him), an ancient prophesy "That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it." and which the Prince had hoped to overcome begins to take effect.

The story in and of itself is entertaining enough; I had picked it up in preparations for reading Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, as an example of a Gothic novel, a style which Austen mocks in her own book. Otranto, unlike other classic novels of the Gothic genre has the advantage of being short, and I especially enjoyed reading it while following a tutored read thread in which many of the more obscure aspects of the story, including the unfamiliar words and expressions were explained, as well as what the conventions of the 18th century Gothic novel were exactly. But the biggest surprise of all was to find out via this tutoring thread that strictly speaking, this book isn't after all a proper Gothic novel!

Category #7: Young at Heart

17. ♫ The Difference Engine by William Gibson ★★½
(Also read for TIOLI #19: Read a book that won or was nominated for the Nebula Award)

I wish I could say what I think about this novel, but in order to do that, I'd have to know what it was about, and I honestly have no idea. It's set in an alternate past in the 19th century, there were plenty of interesting bits, there was a lot of talk about engines, which as I understood are precursors of modern computers, but mostly, I was just lost.

"I'd have to know what it was about"
Big LOL! :) I may have to pick it up now.

Madeline read The Castle of Otranto so fast that I didn't follow along the tutored read, but I have the link starred for when I get around to reading the book.

>121 Smiler69: The Difference Engine -- Although it's sometimes classed as an Alternative History novel, it actually widely considered to be the book responsible for revitalizing the Steampunk genre. It's part history, part detective story, and part thriller. While the novel drags a lot, its basically about how with the invention of the Analytical Engine, the Computer Age arrives about a century earlier than in "our" history.

#122 Eva, I may have been a bit drastic with my 2.5 star rating and may revise it to three stars, because I did enjoy it well enough when I didn't try to figure out where the novel was going.

I read The Castle of Otranto at my own pace, which was much slower than Madeline, and still found the tutoring thread very helpful, so you should too when you get to it. I would imagine that if you have any questions of your own, Liz won't at all mind answering them either.

#123 While the novel drags a lot, its basically about how with the invention of the Analytical Engine, the Computer Age arrives about a century earlier than in "our" history.

Jill, I guess I *got* that part, so thanks for confirming that, but I guess I was expecting more, and I just kept hoping there would be some kind of cohesive narrative that would emerge from the various iterations. It was my first foray into Steampunk, and while I enjoyed the various bits, was disappointed with the novel taken as a whole. Still, I'm hoping to get to Leviathan soon.

Great thread! I also have a french section that I should get to work on. French by Hand sounds like a lovely book to flip through :)

Thank you also for your review of Nothing to Envy. I had heard of it of course, but your review caught my attention enough that I think I will have to add it to my wishlist now :)

There are apparently rumours that Kim Jong-un has been assassinated in China, but it depends who you listen to. Is it a coincidence that Harper is in China right now as well? I think not ;)

Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

18. The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓
(Also read for Steinbeckathon and TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book whose author's surname has a "Scrabble value" of 12 or more)

Set within the course of a single day, from pre-dawn until just after dusk, Steinbeck throws together a group of ten people and describes their battles, both with their inner demons and among each other for maximum dramatic effect. Alice and Juan Chicoy own a diner and garage at Rebel Corners, California where they feed travellers and shuttle them down a fifty-mile road on their old beat-up second-hand bus re-christined "Sweetheart". After introducing us to the place and to it's owners—Alice, who runs the restaurant; husband Juan, who operates the bus and is half-mexican and half Irish; their employees "Pimples" Carson, an oversexed crater-faced teenager and Norma, a plain girl who spends her free time writing letters to the object of her every thought, Clark Gable—the author throws us directly into a crisis. This is the morning after a failed attempt to ferry five passengers to San Juan de la Cruz. The bus having broken down, Juan was forced to drive back to Rebel Corners to fix the vehicle, and not knowing what to do with the passengers, the couple have put them up to sleep in their own quarters and spent the night sleeping on chairs themselves. Everyone is cranky before breakfast has even begun being served and we immediately get a feeling for the characters and some of the dynamics at play. There's the Pritchard family of three, who are on their way to vacation in Mexico. Eliot Pritchard is an uptight businessman who calls his wife Bernice "little girl". We're given to understand they rarely, if ever have sex, because Bernice finds it distasteful. Their grown daughter Mildred still lives at home, but is at odds with her conservative parents and yearns to find her own place in life and gain as many experiences as she can while she's young. Ernest Horton is on the face of it a traveling salesman for a novelties company, but he also wears a pin which signifies he's been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for military valour. There's also cranky old Mr. Van Brunt, who doesn't like anything and is convinced everything will go wrong.

Into this already combustible mix, another traveller makes her appearance after being dropped off by a Greyhound bus from nearby San Ysidro. Known to us under the false name of Camille Oaks, this blonde bombshell passes herself off as a dental nurse, but actually makes her living as a stripper (she's played by Jane Mansfield in what is considered to be a very bad movie adaptation). Before anyone has had time to finish breakfast, Alice has managed to cause a couple of major scenes, one of which prompts her waitress Norma to quit her job. A deeply neurotic and insecure woman who thinks her husband might leave her at any moment, Alice is immediately threatened by Camille Oaks' presence and is convinced that Juan has designs on her. Yet the thing she looks forward to most is to see everybody off so she can get stinking drunk. By the time everyone's gotten on the bus, has found their seats and settled in for the ride, we're already more than halfway through this short novel; we don't know if the passengers will make it to their destination, but we know they're in for a memorable ride. Someone mentioned on the Steinbeckathon thread that this novel seems like a precursor to reality shows, which I think is a very good observation. All the characters are flawed and not easy to like, but they offer a fascination look into the human psyche. Much recommended.

#125 I'm so sorry I skipped over your message! I must have missed it somehow. I'm going to have to look into those assassination rumours, how fascinating!

"book whose author's surname has a "Scrabble value" of 12 or more"

Great category!! :)

I know, isn't that neat? Some great challenges with TIOLI every month, which is why so many of us are thoroughly hooked!

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Love)

19. ♫ Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ★★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI #13: Island Challenge)

The narrator, a young woman just barely out of school is working for a rich and unpleasant American woman as a companion, when she meets Maxim de Winter, a man twice her age and recently widowed who nevertheless courts her and asks her to marry him within a couple of weeks. Given the choice between following her employer to New York and spending her life on the renowned Manderley estate with this dashing older man, she opts for a quick marriage and honeymoon in Italy. When the newlywed couple arrive at Manderley and are greeted by the staff, the young woman is immediately made to feel ill at ease. Nothing in her background has prepared her to take charge of this kind of residence, something which the very scary housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who is devoted to the late Mrs De Winter, doesn't fail to make clear. In no time at all, our young woman is convinced she's made a mistake. Her husband seems to have little interest in her and she is convinced that his first wife Rebecca still has a hold on him and everyone else she's ever graced with her charms. Very little actually happens for at least the first half of this novel, but the tension could be cut with a knife, the Gothic atmosphere is brilliantly conveyed, and pretty soon it becomes impossible to know who should and shouldn't be trusted. The audio version is beautifully narrated by one of my all-time favourites, Anna Massey.

Just catching up with your thread. Thanks for the link to the tutored read. I've heard a lot about The Castle of Otranto but haven't read it unless by proxy. I've read Northanger Abbey and we sort of read it over Katherine's shoulder.

& I love Zola, but dark, yes he is.

Category #12: From My Treasure-Trove

20. The Secret River by Kate Grenville ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #3: a word of at least 5 letters in the title that is an anagram of another 5 letter word - Secret/erects)

William Thornhill has known nothing but a hardscrabble life in the rough parts of London in the early 1800s when he is sentenced to death for stealing precious wood. His wife, childhood love Sal, manages to have his sentence changed and they are instead extradited to a convict colony in Australia with their small son in tow. William is a harworker and Sal a very resourceful woman, and within a short few years following a difficult boat passage, William manages to obtain a pardon and put aside some savings in this land where everybody has a past they'd rather put behind them and plenty of opportunities ahead. While boating up and down a river with his employer, another ex-convinct called Blackwood, and as they take merchandise to and from Sydney and the settlers of the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill falls in love with a piece of land and starts dreaming of making it his domain. All a man need do to claim land in this place is to clear a patch of earth, plant a crop, and wait for it to grow. Though Sal dreams of nothing but of returning "home" to London, William convinces her to move their growing brood to this dream place of his where he feels certain their fortunes lay. Though Thornhill is aware that there are natives, "blacks" living hidden among the bushes and the trees, and though he's seen how some of the other colonizers deal with them—with extreme brutality in the case of one of his neighbours, Smasher Sullivan, he doesn't for a moment question that the land is his to take and that the blacks will move on to some other place. But as time goes by and he and Sal must contend with the blacks' growing presence on what he considers to be "his" hundred acres, and what starts as mere disagreements and misunderstandings between him and the natives, with plenty of amusing moments or culture clash, soon mounts to growing tension and violence.

The novel is beautifully written and the pacing excellent, but the as the impeding sense of doom grew, I reached a point near the end when I felt unable to continue. After all, we all know what the fate of the natives of Australia was, as they, like the American natives were mostly decimated, with the few survivors made to live on reserves. But Grenville's characters are multi-dimensional, and Thornhill is a complex man and worthy of our empathy, perhaps because Grenville has based the novel on the experience of one of her forefathers. Whatever the case may be, by the end of the novel, the reader feels like he is still able to draw his own conclusions, though it's quite clear the author is trying to make peace with a difficult past. Not a light read by any means, but well worth the effort.

@130 Not sure about that cover but I loved Rebecca when I read it this year, as you say terribly atmospheric. I did try and watch the Hitchcock film version recently but it was pretty bad!

I watched the Hitchcock version when I was in my teens and a great Hitchcock fan, but I don't remember this one very well. I'll have to take it out at the library and see it again.

Category #11: Litérature Française

21. Le vieux chagrin (Mister Blue) by Jacques Poulin ★½
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #3: a word of at least 5 letters in the title that is an anagram of another 5 letter word—Mister/merits)

Narrating the story is a middle-aged writer who is having difficulty coming up ideas for his novel, in which he wants to explore a love story. He lives close to the city of Québec in his family home on the bank of the St-Laurence river, and often takes walks along the beach. During one of these walks, he enters a cave in which he used to play as a boy and finds a tome of The Arabian Nights with a name written inside: "Marie K.". There are other sings that the cave is inhabited, and he immediately starts imagining that the person staying there is a woman which he names "Marika" (phonetically the same as Marie K. in French). Throughout this short novel, the narrator is obsessed with this Marika and though he makes attempts to meet her in person, he never does. He does have a young girl as a regular visitor, called La Petite. She is sixteen or seventeen and staying in a shelter for abused women as a victim of sexual abuse and is trying to mend past hurts and move forward. Unlike many readers here on LT who highly recommended it, I didn't enjoy any part of this novel. The narrator's obsession with Marika seemed pathetic to me, but worse was the strange and overly intimate relationship he has with La Petite, who appears in his home whenever she likes, looks though his personal papers and documents without asking permission, sleeps cuddled in bed with him, and demands of him to dredge up and share painful experiences from his past. The only part of the novel I did enjoy was his cat, called "Vieux Chagrin" ("Mister Blue" in English), who appears in the story quite a lot, along with other cats from the area. But otherwise, this book—which I forced myself to finish—left me with a negative feeling which I would have preferred to do without.

Category #7: Young at Heart

22. The Seeing Stone by Holly Black, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi ★★★⅞
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #3: a word of at least 5 letters in the title that is an anagram of another 5 letter word - Stone/tones)

In the second book of the Spiderwick Chronicles, we find the Grace children under attack by goblins, with brother Simon and his cat gone missing. His siblings Mallory and Jared find a strange contraption left behind by their great-great uncle which fit on the face creating a sort of lens, and which, once the "seeing stone" (a stone with a hole in it) is inserted, permits the viewer to see what are normally hidden creatures of legend. I'm sure kids must love to be scared by the cruel goblins and an encounter with a troll and a griffon also add to the excitement. This series is geared towards ages 6 to 10, but I find it's good fun and I love the colourful imaginative covers, and interior pen and ink illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi.

I have the Masterpiece Theatre version with Jeremy Brett on DVD at home, but I want to read the book first. I should probably stop talking about reading it and just go ahead and do it... :)

I'm going to have to pick up some of those Spiderwick Tales from the library. I've only read the first one, and remember you can crunch through one on a lunch break. Great stress relief reading!

#137 Eva, I looked for the Masterpiece Theatre version of Rebecca at the library, but no such luck. They have three different DVDs available, but all three are the Hitchcock version! (which I'll watch all the same)

#138 Great stress relief reading!

Exactly. I like being able to start and finish off a book just before going to sleep. Remember how we used to do that all the time as children? ;-)

Yes! I devoured books as a kid, and always finished just before bed somehow!

Speaking of which... I'm about to call it a night

sadly, won't be finishing Sea of Poppies tonight or next either... but it's a great read.

Category #7: Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy

23. ♫ Doomsday Book by Connie Willis ★★★
(Also read for Fantasy February and TIOLI #19: Nebula Award)

We're in the 50s in the 21st century, and a group of Oxford scholars are able to travel back in time. Young student Kivrin Engle has a passion for the middle ages, and the object of the next study involves traveling to the 14th century Oxford region of 1320, well before the arrival of the bubonic plague which killed off entire villages. Kivrin has spent years preparing for this trip, and even though professor Dunworthy thinks her too young and worries the trip is fraught with too many dangers, she hasn't wasted time learning Middle English and Latin and the various tasks and labours expected of the young noblewoman she is meant to impersonate. But things have gone wrong from the start. When she arrives in the 14th century, she is badly disoriented and falls gravely ill. She is found and brought to the home of a family who do their best to nurse her back to health. But though she has spent many dedicated months to prepare for this journey, she soon discovers all her studies have been for naught. Meanwhile, in the Oxford of the 21st century, things are going very wrong. Badri Chaudhuri, the young technician responsible for setting up the apparatus for Kivrin's time travel, seeks out Dunworthy to tell him that "something is very wrong", but he can say no more than that, having fallen gravely ill and suffering from high fevers which put his life at risk, so that all he is able to communicate through the better half of this lengthy novel is that "something is wrong".

The very beginning of the story showed great promise, and I found all the details about 14th century England fascinating, but I felt that for at least the first half of the narrative barely anything happened at all and we were circling round the same details over and over again, as if in a bad dream. The same information kept being repeated countless times and I quickly lost patience and was ready to give up, but so many fans of this book assured me it was well worth the effort that I stuck to it. The story that finally emerges is a good one, but I would probably have enjoyed it more had there been a serious weeding job done, since so much of the book was taken up with what seemed like filler. Had the novel been cut by half, I would probably have given it at least four stars, but as it is I have a hard time believing that it won prestigious awards, and was tempted to give it two stars for all the frustration I went through in the process. I think I found a reasonable compromise. You might love it completely, and then again, you may not.

Category #3: Picked for me - by bucketyell

24. ♫ Études de Femmes by Honoré de Balzac ★★★★½
(Read for TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book whose author's surname has a "Scrabble value" of 12 or more)

Two short stories about two very complex women are included on the CD. The first, and very short Étude de Femme (Study of a Woman in English) features the handsome Eugène de Rastignac, found in several Balzac novels. Here, he has somehow attracted the attention of the marquise de Listomère, a woman well known for her irreproachable character who has never taken on lovers. She isn't Rastignac's type either, being rather plain, but when Rastignac mistakenly sends her a letter intended for his current lover Delphine de Nucingen, an interesting situation arises which reveals in few words a great deal about the marquise.

The second story, La Grande Bretèche is a wonderfully wicked Gothic extravaganza. When doctor Horace Bianchon discovers a dilapidated and abandoned house which has obviously been a beautifully appointed domain in the past, he becomes fascinated with it and cannot resist roaming it's grounds and unsuccessfully trying to enter the house to discover the secret hidden behind it's walls. He is promptly visited by a notary who warns him that he has been illegally loitering on private property. The notary is the executor of the former occupant's will. In it, Madame de Merret decrees that no one is to enter the house or make any changes or repairs to it for fifty years following her death. We find out why she has made this strange request as her story unfolds. I'm sure it would have delighted Hitchcock, who may well have derived inspiration from it.

Category #6: Going Places - International authors & places

25. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís ★★★★

In this autobiographical graphic novel, artist Peter Sís describes growing up as a budding artist in Czechoslovakia after it was invaded by the communists. As a toddler, there is the freedom of drawing from his imagination, but with school enrolment comes indoctrination to communist ideals, youth groups, state-sanctioned art and countless other obligations all promoting these ideals, including the pressure to inform on family, neighbour and friends who speak or act contrary to state edicts. Then comes the Spring of 1968 in his teenage years with a loosening of rules and regulations and the discovery of Western music including The Beatles, long hair, counter-culture fashion and art. In his inimitable intricate style, Sís tells the story mostly through images, but also supplies diary entries from his youth. A must for fans of his work and a great introduction for those who have yet to discover him.

That's a shame about Doomsday Book. It's on my wishlist (and staying), but I was hoping it was a serious page-turner.

Eva, don't mind me. We're having a whole big discussion about Doomsday Book on my much busier 75ers thread that's been going on for the past couple of weeks because a vast majority of readers absolutely adored this book and weren't bothered by the lack of editing (though they grudgingly admit it could have been a good thing). The story itself is a good one and you may become one of the many adoring fans for all I know!

Good to know - I'll consider myself forewarned in any case. :)

Yes, my job is done then. ;-)

I agree. Shame about Doomsday Book, and on reading your review, it sounds like she's covering the same ground as To Say Nothing of the Dog but in a more serious manner. I haven't read much Connie Willis. Does she always write about time travel?

@144 I love the artwork, I might have to check it out.

#149 I haven't read much Connie Willis. Does she always write about time travel?

I couldn't say for sure, because this is the only book of hers I've read so far, although To Say Nothing of the Dog is on my TBR. I know those two are part of a series of books that are all about time travel, but she may or may not have written about other things. Not being terribly helpful, am I? :-)

#150 He's a wonderful artist, and I've picked up several of his books in the last couple of months. Just ordered up a whole other bunch of them from the library. He's quickly become one of my all-time favourite illustrators.

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Comedy)

26. ♫ The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark ★★★¾
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #3: a word of at least 5 letters in the title that is an anagram of another 5 letter word: means/names)

Spark revisits some familiar ground with this story: a boarding house for women in London's Kensignton area, here in the form of 'The May of Teck Club' established "for the Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection of Ladies of Slender Means below the age of Thirty Years, who are obliged to reside apart from their Families in order to follow an Occupation in London", a character who works in publishing (comically referred to here as "the world of books") and a mystery involving a man, in this case, on the the club's frequent visitors, Nicholas Farringdon, an self-styled anarchist intellectual killed in Haiti, where he was strangely enough living and working as a Jesuit monk. Jane Wright, a former occupant of the club now writing as a journalist in 1963 is trying to figure out what led to Farringdon's murder and why he converted to religion, and looks back on the time she first new him during her days at the May of Teck Club in 1945, immediately at the end of WWII; a time of great deprivation when everybody was trying to put the war behind them. There are several interesting characters in the club, including three ladies over the age of 50 who've somehow managed to continue living there over the years, and a devout young elocution instructor who is regularly heard reciting poetry. There's an ongoing contest to see who can get through the tiny window opening in the upstairs bathroom (which is so narrow it involves stripping down and rubbing one's body with margarine for even the skinniest of girls) and with clothing coupons hard to come by, the one good dress in the house, a Schiaparelli gown, keeps doing the rounds for various events around London, each time being adjusted for it's various wearers. Filled with Spark's wit and humour, the novel ends on a tragic note which leaves the reader pondering on what precarious times there were for everyone who'd actually survived the war.

@151 Helpful enough - those two books were at least supposed to share some worldbuilding then. & it was deliberate, not just a theme she kept hitting again and again because it was there.

That's a good review of Doomsday Book. I LOVED the book when I read it as a 16 year old. I don't know what I'd think about it now, but I do have a tendency to be fascinated by books about epidemics. I'm not sure where this fascination arose. Perhaps my psyche is damaged. :) Anyway, I sent it to my sister to read a few years ago (when she had a bout of reading that lasted several years) and was surprised that she didn't like it. Her complaint was that Kirvin was such a weak female character. She went back in time and then just simply didn't know what to do with herself. I told my sister she was a poor little grad student, and I (also a grad student at the time) would feel the same way probably. :) But now I know for her next reading bout that she likes powerful women characters!

@ 149 -- cammykitty, as Smiler69 said, several of Willis' books share the same time-traveling world. But she also wrote some books that have nothing to do with time travel -- like Bellwether, one of my favorites by her.

Bellwether is on my shelf. Hopefully, it will be one of my favorites too.

#153 Glad to be of some help, however humbly so.

#154 I do have a tendency to be fascinated by books about epidemics.

How interesting. I never considered that topic as one I would deliberately seek out. I have the Pulitzer award-winning Polio by David M. Oshinsky in my TBR, is that one that you might have read already?

Interesting how different opinions can be sometimes. I didn't see Kivrin as a weak character at all. For one thing, I always kept in mind how young she was and how little life experiences she probably had. But on the other hand, she had this goal of traveling to the middle ages, which in an of itself takes guts, and then she set about to studying and mastering all these difficult subjects (even though they were of no use in the end), and then she managed to survive amid the chaos of a world highly suspicious of strangers, not to mention the plague itself... I'd say she was quite powerful, but that all depends on POV of course!

#155 Bellwether... I seem to recall hearing that title floating about, and the very short synopsis I read about it on the main page seemed interesting enough, but not quite adding it to my endless wishlist yet! :-)

@ 157 -- Fair enough, but Bellwether really is fun -- and short! Just saying... ;)

#158 Short?? You have my attention there! I didn't know Willis was capable of doing short. That may just prompt me to put it on the wishlist after all! :-)

@ 159 -- Well, the mass market paperback is 247 pages, according to Amazon. So I guess it depends on whether that's "short" to you. But it is definitely a lot shorter than Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog!

Yes, that's exactly the number of pages the library copy has. I consider any book under 300 pages short. Over 350-400 pages, it starts getting long. Over 600 pages, it's an epic as far as I'm concerned.

>161 Smiler69: Hmmm, I would call a book "short" when it's >300 pages, but wouldn't call a book "long" until it was over 500. :)

>157 Smiler69: I've read Polio and really liked it. I think it has a really good ratio of history to popular science to make it interesting to a lot of people.

#162 I wonder if this is the year I'll finally get around to reading Polio? I always have the best of intentions, but have more books than good intentions it seems like. :-)

Category #7: Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy

27. ♫ The City & The City by China Miéville ★★★★
(Also read for February TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book whose author's surname has a "Scrabble value" of 12 or more)

Inspector Tyador Borlu, who lives in the rundown East European city of Beszel is called in when a young unidentified woman if found murdered. Borlu has lived his whole life in Beszel and has therefore been deeply programmed to "unsee" the other city, Ul Qoma, which occupies virtually the same physical space, but has a completely different economy, customs, ways of dressing and language. When it appears that the young woman might have been murdered in one city and dumped into the other, Borlu must "travel" to Ul Qoma to work closely with their own police force, but in preparation for his trip he must first undergo training to insure he can "unsee" his hometown of Beszel while he is staying in Ul Qoma. Quite a mind twister, but a fascinating story which puts into question questions of identity and the amount of programming we are all subjected to in order to conform to the order prescribed by the powers that be. China Miéville is known for exploring different genres with each novel, and here he does the Noir criminal mystery genre with a twist very well indeed. My first Miéville and certainly not my last.

Category #12: From My Treasure-Trove - off the shelf

28. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh ★★★★½
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book with a title word that is a heterograph/homonym—sea/see)

Seemingly every LT member I know and even my hairdresser has been raving about this novel set in 19th century colonized India, so it had a lot of expectations to live up to. It's excellently well written, which was the first thing I was able to appreciate about it, though it took me almost half the novel to really warm to this adventure story in which lower caste Indian natives put their lives and security in the hands of a wealthy and ruthless shipping merchant who trades in Opium with China. Benjamin Burnham, a ruthless British shipping magnate and evangelist is thwarted by the Chinese who have outlawed the trade in Opium and falls back on shipping human cargo to the Mauritius islands to supply cheap labour (if not outright slaves) to the landowners. The novel is populated by many fascinating characters, who are all introduced in the first of this three-part novel. We first get to have a good glimpse of their circumstances and personalities and as the novel progresses, we are shown the ways in which their lives and destinies intermingle, culminating in a sea voyage filled with drama and adventure that is nearly impossible to put down. By that part, I loved this novel so much that I was strongly tempted to start all over from the beginning again just so I could fully appreciate Ghosh's characters and impressive construction, but in the end, the toppling TBR won over. Which is not to say I've given up on the idea of a re-read, and I certainly look forward to part 2 in this fascinating voyage with River of Smoke, to be read some time this year.

Category #10: Beyond Fiction

29. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI Challenge #1: Read a book whose author was born in a city whose name contains ONLY one letter from the word “March”—New York)

Author Anne Fadiman has book love well anchored in her genetic pool. A cursory glance at wikipedia tells us she is the daughter of the renowned literary, radio and television personality Clifton Fadiman, who among other things, between 1933 and 1943 was in charge of The New Yorker's book review section, and World War II correspondent and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. She also attended Harvard University, graduating in 1975 from Radcliffe College. I would say therefore, that I have one major grudge with this book: that the title "Confession of a Common Reader" is quite misleading, if the word is taken to be a synonym of "ordinary". This woman is in the Pro leagues, and no mistake. With that out of the way, I can say that this is a delightful collection of eighteen essays by an enthusiastic bibliophile, all based on her personal life and experiences, including that of her fascinating family members and friends. To begin with, we get a good glimpse into her private life in "Marrying Libraries", in which she explains how after years of marriage (and ten years of frequenting one another), she and her husband undertook the project of combining their books:

"Promising to love each other for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health—even promising to forsake all others—had been no problem, but it was a good thing the Book of Common Prayer didn't say anything about marrying our libraries and throwing out the duplicates. That would have been a far more solemn vow, one that would probably have caused the wedding to grind to a mortifying halt."

In "The Joy of Sesquipedalians" I was equally amused and mortified by the fact that I would never have qualified to play along with what she calls Fadiman U, who have a propensity for seeking out long and obscure words (something my mum, a writer, no doubt loves too). But my personal favourite was beyond a doubt "The Catalogical Imperative", in which Fadiman makes the following admission: "There is one form of literature, however, that I would sometimes prefer to the Paradiso. It is—I realize that I am about to deal my image a blow from which it may never recover—the mail-order catalogue." Now there's a girl after my own heart.

Category #10: Beyond Fiction

30. On Cats by Doris Lessing ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI #7: title that contains 2, 4, 8 or 16 words)

By the time I finished this little novel, which I took many weeks to slowly peruse while I had other things going on, I was quite sorry I had come to the last page, because the story I had just read was both sublime and heartbreaking, an ode to a cat who had clearly taken a very special place in Dorris Lessing's heart and who is no doubt still missed. When I got this book, I wondered how it could be that a book on cats written by a Nobel Prize laureate wasn't more popular, but then the first few pages gave me the answer. Lessing's recollections about cats begin with those that lived in and out of their family farmhouse in Africa when she was a child. As they multiplied exponentially, with many of them going wild and then attacking the fowls, Lessing's mother was assigned to kill a great number of them off, which makes for some gruesome and sad anecdotes which are hard to take for an animal lover. By chapter 3, things become much more tolerable, even quite enchanting, with the hard living of Africa now forgotten, as we're introduced to a beautiful new arrival in the author's London flat:

"The kitten was six weeks old. It was enchanting, a delicate fairy-tale cat, whose Siamese genes showed in the shape of her face, ears, tail, and the subtle lines of its body. Her back was tabby: from above or the back, she was a pretty tabby kitten, in grey and cream, But her front and stomach were a smoky-gold, Siamese cream, with half-bars of black at the neck. Her face was pencilled with black—fine dark rings around the eyes, fine dark streaks on her cheeks, a tiny cream-coloured nose with a pink tip, outlined in black. From the front, sitting with her slender paws straight, she was an exotically beautiful beast. She sat, a tiny thing, in the middle of a yellow carpet, surrounded by five worshippers, not at all afraid of us. Then she stalked around the floor of the house, inspecting every inch of it, climbed up on to my bed, crept under the fold of a sheet, and was at home."

Only a true cat lover could have written those lines, and we discover all the wonders of grey cat (mentioned above), and her standoff with black cat, most of which is quite amusing and charming, if you ignore the bits about kittens having to be gotten rid of, since apparently in these bygone days, people didn't believe in getting their cats spayed. But when we reach the last story "The Old Age of El Magnifico", we're willing to forgive Lessing for taking us through the painful bits—this is a true love letter to a cat dearly beloved, which pulls at the heartstrings, and might make the reader shed a tear or two, as I did.

Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

31. ♫ Dracula by Bram Stoker ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI #15: author's last name divisible by 3)

How wonderful to discover a classic you think you know by heart and be surprised and enchanted by the telling of it. Dracula has become such a common character over the years, with countless movies made featuring famous actors such as Béla Lugosi (1931) and Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves (1992), not to mention his ubiquitous little avatars running around, fangs bared every Halloween night for well over one hundred years. I had always assumed that the story was told from the point of view of Jonathan Harker, the young solicitor who travels to Transilvania at the beginning of the story to meet a client whom he is far from suspecting of being undead until clear evidence to the contrary plunges him into despair and madness. While we are indeed privy to Harker's journal notes detailing his adventure from day to day, we also get to snoop into his soon-to-be wife Mina Murray's journal, and then that of John Seward as well—a young doctor who is running a madhouse and has a patient who is overly fond of flies and spiders under observation. Adding to my enjoyment was the knowledge supplied to me by a well-informed LT member (Liz), that the technology mentioned in the course of the story was considered cutting-edge at the time the novel was published. But perhaps the greatest treat was listening to the latest audio production of this classic, which is told by multiple narrators, with top billing given to the excellent Alan Cumming as Seward and Tim Curry as his mentor, the dutch professor Van Helsing. Of course, one can't exactly expect any great surprises, but all the same, it's a good story very well told, no matter in what format.

I am pleased you enjoyed the Miéville-book!! Since Anders & Co. "turned me" last year, I'm a complete devotee. :) I have Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader on my wishlist - looking forward to getting to it.

Ah, Dracula is on my TBR. I meant to read it last Halloween but it got pushed back by the group read of The Woman in White. There's always this Halloween! Your review makes it sound real interesting because I always wanted to know what Mina was thinking and what Renfield was doing in the asylum.

Eva, I look forward to reading move Miéville. I was influence by you quite a lot, as well as by Anders and several others here on LT, because had never heard about him before last year. I think I want to follow up with Perdido Street Station. I just wish it wasn't such a huge book!

Katie, I'm glad my review made Dracula sound appealing, because I think it's a classic definitely worth visiting. It's inspired so many takeoffs that I have the feeling it's not read by most average people nowadays who are devoted to the vampire genre. I think I'll probably want to revisit in future as well, perhaps even more than once. It's a great adventure and quite thrilling even though we know the outcome, which I think is saying a lot for it.

I actually read The Woman in White this month. Just finished it last week actually and mean to review it. I just happen to always be several weeks behind with my reviews. What a great book, isn't it?!

Perdido Street Station is amazing, but it is a treacle-read; it does take time to get through the intricate world-building, but the reward is very, very sweet! Only read when you have time to get properly immersed and I think you'll absolutely love it!

Only read when you have time to get properly immersed and I think you'll absolutely love it!

Finding the time isn't a problem, but having the inclination to focus on just one big and fat book takes some doing... I'll get there eventually!

Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

32. ♫ The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ★★★★½
(Also read for Mystery March and TIOLI Challenge #19: Read a mystery of more than 300 pages)

Walter Hartright, a young art teacher walking on the road from Hampstead to London, is startled when he is overtaken by a young woman dressed entirely in white. Visibly distressed, she begs him to show her the way to London, and he offers to take her there. The young woman accepts his offer on the condition that he allow her freedom of movement. Once he's dropped her off in London, two men in hot pursuit claim that the young woman has escaped a mental asylum and must be returned there at once, but Walter does nothing to help them in their search. The next day he arrives at Limmeridge House, where he has gained a position as a drawing master. There he meets his young pupils, half sisters Marian and Laura. In no time at all, her befriends Marian—no great beauty is she, but quick, smart and amusing—and falls desperately in love with the heavenly loveliness that is Laura. But the encounter with the woman in white will carry many consequences. I took absolute delight in discovering all the plot twists of this great classic mystery, so will disclose no more of the story nor of how it is told, but will say that it offers a wonderfully evil conspiracy and several highly memorable characters, not least of which the strange and compelling villain Count Fosco, who stole every scene in which he appeared, in my view. The sublimely selfish Frederick Fairlie is one of the most memorable invalids I have ever encountered. I must say that the audio version I listened to, narrated by Simon Prebble and Josephine Bailey, greatly increased my enjoyment with wonderfully rendered characters. Now that I've read it and that there are no more secrets for me to discover, I still look forward to reading it again for a fun romp with highly colourful characters and some Gothic frissons.

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Love)

33. ♫ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen ★★★★⅛
(Also read for TIOLI #4: Read a book from JanetinLondon's library memorial challenge)

Our young would-be heroine, seventeen year-old Catherine Morland has read one too many Gothic novel in her short life, the latest of which being The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe, one of her favourite authors. When she is taken to Bath with a well to do older couple who are friends of the family, it is her first ever excursion outside her hometown and she is starved for new adventures and acquaintances. Young Isabella Thorpe is no sooner met than declared to be her best bosom friend ever. When it is discovered upon his unexpected arrival that Isabella's brother John Thorpe is best friends with Catherine's brother James Morland, and that James is in love with Isabella, the trio claim young Catherine for their own pursuits. John Thorpe is under the false impression that Catherine is heiress to a great fortune, and the blustering young man decides he will marry our young maiden. Though Catherine may be inexperienced in love, she has eyes only for Henry Tilney, a young clergyman who shares Catherine's passion for Gothic novels. And soon after Catherine has befriended her sweetheart's sister, Eleanor Tilney, she is overjoyed when an invitation is extended to spend time with the Tilney's in their home, Northanger Abbey. At the mention of the word "Abbey" Catherine's imagination takes over and she fully expects to discover a decrepit old dwelling filled with loathsome secrets of the kind she has avidly read about in her favourite novels to great comic effect.

This novel is filled with humour to a much greater extent than her other widely read stories. Austen, who was apparently herself a fan of novels, Gothic and otherwise, obviously had great fun poking fun at her naive heroine and also took the opportunity to make a case for the worthiness of novels, of which reading was considered to be an unsuitable pursuit in her day.

This story was made that much more fun to discover thanks to the tutorship of Liz (lyzard), who shared a wealth of knowledge about the novel and many background details, all of which can be found on this thread.

I listened to the audio version narrated by the always excellent Julia Stevenson.

I've somehow managed to avoid reading anything by Wilkie Collins - need to remedy this asap!! :)

need to remedy this asap!!

I completely agree! :-)

The Woman in White is already on my list, so great to see another positive review!

Alana, so far, every comment I've seen about TWiW has been nothing short of a glowing recommendation.

Some more great reviews. My school loaned us nooks for spring break, and it came pre-loaded with Dracula, so I may hit that soon. I started with Red Scarf Girl first.

Thanks Katie. Can't say I'm familiar with Red Scarf Girl, any good?

Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

34. ♫ A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes ★★★★½

I'd heard of Chester Himes's Harlem Cycle before, but if it hadn't been for a new audio series called "The A-List" which has A-list actors narrating some of the most beloved books—in this case, none other than Samuel L. Jackson—it might have been a while yet before I'd gotten around to this series. Taking place in Harlem, the story revolves around a naive man called Jackson who gets taken in by a team of fraudsters who convince him they can "raise" denominations of 10 dollars into 100 dollar bills. There's plenty of humour there, which combines well with the otherwise hardboiled world of gangsterism, drugs and violence. Not for the faint of heart, but deeply satisfying if you like your mysteries served up on the tough side.

Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

35. Troubles by J. G. Farrell ★★★★½
(Also read for Read for TIOLI #4: Read a book from JanetinLondon's library memorial challenge)

Major Brendan Archer, just released from treatment for shell-shock after the first war, is headed to the Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough, Ireland, to meet a young woman who may or may not be his fiancée. He's not quite sure what the agreement he made with Angela Spencer was that one time they met in 1916 and shared a drunken kiss, but she's written to him throughout the war in great detail about her family and their life at the Majestic Hotel, which is owned by her father, Edward Spencer, each time signing the letters as his betrothed. When he arrives at the hotel, he's surprised to find it in a state of utter disrepair and with no service or proper amenities to speak of. He sees Angela once or twice very briefly and has no chance to straighten things out with her before she's taken to her bed with a grave illness. As he gets better acquainted with the hotel's permanent elderly guests, who haven't paid for their stay in many years, and grows accustomed to the growing army of cats overtaking the place, he also befriends Edward and finds some sort of routine amid the wreckage of the once splendid resort. He shares his time with the bereaved Spencer family, who are mourning Angela's passing, with Edward sinking quickly into more and more bizarre behaviour, Angela's infernal twin sisters, and a local Catholic Kilnalough girl called Sarah, who may or may not be an invalid. All this amid the chaos of an Ireland shaken by mounting violence and terrorism as the Irish republicans, seek to free themselves from British rule and brutality. Filled with humour and amusing anecdotes, and interspersed with news clippings, this is a novel that gives plenty for the reader to reflect upon. Strongly recommended.

Category #3: Picked for me - chosen from my shelves at random by avatiakh

36. ♫ Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon ★★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI #19: Read a mystery of more than 300 pages)

A large rambling mansion surrounded by beautiful gardens, a beautiful young woman brilliantly wedded who hides secrets which she must keep at all costs... this novel has all the ingredients of a Gothic extravaganza. When Sir Michael Audley takes Lucy Graham, a humble governess of great beauty as his wife, everyone in the town of Audley is enchanted by the match. Sir Michael has been a sad widower for so many years, and now has found true love with a woman who manages to delight everyone she meets with her great charm, good graces, and china doll perfect good looks. Sir Michael's nephew, the young Robert Audley is fascinated by Lucy much like everyone else, but when his best friend George Talboys recently arrived from a long stay in Australia goes missing after having visited Audley Court, he begins suspecting that something is afoul and decides to pry into Lucy's mysteriously blank past.

A very satisfying adventure, though I must admit the mystery aspect offered me no great surprises as I had put the pieces together from the first few chapters. All the same, the way in which the characters evolve and the story itself is put together offered plenty of satisfaction. Another touch of Gothic thrills worked into the tale is the presence of a portrait of Lady Audley painted by a Pre-Raphaëlite artist that shows a side of Lucy that only the artist seems to have noticed. The portrait plays a crucial role in the story, but the almost surreal appeal of the painting also brought to mind The Picture of Dorian Gray, which may or may not have been influenced by Lady Audley, but which certainly shares a complexity of themes with it's precursor. Heartily recommended.

I see you have been reading some good gothic novels lately Ilana! Lady's Audley's Secret is a new one for my To Read Later list and who knows, one of these days I might even venture into Austen's works and Northanger Abbey.

Hi Lori! Good to see you in these parts. It's been interesting going from practically no Gothic experience (other than Jane Eyre, to several novels in the genre in a short time, but now I think I understand better what it's all about and must say I quite like it!

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Crime)

37. ♫ Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley ★★★★⅓

Easy Rawlins has just lost his factory job and needs to find a way to make money before the the mortgage payment comes due for his home within just a few days. This is the late 1940s and Ezekiel has returned from the war battle worn and with few illusions, and his house is the one stable thing in his life for which he's willing to fight in order to keep. When a suspicious white man enrols him to find a white girl called Daphne Monet, last seen in one of the illegal bars in the company of a well-known gangster, Easy knows he can't trust the man and questions his motives for wanting to find Daphne in the first place. But money is money and this job pays well... but is he prepared for the most dangerous character in the story in the shape of a very beautiful and sexy Daphne? This first novel in the Easy Rawlins series has a lot going for it, not least of which the descriptions of a bygone nitty gritty downtown Los Angeles where walking into a bar could be more dangerous than walking the streets at night. The hardboiled atmosphere is palpable and Ezekiel is easy to like, which means I'll more than likely be revisiting this series in near future. Having read this very shortly after the first book in the Harlem Cycle by Chester Himes, I feel confident in saying that Mosley was more than likely influenced by his predecessor, and that can only be a good thing.

Category #5: The Dark Side

38. ♫ The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura ★★★

The Thief in question is a talented pickpocket who takes pleasure in stealing from the rich and prides himself on the skill with which he can separate any man from his wallet. He's got the whole process down to a science, isn't wanting for anything and enjoys his freedom and independence. Things start changing for him when he encounters a young boy who is forced by his mother to steal groceries. The boy is needing some tips on how to become a more accomplished thief and our man is only too glad to share his knowledge on that score. Then an old thieving partner reappears in his life and gets him involved in an assignment he can't refuse; participating in an armed robbery for the Yakuza. The plan is meticulously worked out and the reap seems too good to be true. The Thief has misgivings about the robbery and his suspicions are about to prove to be well founded. This is a good story which is sure to appeal to many, but which for some reason failed to grab me. Could it have something to do with the audio version and a narrator I didn't like? That certainly couldn't have helped, but there were elements in the story itself which I'd be hard pressed to put my finger on which simply didn't appeal to me, so I was all the more happy that this was a short affair.

Category #12: From My Treasure-Trove

39. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi ★★★⅞
(Also read for TIOLI #23: Read a book with the word "Girl" in the title)

Many of the bleakest predictions for the future have come true and life in the 23rd century is a constant fight for survival against pandemics, religious extremists, and the lack of adequate sources of nourishment. While many of the world's nations have fallen prey to these afflictions and ceased to exist as entities, the Thais have managed to survive and even prosper. They're braved bioterrorism by shutting themselves off from the rest of the world and cultivating crops from their own ancient seeds, while the rest of the world's nations were forced to buy their foodstuffs from multinationals who own the patents to all known calorie sources. Anderson Lake works for one such multinational, AgriGen, and he's in Bangkok working undercover in the guise of a factory owner, manufacturing springs (a source of energy in a post-fuel-based world) to crack the secrets of the re-emergence of what were thought to be long extinct food sources, such as nightshades (including tomatoes and tobacco) and what may be known to us as lychees. Emiko, the Windup Girl of the title used to be treated by her original Japanese owner as a queen, but she's been left behind and now is forced to work in a sex club where her utter public degradation is part of the nightly act. Windup girls originated in Japan where they were developed as an obedient workforce, and are recognizable due to their distinctive stutter motion, though they've evolved from test tubes and could otherwise pass for normal human beings, albeit much more beautiful ones. Bangkok is about to fall into the chaos of civil warfare in which Emiko and Anderson are deeply embroiled in ways neither of them could ever have predicted in this hotbed of corruption and violence .

As I'm fairly new to certain types of fantasy and science fiction, it took me quite a while to fully get immersed into the story—roughly half the novel in fact. But once all main elements of the story had been established, the novel really took off from me, and it was difficult to put down. Not an easy read by any means, and I must admit a lot of it went right over my head—including the ending—but I still recommend this unusual and highly imaginative novel which completely immerses the reader in this strange and scary future world.

It looks like you're on a great reading streak Ilana, some great reviews there.

great reviews troubles sounds very interesting...

Definitely putting Troubles on the wishlist - I have a special place in my heart for that time and place.

"★★★⅞"
LOL - that sounds very precise. :) Windup Girl is already on the wishlist thanks to the group read.

Just catching up on threads and as a bit of Chester Himes' fan, I must say a reread (listen?) of a Rage in Harlem by Samuel L Jackson sounds very cool.

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon is on my wishlist and the review pushes it up higher, thanks :)

#190 Hi Alana, I did lots of good reading in March, and since I often leave off writing reviews for too long... I end up posting them all at the same time!

#191 Troubles is indeed very interesting. I'm looking forward to reading Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur next.

#192 He's such a great writer too Eva, it's a satisfying read on many levels.

The ⅞ was because it stopped short of being a fully satisfying read, since it took me so long to really get into the story. It also makes me smile :-)
I read it presumably because of the GR but then didn't participate at all on the thread. I'll have to hop over to at least see what was said there.

#193 Hi Claire! I look forward to reading more books in the Harlem Cycle. I really got hooked on Himes with that first one! I hope you enjoy Lady Audley's Secret too when you get there.

Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

40. ♫ Death and Judgment / A Venetian Reckoning by Donna Leon ★★★½

A truck meets with a terrible accident in the snowy Dolomites, and spilling out of it's bowels among the cargo of wood are also strange mannequins... but the mannequins are bleeding, which must mean they are real women. The horror of this accident is only a small presage of more to come.

Commissario Guido Brunetti is put on the case of the murder of a prominent lawyer, shot dead on an intercity train. Then an accountant and business associate of the lawyer also turns up dead, and Brunetti starts suspecting the connection might be an international prostitution ring. His 14-year-old daughter Chiara offers her help as an apprentice investigator; she's been to school with the murdered lawyer's daughter and may be able to unearth some clues. But no one is prepared for the extent of the horror she uncovers in the process, least of all Chiara herself, and Brunetti can't forgive himself for unwittingly exposing his beloved daughter to such monstrous crimes. I’ve read several novels in the series before and knew that Leon tends to combine an insider's view of Venice and the comforts of the inspector's home life with the vilest of crimes and conspiracies, but the nature of one of the crimes committed against women in this particular instance were so evil that I was quite shocked. But in the end, Brunetti is a man with a conscience and in comforting his daughter, he also comforts his reader; heinous crimes won't go away, but love and kindness are also here to stay. Recommended, but this ones necessitates a solid stomach.

Category #8: Hot Off the Press

41. The Last Song by Eva Wiseman ★★★★
(Also read for Early Reviewers)

Young Isabella leads a comfortable and sheltered life in 15th century Toledo, Spain. Her father is one King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella's favourite physicians, and as such benefits from riches and luxury, and though Isabella knows Jews are being persecuted by the inquisition let by Cardinal Torquemada, she feels her family’s Christian faith shields them from danger. Life starts taking an unpleasant turn for her when her father arranges her betrothal to the son of a prominent family. The young man is cruel and mean to her, but her father insists marrying into his devout Catholic family will shield Isabella from any risk, an explanation which Isabella is far from understanding until Torquemada's men come knocking at their door to take Isabella's father one day. Unbeknownst to Isabella, her family are recent converts and her parents have been practicing their Jewish customs in secret, which is exactly the sort of behaviour the Inquisition sets out to uncover and punish. But the family are in possession of a document which could prove embarrassing to Torquemada. If Isabella can play her cards right, she might manage to free her father, unless she ends up being locked up and tortured right along with him.

This short novel, combining adventure and romance against a backdrop of persecution and violence and based on historical facts, turned out to be a real page turner. Recommended for readers young and old.

Category #5: The Dark Side

42. A Murder of Quality by John Le Carré ★★★★

George Smiley is retired from his intelligence work and recovering from a recent divorce, but agrees to help his old friend and wartime colleague Miss Brimley, the editor of a Christian magazine with a limited and devoted readership. Miss Brimley has received a letter from a long-standing reader stating: "I'm not mad. And I know my husbad is trying to kill me." But by the time the letter has reached it's destination, it's author, the wife of a teacher at the exclusive Carne College, has already been violently murdered. Carne is a community quite closed off from the rest of the world, and those who people the school aren't willing to speak to the police, but they might be willing to speak to Smiley, who once knew the brother of a certain Fielding, a Housemaster at the school who is about to retire. As Smiley probes into the crime and starts uncovering facts, it seems more and more people may have had motives for murdering the victim, though of course Smiley manages to get to the bottom of things despite the school's politics and narrow social conventions. In the process, he must also face unpleasant gossip concerning him and his estranged wife, Lady Ann Sercombe, who was raised in Carne town. My first Smiley novel, which I unfortunately read out of order. This didn't in any way take away from what was a very enjoyable read, though it had me wondering why a novel about a spy agent had no espionage in it.

Category #6: Going Places

43. ♫ Letter from an Unknown Woman by Stefan Zweig ★★★★½

A famous Viennese author receives a long letter from a woman, in which she proceeds to describe the love and full extent of the passion she has felt for him ever since she was a young girl. The woman claims she has lost her only child moments before picking up her pen, and that these are her final words before dying. The deep pathos of the situation is impossible to resist, as is the narrative, in which the woman describes how her obsession for this man has shaped her life. Very moving.






Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

44. ♫ Fear by Stefan Zweig ★★★★½

The wife of a prominent Viennese lawyer who has been having an affair with a young musician is accosted by a woman in the street one day. The young woman, visibly in dire straits, claims to have also been one the the musician's mistresses, and begins to allude to blackmail, to which the married woman responds by giving her all her money. Before long the blackmailer is demanding increasing sums every day and our heroine is terrified of being found out by her husband, even as he repeatedly encourages her to share the fears that have her screaming out at night. A psychological drama which is a product of it's time (1910s-1920s) with the roles of men and women narrowly defined, but in which human nature and the nature of fear itself are played out to great effect. My second short story by Zweig, it had me weeping (from sadness? from relief?) in the end.

I have the first in the Brunetti series on Mt. TBR and I've heard many good things about the series. Death and Judgement sounds particulary gruesome, but I do have a fairly "solid stomach." :)

Eva, I really enjoyed Death at La Fenice. I wanted to read them in order, so started with that one, but then things went haywire and I read half a dozen of them out of sequence.

Are you sure you'll be satisfied just to read the first without having the whole series at your fingertips ready for you to devour? ;-)

"read the first without having the whole series "
That is an issue, isn't it...?! :)

LOL!

You've read quite a few cool books since last I stopped by. Yes, The Red Scarf Girl is interesting, and it's a very quick read too. Fear is going on the wishlist. ;)

Hi Katie! I tend to procrastinate on writing reviews and then suddenly get panicked with how far behind I've fallen and crank them all out at once. Which is going to be the case very shortly. So far, I've read three novels by Stefan Zweig and found them all great. And his books are definitely quick reads—they're just short stories really.

Category #9: Visual Treats

45. The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin by Peter Sís ★★★½

For this lavishly illustrated biography on the man who formulated the theory of evolution, Sís based himself on Charles Darwin's own many detailed notes, letters and various writings. We follow Darwin from birth to his student days and then his five-year voyage on the Beagle which took him around South America, to South Africa and Australia, among other places and during which time Darwin spent much time on dry land collecting plant and animal samples. This voyage eventually led him to formulate his theory of evolution, something which he hesitated for a long time to publish because he knew that it would be badly received by religious institutions. Each spread is richly illustrated and brimming with information, almost too much information for my liking, which wouldn't have been a problem had I not found it difficult to navigate through it. This wasn't my favourite book by Peter Sís so far, but it is an interesting and very beautiful to look at overview of the famous naturalist's life.

Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

46. ♫ David Copperfield by Charles Dickens ★★★★

'Good day, sir,' said my aunt, 'and good-bye! Good day to you, too, ma'am,' said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. 'Let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!'

It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution. — CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME

An epic and semi-autobigraphical story of young David Copperfield, born six months after his father's passing, who suffered a miserable childhood during which he was abused by his mother's tyrannical new husband Edward Murdstone and his sister, who sent him to a school were punishments were handed out routinely and frequently. When his mother passes away, Edward Murdstone puts nine-year-old David to work in London, where he is left to fend for himself. David makes his escape and makes a long difficult journey on the road to seek out his great aunt Betsey Trottwood. This wonderful character takes David under her wing and gives him a loving home and an education until he is ready to pursue his studies toward a respectable career. As a young man, David falls in love repeatedly and eventually becomes obsessed with Dora Spenlow, a young lady he is determined to marry one day. The novel takes us through many twists and turns and introduces a great number of fascinating characters, some likeable, some absolutely revolting with many plots which are only resolved toward the end of the novel, when David, now a well-known writer, has gained in maturity and found his heart's desire. We all know that Dickens is verbose and he did not disappoint in that respect with this novel, which he considered to be his favourite child. I found much to like and was delighted with the light tone and David's good nature even as he went through incredible difficulties. The audio version wonderfully performed by Martin Jarvis is strongly recommended.

I've ordered The Tree of Life from my library since I like the work of Peter Sis and I think it would interesting to see how he treats Darwin's life. (I've read Voyage of the Beagle but seeing the same information from different view points is always good and I would like to know if the Sis book would work for the students at my school.) Anyway, thanks for your review.

Category #7: Young at Heart

47. Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, Illustrated by Maira Kalman ★★★★

In this ode to first love and it's aftermath, Daniel Handler—aka Lemony Snicket—pairs up with his friend, illustrator Maira Kalman to tell the story of modern love gone awry. Min (for Minerva) Green is known as an "arty" girl, who hangs out with equally arty friends and has a passion for old films. One day as they are celebrating her best friend's "Bitter Sixteen" party, jocks Ed Slatherton and his buddy come crashing the party. Min can't refuse a date from Ed, the very handsome co-captain of the basketball team whom she would never have imagined would have ever set eyes on her. Her friends disapprove and his friends can't understand what he sees in her, but Ed claims he likes her being "different". Min brings Ed to the repertory cinema to see old movies (all convincingly made up by Handler), and though Ed doesn't really get it, he's willing to play along when Min decides they must throw and 89th birthday party for her favourite film star.

The story is told by Min in a letter to Ed following their disastrous breakup. This is no Hallmark romance story, and these kids are dealing with real issues which include numerous gorgeous ex-girlfriends and sex as a foregone conclusion. With her letter, Min is returning a box of memorabilia to him, filled with items she's collected over their brief romance, from movie stubs to elastic bands, rose petals, beer caps, a dish towel, and more which Kalman has illustrated throughout the book. An interesting way to present a story we're all familiar with and which inevitably brings us back to our own first romantic experiences and crushing disappointments. I don't know that I'd want to have my teenage daughter reading this book considering the sexual content (Min and Ed have frequent "everything but" make-out sessions before she surrenders her virginity to him), but it might be a good way to open up a conversation about self-respect, being different and how to handle pressure to have sex.

Category #8: Hot Off the Press

48. ♫ The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller ★★★★⅓

While it deals with the Trojan war with it's main participants, this is first and foremost a love story about Patroclus, a rather ordinary and not particularly talented young man and the god-like hero Achilles. Told in a first person narration, Patroclus tells us about his early childhood as a prince and subsequent banishment, whereupon he is sent to live among a gaggle of boys trained to become soldiers by none other than Achilles's father. All the boys venerate Achilles for his great beauty and grace, for he is in fact the son of a goddess and as such possesses special gifts, but one day Achilles chooses Patroclus to be his close companion. Why he chose Patroclus, who had nothing to distinguish himself from the others, was shy and uncommunicative isn't made clear, but nonetheless the boys end up spending their childhood together and eventually come to be lovers and entirely devoted to one another. When the war on Troy is declared, both Patroclus and Achilles are sought out by Odysseus to join the war effort. Everyone knows that Achilles is destined to be the greatest warrior of his generation, and everyone also knows about the prophesy which dooms Achilles to die shortly after having killed Hector. Patroclus on the other hand is not a fighter and finds his own ways to distinguish himself. Beautifully told, this story brings mythical characters to life and makes even fantastical creatures, such as a centaur and sea goddess seem absolutely believable as essential elements in the narrative.. A very interesting take on a mythical tale, this made me badly want to revisit The Iliad—in fact, I almost wished I'd read it first to refresh my memory, but this is by no means essential to fully appreciate The Song of Achilles. The audiobook narration by Frazer Douglas was excellent. Much recommended.

#207 Peter Sís has written and illustrated a number of books about topics which would be of interest to children. I'll be reviewing a couple of others in near future, including Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei and Tibet: Through the Red Box. I've also read and reviewed The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, which I strongly recommend.

Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

49. My Letter to the World and Other Poems by Emily Dickinson, Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault ★★★★★
(Read for 12/12 Challenge #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics )

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told —
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen —
Judge tenderly — of Me

I read this book in March, but forgot to review it and wanted to make sure I gave it it's due as I think others here would also greatly enjoy it. This slim volume presents seven of Emily Dickinson's greatest poems, accompanied by gorgeous and haunting illustrations. This was my introduction to Dickinson's poetry and had me hooked on her work immediately. I recommend this both to those who are new to Dickinson as well as to her fans who will no doubt appreciate the artistry with which Isabelle Arsenault has treated her subjects. I borrowed this book from the library and have been holding on to it for as long as I possibly can, but will be getting my own copy to keep for certain.


“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers — / That perches in the soul — /
And sings the tune without the words — / And never stops — at all —”


“And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — / And sore must be the storm — /
That could abash the little Bird / That kept so many warm —”

The Song of Achilles sounds fascinating - must go on the wishlist! It's been a while since I read the Iliad, but I was quite enamored with it when I did.

Love the illustrations for the Dickinson book!!

It's been well over 20 years since I read The Iliad, and I honestly can't remember what I thought of it the first time. May as well be another lifetime ago. But I do look forward to revisiting it in (hopefully near) future.

Wow, you've been busy Ilana - with reading and reviewing! Looks like most of us that read David Copperfield enjoyed our time with him. I am definitely adding The Song of Achilles to be wishlist, seen nothing buy rave reviews of this one.

Great reviews!

Thank you. More reviews should be on the way soon.

Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

50. ♫ Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman Stefan Zweig ★★★★½

This story within a story begins at a guesthouse on the French Riviera, where a scandal has just erupted: two of the guests, a seemingly respectable wife and mother and an attractive young stranger have fled together after speaking together for just a few hours. There is a raging debate among the guests about the morality of the situation. Should the woman be seen as a pariah, or were her motives of the heart pardonable? In this early 20th century setting, most of the guests believe the woman has committed an unspeakable act, but the narrator, a single man, doesn't think so. Mrs C, a respectable, white-haired English woman in her 60s, after a brief exchange with him, decides she must come clean about her past and proceeds to tell him a story from her younger days, when, within a 24-hour period she let her carefully constructed world of proper widowhood fall to pieces for stranger with a death wish. She had met the stranger in question at a casino, where she spent the evening observing the hands of the players and was taken in by his in particular—the most expressive she'd ever seen. Fascinated, she watches the stranger lose a huge sum of money, then, when he gives every sign that he has decided to do away with himself, she comes to his rescue and falls into a vortex of passion for which her life as a proper English lady had not prepared her: "Perhaps only those who are strangers to passion know such sudden outbursts of emotion in their few passionate moments ... whole years fall from one's own breast with the fury of powers left unused." But can one really expect true love and dedication from an addict? Another very short novel (around 100 pages) by Zweig filled to the brim with timeless human drama. Strongly recommended.






Category #10: Beyond Fiction

51. Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís ★★★★

Another beautiful book by Sís, this time profiling physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Galileo, who dared defy the long-held belief that the earth was the centre of the universe, and basing himself on observations through a telescope he had build and improved upon himself, proved that the earth actually orbited the sun. Filled with details about his life and times, from his birth in 1564 (the same year as Shakespeare's own birth and Michelangelo's death), with notes from his journals and his famous treatise from 1610, The Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius), the first scientific treatise to be published based on observations made through a telescope, until his final days, which he spent under house arrest following an church inquisition which found him "vehemently suspect of heresy". Fans of Sís will love this, and it's a good starting point for those not yet familiar with his work.






Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

52. The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓

When the enemy forces take over a small town in an unnamed country, the occupation happens so quickly that the locals are too shocked at first to react. The town is of great importance to the enemy, both for it's coal mine and it's coastal location. Colonel Lanser, the head of the invading army decides to establish his headquarters in the house of popular Mayor Orden, in hopes the inhabitants will believe the mayor is collaborating with them and decide to follow his example. But as the occupiers impose their harsh rules, first forcing the workers to continue mining coal for them, then executing a man following a mock trial, the inhabitants begin to form a resistance.

This short novel was reportedly written as a piece of propaganda during WWII to encourage members of the resistance all over Europe and give them a guide of sorts on how to organize themselves. It was illegally published in Nazi-occupied France by a French Resistance publishing house, and then translated into several other languages and widely read. Several readers have stated that Steinbeck distanced himself from his usual approach with this novel because of the obvious pro-resistance stance and the didactic approach he adopted, but I disagree with this point of view. When compared with the kind of propaganda used by the Nazis during the war, which told the audience what to think (and later influenced advertising as we know it), Steinbeck's was a very subtle approach. He created complex characters, at least on the side of the occupiers; Colonel Lanser has fought in the first war and doesn't believe in what he is doing, his subordinates think of their families and hobbies, miss their homes and wish to be liked by the locals; one nearly losing his mind because of the difficulty of their situation. Steinbeck doesn't go out of his way to make a case for the occupiers either, but then, rare is the fiction writer who has come in defence of war and tyranny. His storytelling skills are evident here, with the attention to detail which characterizes his work and makes it seem so real and honest. Had the author taken a more hard-hitting approach, this piece of fiction would not have retained literary merit seven decades later, nor would it be likely that I'd have enjoyed reading it as much as I did. Recommended.

Category #5: The Dark Side

53. ♫ Running Blind / The Visitor by Lee Child ★★★¾

In book 4 of the Jack Reacher series, a serial killer seems to target women who have formerly worked in the army and won cases for sexual abuse. Reacher is strong-armed by the FBI to help them find the killer, presumably because he fits psychological profiling, then because of his army connections, and just to make sure he plays along nicely, a direct threat is made concerning the well-being of his girlfriend Jodie. Finding the killer is no mean feat; there are no clues whatsoever left on the immaculate murder scenes, and nothing indicating the way in which the women have died. But there is of course a signature left behind: the women are all found nude in their own bathtubs, which are filled to the brim with army-issue green paint. Meanwhile, on the personal front, Reacher is finding home ownership too constraining and longs to hit the road again, while a gorgeous FBI agent assigned to escort him might prove too hot to resist. I'm not too keen on reading stories about serial killers, and it took me a while to steel myself for this one, but I needn't have. Once again, Child delivers pure entertainment that is almost impossible to put down.






Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Crime)

54. ♫ The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré ★★★⅓

I'm not sure how much I can reveal about the plot without spoiling it completely, so I'll play it safe. This is a pure spy mystery involving agent Leamas, fired by the Secret Service for failing to protect his agents properly and given only a minimal pension. He quickly falls into hard drinking and major debt, then lands himself in jail. The day he comes out of jail, he's approached by a stranger and is eventually taken to East Germany to deliver intelligence gathered in the years working for the British service. There is eventually a trial held by the communists during which it comes to light that everyone might be guilty of double and triple-crossing, and seen through the prism of totalitarianism and paranoia, all we've been told till then might be a complete fiction. I was expecting to enjoy this novel more than I did, especially considering the fact that I enjoyed the first two George Smiley novels quite a lot, but maybe I'm not such a big fan of spy novels after all? At one point it all got too confusing and convoluted for me to care much, but looking at the overall construction, it's a very good book and I can objectively say I can see why this is such a popular story and might appeal to such a large audience.

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Comedy)

55. ♫ The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark ★★½

Miss Jean Brodie is a schoolteacher at a private girl's school in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has unusual teaching methods, and believes that science, mathematics and other items on the curriculum should take a back seat to teaching about beauty and culture. During class, she is perfectly capable of telling her students to open their math books in case the headmistress drops by and proceed to tell them all about her recent trip to Italy—this is the 1930s and she is a fan of Mussolini's "Black Shirts”—and about her love life. The story is centred on "The Brodie Set", a group of six girls who've attended her classes in primary school and have kept in touch with Miss Brodie as they grew up, visiting her at home for tea our accompanying her to cultural outings. Each of the girls has a particular characteristic she is known for. For instance, when we are introduced to them, we find out that Jenny is famous for her beauty, Sandy is famous for her "small, almost nonexistent, eyes", Monica is famous for mathematics and her anger, and Rose is famous for Sex, and these descriptions are repeated throughout the novel to form a comic motif. The novel travels backward and forward in time, and we know early on that one of the girls eventually betrayed Miss Brodie—the school has been trying to get rid of her for a long time, and the headmistress has questioned each of Miss Brodie's former students repeatedly to try to find something to pin on her, though of course we only find out who delivered the damning information toward the end, by which time we've learned how most of the characters have fared into their adult lives and the extent of the influence Miss Brodie exerted on them.

I read this novel a couple of years ago and it was my first foray into Muriel Spark's writing. I can't say I liked it much back then. I could see there was humour here, but it failed to amuse me, and it probably didn't help that I didn't like Miss Brodie much—no doubt her fascist leanings didn't help much. I was disappointed, as was expecting to love this book based on much of what I'd read about it. I decided to revisit it this year, on audio format this time, and while the narrator Miriam Margolyes did a fine job and I got a kick out of hearing the Scottish pronunciations (I'd forgotten that Edinburgh is pronounced "Edinborough"), I didn't get much more out of it than I did the first time. I wouldn't want to discourage others from reading this book, because it's got lots going for it, but if I were to recommend good places to start with Spark's writing based on my personal preferences so far, I'd sooner recommend Memento Mori or Loitering with Intent, which I both found excellent and very funny.

Category #7: Young at Heart

56. ♫ Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper ★★★★

When we first meet Grace Parks, she is a fifteen-year-old girl living in 1861 London who is just about to deliver her first child out of wedlock. Grace is orphaned, and has had to look after her sister Lily since their mother passed away. They are both poor and living in the slums from hand to mouth, often going without food when they can't manage to sell enough watercress on the streets. Given she hasn't gotten enough money to feed and clothe herself and her sister, let alone a newborn baby, it is possibly an act of mercy when the midwife informs her that the baby was stillborn. Grace is of course devastated, and feeling sorry for her, the midwife tells her about a way in which her baby can find proper burial in a beautiful cemetery just outside London, instead of being thrown into a communal pauper's grave. While at the cemetery, Grace will meet two individuals who will play large roles in the Parks sisters' fortunes, in the persons of the kindly James Solent, a law clerk, and Mrs Unwin, the wife of one of London's most successful undertakers, who suggests to her she has the perfect face, solemn and tragic, to be employed as a mute, or a professional mourner, though Grace, quite put off, doesn't intend to take her up on the offer. Directly inspired by Dickens' tales—the great writer plays a small role in the novel—and therefore peopled with wonderfully wicked characters in the shape of the members of the Unwin clan, the novel follows the sisters as they are forced onto the London streets and have no choice but to turn to the villainous Unwins for sustenance, much as Grace dislikes the idea of making a living from the funeral industry. This line of business is about to get an incredible boost upon the death of Prince Consort Albert in December 1861, when Queen Victoria declares the nation to be in a state mourning. Probably written for a YA readership, but who cares? it's a great yarn and worth the detour.






Category #3: Picked for me - Picked by msf59

57. The Global Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger ★★★½

There is no question that Beresford-Kroeger, a botanist and medical biochemist who is an expert on the medicinal, environmental, and nutritional properties of trees set out with all the right intentions with this series of essays on the many reasons—both known and obscure—as to why trees are essential to the planet and to humanity. With essay titles ranging from "A Suit for Sustainability", "The Paranormal", "The Forest, the Fairy, and the Child", "Two-Tier Agriculture", "Medicinal Wood" and "Green Sex and the Affairs of the Heart" (yes, this one is about the sex life of trees), among many others, two things become clear: that this woman is passionate about trees and, while she makes scientific and climactic arguments that can't be argued with, her more spiritual leanings and esoteric ideas can't be an easy sale for the average reader. Which might explain why this book hasn't made any best-seller lists. It might have worked better were she a more gifted writer and better able to structure her ideas, but I found that from one essay to the other, some notions kept being repeated, while others were a bit too far-fetched for me, even though I have claimed in the past to be a Forest Fairy myself... I badly wanted to love this book, because I too passionately love trees (my name means "tree" in Hebrew, and I've often felt myself to be one too), and because this book was a gift from a beloved aunt who's opinions matter to me and who took the time to have the book signed by the author in my name. But really, it left me feeling quite dejected mostly, though I can't fault the author for that; it's just that, like most other appeals for conservancy and the preservation of nature and animal species, it just seems like such a lost cause sometimes, even though I support as many of the worthy causes as I can. But maybe that's just my own lack of optimism getting in the way.

Another good review for the moon is down, definitely going to read that this year

As for pessimism on environmental topics there is a whole movement called the dark mountain project who basically believe that we've done too little too late to avert "Ecocide"

As explained here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/29/environmentalism-dark-mountain...

#221 Thanks for the link to the article on The Dark Mountain Project. I haven't read their manifesto yet, but I do plan to to get a better sense of what they're about.

I grew up as a flower child in the 70s when everyone I knew, including my parents, was talking about ecology and the importance of being "green" (though we didn't call it that at the time), and it's just so sad to me that 30-40 years later, we've barely made any progress, or in any case, as you and the Dark Mountain members say, it's just "too little too late". Still, I continue recycling and signing petitions, donating here and there to worthy conservation cause, though I don't kid myself that I do these things mostly to assuage my conscience because there's always the cynic in me that knows my contribution makes barely a ripple. But still... once a tree hugger, always a tree hugger in some sense, I guess...

Category #11: Litérature Française (read in French)

58. L'élégance du hérisson / The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery ★★★⅓

7 Rue de Grenelle is one of the better addresses in Paris. In this elegant building, there are eight luxury apartments inhabited by families of the upper class bourgeoisie, a concierge called Renée, and a very unhappy twelve-year-old tenant called Paloma. The novel is told via the alternating voices of Renée and Paloma who both keep journals and contrary to outward appearances actually have quite a lot in common. Paloma is very sensitive, has to make efforts not to score the highest marks in class, passionate about Japanese culture, and feels completely alienated from her politician father, her neurotic pill-popping mother and self-involved older sister, which she considers to be insufferable snobs. When we first meet her, she has already formed a plan to journal her pensées profondes (deep thoughts) until comes the time to kill herself on the day of her thirteenth birthday. She intends to leave chaos and destruction behind, because she has also resolved to burn down the family apartment before doing away with herself. Renée on the other hand quite happy with the state of her life, which she has neatly split into two distinct parts for the past 27 years. She presents an outer persona of the stereotyped concierge by maintaining a frumpy appearance, pretending to watch tv all day and being none too clever, while her secret self is a bright autodidact, a passionate consumer of literature, philosophy, foreign movies and gourmet foods, with high grammatical standards. Renée is a widow and has had little to no friends in her life, but has a standing date with Manuela, a cleaning lady who works in the building with whom she has formed a true bond over a regular ritual of tea and pastries. What will eventually bring Paloma and Renée together is the arrival of a new and fascinating tenant who takes a liking to both Paloma's and Renées unaffected ways.

The first thing that struck me about this novel is how very French it is, and I wondered whether the references to Parisian prototypical personalities translated well into other languages and cultures. The character of Renée was an interesting one, very profound and saddled with a difficult past, coming as she did from a dirt-poor family where the parents barely knew their own children by name. I enjoyed the way she recounted her play-acting as the dumb concierge when dealing with the tenants, which greatly contrasted with her great intellect, but grew a little bit annoyed with Barbery's insistence that the reader should be greatly surprised to discover a concierge with so much culture. But then again, the French are very class-conscious and very attached to their ideas of what a person's role and aptitudes should be, and none more so than the wealthy who insist on maintaining a clear divide.

Next, I was quite daunted with just how intense the novel was. Between Renée's philosophic ruminations, which granted, are served up along with plenty of amusing incidents about her dealings with the tenants, and Paloma's angst-ridden observations on her admittedly amusingly flawed family members, the novel, which from the outset sounded like it had an amusing premise demanded the reader's full attention and intellect. Thankfully, things did lighten up quite a bit, at least temporarily with the arrival of the new tenant, Mr Kakuro Ozu, which was a great and much needed relief. I couldn't help but think that Barbery felt like she had a lot to prove and was compelled to demonstrate the extent of her culture and understanding of human nature, perhaps because something about this novel seemed a little bit forced, especially when one considers the ending she opted for, which I'm still trying to make my mind up about. Had she written herself into a corner and decided there was only one way to conclude, or rather, was she trying to demonstrate how vital it is that we pay attention to life's every minute detail? I don't know, but the impression I'm left with is that it was a bit of a cop-out.

Did I like this novel? I honestly can't quite say. I was hoping that I'd be able to figure it out by writing this review, but I'm still undecided. I can honestly say that I'm glad that I read it, because it presented interesting characters and interactions, though perhaps this wasn't the optimal timing for me to read an existentialist treaty on life and death, half of which is seen through the eyes of a brooding adolescent, having been there, done that; it wasn't much fun this time around either.

@222 - I did my degree in Environmental science and have always been interested in the natural world and it is sad that basically nothing much has changed in the last 20-30 years despite everyone being much more aware of the issues

#224 Much agreed. It's hard not to feel pessimistic given the state of things, though I still take consolation in doing my bit and making responsible choices whenever possible—it may not make a big difference in the end, though I'd rather be part of the solution than part of the problem...

Category #6: Going Places - International authors & places

59. ♫ The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark ★★★
(Also read for Muriel Spark Reading Week 23-29 April)

Newly arrived to Peckham (London) from Scottland, Dougal Douglas (aka Douglas Dougal) is hired by nylon textiles manufacturer Meadows, Meade & Grindley, where his made-to measure position is meant to bridge the gap between industry and the arts. During his stay in Peckham, Dougal carries out "human research" on the "moral character" of the people of the area. As well as working for Meadows, Meade & Grindley, he also works for their rivals, the more prosperous Drover Willis's textile manufacturers (under the pseudonym Douglas Dougal), as well as working as a ghost writer for a retired actress and singer. Only Nelly Mahone recognises Dougal for the manipulative "double-tongued" rogue he is, but no one listens to her as everyone views her as a drunken Irish vagrant. There is speculation as to him possibly being an incarnation of the Devil, but what is certain is that DD wreaks utter havoc in the lives of his co-workers and the residents of Peckham, the least of which is influencing Humphrey Place to dump his bride-to-be Dixie Morse at the altar, as we learn from the very beginning of the story.

The above is mostly summarized from wikipedia, because to be very honest, I was quite confused through this short novel. The only thing that was clear to me was that Douglas Dougal was one very strange fellow, at times amusing, at times maddening, and utterly unknowable. His "fatal flaw", as he likes to repeat, is that he can't stand illness in any form, which makes for some funny exchanges with the woman he thinks of as his girlfriend, whom he's let down through a difficult illness (she eventually announces to him she's marrying someone else). This flaw is fairly ironic as he himself has a deformation, with one shoulder being noticeably higher than the other. I've become a Muriel Spark fan in this past year, but can't say this was my favourite work by her so far. I wouldn't recommend someone new to Spark start with this one, but fans will probably enjoy her strange humour and it's probably the kind of book which becomes more enjoyable on a second reading.

Category #12: From My Treasure-Trove

60. Queenpin by Megan Abbott ★★★½
(Also read for May Murder & Mayhem)

I picked up this Edgar and Barry Award winner mostly for it’s irresistible cover a while back, fully expecting an homage to 50s and 60s pure pulp fiction and was not disappointed in that sense. Our narrator is a young woman who, putting herself through secretarial or accounting school, had taken a job at a small-time bar, juggling with the books for small-time pay. Things change drastically for our young heroine when Gloria Denton walks into the picture. She's a glamorous older dame with a figure to kill for, and a mean reputation as someone not to be messed with. Denton takes on our girl as her protégée and grooms her in her image to help her collect the earnings from various casinos, racing tracks and betting parlours. Gloria's only warning is not to fall for the wrong guy, which is of course what our heroine does promptly—falls in utter and complete lust for a complete loser: a gambling addict with major debt and the wrong sort of men breathing down his collar. Though she doesn't kiss and tell, we're given to understand that this guy has a complete hold on her budding sexuality. Of course things are bound to go very wrong with at least one person marked for a vicious murder. While this little novel delivered the goods and gave an unusual look at the underworld from a woman's perspective, I felt like I may as well have spent my time on one of the original masters of hardboiled crime, since I've yet to discover all the classics. For those who have, this is a good way to get a fix of noir.

Category #8: Hot Off the Press

61. ♫ The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye ★★★★
(Also read for May Murder & Mayhem)

This historical fiction novel is set in New York city in the mid-1840s, when a huge wave of Irish immigrants arrived following the Potato Famine. It describes how the New York police force was created in 1845, and is told from the point of view of a young man, Tim Wilde, who was more or less forced against his will into becoming a policeman following tragic circumstances. Having lost his parents in a fire which consumed the family home, Tim's only remaining family is his troubled older brother Val (for Valentine), who lives a life of complete debauchery but who's political connections guaranteed him a post as a Captain of the "copper stars". For his part, Tim gets stuck on the beat of Ward 6, which is described as one of the most wretchedly poor neighbourhoods of the city. Tim is embittered about the state of his life and hates his new job, but one night things take a dramatic turn when he discovers a little girl no older than six wandering in a nightgown drenched in blood. Shortly after, the mutilated body of another child is discovered, and Tim begins to make connections which will lead him to search for what may be the city's first serial killer.

This was a great story very well told which definitely pulled me in. I'm not sure if I was more shocked by some of the gruesome scenes involving children or by the treatment the Irish immigrants suffered—evidenced not only by elements of the story, but also by texts quoted from documents published at the time. It certainly made for a fascinating read. I wasn't entirely convinced with the ending at first, but now that I've taken some distance from it, find it was very well woven into the story after all. Best of all, I got the distinct impression there would be a sequel, which I'll no doubt pounce on as soon as it's released.

Category #5: The Dark Side

62. ♫ The Crazy Kill by Chester Himes ★★★★
(Also read for May Murder & Mayhem)

How to describe this nutty plot? During a wake in the small hours of the morning, a preacher falls out the window from the third floor apartment and miraculously falls into a basket filled with bread sitting on the sidewalk, a shipment bound for the convenience store it sits in front of. The preacher makes his way back up to the apartment where the drunken guests are surprised to see him appear at the front door and refuse to believe his story. He invites them to see the bread basket for themselves, but when they all crowd at the window, they find another man laying in the bread, stabbed dead. A police investigation follows, during which all the attendants of the wake are questioned in turn. Of course, all the guests are connected to one another in some way, most of them have secrets to hide which are revealed in due course, but which one killed Val? Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are out to find out.

Another fun romp into the 60s Harlem of Chester Himes, where gambling, booze, women, and strange characters are mingled in unique ways. Plenty of violence, but plenty of humour too make this a most intriguing crime series. I couldn't expect this book to be as good as the first in the series, A Rage in Harlem, but it held it's own and definitely made me want to discover the next instalment of the Harlem Cycle.

Category #3: Picked for me - chosen from my shelves at random by LTers (picked by DeltaQueen50)

63. ✔ The Glass Room by Simon Mawer ★★★★⅓

A gorgeous and elegantly told story about a Czech couple, Viktor and Liesl Landauer who meet an architect while they are honeymooning in Venice and ask him to design a house for them. Viktor, a Jewish man, is the head of Landauer motors, and as such very wealthy, and at the end of the 1920s, he has distinct ideas about what his house should be like: the opposite of the decorative classical style of previous generations; Czechoslovakia is a new country with what is believed to be a bright future, and he wants a house which exemplifies a new way of living. The architect is more interested in creating a space, or a work of art for people to live in than anything resembling a traditional home, and so the Landauer house is built, and as it's pièce de résistance is a living room contained within walls of glass with a huge slab of onyx used to separate the space; a tremendously costly and self-indulgent design element which they nonetheless can afford. The house causes much debate among those who believe it to be a triumph of minimalist design and those who claim it to be more suited to industry than to family living. The Landauer mansion, is based on a real house: the Villa Tugendhat, designed in the late 1920s by Mies van der Rohe and it is immediately clear that it is the main character of the novel, through which we get an intimate glimpse into the Landauer marriage, with both Viktor and Liesl claiming to be absolutely transparent and true to one another, much like the Glass Room itself, though of course both have their secret loves and betrayals. They enjoy ten years in their unique home which is the centre of much attention, with frequent elegant parties to which celebrated musicians are invited to perform on the grand piano. As Hitler's Germany comes to power, Viktor is at first unwilling to accept that things are as bad as they seem for the Jews, but the family nonetheless escapes just in time to avoid deportation to the camps, leaving their beloved Landauer House behind as well as a big piece of Viktor's life and heart. But through the war, then the Russian occupation, then the creation of a communist state, the house is occupied by various tenants. They are in turn visited by Liesl's best friend, Hana Hanakova, who has remained behind and kept an attachment to the home of the woman she once declared her love to.

This is a beautiful novel, filled with a deep sense of melancholy, and unfulfilled dreams. The house as a central character, occupied during WWII and communism, was very reminiscent of Jenny Erpenbeck's Visitation, though the novels are very different in the stories they tell and the fates of the buildings themselves. While Erpenbeck's house slowly falls to ruins, the Landauer mansion eventually becomes a museum, preserved for all time. I loved this novel and was particularly taken with the story of the house itself, the Landauer family and Hana, and the complex relationships they form. I felt however that I was reading quite a different novel when the house becomes used as a gymnasium in communist times and was sorry to be taken away from the Landauers, though this is very much a personal preference, and takes nothing away from what I consider to be a fantastic piece of literature which is well worth taking the time to savour. 2009 was a strong year for the Booker Prize, and this novel definitely deserved it's place among the other selections on the shortlist.

More Chester Himes love. Yeay. His non Harlam books are worth checking out, different though much more angry and raw.

Must check out Queenpin too, I love noir.

#231 Chester Himes was a good find for me this year. Megan Abbott is good fun too, I may pick up something else by her eventually.

Love your review of The Glass Room Ilana. Definitely my kind of story and one I had never heard of before now.

Yes, Queenpin sounds good - & great review of The Moon is Down. When we get to Steinbeck September, hopefully I'll get a chance to read it.

#233 Hi Lori! We've been talking about Simon Mawer quite a bit over on the 75ers group lately, specifically because he's just come out with a new book called Trapeze in the US, though the original title is The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. Seems it's very good as well and I'll certainly be picking it up in future. Will have to make time to catch up with the reading you've been doing too... there's always so much I enjoy in your reading choices. I've been having a really hard time keeping up with everyone this year...

#234 We decided to dedicate the whole year to Steinbeck over at the 75ers group, figuring there was more likelihood that we'd get through a greater number of his books that way. It would probably have taken me years to read The Mood is Down otherwise because somehow I had in mind it would be an altogether different book and wasn't tempted by it at all! Love it when there are great surprises like that!

Ah, that makes sense. I've seen a lot of Steinbeck reviews, and he certainly wrote enough good books to keep you going all year. I meant to join the 75ers this year. Don't know why I didn't? Although one challenge group seems enough to fill my time. It just seems that there are a lot of good group reads and discussions over there.

>235 Smiler69: and 236 I wish I had the attention span to read that many books by the same author in a year. I can't even read a series straight through. Often takes me years.

@237 OMG, I almost never finish a series. I avoid trilogies because of the major time commitment. For someone who is an absolutely exceptional author, like Steinbeck, I can read more than three books. Someone who is just really really good... well, maybe two books.

#236 This is my third year being part of the 75ers and it's a big part of my daily life. One could say that group is almost too much of a good thing... lots of members who are as passionate about communicating with each other as they are about reading, which makes for plenty of activity of all sorts. Keeping up is the biggest challenge most of us face though!

#237 I can't read a series straight through either, so I know what you mean. But this is the second year in a row I've joined in to focus on an author. Last year was Jane Austen, and I read 4 of her novels for the first time ever, and if it hadn't been for the Austenathon, goodness knows how long it would have taken me to get to her.

#238 I only started with series since I joined groups here on LT and got tonnes of recommendations. I don't feel a commitment to finish them. I just keep reading as long as they keep my interest. Haven't finished any yet, but there are quite a few I'm glad I discovered.

75ers next year for me for sure. :)

#240 Katie, you can expect to receive a warm welcome and also to have a wishlist bursting at the seams in no time at all... and never enough time to spend on LT to keep up with our chatty bunch!

Hi Ilana, just dropping by to catch up and say hi. I think I'm heading for the 75ers next year as well, 13 categories is starting to seem a bit daunting!

#242 Alana, I guess if one wants to do equal number of books and categories, then the numbers do become scary. 169 books is looking like quite a lot indeed! Personally, I don't mind having a lot more categories, but I did find that I haven't been able to keep up with anyone in this group so far this year, which is a real shame.

Just stopping by for my post-holiday catch-up! :) I have both The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on the to-read list. I know that Le Carré can get a bit convoluted, so that's kept me away, but I do want to read it soon. I picked up a copy of the movie for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when I was in Sweden, so I may cheat and watch that instead first. The Gods of Gotham is going on the wishlist - sounds like a great read. And I love the cover of Queenpin!!! :)

Hi Eva, what a lovely surprise! Your message reminded me to look up the movie version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the library, and lucky me, it's available! I didn't know Maggie Smith was in it and I really like her a lot, so it should be quite a treat.

I don't know if I've said this before, but I think the main reason I purchased Queenpin was for the cover. I don't usually hold on to books unless I think they're brilliant and worth a re-read, but this one I'm keeping just for the looks!

Welcome back!

I haven't seen it yet, but she got an Oscar for it, so she can't be bad (not that she ever is!). :)

Ilana, you are in for a treat. The movie version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is wonderful. I'll be curious to hear how close to the book it is.

#246 Oh my, I did not know she won an Oscar for that performance.

...

Wow, I just went on wikipedia to see how many Oscar nominations Maggie Smith had gotten and discovered she has a whole separate wiki page just to list all the awards and nominations she's received! How awesome is that?!

#247 Yes, I've reserved it now and will try to watch asap while the book is still fresh in my mind from my recent re-reading (listening, this time actually). It won't be hard to like the movie more than the book since I wasn't a great fan either time I read it...

Yikes! I just realized I posted a whole bunch of reviews on my 75ers thread this month and completely forgot to post the ones that go toward this challenge here! So a bit of a flurry coming up...



Category #11: Litérature Française - contemporary & classic French lit (read in French)

64. ♫ Le mystère de la chambre jaune / The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux ★★★

A woman, the daughter of a famous French professor, utters a chilling scream. She is locked into her bedroom, and by the time the door is broken down, she is found unconscious, almost dead, with a terrible head wound. But who could have been her attacker? He could have had no means of entering or exiting the room unseen, and the only clues he's left behind are his victim and a bloody handprint on the wall. The young reporter Joseph Rouletabille makes his way to the scene of the crime with the firm intention of solving the mystery. Slow and plodding step by slow and plodding step.

This book is famous as having been is one of the first locked room mystery crime fiction novels, published in France in 1907. Agatha Christie was reportedly an admirer of the novel and early on in her writing career said she'd like to write something taking a similar approach. I was certainly intrigued at the beginning and found the various elements of the story intriguing, such as the place of the crime: a French château, and the main protagonists: a woman well passed her prime, working as a scientist and soon to be married; her suspected fiancé; Rouletabille, the 18-year-old journalist. I guess I don't have the makings of a locked room mystery fan, because I got bored with all the minute details of the story and found the ending anticlimactic at best.






Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

65. ♫ Stettin Station by David Downing ★★★★½

The third book in the John Russell WWII series takes place in 1941. The Nazis have started shipping trainloads of Jews to unknown parts, though Russell suspects it can't be anywhere good. Hitler's troops are fighting in Russia, but the best information he and the other foreign reporters can get is that the Germans are only willing to concede one victory after another. John's actress girlfriend Effi keeps being offered parts in movies with blatant propagandist scenarios and the latest script would have her interpreting the role of a deviant Jewish woman who cheats on her Nazi husband, but can she refuse it without offending Goebbels and getting in trouble? Finally, after one of his spying missions goes horribly wrong, John is forced to escape Berlin, and Effi surprises him with her foresight and resourcefulness, but will they managed to leave together unscathed?

This was by far the most thrilling book in the series so far, and Downing plunges us into an entirely believable recreation of WWII Berlin, where the small pleasures of life can still be found even as the horrors of the war keep piling up. I mostly feel frustrated that I've let too much time go by since I finished listening to the audiobook, because the details have faded from memory and no wikipedia page means no memory aid, so I see I can't come close to doing justice to this great addition to an excellent series. Just start with Zoo Station and make your way to this one and I'm sure you'll be glad you did.






Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

66. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan ★★★⅓

I read this book to coincide with the reading of The Grapes of Wrath over at the Steinbeckathon, since I'd read that great novel just last year. While the former tells the tale of the fictional Joads, who were forced to leave behind their farmland and try to find greener pastures in California, The Worst Hard Time tells the real-life stories of families who stayed put in what came to be known as the "Dust Bowl" in the American High Plains between Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado, where irresponsible farming practices led to severe land erosion which led to unrelenting dust storms. While I found the history of the plains and what led to the storms, the politics involved in creating them and then trying to relieve the farmers who were hit hardest by the Great Depression quite fascinating, I found the descriptions of the dust storms based on several eye-witness accounts became repetitive and boring. Once I'd heard about dust entering through every crack and causing all manner of evil, I'd had enough and didn't need countless examples, so I guess that doesn't make me much of a fan of catastrophe stories. All the same a good read which I'm sure will appeal to many.

Category #7: Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy

67. ♫ The Maze Runner by James Dashner ★★⅞

Young Thomas wakes up with no memory whatsoever of his former life in a strange world populated by boys. They are protected inside an enclave, where they farm and attend to their daily needs, but outside the walls, which open at dawn and close with dusk, is a great maze filled with danger and gruesome beasts which are half machine and half living creatures. A band of boys called The Runners have the dangerous mission to explore the giant maze and try to find exit points. But the maze changes every day and after several years and the monthly arrival of a new boy, nobody has found a solution to set them free, and they still have no idea what they're doing there. Thomas is convinced he must join the runners as he thinks he'll find the clues they need; one of the boys swears he's seen Thomas before; is it possible he's already been here before his memory was erased? The premise was exciting and there were great elements to the story, but it seemed stretched quite thin and some of the writing was so bad I kept wincing. This is the first book in a series which I know has already made quite a few fans, but unfortunately I can't be said to be one of them.






Category #2: Tea with Georgie, Vickie & Eddie - 18th & 19th Century Classics

68. ♫ Persuasion by Jane Austen ★★★★

At the head of the Elliot family is the baronet Sir Walter, a widower and a vain man who lives beyond his means and makes up his mind about people solely based on their appearance and station in life. His eldest and his youngest daughters take after him, to great comical effect, but Anne Elliot, his middle daughter, is quite different. She's a great reader of poetry and has never forgotten her first romantic attachment to Captain Frederick Wentworth, a romance which took place eight years before the story begins. But like all well bred young ladies of her day, she let herself be persuaded by a close friend of the family, Lady Russell, to break off the engagement because of Wentworth's apparent lack of fortune and prospects. But Wentworth is back, now having acquired great wealth and looking for a wife, and anyone will do, as long as she is fond of the navy. Anyone that is, but Anne. This, the last novel Austen wrote as she was dying, is a story imbued with a sense of loss, missed opportunities and regret, but of course in the end, love must conquer all and hope wins the day. I can't say now how much or how little I would have enjoyed this novel if I hadn't read it with the help of Liz, my devoted tutor, who patiently explained to me all the subtleties of the story and various conventions of the time which helped me to appreciate it as only dedicated Jane Austen fan could. Thoroughly enjoyable. The audio version by the ever-perfect Juliet Stevenson was quite a treat too.






69. A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor ★★½

Category #1: The First Half 1901-1951

I've been hearing a lot about Elizabeth Taylor this year and have read many glowing reviews about her other books, so couldn't wait to plunge into this one to see what the fuss was about. Unfortunately, I was quickly disappointed by this story about Harriet and Vesey, who've known each other since they were children and playmates and have never forgotten their first, painfully awkward embrace. Vesey has always been slightly cruel to Harriet, but she has been unaccountably infatuated with him from the first. Still, his university studies take him away from her, and life must go on. Year later, Harriet is now married to a much older man who venerates her. Together they have a teenage daughter, and they all live a comfortable life in a prettily decorated suburban home. But Harriet still can't stop thinking of Vesey, Vesey who became an actor hoping for fame and glory, but has only managed to find small parts in mediocre theatre productions and lives hand to mouth in dismal and shabby flats. When Vesey comes to town on tour, Harriet can't resist getting together with him and their pathetic romance picks up where they've left off. Her daughter has also formed a strange attachment to Vesey and surreptitiously reads all their communications, and her husband suspects her frequent outings aren't as innocent as she claims, but like a moth to a flame, Harriet can't stay away from her lover. I found the story sad and pathetic and couldn't bring myself to care for any of the characters, least of all for this deplorable pair. I was tempted to give up from the very first pages, but soldiered on, only because of all the wonderful things I'd seen written about Taylor's great talent. While it's true she writes beautifully and creates credible characters, forcing myself to finish this book was a slow and agonizing process and the best part was getting to the last page, albeit the ending was bleak and left me mostly perplexed. Still, I haven't given up hope and look forward to reading more of her work, perhaps encouraged by the fact that even one of Taylor's greatest fans allowed that she couldn't find it in her to finish this book... a sure sign that this author was capable of writing much more captivating fare.

I felt the same way about Maze Runner...and for some reason, I just kept reading the series. It didn't get any better. It was a waste of my time. I usually have a really good memory, but these books were so scattered that I hardly remember the plot. It was just action, action, action with very little plot development. Ok I'll stop whining now.

Rachel, I'm glad you've said that, because I picked up this book based on a few recommendations and felt badly about not liking it more. I'm just wondering why you read the whole series if you weren't so much into the first book?

Well, I read the second book because I thought maybe it got better rather than worse. It didn't--it got worse. Then, my friend read the third book and said "You really SHOULD read the third book, then you'll understand what's going on!" So I gritted my teeth and read the third one in hopes that my friend was right. He wasn't. Which is funny, because he hated the first two, too! There's a prequel coming out, I think. I am not going to read that, no matter what anyone says!

I am not going to read that, no matter what anyone says!

:-)

It's rare I continue a series when I'm not taken with the first book, but it's true that some series get better with each book. Too bad it wasn't the case with this one, but they can't all be winners I guess!

I have a hard time stopping once I've started. But I'm getting better at it. :) The first book had that cliff-hanger ending that suggested that things might start making sense soon...it was a lie-by-implication. :)

In my case, there are so many books on my tbr and wishlist that I can't wait to get to, that it's almost a relief when I start on a series and find I'm not into it. It seems to free me up for the stuff I really want to get to!

Lots of great reads over here! I have Zoo Station on the wishlist and have heard lots of good words about the series.

What a shame about Maze Runner, but a huge LOL at Rachel's unrelenting optimism about the series. I've done that as well - kept my hopes up for a series I knew wasn't going to recover. :)

>257 -Eva-: Glad to know I'm not the only one. :)

I stopped the series after The Maze Runner. Glad to hear I haven't missed out on anything good.

#257 Hi Eva! So far, the David Downing series has gotten nothing but praise over at the 75ers. It's really smart and quite gripping too. I say jump right in!

#259 Yes, it made me happy when a couple people confirmed I wasn't missing much either, and now there are yet more LTers who didn't love it. One less series to follow!

Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

70. ♫ The Suspect by Michael Robotham ★★★★
(Also read for TIOLI #8: title has equal or more letters from the second half of the alphabet than from the first half)

When an unknown woman is found brutally murdered, the police call in psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin, who has a gift for figuring people out based on non-verbal cues in hopes he can help them figure out who the victims was. O'Loughlin is a very talented man with a roster of interesting clients, one of which is particularly disturbed and disturbing. But he also has secrets of his own to hide, and quickly goes from being a collaborator to becoming the prime suspect in the case, and DI Vincent Ruiz isn't willing to give him any breaks. Someone is trying to frame the doctor and he knows exactly who it is, but he'll have to put his own life at risk to prove the killer is at large if he has any hope of putting his life back together. I thought this was a great thriller and took an instant liking to the psychologist, as the principal character and narrator of the story, so immediately followed up with the next book in the series.






Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

71. ♫ Lost by Michael Robotham ★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI #8: title has equal or more letters from the second half of the alphabet than from the first half)

I was looking forward to following psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin again as he cracks another case, this time involving none other that DI Vincent Ruiz, his sworn enemy in the first book, who has been fished out of the Thames with a grave leg shot wound and a missing finger, but no memory whatsoever of the events that got him in that situation. But I was sorely disappointed that the narration this time had been handed over to Ruiz, with O'Loughlin only playing a secondary role. The story that emerges is a good one and held my attention all along: a little girl has gone missing without a trace while making her way from the fifth floor of her apartment building to the ground floor. There are mean gangsters, and huge cache of diamonds thrown in the mix which also held my interest, but I could have done without the pedophile who is suspected of having killed the girl—a story element I thoroughly dislike in any book, no matter how well put together. I still may continue with this series, if only to see where Robotham takes it next, now that he's gotten the pedophile out of his system.

Category #6: Going Places - International authors & places

72. ♫ Katherine by Anya Seton ★★★★¼
(Also read for TIOLI #14: Read a One Word Titled Book by a Female Author)

The Katherine of the title is Katherine Swynford (1350-1403), an important figure in English history as she is the ancestress of many royal figures, and also, incidentally, sister-in-law to Geoffrey Chaucer, who married her sister Philippa. There are few known facts about what kind of woman Katherine was, which gave Seton plenty of leeway to turn her into a beautiful, strong-willed woman. Married off at a young age to a knight she actively disliked, she nonetheless caught the eye of John of Gaunt, of the House of Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Lancaster, the third son of King Edward III. They were lovers over a great number of years and had 4 bastard children, named Beaufort, and eventually married in 1396, three years before the passing of the duke. While their relationship is at the heart of the novel, it is much more than a romance novel, as Seton does a wonderful job of bringing the 14th century vividly to life with rich detail, and putting the story firmly in the context of important historical events. Strongly recommended for fans of historical fiction. I listened to the audio version which is very well narrated by Wanda McCaddon, aka Nadia May.






Category #6: Going Places - International authors & places

73. ♫ Restless by William Boyd ★★★★⅓
(Also read for TIOLI #8: a title that has equal or more letters from the second half of the alphabet than from the first half)

It's 1976, and Ruth is about to discover that the woman she has always known as Sally Gilmartin, an ordinary British housewife and mother, actually started out her life as Eva Delectorskaya, Russian-born and eventually recruited by the British secret service just before the start of WWII. Ruth, who teaches English to foreign students and is a single mother to a little boy, has no idea why her own mother, who has been acting strangely lately, has suddenly decided to share all the secrets of her training and missions during the war in detailed manuscripts. The story alternates between the "present" of 1976 and Eva Delectorskaya's fascinating story. I listened to the audio version which included an interview with the author, who said that he made up all the details of how he imagined the secret service would operate. It hardly matters whether Boyd based himself on facts or not, because he obviously has a very active imagination, and the story he weaves together holds the reader in fascination from beginning to end.

Category #6: Going Places - International authors & places

74. The Observations by Jane Harris ★★★★⅓
(Read for Challenge #13: Read a Book with an Amusing Tag on LT - "saucy wench")

I had reason to leave Glagow, this would have been about three four years ago, and I had been on the Great Road about five hours when I seen a track to the left and a sign said 'Castle Haivers'. Now there's a coincidence I thought to myself, because here I was on my way across Scratchland to have a look at the Edingurgh castle and perhaps get a job there and who knows marry a young nobleman or prince. I was only 15 with a head full of sugar and I had a notion to work in a grand establishment.
Not only that but this lad from the Highlands had fell into step with me the past hour, he would have been about my age and he had been to get a tooth pulled. He kept dragging his lip down to show me the hole. I was sick of this boy and his grin and his questions, fair are you going? fair do you live? fwot is your name? fwould you like to lie down with me? — all this. I had told him a whole clatter of lies hoping he would go away but he was stuck to me like horse dung on a road sweepers shoe."

So begins Bessy Buckley's account of events that transpired at Castle Haivers. Impressed by the name, she expects to find a great estate, but is met instead with a run down home and the owner's wife chasing down a pig. The beautiful Arabella Reid just so happens to be looking for a maid, and Bessy is quick to assure her she's had plenty of experience, a fiction which is quickly dispelled, but Arabella Reids's greatest concern is whether Bessy is able to read and write, and when our heroine demonstrates her abilities to Arabella's satisfaction, she is taken on as hired help. When she asks for permission to read, her mistress agrees and hands her a book: "it was called Bleak House, I hoped it wasn't an omen", says our girl. By Bessy's own admission, she is a terrible maid, and knows not the first thing about housekeeping, but this doesn't seem to concern her employer. Mrs Reid's main interest is in reading her new maid's daily entries in a journal she has instructed her to keep, encouraging her to describe her days in great detail and relate all her feelings and impressions. Then there are strange tasks to perform and tests to submit to, such as sitting and standing repeatedly on her mistresses command and being subjected to having detailed measurements taken of her body and facial features. Both mistress and maid have plenty to hide, and when Bessy discover's Arabella's secret she is deeply hurt by it, which sets her on a course of action which will eventually lead to a complete mental breakdown and the intervention of a doctor intent on using the latest techniques and drugs available in these Victorian times, to restore his hysterical patient to health. Bessy is a highly amusing narrator, who uses colourful language and imagery and doesn't shrink from disclosing to us the details of a sordid past which helps to explains the strange attachment she has formed for her employer. My conclusion: Jane Harris's debut makes for a riveting read.

Nice tag! :) How are the locale descriptions? Or are they not integral to the story?

Oh yes, plenty of local description! It's a wonderful novel, just read it Eva! (or at least put it on your wishlist!)

Cool - on the wishlist it goes!

Yay! Another convert! I've got Gillespie and I waiting in the wings and can't wait to get to it...

Category #4: Guardian Knows Best - Guardian 1000 (Crime)

75. ♫ Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck ★★★★⅓
(Read for Steinbeckathon, TIOLI Challenge #1: third title word has exactly 3 letters)

My third reading of this jewel of literature revealed to me an entirely new story. On previous readings, I had focused on the main characters of Lennie, the slow-witted gentle giant who's strength is his downfall, and George, his sharp, faithful friend and companion. Previously, my interest was completely taken up with the story and the progression of events; Lennie and George making their way to a new farm for employment after having experiencing trouble in their previous gig and the tragedy that unfolds blow by blow from the moment they arrive to the new place till the very sad, dramatic ending. But this time I was more interested in the various elements that made up this timeless tale; how each of the characters play a vital role in a tight construction that leaves no room for irrelevant anecdotes, yet allows each individual to be fleshed out with dreams, motivations, histories and personalities. How even the saddest and ugliest of events were told with such empathy as to give them poignant beauty. The themes of loneliness, the need for connection and belonging, for being useful and needed, the cycles of birth and death, violent impulses alongside loving mercy, all revealed themselves with such potency that I felt almost like a voyeur, seeing far too much of the human condition, which Steinbeck reveals to us in a compact tale that seems to take up a much greater space than the few pages it occupies. But all that pain made it almost an unbearable read this time. Beautiful and sad. True, and impossibly tragic.






Category #5: The Dark Side - Crime & Mystery

76. ♫ The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes ★★★½

A big white man is murdered in cold blood in the streets of Harlem in front of countless bystanders. But who is the killer? The drunken crazed man who's chased him from a bar, or a member the Real Cool Muslims, a gang of kids dressed up as arab sheikhs? Why was he killed? Out of anger, just for kicks, or did he have it coming? Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed are on hand to apprehend the culprits, but one of the kids is killed when Grave Digger thinks one of the Real Cool Muslims is throwing acid into his already burned face, a prank gone very wrong: it was only perfume. Then his young daughter turns out to be embroiled in this mess, ensuring that the Harlem detective duo will do what needs to be done to save her and resolve what turns out to be a truly sordid case. This third instalment of the Harlem Cycle was entertaining, but I felt, not as strong as the two previous books I'd read from the series. However, I know that there are more great reads further ahead, so I'll carry on and go wherever Chester Himes takes me; the journey is sure to be filled with unique individuals and surprises.






Category #7: Young at Heart - Children/YA/Fantasy

77. ♫ Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card ★★★★⅓

Ender Wiggin is incredibly smart and resourceful. In fact, he might have what it takes to save humanity. The Buggers have attacked earth twice in an attempt to colonize our planet. Now the ultimate combat is at hand, and the only hope of winning is to have the right commander lead this war. Ender is six years old when he's recruited for training in battle school, and he and all the other children showing promise are trained by playing elaborate battle games that require more brains than brawn. Those in power have decided that Ender can become the ultimate commander if he's manipulated correctly. But Ender isn't just smart, he's also highly sensitive, and he's far from sure that he wants to take responsibility for maiming and killing his enemies; that would make him too much like his older brother Peter, his tormentor with sociopathic tendencies. This is a game with high stakes in more ways than one, and there's no knowing how Ender will play it next.

I'm no science fiction aficionado, but I'd say Ender's Game's got everything one might want from that genre. There's plenty of action, there's futuristic technology and space travel, and it's also a very smartly constructed story that even delves into existentialism, while delivering a great kicker in the end which makes you want to reach for the next in series immediately. I showed restraint, but just, and only because I have so many other books already sitting on my shelves—but this is one kid with a unique journey ahead of him, and I want to follow along.

78. River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh ★★★★½

Category #8: Hot Off the Press - Published since 2011

(Read for 75ers group read, TIOLI Challenge #8: a title that has equal or more letters from the second half of the alphabet than from the first half

***** Contains many SPOILERS for those who have not yet read Sea of Poppies *****

The second book in the Ibis trilogy yet again transports us into an exotic and unfamiliar world, with rich details and characters who seem to live and breathe, so that the overall effect is as though we have traveled in time to the 19th century and landed squarely within the pages of the book. In the first chapter, Ghosh brings us up to date with some of the main characters who were aboard the Ibis as a cargo of slave labourers bound for Mauritius in Sea of Poppies and sums up where the story had taken us in the first book, so that there is no sense of interruption in the narrative. Then we are plunged squarely into Fanqui Town, the only port open to foreign trace in China, where foreigners of all stripes, from rich merchants to seamen, are allowed to reside and conduct business. It is situated just outside the city walls of Canton, where none but the native Chinese may enter. Our main protagonists are Bahram Modi, a Parsi Merchant from Bombay—mentioned in the first book as being the father of Ah Fat, the opium addict, now an escaped convict; Neel, Ah Fat's friend, formerly a wealthy rajah fallen on hard times and now another escaped convict, who becomes the Munshi (secretary) of Bahram Modi; Paulette Lambert - the orphaned daughter of a French botanist who has been taken on board the Redruth by a wealthy botanist and merchant, Fitcher Penrose, on an expedition to collect rare plants in China. Since foreign women are barred from Fanqui town, her eyes and ears in the foreign enclave belong to a newly introduced character, Robert Chinnery, an painter, and Paulette’s childhood friend, who helps her track down a rare, almost mythical flower, and keeps up a regular correspondence with her. The action here takes place mostly on land, though Fanqui town is surrounded by a vast multitude of river-dwellers who live and conduct business on their boats, and there is no lack of adventure. The foreign merchants, including Bahram Modi, have sailed to China with bigger than ever cargoes of opium, which they intend to sell at triple the rates of their previous shipment; the Chinese emperor has cracked down on the flow of opium into his country due to the alarming and ever-growing number victims who's lives are ruined by addiction, with the result that the demand for the drug are keener than ever. But the emperor has sent one of his staunchest officials to Canton, Lin Zexu, a highly moral scholar known for his incorruptibility, who is assigned to suppress the opium trade at any cost, and things in Fanqui Town are about to become very uncomfortable for everyone, as they lead up to the first Opium War. To sum up in few words: River of Smoke makes for some engrossing and exciting reading and leaves us with an impatient longing to continue with the third and final installation of the trilogy. Hopefully the wait will not be too prolonged.

Great review of Ender's Game, but I'll warn you, the rest of the series doesn't equal it. Lots of great reviews here! Chester Himes sounds like an author to watch for.

& really, can the 75ers make my WL growth rate worse than it already is???

I saw that my library has Ender's Game as an audiobook, but wasn't sure if it would work in that format - I take it that it works quite well. :)

#270 & really, can the 75ers make my WL growth rate worse than it already is???

In one word: yes. But that's half the fun!

I guess I already knew in some way that the other books in the Ender's series weren't as good, since none of them are ever especially recommended. I'm just really curious to learn more about the buggers and am hoping that Ender in Exile might fulfill that wish.

I really like Chester Himes, but be warned that it's true hardboiled crime and therefore very violent and crude in some ways (though there is no graphic sex), but also quite humorous, if you, like me, enjoy the humour of say, a Quentin Tarantino.

#271 Oh yes Eva, go for it! I'd love it if they had recordings of Scott Card books at the library, because I'd much prefer not putting any more money in his pockets, since I'm a bit put off by his religious beliefs and politics, but I guess not enough so to prevent me from spending one of my Audible credits for this book. I'd say it was well worth it.

Card wrote a trilogy of Ender books and then left them for several years, then picked them up again. I think Ender in Exile is from the second set. I'd recommend skipping Xenocide and going straight to Speaker for the Dead if you want to know what happens in the series. Personally, I found Xenocide offensive but it was years ago when I read it. At the time, I had a good friend with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who was being taken advantage of in her workplace because she really couldn't go home without everything being finished. His society based on OCD didn't amuse me in the least. I was more easily offended back then, but I think it would still grate on my nerves. I did like Speaker for the Dead though.

Katie, the reason I mentioned Ender in Exile is because I've read that Speaker for the Dead picks up maybe 25 years later, when Ender is 35, whereas In Exile which indeed was written much later, picks up where the first book ended. Did you read that one? I'm sorry you found Xenocide offensive. These things are so personal, and there's no telling what might push our buttons in any one book. I wouldn't say I find OCD amusing, but it certainly fascinates me as I've known some sufferers, though not anyone all that close to me (other than a boyfriend who kept my place spotless for a while. He had other problems which made the relationship impossible to keep up, though I must say I loved his obsession with cleanliness—very selfish of me, I know...)

Ilana if you want to know more about the Buggers I would recommend reading Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide. I haven't read Ender in Exile yet but will definitely get around to it someday.

Katie: I'm surprised you found Xenocide offensive. It's possible if you read Xenocide now you wouldn't find it as offensive. I didn't feel that he handled the topic poorly...in fact, I think he was trying to make an ethical point (he generally is, being uber-Mormon and all). But, sometimes little things annoy us and we'll never know why, right? :)

Ilana: I agree with calm. If you want to know more about the Buggers read Speaker for the Dead and then Xenocide. The next one in that series is Children of the Mind which I didn't make it through because the first 50 pages bored me. I'll probably try again someday, though. Also, I would highly recommend Ender's Shadow. I thought it really gave an interesting new perspective to the story. That is the first book of the spin-off series about Bean, which also starts out great and then fizzles. Card started waxing very religious and anti-abortion in the later books of these series, and I hear that his forceful message-sending detracts from the plot.

@276 Rachel, I think you very well may be right. Like I said, at that time period I got very self-righteous over a lot of things.

Ender's Game is my favorite of the original Ender books. Ender's Shadow is my next favorite. I am so excited about the movie, it's been in development hell for so long. Can't wait to see it.

#275 calm, I think I'll follow your suggestion then. I only stick to series as long as they keep me interested as am not a completist like some people here are, so I'll see how I like Speaker for the Dead when I get around to it and take it from there. Thanks for the advice!

#276 Rachel, it's a sure bet I won't be following the series through to the end, especially as I'm not AT ALL interested in whatever religious and moral messages Scott Card feels the need to communicate...

#278 There's an interview with OSC at the end of the audio version I listened to, and he spoke about his travails with getting a movie done quite extensively. It'll be interesting to see whether he got the movie he wanted, but looking at the casting just now, I see they've got Asa Butterfield playing Ender (a great fit, I think as he's just the type of boy I imagined), which means he finally won his point about NOT making Ender a 16-year-old to please the teenage moviegoing crowd, as the studios were pressuring him to do. I'll definitely want to see that movie.

A 16-year-old certainly wouldn't have worked.