Auntmarge64's 12 in 12

1. EXOTICA - Antarctica, Mars, Tibet and the Himalayas - 8 read

2. LINCOLNESQUE - Lincoln, the Civil War, and the aftermath - 2 read

3. GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION - Buddhism, Hinduism, and Early Christianity - 4 read

4. REALLY REALLY CLASSIC CLASSICS - Most written BCE

5. BACK TO THE FUTURE - 20th Century SF and Star Wars - 5 read

6. END OF THE WORLD - Apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopic fiction - 4 read

7. SURPRIZE! - Prize Winners and Contenders, including 1001 Books to Read Before You Die - 5 read

8. CAITLIN SURPRISES ME - Mount TBR choices made by my 11-year old niece - 4 read

9. SURPRISE ENDINGS - Mystery and suspense fiction - 15 read

10. UNUSUAL FORMATS - Epistolary fiction, literary puzzles, and other interesting forms - 4 read

11. THE REST (Other Fiction) - 6 read

12. "TRULY", THE REST (Other Non-fiction) - 5 read

I'm leaving the number to be read in each category open so my attention is free to wander as the year progresses. My niece Caitlin (currently 11) will once again choose books for me from my shelves, and I'm always fascinated by how she decides. Usually it's the cover, I think, but sometimes the size, depending on whether she's feeling charitable.

Many of the categories are repeats from 2011 in one way or another, so for anyone interested in these topics, see my 11 in 11 Challenge for related works, most of which I reviewed.

11 in 11 summary:
1. Antarctica (fiction and non-fiction) - 5 read
2. Mars (fiction) - 6 read
3. Apocalyptic and Post-apocalyptic fiction - 7 read
4. Tibet and the Himalayas (fiction and non-fiction) - 4 read
5. Back to the Future - mid-20th century SF - 5 read
6. Prize Winners and Contenders - 11 read
7. Science - 9 read
8. 19th Century Presidents (and other 19th c history) - 5 read
9. Mysteries and Suspense - 16 read
10. Caitlin's Picks (TBR choices made by my 10-year old niece) - 8 read
11. Non-fiction - 13 read
Plus bonus books: 11 read

EXOTICA - Antarctica, Mars, Tibet and the Himalayas (fiction and non-fiction)

Antarctica
1. Antarctica: An Encyclopedia by John Stewart ***** 1/15/12
2. The Ice People by René Barjavel *** 1/21/12
3. Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839 by Alan Gurney **** 3/28/12
4. Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell **** 5/14/12

Mars
1. Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson ***½ 4/29/12
2. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells **** 5/26/12

Tibet and the Himalayas
1. Lost Horizon by James Hilton ***½ 3/3/12
2. Tales of a Dalai Lama by Pierre Delattre **** 5/27/12

LINCOLNESQUE - Lincoln, the Civil War, and the aftermath (I'm up to Lincoln in the U.S. Presidents Challenge and figure this time period will take me all year)

1. Abraham Lincoln (The American Presidents Series: The 16th President, 1861-1865) by George S. McGovern *** 1/2/12
2. Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson Jan - Intro/Prologue/Ch 1-2; Feb - Ch 3-4; March - Ch 5-7; April - Ch 8-9; May - Ch 10-12; June - Ch 13-14; July - Ch 15-17; Aug - Ch 18-20; Sept - Ch 21-22; Oct - Ch 23-25; Nov - Ch 26-27; Dec - Ch 28 and Epilogue READING
3. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester *** 5/16/12

Planned:
The War of the Aeronauts: The History of Ballooning in the Civil War by Charles M. Evans
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations On Cotton And Slavery In The American Slave States, 1853-1861 by Frederick Law Olmsted
The Battle of Seven Pines by Steven H. Newton
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War by James M. McPherson

GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION - Buddhism, Hinduism, and Early Christianity

1. Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama: The Untold Story of the Holy Men Who Shaped Tibet, From Pre-History to the Present Day by Alexander Norman ****½ 2/9/12
2. Tibetan Prayer Flags by Diane Barker ***½ 4/17/12
3. The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images by John Dominic Crossan **** 4/23/12
4. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan **** 6/6/12
5. The Mind's Own Physician: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama on the Healing Power of Meditation edited by Jon Kabat-Zinn READING

REALLY REALLY CLASSIC CLASSICS - Most written BCE

1. The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika (group read) Jan - Intro; Feb - Appendices; March - Book 1; April - Book 2; May - Book 3; June - Book 4; July - Book 5; August - Book 6; September - Book 7 READING

BACK TO THE FUTURE - 20th Century SF plus Star Wars

1. Sleepers of Mars by John Wyndham *** 1/27/12
2. A Case of Conscience by James Blish ***½ 2/9/12
3. Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys ** 3/25/12
4. Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse by Troy Denning ****½ 4/18/12
5. Time Untamed by Isaac Asimov and others ** 5/19/12

END OF THE WORLD - Apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopic fiction

1. Fail Safe by Eugene Burdick ***** 3/5/12
2. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker *** 3/8/12
3. Down To a Sunless Sea by David Graham **** 4/9/12
4. A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright **** 6/3/12

SURPRIZE! - Prize Winners and Contenders, including 1001 Books to Read Before You Die

1. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore ***½ 1/10/12
2. Eifelheim by Michael Flynn***** 1/17/12
3. The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys ***½ 1/19/12
4. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides ***½ 2/13/12
5. Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry **** 5/28/12

CAITLIN SURPRISES ME - Mount TBR choices made by my 11-year old niece

1. The Royal Ghosts by Samrat Upadhyay **** 1/3/12
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ***** 2/16/12
3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett ****½ 4/14/12
4. This Must Be The Place by Kate Racculia ***** 5/24/12
5. Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo READING

SURPRISE ENDINGS - Mystery and suspense fiction

1. Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan ****½ 12/27/11
2. Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon *** 1/6/12
3. The Affair by Lee Child ***** 1/23/12
4. House of the Hunted by Mark Mills * 2/1/12
5. Shock Wave by John Sandford **** 1/30/12
6. Blood Men by Paul Cleave ** 2/17/12
7. Helsinki White by James Thompson ** 2/22/12
8. Cloudland by Joseph Olshan **** 2/24/12
9. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo ****½ 3/16/12
10. The Leopard by Jo Nesbo **** 3/21/12
11. Until Thy Wrath Be Past by Åsa Larsson **** 3/30/12
12. Stolen Prey by John Sandford **** 4/7/12
13. Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson ****½ 5/1/12
14. Very Bad Men by Harry Dolan ***½ 5/10/12
15. The Wrong Man by David Ellis ***** 5/17/12
16. The Rainaldi Quartet by Paul Adam READING

UNUSUAL FORMATS - Epistolary fiction, literary puzzles, and other interesting forms (mostly fiction)

1. From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón *** 12/23/11 (Stream-of-consciousness)
2. A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel *** 1/9/12 (play used as interlude in history)
3. Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky **** 4/11/12 (atlas with essays)
4. The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips ****½ 5/7/12 (fictional introduction and {fictional?} play)

THE REST (Other Fiction)

1. A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer DuBois ***** 12/18/11
2. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill ***½ 2/27/12
3. Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives by David Eagleman *** 2/27/12
4. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett **** 3/1/12
5. The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth ** 4/19/12
6. True Believers: A Novel by Kurt Andersen *½ 5/21/12
7. Obscure Destinies by Willa Cather ***½ 5/29/12

"TRULY", THE REST (Other Non-fiction)

1. Insect musicians and Cricket Champions of China by Berthold Laufer ** 3/12/12
2. Spineless Wonders: Strange Tales From the Invertebrate World by Richard Conniff ***½ 4/5/12
3. A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard ***** 4/2/12
4. Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick **** 4/16/12
5. The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout ***½ 5/13/12
6. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare READING

As always, very interesting categories, and lots for me to follow along with.

What Judy said.

Looking forward to following along again

Thanks, guys. I've been hemming and hawing for months about whether to do the challenge again, because I find the pressure I usually put on myself, to stick to quotas in each category, much too restrictive as the year wears on. But I enjoy this group immensely and think my plan above, with no quotas, will give me the mental space I need.

Great list, Marge, but I hate to disappoint you...it took me 2 years(!) to get through Lincoln and the Civil War and there were still books I didn't get to. LOL

Good luck!

I'm a far slower reader than most folks round here, so I'm just doing categories and not expecting any great amount of books in each of them. So long as I read one per category I'll be happy. Less pressure, more fun.

>18 cyderry:. Oh dear, two years.....Well, that should leave me just enough time to read the rest of the Presidents by 2016, provided nothing of importance happened in U.S. history after the Civil War. ;)

Great categories! I love books about Mars, so I'll be very interested in that one.

Antarctica, Mars, Tibet and the Himalayas
This combination made me smile. I will be following your reading with great interest.

>22 mamzel: I had all three as categories in 2011 but needed the room for other categories so thought I'd combine them. I'm sure the Tibetans don't think of their country as exotic, but from New Jersey they all seem equally inaccessible. If they ever perfect a transporter, those are my first destinations.

What a way to start the new challenge!



A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer DuBois ***** 12/18/11

In 2006, Irina, a young American professor facing the imminent onset of hereditary Huntington’s disease, says goodbye to all she knows and travels to Russia to ask a question of Aleksandr Bezetov, a middle-aged chess champion and dissident challenging Putin in an upcoming election. The question concerns how one proceeds in the face of certain defeat, and years earlier her father, as his own disease was upon him, wrote to ask this of a much younger Bezetov. Bezetov never answered the letter, and Irina sees her quest as a means of giving some focus and meaning to her life. She also needs time to think about how to handle her certain decline: specifically, how to decide when to end its progression so she does not die as her father did, with mind and body long depleted. Irina’s narrative begins in 2006 and Bezetov’s in 1979, and they are told in alternating chapters which come closer in time as the book proceeds.

At first it seems Aleksandr’s tale will be the more memorable of the two, with its marvelous description of life in the late Soviet era and the awakening of his political consciousness, and with Irina’s simply a framework for his story. But Irina’s question, and her musings about life and death even as she struggles to make sense of modern Russia, become extremely meaningful for both characters and for the reader. Irina and Alexsandr are delineated fully, and I came away feeling I knew them both very well. Irina’s search and Alexsandr’s answer move them towards their individual destinies, and the story resolves with a wholeness which feels perfect. Very, very highly recommended.

Wow, a five star read on your first book of the challenge - way to go!

You're off to a great start, and so is my wishlist, it seems!

From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón *** 12/23/11

A bleak tale of early 17th century Iceland, told by an old man banished to solitary exile after his conviction for witchcraft. The story is told primarily in a stream-of-consciousness, and there is little that is positive or beautiful in Jónas Pálmason's mind or memory. I think there are some readers who will find this story fascinating for its imagery and imagination, but I could not appreciate the unremitting grimness.

and we read that because......?

actually sounds kind of interesting, but I'm not much for depressing stories.

>28 clif_hiker: and we read that because......?

Hah! Early reviewers.....I thought it was interesting sounding too, which is how I got myself into this jam.

Yes, it does sound kind of interesting. And our library has ordered a copy. Hmm. I'm going to hold off for now. I can always get it later.

@24 and the wish list grows ever larger :-)

Great review

Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan ****½ 12/27/11

A complicated thriller and first in a series starring David Loogan, whose own identity is shrouded in mystery. Loogan has been living only a short time in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when he is offered a position as an editor at a mystery magazine. One evening his boss, with whom he’s become friends, asks him to help him bury the body of a burglar he’s killed during break-in, and he agrees. This important plot element, early in the book, never did square quite right with me, especially as I got to like Loogan’s character, but I got sucked in anyway. Soon the bodies are dropping and the possibilities of who-done-it, who-might-be-next, who Loogan really is, and how he and the detective, herself an intriguing character, will solve the crimes without Loogan ending up in prison, keep multiplying. Well-done dialogue and characterization. Other than that detail about Loogan helping bury the body instead of calling the cops, or even just refusing, my only complaint was that the complications did seem to get drawn out a bit to my taste, but for all that, this was still a winner.

Great thread! I like the idea of having an 11 in 11 summary, I am going to borrow that when I set up my thread! :)

LOL @ "and we read that because......?"

I clicked and unclicked that a few times on the ER-list, but in the end it ended up unclicked - from other reviews I wasn't sure I could give it its fair due. I have another book by Sjón waiting on Mt. TBR, so I'll read that one before I attempt to put this one on the wishlist.

-Eva-
(formerly bookoholic13)

Abraham Lincoln (The American Presidents Series: The 16th President, 1861-1865) by George S. McGovern *** 1/2/12

A short and adulatory introduction to Lincoln and his presidency, written in an easy style which would be useful to a high school student. Hits the high points but leaves plenty to follow up on.

The Royal Ghosts by Samrat Upadhyay **** 1/3/12

Set in Kathmandu during the Maoist insurgency of the late 1990s, these 9 stories lovingly explore the struggles of regular people dealing with the caste system, political upheaval, and weight of cultural expectations of modern Nepal. I found myself compulsively reading one story after another, finishing the book in one day and feeling as immersed by the whole as I usually do after a good novel - a mark in my book of a well-chosen collection.

#36 Oooh. Normally, I avoid short story collections, but you make this one sound very appealing.

>37 sjmccreary:

I'm not fond of short stories myself, but this is the second collection I've read by the author and I've enjoyed both.

I love short stories, especially connected or themed ones, and I even have a category for it this year. I may just have to read that one!

Added to my wish list.

A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel *** 1/9/12

An interesting look at the life of Copernicus and the early publication history of his magnum opus, On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres, which turned the world upside down with its proofs that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Sobel uses illustrations and long quotes from letters and other documents to give an immediate sense of medieval northern Europe, the lives of its mid-level Catholic clergy, and the extent to which the Church felt threatened by and controlled new hypotheses such as the Copernican theory.

All this is absorbing, but unfortunately Sobel wrote the history just to give herself a forum to publish a play she'd written, which she has sandwiched into the middle of the history. The play imagines the means whereby the young Lutheran mathematician Rheticus convinced the elderly canon to allow publication of his long-shelved work. If the play had stuck to discussions between the two geniuses it might have been bearable, but instead it conjures up an affair between Rheticus and Copernicus's aide and imagines Copernicus's own relationship with his mistress. An unnecessary and unwelcome intrusion into a serious treatment.

Read this for the history, skip the middle 80 pages, and you'll have a rewarding experience. It might also lead you to an interest in some of the other characters - in my case, Rheticus, about whom a recent bio was written.

What a strange combination! Other than the play-part, it sounds fascinating.

How odd - I was interested until reading the play bit...

>42 -Eva-:, 43. In fairness, I should point out that other LT reviewers liked the play.

#41 The play sounds strange, but the rest of the book sounds interesting. Enough so that I'm adding it to the wishlist.

#44 Odd, that.

A More Perfect Heaven sounds perfect for my 12 in 12 - fits my science category and in a pinch I can shoehorn it into my plays category. Yes, that is probably stretching things but that is half the fun if this challenge!

Ok marking it as "of interest" then ;-)

I'm counting the following because I spent several hours studying it in order to review for Early Reviewers. I was pretty shocked when I received it in the mail: a brand new, final (not review) copy of this $495 2-volume reference book.



Antarctica: An Encyclopedia by John Stewart ***** 1/15/12

This is an extraordinary labor of love, a four-year effort to expand and update the 1990 first edition, which won a Library Journal Best Reference award. It is a direct-entry encyclopedia in two volumes, with 1758 pages, 30,000 entries, an extensive bibliography, and numerous cross-references. While people, expeditions, and general topics are described, the greatest percentage of the work serves as a narrative gazetteer, bringing together information from various English and non-English sources and presenting it in readable English, often for the first time. For the researcher, student, or aficionado, there is an enormous amount of information which is either unavailable online or scattered about in numerous locations. In the cases of many geological features, maps and satellite images are easily available online, but the Encyclopedia provides details not readily handy, including naming dates, lists of expedition members, and details which may correct previous data. As dry as this may sound, it can be quite amusing, and I found myself moving from entry to entry following references in the various articles. Here is an example which shows several of the points described above:

Entry searched = CREANEY NUNATAKS
Every entry I checked online, from the Australian Antarctic Data Centre (http://data.aad.gov.au/) to Wikipedia, stated that this feature was named for David B. Creaney, an aviation electrician at Ellsworth Station during the winter season of 1957, for whom they give no additional information. Here is the Encyclopedia’s entry in full (p. 369):

Creaney Nunataks. 83°14′S, 51°43′W. Rising to 1475 m, SW of the Herring Nunataks, and 9 km W of Mount Lechner, in the W portion of the Forrestal Range, in the Pensacola Mountains. Mapped from USN air photos taken in 1964, and from USGS ground surveys conducted in 1965-66. Named by US-ACAN in 1968, for a man who doesn’t exist. The real person is David Bartholomew “Dave” Greaney, Jr. sic (b. Feb. 16, 1930, Chicago), VX-6 aviation electrician who wintered-over at Ellsworth Station in 1957. One day he got beaten up by a penguin. The feature is shown with its erroneous name on a U.S. map of 1969, and the name was accepted by UK-APC on Nov. 3, 1971, which shows that they don’t check either.

There is also a cross reference from Greaney to Creaney Nunataks. If you want to find out who his coworkers were at Ellsworth Station that winter, check out the entry for the Station, where all 39 men are listed, including enlisted man Ronald D. “Brownie” Brown (the youngest man in the group, his tractor came within an ace of plunging down a 900-foot crevasse one day. There is no cross reference for Brown, but there is for the team’s leader, Finn Ronne (whose management style created problems, there can be no doubt about that), where his nine outings to Antarctica and his successes (including proof that Antarctica is a continent) are briefly described. From there, of course, one can meander along through Ronne’s expeditions, co-workers, and discoveries.

Any large, regional, or university library would find this a fine purchase, and I’m sure polar researchers, and those for whom Antarctica is a hobby, will find it endlessly informative and entertaining. I certainly will.

So jealous

Sounds like a wonderful and useful "book".

I'm jealous, too.

wow! I'm so jealous.

>49 psutto:-52 As my 11-year old nice would exclaim, IKR? ("I know, right?") I was so shocked. For a few weeks I thought maybe I should donate it, but I think any library which would make good use of it would probably buy it. For the moment I've kept it, but I'm still thinking of other options, in case someone has some thoughts on that.

If a library has limited resources, the Antarctic may not have a high priority. They may fall all over themselves if you offered this to them. If not the public library, a high school library might love to have such a beautiful set (I know I would!).

>54 mamzel: Well, as luck would have it, there's a polar researcher at a nearby university and I've offered it to her for her department or library. I'll feel better that way than keeping it, I think, because the level of information I personally need will be filled by the Internet.

Eifelheim by Michael Flynn ***** 1/17/12

This novel will become one of the very few I keep to savor again, along with titles such as The Eqyptologist by Arthur Phillips and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. The multiple layers of history, science, linguistics, philosophy and plot would all benefit from a second reading.

As the plague approaches through the Black Forest of Germany in 1348/49, a group of wayfarers appears in a lightning storm near a tiny village deep in the woods. The travelers, who resemble more than anything giant grasshoppers, awaken diverse reactions among the villagers. Some decide demons have descended on them, others that these are people from an unexplored part of the world. The more thoughtful among the inhabitants, including the priest, a visiting monk, and the lord of the manor and his sergeant, take a more nuanced approach, giving the newcomers a chance to act and explain themselves before drawing conclusions. The visitors are, of course, interstellar travelers, but they have crashed into a world which thinks the stars circle the earth nearby and which has no sense of modern physics, cosmology, or time theory.

And here lies the depth of the book, because the villagers have their own cosmology to describe the world they perceive, and several members of each group attempt to understand the other, the villagers to understand what’s happening and the visitors to find a way to go home. The visitors have technology which allows them to learn the local language, but only to a point. Abstractions prove the foundering point, as with the priest’s assertion that the Lord rises to heaven (the skies) at Easter, which leads some travelers to be baptized so they can get home by going with Him. William of Ockham visits at one point, on his way to make peace with the Pope (historically, he disappeared on the way), and the priest has a past which brings up various historical events of the time.

Interspersed through this story is that of a present-day couple working through separate scientific projects (one on variable light speed and the other on population anomalies) which are destined to collide head-on and bring the village’s story into a new perspective. There is a nice building of suspense and dread throughout the story, and generally the author leaves it to the reader to decipher German, Latin and scientific terms, making the read dense and enveloping. The only complaint I had was with the priest’s choice of pointedly modern terminology to describe some of the travelers’ technology (e.g., their fotografik devices which render pictures for them) – just a bit too jarring for the reader enmeshed in the medieval.

For all the alien travelers and modern interpretations by the scientists, this did not read like science fiction but as a story of cultures and languages colliding. Most of the tale takes place in the village and is told from the priest’s learned viewpoint. Very compelling, especially coming hard on the heals of reading A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos.



The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys ***½ 1/19/12

A neat little collection of 40 vignettes, one for each time the Thames froze between 1142 and 1895. Some are stories about average folk, such as two lovers meeting on the river in 1363, he rushing to embrace her, she stretching out her arm to exhibit the boils of plague and warn him off. Many stories touch on famous people or events, and they had me avidly looking them up to flesh out the facts. For instance, in 1142, Queen Matilde escapes from her jailors by walking across the Thames at night, wearing white into the snowstorm. In 1795, a composer wants to create an "Ice Music" to rival Handel's "Water Music" and references Purcell's "Cold Song" which included in the music chattering teeth. Well, that one I had to look up, only to find several videos of performances by countertenors (for a truly bizarre experience, check out the films of Klaus Nomi), one by Sting (simply awful in comparison) and a ballet. Nice illustrations round out the book.

great reviews - I'm putting the Michael Flynn on the WL

Both books sound interesting.

Eifelheim sounds fantastic! I've never heard of it before. Great review!

Adding Eifelheim it sounds fascinating.

My dad used to skate as a kid on the frozen Thames on the odd occasion it happened, bet he would like the book, thanks for the review!

>60 clfisha: The book mentions that it happens far less often now because the London Bridge supports have been spaced better to reduce the damming effect. There are a couple of other books on the old Frost Fairs, too.

Love your dystopian category - I've read quite a few and have enjoyed them, and I'll be following closely and I'm sure adding to my WishList based on your reviews. Also enjoyed the Eifelheim review.

>62 LisaMorr: Dystopian is just so much fun.

That Thames book is going on my wishlist! What are "Frost Fairs," though?

Glad to see you enjoyed Humphreys' collection of vignettes in the The Frozen Thames. I read a copy my local library during a summer heat wave and loved how cool the stories made me feel!

>64 -Eva-: - Eva, the 'Frost Fairs' were winter fairs that were set up on the Thames back in the really, really cold winters that occurred back in the 1600 - 1800's when the Thames would freeze solid (the mini ice age of the period) and Londoners would walk across the Thames checking out the vendors that had set up tents to flog their wares right on the ice surface of the frozen Thames.

Oh, on the Thames! that makes sense. I was wondering - Since I'm from Sweden, most part of the year if we want to have an outdoors fair, it's pretty certain to be frosty! :)

The Ice People by René Barjavel *** 1/21/12

French science fiction from the 1960s about the discovery of a 900,000 year-old buried city and two hibernating survivors who are revived. The book was a bestseller at the time but shows its age. Recommended for fans of mid-century SF or fiction set in Antarctica.



The Affair by Lee Child ***** 1/23/12

Reacher, Reacher, Reacher! It's always a delicious treat to put down all other reading and stay glued to a new Reacher novel. Here he tells of the 1987 events which forced him from his work in the military police, and it's just as much fun as the "current" storyline.



Sleepers of Mars by John Wyndham *** 1/27/12

Minor early Wyndham from the 1930s, but still enjoyable for the committed fan. Includes the following stories: "Sleepers of Mars" (a companion piece to the novel Stowaway to Mars), "Worlds to Barter", "Invisible Monster", "The Man from Earth", and "The Third Vibrator".

Ah old Wyndham books.. figure you to find one I don't have yet! :P

And congratulations on the great Early Reviewers book!! :) A whole encyclopedia set about Antarctica... they know you too well ;)

>68 Bcteagirl: And I have a few more Wyndhams on my TBR. He's a nice, simple alternative to modern fiction and other stressful reading (history, for instance). And yeah, that encyclopedia was certainly a welcome surprise.

I look forward to hearing about them! I snap up his books whenever I am lucky enough to see them. :)

I've only ever read a couple of Wyndham's books with another on the tbr shelves. Always an eye out for me if they pop into view though.

>70 Bcteagirl:, 71 - I looked through my TBR and see I have only 2 of his left on my shelves which I haven't read:

The Best of John Wyndham 1932-1949 and The Best of John Wyndham 1951-1960, as well an entry by him in Time Untamed, an anthology. I imagine I've read many of the stories but will be interested to check them out. He did seem to write write a few short stories and I'm hoping some are new.

Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama: The Untold Story of the Holy Men Who Shaped Tibet, from Pre-history to the Present Day by Alexander Norman ****½ 2/9/12

Despite the title, this is a serious history of the institution of the Dalai Lama, Buddhism in Tibet, and Tibet and its neighbors: three topics inextricably connected.

Beginning with the pre-history of Tibetan myth (that is, myth to non-Tibetans), Norman spends the first half of the book explaining the concept of Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and his personal interest in Tibet and history of reincarnating in human form throughout Tibet’s history. By the second half of the book we reach the 16th century, when Chenrezig’s rebirth was formally given the name of Dalai Lama and applied for the first time to the man who became known as the 3rd Dalai Lama. (The two immediately preceding incarnations were retroactively proclaimed as the 1st and 2nd.) Each Dalai Lama is then given a chapter or more depending on his significance, along with detail on his family and background, as well as on the actions of the various Buddhist hierarchs and sects in selecting him as the incarnation, training him, and running the country during his minority. Norman examines the rise and fall of each Dalai Lama’s control of the religious and secular institutions of his day and the resulting fortunes of Tibet in relation to its neighbors, especially Mongolia and China. The final chapters bring us up-to-date with the current Dalai Lama and Tibet’s ongoing struggle to maintain a presence distinct from that of China.

Footnotes, a 22-page bibliography, and a detailed index are included. The author is a long-time acquaintance of the current Dalai Lama, with whom he has co-authored several books and who wrote the forward to this one. The reader would have been well-served with a few maps, a glossary, and charts showing the succession of Dalai Lamas and their earlier lineage, and for this reason I’ve deducted a ½-star. But even without these I highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the Dalai Lama and his religious background, Tibet and her woes, or Tibetan Buddhism in general. It is hugely informative and compulsively readable, honest in its appraisals (the author is quite forthcoming about the personal and professional shortcomings of the incarnations and other main characters), and gives the reader a solid basis for understanding what’s happening between Tibet and China.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ***** 2/16/12

Death is haunted by humans, especially a young girl in Nazi Germany whom he glimpses several times as he collects people she knows. Liesel has watched her brother die and mother leave forever (likely “disappeared” for being a Communist), and been assigned foster parents near Munich. As the war approaches, she and her friends attend Hitler Youth meetings, play street soccer, and steal food from nearby farms. Liesel also steals books, the first from the gravedigger at her brother’s burial. Oh, and her foster parents hide a Jew in their basement. Even the secondary characters here are priceless: the gentle, accordion-playing foster-father who teaches Liesel to read and sits with her every night through her nightmares; the grumpy foster mother who comes to love her; the Jew Max, who hides in the basement for two years and writes stories for Liesel; and the best friend who longs only for a kiss someday. Very highly recommended.

Blood Men by Paul Cleave ** 2/17/12

A heart-pumping but finally rather distasteful psychological thriller, in which a young father's world is turned upside-down after tragedy strikes his family and he finds himself tempted to follow the footsteps of his own estranged father, a convicted serial killer.

just catching up - some great reviews here, am especially intrigued about the Dalai Llama book

Helsinki White by James Thompson ** 2/22/12

This the third in a series featuring Kari Vaara, a Finnish cop. I've read all three, given 5 stars to the first, 4 stars to the second, and 3 stars to this one. "Helsinki White" focuses on a variety of very ugly topics: racist hate groups, the illegal drug trade, and politicians and cops with no sense of moral balance. In addition, the main character, who had some decency in the first two books, looses all emotion following brain surgery and becomes as evil as the people he's pursuing. The lengthy racist monologues of several secondary characters are just disgusting, and the indiscriminately crude and sexist language used by all the characters made this one of the most unpleasant books I've ever read. I don't think I'll care to follow Vaara's further adventures.

That sounds extremely unappealing. A friend gave me the first in the series and I'm glad to hear it's great. And that I don't have to continue... I do have quite a few series to follow as it is. :)

Hi, Eva. Do read the first, though. The reason I gave it such a high rating was because of the incredible sense of the Arctic winter night it gives the reader. Part of my review for it read:

Along with a gripping mystery which kept me glued to the pages, the ever-present darkness of the landscape pushed me to finish and get my mind into the sunlight again, even though I was reading in a sunlit room myself.

So it's fairly grim, but so effective.

Oh, good! I do like novels that evoke their landscape.

Cloudland by Joseph Olshan **** 2/24/12

In rural Vermont, Catherine, a 41-year old ex-newswoman recovering from a haunting relationship, comes across a dead woman, apparently the most recent victim of a serial killer. She gets drawn into the investigation because one of her neighbors, a forensic psychiatrist, wants to use her and her investigative skills as a sounding board. Along the way we meet various other locals, including an elderly world-renowned artist and his adopted son, who is the town tax collector and an early suspect. Gradually, Catherine’s past lover, as well as Catherine’s Wilkie Collins expertise, get drawn into the investigation, bringing back memories she was hoping to escape and putting her in increased danger. Fans of Louise Penny will love this.

Her "Wilkie Collins expertise"? Separated twin women running around??? Now you have me curious.

>82 cammykitty: Yup, she's a Wilkie Collins expert, partially due to a college roommate who's the real expert. Interestingly, though, the unfinished Collins book she references the most, The Widower's Branch, appears to be a fabrication. At least, I can't find a reference to it anywhere.

#81 You had me with "serial killer"! The book's too new to be at the library yet, so I'll keep watching for it. I've never read Wilkie Collins - will I have trouble understanding the references?

>84 sjmccreary: No, I don't think so. It just has to do with plot elements she recognizes from an obscure unfinished novel, which, as I say, the author may have fabricated anyway.

I was quite pleased with how this worked out, because I picked the book up at a library sale at which they put out lots of ARCs. I got about 45 in total and kept maybe 30 to read. When I get books home from a sale I always look them up on LT and Amazon before determining whether to add them to my TBR pile, and this had yet to be reviewed for either, but I gave it a shot anyway. It's nice to put in a good word for it and maybe help it on the way to popularity.

Good plan to check a few reviews before you read. I'm wondering if I shouldn't go through my wishlist and delete everything 3 or lower. Sometimes I love books someone else gives 3 stars though.

I'll bet she made up the unfinished novel, but sjmccreary, The Woman in White is really good if a bit long. You should try Wilkie Collins sometime.

Upon reflection (and a tweak from RidgewayGirl), I'm changing my ratings of both Blood Men and Helsinki White to 2 stars. I don't think I gave them enough negative credit for what nasty experiences they were to read.

#86 Thanks for the nudge - I already have Woman in White on the shelf, but haven't read it yet.

#85 I also check LT reviews and ratings before deciding about books that I find from other sources. Sometimes I decide I want them despite low ratings, and sometimes I use a low rating to justify NOT wanting them!

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett **** 3/1/12

This is only the second book I've read by Patchett (the first being Bel Canto, which I adored). While I wasn't quite as taken with this book, it's clear that Patchett's a superb storyteller. Here, the first half of the book could have been shortened, the second half is stunning, and end is too abrupt and leaves just a few too many loose ends.

Somewhere in Brazil, Dr. Annick Swenson, an irascible, elusive, and brilliant physician, is hidden away in the bush working on a fertility drug which will allow woman to continue to bear children through old age. (Why the world would need this isn’t addressed except for the puzzle to be solved, the profits to be made, and the occasional woman who has waited too long to have children). The company footing the bill has sent researcher Anders to track down the doctor and pin down just how the work is going, but after 3 months they receive a curt note from Swenson that Anders has died and been buried in the jungle. Anders’s office-mate, a 40-something scientist with her own past run-ins with Swenson and a current affair with her widowed boss, is asked by said boss to follow Anders’s trail and finish his assignment. Swenson doesn’t want to be found so this proves difficult, but eventually contact is made. That’s the first half of the book, and it does drag on a bit.

But the second half, in which Marina travels inland with Swenson to the native village she’s living with and testing, is fantastic. Herein lies a plot thick with one of my main interests: how the meeting of mutually inexplicable cultures leads to misunderstandings, disasters, and, sometimes, revelations.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with the end of the story. The events themselves might make more sense if the author had taken the time to explore them as much as she did the main story, but the reader is left to reread the final few pages over and over trying to make sense, and it left a bad taste, given how the characters acted throughout the rest of the book. There is also a tiny bit of action which the careful reader will observe and understand, but its ramifications are not addressed at all, and I couldn’t tell if Patchett was leaving this as a bit of an Easter egg for the reader or just wrapped up the book too quickly to deal with it. (Sorry to be so vague, but it’s an event which would give away much too much to relate.) The reader will beg for a sequel (or even an epilogue).

Well worth the read. Patchett’s dialogue and invention of scenario are simply too wonderful to miss.

Good review of State of Wonder. Like you, the only Patchett book I have read so far is Bel Canto so it is nice to see this one is also a good read.... even if there are a couple of problems with the ending!

The plot of State of Wonder sounds a bit like that of Medicine Man, a Sean Connery film. I might have to consider giving it a try.

>91 hailelib: I had the same thought, although I haven't seen the film in years, and I guess the Connery character shares a lot with Swenson, but here the main emphasis is Marina and her reaction to the whole thing. If it intrigues you at all give it a try. I'd love to backchannel with someone about what happens at the end.

re: State of Wonder I read (listened actually... which makes a difference in what I remember) to this book last summer. I do remember there being something.. unsatisfying about the ending, and I also remember wondering why we need a fertility drug for 70 year old women.

All in all I think I liked it well enough... but not enough to track down her other books (of which I've heard Bel Canto is exceptional).

Fail Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler ***** 3/5/12

It’s exactly fifty years later and this book is still very powerful. I’ve seen the movie version with Henry Fonda a couple of times, knew exactly how the story ended, and I still couldn’t put it down and then cried at the end.

It’s the mid-sixties and the USA and USSR, mutually distrustful and each protected by huge stockpiles of weaponry, depend on multiple technological safeguards to ensure against accidental war. Civilian and military intellectuals from all sides engage in philosophical debates which inform national policy on armament, pre-emptive war, and nuclear policy. Swagger and the threat of annihilation are generally thought to be prohibitive of intentional war. But, of course, errors of machinery and human activity do occur, and here an unnoticed breakdown in a minor part of one machine mistakenly sends a group of bombers into the Soviet Union with orders to bomb Moscow. Unable to recall them, the President (presumably JFK) contacts Khrushchev, and the two must weigh their actions in the event the planes are successful.

Gripping, informative, and, finally, heartbreaking, and very highly recommended.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker *** 3/8/12

As this post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story begins, eleven-year old Julia is a typical kid living in suburban California, struggling with junior high school and dreaming from afar of one boy in particular. Through her eyes we see the effects of a slowing of the earth’s rotation, adding noticeably to the minutes in each day, so that within a few months each day/night period increases to 30, then 40, then 50 or more hours long. The most interesting aspect of this is the divergence between those people who attempt to maintain a day/night schedule reflecting the increasing size of light and dark periods, hoping their circadian rhythms will adjust quickly enough, and those who obey the government and revert to a strict 24-hour day/night schedule, in which each day’s pattern of daylight and darkness varies. As the rotation slows further, this results in people not seeing daylight for “days” on end. Tidal highs and lows become more extreme. Longer light and dark periods bring increasing extremes in temperatures, and planetary and atmospheric magnetic fields shift, causing die-offs of birds, marine mammals, and crops. Human psychology and physiology begin to falter, and the best the characters can hope for is to adapt, whether through quick evolution or the development of food stuffs which will grow without regular sunlight. Rightly so, these attempts are presented as ineffective in the short time available.

There are some interesting questions raised here, but as a whole I found it hard to believe the effects of this fast a change wouldn’t be much, much worse. Perhaps because the story is told from a young girl’s point of view, the extremity of the human situation here never seems really terrifying, and the story, while depressing, doesn’t have the emotional wallop it could have had.

I haven't read it, but just from your review I'm starting to have "hard to believe" reactions. I know the earth's rotation will not always be a constant speed. Another million year out issue is the cooling of the earth's core. I'm having trouble imagining what would change the earth's rotation at that sort of rate. Humans adapting to a major climate change is an interesting subject though.

This reminds me of a fiction book I read a loooooong time ago called The HAB Theory where the poles didn't shift, the Earth flip-flopped inside the magnetic field. The good/bad news about the theory was that it happened many times in history and it was due to happen again soon. I read it around the time I did a report in college on paleo-magnetism which shows that the poles have shifted many times in Earth's history.

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo ****½ 3/16/12

Inspector Harry Hole, of the Oslo police, is the only cop in Norway with any training and experience in tracking serial killers, but because serial killing in the country is so rare, his superiors are reluctant to agree when he thinks a new one is on the loose. The murders stretch across the country and back fourteen years, so recognition of the pattern has been hindered. Now the killing has become more frequent and more blatant, and as red herrings multiply, Harry and his team disregard official warnings and follow his instincts, even as he begins to suspect the killer is trying to draw him in.

This is suspense writing at its best – believable action, great dialogue, interesting characters, and a group of equally plausible villains. I did deduct a half star for some unnecessarily (IMO) graphic sex (enough so I felt uncomfortable handing this on to a 20-something niece), and be forewarned that the violence is very graphic. I’ve already downloaded the sequel to my Kindle and I’ve ordered some of the earlier titles from the library.

#98 That is a series I've been wanting to read, but haven't yet. My library doesn't have the first book in the series and I'm always reluctant to start in the middle. What do you think - is reading them out of order a problem?

I'm all for reading out of order. In this case, the first three books should be read in order. Not sure about the rest -- I've only read the first three.

This is the first one I've read and I thought it stood on its own just fine, although I immediately wanted to read the next one to follow up on something which happens to him at the end. I'm glad to know about the first three, though.

Seconding @RidgewayGirl's comment: The Redbreast, Nemesis, and The Devil's Star form a storyarc within the series and should definitely be read in order.

#102 I can get these three, but what about The Bat Man and The Cockroaches, which are listed on LT as being #1 and #2 in the series?

The first and second in the series have not been translated into English (yet?). I wouldn't say they're imperative to read either. They're good, absolutely, but I think he really started to hit the stride in The Redbreast, which I'm assuming is why they started there when they started translating.

I read an interview with him in which he said "The first two books, there are enough references to them in the third and the fourth and the fifth books. That's why we decided we can start with the third book, because you will get the rest of the story". He also mentioned that books one and two are in the planning for translation.

That is wonderful news! I will begin reading The Redbreast with no concerns, then!

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys ** 3/25/12

A short science fiction novel from 1960, but unfortunately not short enough. This would have made a terrific short story but instead in burdened by several secondary characters of no interest to the reader but with lengthy scenes with the main characters.

Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839 by Alan Gurney **** 3/28/12

A dense history of early voyages to the high south latitudes to determine if there was land and, if so, inhabitants and resources to be exploited. After a chapter on ancient and medieval propositions about what might be found, and chapters covering maritime reckoning, scurvy, the Antarctic convergence and the wildlife of the southern ocean, the author proceeds with vivid histories of trips by Halley, Cook, Bellingshausen, Weddell, Biscoe, Kemp and Belleny. There are also colorful but sad descriptions of the early-19th century discovery of massive seal colonies and their subsequent devastation over only a few years.

Anyone interested in the Antarctic should enjoy this. It fills a gap usually overlooked in favor of the famous explorers of the early-20th century and provides an intriguing look at what greatness there was in those who sailed into the void and made those later explorations possible. Personally, this book has led me to want to read about Halley and Cook, especially. What courage and vision (and maybe a bit of insanity) these men had.

on to the WL for that - even having had a bit of a glut on Antarctic books recently that does seem very interesting

I thought this map from Weddell's 1827 history of his voyage especially illustrative of how little was known at the time. The "V" to the right is Cook's farthest south, and the squiggles on the lower right are Weddell's own progress. Notice there's no coastline marked. It gave me chills when I saw this, although I guess to them it was just a blank ocean filled with interminable ice and vicious weather.

wow!

Great map!

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard ***** 4/2/12

I am so impressed with Dugard! We all know her story and probably have the same questions: why didn’t she run when she finally started being given some freedom after years of captivity, how could her existence in a sex offender’s backyard go undetected for 18 years, how did she get away, and how are she and girls coping now? And for me, this book provided most of those answers, although not in a straightforward way. In fact, I doubt a straightforward telling would have answered the first question at all, because most of us will have no experiences we can use to compare with hers. Instead, she uses multiple small chapters to highlight the main events she recalls, as she remembers experiencing them, interspersed with reflections on her memories from today’s viewpoint. There are also journal entries which add to the overall sense of sharing how her inner life changed over the years. I picked the book up to read about how she’s doing since being freed, and ended up reading the whole book in a few hours. I simply couldn’t put it down.

If you read this, start on the very first page, the “author’s note”. Every single page is worthwhile, even the acknowledgements at the end. Most important of all, though, is Dugard’s warning in the introduction: My goal is to inspire people to speak out when they see that something is not quite right around them. We live in a world where we rarely speak out and when someone does, often nobody is there to listen. My hope is that society changes in regards to how we treat someone who speaks out….For many, it is so much easier to live in a self-made “backyard” that it can be tough and scary to venture out and leave that comfort zone behind. It is so worth it, though. You could be saving a person or a family who is not able to save themselves.

Stolen Prey by John Sandford **** 4/7/12

The Lucas Davenport suspense series is up to 22 volumes – good news for all his fans, although I found this entry a bit less interesting than usual. Bank fraud and Mexican drug gangs don’t interest me all that much, and there’s a side-plot involving Virgil Flowers that didn’t seem necessary, as much as I enjoy his adventures also. So, fun to read and essential for fans, but not the best of the best from Sandford.

Down To a Sunless Sea by David Graham **** 4/9/12

Terrific apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic fiction from 1979. A bit dated, and slow for the first quarter of the book, but then edge-of-the-seat suspenseful until the very last page.

Jonah Scott, a British pilot who makes rescue flights across the Atlantic to a failed and violent post-oil America, tells of the days before and after uncontrolled nuclear war erupts. Among those on board a flight from New York to London are 150 children, several scientists, a large group of returning British soldiers, diplomats from several competing countries, and two stowaways Jonah is hoping to sneak through heavily-armed British customs. They are mid-way across the Atlantic when they hear reports of cities being bombed, and one by one their possible landing sites become unapproachable. Desperate to find somewhere, anywhere, they can land, Jonah and his crew search for a landing site or a ship to contact if they have to ditch in the water.

A keeper to read again.

My stomach tied up in knots just reading your description!

@115 - sounds like a very interesting premise

Down To A Sunless Sea is going on my wishlist, sounds like a great read!

Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot on and Never Will by Judith Schalansky **** 4/11/12

A charming collection of short essays and scale maps of 50 small, isolated islands scattered over the planet. The maps are all in the same scale, so they really are all very small islands, some well-known (Easter Island, Iwo Jima, St. Helena), others extremely obscure. Many are lagoons, possibly the most interesting of all. Each two-page spread includes the map, geographical location, population, current geopolitical affiliation, and a few sentences which describe an event or fact about the island which encapsulates the essence of what the island has meant to humans. It’s an interesting approach and addictive to read.



The Help by Kathryn Stockett **** 4/14/12

This book is so well-known I’ll skip a summary and just make a few comments. The storytelling is mesmerizing and will hook most anyone who reads the first few pages. I don’t know how authentic the voices are, but the three main characters certainly came alive for me. Two complaints will explain the lack of a fifth star: with few exceptions, the black characters are all positive and the whites negative, and while race relations may have been this stark, there must have been a more equal representation of individual behavior within the two races. Second, the end is much too abrupt. 90% of the story leads up to the publication of the book, but then the reader is left to wonder about the effects its publication had in the long-term for the main characters. An epilogue would have rounded out the story much more satisfactorily.


Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick **** 4/16/12

Well, he’s convinced me. Philbrick, who wrote In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, seems a natural to comment on the story and meaning of Melville’s masterpiece. Melville was inspired to write Moby Dick by the events surrounding Essex’s destruction, and Philbrick, a sailor and long-time resident of Nantucket, clearly loves the book. In 28 short chapters he demystifies and makes less-threatening this leviathan of American literature, and I, for one, am enthusiastic to get going. Mission accomplished!

I've tried (and failed) to read Moby Dick - Why Read Moby-Dick? sounds like one I should put on the wishlist to get a boost!

Hi Eva,

It might give you a better idea whether it's worth the effort. I'll keep an eye out to see what you decide.

Tibetan Prayer Flags: Send Your Blessings on the Breeze by Diane Barker ***½ 4/17/12

Glad you enjoyed Atlas of remote islands! I can't get that book out of my head. I keep zooming into those desolete little spots of land on Google maps and reading more on Wikipedia.

Atlas of Remote Islands sounds wonderful.

An epilogue definitely would have been a nice addition to The Help.

Moby Dick is the one book I've always wanted to read, but have never been successful. I'll definitely see if I can find Why Read.

Anticipating your comments on Tibetan Prayer Flags. You find the most interesting books!

Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse by Troy Denning ****½ 4/18/12

Final installment in the Fate of the Jedi series, left me hoping a new series will come out soon for all of us addicts.



The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth ** 4/19/12

Phans will want to read this just to see what is imagined for the main characters' future, but the writing is awful. Even the novella format is too long, so expect to skim most of it to get to the climax.

Prayer Flags looks pretty.

>126 cammykitty:. I should probably have written a review but I got tired of reviews just then. It's a very short little book, half photos, just enough info. Originally it came with an actual flag with a complicated design stamped on it, and the design is repeated in the book with explanations, but the copy I got used no longer had the flag.

Moby Dick is lurking on my shelf and I was inspired to read it after Philbrick's account of he sinking of the Essex but yet to get round to it, other more shiney books awaiting...

Well, I've started Moby Dick but don't intend to read it day in, day out. As usual, I'm reading 4 or 5 books simultaneously, and Moby will get whatever attention span I find for the next few weeks or months. So far I'm loving the language, although Ishmael does "go on" sometimes. I tried listening to it on my Kindle, but although I've gotten used to the mispronunciations for modern fiction, this one's beyond its capabilities, I think.

The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images by John Dominic Crossan **** 4/23/12

This is a book to make one think very hard about what it means to be a follower of Jesus and/or a Christian, and they’re not necessarily the same thing. For instance, I would consider Gandhi a follower, although not a Christian. On the other hand, most people who tout their membership in Christian organizations fall considerably short of what one would think is the ideal, given Jesus’ example and lessons. Most egregious, to me, are public figures and institutions who shout their Christianity even as they hoard millions (or billions) which could be used to give basic needs to the hungry and dying. And many of these insist they are “pro-life”, although apparently the already-living are expendable. Anyway, about the book:

Crossan is a well-known member of the Jesus Seminar and a scholar in the historical Jesus school. In this third entry in his biographies of Jesus, he presents the sayings he considers to be authentically spoken by Jesus (mostly parables and aphorisms, designed to provoke discussion among the oppressed) alongside examples of pre-Constantinian Christian art work. Although the art is mostly 3rd c., it was produced before the religion had any governmental organization and backs up the words written down over two centuries earlier, with both reflecting the message the earliest Christians received: radical egalitarianism, open commensality (indiscriminate table fellowship and healing), and the Kingdom here NOW, wherever people are willing to follow Jesus’ example. Crossan differentiates between John the Baptist’s teaching (apocalyptic eschatology, i.e., imminent and cataclysmic divine intervention) and Jesus’ (sapiential eschatology, i.e., living here and now so that God’s power is evident to all). It’s a huge difference, with the easier path clearly being the former, where we can let God take care of changing things when he’s ready and continue as we are in our day-to-day lives. Just as clearly, Crossan sees Jesus’s way as the more difficult and the reason Jesus, out of so many wandering preachers, dissidents, and trouble makers, got the death penalty instead of a lesser sentence: he was looking for a total change in how people acted right then, and he was convincing at it.

Whatever you’re approach to Bible study or belief, this is a provocative look at early Christian thought: that is, what Jesus said and how he was perceived by the people closest to him in time and still untouched by institutional dogma.

Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson ***½ 4/29/12

Three connected stories spread over 400 years as humans explore the solar system from the Martian settlements and discover a Stonehenge-like monument on Pluto. Humans who can afford the treatments live 800-1000 years, so 400 isn’t too long to expect the same characters may show up from one story to another.

Published before the Mars trilogy, there are some familiar place names and developments mentioned here (e.g., the city of Burroughs, the progress towards a breathable atmosphere), so there was a sense of familiarity in reading this, although the overall future envisioned is more bleak than that explored in the later books. So while it’s a stand-alone novel, it was a welcome return to the Martian world so beautifully explored in the trilogy. It was also neat to see Robinson’s speculation on the development of self-publication on an Internet-like network (this was written in 1984) and find Pluto still described as the ninth planet.

Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson ****½ 5/1/12

Christine, in her mid-twenties, wakes up one morning with a middle-aged married man sleeping next to her. She goes into the bathroom and sees herself in the mirror and is horrified: reflected back is the image of a middle-aged woman. There are photos taped up with notes explaining that she has amnesia and that the man in the bed is her husband. This has apparently happened every morning for years and she has no ability to make new memories, so each day is a new start. On this particular day she is contacted by a doctor who claims they have been working together for some time, without her husband’s knowledge, and that she’s been keeping a journal which he reminds her of each day so she can keep up-to-date and add each day’s events. It’s becoming clear that her husband is lying to her about some things and keeping other things secret, and the question becomes, why? Is he trying to protect her from daily hurt, or so bored by repeating things each day he’s giving her a simplified version, or is he manipulating her in some malign way? As the journal gets longer and certain events trigger flashes of memory, these questions take on new urgency.

Exactly what psychological suspense should be: edge-of-the-seat drama you can’t put down.

#132 Wasn't there a movie (based on this book?) that came out recently? It sounds familiar. Onto the wishlist, as did The Essential Jesus.

>133 sjmccreary: Best I can see it's "in development". Of course, now that I know how it ends it won't be all that suspenseful to watch, but I will if the actors are decent.

I think I am going to have to break down and track down a copy of Before I go to Sleep. The memory loss angle intrigues me.

Before I go to Sleep sounds a little bit like the movie Memento. WL. :)

another WL novel from this thread... Before I go to Sleep sounds great

I'll have to take a look at The Essential Jesus.

>138 RidgewayGirl: I'll look forward to your thoughts. I've read it before and been planning to find a copy for years.

The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips ****½ 5/7/12

Another tour-de-force from Phillips, who here gives his main character his own name, history, and accomplishments to explore the family history of a respected writer whose master-forger father owns what appears to be a genuine, 1597 quarto edition of an unknown Shakespearean play, “The Tragedy of Arthur”. The fictional Arthur detests Shakespeare and has fought a lifelong battle to pry his father’s approval from twin sister Dana, who shares the father’s passion for the Bard. Now the father is dying and he’s asked Arthur (not Dana) to use his reputation and literary skill to help him get the play authenticated and published. Reeling from the attention, Arthur approaches his own publisher, Random House, but as positive feedback from experts piles up, Arthur begins to doubt the play’s authenticity himself. The entire story is told as a lengthy introduction to the Random House edition of the play, which is included at the end, along with dueling footnotes by Arthur and one of the Shakespearean scholars.

Although Arthur does whine quite a bit (and freely admits it), the story works only because of who he is, and the end of the introduction makes plain why the whole story has to be told as is. It’s funny in Arthur’s own confessions and mind-blowing in the reader’s confusion over Arthur (the actual author) and Arthur (the character), not to mention Arthur (the father) and King Arthur, the subject of the play. The double meanings pile on in so many directions the reader ends up feeling empathy for poor Arthur (the character), who ends up just as unsettled at the end as at the beginning. Highly recommended.

>140 auntmarge64: Nice review! I thought I probably wanted to read this book, and now I'm sure I do! I've always thought (probably along with many other people) that it was odd that Shakespeare didn't write a play about King Arthur.

140 - I'm so glad you posted this review. It's a book I was interested in and had forgotten about. I'm adding it to the TBR pile now.

Very Bad Men by Harry Dolan ***½ 5/10/12

Although I loved the first in the series, Bad Things Happen, this one just didn't have the suspense level I expected. Still, I'll watch for the next in the series.

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout ***½ 5/13/12

If you have someone in your life who constantly does inexplicable things, things which lead you to wonder if you're overreacting or if the person is mentally ill and deserving of sympathy; who is constantly trolling for pity, lying, and has a pattern of behavior which makes people you describe it to think you must be making things up: do yourself a favor and read this book. The person in question may be among the 1 in 25 who have no conscience or remorse and for whose actions there is no "reason" recognizable to most of the people around them. People like this, often so skilled at subtle manipulation they hide in plain site, are called sociopaths or psychopaths. Trying to understand them and playing by their terms by trying to accommodate, cure, or help them, will lead to only one result: your pain and their success. The author concludes that the number one method of combating damage from a connection to a sociopath is avoidance.

The book is pop psychology and some parts may be skimmed depending on your interests, but the author definitely portrays accurately the frustrations, fear, and difficulties of having someone like this in your life. For me, the book reinforced and strengthened my own approach to someone like this in my own life: AVOID, AVOID, AVOID. It took me years to get to this point, and luckily I have someone else who is dealing with the same person and with whom I can compare notes and encouragement, but for someone floundering around thinking they are in an impossible position, this book offers hope. You may not be dealing with a psychopath, but it's worth checking out. It certainly helped me solidify my certainty in the path I've chosen.

I've just checked Very Bad Men out from the library.

I'll have to look for The Sociopath Next Door.

Yikes The Sociopath Next Door is going on the wishlist. I had a very close friend who I finally had to say I can't be around you any more because of exactly what I think is in this book. It's pretty hard walking away, and pretty hard looking back at the relationship and trying to make sense of it. Good luck with your person.

>146 cammykitty:. I should have added that by "avoid" I mean: don't reply to, don't look at, don't acknowledge in any way, whatever happens, and don't attend any events this person is attending. It's been hard, because this person is "around" all the time, but I can see no way to prevent being hurt more. Not that it will prevent it entirely, but at least I'm giving it my best shot and not helping it happen. Cammy, if your friend is indeed a sociopath, this book will help you feel you made the right decision.

Thanks! All my friends have made it very clear that they back me on this decision. Fortunately this person has chosen to quit doing the things we did together, except for Irish Fair - and Irish Fair is a big event. We should be able to avoid each other there.

I also liked The Sociopath Next Door...it's a little scary, especially since it's difficult to spot them right away! But avoidance really is the best answer, isn't it?

>149 The_Hibernator: Avoidance seems to be the answer, but it can be really hard, logistically and emotionally. Most of us have the politeness gene hardwired.

#144 That sounds like a fascinating book. I don't know anyone like that - at least, I don't think I do - but there is someone in my life that I've made the hard decision to cut all contact with. I also have someone else in my life who is rather severely mentally ill and I really don't know how to act around her sometimes. It doesn't sound like this book addresses either of my situations, but it sounds so intriguing that I might just read it anyway!

re: The Sociopath Next Door ... looks like a fascinating book. I read the introduction on Amazon, and one idea stuck out (an idea that I find very dangerous)... sociopaths cannot be helped or changed, and they are invariably bad. It is not too hard to imagine the implementation of a sociopath 'test' to identify the 4% of us who are apparently afflicted by this condition... and of course the endless opportunity for misuse and abuse... scary stuff

#152 Very scary stuff, indeed. I read a novel last year where the main character was a teenage boy who had been diagnosed as sociopathic. He was able to make conscious decisions to behave in certain ways to please other people - his mom, his girlfriend, etc - but that those behaviors were not automatic for him. He knew right from wrong only in a purely intellectual way. I wonder how accurate that portrayal was? Plus, surely as in every other affliction, some people are more severely affected than others?

if you read through some of the Amazon comments, you find people advocating for putting people like that in a cage, or worse... I didn't see anybody mention an "ultimate solution" but that idea can't be far behind... which of course begs the question ... who are the real sociopaths?

It's an interesting topic in an evolutionary sense as well... and probably explains the relative common-ness of the gene (1 in 25 means that there ~12 million sociopaths in the US alone). Are sociopaths better adapted? How many of the good or useful things and ideas are invented as the result of a sociopath's single-minded dedication? Ruthlessly pursuing research over every obstacle... human or otherwise.

There was an article in the NY Times yesterday about childhood psychopaths...

ETA: I think it may actually be an article from the New Yorker that was published on the NY Times website...

I think the likelihood of there being a mass movement to identify and do something about these people is extremely unlikely. First, most people just don't believe there can really be people with no conscience among them until they experience it, so there's no real audience for an argument to identify them. Second, the people who usually act on such thoughts are the sociopaths, not those with a conscience. Third, it usually takes a long time to identify just one, because their victims think they, themselves, are misinterpreting the evidence because it's so subtle and bizarre. Unless the person in question is Hitler, Pol Pot, or some other outrageous example, it's not so easy to pin down. I think it's much, much more important to have something like this available so that the average victim or would-be victim can identify that the problem isn't them and can get away from the sociopath's influence and return to living a normal life. I'm in my 60s, and looking back I don't think I could identify any other single person in my life I'd put in this category. At any rate, I'd encourage anyone interested to read the book to see if someone they're concerned about does or doesn't fit the bill. It's not as simple as mean, angry people who do awful things. It's a group of symptoms.

My understanding is that there is no "partial" sociopath, since the condition is defined as a total lack of conscience (empathy, human attachment, etc.). They do know right from wrong, they just have no interest in it. And there is no cure, because these people aren't ill, they are missing a human component. Anyone who watches Dexter will recognize the sociopath's need to analyze what the appropriate response is to appear normal. That's just a show, but the book talks about blood flow research done with sociopaths and controls which shows how the sociopath uses the part of the brain we all use for math before responding to certain stimuli. The average person doesn't, because the response, whatever it might be for them, is built-in and automatic.

Interesting discussion, especially your comments, Marge. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm also assuming a sociopath can decide to follow society's laws because they deem it the most logical/easiest thing for them to do. I certainly don't want a friend who is manipulating me for their own gain and may put me in dangerous situations, but that's my concern - not the law's. That "Final Solution" attitude scares me a bit, even for sociopaths. Who would be responsible for identifying the sociopath then? Would people who are lacking in social skills for some reason, such as perhaps Autism, get lumped in with the sociopaths? How do you tell the difference between a true sociopath who is untreatable versus a person who has a neurotypically normal brain but for some reason doesn't seem to function with empathy/compassion? How do you know who can be rehabilitated and who can't?

Hmmmm... food for thought.

>157 cammykitty: Cammy, I doubt that sociopaths need our concern. They are much more likely to round up the rest of us, as has been done numerous times in the past. We, at least, worry about doing such a thing, as witness the concern expressed here. They would have no qualms.

Re: a spectrum of conscience - normals have a spectrum. By definition, sociopaths don't. They're the ones at the extreme end of the spectrum where the meter reads zero.

I think there's an implicit assumption that we're making about sociopaths... that they are automatically bad or evil. I think that's a moral judgment being made by our religious based society.

I need to read the book!

Well, I'm not religious, but I do think a conscience is imperative for a person to be good. Also - if you've ever been a victim of a someone like this, you'll know the answer to whether there's any good there. Or, let's put it this way: to survive, it may be necessary to assume there is no good there. The manipulation is simply too strong for someone with a conscience to fight successfully on the sociopath's terms.

I've already added this book to my wishlist - it just looks too interesting to pass up.

I wonder, though, can sociopaths be happy in a way that the rest of us understand it?

Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell **** 5/14/12

On a completely different note, here's a short horror novel from 1938, in which a group of scientists exploring the magnetic South Pole discovers an alien vessel from the time Antarctica froze, and some of the alien tissue survives and can shape-shift. How they try to decide who might be a monster and whether any of them will ever be able to leave alive is quite gripping, although the end is a bit abrupt.

>161 sjmccreary: I think that's part of the problem - enjoyment, for the psychopath, is in fulfilling all that person's desires, whether harmful to others or not. It's complete selfishness, and depending on what the psychopath's desires are (blood, power, money, having someone to support or serve them, or whatever), will define what kind of damage they'll be willing to do to others.

#163 I'm beginning now to understand how 1 in 25 people can be this way - and doesn't it explain a lot about our society? I have to admit, the desire to round these people up and contain them is definitely there. Can't wait to read the book.

@158 - You're right Marge. The one I knew who may or may not be a true sociopath was so good at manipulation that it took years for people to figure out what she was up too. In that amount of time, we all could have been cooked & served for dinner. ;)

& this is a little off topic, but not really - the traditional British Isles faery is basically a sociopath - notice how few books with faeries in them go this route. At some point, most authors let a bit of compassion or a moral compass slip into their faeries. I think it's really hard for the average person to conceive of a true sociopath.

So is John W. Campbell the Campbell of the Campbell award for a first novel in fantasy and science fiction? If so, I'm interested. I think I'm getting The Thing mixed up with The Blob since the blob got shipped up to the arctic to be kept frozen. Oh noes!!! I can see a climate change - return of the blob plot here.

>165 cammykitty: That's the right Campbell. According to Wikipedia, both the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer were named in his honor. Apparently he wasn't well-liked - bristly, demanding, and overbearing. About his childhood the entry reads, His father was a cold, impersonal, and unaffectionate electrical engineer. His mother, Dorothy (née Strahern) was warm but changeable of character and had an identical twin who visited them often and who disliked young John. John was unable to tell them apart and was frequently coldly rebuffed by the person he took to be his mother. Pretty sad.

I don't think of a sociopath as bad or good, but amoral. It's possible they could do something horrible (like cut off the tail of a cat) just because they're bored, and not because they get any enjoyment out of doing it. The problem is, most sociopaths follow the BASIC rules of society (they don't break the important laws like murder, rape, etc.) They are difficult to identify because they're often cunningly charming. I'm pretty sure my x-boss is one of them, though I can't be sure....

>167 The_Hibernator: LOL, I thought you'd written "x-ray boss" and was wondering if he could disappear at will or read minds or just seemed that way because he was so difficult.

>168 auntmarge64: Haha, well, I'm VERY certain he can't read minds, though he often claimed "I know a lot more about what's going on around here than you think I do..." But that was just because of his network of spies, not supernatural abilities. ;)

My husband had a key employee (who conveniently "retired" last year, thankfully) and now I'm wondering if this might have been what was wrong with her. Something sure was. Does the book describe how sociopathy is diagnosed? Are there symptoms that can be identified by non-professionals?

>170 sjmccreary: It gives a pretty good guideline for guessing whether a person is a sociopath or not. However, it's impossible to diagnose without a much more in-depth evaluation, which you're never going to be able to get. :) In the end, I kind of feel better saying "my boss is probably a sociopath" then thinking "my boss is personally out to get me (and others)" somehow it makes the issue much less personal when there's a diagnosis involved!

I just finished reading Columbine, where various experts agreed that one of the perpetrators was a psychopath. The carnage would have been worse, but he got bored partway through.

>172 RidgewayGirl: Yup, chronic boredom is one of the problems.

@172 Thank heavens for boredom! I definitely have to read Co lumbine.

@171 I agree. I'd rather have an ex-boss who was certifiably psycho rather than one who was just out to get me. It's a subtle difference, but for some reason, it makes a difference.

@165 Perhaps that bristly character is why he seems to have been honored more after his death than during his life - but he's far from the only bristly character who has been successful writing science ficiton and horror. That twin mom thing is just to cruel though!

>174 cammykitty: Yeah, the twin Mom thing made me want to smack his real mother. And the bristlyness (?) was mentioned as a problem because it drove away some of the best SF authors. He sounds like quite a (not very likable) character, but who cares now as we enjoy his writing?

>175 auntmarge64: I'd smack 'em both just to make sure I got the real mother and not the twin by mistake.

>176 cammykitty: LOL

>176 cammykitty: Hah, good one!

Great discussion going on here.... sadly, I have nothing to add but wanted to comment. ;-)

>179 lkernagh: Hi, Lori. Maybe it's your lucky day you have nothing to add. No sociopaths in your life?

Not that I am aware of..... you do realize I am now going to be scrutinizing everyone I encounter, right? ;-)

Lori, I think you'd notice if you met one. If you don't notice, then it's probably best not to think about it ;)

I think it usually takes a long familiarity to put the pieces together.

#183 I think that is the part that makes all of this so disturbing - by the time you realize what might be going on with a person, you're already invested in a relationship.

A friend of mine, who has also read The Sociopath Next Door and is now reading Without Conscience, has been reading through various blogs written by psychopaths (although I'm sure there are a few wannabees in there). I find them as a whole too depressing to read, but he's been sending along excerpts and I thought folks might find this one especially telling. It certainly rang true with our experiences:

My own emotions are quite strong, but they're very basic and primal. I filter them out of necessity, though I must admit it's quite involuntary. They slip through from time to time, but generally speaking, they vanish as quickly as they come. If something provokes me into a rage, that rage will vanish as soon as the catalyst is gone, and sometimes it happens even sooner.

I typically keep a very level head, but I know that certain things, or enough repeated frustration, will set me off. One of my past lovers told me that, when that happens, I get this look of pure hatred in my eyes, something she couldn't even find words for. She said it really scared her.

But the same is true for positive emotions as well as the negatives. When I get excited about something, I get very, very excited. When I want something, I really, really want it. When I get sad or lonely, I get extremely sad or lonely.

These moments are pretty rare. Usually, my life is engulfed in a very profound indifference. As long as my needs are met, I'm cool with it, and my needs are very, very basic.

I've noticed that other people are typically incapable of resolving my emotions. For example, if I'm lonely, neither words nor company from anyone on the planet will resolve it. If I'm excited, I can't share that excitement with anyone and it actually starts to become frustrating and painful unless I suppress the excitement myself. If I'm enraged, no apologies, explanations, reparations, or usually even retribution will resolve it.

I've read a few sociopathic sites, and some postings by people claiming to be sociopaths - I agree with you about the "wannabee" part. This topic is very fascinating - and creepy. This excerpt is very interesting - and more food for thought.

and

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester *** 5/16/12

This was a depressing little book built around the collaboration and friendship between the self-made scholar who shepherded the astonishing birth of the Oxford English Dictionary and one of the volunteers who regularly sent in contributions. The volunteer turned out to be a wealthy American doctor and murderer housed in an insane asylum outside London. The book expounds on a variety of topics which touch on the lives of the two men, including surgical practice in the Union Army during the Civil War, the Battle of the Wilderness, and the history of dictionaries. Much of this is quite interesting, but I didn’t find the central story all that compelling, perhaps because the actual documentation isn’t voluminous, so all the details on other subjects feel like filler.

The Wrong Man by David Ellis ***** 5/17/12

Another winner for suspense writer and prosecutor Ellis, who successfully impeached Governor Rod Blagojevich. This is the third in the Jason Kolarich series blending suspense and courtroom drama, and Ellis sure knows how to plot and pace a thriller. Here Kolarich defends a homeless vet accused of gunning down a young woman to rob her. He's found with the gun and her belongings, and it seems to be a slam dunk win for the state. However, there a few too many inconsistencies and as the defense tries to find a way to get the vet off on insanity they begin to sense he may actually be innocent. Pick this up and you'll be sleepless before you're able to put it down.

I already have book #1 of the Jason Kolarich series on my wishlist - glad to hear it's a good one. I think I'll skip the OED book. Thanks for the comments, though, because it is exactly the kind of thing I would have picked out to read - and then been disappointed.

>188 auntmarge64: - Did you read In The Company of Liars by David Ellis? One of my favorites!

I had a great haul at two library books sales this week. Several of these will be for this challenge:

Civil War:
The War of the Aeronauts: The History of Ballooning in the Civil War by Charles M. Evans
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations On Cotton And Slavery In The American Slave States, 1853-1861 by Frederick Law Olmsted

Women out and about:
Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach
Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers by Dea Birkett
Women of the Raj by Margaret MacMillan (no touchstone for title)

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick - the original Moby Dick
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren
King Philip's War: Civil War in New England, 1675-1676 by James D. Drake
Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson
The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History by Robert H. Boyle
Life in a Medieval Castle by Joseph Gies
Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

And some fiction:
The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri - sounds wonderful
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - not sure if I really want to read this but will give it a try
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

That is a very nice haul. I have several of those already, and a few are already on my wish list as well.

What a great book stack! I'm dying to see your thoughts on the ballooning-during-the-Civil-War book!

I'm kind of looking forward to the ballooning book too. Somebody had some brains to think of aerial spying, which I suppose it what it was used for. Lincoln liked the idea, but the military powers-that-be apparently thought little of it. Silly people. I'll report when I've read it.

Time Untamed by Isaac Asimov and others ** 5/19/12

Nothing to do with time except its passing, perhaps, and only a so-so collection short stories by Asimov, Bloch, Bradbury, Simak, Sturgeon, De Camp, Leiber, and my favorite, John Wyndham. Read if you're a fan of any of these, otherwise skip.

Some great books... I really liked Team of Rivals.

>196 banjo123: Team of Rivals seems to be at the top of many lists. I'll probably read it on my Kindle, but having the print copy can helpful for illustrations and just for browsing, footnotes and index.

True Believers: A Novel by Kurt Andersen *½ 5/21/12
(Made available pre-publication via Netgalley.com)

The shame of it is, there's an interesting story here, buried under 450 pages of swollen narrative in which the author attempts to mention every important event, person, movement, philosophy, and fad to have occurred in mid-Century America.

In 2014, a 60-something attorney, judge, and professor, having recently removed herself from consideration for the Supreme Court, decides to write an autobiography to explain a tragic event from 1968 which would have been uncovered by a national security check and the reason she backed out. She goes back and forth between the present, in which she's trying to gather evidence to back up her memories of that incident, and the past, unraveling what happened to her from middle school through the turbulent 60s when she was in college.

It sounds like the basis to an interesting tale, but no. I found myself skimming whole chapters to find the few pages of real import to keep the story going and find out what terrible thing she did. When the truth does show up, and it's a tale which could have been quite dramatic, it's such an anticlimax it falls flat. The novel has no shape, the writing is overblown, and the result is boredom.

Between 1964 and 1967, the war and the antiwar countercultural fantasia grew symbiotically, centrifugally, exponentially, like a cascading nuclear reaction. I was eighteen at the very moment when American teenagers were being conscripted to kill and die in a deranged war and being encouraged to believe they could see and feel more clearly and vitally than anyone else on earth the differences between smart and stupid, authentic and fake, free and oppressed, right and wrong.

I was a fissile creature by the end of 1967 and the beginning of 1968. In the space of a year, having redefined myself as a radical, I'd started using mind-altering drugs, lost my virginity, come down with the incurable illness that occasionally addled and would someday kill me, experienced true love, lost my closest (black) adult friend to casual (white) malfeasance, left home, been beaten by a deputy U.S. Marshall on the steps of the Pentagon, gotten punished by my college for opposing the manufacture of napalm, and lost my sister in an airplane crash.

My impatient belief in my own higher sanity became so sure and fierce that it eventually moved into the suburbs of insanity. Sarah, who is the sanest person I know, always says about expensive heels that snap off the second time you wear them or people who use "literally" wrong or her husband spitting into the kitchen sick, "That make me so crazy." The Vietnam War literally made me crazy. But it didn't and doesn't make me not guilty.

This is apparently a pattern for Andersen, as witness a review for one of the author's previous books, in which the main character's adventures too often get bogged down in the minutiae of the period at the expense of storytelling (Janet Maslin deems the effect "compulsive pedantry"). Really, unless you're a fan, I'd avoid this.

Thanks for this review. I am not a fan and will give this one a miss. (I had to look up "fissile" and I still don't get what he means.)

>199 mamzel: I was going to request it from ER but then saw it on Netgalley. At least I'm glad I didn't waste an ER spot and will maybe get one of the others which look interesting.

I think by "fissile" he meant she kept changing and being changed by all that went on in her life - a chain reaction, as it were. Whatever, it's still a poorly written book and should have been thoroughly revised in both format and text.

This Must Be The Place by Kate Racculia ***** 5/24/12

This is lovely novel about Arthur Rook, a bereft newly-widowed young man searching for some connection to his wife’s past. He finds an old unsent postcard he’s never seen and travels across country to her hometown, where she was raised by her now-deceased grandfather. There he finds a group of characters, especially Mona, the woman to whom the card was addressed, living at a boarding house Mona owns. Mona has a 15-year old daughter, Oneida, precocious and somewhat alienated from her classmates, and we come to know Arthur, Mona, Oneida, and Oneida’s boyfriend all very well, for there are really four main characters here, as well as Amy, the dead wife, who is ever-present.

Racculia’s handle on dialogue is superb, and even as I was tempted to read ahead to find out what happens, I was entranced by the language and stayed with the storyline. She shows, doesn’t tell, and when she refers to something from popular culture she allows the reader to follow-up if necessary and doesn’t bog down the story explaining. For instance, when Amy asks him to name one person he hates, he names Hitler (douchebag), the Cigarette-Smoking Man, and Iago. Later he describes his impression of the local vegetation when he was newly-arrived in Los Angeles as waving their triffid fronds. And recalling his childhood: He’d once even dreamed himself onto the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and had been whipped into a froth of anxiety because he was supposed to be on the Millennium Falcon; he was in the wrong universe entirely, and Spock had neck-pinched him to shut him up.

The secret Amy was hiding is not a big surprise and isn’t meant to be except to Arthur and some of the other characters. There are hints along the way, and when it’s revealed, it’s the way in which it affects these characters we’ve come to love which is the suspense. This is a wonderful book about loss, love, acceptance and new beginnings. Highly recommended.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells **** 5/26/12

After seeing various film versions, it was a pleasure to read the original, which is actually quite exciting and must have been tremendously so when it was first published. It reminded me of John Wyndham, so maybe it's the British approach, but that made it even more enjoyable. I especially appreciated Wells' philosophizing over the position the invasion put the humans in: that of the rats or ants to us.



Tales of a Dalai Lama by Pierre Delattre **** 5/27/12



Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry **** 5/28/12



Obscure Destinies by Willa Cather ***½ 5/29/12

Came home with another library book sale haul today, almost all brand new copies and all for $4 total:

For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War by James M. McPherson
The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention by Catherine Drinker Bowen
The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus ed. and trans. by J. M. Cohen
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Singing the Master: The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South by Roger D. Abrahams
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara W. Tuchman

My favorite play after "Hamlet" itself:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart by Ram Dass (Be Here Now was transformative in my life)

Three mysteries in the Jack Taylor series by Ken Bruen:
The Magdalen Martyrs, Blitz, and The Killing of the Tinkers

And three books I've read before which I decided to get for my own collection:
Women Together: A History in Documents of the Women's Movement in the United States by Judith Papachristou
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts
Inside of A Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz

What a haul!!! Lucky you!

Hope you didn't strain anything carrying that lot home. Adding a quick note to say that Blitz is actually part of a different series by Ken Bruen and isn't one of the Jack Taylor books.

>205 AHS-Wolfy: re: Blitz - thanks for the clarification. I don't think I've read anything by him yet, must have misread the LT page when I was looking at his books. So, I'll guess I'll be trying two of his series :)

That's a great haul and a very decent price! :) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is just brilliant, isn't it!

A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright **** 6/4/12

A mixture of time travel and post-apocalyptic fiction, this journal is written by David Lambert, an archaeologist who finds Wells' actual contraption 100 years after the events related in The Time Machine. Mourning his lost love Anita who has recently died at age 32 of BSE (mad cow disease), and himself diagnosed with early stages (they ate the same contaminated food while on various digs), he sets the machine for 500 years hence and takes off, hoping to find science that will allow himself to be cured and save her if he can reverse course to before she was infected. What he finds is retold in a series of letters which are part memoir of their times together and part travelogue of his adventures in 2501.

The story is dense with description and literary allusions, and a familiarity with London, England and Scotland is advised for full appreciation. David and Anita traveled around the UK together, and the time machine is found in, and subsequently arrives in, greater London. David's time in the future parallels much of the traveling they did together, and each new day brings both discoveries and memories, which entwine in the letters. It's tough going occasionally, especially for someone not familiar with the geography, and there were times I wasn't interested in his memories but just in finding out what happened next. Still, it's moving, although emotionally difficult to process, and hanging over all the proceedings is the specter of David's brain deterioration and the effect it may be having on what he is experiencing and writing.

Oh, great review for A Scientific Romance. At a glance it looks like it could fit into a couple of my categories so onto the shortlist of potentials for this year it goes!

Wow great haul! hiroshima is a bit of a harrowing read(I read it when I visited Japan so really poignant)

>210 psutto: I've owned it before but never read it, but I do want to. Many of the other books looked interesting but I'd never of them, which is one reason I love these book sales. Of course, I have so many books in the house and (on my Kindle) I could probably use the rest of my life to finish, but still......I'm a book sale addict!

My name is RidgewayGirl and I am also a book sale addict.

Yup I guess LibrayThing could easily also be called "book sale addicts anonymous"

Personally, I'm a RECOVERING book sale addict. I'm trying to reduce the number of books I acquire and use the library more...we'll see how long that lasts. ;)

>214 The_Hibernator: Yup, thought I had overcrowding covered when I bought a Kindle. THEN I started going to book sales. Sob.....

So, do you all go to big sales, little ones, or everything? I prefer the 4000-10,000 book size or I get overwhelmed, but occasionally I give them another try. I live in a semi-rural area (in New Jersey! - bet you didn't know NJ had rural areas) so most of the sales around here are in my size range anyway.

I'm in a small city in SC, so the book sales within shouting distance are limited. There's a giant sale once a year put together by an adult literacy group and I limit the damage by not going until the bag sale at the end -- a paper grocery bag's worth for $10. The local Friends of the Library group has two big sales a year, but also opens for a few hours once a month. It's low key and not crowded.

I'd go to more, but there aren't more, which is probably a good thing!

When is that sale, Alison? It's not that far to SC! I guess I just admitted that I'm a book sale addict too.

re: book sales, there's a great online resource for finding them in the U.S.: http://www.booksalefinder.com/index.html