Wookiebender's 100 Books in 2012

Woot! Looking forward to 2012!

As of 1st Jan, 2012, I have 471 books listed as "to read" in my LibraryThing catalogue. Sadly, this is not an accurate number, as I have a number of books in the house that have not been catalogued here. But let's see if I can reduce this number over 2012!

READING LIST:

1. Past the Shallows, Favel Parrett
2. The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, Lauren Liebenberg
3. Fables: Animal Farm, Bill Willingham
4. Fables: Homelands, Bill Willingham
5. Traitor, Stephen Daisley

6. The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, Syrie James
7. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carre
8. The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer
9. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
10. The Summer Without Men, Siri Hustvedt

11. The Looking Glass War, John le Carré
12. Blankets, Craig Thompson
13. The Unwritten Volume 3: Dead Man's Knock, Mike Carey
14. A Soldier's Tale, M.K. Joseph
15. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré

16. The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas
17. The Wayward Bus, John Steinbeck
18. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
19. Evening's Empire, David Herter
20. Half Magic, Edward Eager

21. The Sooterkin, Tom Gilling
22. Logicomix, Apostolos Doxiadis
23. All That I Am, Anna Funder
24. The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville
25. The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck

26. Silent in the Sanctuary, Deanna Raybourn
27. Austenland, Shannon Hale
28. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
29. Death Comes to Pemberley, P.D. James
30. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jules Verne

31. Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, Suzanne Finstad
32. Sandman: The Dream Hunters, Neil Gaiman
33. Sarah Thornhill, Kate Grenville
34. The Tale of One Bad Rat, Bryan Talbot
35. God Save the Queen, Mike Carey

36. The Vesuvius Club: A Lucifer Box Novel, Mark Gatiss
37. The Somnambulist, Essie Fox
38. Betrayals, Charles Palliser
39. The Moon is Down, John Steinbeck
40. City of Bones, Cassandra Clare

41. Ragnarok, AS Byatt
42. Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo (DNF)
43. The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
44. City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare

SCHEDULED FUTURE READS:

May:
 The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 May Murder & Mayhem (75ers)
June:
 River of Smoke, Amitav Ghosh (75ers)
 Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 Goodbye Sarajevo: A True Story of Courage, Love and Survival, Hana Schofield & Atka Reid (ANZLitLovers)
July:
 East of Eden, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 The Hut Builder, Laurence Fearnley (ANZLitLovers)
August:
 The Red Pony, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 The Street Sweeper, Eliot Perlman (ANZLitLovers)
September:
 In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes (ANZLitLovers)
October:
 Tortilla Flat, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 Autumn Laing, Alex Miller (ANZLitLovers)
November:
 Travels With Charley and The Pearl, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 Miles Franklin Winner (TBA) (ANZLitLovers)
December:
 Sweet Thursday, John Steinbeck (Steinbeckathon)
 There Should be More Dancing, Rosalie Ham (ANZLitLovers)

Welcome!

I expect to be reading a lot about your reading again this year :0)

Oh, I'm looking forward to following all of these threads.

Thanks all! Looking forward to all of your threads, too, of course. :)

Can't believe it's almost 2012 already. After spending most of December in denial (fingers in ears, going lalalalalalala, that sort of thing), it's now only two days away. What happened to 2011?? Seems like just yesterday it was January and a new year...

I agree - this has been the fastest year ever.

Okay, I have (sort of) closed off my 2011 thread, so the discussion will continue here now. Although I will hopefully have time to go back and fill in some reviews (I think I had 10 outstanding ones! oh help) so there probably will still be some activity there anyhow.

(I like writing reviews as memory joggers for myself, otherwise I do tend to forget details/impressions of books.)

Happy new year, and on to more reading!

Thanks for the link from your 2011 thread to this one. Glad to have found you! Happy new year!

Happy New Year all!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Thanks everyone! I've finished my first read for the year already (okay, I stayed up late to read it). Review will still be "pending" for a while (argh, still not even caught up on 2011), but it was a pretty good read, especially for fans of dysfunctional family literature. (I'm not, but I still appreciated this one.)

1. Past the Shallows, Favel Parrett



Set on the Tasmanian coast, this book is about three brothers and their abalone fisherman father. Their mother has died, their father is not coping, and neither are they, really. The youngest boy, Harry, is afraid of the water, and doesn't remember his mother. The middle boy, Miles, may have to leave school to help on the fishing boat; and the eldest, Joe, is living away from home and building his own boat to escape the town.

Yes, this is one of those angsty dysfunctional family dramas that Australian authors seem to specialise in. But this one is a cut well above average, with the angst actually quite restrained, being filtered through the children who are survivors rather than victims. The characterisation of the three brothers is excellent, the tension between them and their father is gripping, and it's beautifully written with small hints being dropped about the full story all the way and yet the reveal of the backstory still took me quite by surprise. She never hits you over the head with an unsubtle or clunky moment.

I'm not a fan of dysfunctional family stories, but this one completely grabbed me and did not let me go. I read it in one day, and stayed up until 1am to finish it.

****1/2

Happy New Year! Looking forward to following your reading thread once again this year!

Thanks iftyzaidi! Looking forward to your 2012 reads, too!

And my mini-challenge: as of 1st Jan, 2012, I had 471 books listed as "to read" in my LibraryThing catalogue. Sadly, this is not an accurate number, as I have a number of books in the house that have not been catalogued here. But let's see if I can reduce this number over 2012! My budget will probably be happy, too. ;)

Good idea, I'll list my realistic To Read (not all books I haven't read I want to read) to see if I manage to make a dent or just add to it.

Yes, well, Mt TBR just jumped up by one. Does it count if it's second hand? And a rather slim volume? :}

I did mention to Don my goal, and he looked at me as if I was crazy and said "but you'll NEVER read more than you buy". He knows me well...

Just wrote a review for Past the Shallows, (it's above), and while writing the review also gave it another 1/2 a star. I think I was being a bit too tough before...

Good review for past the Shallows. As you know, it was one of my faves for last year, so I'm glad you enjoyed it too.

Thanks Judy! I think I was just a bit grumpy about it being "another" dysfunctional family book, but once I got a bit further away from it, the beauty shone through.

And guess what? The next book is a dysfunctional family! And the current book is a WW1 book! I'm just lining up all these depressing reads right now! Yeesh.

Adding Past the Shallows to my wish list. But I'm not buying books this year, so it will have to wait.

Edited to say: I guess I WON'T add it after all--the Add Books page can't find it. So annoying when it's right there when I follow the touchstone. I even tried the University of Tasmania. Grrrr.

>23 Nickelini:: Try it with the University of Western Australia. I think that works.

*waves at wookie* Hi Tania! I'm lurking about and found you here... :-)

I usually use the National Library of Australia, I tend to assume it's got everything. And apart from an annoying lack of upper case in their titles, they're yet to fail me on Australian books.

Hi crimson-tide! Haven't seen you for a while, thanks for popping in!

I usually use the National Library of Australia, I tend to assume it's got everything.

Not tonight it didn't. I also tried the Australian National Library. So annoying.

Very annoying! Maybe it's on summer holidays this week, because it definitely had Past the Shallows a few weeks ago when I added it to my catalogue!

Ahh! Found you here up in the 100's! Starred! :)

I'm always here in the 100s. :) Lovely people in the 75 group, but it's all a bit noisy, so I tend to just pop in there now and then.

Which reminds me, where is your thread there? I don't think I've spotted it yet!

Argh, four reviews behind already! 2012 is turning out to be much like 2011 so far...

2. The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, Lauren Liebenberg



It is Rhodesia in the 1970s, and two young white sisters, Nyree and Cia, are growing up on an isolated farm, being brought up by their over-worked mother and their slightly cracked Oupa, while their father is off fighting the Terrs.

I reckon a Terr is about eight feet tall, he slobbers and his toenails are long, ragged and filthy. He tears the limbs off live vervet monkeys to gnaw and if he gets his hands on a cane rat, he guts it with a snaggletooth, the licks the entrails off his dripping chin. That's why his teeth are dark and rotted: if you feed on live animals, the blood stains them for ever. Cia nodded, satisfied, as if I'd confirmed what she'd suspected all along. But actually I know that Terr is short for 'terrorist' and Dad's always been fighting them because there's always been the War.

Oupa sits on the stoep, drinking gin and tonics, and sermonising about duty and damnation, the road to perdition, dereliction of duty, and his dead brother, Great-Uncle Seamus, a Prodigal Son and a Scoundrel who went 'astray'. The children are fascinated by Seamus and the hints of his story they glean from Oupa, and then one summer the story comes to life for them when their cousin Ronin comes to stay. He's a handsome boy, but under his polished exterior lies darkness.

This was a beautifully written book, filled with magic, both English and African. The characters were wonderful, although Ronin could have been better fleshed out, he seems to be evil without any chance of redemption, which seems unfair for such a young man. The location and time was also fascinating, it's an era I know very little about.

Overall, it was a bit of a corker. Funny, sad, disturbing.

****1/2

3. Fables: Animal Farm, Bill Willingham



The second in Bill Willingham's great Fables series, about the fairytale characters who have been exiled from their homelands by the Adversary and who are now living in New York. As you do.

In this graphic novel, we are introduced to the farm where the fairytale creatures that can't pass as human live. Unfortunately, they are unhappy with their lot in life, and are agitating for change. Snow White and her estranged sister, Rose Red, visit the farm for a weekend and get caught up in all the mess.

We get to meet the three little pigs (Posey, Dun, and Colin), Shere Khan and Baghera, the Three Bears, Reynard the Fox, Puss in Boots, and any number of other characters that would be unable to fit into an urban setting.

It's a good solid entry in an excellent series.

****

4. Fables: Homelands, Bill Willingham



This is the sixth in the Fables series (yeah, I'm reading them quite out of order!). In this one, we have two distinct stories. In one, Jack moves to Hollywood and starts making movies, which made me crack up when I saw that "Jack the Giant Killer" comes out this year: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1351685/

And the second story revolves around Boy Blue, who is cutting a swathe with the vorpal blade through the Homelands. Snicker snack!

Another excellent entry in a consistently good series.

****

While I've knocked a few "TBR" off my shelves this summer, I've also had a recent trip to the library, so the TBR count has gone up, ever so slightly, to 472. Not quite the right direction, but at least it's just up by one!

I don't know if it's a good idea to read other peoples threads! I've added your first two reads to my pile. I had been meaning to read The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam for ages, if only because I love the title.

I didn't know what to expect with Peanut Butter and Jam, I didn't even realise it was going to be set in Africa until I read the author's note in the front! I always thought PB&J was such an American thing. (And one of their better inventions, IMO. :) I bought it for the title, and it was on sale, and it was longlisted for the Orange Prize (and it is Orange January!).

But both those first reads of 2012 are highly recommended, as will be the next book, when I get around to writing its review!

Thanks for the 'Voluptuous Delight' review wookiebender, it is straight onto the TBR mountain !

I hope you like it, bryanoz!

I think I'll have to read that book just for the fantastic title!

I'm not usually a graphic novel-reader, but I'm intrigued by the Fables series. (And I got a chuckle at the snicker snack/Vorpal blade connection.) Good luck with your TBR challenge; looking forward to reading all about it here! :)

5. Traitor, Stephen Daisley



This book opens in Lemnos in 1915, with New Zealand soldier David Monroe badly wounded. He will live, but will be scarred. It then suddenly jumps ahead fifty years, to when David Monroe is dying of a sudden heart attack. As he dies, he sees an old friend, Mahmoud. The book then proceeds to fill in the gaps in this fifty year span. It turns out that David was convicted of treason during WW1, when he helped a Turkish prisoner, Mahmoud, with whom he had formed a friendship to escape. David is condemned, but escapes capital punishment because the Australian soldiers, obviously fed up with the futility of the war and being used as cannon fodder by the British command, refuse to kill any New Zealand or Australian soldiers. He then becomes a conscientious objector and serves out the rest of the war being a stretcher bearer on the Western Front in Europe.

For me though, that was all just a set up for his return home to rural New Zealand, and the portrait of a country reeling from losing so many young men. Every family in his small town has lost someone, and sometimes all their children. And sometimes he had been witness to their deaths on the Western Front, and so becomes a lifeline for bereaved parents who are desperate to hear about their boys.

David said sorry. No. Tried to smile. Could not look at her. Saw only the pearl earring on her left ear. An old fashioned pale grey hat. A black hatband. Hated the look in the mothers' eyes. Crazed, like the look of the mares when the foals were separated for branding, a white-eyed rolling desperate look, capable of anything. Or the made ewes at docking, frantic, tongues blaring for their lost lambs. You couldn't...
It didn't bear thinking about.

The friendship between David and Mahmoud is also thoroughly explored. Mahmoud is a fascinating character, a doctor educated in England, a Sufi and a whirling dervish, a man of peace. Their friendship is short, but is deep and is obviously an important turning point in David's life.

This was a brilliant first novel, beautifully written (if you don't mind the lack of punctuation!), and I've barely scraped the surface of what it's all about. I think many other readers would take home different aspects; they may be more moved by Mahmoud and David's friendship; or the scenes in the trenches; or Mahmoud's story; or David's later life. But for me, it was the depiction of a country and society devastated by a war so far away from them that really rang true and spoke to me.

Complex, fascinating, an emotional rollercoaster. Recommended.

****1/2

#38> It is a great title, but I am beginning to get a bit fed up with typing The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam all the time! :)

#39> I think most people would probably enjoy this series - given it's about characters we all already know and, mostly, love. I'm annoyed I haven't yet tracked down the first in the series, we just grab what we can find when we run into them at the library.

Happy New Year, wookie. Looks like you've started with some great books - Traitor and Past the Shallows have both gone straight onto the TBR pile. Good luck to you reducing yours this year. I suspect that mine will continue to grow with each visit to Library Thing, but I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way!

Yes, it's been a very good start to the year, reading wise! I'm not sure how I'll go reducing Mt TBR, but so long as it doesn't grow too much, I think I'll be happy. :)

Tania- Thanks for the link! I did not have you starred. Bad Mark. Hey, I'm with you now.
Great review of Traitor. This one sounds terrific and I had not heard of it. I have still not tried the "Fables" GNs. One of these days.

Traitor sounds amazing (reminiscent of A Town Like Alice, a book that I rate very highly!).

Hi Mark, don't worry, it's always easy to lose threads with the fluster of a new year! Thanks for visiting.

Keith, I'd forgotten about A Town Like Alice, that was a great read too.

6. The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, Syrie James



There's always a risk writing a book purporting to be written by a much loved and, in my opinion, perfect author. So I approached this book with some trepidation, although I was also hoping for something cheerful and silly after several excellent, but fairly depressing, reads this year. Luckily, while James is no Austen or even a Heyer, it was still rather fun.

The dry facts of Jane's life are fairly well known, but her inner emotional life is unknown, due to the natural reticence of Jane and her family, and the destruction of her correspondence by her older sister Cassandra after Jane's death. While I would love to know what Jane had written in her letters, I also do feel that it's none of our business; we have the novels, and that is wonderful enough. But, of course, that also does leave open the creation of a work of fiction filling in the blanks of Jane's inner life, and that is what we have here.

There's a fair amount of exposition of the facts of Jane's life (and a very useful family tree in the front that I referred to several times, trying to keep all her family straight in my head). This could be clunky for readers who are already well aware of Jane's life, but I'm not one of them, and I appreciated the refresher course. James then creates a romance for our beloved Jane, and I did enjoy believing that Jane did get the chance to experience love. James does make a fairly plausible case for a romance of some kind in the end notes, and I'm not enough of a sophisticated Austen fan to be able to quibble with her theories.

The other part of the book is seeing incidents James has created for Jane's life that would then go on and influence her books. We meet a clergyman the spitting image of Pride and Prejudice's Mr Collins; there is a stumble on the stairs at Lyme, though with far less drastic consequences than in Persuasion; and throughout this book Jane is revising Sense and Sensibility, and many minor - and not so minor - parts of the book are reflected in these Lost Memoirs. These parallels were rather fun, but unsubtle, and I felt, reflected a lack of creativity on James' part, allowing her to just rewrite bits of the Austen canon. And wouldn't we prefer to think that Jane created all her fiction from her own imagination?

I wasn't expecting much of this book because it's one thing to write a Regency romance with a dash of Austenesque wit; it's a completely different thing to write *as* Jane Austen. It didn't have quite the level of snark or cleverness I would like, but overall it was rather fun, a good summer read.

***1/2

Ahha - found you! I forget that you're not on the 75ers thread so hadn't realised I was missing your thread till you posted on the 1,001! Looks like you're having fun this year. :)

Hi BekkaJo, thanks for stopping by! I tend to pop into the 75ers thread quite a bit, but the 100 group is my home. It's just a bit too noisy over there for long term, for me.

I'm currently reading another "1001" book, this time Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Not at all what I was expecting, but I'm liking it.

I agree with the business of the 75 group--even the year I did the 75 book read, I couldn't actually belong to the group because it just overwhelmed my message area.

Did you know there's a group read of Cannery Row going on this month? You can find it at: http://www.librarything.com/topic/130108#3177691

Thanks Joyce, but I'm already aware of the group read, which is why I'm reading it now. :) Although I haven't popped my head in there yet, I've been chatting on the main Steinbeckathon thread. (And I've requested a copy of The Wayward Bus for February from my favourite bookshop in the city. Never used their online ordering although I potter on their online catalogue a lot, was *very* chuffed to find a copy in their catalogue cheaper than TBD, and then found out I could easily skip postage by picking it up from them when it comes in, AND I can pay for it then too. Brilliant! The trick will be to get out without buying any other books as well...)

Tania- Hope you are enjoying Cannery Row. I've read it a couple times, although it's probably been a few years since I last read it. I'm glad you are finding a copy of The Wayward Bus. I have my library copy. I am hosting that one, you know!
I am finally starting The Secret River tomorrow. My 1st Grenville. Sad, I know.

Tania - I thought you did, but just in case I didn't want you to miss out. It's a bit of a fan club over there. No one is coming up with anything very critical to say.

Mark, it's not sad that you're starting Kate Grenville, it's *excellent* that you're starting Kate Grenville! I hope you like her as much as I do.

Joyce, I will try and think of something critical to say, but I may just be joining the fanclub, you know. :) I agree, discussions are always more fun if there's some difference of opinion.

Hmm, I think I'll have to look into Kate Grenville with all of this chat about her. Great review of The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen. I've been reading a couple of Orange books so far this year . And by the way - here I am - http://www.librarything.com/topic/129769# in with those noisy 75'ers! ;)

#49 LOL - we are a chatty bunch... I just tend to pick my favourites and stick with a few threads cos there's no way I could keep up with more. Glad you're liking Cannery Row - I loved it so so much! I already want to go re-read it...

Thanks for the welcome. I'm thoroughly impressed by your reviews will not even to match, lol. I'm lucky to come up with a sentence or two. Since I'm just starting maybe I'll grow into them? Now I'm going to have to add some to my to be read list. I can tell reading thread can be hazardous to my reading list. I'm going to be terminally behind!

Deb, I've found and starred your thread (thanks! I thought I had, but I was obviously off with the chaos monkeys that day). Am slowly working my way through all the chatter there... :)

Bekka, yup, I just pick a few threads over there and try to stick with it. Speaking of which, your thread url is...?

Hi Nicholette! Don't worry, my review standard will fall as the year progresses. I think my 2011 thread still has ~10 "review pending" notices for those last few books. ;) Thanks for your comments, and, yes, beware the wishlist blowout as you potter around this group.

Well, it looks like I'll be hitting you up for more Grenville titles because she won me over immediately.

but I was obviously off with the chaos monkeys that day).

Hold on here! Where do you find chaos monkeys, and what do you do with them? And most importantly, do people buy this as a credible excuse? I am absolutely intrigued.

Mark, I also read and loved her The Idea of Perfection last year, and that was my first Grenville. It's contemporary, not historical. I've got The Lieutenant out from the library right now, and that's the sequel-of-sorts to The Secret River (it's part of a loose trilogy that doesn't need to be read in order or anything). Hoping to get to it soon - the third book in the series is up for bookgroup discussion mid-year.

Joyce, "chaos monkeys" is what I call the kids when they are just that bit too boisterous. They like being fed apples and pretzels and icecream (not all at the same time), and trips to the bookshop. (But not the library, go figure.) And have the strange attitude of why walk, when you can ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun? And pretend to be cats quite often, although I do draw the line at being spoken to in meow-talk. And refuse to BE QUIET AND LIE DOWN at bedtime.

And, quite often, they completely distract me from whatever it was I was meant to be doing, thus earning the name chaos monkeys.

Sadly, they're not useful excuses for work not being completed, but are very acceptable excuses outside of the workplace, I find. :)

Tania - ahh, I see. Here I've been living with chaos monkeys for years and didn't even know that's what my problem was! For example, I was just now on the phone talking to a very nice Australian woman to book my ski vacation (everyone who works on our ski mountains is from Australia), and my kids were jumping on each other and screaming the whole time. I actually told them that someone from the other side of the world was hearing them and thinking they were horrible children. I hope I didn't book the wrong thing with all the monkey chaos in the background! They are two girls, 15 and almost-12 and I'm wondering when they'll grow into humans.

Mine is http://www.librarything.com/topic/129443 - but pretty quiet! Shamefully I didn't even get to 50 books last year...

Bekka, it's not really about the number of books, but the enjoyment from each book that counts. So long as you had fun reading your 50 books (or learnt something, or crossed another book off that 1001 list, etc), then you did brilliantly. :)

Chatting with a workmate the other day as I was clutching my copy of Cannery Row, she'd never heard of Steinbeck, BUT is currently loving Harry Potter (I'm also a sad Harry fan). So there is hope for her as a reader! Now I've been challenged to think of what she should go on with once she's finished with Hogwarts. :)

Any suggestions gratefully received, I was pondering passing along some YA fiction (Divergent was a good fun read, maybe Hunger Games although I'm yet to read that myself); if anyone can think outside the YA box that'd be good. I don't think there's any hurry for suggestions though, I got the impression she'll be reading Harry Potter for some weeks to come.

I also successfully pimped Jasper Fforde on another unsuspecting workmate. Bwahahaha! They'll regret they ever moved our teams into the same building. ;)

What about Diane Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard series? If she enjoyed Harry Potter she should enjoy those.

7. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carré



A chilling tale of spycraft and espionage in Germany during the Cold War.

At the beginning, Leamas sees his painstakingly constructed network of spies in East Germany fall apart, thanks to the machinations of his counterpart on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Mundt. (Can I just say that the lack of first names and honorifics makes this all seem so much more macho than if they'd been used?) He returns to The Circus in London in semi-disgrace following his failures, and is put behind a desk. But he's given one chance by Control to come in from the cold, and to bring down Mundt.

We're not told in advance any of Control's plan, it just unfolds slowly and surely in front of us. It's an understated masterpiece, devoid of hysteria and almost devoid of emotion. But it is quite unforgettable.

"I mean you've got to compare method with method, and ideal with ideal. I would say that since the war, our methods - ours and those of the opposition - have become much the same. I mean you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now?" He laughed quietly to himself: "That would never do," he said.

Not the sort of book I could put down while I was reading it, it was compelling from start to finish. Highly recommended.

*****

#65> I have had Diane Duane recommended to me before, I'll keep that one in mind, thanks!

8. The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer



The Masqueraders starts off with a young brother and sister, Mr and Miss Merriot, rescuing a young silly heiress in distress (she is halfway to Gretna Green, and the young man she has eloped with turns out to be - shock! horror! - only interested in her money). They hide the silly young heiress and bamboozle the cad (swine! bounder!).

And then proceed to thoroughly bamboozle me. It took a bit of a re-read to work out what was happening, the 18th century slang and wording took some translating before I got into the swing of it, and it's a very dialogue-driven book which wasn't helping me at first. Turns out that Miss Merriot is actually a young man (Robin), and Mr Merriot is actually a young woman (Prue), brother and sister, escaping in disguise after being on the wrong side in the recent Jacobite rebellion and on their way to London to take society by storm and await the arrival of their papa, the brains behind this rather wild scheme.

And, boy, do they take London by storm! Never a more charming pair has been set to paper. They flirt, make friends (and some enemies), and play their gender-bending roles to perfection. There is more adventure, frippery, romance, and truly delightful silliness in this than in any other book out there. (Unless that other book also happens to be written by Georgette Heyer.)

****

9. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck



This was not at all what I expected. I thought it was going to be a straightforward book, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and a linear plot. Maybe some heartwarming sentiment, a few nicely drawn characters, and some choice phrasing. But it was so much more than a mere story.

The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is dammed to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live. In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in. Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it. Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water. The farms of the rich little valley back up to the river and take its water for the orchards and the vegetables. The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk. Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs. It's everything a river should be.

And I want to move there.

I can't remember the last time I read something that so brought the beauty of the natural world to light. And this is set in Cannery Row, what I assume was a fairly dreary, smelly and noisy industrial area. It completely broke out of my expectations, and I had a great time reading this collection of vignettes about various personages who live (or work) on Cannery Row, in Monterey. Mostly it's about Doc, who owns and runs the Western Biological Laboratory, supplying specimens to other research institutes, but he's also the heart of Cannery Row. And it's also mostly about Mack and the boys, who live rough at the Palace Flophouse and Grill, an empty building owned by Lee Chong, who also runs the local grocery store. And there's alsoDora, the madam of the Bear Flag Restaurant.

All characters are lovingly drawn, none are stereotypical. I don't think I could pick a favourite, I'd love to live amongst all of these individuals, who have formed a community around Doc, the heart of Cannery Row.

It's also a series of digressions about all sorts of things, I learnt about Monterey itself, about nature at the edge of the sea, about flag pole skaters and beer milkshakes, and most importantly, about the Model T Ford.

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral. physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned, and a tire pump belonged to the last many who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them.

This was a simply marvellous book that I had a wonderful time reading. I want to pick it up and dive back into Cannery Row and revisit all the characters and all the natural beauty right now!

*****

10. The Summer Without Men, Siri Hustvedt



Poet Mia Fredricksen's husband asks for a "pause" in their thirty year marriage so he can have a fling with a French neuroscientist in his laboratory. Her reaction is to go quite mad, requiring a brief stint in a mental hospital and medication. When Mia gets out, she goes to stay near her mother, and takes a class teaching poetry to teenaged girls. Thus starts her summer without men: she makes friends with her mother's elderly friends (who she calls "the Swans"); she befriends the young woman who lives next door with two small children (the joyous Flora and the baby Simon); and she shepherds her young teenaged charges through the pitfalls of poetry and puberty.

In between, she attempts a journal about her sexual encounters, she fends off emails from "Mr Nobody", she gets regular updates from her daughter Daisy about her husband, she discovers the beautiful embroidered art that one of the Swans produces (and, oh, how I wanted one of those pieces!), she reads poetry, she contemplates philosophy, and she rants about neuroscience.

This is an amazingly wide-ranging work, in a remarkably fresh, entertaining and truly funny voice. Every character is wonderfully delineated (okay, some of the teenaged girls were hard to distinguish, but I think that's true in real life, now I'm well past that age myself), and even though there is heartbreak in here (Mia's madness and the people she meets in the hospital are rather terrifying; the elderly Swans are reduced in number by the end; and Mia also recalls the suicide of her brother-in-law some years prior) it never comes across as depressing.

Mia's voice is a bit all over the shop, which I feel is quite intentional, although it did take a while to get used to. At times she's mucking around, writing bits in different voices for the sheer fun of it all; at other times one worries that her madness is returning, or was never far from the surface to start off with.

I would have liked more plot, because I do like plot most of all in my books. But the plot (when it appears for brief moments) is fascinating and it's probably made me think more than any other book yet this year, forcing me out of my comfort zone and into contemplating growing old, madness, and reading poetry and philosophy and neuroscience.

And it's all (almost) without men. ;)

****

Phew, up-to-date on reviews! (A couple of these books are due back at the library soon, so I wanted to get their reviews out of the way while I still had them in my hot little hands.)

And the TBR book count as gone *up* to 473. Thanks to two rather tempting books at one of the local second hand bookshops. Still, it's only up by a teeny tiny amount. It's got to go down at some stage, doesn't it??

Well, Tania, you read so prolifically, that I think that you'll make a great dent into your TBR pile of 473!

Great reviews, but the way. I too am not too keen about reading Cannery Row - expecting as you did something rather dreary. But you certainly make it sound attractive... I may have to put it in my TBR pile - though I've got my quota of them too :)

Ahh - great review of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. I so enjoyed those spy stories from the cold war days... I've read several John le Carre's in the past - but I can't remember which ones for certain... it was back in my twenties and early thirties.

Excellent work with all of the reviews!

Thumb up for Cannery Row and The Masqueraders!

I want to read all three of these. Immediately. Mt TBR thanks you. (And I simply have to read a Georgette Heyer... where should I begin?)

So many books just went on the wishlist! Cannery Row, and The Summer Without Men, and The Masqueraders...

And glad you liked the le Carre book! I loved it too.

Tania- As usual, I love your reviews. I also loved The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Cannery Row. I have not read Siri Hustvedt yet, sadly.
I was crazy about The Secret River. I can easily see her becoming a favorite author.

I've only read one Siri Hustvedt -- What I Loved -- and was underwhelmed. I'm not feeling compelled to read The Summer Without Men.

What a batch of great reviews, Tania! And The Masqueraders is one of my favorite Heyers--I love Prue and Tony. And the old man.

Wonderful review of Cannery Row. Its been years since I read something by Steinbeck but once upon a time he was a favourite of mine! Looks like its time to re-visit!

@69 Great review, I really cant wait to read it for the Steinbeck in September mini challenge over in the 1212 group.

I also plan to read (reread) a couple of Steinbeck books later this year ... I recall liking Cannery Row quite a lot, and as I remember it, it's a pretty quick read, so I may add it to my list.

Probably my favorite Steinbeck is The Moon is Down ... kind of different than his typical type of book.

The Summer Without Men sounds terrific... adding to my list... maybe in 2013 or 14

Sorry for the quietude over here, was away for the weekend for friends' 42nd birthday party, and there was limited Internet reception! The horror! A great time though, caught up with lots of friends, we all knew where our towels were, there was a pot of petunias, and the cake was in the shape of a whale. (If that makes little sense, you really should read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.)

Thanks everyone for your great comments!

Deb, yes, you should read Cannery Row, I can't imagine anyone not loving it. And I'm onto the next Smiley novel now, The Looking Glass War. Another fascinating read.

ravenous.reader, I haven't met a Heyer I haven't liked! Cotillion, Faro's Daughter and Charity Girl are all recommendations. I'm yet to read any if her murder mysteries though, I've just been sticking with the regency romances.

Jennifer, the next le Carre is a great read too, although quite a different setting. I like how Smiley is never really a central character, although he's obviously very important to everything!

Mark, glad you loved The Secret River. I've got the sequel out from the library, will have to get to it soon!

Laura, I did love What I Loved as well, so if you didn't like that, I wouldn't recommend this one! I think I did like The Summer Without Men more after I finished I and thought on I for a while. It was rambling, but I loved what she rambled about!

Roni, the old man was glorious, wasn't he! Wouldn't want to live with him, but he was brilliant to read about. :)

iftyzaidi, clfisha, Keith, the 75 book challenge group is running a Steinbeckathon. One Steinbeck a month! Cannery Row was the first, and it was a great start. Nice and short and a great book. I've got my copy of The Wayward Bus in Mt TBR for February already!

Tania, to answer your question about residential schools in Canada - I'll try to do so here. Back in the early 1920's til maybe the 1950's - maybe later, it was thought by our Canadian Government that it would be best to take our First Nation children from their family's and put them into so called residential schools. Those schools had very little oversight , and were run up North by mainly the Catholic Church, or the United Church. The kids were not infrequently sexually abused, were homesick, were told to leave behind their Native ways in favour of Catholic or United Church ways, and the way of southern Canadians, such as me. Many of those children ended up feeling disconnected from their Indian Band, but also not welcome in the cities of Canada. As a result, many took to drinking, could not get jobs, had a high rate of suicide etc. It continues to be a problem. First Nations people here could not vote for many years. It's a very complex problem here in Canada, and difficult to know just how to approach. While we no longer have residential schools, the fall - out continues, as do suicides and poverty on First Nations reserves. It's a challenging topic.

Here is a good article from Wikipedia . I guess it started even sooner than I thought -and the idea was to assimilate First Nations people into the European - Canadian culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system

It sounds like you got to spend time with a lot of froody dudes, wookie.

I love those books so much...

Slightly off the topic of books, but it sounds like your friend had one of the coolest parties EVER. Might keep something similar in mind for my 42nd!

Thanks Deb. sounds a bit like our "stolen generation", where we took Aboriginal children away from their families to be raised by white families throughout most of the first half of the 20th century. We're still dealing with the fallout, too, although the government finally apologized a few years back, so I feel mending is happening.

Jennifer, Hitchhikers does need a re-read sometime soonish! Such a classic from my youth.

allthesepieces, everyone should have a 42nd birthday party that much fun! Although there were apparently *20* roosters on the property, so it was a VERY early start both mornings, groan. I'd recommend holding your party away from roosters.

Actually, I'd recommend staying far away from roosters under any residential setting, although the tribe of kids staying had a great time looking for eggs each morning! And I got given two dozen fresh free range eggs as we left. Oink, I know what I'll be eating for the next couple of weeks!

Our government has given our First Nations people an official apology, as has the Pope, I think , but the fall out still continues. We still have a long way to go, it seems to me. I'll have to check on your " stolen generation" and see how it compares to our " challenges."

Deb - I think there are a lot of similarities. Next time you're at the library, see if they have the DVD of "Rabbit Proof Fence." It's an excellent Australian movie about this subject. I think it's based on a book, but I hear the movie is better.

Hi Tania- Patiently waiting for more book chatter and reviews. Glad you had a good time at the party. Sounds like a blast. Also, glad you'll be joining us on The Wayward Bus. Always nice having you tag along.

Tania - thanks for the link! A lot of old friends have already run you to earth here! Some great reviews and I will be across from time to time to keep up on your news.

Mark, you know you have to wait very patiently sometimes around here for the chatter! :)

Hi Paul, and welcome! Thanks for visiting.

11. The Looking Glass War, John le Carré



The Looking Glass War is the fourth George Smiley book by John le Carré. Where the previous book, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was about career spies, this is a more bittersweet tale about former military spies, trying to recapture to their former glory. The blurb on the back of my book says it's "a devastating and tragic record of human, not glamour, spies", and I think that's a very good description.

Again, Smiley is hardly the focus of the book. He appears more than he did in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and again one gets the idea that he (and Control) are playing puppet master with the characters in this book. But slightly bewildered puppet masters, as the military spies, led by Leclerc, jealously hide their machinations from the Circus and dig themselves in deeper.

It's another excellent book in this series, and I'm looking forward to reading on.

****

Just catching up but I have to say you've written some great reviews and the two John le Carre book I own are looking mighty tempting about now.

Hi KiwiNyx! Thanks for the comments. I must admit, I was surprised by the depth of these novels. I think I'd always been a bit dismissive of espionage as a genre (I definitely disliked James Bond, which was probably my only other foray into the field!), but they're great page-turners, well written, and fascinating content. I've heard his later stuff is less good, but I'm definitely on the lookout for any of his books now! I think a less-good le Carre still won't be a bad thing. :)

Rare foray over here to say hi to my Ozzie pal. Nice to see you discovering Le Carre - his earlier stuff is not half bad. If you get chance try Len Deighton's earlier works too The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin - I like those better than Le Carre.

Paul, there's someone *better* than le Carré?? The mind boggles. :) Will keep an eye open for Len Deighton, Dad might have some on his shelves, he's having a great time reading now he's retired.

12. Blankets, Craig Thompson



I picked up Blankets from the library on Monday afternoon, and finished it Tuesday night. Once you start reading it, it's impossible to put down, you've just got to read it through to the end. (And woe betide anyone getting in between you and reading time.)

This is the story of Craig, an awkward teenager, brought up in a devout Christian family with his younger brother, Phil, in a small town in a very cold corner of America. (So much snow!) Craig is bright, and a keen artist, and completely fails to fit in at his local school, which seems entirely populated with jocks wearing orange shooting vests and sporting mullets. (And, wow, what beautifully drawn and completely bogan mullets they were.)

Then one year, at Christian camp, he meets Raina, another outsider. And this is the story of their friendship and their love.

Blankets was a wonderful, moving memoir of first love, in graphic novel format. If you're thinking of dipping a toe into the graphic novel format, this would be a fabulous place to start. If you already like graphic novels, go out and get this!!

****1/2

oh I keep hearing great things about Blankets, I am going to have to track down a copy.

Yes, you should! I can't imagine anyone (except the most curmudgeonly out there) wouldn't love this book.

Nice review of Blankets. Its been on my radar for a while but I haven't been able to track down a copy yet. I shall have to redouble my efforts!!!

You wrote exactly how I felt when I read Blankets. I remember being so surprised at the size of it when I first got it but then you start and you simply cannot stop reading.

#100> iftyzaidi, definitely look out for it, I think you'd love it too.

#101> KiwiNyx, I did pick it up at the shops and was gobsmacked at the size! So I got it through the library fore-warned, but it was a very fast (and compelling) read. I also saw his latest - Habibi - at the shop, but I'm less sure about that one. Will have to ponder further on that before I bug the library to buy a copy (it's not in their catalogue as yet, and it's far too pricey to buy unless I'm certain I'll love it).

13. Unwritten Volume 3: Dead Man's Knock, Mike Carey



This is the third volume of Unwritten, a series of graphic novels written by Mike Carey, about Tom Taylor who may (or may not) be the physical manifestation of Tommy Taylor, boy wizard and creation of his missing father, Wilson Taylor. (Confused much? Yes, definitely start at the beginning with this series.) This was just marvellous, especially the chapter that was a Pick-a-Path (we called it "Choose Your Own Adventure" when I was a kid) story where we got conflicting and not-so-conflicting stories about one character's backstory, depending on which choices you took while reading. Brilliant concept, and great fun!

The story itself also moved on quite a bit, with Tom coming to terms more with what's happening to him, and his story getting, well, "bigger" is the only non-spoilerific word I can think of to describe it. I still love the parallels to Harry Potter, and there's some other great bits thrown in, I particularly loved where magic is explained as being "meta-condrians". (And, yes, it's no better than when George Lucas attempted that particular explanation, but it's tongue-in-cheek post-modernism in this case. Trust me.)

I can't wait to rush out and buy Volume 4 of this great series.

****1/2

14. A Soldier's Tale, Michael K. Joseph



Still under discussion in bookgroup, review pending.

***1/2

Great reviews there, Tania!

A Soldiers Tale sounds very interesting. I'll stay tuned to for the pending review!

I've got to get Blankets from my local library. Last year was my first year reading 3 graphic novels, and I loved them all.

Deb, yes, do get out Blankets! (My, I'm sounding like a broken record here. :)

A Soldier's Tale had some interesting moments, but I wasn't impressed by the ending, and it also suffered by being a book I wasn't in the mood for when I picked it up, either. (Which is really not its fault!)

>97 wookiebender: hello....Im sneaking in from the 75 book group (you're right, it is very noisy over there!) to say hello and that I too loved Blankets. It was my first Graphic Novel, and a good first one too. I thoroughly enjoyed the texture and depth the illustrations added.

#107> Hi Megan, always nice having someone from this corner of the world popping by! Was there anyone that didn't like Blankets?? It seems to be a universally popular book, and I'm not going to dispute that. :)

I'm currently juggling Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (squee! looking forward to the movie, my MIL is visiting for a week and I've already scheduled Don & I for a Sunday evening screening of the movie while she can babysit the kids ;), and am also read The End of Mr. Y, which has some niggling annoyances but enough energy and ideas to keep me reading. One of those books with great moments, and also not-so-great moments.

Just stopping by to say hi! I looked for Blankets at my library a few days ago. The computer said that they had it, but I could not find it! And I really looked for it! Next time I'll ask the staff. I was in a 30 minute parking space and so I had to hurry. Say.. come to Vancouver and Joyce and I will soon cure you of your happy view of skunks and the like!;)

C'mon Deb, you can't tell me these aren't cute! Smelly, granted, but cute! :)

It's annoying when library books aren't where they should be. Once they've been mis-shelved, trying to find them is like looking for a needle in a haystack!

Awwww... cute! All baby animals are cute. Natural selection was pretty much genius there.

I know, I cheated a bit by choosing a baby skunk picture there. ;)

But the grown ups are cute too, IMO.

LOL! Tania! Well, okay, they are kind of cute as babies, but as adults they are just vermin!!! I'll see if I can't send you a few adult skunks by air freight - enjoy!;)

You really did try , I'll give you that!

Yes, it's so annoying when library books are mishelved. I think it happens quite a bit with the graphic novels at my library because on one level of the library are " Graphic Novel's and Manga, and then on the 2nd level , those same graphic novels are shelved according to the dewey decimal system, with Blankets supposedly in biographies. Go figure!!! I suspect even the librarians don't get it straight. I looked both places and had no luck. sigh.

15. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré



Control is dead, Smiley is retired, and the Circus has been reorganised. And then we find out that there is a mole high up in the Circus, and Smiley and a trusted few have to spy on the Circus and find the mole.

This is a very complex book. We get information as Smiley finds it out, sometimes through flashback, sometimes through reading files (stolen from the Circus) in a random order, and depending on the information he previously found. Characters have multiple roles and multiple names, and deity only knows what hidden agendas. And throughout the whole book is a miasma of terror and mistrust, as we are in the middle of the Cold War.

le Carré really brought the Cold War back to life for me. He captured the doubt and worry that pervaded everything, but brings it down to a very individual level as these issues are affecting his characters directly.

This was an excellent read, another intelligent spy thriller by le Carré.

****1/2

Tania- Sorry you're not feeling well! Hopefully you recover quickly! Fingers crossed.

I too have trouble crafting reviews when I'm not feeling well... on the other hand, I usually don't have too much trouble actually reading... so there's that.

Feel better soon!

I have to say that I don't think that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a great book to read with a filthy headcold! I was quite confused by the end. But we're going to the movie tonight, so hopefully having the visuals will make it all fall into place nicely.

Still loving Smiley, he's such a great character.

And I'm burning through The End of Mr. Y, so, yes, I can usually read even when I can't write a coherent review. :)

(Feeling much better today. Of course I am, it's a Monday. Harrumph.)

Review posted above for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

I also got out to see the movie this week, and it was a brilliant adaptation. They took a very complex novel, streamlined it without removing any essential bits, and cast wonderful British actors in all the main roles, and made London in the mid-1970s look incredibly bleak. Perfect.

16. The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas



Ariel Manto has one of the better jobs in fiction that I've come across: each month she writes a column for a magazine about whatever she feels like investigating. These columns include overviews on general relativity, Schrodinger's cat, and speculative Victorian literature. A woman after my own heart.

She's also very damaged, which is generally not what I look for in a literary heroine, but she had enough of a sense of humour that I did end up liking her. Especially when she spends her last £50 on a box of books, which just happens to include a copy of the very rare "The End of Mr. Y" which she needs for her PhD thesis. And then the adventures begin.

This wasn't a perfect book, there were a number of small niggling annoyances, not the least the amount of Derrida name-dropping. (My least favourite subject at University involved Derrida, and I found it a great struggle to get through.) The epilogue was a bit silly as well, but I could see myself at a different age and time absolutely loving the ending.

But if you like the idea of reading about modern physics, if you think you can handle some Derrida Lite (it almost made sense to me, so it couldn't have been real Derrida, is my way of thinking), and if you don't mind a self-destructive leading character (with a good sense of humour), then this could be the book for you. I did enjoy it overall, and would recommend it to like-minded readers (but not all readers), and I am curious to read her next book now.

***1/2

(My least favourite subject at University involved Derrida, and I found it a great struggle to get through.)

I understand exactly what you mean!

I can kind of understand Derrida now, if someone else is explaining, and if I don't have to try and explain him to anyone else. Once I try to explain him, it all falls apart.

But, I passed that subject. One of my more major Uni achievements, I felt. ;)

But, I passed that subject. One of my more major Uni achievements, I felt. ;)

Me too! Yea, us! In the syllabus for the course where I did Derrida, I think we spent half a class on him. There were 12 classes, and we did 1-3 equally difficult "thinkers" each class. So mostly I just got a taste of how dense all these "thinkers" were, without gaining much else. It was a stupid course, actually, but the instructor was great all the same. But the course needed to be redesigned. The only reason I got a decent mark was because I could manipulate my papers and projects to mostly cover Virginia Woolf, who I was quite comfortable with by that point.

Whoa, that sounds challenging, having a smorgasbord of different difficult thinkers! Mine was Aesthetics, and I did fairly well on the mini essay on Jean Luc Goddard, which saved my bacon on the rest of the course which left me floundering.

17. The Wayward Bus, John Steinbeck



One spring day, a disparate group of people board a small bus in California. They have varying destinations, but have all been brought together for this stretch of the journey. There is the business man and his family, the Pritchards, who are travelling on to Mexico. There's Norma, chasing a dream to Los Angeles; and the world-weary Camille. They are joined by young "Pimples", so called because of his terrible acne; crotchety and contrary old Mr Van Brunt; and travelling salesman Earnest Horton, a returned soldier who is selling some of the most useless trinkets in the world. They are all driven by Juan Chicoy, a marvel of a mechanic, who keeps the battered old bus called "Sweetheart" running.

The whole story is apparently very allegorical, but being the straightforward reader that I am, I missed any allegory that was happening, and just enjoyed the book for the story, characters, marvellous writing, and window into mid-20th century America. And, again, Steinbeck has taken me by surprise by his humour, his beautiful descriptions of California, and his earthiness.

In the deep spring when the grass was green on fields and foothills, when the lupines and poppies made a splendid blue and gold earth, when the great trees awakened in yellow-green young leaves, then there was no more lovely place in the world. It was no beauty you could ignore by being used to it. It caught you in the throat in the morning and made a pain of pleasure in the pit of your stomach when the sun went down over it. The sweet smell of the lupines and of the grass set you breathing nervously, set you panting almost sexually.

The characters, while not always loveable, were fully fleshed out and real. And while there were some I loved to loathe (the manipulative Mrs Pritchard; Louie the Greyhound bus driver; the self-important Mr Pritchard) there were others that sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly had your sympathy, or who you started out liking but then did something terribly wrong by the end of the book. None of them are perfect, all of them were human.

****

Tania- Wow, it's been quiet over here! On holiday, again? Wonderful review of The Wayward Bus. That's the review I wish I could have wrote. Good job!

Great review, added it to my Steinbeck must reads :) I like the different reviews a group read ensures, nice to see varied reactions. (I presume it was for a group read anyway!)

Mark, I wish I was on holidays! Sadly, tonsilitis that morphed into a head cold that then morphed into a chest cold. (And it's supposed to be summer!) No energy for doing much in the way of creating reviews or keeping this thread up to date. Still got some good reading done, though. :)

clfisha, yep, there's a Steinbeckathon going on over at the 75 book group: http://www.librarything.com/topic/130105

We're reading The Winter of Our Discontent this month. I wasn't going to read them all, but then I enjoyed Cannery Row so much, and I did like The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden when I read them way back when, that I thought I might try for all 12 Steinbeck titles this year (reading schedule permitting; and I'm not certain about the re-reads, although TGoW is certainly due for a re-read).

January/February Round up:

Books read: 21 (Yay me!)
Male/Female author split: 14/7 (what the...)
1001 books read: 3 (really must do better in this one!)
Bookcrossing books read: 4 (another one I need to bump up)
Library books read: 7

Total number of books in Mt TBR: 476 (that's up by 5, due to the library being far too tempting the other week)

As usual, Mt TBR is being compromised by the library and their tempting range of FREE books. And while I've made an effort to put a proper dint into the piles of Bookcrossing books gathering dust (have wild released a number unread, too), 4 isn't great shakes.

Must: resist more at the library! Read more bookcrossing books written by women that are on the 1001 list!

I started The Wayward Bus but put it aside to get in more urgent reading when some of my favorite authors released new books. I've got to get back to it before it becomes due at the library. Very nice review!

Thanks Roni, I hope you like The Wayward Bus when you get a chance to finish it.

18. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins



In a future America, the country has been divided into 13 regions: one is dominant, and forces the other twelve to kowtow to their will. One of their methods of enforcing punishment and terror on the other regions is the annual Hunger Games, where two children from each subservient region are placed into an enormous landscaped arena and forced to fight to the death. There can be only one winner in the Hunger Games, and the Capital also gains entertainment through the broadcasting of the games, which can go on for days and weeks.

Bleak, yes. Not just children killing children, but children killing children for entertainment purposes.

The violence is very much glossed over in The Hunger Games. This is one of my problems with the book, although I can also see why it's needed: to make it more of an adventure story and more acceptable/palatable to readers. Most of the killing occurs off-screen (so to say), and even when it happens on-screen it's written about very briefly and not in enough depth to disturb. In the end, this lessening of violence made me feel like the decadent people watching the Hunger Games, in that I'm being entertained by something that shouldn't really be entertaining.

Have to say it also had two of the hallmarks of YA fiction that can bug me: poor world building, and poor writing. But I polished it off in two days, so it fulfilled its brain candy purpose. The ending was surprisingly good, after being rather ambivalent about most of it, so I may actually read on. Full marks also for a heroine, Katniss, who has a spine and an actual brain, unlike some heroines (*coff*Bella*coff*).

***1/2

I agree with your take on the violence of Hunger Games, and that was my biggest beef with the book. Teenagers slaughtering other teens really bugged me. And like you, I also really liked Katniss. I differ from you in that I thought the world building was well done. Not sure what I rated it, but I think probably about 3.5 stars as well. Looking forward to the movie though.

Darn it - you got me on the Wayward Bus. Off to download it now...

Hi Tania! I thought I had you thread starred but couldn't find you on my list! I've got you starred now!

Joyce, I'm actually feeling more squeamish about the movie of The Hunger Games than I was about the book! Visuals are harder to deal with, I think. The world building for me (maybe I used the wrong term) failed for me because I dislike when YA literature simplifies society. In this case, Katniss's District supplied coal, another supplied food, etc. And for me that doesn't work, you can't compartmentalise people or society like that.

BekkaJo, Steinbeck is a marvellous writer. I hope you enjoy!

Hi Chelle, and welcome!

Tania- Good review of The Hunger Games. I loved the book, the teenage violence didn't seem to bother me. You didn't like her writing? I really liked her style, I think it became a bit more problematic in the other 2 books.
The upcoming film release is really at a rapid boil here in the states. I hope they can pull it off.

Oh, Tania, I'm sure you are using the right term. We just looked at different things. You're right--that was simplistic. Someone else here at LT had a different complaint about the world building that I missed too. For me the criteria was pretty much that I could really picture it, and also that I thought it was pretty complete. Sometimes writers build these alternate worlds and I can't follow their idea at all.

#136> Oh, it wasn't *appalling* writing, but I did have to pause and think "what on earth was she trying to say there?" a couple of times. Pretty standard for YA. (Maybe it's a sign of my age, in that I can't understand what the hip young things are saying any more? LOL.)

And I'm just incredibly squeamish about violence. Just the way I am, I don't deal well with it in many situations. (Although I do prefer my violence realistic, funnily enough.)

Someone I chat with on a TV forum (I keep on trying to hijack the conversation over to books, naturally) actually said I might like the next two books more, she felt they got better as they became more about the politics and less about the Games. I must admit, she's the only one who has been more positive about the later books! But it does give me some hope for them. :)

#137> Joyce, what she created for her world was perfect for The Hunger Games, so it worked well on that aspect. And it's a standard YA trait, simplified world building so they can set up their plot. But, I do prefer detailed, realistic world building. Iain M Banks' "Culture" novels; Stephen Erikson's "Malazan" books; these are the sorts of world building that knocks my socks off.

Was talking Malazan with friends last night, and they laughed at me needing an "emotional" run up before tackling the next book in that series (I'm up to book 5, most of them are reading the tenth and final book). Hopefully sometime this year I'll be ready. I'm just still slightly traumatised by the literal rivers of blood from book 4.

Tania- It might not be the writing, in the latter 2 books, as much as the plotting and pacing. But don't get me wrong, Catching Fire was still very enjoyable.
Hey, Game of thrones Season 2, starts here April 1st! Yesssssss...!

I haven't finished watching Season 1 of GoT yet! I get such little TV watching time.

wookie, Make time! It is an excellent series. Can't wait for the second season. But I am a little bit embarrassed to admit that I haven't quite got around to reading the books yet . . . .

And about The Hunger Games, I was a big fan and found all three books enjoyable, so to speak. Looking forward to that movie coming out. Would you agree that one of the characteristics of YA fiction is to keep the background stuff (world-building) simple?

Hi Judy! I've read the first three of Game of Thrones. I got fed up with so long between books - I forget what's happened in the earlier ones by the time the later ones come out! If it ever gets finished, I might dip my toes back in the water...

And absolutely, "one of the characteristics of YA fiction is to keep the background stuff (world-building) simple", I completely agree. But it's not necessary, Philip Pullman's excellent His Dark Materials series had a wonderfully created world. Bartimeus by Jonathan Stroud is also set in a great world.

His Dark Materials was one of the best, in my opinion.

I just finished Mockingjay last night. The series only becomes more violent, but I understand now why the first book was so simple and why she chose children as her main characters. I don't want to spoil it for you if you're planning to continue with the series.

I am with msf59 in that I think the writing style becomes slightly more problematic as the story progresses, but I think what Suzanne Collins is trying to write about becomes clear.

Looking forward to hearing about what you think!

Hm, I forgot to say in #143 above that I did enjoy the books Game of Thrones, etc. I thought they were marvellous. I just can't quite cope with such a long time between books. (And the death rate was exhausting after a while too.)

#144> No spoilers, please! :) I probably will continue with the series, but not in the near future. (Too many other book commitments at the moment, plus I am *trying* to minimise the number of new books entering the house, of course.)

Ah! At last the mystery of what The Hunger Games is about! Ugh! No wonder I have ignored the series. I just pick them up and they don't hold any appeal for me -but I did not actually know what they were about. Maybe a famine in Ireland? Thank heavens my sons are grown up and neither ever had an interest in " evil books" or computer games or the like. Sorry to call the Hunger Games evil but for but that's what they sound like to me. However, I will keep checking your thread for further developments. I must add that there is plenty of evil in my crime books, but just a quick and simple murder. That I can take!;)

Deb, I must apologise. Every now and then I start catching up on your thread, and then it gets away from me again! I'm up to 95 unread messages over there now. One day I'll catch up!

Love how you can take murder in your books (and children trafficking!), but draw the line at Hunger Games. We all have a line we draw in the sand at times, mine was a bit fuzzy for HGs, but obviously immovable on your side.

**** SPOILER ****

The really icky bit for me for The Hunger Games wasn't just the kids killing each other, but that they'd been manipulated into these positions by adults. WTF?? Creepy, very very creepy. Which was probably the point, of course. :)

Well, Tania - and I'm using my iPhone so this will be brief .a quick murder or a bit of child trafficking is all in a days reading for me :) but I don 't really buy into it in a real way . My brother in law is "high up " in the cops and he says stranger on stranger violence is extremely rare. I take comfort in that . Strangley fantasy, the supernatural and post apolyptic and dystopian worlds scare me though! Lol! I guess we are all different as to what scares us . You ' d
Be surprised at what sort of book moves me to years Usually something realistic like old people in a care home - I 'be read several books that include that sort of thing .

ThAts tears , not years , sigh!

Oh yes, it's almost always a person known to the family who hurts children. Horrible thought, but true.

What makes me cry in books is usually something I can empathise with. Having kids now, I can empathise with characters who lose kids (or young characters who lose parents).

And any mass loss of life is guaranteed to make me well up: the Holocaust, WW1, Black Death, zombie apocalypse, etc. (Just so senseless.)

And, since I've not been sleeping well of late (no idea why, I just wake up at 3/4am and fidget for an hour or so), in the immortal words of Milhouse van Houten: I cry when it's long division and I have a remainder left over.

Sometimes one needs entertaining fluffy trash. :)

Hi Tania- Sorry to hear Don & the kids are sick! You were just sick too, right? You sure don't need it again. Be careful!

Hi Mark - Sydney had a dreadful summer this year (positively cold - for Sydney - and wet). There's a lot of sniffles and snuffles going around. Don & Bear seem to have gotten a dreadful version, lots of coughing and sneezing and blocked noses and a temperature for the little one.

I had a mild enough version, but it wouldn't go away! My office moved into a new building (at the start of the year) and I'm feeling paranoid that it's going to be one of those buildings that make you sick...

And any mass loss of life is guaranteed to make me well up... zombie apocalypse, etc. (Just so senseless.)

and

I cry when it's long division and I have a remainder left over.

Oh, Tania--you are a delightful interlude in a busy sort of ho-hum day!

Joyce, the scary flip-side of the zombie apocalypse is the reduced real estate prices. I'm enough of a Sydney-sider (we're all obsessed with real estate) to see an upside if enough of the population turns into brain-eating zombies.

I worry myself sometimes.

(And I'm home now. Don lasted until about lunch before he realised he needed to go to bed and recuperate so someone else had to get home to look after the Bear Boy. No big, quiet day at work. So I've done two loads of washing, had boiled eggs with toast soldiers for lunch, did some Zentangling, and am now glaring at the mountain of washing up, hoping it'll somehow do itself without any effort from me...)

What? You don't have a housework bot?

LOL, I *need* a housework bot! :)

Truth be told, I usually just ignore the housework until the kids start sticking to the floor, or the dust bunnies are bigger than the cats, or I've run out of teacups. But with Mr Bear hogging the TV, I rather had to escape the sofa and find something to do. There are only so many episodes of kids' TV one can bear to watch.

#68> I agree Georgette Heyer writes truly delightful books. Her books are always worth a read.

#156> I need/want a bot too! Ilove the size of your dust bunnies, good thing they can't come close to mine there would be to many babies running around. I'm impressed by all your reviews, makes me think I should read something a little heavier than the fluff I've been reading. I'm going to have to give John Le Carre a try.

I also tend to ignore the laundry and dust bunnies, I usually end up tidying up after I confuse a dust bunny for the cat ;)

Nicholette, imagine if dust bunnies bred! We'd be overwhelmed. Glad you like Heyer as well, she's a recent discovery for me, and awfully good fun. Definitely give le Carre a go, he's dense but rewarding. And nothing wrong with fluff, I'll be reading more of that as the year goes on and my brain gives way. :)

Chelle, think of the dust bunnies as potential amusements for the cat. (Better than the endless stream of crickets, skinks and mice our cats bring in. The boys - now sadly deceased - even managed a parrot once. And someone's bra another time.)

Must try and find some time to catch up on reviews this weekend!

I think my dust bunnies are breeding... it's the only explanantion...

19. Evening's Empire, David Herter



Russell Kent, composer, is trying to deal with the loss of his wife while also trying to write an opera adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. (And that is an opera I would dearly love to see.) As part of his ongoing recovery from grief, he decides to visit the small coastal town, Evening, where his wife died a year ago, and continue writing his opera there.

The town of Evening is a character all on its own. Set on the wintery coastline of Oregon, it survives through its cheese factory and tourism, and is peopled by some of the most dull, cheese obsessed, small minded small town people it has ever been the misfortune of Kent to meet. Luckily, there are some diamonds amongst the dullards; in particular his landlady Megan Sumner, and Bernard Dreerson, owner of the local bookshop, The Warp and Weft. These diamonds seem to be waging a war of some sorts with the town dullards, but it does take a while for the undercurrents to become clear, and they definitely weren't at all what I was expecting.

Herter has written a fascinating story, peopled with highly believable characters, and has made music come alive in words. A book where the unexpected occurs, and where cheese and music are both strong motifs. And it's not many books you can say that about.

****

20. Half Magic, Edward Eager



It's not often that one returns to a childhood favourite only to find that it is not just as good as one remembers, but possibly is even better than one remembers. Not only did I laugh at the jokes I remembered from childhood, I also found a whole new level of humour, a gentle amusement for the adult reader.

This is set around four children (and their mother), living in Toledo early in the 19th century. It's a hot summer, and they can't afford to go to camp so are stuck in the city being looked after by the crotchety Miss Bick (an unpleasant curmudgeon if ever there was one). And then they find a magical talisman, and their adventures begin.

It's a lovely plot, the children (and their mother) are charming (even when they're grumpy), and it's a delightful read. And I think I was terribly influenced by all the children, I can see some of their mannerisms in my behaviour to this day! Not to mention their book/story obsession. A great book for older children, especially those already in love with the written word.

*****

21. The Sooterkin, Tom Gilling



One miserable day in Hobart early in the 19th century (when all days were miserable in Hobart, one feels), Sarah Dyer gives birth to a child unlike ever seen before, a baby more seal than human. The baby Arthur quickly grows, and brings fame to his family, greed to the hearts of men who would sell him as a circus freak, and consternation to the Reverend Mr Kidney.

It's an interesting cast of well drawn characters, Mr Kidney and his housekeeper Mrs Jakes, who dabbles as a midwife on the side; Mr Sculley the local man of science and a believer of physiognomy; and many other minor characters who pop in for a page or a paragraph here and there. So many that it was a bit hard to keep track of. And somehow, Arthur is the least well developed of the lot, he's just there really to push the other characters along.

This took a while to get into, had far too many words, and a very 19th century feel to the writing. I do like my paragraphs to have the occasional full stop somewhere in the middle, at least. But I did enjoy it by the end, it was an interesting journey with Arthur and all his ragtag crew of antipodean misfits.

***1/2

Hi Tania- Good reviews! Evening's Empire sounds especially good. I'll have to keep my eye out for that one.

Nice review of Half Magic, Tania! I so enjoyed Edward Eager when I was a kid.

I would so love an opera of 20,000 Leagues! Any Jules Verne opera would be fabulous (or one featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger, but I am a crazed opera fan. Evening's Empire is definitely going on my list.

re Half Magic: That's what really makes a book a classic to me, when there's an extra layer of humour or understanding to find when you're an adult. Those are the books that parents want to read to their kids (as opposed to endless series about vampires, with little humour and only one dimension).

(I am a wee bit obsessed with children's chapter books, in large part because giving them great books is how we turn them into adult readers.)

Maybe we could suggest it (an opera of 20,000 Leagues) to the company putting on the opera of Moby Dick right now in San Diego?

I read Evening Empire last year and thought it was excellent - one of my books of the year.

I've added Evening Empire to my wish list (which I'm hoping to make a decent dent in with upcoming birthday money)

Hi all! Thanks for your comments.

Oooh, glad to see a number of people interested in Evening's Empire! It was, of course, recommended by @iansales, and thanks very much for the recommendation!

Been a while (TOO long) since I went to the Opera - Opera Australia had a great deal when I was younger, something like 5 operas for $50. You couldn't choose the operas or the dates or the seats or anything, but it was a brilliant introduction to the whole art form. I discovered I liked Handel and Purcell, and then Britten. Verdi and Mozart had the great show-stopping numbers, but I preferred the more minimalist stuff.

Last one I saw was a freebie with a friend, Britten's "A Midsummer's Night Dream", directed by Baz Luhrman. Yummy. And probably about a decade ago, sigh.

ETA: Oh, Evening's Empire did take a bit of searching to find, it seems to be out of print. I got my copy from betterworldbooks.com, abebooks is also worth checking.

lucky me, it's available for $6.99 for the kindle ...

Oh, I didn't think to look at ebooks! I'm such a Luddite with my dead tree editions. :) Even though I'm the go-to person when Mum gets confused by her shiny Kindle. (Which is remarkably often, she's completely technologically incompetent. Smart woman in her field, but can barely even handle a mouse.)

Note, I do download books for the Kindle/iBooks app on my iPad, but I've got such a huge backlog of physical books that they don't ever really get a look in.

Caught up again after 77 posts! I'm with you totally on "dead tree editions" Tania - I can't see me catching up on the 1,500 or so books I have on the shelves occasionally yelping for a first shot at attention.
Some great reading here as usual over here - I haven't read any of your last three but all look interesting and wend their way nicely onto my humungous hitlist.

Hi Paul, thanks for visiting! I was going to write some reviews over the weekend, but it was all so busy with Don's birthday (mmm, lamb roast) and then my nephew's birthday. I'm about six behind now, sigh.

I can't believe you're still adding books to your hitlist! And that was a remarkably spectacular fall from the not-buying-books wagon. :)

Speaking of which... Hello, my name is Tania, and I'm a book buying addict. 11 in the last week. Ahem. Back on the wagon now, and it was fun falling. :)

They were:

Little Scarlet (an Easy Rawlins book, from a garage sale)
In the Woods, Tana French (temptation, thy name is garage sale)
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (nice Penguin edition from the Cat Protection Society op shop)
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (ditto, and yay for helping cats!)
The Hunter, Julia Leigh (at Reverse Garbage, a great barn of a place filled with irresistible junk)

And then my choice from the Orange Prize longlist turned up in the mail from The Book Depository:

The Blue Book, A.L. Kennedy

And then the bookshop rang and my internet order was in, so I toddled over and picked up:

Austenland, Shannon Hale

And while I was there, I spent my rewards voucher (10% back on the previous 6 months purchases, which meant I spent exactly HOW MUCH??? on books, especially considering they were only one of three bookshops I was patronising last year). Anyhoo, I got:

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan
The Coming of the Whirlpool, Andrew McGahan

And it was FUN. I've only read Austenland so far, and it was a good silly bit of fluff. Hoping to get to Sea Hearts next, but have gotten waylaid. And I really do have some serious reads I should tackle (once work calms down).

The things you learn. I did not know that reverse garbage had books! I've been there plenty of times in my life as a teacher, but never spotted a book. Was I just not looking for them?

btw, what a great lot of books to add to your collection.

The books at Reverse Garbage (the one at Marrickville, I haven't been to the Taylor Square one yet!) are in a small room off the side: if you wend your way from the entrance as straight as you can, it's just to the right (or left, or straight ahead, depending on what path you can find through it all). It's pretty chockers with books, and most of them are dross, but I do find the occasional gem. And they're all $2 or something ridiculously cheap.

Miss Boo found a Babar book that she was quite chuffed with, too.

Tania- Congrats on the book haul! I hope you were not hurt badly falling off that particular wagon. I look forward to your thoughts on In the Woods. I love her books.
Hope all is well!

oo you have Sea Hearts, very jealous!

Mark, the only thing damaged are the shelves, which are bearing up stoically under the weight of yet more books, but there is a certain groaning sound they're making now...

clfisha, yes, it's one I'm definitely looking forward to! Well, I'm looking forward to them all, but you know what I mean. :)

22. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos Doxiadis



Logicomix is a graphic novel retelling of the search by the great logicians Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell for the basis of mathematics in logic, in the early 19th century, leading up to some of the great mathematical and philosophical theories of the time. No, really.

I have a soft spot for this story, having studied around these areas (during Philosophy classes) at University. I have never forgotten one cheerful lecturer handing out photocopies of a page from Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, pointing out that this was page 70-something and to look at the bottom of this page filled with arcane logic symbols: "therefore, 1 + 1 = 2".

While I admire what they were trying to achieve, I have no qualms with failing to be that intellectually rigorous myself and accepting that "1 + 1 = 2" is a basic truth of the world. Frankly, it still rather does my head in that one could prove such a fundamental fact.

It was great reading about the people behind these theories, if a little frightening how many of them went mad. I'm definitely blaming the theories, they do strange things to your brain, even at an undergraduate Philosophy course level. (This weekend just gone, I had a chat with Dad about quantum physics, and that's about as brain bending. I'm fearing for the physicists of this generation now.)

This was a great refresher for my University studies, but I did want a bit more detail on some of the maths and philosophy (and logic, I'd barely scratched the surface of what they were doing, and it was fascinating). Plus, with my dodgy memory, I've completely forgotten what a Turing Machine was, or what Godel's Incompleteness Theorem was about, and I'm sure I knew more about these topics back in my undergraduate days. I wonder where my Uni textbooks are...

****

Ooh, I'll definitely have to check out Logicomix. It does seem inevitable that so many of them went mad (and agree on the current physicists!).

While I love reading about such people and ideas, I'm definitely the pragmatic sort that says "The world is already run on the assumption that 1+1=2, so we should really get on with doing other things, like training plumbers and making sure someone can reinvent the telephone in case of apocalypse."

mabith, Dad & I also discussed i (the square root of -1, or the wonderfully termed "imaginary" numbers) and how we both studied it at some stage in our lives, assumed it had no actual application (where on earth would an *imaginary* number be useful, beyond fun boffinality??), and were flabbergasted that (very clever) engineers were actually using imaginary numbers in practical applications (reduction of noise).

Sometimes I have to pause and be shocked at how intelligent people can be. (It's a very nice change from being shocked at the stupidity of people.)

Tania- Great review of Logicomix. I had this one home from the library and never got to it. I think I was intimidated by the subject matter, but now after reading Joe's glowing review, followed by yours, I'll have to get it out again, despite the fact I am a "1+1=2" guy!

Thanks Mark! It's definitely worth reading, gives you a nice overview of all the theories, but is mostly about the people behind it all.

Sadly, my copy was reserved by someone else at the library so had to go back before Don could read it.

Some math haiku:

"Dear mathematics,
I am not a therapist.
Solve your own problems."

Okay, okay. I saw it on a t-shirt, first.

Logicomix sounds right up my alley, though.

#185> LOL!

I've mentioned (Elsewhere) the "Thrilling Adventure Hour" podcasts, and shall just mention them again, because yesterday I was listening on the walk home to Captain Laserbeam tackle the evil Lady Haiku. I had to keep on pausing to see if everything she said was actually in haiku, and I didn't catch her out once. (I particularly love his rather dorky child sidekicks, the Adventureketeers.)

I really enjoyed Apostolos Doxiadis' Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture. I haven'rt read Logicomix though. One for the TBR mountain I guess!

Ha, well, I know some of it has a use, but I grew up in an area with a famous bridge collapse, so I've never been too trusting of engineers!

>185 snarkhunting: I like the Tom Lehrer quip "Base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers."

Love the review of Logicomix, on my wishlist already so luckily I don't have to add it. Still I have to say maths and philosophy are two subjects that bring a look of bemusement :)

One of my chemistry professors seemed fond of Tom Lehrer's work. The repetition was killing me, though. I had to move on from learning "The Elements" to "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park."

Thrilling Adventure Hour looks like fun. I have the website bookmarked.

#187> iftyzaidi, I had no idea he'd written other stuff! Graphic novels as well? I must keep my eyes open!

#188> My mum went on to study more maths than I did and ended up in a course of applied mathematics with a bunch of engineers. She struggled with it, but still passed, and has to this day looked rather askance at all the bridges in Perth, since if they passed her (who didn't understand it), they probably also passed a lot of engineers who didn't understand it either...

#189> I've always regretted I didn't go on and do more maths. Maybe in my retirement, I'll return to Uni... Although far more likely I won't have time to do Uni, seeing how much my parents pack into their retirement.

#190> Oh, Tom Lehrer's fun. I learnt his "Ricketty Ticketty Tin" as a schoolkid (About a maid I'll sing a song, ricketty-ticketty-tin, ... she did not have her family long; not only did she do them wrong, she did every one of them in). Great stuff.

You can get the Thrilling Adventure Hour podcasts through iTunes, but beware, they're quite addictive. I've completely forgone all my books podcasts as I work my way through their back catalogue.

FRANK DOYLE: Who cares what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
SADIE DOYLE: Unless evil's carrying the martini tray, darling.

#191> Wookie, no, its a novel, and at least to my mind, a pretty good one.

On the subject of cultural representations of mathematicians and so forth, has anyone seen the movie Proof starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins and Jake Gyllenhall? Its based on the play Proof by David Auburn. I thought it was fantastic.

Haven't seen it yet, but I guess I'll be adding it to my Netflix queue. :)

Media addiction? Who, me?

I. Want. Netflix.

But who am I kidding, the kids keep on coming downstairs every 10 minutes after their bedtimes, I'm completely unable to get any solid TV watching done. But lots of internetting and reading, which explains my presence here a lot. ;)

I did mean to see "Proof", thanks for the reminder...

Tania -- we got Netflix a few months ago and I haven't used it yet. My family uses it occasionally, but I find they never have what we want to watch and so we default to something else. I'm like you--who has time to sit down and watch a whole movie?

Joyce, I make time to go out and see a whole movie (many hurrahs for grandparents and their free babysitting!) on occasion. But that's a whole different ball game, that's part of keeping sane, whereas finding 90 minutes to sit on the sofa and pay attention to the tv, that's less important. :)

We tend to chatter a lot over the TV though, so it's fun in its own way.

Tania - just popping over the divide to wish you all the very best for the little bit left of your weekend.

Paul, I've actually got quite a bit of weekend left - it was my birthday on Saturday so I've taken today off to have some child free time. (Work gives us an extra day of leave a year for our birthday; yes, I know, we are spoilt rotten.)

Planning on heading over to the cafe soon. I'm craving poached eggs... And then there's a library book to pick up, and I'm a bit over halfway through Death Comes to Pemberley and near the end of A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, so some solid reading time will be happening this afternoon, hurrah!

And I will steadfastly be ignoring the mountains of washing up. And only doing one load of laundry. And absolutely NO dusting, unless it's of books.

Stopping by to say hi! We don't have netflix either -and all of the DVD rental stores have closed down. Like you and Joyce, I rarely find two hours to watch tv. I have to be captured in a cinema for that to happen. Let me know what you think of Death Comes to Pemberly. Generally speaking, I really enjoy P.D. James - but I've heard mixed reviews about Death Comes to Pemberly - but then again, what book does not get mixed reviews?

Hi Deb! I was overall disappointed in Death Comes to Pemberley. Loved the idea, she had some excellent cheeky snark in the opening (where common gossip was dissected to show that obviously Lizzie had chased Darcy from the start), but then it just plodded.

I like what she wanted to do with it, but she's no Jane Austen and the mystery had a fairly gaping hole right in the centre of it. I've liked the others of hers I've read (Children of Men and the first Dalgleish, Cover Her Face) so I'm not giving up on her as an author. I do want to continue with Dalgleish.

#198 Wow I'm jealous! Though I have taken my birthday off this year - I am completely of the belief that no-one should have to work on their b'day. Oh and a belated Happy Birthday too :)

Happy Belated Birthday! How did I miss that last time around? Yes, I started reading P.D. James in my early twenties, I think. I loved her from the start! But she has had a couple of books - like Children of Men and Mice that weren't my sort, and I suspect Death Comes to Pemberley. She's a great writer!

Oh, Happy Belated Birthday from me as well!

Thanks all! The birthday month* has now officially come to a close, so no more sneakily buying books and declaring them birthday presents to myself! *sob*

I know we've discussed The Secret River around here before, and I'm currently reading the third in its (very loose) trilogy, Sarah Thornhill. It follows on more directly from The Secret River and I am liking it more than I thought I would. Although it's got a slightly annoying narration, being by Sarah herself, who is poorly educated, so there's a number of misspellings and poor grammar. But not enough to be able to take it in my stride, I'm finding. Hm.

* One's birthday shouldn't just be celebrated on the day, is my way of thinking.

Tania- I hope you had a good weekend! I'm glad you are enjoying Sarah Thornhill and that it's better than the 2nd one.
Sorry to hear your birthday month is over. Sad face.

Mark, The Lieutenant was good, it just suffers in comparison to The Secret River which was a standout. It was a much quieter story, which I wasn't expecting. (Oh my, I'm so behind in reviews, I must write that one up soon...) Sarah Thornhill goes back to the Thornhills (the family in The Secret River) and is continuing some of those powerful themes. The narration is a bit strange though, I'd prefer it in third person, or with either less or more of the poor grammar. (Less and it wouldn't be jarring; more and it wouldn't be jarring either because it'd be more prevalent and I'd be more used to it.)

Birthday month may be over, but it's Easter just around the corner! Love me a four day weekend with nothing much to do expect make sure the kids don't eat all their chocolate in one sitting. We might try to make the Harry Potter exhibition at the Powerhouse, or go to the Royal Easter Show, which is always crowded but fun.

23. All That I Am, Anna Funder



When Hitler came to power I was in the bath.

So starts All That I Am, an excellent novel about the early years of Hitler's rise to power. This is a period of time which (for me, at least) seems to be sadly unknown and forgotten. We see the Wiemar Republic fall apart, Hitler and his henchmen twist everything to their advantage, and people who are against Hitler are killed or escape Germany for other countries.

One of those who escape is Ruth, who ends up a cantankerous old woman in modern day Sydney, looking back on her young life during the tumultuous 1930s. Sydney in these interludes is beautifully lush and gorgeous, a wonderful paean to what I think is a glorious city. (Hey, I live in Sydney, I'd better love it.)

This was an excellent book from start to finish. A lot of it (more than I realised) was based on incidents in real life, so now I want to collar the author and find out exactly which bits were made up. She's got a mighty impressive bibliography at the end, too, although many of the references are in German.

****1/2

Hi Tania- I've missed seeing you around. Hope you had a nice weekend. Great review of All That I am.
I'm making some decent headway in David Copperfield.

Might have to add All That I Am to my ever-expanding to-read list. It's always nice to see something new (especially a novel) about the 30s and the years leading up to the war. I think we'd do better to teach that way in school - educating students on the causes of war and how things progressed to the point of war, rather than teaching the battles and strategies and "During the war food was rationed and women worked in factories." (Which they always flatly said, when I was 12 and 13, without relating it to anything that came after the war or how it permanently affected the younger generation, etc...)

Mark, I haven't even started David Copperfield yet! I'm slowly reading Testament of Youth, which is a chunkster and which deserves careful reading, it's filled such beautiful writing and is such a fascinating bit of history. But that is throwing my reading schedule out the window! (And it deserves to be thrown, one should not read to a schedule.) After that, I'll quickly read The Moon is Down (it is but wafer thin), and then I can start DC. I hope!

And, yes, life has been busy. Work went a bit ballistic last week, and even with four days off work (hurrah for the Easter weekend!) I only found enough time on the computer to write one measly review. Yeesh. Life is good, reading is still happening, and all I need now is to work out how to go without sleep...

mabith, my history education definitely skipped the "battles and strategies" (phew), but was also lacking in context. Both All That I Am and (current read) Testament of Youth are filling in lots of blanks. And both are beautifully written! I'd recommend them to anyone at all interested in these periods of history (ToY is WW1), and just anyone who wants a well written story as well.

24. The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville



The Lieutenant is seen as the second book in Kate Grenville's "Colonial" trilogy, a series of books about the earliest days of the white colony in Sydney and surrounds. While the first book, The Secret River followed one family from the slums of London to Sydney, and then eventual land-owning wealth north of Sydney, The Lieutenant is about Daniel Rooke, a smart young mathematically inclined man who ends up as a lieutenant in the British marines in Sydney.

I do have to say I was expecting more after The Secret River, but this is a much smaller tale than that one. It grabbed me from the start and is still definitely worth a read, but I think pairing it with The Secret River overhyped it a bit. The main appeal for me was the somewhat dorky and awkward boffin at the centre of the story. He's a sweet and fascinating character, and the path his early life takes makes me realise how lucky we are with our ability to make our own choices in life.

I did enjoy it, but it's not really in the same league as The Secret River.

****

25. The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck



The Winter of Our Discontent is about Ethan Hawley, who came from a noble lineage of New England sea captains and Pilgrims. However, his family fortune has all but dissipated (in part due to some clumsy investments by Ethan himself), and he now works as a grocery store clerk in a store that his family used to own, after returning from World War 2. He still owns the large family house, one of the grandest in the town, where he and his beloved wife and teenaged children live, and he still commands some respect from his family name.

Ethan, although coming across as a relaxed and unambitious man, does feel pressure to recreate his family fortune and give his family what the general populace of the town feel they deserve. However, there seems to be no honest way to do business.

My main issue with this book is that I did not like Ethan, I found his dialogue awkward and clumsy, not endearing as I believe it was meant to me. Although I do believe he loves his wife, he teases her so much that I didn't find his endearments charming, but annoying. And he has an old-fashioned attitude towards his children that rubbed me up the wrong way, being a product of the Dr Spock generation. He was a difficult sort of character to put your finger on, his words didn't always match his actions and his attitudes seem to change far too often and rapidly. And why are the first two chapters written in third person when the rest is in first person??

I found the whole social situation stultifying as well: the women stay home and choose wallpaper and discuss Easter hats, while the men go out and do Business. There is also a nasty undercurrent of racism towards Marullo, who now owns the store where Ethan works, consisting mostly of derogatory terms and the expectation that he is a crooked business man. But then again, most of the business men in this book appear to be crooked in order to get ahead.

Once you get past the interminable set up of Part 1 of this book, it does become a much more powerful read as Ethan reaps what he has sowed in the first part. While I found Part 1 a difficult and slow read, Part 2 was compelling and unforgettable and is worth reading for that alone.

***1/2

26. Silent in the Sanctuary, Deanna Raybourn



The Lady Julia Grey books are a great indulgence of mine, I feel like I should be eating bon bons and drinking champagne while lazing in bed while reading these books. What on earth is a "bon bon" though? While nominally a mystery series, the romance in these books is much more prominent, with heaving bosoms and manly men. And in the middle of it all, the delightful Lady Julia Grey, one of my more favourite heroines. She's clever, pretty, and financially independent. A perfect combination for 19th century crime solving. (Not crime fighting, she's still a lady.)

This one sees Julia and two of her brothers, and her brand new fiery Italian sister in law, plus a tall, dark and charming Italian Count, all decamp from Italy back to England for Christmas, where they have been summoned by their father, Lord March. As suits the eccentricity of the Marches, their family home is an old Abbey, large, dark, mysterious, with hidden passages and surely a ghost or two as well. There are a number of other guests invited for the Christmas season, including (of course) the dashing Nicholas Brisbane.

And of course, one of the guests is cruelly murdered. And it's a great whodunnit, I did not guess the ending, but it was rather swamped with all the heaving bosoms and furtive snogging and manly men and blushing women, etc. Much as I enjoy the romance side of these frothy novels, it was a shame that the mystery was sidelined, because it was actually really rather excellent.

****

Hi Tania! Nice review of Silent Sanctuary. I love your quote it was rather swamped with all the heaving bosoms and furtive snogging and manly men and blushing women, etc.. You go ahead and eat your bon bons and champagne and enjoy your guilty treats! :)

I agree with your assessment of The Lieutenant, not quite as good and I'm not sure why it's even considered part of a trilogy. I'm looking forward to reading Sarah Thornhill though, which is much more directly linked to The Secret River.

Hi Tania- Good reviews! Since you know I'm a big fan of the Secret River, I'll have to give The Lieutenant a try.
I finished David Copperfield. It was a big entertaining read...did I say big? Now, I can get to the rest of the literary mountain.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Hi Deb! The Lady Julia series is delightfully fun fluff, but the mysteries are good. But those plots are definitely sidelined by lots of mistaken intentions and meaningful stares and other tropes of the romance genre. (A genre I profess to dislike, yet in my incipient dotage, I seem to be reading a lot of it...)

Hi Laura! I have also now read Sarah Thornhill, and it is good returning to the Thornhill family, but sadly, the story isn't really up to scratch. Nicely written, I turned the pages happily, but the plot was full of holes when you stop to think about it. Shame.

Hi Mark! Do read The Lieutenant, but try not to think of it as an equal to The Secret River. And I'm behind schedule on even getting to David Copperfield! Oh my. I need a week off just to read.

(And I had a Bad Parenting Day yesterday. My most common phrase was: "I don't care WHO started it, I'm reading MY book!". Got through The Vesuvius Club with no serious interruptions that way. And the kids ate a fair whack of their remaining Easter chocolate while I was distracted as well. A win-win situation, really. ;)

Hmm, that's too bad about Sarah Thornhill, but not the first time I've heard it either. That moves it a few notches down the virtual tbr pile ...

bon bons - hard toffee wrapped in light sugary stuff. I like the lemon ones best. Nom nom. They probably would not go well with champagne... ah who am I kidding - everything goes well with champagne!

#219> Oh, I thought they'd be chocolately! From what you describe, I think I'd like the lemon ones best too. (And I agree, not only does everything go well with champagne, everything is *better* with champagne!)

"Oh my. I need a week off just to read." Wouldn't that be sweet for all of us? Also, sorry to hear about Sarah Thornhill not quite cutting it.

Mmmm *slips off into a fantasy involving books, champagne, bon bons, and no children*...

Still, the kids are sweet and funny, and do give me the occasional ten minutes uninterrupted reading time.

LOL - I'm down one child and one hubby this weekend, which means I get to have a lobster (Dad has pots but hubby is really allergic) for the first time in ages. How completely obscenely wrong is it to have a whole lobster and a bottle of bubbles to oneself?

How can heaven be wrong??

>223 BekkaJo: *droooooool*

Just finished it... soooooo good! Split the tail and grilled it with garlic butter. Nom nom nom.

Bekka, that is a cruel thing for me to read on a Monday morning, before I've had my toast and coffee. Somehow raisin toast just isn't going to cut it this morning...

Hi Tania- Hope you enjoyed your weekend and got a little reading in. I did get the M & M Thread up and running and I know you'll join us for a title or 2.

Mark, went to bed early last night (Sunday) with the express intention of Having An Early Night. Staying up until almost midnight to finish Betrayals did not count as an early night at all, but it was a brilliant book, and hey, maybe I can work in that early night today... (And at least I did not fall asleep at yoga at lunchtime, but actually felt a bit more perky afterwards. Counter-intuitive, but there ya go.)

But, yes, to answer your question in my usual roundabout fashion, I did get a fair whack of reading in. :)

And wild horses could not stop me from some Murder & Mayhem reads this May! Although a teetering pile of non-M&M library books may impede me somewhat. (Stupid lack of self control at library...) I'm particularly hoping to read The Thin Man as I've never read it and have a nice shiny new copy, and have never seen the movie adaptations (not through lack of trying to source a copy, mind you), and I'm loving the Frank and Sadie Doyle adventures over at Thrilling Adventure Hour and I'm pretty sure Frank and Sadie are heavily based on Nick and Nora Charles.

SADIE'S FRIEND: Where's Frank?
SADIE: In the liquor cabinet.
SADIE'S FRIEND: In the liquor cabinet??
SADIE: It's a walk-in.

I want a walk-in liquor cabinet too. ;)

I am going to have to go and download some episodes for my lengthy drives, they sound so much fun :)

Stopping by to say hi, Tania! I have never read Thin Man, but somewhere along the line I have seen the movie. Enjoy! I'll be in with an M and M too!

#227 Sorry :/ Though I do love fruit bread too.

Oh and yes - I really really want a walk in liquor cabinet too!

If there was one of those at my place it would be a walk in, fall out liquor cabinet I'm afraid ;o)

clfisha, you won't regret it, they're great fun. very chuffed to see a new frank and sadie doyle downloading to itunes today, whee....

deb, murder and mayhem is a fun theme to read too, glad to see you'll be there as well.

bekka, all forgiven, i was just being silly.

lol, judy.

shift key still not working on the keyboard, hence the lack of cheering emoticons and smileys. must say, it all looks a bit flat without them.

and a sick day today, was hoping to get in all sorts of good reading, ended up reading a ya paranormal romance instead. just some quick catching up, and then - hopefully - back to bed and cassandra clare's city of bones.

Hi Tania- Don't you love that spare, witty dialogue? LOL. And you can count The Thin Man as an M & M read, right? Love to read more Hammett.

It's definitely been a long time between Hammett books at my end. I read several of his as a teenager, while in my Humphrey Bogart worship phase, and then nothing until Red Harvest a couple of years ago. Looking forward to getting back into another of his books, and Nick and Nora have a definite appeal.

Shift key still not working, I'm just getting better at working the capslock...

Hiya stranger! Did you give up over here? Come on, I want to know what you are reading! I've been really enjoying my M & M books too! Miss you!

Hi - I suddenly realised I was missing your thread. Hope all is okay over there.

All is fine, thanks for worrying! :)

Just been a madhouse: work's having a major reshuffle, and while I seem to be safe (I'm in the pilot group for the new methodology), it's been a lot of work (training for the new methodology, plus one project went bad when it got to Production so lots of fixes, and then suddenly thrown onto another project at the 11th hour, and then more training). And it really, really sucks that people I've worked with for years are suddenly gone. I don't think they were treated well.

And then throw in Miss Boo's seventh birthday, and my MIL being in town (so I can go out at night, yeeha!), and there goes my quiet-time-at-the-computer-at-home. :)

Today I am hoping to get to a few reviews, or at least slap some placeholders up, as Mr Bear's off school sick and it was my turn to look after him. Luckily today is a day with NO training! Have to get him to the doctor's, via the library, methinks....

Reading still happening, but I've ditched anything serious while I get over this workplace stress. (Actually, I can tell I'm happy about the changes overall because it took me five days to get snappish at my MIL instead of five minutes.)

I've been reading a very entertaining YA urban fantasy series, The Mortal Instruments, which is full of teen angst and throbbing biological urges, and *loving* it. (While I am surprised that these were much better than I was expecting, I think the love is more an indication of my tired state than their excellence.) I was going to move on to Inspector Montabalno next, but Rex Stout was closer to hand, so I'm now reading Fer-de-Lance. I think if I swap between murder mysteries and YA literature all month, I should survive May nicely. :)

27. Austenland, Shannon Hale



Jane Austen tragic (or, really, Colin-Firth-as-Darcy tragic) Jane is given a chance to visit the exclusive Pembrook Park, an upscale manor house in England, where visitors are immersed in Regency England. They get silly names (Jane is known as Miss Erstwhile), have to forfeit their phones, learn to dance and how to comport themselves as befits ladies of early 19th Century England, and then are let loose to flirt with the actors hired to be period gentlemen.

Two things: sadly, this is fiction, And obviously men are not Austen tragics.

What I found most amusing was how boring it was for the visitors, sitting around embroidering while the gentlemen got to go out hunting. And some of Jane's female companions, especially Miss Charming, were a hoot.

Austenland was a silly piece of chick lit, but good fun, with a nicely clever main character, and some good humour.

***1/2

28. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King



Fifteen year old Mary Russell is striding across the Sussex Downs in 1915, nose firmly in a book, when she steps on someone. Said someone turns out to be none other than a retired, somewhat bored and crotchety, Sherlock Holmes. Since Mary is his intellectual equal, this is the start of a close friendship for the two of them, and an apprenticeship for Mary.

The period detail is very well done, I liked the WW1 setting in particular, and she didn't fall into any obvious cliches that American writers often fall into when writing as an English person.

I found it a bit patchy at first (just wasn't quite convinced or totally drawn in) but the ultimate story was great, especially towards the end when the tension ratcheted up and we had a proper Holmesian mystery. If with more fisticuffs and drama than I remember from Conan Doyle.

I will be continuing with the series.

****

29. Death Comes to Pemberley, P.D. James



P.D. James does a murder mystery with Fitzwilliam and Lizzie Darcy! What's not to love! Well, quite a bit actually.

Apart from some cheeky sparkle early on (where common gossip was dissected to show that obviously Lizzie had chased Darcy from the start), it's definitely no Jane Austen. And it was hardly vintage James either.

It was curious that James was quite preoccupied with the servants and the lower classes, something that Austen never really discussed. Or at any rate, not at that level. I didn't find it fascinating to read about the servants, but I thought it was interesting that James wrote about that, rather than the upper class chatter of Austen. And we get much more from Darcy's point of view than in Pride and Prejudice, he's more the major character than Lizzie is. And he was a well-written character, it was interesting being inside his head, instead of just seeing him from Lizzie's point of view in the original novel.

Sadly, the murder mystery was lacking. The actual resolution was interesting (if far more Jamesian than Austenian), but it was a slow plodding mess getting to that resolution. And a major plot hole (? or at any rate something quite unexplained): MINOR SPOILER ALERT why was Lydia never called to the witness stand? Surely she could verify and explain a thing or two (or five). Women were allowed to testify, as we got the innkeeper's wife. But, apart from a shrieking hysterical scene to kick the whole thing off, and the occasional annoying scene as she demonstrates her brattish ways, she's really sidelined when she should have been much more involved.

Loved the idea, she had some excellent cheeky snark in the opening, but then it just plodded. If you're looking for Jane Austen delight, look elsewhere.

***

30. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jules Verne



A spiffing journey into a volcano, discovering an unknown underground world, battling dinosaurs? Sounds like fun, yes? Well, that bit was rather fun. But the preceding 150 pages of wandering through tunnels, declaiming crackpot scientific theories, was anything but fun. (Well, they sounded crackpot to me. I do have to say that geology is not my strong suit, and maybe they were less crackpot in the 19th century.)

On the plus side, it's a nice group of characters. Our narrator is a bit of a wuss and wants out all the way (gotta love a cowardly narrator in an adventure yarn); his Uncle is the driving force and is rather manic; and then there's their stolid reliable Icelandic guide. I also rather liked the Icelandic setting, but I laughed that they chose a volcano with a pronounceable name to descend, not Eyjafjallajökull or its equivalent.

***

31. The Sandman: The Dream Hunters, Neil Gaiman



A lovely Asian style myth featuring Dream from the Sandman series. Lovely art, too.

****

32. Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, Suzanne Finstad



This is a very thoroughly researched account of Natalie Wood's rather dramatic and definitely sad life. From child star to teen icon to full blown movie star, everything in her life is meticulously documented, although that does mean that sometimes there's a lack of a strong narrative.

It's one of my oldest news memories, hearing about Natalie Wood's death, and while I understood it was strange for some reason, I was unaware of the details. This filled in not just those final hours (although the official record is decidedly patchy), but her importance in Hollywood for several decades.

I hope there's a special circle in Hell for pushy stage mothers.

Interesting life and detailed and thorough research, but it lacked something in narrative.

***1/2

oh Tania, how I hope you enjoy the Rex Stout! He's turned into one of my most looked-forward-to reads... when I get a new one from the library. And Laurie King!! I've only read the first but I have them all!!

Hi Tania- Here comes the reviews! Yah! I was always crazy about Natalie Wood. I stalled out on the Sandman series. Maybe, I'll pick it back up one of these days.

Regarding message 240, wouldn't it be fun to do that? Have a month or so, learning to dance and etiquette and taking long walks in the afternoon and drawing. I can leave the period gentlemen. Definitely sad it's not a real thing.
It is good that you think the changes at work are a GOOD thing, in my experience, way too often, they are just silly and frustrating and pointless, and in a couple of years you get to do it all again! Nice to see that improvement actually exists, somewhere, out there.

Keith, Rex Stout is a great read so far! I'd be reading it now, only Mr Bear seems determined to give me a blow-by-blow running commentary on the computer game he's playing. Yeesh. I've heard that the whole Mary Russell series can be a bit patchy, but I'm still looking forward to continuing.

Mark, another dozen or so reviews to come! Oh my, I have fallen behind... That Sandman is a standalone one, well worth reading if you stumble across it. You don't need to know the whole series first.

captainsflat, so long as I'd be allowed to keep my phone! I could do with some quiet time (especially at the moment), but I know from experience that about three days of enforced idleness is my maximum. (I was hospitalised with high blood pressure while pregnant with Mr Bear. Spent the first day sleeping, the second day reading, the third day desperately trying to get out of the hospital...)

The work changes are good. They've had consultants in over the past couple of years and have been paying attention to what they say. We've gotten slow and cumbersome and expensive and stagnant, and no one's particularly happy about that. Hopefully this will be a boot in the right direction, although it has to be a company-wide change, which is always a bit terrifying!

While I'm getting things done, I've started a new thread, please come over and join me there!