Fourpawz2 chases after 75 books again (and this year does a better job of it, she hopes)

There. Have staked my spot. Bring on the books.

Welcome back!

Glad you are here!

I cannot wait to see what you are up to in 2012, Charlotte!

Me either.

I'll be bridging 2011/2012 with my reading, so I think I'll have my first book done tomorrow. Feels a little like cheating.

Happy New Year, Charlotte! Starred you so I don't lose you.

Hi Charlotte! Hope you're having a great day. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Charlotte!

found and starred!

Being a glass half-empty person, I have decided to list the 5 worst reads from last year first, which are -

#5 - Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier - which was just trying to ride the Hunger Games YA train. It fell short and got ground up on the tracks
#4 - The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper - which ought to have its 'classic literature' designation rescinded. I think a book ought to be at least a little bit good in order to be a classic.
#3 - The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald - which was just bad with a capitol B
#2 - the recently finished Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle - one of the most confusing fantasy novels I've ever read.
and the #1 stinkeroo of 2011 - One Summer by David Baldacci - a saccharin, hugely predictable pile of horse manure without one redeeming feature.

Am still not sure about my favorite reads of the year. Doc surely has to be one of them. And The Sisters. And In This House of Brede. And A Dance With Dragons. And The Ox-Bow Incident. And Star of the Sea. And Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. There are others, but I'm going to stop here.

Book No. 1 for this year is The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles and what an ambitious project this woman has been engaged in. As a devoted HF fan I was surprised that I'd never heard of this series before this year. The extremely long series (currently 33 books and counting), as I understand it, follows one family starting in 15th century England. That family, the Morlands of Yorkshire, are firmly allied to the House of York (that would be the much-maligned Richard III's family) and Harrod-Eagles very nicely weaves the story of the rise and fall of the House of York in with the Morland family over the first three generations covered in this book. My interest was held completely and I could find nothing to criticize in her history. She does have a really interesting theory regarding what really happened to the two princes Richard III was supposed to have had murdered; it sounded very plausible to me and much more interesting than the 'over-zealous supporter' theory. I wonder if any historian has ever pursued this particular angle.

Plan to get the next book in the series beaucoup quick and also plan not to subject it to "The Rule of the Shelf". I figure if I don't I will very likely die before I get to the end of this series.

Started this book on 12/28/11 and finished it on 1/01/12
527 pages

1 down. A whole bunch more to go...

I just read The Founding last month. I was also surprised that I had never heard of this series before. I was browsing through the fiction shelves at the library and saw volumes 31, 32, and 33 on the shelf! They looked good, but I MUST start a series at the beginning, so luckily I was able to get the first book sent from another branch. I enjoyed the first book, and will continue with the series. I also found her princes in the tower theory very interesting.

Sandy K

I have never read anything by Harrod-Eagles before but a 33-book series seems a bit intimidating to start off with, Charlotte. Can you recommend any stand alones that she might have as a better place to begin?

I couldn't recommend anything, Stasia as I've just discovered her myself, but according to her website she is also the author of a mystery series and has written a bunch of Romance novels. Also she was the winner back in 1972 of some kind of writing award for a YA romance book. Frankly, i don't know how she can write so many books and still have time for personal daintiness never mind an actual life of her own. I ordered the second Morland book from amazon yesterday and intend to start it probably in March.

OK, thanks anyway. I will check out her website and see if anything tickles my fancy.

ETA: I guess it is academic, since my local library has exactly 1 of her titles. *sigh*

It didn't seem very academic to me, Stasia. Very readable and the history did not seem to overwhelm the story. Maybe it's a British author thing. Up until recently it was really hard for me to find any Elizabeth Chadwick books anywhere except used on amazon.

I'm so glad to have stopped in this morning, Charlotte.
Firstly, Happy New Year!
Secondly, I truly enjoy HF and will certainly check my library for the Harrod-Eagles series. Eeesh! Where to fit a series in my reading?! Maybe, if they're not Wolf Hallish in size.
Thirdly, I chuckled at your #1 stinkeroo of the year. I read a Baldacci about a year or two ago and have firmly decided I will read no others.

ETA: drat, my library only carries the mystery series.

Happy New Year, Charlotte! I am looking forward to another stellar reading year!

I wondered, too, if the fact that Harrod-Eagles was a British author was why I hadn't seen her books before. Although, that seems weird, because there are so many contemporary British authors that are popular here.

Lynda, my library is on the Clevnet system, and I am able to get all of the Morland series sent to my branch. It's easy to get a card at one of the nearby branches. The county libraries aren't on the same system. Just FYI, not that you need to add any more books to your TBR! ha!

But the question I have now is--WHO is Elizabeth Chadwick? Must go find out!

Sandy K

ETA: It looks like Chadwick's books are in the same vein as Sharon Kay Penman. I've wishlisted Chadwick's first book, The Wild Hunt. Looks good!

Oh dear, your review of The Founding is awfully tempting, Charlotte, but the thought of a 33 book series is rather daunting.

I think a book ought to be at least a little bit good in order to be a classic.

Hear hear! (loud prolonged whistle). I want to do a "worst of" list too. Been meaning to, but thought I'd mask my own half-empty spirit by doing the best of first. Now that I have 'em fooled, I can slip in the stinkos. Heh he. ;-)

As for The Founding, I am very happy for you that you've discovered it, but I am NOT adding a book from such a long series on my wishlist. Don't care how good it is. So there. How's that for being contrary? :-)

Book No. 2 - was Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (read for the Steinbeckathon) - and I truly enjoyed the way this man writes about Nature.

Cats drip over fences and slither like syrup over the ground to look for fish heads.

How can you not love words like those!? I was not in love with his people (probably more of a reflection on me than Steinbeck) for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. Yes, they are broken, but I don't not love them for that reason. Maybe it's because so many of them seem to glory in their dysfunction and/or broken-ness. I've lived too close to people like that not to find it distasteful.

Anyway, it was a very good book and I enjoyed it every bit as much as I did The Grapes of Wrath last year and Of Mice and Men that I read many, many years ago.

Started on 1/1/12
Finished on 1/2/12)

3.5 stars (four stars for the writing - 1/2 star deduction for people I did not like)
196 pages

Total pages for the year - 723 (cheating a little bit, I know, because I read a lot of The Founding at the end of December, but hey - it's my thread.

Book No. 3 - I started The Once and Future King by T.H. White (which is actually 4 or 5 books combined) and did not like it very much. Had a hard time with him trying to tell the story of King Arthur in what was supposed to be an amusing way. And the completely out of time and place things like spectacles and Indians and lawnmowers. Lawnmowers!! As I did not want to have an unfinished book so early in the year I decided to stop after the first book. So actually, my third read for the year is The Sword in the Stone. Strangely, after Arthur (called Wart during his boyhood, i.e. before he knows that he is king) is turned into an ant by Merlyn so that he can experience ant-life I began to like the book a lot better. So much so, that at the end I tucked the book back on the shelf at a spot where it sure to come up again this year so that I can read the second story.

Started on 1/2/12
Finished on 1/7/12

3.25 stars
209 Pages

Total Pages for the year - 932

About ants - you know when you are driving down the road and you notice an ant on the windshield? And then you get where you are going and the ant is still there? What happens to that ant after he gets down off your car so far from his home? Does he join another ant family? Does he starve to death? Does he start trying to walk home? I've always wondered about that. I don't wonder about the spiders - they seem so solitary that surely they can start again anywhere. But the ants - they are so social.

Books new to the house since last time:

The Dark Rose by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Bossypants by Tina Fey - bought this from Audible

Not buying quite as many books as usual as I am having to rebuild my book fund. Blew the whole thing to pay for the iPad2 and now we're back on furlough at work. (Damn screwed up housing market!) Expect to be back in my usual wanton book buying pattern soon.

Edited to correct some super-crappy English. rebuild my book fund up again Seriously?

Charlotte, just finished The Awakening. Thanks, an interesting and thought provoking read! I'm just about to post my little review on my thread.

Sandy, I've not heard of Clevnet. I'll check it out.

Glad you liked The Awakening, Lynda and I will be looking for your review. I must confess that I read it a couple (three?) years ago and was not a huge fan, but then again I can't remember what it was that I did not love. Those other two books though? Gy-normous fan of them.

Love the super crappy English comment, Charlotte! That sounds like me - which explains my tons of edited posts.

Glad you've found a 33 book series to enjoy although I'm not sure I can face signing up for it myself!

Where have I been you might ask. Nowhere in particular. Made the mistake of buying a jigsaw puzzle last weekend - have been obsessed with putting one together ever since Christmas when my boss bought one for his wife - a traditional present she has gotten every year since she was 5. It's one of the few toys that really works for the only child and I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing doing them. Needless to say it has taken up a lot of my extra time - i.e. the time I don't spend reading. It certainly hasn't used any of the time I customarily use for keeping the place straightened up. Wreckage as far as the eye can see would describe the view from the couch.

Book No. 4 was The Death of Attila by Cecelia Holland - historical fiction, written back in the early 70's, that's been working its way up the TBR shelves for the last two plus years. It was not so much about Attila himself - rather the focus was on Tacs - a young Hunish tribesman and his friendship with Dietric, son of King Ardaric who rules the Gepids - a Germanic tribe allied with Attila - in the last months of Attila's life. Once Attila dies the Huns come apart, for with Attila dead the leadership is up for grabs and nobody is strong enough to take the Hunish tribes in hand. Then King Ardaric turns on his former allies and the friendship between Tacs and Dietric is on the line.

Holland does her usual sterling job here. I completely bought the story she told which was accurate as to the few facts that are known of Attila and his Huns. Ardaric did exist and he did lead the Roman/German forces against the leaderless Huns, although his motives as listed by Wikipedia seem to have been a good deal more noble than the ones Holland attributes to him in this book. I liked her spin better.

4 stars
273 pages

1,205 total pages for the year

Started on 1/7/12
Finished on 1/8/12

Book No. 5 - The Scarlet Seed by Edith Pargeter - was the third book in The Heaven Tree Trilogy. I liked this collection tremendously. It just kept getting better as it went along and by the third book, I became convinced that this has to be one of the best Historical Fiction trilogies ever. Not a weak place anywhere in any of the three stories (and not a few OMG moments) and I think that the "villain" - Ralf Isambard, Lord of Parfois - is one of the most intriguing so-called bad guys ever. He has done terrible things but by the end of the books I can't hate him for what he has done. In fact I rather like him. Quite a lot. This one is definitely going on my favorites list.

4.5 stars (for this book and for the trilogy overall)
256 pages

1,461 total pages for the year

Started on 1/8/12
Finished on 1/11/12

Well, that's it for now. I've got more books to list, but am out of time for the present.

Am ridiculously behind on threads. Hundreds of messages behind with little hope of ever catching up.

I have only read the first book in the Heaven Tree trilogy. One of these days I will get to the other two!

I am not worrying about catching up on threads, Charlotte. I have just declared it a hopeless task and hope I can catch up some in between semesters.

"Wreckage as far as the eye can see would describe the view from the couch." Now that sounds like a startlingly accurate description of my house too :-)

Edith Pargeter--sounds like another author to add to the wishlist. This thread is dangerous.

Jigsaw puzzles were something that my mother used to enjoy. We had about 15 of them that we would put together over and over again. A forgotten pleasure.

I've just been trying to check my starred threads--of which there are many--and then also browse through a few unstarred ones, too. It's nice that this place is so popular, even if it means that I have little hope of getting caught up.

Sandy K

Charlotte I love the historical fiction reads you are introducing here. Edith Pargeter is so often overlooked and is an excellent storyteller. Cecelia Holland I haven't read thus far but I will endeavour to seek them out from my Malaysian outpost. Have a lovely weekend.

I haven't yet read The Heaven Tree trilogy but I must get to it one of these days. Your review is enticing, Charlotte. I did enjoy A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury and I've got The Brothers of Gwynedd in my TBR Tower.

#29 - You are so right about never getting caught up Sandy. And for the first year I am not sweating it. I'll read what I can and not have a fit about the rest.

#30 - I've had good luck with Holland so far, Paul, but the other day, in checking out her other books I found more than a few that others thought were pretty bad. However, until I run across a stinker, I think I'll keep on sampling hers.

I was thinking about SWMBO while I was trying to plow through all the unread messages on Ilana's thread and I realized that she is developing into quite a character in my mind; she makes me think of those great female TV women you never actually see - like Maris (Niles' wife) on Frazier and Mrs. Wolowitz (Howard's mother) on The Big Bang Theory. I am always interested in the little snippets about her that you dole out here and there.

#31 - I have not heard of those two Pargeter books, Caro, but they look good. I've been aware of EP for a long time, but stayed away from her because I did not care for my one attempt at reading a Brother Cadfael mystery. Think I am changing my mind about seeking her stuff out.

Snowing seriously here, but it is a light and fluffy snow that is easy to clear with a broom. And - they are promising rain on Monday and temps in the 50's so it should be gone in no time. I'm liking this winter so far!

Book No. 6 - Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler - was a pretty lame time-travel book that seems to be trying to cash in on the whole Austen thing and doesn't really succeed awfully well. I know it's important to be able to put aside one's disbelief in such things as time travel in order to enjoy them, but the author at least has to provide a little bit of faux-science to help the reader swallow the pill. Unfortunately, Rigler did not do that.

Not recommended.

2.50 stars - really little ones
288 pages

Started on 1/11/12
Finished on 1/14/12

Had to renew my library card last weekend (for some reason I thought they never expired) which required an actual trip to the library. Well, I couldn't just walk in, renew and run out without a book, so I picked Book No. 7 - Body Line by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles off the shelf. This book is from her pretty large 'Bill Slider' mystery series and I am further amazed at how many books this woman has written. She must be very inspired, organized and in need of zero sleep.

The book was a police procedural and although it is preceded by many other Bill Slider books that I have not read, it didn't interfere with me 'getting' it. The crime here involved a disgraced ex-doctor who is gunned down in his London home while his sometime girlfriend who is a part-time stripper is in the other room. No one can figure out why he's been killed. Nor can anyone figure out what this guy does for a living even though he lives very high off the hog with tons of cash money at his disposal. There's an ex-wife in the picture who knows more than she's willing to say, the mystery of what happened when the doctor ran into trouble in his practice years before and became an ex-doctor and why are Slider and his fellows having such trouble finding out anything about this guy's life, never mind why anybody would want to gun him down they way they did.

Liked the characters very well - Slider and Atherton and Slider's boss who is apparently the King of Malapropisms - can't say more than two sentences without a beauty or two cropping up. One thing I noticed particularly in this book was that Slider does not seem to be one of those policemen/detectives who has terrible personal problems - drugs, drink, personal tragedy or a bad marriage or other personal relationship. He drinks no more than ordinary people do and he's happily married to his second wife with whom he has a very young child. Seems to get along well enough with the first wife and the kiddies from that marriage. He likes his job and his wife doesn't have a fit when, on the odd occasion, it has to take precedence over their marriage. It's a nice change.

3.75 stars
248 pages

Started on 1/14/12
Finished on 1/15/12

My yard full of snow - to the depth of a foot - half-melted yesterday and by dawn this morning it disappeared completely - the snow, not the yard. I'm all done with the white stuff now.

Took Willie to see Dr. Messina today - she wanted to see him two months after his November appt. - and he has actually improved. She didn't even ask me to make another appointment at a specific time - only if needed. My boy is made of tough stuff!

Book No. 8 was The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I hate to say it, but I liked the Maggie Smith movie a whole lot better. I just did not get the constant repetition of certain things. Mary McGregor is stupid, Sandy has little piggy eyes. Rose is famous for sex, etc., etc., etc. Is this a Muriel Spark thing? I've not read anything else of hers so I have nothing to compare it to. It did not make me super-anxious to read more, but neither did it prejudice me against trying something else.

Overall - a disappointment for me.

3.25 stars - I expected more of it.
137 pages

Started on 1/15/12
Finished on 1/16/12

That's a bummer about the Spark book. Maggie Smith is magnificent as Jean Brodie in the film.

We had several inches of snow here in Cleveland over the weekend and then it rained all day Monday and melted it all. It has been a very mild winter so far. I don't really mind, except that Lake Erie is not freezing over yet and that causes some issues.

Sandy K

Charlotte - will follow up with the Cecelia Holland based on your recce. Tickled pink by your interest in my {according to her anyway} better half. She is quite a character actually and I will try to continue to provide as much info about her personage as possible and without getting myself admitted to a home for battered husbands!

Issues with Lake Erie not freezing, Sandy? Like hockey-playing issues??? Ice-fishing??

I hope you like Holland, Paul. I can see from reviews of her books that she is not universally loved, but I like her refusal to people her books with handsome, dashing men and spunky heroines (How I hate spunky heroines, in the main!) Don't want to get you slapped around Paul, but SWMBO sounds like quite the character and I do enjoy your stories. Proceed with caution.

Hahaha Charlotte I won't show her the cover!

Well, the lake doesn't always freeze--but by this point in January usually it is 80-90 percent frozen over. So, correct, no ice fishing. The main issue is that when the lake isn't frozen, we get hit with heavy lake effect snow when it DOES snow! Moisture is picked up from the lake.

Sandy K

How silly of me not to know that! On the other hand the only snow we get here of the faintly same ilk would be ocean effect snow and no one ever speaks of the ocean freezing up. Small wonder I did not make that connection.

Book No. 9 - Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich - Highly entertaining and of absolutely no literary value. For some reason I can only see Katherine Heigel in my head now when I read about Stephanie Plum. This was NOT the picture I had there when I read the previous book, but that was before they started with the ad campaign for the movie. I guess I'm used to it now and the idea of Ms. H. is not quite so jarring anymore. (I wonder who plays Grandma Mazur? I've had Estelle Getty in my mind, even though I know she's dead.) Must quickly acquire the next book as I am trying to keep ahead of a friend who has started the series.

3.50 stars
325 pages

2.459 pages read for the year, so far

Started on 1/22/12
Finished on 1/24/12

Charlotte! I'm having the darndest time trying to keep up this year, and we're only just 26 days and a few hours into it!

I'll be back to actually catch up with all I've missed, but wanted to at least say hello. I shouldn't be still on the computer, but there you have it—you're my last stop for tonight.

Hugs!

Highly entertaining and of absolutely no literary value. For some reason I can only see Katherine Heigel in my head now when I read about Stephanie Plum

Charlotte very droll hahaha!

Thanks Paul! I've always wanted to be thought of as droll

Hi Ilana! No worries - come back when you can.

Charlotte, Debbie Reynolds is playing Grandma Mazur in the movie.

Sandy K

Couldn't escape the BB... added The Founding to my wishlist...SIGH

Watched some of the American version of Shameless last night. It does not measure up. Think sometimes that there ought to be a rule against trying to Americanize British TV shows. The UK version was so great, why bother?

Book No. 10 - Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann - a crazy detective story in which the murder of shepherd George Glenn is solved by the sheep in his little flock. I never really think about sheep much - they really just seem like so many - well, sheep - to me. Not very interesting. But I loved Swann's take on sheep society and how things work when a bunch of sheep are trying to solve a murder and how they might be thinking in general. Don't know if this is part of a series - I don't quite see how it could work. I did like it - it was quirky.

3.5 stars
341 pages
2,800 pages read for the year, so far

Reading way too many books at the same time, as usual. I think I have a system going that might get the ones I fear I might fall behind on read a little more quickly.

Agree with you Charlotte - take The Office. The american version completely missed the point don't you think? There are some great US sitcoms - Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Cheers, Frasier etc etc etc - stick to those and don't make over British ones which are pale imitations.

Just noticed that in my tag cloud Inherited is right next to Insanity. Yikes!

I agree with the US/UK shows argument: Coupling is a prime example - the UK version is the funniest show I've ever seen, and the US one was simply unwatchable.

The rest of the books that were new to the house in January:-
Body Line by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell - am falling way behind on this series, but since I've turned my book choices over to The Rule of the Shelf (mostly) my hands are tied
The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie
Orchestrated Death by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - liked Body Line so well that I decided to start this series from the beginning
A Bloody Field by Edith Pargeter - recommended by Caro
London Under by Peter Ackroyd - a small book with a big price tag. Bought it at my local indie on my monthly visit.
Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber
The Lost Lady of Lone by E.D.E.N. Southworth

Which is ten books for the year, so far

#49 - I totally loved Coupling! I've got to watch that again soon. And you are absolutely right about that one. The US version was an insult to the UK one.

Book No. 11 - The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch - the story of a Lakota Sioux who is a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show touring Europe in the 1880's. He gets sick and has to be hospitalized, but while he is sick the show leaves the country and he is left behind. He becomes hopelessly tangled in red tape (made a thousand times worse by his inability to speak anything but his native Lakota) and cannot get back home.
For a while this story just putt-putts along nicely and quietly, but then about mid-book it kind of takes off. Charging Elk falls in love with a prostitute, is horribly betrayed and winds up in jail.
I thought Welch handled this story very well - the history and especially get inside Charging Elk's head and heart. What a shame this writer has been dead for almost ten years. I think he would have written many more excellent novels - like this one - if he hadn't.

5 stars (have tried to change the awarding of this many stars for fiction, based on the ability of the story to touch me)
438 pages
3,238 pages read for the year, so far

Started on 1/29/12
Finished on 2/04/12

Book No. 12 - Death of a Cad by M.C. Beaton - Another nice, pokey, cozy mystery. I think I'm getting over my mystery aversion and I have to give a big piece of the credit to the Hamish MacBeth stories. I just like this guy and the way goes about his job.

3.5 stars
223 pages
3,461 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/5/12
Finished on 2/5/12

Super quiet day today. Took a couple of leftover vacation days from last year this week as I have to get rid of them before the end of March. Will still have 4 more to take in March. Then will have to start all over again trying to figure out where to fit in my 20 days for 2012 which will work out to either four weeks or five - depending on how long this furlough thing goes on.

Book No. 13 was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole which I put on my Kindle after reading Life Mask wherein Horace was a major character. Was motivated to read it now because of the tutored read that's been going on.

Because of this novel's great age, I was prepared to mark it on the curve, but I have to say that once that GIANT helmet came hurtling out of nowhere, squashing poor Conrad like a bug, I pretty much could not take any of it seriously from that point on and there was a goodly amount of snickering and chuckling going on as I read further. Granted, this book was the first of it's kind and so people's standards re: readable horror/Gothic fiction must have been extremely low, but still - Not only was there the Giant helmet, there was a Giant leg, a Giant sword and a Giant foot cropping up at various points. Unless I missed the significance of these several items, I can't think why poor old Horace went to them as his frightening/shocking items. Why not a ghost or spirit instead? HW did have a ghost make a very brief appearance, but he could have expanded on that instead of going with the bits and pieces the way he did. (Wonder what happened to the other foot and leg, not to mention the Giant arms, hands and torso. Oh, and a head. There must have been a head out there somewhere.) As for the story itself, there were hardly any surprises - it was easy to tell that the humble peasant who appears toward the beginning of the book had a mysterious background and that Manfred - the Prince of Otranto - was not going to come out of things looking very well.

Don't regret the time I spent on this, though. It was short and it was enjoyable to follow the tutored read thread while being careful not to read any spoilers.

Marking on the curve out of respect for this ancient piece of classic fiction I am giving it:-
3 stars
176 pages
3,637 pages for the year, so far

Started on 1/25/12
Finished on 2/7/12

Charlotte, I think I enjoyed Otranto more than you precisely because of it's lameness. It just seemed wonderfully camp somehow, and largely due to the fact that I was following Liz's tutoring, it really helped me put it in the context of the period it was written in, something I wouldn't have been able to do had I read it on my own. As for the giant leg and arm, they turned out to belong to the original owner of the castle as presaged in the prophecy (was his name Alfred? I can't remember now), who appeared toward the end, destroying a whole wall or wing of the castle and then disappeared into the sky.

Now: I keep apologizing on every single thread about my inability to keep up, and so won't do it here this time. Suffice it to say that I'm embarrassed at how much behind I fell here, and that I've just now taken the time to catch up. I decided today that instead of trying to go through as many threads as I can, I'd go through just a few and slowly. I hesitated about making comments on old topics that were brought up here, but screw that. I think you'd probably appreciate the comments more than me maintaining the illusion that I've been more assiduous. I know I would.

So, now that's out of the way:

#21 One of your comments on Cannery Row (which I had only sped-read through before), "I've lived too close to people like that not to find it distasteful. " definitely resonated with me, because it's the kind of observation I might have made. For reasons unknown though, that aspect of the novel didn't bother me too much, as it normally would. I think a lot of it has to do with the brilliance of Steinbeck's writing, which makes just about any situation or character seem interesting—as opposed to unsatisfying. Don't know if that makes sense? That being said, I totally understand where you were coming from.

Nobody took you up on your question about ants, and I must say it's a very good one. The kind of thing I wonder about too, which makes me think we must be soul-sisters of sorts. Have you come up with possible answers? Did they approach this issue in the movie Ants, or A Bug's Life? I can't remember. Maybe a topic for a novel? Only half-joking about that by the way.

#26 I had a period a few years ago when I was majorly into jigsaw puzzles. I couldn't really do anything else, including read or write much, so it was a fine and very satisfying way to pass the time. I still have a couple of them that I haven't touched yet. Just have to find the time now that I spend it all here on LT...

#32 May I ask why you were thinking of SWMBO when you were going through my thread in particular? Are you saying she and I have something in common? Other than Paul's respect and admiration and fear? :-)

#33 How's Willie holding up?

#46 I thought the original version of Shameless was brilliant, and so when I saw the American version on HBO on demand, I watched the whole first season. I don't know why I bothered and don't think I would have if it weren't for William H. Macey. No comparison whatsoever. The British version was hilarious, the American version left me feeling sad and like I'd really wasted my time watching it.

It is of course the same in reverse on the crossover of TV shows - I don't see Seinfeld working if set in Manchester or Everybody Loves Raymond in Leeds or Taxi in Birmingham.

Book No. 14 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – First time reading this one, though, after multiple viewings of the Winslet/Thompson/Grant movie, I am quite familiar with the basic story. No surprises, of course, although I was a little bit surprised by how little attention JA paid to both Colonel Brandon and Edward Ferrers. In the movie I thought there was much more focus on them than here. Also, Edward Ferrers as written was a real drip. What on earth did Eleanor see in him? To me he seemed just so – bleah! And Col. Brandon was much less dynamic than I expected him to be. Clearly this story was about the sisters and the men (with the exception of Willoughby) are there to fill secondary roles.

3.5 stars
270 pages
3,907 pages for the year, so far

Started on 1/1/12
Finished on 2/9/12

Book No. 15 – Goldengrove by Francine Prose – a book I bought at my indie bookstore. Had never heard of this book (or author) before – just picked it off the shelf and bought it. Should not buy books this way – on impulse – because I hardly ever get lucky. The story was about a young girl whose sister drowns, devastating everyone who is left in the family as well as the drowned girl’s boyfriend. It follows them through the ensuing summer and none of them are recovering from the loss of Margaret. The sister develops a psychosomatic heart condition, the boyfriend can’t paint and the mother turns to drugs and alcohol. The father seems to be coping the best, but he struck me as always having been a little unfocused and vague.

It was just a barely ok read for me – definitely from The Kingdom of Meh. Not badly written, but none of these people interested me.

3 stars
275 pages
4,182 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/6/12
Finished on 2/11/12

I got an email at work on Friday that I found hugely annoying and I’ve gotten others before now that I found similarly annoying. I don’t understand why, in a business email, some people feel it is appropriate to include Bible quotes at the bottom of the page. This one had a quotation from Psalms and another from Mark. I kept going back to it all day and getting pissed off all over again, every time I read it. I was this close (picture my thumb and forefinger held just .000001 of an inch apart) to emailing the guy back and complaining about it. But I didn’t do it. Wanted to – badly. What did this guy think he was doing? Did he think he was going to ‘save’ me? Is this kind of thing sanctioned by the company he works for? Did it not occur to him that the recipient might have a problem with it? Am I being unreasonable?

I’m still pissed off.

Ilana, I don't know about the ants - my guess would be that they either starve or try to join another colony and get killed. But I wonder why they don't know when they climb up onto the car why they don't know almost immediately that - hey, this is not anything at all like the ground - and get down immediately. Maybe they think it's some kind of giant rock and if they just keep going, sooner or later, they will reach the other side.

Unfortunately I can't remember why I mentioned SWMBO at that particular moment, Ilana, In conversation (and here also, it would appear) I pretty much just blurt out whatever is on my mind at the moment. This is why, at work, I am known as the Queen of the Inappropriate Comment.

Willie is quite well. He goes to the door frequently hoping, I think, to force me into taking him outside. It's been a good winter, but I'm not up for his meanderings yet. I would think while walking Coco, you have the illusion of keeping warm because the two of you are on the move, but Willie's 'walks' are mostly about standing in one place while the wind swoops down out of the north and me wishing that I had the kind of fur jumpsuit he has been gifted with.

Yeah, that USA version of 'Shameless' was bad. I watched it for Emmy Rossum (loved her in The Songcatcher and Phantom of the Opera - the only musical I've ever liked), but neither she nor WHM had a chance of saving this show for me. They had a lot of the same lines, but they did not work - at all.

And yes, Paul, I am sure you are right about those American sitcoms not translating in the UK as well. Has this been done very often/at all?

Have a minute to post Book No. 16 - The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck - Once again I find myself not liking the people awfully much, but loving what JS does with them. And though apparently nothing big happens, upon reflection big things did happen. Everyone's life was affected by this trip to nowhere. Am prepared for the third month of the Steinbeckathon and looking forward to continuing with the -thon. I wonder if there is anything of JS's that I won't like?

3.5 stars
312 pages
4,494 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/4/12
Finished on 2/12/12

Book No. 17 - Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence was another book with characters I could not like very well. Mrs. Morel, a selfish old bat (who starts out as a selfish young bat) who has a bad marriage looks to her sons (and in particular her son Paul) for the emotion that is missing in her life. Most of the story concerns Paul's love life and his gargantuan indecision concerning Miriam. He loves her. He doesn't love her. Oh, wait a minute, he does love her. Nope - wrong he hates her. And then he loves her again. Mama Morel is always there in the background encouraging his poor treatment of Miriam with a one woman chorus of how wrong Miriam is for him. Complicating things is Paul's affair with Clara, an older woman separated from her husband. I was beginning to think that maybe Paul was not exactly a committed heterosexual, but in the end I think his only real emotional relationship with anybody was with his mother. She dies and he falls apart.

Did not like this one as well as I liked Lady Chatterly's Lover. Can't imagine reading it again.

3 stars
420 pages
4,914 pages for the year, so far

Have three more books to list, but am running out of time just now.

Books that were new to the house for February:
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
Foundation by Isaac Asimov - audible book bought with a gift certificate from those nice folks at Audible.com
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by John R. Erickson same deal as the previous book
Death of a Valentine by M.C. Beaton - from Baker Books, my local Indie bookstore
The Magicians by Lev Grossman - also from Baker Books. Have had this one on my GFW for ages
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck - keeping up with the schedule
13 Rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro - another selection from the GFW and a rec by Ilana
The Lifespan of a Fact by John D'Agata - saw this one in the NY Times Book Review and was very intrigued. Am very tempted to crack this one open right now.

Am giving up on Kushiel's Chosen. It's just a slog. I did not love the previous book and should have known better than to buy this one. Have another book by Jacqueline Carey coming up pretty soon on the TBR shelf. Have little hope for it. Probably will be another slog. Slog, slog, slog.

Nice to see you back Charlotte! Some good purchases too. I have read the Steinbeck, the Asimov and the Ford Madox Ford.
Missed your ready wit around here the last week plus.

Sorry I keep disappearing, Paul. Work just seems to take up so much of me. It infringes on reading which then infringes on LT-ing. I don't know how you do it. Do you have Stasia's disease? Do you get by on an hour's sleep a day?

Oh no Charlotte I rarely manage so much sleep!

Book No. 18 - A Free Man of Color by Barbara Hambly - is an historical/mystery novel taking place in early 19th century New Orleans and part of a sizeable series. Have to say I enjoyed this one - another sign that I am getting over my mystery phobia. It was impossible to figure out who murdered Angelique Crozat at the Blue Ribbon Ball at the Salle d'Orleans as there were just too many people present and too many potential murderers for no one liked this woman (and with cause), but it didn't really bother me that I did not stand a chance. I really liked Benjamin January, the sleuth in this series, a free black man recently returned to New Orleans from France. It's very difficult for him living in this city which is slowly changing now that it belongs to the Americans - being a free man in New Orleans isn't what it once was. But as there is no going back to France (which is full of memories of his late wife) so he must stay in New Orleans where his complicated family lives and try to live his life there.

A friend gave me a whole pile of these books last March so I have a good portion of this series in my TBR collection. Looking forward to it.

3.75 stars
412 pages
5,326 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/11/12
Finished on 2/18/12

Book No. 19 was The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie - Have to say I actually liked this one and have no criticisms of it. It was even a little creepy at one point and there was no hint of spy novel to it - something that has bothered me in the past about several of the early Christie books. This was not a Poirot or a Marple mystery, but was one of those featuring an amateur detective, Emily something or other as I recall, who, I do not believe, appears in any other Christie book.

3.5 stars
274 pages
5326
5,600 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/16/12
Finished on 2/24/12

Still have a couple more books to enter, but not right now.

Book No. 20 - The Dark Rose by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles the next installment in the Morland Dynasty books covers the lives of the Morland family during the reign of Henry VIII and part of his son's reign. There is particular focus on Anne Boleyn's time. I can't imagine that H-E will let the Morland family fall truly apart - after all they have to last to the present day and the only way to keep them interesting I would think, is to keep them in possession of a sufficient amount of dough so that they will keep their holdings down through the ages.
In this book I learned about an interesting plague-y type illness that was known at the time as The Sweating Sickness. It only appeared a very few times over less than a hundred years and has not reappeared since the mid-point of the 16th century. It was far more fatal to males than females. How strange that it should disappear so completely like that.
Thought that Harrod-Eagles was very brave to gift primary characters with a marriage that was quite incestuous, managing to achieve a certain level of not very wildly icky romance as she did so. No children though and that seemed a good choice. Have to keep the family breeding stock up to snuff.

3.5 stars for this one
559 pages
6,159 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/19/12
Finished on 3/1/12

Am on vacation for the next week - which should finish up last year's weeks before the first quarter is up - and if all goes as the weather clowns claim, it should be a very pleasant week. Going to a cupcake store for dessert and coffee with the aunt one day this upcoming week as she is not flush enough for lobster, which she can never resist when she finds it on the menu. Cupcakes should be a lot cheaper, I would think. I've long thought that a place where you can get dessert only would be a great addition to the area and - voila! Someone else apparently thinks so too.

Am currently reading way too many books - namely and to wit:

Foucault's Pendulum - Don't know that I'll be able to finish it. Have always had the impression that it is intimidating and tough to read. Am on page 24
The Dispossessed - going pretty well. Almost half way through
From the Corner of His Eye - My boss lent it to me. It's one of his favorites. Am at page 120. Hope I will be able to say something good about it to him.
The Master of Ballantrae - Moving along slowly. Have hope that it will prove pretty good, but I've run into a rough patch that I did not care for very much, so we'll see.. am at page 100
Thinking Small - am at page 326 with this Early Reviewer book. It's been interesting. Dreading writing the review, however.
The Kingless Land - running out of enthusiasm for this - and it's my second attempt. Am at page 66 right now. Last time I made it to page 98.
Volume One of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - After a long period of not reading this, I resumed reading at the beginning of the year. Getting closer to the 400 page mark.
Byron: Life and Legend - only up to page 139. Learning quite a bit about him that I never knew before.
The Lifespan of a Fact - started this today and am about 1/3 of the way through. It's quite short. Read about it in the NY Times Book review a week or so ago and had to get it.

Guess that's it. Have the feeling I'm forgetting something.

Wow heavy (with the Gibbon literally so) heavy reading material. Still you have less than double figures so Amber would be wondering what the fuss was about (she regularly has 15 or 16 on the go!).

Enjoy your holiday and your increased reading time Charlotte.

#62 Enjoy your vacation Charlotte!"Have always had the impression that it is intimidating and tough to read." - And that is exactly why Foucault's Pendulum has been in my to read pile for so long.

>63 PaulCranswick:: *snork!*

I used to have a "mystery phobia," too--and there are a lot of bad ones out there to justify that feeling--but in the last few years I have found so many good ones. In a way, it's weird that most of them are cabined into genre fiction. Just because a novel has some kind of romantic relationship as part of the plot, it doesn't necessarily get categorized as a romance, but if a novel has some kind of crime or puzzle as the main plot, it gets put in the mystery category instead of being treated as general fiction.

edited to fix typos

Wow! Four messages at one fell swoop! I was beginning to think that no one loves me but Paul.

Thanks for the good vacation wishes, Heather and Paul. Hope to get one or two things other than reading done, but expect that the reading will be my main occupation. Isn't it always?

I'm taking Foucault's Pendulum in small doses and so far, so good. If I run across anything that makes my brain begin to overheat with stupidity (is it possible to overheat with stupidity?), I am resolved to push on for a bit and not let it worry me.

I would agree, Carly, that the powers that be should be careful with their categorizing of books. I know there are sections in the big bookstores that I never go near and if you send the wrong book to sit on those shelves some people who might be inclined to try them never will because they have been shelved in a thoughtless way. Fortunately my indie bookstore is small enough so that I pretty much give everything at least a cursory going over.

Yikes Charlotte you have let the cat out of the bag! Must admit that I am at a loss to understand as to why you still have less than 100 posts on one of the most entertaining threads in the group. Maybe it is a shared sense of humour or a shared like for history and historical fiction but if I see any unread messages against your thread - my size eights normally jump straight in!

Hi Charlotte! Catching up on posts here since February. Why did you have mystery-phobia? Had you read some mysteries that you didn't like? I know that I used to avoid reading contemporary mysteries because I really liked golden-age mysteries and thought that anything published after 1939 or so would be too graphic. But I've found that there are really a LOT of cozier type mysteries out there. A Free Man of Color sounds good, maybe I'll look for that one at the library.

I haven't read Sons and Lovers, even though I went on a Lawrence kick in my 20's. I think that I liked The Rainbow best of his books.

Just have to comment on the work colleague with the bible quote on his email--does he have it as a "signature" on all of this emails? I know that lots of people do that. It does seem inappropriate for work emails. People often don't think about the fact that lots of things that they put online are seen by others outside of their family and friends.

Sandy K

...and I look forward with pleasure to you paddling through my thread in your size eights, Paul.

I've never heard of The Rainbow, Sandy. Will have to check it out.
With regard to my mystery-phobia, yes, I did read a number of mysteries from my mother's collection when I was a kid and they were not satisfying reads. I read them because my mother had a much bigger collection than I did and I read anything and everything that I could sneak out of her room. (And there were a lot of highly inappropriate things in there for a child, believe you me.) Then, years later - pretty much when I went nuts reading in what I like to refer to as my Library Thing era (still on-going, of course), I had no tolerance for them at all. They bored me. This, I recognized, was a trend that could not continue. There are such a vast number of mysteries out there - how could I take all those books off the reading table? I felt as if I was cheating myself. So, I decided that I would read all of Agatha Christie in order and cure myself. For some reason I thought that I would get that accomplished in two years. Huh! Not even close to done yet and I think two years was up last year (or maybe the year before). Along the way I tried other non-Christie mysteries here and there. Judicious choices. And gradually, I seem to be getting over my dislike for them. I vastly prefer my mysteries from the cozy end of the scale, but I'm trying not to be close-minded.

And that is the boring tale of my mystery phobia.

The guy with the bible quote emails is not in my office. I work in the post-closing department (how grand 'department' sounds! It's actually just me and one and a half other people.) and this guy contacted me looking for an original recorded mortgage from a closing we did. It was in the usual email kind of form - the property it was about, what he wanted from me, blah, blah, blah, contact me if you need to, thank you very much - and then after his name were these two quotes. The next time he emailed me there was a different Bible quote at the bottom.

I don't know if this bothers me because I have no religion, but I really think it has no place in business. I don't have quotes from atheists in my emails - I think it would be inappropriate. I try to tell myself that I should just ignore emails like his, but oh, how I long to find some restrained, but pointed way to tell the Bible quoters to cut it out. Someday I know I will no longer be able to hold back.

You should try the Benjamin January series, Sandy, liking Historical Fiction as you do. Yes, it's a mystery, but it's also a really good HF book as well. I'm going to have to move the next book up in the order as it is well back in the pile and might not show up for another year or two.

Book No. 21 - Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin - The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the housemaid's viewpoint.

Saw the movie a number of years ago and remember it as missing somehow. I knew it was supposed to be suspenseful, but it just didn't pluck those OMG strings inside me. No chills, no gasps. Nothing. At the time I blamed it on the makers of the film. Turns out I was overly harsh as I had the same reaction to the book. It was ok, but that was about all. It was just missing that certain something that might have kept it from the 'meh' pile.

Readable, but forgettable.

Giving it 3 stars as it was not badly written
263 pages
6,422 pages for the year, so far

Haven't finished any of the books I listed back in message #62, but have also begun:
Bossypants - am about1/5 of the way into it and it is very entertaining
and
The Winter of Our Discontent - am only on page 28 which is way too early for even an initial impression

Am kind of surprised that Foucault's Pendulum is going well. Was kind of thinking that my mind would have frozen up by now.

Only 48 more pages to go in Thinking Small. The dreaded review looms.

UPS delivered my new mop yesterday. Was hugely excited. Washed two floors in 20 minutes. How sad is my life.

edited to correct the book number of Mary Reilly

Charlotte congratulations on the new mop - and those are salutations I don't remember making before!

Thank you, Paul. I think it is the mop of my dreams.

I am always in search of some particular things - namely:-

1. the perfect writing instrument
2. the perfect handbag
3. the perfect cleaning tools - although you would never know it by a look inside my little hovel.

Reference "things"

Perfect writing instrument - surely the quill that Will quilled his sonnets

Perfect handbag ~ This referred to SWMBO whose collection rivals my book collection

Perfect cleaning tools ~ This referred to Erni - we did buy a Rainbow vacuum cleaner that apparently could do almost everything but talk - I haven't noticed the difference!

Charlotte, D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow comes before Women In Love. The Rainbow is more of a family generational saga, and Women In Love continues the story but focuses just on 2 sisters. I read both of those books probably about 20 years ago, but that's what I remember!

You know, the right tools really can make a HUGE difference. I hate household chores, but if you have a tool that works quickly and efficiently, it makes the chore endurable. Speaking as someone who has had a dodgy vacuum cleaner that spit the dirt back out, a good vacuum cleaner is essential!

I was thinking about the guy with the bible quote signature, and I realized that I have friends that have bible quotes as signatures, quotes from Monty Python, quotes from musicals, quotes from Douglas Adams...I feel like any sort of signature at the end of an email is inappropriate for business emails.

Sandy K

Book No. 22 - Death of a Perfect Wife by M.C. Beaton - The 'mystery' in this one wasn't riveting, but no matter. Reading about Hamish MacBeth and Lochdubh isn't really about the mystery much of the time. Is more about visiting friends and catching up, I think.

3.5 stars
192 pages
6,614 pages this year, so far

Am putting The Kingless Land to one side - probably permanently. Plan to foist off this and some other books I don't believe I will read again upon someone or other. The used bookstore that closed down back in 2009 is supposed to be opening up again soon - maybe they will take them off my hands. Store credit would be awesome.

Am still reading:
Foucault's Pendulum - Slow and steady wins the race - or gets the intimidating books read - eventually
The Dispossessed - going o.k. Such a sober book
The Master of Ballantrae - More than halfway through. Liking it better than before. The Master is one rotten SOB
Volume One of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Will pass page 400 before the end of the weekend. Have been in an extended Early Christianity patch
Byron: Life and Legend - at page 216. Drama, drama, drama
The Lifespan of a Fact - Not much further along than before.
Bossypants - Husbanding this one. It is so good, I don't want to tear through it.
The Winter of Our Discontent - Have noticed there is not a lot of love out there for this month's Steinbeck selection, but I dunno - I kind of like it.
Have also begun:
Rousseau and Revolution by Will Durant and Ariel Durant - massive doorstop of a book
and
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - expect I will enjoy this as I have liked all of Louise Erdrich's stuff to date.

Checked out the Rainbow vacuum, Paul. Guess I'll be getting that one the day I win the Lottery. On second thought guess I won't get it until I after I win the Lottery and then buy a big giant house worthy of it.

A SWMBO-worthy bag - now that's do-able. I have been known to drop a Ben Franklin or two on bags of various sizes and colors and expect to do more of it in the future.

I did not know, Sandy, that The Rainbow came before Women in Love. Good to know as I have WiL in the TBR pile. Must get my hands on a copy.

Was going to have more fun with the new mop today, but it is grey, kind of chilly and yucky outside. For some reason I don't like doing housework when it is like this. Rainy, grey days are made for reading. On the other hand, sunny days make me feel like doing something worthwhile. My friend on the other hand is the complete opposite. She only cleans when it rains. Somehow I don't like slopping water around inside when there are scads of it outside.

Charlotte, entertaining post as ever! What lady wouldn't choose a handbag over a vacuum cleaner?!

De lurking to say that I'd choose a book over both a handbag and a vacuum cleaner - but then I'm no lady, I guess!

And certainly think that bible quotes at the end of emails are objectionable; I agree that probably any kind of quote is not appropriate as part of a signature line in work-related emails, unless they are internal to a group or organisation which is known to share the values/beliefs/philosophy to which the quote makes reference.

E-mail signatures - isn't that far too much trouble? Why oh why would you send something business related that may or may not cause offence to others?

Oh, yes Genny - a book over everything else - no doubt.

Book No. 23 - Stiff by Mary Roach - I started this book back at the beginning of October, which no one should take as an indication that I did not like it. The problem with it was that it was an audible.com book and since, last year, I was all taken up with my project of making note of every book I found inside the books I was reading, I discovered that this was not a good project for an audio book. Swerving to the side of the road every time some book was mentioned (and there were a number of them) was verging on dangerous, so I put the book to one side, picking it up again once the year turned.

I am not known for squeamishness - I have a pretty high gore threshold and I fancy that if this had been a regular book, I probably would have finished it sooner than I did. However, there is something about surveying the ground meat section in the supermarket while a nice lady purred in my ears all kinds of previously unknown stuff about corpses and body parts and putrefaction that pretty much put me off the weekly grocery shopping. Also, I imagined that the expression on my face probably set my fellow shoppers to wondering about my sanity if they happened to look my way. Plainly I need to do more housework or get a more walkable pet in order to get the reading of my audiobooks done at a quicker pace.

Stiff was full of info I'd not had a clue about before and I found it quite interesting. The reader had a pleasant voice - pleasant, but not hilarious, just right for the tone of this weirdly upbeat book. However, I am afraid I will never get over the mental image of some vile 'scientist's' so-called experiment (for what purpose I no longer recall) where he grafted the bodies of living puppies onto the neck of some adult 'host' dog. Horrible!!!!

Giving this one -
3.5 stars
304 pages
6,918 for the year, so far

Started on 10/4/11
Finished on 3/9/12

Seems it's my Thingaversary today. Five years on LT - imagine that.

Book No. 24 - Thinking Small by Andrea Hiott - an Early Reviewer history of Volkswagen. Even though I've pretty much stopped requesting ER books, I put in for this book because last May 5th I became the proud owner of a Beetle (new - new style Beetle not in terms of year) and I wanted to learn about Karl's people. (Yes, I name my cars.)

I learned that the birth of the Volkswagen was a long and torturous one, held up for many years by the interference of WWII and the vile economic climate in the years immediately following the war. I learned that Hitler had a lot to do with the VW - bringing this car to life was one of his passions - one of his few not-heinous passions - and in so doing he also gave life to the Autobahn and to the the little town of "The Town of Strength Through Joy" where the VW was meant to be manufactured. Sings, doesn't it. Mercifully post-Hitler, the powers that be changed the town's name to Wolfsburg which I thought was about a zillion times better, name-wise. How many times there were that this car very nearly did not come into being - almost too many to count. If not for the persistence of a few very determined men Karl would not be sitting out in my driveway now and I would be the poorer for it. He's far from new, but somehow he speaks to me. I feel emotion for him. My other cars were just great heaps of machinery. Karl is family.

I digress.

The book was probably not the greatest of histories - kind of chopped up and it wandered around from Ferdinand Porsche's story (the car's designer), to Hitler, to the history of the American Ad Agency that would eventually convince a highly resistant USA that it really wanted this car, to the stories of several other individuals who would become involved with the development of the car down the road, to the bad days just after the war when production was a little touch and go, back to the Ad Agency and then on VW's amazing triumph of success. Still, I did get a lot out of it even though I am not a car person. (And doubtless never will be.) Glad I read it.

I feel I understand Karl better now...

Giving this one 3 stars
422 pages
7,340 pages for the year, so far

Started on 1/22/12
Finished on 3/15/12

Happy Thingaversary Charlotte!!
Can't imagine five years yet, I came 11 months later ;-)

Thanks, Anita!
Guess this means we are practically contemporaries - LT wise.

Happy Thingaversary! I hope you got 6 new-to-you books to celebrate (5 for each year plus 1 to grow on)!

Not 6, but I did get 4 at Barnes & Noble. (They were actually from a birthday gift card, but 4 is about as far as a girl can hope to stretch a B & N gift card.). Have been planning my assault on some used books to be gotten from amazon with my birthday gift card from that fine establishment and am about ready to order them. Then there is the iTunes card from another friend to be spent. I must say, I have very nice and generous friends.

I know I won't read the Volkswagon book, but I learned some things just from your review. Interesting. When I was a kid, we would play a game called Punchbug in the car. When you saw a VW bug on the road, you said "Punchbug!" and punched the other person on the car in the arm. Probably not a very safe game to play with boys. Usually we just yelled out punchbug and forgot about the actual punching...

Sandy K

> 81: Oh, forgot to say, our first car was an old Beetle, named Koos ;-)
And we have just decided to go back to Volkswagen and ordered a new Polo... it is expected at the end of May.

All our cars have had names, after Koos we had Axel (Citroën), Nils (a Volvo), Bijou (Citroën), Maxime (black Citroën CX, the best car we ever owned), Tano (Citroën), Ton-Ton (Renault) and now J/B (it is a Dacia Logan, I call it Johnny after the singer Johnny Logan and Frank calls it Brooke after Brooke Logan from the Bold and the Beautiful) and now we are thinking of a good name for the Polo...

Happy belated Thingaversary, Charlotte! And where is the list of the books you got from B&N ... curious minds want to know.... and potentially salivate over.

*waving* at Charlotte

Is that you, Stasia? *Charlotte's face registers look of great surprise* Nice to see you.

Caro, I promise that right soon I will post that book list, the list of regular purchases from March and catch up on my book posts, too. Have been engaged in trying to fix my card catalog at home (dining room table is a gigantic, howling, holy horror of a mess as a result) and as it was woefully screwed up, it has taken me some time. But I'm done now.

Charlotte - just stopping by to say hi and looking forward to your book list as was Caro.

Anita - names for your cars? Mine often didn't get time to be christened so to speak as I often wrote them off in the first year. I managed to total loss four cars so far in Malaysia and this of course necessitated getting my driver. Now my driver gets a name and he can call my cars whatever he likes!

Maybe that was the problem, Paul. If they'd had names you would not have crashed them. I know that my first named car - Caroline - was crash free, unlike her predecessor, who was known after the fact as Old Whitey. That one had two 'incidents', although the last (and fatal) one was not my fault. A drunk traveling in the opposite direction attempted to pass the vehicle in front of him on the left while on a hill that was curving toward me. Old Whitey bought the farm.

The Barnes & Noble birthday book list:

Germinal by Emile Zola
Death of a Gentle Lady by M.C. Beaton
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
and
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

All of these books will doubtless appear again on my Books Bought in April List because I am kind of obsessive that way.

The Books Bought in March List goes like this -

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - Bought this when I was reading Mary Reilly
Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan - audible.com
When She Woke by Hillary Jordan - audible.com
From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz - actually this wasn't bought but rather it was loaned to me by my boss.
Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron - because of the Byron bio I am still reading
Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead by Christiana Millier - on Kindle because it was cheap and it had an rd rec
Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh - audible.com
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
The previous 3 were from my indie bookstore that is going out of business *sniff*
The Flash Press by Patricia Cline Cohen
Wild Mary by Patrick Marnham
A Small Death in the Great Glen by A.D. Scott
and
Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon by Charles Slack - I find books about this hometown girl interesting and try to read them when I see them.

Whew! Done. And out of control as usual.

Makes 20 right? A nice haul - Germinal would have made my best of list if La Bete Humaine wasn't already on it (1 book per author for my top ten). I also enjoyed Norwegian Wood when I read it last year.
Have a lovely weekend

A belated Happy Thungaversary and Happy Birthday Charlotte! Nice book haul. :-)

Heather is great on these things....if it is your birthday Charlotte many happy returns (they never tell you where from do they?) and happy reading.

Sorry Charlotte somehow double posted so this has been edited to a simple happy birthday!

Thank you, Heather and Paul. Actually it was my birthday a little over a month ago, but giant procrastinator that I am, it has taken me a while to spend the gift cards. I still have one from iTunes that I'm sitting on. I know I'm going to be spending it on books - am just hugely indecisive. Right now I am holding onto a scratch ticket I won yesterday at work. I get a huge amount of enjoyment out of imagining what I'm going to do with the money. Unscratched as it is right now that lottery ticket is just as much a winner as it is a loser.

One day soon, I will have to scratch it, I guess.

I mean to get caught up on my book postings now and stop fiddling around. Actually I meant to get this done on Tuesday night, but got sidetracked by Masterpiece Theater which was running Birdsong and so I had to see it. It is the curse of my existence - getting distracted and not doing what I ought to be doing.

Book No. 25 - was From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz - Have not been a huge Koontz fan and read this book because my boss (the lottery ticket buying boss) was going on about it. He liked this book so much that when he wanted to re-read it and could not find it, he bought a second copy. I think Koontz almost let this book get completely away from him - the villain was so completely outrageous that he almost ran away with the book. He was so unrelentingly evil, he was kind of fascinating; I had to keep reading to see what horrid thing he was going to do next.

I did catch Koontz out in a couple of mistakes of history. Gatorade was not marketed until September of 1965, but DK had evil guy guzzling the stuff in the early spring of '65. Also, he has Dos Equis being consumed in the US on New Year's Eve 1969 when it was not being sold here until 1973. I wish I could just leave these things alone when I'm reading, but somehow, if I am suspicious of some claim, I can't keep myself from trying to fact check.

Giving this one3.5 stars - not for the writing, but rather for the swiftly moving story that stayed interesting.
587 pages
7,927pages for the year, so far

Started on 3/10/12
Finished on 3/16/12

Book No. 26 – The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich – turned out to be my least favorite of the Erdrich books that I’ve read, so far. It was not her writing - it was the story. A grief stricken young woman who used to be a Roman Catholic nun, gets swept away in a flood, survives that and uses the opportunity to take over the identity of a priest, masquerading as a man for the rest of her very, very long life. I just get a little weary of writers using this gimmick – women pretending to be men. It just kind of re-enforces the idea that women’s lives are uninteresting and only men have lives worth living.

Giving this one 3 stars
355 pages
7927
8,282 pages for the year, so far

Started on 3/17/12
Finished on 3/23/12

Book No. 27 - The Girl from Botany Bay by Carolly Erickson – the true story of an English woman transported to Australia on the very first convict ship in the 18th century, her ordeal and escape from the starving colony. I can’t say that I care for Erickson’s way of writing history. There is virtually no record of Mary Broad Bryant’s thoughts about anything. All of CE’s writings of what Mary thought and felt and much of what she did, day to day, are plain supposition. CE has nothing to back up anything she says about Mary. Still, it’s an awfully good story, though it probably would have been easier for me to accept if she’d written it as Historical Fiction.

I thought when I was reading it that it would doubtless make a super good movie, but when checking on-line I discovered that not only was Mary’s story made into an Australian mini-series, but that I saw it a few years ago. I think it needs doing over again, because plainly I did not find it memorable.

Giving this one 3 stars – mostly for the story
194 pages
8,476 pages for the year, so far

Started on 3/24/12
Finished on 3/25/12

Book No 28 – The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson – I’ve owned this classic for a few years, having picked it up at the Central Village Friends Meeting Annual Book Sale. Had no idea what to expect from it. I hadn’t a clue about the story and was pleasantly surprised to find it so readable. It is a story of two Scottish brothers in the years after the ‘45 who are very different men. The Master – the elder brother – turns out to be quite a weasel and the rest of the family, in particular the younger brother, live a tortured existence because of him – his greed and selfishness. The ending was a surprise to me and I do think that Stevenson made a good choice with it. This was a good book.

Giving it 3.5 stars
251 pages
8,727 for the year, so far

Started on 2/9/12
Finished on 4/1/12

Book No. 29 - Bossypants by Tina Fey – a super funny book. I got this one from Audible.com so I think the experience was enhanced by the fact that it was read by Fey. I laughed a lot and that being the case, I know there were things that I missed. Am going to have to listen to this one again.

The only criticism that I would have of Fey is that she seemed to spend a lot of time trying to convince the reader (listener) that her life is really not any better than the lives of ordinary people - that she has the same kinds of ‘real’ problems that all of the rest of us do. That felt a little forced to me. That, however, is a tiny complaint. She is such a funny woman, it’s easy to quickly pass over this one complaint.

Four stars for this one
288 pages
9,015 pages for the year, so far

Started on 3/11/12
Finished on 4/10/12

Book No. 30 - National Velvet by Enid Bagnold - This is a re-read - number 127, I think. Haven't read this one in a long, long, long time. It's kind of interesting reading these books that I haven't read in such a long time - I like the idea that I might get a whole different perspective on the story at such a distance. NV is just the way I remembered it. I know it's a book written for children, but it comes across, just as it did way back when, as a book that was not diluted and child-i-fied. It's a serious book and I liked it, this time around, just as much as I ever did.

Still rates 4 stars from me
251 pages
9,266 pages for the year, so far

Started on 4/11/12
Finished on 4/15/12

Book No. 31 - The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe - an unusual choice for me - the story of several teenagers growing up in 1970's Birmingham (UK). I generally avoid books about the sixties and seventies. I did not enjoy that time period and have no desire to relive it - even in fiction. Despite this prejudice of mine, I liked this book anyway. It seemed very genuine. It has a sequel - which I did not know until I finished it - and I will probably track it down.

3.75 stars
402 pages
9,668 pages for the year, so far

Started on 4/15/12
Finished on 4/21/12

I've still got one more book to list here, but Willie woke me up almost 17 and half hours ago at 5:40 this AM (performing his rendition of "Thundering Herd of Cats") and so I am running out of steam.

And to continue the conversation (mostly with myself)...

Book No. 32 was The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies. Bought this book in May, 2009 (that's how long it takes for books to rise to the top here in my little hovel) from the only local indie bookstore which is, this spring, in the long slow process of going belly-up.

I liked this WWII story revolving around Esther Evans - Welsh, pregnant, working in the village pub - her father - a Nationalist, sheep farmer, uncomfortable with English and the English - Jim - a young evacuee from London, feisty, lonely, anxious to fit in - and Karsten - German POW resident at the newly built camp that is next to the village, tormented by the knowledge that he surrendered and anxious to keep that information from his mother. I could not figure out by what plausible means Davies was going to bring Karsten and Esther into contact with one another, but eventually he did manage to do it and do it well. No sloppy, ridiculous romance here - it was just right and believable.

The only off bit was the inclusion of Rudolf Hess, who is being held in Wales and a man of German-Jewish background - Rotherham - who is supposed to engage Hess and investigate him with the intent of finding out if there is possibly anything that he is still holding back from the Allies. To me the Rotherham/Hess pairing does not work awfully well. It did not seem to tie in very well with the rest of the book (although Rotherham does have some interviews with Karsten) and was not particularly necessary to the story.

Over all, I liked this one and am giving it:
4 stars
336 pages
10,004 pages for the year, so far

Started on 4/21/12
Finished on 4/23/12

Have sent the next book I began - An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson on sabbatical. Wasn't doing it for me. Maybe I'll get back to it and maybe I won't.

Decided to take that nasty taste out of my mouth by reading:

Book No. 33 - Death of a Hussy by M.C. Beaton - seem to be reading a lot of these Hamish MacBeth mysteries this year. Isn't it weird how in mysteries - both on TV and in books - the murder victims always turn out to be really rotten people. I mean, nobody ever knocks off Miss Sally Sweetness without it turning out that she has embezzled a bazillion dollars from the town and convinced somebody to jump off the bridge because he's unlovable and funny looking too. No one nice ever turns out to be the murder victim. Is that odd or is it really like that in real life?

Anyway, yes, the murder victim in this one was mean and nasty, deserved to die and Hamish solved the murder both handily and cleverly. Can't seem, it appears, to get enough of these puppies.

3.5 stars
151 pages
10,155 pages for the year, so far

Started on 4/29/12
Finished on 4/29/12

I nearly picked up The Welsh Girl in the library last week, but decided I was a bit overbooked at the moment. I'll definitely be borrowing it soon though. Thanks for the review.

And to continue the conversation (mostly with myself)...

Very remiss of your pals on here Charlotte myself included. Good reviews, always good humour one of the most underrated threads in the group. Won't lurk so quietly in future my dear.

The Welsh Girl is a long-term resident of my TBR pile but I think your review has moved it a bit nearer to the top.

I read my way through 20-odd Hamish Macbeth stories and really enjoyed them, once I got over the disjoint between the book description of Hamish and the TV version. Robert Carlyle is not tall and ginger-haired!

What Paul said.

I lurk a lot :)

I recently picked up a copy of The Welsh Girl knowing nothing about it. Glad to hear it is worth a read!

Guess I can't whinge, ever again, about people not showing up here when I am obviously the worst offender of all having been AWOL from my own thread (and almost everyone else's) for 24 mortal days. Bad Charlotte. Bad, bad, bad!

Book No. 34 – Austenland – by Shannon Hale was a middling, vaguely entertaining piece of fluff. The 21st century heroine inherits a 3-week stay at an English estate that is all about happy vacationers with a major hankering for all things Jane Austen being given the opportunity to pretend that they are characters in a Regency England storyline. The price charged by the establishment must be very, very pricey, for there aren’t ever more than two vacationers there at one time. It was hard to buy into this story, because nobody ever really seems to be trying very hard. Of course the heroine got her man in the end, but I didn’t care by the time she did.

Gave this one 3 stars – a bare three stars.
194 pages
10,349 pages for the year, so far

Started on 4/29/12
Finished on 5/2/12

One thing about books like this – I think the producers of that infamous BBC production of Pride and Prejudice owe the public in general a giant apology or perhaps even better than that, compensation in coin of the realm for all the clap trap (Or should it be claptrap? Am unsure if this should be one word or two.) and twiddle that has been churned out over the past 20 years, (or thereabouts) that we have been subjected to, all account of, IMO, that production. I know I really haven’t got a leg to stand on as no one has forced me to read the worshipping-at-the-feet-of-JA-and-maybe-making-a-buck-or-two-along-the-way books that I have read, but still-. PP, again IMO, is not the very best book ever written. Hell, I don’t even think that it’s Austen’s best book (and I haven’t read all of them yet) and I, personally, am done with the slavish admiration of it.. So there.

I will be available for pelting with somewhat decayed vegetables and fruit in the public square next Saturday....

My, what a grey and gloomy day today. But, I'm certainly ok with it. Can't be expected to do yard things in weather like this, now can I? I much prefer camping out on the couch with Willie laying on my feet and MPR playing in the background - current selection being Adalbert Gyrowetz's Symphony No. 2 - no idea who he is.

Let's see - where are we now....

Book No. 35 - Byron: Life and Legend by Fiona MacCarthy a hefty biography I've had for quite some time. I can't believe that I have pretty much always thought that the great poet was a great womanizer. He was that of course, but I did not realize his history with men. Kind of left me a bit confused - was he gay or bi or did he have this history with women only because he was so frustrated by having to deny his true nature and required some kind of outlet even if it was with women (and he clearly disliked almost all women). He could not even bear to be in the same room with a woman if she was eating (He had a whole thing about that). And then there was that scandal with his half-sister. Again - confused.

MacCarthy did a great job with telling the story of Byron's life - and such a sad, manic and unhappy existence it was. Byron was a terrible snob with a massive talent (I am taking the experts' opinion on this as I did not get the poetry appreciation gene) who influenced a legion of talented 19th century figures and drove the womenfolk of his time to behave pretty much like love-crazed fiends. He had many loyal friends so devoted to him that they tried very hard to keep his scandalous behavior under wraps lest it destroy him for Byron had almost no ability to control himself. Still they loved him and a number of them - in particular John Cam Hobhouse - did their level damnedest to keep him from ruining himself by his various indiscretions.

Clearly Byron was a fascinating man of his day and if I had any liking for poetry I might be hugely enthralled by him.

Giving this one:
4 stars
574 pages
10,923 pages for the year, so far

Started on 2/18/12
Finished on 5/10/12

Byron was one heck of a guy (and sometimes gal) Charlotte - poetry overblown and pretentious.

Just winding up a vacation week spent tracking down a new washer and dryer and then mowing the lawn, raking up two and half years of pine needles from the back of the house, picking up a ton of little pine branches and unearthing the bulkhead to facilitate delivery of my new additions. Oh - and also, not to be forgotten, biting the 'ick' bullet and opening the bulkhead doors ahead of time, sweeping the stairs and dislodging all resident spiders. This had to be done with hat on head and gloves on hands. My resident spiders are big, fleshy black ones with the occasional dead white monstrosity. *Shudder*

...and then after successful delivery - in the rain, mind you, which makes things ever so much more lovely and easy - I spent pretty much most of the rest of the week washing and drying - load after load after load. Somehow, while adjusting to the disappearing washing abilities of my old washer I managed to build up quite a pile of things to be put off until a better day. Well, that day arrived this week, baby and in spades!

Book No. 36 - Napoleon's Family by Desmond Seward - Have had this book for a long, long time. Think I picked it up at a library sale. A short history, concentrating on Napoleon's family exclusively. Oh, what a bunch of pretentious, greedy characters Napoleon was afflicted with - family-wise. No doubt about it, Napoleon had all of the talent in that family. The rest of them were just leeches. How much better he would have done if he could have just cut them all off and concentrated on his step-children - Hortense and in particular, her brother Eugene. Was very impressed by Eugene. Such a contrast to his step-father's brothers and sisters and their mostly worthless mates.

Enjoyed this quite a bit and it filled out one aspect of the whole French Revolution/Napoleonic era for me.

Four stars
199 pages
11,122 pages for the year, so far

Started on 5/11/12
Finished on 5/13/12

Book No. 37 - Blood Hunt by Neil M. Gunn - revolves around a the killing of a young man over the matter of his pregnant girlfriend by her former boyfriend - one Allan Innes - in a small Highland community in Scotland. Allan runs away into the hills hiding out from the dead man's policeman brother, dependent upon the help 74 year old farmer named Sandy can give him. The two of them go back a way - Sandy is inclined to help Allan out with food, clothes and money because as a boy Allan and his friends had helped him out - doing little jobs that needed doing around the place. Also, Sandy does not like the policeman brother, Nicol (have forgotten the murder victim's name and Willie has me pinned down so I can't go locate the book right now) who is constantly skulking around the farm trying to trap and capture Allan for he is positive that Sandy is helping him. Everything is complicated when Sandy is injured by his sex-starved cow and ends up temporarily bedridden. Even with the frequent appearances of the doctor, the local nurse and widow next door, Sandy continues to do his best to help Allan.

Thought this was a very 'real' story. Loved Sandy. Can't call this a story about murder. The murder was almost incidental. It was more about loyalty and aging. (Boy that word looks wrong, but spellcheck likes it.)

Four stars for this one. Have to read something else of his.
250 pages
11,372 pages for the year, so far

Started on 5/10/12
Finished on 5/20/12

Book No. 38 - The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing - never read any Lessing before. Have the impression that a number of people found this book a tad disturbing - they could not accept the idea of parents disliking their own child as intensely as did the parents in this novel. Maybe that is the 'normal' reaction - I don't know. Not having any children, I suppose I am not in a position to criticize. Am not all that fond of children as a group - I kind of pick and choose among them. And Ben - the fifth child - is just awful. Even before he is born. Just weird and creepy and plainly not right. The one thing that seems kind of off to me was the parents' choice to send Ben off to some horrible institution where he was clearly meant to die. The story doesn't take place in 1850 - so I can't really see why their only choice was such a stark and horrific one.
Anyway, it was pretty riveting in a kind of train wreck way.

3.75 stars
133 pages
11,505 pages for the year, so far

Started and finished on 5/24/12

Book No. 39 - The End of Marking Time by CJ West - was lent to me by my boss. He met the author at his regular poker game and somehow the subject of books came up and this guy ran out to his car and brought back this book from his trunk. (Apparently he carries copies of all of his books in his trunk, because as I was given to understand it, when Ray told him how much he liked this one, West ran outside and got him another one) Anyway, this book deals with a future where the Supreme Court pronounces all incarceration 'cruel and unusual' and all criminals are released from jail. The main character - Michael, a convicted criminal - has missed all of this because he has been in a coma for several years. When he emerges from his coma, he enters the new system, which consists of something very like home confinement with the requirement that he sit through many hours of interactive dvds instructing him on behavioral matters as well as filling in the giant gap in his education (he is practically illiterate). There are complications.

Can't continue to the end with this except to say that some of the reviewers expressed disappointment with the way West ends his story, but I think they are looking for a happy ending because Michael is quite likable. Personally, I thought the ending was right - any other one would not have worked.

I liked it.

Giving it 3.9 stars
273 pages
11,778 pages for the year, so far

Started on 6/4/12
Finished on 6/6/12

Book No. 40 - When She Woke by Hillary Jordan is also about a future where criminals are treated in a radically different way. In this future, all but the most violent criminals are sentenced to be treated with a dye (different colors for different kinds of crimes) and after a short period in a prison (where they are on view as part of some kind of creepy reality TV show) they are released into the world to serve out the rest of their punishment, dyed their designated color. Life out of jail is very much the life of a leper - people know what you've done just by looking at you.

The focus of the book is a girl named Hannah who comes from a fundamentalist background in Texas. She had an affair with the minister - a well-known man (married) who has become a very big deal, nationally - gotten pregnant with his child and aborted it. She keeps quiet about Rev. Dale - she still loves him and wants to protect him. He uses his considerable influence to get her into a program, after she is released, that is run (unbeknownst to him) by a creepy, fundamentalist couple. Hannah cannot tough it out and leaves before the end of her time there. Luckily Rev. Dale has stocked Hannah's bank account with beaucoup bucks so she doesn't have to worry about money.

For a while this story is kind of a modern take on The Scarlet Letter, but then it goes off in a completely different direction. I was sure that I could smell a sequel coming, but am not quite sure anymore. If there is no sequel, Jordan has left me with a lot of questions about what happens after the end of this book. (There is a lot that happens after Hannah leaves the program run by the creepy fundamentalist couple - it turns into a kind of Underground Railroad story.)

It was enjoyable. It was an audiobook - I don't seem to finish these awfully quickly, but not because of the books themselves. I just don't seem to have as many 'read/listen' opportunities as I would like. As for the Narrator - Heather Corrigan - she has a sweet kind of voice that suits Hannah well, but her accents and male voices - not good. One in particular just set my teeth on edge - the Episcopal minister from Massachusetts. Corrigan is apparently another person who seems to believe that we all sound like JFK. And she was doing a really bad, bad JFK to boot.

Giving this one 3.75 stars
344 pages
12,122 pages for the year, so far

Started on 4/16/12
Finished on 6/10/12

Lovely cool morning here. For some reason my house has been invaded by a mouse - again. Was expecting it would happen this year (mice seem to find their way inside in a cyclical fashion - every other year), but not so soon. Thought it would be at least until the first chilly night in August not bloody June! Anyway, I was forced to leave a little 'treat' out for the nasty little bugger last night which also required me to close the kitchen door and block off any possible mousey-exits (under the door, specifically). I have a horror that one of them will chomp down a whole bunch of Death Snacks and then run out where Willie can find it. Willie is a great hunter and I am afraid that he might kill and then eat a mouse who is chock full of D-Con.
Anyway, this morning there was clear evidence that the 'feast' was enjoyed by said mouse. Am debating whether to leave more out tonight or to wait.

Book No. 41 - Peril at End House by Agatha Christie - this was another Hercule Poirot mystery. There is no dead body for quite a while - just several attempts made on a young woman. Poirot who is in the neighborhood with Captain Hastings, decides to take on the case, trying to keep anything further from happening to the young woman while also trying to figure out who the would-be murderer is. Things get serious when someone is finally killed and Poirot is filled with remorse that despite his efforts someone has been murdered.

Once again, I came nowhere near figuring out the identity of the murderer. I kind of had a handle on it, but not quite. Am trying to wean myself from the idea that I have to solve the murder before the book's end as I am getting the idea that isn't the point of a murder mystery novel - or is it? Is it possible to enjoy one of these if one is not trying to solve it before 'all is revealed'?

3.5 stars for this one
178 pages
12,300 pages for the year, so far

Started on 6/9/12
Finished on 6/10/12

Book No. 43 - The Blue Notebook - by James A. Levine a short book about child prostitution in Mumbai, India recommended by TrishNYC (wherever did she go?). The story is told by a young girl who lives on a street made up of nothing but child prostitutes (male and female) entertaining the scum of the earth in their tiny cubicles while their keepers take all the profits. They are nothing more than slaves who either sold into the business by their parents or driven to it by starvation and extreme poverty.

A horrific story to be sure. But it is so far beyond my experience and ken that I could hardly connect with it. I should be embarrassed by that statement, but there it is...

There is no fault with the writing. It is a powerful story well told that needs telling.

Will things of this kind ever, ever stop?

3.5 stars
206 pages
12,506 pages for the year, so far

Started and finished on 6/11/12

Book No. 44 - Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey - a high fantasy novel that I was very much on the fence about starting. I had such a hard time with the last Carey book that I tried to read (see message #57) and I was anticipating this one being a dreadful failure as well.

Well, I was wrong. Totally loved this book. It was very Tolkein-esque, but with no questing at all in it (you know how I feel about quests) and I found the idea of misunderstood characters in a fantasy novel very refreshing as fantasy characters are usually so black and white. Is Lord Satoris the evil character the rest of the world believes him to be or are the people who have been saying these things about him and his allies the real bad guys? Jury is still sort of out at the end of this book, but I'm betting a lot of money that he's the good guy after all. Will move the sequel to the head of the line when it is delivered. I think there is only this one other book which is really unusual these days for fantasy novels.

Carey is forgiven and while I will never read any of her other Kushiel books, I do mean to try to her current series (whose name I can't recall just now). After all every book is not a perfect fit for everyone and based on Banewreaker I'm pretty sure she has the capacity to entertain me.

Giving this one 4.5 stars
431 pages
12,937 pages for the year, so far

Started on 6/12/12
Finished on 6/16/12

There. I am caught up and current for the first time this year. Will try to do better in future. Guess trying to hold back a book or two doesn't work all that great for me. Much better to keep the litter box clean, the laundry done and the books up to date.

Would list the books that come into the house since last time here, but that too, has gotten out of hand. Am going to have make a physical, written list before I can post it here.

Am looking forward to the big book sale next month that I missed last year because of Willie's inappropriate peeing thing. I will go this year come hell or high water. Am plotting what bags exactly I will take with me to cart away my haul. Wish I had a little red wagon or a donkey cart or something equally mobile...

Hideous humid, hot, hot, hot weather is done - mercifully. We missed all of the ferocious storms that apparently raged all around my miserable little corner of the world. All we have had are a few little showers.

Is summer over yet?, she asked plaintively.

I seem to have missed Book No. 42, for some reason. It was East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which was supposed to be read for the Steinbeckathon. Apparently, I did not check to see exactly what month it was supposed to be read in and just went stramming ahead and did it in my own way and time. Consequently I can say not too much about it other than to say it is probably the best one yet. Don't see how it can be topped. I will only say about the characters that I wish I knew more about Cathy and what makes her tick. (Oh, and I have to confess that I did not finish The Winter of Our Discontent and never even acquired the one in between - whatever it's name is. I am totally undisciplined and not proud of it.)

Giving it 4.50 stars

602 pages
13,539 pages for the year, so far

Started on 5/24/12
Finished on 6/11/12

Book No. 45 - The Bloody Ground by Bernard Cornwell - the last in his Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles. It appears from the note at the end of the book that he meant, at the time, to continue on with this series, but I believe since then that he has changed his mind. That's ok with me. He does an excellent job of telling this story that winds around and through the American Civil War battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam as I would expect him to do, but I have never gotten the feeling that he was truly enthralled with the Nathaniel Starbuck character. All the same, BC proves once again that there is no one who is better at writing about battles than he is. He just gets you in there so deep that it seems as if you are truly there, mucking around in the blood and the mud and the gore.

Giving this one -
4 stars
345 pages
13,884 pages for the year, so far

Started on 6/16/12
Finished on 6/21/12

Must get about my Saturday business now so I'm off to the grocery store. I hate going to the grocery store. Always have. How great my mother and aunt had it way back when, when they could just call the market, dictate a list and then voila - an hour or so later food would arrive at the back door. The delivery boy would even bring it inside. Grocery-Nirvana!

The two main things that I hate about grocery shopping are - 1. finding the the aisle blocked by two old biddies who are busy conducting what appears to be a 20 year reunion while never failing to angle their carts in such a way that it is impossible to squeeze by them. (Bet they actually last saw each other just the week before.) and 2. turning into an empty aisle - not a soul in sight - but encountering the unmistakeable stench of sweat and stinky human being. If you smell so bad that your essence remains behind after you've disappeared from the aisle you don't need food. You need a bloody hosing down!!

End of rant.

Charlotte - hope you're having a great weekend - groceries to one side anyway. I miss the familiarity of the corner shops that I grew up with and which were such an intrinsic part of English village life. Your diatribe on the subject of old ladies shopping (a creature I live in near terminal fear of I must add) is greatly entertaining.

Thank you, Paul.
I, too, miss that little market. Of course it had no selection at all, but I wonder if it is really necessary to have six varieties of toilet tissue to choose from. It had a really great butcher - a real butcher you could talk to, not some invisible guy skulking out back. I remember Roland so well. He would save lamb kidneys for my mother and when he had a half dozen he'd let her know, sotto voce, that he had kidneys for her, or take me to one side when I came on my own to pick up some bread and give me his hoard of kidneys all wrapped up in butcher's paper. (I detested organ meat then as now, but I could appreciate that he was thinking of his customers and their special cravings.) There was sawdust on the floor of the the corner of the store where he worked and when I was little he did not mind if children came around the corner of the meat case to stand in the sawdust and watch him work.

That market went out of business long ago and many businesses have debuted and failed in that location in the time since then. A donut shop, a seafood restaurant, and a Spanish restaurant (that one went down real quick - it was just the wrong neighborhood altogether) spring to mind. It was vacant for about four years prior to 2011 - I thought somebody was going to try to make an apartment out of it - but then a computer repair business opened up. That one is still going and I hope it stays in business, but oh, how I wish somebody would open up a little market there again. A real little market not a bread and milk store Or maybe a deli - a real one. Can hardly believe that there is not a true deli in this town, but there hasn't been one for at least 40 years. I fear that most people around here don't even know what a delicatessen is and would not believe that a deli section in a supermarket is a mere shadow of the real thing.

By the way, the grocery trip went quickly. No old ladies. No stinky people. Mission accomplished.

Charlotte - hahaha glad you didn't need smelling salts to revive you for bringing home the bacon.

Thanks Paul - it was a good, quick trip. There and back in a half hour.

Book No. 46 - was an audibook - Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by John R. Erickson - another Hank the Cowdog story. There's a chicken murderer loose on the ranch and Hank and Drover, his goofy sidekick are on the trail. This was not the best of the Hank stories, but I did not mind because no matter, there are always laughs in a Hank the Cowdog book. And there were two new songs; "The Cowdog Battle Hymn" - an anti-mailman masterpiece - is my favorite from this book.

Giving this one 3.75 stars which is probably high, but I don't care for I enjoy these books that much even when the story is only so-so.
144 pages
14,028 pages for the year, so far. (finally got my pages for the year up to date)

Book No. 47 - was a YA, steampunk-y, demon hunting kind of book - The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding. This one did not work for me. I thought Wooding was trying to link up too many elements and it was just too loose-feeling. He threw every possible kind of creature into the mix with the exception of vampires and zombies. Really, well before the half-way mark I was not sure I was going to be able to stick it out. I did make it to the end, but I must confess, that at times, there was a bit of skimming going on. At the end of it I think I detected the stink of a sequel, but I hope I am wrong. It is not sequel-worthy.

Can't recommend this one.

2.5 stars
292 pages
14,320 pages for the year, so far

Charlotte - hope your next book more properly hits the spot - have a lovely weekend.

A warm, but not stifling Independence Day here on the south coast of Massachusetts. And so very quiet. Think everyone must have gone to the beach. But, of course, by nightfall they will be back, setting off their illegally transported incendiary devices with abandon. Willie will not like it. I will not like it. I do not expect that my neighbors will have learned anything from the unfortunate family in NH whose largish cache of fireworks exploded last night, putting several people, including a baby, in the hospital, but of course one can hope. Probably not, though.

Book No. 48 - Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey did not disappoint me, although I would have liked a different outcome. I know there are those who greatly dislike this tiny series on the grounds that it is just a LOTR wannabe, but I don't care. I liked it. I think I must go back and read LOTR again to see what I think of it now. I kind of think I might come away with the feeling that it is a bit pretentious - heresy!

Am giving this one 4.5 stars - just like the first book.
349 pages
14,669 pages for the year, so far.

Started on 6/24/12
Finished on 6/27/12

I chose Book No. 49 - Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine to read two weekends ago deciding that it was probably the sort of book just meant for hot, humid, sleepy summer days - not too taxing and meant to be entertaining and not much else. It's an oldie - 1986 - and concerned a writer, Jo Clifford, who is regressed to the 12th century all for a series of articles she is writing on the subject for a magazine. Turns out of course that she is a noblewoman whose husband has many holdings in Wales - one Matilda de Braose who really existed and who came to a terrible end.

One thing in particular that I found wrong with this story was that it was just too freaking long. Erskine was not just telling the story of a 20th century woman being regressed, but she was also telling the story of Jo's extremely messy personal life at the same time as well as Matilda's. Additionally, instead of Jo being regressed by a reputable person, Erskine brings Sam, the brother of Jo's main love interest, into the story and he is an absolute crackpot. He is also quite adept at sending Jo whizzing back to her past life (there are 4 different people who populate these pages who have this talent), but he has dark and evil motives for doing so. Was not quite sure at the end what those motives were - hatred of his brother? hatred of Jo? general nuttiness ? - but he was always sneaking around, catching Jo alone and sending her into a trance at every opportunity. And when the professional and semi-professional regressors aren't messing with poor Jo's mind, she is just regressing on her own at the most awkward moments. I think it might have been a better story if she had skipped all the regression antics, but I guess it was a 'thing' back in the eighties.

Anyway, it was ok - not great, but not horrible.

Giving it 3 stars
560 pages - I read it on my iPad connecting to my Kindle books with a neat little app, but I believe this page count is correct.

15,229 pages for the year, so far.

Started on 6/21/12
Finished on 7/4/12

The sun is ever so hot today, but at least it isn't humid. Of course, I hardly care what the sun is like for, as usual for me in the summertime, I am holed up in my house hiding from ol' Sol much as your garden variety vampire might do. Did go out early (7:30) to plant more impatiens, but was safely inside again by 8.

I read Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard a few years ago was terribly underwhelmed by it. Therefore it was surprising to me how much I liked Book No. 50 - The Black Tower. This story imagines that Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's son, Louis Charles - the Dauphin - did not die as a result of the utterly hideous treatment he received at the hands of the people running the show during the French Revolution. Instead, Bayard has composed a wonderful bit of fiction featuring a conspiracy to flush out the true heir to the throne so as to get rid of him while a young man who is almost a doctor is forced to team up with the most notorious detective in Paris to save him from the man who is after him and see that he takes his rightful place on the throne as Louis XVII and thereby booting the current occupant - fat, gout-ridden Louis XVIII - off of it. Bayard did such a wonderful job with this story - I wanted it to be true. Best of all, he is now back on the list of authors I want to read more of. Hope my next Bayard measures up to this one.

Giving it 4.5 stars
352 pages
15,581 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/4/12
Finished on 7/7/12

Have moved on to I Capture the Castle. Don't know how I feel about it yet. Hasn't quite taken off for me yet.

Back to talk to myself some more - insofar as I can tell it's been two weeks since anyone else has been here.

Finished Book No. 51 - I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - Decent-ish read. Could see what was going to happen a ways off, but finding out that I was right did not spoil enjoyment of the book. The only character I found annoying was Father - yes, he was in a major writing-funk, but the state he'd let his family get into was appalling. I'm surprised he could lift his head off the pillow in the morning never mind face his family, but somehow or other it did not seem to bother him over-much that his children were practically starving to death and that their clothes were practical rags. The only thing of worth he did for them for years was marry Topaz, who, fortunately turned out to be clever and resourceful and did the best she could with almost nothing. Father's children were remarkably un-resentful about the way they lived, I thought.

Giving this one 3.25 stars - worth reading
343 pages
15,914 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/7/12
Finished on 7/11/12

#123 I listened to, and loved, an audio version of I capture the castle, read by Jenny Agutter and I think I might not have enjoyed it so much in print. I share your opinion of Father!

Went to the Central Village Friends Meeting Annual Book Sale yesterday. Did not get to go last year so did not intend to miss it this year. Took my good friend Izzy, with me. She had never been before. Made a point of not arriving for the start because in the past, no matter how far in advance of the opening whistle I got there, I always wound up having to park far, far away. That coupled with the fact Book Sale Day always seems to be on a hot, hot, hot, super humid day, by the time I stagger away with my 100 pounds of books, I pretty much want to just throw myself into oncoming traffic well before I can get back to my blazing hot car. So - this year we did not get there until the sale had been underway for about an hour and managed to snag a spot only a half-mile away (o.k. maybe not a half mile, but about a five minute walk, I would guess). Still, I was happy.

Noticed that there are number of books by certain authors - James Patterson, Lillian Jackson Braun, Nora Roberts, Faye Kellerman, Charles Frazier, Danielle Steele, Sue Grafton in particular - that people find good enough to buy, but not good enough to keep. But tucked in amongst all that dross, I found some things to buy. Namely:

The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent
Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (Guess I was excited when I snatched this one up - forgot I already had it. Surprisingly these were the only 2 Christies I found)
Legend in Green Velvet by Elizabeth Peters - no idea why I picked this up
The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa - think this is on the GFW
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton - already have this as a free e-book. Thought I would like a real book, too
Seven Up by Janet Evanovich
Death at Le Fenice by Donna Leon - Keep hearing about these books
Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh
Beloved by Toni Morrison - had a copy of this book years ago and could not read it and so got rid of it, but I think I can manage Morrison now and so will try this book again
Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich
Thomasina by Paul Gallico
The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet by Colleen McCullough
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy - pretty hefty book - don't know when I will get up the courage to read it
The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People by Thomas Keightley - don't know what I was thinking
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
The Mayor of Casterbridge - by Thomas Hardy - this is one of my favorite Hardys but my current copy is in paperback so thought I would buy this nice hardcover
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates - there were a surprising number of JCO books there, I thought. Only came away with this one, though I toyed with several others. My shoulder was screaming by this time
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella - thought it would be a good book for this kind of weather
and
Careless in Red by Elizabeth George

Cost me $27.50

Wanted to take Izzy to a local eatery afterwards - she's never been to Westport, but every place was cram-jammed full, so we had to settle for a chain restaurant in the next town. It was 2 o'clock by then and we were starving.

It was a good day, all in all, even though it was freaking blazing hot and I stepped in Bailey's pee (Izzy's sweet little dachshund) out on her deck afterwards. Had to leave those flip-flops out in the car when I got home. Willie would have had something to say about that state of affairs.

Charlotte what an impressive haul - 22 books if you count the Forsyte books individually. Great mixture of stuff there and no need to ask how was your weekend!

What a super haul, Charlotte! Very drool-worthy.

I'm surprised the owner of Guns, Germs and Steel didn't want to keep that book. It's a great read, and I still have mine and read bits of it from time to time again.

While listing all of the above it comes to me that I haven't listed any of the other new things to come into the house since March. These are the ones I can remember:

Pure by Andrew Miller
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
11/22/63 by Stephen King
A Candle for St. Jude by Rumer Godden
Citizens by Simon Schama
The Deadly Doll by Janine Burke
Death of a Prankster by M.C. Beaton
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
1222 by Anne Holt
All Clear by Connie Willis
Black Gotham by Carla L. Peterson
Life Itself by Roger Ebert
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte by Robert Asprey
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan
Being There by Jerry Kosinski
The Secret City by Hugh Walpole
Samuel Butler by Henry Festing Jones
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
King Solomon's Mines by Henry Rider Haggard
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Casket of Souls by Lynn Flewelling
Iola Leroy by Frances E.W. Harper
The Scalp-Hunters by Mayne Reid
The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt by Giacomo Casanova
and
6 volumes of Lord Byron's poetry - downloaded for I know not what reason.

There are a couple of other books on audible that I've forgotten the names of right now and I think there is a new on my Kindle. Will have to leave those for later. Also, will have to count up my totals for the year, too.

Re: staggering away with 100 pounds of books: people at the library book sale I go to bring rolling luggage or little rolling carts (or sometimes big rolling carts). At first I thought this was stupid and dorky but then realized how many great books they have, so now I happily join in the dorkiness and bring my rolling carry-on suitcase.

#124 - Yes, Kerry, I, too, find a good narrator makes a world of difference with an audiobook - likewise a bad one. Father was just terrible - the kind of person who truly isn't fit to be one - a father, that is.

Yup - no need at all, Paul. It was a good one.

I don't think, Caro, that the former owner of Guns, Germs and Steel had even cracked the cover. It looks pristine and unsullied.

The first time I went to this particular book sale, Carly, there was a woman there who had rigged up a milk crate with wheels and she was dragging that along behind her. A great idea, I thought. Unfortunately, they place the tables awfully close together and there is a lot of 'bottom to bottom' action going on during the browsing/hunting process. Perhaps in future years, as I get more decrepit, I will have to hunt down one of those old people's grocery carts and take that with me. Hmmmm ... as I am picturing it, I am thinking that that could work quite well.

Book No. 52 - was one of my book sale books from Saturday - Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella chosen because of the despicable weather. Knew it had to be a light read and probably an amusing one - to some degree or other. I think everyone, who cares, knows the approximate story of this appalling wastrel of a young woman- Becky Bloomwood - the kind of person for whom Debtor's Prison was surely invented. And clearly her parents had to share some of the blame for her awful financial condition for it was obvious that they had done nothing in their raising of young Becky toward seeing that their girl developed at least a tiny bit of capability when it came to managing her money. Also, I kind of wondered as I went on why Becky did not sell her car and use that money to get out of the hole. She must have had one, else why was she charging gas on her Visa card?

Anyway, I kind of enjoyed reading about all of her duds - not a clothes person, myself - or at least not much of one - but that doesn't mean I don't like them.

Giving this one 3 stars as it filled the bill on a hot and steamy weekend - taking my mind off of the temperature and the humdidity (that's a family word) for a while.
312 pages
16,226 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/14/12
Finished on 7/15/12

Am 'enjoying' my furlough day and waiting impatiently for the thunderstorms we've been promised.

Only six more weeks of 'real' summer to go! (I don't count September - once I get past Labor Day, it's autumn as far as I'm concerned.

Crazy thunderstorm with crazy, crazy wind going on just now. If I am never heard from again it is probably because giant pine tree on neighbor's property toppled over, crushing house and squashing Willie and me. Like bugs. To death.

Great haul Charlotte - I won't say how many I have bought since May just in case SWMBO looks over my shoulder by 11/22/63 and Being There were two of them!
Have a lovely weekend.

#128: Nice haul, Charlotte, but I only see All Clear listed. I hope you have Blackout hanging around somewhere too! The books need to be read together!

Thanks Paul - hope yours was a good one.

Book No. 53 - The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson - a perfectly harmless children's book - meant, I would think for the 8 to 10 year old crowd. Takes place in Germany and Austria - Vienna, in particular. There is a young orphan girl in Vienna being raised by servants to a group of three oldish sibling professors and she lives a perfectly nice life until her long lost mother shows up to reclaim her, spiriting her away to the ancient family castle in Germany. But, all is not as it seems - naturally. Intrigue ensues. But everything turns out just fine in the end.

As I have mentioned before I did not read a whole lot of children's fiction when I was a child, but I think I would have liked this one. It is not, however, very challenging and I think that as a child I would have known early on that everything would come out right - if for no other reason than the fact that the orphan girl's adopted family were just so very nice and good to her. How could they fail to rescue her from her phony mother and the terrible school she was sent to. Not possible.

3 stars
388 pages

16,614 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/15/12
Finished on 7/21/12

Hi Charlotte - that's some great lists of book acquisitions, particularly the library sale ones!

Sorry for being awol from your thread for so long - I'll try to stay more up to date.

Thanks, Heather.
No need to apologize - I can't count the number of threads I used to keep absolutely up to date on. Now I can't seem to come even vaguely close to it.
Maybe I should just limit myself to the threads of people who have shown up here...

... which would still mean that I am terribly, terribly behind.

...and falling ever further behind, it seems. I only seem to have a chance to read threads during lunch at work (and alas not many of them) and hardly ever have time to leave a comment, so LT seems to be rolling on without me.

*Sigh*

Day off today. The house is a disheveled mess, but I seem unable to do anything that might be called cleaning in the summertime. Thankfully September is right around the corner. I know the experts say that it will be a warmer than usual autumn, but that is ok, for I think that although it might be warmer, it has to be more bearable than the here and now. Oh, how I long for cool nights, hot coffee, a throw to snuggle under and a cat on my feet. I am so tired of sleeping on the bed and not in it (i.e. under the covers). Of being able to cook real food. Of not feeling that everything is damp, damp, damp - books, floors, pillows and sheets. Me. Summer - bleeech!!!!!

*Double-sigh*

Book No. 54 - Death of a Snob by M.C. Beaton - Think I picked this one off the shelf because of the heat and humidity factor. It took place at Christmas-time. There was cold wind and bad weather. In this mystery Hamish leaves home to spend some time in an unofficial capacity looking into the supposed attempts on the life of the owner of a health farm located on an isolated island. Turns out that all of the island's residents are potential candidates as they all absolutely hate Jane (the health farm owner). Then there are all of her Christmas guests (including her ex-husband) who could also be thought to be harboring murderous thoughts about Jane, who is eminently hate-able(as is usually the case with murder victims). Thought it was kind of interesting that the plot of my last Agatha Christie was referenced here, but don't know if that just a bit of laziness on Beaton's part that this story resembled Peril and End House so closely.

Anyway, as usual, I enjoyed this book. There is never any thinking required with them - something I find awfully nice every now and again. I suspect that I will not be reading all the way to the end of the series. The most recent Hamish MacBeth got absolutely horrible reviews. Am I mistaken or is that the usual way of these kinds of series - eventually they get rather 'blah' but the writer keeps on with them even though he or she should really pull the plug.

Giving this one 3.5 stars
148 pages

16,762 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/21/12
Finished on 7/22/12

Book No. 55 - was Oral History by Lee Smith - a multi-generational tale of Appalachia that I enjoyed a good deal. Unfortunately I did not write down a single note while reading it - probably the fault of the heat again. Am blaming everything on the heat this summer.

There is talk of witches and haunting and ghosts in this book, but not in a spooky, Halloween-y kind of way. Mostly the people in the main family here are pretty dysfunctional and there is a lot of suspicion of outsiders, engendered, as far as I recall, by their isolated way of living. Think that Smith did an awfully good job with this story. It's the second book of hers I've read and I mean to hunt down another one.

Giving it 3.75 stars
286 pages

17,048 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/22/12
Finished on 7/28/12

Book No. 56 - The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang - Am woefully under-read when it comes to the history of Asia - all eras and all locations. Bought this book after seeing a powerful film on the subject which didn't half do this disgraceful event - the capture of the Chinese city of Najing by Japanese troops in December 1937 and the subsequent massacres of both soldiers and civilians, the raping and the forced prostitution of women of every age - justice. Chang's grandparents lived in Nanjing at the time, but were lucky enough to escape in the early days and she grew up hearing the stories of that horrible time.

I have read that Chang made errors of fact in this book, but of course as my knowledge in the sphere of Asian history is so thin, I can neither support or criticize her with respect to any errors. That said, I have little doubt that the horrible events that took place at that time happened pretty much as she described them. The precise numbers, it seems to me, hardly matter. The important thing is that she got the story out there and it will be harder to forget Nanjing.

Riveting - but not for the faint of heart and super-sensitive reader.

Giving this one 4 stars
225 pages

17,273 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/28/12
Finished on 7/29/12

Book No. 57 - Yaxley's Cat by Robert Westall - a 38 year old Englishwoman with 2 children who is taking a slight break from her possibly troubled marriage, rents a run-down, almost abandoned cottage in a small, remote village on a whim. Turns out that the cottage belonged to an old man who went missing some 7 years before and he has just been declared legally dead and that is why the cottage is available for renting.
The vacationing family takes up residence only to have their vacation tainted by a sinister cat, hostile villagers, vandalism and the late owner's mysterious reputation.

I thought this story was satisfyingly creepy. Makes you think twice about quaint little cottages in tiny villages.

Giving this one 3.75 stars
147 pages

17,410 pages for the year, so far

Started on 7/29/12
Finished on 7/30/12

Book No. 58 - The Secret River by Kate Grenville - have heard a lot about this book from different places here on LT. Found it to be an excellent Historical Fiction treatment of the early days of English settlement of Australia. Good story. Good characters. Liked it a lot.

Giving it 4 stars
334 pages

17,744 pages for the year, so far

Book No. 59 - Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Was very surprised to find that BH is just as good a writer of fantasy as she is of Historical Fiction Murder. I often have complaints about fantasy books - much whinging about 'quest books' -but this one I had not one complaint about Liked that the 'heroine' was not some young thing, but a mature woman in her thirties, struggling with her career - mage (with a little touch of witchery and healing to boot) - and her choice to focus on her career rather than her children. I especially loved John who was kind of a 'regular guy' hero. In glasses no less. (I really like good-looking men in glasses - the cute united with the smart.) The dragon was cool too and the evil mistress/would-be queen was very satisfactory.

A series that I need to read more of.

Giving it 4.25 stars
341 pages

18,085 pages for the year, so far

Started on 8/2/12
Finished on 8/5/12

Book No. 60 - The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson - Have been wanting to read this one for a long time. Cheated a little and snatched this one off the shelf below the TBR next shelf. Of course I have owned this book for more than two years, but it was still cheating.

I know that some people did not care for this book - the narrator, who was NOT a nice man in his previous life, all the digressions into the medieval past as Marianne told the story of their past life and some did not like the ending. But, I did like it very much. I did not mind that the narrator was a former porn star/director - the point is he was a FORMER porn star whose accident (seemed more like an on-purpose rather than an accident, for with his pre-running off the road behavior he was really asking for it) forces him to change. Not change completely - but believably. Did not mind the many medieval tales - they told the story and were neither too many nor too few. I liked the end, too. It was not happy, but I could buy it.

Good book.

Giving this one 4.75 stars Might give more on a re-read. (And when will I ever have time for re-reading all the books I want to? How does anyone make time for it with some many others demanding to be read?)
516 pages

18,601 for the year, so far

Started on 8/5/12
Finished on 8/11/12

Book No. 61 - Mrs. Astor Regrets by Meryl Gordon - which focuses mostly on end of Brooke Astor's life, her decline and the finish of her family as a family. For much of the book I found myself sympathizing with her unfortunate son, Tony Marshall and thinking what a rotten mother she was. She ignored Tony as a child, apparently blaming him for being Dryden Kuser's son - her first husband - a man she detested from the moment she married him and with cause. Yes Kuser beat her and things did not go well in the bedroom, but to take it out on Tony was not right. I don't care if she was 17 when she was married. My grandmother was 17 when she was married and she was often not happy in her marriage, but she did not treat her children as badly as Brooke Astor did poor Tony. Astor was totally self-involved, in love with her second husband and oblivious to Tony. And when Vincent Astor, her third husband died, she was in love with her life spent as a philanthropic socialite. Now, granted, Tony Marshall was all grown up by then with a wife and children of his own, but still - she did not treat him right.

However, that said, it would appear that Tony and his third wife (his mother hated all of his wives, but she especially detested Charlene - #3 - the only one who ever made Tony happy) made some gigantic errors that cannot be overlooked and plainly seem to have helped themselves to some of Brooke possessions and many millions of dollars while she, afflicted with Alizheimer's for many years, lived on to age 105. Whether Charlene egged Tony on as the press and many of Brooke's friends would have, it is hard to know for sure. Checking Wikipedia, I see that his lawyers plan to appeal his conviction, but I think it unlikely that that will happen. Tony Marshall is 88 now and not a well man. Most likely he will die under this cloud and not in prison or as a man exonerated of his crime. It's all really awful - a broken, broken family and no one to benefit but the lawyers. Why do people do this to themselves?

Depressing book.

3 stars - competently done, but a lot more blah, blah, blah about clothes and society than I wanted to read.
295 pages

18,896 for the year, so far

Started on 8/12/12
Finished on 8/14/12 - read for two and a half hours straight at the end, I was so anxious to get through all the misery

Am currently reading Little Women which I've never read before, but had to put it down for a while for I thought I was going to slip into a diabetic coma, the first chapter was so freaking SWEET!!!! Also reading Adam Bede (but it is on hold until the heat lets up) and The Grass Crown which I had to buy last week because I did not realize that Fortune's Favorites - which I already owned - was not the next book in the series. Also trying to read Honey, Mud, Maggots and Other Medical Marvels again. And a bunch of other stuff.

Book No. 62 was an Audibile.com book - Foundation by Isaac Asimov - a classic bit of science fiction and part of a series - the story revolving around the newly populated planet of Terminus and said planet's clever domination over the peoples of the rest of the galaxy.

Can't say I liked this one a whole lot. It seemed so awfully dated - lots of talk about atom blasters and atomic power. And for whatever reason, Asimov did not people his future worlds with any women that he wanted to talk about much of any; he only had two women - very minor characters - appear and that only so that they could drool over some funky new jewelry.

And another thing that bothered me was that nobody actually got up and did anything. Instead, chapter after chapter was taken up with two or three people just talking. And talking. And talking. Also, I found it hard to latch on to a character I liked for the story is told over so many years that the characters I read about in one chapter had pretty much disappeared forever one or two chapters further on. It was about the time that I noticed these things that I decided that I probably would not continue with this series.

Giving this one 3 stars.
272 pages

19,168 pages for the year, so far

Started on 6/26/12
Finished on 8/19/12

Hi Charlotte!

"The house is a disheveled mess, but I seem unable to do anything that might be called cleaning in the summertime. "

The first is the normal state of our house and I can completely understand the second when it's just too warm to do anything. I am not a summer person.

Dragonsbane sounds interesting and I have The Gargoyle on my shelf. Giggling over your thoughts on the Asimov - I think everything you said is true but I love the Foundation series anyway. The sequels are similar in style to the first book although one of them does feature a strongish female character but I think you're safe not continuing if you didn't enjoy the first one.

Yeah, Heather, disheveled is the normal state of affairs around here. I always aspire to being neat and tidy, but never seem to be able to achieve it. I think part of it must come from my mixed heritage - Daddy was a very neat person in his younger days, while my mother was incredibly messy. When she still lived with her parents it was her habit to just drop her clothes on her bedroom floor when she came home from work, leaving them for her mother to pick up and launder. My grandmother got sick of it and decided to just leave all the blouses where they fell just to see what my mother would do. Mother got around the problem by buying a new blouse every day to wear the next day (she worked in a clothing store and had an employee discount). Granny had to give up and wash the dirty blouses because she could see that she was just making a lot of extra work for herself. (I think she said that there were somewhere over 20 of them laying in little heaps all over the floor by the time she gave up.) Anyway these two natures are at war within me and I am afraid that the messy side is often the winner. I know that Daddy's standards fell somewhat after years with my mother and so I have to think that my inherited tendency for messiness may eventually overtake me completely.

Book No. 63 - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. When I was a kid spending time at my grandparents' house, my grandmother (the blouse-laundering grandmother) would, every so often, try to get me to read this book. She thought it was something that I would (should) like. I don't think I ever got beyond page 5. It did not appeal to me. Thinking to correct this failure a couple of years ago, I bought a copy of my own. It's an American classic and I thought that I ought to give it a try again. (I did not have an open mind about LW - mostly because my mother often made fun of this book. She used to call Marmee, Smarmy. Don't know if this was original with her or if she stole it from someone else - she did that a lot - but it certainly made me even more resistant to reading this book when I was young.)

Well, Marmee was smarmy. So good. So preachy. So unbelievable. And the girls - much the same. I realize, of course that much of the tone of the book can be laid at the feet of the mid to late 19th century inclination to produce children's books that are sweet beyond sweet, but oh, my word, at times this one made my back teeth ache.

And you can imagine my astonishment when I realized, very nearly at the end, that Alcott was guilty of a GIGANTIC error - the kind that I am always on the lookout for when reading Historical Fiction, but never expected to find here in what was, at the time, a contemporary novel. The book covers one year in the March family's life beginning at Christmas-time - a Christmas that was going to be unpleasant because, among other things, Father was away with the Union Army attending the Civil War (can't say 'fighting' for Marmee's husband naturally could only be attending to the spiritual needs of soldiers). That part was fine. However, when toward the end of the book little Amy writes her Will dating it November, 1861 I was shocked. The war did not start until April of 1861 so how the H-E- double L could Father possibly have been with the Union Army at the Civil War at that first Christmas when Abe Lincoln hadn't even taken office yet and would not for another 3 months. HUGE mistake - or - was it just plain laziness or a belief that since the book was intended for girls it did not matter. Alcott had no excuse - she was AT the bloody war, for Pete's sake! I was not looking for this error, but I tell you it pretty much smacked me in the face when I ran into it.

Am not going to rate this one. Not because of the above rant, but rather because I am really too old to judge this children's book fairly. I will say that it was a chore to get through it and was I glad once I was done.

328 pages

19,496 pages for the year, so far

Started on 8/5/12
Finished on 8/19/12

Pretty nice day here in ol' New England. Sunny, but not too hot and not particularly humid. I've noticed over the past week a change in the light - the smell of the air - the way things sound - all of it making me anticipate the approaching autumn. Everything makes me think of school - even the temperature in the early, early morning. No doubt about it - the very best part of the year approacheth.

Book No. 64 - A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny has the honor of eradicating my dislike of mysteries at long last - or at least putting the last nail in that coffin. I LOVED this book. It has been some time (2 years) since I read Still Life (which I lent out right afterward and have not seen since) and so I had forgotten a lot of things about Three Pines. No matter. It all kind of started to come back to me after a short while and I did not feel at sea one little bitty bit.
This book is so - satisfyingly complex. Three Pines sounds so lovely - even in the freezing cold and snow sounded so delectable - that I hardly even cared about the murders. The characters are deep and delicious and I just want lots more Penny. Soon.

Giving this one 4.5 stars

334 pages

19,830 pages for the year, so far

Started on 8/19/12
Finished on 8/22/12

Hardly knew what to read next after finishing AFG. Could any book stand a chance after that? But, I'm not one for putting things off - or least not delaying the commencement of another book for very long (40 minutes in this case - had to do something about dinner) and grabbed up what turned out to be Book No. 65 - Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen. Had my doubts for about ten pages or so and then this novelization of the life of John Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's only son, - in particular his short WWI experience - took off. Heart breaking (how did RK live with himself afterward - just barely, I would think) and horrific! Why do we do this to one another - I cannot understand it.

Giving this one 3.75 stars - mostly for it's powerful descriptions of the war experience.

147 pages - yup - it's kinda little, but it really didn't need to be any longer.

19,977 pages for the year, so far

Started on 8/22/12
Finished on 8/23/12

Book No. 66 - Burning Marguerite by Elizabeth Inness-Brown - bought this one around two years ago because of somebody's recommendation here on LT, but did not remember when I started this two days ago what that person - whoever it was - liked so well about it. Got to say now that this is one of my best reads of the year so far. Couldn't really tell you now why, exactly, I liked it so much. Maybe it's that everything fits together so nicely and that the characters are so solid and real. Maybe I'm zeroing in on the mixed heritage of the characters - French Canadian/Indian - that is so similar to part of my heritage - although why that would speak to me I don't know for my paternal grandfather initiated a practical ban on congress with those relatives. (It was a religion thing, I think and not an ethnic thing) Maybe I just don't know what I liked about this book. Sometimes you just like a thing without ever knowing why. Burning Marguerite was like that for me. I hope Inness-Brown has written/is writing other things for I want to read more of her.

Giving this one 4.75 stars and I might bump that up a bit in future.

237 pages

20,214 pages for the year, so far

Started on 8/23/12
Finished on 8/24/12

#144 Alcott's books can be a bit on the saccharine side, I think it's one of those things you notice less if you read them as a child. Really interesting to read your point about the error - I don't really know much at all about the American Civil War so never noticed that before. I wonder why she got it wrong?

#145 "Sunny, but not too hot" Lovely :-) It's cooled down here too which I'm very thankful for!

And glad you enjoyed the Louise Penny so much.

So long, once again since I have visited here. I truly meant to get myself up to date back on Labor Day weekend, but there were so many things that happened that took the ambition-stuffing right out of me that I put it off for another day. Namely and to wit: on the Sunday before Labor Day I discovered that my brand new (June 13th of this year) dryer stopped drying. Ran a like a son of a gun, but no actual drying going on. Disturbing. The next day I decided that it was cool enough for me to bake birthday brownies for my friend Kevin whose birthday it was so I whipped up the brownies and turned on the oven only to discover that the oven had no heat. Aaaargh! True, I'd been expecting that one day soon I was going to have to replace the stove, which, being 26 years old (on October 6th) hardly owed me anything, but still... Couldn't it have held out a little longer. Say until next March? That was disheartening. Not a fun weekend as I came out of it with no oven and a bathroom full of very damp clothes on hangers. Oh - and the garbagemen didn't pick up my recycling stuff, but they picked up everybody else's. It seemed personal.

Went to the appliance store on the following Saturday and bought a new stove. Got it in white to match my current (hated) refrigerator. Cost me 742 bucks. Aaaaargh! Scheduled a service call for the dryer at the service department for the following Wednesday which was also the same day that the new stove was being delivered. Made myself feel better by going to the new used bookstore that has FINALLY opened up in its new location. Pleasantly pleased for it is a tidy little place and they have not given up selling new books entirely. It's just a very small operation now.

Come Wednesday and the new stove was delivered at 9 bloody AM and left in the middle of the kitchen floor awaiting the arrival of the gas connecting technician. That happened at 5:30 PM. So, no stove for the day, but that was alright. The repairman for the dryer showed up at 11 and it took him about 5 minutes to tell me that it wasn't the dryer (good), it was my electricals that were the problem. Not good, but not unexpected.

To the good, I found an electrician on Yelp with 21 5 star reviews. He is based nowhere near me, but his name came up for my area so I figured it wouldn't hurt to call him. What a guy! Made arrangements for him to come check out my problems today. He was running late so he called - didn't leave me wondering what the fricking-frack had happened to him. He was professional, personable and super-reasonable price-wise. I can see why he got all those 5 star reviews. We made arrangements for him to come back after the first of the year to correct all of my electrical problems. I think I'm in love!!! (Too bad he's got a wife and is young enough to be my son.)

Feel better now. Poorer, but better. And cleaner, too.

So, what I meant to say last last month, was - these are the books that came into the house in August:-

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers - a Caro rec
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough - a Stasia rec
Montana, 1948 by Larry Watson - a Richard rec
Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor - bought this one new as I have hungered after it for some time. Don't know why.
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang - already read it.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves - It was on my wishlist
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith - don't know why
The Sorrows of the Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - I've been reading the section about Goethe in Durant's Rousseau and Revolution and that is why I got this one.
Dragonshadow by Barbara Hambly - the second book in the series
and
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan which had been on my wishlist for a while.

As for the books I've finished - Book No. 67 was The Queen of Air and Darkness the second book in The Once and Future King by T.H. White. I read the first book back in January and was less than excited by it as I am just not liking the way Merlin is always yammering about things that are completely out of place and time. I understand that it is meant to show how Merlin is moving back through time, but I just don't like it. Also, the whole story of the Questing Beast is boring. Maybe I was just not in the mood for this, but I thought the whole thing was just plain silly. Not funny. Not amusing. Silly. I hope that this was the worst of them, but I fear not.

Oh, and there was a lovely description of a cat being boiled alive right at the beginning that I unthinkingly read aloud to Willie. Good thing he doesn't speak the language.

2 stars

99 pages

20,313 pages for the year, so far.

Started on 8/26/12
Finished on 8/26/12

No. 68 was much better. Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead It was brutal, chaotic and filled with indiscriminate death It made me wince. The poor animals. Hated the little man in the dress with his skin rippling with lice!

Liked this book a lot. Wish I'd written it.

4 stars

218 pages

20,521 pages for the year, so far

In my previous rant about all the things that went wrong, I forgot to mention my smoke alarm that has malfunctioned. The reason I write about it now, is that it just decided to start beeping all over again - from inside the freezer where I am keeping it. I'm planning to beat it to death with a hammer and then put it out with the garbage for Monday's pick-up. In the meantime I think I'll have to put it in the cooler in the cellar and hope that I wont' be able to hear it upstairs.

Book No. 69 was Angelfall by Susan Ee - a kindle lending library book that I decided to download just because I wanted to check out this Amazon Prime benefit. I won't say it's a literary book in any way, but it moves along nicely. It's dystopian about a future where the Angels have attacked earth and made a mess out of things. Why they did this I don't know, but I think Ee is not sharing a lot in this first book of the series that she will reveal later on. Liked the young female protagonist (who has been saddled with an absolutely insane mother and a crippled little sister) and the angel Raphael, who seems to have a lot of baggage not revealed in this book but hinted at.

Looking forward to the next book in the series. Might even actually buy it.

3.5 stars (for the way it moved along and held my interest)

288 pages

20,809 pages for the year, so far

Started on 9/2/12
Finished on 9/6/12

Smoke alarm has stopped beeping - thank goodness! Still planning to murder it.

No. 70 was Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King the true story of the shipwreck of some Connecticut sailors on the African coast in the very early 19th century, their ordeal as they tried to make their way down the astonishingly hostile coast and their subsequent capture and enslavement by various nomads of the Sahara. It is amazing what a human being can survive and what he will do to keep himself alive. If you like disaster stories this one is very good.

3.9 stars

319 pages

21,128 pages for the year, so far

Started on 9/2/12
Finished on 9/10/12

and

Book No. 71 was In A Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor - a slim volume and a writer that I keeping hearing a lot about. I did not fall in love with this book, but it was good. For much of it nothing really seemed to happen - just a story about an unhappy marriage and a family that was not very close, nor much in sync. But it was, at the end, a book I was not sorry to have read and I think I will try something else of hers.

3.5 stars

221 pages

21,349 pages for the year, so far

Started on 9/6/12
Finished on 9/15/12

Charlotte - loved reading about your stove and the 5* electrician - he sounds like a keeper - professionally anyway.

Our reading pace is similar too as I am finishing no. 71 today with the latest Camilleri.

Nice mixed bag of a dozen purchases too. The Sorrows of Young Werther is an interesting book with a good aside story. In the late 1990's I became briefly, the first non-Asian director of one of the Lotte group of Korea's subsidiary companies. In actual fact the company came by its name as the founder Mr. Shin was enraptured by the book in his youth and especially the heroine Lotte. He loved it so much he named a business empire after it!
The Vicar of Wakefield is of course set in my hometown.

Here are those hugs that I promised a short while ago. Happy posting and don't stay away for quite so long!

Thanks for the hugs, buddy! I am grateful.

Lotte - the diminutive for Charlotte - ugh! I think I would swat anyone who tried to call me that.

Must gather my courage to attempt reading Young Werther sometime this coming winter.

As for the VoW - it's kind of been on my radar since childhood for a really silly stupid reason - namely the character Merrylegs from Black Beauty who, I believe is sold to the vicar for his children when all the horses are sold off from Beauty's first home. For some reason that word stuck in my head and then I learned that there was a book called The Vicar of Wakefield and thought I wanted to read it - tortured reasoning, huh? But now I have it, so I think I'll actually take a shot at it.

I wonder which of us will get to 75 first. I warn you - I've got two books - Therese Raquin and The Princeling that I should finish by this weekend. Could be a close race!

Hi There Charlotte. I''m stopping by to say hello and to wish you well.

Congratulations on reaching 71 books thus far!

Hi Charlotte. Sorry to hear about your woes with your cooker and dryer - glad it all got sorted in the end but paying out that kind of money unexpectedly is always painful :-( And malfunctioning smoke alarms have to be one of the most annoying things to have to deal with!

Sorry you didn't enjoy the T.H. White books more - I'm one of those who did but they are on the silly side and I can see how that could be very offputting.

I read In a Summer Season last month and enjoyed it but it was my least favourite of Taylor's books that I've read so far. They are all the sort of book in which not very much happens though - character studies I guess?

Hi Linda! Nice of you to drop by.

I really want to like the White books, Heather, I really do, but I'm thinking I might be too old for them or something. I do mean to read another one and see how it goes. Do you have a favorite among them? Am glad to know I was not off base thinking that not much happened in the Taylor book. I want to find another to read, soon.

Last bit on the whole stove business - I paid to have the city inspector come to check out the installation of the stove at the time that I bought the stove at the appliance store. The stove's been in for 2 weeks now and not a peep out of the inspector. I wonder if I can ask for my money back? Obviously the installer did the job right or Willie and I would have succumbed to fumes days and days ago.

Book No. 72 - is the third volume of the Morland Dynasty books - The Princeling by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. So much sickness and death and love and marriage - this time in the time of Elizabeth I. She weaves it all together with the historical happenings in a very skillful way and thankfully does not feel the need to have the Morlands - singly or as a group - present at all the important occasions - i.e. Robert Dudley's messy love life and the death of his poor murdered wife, the aborted Spanish invasion, all of the Mary Stuart drama. The Morlands are not at the center of things - they remain at the fringes and in close enough proximity so that they still have a stake in events. The family was somewhat split for much of Elizabeth's reign on account of some members of the family turning Protestant, but now they seem mostly to have returned to the old Religion which only means they are going to have a terrible time of it and soon. I am curious to see how Harrod-Eagles means to manage the story of Arthur Morland, who when last seen, had just scampered off into the California wilderness, abandoning the Francis Drake voyage around the world, of which he was a part.

I got the next book of the series at Audible. It should be interesting to see how I like that.

Giving this one 3.9 stars

410 pages

21,759 pages for the year, so far

Started on 9/15/12
Finished on 9/22/12

Just caught up, Charlotte. So glad that Louise Penny managed to get you to start liking murder mysteries ... it's a great series and I know you're going to enjoy many more hours with Gamache and the Three Pines gang.

...and speaking of Audible -

Book No. 73 - Therese Raquin by Emile Zola was an Audible book that I bought because of the narrator - Kate Winslet. Supposedly it is her favorite book and she was anxious to to narrate it.

Well, she did a marvelous job. I mean, it's such a depressing story - but wonderful at the same time - being the story of a warped pseudo-marriage between Therese and her cousin Camille (not sure about spelling of course - that's the only trouble I have with audiobooks - I never know if I'm understanding the names of certain things and people correctly) gone predictably bad which is followed by another marriage killed by guilt and hatred and worse. These people are despicable. All of them. There is no one to like in this book and I mean no one. Except for the unfortunate Francois - a cat.

Excellent book. Liked it a lot. One of the best of the year - so far. Don't know if I would have liked it so well as a regular hold-in-my-hands book, but who knows - I might have.

Giving it 5 stars

288 pages

22,047 pages for the year, so far

Started on 8/19/12
Finished on 9/23/12
Sounds as if I took an unconscionably long time to read this given that I say I liked it so much, but that is because I listen at certain times - mostly while driving - as I have not yet mastered the art of 'reading' audio books while doing other things. And again, I managed to be 'reading' in the grocery store as Kate was reading some super-awful stuff in a morgue.

Went for something a little lighter with Book No. 74 - Death of a Prankster by M.C. Beaton - wherein, once again, a thoroughly nasty human being is bumped off within the jurisdiction of Hamish MacBeth. Why is it in fiction-land no nice people ever get murdered? In real life they do. Every day.

No surprises in this one. I think I mostly read these because I like Hamish so well. If he ever gets unlikeable (and I think in the more recent books in this series there is a distinct falling off in quality or so I've heard tell) I'm thinking I will stop reading them. But not yet as I'm still liking Hamish.

Giving this one 3 stars

168 pages

22,215 pages for the year

Started on 9/22/12
Finished on 9/23/12

One to go!!!

#155 Charlotte, my favourite was the first book, The Sword in the Stone. I thought they fell on in quality after that (although I still enjoyed them). I read The Sword in the Stone as a child so perhaps you're right and they are books you need to have read as a child to enjoy.

I've been meaning to try some Zola some day - I'll try to remember the Kate Winslet audio for whenever I get round to it!

Charlotte - I will graciously concede that I'll think you'll beat me to the 75. Your two up with 1/3 to go as theu say in the snooker halls.

I thought Kate Winslet's narration was awfully good, Heather. I'd be interested to see what you think.

I accept your gracious concession, Paul, esp. seeing as how I finished Book No. 75 - The House of Stairs by Barbara Vine last week. I've had this book for long, long years, but never bothered to read it. I picked it up a local library book sale, probably in the mid-nineties. I've only been cured of my mystery phobia this year, so you can see how hopelessly addicted I am to books that I would buy something that I knew I couldn't even bear to crack open. However - the weird aversion having passed mostly or completely away - I picked this one off the shelf (not even the TBR shelves, but a dusty one in my bedroom that I was cleaning) and read it.

I won't say it is riveting. The story does drag on and on and the mystery that was hinted about here and there prior to the end was not fully unveiled until almost the last chapter. It was not a shock to me to find out what the most unpleasant Bela's crime was for I had had plenty of time to think about it. I am proud of myself for actually reading this one all the way through for it takes place in the mid-sixties through to the early 70's and I am NOT a fan of this time period. And I am NOT a fan of the pseudo-Hippie lifestyle that many of the important characters in this book launch themselves into. (Didn't care much for the real thing either - at least not after high school.) Of interest was the main character - Elizabeth - a young woman at the beginning of things - who lives under the shadow of Huntington's Chorea, wondering constantly when/if she will start to manifest the symptoms that pretty much wiped out her family. It was plain that the author used this awful disease as an excuse for why Elizabeth lives amongst these dreadful people. Not sure if it was a good ploy or just a convenient one for Vine.

Gave this one 3 stars

277 pages

22,492 pages for the year, so far

Started on 9/26/12
Finished on 9/30/12

Book No. 76 - A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson - a pleasant little book that kind of made me think of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. There was interesting info about the birds of Kenya and the mating rituals of older human beings.

Giving this one 3.25 stars
202 pages
22,694 pages for the year, so far.

Meant to post the book that came into the house for September, but did not get a furlough day last week as things have gone crazy busy at work.

Here is what I brought into the house in September:

Angelfall by Susan Ee - an Amazon Kindle library book. Wanted to try this feature out
Major Pettigrew's Last Stant - took this out of the library last December, but liked it so well that I had to buy it. Bought it at my favorite indie bookstore that FINALLY reopened in it's reincarnated form - it carries both new and used books and I hope it will have a long life.
Remains of the Day - same store
The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault - same store. Couldn't pass it up as I've liked all of the Renault's that I've read so far.
Wild Cards I by George R.R. Martin among others - got that from Audible
Anna by - Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Half-Broken Things by Morag Joss
Murder on the Orient Express
Friends in High Places by Donna Leon - this was from my second trip last month to the new/old bookstore
Olive Kitteridge - as was this
Death Watch by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - and this
22 Britannia Road - and this
The Scar by China Mieville - and this
Eleanor Roosevelt Vol. I - and this, too. They had volume 2, but I already had a bunch of books pulled off the shelves so I thought I should stop. It seemed to me that I ought to be able to buy it later on as why would a person buy volume two if they couldn't buy volume 1. Seemed clever at the time, but who knows?

and

The Day of the Triffids - bought this after I read rd's review.

And that's it.

Can't believe that it's already the 8th of the month and I haven't bought anything yet.

Congratulations on getting to 75 (and 76) books read! I liked A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - sometimes I'm in the mood for a book that is just nice to read. I still haven't read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand although I will do at some point.

"it's already the 8th of the month and I haven't bought anything yet. Wow :-) Wish I could say the same - 8 books in so far this month. I'm considering trying to go cold turkey for the rest of the year.

Congrats!

Thanks, guys. I got to 75 a good bit sooner this year than I did last year. December 5th it was, according to my book journal. I mean, Heather, to make myself buy something off the old wishlist today. I don't feel right, even if I do have hundreds of unread books around the place, if I don't also have something in the shipping pipeline.

Finished Book No. 77 yesterday - From The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg which I bought because of its strong recommendation a couple of years ago. I knew when I bought it that it was a kid's book and thought that it might prove entertaining. When I was a child I always thought that it would be absolutely grand to have the run of a department store at night, all by myself. This book is a little different - two runaways hole up in the Metropolitan Museum for a week. I liked the planning that went into the escapade, but in the end, did not care for it a whole lot for it got kind of focused on teaching a lesson to children.

I think the thing is that with few exceptions, children's books are just not a good fit for me. I kind of missed the boat and should accept it. Other than finishing the Harry Potter books, I pretty much should give it up.

Giving this one 3 stars, but for writing and not for the latter part of the story.

162 pages
22,756 pages for the year, so far

Started on 10/7/12
Finished on 10/8/12

Forgot to put this book on the September Books Into The House List:

Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox by Raffaele Sollecito which, unusually, I bought new. I've kind of been on a True Crime kick in the past year or so. Probably a re-emergence of the kinds of things I used to read when I was a kid. My mother had a thing for True Crime too and I read a lot of her books on the sly.

It is a grey, grey, grey, damp day here in New England and the second day of my vacation. I've only taken one week so far this year of the vacation weeks I have for 2012. Am going to try to get in another week in December, so that I will only have three weeks left that I have to take next year before the end of March.

Made an apple crisp last night in the new oven - the third once since I bought it. I don't know if it's the oven or the apples this year, but it was very gooooood!

Am smack dab in the middle of Season Two of The Walking Dead. Can't tell you how much I love this series. I've been kind of off scary movies - pretty much since seeing The Ring. That part where the decaying little girl steps out of the TV - OMG!!! - have been hating scary movies ever since and I NEVER used to have a problem with them. I think that I like TWD because I just don't believe in zombies, so somehow they are acceptable. It's a tortured kind of logic, I know, for I don't really believe that it is possible for a drowned and decaying little girl to actually emerge from my television, but I am creeped out just the same.

Charlotte - nice steady accumulation of books recently! I have most of the ones you picked up except the Eleanor Roosevelt, the Martin, the Harold-Eagles and the Mieville.
Day of the Triffids is classic sci-fi and tremendously well written such that even an non-sci-fi fan like me can enjoy it. Try to save me some of the apple crisp next time it sounds delicious.

Oh, Friend Paul, I wish I could hurry a fresh, warm batch over to you right now. Do you get much apple crisp in your neck of the woods?

I was particularly excited to find the Harrod-Eagles mystery, mostly because I was not expecting to find anything there by her. I really looked at your GIANT list of series that you are in the process of reading the other day - most impressive. How you have any opportunity to read anything beside what is on that list, I can't imagine.

Book No. 78 - Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury - broke the Rule of the Shelf for this one. Was not awfully impressed at first by it, but then as I continued on it seemed to come to life. It was, before not very much longer, a festival of words and images. Also, it sounded especially good read out loud. It was my first Bradbury - for some reason I've pretty much ignored him all these years, even though I was quite aware of his existence and the high regard in which he was held. Am very glad I read it - one of the best reads of the year.

Giving this one 4.5 stars
290 pages

23,046 pages for the year so far

Started on 10/9/12
Finished on 10/11/12

Book No. 79 - The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan which is a comprehensive telling of the horrible fire which took place in Hartford, CT in 1944. 167 people died in this fire - mostly women and children (this was because it was the afternoon performance and so the audience did not include a large number of men) - in a fast-moving conflagration whose origin was never decisively pin-pointed. During the description of the fire and resultant stampede of the audience, it was very real and easy to imagine how awful it must have been to have been in the Big Top on that hot and humid afternoon in July. Just as riveting was O'Nan's telling of the the aftermath as people trundled through the armory building trying to i.d. their missing wives, children, husbands, parents, etc. He also pays a lot of attention to the recovery of a group of children who survived the fire and stampede as well as the efforts to identify one little girl who was never claimed by anyone that went on for decades. And the circus itself - Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey - did not escape O'Nan's scrutiny. I was surprised (for some reason) by the circus not owning up to their culpability immediately - especially when they had to have known that they could not escape at least some of the responsibility for the deaths. In my opinion they missed a good opportunity to get out in front of things and at least gain some positive public feeling for their willingness to step forward and accept what they had to have known was coming. O'Nan spends a lot of time on the investigation both of the circus and the several individuals suspected of actually having started the fire.

All in all, it was an excellent treatment of this disaster. I could not help but wonder what my mother was thinking (she really - oddly, I always thought - liked the circus and going to see the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. circus was one of the few things she would actually initiate - even going so far as to spend money from her booze and cigarette money to take me there) for she could not have failed to have been well aware of the Hartford Circus fire and how dangerous those old canvas circus tents were.

Very much recommended to anyone who enjoys a good disaster story.

4.5 stars
363 pages

23,409 pages for the year, so far

Started on 10/11/12
Finished on 10/14/12

Am giving up on Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. I've been reading it for a week and am only a little past the half-way point. I was pretty much finished when Paddy and one of his pin-headed little friends kick a dog for fun. Not my kind of book at all.

The Circus Fire is heading to my wish list.

Charlotte it is funny that some of the Booker winners don't quite do it for me - Roddy Doyle's books are entertaining on a certain level - I have read The Woman Who Walked into Doors and The Star Henry both of which were ok and I have your nemesis on the shelves which I bought in a sale but have not got round to it yet and will think twice about it now. Apple crisp is, I think, akin to apple crumble which Hani is a dab hand at making.

I enjoyed that book at lot, Lori. I always feel kind of weird saying that I enjoy books about disasters, but truth is - I do! I'm sure it is a terrible flaw in my character.

I think there are several of us who enjoy reading disaster books. I think it is quite often because they are about survival.

Charlotte

The Circus Fire has long been on my tbr list. Your excellent review prompts me to read it.

Regarding PaddyClarke Ha Ha HA, I didn't like this book. It was way too depressing.

I think that you are correct about apple crumble being apple crisp, Paul. And so good to know that Hani is taking care of this end of the dessert spectrum. It would cruel to be deprived of this most excellent of desserts, I think, As for Paddy Clarke - I think it just wasn't a fit for me. I don't have a problem with books about long ago and far away being mean to animals because it fits in to the time period when people viewed animals as beings valuable mostly for their work/food value, but to find children of Paddy's age and time kicking a dog, mostly just for the hell of it, was not acceptable to me.

I'm glad, Linda, that I did not get to the depressing part of the book. Don't like depressing in my reading material for the most part. Am kind of relieved that you did not care for it. I'd kind of gotten the idea that the book was well thought of and feared that I was hugely out of sync, once again. Hope you like The Circus Fire.

And yes, Lori, I agree about the survival component of such books. One of my favorites of this ilk is Alive and its companion Miracle in the Andes. I read that one 4 years ago when I'd just been laid off, right before Christmas, and oddly, it got me through that holiday.

Another grey morning here in southern New England. The leaves have a better color this autumn than last. Quite pretty around here. It is my weekly furlough day, today. We are pretty overwhelmed at work, but still the furlough continues. Lost a whole hour yesterday having to attend a webinar about new title insurance remitting for one of the title insurance companies that hardly applies to us and truly seemed like a giant, incomprehensible waste of time. We all keep hoping for a return to a 35 or 40 hour week. The work is there - esp. for the 35 hour week - but so far the powers that be don't see it that way.

Just finished counting my books read to books bought this year numbers and the books bought category is significantly ahead - 98 bought to 79 read. (And that doesn't include the books I won't be listing until October is over, not to mention the ones pre-ordered for November delivery.) I don't think I'll ever be making any anti-book buying resolutions. Ever. I just don't have the will power for it.

Book No. 80 - Holmes on the Range by Steven Hockensmith - book 1 of a mystery series that pays homage to Sherlock Holmes. Its gimmick is that it takes place in Montana in 1892/1893 on a cattle ranch. One of the heros - Old Red - is a huge fan of Holmes and after listening to his brother - Big Red - read the stories out loud, over and over and he decides to see if he can apply Holmes' methods to a local mystery. Old Red (who isn't old - he is just the oldest of the brothers. Big Red is the bigger one.) succeeds, which I expected. It went on a little longer, I thought, than it should have and the mystery itself, was not a huge surprise for me.

What was a surprise was that in this book Holmes is treated as a real live human being. One of the bad guys - an English duke who owns the ranch and has come to Montana on a tour of inspection - hates Holmes with a passion because one of the stories that Watson wrote about about concerned the Duke's own family and the Duke felt that Holmes humiliated him. I thought this was really weird. Unless Hockensmith has some plan to have Old Red and Sherlock meet in some future book, I don't know why he did this. It would have been just as easy - and a whole lot less peculiar to have Holmes remain the fictional character he is. Obviously, Old Red would have been just as able to admire the fictional character and to have followed his methods. No need, that I can see for Sherlock to be real.

This one only ranks a 3 star rating. For me it was just kind of o.k. Am kind of on the fence about reading the second in the series.

294 pages

23,703 pages for the year, so far

Started on 10/21/12
Finished on 10/28/12

Another grey day. Sitting around waiting for the storm to start. As usual the weather people (and I mean the local weather people) are overdoing it - hype-wise. Am always fascinated by their advice about what to do to prepare for a storm. They almost always tell the viewers that they must fill their bathtubs full of water. Sure - if you have well-water, which is really not that common in this neck of the woods. I think if a person has a well, surely they would know that they have to fill the tub, but no - as usual all the TV people make the assumption that we are all a bunch of boneheaded children and that we have to be led by the hand every time.

Pretty windy out there. Not so much rainy - just windy.

Thought maybe I would not be going to work today, but as the hour approached for hauling my lazy carcass off to work, I still had not heard anything in that quarter. My workplace is very close to the ocean, but the harbor is protected by our gynormous hurricane dike, so was thinking that that was what the bosses were depending upon. Wouldn't you know - between my house and my friend's house (we carpool and it's my week) - a five minute drive at the most - apparently the office manager called off work. So came home and surprised Willie. Thought I would come here while there is still power. Hope it doesn't go off, but - it will. I know it.

Am very glad I am here in MA and not in the mid-Atlantic area. Hope the mid-A people stay safe.

How lovely that books don't require electricity.

Get your flashlight at the ready, Charlotte .. at least if there's a power outage, you'll still be able to read. :-)

I'm so glad you enjoyed Bradbury. Since this is your first, I hope you will read his others. They are all, in my opinion, as good as SWTWC.

Charlotte stay safe! It looks like a bit of panic stations on the eastern seaboard looking at CNN. I think I would have taken the opportunity to catch up some of my reading.

Flashlight ready, Caro! Have Channel 7 yammering away in the background - it obscures the sound of the wind. Hope you are all safely buttoned up.

Yes, Paul, they are pretty hysterical. Am reading The Winter King - a favorite re-read. Should keep my mind off things.

Have not quite finished my current book, but thought I would list the books that came into the house in October. Namely -

Mary Renault: A Biography by David Sweetman
Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Daughter of the Lion by Jennifer Roberson
Eleanor Roosevelt Vol. 2 by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts and
Zoo Station by David Downing

Bought all but the first and last one at my local used/new bookstore for $16.00 and change. I was right about the Eleanor Roosevelt - nobody buys vol. 2 at a used bookstore when vol. 1 is gone so the second book was - happily - there when I came back hoping to find it a couple of weeks after buying the first one.

And while I am not ready to list another book read quite yet I am ready to note that I have stopped reading and will not finish the following:

The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun - I got to within less than 100 pages from the end, but was too dang bored by this thing to go on. Don't like Qwilleran, his stupid cats, or the people in the town where this takes place. There is precious little mystery to this story - as I have noted in the other LJB book that I tried to read previously. I could not see what the point of this book was and thought it more than a little strange that not much of anyone in this teeny tiny town thought too much about the dead body on the shore that shows up fairly near the beginning. The only good thing about this book is that I did not spend any money to acquire it. Rather my cousin, gave it to me, thinking that having a cat i would want to read about cats who allegedly solve mysteries. It is a common mistake amongst non-cat people, I believe.

The other book that is going into the Books-I-Will-Never-Finish-In-A-Million-Years pile is the Regency-like waste of paper entitled Miss Seldon's Suitors by Jeanne Savery. Only got to page 76 before deciding that I am no longer able to bring myself to read any further. Sad to say I did spend money buying this. Must have been feverish at the time.

Nice little pile of books there Charlotte. I read a Sweetman biography of Paul Gauguin a few years ago and really enjoyed it as I remember.
I take it that you have taken against bodice rippers and will never know which one of Miss Seldon's suitors got beyond first base or whether indeed all of them did! There are too many books and too little time to waste on those we quickly come to abhor.
Have a lovelt weekend.

Yes, Paul, I do seem to have 'taken against' them. I don't know that I was ever a giant fan of that particular type of story. Historical Fiction was always my go-to tale and those didn't always involve spunky gals of unbelievable beauty pursued by handsome heroes. The Catherine novels by Juliette Benzoni, that I discovered back in the late 60's did kind of push the HF envelope a little, but they were full of pretty good Hundred Wars history, so I forgave a lot.

Decided on a re-read for Book No. 81, The Winter King, my very favorite Bernard Cornwell book. I think this is the third time I've read this one (though it may possibly be the 4th time) and it was as good as ever. Merlin is a towering figure in Cornwell's version and Arthur, for me, is very likable because he is flawed and as a result comes across as very human. Lancelot is a weasel and Guinevere is more than just Arthur's unfaithful wife. But, my very favorite character, is the narrator, Derfel, the Saxon ex-soldier and loyal friend to Arthur, who is charged with writing down the story of Arthur for his young queen, at the end of his life. He is, at this point in his life, a monk under the rule of Bishop Sansum, a most unpleasant little twerp, who suffers all under his thumb to refer to him as Saint Sansum. I plan to re-read the 2nd book in this trilogy in the new year.

Still gets 5 stars from me.

425 pages

24,128 pages for the year, so far.

Started on 10/28/12
Finished on 11/12/12

Book No. 82 - The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick - is Philbirick's take on this most famous of 19th century occurrences.

The slaughter of the men under George Armstrong Custer's immediate command can and should be laid at his feet, but I came away from reading this book with the feeling that the whole thing was fore-ordained by the terrible clash of personalities amongst the American officers. Custer - an emotional, volatile, excitable man who was convinced of his own greatness and angling for a Presidential nomination in that election year of 1876, Major Reno - a depressed drunk, who very nearly lost his whole command. The commanding general Terry - turned Custer loose, knowing that George would do something rash, giving him the kind of orders that made it nearly impossible for him not to do the very thing he did. Frederick Benteen - awash with resentment and hatred of Custer (not that there wasn't a lot to hate there), doing everything he could to blacken Custer's name over the course of the years that they served together. (Curiously, Benteen turned out to be the hero of the piece, fighting so well that the survivors made it out alive because of the way he finally took control.) I couldn't help but feel that different men who functioned well together, who respected each other and didn't have such flawed personalities might have achieved a different outcome.

Philbrick actually tries to make a case for Custer not being the awful person he has evolved into in recent decades; i.e. that he was follow ing orders and the real blame for what happened is to be laid further up the chain of command, but I don't know. He might not have actually slaughtered any Indians at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but I kind of think he would have if he'd gotten the chance. It was, after all, his way.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I wonder if Philbrick means to branch out permanently from New England and the sea...

Four stars for this one

312 pages

24,440 pages for the year, so far

Started on 11/12/12
Finished on 11/18/12

Big fan of Cornwell. Big fan of Charlotte. Happy Thanksgiving.

Awww - you're so sweet, Paul. Thank you and I hope you are having an excellent day.

Lovely sunny day here in southeastern New England. Would like it a whole better though, if it were about 20 degrees colder. All this warm, unseasonable weather does not set right with me.

Book No. 83 - A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland - For some reason I must have thought that this was a work of fiction because I picked it up off the TBR fiction shelf, but it turned out to be Garland's autobiography of his early life. I guess Garland is not very well known now, but apparently in the late 19th and early 20th century he was a prominent essayist and novelist and he won a prize for A Daughter of the Middle Border (written after this book). The Middle Border, was a part of the U.S. located on the edge of 19th century settlements in the Northern Plains area. It was a fluid kind of border; when the book begins the border is Iowa, but then it moves to Dakota and then eastern Montana. Garland was born in and lived the first years of his life in Wisconsin and was the son of frontiering parents. His father was born in Maine, but had a compulsion to always be on the border, always moving west and breaking new land to the plow. (I was watching Ken Burns' recent piece on the American Dust Bowl at the same time I was reading this book and found it to be a very interesting juxtaposition.)

Garland, who worked from the time he was a boy to young manhood on the farm, is unsparing in his criticism of the chewing up of virgin land by men like his father who were compelled - some out of sheer greed - to tear up the landscape. In fact he got a reputation as a bit of a trouble maker for his views; I could well imagine my dear mummy yelling "You Commie!" at him if she had ever read this book. Additionally, he had an unusual empathy for women like his mother who basically worked themselves to death (or at least into a state of very ill health) slaving away, breaking in new farms and living in the rudest of conditions, far away from family and friends. He had a keen empathy for all that they suffered in the continual moves their men made in order to keep on the very edge of the Middle Border.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book very much - especially the way that Garland does not feel compelled to paint a pretty picture of farming. Not that he does not know how to write of the beautiful things in nature; he does that very well and it made me sad to think of all the things that he saw, fresh and undamaged, that no longer exist. Things that can never be seen again.

Giving this one 3.75 stars (He does go on about his highly inadequate wardrobe a lot and the disadvantage he felt it gave him in his desire to improve his lot and life amongst the better off and better educated.)

467 pages
24,907 pages for the year, so far

Started on 11/18/12
Finished on 11/24/12

Book No. 84 - Haweswater by Sarah Hall - a fictional treatment of the drowning of the village of Mordale by the building of a dam in Cumbria in the 30's - a true event. It was a slow-goer for a while - after 5 days of reading I was only at page 42, but then it just took off. It was sad and brooding, but quite good.

266 pages
25,173 pages for the year, so far

Giving it 4 stars
Started on 11/25/12
Finished on 12/2/12

Book No. 85 - Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - a re-read. Read this one in high school; one of the few 'required' books that I actually liked. It was just as I remember it. Super well-written, evocative, brooding. I am still impressed at how she is able to bring forth the air of rural New England of way back when. There were still remnants of that feeling in Westport when I was a kid.

181 pages
25,354 pages for the year, so far

Started on 11/23/12
Finished on 12/8/12 (was reading some other stuff for a while)

Hmmmm... I see that I have used the word 'brooding' in both of these last two entries. Probably goes with my end of the year mood. Dark and anxious to get the last of 2012 behind me.

#180 I've just finished Excalibur, the third book in the trilogy and I really grew to love Derfel over the course of the trilogy. I think the first was actually my least favourite of the three - it just took a bit too long to get going for me but I've really enjoyed the trilogy as a whole although I wouldn't normally say I'm a fan of battle scenes.

#184 I also really loved Ethan Frome - so evocative and brooding as you say. I've loved everything I've read by Wharton so far and she's definitely an author I want to investigate further.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the series, Heather! I suspect that I go on about Cornwell a bit much some of the time, but can't seem to stop myself, somehow or other. Am glad, too, that you 'enjoyed' the battle scenes. I've read a lot of battle scenes in my time and IMO his are the very cream of the crop.

Have just read, in the book I am currently reading, of a man who has come into the room wearing an "extremely disagreeable tweed" suit. How, I wonder, can tweed be disagreeable? I have a Donegal tweed skirt that I like very much, but have never noticed it displaying emotion of any kind.

Book No. 86 - was Lord Edgeware Dies by Agatha Christie, a Hercule Poirot mystery wherein Lord Edgeware - dies. (Surprise!) His sidekick, Hastings, is present of course, and it almost seems as if they have set up a kind of business. I wonder whatever happened to Hastings' wife. I think they are still together, but she is barely even alluded to.

Anyway, Lord E dies after Poirot is engaged by Lady E to talk the man into giving her a divorce. Once someone sticks a knife in Lord E's neck, as Poirot is already on the spot and familiar with all of the players he naturally, gets drawn into untangling the mystery of just who murdered the thoroughly unpleasant aristocrat.

This was a nice, straightforward mystery whose solution should have been obvious to me, but, as usual, was not.

Giving it 3 stars
241 pages - little longer than usual, this one

25,595 pages for the year, so far

Very much fancy Haweswater Charlotte I must say.

Such phrasing as the Dame got away with would raise too many eyebrows today - let's face it no-one would publish her stuff today as great as some of it undoubtedly is from a plotting perspective.

Have a lovely weekend.

Do try Haweswater, Paul. It was ever so good and I am glad that I read it. It is not going to get evicted from my library when I finally get around to culling some of the crap-books in it.

Also, I agree with your estimation of Christie's chances for publication were she a current writer of mysteries. I know she was a hugely successful pioneer in the genre, but a lot of what I read in her books just strikes me as something to be got through.

I can say that my Book No. 87 - Orchestrated Death by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is the first in a mystery series that I know I am loving. I only stumbled upon her Bill Slider series by accident (see message #32 above), Body Line when I had to renew my library card almost a year ago. Having read OD, her first book and Body Line being her most recent book in the series, I know that I am going to love everything in between as well. As far as I can see from reading OD, Det. Bill Slider does not grow over time, but emerges fully formed from the beginning of the series and I do like Slider very much indeed.

I know I did go on with regard to Body Line about how refreshing it was that Slider is happily married and that he is not messed up, i.e. on drugs, drunk or what have you, but apparently it was not always so, at least as far as the state of his romantic life goes. Rather, he is a quite unhappily married man, even though he does fully realize how unsatisfactory his life with his wife, Irene, truly is. When he meets Joanna, a violinist, in the course of investigating the murder of Anne-Marie, her fellow fiddler, he falls deeply in love and through the course of investigating Anne-Marie's death, must deal not only with the twists and turns of that, but also with how he is to have Joanna and a life that makes him happy without hurting his family. He is a man who is made to keep his commitments and not the kind to run out on people who depend on him. By book's end he knows he will have to make a choice and he knows what it is to be, but he cannot rush into it quite yet.

As for the murder of Anne-Marie, it was not at all obvious who killed her or why, but Slider and his compadres are able to work it out eventually. Slider has a a commendable level of feeling for Anne-Marie and her sad death and I liked him awfully well for that too.

All in all, I have to recommend this series a lot. I am looking forward to the next book and having a devil a time restraining myself until next year to continue with the series. Fortunately next year is only a couple of weeks away.

Four stars for this one.
266 pages
25,861 pages for the year, so far

Book No. 88 - Restoration by Rose Tremain - is a book I have held off reading for a long while mostly because I have always liked the movie so well and know how frequently other movie/book combos don't seem to mesh at all, leading to much disappointment in one or the other. This book/movie combo was not totally in sync either, but somehow I did not mind it so much. For once I was able to separate the Merivel of the book from Robert Downey, Jr.'s Merivel and still be happy with both. Was ever so pleased about this for it means I will be equally able, in the future, to enjoy both.

Giving this one 4 stars

371 pages
26,232 pages for the year, so far

Book No. 89 - was a children's book - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. I don't often enjoy children's books, but this one was a pleasant exception. I liked it so well that I have passed it on to a friend's oldest girls who are readers. (There are several reading children amongst my friends at work and I think it's really great. One of them - a boy - does not like libraries because he does not want to give the books back.) I do hope that Katherine and Elizabeth like it, but - I want it back!

4 stars
233 pages
26,465 pages for the year, so far

My dearest Charlotte, wishing you all the best this holiday season, and thanks once again for being such a good Santa to me this year. I'm sorry I've been such a bad friend and haven't kept up with you this year, but am looking forward to continued exchanges in 2013.

Stopping by on the fourth day of Christmas to wish you a merry Christmas Charlotte!

#191 I've heard many good things about Rose Tremain and she's an author I'd really like to get to in 2013. I think I saw that she'd recently published a sequel to Restoration called Merivel.

Charlotte - missed you over christmas whilst I was lazily soaking up the sun and surf in Langkawi - make sure you join up for 2013!!!
BTW I also loved Restoration book and film both.

How nice to know, Heather. Have added it to the GFW (been adding a number of items because of you, lately). A Happy New Year to you and to you too, Paul.

Book No. 90 (and my last one for this year - about 10 short of where I wanted to be - I'll not be finishing any of the books I am currently reading before the end of the year) was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Never read it before though I have seen various versions of it over the years. (The Mr. Magoo version will always be my favorite!) I read it aloud to Willie - most of it on Christmas Eve - and was very pleased with how well it reads aloud. I think my family, back in the bad ol' days, would have been much better served by doing an annual reading of this rather than having their traditional Christmas arguments that always made the holiday such a pleasure.

Anyway, I liked this story very, very much even though there were no surprises in it for me. This work of Dickens rates right up there for me with Our Mutual Friend my favorite of his up until now. Have to remember to read it again next year.

Giving it 4 stars

58 pages

26,523 for the year - total

Finis 2012

...and on to 2013

Charlotte - as is now my wont. Happy New Years on old thread in 2012 and on the new thread the following day. It has been a pleasure getting to know you a little this year and look forward to more of the same next year.

Happy New Year Charlotte!