Nathalie's (Deern's) Reading in 2012 - Part 2

Welcome to my 2nd thread in 2012!

Not a spring picture yet, but it shows what makes this place so special: palm trees, snowy mountains and old picturesque houses. Only the blue sky is missing, I'll try and take another picture there on a day with sunny weather. It's taken from a little park, close to my place.

Books read, but not yet reviewed:
53. A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell - audio book - EN - 212p - 3.5 stars

Books finished and reviewed:

0. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark - gift audio book - EN - 4,5 stars (finished in 2011, reviewed in 2012)

January 2012
1. Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerloef - free Kindle - DE - 450p - 4,5 stars
2. Asterix e i Goti and Asterix e i Belgi by René Goscinny - library books - IT - 96p - no rating
3. Gargantua und Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais - free Kindle - DE - 650p - 4 stars
4. Vicolo Cannery (Cannery Row) by John Steinbeck - library book - IT - 200p - 4,5 stars
5. Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis) by Franz Kafka - owned - DE - 80p - 4 stars
6. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville - Kindle bought - EN - 416p - 4,5 stars
7. Warum die Deutschen? Warum die Juden? by Götz Aly - bought - DE - 352p - 4,5 stars
8. Der unaufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht - library book - DE - 144p - 4 stars
9. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - library book - IT - 250p - 3,5 stars
10.Uno, Nessuno & Centomila (One, No One & One Hundred Thousand) by Luigi Pirandello - owned - IT - 221p - 3 stars
11.Beowulf on the Beach by Jack Murnighan - Kindle owned - EN - 374p - 3,5 stars
12.Ungeduld des Herzens (Beware of Pity) by Stefan Zweig - library book - DE - 464p - 4 stars
13.A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - audible credit - EN - 224p - 4,5 stars

February 2012
14. Radetzky March by Joseph Roth - free Kindle - DE - 416p - 4,5 stars
15. La corriera stravagante (The Wayward Bus) by John Steinbeck - library book - IT - 260p - 3,5 stars
16. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence - free Kindle - EN - 400p - 2 stars
17.The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - library book - EN - 384p - 4 stars
18.Die Selbstmord-Schwestern (The Virgin Suicides) by Jeffrey Eugenides - library book - DE - 256p - 3,5 stars
19. God's Philosophers by James Hannam - Kindle - EN - 448p - 3 stars
20. Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers) by Thomas Mann - library book - DE - 1819p - 5 stars
21. Gefährliche Liebe (Catching Fire) by Suzanne Collins - library book - DE - 450p - 3,5 stars
22. La tete en friche by Marie-Sabine Roger - library book - FR - 217p - 3,5 stars
23. Everything that rises must converge by Flannery O'Connor - owned - EN - 320p - 4 stars
24. Die Liebeshandlung (The Marriage Plot) by Jeffrey Eugenides - library book - DE - 624p - 4,5 stars
25. The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - owned - EN - 251p - 3 stars

My January and February books have been reviewed in my 1st thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/129529

March 2012:
26. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love to be Hated by Alison Arngrim - Kindle bought - EN - 320p - 4 stars
27. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - free Kindle - EN - 1000p - 4 stars
28. L'inverno del nostro scontento (The Winter of Our Discontent) by John Steinbeck - library book - IT - 352p - 4 stars
29. The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark - owned - EN - 145p - 3 stars
30. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - library book - DE - 428p - 3 stars
31. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - owned - EN - 275p - 4 stars
32. The Warden by Anthony Trollope - free Kindle - 336p - 3,5 stars
33. The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White - audio book - EN - 256p - 3 stars
34. The Long Walk by Stephen King - Kindle - EN - 384p - 3,5 stars
35. The Witch in the Forest/ The Queen of Air and Darkness by T.H. White - audio book - EN - 130p - 2 stars
36. The Ill-Made Knight by T.H. White - audio book - EN - app 260p - 3,5 stars
37. The Candle in the Wind by T.H. White - audio book - EN - app 130p - 2,5 stars
38. Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryonosuke Akutagawa - Kindle - EN - 120p
39. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope - free Kindle - EN - 672p - 3,5 stars
40. The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White - audio book - EN - 193p - 3 stars

April 2012:
41. La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi - library book - IT - 238p - 4 stars
42. The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck - Kindle - EN - 120p - 3,5 stars
43. Schloss Gripsholm - Kurt Tucholsky - free Kindle - DE - 120p - 3 stars
44. Life by Keith Richards - library book - DE - 723p - 4 stars
45. Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith - free Kindle - EN - 176 pages - 3,5 stars
46. Il Deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati - library book - IT - 202p - TIOLI - 3,5 stars
47. A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell - audio book - EN - 181p - 3,5 stars
48. Il Cimitero di Praga (The Prague Cemetery) by Umberto Eco - owned - IT - 514p - 4 stars
49. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark - owned - EN - 128p - 3.5 stars
50. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs - free Kindle - EN - 212p - 2.5 stars
51. Piccoli Equivoci senza Importanza (Little Misunderstandings of no Importance) by Antonio Tabucchi - library book - IT - 150p - 3.5 stars
52. Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens - free Kindle - EN - 272p - 4 stars

BOOK STATS

Currently reading:

Normal books (where there's a chance I might finish them in the next two weeks):
- Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken (Memoirs of my Nervous Illness) by Daniel Paul Schreber - free Kindle - DE - 367p
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - owned - EN - 536p
- Gillespie and I by Jane Harris - audio book - EN - 528p


Very Slow reads:
- Arabian Nights: Tales From The Thousand and One Nights - free Kindle - EN - I might take this into 2013 - 24% in/ 400 (of 1001??) nights read - finished volume 4!! (March 19, 2012)
- Clarissa Harlowe by Samuel Richardson - free Kindle - EN, chronologic reading, started January 10, finished vol. 3 of 9
- Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times by Neil Astley (500 poems for 500 days!) - 136 read
- The Iliad/ Illias by Homer - free Kindle - German - 6 of 24 canti read

On temporary hold in 2012:
- La Vie Mode d'Emploi by Georges Perec - owned - FR - page 112 of 579 - finished part I

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Planned books:

April Reads:
- Il Cimitero di Praga by Umberto Eco
- Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens, I'll read this short Dickens travelogue with Peggy/LizzieD (272p)
- La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi
- Il Deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati
- The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
- A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell
- Life by Keith Richards
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark - booked for last week of April
- Piccoli Equivoci senza Importanza by Antonio Tabucchi

May Reads:
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope
- A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell
- Memoirs of my Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber
- Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
- Notturno Indiano by Antonio Tabucchi
- Kindheitsmuster by Christa Wolf
- The Iliad by Homer
- Il Vuoto di Sunya by Massimo Burchiellaro

Some of the more difficult 1001s I want to get off my tbr:
- Kindheitsmuster by Christa Wolf
- Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
- Simplicissimus by Hans von Grimmelshausen
- Clarissa Harlowe by Samuel Richardson
- Joseph und seine Brüder by Thomas Mann


Janet memorial reads planned:
- Ungeduld des Herzens by Stefan Zweig ==> planned for Jan/Feb - library book - DE
- Radetzky March by Joseph Roth - free Kindle - DE
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - owned - EN
- Palace Walk Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz - bought - EN
- Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times by Neil Astley ==> planned one poem per day - bought - EN
- God's Philosophers ==> planned for February (GR) - Kindle - EN

Others:

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Purchases:
January:
- The Child Thief by Brom - bought - EN (TA)
- Warum die Deutschen? Warum die Juden by Götz Aly - bought - DE - read
- The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville - Kindle bought - EN - read
- Palace Walk Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz - EN (TA)
- Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times by Neil Astley - EN (TA)
- Finnegans Wake by James Joyce - EN (TA)
- The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark - EN (TA) - read
March:
- Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim - Kindle - EN - read
- The Once and Future King by T. H. White - Audio book - EN (the whole thing for only 5,95$ was just too good a deal!) - read
- How to be alone by Jonathan Franzen - Book - EN
- The Short Novels of John Steinbeck - Kindle - EN (my excuse is I need them for the Steinbeckathon!!)
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - EN
April:
- Notturno Indiano (Indian Nocturne) by Antonio Tabucchi - Book - IT
- Gillespie and I by Jane Harris - audio book - EN

TA = Thingaversary book

February will last another 4 hours here, but my stats for this month are done already:

February reads:

Books read in February: 12
Pages read: 5845

Fiction: 10
Non-fiction: 1
Plays: 0
Short Story Books: 1
Poetry books: 0 (but 44 poems)

English: 5
German: 5
Italian: 1
French: 1

Audio books: 0 (0 bought)
Kindle books: 3 (2 free, 1 bought)
Real books: 9 (2 owned, 7 library)

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Summary 2012:

Books read 2012: 25
Pages read: 9766

Fiction: 19
Non-fiction: 3
Plays: 1
Poetry books: 0 (but 62 poems)
Comic books: 2 (counted as 1)
Short Story Books: 1

English: 8
German: 11
Italian: 5
French: 1

Audio books: 1 (1 bought)
Kindle books: 7 (4 free, 2 bought, 1 owned)
Real books: 17 (2 bought, 3 owned,12 library)

#1: Great picture!!

#4: It seems that February was quite a succesful reading month! Congrats!

Beautiful picture. Love the stats!

Nathalie congratulations on the new thread. Hope March is a prosperous and successful month for you.

Thanks Kathy, Mamie and Paul!

#7: a new client sent the first order today - yay! Nothing 'big', but it's a start.
I'll travel to Munich tomorrow to meet another prospective client (this time a BIG one!), so wish me luck!

After the meeting tomorrow I'll meet my parents in Bavaria and spend the weekend with them in a nice little B&B close to lake Tegernsee. I can't travel to my Dad's birthday next week, so we'll pre-celebrate a little (but not really, we are all superstitious).

Good luck for tomorrow - take a good book for the trip :)

Oh and as always an awe filled nod for how many books you get through!

Good luck tomorrow, Nathalie!

Great start to the month Nathalie I am thrilled for you.

#8: Good luck with your client! And have a great time with your parents!

Thank you Bekka, Mamie, Paul and Kathy!
The meeting was great - the client will start buying one of our products shortly after Easter. And our actual stock is already almost sold out. That's still far from cost coverage (the quantities still being too small), but it's definitely a good start into the season.

The weekend was also wonderful. The hotel was a little strange - a building from the 1990s with open fireplaces in all rooms. And no, it didn't look good, the furniture was shabby and the rooms all smelled of smoke (which made the little cards saying "please respect that this is a non-smoking room" quite useless). But it was very close to the lake and a good starting point for walks. The weather was beautiful on the Friday and Saturday, all sunny with temperatures just below 20°C. Yesterday it became foggy and I was lucky the mountain pass shortcut to Austria was still open, otherwise I would have been forced to take a long detour. We had some nice food - the usual Bavarian fare, so I am still feeling stuffed.

As expected I didn't read much - it took a lot of effort to keep pace with Clarissa who wrote numerous long letters in the first week of March. I didn't make any progress on The Pickwick Papers and just glanced at Mockingjay which I had taken from the library on Friday morning before my departure. Somehow I am not that interested in Katniss' adventures any more.
I read about 50 pages of The Winter of our Discontent last night and tried to catch up on some of your threads in reading-mode.

Clarissa has suddenly gone long hasn't it! I'm still enjoying it but it is a little to the detriment of my other reading. I'm up to date as of today and the next couple of days look a lot shorter.

#14: I think it was March 3rd when I was really annoyed that she found so much time for writing in between fainting and pleading with her mother. I really feel with her, but how could she handwrite so much in a day?

I hadn't really thought of that... now I have and darn it is annoying! I do remember thinking much the same when reading Evelina - at one point she was supposed to have only a few sheets of paper and a bit of ink in an egg cup. Somwhow from that she wrote a hell of a lot...

#16: and a bit of ink in an egg cup that's hilarious!
I just saw that today's writing will be very short again. At some point we'll have to get through those 1500 pages, but I'd prefer more regular portions.

Last night I decided to spend all my reading energy on getting through that last third of The Pickwick Papers - which I enjoy a lot, but honestly, 700 pages would have been enough, 1000 seems a bit too long for a book without a strong plot. What I did next instead was buying Alison Arngrim's autobio Confessions of a Prairie Bitch and reading the whole thing. I guess you could call that procrastination reading. Alison was 'Nellie Oleson' in the 'Little House' TV show. What I didn't know (there wasn't any coverage on the actors except for Michael Landon in my country) is what a terrible childhood she had, having been sexually abused for years by her older brother. The work for the 'Little House' series was her way to escape from him when she was away on set for months. Now the book is actually light-hearted and in most parts very funny, which clearly is her way to deal with all this. A great page turner and a very impressive account on the life of a child actor.

So after this short detour I'll return to the Pickwicks tonight and also continue reading The Winter of Our Discontent in Italian. Meanwhile Mockingjay is still not calling out to me. I'll read it, maybe this weekend, but just to complete the trilogy.

I didn't care for Mockingjay, even though I loved the two previous books. I will be curious to know what you think of it when you get around to it.

I am a Dickens's fan, but it will be some time before I take up The Pickwick Papers. Hard Times is the next Dickens I have got lined up to be read sometime in June I think.

Nathalie I have Dombey and Son lined up for sometime this year. Pickwick Papers as it was Charlies was my first Dickens "novel" and I loved it as a teenager but the length would put me off from repeating an admittedly great experience.

Trust that you have been busy making a success of the business to post here for the last few days. Hope you are having a wonderfully relaxing and book filled weekend.

Piyush Hard Times is one of the less burdensome Dickens' in length but is largely credited as a precursor to socialism depicting as it does the grim north of England (where incidentally I was raised and am still trying to get the soot from under my fingernails!).

I had a very busy week and also had to work yesterday, sorry for neglecting my thread. At least I got some reading done today - I finished Pickwick Papers, The Winter of our Discontent and then I took a look at Mockingjay and just didn't want to read it. So instead I took The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark off the shelf. It has only 145 pages and was finished quickly, so now I am back to Mockingjay and just hope I'll get through it by Tuesday or Wednesday. I made only little progress on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Such beautiful prose, but plotwise.... can I say boring?

#18: So far I don't care for it either. In this book I am aware all the time that I am reading YA and that I am not the intended reader.

#19: Hard Times is another one I hope to read soon, but probably not in 2012. I might read A Tale of Two Cities along with the tutored reading, later this year. And I'd like to read Pictures from Italy which is a short travelogue.

#20: The weekend was only partly relaxing and book filled, yesterday was busy and cheese-filled. I'll write about it in my next post. The good thing about "Pickwick" is that it consists of all those little stories - I am sure I will revisit some of them without having to reread the whole thing (loved the Christmas episode!). I also found some lovely illustratios on the wikipedia page. This is a Dickens I'd love to have on my shelf as well (read it on Kindle).

Thanks to Ilana's thread I didn't miss this week's sale at audible and got the complete edition of The Once and Future King by T.H. White. Not that I am planning to listen to it soon, but it was such a bargain at only 5,95$ for 33hrs, I couldn't resist.

My dad and two of his friends started a cheese 'affinerie' 3 years ago. One of them is a wine maker and owns those old and picturesque vaulted cellars where the wine is stored. They are using a part of the cellar to refine their cheeses, letting them mature for up to 2 years (depending on the variety) and curing them with the wines or grapes from the winery. Just on a small scale - it's more of a hobby. Sometimes they do tastings for the local Slow Food group and they sell their products locally to the restaurants.

Now there was a cheese festival this weekend in South Tyrol, about 2 hours from where I live, organized by Slow Food Alto Adige, and my dad's affinerie was participating. So I drove up there yesterday morning to help my dad's friend present and sell their cheeses. I didn't get any money, but could take as much cheese back home as I could carry plus several bottles of wine. It was just a small event, but there were producers from many parts of Italy and also from Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. I had time to walk around and have a look at all the other products. It was great fun and I took some pictures which I hope I can post tomorrow. There was the usual local brass band and a group of boys danced 'Schuhplattler' (this 'typical' dance where they wear lederhosen and clap with their hands on their knees), to the joy of all the visitors.

Tasting samples of the cheeses were offered everywhere, but I couldn't eat much - the constant smell of cheese kind of closed my stomach, especially as our booth was close to the stage where they were doing show cooking with melted cheese all day.

I returned home at 9pm, smelling of cheese. I took a shower, put my clothes into the washing machine, took my Kindle to the couch with me and fell asleep as soon as my body touched the couch. Moved to my bed at 2 am and slept for many more hours. Today my whole body was aching - I am clearly getting old.

Hey Nathalie! I've just discovered your new thread. Wow, what a great view. Mountains and palm trees! I love them both.

Glad you had a nice weekend at the B&B how nice it must be to travel throught Europe.

Good luck with The Artist. I read it last year and look forward to your thoughts.

Thanks for posting your lovely opening photo!

I envy your travels throughout Europe! Have a great, great time..And, good luck with your new client.

#22 Hmmm cheese... I'll pass on the stinky cheese - how's the wine?

#21 I just finished The Hunger Games - really enjoyed it a lot. but I did also get that feeling of reading YA that sometimes you don't get. It is a little over powering in her work.

yum, cheese!

Time for a review:



26. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim

God I hated Nellie Oleson in the 'Little House' series when I was a kid, with all my heart. Do you remember the episode when she fell off Laura’s horse and pretended to be paralysed so Laura had to work as her servant? I learned it is the most famous and most beloved episode world-wide. It ended with Nellie falling into the mud – and as Alison Arngrim says, this was always a guarantee for a strong episode.

This was a very strange book. Strange, because it was so entertaining, although its main underlying issue is sexual abuse of children. Alison Arngrim is without any question a very smart person with a good portion of humour. She managed to write about her childhood trauma (being raped on almost daily basis by her older brother Stefan when she was only 6 years old) in a way that you can’t put the book down and in the end you’ll have internalized the message “Get active - we can do something against it!”.

It comes in handy that she was able to spice up her story with many interesting insider details from the film set. But don’t get your hopes up – Alison is a very friendly person and doesn’t lose any bad words about her co-actors, she even tries to be understanding towards Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls) who spent all those years in self-imposed isolation from all the others. This mix works so well because it is obvious that the film team served as Alison’s escape from the attacks by her older brother and as a substitute family. She is still in close contact with Melissa Gilbert who played Laura Ingalls. There are some funny episodes that show that life as ‘the Prairie bitch’ wasn’t easy, for example when she had a publicity thing in a school and got her butt kicked by two of the students. Or when she was planning to meet ‘Laura’ in a supermarket and well-meaning people outside warned ‘Laura’ that her enemy ‘Nellie’ was inside.

Life as Nellie gave her the courage to confront her abuse issues and to seek professional help after she had left the show. In later years she also became an AIDS activist when her close friend, former co-star and ‘husband’ Steve Tracy (alias Percival Dalton) was hit by the disease and died in 1986.

This is a very positive book and I am really impressed by Arngrim’s power. And I feel like re-watching the ‘Little House’ series now (this time with the knowledge that Michael Landon had 'lifts' in his boots to look taller and didn't ever wear underpants. Or that "Carrie" was falling down the hill in the credits because she was wearing her booties the wrong way) .

Rating: 4 stars, recommended

27. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

I hadn’t planned to read my anniversary Dickens that early and wanted to wait for the A Tale of Two Cities GR/TR later this year. But Peggy/ LizzieD so recommended "Pickwick" that I started it, knowing already that it mainly consisted of loosely connected stories, so I could take a break when needed. I didn’t take a break, although another 1000pager was probably the last book I needed now. For most of the time this has been an extremely enjoyable read and it didn’t take me long to get used to Dickens’ style ad his long sentences (having read most of my previous Dickens books in German).
As usual, there is an assembly of original characters thrown into more or less funny situations. Mr. Pickwick is an older gentlemen, very wealthy, who decides to travel the country with his three best friends. After a couple of very entertaining chapters, Dickens had the inspiration to give Pickwick a servant, young Samuel Weller. He must be among the most beloved Dickens characters in his rough, but well-meaning goodness and with his accent which I learned is Cockney.
None of the characters have much depth, but I didn’t miss that (okay – the women’s characters are extremely one-dimensional), as the stories were so much fun and were so vividly described. Many of them touch issues which were worked out in more detail in his later novels. Best of all I’ll remember the Christmas episode, and the scenes at ‘the Fleet’, the debtor’s prison. The part I liked less (but which probably laid the ground for the wonderful Bleak House) was the whole Bardell affair and the court scenes.

Learning from Dickens:
There are very few moments in a man’s existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. A vast deal of coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgment, are requisite in catching a hat. A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. The best way is to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head: smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody else.

Rating: 4 stars – a great Dickens for beginners

28. L’Inverno del nostro Scontento (The winter of our Discontent) by John Steinbeck

Steinbeck’s last novel, and one that was explicitly mentioned by the Nobel Prize committee. A book that didn’t agree at all with the US critics and the readers and which only later, after the Watergate scandal, got more recognition. I haven’t read enough Steinbeck to be able to say if this is his most bitter and disillusioned work, but I am sure he processed many of his own thoughts here and planted them into his main character Ethan Allen Hawley, the good American tempted by corruption.

The way I perceived the book is that is has lots of layers. It leaves much more room for interpretation than any of his other works I read. It goes very deep, but only if you want to go there. There is religion, there is heritage, the question what makes an American a ‘real’ American, the issue of keeping up one’s own moral values in a corrupted world, love, money, what else did I forget?

Someone on the GR thread described the reading experience as ‘bumpy’. I agree. It wasn’t an easy read for me, Ethan kept changing direction and it took me long to get an idea of his real intentions. For me as a non-American it was a strange experience – I always pictured Ethan and his family as one of those typical idealized white American cartoon families I remember from my childhood – the husband with his clean-shaven face and side parting in the hair, always wearing a tie; the wife with the practical short wavy hair, with the petticoat dress and the apron; son and daughter as miniature versions of their parents; everyone smiling; dinner being ready when Daddy comes home. In the first family scenes I never pictured Ethan Allen (or Mary or Ellen Mary or Allen – just look at those names!) as real people; they were like paper dolls for me. But if you lifted that paper layer – all the breakfast cereal- picture book happiness was gone at once.

There is one element I already noticed in WB (forgot that character’s name) and that’s the difficulty of an ex-soldier to find back into normal life. How can you ever be back to happy and normal and ‘good’ after you have been killing people on order? I don’t think Ethan’s problems were mainly induced by his war experiences, but they are part of what made him (and part of what formed the US of the 50s and 60s that Steinbeck describes here).

The most difficult part for me was Ethan’s relationship with his wife Mary. I hated their 1:1 scenes. Was it the terrible jokes? Was it the pet names? Was it the exaggerated worshipping (hey – she is called ‘Mary’ and she is flawless *hinthinthint*). Her character remained strangely flat until a few pages before the ending.

A big warning should you want to read the book: don’t read spoilers! Don’t look the book up on wikipedia, because they tell you the whole plot there. The most powerful part was the ending, the last 2 chapters. I would have hated it had I known the ending in advance.

Rating: 4 stars for now. Had it been better balanced I would have given 4,5. But I want to reread it in English and might still increase my rating.

Nathalie I have to say that is the most balanced a well written review of The Winter of Our Discontent that I have seen this month. I'm not sure about it a year after reading it but you are quite right that the themes are important and that th epowerful ending goes close to redeeming the whole thing.

Cheese festival pics:

Some Italian and international stalls:


Small selection of our cheeses: on the left is the goat cheese, on the right a cheese matured 24 months and cured with Riesling, in the background the blue mould cheese, Roquefort style. The pre-packed little guys stink like hell, but have a great taste, especially when heated and served with a vinaigrette.


Our star cheese - it has been buried in marc of Pinot Noir for three months and has a strong wine flavour


Nice local boys not feeling embarrassed when having to Schuhplattel in front of strangers:

#30: wow - thank you Paul! I love it that the Steinbeckathon confronts me with such different works by the same author in such a short time. I might(!) actually reread Of Mice and Men in June, hoping to get a better understanding this time around. Although I fear the problem was not so much a lack of understanding, more a strong dislike towards Lennie and almost everyone else in there.

#23: Hi Lynda, thanks for visiting! I hope I'll one day be able to travel the US. So far I have 'only' seen New York and Horsham/ Philadelphia.

#24: Hi Linda, thank you! My new client has already postponed the start date. But he will start, shortly after Easter (money coming in - yay!)

#25: All the cheese there was stinky, so it wouldn't have been your event I guess? The wine is great, but I have always been a big Riesling fan anyway. And Pinot Noir! Remember we always sent the horrible stuff to the UK - Blue Nun - and kept the good one for ourselves. :-)
(But on the other hand I can't get any Stilton here....)

I'll be looking forward to your comments on book 2 and 3 of the Hunger Games. Book 3 is (after 200 pages) finally getting better.

#26: yay - another cheese fan! Hi carlym

Wow - you have been busy!! I am still working my way through The Winter of Our Discontent and very much appreciate your review which spoke to so many relevant things about the book (I also dislike the 1:1 conversations between Ethan and Mary - yuck!) without giving any spoilers. I really want to read The Pickwick Papers, but don't think I'll get to it this year. Maybe next year. Hope you have a great week!

#20 Thanks for that piece of information Paul, makes me more eager to start on Hard Times. For your nails, did you try manicure? :)

Nathalie, I loved A Tale of Two Cities, I hope you will like it too. I have both The Girls of Slender Means and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in my TBR while Pickwick Papers is something I will probably read sometime in the next couple of years.

29. The Girls of slender Means by Muriel Spark
This a 1001 book? Seriously? I mean – not that it is a bad book. But neither is the UK underrepresented on the list nor is it Spark’s one and only work which both might explain its presence there. This is my 3rd Spark novel after Loitering with Intent and Memento Mori (both not on the list) and it is also the one I liked least so far. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (listed) is waiting on my shelf and will be read very soon. Even if the story gives a half-realistic idea of London just after WWII, there must (?) be other books which do that better?

Please don’t get the wrong idea – I enjoyed this book. It was a quick read at only 140 pages, and typical Spark – amusing with a twist. But something I ‘must read before I die’? Definitely not. For me Memento Mori is the much stronger work with a better message.

But anyway – the story is set in a women’s club/boarding house, basically a home for young women under 30 ‘of slender means’ who have a job in London, but not enough money to afford an own apartment. There’s the dormitory floor where the girls aged 18-20 are sleeping, then the 'spinster floor', and on top the floor where 5 young women in their twenties each have their own room. They share a bathroom with a tiny window through which the thinnest can squeeze to get to the rooftop for a sunbath. There’s Jane (or was it Kate?), the ‘fat one’, the only one who eats her meals because she needs to do ‘brain work’ for a publishing house. There is pretty and super-thin Selina who has more than one lover. There is Joanna who teaches elocution and recites poetry all day. Jane/Kate introduces Nicholas, a young author and one of her clients, to the club and then some things happen.
As I said an okay read, which at times reminded me of Vile Bodies.

Rating: 3 stars, recommended as a nice and quick read, but no "must"

P.S.: the reason I always have problems with names is that I am a synesthete - letters and numbers have certain colours in my mind (sorry if that sounds weird - I know it is, although there are many of us, I got it from my grandma). 'Kate' and 'Jane' in my strange head have too similar colours, so I'll confuse them - it's a bluish red in case you're interested.

30. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The last part of The Hunger Games Trilogy and I am glad that I am done with it. There were very many things that annoyed me here and only the fact that Collins’ main idea was so good saved the book from sinking below the 3star line. I realize it is a different experience to read such a hyped series in such a short time, compared to reading each part when it is published - you're more likely to find flaws. I assume that Collins was influenced by the reactions of her readers and that some of the things that annoyed me were added because they were such a success in book 1 and 2.

Plot spoilers coming:
A short list of the things I didn’t like and where the book felt like a big déjà-vu: make-up, clothes, preparation team, cameras, TV, Katniss not using her brain/ Katniss being used by others for political reasons, Gale being boring, BODY COUNT (enormous), ridiculous and unconvincing love discussions in the most untimely situations, mutations, people ripped to pieces, pieces of human flesh, ick factor, Katniss almost dying and being repaired, and then – the ARENA (again???).

What I liked and where the book was saved: Peeta’s development, the scene with the cat, Johanna, Fennick, the truth about Coin.
End of plot spoilers

Some hopefully spoiler-free critic: I read the German translation and there the writing was really bad. Unrealistic dialogues, the language miles away from real spoken language and even from ‘thought language’. Then the violence – how can such violence as described here be so boring? I was only scanning two thirds of the book, because I just didn’t care. It was like reading the “book to the video game”, the game being some kind of brutal first person shooter. Already early in the book Collins doesn’t skimp on the body parts. This book is ridiculously YA at times, more like a glossy teenager magazine, then it wants to make up for being too girly by becoming overly brutal. The few good and intense bits are quite brilliant, but have to be looked for. If I had kids, I don’t know if I’d like them to read this book. Katniss is suffering and feeling guilty, yes, but the violence is described so casually and is mixed up with all that stuff which could come from a shallow teenage magazine.

My impression is that the good bits formed the real story Collins had in her head from the beginning, but then she had to blow up the whole thing to get the 400 pages filled and to satisfy the wishes of her fans.

Contrary to many other readers, I found the ending very satisfying and had no problems with the short epilogue.

Rating: 3 stars, but just

Couldn't sleep last night, so I finished Mockingjay and wrote the remaining reviews. It feels good to be done with both. Now there's only A Portrait of the Artist left, then I have to get back to my on-hold books.

#33: thanks for the info re. Ethan/Mary. I wasn't sure if it was maybe a translation issue. Jokes often don't work well in direct translation and those pet names were decidedly non-Italian, but I thought maybe they were regular English ones.

#34: I am still in Dickens mood and might actually read AToTC earlier. I had Our Mutual Friend planned next, but am shying away from starting yet another 1000+ pager. "Artist" is great writing, I just haven't found access to the character of Stephen Dedalus yet.

Catching up: I only like very soft (-tasting) cheese, so I am glad I missed the event ;-)

Liked your review of the Prairy Bitch and am now wondering if my mixing up names has anything to do with colors.... nope, don't think so, comes from dyslexia ;-)

When I play TumbleBugs (a game like Zuma), I always say the name of the color I am supposed to shoot in my head, anyone else???

Nathalie the cheeses look delightful and especially one soaked for ages in Pinot Noir.

I agree with you on Spark - I enjoy several of her novels but many of them are "slender" indeed, insubstantial even.

#38: I never heard of TumbleBugs or Zuma - are they online games?
I love mild cheeses for breakfast, with jam on top (another thing I got from the synesthete grandma).

#39: When years ago I applied for jobs in Singapore and Australia (my old company had worldwide branches, but in the end the jobs were given to locals where possible to save the expat cost), the unavailability of unpasteurized cheese in those countries was a point to be considered (seriously!).
Now I hope that Italy's and France's voices are strong enough to stop any such initiatives in the EU.

I am looking forward to reading "Jean Brodie". After 4 years of English lessons at school, it was the first "real" English book our teacher wanted us to read. We all failed already in the first chapter and so we returned to the textbooks.

****

I tried to listen to The Sword in the Stone last night, the first part of The Once and Future King which I had bought as audio book last weekend. I was asleep before the end of the first chapter and slept sooo well! It might take years to get through the 33hrs, but as a sleeping aid it works very well. I didn't even find it boring - it's just so fairy-tale like, it's like listening to a bedtime story.

I downloaded the Once and Future King the other day (supposedly for Fantasy Feb - didn't get to it though) and the first time accidentaly downloaded the audio rather than e-book. I thought I'd have a listen though audio is not my thing at all. And oh my word - the narrator had the dullest voice imaginable. How anyone could stay awake listening to that I don't know... wondering if it's the same version now...

#41: the narrator's name is Neville Jason, clearly an older man. Again I didn't sleep well last night (woke up almost every hour) and slowly made it through chapters 1 and 2. It's great in fact - just a couple of minutes of being read to and I doze off again instead of being awake for hours and worrying about finances.
I had a look at the Kindle version today because there were so many words I wasn't able to understand through listening. Most of it was Latin or just strange names I realized.

I also got my 1st Trollope book for my Kindle, The Warden and started reading it. Sometimes I hate the 1001 list with all those series counting as one book (like Joseph and His Brothers/ 4 books, Remembrance of Things Past/ 7 books or The Once and Future King/5 books). Here they listed only the last part of the Barchester Towers Chronicles, but this probably implies I have to read all the other ones first.

Nathalie, it sounds (pun intended!) like you have found the perfect cure for insomnia! I can't listen to a book at night for that very reason.

Thanks for posting the pics at the cheese festival. And I love the pic that opens your thread. It's so cool to see palm trees and snow-capped mountains in the same vicinity.

Hi Nathalie! Just looking in to wave hello! Great pictures! I love those markets - although the cheese might have been too much for me. :) Congratulations on finishing The Hunger Games-trilogy!

#43: my insomnia cure didn't work out that well anymore on day #3. I woke up in a panic after an hour's sleep, from a dream where I was drowning in some pond. When I re-listened to the last audio part (that had been playing while I was asleep), it was that bit where Wart is turned into a fish and thrown into the moat. I couldn't believe it. So - no more bedtime audio listening for me, I can't even deal with a childrens' book.

#44: Hi Kathy - and thank you! :-)

****
Weekend activities:
As I wrote already on Ilana's thread I managed to stay away from the computer most of the time this last weekend and instead did my overdue house cleaning. My apprtment has that big terrace and huge windows, and nice as it is, I really hate the cleaning. I am especially talentless when it comes to polishing the window glass. Looking forward already to the next sunny day that will once again show me the horrible streaks I have doubtlessly produced.

My condo is a low-energy building and has an interesting ventilation system where you should leave your windows closed all day and the air is automatically exchanged once every hour (no air-con!). Imo the system brings me mounts of dust I haven't known anywhere else and the combined kitchen smells from all my neighbours, so I open the windows whenever I can - which in spring and summer brings me all the yellow pollen from the big old trees around as well.

****
Reading done:
I spent the evenings and parts of the nights reading, and I must say it wasn't all pleasant. Maybe the bad weather had an influence on my mood - I mean it is depressing to see a crisp blue sky all week from the office window, just to be forced to stay inside on the weekend because the weather changes punctually on the Saturday morning!

I finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and loved most of it. I wish I had read it before Ulysses. I quite liked The Warden by Anthony Trollope and started Barchester Towers, but I don't know if I can read all of those chronicles now.

Then I continued listening to The Sword in the Stone while doing all my housework. I feel it's my fault, but I was bored to death. When after more than 9hrs Wart had finally become King Arthur, I started the next one in the series, "The Witch in the Wood". I'll try to get through this whole thing asap, but whenever I enjoy it for a moment, it instantly gets lengthy and boring again. Kids must have been very patient back in the 1930s. Could also be a bit of a language problem here - especially in this second part much is read in a Gaelic/ Scottish accent.

Last night I concentrated all my remaining reading energies to get through the 4th volume of "Arabian Nights". I only remember two stories in detail - in one of them a shameless damsel sleeps with a bear, in the other a shameless damsel sleeps with a baboon. All the other ones were about men becoming rich for no apparent reason, simply because some king was being generous.

****
General complaining/ whining (sorry!):
I have been feeling quite exhausted lately and am constantly tired, but can't sleep well. I haven't been to the gym since my membership ran out in December (I used to exercise very regularly and that helped with the sleep). The gym recently bought all new machines and then raised the prices, so I can't afford the combined expense of gym and parking right now. Consequently, I am feeling all rusty and flabby, so I started doing yoga again this weekend, mainly to relax both body and mind a bit. OMG it hurt streching those lazy old muscles again! But the mind clearly felt better afterwards. :-)
It will be some weeks before I am back to my old level.

Hope the weather gets better next weekend, so I can finally go hiking in the mountains again.

Almost forgot: there is this wonderful new tutored read for Shakespeare's sonnets. cynara and rosalita are discussing one sonnet per day and just started. So if you always wanted to read some Shakespeare, but thought it was too difficult, now there's the opportunity for an easier start: http://www.librarything.com/topic/134269

Nathalie, good for you that you are sticking with The Once and Future King. I read The Sword in the Stone and was hard pressed to find why people love the series so much, I will probably read some more of the series just in case I read it at a bad time and all the other reasons I may not have liked the book, other than that it was not my type!

Nathalie - I signed up for a group read of The Once and Future King a year or so ago and gave up after only a few pages. I'm also keen to give it another try at another time as I do in theory like this type of book.
I'm impressed with your reading of the Arabian Nights, I'm intending to tackle this one as well. From what I understand there are several translations each having their pros and cons.
I'm listening to Kenneth Branagh reading Graham Greene's The Captain and the Enemy at present, he's a great narrator, though I'd probably fall asleep listening to any audiobook, I only listen in the car or at the gym.

Ciao Nathalie, I don't know that I've been to your thread before, I'm sure I have, but it's been awhile. And where have I been???? I love the pictures, your comments, and your books -- I so agree that Memento Mori is Spark's strongest novel - she has a few remarkable short stories too. Very thought-provoking about your drowning dream -- to realize that somehow, you absorbed what you were hearing, although you weren't really awake any more.

There are any number of Italian writers I am crazy about -- Lampedusa, Natalie Ginzburg, Calvino, Buzzatti to name a few that surface immediately -- I can only read Italian feebly, so I don't even try to read them in the original.

I finished the 2nd volume of The Once and Future King today, it seems to have 2 titles: The Witch in the Wood or The Queen of Air and Darkness. It must be short with only 4 audio hours. And it's a strange mixture of sillyness and satire. I am not yet convinced, so far I liked book 1 better.

#47: Piyush, I am also wondering if I am listening to it at a bad time, but right now I have quite a craving for feel-good fairy-tale like classics and I was sure this would be just the book for me. There are 20 more hours to go, so maybe I'll change my mind.

#48: Hi Kerry, it is certainly worth another try. After all, it is widely beloved. I can't yet catagorize it. On the one hand it sounds like a childrens' book, with scenes only very small kids might enjoy. But on the other hand there are scenes and remarks only adults will understand and enjoy.
Re. "Arabian Nights": I didn't know which one to chose until I saw the Burton version was called 'complete collection', and I like my chunkster challenges. I didn't know it would be that long though. There are certainly shorter but better translated versions.

OMG - I never heard Kenneth Branagh's real voice (movies in Germany are all dubbed), he's so good!! I still got 2 audible credits, maybe I'll get this one.

#49: Hi Lucy, thanks for visiting! I haven't heard of Natalie Ginzburg and Buzzatti yet. Is it Gabriella Buzzatti or Dino Buzzati? Can you recommend some of their books? I am always interested in reading contemporary Italian authors, and the recommendations in the local bookshops are quite useless.

Sadly I had to read The Leopard in German two years ago, because my Italian wasn't yet good enough. I still loved it, and the original is now waiting on my shelf for a reread.

I am sorry to read about your sleeping problems, I hope the yoga will help you!

Dino - he's incredible! Now I have to trot off to look at my italian list -- also there are all the english and american writers who write novels SET in Italy, many of them so wonderful!

The mystery fellow Camilleri. We love those!

Bruno Schulz Incredibile! Umberto Eco!!

I have 18 books under 'fiction italian' - mostly Calvino it's very incomplete though, we have more Camilleri's and I've read some Italian memoirs that aren't here, of course,....... I need to do some tidying up! What else is new? It would be great too if I listed more of the novels SET in Italy.... gosh..... it's endless!

Hi Nathalie - I hope you are catching up on sleep a little and that business woes have morphed into confirmed opportunities.
Lucy you are right there are some good books set in Italy by non-Italians and I must say I have enjoyed most of Donna Leon's series set in Venice and David Hewson's series (largely in Rome) and the late Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series set all over the place. In addition Magdalen Nabb also wrote a quirky series which is enjoyable.
None of them though can match the brilliance that is Andrea Camilleri.

#50: It's probably not worth getting that Branagh audiobook as it's so short. Looking through the audible list I'd probably go for the Life and Fate: The Complete Series (Dramatised) as it's with David Tennant (ex-Dr Who). The other Graham Greene book I've listened to, The Confidential Agent, was narrated by Tim Piggot-Smith, another British actor with a great voice. I downloaded these from my library and only get longer books of 10+ hours from audible.
My favourite narrators have been John Lee & Simon Vance - I'm currently listening to the Don Quixote edition as read by Simon Vance under his other name, Roger Whitfield, and really enjoying it too much to switch to the written book.

I haven't read much set in Italy of late apart from Camilleri, though I have a Europa Edition of The Girl on the Via Flaminia which is set in WWII Rome to read. I also must read I'm not scared and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, both have been on my tbr pile for too long.

#51: the advantage is I am already well prepared for the beginning of daylight saving time this weekend. :-)

#52: Bruno Schulz is another new name for me. Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll have a look for all those authors in my library soon, I really need to read more contemporary Italian fiction!

I love Eco, but I am having a bit of a hard time with Il Cimitero di Praga, my first Eco in Italian. Picked it up again last night and read some pages. I'll make it my goal to finish it in April. I read 2 Calvinos so far - liked one, hated the other, and thanks to the 1001 list there are 2 more of his books on my tbr.

#53: for the first time ever I am selling my product in pallet sizes! :-))
The quantities are still far from sufficient for the coverage of my fixed monthly costs, but it's a relief to see orders coming in.

I read many of the Donna Leon books years ago and they even made me travel to Venice and find and eat all the nice food she is always describing. At some point the stories became repetitive (which is normal in all those crime series) and I stopped buying them. I still think they are very good. I think I also read one or two books by Magdalen Nabb. I'll have to check out Andrea Camilleri.

#54: Thank you - I'll look through your audio recommendations asap. I put Life and Fate on my wish list as it sounds really good, I just don't know if I could deal with a Stalingrad story right now.

Don Quixote is a book I had on my shelf for ages. It might be a good idea getting this one on audio. I prefer listening to books that won't get me stressed - I am a terribly sensitive listener, and there was an unexpectedly horrible scene of violence against an 'animal' (more of a mythical creature) in The Once and Future King yesterday which really upset me.

I read I'm not Scared in Italian in 2010 and liked it a lot. It was easy language (told by a child) and a very quick read. I read another good one by Margaret Mazzantini, Don't Move. Not an easy book with a rape scene on the first pages, no likeable characters, but a very realistic look into the life of a normal Italian couple and well written.

So - my library has lots of Camilleri books, most of them checked out. I am not yet in mystery mood, but I'll keep those on my watchlist for the summer.

They have Le Botteghe Color Cannella by Bruno Schulz (translates to "The Cinnamon Colored Shops"?) which I must order from their basement magazines, and I found Dino Buzzati's "Il Diserto dei Tartari", which is a 1001 and short and therefore certainly a good starting point for me.

Thanks again for all the recommendations!

31. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

It took me very long to finally fall in like with James Joyce’s writing. I started sympathizing with it while reading the last third of Ulysses where I decided it was all very much entertaining, just a little too long. Then I read Dubliners which was okay, but also a bit of a drag. And I don’t like short stories. Now this book here has quite convinced me, and I wish I had read his books in order.

I almost feel like rereading Ulysses now, I think I’d have a better understanding. Not only for the character of Stephen Dedalus who is said to be Joyce’s literary alter ego. I am also sure that the transition from “Portrait” to “Ulysses” would be a very smooth one style-wise. The first parts of “Ulysses” are relatively easy and short compared to the later ones, but still a bit strange if you read them unprepared.
In “Artist” Joyce’s writing often reminded me of Virginia Woolf, but like a decidedly male version of her interior monologue style.

The novel is divided into 5 parts, each of those consists of several episodes which are not numbered or titled. Part 1 concentrates on Stephen’s childhood, who grows up as the eldest son in a wealthy family, and we see his first months in a boarding school. It is written from the child’s point of view and I liked that a lot (a bit like the first chapters of Woolf’s The Waves or Jacob’s Room). In part 2 Stephen’s family has lost much of their money and he had to change schools. He’s a teenager now, fighting his hormones. Part 3 was very strong and clearly the idea of sin and hell was something that must have left quite an impression on the young James Joyce. Part 4 is a direct follow-up to the events in part 3, where Stephen comes to a conclusion regarding his religious beliefs. Part 5 describes Stephen’s life in university and his continuous fight against conventions, he is now quite the Stephen the reader will meet again in Ulysses.

Rating: 4 stars

32. The Warden by Anthony Trollope

The first book of the Barsetshire Chronicles. I knew nothing about them until recently, though at least I'd heard the name "Trollope" before, and I thought it was high time to read some, especially as the last one is a 1001 book.

In short: I liked it, but didn’t love it. Just having finished the Pickwick Papers, Trollope’s writing seemed strange to me – such short sentences, and then all the not at all well-hidden irony. I got used to it quickly though and read this book in just two or three days. The story itself didn’t really touch me. I couldn’t even decide if I liked the Warden or just found him weak. His main motive seemed to be his reputation, not so much the supposed injustice against the poor men.

I just started part 2, Barchester Towers, and so far it is quite promising.

Rating: 3,5 stars - a solid English classic

Edit: later lowered to 3 stars, the other books are better

33. The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White

I didn’t even know there was a book as a basis for Disney’s “Merlin and Mim” movie. Can I say I liked the movie better?

This is the first part of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, and after looking at the average rating and some of the reviews (no spoiler risk in this case – everyone has heard about King Arthur and his knights) I expected a nice relaxing listening experience. Well, most of the time it was quite a drag. That sword in the stone turned up after about 9 hours, and although I liked the story that lead me there, often I was just terribly bored. I like long descriptive texts – I made it through Mann’s “Joseph” with no harm – but here I often wished I had the printed book to better be able to skip passages. I haven’t yet decided what the White books want to be: childrens’ literature (most children would lose their patience quickly), fantasy literature (often in my opinion too silly for adults to enjoy), or is it mainly satire? About the satire: the anachronisms surely worked well when the book was published. Merlin is living backwards, this means he has lived in the future and for example knows electricity. But some things he mentions have by now long been out of fashion as well, which makes the understanding difficult. This also applies to the Nazi hints - if you don't know about them in advance (from wiki or elsewhere), you might ask yourself what Merlin is just talking about.

The good things: it seems White was a very erudite man and knew much about the middle ages, weapons, armours, etc. All those details can be fun – for a while.

Rating: 3 stars

34. The Long Walk by Stephen King (Richard Bachmann)

Contains some spoilers, but no major ones

This book lost half a star on its very last page. It’s not that I didn’t like what is implied by the ending, but the execution was so much early Stephen King, I just couldn’t bear it. Quite a cheap and sorry ending for an otherwise great book. My theory is that when he arrived there he didn’t know how to write a good conclusion, and so he did what he did.

I heard about this book for the first time when a popular German weekly magazine, “Der Spiegel”, published a very positive movie review for “The Hunger Games” in its online edition. Of the approximately 20 forum members who immediately commented on the review, only one had actually read the book. All the others went like “Been there, done that in the 70s, “The Long Walk” blabla…” (not to forget the usual sermon that youths should better read classics and not watch American popcorn movies at all).

The Long Walk on Kindle was cheap, less than 5 €, so I got it and read it in a day. It has some typos and there have been complaints on amazon, but I had no problems reading the text.

It’s obvious that Suzanne Collins had her inspirations, The Running Man being one, and now I am convinced The Long Walk was among them as well. But both this one and her trilogy clearly are works of their own time, and I wouldn’t be able to say which one I liked more. Except for the darned ending in case of TLW, that is.

The story is set in an alternative (then) present time – the late 1970s, in the North-Eastern US. The country is governed by some kind of military dictatorship, but there is not much information on it. The Long Walk is a yearly event where 100 teenage boys from the different states have to walk at a pace of more than 4 miles/hour until only one is left alive. The winner’s prize is undefined, it is ‘everything he ever wants’. The boys are not forced into the walk, they actively apply for it and it is hinted that most of an age group will do so. The reasons are various, but it seems they all share a not openly admitted death wish (we do not know what the future in this country usually holds for young men leaving high school).

The protagonist is Ray Garraty. During the walk he makes friends with some of his competitors, saves some of them from a too early death and is himself saved several times by Pete McVries who becomes his best friend. The rules are mercyless – if a walker falls below the required speed he is warned. Three warnings will “buy him a ticket”: he will be shot by the soldiers who are watching the walkers. No rest is permitted, not even at night or during a hail storm. Boys are shot when they get tired, some die from heart attacks or are killed when they leave the road.

As I said, it is a book of its time. The start is completely unspectacular. There are no special clothes, no make-up, no pre-competition TV-coverage. Only in the later phases of the walk the cameras turn up and the public is crowding the streets, cheering for their heros, placing bets and hoping to see some blood.

The strength of this book is exactly that it doesn’t explain much, which leaves room for interpretation. I don’t know if Stephen King intended his readers to draw all those possible parallels to the real world, but it is possible to do so, and that gives the book a depth that can’t even be destroyed by all the additional King typical swearing or graphic descriptions of some especially horrible deaths.

I was reminded of war all the time. Young people voluntarily signing up, marching into war, the crowds cheering, although they know those kids are marching towards their untimely and undeserved deaths, being sacrificed mainly for political reasons.

Rating: 3,5 stars which I might upgrade to 4 stars again if I ever get over the stupid ending (sorry for being repetitive!)

35. The Witch in the Wood (or The Queen of Air and Darkness) by T.H. White

Review contains spoilers!

Part 2 of The Once and Future King and with only 4 hours very short – must be the equivalent of app. 130 pages. It claims to be centered on Morgause, but although she makes an appearance from time to time, I can’t confirm that. Much time is spent with extremely silly dialogues between Sir Palomides and Sir Grammore dressing up as the Questing Beast.

Really, only very small kids would find that funny. But those kids would never get there because they’d run away crying earlier in the story when Morgause’s sons brutally slaughter a beautiful, lovely, innocent unicorn, an act that is described in full detail. In the first or second chapter Morgause has already boiled a cat alive. There is also a not so kids-friendly short remark about Gavain later from time to time killing a woman in his rage, but being sorry for it afterwards. What the …? Nice family, btw.

The part ends with a short announcement that now Arthur will sleep with his half-sister Morgause and beget Mordred.

Oh yes, almost forgot: Arthur is king now and wants a round table.

But there's hope – part 3, The Ill-Made Knight, starts much better. Didn't know Lancelot was ugly.

Rating: 2 stars

I enjoyed The Once and Future King when I read it, but I was probably a teenager and it would have been not all that long after it was written.... (I was 16 in 1970)--- some books don't age as well as others I've noticed. I did love.... was it Pellinor? No, wait, it starts with B maybe? Can't remember now. One of the older knights who was always looking about for dragon fewmets.... (poop, that is, to be indelicate!)

i think it's brilliant to have Lancelot not be so handsome.

#62: I am now almost 2 hrs = 1/4 into The Ill-Made Knight and so far like it much better than the first two parts. It's all about knighthood and chivalry and weapons and armour and jousting and actually quite interesting. White was clearly in his element here.

I think it must be Pellinor, I like him as well. He turns up early in book 1, when the Wart gets lost in the forest. The narrator gave him a bit of an effeminate wimpy voice.

Dear Nathalie,
I'm just dropping by to say that I love following your reading! I'm not really good in writing English (although I read most of my books in English) so I think I will go on being a quite silent follower. But an eager one! I constantly get new reading inspirations from you.

Best wishes from Munich, Vroni (Bangsi is the name of my Icelandic horse ;-) )

#64: Hi Vroni, your thread in the German group inspired me to start my own reading journal 2012 there. It's time that something happens in that group!
Thanks for your visit here!

Wow - you have been busy! I have not read any James Joyce, but I would like to just because I have heard so much about him. I have also not read The Once and Future King, but I am pretty sure that we have a copy around here someplace - think my husband read it as a child (well, teenager). It's too bad about The Long Walk, because I have that in my TBR - I also bought it when the Kindle price was a bargain. An ending can completely destroy a good book - or when the author draws the writing out past a good ending point. So, I will still read it, but I won't hurry to get to it.

Nathalie your review of TWoOD is Excellent!!! You've covered all the major issues I had with the book but couldn't put through on my review. I'm just loving this Steinbeckathon and really look forward to The Moon is Down which I picked up from the library last week.

Wow, I did not know Alison Arngrim had such a bad childhood. I'll check my library to see if it's available.

Glad you seemed to like The Artist more than I. It's the only Joyce I've read so perhaps I should read the others to gain a deeper understanding of his writing.

Lastly, I love the pics of the cheese festival. Oh, I would have loved to attend. And what flavor the local entertainment brings to the occasion.

Yay - visitors!

#66: The ending didn't exactly destroy the story - what happens is the only thing that could happen. It was just the execution (difficult to explain without spoiling it). Other readers might actually like it because it leaves some room for interpretation again. In my case, I read too much King in my youth and my reaction was like 'oh - here we are once again', which is a bit unfair, because it is an early book and it's my fault when I read it too late to be surprised.

#67: Lynda, I just read your review as well and loved it. Haven't commented yet though, but will soon. I am also looking forward to reading The Moon is Down. Now that I got the six short novel collection on my Kindle it's not easy to wait till the right month arrives. I also got The Grapes of Wrath as a paper copy. So many readers liked it, I thought I should have it on my shelf.

Re. Joyce: you could try The Dubliners if you don't mind short stories. Ulysses starts much like "Artist" ends, but then it gets weird. I only started to get an idea of the humour in chapter 13, that's also where I almost completely stopped reading annotations and accepted I don't have to understand everything. I still think it is too long.

I read the first ten pages of Finnegans Wake last weekend and need to find out yet which part of my brain is needed to enjoy it. It's difficult not to look for a plot and just 'let the language happen'.

*****
After another night with not enough sleep I am now more than half through The Ill-Made Knight (listening didn't help this time to get back to sleep). I still have problems with the writing, but now I know what it reminds me of: it's the "Shrek" movies. The setting is in the Middle Ages, all picturesque and fairytale like, but the language is contemporary. This can be irritating, for example when Arthur says to Lancelot something like "I thought the Round Table might be a good idea, you know like kids being in a gang at school". That's why I quite hate most of the dialogues and enjoy the descriptive parts.

Lots to catch up on here since the cheese festival, Nathalie. I can't help chuckling at your experiences with listening to The Once and Future King. The unicorn and cat episodes were difficult for me to read, but for the most part, I liked the book quite well both times I read it.
You have a real treat in store for you with The Moon is Down.

I have a few unplanned days ahead of me so will immerse myself in Infinite Jest once again. I've gotten to the point where I am liking it. I do better when I can devote big chunks of time to it. I think you mentioned something about it being that kind of book.

I will try The Dubliners as I quite like short stories, thanks for the suggestion.

Nathalie, what a lot you have going on! I love and adore the pictures and would be very happy to take home some of the stinky cheese although spending a day surrounded by it might be challenging.
Hope you're sleeping better. Glad that you enjoyed *Pickwick* after all. I do hope that you get to Our Mutual Friend before your Dickens passion abates. I might have to reread it at some point this year always assuming that I get back to *D&S*. I too read *Once and Future* long, long ago. You make me sad that I might not want to go back.
I should go back to Ulysses which I read with a guide. Now that I know a little more, I'd like to try it on my own. Not this year though!
And I do plan to read something Muriel Sparky in April - some bloggers over on the Virago thread have a reading event planned.

I was just wondering, Nathalie, you mentioned "our star cheese". Are you and your family involved in the making of cheese? Have you ever thought about maple syrup infused cheese? Hmmmmm.

#69: Yes, sometimes it just happens that you don't like a book others loved/ recommended. In this case I really wish I'd like it better. Part 3 was quite good, as was the first half of part 4, but then once again it went downhill for me.

I am looking forward very much to reading The Moon is Down.

About IJ: You're right. When I started it early in 2010, right when it was published in Germany as a 1,400pages hardback, at first I was reading one or two other books parallely. I quickly had to give up on those and concentrate on IJ. It just demanded my full attention without saying 'please'! The first 200 pages or so were hard for me - once there was a slang section which even in German was almost unreadable, and then there was a murder which described just my personal nightmare (where the guy has a cold...).
Once I had made IJ my one and only book, it didn't let me out of its grip. Still, great as it is, I couldn't rate it with 5 stars. I just can't deal well with footnotes, not even when they are DFW extra-genius-funny ones.

#70: I hope you'll enjoy them, Mamie!

#71: A Muriel Spark event? Sounds very interesting - could you send me the link for that thread when it starts?

#72: My dad used to work for a dairy, but in marketing until he was fired for his involvement in my company. His friend, who was fired as well, was the production manager there and is in fact also a learned cheese maker. So these two and another friend, a wine maker, decided to make a small business of their hobbies/ ex-jobs and let young cheeses (different kinds of milk) ripen/ mature in an underground wine cellar, treating them with wine from the winery. As it is a big wine region there (Rheingau around Rüdesheim must still be the most famous region for white wines in Germany, along with Mosel maybe), they fully concentrate on the "cheese + wine" thing and sell their cheeses to a couple of restaurants there.

I never thought of combining cheese with maple syrup, because that's a bit of an exotic product here. But some cheeses work very well with honey, so why not? I could see it working with the goat cheese if it has a nice nutty flavour.

Another thing I miss here. Must check if my small organic shop sells it. I love bacon with maple syrup, learned that from agent Dale B. Cooper in "Twin Peaks".

Nathalie I trust that you are having a lovely weekend and that you are able to catch up on some sleep. I have myself.

When I was a young thing and could fully indulge in any food I wanted, I loved syrup on bacon (and the pancakes or waffles that generally accompanied them) so much. Enjoy them!

#75: thanks Paul, I slept very well, only too short. Daylight saving time started today in Europe.

#76: This has always been an exceptional indulgence for me as well, but now it has been years! I hope I'll find some, or my parents can bring some when they visit me in two weeks for Easter.

But I had ice cream today: hazelnut and raspberry (cinnamon was not on offer, Paul). It was delicious after a long walk, the first 'real' walk this year. It's still pre-season here, the tourists will arrive in about 10 days, so I was glad to have the most popular places almost exclusively for me one more time.

36. The Ill-Made Knight by T.H. White

The best part so far, and this is partly because there's less dialogue, at least in the first half. The book fully concentrated on Lancelot and White did a good job showing his inner conflicts between his love for Guinevere and his wish to be pure for God. Guinevere herself, annoying as she is in almost all of her dialogues, is very believable when White describes her as a woman disappointed by life and most of all by her childlessness. And then I also got a good look at Arthur's struggle to do the right thing, and his disillusion when seeing the results all his intentions to do good have brought him.

Rating: 3,5 stars


37. The Candle in the Wind by T.H. White

A nice first half was followed by an almost unbearable second one. Was this book written when the English still had some problems with the Scottish and Irish people? It feels most decidedly anti-Gaelic, and when White started the Hitler analogies (Mordred as the leader of the Gaelic people wanting to kill the Jews!!) I thought about abandoning the audio book. Endless dialogues again where a narrative would have been better. The ending was okay and made me add another 0,5 stars.
This seems to be the official end of the series, The Book of Merlin was published separately and later. I will listen to that one (I paid for it!), but am in no hurry to finish it soon.

Rating: 2,5 stars

38. Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

I found this book when skimming through my 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die copy on Saturday. It sounded quite inviting and I hadn't read any Japanese classics yet. And it's very short (max. 100 pages) and available on Kindle.

I read it yesterday in maybe an hour and a half, and although I acknowledge the stories have a certain allure I was quite underwhelmed. They all start out strongly and full of promise and then fall flat in the end.
No must.

Rating: 3 stars

Just realized I already read half of this year's 75 books. And Rashomon has been #222 on my 1001 list.

I am not all happy with my reading right now. The books I am currently reading are all irritating in some way. I thought Barchester Towers in all its English classic solidity would be a safe read, but sadly it isn't. It's like my nerves are on edge, I feel like I can't deal with all those emotions jumping at me from the book pages. Maybe what Stasia called a 'book-funk' is coming. I hope not.

I looked through the unread books on my shelf this weekend and there isn't a single one that promises to be soothing. I don't even feel like turning to something easy or silly or to my comic books which usually help.

Maybe I need a book with beautiful language where nothing much happens. I was thinking of buying the first quarter of A Dance to the Music of Time on audio. Has anyone read that yet? If it really is a bit like Proust, then it might be just what I need. I am however hesitating to start yet another one of those extra long chunksters. And 'like Proust' is an attribute often attached to a book just because it's long and half autobiographic and uses interior monologue.

Oh Nathalie, sorry your reading is not going the way you would like. When I get into a reading slump, I often will reread a book that I absolutely adore just so that I can be assured of a good reading experience - last summer I spent almost an entire month just rereading past favorites and that knocked me out of my funk. Then I was recharged and ready for new things. Hope you find a book that is just what you're in the mood for soon!

Nathalie, I've read most of Dance and plan to finish it in the next month. It's very good. Because it's a series of novellas, you could just read the first one and see if it agrees with you. I cannot speak to the Proust-ness of it, as I haven't read it, but my husband has read both Proust and Dance and really liked both.

And for what it's worth, I couldn't get into Barchester Towers at all!

I'll second what Laura says -- Dance is one of my top tens (of which there are more than ten, of course) - it's a wonderful read, and as you say, nothing much happens and the writing is wonderful.

#81: Thanks Mamie, I'll go and look through my old brain candy books again. They are all non-fiction and therefore should be emotion-free. It's ridicuous, but I feel personally overstressed by the problems of the "Barchester" characters. Not to forget the sufferings of poor Clarissa Harlowe. And then King Arthur who thinks he has failed in his life. Something's wrong with me. :-)

#82 and 83: Thank you both! I think it was even on Laura's thread where I first read about it. I bought the first 'movement' (movement?? dance movement?) as audiobook and will start listening to book 1 very soon, maybe later tonight.

Well Nathalie, if you are a bit overwhelmed by emotions yourself, it might be difficult to cope with (similair?) emotions in your readings. At least that is how it goes with me sometimes. And then I tend to go back to well known favorites from the past, just like Mamie recommended.

#78 Looks like you didn't fare that well with The Once and Future King series either.

Oh Nathalie, I feel for you in your book funk! I had one myself about 3 weeks ago. I finally turned to " brain candy " sorts of books, and now I am back to " normal", whatever that is. Sometimes I am just sick of reading about dysfunctional families, wars etc etc and it's time for a bit of brain candy... give it a try.

Sorry you're having a difficult time finding a book that pleases, Nathalie. It never hurts to take a little break now and then.

Thanks for the "cheese+wine" information. That's a great story of how something that seems bad turns out well in the long run.

#85: you're right Anita, this is part of the problem. I think it is especially the case with the Trollope book. In case of Clarissa Harlowe and TOaFK I am just losing my patience, because so much time is spent (I don't want to say wasted) with endless discussions/ letters without bringing the plot a step forward. And usually I like long books!

#86: No, sadly I didn't. I see that many people love the series, but somehow I couldn't get real access to it. I was annoyed by dialogues which were probably meant to be funny but for me seemed unnecessary and plain silly, while on the other hand there were those remarks like "if you want to know how this and that battle went (yes - that's what I would have liked to know!!), then go and read it in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur." Great.

I am now listening to part 5, The Book of Merlyn, on my way to and back from work which equals about 45 minutes daily. I should finish it some time next week.

Trollope spoilers coming:
I made some progress on Barchester Towers last night. Finally with Mr Arabin an interesting male character turned up, and I fear he will end up with nice but meek (plain boring!) Eleonore. Couldn't Trollope have invented an intellgent and witty Lizzy Bennet-like woman?

#87: thank you - I'll sure do that. Or turn to my favorite DVDs. I feel like rewatching "Sense and Sensibility" with Emma Thompson - beautiful landscapes, romances with happy endings..

#88: the thing is that this time I don't even feel like I need a break from reading novels. I've had short phases in the past where I felt I had 'over-read' and needed a break with my comic books or some chick-lit. This time it's more like I can't cope with all the problems in the different books. Maybe I have simply been reading too many books parallely for too long.

I'll just slow down, watch some nice and stress-free DVDs (as said above Austens are always great for that) and then concentrate on just one or two books for a while.

This could be the solution anyway - I just have to reduce my number of books on 'currently reading' status. Because once I am through my daily doses of "Arabian Nights" and "Clarissa" and my listening of "TOaFK" there are always at least 2-3 books left that need my daily attention. 20 pages here, a chapter there, that's just stupid and doesn't get me anywhere. It's like work!
So
- back on hold with the Eco until the Trollope is finished
- no listening to Dance to the Music of Time while "Merlyn" is still rambling
- and also back on hold with the 2 other books I started this week and haven't even reported here yet.

****
Edit:
Good reading news: I made it through the first year of the "1001 Nights" - Sheherazade or however she is spelled/spelt in English has managed to save her life for 365 days now.

And I got through the first 100 of the 500 poems in my poetry book.

And could somebody please take Clarissa's pen and inkstand away? How many letters and copies of letters can a woman write every day??

Most amusing! Clarissa didn't have LT -- or the internet -- just think what her blog might have been like!

#91: I wouldn't be a follower. Although - if her family had the chance to post comments, it might be fun to read. For a short while.

****
I fully concentrated on Barchester Towers + some mandatory pages of "Clarissa" for 2 days and feel a bit better about my reading. BT with its 672 is out of the way now and in the end I enjoyed it. I'll surely continue with that series soon, but not immediately.

Next main read will be Dino Buzzati's Il Deserto dei Tartari/ "The Tartar Steppe". It's a library book, so it has a higher priority than the Eco.

****
The yoga is getting better as well, I am getting up 30 minutes earlier in the morning to practise. I know I won't keep this up for very long, but right now it helps me. And then I have my morning coffee on the terrace and relax for some minutes before the daily routine starts.

39. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

Review contains spoilers
Part 2 of the Barsetshire Chronicles and with 672 pages much longer than part 1, The Warden. In a way it was also more enjoyable and is even more what I'd call a 'typical solid English classic', because it has more romance in it. Actually it's almost too typical, and this is also my main criticism. There's nothing that makes it special or outstanding. There's the small town, the clergy, some exotic newcomers, a widow who must be remarried and three possible candidates. This is a well-written book, and I like the way Trollope describes his characters and even how he addresses the readers. But it didn't hold a single surprise.

At an early point, when two of the three possible future husbands for the widow have just been introduced, Trollope tells the reader straight away that she won't chose any of them and in the next chapter presents candidate #3. Even if he hadn't spoilt his own romance it would have been clear from the beginning whom she'd chose. And also all the intrigues about the wardenship and the deanery ended happily, but not surprisingly. So with this book you get 672 pages of entertaining and light reading, interesting characters, but not a gripping plot.

Rating: 3,5 stars.

And now I'll take a short Trollope break and concentrate on the "Primavera in Italia" challenge for the TIOLI.

If I can get through another hour of "Merlyn" before Sunday, I'll end March with 15 books read. Many short ones among them, but also one Dickens. So the stats have to wait till Sunday.

Edit with spoilers:
Something I have to add about the book. I was asking myself why I didn't like the romance part, and found it was because it was unnecessarily protracted. In the romance novels I liked, the hero/heroine had to overcome real obstacles - his pride/ her prejudice, a wife in the attic, a fiancée who needs to be married to s.o. else first. There's usually real drama. Unrealistic, but highly readable!

Here the whole drama is that people don't talk. Had they talked, the ridiculous misunderstanding would have disappeared and the book could have ended 300 pages earlier. So what I didn't like was having to sit through 300 pages of not so funny misunderstandings while all the time knowing how it would end. I wish the "hero" (whom I liked a lot) had given up and looked for a better wife in the next town. At least there were Slope, the "Signora", Bertie and Mrs Proudie who earned the book its 3,5 stars.

Not tempting me on the Trollope - I keep thinking I need to read some but I think it can wait a bit longer!

I actually found Clarissa a bit better the last few letters - at least a slight change form the interminable mid-march patch. I'm up to 2nd April but actually found myself wanting to carry on reading last night, which was the first time in ages. Just about to see what happens with Soames...

#94: I also read the 2nd April today and might go on with the Solmes meeting later. I'll try and get through vol. 2 and maybe the first letters of vol. 3 before my parents arrive next Friday. You're right, the last letters were a bit better, but I also started skimming those passages where she is only repeating herself.

It's been awhile since I visited here. Many thanks for posing the cheese festival photos. It looks like a lot of fun. Congratulations on reading 39 books!

Hi Linda, thanks for your visit and the good wishes!

Finished "Merlyn", my #40, and can post my stats for March:

March reads:

Books read in March: 15
Pages read (finished books): 5002

Fiction: 13
Non-fiction: 1
Plays: 0
Short Story Books: 1
Poetry books: 0 (but 45 poems + 15 sonnets)

English: 13
German: 1
Italian: 1
French: 0

Audio books: 5 (bought as collection)
Kindle books: 5 (3 free, 2 bought)
Real books: 5 (3 owned, 2 library)

****************************************

Summary 2012:

Books read 2012: 40
Pages read: 14,768

Fiction: 32
Non-fiction: 4
Plays: 1
Poetry books: 0 (but 107 poems + 15 sonnets)
Comic books: 2 (counted as 1)
Short Story Books: 2

English: 21
German: 12
Italian: 6
French: 1

Audio books: 6 (6 bought)
Kindle books: 12 (7 free, 4 bought, 1 owned)
Real books: 22 (2 bought, 6 owned,14 library)

I neglected my Italian reading a bit in March, with all those English classics. I'll make up for it by dedicating most of April to Italian literature.

Planned April reads:

- Il Cimitero di Praga by Umberto Eco - IT
- Il Gattopardo by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (reread in IT)
- Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens, I'll read this short Dickens travelogue with Peggy/LizzieD - EN
- La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi - IT
- Il Deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati - IT
- The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck - EN
- A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell (Part 1 of Dance to the Music of Time) - EN
- Life by Keith Richards - DE

Oh you have some brilliant brilliant reading ahead of you -- absolutely all winners!!!!!!!!

#100: thank you, that's what I needed to read. I was getting a little worried that I might have overcommitted.

Nice stats and great reading plans. I have Pictures from Italy in my pile for this month also, along with the Steinbeck.

*edited because I can't spell!

#102: thanks Mamie! I'm looking forward to reading Pictures from Italy, it will be interesting to see Dickens outside his usual environments

40. The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White

I have to admit I haven't been the most attentive listener during this last part of The Once and Future King. Merlyn visits Arthur on the eve of the fight against Mordred and takes him back to his place (the magic prison where Nimue had locked him in many years ago). There Arthur meets all his old animal friends from The Sword in the Stone and they have a lively discussion about the ferocity of mankind and the homo politicus. Arthur is even turned into animals again, first into an ant, then into a wild goose.
Although I share many of White's ideas, I didn't know what to make of all this. I don't need to read/ listen to political theories set in a fairly tale environment with a hedgehog that speaks completely uncomprehensible old English. Or with ants singing 'antland antland over all' in nazi style. I found the anachronisms confusing here, it's too much foreshadowing of bolshewism or the existence of Rolls Royce cars for a Middle Ages setting. Too boring for kids, too childish for adults?
If I didn't like it it wasn't the narrator's fault. He did a very good job especially with this last part.

Rating: 2,5 stars

41. The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro/ La Testa Perduta di Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi

The book starts with Manolo the Gypsy* finding a headless body in a shrubbery close to the (fictional) Portuguese city Oporto. The body is clad in a shirt with the print 'Stones of Portugal'. A day or so later, Firmino, a young journalist, returns from his holidays to his home town Lisbon and is immediately sent to Oporto to investigate the case. The strange and all-knowing owner of the hotel he stays in, Dona Rosa, quickly gets him an interview with Manolo. The body is still unidentified, but the police reports don't mention the shirt, claiming the body's torso had been nude.

From this point on, Firmino follows a trace that finally leads to the clarification of the case. But this is not your usual crime story. Firmino is set on the trace, by all the witnesses, by Dona Rosa and by the advocate Don Fernando. He is receiving clear orders - where to go, whom to meet, what to do, and after each step he is to send an article to his newspaper, so a lot of things are published which the local police has been trying to cover up. Firmino is becoming an instrument of truth.

I liked the writing very much and found the story gripping, despite the philosophical and political parts. Actually I couldn't put the book down and made it through 200 pages of (not too difficult) Italian in 24hrs which must be a new record.

I liked this book just as much as the more famous Pereira Declares. I'll try and read more Tabucchi books in the near future. Following his recent death on March 25, my library has moved all his books from the archive back onto the open shelves, so there's much to discover. In the local bookshops however I didn't find a single Tabucchi book on display and the staff didn't even know he had died.

Rating: 4 stars

* he is called "Manolo il Gitano" in the original - I fear 'gypsy' is far from pc, but my dictionary didn't offer any alternatives in line with the original

42. The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck contains small spoilers

The first Steinbeck I read in English and a very short book. Maybe 100 pages? My Kindle doesn't tell.

Now... how can I say this? I didn't enjoy this story, but it isn't meant to be enjoyed I guess. I felt like being back in my school days, I was constantly reminded of the countless didactic plays by Brecht, Frisch and also Duerrenmatt we had to read and discuss then. This whole book feels like a modern abstract play translated into prose. There's mostly dialogue, and even the few descriptive parts sound like stage directions (sound of airplanes, sound of machine guns, etc.).

So what I really missed here was the beautiful poetic prose I had fallen in love with in Cannery Row and the character descriptions as we got them in Wayward Bus. I also missed the interpretative work I had to do mainly for Winter of our Discontent. In TMiD, Steinbeck very plainly delivers his message, and I must say I don't feel any need to discuss it. I got it, and I agree.

The story starts when a town (presumably in some Northern European country) is conquered by another nation - very obviously Germany. Even a faraway "Leader" is mentioned. The conquerors show very civilized manners and try to get the population, mainly the administration in form of the Mayor, to co-operate. But slowly, triggered by some event I don't want to spoil here, resistance in the population grows.

This is very well done, and last night after finishing it I read on wiki that the book was distributed in occupied France and even Russia during WWII. Doubtlessly this is an important work. And I value its importance. It's not the book's fault that my feeling of being back in school was connected with a certain anxiety, a very uncomfortable feeling, like I had forgotten to make my homework.

One thing I found funny:
Steinbeck managed to identify many of the famous German stereotypes and put each of them into one of the commanders, so they all, except for the colonel, are like one-dimensional caricatures. There's the meticulous military guy, there's the romantic over-emotional boy who just wants to be liked, there's the admirer of all things British with his weakness for Christmas, there's the sober, over-organized and calculating one. They all don't get along with each other very well and this is a great allegory for the many souls a single German person might feel in his/her breast and the inner fights, doubts and the contradictory behaviour which might come out of it. We are a strange people.
(I really knew a guy who had prepared long obituaries for the deaths of his wife and himself and he liked to read them out to her, being so moved by his own sentimental writing that he always started crying. Neighbours witnessed it. He was a relative of mine, in fact. He also got sentimental when the 'Heimat' was concerned, or 'the Forest'. )

Rating: 3,5 stars (because I liked the other novels better)

Spring has arrived and brought the tourists along

Oh my, that is so pretty, can't really blame those tourists!

Oh my goodness, Nathalie, you're living in a picture postcard! And walking through it!
*Dance to the Music* is at the top of my series list. I wouldn't have said that nothing happens exactly. It's just that everybody is very, very involved in every relationship - I hope that you love it and that it forestalls the book funk.
Here's the thread for the Muriel Spark Week.

#108: I can't either, I used to be one of them for many years

#109: yeah, sometimes I think it looks completely unreal. Especially in spring when *bang* everything is in full bloom, and in autumn when the apples and grapes are ready for harvesting. Even as a grumpy tourist kid many years ago I thought it was like paradise.

Thanks for the link. My edition of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is not a Virago though, just a cheap.. erm, Penguin I think? Must check back home. But I'll book it for the last week of April.

Beautiful - Wish I was there!

I liked your reviews above. The Steinbeck is 112 pages long. I haven't read it yet - hopefully, today I will get to it. I think the reason you didn't like it as well is that is was specifically written as war propaganda. Steinbeck worked with the precursors to the CIA, and one of the things that came out of that was the book The Moon is Down. However, Steinbeck also served as a war correspondent during WWII and sent dispatches home to be published in the New York Herald Tribune. Later he gathered some of those dispatches and published them in book form - There Once was a War. The stories are very good; he reported on behind the scenes stuff, not the big battles that most reporters were covering. I think you would like it.

#107 Really stunning scenery you've got there - I can just imagine sitting out with a coffee and a good book.

Love the picture, it is beautiful there!

The moon is down was published in the Netherlands in 1944 as well.
And Mamies suggestion There once was a war sounds good too.

Both not available at the local library, but there are many cheap second hand copies, so.... I will think a while ;-)

#111: thanks for the background info, Mamie. I'll put There Once was War on my WL. It's clear even from the other novels we've read already that WWII has been a defining experience for Steinbeck.
And as I said, it's really not his fault my teachers tortured me at a too young age with too much of similar literature in play form. I think it is mainly Frisch's Andorra it reminds me of. Must reread it to get over the 'trauma'.

#112: that's actually what I like doing :-)

#113:published in the Netherlands in 1944 - it can't have been an easy task for the resistance people. There are some intelligent and no doubt encouraging statements towards the ending, about winning battles vs winning wars which thankfully proved to be right.

Lovely picture of your place Nathalie - hoping to "do" Italy with the family next spring - so if you are still there......maybe we could arrange a meet-up.
Impressive reading through March and into April. Hoping to get to the start of the Palliser series by Trollope later in the year. Read the Barchester series years ago and thought it only ok as you too seemed to.

#115: Hi Paul, thanks for visiting me during your holidays!
I do hope very much that I'll still be here next year and I'd love to arrange an Italy meet-up!

****

I am right now reading a book I thought I'd never be interested in: Life by Keith Richards. But thanks to Lucy's (sibyx') enthusiastic review I just had to get it from my library.

It's the most unhandy book I read since Infinite Jest. It has 'only' 730 pages in German, but they are of the thick, heavy sort. The whole thing weighs almost 1,2 kg (the German IJ is heavier with 1,4 but has twice the pages), so it isn't a book I can carry around with me.

Now, this realls is a fun read! God, the life of a rock star back in the 60s certainly wasn't all easy with daily gigs, the crazy fans and all the travelling without a break. And yet I am sad I so completely missed those times, I'm sure I would have been a fangirl. I was born in 1971, and while I quite enjoyed much of the "New Romantics" in the early 80s, I always looked at the 60s and 70s music with some envy - those clearly had been the good times! Most of the 80s were dead boring and the 90s weren't any better.

And while I can listen to that music now and enjoy it, it will never be the same as having 'been there'. I have some of the oldest Stones songs on my ipod and listened to them again last night: "As Tears go by" (which is certainly not rock music, but I love it anyway and now I know Phil Spector played the bass!), "Play with Fire", "Lady Jane", the unevitable "Satisfaction" which is not really a favorite with me though I understand the significance when they published it, and last not least the original "Ruby Tuesday" which I like better than all the covers. I like the old mono sound and the variety of instruments that were used in pre-computer times.

Oh Nathalie, I just spent the better part of an hour getting caught up with you. I've been feeling terribly guilty these days about not having visited some of my favourite LT friends' threads for so long... but the good part of it is that there's is LOTS to sink one's teeth in. You always amaze me with the amount of DENSE reading you do and I always enjoy your reviews which reveal just enough to get a good idea what the book is about and then with spoilers optional, takes it to another level if you're already read it. I skipped over The Moon is Down as haven't started it yet. The Once and Future King has me intimidated more than ever, but I'll do like you did and eventually just take it one book at a time and see how it goes.

I have the next few weeks free between sessions at my art school. Maybe I should hop on a plane and come visit you in dreamland for a few days? ;-)

>116 Deern: Good bye Ruby Tuesday
who could hang a name on you?

Oh indeed how I loved the Stones. *sigh*

Hi Nathalie. Had a good time catching up on this thread and as usual some good reviews. Learning a lot here.

What a wonderful place you are living in - spring must be a special time to watch everything come alive...well, besides the tourist....

Funny to read about your struggles with Trollope, I guess I enjoy his irony more than you do. Found Barchester Towers hilarious.

Coming out of a book flunk myself. In stead of reading I've watched more movies than usual, now I'm slowly getting into reading-mode again......

So happy you are loving Life!!!!!

I found a great CD set - of all the singles they put out between 1963-1971. One tune came on yesterday and I could remember the smell and taste of some ghastly whitish lip gloss I used to slather on when going to a dance party.

Your comments are so poignant. I was on the young side -- too young to get to the early concerts or to sneak off to Woodstock, but old enough to get all the music on my wee transistor radio. It's too easy to romanticize the time, I think, except for the explosion of music. I do feel incredibly privileged.

A UK friend of my parents brought the first Beatles album to us as a house present - a few months in advance of the 'Meet the Beatles' put out in the US. 1962? 3? Maybe even before their tour here. I remember my mother saying later, he was warning them that there was going to be a musical tidal wave. We came downstairs as we did in our pj's to greet guests and they put on the record and I remember my brother, sister and I going absolutely berserk dancing (ages 8, 11, 13) and parents with their scotch on the rocks looking on bemused.

So happy you are loving Life!!!!!

I found a great CD set - of all the singles they put out between 1963-1971. One tune came on yesterday and I could remember the smell and taste of some ghastly whitish lip gloss I used to love and slather on when going to a dance party.

Your comments are so poignant. I was on the young side -- too young to get to the early concerts or to sneak off to Woodstock, but old enough to get all the music on my wee transistor radio. It's too easy to romanticize the time, I think, except for the explosion of music. I do feel incredibly privileged.

A UK friend of my parents brought the first Beatles album to us as a house present - a few months in advance of the 'Meet the Beatles' put out in the US. 1962? 3? Maybe even before their tour here. I remember my mother saying later, he was warning them that there was going to be a musical tidal wave. We came downstairs as we did in our pj's to greet guests and they put on the record and I remember my brother, sister and I going absolutely berserk dancing (ages 8, 11, 13) and parents with their scotch on the rocks looking on bemused.

I skimmed your review of The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro, but I'm very glad that you enjoyed it as much as Pereira Declares. I'll probably read Damasceno Monteiro next week.

Lovely photo!

#117: Hi Ilana, no guilt feelings please. Visit whenever you feel like it. I know how it is, and I'll be neglecting threads for the next few days and fall hopelessly behind once again.
We had just the drastic weather change in dreamland as I had anticipated for Easter. My parents are here, and I had taken the picture last week mainly as a proof that the weather had indeed been good before they arrived. It has been raining all day today and the temperatures are below 10°C, there's fresh snow up on the mountains.

Maybe you'll like ToaFK better than I did, it has such positive ratings here on LT. It's 5 separate books, so you can take it slow. The first book is about 9hrs and the longest, if you like it I am sure you'll like the rest as well.

#118: Richard, since I started reading that book, I can't get the few Stones songs I know out of my head (we call that an "earworm", a melody enters through your ear and gets right into your brain).
As soon as my parents give me some time I need to download every song mentioned in the book. Stupid 80s music, I missed so much!

#119: Welcome back, Carsten! As I said on your thread, I will go on with the Trollope soon. 3,5 stars is my rating for an enjoyable read without many flaws, and maybe I was just a little over-fed with the goold old English classics. Keith Richards + the mandatory short reading break while my parents are here might help me.

I love Lucy's story about their first exposure to The Beatles. Sounds exactly like a scene from a book or out of a movie. So typical of the times that the parents would have been drinking Scotch on the rocks too! :-)

Much like you Nathalie, I used to think I'd missed out on all the fun, having been born in 1969 and my mother especially deeply steeped in the music of the times. I more than made up for missing out on the sex drugs n' rock'n roll later... but somehow it wasn't nearly as romantic as all that probably was in the early to late sixties.

#120: I love this story!! And I like the book more and more the closer I get to the ending. Sorry I can't write more today, my posting time is a bit limited this weekend.
Btw I saw that CD set and am considering buying it. Maybe I should give it to myself as an Easter gift. :-)

Happy Easter, Nathalie! It's raining here as well. I'm glad it held off long enough so we could get the yard work done. I always feel bad for the children who have to move Easter Egg Hunts indoors when it rains on Easter.

I think I liked The Moon is Down better than you. I knew nothing about the book and was so surprised at the subject matter. I have fond memories of the 60s music. You and Lucy are tempting me with Life!

Yay, more visitors!
#122: thanks Darryl! I hope you'll enjoy it as well. Maybe I'll get the other Tabucchi (the one you read) from the library in time for the TIOLI.

#126: Ilana, there's so much I could write about this time and about the awful music my parents listened to. They were young in the 60s and didn't buy a single Beatles or Stones record, can you imagine?
Unlike you I never made up for the times missed. There was just one year of partying and then it was all "been there done that and it's always the same" and I returned to my books. I've always been a boring bookworm.*sigh*
And you are right, the romantic bit was very short-lived and was already gone in the 70s. The atmosphere in the 80s was completely different.

#128: Happy Easter to you as well, Donna! I hope you'll have a dry Sunday so the the Egg Hunting can be done outside (it is done on the Sunday morning in the US as well, I guess?).
As kids we used to build little nests made of moss on the Saturday, and then on the Sunday morning we'd find them filled with eggs and chocolate, and more hidden below the trees and elswhere in the garden.

HAPPY EASTER to everyone!

My parents arrived on Friday and will stay for 9 days, so my online time and my reading time are severely limited. I'll do my best to keep up with you, and I wish you a wonderful and hopefully sunny weekend.

Happy Easter, Nathalie, and have a lovely time with your parents visiting. It's Sunday morning and sunny here. (and now I have 120 messages to read that i have missed on your thread!)

Happy Easter - hope the Easter bunny brings you some nice chockies :)

Enjoy your time with your parents Nathalie.
And don't worry about neglecting us, we will still be here when you have some more reading and LT time ;-)

Spring meetup... sigh... next years visit to the Cote d'Azur will be in February... not THAT far away from you.

Happy Easter, Nathalie! I hope some of their nine days with you will have a return to that lovely weather you photographed last week!
My first experience with the Beatles would have been in the spring of my sophomore year in college, 1964. The first girl on campus to have the album was a girl in my dorm, which had two waist to ceiling windows in each room rising from the built-in desk. We went wild too. We put the album on the loudest stereo available and stationed a dancer in every window across the whole front of the dorm. We'd dance until we couldn't dance anymore, and then somebody else would take that place for the whole afternoon. By the end of the afternoon, everybody knew every word of every cut on the record.

I love that story Peggy -- if only there was a picture of that!

Happy Easter, Nathalie!! Hope you're having a wonderful visit with your parents.
Anyway, I'm jealous! What a lovely picture of the tourists. I'm not really up on architecture but is that a Norman castle in the background? I'm not sure if they were built so far south.
I skipped your review of The Moon is Down. I need to get back to it but Jane Eyre has me wrapped in her spell.
I'm glad to see yoga is working for you. I truly love it to start my day.

Hope you've had a lovely Easter Nathalie! I finally posted my eggs on my blog!

Only a short visit, and I noticed there are HUNDREDS of unread messages waiting already. Well, the weather is bad, so I can LT all weekend when my parents have left. Can't go outside anyway (for an explanation see below).

The weather was mixed, but cold al the time and today it is raining heavily.
My mother managed to catch a really bad cold on the first day and can't leave the house now. Not the holiday my parents had imagined. :-(

#132: thank you Cushla! So that's where the good weather was - on the other side of the world. :-)

#133: thanks Bekka! Yes, I got a little nest with chocolate eggs and one of those Lindt gold bunnies which are too cute to eat

#134: Hi Anita, I hope I'll make it to your thread again within the next days. A Cote d'Azur meetup would be nice! Is anything planned?

#135 (and #136): I love that story! I talked to my mum about both the Beatles and the Stones last weekend and she said she preferred the Beatles, especially their German songs. Did you know they recorded German versions of their first hits? "I wanna hold your hand" became "Komm gib mir Deine Hand", and my mum knew the German texts quite well back then, she told me. But sadly she never bought any of their records. They might have a value now.

#137: Hi Lynda, I have to check who built it. It's only a tower actually, but the region here has hundreds of old castles.
You do morning yoga as well? I used to do it in the evenings when I am less stiff, but I found that for my mind the morning is better. And I can easily make time for it by getting up a little earlier, in the evening it's too easy to find excuses.

#138: thank you Ilana! I already admired the first egg on your blog before Easter (did I comment? Maybe not), I'll go and have a look at the others later today.

*****

Some might remember from last year that I am a specialist for stupid accidents. Today I didn't fall and rip my clothes and the notebook didn't fall on my face in bed and cut my lip, but I somehow managed to hit my own throat and even scratch it with my too long finger nail. Don't ask me how it happened, I have no idea. I might have been scratching my nose while deep in thought about some calculations and my finger slid off. Now the thing on my throat looks like something between a hickey and a strangulation mark. I fear I'll have to wear scarves for weeks. I am using an ice pack, but I'm sure it will be blue tomorrow.

oh - and I actually finished some books:


43. Schloss Gripsholm /Castle Gripsholm by Kurt Tucholsky

This is one of the cases where I didn’t like the book, but found the writing so compelling that I know I’ll need to read more books by the author.

The book starts with the correspondence between the author Tucholsky and his publisher. The publisher asks him to write an easy little love story, while the author tries to negotiate his earnings. Tucholsky then starts into his summer holidays with his lover Lydia. They travel to Sweden and after some search they rent an apartment in the castle Gripsholm for several weeks. They meet some friends from Germany and it is not very subtly hinted that one night Kurt has a threesome with Lydia and her friend Billie.

There is a parallel story about a homesick little German girl in a summer camp in the neighborhood where the girls are being abused by the sadistic warden.

I liked the first chapters a lot. The writing is great, mostly light and humorous, but now and then Tucholsky throws in some remarks that show the shadows that are rising in the background, threatening to destroy the idyll. But the rest of the story is strangely incoherent and I was actually glad when the very short book was finished. The story reads like a real travelogue, but Tucholsky later admitted that everything, even the correspondence with his publisher, had been fiction.

Tucholsky was a writer who very early recognized the danger of the radical powers forming in Germany in the 1920s. He was a pacifist and anti-militarist and wrote many political/satirical/critical pieces for the weekly magazine “Die Weltbühne”. This book was published in 1931, and Tucholsky had already in 1929 moved to Sweden, the country he loved. Unlike other German authors he didn’t actively write against the Nazi regime from his exile after 1933 – he had done that in abundance in advance, and when the Nazis had taken over, he finally cut off all literary links to his home country. He died in 1935.

Rating: 3 stars

44. Life by Keith Richards

Placeholder, because while I officially finished the book, I am now listening to the music and am not yet ready for the review.
I already bought one album on itunes, and I might really spend the 35€ on the one with all the 60s singles. I clearly prefer the older stuff with more blues than rock, until the early 70s I'd say.

Rating: 4 stars

45. Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith

I was disappointed by this book. I had read the first few short chapters as a Kindle sample last year and liked them a lot, and when I saw the basic version of the book without illustrations is available on gutenberg I got it last week, looking forward to a fun read as a counterbalance to the Buzzati book. Now I found that most of the story is so outdated that (for me) the humor in most of the remaining chapters didn’t work anymore. It is obvious that Sue Townsend used it when writing the first Adrian Mole diaries (and that was a disappointment as well, I thought the style in those books had been her own idea!).

The story starts when the middle-aged couple Pooter move into a new neighbourhood. They encounter various problems with the local merchants (the decision for the right butcher was an important one!) and craftspeople. Then there are misunderstandings with old friends. All normal everyday business and really quite amusing. Pooter believes to own a special sense of humor, a conviction often not shared by his friends. But when the couple’s son moves back into their house after having lost his job, Grossmith lost me. I found the second half of the book really boring and completely stopped caring, and – more importantly – smiling. Still an easy and short 1001 book, but I prefer Pooter’s modern copy, Adrian Mole.

Rating: 3 stars

46. Il Deserto dei Tartari / The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

Giovanni Drogo is a young soldier fresh from military school, ordered to serve for 2 years in a military bastion at the Northern border of his (virtual) country. Expecting to get involved in exciting battles and to make a great career, he is disappointed to find that nothing ever happens in that place. The land behind the bastion is a vast desert, never entered by the enemy, the “tartars from the North”. Giovanni is determined to leave on the first occasion to get to a more promising place, but quickly gets ensnared by the strange atmosphere of constant anticipation. Sure, the tartars have never been there. But if they came, how much glory could a soldier win within a short time. So like many others he stays and time goes by, almost unnoticed due to the never-changing military daily routine.
I admit this book had its lengths, and it wasn’t an easy read for me. It’s not simple language, and when I read books in Italian it’s easier for me when have a more gripping plot. But it is a very good book and deserves to be a 1001. It was Buzzati’s intention to show how we start into life in our youth, expecting the world is waiting for us and how, after getting trapped in the daily routine, we let our energy vanish and just drift along our lives until we expire (a bit like the "Magic Mountain"). I felt very much affected by all this and maybe I should better have read it at a different time, as it added a bit to my actual melancholy (not yet depressive) mood. The original writing is beautiful and I hope the translators did a good job. I’ll read more Buzzati – thank you Lucy/ sibyx for recommending him!

Rating: 3,5 official stars, but it’s more like 3,75 and I might upgrade it to 4.

Nathalie, I'm sorry that your parents' visit has turned out to be less that idyllic. You are talking to the woman who often closes her own finger in the door as she closes it. :(
I'm not sure how I got it, but I seem to have a copy of Castle Gripsholm. I'm intrigued, but it will have to wait!
Give me another couple of days to finish Gillespie and I, and then I'll be ready to accompany Dickens through Italy when you are.

Nathalie, you have been busy! Sorry that your parents visit didn't go the way you wanted and that your mom was sick. Bummer. I really want to read the Keith Richards book, but I want the audio version which our library doesn't have. I am wondering if the library down in Georgia where we will be moving has it, so am putting it off for now. Hope the rest of your week goes well.

#139 You do really have an ability for truly random accidents!

> 139: Oh, that is no fun, your mother ill and you hurting yourself :-(
I used to be the champion of clumsy accidents in higschool, three steps to the principal and I came back in class with a spained ankle. Through the years it became a bit better, although I did something nasty to my finger 10 days ago in the garden... worse is that I don't even REMEMBER where it happend!

We will probably be at the Cote d'Azur from February 3th until February 15th 2013, we might take a d-tour through Italy if you are interested :-)

Sorry to hear things aren't going too well for you and your mum. I have to be careful when I scratch myself because my skin is so pale and marks so easily that it can quickly look like a skin disease with red streaks that stay marked for hours sometimes. Also, if I've slept on my side or rolled onto my face, the pillow stays imprinted on my face for the whole day... now that's embarrassing!

Hi Nathalie, just catching up with your thread (at last). Thanks for posting the photos. Your home town is beautiful and I hope the weather is soon back to how it is in the photograph. And seeing all that cheese has made me really hungry...

I was also underwhelmed by The Girls of Slender Means and The Diary of a Nobody. With the former, I felt I was missing something and it put me off trying any more Muriel Spark. I'd already read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (possibly at too young an age) and felt I hadn't "got" that either. That one I will try again. However, a few people on LT seem to have enjoyed Memento Mori, so I'm keen to give that a try at some point too.

I didn't find The Diary of a Nobody particularly funny, but I suppose it's important because of the influence it's had subsequently (e.g. on TV situation comedy, as well as on other authors).

ETA: I hope your mum's feeling better soon and that your neck is soon back to normal!

Hi Nathalie, it's a bummer that your mom was not feeling well during their visit but I bet just seeing them and being with them was still a treat.

I went to iTunes after finishing Life too! I tried to pick up the guitar licks that Richards mentioned but found I don't have a great ear for those things. I enjoyed listening to the tunes, none the less.

Just popping in to wish you a lovely weekend. Hope your throat is better.

#144: I just posted on your thread re. the Dickens. I am having business visitors tomorrow and on Tuesday, but could probably start Tuesday night.
Parts of the Gripsholm book are written in a very difficult German dialect. I wonder what they did in the English translation, probably also something Northern.

#145: I put the audio version on my WL as well, but am also glad I read the book, just for the pictures and the references to the songs.

#146: you know, a minute or so later I broke a glass and it is quite a miracle I didn't cut my hand (or my throat) with any of the pieces.

#147: you're getting better with the accidents with the years, I am getting worse. I don't remember any of that stuff from my childhood.
Hm.. it's a bit of a drive, but always worth a visit. Make sure to tell me in advance. Maybe I can arrange it.

#148: I have difficult skin, but not too sensitive, so scratches heal quickly usually. But I can relate to those pillow prints. :-(

#149: Rebeki, Memento Mori was a book I thoroughly enjoyed, although I'd say about half a star was gained by the narrator's performance (it was an audio book).
I hope to "get" The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie now on my second try as well.

#150: I didn't hear those licks either. But I found I am much more listening to the instruments now. And reading the book made me appreciate the work required to "write" a song. And it showed me that for a real artist work never ends. Can't believe it took them years to get "Start me Up" perfected.

#151: thank you! Happy Sunday to you! :-)

My parents left yesterday and almost immediately a migraine started. Not one of the really bad ones others are suffering from, but they seem to get more frequent and painful with the years. So there was not much reading this weekend and also sadly not much LTing.
The next few days will be very busy with visitors from Norway who hopefully will bring some business to me. I hope I will at some point be able to catch up and post on your threads.

I've been feeling low for some weeks now, and I had hoped that my parents' visit might lighten things up a bit. But with the bad weather and my mother's cold I almost felt guilty, because they didn't have the nice holiday we had all been hoping for. Sure, none of it was my fault, but when people come to see me here I always feel responsible for their wellbeing. *sigh*
I hope their next visit will be much better.

Reading updates:

Clarissa Harlowe (chronological read):
I had gained a little advance before my parents arrived and lost it all on (the book's) April 13th which had, if I remember well, 13(!!) letters. So now I am a couple of letters behind.

Il Cimitero di Praga:
I am really having a hard time with it. It just doesn't work. I read 150 pages in the last few days, have finished 3/5 and still it feels like a preparation for the main plot. Eco is a great writer, but I am not happy with this story.

With all the Italian books I listed for the TIOLI and with the Easter interruption, I put Arabian Nights on hold for the month, otherwise I'd never get the Eco out of the way or alternatively completely lose track on "Clarissa".

Back to reading. I wish you all a happy Sunday and a wonderful new week!

Good grief, Nathalie! I understand that *CP* and Eco may be quite compelling from time to time, but it sounds to me as though you need to read something thrilling and fun! I'm not sure that CD on Italy will be that although it is short...... Hope you feel better tomorrow!

Nathalie, so sorry to hear that you are not feeling well. Sounds like you are burning the candle at both ends - Peggy is right, you need "something thrilling and fun" just for you. Sending good thoughts your way about the visitors from Norway!

How nice for you that visitors from Norway might be bringing you some of their business along with their company. Maybe that will lift your spirits after a disappointing time with your parents. I'm sure your mother felt comforted by your presence in her sniffly state and enjoyed your company despite feeling under the weather. In my family, most of the dads are just as happy to sit in front of a TV as to be out and about doing things anyway. Wishes right back at you for a better week!

Sorry to see you're not so well. And I know it's easier said than done, but you really don't need to take on responsibility for other people's wellbeing, especially when it's completely beyond your control!

I saw Diary of a Nobody on the latest Audible sale and knew I'd just read about it recently, but didn't remember where or if it was recommended or not. I put it in my shopping cart, but I'll go take it out right away. If I'm really dying to read it someday, I'll just get it from Project Gutenberg for free like you did...

Hope you feel all better very soon.

#154 - Hi Nathalie, I hope the migraine's gone and that things go well with your Norwegian visitors.
You know, it's entirely possible that your mother's also feeling almost guilty for having caught a cold, when neither of you should be worrying. I'm sure your parents appreciated seeing you, whatever the weather/their state of health.

Nathalie - I hope the migraine is subsiding and that the Norweigans are harbingers of good fortune to your business. Sorry that your parents' visit didn't quite succeed to lighten your mood and this is hardly likely to be helped by listening to Keef tear through the Stones back-catalogue - still that is almost worth gaining a migraine for!

Top three favourite Stones tracks:
Paint it Black
Let's Spend the Night Together
Sympathy for the Devil

>160 PaulCranswick:: ah yes, the "woo woo song"! I have it on a jogging playlist, it's long and keeps me moving.

Paint It Black really is a remarkable tune isn't it?

I have to think about which are my favorites, I bet I can't narrow it down to 3.

I love Paint it Black, but You Can't Always Get What You Want is my all-time favorite.

oh - visitors! :-)
While catching up on your threads (not done yet) I neglected mine once again.

#155: Peggy: so far it seems the Dickens is just what I needed! and thanks for the PN re. *Dance*, maybe I'll even get the paper copy.

#156: thank you so much, Mamie! It's stressful, yes, but I can still cope with it. A good book always helps...

#157: Donna, you're absolutely right! One reason why my mum was in such a bad mood with her cold was that it gave my dad an excuse to stay in and watch TV. She had planned to go hiking with him, to get him to move. :-)

#158: Thanks Ilana. This disposition to feel responsible or even guilty for things we cannot influence runs in the family. I am trying to work on it, but it seems I can't get rid of it.
As audible version the "Diary" might be more fun, actually.

#159: Hi Rebeki, yes - the migraine is gone, though the ever-changing weather (hot and sunny yesterday, cold and rainy today) gives me a constant light headache, but that's manageable. The Norwegians were very nice and I think we had a constructive meeting. No quick business though. Whatever might come up will take another couple of months.

#160: Hi Paul, I always thought I didn't know many Stones songs, but when I browsed the iTunes samples I found I know so many of them, also the 3 you mentioned. Haven't found a favorite yet.

I have a problem with "Angie" as it was used in 2009 for Angela Merkel's election campaign (I believe the Stones later complained because it wasn't authorized). When I hear the song, I see Merkel's face, and somehow ... not that I don't like her, but it just doesn't fit.

And it was funny to learn he wrote it while being on cold turkey(?) in Switzerland. I wonder if anybody of Merkel's people knew that. :-)

#161: Hi Laura, since I read your post, I constantly hear the "woo woo" in my head. It's fun! :-)

#162: Yes, it is. And I need to get back to iTunes tonight....

#163: This one I don't remember from my samples. I'll check it tonight.

I just put my "Hot Rocks" CD in the car for this weekend's 6-hour round trip to see the Grandkids. My husband and I both like The Stones...and there's not enough car time to complete an audiobook.

I'm glad things are better in your life, Nathalie.

*waving* at Nathalie

Nathalie, I'm starting the Dickens tonight. I'll maybe have something to say tomorrow!

No Stones last night... my internet connection at home decided to take the night off. Not completely, but sometimes it is terribly slow and unable to connect me to music/video sites. Often it recovers after some minutes, but sometimes it takes an hour or longer. It seems to be a kind of priority thing. My theory is that when I wait long enough for others to switch off, suddenly my connection gets more speed. And after taking a break I often have to wait again. Is this normal? Back in Frankfurt I never had those issues, but Frankfurt was one of the best-connected places in Germany with high speed DSL being the standard.

#166: you're right, the Stones might be good for a long drive. Especially when you know/ understand the lyrics and can sing along

#167: *waving* back at Stasia. Good to see you here!

#168: I am looking forward to your thoughts, Peggy

47. A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

I found the “Dance to the Music of Time” saga on Laura’s (lindsacl’s) thread and was delighted to see it is also a 1001 book (all the 12 count as 1 though) + it’s called ‘The English answer to Proust’. I loved Proust’s books and I like my challenges, so I spent an audible credit and bought the ‘1st Movement’, novels 1-3.

Not such a great idea as I found when I started listening to part 1, A Question of Upbringing. The thing is that I listen to audio books mainly while driving. While dialogue usually is fine, I have problems following long unexciting narratives. The problem is not necessarily that they are boring (here at least they were not), but that the narrator’s voice becomes too ‘uniform’(?) and my ears can't get hooked. Understand what I mean? They just refuse to listen. I constantly had to rewind which isn’t great when driving. I decided to buy the 2nd Movement in book form, either as paper copy or for my Kindle.

The book itself was nice. Not great, not overwhelming, but nice in a very good way. It consists of 4 chapters from young Jenkins’ life: some public school episodes, a visit to a friend’s home, a journey to France, the first months at college. In all of these chapters the interactions of the protagonist with other characters and his observations of their behavior form the main plot. We don’t learn anything about Jenkins’ studies, the French landscapes or his language issues there.
It all feels like a set-up to more, and I am sure that at some point in the remaining 11 volumes I will meet all those interesting characters again.

I generally enjoy such ‘typically English’ books about the ‘lower upper class’ (or is it ‘upper middle class’?). I liked Brideshead Revisited a lot, and Vile Bodies and similar books. I am wondering however if life as a young Englishman really was as it is described here. There must be deeper emotions somewhere? It cannot all have been ‘slightly amusing’ or ‘adequate’; something at some point must have been hilarious? Or really really annoying? It must be terribly demanding to keep up those super-cool appearances all the time, especially in your youth.

Rating: 3,5 stars

Internet is better today and I just finally spent 35 EUR on that Stones singles collection! This means... no new books for the next 4 weeks.

Maybe. *sigh*

Nathaiie, I completely understand your reaction to the audiobook format for A Question of Upbringing. I would have struggled with that as well. I just started the 4th movement of Dance (novellas 10-12) this week. It was like settling into a comfy chair, getting back into Powell's writing style. It is odd though how the narrative often lacks emotion. And Nick Jenkins' entire family life is in the background -- he marries, and has children, and they are barely seen. That's kind of odd. Still, I have really enjoyed the series.

I don't think I would have liked the audio of Powell..... it is a very calm and unemotional. I find the same thing with some kinds of historical narratives, I am constantly rewinding, realizing I haven't listened to some crucial bit of information....

Lower Upper or Upper Middle, I love it! I'm sure they'd much prefer the former! And since they are the niche group that goes to the same school as and can intermarry with the 'upper' proper - provided they are either rich enough or successful enough or clever enough - they are in a nebulous less defined area. That is one of the aspects of that class which provides a constant tension, I think, as it isn't the easiest one to maintain, you can either rise or fall, very easily -- something that Evelyn Waugh wrote about brilliantly.

It is odd that Jenkins doesn't say much about his family, but I remember thinking Powell was clear in his mind that this was a book about these friends and what happens to them, not about 'personal' life particularly.

I need to get to Dance to the Music of Time. It has been in the BlackHole for a long time now. It is just not going to be any time soon, I don't think.

I also got the audio of Dance to the Music of Time 1st movement... but it's been a while now. I think it was during one of their sales when they were practically giving it away. I know exactly what you mean about losing interest in the narration and having to rewind all the time. But then, I get easily distracted, unless it's a Jack Reacher novel like the one I'm listening to right now!

Nathalie - I think your feelings on Dance to the Music of Time pretty much mirror my own - class ridden and too devoid of emotion I found the whole exercise a little too cold.

Hope you read something more fulfilling for the weekend.

I'm just leaving to go for a walk with a friend, as long as there is some sun left between the many clouds, so I'll post individual answers later.

Just want to say that I did enjoy the first part of *Dance*. I like the concept, the set-up, the characters. It's just that the strangely laconic voice of the narrator made me want to jump in and strangle him and scream "Give me a real emotion for a change!"

I started part 2 last night and there was a bit where Jenkins says his father commented on some guy with "mild irony". Why not "we laughed behind his back"? Or maybe at least irony of middle-strength? The way the guy is described he deserves it. I think it would irritate me less if Jenkins had at that point already been an adult. But he was a boy, and from a boy I'd expect more than just a cooly raised brow.

#172 Laura: I still have some hopes I might get used to the narration in the next 2 books. But for the future ones 'real reading' might be better, also because I'd have the possibility to reread passages on certain characters when they turn up again in a later volume. I'm determined to make it through all 12! :-)
I expect the familiar feeling to start some time in Movement 2.

#173 Lucy: the whole class system is an aspect that's so strange to me. The British/English TV series we watched were usually set in some kind of upperclass environment or in the country (that series with the country vet).

I had hoped the family would make an appearance at some point in "Dance", so now I'll adjust my expectations. I guess all those friends will turn up again. I wonder what they are thinking about Jenkins, he can't only be an observer of other peoples' actions all the time?

#174 Stasia: You're right, maybe not the best time to start that series now - although each of those 12 volumes seems to be quite short, it might be better not to take long breaks in between. I'd surely quickly forget half of the 'cast'.

#175 Ilana: Apart from the narration I had a bit of an issue with the chapters. There isn't a continuous plot, but each chapter places Jenkins in a completely new situation, and it always took me a while to get familiar with the new surroundings. This is much easier for me when I am reading a real book.

#176 Paul: so you did read the whole series?
Weekend reading will follow in my next post.

When I met my friend yesterday afternoon, the clouds had already taken over and it was very cold, so we didn't walk far and instead had some aperitivi in a nice place from where we had a view over the town. We tried a new creation which I found quite ghastly: passion fruit apérol and prosecco, too sweet for my liking, I had to top it with lots of water to make it drinkable.
I much prefer the local "Hugo" which is a mixture of elderberry sirup, prosecco, mineral water and some mint leaves, very refreshing and not containing much alcohol.

Funny weather today: it started with rain and a stormy northern wind. Then there was snow mixed with the rain, for hours. And then, all of a sudden, rain and snow stopped, the sun came out and now it's hot. No wonder I am having headaches almost daily now.

I read a bit: started and finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark and read half of Little Misunderstandings of No Importance by Antonio Tabucchi. The latter is in Italian and in tiny print, so I only made it through 80 of the 152 pages so far.

I finally finished The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco yesterday, a book I had been reading with several interruptions since last autumn. I don't feel capable to review it yet. I'll see if the library has a German translation and then I must read the first chapters once again, I think I missed a lot.

I spent an audible credit on Gillespie and I today, but listening will have to wait for a bit. It's also a long book with 19 hours.

I did read the whole series Nathalie many moons ago when I was at Uni and thought my life consisted solely of reading books.....mmm not much changed then really!

#180: I'm through the first chapter of the 2nd part and like it better so far. It's all society scenes where I don't expect any great emotions anyway.

We had a public holiday today, so I went hiking with my English landlady who's become a good friend. I told her about the "Life" book, and she was very interested, because back in her youth the Stones had been kind of the local band and she went to many of the early gigs. Later she moved to London and worked in the music business for a short while, which gave her the opportunity to meet some of the big stars of that time. Obviously that didn't impress her too much, because then she went to Rome to work as model and actress (I've seen some incredible pictures at her home). Those must have been great times and whenever I meet her I learn about another highly interesting part of her life. Since the death of her husband she is now very much into yoga and Buddhism. She gave me a book today that a Buddhist friend of hers recently published: "Il Vuoto di Sunya" ("Sunya's void?"). I don't know if I'll get it into LT, it doesn't have an ISBN, but I'll read it soon and will review it here.

I finished two more books: Little Misunderstandings of No Importance by Antonio Tabucchi, a collection of 11 short stories, some really good ones among them, all beautifully written in the original Italian. Don't know about the translation quality.

Then I read another 1001: Tarzan of the Apes. I am convinced it is not supposed to be read by adults. I understand its place on the list with all the movies and comic books following it, but to be honest it is one of the most ridiculous books I ever read. The storywriting, especially when Jane turns up, is (I am sorry to say) really, really bad. Then there's the blatant racism and the supposed superiority of the English gentleman over everything and everyone else. I never fully watched the movie "Greystoke", but it seems much more realistic than the original book. In fact Johnny Weissmueller's movies are more realistic than the book.

Just waving hi Nathalie - and won't be reading Tarzan any time soon! Am under water with prep for school and not reading anything at all... ugh.

With the exception of *Tarzan* you have had some great stuff going on in your reading life! I'll be interested when you do decide what you want to say about Prague Cemetery. It is definitely on my must-have-at-some-point-but-not-now list.

*smooch*

>181 Deern:: I recently listened to the Librivox audio recording of Tarzan ... and couldn't agree more. I'll admit enjoying them back in middle school, but revisiting the series was a huge letdown.

Part of the problem is no doubt is the cheesy writing, but I've forgiven worse for old favorites. The racism, sexism and classism are other matters entirely.

Hi Nathalie,
I visited your thread last year, but havent this year at all yet. So hello.
A quick scroll reveals I have missed much....especially sorry not to have tasted your delicious cheeses! And then theres the reading....
Well, hi anyway :)

So no to Tarzan then. That was easy - what else should I NOT read because this way is much easier on my pocket book! How are you liking the Dickens book about Italy? So far I have only read the intro.

Hi visitors! Sorry, no reviews yet. I am very busy this week and will try to get to them during the weekend.

#182 Cushla: *waving* back! Well, I'd certainly NOT recommend Tarzan to you right now, unless you need some book that makes you constantly shake your head in disbelief

#183 Peggy: It's very difficult to say something about this book, also because I took so many breaks. I'd say don't hurry... In some respect it's like Foucault's Pendulum with the big conspiracy and all the countless references to free-masons and religious groups, but it's less gripping. It has a highly unlikeable protagonist who is an anti-semite (and anti-everything) of the worst kind, but the book is not anti-semitic, on the contrary. I'll have to think about it a little longer and maybe reread some passages in German.

# 184 Richard: *smooch* back

#185 swynn: You're right, some old favorites should better not be revisited.
I'm always willing to forgive some amount of backwardness, when it's clear the author couldn't know any better during his writing time. But here it reached a ridculous degree. *stillshakingherhead*

#186 Megan: Hello and welcome. I am a lurker on your thread, but haven't posted yet - sorry. Will try and visit you later today or tomorrow.

#187 Mamie: I quite enjoy the Dickens book, but I have seen some of the places he describes, it's interesting to compare. Dickens is very much interested in the people around him and tries to see their good sides, no matter how poor and or ugly they might look. He doesn't like the Catholic church and likes to make fun of their rites. Visiting sites where people once used to suffer (like the Colosseum in Rome) touches him deeply.

Hi, Nathalie. Love your varied reading. You seem to want to read all the different genres....

I read Tarzan last year - and I get you on the novel in terms of writing quality - but if one can overcome and ignore all the cliches, there's nothing wrong with the story. I think it's a well constructed masculine myth - ah well, I love these romantic escapist fables, so I'm an easy prey. I think the target audience perhaps was younger men.

#189: Hi Carsten, I am too lazy to return to my 2011 threads to check, but have you read the Sandokan books? I read the first one, and if you enjoyed Tarzan you might like them. Same genre, also completely over the top, but with less of the -isms swynn mentions in #185. Sandokan, being a Malaysian pirate, can't show any of those English gentleman attributes, on the contrary he hates the English who killed his family, but predictably falls in love with an English girl.

While reading Tarzan I kept having all those typically female adult thoughts, like "how can he be the most beautiful being Jane ever saw if he hasn't seen a piece of soap or a toothbrush in 20 years and eats all that raw lion meat?" Maybe I am not a very romantic soul... Most of the clichés were in fact funny, and it was like reading one of my brain candy books.

You got me snorting coffee up my nose about Tarzan's toilette!

Ha, Ha, Nathalie. That didn't came to my mind when I read about filthy, smelling Tarzan. He's a superhero of the jungle and of course he's going to sweep beautiful Jane off her feet. Cologne or no cologne. That's just how it works :)

Thanks for the tip on Sandokan - haven't heard about it, but it looks promising.

#191 Lucy: you don't want to know my other thoughts... the book really becomes unintentionally funny once the white men and Jane make their entrance.

#192 Carsten: Yeah, you're right. Not to forget that this cool emancipated woman for the first time in her life feels completely safe, the instant he takes her into his strong arms to save her from the evil ape.

Re. Sandokan: I just remembered that it has only quite recently been translated into English. The first book (and the only one I read) is The Tigers of Mompracem.

*sigh* I am definitely not in review mood, but I just need to get them done before all my memories have vanished. So please forgive when they are short and uninspired.

Okay, not as short as I had planned:



48. Il Cimitero di Praga/ The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

Pre-review blabber:
In my late teens I read and loved The Name of the Rose. I bought Foucault's Pendulum as soon as it was published and loved it even more, though only on my 2nd try. The first time the long introductory part had me defeated. This remains until today the best conspiracy novel I've ever read and is the main reason why I hate Dan Brown's books so much. It's not their popularity or their simpleness, it's the disrespect towards the reader (I'll just say 'Sophie's name'!).

So with two of his books being among my all-time favorites I always feared the next ones might be weaker. I bought The Island of the Day Before and Baudolino, but they rest unread on my shelf, just because I'm scared I won't like them.

Review starts here:
When I saw the first copies of Il Cimitero di Praga however, I felt this might be an Eco I could enjoy, and I was determined to master it in Italian this time.

The language might have played a minor role in my judgement of the book. It's not difficult grammatically in the way the classics are, as it's contemporean Italian, but it's full of new words I had to look up, so I always had to read with a computer or dictionary in reach.

I started the book in October I think, then put it on hold after the first chapters, picked it up again in December, took another long break till the end of March and now finally finished it in April. The fact alone that I was able to put it on the side without missing it much shows that it didn't really grip me.

Here's why: in TNotR you got that murder and the search for the killer keeps you going. In FP there's this group of likeable characters with a brilliant idea and you just want to know whether they will succeed.

In this book you have one of the most unlikeable protagonists ever who takes you with him on a journey through history. History is interesting, no doubt, but you might have read all this before, elsewhere. The protagonist's story connects many threads, but doesn't really add anything to the real history. What happens to the guy doesn't matter much because you know how the story will continue. All the main characters except for the protagonist Simonini are real historical figures and their stories, as told here, are true. So whenever I picked the book up again I didn't need to reread any old chapters, I just had a quick look at wikipedia and was back.

Apart from that, the book in fact is a good one in my opinion. It is very well written, as could be expected. Simonini is quite amusing in his misanthropy. Yes, he is an antisemite of the very very worst kind. But he is also a fervent hater of women, French people, Italian people and German people (and everyone else). The book is written in the form of diary entries and starts with a nice rant on everything and everyone Simonini hates. Then he gives us his life memories, starting from earliest childhood.

He is raised in Torino and inculcated with hatred against everything, especially the Jews, by his grandfather. He is educated by jesuits and learns to imitate them so well that later he is able to impersonate a jesuite monk easily. He starts to work as a counterfaiter of documents, gets involved with freemasons and is sent on his first assignment as a spy to Sicily. Later he lives in Paris and plays an active but hidden role in the Dreyfus affair. But his biggest accomplishment is the forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and it takes a long time until the book finally gets there.

At about halftime there was a point when I thought Eco wanted to squeeze everything he ever learned about freemasons, psychology and religious conspiracy into this story, and that was the lowpoint of the book, I was quite lost. The last 100 or so pages were much better again, and I ended up rating the book with 4 stars, mainly because Eco succeeded in showing the merging of the spiritual and political influences that finally lead to Hitler and the Holocaust.

So if you read somewhere that this is an antisemitic book: it is just the contrary, and it wasn't a bad idea to use a character so blatantly antisemitic to drive the point home. But as a reader I felt I wasn't sufficiently learned to appreciate everything Eco put into this story, and I can well imagine other readers might call this book 'boring'. Maybe Eco needs a better, more erudite reader than me.

Rating: 4 stars (which might be lowered to 3,5 later)

Great - it took me an hour to write just one review which was the time I had planned for the full five. Sorry, I'll have to take a break again and go outside or all Sunday will be spent with the laptop. The sun is shining and there's a half-marathon to be watched in town.

Sun's gone while I got dressed for my walk. Now it looks like the first big thunderstorm of the year is on its way. So here's another review, this time really short.



49. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

I don't have much to say about this book which I quite enjoyed and which takes the 3rd rank among the 4 Spark books I have read so far (order is Memento Mori, Loitering with Intent, then this one and The Girls of Slender Means).

The story is centered on school teacher Jean Brodie who assembles a group of girls 'of special talents' (sports, maths, sexiness, beauty, doormat and elocution talent) around her and keeps close contact with them also when they leave her class to go to high school. She teaches them strange vaues and tries to establish them as a kind of 'elite', the 'crème de la crème', an idea I couldn't follow, looking at the girls, but I enjoyed the books nevertheless.

Many years ago my English teacher tried to make us read this novel, but we all failed already in the first chapter. It was nice to see for me that I didn't have any difficulties this time.

Rating: 3,5 stars

50. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs - contains some spoilers

I could make this a very long review, full of examples of the ridiculously bad story writing. But I feel really bad at the same time with all those blasphemic thoughts about a book many here have read during their childhood and no doubt loved.

I understand why it's a 1001 book, with all the movies and comics and the many sequels. This doesn't mean however that it is a good book, and there are other examples on the list. Thinking of Sandokan here, and also of Frankenstein.

I am wondering however how the author judged his own work. Did he believe what he wrote?? No doubt he has done much research on great apes and this is the one strength the book really has. Given the time when the book was published I guess it gives a very good account.

It's quite sad, that the author's research on the African people was not as efficient. He states that black people are wild cannibals, that's about it. In his view they are clearly inferior to the white people and much closer to the apes. There are in fact examples where their rites are mirrored 1:1 in the apes' behaviour. He sets Tarzan, the son of an English Lord, in sharp contrast to both apes and African people. Where apes kill other apes and then eat them, the Africans do the same with the human enemies of their tribe. Tarzan however might kill a (black) human, but the innate nobility and superiority of the English gentleman keeps him from eating another human being while he happily gnaws away on a dead ape's raw and hairy forearm.

This innate superiority and intelligence lets him accomplish the most difficult tasks with ease. So he teaches himself to read and write English fluently (including perfect indirect speech and all tenses) just by looking at some old books. This helps communication once the whites arrive in the jungle idyll.

While the author took his time with Tarzan's childhood and youth, the last quarter of the book is crammed with senseless plot. The book is short, so maybe you should see for yourself.

One last blasphemy:
Btw I am sure it is all the innate nobility that explains why Tarzan's heart is touched when he sees Jane for the first time. After 20 years spent with a tribe of apes you might expect a slightly different reaction, a bit more physical. Just saying... and now I stop it. Sorry!I am a very bad person.

Rating: 2,5 stars (because it just isn't a good book, but I had fun)

I finished all my planned April reads and started to list my May books:

- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (reading), TIOLI challenge #4
- Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope
- A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell (listening), TIOLI challenge #3
- Memoirs of my Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber (reading), TIOLI Challenge #3
- Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, TIOLI Challenge #4
- Notturno Indiano by Antonio Tabucchi, TIOLI challenge #12
- Kindheitsmuster/ Patterns of Childhood by Christa Wolf
- The Iliad by Homer (reading), TIOLI challenge #12
- Il Vuoto di Sunya by Massimo Burchiellaro

I read the first quarter of The Grapes of Wrath already and am in awe. The Steinbeck-a-thon so far has been one of the best things that happened this year!

A Buyer's Market is almost finished, I am just waiting for May, because it fits into a TIOLI.

I hope I'll get through the 19 hours of Gillespie and I without losing my patience and buying the Kindle version as well.

Kindheitsmuster is one of the longer 1001 books I have been planning for this year.

I am reading The Iliad as preparation for The Song of Achilles. I read 6 of 24 canti and so far it is a full 5star read. I am reading a German translation that keeps the hexameters. So far both Patrocles and Achilles haven't had much of a story, but I am enjoying this epos much more than I had ever expected.

Parallely I am reading what might become the worst read in 2012: Memoirs of my Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber. I am convinced that this book can make you lose your mind. For whatever reason it is a 1001, and it's German, and I have that personal challenge of reading all the German 1001 books...
I can feel my brain cells crumple and die when I read this book. It's actually non-fiction, Schreber writes about his own illness. Among many other things he is fully convinced that small men are raining onto his head and running around in his mouth.

Hi Nathalie! How cool that your landlady saw the Stones in their early days. Sounds like she should write about about her life!
I think I need to post all my intended reads for the month. I always forget which book goes with which TIOLI challenge.

*waving* as I once again try to catch up on some threads

Interesting reviews as always Nathalie - I have read The Island of the Day Before and I absolutely hated it to be honest to the extent that it has put me off his more celebrated work. I might brave up and pick up The Name of the Rose for a read soon based on your positivity.

Tarzan of the Apes - as per the John Carter books is not literature to be sure but you are right it is enjoyable nonetheless. For enjoyment at least I think you could have spared another half a star!

Jean Brodie is Spark's most celebrated work and, for me, one of her weaker efforts.

We may have a couple of shared reads this month as Steinbeck and Harris are also on my radar.

Have a lovely Sunday!

#199 Lynda: she really should, she met quite a couple of big names and did some really crazy things! Sadly she doesn't read and has no sense for books.

#200 Stasia: *waving* back - I have to catch up on your thread as well. Happy week and happy return to school!

#201 Paul: thank you! I think I read the first couple of pages of "Island" when I bought it, but quickly decided it should better remain unread for now. For now has been almost 20 years.

Re. Tarzan: I thought about it, but decided against it. It was the 'shake-your-head-and-roll-your-eyes-in-disbelief' kind of fun and compared to my 3star reads this year he can be happy he didn't end up worse. I changed my rating system a bit last year, so now a 5 is a very rare exception and a 3 is still good, so he is below 3.

Re. "Jean Brodie": while I enjoyed it, I don't understand why it's so famous.

As your Sunday is already quite (or all?) over, I wish you a happy week!

Thanks Nathalie - I'm expecting a tough one - except for Tuesday which is a public holiday. Hope your business continues to do well.

>198 Deern:: "I read the first quarter of The Grapes of Wrath already and am in awe. The Steinbeck-a-thon so far has been one of the best things that happened this year! "

Well said, Nathalie. I am in agreement with both statements. Grapes of Wrath always figures in the ranks of my Top Ten All Time Hitlist... and I am also enjoying to get to know the other works of Steinbeck. He never disappoints me.

It takes me a long time to write a review, too. I've been "cheating" a lot lately and just throwing some comments up on my thread, but I still enjoy thinking about the books after I've read them. That's part of the process of reading as far as I'm concerned. Btw, the hour you spent on reviewing the Eco book was time well spent. I may not read The Prague Cemetery just now, but you've edged me toward choosing The Name of the Rose as my next Big Book!

I am beyond impressed that you finished your April list!

I LOVED your blasphemous comments. It's sad that Burroughs is so dated - truly a sign of greatness is when a writer's work does not date - or only very very slowly.

Nathalie, I LOVE reading your reviews - you make me laugh! I agree with Donna that your investment in writing the review for Umberto Eco book was not a waste of time - I enjoyed your thoughts and comments and am off to investigate The Name of the Rose as soon as I finish here. Your commentary through your thread as you read Tarzan of the Apes has had me in stitches, and I would really, really encourage you to read another book just like it simply for my own entertainment - PLEASE, Nathalie!

Grapes of Wrath would also make my top ten list of all time favorites (the touchstone goes to the John Ford movie first, what's up with that?!) so I am looking forward to following the GR thread for that. I will be reading The Iliad, too, in preparation for reading The Song of Achilles, so our reading will overlap a bit this month which should be fun.

Congrats on making it through your April list - quite the accomplishment!!

#203 Paul: My business does a little better, but is far from being saved, so worries - mainly financial ones - continue.
Tuesday seems to be a worldwide public holiday, I hope you'll get some rest then and that everything else works out well for you.

#204 Donna: I am now on page 241 of 536 and can't put the book down anymore. I have become very strict with my 5star ratings, but this book is on its way to get one. And for the first time I am seriousy considering a reread of Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck's writing here gets right under my skin. How does he do it??

#205 Lucy: I wish I was half as disciplined in the other areas of my life as I am with my reading.

#206 Mamie: There has been a touchstone issue for a while, I even reported it (and others did as well) but it seems it still has not been completely fixed.
Books like Tarzan are like brain candy, and it's even better if they count for the 1001 list. They are full of those 'I can't believe he could write that AND get it published' moments and that makes the review writing an easy task. I am sure there are more books like this one waiting for me on my reading path.

*****

I want to add something for those considering reading The Name of the Rose:

I read this book when I was 16 or 17 years old - ages ago. It was hugely popular in Germany, and you had to read it. It was a challenge due to its length and to its detailed writing. I explicitly remember a 3,5 pages long description of a church door and there were long sections of Latin. But it was well written and above all it was fresh. A murder mystery in a monastery, set in the dark ages. A conspiracy (Eco just loves those), more and more horribly bloody killings, some really sinister characters among the monks. And then the inquisition! And the beautiful library!

But: since this book was published there have been numerous followers. Just think of the Sansom series and all the religious conspiracy books that have been published around the Dan Brown books. If you read the book now you might not find it original at all. Maybe you'll find it just long and boring.

I decided I'll give it a reread as well, I am sure I'll find it in my library. Maybe I'll react differently this time, though I hope I won't.

What I love about Eco is all the research he puts into his stories. He is a perfectionist and wouldn't put his readers off with some cheap and easy solutions (though they might not notice it).

Trying to get those last 2 reviews done today, so I can start a new May thread.



51. Piccoli Equivoci Senza Importanza/ Little Misunderstandings of no Importance by Antonio Tabucchi

I mainly read this to get some shared TIOLI points for the "Primavera in Italia" challenge. It is a collection of 11 short stories by the recently deceased Italian author Antonio Tabucchi.

I am not a friend of short stories and I think I have finally found the reason why. When I am reading books in a foreign language it usually takes me a couple of pages to get settled in a story, to get accustomed to the author's writing style, to the setting, etc. And that's the point where the short story usually ends and I have to repeat the whole process with the next one. This was my first book of short stories in Italian and in some cases, although I understood the words, I was by the end of a story not all sure what he was writing about.

Nonetheless I liked this collection. It's a short book with 150 pages in the Italian edition. Tabucchi's style here is quite different from the two novels I read (Pereira declares and The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro). The (Italian) writing is heartbreakingly beautiful, poetic without being cheesy. The stories are all of the sad/melancholy sort, about loss, nourning, missed opportunities. I very much liked one set in a train in India, it also was the easiest one to understand. The last one (called 'Cinema' in my edition) is about two actors who once starred in a great Hollywood movie. Many years later they star again in a 1:1 remake of that movie and the lines between acting and real life become blurred.

Rating: 3,5 stars

I absolutely loved The Grapes of Wrath too and count it among my all-time favorites. I read it not long after joining LT and it was a real catalyst for reading more "literary" stuff.

52. Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens
Sorry for the length, but I just had to add all those quotes.

I read this book with Peggy (LizzieD) who posted some great quotes as "Daily Dickens". You'll find our comments here in her April thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/135472.

With 272 pages certainly one of the shortest books by Charles Dickens, and it's not a novel, it's a travelogue which seems to have served as a model for later humorous travel writers like Bill Bryson. In 1844 Dickens and his family spent a year in Italy. In Genua they rented a house and from there they took some longer trips and visited Modena, Bologna, Venice, Verona, Ferrara, Pisa, Carrara, Siena, Rome, Naples and finally Florence before they returned to France.

I enjoyed this travelogue very much, not only because I have seen many of the places he describes and it was interesting to compare, but also because this book gave me an idea of 'Dickens at work'. Every old building has a story to tell, every person he meets becomes a character. Sure he sees the grievances, the dirt, the poverty. But he doesn't turn away in disgust, as Goethe did when he came to Verona. Instead he only takes a closer look. This is a great example:

“I wonder why the head coppersmith in an Italian town, always lives next door to the Hotel, or opposite: making the visitor feel as if the beating hammers were his own heart, palpitating with a deadly energy! I wonder why jealous corridors surround the bedroom on all sides, and fill it with unnecessary doors that can’t be shut, and will not open, and about on pitchy darkness! (…) I wonder why the faggots are so constructed, as to know of no effect but an agony of heat when they are lighted and replenished, and an agony of cold and suffocation at all other times! I wonder, above all, why it is the great feature of domestic architecture in Italian inns, that all fire goes up the chimney, except the smoke!
The answer matters little. Coppersmiths, doors, portholes, smoke, and faggots, are welcome to me. Give me the smiling face of the attendant, man or woman; the courteous manner; the amiable desire to please and to be pleased; the light-hearted, pleasant, simple air – so many jewels set in dirt – and I am theirs again to-morrow!"

Sure he takes notice of the inconveniences, and I admire the family for undertaking the strenuous travelling. Imagine sitting in a shaking carriage with so many people, day after day, spending the night in cold and dusty inns just to get back into the carriage early in the morning. We couldn’t imagine doing it in our times where you board a plane in London and leave it again 2-3 hours later in Rome. But CD doesn’t complain, on the contrary:

“Mr and Mrs Davis, and their party, had, probably, been brought from London in about nine or ten days. Eighteen hundred years ago, the Roman legions under Claudius, protested against being led into Mr. and Mrs. Davis’s country, urging that it lay beyond the limits of the world.”

Yet he is relieved when the long journey to Rome finally comes to an end:

“…when, after another mile or two, the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance; it looked like – I am half afraid to write the word – like LONDON!!!”

There’s much criticism towards the Catholic Church in this book. For me however it looks like Dickens didn’t have any problems with the basic beliefs, it is the rites he is openly doubting, the exaggerated worship of relics, pictures and waxed dolls, the shameless traffic in indulgence which he abhors, seeing the wealth of the church and the poverty of the people.

This is a Dickens book that was almost too short for my liking, I could easily have enjoyed another 100 or more pages. When the Dickens family leaves Italy and heads home again, he closes this book with the following, that still holds true for Italy’s situation today:

(..) let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our tenderness towards a people, naturally well-disposed, and patiend, and seet-tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, have been at work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit; (…) but the good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may be, one day, raised up from these ashes.

Rating: 4 stars

#209 Laura: Mine was To Kill a Mockingbird, the book I read after just having finished Infinite Jest.
I am now exactly half through The Grapes of Wrath and am dreading the second half - storywise. I haven't read any spoilers, and never saw the movie, but it's quite clear how it will continue.

****
I finished my first May book, A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell. It feels a bit like cheating, because there was just an hour of listening left, but it fits into the NMSP TIOLI, so I just had to delay it into May. Woke up at 3:30 am this morning/night and finished it.

I also listened to chapters 1 and 2 of Gillespie and I, and it's a good sign that I sat down with my ipod just to listen a little longer. I didn't like the narrator's voice at first, but now got used to it and she is doing the dialogues quite well. And so far I understand the light Scottish accents.

As I wrote above, I started The Iliad. I had not expected it to be such a pageturner. I wanted to read one canto per day, but I started only 5 days ago and am in canto 10 (of 24) already. I am sure the translation plays a big role here, and I love the one I am reading. Can't recommend it to you though, because it's German. I don't know how true it is to the original, but I can understand it very well although the translator stuck to the hexameters (which I actually LOVE!).
I love the language and the rhythm, I love the intrigues and quarrellings of the gods and even the graphic slaughtering during the battles is entertaining.
Paris is a wimp, by the way, and not much liked by the Troyans who have to fight for him.

The last canto, #9, was the first one that fully concentrated on Achilles and I'd like to write down my observations while I am reading it, to better compare it later with Madeline Miller's characterizations in Song of Achilles.

Spoiler for Iliad, canto 9 coming:

Achilles has spent the last days sulking in his tent and not participating in the fights, because Agamemnon forced him to return his (slave) girl Briseis, although he (Ag.) had once given to him (Ac) as a 'present'.
Zeus has given extra strength to Hector and the people of Troy with the purpose of baiting Achilles back into the fight when he sees how the Greeks are losing without him.

Agamemnon is ready to give in and sends Odysseus, Ajas and Phoenix to Achilles, offering him numerous presents, 7 pretty virgins from Lesbos and the return of Briseis. When they arrive at Achilles' tent, he orders Patrocles to prepare a meal + sacrifice for the gods, but then refuses to return for good and to accept the presents.

Achilles asks why he should fight for the return of Menelaos' wife (Helena) when at the same time Agamemnon, Menelaos' brother, is allowed to claim a woman he (Ac.) loves.

He clearly states he won't come back before Hector has made it to the ships (i.e. won many more battles and killed many more Greeks). So Odysseus and Ajas return to the others empty handed, while Phoenix stays with Achilles and Patrocles. It seems he actually educated Achilles and taught him everything about the art of fighting, I expect him to play an important role in Miller's book. He actually says that as a little boy Achilles used to sit on his knees during the meals, that he cut his meat and held the wine cup (!) for him, and that much wine got spilled because Ac. was not used to drinking from a cup. It's almost a father-son relationship, very close and trusting.

At night Achilles and Patrocles share a bed in the inner tent, but each of them lies down with a slave girl.

Achilles so far is not at all likeable. He sounds spoilt and very unforgiving. Okay - he knows he'll die if he stays at Troy, but he clearly says he will return (so he is not considering returning home to save his life), but first he wants to sacrifice another couple of Greeks to the armies of Troy. Nice guy!

Patrocles right now is just an obedient friend, without personality, but he seems to get some more action in canto 11.

Spoiler end

Nathalie, that really is a lovely review for Pictures of Italy, and you should post it because there are no reviews for that book. I think your review would encourage more people to pick up a book they might otherwise miss because when they think of Dickens they think it will be long and hard to get through. I certainly did not know that he wrote a nonfiction travelogue that is short and sweet until I investigated it after seeing it listed in the TIOLI challenges.

I love To Kill a Mockingbird, too! It's right up there in my top ten all time reads along with The Grapes of Wrath - like you and Laura, reading them and loving them inspired me to pick up more "literary stuff". Loved reading through your thoughts on the Iliad - I always enjoy when people discuss a book while they are reading it because I get to hear so much more about the book and learn so much more. This is one of the things that I love about Lucy's thread because she does that a lot, and it is all so very interesting.

Nathalie, I loved your comments about The Iliad. I'm eager to read it after I finished The Song of Achilles, but I know want to read it sooner rather than later.

I'm a bit behind as usual, but I wanted to say that I really enjoyed your review of The Prague Cemetery, in spite of having no interest in reading the book, so it definitely wasn't uninspired!

I've had The Iliad on my shelves for ages, but (I think) in prose form. Either way, I'm quite daunted by it, as I've never read anything "classical" and am quite ignorant about Greek mythology. If anything's going to get me to read it, it's all the positive reviews here of The Song of Achilles, but it helps to see you're enjoying it so much.

Nathalie, it's a pleasure to be here! DO post your review of CD's *Italy* on the book page. It is exactly the thing!!
And thank you for your thoughtful review of Prague Cemetery too. I will certainly read it. I am another Eco fan in that I've read (and reread and will reread again ) *NotR* and *F'sP* (only the one time). I tried and failed to get into Baudolino, but that was probably me more than Eco. I have The Song of Achilles on my mental list for May.
You may blaspheme Burroughs all you like - I'll read it with delight!
Unlike everybody else, I just can't like Steinbeck: respect and admire the writing at a distance, but it's always at a distance. I'm not sure why.

*lurk lurk lurk*

#212 Mamie: wow - thank you! I might post it, but I have to check how it works. It has been ages since I posted a review and I have a talent for putting them into the wrong language section. And I must find a way to shorten it.

I was myself surprised about the book. I only found it because in my "Complete Works by Charles Dickens" Kindle edition it came right after The Pickwick Papers which I read earlier this year. I had never seen the title before, so looked it up on wikipedia and decided to read it. I love well-written, humorous travelogues.

#213 Darryl: thank you! I just wish I could recommend an English translation. I decided to go for German this time because I wanted to make sure to get all the details. And the translator did the hexameters so well that reading aloud sounds quite natural.

#214 Rebeki: I also had the Ilias (and The Odyssey) on my shelf forever, but never felt the least bit tempted to read them. The discussion here on The Song of Achilles gave me the necessary push. In my terrible German thoroughness (which comes through in my reading only I hope) I knew I must read the Iliad first.
Thank you for your comments on the Eco book.

Nathalie, I don't think you need to shorten it - it's perfect just the way you wrote it.

#217 - I couldn't possibly comment on your "terrible German thoroughness", since I'm precisely the same! There are several books I'd like to dive into straight away that I won't let myself start until I've read another, related book first. I also put off reading my first Jeeves and Wooster book until recently, because I couldn't work out what order they'd been published in and it bothers me if I read things out of sequence. Having been assured that it really didn't matter, I finally let go and it felt good!

Yay, more visitors!

#215 Peggy: Thank you! I posted it and made sure to change the language default to English, I hope it turns up in the right section.
Tonight the "NotR" movie is on German TV, I really must reread the book! I remember I didn't like the movie much, because all the philosophical bits were left out and what remained was 'only' a monastery murder mystery with some unnecessarily graphic inquisition violence. But the monastery scenes (the interiors only) were filmed very close to where I then lived, so still we were all a little proud of the movie.
Baudolino... one of those days I must give it a try.

Which Steinbecks did you read? I am in fact surprised I like him so much now after (I can finally say it) hating!! Of Mice and Men. I like him less when his writing feels like a didactic play put into prose.

But I also have my list of writers I just can't find an access to (Calvino - widely acclaimed, Goethe's prose *shudder*...)

#216 Bekka: Hi, how's Clarissa doing? I took a short break after 25% of vol. 4 and looking at the dates I fear there are some very long letters ahead.

#218: thank you again, Mamie. It's posted now, unshortened. :-)

#219: Could have been me... not, it actually is me! So I can read the Jeeves books in any order? Great! :-)
I have in fact been thinking about that and therefore only read one Jeeves book so far.
Maybe that's why I prefer stand-alone books to series.