Mstrust makes Mount TBR more manageable

Well, we're up to thirteen categories, huh? That's a lot, so I've made things much easier on myself by not filling in the titles I have every intention of reading beforehand. It seems that all my good intentions to read those books that have been on the shelves untouched for years dissolves with every shiny new book that comes through the door throughout the year and I find myself scrambling to make good 'round about November.
So, here are my categories to be filled in at a calm, leisurely pace. I look forward to hearing from everyone and checking in to get recommendations from your challenges.

1. Big Bad Bill (Shakespeare-his works and life)

1. Othello- 5 stars
2.The Merchant of Venice 4 stars
3. The Comedy of Errors 3 stars

2. Always A Mystery

1. Cards on the Table 4 stars
2.Poirot Loses A Client 4 stars
3. Lord Peter Views the Body 3.5 stars
4. Death on the Nile 3.5 stars
5. Gently Down the Stream 3.5 stars
6. Shroud for a Nightingale 4 stars
7. Dead Water 4 stars

3. Bubblegum Factory (Food & Drink)

1. Desserts in Jars 4 stars
2. Drinking With Men 3 stars
3. Sweet Serendipity 5 stars
4. Totally Lemons Cookbook 3.5 stars
5. The Drunken Botanist 5 stars
6. The Bubbly Bar 4.5 stars
7. Jamie's America 5 stars

4. Diamonds and Rust (On My Shelves)

1. How To Become A Scandal 4 stars
2. Wuthering Heights:The Wild & Wanton Edition 4.5 stars
3. More Information Than You Require 3 stars
4.A Chaste Maid in Cheapside 3 stars
5. Bad Trips 4 stars
6. Not All Tarts Are Apple 2.5 stars

5. Can't Get It Out Of My Head (Favorite Authors)

1. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk 3 stars read with Julie
2. Antigone 4 stars
3. Mr Punch 4.5 stars
4. Service with a Smile 3.5 stars

6. Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment (New To Me)

1. Britten and Brulightly 4 stars
2. The Hunger Games 4.5 stars

7. Take Five (Serials)

1. The Professionals 11: Spy Probe 4 stars
2. Behind the Curtain 3 stars
3. Shroud for a Nightingale 4 stars
4. Dead Water 4 stars

8. Qui Est "In", Qui Est "Out" (French Authors)

1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog 4.5 stars
2. The Shackle 4 stars

9. Together We're Better (Short Stories)

1. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned 3.5 stars

10. Fox On The Run (Something Led Me To The Book)

1. Lolita 4.5 stars January Group Read
2. Breaking the Code 4 stars
3. All Quiet On the Western Front 4.5 stars
4. The Botanical Gardens at the Huntington 4.5 stars
5. Gently Down the Stream 3.5 stars

12. Since You Been Gone (History)

1.Forged: Why fakes are the Great Art of Our Age 3.5 stars
2. The Book of Lost Books 4 stars
3.The Partly Cloudy Patriot 3 stars
4. Banvard's Folly 4 stars
5. Some Country Houses and their Owners 4 stars
6. Cities: Then & Now 4 stars
7. Hollywood Then and Now 4 stars

13. Call It A Day (The Catch-All)

1. Auroras:Fire in the Sky 4.5 stars
2. Poisonous Dwellers of the Desert 4 stars
3. Forgotten Bookmarks 3.5 stars
4. The Historic Shops & Restaurants of New York 2.5 stars

Verrrry interesting... love the titles.

Good luck and have fun!

Diamonds and Rust? Very visual! I'm looking forward to seeing what ends up in your categories.

I did the same thing on my official thread and didn't put in any 'intended' or 'possible' reads as it gets more depressing as the year goes on and those books don't move! Having said that I started my challenge on Dec 1st and straight out of the gate read a book at the top of the 'intended' and 'possible' list I have in my head. It feels great!

> 15 Cheli, Thanks and good luck to you too!

>16 mamzel: mamzel, the Judas Priest version of that song will run through my head all year. I'll be looking forward to your challenge too!

>17 kiwiflowa: Ah, Lisa, someone who understands my despair and why I needed to change things. Good luck with your challenge this year!

Nice to see you back for another year of category reading! I see you have a short stories category..... just in case you are interested, there is a take it or leave 2013 year long type of short story challenge that will be happening over at the Short Stories Group. Basically, the idea is to read one short story collection a month, either a collection of your own choosing or join in reading one of the proposed collections for a given month. Story Collections Community Read-Along January 2013

I don't have a short stories category for 2013, but I figure, what is one more challenge? ;-)

Good luck with your challenge!

Thanks for the heads up, I'll check it out. I've done a short story category in my challenge in a previous year but it's more fun to be able to discuss. And yes, with 13 categories, what's one more?

Came by to drop my star and I'm looking forward to seeing what you choose to read to fill your interesting and creative categories.

Thanks for stopping by, Judy, and I've got my eye on you too. ;)

Welcome!! Yes, 13 categories already! Still not enough, as it turns out, as I still had to skip a few I wanted in there. Incorrigible lot we all are. :) Love the category names (LOL @ Big Bad Bill!). Looking forward to following along.

Welcome. I tend not to put candidates up either although they are there on the shelf making me feel guilty for reading shiny books that just happen to come into the house....

Hi Eva and psutto! Not entering the titles beforehand is the new, relaxed me. Or the back-to-work-and-less-time-to-be-anal me. I do love making those lists though...

Eva, if you're unfamiliar with the song, "Big Bad Bill" is a jaunty 20's tune covered by both Van Halen and Leon Russell.

Lists? We don't need no stinkin' lists!

I don't need lists to make me feel guilty - I have stacks of books on the floor and falling off my shelves to do that!

I did not know that, but now that I've checked it out on youtube, I do remember hearing at least the Van Halen-version before - very good!

I need lists. I'd be completely lost without lists.

Lists are what make me who I am.

Lists are what make me who I am.

For me, it's tea.

>30 majkia:: Amen to that! If I don't get my tea in the morning the rest of the day doesn't seem right!

And of course welcome, mstrust! :) Great titles! Looking forward to the French category in particular.

Glad to know I'm not alone. Cats, books and tea is the holy trinity without which I wouldn't be able to live. Lists mean that I can live my life as a mostly normal person and not running around like a headless chicken.

Ha! I did just the opposite this year. I listed the ones I really mean to read... but I'm already getting some ER books that are going to muck it all up. You're wide open possibilties are looking good!

I love lists! I love making them more than the actual doing of the things on the list. Tea and wine are great too!

>34 by @LittleTaiko, LOL, me too. I could make lists of everything. I don't care so much if I never actually wind up needing it for anything. Make ALL THE LISTS! hahaha. I do always get excited when I can actually cross stuff off one, though, since it is so rare I actually utilize them that way. :P

34 & 35. I'm with you! I make lists for everything, even the things I don't really need to make lists for. And sometimes I make duplicate lists (my reading list for 2013 exists in three copies) just because I like it so much.

Hi everybody!

>26 mamzel: mamzel I suggest you ask for a hardhat and more bookshelves for Christmas.

>27 -Eva-: Eva jogged your memory, huh? It's funny that the Van Halen brothers had been trained in classical and jazz. Can you guess the other songs in my titles? Probably not a fair question as some are pretty obscure.

>28 PawsforThought:,29,34 PawsforThought, Cheli and Stacy Yes, making lists is fun! Crossing things off the lists is fun! There's probably as much of a feeling of accomplishment from drawing a line through something as actually doing the task. Or often in my case, finding the out-of-print book.

>30 majkia:,31 Jean and rabbitprincess (may I call you princess?) Finally it's cold enough here for hot tea! I like Yorkshire Gold as an everyday, but Zabar's Special Blend is a treat.

>32 PawsforThought: for me, I'd have to say dogs, books, chocolate and champagne. I love to sit in my tiny library reading and having a glass. Okay, three. And as far as shopping goes. I have to have a list because I'm always finding recipes that call for something I don't keep in the house but want to try. I'd never remember something like tahini if it wasn't written down.

>33 cammykitty: Katie I've always listed my intended reads with confidence at the beginning of the year and then found myself getting pickier as the months go by. "No, I don't want to read that one. No, why did I even buy it?"

>35 .Monkey.: Mel You sound like someone who never comes home from the grocery store having forgotten something! Except maybe more paper and sticky notes for your lists ;)

->37 mstrust:. That sounds perfectly fine too. I wish I had room for even the tiniest of libraries by alas!
If I didn't make shopping lists I'd never get home from the shop with anything other than milk, bananas and apple juice.

You should always keep some tahini in your fridge - what if you get a craving for hummus?! ;D I'm the opposite there, anything that I can keep around w/o going bad, I make sure I have around! And if it's one of those rare things I haven't used yet, well then it'll go on the -pantry staples- list after I need it! hahaha.

Oddly enough, I only make lists for the grocery store about half the time - if there's something particular we're going to have and I need more than just one or two things I wouldn't normally be getting. Or else if there's a lot of stuff we're running low on (or just one or two of the things that take a lot longer to go through and aren't bought as often) and I don't want to forget. Otherwise, I'm pretty good at just remembering what we need. It probably doesn't hurt that the store is right around the corner, so the things don't have much chance to flee my brain before we get there. ;)

Oh, I didn't pick up on that first time around - very clever! I'm guessing "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" is the Kylie-song (which I now can't get out of my head(!) and "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment" is The Ramones. I think "Fox On The Run" is some glamband, but I can't remember which. That's quite a range you have there...! At least my song titles are all from the same band (my favorite one). :)

>37 mstrust:: Princess works! Or rabbit, or RP. :) Today I had a cup of Russian Caravan tea from Whittard. When my family and I went to London in April I stocked up on tea and books. Still working my way through both stashes.

>38 PawsforThought: Yep. Without a list I give up and walk every aisle hoping I recognize what I needed.

>39 .Monkey.: I use tahini for a cold apple and mint salad from Jamie Oliver. And peanut butter works well as a substitute for that particular salad. You are lucky to have your shopping that close. I envy those who live in "walking" cities.

>40 -Eva-: I forgot about her song, probably because I don't do dance music. "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" is an ELO song, so now you can fixate on that one if you know it! You got The Ramones song, "Fox..." is Sweet (yes, a glam band and a favorite of mine) "Mystery" is Dio, "Bubblegum Factory" is another favorite, Redd Kross. "Diamonds and Rust" was originally done by Joan Baez but I prefer the Judas Priest version, "Qui est..." is Serge Gainsbourg, "Seasons..." is Slayer, "Take Five" is Dave Brubeck, "Since You Been Gone" is Rainbow, "Together We're Better" is The Partridge Family and "Call it a day" by The Raconteurs.
And I think your favorite band is The Proclaimers?

I'm excited that you were referring to Rainbow with "Since You Been Gone"! For a horrified moment I thought you meant the Kelly Clarkson song...

Ah Rainbow - Waldstein alerted me to a Spanish band that did a cover of one of Rainbow's ballads. I love Spanish covers of English songs. My all time fav is Fabuloso Cadilacs doing "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash.

& if you can't keep tahini in your fridge, you should make friends with someone of middle eastern descent! I have a French Canadian friend of Lebanese descent that makes the most amazing hummus and then stuffs us with it until we all burst. No, I'm not sharing my friend. Not because I'm selfish really, but because hummus doesn't really travel well over the internet.

& @34 Jennifer, I'm a little afraid that is going to happen to me this year, but I'm thinking that if I list a book more than a few years in a row as my category possibility and I still don't get to it, it's time to put the book in the bookmooch inventory. Buh Bye book! We'll see. Easier said then done. I hate letting books go before I've read them, but some books figure that once you've paid for them they can sneer at you whenever you walk by them.

>42 mstrust: Well, we don't live in the city center, we're a little to the south. We just happened to luck out with a decent affordable apt with the good grocery store chain around the back, haha. We do have to make trips to a couple other "regular" grocery stores occasionally for the few things our store is lacking (those can be walked to in ~10mins), as well as to the bio (organic) store for things none of the regular ones carry, which involves either a 20min walk, or a bus/tram and 10 mins walk, or a bus/tram + metro + 3 mins walk. hahaha. Depends on the weather & how we're feeling (and how long for transit), how much we'll walk. :P But yes, I absolutely adore my city. I never wanted to live directly in one of the huge American cities (I'm from Chicagoland, but as much as I think Chicago is the best city in the US, I'd never want to live in it, suburbs for me, thanks!!), for many reasons. But European cities (most of them, anyway) are such a different environment, I absolutely love living in the huge city here and wouldn't have it way other way!! :)

>44 cammykitty: hahaha, hummus is truly very very easy to make. Chickpeas, tahini, lemon, oil, water, garlic, cumin, salt, anything else you want for flavor (cayenne, paprika, roasted red peppers to make roasted red pepper hummus (the best!), etc), blend it up, and voilà!

>43 christina_reads: christina The K.C. song is another I'd forgotten about, and how dare she have a song by the same name as Rainbow! No, I'm a rock chick and Graham Bonnet has never done wrong.

>44 cammykitty: Katie thanks for letting me know- I'll check out Fabuloso Cadillacs on Youtube. It sounds interesting.
I do get those urges to put books on Bookmooch when they've lost the shine. What holds me back is the not having read them. I feel like I haven't given them a chance and I'm being unfair. That may sound like I'm hoarding books but my library is neat and organized and when I read a book I don't like, I say, "Get the hell out of my house," and list it.

>45 .Monkey.: Mel We went to Chicago for our honeymoon after I saw the Shedd Aquarium on t.v. and said, "We're going there." It was wonderful! Also, Vosges and Moonstruck chocolates!
Yes, I've made hummus at home and it's easy and, added bonus, you can decide how garlicy you want it. Your bad breath is your own fault.

>41 rabbitprincess: Princess That does sound like a special tea, and luckily tea stores so well. And so do British books.

->42 mstrust:
Someone other than me still listens to the genius that is Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra!?! To be honest, that's the first song that popped into my head, but I thought, "surely, I'm the only one." So happy to know I'm not! :) And, yes, The Proclaimers is very much my favorite band.

Is that cold apple and mint salad in one of his books? If so, do you know which one? Sounds delish!

@46 That's exactly it for me!!! Although I'll confess to hoarding. It's nearly impossible for me to let a book go I haven't read, and I usually refer to getting rid of a book as "rehoming." Ha! Bookmooch may save me because it makes it much easier to rehome. Or... it may bury me in new-to-me mooched books.

>46 mstrust: Ooh Shedd is fabulous, I absolutely love it! It's by far one of the top aquariums in the world! And I can totally say that because I've been to aquariums in various countries in Europe also! hahahaha.

Yusss, exactly the flavor you want! And no yicky additives/preservatives, either! :D

>48 -Eva-: Eva Yes, I adore ELO! Anyone that doesn't either doesn't like rock or doesn't like classical, and I like both. There's a documentary about him that I haven't seen yet. Think it's called "Mr Blue Sky". BTW, when Sears was using that song in their adds I was thrilled.
The salad is called Moorish Crunch Salad and it's on page 29 of his Jamie's Kitchen. If you don't have it I'll copy it down. It's pretty great.

>49 cammykitty: Katie If you've just joined BM your going to love it. I've been on for a couple of years and received, oh, 200 or so books. And I like knowing that someone really wants the books I'm done with rather than piling them in the garage.

>50 .Monkey.: Mel The Shedd was fantastic. I especially liked the aquarium of Leafy Seadragons and the walls of tiny aquariums filled with corals. We always visit the Aquarium by the Bay in San Francisco, and once when we arrived first thing in the morning and no one else was there, an employee joined us and became our guide, telling us what and how much a particular shark ate, the names employees had given individual fish... it was cool.

Sounds like fun :)

I saw a blinker that the biography-film was being shown on BBC a few months ago, but I don't have access to that channel here, so hopefully they'll put it out on DVD so I can get it from Netflix! That's one Jamie Oliver-book I don't have yet, so if you don't mind copying it down, I'd appreciate it. :)

>52 .Monkey.: Mel right place, right time!

>53 -Eva-: Eva Here it is:

Moorish Crunch Salad

101/2 oz carrots, peeled
2 eating apples
51/2 oz radishes
1 small handful raisins
1 handful parsley, chopped
1 handful fresh mint, chopped
4 tbs sherry or red wine vinegar
8 tbs olive oil
1 tbs tahini
sea salt and black pepper
2 tbs toasted sesame seeds

Slice the carrots into matchsticks and finely slice the radishes. Core the apples and finely slice. Add everything but the seeds together until mixed well, then top with the seeds just before serving.

I don't like radishes so I've always left them out and used more apples. I also tend to mix up the sauce of oil, vinegar, tahini and salt and pepper and then mix it in to the bowl.
I took this to a birthday party and saw a guest literally scrap the bowl clean.

Looks like a great recipe. Anyone got an idea of what you could use instead of apples? (I'm allergic.)

->54 mstrust:
Thank you - looks yummy!! I'm not a huge fan of radishes either, but I'll just use less of those and add extra apple.

->55 PawsforThought:
As a texture replacement you could try jicama instead of apples, but you'd probably need to add something sweeter too to get the flavor profile balanced.

Paws, I'm personally not a fan of them at all, but you could probably use pears? Though yes, you still may want to add just a little something else sweet to it.

Mel, good idea, pears would probably work. Or celery, to get that crispy crunch. Think of things that go well with salty peanut butter and it will probably work.

I had to google jicama (though it didn't make me any wiser). I have a feeling it's an American thing that has not flown across the Atlantic.

I can eat some pears so might try with that - I suppose it's the closest thing (though usually sweeter than apples). Celery could work.

@59 Oooo... Yes, jicama is I believe from Mexico. Asian Pears is really close in texture and flavor to jicama. It's crunchy and sweet but not as sweet as an apple. I second Poly and say try pears or you could just put in more of the carrots. Sounds yummy!

Jennifer - the recipe looks yummy! Thanks

60. Oh, well. Unfortunately I'm really allergic to Asian pears as well! (I'm a pain!) But I'm going to improvise when I get round to trying out the recipe.

>60 cammykitty: Katie you're welcome!

>59 PawsforThought:, 61 I hope you find a way to tweak this recipe. Let me know what you substitute the apples with as I like variations too.

Hi mstrust, jut getting myself all caught up and dropping a star, somehow I'd missed your new thread. You've got some good looking categories for next year.

Hi great categories. Looking particularly forward Qui est In, Qui est Out. It gets me thinking about the film 'In & Out', I was in highschool and we had a student coming from San-Fransisco and we didn't know the meaning here in France so It was funny watching our friend trying to explain in french the meaning behing the words ...

Hi Alana and electrice! I hope to hear from you both this coming year. And 'In & Out' was a good movie, particularly Joan Cusack drunk in the wedding dress.

First for 2013:

1. Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of Our Age by Jonathon Keats. Keats, an art critic, writes of six infamous and prolific art forgers, master art forgers, really, who were able to imitate the style of legitimate masters well enough to fool experts and end up in museums. Some, like Alceo Dossena, created forgeries merely for the work, while others, such as Eric Hebborn, were interested in their egos, and at least one other, Tom Keating, claimed to do it as revenge, to cheat the gallery owners and patrons for allowing great artists to die in poverty.

This is an ARC, so I have to assume that the published book will have photos of the artwork being discussed, as a book on this subject that is only text is like a cookbook with half the ingredients missing. The first chapter is a bit dry as Keats lays down his theory that fakes should be judged by the same merits as the original as they can be just as accomplished and beautiful. This seems like a too inclusive attitude, especially for someone potentially paying for an original, but the following chapters on individual forgers makes it clear that there are probably many fakes attributed to masters hanging in world-class museums. It seems that everyone has been fooled at some point, even the Louvre.
If photos had been included I would give this a higher rating, but it's a good read. 3.5 stars

2. Othello by William Shakespeare. The play opens with Iago complaining to Roderigo of his lack of promotion to a position he believes he deserves over fellow-soldier Cassio, a situation he sees as the fault of their leader, Othello. Othello has also just married Desdemona without her father's permission, something the couple knew would not be granted despite Othello's high standing in the city, as Othello is a Moor. Iago puts Othello's insecurities as an outsider and new husband to work at clearing the path for his own rise to power.

I'll be reading Shakespeare's works from The Yale Shakespeare, a collection first published in 1918. My set is from 1956 and edited by Tucker Brooke. I had read Hamlet from this set a few years ago and thought it was fantastic, as the amount of research into each explanation, the variances noted between Folio and Quarto and noting when a certain phrase or word had been used in another of his works must have been exhausting, but it does give the reader a more complete image of how Shakespeare worked. 5 stars

I still haven't read Othello! I'm thinking I should've stuck an 18th category into my thread for plays and poetry. Sounds like your Yale edition is worth the effort.

Ha! I just checked out your categories because I thought you might be kidding about having 17 challenges. Nope, there they are. Good luck this year, cammy!
And I consider the Yales to be one of the greatest bargains of my lifetime- I got them years ago at a swap meet, a complete set of all the plays and sonnets in pristine condition (minus dust jackets) for $2.50.

Wow, $2.50 for that set is a fantastic bargin! Othello was one of the Shakespearean plays I studied in high school but I remembered pretty well none of the details from your review, Jennifer. I always much preferred to study Shakespeare, rather than read him :-)

Oddly, as my English Lit teacher was a true Anglophile, I don't remember studying Shakespeare in school. We had the Romantic poets and Mallory, but I don't remember the Bard. She did play "Excalibur" for us ;)

3. How To Become A Scandal by Laura Kipnis. Written by a professor at Northwestern University, this is a look at the bad behavior and life-altering decisions that people make on a level that garners them national attention.
Kipnis covers many national scandals that were recent as of the book's 2010 printing, but primarily focuses on four cases as a jumping-off point to discuss possible reasons why the person behaved as they did and why society reacted as it did. Though this is a book of pop psychology masking as sociology (Kipnis has no medical degree), the author has a way of getting to the root of why the public turns on certain people so viciously. 4 stars

4. Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry. Britten is a depressed private detective who hates his life, mainly because he's known for delivering news that ends marriages, a fact that has earned him the nickname of "The Heartbreaker". Brulightly is his partner, a lecherous tea bag that sometimes has a good idea. The latest case involves a wealthy young woman who hires Britten to prove her fiance didn't commit suicide, as she believes he was murdered by the same someone who was blackmailing her father. The detectives quickly find that everyone the woman knows has something to hide.
A graphic novel, noir style. The mystery holds til the very end, where there are not one, but two twists. The artwork is mostly shades of gray, with Britten himself being a raccoon-eyed fellow who dresses like Gomez Adams. 4 stars

>73 mstrust: I really enjoyed the artwork in Britten and Brulightly. It was so fitting for the story.

dresses like Gomez Adams - yes!
I liked this GN a lot, too.

Seconding what @Tanglewood said - that art is just spot-on for the story!

>74 Tanglewood:,75,76 Agreed, the artwork was perfect for the story. I hope Berry has more.

I can recommend her second book adamtine and she's a really nice person too (met her recently at an event)

Adamtine is quite different from B&B though both were very good reads.

$2.50 is a steal!!! Who did you knock out of the way to get them?

Britten and Brulightly looks interesting. What British artwork!! The guy on the cover looks just like a beaten-down British PI, one that might work with Rumpole but not have a taste for cheap wine.

>78 psutto: & 79 Pete and Dave Adamtine looks like a really interesting one and I've added it to my list. Thanks for letting me know.
And how lucky that you got to meet her, Pete. Get something signed?

>80 cammykitty: cammy I know, great, huh? And strange that they had obviously never been cracked open.

Yep she signed adamtine and spent a goodly while doing a pic in front which gave us a chance to have a good chat

Love it! Meeting the author always makes you a bigger fan.

5. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Humbert Humbert, writing his memoir while awaiting trial, recounts his lifelong attraction to very young girls and the circumstances which led him to kidnap his twelve year-old stepdaughter and spend the next three years driving her all over America to evade detection.
Yes, Humbert is a child molester, so this book is not going to be on everyone's list. It wasn't on mine either, but I saw the group read listed and figured that would be a good opportunity. There must be a reason why a book written in the 50's about a pervert is called a classic, right? It's the writing. Nabokov is so extraordinary that yes, you are willing to read about what goes on in Humbert's mind as he plays out a one-sided "love" affair with the orphaned Lolita. I'll say that I began the book with the assumption that because it was written over 50 years ago that the molestation would be couched in vague terms, but it isn't. Not to say that it's graphic, and it's usually just a sentence or two, but it's more blunt than expected. But the true focus of the book is Humbert's twisted selfishness- he sees his passion for Lolita (he re-names the girl) as good for her, as protective, when he is the worst thing that has happened to her. The story is tense and a bit like being dragged behind a car but so worth it. 4.5 stars

Very nice review of Lolita, Jennifer. I hope you had an enjoyable weekend!

Another great review of Lolita, still unsure about whether I will pick it up eventually, but at least now I'm thinking about it.

Good review. It is a bit like being dragged behind a car, but in a good way.

Hey Lori, Alana and Alison, thanks a lot!

Lori- my weekend wasn't bad. The husband left for business yesterday morning so I had a day of reading, wine and movies. Hope yours was good.

Alana- I understand your reservations. The plot definitely keeps many readers from going near it.

Alison- It's hard to convey the exhaustion of traveling all that way with Humbert and Lolita without sounding as though I disliked the book.
***SPOILER***
I was glad that Nabokov gave Humbert some type of punishment, with his (temporary, maybe) insanity, incarceration and death. But it seemed harsh that Lolita died too, and with so little time to make her own life after being Humbert's prisoner for so long. If it had been a romantic story it would have been the predictable "they couldn't live without each other" line, but I didn't know what to make of Lolita's death so soon after Humbert's.

*Spoiler*

I know Humbert said repeatedly that this was not to be published until after her death, but reading it as I did, over a half century from the events described, I prefer to believe that she was able to form some sort of happy life for herself and the hints that she would die in childbirth were false. She was amazingly resilient and with the money from her mother, I think she could have made a comfortable life. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

***SPOILER***

Do you mean that you prefer to give it your own happy ending or that you, like me, skipped the Foreword before starting the story and only went back to it afterwards? It really should not be a foreword as it gives away too much. Anyway, that's where Dr. Ray says what happened to Lolita (Mrs Richard F. Schiller), but it's buried in a paragraph.

6. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris. A collection of brief stories about animals who have very human problems; insecurity, arrogance, bigotry, adultery, displaced rage- and even the kind animals really don't fare better as they are seen as weak. A few of the stories are light, and one, "The Toad, The Turtle and The Duck, is pretty funny. Then the stories turn rather sad and introspective with the various species feeding on each other or seeking reasons for why their lives are so difficult.
I'm a Sedaris fan, both David and his sister Amy. I just like the weird outlook and the stories here do have that as the animals tend to be foul-mouthed and plots involve things like a cat who attends prison AA meetings. Don't expect "The SantaLand Diaries" though as this book has some dark themes. 3 stars

Yeah, I did read the forward after finishing, but also after writing myself a pleasant end for Lo. She deserved at least a not unhappy rest of her life. Interesting that Nabokov felt necessary to write a forward and an afterward.

Sedaris always has something dark running underneath the humor. I liked Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, but not as much as his personal essays. And Amy is amazing.

You go right ahead and give her a happy ending then. It's kind.
I think that afterward, written, what, a year after publication? I think it was his need to explain why the book isn't pornographic. I'll bet he took some heat.

Did you watch "Strangers with Candy?" Such an original and strange show. I guess that's why it couldn't last. sigh

7. Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie. Mr. Shaitana has a self-image of the sinister eccentric who knows everyone's darkest secrets, so when he invites M. Poirot to attend his party, one that promises to have actual murders as the guests, everyone takes it as just more attention-grabbing on Shaitana's part. But then he proven right as one of the guests stabs Shaitana, and the crime brings to light the dead man's sense of humor- he had invited four sleuths and four suspected murders for dinner and cards.

This one does have a twist to the plot, with M. Poirot, Scotland Yard Superintendent Battle, Colonel Race and mystery writer Mrs Oliver all one one side trying to solve the murder and the other four guests being investigated. My first Christie of the year and it's a good one. 4 stars

8. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Beautiful and wealthy Portia is looking for a husband, and Bassanio wants to try for her hand but he is too poor to present himself as a viable suitor. He turns to his best friend Antonio, who has several ships expected with cargo that will bring him more wealth. The two friends go to Shylock the moneylender for a loan, but Shylock uses their need to set up his revenge. Antonio has always taunted and demeaned the Jewish moneylender, so rather than contracting for property if Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands a pound of the debtor's flesh.

The speeches by Shylock are the most famous of this play and though he is overall portrayed as a cruel man who is openly hated by the others, including his own daughter, he is also given the opportunity to point out that his religion makes him no less human than a Christian. I would think modern audiences would see him as a more empathetic character than Antonio, whose cruelty is addressed with an admission that he has called Shylock a dog and spat on him in the past and is likely to do it in the future. The courtroom scene near the end is tense as Shylock demands payment. 4 stars

9. Desserts in Jars by Shaina Olmanson. My sister loves this book so much that she gave our mom and I copies and sets of jars to get started. There are a surprising variety of recipes that can be made in jars (who knew?)- cakes, pies, cheesecakes, puddings and even little frozen ice creams and granitas. The tiny apple pie looks adorable and the cover pic of the neapolitan cakes would make guests think you're a wizard, but I think I'll try the flourless chocolate cakes first. I'll post an update when I make it. 3.5 stars

Mmm, the Desserts in Jars book sounds good! And yes do post an update when you make something from it! :)

I had to do the merchant of venice in school at age 13 and hated it, maybe something to do with being taught by a fascist nun (I went to a Catholic school and she really was evil!) - I enjoyed Macbeth a couple of years later though so wasn't put off Shakespeare and try to get to the Globe in London at least once a year to see one of his plays & I have a Shakespeare category this year so I may revisit it & see if I was just been a sulky teenager :-)

I had to do The Merchant of Venice when I was 13, too, but my teacher was the awesome Mr. Nobes and we all loved it. I memorized Shylock's speech for that class and still remember most of it.

>96 rabbitprincess: princess And the pictures make you want to stuff everything in your face. The size is of those Ball jelly jars so they're delicate looking. But I've seen a food truck business on The Cooking Channel that does all jar desserts.

>97 psutto:, 98 Pete & Alison I didn't have The Merchant of Venice in school so it was completely new to me, having never seen a performance of it either. Shylock is by far the most interesting character. At first he is written sympathetically, then later when he equates his daughter with the things she stole, he's a monster and Shakespeare seems to throw him under the bus with the courts decision!

>Pete How lucky you are to get to go to the Globe! And that often! What has been your favorite performance?

I read The Merchant of Venice for the first time about a month about and really liked it. I agree that Shylock is the sympathetic figure at first and then some sort of transformation happens and he's a monster. I'd love to see it on stage - but I'd love to see ANY Shakespeare paly on stage. (Especially if that stage belongs to The Globe - psutto is lucky to get to go there regularly).

I think twelfth night as the play made so much more sense with the men playing ladies and the ladies playing boys :-) henry v was good too. I guess we're lucky being an hour and half by train from London!

>101 psutto:: So jealous -- I'm a whole ocean away from London!

>100 PawsforThought: Paws I did get to see the RSC perform Romeo and Juliet in London once, but found it disappointing only because it was done in '40's costumes and I so wanted to see beautiful Elizabethan.

> Pete That sounds fun, and I don't think Twelfth Night is performed so often, is it? Yes, you are very lucky and I'm glad you take advantage of being so near great theatre!

> 102 princess You and I can only watch the clips on Youtube and cry, sister.

You can buy the RSC DVDs and watch too! They're on my Amazon wishlist.

I've only been on a guided tour of The Globe, never seen a performance there, they've always been sold out when I've been in London.

>104 PawsforThought: we go and stand (its more fun being close to the stage) and we buy ahead of time

>105 psutto: I recently told my husband that our days of standing concerts were over. At 5'4" I'm always on the losing end of that situation.

>106 mstrust: - I can see that being an issue - at the Globe though you are probably still likely to see as the stage is quite high

I'm the same height as mstrust and always end up beind a giant whenever I go to shows. I have no problem standing at concerts but I refuse to do it at plays and the like. For me, the theatre requires sitting down. Also - standing tickets at The Globe are an issue when the weather is bad.

Actually the few times we've been there when it's rained (admittedly its never really poured) have enhanced the experience, I can't really imagine it being the same experience without standing. Although you are still a passive observer you actually feel more involved (as it all feels a bit more immediate) than in a standard theatre sat in the audience, well I do anyway!

My other excellent Shakespeare experience was seeing The Tempest in Edinburgh royal botanical gardens, there's just something about seeing plays outdoors I think, the surroundings for that one really helped the play...

109. We're all different, I suppose. I don't feel more involved standing than sitting, I just feel my legs hurting.

>109 psutto: Pete I'd never heard of the Edinburgh royal botanical gardens before, but I imagine it was a stunning location for The Tempest. And I love visiting botanical gardens anyway. I get what you mean by feeling more involved, as you can move around and I suppose join in a fight onstage if you're needed. And the Globe on an drizzly day would be so atmospheric.

>108 PawsforThought:, 110 Paws It seems that whenever I find a space of three inches between the shoulders of two giants to see a bit of the show, some other enormo will notice and plant themselves there so that I'm just looking at the ceiling, the floor, trying to will their hair to catch fire with my hateful stares...on the other hand, my husband is 6'4" and always has a pleasant experience.

I'm 5'4" too (is this genetically linked to being a reader?) and my second favorite concert experience ever was during college I went to a Bob Dylan concert at a venue that was a grassy amphitheater. The crush of people near the stage were all old (I realize now that they were in their thirties and forties) and I just politely asked to stand in front of them. I think they were either passing the torch to the younger generation, or really stoned, but I ended up being passed to the front. Dylan was dripping with sweat and I was almost dripped upon.

I'm about the same height as you guys, so whenever I go to a general-admission concert I get there really early to make sure I am at the front. Admittedly, GA shows are easier to handle in the summer -- standing around for hours in winter boots is really hard on the back.

>112 RidgewayGirl: Alison You may be on to something. But then my sister reads and she's 5'5", the freak.
Glad you were able to dodge Dylan's sweat- I hear two drops on unprotected skin will make you forget an entire weekend.

>113 rabbitprincess: princess The problem with GA is that it's usually on a concrete floor so after 3-4 hours everything hurts.

My attitude has always been like the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, as I am the perfect height to be.

10. Poirot Loses A Client aka Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie. Old Emily Arundell is very wealthy and has a houseful of relatives who want her money now. So when she falls down the stairs she writes to Poirot because she doesn't believe it was an accident. Unfortunately, Emily doesn't live long enough to meet the detective, but that doesn't stop him and Hastings from investigating.

I do like these Christies that have no likeable suspect to root for. 4 stars

11. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Madame Michel has been the concierge of an exclusive Paris apartment building for nearly thirty years. She has managed to avoid making any ties to the families who live there by presenting to the world a facade of the stereotypical French employee- an uneducated, mean-tempered oaf who watches t.v. all day.
Paloma is a twelve year-old of one of the privileged families in the building, a girl whose IQ exceeds her family's understanding and whose anger at her isolation causes her to hide.
Monsieur Ozu is the first new tenant in the building in years. His exotic Japanese ways draw the attention of everyone, including the most invisible residents.

This book holds a lot of story. It covers social classes, cultural differences, loneliness, art, but philosophy is as much of the plot as the characters. It is deeply philosophical, to the point, late in the book, where it seemed like the concierge was analyzing grains of sand. For me, that intense scrutiny was the only glitch in this story. Otherwise it is absorbing. Recommended. 4.5 stars

Nice review of Hedgehog, Jennifer. I do remember grappling with parts of it - the philosophical angles were a bit over my head - but overall I found it a very satisfying read.

Me too. Now I must get her first, Gourmet Rhapsody. Have you read it?

Hedgehog was an interesting book. I hated all of the characters at the beginning, especially Paloma, but they grew on me and I loved the middle of the book. I think the ending was abrupt and a cop-out.

I have to agree with you on the ending. I kept thinking, "No, it's a fake-out. It'll have a twist at the last minute." But no, it didn't.
Guess what? There's a movie on it called "The Hedgehog" and it's in my Netflix queue.

Nice review of Hedgehogs. For me, it was too much philosophy and too little story, the story and characters never gripped me. I was disappointed by the ending as well.

I liked the philosophy bits. And a friend who read it said she would have hated it, except it introduced her to that Ozu's movies, which she says are every bit as fantastic as described.

120 - a movie? Will have to check that out. Thanks!

>121 SouthernKiwi: Alana There were a few paragraphs of Madame's philosophizing that got too heavy for me, but otherwise I was fine with philosophy being the glue that held it all together.

> I actually didn't realize Ozu was a real director! I thought he was just a character in the book. Okay, another visit to Netflix!

> yes! I believe it's in French with subtitles. I 'll post some info once I've seen it.

> 118 - Yes, I read Gourmet Rhapsody back in 2009. Back then I was providing only sparse comments on books - this is what I wrote down for Gourmet Rhapsody:

"I loved the book (all the mouthwatering descriptions of gastronomic delight... Yumm!), just not quite as much as I enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but still an excellent feat of descriptive prose from Barbery and a highly enjoyable read."

I do expect some amazing gastronomic delights from a novel about a food critic, so I really want that one. Thanks for your review.
And speaking of delights, today I made the flourless chocolate cakes from Desserts in Jars. We both agreed that the results tasted a whole lot like chocolate crinkle cookies. The top forms a very thin crust while the center is thick and chewy around the edges. The recipe wasn't difficult but I did think that it was more work to make than what I'd do again, especially as the center collapses like a souffle once it cools so you're left with a hole that you'd have to fill with ice cream or pudding if you were serving them to guests. But it was very chocolatey.
I'll try another from the book soon.

12. Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore. British mathematician Alan Turing reports the burglary of his house to the police. Under questioning he tries to give the detective information about whom he suspects of the crime, but the detective can tell Turing is lying and the investigation leads to further questioning. Turing becomes flustered and admits to having an affair with one of the suspects. It's 1951, homosexuality is illegal, and Turing's admission leads to a conviction and chemical castration for the man who had been awarded an O.B.E. for conceiving a code-breaking computer that helped the Allies win during WWII.

This play, based on facts, follows the years of Turing's life from about 1948 to 1951, with a flashback to his childhood. The scene changes are done fluidly with the actor simply changing a jacket and lighting changes. It was first performed in London in 1986, then went to Broadway, with Derek Jacobi as Turing, and Jacobi also appeared in the filming of the play. I put this in my "Something Led Me to the Book" category as I first learned about it because my favorite actor, John Castle, took over the role in 1987. 4 stars

>127 mstrust:: Sounds interesting! The library has it so I'll put in a request. It doesn't have the film, though, which is a shame. Would have liked to see Jacobi playing him.
And speaking of Turing, the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch is in talks to play him in a biopic! Originally Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play him but he backed out.

@127 What a weird and disturbing story. I would've loved to see Jacobi perform it.

>128 rabbitprincess: &129 I know that at one point the film was on Youtube but I don't know if it is now. And Cumberbatch would be so perfect for the role! I hope that works out.

>127 mstrust: I read a biography of Turing written by his mother last year which also had an afterword by his brother that went into the details of the burglary alan turing

Sounds interesting, especially as the play (which doesn't feature the brother as an actual character) makes several references to the brother's feelings towards Turing's sexuality. Thanks for letting me know about it.

13. Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers. A collection of short stories about the aristocratic amateur sleuth. He does everything from working a crossword puzzle that is key to a will to finding the culprits responsible for a missing corpse that alters an inheritance to figuring out why an old man left his entire digestive tract to his nephew instead of land or money. Come to think of it, many of these mysteries involve a will.

This was my first Lord Peter Wimsey and my first Dorothy Sayers. She seems at first like she will occupy the same territory as Agatha Christie with the upper-classes fighting over their inheritance, but Sayers gets a little more ghoulish in her murders. Thanks to DeltaQueen for giving me the incentive to pull this from my shelf and read along with her! 3.5 stars

Anytime, Jennifer! :)

I've just finished watching "The Hedgehog", the movie adaption of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Excellent. It is French with subtitles and there are some minor plot differences, mainly that Paloma has a video camera and records everyone and she is very artistic, drawing throughout the movie. Ozu is dashing and handsome. And the Josse family has a goldfish that Paloma does something strangely cruel to. If you liked the book you'll most likely want to see the movie because it is mostly the same plot. And Madame Michel has a killer library about the size of a closet.

I didn't even know there was a movie adaptation of Hedgehog!

I just figured that a book that popular had to have been filmed so I looked on Netflix and there it is. Released in 2009.

14. Drinking With Men by Rosie Schaap. Schaap began drinking in bars at a young age, so she has many bars to reminisce over- the artists' bars of Dublin, the lone bar in her smalltown college days, the divey bars of NYC. This is a memoir by a woman who was often one of the few women, and often one of the youngest patrons, in the bars she frequented. And by frequented, it means that when she found a bar she liked it became a home for her, a place she went to every night. It seems strange that it isn't until nearly 200 pages in that Schaap wonders if she might be an alcoholic, after relaying the solid years of spending hours nearly every night drinking hard liquor, but she ponders the question, then quickly decides that she has spent her life in bars for the company.

This is an ER, and for the most part it is a well-written and interesting read. I have to admit that her teen years as a Grateful Dead groupie (in the 80's) gave me the creeps, and I really lost interest towards the end of the book when she finds God out of the blue. 3 stars

Thanks for the review - I had heard part of an interview with the author and thought it sounded interesting. However the things that bugged you about the book are the type of things that would really irritate me. I think I'll pass for now.

I read an interview in a magazine recently and bumped it up on my pile because it does sound interesting and it is, until she very suddenly becomes extremely religious. Seems to be as a response to 9/11 (she lives in NYC) but it doesn't flow with the whole rest of the story, for me anyway.

The Book of Lost Books sounds fascinating. I'll add it to my wish list! Hemingway's lost manuscript is in there, isn't it?

Lost as in stolen, yes. A partially written novel from very early in his career stolen from his first wife while she was traveling to meet him. Imagine the ensuing conversation.

She was very sorry.

The Book Of Lost Books is also going on my wishlist, it sounds like there would be some interesting stories in this one.

>143 RidgewayGirl: I'm sure she was. Poor thing.

>144 SouthernKiwi: It's perfect for anyone who loves books on books. I do.

Is the aurora book mainly a photography book or is there a lot of text? - I'd love to see an aurora and you would have thought that since I've been in the asrctic circle a few times (in Finland) I would have by now, but never been lucky enough...

The pages are mainly photos but there are full pages of text and nearly each photo has some text- about the science of auroras or the circumstances of that particular aurora. If you have an interest in auroras you'd most likely like this book. Too bad the touchstone doesn't work.

17. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. Twenty-year old Linnet Ridgeway is extremely beautiful and also one of the richest people in England. With no parents to tell her what to do, she spends her money freely and has her friends around. When one friend introduces Linnet to her fiance it doesn't take long for the millionairess to steal the young man for herself and marry him. But their Egyptian honeymoon is ruined by the jilted woman following them everywhere they go and announcing that she's deciding which one of the newlyweds to kill. Even Poirot's presence can't stop all the murdering.

This is essentially still a 'locked room' mystery as the victims and suspects are aboard a boat, but as there are so many grudges and entanglements, it's pretty difficult to guess what will happen. 3.5 stars

18. Antigone by Sophocles, translated by Richard Emil Braun. The daughters of the late King Oedipus. Antigone and her sister Ismene are all that's left of the former ruling family. On the throne is Kreon, brother of the late Queen Jocasta, their mother. He is a military man who demands complete obedience from his subjects, who know his punishments are severe. When he declares that the body of his nephew Polyneices will remain unburied due to his unworthiness, it forces Antigone to break the law and openly challenge Kreon.

This is the story of what happens after Oedipus Rex. In that play we see a younger Kreon, the soldier brother-in-law to the king, who himself challenges authority. Here, possibly years later, Kreon is a tyrant who refuses to listen as all around him counsel him to show Antigone mercy. The girl's character is held up as a noble sacrifice to show the danger of one man's absolute authority. 4 stars

I studied Antigone at university and really enjoyed it - Sophocles was my favourite of the classical tragedians. I still remember trying to write my essay on it, it was the most frustrating piece of writing I've ever done, mostly because my argument was circular which felt like a bad idea but it turned out really well.

I've become a fan too. I wasn't as taken with Antigone as first, maybe because Oedipus Rex is so intense that Antigone seemed anti-climatic. But once the prophet appears it's like a foot on the accelerator. I thought it could have been title "Kreon", as the story is more about his ego and doom.

I'm glad your essay turned out well. Trying to write about the themes of Sophocles would be as difficult as trying to pick apart Shakespeare.

19. Wuthering Heights: The Wild & Wanton Edition by Emily Bronte and Annabella Bloom. For the most part this is Wuthering Heights as Bronte wrote it, but every so often the text changes to bold print and those mark the additions made by Bloom, which can just be a line added to make a character's anger or illness more pronounced or it can be a sexual encounter between Heathcliff and Cathy. Or Cathy and Linton. Or Heathcliff and Isabella. Let's just say that in this version, the tenant, Mr. Lockwood, gets an eyeful.

I read Wuthering Heights maybe 20 years ago and didn't like it for two reasons. First, I had just recently read Jane Eyre and loved it so much that it became my favorite book for many years. I'm sure, in my mind, there was a comparison of the two Bronte sisters, and Charlotte won. Secondly, Heathcliff and Cathy are a couple of immature brats. But reading this has brought a new appreciation for the author. The story has so many well-written characters with their distinct voices and complex layers. How can anyone really like young Linton Heathcliff with his whining and manipulation, but hate him either, as he is put into a hopeless situation? I have to admit that my rating is coming from the original text, as I don't really know how to rate the additions. Sometimes they did nothing to change the story, other additions altered how characters would feel towards each other when the original text resumed. 4.5 stars

20. Poisonous Dwellers of the Desert by Natt N. Dodge. I picked this one up because, well, I live on the desert. It's a slim book full of information and photos of just about all the things that make your skin crawl. I couldn't bring myself to look at the spider photos.
Information on snakes, bees, ants, gila monsters and more tell the reader where the creature likes to hide and what they eat, how they attack, how their venom works and what steps to take if bitten/stung. Many of the photos show close-ups of the most dangerous part of the creature, like the close-up of an open-mouthed rattlesnake with labeling. Also included is a brief chapter of creatures that are often mistakenly believed to be poisonous. Very handy to have. 4 stars

I read Wuthering Heights when I was in my teens for the first time and remember thinking it was such a wonderful love story. When I reread it many years later, I simply thought Heathcliff and Cathy were silly angst-ridden teens who only thought about themselves. Shows how your perceptions change over the years.

Indeed. Though my perception of H and C remains about the same as the first time I read it (I hated them), admiration for Bronte is what I came away this this time.

I love Wuthering Heights, I love Emily Brontë and I love both Heathcliff and Catherine. Obviously, they're not nice people (Heathcliff is cruel and jealous and Catherine is spireful and petty) but I really felt for them nonetheless and I can't help but think they were at least in part victims of circumstances.

I know that there is some appeal in "ill-fated lovers", but I couldn't stop myself from thinking, "who would want to know these two?" ;)
I think they are an example of how well Bronte could write complex characters- no one is angelic and she showed how, especially Heathcliff, went from a sympathetic boy to a hardened man.

21. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This is the fictionalized account of Remarque's experience as a young German soldier in WWI. Enlisting with some of his buddies right after graduating from school, the narrator introduces the reader to the other young men of his company, boys he scrounges food with, plays cards with, hunkers down in holes for days with while under attack, and talks to about politics and home. He is sent to the front and watches his fellow soldiers die in horrible ways and is aware that he's being changed forever.

I wanted to read this with the March Group Read as it's been on my shelf for who knows how long. Because it was written in 1929 about a war that occurred 100 years ago, and is a translation too, I expected somewhat formal language, but the deaths and mutilations are graphic. I also didn't expect the narrator to be so young, but within a couple of pages he's explaining that he's only nineteen and so are many of the others in his company. Great. My nephew just turned nineteen and graduates from Army training next week.
It's impossible to tell how much is Remarque's story and how much is fiction, because all of it could be the experience of thousands of soldiers, and the reader forgets that the teenager who is describing his days on the front line was the enemy for many of us. 4.5 stars

22. The Professionals 11: Spy Probe by Ken Blake. This installment of "The Professionals" canon has Doyle and Bodie infiltrating an assassination ring that takes out retirees, and then tracking a man who has reasons for hating the doctors of a certain London hospital. 4 stars

I have that version of Wuthering Heights on my list to read as well. When I first read it a long time ago I didn't enjoy it as much (Austen has always been a favorite) so maybe I will have the same appreciation the second time around.

23. The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Aegeon is a merchant who has broken the law by entering Ephesus. As a citizen of Syracuse, he faces death for doing this, but he is allowed to relay to the Duke how his wife gave birth to twin boys, and how the parents bought low-caste twin boys, born on the same day, to be attendants. A shipwreck separates the family with each parent having one twin from each set and thinking them the only survivors. In adulthood, business places them all in the same city, still unaware of the others' existence, which causes problems for families, business associates and the police.
I've only read a handful of the plays so far, but this is my least favorite, only because it seems so very contrived with the plot turning on the same handful of people constantly running into each other like they're in a maze. The reader is aware that, having made a plan with Twin #1, the innocent accomplice will next approach Twin #2 with the result and be called mad. I didn't dislike this one, it just isn't going to be on my Top Ten. 3 stars

24. Mr Punch by Neil Gaiman. A man recalls his six year-old self, a summer that has stuck in his memory for years with hazy visions of his grandfather's failing amusement arcade. It was that year that the boy met Mr Punch, the puppet who entertains audiences by murdering his baby, wife, a policeman and then the judge. The boy doesn't find Punch's antics funny, in fact he's terrified, but when his grandfather allows a Punch show to open in his arcade as a last ditch effort to stay in business, the boy has no choice but to see more of Mr Punch.
I love Punch and Judy. They're creepy, and the photos used in this GN are collaged with drawings and produce some eerie results. There are some side stories about the various family members, so it's almost a short story. 4.5 stars

25. Sweet Serendipity by Stephen Bruce. A couple of years ago we had a fantastic ten days in Manhattan, and Serendipity was on the list of musts. We went twice. Their Frrrozen Hot Chocolate is one of the best desserts on the planet!
This book was written by the one remaining founder/owner, and includes their famous recipe for that hot chocolate, which is like a giant dense ball of incredibly rich ice cream sitting in a milkshake and topped with about four cups of whipped cream. There is also the chocolate mousse, apple fritters, coconut pudding, lemon ice box pie, and Marilyn Monroe's favorite, Miss Milton's Lovely Fudge Pie. Bruce fills the pages with the history of Serendipity, including "what-famous-person-did-what", as everybody has come to this iconic place. Great photos. I'll be using this one! 4.5 stars

26. Totally Lemons Cookbook by Helene Siegel. This small (maybe 5 inches high) book has many recipes I've never seen before. A friend's trees have been producing like crazy so here I am with bags and bags of lemons, oranges and grapefruits. I've made bars, bread, muffins, pudding. potpourri and body scrub. Besides recipes for things like lemon curd, Mexican lemon soup, Greek lemon and egg soup and lemon waffles, there are bits of info about the fruit. The most eye-opening is the commercial treatment of lemons for the supermarket: picked green, sprayed with ethylene gas to cure, placed in cool storage for 3-6 months, treated with fungicide, then wax coated. Hope I keep getting them from the friend. 3.5 stars

Great review - I do love the artist for Mr. Punch and Gaiman is always great, but for some reason I've not gotten around to it - thanks for the reminder! *thumbed*

Glad to help, Eva!

And I have no idea why my whole reviews are in bold. *shrug*

I love Gaiman's mr punch for the art

whole reviews are in bold have you got any b's without /s infront? if that makes snese?

Thanks, Pete. I added just one / to one of my reviews and that took the bold off all the text but also removed the bold from the title of my first review. I don't get it, as I think I'm doing the same thing I've always done.

Looks like there might be a missing end for the bold tags in #157 that's the cause of the problem.

Yes! Okay, our brain trust got me back together. I can't do it all myself! Thanks, Pete & Dave!

I do love Mr Punch, nice review. And that recipe for frozen hot chocolate is amazing "four cups of whipped cream". Yikes!

Thanks, Claire! The Frrrozen Hot Chocolate is a beautiful thing. And now there's a Serendipity in Vegas, where my parents live. Btw, they're also the ones who make the thousand dollar ice cream sundae.

There's a Serendipity in Vegas?!?! I may have to take a little road trip soon... :)

Yes, as Caesar's Palace! I haven't had a chance to go there yet as every time we go on the Strip it's to the buffet at Bellagio or Paris.

I'm leaving for San Antonio early in the morning to see my nephew graduate at Fort Sill. I'll be gone all week and we have a lot of things planned (Mom's a Texan, gone for years and wants to see everything). I'm hoping to get to an art museum, and for sure, The Alamo.

We usually end up at the Venetian, but I'll happily cross the street for chocolate!! :) Bellagio has that chocolate fountain too, doesn't it! Yum.

Have a great trip! The Alamo is on my bucket list.

Thanks, Eva, and yes, the chocolate fountain is at Bellagio. Stick your nose up to the gap in the glass and sniff.

Plans were backed up by an hour or two so I have time for one more:

27. Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg. Ginsberg wrote this memoir after twenty years of waiting tables across the country, and while still employed as a waitress. It is a personal memoir and also a tell-all of what really happens in a restaurant that the customer isn't suppose to see. Back of house romances, unpaid bills and power plays go on as Ginsberg travels from New York to the West Coast and lands in restaurants even when she tries not to. 4 stars

28. The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell. A collection of essays covering topics such as Tom Cruise, visiting parents, nerd culture and the 2000 Presidential election. While I like Vowell's writing style, she can be an uncompromising jerk when it comes to politics, to the point of showing up with a group to protest a inauguration because her choice lost, like a toddler having a hissy. 3 stars

I gave up on Sarah Vowell’s books. I read Assassination Vacation after hearing her on public radio; and while amusing at times, I think your toddler description rang true in that one too. The book was a lighthearted examination into presidential assassins (oxy-moron, I know) and somehow she still managed to throw in a rant about how Nader lost the 2000 presidential election for Gore. In a book published in 2005. Plus she didn’t have a single citation for this presumably non-fiction work – kind of a red flag.

For the most part, I liked Assassination Vacation, but on certain subjects she is a self-righteous broken record. In every book you know she'll work in the fact that she has a tiny percentage of Native American blood and that her ancestor walked the Trail of Tears. And she'll use that excuse to behave rudely to nice people, as in A.V. when she cornered the woman who went out of her way to open a church or something for Vowell.
In this book she described being part of this protest group that booed a president being sworn in, then booed the soldier singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" as part of the ceremony. Vowell writes that she didn't boo the soldier, but she doesn't seem upset that her group did it.
I just don't like it when someone calls themselves "outspoken" when they're actually obnoxious.

29. Forgotten Bookmarks by Michael Popek. A collection of things found in books, some as bookmarks, others simply stuck somewhere and forgotten. There are photos, private letters, receipts, recipes, certificates of achievement, poems and one stenciling book that had multiple razor blades hidden inside. Interesting and quick. 3.5 stars

I really liked Assassination Vacation -- mostly because her love of history shone through. But I can certainly see how her politics would be off-putting. She seems to lack a certain amount of social adeptness - at least that's what I've picked up from the times I've seen her interviewed.

I enjoyed the history too, and when she's funny, she's really funny, which is why I've read four of her books. And it really isn't her ultra-liberal politics that get to me, as I'm neither conservative nor liberal. It's the need to beat it over our heads once she's on the subject. "Lack of social adeptness" is a good term for it, and much more polite than mine. ;)

I picked up the next two last week on vacation in San Antonio.

30. Service with a Smile by P.G. Wodehouse. While staying with his friend, the Lord of Blandings Castle, and his sister, the Lady of the Blandings, who is definitely not a friend, Lord Ickenham happily finds himself embroiled in thwarting a plot to kidnap his host's true love, a pig called the Empress. He fills in any free time with a complex plan to break up an engagement and put two young lovers together with enough pocket money and parental blessings to get them started.

Having read Wodehouse for many years, mainly focusing on the Bertie and Jeeves stories, I think I wasn't as taken with this one as I would have been if it had been my second or third Wodehouse. But I still liked it! There are some really funny lines, such as the Duke's method for persuading his nephew to break an engagement:
"I'll go and find him now, and if he raises the slightest objection, I'll kick his spine up through his hat."
This is a good read for those who need to branch out beyond Jeeves. 3.5 stars

31. The Historic Shops and Restaurants of New York by Ellen Williams and Steve Radlauer. Every establishment in this book has been in business for at least 100 years, so it is a good guide for finding history in NYC. While it's only about 6 inches tall, it's 350 thick-stock pages that cover specialty foods, clothing, books, saloons and wine shops, jewelers, toy shops, steak houses... It's surprising to see that Lane Bryant is over 100 years old, or that you can buy kangaroo meat, if you know where to go. What's missing, and it's a big void in a book like this, are pictures. There are none, which is why I had to rate it as I did. 2.5 stars

32. More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman. The follow-up to The Areas of My Expertise, this is another grab-bag of a little bit of truth mixed with a lot of fiction about American history, fame, general advice and a lot about Hodgman. I liked his previous book so picked this one up, but I have to admit that it took me forever to finish it. Actually, about five months. I got bored and went on to other things, but once I set my mind to it, it was mostly entertaining. My problem with it is the sidebars and footnotes and every page, which are tiny and often not worth reading. 3 stars

I didn't finish More Information, but I quite enjoyed the third book, That is All. Definitely something to ration out though.

That seems to be the consensus on Hodgman's books; draw out the reading because trying to finish it like a regular book makes your brain overload. I think it's all the different text sizes on one page. He is a funny guy though and I especially liked the part about jury duty, maybe because I'm called for it every two years like clockwork.

33. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside by Thomas Middleton. Moll is the maid, or pretty young daughter, of Yellowhammer, a goldsmith. She has two men vying for her hand. One is the wealthy Knight, Sir Walter Whorehound, who already has two mistresses, one of whom has several of his children. Yellowhammer favors Sir Walter for a son-in-law. The second suitor is Tuchwood Junior, whose older brother is a local conman. He is Moll's choice, which forces scheming.
A second plot line involves Tuchwood Senior's con of the wealthy Sir and Lady Kix, a couple who are at each others throats over their lack of children.

This play is a comedy that gets crude and raunchy and probably had its audiences choking with laughter. Puritan women get sloppy drunk, the aristocratic are impotent and obnoxious, the newly educated are pretentious fops and there are constant double entendres about sex. The play did well enough that it was still being published nearly two decades later, then seems to have disappeared from the stage completely until a revival in 1956.

Since this was most likely written around 1613 (it was first performed that year), getting the most out of it would take some doing. I mean that even if you're familiar with Shakespearean language, this is a little more challenging. I read from the Fountainwell Drama Texts, edited by Charles Barber, and it was a decent enough copy but I did feel there were some explanations missing. 3 stars

I can see where a play written around 1613 would need some explanatory test for the modern audience to make sense of it. Sounds like something that would still be fun to see today!

The physical stuff, like the drunkenness, would still be funny. And I could see Yellowhammer's priggish son being funny as he shows off his knowledge by speaking almost entirely in Latin though his parents don't understand it. But I had to rely so much on the notes because of all that Latin, and some Welsh, and locations and particular streets mentioned that would have given meaning to the audience then. Middleton seems to have relied on his audience being locals much more than Shakespeare did.

34. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 in what was, a long time ago, America. The biggest entertainment in the country is the yearly Hunger Games, an event that sees a boy and girl from each district competing for food and prizes for their district and a lifetime of fame for the winner. The losers die.

Yes, I've just gotten around to this one after seeing the movie. The story is disturbing and brutal. Kids, some as young as twelve, going at each other to the death, all orchestrated by the adults in charge of what's left of the country and watched (betting seems to be encouraged) by the population like a cross between the Olympics and Lord of the Flies? It's hard to stop reading. 4.5 stars

I read the book when it came out (not knowing it was a planned trilogy, which irked me a little), but I've not seen the film. I take it if you didn't like the film, you'd never have picked up the book, so I'll try and get to the film this weekend - I just saw that they started streaming it on Netflix.

I didn't realize that it was always meant as a trilogy either. I just thought that the first book took off and she decided to continue the story.
I did like the movie. The casting was cool; Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, Elizabeth Banks as Effie. I though Woody Harrelson was very good.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside sounds hysterical. Hmmm, think I can con a local theater company into taking it on?

& the "heightened" Wuthering Heights sounds brilliant. Bronte was attacked for writing a "nasty" book at the time, but a lot of the nastiness is pretty subtle for our time. I'm betting the editions are quite in keeping with Emily's intent. I'm tempted.

->188 mstrust:
I went ahead and watched it Friday night and I thought it was great! The fashions and make-up of the Capitol characters were a little too exaggerated for me, but the rest was perfect.

>189 cammykitty: It would be a good choice as it's so rarely put on. Start pulling those strings, Cammy! And why isn't Medea staged more too?
If Bronte had wished that she could have taken things further, that edition more than delivers.

>190 -Eva-: I'm glad you liked it too! As a former make-up artist though, I could admire turning everyone into a mash-up of geisha, punk and cartoon characters. I didn't even recognize Elizabeth Banks until I placed her voice. Only the "real" people like Haymitch and Cinna weren't terrifying to look at.

Ah yes, will have to fight for Medea too.

You're braver than I am Jennifer, reading something like A Maid in Cheapside, but it does sound like lots of fun!

In the Hunger Games movie I found Effie a bit scary looking, but the make up suited the picture I'd built up from the books.

Edited for typo

>193 SouthernKiwi: Alana, she was terrifying to look at. But then, so was Stanley Tucci and all the other Capitol locals. Didn't it tell you right away that these people were out of touch with humanity? I'm looking forward to the movie of Catching Fire even though I haven't read the book yet.

Yip, the Capitol locals are most definitely out of touch with the rest of the districts. I'm looking forward to the Catching Fire movie as well, I ripped through the books last year :-)

35. The Shackle by Colette. After retiring from the stage, 36 year old Renee finds herself a friendless 'old maid'. She is neither rich nor poor, ugly nor beautiful, just someone who is accustomed to picking up and moving to a new city and hotel with no one to meet her there. She falls in with a group in Nice that consists of a pretty young woman, the lover who beats her and his opium-addicted weirdo friend. When the young lover begins paying attention to Renee she tries to resist but he arouses the long-dormant need to belong.

Colette has a reputation for writing about sex, or sensuality, but her writing has just a normal tone for the modern reader. She doesn't focus on sex, at least in this book or the previous work I've read, but it isn't ignored either. Her characters aren't prim and awkward towards each other but instead expect sex and living together to be a part of a relationship. As this book was written 100 years ago and lacks a moral character, it must have drawn attention to the female author, but Colette's talent is in the emotional inner dialogue of Renee, who has been alone for so long. 4 stars

Nice review of The Shackle. I've never read anything by Colette but have been wanting to. I'll have to add this to the wishlist.

Thanks, Stacy.

I went to see Amy Stewart speak last night at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe. She's touring for The Drunken Botanist so she did a Q&A with a local reporter and took questions from the audience, then signed books. And yes, they did serve drinks. I had a glass of ginger beer but they also had Moscow Mules.

36. The Botanical Gardens at the Huntington by Walter Houk. The Huntington is the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. This book is in my "Fox On The Run (Something led Me To the Book)" category, and what led me to it is that the Huntington is a place my husband and I went to very often while we were dating. I'm from SoCal and this book was published the year after we moved out of state, so the photos are just as I remember it looking.
The Huntington was the home of railroad magnate Henry Huntington. It includes his mansion and 206 acres of land. The mansion is now "the library" and home to many rare books including a Gutenberg Bible and art works like "Pinkie" and "Blue Boy". The grounds include a tea house and 15 themed gardens with collections of cacti, roses and camellia. It's a beautiful place to spend the day. 4.5 stars

I miss Changing Hands. Did you get a chance to browse at all?

Not much time as my husband was with me and he ain't a reader. But he's a great chauffeur. I just got to look through the books that were right where we ended up in line, which was world history. And I did tell Stewart that I'd found out about her here on LT.

37. Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World by Paul Collins. Most of the people in this collection tried so hard to succeed that you can't help but root for them, even knowing that being included in a book of this title, they failed. Well, that isn't entirely true. Ephraim Bull spent years cross-breeding and cultivating grapes until he created the Concord, which became the most commercially successful grape. His failure was no fault of his own, just that the law didn't allow patents on life forms, including new breeds of plants. This allowed every nursery in the country to buy one of his grape vines and start their own Concord business. Bull, who lived long enough to see a man named Welch become famous for his Concord grape juice, died penniless after losing his money trying to introduce another new grape.
Other people in the book include the man who built a precursor to the modern subway, another who spent his life trying to get his international musical language to catch on, and the stories of William Ireland and Robert Coates. Ireland, a neglected teenager, forged Shakespeare's signature and gave his "discovery" to his father as a way to gain approval. His father's regard for the boy's treasure hunting rose to the point that William was able to pen several poems and plays and pass them off as newly found works by Shakespeare.
Coates was another who adored Shakespeare, but he wanted to be an actor. He arrived in Bath in 1809, and made a spectacle of himself by adorning his clothes, shoes and cane with diamonds. His carriage was in the shape of a giant clam. And he put on performances of Romeo and Juliet at the local theater, but in his shows Romeo was the only star. His death scene would go on and on, and he would even get up and repeat it, as the audience would encourage him to do. Coates could fill the theater night after night as everyone loved to watch his horrible acting, and he took their heckles for encouragement.
Collins is also the author of one of my favorite books, Sixpence House, which introduced me to the book town of Hay-On-Wye. 4 stars

Nice review of Banvard's folly It's on my TBR list.

Thanks, Beth!

That one actually sounds a bit sad - I'd just feel sorry for everyone - but quite interesting. *thumbing* I've Sixpence House on Mt. TBR, so I'll try that one first to see if I like his style, though.

Some of the profiles were sad while others made me think, "Well, duh, of course it didn't work." Yet all of them were examples of great determination.
Getting to read Sixpence House for the first time! You lucky girl!

I'm back from the Friends of the Library sale. Ooooh, I been bad.

The Champagne Companion
Manhattan Noir
The Secret House of Death
Bad Things Happen
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril
Dictionary of Britain
Wodehouse on Crime
Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin
Three Months at Trader Joe's
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Secret of Chimneys
Surprise!Surprise!
The Golden Ball & other stories
13 Clues for Miss Marple I get so confused about the A.C. titles that I just randomly buy them at the point.
Scottish History photography by Colin Baxter
The Golden Mean
Shipwrecked!
Empire of the Blue Water
You Wouldn't Want to Meet A Body snatcher
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
The Lighthouse
Cities Then & Now
Heritage Gardens
The World of Bruegel
The Life and Works of Andy Warhol
The Pusher
Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal
Feeding a Yen
Twinkie, Deconstructed
Hangmen of England
I'll Take It
The Bubbly Bar
London Bridges
The Edmund Crispin Treasury
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
The Billionaire's Vinegar

Holy moly, what a haul! Hope you like Wodehouse on Crime; I quite enjoyed it.

Oh, that's quite good, I think! We are all enablers here. :)

Banvard's Folly sounds painfully amusing.

>208 rabbitprincess: princess I'm glad to hear that as I'd never seen that title before. I grabbed it fast and left when my cart was filled to the top.

>209 -Eva-: Eva That's true. I've noticed that any time an LTer says they shouldn't buy more books even though they'd like to, another LTer will answer with, "Oh, go on."

>210 cammykitty: I do recommend it!

That is an amazing haul! Our big annual sale needs carts ... much easier to grab more books then.

Oh, no, I have my own. One of those two-wheeled things like an old woman going for her groceries. And I get many envious comments from my fellow shoppers. Paper bags and cardboard boxes are for amateurs.

You just reminded me that I have The Billionaire's Vinegar buried under papers on my desk! Will all those books stay in their bags or do you have shelf space for them?

Already on their shelves, except for the Christies. I'll have to go through each title to see if I already have them under their different titles. I used to have a print-out from a web page that gave all the alternative titles but that is buried in the stacks of paper on my desk.
And when I say "on their shelves" I mean that I now must do some weeding so that they fit in the shelves.
Will you be digging out your copy of The Billionaire's Vinegar? I'm currently reading The Drunken Botanist.

I have a book from the library to read and then I will give it a go.

A very impressive haul! I'm envious.

Oh Jennifer, you are very good at being bad! Great haul.

>216 mamzel: mamzel I'll be interested in your opinion!

>217 mathgirl40:,218 Paulina & Judy I don't think I mentioned that the haul only cost $27. Ha!

38. The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart. This book goes into meticulous detail in listing all the plants, trees, herbs, nuts, flowers, spices and pretty much anything else that has ever been fermented and distilled to make alcohol. Stewart tells how agaves are harvested, what that flavor in Amaretto di Saronno is (nope, not almonds), what kind of bugs find their way into what liquour and gives comparison charts for the multiples of say, violet liqueurs. This isn't just a gathering of dry facts though; when something is badly made Stewart tells you.

Stewart is the auther of several botany and gardening books, is the a founder of a gardening blog and has a bookstore. I'd read about this book here on LT, so when she appeared nearby a couple of weeks ago I went to grab this for the signing and listen to her talk about all the research (parties) that went into the two years she spent on this book. It's so complete that I know I'll be taking it with me to find things I never would have tried before. Who hasn't looked at a bottle of something and wondered what to do with it? You'll get the answer here. 5 stars

So, as we're now in the triple digit temperatures here in hell, I'll be starting my summer reads. Not everything will pertain to the season, but I have a whole teetering stack that does. The criteria for getting into this stack was rather loose though. Pretty much anything that has to do with hot weather, warm climates, vacations or traveling. Coming soon!

Just cartching up - must say that that's one impressive book haul!

Good to hear from you, Pete!

39. Some Country Houses and Their Owners by James Lees-Milne. Throughout the 1940s Milne traveled all over Great Britain on behalf of the newly-formed National Trust. His job was to visit stately homes, castles or homes of historical significance, look them over and determine if the trust should ask for them to be donated for public use. The owners were often eager to donate their ancestral homes to get out from under the crushing death taxes levied, along with the enormous expense of keeping up a home that was often two or three hundred years old.

Milne kept a journal of the many homes he visited, and this book is divided between the homes the trust acquired and the ones Milne worked to acquire but didn't, for many reasons. He has the quick eye and keen observation needed for his job and describes the homes in great detail as to what he likes and often what he hates. He can tell when the furniture is fake and when a building has been modernized badly. His descriptions of the various occupants is so clearly written that the reader can see them as Milne does. He often likes these aristocrats who have fallen on hard times, at one point, in 1947, he writes in fear of what will happen to a particular house once the average people are allowed near it:

A whole social system has broken down. What will replace it beyond government by the masses, uncultivated, rancorous, savage, philistine, the enemies of all things beautiful? How I detest democracy.

To be fair, he was seeing many grand houses that were being vandalized by the military personnel living in them at the time, as much of the journal was during WWII. And Milne is funny, with a snarky sense of humor. His descriptions are wonderful.

Lord Beauchamp is fat, with a great paunch, looking like God knows what, wearing an old blue shirt, open at the frayed neck, and a tight pair of brown Army shorts, baby socks and sandshoes.

or an arrogant Lord who clearly did trust Milne or the idea of the trust:

At 5.45 Lord Leconfield, tired out, led me to the street door where he dismissed me. Pointing to a tea house with an enormous CLOSED hanging in the window, he said, "You will get a very good tea in there. Put it down to me. Goodbye."

This is a quick read but the extended version of Lees-Milne's journals is available too. 4 stars

40. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. A collection of short stories, most them having a central theme of a displaced male and often a bad father/son relationship. In "The Brown Coast", the death of a father causes a man's marriage to fall apart and sends him to stay at a rundown beach property where he begins capturing sea creatures. In "The Executors of Important Energies", a young man who has had little parenting from his father is forced to spend an evening with him now that mental decline has made the father little more than a child. "Leopard" is about a boy who believes his stepfather hates him.
Tower creates realistic stories; there are no flights into fantasy, no surrealism. The plots often involve someone struggling to hold on to what little bit they have or to find something to do with themselves. Most often the main character is a man who has to start over after a marriage ending, financial loss or being kicked out by the parents. I was pulled into each new story immediately, though it did get a bit monotonous to have story after story about males wanting to find their place. There's one story told from the point of a teenage girl.
One other thing that I would have liked to have seen was a few stories that had more of an ending. I like a story that leaves the reader with multiple choices for what happened next, but Tower's endings aren't endings so much as an interruption in the middle of a conversation, like he meant to keep going but forgot what he wanted to say. I don't mean to dissuade anyone from reading this book because it's his first and it's pretty good. 3.5 stars

41. The Bubbly Bar by Maria C. Hunt. Hunt is a wine professional with a site devoted to champagne. This book is almost entirely champagne recipes, many of them created by Hunt. She also has a few recipes calling for an Asian spirit made from rice and sweet potatoes called Soju. I'd never heard of it. The pretty photographs of the cocktails are effective, as I wanted to try nearly everything I saw. Okay, so here's one, just in case anyone needs it:

Love in the Afternoon

2 oz fresh tangerine juice
1 oz rosewater
2 fresh mint leaves
4 oz dry champagne

Add the juice and rosewater to a champagne flute, twist the mint leaves and
drop into the flute. Fill with the champagne.
4.5 stars

I have Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned on my wishlist. I'll read it someday!

As for champagne cocktails, my favorite summer "let's celebrate because we have people over" drink is limoncello (kept in the freezer) and prosecco (Italian sparkling wine, which is delicious and cheap). If I'm feeling particularly celebratory, I'll toss in a few frozen raspberries.

I usually have a bag of Trader Joe's frozen mixed berries in the freezer, so my favorite is to throw in a black cherry and two blueberries. Yep, that's my perfect combination.
I've made limoncello and it came out perfectly, which means that it smelled exactly like lemon Pledge! I wish I'd thought to mix it with champagne. I've tried prosecco and it gave me a raging headache, which champagne, cuvee and cava don't. Maybe it has a higher sugar content that the "brut" style I'm used to.
Because of The Drunken Botanist I went out and got a bottle of Bonnet Creme de Cassis and made Kir Royales. And dropped a cherry and blueberries in ;)

I finished The Billionaire's Vinegar and, judging by the previous few posts, I think you will definitely enjoy it.

Berries always make a drink that much more festive. And who doesn't want that?

>226 mamzel: thanks for letting me know; it may take some time before I get to it but I'm glad I have a Food & Drink category this year. It's filling up faster than I thought it would.

>and they add vitamins! That's what I tell myself.

Practically health food!

I tried "Love in the Afternoon" today, and even though I used a little less rosewater than the recipe called for, I thought the flavor overwhelmed the champagne. I'd replace it with orange blossom water next time.

42. Behind the Curtain by Peter Abrahams. Thirteen year-old Ingrid has noticed a sudden change in her fourteen year-old brother; mainly that he's now benching two hundred pounds and hanging out with an older loser who has more money than he should. Ingrid's dad is different too since his boss hired a new employee who is overly aggressive and spouts the motto, "Whatever It Takes." And someone is filing complaints with the city to try and have her grandfather's farm taken from him. Since Ingrid takes most of her advice from Sherlock Holmes, her nosiness is noticed quickly and makes her a target for a kidnapping attempt, but no one, including the police chief, believes her, so she has to solve all the family mysteries herself.

This is the second "Echo Falls Mystery", after Down the Rabbit Hole, which I read last year. I liked that one better- it was more everything. Fun, more tense as it began with a murder , more convincingly in the voice of a young but intelligent girl (the author is male and looks to be mid-50's). While I still like Ingrid here, the author seemed to write in his own tastes for hers: she loves the 40's Sherlock Holmes movies, the 60's version of "The Producers", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", drinks Fresca? It was a little weird. I'll continue the series as it's a a good story to relax with. 3 stars

43. Gently Down the Stream by Alan Hunter. Chief Inspector George Gently is sent to investigate the burned-out yacht and incenerated body of wealthy businessman John Lammas along the rivebank somewhere in Northern England. As evidence suggests that he had his hot young secretary on board along with thousands of pounds in cash, and now the money, the girl, and the chauffeur who hated his boss are all missing, Gently has a good lead. But just the slightest digging uncovers Lammas' wife and son, who also hated him, and that Lammas had been quietly liquidating the business to his benefit.

This is the third in the Gently series but the first that I've read. I'd never heard of them before getting hooked on the British tv series, and I believe these books went out of print for many years before being revived by the popularity of the show. I would say that the characters in the book, and even the plot, have little resemblence to the t.v. versions. This book was written in 1957 and stands up as well as any from that period. There are red herrings and a dysfunctional family (including the requisite 'Belligerent But Frightened Young Female' who bounds her way into nearly every British mystery from the 20's through the 60's) and a good plot twist at the end. 3.5 stars

44. Bad Trips edited by Keath Fraser. Continuing with my summer theme, Bad Trips is a thick compilation of travel memoirs, a few novel excerpts and a couple of poems, all with the theme of travel and exploration that didn't go so well. A few are humorous- David Mamet's piece about his wife forcing him to relax on a brief family vacation and Indian author Anita Desai's essay on being sent to a small Norwegian island as part of a UN exchange program of women writers. Many of the pieces are harrowing. Martin Amis describes his plane making a sudden emergency landing after a bomb threat. George Woodcock writes about the depression of spending the day in a small Welsh village after the local industry had been shut down, leaving the inhabitants almost entirely unemployed and scrounging for food and heat. Mary Morris watches a young man fall to his death at a Mexican waterfall. There's a section devoted to war memoirs that covers Vietnam, several Middle East locations, and a piece by actor Dirk Bogarde about the horrors he saw in WWII.

So, maybe not something you'd want to read as you pack for your own trip, but a good read at other times, and the choice of authors is very good: Updike, Graham Greene, J.M. Coetzee, Eric Hansen, Russell Banks, Paul Theroux, Umberto Eco. 4 stars

Book Buying Day! I've been home with a sinus infection/bronchitis all week, so in celebration of its tapering off (well, really the motivation was an extra 20% off at Half-Price Books) I got Death Comes to Pemberley, The American Way of Eating, Jamie's America, Savage Art:The Biography of Jim Thompson The House with a Clock in the Walls, Hollywood Then and Now, The Horror in the Museum, Serenade (a James M. Cain I'd never heard of!!) and a bio of John Singer Sargent to send to my sister and a couple of CD's for husband.

Yea Book Buying Day! Great way to celebrarate feeling better.

Glad to hear you're feeling better Jennifer, I imagine the shiny new books are making you feel better still.

Didn't have my glasses on and read Book Burning Day! Moved in closer and read Buying with a sigh of relief.

>235 LittleTaiko:,236 Stacy & Alana Thanks, and it does feel pretty great to have all the new pretties. Of course they keep me from getting back to what I've been reading because I keep flipping around, reading recipes...

>237 mamzel: mamzel Ha! I'd burn clothes first. They'd be my husband's clothes, but still.

45. Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James. The fourth book in the Dalgliesh series, this time Scotland Yard Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is called to Nightingale House, a nursing school on hospital grounds, to look into the death of two young students within a short period. Too unlikely to be a coincidence, and one died painfully in front of a whole class of students and a well-respected doctor. Investigating is made more difficult by the belligerence of the school staff, some who have relationships they'd rather not discuss, though everyone in school seems to know who is involved with whom, and the fact that both the victims were unpopular adds to the wall being thrown up around the murders.

Having read a few of the later books from the series before deciding to start at the beginning, I've gotten hooked on Dalgliesh. This one took me a little time to get into, but it's a good one once I'd sorted out the many, many female characters the reader needs to keep track of. 4 stars

46. Cities Then & Now by Jim Antoniou. Using plastic overlays, the great cities of the world are shown from at least 100 years ago all the way back to biblical times in some cases. The history of the city, its founders, architects and histories of particularly famous structures are included. 4 stars

47. Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver. The famous and adorable chef travels across America, meeting people and learning how to cook the local specialties. You would expect him to hit the foodie cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, maybe throw in some New England too. New York is covered, with recipes from Chinatown and the Lower East Side, but throughout the rest of the book he's covering the places and foods that other cookbooks don't- to the Navajos sheep ranchers of Arizona, the alligator hunters of Louisiana, the soul food cooks of Atlanta and the cowboys of the Wyoming.
There are so many recipes here that I'll be trying out. They look delicious! I have several of Oliver's books and a couple of his recipes have become regulars for me. They tend to be easy and you don't need special equipment, which is great because I have no room to store another gadget.
Of course I can find something to quibble about; he calls Navajo or Indian Fry Bread "Navajo Flatbread" and recommends cooking them on a grill or in a non-stick pan. No. I've been eating fry bread my whole life as my grandmother made them and I live in Arizona. They have to be cooked in a heavy skillet of very hot oil. What he's cooking is a naan-like bread, but this book is his twist on American dishes, so maybe that's what he wanted. It looks soft and tasty.
Lots of the recipes have ingredients I'd never thought of adding to a dish, like thyme and oregano in a blackened catfish rub, but if you tried it, it's probably good. This is going on the shelf near the kitchen so I can grab it. 5 stars

Shroud for a Nightingale is the only P. D. James book I've read so far, and I had the same problem of not being able to get into until I had the characters straight, but it was enjoyable otherwise although I think you liked it a little more than me. If I were going to buy recipe books Jamie Oliver is where I'd head first, precisely because they're fast and easy - I'm very much a reluctant cook :-)

I'm glad it wasn't just me. I repeatedly had to look back to the "nurses introducing themselves" scene to keep them straight, but once their distinct personalities came out it was fine.

I like cooking and baking, but I don't like seeing a photo of something that looks great and finding that I need all this special equipment to make it. I'll look for special ingredients but I'm so over buying a piece of equipment to make one certain dish.

You just made me miss indian fry bread. There used to be a place downtown, on Indian School Road, that had chili and fry bread.

Do you mean The Fry Bread House on 7th Ave, just north of Indian School? It's so good! And their chili is good, but I like my fry bread with beans and loaded with veggies like my Grandma made. Then I don't feel so guilty about the cinnamon sugar one I'm going to have right after.

48. Hollywood Then and Now by Rosemary Lord. Does this name seem like deja vu?
This is a coffee table sized book of a couple hundred places that are or were relevant to the Hollywood scene. The names are so famous that nearly everyone would recognize them- Ciro's, Schwab's Drugstore, Chateau Marmont, The Knickerbocker, The Roosevelt, Musso & Frank's, The Brown Derby...
Photos from their height of popularity, often with the biggest stars of the era in the setting prove that places like The Hollywood Canteen really was a hoppin' place. Modern photos show that it, like so many iconic Hollywood landmarks, is now a parking lot.
Yes, there's a reason why Joni Mitchell wrote the words, " They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." Specifically, she wrote them about The Garden of Allah, a beautiful block of villas on Sunset Blvd. built by silent screen actress Allah Nazimova. It was a place in the heart of the city where the stars could party together around the pool and gardens and it was home to Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn and many others. Then a bank bought it, tore it down and built themselves a parking lot.

Being from Orange County I spent so much of my life all over L.A., especially my teens and 20s, so lots of these places bring up nostalgia, but I learned a lot from this book too. I had once known enough L.A. history to give a friend a walking tour, but I didn't know that the Virgin Megastore on Sunset where I've shopped for Redd Kross cds was built on the site of Schwab's or that The Comedy Store that I've driven past how many hundreds of times is that Ciro's building. This is a great but somewhat depressing book for natives, and a perfect book for fans of Hollywood glamour. 4 stars

That's the one. Their chili is amazing, though.

I know you're moving, but maybe you need to dart over here for a weekend and eat fry bread until you don't want to see it again. My treat!

How much fun would that be? I think I'd rather visit during the VNSA book sale and when the temperature hovers below 100!

Oh, darn, you remembered what it's like here in the "Spring".

49. Not All Tarts Are Apple by Pip Granger. It's the early 1950's and seven year-old Rosie lives in Soho with Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bert, who are her parents even though she's dimly aware that they really aren't. Rosie knows that her mother left her behind in their cafe when she was a newborn, and Maggie and Bert kept her for their own. Their family is rounded out by the crooked lawyer, the medium and the hooker who all live next door.

Written as a memoir, this book goes on aimlessly until about fifty pages from the end when suddenly there's a kidnapping and everything is about Rosie's mother, whose situation has been clear pretty early on. I can't say that the writing is bad, because I've seen so much worse, but it isn't good, especially when the cover proclaims this book to be a prize winner for fiction. The author relies heavily on cliches and takes the reader into situations that seem pointless and meandering.
Oddly, this was published by Poisoned Pen Press here in Scottsdale, which I thought worked only in mystery and crime. Though the story includes crime, it's seen through the eyes of a child and couldn't be called a "crime novel" in any way. 2.5 stars

50. Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh. When local boy Wally Trehern's warts are suddenly cured, he explains that a lady in green appeared to him and told him that the village spring would wash them away. Then the general shop owner claims that her asthma has also been cured by the spring. The sleepy island village is soon a pilgrimage destination for those seeking cures from their ailments and the business owners and little church are making good money for the first time in their lives. But with the death of her sister, ownership of the entire island passes to Miss Emily Pride, a stubborn old woman who happens to be the former tutor of Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Her insistence that all the commercial exploitation of the spring and the desperate people who visit must stop makes her the enemy to the locals.

Even though I'd seen this particular episode of "The Alleyn Mysteries", it didn't reduce my enjoyment of the book. Marsh is an excellent writer. 4 stars

->232 mstrust:
I've been meaning to watch the TV-series since Netflix keeps telling me I'll like it - good to know that the books are different enough that I can have both. :) Yey - more series...

->240 mstrust:
I watched the TV-series that was made during that trip - highly recommended if you haven't already seen it.

I love finding a new mysteries series to get hooked on. I believe the Alleyn tv series is all 1940's style even though this book was written in the 60's. Maybe the 40's are when she began the series and the clothes really work.

Is it the one where he re-does the school lunches? I've seen that one, but if it's a show called "Jamie's America" I haven't.

There's one called "Food Revolution" (which I know well because my best friend produced the first season), where he re-did school lunches, but he's done a few UK shows about school lunches as well. The one I'm thinking of for Jamie's America is called "Jamie's American Road Trip."

No, I haven't heard of that one so I'll check with Netflix. Thanks for the heads up. I liked "Food Revolution" a lot.

Time for a new thread, so join me here!