Mamzel's 2014 Challenge of the Books

Boy does the real estate go fast!

I probably won't start until the school's winter break starts, about the middle of December.

Thanks to someone's mention of the Flying Dutchman, a theme sprung to my mind so I am ready to unveil my categories.

In my younger years I grew up sailing with my family and this evolved into a career as a deck officer. I will share this history by using maritime terms for the categories.

1. Blips - LT recommendations -1
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 2
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 2
4. ITB - cross genre
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 1
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 3
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list -2
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 1
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 2
10. Galley - food related
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous
12. Fleet - group reads
13. Ship's hold - YA
13a. HUB Challenge - 9
14. Poop Deck - books not finished

Total read: 20

Favorites (4.5 - 5 stars)



The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley (2014)
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2013)

BLIPS - books that have been on my radar for a while. It will be interesting to see if I can keep up with the titles I'll keep adding.

PROPOSED:
1. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - moved to group reads category
2. The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Dìaz
3. Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch
4. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino - read 1/20/14
5. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
6. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

BUOYANCY - explanation of the mystery of why such huge ships can float - mysteries



1. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley (2014)
2. Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith (2013)

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN- ghost and horror stories



1. S. by Doug Durst and J.J. Abrams (2013)
2. Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman (1999)

ITB (Integrated Tug-Barge) - more than one genre (The last ship I worked on was similar to this. It carried petroleum products like gasoline and jet fuel.)

KEEL - the backbone of the ship - classic literature - from the 1001 books challenge



1. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (originally 1853)

FOREIGN FLAG - name given to a ship flying a flag other than U.S. - non-American authors



1. Hild by Nicola Griffith (2013)
2. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (orig. pub. 1979, translated 1981)
3. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith (2013) audiobook

ORLOP DECK - where my ROOTs are stowed!



1. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg et al (2011)
2. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (2013)

CATAMARAN - science fiction (referring to the amazing technology that went into the recent America's Cup boats)



1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (2013)

SHIP'S LOG - legal documentation of ship's voyages - nonfiction



1. Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration by Ann Bausum (2008)
2. Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska's WWII Invasion by Samantha Seiple (2011)

GALLEY - food related (cookbooks, etc.)



BREAKBULK- freighters that can carry just about any cargo - anything that doesn't fit another category. (This ship is very similar to the first one I worked on, the Export Ambassador, in 1978.)

FLEET - a group of ships - I will record my successfully completed group reads here.



PROPOSED:
Middlemarch - first quarter
Bleak House - January - 1/10/14
The Picture of Dorian Gray - One Librarything One Book
Enrique's Journey - January GEOCAT
Cantebury Tales - second quarter
Bel Canto - March
Maddaddam - Atwood in April
Foucault's Pendulum - Eco in May
Unbroken - November

SHIP'S HOLD - where the cargo is held - the bulk of my reading which is usually YA fiction (This is a hold on a bulk carrier which would carry items such as coal, iron ore, loose grains, etc. The second and third ships I worked on were bulk carriers.)


**Subcategory - Books read for the HUB challenge

1. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2013)
2. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (2013)
3. "The President Has Been Shot!" by James L. Swanson (2013)
4. Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool (2013)
5. In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters (2013)
6. Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle (2013)
7. Winger by Andrew Smith (2013)
8. Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi, read by Sunil Malhotra (2013)
9. Scowler by Daniel Kraus (2013)



POOP DECK - Category inspired by BookLizard - books that fail the Pearl Rule and/or get thrown against a bulkhead!

I'll unveil my categories later!

Hi mamzel, looking forward to it ...

Haha I love your placeholder messages! Looking forward to seeing how your challenge unfolds. :)

Love your placeholders! Absolutely recommend Unbroken - a very moving and thought provoking book.

Good luck trying to keep up with the blips.

Brilliant placeholders! Looking forward to seeing with what they'll be replaced.

I'm looking forward to the unveiling!

Well, now I am really curious to see how you shape you challenge! ;-)

Now I can't wait for mid-December!

Got you starred, and will be interested to see what you come up with :-)

You'll reveal your categories later!? Oh, you suspenseful little reader you!

Categories have been unveiled. Thanks to the member who triggered my imagination by mentioning The Flying Dutchman.

It was worth the wait, Mamzel. Great set-up for next year's challenge!

What a great theme!

Awesome and educational categories. ITB's and Orlop decks, who would've known!

Love your nautical theme!

Love it!

Ahoy! Love the theme!

Very clever theme! My grandfather was a chief steward most of his career, but I am unfortunately extremely prone to seasickness and can't go near a boat without turning slightly green.

What an interesting theme!

Great categories Mamzel, 2014 should be an interesting year over here.

Like your categories and interesting information. Looking forward to your reading choices.

Mamzel you gave me one of the most fun book bullets in 2013. I even themed next years category after it. I can't wait to get hit again next year.

That's an interesting selection of categories!

Okay, I LOVE your theme! Looking forward to following your thread.

Thanks everyone. I'll be switching over on Dec. 21 which is the first day of our winter break. Can't wait!

I signed up on the 1001 Books to Read group so I will be using books from that for my classics thread. As I looked over the list and updated recent reads (I've got 62 that I can definitely remember reading) I noticed Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on the list and Huzzah! it was on the Kindle specials today. I love serendipity!

I love your theme, it's so lovely. I've grown up by the sea and love boats but have never been on any big ships (apart from ferries) but I did sail a fair bit as a child on my uncle's sailboat. I'd love to do it again. Your lovely categories is making me lose myself in daydreams...

I love your categories! I look forward to seeing your progress in 2014.

Paws, I attended one of the Maritime Academies and was extremely fortunate that the first ship I worked on went around the world!

Laura, I'll be interested in following you as well.

37. I'm not jealous. No, not at all. Not even a tiny, minute little bit. NOT AT ALL, I say.

*grin*

Appropriate categories for she-of-the-memorized-Sea-Fever. Huzzah! A bit worried I may end up belaying some of my own reads in favor of yours, but looking forward to your posts in 2014. Love the theme.

Do you ever Pearl-rule books? Would those go on the Poop Deck?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Love the theme. Happy Sailing!

>41 BookLizard:: Hee hee hee! :)

ReshiBec - I'll really be looking forward to Talk Like a Pirate Day!

BookLizard - Guffawed out loud! Thanks for the idea. I usually have one or two each year. On the list it goes!

First post of the new group! I am posting this on my new toy - an iPad Air - which Monsieur gave me since he is tired of me borrowing his. I am working my way through Hild which amazing but very long. What is really killing me is that I am determined to finish it before starting S. I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas and Santa was generous with books!

Yay for new toys!

Hild is on my radar, but what is S? Is that the one by J. J. Abrams of Lost fame?

Indeed it is. Both of my kids looked at it and I warned them not to move a single item.

Holy cow! It's out of stock everywhere online. One Barnes & Noble near me might have it for $35. Ouch! Now I want it. LOL.

Sounds like you have the same new toy I got!

Book Lizard, I hope you'll find it soon.
Thornton, I will have to learn more about it before I'm comfortable with it. I had to use my computer to post since the Internet kept kicking out and I don't know how (or if I can) right click.



Hild by Nicola Griffith (2013)

The child's world changed late one afternoon, though she didn't know it.

St. Hilda of Whitby's remarkable life begins in this book where she was known as Hild, "light of the world." Her mother was a lady to the wife of King Edwin, ruler of the area of England known as Northumbria in the early 600s. She had a life relatively free of responsibilities so she spent most of her time observing nature and learned how the movements of birds correlated with weather. She knew the name of every plant and any medicinal uses they might have. As she honed her skill of observation, she perceived patterns of behavior that she was able to use when observing people.

She grew up with a boy named Cian and they played and became strong together. As he learned to fight with a wooden sword he practiced with her and she learned how to use a staff to fight against a man with a sword. It helped that she grew to be taller than most women and many men. She had chances to display her abilities as she was taken along to battles as a young girl. After the battle was over she astounded everyone by humanely killing the wounded enemy soldiers who would have just been left where they lay. The soldiers assigned to protect her became her posse and followed her.

The creep of Christianity was another aspect of this story and the first priests that made inroads are not portrayed very sympathetically for the most part. They were ambitious and conniving and did their best to baptize everyone and erect their cathedrals at any cost.

My advice to anyone interested in reading this book is to start with the glossary in the back to learn the definitions of the archaic terms and pronunciation of the names. Be aware that the author is working on the next book. We will have to wait to learn why Hild was given a sainthood.

CATEGORY: FOREIGN FLAG (NON-AMERICAN AUTHOR)

I've not figured out how to copy a picture source location with the iPad yet. I'm using the laptop for review posting still.

Great review Mamzel, it's certainly a different category of book I would read but I am trying to look at new and interesting genres and your review has certainly piqued my interest :)

I usually upload pictures from the iPad to my LT gallery, then post them from the laptop.

Thornton & cbl, Maybe we should start an iPad thread to share tips with each other.

Lilywren, Another aspect of this book that I took in stride as I read it but became more aware of after visiting her website, is that the author writes for the LGBTQ community. Hild's sexual encounters seemed logical and sensible but inclusion in the story had me raise my eyebrows in surprise (not shock). I went to the website to try and get a hint when to expect the next book.

I'm getting into S. and it's a very interesting trip. It's like reading about four books at once and trying to keep track of all the various threads therein. The one thing that keeps occurring to me is, "How the H-E-double hockey sticks did they ever conceive of and write this book???" I add my own comments on sticky notes. I think I'll leave them there for my daughter to come across and maybe add to also.

Yes - I too am still using an old laptop to load pictures and things. I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that there is no right-click on an iPad nor a way to hover over the URL on a picture. (Not even sure I said that right)

You might be able to save a picture to your iPad by pressing down on the picture (not just tapping) and then choosing Save to Camera Roll. I think sometimes it gives you an option to copy the image URL but I'm not certain about that.

I'm in if there's a thread on using the iPad.

I asked my husband how to do this (he's my Apple expert) and he didn't know but he found this page
http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/30/view-source-safari-ipad-iphone/
The instructions sounded weird to me, but they work. I set up the bookmark with the code in the URL field. Next I went to my junk drawer and clicked on a photo I had uploaded there, clicked on that bookmark and it opened a new page with the ugly source code. He told me just search for the URL that ended in .jpg on that page and click it then the URL I want was up in the URL bar to copy and go paste wherever I wanted it.

Great review of Hild. Sounds like my kind of book, except for the glossary bit! I'm feeling like a lazy reader today.

57> You are basically viewing the source code for the entire page that way. I think it's still easier to boot up the laptop.

I kinda agree with Thornton. For now I'll go to my computer to add book posts.

Cammy, I would go back and forth until I thought it was foolish and just read through them once. There aren't that many and it saved on twisting my tongue to get around the names!

>59 thornton37814: and >60 mamzel:, I agree, but at least we know it is possible if you are really desperate.
And we know we aren't missing something obvious, it really is not a possibility in any "normal" way :-)

Laura, I just have to let Monsieur know it can't be a substitute for my computer (which is wheezing and gasping with age).



S. by Doug Durst and J.J. Abrams (2013)

*If found, please return to workroom B19, main library, Pollard State University

That's technically not the first line of the book, Ship of Theseus, but is the first line of the book, S. I started this book yesterday and spent today finishing it. I was afraid I would miss or forget something if I left it too long. It reminds me of Russian nesting dolls, as one story is inside another inside another. At the heart is a story called Ship of Theseus, a horror adventure about a man who has no memory and thinks of himself as S. since that is the only name anyone uses when talking to him. He is shanghaied aboard a sailing ship (total serendipity I chose The Flying Dutchman for a category) with crew members who had their lips sewn together. Sound like fun yet?

From the title page on, we see notes written by two people - well three if you consider that the ages of one of the writers span 10 years. The reader can follow the chronology of the notes by the color of the ink. Stuck between pages are postcards, maps, newspaper clippings, and the sort of things a person might leave in a book. The people are Eric (age 15 who stole the book from his high school library) and Eric (age late 20s working on a doctorate) and Jen, an undergraduate who works in the university library and gets caught up in the mystery and conflicting information about the book. Another 'character' is the translator who wrote the forward and footnotes, many of them out and out wrong.

I'm sure people will find their own way through this labyrinth. How I approached it was to scan a new page to determine the flow of any notes (helpfully directed with arrows). I would then read the story and any notes as they pertained. I found that worked for me since some of the notes referred to older notes.

Another layer of the stories is the cutthroat university scene where students struggle to research a topic and protect it from professors who need to 'publish or perish.' We also have the pressure of family paying for the education and wanting their student to get their degree and get on with their career and life.

Who would like this book? Someone interested in new and innovative. Someone who enjoys puzzles with a dark edge. A voyeur.

CATEGORY: HORROR

Wow, I had heard a little about this book, and your description makes it seem so intriguing. Not something you can read on the kindle, that's for sure. I may have been struck by my first book bullet!

>62 mamzel: Ok with such a review it's going on the 2014 BB list despite its steep price. It seems that the design and story are worth it.

@62 I started S. but decided to wait until I oculd spend some time with it and its multiple narratuves. glad to hear it holds up, its such a beautiful object.

Heavens--not even 2014 yet, and already a bb from this thread. It makes me think of House of Leaves, though, so I'm not going to be able to resist picking this up... Thanks for the great review & bb!

S. does sound very intriguing; on the wishlist it goes :P

It is expensive but much of it apparently must be assembled by hand. I fully intend to lend it to special people to get our money's worth. Always with an admonition/plea to keep everything in place. Will look forward to seeing what you all think of it.

To all LTers, may 2014 bring you happiness, good health, and great books!


glitter-graphics.com

Happy New Year!
I'm intrigued by S. It sounds so quirky I'm not sure if I should find a copy ASAP or avoid it at all costs. I had no patience for the quirkiness of House of Leaves or The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.

Awesome theme! I'll definitely be dropping by more often this year.

S sounds incredibly intriguing! A definite BB for me :) Happy New Year to you too :)

Starred and looking forward to your reviews this year! Good luck!

Bleak House by Charles Dickens (originally 1853)

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chanceloor sitting in Lincoln's Inn hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

I have to give myself props for reading this book. One could definitely call this a hefty tome. The version that I chose for the cover says it is 712 pages long.

I have watched soap operas on TV (once for decades) and this is such a Victorian soap opera which was written in serial form and first appeared in weekly segments. There is a huge list of characters and many layers of plots and intersecting stories.

This is the perfect kind of book to read on an ebook. I don't think I would have gotten far if I had the bulk of the pages taunting me in the early chapters. The gentle reminder of percentage read at the bottom steadily ticked by and gave me encouragement.

This is definitely not for anyone but the stars aligned and gave me a good, quiet vacation to dedicate to its reading. Not all of the outcomes were tragic, some were happy.

CATEGORY: KEEL (BOOKS FROM THE 1001 LIST)

Sounds interesting! But also as if it needs to be read in a 'short' amount of time. I think if you'd put it down for too long, you might lose track of who's who.

Congrats on starting the year with a big one. Isn't an e-reader great for that? I'm pretty sure I would never have waded through Moby Dick without the short pages of my kindle to keep the pages of solid text moving.

Now you can check Bleak House off your list.

Hurray! Nice work! Your review has inspired me to get back to it (once I finish catching up on threads :D).

Samantha, that's why I tackled it now since I knew I would have a good length of time to read it. I might not have made it through if I had dragged it out too long.

Ridgeway girl, I have Moby on my Kindle waiting for another immersion. I was glad they put an extra line between the paragraphs to break up the pages a little.

Roberta, checked and checked.

Rabbit princess, there is a point where it seems less of a slog and really takes off. I hope you can get to that point.

Congrats on finishing Bleak House! At my current reading/ distraction rate, I anticipate it will be Easter before I finish it. ;-)

Congratulations on completing Bleak House. I have enjoyed the Dickens that I have read, but alway get a great feeling of accomplishment when I complete one. He certainly makes his reader wade through a lot of words! :)

Congrats on finishing Bleak House! Definitely agree that reading it as an ebook helps - I can temporarily "forget" how long the book is.

Thanks, thanks, and thanks! It was a nice way to get the year started. What I don't have in number of books is more than made up for in number of pages.

Congrats on finishing Bleak House!! You're an inspiration. At my pace, I am thinking Easter and that's only because Easter is quite late this year.

Hi-
I am very late to your thread, *apologies* for that.
I love your categories and have learned a lot already (including that a poop deck isn't all about what you think it is going to be).

I, as a land-lubber in the extreme, am in awe of your ocean-going job. I would feel decidedly uneasy as far away from land as those ships must take you. I saw the film Captain Phillips recently, which didn't help :) Oh, and while I am confessing, I also get nightmares about huge waves. There. I am done.

Good job on reading Bleak House! I felt proud of myself reading A Tale of Two Cities last year. I would try (if I had to read a DIckens this year) American Notes next as it is the only one I have on the shelf.

Well done finishing Bleak House. I've only ever read two Dickens books, A Tale of Two Cities, which I read in high school and convinced me never to read another, and A Christmas Carol which I read last year and enjoyed very much. Still I think I'll revert to my high school opinion of Dickens in general and avoid him in the future.

Congrats on finishing Bleak House. I opted not to re-read it at this time because I had so many other things on my shelf, but I was tempted to join.

ireadthereforeiam, Yeah, big waves can be scary. As a rule we generally tried to avoid them as much as possible. When we were in the area that movie took place we were extremely alert, and that was 30 years ago. It's always been a dangerous place.

virginiahomeschooler, I've only ever read A Christmas Carol. I do want to read AToTC one day.

thornton, I go back to work tomorrow so I'm glad I was able to finish it. (And get another in, see below.)



The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (2013)

I like to imagine there were more of us in the beginning. Not many, I suppose. But more than there are now.

This fantasy was written by a very young woman (good for her!) but why it's not targeting young adults is beyond me. It has all the hallmarks - gutsy girl with special power (check), group of like folk (check), dangerous aliens (check), dangerous enemy/possible love interest (check), secret plots to reveal (check).

It takes place in London in the year 2056 and it has been 200 years since a plague of clairvoyance has hit the populace and aliens arrived to help control this dangerous group of fortune tellers. Paige has a remarkable ability to see into people's dreams and sells her information to an underground group. She is kidnapped by government officials and turned over to the aliens, tortured to reveal her power, taken in by one alien, hated by the queen of aliens, feels terrible about people who failed the tests and have to live with aliens in horrible conditions rather than being returned to regular society and divulging what's really going on.

Ms. Shannon has created a very detailed hierarchy of clairvoyants in which Paige falls very high. That these abductions have gone on for 200 years speaks to a society that doesn't mind if the problems are swept under a rug - out of sight, out of mind.

This book is right up your alley if you liked Hunger Games and all the subsequent dystopias that came after it.

CATEGORY: CATAMARAN (SCIENCE FICTION)

Congrats on finishing Bleak House! You gave me inspiration to keep at it and now I'm on chapter 29.

It is exactly like you said a Victorian soap opera and I can't wait to see what happens next!

I looked around my library wondering where I should get a book to start the year when I thought about the GeoCat. Since about half of this school's population is immigrants I figured it was only natural to start there. I wanted to read Enrique's Journey but it was checked out. As I looked through the immigration section I saw this slim, YA book.



Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration by Ann Bausum (2008)

Statue of Liberty Dreams of Emma Lazarus, Awakens with Tears on Her Cheeks

Give me your tired, your poor...
But not too tired, not too poor.
And we will give you the red tape,
the long line, white bread in its wrapper,
forms to fill out, and the looks, the stares
that say you are not where or what you should be,
not quite, not yet, you will never life up to us.

That is the beginning of the poem that appears opposite the poem by Emma Lazarus that appears at the base of the Statue of Libery, the symbol of hope for immigrants. As well as the three reasons in the title, there are chapters for exclusion and exploitation. Each chapter describes these reasons for not achieving residency with a brief lesson in laws if applicable but also a story about one family who went through the heartbreak.

This book is written for a middle/high school audience and has lots of interesting photos to highlight the text. It is a fast read, not much depth, but a good place to start to understand the flip side of the American dream.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S LOG (NON-FICTION)

Oh, looks like I've missed lots of stuff. S. sounds really intriguing - looking forward to getting around to it.

The Bone Season sounds really good. By 7th grade, some of the kids are slipping into the adult section. I wonder if they'll find it?

Congratulations on finishing Bleak House so quickly. It took me 15 days.

I plan to read The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao and If On a Winter's Night a Traveler this year.

I wish, I wish, I truly wish I could forget reading the Dirk Gently books so that I could experience the joy of reading them for the first time again.

I woke up last night and couldn't fall back to sleep so I started reading If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Stupid thing to do! It is intriguing already.

*Note to self - never start a good book in the middle of the night!

So far you've hit me with a BB for each book you've read - aaaaaahhhhhh! ;)

Try not to read a good book late at night, only boring to "meh" books allowed!

I absolutely loved If on a winter's night a traveler. Probably my favorite first chapter of all time.

I love that work, but this whole train of conversation made me laugh--I sometimes pick up a book that I've been unsure of, purposefully, late at night: I figure I up the chances of it being wonderful if I start it at a late late hour!

Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration sounds like a good one.
I don't know why it is, but nearly everything seems to interest me at the moment! I am just soaking it all up.

>94 mamzel: ah well, there's better things to be doing at night than not sleeping, and reading is one of them!

Hello mamzel - thanks for the post on my thread and here I am absolutely charmed at your categories for the year. Lovely pics, great info, good books.

I'll be back.

I agree with your thoughts on Bleak House. I'd read it a couple of years ago, and doing so on an e-reader made the reading so much easier.

Laura, I'm soooo sorry! (heh, heh)

LittleTaiko, I loved the intro and (marking my intention now) I thought I could make my categories from the different types of book next year!

WWD, the last time I made that mistake was for The Fault in Our Stars. I wound up going to work the next day with puffy red eyes!

I read, it was interesting but, since it is for middle school kids, rather thin. It was good for a glimpse but it did give me something to think about.

Karen, thanks for dropping by. I really hope you'll enjoy the chatter.

Math girl, I wasn't sure I wanted an ereader at first but I sure am glad I have it now. That one-click ordering is mucho dangerous!

I love If on a Winter Night a Traveler. I read it in college, and one girl actually had a copy of it that was messed up at the bindery and had sections truly out of order. The professor wanted to buy it from her. I keep reading Calvino, but nothing has been quite as delightfully strange as Traveler.

I saw Hild favorably reviewed in the newspaper recently, and it's even more reassuring to read your favorable review. I've found Griffith's books to always be a bit flawed technically but also to very much speak to me, so I'm excited to see this new one out by her. (I also didn't realize she was British American until your review!)

Cammy, I was talking about it last night at dinner and Monsieur had never heard about it. I looked up the publishing dates and found the translated version came out in 1981, a year in which I was in limbo, so to speak, so I missed it completely. Do you know if it was a best seller or a kind of cult classic?

Pam, My one major objection was discovering it had a sequel after plowing through its 560 pages! I would imagine it would be possible to explain her saintliness in that amount of words.

Echoing the If on a Winters Night a Traveller love.

"never start a good book in the middle of the night" Is a great rule to live by but should very occasionally be broken for a wonderful naughty feeling :)

@102 I agree, I do have a soft spot for Baron in the Trees though.

Now I get what you meant in #102, Cammy! This book would be an amazing one to use when discussing different POVs!

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (orig. pub. 1979, translated 1981)

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade.

Good advice. By the way, "you" is not you but "the Reader". Although sometimes "you" is you. I frequently had to back track to figure out which "you" was being referred. Half of the book is about how "you" found a book and was frustrated when it abruptly ended. When "you" went back to the book store, a lady, Ludmilla was there with the same complaint. The replacement book was actually a whole other book which ended abruptly and gave "you" a reason to contact Ludmilla and head off on a wild goose chase for the conclusion of any of these books.

For a second-person discourse to become a novel, at least two you's are required, distinct and concomitant, which stand out from the croud of he's, she's, and they's. (147)

In between these chapters are the beginnings of all of these books which just so happen to all be in first-person POV. This book, ultimately, is about people who are passionate about books and reading.

"Reading," he says, "is always this: there is a thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid, material object, which cannot be changed, and through this thing we measure ourselves against something else that is not present, something else that belongs to the immaterial, invisible world, because it can only be thought, imagined, or because it was once and is no longer, past, lost, unattainable, in the land of the dead..."

"Or that is not present because it does not yet exist, something desired, feared, possible or impossible," Ludmilla says. "Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be..." (72)

I was very glad I read this on my Kindle and had access to a dictionary by the mere touch of the screen. (What a luxury!) My new favorite words are apocrypha and incipit. I can't wait for an opportunity to use those in a conversation!

Reader, it is time for your tempest-tossed vessel to come to port. What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library? (253)

I would recommend this book to someone who appreciates the passion of reading books and revels in extraordinary language.

CATEGORY: FOREIGN FLAG (NON-AMERICAN AUTHOR)

Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman (1999)

Gaiman's graphic novels are not for the faint-hearted. This one is about a man in his fifties who discovers he has cancer and if not treated, will only live another six months. He wants to write his last novel before the end.

I had bought this a couple of years ago for the Kindle, not realizing it wouldn't come up on my basic model. I loaded the Kindle app on my computer but still wasn't happy with the resolution. Last chance - I tried it on my new toy, an iPad. I was able to finish it but still had problems reading it. Those tiny white letters on a dark background do not make my old eyes happy. Even using the magnifying feature didn't help.

Those who appreciate his graphic novels will enjoy this one, written in the year when many people were afraid the earth was about to end.

CATEGORY: FLYING DUTCHMAN (HORROR)

->108 mamzel:
The paper-book is quite large, so I can imagine that it's a bit hard to read on an iPad - too bad the magnification wasn't good enough.

I think Signal to noise is one of my favourite comics, mixes some heavyweight themes simply but very well. It is a large book though!

And great review of If on a Winter Night a Traveller, glad you liked it!

Congratulations on finishing Bleak House. I read that one in 2012. Charles Dickens was an author who got paid by the word and everything he wrote is over long because of it.
I've already got The Bone Season on the wish list so that BB missed me, but I may have to look for Denied, Detained, Deported.

Popping in to say hello and catch up on what you've been reading.

Eva, I bought as part of a package through (I think) HumbleBundle. It was actually the first adult Gaiman I owned.

Clfisha, it certainly isn't like the Archie comics, is it? ioaWNaT was really tricky. I'll have to watch for another of his books to read.

VioletBramble, when you read TBS keep in mind the author's very young age. It shows. D,D,D can be found in the kid's section of a library or book store. You can through it in an hour or two.

Luvamystery, hi back. Thanks for dropping in.

I've been very busy this week since the research paper part of the Senior Project is due and students have been needing a lot of help formatting their pages. The hanging indent of the Works Cited page gets them every time. Many of them are creating their paper in Google Docs. I help them download it into Word and then cleaning it up there. Google cuts off their header. A few students wisely let me read over their paper and I was glad to help them with their grammar and punctuation. The ESL students need the most help. In my opinion they have done the lion's share of the work doing the research so my help is minimal. I wish more would ask for help.

Today I was able to put up a display for the Olympics. We had a set of hula hoops with the appropriate colors so I hanged them from the ceiling. I think it looks cool. I pulled books about winter sports, the Olympics, and Russia for the display.

The hula hoop idea is genius! I bet it looks great- I would love to do stuff like that as part of my job :)

I had to jump through a few hoops to get this picture to show off my display:

Love your display, Mamzel. What a great idea!

That's such a fantastic idea! Love your display.

Great display!

That's awesome! How clever you are!

That is really cool!

I had to jump through a few hoops to get this picture to show off my display LOL, great idea and display !

Catching up on your thread! I just recently acquired If on a winter's night a traveler, which I'd first heard of a couple yrs ago and had been wanting but just hadn't got yet. I plan on reading it this year!

I wasn't thrilled with Signal to Noise. Frankly I haven't been thrilled with any of Gaiman's GNs outside the Sandman series. I loved it so much so I keep reading more, hoping they will come even remotely close to the same level, but... they fail. Miserably. I liked the concept they were going for in Signal, it seemed like it could have been a great thing, but something about the execution of it just...didn't work for me. :| McKean's art was of course wonderful, though.

Thanks, everyone. I'm pretty proud of it. I figured it would give our otherwise clueless students a heads up that the Olympics were close to happening. If it's not part of the Common Core Curriculum, the teachers won't mention it.

Electrice, I'm glad you got the pun!

PMM, I will definitely keep my eye our for more by Calvino. I looked him up on Wikipedia and learned he was close to being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I would possibly never heard of him if it weren't for my fellow LTers!

I thought to myself today that I am presently in literature Nirvana. I am listening to Precious Ramotswe in the car and yesterday I picked up the latest in the Flavia de Luce stories at the library. I'm very happy today! It gave me the incentive to finish this ER which I've had since the beginning of the month:



A Christmas Hope by Anne Perry (2013)

Claudine Burroughs did not look forward to the party. This November of 1868 it had been bitterly cold, the kind of chill that creeps into one's bones and makes them ache.

I feel a little sorry I won this book from Early Reviewers. I'm sure there are Anne Perry fans who would have enjoyed it much more than me. For a 208 page book it took me a long time to get it read. I received it after Christmas and I was too easily distracted from it. It is the kind of book that involves characters that have a back history. I read the first two of the Monk series so I thought (presumed) that this book would involved the two major characters, not a secondary one that must have joined the series after the second book.

In any case, it's a nice story about an intelligent young woman, Claudine Burroughs, who comes across a scene at a fancy holiday party. A young woman (quite apparently not one invited to the party) lay dead on the ground. A poet, Dai Tregarron, drunk, is on the ground next to her to see if she was dead. Also on the scene were three young men, party invitees, that point at Tregarron as the one who pushed her so she hit her head and died. Everyone except Claudine accepts their version but Claudine thinks there may be more to the story. Influenced by the sleuthing skills of Monk and his wife, she takes it upon herself to discover the truth. The major part of the story is how she has to carefully navigate the parlors of the rich and avoid damaging reputations and young women's prospects unnecessarily.

(Was it really bad of me that the poet's name kept bringing me to A Game of Thrones?) There were no surprises in the story but a lot of carefully worded questions and conversations.

If you tried to get this book and lost, PM me and I'll mail it to you so you could give it a review it probably deserves.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

From what little I've read about Game of Thrones, that does sound like a very GoT kind of name! ;)

I have read all of Game of Thrones and I would certainly notice the similarity between names (Dai Tregarron and Daenerys Targaryen) . It probably only a result of George RR Martin wanting Welsh/Celtic sounding names for the Targaryen family.

>123 mamzel: Was it really bad of me that the poet's name kept bringing me to A Game of Thrones? Not bad at all ! The show and books have taken over our life. Not mine, mind you ;)

My sister is a children's librarian at a local library and I'm going to mention your hoops idea to her.

Dudes22, I'll love to hear if she tries it. The husband of our librarian 4 years ago had to spray paint some hula hoops to get the right colors. Don't even try finding a black one!

I felt only a scintilla of guilt today thinking of all of you who are suffering tremendous cold and horrid weather. As it was pushing 60 degrees, I though it was time to get outside and try to do some yard work. My poor little lemon tree had a lot of damage from the freezing weather we had last month so my daughter and I started cutting off the dead branches and picking up all the dead fruit. We got about 1/3 of the tree done. We'll continue next weekend.



The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley (2014)
A Flavia de Luce Novel (#6)

"Your mother has been found."
Nearly a week after he had made it, Father's shocking announcement was still ringing in my years.>

That was how the last episode ended and this one started. Yes, this is a series that should be read in sequence. As much as I love Flavia, this book just took a meteoric trajectory. At points it had me laughing through tears.

Harriet had disappeared when Flavia was only one year old and Flavia had always been jealous of her sisters since they had memories of their mother and she didn't. Now, perhaps, was her chance, finally, to get to know her. Unfortunately, Harriet arrives in a funeral train. Surprising to Flavia, it arrives at the unused private train station, with full military escort, along with Winston Churchill, government agents, a previously unknown aunt and extremely obnoxious cousin, and a man in a long coat who only has enough time to give her a quick cryptic message before meeting his end. Apparently Flavia has a lot to learn about who her mother was!

If you are unaware of who our little Flavia is, she is eleven years old, lives in an old mansion with her father and two older sisters. She has pretty well been left to her own devices and has a closer relationship with the cook and her father's man, Dogger, than any of her blood family. She has a particular fascination with poisons and has taken full advantage of her deceased uncle's chemistry lab where, with only the company of her pet chicken, she taught herself organic chemistry. Yeah, you heard right! No adult that knows her talks down to her and she has helped solve murders in the previous episodes.

Fans of this series, don't delay!

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

One of my favorite movies, My Fair Lady, is on and I watched my favorite scene at the Ascot Race. The costumes! Oh, my! And the young Jeremy Brett!

I must have been about 7 years old when my mother dragged me to see "My Fair Lady". I hated it but I guess I might have been too young to appreciate it and I have never rewatched it. I didn't even know Jeremy Brett was in it.

Mum forced us to watch musical after musical.

Wonderful hula hoop Olympic display and adding If on a Winter's Night a Traveler to my library holds list.

I figured it would give our otherwise clueless students a heads up that the Olympics were close to happening.

The Olympics are about to happen.....really? *Blinks* Oh dear, where have I been....?

Flavia love!

Zozette, I wouldn't know if Jeremy was in the stage production or not. I have had a hard time disassociating Sherlock Holmes from Freddy Eynsford-Hill. You were lucky to see all those musicals though I bet your mom dragged you to them as a excuse to see them herself.

Lori, I know, right? Things really sneak up on me, too! Before I know it the end of the year will be here. I just found out that they are doing a major retrofit on my building over the summer and I don't have a clear picture of what I should be doing in the library for it. Hopefully I won't have to pull all the books off the shelf!

So much for any chances of getting ahead of my TBRs! I found the graphic novel series, The Unwritten on sale for the Kindle and couldn't resist getting the first 10 volumes. Now that I have the iPad I can read them there. At school I was clearing off a shelf of duplicate books that I had cleared off the regular shelves to make more room. No one has checked out the copies still on the shelf so I feel safe deleting the ones I had on reserve. 8 of those are coming home with me. *hanging head in embarrassment* A copy of Catch-22 (we still have 3 in circulation) for a 1001 Books read and two mysteries by Rudolfo Anaya that looked intriguing were among them.

I'm excited to see how much you liked the Flavia book. Because of the MysteryCAT, and the great things said around here, I'll finally be starting the series in February.

On DemandTV has really been hyping the Olympics...Shaun White anyway. I hope their coverage of the Olympics is more diverse than what regular NBC has to offer.

No shame in your latest acquisitions, especially since half were free and finding a good home. Hope you enjoy Catch-22. I loved it, but realize you kind of have to be in the mood for the absurd.

Oooh Catch-22 is one of my absolute top favorites!!

Nice job with the Olympic Rings.
I'm hoping to see more curling this Olympics. I'll probably also watch figure skating.
Great review of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches. I'm still holding out until March.
How many volumes of Unwritten are there? I've only read the first. So far behind.

About 30 volumes, I think. I wasn't quite prepared to dive in that deep. I hope I don't regret that decision. Curling is fascinating and totally mysterious to me. I like that, for a change, slow and deliberate wins over fast and reckless.

As part of my display I opened an atlas to the page with Europe and put a bright sticky arrow pointing to Sochi. Beause, honestly, I had no idea where it was either. Really, Putin? That's the best location for the Winter Olympics in Russia? A beach resort??? I wonder if he will be at the opening ceremony without a shirt.

He'll probably arrive shirt-less on his horse. I have to admit that I have no idea where Sochi is located on the map.
I love curling. I wish there was televised curling in the US. It's the only sport I even consider watching.
30 volumes !?!? I enjoyed the first volume but probably not enough to warrant reading 29 more volumes.

Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska's WWII Invasion by Samantha Seiple (2011)

Disclaimer: I am not nor will ever be a history lover. That's why I prefer historical fiction.

That being said, this was a relatively painless read of a fascinating and unknown part of American history, known as the "Forgotten War." Only recently have classified documents about this part of the war come to light.

Not only do we learn about the invasion of the Aleutian Islands by the Japanese but about the evacuation of the Aleuts to the mainland (it was the first time any of them had seen a tree) and also how the American POWs fared in Japanese camps (spoiler - The Aleuts were treated better than the whites).

Written for middle and high schoolers this works more as an overlook of the subject but is fascinating nonetheless.

CATEGORY: LOG BOOK (NON-FICTION)

138. Sochi is on the coast of the Black Sea, just north of Georgia.

>137 mamzel:/138 No no, there's not remotely 30 volumes! There have been 54 single issues, and there are 9 trade paperback volumes. (And the last two of them are not yet released)

1. Blips - LT recommendations -1
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 1
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 2
4. ITB - cross genre
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 1
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 2
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 1
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 2
10. Galley - food related
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous
12. Fleet - group reads
13. Ship's hold - YA
14. Poop Deck - books not finished

Total read: 10



Biggest - Bleak House - depends on edition but BIG!
Favorite - The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
Remarkable - S.

My daughter just sent me this link with the subject line - Worst food name ever!

Headline - Diet Hacks: Soylent Now FDA-Approved to Replace All of Your Meals

I have to file this under "What Were They Thinking???"

@ 143 -- Hahaha, that is amazing!

>143 mamzel:, Somewhere there are some marketing people who need to have a movie night.

mamzel, I thought that was an Onion headline! Our reality was once science fiction.

They neglected to list one of the ingredients- people.

"Soylent Green is........people!"

The Onion - so true! When I started reading the ingredient list I thought it was going to be the chemicals that make up the human body.

I bet the ingredients are too far off from what one would find in Ensure or one of those other so-called nutrition drinks.

Darn it, I nearly choked on my tea at your recap -- "poop deck" will never not be funny. :)

I seem to recall reading that the creator of Soylent invented it because it was "too much effort" to cook. Really? It's too difficult to even throw a frozen entree in the microwave? Humans are getting REALLY lazy.

137> You made me choke on my meatball - shirtless Putin!

149> Yes, we are getting that lazy - or crazy busy. If it didn't have soy, I'd consider it. I'm eating premade spaghetti and meatballs from the grocery store. It's not so much the cooking that's hard - it's the cleaning up after.

Dang it, Rabbitprincess and BookLizard! I don't want to be responsible for someone choking to death. I'll have to dial back my attempts at humor! I've always cringed at the ads about the health drinks - particularly the ones created for children. I'll never forget a piece of advice I read by gook ol' Dr. Brazelton - a child will eat what he needs. There is actually no need for vitamins because he/she will crave a food that contains what he/she needs. Besides, if a parent can't get their child to eat vegetables, it's probably because 1) the babies were introduced to the overcooked nauseating mush in jars and 2) when they were old enough they still weren't given vegetables in palatable form. If the parents are seen enjoying vegetables, the kids will learn from them. It's not rocket science. I was so proud when I took my son to a birthday party when he was in preschool and he asked to have the salad before the pizza! Rant over.



Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith (2013)
An Arkady Renko Novel

It was the sort of day that didn't give a damn. Summer was over, the sky was low and drained of color, and dead leaves hung like crepe along the road.

I don't know if the Arkady Renko novels would be considered a series or just novels with a recurring main character. There is back story but the reader does not have to have read the five previous books (but don't miss the first one - Gorky Park).

Russia is a miserable country full of corruption and crime. Arkady is an island in the middle of all of this. He pursues cases without being told to or even ordered not to proceed. He does not carry a weapon, drinks vodka like it was water, and is apparently the only person in Russia who doesn't accept bribes. He is a quick study of people and trusts his friends only as far as they can be trusted. Oh, and let's not forget he has a bullet floating around in his head which could kill him any minute.

A young woman jumps from the balcony of her apartment committing suicide. Arkady thinks she may have been pushed and starts asking questions. In her apartment he finds tapes she has made and a notebook written with mysterious code. His investigation takes him to Kaliningrad and the Curonian Spit, an amber hunter's playground.

Add to the mix a young man who is the son of a man that Arkady shot. Arkady has taken Zhenya under his roof and, while not having a close relationship, feels responsible for his well being. Zhenya is a chess genius and hustles games for money. For the lack of any other possible careers, he wants to join the Red Army but needs Arkady's permission. He steals the notebook from Arkady and holds it hostage in exchange for a signature. Doing so draws him and his cute new girl into Arkady's dangerous life.

I guess this could be called Russian noir. Arkady is a likable and admirable character, clever and brave. The locales are foreign to me and I find it fascinating from this comfortable distance.

CATEGORY: BUOYANCY (MYSTERIES)

Love the rant! We were lucky in that as young kids my Mom had a large vegetable garden in the summer months (including enough raspberry canes to take over all other vegetation if not contained) and if we were hungry, we were instructed to find something to eat from the garden. Carrots, sweet peas, radishes, chives, rhubarb, lettuce and raspberries all come back to me in a memory wave. The same was true if we visited Grandma and Grandpa, only they also had fruit bearing crab apple trees my cousins and I were constantly foraging in. We had some fun crab apple wars on the front lawn.... fun times!

When my kids were young used one of those little food mills and made vegetables for them that way. Since I don't buy canned veggies for myself I couldn't subject the kids to them. When my son was little they had some wonderful dehydrated foods that were full of color and flavor but unfortunately they went off the market for my daughter. When they were older I planted cherry tomatoes and nasturtium flowers and told them they could help themselves.

We love vegetables in my house, but my younger daughter is rather picky about them. Some she'll only eat raw and others she'll only eat cooked, and she won't go near eggplant or squash, two of my favourites. I guess I shouldn't complain, though. It could be worse. She loves cherry tomatoes and peas from the garden in the summer.

I'm happy to see your positive review of the 6th Flavia book. I've only read the first but enjoyed it greatly and fully intend to read the rest of the series.

I also picked up Signal to Noise as part of the Humble Bundle series. I haven't gotten around to it yet, though.

My mom used to make some sort of eggplant patties when I was a kid. I'll have to try to figure out what she put in it besides the eggplant. I'm sure it was one of those recipes designed to make food stretch further, but it was good.

I personally can't eat artichokes but I'll make them for Monsieur. He hates eggplant but sometimes when the kids are over and I make stir fry I'll make a side dish of my version of Sezhuan eggplant which we enjoy. I love mushrooms cooked but don't care for them raw and the opposite with celery. I recently brought back spaghetti squash which Monsieur really liked. I guess I had only made it for the kids. To get Monsieur to eat more fruit I make fruit salad. It's more trouble but worth it.
Even though everyone will eat their veggies I still do things like mashing carrots with the potatoes and substituting cauliflower for half of the macaroni in Mac and cheese.

I can't stand eggplant/aubergine either. Love squash/zucchini, though. Eggplant just tastes weird, and the texture is weird when it's been cooked. Not my thing.

Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity (2009)
Unwritten Vol. 2: Inside Man (2009)
Unwritten Vol. 3: Dead Man's Knock (2011)
Unwritten Vol. 4: Leviathan (2011)
Unwritten Vol. 5: On to Genesis (2012)



Unwritten Vol. 6: Tommy Taylor and the War of Words (2012)
Unwritten Vol. 7: The Wound (2013)
Unwritten Vol. 8: Orpheus in the Underworlds (2014)
Unwritten Vol. 9: Inside Man (2014)
Unwritten Vol. 10: Jud Süss (2014)

written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross

Most of the online recipes I've found for eggplant patties seem to add cheddar cheese, and I'm certain my Mom did not have cheese in hers. That flavor wasn't there. I will have to keep looking for a recipe or just guess.

> 158 - Read or acquired? Either/ or, NICE!

->158 mamzel:
Very nice indeed! I have the first 7 sitting on the Kindle, but have only gotten through the first two - need to get back to it!!

Unwritten seems to have mixed reviews on LT. The proemise looks really good to me but people thinking they're subpar makes me nervous.

>158 mamzel: Are you sure on that last one? Wiki doesn't mention any vol 10 and Jud Süss was one of the "chapters" in the 2nd volume, which was issue #10 (and 11), and vol 9 is due out in late July, it seems really unlikely they'd have any info for one further ahead than that...

>162 PawsforThought: It starts a little slow and especially vol 1 is a little iffy, but it's a good series.

163. Thanks. My list of GNs to read is growing steadily longer (not that I mind) and I was contemplating putting this one on there too. Most likely will be, now.

I never mind adding GNs to the to-read list, since they're so fast to read, plus the art adds another dimension to them. My only limitation is my library >.<

165. My limitation is my bank account! My library does it's best but it's a small town and they just can't stock all the GNs I'd like to read so some of them I'll have to buy if I want to read them. And if I like what I read I'd want to buy them anyway (lex Sandman).

Hi, everyone. Amazon had the first 10 of the Unwritten series on sale for .99 apiece. After seeing how nice the Gaiman GN looked I thought I'd pick these up again. After the first 10 they were 1.99 each. I got carried away! I actually have up to #25 loaded. I think most of them are on Kindle only. I can't even find copyable covers for them.
PMM - If you look them up on the Kindle page you will see there is a lot more there.



Once again YALSA is holding a challenge to read/listen to 25 books from a list of 2014 winners and runners up. I will definitely read as many as we already own in this library and then borrow from the public library and my friend at a middle school. The following are the books from the list I have already read and can't count unless I read them again.

The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Ash by Melinda Lo
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
Out of the Easy and Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Ones that I am really looking forward to are:
Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi (audio book)
William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher (audio book)*
Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan*
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick*
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (it's right next to me now)*
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak*

*already in my library

I really liked Midwinterblood when I read it last year. It will be interesting to see what you think of it.

Ah, you're talking about individual issues, not volumes. No, at this point you'd only be able to buy those digitally or from shops, they're no longer printed new. But the trade paperback volumes (vol 1 has issues #1-5, vol 2 has issues #6-12, and so forth) are available. This is volume 1. You're having trouble finding covers, again, because the single issues are more of a "collector" thing, they're not published in the same way as a trade paperback, they don't have ISBNs.

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith (2013) audiobook
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency #14

I received this audiobook from the Early Reviewer program.

I have loved this series from the beginning and this episode does not fail. This is the first that I have listened to, however, and the narrator is able to do the characters voices with the gentle accent and rolled "r"s perfectly. I listened to this in my car and found that I drove slower - both as a result of the gentle rhythm of the language and because I wanted to listen to it longer.

Mma Ramotswe, for those unfamiliar with the series, inherited a herd of cattle from her father. From the proceeds of the sale she opened a detective agency, eventually hired Mma Makutsi, a graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College, and has been solving problems for the citizens of Gabarone, Botswana ever since.

In this episode she helps a lawyer who doubts the identity of a young man on a farm and she tries to find who has been sabotaging a new beauty salon with slanderous rumors.

When it turns out that Mma Makutsi is pregnant Mma Ramotswe is apprehensive about how she will find a replacement while she is on maternity leave and how long will one be needed. As it turns out, not long, but just long enough to make Mma Ramotswe realize how much she depends on Mma Makutsi for her skills and companionship.

This is an excellent continuation of the series. Fans will be pleased.

CATEGORY: FOREIGN FLAG (NON-AMERICAN AUTHOR)

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2013)

I just got back from Celia Forester's funeral.

This book is not exactly a sequel since the main character is different from Code Name Verity but the aforementioned Celia and her friend, Maddie, were known by our heroine, Rose Justice. An American, Rose joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, the civilian branch of the Royal Air Force, and ferried planes and pilots wherever needed.

On her return from Paris at the end of World War II, she saw a flying bomb and used the knowledge she gained from the fighter pilots to make it crash before it got to its target. Unfortunately, she lost track of where she was and even though she was over France, was intercepted by two German planes and forced to land in Germany. What happened after was worse than anything she could imagine. She ended up in Ravensbrück women's concentration camp and endured six months of captivity. Her writing and poetry were what helped her survive.

As with CNV, I was riveted to this story. I highly recommend both of Wein's books!

This book won the Scheider Family Book Award because it "embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences." It also landed on the 2014 list of best fiction for young adults.

CATEGORY: HUB CHALLENGE

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (2013)

The sun does not go down.

On an island named Bless off the coast of Ireland, two souls come together and are parted, again, and again, and again. The story opens in the near future where Erik arrives on the island and somehow knows that he has met Merle before. And he has. As we progress back through time we witness them meeting under different circumstances each time, but always coming to a tragic end.

Bless has two parts separated by a thin spit of land. One part has the trees and the population. The other lonely side is covered by a unique variety of orchid which has magical properties. For generations they have harvested the flowers and the stems and used them for different purposes.

This is a tragic love story that spans hundreds of years and tinged with a touch of dark fantasy. Readers of YA fiction will love it.

Winner of the 2014 Printz Award

CATEGORY: HUB CHALLENGE

I've been playing hooky from Dorian Gray.



The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg et al (2011)

(from the introduction by Lemony Snicket) Is there any author more mysterious than Harris Burdick? Modesty prevents me from answering this rhetorical question, but the fact remains that Harris Burdick has cast a long and strange shadow across the reading world, not unlike a man, lit by the moon, hiding in the branches of a tree, staring though a window and holding a rare and sinister object, who can a long and strange shadow across your bedroom wall just last night.

According to this introduction, Burdick gave 14 illustrations with titles and captions to a man named Peter Wenders with a promise to return with the accompanying stories. He never did. Wenders then took the illustrations to 14 different children and YA authors who wrote their own stories. The book is the result.


ANOTHER PLACE, ANOTHER TIME
If there was an answer, he'd find it there.

The authors include award winners such as Kate DiCamillo, Sherman Alexie, Lois Lowry, and Chris Van Allsburg and (surprise!) Stephen King. All of the stories are divine and gently fantastic and remind us of childhood. A real treasure.

You got me with a BB; that one sounds so mysterious.

It's really beautiful and peaceful as Van Allsburg's books usually are.

We are enjoying our third day of badly needed rain here. My friend and I went to Costco and enjoyed empty roads with safe and sane drivers and the emptiest I have ever seen the store! We enjoyed lunch at a little Indian place afterwards and a cruise through a Goodwill store.

Today I am watching the Olympics (mostly because I'm too lazy to chase through the channels for something else to watch). It hits me that the ski jumpers have an inordinately short time to prove themselves, only about 10 seconds from the top to turning at the bottom to check their standing. Women are joining the event this year. Good for them.

oh The Chronicles of Harris Burdick sounds like such a neat idea.

Chris Van Allsburg's books are always delightful.

I am such a book nerd!

The Sunday before last there was a review for Isabel Allende's latest book, Ripper. I knew immediately I wanted that book. Last weekend I went to Costco to see if it was there. Alas, it wasn't. But, huzzah! Our regional book chain is hosting a book talk and signing tonight in a nearby town. Road trip! With two library friends accompanying me we will go early, have dinner, then get the book and meet Ms Allende. This came up fast and as a total surprise but I'm not complaining.

That sounds like a lot of fun!

Fun! Have a great time!

I'll have a full report tomorrow.
In the meantime, I just got a newsletter from Goodreads and they had this poster "to share." Feeling just a leettle bit superior since I had this quote on a wall in my library - last year!

Ms. Allende was charming and, as you can well imagine, quite witty. There were a number of teens in the audience from the advanced Spanish class of the local high school. She started with an off color joke about having difficulty with microphones that have a phallic shape and that it was the same for other similarly shaped things in her life.

I will be enjoying a four day weekend starting tomorrow. Yippee!

Happy Valentine's Day, LT friends!


glitter-graphics.com"height="250">

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (2013)

So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one. Don't either of you ask me for more.

Our story starts with the father of two young children telling them a bed side story of a boy who was stolen from his family by a div. The boy's father followed him to his palace where he saw his son playing with other boys in a safe, beautiful, comfortable place, vastly different from the poor village he had called home. The father is torn between his desire to keep his son or allow him to grow in safety and luxury. He returns home with a potion that allows him to forget his son and his pain.

A little later in the story, this father faces the same pain as he sends his own daughter to live with his brother-in-law's employers. One less mouth to feed and she will have so much more in her new home in Kabul. Pari's brother, Abdullah, is left behind, bereft.

As time goes by we see how their lives weave in and out with the lives of family members and neighbors, in Afghanistan and Europe. The story frequently changes viewpoint, from first to third person, and each switch made me pause to remember who was who and figure out where and when we were.

Will Pari and Abdullah ever be reunited? And if so, how will they find each other?

Hosseini brings us back to his birth country of Afghanistan and introduces us to new characters from different levels of society. My first literary introduction to this country was from James Michener's Caravans, and I have never lost a fascination for it.

CATEGORY: ORLOP DECK (TBRs)

For a twisted version of relationships on this cloudy Valentine's Day, tor.com offers this look at dysfunctional couples.

Just added The Chronicles of Harris Burdick to my wish list.

My wish list is growing so long since joining LibraryThing that I might have to live to 100 just to read every book on it.

I'll get around to And the Mountains Echoed one of these years.

Zozette - it's epidemic around here!

Thornton - it was an interesting way to introduce the reader to all facets of Afghani society.

edited to fix Zozette's name which was autocorrected

"The President Has Been Shot!" by James L. Swanson (2013)

John F. Kennedy remains the youngest man ever elected president of the United States.

This book was written for a teen audience and does a perfect job (IMO) of presenting just enough facts without bogging down in annoying minutiae. Without sensational phrasing, the author lays out the events with enough detail to immerse the reader without smothering. Black and white photos and diagrams, many of them so hurtfully familiar, accompanied the text.

I was 10 years old in 1963 and, like many of us, remember that day, getting out of school and meeting my mother who was listening to the news on the car radio. Recently I read 11/22/1963 by Stephen King which fictionalized Oswald's back story with great detail. As a disclaimer, I don't choose history books to read as I find date-fact-date-fact kind of reading tedious. I slogged through the life history of Kennedy and Oswald but when I got to the day of the assassination, I was totally engrossed.

This was an accessible account which depicts the events leading up to the assassination, what happened that day, and in the days that followed. I was floored by how Jackie refused to change her suit so everyone could see his blood on her. I also learned that one of the first things that Johnson did was write letters to Caroline and John Jr.

The author addressed the conspiracy theories and suggested that the failure of the hospital to hold the body and perform an autopsy in Houston was fuel for these theories.

I finished this in one morning and I think it would be very interesting for teens to learn about one of the most tragic days in our history.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD - HUB CHALLENGE
ALA LIST OF BEST NONFICTION FOR TEENS

186. I'll get around to (...) one of these years.

This is my motto with most books.

Indeed. I should have a stamp to put that on my books as they get added to the piles!



Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool (2013)

If I'd known what there was to know about Early Auden, that strangest of boys, I might have been scared off, or at least kept my distance like all the others.

As I was halfway through this book it hit me that it reminded me of Holes by Louis Sachar. Instead of a work camp it takes place at a boys' boarding school, instead of digging holes the lead character rows a scull, strange and/or evil adults are encountered, there are close calls with death, and both books had revelations and reunions at the end.

Jack (Jackie) Baker's father is a Navy captain. Jackie's mother has recently died and instead of leaving him with relatives, Jack Sr. brings him to the Morton Hill Academy for Boys in Maine. There Jackie meets another boy named Early Auden who rarely attends class and lives in custodian quarters in the basement. Early regales Jackie with stories about a lost boy named Pi and a fascinating relationship with the irrational number, pi. When Jack Sr. was unable to visit Jackie during a school break, Early packs supplies and the two boys steal a scull from the boathouse and start their voyage up the Kennebec River. As they proceed Jackie realizes that the Pi stories are prophetic.

I found it a little hard getting started in this story. The two boys have had so much tragedy in their lives it made me sad. However, the trip became adventurous and more interesting. I would have a hard time recommending this book to the teens I work with.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (HUB CHALLENGE)
PRINTZ HONOR BOOK

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters (2013)

Portland, Oregon - October 16, 1918
I stepped inside the railroad car, and three dozen pairs of eyes peered my way. Gauze masks concealed the passengers' mouths and noses. The train smelled of my own mask's cotton, boiling onions, and a whiff of something clammy and sour I took to be fear.

1918. World War I. Trench warfare. Spanish flu pandemic. So much death! Mary Shelley Black is 16 years old and is fleeing Portland because her father was arrested for speaking out against the war. Since her mother died in childbirth, she is headed to San Diego to stay with her Aunt Eva, a 26-year old woman who works in the shipyards.

She has a chance to visit with her childhood friend, Stephen Embers whose brother is a popular photographer who takes spirit pictures, photos of people with a ghostly image of what may be a loved one's ghost in the image.

Tragically, Mary Shelley learns that Stephen is killed in Europe and she starts to have vivid nightmares and visions of Stephen. Could there be more to his death that he is trying to tell her?

People are desperately afraid of catching influenza and go to all sorts of lengths to avoid catching it. Everyone wears a mask and onions and garlic are used in different ways. (Garlic gum, anyone???) With so many sudden deaths of otherwise healthy young people, many are turning to ways to communicate with them such as spirit photos and seances.

I can't remember the last time I read and enjoyed a ghost story so much. The historical backdrop is a definite plus for me as well. Pictures of the trenches and people wearing masks highlight the text. Highly recommended for adults as well as teens.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (HUB CHALLENGE)
MORRIS AWARD FINALIST (DEBUT NOVEL IN YA LITERATURE)

Ooh that sounds good! :)

Oh, I have been wanting to read In the Shadow of Blackbirds off on on for a couple of months..... Now I really want to read it!

Another definite bb for me...

This book is one of the reasons I like participating in the HUB challenge - I might have missed this one otherwise. Hope you all have a chance to enjoy it!

Attention Redshirts fans!
FX is planning to adapt this book for television. Read about it here.

interesting, thanks for the link

Exciting! Fingers crossed that the adaptation is faithful to the original.

195> Guess I better hurry up and read it before there's a huge waitlist for it at the library.

Nice to hear about the adaptation of Redshirts! I also enjoyed all your recent reviews, especially the ones for the HUB books. I'm always looking for book ideas for our parent/child book club.

Rabbitprincess - I know, right?

Booklizard - I'm guessing you'll probably have plenty of time.

Mathgirl - I can always recommend books, too. What I have already read (so they technically can't count) and highly recommend are the books by Elizabeth Wein - Rose Under Fire and Code Name Verity - which contain lots of discussable points. I'd love to know which books you read for the club.

Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle (2013)

I'd rather not start with any backstory.
I'm too busy for that right now: planning the escape, stealing my older brother's fake ID (he's lying about his height, by the way), and strategizing high-protein snacks for an overnight voyage to the single most dangerous city on earth.

Oh, Nate, Nate, Nate. How I wish I could be young and so full of dreams. Nate is thirteen, overweight, and obsessed with the theater. He and his friend, Libby, know every play and musical ever produced and even use the names of flops as swear words. The stars magically align when Libby tells him about open auditions for a musical version of ET in New York City which occur on the same day his mom is out of town and his brother has an overnight sporting event. He packs his bag and his mom's ATM card and takes a bus to the Big Apple. But, of course, there would be no story without complications.

I loved the drive and courage (but not the sheer idiocy) that Nate showed to take such a major undertaking alone. His optimism and exuberance shine from page to page. The one thing about this book that disturbed me was the stereotype that a person who loved musicals must be gay. While inserted in the story more than once, it was never either disproved, disapproved, or embraced. Just there. What follows is an example from the last chapter of the book.

("SuperFag," by the way, is still echoing in the hall, lingering so long, the landlord might have to start charging it rent.)
"SuperFag...SuperFag...SuperFag...Su--"
"I'm going to...make hot apple cider," Freckles says in about as awkward a way somebody could say anything at all. But he just stands there.
We all just stand there.

For this reason I would hesitate recommending this book to its intended audience - middle schoolers. I am in the minority since it was recognized in three places - Best Fiction, Odyssey Award (audio book), and was an honor book for the Stonewall Award (exceptional merit for LGBT children's books).
CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (HUB CHALLENGE)

But is it actually saying that guys who like them are gay, or is it simply including the stereotype by having some character(s) claim that about the boy? Because if it's the latter, then it seems like the author is simply making it realistic; because sadly, there are a large number of people who do think that way, so it's a typical thing people will say. For instance, the Tony Awards, a year or two? ago, Neil Patrick Harris did a whole (really amusing) number with the main theme of "[Broadway is] not just for gays anymore," I'm sure you can find it on youtube. So, if he's just including some characters throwing it around, then I'd say he's just making it real. If he's actually claiming that it's "just for gays," well, that's different and no good.

It sounds like a really cute book, though. :))

200> I'm stalking a library Nook that has both Redshirts and Code Name Verity.

PPM, this book was written in first person as a thirteen-year old boy with the single goal of landing a role in the musical. The gay comments wizzed by him like ricochets, never hitting him or giving him something to consider. His best friend was a girl and was just a friend. He never thought about changing things there. At the audition he saw a male classmate of his but again, there was no sexual context. Even though he was at "that age" he was more focused on the stage than hormonal urges. His aunt lived with a young man (Freckles in the above quote) but they were apparently not boy friend/girl friend. Again, that just washed over him without any further consideration. That the author chose to throw these "gay" zingers in baffled me. They just seem gratuitous since they are never addressed. It's as if he was going after the LGBT audience but didn't know how to. He should read David Levithan's books to see how it can be done with sensitivity and taste. Just my opinion.

Booklizard, happy stalking! Those are both excellent reads.

Hmm. Well if it were available at the library I'd be curious to give it a shot. As it is, I probably won't be reading it anyhow (since it's quite unlikely my library would have it), so, oh well. It sounds like a good idea, anyway.

Winger by Andrew Smith (2013)

I said a silent prayer.
Actually, silent is probably the only type of prayer a guy should attempt when his head's in a toilet.

Boarding school for rich kids. Ugh! Bullies, rugby players, 'hot' girls, 'nut sacks', and a duty gay student. Not my cup of tea, or for that matter, not what I could recommend to any of my students either.

Ryan Dean West is fourteen years old, a junior (and two years younger than other juniors) at the prestigious Pine Mountain Academy and a member of the varsity rugby team. (I think I may be the only one curious how a kid, smaller and younger than the rest of the team, can play on the varsity team, but hey! I didn't write this book.)

The story is told in first person which means we get constant descriptions of girls who are 'hot', 'mega-hot', etc. and painful descriptions of injuries to private parts which I guess were meant to be humorous if one is a fan of the Jackass programs.

He is friends with the one sane person on campus who is openly gay and is a member of the rugby team. Ryan Dean likes to draw cartoons and running a lot. He loves a 'hot' junior girl named Annie and is hit on by his rugby teammate/roommate's 'hot' girlfriend, Megan. (Really?? Girls are attracted to younger guys in high school?)

The only growth Ryan Dean shows during this book is in height which gives him the excuse to take his pants off in front of Annie and her mother so they can lengthen his pants for him. A tragedy on campus only teaches him that people cannot grow past the title others peg on them. Which means that he won't be able to outgrow his image of school patsy and will forever be picked on.

I was tempted to throw the book across the room (except that it belonged to the library) if I read one more description of a hot girl or a guy's nut sack. It was that adolescent. Again - read Levithan!!!

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (HUB CHALLENGE)
BEST FICTION OF 2013 LIST (who makes these lists, anyway?)

Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi, read by Sunil Malhotra (2013)

Losing sucks.
Don't let anyone tell you it builds character or any of that junk; it sucks.

Bacigalupi is one of my favorite authors. I loved Windup Girl and Ship Breaker and here he goes for a young audience with a matchup of baseball, bullying, zombies; perfect for preadolescent boys. (More bullies - am I on a roll or what?)

Our heroes are Rabi (son of an Asian Indian mother who wears a bright yellow sari to his baseball games), Miguel (son of illegal Mexican immigrants who work at the meat packing plant) and Joe (son of an abusive alcoholic father). They are on the same baseball team and after a game one day decided to go to an empty field near the meat packing plant to practice hitting. They are overcome by a horrendous smell coming from the plant and see the workers flee the building. What is going on over there??

The next thing they know they are being chased by their baseball coach who is moaning, "Brrrraaaaaiiiiinnnnssss" and can't be stopped even with a caved in skull. It must be something to do with the plant where he works. When they investigate they find a segregated pen of cows which moan plaintively and attack each other. Zombie cows??? And are they processing these beasts and selling the meat? It's a zombie apocalypse!

The reader has the voices down perfectly if not bordering on cartoonish. I listened to this in my car, laughing with the boys and echoing "Brrrraaaaiiiinnnnssss!" with the zombies. Total fun.

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (HUB CHALLENGE)
AMAZING AUDIOBOOKS

I love it when headlines mirror the fiction I'm reading. From zombie cows to "Slaughterhouse accused of selling meat from cows with cancer"
Brrrrraaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnnnsssssss!!!!!!

Wow, there's another reason to go vegetarian.

Scowler by Daniel Kraus (2013)

A tooth was missing and that was never a pleasant thing. It was going on thirty minutes that Ry and Sarah had been after it.

I don't read much horror. I probably would not have finished this book except that it was for the HUB challenge. I tend to shy away from books with the amount of abuse present in this one. Add to that prison breaks, meteorite hits, failed farms, and deeply, deeply troubled kids (thanks, Dad).

It was so bad that I had to stop reading while I was trying to eat my lunch. The writing was really good and commanded closer attention than most YA books and for that I gave it an extra star.

The kids will love this book, I bet!

CATEGORY: SHIP'S HOLD (HUB CHALLENGE)
WINNER ODYSSEY AWARD (AUDIOBOOKS)

Let's see if the Internet will stay on long enough to get this posted. It's been up and down all morning, maybe because of the rain.

Time for a monthly progress update:

1. Blips - LT recommendations -1
2. Buoyancy - mysteries - 2
3. Flying Dutchman - horror - 2
4. ITB - cross genre
5. Keel - classics from 1001 book list - 1
6. Foreign Flag - non-American authors - 3
7. Orlop Deck - books from TBR list -2
8. Catamaran - science fiction - 1
9. Ship's Log - non-fiction - 2
10. Galley - food related
11. Breakbulk - miscellaneous
12. Fleet - group reads
13. Ship's hold - YA
13a. HUB Challenge - 9
14. Poop Deck - books not finished

Total read: 20

Adding to my favorites for the year: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

>173 mamzel: You have completely hit me with another BB on The Chronicles of Harris Burdick

Be back. I'm still scrolling through your thread.