Leslie.98's 2014 Category Challenge

This is my first category challenge! Not sure what categories I will do yet but excited to try it.

later - I have just looked over other people's challenges & am a bit intimidated by how creative everyone is! And how do you post pictures and tickers?

I think that I will design my challenge like a pyramid, which will end up with a total of 105 books.

** means off my shelves (already owned in print form)
# means already on my Kindle. € means own the audiobook




✔1. Apex Big Fat Classic:
Read 1 long classic - War and Peace# (DONE!) (finished 1/28)

✔2. Second Tier Nonfiction: read 2 nonfiction books (DONE!)
    Book #1 - On This Day in Tudor History# (currently reading)
    Book #2 - Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (done 2/17)
    Book #3 - Three Singles to Adventure (audiobook) (done 2/21)
    Book #4 - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Kindle and audiobook) (done 2/24)

✔3. Third Tier The Real Classics:

Read 3 works from ancient Greece
    Play #1 - Agamemnon by Aeschylus (done 3/14)
    Play #2 - The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus (done 3/17)
    Play #3 - Eumenides by Aeschylus (done 3/21)

4. Fourth Tier French Classics:

Read 4 classics originally written in French (hopefully from the Guardian's list)
- possible choices: Madame Bovary**; The Red and the Black#€ and/or The Charterhouse of Parma#; Bel Ami#; Sentimental Education#; Therese Raquin# or something else by Emil Zola or something by Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, etc.
    Book #1 - The Immoralist (done 2/10)
    Book #2 - Bouvard and Pécuchet# (done 3/28)

5. Fifth Tier Charles de Lint

Read 5 new-to-me books from this author (hopefully in the Newford series):
-Moonheart, Someplace To Be Flying, Yarrow, The Little Country
    Book #1 - Greenmantle (done 2/8)

6. Sixth Tier Lymond series

Reread the 6 book** Lymond series by Dorothy Dunnett
    Book #1 - The Game of Kings** (done 1/17)
    Book #2 - Queens' Play** (currently reading)

7. Seventh Tier Humor - Satire:

Read 7 satires (preferably from the Guardian list and off my shelves!)
possible choices: Changing Places**, Porterhouse Blue**, Lucky Jim**, Pnin**, Crome Yellow#, The Diary of a Nobody#
    Book #1. Nightmare Abbey# (done 1/5)
    Book #2. Vile Bodies** (done 1/26)

8. Eighth Tier Science Fiction & Fantasy (ROOT):

Read 8 sci-fi or fantasy books (hopefully from the Guardian's list or off my shelves)
possible choices: Isaac Asimov's Robot series (own some); Dispossessed** by Ursula K. Le Guin; The True Game** by Sheri S. Tepper; Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series
    Book #1. The Caves of Steel (done 1/28)
    Book #2. Young Miles** (done 3/21)

9. Ninth Tier Foreign mysteries:

Read 9 mysteries originally written in a language other than English
possibilities - something by Jo Nesbø (Norway); one or more Martin Beck book by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (Sweden); The Blue Room by Georges Simenon (France); Andrea Camilleri (Italy); Special Assignments** by Boris Akunin (Russia)
    Book #1. Outrage by Arnaldur Indriðason (Iceland); (done 2/1)

10. Tenth Tier Audiobooks (ROOT):

Listen to 10 audiobooks (that are not rereads) I already own (an audiobook ROOT category)
choices: Behind the Scenes at the Museum€; Moll Flanders€#; The Phantom of the Opera€#; The Scarlet Letter€#; Lady Audley's Secret€#; The Red and the Black€#; Nicholas Nickleby€#



     Audibook #1 - The Booktaker (done 1/29)
     Audibook #2 - Interpreter of Maladies (done 2/4)
     Audibook #3 - Letter from the Birmingham Jail (done 2/10)
     Audibook #4 - Spy Killer (done 2/11)
     Audibook #5 - The Good Earth (done 2/14)
     Audibook #6 - An American Tragedy (done 3/3)
     Audibook #7 - The Raven Boys (done 3/8)
     Audibook #8 - Silas Marner (done 3/11)
     Audibook #9 - Behind the Scenes at the Museum (done 3/23)

11. Eleventh Tier Mysteries off my bookcases (ROOT):

Read 11 mysteries already owned in paperback
- in particular: Michael Innes, Cyril Hare, Rex Stout, John D. MacDonald
    Book #1. The Rubber Band by Rex Stout (done 1/6)
    Book #2. The Red Box by Rex Stout (done 1/23)
    Book #3. Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes (done 2/14)
    Book #4. Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin (done 3/19)

12. Twelfth Tier Group Reads:

Participate in at least one group read each month (includes my GoodReads groups)
✔ Jan: The Golden Notebook {GR} (done 1/18)
✔ Feb: Middlemarch** {LT & GR} (done 3/2)
✔ Mar: The Book Thief {GR} (done 3/14)
April:
May: Foucault's Pendulum {LT}
June: The Brothers Karamazov# {LT}
July: Mary Barton# {LT}
Aug: Pale Fire {GR}
Sep:
Oct: Madame Bovary** {LT}
Nov: Shirley# {LT}
Dec: Anna Christie# {GR}

13. Thirteenth Tier Plays:   
Read 13 plays (separate from those in category #3)
    Play #1. Measure for Measure(done 1/15)
    Play #2. Travesties (done 1/23)
    Play #3. A Midsummer Night's Dream (done 2/17)
    Play #4. The Real Thing (done 2/27)
    Play #5. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (done 3/9)

14. Fourteenth Tier Read the USA mysteries:

Read mysteries from 14 different states in the U.S.A. for my ongoing 'Read the USA' cozy mystery challenge
    Book #1. Dog River Blues (Alabama) (done 1/10)
    Book #2. Corpus Delectable (Delaware) (done 2/22)

3/3/14 - VERY FRUSTRATED THAT TOUCHSTONES WON'T WORK!

Leslie, welcome to the challenge! And don't be intimidated -- we're nice people, I swear! :)

To get a ticker, go to Ticker Factory. The site will take you through the various steps to design your ticker, and then it will give you a few different codes; you want the HTML code. Simply copy and paste it into an LT post, and your ticker will appear!

Your choices sound like you majored in literature. I look forward to seeing what you read.

Leslie - I've found this thread to be terribly helpful on how to do stuff on LT. Hope it helps.

Welcome! Looks like you have a great reading-year ahead of you. I've been looking at the Guardian-list too, but not dedicated myself to it (yet). Looking forward to seeing what you pick.

Hi Leslie, welcome to the Challenge! The pyramid idea is a great one. Glad to see you have lots of mysteries included, I love mysteries of all types. I also keep a copy of the Guardian list but haven't actually dedicated my reading towards it yet.

Welcome aboard! Looks like a good selection of categories. I'll be following your mystery and play categories especially :)

Welcome Leslie! This is my first category challenge too although I've been around for a long time. I love your pyramid idea.

Welcome to the challenge! Your 'jotted down' ideas for a step challenge looks good. War and Peace continues to allude me as a finished read so I will be cheering you on from the sidelines!

Welcome & nice categories. Don't be intimated some of us spend far to long pondering next years challenge!

Any HTML info, try this thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/35356#

Like your ideas. May I suggest Guy de Maupassant as a French classic author you might consider. He wrote mostly short stories, so they're easy to read in manageable chunks.

Thanks everyone for the welcome and encouragement!

I like the pyramid concept too. Some interesting categories.

welcome, and have fun!

I like your pyramid scheme, that looks like a manageable project. And may I recommend Armadale? It's my favourite Wilkie Collins, Lydia Gwilt is a wonderful loveher/hate her character.

>17 MissWatson: Thanks MissWatson! I am considering Armadale but don't want to overcommit. I have liked the Wilkie Collins I have read so far (The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Poor Miss Finch).

After looking at some more of these challenges, I have decided to change around some of my categories so I can include some group books and give myself a bit more breathing room.

Is there some way I could link to a new thread so I could put in pictures for each category?

Just create a new thread and put a link to it at the bottom of this one. :)

Where is the August Pale Fire read?

>21 March-Hare: March-Hare -- Pale Fire is a buddy read I am doing with a friend over at Goodreads. I combined my obligations -- sorry if that is not the thing to do.

But you are welcome to join us if you want!

No apologies needed. I don't think it's inappropriate.

I would like to join in if you don't mind. We would have to work out the logistics I'm not on Goodreads and would probably just register without putting up a library. I'm not sure if that is "how it is done".

Before you do that, let me check - I think my friend has a LT account so we could possibly discuss here.

If it were here I might possibly join in as well.

For future clarity's sake, while of course you can and should list whatever you would like in your own threads, "group reads" really refers to those taking place on this site. So if you're going to mention things in a list like that, you probably want to qualify with a mention where any are off-site.

>24 leslie.98:

Sounds good, just let me know.

Welcome, Leslie. You're planned reading looks great and I look forward to seeing what you think -- especially your foreign mysteries and French books categories. In April, the MysteryCAT (our optional reading challenges are called CATs) is about Nordic mysteries. If you want to chat about them, stop by -- we're a friendly lot.

>27 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, RidgewayGirl! I have already been eyeing the MysteryCat and put my name down for some of them, as I have several mystery-related categories which will overlap nicely. ☺

In addition to my pyramid challenge, I have a few miscellaneous challenges for 2014:

A. Finish reading the Palliser series by Anthony Trollope - the series consists of:    Can You Forgive Her? ✔, Phineas Finn ✔, The Eustace Diamonds ✔, Phineas Redux ✔, The Prime Minister ✔, The Duke's Children
B. Finish reading the Barchester series by Angela Thirkell
C. Read at least 25 books from the Guardian list which I haven't read before




Guardian list books
Nightmare Abbey
The Child in Time
The Golden Notebook
Vile Bodies
War and Peace (audiobook)
The Immoralist
Middlemarch
An American Tragedy (audiobook)
The Third Man
Silas Marner (audiobook)
Lorna Doone
Behind the Scenes at the Museum (audiobook)
Bouvard and Pécuchet
My Cousin Rachel

Total: Includes library books, rereads, and everything else!

I started my big fat classic (CAT#1) in December, as my library hold on the audiobook of War and Peace came in. This one will take a while, as I am reading other books as well.

I also found that I had picked up sometime Claire Ridgway's history trivia book On This Day in Tudor History, which seems like an easy way to get one of my nonfiction books (CAT#2) taken care of.

How many hours will it take?

LOL! War and Peace or On This Day in Tudor History?

The audiobook of War and Peace clocks in at 60+ hours... but sometimes I drift off or get confused and have to rewind so it will end up a lot more in actual time!

First book for this challenge finished -- Nightmare Abbey. I thought that it was going to be Gothic horror, but instead was pleasantly surprised to find it is a satire (CAT #7) of the Kantian/Transcendentalist movement of the late 1700s and early 1800s. You might need a dictionary but I found myself laughing out loud several times, and at less than 100 pages it is worth trying!

I did mean W&P. I sure hope the narrator is good. After that many hours I'm sure he'll feel like an old friend.

>33 leslie.98: a slim book with humor and gothic setting, count me in !

It has the added bonus of being in the public domain, so you can get it for free from Project Gutenberg!

>36 leslie.98: Even better, thanks :)

Nightmare Abbey just got downloaded to my iPod Touch!

Second book done! Category #11 - Mysteries off My Shelves, which is of course also a ROOT book, The Rubber Band. This is also my MysteryCAT book for January.

CAT #14: Read The USA Mysteries
Dog River Blues takes place in Mobile, Alabama.

I gave it 2½ stars, as it wasn't really a mystery. If you go into it knowing it to be a suspense/thriller with not much mystery, you may rate it higher.

Synopsis: Wes Darling grew up not knowing who his father was or anything about him. After leaving his job at his mother's detective agency, he suddenly learns that his father's father has recently died in Mobile. Wes sails to Mobile to learn more about his father, meets a sexy cousin and some uncles, and becomes embroiled in the search for a stolen manuscript his grandfather had brought back from WW2.

CAT #13: Plays
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

Finished my first play for this category. After the first scene, I really found this a fairly easy Shakespeare to read (I had a hard time with the opening scene though!! Almost quit…). Overall, 3½ stars

CAT #6: Lymond series
Alphabet challenge: D
January Random CAT: Janus Rules
Book#1 of the series: The Game of Kings

4½ stars. Absolutely wonderful historical fiction, set in 1547 Scotland. England is trying to force a marriage between 9 year-old King Edward VI and 5 year-old Mary Queen of Scots; the war provides the backdrop to this story of loyalty and betrayal, family and country. This book can be dense, difficult reading at times but the plot and the characters are marvelous. If you like historical fiction, I strongly recommend it! (By the way, don't be misled by the cheesy cover of my edition -- there is very little romance in this book!)

I am counting this in the Janus Rules Random CAT as not only does it involve war, but it has several double-faced characters as well.

CAT #12: Group Reads {GoodReads }
Guardian list
The Golden Notebook
3½ stars.

Although I can see that this novel may have been seen as feminist when it came out in 1962, it isn't actually very feminist in content - it just has women who are outspoken about every aspect of their lives including sexual and emotional relations. Apparently it was viewed as shocking that Anna and Molly were critical about men, Richard in particular; this, as with most of the other 'feminist' aspects, is now routinely found in contemporary novels.

The real heart of the novel in my eyes was Anna's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to integrate her desire to live by ideals with politics; the dichotomy of wanting to do work which will improve the world versus helping individuals to a better life. Lessing has captured the growing disillusionment of the Western communists in the years following WW2, not in the philosophic ideal of communism but with the reality of the political party.

Another major theme was the fragmentation of Anna, and by implication society as a whole, leading her into a state of mental breakdown. The 4 notebooks in which she tried by different methods to capture "the truth" each ended up being false just as different aspects of personality are not true representations of the whole person. Different versions of this concept were popular at this time (late 1950s, early 1960s), and if I had read this book during my twenties I think I would have been much more interested. Coming to it later in life, I found the political idealogical theme more compelling.

I shall have to hunt up The Game of Kings, as historical fiction set in Scotland will always pique my interest! Good to know that there isn't much romance either ;)

>44 rabbitprincess: yay! Always glad to indoctrinate another into the marvelous historical fiction of Dorothy Dunnett!

You've reminded me that The Golden Notebook is still sitting somewhere in my office, half read and far from finished. I think my final reactions will be similar to yours, except that I'm not sure I ever would have been more interested than I am now :( Still, I do mean to finish it one of these days... Have you read anything else by Lessing? I'm afraid my reaction to that novel has put me off of trying her other work as of yet.

>46 whitewavedarling: This was my first book by Lessing. I am not sure that I will be reading more, at least in the near future. She is a talented writer but it isn't my preferred type of book...

@42 yeay Lymond! I keep meaning to reread the series but they are soo long.

I know what you mean, which is why I made it a part of my challenge this year. If I hadn't, I would never find time for it! I am glad that I did as I found it easier reading this time, and so enjoyed it even more :)

I have the first two volumes of the Lymond series sitting on my Kindle. Sounds like I have a great read or two for the future!

Oh yes, but beware that it becomes very difficult to stop mid-series!

50, 51. Whereas I hated the Lymond series. I forced myself to finish the first book and got halfway through the second and swore off them for good.

I HATED that you had no idea what the protagonist was thinking.

Now I am really interested in starting this series just to see what I will make of it. Unfortunately, I can't see getting to it any time soon.

I did get the feeling that Dunnet was having fun seeing where the story went and didn't tightly plot it ahead. Maybe I am wrong though that would explain the length and meandering!

@52 that makes me want to reread it more! I can't remember how she handled the POVs.

>52 majkia: I had a hard time with that in my first reading. I would say that the second book is the most frustrating & difficult one in the series, in my opinion. So it is a shame that you didn't make it to the ones where you start finding out what has been going on...

>54 clfisha: I disagree - I think that she did plot it ahead. There are scenes in the first book that don't come into their full meaning until the 4th book or even later.

Ah good point. It's been so long!really have to reread them. I think there is such a natural winding path to her plots, one thing I liked about them.

CAT #11: Mysteries off My Shelves
ROOT #2
January MysteryCAT
The Red Box        

2½ stars. Although it was a fun read, I found the plot of this fourth Nero Wolfe book to be a bit predictable. However, it is worth reading if only because Wolfe actually leaves his house!!

7 books done; 98 to go...

CAT #13: Plays
Travesties by Tom Stoppard   

5 stars This is the best thing I have read so far this year! If you like Oscar Wilde and/or satire, I would strongly recommend reading this or better yet, seeing it in the theater if possible. I saw this play on Broadway while in high school, and retained some images and a strong sense that I liked the play. I have been a Stoppard fan since then but this is the first time I have gone back to Travesties.

Here is my review:
OMG, I had forgotten (or not fully realized) how absolutely hilarious this play is! When I saw it in the theater back in the 1970s, I must have focused on the homage to/parody of The Importance of Being Earnest because the James Joyce bits certainly were over my head then.

Brief description: Henry Carr is recalling his days in the British Consulate in Zurich Switzerland during WW1, when James Joyce, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), and Tristian Tzara (one of the founders of Dadaism) are all there. These 4 are historical figures who actually were in Zurich in 1917. In a bow to Oscar Wilde, there are also Cecily and Gwendolyn - Cecily works at the library helping Lenin write a book on imperialism while Gwendolyn (Henry's sister) is helping Joyce research Homer's Odyssey and the Dublin Street Directory of 1904!! In addition to wickedly funny parodies of Dadaism, Joyce's Ulysses, and Bolshevism, the plot parallels Wilde's with the phony brother (Jack Tzara) and mistaken identities.

Ooh, Travesties definitely sounds like something I need to read! I really liked both Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, so obviously I should read more Stoppard!

It has some of the trademark Stoppard touches, such as "time slippage" where a certain fragment of time is repeated in a slightly different way (I guess that is what is called 'metafiction'?). The stage directions explain it pretty clearly...

I had a plays category a couple of years ago and was really impressed by some of the plays I read. Travesties sounds like it would have been a perfect read if I had known about it at the time.,... I may need to dust off my plays category for a future challenge.

>61 lkernagh: I started reading more plays last year and found that I really enjoyed (most) of them. Plus they are short, so great for in between longer books...

CAT #7: Humor & Satire
Unofficial AlphaCAT: V
Root #3
Guardian list
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

4 or 4½ stars - I am undecided at the moment which to give...

I love Waugh's satires & this one about the Bright Young Things (a phrase he coined in this novel) is no exception. The plot is about two young lovers trying to get enough money to marry on, but the joy of the book is in the characters & vignettes rather than the plot.

Unofficial GastroCAT: January
Hot Chocolate

2 stars... This could have been a decent cozy mystery if the author had had a decent professional editor. As it is, the book is at least 200 pages too long! I lost interest after no crime had occurred in the first 100 pages, and I skimmed through the rest of the book. The basic murder plot was okay, but it was buried under too much extraneous (and to me uninteresting) stuff...

>63 leslie.98: Well I love satire, so ...

@ 63 -- Glad to see your high rating for Vile Bodies! I haven't read that one yet, although I have read some other books by Waugh...right now I'm reading his correspondence with Nancy Mitford, which is pretty entertaining. :)

>65 electrice:, 66 Waugh tickles my funny bone although I know that others find his books dated and just plain dull (always shocks me to hear that).

CAT #8: Science Fiction & Fantasy
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

4 stars

A combination of sci fi and murder mystery - what could be better? Isaac Asimov was the writer who changed my opinion about science fiction, when I was in my 30s and finally gave into the badgering of friends and family and tried the Foundation series. He has never disappointed me since.

This is the first book in the "Robot" series, and strangely, the only one I don't own... and that fact has stopped me from reading this series for several years. I am glad that I finally got this from the library -- there were plenty of things that I had intimations about from the Foundation books (especially Foundation and Earth) but this is set much earlier, before the galaxy was widely colonized. I look forward to reading the rest of the series...

I'm done with War and Peace! Review to follow momentarily...

CAT #1: Big Fat Classic
January RandomCAT: Janus Rules
Guardian list
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy       

                                  Audiobook: 3½ stars      Book: 4 stars

I have been intimidated by this book for a long time, partly due to its size and partly due to its being Russian. I was pleased to discover that this novel was an easy book to read -- no long digressions as in Les Misérables or Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, no passages I couldn't really understand as in Fyodor Dostoyevsky, James Joyce or John Milton, and an actual plot that was understandable and interesting.

I did find that the very end, when Tolstoy descends to philosophical arguments about free will and history, bored me. However ~50 pages of philosophical musings in a book of almost 2000 pages isn't too much to handle!

I listened to this as an audiobook, although I referred to my Kindle edition as needed. I didn't have any trouble listening to Frederick Davidson for the 60+ hours this book took, even though he isn't one of my favorite narrators. I did have some trouble staying focused in places (especially the last ~5 chapters) but then I would read my Kindle edition along with (or instead of) the narration.

Congrats on completing! I do mean to try it one day and you have made me slightly less nervous.

Hurray! Congratulations! That is a very big achievement.

Thanks. I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment ☺

Love this!

How...ironic!

:-)

CAT #10: Audiobooks I Own
Audio ROOT #1
The Booktaker

3 stars. After finishing the marathon of listening to War and Peace, I needed something short and easy to listen to & Bill Pronzini's novella The Booktaker fit the bill perfectly. This was an Audible freebie that I picked up last summer (and may still be available free).

The story is done in a first person narrative by the detective (whose name is never given). He is hired to investigate thefts from a rare book store by the store owner. I found the characters interesting and the story fun. I will keep my eye out for more of Pronzini's work!

I notice that I didn't post that I have completed the next book in the Barsetshire series of Angela Thirkell, which is one of my miscellaneous extra challenges mentioned above (in message #29). So here it is:

Challenge B: Angela Thirkell Barsetshire series
Happy Return (Also published as "Happy Returns")

3 stars. Pleasant entry in the Barsetshire series, but not one of its best. It was fun to see Tony Moreland's friend Swan all grown up!

Congrats on finishing War and Peace!

Well done on completing War And Peace, you deserve to feel a great sense of accomplishment. I remember being quite pleased with myself when I completed Great Expectations and David Cooperfield and they were nowhere near 2,000 pages!

>79 lkernagh:, 80 Thanks! I think I may strain my arm with all the back-patting I have been doing :P

CAT #9: Foreign Mysteries
Outrage by Arnaldur Indriðason; Iceland

4 stars. Interesting entry in this Icelandic series in that the main detective Erlendur doesn't appear at all. Instead, while Erlendur is on a leave of absence, one of his team Elínborg has a case pretty much on her own. The mystery was well-done, but the thing that struck me most was how the tone of the book seemed a bit lighter (despite the somewhat depressing aspects of the victim's life such as using date-rape drugs) - in the end, I decided it was seeing the case through Elínborg's eyes rather than Erlendur's that caused this change in mood.

I have to add my congratulations to your finishing War and Peace - it's one I aim to get through at some point, but I am daunted.

Thanks Eva - it is long but fairly easy once you get the hang of who is who!

CAT #10: Audiobooks I Own
Audio ROOT #2
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

4½ stars.
Charming short stories about (Asian) Indians, some set in the Boston area and others in India.

The main reason I didn't give this a higher rating is certain aspects of the audiobook edition bugged me. The most annoying one was that there would be short segments (maybe 20 seconds long) of music, but they didn't come in between the stories (which might have been a nice separator) but in the middle, interrupting them. It took me a while to figure out that they must have been at the end and beginning of the CDs; however, I have a digital edition so it was disruptive.

Unofficial AlphaCAT: R
February MysteryCAT: Series
Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

4 stars. Thrilling first book in the Rebus series. A bit gritty but otherwise excellent!

Congrats on the Rebus - you have a great series ahead of you! :)

Thanks Eva - now to make time for another series!

Miscellaneous Challenge A: Palliser series
The Prime Minister, book 5 of the series

2½ stars. I was enjoying this book for the first 2/3 but I found two of the main characters annoying, and the last 1/3 (about 250 pages!) dragged. In general I like Trollope so this was disappointing.

I am reading the 1st rebus soon..I haven't seen a bad review of it yet bit nervous if I am the 1st one :) oh and belated congrats on finishing War and Peace!

>90 clfisha: I got so caught up in Knots and Crosses that I ended up reading it all in one day! But now when will I find time to read more of them?? *sigh* The troubles of the book addict...

and thanks for the congrats!

February Group Read: P.G. Wodehouse month

I wasn't going to post these as they didn't fit into my personal categories but have changed my mind...

*Something New

Wonderful first book in the Blandings Castle series which is more commonly known as Something Fresh. 4½ stars - strongly recommend it!

Love Among the Chickens

I listened to this audiobook, narrated by Jonathan Cecil. It was a pleasant listen but this book is nowhere near as good as Something Fresh. 3 stars.

*Piccadilly Jim

I listened to this audiobook, narrated by Frederick Davidson. This is a reread for me, as I read the Kindle book a few years ago. This stand-alone novel is an excellent choice for someone wanting to try Wodehouse without committing to a new series but I am not sure that Davidson is the best narrator for this book... 4 stars for the book, 3 stars for the audio

French Leave

Amusing stand-alone novel about the shenanigans of several Americans, an impoverished French nobleman, and a pompous Commissioner of Police at a French resort town. More smiles than laughs in this but a nice way to pass the time - 3½ stars.

The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories

Short stories set at Wrykyn public school (see Mike and some of the Psmith stories). 3 stars.

Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin

4 stars. I very much enjoyed this late Wodehouse novel, enhanced by Jonathan Cecil's brilliant narration. I was a tiny bit worried that this book, first published in 1972 when Wodehouse was 90, would be lacking some of the sparkle and wit I love so much in the Bertie & Jeeves books. However, while certain elements were familiar, the characters and dialogue were top-notch (and even at his best there was some repetition: Bertie would get embroiled with situation, Jeeves would come up with a scheme which would put Bertie in a ridiculous position but would free him from his entanglement).

Personally I thought that this was better than Piccadilly Jim (which is on the Guardian's list), especially if you want to read a stand-alone.

CAT #5: Charles de Lint
Greenmantle    

4 stars. I like the mix of modern-day thriller and mystical fantasy which de Lint manages to weave together so skillfully. Think of a mash-up of Catherine Coulter and Angela Carter... it is something like that.

Short synopsis: Former Mafia hitman, now in hiding from the 'family', acquires new neighbors - a woman who has recently won the Wintario lottery and her 14-year-old daughter. The woman's lowlife ex-husband decides to come for the money and recognizes the neighbor. Meanwhile, strange & magical music comes from the forest behind the 2 houses, affecting everyone but the daughter most of all. A mystery and a secret are calling her into the woods...

CAT #4: French Classics
Guardian list
February GeoCAT: Middle East and North Africa
The Immoralist by André Gide     

4 stars. Though short, this book packs in a lot of things to think about. I have never read any of the French existentialists (and I am even unsure that this book or author is thought to be in this school), but I was surprised by how easily this flowed. The only thing at all dated about it was the fact that tuberculosis is now rare - perhaps the new translation by Walter Ballenberger had something to do with that.

Short synopsis: The story is almost entirely told as a first person narrative about a man Michel who almost dies and in his recovery, becomes "reborn" in a way but lost in another way.

Michel goes from being a student of languages and history to someone primarily concerned with sensations and feelings of the present. For example, he says "I was not thinking about anything. Why bother to have thoughts? I felt extraordinarily good." and then later: "The history of the past now appeared to my eyes to be this immobile, terrifying fixity of the night shadows in the little court in Biskra. It was like the immobility of death. In the past I was pleased with this rigidity which provided precision for my mind."

For a while it seems like things will work out well, but once he and his wife Marceline leave the farm in Normandy, things just go downhill. They lose their first baby, and then Marceline becomes ill. It seems like he becomes more and more lost as she becomes sicker and sicker. After her death, he finds "Something in my will has been broken." I see Marceline as being almost the physical manifestation of Michel's soul...

CAT #10: Audiobooks I already own
Letter from the Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.    

5 stars. I didn't originally think that I would count this in my challenge as it is so short (under one hour, or about 12 pages), but it turned out to be so powerful that I have to include it. Dion Graham does a good job narrating and his voice is perfect for it - it is almost as if King himself is reading it.

If you can't get the audiobook, read the text which is available online here or at other sites. What a good way to celebrate Black History Month!

CAT #10: Audiobooks I already own
Spy Killer by L. Ron Hubbard

3 stars. Surprisingly enjoyable pulp fiction spy thriller, about an American caught up in a power struggle between China and Japan, set in 1950s Shanghai. A bit more graphic violence than I care for but not enough to turn me off.

CAT #10: Audiobooks I already own
5th one for this category!
Guardian list
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

4½ stars. So much better than the movie version I saw as a teenager! There were aspects that I found hard to take as a modern American woman (calling baby girl children 'slaves' for example), but once I swallowed my indignation, I found the story compelling and at places heart-breaking.

Anthony Heald did an excellent job with the narration.

CAT #11: Mysteries off my shelves
ROOT #4
February MysteryCAT: Series
Unofficial AlphaCAT: H and R
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes

4 stars. Innes takes his time setting the stage, introducing us to (most of) the cast of characters in what is essentially an English country house murder mystery with a twist, as Scamnum Court is closer to a castle than a house and the Duke and Duchess of Horton have over 200 house guests (with associated servants). The pace picks up considerably once the murder occurs (during an amateur performance of Hamlet), and Inspector Appleby is sent to investigate by none other than the Prime Minister himself as there is the possibility of espionage. Only hours after arriving, Appleby is confronted with a second corpse...

Innes' writing style is a bit dry with a hidden wit - it might not be to everyone's taste but I like it; an author who can refer to Conrad's Lord Jim and P.G. Wodehouse's Lord Emsworth on the same page and make sly references to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot is my kind of guy! As Appleby says at one point in the investigation: "Order, method: the little grey cells!" and later, one of the house guests suggests the Duke send for "...a real detective. There is a very good man whose name I forget; a foreigner and very conceited -- but, they say, thoroughly reliable."

This is a greater tribute than it might appear at first sight; Hamlet, Revenge! first was released in 1937 so Poirot was not nearly as well-known as he is today. My biggest complaint is that things got pretty convoluted towards the end, although the ultimate solution was satisfying and unexpected (at least by me)

Great review of Hamlet, Revenge! I definitely got confused by the huge cast of characters, but I felt the ending made up for it. I think I'll enjoy it even more on a re-read!

>99 christina_reads: Thanks Christina - Innes seems to be an author who would hold up well to rereading. Hopefully the next one will be a bit more straight-forward (closer to the first book)...

CAT #2: Nonfiction
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea   

4½ stars
Well-written account of everyday life for people in North Korea. While my ignorance about the collapse of North Korea's infrastructure and the terrible famine during the 1990s can be partially excused by the fact that their own government works hard to conceal these things, I am embarrassed by how little I knew. The lives Demick describes are not primarily of downtrodden oppressed people who burned with the desire to overthrow the system or even to escape the system, but of people who truly believed in communism and Kim Il-sung and were bewildered by how wrong it all went. In this "information age", it was truly frightening to learn how isolated the North Korean people are with no access to information other than what is provided by the government, especially outside the capital. Unlike the students in Tianmen Square, these people have no Internet access and most don't have even state-run television or radio.

Demick does a good job of showing how people adjust as things went from good to not so good to terrible. These are the stories of survivors & I am fairly sure that I would not have been able to cope with the deprivations and restrictions that these people faced. The ingenuity and resiliance displayed is amazing, heart-wrenching and yet uplifting...

Nothing to Envy was such an eye-opening book. One of my favorites books that I read last year.

>102 LittleTaiko: Yes, eye-opening is the right term! I was shocked at the conditions described which seemed more like something from the nineteenth century than just 20 years ago...

CAT #13: Plays
A Midsummer Night's Dream   

3 stars. While I liked the overall plot, I found this to be one of the plays in which Shakespeare's language is hard for me. I have seen some of the film versions (most notably the 1935 movie with Olivia de Havilland & Jimmy Cagney and the BBC Production with Helen Mirren as Titania) & seeing the action does help (especially in the 'humorous' parts!).

One thing that I noticed in reading this was how unpleasant I found Oberon to be.

I also found Nothing to Envy a big eye opener when I read it. Definitely a well written account and a book I would recommend also.

February MysteryCAT: Series
The Wench is Dead by Colin Dexter    

4 stars. Similar to Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time in concept. I found this entry of the Morse series to be more enjoyable than the previous couple of books. Less convoluted while maintaining the mystery.

I've tried to get into Morse a couple of times but not been in the right mood. Maybe this one will do the trick; I did like Daughter of Time.

CAT #2: Nonfiction
Three Singles to Adventure by Gerald Durrell    
(audiobook)

3½ stars. This memoir by Gerald Durrrell is a fun and easy book but I wish that I had read it instead of listening to the audiobook. No reflection on the narrator, who did an excellent job, but I wanted to see illustrations of the animals and the localities. Unfortunately, audiobooks are all that my local library had available. That loss lowered my rating by a half star.

This completes my 2nd tier! Unfortunately it was completed without touching my two ROOT nonfiction books...

CAT #14: Read the USA Mysteries
Corpus Delectable by Mike Billington is set in Lewes, Delaware (the Delaware shore area)

3½ stars. While I prefer mysteries which allow the reader the opportunity of solving the case (which this one does not do), I found this an enjoyable first book in a series. The main character, Marcy, is likable and her involvement in this mystery was fairly believable. However, I dislike the 'amateur sleuth meets killer to get a confession' scenario and found this one only slightly less stupid than usual.

I also found the space-and-a-half formating on my Kindle edition a little annoying...

CAT #2: Nonfiction
February Unofficial AlphaCAT: H
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs       

5 stars for the Librivox audiobook recording by Elizabeth Klett, 4½ stars for the Kindle edition book. Elizabeth Klett is absolutely wonderful narrating this autobiography. I couldn't stop listening once I had started!

I decided to read this in honor of Back History Month. As a result of a conversation I had recently, I realized that my previous focus on the Civil Rights movement was perhaps a little too 'easy' on my white upper middle class conscience. I didn't really know anything about this book other than the fact that I had heard the title before. I was ready for the book to have descriptions of atrocities but what I wasn't ready for was the literate style of the prose. I know, shame on me for my stereotypical preconceptions!

Powerful autobiography of Harriet Jacobs; this story of her life growing up as a slave and her eventual escape into the North is enhanced by the matter-of-fact manner which she uses to describe some terrible conditions. By matter-of-fact, I don't mean that she is accepting of these conditions - she speaks passionately about the injustices, cruelty, and hypocrisy she sees both in the south and the north - but she doesn't dramatize when she is describing them. I found this factual tone to make the story more compelling, and while the abuses she describes are now well-known, it must have taken a tremendous amount of strength of mind to write and publish this in 1861. She not only documents the terrible degradations of slavery, but also the racism she and her children are forced to undergo in the "free states" of New York and Massachusetts. I can see how incendiary this book must have been when it came out! Even as an emancipated woman living in a free state, it must have been dangerous for her (even using a pseudonym).

CAT #13: Plays
February Unofficial AlphaCAT: R
Play #4 - The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard   

3 stars. This play about love (when is it the "real thing"?) & jealousy doesn't age as well as some of Stoppard's other plays. That said, it is still a fun play to read & I would love to see it performed. The Stoppard touch is evident with certain scenes & pieces of dialogue repeating throughout the play, with differing emphasis or characters. The strength of the play (in my humble opinion) is in the exploration of how couples react to the infidelity (real and imagined).

February RandomCAT: Children's Literature
The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit

Charming story about a magic ring, and my Kindle edition has wonderful illustrations as well :)

CAT #12: Group Reads
ROOT #6
Guardian's list
March Unofficial AlphaCAT: M

Middlemarch by George Eliot

I have finally finished Middlemarch, which I think I will have to revisit at some point. It really picked up for me towards the end, and I think some of my struggles earlier come from being a bit burnt out on the "chunksters" -- too many 600+ page books in too short a space of time. But for now, 3½ stars..

Congrats on completing Middlemarch!

Whoot, Whoot on completing Middlemarch! I still need to start that one..... oops. ;-)

Thanks guys! And I have just finished my audiobook chunkster as well -- next time I will pair book & audiobook more carefully as two chunksters was a bit wearing.

CAT #10: Audiobooks I already own
Audiobook ROOT #6
Guardian's list

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser    

3 stars for the book & 4 stars for the audiobook. Dan John Miller did a fantastic job with the narration - one of the best I have ever listened to!

As for the book, I was planning on giving it 4 stars until about 2/3 through (about when the trial started). My interest started flagging and the last third of the book dragged for me. Unfortunately a third of this book is about 280 pages (as long as some full novels!). Perhaps when a little time has passed, I may revise my rating as the ending becomes more in proportion to the entire book.

Agreed, having two big books on the go at once is quite wearying. And yet every few months it keeps happening! You'd think I would have learned by now ;)

Challenge B: Barsetshire series
Book #22, Jutland Cottage by Angela Thirkell

2½ stars. While the romance was sweet, the humor which I like so much in the other books in this series is missing. Also, I found certain descriptions were repeated too frequently & were a little grating. Overall, one of the weaker books in the series. I hope that this isn't a sign of things to come...

What a nice library Kansas City has!

>120 leslie.98: Impressive !

@ 120 -- I want to go to there!

>120 leslie.98: - that's impressive. Have they told the giant that they've borrowed his book shelf?

Hehehe - Helenliz, it is at least from a well-read giant! For some reason, I keep thinking about The Borrowers when I look at it...

CAT #10: Audiobooks
March Unofficial AlphaCAT: M
March RandomCAT: Birds
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, narrated by Will Patton.

4 stars (3½ stars for the book itself) Young adult book about a teenaged girl named Blue and the "Raven Boys", a group of boys from a local private school. Blue's family are all gifted with psychic powers; Gansey (one of the boys) is searching for the ley lines which he hopes will guide him to the burial place of an old Welsh mystic or king. While the story itself isn't my usual cup of tea and I think the writing could have been better, I was quickly drawn in and became interested in finding out what would happen.

CAT #13: Plays
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

4 stars. This was a reread for me, but having enjoyed several other Stoppard plays over the past several months it seemed a good time to revisit this one. I still liked it (no surprise there!), but I think that this is much better when seen on the stage. Interestingly, this play contained much more detailed stage directions than the others I have read.

CAT #10: Audiobooks
Challenge C: Guardian list
March Unofficial AlphaCAT: M

Silas Marner by George Eliot       

Silas Marner audiobook narrated by John Peakes. I found this story much more interesting than that in Middlemarch, although it didn't have those wonderful witty descriptions. However, Eliot's style still isn't really my cup of tea, so I think that I will put reading Daniel Deronda and The Mill on the Floss on the back burner for now.

What a beautiful library! Thanks for posting.

>128 LittleTaiko: The wonders of Facebook - someone shared it with me and I am passing it along :)

CAT #2: The Real Classics
Agamemnon by Aeschylus, translated by Richard Lattimore

I found Lattimore's translation difficult to read and ended up supplementing it with the YouTube video of the (British) National Theater production of Tony Harrison's translation, which I found easier to understand. Even that was difficult in places but perhaps because I was busy trying to match up the video with the text...

So for this particular edition I give 3 stars - for the play itself, I give 4 stars. This is the epitome of what I think of when I hear the term "Greek tragedy" - the inescapable fate, the chorus, the justice and yet the pity.

In case you are unfamiliar (or like me have forgotten) the background to this play, a short synopsis:
   Agamemnon & Menelaus are brothers; their father Atreus had banished their uncle Thyestes over who would rule Argos. Thyestes returned begging to be taken back, Atreus pretended to forgive him and then murdered Thyestes 2 oldest sons and serves their flesh to Thyestes at a banquet. When Thyestes finds out, he lays a curse on the entire house.
   Years later, Agamemnon & Menelaus marry sisters Clytemestra and Helen respectively. Helen goes to Troy, setting off the Trojan War. When Agamemnon has assembled all the Greek forces at Aulis, ready to set sail for Troy, they are prevented from leaving by contrary winds. Agamemnon is told by the seer/prophet Kalchas that in order to get proper winds for sailing, he must make a sacrifice of his virgin daughter Iphigenia, which he does.
   After 10 years of fighting the Trojan War, the action of this play begins...

Clytemestra is an avenging demon, although that isn't readily apparent at first. Her strike at Agamemnon may be justified as she claims, by right of vengence for their daughter Iphigenia, but she doesn't even attempt to justify killing Cassandra. Aigisthos (Aegisthos?), youngest son of Thyestes and Clytemestra's lover, enters in the last part of the play to take over the kingdom. Further doom is clearly indicated...

Annoyingly for me, the book I got from the library has the first and the last plays of the trilogy but not the second one. :( I will have to download a Kindle version... or just watch the play on YouTube!

CAT #2: The Real Classics
The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, translated by Morshead

I couldn't leave this trilogy unfinished, so I hunted down a copy of the second play for my Kindle. Murray's rhyming translation was easier for me than Lattimore's prose had been, but still challenging in quite a few places. I also watched the YouTube video of this play (another production of the National Theater using Harrison's translation). These productions are really worth viewing for anyone interested in theater or in the ancient Greeks.

Outside the Cincinnati public library

CAT #12: Group Reads (Goodreads group)
March AlphCAT: M
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

3½ stars I had high expectations for this book after seeing so many people giving it 5 stars. Zusak certainly packed an emotional whallop into the end of this novel, but sadly I didn't feel that the book as a whole stood up to the amount of praise I had read.

Unfortunately, this young-adult novel seems to me to have failed to be either young or adult. The writing style was clearly YA and I was irritated by the interruptions into the flow of the story, the change in fonts and the (in my opinion unnecessary) definitions - even young people are capable of looking things up! - but I would have accepted all that as part of the YA package, except for the (again, IMO unnecessary) explicit crudeness of language of Frau Hubermann and others (and I don't think that the fact that the crude names were in German made them acceptable!). I am not a writer, but I think that the same effect could have been achieved by other means or at the very least by more limited use of these terms. In any case, it didn't feel like it fit the young part of the YA audience. If the audience is intended to be adults, then the YA style and the (somewhat condescending) definitions and explanations didn't fit.

I also found the character of Death poorly conceived -- at times, this narrator is outside of humanity, but Zusak has given him all sorts of human emotions. The idea of Death wanting to take a vacation but, being unable to, taking up a hobby was great but I didn't care for the color/sky imagery which felt forced in many places and unconvincing as a hobby that would distract "the Grim Reaper". Another aspect of Death as a character that bothered me is the way that thousands of deaths happening elsewhere (say, China for example) were never even alluded to.

I did like the basic story of Leisel and the people she meets and the depiction what life was like for "regular" people during the time of Nazi Germany. Moching had a nice range from ardent believers to those like Hans Hubermann disbelieved in the Nazi philosophy but, for the sake of life and family, just kept his head down and stayed quiet. That is a bit unfair, as Hans actually did more than many others, while trying to keep his head down.

CAT #11: Mysteries I Own
Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin    

3½ stars. I found this entry in the Gervase Fen series a little disappointing - Fen himself is absent for a good portion of the book. The mystery itself though is one of Crispin's usual quality. I suspected the guilty party early on but then was led astray by the cleverly done red herrings. I love Crispin's writing style but it probably won't appeal to everyone.

CAT #8: Science Fiction and Fantasy
Young Miles by Lois McMaster Bujold   

4½ stars. This second omnibus in the Vorkosigan series was a delight to read. We follow Miles as he matures into adulthood (the 3 novels included in this omnibus cover the time when Miles is 17 to almost 21) while getting some heart-stopping adventures along the way. It is clear why Bujold won several awards for these novels - the sci fi space opera is delicately balanced with the psychological and political insights. Nowhere is that more clear than in the center novella, The Mountains of Mourning, in which Miles is asked to stand for his father and deliver justice in a extremely rural area on his home planet of Barrayar. I think that Miles stole into my heart in this story in a way that he hadn't in the more thrilling The Warrior's Apprentice…

CAT #3: The Real Classics
Eumenides by Aeschylus, translated by George Thomson

4 stars. The final play of Aeschylus' trilogy The Orestiea, this one is quite short and more political than tragic. Orestes, having murdered his mother, is being pursued by the Furies (or Curses as it is translated in this) who are trying to drive him mad. Apollo, who had told Orestes to avenge his father, is trying to protect him. They all end up in Athens, where Athena is to judge the guilt of Orestes. She brings the case before the newly formed system of justice in Athens, a tribunal of the citizens. Both sides present their case.

A few aspects of this are interesting to me - first, that the gods (both young and old) allow the humans to be the judges. Secondly, the theme of old ways being (grudgingly) put aside for more modern methods is such a timeless one & was the theme of the novella The Mountains of Mourning! Thirdly, the way Aeschylus spends so much time at the end of this play with Athena soothing the Furies and turning them into allies.

Overall, I am glad that I read the entire trilogy but I would recommend Sophocles over Aeschylus any day.

>132 leslie.98: - Love that fountain!

Nice, isn't it? I am enjoying these pictures of libraries which have recently been popping up on my Facebook feed...

CAT #10: Audiobooks I own
Guardian list
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, narrated by Susan Jameson

3 stars. It took me a long time to warm up to this story, but I am glad that I persevered. I may come back and adjust this rating once some time has passed, as the style which I found irritating did ultimately serve a purpose and so my irritation may fade as the novel becomes more of a whole in my mind.

I would note that it is possible that I would have been less irritated with the style if I had read this in print rather than listening to the audiobook. For the first half of the book, I found that whenever I returned to the audiobook I had to rewind quite a bit before I could figure out what was happening.

I love the library photos. There are some very creative people out there.

>140 Roro8: Thanks :)

The Guardian had an interesting collection of library photos as well today: http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2014/mar/24/libraries-around-world-pict...

>142 rabbitprincess: Thanks - some stunning buildings there!

I like the one inside the 16th-century church!

CAT #4: French Classics
Guardian's list
Bouvard and Pecuchet by Gustave Flaubert   

2½ stars. Although I appreciated Flaubert's point and some sections of this book were quite amusing, overall I found it a bit of a struggle. The 2 main characters grated on my nerves after a while and I became impatient with their jumps from one subject to the next. Flaubert's language and writing was excellent but the subject matter didn't ultimately interest me.

A word of warning to anyone interested in reading an ebook edition from the public domain - make sure that you have 10 chapters. Almost all of the public domain ebook editions are missing the final two chapters!! I have communicated to Project Gutenberg about this so hopefully they will eventually fix it but in the meantime, the only place I found with a free ebook of the entire thing is the Internet Archive.

I have started a second quarter thread which is located at
http://www.librarything.com/topic/172222#

Thanks for the tip about 10 chapters for B&P...although I can't say I'm eager to get started anytime soon!

>147 aliciamay: You well may like it better than I did. Apparently it is similar to Tristam Shandy, which I haven't read, but I have been told that the rambling style is very much alike in the two.